And it's in idols. Happiness and idols. Let me tell you a story real quick. When I was in Bible college, we had came time for finals.
Have you ever been to college? You know, finals are a lot of stress. And so my roommate and I, we heard some commotion out in the hallway. So we went out there and we saw some guys running around and they would go up and knock in the door.
When the other guy's room, when the guy opened up the door, they'd throw water on him. So my roommate and I, we just kind of went down the hall and we would just watch this take place. And we were really enjoying ourselves. There was another student that was there and he was just really, just so sober and just, he was all but complaining.
I mean, we would just tell that something was not right with him. We said, what's wrong? He goes, I can't believe that these guys are doing this. We said, they're just letting off some steam.
And so we're talking to him and finally we got to the question. We asked him, do you think that Jesus laughed and he said, absolutely not. I said, wow, you need to meet Jesus. And Jesus did laugh.
He was happy at times. So what brings you happiness? What brings you happiness? There's a lot of things, family, grandkids, work, money, sports, any number of things.
But he's gotten more important than those things. And that's what he was talking about tonight. He's gotten more important than those things. We all want to be happy.
I've never met anybody who just said, I want to be sad. I want to be broken. I want to be mad all the time. There's some people that you have met and I have met that act like that all the time.
Yes. But they don't say it. Everybody wants to be happy. We want everything to go smoothly.
We hate bumps in a room. We do not like it when we caught our finger or have to go to the hospital or have to pay a bill. Do we? No.
We don't like those things. We want to make it, but real happiness is following after God and living your life after his will. Not your will, but his will. And when we find that in our lives, we'll find true happiness.
It doesn't mean that all your problems are going to go away. Just read any of the characters in the Bible. And you will see that they all struggled in some area or not in their life. Paul said that he had a thorn in the flesh and God said, my grace is sufficient for you.
Paul also said I was shipwrecked. I was beaten. I was thrown in prison. All these different things.
You can see the disciples went through the same thing. All of them suffered persecution except for John who died at the very end. It doesn't mean that all your problems are going to be taken care of. No, it doesn't mean that.
So can we be happy in this world with the problems that we have and with the things that come up that sometimes we make as idols in our life? It's living after God and putting him first. And that's what Randy was talking about tonight. Putting God first.
And when you do, it does become easier. It does become easier. But we sometimes have to go through struggles. And that's God just taking us through something that he wants us to grow in so that we can become better at it.
Scripture tonight in Exodus chapter 32, a story that you all know probably very well. In the verses 1 through 10, now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, come make us a God who will go before us as Moses, as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt. We do not know what has become of him. Aaron said to them, tear off the gold rings which are in your ears of your wives and your sons and your daughters and bring them to me.
Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took them from the land, I'm sorry, from the hand and fashioned it into a graving tool and made it into a molten calf. And they said, this is your God, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it and Aaron made a proclamation and he said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.
So the next day they rose early and they offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings and the people sat down and they ate and they drank and they rose up to play. Then the Lord said to Moses, go down at once for your people like that. Somehow it became from God's people too. Now Moses, these are your people.
Ever God give you that kind of responsibility? Because Moses probably said, I don't want those people either. Because he didn't want them to start with. And now God tells them, go to your people and he's having to deal with them one more time.
Go down at once for your people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf and they worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, this is your God, oh Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. The Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people and behold, they are obstinate people.
Now then let me alone that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them and I will make you a great nation. Wow, this is quite a conversation that Moses is having with God. We don't see this from God that often where he says, listen, leave me alone. I am angry at these people.
We've probably all said that ourselves at some time or another. When you've gotten upset at a situation or problem, you don't want people to just leave me alone. I have to figure this out. He says I'm going to destroy these people.
I got that bad that he said I'm going to destroy him. I'm going to wipe him out. Wow. Moses was only up there.
He was going to go up there for about 40 days. He was getting the Ten Commandments. He was getting everything and you could read the previous chapters and you could see all that God spoke to Moses about. Yet then when it's time he sees that they have built an idol and they're worshiping at this idol and they're saying, this is our God.
How can it be that they in such a short time have seen all these miracles, seen the hand of God and seen all that he has done to keep them alive, provided for them, protected them and now they don't want to have Moses lead them. They're afraid that something's happened to him up in this mountain. They said, well, we want somebody else that we can follow a God. Now, Aaron was a little quick in making this golden image, but you know the story.
Number one, are there idols in my life? Moses was on the mountain. He was talking to God and God, and the people got a little restless. They wanted to do something and they wanted it to happen right then, right there.
They found happiness of the world. And that's not the place for us to find it is in the world. There are a lot of things that we can see in the world that bring happiness to people. And sometimes happiness will only last for a short time.
Joy will come in the morning. And joy is what God will give us to help us to last forever. I use the illustration and I don't know if somebody else has said this yet, but for me, a happiness is something that lasts for a time. If you come up and give me a hundred dollars, I'll be happy.
But once that hundred dollars is spent, I might be happy, I might not be happy. Joy is what God gives unto me that no matter what, if my bills are now $50,000, my kids are on drugs and my wife wants to leave me, I can still have joy. I can still have joy in the midst of all the problems, all the troubles. And that's the way that it's always been in my life.
And verses five and six of that that we read, it says, now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow you shall feast. Shall be a feast to the Lord. So next day they rose early and they offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and they drank and they rose up to play.
They ate, they drank and they were merry for that time because they had an idol in their life. They had something that they could look at, they had something that they could worship, they had something that they could go to. It took a place of God in their lives. Listen, our sin nature will always be with us.
You were born with it, you will always have it with you. And our sin nature causes us to sin when we're tempted. You need to understand that. When we go from faith to seeing is believing, we have a problem.
And we have to understand, we live by faith, not by sight. And if we have that in our life that, you know, I've got to see it, that's one of the biggest problems with witnessing the people they want to see. Show me. And you can see that throughout the New Testament where some said, you know, show us the miracles.
But it's a faith walk that I know that God has created the heavens and the earth and all that's in it, all the universe, all the stars, all those things. I wasn't here when it happened. A few weeks ago, my wife and I, we were down in Florida and a couple of nights we went down to the beach and we watched the sunset. Beautiful.
You cannot deny that God has done that. You cannot deny that God has done it. And one day I was sitting on the beach and I remember what God had spoken to Abraham and he says, those that follow after you will be as the grains of sand. And I picked up a handful.
I'm like, wow, there is a lot in there. And it's one handful of, I don't know how much sand is on those beaches. God is an amazing God. But when we put other things ahead of him, that's where the problem starts.
We should do and evaluate from time to time and evaluation on ourselves. Are there things that we have in our life that have elevated themselves now above my relationship with God? And I'll be honest with you at times I've done that and I've looked and maybe somebody else has pointed them out in my life that yes, I have elevated other things above God in my life. And I've had to then go back and repent of that and ask God to forgive me and say, God, I'm sorry that I have placed that above you and my relationship with you and my relationship with others.
There should be nothing between me and God that I put there, that I have a conversation. We should do that. Sometimes idols are crudely carved images. Could be a beautiful home.
It could be intellect. It could be the idol that we sit at the seat of God and we judge. Could be your body that you want to make it just like a bodybuilder you ever see those guys, ever see them in the gym. And they work so hard just on one little muscle.
I know. I've been there. You can see. So it's the clothes that hide.
It's amazing. And they will work and work and work and work. And I had a friend when I was in Bible college. At one time was a bodybuilder.
And he was built pretty good. So I'd ask him, I said, you know, do you still do it? And he said, no, which I could kind of tell he probably didn't. And the thing was, when he kind of stopped, his body went back to the way it was.
And that's the way a lot of times things are in our life. That when you put something as an idol in your life and then you don't use it or worship it or whatever anymore, it goes back to the way it was. It's great for a season, but sometimes it could be that in our life. For someone else it could be just physical exercise.
There was a guy who was one of my professors when I went to Lincoln Land who would run everywhere. Running was his God. I mean, going to school, he ran. It wasn't anything for him to run 20 miles in a day.
If he was going to the store, he always ran. He would run out to Lincoln Land. He would run to his home. He ran here.
He ran there. I never knew what he came up in my only other one year. But exercise. A business, wealth, a car, reading romance novels, TV.
It could be a number of things that separate us or hinder us from our relationship with God that if we're not careful, we don't call it an idol, but it becomes an idol in our lives. There was a story that I heard a few years ago that this guy, he loved baseball. He loved the St. Louis Cardinals.
But there was one time when God spoke to him and he said, you can never watch or go to another cardinal game again. It's become an idol in your life. It's become an idol in your life. And he gave it up because he knew his relationship with God.
He was watching it all the time and it was something that he said that he worshipped. And we have to be careful. Number two, don't build the idols in your life in the first place. The devil's job is to distance us between God.
Put a distance between us and God. That's what his job is. So anything that separates us from that is what he's trying to do. We say so many times, don't let the devil get a crack in the door or don't let the door get a jar in it.
God is a jealous God and he loves you. He doesn't want anything to come between you and him. It's the same thing with a relationship with a husband and wife. There shouldn't be anything that comes between the husband and the wife.
My wife comes first and then my kids. I love my kids. But they cannot come between Kim and I. Work cannot come between Kim and I.
Nothing can come between Kim and I in my relationship. And the same thing is true with my relationship with God. Nothing can come between that relationship. And for us it's worked.
I tell people for 23 years I have not had one fight with my wife on the way to church on Sunday mornings. We don't drive together. So we don't fight. Sunday, our Wednesday nights we started coming together.
And I'm going to confess something. Tonight I complained. I complained about halfway here. She complained the other halfway here.
He was just kind of complaining session. And we kind of apologize to each other. There was just some things I needed to get off my chest and she needed to get off her chest. I said, I'm sorry.
I said, I don't complain that much. And then I had to back up and said, I don't think I complained that much. There's a difference between doing and thinking. But there should be nothing that comes between my relationship with God.
With God. And if I do, he can become an idol. God is a jealous God. He tells us.
And when Moses was up receiving at that time, up in the mountain, he received the Ten Commandments. And we can see the first two. He says, you shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. I'm sorry.
The first one is you shall have no other gods before me. And then you shall make no grave and image. God said it at the very beginning. There shall be nothing between us.
There shall be no idol or anything. And first Corinthians chapter 12 verse 2, it says, you know that when you were pagans, you were led astray by mute idols. However, you were led. And before we were Christians, we were led astray.
When we gave our heart to the Lord, we became a new creature. Old things were passed away. God has created us in a special way. Randy Alcorn in his video tonight, he said, things become idols not because they are wrong in themselves, but because we put them in the place in God's place.
We put them in God's place. And lastly, number three, following God will bring true happiness. Again, what makes you happy? For me doing things for others makes me happy.
In Psalms chapter 37 verse 4, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. In other words, if you do what God wants, he will bless you. And that's what we're supposed to do. We idolize whatever we think that can bring us the most happiness.
So many times we idolize whatever we think can bring us the most happiness. Now I'll be honest when he went on to watch that the first time. And when he said it like a good meal, man, that brings me happiness. It really does.
My wife doesn't like to go out to these fancy restaurants. I do. That's a good meal. Try new things.
An experience. Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 22, and he said to him, you shall love and Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like that you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
These two commandments depend on the whole law and the prophets. So if you love God and you love your neighbor, there's no room for anything else. There's no room for anything else in your life. There's only one thing that can bring true happiness in that is God.
Now that comes as he said, in the gift that you received from the giver. The gift that you received from the giver that you worship him. My two kids, I love my kids dearly. And there's times when I just sit and I watch them.
And I think how amazing they really are, not because of how we raised everything I can, but just how amazing they are as humans, that they have abilities and gifts and talents. God created them. I remember when they were both born, I was right there. I'm like, wow, this is amazing.
It really is. If you just look around you, you can see how amazing God really is. Every single day. He blesses us so much and why should we put anything ahead of him?
The thing is, one of these days we'll stand before him. And give an account for the things that we've had in our life. And you know that there's a lot of things that we put in our life that really don't matter. They really don't matter.
They're sometimes in our house if something's not working exactly the right way, the ice dispenser isn't dispensing ice cubes. And we go, oh, so we say in our house, oh, sounds like a first world problem you're having over there. Yes, there's people who don't even have ice, who would die for a piece of ice. We're very selfish people.
And I hate to say that. And I know that I put myself on the top of that list. God spoke to me a number of years ago, and he told me that I was selfish and in that. I preached the message.
And I remember going home. And at that time we came to church together that Sunday. And so I asked him, I said, what do you think of the service? And she said, the worship was good.
And I said, and about this. And I said, what do you think of the message? She goes, I thought it was good. Other than the point that you said you were selfish.
She goes, I don't think that you're a selfish person. And I said, oh, I said, God spoke to me this week. And he pointed all those things out. I said, I didn't like it.
I didn't share them with her. But I'm smart enough not to do that. I'm trying to stay up on a pedestal. But God knows us.
God knows us. He knows the areas in our life where we have fallen short. And he knows the areas where maybe we have put things a little bit higher than he is in our lives. And we have to be very careful about that.
God knows. And he loves us. And he wants nothing else but for us, for us to be with him. And I know in my life I want to be with him.
Just to spend time with him, to pray, to seek his face, to take his word and read it and let it speak to me. There's things in my life I know that at times I'm not careful. I can say I'd rather do that than spend time with God. And that's a danger.
I'm going to ask you to bow your heads tonight. Heavenly Father, we just thank you. Because you truly are a great God. You're an awesome God.
Father, you have created us in a special way. But Father, we fall short so many times. And I pray that you would help each and every one of us to take some time and evaluate. Are there things in my life that are a little bit more special than you are?
That I spend a little bit more time with. That maybe I need to spend more time with you. Are there areas in my life where I've gotten lazy in? Are there things that I just love so much that I just can't wait to be with it or whatever it happens to be?
And yet we struggle to open up our Bible or struggle to spend some time praying. I pray that you would help us, that you administer to our hearts. Father, I pray that if there's any here tonight, I know your Holy Spirit convicts, I'm not the convictor. And I pray that you would just help us through your Holy Spirit.
Father, to see these things. To spend some time and Father, bring them down and lift you up. Father, I pray that you would just help each and every one of us to live by your Spirit, to walk by the grace that you have given unto us. And let your light so shine before others that they may see your good work and glorify you.
Father, we thank you for your love. Thank you for this night. Thank you for this church. And Father, I pray a blessing over my friends tonight.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I'm going to ask you to stand, if you will, in any of those of our prayer team that are here, if you'll come down, if you have a prayer request, whether it's for happiness or whatever it happens to be tonight. We're just going to be down front. You're free to be dismissed, but if you want prayer, we're here for you.
God bless, have a great night.