The desire to be happy is universal. The avenues to happiness are multiplicious. Yet why are the people who actually arrive at contentment station so few?
TRANSCRIPT
Please note: this transcript is auto-generated so forgive any (or many) errors 😲 – click the timestamps to play that section directly in the audio.
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So this week I’ve got some guys in remodelling the bathroom upstairs. So if you hear a lot of banging, that’s what it will be. You’ll have to forgive me for my kind of not got some kind of nice little hideaway studio somewhere. Everything happens right here in my home. But today I just want to talk about supernatural strength through joy.
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The desire to be happy is universal, and there’s nothing wrong with that. God created us to be happy, fulfilled individuals. When God first made man, he placed him in a garden called Eden, which literally means delight. He placed him in a garden of delight. And the avenues that people seek to fulfil their happiness are multiplicious.
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I know that multiplicious is not a word in the dictionary, but it certainly should be. The thing is, despite everyone being on the train, how many people actually arrive at Contentment Station? Very few is happiness even something we should strive for? Or maybe there’s something a deeper vein that we can drill. Perhaps this idea that the world wants to foist on us, that happiness is just one purchase a holiday away is false.
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Maybe the lie that more will make us marvellous is really part of the problem. Certainly not the solution. Drowning under deluge of deals that have been shipped out in the Friday investive sales leaves one wondering if there could, in fact be more to life than a new spin dryer or a new air fryer of whatever it is, whatever your poison may be. Can I contend here with an itchy thought, yeah, that’s going to scratch something on the inside. Maybe these soothers that we reach for tranquillizers that we take to try and keep our heart numb to reality.
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And that reality is that the world is not what it claims to be friends. It is burning to the ground. I hate to break it to you if you didn’t already know, but this entire world system is a house of cards that will one day come very royally, tumbling down. There will be weeping and crying. Babylon.
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Babylon is fallen, and we do not want to be part of that company who was so entwined and so twisted into the fabric of the culture in which we live, that we are also the ones crying and lamenting its demise. The life you desire, however opulent it may be in your imagination, will never scratch the relentless discontent that scrapes at your insides. If I ask the question, where are we? Here’s the answer that Peter gives in his first letter. It says in one Peter, one one.
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And I’m reading from the Wuest New Testament. W-U-E-S-T new Testament. A great translation kind of. And he says that Peter wrote his letter to those who have settled down alongside a pagan population. Sown as seed, we live in Babylon.
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We live in the world, but we cannot be of it if we want to make a real difference. I’m so aware, actually, of my own immersion in this smash and grab culture that seeks only its own pleasures, this Covenant breaking constantly on culture that craves only the next thing and is never satisfied with the present.
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It reminded me of Lot. And here we find Lot in Genesis chapter 13, he’s able to choose where he pitches his tent. And it says that he settled alongside camping toward Sodom, facing Sodom. And it’s way too easy to become Lottie in our love for this world’s. Accolades and trinkets.
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If we’re not careful, if we camp our tent with that in view and we have that in the frame as our frame of reference, it’s not going to be long before we’re inside the gates, handing over our sons and daughters. Now be careful, creative brothers and sisters. Culture is pervasive. It creeps up on you and then into you into your thinking, into the way that you respond and react and into the way that you view reality. We’re urged as Christian men and women, Christian creatives were urged as to be armed and dangerous representatives of another Kingdom and to guard our hearts and be renewed in the spirit of our mind.
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I love that in Ephesians 413, it doesn’t just say think positively. It talks about being renewed in the very spirit of our mind. The essence of our thinking has to be different. It needs to be uncoupled from the feed of Liberal modernity and plugged firmly in to eternal truth. The media is the slew skate for a million doctrines, shovelled into the atmosphere of our homes, even with the force it switched low.
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The drip drip of false doctrine eventually seeps through into everyday conversation and values. I don’t need to go into details. You know very well how culture has been crumbling and Christian values and Christian foundations have been really decimated over these past decades. And then Peter speaks about he speaks about where the people are there in the midst, sort of seed among an unbelieving culture. And then we find this when question, when are they living?
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Peter not only spoke of where we live, he also spoke of when we live. And here we find it. He tells us that we live in a time in which we are guarded by the power of God through faith for a Salvation ready to be revealed in the last season, which is epochal and strategic in its significance. The last season is upon us. So being so placed, we need to be vigilant like a soldier on guard, watching the walls.
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We must clear. We must be absolutely clear on this one thing. The enemy prowls and plots relentlessly, how we might breach our boundaries and cause our downfall in times of war. There’s no room to double down on comforts. Epochle moments are marked by epochal.
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People pursuit of pleasure may be the culture, but the pursuit of God and his righteousness is the order of the day. The Devil’s first and most successful play is not to resist God’s people, but first to invite them. Come inside, he says. You’ve pitched a tent near the gate. Why not take a few more compromised steps and put a little less distance between yourself and the world in which you live?
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And then the final question I want to ask is how how should we respond to this again? Reading from Peter knowing the season that we are in guards our mind and informs our actions and thus equipped, Peter says, in this last season, you are to be constantly rejoicing with the joy that expresses itself in triumphant exuberance. How magnificent is that? How are we to overcome and stay true to the Lord constant rejoicing joy that overflows in triumphant exuberance? We are a triumphant people, not a beat down people.
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This may be a day of the devil running rampant, but it’s also a day of the Church’s greatest triumphs. The dark backdrop that our father is allowing to be staged will make the glaring light of the gospel all the more bright and all the more attractive when it shines? My dear friends, worship is your weapon and joy is the strength that you need to harness. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today.
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If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website, davidleemartin.com have a great day.
