The Vanity of Pleasure (Pt 2)

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Well, you can take out your copy of God’s Word this morning and turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 2 where we continue our study this morning of the vanity of pleasure Looking for life in all the wrong places We’ve seen the vanity of wisdom Last week and this morning. We’ll finish our study of the vanity of pleasure Next week, I won’t be here We’ll be on the Master’s College trip, but then two weeks from today, we’ll continue on with the vanity of booze or alcohol or a buzz or drugs or whatever you want to put in there. I’ll pick one of those by the time we get to two weeks from now, but that’ll be next. Look with me, if you will, at Chapter 2, Verse 1.

I said in my heart, come now, I will test you with pleasure. Enjoy yourself. Have a good time. Have some laughs. Just enjoy yourself. If it feels good, what? Do it. But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, it is mad. and of pleasure, what use is it? The entire book of Ecclesiastes is intended to get us to recognize that life under the sun is completely empty.

And I’ve really been praying, even though we’re just covering these two verses, and as we finish our discussion of them this morning, I have really been praying this week that the Holy Spirit would drive into your minds and into your hearts just the very simple conclusions that Solomon gives here in verses one and two.

Pleasure is empty. Laughter is mad. They do not satisfy. Pleasures cannot last. They will not bring meaning to your life. You know, I was thinking about it as well. Who is this book written to? We talked about this in the introduction messages. Who is the book of Ecclesiastes written to? to the youths, to the young people. Look back at chapter 12, just to remind you of who this is for.

In fact, we can look first at chapter 11, verse nine. Rejoice, oh young man, in the days of your youth. Chapter 12, verse one, remember also your creator in the days of your youth. This is the older man Solomon’s autobiographical account account of him having pursued all of this stuff. And he’s writing it to young people so that they wouldn’t waste their lives pursuing all of it like he did. So that you wouldn’t have to look back five years from now, ten years from now, thirty years from now, whatever it is, so that you wouldn’t have to look back and say, I have wasted it. I have spent it on useless, empty pursuits.

It is for you. This is not just because I like Ecclesiastes and so I’m making you suffer through listening to me preach through the book. This is right where you are at. This is inspired stuff from God. This is the wisest guy who has ever lived, not just a wise guy, but the wisest guy who has ever lived writing from his experience as well. Now will we pay attention to what he has to say or will we run off and still pursue all this other stuff thinking that maybe Solomon, maybe even the Holy Spirit is just lying to us. Maybe there’s something really there that they don’t want us to know about. Yeah, we believe that just like Eve believed the lie when Satan said to her at the beginning, oh, you’ll not surely die.

I just know that in the day you eat, you’ll be like him. what God has told you is not really the full story. In fact, if you do the opposite of what God told you, you’ll actually get satisfaction. You know, that’s our choice every time we come to God’s word whether to listen to it and believe it and obey it, or whether to reject it. Again, even in this pursuit of pleasure, I’m hoping that you get it. You know, television is filled with these kinds of stories, by the way. I was thinking about some of them this past week. The E! True Hollywood story is basically the same script every time, right? Some nobody from some podunk town in Iowa, you know, gets discovered.

And so then they move to New York or they move to Hollywood and they get famous and then they get all the money and then they start pursuing all the stuff that moneying them. They start buying all the toys. They start going to all the parties. They start just living life as one big party. And then the next scene is the crash. They go from nobody to thinking they’re something to pursuing all that life has and its pleasures. And then they don’t make eat true Hollywood stories without the crash. It’s not a good story without the crash. And those people ultimately come to find that it’s empty. That it doesn’t actually provide the satisfaction they were hoping it was going to provide.

I think the original E.T.R. Hollywood story was a show that’s not on anymore, but behind the music. That used to be a real popular one. People used to watch that for pleasure. Now they had to move on from that because they don’t even make that show anymore, I don’t think. I don’t know, but probably have something like it. But behind the music, that was all the rage. Again, exact same story. People get to be famous, get the stuff, get the money, and try to live life as one huge party, and eventually then comes the crash. I mean, that’s what life all around us is filled with. People pursuing life in pleasure and then the crash.

And the thing is, some of you are right there. You’re pursuing that life of pleasure. And you may not have crashed yet, but I’m betting that even most of you, like I said last week, have at least at the end of the weekend experience to let down some kind of crash that your weekend of fun and frivolity was not as much as you hoped it would be. That still Monday morning comes and you got to get up and do schoolwork and the parties all the fun didn’t bring you a lasting happiness it didn’t fill up what was kind of empty inside your chest. And last week we talked about six different kinds of pleasure seekers and I just want to remind you of them briefly as we then have small group time today.

Some of you might not have been here last week. Some of you were here. Maybe weren’t paying attention. Some of you were here were paying attention but still couldn’t tell your best friend what I talked about last Sunday morning. So just a quick reminder, six kinds of pleasure seekers, the high class pleasure seeker, seeking the finer things in life, whether that’s in food or some kind of drink or in some kind of clothing or possessions, the finer things, the high class pleasure seeker. We talked about Solomon pursuing this and first Kings chapter four and all the food that he had every day, his daily portion. High class pleasure seeker number two, the weekend warrior pleasure seeker.

These people who actually have to work, they have a job during the week, but basically everything that they do is aimed towards the weekend. And so when they get the three day, the four day weekend, I mean, yeah, baby. And so all of life is looking towards the weekend. I mean, on Fridays, that is all the people on the radio talk about is, hey, it’s the weekend. On Wednesday, that’s all they’re talking about. It’s hump day, you know, they’re over the hump. We’ll over the hump to get to what? The weekend again. These are people who hate the week and they live for the weekend because on the weekend they don’t have to go to work and what can they do?

They can play. They can be lazy. They can do nothing. These are people who then live for the weekend, the weekend warrior pleasure seekers. Number three, we talked about the big boy toys pleasure seekers, some overlap perhaps with one and two. These people might be seeking the finer things, the Corinthian leather on their big boat or RV or whatever it is.

These are the people who don’t just have the tape deck, they got the CD player, right? They got the built-in iPod attachment, you know, in their BMW for easy listening. These are the big boy toy pleasure seekers. Again, for you in junior high and high school, maybe you don’t have quite the funds yet to get the big toys, but you still get as big a toys as you can with your budget. Again, whether that’s in music kind of stuff, or that’s in computer kind of stuff, or a bike, or whatever it is, I don’t know, whatever it is you’re trying to buy for pleasure, big boy toys. That’s number three. Number four, the delayed gratification pleasure seeker.

And I mentioned these are people who kind of look noble right now because they’re like working hard. They’re working hard in school or they’re working hard at their job, but yet their idea is that by working hard in school now, as I mentioned the progression last week, they’re going to get into a good college. They’re going to work hard in college, get good grades so that they can get a good job. By good job, they mean a job that does what? Pays them a lot of money, and what are they planning on doing with that lot of money? Giving it to charity? I don’t know any high school student, honestly. I don’t know any high school student who is working hard to get into a good college, so they get a good job, so they can make a lot of money, so they can give it all the way to charity.

I don’t know anybody like that. I mean, they might be out there. They might exist. But most of the time, those people who are working hard simply for the reason of getting into a good college, so they can get a good job, and they can make a lot of money, almost all the time that goal, that desire is just a delayed gratification goal for pleasure. Thinking that in money, they’re going to have happiness. They’re going to get a job that is going to, you know, require them not to work very many hours and yet they’re still going to make all kinds of money so that they can play. So that they can play. And what might seem noble now is actually still aiming towards the same end.

It’s still serving the same goal of pleasure. It’s still for themselves and it’s still for pleasure just later on. Number five, the every spare moment pleasure seeker. What did you say you had another name for this one? This is the one that you didn’t have another name for. Yeah, she had come up with other names. I was going to steal her outline, actually, after the message last week. But I didn’t ask her about it in time again, so so I couldn’t steal her outline. So I still got to go with mine. The every spare moment pleasure seeker. This is a lot of us, right? It’s not necessarily that our lives are aimed towards bowing down in front of whatever pleases us, and yet this is what we default to when we got some spare time, when we have some extra minutes in our day, when class is canceled.

Here’s a good one for you. Okay. So you go to class and you have a substitute that day. And the substitute is just going to give you a study hall, right? How do most of you spend that time? Oh, great. Now I got some time to finish my homework. No. You get an extra window of time in your day, and it’s time to, you know, tell some jokes. It’s time to have some fun. Make the class go by faster by just having a good time, let alone the end of the day, whatever it might be. Watching movies, eating ice cream, playing video games, surfing the internet, most of us fit into this category. When we have extra minutes, we do things that please us.

And what typically pleases us are those turn your brain off, You know, good to the tummy or good for the back, you know, by not shoveling gravel from one pile to another. You know, we do the things that make us happy in every spare moment that we have. Then number six, the total goof-off pleasure seeker. These are the guys who just make fun of everything. Everything is just a joke. And we definitely have some of those in our midst. Last week when I mentioned this one, Apparently, there were some guys who were looking at each other, like you knew who you were and who the others were who were like that. I’m not making any comments about who that is, but you know who you are, you total goof-off pleasure seekers.

Again, there can be some overlap with the pre-seeming categories. You still can want to have the toys to be a better goof-er-offer. But most of the time the total goof off pleasure seekers are also moochers you remember that I mentioned that last week as well because they haven’t bothered working to get any money to then buy the toys that they want. So they have to mooch off other people’s toys off other people’s stuff. They don’t have the money to buy the dinner at Daniel’s Broiler. Of course sometimes they don’t want that. They’re just happy with the pleasure of Taco Bell. That might be its own category. The Taco Bell pleasure seeker.

You can have a lot of pleasure there I suppose. But the point is, these people fill their lives with play, with joking around, very little seriousness about anything. I told you this is how I lived in high school. I was a goof off. I was not quite the class clown, but I was pretty close. I mean, I did my darndest to try to get to that level. And we ought not to do that. Before going on to the problems with pleasure seeking, especially related to the total goof off pleasure seekers who are always making everything a joke, who never get serious about anything. It is interesting, I think. I’m not gonna make too much out of this, but it is interesting that nowhere in the New Testament do we ever have a reference to Jesus laughing.

Nowhere in the New Testament do we have a reference to that. Now, there’s no doubt that he did. I don’t doubt that he did laugh. I don’t doubt that there were times when he was very much enjoying being with the disciples. He was with those guys for a lot of time, for three years. I mean, basically 24 hours a day for almost three years. There’s no doubt that they had some good times and they shared some laughs. No doubt about that. And yet, that was not so important to any one of the gospel writers to include that ever. Whatever do we read about Jesus sitting down with the boys and sitting around the fire at night and just telling stories or telling jokes or making jokes out of other things, we don’t have that as an example.

Again, while I say, I’m sure that he enjoyed himself and there were times when he laughed. was not such a predominant part of his life that the gospel writers included it.

That’s at least interesting to consider, and yet none of us would probably say that Jesus wasn’t satisfied. I mean, Jesus might be the only one who is ever truly satisfied with life while he was living under the sun, and yet that didn’t include, at least for us, an explanation of how much he pursued that in laughter. A good laugh is not the key to life, contrary to what some of you might believe. A good laugh is not the key to life. Well then we moved into four problems with pleasure seeking. I think I got through the first two and then mentioned the last two. Pleasure seeking chokes out the gospel. Luke chapter 8 verse 14. I won’t make you turn there. Luke chapter 8 verse verse 14 though, talks about the seed going out and how for some the seed fell on ground, started to grow up a little bit, but then the weeds choked it out. And when it talks about the weeds, the weeds are pictures of the pleasures and the things of life, choking out the gospel. Now, I didn’t mention this last week, but just quickly, that doesn’t

mean that you can lose your salvation by pursuing pleasure. That’s not what the story is meant to say, though it looks like there’s some growth. It looks like something is happening when the gospel gets into them. Ultimately, it chokes it out. And so there wasn’t really true life to begin with. We know that from 1 John chapter 2 verse 19, those who went out from us were never really a part of us. So that’s why I even phrased it that way. It chokes out the gospel. Don’t put yourself in that position. Secondly, pleasure seeking is self-centered. We read from Isaiah chapter 47 verse eight, as well as just this whole autobiographical section in Ecclesiastes chapter two.

Solomon took his wisdom and started using it for himself. Applied all of his wisdom to get things for himself, namely pleasure for him. It was very self-focused, self-centered. Pleasure seekers are like that. Just like lazy people are self-centered. They don’t wanna be bothered by what anybody else is telling them to do, or by any other responsibility for somebody else, they want to do what they want to do when they want to do it. That’s being lazy, that’s also being selfish.

You know what, I would add that if you’re making jokes when it’s not an appropriate time to make jokes, that’s selfish. That’s not just immature, which it is, that is selfish. That is thinking that what you want to do is more important than what the group is doing. That is you trying to run the discussion by making it all a joke. At least have the courtesy, when other people around you are trying to get into something serious, to be quiet.

At least do as much to be mature, to then wait to tell your jokes until the right time. If you still believe that the pleasure-seeking through goofing off all the time is the way to go, then I’m at least asking you to at least look for better times than not. Third though, not only is pleasure seeking something that chokes out the gospel, pleasure seeking is self-centered. Third, pleasure seeking is idolatrous. Pleasure seeking is idolatrous.

Look over at Exodus chapter 32. Exodus 32, it was during this period of time that the Israelites want a golden calf, an idol made for them to worship. Probably pretty familiar with this story. Verse 1 of chapter 32, Exodus, when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, what was Moses getting up on the mountain? The law, the Ten Commandments, right. The people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, up, get up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So Aaron said to them, take off the rings of gold that are in your ears, in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up

out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made proclamation and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast day to the Lord. Look at verse 6, And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Paul now is going to quote from one of those verses that we just read in Exodus chapter 32. He’s gonna quote one of those verses to the Corinthians in encouraging them, admonishing them to avoid idolatry. And in chapter 10 verse six, he says, these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did, do not be idolaters as some of them were.

As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Now, when I first read that, I was like, if he doesn’t want us to be idolaters, why not quote the verse like about fashioning a golden calf? That seems to be the one that talks about idolatry.

Right? I mean, when you actually give your gold to somebody who can then melt it down and then make an actual statue out of it, that seems like the idol that you wanna talk about. If we want to avoid their example, recognize their example and then avoid what they did, and specifically then to not be idolaters, that’s how he starts out verse seven, do not be idolaters as some of them were.

I think I would have quoted another part of Exodus 32. Not this last one about the people. Again, ate and drank and rose up to play. Their life was consumed with them and what brought them happiness. It was one constant party for these people. They went so far as to make their own God who would let them do that.

What they wanted to do was make themselves happy by just eating and drinking all day and playing. In fact, you kind of get the idea that the only reason that they ate and drink was to have strength so that they could go play and do whatever. And Paul says, don’t be idolaters as some of them were. And then he quotes that passage. Doing what you want, what you think is going to make you happy all the time is actually idolatry. That is worshiping you rather than worshiping God, is it not? Look over at 2 Timothy chapter 3. This one just kind of nails it, I think. I’ve mentioned this passage before regarding other things, but in 2 Timothy chapter 3 Paul says this to his disciple, understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit.

And here you go, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Next verse, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power. This is really exactly a description of the Israelites as well. Paul’s not referring to the Israelites here. This is exactly what happened. They loved themselves and pleasure more than they loved God, and yet they still had that appearance of godliness by calling their little gold idol, their gold cow, the Lord. They didn’t change his name. They still use the same name. Yahweh, they called this, it was their own jewelry. See how insane that is?

It was their own jewelry that they had given that they told Aaron then to fashion into the form of whatever. He makes a cow. He had a cow. He made a cow. And then they worshiped this God calling it the name Yahweh, the name of the God, the covenant God who had revealed himself to them at that moment who was giving the law to Moses up on the mountain. They had the appearance of godliness in the sense of the appearance of worship. got up and they offered sacrifices that morning and yet they did that so that they could appease this god that they had fashioned in their own mind so that they could eat and drink and rise up to play. And you know what? I mean I think we have the same situation today whether among us or in our culture that people are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of god.

Though they’re in the church. These are not people who are lovers of pleasure rather than than lovers of God who have no appearance of godliness. That’s a crucial addition there. These are people who are in the church. These are people who are fellowshipping with other believers, other followers of Christ.

They had this appearance of godliness. They were at least going through enough motions so that other people would think that they were Christians. So that other people would think that they were god lovers and god followers. And yet, they loved pleasure. They loved themselves. They loved money. They loved all that. They loved pleasure more than loving God.

And in doing so, even though they might have had to some, at least the external appearance of godliness, they had no power for actual godly living.

And so it’s not a huge surprise, for example, when I find out that a student who is a regular attender regular a regular a tender in 128 a student who is part of Grace Academy a student who looks on the outside like they’re doing it right it’s not a huge surprise when their heart is revealed and they they’ve just been pursuing themselves they don’t have the power they don’t have a godly power at work in them. To tie this in with our theme for the year, they don’t have an abounding love. Their love is not abounding for God, and therefore they don’t have knowledge and discernment, and therefore they can’t discern what is best, and they’re not doing what is excellent, and they’re not seeking to be pure and righteous, filled with the fruits of righteousness. Because the abounding love is for themselves. The bounding love is for whatever is going to make them happy. Not an abounding love for God. Again, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

It’s still worship. It’s just a different object of worship. All of you are worshiping in here. You are worshiping something. You’re either worshiping God or you’re worshiping pleasure. You are either loving God or you are loving pleasure. The two things don’t go together. It’s not a percentage thing. It’s not like you’re good as long as the majority of your love is for God and not for pleasure. Okay, I got 51%. I got up this morning, I took out my little, you know, my little test and I stuck it in my ear and I pulled it out and it said I had 51% love for God and 49% love for pleasure. Good. I’m set today. The majority of my heart is for God. Or you you pull this by that’s a joke there’s not really a test you can buy. Maybe there is some Christian bookstore but I haven’t seen it. Of you know sticking in your ear or in your nose or wherever else spitting on it and see what color turns into it. There isn’t anything maybe we could create that. I’m sure a lot of people probably buy that.

Anyway, that’s just a joke. There really isn’t anything like that. But if there were, even if you come out and you said, you know what, 90%, oh, awesome. To the breakfast table, you know, praise God, Mom and Dad. Today, my love for pleasure is down to 10%. My love for God filling up my heart is all the way up to 90. You know what that miss is? It misses, you shall love the Lord your God with, yeah, all of your heart and soul and mind and strength. Not to have a divided heart, not to have multiple pursuits and multiple loves. To be abounding in love for God. Otherwise, if your heart is somewhere else, if your affections are somewhere else, then you may be a lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God.

That leads to the fourth problem with pleasure seeking. Pleasure seeking is just plain empty anyway. If you’re not there, you can turn back to Ecclesiastes chapter two. Pleasure seeking is empty. It is vacant. It is hollow. It is worthless. It is useless. It is lifeless. Ecclesiastes chapter two, verses one and two. First we see Solomon’s commitment to pleasure. I said in my heart, come now, I will test you with pleasure. Enjoy yourself. This is his commitment to it. This is his pursuit of pleasure. He threw himself wholeheartedly into trying to find satisfaction and meaning from being happy and pleasurable things.

He was committed to it. I mean, he’s talking to himself here. He’s making this commitment inside of himself to say, come now, I will test you with pleasure. We’re gonna do whatever it takes, me, myself and I, to go try to find out what can make us happy. And he spared no expense to do this. Look down at verse 10. “‘Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. “‘I kept my heart from no pleasure.‘” This may be the only guy ever who could say that.

Who literally kept his heart from no pleasure. There were no limitations for him. I suppose that there might be people who have gotten close to that in the past or today. Maybe they have enough resources and enough position. But I tell you what, being this rich and being the king is different than even just being that rich. I mean, being the king gets you a lot of stuff. We’ll see some of the stuff that he pursued more specifically in the following verses, but he was committed to it and he got it. He got the pleasurable stuff. But the second part of verse one and verse two gives us Solomon’s conclusion about pleasure.

His commitment to pleasure, his conclusion about pleasure, his general conclusion at the end of verse one is, but behold, this also was vanity. Pursuit wisdom, vanity, striving after wind. Here’s pursuit of pleasure, vanity, empty. His specific conclusion then in verse two about two things regarding laughter. I said of laughter, it is mad. That’s kind of a weird statement. I said of laughter, it is mad. I think he’s just trying to say, laughing all the time is insane. Laughing all the time doesn’t actually help you deal with life. Telling jokes, laughter doesn’t provide meaning, doesn’t provide explanation. Watching a comedy, watching a clean comedy movie still does not make you walk away at the end going, oh wow, I understand life a lot better now.

My path is very straight, not crooked any longer. You’re not gonna be able to laugh all of your life anyway. When you are hurt or a friend or a family member is in pain, they’re gonna die, you’re gonna die. You’re not even gonna be able to laugh in every circumstance. Laughter provides no solutions. And regarding pleasure, instead of laughter it is mad and of pleasure, what use is it? I mean, what benefit is there in pleasure?

I mean, there are some temporal benefits. In fact, it might be fun for a while. We won’t turn there, but in Hebrews chapter 11, verses 25 and 26, it talks about the fleeting pleasures of sin. There are, there are some pleasures that are out there available to you by running after sinful things. There are. The problem is that they don’t last.

The second problem is that God is gonna judge you for them. They don’t last on their own, and you’re gonna get judged for them. That’s the whole point in Ecclesiastes chapter 11, rejoice in the days of your youth. Know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. The Hebrews 11, 25, and 26 passage again, talks about the fleeting pleasures of sin. You know what? Pleasure seekers cannot be pleasure keepers because they just don’t last. And yet, why do we still throw ourselves after fun and games and silliness and entertainment? Why do we devote so much of our money to making ourselves happy with stuff and going to parties.

Some of you, life is really on your calendar. You mark off the days by marking off what parties you can go to. Some of you won’t commit to certain things because you’re hoping up to the very last minute that somebody might have a party that you could go to. Well, that’s just a party with you and another person or that’s a party with you and a bunch of other people. Some of you, you know, Friday nights. Oh well, I can’t really commit to anything cause you know, I’m not sure, I’m not sure what my schedule is gonna be like is code for waiting for a better offer where I’m gonna have more fun. And that’s sad, that’s sad cause it’s empty.

It’s not gonna last. Well, as I conclude, just to remind you of a couple things, the Bible actually talks a lot happiness and about pleasure, a good kind of happiness and pleasure. In fact, there are these, there’s this whole list of things the pastor Zimmer went over in Matthew chapter 5 a month or so ago called the Beatitudes. Happy, blessed, satisfied are these kinds of people. None of them about a party.

In fact, really to the opposite extreme of persecution. One more verse though, look at Psalm 16. Psalm 16, great verse, this is one worthy of your memorizing. A Psalm of David, so many good things in the in the whole of this Psalm. But verse 11, he says, you make known to me the path of life in your presence there is fullness of joy at your right hand our pleasures forevermore now that’s that’s good stuff right there it’s it’s the exact opposite of the pleasures that this world provide which number one can’t fill you up and won’t last forever here we get the exact opposite which are God providing fullness of joy in his presence. That’s beyond just under the sun, though we experience that while living under the sun in another way. It’s fullness of joy, not just half, just filling up your tank halfway. A fullness of joy is available in his presence, and it’s a forever kind of pleasure. It’s found in God, God alone, through Jesus Christ, worked out in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We’re guided on the path of life by his word. It’s God, all the members of the Trinity, his revelation that he gives us in his word. It’s found even in other saints. Look back at verse three, as for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. Other believers, that’s how it would apply to us. The church, the body of Christ. There’s pleasures in good fellowship, not just in playing and having fun and being silly, but in real fellowship. We’ve talked about that as a mark of a healthy student ministry, spiritual fellowship. Knowing God, loving God, abounding in love for him, following his word, the path of life.

He makes known to us the path of life in his presence there is fullness of joy. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore. And where are you seeking pleasure? You are somewhere today. You are devoting time and energy and attention to making yourself happy in some place by something. Is this things under the sun or is it with God? Father, do help us to get this truth as young people now that we would not need to be ashamed of having wasted the opportunities. In fact, it really is insane anyway because when we stop and think about it even for a moment, But we realize this stuff is empty down here. There is a hole in our hearts that only you can fill.

We try to stuff it, cram it, jam it full of other stuff. Seems to run out like there’s a big hole at the bottom. Only you can give us that joy, that satisfaction, that pleasure. I pray for each one of us that we’d be seeking that in you. Of course, that brings you glory. you off as the best. That’s what we want. We pray all this in Christ’s name. Amen.