Hello friends, my name is Josh Martin and it's good to see you or if you're at the U of I campus or the Central
Washington campus it's good to be seen by you. I know you're there, I love you, thank God for you. We are
excited to be wrapping up the series today. It's been a rough three weeks for us and what I mean by
that is we've had to go through some stuff as your pastors in order to get us ready to talk about this.
So for seven years we have seen students wreck their life. We've seen that and so we come to you for these
last four or three weeks plus today saying there are some hurdles that the enemy has laid up for you.
They are traps for you and we want to show you those things so that you do not hit those things and end up in a
place where your life is wrecked. So in sermon number one we talked about wisdom. How is that we can walk in wisdom
and not foolishness? So we invited you to ask this question. In light of past experience, in light of current
circumstance, in light of future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do? And that was week one.
Week two was about addiction and so Keith came up here and he gave us a definition for addiction that says
addiction is a God replacement with false rewards that we compulsively repeat and ultimately regret.
That's a killer definition. I hope you've kept that and hung on to that because if we're addicted we are going to
lead ourselves to a wrecked life. And then last week we talked about how to lose your faith. In other words,
our faith that doesn't endure all the way to the end. So today we want to wrap up the series but in order to do that
I need you to be honest with me and participate with me a little bit. So here's what I want to do.
I want to ask you a question. Think with me for a second. When you look out on the horizon of your life,
like as far as your eyes can see, you're 60, 70, 80 years old, way out on the horizon of your life.
When you look out there and see yourself, here's my question. What do you picture? What do you hope that you're like?
Way out there. What do you hope that you stood for? What do you hope that you're remembered for?
What do you hope you have a legacy in? So think about that for just a second. If you could write the sermon
that the preacher is going to preach at your funeral. If you could write it up and hand it to him today,
what would you want to be said about you? 40, 50 years from now. What would you have him say?
Now picture that for a moment. What do you want said about you at your funeral? Think about it for a moment.
Seriously, just process that for a second. Now, I bet that if you were to be honest with me, none of you said in your mind,
Josh, on the horizon of my future, when you said picture yourself 50, 60, 70 years old, here's what I thought about.
I thought, man, I want to be on my fifth marriage. I want to be fifth marriage, maybe on my way to number six.
At that point, I would like to hate God. I would like to hate myself. Honestly, to sum it up in a sentence,
Josh, I would like to be alone and miserable. That's what I would like to be when it comes to my life years from now.
So, show of hands, how many of you thought to yourself, when I looked out on the horizon of my life, I thought, my life's ambition is to be alone and miserable.
Anybody? Raise your hand. Anybody? It's a little dark in here. Anybody? Nobody? One person? No, zero. Okay, great.
That's helpful. We're going to need that in just a moment. Listen, nobody wants that.
Everyone in this room wants to matter. They want to have purpose. They want to have joy. They want to have relationships. Listen, you want your life to outlive your life.
And you were designed that way. God designed you that way. He desires that for you want your life to outlive your life.
Now, here's the trouble, and here's what we have to talk and be honest. On one hand, we want our life to outlive our life.
We want to have impact. We want to matter. We want joy. We want purpose. We want adventure. Hashtag adventure.
By the way, breakfast is not an adventure. People on Instagram, okay? We want our lives to matter. That is true of us, right?
But on the other hand, we are 2015 American believers. We are the most well-fed, most well-protected, most well-educated, wealthiest Christians in the history of the church, yet so many of us are not happy.
How do I know that? Over 50% of the books published last year in Christian World were about filling the emptiness inside of you.
So we want to matter. We want to have impact. We want to outlive our lives. But on the other side of this, we're currently protected, healthy, wealthy, and prosperous.
And there's no joy in us. How in the world is that possible? What are we going to do with these two things? How is it that we find ourselves so unsatisfied?
How can this be? What's making us unhappy? Well, I'm glad you asked.
If you have a Bible, and I hope you do, would you grab it and turn with me to Luke chapter 12, and we're going to take a look at what Jesus has to say about what is making us dissatisfied and unhappy.
Luke chapter 12. If you don't have the Resonate app, you should download the Resonate app. We have the Bible on the Resonate app.
We'll also put the scripture on the screen. But additionally, in a short amount of time, the season of Lent is coming up. Lent is the 40 days before Easter.
And we're going to have daily readings that are available on the Resonate app. We're going to get push notifications. The whole thing is going to be sweet.
So if you have a smartphone, a phone that is smart, we'd like for you to go to the App Store or the Google Play or whatever that stuff's called and download the Resonate app.
So, Luke chapter 12. We're going to start in verse 16. But before that, I want to read you a few things before that.
But verse 16 will be on the screen and you can follow along. But verse 13, Jesus is teaching like crazy.
Like if you have a Bible, it's like words in red all around. Jesus is killing it. Teaching, teaching, teaching.
Verse 13, it says this. Someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.
And Jesus responded, man, who appointed me as judge and arbiter between you? Then he said to them, watch out, be on your guard against all kinds of greed.
For a man's life does not consist of abundance of his possessions. Verse 16. And then he turns and tells the parable.
The ground of a certain rich man. That is huge. Rich man. We're talking about a brother who's already rich.
Okay, moving on. The rich man, that's so significant. Your mind will blow later, right?
The rich man, he produced a good crop and he thought to himself, what shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.
But then he said, this is what I'll do. I'll tear down my barn's plural. He has no place to store his stuff, but he has barn's plural.
You checking with that? Okay, I'll keep going. I'll tear down my barn's plural and build bigger ones plural.
And there I will store my grain and my goods. And then I will say to myself, you have plenty of good things laid up for many years.
You've arrived, you've retired, you did it. Now you can take life easy, eat, drink and be merry.
But God said to him, you fool. This very night your life will be demanded from you.
Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? And this is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself, but is not rich towards God.
So my sermon is called how to be dissatisfied. Jesus's sermon is called how to be a rich fool.
Little harsher, just quoting Jesus, everybody relax, right? So that's Jesus. Mine is like, hey, how to struggle? Jesus is like, this is how you ruin everything, how to wreck your life.
So over the past few weeks, we've tried to give you some illustrations formed in the negative that help you understand how to wreck your life.
So I have five easy steps for you to become dissatisfied, which ultimately leads to a wreck life.
So step number one, how to be dissatisfied based on the parable of Jesus is become great at being ungrateful.
Become great at being ungrateful. Now in the story, you see the stuff that happens in the story, but oftentimes there's some stuff going on underneath in our heart that make our actions become a certain way.
And I think being ungrateful is one of these things. So again, this brother says, I have no place to store my crops, but I have barn's plural.
It's like, bro, I have an idea. What if you put your crops in your barn's plural? That's not rocket science. I know you're a farmer, but you have a barn.
You should try your barn. And you may think that's a little ridiculous for me to say, but let's give the guy the benefit of the doubt.
Let's say he just had 10% increase that year and has some new stuff. There's nothing in his heart that defaults generosity.
There's nothing in this guy's heart that defaults. I should be gracious to others and give stuff away.
His immediate heart default is now's my chance to tear down stuff and build bigger stuff.
This, this breeds ungratefulness. This is obviously something internal that is making him act this way.
So listen, our greatest weapon against greed is generosity. Our greatest greffin against greed is gratefulness.
Now, when I say gratefulness, I need to be careful. Gratefulness is not simply you being polite.
Gratefulness is not saying, thank you. You're welcome. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. That is not gratefulness.
What I'm talking about when I say gratefulness, gratefulness is this internal recognition, this internal spiritual ability to see everything in your life as God's grace.
So you see everything in your life as God's grace. So you look at your life and you go, man, God's gracious towards me in the form of money.
God is gracious towards me in the form of possession. God is gracious towards me in the form of influence.
God is gracious towards me in the form of relationships. God is gracious towards me in everything I have.
Therefore, I am grateful for his graciousness. If you need a verse to memorize Psalm 116 verse 12, it says, how can I repay the Lord for all of His goodness to me?
And the Psalmist, the Psalmist doesn't have an answer. It's not like I'm going to go do a bunch of things.
He just says, I'm going to respond by, I will lift up the cup of salvation to the Lord.
What he's saying is symbolic of saying, I'm going to be thankful for his salvation.
What can I do for him? I can just simply respond in gratitude. I can be grateful for what he's accomplished.
And a lot of times we're not grateful because we're so anxious.
And we look at tomorrow and we have anxiety about tomorrow. Listen to me.
Anxiety about tomorrow will not strip tomorrow of its troubles.
But anxiety about tomorrow guaranteed will still today of its joy.
Anxiety about tomorrow. It's not going to take the troubles away from tomorrow.
Tomorrow's coming. It's going to have some troubles. Go ahead and put that on your checklist.
But it will definitely strip today of its joy.
And this is totally not even a part of this sermon.
But if you also want to be grateful, I would say a weapon against greed is just giving stuff away.
Not just like giving it to Goodwill or to a place like that. I'm just saying just giving stuff away,
disrespecting money and possessions by not allowing them to have grip over your life.
To say, yeah, I want to give stuff away to keep my heart from being greedy.
Number two, if you want to wreck your life by becoming dissatisfied,
always compare what you have to people who have more.
Always compare what you have to people who have more.
Now, this is already a parable, so I'm going to take some liberty here and imagine some stuff.
So just track with me, right?
This brother has barn's plural and he doesn't know what to do with his crops.
Now, I want to imagine that this farmer had a neighbor.
And this farmer's neighbor, he had bigger barns.
And this farmer's neighbor's wife had Pinterest.
And this farmer's neighbor had Instagram. And they shopped in the same place.
So they would go into town and they would see each other.
And a little guy farmer with barn's plural would see bigger barn's plural
with his wife who was doing cool stuff with the barn wood
and making their house look all sweet because they had a room with like cool lights and aesthetics and stuff.
And so he sees that all the time and he recognizes that guy with bigger barns is becoming his comparison.
And so in the first moment, he has an opportunity.
When he has more crops, he immediately tears down his barn's plural to build bigger barns
so that the guy over there with bigger barns is no longer the guy with bigger barns.
And his Pinterest account is no longer getting more pins.
But this guy is now finally figuring out how to become the guy to be compared to.
You tracking with that?
So here's how this plays out.
Comparison.
This isn't a Bible verse, but this is Theodore Roosevelt quote.
Comparison is the thief of joy, right?
You might be familiar with that.
My heart breaks for those of you who have to live in a world filled with comparison.
I can't imagine what it's like in a fraternity house or a sorority house where you're constantly tempted to compare yourself to those around you.
Constantly tempted to compare with someone who has a little bit more.
Listen to me resonate.
Someone always has a bigger barn.
Someone always has a cooler photo of their fake life.
That's always going to happen.
But when you start comparing yourself to others, it starts to create in you an immense amount of insecurity.
Which leads to you having to perform all the time.
So you're in this house full of people and you're constantly performing because you're constantly comparing.
Which constantly leads you to a place of insecurity.
Which leads you to a place of gossip because now you have to talk about people who you're comparing yourself to.
Because you're so insecure and you have no security and your identity and who God's made you to be.
And even worse than that, you have no ability to celebrate anybody.
Because you compare.
You can't celebrate somebody because that puts them out front.
That allows you to say, hey man, you have a killer barn and you actually have two barns.
Your barns are great.
I follow your wife on Pinterest man.
She's really out front on the whole pallet wood design thing because this was written 2000 years ago, right?
So she's really killing it out there.
You have no ability to celebrate when you constantly compare yourself to others and the insecurity that comes with that.
And ultimately why this is so heartbreaking, why this is so frustrating to me is because oftentimes when you cannot find yourself not comparing.
Oftentimes it robs you of your unique personhood in Christ.
That God has uniquely made you to be you.
Uniquely orchestrated who you are and your personality in your life so that you can be you.
And so often we go around with insecurities and fears because of our constant comparison to others.
God gifted you to be a gift to the world by the way that he wired you in comparison and stealing that.
And a life of comparison, a life of constantly seeing what others are doing and comparing to that will wreck you.
Some of you in the room, the most spiritual thing you can do today is to delete the Pinterest app from your phone.
You want to talk real? Delete that.
You want to talk even more real? Buy an alarm clock, cost about seven bucks.
Put it next to your bed, put your phone in the closet so that when you wake up in the morning you don't immediately start scrolling through comparison.
You go, man, I'm never going to do that.
Okay, well then continue to fight comparison.
Some of you, the most spiritual thing you can do is limit your Instagram scrolling because what do you do?
You want their life. You don't realize that their life is a fake life too.
It's stealing our joy. It's going to wreck us if we're not careful.
The third thing that we can do if we want to live a dissatisfied life is keep trying to control your lack of control.
Keep trying to control your lack of control.
Can we be honest for a second? I know we're in church and that's really hard to do, but can we be honest for a second?
Can we recognize that control is an illusion?
Like control is a total illusion.
You actually can't have control over anything.
In this story, this farmer crescendos in the moment of finally I have control.
I have enough stuff for years to come.
I can eat, drink and be merry. I'm in control and the next verse God shows up to him and says, you fool.
Tonight your life will be demanded of you.
I don't know when our funeral is coming and I don't say that to make you afraid.
I say that because I'm quoting a Luke chapter 12 where Jesus says you don't know when it's coming.
So be careful trying to control everything.
And before we get all judgmental about this guy who's eating, drinking and being merry.
Don't those three things sound a lot like what you and I strive for?
I want a life of the absence of pain and I want to eat, drink and be merry.
And I don't want a lot of fear around. I want to control that.
We struggle with this.
I have a 15-month-year-old daughter.
If you follow me on Instagram, you know all about her, right?
She has a hashtag and everything. It's awesome.
And my 15-month-old daughter is the coolest.
I want everything good for her. I want to protect her.
But listen, there is no more control freak, crazy people in the world than new parents.
Control freak, crazy people, new parents.
You know what they do to new parents?
They send them to babies are us and make them register for things they've never seen before.
These crazy bottles with shape differently and the way the water and milk flows a certain way.
And you go over to the bottle section, there's 118 options.
And babies are us should basically called like fear-mongering store.
That's what it should be called. Or like control central.
So you go over to 118 baby options for bottles.
And they might as well have put on the wall, you don't want your kid to die, do you?
Well, then buy our product.
If you're a parent in the room, you're like, hey, he's not lying. That's true.
Don't even dare go over to the car seat section.
Because it's like, hey, every other car seat in the store, basically you're going to have a wreck and it's going to go bad.
Our car seat, you have a wreck, some pillows shoot out and immediately you're covered by pillows.
Then this thing turns into a bubble.
Then it turns into a hovercraft and your baby goes right back to your house and lays in the crib safe and sound.
Buy our crib.
It's fear-based marketing.
And it's all around us. We're terrified. We want control.
And what's really sad and the reason I joke and I get amped up about this is because underneath all that is this core disbelief.
It's a lie that the enemy tells us that God is not good.
That God is not trustworthy.
That God does not have my daughter's life already.
Her days are already numbered because he's good and he's for her.
My days are already numbered and that's good and he's for me.
And we can trust him so we can actually release control a little bit.
You can trust that if that internship doesn't go well, you don't have to control that.
If the football game doesn't go well, you don't have to control that.
If your grades don't completely go like you thought they were going to go, you don't have to control that God is good.
He can be trusted. He's not holding out on you.
He's for you. He loves you.
When this man in the story crescendos with, I'm in control, God says, no man, you missed it.
You completely missed it.
Now don't hear what I'm not saying today.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have a retirement plan.
I'm not saying you should be foolish with your money.
I'm not saying you shouldn't eat blueberries and do crunches.
I'm not saying you shouldn't eat Asaya berries or however you pronounce that.
I'm not saying you shouldn't put kale and everything.
I'm not saying that.
I know you guys are like, whoa, bro, you're on my regimen.
I do CrossFit. I'm trying to live forever, right?
So listen, I'm not saying that.
I'm saying be careful.
I'm saying if you think these things equal your salvation, we missed it.
We missed it.
A little later in this verse, Jesus, he finishes with, you're not rich towards God.
And then in verse 22, he says, therefore I tell you, don't worry about your life.
Don't worry about what you eat.
Don't worry about your body, what you're going to wear.
Life is more than food and your body's more than clothes.
Consider the ravens.
They don't sow. They don't reap yet.
They don't have a storehouse. They don't even have a barn.
He's talking about the rich guy. They don't have barns.
Yet God feeds them. God takes care of them.
And how much more valuable are you than the birds?
Jesus says you're valuable.
God's going to take care of you.
Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?
Jesus asked the question, since you cannot do this little thing,
why do you worry about the rest?
Consider how the lilies grow.
They don't labor. They don't spin.
Yet I tell you, not even Solomon, King Solomon, like richest dude ever.
Why is this dude ever?
He says, not even King Solomon.
And all of his splendor was dressed like one of these.
Jesus goes, these little flowers are killing it.
Like more than King Solomon.
And then he goes on to say, this is how God closed the grass of the field,
which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire.
How much more will he clothe you?
Oh, you of little faith.
And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink.
He says, don't do the eat, drink and be merry thing.
Don't set your heart on that.
Don't worry about that.
Verse 30, for the pagan world runs after these things,
but the Father knows that you need them.
Verse 31 is this whole thing hinges around this verse where he says,
but seek his kingdom.
But seek first God's kingdom.
And then everything else will be given to you as well.
Do not be afraid, little flock.
For your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.
Now sell your possessions.
Don't, you know, bear your barns and build new barns.
Sell your possessions and give to those who have needs.
Sell your possessions and give to the poor.
Pursue for yourselves.
He says, provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out.
A treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted.
Where no thieves come near and no moth destroys.
For where your treasure is there, your heart will be also.
Jesus says, be careful trying to control your life.
It's not going to be possible.
The fourth thing you can do based on the parable on Luke 12.
I think this is the undercurrent of the whole parable.
The fourth thing you can do to wreck your life is to develop an attitude of entitlement.
This is a place where in my life I would say I struggle the most.
This is a place where I've had to have deep repentance in my own life.
I really struggle with this.
I'm not just saying it because it's helpful for whoever preaches to act like they struggle with it.
No, like really struggle with this.
Have gone and received prayer for this multiple times because there's something deeply rooted in me
that thinks you get what you deserve.
That thinks that I've earned stuff.
Maybe it's from my parents. I don't know. My dad worked in the oil field 30 years.
Get up at five, go to work in the hot sun, come home and get a paycheck.
You go to work, you get a paycheck.
So this developed attitude of entitlement in me.
This farmer in the story might have thought to himself, I earned this.
I deserve this. I've waited years for this.
The guy over there, he doesn't work as hard as me.
I actually work harder and now is my chance to build my kingdom.
I deserve this. And you and I, we are tempted by that.
We grew up in a world where it was a competitive world where you had to achieve things to receive things.
And you have trophies in your house because you've achieved stuff.
You have metals on your wall. You have certificates of achievement in you.
And if you're not careful, that starts to twist and to turn and make you feel like you are entitled to it.
Listen to me. The gospel blows my mind and it's still incredibly hard for me to believe
because the gospel comes against entitlement thoroughly.
The gospel says in one sentence, you don't get what you deserve.
It turns entitlement on its head.
It says, oh, hey, you guys want to play the entitlement game?
I'll tell you what you're entitled to. You ready?
Sin, death and hell.
That's what you're entitled to.
Anybody want that? Show of hands?
No.
So in us, we have a gospel issue because Jesus did the work and we received the paycheck.
Jesus accomplished all things that needed to be done and rewarded us undeservingly.
This is a gospel issue.
This farmer in the story is not a good guy trying to create a retirement fund.
He has a gospel issue.
He think he deserved it. He think he earns it.
He think it's his turn.
He never in his mind thought, man, I'm not entitled to this.
God gave me a killer crop this year. I have plenty for my family.
What if I'm generous? What if I give away?
What if I'm able to actually build for myself a treasure in heaven, not a treasure here?
This is a gospel issue.
The spirit of entitlement in you will wreck your life.
The spirit of entitlement in you will wreck your relationships.
It will wreck your legacy.
And if you do not kill it,
if you do not ask the Holy Spirit to kill it in you,
it will ultimately wreck your whole faith because it's a gospel issue.
But when you realize that everything is grace,
like right now this breath that you're breathing,
you feel that?
You know that you're not making your heart beat right now, right?
You know you can't do that?
You know that that's God's grace to you?
You know that you're not entitled to your next breath?
Some of you don't believe this.
Some of you go, oh man, that's really great to say actually,
but I'm going to leave here and go do some more hard work and get what I deserve.
God comes along in verse 21 and says,
you fool, you fool, you missed it.
I gifted you so that you would gift others.
I gave to you. You didn't deserve that.
The only thing you deserved was separation from me, sin and death and hell.
That's what you deserved, but praise God.
You don't get what you deserve.
The gospel is that God was unfair to you.
And he was unfair to Christ so that we do not get what we deserve.
If you develop an attitude of entitlement,
it's going to make its way through everything in your life
and you're never going to have a chance to be rich towards God.
The farmer missed it, and you and I missed it,
and I have deeply repented of that spirit of entitlement in me,
saying, God, thank you for your grace towards me.
God did not get an all-star when you became a Christian.
He didn't recruit an A-list recruit when you became a Christian.
You know that, right?
You didn't go, man, Jesus, you really lucked out
now that I'm a part of the church.
Church is really going to grow.
You aren't doing so great before me, but now you got me.
This team's about to go five-star, baby.
Are you serious? Are we serious?
Can we kill this attitude of entitlement?
Sorry, I'm a little passionate about this, obviously,
because I struggle with it.
They say you preach most difficultly what you struggle with.
They say preaching is just yelling to a room,
yelling to yourself into a room full of people.
If you end up like, why is Josh so passionate?
Because I struggle.
Preaching is a boomerang.
You just throw it out there and it comes back to you.
So listen, if you're in that boat,
we need to ask the Holy Spirit to kill that inside of us.
That entitlement's not going to get us where we're going.
That pride is not going to get us where we're going.
Point number five, last thing.
If you and I want to wreck our lives,
then we should pursue temporary possessions
over eternal treasure.
That's where this story ends.
This guy has pursued temporary treasures.
He's pursued temporary possessions over eternal treasures,
and he lands at this place that goes, I did it.
I have a retirement plan.
I'm going to move to Florida and I'm going to collect seashells now
because I've arrived.
I'm going to eat and drink and be merry.
I'm right on my yacht all day.
And that's it.
I've pursued this temporary possessions
instead of eternal treasure.
And in verse 21, God says to him tonight,
your life will be demanded for you.
This is how it will be.
With anyone who stores up things for himself
and is not rich towards God.
Now this is the hard part.
Remember earlier when I was talking about your funeral?
And I was supposed to encourage you talking about your funeral,
not scare you.
I'm just quoting Jesus, right?
I'm supposed to be like, yeah, I have a funeral coming.
I should live towards that.
It'll be awesome.
Because you know that when we die,
we don't really die if you're a believer in Christ.
You know that, right?
That's why we celebrate Easter and we get all juiced up on Easter
because there's no death for us.
It's like, oh yeah, I'm going to have a funeral.
It's just a celebration of my life.
Don't get all weirded out because I'm talking about your funeral.
I'm talking about the day that you're released
from this place of dissatisfaction
and you go to the place of full satisfaction.
I hope that that doesn't create fear in you.
I hope it creates delight in you.
You go, man, praise God, I get to die.
This place is awful.
Praise God, He allows me death.
I don't want to be here forever.
If I'm 80 or 90, that's great,
but man, I don't know how long I want to be here.
So God, whatever number you have on my day,
I'm going to store up treasure for that day.
Not for this day, because today might be the day.
Jesus says it might be demanded of you tonight.
And you go, man, that sounds good to me.
I don't know when it's going to be demanded of me,
but whenever it is, I'm going to put some treasure in heaven.
My hope for us as a church is that when you get to heaven,
you don't lay down like a little bitty treasure before God
to go, hey God, this is what I did for you.
Thanks for all you did for me.
Yeah, that was all great, man.
I have a huge house in Florida now,
but here's what I did for you, man.
I hope they have to back up like dumpsters that day
just to pile on the treasure that you have stored up for you.
Not for you, but for God,
for a kingdom that never ever fades,
a kingdom that is unstoppable.
Now, why I say this is the hard part
is because the enemy is coming at us.
And he's telling us this one lie.
The lie the enemy tells us is this.
He says, become rich towards you first,
then become rich towards God.
That's the lie.
Hey, in college, eat, drink, and be merry, man.
Have a good time.
Then later, you'll get married.
You'll have some kids.
It'll be great.
Then you can be rich towards God.
He says, you know what's going to satisfy?
Like 30% more money, then you'll be fine.
You make this much now.
You just need a little bit more, then you'll be fine.
The enemy comes at you and he tells you,
wait until later, then be generous.
And Jesus goes, bro, later is not promised.
Don't do that.
You have to start now.
Seek first the kingdom.
Now, right now, be generous right now
because why?
You don't know how long you have.
And that's encouraging.
That's exciting.
Praise God for that.
So why are we storing up temporary possessions
when eternal glory is available to us right now?
You can invest in a place where thieves don't steal,
moth doesn't destroy, and rust doesn't exist.
Praise God that's available to us,
but the enemy tells us.
Don't worry.
You can become generous later.
Don't worry.
You don't have to do it right now.
Procrastination, right?
That's what you're good at.
Just wait a while.
Just keep retiring.
Just build up your kingdom.
Tear down those barns aren't big enough.
God's going to do more.
You need bigger barns just in case.
And Jesus comes along and goes, man, that's foolish.
Right now.
I know you don't have much, but right now, be generous.
Why?
Because your heart is at stake.
Don't you dare believe that when you get more,
you'll be generous.
That's hilarious.
If you're not generous right now with whatever you have,
generosity towards God is not going to come
when riches towards you come.
The devil says you get rich first, then give to God.
And God says, no, no, no, you give to me.
I'll take care of every one of your needs.
The ravens of the field, take care of them.
Lilies of the field, take care of them.
I will take care of you.
You be rich towards me.
You invest in me.
You seek my kingdom over everything.
You leverage your whole life for the end.
Because you don't know when your funeral is coming.
But when it comes, it'll be great.
Because you've invested in the future.
Do not believe the lie that you can wait till later
because later is not promised.
And that's really good news.
You should respond to that.
You should love that.
If you want to wreck your life, you'll put off stuff till later.
Lastly, you might think, man, Josh,
you're saying a lot of things.
You're asking me to be rich towards God.
You're asking me to be grateful.
You're asking me to do all this stuff.
Well, I'm not asking you to do anything
that God himself has not already done
towards you, in you, and through you.
God has been crazy generous towards you.
You might ask, why?
How?
How is that possible?
God took his greatest asset, his son Jesus.
And he liquidated it.
And he liquidated that greatest asset,
cast in all of that value
so that he might buy us back from sin, death, and hell.
He might buy us back from what we were entitled to.
He came along and he paid for our debt.
What we did not owe, what we could not pay,
he paid for us.
And Jesus paid a debt.
He did not owe to make that happen.
So if I were to plead with you, Resonate Church,
to hear one single thing I say today,
all of this other stuff is symptomatic.
This thing I'm telling you is the disease we struggle with.
And that is this.
If I could plead with you in one thing, I'd say this.
Resonate Church, the gospel is not only that Jesus is Savior,
but also that he is Satisfier.
The gospel is that Jesus is not only the forgiver of sins,
he's the Fulfiller of Souls.
The gospel is that he not only takes care of all the sin and
death that we owed, he also provides everything that we need.
He's not just the Savior, he's the Satisfier.
You have to get that.
If you're not satisfied in Christ, you'll never be rich
towards God.
You'll never be grateful.
You'll never get over comparison.
You'll never stop figuring out how to leverage your life to
get more for you instead of more for God.
You have to understand that all of the riches of God are
available to you in Christ.
And I have to use ridiculous human illustrations to help say
this, but you don't believe me when I say that Jesus offers
satisfaction.
That's really hard for you.
There was a preacher in America named Jonathan Edwards.
He said that God is most glorified in you when you're
most satisfied in him.
So when you're most satisfied in Christ, God receives the most
glory from your life.
Well, what in the world does it mean to be satisfied in Christ?
The only thing you can take away from this sermon, if you're
not careful, is Josh told me to buy an alarm clock and delete
Pinterest app.
That's all I got.
Okay.
Here's what I'm trying to say.
Jesus offers you soul satisfaction at the deepest core
level.
And because of that, everything the world offers is no longer
delightful.
This is the picture of Thanksgiving, right?
The one meal a year that we all eat right, right?
So you eat a ton of turkey, you eat mashed potatoes, you eat
the yams with mostly the marshmallows on top, right?
You are legitimately full.
You eat and then you eat some more.
Then you have dessert.
Then you have some coffee.
Now imagine that feeling, right?
That feeling.
Now imagine someone walks in and offers you a hot pocket.
You're not interested, are you?
Why?
Because you're satisfied.
This is a dumb illustration, but I need you to track with this,
right?
You are satisfied in that moment by something that nourished you
and met your needs so much so other offers are not that big a
deal.
I think about my wedding day.
My wedding day.
I've been married about seven years.
My wedding day when my wife hits the aisle and I can see her and
she can see me and the music starts playing and the tears
start flowing in that moment when she's walking towards me.
Let's just picture some other girl comes up to me in that
moment, like hides behind the altar and sneaks up and says,
hey Josh, do you want to be with me tonight?
Do you want to come hang out with me tonight?
She offers that, right?
At my wedding with my wife, future wife coming down the aisle.
Do you think that's a temptation in that moment?
Or do you think, I don't know how beautiful this girl is.
I don't know.
She could be super rich and super model or whatever.
I look back at her and I go, actually I'm super busy tonight.
I have a lot of plans tonight.
And believe it or not, this temptation is ridiculously not
tempting.
Why?
Because I'm thoroughly satisfied in the gift of my wife.
I'm not tempted.
Why?
Because I'm satisfied.
Now are you going to be tempted?
Of course you're going to be tempted.
What's the best way to fight that temptation?
Satisfaction.
Being satisfied in Christ.
So that in the morning, you wake up and you start to see,
man, satisfaction is what I'm after today.
Christ offers me satisfaction today.
So the first thing I do in the morning is I look to Jesus,
the Satisfyer, instead of looking to Instagram,
the Comparison World.
So when you wake up in the morning, you look to Christ.
He's your Satisfyer.
He's the one you need.
And this is difficult.
So you look to Christ.
Therefore, all day long, when lust comes to you,
that thought of lust comes to you.
You go, no, no, no, lust.
You don't get to be here.
Why?
Because I'm satisfied.
That thought of comparison comes up.
That insecurity starts to rise and you go,
oh, that was a good one.
You almost got me there.
But I'm actually satisfied.
I'm made in the image of God.
I know who I am.
I've been bought by Christ.
I have a good father who loves me.
That insecurity, that was close.
That stuck around for a while.
But I'm actually satisfied.
That career move that you feel so much anxiety about,
that rises up and you go, no, no, no,
that's not going to work today because I'm satisfied.
Do you realize that oftentimes people bail from the faith
because they view Jesus simply as Savior, not as satisfi.
He's the satisfi.
John chapter six, he says, I'm the bread of life.
If you eat the bread, I offer you never hungry again.
John chapter four, he tells the woman at the well,
I am living water.
You drink from me.
You're never thirsty again.
What is he trying to say?
There are false satisfactions coming at you all day,
every day, invading your bedroom in the morning,
coming at you all day long.
You have to view me as your satisfi.
Because when you're satisfied,
these other things do not look as tempting.
It's Paul in Philippians chapter three,
who at the end of his life, and this is my prayer for you.
Paul coming up to his funeral.
He says, I look at everything I've done.
Philippians chapter three, he says,
I consider everything in my life.
I consider it a loss.
I give it up compared to the surpassing,
satisfactory greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord,
for whose sake I've lost all things
so that I might gain Him.
Jesus tells the illustration about the treasure in the field.
The guy finds this treasure in this field,
and he goes and sells everything he owns
just so he can buy this treasure.
He's satisfied.
Paul says, I consider everything a loss
compared to the surpassing greatness
of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
My hope is that you would realize
that this world does not satisfy,
and that every time that you feel that dissatisfaction
rise up in you because a relationship goes bad,
because the score doesn't go well,
because an internship doesn't work out,
because an interception is thrown at the one yard line.
Whatever happens in that moment, right?
That dissatisfaction.
What did Russell tweet the next morning?
He said, that doesn't change my identity.
You saw it, right?
That doesn't change who I'm called to be.
Why can he tweet that?
Because he's satisfied.
So when that dissatisfaction rises up in you
and that moment shows its head,
you look at that and you go,
man, every time I'm dissatisfied,
it's pointing me to the satisfactor who is Christ.
The eternal satisfactor is Christ.
So I invite you to look around your life
and say, where am I dissatisfied,
and how can that point me to the satisfactor who is Christ?
Are we dissatisfied?
Of course we are.
That's a gift of God,
so that we'll look to the satisfactor.
Did that relationship not satisfy?
Of course it didn't.
Let's look to the satisfactor.
Does getting married satisfy?
Guys, listen to me, it doesn't.
That's why we should look to the satisfactor.
Does having a kid satisfy?
No, it's actually super hard.
We should look to the satisfactor.
Is the retirement plan going to satisfy?
No.
But if we look to the satisfactor,
then let's cheer on sports teams.
If we get this thing right first,
if we get this right,
then let's cheer our hearts out.
Let's get married.
Let's eat and drink and be married if we're satisfied.
But if we're not satisfied,
then don't go eat and drink and be married
because that's going to lead to more dissatisfaction,
which is going to lead to more insecurity,
which is going to ultimately lead to a wrecked life,
which frankly is a wasted life.
If you were to say, what's this whole series about?
It's begging you not to waste your life
because a wrecked life is a wasted life.
It's a life that finds itself at its funeral
with nothing to give eternally.
It's a life where the preacher has to stand up
at your funeral and lie
because you stored up earthly possessions
instead of eternal treasure.
So I'm inviting you.
I'm inviting myself to believe this,
to go back to Jesus as a Satisfyer,
to invite the Holy Spirit of God
to show us the places in our life
where we are looking to other things to satisfy.
He is our Savior and He's great at it
and He's also our Satisfyer.
Could we believe that today?
That's the hope.
That's the prayer.
That is the push.
And if you do this, I promise you,
it will be incredibly difficult,
but it will be the most rewarding thing you ever do.
So I want to close by saying every breath you have is currency.
How are you going to spend it?
Every dollar you have is currency.
How are you going to spend it?
Every bit of influence you have is currency.
How are you going to spend it?
What you want said about you at your funeral
has to start today.
There is no such thing as later.
Being satisfied in Christ
is the only way you're going to live a life
that is rich towards God.
It's the only way you and I are going to live a life
that's not riddled with insecurity, anxiety, and depression.
Be satisfied.
Be satisfied.
Let's pray together.
Lord, I pray that we would get this this morning.
Not in some general inspirational kind of way, God,
I pray that we get this like in the most practical,
serious way imaginable, we understand this.
God, I pray that we understand that you satisfy
and that you satisfy us so much
that when the world tempts us, when the world offers us things,
God, we're not even tempted by that.
God, because if we're satisfied in you,
if we're really satisfied in you,
then 50 shades of gray looks ridiculous.
God, if we're satisfied in you, then 21 runs look ridiculous.
God, if we're satisfied in you,
then constant premarital sex and all that stuff,
God, it's ridiculous.
God, if we're satisfied in you,
then a lot of this anxiety and frustration and fear,
God, it goes away.
So I pray that we would receive this today.
God, I pray that we would be people that reject
the ridiculous offers of this world
because we know the one that satisfies.
God, I pray in this time we would turn our attention
towards Jesus.
We would turn our affection towards Jesus.
And God, because we're focused on Jesus,
the things of this world, God, I pray they would just,
they would grow dim.
They would grow faint.
God, I pray they would lose their power over us.
God, help us.
God, we run to things that don't satisfy.
We are far too easily satisfied.
God, would you help us today?
Holy Spirit, would you reveal to us
the lies that we're believing?
Pray that in Jesus' name.
Amen.
