The Detours to Discontent

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Contact us today. Get more details about Never Give Up when you visit ltw.org or give us a call 866-626-4356. There are some people who have physical weaknesses that causes loss of joy and loss of contentment. There are other people who have moral weaknesses and they are constantly losing their joy because of that moral weakness.

Whatever the area of your weaknesses may be, if you have not learned to apply the grace of God on the area of your weaknesses, chances are you've lost your content. You're already in a major detour and you've lost your way. Welcome to Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yusuf. Have you lost joy in your life? Maybe past choices or current circumstances have you feeling discontented?

Well today, be motivated to dig deeper and to grow through your discontent. Today on Leading the Way, Dr. Yusuf challenges you with a message called the Detours to Contentment. Have you ever gone to a strange city and picked up a car or maybe even a strange country where you're not very familiar with the language and you started driving? Now you've done your homework, you already have looked at the map, you mapped your way through and you know how you're going to get there and you got it all worked out. And then after you've gone for a few miles, there was the sign that says Detour. Now you follow the detour of course, you say well you know what can be all that bad, I'll just go exactly what the word said and and then having experienced that in other countries and most European countries the word detour is very similar so you figure it out and you go, tell you to go right, you go right and get left, you go left and but you follow the detour sign and you keep going and then after a little while all of a sudden you come in into an intersection where are no more signs. You don't know how to go right, left or straight ahead, no signs. Now for whatever reason somebody stole the sign or they just run out of them or the workers just gave up but no detour sign and so in a kind of a panic mode you try to use your best common sense approach and and you try to wing it. Now here you are right now in the middle of a serious lost in a detour. Now I want you to have that feeling of lostness okay, I want you to just feel that with me right now okay.

Here it is, you are stuck with this detour sign is missing and you don't know where you're going. I'm telling you this for a reason, I want to talk to you about four detours that are very dangerous to your life of joy and contentment and you see God sometimes allows restlessness sometimes God allows discontentment in our lives for one reason that is to drive us back to him. Now those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ know also some discontentment and loss of joy and loss of peace in our Christian walk.

Many of us know what it's like not to experience that life abundant that Jesus promised and then we have to sit down and say why and ask that question. To me there are four detours that take you away from contentment in your Christian walk. There are four dangerous detours that causes you restlessness in your Christian walk but before I give you those four detours I want to have a disclaimer here just to be true to the Word of God that absolute peace is impossible in this life. That unadulterated joy is only possible in heaven. The true contentment can only be experienced when we see Jesus face to face.

So I got that out of the way I want to make sure that you understand that because that is the core of the gospel and if I leave it out I would not be truthful with you. So what are these four most dangerous detours that can send us off course in our spiritual walk? Number one, unwillingness to confront our weaknesses. Unwillingness to confront our weaknesses. Secondly, unawareness of the lie of legalism. Unawareness of the lie of legalism. Thirdly, underestimation of the pitfall of pride. Underestimation of the pitfall of pride. And finally, unfaithfulness in self-giving. Listen, every one of us have weaknesses. Every one of us.

And now that I've written so many books most of mine are in public, public knowledge. You know your weaknesses, I know mine. Everyone have weaknesses. There are some people who have physical weaknesses that causes loss of joy and loss of contentment. Some pain, some grief, something that is happening to them physically, bodily. There are other people who have moral weaknesses and they are constantly losing their joy because of that moral weakness. Some have character flaws, some have a problem of spiritual discipline that's constantly making them lose their contentment and their joy.

Whatever the area of your weaknesses may be. If you have not learned to apply the grace of God on the area of your weaknesses, chances are you've lost your content. You're already in a major detour and you've lost your way.

You have lost your way in that detour simply because you do not know how to apply the grace of God in that area of your weaknesses. Now let me tell you something. I don't want you to misunderstand me.

I know some people always like to hear what they want to hear. So somebody said he's going to go out of here and start focusing on their weaknesses and say, well Michael said so. No, no, I did not say that at all. Do not focus on your weakness.

That is not the issue. In fact that is an equal danger on the other extreme. Do not make your weaknesses to be your focus. That will get you into worse trouble. But what I'm saying to you is that the answer to all of our weaknesses is when we focus on the grace of God that can become perfect in our weakness.

I know I've experienced that firsthand many times. Now my friend I want you to listen. If the grace of God is not sufficient for your weaknesses, chances are you're focusing on your weaknesses too much or you're ignoring your weaknesses altogether.

Either place you should not be. Now the grace of God is sufficient for all of our weaknesses no matter what they are. And as I said yours are different from the person next to you.

They're different from mine and mine are different from yours. Because apart from trusting in the grace of God to meet your weaknesses and to give you victory in your weaknesses, there can't be no contentment. There can't be no contentment. Only when you know and daily learn to apply the grace of God to the areas of your weaknesses will you understand what it is not to lose your joy. You know as I said one of my public weaknesses is that I'm impatient. I'm just an impatient person.

And what do I do? I pray every single day to apply the grace of God to my weakness of impatience so that the grace of God becomes perfect in me. The second thing I want you to be careful about because it's an area of a detour is what I call the lie of legalism. Legalism is the elevation of any man-made rule to the level of the commandments of God.

Let me repeat that. It's the elevation of any man-made rule to the level of the commandments of God. Now I'm not talking about your business rules or school rules or the laws of the land.

No, no. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about your Christian walk. I'm talking about your spiritual walk. Having those rules elevated to the same level as the commandments of God. You know when I grew up I was up to my eyeballs on legalism and I did not know it.

I really did not know it. I remember one time I had an argument with a friend when I was in my teens and I insisted that the commandments, thou shall not smoke, drink, play cards or go to movies were in the Bible. And I spent all night searching the Bible. Couldn't find them so I had to admit the next morning that he was right. I was absolutely submerged in legalism.

Now I got to confess to you some of these things were not very healthy and not good for you and the other stuff is basically waste of time as far as I'm concerned. But that's not the issue. The issue is do you elevate any rule to be equal with the commandments of God? That's legalism. I want to take this a little bit deeper. Anyone who says that they are saved by the grace of God plus.

Now whatever comes after that plus it doesn't matter what it is. You are into legalism. If you are saved by the grace of God plus the church you're into legalism. You're into the lie of legalism.

If you get saved by the grace of God plus communion plus baptism plus this plus that plus the other thing you are into legalism. Because there is no plus after the grace of God. Period. Now I want to tell you why. Because whatever that plus is in your life is going to cause you problems. You say well how come?

Because whenever you cannot keep that plus you're gonna lose your joy. You're gonna lose your peace. If you choose the lie of legalism it means, listen to me very carefully with this one, if you choose the lie of legalism here's what's going to happen to you. You have abandoned the grace of God as the only basis of your relationship with Him.

Now don't get me wrong. There are those in the evangelical churches today who are running around and saying it's all by grace, it's all by grace, it's all by grace, grace will cover it all and they are living in an immortal lifestyle and they say well grace will cover it. Now let me tell you something that's what Jude calls a license. I was reading him this morning in my personal devotion and that is worse than the legalism.

I want you to listen very carefully. Legalism is keeping the commandments of man and elevating them to the level of the commandments of God. Why do I say this?

Because thinking that legalism is going to please God or make you feel is going to make you feel to be a super spiritual and that thinking, listen to me because it's all in the mind, that thinking is going to diminish the wonder of the grace of God. So it's not only confronting our weaknesses, not only the lie of legalism, but thirdly the pitfall of pride is dangerous, detour from contentment. You know I want to tell you a couple of things about pride. If you dig deeper, any sin in your life, any weakness in your life, if you start digging deeper, start peeling the layers you're going to find pride lurking right in the middle there. All cause of sin. It's pride.

Try me. And the second thing I want to tell you about pride, I know that firsthand, pride is very, very, very, very, how many verys are these? Very deceitful. It's very deceptive. Pride can dress up to look like something oh very spiritual. It can be so disguised and presented as something very selfless. Pride can be disguised as righteousness, when in reality pride always, always is self-serving. In fact I want to tell you something else.

I don't want you to miss this. I'm convinced that pride hinder answers to prayer. I believe that with all my heart. Pride hinder answers to prayer. I am convinced with every fiber of my being that God in heaven is longing to look down and see his children, praying big prayers, praying God-sized prayers.

I am convinced that God wants his children to daily keep asking for great and mighty things so that God's name be glorified, so that God's kingdom be expanded. But pride puts an end to all that. In fact pride is at the root of the fact that so many Christians have been sitting in the seats of salvation and have never exercised faith in the great God that we have. I'm convinced of that. Not only that they miss out on the blessing, but heaven would not rejoice simply because we allowed pride to fill us and to trip us.

Not only unwillingness to confront our weakness can be a detour, not only the lie of legalism can be a dangerous detour from contentment, not only the pitfall of pride can be a dangerous detour from contentment, fourthly lack of generosity can be a detour from contentment. You know I'm convinced that the Lord Jesus, the God of glory, God of very God in human flesh, has a keen sense of observation of people. And the Gospels tell us about an incident where Jesus was obviously in the temple and he got very close to the treasury of the temple where people were giving. And you know how they used to do it back then? All the giving was public. So the Pharisees were coming in and here comes Pharisee Mr. Smelfungus, okay, and they would declare here he comes and he brings his big bucks and and comes in there and dumps them in that treasury box and the trumpet will blow and everybody clapped, you know. Here comes Pharisees Snukums and you know yes everybody trumpet will blow and everybody will clap and not wonderful. And then Jesus standing there watching all this taking place and then he sees this precious widow who comes in with what would be equivalent to two cents of our money, two pennies.

And she brings this and probably she was ashamed and probably was hiding, probably didn't want anybody to see her. And she went in there so quietly put the money in the treasury box. You know the Pharisees had something like would be equivalent to our tall booths, you know. See that, no pennies. I mean there is a limit of what you can put in that treasury. There was a minimum. You wish this tall booth would take pennies, dump all the stuff you keep at home, you know. I mean all these bags of pennies and just dump them in there. And they had something like that. I mean I'm not saying it was automatic but they had rules and they can't pay less than that and this was the least a person can give.

The least coin that could go through that booth, tall booth. Jesus commended her for all generations. That's the most generous of all. Come on Lord what are you talking about? I mean you got people who are giving you big bucks. Yes but Jesus understands that those big bucks are only crumbs of the big bucks givers.

Lord Jesus what? See it has nothing to do with what you have, has nothing to do with what you give. It has everything to do with the element of sacrifice. This woman gave everything she has, everything she has. She was a woman after Jesus's own heart.

Do you know why? Because only a few days later, very short time later, he went up on that cross and gave everything. Four dangerous detours. Not knowing to apply the grace of God to our weaknesses, falling in the lie of legalism, the pitfall of pride, lack of generosity. I told you earlier that ultimate contentment is not possible in this life. That for true joy and peace we have to wait until we see Jesus face to face. Nonetheless the Lord does give his children a foretaste of heaven as they walk through this life of temporary peace, temporary contentment, temporary joy and that's what I've been talking about.

Not the permanent one. And so God in his mercy, God in his grace, God in his sovereignty, he framed human history between two gardens. The Garden of Eden is the beginning of humanity and there in that magnificent beautiful garden, because of the sin of Adam and Eve, they brought in discontentment and sorrow and restlessness that we've seen their son Cain has inherited. On the other end there is another garden city that is to come. It's called the New Jerusalem. The Bible talks about this magnificent garden city that is coming down from heaven, the New Jerusalem.

But you know what? In the middle between those two gardens there's a third garden right in the middle. It's called the Garden of Gethsemane. And for everyone who is going to make it through to the garden city of God must come through the Garden of Gethsemane, where the Lord Jesus Christ, God of very God, paid the price for the sins of all who put their trust in him. Somebody said, paid the sins of everybody everywhere in the world?

It's available for everyone everywhere in the world, but only those who come and claim it becomes theirs. To make it to the ultimate garden you must come through the Garden of Gethsemane. But I'll tell you a couple of things about this wonderful wonderful garden city called New Jerusalem. There in this magnificent city the Lord Jesus Christ himself with all the believers who have gone before us, all the saints from the Old and the New Testament.

In the Old Testament those who looked forward to his coming, in the New Testament those who have looked back to his cross, they are in that garden city with him. In that garden city called New Jerusalem all discontentment and restlessness will end. In that garden city called the New Jerusalem all conflict, all strife will cease. In that garden city called the New Jerusalem all tears will be wiped away forever. In that garden city called the New Jerusalem all the forces that are constantly pulling us away from the presence of God, from the joy of God, from the contentment of God, it'll be gone and disappear. In that garden city called the New Jerusalem all the striving, all the tension, all the disharmony in homes among families and among friends will be gone forever.

There will be no more death or dying, there'll be no more sickness or disease, there'll be no more suffering or pain, there'll be no more hatred or bitterness, there'll be no more separation or alienation, there'll be no more tears, no fears. That's my destiny. Is it your destiny? But if it is not, if you're not sure, it can be today. It can be your destiny today.

Detours to Discontentment. That's the title of today's audio message from Dr. Michael Yusef right here on Leading the Way. You can listen again at ltw.org or through your favorite podcast platform.

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