SEAN SAWYERS HERE THIS WEEKEND!

Everybody should know by now that the Pastor Search Committee’s candidate for Sycamore’s next Sr. Pastor, Sean Sawyers, will be preaching Sunday. He and his wife, Nikki, are coming with their 5 children. If you missed the search committee’s introduction last Sunday, it is posted on our website. Check it out! Come meet him on Sunday!

He will be meeting with various leadership groups all weekend. He will preach in the service we record on Friday and the outdoor service on Sunday. PRAY for all the events of the weekend, including good weather on Sunday. Feel free to bring your own umbrellas and canopies. It is much better in the shade. I will leave further detail to other announcements, but I want you to know that I could not be more delighted and excited for Sycamore!

JUST THINKING:

A fallen world is essentially unhappy,

and recognizing this can lead to happiness.

We have been cast out of the Garden of Eden in the exile of our first parents. There is pain and struggle involved in things that were and are still good gifts from God, labor in childbirth and in the fields. There is conflict in relationships, evident from the beginning as Adam blamed Eve and Cain killed Abel. Why would we be happy with that!

Many think we can make the world a better place if we can just get along. Besides the historical evidence that fallen mankind does not gravitate to getting along, we have to question the goal itself. Are we talking about getting along with each other but not with God? Mankind was most unified in all of history in the effort to build the tower of Babel in defiance of God. Unity is good, but not unity in defiance of God.

God frustrated their efforts by confusing their languages. And God continues to subject us to frustration. Conflicts abound. Pain is pervasive. The healthiest person is mortal. That, in a sense, is a blessing. Do we want to live forever like this? And since we are mortal we have to ask, do we want to be content in this world in defiance of God, only to end up estranged from him forever in Hell?

The Bible is clear on this:

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Rom 8:20-23)

Let’s apply this to our social issues today. There is a tension between our efforts to make the world a better place by acting justly and loving mercy and walking humbly with our God (Micah 6:8), and our expectation that the world will actually become a better place. Every advance seems to have its hypocrisies and inconsistencies. The injustice against one brings vengeful reaction that brings injustice to many. Yet to do nothing at all about injustice is unjust in itself. Are you frustrated yet?

The United States of America was founded less on principles and ideals that could fix human nature, but on principles that restrained human nature, particularly as expressed in restraining government through a series of checks and balances – the divided branches of government, the federalism of the states, and the accountability of elections. That restraint produced political and economic freedoms and blessings unsurpassed in all of history, that yes are full of inconsistencies and hypocrisies, but yet have lifted more out of poverty and brought more earthly blessings to the average person than any other system ever proscribed.

But it did not solve the problem of human nature, nor did it lift the frustrations of mortal life in this fallen world. There is still so much pain, and we are still so frustrated.

Since our system of government does not produce an ideal world, the temptation is always there to throw it off and adopt a different system, none of which systems are new, and all of which have proven to increase tyranny, inequality, and misery. They promise ideals and deliver atrocities.

So why do we keep thinking we have to fix this world in order to be happy?

Our greatest need, and the only hope we have for lasting joy, is to be reconciled to the One who gave us life. Christ gave his life for us, that we might live in him and for him. Receiving him, we are forgiven and become God’s children. Our nature is renewed, though not perfected until we get to heaven.

And speaking of heaven, we are just passing through here. Every blessing we experience here is a foretaste of that which will be ours forever. Every suffering here is temporary. Every opportunity we have here is an opportunity for us to be a part of “His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We are to be the Good Samaritan. We should and do make a difference in the world, but the world remains and will remain fallen until Christ comes again.

And when we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, rather than seeking happiness in this fallen world, we end up –

BEING HAPPY!