Shelby Road Baptist Church · Shelby Road Baptist Church

American Idols, Week Four: Enjoyment (Pastor Steve Lister)

January 29, 2026·46 min·3 clips

What happens when a child never thanks you for a Super Nintendo gift, and starts running to it instead of you?

What makes a gift dangerous? The sermon starts on Christmas morning, with children loving boxes, parents missing the list, and excitement sliding fast into correction. From there, it turns to First John and asks how enjoyment, which God created, can get bent into worship. Good things stay good here. Sex, food, coffee, apples, tacos, and the small pleasures of ordinary life are treated as gifts, not traps. The problem is what happens when desire starts making demands. The sermon keeps circling one question: am I willing to sin to get the thing I enjoy? That question gives the message its bite. It moves past vague warnings and into the habits people use to excuse appetite, self-permission, and small compromises. Genesis 3 becomes the mirror. Eve sees fruit that is good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for wisdom, and the sermon connects that pattern to First John's list. The old temptation still feels close. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life become a way to see how enjoyment can climb out of its proper place. The tone is pastoral rather than scolding. There is humor, but the sermon does not soften the point: human hearts can demote God while chasing his gifts. The ending looks ahead. Even the best pleasures now are broken by sin, while enjoyment with Jesus is beyond imagination. The call is not sour denial. Keep God as the true gift, receive his gifts in their place, and let every good taste now point beyond itself.

As heard by us

A plainspoken sermon on desire, temptation, and lasting joy.

Pastor Steve Lister uses 1 John to move from Christmas wish lists and childhood disappointment into a sharper question: would someone choose sin to get what they think will satisfy them?

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Why you'd press play

If you keep mistaking good gifts for the main gift, this sermon will hit home.

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