Joy When You're Hurting

Kylen Perry: All right, Porch. How are we doing tonight? Are we doing okay? It's so good to be here. I'm glad you're in the room with us this evening. For some of you, it's a regular occurrence for you to be here with us on a Tuesday night. Welcome back. Thanks for always giving us your time. For others of you, you're here for the very first time.

Maybe you knew you were coming to it. You're like, "Man, you know what? I've had this marked on my calendar. I was ready to come. I'm in town, so I wanted to make a special appearance." Maybe your friend duped you into being here. I don't know what brought you into the room tonight, but we're really glad you're here, not just those of you here in the room but all of you tuning in online as well.

Thanks for joining in, not just with The Porch but with what God is doing in the lives of young adults here in this ministry, both in Dallas, Texas, and all over the nation. We believe he can be with anybody at any time in any place, and that includes you wherever it is you are right now. Special shout-out to Porch.Live Greater Lafayette, Fort Worth, and Scottsdale. We're really glad y'all are tuning in as well.

Porch, tonight we are continuing in our series Joy, which has been a joy. We have loved this series. I don't know about you. It has been one of my favorites to work through. By way of reading the text and then preaching it to you, God is teaching me as he teaches you, which is always the hope. Along the way, he has brought good friends into the mix of the conversation around this topic, one of which I am very excited for you to hear from tonight.

Tonight, we have not a special guest but a dear friend. Tyler Moffett is going to be preaching to you tonight. Here's why I say he's not a special guest: because he's now a part of the Porch family, folks. He is our new director of discipleship here at The Porch. Would you put your hands together for Tyler Moffett, please? Tyler, you can go ahead and come on up. I wanted Tyler to stand up here with me as I said this to you all.

Jesus says in John 13, "By this they will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Tyler is, in my estimation, the embodiment of that verse. He's an amazing communicator. You're going to see that in a minute. He is an amazing counselor in meeting one on one with people. But when you see the way he interacts with friends to strangers, he emits a love that is characteristically true of Christ himself.

So, brother, welcome to the Porch family. We're so glad to have you here. Here's what I want us to do. I would love for us to pray for Tyler and his family, his wife Jen and his three little kids, as they make their journey here to Dallas in just a few weeks, and then we'll pray for what God is going to do over the course of the evening. Let me pray for it.

God, we are so grateful for the Moffett family, for the fact that you've brought them to us. Tyler and I were just visiting a moment ago, and I think, God, you gave these words because they're true. Here right now, God, we stand at the center of answered prayer and the beginning of something really special. It's not because of anything Tyler brings, nor I bring, God. It's because you're a part of it.

Yet, what I have standing next to me is a very faithful man, a man who wants to follow you, King Jesus, wherever it is you lead, and I praise you that he has followed you here. God, we pray that you would be with them as they make their way to Dallas. We pray, God, that you would go before them and behind them, hem them in on every side, and help them to find home here, not just in our city but amongst these people. Then, God, I pray that you would speak through Tyler tonight to us.

Porch, I want to give you a chance to pray for yourself where you're sitting. Would you pray and ask that God would speak to you tonight? Then, we want to humbly ask that you would pray for Tyler, that God would speak through him and it would be God you hear.

Lord, we love you, and we thank you for Tyler, for these people, and for what you're about to do. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Tyler Moffett: Well, I know we already did this, but you have to understand, for months I've been waiting to be here with you. So, I just want to ask one more time… Porch, how are we doing tonight? Kylen and I have been dreaming and praying about this for a long time, and the fact that this is just a few weeks away is "pinch myself" crazy.

I've spoken here before a few months ago, but I wanted to introduce my family to you. They're still down in Houston where I'm coming from. I was going to show a picture, but I thought the picture is just too cute and normal, and my family is not. So I was thinking about what I could show you, and I thought, "Oh, I know exactly what it is."

A couple of weeks ago, I'm driving home from work, and my family… I have a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a 1-year-old. They're waiting outside to greet me, which is just the best. As I pull in, I roll down the window, and they start dancing. I'm like, "Cool! Unprompted." So, I take out my phone and start video recording it, and then this happens. Just watch this.

[Video]

I'm like, "Jen, what are you teaching these kids when I'm gone?" They're crazy. The reality is we're excited. That crazy crew is excited to be here among the family that's here. One big happy family in Dallas and around the country. We're excited to be here. The reality is I've been praying for you, even as I was driving up 45 today. I know all of us haven't met, but I was just thinking, "God, what is it that you want to do here and around the country through this ministry?" I think the spark of something special is happening here.

If you have a Bible, go ahead and turn in your Bible to James, chapter 1. We're continuing on in the series we've been in over joy. I don't know about you. I mean, people meet me, and they go, "Man, you're such a happy-go-lucky, giddy kind of guy," but I'll be honest. Sometimes when I walk into a church service and I see joy or happiness, or whatever, some weeks I go, "Oh, great. Awesome. I can't wait to talk about being happy, because that's not the week I've had."

I don't know if you've had that, but it's interesting. As we're talking about joy today, joy isn't just every circumstance being great. The Bible actually hits on joy being when the highs are high but also when the lows are low. So, I don't know what you're walking in with tonight, but maybe you're there. Actually, as I was preparing for this, I thought about the last time my family moved. We live in Houston now. We used to live in Nashville, Tennessee.

We moved from Nashville to Houston, and I remember my wife and I divvied up roles. I was like, "All right. I'm going to get the truck. You get the movers." We had a little moving stipend. I said, "Jen, why don't you get the movers." She was like, "All right. I've got it." So, we ready, break. We come back. She's like, "I found some great people." I'm not going to tell you the name, because I don't want to defame anyone, but it has junk in the name. We'll just say that.

She tells me, "I got them, and they're great. Great price and everything." I'm like, "Really? I don't know. This is our stuff." She goes, "No, no, no. Look at the reviews." Like, they actually move stuff, not just junk, and the reviews are good, and the price is amazing. So I was like, "All right. Let's do it." So we hired these movers. I go get the Penske truck. I go bring it back, and these three guys go up. I'm trying so hard as I see them to not judge them. I'm like, "Oh man. I think you guys were just smoking something in the car, but whatever."

They come up, and I'm talking to them, and then they start loading our stuff. I'm disassembling high chairs, and things, and running errands. I come back after running an errand, and they say, "Hey, we finished…sort of." A fourth of our stuff is still out on the front yard. I'm like, "Oh no. This is not good." So, I go and look at the truck, and the truck is filled lengthwise, but it's only filled halfway up.

I go and look, and literally…I am not kidding with you…stuff is thrown into this truck. I know some of you go, "Oh, pastors. You always exaggerate." I have pictures. This is what I saw in the back. Look at this. This is our stuff! I think we have another one. Look at that. I mean, this is amazing. This next one is my favorite picture. I don't know if you can tell. That says "Fragile," and it's upside down in between two other boxes. Then one more. We've got the "Leaning Tower of Pisa" boxes there.

So, I see all this, and I go to the guys. I'm like, "This isn't good. Something is off here." They're like, "I don't know, man. This is just what we do." So I talk to them, and I can't reason with them. I'm like, "Y'all are fired." I call up my dad who lives in Nashville. I'm like, "Dad, this is really bad." He just starts cracking up on the phone. I'm like, "Dad, I'm serious. This is really bad." He's like, "I'll be right over."

He grabs his weight-lifting belt, and he comes to our house. So it's him and me. He surveys it, and he goes, "All right. I've got good news and I've got bad news." He said, "The good news is we're going to get all the stuff in this truck. The bad news is everything has to come out first." I'm like, "Oh." So we start taking everything out. We put everything they placed in the truck out on the yard, and we start the process of loading.

As we start to load the truck, we hear a rumble in the distance. We're like, "You are kidding me." We look at the map. A massive storm is about to hit us. So we're like, "All right. Regroup." We take everything from the front yard and move it to the garage, back up the Penske truck, and go and recruit some neighbors. We're like, "We're going to need help." We load until 10:00 that night, and finally, at the end… I think we have the final picture of what it looked like. We loaded this truck, and look at how much room is left. This is me and my Arnold Schwarzenegger dad right there with his weight-lifting belt.

All right. Why do I tell you that? Because here's the reality while all that was going down. I was working in ministry at the time, but as we're loading this truck, my dad is just cracking up the whole time, and I am about to lose my mind. I'm just losing it, and the whole time I'm going, "This is so dumb. This is so stupid. Why did we let this happen?" I am just angry. The reality is sometimes in life, if we're honest, we go through things that we just go, "This is so meaningless. This is so stupid. This is so dumb."

Maybe, as you look at this week or the past month and look at your life, you go, "Man, there have been times where annoying things have happened in my life." Maybe it's bickering between you and your roommates. You're like, "It's just dumb. Just load the dishwasher. Come on! This is stupid. It's meaningless." Maybe it's arguments with your parents. Maybe it's things at work that aren't going well. Maybe it's a vacation that goes wrong.

Maybe you hear through social media that Luca goes to LA. (Too soon?) You just go, "This is so dumb! This is so stupid." For others of you, though, it's deeper. It's not just dumb. It's not just stupid. It's not just annoying. It's incredibly painful. I mean, some of you, this week, broke up with that person you thought you were going to go the distance with, and you're going, "This hurts so much."

Maybe some of you are looking at your bank account. It's tax day (heads up), and you're going, "Oh, I have to pay the government? I don't even have money, and I have to give it back?" Others of you are looking around at your health, at your body, and you hate the way you look. You hate it. You go, "I just wish I could disappear." For others of you, it's arguments, deep-rooted things with your family, diagnoses you go through, depression, anxiety. Some of you cannot sleep at night, and you're just staring at the ceiling, going, "This is so stupid. I just want to go to sleep."

Here's the reality of all of that and why we're talking about this and why we're in James. What James is going to tell us is there is no aspect of your life, the highest of highs or the lowest of lows, that is in vain. None of it. And every moment you experience in life is to be treated with joy. We're going to unpack that.

So, look at James, chapter 1. We're going to start in verse 1. "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings." So, James starts, and he identifies himself. He says, "I'm James," and he says, "I'm the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." Now, James was the half-brother of Jesus who was skeptical of his brother's divinity early on, which, if you have a brother, is fair. If your brother was claiming to be God, some of you would go, "Yeah. No way. That's not the truth."

Then he saw his brother die and rise again on the third day, and he was like, "All right. I believe you now." James actually becomes one of the leaders of the early church. But notice James doesn't go, "James, brother of the Lord." He says, "Servant of God and of my Lord Jesus Christ." I mean, you talk about an identity change. This man had it.

Then he says, "Here's my audience." He says, "To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion." Now, in Acts, chapter 6, there was a guy named Stephen who got stoned to death because of his faith, and then persecution happened in Jerusalem, and the people in Jerusalem, the believers, get scattered to Judea and Samaria. So, James is writing this letter to Jewish Christians who have been scattered, who have fled their home.

The craziest part is the last word of verse 1. He says, "Greetings." It's the Greek word chairo, which means "Rejoice. Be glad." So, he's writing to people who have had to flee their homes, and he says, "Be glad. Be happy. Rejoice." Then he's going to tell them how. I thought about how, today, we live in a displaced time in society. We live post-COVID, the world we live in, yet the world, our culture, is telling you, "Rejoice. Chairo. Be happy."

I just sat down this week and thought, "All right. What are the ways the world is trying to sell happiness to you?" I came up with five things that conveniently start with P, but you could come up with your own list. I'll go through these quickly. I think the world is selling happiness in one of these five ways.

First is possessions, that possessions will fulfill you. I was just driving last week and saw an Amazon van, and on the van it said, "Warning: contents may cause happiness." I thought, "Yeah, that's it. That's what the world is trying to sell us right there, that possessions will make you happy."

The second is positions, that positions will define you. If you're not happy with your role at work, you need a new role. You're not happy with your job? You need a new job. You're not happy in your singleness? You need to get married. Not happy in your marriage? You need a new marriage or no marriage. Right?

The third is prosperity, that prosperity will satisfy you. If you just had that nest egg… "Man, if the stock market can just bounce back, if my health was better, if this pain was removed, if I could just get a new car or a new phone or a new laptop or a new watch or new clothing, then I would be happy."

The fourth is popularity, that popularity will validate you. Some of you are so hungry to have a platform. You're like, "Once I have a following on social media, then I'll arrive. Once I have a community I can really relax and be myself with, then I'll be happy. Once I'm a local…like, I can walk into the coffee shop and people are like, 'Bro!'…then I've arrived."

The fifth one is pretending, that you pretend in order to guard yourself. "You can't even be happy, so I'm just going to pretend." An ancient Greek philosopher named Epicurus had this philosophy that he called the four-part cure. This was back thousands of years ago. He said there are four things to happiness: Don't fear the gods, because they're distant. Don't worry about death, because it's just the absence of existence. Don't worry about obtaining too much good; just do the normal thing because it'll be easy. What is terrible is easy to endure. Pain is short and bearable, so just pretend. Everything is fine.

So, the culture says possessions, positions, prosperity, popularity, and pretending. You get happiness in one of those ways. James says no, it's none of those. James says the way to happiness is actually through perspective. It's not about what's happening out there that's going to change; it's what happens in here and my outlook at what's happening out there. You go, "James, that's great. How?" Look at James, chapter 1, verse 2.

He says, "Greetings. Chairo. Be glad." Verse 2: "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds…" He says the way to rejoice in all seasons is to count it all joy (that means consider, to lead your mind to a conclusion) when you meet trials of various kinds. He says no matter what you're experiencing in life… Just think about this. This is why when people are like, "Oh, the Bible is such a boring, old, ancient book," I go, "Have you read it?"

James is saying, "All right. You want to have joy? Look around at everything in your life and say, 'I receive this with joy.'" How often do we do that? I'm driving in traffic on the way here, and this truck cuts me off, and I'm like, "Ah!" Then I thought about this message. I'm like, "'Receive it all with joy.' Really? This moment?" He's saying yes, receive it all with joy. Why? Because joy is this.

Theodore Epp essentially says, "Joy doesn't mean we're laughing through trials but that we have deep confidence that God knows what he's doing for his glory and for our good." That's good. Joy is not laughing. "Oh, everything is great." It's not pretending like things aren't existing. Instead, it's saying, "God, in the midst of what's happening right now, I know you're in control. I know it, and I trust that you're working a plan for my good."

He says, "Count it all joy…" Not if you experience trials but when. When the trial comes upon you, rejoice. See, worldly happiness always goes down when circumstances are bad. Always. All of those five things… If your circumstance decreases, your worldly happiness goes down. James is saying in Christianity, your experiences, your environments, your circumstances can get worse and your happiness can increase. How?

Some of you are going through things that you go, "There's no way. There's no possible way I could have joy." He's going to give three reasons why you can. In fact, it's not a suggestion. James is saying it's a command. If you are a believer, then everything in your life should be counted as joy. How? He's going to give three reasons. Here we go. We're going to go through these quickly. Three reasons to count it all joy, everything in your life.

1. There's purpose in pain. Look at James 1:3. "…for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." The first reason is you know that the testing of your faith is producing something. It's producing steadfastness. I've been camping out on those words. "…for you know…" I'm curious. Do you know? When Satan attacks you, the first thing he attacks is your mind.

Think about the garden of Eden. You have Adam and Eve. They're hanging out, and the snake slithers up in the midst of the garden. God has one command: "Don't eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil." The snake slithers up and says, "Did God really say…?" In that moment, Eve should have known. She should have said, "No, I know. I know the truth, and I believe God, not you. Get away from me, Satan."

Instead, she said, "Uh…" and she began to argue with the snake. It eventually convinced her, and she saw the fruit was good, took it, and gave it to her husband, who was chilling, watching his wife talk to a snake, and we know the rest of the story. Yet Satan does the same thing with you. When you're going through a hard time…

When that breakup happens, when that person doesn't text you back, when that job situation fails, Satan starts and goes, "Come on. You knew. You knew you weren't good enough. You knew he never liked you. You knew you didn't add up as a person. You knew God's way wasn't good. Come on, give it up. Give it up." You'd better know truth in that moment to be able to fight back to Satan's lie.

You'd better be able to say Psalm 56:9: "This I know, that God is for me." "It's not true, Satan. It's not true." You'd better be able to say Lamentations 3:21 where Jeremiah is writing. He's writing in the midst of suffering, and then he stops and says, "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in him.'" "I know the truth, and this isn't it."

You'd better be able to say, like Paul in Romans 8, "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." You'd better be able to say, like I read this morning, Psalm 84:11 where it says, "No good thing does he [God] withhold from those who walk uprightly."

"I know this circumstance is bad, but what I know even more is that, God, there's nothing you're trying to withhold from me. I know it. Nothing." James says here, "I know that the testing of faith produces steadfastness." It's producing something. Elisabeth Elliot basically said, "God never wastes a wound."

So, where is life hard right now for you? I want to challenge you to move from asking the question, "Why me? God, why me?" to asking the question, "God, what are you doing in me? If it's true that you're producing something, then what are you doing in me?" Shift your gaze to going, "God, help me see. I know the truth. Help me see it."

Lately, I've been fascinated with a guy named Arthur Brooks. Some of you have heard of Arthur Brooks. He's a Harvard business professor, and he teaches one of the most popular classes at Harvard called Leadership and Happiness, and he's a believer. As I've been listening to him, I'm just fascinated by his approach to life and happiness.

One of the things he does in his class is he has every one of his students come up with a journal. They have to keep a log of every failure and disappointment they have in the course of the class. Under every failure and every disappointment, they have to put two lines. For the first line, they write a month later something they learned from this disappointment. For the second line, they write three months later a good thing that came from this failure or hardship.

He said as great as the class is, the number-one takeaway for students is when they do that failure and disappointment log, because they begin to see, "Oh, wait. This is producing something." He has a line at the end. He says, "Never waste your suffering. It's an opportunity to learn." It's interesting. I got to go on the team leader retreat for Porch leaders here a couple of weeks ago, and Kylen went around… He said, "Everyone in the circle go around, and what was the time in your life when you felt closest to God?"

So we went around the circle. We had things like, "Oh, when I got baptized" or "When I was discipled." Then, all of a sudden, the mood began to shift. Someone said, "It was actually when I was broken up with. It was so hard, but I realized that was an idol, and God met me there." Then someone else said, "You know, when my parent died, and in the midst of that difficulty, God met me there."

Another person was like, "You'll never believe it, but it was when I was caught in the midst of hidden sin and brought that thing to the light, and then community surrounded me, and I felt so near God." Then I went, and I'm like, "Yeah, I remember when my son was in the NICU. So difficult, but God met me there." It's often in the midst of our hardship that we're learning, we're growing. It's producing something.

Last story here. There's a lady in our church I met with last week who, over the past two years, has gone through incredible suffering. She and her husband have been battling infertility for years. Then two years ago, first, a bunch of loved ones died in succession. Then right after that, she got pregnant. She was like, "Wow, God! You're bringing beauty from ashes."

Then her husband had pretty intense surgery, and then she had a miscarriage. Then her husband had complications from the surgery. She had to drive him to the ER while miscarrying their baby. She said, "Tyler, I've gone through incredible pain." Our church down in Houston has a prayer room. Every weekday for two years, this woman would go to the prayer room from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and sit and cry and pray with God. Two years.

She said, "Tyler, as I've been pouring myself out before God, here has been my prayer. My prayer has been, 'God, override my heart and give me your desire.'" She said, "I want my guts to match yours." Who prays like that? Do you know who prays like that? It's somebody who has been through the fire, and even though wanting to throw in the towel and say, "God, why me?" instead turns it to, "God, what are you doing in me? What are you doing?"

All of a sudden, you begin to pray like this book. Your life begins to look… It doesn't mean life is easy. She hasn't had a baby. Life is not all perfect, but this past Sunday, she helped lead a Palm Sunday gathering for women, and she sang and led worship about the goodness of God. She was telling me in tears a couple of days ago, "God is so good, Tyler. God is so good." I go, "Man, I want some of that."

You get that through the fire. Don't buy the lie that your suffering is meaningless. It's not. It's producing something in you if you will hold on. That's the first thing. James says, "You want to be able to count it all joy? You need to see your suffering is producing something. There's purpose in the pain."

2. There's perfection in the process. Let's keep reading. Look at verse 4. "And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." This is a crazy verse. Think about that. He says, "Count it all joy in suffering. Suffering is producing steadfastness." Verse 4: "And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

So, he's saying as you go through suffering and God is producing something in you, you're on the road to perfection. You go, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Perfect? Nobody is perfect." This word in Greek for perfect is the word teleios, which means whole or mature. He's going, "As you go through suffering, you're becoming a whole person."

I love what Tim Mackie says. He essentially says, "In biblical Greek, this word teleios refers to wholeness. It means living a completely integrated life where your actions are always consistent with the values and belief that you received from Jesus. Most of us actually live as fractured people with big inconsistencies in our character. We are all more compromised than we want to admit. However, God is on a mission to restore fractured people and make them whole."

See, God is not just trying to get you through your trial; he's trying to grow you in the midst of it. Oftentimes, the great refining moment of our lives is when we go through a trial. Why? Because adversity introduces you to yourself. What do I mean by that? Adversity introduces you to yourself. I was talking with someone last week. I was listening to him, and he was saying that we live in an age where… He calls it an hour of fragmentation.

He said we live in a day and age where everybody is double-minded. I said, "What do you mean?" He said it's the idea of… This is a simple example, but it's like when you ask someone, "Hey, do you want to go to this thing?" and they say, "Well, part of me does, and part of me doesn't." Have you ever done that? "Part of me does, but I don't know; part of me doesn't." That's the idea of living fragmented. That's a simple example. We all do that.

The problem is when you live your whole life, and in every conversation you're going, "Should I show up as this person or should I show up as this person?" You begin to wonder, "Who am I really?" In the moment of trial, adversity introduces you to yourself. You find out who you really are. So I'm curious. Where is your life fractured? Where are you living in such a way where you're showing up as different people in different environments, and where is God inviting you to be more whole?

As I'm leaving the church down in Houston, I'm having a lot of conversations with people, close friends, as we say our goodbyes. One of the things I do with everybody who's close… I ask them at the end a really risky question. Really risky. I say, "Hey, what is one thing that you are praying God grows in me over the next year?" It's a risky question because people who love you will tell you the truth. I've had a couple of people who have loved me and told me the truth, and it has hurt.

One of the things I've heard now multiple times… I just heard it again last week. I sat down with this one guy. "Hey, what's one thing you're praying God grows in me?" He goes, "Tyler, I'm praying that you would become more vulnerable when you go up to Dallas, that you open up more to your community." I'll be honest. When I hear that, it stings, because I so badly want to be a vulnerable person. I don't want to have anything hidden. I just want to be real.

So I'm calling mentors. I'm meeting with them at their house. I'm texting different guys every day. I'm trying to get staff and people in my world to speak into my life, yet, as I really sat with the Lord with that question, I realized, "Wow! I actually think part of it's true." I remember talking to one guy, and he said, "You know, one problem with you, Tyler, is you're such a good listener. You ask a bunch of good questions, but you never turn it back on yourself."

I realized often, for me, I'm thinking about that other person kind of because I care about them, but also kind of because I want them to like me, and I have to think, "Who do I need to be in this conversation so that you like me back? Whatever clues I'm getting, I'm just going to use that in this conversation." I very rarely go, "Can I just be super raw and real with you?"

So, as I've been sitting with that, I realized… We've been trying to sell our house down in Houston and find something up here, and there has been some adversity. As the adversity has hit me, the real Tyler has come out, mostly in my home. As the real Tyler has come out, it has been this confrontation of like, "Oh! Wow, there's so much work to do."

I mean, I joked about getting cut off, but on the way up, I got cut off by a semi, and everything in me wanted to be like, "What?!" Honk! And just realizing, "Oh, okay." I don't think it's wrong to honk. We're Texans. It's okay to honk, but maybe the words you would say along with the honk or the finger… Maybe not. Not me…you.

In that moment, God is giving you a gift, because he's showing you in our hour of fragmentation who you really are. It's only when you know and are honest with God, like, "Here's where I am," that he can go, "I can deal with that. I can deal with who you really are. I can't deal with this fake mess you're pulling off with showing up this way and this way and this way." You just have to be real.

Integrity means integer of one, where you live your life like, "Here's who I am." Adversity introduces you to yourself. Where in your life are you going through adversity right now that you're so ready to get through? "This is so stupid. I just want to make it through." Maybe God is going, "I'm seeing who you really are, and I'm wanting to deal with it. I'm not going to move you out of this season until I deal with this."

Some of you don't just need to wait for the trial to come to you. Some of you need to go and ask the risky question I've been asking to community you trust. "Hey, what's one thing you're praying God grows in me?" Allow them to be honest, and receive it when it comes. There's purpose in pain. That's why we can have joy in suffering: there's purpose. There's perfection in the process.

3. There's a promise in the end. Look at James 1:12. I love this verse. If you underline in your Bible, I would underline this verse. "Blessed [happy] is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him." I love this verse.

James says blessed, happy, spiritually rich, successful in God's eyes, is not the one who makes it through this life with no suffering and no hardship. "Everything was great. I met the special someone and lived in the gated community. I died in my sleep and just levitated to heaven and everything was perfect. Oh, what a blessed life. You just did it." He goes, "No. In my eyes, that's not the blessed life."

Do you know what the blessed life is according to this verse? The one who's steadfast under trial, the one who had it hard and stood close with Jesus. You just abided with him. You didn't leave. You said, "Jesus, you're all I have, and you're all I want, so I'm just going to hold fast to you even though I don't have any answers." He goes, "Man! That's the one who's spiritually rich in my eyes." That's the one who's successful, and heaven goes, "Wow! #Blessed" for that person. Isn't that crazy?

You know, I was thinking. He says not only are you blessed, but you receive the crown of life. I've been thinking, "What is the crown of life? What must that be?" The reality is it's not so much a ruler's crown; it's a victor's wreath. It's like in the Olympics when they would finish the marathon, or whatever, and they'd receive the wreath. That's the idea of this crown. It's this idea of eternal reward, eternal life. You made it. You did it. You stayed close to Jesus.

There's something about getting that wreath, getting that reward, that puts all the rest of your life in perspective. I mean, we just saw this on Sunday. For those of you who watched the Masters… I don't know how many of you watched it. If you're going to watch a Masters, this was the one to watch. You've got Rory McIlroy, and he's amazing. He has won them all except he can't win the Masters. In fact, he hasn't won a major in 11 years. The guy is cursed. He can't do it. He fails under pressure.

The first three days, he's doing great. He's killing it, the best match. But it's the final day. Oh boy, Rory. Your lead is going to go away. He has to fight the mental battles. He gets up. First hole, what happens? Double bogey. Just totally "Ah!" Everyone is like, "We knew it. He's a failure." Then he starts to get back. Then on the thirteenth hole he hits it in the water, and everyone is like, "Oh, see? Knew he was going to blow it in the end." But then he makes his way back.

Eighteenth hole. He hits this little putt that you and I could hit, and he misses it. Everyone is like, "Oh, we knew it." Then it goes into the playoffs, and he has to play the same hole he just blew it on except this time, first shot, he kills it. Second shot, right on the money. Then the third, he just knocks it in. What is the first thing he does? The first thing he does is fall on the ground and start sobbing after he gets the Masters.

They asked him after the match, "What did you feel?" and he said, "This was the best day of my golfing life." Really? You hit it in the water. You double bogeyed on the beginning. You missed the shot that any of us could have made. Really? The best day of your golfing life? Why? Because he got the crown. He made it. He did it, and it put in perspective all the hardship to where he went, "It was all painting this portrait that I can now see. If I went back, would I do it differently? Yeah, maybe, but I want this. This is what it's all about." It puts everything in perspective.

The interesting thing is as great as that story is (and whoop to Rory), the reality is… Look at who it says the crown of life is promised to. It doesn't say the crown of life is promised to the one who nails it. It doesn't even say the crown of life is promised to the one who endures to the end, who believes, who doesn't deny Jesus. It doesn't say any of that. It just says it's promised to the one who loves him. That's it.

I love the simplicity of that. What is James saying here? What's God saying here? The crown of life is not earned at the end by just suffering through it. "Oh, just bear it." It's this idea of "God, in the midst of everything, I just love you. I just love you. I've made the decision. I've crossed over the line, and now, no matter what happens in life, I'm not leaving you. I'm not leaving."

Some of you need to hear tonight in our Joy series, where you're going, "Oh, I don't want to see the sunflowers anymore…" You may not have strength to endure. You may not have hope inside you. Do you have love in your heart for the man who has shown love for you first? Do you go, "I don't have any answers. I don't know anything else. I just love him, and everything else is secondary to that"?

The night before Jesus died, Jesus told his disciples something interesting. In John 15:11, he says, "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." I've been thinking about this. Jesus is God. The fruit of the Spirit comes from God, and one fruit of the Spirit is joy.

I think Jesus was the most joyful human being to ever live, yet it says in Isaiah 52, "He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief." The shortest verse in the whole Bible is John 11:35. For some of you, it's the only verse you've ever memorized. Good for you. You have one memorized. If not, you can memorize it tonight. It's "Jesus wept." This is a man who was filled with joy yet felt every emotion.

On the way to the cross… In Hebrews, chapter 12, it says, "For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising its shame, and now he's seated in heaven." Not only did Jesus feel all the emotion of being a human being and experience the fullness of having the joy that God has, but he looked at the cross, and he was able to see the purpose, and he was able to embrace the shame and enjoy… He said, "Father, out of love for you I endure this."

I think some of you… Jesus is not only the means of your joy, but he's the primary, ultimate model of it. When you're in the midst of the darkness, looking to the man… This is Holy Week. This is when we celebrate what Jesus did. You go, "God, I've got nothing to give, but I'm looking at the God-man on the tree, who for the joy set before him endured that cross, despising its shame, to the glory of his Father and to empower us, to fill us with his Spirit such that we can do the same."

I want to end with this last story before we worship again. I heard this story years ago. I've had this prayer up in my office for years, and I've thought about it again. There's a little bit of legend with this. Around the 1980s, there was a man in Rwanda who loved Jesus. The rest of his tribe came to him and said, "You either deny Jesus or we will kill you." The man said, "I will never deny Jesus. Do with me what you will."

That very day, they killed him. Done. What's crazy is when they went back to his room, they found the prayer he had written. Every few months, I go back and read this prayer, because on the day of trial, which is coming for all of us… Some of us are in it. For some of us it's coming. Where will you run to, and what will you say? I hope there's a level of what this prayer says that's in your vocabulary. The prayer says this. He had written this the night before he died.

He said, "I am part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have Holy Spirit power. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of his. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed. My present makes sense. My future is secure.

I'm finished with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, worldly talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals. I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudity, or popularity. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on his presence, walk by patience, am uplifted by prayer, and labor by power.

My pace is set. My gait is fast. My goal is heaven. My road is narrow. My way rough. My companions few. My guide is reliable and my mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded, or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the adversary, negotiate at the table of the enemy, pander at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.

I won't give up, shut up, let up, until I've stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, preached up for the cause of Christ. I must go till he comes, give till I drop, preach till all know, and work till he stops me. And when he comes for his own, he will have no problem recognizing me. My banner will be clear! I am a disciple of Jesus." Then the next day, he died for the one he loved.

For some of you, the moment of stepping over the line has not really happened in your life. You've been meandering in the maze of mediocrity. You've ben pandering in the pool of popularity. You've just been living in that, and it's sucking all the joy out of you. You're trying to get it from all of these things, and Jesus is saying, "Listen. I'm here, and I want to give you my joy. It's through the road of suffering, not around it, but with me you can make it through."

Maybe, for some of you, it's tonight going, "I'm in. I've crossed over the line. The decision has been made. I'm a disciple of Jesus, and joy comes through knowing him." Here in a minute, I'm going to pray, and then there are going to be people up here. Let's commune with God. Let's not make this just another throwaway moment of transition. Let's actually talk to the one we love. Would you close your eyes? Let's pray.

Father, it's our joy to be near you. You are the treasure on the field worth selling everything for. Father, I just pray in your name that you would stir up in us a deep desire to know you no matter what it costs. Father, I just believe there are young adults across Dallas and across this country who are sick of the lie of the Enemy and the lie of our culture that says, "If you just had this, then you would be happy," and some are going, "No, no, no. I know better than that. That thing, that person, that career will not satisfy me. I need you, yet I've never felt you enough, God, where you really supply that kind of deep-hearted trust and joy."

God, I just pray by the miracle of your Spirit that, for some of us, that would happen tonight. You would infuse us with such joy that all of our lives would be impacted, not with giddy laughing but with a deep-seated trust that you are God and we are not. Come, Holy Spirit. Invade this place and infuse our hearts with that kind of joy. We love you and we trust you. In Jesus' name, amen.