Good morning. Are y'all happy, happy, happy? I missed y'all. I had all kinds of stuff going on, you know, like life—things happen. And I had one of the things that everybody wants to know, so I'll go ahead and tell you what's going on. I took my daughter to college. I went up there and I dropped her off. They had this thing called "kiss and cry" and say goodbye.
So they had this, they had a little, you know, I got there. It was really cool though. The upperclassmen actually took everything out of our car. I heard, well, you know, if you got girls, this is like three or four cars because they have to take things. And I don't know, I was amazed at the whole situation. You know, there's a roommate that goes here and my daughter, and they went and bought things. And it was, I like, this is only one room. You know what I'm saying? It's like one room. So they took everything in. All that was good.
Then we went to the chapel and I said, "North Greenville University," if you'd like to know, if you're watching online, North Greenville University, that's where I graduated a long time ago. It wasn't even called a university then. We won't even go there. We didn't even have internet. That's how long ago it was. We'll talk about that later.
So we get in there and we take a go to chapel. And so then they have this moment where you have the kiss and cry and say goodbye. Okay. So you have that little moment and the guy says, you know, first of all, he's talking about all the memories. I'm like, would you, you know, you're trying to kill us.
So we have to go outside and you have to find your daughter. And I'm looking around. I wish I had a video camera. I mean, there was so much crying and hugging, and, you know, and then my daughter went over to her. She said, "Don't you do it. Don't, don't do it." I said, "Okay, I'm not going to do it." I said, "Well, they said we had the kids cry and say goodbye. So we're going to say goodbye." And she says, "Well, don't go yet." I thought that was, hey, there's a bright spot in this whole thing.
So for everybody's information, let's put it this way. Since we're doing emotions, I got emotional on the way home. My wife cried like a baby and I got emotional. Okay. So there was a little bit of happy, sad, and joy all at the same time that was happening. So I was mostly happy, sad, and I don't know how to explain that, but there was some joy in there. But if you don't know how, what joy is, then you don't know exactly what I'm talking about.
So that's what we're going to find out today. How do we figure out what this joy thing is? And I don't know if you have joy. Have you figured out how to have it yet or where it comes from? It doesn't come from around here. It doesn't come from earth. It comes from God. So I don't know if you know how to get to it.
So that was the whole idea today was trying to figure out, okay, this emotion, which really isn't an emotion by the way, but we call it, you know, joy and being happy, and happy and joy really aren't the same things. They're a little different. And joy comes from another place that you can try to find happy here. You know, you wear a t-shirt that says "happy, happy, happy."
So let's do this. Let's ask the question: when things don't go your way, how do you respond? That would be a good question. So, because what could have happened right now to hear it? I've got to deal with this with you. You're coming in here. I don't know if you're happy or sad or mad. We'll get to that because you just left your children in the children's department. Some of you screamed at them all the way over here. And then you looked at them and said, "I am never coming back." You know, you're saying that you got your sticker and then you walked out.
And so, I'm happy to like figure out, okay, what is he doing? Like some of you are not with me because you're still mad. You're thinking about something. You're not even listening to me right now. You're not even what's happening. So some of you have come in happy. Some of you have come in indifferent. You don't even, like, I don't even know what all that means, all that kind of stuff.
But most people I'm talking about, even myself, most people are going to live from the point of trying to be happy. So we're going to do everything we can in our life to be happy. And we can actually create happy. Disney found a way to create happy. You can pay for it. And you go down there. This is so cool, isn't it? You walk in and you're happy. You're paying for this. And then your children are crying because they need a nap.
And then you're saying, "There's no crying at Disney World. I paid for this. We're supposed to be happy. Why aren't we getting along?" And then you come home. And what? Are you happy? Are you sad? Are you tired? So there's all kinds of things that all kinds of emotions are playing in that. Did you have joy at Disney World? Did you have happy? That's amazing. There could be a little bit of both if you know what joy looks like.
If you don't know how to find joy, you don't know how to access joy, then you may not know exactly what you had down there. But most of you are going to live out of happy and sad. You're going to be happy today, sad tomorrow. Happy, this went good. Happy. Did you have a good week? I'm happy. You didn't have a good week. I'm sad. So you're just kind of like up and down sideways. You don't know exactly how to make this happen.
And it's because you have to think for a minute. Jesus told us, you're kind of layered up. You're born into this thing. You're into this body. You're born here and you grow up and you're kind of layered into all kinds of things. You're layered in. You actually have a brain, most people. Some don't, evidently. And that's because you're layered. Your brain doesn't think straight. It doesn't, it isn't correct. And so it doesn't know really what a lie is and what truth is.
And then you have this thing, what's really, you know, you have this heart, which is these feelings. We'll get to that in a minute. And the Bible says that the heart is very deceitful above all things. It will lie to you. You will feel something that isn't true. Can you imagine that? And then I'm telling you to have joy. Watch this. You should have joy when things are going wrong. It doesn't even make sense. How am I supposed to have that?
Well, you don't know. If you don't know what joy is, then you're just going to have happy. This is what most people live from is the happy. We have to have another, you know, what makes you happy? Is it Disney World? Is it another house? Is it another wife? Is it another husband? I mean, what is the deal? So, you know, so it's all these things that we're trying to figure out, but we never really get to the joy part.
And we all get mixed up on that. We think it's happy. We think it's joy, but you don't know what joy really is yet. For some of you may know, it took me a while. You know, as you get older, you kind of figure out what the joy is. So going back to the story of my daughter, there was, listen to this, there was joy in leaving her. But you may think that sounds really bad, but no, if you don't know what joy is, then you'll think that's bad, but it's really good.
There was a lot of joy in that. There was a lot of sadness and a lot of happiness. All these things were happening. But when you understand what joy is, and when I tell you what it is, then you'll know, oh, he did have joy. Yeah, I had joy in leaving her. It was great. I went and got something to eat. Did we tell her? No, I didn't tell her nothing.
Yeah, but I do, I will say this. I will say this. I'm getting like texts that say, "Hey, Dad, can you take me out to eat?" What, you love me? You leave me and you love me? I hear this all the time. And that's a little joy there, you know, but there's a lot of things. We find different ways to create happiness. We're not very happy very long because happiness is circumstantial and it goes from moment to moment.
So you're not going to be very happy very long and there's going to be moments of it and you're going to create it and you're going to have circumstances and all those things and you're going to feel really good. Now, it takes a lot to do this though, because you're layered up. There's so many layers to you before you can even get to the joy part. And it isn't even from here, by the way, joy is not on earth.
And this peace that Jesus said, I'm going to give you, he says, it's not from here either. He said, we're going to give that to you. Me and my dad, which is God the Father, we're going to give you some things that you can use here, which is supernatural stuff. But if you don't know how to access it, you're just going to live, try to live from happy to sad or mad, you know, whatever.
So I don't know, but the day may be good for you. Some of you may be indifferent about what is happening. I don't know where you've come from or what week you have had. And some of you probably haven't had any joy. And then the pastor says, you know, you just need to like enjoy pain. That's so good, isn't it? That's so good. You just need to enjoy it. Because that's what the Bible said. You're supposed to enjoy this pain.
I don't think that's exactly what it was saying. So we have this guy named James. Let me tell you about James. James is the brother of Jesus Christ, the half-brother. Okay, let's say it that way. He's a half-brother of Jesus Christ. He was a pastor. And James kind of figured out. Now, if you were in the New Testament and you were walking around and you were with Jesus Christ, can you imagine being in that kind of thing, the presence of Jesus Christ?
Because what's happening, God the Father and Jesus Christ are just completely life. I mean, they're just life. I can just imagine Jesus walking down a path and flowers are blooming right behind him. Because every time he went through a funeral, he raised the dead. And we think that's amazing, but that's just what they do. So we understand. So they're watching this and they're understanding some things that we don't understand.
So James writes this thing down. Watch this. You're going to love this. This is in James 1:2. You go, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds." Yes. Yes. I want trouble in my life. Don't pray that. Do not pray. And don't pray for this thing people always do. I just want God to give me patience. Stop. Stop praying for anything like that. Just stop. You got enough trouble as it is.
And so there has to be something to this. Have you ever had this thing called pure joy in your life? Do you remember when that was? Do you remember when pure joy actually took place? Because I don't know if you think that's a Christmas day when everything was on. Watch this. If your family gets along, then it'll be pure joy. You're in the wrong place for that. That probably won't happen.
Maybe you've had pure happiness, but you haven't figured out the pure joy yet. In Philippians, this book that Paul, this guy named Paul wrote, we call him the Apostle Paul, he wrote half the New Testament. And one of the reasons, he got to see things that nobody else could see. And he started writing stuff down about this joy thing. Just like James, he said, "You just need to be really happy when things happen."
Because here's what you need to know about happiness. Happiness is not the absence, is not, is with the absence of pain. So you can't be happy with pain. Does that make sense? Now you can fake it and get a slogan, put it on your refrigerator. "I'm the happiest person in the world," and you're hurting everywhere. I love this pain. I just love when things go wrong.
Listen, we don't need, you know, that's not what I'm talking about. Because the truth is we're not happy when we're hurting. Do you understand? But there's, listen, joy is not the absence of pain. It actually reveals what joy is when you have pain, if you know what you're looking for. And this is what they discovered when they were walking with Jesus and hanging out with him. They discovered joy through pain.
And you say, "That is crazy." I'm just telling you what I know. And it took me a little while to figure all this out. I think we want, you know, is joy winning the lottery or is joy, you know, things happening like that. But you can win the lottery, but you're going to be sad because you're going to spend all your money. You're going to lose all your friends because that's what everybody else does. You say, "Well, I don't guess that'll work."
So you see, here's the thing. You can't find joy here around you, but you will try. You will try to buy things, sell things, date things, whatever, you know, you will try to find the whole thing. And you will try to find it here. So we know that joy is not the absence of pain. It actually joy, when pain comes, joy reveals your joy. So pain reveals what joy really is in your life.
And it is not from here, but you got to figure out how to access it. It took me a little while to get there. Joy is deeper than what you feel. It is deeper than your thoughts. Even though the Bible says this, because we're layered up, it says that you need to think of things that are pure and noble, all these things. I have to train your thoughts to understand what joy looks like.
And it talks about this. It tells us how to live and what to do. This is why the Bible is very important because this is the mind of God telling you how to live because there's all kinds of things that mess up the joy part for you. And it has a hard time accessing it. And so we have to think about that. So it's not just, joy is not a thought and you want it to be a positive thought. Joy is not a feeling. It's much deeper than all that.
And it's accessed on another level than what you've been accessing. And listen to this. It doesn't come from here. It comes from there. So we have to figure out how to get there. We have to figure out how to get there. Let me give you some layers. This is what Jesus said. There's four things to you that you need to pay attention to. And here they are. Here's what it says. You must love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
There's four layers to you. And only one of them is going to last. The soul is the only eternal part of you. And that's where everything is going to be placed. God is not going to place something that's not going to last. He's going to place it only in the place that's going to last forever. And you're going to last forever. You're an eternal being. We have an eternal God. And when you and him meet, things happen that never happened before.
And he takes this thing, what he calls joy, he takes this peace and he says, "I'm going to place this in your eternal." And this is where this is going to stay. So when you read scripture and they say, "I'm just loving this pain. I'm just loving it. This is my joy. What's happening to me? This is my joy." Rejoice in all things. In Philippians, one out of seven verses have joy, rejoice, or rejoicing.
And this guy that I'm telling you about was in prison. "I am so happy to be in jail." That's what he, you're like, "This has got it." But "I am so happy to be in chains for Jesus Christ." This is my joy. And then you have to think, well, then I am totally missing it. I'm totally missing it. Because joy wasn't from here. It isn't from here. They saw it. In Jesus, by the way, they saw what it looked like.
He was walking around with them. And it wasn't circumstantial. It wasn't happenstance, none of that. So let's go through the layers real quick. Let's go through the feeling. Watch this. How are you feeling? Let's be on the screen so you can see some of this. How are you feeling today? Okay, just a question. You don't have to answer me. Are you happy? Are you sad? Or are you mad?
Now, I don't know how, let me tell you what's so interesting about my mom and dad. My mom and dad, mama played the piano and dad led the music. And we had three of us, three boys. We were not good. We were not good. Let's go ahead and say that. I was probably the best one of all because I was, I'm just saying that. And so there was a lot of screaming, yelling, and "I'll kill you when you get home. I will beat you to death." I can hear this from my dad. "I'm going to beat you." I can hear it.
And then they come up here and he has to start leading the music. Do you not just think this is crazy stuff? Like you did this too. You're like, you're trying to be happy right now. Like you wouldn't believe what's in my life right now. I could hurt everybody, but I love y'all. This is what it is. So I'd argue, but this is a layer. See, these feelings lie to you. They, you think you, about you, people in your life, you see people, you're like, you don't even like them, but you don't even know.
I just know I don't like you. You have these feelings. And so these are the layers you have to work through. Your feelings are going to lie to you. Remember, we're getting, we're going over to the layers. We're trying to get the joy. What are you thinking today? This is the, this is the good thought. You know, are you having happy, positive thoughts?
Now you should do this and you can go online. They give you all kinds of happy stuff. They give you all positive thoughts. You know, today I'm going to be better. Well, good. You should be. I want you to be better every day. My counseling is terrible. If you counsel with me, like you say, "Well, I'm doing something wrong." Well, stop it. You know, "I'm eating too much." Quit eating. You know, "I'm drinking too much." Quit drinking. I don't know what else. What am I supposed to say? You know what I'm saying? That just makes sense to me.
But you want to, what's wrong? You want to feel it. You want to think about it. And this is where you listen, you're born all screwed up. We are just, we are born screwed up. We're, we, we're born mad. We don't know who we are. We don't know what we're doing. We don't know who we're going to be. And then we have a feeling in the middle of all that. This is crazy stuff.
What am I doing here? What am I doing here? What am I doing here? What am I doing here? What am I doing here? What am I doing here? I've said that before myself. What am I doing? Are y'all even going to listen to me? I'm trying to communicate. I don't know what we are. Are you happy or sad? Are you just mad? I don't know. How's your soul? How's your soul doing?
Because this is the eternal part. This is the part you should be paying attention to because this is what you're going to take with you forever and ever. Amen. And this is the part that's really cool because this is where God and you meet. So when God meets on earth, he meets in you. God walks on earth, he walks through you. So everything is going to meet in your eternal part. This is what you got to think about.
So how's it doing? How's your soul? With all these other layers going on, all these thinkings and feelings and all these things that are going on, it's like, so let's get back to who we, this is, this is what happens. We have to remember who we are and what we're doing. This is what happens. Have you thought about who you are? Have you done anything supernatural this week? Anything?
Because, you know, you, you are supernatural. Once the eternal God meets the eternal you, things change. And so you're not like everybody else, but you want to act like you're living like everybody else. It's not the same when things go wrong for you, is it? When things go wrong for you, how do you feel? How do you think? This is why we have God's word, why we have the Bible to help us to understand what has just happened in my life.
So we have to think about those things as we walk through that. Then you have to think about what's going on in your life. You have that strength thing going on. You know, you're like, uh, your body, then you got to deal with your body, man. As I got older, when I hit 40 last week, my knees started hurting. You ever heard this? This is crazy. I know I'm lying to you. Don't have a feeling about it. Don't think about it. Just let it go. Just let it go.
I'm just saying that then we have, we have our emotions that lie to us. Our thoughts are not trustworthy. And then we have our body is breaking down on us. And then everything, that we, and then my, the eternal is housed within this. This is where, this is where the eternal is kept. This is where the joy is. This is where the peace is. This, everything is coming from him and I have access to him. I can pray to him and things happen.
But we have all these things. We never can figure out how to get to the joy. And so when you read scripture, sometimes it just doesn't make any sense. So it's not a feeling. It's actually not a thought. Joy comes from a place. It's not a thought. It's not a feeling. It's actually not a thought. It's actually not a place. A place within you that has been placed there by God the Father.
And so you have to realize that as we get in there and to see what is happening. So this guy, Paul, let me read something to you. Oh, I'm sorry. This guy, Paul. So we got this guy in prison. He's writing all these letters out to everybody. And that would be you and me. He's telling us things that we have no idea how in the world anybody could be thinking these things.
And the reason he is, is because he got to actually see heaven. Okay. So once you, now imagine if you had like a, you could take an elevator for like five seconds and see heaven, you'd be getting out of here. You'd be like, "Oh, what?" Let me tell you what would happen to you. Everything you're worried about right now would disappear. Politicians and everything would be gone. Gas prices, why do you care? Food prices, why do you care?
This is because you have seen a glimpse of what, where your home is going to be and who you are. This is where joy comes from. This is what, this is what Paul did. And here's what he said. He said, "Now I want you to know, look at this, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. I am so glad I'm in chains because it is moving the gospel. And that is why I'm here."
His purpose was to move the gospel. And so I'm in chains and I'm really happy about it. And you say, "Why was he happy about it?" You want to know why he was happy about it? Because he wanted to tell as many people as he possibly could about Jesus. And he said, "I'm in chains because I'm moving the gospel."
And you know what was happening? He's in, he's in chains in prison. And every day they bring a new guard in and chain him to him. And you know what Paul did? He told the prison, he told the guard, "This is, this is what Jesus Christ can do for you." And look what he said. "As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard, the whole palace guard, he has witnessed to and told about Jesus Christ and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ."
He is so happy because this is his joy. His joy is his purpose. This is what you have to figure out. His purpose is to move the kingdom of God to other people. So what's a better place? I will feed you. I will house you. I will change you to different people. And every day you get to witness to somebody else. And by the end of this whole thing, we're going to get the whole palace guard knowing Jesus Christ.
And by the way, I'm going to let you write books so that you guys out here can read it. He said, "I am so happy." And the other thing that Paul wanted, he wanted God to take him to heaven. And he said, "I am so happy to take him out." You have to listen. You say, "That is crazy." No, he saw heaven. Oh, we'd all be jumping off bridges if we saw heaven.
Now let's think for a minute. So you, you live your life as if you are a part of this. You live your life as if this is the only, this is the way it's going to be. And it is not going to be that at all. I'll try to help you with this. Happiness depends on circumstances. This is what you have to understand. Joy depends on the relationship.
I know him. He knows me. My eternal and his eternal have met. I am now something new. I am a child of God. I have access to things that I did not have before. He has placed within me his life and his spirit. And the supernatural is there. I can access joy. I can access peace. All the things that you can't get from here.
And this is why we are, we should not be living like everybody else. Because we're not from here. And this is not our home. And you have to realize that. So I thought I'd do something to illustrate something in just a minute. I want to show you something. Read this with me. And when the God eternal meets the person eternal, his life is infused into you, empowering you to live on a supernatural level.
He infuses us with his life and his power and his thoughts. And so, and his joy. And so we live differently. So I thought I'd do something a little different so that I could help you understand. So I don't know if anybody, has anybody brought a basketball in here? Let me, let me, oh, you did. You brought a basketball in here.
So if you're watching online, this is going to be really cool. It's going to go right in. It's like right there. Can you, can you hit me with that? Can you hit me with that? Yeah. Yeah. Well, whatever. That's a little low, little low. Coming up, coming back up, coming back up. All good. Everything good. I thought I'd share. I want, I want to show you what I'm talking about.
Okay. So this is, this is a ball that I like to, I play basketball with. This is called "the rock" and it's a really good basketball. I love my basketball. The NBA actually played with this. Love my basketball. Okay. Let me show you, let me give you an example of this. Okay. This is no good without air.
Okay. So what I do is I infuse the basketball with air so it'll be functional, so it'll do what it's supposed to do. You see what I'm saying? So that's what I'm talking about. So this is you. Let's, let's do this. This is you. This is your joy. This is your eternal. This is it. Everything is going to work from here or maybe it won't. If you don't know how to do it, maybe it won't.
And then we have these thoughts. "I'm no good. I can't make it. I can't do anything." That's not from here. Listen, you don't really need the devil to do any of this. You're just born, you know, crazy to begin with. So you're going to think these things. You grow up. "I'm no good." You ever thought that? That's not what he thinks. That's not what God says about you.
When I met him, he infused into my life joy, peace, and purpose. That's what he put into me. So I can have bad days and he doesn't steal my joy because I have this. I have purpose. I have meaning because of him. Everything works back to this. My dad, he died in 2019. So sometimes everything in life gets away from where I want to be. Does that make sense?
You just got to do life stuff. Happy, sad is all over the place. It's happy, sad over here. It's happy, sad over there. I don't have to live happy, sad though because I have this. See, my purpose in life has always been people. My purpose has always been I want people that would be you to know Jesus Christ.
Do you know what? My thoughts are, you hear my thoughts? Here's my thoughts. "You're no good. They don't want to hear you." I'm standing over there. "Why are you doing this? Why are you even speaking?" That's not true stuff. How many times do I want to quit too? Just like you. How many times do you want to say, "I don't like my job. I don't like people."
How many things do we not like? Let's get a list. How about the environment? We live in right now. Isn't this just beautiful? This is just beautiful. But you know what my joy tells me? Not my home. You don't think like everybody else. This is not your home. You're different. Why? You're a child of God.
I can have joy when things are terrible. This is why I go back to my daughter. See, listen very carefully. I told you I had joy when I left her. I know you love that. I'll hear from that later. Just let you know. My wife and I, we could not have children and we wanted to be parents. So we got involved with DSS. We got involved helping with foster kids.
And finally, we got into the foster adult program. And my daughter, which is Faith, I got to, listen, you can't make this stuff up. I get a phone call on Christmas morning and they say, "Do you want your daughter? Like now." And I'm like, "We're not childproof. I know nothing." You know, I don't know what to do with it. I don't know. We've worked the book, you know?
So I get my three-year-old daughter on Christmas day. And I remember going upstairs looking, "Is she okay? Is she all right?" She fell out of the bed three times. I didn't know you had to get one of those things that keep the child in the bed. I don't know this stuff. So I put pillows in the floor and she slept on the floor. So we have a child. We were like, "Oh, this is so good. We have a child."
And all right, now what? And then I said, but here's our thoughts. Here's the, here's our, here's our purpose. Here's where it was. We wanted to make sure that our daughter had the best she could get to get her, you know, the life, whatever we have to do to give her a place and a chance at life. And our goal was, first goal was get her to college. And we did. There's my joy.
You see what happened there? Because that was part of my purpose. And part of my joy was seeing her in college. It's not a happy, it wasn't, they didn't do a happy set. It's not a happy set. It's joy. And it's different. And so we got her, we got her to college. And now she actually texts me. It's a beautiful thing. She loves me now.
You go away, that's beautiful. But I'm saying that, that feeling, if you want to call it that, joy is not a thing, but it can create a feeling. But that purpose and that joy, when I saw her and we did the kiss, cry, and goodbye thing, I'm like, "This is great. This is what God gave us, this child. And look what is happening."
You talk, there's no gas price can take that away. No politician can take that away. I don't care what happens in this world. It can't take that joy. And see, if you live from happy to sad, you won't ever know what this is. This has been infused in me, my purpose and my joy.
And listen, this is about a relationship. A relationship with God, that's where you get this from. If you don't know Jesus Christ and you haven't, your eternal hasn't met the eternal, you're not going to have what I'm talking about. You're going to live from happy, happy, happy, happy, happy. And you're going to be miserable. That's the way it works.
So I've been infused. My identity, everybody's looking for who am I? We are born with who am I? My identity is I am a child of God. There's no questions about that. My dad loves me. He takes care of me. I can actually talk to him. I can pray with him. I can ask things, you know, let me win at golf. I don't do that. I don't do that. Yes, I do. I don't know if he's into that, but he loves me.
Okay. He's done. And so no matter what happens with you, with me, or what's going on outside these walls or what's happening in America, I am connected to this and I'm only here for a little while and everything that happens is temporary. So you best find the joy while you're here. I get to take all that with me. That's what I get to do.
We have to train our mind, our thoughts, our feelings. They all lie to us. What's real? This is real. This is real. There's something that happened with Jesus Christ and I'll be done after this. I want to share it with you. Sorry, my nose runs off. Can we work on the nose? Okay. Help me out.
Okay. Here, listen to this. This is really cool. The Bible says that your joy is set before you, but you just can't see it, pretty much. You're like, "I could have joy." Yeah. If you're a child of God and you're not accessing joy, you need to stop and listen to what I'm saying. He's just been waiting on you for a long time.
You need to know your relationship, who you are, and you need to know your purpose. Those two things will change the way you go to work tomorrow. Everybody got that? So here's what the Bible says that happened to Jesus. He said, "Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, for the joy set before him."
Now, this joy was out there. So there's something that's about to happen that's going to give him joy. And this something that's going to happen is going to be you, but it doesn't make sense in the verse. It doesn't make sense. He endured the cross, scorning the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, hand of the throne of God.
So the joy set before him was, "I'm going to be crucified, nails whipped. I'm going to bleed. I'm going to hurt. I'm going to have pain. I'm going to hang there." So this joy wasn't the absence of pain. You see what I'm saying? This joy was with pain, but his joy was us. It was you. In the middle of this thing and all of this, this joy he was going to have was going to be us, no matter what the pain.
See, no matter what happens, I got this. So I think it's really interesting that we end up with, let's talk about this. Do we want pain with purpose or pain with no purpose? So this is interesting because this is where we are right here. Now, when we got Faith, when she was three years old, let's go ahead and just say, if you've ever had children, it's just not an easy road, okay?
Was there pain with my daughter? Well, sure. If you've had children, they don't worship you like you think they do until they leave home. But anyway, I'm just saying, you have to think for a moment. You know that there's going to be pain when you have children. You know there's going to be pain when you, but in the end, Faith was our purpose and Faith was our joy, and that's why I have it.
I have joy because of it. God has joy because of you, and he wants you to access it. He wants you to pay attention to it. He wants you to get there. There's two things you need to know, and this will help you. You need to know that you have a relationship with God and who you are in that. This is not my home. I'm not going to be here forever. This is all I got.
You know, my name on earth is Eddie. My name in heaven is Eduardo. So this is what I'm saying. There's two different things going on right now because this is who I am, and this is where I'm going, and we're all going to be together, and that's what you got to think. This is not your home. This is not where you're going to be living. This is temporary stuff.
So what you have to find, while you're here, is where the joy is and where your purpose is. That's what you got to find. Y'all stand with me for a moment. I'm hoping I make sense. You ever, you know, up here, I got a voice going, I don't know what you're doing. You're picking up what I'm laying down. I hope so, but you need to quit living from happy to sad.
You need to live from joy, purpose, and joy. This is what this does. Remember who you are. Remember what we're doing. You know, pick those things that bring joy to you.
All right, let's pray together. Father, thank you again for what you've been doing in our lives, making things possible. I pray, Father, that everything that we do will glorify you. I pray that we will live with joy in our life, and we will find those things in those places, but we can bring that in and remember all the things you have done and who we are, and we love you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
on Jul 06, 2024
