SPEAKER_01: Joy is this.
SPEAKER_01: Joy is the look on someone's face when they're happy to see you.
SPEAKER_01: Joy is primarily communicated through the face and secondarily through your tone of voice.
SPEAKER_01: You'd be surprised how much I have to work on this around my family and my kids.
SPEAKER_01: I want my home to be a loving, joyful place, and sometimes I realize that is the last thing I am communicating.
SPEAKER_01: Because I have not spent enough time abiding in love and allowing God's joy to be complete in me so that it can overflow to other people.
SPEAKER_01: Joy is relational, it does not exist outside of relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Joy is important to God and us.
SPEAKER_01: He designed our brains to run at the speed of joy.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture verses, if you would like them.
SPEAKER_01: May God be gracious to you and bless you, and cause his face to shine mightily upon you.
SPEAKER_01: His face-to-face.
SPEAKER_01: I am happy to be with you, and you are happy to be with me.
SPEAKER_02: This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parquet Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_02: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit our website at grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: I want to confess all the ways this week that we've abided in fear and anxiety and guilt and shame and not enoughness and insecurity and abdicated some of our responsibilities.
SPEAKER_01: So this morning we come again, fresh and new, as your bride, saying your name, that you make dead things come alive.
SPEAKER_01: So where our joy's been killed, would you resurrect it?
SPEAKER_01: Where our love has died on the vine, would you bring it back to life?
SPEAKER_01: And would you, with the power of your Holy Spirit, sit with us, enjoy us, and motivate us and animate us to abundant life.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And all God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_01: Well, good morning, church.
SPEAKER_01: It's good to be back with you guys.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for being a warm, welcoming presence in my life.
SPEAKER_01: My family's praying for you.
SPEAKER_01: If I sound a little bit funny, I just got over the crud this week, and right before I got on the plane to come here, my wife went down for the count.
SPEAKER_01: But she is praying for us, my kids are praying for us, and I talked to my mom in the airport, and she's praying for you.
SPEAKER_01: So expect revival this morning if Joyce Brooks is praying for you, because here's the evidence that it works.
SPEAKER_01: You guys have been journeying through the book of Matthew.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and man, you guys are hitting some hard stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I want to remind you when you started uh a few weeks back that the purpose of Matthew was written one, so that you could tell the story of Jesus, two, apologetic and evangelistic, three, was to experience the reality of kingdom, and four was to teach the truth of Christianity and its ethical implications.
SPEAKER_01: And you guys have been running full onto that, right?
SPEAKER_01: You just guys just got done talking about Jesus going, you've heard it said, but I say, right?
SPEAKER_01: He's got not going over murder, he's going after anger, he's not just going after adultery, he's going after lust.
SPEAKER_01: And what I want to do this morning, when you guys jump back in next week, I want to make sure I increase your capacity and your desire to abide in love and joy so that you can live out the ethical implications of the kingdom of God in your closest relationships.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm going to submit to you a statement that we'll get to towards the end, that your spiritual maturity is directly tied to your relational maturity.
SPEAKER_01: Turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 15, uh, we'll be in 5 through 11.
SPEAKER_01: John chapter 15, 5 through 11.
SPEAKER_01: While you're turning there, let me say a prayer over the reading of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit, would you give us eyes to see and ears to hear?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, would you go before us in this text and make a way?
SPEAKER_01: And together we say the words that ravage your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Speak, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Your servants are listening.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: John 15, starting verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: I am the vine, you are the branches.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.
SPEAKER_01: For apart from me you can do nothing.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned.
SPEAKER_01: If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
SPEAKER_01: By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.
SPEAKER_01: As the Father has loved me, so I loved you.
SPEAKER_01: Abide in my love.
SPEAKER_01: If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.
SPEAKER_01: Just as I have kept the Father's commandments and abide in his love.
SPEAKER_01: These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
SPEAKER_01: I'll say the word of the Lord if you'll say thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_01: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: There's some pretty important words in there that I just want us to marinate in, right?
SPEAKER_01: Abide in love, joy full.
SPEAKER_01: That iambic pantameter of a relationship in rhythm with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I think words are important.
SPEAKER_01: I think words kind of create worlds.
SPEAKER_01: And then when I look out inside the world, I want to see the words that are shaping our perspective in culture.
SPEAKER_01: Did you guys know that every year the Oxford English Dictionary adds a word to its vocabulary or to the English language?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: I picture like snooty British people in tweeds smoking pipes and going, hmm, let's put this word in the Queen's English.
SPEAKER_01: But every year they they vote and they look at a word that's risen in popularity and they add it to our vernacular.
SPEAKER_01: In 2025 of this year, they voted for a word that they saw a 230% increase in usage.
SPEAKER_01: Would you like to know what it is?
SPEAKER_01: Drumroll, please.
SPEAKER_01: Brain rot.
SPEAKER_01: Hello, students.
SPEAKER_01: Just for those of you who are unfamiliar like I am, brain rot, this is their definition, is the worry that consuming the internet's endless waves of means and video clips, especially on social media, might be causing brain damage.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it is.
SPEAKER_01: And I quote, I uh by the way, I don't understand half the things I'm saying, just so we're clear.
SPEAKER_01: Social media is low-key draining our vibes, turning us into joyless, basic Christians who can't grow or get on the same page.
SPEAKER_01: It's like we're stuck in a loop of endless scrolling, losing our spark and depth.
SPEAKER_01: So, it literally spelled out, so like everything, your phone, your thoughts, your vibe is either straight up shaping you or straight up wrecking you spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: Skibbity toilet 67, you're welcome.
SPEAKER_01: Any other things?
SPEAKER_01: I don't.
SPEAKER_01: For those of you who were like me who have no idea what that meant, let me summarize it for you.
SPEAKER_01: Everything in your life right now is either spiritually forming you or deforming you.
SPEAKER_01: Every relationship, your relationship to your phone, your finances, your spouse, your children, your coworkers, your finances, yourself, is either making you more like Christ, or in the words of John, more like Antichrist.
SPEAKER_01: So we want to figure out how we can be the kind of people who know, enjoy, and glorify God and step into a culture that's creating thoughtless, brainless, courageous Christians, and actually be people of consequence and consideration about how we reflect the love and the joy that's available to us through Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So, good news this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Whether you got brain rot, whether you got character rot, whether you got relationship rot, whether you got financial rot, or whether you straight up just got rotten fruit of the Spirit in your life, I believe this.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel still has the power to transform.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit still has the power to transcend.
SPEAKER_01: And when the church of God gets together underneath the word of God as the people of God, we can still be transformed from one degree of glory to the next, bearing the image of Christ in a lost and broken world, setting down the kingdom in such a way that people go, ooh, I'd like some more of that, please.
SPEAKER_01: So I just want to walk through that.
SPEAKER_01: Abide in love, joyful.
SPEAKER_01: In uh Greek, it sounds like this Mano agape, hurrah pleureu.
SPEAKER_01: The reason I do that, one, is because I spend a ridiculous amount of time studying those languages.
SPEAKER_01: And through two, it feels kind of like a praying in tongues starter kit whenever I speak in Greek and Hebrew.
SPEAKER_01: That makes my heart happy.
SPEAKER_01: So Mano agape, hurrah pleureu for all you charismatics.
SPEAKER_01: And there is an interpretation.
SPEAKER_01: It means abide in love, joyful.
SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, abide, it simply means remain, dwell, continue to be present, to be held, to be kept, to make your home.
SPEAKER_01: Abide in my love, and you will produce much fruit.
SPEAKER_01: Apart from me, you can do.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus not only gave us a promise, he gave us a practice to abide in his love.
SPEAKER_01: Now, people have called this abiding, lots of different things throughout the centuries, right?
SPEAKER_01: I would say the Apostle Paul calls it praying without ceasing.
SPEAKER_01: Saint John of the Cross called it silent love.
SPEAKER_01: The Quakers call it centering down.
SPEAKER_01: A.
SPEAKER_01: W.
SPEAKER_01: Tozer would call it a habitual, conscious communion.
SPEAKER_01: Dallas Willard would call it simply the with God life, abiding in his love.
SPEAKER_01: Here's another quote from Willard.
SPEAKER_01: The first and most basic thing we can and must do is keep God before our minds.
SPEAKER_01: This is the fundamental secret of caring for our souls.
SPEAKER_01: Our part in this practicing the presence of God is to direct and redirect our minds constantly to Him.
SPEAKER_01: Mano, remain in my love.
SPEAKER_01: Constantly come back.
SPEAKER_01: Invite me in on the conversation.
SPEAKER_01: Make your home at my love.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I flew in last night, and your church pushes me up at the courtyard, and it's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I gotta be honest with you, that bed's nicer than my bed at home.
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever just walk into a hotel and you're like, oh, thank you, Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Sheets are clean, someone's made it, the thread count's probably like in the 9,000s.
SPEAKER_01: You get on this mattress and you're like, what is that?
SPEAKER_01: And there's just all these feathered pillows, and I laid down and just said, Thank you, Lord, for this bed.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what I realized: it doesn't matter how nice the bed is or how good the hotel is, eventually I want to be in my bed at home.
SPEAKER_01: And there's something about being in your bed.
SPEAKER_01: What would it look like, church?
SPEAKER_01: If our quiet times and prayer and communion with God every single morning, we long for that the way we long for our own bed.
SPEAKER_01: What would it look like if gathering with the church and with our small group was no longer optional but essential?
SPEAKER_01: And if we missed it, all of a sudden, I'm homesick.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't been home in a while.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't been with my people.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't been abiding in their presence where I consistently and constantly experience the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_01: Abide in his love.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what Willer goes on to say about abiding.
SPEAKER_01: In the early time of practicing this, trying to constantly redirect our thoughts to him, we may be challenged by burdensome habits of dwelling on things less than God.
SPEAKER_01: That is, we'll constantly be distracted by a million different things.
SPEAKER_01: Monkey brain.
SPEAKER_01: You ever sit down to pray and the most obtrusive thoughts come in and you give up, you're like, oh, it's not worth it.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: This is what he says.
SPEAKER_01: These are habits, not the law of gravity.
SPEAKER_01: It can be broken.
SPEAKER_01: A new grace-filled habit will replace the former ones as we take intentional steps toward keeping God before us.
SPEAKER_01: Soon our minds will return to God as the needle of a compass constantly returns north.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I want that in my life.
SPEAKER_01: Question I have for you this morning is where does your heart and mind abide the most these days?
SPEAKER_01: Where does your mind make its home?
SPEAKER_01: And who or what is your heart resting in?
SPEAKER_01: I want us to understand those things and then maybe just give us a practice.
SPEAKER_01: One thing that I've started doing, adding into my time with the Lord in the morning, right?
SPEAKER_01: Find a place and be present.
SPEAKER_01: And before I jump into the scriptures or journaling or writing out some of my prayers, I've just started setting a seven-minute timer on my phone and trying to sit and abide in love.
SPEAKER_01: Just constantly redirect my mind to him.
SPEAKER_01: It's contemplation, right?
SPEAKER_01: And you can do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes I'll inhale Abba, exhale, I belong to you.
SPEAKER_01: Or I'll just say the name Jesus over and over again.
SPEAKER_01: Or I'll just say draw near.
SPEAKER_01: This morning I woke up and I was doing it and worried about like, hey, is this gonna be okay?
SPEAKER_01: How's this talk gonna go?
SPEAKER_01: And in just seven minutes, just abide in love.
SPEAKER_01: Abide in love.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because I know I'm about to go out and I'm gonna have to live a day where I need to be a source of love and a non-anxious presence for the people that I love and steward.
SPEAKER_01: And so if I'm gonna be a source of love, I need a source of love.
SPEAKER_01: Abide in love.
SPEAKER_01: Love here's agape in Hebrew detested.
SPEAKER_01: It says covenant love, his loyal, steadfast, never giving up, always and forever love.
SPEAKER_01: No greater love than this, and a man laid down his life for his brother.
SPEAKER_01: Perfect love that casts out all fear.
SPEAKER_01: It is the love God, love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_01: But my question is, how do we know if we are abiding in God's love?
SPEAKER_01: Kind of got the concept, I kind of got the practice, but how what's the litmus test?
SPEAKER_01: It's a good thing the text answers it.
SPEAKER_01: It says if we're keeping his commandments.
SPEAKER_01: We're abiding in his love.
SPEAKER_01: If we surrender and submit the totality of our life to the loving lordship of Jesus Christ, and when we stumble and we mess up, we repent, restore, repair those attachments to God and to one another so that we're continuing to be sanctified in his presence.
SPEAKER_01: Gretchen Staffels wrote a book called The Well Watered Woman, because there's a theme about us men making sure we're not only giving you male authors.
SPEAKER_01: So I stole this one from my wife.
SPEAKER_01: Um she's got all these good books, and this one, she just came up with a great anachronym for abide.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, ooh, well done.
SPEAKER_01: It's simply this abide, accept pruning, believe in his word, identify false finds, delight in Jesus, and endure with joy.
SPEAKER_01: There's some great small group questions.
SPEAKER_01: Just go through that list.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, which one am I doing good at?
SPEAKER_01: Which one am I avoiding?
SPEAKER_01: Which one is the Lord calling me to next?
SPEAKER_01: Do we all want to identify our false fines?
SPEAKER_01: Buckle up.
SPEAKER_01: It's the last two that I really think will move us into what we're gonna talk about next, delighting in Jesus and enduring with joy.
SPEAKER_01: But I do want you to hear this very clearly.
SPEAKER_01: Abiding in Christ and being joyful is not a spiritual technique designed to give, make sure God gives you a problem-free life.
SPEAKER_01: It is a skill that we can develop that allows us to address the promises, uh problems in our life while remaining relationally attached and remaining ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: About a month ago, I got back from a pastor's retreat at a place called Refuge in Wyoming.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's all that like cowboy stuff that you think that you go fly fishing, you go hiking, ride horses.
SPEAKER_01: I think their mission statement is to keep Christian leaders in the game, which was great.
SPEAKER_01: So I went there with some pastors and some church leaders.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and they did horseback riding.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it filled up too quick, I didn't get to go, but that night we were processing at the dinner table how how people had experienced their days.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the guys came back and says, Uh, I did horseback riding and I had a profound experience.
SPEAKER_01: And we're like, Yeah, what's up?
SPEAKER_01: We went down there and the horse trainer said, Hey, we're gonna ask you a couple questions, but we pride ourselves on being able to match personalities with certain horses.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's like, Oh my gosh, this is so dumb.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever.
SPEAKER_01: He answers a bunch of questions and they say, All right, you're matched with Bob, the horse over there.
SPEAKER_01: So he goes over to Bob and they're like, Hey, just try to make a connection with your horse.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's brushing the horse's mane out, telling him he's nice, and hey, we're gonna go for a ride, don't kill me, all that fun stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the trainers walked by and said, Oh, you got Bob?
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Yeah, is that bad?
SPEAKER_01: He said, Just don't expect much from Bob.
SPEAKER_01: We got him recently.
SPEAKER_01: He was a rented horse, and so that means people just hired him out for jobs, and then he just went to the next place and the next place and the next place.
SPEAKER_01: He's not really good at receiving or giving love.
SPEAKER_01: So the guy got on the horse, did the ride, came back, and I don't know why that stuck with him, but he stayed afterwards for a half an hour brushing Bob, telling him how much he appreciated that.
SPEAKER_01: And when he went to walk away, the horse turned and caught an eye with him.
SPEAKER_01: And the trainer said, That's progress.
SPEAKER_01: He's made a connection with you.
SPEAKER_01: And this man who was on it confessed that he had worked for a Christian organization for 25 years and they restructured and got rid of his position.
SPEAKER_01: And said, I'm learning I feel just like a rented horse.
SPEAKER_01: That I'm only loved or valued by what I produce, not for who I am.
SPEAKER_01: And I wonder for many of us, if we're going to abide in love, if we want to be a source of love, we need to learn how to receive that from our Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_01: That's our ownership and that's our identity.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, our behavior doesn't become effort, it becomes reflex.
SPEAKER_01: So, a question I have for you this morning: who loves you well?
SPEAKER_01: And who has shown you how to love better?
SPEAKER_01: So I think we all need examples.
SPEAKER_01: We need to stop apologizing for the fact that we need life-giving relationships and connections in our life.
SPEAKER_01: We need to stop isolating and going to false vines and false idols to get our needs met.
SPEAKER_01: Who loves you better when the answer becomes Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Then you're abiding in his love, and here comes the sweet, sweet return.
SPEAKER_01: My joy will be in you, and your joy will be full.
SPEAKER_01: Joy that's not just a fleeting emotion, but a deep-seated strength that sustains us through life's challenges.
SPEAKER_01: Joy is hurrah, cheerfulness, gladness, delight.
SPEAKER_01: It's overflowing, it's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: It just bubbles up, right?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you have the same look on your face that I did.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I've spent probably the past five or six years really working hard on joy.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a confession to you.
SPEAKER_01: I struggle with some huge depressive swings.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm also, I I I like it when we get into the raw, vulnerable, difficult stuff of life.
SPEAKER_01: When you present as joyful, I used to think it's either fake or you're hiding something.
SPEAKER_01: So when I talk about joy, I'm not talking about like fake Christian joy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm literally talking about someone who knows how to abide in love and that in their presence you feel loved, welcome, and celebrated.
SPEAKER_01: So, how do we work in joy?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm talking also about I had to go back to a biblical definition of joy, which is not just suppressing all the bad things and pretending everything's gonna be okay, it'll all work out.
SPEAKER_01: No, here's what the Bible says about joy the joy of the Lord is our strength.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 16, 11, you make known to me the path of life, you fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 35, 10.
SPEAKER_01: The ransom of the Lord shall return, come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads, they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
SPEAKER_01: And then this little zinger hiding out in Psalm 94 19.
SPEAKER_01: When anxiety was great within me, your consolation.
SPEAKER_01: Brought me joy.
SPEAKER_01: Question I have for you this morning is what fills up your joy?
SPEAKER_01: What robs you of joy quickest?
SPEAKER_01: And where's a place maybe in your story where anxiety was great within you, and God's comfort brought you joy, and that joy will be strength to someone else.
SPEAKER_01: Audrey and I stepped back into marriage counseling shortly before we planted local church.
SPEAKER_01: Things were good.
SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to get a checkup.
SPEAKER_01: I knew we were gonna plant a church, I knew we're just gonna be a lot of strain.
SPEAKER_01: We have gone through a difficult season of parenting, and you know me, I just like deep, hard internal work.
SPEAKER_01: She's like, What?
SPEAKER_01: Nothing's broken.
SPEAKER_01: What are we doing?
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, let's just go make sure we're like, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So one of the first things our counselor does is he gives us a book and he says, Hey, we're gonna uh really deep do a deep dive into some of your dysfunctional uh dancing around conflict.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Chris, I noticed that when you talk about arguments, you shut down.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Audrey, I know that you pursue with control, so we're gonna work through some of that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: But what I want you to do first is every night, here's a notebook, and I want you to write down one thing about your spouse that brings you joy.
SPEAKER_01: What was he doing?
SPEAKER_01: He knew if we were going to do difficult emotional work and stay relationally connected, he needed to get our joy levels up.
SPEAKER_01: Because the joy of the Lord is our strength.
SPEAKER_01: It's reminding ourselves who I am in someone else's eyes and that they are happy to be with me.
SPEAKER_01: Abide in love, joyful.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I came across a book called The Other Half of the Church, written by Marcus Warner and a guy named Jim Wilder.
SPEAKER_01: And this they really started combining these two themes, love and joy.
SPEAKER_01: Marcus was a director of spiritual formation at a large church.
SPEAKER_01: He came up with like a curriculum for like Christianity and Christ-likeness, and it went like gangbusters and a lot of success.
SPEAKER_01: People were really, really happy about it.
SPEAKER_01: But he's kind of like this nerdy, I go back and I want qualitative data.
SPEAKER_01: And when he went back, the people who had gone through the groups, about 80% of them said that I experienced life transformation and character growth.
SPEAKER_01: It was the other 20% he became obsessed with.
SPEAKER_01: And so he would invite them in and he would think, okay, maybe it's just the teacher, maybe it was the environment, maybe you, maybe you skip chapter three.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but what he came to find out was if a man or a woman did not have sufficient levels of love or joy in their life, it did not matter how much information they got.
SPEAKER_01: They could not go to transformation.
SPEAKER_01: And so he goes back and Jim Wilder picks up on this, and he's what, like I would say, Neil says a lot of times, he's a counselor who is biblically based and clinically informed.
SPEAKER_01: He calls himself a neurotheologian.
SPEAKER_01: So he takes some of the brain science research that's coming out, because we've got a guy from UCLA, Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Alan Schur, who's not a believer but just did uh MRI mapping, and he says two things have to happen in the brain in order for it to develop in a healthy way.
SPEAKER_01: Attachment and joy.
SPEAKER_01: Attachment is his word for love.
SPEAKER_01: Abide in love, joyful.
SPEAKER_01: So, how do we become the kind of Christians who know how to abide in love and be joyful?
SPEAKER_01: They came up with this list, I think, that's really healthy.
SPEAKER_01: Says you need four essential soils in any group, any church, any family system in order for us to be transformed and into the image of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Hested love, shared joy, group identity, and healthy correction.
SPEAKER_01: We can talk about group identity and healthy correction later, right?
SPEAKER_01: Group identity is once you go, hey, I'm a child of God.
SPEAKER_01: This is my church, these are my people, this is how I behave.
SPEAKER_01: Healthy correction is, oops, I forgot who I am.
SPEAKER_01: Let me remind you who you are.
SPEAKER_01: This is how we behave in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times we start there rather than with Hesed love and shared joy.
SPEAKER_01: So, real quickly, hesed love, brain scientists would call this attachment.
SPEAKER_01: It is something that can handle the difficulties and conflicts in life while remaining loving.
SPEAKER_01: Our identity and our behavior is anchored to our deepest attachments.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said that it's to his Father's glory that we bear much fruit, showing ourselves to be his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Abiding in love equals attachment.
SPEAKER_01: No attachment, no fruit.
SPEAKER_01: Abide in love.
SPEAKER_01: This led Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Marcus Warner to make this powerful statement.
SPEAKER_01: Until we restore our loving attachments to God and each other, we're wasting our time doing ministry church or anything else for that matter.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because what you're gonna do is you're gonna produce the kind of people who know about God's love but struggle to experience it on a daily life.
SPEAKER_01: We're getting lots of information, but there's no transformation because there's such unhealthy levels of love and joy and attachment in their life.
SPEAKER_01: I think this is why the Apostle Paul answers his own question when it comes to abiding in love and attachment to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: What shall separate us from the love of God?
SPEAKER_01: That's in Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing and no one.
SPEAKER_01: So that's Hested love and then share joy.
SPEAKER_01: This has been my favorite, a big, big uh emphasis for me this past couple years.
SPEAKER_01: They define joy as this joy is the look on someone's face when they're happy to see you.
SPEAKER_01: Joy is primarily communicated through the face and secondarily through your tone of voice.
SPEAKER_01: You'd be surprised how much I have to work on this around my family and my kids.
SPEAKER_01: I want my home to be a loving, joyful place, and sometimes I realize that is the last thing I am communicating.
SPEAKER_01: Because I have not spent enough time abiding in love and allowing God's joy to be complete in me so that it can overflow to other people.
SPEAKER_01: Joy is relational, it does not exist outside of relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Joy is important to God and us.
SPEAKER_01: He designed our brains to run at the speed of joy.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture verses, if you would like them.
SPEAKER_01: May God be gracious to you and bless you, and cause his face to shine mightily upon you.
SPEAKER_01: His face to face.
SPEAKER_01: If you literally translate this word for word from the Hebrew, it says, Happy with the joy with your face.
SPEAKER_01: Our children get this, don't they?
SPEAKER_01: We need this.
SPEAKER_01: We need this from a loving father.
SPEAKER_01: And then we've been reading through the epistles of John, and John says it um it is a second one to the lady that he's writing to.
SPEAKER_01: Share joy with God, and one another allows us to do the hard work of character transformation.
SPEAKER_01: Joy does not replace unpleasant emotions, it allows you to metabolize them.
SPEAKER_01: Joy and sadness are not polar opposites, they're dancing partners.
SPEAKER_01: The joy of the Lord is our strength, and our spiritual maturity then is directly related to our relational maturity.
SPEAKER_01: So here's my invitation to you guys this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to bring you a simple word of abiding in love and being joyful in the context of relationship as you continue to know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: So this is your invitation.
SPEAKER_01: If you're tired of being tired, if joy for you this morning feels fake at best or a cruel joke at worst, and I'm inviting you to abide in love and allow the joy of the Lord, the face of the Lord, to come shine upon you and give you peace, and to assess your relational soil, and where is it that I need to strengthen my attachments to God and to one another?
SPEAKER_01: Because if C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis said was true, joy is the serious business of heaven, then welcome to the family business.
SPEAKER_01: Let your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And just so we're clear, Jesus isn't asking you to do anything that he didn't do.
SPEAKER_01: He abided in his father's love while he was here on planet earth.
SPEAKER_01: And then for some reason, he was able to endure the most difficult emotions and physical pain and remain attached in himself.
SPEAKER_01: He was beaten, tortured, betrayed, abandoned, and rejected.
SPEAKER_01: And yet he remained in a loving attachment, and while he was dying, he was able to look out and say, Father, forgive them, but they know not what they do.
SPEAKER_01: How is that possible?
SPEAKER_01: I think the author of Hebrews gives us a clue.
SPEAKER_01: For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame.
SPEAKER_01: Let the joy of the Lord be our strength once again.
SPEAKER_01: The Father is happy to see you, and so am I.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So we want to preach the Bible clearly and give your soul some space to respond.
SPEAKER_01: So we'll just have some questions for thoughtful reflection that pop up here, and you listen and go where the Lord wants you to go.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for the simplicity and the beauty and the authority and the power that comes from your word.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, cause us to think today about things that we've chosen to avoid or ignore.
SPEAKER_00: Things like the relationship between our spiritual maturity and our relational maturity.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, some of us are looking hard in our experiences for what can only be found in relationships.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, help us to understand the connection between spiritual maturity and relational maturity.
SPEAKER_00: Let that cause us to uh let it show up in the way we relate to people and value the relationships and friendships that we have.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord, that your word is always thought-provoking.
SPEAKER_00: It's enjoyable, but it's always thought-provoking.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Holy Spirit, do not leave us alone the rest of today as we think about what we've heard and we think about it on a deeper level.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for Chris.
SPEAKER_00: We're grateful for both of us today.
SPEAKER_00: So we say thank you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And all God's people said, Amen, amen, amen.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for listening to this message.
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SPEAKER_02: If you'd like to go deeper with our sermon content, you can hear more on our circling back with Neil McClendon podcast at Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you listen to podcasts.