we are in week two of a series entitled christian atheist and a christian. Atheist can be defined as really somebody who says they believe in God but they live like he doesn't exist. And so the basis for our series, it comes from a book that was written several years ago by pastor Craig Rochelle, which you can actually, that was the book that Larkin reference that you can go out and purchase. And then we're taking a deeper dive with fresh original messages here too into this topic of why is it that christians have a bad rap? Why is it that in public? When when someone says the word christian, it's usually followed up with a negative connotation in news media and social media today? Well I think it's because sometimes we are guilty of saying we believe one way and then we live another way. And last week we talked about the barrier of what happens when you say that you believe in God, but you don't actually know him. And we shared how truly knowing God, truly knowing him is not about information, but it's about transformation and that to know God is to love God and to love God is to obey God. And so today we want to talk about the topic of happiness. So what happens when you say you believe in God, but you pursue happiness at any cost and you actually make happiness the God or the idol in your life and you're willing to do anything in pursuit of that, a nurse brawny wear made headlines several years ago, she was out of Australia, She was a nurse who would take care of patients in palliative care. So patients in their last few days and weeks of life and through years of taking care of these patients in their last days, these patients would often share with her their most common regrets in life. And ultimately she compiled that and actually wrote a book called the top five regrets of the dying. And so in these patients at the end of life, they actually shared. Um and these were some of the most common regrets of people in their end of days. People said I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself and not the life others expected of me. Others said I wish I hadn't worked so hard. Some said, I wish I had the courage to express my feelings. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends and family and the last one is I wish that I would have let myself be happy. That's an interesting concept. Let myself be happy. See sometimes I think we pursue life where we have to go after and get and get and do all we can and work all we can to get everything we can and then we get to the end of life and and what you never hear is we were like, man, I really wish I put more time and the things that didn't matter. I don't I don't think anyone's gonna get to the end of life. Like man, I really wish I would have watched more netflix, I really missed out on not scrolling through social media as much as I really should have right? Like we we that's not what people say because you get to the end of life and you want to know that you are loved, you want to know that you have a legacy, you want to know that you matter and you wanna you wanna know what's after and too often in the american dream in our culture where it says get what you can while you can, we almost treat God like he's a cosmic soda machine or a vending machine. It's like I'll work work work, I'll do what I can what I can and it's just myself and I'm gonna do everything I can and then when I need something okay God I'll put in a dollar okay A four, okay that's what I want, I want this one, okay and then a little bit of this God and you hit the button and you wait for it and you treat God like a cosmic vending machine. When the reality is is that he wants a relationship with you, he wants a conversation with you, he wants to be connected to you to bring you the things that you're actually looking for and so if you're taking notes, I want you to write this down and here's the main premise, we're gonna break down this morning and it is this is that happiness is a choice not a chase. Happiness is a choice, not a chase. You know, in 2010 When pastor Craig Craig Rochelle actually wrote the book Christian Atheist, he said there are over 10,000 books on Amazon available right now with the word happy in it. That's a lot a lot of people are searching for it in the self help section and be happy, do this all these things. And then I was just curious and so I went on this week and I checked amazon, can you guess how many books now, just nine years later, There's over 80,000 books available to purchase right now with the word happy in the title, we have more access to information than any generation ever in all of history. And so it's not so much that we're in need of information, but really what people are searching for is meaning why does this matter? And so they search for happiness, But happiness is a choice not to chase because we find ourselves chasing after the things of this world in pursuit of happiness hoping that if I get this, if I have this, if I do this, if I connect to this person, then I will be happy and we turn happiness into an if then statement. But the problem with an if then happiness statement is that as soon as you get that thing, the bar goes up it doesn't satisfy for long. And so we have to stop chasing the things of this world. Well what is it that we chase? I believe we chase three things number one. We have to stop chasing stuff. We have to stop chasing stuff because we're buying more and more and more things as a culture, especially in this area. If I'm just being transparent alright myself included but where we live right, you gotta keep up with the joneses, okay. Unless your name is jones then we're trying to keep up with you But but it's like I gotta have more, Gotta have more and it's all across the board. The average house in America in 1970 was 1500 square feet In 2014, the average house size was 2600 Over 2600 square feet or an increase of 77 in the last 40 50 years. But while we increased our home sizes by 77%, apparently that wasn't enough because actually they started this new industry called Storage units. Okay. And storage units. Alright. Do you, as of last year 2018 there are 50,000 storage facilities currently in the United States. So entire facilities with imagine how many are inside of that Storage unit facilities is currently a $38 billion dollar industry And if you take all of the storage space and you put it side by side, it equals 2.3 billion square feet. Or in other words, four times the size of Manhattan to just hold all of our extra stuff that doesn't fit in our extra space in our extra home. I don't have an extra home. If you have one to share, let me know. But right. The idea is that we want more. Now. There's nothing wrong with a house. Like a house is it's it's it's all moral. It's it's, you know, a brick can be used to build something or it can be a weapon. If you're a small boy looking to go after brother, it's not safe. Okay. We have bricks that open the door right there as a doorstop. Okay. But it can be a weapon. It it's Amoral. It's it's neutral. It's there's nothing good or bad inherently about something. It's how you use it. Well, as a culture, we we continually preach, you have to have more stuff. You have to have more stuff. And if you run out of room, it's okay. Just get more storage and then you get more stuff. And not only do we want more stuff. People crave new. I'm an Apple fan. Okay. You got the laptop. I got the phone. Okay. I don't have the watch, but I probably would if I wore watches. And so I love Apple products. Like it's it's a cultural thing. It's an identity thing, it's like, yeah, Apple all the way. And you know it when you talk to people who are Apple people right? There's Apple people and then there's everybody else. That's what we think at least, right? Like windows, right? Like a new feature comes out on the iphone and like Samsung's had that like three generations ago. We're like, no, but this one's better, right? And like people like, they line up for release of of new devices. I think they have a plot where your device will magically break down right before the new one releases. So then you have to get back in line. Well, to test this idea that people crave new. This is, is a real story. Um you can actually pull the picture. There's an iconic glass apple store in new york city. So to test how much people love new stuff, a group of people literally just threw an apple sign on a glass entrance to the subway station and then a couple of people put on staff shirts and just stood outside the entrance to the subway station. That was it. They didn't say anything. They just stood there with apple shirts outside of a case with a logo and a line started forming no joke Around a couple blocks this massive line, people just started waiting outside of a subway station because they thought there might be a new apple store or product in play. That's how much we long to have our stuff, the most, the richest person, the wealthiest person in the entire world right now is Jeff Bezos the owner ceo of amazon as of last month, He's, you know, just a meager $134.5 billion dollars is his worth. I mean if he wants to come to church here, I'm okay with that too. But, but here is like he made his wealth okay what through an online shopping platform that you can get anything from A to Z. You can literally find anything on amazon. And then prime and we've talked about this before, you've been a regular here. It's messed me up because expectations. Now if something is not at my doorstep within two days I'm like, man, our country, what's going on with our country? We're going downhill. Right? Maybe you've had this experience. I've ordered something that morning and it's been at my house before noon. I don't know how that's even possible when if I were to go to the store and come back, I would not have been there as fast as amazon somehow shipped it to me. But I love it. And so they made, you know what, hey, we're gonna make the checkout system even easier. You know what, just just one click, that's it. You don't have to fill anything out. Just one click. And then by the way, if you even think about something, good luck trying to get it out of your head. Because now every ad you see after you look at one product is gonna be what you just looked at, right? Because an entire industry spends billions of dollars every year to promote to you, that you are not enough. But if you buy this thing, this item, you will be, you can buy happiness, but only for a little bit because we got a new one coming in a year and I want you to buy that too, right? You see how crazy this is, We always think, man, if I buy this, if I have this, if I purchase this, then I will be happy, but it's chasing, it's chasing after the wind secondly, for taking notes, we have to stop chasing status. We have to stop chasing status status is something that you can't always buy even because this was a huge scandal recently in the news with the college admissions scandal where celebrities wanted their kids to be in a certain school and even though they couldn't, they could pay for their child to go to that school, their child didn't get in. And so rather than just simply go to another good school, they wanted that elite status of their child going to a certain spot and so they secretly paid the school money just to let them in and created fake scholarships to let someone in. And so now these famous actors and actresses are likely going to jail or going through this long legal battle because of a bribery case when they really had everything that this world could offer, but they wanted that status for their kids? They wanted that elite level. They want that title, See we do that in Church world too. In fact, in the time of jesus, the one group of people that jesus got mad at was a group called The Pharisees who were started out as people who grew up and they memorized the first five Books of the Old Testament, known as The Torah. So if you memorize, okay, five books of something, Okay, that's that's pretty smart, you're pretty committed. And so they're keeping all the kinds of laws and then they said, you know what not only are we gonna keep the laws, we're gonna create some of our own and then we're gonna be the hall monitors. And make sure that everybody else keeps the laws because we know it better than they do. And so now, because they're feeling good about themselves, they started to elevate themselves, right? Because they have a higher position, they think they have higher power and if they have higher power, then they can exploit other people. So, you've seen this across the board, not just in church settings, but in cultural settings where people in power try to exploit people who are the have nots because they love their status. I find it interesting that in a political climate? I mean, we do have we do live in an age of free speech and I love that. But isn't it interesting that we're curious on what everybody has to say, right, just because someone has a platform now they're an expert in an area, you know, you wouldn't do that for medical reasons. Well, I saw this person in Spiderman, so they must be able to give me medical advice, right? They must be an expert, but right? Think about that, that we do that in other areas, right? They have a platform, They have a status, oh well, they have a status. Therefore what they say must must have weight behind it and it must be true, never mind if they're an expert or they studied the topic or they know the situation. But yet because of this platform is like, oh, we gotta listen to them. Why? Because they have a status, Okay, we have to stop chasing the things of this world because it's not going to make us happy. We have to stop chasing stuff, secondly, we have to stop chasing status and third we have to stop chasing immediate satisfaction. Yeah. At our core, we crave satisfaction in every area of our life. But as C. S. Lewis points out, it's not that our cravings are too too much, but they're actually too low. He actually describes people of this world as why are we so easily satisfied by making mud pies by the sea when we've been invited to an endless feast with the king, john piper coined the phrase christian hedonism and he says that it's not about doctrine and duty, it's ultimately about do you delight in God when you seek to gratify desires of your heart? That ultimate gratification comes from God comes from an eternal place and that when we settle for the counterfeits, when we settle for the knockoffs, when we settle for the less than we miss out and so it's not that we crave just wrong things and we crave too much and like I just have to not have desire, I do not have desire. It's not that it's that we have to actually crave better things and greater things and eternal things and this comes out in every area of life. This idea of satisfaction. This is why people dive into drugs and drinking. They're craving something. Maybe they've gone through a hard time and there's a trigger and there's something that numbs reality or dead ends reality where the things of God actually deepens reality and draws you close. You can binge eat, you can binge watch, you can do a lot of things that satisfy the soul, but only temporarily and then leave you craving more. What's scary is living in a digital age and having the first digital generation of kids today is like there's really hasn't been around long enough to know the effects long term of this digital revolution, right? It's amazing how my three year old can get on my phone and pull up netflix and search through and find stuff on my phone something like I don't even know how you did that. I've shared with some of you before somehow she accidentally changed my name on my phone too. But, and so now when I asked Surrey something, she says sure. But and I'm like, I don't, I don't know how to change that back and say. And so everyone's like, oh we, and this is the water we're swimming in. So we can't just say, oh technology is evil. Do away with it. Let's be Amish and just go away and ride horses and have no power. Like no, that's not, that's not gonna happen right? Because just as we get on students for being on their phones, you go to any conference anywhere. You know what the adults are doing on their phones, taking selfies searching online, posting things to try to get validation, right? This is a human thing. It's not like a kid thing. It's not a teen thing. It's a human thing. And what's scary is social media and apps on our phone because they are financially driven by the longer we stay on our phone, they actually create apps for the purpose of addiction. There's an internal email that I saw on a, I got published online through one app that where the developer actually said this, I want to read the quote here. He said, you know if we don't give their brain time to catch up with their impulses, they'll just keep scrolling the app. So they used to have like it would stop. But now you have endless scroll why? Because your mind will just keep going and we all have an area. Maybe it's not social media, maybe it's shopping, maybe it's sports, maybe it's news, but we all have something that will just keep scrolling mindless endless. Have you ever done that? Right? You're like, man, I'm so busy. Let me just take five minutes and then like 30 minutes goes by and you're like where did the time go? Because they're strategically investing money to keep you addicted to something else so that you always have to update that you always have to post. And then you actually when you post you actually get an adrenaline rush when you rush, when you get that like and so now instead of actually being open with the people next to us and being vulnerable, we post online and we hope that alike matches our validation and we get self worth. See how crazy this is Because as soon as you put your value and how many likes you get on a post? What happens when somebody else's posts gets more likes or what happens if your next posts get less? Does that make it any less true? Is it any less? You do you have less value? Now see this is what we this is why we chase after the win. But see this goes on to actually before we move on, Kerry knew half said this, he says we no longer own our devices. We live in an age where our devices actually own us. And when technology runs us it can ruin us. You know, you can very much post a bible version create community. There's a lot of positive things you can do with technology. There's also a lot of negative. Again, it's ah moral, it's neutral. It's what you do with it. So the question is but where are we seeking? What are we seeking from technology today? We see that in binge, you know, drinking drugs, eating social media, but also when it comes to the topic of sex that God created sex. There's a whole book on it. Okay, God created sex for the context of a man or woman in the context of marriage. And so what God created to be good saying counterfeited and gave a lot of offshoots and say, well you don't need to wait for this. You don't need to do that. You can look at something, you can do this, you can go, you can just feel how you want to feel, be what you want to be, do what you want to do with no repercussions, but we know that's not reality because many of us in the room have been hurt by someone who just did what they wanted to do when they want to do it just because they felt it just have a feeling, doesn't make something right or not, right. And so when you pursue immediate satisfaction, immediate pleasure. It's not that God's against it. Is that he has called us to something greater. And so here's why I say we have to stop chasing those things. We have to stop chasing stuff. We have to stop chasing status. We have to stop chasing immediate satisfaction. Because first of all, it doesn't work. You can chase all those things. But what happens when something difficult comes into your life? When someone gets sick, when someone loses their job? When someone breaks the relationship? Is that status? Is that stuff? Is that immediate satisfaction that you're looking for? Is facebook going to save your marriage? No. Is that new item that you purchased amazon gonna save your relationship? No. Is having a title on your business card. Gonna make you a better father or no? And yet we chase it. The one person that had the most of all of those things. He had the most stuff. He had the highest status. And you could get anything he wanted ever, even richer than Jeff Bezos was a guy in the old testament called King Solomon, who had more not even close more wealth than Jeff Bezos. And he was the king in a sense, leader of the strongest country in the world. Who is the wisest man get access to opium and women and and gold. and I mean he would just build stuff out of gold because he could, so we had the most stuff. He had the highest status and he could be satisfied anyway. He wanted at any time with anything or anybody. He did not keep anything from his self. And so in this case study when he got to the end of his life, do you know what he said? He says in Ecclesiastes, he's 1 14, he says this, it says I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, all of them are meaningless chasing after the wind, it's not worth it. I did it, I have everything and you see this true and culture too. Actor Anthony Hopkins who's um you know famous in a lot of different movies, kind of played some creepy characters and I'm just being honest, but it's very successful, okay. And he got to the end of his life and you know what he actually said, he says um you know when I meet young people they want to act and they want to be famous and I tell them that when you get to the top of the tree there's nothing up there and he says if you chase money it's not going to work. If you chase success, it's not going to work. In fact Anthony Hopkins actually became a raging alcoholic And it was actually going through a 12 step program that actually found faith and realized, oh that's what I was missing. I tried to fulfill myself. I tried to chase the wind and didn't work until I met jesus, you know stuff status satisfaction. None of these things are bad, It's not bad to own a nice home, It's it's not sinful to have nice stuff, but that stuff will never be a savior, that status will never give you power. And that thing that you think is going to give you satisfaction is not gonna last. We have to stop chasing happiness and understand that it's a choice. So what can we choose Number one, we have to start choosing God We have to start choosing God. David, a king himself Ultimately said this in Psalm 37 4, he says take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. John piper says this that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied with him. I've seen people with wealth that are very happy, but as people whose wealth has not defined them. And I've also been in orphanages where the kids literally had nothing, nothing at all. And they had more joy in their faces. Then I've seen most people in our country because that joy of knowing God, choosing God is deeper than anything this world has to offer. In fact, it says in Ephesians chapter two, it says this year, it says that for by grace, you have been saved through faith faith and this is not your own doing it is a gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast, but for we are his workmanship created in christ jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. What's awesome about this passage is that you have been created on purpose and with the purpose. And then when you live with purpose, when you work in your skill set in your gifting in your desire, you are bringing glory to God and you're making a difference among people. So it doesn't matter if you get that promotion. You can have joy. It doesn't matter if you're in that exact spot that you need that. Yet you hate your coworkers and you're frustrated with your boss and it's awful. You can actually choose joy because God has you there for a reason. God has you in a season for a reason. There's a purpose for you. In this difficulty, there's a purpose for you in this valley, there's a purpose for you in this community at this time, he could have chosen any time in all of history. But yet you are born here now in this place, you have been born on purpose and with a purpose and that when you live that out man, you have a contentment that this world cannot touch. And that comes when you choose God. But secondly, choose community, choose community, that can be family, that can be church, be friends, we're not talking about married or single, but it's like, do you have a group of people that you can love and serve? It says in Ecclesiastes 4 12, it says this, let's put up on the screen here, it says, and and though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. We were able to hold each other up and check out what's described here in the in the Church in Acts Chapter Two, it says there, it says, and they devoted themselves to the Apostle's teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers and they can't and all came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were together and had all things in common. And so we have these things and it continues on. But as you see these things here, that the church is that it says that they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as they had in need and day by day attending the temple together, breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord added to their number day by day, those who are being saved, and so you have this picture of community, of love. There are over 51 another passages and scriptures, in fact jesus says this, it says love one another as I have loved you and it's by your love, the world will know you as a christian and you can do that now when you choose community, the last thing is to choose fruit and our grove kids right now, I want to give a quick shout out to them that over the summer, they're actually teaching through the nine Fruits of the Spirit and these these fruit actually have access to them at the moment of salvation. In other words, we get access to the Spirit of God working in our lives so that this can start working immediately and we start to work that out. And so we're working out our salvation, not for our salvation. And so paul writes this in Galatians chapter five, he says this, he says, but the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control against such things. There is no law. Look at that list for a moment. Is there anything that you don't want, man? I just have too much joy in my heart right now, it's been rough, right man, Gosh, I just wish my teenager just would have less self control. No, I'm just to calm. I'm too at peace. I wish I had more turmoil in my life and unrest know why we crave these things. We don't crave them because we're sinners, we crave them because we're human and we've been created in the image of God and when we have the fruit of the spirit, it plays itself out within our life and our love and that's why happiness is a choice. Now, I want to clarify to this is the beginning of a conversation and so when people battle things like mental health and depression understand this, that there are clinical and chemical reasons that people battle things and so if you need to seek help, I want to encourage you to do that and this is a starting place where you are, so your chemistry is not your character but and the things that you have control over, we have to stop chasing stuff, we have to stop chasing status, we have to stop chasing after the things of this world thinking okay, if I get this, I will be satisfied if I have that, I will be satisfied if I get so many likes here, I will be satisfied. Stop chasing. It's exhausting and you're never gonna catch, you're the coyote, not the roadrunner, okay? And some of us think that if we run fast enough and we go off this cliff, we're like well if I don't look down, I'm okay, reality sets in and at some point you look down and like oh I have no foundation what happened, but it changes when you choose God, here's a picture of it, this is actually our discipleship path as a church is that here we exist to help every man, woman and child experience jesus and we want to plant the gospel, so plant the seed of faith in your life. We want to grow disciples that's found in relationships and bible studies and growth groups and then we want to ultimately reproduce or multiply leaders and so we want to see fruit, we want to see people that are more joyful and more peaceful and more self control and more loving and more kind. And so as you choose these things, this is how you grow in your faith, that when you choose God that you're not going to be defined by your stuff for your status, but you're gonna be defined as a child of God. And when you choose community and you have people around you that you invest in and that love you back and then ultimately you seek to produce fruit because that lasts, It says this in 1st Peter Chapter two, Actually, 2nd Peter, I think it's chapter one is actually wrote down the reference wrong, but it says this, it says his divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and goodness through these, he has given us the very his great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in his divine nature. I love that jesus did not come down take on the form of a human so that he could experience us. He did not say, you know what that creation kind of looks fun, let's see what that's like. Put on skin for a while, get beat up a little bit, be hungry, be mocked, that sounds fun, like Jesus did not come down so that he could experience us, he came down so that we could experience him and now when we put our faith in jesus, it says that we have access to his great promises and we can experience his divine nature and so through that we find true happiness. The joy that comes from knowing the Lord, jesus christ is our savior, Maria. Robinson says this, he says nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. You can't change a previous chapter of your life. Maybe you worry too much, maybe you battled, maybe you hurt someone, you can't change that chapter that's already been written, but you can start a new chapter today and while you can't change the beginning, you can definitely change the ending. It can start fresh. Last week we put up this Image of four chairs, we said, people came to jesus and he was preaching and he was doing miracles and he said come and see all were welcome to come and kick the tires and and explore, okay what is jesus all about, but at some point, he challenged people and the disciples responded and jesus said, come follow me and they went from a spectator to a believer, but then after believing that was the beginning, not the ending of their journey and so then they became actually someone who then became fishers of people, there were many of them were fishermen and God turned their profession into reaching out and sharing the gospel and so they turned around and became a worker and saying, hey, you need to hear this jesus guy and so everybody from, from the woman at the well to Zakia as a tax collector to an educated guy named Nicodemus to just men and women from all over the Samaritans, jewish gentile, everyone had access to this and he said no, you're gonna go out and tell this story that I provide salvation and you have access to it and then ultimately they go even a step further and say, hey, I'm going to invest in somebody that fruit, we just read, I want to live that out and so you have stages of growth and as we wrap up this morning, I want to challenge you Again to think about these four pictures of come and see, follow me to be a fisher of people, are you telling people about it, are you actually producing fruit and investing in others and if you can identify where you are, do you have the courage to move to that next year? Because happiness is not something you chase? It's something you choose. And it starts by choosing God because he first chose us. Let's pray dear Heavenly Father. Just thank you for your son, God as humans. We continually fall short and we chase after the things of this world thinking that we're going to find meaning, but God, we're not going to find our meaning and stuff or in our status or or an immediate satisfaction. God may we crave the deeper meaningful things like like worship and church and your word and prayer and connection and loving and serving people. Can we we choose you because you chose us. Okay, We cannot make it to heaven on our own, but you came so that we could experience you God. I pray for those in this room that if they've never put their faith in you, they would do so today that they will talk with someone before they leave, they will mark that connection card so that we can follow up with them and they can go on this journey, help us not to be christian atheists who just say they believe in you, but help us to be followers, to live out our faith daily. And may we demonstrate that with how we love. Thank you for saving us. I mean we go be a blessing to others this week because you first blessed us in your son's name. We pray amen