Happiness is Somewhere Out There! – Lies of the Enemy #30– Purity 1042

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Today's photo of Morning at Cherokee Lake comes to us from Fred Dimmick, who shared this scene on social media back on April 18th. I love the boardwalk pathway and the perfect tranquil reflection of the surrounding landscape in the surface of the lake, and all under a cloudless blue sky. Fred's photo makes me want to get out there and see something. Well, It's Saturday, and while I have been working outdoors digging ditches, literally, this week, uh, the tranquility of Fred's photo encouraged me to spend some time appreciating God's creation, albeit with some balance. We only have so many hours on the weekends, and we have to be wise when we plan things and count the cost. We have to ask ourselves what exactly it is we are looking for or trying to accomplish, and to consider how much time and effort accomplishing it will take and whether there is a simpler way to meet our needs that won't cost us everything. For example, last year my wife and I and some friends went on a whitewater rafting trip on the Hudson River. If you've never gone, I would highly recommend giving it a try. It was fun. However, before you book your trip with a rafting company, you need to count the cost. The rafting trip required financial costs, um, more or less of 8 hours of your day and some physical cost to your body from rowing, being jostled around in the rapids, from swimming— you got to get out of the boat, brother and sisters, as far as I'm concerned, uh, for the full experience— and from being out in the elements for most of the day. While you will have your evening free after the trip, you may be spent from the experience. Similarly, like Fred, we can go to nearby nature trails, state parks, lakes, or mountains to get out in God's creation, experience the glory of the great outdoors. But we are wise to figure out the drive time and assess the lay of the land to accurately determine the time and physical cost of our excursions. Longer hikes— longer hikes cost more than shorter hikes. Mountain hikes cost more than hikes on relatively flat terrain. And all of these considerations are being mentioned today because each of us have different likes and dislikes and different capacities. And as I seek to encourage people to do something to fully appreciate their lives and to find peace and joy in the process, I also want people to be wise and discerning, to seek to know themselves and their limitations, because if they aren't, if they aren't, their attempts to find peace and joy can turn into frustration, angst, and bitterness. The sense of peace we will experience will be within us no matter where we go. So it's good to, to remember that wherever we go, we take ourselves with us, and we should seek to accurately assess what we can handle and what we can't. If our journey of life turns into some desperate pursuit of finding peace somewhere out there, invariably we will come to the conclusion that there is nothing out there. In some sense unless we are connected to the Creator. There is nothing inherently meaningful or fulfilling out in the middle of the woods, next to a lake, or on the top of a mountain unless the experience brings you to a place where you can— you thank God for what he has made and the life he has given us. Many times on solo nature hikes, I have reached my limit where I get to the point that my appreciation for the stillness and the beauty of the great outdoors dissipates and and I begin to get frustrated and become more concerned with whether or not I should press on ahead or turn around and leave than with the awe and wonder of the wilderness. When I get to that point, I know I have overextended myself and usually make a determined effort to just leave. I am no longer appreciating the woods, so time's up. It's time to go back to civilization and find rest somewhere else. Usually back in the comforts of home. I don't know if I'm adequately expressing the experience, uh, this experience of discovery and dissatisfaction, but this is where you come to the realization that there is nothing out there anywhere, anywhere really, at home, on the road, anywhere that will fulfill us in and of themselves. This experience is simultaneously discovering our own limitations, but also the limitations of people, places, or things to completely satisfy us. The answers to peace and joy don't lie out there by themselves. The answers to peace and joy are found by relating all of our experiences to God. He is the only one with us all the time, and when we aren't relating to him moment to moment, the world becomes lonely, disappointing, or even hostile to us. God is our ever-present present companion and the only one who can give us the enduring experience of peace, safety, acceptance, security, and significance. U2, U2's singer Bono just turned 63. We are all getting old. Our rockers will increasingly be found in rockers, as in rocking chairs. And, uh, I remember U2's 1987 song 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.' where he's— he's saying— Bono sang— Bono sang about climbing the highest mountains and running through the fields and having other fleshly and even spiritual experiences, only to find himself still searching. Although the song's lyrics confess to believing in the kingdom come and being set free and believing it, the fact that The singer is still running makes, uh, makes me believe that they are looking for something out there when they should stop and consider the fact that we are all invariably running to an eternal existence with or without God. Our wilderness discontentment experiences and desperate searching out there testifies to the inability of nature or other worthwhile experience to provide meaning and purpose, and to the fact that we have looked to created things rather than the Creator for guidance and peace. And this may be the longest meandering segue ever, but this brings us to our current series, The Lies of the Enemy, which is an examination of some of the common lies, sometimes sneakily whispered into our minds as first-person statements, that the enemy tells us to cause us to doubt our faith lose our peace, cause division, or influence us to not follow the Lord with the way we live our lives. So today's big lie is Lie Number 30: Happiness is somewhere out there. This lie is trumpeted everywhere. Happiness is something out there, and many will offer that they have not only found it, they have it for sale. The travel industry will book you trips to all the happy places on the earth, Restaurants promise to bring you to a happy place with their culinary delights. The sex industry will give you all kinds of options for finding the happy place of sexual release. Dating apps even promise to bring you the happy place of finding relationships. Spas and salons will provide you with treatments that will give you peace. And the entertainment and sports industries will make you happy by giving you dramas to get lost in or to give you something to cheer for. But as I tried to express above, all the things out there, while admittedly they can provide us with pleasure and happy experiences, we will never— were never meant, uh, to— that we were never meant to invest ourselves in them to find our ultimate fulfillment. True fulfillment, peace, and joy come from a relationship with the Creator, not with the temporary experiences or of created things, or, or, or created things. Isaiah 26:3-4, speaking of God, says, you will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you. Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal rock. Our temporary experiences will give us temporary peace, but the Lord offers perfect peace for eternity. And the way we can enter into a relationship to know God's eternal peace is through Jesus. He said in John 14:27, um, I am leaving you with a gift, peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid. Jesus's teaching and his very life was given to us and for us so we would have peace. Jesus acknowledges the difficulties of living in this world but assures us that through him we can overcome it. He said in John 16:33, I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows, but to take heart because I have overcome the world. We are not to try to find our peace or happy place in the world. We are to find our peace in Jesus. So while I encourage you to enjoy your life and to get out there this weekend to do something, make sure that you understand your limits and that the peace that endures forever is found in Christ alone. So don't believe the lie that happiness is somewhere out there just waiting to be found, because no matter how much you search in this world, unless you are looking towards the Creator and consider his way for peace You'll— you will not only never find what you are looking for, you will discover that you are running away from the only one that could give it to you. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This medit— this morning's meditation verse is 1 Peter 3:7, and the word of God says, in the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God's gift of new life. Treat her as you should, should, so your prayers will not be hindered. Today's verse reminds husbands to treat their wives with honor and understanding, that she is our equal partner in God's gift of new life, and that failure to do so may hinder our prayers. Well, just in time for Mother's Day, the Lord provides us with a verse to honor our sisters in Christ. Women are our equal partners in our new lives in Christ, and when we treat them as second-class citizens of the kingdom of God, we apparently will disrupt the effectiveness of our prayer lives as a spiritual consequence. Men and women are different. They have different strengths and weaknesses, but the Lord loves them both and wants them to honor and respect one another as equal partners in God's kingdom. While men are given the spiritual authority in marriage, they are not to abuse it. Instead, the word of God instructs us to love our wives as ourselves and to give them honor. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org, where I always provide, uh, insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from Satan, Demons, and Satanism A Sinister Reality by June Hunt. And, uh, we're continuing to share from Section 4, The Steps to Solutions. And today we share the section on Claiming Your Victory in Christ. So if you want to know how to claim your victory in Christ, go to, uh, mtforchrist.org, because June Hunt provides a step-by-step process to do that. Um, and also there's a question regarding Perverse sexual dreams. Um, so if that piques your interest, uh, go to mtforchrist.org and you can see what that was all about. Um, as, uh, that's included in this, uh, this resource as well. Well, it is Saturday and I have no idea what my plans are. I know my wife, uh, and I will be spending the day together, so it will be good. And I don't know how how far or wide our travels will take us, but I endeavor to enjoy what the Lord has given me, and I encourage all of you to do the same. But as I try to express, we got to be careful, you know, don't overextend yourself. You know, sometimes you go like, what are we trying to do? What are we trying to accomplish here? Do I have to take a 10-mile hike to find a moment's peace? You know, do I have to drive 3 hours to get to a place where I can, you know, do something worthwhile? Uh, maybe, you know. And, you know, are you up for it? You know, these are the questions you should ask first before doing that. So planning is always good. Um, tempering your expectations is always, always advisable. And, uh, counting that cost, because as much as we can have good, peaceful happy experiences out in the world, we have to realize our ultimate peace is found in God, and that we should bring a sense of peace with us wherever we go, uh, and that not for nothing we can enjoy the things we have at home as well. So I don't know, I, I like to give glory to God, but you can give him glory wherever you are, I guess. So whatever, whatever gives you peace, as long as you don't forget God in the process Um, you know, I would say pursue it, um, because, you know, when I think of my pre-Christ existence, the way I found peace was to satisfy the flesh. Um, I would overeat, drink, and, you know, um, concern myself with entertainment, you know. Um, my happy place was usually in a room by myself, uh, eating mass quantities of food, drinking a mass quantity of alcohol, indulging in drugs, and watching something on the television or listening to music. Um, and I can't even say it's all well and good because it wasn't. Um, I was completely isolated from others and, and God, and she was just playing all by myself in a room, um, of my— you know, I created the circumstances for my own little happy place, and, uh The only thing that ever disrupted it was, was, was, um, you know, reality and the world out there. I didn't overcome the world. I had run away from it and hid in the basement, um, and just satisfied myself. And, uh, ultimately, you know, while you can repeat that process, that vicious cycle, over and over and over again Um, as you do it, it becomes less and less satisfying. And, uh, especially after God comes into your life, um, when you understand that there's, there's consequences to your life and a spiritual creator above it all who, um, that you're gonna meet one day, um, whether in judgment or in joy, um, you know, is to be determined. But when you realize that, you know, that there's probably something more that I should be doing than, you know, just satisfying myself, you know, that's when you realize that things of the flesh, these temporary experiences, are just that. And we should think about, you know, where it's taking us. My search for hope and meaning luckily was interrupted by the Lord. The gospel message that saved my life really woke me up, you know, because as much as I had, you know, created little happy experiences and managed stress in somewhat effective ways at times, you know, I didn't have those answers to the ultimate questions. It was just, you know, I was content to live in the mystery. But, um, God reveals himself so we can know the truth, you know. And so if you're disregarding that, that's a problem. So, you know, as much as I, you know, I say go out there, you know, seek the truth, seek the Lord's will for your life, and align yourself with his will, and you'll find that you have an enduring peace as the fruit of the Spirit grows in your life. So if you don't know what I'm talking about or don't know how to get there, we recommend our, our, our, uh our discipleship classes that we've done for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. They're all geared to teach you who you are in Christ, teach you about the spiritual forces of darkness, and to, you know, give you a means to be set free of the lies of the enemy and any spiritual or personal conflicts that you have that are preventing you from experiencing God's peace. So we invite you to check those out. And if you want a deeper dive, you can always email me at mtforchrist247@gmail.com to get the printed materials for those classes. Wisdom is also found in the Word of God, of course, and so we recommend daily Bible study so you can be cleansed by the washing of the Word. We encourage Bible study by doing a Bible study once a week with Arthur and Suzanne Cincotti, and we usually do those on Sundays. So prayerfully, we'll be meeting again for Bible study tomorrow, and you can tune into those on the podcast and our YouTube channel as well. Well, it is Saturday, and I am very thankful to be at my countryside home and look forward to what the day brings. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for all the things you provide that can make us happy temporarily, but Lord, we want the enduring peace and joy that comes from knowing you and doing what you would have us do and find the meaning and purpose that you have for our lives. So Lord, help us on that search. And you know, because we know that you'll guide us there if we keep our thoughts fixed on you. Um, so we need help with that. Also, we, we pray for anyone else on the, uh, the path of Christian discipleship with us, anyone who's reading or, or listening to this message. Lord, we pray for them today that you would bless them and come alongside their prayer request and guide them in the way they should go. And as always, Lord, we just ask that you go before us today, uh, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and lead our paths in the ways we should go, because we need your help. And Lord, all we want to do is represent you here on the earth, and, um, we need help with that. So, um, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, Lord, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.