DEC 9 2018 | Joy to the World S1E1 | How to Manufacture Joy

Sea Change Church · Joy to the World · "How to Manufacture Joy" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · December 9, 2018
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Hi, my name is Matthew Herring. I'm a part of the marriage group here, and I also help with the financial peace class. And today I'm going to read Hebrews 12, 1 through 3. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. The word of the Lord. Matthew and Noel Hellman have run our financial peace class, which has been amazing. I took it, and we've become millionaires in the last three weeks. So it's been amazing just how good that class is.

And if you want that as well, the 21 Day Millionaire Program, please take it if we offer again in January. Good to be home. Really good to be home. Had a great time. I want to thank all of you who cared for my mother during her surgery. It was awesome to see. Maybe you met my brother. He was here playing in the band, 6'8". He came and took charge for us. But just as a pastor, that you guys would care for my mom, it's super cool.

And I hope that you all feel cared for here as well. I mean, we really want to create something special here. We really do. And we're not perfect. It's a messy church. We're not perfect. You're going to have to have short toes because the best thing about the church is people. And the hardest thing about the church is people. So your toes are going to get stepped on here. Or you'll be offended. But to just be a family.

And I've watched you love each other. So I just want to say thank you. And as your pastor, really happy to be back. Really happy to get into the Word of God. We're speaking about joy. And let me jump right back into it. In Jesus' name, Lord, we just pray for this message as we move into a season that can be marked by the tyranny of the urgent, expectations, family, discord, loneliness, and all these things. And in the midst of it, you cry joy.

And God, we don't know how to make joy. We can't make joy through a trip. We can't make it through a meal. God, joy has to be bestowed on us from above. It is a supernatural, spiritually nuclear quality that comes. But we can set the table for that meal, Lord. And so, God, you speak to us now as a church. In Jesus' name, amen. I believe we have 17 days or so. You can do the math. I'm probably wrong. Until we have Christmas.

And what I really want to do as a challenge is I want to challenge each of you to give yourself a gift this year. I want you to become the focus of your gift giving. I know it can be about everybody else. And I don't think many of us struggle with that. We're all pretty good at giving people stuff and going to the mall. And maybe you're a last-minute guy like me or whatever. But I want you to focus on you. And I don't mean that in a selfish way.

But I want you to be thinking about the reason Jesus came was he came for the world. But ultimately, he came for you. He authored a book where I read this week that the author actually loves the person he wrote the book for. And that's you. And the gift that I want you to focus on giving over these next 17 days, maybe it's 19, whatever it is until Christmas, is to give yourself a gift of joy. And joy is something that doesn't just happen, as we'll see.

I believe that joy has to be ruthlessly pursued. And you have to set the table for joy and do things. The Bible is full of ifs. And if you do this, then this will be the product of that. And so in all the gift-giving, in all the parties that you go to, what I want you to do is what would it look like is if you don't get to January 3rd and think, I'm glad that's over, what just happened. Or dwell on all the things you've lost or whatever.

But if you spend the rest of this year saying, I'm going to pursue joy. I want to say, if you pursue joy, you will give those around you a greater gift than you can get at Zales. And I don't know if I've ever been to Zales. But nonetheless, it's the first thing that came to my mind. And I was on the plane home, and there was a Coke commercial, and somebody was giving somebody a Coke, and it said, give joy this year. And I thought, have we really dumbed it down to a Coke?

You know, a Coke. I thought it was just a Coke and a smile. And I can get that. I like Coke. I drink Coke a lot. I like Mexican Coke. I like Coke in the bottle. Yesterday, I was at a restaurant. I said, can I have cola? Because I hate when they say, well, do you like Pepsi? Or we only have Coke. So I just asked for cola. And she said, well, we have, this first time ever, we have Pepsi, or we, which I hate, or we have Coke in the bottle.

And I said, I would like Coke in the bottle. And I was happy, and I had a smile. But there was not this exuberant, like, ooh, let's do this thing. Praise God. It didn't bring me joy. And I just thought it's kind of stupid as I walked around. And I look around town. If you go down to Mission Valley Mall, there's a massive joy thing up. And I just don't think anybody knows what it means. I think joy is like going extinct.

I think there's a lot of things that we're told to be, and I think told to do to be happy. And most commercials are about happiness. It's, and most of you have heard this, that happiness is this momentary thing of circumstances. And joy, like Paul says in Philippians, is something that wells up within you and actually overflows no matter of what circumstances you are in. And I believe that the culture we have is really good at promising happiness, calling it joy, and never giving you the complete payoff that joy offers.

And what I have found over and over again and throughout my entire life is I have gotten to do some of the things I'd always wanted to do. I remember when I was 19 years old and I went to Australia and I was surfing the South Pacific and I was living the dream. I was going to Bali and not many people were traveling to Indonesia in the late 80s, some were. And I was living the dream. I remember being out in perfect waves at a place called Uluwatu.

And everything I wanted I had. And I remember thinking to myself, I'm miserable. Why do I want to live? And I learned very early in my life that stuff doesn't cut it. Ecclesiastes has been a huge book for me. The most successful man of all time is Solomon. He's had everything that you could ever have. He did everything he wanted. And in the end, he's just like, this is meaningless. What's the point? The majority of commercials we see are going to be about bringing this happiness, which is a dopamine hit in your brain, a rush of emotions.

But in the end, leaves you wanting. And so for the next three weeks, I want to open up a land for you to explore, an adventure into joy. And ask you, do you actually have the desire, the willingness, and the ruthless ambition to pursue joy? And ask you even, I had to start asking myself, when was the last time I experienced joy? I actually experienced joy one time for sure on my trip. We have a friend that they've been trying to have a child for 12 years.

They've been going through the entire process of the needles and everything you go through to try to have a baby. They even started a ministry where they said, well, if we can't have a child, we want to minister to people who can't. And they started a conference in England. They're very, very, very, very close friends of ours. And in the middle of the trip, I was, I forgot where I was. I was, I don't know, eating a thing called a pasty.

It's like a little Cornish, it doesn't matter. It's a little pie with some meat in it. And it was making me happy, but I wasn't joyful. And I got a text that said, Sarah and Anna knew that they were pregnant, but they had had their baby. It came six weeks premature, but the baby was healthy and fine. And I wept on the street there, and it was an absolute joy. And I thought to myself, it's been a long time since I felt this.

And I've been pursuing joy personally, getting ready for this series, looking forward to this series, because I want this church to give you something. Like, I don't want to entertain you. I don't want to make the stage the star. I want you to walk away every week and say, I have something that on Wednesday you can tap into and say, it's been three days since church, and this Wednesday really stinks. But I can get some resources out of the Word of God, because this really is where the answers are in.

I don't have to defend the Bible. I just preach the Bible. The Bible defends its own veracity. If you study it, you'll find that. And the Bible talks a lot about joy. And so here's the challenge. The challenge is for the next three weeks, whether you're here or not, listen to the podcast. But make the most important thing this season joy. And the focus of that joy, that you are a beloved child of God, that he would send his son.

And the whole point of Christmas joy, whenever you see it, joy to the world, is all about salvation. And in this passage out of Hebrews, which is not a very Christmassy passage, it mentions this idea of Jesus having joy. And the joy that he had came from having his eye on the ball. If you're a baseball fan, you know that one of the things you can see is if you can see, the sooner you see the ball, the easier it is to hit.

And so Jesus was constantly keeping his eye on the ball. And it says in this that one of the keys to joy is knowing that what is before you. And the point of the New Testament often is to know that you are a child of God and you will spend eternity in heaven with God. What I have found, that that's great to know that, but it hasn't always produced this life of giddy, exuberant joy that I want. And there has to be more.

Obviously, there's not more than us spending eternity with Christ, but there has to be perhaps more that we can do to set the stage. Now, with that intro, let me start here. Your heart is a factory for whatever emotions you deal with. Your heart is a factory that will produce faith. Your heart is a factory that will produce joy. Your heart is a factory that will produce belief. Your heart can have sorrow. Now, your mind can have these things as well.

And the Bible talks a lot about the heart and the mind. But the Bible does not say that you are saved because of your mind. The Bible says that you actually have the ability to have belief in your heart. And science has now proven the Bible once again to show that there are actually some of the same neurotransmitters, I think there's billions of them, in your heart, that the heart can have memories. You've heard about people having heart transplants and having memories, perhaps you've read those stories, of the person who had the heart before them.

I believe that the heart and the mind are meant to work in conjunction. Pastor Jim will make a great argument for the importance of the mind, and I don't want to separate the heart and the mind because they work together. And the mind is amazing to use it for apologetics, to reason, to learn these things. The heart, the things of the heart, the emotions of the heart need to be discerned with wisdom that comes in the mind.

But the scripture says, if you believe in your mind, heart, and you confess with your mouth, you will be saved. It does not say that if you believe in your mind, although I think the mind is a huge part, we need to have belief in the mind. But I would say that we underestimate, as a culture, how much of our emotions, how much of the way we feel, how much of the way we live actually comes from our heart and not from our minds.

I believe that you see that the massive rise in anxiety, not that we didn't have anxiety in the past, or depression, or these things, the massive rise in these things recently are because hearts are being broken. I believe that the family, there has been an attack on the family. You see, with the divorce rate, not saying that all marriages were great in 1812, they weren't. You can talk about the patriarchy and forced marriages.

We can go through that whole conversation some other day, not today. But since the 1950s, when the divorce rate began to go up, families began to be broken, which breaks children's hearts. And if you are a product of a divorce, or you've been in a divorce, and you have children, and you've seen what they've had to go through, which nobody wants, we understand that broken hearts break minds. The suicide rate right now, with people between 18 and 35 years old, has doubled, more than doubled, since 1950.

Do you know what the second leading cause of death is for 18 to 35 year olds right now? Suicide. Suicide. Number two. Two. Number one is accidents. Make it, you know, in accidents. Number three, drug overdoses. That statistic alone tells me that. Young people, in the prime of your life, 18 to 35, okay? That's the key demographic they all want. You are young. You have your life ahead of you. You have every, like, like, everything you could ever want.

Everyone wants to be young. When you're 60, sometimes you wish you were 35. The last thing I want to do is go back to 25 year old Adam. Trust me. Last thing you want is 25 year old Adam. Okay? I think the irony of how many people's lives are trying to save for cancer, when cancer in that age group is only, like, six or eight. I don't know exactly, but it's further on down the list. There's an irony that we're spending all this money to save people's lives.

Let's just talk from 18 to 35. All this money to keep these people alive when it's not even close to the amount of people, young people, 18 to 35, they're checking out and either dying because they're killing themselves, which our family was affected by, my brother-in-law, okay? And I know this might be difficult because many of you have been affected by this. Many. And I don't speak about it glibly. Or that they are going into some kind of drug-induced escapism into the world where they die because of that, because of the opioids.

What the hell, and I mean hell because it's from hell, what the hell is going on? And it seems as we've moved away from family and Christian values, we're supposed to have been moving closer to this utopia, right? Aren't we being told that if we can get away from all those things that constrain us and everyone can be free, then we're going to have this secular utopia. But what we're seeing is people are giving up. Joy is becoming extinct.

And I believe that it goes back to the heart. I believe that it is an issue of the heart. And I believe that broken hearts break minds. And I'm not trying to bum all of you out, but we need to look at the statistics that if we're going to be a church, are we going to be people that are able to harvest joy, that when people see a difference, they think, what is wrong with you? You know it's almost offensive to be happy these days?

I'm dead serious. Like if you walk around happy, joyful, like how you doing? Absolutely fantastic. If I was any better, I'd be twins. You know what I mean? Like something like that. Like where you're actually joyful. You know, like people are like, you must not be paying attention. The world's a mess. Everything's a mess. Like being happy is so antithetical to the culture. You actually, and I read this, you are actually going to be accused of being complicit in not caring about all the stuff that you should care about that should really bum you out.

Joy is actually not only becoming extinct, I believe it's actually becoming persecuted. Uh-oh. All right. I'll get you through this on time. Trust me. Let's get to the first point. And by the way, I had my glasses in my hand, and these are the only ones they had in the back. And I really won't need these until I'm like 79. So if you see me doing this, because I'm kind of like here on the glasses thing, like I got a one, two, five, and these are like sevens.

So I didn't need glasses until two years ago. And it's quick, how quickly it comes on. Kill the joy. Yeah. So what I want to say is this, that the stronghold of joy is your heart. And you need to protect your heart, and you need to open your heart. And I think that when the heart gets broke, it creates a barrier, and people stop living from their hearts. They stop experiencing love, and their mind is forced to take on the entire burden that it is supposed to work together with the heart and mind that the Bible talks about.

It is a massive study. Just go Google verses on the heart in the Bible, Google verses on the mind, and you will see this parallel, this correlation. But the law of God is written on your heart. And we need to start living from the heart. And as Christians, we need to live from our heart. Because it says in the end times, people's love will grow cold. And right now, secular science is telling us that love is just a bunch of squirts in your brain, and it's evolved, but it's from this chemical.

But love is from God, and love dwells within the heart. And let me say, the domain of joy is your heart. Let's jump in. Christ's following is one that is meant to be characterized by joy. This has always bothered me. Because there's this feeling that if I'm a Christian, woo! Every day is joy! Woo! Like, I'm a Christian, I follow Christ! Woo! Like, seriously, right? There's like, if you follow, there's this thought. There's this, it's a lie.

There's this thought of like, if you just decide to become a Christian, all your stuff gets sorted. And like, you're just unicorns, and puppy dogs, and rainbow sherbet, and kittens. I don't really like kittens that much, but I like puppies. And I just haven't found it true. And 15 years into Christianity, whenever it was, when I had my first panic attack, because I was still holding on, for a whole bunch of reasons, and started having anxiety, and found out that real emotions were there, and actually work was going to have to be done for me to start experiencing, and unearthing, and chipping away the marble, so I could find the statue that was in the work, the statue of God's love, joy, and grace, and there was going to be work, that was an incredible new concept to me.

And I just want to say, joy doesn't just happen. You are going to have to do things, it is going to take work to have joy. It isn't just going to happen. And vacation doesn't make it happen. A bottle of Cheves Regal doesn't make it happen. Your two glasses of wine might make you happy for a moment, but it ain't going to give you joy in the end. It'll give you a temporary joy, and all the things we run to is not going to make it happen.

There is a scriptural, I hate to use the word algorithm, because I don't want to turn the Bible into some A plus B equals C, but there are some strong suggestions, let's say. The first one is this, stop believing that if you follow Jesus, that joy is just going to happen. It isn't just going to happen. Joy is going to have to be pursued, and you're going to have to decide if you want it more than the melancholy, or all perhaps some of the benefits you get from the things or the emotions that you have made your identity.

Just a victim. The world loves to be a victim these days, right? We love a victim. A lot of benefits to being a victim. Lots of benefits. A lot of benefits to being the, you know, I'm not, you know, the, whatever it is, I won't go into different ones, but there are certain ones where you can gather a whole bunch of people that want to fix you. And you know what? What the payoff from you having a whole cast of people, because there are a lot that will sign up to be part of your fixed team, I recently ended a relationship because I said, I'm not your patient.

I said, I'm not your patient, nor do I want to be fixed. I just want a friend. And I'm not looking for people to fix me. I'm looking for people to walk alongside of me. But if you are getting a lot of benefits from always being, you know, mopey, so-and-so, and I'm, look, I'm not diminishing. People have chemical deals. I'm not talking about that. I'm saying that you have decided that I get a lot of benefits from being this type of person, and I enjoy the benefits more than actually the work that I would have to do to walk in joy.

You need to decide if that fits for you or if you're willing to give up everything for joy. This is a tougher talk than you thought it was going to be, isn't it? Romans 14, 17. You read verses like this. It says, you can put it really close to your face and I can still see it with these glasses. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking. That's like, right? That's just all the stuff you want to do.

You are so blurry right now. It is not a matter of TV commercials. Right? Watch a TV commercial. Just watch the commercials and laugh at them. It's all eating and drinking. Eating and drinking and doing stuff. I got glasses from the audience. These are the exact ones I read. Are these from the 99 cent store? Yeah, that's where I get them too. Those are better. Thank you. Because I have 12 pair of these at home. Gosh, I lost a $100 bill earlier, huh?

Maybe it was five. Thank you, my friends, for that. It's not eating and drinking. You want to know what I learn on vacation every time I go on vacation? I like vacation. It always leaves me wanting. I like it. The things that bring me joy are being with my family, being with God. But like I go to places, are you on a missions trip where you finally get the thing you want? And like Solomon showed you, it doesn't bring joy.

It's got to be something deeper. Is it connecting with something deeper in your heart? See Spencer over there. He's a surfer. Surfers know. And Andy Irons said this, who passed away from a drug overdose. He said the problem with surfing is I get the best way of my life and I just want the next one. What I want is a deep sense where my heart is being changed from joy. Do you want that? It's not a matter of eating or drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and the Holy Spirit.

And when I read verses like that, I think, okay, it should just happen. We often expect joy to be a natural byproduct of Christ following. And I guess it is, but Christ following requires work. It actually requires following. Jesus rarely, actually never encouraged anyone to follow him from a lounge chair. He never walked up to somebody in the Barco lounger, for anybody who's my age or older, in the Barco lounger, Google it, and says, you sit there and I will make you a disciple of men.

I'm going to go do my stuff. You just sit there. Just sit there. It's all good. I got it. No, don't get up. No, please. Can I get you anything? No. That's not Christ following. Do you want to follow Christ? Christ following takes work. And let's go back to the main question. If you want joy, you're going to have to give a lot of stuff up. And you're going to have to want something that's greater than what you have. And I got to tell you what, giving stuff up is so hard.

You ever been in that relationship? You're like 22. And you know you shouldn't be in it. Or maybe you're 61. One. Sometimes I can't tell the difference. And oh, wow. Honey, we're going back to the rock. I told you we shouldn't come here. I heard that flood's a good church. Like Matt Hammett. We expect joy to be a natural byproduct of Christ falling. But to create a culture of joy in your life requires a commitment to ruthlessly pursue joy at the suffrage of all other devotions of your heart.

So you've been in that relationship or in that thing. And you decide to give that thing up finally. I got to tell you, if you want to experience joy, it is for freedom that you've been set free. Which is such an interesting verse because it's so redundant. Like Jesus says, Here I set you free, now go be free. Like that's a ridiculous thing to say, Jesus, right? I set you free. No. I set you free, now go be free. Don't go be a slave.

And perhaps you're in that relationship. Or perhaps there's that like, you know, it's only two glasses. You know, the Baptists are not teetotalers. We're not against drinking. But the scripture also says, If your conscience convicts you of something, and you're like, man, I got to have that three glasses every night. Or, whatever your deal is. I don't need to probe any of you. You know your deal. And if your conscience convicts you, it says that it's sin to you.

I was listening to a proverb the other day, I don't have the exact number, and the proverb said, If after not heeding multiple warnings, destruction is going to come on you in an instant. That woke me up. I don't know about you, but I was like reading that, and I'm like, you know what, maybe some of you have just had enough warnings. You know, at a certain point, this is the thing I found with God, at a certain point, he's willing for you to hit a wall.

He is more than willing for you to hit rock bottom. And let me guarantee you, he loves you enough that it's coming. And that's a prophetic warning to you. And the question is, do you want that? I have found personally that one of the greatest joys of my life is when I've been in that relationship, and in my 20s, I was dating, I decided I wasn't going to kiss a gal, I was only going to hold hands for like, I think I did that for eight years until I finally got married, that I, you know, multiple years, where I just said, I'm going to be completely pure in my life.

But I would get in these relationships with these girls that weren't Christians, and I'd be like, it's all good. And we wouldn't do anything. And they're obviously pushing for other stuff, because they got no reason not to push for it. And I'm like, nah, I'm not going there. And it's really difficult, okay? But something in me is like, dude, you got to drop this. This has got to end. I got to tell you, it was so hard for it to end.

And sometimes it would be like four months, and you're dying. Like, I'm trying to lead a youth group, and the whole time in me, I know like, I'm not being obedient to God. You want to be miserable? Like, this is, if you've become a Christian recently, and I know I've heard a couple people have, let me just tell you how to be miserable. Try to follow Christ, and keep one foot in sin. It is miserable. It is absolutely miserable.

And you will have zero, I won't say zero, you will have very minimal joy. This is going to be one of the first points, I'm pre-preaching it, and we'll get to it, so we can scratch it off your notes in a minute. But let me just say this. If you can get away from the sin, if you can repent, and the enemy loves to tell you you can't repent, if you can repent, and get free, there is a freedom that comes from being free, that will blow you out of a cannon.

And I remember the last time, where I finally said to Jesus, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I just said enough's enough, and I went and had conversations with people, I needed to have conversations with, and conversations with myself, and I said enough with it, to hell with sin, and that's not a cuss word, to hell with sin. I've had enough, it might take a breakup, it might take going to rehab, it might, I don't know whatever it's going to take for you, it might take you just not using a computer, for the next year, I don't know, throwing away your mobile phone, getting a flip phone, I don't know what your deal is, stop stealing, quit cheating on your taxes, turn yourself in, I don't know whatever it takes, but each one of us, has the temptation of something, and when you give it away, I got to tell you, there is a rush, of God's constellation, that is better than any drug, I ever took, and trust me, it took a lot, and I have never, experienced the joy, or the peace, or the freedom, that comes with saying, I'm done with that, we talk about that, in the next part, because if you go down, it says three things, and I just preached the first point, but it says God's word, in Hebrews 12, gives us a template, for creating hearts, that manufacture joy, every one of your hearts, is a factory, and it is manufacturing, issues, you want to know, one of the issues, the problems with today, and it works, and I am not saying, that we should not have, medication, for people who have, I'm not talking against, medication, anti-anxiety, depression, medics, I'm not telling you to go, throw your stuff away, figure it out, whatever, I do believe you can be healed, from it, not in all cases, so not having that conversation, but what I want to say, is we're medicating minds, when the issue is the heart, okay, like, and it works, to an extent, but we are medicating, minds, thank, I just, I am so thankful, and this is just for me, if I was living in, if I would have grown up as a, I grew up in the early 70s, as a child in elementary school, if I would have grown up, in the 90s, or the 2000s, they would have drugged me, so hard, they seriously would have, and I'm not saying, look, I don't know about, there are individual times, where people need that, so please do not hear me say, that it is wrong, in all cases, I just know, they would have drugged, the hell out of it, excuse me, that was a cuss word, got happy, using the word hell today, didn't I, that's three hells, keeping it too real, back to the rock, back to the rock honey, my mind wasn't broke, you know what was broke, my heart, because my dad had to have, lots of girlfriends, besides mom, and, stuff, never got told I love, my dad never told me what, told me he was proud of me, and, there's a lot of blessing, I'm very thankful for my father, and I know he's in heaven, he accepted Christ, on his deathbed, my mom led him to Christ, the day he died, praise God for that, but my mind wasn't broke, but that was tore up, flipping tore up, and I'm 49 now, and I'm still stitching it together, I don't know about you, and some people are 90, and they never get it, and so what I want to say is this, when I had anxiety, when I had anxiety, I used meds, or in my 20s, and it helped get me to a place, where I could get off that, and it was very helpful, so please, do not write me an email, about that, what I'm saying is, fix your heart, let's look at this heart, quick, we're gonna be out of here, in five minutes, that means 10, you want to have a heart, you want to have a factory of joy, you want to create a factory of joy, where you just live in exuberant joy, or at least you experience it three times a day, like real joy, what if you got joy once a day, like when was the last time you had joy, like I had joy, like when my friend found out, they had their baby, I was like whoa, that's what it, whoa, because I've been asking for it, it showed up, and I'm like that's way, different than what I've been experiencing, I was on a trip, I was doing the things I wanted to do, I was in cool places, I went to the white cliffs of Dover, I was sitting there going, I've always wanted to see this, this is amazing, and it was nothing like, when I got that text, nothing, it was like oh great, what are we gonna see next, I'm still feeding on the fact, when I see their pictures, it's joy, it's way different, let me give you a, we're gonna go over it for three weeks, here's the first one, we already talked about it, remove the hindrances, therefore, since we are surrounded, by a great cloud of witnesses, and that's talking about Hebrews 11, so if you want to understand the context, go back, it gives this list, of people who, kicked butt for God, they were amazing, they went through a lot of hard stuff, but they knew Jesus was coming, and because they had a focus on Christ, they changed their focus, they had joy, it says remove the hindrances, everything that hinders, the sin that so easily entangles, you will find in the scripture, that joy is domain, where joy exists, it doesn't exist in your hands, it doesn't exist in your ears, you can speak joy, but the place that it comes from, in the scripture is your heart, okay, I think, I couldn't find any, there probably are some scriptures, of having joy in your mind, but the lion's share of joy, where it resides, there is a castle in your body, and it is called your heart, and joy is meant to live there, okay, joy comes from the heart, sin easily entangles, the sin that easily entangles what, your heart, sin wants to entangle your heart, let me say, if you are living in sin, if you are constantly on purpose, and not willing to repent, which you can do, it will strangle your joy, number one, you might have a repentance problem, and I want to say, if you repent, and try to move away, and do whatever it takes, that is a huge deal, you have to decide, is joy worth it, end of story, and you will know, that's the first thing, it so easily entangles, this scripture you see, juxtaposes joy, in the beginning, it talks about Jesus, and all these people, that had to deal with, all this really difficult stuff in life, Hebrews 11, is all about the heroes of the faith, and then it talks about Jesus, doing this really hard stuff, it's scorn the shame, you know, I love it, he looked at scorn, he didn't like cozy up to it, I don't know about you, but I've had times, where I've gotten melancholy, and depressed, and I've kind of like, cozied up to it, like I listen to the cure, you know, there's like a whole genre of music, that is all about cozying up to depression, right, like there's a whole genre, especially in the 80s, it's gothic, we were really into it, it's like, you know, why can't I be, you know, I won't need to sing all the songs, but it's like, let's cozy up to it, you know what Jesus did with shame, scorned it, hated it, I'm not, no, I hate depression, I'm not going to, you know, there was, literally, coming out of the 80s, there's a whole genre, whether it be the cure, whether it be the smiths, and bands that I actually enjoy, the Joy Division, the song, love, their number one hit, love will tear us apart, I was listening to that song the other day, I thought, what a lie, love's not going to tear you apart, but these are number one hits, and it's cozying up, because why, there's a benefit in feeling, oh, I just want to feel more melancholy, you know, the whole thing, why are those hits?

Because we don't scorn shame, we like it, we like melancholy, I'm not saying not being sensitive, but we like it, Jesus scorned the shame, and it says at the end of this passage, it juxtaposes, if you scorn shame, and you are not entangled by sin, it says at the end of this, then you will not grow weary, and what, lose what? Heart. Our world's losing heart, maybe you are losing heart, but we need to easily untangle, so the first thing, here's your thing for the week, this week, here's your little prescription, figure your sin out, and repent, repent, break up with what's her name, call what's his name, tell your spouse, that you take pills behind their back, and you know, it's not for pain really anymore, call your, call Adam Bogey, or Joe, or somebody in the, you know, Kai, or one of the guys you know in the church, Dave Peters, and one of the elders, and say, guys, say, I have a porn issue, I don't want to look at porn anymore, or I hate this person, I wish they were dead, whatever the deal is, because we have some dark stuff in the world, get out of it, because it will cause you to grow weary, and lose heart, and you know what happens, when a culture grows weary, and loses heart, you have the number two, reason for death, among young people, being suicide, and drugs to escape it, and guys, as a group, we've got to be the people who change that, and it starts with us, the corner of our heart, number two, change your focus, fix your eyes on Jesus, I got to say, there's one thing, joy is never created, through an inward focus, joy is an outward focus, if you're constantly thinking about, what you don't have, this is why social media, all this, this whole rise, is coming, with always looking at, what everybody else has, what they do, what they're happening, what's happening with them, heard a great illustration, from Brian Hardin, I'm going to close on this, almost, he talked about the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth, Jesus didn't walk on water, in the Dead Sea, Jesus didn't fish in the Dead Sea, it's because it's the Dead Sea, Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth, in all of Israel, and everything, all billions of gallons, of fresh water, of blessing, flow into the Dead Sea, you want to know the problem, with the Dead Sea, has no outlet, you ever see a pond, with no outlet, what happens to it, stagnant, gets disgusting, starts to stink, I want to say, this world is telling you, get filled, get filled, get filled, get filled, say, if you do not have an outlet, you will go stagnant, now do you want to know, what's just up from the Dead Sea, it's called the Sea of Galilee, Galilee, has tons of water flowing into it, from all over the place, but it has an outlet, and when it comes in, it goes out, it is full of life, it is full of Christ's miracles, it is full of a life, that just, is over abundant, the more it gives out, the more it gets filled, water, and God has created this, so we would know, you cannot, be filled, with just blessing, without having something, that can give out, or you will become stagnant, where are you giving, your life away, I want to tell you, if you want joy, give joy away, there's a scripture, in Proverbs 11, that I came across, it says this, there is one who scatters, yet increases all the more, and there is one who withholds, that is just, what is justly due, but he results in only want, the generous person, will be prosperous, and they will, and he who waters, will himself be watered, and they who withhold gain, the people will curse them, but blessings will be on the head, of him who sells it, who diligently seeks, good favor in the Lord, this is the final thing, and we just want to, even get to the third point, because it's kind of, the same thing, one of the ways, after you get the sin, out of your life, is to give your life away, constantly, give parking spots, give a smile, just every way you can, I was on our trip, and I was sitting on the street, and this homeless man, came up to me, he started talking to me, and he said, you know, hey I'm, most people think I'm a tramp, but I'm not a tramp, and we had been talking, about suicide, I just talked to my daughters, about this suicide thing, because we were having, a conversation, and they went into a store, and I stood there, and a man came to me, and he goes, I'm homeless, and my 21 year old son, just committed suicide, and his girlfriend's, the only family, that I guess I would have had, and she doesn't want to talk to anymore, because I'm a tramp, and I'm not a tramp, and can you help me, get a bus ticket, and the whole thing, and so I just, gave him whatever money I had, and I laid my hand on, and God said pray for him, and I prayed, I laid my hand on his head, and I prayed for him, and it was really interesting, because I've seen this happen before, after I prayed for him, he staggered, and he wasn't, because he was drunk, because he wasn't drunk, and he staggered, it's happened multiple times, and he just said thank you, and he turned, and he staggered, down the street, and so I've seen people, where the spirit of God, comes on people, and you just, they're just overwhelmed by it, and I turned around, behind me, and I was standing, in front of it, and on the sign, it said this is the first, location of the YMCA, ever in the world, that started there, and the whole mission, of the YMCA, is to bless the broken, and to do, when there was no, social welfare system, and it gave me, a lot of vision, for our church, and things, but it just really, my whole vacation, really turned away, because I think, the first couple weeks, I was there, I'm like, I just want to get away, I just want to go sit, and read, and take it all in, and by two weeks, like I couldn't wait, to get back to church, I'm like, I just got to go, give myself away, this stinks, like, that always happens, to me on vacation, like, how many views, can you look at, you know, how many meals, can you eat, I guess some people, do it a lot, but, that's the point, so, this is the journey, this is the challenge, 17 days, might be 18, might be 19, do the math, pursue, give yourself, the gift of joy, if you have sin in your life, repent, and start giving your life away, give it away fully, and see, that you no longer are the dead sea, but the sea of Galilee, which has life, amen?

Amen? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.