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"Here as in Heaven."
For more information visit : garden.church
Welcome to Garden Church podcast. We are a community in Southern California dedicated to raising resilient disciples of Jesus Christ.
Darren Rouanzoin:Alright. What's up, Eleven? How are you? It's been a couple of weeks for me and I'm so glad to be with you today. I see cat there's some cash up here.
Darren Rouanzoin:So there's a $100 here. If you don't know, sometimes cash comes onto our stage. I know the story behind this one. A young lady in our church just started a business and this is like first fruits of her business. So that's for some.
Darren Rouanzoin:We'll figure out, but there's probably more cash that will come. I'm so glad to be with you today. Today's it it we're in Advent, which I'll get to in a moment. But I was listening to John. I didn't really listen to the 9AM.
Darren Rouanzoin:I was eagerly waiting over there, but more thinking of my sermon. But I was amazed that over $50,000 was given to Franklin. Like that's incredible. Like and what's incredible is when we started our giving campaign, which yeah, for year end, we also have given over $50,000 to the needs within our community. So we launched a giving campaign and $100,000 have gone to the people that are around us in need.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's incredible. And I think what happens is we get sanitized by good stories. Or you just assume something like, I know the story behind the story at Garden Church. It's so miraculous it doesn't make sense. Primarily because I'm part of the leadership team and I know how I know the origin story.
Darren Rouanzoin:The fact that our we had a staff and elder was it was a Christmas party this last week, where where the number of people that are part of our staff and elders and spouses was like, you know, twice three times the size of our our church the first year. And and I I just wanna like pause and recognize that in a world of consuming Christianity, we need to like be wowed by the miracles that are part of our story. Like 338 families got Christmas because of you all. The day before that, we did a New Life Beginnings Christmas party with a few families and there were about a half a dozen dozen people plus all the kids, moms plus the kids that got Christmas because of Garden Church. That's incredible.
Darren Rouanzoin:And I want you to just have that heart of being wowed and surprised. Is that alright? And I know we get so focused on our own story. We miss what God's doing all around us. I just wanna say thank you for your miraculous generosity.
Darren Rouanzoin:Thank you for your miraculous ministry of being part of what Jesus is doing. And so I I'm wowed right now. I'm just so grateful. Today, I get to do the third part of the Advent. You've had Bill the last two weeks.
Darren Rouanzoin:How great has Bill been? Those Bill, Advent, the word, the English word is translated from the Latin word which is translated from the Greek word. Yeah. And it means arrival. And the whole part of the church that we, when we celebrate Advent, it's the beginning of the of the year.
Darren Rouanzoin:The beginning of the year doesn't start in January for the church. It starts with Advent. It starts with the weeks leading up to Easter. Weeks leading up to Christmas. To prepare the church for the arrival of Jesus.
Darren Rouanzoin:And the retelling of the Christmas story. We we have this moment of breakthrough where where God sends his son and he he's incarnated. The the divine becomes human and it's the beginning of of the story of the gospels. But it's also for the church a retelling or a reimagining of the second coming. That we're waiting with hope.
Darren Rouanzoin:The anticipation of God's return. Where for those of us that deal with anxiety, pain and chaos, we will experience this peace once and for all. Amen? But also, today, we get to talk about the third kind of theme of Advent and that's the word Joy. I love that word Joy.
Darren Rouanzoin:And and what I love about the church is that we're called and we miss this to be a community of joy. And I wanna suggest that that's actually what's missing in a lot of y'all's life. The question I wanna answer today is, does God want me to be happy? Does God want you to be happy? So we are gonna do a deep dive in this idea of joy.
Darren Rouanzoin:So we will call it a Theology of Joy, a Ministry of Joy, answering the question, does God want me to be happy? Are you alright at 11:00? Yes. I am gonna pray for you because I don't know yet. That was a conditioned response.
Darren Rouanzoin:Yes. And it's like that that meme where it's like actually what you're really saying is, Ah! Help! Alright. Let me pray.
Darren Rouanzoin:Jesus, may your presence be with us as we open your word. May your Holy Spirit open our hearts and our minds, our bodies to receive hope, peace, joy and love in you. May we receive something that you wanna give us. May our our lives be reoriented to the real version that you are. The true biblical incarnate son of God.
Darren Rouanzoin:In Jesus name. Amen. Let see your Bibles. Luke chapter two. Let's let's put them up.
Darren Rouanzoin:Luke two. Yeah. Well done. Keep them all the up. You're slow.
Darren Rouanzoin:I got Man. Praise the Lord. Church that reads the Bible. That's a win right there. That that picture was Can I Is there any overflow today?
Darren Rouanzoin:Because I know all the college students are going, yeah, okay. They're there. Hey guys. Let me see your Bibles. Oh yeah, you got them.
Darren Rouanzoin:Alright. Great. Everyone's afraid to sit in the front row. I see you in the front row. You're brave.
Darren Rouanzoin:Scoot up. Scoot up. I'm just kidding. Alright. We're going to Luke.
Darren Rouanzoin:Go to Luke chapter two. Luke. Let me hear you say Luke. Oh you're good, you're good to me. Alright I'm gonna come down here Luke chapter two.
Darren Rouanzoin:Gosh. I don't know what I I wanna mix up my sermon. I'm not. I'm gonna read it. Let's read it.
Darren Rouanzoin:Luke two verse eight. Here we go. Start. So Jesus is born. Verse eight.
Darren Rouanzoin:And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby watching over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shown around them and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a savior has been born to you.
Darren Rouanzoin:He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be assigned to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Suddenly a great company of heavenly hosts appeared with the angel praising God and saying glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests. The Word of the Lord.
Darren Rouanzoin:Thanks be to God. I said the Word of the Lord. Thanks be God. Joy for all people. Luke chapter two verse 10 the angels say, Do not be afraid I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people.
Darren Rouanzoin:Joy is not a footnote in the Gospel. Joy is the banner over the arrival of God. Joy is the atmosphere of the kingdom. Joy is the announcement that God is going to do something new and when God does something new, joy walks into the room and fear walks out. Do not be afraid.
Darren Rouanzoin:Great joy is available to all on whom God's favor rests. Now, today I wanna talk about joy but we have to confront our understanding of cultural's definition of happiness. You see, culture's definition of happiness is fragile. You see, biblical joy is something else but happiness in our culture is fragile, it's circumstantial, it's temperamental. It arises and falls on the achievements, on the comforts, on money, on attention, on approval.
Darren Rouanzoin:It whispers. It's like a voice that whispers to us. I'll be happy when And then the finish line keeps moving. I'll be happy when I get the boyfriend of my dreams. I'll be happy when when I finally own that house.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'll be happy when when I get the dream job. I'll be happy when when I have a kid that listens. I'll be happy No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding. I have those sometimes.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's it's like culture keeps promising promising us something that's circumstantial so the American dream is built on this lie that happiness can be attained by stuff, by relationships, by something out there. That's not biblical joy. Something else is going on and that's what I wanna look at today. I wanna look at It's it's it's gonna be an interesting conversation today. But I'm I'm gonna give you some biblical concepts of joy.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm gonna repaint the scriptures for you to see what God is after. Ask the question, what is God like? And land on some practical ways we can train ourselves in joy. Because we'll see that joy is not a mood. Joy is something we step into as the people of God.
Darren Rouanzoin:You with me on this? So, let's start off with how to define joy. I want to start with a quote from C. S. Lewis.
Darren Rouanzoin:I got a lot of quotes today. If you want to take pictures of the quotes, I'm fine with that. Pull your phone up for that and giving and that's okay. Just kidding. Alright.
Darren Rouanzoin:Here's what C. S. Lewis says. He says, Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection. If you wanna get warm, you must stand near the fire.
Darren Rouanzoin:If you wanna be wet, you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to or even into the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could if he chose just hand out to anyone. They are a great foundation of energy and beauty squirting up at the very center of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you.
Darren Rouanzoin:If you are not, you will remain dry. So C. S. Lewis has a formula for joy and happiness. Get close to the source, God, and you will be happy.
Darren Rouanzoin:Get close to God and you'll experience joy because at the center of the universe is our God and out of his nature and character, out of who he is, is this passionate, loving, kind, generous, merciful, joyful being. That's what the scriptures teach, that if you want to find true happiness, you gotta find it in God himself. So, what is joy? The biblical definition of joy is a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. It's from the Greek word chara or charis where we get the word where we get the definition of experience, of gladness, a cause, of joy, or delight.
Darren Rouanzoin:Now, the problem with reading joy in the New Testament especially is we have a translation problem. I love context, I love going to the Greek and Hebrew to help define the the words that we wanna base this teaching off of. So if we're gonna define Biblical joy, need to get to the root, which in the New Testament, there are a group of words that we get the word joy from. And the problem is our translation, joy and happiness, those words are very similar and they belong to a family of biblical words that get flattened by our English. So the Greek word means blessed, flourishing or happy.
Darren Rouanzoin:And it it's it has a counterpart in Hebrew which I don't need to get into but let's stick with the Greek for for now. And what what's happened is that word, Makarios, is translated all over the place in the New Testament. And four hundred years ago when the translators of the King James version took the Greek and translated into English from four hundred years ago, they used the word blessed because blessed 400 ago meant happy and prosperous. Today blessed is like a hashtag in Christian world. But scholars today, most scholars, biblical scholars of New Testament would argue the best translation for the word in the New Testament if we were to modernize it is the word happy.
Darren Rouanzoin:Now you're not this isn't as you're like not wowed by this but you're just quiet. But let me just sit let me just say this will mess up your theology of joy because you keep joy out here as this other thing while you pursue happiness everywhere else. And then you read things in the scripture and you word the word you read the word blessed and you have the You have very little framework for what that means. Other than what's been shaped by culture. So let me give you you know, a better modern translation of Makarios from the New Testament.
Darren Rouanzoin:Can we do that real quick? I'm just gonna read some scripture. I'm putting a different word in, so here we go. So if you read Luke two again, the angel said to them, do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great happiness.
Darren Rouanzoin:Luke 24 the the the story of Jesus birth begins with an announcement of joy and it ends. Then they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great happiness. Alright. Let's get Let's Now let's offend you. Matthew five.
Darren Rouanzoin:Happy are the poor in spirit. Okay. Let's Yeah. Let's let that one sit in. Because that does something else to you, doesn't it?
Darren Rouanzoin:Because now you're you're taking the words that you're reading. So you're like blessed are the poor and you're like okay yeah cool blessed. But when it says happy it messes you up. Because it distorts your understanding of what the text is saying. That's exactly my point.
Darren Rouanzoin:Is for some reason we've we've sanitized the Christian world view. We sanitized God's longing for your life to be a spiritual element when God desires happiness in your life. Only happiness defined on his terms. Are you with me? I'm just gonna read a couple more.
Darren Rouanzoin:How about John 15? If you keep my commands, will remain in my love just as I have kept my father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my happiness may be in you and that your happiness may be complete. Is this just wow for me? I'll just wow all by myself.
Darren Rouanzoin:Amen. Jesus me and you bud. I don't know about these people. 9AM I love love my 9AM brothers. Can't wait for the one.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm just kidding. Just kidding.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's that middle brother right now. I'm the middle brother. John 17. I'm coming to you now but I say these things while I'm still in the world so that they may have the full measure of my happiness within them. Oh wow.
Darren Rouanzoin:Can we get to choir? It's I'm done. Oh wow. Yeah. Was a charity wow.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's a tip.
Darren Rouanzoin:Yeah. The barista. I'll give you a dollar tip for handing me a cup. I'm just kidding. Love you baristas.
Darren Rouanzoin:Don't love you. Just shout out to neat coffee that opened up down the street. I'm just saying, love neat. Praise the My prayers are answered. Neat coffee is right over here.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's amazing coffee shop. Anyways, check it out. It's over there. I said bring some buy one get one free. Put them on the stage.
Darren Rouanzoin:People will take them. Luke chapter 15. I tell you this in the same way. There will be more happiness in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent. I don't need to make the case.
Darren Rouanzoin:All over the all over the place we see that the the there's this overwhelming evidence for God's desire for his people to be filled and experience joy, happiness. Luke uses the word joy or rejoice, which is better translated to happier happiness. Over 43 times in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. That's insane. And if you know the Christian story, if you don't know the Christian story, essentially this.
Darren Rouanzoin:The Bible tells a story about God's loving mission. God's desire to be with you. And in the New Testament, what you see is that God put on flesh and blood to show you how much he loves you. And in in the, what we see is God becomes a a human in the form of Jesus. Jesus takes on, becomes human.
Darren Rouanzoin:And and and when when Jesus lives on earth, he's coming to reveal to you what God is like. We see the best image person of Christ according to the New Testament. If you ever question, what is God like? It has to be reframed in the image of Jesus because God always looks like Jesus. And if you look at Jesus, what do you see?
Darren Rouanzoin:You see a man who feasts at parties. Who tells jokes. If you could read the Greek, you'd be laughing at the jokes written in the New Testament. He's hilarious. He's funny.
Darren Rouanzoin:Scholars I mean, my professors in college would always laugh at these these phrases, but I didn't speak Greek. So they're they're saying this is a tongue twister in Greek on purpose because he's funny. He's slow. He's patient. He lets the kids sit into the service.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's amazing. A man who's interruptible. He's never rushed. He's overwhelmed with joy and overflowing joy. Everywhere Jesus went, joy follows.
Darren Rouanzoin:How do we know? Because the blind guy can see. The deaf guy can hear. The guy who is demon possessed is set free. People who didn't have family are now included as part of the family.
Darren Rouanzoin:Talk about a joyful arrival. Exactly. Joy is what Jesus brings. I mean his first miracle in John is turning water into wine. Talk about keeping the party going.
Darren Rouanzoin:And you can't sanitize that story. Scholars are saying it probably would have been enough for a gallon and a half of wine per person at the party. The point isn't that he's getting people drunk. It's that it's overwhelmed. The kingdom is about abundance.
Darren Rouanzoin:Can I preach? Yes. The parables he tells are about parties. The only characters in the New Testament that do not rejoice in the presence of Jesus are demons and the religious. So where are you today?
Darren Rouanzoin:There's my 11:00. Hello. All that to say this leads to one stunning truth and you can take a picture of the slide. God is happy. You're welcome.
Darren Rouanzoin:Just take a picture. Yeah. Go ahead. May may I suggest that this point is why lots of your problems are happening in your life? You think God's holding out.
Darren Rouanzoin:You think that you did something wrong and he's upset at you so the causation is the result of what you did wrong. Yeah? And what we do, Trevor Hudson he writes, do I have it up there? Yeah. We shape we shape our picture of God and then that picture shapes us.
Darren Rouanzoin:This is probably the most profound thought you can have for the rest of the Advent series. That your view of God shapes the way you live and interact in the world. So if God is angry, you are gonna live in fear. If God is distant, then you're gonna numb out. Live without purpose or meaning.
Darren Rouanzoin:Right? If God is a judge that's just waiting to to criticize you every time you make a mistake. So you're living frenetically trying to appease the anger and the wrath. It will create a distorted life and it will distort all your relationships. I love what Eugene Peterson says.
Darren Rouanzoin:He says, Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship. It is a consequence. It's what comes to us when we are walking in the way of faith and obedience. Joy is what God gives not what we work up. It is a deep deep sense of well-being that cannot be shaken by trouble, hardship or loss.
Darren Rouanzoin:I wanna just say Jesus was most likely the most joyful being that ever existed in human history. Yes. And he suffered more than any other human on the planet. Joy and suffering can coexist. Joy, let me say, let me put it this way.
Darren Rouanzoin:When things don't go the way you want, does joy leave the room? Or have you been trained as a follower of Jesus? That actually the reservoir that is joy sustains you in the suffering. Because that's what he's after. That's what we're after as followers of Jesus.
Darren Rouanzoin:To become like him. Most of the time in my life, when things don't go my way, my unlikeness of Jesus reveals itself. Anyone wanna say Yes to that? Can I just not be alone for a month? Thank you.
Darren Rouanzoin:I felt so vulnerable.
Darren Rouanzoin:You all are perfect.
Darren Rouanzoin:You are like, Oh, you are still struggling Pastor D? Yeah. Yes I am. What I have realized is joy is not the result of the Gospel. It is the evidence of the gospel.
Darren Rouanzoin:So when life crashes in and those unanswered prayers come flooding your way. When things all of a sudden are revealing your disorientation because it just you got hit by the by the by the crisis. That relationship no longer exists. That thing is no longer present. The dream job is gone.
Darren Rouanzoin:The conflict is overwhelming. The pain is unbearable. Do you have a history of receipts accounted for of joy? Not because of the circumstances going your way but because of the person of Christ in your life. Does does he sustain you so that you're you're you're you're withhold you're holding yourself in the power and the presence of God even when all the winds and and the storms come your way.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's that's what we're after. And one of the things I see in the Christian world today is it's in the conservative, like non charismatic traditions, the religious tradition, and it's in the charismatic traditions, and it's the same thing. It's just a different side of the coin. Alright, so, same coin, different side. So in the charisma, non charismatic will go over here.
Darren Rouanzoin:Non, this side will be the Bible folks that just say, get more intense. Just fast more, read your Bible more, memorize more scripture, go to more Bible studies. That's what you gotta do to get right with Jesus. Yeah.
Darren Rouanzoin:I don't know what I don't wanna do. Brothers and sisters, no. And then the charismatic side is you just gotta get in the presence through the worship gathering. Just go to the prayer room and be in his presence and let him zap you in a Holy Spirit moment and joy is gonna come and everything is gonna be fine. Can I just say?
Darren Rouanzoin:First of all there's some truth to both sides. That's not where God lives. He lives in the ordinary. He lives on Monday morning when you're filled with anxiety again after the hit was gone and you have to go to your nine to five where you have a coworker who hates you and Christianity and it takes everything out of you to drive on the 405. He lives there.
Darren Rouanzoin:And those spaces train you for where he is. And joy is not just to have a choir. God bless the choir. I want a choir every week. I'm in the zone with the choir.
Darren Rouanzoin:No. It's when the choir's not there. Yes. It's when the bible's still you don't have language for the pain. Only tears you've collected.
Darren Rouanzoin:Yeah. When the the pastor pastor isn't reading your mail in the charismatic prophetic circle. No. You have been trained to be resilient with Jesus in the mundane. That's what he's after.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's where joy is. And let me just say, if there's no joy, we've lost the plot. Which I just wanna say, on both sides, they're losing the plot. Joy doesn't just exist in the gathering in the prayer circle. Joy doesn't exist just with the intensity of of the bible ring.
Darren Rouanzoin:Joy exists everywhere. You have to have eyes to see. But it has to do with your view of God. Most most of us have to have the wrong image of God in our head and hearts. We don't believe God is happy.
Darren Rouanzoin:If you believe that, then you should be the most joyful person around. But you're not living after that. You don't Most of us don't believe God is in a good mood. Let's try it. God is good.
Darren Rouanzoin:All the time. God is in a good mood? All the time. Oh you did it. Okay.
Darren Rouanzoin:Don't know what were you gonna do. I just made it up. I wasn't planning on that. Great. That worked.
Darren Rouanzoin:But God is good. No more Christian cliche living. I love what Tim Keller does. So he takes what will be the most common prayer you have in the New Testament, the Lord's Prayer. And he reframes it.
Darren Rouanzoin:He gives you context. Alright? So there's the Lord's Prayer. If you don't know the Lord's Prayer, it begins with, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Alright?
Darren Rouanzoin:You know that? Look at what he does to the He helps us understand what that means. So he says this, to hallow God's name is to have a heart of grateful joy towards God. And even more a wondrous sense of his beauty. Consider how different this is from the normal way we use prayer, to get things.
Darren Rouanzoin:We may believe in God but our deepest hopes and happiness resides in things as in how successful we are or in our social relationships. So we therefore pray mainly when our career or finances are in trouble or when some relationship or social status is in jeopardy. We know God is there but we tend to see him as the means through which we get things to make us happy. For most of us, he has not become our happiness. With hallowed be thy name, Jesus is saying, father, you are the source of my emotional well-being.
Darren Rouanzoin:Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. We're saying, you are the source of my happiness. Here lies the secret for does God want you to be happy? Absolutely. But happiness needs to be redefined because what you're really after that void that consumerism is trying to fill, that void that you're trying to get that relationship to fill is actually found in the person of Jesus Christ.
Darren Rouanzoin:And Dallas Willard actually says that the secret to a good life is your view of God. He even says, listen, wrong ideas about God make it impossible for us to function in relationship to one another. We are not able to love one another because we do not have our minds filled with an accurate vision of God. He says the wrong ideas about God distort our lives. So much so, that we can't live in healthy, loving relationships to each other.
Darren Rouanzoin:Anyone that's married says, Yes and Amen. Anyone that's walking through a breakup says, Yes and Amen. What you don't realize is that what you're trying to fix here actually first needs to be fixed here. Wait. Oh, let me What you're trying to fix here must first be fixed here and then fixed here so that this is fixed.
Darren Rouanzoin:Yeah. So true. If you don't know what that is, just have someone explain it to you later. But your view of God shapes the way you live and interact in the world. Do you agree with that statement?
Darren Rouanzoin:What happens is we get stuck. I would even say conditioned. We get trained, discipled in the wrong way of viewing the world. That's our default. Our default setting is cultural formation.
Darren Rouanzoin:Form to think and see the world through a lens that's not biblical. So as disciples, our job is counter formation. To to step outside of the default setting, to get out of the current of water that's flowing in culture. To step outside of that and be formed in the image of Christ. So we have to take off old habits and put on new habits.
Darren Rouanzoin:We have to take off the old self and put on the new self. We have to do things differently to change our perspective. Would you agree? This is why change is so hard. It's easy to just go through the drive thru when you're hungry.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's hard to make food and prepare to eat clean. Is it right? Am I the only one struggling? Because I because my kids love I just went to Cane's for the first time. Wish I didn't experience that because my A neural pathway is formed.
Darren Rouanzoin:That chicken is better than Chick fil A. There's no question. That sauce? What is that sauce? There's some type of addictive drug in the sauce.
Darren Rouanzoin:I walked away with tubs. Alright? I'm just making everything with the cane sauce. I don't even know what it is. It's so good.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's easy to stay in the default of culture. Yes? But what happens is you create a perpetual state of thinking as a result of cultural formation. So you get stuck in seeing the world through a broken lens. Therefore unhappiness is a way of seeing life.
Darren Rouanzoin:Unhappiness is a perpetual way of seeing the world. In the same way that anxiety becomes a lens. Yeah? Depression can become a lens, not for everyone, but depression and anxiety can become a lens. Bitterness becomes a lens.
Darren Rouanzoin:Cynicism is a lens of our culture right now. So it's just critical. We're cynical, we're against everything. Rick Hansen, the neuropsychologist and author of Hardwiring Happiness, he has one of the most quoted, lines in modern neuroscience. He says the listen to this.
Darren Rouanzoin:The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and like Teflon for positive ones. We love to grab on to the negative things that happen to us. I have such a good memory. I can give you dates and times and moments of all the negative in my life. I have my The curse is I have a really good memory.
Darren Rouanzoin:The blessing is I have a good memory. The curse is I remember all the negative. But we also have this rejection to the good things. Right? So someone says something critical of you, you remember it for so long.
Darren Rouanzoin:Someone says something positive, hey, did really good at that sermon. You hold back. Right? They open a door to to enter into joy. But what do we do?
Darren Rouanzoin:We just shut the door. Because what? We've been trained by the world. We're expecting bad things. Someone opens the door with a compliment, we're like, oh no, let's keep it there.
Darren Rouanzoin:Because we don't wanna we don't we know if we step in, bad things are gonna happen. The other shoe's gonna drop. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's called foreboding joy. We protect our hearts from disappointment.
Darren Rouanzoin:We protect our lives from pain and disappointment by not entering into joy because we think the bad things are gonna happen. This has to do with our experience, it has to with cultural formation, it has to do with our view of God. Rick Hansen says, when we repeatedly focus on what is wrong, threatening or disappointing, we strengthen neural pathways of fear, anxiety and dissatisfaction. Why is everyone so unhappy today? This is why.
Darren Rouanzoin:Because you're addicted to unhappy. Another psychologist says, people who habitually interpret life through a negative lens are more likely to experience anxiety, helplessness and despair, even when circumstances improve. So there's this reality that neuroscience are arguing what Romans 12 argues. What Philippians argues. Whatever is true and noble.
Darren Rouanzoin:Think about these things. That there is a way that our nervous system is shaped by what we repeatedly focus on. And the enemy, by the way you have an enemy and he's constantly trying to rob you of your joy because the joy is from the Father. He's trying to train you to live in the negative. To expect disappointment.
Darren Rouanzoin:To be a person who always assumes the worst. And we walk around ordinary life missing out on the reality of God's goodness everywhere we go. It's like the time a couple weeks ago I was up early stressing out and I went on a long walk and I was down by the beach and this I I knew that it was the sun was gonna start rising and I'm I'm I am walking and behind me is the most majestic sunrise. The colors were magnificent. It wasn't colored by the clouds.
Darren Rouanzoin:The clouds were colored by the sun. It was like creation was singing with joy. And I missed this grand, wondrous moment of creation song because I had my head in my phone stressing about finances, trying to write notes for a meeting and I missed out on the invitation to experience God's joy. We do this all the time, don't we? Yeah.
Darren Rouanzoin:We can walk through a world drenched in joy and never see it because our mind is tuned inward. Which is why Henry Nouwen says, Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose Joy and keep choosing it every day. Joy is not a mood. Joy is a way of seeing life before God.
Darren Rouanzoin:Joy is a cultivated lens. It's something that you can build upon, practice. Cultural for Culture forms us in unhappiness because happiness disappears when circumstances don't go our way And so many of our Christian pop, I'll say cultural Christianity, pop Christianity, we'll call it that. Expect a life with Jesus is up and to the right. Right?
Darren Rouanzoin:Come to Jesus and blessed. But that blessing is simply the American way spiritualized in the Christian church. Call it out. Blessed life means more stuff, more fame, more success, more money, more vacations, more homes, more cars. That's not what Jesus is getting at.
Darren Rouanzoin:That is not the blessed life. You are blessed. Yes. If you're in Jesus. Yes.
Darren Rouanzoin:And the problem is we come to God wanting to worship. See we're like, alright bring your gratitude to the Lord when you worship. Where you're like, I had a terrible year. This went wrong, this went wrong, this went wrong, cultivated lens. You don't need anything to happen in 2025 to have an eternity of praise because of the cross.
Darren Rouanzoin:A cultivated lens. Oh, you didn't get the job, your your things going wrong, you need new roommates. Okay. I get it. What about the fact that he died on the cross for your sins?
Darren Rouanzoin:What about the what about the fact that you have been cleansed? You have been justified. You have been set free. You are more than a conqueror. What about that you are God's chosen?
Darren Rouanzoin:That you are adopted into sonship and daughtership? What if you are more What if you are a poema? You are a work of art? All because of Jesus. You have a poor vocabulary of praise because you you've been trained in cultural's form of happiness.
Darren Rouanzoin:Not biblical joy. You gotta get into the fire. You gotta return to the fire, to the source. You gotta jump in. You gotta get baptized.
Darren Rouanzoin:You gotta find yourself in the presence of Jesus. And for so many Christians they haven't the the the slightest clue what it means to be in the presence of Jesus. We Oh, you mean come up come to worship? No. I mean get yourself into the presence of Jesus on that commute.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's where joy awaits you. Joy If joy is a cultivated way of seeing life before God then joy Does does your joy leave the room when pain pain enters the story? I see it so much. It's like so quick. Where people go from a high experience of like light hearted joy, excitement to one thing goes wrong and it could be a big thing and their life is thrown out of kilter.
Darren Rouanzoin:They're completely lost. It shows me what they worship. It shows me what is the center of your reality. This relationship, this job, this financial thing, what This hope for a financial thing. If you get thrown off because your plans are thwarted, does your joy disappear?
Darren Rouanzoin:So I wanna give you three ways to train yourself in joy. Can we do that? So I wanna help you develop a life of joy. Here's some practical things from scripture. Number one, develop a joy radar.
Darren Rouanzoin:So joy, you have to choose it, if you have to step into it, if you have to practice it, if you have to train, if joy is what God is after, if you wanna experience joy by stepping into the presence of Jesus, let me just say, first develop a joy radar. Psalm 65 is where I learned this. It says this, the whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders. Where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy. Here's a question for all of you students.
Darren Rouanzoin:Where does morning dawn and evening fade? Go ahead and answer. Everywhere.
Darren Rouanzoin:Not a trick question. Great job. One. Alright. The rest of you failed.
Darren Rouanzoin:What is that saying? Joy is all around you. It's in the fabric of creation. It's available every hour of the day. You just have to look for it.
Darren Rouanzoin:You just have to see and then Psalm 16 verse 11 says, in your presence there is fullness of joy. Joy is not found in possessions. Joy is not found in your performance. Joy is not found in a career. Joy is found in proximity to his presence.
Darren Rouanzoin:This is what neuroscience confirms, what scripture has been saying all along. What you give your attention to shapes who you become. What you When you practice gratitude, your brain is rewired. Andrew Huberman says, Gratitude practices activate dopamine and serotonin pathways in the brain. And when practiced consistently, change the way the nervous system responds to stress.
Darren Rouanzoin:There is a power in giving thanks. You can walk around God saying God thank you for this. God is good. God is good. God is good.
Darren Rouanzoin:He is for me. Okay so. I don't know about you. It took me three times. You're like, I don't know what I'm supposed to say.
Darren Rouanzoin:I said it 50 times already. All the time. There we go. But here's the thing. You have to train yourself in this.
Darren Rouanzoin:I had this experience yesterday. I signed up for athletic race yesterday. Last Saturday I signed up. Didn't train for it. Decided to do it.
Darren Rouanzoin:Let's go for it. Called my friend from Ohio. He flew out. We did this race. Right?
Darren Rouanzoin:It's it was the dumbest thing. It's called High Rocks. And I almost died. I literally almost died. I was I It ends with wall balls after a ridiculous amount of working out and I thought I was gonna die.
Darren Rouanzoin:I thought I like, this is it. I was look I was looking for the medic. They have medics everywhere. Ladies counting my wall balls which were at this point, every rep was no rep. No rep.
Darren Rouanzoin:I was like, get behind me, Satan. That is a rep. She's like, there's only 20 left. And I'm like, only 20 left. I'm about to die for these 20.
Darren Rouanzoin:It was brutal. And and I was talking to my buddy, this is his story. And we were talking about what motive what's gonna be the the motivating factor to get us through. And he was saying He tells me afterwards. This is what he said.
Darren Rouanzoin:I wish he would have told me. Because I My motivating factor was don't die. This guy who's a business leader is like, hey, my motivating factor was to make it all a worship moment. Oh, you're so spiritual. Halfway through, he's on the rower and he's thinking about a business partnership he has that's not going well and he's getting angry.
Darren Rouanzoin:He tells me he's on the run, he's doing the one because it's like all these things. He's running, he's just, he's rehearsing what he's gonna say to his partner. He's got cuss words, he's got all he's not spiritual now. He's got all these things. He's rehearsing the speech.
Darren Rouanzoin:Right? Have you ever had that? Right? You're like, okay, I'm gonna do it. And you're like rehearsing the negativity.
Darren Rouanzoin:And then he's slowing down and God reminds him, he said this is supposed to be about worship. So he's like forget that and he starts thinking about God and he's and then it it shifts from negative to worship. Now he's looking for people to start high fiving. You know, he's getting lapped like I was. We were both getting lapped like nonstop.
Darren Rouanzoin:Like, you trained, you trained. I did not train. And he's like, high five. Good job. And everyone's everyone's like, that there's so much joy being spread all of a sudden.
Darren Rouanzoin:And then he gets to the wall balls, which is the last thing. I'm, you know, about to die. He is like, God is good. Say it out loud, God is good. He's like, saying God is good.
Darren Rouanzoin:The the person next to him is laughing. He's he's turning into worship. God is good. Half halfway through the run, I forgot to say this, he starts getting a cramp. Right?
Darren Rouanzoin:And that for a race, you don't wanna be cramped. And he's like and God's like, this is life. You're gonna get a cramp. What are you gonna do? And that's when he started saying, God is good.
Darren Rouanzoin:The cramp was a reminder to reorganize, to realign his energy to the fact that it's worship. Cramps are gonna come. How many of you know where I'm going? Maybe 20 '20 five was a giant cramp. Can I say God is good?
Darren Rouanzoin:Are you being trained with some joy radar? Yeah yeah. So when that thing happens when the email comes don't don't respond real quick. Take a second. It's all worship.
Darren Rouanzoin:God is good. How are doing church? Number two, this is a good one. Express joy when you have it. Yes.
Darren Rouanzoin:You wanna grow in joy? Give it away. When you have it, give it away. Start high fiving people. Generosity.
Darren Rouanzoin:Give away the good things that God's given you. Psalm 28 says this in verse, I love this. Praise be to the Lord for he has heard my cry for mercy. The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusts in him not his outcomes.
Darren Rouanzoin:In him. Yep. Yep. He helps me. Oh, here we go.
Darren Rouanzoin:My heart leaps for joy and with my song I praise him. Does your heart literally leap? No. It's metaphor. It's imagery.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's poetry to help you see when you're filled with joy. It causes you to express it. You jump, you leap, you skip when you have it. It's like Acts three. It says that the man that was born paralyzed.
Darren Rouanzoin:It says his ankles are healed. They become strong. Right? He begins to walk and then it says he gets he goes into the temple and he leaps. It says he's leaping, jumping, skipping.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's exact it's he's he's healed. He can now walk. His he starts walking. His ankles are strong and now he's skipping. Because why?
Darren Rouanzoin:Because he's healed. I don't know about you but if you got healed from something that you had since you were a a child it wouldn't be, that's cool. There's gonna be an expression that comes. Again, can I just say, this has to do with your view of God? Every good and perfect gift comes from Him.
Darren Rouanzoin:So when you have it express it. The last thing I just wanna say is you can ask for more joy. Psalm 30 says, You turn my wailing into dancing. He didn't turn your single tear into dancing. For those of us that have wailed before, you know that the deep sorrow that's uncontrollable.
Darren Rouanzoin:Where we're eating the tears at night And in the morning, because of the pain and heartbreak, he turns that into dancing. That's the God I know. That's the God I cling to. That's the God, that's the Jesus I grab onto with dear life. As I get a hurricane of wounds and pain and brokenness and circumstances that wanna tear me apart and I hold on because I know that word is true for me.
Darren Rouanzoin:He removes my sackcloth and clothe me with joy that my heart may sing your praise and not be silent. Lord my God I will praise you forever. Ask for joy because God gives himself. First Thessalonians one six says, You welcome the message in the midst of severe suffering. Severe suffering with joy given by the Holy Spirit.
Darren Rouanzoin:You can have more joy because God wants to give you happiness. I don't know about you but maybe this year stole your joy. Maybe this year life fell apart. Maybe what you are holding on to is simply the ashes of your hope for life. May I say to you that joy is not gone.
Darren Rouanzoin:He's pressing near. Joy hasn't left the building. He's drawing near to you right now and like Lewis said, it's caught like an infection. So draw near. Catch up by diving head first into God.
Darren Rouanzoin:He isn't handing out prizes. He's inviting you into his gladness. Juergen Mottman says, The joy of faith is not a joy that forgets suffering. It is a joy that sees suffering through the eyes of the promised future. It is the presence of the future in the midst of the present pain.
Darren Rouanzoin:Get into the fire. Jump into the water and let the goodness and gladness of our God wash over you again. Because the invitation of Advent is simple. Enter the joy of the Lord. Amen?
Darren Rouanzoin:Alright. Can we all stand together?
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