Encountering God // How can I be Happy? // Pastor Josh Evans

Amen.

Amen. Well, has your heart already been blessed so far today? And I'll tell you, I'm going to ask that again because I think some of you didn't say amen and we needed it, all right? Has your heart been blessed today?

Some of you have never said amen in church until that moment right there, all right? But listen, God has been so good to every single one of us. And the only reason that we're standing here today is because his goodness has been running after you. And so anytime we have a moment where we get to celebrate somebody like Pastor Bailey, be able to just kind of recognize him, he said this earlier, and it's not about him, it's about the goodness of our God that has been demonstrated in his life. And so I want you to understand that here today, but I do want to echo kind of what he said earlier. Thank you so much for being in the service here today. I want to mention, I know we have guests who trickle in each and every week, possibly for the very first time here in our church. And you probably walked in today and you saw everybody or most of us dressed in black and you probably thought, what in the world have I stumbled into here today?

Is there a funeral in this place or is there a church? All right. And I appreciate you. We don't dress like this every week.

So I encourage you to come back next week if you are visiting and things like that. I also recognize too, when I asked the church to wear black, some of them really go all out. And I've had a lot of comments that I don't apply what I asked you to do because I have a white shirt on today. And some of you have given me a really hard time about that. And I probably, I don't own a black shirt.

I told that to somebody today and they said, well, I didn't either, but I went out and bought one this week. Okay. All right. I got it. I get it.

Okay. And so, but thank you for cooperating and we're excited to be able to celebrate Pastor Bailey this afternoon. I do want to say thank you to his family and for all of them and his friends being here today. I know many of them, they're scattered in other churches and they made it a point to be here today. And I will tell them, they're the real MVPs of this whole thing to not be able to spoil this surprise.

And Michelle has done just a great job, kind of keeping it under wrap and things like that because Pastor Bailey, I'll say it again. He's the most curious person I've ever met in my life. And he walks into my office, sometimes looks out the window and is like, why is that car there? I'm like, I don't know.

And I don't know. And so, I mean, it has been wild and you know, he's getting old. He's 60. He turned 60 yesterday.

You know, he's getting old. I took him to play golf for his birthday this weekend and he doesn't know this, but I know this. So we played golf on Friday and with a couple of guys. And so I tied Pastor Bailey. Okay. And every person that asks us, how did the golf game go? Here's what Pastor Bailey said. Oh, it's the worst day on the course.

Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. And because he tied me. And so that's a sign that it is all downhill. I might beat him next time.

I don't know. And so, but no, I consider it an honor to serve with him and a blessing. And he has been such a source of wisdom and encouragement to me. You know, I'm a young pastor coming to be a senior pastor for the very first time.

And a lot of guys like Pastor Bailey in our world today, associates would really struggle with something like that. And it has been nothing but the opposite through our relationship. And I'm so thankful for the friendship. I recognize that he is much wiser and smarter in so many different areas than me. And, but we work so well together and I consider it a privilege to be able to serve with him each and every day. I don't want to keep talking about him because I'm an emotional guy.

He clearly is emotional. And so we don't want to cry all in front of you today. And, but it is so good. If you have your Bible, go to Psalms chapter number one, Psalms chapter number one, here today. And I do appreciate you being here. It's a great day to be here for a number of reasons, not just because we get to celebrate Pastor Bailey, but we're starting a brand new series today. And it's a series called Encountering God. And this is a series through the Psalms.

We just finished a series last week on the life of Abraham. And so I wanted to, I was praying through this and just kind of seeing what the church really could use during this season. And I thought what better way than to look at the book of Psalms because they are really songs that we are supposed to sing up to the father. They are songs designed to take us into the very presence of the father. And as I was praying and thinking through this, I was like, what better book for us to look at than a book that really sends us straight into the presence of the father. Like I said, the Psalms is a book of songs. They are written to be sung as praises to our great, great God. Many theologians believe that the Psalms should be used in every Christian's daily approach and daily time that they spend with the word and with the Lord. You could say that the Psalms are the ordained way to learn devotion to God. It is insight into how we as followers of Jesus can encounter God and learn about what God is like. In fact, as we look at this series, you're going to find that I believe the book of Psalms that speaks directly to some of the most practical questions that you and I have about the Christian life.

We're going to see that question such as like, you know, where is our refuge when we are going through a difficult time and all these different questions in the Psalms actually directly talk about those very things. Well, today we're going to look at a very question that many of us have asked from time to time and it's this, how can I be happy? Isn't that kind of what the world is searching for? It's happiness. If you look even on Google, if you go in and type in the Google search and say, how can I be and Google is going to finish that based on the analytics of what people search for with that phrase in mind, the first thing that you're going to find is how can I be and it's going to fill in the word happy. You see, that's what our world is constantly looking for and so I want you to think by way of introduction before we jump into the word is what really makes you happy? What makes you happy?

When you think of happiness, what does it look like? For some of us, it's our family, right? When you're with your family, when you're with those kids, when you're with those grandkids, that is what happiness is.

Grandparents, you can attest for that. Parents with young children, you're kind of thinking, actually, no, I think happiness is the opposite of that. But you think being with our family, it's like that is what makes us happy or how about this, the holidays? Don't we love the holidays, right? Christmas time, Thanksgiving, where we're all together and just the songs and the music and the movies and everything that is around some of our holidays, does that kind of fill you with happiness? Some of you, when you think of happiness, you're thinking, I'm just longing for the week at the beach this summer or the week at the mountains this summer.

It's our vacation that we are looking for. You see, everybody in our world wants to be happy. We want to find happiness.

And here in the book of Psalms, really this Psalms, Spurgeon says that it's a Psalm that really catapults into the rest of the Psalms that you're going to see this Psalm at play in the rest of the entire book. And he addresses the idea of what really makes us happy. Now, there's nothing wrong with those things, being with families good, vacations good, all these different things that you might have thought about in your mind of what makes you happy.

There's nothing wrong with any of those. But the book of Psalms says that we, if we're going to experience true biblical happiness, we have to find its root, not in something that is going to change from day to day. And what you're going to find is what truly makes you happy here in Psalms chapter one is time with him because he never, ever changes.

Let's look at the word. It says this verse one, we'll read all six verses in Psalm one. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. By the way, the word blessed, it's actually a Hebrew word that is exactly translated the word happy.

It's actually translated blessedness or happiness is, and so it's plural. And so here's the thing, it is talking directly about happiness, about being blessed. And it says, blessed is that man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, happy is that man that does not stand in the way of sinners. Happy is the man that sitteth not in the seat of the scornful, but his, that's the happy person, their delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law doth he meditate day and night, the law of the Lord. That's the word of God. That is the gospel. That is what we hold before us here today. The word, the happy person finds their delight or devotion or satisfaction in the word of God.

And not only that, they take it a step further. They don't just love the word of God. They actually delight in it and they meditate on it day and night. Verse two, but his delight is in the, or verse three, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.

This is the happy person. When they delight in the word of God, they're like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. In other words, what the Psalmist is trying to tell us today, and this is so important, and this is the direction where we're going to go for the next few moments. If you plant yourself deep into the word, in other words, if that is the deepest part of your being, that's the source of your happiness, you will have a consistent source of nourishment. You see, if the word of God is where we find our delight, where we find our happiness, where we find that, that everything else kind of stems from, then we will have a never-ending source of nourishment. You see, that's what the Psalmist is trying to say about happiness. That's where happiness is found.

Then he kind of contrasts that. He says in verse four, but listen, the ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Can we pray together? Father, we love you. God, in the few moments that we have here as we look to your word, God, I pray, Lord, that you would just hide me behind the cross and fill me with your wonderful Holy Spirit here today. And God, for every heart in this room today, Father, I pray, God, I know we came in here with a lot on our mind. God, I pray that right now in the quietness of this moment that if we have tons of different things on our mind or tons of different thoughts in our head and things like that, God, I pray that we'd lay those aside and that we'd open up our heart to receive the word of God that is being implanted into our hearts and minds today. God, I pray as the word gets preached that it would fall not on rocky ground, not on wayward ground, not on thorny ground, but Father, I pray that this place would be full of hearts that are open for your word. God, I pray that your word would fall on good ground today. Lord, speak to our hearts today, for it's in your name we pray.

Amen. You see, the psalmist, he really gives us two directions that is in life. And by the way, you know, I'm 37 years old, I have a lot to learn and a long ways to go, Lord willing, in my life, but there's some of you who have lived much, much, some of you much, much, much longer than I have, okay?

I teach most of them downstairs in Bible fellowship, by the way, they know who they are. And some of you have gone through life and you would probably be able to testify where this psalm is going and what he's trying to say. He's telling us this, that there is really two paths that we can take in life. This all of us, every one of us, every person in here has a choice to decide what path you are going on. You're either going on this path that we're going to look at here in a moment that is going to end in misery, that is going to end in unhappiness, that is going to end in judgment, all of these different things.

And we're going to look deep into this. That's some path. And by the way, you probably, as we look at what path that is, you might actually find that you are kind of heading down that path, or you might not just be heading down it, you might be looking down it, or you might be hanging out with people that are all the way down it. And you're going to see that that path leads to misery.

And that's what the psalmist is trying to say. And so he's challenging us and reminding us that that path leads to misery. But the good news of a relationship with God is that there is a much better path for you to be on. There's a much better path for us to travel on. And that's a path that actually leads to something totally different than misery.

It's going to lead to ultimate fulfillment, ultimate nourishment, and ultimate happiness. You see, all of us are looking for the thing that is at the end of the road that the psalmist is telling us to travel on. But many of us, the reason why we're not getting the end result of that is because we're way over here looking at the road that leads to misery.

And you see, he's going to contrast these two things. Let's look first at, we're going to work our way back from six back here in this passage. Let's look first at the road to misery.

The road to misery. Now, if you're thinking, are you going to be a doom gloom kind of pastor today? I just want to caution you about what the psalmist is saying.

And so I want you to bear with me for the next couple of moments. And I want you to evaluate your heart and where you're at here today, because this might be the very path that you're on. You say, pastor, I sit in church every single week.

There's no way I'm on that path. Listen, there's a lot of people that are on the ungodly path that fill up churches in this community every single Sunday. Just because you're sitting in this place here today, that does not mean or does not guarantee that you are on the godly path that the psalmist is talking about. So he said there's a road to misery.

You say, what does that road look like? The first thing is this, if you're taking notes, it's that the road to misery is a life lived for yourself. It's a life lived for yourself. Look at what he says in verse four. So he contrasts the good life and the blessed happy life. And he says, verse four, the ungodly, they're not so, that's referring to where they find their delight, but they are actually the ungodly, this path to misery. They're like the chaff, which the wind driveth away. So the first step on the road that leads to misery, I feel bad when I do like roads, I always am kind of looking this direction when it's bad. And I feel bad for the people that sit in the wing. They probably think, man, he thinks we're the worst people ever, because he's always, when I contrast good, bad, I'm always like the bad, you know, it's like way over here, the ones in the wing, they're the misery. That's the life.

All right. And so he contrasts this here and he says, the first step on the road to misery is simply living for yourself. You say, where do you get that from? From verse four. In verse four, he likens that path, the road to misery, to someone, he likens it to like the chaff that the wind drives away.

So you got to think, what exactly is the psalmist trying to tell us? The chaff is the part of the seed that when you are like threshing wheat or grain, it's the part that falls and it just blows away. When you think of chaff, you can think about this. Think about sand. If you were to pick up sand or something and just blow it and it just kind of goes out and just lands nowhere, you can't find it, you can't count it, you can't really measure it.

It just kind of blows away and it is gone forever. What he's saying is that the path of misery is a life lived for yourself. It's a life that you and I are living just trying to find happiness in each and every day and what we want to do. Now, isn't that what people in life are doing each and every day?

They try to find happiness. I know in Florida we had people that they would find happiness if they got a bigger house. Or if I could just get a new car, everything is going to be different. If I can just get a new relationship, everything is going to be different.

If I can get a new promotion, everything will be different. And what we are doing is we are searching for happiness in all of the wrong places and we are trying to find happiness in just living for ourselves in whatever works for ourselves now. So he says if you are living for yourself, that is the direction of misery. In other words, you are going to end up at the end of that path, misery, and you are going to live a life that was completely meaningless. You are going to live a life that is completely – I am not trying to be ugly to you – that is completely worthless. He is saying if you go down the path that he is describing here in Psalms 1 where you are just living for yourself each and every day, whatever makes me happy, that is what I am going to do, and I am just going to spend my life doing whatever I want to do. He says that the end result when you stand before God at judgment day, here is what is going to happen to you, you are going to realize that you lived your 70 years or however many years God gives you on this earth, and they were all completely worthless. They are going to be like the chaff that just blows away and at the end of time, at the judgment day, you are just going to be blown away like the chaff. I don't know about you, I don't want that, right?

That is not what anybody sets out to want. I want the other thing, I want the happy life, the blessed life, the life that is not leading in that way. So he says the path to misery, the road to misery, it is living for yourself, but then this one, this is where it really gets real, you won't survive judgment. Verse 5, therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. What in the world does the psalmist mean here? Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. So the psalmist says, okay, the road to misery, it is this path that you are just living for yourself, and then here in verse 5, he really gives us the end result of that path, what the misery actually looks like, what the misery feels like.

He gives us a glimpse and this is what blows my mind about Christians and really those who are lost. When they hear stuff like this, this is going to happen. There is coming a judgment day. It is coming. Like we all know it, if I was to walk around with a microphone and put it in your face and say, do you believe judgment day is coming one day?

I believe 95% and probably 100% of you would probably say, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But so often we don't live as if that is going to happen one day. We live completely different, like we don't have to worry about judgment day coming. And he says this about the road to misery, he says that they are not going to survive judgment.

This is where living for yourself it ends. You see, the righteous will stand in the presence of God. The unrighteous will be cast out of the presence of God. That is what the scripture is teaching. The Psalmist wants us to understand that you got this road that leads to happiness, the blessed life, but if you choose to go down a completely different road and a road that is just for yourself, he says that the end of the road is you are not going to be able to stand in judgment because you will be cast out.

Hebrews 9 27, it is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment. Jesus says himself in Mark 8 verse 36, for what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? You see, here's what Jesus is trying to get us to understand along the lines of what the Psalmist is trying to say, is that many people on the day of judgment, they will finally realize that they traded in their soul for a new car. They traded in their soul for more money on this earth. They traded in their soul for a different relationship. They traded in their soul possibly for a promotion. They traded in their soul possibly so that their kid will be the best in Little League Baseball. And you see, what he's saying here is that there is a path and the decisions that we make and the direction that you are on is leading to happiness or to the road to misery. Let me say this, that at the end of the day, if you were to talk to any of them who stood before judgment and realized they traded their soul for something that is worthless, that something's like the chaff that's going to be gone one day, I guarantee all of them would say it was not worth it. Go down the different path.

That's what they would tell you. That's the road to misery. He says, secondly, there is a better road and this is the road that I want every single one of you to be willing to take today and that's the road to happiness. This is the road to happiness. You say, okay, that's the road.

I don't want that. I don't want to be cast out of the presence of God. And by the way, I don't want to get too deep into this, but if you have questions about what that looks like, here's a synopsis of that. Every single one of us will stand before judgment. Now the scripture, and I don't want to get too off track here, but the scripture talks about two specific judgments.

Okay? So there's two specific judgments in scripture that the road to misery is going to lead. And here's the thing. The first one is the judgment seat of Christ. And that's where all of us are going to stand before God. And that's Christian's unsafe.

All of us are going to are going to meet him at that point. Okay. And so if you're a Christian here today, we don't have to fear that point. Praise God.

Okay. We don't have to fear that day. That's going to be a good day when you get to actually look into the savior's face face to face and you get to see him. That's a good thing. So don't be nervous about judgment. If you're a child of God and you've bought, you're born again here today, you don't have to worry about it. Okay.

You're good. But then there's a second judgment that I'm telling you, none of you want to be at. That's called the great white throne judgment. You can learn about that in scripture.

And you know what that is? That is the judgment that we're referring to here. That's the judgment that at the end of the life, that you are going to be eternally cast into what the scripture calls a lake of fire. That's the judgment nobody wants to be at because the ones who are standing before the righteous judge at that point is going to be God, the father, the righteous judge, and the people standing before him are going to be those who rejected him. Those who traded in their soul for something else. Those who traded in their soul for something that felt good at the time. And what he's saying is they won't even be able to stand before judgment.

Why? Because they're going to be one by one cast into the lake of fire because the Lord never knew them. I don't know about you, but if I haven't got your attention yet, none of us want to be on that path. Good news of the gospel is there is a completely separate path for us to take.

There's a completely separate path. You say, okay, you've told me everything you need to know about that path. I don't want the path of misery. I want this path over here. Well, the Psalmist gives us some really good news here. He says, you want to go on that path? Here's what we can do to be on that path.

First thing we have to filter our counsel. Look at verse one. It says, blessed, that's happy, is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. Look at the progression. You walk, then you stand, and then you're sitting.

You see the progression? You're kind of like walking. You're not really fully immersed in that path. You're not fully kind of down the road to misery, but you're kind of looking at it. You kind of look over there and you're like, man, that side of the fence looks pretty good. You're walking, then you make a couple decisions to get there. Now you're kind of standing over here.

And he says that before long, if you start walking and you start standing, you'll eventually just pull up a chair and sit down that path. So you say, what's the caution here? The caution is that we have to filter our counsel, filter what is influencing you. Let me remind you, you cannot shape your life around the word of God and the counsel of the ungodly at the same time.

It's impossible. You cannot filter your life and surround your life with the word and the ungodly at the same time. They are constantly going to be at odds with one another. Let me say that when we talk about filtering our counsel and what influences us, when the psalmist wrote this, it was probably a little bit easier.

And here's why. It's because pretty much all the interaction that he had was face-to-face interaction, occasional letters, things like that. But for the most part, if you were going to allow someone to influence you, it's going to be through face-to-face interaction.

Today, it's a lot different than that, right? It's not just face-to-face interaction. We get influenced by everything around us at all times. We are constantly being influenced and sometimes we don't even realize it.

We don't realize that, and I'm not here to harp on things that you do and stuff. I'm just trying to make you think. We are constantly influenced in the way that we think by what we watch on TV. You see, like what you watch and what you consume your mind in, what you don't realize, it's not just mere entertainment. It's actually trying to control what you're thinking about. It's trying to watch and get into your mind to make you start to think about God differently, to make you start to think about the Word of God differently. You might even question how you even view yourself differently. You see, we have to filter the counsel that we're allowing in our life. TV, music, our smartphones. And some of it, if you're like, I'm pretty good there, you know, it's fine or whatever.

How about this one? Some of it is social media. What we look at on social media, the kind of pages that we follow on social media. And those things sometimes are there where they can actually influence us to think about God, to think about the Word of God, and to think about ourselves differently than He wants us to think about. If you want to stay on the path to happiness and you want to travel down the path to happiness, true biblical happiness, you have to be willing to reject philosophies that are not centered on a biblical worldview.

And that's difficult to do. It's difficult for us to actually reject philosophies that are not centered on what the Scripture says. Because here's the thing, we will eventually become what you fill your mind with. And so if you're filling your mind with the ungodly and sinful things and the scornful things, here's what's going to happen. You're eventually going to find yourself walking with them, sitting with them, and eventually find yourself standing with them. That's why we've got to filter, the count second thing is this, we've got to evaluate behaviors of those around us. I think it's interesting, you know, he talks about these relationships that we have with the ungodly, with sinners, and with the scornful.

He says, don't stand or sit or even walk with them. You see, sinners have a way about them. And what we have to ask ourselves is if they have a way about them, then it also applies to the righteous as well. The righteous has a way about them as well.

That's the two paths that he is getting at. So my challenge is for you is to filter the kind of counsel you're getting from the ungodly and from the sinners and from the scornful, and you need to evaluate the behaviors of those around you. If you look at the behaviors of those around you, and they are all ungodly, and you're full of people around you that are the scornful, and they're sinners and things like that, and everything around you, it's not going to be long before you find yourself walking with them, standing with them, and sitting with them. But there's a good way.

There's a better way. And we've got to be around people that sharpen us. You see, this is why, for us, the church is important, so that you can get around people like that. The third thing is this, live out your identity in Christ. You see, in verse 1, when he gets to the point where you sit in the seat of the scornful, in this culture, where you sat determined where you belong.

Where you sat determined where you belong. So when he talks at the end of verse 1, sitting in the seat of the scornful, he's referencing their identity. You see that your identity just becomes an ungodly, sinful person that is there sitting with the scornful. He says that's your identity. So we've got to live out who we are in Jesus.

We've got to do the opposite. If we are going to follow Jesus and go down the path that leads to ultimate fulfillment and biblical happiness, then we have to reject those things and we have to head down this. The next thing is you've got to deepen your relationship with God. You've got to deepen your relationship with God in verse 2 and 3. He says, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, that's the word, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bring it forth his fruit in his season.

His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. So he uses this word delight. You say what does that mean? It means to take pleasure in. It means to take pleasure in. Think about it this way, what do you delight in?

It's something that you enjoy spending time doing whatever. For me, when I think about this word, I can't not think about my family. I delight in my family. I love to spend time with my family. Now you say do I always get to do what I want to do with my family?

No. Sometimes delighting in my family is doing something that I don't want to do because I just want to be with them. I just want to be with them. Prime example, I've told you this before, my son loves video games. He loves playing NBA 2K and Fortnite and stuff like that. And I'll tell you this, here's what's interesting about these video games.

I'm not a gamer in any way shape or form. I'm terrible at it. I literally don't know how to turn his PlayStation on and off. I have to call him in there and he has to help me walk me through stuff and everything.

It's terrible. I'm not a video game guy and the last thing that I would like to do to end my day before I go to bed is spend some time playing a worthless video game. But you know what he asks me all the time before bed and that kind of thing? He'll be like, hey dad, you want to play NBA 2K? Now I know deep down this is why he wants to play. It's because he's been playing other people for the last hour and he gets beat and he knows if he wants to go to bed feeling really good about himself all he has to do is play me. So that's the real reason he's asking me. Sometimes I think it's because he wants time with me but his ego needs to be lifted.

That's the real reason. And so a lot of times I'll be like sure, I'll play you real quick before we go to bed. Set it all up.

He'll set it up. And we get out there and next thing you know I have never and I've played him several times. I am never within 30 points of him.

Ever. Don't judge me. And I'm just not good at it. I can't do it.

I don't know what to do. I can't shoot. Like there's this meter when you make shots and you got to like get the thing to stop at a certain point at the top of the meter.

I am never there. So it's constant miss shot. Constant miss shot.

Constant miss shot. And he knows how to control the controller so well and I can't. And then we leave there and you know he feels great about himself and I'm going to bed like man I can't even beat my son at a game that I bought for him. Right. It's just crazy.

And it's crazy. But you say why in the world do you do that if you don't enjoy it. It's because time with him is what I want. It's because being in his presence and hanging out with him in his room.

That's what I want more than anything. You see when he says delight yourself in the word he's talking about immersing yourself in the scripture going into the word delight literally means to love what God commands. It's to look at scripture and love it to be eager to jump into it to want to surround yourself with it. You see when he says this he's talking about being in the presence of God. Some of you the reason why you can't find ultimate fulfillment and nourishment and happiness is because you're not daily spending time in the place that it is found and that's the word of God.

He mentions two things about how we can deepen our relationship. The first one is the word. You see the word is what anchors us. No matter the winds of life the word stays the same.

It's the same yesterday today and forever. And so what he's challenging us on is the road to happiness is only found through anchoring your life in something that doesn't change. So he says if you anchor your life in circumstances in people and jobs and money we all know all of those things change from time to time. You could lose your job tomorrow and if your happiness was in your job then you're going to be unhappy. You can get a bad report from the doctor tomorrow and if your happiness is in your health then you're going to be unhappy.

If your happiness is in your friend your friend could move away or they could backstab you and head in the wrong direction and next thing you know you lost your friend and if your happiness was in the relationship then you're going to be unhappy. The point what he's trying to say is for all of us we got to anchor ourselves into something that does not change. Hey you lose your job tomorrow guess what you can still be happy you want to know why? Because the word of God stays the same.

If you lose a friend or you lose a relationship hey it's all good you want to know why? You can still be happy because the word of God is where your happiness is flowing from. It's not found in things that can change. You got to understand this you will only escape the pleasures of the world through a greater pleasure in the word. The only way that you can escape all the pleasures and the good things that look good out in the world is to find a greater delight and a greater pleasure in the word. It's like the old song says when you turn to Jesus and look full in his wonderful face you know what happens? The things of the world become strangely dim to your eyes because you found a much deeper a much greater and a much more sustainable delight in the word of God. That's what he's trying to say and as you find your delight in the word everything else looks strangely dim.

But then he says delight yourself in the word but he also talks about our relationships a bit. This is the church I referenced this earlier and this is kind of where we'll land the plane here today. He talks about don't stand in the way of sinners and so there has to be a group of people that you know we need to be with that are heading down the same path. So you say what's the challenge of the relationships and the influence and the counsel if he wants us to forsake all of that what do we run to other than the word? The point is the church.

The church. You see some of you the only experience you have in church is walking in these doors once a week every Sunday you walk in and you sit here a pastor yells at you for 40 minutes and then you leave and you're frustrated about your church experience. And let me just tell you this if that's all it is then I'd be just as frustrated as you are. But the reason why you're frustrated is because you are not fully immersing yourself and what God wants you to immerse yourself with. Some of us are not willing to take a step we're like hey if I reject all these people then there has to be something that you fill your life with and that's the church that's the righteous people.

You say what's the practical application? My application is to you in here is you need to go as deep into the local church as you possibly can. Because if you're not with them you're going to fill your mind and fill your heart and fill your relationships with all of these people over here and what he's trying to tell us is don't walk with them don't sit with them don't stand with them. Instead delight yourself in my word and stand with the church. Some of you if Sunday's all you're doing you're never going to experience ultimate fulfillment and ultimate happiness and you're never going to fulfill what it's like to be a tree planted so deep that bring it forth much fruit. Because you're not going all in and what he wants you to go all in with.

Say what do you mean? For some of you the next step is this and this isn't just me trying to get you to come to extra stuff and so we can feel better. Some of you need to jump into a Bible Fellowship class. If you're new to our church that's our Sunday school program on Sunday morning. You say what's the purpose why do I need to go to those things I don't really I get enough church I get enough Bible. You might and that's okay but let me tell you this there are people that God wants to use in your life. They're called the church. You know the church is full of a bunch of saints people have trusted in God who have gifts and the reason God gave them gifts is so that they can edify your life so that they can further the ministry and some of you the reason your church experience is just boring and you don't like it is because you're not getting the full experience of what God intended for the local church to give you. You're just showing up on Sunday being fed and leaving out that door and you're not serving anybody and you're not being served and yeah that's a pretty boring church experience. So my challenges to you is for us to head down the path of happiness it's simply this it's to delight yourself in that word immerse yourself meditate in it spend time with it for some of you if you haven't read the Bible on your own this week you need to find yourself at an altar today to make a decision that God I'm going to leave here and I'm going to spend time in your word each and every day that's an easy start and then for some of you you've been standing with with the sinners and sitting with the seed of the scornful and some of these and you're like man I need to get off this path to misery and I need to head down the path and some of you need to maybe accept the Lord as Savior if you've never done that in your life you need to come and we can show you from the word of God how you can be forever saved eternally secure in him and then some of you are just kind of you're a Christian but you're kind of like you're looking over here you're looking at the misery filled life and you're kind of like man that looks really cool those people look cool they're popular and this and that and and they make way more money and they can do way more than I can that looks really good and you're kind of starting to step and you need to surround yourself with the word in the church and when you find your delight there that's where you can lead to true happiness you ever met somebody who's happy no matter what comes into their life someone who has a smile walking out of the doctor's office someone who gets a negative report but yet they still praise God you say how in the world can they do that regardless it's because they've chosen to plant themselves on a different road so I ask you this which road are you on the road to happiness or the road to misery every one of us are dappling on one of these roads which one are you on let me ask you which road and let me challenge you get on the road that leads to ultimate happiness would you bow your heads with me you