Louie Giglio - Searching for Happiness
So good to be linked with 5:15 as well today, and I just love the direction we’re going in. Talking about joy, I was watching the Baylor men’s basketball game a few weeks ago—hello, hello, a few Baylor people in the house heading into the Final Four! Meanwhile, somebody commented, «What happened to you? You’re an Auburn fan, and now you’re for Baylor?» I was like, «Do you know who I’m married to? Are you married? Do you understand marriage? I am married to Baylor. I went to grad school there but also am married to Baylor University via my wife. So, we are an Auburn-Baylor home.»
I watched the men’s team go into the Final Four, they won the game, and they interviewed one of their star players—one of the best players in the nation—after the game. I’m dialed into the interview; you know how it works: the player is over here, and about a half mile away over there is the reporter doing the interview. The question is asked, «Tell us about the game,» and this player said something I had never heard before: «We just play with a culture of joy.» I leaned in, rewound, and thought, «We play with a culture of joy.» I was like, Who has ever said that before? Who has ever used the phrase «culture of joy»? I was like, I want to be in a culture of joy! I want to be part of that; I want to know what that’s about.
Of course, Baylor was in the finals, playing against Gonzaga, and they won the game. At the end of the game, there was a big celebration, the confetti was flying, and now the stakes were a little higher: the interview was with Coach Scott Drew. He said multiple times in his long five-minute segment filled with questions, «We’ve just been playing all year with a culture of joy.» They came through three weeks of COVID where they didn’t play any games. They returned and weren’t at their best—that’s when they lost that game to Kansas—but now they’ve hit their stride, and they win the national championship, actually dominating. He said, «All because of this culture of joy. We just like to play with a culture of joy.» I thought, I want to be in your culture of joy. I want to join this culture.
Because I’m telling you, of all the words I’ve heard in the last year, the one I’ve heard the least is the word joy. I know right now we need joy in our lives. Even when you think about the church, we don’t even use the word joy. The last time I heard the word joy in church was Christmas when we sang, «Joy to the World, the Lord is Come,» and then we kind of move on from joy after that point for the rest of the year. When the world talks about joy, and oftentimes when the church talks about joy, we’re talking more about happiness. Everybody is looking for happiness, and the world knows this, which is how they’re selling everything to me.
I mean, there’s never been an ad that sounds like this: «You should rush out right now and get this new Sleep Number bed because, unlike any other mattress you’ve ever owned, it is guaranteed to make you miserable, incredibly sad, and irritable.» No, the Sleep Number bed is going to turn you into an angel! They show you right then and there, there’s Fred over there and Sarah over there, and he is sleeping like a baby while she looks like she could not be happier. She’s having the best dream of her life—it’s like they have a big bubble over their heads with joy just coming out of the bubble. They are having the most blissful night of sleep in their lifetime, and then you’re like, «I’ve got to get one of those beds! I want to sleep through the night. That would be amazing!»
So they sell me this thing based on happiness. But here’s the thing: happiness is very elusive. In fact, I’m going to define it this way—it could be defined a hundred different ways today. Happiness is an emotion in response to the current outcome. In other words, when your kid does what you wanted them to do, you’re like, «Now that made me happy!» Then they turn around five minutes later and do the very thing you don’t want them to do, and you’re like, «I’m not really happy anymore.» Happiness is elusive. As we’re talking about basketball, any UCLA fan will tell you that happiness can be short-lived. The «win perfect season» remains—any UCLA people here? Sorry that we did that. 3.3 seconds of happiness was swallowed up into shock and sadness. See, happiness is like that because happiness is an emotion that is connected to the current outcome. It’s the way we respond to what just happened. Everybody is searching for it.
I was thinking about the iPhone 12. Does anybody have an iPhone 12 in the house? Anyone in the gathering here? Do you mind if I borrow it for a second? I know we’re in COVID and all that, and I don’t know if you… No, don’t throw it! For crying out loud! What kind of insurance policy do you think we have here? So wow, this feels pretty amazing—even holding this in my hand. I don’t have an iPhone 12, so this is good to hold it. I went and looked online for the ad for this phone. This is word-for-word what it says: «Blast past fast 5G speed. A14 Bionic: the fastest chip in a smartphone. An edge-to-edge OLED display, ceramic shield with four times better drop performance, which means you’ll only have to replace this nine times in its life and not 20 times like I’ve done with mine.»
Of course, you’ve got a case on yours because you’re a wise person. Night mode on every camera—iPhone 12 has it all in two perfect sizes. Who’s ever done something perfect here? Can I just see a show of hands? These people are so amazing—they made this phone in two perfect sizes! It’s not, «Hey, it’s in one perfect size and the other one’s pretty good.» It’s like, «No, both sizes are perfect!»
Now, I’m a few generations back, and I’m not that happy right now. Does anybody feel what I’m feeling right now? You might as well be walking when you’re talking to people because this guy right here is blasting past you. You’re wondering why your message didn’t go through; this guy right here is wondering why it’s taking so long for your page to refresh. This guy right here, this bionic chip, is blowing you away. When they sell me this phone, Apple doesn’t show me a lot of sad people; they’re showing me the most beautiful, happy people I’ve ever seen. They’re taking pictures of each other and making these super cool films in 8k. That’s how they get me to upgrade to this one.
But here’s the weird thing: everybody’s happy until the phone rings. Then, when the phone rings, the word is «cancer.» All of a sudden, in an instant, the very thing that I got to bring me happiness is the exact same thing that brought me the word I never wanted to hear—because happiness is hard to get your hands on and hard to hold on to. As we’re describing happiness, thank you, it’s an emotion that is a response to the current outcome. When the outcome is amazing, the happiness quotient goes up. But when the outcome is less than what we had hoped for, the happiness quotient goes down. I know both of these are extreme examples, and all of life isn’t that extreme—but everywhere you look in life, people are pursuing happiness. It’s what people do.
I’m not interested today in making a war between the word happiness and the word joy. I just want us to understand that Jesus' desire for your life is that you have joy in your life—joy that is greater than the circumstances and the outcomes that you face all through the day. It says in John 15—and if you have your text, we’re going to look at this text a bit today—Jesus says in verse 11, and we’re going to talk about the context of this: «I am the vine and you are the branches.» As he comes down toward the end, he says, «I’ve told you this so that my"—what’s the word there? —"joy may be in you and that your joy may be made complete.» In other words, what God is hoping for you is that you will have His quality and His joy in your life, and that when you have His joy in you, that your joy will be complete. I believe that’s the kind of person the world needs more of.
When I say «joyful person,» who comes to your mind? When I say, «Who’s a joyful person in your life?» Does somebody come to your mind? It’s interesting, I was asking Shelly this, and I said, «Just name the most joyful people you’re around.» I did not make it into the top three or four, sadly. But she named some people, and when I was thinking about it, a few people came to my mind as well. Now, if I asked the question the other way, «Who’s the least joyful person in your life?» you’re like, «Oh, I got that one!» That one popped right to the top of the list. But when I say, «Who is the most joyful person?» who comes to your mind? I think about a guy on our team named Kevin, and you wouldn’t know Kevin because he is hardly ever—or never—on stage and doesn’t have a role on our team where you would see him a lot. He’s on the other side of the camera. So, when I’m doing a lot of things midweek—not just on a Sunday—but shooting all kinds of promo things or intros for things we’re putting on television or all kinds of multiple things, when I’m standing on my side of the camera, oftentimes Kevin is on the other side of the camera. Every single time, whether it’s an hour of what we do or two hours of what we do, or it’s on a Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, or whatever the situation, every time I walk away, I think to myself, «This guy might be the most joyful person I’m around.»
I didn’t know if it was true or not, so I called around this week. People tell me all the time, «Because I’m the boss, I get everybody’s best—I get everybody’s smile and everything’s great.» But then maybe on the other side is a real story. I called around this week and said, «I’m not going to give this guy any props for being joyful if he’s not really joyful.» I called people who work with him: «Is this guy really joyful, or is it like when he’s around me he’s joyful, and the rest of the time he’s just depressed?» Everybody I talked to was like, «No, this guy is joyful. He’s not perfect, but he just radiates that sense of joy.» When you’re around people like that, you see the gap, don’t you? You kind of ask the question, «What is going on with them? What is the story with them?» Maybe there’s something in this about the fact that His joy could be in them, and their joy could be complete.
Is it just a personality trait? Is it just that they have a Sleep Number bed and wake up on the right side of the bed every day? What is it that makes a person joyful? Jesus is sort of giving us a clue when He leads us back to this passage, John 15. If happiness is an emotion in response to the current outcome, then I’m going to define joy today this way: that joy is a durable and permeating gratitude rooted in unchanging outcomes—not the current outcome, but unchanging outcomes. As soon as I heard Jared Butler, who plays for Baylor and is the first person I heard say «culture of joy,» say that phrase, I immediately thought, «I want to preach on this, and I want to start preaching on it this coming Sunday.»
We had a whole series we were launching this week—it’s going to take us a few weeks. We’re still going to do a bit later, but right in the middle of this culture of joy thing, I said, «No, this is what the world needs right now.» So we just shifted gears, parked that series for a minute, and started working on a brand new series about four days ago. In the process of that, I opened my sketchbook like I would normally do, and I wrote, «Search for happiness.» What is it? I know it’s based on my response to the current outcome of a situation or circumstance, but what is joy? I wrote down—before I had even started studying for the message, before I had a text yet, before I had anything—I just wrote down, «Joy is a durable and permeating…» In other words, it’s not just something that’s in you; it’s something that permeates from you and through you. It is a permeating gratitude rooted in unchanging outcomes.
In other words, gratitude is the difference between whether or not I am a joyful person or not. Gratitude is going to be a big player in this series, and gratitude based in what? This is just working it out: gratitude based in the grace of God. «I am saved,» amen! Now, when I say this, I still expect to get amens by the way, when I say, «I am saved"—even though I’m at church talking to saved people—mostly saved. Some of you based on what I’m getting right now, looking at you, I’m not sure, but most people here are saved. So when I say, «I’m saved,» that’s still a big deal; that’s still a real big deal! I have been brought from death to life by the cross and the empty tomb—but that’s not all that’s true about me. That’s an unchanging condition, by the way, that is not going to be affected by a phone call, by the equity markets, or by mortgage rates. This is an unchanging circumstance!
But I have a second unchanging circumstance of grace called future grace, meaning I am going to be seated with Christ in heaven forever. So I have been saved by grace, and I have a seat with Christ in heaven. It’s the cross and the crown; it’s grace and future grace; it’s grace and glory. Those two things produce gratitude in your life, and that gratitude they produce permeates from your life. All that was sounding good, but then, as it turns out, it was true. So I went back to John chapter 15 and I dug into the text.
Let me read the whole text for us, beginning in verse 1. This is Jesus speaking to you today. He says, «I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man or a woman remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love just as I have obeyed my Father’s commandments and remain in His love.»
And here comes our verse: «I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.» My command is this: «Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.» I’m telling you all this, Jesus said; this whole vine, branches, fruit, remain—I’m telling you all this so that my joy will be in you and your joy will be complete. I’ve started with the definition that joy is a durable and permeating gratitude rooted in unchanging outcomes, namely the cross and the crown. But now I’ve got a text, and I have to scrap what I think, and I’ve got to go with what the text says. I look for the word joy—my joy in you, your joy complete—and I find this Greek word for joy. We’re going to put it up on the screen here so you can see a little bit of the Greek study.
So the word is «kara.» You see it right there on the second line. It means joy or delight. Isn’t this going to be exciting? I know this is going to really knock people for a loop and probably be the most downloaded message we’ve ever had at Passion City Church. Oh boy, we’re doing Greek word study today! How exciting is that? It is a feminine noun; the transliteration is kara. You can see the phonetic spelling—cara, definition: joy or delight. The usage—now this is where it started getting interesting for me—the usage is joy, gladness, but this next line is what really motivated me: a source of joy. A source of joy. So now we’re talking about where joy comes from! How do you get joy? How do you hang on to joy? How do you constantly live a joyful life?
I went and did a little word study on this word…. You can see it up here on the next line. We’ll highlight it for you. There it is again, and it’s a cognate. I know everyone knows; isn’t this exciting? People are just losing their minds right now! I cannot believe we’re talking about cognates at church. This is the best Sunday ever! I woke up and said, «I just want something to make me happy today,» and now I’ve gotten here, and we’re doing cognates today! This is really firing me up. That simply means—everyone already knows this—that the words we’re about to talk about all come from the same root; they’re connected. I want you to see some of the words: kara—another feminine noun from the root car. So this root we’re talking about is the heartbeat of joy. This source of joy, delight word has a root word that makes it what it is, and the root is car. You can see how it fits together. Car means extended favor, leaning toward, being favorably disposed. Properly, how that would relate to you and me is properly; it is the awareness of God’s grace. It is favor, and it is joy. Then it describes joy as grace recognized.
By now, I took a lap because joy is a durable and permeating gratitude rooted in unchanging outcomes. I already know what I’m rooted in: the fact that I’m saved and not dead anymore and the fact that I’m going to be seated with Christ in the heavenly realms forever. Then when Jesus says His joy is going to make me complete, I’m like, «Kara» is the word He’s using there! Look how the etymological link happens between these words in this last little section down here. We get caro, which is rejoice. So when Paul wrote, «Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice,» that’s that word. Then we get the word «rejoiced» because of grace. So that’s what the word rejoice means—it means rejoice because you’ve already got grace in your life. Don’t rejoice based on the circumstance; rejoice on unchanging circumstances, unchanging conditions. Then He says our word kara, which is joy. Say it with me: because of grace. And then the other cognate word connected is just the word for grace, charis.
So where does joy come from? It comes from being rooted in grace. Being rooted in grace produces gratitude in your life—gratitude for what He has done, which is unchanging, and gratitude for where you’re going with Him, knowing that no matter what circumstances come in the middle, I’m still saved and I’m still going to be seated. That’s why, when Jesus is being referred to in Hebrews 12:2, it says, «For the joy set before him,» what Greek word do you think is in there for joy? Right there, «kara.» For the joy set before Him, for the future grace, He endured the cross, despising its shame, and is now seated—or sat down—at the right hand of God. Paul was the same. I love this text real fast in 1 Thessalonians 2. Paul says it this way. This is the end of the chapter, verse 17: «But brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time in person, not in thought, out of our intense longing, we made every effort to see you, for we wanted to come to you; certainly I, Paul, did again and again, but Satan stopped us.»
Now all that is saying is you’re not the only person who’s come up against some headwind. You’re not the only person who faced opposition or had people getting in the way of your plans or dreams. Paul is saying, «I wanted to come to you guys. I wanted to visit you. I wanted to get there, but we don’t know the circumstance or how this played out, but something kept preventing him from getting there.» But he wants them to know how much he loves them. I want you to see how he says it in the next phrase, and we see this in a lot of Paul’s letters to the churches that he’s planted: «For what is our hope? What is our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when He comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and our joy.» You are our «kara.» In other words, heaven for me, the joy of heaven, isn’t that I’m not in hell and Jesus is building a custom-built house for me. The joy in heaven is that you are going to be in heaven—the one I invested in, poured into, raised up, trained, discipled, encouraged, prayed for, and believed in—that you’re gonna make it into the future glory, and that is actually my joy: you being in the future glory.
All this is coming together in a powerful way, and it’s showing us that when people aren’t happy, it’s normally related to circumstances that they don’t like. But when people aren’t joyful, it’s because they forgot to be grateful for the condition that they’re already in in Christ. I fly a lot—or used to—and I have a lot of status with the airline I fly with. I know my way around a lot of airports. I had flown into an airport in the middle of America to make a connecting flight, which was very important. But I knew my chances were slim. We had taken off late, and as we were landing, a big storm was approaching this airport. It was one of these kinds of airports, like Atlanta, where the runway on one end and the other end literally could be a mile apart. We landed on a far runway over here, and just as we landed, I think we were the last plane to land.
This huge dark cloud came over this side of the airport, and by the time we taxi to our gate—which took, I mean, literally 10 or 15 minutes to taxi all the way to the gate—this cloud was now sitting over this half of the airport—not our half. It wasn’t raining on our half over there; it was horrible. I thought, «I don’t know, I might have a shot.» They shut down the airport, grounded everything, so they let us off. I go bolting up and out of my terminal to the other terminal, go to the gate, get to the gate. I can see the plane still right there, the jetway still right there. You’ve been there, right? You’re like, «It’s right there! That’s my plane right there!»
So I go up to the gate agent, and you know your chances are slim at this point because I hear the dreaded words: «I’m sorry, we’ve closed the door,» which I’ve never fully understood because I’m a believer in God, and it says in God’s word that He opens doors that no man can shut, and He shuts doors that no man can open. But this does not apply to an airplane door! Once an airplane door is shut, it cannot be opened—even by the powers of God. I appeal to the gate agent. I said, «The airport is closed. All flights are grounded. No planes are moving. We’re here. You’re here; I’m here.» Then I started up gently appealing to all my status and my millions of miles and my this and my that and my other, being as kind as I could be, smiling, being nice, and somehow, a miraculous event occurred. She called someone on the phone and she said, «Come with me,» and she punched in a code, and we opened the door to the jetway. We walked down, and I’m telling you, I saw it with my own eyes! They opened the door, and I walked on and got the only empty seat! I had been upgraded right there, waiting for me.
I sat down, they closed the door, and a nice person came down the aisle and said, «Could I get you a beverage?» I said, «Of course, I’ll have a fresca.» Thank you! The gentleman next to me is having a beverage; he’s happy, I’m happy. He’s watching his monitor. Miraculously, you can watch live television or a hundred different movies while being served. We’re both happy until we sat there for 47 more minutes, and he was no longer happy. Rather, he was showing everyone on his new phone the weather pattern that was sitting over the airport. He said, «Look!» He’s showing everyone the dot—it’s literally right over the top of us. It’s just sitting right on top of us right now. I was grateful, and I just quietly said, «Thank you, Lord, for that cloud, because that’s how I’m going to have the next three things that needed to happen in my world happen today. Without that cloud, I’d spend the night here and miss what I really needed to be at.» See, it’s the difference, right?
We all had to sit there 47 minutes, we all were late, we all got there late, and everything was late, every domino was late. Trust me, let me just say real fast, I have been and can be this guy. But in this moment, I was more grateful than I was happy. So how does that happen? How do we get there? Super fast, right out of this text, I want to give you a few things. Number one, you get there by understanding that Jesus is the source of joy. He said, «I am the vine.» He said, «Abide in me, and I’ll remain in you.» This is how it works. You see this picture in your mind, and you understand what a vineyard looks like, and you know that down the trellis goes the vine with the branches. But you also know, every so often it goes down into that big thick root, and he says, «That root coming up is me.» The source coming up is me. The sap of the Holy Spirit is carrying the life of Jesus Christ down the vine and into the branches. There is going to be no joy in your branch unless Jesus is flowing in you! I’m telling you, nobody, no thing, no destination, no experience—you cannot count on that for durable, permeating joy.
Joy is found in Jesus, and the fruit—Galatians 5—the fruit is the result of the root. What is the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy! What do you think is the Greek word in Galatians 5 for joy? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness…anybody want to keep going with me? Anyone want to keep going? Two more! The fruit is connected to the root. So the source of joy is Jesus. The second thing I want you to see is that what we focus on, then, is not, «I gotta get more joy.» What we focus on is, «I gotta get more Jesus.» That’s why, when you look at the text, check it out: ten times in six verses, Jesus Himself says, «Remain.» You may have grown up with «abide.» Ten times in six verses: remain, remain, remain, remain in me, remain in me, abide in me, let me abide in you, let me remain in you, you remain in me. You and I have to stay together because the focus isn’t on getting more joy; the focus is on getting more Jesus. So you’ve got to remain; you’ve got to remain in Me.
It made me think about this text where He talks about the fruit of the Spirit, and this is what He says about it. This was so illuminating. He said, «So here are the Spirit’s. We named them all. We didn’t name gentleness and self-control at the end. Against such things, there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.» Now, look at verse 25: «Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.» That sounds like Jesus saying, «Remain in me, and let me remain in you. You stay with me; let me stay with you. You make your dwelling with me, and I’ll make my dwelling with you.» There’s an inseparable relationship between me and you. There’s a lot of remaining going on!
It sounds just like what Paul is writing: «Let us stay in step with the Spirit. Let us not become, men—hello! Circle this verse—conceited, provoking and envying each other.» What shoots an arrow through the heart of gratitude faster than the spirit of envy? If you want to take big shears and chop off a bunch of the grapes of the fruit of the Spirit of God in your life, make it about you and envy what God has done for somebody else—and you are just cutting off the fruit, if there was any there in the first place—because you forgot: I am saved and alive, and I am going to be seated with Christ, and I don’t need anything else but that to give me a sense of gratitude! And if God blessed you, then God bless you! If God promoted you, then God bless you! If God has favored you, then God bless you! I am raised, and I am going to be seated, and that is enough for me today to be grateful in Him! My goal today is not—my goal is not more joy; my goal is Jesus.
It’s like this guy, and I’ve got to hurry, who worked in the athletic department at the University of Alabama. Forgive me, Lord, for saying that in the middle of such an amazing sermon. When we traveled there as Auburn football, we would arrive early, like three hours before the game, and this person is a friend of mine—a friend of Passion. So we’re standing in the end zone, and he walks up, and we’re chatting. He says, «Hey, we’ve just finished the new addition up here. You want to walk up and see it?» I’m like, «I have a few minutes.» We take off, and I’ve never gone anywhere with this guy before. I’ve only known him in passing. We start walking up the tunnel off the field, then down this hallway into an elevator. We get in the elevator, and we go up—then we’re walking around a concourse now, and we end up like all the way down there, like a quarter of a mile from where we started at the end zone! I’m just like, «This is amazing!»
I could not keep up with this guy. He’s my age or older. He’s not that much taller than me, but, I mean, I was all I could do not to break into a sprint to keep up with this guy! So we end up seeing the stuff he showed me, and we get back down. Two years later, we show up again at the stadium, and now they’ve finished a new addition—a place where he wants us to actually host a Passion worship night, which we did. He says, «I want to take you up here and show you this place,» and I’m like, «Okay, we’re going up there today—I’m going ahead of you!» As soon as he turned and said, «Okay, let’s go,» I just started going. As soon as he turned, I just started going. When we went up the thing, I was going, and when we got to the elevator, I was like, «I’m going to this elevator!» I’m watching his feet the whole time. He’s designing, and I’m like, «Okay, okay, I can do… You know, I’ll do…» They could have been handing out stacks of free money on tables; I wouldn’t have even known it! I never took my eyes off this guy’s feet! I was committed to remaining—however fast he was going, I was going. I wasn’t interested in the landscape; I was interested in his feet.
When I was in this remain, remain, remain, remain, remain, remain, Jesus just said, «Defeat! Keep your eyes on my feet and go where I go! Stay where I stay. Don’t worry about them; you worry about me! Stay with me! If you focus on staying with me, kara is going to grow on your branch!»
The third thing, real fast: every branch is going to get tended to. Jesus said, «My Father is the gardener.» Some of the branches that don’t bear fruit and don’t remain in Me, they get cut off as they’re putting a pile over here. They withered up and got thrown in a fire; they’re not worth anything to anybody. He said, «But even if a branch bears fruit, I’m still going to prune that branch because I want it to even bear more fruit.» So maybe the secret for someone or some of us in the gathering today is your fruitfulness and your joy is going to be related to the Father decluttering your branch and simplifying your branch so that then you can focus more on remaining in Him.
The fourth thing—and we’re almost done—is that joy is made complete in service to others. This is my command: love each other as I have loved you. For greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. This can be really important right when we land this plane, which is coming very, very soon. You will not, I promise you, become your happiest by investing all of your time trying to be happy. You will become your happiest by investing your time trying to bring someone else joy! It’s right there! This is why I told you these things—that my joy would be in you and your joy would be complete.
The last thing is this: joy is a process. You can get happiness overnight, crazily. They say that we look at our screens for three hours every day. How nuts is that? And some of us are like, «I don’t know if that’s true or not.» I guarantee you, I looked at the master app for three hours yesterday; I was watching my guy Charles Schwartzel and watching every shot! They say we look at our screens for three hours, and that we touch it 2600 times a day! Every touch, you know what we’re hoping for? Tell me, happiness. A bunch of the touches, we get it, and it’s called dopamine. Interestingly, if you shorten the word, it’s called dope, and they say that the process of touching our screens 2600 times a day for three hours could be equated to the same thing happening in your brain when you’re sitting at a slot machine or doing cocaine. Digital platforms know this! So in our hands, it’s this instantaneous hit, right? Lots of them!
«Oh, look at that cool pair of sandals. Oh, look at that purse. Oh, look at that workout thing. Oh, look at what the market just did. Oh, look! I got an email back from them about whatever!» All those hits, hits, hits, hits, hits—instant, instant, instant, instant. But the process of this is making the world more anxious and more depressed, not making more kara and permeating with joy. This is an instant—this is a process.
So nobody today, as a result of this talk, is going to go out of here and be more joyful—that’s kind of the downside of this talk. But you could commit to the process! Because vineyard making is a process. Vine dressing is a process, and it takes a minute. But if you will commit—I’ll just say for two weeks—to practicing and rehearsing the root, which is time with Jesus, if you’ll commit two weeks to setting aside some of your three hours of time and your 2600 touches to spend time with Jesus, if you will inform your circumstances of your condition versus letting your circumstances inform you of your condition, if you’ll seize the opportunity to bring someone else joy, I believe in two weeks that you will notice a shift in your sense of joy. God wants you to be full of joy!
So when Baylor won the national championship and they beat undefeated Gonzaga, and now it’s not Jared Butler or Macy Oteig or another of their players who’s doing the interview; it’s Scott Drew, the coach. It’s a back-and-forth; it’s five or ten minutes worth of him talking about this culture of joy. We’re playing with a culture of joy, and then he just says it. When he says it, I’m just sitting there and I’m like, «This is unbelievable!» You all just knelt down on the court in front of your bench after you won this championship and prayed, as you’ve done at every game! I don’t know what was going on in there, but that’s cool! But now he just said it. He says, «So we’re just carrying this culture of joy, and you know joy is Jesus, others, and you.» It’s like, man, they taught us that in like Backyard Bible Club! A lot of us, the world got in there, didn’t it? The world said, «No, it’s you, if you got a second; it’s others. And if you can squeeze them in on a Sunday a couple of times a month, give Jesus a look.» Then we went, «Whoa, where’d all the joy go?»
Please understand, you’re important to God. Taking care of yourself matters! But I promise, if you keep your eyes on Jesus and stay in step with Him and you remain with Him, you’re not going to be ragged back here on the caboose of a fast-moving train. You’re going to have been filled with Him because you remained in Him! You’re going to have a new sense of happiness! Even Psychology Today says people are happier if they volunteer once a week—a lot happier, by the way! So you’re going to be doing pretty well if you’re putting others in front of yourself, and then back here on the back, you’re going to notice fruit on you that maybe you haven’t noticed before because it was Jesus, others, and you—a culture of joy! I want to start a culture of joy! I want to live in a culture of joy! I want to be part of a church that is a culture of joy! I want to say yes to joy! Come on, do you believe that? Anybody believe that today?