Joy vs Happiness in the Bible: What's the Difference?

 TRANSCRIPT

Hi everyone. Good morning to everybody. I am excited. I'm actually really pumped because as Worship was going through, there were like lyrics in every single song today that I'm like, oh, this is what God's been talking about, and I feel like he's doing something. Are you excited to have something? Done to you today because it's happening.

So strap on in. Well, we have been, this is the last of our unusual series. We have been bringing our most unusual speakers for you across the last four weeks. But no, we've been looking at the unusual, peculiar, standout nature that we begin to see when people start to have a life with the source of being Jesus from the center of it.

And we've been looking at character. We've had a look at how do we love people without judging? What is the radical ways in which your life starts to look when Jesus is the source of your life? Last week we had how we can trust him in difficult situations. And today we are peeling back and we are gonna look at.

Joy, unusual joy. Now, when I was younger, I watched a TV show called Ren and Stimpy, if anyone's from that, there was a song on there. It was the Happy, happy, joy, joy song. And I was like, this is perfect time to bring out the happy, happy, joy, joy song. Um, they were the lyrics. That's all of it. But I went back and I, I watched it and was like, I'll just.

I'll play it before the message and I was like, this is, this is weird. This is really weird from, uh, so I'm not showing you, but it was basically a bit of a happy, happy, joy, joy, happy, happy, joy. That was the crux of it. But today we are going to have a look at it and personally I feel very blessed. That I'm quite a joyful person.

It's something that God has gifted me with and, um, I'm not just saying that myself, but people do comment on that in my life. So I've accepted it over time. Thank you very much. Um, I'm not always. Happy. We're gonna get to that in a little bit, but I am quite a joyful person and I wanna talk a little bit today around where that source has come from my life, but also where it can come for your life.

And I love to laugh like. I love it. It's my most favorite thing apart from Jesus and my family. Um, but I love to laugh and I actually, he's a little sneaky thing. I wanted to be a standup comedian until one of my friends did it and he bombed. And I was like, no, I don't wanna do that no more. But, um, I just love making people laugh.

I like silly jokes. I like just things that are a little bit childish, even though I am still young. Um, I just, I, I just love that sort of thing, but. Laughing with friends is something that is so precious, don't you think? Have you got those memories where you're like, oh, that was just like the funniest thing.

Every time I talk about it, I cry with laughter. Well, I'm gonna tell you one of my little stories here. I've got lots of them, but the lovely Tiani, she's not in the front row right now, but. Tiani. Many, many years ago she had called me and she said, megs, I have got this. Buy one, get one free for this Pilates class.

I think we should go. And I was like, this would be great. We need to do that. Um, stretching is great for you. So I was like, let's do it. And we drove down to rum and we walk into this room. We'd never been there before. 'cause you know, Groupon, you never know what you're gonna get. We walk into this room. And there was all people, we were late, everyone was already set up with all of their lovely mats, and I just walked in and was thinking, oh, this feels very serious.

I have not mentally prepared myself for this. Um. I was like, okay, let's just find our spot. We were almost right in the center of the room and we're setting ourselves up, and you could pick up one of the mats at the front and we start doing, the first part of what we believed was Pilates, and they're like, we're gonna start with some nose breathing.

And they're like, put your finger on one side. Breathe in. And breathe out. And I'm there going, no, I am not prepared for this. And the guy next to me sounding like Darth va. And I was like, how long does this, this thing goes for like 40 minutes. I am done for, I can't even get past the nose breathing. We were doing all sorts of weird leg things and the entire time.

We were internally chuckling, trying not to laugh. We're like holding these poses and, um, she's back. Seriously, it was one of the funniest things I've ever done in my life. Turns out it was actually yoga. It was serious yoga. We did not know that until they rang a bell at the end, boom. Which like that was the, the absolute kicker for me.

And at the very end. Tiani said, megs, we gotta go up the front. We gotta apologize. Everyone knew we were laughing like we thought we were so, we thought we were so good at keeping an inch. I'm like, no, I'm not going up there. Anyway, there we are. We are so sorry. We were laughing during your really serious class.

And we walk out of the room, we, we sit in the car to drive back and we just look at each other and we are like, ba, we let out. The whole 40 minutes of laughter in a five minute, we were crying. We're just like, ha ha, ha, ha, ha. Like everything that we could, I feel like it's one of the times I've laughed the most in my whole life and I still, I still laugh about the nose breathing card.

It's just like, it's just one of those things where. Joy and laughter. It just feels so good, doesn't it? It makes you feel great. And when you think about it again, it takes you back to that spot. And in those particular, like in that one, um, the reality was that I thought everyone else was strange, but we were the strangers in that situation.

Everyone else was not laughing. They were like, yeah, this is totally normal for us. No. Um, our source came from a different place because we were not mentally prepared for what we were walking into, and we had a different perspective. And ultimately, this is what happens in life. Depending on what your source is, you are gonna end up with a different outward result.

So we've got our little first point here. Something to think about. The source that your life draws from is going to bring an outward result. This is, you know, cause and effect. And so this is what we've been unpacking over this peculiar unusual series is this source. Where does all of this come from? And when we're looking at joy, I don't have to look very far to see that joy is not always present in the world that is around me.

In fact, I would go as far to say that there is a huge joyless pandemic going on. There's anxiety, there's depression, there's angst, there's frustration, there's anger, there's agitation every single way, every single place that you look and joy in my perspective, is being targeted in people's lives. And when that is happening, the most important thing we have to then look at is why.

Why is joy being one of the things that is being targeted for so many people in the world? It probably means it's important, right? If it is being that hammered to be something, to be taken away from people, it means it must be important. And so this is a great time now just to have a little bit of a look at this difference between happiness and joy because, um, Taylor, if you were here a few weeks ago, Taylor did the message.

God doesn't want me to be happy. Fantastic message. In fact, if you listen to that message and this message today and you put the two together, they go hand in hand. So I don't wanna unpack too much of what was in that. I wanna encourage you to go back and listen to that. 'cause that is a full message on its own and it's one worth listening to.

But we did get to have a look at how happiness is a little bit different to Joy. They're definitely similar. But they're slightly different. Here's what happiness is. Happiness is when it is dependent on external events and emotions. So your happiness, it can be influenced and it can be robbed by different circumstances.

One moment I'm happy, something happens to me in the next two minutes that's gone. It can be taken from you, and it's all stuff to do with the external, but when we are looking at joy, this is where it's different. They're similar, but they're different. Joy. It's an intrinsic gift. It's something that can transcend the external things that are going on in your life.

That's why you can have joy, like I'm a joyful person, but I can still be unhappy. They're similar, but they're different. Joy is intrinsic. Happiness is something that can be robbed from you quite easily. And have you heard that phrase, the pursuit for happiness? It's always thrown around the pursuit for happiness, but the word pursuit, it means to follow or to chase after.

But joy comes from a different source. In fact, when you are trying to chase after something, you are probably running so fast that you're not giving yourself time to sit. And experience joy because it's not about chasing after something that's fleeting. It's about having the time to ground yourself in something that is unfailing.

But the focus a lot of the time is the chasing as opposed. To the grounding and that's really what we're gonna focus on today. But have you met people in your world that just have a contagious joy? When you hang out with them, you just feel great and after they've left, you're like, oh, that's just so good.

I feel so good. 'cause part of that joy just overflows onto you for that bit of time. And then after a little while after they're gone, you go back to normal. But there is, there are people in this world where you can sense this joy just overflowing them. And it isn't the normal, I can tell you now, I go through a lot of my day where I see people and they just drain me.

They drain me, and then I meet someone else. I'm like, ah. That was so good for my soul to be with that person. So we experience this difference of when joy starts to overflow, because joy comes from a different source. Joy comes from a different place, and you're asking, where's that place, megs? Can I walk there?

Do I need a ticket? Do I have to fly a plane there? Well, no you don't. We're gonna have a look today in some scripture to really pull back. Where does this joy come from? We're gonna have a look in the book of John. So the disciples, obviously they've spent a lot of time with Jesus and this book of John John's writing down in this particular part, we're looking in verses uh, in chapter 15, and this is out of the Last Supper.

So you picture all of the guys are together, they're having their dinner together, and Jesus is just dropping truth, bomb after truth, bomb after truth bomb. That dinner would've been mind blowing, I think with all the things that Jesus was saying to his disciples. He's talking to them about how don't worry, I'm gonna send the Holy Spirit to be with you.

You're gonna get to use the Holy Spirit to connect to me. And then he goes on to say, well, I'm the vine. You're the branches. If if you stay connected to me, you're gonna be all good. And he just keeps saying this, stay connected to me. I'm gonna give this to you. Here's some things to remember. Remember this?

And he just keeps going on and on. And then we get to this part in John 15. It's just after where he is talked to them about, I'm the vine and you are the branches. Now there's a, a few mes and i's and es in this. So, um, I'm gonna try and do some actions to help it stick in. But John 15, nine to 15 starts off with this as the father has loved me Jesus, so I have loved you.

He's saying to them Now, remain in my love. God's given me love. I've shown you that love. You remain in that love. If you keep my commands, we're gonna keep going. If you keep my commands, you'll remain in my love. Just as I Jesus have kept my father's commands, I remain in his love. God, Jesus, you, it's flowing through.

I've told you this. So that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. Continuing on my command is this, love each other as I have loved you, father Jesus. Jesus showed them remain in this connection. Continuing on greater love has no one than this to lay down one's life for one's friends.

We're gonna keep going all the way through. You are my friends. If you do what I command, I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I've called you friends. 'cause everything that I've learned from my father, I have made known to you. There's a lot of amazing stuff in there that Jesus was saying to his disciples.

He's saying, you've experienced the love that God has given me and I've shown you that love. And at that point, he hadn't gone to the cross yet to actually show them the, like the final pinnacle thing. But he's still like, you've seen it. You've seen that God's given me all this love for you to show you how to live your life and how to then go out and love other people.

And that's what I want you to do. I want you to draw from God's love, draw from my love. I want you to go out and I wanna love it onto everybody else. And when you do that, what type of joy does he say a complete joy, complete means fully finished. All the joy that you'll need. He doesn't say, if you do that, it'll make you feel really happy.

He actually says, from a soul level, if you can love God and love me and do the things that I've shown you to do and lend love other people, the joy in your life will be finished. It'll be complete. There's nothing else from the outside that can ever steal that from you. It is a complete joy. And so when you see people that have this overflowing joy in their life, well, the joy actually comes from a different source and it shows, and that different source is from the love of Jesus.

And I, as I reflected more on this conversation that Jesus was having at this last dinner, I recognized that ultimately Jesus knew he was about to go and be killed. In front of the eyes of his disciples and he's telling to them, don't worry guys, you can have complete joy when they're about to witness.

Probably the most horrific thing they've ever seen. The man they gave up their life for, that they've followed for years, that they've sat under, that has said, I love you guys so much, so much that I'm not even your master anymore. Even though I was your rabbi. I'm not gonna be your master anymore. You are my friends, but you are gonna see me be tortured and killed.

And he is saying, but you can have joy. Isn't that quite phenomenal? I feel like he was almost prepping them to say, I'm gonna ultimately show you a demonstration of what a fully surrendered life looks like, and you can be happy, even though it's gonna be difficult to watch. Because what Jesus was telling us is joy isn't the absence of problems, but it's the presence of him.

Yeah. And so that's where happiness and joy changes. It's not the absence of problems, but it's a presence of him in your life and it will change you. A complete joy will change you. It'll change where you choose to draw from, from the rest of everything else in your life. All these things shall be added to you because Joy is the center.

And Solomon, he was one of the wisest skies ever. He wrote about this in Proverbs 1722. He wrote this lovely little bit of scripture and really this little verse. It paints the picture of the contrast between the two. So it says this in Proverbs 1722. A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit SAPs a person's strength.

So in the first part, this is the first, first section, a cheerful heart. This is joy. Joy is good medicine. Medicine is preventive medicine heals joy in your life is gonna prevent you from different things from your life. It's gonna heal you from different things in your life. A cheerful heart will do that.

But what about the broken spirit? Well, it's gonna sap your strength. If you are drawing from this brokenness in your life, you are going to be weakened. It's going to destroy the parts that you are being called to give out because you won't have the energy to do it because you're, you've got this brokenness in your spirit, and so you can see now from this scripture, I can see why joy gets targeted in our world.

If joy can get targeted, you've got people living from a broken spirit who have no strength. And Jesus said, I want you to go into the world. I want you to tell people there's a way out from the darkness of things that are happening, that God loves them, that I love them, that you are gonna show them that you love them.

But ah, I'm not feeling good. I don't wanna do that today. I don't feel great. Who just missed out on hearing something, and it's not a judgment. I'm not judging people. I'm in the same boat. This is for me too, but can you see why joy is so important and why it may be something that's getting attacked For a lot of us, it's slowing down that opportunity.

I brought a few props today. For you to have a little bit of a look at. So we've got our two different kinds of spaces where we can come from. First of all, joy as the center of our life or maybe that brokenness of spirit, the unrest. And I want you to think about what, which one of these are you serving up to people in your world?

Are you serving up a life that sort of looks like it's drawing from the joy of a really great source of Jesus? Or is it more so coming from a place of unrest? It's got my little plate over here. I don't wanna drop it. Oh. Oh, okay. What are we serving up? Well, let's have a look at Joy. First of all.

A few different things. First of all, when we have humor, his humor over here, if I've got joy as the middle of my life, there's things in my life, I'm just gonna put that down. There's sort, drop it. There's things in my life. The little inconveniences in life are probably gonna be annoying. But they're not gonna take me out.

They might be a bit funny. Um, here's a little one today. I, I was trying to look like I'm serving something up, so I was like, black and whites and William said to me, that's an interesting new shirt today, mom. Um, you look like someone from the olden days that's trying to learn how to be a chef. That's exactly what I was going for, mate.

Thanks. Um, humor. Humor. Okay. What about relationships? In our relationships, well, a lot of the time our relationships are gonna be unified because we don't allow little things to knock it out of place. We, we draw from Jesus and we say, oh, I'm gonna have grace for that person today. My relationships are gonna probably a little bit stronger.

There's connection, there's community. Well, what about worship? Oh, worship becomes a really big one in my life. I have so much gratitude, and this is where I feel like God's been really whispering already today. I have so much gratitude in my life for even if the only thing in my life was ever that Jesus came and died for me to be able to have a chance to know him.

How excited should I be for that? Anything else is a bonus. So the worship of my life becomes something that I'm just so thankful of being able to give out to every other person around me. Then wisdom, when I'm drawing from a place of joy in my life, a wisdom I'm actually having measured decisions, I'm thinking about.

Okay. There's unfortunate things happening in my life. I can use a measured approach to decide what I'm gonna do next because I know whatever's gonna happen. God's got it. Joy. Then what about unrest? Then? Let's have a look. Gonna do these ones separately. Let's have a peek. What have I got? Oh, humor. It's a bit clouded.

Something happens in my life and I'm super annoyed about it. I'm not Everything that is a small inconvenience is the worst thing in the world. That's not funny, guys. Like, you cut me off in the traffic. I'm gonna chase you down. Now we've got a lot of traffic stuff lately, haven't we? Um, that's true. Humor.

Okay, next one. I'm not, I'm not relating this to people that I know. Um, relationships. Oh, does that serve me? Does that relationship serve me? Oh, that person said that. I, that's it. I'm, I'm just cutting you outta my life. I don't have time for you. Clouded view. It's all about what I can get out of it. Let's have a look at worship, worship.

Are you serious? I don't even like that song. That's loud person played the wrong note. The lighting wasn't right, the temperature was slightly off. Another tick of my thing I've gotta do this week is read my Bible. Thanks. Thanks God. Do you not know that I'm busy. Tongue in cheek. Last one. Wisdom. When you are coming from a place of unrest, wisdom is reactive.

Something happens to me, oh, I've gotta figure out a re resolution. Oh geez. Why has that happened? Why all sudden have I had all these different things that have gone wrong? Well, maybe when you choose chose your wisdom, you were not finding it from the correct source. Can we see what's going on here? I think we can Thank you.

Plastic bottles. And thanks, Ruth. Who asked me as I walked in today. Oh, do you have some recycling megs that needs to go? I was like, no, it's part of my message. Don't, don't take it yet. At the end.

I always think about the environment. I love it, but which one are you? And this isn't a judgment from me today, but if you, between you and God, what are you serving up to your world at the moment outta these? Honestly, well, I'm gonna be honest. Some days on this, I'm, I'm the dirty bottle. Cool. Some days I'm like, yeah, killing it today, crystal clear.

But where are you today? Where are you now? And it's challenging to think about. And if you are just starting on a faith journey and you are trying to figure out more about God, and this is you, guess what? That's not surprising. It's probably one of the reasons why you've actually been brought here. And feel like you'll wanna explore because the unrest in your life has caused you to wanna do something about it.

If you, however, is someone that proclaims that you love God, you follow God, you accept that Jesus came for you, that he died for you, that he did all these amazing things in your life, and you don't feel like you're working from joy. It's not a judgment, but you've gotta start thinking about what's been trying to stop me from living in this space?

What is the thing that's trying to take me out? I need to think about that. Because ultimately, if you're living from unrest and things go bad in your life, that's you.

It's just joy, guys, complete joy. Your world has slipped upside down. Your life is ruined when you've got joy in your life. Yes, and your world's flipped upside down. Come on, come on, come on. Seriously though, we sang about it today under perfection, when my world is turned upside down, my life's not fallen apart because I have the joy of the Lord.

And what is the joy of the Lord? It is my strength. It holds everything together. My life doesn't look like this. And when I come to someone, I go, I love Jesus and my life looks like this. They're like, eh, I could give or take Jesus based on what you're showing me. But if you're like, I love Jesus in my life.

He's done so much in my life. This I've, you know, I've just got a diagnosis. That's really terrible. Well, how are you still doing this? 'cause, 'cause I've got God, can we see the difference of what happens? Like this is just a cheesy way of showing you, but sometimes you need to see it in your mind visually to be able to understand what does this mean for my life and where I'm going from here.

Because the joy of the Lord is my strength, but the joy of the Lord is also my choice. And this is, you touched on this last week, Phil, which is great. The joy of the Lord is my choice. It is an active decision to rewire the source of my life. It takes work. It's hard. Sometimes it takes renewing of your mind, which we spoke about just today.

It takes changing of habits. It takes maybe the breaking of generational curses for years and years from your family, but you're like, I'm gonna do it because not. On my own effort, but because I've got Jesus and God's strength to help me do it, and I'm gonna change the course for my family, I'm gonna change the course for the people in my world because our joy comes from a different source.

And it shows when things start to go wrong in your life. And I just wanna take a few moments though, to preface on this. We have people everywhere that are battling with mental health issues. And we don't ever want to downplay the fact that your mental health issue that you can't cope with is because you don't have enough joy in your life.

There is some people that this is a real space for you. That is hard. And to be honest, you probably have got an enemy that is trying to make sure that you are getting held down by that. And we are here to say that even in the midst of that. It's gonna be extra hard for you to renew your mind. It could be days where it's really difficult and you don't want to get out of bed.

However, there will still be moments where you can have joy in that process. The joy of knowing I can go to a counselor. How fortunate am I? The joy of knowing. I have a community around here that when I need to do something and my hands can't stay up myself to praise God, they're gonna get beside me.

They're gonna help lift my head and lift my hands on the days when I can't do it on my own. The joy of knowing maybe my body has a chemical issue, that I'm so fortunate. I live in a time where there is medicines and there are things to help. There can still be joy in the midst of even the hardest things in life.

And it's not gonna look the same for everybody to cultivate it. But I believe that God is calling us to cultivate joy for the sole purpose of, you need to stand out and be unusual in this area so people can see this is the uniquely better way to live with Jesus in your life. And I'm just gonna. Preface in there if you are struggling with mental health, we have an awesome friend.

One of my great friends, Dave Quack, he was just here this week, but he has committed parts of his life to going around this whole era of how do I find joy in mental health. He's battling his own mental health. He has podcasts, and I listened to his one from last week. It's. Excellent. He also has courses that help you learn how to cultivate the joy when you are dealing with bipolar, when you're dealing with depression, anxiety that is clinically diagnosed, it is an amazing resource and God is using people to help you.

So keep those things in mind, but wherever you are today, whether you're on the floor broken, or whether you are standing strong, God is calling you to go deeper again. To cultivate the joy in your life even deeper. Hello? God, yes. We are gonna go deeper. Thank you. Um, bad timing. Come back at the end. Where am I singing please?

But ultimately.

The best way that you are gonna cultivate this life of joy in your life is to increase your time with Jesus and then go and love on some people. Learn more about who he is. Be with him in your times together, and then do like he did, and you will have complete joy in your life. And it might be practical things like you might.

Start to make room for him in your every day when you hadn't before. See where he leads you for the day. You might just need to have a good laugh, a good belly laugh. Remember something, watch a watch, a silly television show that just makes me, oh, laughter came from God. Jesus funny guy. Read lots of stuff and I'm like, oh, classic Jesus.

His dry sense of humor, joy comes from him. Maybe you are being called to serve in kids ministry 'cause like come and have a little bit of a feel of the joy of the kids. Again, remember when you were a child, maybe you need to be around someone and remember what it's like to have that joy, that childlike joy.

There are so many ways in which you can cultivate a sense of joy in your life, but again, it'll come down to the connection of who you have with you in your life. Humor. Your relationships and connections, your worship, your wisdom, your joy. They aren't just side effects of a life of Jesus. They're signs of his presence with you, and it's easy to blend into this world, but it's time for us to say, I'm gonna surrender that to you, God, what needs to change in me?

So that I can love the way in which you want me to, what needs to change in me. And just as we're finishing up today, I wanted to share a little bit of a story that's happened to me in the last couple of weeks. And I found like I am a joyful person, but I found there was days when I was going to work and I was just not feeling happy about it.

When I was going to my school job, I've had some tough kids, a few chairs thrown at me lately, kids swearing in my faces and there's days where you're like, yeah, this is awesome. I love my life when you get some stuff like that. And so I found myself going to school some days and just be like, oh. I gotta deal with that kid again today.

And I recognized it. And when I was at school, everything was reactive. The slightest little things I'd like, oh, let's stay calm. And God challenged me like, max, is that really how you are? I'm like, yeah. The moment is, oh. Okay. And it was, and I, I felt challenged to go, you know what? I need to do a little bit more groundwork before I head in each day.

So I decided I'm gonna start listening to worship music before I go to work in the morning. I'm gonna put worship music on in my, my room before the day starts. I'm gonna ask God. And I was in the mornings, I'm like, God, I don't know what's gonna happen to me either I'll get a throw chair thrown to me or whatever.

But I just wanna pray that you're gonna give me joy about it. Then I'm gonna just be a light in the midst of even the stuff that's really yucky out there. And so I prayed this. And, um, I headed into work one day after I'd just done that and I was feeling good. And of course, uh, I had some stuff go on and I was like, actually, I, I'm feeling okay.

And I was walking through the lunch area and there was a relief teacher that had come and she looked lost. Never seen her before. We had relief teachers that come regularly, but I hadn't seen her before. And I looked at her and I was like, that lady's lost. I'm gonna go and see if she needs some help. I'm like, oh, do you need some help?

You need to find where to go. And she had the wrong timetable. I'm like, oh, they've given you the wrong timetable. You're in the wrong place. I said, why don't you come back to my room? I'll print out the new timetable. I'll get you all set, set up and ready to go. And she's like, oh, thanks. So I brought her back to my room and I'm thinking if I hadn't have, you know, prepped myself earlier, I probably wouldn't have stopped for that woman.

I'd be like, oh, thank goodness it's lunchtime, honestly. So this lady comes into my room and I spend 20 minutes with her and I'm like, well, I've gotta go. Um, you can make yourself comfortable here. I'll come back a little bit later. And I just happened to be doing some planning and I went headed up to the library and I start typing on my computer like that.

Um, and God said, you need to go pray with that lady. I was like, what? I've never seen this woman before. I don't even know who she is. She's not part of my school staff. You must be raw. You need to go play with that lady. Ah. She was like, all right, I'm gonna go back down. And when I went down, she was busy.

I'm like, oh, she's busy. I'll just check it in. Are you okay? She's like, yeah, I'm all good. All right. All right. See you later. Yes, she was busy.

Go back there now and pray for that lady. I heard it third time. I was like, okay. There's a reason. So I went down, I felt very awkward. 'cause I dunno, this woman and I just walked in, I'm like, hi, I'm popping in again. Probably seems weird, but, um, I don't know how this lands with you, but I'm a person of faith and God's just told me to come and pray with you.

And so I'm guessing that there's probably something that I should pray for you with. Um, and am I able to do that? And she started bursting into tears. And she said, my husband's been diagnosed with cancer and he just had his first treatment yesterday, and I've just been all day just grieving over the fact that he's not him today.

He's not him, he's not my husband because he's just gone through treatment and he just, he's just different today. And I was trying to figure out how to deal with my emotions. And I was like, oh, imagine if I hadn't gone back and prayed, right? I said, well, can I pray for you now? And I said, I don't have to touch you, but if you want me, I can hold your hands or I can touch your shoulder.

I can just stand here. And she's like, I'd love if you'd hold my hands. So there's me some random lady don't even know her name, to be honest. Standing in my state school music room, holding hands while I pray for her husband. And she said to me at the end, thank you so much. I knew there was something different about you from the moment I saw you, I knew there was something different and I went back to my computer and said, I'm so sorry, God, that I almost doubted what you were calling me to do.

But that's a great example really, that I felt. If I had not have cultivated joy that morning, I would not have been in a space to be able to then go and love on this woman. And you know what? I haven't seen her again. I haven't seen her back at my school as a teacher. It was the one time, and God used me in that moment to let her know, I see what you're going through and I've got people that are gonna help you.

How cool is that? Right? Cultivating joy. And so for us. As we finish up today, we're gonna sing in just a moment, but it's time for us to stop and assess as we've been doing this whole series. The whole thing's about we are being called to action, to change the source of where we draw everything from, so that we can head into our world and love people the way in which Jesus tells us to.

We are being called to be people of unusual character, of loving extravagantly. Trusting in unwavering ways, and of course having a joy that overflows to other people and is contagious. And imagine if Jesus' Church, all those people that claim they love Jesus and wanna follow his ways, consistently had this on display serving up to their world.

Every day,

friendships become deeper. Worship becomes a lifestyle. The wisdom is like, what? How did you decide that? Well, wasn't me? People will be drawn to it, and that is the irresistible church that God always intended for his people to be. But people see it and go, that's, that's what I'm missing in my life. And it starts.

With us. That's what revival is. Revival is when we get off our butts and do something about changing and assessing and going, I'm gonna learn and I'm gonna grow and I'm gonna see what you can do with this. People go, gosh, those people are peculiar, and I like it. Yeah, not LA people are weird and judgy.

It's different. And so today we're gonna sing this song Gratitude. And I've, I've asked the Ben this morning, we're like, we're gonna do this reflection time now and the song Gratitude, but then we are gonna have some praise. We're just gonna be doing praise. High praise for the end of the morning. 'cause I think it's time for us to start to cultivate this joy in our spirits.

Are you ready to cultivate joy fresh in your life? Are you ready to say, God, I know that's been stolen from me for a little bit, but I'm not gonna allow that anymore. I'm gonna allow your spirit to fill me fresh. I'm gonna be excited about what things that have come. I'm gonna give the joy of you to other people in my world.

I'm not gonna sit back and allow things to happen to me and knock me down. I'm gonna just. Stand firm. That is what God is calling us to do. And so as we sing this here this morning, think about it for yourself. What has maybe been taken from you? And ask His Holy Spirit to fill you. Raise your hands. In this song, it says, come on my soul.

Don't you get shy on me. Lift up your song 'cause you've got a lion inside of those lungs. That's the lion of Juah. That's Jesus. I've got the lion of Judah inside of my lungs. And what am I gonna do with it? I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna praise the Lord. And so today, as we do this, speak to him openly. I believe that his Holy Spirit is gonna fill afresh here today if you want it.

That's the thing. Offer it. Say, God, I've been so full of unrest. I hand it to you, holy Spirit, fill me fresh with your joy. I want more joy, God, so I can give it to other people. Where are you at? I don't know. It's between you and God. I'm not gonna be watching you. It's your time. But we are gonna sing, we are gonna celebrate.

We're gonna fix our eyes on Jesus, a perfect sacrifice. And we're gonna say, joy is my choice. Joy is my strength. Joy is a thing that fuels my life, and I'm gonna take that to wherever you are asking me to go, God. So let's pray and then we're gonna sing together. Father, we just thank you that your son Jesus went to the cross for us so we can have a connection and a way to you.

And we just praise you today, God, for no other reason than you have given us the salvation that you love us where we are. And you say, come on. Follow me. I've got more for you. And so Father, just now as we sing and we worship Holy Spirit, I just pray that you're gonna fall heavily upon those that are ready to receive you today, that we'll get a French fresh, not a French one, but a fresh sense of Your love.

Of your peace of your joy here today as we get up and we praise your holy name. Amen.