Elevation with Steven FurtickWhere your joy comes from will determine when it runs out.
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Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message Joy is a focus before it's a feeling. And so while we're chasing a feeling called joy, God has given us the ability to choose not our feelings.
You ever tried to choose joy?
I saw it on Pinterest. I tried it. It sucked, it didn't work. Then I felt guilty because I couldn't find joy, and it made me feel less joy. So now I'm in a joyless pit of joylessness. It is cyclical joylessness and shame is the difference between choice and consequence. Joy is a choice, really because some of the trials that people go through are actual mental illness. And it's kind of hard for them to just feel happy because they got a good parking space. And no matter how much you tell them to feel happy, be happy, you know, be happy.
Feel happy.
Counter blessings, James doesn't say counter blessings.
This isn't a nursery rhyme. It's a Bible scripture.
He said, count it all joy, He said, learn how to flip You might not know this statement, but there's a there's a statement. In financial terms, it's an income statement. It's it's got your your income on one side, your expenses on another. James says, if you can learn to put some of the stuff in the income column that you thought was an expense, some of the stuff in the blessing column that you thought was a burden. If you can flip the flow, you actually have more joy than you're aware of.
But you're not gonna get it by.
Praying for a feeling. You're going to get it by making choices. Joy is not a choice. In fact, the worst way that I can get more joy is to focus on getting more joy. The best way to stop being happy is to ask yourself the question am I happy?
And see?
I don't remember my grandparents ever talking about this. If they did, I don't remember it. I never remember my grandmother my grandfather talking about are we really happy?
They didn't think like that.
There wasn't feeds and scrolling, There wasn't there wasn't all this other stuff to make them feel unhappy in a moment's notice, there wasn't There wasn't an infinite supply of unhappiness in their pocket in the form of a device.
They didn't have that, so they focused on something else. What was it?
What is it that.
Brings joy?
If I focus on it, I know it is not. It's not looking around? How are they doing? What do they think? Where'd they go on vacation? Where's your thinking? Where's he going on? What's she wearing when she is on? What do they think about me?
No, no, that's not gonna do it, he said for the joy set before him.
So I can't be looking all around and expecting to have joy. I can't be judging my situation according to other people's calling and expect to have joy. I can't be judging my gift compared to.
Other people's talent and expect to have joy.
I know it's so cliche because we say it every week, but nothing destroys joy like comparison. The life you've got, some of you would be so enjoyable if only you didn't do this while you were living it. If only you didn't do this. I mean, it's hurting my neck just to do it. To illustrate to you, imagine what it's doing to your soul. You can't have joy that way. It is destroying your joy. You're praying for more joy, and yet you are destroying the joy God has given you.
The joy of your.
Salvation, the joy of your calling, the joy of your assignment. God, give me more joy. Well, it's a decision not to have joy. That's the worst way to get joy, the decision of what I'm going to focus on.
And I can't get it like this.
And I definitely can't get it like this looking at what's behind me.
I can't look back.
Remember when God called Moses at the burning bush and he said his name, he said, I am, not I was. Remember he said I am, I will be. There's something to that. There's something to that. It's echoed by David in Psalm sixteen. He says, in your presence is the fullness of joy. Presence. Everybody say that word presence. The gift of joy is found in presence. But that doesn't mean in church. That's not what it means to say, in God's presence is the fullness of joy. Because God would never limit his presence to a building. It doesn't mean when you're doing everything right, then you're gonna feel happy because God is not going to reward you based on behavior. That's not the good news of the Gospel. The gospel is for sinners. The Gospel is for the weak. The Gospel is for the lame, The gospel is for the broken. The Gospel is for those who feel ashamed. That's not what it means. In your presence is fullness of joy. That means joy can only really come to my life when I am focused on what God is doing in this moment. And I cannot focus on what God is doing in this moment in my life if I'm consumed with what He's doing in somebody else's or if I'm still in regret and bitterness about what happened three years ago, or three months ago, or even three minutes ago. A lot of our lack of joy is really not about possession.
It's about position.
What I mean is this, He set joy before him. It's not a question of God's presence. His presence is everywhere. It's not a question of God's presence. You don't have to ask Him to be with you. He already is. It's not about God's presence, it's about yours. Are you present in this moment? Are you present in this trial? Are you present in this worship service? Well, if you are given praise for a second, we need this lesson friends, family, brothers, sisters, brethren, sister, and mother's.
Father's children.
We can't go to a concert anymore without trying to capture it. And I can't enjoy it because I'm too busy trying to post it.
Kids do something cute? Capture it? Well, you can't, but you're also gonna kill it. There is no quicker way to kill your kid's.
Cuteness than trying to capture it. I swear demons come out when you start trying to.
Capture stuff to post it.
God knows your heart and he sends something to your iPhone I don't know, and it shoots beams into your children.
And they start. Can I show you a picture real quick?
I don't like to be too indulgent in these sermons, but and show my family off. But this is just a quick picture of us on vacation before Christmas. Look at that. Here's another picture. I'll show you.
A couple just so you can see.
I'm gonna tell you something that you wouldn't see if I put those on Instagram. Go back to the first one again. Please that one looks happy, right, and go to the other one. Can go to the other one. That one looks sad. Let me tell something. That's not my sad face.
M hm.
That's my RBF. That's my resting Bible face. That's my really blessed face. That's my focus face. That's when I was getting the sermon flip the flow at TGI Friday's in the Miami International Airport and the d concourse.
I'm happy the other one put the other one up. I was so mad at Abby.
That was the seventeenth time I tried to take a selfie of us, and I wanted to throw her in the ocean by the time it was over. Not in a playful way. See, I'm just trying to get us in this series to start take it down, start looking beneath the surface and stuff, to stop looking at the surface of stuff, and to stop, you know, discerning. I found out that you can miss joy because you're looking all around. You can miss joy because you're looking behind you.
But here's the thing. You can also.
Miss joy because you're trying to look too far ahead.
It's an equal danger.
And some of you, while I was preaching the part about look around, you're like, nah, I'm good, bro, I'm like fifty three.
I don't do that anymore. And when I was tell my.
Looking back, you're like, yeah, I already dealt with my stuff back there.
It's fine.
But what you do is you look so far forward, like I was doing the other day driving that new car I told you about, and I can't get anywhere without a GPS.
What it embarrass you for me?
If I told you I was going to my mom's house in town and was following the GPS, that's how bad my sense of direction is.
This true story. And I slammed into.
The back of another car because I was looking three turns ahead and not looking three feet ahead. And it might be destroying your joy. Not that you're like comparing, or not that you're regretting, but maybe you just trying to get so far out there, you know, Like my retirement is down twenty four.
It'll catch back up just a lot of time, you know.
But for those of us who need to plan, he didn't say in your plans this fullness of joy, And you can't even really affect the future from anywhere but the present, and it's always an energy. So this is my year of presence. I'm trying to figure out what it means to find fullness of joy in God's presence. And in order to find fullness of joy in His presence, I have to bring my presence to my real life.
Not my presence to.
Some imaginary scenario, but the real life that God has given me right now.
And you know what's great about it.
Let's go to Psalm sixteen for just a moment, and I promise I'll start closing this.
Are you enjoying this teaching today is blessed in your life?
Touch somebody and say this is my happy face.
Because I was focused. I was happy because I was focused.
The other one, I was trying to show something to the world that wasn't real. I was thinking maybe I could get some likes on this, and so I wasn't focused on what was right in front of me. But Jesus, for the joy set before him, endured. He didn't enjoy the cross. He endured the cross because of joy set before him. And now I want to give you the whole sermon. Okay, here's the sermon in a sentence hadn't you been preaching for thirty five minutes? Yeah, but I hadn't said anything yet. Here's the sermon in a sentence. You cannot choose joy. You can only choose your priorities, and your priorities control your joy. You can't choose joy anymore than you can just can you think you can choose joy.
It's like trying to choose the weather. What you can choose.
Is your priority, and your priorities will ultimately control your joy.
Psalm sixteen. Put it on the screen for me, verse what I start? Verse five? Please? The Lord is my chosen portion. See the word chosen.
It means I have decided to make God the most important thing in my life. I don't want to leave that too abstract, because what does that mean read the Bible first thing every morning?
Maybe, but it.
Means more than that His will is what I want. His ways are higher than my ways. So the Lord Yahweh, the Great, I am the ever present help in time of trouble.
He is my chosen portion.
I've looked at everything else that this world offers me to enjoy, and yes, I can enjoy things that aren't necessarily spiritual, but I do not need them to survive, and I will not attach my joy to a temporal pleasure anymore because I tried that.
I tried that.
I cheered for the Clemson Tigers when they were three and eight, and when they won the second national championship in the last few years, people were coming up to me saying congratulations.
I was like, for what. I enjoyed the game. I watched the game. I liked it.
I enjoyed the forty four to sixteen victory. But I didn't need college boys in spandex.
To give me a reason to live. That is not my priority.
I can't invest my joy in what people I don't know do With an oblong object made out of pigskin converted into leather with some stitches for four fifteen minute increments, it's throw priority. I enjoyed it, but my joy is not in it. Last week, I told you something.
Very powerful about your heart.
I said, when you know where it comes from, you know how it comes out.
When you know where it comes from, you know how it comes out.
This is what I want to tell you this week. Where it comes from determines when it runs out. This is the source of your joy. The way you can know that is what are my priorities, Essama said, The Lord is my chosen portion. And here's something Jesus said that I've been thinking about all week. I've been meditating on this. He said, Abide in me my words. Abide in you. You bear much fruit. Sometimes you're gonna get cut on, but you'll never be cut off. If you abide in me and my words, abide in you, there will be a constant flow of joy.
Like the vine and the branches. You're going to have what you need.
The joy is going to flow from a place of your rest and trust in me, not in your own effort, and not in just certain things that happen. If they happen, is fine, but don't confuse the ice and with the cake. Abide in me, my words, Abide in you. Then he says something in John fifteen eleven. Please I have told you this so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. The Lord said, a lot of us are settling for partial joy, partial joy, and we equate joy with the absence of sadness. Joy is not the absence of sadness. If it was, Jesus couldn't have had it on the cross. He said, I want my joy to be in you, but you've got to own it because to just say, well, Jesus is my joy, it doesn't really get to the heart of why we could know Jesus and still not no joy.
Because it's a decision.
When I give the wrong things too much priority in my life, then those priorities control my joy. If my priority is recognition, then recognition controls my joy. When people recognize me, I will feel happy about it.
If my priority is recognition.
If my priority is convenience, then when something is inconvenient, the inconvenience will steal my joy. But it really didn't steal my joy, did it? Because I let it drive and whatever is driving the car gets to DJ. So the Lord told me in preparing this message that we've got some backseat DJs that have been controlling our joy, our feelings, our finances, our bank accounts, our status, our standing, our situations. And today God wants you to tell some of the things in your life that have been controlling your joy from the back seat.
You are not my God, you are not my vine, you are not my source, and you don't hold my joy.
Joy is something deeper than how I feel about it. Joy is something deeper than what I post about. Joy is something deeper than the way it feels. Right now, I am setting joy before me.
I'm resetting my warnings. Now. When I do that, my joy flows not from what it is, but from who God is to me. This is the duration of joy.
And when my joy is running out, give me my point, my last point. The duration of joy is because it's coming from the wrong place. Where it comes from determines.
When it runs out.
And I wonder, where's your joy today. I had to study this hard because I struggle to enjoy my life.
I really love my family, I really love my church. I love what I get to do. It's a blessing and a privilege.
But I have to admit to you that sometimes I have been guilty of enduring something that God has given me to enjoy, and every time it happened, it was because of my priorities.
Your priorities control your joy.
You can try all you want to be happy, happy, happy, and the quick hit stuff, the quick fixed stuff. It'll get you through the next few hours, but where it comes from determines when it runs out.
There is a well that never runs dry. There is a joy.
There is a deep, abiding sense of joy that is available to us that we have not been accessing. And what we're praying for more of God is waiting for us to order our lives around.
My joy is.
Too important for me to leave it up to whether or not today goes well, or whether or not they speak to me, or whether or not it turns out well. Is too important. I can't afford. I'm getting older now. I'm not a twenty five year old anymore. I'm a distinguished thirty eight year old full of wisdom, and I can't afford.
To just give my joy away just any time. I can't afford to have these.
Back seat DJs just change in the temperature of my life. I can't afford to just let my emotions control my joy. So I want to pray for people today. Play something more interesting, that's boring. I want to pray for people today. There's just one chord. Pray for people today who have allowed your joy to be controlled by something other than the priority of God's presence in your life. And you want me to pray for you to experience a vital connection to God in the coming six days until we meet again, Please stand.
If you want me to pray for you about that.
I've been allowing my joy to be connected to things that can't sustain me.
There's so much more than I wanted.
To share with you, but I feel like I was able to present this word to you on a level that if you can just receive that much of it.
So flip it.
Instead of going, Lord, I need more joy, like it's gonna come raining down in the form of candy pellets.
Ah.
Instead of praying, God, give me the wisdom to when things come in my life to count it joy, to consider it joy, because I know that the testing of my faith produces patience. Teach me God to set joy before me like Jesus did, like the Psalmist did. He said, the Lord is ever before me. He is on my right hand. I will not be shaken in your presence. Is the fullness of joy. And watch this at your right hand. Pleasures forevermore. Not the kind to come and go, Not the kind that leave you feeling worse afterwards, Not the kind that leave you sick afterwards, Not the kind that make you feel bad about it, shameful about it afterwards.
Perpetual pleasantness in the presence of God,
