Lovers of Pleasure vs. Lovers of God

Lovers of Pleasure vs. Lovers of God

This morning we read from Proverbs 21, 17. I want to read it again.

He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man. He that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.

And then in Psalm 4, verse 7, Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.

As we know well, one of the characteristics the Bible tells us about the last times, one of the prominent characteristics is, well, the first one is that men will be lovers of their own selves. But it goes on to say that men will be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Men will be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. That passage Paul tells Timothy will go on to say that there will be a form of godliness. In other words, men will say they love God, but they actually love pleasure. They live for pleasure. That is what drives them, what motivates them.

And Jesus told us very clearly in Luke chapter 9, verse 23, He said this, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.

Let's look in Luke 14 together. Luke 14, verse 26. What does it say there? Luke 14, 26 says this, If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, in his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.

Peter responded to the Lord in Matthew 19, verse 27. He says, Behold, we have forsaken all and followed Thee. Behold, we have forsaken all and followed Thee.

For as much denial as there is to the Christian life, denial of self, denial of sinful pleasures, that like Moses chose rather to endure affliction, to associate himself with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season, the Bible says. And he's set up, he is propped up in the Scriptures as an example of the faith. He's set up by God as an example for us to follow. He counted the riches that are eternal in nature as greater value than the riches of temporary pleasure.

Now, all that being said, there is pleasure to be found in the Lord. There is lasting pleasure. Sometimes, well, I should say really throughout our Christian lives, the Lord is constantly testing our faith and wanting us to venture out in faith on Him even when it doesn't feel good, knowing that we trust His Word, we trust what He tells us, we trust who He says He is. We have found Him to be true. We have found Him to be all that He says that He is and that our relationship with Him is not predicated on. It's not simply based upon feelings. I serve God because He gives me a good feeling and when I don't get good feelings, I don't serve God. That's not our relationship with the Lord. My relationship with the Lord is based on the fact that I'm a sinner, but I'm saved by His grace and I take up my cross and I follow Him because He is the only one that loves me enough to tell me the truth about myself. All the other world religions will tell you in so many terms either how good of a person you are or how bad you are, but you have to pay for your own sins and you have to do something to be able to atone for your own sins.

Well, the world and the devil are working hard in our time to sell the lie that living for Jesus is a boring life, that living for Jesus is the, you know, obviously that would be the best way to appeal especially to young people, right? It's going to be boring if you live for God. I mean, even Starbucks, I think, on their coffee, one of their coffee cups a while back said something about, you know, there was a quote from somebody on there about heaven being a boring place where a bunch of people are sitting around playing harps or something like that. And, well, for the sinner, not saved by the grace of God, maybe it would be a boring place.

But, the song says, God has not promised, sky's always blue, flowers strewn, pathways all our lives through, you know, all of those bed of roses kind of promises, but God has promised strength for the day, rest for the labor, light for the way. You know, God has promised to put joy in our hearts and give us peace in his way.

I think of this morning, the contrast between the two verses that we read in Proverbs 21, it says in Proverbs 21 verse 17, it told us there that he that loveth pleasure he that lives for pleasure, he that lives for the high, he that lives for the buzz, he that lives for the next thrill that he can get through the lust of the flesh, through the things of this life, shall be a poor man. He will be a poor man, not only physically speaking, which is true, materially speaking, because he's going to spend all his money up on the weekend and he's going to go back to work and he's going to repeat the same hamster cycle, you know, hamster wheel again. It says he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich, but, as we read in Psalm 4 this morning, it says thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. Corn in abundance and wine in abundance brings joy and pleasure and excitement and all of that. It's associated with partying and it's associated with abundance. It's associated with prosperity and it's associated with I'm blessed, right? I've got all this stuff. But the psalmist here says that the Lord had put gladness in his heart that was greater than even that.

Instead of living for pleasure, we can and we ought to, as Christians, we are to live for Christ. We're to live for Christ. And you know what? We can enjoy and we ought to enjoy living for Christ. There's some days that aren't as enjoyable as others, right? They don't feel good as others. They're listening for the present seemeth to be joyous. But afterward, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those that are exercised thereby. Sometimes there's probably moments where our children wish their parents didn't chase in them, but you know, after we get it right, it's just a wonderful thing.

God has given every one of us a brain, a brain. And we have in that brain, I am no neurosurgeon. Don't even come close to even knowing all that there is about the various lobes of the brain. And if you gave me a map of the brain right now, I probably couldn't chart it out and tell you accurately where all the different lobes and sections, what they do, you know, right brain versus left brain and all of that. I've heard it before, but I haven't memorized it. And yet, you know, there's this phrase that we have in our, well, we hear a lot about that neurotransmitter called dopamine, don't we? Dopamine. And that neurotransmitter that carries certain, you know, hormone in the brain, it's associated with, commonly associated with a lot of things that the brain performs, but it gives a sensation of pleasure, motivation and reward. It helps regulate our mood. All of those things, the dopamine, you know, typically dopamine levels increase or when something feels good and is rewarding, that's associated with that increase in the dopamine transportation that goes on in the brain, for lack of a better way to say it.

I know that in modern culture today, you know, people, there's also this term that is used, I know plumbers use it for pipe dope, right? Dope is used for, it's something that you spread on a pipe, but dope is also a term that for a long time has been associated with drugs. Dope is just a slang word for drugs. It started out as heroin, but I think even marijuana, different things people refer to as dope in general. People used to, even going back to the 1800s, they would call a dope fiend was one who was a victim of the opium habits, a dope fiend. Dope fiend. Generally speaking, the hip hop culture in the 1980s brought that term dope to the forefront and made it more of a positive connotation and it sort of wedded, it's not scientifically per se, but more culturally speaking, wedded the idea of, maybe we might say the rush of dopamine is associated with dope. When somebody today says that car is dope, bro, you know, they would say that's the common slang. You hear it, they say that's dope, that means it's cool. That means it makes me feel good, it's exciting. That's dope. I know I don't normally use slang in the pulpit, but that is the common term that people use now, dope. So we've taken something that actually was not good, it was a sinful pleasure, and we've kind of turned it into something that is mainstream now.

I know when I drive through, whenever I drive my bike, I haven't driven out to the church from the house in a while, but when I go through Rocky Mountain, I don't go very far without smelling dope everywhere. Marijuana particularly, I smell all over the place. And people are increasingly looking for a feeling of pleasure and an escape to get away from the reality of life. They're trying to get doped up because they can't deal with reality.

I know I talked to a guy, I reuse sermon illustrations, I know, but I was standing in line several years back at Wal-Mart, and this guy was behind me with his Beats headphones on in the line at Wal-Mart, and I rushed her out and I said, how you doing? Or something like that to him, and I could tell he couldn't hear what I was saying, but he saw my mouth move, so he took his headphones off and said, excuse me? I said, I'll just ask you how you're doing. He said, hang it in there. And he said, I couldn't make it without this music, bro. I couldn't make it without my music. And that's his dope, if we can say it that way, or that's one of his forms of dope, or that people will say, that music is dope. It brings me excitement and pleasure, and it gives me the next hit and makes me feel good. It makes me feel alive. It makes me feel that buzz or that high that I get.

Revelation 9 will tell us, and I won't turn to that passage and read the whole passage, but in that passage it talks about in the great tribulation that there will be five sins that people will not repent of. They will refuse to repent of these sins. And one of those sins is translated there, sorceries, sorceries. We went through this when we were going through the book of Revelation, and we saw that that word, sorceries, is the word in the Greek pharmakeia. We get pharmacy or pharmaceuticals or whatever, drugs. We get that word from that. There is a close connection between the magical world of witchcraft and the psychedelic effects that drugs can have upon people's minds. They can transport them. There's something about drugs. Drugs are sort of a final frontier. The opioid epidemic crisis that we're having today is because people are looking for escape that's stronger, frankly, than any of the other sinful pleasures. Even alcohol is not good enough. It doesn't cut it anymore. Sex is not good enough. We've got to have all these other things that are going to transport us into another realm of excitement and stimulation that we have not known before.

But we see in that passage in Revelation 9, and take the time to turn there, but they would not repent of their pharmakeia. They would not repent of it. They would not repent of their fornications and other things that we see there in that passage of Scripture because that is their God. Their God is their belly. Their God is what makes them feel good. That is their idol. They worship their own lusts. They are lovers of pleasures more, and we see that the people that we see in Revelation 9 are the end products of the perilous times and of those who receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved. Where else are they going to turn? They're going to turn to these things. That's the only hope or the only feeling or the only thing that makes them feel alive, we might say, and yet it's just the way that leads to death. It's the way that leads to death.

In fact, John describes in Revelation 18 that the sorcery by which Babylon will deceive the nations, a mixture of witchcraft and drugs, no doubt, but we see that there will be a great sorcery by which they deceive the nations. They will believe a lie rather than to receive the love of the truth.

But, folks, we can get true and lasting pleasure from serving the Lord. The reason why people have to go deeper and darker in their sins is because it doesn't satisfy. It doesn't meet the need. It only leaves the soul emptier with each new high.

We can, from what I understand, dopamine can come to us through exercise, through intimacy between legitimate husband and wife, through watching a sunrise, through singing music, eating food. There's all kinds of ways that you get. Dopamine is not the problem. It is how we get that, right? How we get dopamine. When we worship the rush, you may say, why are you telling me about this? When we worship the pleasure, let's just put it that way. If we never knew the term, if we never had psychology and we never had the neuroscientist telling us what exactly happens in the brain, we'd just say pleasure. There are legitimate pleasures, but we can't worship them. I love my wife. I love food. I love a beautiful sunrise. I love a lot of things. I enjoy getting exercise, but we cannot worship those things. In fact, bodily exercise, we see, we need to have it. We need to take care of the vessel, but it profiteth little. All these things are not to be worshiped. The key is how we approach it. How do we get the pleasure and why do we live for the pleasure? Or do we worship the pleasure? Do we worship the Lord himself?

The fundamental understanding of worship is that I worship Christ. I live for him. I love him because he first loved me. I love him because I know who he is. You know, as a couple grows older, the physical intimacy decreases, we might say, but the love, the bond between them should only grow stronger because it's based in the reality of who that wife of my youth, that husband of my youth is. I love you. I love you. Do we love God just because the feeling we get and then we don't serve him some days because we don't get a good feeling? No. We live for God. We live for Christ and we ought to love him because he first loved us, because we're redeemed. If he never does, and I think about those who have gone through deep trials and some, I've heard this several times being said, if he never does another thing for me, I love him. I owe him my all. If he never does another thing for me, I want to give him the rest of my life because he is my life. He is my all. But you know he's going to do a lot more for us. He fills us with gladness in our hearts, doesn't he? The longer that we serve the Lord, the more joy we ought to have in him. And yet it's not the joy that we serve him for. It's because we know better who he is. And we know that he's faithful. And even when there's moments where we feel like, where's the Lord? He's silent to me. Where's the overflowing cup that I had yesterday? Well, we can just remember the goodness of the Lord and thank him and say, I know you're still there. I know you still love me. I know your word. You cannot and will not fail to keep your promises to me.

Oh, we live in times where there are the enemies of the cross of Christ serve their own belly. So that's what Paul said. They serve their own belly. They are enemies of the cross. He says in Romans 16, 18, for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly. Remember, we are the servants of the Lord. We're children of the King, but we serve the Lord. We are his slaves. We are his love slaves, but we are his slaves to serve him.

Do we, does it thrill our soul, as we sang this morning, to think he died for us? Does it bring joy through our soul? Just to think back. We need to reflect on all that God's done for us when we're tempted to complain. We need to think. He didn't have to do a thing for me, but he has died for me, and he lives for me even now.

Are we chasing a feeling, or are we worshiping God? Are we chasing a feeling in our life? Do we say, well, when I get more motivated, I'll serve the Lord? Or do we stand in awe at him? Do we stand in awe at his glory, in awe that he is? It's one thing to experience the true happiness and pleasure that comes when we do God's will, but we better not, we better be careful not to live for that pleasure, to live for the feeling. Feelings come, feelings go, and feelings are deceiving, Martin Luther said. My warrant is the word of God. Not else is worth believing.

You know, sometimes people say, I don't feel good, I don't think I'll go to church today. And there may be times when we physically just can't go to church, but we should still want to be in the Lord's house. We should still, I don't feel good today, I don't think I'll read my Bible. I don't feel good, I think I'll just, I'll just put off praying until tomorrow. I don't feel good. We ought to, of all times, we ought to get on our knees. If we don't feel good, Lord, help me through this season. Lord, speak to me through your word. Lord, remind me of the things that I need to know and show me wonderful things out of your book. Light my path, guide my steps.

Emotional, we don't want to be guided by our emotions. We don't want to serve God because of emotions. We get emotions. Some of us are more emotional than others. I know I get emotional thinking about the Lord. Maybe not every moment do I just start breaking down crying or whatever the emotion might be. But when I think of what the Lord has done for me, we can't base our choices on how we feel at a given moment. Sometimes we don't feel very good at all. Sometimes we feel like saying something we shouldn't say, don't we? But we should say, Lord, help me.

Do we read our Bible to get emotionally stirred or do we read our Bible to say, Lord, I want to see you. I want to behold you. I want to learn more about you. I want to know you. And if we have that knowledge and if we see that sight, I can't help but say that we will be moved. But Lord, show me wonderful things about yourself. Show me needful things about myself. Teach me, guide me.

People want an escape today. They want a high. They want a feeling. But we can't live for that. We can't live for the buzz, for the high.

There's the words of that hymn, Once it was the blessing, now it is the Lord. Once it was the feeling, now it is His word. That's where we want to come to in our Christian lives, that we are living not for the feeling, but we're living just to know more of His saving fullness and to know Christ, to know Him.

You know, they say when children move out of the household and there's the empty nest, our relationship as husband and wife is going to be tested. How well do we know our spouse? And we've got to get to know each other better because right now in the stage of life that we're in, we've got a full nest. The nest is full and all the chicks in the nest are growing. And my wife and I have to thank God for times like yesterday where we had the marriage conference and we can be provoked in our thinking and stimulated in our hearts to love one another more, to love each other more amidst the busyness of life. But we want to know each other better in those things. And you know, the only way to really know each other better is to know the Lord better. To know the Lord better and to grow in that knowledge together in Him.

The Bible is full of examples of how when people are controlled by emotion, it doesn't ever end up in a good way. It doesn't end up in a good way. Think about Eve and, well, it looks good. It gives me a good feeling when I look at it. No? Cain felt angry towards his brother and he acted upon those feelings and you know how that turned out. We have Joseph's brothers and how they felt towards him. We have Moses in the rock in the wilderness and how he felt towards the people and what he did in disobeying God in the feeling. We have Elijah under attack by Jezebel and how things he said and the way he felt at that time. Be better if I just, you know, die. Well, actually it wouldn't be. God has a plan and a purpose in all of this. He's going to provide for you. He's going to protect you. She cannot harm your life unless God allows her to do that. God hasn't changed. Jeremiah was even depressed. I know we've talked about that not too long ago. He felt Jonah. How did he feel toward the Assyrians? Think of Peter and his mouth and how that got him in trouble. Whatever he felt, he said a lot of times, right? I feel a certain way so I'm going to tell you about it. The Ephesian elders were moved emotionally, weeping, mainly because they wouldn't be able to see Paul face to face anymore, but yet some of them would arise in the midst and be false teachers. There's so many examples we can look at, but emotions are not a bad thing. Pleasure is not a bad thing. But let's be sure that we're not worshipping pleasure.

God gives us pleasure when we serve and follow and trust in Him. He fills our hearts with a joy that is beyond just some temporary high that we can get through some experience of the rush of dopamine. It comes from above. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and He gives us richly and freely all things to enjoy. Enjoy the things He gives us. Enjoy the feelings that He brings to you. And just remember it's a foretaste of glory divine. Flooding my soul. That feeling might not be there tomorrow, but just remember the God who gave you the feeling is still there. Remember the God who is in control of all things and whom tomorrow may plunge you down into a valley. He's also the God of the valley. He's the God of the mountains as well as the God of the valley. He's the God of all of it. He's the God who gave you the feelings. He's the God who gave us His Word.

Let's not serve God just when we feel good. Let's not just say, well, I think I'll go to church. I kind of feel like going today. Let's not just say I'll witness to that soul because I feel like they'll probably respond to the gospel. Let's not just read our Bible because I have a good feeling that in the next six days we don't read our Bible because we're not feeling good today.

All the blessings that come when we take up our cross daily and follow Christ, when we say, not I, but Christ, He must increase, I must decrease. May God help us. This is the foundation of true worship to Him, not because of what we get out of Him per se, although everything we are is because of what He's done for us, but because of who He is, because He is our Lord, our loving Lord and Savior.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, our society is looking for dope in all the wrong places, we might say. They're looking for the pleasure of life but through sin, and it will not last. It will last for a little while but it will run out. And what are we going to do then? Are we going to turn from our sins to the Savior or are we going to go deeper in our sins to try to find more dope, to find the next rush, the next high? Oh Lord, we cannot, as Christians, we cannot live for that. We live for Christ. We live by faith. We walk by faith and not by sight. At Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore, and Thy presence is fullness of joy. You put gladness in the heart. We're not to serve our belly, but we're to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Bless us as we conclude this service together with a final hymn we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.