Shift Happens

1992, 15-year-old Chuck moved to Texas. Didn't want to move here, but I was forced to. Here's a great thing though. Soon as I got here, I met a girl. I know what you're thinking, and no, I haven't always been short, fat and bald. And yes, some girl found me attractive, but she found me attractive enough. We started dating pretty soon into the process. She asked me to do her a favor. She said, Hey, can you drive my car over? I don't remember where to this thing. I was like, yeah, I'll drive your car over there. I've got a license. I've had it for six months. I'm a great driver. She's like, all right, cool. Can you drive a stick? And I was like, yeah, I can drive a stick. Just tell me where you want me to go. So I got in her car, put the key in, and I waited for her to leave because I had no idea how to drive a standard. It's 1968 Volkswagen Beetle. Luckily, uh, the sticker hadn't worn off the gear shift, so it showed me where 1, 2, 3, 4, uh, were. So I start off on my adventure of learning how to drive a standard on the road in needless Texas. Here's a key. If you've never done this before, time out your red lights so you never have to actually stop. I would time these lights out so I could roll through 'em in second gear, because first gear is really difficult to get out of. However, one light I could not time out, and I find myself stopped at a red light. Uh, and as luck would have it, I'm uphill and cars behind me and I'm panicking, but I'm 15 again, super experienced. I know what I'm gonna do. I am just going to hammer the gas, let the clutch fly out. And whether I'm bucking or not, I'm gonna take off and peel out. So the light turns green, the cars in front of me move. I switch from the brake to the gas. I hammer the gas. I let the clutch out, and I proceeded to roll straight backwards into a gigantic steel Chevy painter's van. It was in neutral, not in first gear. I'm terrified. I get out, I look behind me, and the guy in the van is like, Hey, man, he ain't gonna hurt my van. Don't worry about it. I was so relieved, and I was even more relieved when he gave me the knowing look. And he said, you need me to push you up that hill? I said, yes, sir, I do. And he pushed me up the hill and I started taking off, and I'm bucking. And, and I would Dr. Now here's the other thing. When do you change gears? Here's when I change gears. When, when the RPMs are maxed out and the car won't go faster and it's screaming loud, and the RPM, that's when I would change gears. Here's the problem. I eventually got where I was going. I did not have any more accidents, and I got there and she has never heard this story. Uh, and she didn't know about it then. And I got there and everything was okay. Here's the thing. There was a way better way to get there. And this series called Shift, shift Happens. That's what we want to talk about. You're, you're doing things and, and they're not really working like you, you'll eventually get there. It's just not the best way to do it. And we want to help you shift in how you're doing it shift because here's, here's why, because this past Friday was Quitter's Day. How many of you gave up on your New Year's resolutions already? Yeah. Why? Because it wasn't working. It wasn't working. So how do we shift our perspective from one thing that's not working to something else that can work way better? And that's what our series is about. My name is Chuck, by the way. I'm the campus pastor out, uh, at our hazard campus. Man, thanks for joining us. Uh, whether you're here in person, uh, or you're watching online, or you're watching at one of our campuses, man, I'm so glad you're kicking off, uh, 2026, uh, with us. And hopefully we can help you shift some things to make life a little bit better. Today we're gonna talk about shifting into joy. Shifting into joy, and we've got a key passage that starts with talking about joy. This passage, uh, is Philippians four, verses four through five. We're actually gonna use a big chunk of Philippians four, uh, to get through this entire, uh, series. But let me start it off for you. This is, uh, this is the apostle Paul Philippians four, verse four through five. He says, rejoice in the Lord always. I'll say it again, rejoice, let your gentleness be evident to all the Lord is near. Doesn't that sound awesome? Isn't that great? Isn't that so encouraging? Isn't that so positive of Paul to share with us? Isn't it so hard to do? It's, it's like, well, yeah, Paul, it sounds nice, but do you have any idea what my life is like right now? He's saying, rejoice. But it's not that easy because here's the truth. Life is hard. Times are tough. The world is broken. That's what we're living in. And Paul's just saying, rejoice in the Lord, always. Well, let me ask you this. First of all, what brings you joy? What, what is it that does make rejoicing easy? And, and, and here's what, if you have some answers to that, uh, I I I'm gonna push back a little bit because what brings you joy is usually a who, it, it's who brings you joy. And in fact, uh, in the Bible, we're gonna read here in John 15, in just a minute, Jesus says, he is the only way to complete joy. Not, not what, but who. So if you have your Bibles, open up to John, uh, chapter 15. Uh, before I start reading, uh, in verse four, let me set this up for you. Uh, they are in a place called, uh, the upper room and an upper room, uh, in a house. Back then would've been a room, uh, kind of a second story. It would've been reserved for having meals together. Uh, maybe people to go have private moments or private conversations. It would also be used as a place, uh, for teaching. Something happened, uh, before Jesus was gonna go to the cross called the Last Supper. This had just happened, uh, in the upper room. Jesus did a foot washing. We've taught on this in the past, and we'll, we'll do sermons on it later, but he did a foot washing as well. And now, here's where we're at. And what Jesus is doing is this. Jesus is the next day going to go to the cross. He's gonna die. He's gonna come back. He's eventually gonna send, uh, into heaven. So Jesus knows the disciples are about to be living separate from him. So the departing, Jesus is teaching his disciples about, uh, having life without him physically present, but but staying connected to him. And, and what he's gonna do is he's gonna use symbolism of a vine and a branch in fruit. And this is very, uh, very often used, uh, in scripture. So looks, look at John chapter 15, uh, verses four through five. Jesus says, remain in me also, or excuse me, remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. So the, the fruit must have the branch and the branch must be connected to the vine. Here's why he's telling you that. Verse five, I am the vine. You were the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you'll bear much fruit apart from me. You can do nothing. A little earlier, uh, in this chapter, in verse one, uh, Jesus refers to God as the vine keeper or the gardener, or the one who would've planted the vine. And now he's saying he, Jesus is the vine. We believers in Jesus are the branches, and we are to produce fruit. The fruit is, is the desired outcome. And I know that might be a little confusing. So I, I found this picture, uh, that might kind of clarify that a little bit. If you've never seen, uh, grapes up close being grown, this is what it looks like. Uh, there is a planter, a gardener, a vine keeper who would've planted the vines. And the vines you can see, are, are thick. They're sturdy, they're rooted. It provides everything that's needed. Uh, but it doesn't produce the fruit immediately. There's branches, uh, that is me, you as a believer. We are the branches. And then the Holy Spirit produces his fruit off of us because we're connected to the vine. Now, what's really interesting to me about what Jesus is saying, uh, in John chapter 15, is he really describes a two way relationship. He, he says, if you remain in me, as I also remain in you, there, there's a constant connection, uh, between the two. And, and Jesus is speaking to his disciples and he's assuring them. There will be a connection between us despite my de my pending departure. And, and I think it's great. He sets up, there's an expectation of both. You remain connected to him, and he will produce fruit through you. And, and I just think it's great that, uh, this isn't just a one-way worship relationship. Jesus wants something for us. And, and when, when the vine keepers plant vines, they're, they're planning to eventually create fruit. Nobody plants just to produce branches or produce just leaves. The fruit is the desired outcome. And God, the vine keeper planted Jesus, the vine to be connected to us, the branches with one goal in mind to produce fruit. Look, we keep going, John, uh, 15 verse 11. Jesus says, I have told you this. I, I I love. He says, so that, here's why I told you this. I've told you this so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete to two-way relationship. There's two reasons that Jesus did this. That he would receive joy from you, the fruit, and that your joy may be complete. Jesus wants us to have a joyful life. There's one way, one way for Jesus to receive joy. And that's from you. And there's one way for you to really, fully, completely experience joy. And that's Jesus. So if, if we're gonna talk about this shift to joy, let's define that for you. Uh, let's make sure you know what joy really is. Uh, found a great definition from, uh, a theologian Dallas, uh, Willard. He's probably a little bit smarter than me. So I took his definition, and here's what he said. He said that joy is a pervasive sense of wellbeing that is infused with hope because of the goodness of God. It's a sense of wellbeing that that takes over your body that's infused with hope. And why? Why is there such hope? Because of the goodness of God. So that's, that's definitively what joy is. So practically, what is it and what does it do? So joy will disrupt cynicism, and it'll spark hope. It disrupts cynicism. What is cynicism? If we're gonna define joy, let's define the opposite. Cynicism is having an attitude of general distrust, particularly of the motives of other people. But, but this attitude of just general distrust like cynicism is like, why bother? Why bother? Nothing's gonna change. They're, they're not gonna do right. They're not gonna change. They're not gonna do what I want. That, why am I even doing this? And you can be cynical sometimes, can't you? I can be very cynical many times can't. I can often see why it's just not gonna work out. Joy says, okay, it may not be perfect, but God's working. But we sing a song all the time. Even when I don't see it, you're working. Even when I don't feel it, you're working. That's expressing joy. That's, that's a gratitude because of the goodness of God. And here's what joy, if you choose it, and I'm gonna argue joy, joy is a choice. And choosing joy pushes back against negativity. And it pushes back against that emotional numbness of just why it's a choice. Jesus said, remain in me. It's not forced. It's not just naturally gonna happen. It's a choice. It's not happenstance, cynicism on the other end. It's not just, well, that's just who I am. That's just my personality. Cynicism is not a personality. It's a defense mechanism. It's a defense mechanism. If you wanna read more about that, we got that from this book called Hope, uh, for cynics. It'll probably be referenced again, uh, throughout the series. But it says that people become cynical because disappointment has trained them to be that way. Disappointment over time, maybe multiple times, maybe constantly. It's trained them to say what's not. It's not gonna get better. Why? Why have hope? And for some people, being cynical feels like wisdom. Here's a great example. I've been in a car with somebody that was like, that's stupid. The way they routed this traffic. They, they shouldn't have built that there. They should have built this there. Instead, it's disguised as wisdom, but it's not wisdom. It's really self-protection. They're, they're really trying to kind of protect their emotions. In fact, when I said joy is a choice, some of the cynics in the room got cynical. That's, that's not a choice. If you felt that, please take note. 'cause that's something you're doing. Joy is how you fight back against that joy's your weapon to fight cynicism. So if it's how you fight back, where do you find it? Well, Jesus said, you find it in one place. Joy is rooted in Christ, not your circumstances. It's not in the whats, it's not in the wheres or the hows. It's in the who Joy's never attached to, to where you are to, to what you are doing, to how things are going. It's always attached to who you're with. And Jesus says, remain in me, because that's where your joy is. I was out this past Sunday. Uh, I, I take this annual New Year's trip. It's five families. We go, there's 21 people, and we just rent like a big Airbnb, a few hours, uh, from home. And, and we just, we spend time hanging out. This year, we had the best house we've ever had. It's hard to find a house for that many people. This one was gorgeous pool, hot tub, had a pickleball court, uh, onsite. My favorite thing, it had a, a dining room table that could seat all 20 of us. It was an amazing house. And let me tell you, none of us can afford this house. But if we all pulled our money together, we can afford it for just about, uh, three days. It was perfect. I experienced so much joy in these four days. Now, let me ask you this. What if I was in that same house with all the same stuff by myself? I, I promise you, I would've been joyful for about 35 seconds because it's not where you are. It's not your circumstances. It was who I was with that brought me joy. And look, life is the same way. It's the who, not the what, not the circumstances. When, when Paul writes this super sweet verse, right? Super hopeful, rejoice in the Lord, always. I say it again. Rejoice. Uh, Paul's imprisoned. Paul's imprisoned. He, he's not a free man. He, he's not really in a good situation. His circumstances aren't great. He, he's not saying Things are awesome for me. Y'all should be happy. Paul's saying, it doesn't matter. My circumstances rejoice in the Lord. Always, always. And, and you can't, you can't force joy to happen in circumstances, but you can return to Jesus. And there is a lot of us, like by the end of the year, we get caught up in circumstances. And my encouragement to you as we start the new year is to focus less on your circumstances and more about your who and how do I remain in Christ? And when your joy is gone, you don't need better circumstances. You don't need just a little more time. You don't need a perfect solution. You don't need the perfect answer. You don't need somebody necessarily to fix it. You need to return to one thing. Jesus. Now, let me give you a disclaimer. I'm not telling you if you're unhappy in your circumstances to just pray and listen to worship music and go to church and, and wait for everything to change. I'm not telling you that I think you should do those things. And I think that's where your joy will start to come from. I'm not telling you don't try to change your circumstances. Maybe do a little bit of different work, make some adjustments, maybe shift what you're doing because that's not working out. But what, what I'm telling you is that complete joy comes from one person and one person only. Not what I'm telling you. It's what Jesus is telling you. And, and some of you, when you get really cynical, and I've been there, I don't wanna choose joy, okay, fine. Don't choose joy. I'm gonna go back to the passage. And Paul doesn't say, if you want to rejoice in the Lord, if, if it gets a little better, rejoice in the Lord. Paul says, as a command, not a suggestion. Rejoice in the Lord always. And then because he knew you weren't gonna listen, and he knew I wasn't gonna listen the first time he said it again, I will say it again. Rejoice. Paul doesn't whisper a suggestion. It's a command. It's a command. And his first command was not, oh, it's not great. Well man, work harder. No, his command was rejoice. Make a decision. Don't, don't read Philippians four, four. Like, here's where you see that it's on coffee mugs, isn't it? Isn't. It's so sweet in gift shops, it's on coffee mugs. It's on a piece of reclaimed pallet wood. And we paint it an antique white, and we write that, and then we stick it up in our kitchen by your eat, pray, love thing, right? It's not meant to be a cute little phrase. It's instruction, it's command. So I believe that everything in this book is true. I believe every bit of it is God inspired. I believe every bit of it was written, uh, for a reason and the way it was written for a reason. And I believe that Paul states this as a command for a reason. It's not a suggestion. You should do it. Joy is spiritual fruit as a result of choice. It's not a personality trait. It's it's not just this thing. You just end up being slowly, you shift into it because what you're doing as a cynic and what I'm doing when I'm cynical is not working, is it? So here's how you do that. And I'm gonna challenge you on this. Look for what's right, not what's wrong when you leave here, start to look for what's right, not what's wrong. I completely blew this this week. Tuesday. Tuesday during the day, uh, that's my day where I write this message. So I wrote this message Tuesday morning, Tuesday afternoon, uh, squeaky breaks on Monday. I knew Tuesday night when I got home, I needed to change my brake pads. I've done it before. I'm not bragging, but, uh, I'm cheap. So I do my own brake pad. So we hit O'Reilly, got home, go to change the brake pads out. You ever, you ever try to put those clips on a brake pad? It's a little frustrating. It's like trying to tie your shoes as you're sprinting down the street. Well, you know, you can't quite get it in. So it's okay though. I'm good. Struggling with that. It's fine. Get that done. And then this caliper pen is locked up. It's seized. Okay? Not big deal. I'm gonna go to home or not Home Depot. I'm gonna go to AutoZone. I'm gonna get, uh, a new bracket. Might as well get two, right, both sides. Come back, fix it. Okay? It's not perfect, but it's working. Lemme get to the other side. Gets to the other side. It's a disaster. It's a disaster. It's not just the clips, it's the, the pistons. You know, they had pistons and breaks. I do you wanna know how I know that YouTube, I YouTubed it. The pistons is where all the brake fluid was leaking from. I find myself in a disaster, and I find myself in this disaster at 10:01 PM Why is that important? Because the auto parts stores close at 10:00 PM So I'm half in my garage, half in the driveway, brake fluid everywhere. The brake is just hanging off the wheel. The tire's not on. I can't move my truck. I responded in the only way I knew how. I went and sat on the bench in my garage and I complained about everything. Why couldn't eclipse just, why can't they just go on? Why does the pen have to be seized up? I greased it last time. Why is it ha It always goes like this. And then I finally get proud of myself and fix it. And I go to the other side and it's worse, and it's pouring all over. What am I gonna do? This sucks. I have to be up at six. I have to leave early tomorrow. I got stuff to do. Why does it always have to be this way? And I sat on the bench and this message that I wrote about 12 hours previously really hit me. And I said, you are being so cynical. You are what? You're about to go preach to people this weekend to not be. That's what you're doing. And I had this conversation with myself and, and Doug's message from last week, go watch it if you haven't seen it. Really hit me. Talked about gratitude. And in that moment, you know what I did? I shifted. I shifted to joy, and I said, you know what? There is an auto parts store really close to me, and I'm grateful for that. And I ain't rich by any sense, but I can afford the parts. And I feel like I'm blessed because I mean, I'm no physical specimen, obviously, but I'm physically capable of doing the work. I said, I'm grateful that there's something called YouTube that I can find information on and actually fix a couple of things. I'm grateful that I have a truck now. It's a 2015 and it, it's barely going, but it's going. I'm grateful that I have that truck that needs all this work. I'm grateful that my truck can be halfway in a, a garage that is attached. I mean, I don't live in a mansion, but I have a house. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful there's a bench to sit on. I'm grateful that my family's in there sleeping. I wish they were out here helping me, but I'm grateful I have a family that's in there sleeping. I'm grateful that I have friends that know how to fix cars. Unfortunately, he's on a cruise right now. But I'm grateful that I have those people. So I, I got out of the pity party. I got out of the cynicism, and I chose joy through gratitude. I, I got on my phone. I said, surely there's somebody's open late. I'm very grateful. Shout out to AutoZone and Halton City. Open till midnight. I went out there. I, I got this whole break caliper thing. And on the way there, I just kept saying what I was grateful for. I was driving another car that's not so great, but it drives. I'm grateful to have a second car. I'm grateful for the people inside who were so helpful. I'm grateful that I made it home safely. And I get back and it's, I don't know, 1210, I I'm grateful that there's lights on in my garage and I can do this. I got it done. And at two o'clock in the morning, I was finally cleaned up, getting outta the shower, ready to go to bed. I had to be up at six. I was grateful that I was gonna have four hours to sleep. That shift was a choice. It was not my circumstances, and I did it so wrong to begin with. And in that moment, man, God slapped me right upside the back of the head with this very message. And he said, you're being cynical. We all have that cynic in us, don't we? You catch yourself saying, you know what's wrong with, you know, it's so dumb how they always, you know what they should do instead, you find yourself saying those things. I do. That's that cynic in us. That's that cynic in you. And here's my challenge to you, is to intentionally shift your way of thinking beginning today. So maybe when you leave here and your original thought is like, you know, what's wrong with our church? Maybe you can leave here and say, you know, what's great about our church? And, and maybe tomorrow when you go to work and you know what I hate about this job, maybe you can say, you know, what's great about this job? And when you get home to your wife and kids, instead of saying like, you know, what's so hard about this family? Maybe you say, you know what's awesome about this family? Maybe the next day when you go to work and you get in your old beat up truck like mine, instead of saying, you know, what's terrible about having an old truck? You say, you know what's great about this old truck? And it's not, you know, what's so broken in the world? You know what's great about the world change cynicism to joy. It's an intentional shift and a choice that you can make. I finally did it right Tuesday night, and not only did my cynicism turn to joy, but all the worry I had about the next day and the cost, all that changed to peace. And we're gonna talk about that next week. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we're, we're just so very grateful that the relationship you choose for us is both ways you, you of course want from us. And that that thing you want from us is just to remain in you, to stay connected to you, to, to worship you. But, but you also make a commitment to remain in us. And, and you want joy for us. You don't want us to live as cynics worried about what's not right and how my circumstances aren't perfect. You want us to live knowing that I have got a good, gracious, merciful, loving, kind, heavenly father who loved me enough to send his son Jesus, to be the vine that I should stay connected to because he wants to produce fruit for me and fruit through me. God, we are so grateful for that. And, and we're grateful even for the moments that are hard in the circumstances, that they're not ideal. We're grateful for those because through all that, we have the opportunity to choose joy by remaining connected to you. For those of us that have already been connected to you and have a relationship with you, God, I pray you'd help us to shift back to, to shift our focus back to, to joy and remaining in you and for those in the room or watching that, that maybe don't have a relationship with you and never have. Uh, if that's you, I only give you an opportunity. Uh, you can just pray for the first time to give your life over to Jesus. And if you do that, just, just please let somebody know, uh, on a connection card to find a staff member. But if you're ready to do that, just pray. God, thank you for your son, Jesus, the vine that I'm to be connected to. Thank you that, uh, he loved us enough to come, uh, live a perfect sinless life, but still be willing to pay the penalty for my sin and, and my brokenness by dying on the cross, by taking the penalty on my behalf. I know he defeated the cross. He defeated, uh, death by raising from the dead three days later. And through that, God, I have defeated eternal death and I can defeat the death that comes through cynicism in turn to joy. God, I want to give my life over to the risen Christ here today. And if you did that, just begin to thank him. And please connect with someone. God. God, we love you, the vine keeper. We thank you for your son, Jesus, our vine. It's in His name we pray. Amen.