God Wants You Happy

Me

Misheard lyrics

Starship

We built this city on rock and roll

We built this city on sausage rolls

Johnny Nash

I can see clearly now the rain is gone

I can see clearly now Lorraine is gone

Monkees

Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer

Then I saw her face, now I’m gonna leave her

Freedom Hymn Story

This is the sound of chains breaking This is the beat of a heart changing This is a song of a soul forgiven This is my freedom hymn

What I heard was freedom hand

We

We have probably all misquoted lyrics or famous quotes without realizing it

We do the same thing with God’s word

Introduce Series

God Never Said That

If we are not living in the truth, then we are living a lie

Today we will be looking at a lyric that many people misquote

God Wants You Happy

We all like to think that

What kind of of a loving God doesn’t want to see you happy

The Theology of Happiness

1) Whatever makes me happy must be right. Whatever makes me unhappy must be wrong

2) Discomfort, delay, risk, suffering, inconveniences, and obstacles can’t be God’s will.

3) Without knowing it, we begin to worship the false gods of comfort, money, pleasure, and things

God

1 Thessalonians 4:7 NLT

7 God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives.

God desires your holiness over your happiness

You

There are specific times when God does not want to see you happy

1) When it causes you to do something wrong or unwise

1 Peter 2:24 NLT

24 He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed.

2) When it is only based on the things of this world

1 John 2:15–17 NLT

15 Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. 16 For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. 17 And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.

3) When our happiness is based upon someone else’s unhappiness

Philippians 2:3–4 NIV

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

We

What would it look like if we realized that

God desires our holiness over our happiness

If we realized that God doesn’t desire to see us unhappy, but that is not main desire for us

If we realized this, would we be better equipped for times of unhappiness?

Just how much does God value our holiness over our happiness

Matthew 26:36–39 NLT

36 Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.” 37 He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. 38 He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” 39 He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

Enough to watch his own son suffer so that we could be restored and have a relationship with him (Call up worship team)

What would it truly look like if we valued God’s will over our own?

Prayer and Invitation

Change our hearts