- Well, good morning, good to see all of you, and also welcome you here that I can see, and those that are downstairs. Now, in order for that to happen, you have to have a lot of technical stuff going on that is absolutely mind-blowing. You wouldn't believe everything that our wonderful tech team has to manage in order to pull all that stuff off. So I want to thank them, they're in the back right now, I'm kind of looking at them, and just thank them for all the work that they do to allow us to come in here and worship here and downstairs. And then do me a favor, on your way out, you'll embarrass them but that's okay, you just go up and say thanks, okay? 'Cause they just do a phenomenal job. There's another group that I want to thank and pray for today, and that's the group that has really started this week to work with the next generation of leaders in our world and country, and that's our teachers. So whether you are a public school teacher, private Christian School, whatever that means, and then also homeschoolers as well, you're really handing off your faith in many ways, because many of you that are here today are followers of Christ, but also helping them be productive citizens and that's a tough task. And so regardless of the age, preschool, grade school, high school, college, post, whatever you're involved in, if you're teaching in any capacity, I'd like for you to stand, and we're gonna pray for you this morning. So why don't you stand? Let's look around, you're gonna to see these individuals, they do a phenomenal job, and let's pray for them. Lord, as we embark on a journey, we come before you, knowing that we are really all missionaries, regardless of who we are as doctors, lawyers, janitors, moms at home, dads at home, sales people, individuals involved in doing a variety of different things, but Lord these individuals have stepped forward to train the next generation. And so Lord, we pray for them. We ask that you would guide them as they seek to live in their own life what they teach, that you would give them courage and incredible wisdom, especially Lord, if they are in the public setting, whereby they are trying to navigate a crazy world, and yet they have a heart for kids. Give them a love for those students, give them great wisdom through your Holy Spirit, how to integrate their faith in their own life and in what they teach. And Lord, open up opportunities for them to engage in conversations that would point people to you. And guide them, we encourage them, and we commission them today for your honor and glory. It's in Christ's name that we pray, amen. Thank you, you may be seated. I remember exactly where I was in our house in California. I was playing with my oldest daughter, she had learned how to walk at nine months, okay? So that gives you an idea of what we were in store for later on in her life, and it really characterizes her personality, and I remember playing with her dolls or whatever we were doing, and all of a sudden, she walked around the corner to where I couldn't see her anymore, and then entered not only into our dining room but I think probably even to the kitchen, I can't remember specifically on that, but I knew she went around that corner and I couldn't see her, and all of a sudden, this thought occurred to me, here's the thought: you have 18 years. 18 years. 18 years to help her grow, 18 years to equip her, train her, 18 years to entrust your faith to her because she is now going to enter into a world where you will no longer see her, protect her, guide her, a world in which she will have to be who she is under the power of the Holy Spirit to live in that world that you will never see. And she will impact the generation to come. And in many ways, that illustrates as a metaphor, the series that we are embarking on. Because it was my responsibility to embody truth, to know it, and to live it, and then to pass that off, so that she could take it and live it in a new and different world, and it goes to the heart of what we're gonna to talk about. We're all there, we've all been handed a deposit of something in life regardless of where you are, and then you are encouraged to take it and then pass that on to another generation. Whether you're a single adult, a married adult, it doesn't matter. You've been given something to embody and live and then passed that off. And over the next year, we are going to spend the next several months talking about this wonderful concept called the unshakable truth. That we have been given something that we are to live and embody and understand and then passed that off to the next generation, to a world that we will never see. It is a series that's based on the book that Josh and Sean McDowell called The Unshakable Truth. You can buy it at JoshMcDowell.org, we're not selling those in the back. What we are offering you is the study guides in the back for those of you that are in on small groups, we want you to get into a small group, and we want you to engage with others as you discover these concepts, and begin to uncover what they look like as you living out in life. We're gonna have those guides available today and I'm assuming until they sell out, right? And then we'll have more if you need them. So grab your notes, your worship guide, you're not gonna need to open up your Bible today, everything's gonna appear up on the screen for you, but grab your notes and a pen, and you're gonna want to write down some things today as we embark on this journey. Today, we're gonna take a look at true happiness, and set the stage for what that looks like as we begin to pass that off to the next generation. You know, there once was a boy who have been given everything, really. He was born with a royal purple robe, probably, wrapped around his body. He was given wealth unimaginable, he was trained and skilled and he would be able to watch his father who was a terrific leader in one sense. He had done so many things, and he really set the stage, gave this boy the platform to excel and to grow, and he started out walking down the right path, following the true God and probably following these words by his father, when he said in Psalm 34:11-12, it was David that said come, oh children, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good? And what David is suggesting here, in the form of a question, is that we all have a deep-seated desire for contentment, for joy, for satisfaction, and yes, for real happiness that lasts. And he's saying he's inviting us to discover what that looks like. If you want good days, if you really want to find happiness, if you really want to find life, it's connected to this concept of what it means to fear the Lord. And the question really gets after what is in the heart of our soul, it's one of the greatest quests of life. And he ties it to knowing God. Now, even though Solomon had it all, he began to slowly compromise and go after everything that he was instructed not to, and as a result, he ended up realizing that the things that he was trying to find satisfaction in never really satisfied his soul, and they didn't deliver. You know, he was tempted to do what we're all tempted to do, he was tempted to find happiness in all the wrong places. We all want it, we all desire it, we want to find happiness, we want to find this sense inside of us, yet oftentimes, it eludes us, and it's primarily because of how we define it, and what we seek after and how we seek after it. So what is happiness? Well, Webster defines it as a pleasurable or satisfying experience. Others come along and define happiness as a feeling. It's something that you need to feel good about, it's an experience that you should have, and when those experiences and those feelings go your way, when the fun is there, then oftentimes, people will say well, you know, I'm happy. As a matter of fact, if you would you know, probably survey 10 different people on the street, I bet any money that the majority of them would bring feelings of goodness and fun or something to that, you know, respect in regards to the definition of what happiness is. They're searching for something but that's how they have defined it. If your marriage is going well, you're happy. If you got the job promotion, you're what? You're happy. If you're making a lot of money, you're happy. If everything's going well with your kids, you're happy. If you made the varsity football team, you're happy. But if you didn't, you not. Things don't go real well. And the reason why you're not happy and not satisfied is because you've defined it in a certain way, you've defined happiness and many would say that they are not happy because they're not having the goodness, and they're not having the fun. Now there's nothing wrong with finding fun things in life, there's nothing wrong with finding happiness that is even temporary, the issue is what you seek and how you seek after it. And if happiness is defined by experiences and feelings, then I think it stands to reason that the more experiences and things that you accumulate to make you happy, you're thinking is gonna make you even more happy, right? We've seen this in past generations. I mean we live in a world where the accumulation of wealth and leisure and experiences in our Western culture blows away the rest of the world. Now the question you have to ask yourself is has that produced happiness? Well, some of the statistics that took a look at the Boomer generation, which is post World War II up to 1964, they've accumulated more wealth than any other generation before them, it's absolutely astounding, and yet, you know what, there's been a tenfold increase in the level of depression in their lives. You want to know why? Because they got a little more and they defined happiness in such a way that it didn't give it to them. And they were dissatisfied, and so they added a little more, and then they added a little more, and as a result of that process, they became more and more self-focused, me-driven, and even the temporary happiness that they found, as a result of that self-focused life, never really delivered, it was short-lived. And that's because the promise of a self-centered world view always comes up short, every time. We know this almost intuitively if you tried some of these things. Now a world view is simply the way that you look at life. It's the color of light that you see, it's how you perceive life and a self-centered world view says I want what I want when I want in order to make me feel better about myself. The problem is if that becomes your main thing, then you're self-absorbed and self-focused and the kind of happiness that you have defined as a feeling in some way, shape or form, or connected to experiences, it simply doesn't last and quite frankly, our culture feeds this, right? We have these wonderful internet inventions in social media and in what are they called? YouTube. What does that tell you? Life's about me. How about this one? Myspace. I control it. I put into my space that wonderful, alternate reality of who I am and my identity, the reality that I want everybody to simply believe is true about me, but it's not, why? Because I've tried all of these things and I've never found that image, and yet, I'm gonna present it to everybody else. You know, Solomon tried it, he was the king I was referring to. He had everything, he had over 750 wives and concubines, he had wealth that was blowing away any other country in that region, he had every bit of it, and yet he became self-focused. He wrote a bunch of Proverbs in the Old Testament telling us not to do the same thing. You see, Satan always promises long and he delivers short. He promises everything, but it never really fulfills, and Solomon is a prime example. I personally came in contact with some individuals who have tasted fame and fortune over the years, and when I was in California, speaking to a particular sports team, after it was all over with, I was on the field, and I had an individual come to me who had spoken to the other team and he said that there's an individual inside of the locker room and I knew exactly who it was, and you probably would too, and he was just in in tears. Here was a guy who had gained everything, fame and fortune, money beyond measure, and yet he was weeping over his life. You want to know why? Because he defined happiness in a certain way. And he went after it and you became self-focused, and he tried to gain it all, and now his marriage was falling apart, and all of those things that he thought would give him happiness, never delivered. And when happiness is a feeling or a pleasurable experience and is the most important thing in your life, then this quest that you are on to find true happiness will always be elusive. It's affected us, all of us, to a certain degree. We all have to realize that, and depending on the level of priority, it'll determine the compromises you might make. So I think the issue is is there a better way? And the answer is yes, there is. As a matter of fact, wise Solomon helps us transition to understand what that is. You see, the history behind every king in the Old Testament for the nation of Israel was that they were supposed to take God's very law and write out the entire law and record and write, by hand, by the way, okay? And put it down and read it so that they would understand exactly what David's advice would be. You want to find happiness? It happens when you fear the Lord, and now you was a king are gonna write down what that looks like, so that your life will be lived and patterned that way. You see, Solomon when he started living through his life, he didn't do that, and as a result of that, he wrote a book right at the end of his life called Ecclesiastes. It's one of the most I will say fascinating and yet it can be the most depressing books in the Old Testament because what he does is he goes through and you're gonna be terribly convicted, okay? So if you go back and you spell it out, and you find it in Old Testament, and you go through it, you start reading it, what you're gonna do is you're gonna go through it, and he's gonna start naming all the stuff you like. And then he's always gonna throw in this phrase over and over again, it's worthless, it's vain, you Ferrari is vain, your house is vain, your money is vain, I mean he just goes on and on and on. You just, you know, put it into our context. And he finally gets to the end with these words, after he had it all, and finally realized, he said the end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God, that's exactly what his dad said, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Well, the reason is because of this is, it's found in Deuteronomy. It's given to every king, as I said, and when this king or he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandant, either to the right hand or to the left. Don't compromise. So that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and children, in Israel. There was a different way, but that path does not involve a self-focused world view, it means setting aside yourself and looking at God's world view. The promise of God's world view, provides true happiness and joy. Now Jesus sets the stage for us. By the time we get in to the second half of the Bible, Jesus makes statements like this, found in Matthew 6:33, He says but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all of these things, including happiness, joy and contentment and peace will be added to you, your needs will be met, why? Because you set aside yourself, you weren't focused on gaining all of this stuff for yourself, the way to find true, deep-seated happiness is found in a person. That's why Jesus in John 14:6 said I am the way, not a way, but the way, the truth and the life. The way to find true happiness is found in the person, and according to Him, happiness is found in a rich and vibrant relationship with Him. And once that begins to happen, you begin to set aside seeking the kinds of temporary happinesses that you think are right, and you begin to follow His way and you can see the same concept illustrated in the Old Testament in Solomon's life and everybody else who went, you know, haywire. And that's because Jesus says the only way you're gonna find it is in me. And when we do, we begin to see who we are, we begin to discover our identity, we begin to understand how we should live our life when it's framed according to these things. And we begin to develop His world view. Now Sean and Josh McDowell define that concept, as I said, it's a simply a way to look at your world, but they say it this way, a world view is what we assume to be true about the basic makeup of our world. About what it looks like, it's a series of lenses, and over the next several months, we're gonna give you those lenses as we begin to uncover what the essence of Christianity really is in truth, which is where we're gonna be next week and then the following week, we're gonna start talking about those lenses. I was just fly fishing out in Colorado and I finally have purchased a set of polarized lenses. I couldn't believe the difference. Normal sunglasses, you can't see stuff in the water, but it's amazing to me how a polarized lens allows me to see what is already there. And there were rocks, they were so slippery that I couldn't hardly stand up, and the worst thing you want, you know, fishing, is to get water in your waders, okay? I did that when I was duck hunting one time, it wasn't fun at all. And so you want to be able to stand, and so it was remarkable, when I put the polarized lenses on I was able to see rocks and things in the water that I've never seen before. What you're gonna find as we go through this series, you're going to discover a rich, new relationship with the God who created you to be engaged in a relationship with Him. And then you're going to be handed a set of lenses that will help you frame how you look at life and how you view yourself and not only understand what you believe and why you believe it, but why it's really relevant in our culture today, and then how to go about living it out, what that looks like as you live it out. And quite frankly, nothing will work right unless this world view's in place. It just won't happen. And therefore, as they say, if you want significance or you want a significant life, you must run your life in accordance with what it was designed to do. Your life was created to work properly when it conforms to the reality of its purpose. Real happiness is found in knowing Jesus as a person and living His way, not my way. And experiencing the things that He would have me experience so that in that day-to-day experience of living with Him, I discover this incredible life, a life well-lived, and what we're really talking about is our faith. And engaging in that relationship so that I got some tools to work with on how to put the pieces of my life together. When my son was young, and we moved here to Minnesota, my sister called me and she said would you like Stephen, her son's Legos? Now, you know what Legos are, right? And they're really cool and tons of parts though, little itty bitty parts and all that stuff, and he was old enough to where he wasn't gonna swallow and stuff, so she said do you want them? I said yes, absolutely. I mean, we got a box, not just like one system, we got multiple systems, hundreds if not thousands and thousands of Lego pieces. Fortunately, my nephew had kept the manuals, he was just, you know, a real stinker at hanging onto this stuff. And I am so thankful because I wouldn't have had a clue what to do with that, and all of a sudden, through the years, we were able to take out those instructions and actually use all of the pieces that were there, and we had all these different Lego things all over the house, Star Wars, underwater stuff, NASA, space shuttle, I mean we had all kinds of things because we had the instruction manual, we knew how to put the pieces there. And I think as you go through this series, if you're open, and your heart is open, and your mind is open to what we're gonna cover, no matter where you come from, no matter what walk of life you're from, you may be seeking or investigating a relationship with God and have no idea what that looks like, but your best friend told you to come today, you may be sitting downstairs and you didn't want to come up here yet, whatever that might look like, and you're not sure. I'm so glad you're here and the reason is because over the next couple of months, we're gonna get to the heart of what you've been after, quite frankly. You may not know what yet, you may know it, and that's why you've decided to come on your own, but we're gonna help you begin to understand what that faith looks like, the essence of Christianity, and then hand you a manual of essentials that frame your world view, so that you can begin to see life, your identity, and who you are the way God designed it to be. Now, we all have someone coming after us, and so one of the major concepts that we're gonna cover over the next six months is not only understanding how I should live my life and what that looks like in my faith, and living it out day to day, but what that looks like as I hand that off to the next generation. You see, that's what got me with my daughter. You got 18 years. And we're all there, it doesn't matter whether you're a single adult, it doesn't matter whether you're a great great great great great great grandparent, I don't know if it's even possible in today's world, but y'all are somebody coming after you. So when you hand it to them, as long as Jesus Christ is still growing His church, we have a mission, a mission to what? Make disciples or learners of Jesus to pass off our faith to the next generation. The trouble that I have had, and the trouble that my wife and I see increasing is the fact that we live in a culture today that is radically different from anything we've seen before. And the tendency is it creates fear, and we don't know exactly what to do. And so I wanted to jump on this one right away, and give you a few thoughts, and my first thought is this, don't ignore the fear of our culture today, leverage it. We're gonna talk about some big picture concepts that the Bible addresses. Who is God? The nature of the human soul. What about the Bible, can we really trust it or is it simply a collection of stories? And then how do I engage at a level whereby it really speaks into my culture today? Well, if you look at our culture, let me tell you you're gonna have some fear and quite frankly, you know, you can even leverage it or you can try and run from it, and we come up with all kinds of coping mechanism, but I don't want you to ignore the reality of what the culture is. Let's take a look at a few things. This culture today, here's how it's described. The largest consumer of internet pornography is 12 to 17 year olds. 90%, okay, I could camp on this all morning, 90% of eight to 16 year olds have viewed pornography, 90%. You think about how the brain is wired, and the impact that that's had on their life. 1/3 of teenagers say all or most of their friends regularly look at pornography. My son will tell you, almost every friend he had at Liberty had already been exposed, dealing with the issue. Only 1/3 of teens believes that lying is wrong, only 1/3. This was a non-negotiable in my house, okay? The wrath of God was coming down on you because trust is broken, right? If you lie to me, I can't trust you. I mean I prayed for the prophetic gift of you know, reading people's minds and all that kind of stuff, I just never got it. Seven out of 10, 69% believe it's acceptable to be born one gender and feel like another. This is happening right now, people. We have gender-neutral identities being explained to our kids right here in, yes, conservative land. And 21% of Gen Z, 19% of Millennials view sex before marriage as morally wrong. Did you see that? Only 21%, only 19%. This is the world we live in. Kids go off to college, they put their faith in storage, they're not just being agnostic, they're becoming atheist. And when they emerge from college, the stats are telling us that many of them might still have quote, unquote, a faith but it's radically different than the Orthodox faith that we were given or that they were handed before they went in. Gender is fluid, it's an anti-Christian culture that we live in, truth is relative, we'll deal with that. This is the first generation where feelings have trumped science. It doesn't matter what identity you were born with, you can choose it. And I'm gonna tell you what, there are people right here at Rockpoint Church that are probably struggling with that issue. And I'm gonna tell you that I am so grateful that you are here because what you're searching for in your soul is only gonna be found when you find your identity in the God who loves you, and can transform you and reframe every part of who you are if you will just come and give Him a chance. According to Barna, even those kids that are in the church, 46% of Gen Z and 54% of Millennials believe the Bible is inspired but has factual or historical errors, not inspired by God, but tells how the writers understand the ways and principles of God. It's just another book containing stories or advice. And I think we have to be careful not to live in these fears because if you live in these fears, as a parent, a grandparent, a school teacher and in and you try and react to it in a certain way, what will you communicate? You'll communicate that the fears are bigger than your God and that's not the direction we want you to go. I have an unbelievable confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit and a powerful God whereby my truth stands on facts not fake stuff. And when you understand that and grapple with it and you see it alive in your life, you can go into a world with a sense of conviction and confidence and telling individuals who are really messed up in a variety of different areas that they can find healing and then find the Savior behind the healing, and it happens if you engage them in relationships. And the good news is that kids that are grounded in a bible-believing church whereby they grapple with truth move into their world and it does, according to statistics, make a major difference, and that's why I wanted to toss this out to you, decide to raise strong kids not safe kids. Raise strong kids not safe kids. You can go down the path of putting your kid in a cocoon, okay? I've see a parent that did this, it didn't turn out real well. You can put them inside of a bubble and hermetically seal that thing, hoping that culture will never get after them and that they will never turn into this person that you imagine they're gonna turn into be. The problem is it's an inside-out job because they were born a sinner, it's right there, okay? You can't eliminate that. In 1991, maybe some of your old enough to remember the biosphere experiment outside of Tucson. They put a group of scientists inside this bubble, they said we're gonna provide all the food and air and water and everything you need so you can live, and they were trying to do an experiment, so that if you ended up sending a spaceship to Mars or some other planet, you could actually live there in the biosphere, it would reproduce everything that you would need. The problem was as the weeks went by and the months went by, things didn't go very well. The oxygen level started dropping and they actually had to start pumping oxygen in. And the whole thing completely fell apart. You know why the whole thing completely fell apart? The trees were falling over. You want to know why the trees are falling over? The trees are falling over because there was no wind in the biosphere, there was no resistance. And so the trees fell over and so they couldn't produce the oxygen that the people actually needed because there was no resistance. Trees need wind, they need resistance to form strong bark and dig deep roots and have a solid core. And the same thing is true in life. You have to be in the world, that's why Jesus said Father, and He prayed this, just trust me on this one, He said Father, don't take them out of the world, no, He wanted them to be empowered in the world so that they would understand what they believe. One of my favorite trees in the Middle East is the tamarisk tree. We find it in the desert on our trips, and the reason is because it has the one of the most extensive root systems of any tree in the world and it goes down real deep, and it's the reason why it's really one of the only trees that can survive in the desert. And it's because it continues to send down roots several feet, way down below the sand and the dust to find water and life. And what we want to do for you is give you a set of lenses to help you understand how to trust and engage in this relationship with a God and go deep with Him and understand that He gives you the living water so that you can be satisfied and you can view your world completely different than it's ever been done before and then as you transfer your faith your grandkids, and your kids and all that kind of stuff, you're actually handing them preparation for life, not just protection, but you're equipping them to live in a world that you will never see because they want a robust faith. George Barna says this, many need to discover for themselves that God's love for them has no limits. How do you think that's gonna happen? In the midst of failure. I've said this before, I'd rather have my kids fail in my house than when they're not in my house. They'll discover for themselves that God's love for them has no limits and that a biblical world view can stand up to tough scrutiny and yes, even skepticism at times. We're created to be in a relationship with Him and that's why, we'll unpack us a little bit later even more it's grace and understanding that God loves me and He cares for me and He wants me to treat others as He has treated me and it's in the context of that relationship that we begin to uncover truth and it happens over time as we live life well together, why? So that as we uncovered in 1 Peter, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect. So that as we move into our world, we have embodied truth, we are living that truth, and we're handing it off to a new generation. Well, there's just some great, wise advice in the Old Testament and here's one of the biggest gems, hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generations, it says further in Psalm 78, the glorious deeds of the Lord and His might, and the wonders that He has done. And the whole movie of the Deuteronomy passage as well as Psalm 78, is that we live this truth and understand what we believe and why we believe it, and then we understand why it's relevant and how to live it out. And that's my dream for you over the next several months. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for who you are and thank you that you have created us to walk and engage in a relationship with you. Lord, I pray that regardless of where we are in our faith journey, that we would uncover more of who you are, that we would uncover how we are to live our lives and that you would help us uncover in deep and new ways that Jesus really is the way, the truth and the life. It's in His name we pray, amen.