Speaker: Good morning Church.
Good morning.
Tried something different this morning.
I decided to come from the back and come out during that last song.
I, uh, never want to be on stage when others are singing
because I am not a singer.
I, uh, you know, you can't have every gift and, uh, that's just one I don't have.
And, uh, so I looked around, made sure there were no microphones close to me, and
that I got far enough away from the other singers so that I wouldn't throw 'em off.
That's why usually I always sit on the front row so nobody had, will be in
front of me and, and, and I sing loud.
And every once in a while, if I ever see any, any singers looking at me
while from the stage, then I know I need to take it down a little bit.
So, 'cause I'm throwing 'em off.
But, uh, this morning I'm talk, talking about happiness.
Turn your Bibles over in Philippians chapter four.
It's a great passage.
And, uh, you know, when you're a preacher, you want to sort of be in the mood
for whatever you're preaching about.
And you know, when, when you're, when you're preaching about.
The cross and suffering and that kind of thing.
Usually there's something in your life that's tough and you, you can
tap into suffering and you can relate.
Well, you know, I thought, this is, this weekend's my birthday on
Friday, it was my birthday and so I'm gonna be happy, you know, and
so I'm gonna preach about happiness.
And then yesterday happened and you know, you know the phrase Act your age.
You know, I didn't act my age.
I'm climbing up and down this, uh, r this dri this river, uh, marshy, uh,
creek bed, picking up trash and taking it back up the hill and, and back down.
And, you know, we drug up some, some old lawn furniture.
We drug up some baby.
Uh uh.
You know, carriage things, I don't know what it's called.
It was so deteriorated.
It was almost unrecognizable.
We, we, we drug up a, a tabletop and, uh, you know, I thought, you know,
the idea was we'll drag it up to the trail and then we'll take our trash
bags to the church and we'll get some young people to drag that stuff and
I'll, they can throw it in my truck.
Well.
The, the, the sister and, and brother that were with us, Cathy
and I and Matt, uh, Thomas and, uh, Dion Perry, they, they wanted us
to just go ahead and take it now.
Oh.
Okay.
And so we put our trash bags on the chairs and we're dragging 'em.
And you know, every once in a while I'd stop and I'd say,
it's okay, you guys keep going.
You know?
And finally we got it in and we, we, we, we hauled it off.
And, and the, and I came here to the church.
Came to the church, and we unloaded.
And I was so excited and I, I thought, wow.
I, I, I, I did a lot better than I thought I do.
I, I'm not, as, you know, uh, weak as I thought.
And then I woke up this morning.
And my knee's killing me.
My back's killing me.
And my, my daughter said, dad, don't ever talk about your age when you're preaching.
You look younger than you are.
And I, well, thanks, babe, but this morning I don't feel as young as I look,
and I did not act my age yesterday.
And I should have, uh, paced myself a little bit.
But it was worth it, wasn't it?
Yes.
I mean, there's something, I just walked away feeling so
good that I cleaned up nature.
I got that garbage out of there, you know?
Now it's, now it's pristine again.
At least for a mile, you know, at least for a mile.
Yeah.
And I, I, I, uh, I, I know that, uh, when I'm gonna preach about
something, God puts me through things.
So I need to really live what I'm preaching.
So the things I'm gonna say today are the things that I've been doing to be happy.
And God gave me a really sweet gift this morning.
I was up early, I was praying, I was reading my Bible, I was
going through my notes, and then our little of 16 month old.
Came into the living room where I was, and there's no music or anything, but
she starts dancing and she sticked out, stuck out her little bottom and she's,
she's just going around in a circle.
In a circle.
And her dad came in and he thought it was so funny, he started
filming her and I said, you need to turn on some music for her.
She's got the beat, but she needs a little music.
So he turns on some music on his phone and she just went and went.
And I thought.
That's the happiness that I can preach about this morning.
All right?
But it's also the reason I don't dance much, because I don't want
to look like that when I dance.
It's cute on a baby, but anybody older, it's not that cute.
All right.
Let's talk about happiness, the secret of happiness.
I'm telling you where I'm going before I even get there.
Okay.
Happiness.
These are some of the thoughts just out of the scriptures.
Okay.
I'm gonna bring in a little bit of my experience as a counselor.
Some of the things I've researched, some of the things I've studied, but
this just comes from the word of God.
So we know it's true and we know it's gonna be helpful for us.
These nine things, and I picked nine 'cause there's nine
verses, and I don't like nine.
I want seven.
The perfect number, I want three, I want five.
But nine just seemed odd and I almost took a few out, but I
decided I gotta preach the word.
I gotta stick with it.
So here it is.
Wow.
Outward concern fuels happiness.
Happiness is learned and decided.
It's a state of mind.
Share your happiness.
Create happy memories, help helping brings happiness.
That's what we did yesterday.
Happiness comes around.
And background and happiness is a gift for mothers, and it's a gift from God.
So let's dive in here in the scriptures in Philippians four and verse 10.
Let's say a little prayer before we get going.
God and Father, I pray that you'd bless this auditorium and not just
us as a community of faith, but each and every individual I know every
person goes through different things.
Some of us may have had great weeks, some of us may have not had so great weeks.
And so Father, I pray for your spirit to be moving in this room,
moving among us to meet the needs.
I pray that the spirit would meet all the needs, even if the words
that I share aren't as helpful.
I pray for you to work powerfully in each person so needs can be met this morning.
We love your word and we cherish it, and we're gonna look at it this
morning, so it has a spiritual impact upon each one of us in Jesus' name.
We pray.
Amen.
Philippians four verse 10.
This is Paul speaking.
He says, I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you
renewed your concern for me.
Indeed, you were concerned but you had no opportunity to show it.
The Philippians concern for the apostle Paul comforts him.
Now what's going on with Paul here in Philippians?
He's in jail.
He's older.
He's lived a great life.
He's planted a bunch of churches, but, and he's talking about joy,
and I think he's talking about it.
He's writing about it because he wants the church to be happy, but I think
he wants to lift his own spirits.
You know, John the Baptist, when he was in prison, he sent word to Jesus,
tell me that my life was worth it.
Yeah, tell me that I haven't wasted my life preparing the way
for you, tell me some good news.
And so Jesus sent messengers back to John and said, tell him that the, the
sick are healed and the hungry or fed, and the good news of Jesus is true.
Just to confirm John, while he was in prison.
That everything his he had worked for his life had the meaning that he expected.
And so Paul is sort of preaching to himself, I think.
I think he's telling himself, you know, there's a lot of things
in my life I can be happy about.
You know that Philippian Church is an amazing church.
It's sort of like the Orange County Church, the OC Church.
It's a great church, and they have always shown their concern.
He's gonna get specific and tell us how that they encouraged him.
But the first thing.
He says is you got to be outwardly concerned for others
and not just look inward.
Sometimes when we get down, we navel gaze.
You know what I mean?
We look inside and looking inside's, okay, but you can get stuck looking inside.
Yeah, you gotta, you gotta look outside of yourself at times.
And as a counselor, I want my clients to, to have what's called social concern.
To look outward and personal concern to look inwards.
You gotta have a balance of both.
You can't have one or the other.
And if you've been looking on, uh, social media today,
there's this 5 3 1 rule, right?
Anybody heard of it?
Huh?
Yes.
Raise your hand if you have.
Oh, you guys gotta get on social media.
You're not with it, right?
I'm not on it that much and I found this.
Okay, well, the 5 3 1 rule is this.
It's saying you've gotta have social interaction.
If you don't have social interaction, you're, it's, you're not gonna be healthy,
you're not gonna be, well, you can have a tendency to be depressed and anxious.
So the 5 3 1 rule.
According to a researcher in England and also a research researcher
here in America, confirmed it that you need to have sort of
five meetings a week with people.
You need to get out, you need to go to church.
If you go to church a couple of times, there's two of them.
You only need three more.
You go to work and you don't just go to your cubicle and pull into yourself,
maybe go to lunch with somebody.
There's a third one, you know?
And then when you come home, if you walk the neighborhood and you stop
and start talking to some of the kids on the street or some of your
neighbors, there's another one.
And then on, on Friday or Saturday or you know, or Sunday, you go to
a park and you meet some people and you hang out and you get talking.
You gotta have five interactions every week according to research,
or you're not gonna be well.
And then it says you need to have three deeper conversations where you get
real and you share what you're feeling.
And you know, there's two things about feelings.
Feelings is a a, uh.
It's a right brain thing.
You know, there's left brainers and there's right brainers.
The left brainers are the engineers.
The right brainers are the artists, you know.
But the right brain is where you hold your emotion.
And if you don't get enough sleep, the right and the left connect during
your sleep and you process your emotions that you had during the day.
So if you're not getting a whole lot of sleep because you're staying
up too long, playing video games.
You're not gonna process your emotions, you're gonna be emotionally stunted.
All right?
And so get that sleep.
I sound like your your mom and dad now, don't I?
All right.
But it's healthy.
It's healthy for us to get enough sleep.
I used to not get enough sleep.
I used to pride myself.
I can live on four or five hours.
That's not good.
You need seven or eight.
I have a friend, Jay, uh, Kelly.
He said, Greg, I've done this study.
You gotta get eight hours of sleep and you can, if you'll get eight hours
of sleep every night of the of your life, then you can live to a hundred.
Well, Jay, I don't wanna live to a hundred.
How about 85, 7 hours of sleep?
Will that work?
He's gonna live to a hundred.
I know he is.
He's done all this research and that's one of the things, sleep eight hours.
But I am wanting you to get enough sleep.
So you can process all of your emotions because if you don't process
those emotions at night, if you're right and your left brain aren't
connected, and guys, guess what?
We don't have as many circuits that are connecting our right and
left together as much as the women.
You ladies might not even need as much sleep as US men because you
have better connections Right.
And left brain.
And you already knew that already, right?
Yeah.
And, and, and that's just one of those things.
That's why men aren't as emotional, but we do need to process our emotions.
So three conversations and then one hour a day talk to someone else.
At least a full hour.
You know, maybe it's over the phone, maybe it's FaceTime.
It's better face to face, but 5, 3, 2, uh, 5, 3, 1 rule.
All right, next verse verse 12.
It says, I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to be plenty.
Have plenty.
I have learned the secret here it is of being content in any and every
situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
Contentment does not come from our circumstances.
Listen to this, but from our state of mind, contentment is the ability
to express joy, whether hungry or well fed, solvent or insolvent.
It, the circumstances of our lives go up and down, don't they?
Yes.
You can even be at a nice restaurant and not be well fed.
We, my family took me out.
Our tradition is to take the birthday person to whatever restaurant they want.
I always want to go to Cheesecake Factory, you know, and you know why, right?
Yeah.
'cause of the cheesecake, right?
But I always get.
Cajun Jamal Pasta.
You know, I, when they re recruited me to LA years ago, they took me to
cheese cat cake, and they said, you gotta get the Cajun Jamal pasta.
I did.
I got hooked.
I came to LA and I've been happier ever since, especially having
King Cajun Jamal Pasta and here in Orange County, they don't shrimp.
I, uh.
Yeah, that's the right word.
They put a lot of shrimp and chicken and, and meat in there.
Some of the other cheesecakes factories don't put as much, so I
like it down here in Orange County.
Right.
We used to meet at the one at Mission Viejo.
My, our family would come up from San Diego and we'd come down and we'd meet
there, and so that's a, a personal story.
You're not interested.
I'm moving on.
All right.
Happiness is a state of mind.
You know, we waited a long time for our food, and when you have a 16 month old
and a 4-year-old, they don't like to wait.
And by the time the food got there, my food was great.
Kathy's food was great, but one of the plates was cold.
And it was really cold.
And when you pay as much as Cheesecake Factory, pricess, you don't like cold.
And so they took it back.
They reheated it, they apologized.
We had a great evening, but then the kids were so restless, uh, the
little baby needed to go out for a little while, and she fell down on
the sidewalk and cut her little eye.
Oh.
And I thought, oh man, they try to encourage me.
They take me out and something bad happens.
But this morning she was dancing.
She didn't care.
I've been feeling guilty that they celebrated my birthday and baby got hurt.
I felt really bad about that.
I thought, oh, that we shouldn't have gone.
Here I am being selfish and baby gets hurt, right?
Circumstances gonna up go up and down, right?
And you're sitting there thinking, Greg, they don't
connect, that don't be illogical.
All of us are illogical.
It's called nonsensical logic.
Everybody has some nonsense in their thinking and they connect dots
that shouldn't be connected, and that's what makes us crazy at times.
All right?
That's why we gotta get our stinking thinking straight.
Amen.
Here's a few secrets of happiness.
Shrink the problem.
You know, when you talk about your problem, what happens
gets bigger and bigger.
And we even sometimes are so dramatic and PR passionate about it.
'cause we want people to share in our misery.
We want 'em to join our pity party.
I mean, feel sorry for me.
It's tough, right?
And so we share with all this energy and passion and we're, we're expanding
the problem instead of shrinking it.
And you know, as a dad, I'm always trying to help my kids and shrink
their problem and they're like, dad.
I didn't ask you for a solution.
I just wanted you to listen.
Well, I got flooded by all that emotion the first three minutes.
I'm trying to just manage here.
All right.
Shrink the problem guys.
Don't let it expand solutions.
Listen to solutions and think about how you can fix things,
not just let it get bigger.
Here's a good one.
Remove the pile.
Think about your house, your desk, your car, your garage.
Think about it.
Is there just clutter?
You know, I didn't clean my garage like the first year we moved in up in Antelope
Valley and every time I pulled my car in, I'd get this tension in my neck.
And I'm like, I gotta clean this garage.
This is a mess.
I can barely get my car in here.
I'm gonna hit something.
Oh my goodness.
But I just didn't do it.
I, I was too spiritual.
I'm doing God's work.
I don't have time to do this, you know, but it would stress me out.
And then one day I decided I'm doing it.
And one of my kids helped me and we cleaned it up.
We put up some racks.
One of the brothers came over, we got all organized, and then every time
I'd pull in the driveway, I'd just have this, I'd take this deep breath.
Wow, what a great garage.
Wow.
This is an organized ground.
And then I then, uh, Al Baird came over one night for dinner.
And he saw my garage door up and he said, I've never seen such an organized garage.
And I thought, yeah, I got a pretty organized garage.
See, I got out from under the pile, I dealt with the stack.
Sometimes you just gotta get rid of that clutter, get rid of that stack,
and you're just gonna feel better.
And sometimes it can be little stacks or sometimes they're big
stacks of to do things, but remove the pile express to decompress.
If you don't express, then you keep it inside and it starts overflowing.
Sleep on it.
There's times I get all stretched out and worried and I've just
decided, nope, I'm gonna sleep on it.
Gonna give it over to God.
I say a good prayer before I go to bed.
I go to bed, I sleep, I wake up.
And sometimes I wake up with a solution and a lot of times I
just wake up feeling different.
Like, this guy, you know, didn't fall.
I thought it was gonna fall.
It didn't fall.
A new day makes things look different.
Sleep on it guys.
Eight hours.
Okay, see how that ties together?
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
I led a group, it's called the DBT Skills, dialectical Behavioral Techniques,
and it's all about mindfulness.
And I've learned all these type techniques from, uh, uh, professional
wrote a book on it named Marsha Lineman, and so I got into teaching
this and it's for folks with severe mental illness, one of the more severe.
Uh, issues.
And so these were some of the sickest patients I had.
But I love some of this mindfulness stuff because I'm a wound tight guy.
I'm a hyper on two guy.
Some of you are like me.
You're a little weird too.
I wasn't talking to you, Sam.
Don't, don't, you didn't have, I didn't mean to look at you straight.
Alright.
No, he's playing with me.
Right, but guys, sleep on it.
It does make a difference.
Next scripture.
Verse 11.
I'm not saying this because I'm in need.
No, you're saying it 'cause you'd like help.
I'm not saying it 'cause I'm in need for, I have learned to be content,
whatever the circumstances really.
Okay.
The church provided for Paul's needs and so he expressed his gratitude.
Paul had also learned contentment.
There's a great verse I looked up this morning, Psalms 37, verse 25.
I've been young and I've been old and I've never seen the righteous
abandoned, so I read the whole chapter.
So encouraging.
It was so encouraging.
Read Psalm 37 to get some encouragement, but that verse.
It plays in my head.
I've been young and I've been old, and God's always taken care of me
and most of us that are Christians in here can say that God is good.
God is fair.
I haven't had an over in abundance, but I've never had too little.
God's always been there.
He cares.
He's faithful.
He's good, and I've learned that over the years, and I want
to just share it this morning.
But contentment can come in a lot of ways.
Guys, I want you to get the attitude of, you know, this is the year of yes.
I'm not gonna let you forget that.
This is the year of Yes.
And one of the things you need to say during the year of yes
is I can, don't say, I can't, definitely don't say I won't.
Don't be stubborn, but say you can be positive.
Be hopeful and the way to be content, and Paul's gonna share this is simplify.
Simplify your life.
Whenever I'm just running too much and I'm too busy and it's just
from one thing to another, I get stressed and I'm not as happy.
I need to realize that.
I just need to simplify and I'm gonna simplify.
Today.
Usually I fill up Sundays.
Because I'm gonna maybe take a little time off on Monday, which I usually
don't get to take that much time off on Monday, but I've decided I'm gonna
watch the Rams game and I'm gonna be happy whether they win or lose.
All right.
I, you know, I'm just gonna be happy and I'm even gonna invite myself
over to someone's house to watch it.
I live with my daughter.
Uh, the, the, the TV in the den is always on Bluey or on something else.
You know, it's a kid's show and I've learned a lot from Bluey.
He's, he's funny.
He's good, right?
But I wanna watch the game and I can go in our room and we have a tv,
but I'd rather be with some bros.
And so, uh, invite me after service.
All right?
Because I can, I will.
But simplify.
I can do it.
Diversify.
I can do something else.
I don't have to have it the way I think I do.
Like this morning, we, we didn't have all the instruments and
I walked in and I, I had this expectation of all the instruments
and I was looking forward to it.
And I like to rock.
And it was a great service.
'cause Dallas is so good, isn't he?
I mean, if you have Dallas, you don't need anything else.
I mean, I, excuse me.
We need all of you worship leaders.
Excuse me.
We need all of you.
All right.
We're gonna have a boycott after I'm done.
But we can always do something else and make it work and God can bless it.
Diversify, modify.
I can wait till later.
All right.
I don't have to have it now.
Amplify.
I can enjoy, uh, what I have.
I put want there.
What?
All right.
It.
Verse 14.
Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles the church shared.
It's, this is one place Paul felt safe, the Philippian Church, and
so he's writing this letter to him.
And guys, we need to get good at sharing ourselves with others first.
Share yourself with me, myself, and I What?
Yeah, share the honest truth with yourself.
Don't be in denial.
Tell yourself the truth and, and secondly, be social.
You, me and them.
Don't keep secrets.
Trust somebody.
Share what you're really feeling, and you may not think they relate.
I'm sure they relate more than you think, and it's just gonna relieve you.
It's gonna get it out of you.
It's gonna help you be honest with others.
And then be honest with God.
Pray with somebody.
You know, I've been, I've been asking people in the groups I'm with.
Pray for the person next to you.
Don't pray for yourself.
Pray for them, and then pray for the next one.
And, and just by us going around the circle praying for each other,
there's a different spirit than you just praying for yourself.
And when you hear someone praying for you, doesn't it melt your heart?
Doesn't it fill your spirit?
I mean, I was on a call with some people that I, that don't really
even know me that well, and one of 'em was praying for me and I, and I,
and I'm glad it was on Zoom 'cause I got all teared up and choked up.
I thought, how, how do they know what to pray for?
The Holy Spirit must be whispered to them, but that's right on.
Thank you God.
And so before the prayer was, before the prayer call was over,
we had another ti time to pray.
And I prayed for that person and I don't even know 'em they live in, in Nashville.
But I prayed for 'em because they prayed for me.
That makes what makes the world go round, guys, this communal prayer for others.
Amen.
And then he says in the next verse, and this is good stuff, verse 13,
I can do all things through him.
Who gives me strength?
This is the secret.
When he says, I've learned the secret.
He shared it with us a couple verses later.
I have learned the secret of being content.
Have you learned it?
It's earlier in this chapter when he says, rejoice always again, I'll say it.
Rejoice.
Be happy.
He says Whatever you have, any anxieties, any worries.
Take 'em to God and then in your mind only think about what is good and
excellent and noble and pure and sacred.
And so now he's saying, and here's the real secret, though,
I can do all things through God.
It gives me strength.
I don't know about you, but there's been times in my life I've felt alone, alone.
And some of that's my fault as a leader, I need to ask for help.
I need to tell people and what I need, and, but I'm not good at that.
I'm a man and I'm stupid, so I don't, I just keep it in.
Sometimes I'm preaching to myself, this stuff about sharing with others,
but I don't always say that I need help and I, I, I, I, I, I feel alone.
And earlier this week 'cause the OC cleanup, you know, I'm looking at the
whole church and making sure we're organized, but then the south sector is
my responsibility and I hadn't done a very good job getting that organized.
I, we had the whole thing organized, but I didn't have the sector organized.
But I called a couple brothers.
I called Matt and I said, Matt, can you help find some trash force to clean up?
And I called Charles Perry.
I, I need, I need a place where there's bunch of trash down here.
And the first thing they said to me, guess there's no trash down here.
There is where they get washed off the streets and into the stream beds.
That's where all that trash and plastic goes.
All right.
But they found us some places and I've just been praising God for Matt and
Charles all week 'cause they've helped me.
The secret is get help, share with others.
The secret of happiness is I can.
I can handle this.
God wouldn't give it to me if I couldn't.
I can through him who gives me strength, say it with me.
I can through him who gives me strength.
Again, I can through him who gives me strength third time say it together.
I can through him who gives me strength.
You know, if you have that kind of positive mentality and you
really give it to God and ask him to help you, you can do it.
I mean, I'm just a hick from the sticks.
I'm from a little place called Fruita, and look at me now.
I'm in the big city
and and OC it is.
I even like it better than la.
All right.
I've been in la All right.
Oh, don't go there.
It's all good.
Let's finish up happiness.
If you say, I can do everything, see here's what's wrong with it.
I can do everything that's a humanist, a spiritualist, that sort of.
Head in the cloud says God can do everything.
But a good Christian says we, God and me can do everything I can
through him who gives me strength.
We can.
We, me and God.
You and God can make it happen.
Are you with me here?
Verse 15 more over.
As you Philippians know, in the early days of our coined.
With the gospel, you're acquaintance with the gospel.
When I set out for Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of
giving and receiving, except for you.
The Philippians always took care of Paul, and so he had happy memories yesterday.
We made some happy memories, didn't we?
Church?
Yeah.
Wearing our orange T-shirts, and at first when I was picking up trash and.
Going down the sidewalk.
You know, people looked at me like, oh, is he one of those?
I mean, a lady sped up as she was walking by.
She started jogging all the, you know,
and, and I thought, she thinks I'm a convict, you know?
Well, I am sort of, so that's okay.
Alright.
Gotta be humble about that.
But by the end of the day, there were people that were stopped and say,
thanks for doing what you're doing.
Thanks for cleaning up trash.
You know, they'd read the front of the t-shirt, OC church,
and then they'd read the back.
And Kathy and I, we made some great memories yesterday, and we put the
use of my little truck trucker.
Greg, it's not a real truck.
It's a car truck, but I call it my truck.
All right.
It doesn't have a frame.
It's unibody.
It's not a real truck, but it's an, it's my truck.
All right.
And we filled it up.
We got, I don't know, five or six bags of trash in there.
And then we got three old rusted chairs that were in the stream bed and, and
all that other junk, you know, and I, I, I'm so proud of this picture and, uh.
And my knee wasn't hurting in this picture, so I'm smiling.
But anyway,
good memories yesterday, weren't they?
Helping brings happiness.
That's why we needed to do that.
People are wondering why you doing this?
Well, there's a lot of reasons we needed to raise some money, but we as a church
needed to get out and do something together and we needed to do something.
Not just for ourselves, but also for the community.
So, so many, you know, things were accomplished through what we did
yesterday, and most of all, it brings happiness for even when I
was in Thes Sonika, you sent me aid more than once when I was in
need, helping brings happiness.
And now every time I look at, look at, uh, Daniel, I'm gonna think
of the orange shirt number one.
Alright, as he made it happen.
And he, he really was behind the scenes on this whole thing.
I'm so proud of Daniel.
I'm so proud of so many people, but Daniel really made it happen, you know?
Yeah, let's think Daniel,
but all of us that were able, not everybody was able, and I'm not gonna
ever try to guilt people out for when they can't do something, but
those of us that were able to do it, didn't you have this good feeling?
Yeah, I'm a good person.
Yeah, you do.
You just feel good and, and, and I, I, I would go after those
rappers, you would see 'em among all that dead wood and stuff.
You'd see that rapper and you're like, I can't get in there and get that.
And I try with my little picker upper, but I've got to, that is just so wrong.
That trash right here in nature.
Oh my.
Okay.
And I just break the bushes and I get it.
And I'd feel so good about getting this little Reese's wrapper, you know?
And I put it in the bag and thought it sure didn't fill it up much,
but it was hard work to get it.
And I just felt good.
I worked for the, my trash bag, all right?
I thought it'd be easy, but it wasn't, wasn't, but that's part of
the blessing, doing what's good.
Amen.
Happiness comes back around.
I don't know how that's gonna bear fruit for our lives or
for the church, but it will.
Not that I desire your gifts, what I desire is that more may be credited to
your account 'cause God sees everything.
A book I want to encourage you to read is this shape of joy.
You know, my friend Richard Beck wrote it.
It's about positive psychology.
It's about being happy.
And here's what he says in the book, just to give you a cliff, cliff notes version.
Slow your mind down.
Get your turn down, the volume in your head.
Get quiet.
Focus on other people.
That's what we did yesterday.
Invest socially.
We did that yesterday.
Today.
Don't be reactive.
Make figure things out.
Be solution oriented.
Get that I can mentality.
And then value yourself.
You're worthy.
I can do it through him who gives me strength.
And then your ego will be just the right size.
It's not just you can do everything.
It's you and God can do it.
And so the size of your ego will be small.
Good stuff.
Verse 18.
Two more verses.
I have received full payment and have more than enough.
I am amply supplied.
Now that I have received from Epaphroditus, the gifts that you
sent, they're a fragrant offering.
You know that trash that smelled and stunk was a fragrant offering to God.
Accept an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.
Verse 19, and my God will meet.
Here's my promise to you, church and my God will meet all your needs according to
the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
I'm a representative, a spokesman for God, and so I want us to claim his
promise there that my God, your God, our God can supply all your needs
because of the riches of his glory.
And the church said, amen.
All these things bring happiness in our lives, but the key
secret to it all is right here.
I can do all things.
In Christ who gives me strength leave here today with the I can mentality.
Okay?
I can.
I can be happy even if some things aren't what I want 'em to be.
I'm not gonna let my circumstances dictate I can't and it's gonna get better.
Whatever it is now, it's gonna get better.
Amen.
I can through Christ who gives me strength.
God bless you, church.
Amen.