Why Nothing Feels Like Enough Anymore | The Pleasure Paradox

And, guys, I can remember hearing that song in the middle of the night. And even though I was discouraged about his state, it encouraged me to know that even though he couldn't speak, even though his physical body fell and was failing, there was a love for Jesus that God imprinted in his soul from years of spending time with him that resonated even when he was in the worst state possible. And this is what I wanna encourage you with, guys. All earthly pleasures will fail. I wanna ask, do you have a pleasure that could sustain you when your very body is failing? Guys, I wanna encourage you to spend time with Jesus. [00:43:10] (45 seconds)  #TimeWithJesus

We don't seek stimulation for enjoyment. We seek it to escape discomfort. We don't feel peace and stillness. We feel restlessness. We are chasing something that will never satisfy, just like Jesus said. There's a scripture in Jeremiah, I think, which perfectly encapsulates the state most of us could find ourselves in, even us as believers. It says this. It says, my people have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. [00:27:13] (42 seconds)  #ChooseLivingWater

We are always thinking about the next pleasure, the next thing, that maybe it's the next Netflix show, maybe it's the next raise, maybe it's the next relationship. Right? We're always on the hunt to find some satisfaction. But today, we believe that God can break cycles. Amen? And that's this is the truth that we're gonna learn today that we weren't created for temporary highs but for eternal satisfaction. And what we're gonna see today as we kinda look at our our foundational verses, [00:15:04] (36 seconds)  #EternalSatisfaction

Guys, I think this this verse perfectly illustrates where we find ourselves. And because so many of us have walked away from the true living water, we we form our own wells. We form our own ways of trying to get something that we're satisfied, but the problem is they're broken. And they can never really true hold water. That's why we're always unsatisfied. Just like the woman in the well, coming back coming back, but never getting satisfied. Guys, our souls are being trained to depend on spikes instead of the stability of Christ. Our souls are not at rest. [00:27:54] (36 seconds)  #BrokenWells

See, when you're willing to tell yourself no. Right? I know that's another practice that many of us go through. But when we're just willing to say no to even the most basic pleasures, what happens, it forces that seesaw to stop swinging. Right? And forces our brains to try to stop making those corrections. Right? It literally tells the brain, hey. You don't have to make those corrections. I'm gonna make those corrections myself. I'm gonna say no to certain things and find that balance. Guys, when we stop self medicating with more pleasure with the back and forth, we find a point of rest. [00:34:57] (40 seconds)  #StopTheSeesaw

And I could tell you guys, as we look at our culture today, this is why we see things like porn addiction and one night stands at all at a all time high because they're effortless pleasures. And the seesaw in our brains are just swinging wildly, highs and lows, highs and lows. We can't get off it. We we get we get the pleasure, we get the low, we try to self medicate, and we're just on the seesaw. And what happens now is we're in a cycle where we don't pursue pleasure for joy anymore. We pursue it for relief. [00:26:41] (32 seconds)  #PleasureForRelief

Our souls are not at rest, and a restless soul, guys, will chase anything that promises relief. So we're trapped in addictions. We're trapped, and we can't forget the past like Paul said. We can't move forward in faith. Now I know some of the examples I've mentioned may seem extreme, but I wanna encourage you to explore your own soul. What does your seesaw look like? Yeah. It may not be a sexual thing for you. It may be, you know, just spending spending a lot of money that you don't have or that shouldn't be spending. [00:28:31] (37 seconds)  #ExamineYourSeesaw

So I I love what Jesus is doing here. It's so poetic. It's so divine. He's using her thirst for water and her continued need to come back to the well to illustrate what's happening in her soul. Yes. She's drinking from a well that will never fully satisfy her. He knows her. He knows what's happening in her life, and she's he sees her continually coming back to something that won't satisfy her. Jesus knew that for her just like he knows it for us. [00:16:47] (32 seconds)  #JesusKnowsYourThirst

Guys, I think this this verse perfectly illustrates where we find ourselves. And because so many of us have walked away from the true living water, we we form our own wells. We form our own ways of trying to get something that we're satisfied, but the problem is they're broken. And they can never really true hold water. That's why we're always unsatisfied. Just like the woman in the well, coming back coming back, but never getting satisfied. Guys, our souls are being trained to depend on spikes instead of the stability of Christ. Our souls are not at rest. Our souls are not at rest, and a restless soul, guys, will chase anything that promises relief. [00:27:54] (44 seconds)