If you work really hard, you can grow up to be whatever you want, and do whatever you want to do.  If you work really hard, you can grow up to be a doctor, an astronaut, even the President.  If you work really hard, you can have a good job, a good home, a good spouse, 2.5 children and a white picket fence with a wrap-around porch.  These are the things you were promised by a parent, a loved one, a teacher, or perhaps someone else when you were young.  This is what American society promises you.  This is what advertisements draw you into.  Happiness is within your grasp… or so you’re told.

You grow up.  Perhaps you start to get some of those things, that were promised to you, and yet the anticipated bliss is mysteriously absent.  That good job you wanted so much brings with it an overbearing boss, and long nights until 7, 8, or 9pm.  That good home you always wanted comes with it a mortgage payment, the strains of upkeep, keeping you from moving when you might want/need to.  Those children that you always wanted turn out to be the source of a neverending hum of crying/yelling throughout the house…. just like you were as a child.  And society, how does it respond?  It tells you that what you need to make it all work together for happiness, is just around the corner.  Will a new car make things better?  Will a new spouse make things better?  Will a new house make things better?
The payoff of the American dream isn’t the happiness promised, but bondage to playing a game that has no winners.

My purpose today isn’t to say that having all of those things is bad.  It’s not.  What I want to do, hopefully is paint a picture, whereby the worth of Jesus Christ is so magnificently superior to any happiness you could have in those things, that you break the cycle of pursuing happiness apart from God.  It’s a lie, and if you don’t put it to death, it will ultimately kill you.  It’s a funny thing to say – you will be infinitely joyful or I will kill you, but ultimately that is what God has told us.  The whole purpose of God in creation and redemption is that we would know Him, and enjoy Him infinitely forever.  Deuteronomy 28:47-48 – “Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.”

Ecclesiastes 2:26 – “For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.”

You cannot separate saving faith and joy in Christ in the heart of a believer.  God has given us all of the fullness of Himself in Jesus Christ, and Christ is within us as the Holy Spirit.  (John 14:17)  In the presence of God, there is a fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11)

2 Corinthians 1:24 – “Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.” 

From above, standing firm in our faith is helped by the working to increase joy in God.  This joy that Christ invites us into is one of fellowship with Him in every way.  It’s not the kind of joy that sprouts from health, or wealth, or prosperity, but the kind of joy that is found in times of suffering, hardship, serving others at great personal cost, so that we might know Him who humbled Himself to the point dying on a cross and called us out of darkness into light.  It’s a delighting in the goodness of God in all things now, and a great desire to know the fullness of joy that is to come when we rid ourselves of all sin, and stand in His presence for eternity.

My exhortation is to ask yourself if you are daily striving to pursue more joy in God.  If joy in God is the means by which we will stand firm in our faith, how should you respond?  Secondly, maybe as an application to the first question, I want to exhort you to let your mind rest in the goodness and glory of God.  Colossians 3:1-4 – “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.  For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”

You cannot have the American Dream and Christ, you must choose.  Let us help each other, to be co-laborers in the fight of faith in earnest for joy in Christ.

Grace and Peace,
Adam