Life on the Vine (Joy)

Dr. Gregg Marutzky:

Happy Sunday, church Happy Sunday.

It's good to have you here today, and, uh, especially as we, uh, begin, uh,

this second, uh, installment of this new series entitled Life on the Vine.

I'm excited to, uh, share it with you, and I, I better be because it's about joy.

Yeah.

All right?

And, uh, you know, I, I, I've been thinking about joy all week.

In, in fact, I'll share a little bit with you about my process of

getting excited about this sermon.

First, I thought about what makes me joyful.

Right.

And I thought, "Well, what candy bar makes me joyful?"

Almond Joy.

Almond Joy, you got it, Sam.

You're…

There's such a connection.

A couple more.

Cicero, "Friendship improves happiness, abates misery, by the doubling of our

joy and the dividing of our grief."

A great preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, "The sun does not shine

for a few trees and flowers

Yes, Lewis.

Joy is a serious business

Bibles, uh, if you will, over to Galatians chapter 5, our theme verse

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

To, uh, purchase the book if you'd like to.

This is a bur- book that I'm referencing as I'm preparing for these sermons.

It's a, it's a great book.

It really

society.

And today especially, we're gonna talk about how it's difficult to

be joyful in a society that is so full of advertising telling us we're

not content and we need something

Born again, raised from the water of baptism.

We have the, the Spirit within us, for the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy

self-control and against such things, there's no law,

there's no boundary, there's no

Want to live on the vine, don't you?

Yeah.

Life on the vine is a life of love and joy and peace and all the fruits

of the Spirit, and oh, what the world needs now- Yeah … is the Spirit.

Yeah.

Amen?

Write a song about that, will you, somebody?

I'm not a song leader, but it's got to replace what the world needs now is love.

That's a good song, too, but what they really need is the ability to

love, the Holy Spirit within them.

Amen?

Amen.

And I just put up this slide 'cause it's about joy, and I can't jump anymore,

and so, uh, gonna let them jump for me.

Amen?

No, I can jump, but somethin' might happen.

Don't laugh at me.

Don't…

You'll get there s- there someday too

Today, we're gonna talk about the heart some more.

One of the greatest compliments people have given me is, "Greg, you're heartsy."

Well, that's better than being non-heartsy.

All right?

I think it was before I got, uh, educated in more, uh, depth in my

lessons and sermons, they thought, "Well, at least you're sincere," you know?

But I think it's a good quality to be heartsy, to let your heart be out there,

to, to help people to feel what you feel.

And I want, uh, this series to be more than just information

and more than just, uh, truth.

I want us to feel God's love for us.

I want us to feel God's joy over us, especially today, and His

peace and His patience, et cetera.

Amen.

Max Lucado, he's a friend of mine.

I know Max.

Uh, he's, uh, from the same school I went to and even teach at,

Abilene Christian University, and, uh, he's a graduate from there.

We met at a conference in Manaus, Brazil, in the Amazon.

Uh, our rooms were right across from each other at a conference, and we

became friends before he wrote any books.

All right?

In fact, he gave me a, a copy at that conference of his first book, On the

Anvil, and it's not that popular.

Not that many people read that one.

The second one was the one that, uh, everybody, uh, uh, loved,

the, the, the one On the Cross.

But he says, "I choose joy because I will refuse to see any problem as anything

less than an opportunity to see God."

Amen.

There's times I can reframe my mind and my emotions and feel that way, but

that's a higher calling for me, to not see problems as problems, you know?

We moved into this, uh, new house, and they just don't have very good closets.

We put my suits up, which I never wear anymore, in one of the

closets, and it tore down the rail.

Oh.

Gonna have to do it my- build a new one, you know?

And, uh, it's just…

You know, they aren't that heavy, are they?

I guess they may be.

All right?

Maybe I need to give them away, but nobody wants them.

So anyway, personal problem.

Let's move on.

All right?

What was I talking about?

Reframing problems and seeing them as opportunities.

Amen?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then this is a great little acronym.

Seeking joy is first seeking Jesus, seeking others, and then seeking

what's best for yourself as well, which is our relationship with God.

Some definitions of joy.

Very employ- important for us to grab hold of a good personal definition of joy.

Joy is a state of being or byproduct of significance.

You can't really go after joy.

You have to live in such a way where it's a byproduct of your character,

and your activities, and your thinking, and your convictions, and your faith.

You can't get it directly.

It's gotta be a gift from God, a gift from the Spirit.

And the word is chara, which is like, uh, uh, uh, the, the, the, the, the

word, Greek word for grace, charis.

All right?

And so they're sister, uh, words in the Greek 'cause they're connected

both as gifts, gifts from God.

Joy represents a deeper inner gladness and cheerfulness.

Some of you were born joyful.

When they slapped you, you smiled at it.

Right?

And then some of us, we, we, we just grabbed hold of the nearest dark cloud

and just pulled it over us, you know?

I, I've always been as-- too serious.

I love being around happy people.

I need to be happier.

I wanna be happier.

This is a hard sermon to preach for me 'cause I'm not a naturally joyful person.

I don't wake up

Kathy's even like, "Craig, open your eyes.

You're gonna fall down the stairs if you don't open your eyes."

I don't wake up until a shower and coffee Amen.

Now, I may be up and I may be walking around, but I, I, I'm one…

I'm not a morning person.

Some of you are morning people.

My wife's a morning person.

She's just always happy.

The opposites attract, that's why I love her, all right?

Oh, man.

She, she gets me going in the morning.

She's loving, she's kind.

I'm like, "Oh, it's another day."

You know?

And I know I shouldn't be that way, but I'm just…

I'm admitting this, this is who I am naturally.

And but I want to be joyful.

I wanna be happy.

We all do, don't we?

Yeah.

We want it to overflow from within us.

Nobody wants to be around Eeyore.

And if you don't know who, who Eeyore is, you need to read to your

grandkids more often, all right?

In fact, you want joy, get around some children.

Yeah.

The last 10 months living with our two grandkids, I just,

I just crack up at times.

I mean, I mean, they, they, they just…

Children do funny things, you know?

And our little baby, she's one and a half now, she just gibbers.

When I wake, she,

"Uh, uh."

And she knows what she's saying.

She knows what we mean.

I just say, "Yes.

Yes."

And somehow that appeases her.

And then sometimes it doesn't, she gives me this look

Like you're stupid

And then I start laughing when she gives me that look.

I mean, you gotta be around kids.

You gotta be around things that will bring joy out of you.

Amen?

Amen.

Amen.

Come on, man.

You know, we, we, we, we've got this house about a month ago, but we haven't

moved out of our daughter's yet.

I think we're, we're, we're, we're a lit- we're dragging our feet a little bit, me

more than Cathy, because I love that joy.

I love that gift I, I get.

I'm gonna have to hang out there a lot.

They better feed me.

Amen.

Joy is taking delight in someone or something beyond yourself,

like your children, like God.

Joy is being drawn out of ourselves in fulfilling activity.

Don't you just feel great after you've done something good for

someone else, an act of kindness?

Yeah.

Some type of service, service to God, service to others.

Don't you just feel good?

Don't you feel good at the end of the day when you've had a fruitful day?

Yeah.

When you did most of the things that you wanted to do, especially for God.

Joy is the satisfaction we find when we realize what we have been seeking.

The greatest joy is conversion.

Yeah.

And not just our own.

Watching other people be converted.

Oh, that's right.

That's right.

I don't know about you, but I, I'm not emotionally unstable.

You might be

But I'm, I, as the older I get, at baptisms, I always get emotional.

Wow.

And when they share their testimony.

And I was a little emotional this morning to see all these kids up here.

Right.

Yeah.

'Cause that's a milestone, folks.

Yeah.

Right.

And I know how hard it is to graduate.

Yeah.

I practiced.

All right?

But even just graduating from high school, that wasn't that easy for some of us.

Yeah.

We didn't have educated parents.

We didn't have anybody that cared that deeply whether we studied or not.

We didn't have that many role models.

Yeah.

So these kids graduating from high school, what a milestone, what a

joy, what a great foundation, what a springboard- Yeah … for going forward.

And then these folks graduating from college, do you know how many

times in college I almost quit?

You almost quit?

Didn't you go to college for 30 years?

No, just 25, all right?

But after the first semester, I went down and was gonna quit.

Signed up for the Marines.

Wasn't quite old enough, so I had to take the paperwork to my dad.

He tore it up.

Said, "You're going back to college."

"Dad, I didn't do very good.

It's too hard.

I don't think I can do it."

I was valedictorian in my high school, but when you're in a school with all

valedictorians, you can feel pretty stupid

He said, "You're going back, unless you want to come out

to the oil field with me."

I said, "No, I'll go back to college."

All right?

And then it, then you learn how to go to school.

And once you learn a few of the approaches, the methods, the

tricks, it becomes a joy to learn.

C- I congratulate you, every one of you that graduated.

Every one of you that are on that journey, keep going.

Don't give up.

Amen.

For the joy set before you, you will graduate someday.

It might take another year or another, another year.

It doesn't matter when, you just will.

Joy is a core human emotion defined by intense, long-lasting happiness,

contentment, and wellbeing.

We're not talking about pleasure.

We're not talking about happiness this morning.

We're talking about a deep fruit of the spirit that's abiding.

Unlike fleeting happiness, it is often tied to deeper fulfillment

and purpose or connection.

While happiness is often an external response to a specific event,

like getting a raise or something, joy is generally viewed as an

internal, enduring state of what?

Gratitude.

Gratitude.

If you're not a grateful person, you don't have much joy.

That's it.

If you can learn to be grateful-

Did you have warm water this morning?

Yeah.

Oh, I'm grateful for it.

Yeah.

'Cause when I was in Russia, they didn't have warm water.

They had cold water.

But you felt so dirty, you went ahead and jumped in there.

And it, in Russia, in the winter, with cold water, uh, we're talking cold water.

And the towels were dish towels.

They're not made for people like me, all right?

Bigger people.

We had bigger towels when I was playing sports, and I would use two.

The, the, the equipment manager, he, he'd always gripe at me, "Why

do you always use so many towels?"

"Well, 'cause I like drying off and being clean."

"Why not just use one towel like everybody else?"

"'Cause I like two."

And then I ruined my wife.

We got married, and she was always upset with, "Why do you

use a clean towel every day?"

"Because I wanna be clean."

"Well, if you've showered and you use a towel, then aren't

you clean when you dry off?"

"Yeah, but I got it dirty."

And now she uses a clean towel every day.

You become like each other after 45 years.

Amen?

I love this parable, the parable of the talents.

Jesus, you know it, and it's not usually used as a joy text.

It's used as a judgment text, but y- let's use it as a joy text this morning.

Amen?

Again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants

and entrusted his property to them.

To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents,

and to another one talent.

And you gotta listen to this.

Each according to his ability.

God only gives you what you can handle.

He doesn't give you too much, and he expects just what is fair- Amen

for each of us.

Then he went on a journey, and then the next part of the, the,

the parable, we know the rest of it, but here it h- is how it ends.

His master replied, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

That's all we are is servants.

If you think you're more than a servant, God help you.

As they say in the South, "Mercy."

God bless you.

We're just servants.

Don't think too highly of ourselves.

"You have been faithful with a few things."

Faithful, that's all we gotta be, is faithful.

"I put you in charge … I will put you in charge of many things.

Come and share," what?

"Your master's happiness."

We make God happy.

That's a joy that's beyond understanding.

I pray for people often for peace that's beyond their circumstances,

peace beyond- Amen … understanding.

Glory.

Yes, amen.

Because we don't understand why it's happening to us, and we don't understand

all the vicissitudes of lives, all of the ups and downs, all the challenges, all.

We don't know the answer why.

We will someday.

Yeah.

But praise God, when God's happy with us and we know it, we

can have this overflowing joy.

Yeah.

You know God's happy with you this morning 'cause you're in church.

He wants His people to come together, to meet together, to worship Him, to pray

and praise, and to remember the sacrifice of His Son, and to hear His teaching,

to hear His Word to His people- Yeah

because you're here.

And it's not the most popular things.

Most people go to the beach.

Most people go to a sporting event.

Most people spend a lot of money to go somewhere else other than church.

But God's pleased with you- Amen … because you're here.

Amen.

And it took a little effort.

Yeah.

Well done, good and faithful servants.

Do you hear that in your head very often?

That isn't a tape most of us hear played.

Most of us hear do more- Yeah … get more.

Yeah.

We listen to the advertising when we nee- need to listen to the Word of God.

Amen.

Because you've been faithful.

I don't preach a whole lot of repentance to the church.

I preach repentance to the world, and I preach repentance to the church

'cause I know we get visitors and stuff, but the church is the faithful.

That's right.

The church is the one that's been faithful now and have been…

Many of you have been faithful for years and for decades,

and some of you, many decades.

Sorry to bring up your age.

If you wanna learn more about joy, my friend Richard Beck wrote

a great book, The Shape of Joy.

I've shared it with you before, but he's just a, he's a serious guy like me.

He's a professor at Abilene Christian, the chairman of the psychology department.

But he, he…

And he writes short books.

I, I like him, too.

All right?

But this is a great book.

He's really into positive psychology and, and the science of awe, which is

the science of God, and the science of joy, and the science of happiness,

and he's written a great book.

And I, I read his model again this week about, uh, joy.

And if you look at these things he says we need to do to have joy, we need to

quiet our souls, our, our inner beings.

We need to focus on others.

We need to invest in some social good.

We need to not be reactive and be stable and temperate.

We need to go after worthy things and value what God values or

what's very valuable and not just what Madison Avenue teaches us.

And then we need our egos, our pride, our will to shrink

Go around this circle, this quadrilateral.

Quiet, that sounds like peace

Others, that sounds like kindness

Or patience.

Social patience, that's kindness.

Non-reactive, that's goodness.

Worthy, that sounds like self-control or maybe a small ego.

You can put the fruits of the spirit into his model, and I'm gonna

suggest to him, y- you only have one, two, three, four, five, six.

You need nine.

There's nine fruits of the spirit, Richard.

I better not try to correct him or change his model.

Speaker 2: He did a lot of research.

Dr. Gregg Marutzky:

I'm still gonna say it, uh, you know, just as a friend.

John 15 verse 11, "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you

John 15:11

and that your joy may be complete."

What did he say right before this?

"You are my friends.

I no longer call you servants.

I call you friends because I have shared everything my Father has shared with me."

And what did he just share before that?

"I am the vine and you are the branches.

Abide in me and you'll bear much fruit."

Abide in me and you'll be joyful, is the promise.

Amen.

Amen.

Augustine, one of the great theologians of the Christian Church, said, "O Lord,

far be it from me to think that whatever joy I feel makes me truly happy, for

there is a joy that is not given to those who do not love you, but only to

those who love you for your own sake.

You yourself is their joy.

Happiness is to rejoice in you and for you and because of you.

This is true happiness, and there is no other.

Those who think that there is another kind of happiness look for joy

elsewhere, but theirs is not true joy."

True joy is found in Jesus Christ, I believe.

Amen.

He says in John 16, the next chapter, "So with you, now is your time of grief."

You know what illustration he gave right before this?

He gave the illustration of childbirth.

And he says, "During childbirth, there's great pain.

But then after the birth, there's only rejoicing."

You ask a mom, they, they'll remember how many hours they were in labor,

but the- I've never met a mom yet that didn't think it was worth it.

Amen.

The miracle of birth.

And so Jesus used that illustration, then he says this: "Now is your time for grief,

for pain," that's this world, "but I will see you again, and you will rejoice,

and no one will take away your joy."

Amen.

That's the joy we want, amen?

Amen.

That kind of joy.

The obstacles of joy, because of our culture, because of the society we live

in, because of the world that we're in, m- we m- advertising tells us they

manufacture a desire for more and more

It feeds a discontentment.

Or you, and an anxiety it says.

Advertising feeds discontentment and anxiety.

Puts pressure on people.

Earn more so you can buy more.

Earn more because you need this.

Spend more because

FOMO

Fear of missing out.

Advertising and marketing

I saw there were a few marketing majors

That graduated I was too.

That's one of my areas

Use it carefully.

Amen?

Amen.

Creating false connections, delusional images of desire.

All this is what marketing and advertising does.

Elusive commitment, or contentment, I mean.

Elusive contentment.

You're not quite there yet.

You gotta get a better job.

You gotta get a bigger house.

Oh, you got a big house.

Ah, you need another one.

You know?

You don't have a new enough car.

It's always elusive, this contentment, and feeds a discontentment.

What else is an obstacle to joy?

New and improved.

Nothing good about the past or the old, and young people

don't buy into this completely.

There's good about technology and AI and new things, and there's

good about some old, traditional, stable, foundational things.

We all build on the past or we don't build well.

It's not a either/or.

It's a both/and.

And when you're young, you only have either/or thinking, and so you gotta

listen to some of the folks that are a little older with a little more

experience because new and improved isn't always new and improved.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's just something to sell people.

Glorifying the novel and the different

I don't buy the novel.

I take my daughter's hand-me-down phones.

I know some of you stand in line, you get the newest.

Good for you.

Not in my budget.

And she likes to get the new and improved, and I think your company helps pay

for it, so I'll take her hand-me-down.

I think I have an, uh, iPhone 10 or 11.

That's good enough.

And now I know they're even up to 17.

How did…

Man, they, they went from 10 to 17 before I blinked.

All right?

But God bless you if you've gotta have the newest of that, because

there's probably something better.

You got a better camera, I he- I guess.

Right?

But when you, you look like me, you don't want the best camera, right?

Old is bad.

Past is suspicious.

Don't think that way.

Breathing anxiety and fear, it's at all-time epidemic levels right now.

Negative thinking.

Most television feeds a negative thinking, especially the news.

Holding on to anger and conflict.

Let's let go of anger.

Amen.

Let's let go of con- Let's try to be peacemakers.

Can we do that?

Cultivating joy.

Here's the good stuff.

Get to it, Greg.

Finish it up.

Learning contentment

Just start making a list of the good things in your life that you

should be content about, all right?

And before you buy something, do I really need it?

How many pairs of shoes do you already have?

All right.

Learning contentment, expressing praise and gratitude to other people.

Teach your kids to say, "Thank you, please, yes.

Thank you for dinner, Mom."

Amen.

"Thank you for cleaning the hou- thank you for these clean clothes.

Thank you for this house, Dad.

Thank you for how hard you work, Dad."

Amen.

You know, it's good to be around these little kids, these grandkids.

Their parents teach them c- Now, was that kind?

Sometimes they, they, they say things to me that it's not that kind.

"Papa, can you go get me s- this?"

And my daughter will say, "No, don't be telling Papa to do that.

You go do that."

And I'm like, "Thank you, daughter."

Amen.

Being kind.

Express reconceiving tradition.

The old isn't always bad.

Enjoying children, I've already said that.

Practicing Sabbath, learning to stop- Yes … and find peace.

Yes.

Focusing on the positive.

Don't you love being around negative people?

I'm not gonna say their name, but I have a relative that's very negative.

And oh, I can only visit two days.

That's it.

They're always complaining to me, "Why don't you come visit?

Why don't you stay longer?"

'cause you're so naked as a jaybird

Can't say it or they'd be negative about me

Nobody likes it.

No.

Deciding to smile

Communicating faith and hope, deciding to smile consistently,

stepping out of depression.

You have to make that choice and that decision.

Investing in relationships, engaging in service activities,

and resolve your conflicts.

Those are just a few of the things that will cultivate joy that are

keeping us from being joyful.

And here's a beautiful little slide if you wanna take pictures of it.

It's all small.

You can- you gotta have one of those iPhone 17s, I guess, to be able to

blow this up, to be able to read it.

Here I, here I've talked myself into a dead end, didn't I?

There you go.

But it's a joy map.

One of our brothers, Glenn Giles, in Denver, an elder there, made that.

And to close out, give joy to get joy.

Even in fellowship this afternoon, give some joy so you can get some joy.

And play this tape in your head over and over.

Repeat it over and over and over.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

Well done, sister, my great daughter.

Well done, my beloved, my good and faithful daughter,

my good and faithful son.

God affirms us.

That's what joy is.

And then to bring it back and to tie this string together and all of these fruits

of the Spirit, the things that God tells us to do as a church over and over, we

ju- we're about to do the Lord's Supper.

Why?

Because it's about giving and receiving grace.

That's why it says, "Consider the body of Christ when you take of the bread

and take of the fruit of the vine."

Make sure you're reconciled in the body, there's no issues with someone else.

The giving and receiving of grace.

The worship, what we've been doing already, expressing gratitude and praise.

And service, the sacrifice of time and effort.

And then my daughter told me after last week's sermon, "Greg…"

Or she didn't say Greg, she said Dad.

She said, "Dad, that last point could've been a whole sermon.

I've never heard that before, that discipleship is knowing

and transforming yourself."

She said, "I've always thought of it negatively, like it's just

being picked on, even by God.

You gotta change."

No, it's knowing and transforming yourself to be like Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

And then we can jump for joy.

That's right.

God bless the church.

Amen.