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Happiness According to God | Psalms 1 · Saint City Chapel

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Well, good morning, St. City.
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For those of you who are here often, you're like, Oh my gosh,
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Brandon is in a shirt that's not black.
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Yeah, I was like, hey, it's summertime.
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It's finally here. That old ballpark man is back in
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gear and I'm in blue and pink because my 4 year old really
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like this shirt. And she's like, daddy, can you
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wear that shirt? I said, you know what, baby
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girl, if you want it, I can do it.
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We're going to be in Psalm chapter 1.
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If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat nearby
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in front of you. You can have that Bible.
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If you don't have one for yourself, Psalms is in the
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middle of your Bible. We're starting a new series
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today looking at this book of songs and praises to God.
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So we're going to spend the better half of our summer
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talking through and thinking about and considering what God
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has to say to you and I through this incredibly long but
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incredibly great book called the Book of Psalms.
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We're in the very first one called Psalm 1.
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You know, years years ago, Tom Brady, the Hall of Fame,
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incredible quarterback after he won his third Super Bowl, He's
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being interviewed on 60 minutes. He's won three Super Bowls,
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which is the pinnacle at that point of success in the NFL.
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He redefines it later on in his career, but he's got 3 Super
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Bowls to his name. He is as accomplished as it
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gets. He is already going to be a Hall
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of Fame quarterback at this point in his career.
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He's recounting that moment when they win the third Super Bowl
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with the interviewer and he's like, man, I did it again.
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The confetti's following. The fans are cheering.
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He's getting an MVP trophy, He said.
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He had this sinking, empty feeling in his gut.
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There's got to be more than this.
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How could someone who's supposed to be so happy, who's supposed
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to be so thrilled and exhilarated?
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I mean, he did it. He the goal that he and his
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teammates set out to do was achieved.
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But why was he so disappointed in that moment?
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Why was it that happiness wasn't actually the finish line?
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I think we asked a similar question.
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We're not at the we're not, you know, on the 50 yard line
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getting a Super Bowl MVP trophy. But I think many of us here
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today ask it like this. We, we've got the family that
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we've always wanted or we got the grades that we always prayed
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for. We got to the place that we
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always wanted to live in, the home that we always wanted to
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establish, that we've had moments in this in our life
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where we've reached the apex mountain of happiness and yet we
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get to the top of it and we're just like, what now?
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What now? I got to the thing that I
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thought would fulfill me. But why doesn't it?
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Why does the bank account number not feel as good as I thought it
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would feel? Why does this relationship not
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give me the joy I thought it would?
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Why is it that I'm not actually ultimately happy?
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Now we're in this message today called happiness according to
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God. And what I want to start on the
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outset is say that happiness isn't a bad thing.
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Not at all. Like it's good to be happy with
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a great cup of coffee to go and get some delicious tacos or go
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to a concert or watch your team win the Super Bowl, have family
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moments and vacations. Like God is about your
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happiness. He's actually excited for you to
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be happy. It's an idea he came up with.
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But here's the problem is happiness, more often than not,
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gets overvalued. Overvalued.
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Now we live in a world that says clear eyes, full hearts are
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happy hearts. They can't lose, right?
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But behind every picture, behind the smiles and the laughter,
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there's tantrums, there's stress, there's tension.
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If I were to look at my life and see the pictures of my family, I
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would be happy in that moment. But I know behind that picture
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are the people that make my life feel so full but also the most
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frustrating. Maybe you're like me that at
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times you over value happiness because my mood is often it not
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only adjusts, but it's enslaved to the thing I'm putting my
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happiness in that my family. If my family is going good, my
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happiness is going good. If my work is going good, my
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happiness is going good. If my relationships are going
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good, so is my happiness. It rises and falls.
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It's enslaved to what I'm putting my happiness in.
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And here's the sobering reality for all of us here today is that
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happiness is too small of a thing to live for.
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But what's God's role in happiness if he invented it, if
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he wants us to have it, but he doesn't want us to live for it.
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Ultimately, how do we actually experience happiness?
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How do we experience what's even in our founding documents as a
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country? Like, hey, life, liberty and the
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pursuit of happiness. Like it's there, it's in our
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culture, it's in the water here. God wants you to experience
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happiness. He wants you to have it.
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He wants you to know it. He wants you to be a happy
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person. We're going to learn in this
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Psalm, but that does not mean you are entitled to it.
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GK Chesterton, the famous philosopher, he said, hey,
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modern people think this, that happiness is a right.
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That is why he is so miserable. Happiness is not something we're
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owed. It is something we are given.
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It's a grace. It's a gift, not a paycheck.
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And yet most of us here today are chasing happiness down like
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it's a the one thing in life that we are owed, will pursue it
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in every arena of our life. And deep down we think to
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ourselves, if happiness, if being happy is right, then
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anything that makes me unhappy is wrong.
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There's a problem with that. That's just because there's pain
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doesn't mean something is wrong. And so you're like, wait a
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second, if being happy is wrong, do I even want to be right?
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Like Pharrell wrote that song and I feel like he's on to
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something, you know, second, I'm just happy.
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Sometimes pain doesn't mean something's wrong.
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It means that something went right, that God's actually doing
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something in the pain, in the difficulty, in the trial, that's
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actually for good. It's for your ultimate
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happiness. Because if you are chasing
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happiness as your ultimate reality, if you're chasing
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happiness overvaluing it, if it becomes the goal, then suffering
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will feel like failure, waiting will feel like punishment, and
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holiness will feel like a burden.
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And in the end, it leaves us miserable, drinking from what
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the Bible calls a broken cistern.
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It's a well that doesn't actually satisfy your quench for
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true happiness. And that's why so many people we
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know are deeply unhappy with their life.
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But what if? What if Psalm one's about to
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teach us something incredible, That happiness is not a God to
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live for, but it is something rather that the God we live for
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gives? What if God wants to give you
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happiness, but he's designed life in a way that actually
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gives you true, lasting, ultimate happiness?
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That is what Psalm 1 is going to teach us today.
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Welcome to Summer in the Psalms, where we're going to be hanging
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out with Moses and with Asaph and with King David who wrote a
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bunch of the book. We're going to be talking about
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all about the happiness dilemma. We talk about what God wants to
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talk about week after week. And I think here's the first
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thing we're going to discover today.
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Jot down this big idea if you'd like to take notes that God
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gives us a happy life through a righteous life.
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How do we have a happy life? How do we acquire it through a
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righteous life? Every single person this morning
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has a choice. The way of blessing or the way
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of ruin, the way of delight or the way of detachment from God.
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That Psalm one's going to lay before us two options, the way
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of the wicked or the way of the righteous.
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Charles Spurgeon, the famous preacher, said this, that Psalm
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1 is the gate to the temple of the entire book of Psalms.
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If you're going to understand this whole book, you got to get
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Psalm one right. You have to understand what it's
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getting at. It's like a meta Psalm about the
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entire book of Psalms. So if you're ready, we're going
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to step through that gate together and discover how God
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gives us a happy life. So how does God give us a happy
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life through a righteous life? Well, first jot down this that
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God makes me happiest when I discover the pleasure of God's
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ways. When I discover the pleasure of
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God's ways, that's when I'll be happiest.
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Look at verse one with me. Blessed is the man.
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Now you're like, where is he talking about happiness?
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I don't see that word in my Bible anywhere.
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That word blessed, it could actually be translated as happy.
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That that word in the original language is talking about the
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good life, the happy life, the blessed life that you enjoy your
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life and the person who is blessed is what it talks about.
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Blessed is the man. That word blessed, it's, it's in
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your Bible at the beginning in Genesis when it's talking about
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Adam and Eve. It's talking about Mary when she
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finds out that she's pregnant with Jesus.
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It's talking about Revelation at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
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That word blessed is used all of there and it's used right here
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smack dab in the middle of your Bible to talk about, hey, here's
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how to have a good life, a life where you're satisfied and
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happy. Blessed is the one who does a
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few things first, who walks down the counsel of the wicked, nor
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stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of
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scoffers. Another way to read this verse
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is to invert it. So another way to read this is
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like this. Look at your Bible.
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It would be like miserable is the person who walks with the
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wicked, who stands with the sinners and sits with the
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scoffers. That's a way to read your Bible.
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There. It's to go wait a second.
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If happiness is what God wants to give me through this, then
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misery is the inversion of that. And he says that we do three
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things. The miserable person walks.
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This just means walking with the wicked is the idea that your
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worldview comes from the wicked. It doesn't come from God's word.
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It comes from the ways of the world, the ways of the wicked.
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So they don't take advice or their purpose from God's people
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or God's Word, but rather they get it from just whatever they
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grew up believing the second word there.
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They don't just walk in the counsel of the wicked.
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They stand in the way of sinners, that this is a
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progression. Not only do they have the
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worldview, but now they are among the world and they are
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advocating for what the world advocates.
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They stand for the way that sinners choose to live, join
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them going to sinful places for sinful reasons.
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They stand in the way of sinners, and then ultimately
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that path leads to a place of ruin where they sit in the seat
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of scoffers. Scoffers are the people who mock
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God. They're hecklers of God sitting
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in the grandstands saying how awful God is, how judgmental God
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is, how angry God is, without any actual understanding of who
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God has revealed himself to be. All that awaits this person
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ultimately from ignoring and disobeying God's ways is misery.
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God is saying that chasing what the world is after isn't where
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you actually discover happiness, but actually your heart.
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You were born to want things, to chase things, to pursue things
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that ultimately lead to misery and pain and hurts.
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Ultimately, not immediately. We'll get to that later in the
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Psalm, but if you are marked by the world, you are marked
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ultimately for disappointment, for unmet expectations.
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Here's where God is kind to us and loving to us this morning.
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Here's what he says. He says, wait a second.
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I want to tell you the truth. That path leads you to nowhere
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good. Let me show you the path that
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actually leads you to what you want to enjoy your life.
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I want to show you that God saying it's wildly loving of
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God. He's saying pursuing happiness
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in anything contrary to his ways will hurt you because that's not
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what you were made for. You were not made for chasing
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things that God didn't make. It's discovered by delighting in
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God's ways because you were made for God.
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Now, if you were to go over the Grand Canyon later this
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afternoon, just take a nice little 3 hour drive up north and
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over on those on the trails that you'd be hiking, you'd see signs
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that say, hey, be careful, do not cross this because it's
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dangerous to you. Would you interpret those signs
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as judgmental of people who like walking on the other side of the
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trail? Would you interpret that sign as
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man, that sign, that sign, they don't know me, I could handle
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it. That signs doesn't like people
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like me. They don't like the people who
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live life on the edge. Would you really give the sign
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that kind of like motive? No, you'd be like, hey, that
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signs there because it's saying, hey, don't hurt yourself.
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Some of us read the Bible. We're like, whatever God says,
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don't do something. We're like, hey, he's coming
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across judgmental here. He's coming across angry here.
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He's coming across in a way that says, hey, I don't want you to
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have any fun. But what if every command God
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gives isn't for your misery, it's for your protection?
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What if every command God gives isn't so that you would be
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disappointed in this life, but so that you'd be happy in this
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life? That every command in this book
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is ultimately so that you could experience life as God intended
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it to be lived? God's commands are a loving,
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kind, and good thing for us. And happy is the person who
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walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of
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sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
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Because we believe in the pleasure of God's ways, we've
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discovered it together. God wants us to be happy and to
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flourish, but we have to discover the pleasure of God's
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ways 1st, and then we'll get to what He says next.
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Verse 2, God makes me happy. He's not just when I discover
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the pleasure of His ways, but verse 2, His delight.
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Where's His happiness found? See that word in?
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I want you to circle it in your Bible.
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Where is the person who's happy? Where is their delight found in
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the law of the Lord? And on His law He meditates day
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and night. So I want you to jot down this
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second point, that God makes me happiest when I fill my brain
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with God's thoughts. Your life will be better, your
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life will be happier when it is filled with God's thoughts, not
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the world's thoughts. Now that word law there, his
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delight is in the law of the Lord.
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You see that there in verse 2. It's not saying law like a law
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book or a book of regulations. It's not your, your company's HR
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policy. That's not what it's talking
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about here. It's talking about the Bible.
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It's talking about Scripture. It's talking about God breathed
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very inspired words of God. And like I said, it's a meta
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verse. It's a meta chapter talking
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about all of the Bible here. It's saying, hey, the person who
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is happy is their delight is found not in what they think,
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not what others think, but rather what does God say that
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when the word and the world disagree, they bend to the word,
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they fill their brain with God's thoughts.
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You will never delight in God's ways unless you delight in God's
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Book. You just won't.
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If this isn't a delight to you, if is, this isn't pleasurable to
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you. If this isn't sweet to you, you
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won't ultimately appreciate God's ways.
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That's what we're called to live as is people who delight in
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God's ways and the person who delights in God, God's ways.
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Here's what they do with the Word on the Bible, on his law.
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What do they do? What's the verb there in the
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sentence? That person does something.
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They meditate on the law day and night, meaning all the time.
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It's saying God's word is filling your mind, not just on
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Sunday mornings from 10:30 to 11:10 when a guy in a bright
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blue and pink shirt is talking to you.
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That's not when. That's not just when you're
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thinking about God's words. God's words are on your mind and
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on your heart. When you rise, when you go to
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lunch, when you commute, when you're parenting all the time.
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Your brain is filled with what does God say about that?
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Your brain is filled with God's words.
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We're no stranger to filling our minds with things.
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A doom scrolling is a term for a reason.
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It's 'cause we're filling our brains with things.
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The algorithm is actually a great feeder of thoughts for us.
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That it's holding up a mirror to you.
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Anytime you go on any social media profile, it's reading you
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as you're engaging with it. It's showing you the things that
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you care about, whether it's landscaping or golf, whether
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it's like Marie Kondo organizing your house, whether it's
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parenting tips or study hacks, whatever the thing you are
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caring about, whether the thing that you delight and guess what,
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the algorithm's going to show it to you.
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It wants to fill your brain with thoughts and capture your
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attention. John Piper, the famous preacher
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from Minnesota, says that when we get to the end of the line,
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when glory happens, when Jesus comes back, that social media
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will be proved positive that we weren't in our Bible.
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Not because we didn't have time, but because we lacked love for
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it. It'll be evidence that the
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amount of time we spend in our Bible isn't because we didn't
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have the time, it's because we didn't make the time to fill our
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brain with God's thoughts. The happy person let's God shape
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their mind rather than the world.
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But the world will also tell you another thing.
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It'll also tell you to empty your mind.
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That meditation in 2026 is more often not correlated with
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filling your mind, but emptying it.
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To just go to a space and to meditate.
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That's not what this word means here.
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It means to fill it. God is not asking you to
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completely empty your mind all the time.
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That's not what meditation is. Because if you look deeper
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inside of yourself, you're going to be disappointed.
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So the deeper you go inside the human heart, the more anxiety
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you find. The deeper you go into the human
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heart, the more anger you discover.
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The deeper you go, the more selfishness, the more sin you
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will find. So that's why therapy in in and
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of itself is not a gospel. It is not good news to just go
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and empty your mind because guess what?
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You will just keep discovering you're a bottomless well of
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sinfulness. You need another antidote.
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You need another solution. You need something better.
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You need Psalm one, verse 2, that the person who's happiest,
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who's living a righteous life, is meditating on God's words.
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They are filling their brain because ultimate happiness can't
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be located inside of us. The hope isn't in us, it's in
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him and what he's done for us. God says the person who's happy
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fills their mind with his words, which never return empty or
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void. They always deliver on what they
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say they're going to do. And that is how your life can be
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filled with delight and pleasure and flourishing and happiness.
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So what do you do? How do you fill your mind?
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Let's get real practical here. First, you fill your mind daily,
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daily filling your mind with this book daily.
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Go after God's word and just fill your mind with it.
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Sometimes it starts with just having a verse a day.
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Take that verse and just think about it all day.
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Perhaps some of you this week are just going to you know what
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I'm going to think about Psalm one, one and two for the whole
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week. Great, That's great meditation.
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Do that fill your mind daily. I was talking to somebody this
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week and we were, we were just chatting about our whole life
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and I was like, hey, live, live life one week at a time. 7 like
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A7 game series in sports. If you're winning four out of
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seven, you're in a good spot that like don't hold yourself to
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the perfection standard. Just grow.
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Take one step at a time, but strive for daily meditation in
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God's Word, but also weekly. Congratulations, you're doing
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that today. You're here at church.
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That's one of the reasons we need church.
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It's 'cause we need God's Word to be preached over us.
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We need God's Word to be remind us of the things in this life
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that matter most. That's why church exists on a
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weekly basis. It's because we believe that
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God's words are the most important words.
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So we come up underneath them and we say, God, speak to me
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again. Because this week I've wandered
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a bit. This week I've strayed a bit.
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This week I've been discouraged a bit or disappointed.
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I need to be reminded of who you are and what you've done.
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So not just daily and weekly, but also deeply, deeply meditate
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on God's words in, in an attention culture that we're in,
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I think we sometimes just skirt past the scriptures too fast.
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We just stay on the surface. Like we bring a rake to God's
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words and we're on the surface. We're we're actually being with
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God's word. We're actually meditating on
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them. But God, today he's handing you
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a shovel and he's saying, Hey, go deeper in my word.
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Come understand me more. Come discover the treasure
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that's lying underneath the surface.
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Go deep in meditation, which just means think about it
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longer. Don't just have a 5 or a 10
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minute time with God. Spend more time and just grow in
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that. Not perfectly, but increasingly.
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And guess what? The more you meditate on the
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Word, the more you fill your brain with God's thoughts, the
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happier you will be. God makes me happy through a
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righteous life. Third thing he does, He makes me
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happiest when I thrive inside of His placement.
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We're just marching through this Psalm verse by verse, and what
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does it say in verse three that we're going to thrive inside of
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God's placement? He's going to give a metaphor
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for us. The person who meditates on the
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law day and night, what are they like?
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He's going to use a simile. He is like a tree planted by
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streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf
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does not wither and all that he does, he prospers.
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God says the happy person is like a tree next to a stream of
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living water. Now this is your Bible
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hyperlinking not just to other parts of your Bible, but
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specifically the Garden of Eden. It's like the blue part on
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Wikipedia. It's saying, hey, go to this
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link, we're back to a Garden of Eden.
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You want to be planted by a stream of living water.
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And the person who's like a tree, I think it's intentional
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by God because he wants us to see four things that a tree is
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like, follow along like this, that he, we are like a tree in
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that God is telling us to be sturdy.
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Now, middle schoolers in the room, He's not telling you to
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get sturdy, He's telling you to be sturdy.
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OK, be sturdy. Trees don't move, they plant.
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It'd be a bad tree if it was moving all the time, unless it's
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from Lord of the Rings. OK, we need to stay still, be
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still, be sturdy, be strong with deep roots, be sturdy like a
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tree, but also be fruitful. You see that next verb?
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It's not just that we are planted, but it the tree yields
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its fruit in its season. Trees don't bear fruit from
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themselves, they bear fruit for others.
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That we're being fruitful. That part of the intention of
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God planting you beside Himself isn't just so that you would
25:52
bear fruit for your joy, but for others.
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Joy that the happiest people in this world aren't about
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themselves, they are about others.
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We are like a tree, but we're also told like a tree, that
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we're to be dependent. Do you see that it says that
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it's planted, that it yields its fruit in its season, in its
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season is telling us that hey, trees bear fruit.
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When it's time to bear fruit, there's a time for that tree to
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bear fruit. The seed is planted.
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It grows in the way that the sun and the atmosphere work.
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Guess what? There's a time where it is
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harvested. So be dependent on the living
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water, be dependent on the atmosphere of being in God's
26:36
Word. And guess what?
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You will see that as you abide in Jesus, you will bear fruit.
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You will change, you will grow, but you have to be dependent on
26:47
God's process and the cycle of transformation.
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We're like a tree in that were sturdy, fruitful, dependent, but
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also we're like a tree in that were to be growing slowly,
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growing slowly. Do you see that in your text?
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In all that it's done? Its leaf does not wither in all
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that he does, He prospers. He prospers.
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Trees change not immediately, but incrementally.
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A tree doesn't grow overnight, it takes a lot of time.
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Some of you would just be encouraged to remember that that
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the slow motion miracle of sanctification will take time,
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but also your happiness. The thing God's calling you to.
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It might not be delivered to you with Amazon Prime level speed.
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It's going to be like a tree where it's going to come slow
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and maybe a bit boring, but it's going to grow strong.
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What I find fascinating is there's no such thing as a tree
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growing show. I mean by this, like, hey, if
28:06
there's going to be a huge storm, guess what happens?
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Like especially in the Midwest, there's these huge storms.
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Or even here we get the big haboos and the lightning is
28:11
going. People will go outside on their
28:13
porch like, oh, let's go look at the lightning, right?
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It's flashy, it's powerful, it's loud, and it's instant.
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But nobody goes. Outside and goes hey, let me
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watch my tree grow for the afternoon.
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You are going to grow. But.
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It's going to be much. Slower than you think.
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So to be happy. In God's work in you, you have
28:44
to have the right expectation of the speed with which He changes
28:47
you. Otherwise.
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Guess what? We'll be disappointed.
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Like the wicked, the wicked are not so.
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They are not planted by streams of water.
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They don't yield fruit in its season, but rather they are like
29:00
chaff. Chaff is like a corn husk.
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It's the part of the vegetation that just does not matter.
29:08
RIP to all of us who live here. Corn is just not as good here as
29:10
it is in the Midwest where I grew up.
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OK, on the 4th of July I will be eating corn, but it won't be the
29:17
corn I want, so it'll just be corn.
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That is something else. The thing about chaff that you
29:20
have to note that the the author's getting at is that
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chaff is rootless, useless, and weightless.
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The thing about chaff the. Corn husk, what is it?
29:30
It is rootless. It is not attached to anything.
29:32
You could just RIP it right off. It is useless.
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It does nothing after you have the fruit.
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But it also is weightless. It has no density.
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It has nothing to. It.
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It's not sturdy, not. Productive, not growing, not
29:47
dependent. But sometimes we find ourselves
29:50
here on Earth and we get like chaff envy.
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We look at the things happening us in the world and we look at
29:55
the chaff and we're like, man, they just got it so much better
29:58
than we do. We're like Dang it, why is it
30:05
their life so much better than mine?
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Why can't I be like? Her Why can't I be like him?
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Why can't I look like him? Why can't I have their life?
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And we want the chaff. What if God was inviting?
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You to thrive not inside of somebody else's placement, but
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your very own. That where God has you.
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Exactly where He intends to use you.
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That the life that you have right now is the placement of
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God Himself. He's picked the.
30:39
Place that you live, he's picked the job that you have, he's
30:43
picked the relationships that you have.
30:44
And he says, hey, thrive here, not there, wherever there is,
30:50
but right here, right now with these kids, with this family on
30:55
this street, in this apartment, thriving inside of God's
30:59
placement. A friend of mine, his name is.
31:02
Clem He was a legendary leader for me in student ministry back
31:06
in Illinois. He was a student ministry
31:09
leader, meaning 6th grade through 12th grade for 15 years.
31:16
There's a crown awaiting. This man in heaven, I promise
31:18
you, because if you've ever done middle school or high school
31:21
ministry, you know that that is one of the most difficult jobs
31:24
in the entire church. And he not did.
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He not only did seven years with one group, he did it again.
31:31
And now he's starting over for 1/3 lap around the track.
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I mean, this guy is a student ministry legend.
31:37
He's a volunteer. He wasn't the flashiest.
31:40
He wasn't the loudest. But he was faithful and 15
31:47
years. Into disciple making.
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I look back at those students who are in Klim's group and
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guess what? I find disciples.
31:53
I find people with lives change because he was faithful.
31:56
Just do the thing right in front of him again and again and again
32:00
every Sunday night. Just showing up again and loving
32:02
the students in front of him again.
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Loving his wife again. Loving his two kids again.
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He thrived inside of the. Placement of God John 1511 The
32:14
reason God tells us to abide in him, to depend on him, like we
32:16
just saying, is this, that your joy may be full.
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God wants you to experience full and lasting joy, but you won't
32:26
have it if you're constantly looking at another person's
32:29
life. You have to look at where God
32:32
has placed you and cling to Him. And guess what?
32:37
You will thrive inside of God's placement and ultimately have a
32:41
happy life forth and finally we're.
32:45
Trying to have a happy. Life through a righteous life,
32:48
righteous in our expectations, righteous in our attitudes,
32:51
righteous in what fills our mind.
32:53
But also we need this. God makes me happiest when I
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forth hope for his better tomorrow, hope for his better
33:03
tomorrow. See, if happiness is just here
33:05
on earth, right here, right now, then we actually can't have it.
33:09
Because what happens after we die?
33:10
What happens with our grief? What happens with our
33:13
disappointment? What happens in the ultimate
33:15
sense? And I think that.
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Many of us as we're navigating life, examining others, we ask
33:22
ourselves, why do they seem just as happy as I do, even though
33:26
I'm living the way of the righteous and they're living the
33:28
way of the wicked? Because look at what verse 5
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says. It says, therefore the wicked
33:32
aren't going to stand in the judgement day, nor the sinners
33:35
are going to be in the congregation of the righteous.
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For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of
33:40
the wicked will perish, and. What God is telling.
33:44
Us right there in verses 5 and 6 is something critical for us to
33:47
having true ultimate happiness. He's saying that this.
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Life ain't it. The next life is really what
33:57
matters most. That if you live for.
34:01
Today and reject eternity. You will regret it forever.
34:06
That if you live for. Happiness only in this life and
34:10
not the joy of being in relationship with Jesus.
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You won't just regret that for 5 minutes, you will regret that
34:20
forever. Because that's a.
34:24
Place spent under his discipline and God's wrath perpetually.
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The way of the wicked. The Way of the Wicked.
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Results in eternity spent apart from God's grace that they.
34:41
Are judged for. Their sin based off their
34:44
righteousness, not Jesus. And you don't want to be judged
34:47
off your righteousness, you want to be judged off His, because
34:50
the standard for God. His entry ticket into.
34:54
Heaven is perfection, perfect righteousness.
35:00
And you don't have. That So what's your hope?
35:04
Is it to just bring? Your life to God and say hey,
35:06
let me in. Hey, I had a happy.
35:09
Life. But I didn't care about you.
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I didn't care about your ways. I didn't live for you.
35:14
I disobeyed you at every turn. I rebelled against you.
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So here's my. Somewhat righteous life you're.
35:25
Going to be turned away because here's what the.
35:28
Lord knows. Look, the Lord knows that Lord
35:31
loves. The Lord welcomes into
35:33
relationship with him the way of the righteous, but the way of
35:38
the wicked will perish. The Lord knows the righteous.
35:43
He knows you, He sees you, He cares about you.
35:48
So believer who is here today and struggling like man, if I
35:51
could just do my business like that guy runs his business,
35:54
guess what? I'd be happy because I might
35:55
have more money. I'd have the bigger boat.
35:58
I'd have the bigger house. I'd have the better career, the
36:00
better friend circle, the better looks, the vacations, the
36:03
wardrobe, the influence. If you look at your life and
36:05
you're comparing it to other people, guess what?
36:07
Your joy will be stolen from you.
36:10
But if? Rather you get.
36:11
Vertical with and you go wait a second.
36:14
I can be happiest. I can hope for better tomorrow
36:16
because Jesus Christ knows me. He.
36:19
Knows me. And he sees everything I'm going
36:23
through. He sees the difficulty to make
36:26
ends meet. He sees the difficulty of
36:27
relationships you have. He sees it all.
36:30
He's saying, guess what? If you would just endure.
36:33
If you would just wait. And remain.
36:36
In me and trust that I see you know you care about you.
36:42
And hope for better tomorrow. That happiness is accessible.
36:49
It's not just a concept. It's your reality.
36:53
You get to live as. A person who experiences joy.
36:59
Because you have the joy of knowing.
37:00
Him and you can hope for better tomorrow and so.
37:05
As we descend. As people, we're humble people
37:07
who sink lower and lower on earth because we're emulating
37:10
our Savior who came not to be a servant, not to serve, but to be
37:14
a servant for everybody else. That we are consistently and
37:17
continually putting others before ourselves, putting the
37:19
Kingdom before ourselves. Guess what that is us saying
37:23
with our lives, That we believe in the next life more than this
37:26
one. That we put others more than
37:30
ourselves. That we have what the Bible
37:31
calls a blessed hope. I think it's.
37:35
Interesting that that's the word.
37:36
That the Bible uses because guess what, we have a blessed
37:39
hope because Jesus Christ lived the perfect life.
37:41
He died the death we should have died.
37:43
He rose over death itself. Why?
37:44
So that we could experience the joy of being in a relationship
37:48
with God just as he always intended for us to have.
37:51
That the happy life is through the righteous life we too can
37:55
experience the. Flourishing of being in
37:59
relationship. With God, that happy is the one
38:02
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor.
38:05
Stands nor sits. But rather, their delight is in
38:08
the law of the Lord, and because the Lord knows the way of the
38:12
righteous. So let me close with this
38:14
question for you. What?
38:16
Could you do this summer? What choice would you make that
38:19
would make your life 10 times more righteous and therefore
38:23
therefore 10 times more happy? What choice could you make?
38:28
This week and this summer, that with 10X your happiness because
38:33
it's 10X more righteous. What choice could you make this?
38:38
Summer, I'd venture to guess that you would fall on the lines
38:43
of what Henry Nowen said. I'll close with this quote.
38:48
Henry Nowen says this. That I saw more clearly than
38:51
ever that the first great primary business to which I
38:56
ought to attend to every day, was to have my soul happy in the
39:01
Lord. Not how much.
39:05
I might serve the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy
39:08
state, How my inner man might be nourished.
39:12
For I might seek to. Set the truth before the
39:15
unconverted. I might seek to benefit
39:17
believers. And yet, if I'm not happy in the
39:19
Lord, not being nourished and strengthened in my inner self
39:22
day by day, all this, all the good things God invites me to,
39:27
might not be done in a right spirit.
39:34
Now I saw. That the most important thing
39:35
that I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the
39:39
Word of God, and to meditation upon it.
39:42
That thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned,
39:46
reproved, instructed, and that thus, by means of the Word of
39:51
God, while meditating on it, my heart might be brought into
39:56
experimental communion with the Lord.
40:00
What's he saying? That being with God is supposed
40:03
to be the happiest place you are.
40:16
Is everywhere. The difference isn't not whether
40:19
he is drawing near to you, it's whether or not you're drawing
40:21
near to him. So I'll invite you to just take
40:24
a moment to sing, to draw near to God.
40:30
To worship him. That.
40:33
As we March this summer. Toward a righteous life that St.
40:37
City will be marked by some of the happiest people in these
40:39
valley because we live a righteous life.