Why Bother with God if I'm Already Happy?

The scripture reading comes from Luke 19, starting at verse 1.

Please follow along on the screen or in your Bible.

He entered Jericho and was passing through.

And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus.

He was a chief tax collector and was rich.

And he was not seeking to see who Jesus was,

but on account of the crowd he could not because he was small in stature.

So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him,

for he was about to pass that way.

And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him,

Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.

So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.

And when they saw it, they all grumbled.

He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.

And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord,

Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor.

And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.

And Jesus said to him,

Today salvation has come to this house,

since he also is a son of Abraham.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

Amen.

Great. I'd love to introduce our speaker to us this morning.

This morning we are going to be listening to Max Jaganathan,

who is originally from Sri Lanka, but moved to Australia at a young age.

And having grown up in Australia, he then studied law and politics,

both at the National University of Australia as well as University in Oxford.

He has also worked advising political leaders in Australia,

and he now works for RZIM as a speaker and also regional director

for the Asia-Pacific branch of RZIM.

Max is a friend of Watermark.

He has spoken here before.

He leads a fantastic team of speakers and apologists,

and it really is a great privilege to have him speaking to us today

on the subject of,

Why do I need God if I'm happy already?

Let's welcome Max Jaganathan to us this morning.

Good morning, Watermark community.

It's such a blessing to be able to share this message with you.

I'm so sorry that I'm not able to be there in person.

It's been a couple of years, I think, since I've been with you physically,

but I remember that time fondly,

and I'm in touch with many from your community pretty regularly.

And so we've been praying for you.

We at RZIM hope things are going well there

as you in Hong Kong come out of the pandemic

and as the Lord calls and leads you

as the Watermark family and community

to great new depths as we approach this Christmas season

and into the new year ahead as well.

I want to talk to you about a topic that I think is

as important and relevant as it ever has been

as we continue to battle our way through a post-truth culture,

a post-truth world,

and trying to make sense of what that actually means,

and particularly what that means for the big questions in life.

And when we think about how much hostility there is,

how much uncertainty there is,

how much volatility there is,

how much anxiety there is out there in the world

for so many different reasons,

this question often comes up,

why bother with God if I'm happy?

Now, it's an interesting question because,

as I said, with so much negativity around,

it seems that a lot of people aren't that happy.

But a lot of people still remain focused and committed

to this idea that if they can find a way to find happiness

and achieve happiness for themselves,

and they don't need anything else,

we've built for ourselves individual self-focus models

and paradigms of fulfillment.

And if we can make things work relatively well most of the time,

according to those paradigms of fulfillment,

then we think that we don't need anything else.

And it all stems from this transactional mindset

that we seem to have lulled ourselves into.

And some of that can be understood through simply

the global systems that we've created for ourselves,

whether it's our economic and financial systems,

whether it's our geopolitical and geographic systems

of people movement.

It's very transactional.

You give and you get.

It's all driven by supply and demand.

And so when we go to the shops and we buy something,

we give and we receive.

And so it's easy to think that what we are seeking to achieve

is this transacted happiness,

where you just do certain things that make you happy.

And the better you do them, the more happy you become.

And once you have that level of happiness,

that's all you really need.

You don't need to look any further than that.

But the problem is we continue to struggle,

both inside our own hearts and in the world around us that we see.

It seems like happiness isn't quite cutting it.

And so I want to talk about three things today.

Three things.

Three answers to the question,

why bother with God if I'm happy?

And the three things are these.

Because truth is indispensable.

Because suffering is unavoidable.

And because happiness is not enough.

Because truth is indispensable,

suffering is unavoidable,

and ultimately happiness is not enough.

And we see some of these themes come through

in the biblical story of Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector,

this guy who is of enormous economic and financial power and influence,

but is socially excluded,

is socially and culturally ostracized from his very own community.

And he's hated amongst his people.

And yet he has built for himself, as we all do,

a paradigm of fulfillment through wealth,

through financial wealth.

Now, we don't all do it through financial wealth,

but obviously financial affluence is a big and very common model

of prosperity and achievement and success today.

But we don't always do it in the way Zacchaeus did.

But we all have our paradigms of fulfillment.

Zacchaeus has happened to be financial affluence,

and perhaps even political influence,

given how senior he was.

We know he was a chief tax collector.

But in the midst of that,

we still see that he found it in himself that morning

to go and see Jesus,

to go and get a look at this Jesus.

Now, clearly, something else was needed.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered.

If he was really happy,

why bother going to see who this Jesus is?

Even if you weren't entirely sure who he was

or whether this whole thing was a hoax,

why would you bother going to see Jesus?

So why bother with God if you're happy?

Because truth is indispensable,

suffering is unavoidable,

and happiness is not enough.

Let's have a look at this

with a little bit of regard to Zacchaeus' story,

but more importantly,

with a stronger focus on your and my heart individually.

And it doesn't really matter where you are,

on that walk with God,

on your wrestle with God,

on your struggle with God,

or perhaps even in your rejection of God.

I hope this is relevant for you.

There's a sociologist called George Ritzer.

There was a sociologist, an American sociologist.

And he talked about the cultural and economic phenomenon

called McDonaldization.

And McDonaldization,

he referred to in the context of four things.

Efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control.

And of course, he was referring to the fast food chain.

But what he was also talking about

was this cultural and psychological reality

that more and more,

people simply just want what they want when they want it.

And then they get on with their lives.

That's it.

It's all about material needs and material wants.

So McDonaldization very much fits in some ways

with Zacchaeus' life.

You know, just get wealthy,

get what you need,

get what you want quickly.

That kind of drive-through culture,

that Amazon,

that kind of immediate click,

one-click culture that we have moved into.

And of course,

the industrial and computing revolutions

have really sped this up and helped this out.

And if anything,

the pandemic has actually accelerated this

because we are ordering more and more and more things

from food to groceries to electronics to clothing

to music to multimedia entertainment,

whether it's Netflix or Amazon Prime,

whatever it is,

we're all just ordering it

and having it delivered literally to our doorsteps

or to our screens,

to our handheld devices.

So McDonaldization,

which Ritzer actually came up with,

I think, in the 50s or 60s,

has been accelerated through the last,

not just 10 to 15 years,

but particularly you can make the case disproportionately

in the last 12 to 24 months as well.

So why then would we bother?

If we can have the things that we want,

if materially at least,

even in the context of entertainment,

in the context of short-term pleasure and desire,

if we can have everything we want,

why would we bother with God?

Well, the first point I want to make

is that truth is indispensable.

Truth is indispensable.

And we see this in Zacchaeus' response

to the news that Jesus is coming to town.

He's wealthy.

He's stinking rich, in fact.

And he's full of economic and cultural power.

He's in with the Roman authorities.

And yet he still knows that something is not quite right.

And so he gets up and he comes.

He comes and he climbs the sycamore tree

just to get a glimpse of this Jesus.

He's looking for something.

And I want to suggest to you

that he's looking what we are all looking for.

On some level,

one of the things that Zacchaeus is looking for that day

and that we are all looking for is truth.

Absolute objective truth.

Because the post-truth culture

will tell you that truth doesn't really matter.

That what matters more are your feelings.

Your feelings are the most important thing.

And yet we know that the denial or rejection of truth

fails on two very important fronts.

It fails logically

because you simply can't deny the existence of absolute truth.

without affirming it.

And it also fails experientially

as we see some from Zacchaeus

and from our own hearts too.

Because every human heart longs for truth.

Longs for coherence.

Longs for a better understanding of reality.

Right?

So what about the logical flaw?

Let me start with that.

Denying truth fails logically.

We know this

because if anyone says to you

truth does not exist,

all you have to say to them

is to say,

was that statement true?

Was that statement that you just said,

was that true?

Now, you've asked them

a propositional binary question.

They have to either say yes or no.

They say,

there's no such thing as truth.

You respond,

was that true?

If they say yes,

then they are making

an objective truth claim,

an absolute truth claim,

and thereby,

they are denying and detracting

from the substance

of what they're trying to say.

So they're admitting

that the substance of their claim is false

because they're admitting

that they're trying to make a truth statement.

If they say no,

it's not true,

then once again,

they're admitting

that the substance of their statement

is false.

So whichever way you answer that question,

we see that truth exists.

We see that that statement,

truth does not exist,

implodes on itself.

It implodes before it even gets off the runway.

It doesn't even take off.

And we're not using Christian principles

or any kind of religious principles

or metaphysical assumptions here.

These are just very simple,

widely accepted principles of logic.

Aristotle called it

the law of non-contradiction.

You can't try and deny

the existence of absolute truth

because you have to make

an absolute truth claim

in order to do that.

So we know logically and philosophically,

before we even open the Bible,

that absolute truth exists.

Absolute truth does exist.

And we can know it

because any denial of those two things

implodes on itself logically.

And when we look at the Christian message,

we see something incredible.

We see that the means to truth

is exactly what we would expect

the means to truth to be

if we were following the principles of logic.

And Plato is helpful here,

the ancient Greek philosopher.

He said,

all you have to do to find truth

is follow the evidence to where it leads.

Just follow the evidence to where it leads.

Follow the evidence to where it leads.

And when we look in the Bible,

what we see again and again and again

is an invitation to question,

is a presentation of evidence,

propositional evidence,

historical evidence,

philosophical evidence.

Ultimately,

the person of Jesus Christ

who turns up

and doesn't say simply,

this is the truth,

this is the truth,

this is the truth.

He does make a number of truth claims

and backs them up in many ways,

but ultimately he points to himself

and he says,

I am the truth.

So we know that to find truth,

we have to follow the evidence

to where it leads.

And we know that in this Christian message,

we are presented with propositional evidence.

And both inside and outside the Bible now,

if we look,

there is evidence,

mountains and mountains of evidence.

If we are willing to engage with it

and to follow it to where it leads.

And Zacchaeus,

interestingly that morning,

he did exactly that.

He was looking for something beyond his life.

He was looking for truth.

He knew that there was something

about the way he was living

that wasn't quite in keeping

with the nature of reality itself.

And so he followed the evidence

and finally he followed it to Jesus

and then followed Jesus.

So any denial of truth

proves itself to be contradictory

and falsifies itself

in the process of trying to deny truth.

We know that truth is indispensable.

But secondly,

and perhaps even more powerfully,

even if you put that logical

and philosophical stuff aside,

the truth is just a very natural yearning

of every human heart.

We're all looking for truth.

Many of you will be familiar

with the old Jim Carrey movie,

The Truman Show,

where Truman Burbank is living

what seems to be an idyllic kind of life.

You know,

in a town that's clean,

there's no crime,

he has a job,

he has friends.

But of course,

the premise of the entire movie

is that it's all a lie.

Everyone in his life

and in that town is an actor,

except him.

He was taken as a little baby,

adopted by a multi-billion dollar

media corporation,

and his entire life

was turned into a reality TV show,

streamed live over cable,

24 hours a day,

seven days a week.

And Truman doesn't know this.

And the whole movie

is about him discovering by chance,

through a series of strange occurrences

in his life,

that his life is in fact a lie.

And then trying to escape.

And the whole movie,

we as the audience,

doesn't matter what you believe

or who you are,

you are cheering for Truman.

We are rooting for him

to break out of this lie.

Because no one wants to live a lie.

No one wants to live a life

based on betrayal,

or based on deception,

or based on incoherence.

The truth is indispensable,

yes,

because it's logically

and philosophically indispensable,

but perhaps more powerfully,

because it's experientially

and existentially indispensable.

None of us want to live a lie.

None of us want to be lied to.

None of us who are in relationships

want to be cheated on.

None of us who are in friendships

want to be betrayed.

None of us want to be deceived.

We all know that there's something

intrinsically wrong with that.

And you don't need to be a Christian

to sense that

and to be honest about that feeling.

So why bother with God

if we're happy?

Number one,

because truth is indispensable.

And if you follow the evidence

to where it leads,

as Zacchaeus found,

as I have found,

as many, many of you have found,

it will lead you

to the person of Jesus Christ.

But you've got to follow it

like Plato said.

You've got to follow it

to where it leads.

We can't simply follow the evidence

while it's comfortable,

while it's convenient,

while we agree

with where it's leading us.

No.

We have to follow it

all the way to where it leads

and it will lead you

to the person of Jesus Christ.

Truth is indispensable.

Secondly then,

suffering is unavoidable.

There's a famous novel

called Gilead

by a great writer

called Marilynne Robinson.

She won a Pulitzer Prize

for this novel.

And in that novel,

she makes two very powerful statements.

She says,

and it's a fictional book,

of course,

but she says,

there are two realities

that plague all of creation.

My insufficiency to the world

and the world's insufficiency to me.

There's something very insightful

about that.

She's basically just saying,

it doesn't matter how hard I work,

how well I do,

how happy I think I am.

There's always something about me

deep down that doesn't feel quite right.

And there's always something

at the same time

about the world out there

that doesn't seem quite right.

It doesn't matter what we do,

I know the reality is

that I'm imperfect

and the world is imperfect.

And because of those two realities,

there is always going to be

suffering in the world.

Suffering is probably

the most ubiquitous

human condition there is.

We all deal with it.

It doesn't matter who you are

or what you believe

or what you don't believe.

Everyone suffers

and everyone at any given moment,

even right now,

I'm sure you're all dealing

with elements of suffering

in your life

or at the very least,

you're dealing with the suffering

of people very close to you

who are going through

even more visceral suffering

at the moment.

We all suffer.

And so,

in response to the question,

why bother with God

if we're happy,

we still have to have

a response to suffering.

And any worldview

that desires to be taken seriously

has to have some kind of a response

to the problem

and the reality

of human suffering.

And to their credit,

most worldviews out there

have some kind of a response.

And I'm not going to go

into them specifically.

I'm not going to name them.

But the broad categories

of response

are very clear.

There is one category

of worldview

that says,

look,

there is a God out there

and he recognizes

that there is suffering,

but it's just his will.

You just have to shut up

and deal with it.

He has no moral connection

or moral obligation

to you or your suffering.

He doesn't need

to explain himself.

You don't even have the right

to ask him about your suffering.

Just shut up and deal with it.

It's his will.

There's another category

of worldview

that says that suffering

is all the direct fault

of the sufferer.

So it's because of something

you have done.

All suffering is caused

by the individuals

who are experiencing

that suffering.

They did something

either in this life

or perhaps in a previous life

and that's why

they're suffering.

There's another category

of worldview

that says,

and this is a curious one,

that all suffering

is an illusion.

It's only because

of your state of mind

that you are suffering.

And to this worldview,

the response to suffering

is to meditate ourselves

out of that desire

so that we can then

be free of all desire

and therefore free

of all suffering.

So the reason you struggle

when you lose a family member

is because you love them,

you desired them,

you were attached to them.

So if you meditate yourself

out of that desire

when you lose a family member

or lose a job

or lose a friendship,

then you won't suffer

because you don't care.

And ultimately,

this worldview culminates

in the complete extinguishing

of the self.

You meditate yourself

completely out of all desire,

out of all consciousness.

Then there's a fourth category

of worldviews

which are the atheistic worldviews.

And if they are being honest

with you,

honest with us,

their response to suffering

is that suffering

is meaningless.

Because if the atheist

is being honest,

then everything is meaningless

because,

as Richard Dawkins would say,

we are simply time

plus matter plus chance.

And to paraphrase him directly,

in that kind of a world,

some people are going to get rich,

some people are going to suffer,

some people are going to get raped,

some people are going to get killed,

some people are going to get lucky,

and there just isn't any reason

or meaning to any of it.

Now,

when you look at these

four categories of worldview,

I don't know about you,

but I find them both

intellectually

and more importantly,

experientially,

not all that compelling.

Because in the midst

of suffering,

there is something

we are all looking for,

no matter what we believe.

We are looking for comfort

and strength

in the suffering,

and we're also looking

for a narrative

of redemption

and restoration

beyond the suffering.

So comfort and strength

in the suffering,

and the hope

of something better

beyond the suffering.

And once again,

when we look

to the Christian message,

we see an incredible

response to suffering,

not just an acknowledgement

of it,

not just a God

who knows it's happening,

but a God

who doesn't say

it doesn't mean anything,

he doesn't say

just shut up

and take it,

he doesn't say,

he doesn't throw down

a bunch of philosophies

or theories

to meditate around it,

he literally steps down

into the suffering

as a person

and suffers for us.

And not only that,

takes all of the suffering

of humankind

and brokenness

and anxiety

and imperfections

and struggles

and guilt

and shame,

takes it all

onto himself

and dies

on a cross

for us.

This is a God

who came into the world

to step into our suffering.

That was the primary reason

for which he came

into the world.

A God who suffered

for us

and now

a God who is willing

to suffer

with us.

If we are willing

to take his hand,

Jesus says,

take my hand

and we will conquer

through the suffering.

We will conquer

through the suffering.

Now we see

in the life of Zacchaeus,

there must have been suffering.

He was socially,

as I've said,

socially ostracized.

He was psychologically

struggling.

He was experiencing

social exclusion.

He might have been

suffering some mental

ill health

as a result of this.

We know that people

are seeking acceptance.

People are seeking acceptance

and freedom

from guilt and shame

and Zacchaeus had

guilt and shame

in mountains.

Tax collectors

at that time

were probably

the most guilted,

shamed and hated

members of the Jewish community

during the Roman rule.

And so Zacchaeus' suffering,

even amidst

all of his material affluence,

would have been significant.

And he was reaching out

for rescue

in the suffering.

Not for theories

on how to get around it,

not for ways

of how to meditate himself

to detach from it.

He wanted rescue

from it.

And he ran

to find Jesus

as a means of rescue.

And the cross

of Jesus Christ,

which followed

not far after

the story of Zacchaeus,

where Jesus goes

to a cross,

dies for our suffering,

our sins,

our brokenness,

our struggles,

then defeats all of that

by rising from the dead,

affirming and proving

who he is.

Again, getting back

to the evidence,

proving who he is.

Now reaches out,

not just to Zacchaeus,

but to all of us

as a means of rescue

from our suffering

through him

and with him.

And he offers us

the two things

we're all looking for,

comfort, strength

within the suffering

and an eternal hope,

an eternal future

where there'll be

no more suffering

at all.

So truth is indispensable,

suffering is unavoidable,

thirdly and finally,

happiness is not enough.

And this is an important one

because you could make the case

that this is the only answer

that matters.

I think the indispensability

of truth

and the ubiquitousness

of suffering

are deeply relevant.

But the fact that happiness

is not enough

is something

that resonates

with all of us

if we are honest

with ourselves.

And once again,

we see this playing out

in the life of Zacchaeus,

in what actually got him

out of bed

that morning

to go and investigate

this Jesus.

Because on any measure,

the paradigms of fulfillment

that we build now

of wealth

and convenience

and the capacity

to attain

a high quality

of life,

Zacchaeus had all of those things

in many, many ways.

Yes,

he had suffering,

but he also

could have made the case

that if wealth

was all he was looking for,

then he was happy.

But again and again,

we see people

who have followed

and have fulfilled

the paradigms of happiness

that we have built,

whether it's through celebrity,

through professional success,

through sex,

through drugs,

through alcohol,

through Facebook friends,

through Instagram followers,

through financial security,

through status and reputation,

through personal

and social popularity,

whatever it might be,

people get to the top

and then they realize

that it's not enough.

Again,

not to double down

on Jim Carrey

after mentioning

The Truman Show,

but in an interview,

I think way back

in the 90s,

there was a year

where Jim Carrey

was the highest grossing

actor in Hollywood

and he was asked

in an interview,

at the end of the interview,

they said,

do you have a message

for your young fans,

for maybe that actor

who's just starting out,

do you have any words

of wisdom for them

from your experience

of climbing to the top?

Because clearly,

you're at the top

of your profession.

And Jim Carrey paused

and he looked into the camera

and he said,

I wish that all aspiring actors

could see what I see now,

that when you get to the top,

there is nothing here.

That when you get to the top,

there is nothing here.

Happiness is quite simply

not enough.

And when we look

at the Christian message,

once again,

we see why

and we see how

we can find redemption

from this problem.

And it's because of this.

If you look

at secular dictionaries,

at the definition of happiness,

it talks about

a sensory experience,

a feeling.

Happiness is a feeling

that is necessarily temporary

because it's based on

temporary circumstances.

It's based on

the five senses

that we've got

and our external environment

and how our senses

respond to that.

And that could be,

you know,

at a party

or in response to alcohol

or in response to

physical touch

or in response to

a great academic

or financial achievement

or a wedding

or the birth of a child.

It's all about

these events,

these necessarily

temporary events

that we feel something.

Then if you look

at the definition of joy,

the secular definition

of joy,

and what you see

at best

is that joy

is considered

by the world out there

simply to be

a whole lot of happiness.

So the definition

of happiness points to joy

and the definition

of joy points to happiness.

And so most people think

that joy

is just a whole lot

of happiness.

Just a whole lot

of happiness.

A quantitatively different

amount of happiness.

But in the Christian message,

joy and happiness

are not just

quantitatively different.

They are qualitatively different.

Because happiness

is based on

temporary circumstances,

temporary experiences,

a temporary state of affairs.

Whereas joy is based

on eternal circumstances.

It's based on

an up-close

and personal relationship

with God himself

through the person of Jesus.

And that is unchanging.

That is where

followers of Jesus

draw their joy.

It's an outpouring.

And at that point,

joy is something

that you are,

not something

that you feel.

It is permanent,

not temporary.

It is eternal,

not temporal.

And it is something

that transcends

and is immune

to the ups and downs

of the world,

even the suffering

in the world.

So Christians

and others

might feel happiness,

but when you're

a follower of Jesus,

when you're

a follower of Jesus,

you are joy.

And in the midst

of that joy,

your happiness levels

will continue

to go up and down.

Because as Marilyn

Robinson said,

the world is broken

and we are broken.

But there is an underlying

sense of being

and who we are

where we are consistently

and constantly rejoicing

in the reality

of the wonder

that we are in

right relationship

with our Creator.

We know

where we are going.

We have access

to this supernatural love,

to this supernatural rescue

from our suffering

through the person

who is truth itself,

Jesus Christ.

C.S. Lewis put it

really well

as he so often does.

He says,

and I'm paraphrasing him,

he says,

we are too often

and so often

just preoccupied

with making mud pies

in the backyard

that we don't consider

for a moment

the possibility

of a holiday

at the seaside.

And it doesn't mean

that we're not happy

in the moment.

It doesn't mean

that the mud pies

aren't fun.

It doesn't mean

that we can't get

really good

at making mud pies.

But the reality is

that if we are closed off,

if we throw God

out of the picture,

all we are left with

are the paradigms

of happiness

and the systems

of fulfillment

that we build

for ourselves.

And they might work

really well,

but what if there

is something better?

What if there is more?

And when we think

about that possibility,

that God might have

something better for us

than anything we can

put together

in our own strength,

then the answer

to the question

becomes very,

very simple.

Why bother with God

if I'm happy?

Well, quite possibly

because we have no idea

of the kind of happiness

and joy that God

has for us.

Well and truly

above and beyond

even our wildest dreams,

hopes,

and imagination.

Truth is indispensable,

suffering is unavoidable,

and happiness is not enough.

And when we are walking

with the person

of Jesus Christ,

we are backed up

in our beliefs

and our faith

by the propositional evidence,

which is made real

by the personal evidence

of a person

who claims to be

and is the truth,

Jesus himself,

which is then manifested

through relational evidence.

So the indispensability

of truth

is strengthened

and made real

in our lives

three times over.

Through that walk

with Jesus,

we are then restored

through our suffering.

And the Bible says

we conquer

through the suffering.

You don't ignore it,

you don't avoid it,

you don't pretend

it's not real.

Jesus says,

take my hand,

we are going through it.

It's okay,

I've been there before,

I've got this.

And finally,

we get access

to the supernatural joy

that is qualitatively

different to happiness,

not quantitatively different.

And then we are empowered

and strengthened

to go out into the world

and pour out

the love of God

onto the lives

of other people

and point them

to the indispensability

of truth

and point them

to the cross

of Jesus Christ,

which is the greatest response

to suffering

in human history

and point them

to the qualitatively

different transcendent joy

that the message

of Jesus Christ offers us.

Zacchaeus found this

that day.

He found it

because he knew

the truth was indispensable,

suffering was unavoidable

and happiness

was not enough.

And he found

the truth

in a person that day.

He met the truth.

He found restoration

through his suffering

and conquest through it

and a redemptive hope

and a future without it

through relationship

with Jesus.

And then finally

he found that happiness

was simply not enough.

He understood

at the beginning of the day

but even more so

at the end of the day

that for his ultimate

fulfillment and flourishing

he needed something

beyond the temporary happiness

that he could seek

and find himself.

My hope for you today

is that wherever you are

in your walk with God,

in your struggle with God,

or perhaps in your rejection

of God,

that you might continue in

or perhaps commence anew

to search for that truth

that's indispensable

to your heart,

to give your suffering

to this Jesus

who came and conquered

suffering for you

and to seek out that joy

that comes through

all of the yearnings

that we look for

and can ultimately

only be fulfilled

in Jesus Christ.

Forgiveness,

peace,

assurance,

acceptance,

significance

and ultimately joy.

May God bless you.

Thank you for giving me

a hearing this morning.

Take care of yourselves

and I look forward

to seeing you in person

as soon as the Lord wills it.

Cheers.

Great.

Max,

thank you so much

for bringing that word

to us this morning.

Thank you for reminding us

that Jesus Christ

is not only real,

but he's the one

in whom true life

and joy

and purpose

and deep satisfaction

is found.

Friends,

let's respond

to this this morning.

I wonder if some of us here

are followers of Jesus

and yet if we're honest

with ourselves,

we worship Christ

on a Sunday,

but most of our lives

are spent

trying to find meaning

and purpose

and true happiness

outside of Christ

in the things

of our lives.

Maybe we've used God

as a means

to try to find happiness

rather than recognizing

that true joy,

true meaning

and purpose

is found in him.

Maybe some of us

this morning

would not consider ourselves

followers of Jesus

at all.

Maybe we've searched

far and wide

to look for

the meaning

and the purpose

and the deep joy

and satisfaction

that Max has spoken

about this morning.

Maybe you've looked

for it in work

or your career.

Maybe you've looked

for it in your children.

Or maybe you've looked

for it in your parents'

approval.

Maybe in money,

in wealth,

or a romantic relationship

or a partner.

Whether you're a follower

of Jesus this morning

or whether you consider

yourself not spiritual,

whether you're a believer

or you consider yourself

not a believer,

this morning God,

the God who created

the world,

the God who created

you and I

is looking us

in the eye

and he's not only

calling us

to align ourselves

to the truth

of who he is,

he's offering us

an invitation.

He's inviting us

to come and find

hope and joy,

meaning and purpose,

true happiness,

lasting life,

not in the things

of this world

that can so easily

fade and fall away,

but in who he is,

in his everlasting promise

in the person

of Jesus.

I want to give each one

of us a chance

to respond.

And one of the ways

that we respond

is firstly by acknowledging

the things in our lives

that we've looked to

for meaning and purpose,

for joy and satisfaction.

The Bible's got a word

for this.

It's actually the word

repentance.

And when we hear

that word,

it can sound very heavy

and negative,

but actually,

the Bible's invitation

for repentance

is always an invitation

to come and find life,

to find true life.

It's an invitation

to let go of the things

that promise so much

but don't deliver

and to find true life

and joy

in the one

who really does.

I want to ask us

to take a few moments.

Let's take 30 seconds

and just on your own,

think about where is it

that you're looking

for true and lasting joy?

What is the one thing

that you could not

live without?

Let's take a few minutes

and think about that

right now.

If you don't mariage me,

let's take 20 seconds

because you're listening

to this.

Let's take 20 minutes

and see you first

in the 2nd term

to identify you

for true and merkwに

to be able to maintain

your feet

and you want to make

yea

for love and 난

be as good

as possible.

For love and pastor

remember,

and if you're looking

as well asking

to be as the opening

again,

there,

let's try 249 to see

the 프로

andayer,

I hope

and Kane

Will you join me in a moment of prayer?

Let's pray together.

Oh, sovereign God, the one who created everything in existence,

and yet the one who invites us to come and call you Father.

Jesus Christ, the one who walked the dusty roads of this world,

who saw the pain in the eyes and felt the tears of those that are hurting,

those who looked in the eye of those that had looked for meaning and purpose in so many places and felt empty.

Oh, Holy Spirit, the one who is alive and real and at work in our lives now,

we come before you now, and we ask you, God, to come and invade our lives.

We ask you, God, to open the eyes of our hearts to see what it is that we've been looking to for meaning and purpose,

where we've sought for joy and happiness.

And God, come and help us to see that all those things are truly, ultimately, found in you.

They're not found in a concept.

They're not found in a religion.

They're not found in a philosophy or in a teaching.

They're found in a person, the person of Jesus Christ, the living God.

God, we ask you to, more than that, won't you pour faith into our hearts?

Won't you help us to trust you?

Won't you help us, God, to see that the invitation you offer to us and to say yes?

God, we want to say we're sorry for looking in everywhere apart from you,

looking to our jobs and our families, to romance and to our wallets,

for the things that only you can give us, true meaning, true purpose, true satisfaction,

true life and happiness, faith, and everlasting joy.

Jesus, we come before you now and say, have your way in our life.

Come and have your way, we pray.

We pray this in your gracious, your compassionate, your sympathetic,

and yet your sovereign name.

Amen.