← Church of the Highlands - Sunday Messages - Audio
Church of the Highlands - Sunday Messages - Audio
Real Joy Begins With...
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Part 4 of Soul Good Summer
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Sam. Well, what a great day to be in church. Everybody who's glad to be in church, Anybody glad to be here today? Oh, yeah, me too. And I want to take just a moment. I'd love to welcome all of our campuses that have joined us across Alabama and Georgia. Also want to say hello to everybody that's joining us online right now, wherever you're watching from. Thank you for being with us. And then also, as always, our Alabama and Georgia Department of Corrections. We, we are so grateful that all of you are with us. Grant Smill, why don't we say hello to everybody on the other side of the camera? Aren't we glad they're here? We're glad you're all together and we are in a super exciting season as a church. In fact, I want to take just a moment and thank Ava for sharing her story from the Tuscaloosa campus, her Serve day story. Can we honor her? I know she's not in the room right here, but shout out. Ava, thank you for sharing your story and how God is moving and we could not be more excited about serve Day that's coming up on July 11th. One thing that is really, really cool that I wanna make sure everybody is aware of and that is that our serve app has now fully integrated with our Church of the Highlands app. And so if you haven't gotten the Highlands app, now is the best time to grab it so you'll be ready for serve day. But with that, I do wanna make sure that everybody knows how to navigate it, how to access what you need as you look to participate in all that God is gonna do on serve day. So we got a couple of screen grabs. The first one, this is the homepage of the app and so you'll notice the serve day banner there. All you have to do is touch the serve day banner and then it's gonna take you to a screen that looks like this. You'll notice at the top of that screen there are two options. The right side says lead a project. The left side says serve a project. So if you're leading a project or a serve opportunity and you haven't entered that information in yet, really simple. All you have to do is click that button. It'll take you where you can put all of your information in about your serve project. That way you people from the church, when they start looking, will be able to find it. There is still plenty of time to get you and your small groups group your projects registered. So jump on and take care of that. But the other side, you'll See, it says serve a project. When you click that, this is a cool feature. It's actually gonna bring up a couple more screens where you can filter and they're gonna show it to you in just a second. There it is. Couple of screens where you can filter. So this is where you can, if you wanna know what opportunities are close to you, proximity, like maybe to your house, a specific location. If you want to know what campuses are doing what, you can search it by campus, even type of project or this one is really good kid friendly projects. I encourage you, if you have kids, bring them along for the ride on serve day. It is an amazing family opportunity. And that's where you can kind of find out which ones are conducive to kids or not or whatever. So great search features, all of that within the Highlands app. Take a look. Okay. And then just a couple weeks after serve day, we got motion student conference happening July 23rd through the 25th. And you don't want to miss it. Still plenty of time to get registered for that. But it is going to be the best one we have ever had. And so make sure you check that out as well. Okay. Today though, somebody say today. Today we are closing out our Soul Good summer series. And I hope you guys have enjoyed it as much as I have. I've loved every single week. It has been powerful, and I am so grateful to Pastor Mark for the opportunity to allow me to close out our series today. And so we're gonna jump in like we have every week with our key verse. So Psalm 23. But today we are going to read this out loud together. Okay? They're going to put it on the screen. Let's read it together. The Lord is my shepherd. Come on every campus I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters and he refreshes my soul. That has been the entire goal of this series. As we stepped into summer, we. We wanted God to do a deep work on the inside of us in our soul. And so if you have missed any of the first three weeks of this series, I want to encourage you go back and check them out. Week one, Pastor Mark kicked us off talking about real rest. Somebody say real rest. It was a great angle on it that we all need to be aware of. Go check it out. And then week two, we had Pastor Jamil who talked about real resilience. Somebody say real resilience. Phenomenal. And then week three, last week, Pastor Mark talked about real victory. Say real victory. Oh, now you got to say it with conviction. Real victory. That was last week and today I'm super excited to get to talk about something. Hey, we're going to have fun. We're going to have fun in church. You do realize we should have fun in church, right? We're going to have fun today because we get to talk about real joy. Come on, somebody say real joy. Real joy. And this is a big deal. It's a big deal. And you're gonna hear more about that in just a minute and understand why. But when I say joy, what comes to mind? Cause I have some thoughts. And I brought them in picture form. Cause I wanna see if you agree. Show them the first picture. Mm. Y' all hear that? Mm, yeah. Oh, yeah. Y' all are there. You're feeling it. You're feeling the joy that the picture brings from the beach in the evening. I love it. Show em the next one. This is a classroom. Now listen, some of y' all are thinking classrooms don't bring joy. I beg to differ. The empty ones do. Shout out to all the kids that are home for summer. Let's go. How about this one? I love this one. I love a great meal with great people. This is just a couple nights ago with some of our dear friends. We got to have a meal together. I absolutely love it. This next one, though. This one's universal. All right, hit it, guys. All right. We just had a couple guys try to run out with cash here at Grants Mill. Y' all gotta come back. It's not actually out there. Okay? Y' all can kill that. Hey, these things evoke what many of us would describe as joy, right? But I have a question. Is it really? So I want to launch into today's message with a verse. John, chapter 15. I want you to grab your Bible and you can turn there. If you don't have your Bible, you can check it out on the screen. But John, chapter 15, while you're turning there, let me give you a little bit of context. If you have a Bible that is a red letter edition of the Bible, all of the verses that we're gonna read in these next few moments are read because this is actually Jesus speaking, which is super cool. Anytime we get to learn from Jesus, what he says directly, I think is amazing. And so John 15:11 is where we're gonna start. And it says, this is. I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. Now the fact that Jesus says, so that your joy may be complete tells me there is such a thing as incomplete joy. In fact, I think Jesus is saying, my joy is, is actually different than your joy. So over the last couple of weeks, as I've been thinking about today and kind of preparing, I begin to think, how would we describe joy? How do we describe joy? One of the things that came to mind, I think a lot of times we would describe joy as being circumstantial. So, hey, if life is good, I got a lot of joy. If life's not going so good, not so much. Right? It depends on, on how life is going, our level of joy. Another one I thought about is that joy is about us. Like as long as I feel joyful, as long as I am happy, Me, me, me, me, me. It's almost a self focused deal. Or what about this joy? I think we would describe it as a feeling like I feel happy, so I have joy, I feel a certain way. Happiness is not joy. It is a component of joy, but it is not joy. Or how about this? Some of you might be here today. Joy is actually unattainable. Like, I don't know that I've actually ever really experienced joy. Or what about this one? I think sometimes we might describe joy as just simply being fake. Like I have people ask me all the time, are you really that joyful all the time? Like, do you smile all the time? Do you ever have a bad day? And I tell people all the time, I 100% have bad days. If you don't believe me, you can ask my wife and my kids, I have a bad day. But here's the deal. To put all of this in one word. I think that our joy is just incomplete because scripture says that there is complete joy that's available. So what if God has more for us than we are currently experiencing? Pray together. Lord Jesus, we love you today. Thank you for meeting us in this moment. I pray for every person as we sit here, as we open up your word and as we talk about joy, as we laugh, as we have fun in church, I pray God that you speak in a very deep way to every single person. Lord, we open up our hearts to no matter where we are. Whatever you want to do, we want to experience all that you have for us. So speak to us today. Come on, will you just ask him that in your own words? Lord, speak to us today. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. All right, I mentioned this earlier and there are a few things in life that I enjoy more than a great meal with great people. In fact, I love a big table, I love lots of seats. I love the availability for people to gather around a table. It is one of my favorite things. And I don't know about you and what your family dynamics are, but our kids, we have four kids, Lindsay and I, and they, their age ranges are 14 to 21. So for those of you that have younger kids who are still able to have your entire family around the table together frequently, please enjoy it while you can. Because once they get cars and once they get boyfriends and girlfriends and once they get jobs, that becomes a whole lot less regular around the house, if you know what I'm talking about. But when our whole crew gets together, we love being together and we love sitting around a table together. And one of the things we do most every time is we do what's called highs and lows. So we go around the table and each person shares their high of the day. What was something great that happened? And we celebrate that. Then they'll say something, what was the low of the day? And we encourage them through it, and that's a bummer, and we encourage each other. But we go around the table and everybody says highs and lows. It's a fun way to start table conversation. Some people, maybe you've done a version of that. I've also heard of highs, lows and buffaloes. Now what a buffalo is, is that's something that happened unexpected in your life that day. So that's just. Again, the idea is creating conversation around a table. Something you guys need to know about. Our lead pastor, Pastor Mark, he loves table conversation. If you ever find yourself at a meal with Pastor Mark, every time at some point in the meal, he's going to take out his phone and, and he has a list of table topic conversation starters. Some of them are silly, some of them are not very deep, and some of them are very deep. And those are the ones that I try to avoid with him at all costs. But all of them stir up conversation. I love conversation around a table. The cool thing about what we just read In John chapter 15 is this is what's happening in scripture. In fact, John 13 all the way to John 17 is a conversation at the table with Jesus and his disciples. It is in fact the Last Supper. And so what's interesting about this is some people call this the upper room discourse. What's interesting about this is the Last supper means, hey, Jesus knows he's sitting with these guys and he's got some things he wants to say. Hey guys, before I go, I wanna share some things with you. Now, sometimes in scripture we see Jesus on hillsides teaching to the multitudes. Sometimes in Scripture, we read stories of Jesus walking along and teaching. Stories and parables as he goes. We see him teaching in synagogues, but not in this moment. In this moment. And the reason we have the table here is. I want you to understand, this entire conversation happened around a table. This is a meal with friends. And so in 1511, he says, I have told you these things which made me ask, what things? So in order to find out, we gotta go back to the first part of John, chapter 15, and we're gonna start reading in verse one. So let's take a look, see what things he's talking about. John, chapter 15, verse 1. I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Verse 4. Remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit apart from me. You can do nothing if you do not remain in me. You are like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned. If. If you remain in me and my words remain in you. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. Verse 9. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and. And remain in his love. Now we're back to the verse that we started with. I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. What Jesus is doing in John chapter 15 is he is giving us a roadmap to real joy. You might have noticed this, but there is one word that is key to living in the real joy. That that God says is available to us. And that word is used 11 times in these verses. Do you know what it is? It's the word remain. What does it mean to remain? Let's define it. The word remain. Actually, the King James Version actually says the word abide. I love that word, abide. Another version says, to dwell another way to say it is to continue. And one of my favorite ways, another way to say it is to stay. So here's what I want to say to you. To experience complete joy, we have to remain. Remain in what? There's four things that I want us to unpack over the next few minutes that I think are really going to help you. The first thing is this. We have to remain in God's process. Everybody say process. Let's look back at chapter 15, verse 2, see what it says. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes it so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Goes on to say, remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. Remaining it is so important. Here's the deal, everybody. There are some things in our life that need to be trimmed off. Now, the process part of who God is and what God does, it might not always be the most fun part, but I will tell you this. God's process is always beneficial. In fact, Pastor Mark last week talked about the fact that we have weights on our life that need to be set to the side. We have sin that entangles us, that needs to be gone. There are things that need to be pruned and trimmed and taken off of our life so that we can experience the life that God has for us. Because a fact of the matter is what hasn't been pruned has been abandoned. If you don't believe that, just let the bushes at your house do their thing. I have a son and I thank God. I'm so grateful. Thank you, Lord, for my son. It is a great day when you can give the lawn mower and the weed eater and the clippers over to a child and be like, you do it now. It's a beautiful day. But a couple of weeks ago, literally, you couldn't see one side of our house because of the bushes. And I was like, son, I'm going to need you to go out there and prune the bushes. Because if you don't, we're going to get a letter from the HOA and we might not be able to find our house. What hasn't been pruned has been abandoned. And that's hard to say about our life, right? Because it's not always the most fun. In fact, I love this quote from C.S. lewis. What would really Satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happen to like doing, what does it matter? So long as they are contented, as long as they're happy, we want, in fact, not so much a father in heaven as a grandfather in heaven. Isn't that a great quote? It's like, hey, we would rather God just be like, hey, if you like it, if you're happy, man, just do your thing. No, that is not what God does. Because the goal of God's process is for us to become more like Jesus. To the more we become more like Jesus, the more of Jesus joy we can experience in our life. God's process and God's joy are linked together, okay? It's important. So for me personally, people say, how do you keep joy all the time? Like, how do you do that? What does that look like? There's three things that I lean into very regularly, okay? And I miss days just like you. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the word, but there are three things that I lean into. Number one is God's word. God's word is like a mirror. When I read God's word, I try to see myself, but then I try to see who God is calling me to be. And as I read his Word, it begins to prune and trim and shape. And I should do this, and I should not do this. God's word does a work. The second thing is prayer. And I think this is really important. I like to ask God frequently, show me something each day that I need to trim off of my life. Hey, I want to be the clay on the potter's wheel. Whatever God wants my life to look like, I want him to be the one that's in charge. But here's the key with that. Don't just use your prayer time for Time for you to talk to God. You gotta give him time to talk back to you. Cause that's where he'll say that stuff. When you ask him to show you things, he will. He is a faithful God. The third one, this one's super important, is people. God uses people to shape us and to mold us and to trim us and to prune us. You gotta have people in your life. But let me take it one step further. You gotta make sure you have the right people in your life. You need the right voices shaping and trimming and pruning your life. Make sure it is godly people who are also seeking to be like Jesus, they're not gonna be perfect. There is no one else perfect except for Jesus. But you need the people that are calling you higher. That's why the Bible says, as iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another. So here's a question. Who in your life have you given that ability to? And the even better question is this. This one's gonna step on our toes a little bit. When was the last time someone challenged you to change? That's a personal question. I know. Let's wrestle with that for a second. When was the last time something someone challenged. We allowed someone to challenge us. That's why small groups are so important. We are in the middle of summer, small groups, and people are having a blast. But let me tell you, the whole point of summer small groups and spring small groups and fall small groups. The whole point is to develop relationship to the point that somebody can get in your life and you can get in someone else's life, and you can begin to trim and shape and to prune one another. How God works. And it's beautiful. The process is not always the most fun, but it is always beneficial. Now, Pastor Mark, I love him dearly. We have been great friends for almost 29 years. He has the microphone most Sundays, and he likes to tell stories. He likes to tell stories about me. And so today, I thought that it would be super fun to say, who's got the microphone now? So I got a story. So we were on one of our infamous camping trips last year, okay. And Pastor Mark and his family. Our family, too, we love outdoorsy things. We love to hike. All the things we like being outdoors, obviously, camping. You have to love that. Pastor Mark wanted to do this particular hike, and he hyped it up, okay? Like, we gotta do this hike. It is one of the most incredible things. Now, I'm not. He is one of the most full of integrity, full of character men that I know. So I'm not saying this was his fault. Maybe we didn't ask enough or the right questions, but we get out on this hike, it ends up being 14 miles long. We ran out of water. I thought we were all gonna die. And the only happy person when we got done was Pastor Mark. But I want you to see what we saw. So I asked the guys to bring a picture, right? It is stunning. And here's what I realized in that moment. We love what the process produces, but we don't always love the process. But I'm going to tell you something. That process, though, it was very, very hard. It was worth it in the end because of what it produced. Listen to me. What God is doing in your life through the pruning, shaping process of whatever's going on in your life right now, it will be worth it on the other side. And you will look back and say a grand picture of your life. And you will say, God, thank you for what you did in my life in that season. For each of these points, I'm gonna give you one little prayer that you can pray each day. Every single day there's gonna be a scripture reference. I'm not gonna read that for the sake of time, but I am gonna give you this one little prayer to pray for each of these points. And if you'll pray these every day, God's gonna show up and meet you right where you are. The first prayer is simply this, Lord, search me, search me. Don't ask him though for something you don't want. Cause if you say God, search me, he's gonna do it. God's process is the first step in how we live in real. Second thing we gotta remain in is God's presence. Now this one seems kinda like a no brainer, right? Like of course you would say that, but that's why John 15:5 says, I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit, but apart from me, you can do nothing. It's a beautiful picture of the fact that the vine is what provides life. Listen, you gotta lock in right here. Anything disconnected from the vine will die. And so that's why our connection to him is so important. There was a man by the name of Brother Lawrence. He ended up living in a monastery, but he wrote a book called the Practice of the Presence of God. And it had a couple of premises in it that I want to share with you because it's powerful. Because really when we talk about the presence of God, it can seem almost like this thing, like, okay, but how do you do that? He talked about really drilling down. He called it two things. Everyday worship was one premise. And he said, I think that routine tasks can be done with God in mind. When I'm washing dishes, I can wash dishes with God in mind. When I'm walking the dog, I can do that with God in mind. When I'm out on a date night with my spouse, I can do that with God in mind. There's this everyday worship where I just recognize the moments. And then the second thing was having a habitual awareness. It's like these little pockets, these little moments of this quiet, ongoing, loving conversation. Pastor Mark several times over the last few weeks has talked about micro prayers. Hey, Before I go into this meeting, God be with me. Hey, before I step into this situation, God show up. So really, it's about remaining in God's presence. A beautiful way to say, I'd love for you to write it down is this. Don't just live for God, live with him. Oh, it's so much better when you just live with him. It's beautiful. So the little prayer we pray for, this one is, lord, show me. What does that mean? I want you to pray that God would show you the moments, the little pockets of time in your life where maybe to this point, you kind of. He goes unnoticed. But now, starting today, you're going to begin to recognize him in the little moments of life and let him do something great. Remain in his presence. The third one is this. We've got to remain in God's purpose. I love this one. Look at John 15. Again, the verses we read. If you remain in me. This is verse 7 and 8. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. I think a lot of times we go into summer thinking, what's in it for me? How is this summer? Is it going to be great? Am I going to have an awesome summer? What is in it for me? And I just don't think that that is exactly what's in God's heart. There was a guy a long time ago by the name of Abraham Maslow. He was an American psychologist, but he's known for being able. He defined what he called the hierarchy of needs of humanity. So basically, the premise was every human has this list of needs, and they're in a particular order. The lowest of those needs basically being all the basic things that we need. Air, water, food, shelter. The things that kind of just help us live. There's a list of things between the lowest and the highest. I'm not gonna go into that for time. But the highest thing he said that a human needs is what he called transcendence. And what it means is every human has the need, higher than anything else, to live beyond themself, which is fascinating. This is not a biblical stat. This is something that an American psychologist discovered, right? He's discovered what God has been saying forever. We have to live beyond ourself. When I think about this, one of the main people that come to my mind is an incredible lady here at Grants Mill by the name of Ms. Janet. Ms. Janet, shout out Ms. Janet, she's probably here right now. I'm convinced that she lives here. She's here more than I am, and I work here. Ms. Janet, I met her back in 2021 here at Grants Mill. I was walking down this aisle, and in that very back section, last row, end of the row, she was sitting right there. She stopped me on my way by and she said, can I. Excuse me. Can I ask you a question? And I said, well, of course. She said, my son told me about this church, and I did the growth track in 2020 online. And she said it was fine, but I would really love to do it in person. Is that something that I could go to again? And I said, of course you can. Ms. Janet. Like, actually, why don't you start today? Why don't you start the growth track today? Since then, y', all, she has jumped into the growth track. She started serving as a greeter. You'll see her on the door. She loves Highlands College students. Multiple nights a week, she has them over, cook some dinner. She serves in every capacity, every conference. Again, I think she has a bed here somewhere. That she kind of just lives at Grants Mill, but she's amazing. She also told me recently that she is one year into her two year program for hcli, Highlands College Leadership Institute. It's a program for adults that are wanting to grow in their relationship with Jesus and in ministry and leadership. And she's one year into that, which is so awesome. But you wanna know the coolest thing about Ms. Janet? She is 86 years old. Come on, y' all better clap your hands for Ms. Janet. 86. So for every one of y' all that's sitting in here thinking, oh, man, it is too late. I've waited too long. No, you hadn't. It is never too late. You can always find what God wants to do and live beyond yourself. Ms. Janet is a great example. Ava, in the story from Tuscaloosa that we saw, the Serve Day story, she found a way to. To live beyond herself. That's why Serve Day is not just something we're trying to fill up your calendar with. Serve Day is an opportunity for all of us to step outside of ourselves and live that transcendent life that God has for us. Cause that's where the joy is. Growth Track starts next week. Some of y' all been hearing me say that for years and years and years, and you hadn't done it. This is your moment. Step into that space. Because Growth Track is not just three, but three experiences. The Growth Track is something we want you on for life. I talk to Ms. Janet almost every Sunday, and every Sunday, she's growing. She's being stretched. God is working on her, and she's an amazing leader here at our campus. Here is the prayer. You could pray every day. Lord, use me. Use me. I want to be used by you. I want to be used by you. So it's so interesting, all these verses we've been reading, all the things we've talked about. We've talked about God's process. So important if we wanna experience real joy. God's process, God's presence is so important. God's purpose is so important. But then a turn happens in the story, and we're gonna jump back to verse nine and take a look at what it says. Verse nine says this. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. My command is this. Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this. To lay down one's life for one's friends. You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit. Fruit that will last. And so that whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give you. This is my command. Love each other. The fourth thing is we are called to remain in God's passion. What does that mean? It means there is a passion that God wants to put on the inside of us that only he can give. People ask me all the time, how are you so joyful? How much caffeine do you drink every day? The answer to that, by the way, is zero. I've been off caffeine for 10 years. But how do you have all that so personally? Here's what I do. I know. Wow, right? Here's what I do. Listen. I remind myself regularly that I am chosen and I'm appointed by God. I remind myself regularly that God has called me to make an impact on others. With my love and with my joy, God has called me. Hey, everybody, listen. I didn't call me God, did. I remind myself of that. I want to say it to you. You know what? You didn't call you. God did. And it's beautiful to give you a picture. Think of it like this. If your purpose that God has for you is a boat. Summertime, right? Boat. The passion is the fuel. There's so the boat you can see on the outside, but the fuel is on the inside. And there's something that God wants to do on the inside of us that fuels all the other things that we've been talking about. It's a fuel. The most joyful person I have ever known on this earth went to be with Jesus 10 years ago. That person is my dad. Our church has grown a lot in the last 10 years. So many of you don't even know much about my dad. Maybe I've never seen my dad or anything like that. But one thing you need to know is he was the most joyful person I've ever known. But he was also a pastor on our team for the last six years of his life right here at Highlands. In fact, the team has a picture. It's one of my favorite pictures of my dad. He was the Greystone campus pastor for the last two years of his life. And that picture sums up the way he lived. He lived a life full of God's joy. It was beautiful. And it's kind of crazy. He had a massive impact in our church. And I'm not exaggerating when I tell you this. For the last 10 years, almost every week, I have someone that I've never met before come up to me and say, hey, you don't know me, but I just need to tell you the impact that your dad had on my life. Not long ago, I was at Bass Pro Shops. Shout out, Bass Pro Shops. One of the employees walks up and he's like, man, you don't have any idea who I am, but I just have to tell you my marriage is still intact because of your dad. Can I tell you after 10 years, what that does to my heart? But can I also tell you how hard. How hard not having him is? Can I tell you that last week on Father's Day. So grateful for my heavenly Father. I miss my dad every single day. Every day. Now I have a big earthly void. So what I'm not trying to do is stand up here today and tell you that all of life is just happy and fun and there's never hard things. And I'm not trying to say that you're not going through hard stuff. Not having my dad on this planet is very hard. And I've asked God so many times why over the last 10 years, and I still don't really have an answer as to why. But I do understand something. I understand that my dad loved Jesus with all of his heart. I understand that he lived a life of joy like we're talking about today. I understand that my dad knew what it looked like to remain. And I also understand that I am going to see my dad again. And that the joy of Jesus was evident in every person that he came in contact with. That's. And I don't know if I've ever said anything that was so cool like, that people just wanted to write down because I made it up. You know what I'm saying? Like, all these famous people from the past, like, have all these one liners. My dad had so many one liners. And I just thought today it'd be so appropriate to share a couple of them with you. That impacted my life and impacted so many, by the way. My dad passed away from cancer. He died a year and a day from when he was diagnosed. 366 days. And the day he was diagnosed, he pulled our whole family together in the living room. And this first one is just such a beautiful testament. I want you to see it. Because he said there's always two rooms we can go in, and the doors are open to both. One is filled with pain and sorrow. The other is filled with joy. But for us, we're gonna choose the door that holds joy. I'm gonna tell you, I don't know what you're going through today. I know it's not easy. I know life is hard. I know there are things that really stink about what we go through. But the fact of the matter is there are two doors always open, and we get to choose. And God's joy is the one that allows us to step into the right room. And my dad said we're gonna be tempted to go into that other room, but in those moments, we have to hold each other accountable and pull each other out of that room and get us back in the right room. The room that holds joy. And the joy that I'm talking about is not a Keith Lindsay joy or just a Blake Lindsay joy. This is Jesus joy, and it's available to you. Complete joy. Another one of his one liners I love so much. He lived it so beautifully. Is this. I want to be so full of Jesus that he sloshes out on those around me. And I want you to get that picture of someone whose life is so full. You know, in the Bible, when we first started reading today, we talked about complete joy. That's what that word literally means when it's translated. Complete, full, overflowing. What if our life looked like when we walked into the grocery store, we were just so full of Jesus that what spilled out of us was the goodness and the joy of God? What spilled out of us was who he is. What if that was happening everywhere we went, that he just sloshed out on every person? It's how my dad lived. But you know what tells me that it's possible and it's available to every single one of us. So here's the prayer. Lord, fill me, fill me. I want to be full, complete. Here's the final thought I want you to write down and simply, this sums up the message. Real joy, complete joy, full overflowing joy. Real joy begins with his joy. Jesus's joy. Pastor Mark last week, it's so cool how God works. He kind of ended his message with this verse towards the end of his message in Hebrews chapter 12. Look at this verse. This is Jesus for the joy set before Him. He endured the cross. The word joy In Hebrews chapter 12, when translated is the exact same word joy that we read in John 15. And it literally means a joy that is fueled by others. So let me say it this way. You. You know what? You know what the joy was that put held Jesus on the cross? It was you and me. So you were the joy for him. What he's saying is, if you want real joy, I need for that to be a joy through you for others. It's beautiful. And as we step towards serve, day and motion and all the things that are coming, what a great time to live out the joy only Jesus can give. Real joy begins with his joy. Will you bow your heads and close your eyes right there where you are, no one looking around. Please, everyone stay still and quiet at every location. I'd love to invite all of our campus pastors to come onto their stage. Getting ready to give you an opportunity to respond. Because here's the thing. Many of you are sitting here today, wherever you are, and you're thinking, I don't have his joy. And I want to say it very boldly today, you can't have his joy until you have Him. So this is a moment where I would just ask you the question, has there been a moment in your life where you gave control of your life to Jesus, you received forgiveness, sin, and you allow him to be the one who is in control, surrendering your heart to Jesus. This is a moment. Maybe you did it a long time ago, but you don't feel close right now. And this is a moment for you to come back to Him. Heads are bowed, eyes are closed. On the count of three, if you want to take that step, if you want to know Jesus like this, if you want that kind of joy in your life, the only. The kind of joy that only he can give, I want to lead you in a simple prayer. On the count of three, I Want you to raise your hand if you want to be included. 1, 2, 3. Just slip it up, put it right back down. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. That's awesome. Praise God, man. Yeah. Come on. Anybody else, just hand up. Right back down. Blake, count me in. Yeah. All right. I'm gonna lead you in a very simple prayer. Whether you raise your hand or not, if you need to pray this prayer. You want to go all in with Jesus today and have the joy he wants you to have, Simply just whisper these words to him. Say, jesus, today I give you my life. I want you to be in control. I ask you to forgive me of my sin, make me brand new, transform my life, Be my Lord and my savior, Jesus. I believe that you gave your life on the cross to pay for my sin, but you rose three days later, and now you live in me. And from this moment forward, my life is never going to be the same, and I'm never going to look back. Come on, say this to him. Thank you, Jesus, for changing my life. In your name, I pray. Father, I pray for every person that just prayed that prayer. I bless them and I thank you for that relationship. Thank you. That their life truly begins today and we celebrate that now. I want to pray through the four points in the message. If there was one, two, or maybe all four of these points, that kind of hit home for you. Nobody's looking around. I want you to open your hands right there in your lap just so that you can receive what God has for you. Lord, I pray for the ones who need to remain in the process. They're fighting something hard right now or something seems difficult right now. God, I pray you would meet them there, strengthen them, encourage them, and remind them that the process may not always be easy, but it is always beneficial with you and you are a good and faithful God. Remind them today I pray, Lord, I pray for the person who needs to experience your tangible presence. Lord, I pray that you would make yourself so known in the coming days and weeks and months and years ahead. They would remain in your presence in little moments of life, Lord, for the one who needs to remain in purpose. They've been questioning, what am I supposed to do? Or how am I supposed to impact the kingdom? God, I pray you give them clarity and confidence to live out what you have put on their life, Lord, for the one who feels low on fuel to remain in passion, Lord, that you would fuel their life, God, remind them of the why, that you were on the cross for them and that that same love that they had, that Jesus had for us could be poured into the lives of others. God, stir it up. I pray. And Lord, we make a commitment that starting starting today, we're going to live with real joy. With your joy. In Jesus name we pray. And everybody that agreed said amen. Now I want you with a big smile on your face, to clap your hands and let's celebrate with joy every person that just made a decision to follow Jesus today.