James 1:13-15, “When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
Today’s sermon is about desire. Everyone has it and we all want to fulfill our desires. But how many of our desires are godly desires and how much will fulfilling our desires really accomplish in making us happier? How many of the fulfilled desires from your past are still making you happy today? Is life just a meaningless chasing after the wind, or is there a simple path to contentment?
That’s what I hope to uncover for us in today’s sermon, “Living The Simple Life Pt II: When You Can’t Be Satisfied.”
I was watching a new show the other day called, “I Want That.” It’s a new HGTV program about all the latest and greatest gadgets that people just have to have: kitchen good, BBQ’s, gadgets: you name it, they’ve got it… And if you watch it long enough, you’ll find something you want, guaranteed… There’s always something to be wanted in life.
Desire is an endless emotion in every person here today, believer or not.
Everyone here desires something. Some of our desires are healthy, and others aren’t…
What is it that you want today, to make your life happier?
If you could have anything you want right now, what would it be?
Some of us want financial security; others want some rest and relaxation, recreational toys or vacations. Some of us would rather find that true love… Whatever it is, we all have our desires.
The question is does that thing have potential for long-term satisfaction or short-term satisfaction?
Is it a healthy desire, or an unhealthy desire?
Illustration: When I talked my wife into letting me fulfill a life long desire: buying a Ferrari.
When I was young, I had a poster on my wall. It had a beautiful, red Ferrari on it… And I told my sister, “Some day, I’m going to have a Ferrari.” She said, “I believe you because when you say you’re going to do something, you do it…” Since then, I’ve always wanted a Ferrari…
At some point in our marriage, I told Jennifer that one of my life desires was to have a Ferrari, and over time, I was able to convince her to allow me to purchase one… She actually gave me permission to spend $50,000 on a pre-owned Ferrari Testarossa or a 348, and I researched them for weeks… I knew exactly how much the insurance would cost and how often the car would need maintenance… But but the more I researched it, the more I realized all I was going to do was spend a lot of money on another car… A CAR! Was it going to give me long-term satisfaction?
The point is, we all want something, and nobody’s satisfied till we have everything, but once we have everything we realize it’s nothing and we go back to being dissatisfied about not having something.
The one thing that always eludes us is; the thing we can never grab hold of is satisfaction!
WHY IS THAT? It’s because we’re filling the void with all kinds of empty calories…
You know what I mean by empty calories… Like when you’re hungry and in a hurry. You eat something quick. It doesn’t have to be healthy; all it has to do is fill the immediate need.
But in the long run, that junk food: those empty calories make for an unhealthy body and a lot of the things we fill our hearts and homes with are just empty calories: things that satisfy our desires for a little while, but in the long run are very unhealthful to our souls.
Take for example: Stan. He’s a 40-year-old man. He’s married, has 4 kids, a white 2002 Cadillac SUV with 35,000 miles, a fishing boat and a flat screen TV in his 5 year old house. He’s the shipping manager at a warehouse where’s he’s worked for 15 years, and the mortgage on his home is half way paid off. You’d thing he has every reason to be happy with life, but he’s not.
Stan is dissatisfied with life because he’s 40 years old and he feels like everything he’s worked for has amounted to nothing. What has he done with the last 20 years: the most productive years of his life? He spent them climbing the corporate ladder and paying for things he doesn’t care about any more… Let’s face it: 3 years ago the Cadillac was incredible. Self-warming seats, 4 wheel antilock disc breaks, the pearl paint job… He got a kick out of driving that around for a while, but today, it’s just another mode of transportation and he has to pay $500 a month for it.
He never uses the fishing boat they bought because he doesn’t have enough time or energy, and he’s depressed because life seems pointless… Like an endless circle of making and spending money on things he doesn’t even cares about. How does Stan put meaning and pleasure back into his life?
He’s going to have to start with meaningful relationships… Primarily the one God has been trying to remind Stan about all this time: His relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Stan is at a point many people reach at some point in life: it’s called a mid-life crisis:
A time in life when you begin to wise up and realize life is half way over and I’ve wasted a lot of time running after things that can’t bring me any real satisfaction.
Stan needs change, and everyone here today who still believes that obtaining that one thing that eludes you today: whether it’s money or love, achievement, things, success, popularity, whatever it is will bring you ultimate happiness needs to learn something from Stan:
And that is, if you fill your desires with temporary satisfaction, you will never be fully satisfied. The void in your heart has to be filled with healthy, long-term satisfaction and that can only come from a healthy, long-term source… If you want lasting, eternal satisfaction, you need to go to a lasting, eternal source, and that source is Jesus Christ. That relationship alone determines where you will be spending your years without end…
? Are you dissatisfied or discontented with something missing in your life? WE ALL ARE!!!
Good news: your Father in Heaven wants you to experience life in all its abundance…
But, as with just about everything He tells us, achieving satisfaction in life is accomplished in a way quite contrary to the way we would naturally go about finding it. We’d love to run and find it in all the stuff that we want, but the Word of God says, “…seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matt 6:33
God is saying, learn to seek my will first. Learn to please Him FIRST! God wants you to develop a pattern of servanthood and submissiveness… That’s what tithing is all about, that’s what marriage is all about, and the process the prophet Jonah had on the boat from last week’s sermon: it’s about developing in us a submissive spirit and placing God’s will before my own.
That’s the beginning of happiness: simplifying your desires begins with seeking God first.
If you can’t learn that, what makes you think you’ll ever be able to love anyone other than yourself?
First, find God and build your relationship with The Lord, then all these other things will be added to you as well… After all, WHO REALLY IS THE PROVIDER in your life? Is it you?
If it is, I feel sorry for you because you have very limited resources.
Let God be your provider. That’s where satisfaction begins.
Make Him priority and He will add the rest to make you prosper, even as your soul prospers..
Now, the beginning of King Solomon’s reign gives us a classic example of someone who went after God’s Kingdom and righteousness first and received the rest as a result… One night, “…God appeared to Solomon and said to him, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you." 2 Chr 1:7
Solomon could have asked for anything from God…
But he was submitted to God and he said, “Give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may lead this people,” 2 Chr 1:10
His request was that he might have the wisdom to serve God in leading His people…
2 Chr 1:11-12, “God said to Solomon, "Since this is your heart’s desire and you have not asked for wealth, riches or honor, nor for the death of your enemies, and since you have not asked for a long life but for wisdom and knowledge to govern my people over whom I have made you king, therefore wisdom and knowledge will be given you. And I will also give you wealth, riches and honor, such as no king who was before you ever had and none after you will have.”
Since you searched out the things of God first, I’ll add all these other things to you!
The words of Jesus in Matthew 6:33, “…seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” proved true even 1,000 years before He spoke them.
God is the same yesterday, today and forever! Put HIM first, make HIM your provider and you will find lasting satisfaction for your souls…
Now Solomon was a pretty scientific guy, and when he reached a mid life crisis of his own, he decided to conduct an experiment, to discover what really is worth obtaining in this life.
So he decided to do whatever he thought might make him happy… He decided, “Hey, I’m rich… There’s no one richer than I am, there’s no one wiser than I am… I’m going to pursue all of the world’s greatest achievements, and in the end I’m going to use my wisdom to share with everyone so they’ll know how to live and what’s worth living for…” That’s what the books of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs were all about…
If you had unlimited resources and endless riches, if you could buy anything you desired or do anything you wanted, if you could marry anyone, or as many people as you wanted, would any of it really make you happy? Well, King Solomon was off to find that out, because he could, and he did!
Eccl 2:3-26, “I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly-- my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.
4 I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards.
5 I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.
6 I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees.
7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me.
8 I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces.
I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well-- the delights of the heart of man.
9 I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.”
King Solomon made a very interesting discovery at the end of his mid life crisis in VS 11…
11 “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”
AFTER ALL THIS, I GAINED NOTHING SIGNIFICANT? NOTHING!!!
Ecc 2:17 “So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”
I HATE LIFE. I AM GREATLY DISSATISFIED BECAUSE EVERYTHING I HAVE DONE IS MEANINGLESS: empty calories friends… All that stuff is empty.
His experiment concluded that attaining all our worldly desires just ends in emptiness: dissatisfaction.
SO SOLOMON DREW UP A SIMPLE, SHORT LIST SOME CONCLUSIONS FOR US POOR PEOPLE, who don’t have all the resources and freedoms that he had to find that out for ourselves…
THE KEYS TO HAPPINESS AND SATISFACTION IN LIFE, and HERE THEY ARE:
I: QUIT MEDITATING ON YOUR SELFISH DESIRES.
The more you fantasize about them, the less satisfied you become…
Illustration: The happily married man who found temporary satisfaction in the arms of a mistress…
He failed to think of the consequences of his actions and when he finally came to his senses he was destroyed, upset, distraught. Having done irreparable damage to his wife, children and family to fulfill a burning desire, having risked it all to run off with his idea dream girl, he realized all he had done was hurt everyone he loved and ended up worse off in the long run than he ever had been: unsatisfied, feeling worthless, dejected and separate from God…
What had he done and what did he gain from all his efforts? Just more grief…
CONSIDER THE COST OF HAVING WHAT YOU WANT:
- To you.
- To your family / friends
- To your soul
Illustration: the runaway girl.
"Longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted to see the world. Discontent with a home having only a pallet on the floor, a washbasin, and a wood-burning stove, she dreamed of a better life in the city.
One morning she slipped away, breaking her mother’s heart. Knowing what life on the streets would be like for her young, attractive daughter, Maria hurriedly packed to go find her. On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing. Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself.
With her purse full of small black-and-white photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janiero. Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do things that were before unthinkable. Knowing this, Maria began her search.
Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes. She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture - taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note.
It wasn’t too long before both the money and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home. The weary mother wept as the bus began its long journey back to her small village.
It was a few weeks later that young Christina descended the hotel stairs. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth, but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds for her secure pallet. Yet the little village was, in many ways, too far away. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother.
Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation. ’Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.’
She did."
James 4:1-2, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.”
SELFISHNESS IS AT THE HEART OF ALL EVIL.
To the BTK killer, everyone else was just an object in his world, for his pleasure.
He compartmentalized everyone not in his family as an object: the epitomy of selfishness and the heart of all evil!
LEARN TO LIVE FOR MORE THAN SELF.
I WANT THAT! I want to be first in line, I want to have all the attention, I want what he has or she has, I want, I want, I want… It’s all about me. And when I have, I feel worthless.
How is it that investing so much in myself “because I’m worth it” makes me feel so worthless?
Because an empty vessel is a worthless vessel, and it is thrown away.
An unproductive fruit tree is worthless. It is torn up and burned.
In the same way, an unproductive person lives a worthless life if all he invests in is himself.
The man who lives for himself is engaged in a very small business.
Submission is the call of the Gospel of Jesus Christ…
Learn to love the people around you more than your desire to have what you want.
Jesus had no place to lay His head…
He said in Matthew 8:20, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
He was homeless for you. We can learn to lay aside ourselves for the better of others too.
He’s asking us to pick up our cross and follow Him. Sometimes it stinks to lay down my life so someone else can be first, but life’s not all about me… Jesus said life is about serving others. There’s a reward in the end and it comes to he who perseveres to the end.
Evaluate your wants and needs. Talk it over with God and listen to His direction to bring you satisfaction with that He’s given you.
II: LEARN TO APPRECIATE WHAT YOU HAVE!
Eccl 3:12-14, “I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-- this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.”
- Look at the positive side of life! I know people who have to walk to the store, to work and everywhere they go, and they’re still thankful. Thank God for what you DO have!
Ecc 2:24-26, “A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God,
25 for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?
III: BUILD YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD, FOR WITHOUT HIM –
NO ENJOYMENT! HAPPINESS IS FOUND IN KNOWING AND SERVING GOD.
26 “To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”
- Submit yourself fully to Him!
- Invest in healthy, long lasting satisfaction.
CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER:
As we learned last week, the key to living a simple, uncluttered life is getting rid of all the baggage and totally submitting yourself to God… That’s where happiness begins: in a position where we are fully submitted to God.
SOLOMON’S FINAL WORDS CONCERNING SATISFATION IN LIFE: SIMPLE…
Eccl 12:13-14, “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”
Once you’ve managed to toss out the unnecessary things that are sucking the life out of you, hours at a time (simplifying life), you must learn to simplify your desires…
GET BACK IN LINE WITH GOD!
Matt 6:24-34, “"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.
29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 So do not worry, saying, ’What shall we eat?’ or ’What shall we drink?’ or ’What shall we wear?’
32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Conclude with the song, “Cast your cares upon Jesus.”
