Intersection | Science and Joy | Chad Bruegman

How are we doing Richmond campus?

You guys good?

Uh glad you guys are with us.

I also want to say hi to everybody at the Richmond campus that is over in our overflow.

Um sorry we ran out of seats, but I'm kind of not sorry because that's a beautiful problem, man.

We got more people showing up than we got seats.

And so uh I hope you have an incredible time over there.

Let's also say hello to everybody at our Missouri City campus, hoping you're having a great day of church.

Everyone at our campus downtown uh West End, we love you guys watching online.

We love you all, and let's do this at every campus.

Let the men at our God Behind Bars campus, the Ramsey Unit, let us uh let them hear it.

We love you guys.

So if you happen to be visiting with us, first of all, uh welcome.

My name's Chad.

I get the absolute privilege for the next few minutes of speaking out of God's word to us today.

Um we're wrapping up a series.

It's been five weeks.

I hope you all have enjoyed it.

I personally have because uh this series, as I said in week one, uh, was started because the last few years I started really geeking out on something I thought I would never be interested in.

And it was this thing called neurology, right?

Uh a particular discipline of science where uh they study the brain.

And the more I started to learn, and I'm a freshman, by the way, so you're gonna hear a freshman-level message in terms of uh anything we talk about neurology-based, but um it started to open my eyes to the scriptures in ways I hadn't.

I started to read verses in ways I hadn't.

I started to see how God isn't just the God of the mind, he's not just the God of the spirit and the soul and the emotions, he's the God of biology, he's the author of it, he's the author of science.

And so we titled this series intersection because we wanted to talk about the intersection between God and science.

Because as I told you in week one, I grew up uh hearing this kind of subtle but very, I think, powerful message that it was God versus science, right?

Because of things like evolution and the Big Bang Theory, and so they're actually opposed to each other and enemies, and I hear that, but I was too young to really care.

But something in my young soul that didn't really resonate.

Because I knew kids, grew up with kids that had brains that were amazing at science.

I had friends in high school that wanted to go into college to study something in the sciences, and I'm like, surely uh they're not against God, they love God.

And then over time, as I've continued to study again, my freshman-level learning about uh all things science, particularly the human body, I started to realize, man, God is the author of all this, and we've been given scientists and mathematicians and engineers and people in the medical industry and professions to uh just continue to uh evolve in their understanding with their testing and with their hypotheses and with their research and with their data and with imaging now.

They're just reaffirming and verifying what God has told us in his word from ancient times.

And so I'm like, you know what?

At our church, we're not gonna create the divide there, we're gonna build the bridge there.

And I love it, and stay tuned, because in maybe about seven or eight months, we're gonna do intersection part two, and we're gonna talk about the intersection between God and the arts.

We're gonna go to the right side of the brain, and I believe it's gonna be an incredible series.

And so I started the series and I thought to myself, Chad, how how should you end this series?

God, how how would you like me to end this series in my prayers?

And I just felt this so strong, and I love this.

Uh I was like, let's end on a high note, man.

Let's end on a message of total encouragement.

Anybody walk into church at any campus today, you could use some encouragement, right?

I think that's all of us.

And so we're gonna talk about this today.

We're gonna talk about the intersection between science and this word that is a word that is power-packed with implication in the Bible.

And it's used hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, and it's a word that I absolutely love uh to learn about and to know about and to cultivate in my own life.

It's this word joy.

So the intersection between uh joy and science, and you might think, what could science possibly have to do with this thing called joy?

Uh stick with me and we're gonna see.

And so we're gonna uh do this.

Uh let's start by going back to the beginning.

Do some etonology real quick, right?

Because we always build from that.

In the beginning, God created, he called everything good, which in the Hebrew means perfect, rhythmic, flawless.

Then he makes Adam and Eve.

And he looks at Adam and then Eve and he says, Adam, do you see all of this vastness around you?

It is yours to steward, it is yours to subdue, it is yours to tend to.

Adam and Eve, I'm giving you and future generations of you, I'm giving you permission and the authority and the command that this earth is yours, so take it personal.

And one of the things we almost always leave out of the origin stories of creation is God originally put us on earth to do two things: to bring him glory, and the greatest way that we would bring him glory is by enjoying the earth he asked us to subdue and to fill and to steward.

And I think oftentimes because this world is so chaotic and busy and noisy, and also because the Bible says in the unseen realm around us, there are spiritual forces of evil that want to kill and destroy and steal from us.

And we feel that all the time.

And so I think it's real easy if we're not careful to uh de-spiritualize this idea of enjoying life.

For all the spiritual things we talk about, sometimes it's really easy to leave uh the enjoyment of life on the back burner.

But listen to me, God is most glorified when you and I are most satisfied.

So we're gonna talk about this.

The word enjoy comes from two Latin words put together: en, which is a prefix.

And that prefix en means this, in the Latin, it means to pour into.

So when we're talking about joy, and then we add that prefix onto it, enjoy, that means you gotta pour into this thing called joy.

It means you and I have a responsibility when it comes to the cultivation of our joy.

Joy isn't just this magical, invisible, mystical, ethereal force that's within us.

It is a force of God within us, but we have a responsibility, like a gardener does, to uh a garden to tend to it, to water it, to pour into it.

The late great Henry Nowen says this joy does not simply happen to us.

We have to choose joy and we have to keep choosing it every day.

I love what C.S.

Lewis wrote.

He said, Joy is the serious business of heaven.

God takes our joy seriously because he is most glorified when we are most satisfied.

My angelo said it this way: I love this.

We need joy as we need air.

River Point West End campuses, listen to me.

Joy is within your control and it is within your ownership, and you have to take control and ownership of it.

I'm gonna tell you something you might not have heard a lot in church.

Celebrating life is a spiritual discipline.

As important as prayer.

We love it, church, talk a mean game about prayer.

I love talking about prayer, prayer has revolutionized, changed my life.

Celebrating life in holy ways is as much a spiritual discipline and importance as prayer, or reading the word of God, or fasting, or us as believers uh setting uh the standard when it comes to acts of service and loving our neighbor or the way we uh come to church in community, which are all amazing disciplines, but up there is the discipline of the celebration of life.

And so I want to do this.

We're gonna talk about some science and biology and physiology behind joy.

We're gonna see what God was up to when it comes to our bodies and how it relates to cultivating and stewarding joy, but before that, I want to set a biblical tone and standard by going to a short passage of scripture found in the Old Testament.

It's this great teaching and template on joy and the enjoyment of life.

In a few verses, it says so much.

If you have your Bibles, you can go with me to Nehemiah chapter 8.

Nehemiah 8 · chapter mention

And I'll just give you some backdrop real quick, otherwise, it's gonna feel weird where we pick up reading.

Uh, Nehemiah was an incredible leader, one of the best leaders I've ever read about or learned from, even in the Bible.

Um, him and his family in the few generations before him had been thrown into because of their own sin and idolatry, uh, Babylonian slavery.

Eventually the Persians took over the Babylonians, and when he was an adult, it was the Persian Empire, and he had had so much favor from God and giftedness that he uh became the king's cupbearer.

And he wasn't even a local, he was a foreigner.

And cupbearing was all about trust because he would drink the king's wine before the drink uh king would take a sip to make sure it wasn't poisoned.

It was a high honor to be the cupbearer, and Nehemiah had found out that Jerusalem had been broke down and it was in ruins, and all of the walls and some of the buildings and part of the temple had been destroyed, and he was deeply grieved because, as uh Jewish people, that was their sacred land, that was their place.

So he asked the king if he could have permission to take a few months off and go to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls, and surprisingly, the king said yes, and so he got real brave and he said, Hey, will you pay for it?

The king said yes.

But he was on a really short timeline.

Book of Nehemiah would tell us this massive project with not enough workers, they would get done in uh 52 days.

And when you look at the specs of what needed to be done, that didn't seem realistic, but it got done, spoiler alert.

But they were working 18 to 20 hour days, and then many of them would stay up all night keeping watch because not only were they working tirelessly, but they were also being threatened by surrounding cities from other nations because they didn't like this revival of Jerusalem and the temple.

So Nehemiah even goes as far as to note that they would work with a shovel in one hand and a sword in the other.

And you know what I call that?

Life.

Come on, guys, you know what that is.

I'm shoveling one hand trying to get stuff done, and a sword in the other, trying to fend off the spiritual forces of darkness for me and my family.

So they were tired in body.

They were scared because of the enemy, so they were worn out in mind.

And then where we're about to pick up, the Bible says this uh Nehemiah, along with his pastor, his priest, Ezra, the teacher of the law, they called the assembly together when normally they would start work.

It was about six in the morning.

It says from sun up till noon, they got out the scrolls of the Torah, which they had retrieved when they got back to Jerusalem.

Now they had been in Persian captivity for a long time, so they hadn't sat under the teachings of the Torah for several generations.

So imagine for the first time, six, you think I preach long, six hours straight, of reading Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

And they stood there, the Bible says, in awe, and it says they're not just tired physically, but they're also scared, so they're fatigued mentally.

But then it also says as they're reading the Torah, they all start to weep and mourn.

Because they had started, as they heard about the law and the words of Yahweh, they started to see how far their people had gotten from God's original desire for them.

And so now they're also fatigued spiritually.

Their tanks are low, and you know what?

One of the first things to go when that happens is what?

Joy.

So we pick up there, they had just been reading the Word of God together, and it says in verse 9 of chapter 8 Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and the teacher of the law, and the Levites who were instructing the people, said to them all, listen to this, this day is holy to the Lord your God.

Do not mourn or weep, for all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the law.

Let me stop right there.

Again, they're incredibly tired, body, mind, and spirit.

Maybe like some of you that walked in today, because life has just been lifing.

I've said this before and I'll quote it again.

Uh my earliest and youngest mentor in the church world, she used to say this to us all the time when I was interning.

She said, When fatigue walks in, faith walks out.

And I would add to that, when fatigue walks in, joy walks out.

That's why we're about to read the most famous verse in this passage when he's about to say, the joy of the Lord is what?

It's our strength.

So he says, This day is holy to the Lord your God.

So, okay, does that mean we're gonna work harder?

Does that mean we're gonna read the scripture for even maybe two more hours or maybe four more hours?

Since you said this day is holy, what's a holy day look like, Nehemiah?

And here's where his brilliance comes in.

Nehemiah said, Since this day is holy to the Lord, do this.

Go and what?

Enjoy.

Pour joy back into yourselves, because you're tired.

Body, mind, spirit.

Enjoy what, though?

You're gonna love this.

Choice foods?

Done.

Sweet drinks, bring it on.

And then listen to this, and I'll circle back to this in a little bit.

And send some to those who have nothing prepared.

This day is holy to our Lord, so do not grieve.

Why?

Because the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Nehemiah is giving us a lesson in leadership as it pertains to joy and to living and to also getting things done in a holy way.

Do you know what he's saying here?

In my words, guys, we have to party.

We won't get this job done in this crazy timeline we have if we don't stop and remember the only reason we're rebuilding this is to enjoy life with each other and enjoy life in the presence of Yahweh again.

If we're really going to get the work done the way we need to, we have to refill our tanks.

We have to feed and nourish our emotions, our soul, our spirit, our minds, and what else?

Choice food, sweet drinks.

We have to nourish our bodies.

He's saying, I want you guys to go home, get with your families, get with your neighbors, get with your small group.

And I want you to party.

Why?

Because the joy of the Lord is our strength.

Nehemiah is doing what great leaders do.

They recognize what you need most.

And they stop and they take you there.

And he's doing a risky thing, is he not?

Isn't this counterintuitive when you have a 52-day deadline?

And more work and less people than you know what to do with?

And he's brilliant enough to stop and go, no, this day is holy to the Lord, which means what?

We are going to get back to the beautiful discipline and art of why he put us here in the first place, which is to enjoy this planet and this world that he has given to us.

Verse 11 says, Then the Levites did this.

They calmed all the people.

The Levites were the priests.

They were being great shepherds here.

Because they said this, be still.

And I'll come back to that as well.

For this day is holy.

Do not grieve.

Verse 12.

Then all the people went away to eat and to drink, and also to send portions of food to the poor, and to what?

Celebrate with great joy.

Because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.

So we're getting this template.

And more than a template, I would say this.

This is what I want everyone to hear this weekend as we end this series.

I want you guys walking out of church today, at whatever campus you're at, I want you walking out of church today, re-upping on the fact that God has given you holy permission to enjoy life.

But you have to, with conviction, take ownership of it.

God has given so much control of our joy over to us.

He gave us the seed of joy from the Holy Spirit.

It's a fruit of the Spirit living in us.

But then we are the gardeners.

We are the ones that water it, tend it, take care of it.

Make sure it and you get what you need.

I don't know about you.

Did you, maybe you're different than me.

Did you grow up in church hearing a lot of messages where the pastor is passionately pleading with the people to enjoy life more as a spiritual discipline?

And I'm standing on that, y'all.

I'm saying it with my chest today.

I'm doubling down.

I'm not apologizing.

We were created with this idea that our God is most glorified when you and I are most satisfied.

So then you go, okay, Chad, this is intersection.

The intersection between joy and science.

What possibly could science have to do with joy?

And I'm glad you asked.

Because I would say this: what if I told you that God gave us a biological gift or a biological cheat code when it comes to the cultivation and the enhancement of joy and enjoying life?

Of course, there's things in our spirit that cultivate joy.

We'll talk about that in a few minutes.

There's things mentally that we can do that cultivate joy.

But what I love about what we're about to learn, just some freshman-level neurology about one particular neurotransmitter and hormone that gets produced and secreted in the brain into the bloodstream.

And it's called this endorphins.

I call it the joy hormone.

Let me explain it this way to help you understand the power of endorphins.

In 2019, I had the hardest year of my life.

For a lot of reasons.

Details don't matter.

You guys have all can probably remember the hardest year of your life, but uh there was not a lot of joy.

If I talked about 2019, the last word uh on the list would be joy or the enjoyment of life.

It was just one of those years.

And if you guys ever heard of the book or been familiar, maybe even read the book, The Body Keeps Score.

Yeah, it's an incredible, insightful read, but uh from 2019 to 2020, I didn't realize this, but my body was keeping score of all the pressure I was under and all the grief I was experiencing, and some of the mental anguish and mind games that I had been going through, and eventually your body really does keep score, and so it was the middle of the night, it was now 2020.

What was going on then?

Uh I don't know.

Some virus or pandemic or something small like that.

Middle of the night, I wake up my wife, I'm in horrible pain.

I'm being as dramatic as any man can be.

It's never good, too, when it's with your wife, because she's like, I gave birth to four kids, dude.

Stop.

Stop.

But I never felt anything like that, and I was quite sure that I had a ruptured appendix because I literally, it was so hard to walk.

Something deep in my gut was hurting so bad.

And so called my dad, he came over.

We uh I would say rushed to the hospital, but my wife was driving.

Usually I drive, and at one point I'm in so much pain, and usually I'm a really nice guy, but at some point I'm in so much pain.

I looked at her, I go, Would you please drive faster?

She goes, I'm going five miles over the speed limit.

What are you talking about?

And I just wanted to be like, My goodness, no one, it's three in the morning, drive faster, please.

And then we get to the intake room, and it's just my wife and I and the intake lady, and my wife's over there doing the intake because I can't.

I'm barreled over, literally on the ground, uh perching up on a chair because sitting up straight hurt too bad.

And my wife keeps asking me questions from the lady to my wife to me.

And I promise I would never usually do this.

Your pastor tries to be a good man, okay?

But I just finally screamed, I go, Who cares about all this?

Because my wife's like, What's a what's your uh social security number?

What's your thing?

You know, I'm going, I'm in so much pain.

I'll give you all the intake information after I get some meds.

Please get me back there.

Literally, I'm not exaggerating.

This is literally, and I was yelling.

And they were both kind of like, okay, and my wife's apologizing, and so long story kind of long, they wheel me into the room, and I went from screaming in pain, and then about two minutes after they stuck a needle in my vein, I was the happiest guy in Denver, Colorado.

I'm telling you, a feeling that one rarely gets to fill because they had put this thing in me called morphine.

And I went from yelling at these poor people working in the medical industry during a pandemic.

I went from that to my wife promises me, she says, you were literally crying tears of joy, and every time a doctor or a nurse would come in, you would thank them and go on this diatribe about how they're first responders and they're on the front lines of COVID and how proud you are of them and you're doing God's work.

And she's like, I was all emotional.

I was like, Yeah, I was high on morphine.

There was no more pain.

I felt incredible.

It was like, man, I wish this stuff was legal.

It's not good when you take them in medical emergency doses.

That's for emergencies.

We know those aren't good, but the reason I tell you that is this the the um the the word, I just forgot the word we're doing.

Guys, you should hear our pastor.

He's really good.

Come here and listen to him.

Endorphin, again, most of our medical terms, comes from the Latin, and it's two words put together.

Endogenous, where we get endo.

Endogenous means within the body.

And then p-h-in fine means morphine.

Endorphins are literally this morphine that God has put naturally in the body.

Let me give you a freshman version again of helping us understand what endorphins were created for by God.

Endorphins are a natural chemical messengers released by your brain's hypothalamus and pituitary gland to what?

Block pain, I'm in, reduce stress now, God, please, and create feelings of pleasure and even at times euphoria.

That has been naturally, biologically put into our created order when God was making our bodies fearfully and wonderfully, knitting us together.

He gave us this secretion of this neurotransmitter and hormone to block pain, to reduce stress.

And then I love this: to create feelings of pleasure, even euphoria.

It was like God was literally biologically affirming the power of celebration and enjoyment in life.

Because God is most glorified when we as people are most satisfied.

This is why I love doing a series on the intersection between God and between science.

Because now when I read scriptures, when I read Nehemiah or I read other passages of scripture talking about joy or the enjoyment of life, I'm also starting to geek out because I'm like, God even made our bodies, not just our spirits and our emotions and our soul.

He gave us biologically ways of affirming this is what I originally designed you to do, which was enjoy this thing as you guys are my image bearers on this rock called planet Earth.

And so if you do, if you do a quick study online about some of the ways scientists have now learned that you can most trigger endorphins, which is a very, very good thing.

I'll just give you a list of some of the top few.

Because I want to practically talk about what it looks like on the biological side of cultivating and stewarding joy in your life.

And the first one at the top of the list, this might not surprise a bunch of you, it's exercise.

I'm not gonna, woohoo, yes, I agree.

I'm not gonna stay there that long because this is where I start getting emails because people are like, I don't want to talk about that in church, or I can't, you know.

Listen, when I say exercise, that is a massive spectrum of what that looks like.

I'm not saying you gotta become the king of CrossFit or the princess of Pilates or anything like that.

If you are, if that's you, I honor it, I love it, enjoy it.

What I am saying is this we know from this beautiful discipline in science called uh physiology and specifically exercise physiology, the endless, endless data and imaging and study and proof now that we have about the power of breaking a sweat for the glory of God.

And I'm not, again, saying you gotta go become a marathon runner.

Do you want to know one of the most time-tested, age-old, and it's scientifically making a comeback again?

Healthiest ways to live long and prosper is just walking.

Good old-fashioned walking.

What everyone in the ancient world did all the time, and I'm not talking about suburban mom power walking with the I'm not talking about that.

If you want to do that, do it.

I'm not talking about that.

I'm saying just a walk with your spouse, a walk with your kids, a walk in the park.

It's not about miles per hour, it's about moving.

What we know now about longevity, as you get older, do you know what they just keep saying to us?

Just keep moving.

Just keep moving.

You stop moving, you start dying.

The Bible says in Acts, in Him we live and we move and we have our being.

Like sweat for the glory of God.

And there's a multitude of ways at a multitude of paces and at a multitude of levels.

The Apostle Paul said to his young protege, Timothy, he says, for physical training is of some value.

But then he says, but keep it in check.

He says, because godliness has value for all things.

So you don't have to make exercise an idol.

It doesn't have to become something that we make more important than it's supposed to be.

But there is value in it, and don't lose that.

But also don't make it an idol.

There's just something about breaking a sweat for the glory of God, and it's affirmed in the fact that one of the greatest ways.

You ever heard of the runner's high?

You runners, if you're a runner, first of all, why do you do that?

But, anyways, they'll talk about, and I've experienced this before.

I run a couple times a week, and look at me, I'm short and stocky.

God did not give me a body to be a runner.

But do you know why I run?

I call it free medicine.

And knowing what we know now about many things, but specifically endorphins, do you know some of my best work on sermons comes when I'm on the treadmill at the gym?

Do you know why?

Because biologically my mind is getting clear.

Clouds are going away from what the monks call the monkey brain.

That loud, noisy, crazy, always moving.

You ever see monkeys at the zoo?

Throwing poop on people, jumping from limb to limb, squawking the whole time, right?

They call it monkey brain.

And when I start to run, man, when you're pressing your body like that, you don't have a lot of options to go all the mental ways that you go the rest of the day.

You're just trying to get your next foot forward, right?

And you start to break a sweat, and as you sweat, you start to uh get the toxins out of your body for the glory of the Lord.

Exercise is a huge one, and all I want to challenge us today practically is when it comes to the cultivation of the enjoyment of life.

What if some of you for the first time in a long time said, God, I gotta start small and I gotta start slow, but would you give me the grace and the strength to start breaking a little more of a sweat consistently, trusting that uh I'm gonna honor you and it is going to add more clarity and enjoyment to my life.

Here's another one.

This one was second on the list.

This shocked me.

Acts of service and charity produce endorphins.

Isn't that crazy?

It's like Jesus knew what he said, when the greatest among you shall be my what?

Servant.

You really want to start enjoying life?

Get outside of yourself.

Get outside of the obsession with the person in the mirror.

Go love your neighbor as much as you love the person in the mirror.

There's something holy about service.

I love why Nehemiah, they don't know anything about science and what we're talking about today when that was written, but what does he say?

Go eat the choice foods and the sweet drinks, and then what's he say next?

Make sure you give some to those who have nothing prepared.

Give to the poor.

Give to the people who can't celebrate.

They deserve joy as much as you.

You really want to enjoy life and celebrate life, throw parties for other people at your expense.

Literally, biologically, God is confirming the beauty and the power where Jesus says, the greatest among you shall be my servant.

I thought that was so beautiful.

Deep breathing is huge when it comes to producing endorphins at a higher level.

Do you know every time before I get up to preach, every time I say a couple of uh prayers from Scripture right over there in the corner, and then I take six really deep breaths.

Why?

I want to come up here with my body firing on all cylinders.

With my endorphins, although I couldn't remember the name of it, I want them working.

I take deep breaths.

You know what's happening?

Your nervous system is being regulated.

Remember in verse 11 after it says, make sure you give some to the poor too?

Because that's really gonna enhance your enjoyment.

Do you know what the priest said to the people next?

Be still.

Calm down.

You're not gonna enjoy anything when your nervous system is out of whack.

We tend to de-spiritualize things like that.

That's just the weird foo-foos out there that don't believe in Jesus that talk about deep breathing and meditation.

And I'm like, have you read the Bible?

Do you know the most fundamental thing to life and existing is breath, even before water?

It's literally the thing we can go the shortest amount of time without having if we want to continue to live.

It's breath.

And now science tells us, man, deep breathing excretes an immense amount of endorphins into your system, therefore helping regulate the nervous system.

Breathe deeply.

Meditation.

We often, again, don't like that word in the church world because of a lot of its Eastern non-Christian roots.

But meditation is a gift from God.

It's not an emptying of the mind, as you may have been taught or told.

You know what it really is when it's done in a God-glorifying way?

It's the renewing of the mind.

It's the quieting of the mind.

Remember what King David said?

Our good shepherd does what?

He leads us beside quiet and still waters.

It's not just uh enjoying life with food and drink, activity-based, because you know what I've learned about joy and stewarding it well?

Joy always uh depends on your attitude before it depends on an activity.

You can take a five-star vacation, unlimited budget, to the most beautiful, exotic places in the world.

And if the attitude doesn't follow you on that plane, it doesn't matter the amenities you're surrounded by.

You will not enjoy it the way God would want you to enjoy that.

Deep breathing, meditation.

I think Paul gives us one of the best biblical ways to renew and refill and quiet your mind.

He says, Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything in life, and there's plenty in life to focus on that's excellent or praiseworthy, what do we do?

Think, meditate, meditate on those things.

A big part of cultivating joy, so the activities that come around joy, is to get our attitude ready to enjoy the things out here.

And Paul says, so there's plenty of in ignoble things to think about, there's plenty of wrong things to think about, there's plenty of impure things to think about, unlovely things to think about, but you have a choice to make.

Because there's equal amounts of the positive, good things, the holy things to think about.

Think about those things, he says.

And then he finishes by saying, whatever you've heard, or excuse me, whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, do what?

Put into practice.

Joy is a practice.

We are to be practitioners of the enjoyment of life, which means it takes intentionality.

Come on, moms and dads, who are getting ready to send your kids back to school while they're playing sports and doing all the other things right now.

Do you think uh intentional moments of enjoyment are gonna happen on accident or spontaneously in that season of life?

Come on, man.

You've got to have a conviction that this is a command of God, that you enjoy life because God is most glorified when you and I are most satisfied.

You have to be like Nehemiah and go, if we're really gonna get done, everything that has to be done, we have to have an intentional moment where we stop so much doing and we focus on being, living.

The devil's the one who's taking the enjoyment out of life, not God.

God's trying to reinstate and reinstall permission for us to have these things.

So meditation is a big part of it.

Uh, I love this one.

Laughter.

Man, what's better than uh just deep belly laughter?

You guys know what I'm talking about?

Like that guttural laughter?

Listen to this.

Some 3,000 years ago, King Solomon says this in Proverbs 17, 22.

He says, laughter does the heart good like medicine.

He didn't know what we know now, biologically, about the power of laughter.

He had never heard the word endorphin in his life.

He didn't know when he said laughter does the heart good like medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

He was being poetic and he was speaking and writing anecdotally about his experience with laughter.

He was reminding people the power of laughter.

And then he uses this analogy, he goes, it's almost like it's medicinal in its nature.

And now in 2026, we know from studying science, oh, it's absolutely medicine.

He didn't know, Solomon, here's what's happening when you're laughing.

Um, your hypothalamus and your pituitary gland are excreting a hormone into your bloodstream called endorphins.

And it's heightening your senses, it's blocking pain.

When you're laughing, it's reducing stress, it's adding to pleasure and sometimes even euphoria.

You ever laugh so hard you cry?

Or sorry, we're in trip, pee your pants or something like you ever laugh that hard?

Why is it you feel so light afterwards?

So relaxed, a little bit worn out, but in the good kind of way.

Like God designed us to laugh, to appreciate through laughter the beauty and the awesomeness of life.

What's better than sitting around the dinner table with your kids or your family or your friends, and some conversation gets sparked up, and next thing you know, it's just full of laughter.

There's just this peace around it, there's this beauty around it, there's this connection and unity around it.

Being in nature is the next one on the list.

And I'm wrapping this up and I'll bring it home, I promise, but I unapologetically wanted to be very practical when it comes to the cultivation of our joy.

I want you leaving here with a renewed permission to enjoy life.

Being in nature is huge, they say when it comes to triggering endorphins.

The psalmist wrote this the earth is of the Lord's in the fullness thereof, so let's use it, right?

Talking hiking, fishing, hunting, golfing, I should say, gardening, going to the park, going on a walk, playing some pickleball.

I'm missing a whole bunch of things.

I'm saying a bunch of stuff I like, sorry.

But there's hundreds, if not thousands, of activities that you can fill in the blank.

Good old-fashioned yard work if you love to do that.

Being out, permission to be out in nature, is huge.

I had a guy at the gym Friday.

He goes to our church.

I was working out with my son, and we stopped and had a quick chat, and then he apologized right at the end.

He said, Oh, I'm sorry, we're gonna miss uh church this weekend because we're going to the lake, me and the family.

And I said this, and it caught him off guard.

I go, I'm glad you're going to church.

I'm glad you're not coming to church.

And he kind of, I could tell what he was thinking, like, you're glad I'm not going to church?

Isn't it in your best interest that me and my family go to church?

Isn't that like job security for you?

Like good attendance, right?

So you maybe, you know, and I'm like, I don't give a rip about that.

We're gonna listen to me preach about this, but you're actually going to practice it this weekend.

You you you can't do anything more holy than go make memories with the people that matter most to you.

Your church family is your your wife, your husband, your kids.

And and he finally caught on and was like, oh, I got guilt-free permission to not be at church, and the pastor told me.

And I'm like, yeah, the reason we come to church is to recharge so that we have permission to go out there and find satisfaction in what we do.

Not because it's easy, not because there's not spiritual forces of evil that are coming against it, not because life is just a constant state of endorphin-infused joy, it's not it at all.

But we have to remember like there's nothing noble about suffering for the glory of God.

There's nothing we are gonna suffer at times, yes, we know that, but there's nothing noble about downplaying something as spiritually significant as enjoyment of life.

Last one is this, and we end.

Music.

Music triggers endorphins into the body.

Here's a quote from an article I read.

Although listening to music can release endorphins, I love this, there is also evidence to suggest that participating in music, which we just did, be that creating it, singing to it, and I love this one, or dancing to it, I want to dance with someone, right?

Provides the strongest boost of endorphins.

Isn't it interesting?

We know that about music from science.

Isn't it interesting that since the beginning of time from the Word of God, Old Testament and New, over and over, when it comes to the template of how to be the people of God, music is always at the center of worship.

It's always a really integral part of it.

And there's so many spiritual, emotional reasons for that, but there's also God biologically going, I do something in you that is so healthy and whole when you start to sing, and especially when you come together and sing side to side in unison.

King David didn't know any of this science, but listen to Psalm 100.

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God, it is he who made us, and we are his, we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with what?

Thanksgiving and his courts with praise.

Give thanks to him and praise his name, for the Lord is good, and his love endures forever, his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Amen.

So on our way out today, please at every campus, listen to me.

You have been given the seed of the joy of the Lord, which is your strength, but you have been given permission and also responsibility to be in charge of it, to cultivate it, to steward it, to take it seriously, to calendar it when it doesn't have any room left on the calendar.

Permission to enjoy life.

And I would say to the people going, man, life's never been harder or busier.

I would say, you are the people who God is trying to give the loudest permission to.

You have to counterintuitively, like Nehemiah, go, we have to stop work if we're going to be better at work.

We have to stop and remember that it is God's glory when you find satisfaction in anything you do.

Paul said, whether you eat or drink, just do it all for the glory of the Lord.

Let's pray.

God, I pray your blessing now over these amazing people.

I pray that you would bless them today and this week, that you would keep them in the grip of your grace.

God, that you would cause your face to shine upon us this whole week.

God, that you would be radically gracious to every person within the sound of my voice.

God, that you would turn your countenance towards us, and that every single one of us today would walk out of the doors of church with a renewed peace that passes understanding, that guards our hearts and guards our minds.

In Christ Jesus' matchless name we pray, and everyone said, Amen.