Never Choose Pleasure Over Happiness

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Think what happens when you become unhappy. How many people become unhappy and say, I am so unhappy I got to go shopping today? Think of that. I'm so unhappy I've got to get a tub of ice cream today.

I've got to. I'm unhappy and that's what we do. That's what we enslave ourselves. The idea that we think that that short term pleasure is going to make us happy, it does not. You can ask Solomon, you can ask Samson, you can ask David, you can ask almost anyone else in this room.

It just doesn't work that way. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world.

As much as I have enjoyed being your pastor for all these years, there are certain heartbreaking aspects that I have a ringside seat to. And it's when people make choices that bring devastating consequences to their lives and not only theirs, but to the people who love them most. These choices undermine their potential for happiness. A recurring theme that I have seen on many occasions is that you are prone to choose pleasure over happiness. And when you do.

Ultimately, you get neither. Would you open your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter one, please? In Ecclesiastes one, look at verse 16, Solomon writing. And he said, I said to myself, behold, I have magnified and increased wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me. And my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge. And I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I realize that this, too, is striving after wind because in much wisdom, there is much grief and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain. When it comes to this idea of choosing pleasure.

Over happiness, your intelligence will not help you. Solomon was the wisest man perhaps ever on the earth, and he made that fundamental mistake and he made it in a grand way. Chapter two in verse one. He said, I said to myself, come now and I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself. Behold, it, too, is futility. And I said of laughter, it is madness and a pleasure.

What does it accomplish? He said, I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine. While my mind was guiding me wisely and how to take hold of folly until I could see what good there is for the sons of men to do.

Under heaven, the few years of their lives. He said, you know, I really want to stimulate myself. I really wanted to see how much pleasure I could really have. So he said, I tried it with and basically with alcohol. I love the way he said, I tried to stimulate my body with wine. I wanted to feel the buzz.

He said, you know, that turned out to be kind of futility. Tries another method in verse four. I enlarge my works. I build houses for myself.

I planted vineyards for myself. And don't miss that when it comes to happiness. Happiness is giving yourself away.

It's living for others when it comes to pleasure. It's always about me. Notice I built this for me. I did it for myself.

The unholy trinity, me, myself and I. He said, I made gardens and parks for myself. I planted them and all kinds of fruit trees, and I made ponds of water for myself for which to irrigate the forest of growing trees. He says, I bought male and female slaves. And he said, I had homeborn slaves. And I possess flocks and herds larger than all preceded me in Jerusalem. I thought if I accumulated enough stuff, if I achieved enough stuff for myself, it would give me so much pleasure and I'd become happy.

But it didn't. Verse eight, I collected for myself silver and gold and treasure of kings and provinces. I provided for myself male and female singers and the pleasures of men. Many concubines. I had parties and sex. I thought that would be the way it would work. I'd have people singing while we're all enjoying ourselves.

I tried that. Verse 10, in summation, all that my eyes desired, I did not refuse them. He said, I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all the labor. And this was my reward for all my labor. And thus I considered, he said, all my activities which my hands had done in the labor which I exerted. And behold, all was vanity and striving after the wind.

There was no profit under the sun. Solomon had no restraints for some of you who thought that would have to be the greatest life ever. No restraints. I can do anything that I want to do. Any time I want to do it, I'm not accountable to anybody. I have the resources to do it.

I have the brains and I have the money. And he said, you know what it was? Just vanity. Just smoke. Nothing. It didn't do it at all.

In fact, look at verse 17 of chapter 2. His conclusion. So I hated life. For the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me because everything is futility and striving after the wind.

I hated it. You see, the message and I love the book, as you know, I love Ecclesiastes, my favorite book in the Old Testament. And I love this idea that this is a man who thought so deeply and so profoundly. And I'm so glad that God had him experience all of these pleasures and find out what they really are. So that we can say, yeah, but it wouldn't be that way for me.

I'm smart enough to get the most out of pleasure. Let me look at this from a completely different angle now. I want to make it personal to you. And I want to go to the Gospel of John Chapter 10, the Gospel of John Chapter 10. And the section we're looking at here is tremendous section, some deep truths in it. But what I sort of get a kick out of about this is I can so much identify with what Jesus is going through here. Jesus is trying to teach something really profound.

And when he tries to teach it, you'll be surprised at this. They don't get it. They have that stare that I look at every week.

OK, they just have that look. And so watch what happens. Verse one, truly, truly, I say to you, amen, amen. This is important, Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep but climbs up some other way. He's a thief and a robber, but he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. And to him, the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice. And he calls to his own sheep by name and he leads them out. And when he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them. And the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow but will flee from him because they do not know the voice of strangers. The analogy here is an interesting analogy. He says, look, there's a shepherd.

That's going to be me. You see. And then there's this gate and then there's a gatekeeper, a doorkeeper, and the sheep are all in there.

So he said, I want to talk to you about that. And they sort of got the idea because they truly understood sheep. But sheep then and sheep now were very different in the way they, why you would be in the business. In New Testament times, you were almost exclusively in the business for wool, nothing but wool. Now we have people that would slaughter sheep and make lamb chops. That wasn't the normal case at all in their world. The shepherd, therefore, had a long-term relationship with his sheep.

There's another thing that's different. Today we would use like sheepdogs and shepherds would drive the sheep where you want them to go. In those days, that's not the way it worked at all. The shepherd did not drive the sheep. The sheep followed the shepherd. They got to know his voice and wherever he wanted them to go, he went first and then he called them and they came to him.

That's the analogy. Now watch verse six. This figure of speech, Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which he had been trying to say to them. Like, who's the doorkeeper?

Where's that come from? What's he trying to say? Who's he speaking to here? So Jesus says, look, maybe I wasn't quite clear enough. I'll be clear in this time. Jesus says, truly, truly, again, amen, amen. Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

Is that clear enough? I am the door of the sheep. All who come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door and if anyone enters through me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. Jesus said, look, this sounds just like I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one will come to the Father but through me.

I'm the door. I want this to be clear. If you want a relationship with God, it's going to be through me. Well, he then says in verse 10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. The inference here is clear. He's talking about the religious leaders of Israel, the scribes and the Pharisees. He's talking about the corrupt priesthood of Israel. He said the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. And then he says something profound that makes it apply to this message. He said, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

They may have life and may have it abundantly. Two sources of influence in verse 10. He said, you're sheep. You're going to be influenced one of two ways. You see, thieves may influence you.

And if they influence you, what ends up happening, that will be marked by stealing and killing and destroying. He says in verse 11, though, I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his light for the sheep. He says, look, you're either going to be influenced by thieves or by the good shepherd. It's kolos.

It's intrinsically good. I am the good shepherd. How good are you? I die for the sheep. That's really good. How many shepherds die for the sheep? He said, that's right. I'm the good shepherd. You see, that's how good I am. But notice, he says, when I influence you, your life will be marked differently. You may have life, and then he says, and you will have it abundantly, parasos, abundantly. The NIV says, fool, not very good. That's just not, that's pretty poor.

It doesn't have quite the pizazz that it needs. This word, parasos, means excessively, utterly, abounding, or abundantly. He said, I'm going to let, if you follow me, you're not only going to have life, eternal life, you're going to have life exceedingly, abundantly. You're going to have a great life. You see, you're going to have, if you follow me, a life by which you find yourself happy. That's what I offer, as we say every week here. It is a life, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, and you listen to his voice, your life will be marked by joy and peace and hope and meaning and purpose. And if all that's going on in your life, you're happy. Jesus says, that's what I'm offering you.

That's what I want. It's really going to be up to you. You see, here's the tricky part, applying it to you. Who in your life has the greatest potential to steal your future, kill your relationships, and destroy your life?

Now think about that. Who in your life has the greatest potential to steal your future, to kill your relationships, and destroy your life? I think you saw them this morning when you looked in the mirror. It's you.

You have that greatest potential to never get to this abundant life that Christ spoke of. Now you might be saying, are you sure? Yes. How do you know? Okay, you bought it. You ate it. You drank it. You smoked it. You watched it. You dated it. And sometimes you even married it.

You were there for all of it. That's you. You see, that's you. You know what I'm saying is true, because how many times have you said, thought, or heard other people say, you know what, when it all comes down to simply is this point, sometimes I'm my own worst enemy. Yeah, that's who we are. See, that's what can happen.

That becomes, in a sense, the thief. You see, the mistake that you make often in your lives, that we all make, is simply this, that you thought pleasure would bring you happiness. You see, who do you follow? Your voice, the voice of the other sheep, or the good shepherd? You see, if you don't follow the voice of the shepherd, you know what you're going to do? You're going to make plenty of bad decisions. That's what's going to happen to you.

Let me illustrate this point. Go with me now back to Judges, chapter 13. You see, it doesn't matter how well it starts out.

It really depends whether you make the mistake of choosing pleasure as a priority over happiness. Judges 13 and verse 3. Watch the beginning of this. And then the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, Behold now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son. Now therefore, be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, nor anything, any unclean thing. For behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines. A barren woman has her prayers answered, and she's going to have a little boy, not just any little boy. This little boy is a Nazarite, just like John the Baptist, set apart by God. He's going to be the judge of Israel, and you know his name. It's Samson, this great warrior judge.

Now let's move to chapter 14. Then Samson went down to Timna, and he saw a woman in Timna, one of the daughters of the Philistines. And so he came back and told his father and mother, I saw a woman in Timna, one of the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore, get her for me as a wife. He knows that's forbidden by God.

But it's okay. Now watch. Then his father and his mother said to him, Is there no woman among the daughters of your relatives or among all of our people that you should take a wife from an uncircumcised Philistines? But Samson said to his father, Get her for me, for she looks good to me. There is the way to base a lifelong relationship. You want to be happy for the rest of your life. Just see, don't even look past anything except they look good to me.

There's depth. Wow, what is he doing? Pleasure. Go with me now to chapter 16 to show you how habitual this becomes to him. Chapter 16, verse 1. Now Samson went to Gaza and he saw a harlot there. He went into her.

How frank, how blunt. What is he doing? He's seeking pleasure. You see, he objectifies women, whether it be a wife or a harlot.

He simply seeks pleasure. Well, how's the outcome of all this? Verse 21. And then the Philistine seized him and gouged out his eyes, and they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze chains, and he was a grinder in the prison. What a happy ending.

No. You see, the problem with Samson was simple. Set apart by God to be a judge, but he sought pleasure as a priority over happiness. By the way, Solomon's dad did the same thing, didn't he? He seized Bathsheba. And what's he do? He says, boy, this is going to be pleasure. Now that event led to the murder of Uriah the Hittite.

And the irony of it is, yes, I know David's a man after God's own heart, and yes, I know he confessed and he's a great man and he is the hallmark of the Davidic covenant. I get all that. But you want to know something? He never had a happy family. Read about his relationship with his kids, especially Absalom. Read how difficult it was.

Why? He sought pleasure before happiness. Look, I understand that God created us for both. Please understand God created us both for pleasure and happiness. Sex is God's idea, by the way, not ours.

But God says the idea of it is, are you going to follow the voice of the Good Shepherd? Are you going to follow me and pursue happiness by which you will get pleasure? But if you prioritize pleasure and say, that will make me happy, you will be disappointed because you get neither. That's the way it works.

You know how this is. When you seek pleasure, you know what it's like. It falls under the law of diminishing returns. That's what pleasure does. You'll notice that it's never the same the second time, the third time, the fourth time, the fifth time.

It really doesn't matter. Each time there's a law of diminishing returns for pleasure. Remember the first time you ever bought something significant? I mean, just something that you were really just, oh, it gave you tremendous pleasure. It could have been something, you know, it could have been a stereo or it could have been your clothing or it could have been a car. And you think, oh, my goodness, I don't know if anything's ever given me that much pleasure. And I can remember my first car. It was an almost out-of-body experience for me. I love cars.

My last car, that's nice. It's not the same. You ever notice that those first two pair of shoes you bought and how they made you feel, but by the time you're a pair 20, 25, 30, 35, the law of diminishing returns. It happens in so many areas. There is an incredible problem among God's men in this country of pornography. And it falls under the law of diminishing returns. And what ends up happening, it just becomes more and more and it becomes an insatiable appetite that not only will make sure you're not happy, but it will wreck the relationships that matter most in your life.

We have to be careful with this. This idea that I'll pursue pleasure. I have the right. It's my life. Let me do it. I know it's going to work. It won't.

From God's point of view, it is always a matter of priority. How many times did somebody start out with a half a glass and then a glass and then two glasses and five glasses and eight glasses? And then they're hiding the liquor in drawers and all kinds of stuff. How many times? You see, how many times?

That's the lie. You see, it's a thief. It steals. It kills. It destroys. I want the apostle Paul to weigh in on this just a moment.

Why does this happen? Romans chapter 6 and verse 16. I love the way the verse starts. It's one of Paul's favorite ways of saying something. He says, do you not know? Now, every time he uses this, I think he's meaning a little bit more than simply do you not know. You could paraphrase it and say, doesn't everybody know this? Or you could paraphrase it and Paul could be saying, really? You don't understand.

Really? Do you not know? Everybody knows this. And he sets a principle forth that we would all know. He says that when you present yourselves, there the NIV is good. It says offer.

I like that word better. He says, do you not know that when you offer yourselves to someone or something as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or separation or of obedience resulting in righteousness? He says, don't you know that? When you make pleasure the priority over your happiness, you become a slave to pressure. That's what happens. And all of a sudden, you find yourself unable to resist, unable to go further or deeper or more, and you become a slave.

And it always steals, and it always kills, and it always destroys. He says, but when you make yourself a slave to the good shepherd, when you say, look, I'm going to follow you, you've laid down your life for me, things begin to change. You have life. Jesus says you have life. You have peace, peace with God. You have the peace of God. You have peace with others. You have peace within yourself. You don't live with that perennial guilt.

If you're a child of God and you make pleasure the priority of your life, I know for a fact you live every day with guilt. Whenever that happens, you sow better decisions and choices. You reap better consequences in your life. And ultimately, you begin to feel better and better.

And you know what? You end up becoming happy. Think what happens when you become unhappy. How many people become unhappy and say, I am so unhappy, I've got to go shopping today? Think of that. I'm so unhappy, I've got to get a tub of ice cream today. I've got to.

I'm unhappy. And that's where we do it. That's where we enslave ourselves.

The idea that we think that that short-term pleasure is going to make us happy, it does not. You can ask Solomon. You can ask Samson.

You can ask David. Almost anyone else in this room. It just doesn't work that way. OK, you know your mind. So I don't want you to raise your hand. But you owe this to yourself. Is there a pleasure that's undermining your happiness and even the happiness of the people around you? Is there a pleasure that's undermining your happiness?

Are you losing your freedom to say no? That pleasure is a thief. It's only there to steal your happiness and to kill your relationships and to destroy your life. Take Solomon's advice. If I would have read on in Ecclesiastes, he simply said this, you can never find happiness by trying to seek it without God.

It's always a what. Why does God make me happy? Because he's the good shepherd. He's going to lead me and give me life abundantly.

When you choose pleasure over happiness, you get neither. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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