Finding True Joy Through Connection and Obedience

1) "We search for joy. We look for it. We work for it. People try to buy it. Neil Borman, he's a writer, a British magazine writer, he tells some of his story in a magazine article. And he said, he said, I, I realized as an adult that I became addicted to brands. That's what he said. He said, it started back, he said, it started back when I was in elementary school. He said, I, I went to school. I, I saw kind of the cool kids, the popular kids, the kids everybody wanted to hang out with. I wanted to hang out with them. He said, I didn't have the right number of stripes on my tennis shoes to hang out with them. I went home and he said, I begged my parents. I have to have these shoes. Please buy me these shoes. Parents reluctantly went to the store, bought him the shoes. He went back to school and those shoes bought him social acceptance. And he said, I began my addiction with brands." [04:00] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "We search for joy. We go after it. We, we long for it. And when we find something that feels like it, it's usually happiness and it's usually brief. We try to just land there and stay there. We, we want that feeling. I, thinking back, I've told y 'all some stories just in the last couple of weeks as we've come back with our teenagers a few weeks ago from Camp Clyde, the youth camp we take them to. And one that we do, it's out at Latham Springs and Camp Minton. It's not a, it's not a glorious facility and things like that. It's a campground, right? And they're long days. We start, my team, my executive team, we start about seven in the morning and we go about 19, 18, 19, 20 hours, go to bed somewhere around two o 'clock every morning, get up and do it again for a few days." [06:00] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "Jesus says over and over again, he uses the word remain in me. Some Bibles use the word abide. Remains a great translation, and maybe that we use that a little more. But this idea, it's this ongoing, continual relationship with God. He says, hey, you need to set camp. That's another way to describe that word. You're going to set camp right here with me. You and me, me and Jesus, we're going to do life together. And Jesus says, hey, if you stray, just like a vine strays from the branch, if you stray, you're going to be powerless. Your life is not going to be all that it can be. He says, you can't do life without me. We have to remain, be connected to Jesus." [11:31] (42 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "When God asks you to obey his commands, asks you to obey the things he calls you to do, it is always, always, 100 % of the time for your benefit. Like, God isn't like, I'm going to make them do this because I'm really mad right now. He's not that kind of God. His plan is for you to thrive and to have blessing. And it doesn't mean you're going to be like health and wealth type thing. But you're going to have his spirit in your life. Life is going to be full. You're going to have joy, which, again, we'll see in a second. It's going to end there. But it's about obedience. And we have to uncross our arms and go, okay, God, let me step into that." [14:06] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "When you obey God, fruit shows up in your life and you want it. It's just the way life works. For like 25 years, for 25 years, I've talked about to everyone that'll listen and nobody cares to listen anymore because I've been talking about it for 25 years, like how I need to lose some pounds. I need to lose some weight. At this point, people are like, stop it. Just stop. You're just going to be fat. For 25 years, I'm like, man, I need to, you know, if I went and got a trainer, if I went and got a dietician, if I got somebody like a weight loss coach and I did what they said, ate what I was supposed to eat, drink the water that I'm supposed to drink, set the Coke Zero away. If I exercise like I'm supposed to exercise, I'm going to lose some pounds." [20:54] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "I've told you these things so that you'll be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow. I've told you these things. I've told you about remaining. I've told you about obedience. And I've told you about the fruits that's going to come because I want you to be filled with joy. And when you're living with me, and you're living in the purposes for which I created you, and you're seeing the fruit of my work all in your life, you know what the natural byproduct of that is? Joy. Joy. Because you're living your purpose. And all of a sudden, life is meaningful, and it's better. And even though there's some times where there's happiness, and there's some sad times, even in the sad times, joy pushes through." [23:11] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "God knows that there are circumstances in your life where you may experience happiness, and seconds later you may experience sadness. And God wants to give you his joy because joy trumps all of those emotions. Joy is what lasts through. Joy is what lasts for the Auburn fan who is happy and then sad and then goes home and goes, you know what, even though my team lost and even though I would have loved to have an Auburn national championship shirt, you know what's even better than national championship is that I got to go home and I got to be a part of what God was doing in my church or my family, and God is using me to change people's lives." [26:02] (36 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "God gives you joy, and then not only does he give you his joy, but look at that, he says he wants it to overflow. I'm not, I'm not going to do this because we rent from big, and we also have sound equipment up here, so just visual. Just imagine, imagine if you will, this bucket full of water, God's joy, and you. This is the picture that Jesus is giving, and he says, I want you to be filled. Just imagine this is full of water, and I had Crocs right here holding it, and I'd go, hey, hold this. He'd probably say no, because he knows what's going to happen. As I start to pour, it is going to overflow out of this. This container, your life can't contain all of the joy that God wants to pour out into you." [28:17] (42 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)