Bobby Bosler: Young people, if you have a Bible, if you could turn with me to James chapter 4, please. James As we’ve thought about the concept of total devotion, there is something in my heart that I am very burdened to communicate to those that would consider themselves a part of the generation. I recognize we may have some who are here today, this morning, this week, that you’ve not been around the generation a whole lot, but I also understand there are many of you here.

This is something that you’re interested in.

In fact, one of the things that I personally have as a goal for the Thee Generation Youth Summit is that this is a gathering of spiritually minded young men and young ladies. And I recognize there are probably going to be young people here in this room. You think, if you really knew how spiritually minded I really was or wasn’t.

I know, I understand we’re going to have some young people here in this room. You think, you know what, I want to serve God. I want to be what God wants me to be and do what God wants me to do, but man, I sure struggle.

I recognize that’s the case, but I want you to know across the board here in this room, I would say if you could take an average of the hearts of those here in this room and those who follow the generation and those who would consider themselves adherent to that motto of total surrender to God and total dependence on His power to reach the world with a gospel, I would say at the very least, we have a room of young people that would like to be considered,

who would like to be spiritually sensitive to the things of God.

I recognize you could be here, you could have a heart that’s hard, you could have perhaps some here who are majorly struggling, maybe you hear me say something like this and you say, bro, you got the wrong guy here this morning, that’s not me, that’s not me at all. Well, listen up, we’ve got some stuff for you here this week too.

but here in this particular session one of the things that I’m burdened for is that oftentimes we have the right goal we want our lives to count for Christ we want to do something for the Lord we want to be good Christians perhaps you could say but we find ourselves so often running contrary to our stated goals and the desires of our hearts. It’s almost like in our hearts we are schizophrenic. On the one hand, we want to serve God.

We want to be surrendered to the Lord. We want to do what He wants us to do. But on the other hand, we find ourselves regularly doing things that compromise our mission.

And one of the things that I am so burdened about here this week is one of the problems is a, I’m going to use a big word, I’m sorry, it’s a presuppositional one. Or I could put it to you this way, it’s a foundational issue.

And one of the things that I want to address here this morning is a mindset, a set of priorities, a way of thinking that you can want to serve the Lord, you can want to be where God wants you to be, but if you’ve got this wrong foundation in your heart and in your mind, you’re going to end up in the wrong destination every single time.

And as I look across our churches, frankly, as I look across the adults in our churches, not just the young people like yourselves, and the words that I see and the lives that I see lived, so often I see lives that are built on a junky foundation. I want you to know, young people, one of the things that I am very, very, very concerned about is we have your generation following a generation that has it all wrong. Okay?

And unfortunately, many times, we see what’s in the Bible. We see the ideals. We hear stuff like the generation.

Our generation can turn the world upside down with the gospel, and we’re like, yeah, that’s right.

I want to be a part of that. I want to be a part of something that’s bigger than me. And we want to then look at examples of what that actually looks like.

And many times in our churches, we look at the adults in our churches, and we want to follow them as we are expecting that they’re following Christ. But here’s the problem. At a foundational level, they are not following Christ.

They’re following what we’re going to be talking about here today. I’m not saying that to cast any of the adults that you may look up to under the bus. Not at all.

I’m just saying this, young people, don’t make the same mistakes that the previous generation has made, and I would dare say is making today. I know I’m speaking in generalities here a little bit, so I want to make this a little bit clearer. You’re looking with me in James chapter 4 and in verse number 1 here.

James is giving us a little bit of an argument here. He’s doing a bit of a diagnostic with his readers. He’s trying to help them identify the source of some of the issues that are going on in their lives.

He wants them to understand there are things that are going on in your lives that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize are not right and are not the way things are supposed to be. But so often we can find ourselves experiencing the fruits of things in our lives where we are completely ignorant of the roots that lay underneath the And the root that he is addressing here is a root I see everywhere. Everywhere.

I see it in, just to be honest with you, parents at home. I see it in pastors. I see it in youth pastors sometimes.

I see it in college students. I see it definitely a lot in teenagers.

And this root issue, this foundational issue, this presuppositional issue will produce bad fruit every single time. And instead of just picking off the fruit and shooting like clay pigeons at the fruits that are above the surface, I want to start us off here this morning hitting at the root issue, hitting at the root problem, that I trust as it becomes clear will be freeing to you. Once we address the root, then we can deal with what’s above the surface.

But it’s just going to keep growing if we don’t deal with the stuff underneath the soil, so to speak. here in this passage it says, it asks this question, from whence come wars and fightings among you?

He’s asking this question, hey listen, we’ve got a lot of conflict going on in our lives. We have a lot of conflict going on in our world right now. I don’t know if you’re paying attention to that.

There’s some pretty crazy stuff happening in the world, whether it’s in the White House, whether it’s in the Congress, whether it’s across the pond in Israel, the Middle East. There’s a lot of conflict going on, But I think that if all we did was focus on the conflict outside of the church house, we’re going to miss the conflict that we really need to care about right now. I’m not saying those other things are unimportant.

They are very important.

But listen, friends, if we don’t solve the conflict in the church house, we’ll never solve the conflict in the White House and beyond. And here in this passage, he’s asking the question, hey, okay, listen, there’s wars and fighting happening among you. Where is that coming from?

What is the foundational issue underneath of that conflict? And really, as he identifies the source of that conflict, I strongly believe that this root issue is the root issue for far more than just the conflict that we experience in our lives. Listen, you have fights with your brothers and sisters?

I’ll tell you why. You have conflict with your parents? I’ll tell you why.

You have conflict with other leaders in your life, I’ll tell you why. You feel conflicted in your own life, I’ll tell you why. It’s because of the root issue right here.

He says, from whence come wars and fightings among you, come they not hence, even of your lusts. I want you to know the root issue that I’m speaking about is the matter of lust. Now, I know when I say the word lust, there’s a certain set of issues that probably comes to your mind, and you think, oh no, he’s going there.

right, at the very beginning of the week. Oh, I should have known, right? But it actually might not necessarily be what you’re thinking.

Because the Bible word for lust here in this verse is a little bit of a different kind of a word than we typically use for when we talk about lust. Typically we think of lust, we think of, let’s just say, immorality, right? A thought life issue, a maybe more sensual or immoral kind of a desire.

You may not realize this. Most of the time when the word lust is used in the New Testament, it’s talking about just a strong desire. Sometimes it can be a positive desire.

Sometimes it can be a negative desire, but there is this idea that this concept of lust is just wanting something really bad. It’s a driving desire. And yes, it’s true.

We can often live driven by desire for, say, moral or immoral things in our lives, and that is an issue. But I would argue that there’s an issue below that issue. See, this word for lusts here in this verse is a different word than is normally used for lusts in the New Testament.

Again, I don’t want to go philosophical and I don’t want to geek out with you here too much, but the idea of this word lusts, it comes from a root word that is hedone. Okay, uh-oh, I use Greek at a youth conference. Is that even legal?

I don’t even know. Well, anyway, I did it. There we go.

That word hedoné is related to an English word, and this is the only reason why I bring it up, and that word is hedonism. Now, I recognize most of you here. In fact, if I ask, who knows what hedonism is?

Probably just about nobody would, but hedonism is a philosophy. It is a way of viewing the world that places one thing and one thing alone at the center of everything. Hedonism makes this one thing the very purpose for living and existence.

This one thing is what informs the priorities and decisions of life. And you know what that is? Pleasure.

Hedonism is a philosophy. I believe it got its origins in Greece, but I could be wrong on that.

It’s sure it’s been a philosophy a lot longer than they’ve been around. but that essentially says the whole reason why I live is to get as much pleasure out of life as I possibly can. You see, he’s asking the question, where are wars and fightings?

Where is that coming from? What is the root underneath the surface that is causing the fruit of this conflict to come into my life? He says, here is the root issue.

You’re living for pleasure. That’s why you do what you do. Because as far as you’re concerned, the most important thing in life is to be happy.

And the priorities, the way you spend your time is on things that make you happy.

The way you spend your money is on things that make you happy. The reason why you have the relationships in your life that you have is because you want those people or relationships to make you happy. The reason why the words come out of your mouth that come out of your mouth is because you’re trying to get your own happiness.

And I believe what he’s saying here in this passage is, listen, there is a whole lot that springs out of that core value. Listen, I’ve got to ask this question. When we’re talking about total devotion, what are we devoted to?

And unfortunately, right at the outset, I would say what I see across the board in our movements and as much as we may give lip surface to wanting to please and honor the Lord, if our actions and our choices and our priorities are any indication, our total devotion instead of being to the Lord is actually to our own pleasure. We care more about having fun than loving Jesus.

We care more about having the people surrounding us that make us feel comfortable and make us feel good than we care about doing what God wants us to do. And in our heart of hearts, the real love relationship that we are pursuing is a priority that makes us feel good.

We live according to our wants and our wants are focused on what will make our lives as pleasurable as possible. I’m going to make this statement and I want you to write it down and think about it. Show me what brings you pleasure and I’ll show you what brings you conflict.

Show me what brings you pleasure and I’ll show you what brings you conflict. I don’t know, there could be a variety of different interests here in this room and I’m not necessarily preaching against those interests, But really what I’m preaching against is that underlying set of priorities, that passion inside that places your pleasure at the forefront in the decisions that you make throughout your life.

Listen, some of you guys here in this room, you’re absolutely all about sports. And listen, I think sports are great. I think there’s definitely a place for them.

I think we ought to play them. There’s a lot of things we learn from them. Listen, I enjoy a good football game, watching it, playing it, watching my son play it.

all right, for the first time here this year, get hurt the first day out there, but I love it, okay? It’s great. But listen, there’s a big difference between being able to enjoy a good competition and gain and making that the driving force of your life.

You follow me?

So often people, oh man, if they can just be the guy that scores the touchdown, if they can just, man, be the guy that’s the star quarterback on their team, or whatever it might be, if they can be the winner in that way, then, oh, they’ll let everything else fall by the wayside because they’re laser focused on being the best. You know why? Because that’s what brings them pleasure.

That’s what makes them happy. I’m not saying we shouldn’t strive to be the best in everything we do, we should. But I’m telling you folks, this desire to please one’s self is killing us.

Listen, when you’re a child, it’s going to be something like Legos or dolls or something like that.

I’m not going to ask if anybody is still addicted to those things, all right, here at this age. But you know, I see it from a very early age. I’ve got kids, all right.

My kids, they’re in the bedroom. They’re making their little Lego creations, right? Because you know why?

It’s fun. And I’m not preaching against fun. Please don’t misunderstand me.

But they’re having a need met in their heart. They are building and doing what they’re doing because I like it. It gives me pleasure not only to own these things, but to create things out of my mind and to make really cool stuff that does all kinds of cool stuff.

And you know what happens?

Those of you that have siblings, when somebody messes with one of your creations? Wars and fightings. That’s what happens in my home, okay?

I’ll tell you why. Because that child had something that brought them pleasure and somebody got in the way of it. Right?

Okay? And when the priority of life is getting that which makes me happy and someone stands in my way of getting that thing that will make me happy. Put them up, bro.

I’m going to fight you down to get what I want. I see it all the time in teenagers. All the time.

Listen, the thing that may make you happy is machines, vehicles, different things like that. Maybe you’re all about the dirt bikes.

You’re all about the one wheels. You’re all about the car. You’re all about, I don’t think you’re in the budget at this point of getting boats and stuff like that.

But I actually bring that up because you know what? Little children, the thing that might bring them pleasure might be their Legos or their dolls, but they grow up to be teenagers and it might become their phones, it might become their friends. They grow up to become adults and it becomes their cars, it becomes their boats, it becomes their beach houses.

And don’t you see that underneath all of that is the same core desire? I just want to do anything I can to be happy.

I’m going to put my money down on what brings me pleasure. I’m going to spend my time on what brings me pleasure. And what happens is when the wife gets in the way of the boat, there’s conflict.

When the boss gets in the way of the vacation, there’s conflict. And I’m telling you, when God gets in the way of that which brings us pleasure, there’s conflict. You see, in life, often we live in what’s called cognitive dissonance.

You say, what in the world did Mr. Bosler just say? Cognitive dissonance is essentially this.

You’ve got competing thoughts in your mind. You don’t realize that they actually contradict one another, but they actually do.

And oftentimes, we, on the one hand, we say, oh, the purpose of my life is to glorify God, and the purpose of my life is to be surrendered to God. but on the other hand, we want that. But on the other hand, we say, well, yeah, but I want to get as much fun out of life as I possibly can.

And we don’t realize that those are conflicting concepts. And you can live with conflicting concepts in your life for a while, but there comes a point when life throws difficulties at you, and you’re going to have to make a choice. Are you going to live for that which brings you pleasure?

or are you going to give all that up to follow Jesus? And I see adults live for pleasure and stop following Jesus all the time. Don’t get me wrong, they keep going to church.

They keep going to church. But you can tell they’re a church for themselves. They’re not a church for the Lord.

You can tell by the way they spend their money, You can tell it by the way they spend their time. You know, it’s the hardest thing in the world to get them to help out. Hardest thing in the world to get them to use their money the way God would have them use their money.

I’m just telling you, this whole priority of living for that which brings me happiness and which brings me pleasure is a foundational issue. I’m almost afraid, parents in the back, we train our children to live that way from the beginning. I’ll just go play.

right just go play and it’s almost like the very priorities we’re feeding them from toddler age on up is just have fun please don’t get me wrong i’m not saying that every two-year-old needs to be sitting down reading their bible and praying all day okay yes children do need to be children there are developmental things that happen during that time but I’m worried that in the process of trying to have them do those natural developmental things, we’re unfortunately building in the foundation of their being this

thought and concept that life is all about having fun and playing. And some adults still haven’t gotten that cognitive dissonance straightened out in their mind.

And they are setting the example for many of you. Wasn’t planning on preaching against the adults as much as I have been here this morning. There comes a point in your growth and development when you realize not every adult has it right.

And the greatest thing you must do is follow Jesus with all of your heart, come what may. Here in this passage he says, From whence come wars and fighting among you? Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members.

Listen, there is a battle happening inside of us and oftentimes we’re fighting tooth and nail to get what we want. And you show me what brings you pleasure.

I’ll show you the very thing that brings you conflict. Whether that’s the video games that your siblings are getting in the way of you playing. Whether that’s the movie you want to watch and mom and dad won’t let you do it.

whether that’s the social media account that your parents have tried to pull you back on and oh boy, watch out for World War III. I shouldn’t joke about that right now. For that that’s happening.

But listen, whether it’s the clothes that bring you pleasure you want to wear, whether it’s the friends you want to hang with that bring you pleasure that mom and dad won’t let you hang out with, whether it’s the words you want to use, the music you want to listen to, it all gets back to you’re just living for what makes you happy. As one podcaster has said, you’re living for that which gratifies you. The pursuit of pleasure, it always leads to conflict.

Always, always, always. And I believe one of the reasons for that is because God loves you. You say, say what?

If God led our lives in pursuing what just brings us happiness, if he just let us do that without any conflict, anything to let us know there’s something wrong here, we would just keep on doing it for the rest of our lives. We would just keep on living that way and no idea that it is destroying us. I want to continue here in the text.

Here in verse number two, he says this. He says, Ye lust, and ye have not. Isn’t that the case?

Isn’t that what ended up happening? You really, really want a certain kind of pleasure. Now I’m not going to lie.

Sin does bring pleasure. You know, but just for a season.

Sin might satisfy that need in your heart and in your life and it may make you happy for a short period of time, but maybe we’re not necessarily talking about something that’s straight up sin, something that could be just construed as, you know what, there’s nothing wrong with this or that or the other thing.

But here’s the thing, when you and your heart are living for pleasure, living for that which makes you happy and you look at this thing or this experience or this person or whatever it might be and think, yeah, this is going to make me happy You dive in. You know what always happens? Doesn’t make you happy.

Or you might get some feels for a couple minutes. But ultimately, that which you’re truly seeking eludes you. Because, listen, the pursuit of pleasure, it not only always leads to conflict, it always, always, always leads to disappointment.

So many times we can look at the individual, maybe their parents are a lot looser than yours are, and their parents let them do far more sketchy things than your parents will let you do. And you look at them and think, man, they’re living the life. Look at them.

Nobody’s telling them what to do. They’re just free to do whatever their hearts desire. Man, I bet they have so much fun.

And you know what?

They want you to think they have so much fun. They want you to think that it’s the greatest thing ever. But it’s a lie.

It’s a lie.

You want to know why many times young people, advance from, let’s just say, they go from innocuous pursuits of pleasure, let’s say, being the greatest sports player that they can possibly be, or being the most popular person in their school, or having the most amount of a certain kind of thing, or beating that video game, or being the greatest person on that instrument, whatever it might be, and they in their life are just thinking, man, this is the pathway to happiness if I can just, and

they fill in the blank.

you know what happens? It never satisfies them if their desire is to pursue their own pleasure. And you know what happens oftentimes?

They look for bigger pleasures because they’re sure, well, maybe that one can truly satisfy me. You know, I was watching a video the other day, and you know how ads sometimes come up, and this ad shocked me. There was a guy sitting on his couch, and he had come home from work, and he was just sitting there like, oh, I just feel so terrible.

Oh, I’m so tired. Oh, my brain is just whatever. And then this dude walks in the door with a mushroom on his head.

And I’m thinking, this is really weird.

I almost thought this is kind of psychedelic, but it actually was. And this guy walks in, and he says essentially, hey, I’m a psychedelic mushroom.

and it was an advertisement for psychedelic mushrooms and this guy you know i didn’t watch the whole ad but i can only imagine how it went oh this is the answer this is going to make me feel good oh this is going to be the best thing oh i just feel so amazing when i’m chomping on this psychedelic mushroom and i’m thinking this is a stupid ad who would fall for this this stuff will control your life. It’ll destroy you.

But I got to thinking, you know, it’s pretty tempting to someone who’s looking for the next bigger thing to make them happy. Listen, right now, what makes you happy? It might be the friends.

It might be the car, the bikes. It might be the video games. Maybe it could still be the Legos for some of you junior hires, or maybe even some senior hires.

We Legos. Please don’t misunderstand me. I will not say how many Lego kits I have received from my family in the last 10 years.

That’s just a secret there. But listen, if the whole point of your life is pleasing yourself, it might start there. But it won’t end there.

It leads to binging YouTube videos all the time.

It can lead to watching compromising videos, movies, you know it’s amazing it used to be you were limited by money and the amount of that kind of stuff that you could watch but now all you need is a monthly subscription to netflix or disney plus or something like that and you can literally set that thing to play even if you’re out cold on the couch it’ll just keep going to the next episode to the next movie whatever it is and it is one continuous stream of

self-pleasure and that underlying foundational presupposition underneath of your life the reason why you do what you do is because ultimately you just want to be happy and you want to spend your life and your time and your resources on that which makes you happy and it will always lead you to disappointment you will never get what you think you’re going to get he says you lust and have not and again he the two concepts here together.

You kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. You fight in war, yet ye have not. Listen, mark my words.

You can walk out of this session here this morning and say, I don’t care what that preacher says. My life is all about me and I’m going to live to get the most amount of happiness and pleasure and enjoyment out of my life. That preacher has no idea what I’m talking about.

He just wants us all to be miserable and I’m not buying it. Mark my words, you will live a miserable, miserable, disappointed life. You say, preacher, you don’t know the kind of fun that I’m having right now.

You have no idea.

There’s a young lady that I had part in ministering to in the youth group here. I won’t mention her name. You know, when she was in the youth group, she was a good girl.

For the most part, she had her struggles. But I remember at some point, boom, she’s gone. Out of here.

Didn’t see her anymore in the youth group. I hear things about the kind of things that she’s involved in in her life. And I remember one day over by the elevator doors, I remember coming in a little bit late for Sunday school, and I remember she was standing outside of that door.

And I remember I could tell by the way her words were slurring and by the way that she was walking, or staggering you could say, that she was under the influence in some way. And I remember I said, hey, and I mentioned her name. I said, it is so good to see you.

It’s been so long. How you doing? She skipped all the pleasantries, looked at me, put her finger in my chest, and said, Bobby, you go in and you tell those kids in that youth group that the world out there doesn’t really bring them pleasure.

It’ll chew them up and spit them out. Trust me. I know.

It’s not going to give you what you think it’s going to give you. It’s not going to give it to you. Listen, this pursuit of pleasure, it always leads to conflict.

It always leaves you disappointed. But I want us to continue looking here down the passage here. He says at the end of verse 2, ye fight and worry, yet ye have not, Because ye ask not.

Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

And here we find that this individual, this situation, the way he’s describing this, helping them troubleshoot these things, he’s saying, listen, don’t you understand the very things you’re craving, or shall I say the very desire for fulfillment and satisfaction inside of you. It is available from God. But many times you don’t have it because you don’t ask for it.

And let’s take it a step further. You’re very asking. Even when you put on the spiritual hat and the spiritual mask and you play the spiritual part and even convince yourself that you have spiritual goals, so often that pursuit of pleasure can even become embedded and woven into the fabric of our relationship with God.

And we’re looking to God to fulfill our desire for pleasure. You know, you kind of expect that from real little kids, right? When you start to teach them to pray and they begin to understand, oh, I can ask for anything, right?

I’ve had kids ask for elephants before. And you know, you look at that and you think, oh, that’s cute. Oh, that’s even cool.

They believe that God can do anything. But you recognize that’s not the will of God, right? And you recognize that the young person, they just kind of want something they think would be cool.

They just want something that would kind of make them happy. And it’s cute when they’re two. it’s sad when they’re 20.

When the very foundation of your life, the very presupposition of why you do what you do and why you make the choices that you make and the reason why you spend the resources that you spend, when the purpose of that is your own happiness and that which brings you pleasure. It will even infect your relationship with God. And I would argue it will always lead you away from the will of God.

The reason why I’m here and the reason why you are here is not to be happy. It’s to have a relationship with God. But sometimes we look at that and we say Oh, I want a relationship with God because that will make me happy.

Oh, I want to pray. I want to be a prayer warrior because that will make me happy. Oh, I want victory over this, that, or the other thing because that will make me happy.

Oh, I want to win somebody to Christ because that will make me happy. I want to be a famous preacher or missionary because that will make me happy. That’s not what life is about, young people.

We can put on the guise and the mask and say the stuff and repeat the slogan, yeah, total surrender to God and total dependence on His power to reach the world with a gospel so that I can be happy? You got it all wrong, man. Listen, I enjoy having good fun.

But you know what? The fun that’s here this week is for a purpose. It’s not here to make you happy, though I hope you’re happy.

It’s here to bring you face to face with Jesus. It’s here to bring you young people to total devotion, and maybe that’s not why you came. That’s okay.

That’s all right. You listen up. You open your heart.

You be sensitive and tender to the Lord. God will talk to you. But you know, this whole foundational, presuppositional perspective on your life, it always leads to conflict.

It always leaves you disappointed. It will always lead you away from the will of God. But I want us to continue to look here.

Notice in verse number four, he says this he says ye adulterers and adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity that is the state of being an enemy of god or with god whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God? What does that have to do with lusts or hedonism or living for pleasure and pleasing oneself?

This has already been somewhat implicit in some of the things that I’ve said, but I will tell you, the one organized system that makes great promises to make you happy. The world. The world and its trends.

Those trends say if you look like everybody else in the world, they’ll accept you and you’ll be happy. The movies that are put out by Hollywood say that if you just will sit through this plot, you will be exhilarated or you will be moved or you’ll laugh and you will be happy. The video games promise you that if you bring this to your home, you’ll have countless hours of happiness.

The whole concept of marketing is to make you feel like you don’t have what you need and that their thing is the thing that will make you happy.

And the whole appeal of the world, not only in its products, not only in its philosophy, but the whole purpose of the world, I believe designed by the prince of this world is to promise you happiness without God and outside of God. The world has infected the church and we’ve got many people in churches who while they claim to be faithful, God-fearing Christians, regularly commit spiritual adultery against God on their cell phones every single night.

We’ve got young people who, though they claim to be totally surrendered to God and totally dependent on His power and the very trends and clothes and the way that they want to live, they are betraying their true allegiance.

They are living, claiming to be a faithful follower of Jesus while desiring the pleasure that comes from the world. And it doesn’t just have to be someone who’s actually engaged in the things of this world. If you look at the text here, he says at the end of this verse, whosoever therefore will be.

Now I know a lot of times when you see will, you think, Mr. Bosler, no, duh, it’s a future tense. whoever’s gonna be.

But that’s actually not the idea of this word will. This word will has to do with the concept of your will. It has the idea of wants, wishes it, desires it.

Listen, there’s some of you here in this room.

Oh, at this point in your life, in the stage of the structure that’s surrounding you with your parents and your church, perhaps, Oh, you would never be caught dead wearing such and such or living for such and such. But man, if the truth were to be known, you sure want to. You sure wish you could.

That’d be the same as a man who says he’s faithful to his wife but wishes he didn’t have to be. That’s kind of wrong, isn’t it?

and I want to get back to it all springs from this desire you look at the world you think oh the world would make me so happy oh man the world would just meet that need in my soul man that would be so cool if I could watch that movie man it would be so cool if I didn’t have to worry about hiding the music on my cell phone man that would be so cool if I could just dive right in unrestrained gets back to.

The whole priority of your life is that which makes you happy. And it will lead you into the cruel embrace of the world every single time.

See, all of these things lead us away from our ultimate purpose. The reason why God allowed us to be And our ultimate purpose is not to live a happy life, though God does want us to be happy. That’s not the purpose of life.

In fact, this is hinted at here in the next verse. Verse 5. He says, Do you think that the Scripture saith in vain?

The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy. I’m not going to get into an argument about what the Spirit means here in this verse, but my personal position is the word Spirit. There in that verse is the Holy Spirit.

And here, I believe what James is teaching is that, listen, here you are, you’re living for pleasure. You’re living to make yourself happy. Meanwhile, inside of you, if you’re born again and a child of God, the third person of the Trinity, He wants something too.

He wants something out of you too. And you know what He wants? He wants you.

He wants all of you. Not part of you. Not the leftovers of you.

He doesn’t just want you on Sunday and Wednesday night. He doesn’t just want you at the Thee Generation Youth Summit at invitation time. He doesn’t just want you when you had a good morning of devotions.

He doesn’t just want you when you’re in a good way at that point in life. He wants all of you. All of you.

Because He loves you. And He recognizes that the greatest way that you will truly flourish is if you find your greatest pleasure in Him. If He and His glory is the main purpose of your life.

He says, listen, do you think the Scripture is just wasted its breath, when it says the Holy Spirit who lives inside of you, he earnestly, zealously desires you to have you all to himself. You say, Mr.

Bosler, you know, as you’ve been talking about this whole living for pleasure as God is maybe peeling back the layers in my heart and showing me what really makes me tick. I’m realizing more and more it almost seems like the whole grid and framework of how I think and how I spend my time and really how my entire life is prioritized and organized. It almost seems like all of it is revolving around that which brings me pleasure.

And man, I see some of the fruits of it in my life. And if what you’re saying is true, I think the fruits are going to get a whole lot worse down the road. What can I do?

Well, I want you to know, according to the next verse, in verse number six, God has an encouraging word for us. He says, but he giveth more grace. And people, I want you to know that God’s grace is available to overcome our adulterous tendencies.

In fact, when it says more grace, that’s literally greater grace. It doesn’t matter how locked in you seem to that 10-year plan that just was placed there to fulfill your dreams. God’s grace can set you free.

It’s bigger! It’s better! Than any set of shackles you have placed upon your own hands and feet.

God can deliver you. But there is a catch.

He says, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. I really do believe the greatest barrier between you and God’s delivering, overcoming grace is your stinking pride. Your unwillingness to admit that you’ve been wrong in your priorities.

Your unwillingness to change your mind. Because listen, Hollywood has done everything they can to convince you to follow your heart. Right?

Because your heart’s going to lead to what makes you happy. And anyone or anything, whether it’s a wicked stepmother or your parents, or whether it’s the king of your kingdom, I’m not thinking of specific Disney movies, but it’s all over them.

Whatever it is that stands in the way of you following your heart to get what’s going to make you happy, should be ignored and defied and deflected and run around. It is the philosophy of this age.

and so often instead of humbling ourselves and saying you know what god you’re right i’ve been living i’ve been living for myself i’ve been living for the world my life is focused on the wrong thing instead of humbling ourselves and admitting that we were wrong we stiffen our neck we dig in our heels and we say nah preacher I got this figured out pretty good. Leave me alone. I’ll tell you, it’s that pride.

It’ll send you straight to hell if you’re here without Christ. Listen, there’s some of you here in this room. You think, man, I got my sin.

I’m having a great time. Maybe I’ll die and go to hell, but I’ll party down there forever. It’ll be great.

More pleasure down there. Listen, you need to listen to the warnings of God. There will be weeping and wailing of gnashing of teeth.

There’ll be no pleasure in hell. The ironic thing is you live for pleasure now and you’ll have none of it for the rest of eternity. Because your sin earns you hell, friend.

The soul that sinneth it shall die. The Bible says after death is the judgment.

The Bible tells us all liars shall have their part and the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death. Listen, it’s not a temporary death either. It will go on forever.

Scripture says the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever. And I recognize a large majority of those here in this crowd. You’ve trusted Christ as your Savior.

You’re born again. You’re on your way to heaven. I’m not preaching to you, okay?

I know there are some here in this room. You’re lost. You need Jesus.

You’re a sinner on your way to hell. And I’m going to tell you, the only thing standing between you and forgiveness of sins is your dirty, rotten pride.

Your pride of willing to admit my sin is actually wrong. It’s bad. And God loves me and died on the cross for my sins.

And if I’ll trust Jesus and Jesus alone to do all of the saving, He will save me now. Talk to young people. They say, nah, I’m good.

Listen, God’s grace can save a hell-bound sinner who admits that he can’t, but God must save his soul. And it’s that very same pride for the rest of you all that will keep you on the track of living for your own dreams and plans and happiness and pleasure. What does it look like?

What does it look like when we humble ourselves?

I don’t have time to develop all of it, but I will say one thing. It involves surrender. He says, submit yourselves therefore to God.

There’s a big difference between yielding to God to get what you want and yielding to God to get what He wants. There’s a big difference. The devil promises happiness, but if you humble yourself under God, you’re going to stiff arm the devil and say, no way, get out of my face.

Listen, here in this passage, he tells you, submit yourselves therefore to God, Is this the devil that will flee from you?

Listen, this matter of humbling yourself before the Lord involves drawing nigh to God, coming humbly to Him, recognizing I cannot change my life, even my priorities, but God, as I draw nigh to You, I know You can change me. He says that He will draw nigh to you. If you draw nigh to Him, you can cleanse your hands, ye sinners.

oh almost every time humbling yourself as we heard in our testimony a few minutes ago involves unloading the truck dealing with hidden sin it’s not my message here this morning but if the shoe fits friend some of you are hiding all kinds of junk behind your parents back there are relationships happening underneath the surface you think nobody knows about friend doesn’t say a rocket scientist to see things sometimes but you may be better than most And maybe you’ve truly got things hidden.

You can lie with a straight face when mom and dad have no idea what’s going on. And man, you’re having a blast. You’re living for yourself, enjoying life.

In ways that the people God has placed in your life have no idea. Listen, if you’re going to humble yourself, you’re going to have to come clean. You’re going to have to get right.

Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. but even those of you here in this room, maybe you’re like, man, I dealt with my hidden sin before and I’ve kept a current account with God. But even there, at times, we can try to live for God for our own means or purposes.

Our motives are impure. We want a happy life. We want smooth sailing.

We want God to give us what we want and we think that doing the Christian thing is the pathway to getting what we want. You need to humble yourself by purifying your heart and your mind. You’re living at cross purposes.

Sometimes humbling yourself involves some tears. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness in the bookend on the end of this passage.

He says, Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. And here’s the good news. And He will lift you up.

I want you to know the lie the devil tells you is that if you will humble yourself and surrender truly your life to God for His purposes, that all of your purposes will be unfulfilled. The devil wants you to believe that setting your pleasure aside will lead to no pleasure at all. And oh man, he’s been lying from the beginning.

He’s a murderer. He abode not the truth because there is no truth in him. You see, young people, if you will set your pleasures aside and purpose to completely devote yourself to the pleasure of God, I’m going to tell you what.

You want to talk about happiness? You want to talk about joy?

It’s the greatest joy you could ever experience. Serving God. Doing what God has created you to do.

I know this has been a little bit of a long session, young people, but I want you to know I’m burdened. In fact, as you continue throughout this week, as you hear other sessions, as you hear preaching, I really want to challenge you in your heart to identify that foundational presupposition underneath of it, of that hedone, that hedonism, that life philosophy that informs your thoughts and your priorities of pleasure is paramount.

Because it’s a lie that will always lead you into conflict, it will always leave you disappointment.

It will lead you away from the will of God, straight into the warm embrace of the world. And it’s killing us. It’s killing us.

Listen, Thee Generation is about a whole lot more than a two-step process to be happy for the rest of your life. It’s about total surrender to God for His will. and total dependence on his power to do what he has planned for you and for you.