Finding The Door To Happiness Series

• Going to move forward under the assumption that people here this morning do want to be happy, want to live life to the maximum and want to know what God might have to say about it. DO NOT LIVE LIFE MINIMALLY!

• FOUR STATEMENTS that will help us to get a sense of what it means to find and live that ABUNDANT LIFE.

HAPPINESS CAN ONLY COME FROM A LIFE OF FOLLOWING THE SHEPHERD’S PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE: 7 So Jesus said to them again, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

• The DOOR TO HAPPINESS is found only in one place: That place is not more money –better circumstances – right relationship – better house or car – perfect vacation. Some of the happiest Christians I have met, the most satisfied and joyful were in Brazil and had very little or almost nothing compared to the average person in a American church pew.

• The DOOR to HAPPINESS is not a PLACE but a PERSON: Happiness begins by getting Jesus in the right place in your life.

Doors are what we put in places that allow us to enter into where we want to go.

Old story of the guy who decided to visit the wrong church. Not long after the service started the deacons started pulling poisonous snakes out of sacks to hand to those in the congregation to hold to demonstrate their faith. As the snakes were being handed out closer in his direction he asked the guy next to him where the back door was. The man said there isn’t one. ‘Where do you think they would want one’. When I am motivated to move from where I am to where I need to be THE DOOR IS KEY

• If you are going to find you goal of happiness you need to understand that it is only accessible through one entrance point.

• That entrance point is not one of the many doors we have here at the church. We have 20 exterior doors that will allow you to get inside HBBC and many more after you get inside that allow access to many of our rooms. Just getting inside the building and inside this room is not the entry point to a life of true happiness.

Lynne and I visited the church in Williamsburg, VA. 25 years ago one of the unique characteristics was that individuals had their own pews. Not like today where people tend to always sit in the same place but these people bought and paid for pews. Pews with doors that had locks on them. Happiness is not found by sitting on the right pew. If I told you that sitting on the front pew would bring true happiness I am afraid some would say, ‘I’ll stick with being miserable thank you’. Entry point is not a particular pew.

• The entry point for happiness is found in a true relationship with the One who died for you and offers to you a life of meaning and joy. JESUS!!

HAPPINESS CAN BE LOST BY MISSING THE SHEPHERD’S PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE: 8 "All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. (doesn’t’ matter what other plan you choose it is that you miss His)

• There is tremendous loss for a life missing what God has planned for it.