Hey, welcome to everybody on our campuses or watching online.

We're so glad that you made it this weekend.

If you're new here, would you scan the QR code and just fill out some information?

That way we can help you get plugged in here at One and All for your next best step.

And if you're watching online, we would love for you to do the same at oneandall.church slash new so that we can get to know you a little bit, get you connected and send some resources your way.

And speaking of resources, that's what we're talking about today.

Online resources, digital resources.

Let's go check it out.

Yeah, and so this whole setup is mainly for our conversations that I get to do with Pastor Jeff or whoever's speaking on the weekend and now different people, authors, pastors, theologians, which has been really awesome.

And this space is really just to have more content.

Sometimes, as we all know, Pastor Jeff in his messages, he can be very long.

And within that, he'll say, oh, man, I had to cut out some stuff that I'd really like to elaborate on.

And this is the space for it.

And so you definitely want to watch conversations because Pastor Jeff will go deeper in his sermons.

And honestly, we have such a good time.

Sometimes too much of a good time.

If it's too comfortable for him, you've seen it.

He'll slouch.

Let's get comfy here.

It's really cool though, just to hear like, really sometimes, like you said, it's added content that didn't make it into a sermon.

Or sometimes I feel like as our pastors are delivering their message, like they're thinking of even more.

tangents they want to go off on.

So it's really cool to be able to come into this space.

And like you said, it's a conversation, like really have a conversation about whatever that topic was.

And those are on YouTube.

And more recently, yes, more recently, we finally launched our audio platform.

So you can listen to the conversations podcast, wherever you listen to your podcast, Spotify, Apple Music.

And yeah, so that way we've heard the feedback of, hey, conversations are great, but I'd love to have it just in audio format.

Whether going to work or going to the gym or like anything that you're doing.

And so we heard and we changed.

We did it.

We did it.

So I want to encourage everybody to go listen, either go watch it on our YouTube or go listen to it on Spotify.

But this is just one of the things that we have as a resource for everybody watching.

Definitely.

We like to have resources on YouTube and on audio platforms because they're also really easy to share.

Right.

We have our messages.

um there's a weekend message podcast which is really nice if you just want to hear the message again or if you want an easy way to send it to someone we have the messages from the weekend we have the conversations podcast we have a young adults podcast we do yeah on our youtube channel yeah that's really cool there's some really specific conversations you know on there and we also have you know we have things like right now media which is kind of we call it like the netflix of christian content right so even outside of just what one and all produces we have the ability to look at all sorts of other Bible studies and kids content and stuff like that, that you can use with your family and the app.

Yes, definitely the app.

The app is probably obviously our favorite because it's ours.

Yeah, we made it.

And it's geared towards you.

It's geared towards the person to not only just know what's going on, which is awesome.

You get to know what's going on within the church.

But we also have our daily podcast in video format with a devotion.

After you listen to it, you can...

read it.

You can pray with it.

You can ask for prayer within the app.

And so the app is, I think, essential and very, very, very helpful for each and every one of us as we want to grow with Christ and grow in this church as well.

Definitely.

I think it's a great resource.

I hope everyone is taking advantage of it and just discovering some new things in there that can help them to grow.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, I love talking about these resources, but I'm pretty sure it's probably time to get into the weekend service.

Let's head over to the worship center.

Yeah, so we can get started.

Yeah, let's go.

Well, hey, now we're back here, ready for the weekend.

Yeah, we made it.

And we're heading into a new series this weekend called The Joy Hack, all about the Book of Philippians.

Yeah, I'm excited because our teaching pastors are going to go through with us through the Book of Philippians and really talk about how Paul was experiencing a lot of suffering, but yet choosing joy.

And so how does that apply to us?

Well, obviously, we're in a world where...

There's a lot of suffering, but we can choose joy.

So I'm really excited for this series.

Absolutely.

And Pastor Rory is bringing us into week one and we're getting ready right now.

So let's jump to our feet and get ready to worship.

What is up, one and all?

Hey, my name is Rory.

I'm one of the pastors on the team here, and we are delighted, dare I say excited, that you have joined us today for the kickoff of a brand new series titled The Joy Hack, which is really a series all about the book of Philippians, which happens to be a book all about joy.

But before we can talk about joy, we got to talk about pain.

Now, some of you, you heard that joy and pain, and you were...

reminded of that old Rob Bass song, joy and pain.

All you 80s heads, you remember that, but I digress.

In order to talk about pain today, I wanna take you back to a year we all know, but we don't all love.

The year was 2020.

Now, I don't know about you, but I went into that year all armored up.

I had 2020 vision.

I was thinking it's a new year, it's a new me, and then the year came.

And it was like, we all got shot in the eye hole.

Like it was just rough.

You know, it started with Kobe and then there was COVID. And then there was the tragedy in Minneapolis.

It was kind of like one of those old infomercials where the guy just comes up and he's like, but wait, there's more.

And it just kept coming.

There was murder hornets and then the stock market crashed.

And then there was this Tiger King guy.

And it was crazy.

And then on a personal level, we heard so many stories of people.

losing jobs, losing loved ones.

It was in this season where I lost one of my best friends.

I lost my mom.

My dad was her caregiver.

It was the height of COVID.

She didn't get COVID, but they were going through their normal routine in the middle of the night.

They needed to go to the restroom.

My dad was helping her go to the restroom and they tripped and they fell and my mom broke her femur.

And so they rushed to the hospital.

And as you can imagine, the hospital's overrun with a lot of people because of COVID.

And so surgery takes a long, long time and they don't get her in right away.

And blood clots start to form and they finally do get her into surgery.

But by the time they get her into surgery, the blood clots had formed.

They moved to her brain and she had an aneurysm and she just never woke up.

It was a season of suck.

Because right after that, my sister got in a motorcycle accident.

We almost lost her.

My dad had a cancer scare.

It was like thing after thing after thing.

And then so many of us parents, you can remember trying to do a school year online at home.

We had two TKers, a first grader and a third grader, and trying to make sense of how we're doing school.

It was just absolute insanity.

And there was so much anxiety.

I remember in the church space, it felt like we could do nothing right.

We just couldn't make people happy.

I was fielding complaint calls every day.

single day.

And then I remember getting up here for a sermon and just being so exhausted, so anxious, just feeling beat up by the world.

I had preached on a Saturday night.

Now it was a Sunday morning at nine and I get up here to do my thing.

And about a third of the way through the message, I just freeze.

I just stop.

It's like my heart was beating outside of my chest.

I felt like I was having a heart attack, but really what was happening is I was having a panic attack.

And I remember having to yell back to the guys in the sound booth and just saying, hey, can you just play the video from last night?

And then I go backstage and I just kind of, I crumple.

I'm just, I'm just dead.

I'm just exhausted again.

It was a season of pain and suffering.

It was a season of suck.

If 2020 had a Yelp review, it would get zero stars.

If 2020 were a meme, it would be a cheese grater slide.

If 2020 were a person, you know what it'd be?

It would be Toby from The Office.

2020 was just so full of pain and suffering.

But what if I were to tell you that there was a purpose to your pain?

Amidst your suffering, amidst your pain, there could actually be a purpose to it.

And you might be thinking to yourself, wait a second, I thought this series was titled The Joy Hack.

Aren't we supposed to be talking about joyful things?

But you need to understand this.

The backdrop.

of the book of Philippians is pain and suffering.

And so we're gonna talk about joy today, but before we can talk about joy, we've gotta talk about pain.

And you've gotta understand that there can actually be purpose to your pain.

And I wanna encourage you, if you have something to write down, some notes, I encourage you, pull out your phone, pull out a notepad and write some things down because what I'm gonna share with you, I would love for you to recall later and actually use this in your life.

Now.

A couple things you need to understand is if you're a secularist, you don't really believe in this God thing, there's not a lot of purpose to your pain.

In fact, your life is really about maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain.

To you, pain doesn't serve any purpose.

It's simply a speed bump.

on your road to pleasure.

In fact, the great atheist, Richard Dawkins, he writes this in his book, The God Delusion.

He says this about pain.

He says, the total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation.

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice.

The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

In other words, Dawkins is saying that your pain is meaningless because your existence is meaningless.

That is all secularism has to offer the subject of pain.

Yet other religions would say this about pain.

They would say that pain is an effect of karma.

Some purport that pain is simply an illusion.

But Christianity, Christianity teaches us something much different when it comes to pain.

Check out this quote from the late great Tim Keller.

He says, Christianity teaches that contra-fatalism, suffering is overwhelming.

Contra-Buddhism, suffering is real.

Contra-karma, suffering is often unfair, but contra-secularism, suffering is meaningful.

There is a purpose to it.

And if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you or I could ever imagine.

I always love this quote from a persecuted pastor.

It's this, says, Christians should be like nails.

The harder they're hit, the deeper they should go with God.

Now, again, you might be thinking, Rory, you're talking a lot about pain.

When are we gonna get to this joy stuff?

Again, you need to understand that the backdrop of the book of Philippians, and over the next four weeks, we're gonna go through each chapter, but the backdrop, as we kick off this series, the backdrop is pain.

See, Paul, he's imprisoned and he's in Rome.

His dream was always to get to Rome.

but he wanted to go as a preacher, not as a prisoner.

But he is a prisoner.

And not only is a prisoner in Rome, he's a prisoner under an emperor who's a madman.

His name is Nero.

Perhaps you've heard of him in history class.

Nero was quite literally a madman.

I mean, he killed his mother, he killed his wife, he killed his tutor, and he killed countless political opponents.

On top of that, he caused a great...

fire in Rome.

It's known as the great fire of Rome, but rather than taking any ownership, he blamed it all on the Christians and he proceeded to have this crazy persecution campaign the likes that history had never seen before.

He would take Christians and impale them and light them on fire to illuminate his lavish parties.

He would take other Christians and he would sew animal skins onto their back and put them out into an arena so they could be attacked by other wild beasts.

He would find the most painful and slow ways to kill Christians.

And he would do it over and over and over again.

And this is the setting that Paul finds himself as he heads to Rome preparing to face trial.

It's a, it's a Skibbity Ohio scenario.

I did that for my friends, my preteens and my teenagers.

It's a bad scenario, right?

And yet, despite all the pain, Despite all the suffering, Paul, he has joy.

But Paul, he's also no stranger to pain.

In fact, a few years before he pens this letter to the church in Philippi, he writes this in a letter to the church in Corinth.

He says, I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently.

I've been flogged more severely and been exposed to death again and again.

Five times I've received from the Jews 40 lashes minus one.

Three times I was beaten with rods.

Once I was pelted with stones.

Three times I was shipwrecked.

I spent a night and a day in the open sea.

I've been constantly on the move.

I've been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger in the sea, and in danger from false believers.

I've labored and toiled and often gone without sleep.

I have known hunger and thirst.

thirst and have often gone without food.

I have been cold and naked.

Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all of the churches.

Now, if anyone has ever said to you that Christianity promises a pain-free life, they are lying to you.

It's not true.

Christianity is not all sunshine and rainbows.

As the great Rocky Balboa puts it, it will beat you to your knees and leave you there if you let it.

Christianity, it is not easy.

But here's a couple other truths we need to understand about pain before we can start talking about joy.

The first is this, it's that pain is inevitable.

Pain is inevitable.

In fact, Jesus says this in John 16, 33.

He says, in this life, you will have trouble.

He doesn't say you might have trouble.

He doesn't say maybe you'll have trouble next Tuesday.

He says, you will have trouble.

And Jesus, he understood this well.

See, one day he walks into Jerusalem on his triumphal entry and everybody's screaming, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna.

And a week later, some of those same people are yelling at him at his trial and they're screaming, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him.

And there were other men and women throughout the pages of scripture who understood this concept of pain and of suffering.

I mean, Job, he lost everything.

Sarah.

She struggled with infertility.

Moses was a fugitive for 40 years.

Then he takes God's people on this crazy relocation project.

He gets to the precipice of the promised land, and then he's told, you can't go.

He knows pain.

David had a father-in-law who tried to kill him.

Mary Magdalene was demon-possessed.

Peter struggled with massive self-doubt.

See, again, throughout the pages of Scripture, we see pain and suffering.

We see hurt and heartache.

And the truth is pain is inevitable.

However, and this is number two, your misery is optional.

Pain is inevitable, but misery, it's optional.

Now it's been said that people hate pain, but I disagree with that.

People don't hate pain.

They just hate pain without a purpose.

See, many moons ago, I was actually a CrossFit coach.

And each day when I would show up to the gym, I would watch these people put their bodies through these hellacious workouts.

I'm talking burpees and box jumps and squats and snatches and all the things.

And they would show up day in and day out.

Why?

Because they liked what came on the other side of pain.

They liked how their body felt.

They liked how their body looked.

The pain had a purpose.

Another example would be this.

I've never given birth, but I've watched it.

And rumor has it, it's quite painful.

It looks painful.

But mom, you went through that pain.

Why?

There was a purpose to it.

See, on the other side, there's this bundle of joy, right?

There was a purpose to the pain.

See, while pain is inevitable, your misery is optional.

There's a purpose.

to it.

And there's many purposes to pain when it comes to our walk with Jesus.

See, pain, pain will draw you closer to God.

I have a friend right now, just a couple months ago, found out he had jaw cancer.

He was one of my kids'baseball coaches, and he was kind of one of those gruff, rough and tumble old coaches, you know, like really intense, in your face.

And I remember just a couple weeks ago, showing up to the city championship in Laverne at Pelota Park, and I'm watching the game in the outfield, and He kind of walks behind me, taps me on the shoulder.

And it was like, I was talking to a completely different person.

He told me about his diagnosis.

And you could tell that this was a man facing his mortality.

And all of a sudden, this rough and tumble, this gritty, gruff man had come face to face with life and death.

And it is like, God got a hold of his heart.

Well, the good news is he's gone through surgery, but he's also found himself in a support.

group that's a Christian support group.

And this guy, he wouldn't have darkened the doors of a church before, but he's come to grips with his mortality and it's brought him closer and closer to God.

And God is starting to do a really special work in him.

See, pain can draw you closer to God.

Pain can also draw you closer to other people.

I told you a little bit about my parents'story.

Married nearly 50 years, but the last couple of years, my dad became the caregiver for my mom and me.

and just watching how their relationship with God and ultimately how their relationship with each other grew, it was so awesome.

I mean, it's hard raising little kids.

I remember my dad trying to run his own heating and air conditioning business and money was tight and there was a little bit of contention in the household or whatever.

But these last few years of my mom's life, as my dad cared for them, they were just drawn together.

By God, and I watched my dad love and serve my mom.

You know, love is changing a bedpan.

It's learning how to do a woman's hair in your 70s.

And I just watched how God drew them together.

Their relationship was so good nearly 50 years in.

And that's what pain can do.

It can draw you closer to God.

It can also draw you closer to each other.

But now here's the first observation from Philippians chapter one.

Pain can do something else.

And I'd love for you to write this down.

Pain can also be a microphone.

Pain can be a microphone.

Paul writes this in Philippians chapter one.

This is verse 12 and verse 14.

It says, now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.

And as a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ.

And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.

What is Paul saying?

Because of his pain, because of his suffering, because of his persecution, more people are meeting Jesus. It's a good thing.

I love how Rick Warren says this.

He says, your greatest ministry will most likely come out of your greatest pain.

Here we see Paul He's suffering and yet God is using his pain as a platform to draw other people towards Jesus.

And then I start thinking of this on a personal level.

You know, who are the people who can speak into various areas of people who might be struggling?

I think of those who have overcome addiction.

Guess what they're really good at doing?

Helping minister to other people who are struggling with addiction.

I think about people who have walked through seasons of miscarriages.

You know, my wife and I, we walk through that season and I think of the conversations we've been afforded because we've been open with that story and the conversations and the great, like just amazing God things that's happened because of those conversations, because we've been able to minister in that space.

I think about anxiety as I've started to be more and more open with my journey.

Again, the conversations that have opened up around anxiety.

And again, I'm not there yet.

I haven't figured this out, but I've learned a few tricks of the trade.

At 40, I can't live like I'm 25.

Like what I put into my body actually matters.

It actually matters that I eat whole food.

I got high blood pressure now.

Guess what I gotta do?

I gotta drink beet juice in the morning.

I can't be on a smartphone all the time because smartphones actually make you dumb.

Like it's that kind of stuff that I'm able to then speak into because people, they don't identify with your strengths.

They identify with your weaknesses.

And I love what Rick Warren says.

He says, right, you're- greatest ministry might come out of your greatest pain, out of the greatest struggle, out of the greatest hurt.

And my guess is that God wants to use your pain, what he's brought you through, to be a microphone to the world to draw other people to himself.

Just like we see in the book of Philippians.

Just like Paul's pain and suffering was used to draw other people.

And we see this throughout history.

Wherever there's pain and suffering in Christianity, wherever there's persecution, it's like God's church explodes.

We see it even today in China and India, persecuted people groups, their underground church, they're getting shut down, people are getting killed, and yet what's happening?

The gospel is going further faster.

Wherever it's persecuted, it just grows faster.

So pain, it can be a microphone.

So use it.

And now I want to turn the corner with just two more observations.

One more from Philippians chapter one, and then one more just based on the life of Paul.

The second observation is that, yes, pain is a microphone, but now I want to talk about joy.

And this observation is very, very simple.

It's that joy is actually a choice.

Joy is a choice.

Paul says in Philippians chapter one, verses 18 and 19, yes, and I will continue.

to rejoice.

For I know that through your prayers and God's provision of the spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.

I love how Paul says, I will continue to rejoice.

Despite everything happening around me, I will continue to have joy.

In fact, 19 more times in this book, he will say those words.

I rejoice.

He rejoices.

He has joy.

Why?

Because the Christian life can be lived above circumstances rather than under them.

Paul knows something.

He knows that no matter what happens to him, he's actually going to win.

That's why a few verses later, he can write these words.

To live is Christ.

but to die is gain.

In other words, again, whatever happens to him.

If I live, that's Gucci.

I get to live and I get to proclaim the gospel to more and more people.

But if I die, that's cool too because I just get to go be home with Jesus.

Either way, I win.

So I can be above my circumstances.

I can have joy because no matter what happens to me, I'm good.

It reminds me of this.

Crazy story.

You know, my wife and I, we actually grew up in the same neighborhood.

We went to the same elementary school for a couple of years.

We didn't even know it, didn't even know each other.

But my neighborhood, it was a little hood.

And so my wife's parents decided to get out of there.

They moved to a much nicer neighborhood.

I stayed in the hood.

I got Snoop Dogg, I got Eminem, I got Dr.

Dre.

And my wife, growing up in a wonderful Christian family, she got McGee and me, she got Gospel Bill, she got DC Talk, she got...

Avalon.

She got all the Christian influences.

And so me, little hood me, we meet and I learn about her childhood and her upbringing.

And she told me about one influential author in her life that I had never heard about even in my early twenties.

Her name was Corrie Ten Boom.

Corrie Ten Boom was a Holocaust survivor.

Her family had taken in numerous Jews and hid them out during World War II, but eventually they got caught.

They got found out and she and her family were sent to a concentration camp.

And when they walk in the doors of the concentration camp, they see the four stories of bunk beds and they think to themselves, how in the world are we going to make it?

And then they get in those bunk beds.

And not only are those bunk beds really made for one person, they're made for one person, but they got to sleep five or six people on a bed.

And then they start to sleep at night and they're having a hard time sleeping and they're thinking to themselves, oh my gosh, can this get any worse?

And then all of a sudden, Corrine or sister Betsy, they start to feel all these little bites all over them.

And they're trying to figure out what in the world's going on, what's biting them.

They find this little crack in the wall, a little bit of sunlight, and they find that their bodies and everybody's body in that whole entire barracks is just covered with fleas.

They're covered with fleas and they think to themselves again, can this get any worse?

But her sister Betsy looks at Corey and says, hey, we need to rejoice.

We need to thank God.

She says, how can we thank God in this miserable mess?

Well, we can thank God that we're together.

And Corey says, yes, we can thank God that we're together.

And we can thank God that we have God and that we can share him with all these people who don't know Jesus.

And she said, yes, we can thank God for that.

But I cannot thank God for these fleas.

Well, the days and the weeks and the months pass, and eventually Corey's sister, Betsy, she gets really sick, so sick that she can't go out into the labor yards and labor, which is ultimately probably a death sentence, except Betsy, she's really good at knitting.

And the Nazi soldiers, they need socks.

And so Betsy, in her sickbed, starts knitting, and she knits really, really fast, and they have a quota every single day that they need to get.

But by noon...

Betsy runs through her quota.

And so then what she started to do, she starts talking to the people in their little barracks all about Jesus.

The interesting thing was the Nazi soldiers never came in to the barracks.

See all the other barracks, we would hear stories about the soldiers coming in and beating the women and hurting the women, but that they'd never came in to Corey and Betsy's barracks.

And so they started getting more bold.

See, Corey had actually snuck in a little Bible.

And so they started a little Bible study each and every night.

They even started a little worship service.

in their barracks every single night.

And they offered hope to people.

And many people in that concentration camp came to faith.

And then one day they found out, why did the soldiers never actually come in to their barracks?

Remember the fleas?

One day, Betsy was working on another sock.

And she said, hey, I need to learn about the size.

the kind of sizes of socks that you guys need.

Can you come into our barracks and let us know?

Do you need large, medium, small?

What kind of sizes do you need?

And they said, oh, no, no.

We'll never go into that barracks.

And she says, why will you not come into our barracks?

Because of the fleas.

And then that night, Corey and Betsy got together and you know what they did?

They rejoiced because of the fleas.

They thanked God because of the fleas.

Yes, their circumstance was dire.

Betsy ultimately.

does die, Corrie survives.

It was painful.

There was so much suffering, but amidst the suffering, their pain had brought them a perspective.

So much so that that perspective had changed from, oh, how can I make it here?

To literally thanking God for the fleas because there was a purpose in their pain.

Their pain had now become a microphone and their joy had become a choice.

So much so they could even be joyful.

They could rejoice.

over fleas that were eating them each and every night.

Joy.

It's a choice.

See, happiness and joy, they're not the same thing.

Happiness, it's fleeting.

It's happenstance.

It's here today.

It's gone tomorrow.

I got an A on a test.

Wonderful.

You forget about it the next week.

But joy, it's fixed.

It lives above all of it.

It lives above your circumstances and your situations.

And joy, it's a choice.

And here's my last observation.

It's really good news.

It's this.

If you don't have it, you can get it.

If you don't have joy, the good news is you can get it.

If you don't have it, you can get it.

How do I know this?

It's looking at the life of Paul.

Paul was a card carrying Christian killer.

He was a cosmic killjoy.

He was a legalistic zealot.

And yet God changed him.

He was a killjoy who ultimately became the apostle.

of joy.

It's crazy.

How did this happen?

Jesus met him on a road to Damascus and he gave him the gift of his spirit.

And if you know the Bible, you know that some of the fruits of the spirit are this.

It's peace.

It's patience.

It's kindness.

It's gentleness.

It's self-control.

And oh yeah, there's another one.

What is it?

It's joy.

See, the fruit of God's spirit alive and well within a Christ follower, it's one of joy.

And Paul changed from this legalistic zealot, this killjoy, into someone who was simply lighthearted at times, who had a bigger picture, who understand what God was doing, and he could live with this freedom and this joy despite his circumstances.

Because God's spirit was alive and well and at work with him.

So you might be asking yourself, well, how can I get that kind of joy?

It's really simple.

You got to respond to Jesus'invitation.

You got to receive the gift of his spirit alive and at work and in your life.

Because the fruit of that spirit at work in your life, one of the fruits is joy.

That amidst anything going on in your world, you can live above it.

You can soar above it.

Because his spirit is at work in your life.

And so if you don't have his spirit inside of you, it's real simple.

It's acknowledging Jesus for who he is, that he came, he lived, he died a death that none of us could die.

The perfect sinless life.

He went to the cross where you and I should have gone.

The Bible says the wages of sin is death.

That means you and I, we should die.

But Jesus died instead and he paid the penalty for our sin, which is death.

death.

Jesus died so we wouldn't have to.

And then his body was buried.

But on the third day, he rose again.

And in so doing, he defeats Satan, sin, and death.

And he says, if you will put your faith, your hope, your trust in me, you too will overcome Satan, sin, and death.

And then I'm going to give you the gift of my spirit that will indwell you.

God will literally reside inside of you.

And I'm going to start conforming you into my image.

I'm going to chisel away the bad and I'm going to make you more and more good.

This is a big fancy word.

It's called sanctification, that God is going to make you more like him.

He's going to make you more and more like Jesus.

And one of the things he's going to do is he's going to give you the gift of joy.

And if you've never said yes to that good news, if you've never had your slate wiped clean, if you've never been filled with God's spirit, you can do that today.

That's where it starts.

And then if you're there, If you've said yes to Jesus, but you still feel like you don't have that joy, there's some spiritual disciplines that you can put into play.

Now, I've talked about my anxiety and all this stuff.

There's a lot of tips and tricks with anxiety.

There's a lot of tips and tricks with depression, but you wanna know a simple tip and trick for getting more joy in your life.

And there's science to back this up.

In fact, this is the challenge I wanna leave you with today.

And it's this, the Bible talks a lot about rejoicing.

It talks a lot about...

gratitude and thankfulness.

And quite literally, you can rewire your brain to be more joy-filled.

It's as simple as this.

Every morning when you wake up, will you think of three things that you're thankful for?

And every night that you go to bed, will you think of three other things that you're thankful for?

If you can think of six things that you're thankful for, three in the morning, three at night, and if you can do it for 21 days straight, you can literally take an 85-year-old who is a default pessimist, and you can make them a default optimist.

You can experience joy if you start with a heart posture of gratitude.

And again, it doesn't matter what's going on in your world.

You have a crazy diagnosis.

There's a lot of suffering in your family.

I don't know what it is, but if you will start your day with gratitude and thankfulness and rejoicing, just like Paul did, despite the fact that ultimately, just a few years after he writes this letter, he's going to die for his faith.

despite all of it.

If you will be grateful and choose gratitude, three things in the morning, three things at night, 21 days straight, you will rewire your brain to being somebody that is joy filled.

So let me encourage you, make that happen this week.

And it can be small.

I'm thankful that I had Cheerios for breakfast.

I'm thankful that the Starbucks was made right this morning.

I'm thankful for that conversation at work today.

I'm thankful that my kid got a hit in the baseball game.

It can be little, it can be big, but three things that you're grateful for, three things in the morning, three things at night, 21 days straight, rewire your brain.

Here's the truth.

As we step into this series, I'm so excited.

Over the next few weeks, you're gonna hear from Pastor Don, from Pastor Michael and Pastor Dave Stone.

And this book is an incredible book, but you have to understand the backdrop is pain.

It's pain and suffering, and yet joy lives above all the pain.

And- all the suffering that you could ever experience in this life.

Joy is fixed.

Happiness is fleeting.

Joy, joy soars above it all.

So choose to use your pain as a microphone because your pain, it's inevitable.

It's going to happen, but your misery is optional.

Choose joy.

Joy is a choice.

And if you don't have it, the good news is you can get it.

So go get it today.

Would you pray with me?

Lord Jesus, thank you.

Thank you for your living and active word.

Thank you for the testimony of Paul, that despite going on trial in this crazy place of Rome at the time, of so many people being persecuted and dying, God, that you gave him the faith and the courage to stand strong and to understand that to live is Christ, but to die is gain.

That no matter what happens to him, he's okay, and that the joy of the Lord was ultimately his strength, that he could have joy despite his circumstances.

And Lord, I pray for every person.

under the sound of my voice today, that they too would experience that joy, that they would rise above anything happening in their world, that they would know that their life could be filled with goodness despite whatever's happening around them.

Jesus, we love you, and it's in your name we pray.

And everybody said, amen.

Hey, we hope you enjoyed today's message.

I pray that you grabbed onto one thing that Pastor Rory said, and you're able just to...

sit with that throughout this week and to always choose joy in the midst of any situation that you're in.

Yeah.

And if you would like some support in that area, maybe some prayer, we have a prayer team that is ready.

They would love to pray with you.

You can go to oneandall.church slash prayer to put your prayer request in there.

And now we'll leave as we always do with one hope, one life in Christ.