Happiness and Joy

Welcome back to Ignite. I want to talk to you about joy. I mean, real joy that you can't manufacture and quite frankly, you can't lose, no matter what happens. There's a difference between happiness and joy, of course. Today, you and I will both be happy about a number of things, and unhappy about others. It was a great meal, it was a bad meal. I made this sale. I didn't make this sale. Somebody was rude to me or they're happy to me. I mean, happiness is fleeting. It goes on. But joy states with you no matter what. I mean, joy states with you. If you're dying, joy will stay with you. If you're losing your business, joy will stay with you. If your daughter dies and your joy will stay with you. I can tell you, I've been through that in a whole lot more. And so I testify to the fact that you don't want to lose your joy. Okay. For me, this message is not academic. Karen, I lost our daughter. Okay. I know what I'm talking about. And we never lost her joy. My business, I had a joint venture partner who tried to do me in. And I found out that the next morning they're going to throw me out of my business. You may have heard this story before. I've mentioned several times, but a bear is repeating for this point because I never lost my joy. I heard the night before that they're going to throw me out of my business the next morning at the board meeting. And there was nothing I could do to stop it because there was three board members. I had three and they had three. And then there was an independent board member. And they always took over that independent board member. And then they could control the company. They want to get me out of my business. So I mean, I was 65 years old. Okay. It's too late to start over my entire life on selling car wax. That's my life. Everybody knows that. How could I start over at age 65? I hadn't prepared for retirement at that point. I had no, I still haven't retired. Okay. So my reputation was gone. My testimony was gone. That's very important. The Christian. What happened to his God? What happened to him? It was the end of my life. I think you can't begin to understand what I was facing at that moment. It was, it was overwhelming. And there's nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing but a head joy. And it was an interesting process because the subtitle of our book that's called Ignite Your Life, the subtitle was Defeat Fear with Effortless Faith. And for me that was Effortless. I had faith. And so that night I prayed a very short prayer. And I said to God, I ask you for nothing. Literally, I ask you for nothing. I'm good because of two things. One, you know, I live for your purpose every day. I move everybody every day closer to you. I live for you. There's no question. I'm not against, I'm not across, you know, or the borderline guy. I'm way, an overachiever. I live for your purpose and I know your God. And I know you'll honor your promise to make everything good. Good night, God. And I went to sleep. I crawled in bed. I slept all night. I went to sleep immediately. I had, I had no problems. I woke up fresh with joy. And I went to my attorney's office. Um, excited. I don't know. Just wondering how is God going to solve this? This, this is going to be a whipper, you know. And you have to read the book to get it all the details. But God saw that problem in about eight minutes. Boom. Just destroyed my joint part. They were yelling at me. They were cussing at me. And I was breaking God. I got to tell you when you live for God's purpose, life is fun. It's just fun. See, um, ignite is not an evangelism ministry. I was thinking about that this morning. You know, Ignite, we talk about sharing faith but we're not evangelism ministry. We're a personal joy ministry. Because the sum total is when you share your faith, you had joy. It, it just happens. You can't escape it and you can't lose it. When you're sharing your faith, um, it just happens automatically. It's overwhelming. You have this joy and even, even to the point of death. I've had, I've had people die on me who have so much joy. Not that they wanted to die, but they were so excited about seeing Jesus. And that joy in their dying led other people to Christ. It's amazing, particularly when you're in that dark spot. That's when you're testing when he's the greatest. Still saying poor me. I don't know why I got this and all, you know, please pray for me. I mean, that's good. That's, I mean, I believe in the power of prayer. But your hope is not in the prayer. Your friends or even your hopes not even in your for your hope is in God. And he'll use that, making everything work together for good, for good and God's eyes is getting more people into heaven. And some way he's using the pain you're going through to get more people in heaven. Wow. It's, it's, it's, it's fulfilling the great commission. Think about it. You have the opportunity to fulfill the great commission. You, you have the opportunity to fulfill God's purpose, Romans 8, 28, when you live for his purpose, his purpose, his purpose of seeking save the lost. You, you, you live for the opportunity to know that he is for sure answering your prayers and directing your steps. I mean, what can be better? That gives you joy. He was saying, why do you have joy? You're always so happy. How can you not have joy when you understand the truth of God's word and how he's protecting us directly or steps and answering our prayers? And he's rare. Here we're this all the time through the worst of times. And these are the worst of times, but the worst against the course of we are to see in Jesus. And right now, almost everybody is panicking. God has their attention, but only one percent of us are telling them about him. That's, that's our problem, right? But I'm lying. Why does he want you to share your faith? I see this over and over. I love the scripture. I say at 4310. I pointed you as my witness so that you, you, you will know that I am God. That's what he says. And, and nursing doesn't say that you will know more. It's almost like this is how you will know that I am God. Because when you're sharing your faith, having no preparation, you have no idea what that situation is. And God gives you the words to say, the Holy Spirit, Luke 12 to the Holy Spirit, give you the words to say, and you feel him speaking through you, giving you words to say, you see the life change in front of you? That is joy. There's nothing that will give you joy like that. I've got to tell you. When I learned this and I experienced it, it was after all that. I found this wonderful verse, one of the greatest verses in the Bible in John 1511. He says, when you bear fruit, when you bear more Christians, ah, they're in your my disciple. And my joy remain with you and your joy were painful. There's a study. I just read a medical study. I read lots of stuff trying to gather information what's going on and a secular study. But it was talking about old age and dementia, something that I have a little added interest in these days. And I don't have all that. I don't have anything. I just had my annual doctors report yesterday and they went through me. I'd be boy, did they go through me? Should I can't believe your health? You have everything good. You're in the lowest risk category for anything. All your numbers are great. Thank you very much. Whatever you do and keep doing it. This better report said that we're talking about old age and symptoms and particularly dementia. And it said this incredible report on how they always presume that dementia was always triggered to old age and that things build up and they actually use the term plaque for lack of a better term and all of a sudden that you're not connected. You get the point. And they said in the last three years, they've come across some fantastic research. It says the proponents of people that have whatever that is, plaque whatever don't have dementia. And most of the people that have dementia don't have any of that. And that propelled them, compelled them to start looking for other reasons. What are the ones that didn't have dementia? Have in common. You know what they found out? This is great. When you have a sense of purpose in your life, it changes everything and extends your life and it decreases greatly your opportunity to have dementia. Is that awesome? To have purpose in your life. Do you know he's called us to live for his purpose? There is no greater purpose. God's called us to live for his purpose as he can save the loss. And when we have that, we have the problem, even from a medical, a secular medical role, recognizing that's when you're going to have joy. If you don't have joy, folks, I got to tell you this butter line. It's time for you to get off the bench and into the game and start having the time of your life for the rest of your life. See you next time.