Voyage Welcome Sunday

Thank you for that skit!

DISQ: Why don’t we quickly discuss with people next to you — what resonates from the skit for you?

Hope you’re enjoying our Sunday Service so far. We don’t have ALL of these things every week, but wanted to make this one extra special to welcome all of you.

My name is David Park - people call me DP. I’m the pastor here at Voyage.

[[ SLIDE ]]

Any of you guys get a text like this from us? If you’ve taken our 30-sec survey then you prob got a text like this explaining the program.

I was reading and I noticed this line…

[[ SLIDE ]]

That’s me.

Thank you texting team. For the undue pressure that I feel now that this must not suck.

[[ SLIDE ]]

Back to the skit!

Happiness. Who here is happy?? <<GET SHOW OF HANDS >>

Well, whoop dee doo for you. No just kidding.

Of course you’re happy, it’s start of a school year. Weather’s good. What’s not to be happy about.

But if you’re not happy. or don’t know how to be happy. It’s ok cause you’re not alone. The percentage of Americans that are happy has hovered around 30-40% depending on what study you look at over the past couple decades.

It’s weird tho. Because it’s not like most of us live in terrible circumstances. Like an impoverished, war-torn country — people finding happiness difficult would be understandable.

But in America. In Chicago. Attending institutions of higher education. Against the backdrop of beautiful Lake Michigan.

People still feel unhappy. And according to the data, in a couple of months as we approach the “Happy Holidays!” season — cases of depression, suicide start to rise … perhaps because people are reminded that they’re “supposed to be” happy … but they’re not

But we DO experience happiness … occasionally. For most of us … in spurts.

There are these … moments of happiness, like in the skit. You have a new experience. You get some new tech gadget. You get a good grade, a new boyfriend or girlfriend, and it’s like a burst of euphoria.

Diminishing Returns

But as we saw in the skit, that feeling fades. It’s the law of diminishing returns.

[[ SLIDE ]]

As a famous food critic Michael Pollan says, “the banquet is in the first bite.”

The first bite is sublime.

e.g. It’s like going to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Think about when you are at your peak happiness at a buffet. Is it at the end, when you are walking out of the restaurant, bloated to the limit? (some of you are saying yes, that’s gross haha)

No, it’s usually at the beginning, after you have brought all your food to the table, and as you take that first bite, it feels awesome. But our tongues and minds get used to repeated pleasures, and so the fiftieth bite is not as awesome as the first.

By the end of two hours when they kick you out of the restaurant, you are not feeling that great at all.

But doesn’t all of life work that way? The banquet is in the first bite.

The first bite of anything—your first smartphone, your first car, your first romance, or bigger things like career, romance and wealth—the first bite is a banquet. The first bite brings you happiness.

But does it last?

It always seems to fade.

So what do most people do? We move on to a new experience, a new phone, a new car, a new girlfriend, hoping to experience that high again, and to hold on to it as long as possible before the inevitable fade to black.

So are we doomed to just jump from thrill to thrill, to keep taking first bites until there’s nothing new to try? Is there any way we can find true, lasting, abiding happiness?

First Things First

As with most big problems, there’s people working on this problem of happiness, or unhappiness. And here’s what Dr. Carol Roff from University of Wisconsin says.

[[ SLIDE ]]

Fixating on being happy in itself can become a psychological burden.

Dr. Carol Ryff, University of Wisconsin

In fact, the research suggests too much focus on feeling happy can actually lead to feeling less happy. Apparently, happiness is not something you get by looking for it.

But we still want to be happy. So what’s the solution? How can we be happy, especially when you know the one way not to be happy is to fixate on it?

A famous Christian writer and and one of the most influential theologian of the 20th century, C.S. Lewis, says it like this.

[[ SLIDE ]]

Put first things first and we get second things thrown in; put second things first and we lose both first and second things.

Now that’s a simple but deep thought.

What does he mean? He gives an example. It’s like if you were obsessed about being healthy.

Health is a great blessing, but the moment you make health one of your main, direct objects you start becoming a crank and imagining there is something wrong with you. You are only likely to get health provided you want other things more - food, games, work, fun, open air.

You get second things by putting first things first. And it may be, given the research and our own experiences, that happiness is one of those second things.

If you try your best to be happy … if you focus all your time and energy into wrestling and manipulating the circumstances and even the people in your life to fit your ideal scenario of what you think will bring you maximum happiness, I can guarantee you will be miserable.

You can't get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first. If happiness is a second thing, then the question becomes, what is the first thing? The thing you really can’t ignore?

That brings us to today’s story from Scripture. It’s about a man who thought he had achieved happiness. That he was going to finally achieve that elusive goal.

TEXT

[[SLIDE]]

This is from the gospel of Luke. Jesus is speaking…

Luke 12:16–17 ESV

16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’

[[SLIDE]]

Luke 12:18–19 ESV

18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’

DISQ: What is happiness according to this man?

[[SLIDE]]

So Jesus tells a story about this man who hit it big..

(v.16) The land of this rich man produced plentifully — he’s got what they call a bumper crop. His farm has so much yield that he is having storage issues.

And so he asks “what shall I do” ...

And so what does he do? He starts to plan and figure out what he’s going to do with all of the resources that he has — how he’ll store it, how he’ll use it, how he’ll make it go a long way …

In other words, he’s made it. He’s set. He looks at his life and he says wow NOW I can “relax, eat, drink, be merry.” I can be HAPPY.

e.g. In a lot of ways, what this man has exactly what many of us are striving after. Being successful. Having a surplus of resources. Putting in the hard work now so that later I can relax, eat, drink, be merry.

We want success, security, comfort and all that’s supposed to lead to happiness.

But then this is what God says to him...“FOOL” (highlight)

[[SLIDE]]

Luke 12:20 ESV

20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’

So I want to consider this question: why is this man called a fool?

MORTALITY

The first reason the man is called a fool is because he did not think about something very very very important.

God says — “Fool, this night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” — He didn’t consider his own mortality.

[[SLIDE]]

There’s very few things in life that we can say are universal experiences — shared across cultures, genders, generations.

We all poop.

And we all die.

But we don’t want to talk about either one. Cause one’s gross, and the other’s morbid.

But a hundred years from now, none of us will be here. (Except maybe like 1 or 2 of you with superior genes who’ll live to 120).

This looming reality, we don’t really know what to do with it, so we just kind of ignore it and we hurtle through life not really thinking about what comes at the end of it…

e.g. It’s like driving a car towards a cliff. You know it’s coming. You know you need to figure out how to get out of that car. But instead you shut your eyes tight and turn up the music so you don’t have to think about it.

[[SLIDE]]

The fool in the story is too busy pursuing and enjoying the comforts of life … he thinks that as long as he can relax, eat, drink … as long as he can be comfortable, as long as he can meet his physical needs and desires … that he’ll be merry and everything will be ok.

But he’s a fool in action.

The human mortality rate is still at 100% the last I checked. Don’t ignore this reality.

You need to look into this.

RICH TOWARD SELF VS RICH TOWARD GOD

The second reason this man is called a fool is in our last verse for today — verse 21.

[[SLIDE]]

It says “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

God says dude you spent all your life investing in yourself, investing in your career, trying to get the best experiences, using the resources that you have to try to make yourself happy.

But while trying to get happiness, while investing in yourself, you forgot the MOST important thing. You weren’t rich toward God.

[[SLIDE]]

You went after second things. But not the FIRST thing. The most important thing … which is to consider — what if God is real? How would my life change?

This passage is saying that a life in which you succeed it, a life in which you achieve all that you want to achieve … that’s great and all

But if it’s a life lived as if there’s no God, then you’ve lived like a fool.

JUDGMENT

[[SLIDE]]

This word: FOOL

Everyone say: “You fool!”

Maybe it struck you as rude. “Who dares take somebody’s whole life and pass judgment on it and assess it?”

But that’s precisely the message here. In our modern day world, we like to think there’s no life better than another. It’s all subjective after all… whatever makes us happy, whatever our most authentic self-expression is, that’s how we should live.

But the Bible says no… there is an assessment. There is judgment. There is such a thing as a better lived life. And a foolish life. And that’s either true … or it isn’t.

And when I think about … this intent to live life selfishly and not invest in spiritual things, that was me coming into college.

[[SLIDE]] - me as freshman in college

Even though I personally grew up going to church, I honestly wasn’t sure if any of it was true. And my main goals in college coming in were...

[[SLIDE]]

Graduate summa cum laude so I could get a killer job.

Get swole

Find my wife

And in college I only accomplished one of the three. I’ll let you wonder which one.

No but really my goals were really selfish. You guys probably have way higher and nobler aspirations than I did.

[[SLIDE]] - BLANK

But one thing I did do was I made room for God to speak into my life. Because I was someone who wondered about death, ever since I was in 7th grade. I’d cry myself to sleep at night cause I’d think about the day when I wouldn’t exist anymore.

And so I studied the Bible. I read philosophy. I thought about the existence of God. The evidence for the resurrection. And I found that there were solid intellectual foundations for believing not only that God exists but that Christianity was true.

Personally I’m so glad that I invested into spiritual matters. My challenge is for you to do so as well.

CHALLENGE TO XIANS

Let me briefly address the Christians in the room. Those of you who grew up going to church.

It’s time to grow in your faith as an adult now.

[[SLIDE]]

College is where for many people, Christianity can become genuinely yours. Not a cultural Christianity where you just adopted it because you grew up with it. Get plugged into a church. Study your Bible.

Don’t walk around with a 6th grade knowledge of Scripture and wonder why your faith feels so weak in this new environment of college with all of its pressures and temptations.

No, make your faith your own. Build a strong foundation. And do it with other Christians. Voyage is a great place to do that. We’ll have a sign up soon to join a mentorship group where you can grow alongside Christians. The best way to keep growing in your faith in college is to plug into a church.

CHALLENGE TO NON-XIANS

I recognize that some of you who are here, never planned on coming to some Christian event in college. Never been to church before. Or maybe it’s been a minute.

But hey you’re here, that’s awesome, I’m thankful you’re open. To Korean BBQ at least. (:

And here’s my invitation to you, look into it. Like seriously look into it. [[SLIDE]] Read the Bible. Whether you do it with us, or by yourself, or with any number of other Christian campus groups, read the Bible.

It’s been said that the Judeo-Christian worldview from the Bible is the cradle of modern civilization, with its impact of philosophy, ethics, and even its literary and cultural significance is profound.

So, look into the Bible. Even if you’re a hardened atheist, give it a semester of study. And at the very least, even if you’re going to disagree with it, it’s good to know what Christianity actually has to say.

Like when Christians talk about “the gospel.” What does that even mean? What is it that they believe?

And so that’s what I want to end with today. What is the gospel?

It’s multi-faceted. So there’s lots of different angles by which we can explain it.

But here’s one that we use sometimes at our church. Called the 3 circles.

3 Circles

[[SLIDE]]

Our World = Brokenness

(Draw: Circle and write in “BROKENNESS”)

Everywhere we look in our world, we see brokenness. Our world, it's imperfect, it's cracked, and even ourselves as individuals, we too are imperfect and we're cracked. So we're broken people.

God’s Design

(Draw: Circle and write in “GOD’S DESIGN”)

But when God created the world, that wasn’t his desire. God designed the world to be PERFECT. For us to live fruitful, blessed lives. He cares about every area of our lives … relationships, work, our sense or purpose and identity.

And God designed life to flourish when it’s lived according to His Design.

Sin

But the problem is that in every one of us is a tendency to depart from God’s design, because we want to do things our own way. And so we depart from God’s design. (Draw: WRITE “SIN” above Line)

The Bible has a word for this, and that word is “sin.” The Bible says that ALL have sinned. All have fall short of God’s design for our lives.

Sin manifests itself in all the things that we do against God or that disobeys God.

But more fundamentally, sin is departure from God’s design. A rebellion against God’s way.

We’ve all done this. So we’ve all experienced broken pieces of our lives.

Brokenness can feel like shame. Regret. Emptiness. It’s the feeling of being used. It’s loneliness. It’s things not really working right, feeling like we’re doing all the right things, but we’re not happy with where our life is headed.

If there’s anything good about brokenness, maybe the one thing is that it tells us that something needs to change.

(Draw: Squiggly lines out from circle for relationship, money, etc...4 total)

And so when we’re in brokenness, we try to change things. We DO things to get OUT of brokenness.

Some of us, maybe we dive into another relationship.

Or we try to make more money.

Or we try to numb the pain of our brokenness with alcohol. Or another round of Netflix. Or video games.

Some of us we do religious things. We go to church. We try to be good to others.

But whatever we try to do to get OUT of brokenness. We find that we’re brought right back to a broken state … like we’re being pulled back by a spring.

And that’s because our brokenness can’t be mended by our own efforts. Our sins can’t be paid for by good deeds.

In order for genuine change, to get out of brokenness … that change needs to come from OUTSIDE OF US.

And that’s where the GOOD NEWS that Christians believe comes in. Because you see, God has a plan to restore us, to bring us from brokenness back to His Design.

And that’s through Jesus

Jesus

(Draw: Write “JESUS”)

The GOSPEL hinges on Jesus Christ. On what he did.

How Jesus — the Son of God — came to earth as a man. (Draw down arrow)

He died on the cross for the sins of the world (Draw cross)

and He was raised from the dead. (Draw up arrow)

Now when Jesus was dying on the cross, God did a miracle.

He took the sins of the world, that's your sins and my sins, and He put them on Jesus. So that when he died on the cross, he paid for the punishment, for the judgment that each of us deserved because of our sins.

But it’s not just that. Jesus didn’t just take our sin. But the BIble tells us also that Jesus gave us HIS righteousness. Such that when God sees us, he doesn’t see the brokenness that we’re so aware of … instead of he sees someone righteous, someone who’s been fully forgiven, fully redeemed. Someone who’s been returned to God’s design.

So if we’re in brokenness, and we want to get back to God’s design, what is it that we need to do?

Turn & Believe

The bible gives us two important words REPENT and BELIEVE. REPENT is one of those Bible words. But it just means to TURN

(Draw: Line/Arrow from 2nd circle with word “TURN”)

We have to CHANGE our mind about God. About how we’ve been living. About who gets to control my life. We have to say I don’t want to live by my own intuitions anymore. I want to trust God’s design for life.

It’s not some magic incantation. There actually needs to be a change in your MIND, your HEART toward God.

(Draw: Write “+ BELIEVE” under REPENT)

And as we TURN, we have to BELIEVE this gospel story. Te story of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Believe that he actually did that for you, in history, 2000 years ago on a hill right outside of Jerusalem. And what he did on that cross applies to you right now, today.

Then the Bible says that Jesus can come into our lives. He forgives our sins, and he begins to HEAL the brokenness in our lives.

Grow & Go

(Draw: Line/Arrow from 2nd circle to 3rd circle with “GROW and GO”)

And when you turn and believe, God does something incredible in your life. He restores you into his perfect design. And he gives you a new way of living. A new purpose.

And that purpose is to GROW and GO.

To GROW in your relationship with God and God’s people.

And to GO back into our broken world to tell others about Him and this plan for salvation.

Discussion

Q1: Which circle are you in? Are you living according to God’s design? Or are you living in brokenness?

Q2: Where do you want to be?

Invitation

Think there’s probably a lot of you that say hey I’m in the brokenness circle. That’s where I’m at right now

But where I’d like to be is here. In God’s design.

My third question to you then is this … what’s keeping you from making that decision to follow Jesus today? TO TURN and BELIEVE. So that you can GROW and GO.

So that you can go from BROKENNESS … from trying to figure out how to lead your own life … To God’s design … the way God intended things to be

Even if you grew up going to church. Even if you told people that you’re Christian all your life … have you PERSONALLY made that decision? Have you made your faith your own?

… Gonna do something.

Can I have everyone bow your heads and close your eyes?

With your heads bowed and eyes closed, I'd like to ask you a question.

Do you know for sure your sins are forgiven?

Do you know you have a relationship with God through Jesus?

Do you know for sure you're going to go to heaven someday?

If not, with your heads bowed and eyes closed, I'd love to give you an opportunity to put your faith in Jesus right now.

Right now, do you recognize that you’re a broken sinner in need of a Savior?

If that’s you, you can say this simple, silent prayer in your heart. Just follow the prayer with me in your heart …

Prayer

Dear God, I know that my sins have broken my relationship with you.

I know that nothing I could do could ever change that.

But right now, I believe that Jesus died in my place and rose again from the dead.

I trust in Him to forgive me for my sins.

Through faith in Him, I am entering an eternal relationship with you.

I don’t want to live by my own

Thank you for this free gift!

If you prayed that prayer in Jesus based on his death on the cross in your place because of your sins, you're saved not because you said a prayer, but because you trusted in Jesus.

One final thing. Eyes still closed. Heads bowed.

For those who decided to place your faith in Jesus today then I want to ask if you could raise your hand

< wait 5 seconds >

Thank you … i see you..

Everyone open their eyes …

Praise the Lord for ~XYZ people who prayed that prayer today

If that’s you, encourage you to talk to me afterward

Closing Words

Tof & Agape are going to come back up now to close ouur program.

I hope I gave you some things to think about. Thanks for giving me your attention and listening up.

And I just want to say I’m really really excited for you. College is an awesome time. Make lots of memories. Use it well. Find God. I’ll see you around.