Bad Advice: You Deserve Happiness | Part 2

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Good morning, Awakening Church.

Great to be with you.

Welcome.

My name's Ryan.

We're absolutely thrilled to have you join us today.

Last week we kicked off at a brand new series called Bad Advice.

Bad Advice.

Here's what we're doing.

We're looking at some of the most pervasive ideas in our culture today that's actually undermining the very flourishing of our relationships.

We know this, we've experienced this, especially over the COVID season.

Our relationships have getting have been hitting hard, haven't they?

And what if what if it's actually the advice that we receive that's undermining the very flourishing of our relationships?

And here's what we said last week because we all have this common desire.

It's true for every single one of us.

We have this longing, innate, and it's God-given to have this life-giving, intimate, character-shaping relationships that have a rugged commitment to one another.

Don't you want that?

Don't you need that?

We all have this longing or desire to have to experience an intimate where you really know someone and they know you.

It's life-giving where you're just refreshed by them.

Character shaping.

By being around them, not only do you want to become a better person, you just are.

And that has this rugged commitment.

It's not a fair weather friend, it's not in just around in the good times, but man, they're committed with you through thick and thin.

Whether you're an extrovert or an introvert, whether you're single, dating, or married, we all have this longing.

And the question is, how in the world do we have or experience those kinds of relationships?

Last week I shared with you that I've been married 19 years and talked about our wedding day.

Well, I thought today I'd start with our honeymoon, and you're like, oh no, Ryan.

Thank you very much.

You know what?

Our honeymoon, Jenny and I call it the honeymoon from hell.

Yeah, a great way to start off happily ever after, right?

Um, so here's how it was.

Like I said, we got married December 21st.

Um, it was in the middle of my break from schooling at Moody, and we didn't have hardly any money.

My parents helped us, you know, be able to afford a trip to Maui because they had some family friends that had a little um condo out there.

And so we're excited, we're going to Maui, um, you know, tropical, and and what could go wrong?

Well, my in-laws actually happened to plan a trip before even our wedding to go to Maui.

Um, so on the very island that we're at, we're in this little condo, very nice, until you saw where they were staying.

Um, and they're in this all-inclusive resort up the hill.

And I mean, nothing can be weirder or more awkward than to be on your honeymoon with your in-laws up the street.

And so we get over to, you know, Maui, we're getting off, and we lived in Chicago at the time, and we just had a bank card through Chicago, uh, through a local bank there.

I didn't even have um a credit card at that time.

And the um, you know, it's Christmas time, and I didn't know at that time you have to call and let them know you're traveling.

So they saw all these purchases, right?

And went from Santa Cruz then to Hawaii, and they thought somebody stole our card, so they shut off my bank card, but we didn't have a credit card.

And because it was a small local bank, guess what?

They're closed over Christmas.

And over so we're on our honeymoon.

I have my in-laws up the hill.

Uh, we show up, and now we have zero money.

Thankfully, a family friend showed up in the town, was staying in the same kind of condo complex, and left a card with a little bit uh with a little um Christmas ornament that said just Mauied.

We still have it hanging up on our tree, and a hundred dollar bill.

So we lived off a hundred dollar bill for five days in Maui.

I was too proud to ask my father-in-law for any help.

Um, my wife's like, we sure ate a lot of pizza hut.

That was weird.

I don't know why we did that.

Now, we um I loved eggnog.

Oh, I love eggnog.

And so of that hundred dollars, I decided to spend, you know, on a cart splurge.

It's our honeymoon, right?

Um on a carton of eggnog.

Well, our our fridge didn't quite close, right?

It's one of those little mini fridges.

Oh, you see where this is going.

And we get back from visiting my in-laws at their incredible resort, come back to our slum, I mean, uh apartment.

Uh, it actually was nice until you saw it's amazing what comparison does, right?

You're like, this is fantastic.

Oh no, that's terrible.

Okay.

And we show up, and it's like, I opened it up, I saw it wasn't closed quite right, but I I smell it, I'm like, I don't know about this.

Um, we're about to go to a Christmas dinner with the in-laws at Ruth Chris, this expensive, you know, incredible steakhouse.

I'm like, that's hello, thank you very much.

We can't afford any dinner uh right now.

And so I smell it, I go, you know what, I'm just gonna chug it.

I'm sitting at Christmas dinner with my brand new, you know, father-in-law, stepmother-in-law, and their little kids.

Jenny's siblings are about a decade or so younger, so they're much younger.

And uh and I'm I'm as pale as a sheet.

My father-in-law leans over to me and says, Um, hey Ryan, uh do you need to like maybe get some fresh air or something?

I'm like, it's that bad around the table that I'm looking just green and terrible.

I'm like, yeah, that's a good idea.

I go into the bathroom and wow, um, I'll spare you the details, except for the fact that one of Jenny's little brothers happens to go into the bathroom and looking under the stall at the same time as I'm in my moment of pain.

So I get back, I feel a little bit better, I try to scarf down as much food as I possibly could because it's expensive.

I've never been to a place like this before.

Another bad idea.

I'll spare you again the details because um they're gory.

However, our honeymoon, in-law's in town,$100.

Um, I got obviously food poisoning.

Jenny had a bladder infection, so three out of our five days we spent inside, sick as a dog.

And then when we get back into town, we discover that our car, which had been parked in an outdoor parking lot, and there's a big blizzard in Chicago, had gotten hit by a snow plow and just took out all the panels of our little Honda Civic and is completely battered and beat up.

Welcome to Happily Ever After.

We didn't start out the way we thought it would, because when you get married, you have these dreams of like, oh man, this is gonna be amazing, and and we're pursuing this new happy life together.

In fact, in America, the part of the American dream is simply this it's life, liberty, and the pursuit of help me out, happiness.

We say it this way today: you deserve to be happy.

The purpose of life is to be happy.

And so if it doesn't make you happy, you gotta let it go, right?

And we live under this, and yet the question is, why is true happiness so very elusive?

Why does it feel like it's just a carrot dangling out in front of us and we're taking one step and we feel like we're about there, but it just evades our grasp?

Think about this, especially Silicon Valley.

Why do we tend to live such full lives that are often underfulfilled?

Hustling, pursuing, running.

And at the heart today, I believe, is this question what if the very pursuit of happiness is actually undermining the flourishing of your relationships?

Have you ever thought about that?

Last week we looked at the bad advice of live your truth.

This week we're gonna take a look at the bad advice of our day that's undermining the flourishing of our relationships.

You deserve to be happy.

And I gotta tell you, this one little bit of advice has shipwrecked more marriages, ruined more friendships, undermined so many people's futures just by simply buying into this idea that you deserve to be happy.

Well, what's underneath you deserve to be happy?

Let's talk about this.

I want to unpack what the modern relational vision, what we're hoping for to get to that desire, intimate, life-giving, character-shaping relationships.

The modern vision is this.

Your happiness is most important, right?

Your personal happiness is most important.

And when we're talking about happiness, let's define it.

Modern happiness means simply this: a sense of pleasurable self or satisfaction and self-actualization.

That's what modern happiness is.

It's a sense of pleasurable satisfaction and self-actualization, like you're really living out your true authentic self.

However, classical happiness is very different.

Through the ages, happiness has been more defined until the Enlightenment age as the virtuous life.

As a life in which you are happy about, that you're happy with, that the character and forming of who you are you look back on and are happy with, which is vastly different than the way we define happiness today.

The modern relational vision is your happiness is most important.

In fact, parents, don't we say this, don't we hear this?

All I want for my kids is to be happy.

Like I don't care what they do, I don't care what they say, I don't care.

Like you don't do that when they're kids, though, right?

Isn't that weird?

Like when they're little, you don't go like all I want for them is to be happy as they're throwing a tantrum in the middle of Target.

Right?

But we have this vision.

In fact, vision of happiness, we build it into our theology.

God wants me to be happy.

God's heart and will for me is my personal happiness.

And so then relationally, we begin to ask, do they make me happy?

And so underneath this relational vision, then is the purpose of relationships is per personal happiness.

The purpose of relationships is your personal happiness.

Um, if, as we talked about last week, if truth, and truth is the you know the way we try to navigate life, it's the compass upon which we figure out our directions in life.

Happiness then is actually in our culture today what we'd call true north.

It's your true north in life.

It's like, okay, this is the direction, your personal happiness is what is most important in life.

And here's how we try to accomplish that.

When you get blank, then you'll be happy.

Right?

When you get that perfect job, when you graduate, then you'll be happy.

When you finally find the right person, then you'll be happy.

When you just get a friend, you're new to town, when I just get a friend, then I'll be happy.

It maybe goes something like this: when I'm single, then I finally find someone to date that's awesome, then I'll be happy when I'm dating.

When he finally pops the question, when we finally get married, then I'll be happy.

When I'm married and we we finally have kids, then I'll be happy when you have kids.

When they grow out of this stage, I'll finally be happy.

When they get out of this house, I'll finally be happy.

And here's practically how we go about it.

Do whatever makes you happy.

Right?

Just do what makes you happy.

Go after what makes you happy.

If it feels good, do it.

One blog said this.

Don't ever be afraid to show who you really are, because as long as you're happy with yourself, no one else's opinion matters.

Just do what makes you happy.

Who cares what anybody else thinks, anybody else says?

And then underneath that, if you're unhappy, then something must be wrong.

Right?

What an incredible weight.

If you're unhappy, something must be wrong with this relationship.

In fact, so many people in their marriages try to make something right by just simply adding kids to the equation, hoping that will bring the happiness they long for.

If unhappy, ultimately then where we get to is something must be wrong with me.

Another blogger, yes, I've been on the blogosphere, wrote this: respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.

The modern relational division, your happiness is absolutely most important.

Prioritize it as your true north, go after it and don't ever compromise.

Now here's the problem with happily ever after.

With happiness alone as your true north.

The problem is first, it tells you that difficult is bad.

That difficult is bad.

See, happiness is this pursuit of pleasurable satisfaction for yourself.

And so it eliminates delayed gratification and elevates instant gratification.

Delay, discomfort, risk, obstacles, perseverance are all to be avoided and all things you need for a lasting relationship.

A deep, intimate relationship.

In fact, uh Dr.

Tim Elmore said it this way in the age of speed, slow is bad.

In the age of convenience, hard is bad.

In the age of entertainment, boring is bad.

And the reality is to do anything of significance, it requires sacrifice.

And all of you know that, all of you experienced it, and yet in our relationships, we think we don't have to sacrifice, and if it gets difficult, then I should get out of it.

But significance requires sacrifice, so to have significant relationships requires sacrifice, it tells us difficult is bad, it leaves us dissatisfied relationally.

Because why?

At some point, the honeymoon stage ends.

Unless you had a honeymoon from hell and it never began.

I'm just kidding, we had a wonderful beginning to our marriage.

It just had a whole lot of hiccups.

But at some point, that enamor, that glow, whether it's a friendship or a dating or newly married, at some point it begins to fade and you step into the reality and you begin to become dissatisfied as you look around at everyone else's filtered realities, their filtered relationships, their highly curated pages that they spent countless hours and many of them with assistance to help them organize their curated lives to tell you you are not enough and you need a better relationship.

And so you compare and are dissatisfied.

Psychologist Philip Cushman wrote this about the empty self.

It's what is happening in our culture today because of our pursuit of happiness.

He says the empty self is filled with consumer goods, calories, experiences, politicians, romantic partners, and empathetic therapists.

The empty self experiences a significant absence of community, tradition, and shared meaning, a lack of personal conviction and worth, and it embodies the absence as a absences as a chronic and undifferentiated emotional hunger.

Why don't we have that today?

And we keep running after hoping something else.

See, when that one didn't feel fulfilled, then we jump to something else.

Difficult as bad, dissatisfied relationally, and ultimately it creates a disillusionment.

Disillusionment in our relationships, a disillusionment with our own life.

And here's the interesting part.

Because it works its way into our theology, it ultimately creates a disillusionment with God.

Because if God exists to make me happy and I am not happy, then God has failed me.

If marriage exists to make me happy and I'm not happy, then this marriage has failed me.

And many of us struggle then with our own self-worth out of that.

I must be broken.

There must be something wrong with me.

And the weight and the pressure is crushing.

Okay.

If it's not you deserve to be happy, what is it?

I want to help us perhaps ask a different question.

Because I think the question we ask a lot is how do I become happy in life?

Or how do I find happiness?

What if you ask this question?

How do I ensure that I end up happy with my life?

How do I ensure that when I look back five years, when I look back 10 years, when I look back 20 years, that I'm actually happy, I'm actually content.

There's a sense of well-being with my life.

You know, I think we tend to think that God is down on happiness, right?

It's like, no, no, no, God doesn't really want you to be happy.

No, no, no.

He is the author of life, and he actually writes about it, and he gives us, I call it the law of happiness.

If you want to end up happy in life, would you open your Bibles to Psalm chapter one?

It's the very first psalm.

If you don't work know where it is, you just open the Bible to the middle and then flip to the left a couple pages.

If you're on your app, you just type in Psalm, but it starts with a P, P-S-A-L-M.

It's a wisdom psalm.

Wisdom, remember, we talked about last week, is the skill of navigating life well.

It's a psalm to help us understand how we are to navigate life in such a way that we look back on life and we're happy with it.

We're satisfied with it.

We're grateful for it.

Notice how the Psalmist begins, he says this way.

Blessed is the man.

In fact, before we even begin or go any further, would you just circle that word blessed and ride up above it?

Because I think that's where we tend to miss out on God and happiness, right?

Because throughout we see blessed and blessed and hashtag blessed, hello, thank you very much.

But I want to be happy, Ryan.

I want to be so happy and love blessed.

But what about happy?

Actually, this is the Hebrew word for happy.

There's a more technical word for blessed, and it's not this one.

This word means to be happy, right above it, happy.

A heightened state of happiness and joy, implying a very favorable circumstance and enjoyment.

So let me ask you.

Do you want to experience a heightened state of happiness and joy?

Well, of course you do.

We all do.

We all want to be happy.

So happiness isn't the problem, by the way.

It's how we're trying to get to happy, that is.

It says, happy is the man, happy is the woman, happy is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.

So he's going to say, here's something that happy people do.

Or rather, here's what happy people don't do.

Happy people do not walk, which is to live or behave.

It's a pattern or way of life in the counsel or the advice of the wicked.

And you're going like, well, Ryan, you know what?

I really haven't taken a whole lot of advice from wicked lately.

I don't go after and go, you know, Google search, wicked advice.

Hello.

Thank you very much.

What would Hitler have to say on this?

I'm curious.

Right?

You're like, I don't do that.

Because when we think of wicked, we think of the worst person we can possibly imagine, but that's not the definition of wicked biblically.

The definition of wicked biblically is those who live their life as if there is no God.

Very different, though, it's not that they believe there is no God.

They may believe in God, but live as if there is no God.

The wicked are those who live as if they are the center of the universe, that life revolves around them, that life is about them and ultimately for their gratification.

The wicked.

The wicked act as if now is all there is.

And so you make the decisions for the immediate, never the delayed.

Does it sound like, friends, that perhaps we have been taking some advice or some counsel from the wicked?

That somehow you deserve to be happy in what we just unpacked.

Could it be that those are things that are actually undermining our flourishing or the happiness that God belongs?

He says, don't walk in the counsel of the wicked.

Don't stand in the way of sinners.

Don't sit in the seat of mockers.

Do you see that progression?

I'm walking, I'm going about it, and then eventually I'm just lingering.

And then I just sit down in it.

This is life.

This is what everybody else is doing.

It seems like it's working for her.

It seems like it's working for him.

I'm not really happy with my relationship right now.

I'm getting more attention at work.

It's so full and frustrating.

It'd just be easier to get out.

Start fresh.

Start over.

It says happy people.

They don't walk in the counsel of the wicked.

They don't walk in that council for their friendships.

They don't walk in that council for their dating.

They don't walk in that council for their sexuality, for their marriage, or for their kids.

See, the progression, I think, for many of us is we never start out intending to go down that direction.

We just get caught up with the flow of people around us, and it's gradually pulling us in that current and in that stream.

And then he goes on to say happy people, happy people don't even hang out or take the counsel of people who live as if there is no God, that they're the center of the universe, and now is all there is.

Here's what happy people really do.

Here's what happy relationships look like.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in on his law, he meditates day and night.

That word delight, circle that word delight, it's a feeling of extreme pleasure or satisfaction.

His delight.

Like, here's what we're not gonna do, but here's what we are gonna do if you really wanna be happy.

Delight yourself.

This deep sense of pleasurable satisfaction in the law of God.

You know, when my wife and I were dating, so she went to Cow Poly in San Luis Obispo.

I went to Moody in Chicago, and when she graduated, she was with the ministry called Crew.

She ended up going overseas for a year to Sweden, lived there for a year.

And so we're dating long distance international.

And those were the days before Facebook and FaceTime.

I know I didn't even own a cell phone in college, guys.

I'm sorry.

Um it's just weird.

The world has changed.

And so what we had to do was I would actually purchase prepaid phone cards to be able to dial out in my dorm to call my, you know, bride to be the girl that I loved.

And then we would send each other care packages.

We we, you know, I just remember I'd go down to the campus post office and grab, you know, every once in a while there was a box with my name on it, and it had, you know, the address from Sweden, and my heart leapt.

It was amazing.

And there'd just be random things in there from what she's gone and experiencing, there's always a letter.

And I just threw it in the trash.

Just kidding.

No, I didn't do that.

Of course not.

Of course not.

The woman that I love that I can't be with in person took time to write me a note and I poured over it.

To this day, I still have those notes.

We have these, you know, Tupperware, big bins or whatever.

Not Tupperware, what do you you know what I mean?

What's those big rubber made bins?

Thank you.

With all the stuff that you you can't really keep in your house that are meaningful.

You know, like I have my doggy from when I was a kid, my stuffed animal and my blankie in there.

It's too much information, I understand.

And I have all her notes.

They're precious to me.

See, I think we miss something when we fail to realize that God actually wrote us a note, and God loves you.

He's wild about you.

And this is his words to you, and he wants to speak to you, and that we would pour over them with delight because he so loves you.

And where you begin to go, no, no, no.

The God of the universe who spoke and all there is came into existence, who is both immense and yet intimate, spoke to me, and where his word just begins to become a delight to our hearts.

It says, Happy people delight in not just God's word, but did you notice what it said?

The law of the Lord.

Well, that's weird.

You know what, Ryan, you had me with the story about Jenny, and I was starting to get there, and I'm like, okay, thank you very much.

But then all of a sudden, in the law of the Lord, he meditates on it day and night to think deeply, to saturate oneself.

Like, what in the world?

Are you serious?

The law of the Lord?

And the law just is speaking, both not just to the Old Testament, but to the New Testament.

It's just the ways of God for your flourishing.

Now, I always struggled with that.

Because I fundamentally had a belief about God, maybe you do too, that God somehow is holding out on you.

And if you look around at the world and kind of the way things are going, it almost feels like his laws or his ways are withholding fun.

Right?

Okay, I'm the only one honest in here, that's fine.

Until one day, so my daughter, who's now 17, uh, when she was two, she came running around the corner in our house into our kitchen, and she had a pair of scissors in her hand.

And the pointing in is this direction, and she's running like this.

I mean, she's since become a much better runner.

Um, but I mean, she's just, whoa! I mean, the scissors are just going right by her eye, right by her eye, right by her.

I'm a new dad, I don't really know how to respond, and so I I go, which is for dads, don't do that.

I she probably would have gone, ah, you know.

And then I took the scissors from her.

Do you know what she did when I took the scissors from her?

She cried.

She was mad at me.

She was so angry and so upset, she threw a little tantrum right there.

Why?

Because I took what was fun in the moment for her, and she was in this incredible state of, whoo, this is great.

Completely unaware at two years of age, that blindness was her impending doom if she continued in that current direction.

See, what changed for me the moment I became a dad is I always began to understand the law of God way differently.

That the law of God is not actually keeping us from fun, but as a good, perfect father who loves you, who wants you flourishing, who will do whatever it takes for you to thrive, the law of God is an I love you to you and to me.

I didn't do that because I was angry at her.

I did that because I love her.

I didn't let my kids play in the street because I was a mean jerk of a dad.

I didn't let them play in the street.

Why?

Because there's cars flying down our road, and I love them.

I want to keep them from harm, not keep them from fun.

And the beginning, when you begin to understand that God loves you and his laws are not for your keep you from fun, it's for you to flourish for relationships, for you to experience that life-giving, intimate, character-shaping relationship.

But he delights in the law of God.

When God talks about how we're to go about our sexuality, it's not to keep you from fun.

It's because he loves you.

They don't walk in the counsel of the wicked, but they delight in God's law.

Then notice this.

Here's the result.

He is like a tree planted, stable by streams of water, which yield its fruit in season and whose leaf do not wither.

Whatever he does, it prospers.

It's like a tree.

You know, in the ever-changing circumstances and the storms of life, to be rooted, to be stable, not tossed and turned.

It's like that's what this person is.

Whose leaves do not wither.

There's a resiliency regardless of the seasons.

Now, notice this, this is interesting.

Yields its fruit in season, meaning that you're not always yielding fruit, and we think we should be yielding fruit all the time.

Life should be an Instagram-worthy party every single day.

But notice this whatever he does prospers.

This word prosper means to make steady progress.

I mean, at the end of the day, if you're just making steady progress in life, when you'd be like, okay, I can look back, be happy with my life.

Now, what I also think is pretty interesting is think about this picture of a tree, that you can actually not be in a season of fruitfulness and still prosper.

And we connect those two, and it's only when I have X, and only when this happens, then I'm really prospering.

But you can actually be in a season where the fruit is not on the tree, but you're actually prospering.

You know what's fascinating about trees is that trees are always growing.

And in fact, over the winter time, when the fruit is not on the tree, when the leaves often have fallen off of it, the roots are growing the most and the deepest.

See, I think for some, you're in a season where externally you would say this is a hard season.

Externally, I'm not sure where the fruit is.

And you can still prosper.

And God's going, no, I'm doing some root work in your life.

I'm doing some root work in your marriage.

I'm doing some root work in your character.

I'm doing some root work in your singleness.

I'm doing some root work in your spirituality.

And what I'm trying to do in this season is to help your roots go deeper and stronger into me so that you can sustain whatever season you go through.

The law of happiness.

Happy people.

Happy people say no to one way, to the counsel of the wicked and delight in the law of God.

So, what does relational wisdom say?

Well, happiness is a byproduct of a well-lived life, not a destination in life.

Happiness is a byproduct.

Now, over well-lived, would you do this for me?

Would you write the word holy?

Happiness is a byproduct or the result of a holy life.

When I was a kid, I grew up, you know, hearing maybe sermons, and you know, maybe you've never gone to church, so uh you don't have this baggage that God doesn't want you to be whole happy, he wants you to be holy.

And yet the reality is when you live a holy life, you will begin to experience the happy life.

It's a byproduct, it's not the destination.

Like how C.S.

Lewis said it, you can't get a second thing by putting them first.

You can get a second thing only by putting first things first.

See, we've just put the cart before the horse.

We put happiness in front and we keep running after it, wondering why we'll never achieve it.

Friends, friends, friends, friends, begin to delight in the law of God, begin to delight in his word, begin to go, God, you're gonna form me into who you ultimately called me to be.

You're actually good, and your ways are good, and you're doing this for my good, so I'm gonna trust you.

That's where Jesus said, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness or his ways, and all these things will be given to you as well.

When you begin to seek his ways, man, happiness, it just comes along for the ride, and you look back and you go, Man, I'm so grateful for I'm so happy with life.

And so let me, as we close, ask this question.

For the sake of your relationships, where do you need to apply disproportionate energy?

Disproportionate meaning out of proportion to other areas of your life.

Give more time, more effort, more thought.

The way Jesus said it, seek first.

The way the psalmist said it, delight in.

Let me ask you it this way.

For the sake of your happiness, like really true happiness.

Where do you need to apply disproportionate energy?

The author of Hebrews would say it this way.

Say, therefore, since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, those who have lived this life well, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, saying no from the way of the wicked and the mockers, let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

And friends, here's where I'd say for us to lean in disproportionate energy, fixing our eyes on Jesus.

Like, what would it look like this week if you had a disproportionate energy of effort of time of Jesus?

I'm just gonna fix my eyes on you.

I'm gonna seek you first, first thing in the morning, and you just begin to do that and see what changes in you, see what changes in your relationship, see what changes in your friendship, see what changes with your coworkers.

Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Here's what's so amazing is Jesus didn't choose happiness now, he chose sacrifice now for the joy set before him to look back and be happy with.

And do you know what his joy was?

It was you.

It was you.

Allow you to experience life.

And he says, I wouldn't miss it for a moment.

I choose you regardless of the cost.

And we're gonna partake in communion, reminding ourselves that we're fixing our eyes on Jesus.

And in this moment, as we take the cups and as we're gonna continue worship, and his bread that is represents his body broken for us, his blood poured out, that we have a new covenant that is no longer what we do or trying to earn or work our way to God, but he did the work for us.

Where we lean in.

Would you just lean in this moment?

Maybe not every moment this week, but this moment.

Some disproportionate energy, fixing your eyes on the one who said, I love you.

I'm wild about you.

I do whatever it takes to be with you, even at the cross.

Jesus, we invite you here in this moment.

Would you would you lead us?

Would you speak to us?

Would you draw us near?

Would you give us clarity of maybe the paths that we've gone down that we need to stop?

And and the energy and effort in all of that, would you draw us to your heart?

Draw us to your love, draw us to your grace in this moment.

In Jesus' name, amen.

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