What Makes You Happy?

What are you depending on today to make you happy? Jesus wants to be the very center of our joy but we often run to other things to make us happy! The children of Israel did it and we can do it too.

Today, we answer the question of why we run to the pleasures of the world rather than the Person of Jesus. 

Transcript

 Our dependency is rooted in our worship. What we put our trust in is ultimately the thing we bow the knee to. Sure, it may seem small and insignificant, but I’ve seen a small, insignificant pleasure become the altar on which some have sacrificed everything.  We sacrifice the Lord’s Day for travel ball.  We skip Connect Group for a money-making opportunity.  We substitute our time with God for time on our phones.  We sacrifice performance at our main job by obsessing over our “side-hustle.” Our pleasurable distractions have now become our idols. This is why Paul said, “Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry,” (I Corinthians 10:14). Idols are the things you turn to instead of Jesus. They are the pleasures you depend on to give you rest for your inner man. They are indeed the objects of your worship. According to Susanna Wesley, mother of John and Charles Wesley, an idol is “whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, takes off your relish for spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of the body over the mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may seem in itself.” Idols are the enemies of rest and the danger of pleasure. Remember the children of Israel in Exodus 32? Israel, God’s chosen people—those He had delivered out of bondage—turned their gaze to an idol. Moses was up on Mt. Sinai for forty days receiving instruction from the Lord. It was in this moment that something changed in the hearts of God’s people and compelled them to serve another god. But how did their worship change so drastically after seeing God do so many great miracles? I think the answer to that question will help us discover why we choose idols instead of Jesus, and place our dependency on pleasure to give us rest. They were fearful. The monster you choose to let live under your bed will control you. My financial advisor tells me all the time, “There are two things in the world that control the money market: greed and fear. And which one do you think is the strongest emotion?” You guessed it. Fear. I believe this was the catalyst behind Israel’s constructing the golden calf. It was a reaction of fear instead of a response in faith. Exodus 32:1 says, “…for we wot not what has become of him.” The person on whom they were dependent for leadership and guidance was gone. There was no sign that Moses was alive. There were no answers—only questions. Their fear of the unknown compelled them to change the course of their worship. Many people do things they never thought they would by simply listening to their fears. What they thought they would never sacrifice, they have bound and tossed into the fire of their greatest pleasure. But when we place our dependency on our pleasures to give us rest, there will always be a cost. “And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron,” (Exodus 32:3). Fear will cost you what is truly valuable. I can testify that my greatest moments of fear have been when I lost sight of my Jesus. I made a deliberate choice to take Christ down off the throne and replaced His undying grace for fearful idols. Have you ever thought about how much of God’s blessings you have missed out on because you trusted your fears? The children of Israel let fear blind their worship. Our fears will do the same to us if we let them. They were forgetful. This part in the story really hits home for me. Not only did they turn their back on God so quickly, but they even gave the credit of their deliverance to a golden statue. Now, the Pharisee in me wants to dispute the fact that I would never do such a thing to Christ, but I know myself all too well. The reality is that none of us are above turning our back on God. Neither were God’s chosen people. “They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,” (Exodus 32:8). “They forgat God their saviour, which had done great things in Egypt;” (Psalm 106:21). And it wasn’t as if they had gone a long time without seeing the hand of God move for them. Only thirty days had passed since God’s appearing to the entire congregation of Israel. They all saw God with their own eyes and yet so quickly wandered from His commandments. We are all prone to wander—prone to forget what God has done for us. Take yourself back to the moment you first met Him. Do you remember the joy and peace that you had in His presence? Do you remember the exhilaration of Christ’s salvation raining in on your restless soul? What happened? Where did the peace go? Where did the overwhelming grace flee to? Could it be that we have forgotten some things? We have forgotten about His love which first loved us. We have forgotten His grace by which He saved us. We have forgotten His compassion by which He moved to heal us. We have forgotten His blessings that He faithfully bestows on us. We have forgotten His comfort by which He will not leave us comfortless. We have forgotten God. In a world of distraction and unending pleasure, we have moved our dependency upon the tangible. Paul speaks to the church of Galatia about this very thing. “Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?” (Galatians 4:8-9). When we seek pleasure outside of the Person of Jesus Christ, we are in essence binding ourselves to the shackles God has delivered us from. We return to the ways of Egypt because we have let the truth of God slip from our minds. “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip,” (Hebrews 2:1). They gave in to their flesh. Here comes the hard part in regards to our idols. Idols come in all shapes and sizes. And no, I’m not talking about a statue of Buddha on your front porch. I’m talking about common things that creep their way onto the throne of our lives and become what we live for. Notice the children of Israel: “And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play,” (Exodus 32:6). Now tell me. What is wrong with eating? Drinking (not alcohol)? Playing? The answer is nothing. Food, drink, and recreation are all basic needs of the human body (flesh). I believe the Holy Spirit is teaching a valuable lesson. When we take something, even out of necessity, and use it for our pleasure instead of Christ’s, it has become an idol. There’s no coincidence that I Corinthians 10:31 challenges us that “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” God wishes to have control of the small things because He knows we can become dependent upon the small things instead of Him. Why do think Christ teaches us to fast? Because when we learn to say no to the desires of our flesh, we have then placed our complete dependence on the Word of God for our meat. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a heroic martyr for Christ, shares his battle with his flesh: “With irresistible power desire seizes mastery over the flesh…. It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire, or ambition, or vanity, or desire for revenge, or love of fame and power, or greed for money…. Joy in God is…extinguished in us, and we seek all our joy in the creature. At this moment God is quite unreal to us; He loses all reality, and only desire for the creature is real…. Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God…. The lust thus aroused envelops the mind and will of man in deepest darkness. The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us. The questions present themselves: ‘Is what the flesh desires really sin in this case?’ ‘Is it really not permitted to me, yes — expected of me, now, here, in my particular situation, to appease desire?’… It is here that everything within me rises up against the Word of God.” 16 We can easily convince our flesh that we need something simply because we desire to have it. “The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak,” (Mark 14:38b).