Joyce Meyer - Sermon: 7 Ways to Increase Your Happiness - part 3. How can you experience an overflow of peace and joy in your life? Today, Joyce shares unlikely answers to help you get there.
Joyce Meyer: and listen, you could even get what you think you want and then you're gonna find out that even that didn't make you happy because it is impossible to be happy if you're not willing to give yourself away. Our goal is not just to be happy, although that's a good goal in itself, but our goal is to glorify God in everything that we do. And I personally believe that sad-faced christians don't glorify God. They're not a great advertisement for salvation, so we need to live our lives in such a way and even have an appearance about us that makes people want to have what we have. And so, I think that the joy of the Lord, which is our strength, and peace, and patience, and different things like that, are very important for us as believers if we really want to be used by God. And so, Psalm 5:11 says, "let those who love your name be joyful in you and be in high spirits." So, God doesn't wants us just to have a little bitty, you know, every once in a while, he wants us to be really happy and really in a good mood, and notify our face so the world can tell that we've got something that they need. Amen?
full textual sermon "7 Ways to Increase Your Happiness" Part 3 - Enjoying Everyday Life by Joyce Meyer
Joyce Meyer: and, you know, after having lived a long time, I've come to the conclusion that really, really the bottom line of, what does everybody want? You know what? They just want to be happy. I mean, when you go out and go shopping, you're doing it because you want to do something that makes you happy. You know, we eat 'cause it makes us happy. We overeat sometimes because it makes us happy. We want to be in relationships because they make us happy. You know, so happiness is just like something that everybody wants, but sadly, many people go about getting it all the wrong way. Now, I'm gonna give you number 12 first. I did that yesterday morning and number 12 is decide to be happy. You're never gonna be happy if you don't decide you're gonna be happy in spite of your circumstances. Amen? Can you decide to be happy in spite of your circumstances? "well, I never thought about it." You know, happiness or true Godly joy is not supposed to be based on what is happening, although if you look at the webster's dictionary definition, at least one of the original dictionaries written in 1828, it says that happiness is the product of having something good happen to you but it's also the product of expecting something good to happen to you, and that's what I love, that even if something good isn't happening to me right now, there is no devil in hell can keep me from expecting something good to happen to me.
Joyce Meyer: the enemy might be able to mess with your circumstances, but he cannot mess with your heart and your hope. You can be full of hope and expect good things to happen if you decide to. So, I'm gonna say it again maybe a lot of times today, decide to be happy and don't wait for your circumstances to dictate to you that you can have that happiness, decide to be happy. Everybody say, "I'm gonna be happy." Audience: I'm gonna be happy!
Joyce Meyer: "I've decided I will not waste another day being unhappy. I am happy." Now, the number-one thing--yay. The number-one thing that we talked about yesterday is that if you want to be happy, you've gotta believe what the word of God says about you, and especially about you and who you are. And here's the bottom line, you're never gonna enjoy your life if you don't enjoy yourself. So, i, you know, can't go over all that information again but let me just tell ya, if you don't like yourself, then you might as well--you really need to quickly get over it and make another decision because you are stuck with you for the rest of your life.
Joyce Meyer: I mean that's really not rocket science but it really was life-changing for me when I realized that everywhere I went, there I was. So, you're never gonna get away from yourself, not for one second, so you might as well come to some kind of terms of peace and say, "I like me. With all my flaws and all my weirdness, I like me and God is changing me. Next year I won't be exactly the way I am now, but while I'm in the process of changing, I'm not gonna be at war with myself. I like me." Can everybody say, "I like me"?
Joyce Meyer: number-two thing that we talked about yesterday was living one day at a time and enjoying it. That's very understandable. The third thing we talked about was staying in peace. Now, number four, big thing we want to talk about today, if you want to be happy, you got that learn to give your life away. In God's economy, what you try to cling to and keep is what you end up losing and what you're willing to give away, you get back with interest multiplied many times over. Whatever you give to God, you get something better back. Isn't that interesting? Whatever you give to God, you get something better back. So, if you give yourself away, you say, "God, here I am. You take me. You do with me what you want to do. Use me in your kingdom. Use me to help people. Use me to be a blessing to people." And don't just pray that one time in your life, pray that every day. Every single day I ask God, "show many what I can do for you today, Lord. And show me what I can do to be a blessing to other people. Show me what I can give. Show me who I can encourage." You see, I lived a long time where I was the center of my universe, and I can tell you that it will never make you happy. Selfish people are not happy people.
Joyce Meyer: amen? And that's a tweet. Is that the right word? Do we tweet things like that? Yeah, that's it. We tweet that. I get them all mixed up. You can't be happy and selfish at the same time, and your life is yours to do what you want to with. You can spend your whole life just with you as the center of your universe and believing that you should be the center of everybody else's universe, but you're just gonna be miserable. And so, you can decide today, "I'm gonna give my life away. I'm just gonna give it to God and tell him to do what he wants to with it." Matthew 16:24, "then Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone desires to be my disciple, let him deny himself [disregard, lose sight of, and forget himself and his own interests]." Now, you know, forget yourself doesn't mean you're not gonna take care of yourself, but it just means you're just not gonna have yourself on your mind all the time. Amen? Get up in the morning and first thing start thinking about how you can be a blessing to somebody else or think about God, but do something besides think about yourself. "and take up your cross and follow me." Now, you know, there's a been a lot of conversation about carrying the cross. "well, this, you know, this problem is my cross to bear. This sickness is my cross to bear. You know, this tragedy is my cross to bear." No, that's not biblical. The cross that we carry is to forget ourselves, lose sight of ourselves and all of our own interests and say, "here I am, God, a vessel empty of myself. You fill me full of you and do what you want to with me and through me today." Come on, that is shouting ground right there.
Joyce Meyer: amen. Now, I might as well tell you if you're not used to living that way, you will go through culture shock. It will be hard in the beginning because we are very accustomed to being on the throne of our life and everything we think about ourselves first in everything. And it's difficult in the beginning because there is a dying, a dying that takes place, but I'm gonna prove to you today that in order to really live, you have to die first. And I'm not talking about leaving the earth and going to heaven, that's the ultimate dying to live. But actually, if you ever want to have a real life, a real quality of life where you feel like your life really counts and it matters for something, then you have to be willing to die to self, to not get your way, and to learn to be happy about it. Yeah, well, you're not as happy as I hope you get.
Joyce Meyer: some of you are thinking, "well, I already don't get my way." Well yeah, but you're not happy about it. Verse 25, "for whoever--" we're gonna go back to 24 again 'cause I want to make sure you get all this. "then Jesus said to his disciples, if anybody desires to be my disciple, let him deny himself [disregard, lose sight of, forget himself and his own interests] and take up his cross and follow me [cleave steadfastly to me, conform wholly to my example in living and, if need be, in dying, also]. For whoever is bent on saving his [temporal] life [his comfort and security here] shall lose it [eternal life]; and whoever loses his life [his comfort and security here] for my sake--" we don't do this 'cause it feels good. We're not even really doing it for other people, we're doing it for his sake. And let me clarify again that forgetting yourself and losing sight of yourself and all your own interests, that doesn't mean that you never get to do anything you want to do. It doesn't mean that you never make any good plans for yourself. Let's don't take this out of context. What it really means is is you're not going to just live for just you and nothing else. I encourage people to take care of themselves. I encourage people to stay balanced and to do things for yourself that you enjoy doing, but that's a totally different thing than everything being about you, amen? "for what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life [his blessed life in the kingdom of God]? Or what would a man give as an exchange for his [blessed] life [in the kingdom of God]?" So, I believe that we should learn to live and give, live and give. I get up every day, everything is not about what's coming to me, everything is about God working through me. To be honest, I don't even have anything to give that's worth having if I don't first receive all of God that I can possibly receive and then let him flow through me. Amen?
Trust me, you don't want what I've got to give you, but I've done my best to let God flow through me this weekend so you can have more of him in your life and that's what God wants us to do for every person that we meet. Now, john 12:24 through 26 are just amazing scriptures, and I'm gonna work part of this message around this so watch this. John chapter 12, verse 24, "I assure you, most solemnly I tell you. Most solemnly I tell you." It's okay occasionally to get solemn in church. "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains [just one grain; it never becomes more but lives] by itself alone. But if it dies, it produces many others and yields a rich harvest." Well, I want to encourage you later to just read that scripture over and over and over. But here's my best shot at an example. This is the seed of a georgia peach. My husband lovingly ate the peach this morning, washed the seed, and dried it with a hair dryer. He is so good. He is just so good. Now, unless this gets buried in the ground, it will always just be this, not really that attractive. So, unless you're willing to be buried, so to speak, you're never gonna be anything other than what you are right now, that's it, nothing else. But if you do a little study on seed, what happens when you put this seed in the ground, first of all, it's hidden in darkness. You know, we don't like the dark times in our lives, but they do have a tendency to break the outer shell off of us and open us up to the greater things that God has already put on the inside of us. See, when you're born again, everything that God is comes into you, a seed of everything that God is comes into you and if you'll allow me to put it this way, you become pregnant with Godliness. Amen? Pregnant with Christ-likeness and Godliness. When a man and a woman who are married come together in love and purity and his seed is planted in her womb, she becomes pregnant.
Come on. And as that seed is nurtured and taken care of, then eventually she gives birth. But let me just remind you that birthing also comes with pain. Amen? Just saying, okay? And if this seed had feelings, we're gonna pretend for a moment that it has feelings. It's probably kind of just enjoying being a seed and all of sudden somebody, we'll say God, comes along and puts it in the dirt, in the ground, in the dark. It's suffocating in there. It's hot in there. There's pressure from the ground but the heat from the ground and the pressure from being buried eventually breaks off this outer hull. Come on now, you're gonna have to go with me spiritually. Amen?
Joyce Meyer: so, here I am susie christian. I've got all this great stuff in me but unless God gets to do this work in me, it's just gonna stay buried in me and nobody's ever gonna really see Christ through me because I go to church and go home, go to church and go home, go to church and go home, and nothing ever changes in my life. So, as it stays in the ground, what happens is this breaks open and then all these little rootlets begin to go down and take hold in the ground. See, sometimes we don't understand why a bunch of great stuff is not happening to us if we're children of God. Well, you're gonna have to take some time to just get rooted and grounded.
Joyce Meyer: amen? Rooted and grounded in the love of God. Rooted and grounded in Christ. Rooted and grounded in the word of God. And then eventually as this seed is watered, I think it's so cool that God talks about being watered with the word. Amen? As this seed is watered and it's nurtured and cared for, then after a while, nobody knows the exact time but after a while, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.
Joyce Meyer: and after a while this thing that was just this very unattractive, hard, useless seed becomes an amazing georgia peach tree. And now, this fruit can be picked and sent all over the world. Come on, is anybody listening to me today? And sent all over the world for other people's nourishment and enjoyment. Come on, give God a big praise. And, you know, just to take a moment and just speak lovingly to our tv audience, you know, these folks that are here, they've got, I know, some level of commitment or they wouldn't be out here on a saturday morning. And I don't know how much you know about the things of God, or the word of God, or how much you even fully understand what I'm saying right now, but I just want to clarify again if your life is just all about you and that's all you think about or care about is getting what you want and having everybody else serve you to give you what you want, you are never going to be happy. And listen, you could even get what you think you want and then you're gonna find out that even that didn't make you happy because it is impossible to be happy if you're not willing to give yourself away. Amen? And I don't even know really how many Christians pray these kinds of prayers on a regular basis, but I tell you, we are just pitiful indeed if all we do every morning is present God the 12 things he has to do right away in order for us to even stay saved. "well, God, if you don't do this, I just can't be happy. And if you don't do this, I just don't know if I can go on. And if I have to put up with this one more day, God, I just don't think I can hang in there anymore." Yeah, we all have things we want, every one of us have things that we want. I have things that I want, but you know what I've learned? If you seek the kingdom, God will add the things, amen. And psalm 37, "delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." All right now, 2 corinthians chapter 8, verse 5 and boy, I like this. Mmm, I like this. See, some of ya, you're just starting to feel a little bit freer already just with the very thoughts of--i can just kind of feel that in the spirit today. It's just kind of like, wow. Come on, why don't some of you just retire from self-care?
Joyce Meyer: let's throw a big retirement party. When somebody says, "why are you so happy?" Say, "I'm not concerned about myself anymore. I've given myself away and whatever God does with me is up to him." "If he gives me what I want, that's good and if he doesn't, that's probably even better." 2 Corinthians chapter 8, verse 5. Now, they're actually talking about a financial offering here, but I love what this says. "nor [was this gift of theirs merely the contribution] that we expected, but first they gave themselves to the Lord and to us [as his agents] by the will of God [entirely disregarding their personal interests, they gave as much as they possibly could, having put themselves at our disposal to be directed by the will of God]." Now, you know what kind a person that is? Let's just say, like, it's the ministry. That's somebody who says, "oh, Joyce, I really wanna work for you." "well, what position are you interested in?" "whatever, I will do anything. I'm at your disposal. I just wanna serve in the kingdom of God." Now, the people I get concerned about are the ones who have to have an office and a nameplate on the door and a special parking place, and they wanna know all the benefits and how much vacation they're gonna get, and then I love this one. This is my favorite when somebody wants to come to work for us and they wanna know, "what's gonna happen to the ministry when Joyce dies?"
Joyce Meyer: first of all, I ain't dyin' for a long time, but, you know, I guess, in the natural, I can understand the concern, and, you know, I've just decided I ain't gonna worry about it. When I'm dead, I'm gonna be happy, so, you know? The point is, is we're livin' by faith. God'll take care of us, amen? "they gave themselves to the Lord." Paul said, "not only did they give an offering, not only did they put some money in the basket, but they totally submitted themselves." And so, even when you give your offerings in church from now on, before you drop it in, why don't you say to the Lord, "I'm givin' you this little token, little tiny bit of what you've given me,but, Lord, before I put it in here, I just wanna reclarify that I'm givin' you myself"?