Finding True Happiness Through Trusting God

1) "The bad news is none of us are as happy as we would like to be. Don't envy another human being because no one in this world, regardless of their circumstances, is as happy as they would like to be. We'd all like to be a little bit more happy. As long as there is danger, as long as there is disease, as long as there is death, you and I, no one can be as happy as we would like to be. It's imprinted inside of us by God Himself, our Creator, this desire to be happy. But not just happy for a little bit, but perfectly, eternally, always happy, happy continuously. It's a God-given desire, but in this life, we can't see it realized." [47:07] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "The good news, though, is this. All of us can be, what is the word? Happier. I don't care who you are. I don't care what your circumstances are. A loving God wants you to be happier, can guide you, can lead you, can lead me, so that we can be, in all circumstances, happier than we are. We can't be perfectly happy yet, but that's the best news. The best news is all of us can still be perfectly happy. Christ rose from the dead. He promised that His kingdom would come, His will will be done. The book of Revelation 21, it says that God's going to create a new heaven and a new earth, and there's no more sickness, sorrow, pain, disease, death, no more danger, no more disease, no more death. You are destined to be perfectly and eternally happy." [47:58] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "You know deep inside, you get along with God, and you let your conscience, and you let your imagination, and your deepest desires rise up, and you will know this is what you really want. You want to be loved all the time, you want to be respected all the time, you want to be happy all the time, you want to feel fulfilled. This is God implanted, but it's meant to draw us to God, because we know that human beings can't pull this off. Human history has pulled that we make a mess of things left to ourselves." [48:45] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "Things I must eliminate. We've all heard that saying that sometimes less is more. You know what I'm saying? Like less traffic is more, right? Less taxes is more. Less debt is more. So is less guilt more. So is less fear more. So is less shame more. So sometimes less is more, and sometimes it's in the elimination. You've got to follow with me. The elimination of some things that we can ratchet up our happiness ratio a little bit. We can be happier. Let's reverse that. There are certain things that if we do not eliminate them, we will never be happier, regardless of how much our circumstances change favorably." [51:05] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "When you turn to Christ, you change. We tend to think in church world sometimes it's all just about, you know, giving mental assent to certain facts about Jesus. I believe Jesus lived a sinless life and he did miracles and he raised people from the dead and he died a sacrificial death and he himself rose from. You know, that is all critical and true. But believing the facts about Jesus will not change your life unless you, based on those facts, put your trust in him and become his follower. And these people had actually changed their entire life because they were now not following themselves anymore in their will. They were following Jesus because they trusted him more than they trust themselves." [01:07:57] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "Why does God want us to eliminate these things? Because He really wants what's best. He really wants us to be happy. He really cares. You parents, you know you really want your kids to be happy. Happy in the right ways, but nevertheless happy. So it is with God. Now, the next part of the message is where we get into some kind of critical components of this. It's like, okay, Randy, I'm all on, but how do you do this? I mean, how do you get rid of this stuff? Some of you are even thinking, man, I've been trying to eliminate some of this stuff in my life for years, and it's just difficult. It's not working as well as I had hoped." [01:11:21] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "Romans 13 gives us a good place to start. It says, instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, which simply means I'm going to deliberately imitate Jesus. I'm going to treat people the way He did. I'm going to speak the way He did. I'm going to love the way He loved. I'm going to be kind the way He was kind. I'm going to be forgiving. I'm deliberately putting on Jesus. I'm doing what He does. I'm trying to learn to think as He thinks until I become that way. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the second part is where we're going. Make no provision, make it impossible in other words, make no provision for the flesh to arouse its desires." [01:13:11] (37 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desires and enticed. This is saying that some of our habits, some of our desires are improper and they have grown so strong that even when we no longer want to do them, some of you know exactly what I'm talking about, they literally grab a hold of us. If we're exposed to certain things, certain stimuli, they literally grab a hold of us and they have the power to drag us back. We're like, I don't want to do that anymore, and it's dragging us. But I never want to do this. I want to follow Jesus. But it's dragging us. So there's a self-awareness level that is necessary." [01:14:03] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9) "I've got to know the degree of desire, desire development. Let me give you an example from my own life, okay? I was part of the... It's laughable now. The original hippie generation, I mean, like, we were the hippies. We were the first ones, grew our hair out long, you know, listened to rock music and did drugs and all that kind of stuff. So when I was in that culture, okay, from about age 18 to 23, but then at 23, I turned to Christ. Well, when I came out of that culture, now all I wanted to do was follow Jesus. I wanted to build my life on God's Word. And yet I found, man, I had these habits I had developed and certain things pulled me, and I recognized that music was tremendously influential on me." [01:17:14] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10) "I've said all this very quickly. Unless you get alone with God and you start praying for wisdom and asking him to give you insight to the patterns and routines and the depths of desire and what strategies you may need. If you don't have the right structures, it's not going to be of much use to you. Christians tend to we just say, okay, God deliver me from temptation. And we think that that's the way it works. No, God wants us to hunger and thirsty after righteousness. He wants us to put to death, put to death certain things in our life and rid ourselves of others." [01:21:35] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)