How To Get What You Really Want • Part 1┃"Careful What You Want For"

hi everybody welcome to your move I'm Andy Stanley and I have a question for you what do you want seriously what do you want isn't it interesting that regret always begins with I want and then regret always ends with I want to go back in time and not get the very thing I wanted so this one thing is tricky and that's why we're gonna talk about it right here on your moon what do you want what do you want what do you want and the older you get the less what there is right the older you get there's less what there's something you want everybody wants something but it's not so much a thing but there's a what because everybody wants something and the younger you are the younger you are the more what there is right I mean you would answer this question differently when you were 16 and when you were 18 then you're 25 35 45 or 55 that every season of life if somebody says what do you want you're gonna answer it a little bit differently and the older you get oftentimes there's less what but there's always something that we want now this is a really tricky question as we're gonna see in fact we're gonna spend about half our time today talking about what a tricky question this isn't this this is a tricky question for several reasons for one when I ask you what do you want here's an answer you did not give but here's an answer that is true of you one of the things that you want is your way you want your way that's what we all want we want our way but as most of us have learned or as you will eventually learn or as you're trying to convince your middle school or high school daughter or son as long as you insist on having your way you won't get what you really want as long as you insist on having your way I've got to have my way every single time I gotta have my way every single time you want your way I want my way but if you get your way you won't get what you really want in fact when we get our way oftentimes what happens as we get in our own way isn't that true every single one of us consents to tell a story about a time you got what you wanted and it resulted in you not having what you wanted that you sort of got in the way by having your way you bullied your way through you pushed your way through you bribed your way through you your big personality you got you through you won the argument everybody shut up and let you do what you wanted to do and then looking back you sort of got in your own way by having your way by getting what you want there's a sense in which you can't really have your way and have it too because there's what do I want thing is a tricky tricky question a second thing that makes this really tricky as this we want to do what we want to do right when I ask you hey what do you want what do you want what do you want nobody listening thought well I do what I want I want to do what I want to do you thought of a thing you thought of a relationship but sort of down beneath all that into sort of running a in the background of your thinking is you want to do what you want to do but here's what we all have been to learn if you always do what you want to do you may end up where you don't want to be right if you always do what you want to do you will end up where you don't want to be I I have three kids and all three of my kids went through a phase where they would ask in their own way do I have to say I want you to do something I do this do I have to do I have to Daddy do I have to daddy and it took me to get to it took me getting to the second child to finally come up with a really good answer to the question do I have to daddy so I practiced on number one okay I finally figured it out with number two by the time number three came along I was ready for okay so here's what happened daddy do I have to do I have to see here's what I here's what I came up with this may be terrible parenting advice but it's just an illustration so don't take this for more than it is I finally would say look let me explain something to you no you don't have to you don't ever have to do anything anyone wants you to do after you get past about this tall no one can make you do anything you can just lay down on the floor and refuse to go on vacation refuse to go to school refuse to clean your rooms refuse to put a fuse to brush your teeth refuse to come to dinner refuse to take your plate to the kitchen from now on at this point now that you're old enough to say do I have to the answer is no you do not have to because no one can make you do anything at this point people can only keep you from doing things and this is when I really got their attention parents I said this is what prison is for see this is good this may be worth the whole message right here I said let me explain how the world works see you can't make an adult do anything you can only keep an adult from doing things it was just so brilliant I just wish I'd had it for all three but anyway the point is the point is if there's something in all of us that we want to do what we want to do but if you always do what you want to do you will limit your options you will end up in a place you don't want to be you will have fewer options not more that's why this whole you know what do you want question is just so tricky and here here's another here's another toxic one I mean this is this is this is a tough one you know we want we want perpetual pleasure now I tried to come up with a different word than pleasure because whenever you throw out the word pleasure people immediately think what right binging on Netflix exactly that's the first thing that comes comes to mind no I heard someone say it right we just think we think sex but okay but there's lots of different kinds of pleasures believe it or not okay so there's lots of constant pleasures and here's the thing here's what you want and here's what I want whether its food whether it's vacation whether it's travel whether it's sex whether it's some sort of entertainment whether it's alcohol whatever it is I mean there's something that brings everybody pleasure and we want to be pleasured we want to do whatever degree we can you know crank it out or afford it or you know create the margin earn a life for it we want perpetual pleasure maybe golf it may be a sport it may be a pastime it may be photography just brings you pleasure we just want perpetual pleasure but here's here's the thing that and you know this the challenge is that perpetual pleasure of any sort whether it's you know legal or illegal is addictive and pleasure that's addictive ultimately undermines the pleasure which isn't what we want in other words you can get so much of a good thing even a good legal thing you can get so much of a good legal thing that you know this you eventually eventually loses its pleasure or worse than that it becomes begins to control you and here's something that may be true of you may be something that started off as a pastime you've discovered was actually a pathway to something that controls you and what was eventually what was initially pleasurable now it controls you and you wish you had never gotten the thing that you wanted and you wish you had never repeated the thing that you wanted and now you don't enjoy it at all because that's the nature of pleasure and that's why the question what do you want is such a tricky question and then there's this one what do you want well I don't know what I want but I know this I want it now I mean once I figure out what I want I'll tell you when I want it I don't know what I want but I know when I want it I want it right now but isn't it true that what we want now isn't what we always it always what we want later I mean again it takes five minutes any of us could stand up and tell a story about something I wanted absolutely had to have it right now how to have it right now and then ultimately I didn't want it later and here's something that we all learn that later is longer so unfortunately again we've all got a story about something I just had to have it now I just had to have him now her now that opportunity now and now I wish I had not gotten what wanted because later is longer what we want today often ends up in the way of what we want tomorrow what we want today often ends up in the way of what we really want I mean don't high school reunions teaches this for those of you who've been to a high school reunion nervous laughter and that right I mean don't high school in high school reunions make most of us grateful for unanswered prayer right thank you oka God you know ladies you went you know you showed up and he walked up and said hey and he knew your name and you looked at that nametag and then you looked at that face and you think I think he picked up the wrong name badge but that's his height that's oh my gosh and you just think thank you God I just thought he was the one he was not the one in it then you got to say something nice okay so you say my how you've matured yeah yeah what we want now what we're sure we want now isn't necessarily what we want later what we bought on the credit card you know then isn't what we're wearing now what we finance then isn't even what we want to drive now it's a tricky thing and then here's maybe the most painful one of all does it regret and just think about this and I hate to bring up regret but does it regret that if you think about your greatest regret or your second greatest regret because you're the big one it's just too painful isn't it true that regret always begins with I want I mean that's doesn't every single regret begin with what I want you know what do you want here's what I want oh I regret that I ever got what I wanted because regret in regret begins with you know what I want but regret always ends like this regret ends with I want to go back in time and not get what I wanted regret always ends up with I would love to be able to go back in time and not say I do I like to go back in time and not sign that lease I'd like to go back in time and not move my family and take my that job I like to go back in time and just tell those friends you are not my friends anymore I like to go back in time and break up about a month earlier I had what I wanted but as a result I don't have what I want because I got what I wanted which isn't ultimately what I want in fact regret is really getting what you want but not having what you want regret regret is the elimination of options it's the inability to go back and actually get what you want because you got what you wanted so what do you want what do you want tricky isn't it you get you got to be you got to be careful what you want for because review if we always get our way we get in our own way and we lose our way and if we always do what we want to do we end up in a place that we don't necessarily want to be we lose the good options and if we always get what we want now it may keep us from having what we really want later CS Lewis British author live during the Second World War lots of books most of them are small but he takes a long time to read them you know if you've ever riskiest those the cool thing about Cetus Lewis if you're not a believer or not a Christian or you're not sure or not religious CS Lewis was not raised going to Sunday School like some of us think about the church CS Lewis was an adult and was an atheist and was agnostic and became of Jesus follower as an adult so consequently he has some very unique insights because he doesn't make some of the same assumptions that many of us make that grew up in church so he had some very interesting ideas and one of the most interesting ideas he had of all of his ideas was what he thought hell would be like so he wrote a little book called the Great Divorce and you're thinking there's no such thing as a Great Divorce and you're right it's not even about divorce in fact everybody wishes he titled it something else because nobody picks up a book the great divorce well the great divorce but it's a book about hell and it's his version of hell and he strips away all the medieval all the book of Revelation imagery of hell and fire and brimstone and Satan running around the fork you know a big pitchfork and a you know pointy tail and there's none of that his his version of hell based on what he had observed and based on living through the Second World War and just just all that that carnage and all that you know destruction and the tension that they lived with day after day after day his version of Hell was a place where everybody got everything they wanted simply by thinking of it to which our initial responses are you kidding me that is H a ven that is heaven to have everything I want just by thinking of it and that's the point of his book is that we think that's heaven he says no that's actually hell and then this book he kind of teases out what it would look like for society where everybody could get everything they wanted just by thinking of it and in hell the way he describes it nobody can get along because nobody needs each other because you can have everything you want by thinking of it so consequently hell is this enormous sprawling city and everybody just keeps moving and moving and moving and moving further away from each other because nobody can get along because all anything they need they just think of it and they have it he says that's hell heaven isn't having everything you want hell is having everything you want simply by thinking of it and his point is our point that this want thing it's tricky it's tricky now the good news is we get some other direction other than CS Lewis James the brother of Jesus and I don't want to go by that too fast anytime I mentioned James I have to pause and sort of stick in your mind how significance this is again if tomorrow or this week there the news cycle you know focused on the fact that they had found a document that was written by the brother of Jesus and you know for sure and they said for sure this is a document written by the brother of Jesus and they were gonna post it online even if you're not a Christian or a religious person at all wouldn't that be interesting to read something by somebody who grew up with Jesus well here's the good news we already have it it's called the book of James and it's in your New Testament and even if you're not a Bible reader you should at least go read the book of James because this is something that the brother of Jesus wrote and James did not follow Jesus during Jesus ministry James shows up late to the game he kind of thought his brother was crazy which is understandable when you hear some of the things that Jesus taught a lot of people thought Jesus was crazy but James becomes a leader in the 1st century Church not because he followed Jesus around and took notes on all of his parables James became a leader in the church he declared this is amazing that his brother Jesus was his Lord and the thing that made the difference was when Jesus rose from the dead so anyway James the brother of Jesus writes a letter to Christians in general it gets copied and distributed all over the world we've eventually end up with a copy that becomes part of our New Testament and in this little letter he addresses this issue of what we want and how tricky it is to figure out what it is in the world that we really really really want and he starts with a different question he doesn't start his letter with what do you want here's here's how he starts his letter he asked a different question he says this what causes fights and quarrels among you what causes fights and quarrels among you specifically what is the source what is the place of origin and his answer to this question strangely enough is what you want it's what you want that there's something you want and when you can't get what you want that spills out on the people around you here's what he says he says what causes fights and quarrels among you don't they come from your desires or your wants that battle within you he says inside of you and inside of me there is a war of wants I want so many different things I want so many different things from so many different people I want people to act a certain way I want people to respond a certain way I want to have certain things he says and all of us there is a bundle you know a barrel full of basket full of wants and those desires battle within us and eventually they spill out on the people around us so he says the source of all of your in your tension relationally the source of all your marriage problems the source of the conflict between you and your son or your daughter or your parents or your sister-in-law or whoever it might be he says ultimately the source is what you want and what they want and when you can't get what you want there's conflict now here's the thing when you hear that there's some of you and you're exactly right so don't don't I'm not trying to be insensitive there's some of you that would say it's not that I'm not getting what I want it's that I'm not getting what I deserve but don't you want what you deserve yes well there it is this always comes down James is exactly right that the source of every single fight in quarrel is their desires warring as there's things I want that are legitimate there are things that I want that aren't necessarily legitimate but the source of all the fighting and all the quarrel is somebody is not getting what they want and that those war wants eventually spill out on the people around us what's his point his point is this whole want thing this whole desired thing it's tricky he continues he says you desire or you want you desire but you do not have another word you want something you can't get it so you kill two which we just check out and go no we don't kill now this is hyperbole and here's how I know that he's not writing this to an individual he's not even writing this to a specific group he's just writing this to Christians in general and so this is the use of hyperbole to get our attention but he's not that far off because anyone who's committed a murder they were trying to get something chances are that they wanted his point is this can lead to murder but let's back it up and look at it within the context of your relationships in mine I bet you've seen somebody want a marriage to death because they wanted something they weren't getting and they wanted it and wanted it and pressured and put expectations on and pressured and put expectations on and finally somebody left because they wanted that marriage to death you've seen people because of their desires and their wants kill an opportunity kill a deal kill a college scholarship kill a profession a profession kill a franchise of some sort we've seen obviously we've seen uncontrolled wants and desires kill political aspirations in political careers and athletic careers and we could go on and on and on and on and on and James's point is simply this that if this gets out of control if you don't kind of harness in your wants if you don't understand what's behind the question what do you want and if you don't understand what's going on in the background of your heart and your mind in terms of what it is you desire you have the potential I have the potential we all have the potential to destroy the things that are most important to us he continues he says you covet he's the word covet we don't use that word much anymore and when we think covet we think something internal but he doesn't he's not thinking internal he says you covet which really means to pursue to go after to pursue hotly there's something you want so you just go for it you keep pushing pushing pushing you keep asking and asking and asking you keep you just you're just not gonna let go he says you covet but you cannot get what you want because at the end of the day we get what we want it's not what we want we get what we want now but it's not what we want later we get what we want now but it ruins the relationship and now we don't even Joey what we have we get what we want now but now I just can't get enough in it I just can't seem to be satisfied and it doesn't satisfy the way that woody used to satisfy James says you covet you pursue it you chase it and even then you still don't get what you want and so you quarrel and you fight that is you blame and you blame and you blame if it weren't for her if it weren't for them and it wasn't for our country and if it weren't for you know the governor if it weren't for the president if it weren't for my boss if it weren't for society if it weren't for all of these things so here's the summary getting what we want can be a problem James says not getting what we want creates conflict and that's why the name of this series is not how to get what you want because I'm not even sure you should get what you want I think half the time I'm grateful I have many many I'm grateful for many unanswered prayers that I prayed that I thought for sure I knew what I needed in God here's what I want you to do and here's what we should have you know I would have been driving a Porsche when I was 16 years old because I used to go by the Porsche dealership over at North Lake not too far from where I went to high school and just sit there in the parking lot and look at those cars and tell God I'd be a missionary if only I could drive a Porsche and high school right we're all grateful for unanswered prayers but that's why I didn't name this how to get what you want it's entitled how to get what you really want and here's why this is so important if you haven't been paying attention I hope you'll tune back in whether you're a religious person or not Christian first I'm not it doesn't matter this is for all of us this is for the human race most of us do not know what we really want because we are so distracted by what we want most of us most of us do not know what we really want because we are so distracted by our desires and our appetites and we are so distracted by the things that are offered to us to satisfy those desires and to quench those appetites you see there's no place in society there's no place you can go that's going to help you discover what you really want and we're gonna talk about why this isn't on in week three but I'll just give you a heads up the reason that no one will help you with this is because it's very difficult to market what is easy to market it's what you want what you can hold and what you can have now so there's nothing wrong with any of that as we're gonna see but the point is if you spend your whole life and I spend my whole life simply being enamored with what I can have now and what I think I can get out of a relationship now I will miss and you will miss the joy of experiencing what you really really want most people don't know what they really want because most people don't stop long enough to figure it out computer and if you do not figure it out you will not figure it out because no one can figure this out for you but you and you can spend your whole life and get to the end of your life and you've seen this maybe with your parents or some opinion Oh father-in-law or mother-in-law or an aging friend they get to the end of their life and suddenly there's all of this clarity about what's what really matters what they should really have wanted but they've lost the opportunity because they fell into the same trap many of us are in right now that were so distracted by the initial wand the initial answer the right now but what can I get now what can I get out of this now what can I get from you now and here's what we're gonna discover together what we really want what we really want what you really want what you really want what we really want lurks in a realm we rarely explore and this is why you can spend your entire life wanting a lot of things and wanting a lot of things from relationships and getting what you think you want and never get what you really want because it is an unexplored realm and again no one is gonna help you with this no one is going to focus your attention on it this is something you have to do but here's the great here's the great news this is the realm that Jesus constantly points us toward this is the realm that Jesus constantly taught toward this is the realm that Jesus was constantly trying to funnel the attention of his disciples and those of us who read the Gospels toward the Jesus wanted us to know and wanted us to understand that what we initially want isn't even what we really want but there is a realm and lurking in that realm it's what we really want and to that end James wraps up this discussion by saying this he says you back to us you do not have and I added what you want you got to be careful adding things to what James says he's the brother of Jesus think he understands I'm just trying to make it clear if you're listening you do not have what you want that's what what the implications are implication is you do not have what you want because you do not ask God now when we read this there's one of two answers one answer is well no I haven't asked God because I already know what God is gonna say right how many times we hear that from our kids or how many times do you say that to your parents well I'm not gonna ask you because you're just gonna say no you're just gonna say you know you're just gonna say no so James says one of the reasons you don't have what you want is you haven't asked God what you said I'm not gonna ask God for that God's just gonna say no the other response to you haven't asked God is oh yes I have oh yes I have asked God thank God it's not come through for me and so James says this is so insightful he says you do not have what you want because when you ask you do not really do it when you ask you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures now little tricky thing going on here I want to explain real quick the the Greek text does not have the phrase wrong motives this is an interpretation of a Greek term and all the English translations of the Bible kind of struggle with how to interpret what James is saying here so I'm just gonna give you the literal translation because I think this is the best translation and it's awkward its clunky it's not good English but I think it makes the point better than wrong motives here's what James literally says in the text that's so powerful when you ask you do not receive because you ask badly you ask wrongly you don't ask correctly has nothing to do with motives necessarily it has everything to do with what it is we tell God that we want and he's getting at this very thing we're talking about that our wants are oftentimes so surface they're not what we really want they're simply what we've been told we need it's the word buying into that whole life if only I had if only she if only he that I would be fine he says the reason you ask god I don't get what you want from God is because you asked badly that you may spend what you get on your pleasures James is referring to this is important James is referring to our wants that serve no other purpose than to temporarily satisfy a want he's saying the reason that God's not going to give you what you want is because you're still asking for things that are only going to temporarily satisfy and address what it is that you want now but you still haven't discovered what you really want you're in this endless cycle endless cycle endless cycle of wants and here's the great news this is why I want to talk about it for four weeks the great news is God your father God your heavenly Father wants more and he doesn't want more from you because he's God it doesn't need anything from you and a good parent never tries to extract something from their children God wants something for you and lurking in the shadows just outside you know just beyond your peripheral vision just outside what we focus on because nobody helps us focus on it lurking in the shadows of what we want it's what we value what's important what's really important so here's what we're gonna do for the next few weeks we're gonna explore and I want to do my best to help you discover what it is that you really value now again this is so apparent when somebody brings it front Center this is so duh this is so obvious this is so hey wait this is so what you say you want but why do you want that well because well why do you want that because because because and eventually you get down to what it is you really value and here's why this is important you'll never get you will never get what you really want until you discover what you really value you spend your entire life chasing an endless list of wants whether their relational wants physical wants things you can buy things that you manufacture things that you find things that you have to travel and things that you collect you can spend your entire life come on your entire life chasing down an endless list of wonts but if you have never taken the time to discover what you really value you will not get what you really want you will never have you will never have what you really want until you discover what you really and truly [Music] you

Channel: Your Move with Andy Stanley

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Keywords: Andy Stanley, Your Move with Andy Stanley, Your Move, what do i want, what do i really want, what do i do with my life, what do i want to do with my life, what do i want in life, what do you want to do with your life, what do i want out of life, figuring out what you want, Development, goals, success, wealthy, business success, Motivation, better decisions, fewer regrets

Id: b4gwvK9bfx4

Length: 27min 37sec (1657 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 24 2018