Practical Ways of Pursuing Pleasure
I tend to the heady more theological way of addressing things. But sometimes just giving blunt, to the point examples can be extremely helpful. So here’s a number of ways we can hedonistically pursue the greater pleasure found in living by and for Jesus.
• Deal with difficult details and plan out a special date for you wife. This includes budgeting, getting a babysitter, knowing where your going ahead of time, scoping out some good spots, making dinner reservations, and maybe even buying some flowers. If you don’t have a wife yet, this is a good way to work on getting one. Such things will result in Godly pleasure.
• Wage war with your soul when sex is not readily available to you. Fight in your mind, fight with the words of Scripture, fight with your computer, have friends help you fight. Don’t give into porn, you’ll be a lot happier.
• Work and work hard. Get up and go to work when you don’t feel like it and when you’re there work with all your might. If you don’t have a job making finding a job your job, doing whatever you have to do to provide if you’re a dude (minus prostituting out your body). At the end of the day you will fill satisfied and complete for fulfilling God’s pre-fall mandate on men who are made to work.
• Play with your kids because little kids toys are fun. Don’t work so much that you don’t have time for your family. Take your daughters on dates and teach your boys to love and protect girls. And enjoy the Bible with your children. You will end up being one of the happiest parents around.
• If you drink, don’t drink too much. When you know you’ve already had enough and more would make you cross the line of drunkenness, hold back and don’t drink anymore. God will be pleased and you won’t have to deal with the pain of a guilty conscience or puke on your clothes.
• When you want to buy something and you can’t afford it, don’t spend the money. You’ll end up being a lot happier when you don’t get a credit card bill and have a huge looming debt hanging over your head. Much satisfaction comes from being a good steward of the money Jesus give you.
So when I say that life is about pleasure and we are meant to pursue a life of pleasure and happiness in Jesus, these are some examples of the type of things I mean. Enjoy the simpleness of a life lived with the God of all pleasure.
- Pastor Duane
The Pursuit of Pleasure & Potential Perils
We all naturally seek and want happiness or pleasure. Jonathan Edwards said it is the spring which moves all men to action. This is true of grand scale life motivations, identities, and goals as well as day to day activities such as eating and going to the bathroom. Blaise Pascal noted it is even the motive of the man that hangs himself…he is hoping to achieve a happier state. In the Bible God is a God who pursues his pleasure (Is 46:10) and God is a God who calls us to find pleasure in him since he is its ultimate source (Ps. 37:4; Phil 4:4).
Most don’t have difficulty embracing the concept that we are made for pleasure. No one ever says they hate being happy. It’s either when we run into suffering or sin that we pause and wonder whether such an idea could perhaps be harmful instead of helpful.
When suffering strikes we want out of it.
When suffering strikes, we want nothing but out of it and relief does not seem to come or come quickly enough. It’s then we wonder if the enjoyment of health and happiness is a sham we would do better if we could find a way to turn off the desire and need to feel well. Eastern meditation and western nihilism are both different ways of giving up on joy by an eternal embrace of suffering. The pursuit of pleasure is then replaced by an acceptance of pain.
Would we be better off to quit the quest of pleasure?
When sin results, we realize its destructive and damaging force both externally in the world and internally in our hearts. It’s then we wonder whether our pursuit of pleasure is at fault and if we all would be a lot better off if we simply quit the quest. Stoicism and legalism are both attempts live a life a part from things which please us. The pursuit of pleasure is then replaced by abiding by a set of rules.
The gospel gives us a third option which protects us from the perils which come from suffering and sin and enables us to be the happy creatures we were made to be.
Jesus Makes Demands & Un-Masks His Deity
Matthew Series | Matthew 16:24-17:13 | Pastor Duane Smets
This week is an exegetical sermon on Matthew 16:24-17:13 where Jesus talks about the cost of discipleship, the meaning and purpose of life, and then peels back the veil and shows a few of the disciples a glimpse of his full deity. This sermon was originally preached on July 25th, 2010 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
Advent Week 3 – The Shepherd’s Candle of Joy: Elizabeth
This week is an exegetical sermon looking at Luke 1:39-45 focusing on the character of Elizabeth. The sermon is titled, “The Mom Whose Baby Knew Jesus and Rejoiced”and how Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and recognizes God’s hand at work, confesses baby Jesus as her Lord, identifies Jesus as the source of God, and celebrates the promise of God. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Duane Smets on December 13th, 2009 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
Acedia, Affection and the Atonement
Yesterday, Tuesday May 5th a study was released and published in the Wall Street Journal reporting that over the most recent 10 year period the use of prescription medication for “mental health” increased 73% in adults and 50% in children.
Adbusters, a Canadian activism magazine subtitled “Journal of the Mental Environment,” frequently cites that the United States is the most medicated country in the world, that “doctors are too eager to prescribe drugs, patients are over-willing to medicate” and that we are not better off as a result.
“Mental health” or the lack thereof, known in many terms such as depression, anxiety, and the increasingly popular “bi-polar” is not something new or previously unknown to theologians. For centuries it has gone by the Greek term “acedia” and is listed as “sloth” in the seven deadly sins first identified by Gregory the Dialogist (pastor, theologian, and pope) in the sixth century.
Thomas Aquinas defined it as “the sorrow of the world.” Martin Luther called it anfechtungen, or “spiritual trials.” Charles Spurgeon says, “Fits of depression come over the most of us. Usually cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down. The strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready, the brave not always courageous, and the joyous not always happy.”
