The Joy Experiment | The People Experiment

Well, welcome everybody to Pumpkin Weekend at Westside.

We're glad that you're here.

I hope you had a chance.

Anybody see the goats out front?

That was fun, right?

They're still there.

And so you can go say hi to the goats afterwards.

Um, we're doing something really, really fun this weekend.

We're kicking off a new series and celebrating the beginning of the fall, and we're really glad that each one of you are here.

And starting this new series called the People Experiment, we're actually uh playing off that for today, which is called the Joy Experiment.

And so today we're gonna be really looking at the issue of joy as it relates to our relationships.

And you might see some letters up here on the stage.

Don't worry, we're gonna rearrange those in a little bit so that they make sense to all of us.

Uh, but what I'd like for you to do right now is if you're online with us, welcome.

You can grab your notes right there in the chat.

If you're here, would you get your notes out of your program?

Because we want to learn some things together today that make a difference in our lives tomorrow.

And uh I can't wait to do this with you.

Now, a few years ago, I was doing a DIY project at my house.

Has anybody done a DIY project at their house?

How did that go?

Because it wasn't like, I mean, parts of it were okay for me here.

I'll explain.

Uh, we moved into a house uh that needed some repairs, and so it was part of our thing was we were getting a good deal on the house, and I would go through each month and just take a certain amount of money, and uh we had like an allowance, and we were just gonna do a little bit each month.

So I would like, for instance, I'd go to Home Depot and buy like the moldings and stuff for the for one window and a new blind and some paint.

I'd just do one window because that's how much one month would pay for.

So then I would just go through the house, and thankfully my wife kept me on track.

So all the windows, all the same stuff, right?

So they all matched, and that turned out okay.

We did the doors, that was a little more challenging.

And then um, she asked if I could do the front door, and I was like, Oh, I think that's a little harder, that's a little more important, like how it closes really matters, you know, on the front door.

And so I called my friend Darren.

I was like, hey, can you help me?

He goes, No, but my wife can.

And so he sent his wife over and she installed our front door.

The thing about that was I didn't learn how to do it, she just did it for us.

And I was thinking about that with with regard to not only joy, but also people, is that, you know, if you go it alone, it just you just don't gain the experience and the skill, you know.

And if I had had her teach me how to install a door, that'd be a different story.

If I had had other people, but a DIY isn't always the way to go.

And when it comes to your faith or your life, DIY doesn't work as Armando said in that video.

Isolation is terminal, it's a problem.

Um, and so we're gonna talk about joy today as it relates to people.

Now, we've tried everything to get joy.

We all have tried everything.

Here's a list we've eaten the food, we've drunk the coffee, we bought the car, we upgraded the phone, we remodeled the kitchen, we took the vacation, we got the promotion, we binged the whole season, we went to the concert, we bought the tickets, we took the cruise, we sat on the beach, we got the massage, we ordered the dessert, and we ordered another dessert, right?

I mean, we've all done stuff like that, and at the end of the day, you're like, man, I just wish I had a little more joy in my life.

All that effort, and we're still going, I just wish I had a little more joy in my life.

And I can totally relate.

I get it.

We all do the same thing.

But the question is, how's that going?

I just got a copy of the latest World Happiness Report.

It's a real thing, comes out every year, World Happiness Report.

And uh we scored our lowest ranking ever as a country in the World Happiness Report.

So interesting that we are here in a place of opportunity where people are trying to come to so that they can pursue the dream, and our happiness level just keeps going down, down, and down, and down.

129 countries, I think it was that they surveyed, and among people under 30, America ranks 62nd in the world for happiness.

So just way below where it was just a few years ago.

It is sliding fast, and it's kind of scary.

And what they said was this is this got me right in my heart.

It said one in five 18 to 29-year-olds said they don't have even one person they feel close to.

One in five.

Not even one person that they feel close to.

Can you imagine that?

In the time of life when you're making the most difficult decisions, when you're starting a career, you're raising a family, or you're looking for a mate, or you are trying to figure out, you know, the meaning of life, you're doing that with not one person that you feel close to?

Now we know what that state leads to.

And it's so difficult for us as a country if we if we keep down this path.

Another one said in 2023, 26% of American adults ate every meal alone on the previous day.

I mean, they just said, hey, ask them the question on this day, and then they said, yesterday, what happened?

Ate every meal alone.

Up more than 50% since 2003.

50% more in just two decades.

And this also said 25 to 34 year olds, for among 25 to 34 year olds, the rate of eating every meal alone has increased by more than 180% in two decades.

That's brutal.

Because that's just symbolic of life, but but actually, eating a meal with people is one of the things that historically, since the beginning of time, has been one of the most important things.

Look how many times Jesus sat at a table with people in the scripture.

Think about you know those memories that you have of being with somebody, and then what we're seeing is that the world is so isolated and we're so pushed apart right now.

That's why we're doing the people experiment, because what we realize is we're trying to find everything in life that can't be found alone.

And and so one of those things happens to be joy.

Now, fast forward in your life, what if your happiness trajectory stayed the same?

So wherever you're pointing, what if it stayed the same?

So you got 10 years from now.

If you're if your happiness is your joy is going up, that's gonna be awesome for you, and I hope that's a lot of you.

If it's flat, you know, that might be okay.

If it's going down, though, you know, how far down does it go?

And what we know is the entire world is is not supporting your joy trajectory moving up, right?

The world is pulling us apart, and isolation is terminal, and what we find is that that's why this report keeps saying, oh, it's worse again, it's worse again, because of all the countries, we seem to be really the best at loneliness.

We seem to be really the best at isolating ourselves.

We have all the tools, we have all the gadgets, and maybe that's part of the problem, is we have all these options except good relationships.

But the the saying goes, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten.

So let's try something different.

That's what this is about.

This is the people experiment.

We're gonna just try stuff, okay?

And I'm gonna give you permission just to be creative.

Look what it says in in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24, not in your notes, but it is on the screen.

Hebrews 10:24

It says this discover creative ways to encourage others and motivate them toward acts of compassion, doing beautiful works as expressions of love.

I love the way that reads, don't you?

That's from the Passion Translation.

If you're looking for something fresh in your spiritual life, check that out, the Passion Translation.

But it's just saying, get creative.

Now I want you to turn to your neighbor right now and just say, I'm feeling creative.

Just say that, I'm feeling creative.

Just say, turn to him right now.

I'm feeling creative.

All right, so John, we're gonna look at the New Testament Epistle of John.

What that is, is that's a little letter that John the Apostle wrote.

Um, and he was in uh he was in a season of life where he was he was trying to correct some things, he was trying to give some instruction, but what he's really doing was propping up fellowship, joy, and relationship as the way to achieve all that you really want in life.

And um he's by the way, he's not selling religion.

John is not selling religion in this little short letter that we're looking at in this series.

He's sharing what happened to him.

He was best friends with Jesus.

John was uh he was one of the apostles, and he actually calls himself in the Gospel of John, which he wrote down the letter the words for.

Uh, he calls himself the apostle whom Jesus loved, which I always think that's so funny.

He was just totally bragging on himself, like, well, I'm obviously Jesus' favorite, you know.

Uh and so they were best friends, but he also was the last man standing at the cross.

All the other people had had fled of fear, interrogation, they all left.

John's standing there with Mary, and Jesus looks at John and goes, Behold your mother.

In other words, take care of my mom.

And so he did.

And John proceeded to take Mary, and uh, and when the persecution in Jerusalem was so great after the resurrection of Jesus, uh, he he took Mary to Ephesus at some point in Turkey, and they started a new movement of Jesus followers.

And it grew and grew and grew and grew.

And you read in the New Testament the letter to the Ephesians from the Apostle Paul, because John started the work in Ephesus that we know about today.

In fact, you might be tempted when you hear all this Bible stuff.

I don't know if you think, oh, that's just made-up stuff, but let me show you something.

This is the building, the church of St.

John in Ephesus.

That was started a couple hundred years after John himself, but they had started a movement that led to this church being built.

And then here's something that you might recognize.

Anybody know what that is right there?

It's a baptism tank.

We do that today because this is what Jesus said to do.

And then here's John's tomb right there in Ephesus.

I mean, this is not a fairy tale.

John is giving us historical facts, and he's saying, things happened, and I'm telling you about them.

I want to share my experience.

Now, he he started this movement in Ephesus of Jesus' followers.

They were meeting in houses, and they were being confronted by something called Gnosticism, which was a totally different philosophy than the gospel.

The good news that John was given the instruction to go teach.

And what Gnosticism was doing was saying, let's try a different experiment.

Let's try a we can do it all on our own experiment.

Let's try a throw out all moral restraints experiment.

Let's let's try making up our own truth experiment.

And so John's confronting this in the New Testament epistle of 1 John.

But what they basically said was, we're gonna do this our own way.

And we've all tried that, right?

We've all tried tried finding meaning our own way, and what we found is meaninglessness, emptiness.

So if we want something different, we gotta do something different.

And John was an authority on joy, by the way, because John not only obeyed Jesus', you know, thing about take care of mom, start a gospel movement in Ephesus, and John was continually faithful along the way.

Did you know John was boiled in oil for his faith and it didn't kill him?

And he kept on going.

I mean, if you got boiled in oil for your faith, would you keep going?

But he did, because he had something internally that carried him through all the ups and all the downs.

He was strong when it was good, he was strong when it was bad.

And personally, I crave that, don't you?

The kind of internal strength and resilience that can keep you going when life is good, when your paycheck is showing up on time, when you know there's good weather, and when when all in everything's in place, you're good.

But when everything's falling apart, you're good.

And you're not gonna quit, and you're not gonna, you're not gonna, you know, leave, you're gonna stay.

That's what I think God wants for you and me.

And so he's the authority on joy, and and here's John the apostle on joy in verse one of 1 John.

You ready for it?

It goes like this We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we've heard and seen.

We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands.

He is the word of life.

Love this.

He's going, he, Jesus, is the word of life.

Not Jesus has the word of life or Jesus teaches the word of life.

He's no, Jesus is the word of life.

You're looking for life, John would say, He's life.

And he starts out really strong.

Um, you might not be able to tell, but he starts out with two words, we proclaim, which is different than a lot of a lot of Bible books start.

A lot of times there's some windup happening.

It's like, well, you know, in the beginning, you know, or or uh this is Paul, or some introduction.

This just goes right to the jugular.

It reminded me of the movie Top Gun.

You ever seen Top Gun?

Top Gun just starts, you know, like they're on the aircraft carrier and the music is like highway to the danger zone, you know.

It's like and John starts this out just like that, like boom! We're proclaiming to you.

He's like, listen, big bang fireworks at the beginning is what John does.

Because he wants us to pay attention.

He said, We've heard, we've seen, we've touched.

What he's basically saying is, this is real.

This is real.

He's not saying I developed a philosophy that works for me.

He's not saying I found my truth.

He's not saying that.

He's saying I was there.

I heard him, I touched him, I watched him.

He said, We saw him with our own eyes.

Like we were gazing at him, jaws dropped.

You ever been to the Grand Canyon before?

Anybody been to the Grand Canyon?

Yeah?

Okay, and you come back, and people are like, How was the Grand Canyon?

And you're like, oh my gosh, unbelievable.

You know, and you're trying to talk to him, and they're like, uh-huh.

And how was the donut shop that you went to?

And you're like, no, no, no, you don't understand.

The Grand Canyon, the Grand Canyon.

They're like, ah, yeah, it sounds good, but I wasn't there.

And John's going, I was there.

You got to understand something.

This is the word of life.

And he's like, This is what changes everything, this Jesus.

He basically said, We can't help but tell you what actually irrefutably happened to us.

He's saying, we are contagious with the effect of our experience.

We're contagious with the effect of our encounter with the word of life, Jesus.

And that's the basis for what he says next.

He says in verse 2, this is the one who is, this one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him.

Now he's going to say that a lot in this passage.

He's like, We saw him and we saw him, and we looked at him, and we saw him, and we saw him, and we touched him, and we heard him.

And he's saying, This was a person, this happened.

He said, We've seen him, and now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life.

He's going, like, we've evaluated everything, our own experience, and we touched him, and we saw him, and we looked at him, and we heard him, and we walked with him, and we were with him, and he is who he said he was.

He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us.

He says in verse 3, we proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard.

And then he says something very, very, very important that I want you to circle in your notes if you're taking notes right now.

He says two words.

So that.

Oh my goodness.

If you want to know a secret to Bible study, this is one of them.

Total secret, total hack right here.

So that.

What he's saying is this is the purpose of everything I just told you.

I'm about to drop it on you.

About to drop the purpose of everything I just told you next.

So pay attention when he says so that, then he drops the bomb.

You may have fellowship, so that you may have fellowship with us.

He's like, the reason I'm telling you that Jesus is the word of life and that we saw him and now we're proclaiming it, is so that you may have fellowship with us.

And then he says, and our fellowship is with the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ.

So first he says, This is real, you guys.

Now he's saying, This is personal.

This is personal.

He's like, we want you to have fellowship with us.

We're gonna explain what that means in a second.

But he he could have said, We proclaim this so that you'll believe us because we got a quota, you know, I got a report to the boss, so we're proclaiming, or no, you know, we want to have a lot of people at church, so we're proclaiming, or we kind of want to make a name for ourselves, so we're proclaiming this.

He didn't say any of that stuff.

He said, We are proclaiming that to you because we want you to have fellowship with us.

And he's talking about something that we're gonna spell out, okay?

This is the Bible word for fellowship, and uh, and this is the Greek word.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of saying everybody should learn Greek, because I think the reason why we have English translations is because you can read the Bible in English and learn what you need to know.

Um, and there's so many translations.

So I I do not want you to walk away from here going, like, I now I gotta to be a good Christian, I gotta learn Greek.

Not true, okay?

Not true.

Thank you again.

Yeah, you're welcome.

You're welcome.

Um, but what he said, he uses the word koinonia.

That should be up on the screen.

Koinonia, okay?

So we're gonna spell that out.

I need your help.

I gotta move some letters around because this is what John wants you and me to remember is that um he's talking about a concept that's so powerful that uh we need to remember it and we need to know it, but we don't just need to know it, we need to live it.

And that's what I want you to think about is how do I live um this kind of life that John is talking about?

Because it's really, really important that we would be able to be people who are in fellowship, like he talked about.

If if what John is saying is the answer to our deficit uh of basically joy, then it's really, really important.

He's saying this is shared life, this is participation, belonging, partnership.

Having something so significant in common that my life becomes connected to your life.

This is beyond friendship, this is koinonia.

This is what we at Westide call community.

We have three mountains we always talk about.

You can see them in the lobby.

Jesus, that's when you meet Jesus as your savior.

He already talked about that here.

That's when you realize he's forgiven you, you've got your sins forgiven, you've got your your relationship with God restored totally, you're a child of God because you believed in Jesus.

Then there's the mountain of community where you realize, wait, I belong.

And we're gonna explain what that means and the depth of it, and then there's mission where you take that to others, like John did.

And it's so important that we have this sense of quinonia.

A lot of times when I hear the word fellowship, as a recovering um, you know, kid who grew up in church, uh, and I got I got the my my my fellowship like connotation was uh it's a styrofoam cup with bad coffee in the basement of a church, right?

You're like you're having a meeting with people around, you know, some stuff, but that's like the extent of what I have in my mind about fellowship when I just hear the word.

John goes, oh, it's so much deeper than that.

It's so much deeper than that.

One commentator said, This is the utterly unparalleled life.

Like, this is what people sign up for, like that's what I want in life, is that sort of relationship.

And I feel like in many ways we just really have cut it short.

I'll be honest with you, I didn't understand fully the definition of quinunia until this week.

And I've been a Christian for 48 years because I received Christ when I was five, and I'm 53 now.

So it took me 48 years to learn this.

I'm gonna give it to you in like three minutes.

You're welcome.

Um it's what I do.

It's what I do.

All right.

Um okay, this by the way, what he says runs completely opposite of the experiment that most of us are running, the independence experiment, right?

This is 100% opposite.

Well, here's our experiment.

I can handle it.

I'll figure it out.

I'll Google it, I'll just watch the video, I'll ask Chat GPT, I'll order the thing, I'll fix the problem, I'll raise my kids, I'll manage my marriage, I'll carry my anxiety, I'll figure out my faith by myself.

That's the American experiment.

How's that going?

Not good.

I mean, we can see everybody knows.

And the thing is that uh the independence experiment's never gonna give us what we're looking for.

So John intentionally blows up our definition of fellowship or of community, and he says our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

So listen, it is not you plus some friends.

That's the thing that I think we gotta get out of our minds.

It's not just you plus some friends.

That is not, even when we say community at West Side, and today we're changing our definition to align with the Bible.

We're gonna understand this deeper, we're gonna practice this deeper, we're gonna get better at this.

Our community needs us to get better at this, our world needs us to get better at this.

The high school, the middle school, the elementary school, they desperately need us to get better at this, to show this, to model this, to encourage this, to resource this.

It is not just you plus some friends, it is you and Jesus and me.

And that's a big difference.

And I'm explaining that because, you know, imagine let's say you walk into a crowded restaurant and you're looking around because you're supposed to meet somebody there, but you go in and it's like there's no space.

There's people standing up at the front waiting to be seated.

You can't see who's who through the crowd, and now you're nervous that maybe you're at the wrong restaurant.

And then all of a sudden from the back, somebody stands up and yells your name, hey gay, we got a seat here for you.

And you go, Oh, thank God.

And you just confidently, it changes your posture.

You confidently walk to the back of the restaurant, you're like, I got a seat here for me.

And you sit down and you have a meal.

And it's so important that you have that sort of belonging place, you know, because here's the difference between you plus some friends.

I've been in this situation before it's you plus some friends.

And let's say something goes wrong.

Which doesn't happen very often in relationships, right?

Um, that something would go wrong.

But how you're like, I that's not what I said, you know?

Or you're like, that's not what I meant.

Or you're like, I'm sorry, I messed up, you know?

And it's time.

Right, because if something goes wrong, it's like it's just up to you guys to fix it.

And then and then you're leaving that to human nature.

Here's the difference is that Koinonia is you and Jesus and me.

And here's the here's the picture.

He's right between you.

He's got both your arms.

He's locked, he is the glue.

He's the glue, he's the buffer, he's the guide, he's the translator.

I mean, he's the one.

And so you've got this different whole scenario where Jesus is actually at the center of your relationship.

And he's saying, I want you to practice this life.

I want you to practice this life because this life will change your whole life.

And that's so, so important.

I mean, the World Happiness Report can tell us you need people, but John says you were created for something even deeper.

Now I know what some of you are thinking, it's what I was thinking.

It's like, well, my calendar is pretty full.

I don't know if I want another meeting.

I'm not suggesting that the way you solve this is to add more blocks of time on your calendar.

I'm suggesting you change your definition of what relationship in your faith should look like, could look like, and that you experiment with some ideas, that you try something.

In fact, I let me just kind of address something which some of you might be feeling, which might be that if you've been with us for a while, some of you have been here for a while, some of you might be brand new, and we're so glad that you're here.

One thing that we're celebrating as a church is that God has been reaching people in the city and that uh so many people have been saying yes to Jesus.

There's a lot of you who are brand new following Jesus.

We're so glad about that.

It's led us to seek more space.

God's opened a door for us down the street.

We're moving our church built or our church to a new building.

And uh we're hoping to do that by Christmas Eve.

So exciting.

However, some of you might hear that and feel pressure and go, well, I know, and we realize there's finances involved in that, we realize there's time involved in that, and volunteer hours in a building involved in that.

And so it's like, oh man, you might feel the weight of that.

And I want to do something right now by just giving you a pressure release valve.

Can I just remove all that pressure and let you know that there's no pressure?

There's no pressure.

If you're feeling pressure about what God is doing, it's not coming from God.

And I pray that it's not coming from me.

Don't let it.

God doesn't work that way, He works by leading you through His Spirit.

If God tells you to do something, do it.

And He'll give you the grace and all the stuff, right?

And you'll know.

So I just want to release the pressure and go, let's just experiment.

How about we just have fun for eight weeks?

We have fun going like, oh, I here's what I tried.

What'd you try?

And we just go, this is what we know is God wants us to experience life.

Um in John in 1 John 1 4, he says this.

He says, We are writing these things.

This is the next verse.

We're writing these things.

What does he say?

So that, oh, huge clue.

What is this?

So that you may fully share our joy.

Man, he spent most of the time building a case for koinonia, but you realize as you read this passage, that wasn't the point.

It was a prerequisite.

He's like, I'm gonna roll all that I just set up right now, and now I'm gonna point it to the thing that I want you to have.

The thing that carried me through a pot full of boiling oil.

Joy.

I want you to have joy like I have it.

That's what John would say.

I want you to fully share the joy that I have.

And one of the things that he says is, but you can't have it until you have prerequisites.

You can't have joy by yourself.

Did you know that?

You can't sustain joy by yourself.

You might feel it for a minute, but you can't have and sustain joy by yourself.

That's what John would say.

And so he's going, you know what?

Joy is the thing that you need.

And I learned two things this week.

I learned the full meaning of quinonia, at least fuller than I had before.

And I learned a fuller meaning of joy this week.

So I was trying to really get to the heart of what is this he's talking about and how do we experience it?

And what I found out, as I studied the word joy that's in this passage, he goes, I want you to fully have joy.

And he uses the word for gift.

He goes, I want you to have the gift that I got, the gift.

What is the gift?

As I looked at this word and looked at what the theologians said about it and what the scholars and what the commentators said about it, they said, here's what it means: it means the awareness of God's grace.

I thought, what the heck?

What?

Joy is the awareness of God's grace.

That you look around at your life and you're like, oh, God has been so good to me.

Look at He showed up here where I didn't deserve it.

Oh, wow.

It gives you joy.

Like you're like, wow, God is so good.

Look, He forgave me of my sins.

Wow.

He stood up at the back of the room and called my name and said he had a seat there at the table for me, invites me to sit at his table.

He's given me a family of believers to belong to.

I have his spirit in my eye.

You're like looking around, going like the awareness of God's grace carries you through the circumstances that are always changing in your life.

And the thing is that God's grace never changes, never goes away.

And even Paul, the apostle, God told him, My grace is sufficient for you.

And that was in the context of Paul going through some really hard stuff that wasn't changing.

So you look at the World Happiness Report and go, wow, what's going on?

And I think it's pretty obvious that we've pursued isolation and we're not at all aware of God's grace.

What if we just flip that and said, in this eight weeks, what we're gonna do is we're gonna go hard after these things.

We're gonna experiment, we're gonna get crazy, we're gonna get creative, we're gonna ask God to show us what's going on.

Now, here's what I know is that it is really, really, really hard to stay aware of God's grace on your own.

Because you get into an echo chamber, right?

You get tunnel vision, and you're like, oh, you don't know how hard my life is, right?

I've been there.

I go there sometimes.

This is an easy place for us all to go.

And the thing is that if you're having like marriage trouble, don't go it alone.

You know, if you're if you're having teenagers unravel, don't go it alone.

You don't have to.

If if you're having questions about God, don't ask those questions alone.

You don't have to.

If you are if your job's falling apart, don't carry it alone.

If life's great and you have something we're celebrating, don't celebrate alone.

If you don't know Jesus yet, don't figure that out alone.

I mean, you're in a you're in a family here, and God's put this family here so Jesus can be at the center.

You can be on one side, I can be on the other side, and we got this buffer, we got this glue, we got this guide, and he's the perfect guide.

And what we know is the world keeps us telling us to construct fulfillment through acquisition, achievement, all the things that actually leave us totally empty.

But here's what I want you to write down in your notes is this this is the bottom line is that experiencing Jesus in community brings joy back to life.

That's that's it.

And John was saying that.

Experiencing Jesus in community brings joy back to life.

That's what we need.

Essentially, that's the joy experiment.

And I was talking with Sydney recently.

Sydney's on our team, and Sydney and me were standing in the back of our parking lot last week, actually, or a week and a half ago, when we were hosting this very large youth event here.

And it was just, this place was spilling out.

There was just teenagers everywhere on this whole campus.

It was just completely packed.

Literally never seen this place that full.

And Sidney and I are in the back, and he's like just talking about how in awe he was of what God was doing with young people, and his his you could just feel the joy coming from him.

And I started to feel it, and I was like, man, I'm inspired.

You know, like this is rubbing off.

Thank you, Sidney.

And I said, actually, I think everyone in our church needs to hear this.

Will you tell us the whole church about it?

So here he is.

Well, it kind of started with that unite event that we hosted here at this church, and it was just amazing to see how full the parking lot was.

I mean, there were school buses that came in and brought a bunch of kids, and there, I mean, there was there was kids, students running all over the place, teens, you know, just all over the place here.

To see that many kids inspired to come to be here, to hear the word, to hear the worship.

Um, it was just inspiring.

And it's something that I've come to appreciate, admire, and respect greatly.

Um, just to see how many students come and show up on their own accord, no parents, no nothing.

You know, very different from the way I grew up.

I grew up being forced to come to church.

These kids want to come to church, and it's amazing to see it.

When I first started coming to the men's Bible study that was held on Wednesdays, to see them show up half an hour, hour early, just to hang out and you know, be a part of part of this was amazing, and just to see it grow throughout the years that I've been here, to know how many kids show up because their friends come here, and then their families show up, and then it's inspiring, and it's just amazing to see those families getting baptized, you know, within a month, two months, you know, it it's it's just wow.

And to see what God is doing in the youth, because again, I did not grow up with this.

We were forced to go to church, and these kids want to be here.

It's inspired me to want to come meet them, talk to them.

The fact that they want to be more physical with their Bible, you know, as pastors once said, they like they called him out on not having a physical Bible, you know, to see what it's done for my youngest, you know.

He he wants to come, he wants to be a part of this, he wants to go to camp.

Uh he's even grown into joining Men's Alliance.

Uh, you know, on his 13th birthday, he was the first time he came, which was inspiring, which was awesome, like I said, to see them wanting to be here and being a part of it.

You know, it's just I love that.

I love that.

So here's the experiment, okay.

If you want that kind of like, you know, you want that kind of joy in your life, you want to be connected to people.

Here's the experiment.

And one first question is where are you now?

Where are you now?

I mean, do you know?

Where are you now with your relationships?

Do you have koinonia in your life?

How about your joy?

Do you have joy in your life?

Where are you now?

Just yours to answer, nobody's gonna give you a test, okay?

This is the experiment.

Where are you now?

What would you like to change?

Just pick something.

What would you like to change?

And and then the question is what could you try this week?

What could you try?

Just what could you try?

Don't look at it as pressure, don't look at it as a big checklist.

Please don't look at it like a checklist.

What could you try?

Just give God some freedom and God give me an idea.

If you're not sure, let me let me just give you an idea, okay?

Again, this is not pressure, this is not you you have to do this, this is an idea.

This is something we see working with people.

We have all these groups, they're kicking off this week.

There's like a whole bunch of them.

There's like almost 50 groups.

You'll find one that matches your schedule and your and what's your season of life and all that.

Um what if you did this?

What if you said for the next 30 days, I'm gonna find a group, I'm gonna show up?

Because I get there's a difference between signing up for a group and showing up for a group.

Am I right?

I'm gonna show up, I'm gonna put myself out there, and I'm gonna see what God does.

30 days, I'm gonna sign up, I'm gonna show up and put myself out there and see what God does.

What if you did that?

It's an option.

And and here's what I believe is that you know, God wants to do something in our lives.

And Psalm 34, 8, I love it.

It says this says, Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Try it.

He goes, Oh the joys of those who take refuge in him.

This is what he wants for you and me to do, just to just to take refuge in him.

So I would love for you to bow your heads with me right now as we just let's attempt to do that right now.

Let's attempt to take refuge in the Lord, in Jesus Himself.

He's the one that John said, Hey, you can trust this message.

He said, I saw him.

I heard him.

We touched him, we we know he's real.

He's like, this is real.

He said, This is personal.

I mean, I want you to have what we have.

And he said, The thing I really want is that I want your joy to be made complete.

And maybe you're in a spot in life where your joy tank is just like constantly empty.

What we what we see in this passage is that he he goes, the first uh place to start is Jesus.

Yes.

You start with Jesus.

He is the word of life, he is life itself.

I want to invite you, if you've never said yes to Jesus, if your tank is constantly empty, it could be you don't have the river of life in your soul.

You don't have, he called himself a bubbling spring that will well up from in your soul.

If you if your tank is constantly running empty, it could be that you just don't have the author of life at work in your soul.

But he has invited you to have him in your life.

And he said, if you just believe, that's what he said.

He made it so simple, he said, just believe.

He said, if anyone believes in me, I'm gonna give them the power to become the children of God.

So how about it?

Maybe that's your your move this week.

Your first step is to say yes to Jesus.

I want to lead you in a prayer right now.

If that's your your spot, if you're with us online and you're like, yeah, I want to know that my sins are forgiven.

I want to know that God's grace is in my life.

I want to know that his spirit is with me and that I've got a place at the table.

Let me just lead you in a simple prayer.

You could say this to God back in your mind and heart.

Say, Jesus, I give you my life.

I thank you for saving me.

I believe in you.

Your life, your death on the cross, and your resurrection.

Forgive me of my sins, fill me with your Holy Spirit.

Lead me and teach me to follow you.

Lord, we thank you for those who, even right now, you're just working in their heart.

There's somebody online right now who's considering this being their step.

They know that they need you.

There's somebody in the room right now, and you've been working with them, you drew them here today.

They need you.

We all need you.

And if you are taking that step today, I want to encourage you to pray this prayer.

Just tell them, in your own words, even.

Just tell them, Lord, I believe.

Now listen, with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I think this will be good for all of us, but for you, it's important that you express this.

So if today was your day, you you're saying yes to Jesus today, I want to just, with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, if you raise your hand up right now online and in this room, if you just said yes to Jesus today, you believe in Jesus today, would you lift your hand up right now as we're just praying to the Lord, heads bowed, eyes closed.

God's working in this place.

Thank you, Lord, for what you're doing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Father, we thank you that you you never stop pursuing us.

Thank you that you don't want something from us, you want something for us.

You want us to have full and complete joy.

You want us to be like John, who can withstand any kind of circumstance and still look to you with a smile and with joy.

And we pray that for each one of us.

And Lord, and we pray that for our kids and the kids in our community.

I pray that we would shine that out and give that away this week.

In your name we pray.

Amen.