Michael Todd - Count-It (Eliminating Joy Jackers)
All right, I’ve got 52 minutes to preach to you, and some of y’all think 52 minutes is going to go by just like that, because the ammunition I’m loaded with today is about to rock your world. Sometimes it takes me a few days to come out of the moment of preaching and to ask God, «All right, what do you want to say next week?» This challenge comes every week. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have to give an oral presentation to tens of thousands of people each week, and that’s a pressure I didn’t expect when I became a pastor. I thought it would be a few hundred people coming to the north side of Tulsa; it wouldn’t matter much. I could still show up at Walmart, and nobody would care. But now I go to Walmart, and people say, «I heard your message on Sunday, Pastor.» So I count it as a huge honor and a responsibility, and I take it seriously. I keep asking God, «What am I going to say to your people?»
Well, last week, when I got off the stage, He didn’t stop talking to me. As God is my witness, as soon as I got off the stage, I started receiving a download for this week. I said, «Lord, you want to go like that? Are you ready to rip us up like that?» And He said, «If my people don’t get this concept, they’re not going to be prepared for this next year, so I need you to make sure it goes deep, deep within their hearts so that they will not forget.» Many times, you might not have a chance to open your U version, and then what will you do? That’s when Instagram is glitching, and that’s where you usually get your scriptures from. That’s why the Bible says to hide the Word in your heart. I challenge everybody to start hiding the Word. You’re not going to know five million scriptures by tomorrow, but find two or three that you can recite like you recite a Drake song.
Oh, some of y’all are like, «Drake? Who’s Drake?» You know how you can recite a Luther song, or a Journey song, or an Eagles song? Y’all hear what I’m saying? Some of us don’t even have to think about it; we’ve hidden those songs in our hearts, but they don’t produce fruit. I’m asking everybody to even put it to a song. Let’s start hiding the Word of God in our hearts. One of the verses I want you to hide in your heart is found in Galatians 5:22, which is the anchor scripture we have been studying regarding the fruits of the spirit.
I want us to read this all together and see if we can get a little further down the list this week. Galatians 5:22, in week four of a series we’re calling «Show Me the Receipts.» But the fruit of the Spirit is—can y’all say this with me? Love, joy, peace. I can’t get off of joy because last week I preached the message, «I’m going to enjoy this.» Somebody say, «I’m going to enjoy this.» Say it again: «I’m going to enjoy.» God told me that the joy of the Lord would be our strength. If you’re lacking strength today, you need joy. It’s the antithesis of what you feel like you need. You feel like you need a break, but you actually need joy. You feel like you need a vacation, but you actually need joy. You think you need those pills, but you actually need joy. You need to enjoy the life that God has provided for us. You need to be in joy when you go to work tomorrow. You need to be in joy when you raise those kids. Do you correct your kids in joy?
I’m trying to emphasize that we should not lay down the fruits of the spirit when other emotions are involved. You can be disappointed in what your kids do, yet still discipline them in joy. But some of you enjoy being filled with anger because your parents abused you. I can feel your scowl right now, especially for Black people, which is rooted in how you were raised and what was passed down. The scripture says that you can do more emotional damage, and this isn’t in my notes, but the Holy Spirit is leading me here. The Bible tells us to train a child in the way they should go so that when they’re old, they will not depart from it. Many times, we fail to discipline our children in joy.
I’m not talking about enjoying punishing them; I’m talking about being in joy so that the venom from your heart, due to past trauma, doesn’t come out on your children. I just said a lot, but you’re not disciplining them for their offense; you’re disciplining them because you thought it was unfair that you were disciplined. Now you have an opportunity to change and transform the generational pattern, but because you’re not in joy… I don’t know where that came from. All I’m trying to say is we should do everything we do in joy, because the joy of the Lord is our strength. If you need a reference for that, it’s found in Nehemiah. I want you to go there this week; you might need to write it down or tattoo it. Get the Word on the inside of you, and if it won’t get inside of you, put it on the outside of you until you can get it on the inside of you: Nehemiah 8:10, «The joy of the Lord is my strength.»
The reason this is important, and I want it to go deep into your hearts, is that if you are not in joy, you are usually in judgment. I know that people say, «Well, the scripture says we are supposed to judge.» Put that in context. You’re supposed to judge the fruit. The reason I’m asking you to judge is not to approach people with a critical spirit. Most people are approaching others with critical spirits; they’re not trying to find out how to help them do better, they’re trying to condemn them so that those people don’t feel worthy of doing what God called them to do. What you are doing is becoming a source of division, which is against what God has called us to do as believers. We’re not supposed to judge with a critical spirit. Watch this: we’re supposed to judge with a nutritional spirit. The reason I’m judging this fruit is that I go to the produce aisle to see if I’m going to eat it. I’m not just labeling it «bad fruit» repeatedly. That is not the friend group I want to be around. I need to evaluate what’s happening, because if I’m around this, it can actually infect me.
So, hey, I love you, and I genuinely enjoy hanging out with you. My flesh loves the vibe. Can we be honest? My flesh likes that we gossip; my flesh enjoys the conversations about people and dragging people down. My flesh enjoys sending memes about topics that we probably shouldn’t discuss as married people. Did y’all hear how quiet it got? Oh, golly. For the fruit I want to produce in my life, I pray y’all get that right. I’m not about to make a blog about it because I’ll let God deal with His people the way He wants to, because I am not the judge. However, I had to judge the fruit of this season. Y’all need to hear this: fruit is seasonal. Many believers try to judge someone’s fruit in one season and act like that’s all they’ll ever be. Oh my God, if you see me in one season and my fruit was not ripe, please don’t assume that two years from now I’ll be the same. You’ve confused me with other people around you. During every season of my life, I say, «God, do something new in me. Change me from the inside. Prune me if you have to. Cut off things that are not like You. Purify me. Squeeze me. Put me in a process.» But be careful if you judge somebody’s fruit in one season and try to define them by that in another season.
Okay, let me put my glasses on and act dignified. I talked to someone this week after the message, and they said, «Well, Pastor Mike, I’m not really in judgment. I don’t judge people; I don’t even worry about people.» And I said, «That’s good, but if you’re not in joy, you might be in judgment of yourself.» Oh, come on! Some of us don’t need anybody else to speak negatively about us because the person who hates us the most is ourselves. Every time God tells you to do something, you talk yourself out of it. Every time the Lord gives you an encouraging word through somebody else, you remind yourself how unqualified you are.
So many of us think, «I’m not judging others,» but we don’t have time because we’re in such judgment of ourselves: «I’m a bad mom; I’m a bad father.» And God said, «I extended grace to you; why wouldn’t you give yourself the same thing?» It’s the lies of the past that we begin to believe that keep us in judgment of ourselves. I need you to evaluate this: they are not assuming what we’re assuming about us. Let me say it again: whoever «they» are, they don’t want me to win. Who is they? They don’t want me to date anyone. But «we» do! You are in need of another, but the assumptions of others have often planted beliefs inside us that we take on as truth. Today, I need us to stop being critical of lies that are not found in the Word of God. You are a good person; you might have done bad things, but when you’re washed in the blood of Jesus, something begins to change in you. So when God says you can do this, stop telling yourself you can’t!
Somebody else remarked, «Well, I’m good with not judging others, and I don’t really judge myself; I love myself.» But then a lot of us move into judgment of God: «God, I don’t think it’s fair how you did this.» Come on! We don’t say these things out loud, but we think them. «Well, why, God, if you’re so good…?» Yeah, see, I had about 36 hours of feelings like this when I found out my son was diagnosed with autism. I was like, «God, this is not fair! This is not fair!» Everybody has their journey, and I was taken to the scripture in Job where Job was checked by God in the most astonishing way. It was almost as if God was saying, «Do you want to have a conversation?» I felt all of these things, but Job lost a lot. I don’t know if you’ve ever read Job, but he had a week unlike any other—a week of losing everything: kids, houses, land, money—everything was allowed by God. Now I’m messing with some people’s theology because the enemy came to God and said, «I have searched to and fro to see if someone will not trust you.» Someone is going to fail you, and God brought up Job! Why didn’t He bring up Jodie, or Jerro, or Jesse? He literally said, «Have you checked out my servant Job?» I know Job is down there worshiping, saying, «Hallelujah.» God is in heaven like, «Go hit Job’s house.»
Have you ever thought that sometimes God allows certain things to reveal what you are made of? Y’all didn’t hear what I just said. Fire is the only thing that reveals gold, and some of us know we’re gold on the inside but have no proof on the outside. So God has to put us in some fire. Job goes through fire and has this 36-hour delusion like I did; look what he says to Job in Job 38:1-4: «Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man. I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.» This is God talking to Job after Job lost everything and was complaining to Him, and God says, «Oh, I’ve got a couple of questions for you, bro. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.»
What God is basically saying is, «I know you’re going through the worst time of your life, but it’s obvious by your reaction that you don’t trust that I have everything under control. Since you don’t think I have it under control, tell me where you were when I formed all of this.» No, no, no, no, I’ll wait when God puts you on silent treatment, waiting for you to answer. As I begin to read through this, it lets me know that the only way I can live in joy is if I trust God. Great, I hate this; this is uncomfortable. I don’t want to be here, but you told me to wait in this season in joy. Why would you do that to me? Maybe because what is produced out of that is greater than what you’re going through. Okay, okay, so since we’ve made a decision to live in joy, somebody say, «I’m going to live in joy.» Say it with faith: «I’m going to live.»
Then I want you to go to James chapter 1, verse 2, and buckle up because this one took me out. As soon as I got right around the back, James chapter 1, verse 2: «My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.» Wait, the only way I can have joy like you want me to is if trials are attached to it? He said, «Count it all joy.» When do I want to count it all joy? When you feel trials, when you see trials, when you face trials, when trials are going on in your life, when trials are going on in your marriage—count it! Somebody yell at me, «Count it!» See, this took me back to when I used to play basketball. You know, yeah—I used to; this 38-year-old NES is doing other things these days—but I used to go to the hole strong.
When I would go to the hole strong and somebody acted like they were going to block my shot, they didn’t understand the strength that I rose up with. They would come with their little weak attempts, and I’d rise up on them. They would foul me, and I would still be able to score. There’s something that, anybody that’s a Hooper understands what I’m about to say: something rises from your toes, and you’d be like, «And one! Count it!» What that means is, even though I was faced with adversity, it wasn’t the thing that was able to stop me. I’m actually going to get something on the back end; I’m going to get a free throw up ahead because what happened in my life did not stop me from scoring.
So I’m about to get something for this, and I want you to count that you did foul me, and I’m about to win a victory that most people would have fumbled. Okay, somebody shout at me, «Count it!» When I read that, the Holy Spirit brought to my attention that joy now is a responsibility of the believer. Because if you don’t call your foul, you don’t get the free throw. I don’t know if any of y’all played basketball without a ref, but they tell you, you’ve got to call your own fouls. This is what God is saying to all of us. Did y’all read what it said? My brethren, count your own fouls on the devil; call your own fouls on those people who left you high and dry. He said, «Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.»
Today, I am igniting the body of Christ to stop looking at failures, disappointments, setbacks, and situations as something that happened to you. If the devil, or the people, or the man, or the government, or anybody tries to foul you, I’m not just going to take this—count it! I bet you this ain’t where I’m going to stay—count it! I bet you the enemy thought when he gave us that diagnosis on MJ that I was just going to bow and back up. No, no, no, no—count it! I bet you that divorce was the thing that he thought was going to take you out, but somebody help me say, «Count!» I am about to go to another place, looking at every adversity that has ever happened to me as a win on the back end. Y’all don’t hear what I just said—everything that the enemy throws at me is going to be a win on the back end. I feel this sting. When MJ graduates from high school, I’m gonna laugh at the devil, and it’s going to be a win on the back end.
Somebody shout at me, «Count it!» I’m not just about to take this; I’m not just about to sit here and be sad. God tells me to count it all. So He doesn’t just say, «Count it»; He says, «Count it all!» Count it all—the big things, the little things, the setbacks—this is about to be a win on the back end. Write that down: «This is about to be a win on the back…» I came to encourage somebody who’s taking loss after loss, that it’s felt like failure after failure, that it’s felt like when is this ever going to let up. Baby, you’re being prepared. Oh God, this week when something bad goes wrong, you’re not even going to get frustrated—count it! Oh no, no, no, you’re not accepting my application? No, I got it in on time.
Oh, the computer had a glitch—count it! No, no, no, no, no—my kid wasn’t the only one that started the fight; that baby kid started it; they should both be suspended, but you’re just going to suspend my kid—count it! Y’all got to hear me, yo—y’all put them two fingers up—count! I’m telling you right now, it’s about to be a win on the back end. I got an unnecessary bill, and I already paid it, but somehow your computer glitched, and I only got 42 cents left in my bank account, and you want to overdraft me, and I can’t get no Popeye’s chicken? Yeah, feel this sting! This is about to be fun today. Change your perspective that the bad things that happen to you are working for you. It’s only when you give away your joy; it’s only when you don’t call your foul, and that’s how you start feeling abused. That’s how you think God is not playing fair. He said, «I gave you authority as a believer—call it and count it.»
Today, I want to title the message in a few minutes I have left: «Count It: Eliminating Joy Jackers.» 'Cause I got to teach you how to count everything that is negative in your life as an opportunity for God to redeem it into a story that makes you the winner in the end because of what He did in your life. Okay, so I need to back us up, and I have to be honest and empathetic because sometimes when I get on these rants, I’ve been going with this all week and all year; it’s kind of the disposition of my life to live in joy, and I have to bring myself into real situations. I have friends and people, and you are dealing with situations where it feels like joy is so far away. Can we be honest? You hear me up here; it’s great for you; you’re happy; everything’s going good in your life—no, it’s not! But I’ve decided to count it all joy. But that may feel ridiculous and impossible for you, and I want to let you know that when this statement was written by James, it would have felt the exact same way to the group of people he was writing to.
These people were being persecuted, separated from families; they were being driven out—twelve tribes driven out of their homelands where their mama and their mama’s mama had been able to set up camp. They were literally being killed and destroyed, and Paul writes to them, literally picking up a scroll and reading: «Oh, we got instructions!» I mean, we got instructions from James. What did he say? «Count it.» I think I picked up the wrong scroll, y’all; we need to find where’s the «Nuck If You Buck» scroll? I need to kill somebody. I need to go in the middle of losing everything—count it all? You want me to count this? Let’s fast forward to another scene, but this also gets counted. God says your valley season is still counted towards the glory that will be revealed in your life.
Okay, I got to keep moving. Somebody shout at me, «Count it!» Count! And I want to let you know that Paul—who I was about to reference a second ago—do y’all know that Paul wrote Ephesians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Colossians, Philemon, and Thessalonians—from jail? No, no, no! I just want you to imagine that you’re celebrating with people from prison, writing literature to encourage them, to lift them up and tell them it’s going to be all right. You should be in joy right now and your situation is on lockdown; your money isn’t moving; your family is getting seemingly worse, and he says: «Let me know something!» I need to let the body of Christ know today: everybody write this down: «Joy is not an emotion; it’s a spiritual decision.» No, I have to say this because most of us don’t understand that we have been taught through cartoons, children’s teachings, and our family like, «Oh, you woke up with such joy today!»
That’s an emotion! Joy, many times, produces happiness, but if your understanding is that joy is situational, then you place your joy into things. The wrong definition has been applied to joy. Everybody, listen to me—follow with me. Okay, happiness, many times, comes when you are feeling joyful, but other emotions come when you feel joyful too. When you feel joyful, a lot of times—when I feel joyful, I get gratitude. A lot of times when there’s joy, watch this: I develop patience, and I’m about to show it and prove it to you in the scripture. But if you think that joy is an emotion, you’re going to have to deprogram that. Happiness is an emotion; joy is a decision! Hear what I’m telling you! How can people with stage four cancer, given a life expectancy date, say at the end of their life that it’s the best season of their life? How? How can they be encouraging somebody else? It’s because they made a decision to live in it!
And this is what I’m going to say: Joy equals Jesus, sir; and Jesus equals joy. If you’re trying to find joy outside of Him, it will be a counterfeit. I’m gonna just tell you straight up! That’s what Mike said: we’re supposed to get joy! So today, I’m getting high, and I’m going to allow God to take me higher into the joy that He wants for me. And I feel, I see a funnel of joy as I’m going up, and I’m not mad at you! You smoking weed? Okay—God bless you! All the different things! And I pray that God continues to work on you to the point where you need nothing else to find actual fulfillment in life! But some people like weed, uh-huh, and you eat to get joy. Stop it! A Krispy Kreme donut will send you into happy-ville!
Come on, let’s be honest! Let’s stop judging! Uh-oh, there we go! We just exposed some critical spirit! 'Cause the weed is wrong, but the wings aren’t! And I’m in your business right now 'cause right now you wouldn’t sit next to somebody that smells like that, but you’re going to be smelling like chicken at 4 p.m.! Haha! That’s where the religious comes in. You don’t spend that much time on no video games; you spend it on football! We all have different idols and different gods! Come on! And our God says let there be no other God before me besides me!
So I just want to make sure our judgment—we get in joy, and we’re not critical in judgment! Okay? 'Cause I felt the Christians coming for me! If you’re trying to find joy outside of Jesus, it’s going to be a lost cause! Because I put it like this: there’s a joy cycle! Okay? I want to teach you the joy cycle, and this helped me understand how I can stay in joy! Somebody say, «I want to stay in joy!» Wouldn’t that be amazing that if the whole week you stayed in joy? Like nothing could take you out of being in joy this week? Let’s just decide right now! Let’s just decide, «I’m going to stay in joy all week.»
Let’s not try for forever 'cause y’all get so ambitious! Y’all get so like: «Until Christmas,» let’s just try to—we’ve been trying to drink water for the whole year! Let’s just try the week! What if you decided, «I get pulled over, I’mma stay in joy!» Hello, officer? He pulled me over? It’s because he was white? No! You were speeding! See, I’mma just— you was going too fast, and your license plate is out. What? And you got a crack? It’s the man? No, it’s you! He wouldn’t even know to pull you over if your headlight wasn’t—y’all know, going 75 on the highway, headlight just looking like Elvis—All Shook Up—like what is happening? I’m just saying, but if that happens this week, I’mma stay in joy! Oh, y’all didn’t know? I changed outfits, but I didn’t change character! I’m going to stay in!
So let me teach you the joy cycle. If we’re going to stay in joy, joy is attached to Jesus! Okay? So if I’m going to stay in joy, I got to attach my joy to—can’t attach joy to money; cannot attach joy to success; cannot attach joy to fame; cannot attach joy to a relationship; cannot attach joy to a platform; cannot attach joy to this church; I cannot attach joy to my favorite pastor or my favorite podcast; I cannot attach joy to my favorite artist! The only place you find joy is in Jesus! How come that stuff never goes viral? Joy is only found in Jesus! But if you’re going to go and be in a relationship with Jesus, let me give you the secret: Jesus is always going to take you on a journey! And this is where most people give up! It’s because I thought when I went from joy to Jesus, it was going to be easy; it was going to be okay. Everybody was going to love me.
Do you know when you really make a decision for Jesus? That’s when people stop liking you. You’re different; you’ve changed. You used to not care about any of that, but now you think you’re the judge. No, no, no, no, no. I’m just on a journey that requires me to reevaluate everything I used to do, and if I’m honest, I hate it. But if I want joy, I have to be with Jesus. When I’m with Jesus, He’s holy and separate; only certain things can walk with Jesus. What He wants me to do is go on this journey that I’ve stopped four times. Oh, can we be honest? It seems like somewhere around my birthday every year, I’m going to Cancun just for a week, and God said, «I need you to be in joy. I need you to take Me with you. I need you to make a decision that you’re not going to live your life separate or divided.» A house divided against itself cannot stand, and many of us want to be with Jesus while being judgmental and crazy, and God is saying, «Would you just choose Me and go on this journey?»
When I was a high school student, God asked me to go on a journey with Him. I was in high school when the Holy Spirit asked me, with my mama as my witness, to fast my entire ninth-grade year. Ninth grade! Now, my fast was a little wonky, but the heartfelt decision was real. My fast was not to eat any meat for the entirety of that year; at school, I was consecrated to God. I didn’t know I was going to be a pastor, but I knew the Holy Spirit said no meat in ninth grade. Guess what? My plate was full of French fries! I promise you, I had a mountain of French fries with ranch on them and cheese. People would literally walk by and just dump their fries on my plate. I probably gained more weight on my fast with fries, but God took the decision of my heart when everybody else wouldn’t even care about God and said, «I can do something with that.»
Because I decided to go on a journey with Jesus, and when you go on a journey with Him, watch this: you’re going to find out about the junk. The journey is to expose the junk. This is where, if you don’t give up on the journey, most people quit when they find out the junk. «Well, that pastor is just…» or «he’s a person with a bunch of junk.» «Well, that boss, that business, that person, that leader…» If you go on a journey with Jesus, you’re going to find out that everyone you thought was great is regular. No, no, I’m telling you, everyone you think is great is very regular, and it’s not until they get introduced to the power of Jesus that it transforms them into a version of themselves that seems great. But they still have to fight with being regular.
If you stay in the journey with Jesus and you can make it through the junk, Jesus promises that it will produce joy. It’s a cycle: Joy, Jesus, Journey, Jump. Joy, Jesus, Joy, Journey, Jump. Joy, Jesus, Journey, Jump! Joy, Jesus, Journey, Junk! Y’all didn’t even help me! I ain’t going to do it no more; you’re just going to put me up here doing this! Let me prove it to you, because in John 15, when we were talking about this year at Transformation Church, this is the year of fruit. We’ve been discussing how to get fruit by abiding and staying with God. He is the vine, and we are the branches, and anybody that stays planted or connected to Him will produce much fruit.
If you read all of John 15, in the last two verses, it explains the reason why you go through the journey and why you stay in it. The reason why when it rains and floods, you stay connected to God: some of you give up too soon. You tried Jesus for six months, but you’ve been crazy for sixty years. No, come on! You’ve built up that tolerance of craziness for decades, and you attempted Jesus for six months and then gave up. What God is saying is, «I need you to just—everybody say abide.» Stay connected! Stay in the church! If you only come to this church every six weeks, that’s like eating every six weeks. Nobody sees you; you get to change your face, and when someone asks, «How are you doing?» you can lie to them because there’s no real connection.
We’re going to have a fall festival, and some of you are so ready to leave right now; you’re planning how you’re going to dodge the community after church. Yet you’ll get home and post some weird thing on your Instagram or Facebook about how lonely you’ve been in this season with your dog Rufus or the plant you’ve named. You named your plant, but you won’t talk to people! What I’m saying is, right now, you’re trying to dodge the answer. He wants you connected, but you won’t abide; you won’t stay long enough. He says, «If you stay in Me…» He said, «These things I’ve spoken to you that My joy may be in you.» Uh-oh! What kind of joy did Jesus have? He said, «I want you to abide because I hope that this joy that oozes out of Me gets into you and that your joy, watch this, would be made full.»
Anytime I hear the word «joyful,» now I hear it like this: God wants my joy full. Somebody say, «I’m going to live joyful!» That’s why you need to know joy is an internal disposition for long-term commitment. And joy, watch this—I’m going to write this down—doesn’t have to be suppressed by any situation. I’m speaking to your soul today. How many people can we be hot, humble, open, and transparent? How many people are in a situation, whether known or unknown, that is uncomfortable to you right now? Come on! Okay, all right, we’re in the right room! Thank you, Holy Spirit, for giving me this message and telling me to stay.
This is why I had to come preach this: it’s because your situation has nothing to do with your joy. Look at me! You can still have the best moment of your life in this very uncomfortable, hard season, and the Holy Spirit is the only one who can produce this type of fruit in your life. So, if you’re away from Jesus, you’re not going to get it. If you’re not allowing the Holy Spirit to do a work in you, you’re not going to get this. So you will endure a season that you could be enjoying. You could turn this year, which has probably not been the best in optics for you, into the best year of your life because you live in joy.
Okay, listen to me: James chapter 1, verse 2—I want to read the rest of it: «My brothers, count it all joy.» Somebody say «count it!» No, y’all got to do it right; everybody say «count!» Everybody didn’t do it in the back—everybody say «count!» «Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.» Watch this: knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. You want patience? He’s going to test you, and He’s telling you, «Count it all joy when I’m testing you! You’re about to pass the test, so still be grateful.» Right now, they repossessed your car? Thank God you had a car to be repossessed because they didn’t repossess your bus card! It’s a perspective shift.
Somebody’s like, «What? You ain’t never ridden the bus?» But if you ride the bus, you know the bus card is not what they’re coming for! So thank God you had a car! Are you mad because you have to walk? You had six months of driving! Do you understand what I—okay, I can’t even mess with y’all. He said, «I’m about to produce patience in your life, but let the patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete.» Everybody say this: «lacking nothing.» Point blank period! You’re either going to be on Team Joy or Team Judgment. What jersey are you putting on this week?
Put the scoreboard up there for me, please. I want you to look at your life like this from now on: four hours in a day—what jersey are you putting on? I said, «Which team are you about to play for?» See, it gets real simple when you actually get in the jersey of joy. When you decide this morning, «I’m going to live in this,» and this is the problem—because anytime a bad thing happens, what are we going to say? No, no, y’all missed it; thank you, the one person who’s got me this week! When your husband is talking crazy, look at—hold on, that was too much excitement in that area! She said, «Count it! Count it! Count it!» When your husband is talking crazy and it’s a little off-center from what you both agreed on—you’re not going to take his Jordans and burn them and bleach them or none of that crazy stuff!
No, I’m just saying you’re going to look at the enemy and say, «This house is a house of unity! Enemy, you have no jurisdiction here!» The fact that you came into this house and tried to play with my family? Count it! I bet you I’m going to get you back! This is how—uh-oh—the score changed. Something good didn’t happen to me, but my disposition about what happened to me made the score go up in my favor. Somebody leaves my business and talks bad about me? Count it! Somebody wants to go tell someone that I am what I’m not? Count it! There are people who talk crazy about my kids and try to make me act out of character, and y’all know—oh no, I see all the masses that ain’t one—count it! Run it up! Uh-uh! Count it!
When you get a negative report on someone you love, you lose, because all of that is not going to be easy. Some fouls I took have blood attached to them; there were some times I was trying to elevate, and when they hit me, it hurt. I’m at the free-throw line thinking about the pain I’m in, but the truth is I’m not going to leave these points on the table! I may be hurting, but enemy, you’re going to pay for this! I promise you, you tried to touch the innocence of my children? You think I’m just going to sit here and let you run roughshod in my house? D! Why do I come to Wednesday night prayer? Why do I worship God in the mornings and at noon? It’s because I’m building up my strength, because I’m going to tell the enemy and everybody else around, «Nothing is going to happen to me that God can’t use!»
Even while I’m sitting here talking, it’s starting to offend some people. They’re very quiet and very casual right now, but they’ve already decided they’re not coming back next week. The reason is our joy is offensive. Can I share a point you need to know if you’re going to choose to walk in joy? When your joy is genuine, it will attract those who are annoyed by joy. There are people who don’t like me because I just enjoy my life. No, no, what’s that? What’s so funny? Ain’t nothing that funny in life? What kind of sick do you have to be to look at somebody laughing? Some people are looking at me right now like, «I agree; ain’t nothing that funny.»
I have a name for you: you’re a joy jacker. It feels like your aim in life is to bring people down to the level of your discomfort. I’ve been through the fire, and you still don’t have joy? They just told us in James that that should be working for us, but you do look like what you’ve been through. I wish I could go up to people and say, «You don’t look like what you’ve been through!» I wish I could go to people and say, «You look exactly like what you’ve been through.» You sound like it too!
Today, for the people who are deciding to run up the score and live in joy, I need you to beware of joy jackers. Let me give you a couple of identifying factors of a joy jacker: a joy jacker tries to hand you their offense. Borrowed offense is a literal trademark calling card for a joy jacker. You’ve seen someone try to make you mad at people they’re mad at; you’ve never had a bad experience with them, and you’re like, «Well, they seem kind of…» I’m telling you right now, they’re not like that! Whoa, where did the hostility come from? They fast? Why would you say they dress in a sleazy, hussy-like manner?
Y’all know those old-school terms! And it’s a lot of assumptions—never had a conversation; you don’t even know if that’s all they have in their closet. It wouldn’t even cross your mind to take them shopping! Ain’t nobody thought to live in joy and ask how you could help! You look at the same situation and make a judgment about it when God said, «I brought it to your attention so you could be a part of the solution.» In another state, you are actually sitting here as a person of God, judging how they came in, and it was the witnessing that you didn’t do, but somebody else did at a quick trip at 4:00 a.m. that made them pull up to this church. Now, they are going to get the people who are supposed to be close to you. Do you see the golf claps?
Well, there is just a way to present yourself in the house of God, and you look ugly to Him, too. I’m talking about love in a couple of weeks. I’m sorry, but the reason I said I would talk about love in a couple of weeks is because He said you can prophesy and speak in the tongues of angels, but if you do not have love, it is just a clanging cymbal; you are just noise. All I’m saying is that when you are in joy, it changes your perspective. A joy jacker, watch this, contaminates the perspectives of others and situations; they will try to tell you that you can’t do what God told you that you could do because of their own failures and false starts. Please don’t let anybody copy and paste their experience onto yours after you have received a word from God.
Did y’all hear what I just said? «Well, I tried that when I was 27,» and I’m just trying to give you wisdom right now. No, you feared stepping out and obeying God fully, so you kept some of your weight on a backup plan, and that’s why it didn’t work out. I’m just telling you God gave me something, and I have to try this. Joy jackers always maximize mess. Girl, if anybody starts a sentence like that, they might be a joy jacker. Watch this—this is a big one. There are joy jackers who can’t celebrate if they are not the center of attention. Did y’all hear what I just said? You might be around a joy jacker when it’s time to celebrate and they bring the attention back to themselves.
«She just got saved; I wonder how long that’s going to last.» «God just paid off a house for them; I bet it’s dirty.» Why? Oh, it’s because you don’t live there. You have no empirical data that it’s dirty; you know what I’m saying? We just say stuff like, «I bet it’s what?» not «glory to God.» Man, if God’s doing it for them, I wonder what He could do for me. The last thing I’m going to tell you today, because I have to move on, is that you can tell if someone is a joy jacker when being around them feels like a weight rather than wind. Can you feel that? If being around them feels like a weight and not like wind, they should be encouraging you, but it feels like they are holding you down. I saw this in my head; y’all can just bring this.
Just bring it all right here, bring it close to me. What I need you to understand is that all of these are supposed to be uplifting. Yeah, bring them all right here, bring them all right here. Yep, all of these—this represents you, full of something that could propel you up to another atmosphere. But right now, the only thing that’s holding all of these balloons down is what? A weight. When you are around these people, you see their potential and you see what could happen, but many of us walk around these joy jackers. «Don’t try that; nobody with your qualifications has ever done anything like that.» Instead of encouraging these people and setting them free from the weight, do y’all see how simple it is?
If I encourage them and become wind for them, they get to go to atmospheres that everybody else doesn’t get to. The camera didn’t even see it go up! Ah, but the people in this room had a different view. But everybody gets to see you burst something, and too many people would rather weigh down what has the ability to fly, 'cause maybe somebody did it to us. I came to tell you that you were made to go higher, and the truth is that most believers get more enjoyment out of popping people. «You’re not saved enough; that little stunt you pulled—what? You can’t be a pastor; false prophet!» Y’all still go to that church; you used to not go to church. They prayed for you, and you still go to that church. Look at all this fruit around, and you’re not! And this is what most churches look like—all they are left with is a weight and a remnant of what could have been.
And this is what we invite people to come to: «My church, where we destroy people’s potential if it doesn’t have anything to do with the platform. Come to my church if you don’t like this style of music; we won’t like you.» Come on! What if we advertised what it really was: «Come to my church if you still have an addiction; we’ll judge you a lot and say that you need to develop spiritually until you stop coming, and when we see you in the mall, we act like we didn’t know you.» The only people who do this are those who don’t live in joy! But what if, what if we could be a church that put the razors away and picked up the scissors? And some people think the scissors can do the same thing! Yeah, they can! But what if we set whole groups of people free?
What if we went to the root of the issue? What if this was a family? And what if the generational weights they have been going through—I could say, «I know exactly where you’re at; my family went through the same exact thing. I know it’s hard to trust God with your finances, and I know it’s hard to get into community, but we did this before. And today, as a church, y’all should be rejoicing right now, 'cause once that family soars, we find another family and bring them to the house of God and invite them and say, 'Be free; go to the heights that God called you to! '» Some of y’all are worried. «How are they going to come down?» «I hope they don’t!» And what about me? 'Cause the whole time I’ve been setting people free, but some of us are saying, «Will you still do it for me?»
And God’s saying, «I want to! I want to put you on display.» The reason I called you out of your family and brought you from that little obscure place is 'cause I wanted you to be away from the crowd, and I wanted people to see that it’s joy in you—it’s my joy. The helium, Lord, is the joy in you. God says you were meant to fly. This last season wasn’t supposed to deflate you; it just had to separate you from the bundle, 'cause God wanted everybody to see that this next season—I feel this in my spirit—this next season, when God cuts me free from this stuff I’ve been dealing with, I’m going to go exactly where God has called me to go. I’m going to do exactly what—who am I talking to right now? This has been a season. Will you stand all over this place? I feel the presence of God, 'cause fear is not my future! You are not! I just keep hearing that: «Fear is not my future! You are!»
Some of y’all have been so afraid to fly, so you’ve allowed people to weigh you down. Oh my gosh, the reason you became a joy jacker is 'cause you’re scared that you can’t control it up there! Yeah, and so since I don’t know what’s up there, I’ll just stay down here, and I’ll keep everybody else down here. And God says you’re about to get free, and everybody around you is too, 'cause fear is not my future! You are!» If you have been held down by a joy jacker or you’ve been a joy jacker yourself, today I believe prophetically God wants to set you free. If that’s you, all over this building, the carnival is about to happen! We’re going to have the fest, and there are beautiful things that are about to happen in this service. But in this moment, God wants somebody to fly again. It’s already in you! I just literally see it like this. I see it like a scene from that movie «Up.»
I wish I had a house full of balloons right now, but this is going to have to do. This is you, and this whole auditorium and everybody watching online is waiting for me to cut what has the potential to go very high right now. How long do you think God has been waiting? As salvation, you got what you needed! He says, «I’ve given you everything you need to live a godly life. You can fly, baby!» Look at your neighbor and say, «Fly, baby!» Like, fly! This balloon was literally dilapidated and in a shrunk position until it was filled up. It represents the Holy Spirit coming on the inside of you and giving you something. Last week, we saw hundreds of people allow the Holy Spirit to free them in their lives, and many of them got the benefit of speaking in tongues. Fly, baby! But how do we do this? The Bible says, «Keeping our eyes on Jesus.»
I want you to lay aside every weight. This is a beautiful weight, but it is still a weight. I don’t care how decorated your weight is, how fine your weight is, how enjoyable your weight is, or how successful your weight makes you look. It says the way that you’re going to do this is you’re going to lay aside every weight, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. Keeping our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who had to do the same thing. Watch this scripture, last one. It says that when He went to the cross, the only thing that helped Him endure was the joy that was set before Him. Because of the joy set before Him, He endured. I guess the joy of the Lord gave Jesus strength too! What made Him endure? Despising its shame! He said, «How they made fun of me? It doesn’t even matter, 'cause I have joy on the other side of this!»
Jesus said, «Count it!» Today, God wants to set you free to live in joy! I had to do this because this is what joy jackers do. You’ve been cut free from the weight; the weight no longer matters. But somebody is holding you, an idea is holding you, or someone you love is holding you. And just at the moment they get ready to let you go, somebody else does! «Pastor, why are you saying this?» 'Cause today, they are not worth you not going to the heights that God has called you to! Whom the Son sets free is free indeed! Somebody should rejoice, 'cause that’s a prophetic picture of your future! I said, somebody should rejoice because you’re about to be set free in this place!
Somebody should rejoice, 'cause no longer will I stop—I’m going to count! Oh, so you’ve never accepted Jesus? I’m going to give you joy; He has a name: Jesus! Before everybody leaves, listen to me! This is the most important part of the service. If you’re watching online, I need you to know you can receive Jesus right where you are! This decision took me from being a liar, a manipulator, and addicted to pornography, with very dark things in my heart, and it changed me and transformed me into a man that is not perfect but is progressing. I’ve become somebody I never thought I could be. I have flown to places, and I’m talking about spiritually, emotionally, and physically, to places that I never thought I could go because I let Jesus in! And Jesus took me on a journey! I’ve experienced some junk, but I have ended up in joy, and I want to offer that to you in this room, all around the world.
Today, on the count of three, if you want to make Jesus the center of your joy today, all you have to do is raise your hand and identify. Remember, joy is a decision! It’s a decision for Jesus! That’s why David, at his lowest moment, said, «Lord, would you please restore me back to the joy of my salvation?» He put the location on joy: it’s at salvation! If you’ve been living foul, living wrong, living for the wrong thing, being a good person but doing it without God, today I want to let you know all of that doesn’t matter unless you have Jesus.
«Well, Pastor, prove it to me!» I’m a living testimony, and there are hundreds of people in here. If I had time to go through the audience, you would hear bad stuff, but then Jesus—crazy stuff—but then Jesus! Addicted, strung out, in an alternate lifestyle, sexually—but then Jesus! And today, I want to offer you Jesus. If that’s you, I feel the presence of God in this room and online. I need the church to begin to pray. This is why the enemy’s been warring against your life, but today you’re about to come into a relationship with the undefeated champion. Nothing can beat Him; He’s already defeated death, hell, and the grave! You’re about to make the greatest decision of your life! Get ready, 'cause heaven is about to rejoice! Two, I’m proud of you, but more than that, your name is about to be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life!
I see hands going up. Three, if you want to accept Jesus right now. I see you, my brother. I see you, my sister. I see you. I see you, sister. Transformation Church, can we thank God? I see you, my sister. I see you more than I see you. God sees you online. Y’all, we need to rejoice! Oh, did you hear what I said? We need to re— we need to rejoice, and again I say re! That means I need to do that cycle again. I need to get my joy back! If you just prayed that prayer, I want you to lift your hands. And everybody at Transformation Church, let’s lift our hands, 'cause we’re a family; nobody prays alone. I want you to repeat after me:
Thank you, Father, for sending Jesus. Sending Jesus to be the center of my joy, to be the center of my joy. I believe you lived, I believe you lived; you died, and you rose again. You rose again with all power, all power, for every one of my sins, every one of my sins. And today, I surrender my life. Change me, renew me, transform me. I’m yours. Holy Spirit, come in and do your thing. I want fruit in my life, and I want to live. I choose to live in joy. In Jesus' name, Amen!