Dennis R. Wiles 

First Baptist Arlington 

February 9, 2025 

2025: Flourishing Together: Rooted in Christ 

1 Corinthians 2:6-16 (Gospel Guide: Matthew) 

WINTER 2025: Happiness Is . . . 

The Beatitudes 

January 5 – March 4, 2025 

Flourishing in Pursuit 

Matthew 5:6 

Theme for 2025: Flourishing Together: Rooted in Christ 

Theme for Winter 2025: Happiness Is . . . 

Happiness and Life Satisfaction 

1. Overall, how satisfied are you with life as a whole these days? 

2. In general, how happy or unhappy do you usually feel? 
 

I can’t get no . . . satisfaction! So many in our world engage in wrong, meaningless, and/or “less than” pursuits! 

HUNGER AND THIRST 

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. 

-Psalm 42:1-2 

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money without money and without cost. 

-Isaiah 55:1 

RIGHTEOUSNESS 

For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. 

-Matthew 5:20 

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. 

-Wilbur Rees 

FILLED