People pursue happiness in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways. The results are:
- They cannot find happiness in their way of life
- They cannot imagine happiness in the Christian way of life
If this is true of you, I want to help you see that you are heading in the wrong direction, and I want to help you turn in the right direction. If you are a Christian and heading in the right direction, but you’ve slowed down, broken down, or you’re thinking of turning back, I want to confirm you in the right way and help you move forward with new momentum.
General Context
Remember the background to this passage. God is calling us to enroll in Wisdom University by highlighting the benefits of being a student in his school:
- The moral benefits of Christianity (Prov. 2:5-21)
- The material benefits of Christianity (Prov. 3:1-12)
- The emotional benefits of Christianity (Prov. 3:13-20)
- The social benefits of Christianity (3:21-35)
Last week we began to look at the emotional benefits of Christianity. There are a number of these—peace, love, excitement—but we decided to focus on happiness, as that’s the emphasis of this passage and that is the most common emotion that drives and motivates people. We laid out the series as follows:
- God approves the pursuit of happiness
- God re-directs the pursuit of happiness
- God satisfies the pursuit of happiness.
In the first sermon last week, we saw that God gave the desire for happiness, approves of it, and addresses it in the Gospel. Now, we want to turn to the second sermon, God re-directs the pursuit of happiness. He doesn’t stop it or condemn it, but encourages it in a new way and direction. God does not say, “Stop wanting happiness!” but rather, “Get it in me.” We want to look at what that re-direction means and looks like.
For more, see my sermon notes. Scroll down a bit further and you’ll find a one-page sermon summary infographic.
