Church Talk

Fri
9 Oct

By Pastor Tevai Matapo

Assemblies of God

Today I’d like for us to look at how to survive in a pleasure-crazed or pleasure-seeking culture.

The fact is, God made us with the capacity to enjoy pleasure. He gave you five senses – hear, taste, touch, smell, and feel. God intended life to be enjoyed, not just endured. But the problem is, today in our culture, pleasure seeking is becoming a passion. It’s not just a good thing, like God says, but it’s the goal of life. It’s the ultimate value

God says in 1Timothy 6:17 “He richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” He also says in 2Timothy 3:4 “In the last days there will be people who prefer good times to worshipping God.”

We are developing into a culture of pleasure, where Sunday is a good day for pleasure-generating activity. That should not be a surprise to any of us, because pleasure is becoming a god. How do you live the Christian life in that kind of environment, because it influences us?

Increasingly you hear phrases that indicate that pleasure is the most important thing in life: “If it feels good do it....Don’t worry be happy....Thank God it’s Friday... Week-ends are made for rage....It doesn’t get any better than this....You only go around once in life so you better let go....It’s party time.”

The fact is, these kinds of things indicate, that we live in a very experience-oriented society where the ultimate question is “How does it make me feel?”

Our whole society is being built on, “Let’s have fun”. In today’s environment, it’s easy to be caught up in it to the point that, you begin to think like everybody else does – that my whole purpose in life is to just enjoy myself.

The truth is, life is much more significant than you, being put here on earth, to simply enjoy yourself. God says pleasure’s good but it should never be your goal. I’ve noted down five dangers with making pleasure your ultimate goal in life.

1. It wastes your life

You weren’t put here on earth to simply relax on the beach, or watch tv. God has a greater purpose for your life. Luke 10.14 says, “By the pleasures of living, life is choked out of them and they produce nothing.” That says we are to be productive. The way things are going, I think we’re laying more emphasis on entertainment. It’s a waste of your life.

2. It causes conflict with others

James 4.1 says, “Where do all the fights and quarrels come from. They come from your desires for pleasure.” When pleasures take priority over people, you’re going to have friction. The Bible says that the pursuit of pleasure causes conflict in relationships.

3. It tempts you to do wrong.

Hebrews 10:25 says “There is pleasure in sin for a short time.” Have you heard the phrase “ugly as sin”? Sin is not ugly. It’s attractive and seductive. If sin were no fun, if sin were a bummer, nobody would do it. The Bible is very honest. It says there is pleasure in sin. But it’s for a short time. If pleasure is the most important thing in your life, you’ll do anything to experience it, even if it’s wrong. Even if God says, “Don’t!”

4. It leads to boredom.

King Solomon’s biography tells the end result of living a life solely for pleasure. Ecclesiastes 2:1,10-11 says, “I decided to enjoy myself. Anything I wanted, I got. I did not deny myself any pleasure. Then I thought all about all I had done and I realised it didn’t mean a thing. It was like chasing the wind -- of no use at all.”

He’s saying that self indulgence leads to despair. Life was meant to be more than simply one pleasure after another, how ever good it maybe. When you make pleasure your ultimate goal, two laws go into effect. One is the law of diminishing return that says, the more you repeat something, the more you have to do it to get the same amount of thrill. That’s true with anything and in any area of life – sports, or drinking alcohol or taking drugs. Each time the hit has to be a little bit heavier, because of the law of diminishing return.

The other law that goes into effect, when you make pleasure the number one goal in your life is the law of balance: Too much of a good thing ruins it. Anything! We need balance. Part of what makes pleasure pleasurable is that, it’s balanced with work, or with other things. Too much of the pursuit of pleasure can lead to boredom and despair.

5.It will destroy your character

1Timothy 5:6 says “The one who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives.” The person who is making pleasure their goal is not living, they’re just existing. They are existing from fix to fix, from fun time to fun time, from pleasure to pleasure. The self indulgent life is a suicidal life. Philippians 3:19 “Their future is eternal loss for their god is their appetite.”

How do I, as a Christian, survive in an environment where the culture is pleasure-obsessed?

Remember the real purpose in life

Continually remind yourself that the purpose of life is more than being entertained and having fun, more than experiencing thrills or feeling good and even more than just preparing for retirement. 1Peter 4:2-4 (Good News) “From now on, live the rest of your lives controlled by God’s will not by human desires.”

You have two options in life. You can either say I’m going to be controlled by God’s will, or I’m going to be controlled by “If it feels good do it.” 1Peter goes on to say, “You’ve spent enough time in the past doing what pagans do. Your lives are spent in indecency, lust, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and now when you don’t join them they insult you. But they will give an account of themselves to God.”

Those are cheap thrills that don’t last. People say, “What this means is I’m restricted.” No way! I can take all the drugs I want to take. I can get drunk all I want to get drunk. I can mess around with as many illicit relationships as I want. The fact is Jesus Christ changed my want to, “I don’t want to do those things.” They’re plastic and fake. God says, the goal of life is to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him and out of all that comes real pleasure, real meaning and real purpose in life.

Enjoy balanced living

Life is a balancing act. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes there’s a time for everything: A time to cry, a time to laugh. There’s a time for play, a time for work. There’s variety and we need balance. Jesus’ life modeled balanced living. He knew how to have fun. In fact one of my favorite verses is Matthew 11:19 (Phillips translation) says “Jesus came enjoying life.” If He can, you can too.

The point I want to make is this: If you don’t plan for healthy vehicles of pleasure, recreation, rest, relaxation in your life, you will be tempted and seduced by unhealthy ones and they are everywhere. Paul understood this balance. 1Corinthians 10:26 “For the earth and every good thing in it belongs to the Lord and is yours to enjoy.”

God made an enjoyable world, and Christians, more than anybody else, ought to have more fun than anybody else - with balance. You can enjoy much of what our culture has to offer without compromising your biblical standards, if you don’t let it control you, if you don’t let it dominate you. Remember the real purpose of life and enjoy balanced living.

Avoid destructive pleasures

There are some activities that God says very clearly in Scripture, stay away from. Ephesians 5 says, don’t get drunk. That’s a good one for road users! 2 Peter 2:19 says don’t get addicted to anything or be controlled by anything else other than God. You should only have one master in your life and that’s God. The Bible says don’t get involved in sexual immorality. That will save you a lot of heartache and a few diseases on the side.

Have you ever thought that all the laws, all the prohibitions of the Bible, are there so you will enjoy life? Titus 2:11-12 “For the grace of God teaches us to say `No’ to worldly passions and live self-controlled lives.” That encourages us to say no when somebody offers you a particular pleasure which you know is not beneficial to your life. There’s no embarrassment in saying, ‘No!’ Listen to what the Bible says, Titus 3:3-5 “For we ourselves were once slaves to passion and pleasures of all kinds, But when the kindness and love of God appeared, he saved us and gave us a new life.”

The good news is a new life is available. You don’t have to stay trapped. It is not an admission of failure to admit an addiction. It is an admission of courage. It says, I want to take control of my life and I want it to be under God’s control.

Why do people get so obsessed with pleasure seeking? For many people it’s an escape.

They’re trying to forget their pain, their hurt, their frustration. Many people fill their lives with hobbies because they don’t want to face the hurt in their marriage, or the fact that their kids are not turning out the way they had hoped. I think one of the questions we all need to ask ourselves is what am I running from? Why do I have this intense desire to go from one pleasurable experience to the next? The more stressful our society becomes (count on it), the more desperately people are going to be searching for diversions. What are you running from? Is it something deeper than the pleasure you are chasing after?

There is a God- shaped vacuum in every person’s heart that only God can fill. No pleasure seeking can ever fill that emptiness. What you’re really yearning for is God. He made you. He loves you. You matter to Him and He does want to work in your life. The fact that you’re alive means He is not finished with you.

The great news is, when you come to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, He not only gives you the capacity to enjoy a relationship with God that you never had before, but He gives you the capacity to enjoy yourself like you’ve never done before. He gives you the capacity to enjoy His world and others, like you’ve never done before. Because you’re in tune with the One who made you. That’s what many are looking for.

Jesus summarised it this way in John 10:10 “I’ve come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly.”

Churchtalk

Trivial pursuits