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Good morning, church, family. Happy New Year. Can you believe it's 2019? It's crazy. Glad you guys are here. Hope you had a great break. It's really good to be back with you guys this morning. I miss y'all. I heard last week y'all had a good time with the brunch here. And uh my wife and I were with family in Colorado, and so we missed out on that. But uh glad to be back. Um I forgot the house lights. Can we turn those house lights up? That'd be great. I guess I can't see. There you are. Awesome. All I can see is this bright light on me. Um yeah, thank you. Thankfully you're here this morning. Uh my name's Nick. I'm one of the pastors here, uh, one of the elders here, and you have that privilege. And so if you're new here, uh we're glad that you're you're here with us today. Um we have a small gift to say thanks for being our guest as you're waiting on your way out today. If you grab that at the connection point, uh but if if you're on my left, your right, the end of the row, uh, there's a little black pad below you. It's called a connection pad, and we just would ask you to pick that up and uh sign that, pass that down. It's a simple way we keep up with who's here, uh both regular tenders and guests, and way we can follow up with those who are here. And as Alex already mentioned, you can also fill out the connection card that's in the backs of the seats if you want to need prayer for anything, or if you have more questions, you'd love to chat with us. And also, immediately following the service today, if you have questions about the message, or if you just want to get connected, if you're new here, I'd love to meet you. And so we'll just be right down here at the front and be available to you as we close out the service today. Um, we'd love to talk with you and just get to know you if this is your first time. Um, we're excited that you're you're a guest here today and you took the risk of being with us, all right? I'm gonna ask you guys to get your Bibles out, and we're gonna be in Psalm chapter one. Psalm one. And uh, you know, it's this this is a psalm I revisit on a regular basis. I'll talk about more about that why uh why that is here in just a minute. But if you pull your Bible out, in fact, if you don't have a Bible with you and you want to look in a Bible, there are some under the chairs around you as well. And if you don't own a Bible, feel free to take one as a gift from us. Uh some of them are not in the best shape, but uh feel free to take one of those. I think there's some uh some decent ones that are around, so grab one of the best ones. Or you can just come find me afterwards and you can grab one out of our lost and found. You might have to scratch the name off of it, but there's plenty of those, okay? So we'll give you one. So you have your own copy. Um you guys think about the new year in front of you, maybe there's some different emotions that kind of come to the surface for you. Uh one of the things we say, just kind of like it at our birthday, when you have a birthday, you say happy birthday, you say happy new year, is something that we just kind of say, and we of course mean we're we're celebrating the fact that, hey, it's the new year. And uh as I was thinking about that this week, and I was even considering multiple things that were going on in our lives personally, engaging people, dealing with some hardship and uh and community and conversations with family. I know none of y'all have those issues in your families, but in our family, we we still have sin issues going on, and we were working through some of that, and I was thinking about the future and coming through the new year, thinking about like how that um God really does desire for us to be happy. Um, which might sound kind of weird because in church typically we we tend to think, well, like following God means you're gonna be less than happy, you're gonna be uh bored, uh, you're gonna be you're gonna be missing out on fun, uh, you're gonna be missing out on enjoyment uh in life. But actually, the Bible paints a very different picture. It tells us that God is the author of pleasure, he's the author of happiness, and he actually wants people to be happy. And so as I was thinking about that this morning and thinking about kind of the new year, God really led me to Psalm chapter 1. Uh, and I'll uh it's a it's a chapter in the Bible that my family has memorized before, not because we're super Christian, but because we knew that we like needed to put some truth in there, and it's a great way for our kids, and it's actually a simple passage to memorize. It's only uh, I think six or seven verses there. And so what we're asking you guys as a church family to do, uh, even if you're guests, you can join us in this, is this this coming week, in the reading plan, which is on the back of the worship guide, you can actually read the chapter every day over the next week. Uh just encourage you to read it, reflect on it, think about it, underline, highlight, take notes, look at Psalm chapter one. And then we would ask that you as a family consider memorizing it together. Okay? It won't take you that long. It's actually pretty uh pretty memorable because it's the rhythm of it and the wording, the verbiage of it, the way the lines go, because it is a song. Um I think you can memorize it. I was talking to Matt Altman, one of the guys who goes here, and he and his family have been working through that. He actually created a little book for him and their kids and uh just a way to memorize that. Our family, as I've said, memorized that before, and it's really, really rich with content. And so I encourage you to do that. But as I was thinking about this idea of happiness, when I have a question in life, I go to Google. Anybody else do that? That's what you do now. You just go to your to Google and you type it in. So I started to type in how can I be happy, and I got to how can I be? And you know that Google has predictive text. And so it's always interesting to me to see what comes in, like what's it starting to fill in. Well, the first thing that came up was how can I be sure? And it was song lyrics by the rascals. I don't even know it. I'm just out of touch, I guess. But it was a song lyrics, how can I be sure? The next thing was how can I be happy? That was second on the list. The third one was how can I be a better person? And the fourth one is how can I become rich? Okay? And so these are the these are the most common things on Google that pop up when you type that in, predictive text. Now, all of you are grabbing your phones and looking at it, okay? That's that's on my computer. I don't know about yours, but that's what happened on mine, okay? And and I was just thinking about that. I was like, so people clearly like are looking, they're searching, and I don't think this should come as a surprise, right? Because human beings want to be happy. And we want to attain some sort of uh status of happiness and enjoyment in life. Um, when I type that in, of course, one of the first uh responses to how can I be happy was WikiHow comes up with their explanation. Anyone go to WikiHow and you need to know how to do something? Some fewer, like, yeah, I do. Um so I go to WikiHow, click on that, and here's the eight things that the collective wisdom of our culture says you need to do to be happy. Are you ready? I think there's actually probably some truth in here, but this is kind of interesting, okay? Change your thoughts. Okay? Look for the positive in all your experiences. You know, some if your neighbor's dog poos in your yard, you just say, hey, that's fertilizer, right? Um, cultivate optimism. Okay, just be positive, right? Uh practice gratitude. Practice your core values. Uh visualize your best possible self. I don't even know what that means. All right? Show yourself some compassion. Uh heal your past traumas. That's easy, right? Just fix them. Okay? Get on. So here's what I'm saying to you guys. Like, I know, and I and I say this because I understand that we want to be happy, and many of the ways that we're trying to actually get happiness are superficial at best. And they're leading us down paths to not happiness, but depression. In fact, we live in a land of plenty with more stuff and more self-help books, and you can go on Amazon, you can type in any topic, you can find a book, you can read it, you can learn how to be a better version of yourself. And yet, many, many people are struggling through depression and difficulty. It's why this time of year, both the end of a previous year and the beginning of a new, and even around your birthday, uh, you just have these sobering reminders that like I'm not really getting all out of life all that I want. And I'm and I'm and I'm not happy about that. And I believe that many of you in this room maybe walked in today with like just a sense of, I man, I just don't know. Like, what does life mean? Like, what am I supposed to be doing? Am I really doing what I'm supposed to be doing? And is is life really is it all is cracked up to be? Like, what's going on here? And it's interesting because when you look historically at humanity, we really haven't progressed that much. I mean, you look all the way back to the beginning. In fact, I I would actually say you could argue that looking at ancient writings, um, that they were happier than we are. With all of our contraptions and devices and advances and how to be happier, I would say that we would actually be less happy than many of those who lived historically on this planet earth. And so I would encourage you this morning that as we think about this issue of happiness, I genuinely believe that God has a path to happiness, a way to lead us to true happiness, to experience happiness in our lives. In fact, I hope that for you, I pray that for you. I want you to be a happy person. And I believe God actually wants you to be a happy person, but how you get there is very different than the way that the world says you get there. And when I say the world, I mean the systems and the thinking and the strategies and the processes and the values that the world presents to us. And we'll talk more about that in just a minute. You know, when I ask the question, well, how do you how are we gonna be happy? Uh, we're in church, and so many of you who guys have been here, you're gonna say, well, I already know Nick's gonna say Jesus, right? Because we talk about Jesus a lot. And some of us sometimes it's like, well, the church answer is Jesus, and so we just dismiss it because we already know where we're gonna go, where we're gonna land. And I heard recently about a little boy who was in a Sunday school class, and the Sunday school teacher um he asked the question, what is furry, brown, has a bushy tail, and eats acorns? And because the boy was in his Sunday school class, he said, Well, it sounds like a squirrel, but because of where we are, I'm gonna say Jesus. Right? Some of you guys understand what I mean by that, right? Because sometimes we get into these modes of like, well, I already know the answer. I'm gonna jump ahead, it's Jesus, okay, let's move on, right? The point is, listen, it is Jesus, but I want to talk about how Psalm 1 gives us some practical realities to what that means and what that actually looks like and how we can experience that in our daily life. So if you have your Bible again, or one of the borrowed Bibles around you, um, maybe your new Bible, uh, let's read Psalm 1 together. Here's what it says How happy is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path of sinners, or join a group of mockers. Instead, his delight is in the Lord's instruction, and he meditates on it day and night. He is like a tree planted beside streams of water, that bears fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and whatever he does prospers. The wicked are not like this. Instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not survive the judgment, and sinners will not be in the community of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but he but the way of the wicked leads to ruin. Okay? This is God's word for us. Now, Psalm 1, as I already said, is a significant psalm. Uh many people call it, theologians call this kind of a gateway psalm. It summarizes really the entire entirety of all the rest of the Psalms, and you could really say it summarizes really a picture of what the Bible presents, which there's really two paths in life. There's the path of self-worship and there's a path of God worship. That's really it. You could summarize all of humanity and our struggles with we either worship God or we worship self. We're either pursuing God and honoring Him and going after Him, or we're honoring ourselves and looking for what we want to do in ourselves. Okay? And so I would say to us that this psalm is real helpful because it gives us a great visual of this tree right in the middle of it. Um this is not convoluted, it's not ambiguous, it's just very clear, it's very simple, and it helps us understand some truth. But notice how he starts the whole thing. He says, How happy, or some of your versions may say blessed. Can you use that word interchangeable? How happy, how blessed is the man who does not do these things and but does these things. And so this is very clear this morning for us, and I want to just want to walk through it. But I want to tell you that at the very beginning of this psalm, and I've already said this, is that this psalm reminds us that happiness actually is attainable. You actually can be happy. Some of us feel like we can't. I mean, uh, when you when you were born, when I was born, we don't remember that, obviously. But as you grew up, as a child, most children in most environments believe that happiness is inevitable. Right? That I'm gonna be happy in life, that life's gonna be good, that I'm gonna grow up and I'm gonna have a family and I'm gonna get a job and life's gonna be happy. And you have this like belief that everything's gonna be great because as a child, you haven't been tainted yet by the darkness and the difficulty and the suffering and the pain of this life. And so you kind of have this rose-colored glasses, and you sort of start with this belief that, you know, happiness is inevitable. But the longer you live as a human being on planet Earth, you start to move to the other end of that spectrum. And you begin to think, happiness is unattainable. I just can't ever get there. I'll never be happy. Because about the time you think you've got it, it's gone, right? And when you have a pleasurable moment, you try to hold on to that pleasurable moment, but it passes. You try to get the enjoyment of whatever it is you're pursuing, but then it eludes you and eventually it wears off. And it's luster and it's excitement and it and it's the thing that really stirs you, is it's gone because nothing lasts in this world. It's all temporary, right? And so we start to notice that and we begin to think, well, happiness is unattainable. So you go from happiness is inevitable to happiness is inevitable is unattainable. And some of you in this room, or I'd say most of us in this room, kind of live where we go back and forth, where we say, well, some days I feel like it's it's inevitable, and the next day I feel like it's unattainable, right? And we kind of go back and forth, and life just is happening, and pretty soon we look up and realize we're just really not that happy, kind of mediocre at best. But I want to say this morning to you that God desires for us to be happy, and in fact, he offers us true happiness, the experience of true happiness, to be able to really find satisfaction and joy in this world, in this life. And we're gonna talk about why that is the case. Um, Tim Keller, uh, I was looking at some stuff he had written on this, and it's interesting. He talks about, I know not all of you guys are into theater, but most of you know who Shakespeare is, right? And uh he has two different plays, and he contrasted how that these really are a picture of how these two different extremes work themselves out, in that he's got one play, uh Machado about uh Mucha To Do About Nothing, um, and then and then he's got Hamlet, right? And so if you if much of a Do About Nothing, in the end, everybody gets to home. They get to marry who they want to marry, the person they thought was dead is really alive. When you get to Hamlet, everybody dies. Uh, in the last scene there, everybody's bitterly disappointed. It's a depressing play, okay? And he says most of us we actually start uh believing and we're young, we're naive, and we think much of a do about nothing uh is that that's kind of how we view the world, and then when we get to uh to the to the end of our lives, we're really more like Hamlet, like everything's terrible, right? And then that's just kind of how how life shapes us because of the difficulties that come. And every one of you in this room have experienced hardship that has shaped your view of happiness and how you attain it. But what I would say to us this morning, again, is that God has a plan for your life for 2019 and beyond. He's had a plan from the beginning of time before you even were in your mom's womb, before you were even born. He has had a plan for your life. And he really desires to bless you. He really desires that. And I don't say this in a uh name it, claim it, uh, you know, kind of gospel, uh prosperity gospel kind of way. I'm saying God actually cares about your life and he wants the best for you. But in wanting the best for you, he wants you to submit your life to him, to surrender your life and your agenda and your hopes and your dreams to him. And some of us feel like that that's in contradiction, but I'm telling you it's not. It's absolutely positively not. So in this passage, we see how uh there are things that won't lead us to happiness and how there are things that will lead us to happiness. What won't lead you to happiness? Uh another way to say this is how do we seek happiness in the wrong way? Did you notice verse one? Let me read it again. He says, How happy is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path of sinners, or join a group of mockers. There's three kind of little phrases that are there. The first one being, does not follow the advice of the wicked. The second one being, or take the path of sinners, or three, join a group of mockers. Now, in the Jewish culture, uh where uh we we see kind of how this was a progression, first, about what you think. It was the mental. So taking the advice of the wicked, um, what you think, how you how you think and process mentally the world around you and how life works and what you think about it. The second thing you notice is he says, Um, you know, not just that, but taking the path of sinners, how do you behave, how do you act, your actions. So not just now your thinking, but your actions, your behaviors that reflect what you're thinking. And then the third piece he actually says, sit or join a group of mockers, and it's the idea of identity, who you truly are. And in that Jewish culture, where you sat showed where you belonged. Men sat with men, young with the young, old with the old, rich with the rich. Uh he's talking about where you find your identity. So you can see this progression in the in this passage, and what he says is that if you, if me, if I, if we think like the world, if we act like the world, and if we identify with the world, we will not be happy. Are you with me? Still hanging there? If you think just like everybody else in the world thinks, if you act just like everyone else in your world acts, and if you identify yourself just with the human race and every way that everybody else is the way that everybody else is acting and thinking, if that becomes your identity, I can guarantee you it will not lead you to happiness. The Bible is very plain about that, very clear about that. So when our thinking and our actions and our identity are found in the temporary stuff of this world, the Bible, he says in this passage, he says in verse 5, uh, we will be like chaff. Actually, verse 4. It says, The wicked are not like this, instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away. That we will be like chaff, not rooted in something that can actually withstand the difficulties of life, but literally like we are so easily swayed, moved, washed aside, blown aside, because we aren't rooted in anything that's actually strong enough to carry us, to sustain us in this life. So we need to understand this morning that if we are pursuing the things of this world, if we're just pursuing stuff, if we're pursuing and chasing after the things that this world says will bring you happiness, I'll go ahead and just dispel that myth, you're never gonna get there. Right? You're never gonna get there. There's no car, there's no house, there's no clothing, there's no job, there's no relationship that will ultimately bring you the satisfaction, the happiness that you are longing for. Those things in of themselves are not evil, by the way. There is a way in church sometimes where we talk about stuff like having stuff and we say, well, well, if you have stuff, you're evil. The Bible never says that having that stuff is evil, that having a good marriage or relationship is evil, or that having nice clothes or having a nice house or cars is evil. It says that if you love that stuff, if you worship that stuff, if you look at that stuff as your identity and your security and you try to find your happiness in that, you will find it won't deliver what it says it will. What it says it promises it will. So in our lives, what I've found to be true is that for humanity, the thinking, the actions, and the identity really is built around this idea that happiness should be our highest priority, that happiness should be our highest goal, that that should be our highest aim. And what's interesting about that is that the Bible says exactly opposite of that. In fact, never in the Bible does it say that happy is the man who pursues happiness. Right? It never says you will be blessed if you seek to be blessed. What it says is happy is the man who seeks righteousness. So happiness is actually a byproduct of seeking what is right and good and true. Not that if we seek it. So let's get real practical for a second. Because in our lives we see this play out over and over again when we notice how we behave based on this wrong thinking. I mean, why do people lie? Why do people steal? Why do people compromise their integrity? Why do we try to present something, a false picture of ourselves? Because we believe in a lie, something that is that that we believe something will deliver happiness that can't, right? We believe in something that is not actually sustainable. We believe that happiness can be found in something that is temporary. Um just to be real honest with you guys, this is raw in my heart right now. I'm I'm working through some stuff with family, some hardship with family right now. And one of the things that makes me so sad is because I'm with people in my family who I love dearly, and there is uh a deep rooted belief in one of my family members that pursuing a relationship outside of his covenant relationship with his wife is gonna bring him happiness. And it's not, it's absolutely not. He has bit, he is chosen, he is he is uh following the lie of the enemy. And I see how that time and time again we we buy the lie, and the enemy is so good. But that goes all the way back to the garden when he convinced them uh, you know, hey, God's holding out on you. You should eat from this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don't don't think that God actually knows what he's talking about, right? And they believe that lie and believe that they could be happier if they did what was in opposition to what God's instruction was in their lives. I know men, I know women who are daily walking in disobedience to God, thinking that they can pursue that and that it will bring them happiness. And I just want to be a giant billboard and say, it won't bring you happiness. To walk in disobedience to God, to reject God's plan. To reject God's instruction will not lead you to happiness. It will lead you to pain and shame and guilt and heartache. I've seen it in my life so much because I see how I buy the same lie. On a regular basis, I get deceived. We need God's help to discern. We need God's help to work through these lies that we're buying into. If you try to make having a happy marriage your highest goal, you'll never have a happy marriage. If you try to make having being happy in your work, you'll never have happiness in your work. If you try to make your kids your ultimate happiness, you will never be happy. If you believe that if I can just find Mr. Wrong, Mr. Wrong, Mr. Right, you will soon discover that they are Mr. Wrong. Because there is no the one perfect person who will never sin against you and never hurt you, never do anything to make you unhappy. Because that's not the world we live in. It's a broken world. And God can redeem those things, but those things are not ultimate things. There's no hobby, there's no material possession, there's no experience that will ultimately make you happy. And the Bible is explicitly clear about this. But let me tell you another thing that the Bible is explicitly clear about that's in this passage. He says this in verse 5, and I say this very sober-minded, but I want to reiterate this point because you can't just act like it's not in the text. He says, Therefore the wicked will not survive the judgment. And sinners will not be in the community of the righteous. What is the psalmist saying to us this morning? The psalmist is saying this not only if you follow the way of the world, will you miss happiness now, but you will miss happiness forever. Because on the day of judgment, you will actually be cut off from the source of true happiness. And I say that because I know that some people believe that they can get to God, attain God just by being a good person, by doing the right thing. But the Bible is very clear that unless we submit ourselves to God, unless we confess Jesus as Lord, unless we believe in our heart God raised him from the dead, we will not be saved. That's the only way to be saved. And it's the only way that we won't be destroyed at the day of judgment. I know that sermons aren't preached about this much these days. We kind of shy away from them. We call them hellfire brimstone sermons. And we're like, yeah, we just don't talk like that anymore. It's just not kind, it's not politically correct. But the Bible paints a picture clearly that says that if we don't follow God's way, we cannot expect to be with God forever. God is loving, God is holy. And he invites us to enjoy not just happiness now, but happiness forever. But if you pursue this life, you will miss heaven. But if you pursue heaven, you will get heaven, and you also get to enjoy this life. In ways that don't mean that you'll have all pretty experiences and never experience suffering, right? Because the Bible clearly tells us, in case you didn't know this, that even Christians suffer. Even Christians go through hardship. Even Christians get sick. Even people who follow Jesus and obey him still have hardship in their marriage, still have children that disobey, still have struggles with money at times, but we have peace and we have perspective in the person of Jesus. We know this is not the end. We know these temporary sufferings are temporary. They're trials. And in fact, the Bible tells us in this passage here that when those difficulties come, what? We actually can bear fruit. We can actually see good things happen in the hardship. This is what's beautiful about being a Christ follower is that when the stuff gets harder, more beauty and more amazing things can happen, more fruit for God's kingdom can actually emerge in our lives. Instead of being angrier and more bitter and more frustrated, we can actually become kinder and more loving and more pure. In our devotion to God, more committed to Him through the hardship. What will lead to true happiness? Well, we could talk about this all day. But I think this passage he tells us that when we are rooted in the eternal and true source of happiness, God, we can actually begin to be happy. We can actually experience that. When we're rooted in the eternal and true source of happiness, which is God Himself. Notice verse 3. He says, He is like a tree planted by streams of water that bears fruit in its season, whose leaf does not wither, whatever he does prospers. So if the wicked or the world's way is like chaff that just gets blown away, the way of the righteous, the way of the one who stands on God's promises and who listens to God and who follows God's ways, it's like being rooted next to a stream of water. And even in difficult seasons, even when the storm comes, right, it stands firm. You guys, that reminds me of a story in the New Testament that Jesus tells about two foundations. You guys know the story, right? Foundations of the sand and of the rock. If you've been around church a long time, probably even as a little child, you may have even learned a little song about that. But here's what the Bible tells us time and time again is if we build our life on the rock, we are not guaranteed to miss out on the storm. The storm is still coming. But that we can stand firm on the truth of God's word, on the truth of his promises, on the truth of the gospel, that we are more sinful than we know, and yet still more loved and forgiven than we can imagine in Christ. It's beautiful. It's awesome. It's not always easy to believe, but it's truth from God's word. We want to be rooted in God. Well, how do we get rooted in God? I'm only going to give you two things from this passage this morning. The first one is this we have to be committed to God's instruction. We have to be committed to God's word, to the scripture. Notice verse 2. If you've still got your Bible open, it says this. Instead, his delight is in the Lord's instruction. He uses the word delight in the Lord's instruction. Now, how many of you guys, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, but honestly, like, think to yourself. How many of you actually delight in spending time with God in his word on a regular basis? I know most Christians, if I'm honest, the ones that I've talked to, and maybe you're being honest, most Christians I talk to, I don't really hear them saying, well, man, I just love spending time in God's Word. I just feel so, man, like so excited. Now, there are definitely believers I've talked to who feel that way. And even this past week, I was reading some things from Jonathan Edwards and Brother Lawrence and talking about some of the ways they felt. Brother Lawrence, I didn't put it up on the screen, but he actually, I got, I saw this quote from him that said that when he read God's word, he was so stirred that he felt feelings of pleasure that he couldn't even speak of. I was thinking, that's awkward. I mean, who feels that way, right? But he literally said, I literally feel like just euphoria, like when I spend time with God in his presence. I was like, I want that. But most of us are content or maybe even distracted from actually experiencing time with God where we actually see that he is the source of true pleasure. He is the source of true joy, true happiness. But we have to be committed to God's word. He says he meditates on it day and night. He meditates on the what? On the instruction, on the word of the Lord. This is not the only passage of Scripture that speaks to this. But he meditates it on it day and night. The word meditate there, it's literally mumbling it to yourself, mumbling over and over, speaking it to yourself, over and over. My wife, uh, her great-grandmother, she was a woman who loved the word of God, and she would memorize the word of God, and they've told stories about how she would, even in her old age, when she was not even able to identify people who'd come to see her, she was still quoting scripture that she had memorized over the course of her life. Literally in her last day, she's still quoting scripture. Our kids have learned verses that have been passed down to through the generations from her. Her name was Grandmother Hayes. And she's still having an impact in future generations because she memorized God's word. She would meditate on it and she would pass it on to her kids, and her kids pass it on to their kids, and their kids pass it on to our kids. And it's like it's been so amazing to watch how God's working through the word. And one of those verses in particular was Psalm 19, 14. My kids could quote it for you. I won't make the leaf come up here right now and do that, but his eyes got big. But seriously, it says, Let the words in my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Memorizing the word of God and meditating on it. I'm going to put a challenge in front of you. I already said it earlier. This week that you would memorize Psalm 1. You would take the time to do it. I know you guys are awesome at memorizing song lyrics. I've heard you. Let's memorize some word. Let's put the truth into our lives. Let's think about it. Let's meditate on it. Let's speak it to ourselves over and over and over again until we actually believe it. When I was in student ministry, you know, we had we did all the different ways to try to have these uh pictures of what it's like to follow God, obey God, different things. I mean, I can't tell you how many times we did the trust fall, you know, where you stand in the chair and somebody stands behind you, and you talk about, hey, look, you've got to lean back, you've got to trust God. That's faith, is when you actually will fall back and let them catch you. But one of the things we would do periodically to make the point about the voices that the noise that you're hearing is blindfold one of the kids, and we say, okay, listen, here's the deal. Your friend over here, they're gonna be the one you need to listen to. They're the ones that are gonna give you the instruction. Now, everybody else in the room, you guys are just gonna yell, and you're gonna try to distract them, and you're gonna try to keep them from hearing that voice. And so, of course, that blindfolded person, they're so trying to listen and hear the one voice that's leading them to do the right thing. And everybody else is just yelling and making noise. And that's how all of us live our lives. You've got tons of noise coming at you. You've got you've got everything from advertisements and billboards and social media and all this stuff that's coming at you, telling you what to value and where to find happiness. And God's word is the clear voice speaking to you saying, it's only found in me. And so we have to create space in our lives, commit ourselves to being in God's word and listening to what he's actually saying. This word is not just some archaic old book that's disconnected from your reality today. If you have not read this, if you've not read it cover to cover, if you've never spent time in it, I challenge you to do that. This year, maybe make that your goal. Not so that you can get a brownie point or a star in heaven, but so you can actually get to know the God who wrote this word to us personally and wants to show us how we can experience the life He's intended for us. So to be people who are committed to the Word of God. You can only escape the pleasures of the world through the pleasures of the Word. You can only escape the pleasures of this world by understanding that there's a greater pleasure. Because that's you are made for pleasure, made to enjoy, made for happiness. But the second thing we need to root ourselves in, if we're gonna be committed, if we're gonna be people who are like that tree planted by the streams of water, so that when the storm comes, and it's coming, guys, right? In your life. I mean, I don't want to be, you know, bearer of bad news, but anybody who's lived long enough, you know hardship is coming. How are you gonna stand? Well, you've got to be rooted by knowing God's word, meditating on it, knowing truth, listening to the true voice, but also be committed to God's people. Be committed to God's people. And who are God's people? The church. And I'm not talking about just the church building, the church programs. I'm talking about the people of God. Sermons are great to inspire us, but community is what really shapes us. Listening to podcasts and reading good Christian books are great, but what will transform your life is being in communion with people where we're authentic, we're real, we're genuine, we're actually helping each other practice what we say we believe, putting it into motion, right? Not just being a hearer, but a doer of the word. And so we need friendships. We need spiritual friendships. We need healthy people in our lives who actually believe this Bible, believe truth, and aren't just following the ways of the world. We need that in our life. I need it in my life. We used to say to teenagers, going back to student ministry again, friendships determine the direction and quality of your life. If you want to know where your life's headed, just look at your friends. I used to have parents that would come to me and they'd say, Hey, Nick, my kid is running with the wrong crowd that's really influencing the poorly. And I said, Hey, I love you and I love you enough to tell you your kids are the wrong crowd. Because if that's where they are, then that's who they are. And that's who they're becoming. And many times we want to point people outward and we want to blame other people, but our hearts are what we need to own and confess before the Lord. Are you with me? So in our lives, who are you letting speak into your life and influence how you view the world? I don't say it's from a place of condemnation, but a call to freedom and to truth. I mentioned a family member earlier, like I said, who's getting really bad advice from friends. The Bible says wounds from a friend are better than kisses from an enemy. We don't need just people to affirm our sin. We need people to call us to follow truth. We need people to call us to holiness. Part of what's wrong in our world today, and we see this, and it's not a new thing, is that many people believe that it's unloving to actually speak truth into each other's lives. That it's unloving to say that's sinful and you need to stop. You know what's unloving? To see people walk into destructive behavior patterns and beliefs and not say anything at all. That's unloving. And so I say that with all the love in my heart this morning because you and I all need, we all need friends who will speak hard things to us. In love, kindly, not being mean. We need to be committed to God's community, to God's people, to help us grow. Listen, Charles Spurgeon said this. This is for Alex. He loves Charles Spurgeon. Okay. Charles Spurgeon said the half-committed Christian is the most miserable person on earth. He's just enough in the world to be miserable in the presence of God, and he's just enough into God to be miserable in the world. The Bible calls that lukewarm Christianity. It says that when we are half in, you know, obviously that's where the culture wants to swim. But we're miserable at church because we know we've got these issues in our life that we're not turning over to God. And we're miserable in the world because we know that it's wrong. So we're just kind of in this place of misery. And God's saying, come all in. Come all in. Surrender, submit your life to me. And when you do that, the freedom, the joy, the happiness you will experience is beautiful. It's awesome. It's amazing. The enemy lies in your ear and he says, God's holding out on you. He doesn't want you to be happy. He doesn't want you to enjoy life. That's totally lie, totally a lie. He wants what's best for you. So what do you do if you're not feeling it? What if you don't feel like pursuing God? What if today you're sitting here and you're like, I just don't really feel like following God? I really don't know if I've really buy into that or believe that. Well, the Bible tells us that when we aren't feeling it, we can still come to God and ask for help. There are many days I wake up in the morning and I wish, I know, you know, because I'm a because I'm a pastor or an elder at a church, it's like, well, you get, you know, like you're kind of different from me. You never struggle with really wanting to be with God. Whatever. Like, there's mornings I wake up and I just, I'm not, God's not the first thing on my mind. I start thinking about my selfish, selfish things I want to do. But here's what I've learned. I can come to God and I can ask him to help me. And what's beautiful is that when I ask him, he meets me there. There's times when I have to just say, God, today, I don't really want to follow you. I don't really want to obey you. I don't really want to be in your word. But God helped me to want to follow you and chase after you, because I know that that's where happiness is found. I know that's where true joy is found. Not in all the superficial stuff, not in all the temporary stuff. It's in you. You guys who've been here through our Knowing God series, we've been quoting a lot from A.W. Tozer. He's an incredible theologian, a man who walked with God, and I respect him greatly. And he prayed this prayer, and I resonate with this prayer. He uses language I don't use because he uses these and eyes and all that stuff, but but listen to the prayer. He says this O God, I have tasted thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. Oh God, I want thee. I long to be filled with longing. I thirst to be made thirstier still. Give me grace to rise up and follow thee. I love that. Here's a man who I look at and go, man, this guy loved the Lord. He walked with the Lord and he's saying, God, I need your help. Because in myself, I don't want you like I should. I don't thirst after you like I should. Listen, um, I pray that this year you will experience the happiness that God has for you. You're not going to find it in the things of this world. We can enjoy the things of this world, by the way, but they should all point us to the author of happiness, the one who's given us those things. There's not a relationship, there's not a material possession, there's not an experience, there's not a job, there's not enough money in your bank account that can make you truly happy and satisfied. But God can. God can. And He wants you to see that today. He wants you to experience that today. May we not be people who listen to the advice of the wicked or take the path of sinners or join a group of mockers, but we we would be people who are planted by streams of living water. Our roots would go deep. We'll be able to stand firm and actually produce fruit and even in hard seasons. That good things would come out even when it's not going our way, because we are committed to God and not swayed by our circumstances.