Tauren Wells

0:30 Now, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up and sat on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the judgmental.

1:07 Oh, no, that's not in there. Sorry, that's not it. It's actually blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Today, I'm going to preach from the Word of God with the help of His Spirit. From this title, allow joy to reintroduce himself. Allow joy to reintroduce himself. If we walked these Los Angeles streets and we started asking different people who taught the most important message on joy in human history, we would get all types of answers. Who taught the most important message on joy in human history?

2:08 We'd have people pulling up TikToks. We'd have people pulling up reels. Like, I really like this definition. They will be quoting different talking heads of the day, different popular icons, and what it is they have said about joy. I mean, absolutely. Somebody's going to pull out Buddha. Somebody's going to be like, well, Buddha said that there is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path. And some philosophy major is going to say something like Aristotle said, happiness depends on ourselves. and somebody who thinks that they know it all is gonna quote Marcus Aurelius and say, happiness and joy comes from self-discipline. And if I'm being honest, none of those attempts at defining happiness and joy are bad attempts, they're just incomplete attempts. So I had to go to the source of all sources. I had to go to the one who told the truth and cannot lie.

3:03 I had to get on ChatGPT. like every good preacher in 2026 i had to get on chat i asked chat hey chat who taught the most important message on joy in human history i don't know if chat went to zoe conference i don't know if chat got saved sanctified and filled with the holy ghost i don't know what happened but chat preached back to your boy chat said jesus christ preached the most important message on joy in human history. Now, I know that joy, that ChatGPT has a tendency to hallucinate, you know, is like 85% accurate 75% of the time. But I think in this case, Chat delivered truth. And if that is true, if Jesus taught the most important message on joy in human history, perhaps it deserves our focus and attention because the implications of that truth hit us in such a deeply profound way. Now, I'm about to say something to you that is questionably offensive. Okay, so I need you to brace for impact.

4:30 I need you when I make this statement I need you to bypass your religious reflexes okay I need you to bypass the scowl of whatever mean Christian you bumped into or cut off in traffic this week and they reminded you that there is one Lord one faith and one baptism but they did it with the finger in the middle of their hand I need you to bypass this precondition idea that we have about who God is and what he does for his people. Are you ready for it? I don't think you are. Your happiness matters to God. Just ready? Your happiness matters to God. And some of you may want to believe that. But when you look at the circumstances of your life and the way that you feel in the midst of them, that feels like a truth that cannot be grasped.

5:32 It feels like an ideal that you cannot reach. But I want to unpack this idea, this notion that your happiness matters to God. But the first thing we gotta do, we gotta deal with a few things. Now, I think probably if you're like millennial or older, you'll get this reference right here. So forgive me if this misses you a little bit, but there was a show that used to come on television that was called Mythbusters. Mythbusters, you remember Mythbusters? Okay, yeah. So they would take these ideas that had been accepted as fact or truth, and they would test them to see if they actually held up under scrutiny. And so they would bust different myths. I want to step into that myth buster space with you today about happiness and joy. And I want to deal with a couple misconceptions that many of us who grew up around church or adjacent to church or even within the broader culture kind of carry with us in our lives.

6:39 The first misconception is this, that the Bible makes a distinction between happiness and joy. Ha! In fact, if you examine the Scriptures, you realize this distinction does not exist in the Bible. That words like blessed, happy, joy, delight are actually used interchangeably throughout the biblical text, and the distinction between the two, happiness is based on what's happening and joy comes from a deeper source is something that has been made up in more recent Christian circles. Even a Bible scholar, much older, much smarter, much wiser than me, John Piper, has said, if you have nice little categories for joy is what Christians have and happiness is what the world has, you can scrap those when you go to the Bible because the Bible is indiscriminate in its uses of the language of happiness, joy, contentment, and satisfaction. So don't fight me, fight John, okay? The second misconception is this, that holiness and happiness are enemies.

8:03 I grew up in church like this, where like the more anointed you were, the harder you preach this message, God doesn't care about your happiness. Ha! He cares about your holiness. Ha! As if we serve a God who is supposed to be endured, not enjoyed, and has created a false dichotomy between these ideas of holiness and happiness. I believe that it mischaracterizes God. I believe the scriptures bear this to be true. And I get what we are trying to say. What we are trying to emphasize is that the character of God being formed in us is more important than our comfort while he's forming us. And to that we say, amen. That is true. That's absolutely right. That's accurate. However, what I would like to submit to you today is that the character of Christ being formed in the believer produces something. That holiness generates joy.

9:22 That they're not against each other, they work together. And the more I become like Christ, the more his joy is fulfilled in me. We cannot divorce happiness and joy from God's very own character. Y'all know the Bible. The Bible says in his presence is the fullness of joy, not a piece of joy, not a part of joy, not a moment of joy or ecstasy, but the fullness of joy is in God's presence. Well, how can God produce something that he does not possess? He must possess joy in his nature if he produces it in his presence. And then when you go to the New Testament, you look into the book of Galatians and you read it through Galatians and Paul's right to the people in Galatia, which is not a glacier. Okay, that's totally different, different part of the world. We see that Paul identifies that the spirit and dwelling believers produces something, evidence. The scripture calls it fruit. And wherever the spirit of God dwells, the fruit of the Spirit is produced, and the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy. Okay, hold up. Now, I think we're on to something here. So, you're telling me that I'm supposed to believe that God is not invested in my happiness or my joy, but I get joy when I'm in God's presence, and I produce joy when God's presence is in me. Something is missing in this equation, and the reason why this matters is because many of us in here today have settled at a level of existence well beneath the watermark of the life Jesus died for us to live. So how you see God determines how you experience him in your life. Dr. Darius Daniels says the God you see is the God you get. So if the God that I see is a God who is not invested in the circumstances of my life, allowing my heart

11:30 and character to be formed by him, producing an eternal joy, then I will not experience that. I'll hate going to church. I'll hate going to small groups. I'll hate serving because I'll do it out of obligation, not out of opportunity and joy. See, it impacts how we actually live out our life. Now, what I'm trying to wrap your heart around today is that there is a process of sanctification, a becoming like Jesus that is taking place in our hearts, and that holiness does not kill happiness or joy. It actually reroutes it around every temporary source and plugs it into the eternal one. There's something to be said about famous last words, right? Words that are spoken because of their finality. They seal a moment because they were spoken last. Famous last words like, ain't gonna be no rematch. Apollo Creed, Rocky IV, what's up?

12:37 Famous last words like, I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country, Nathan Hale. famous last words like you must do me this honor promise me you'll survive that you won't give up no matter what happens no matter how hopeless promise me now rose and don't let go i'll never let go jack let's go and i don't know why because we all know there was room out there on the thingy there was room. Kate stole Titanic II from us because she was selfish. I just had to do my boy Leo like that. That's crazy. Famous last words, famous last words. But what about famous first words?

13:36 Words that carry weight, not because of their finality, but because of their primacy. The fact that they were spoken first. Famous first words like four score. And seven years ago, y'all know Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, Abraham Lincoln. Famous first words like I have a dream. Tell them about the dream, Martin. Tell them about the dream. That little black boys and little white girls would grow up to become responsible adults who would consummate their marriages and produce beige children. Praise God.

14:16 I don't know if that's what Martin was talking about, but that's what happened, okay? And here we are. And now we're printing our own khaki children at home. famous first words in a galaxy y'all some nerds y'all some nerds star wars y'all some nerds let it be known famous first words first words last words last words first words first words last words, last words, first words. The last word of your Old Testament is curse.

14:58 This is all the people of God had to look forward to. The ground was cursed through the sin of Adam and Eve. They could not live up to the stringent traditions of the day. They couldn't live up to their own expectations of what they were supposed to be doing. They fell short over and over and over of God's perfect rule and reign. And so all they were left with was a curse, not just the curse of sin, but the curse of a law they could not live up to. And then when we come to our scripture text today, Matthew 5, we find Jesus sharing the very first message he ever preached that someone wrote down. And the first word out of his mouth was blessed. Now, our Bibles are divided into two testaments. They didn't have that. So I'm not sure that they caught exactly what Jesus was doing, like in that form, but there was something that resonated in their hearts that Jesus was not introducing a new message or a new priority. He was rerouting the hearts of the people back to God's original intention for us in the garden. Because the first thing God did with humans, The scripture says, and he blessed them and told them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.

16:38 And now Jesus is hearkening back to that moment in scripture, bringing that kingdom reality, the reality that God has always wanted for his people into our lives today. Can I ask you a question? If blessed or blessed is the first word Jesus communicates in his inaugural sermon, how important must this blessing be to the heart of God for his people? now what we have to deal with is when i say the word blessed some of us go back to like jimmy fallon 2014 hashtag blessed hashtag house hashtag car hashtag you know promotion vacation marriage opportunity children all of these things that happen to us but blessing is not a status we achieve it's an identity that we come under when we come into Christ, we are blessed in Christ.

17:48 And the people listening that day did not hear what we hear, hashtag blessed house, car, things. In the original language, the word is makarios, and that word means a lot of things. It's a heavy word. It's a broad word. We have to use multiple English words to describe what he's saying there. But the first word is happy. The first word God communicates in human flesh to the world is happy. And how important must your happiness be to the heart of God if it's the first thing he communicates to us? Now, here's the issue. Many of us would say, I could use more joy in my life. I could use more happiness in my life.

18:53 And some of us may even intellectually agree like, okay, I'll go there with you. Jesus produces joy. Jesus gives us joy. I'll go there with you. And I expect my significant other to give me some joy.

19:15 Yes, yes, Jesus, you're the center of it all. All that's good and perfect comes from my kids behaving. Because if these kids do not get their act together, we are going to have a problem. problem because I'm broken in my personal identity, so their achievements are actually completing me. So it's not really about their development or behavior. It's about using them to make up the space where I believe I lack. Jesus, you're the center of my job. But also, I work harder than everybody in this office, and I better get a promotion. You keep overlooking me. you keep undervaluing me, and I will finally prove my parents wrong if I get the corner office instead of the closet office. Jesus, you're the center of my joy. If I could make just a little more money, then we could replace the kitchen sink, and we could put in that nice quartz counter, because I'm so sick of this other counter that's not working. If I don't get the kitchen upgrade, that I cannot be happy in my life.

20:29 And husband, if you actually love me, you would let me get the granite and not the cords because I want real stone in this kitchen because my happiness is connected to where I cook. that's why it's interesting that what we'll say those things jesus you're the center of my joy but then we try to walk through a million other doors to find it and jesus is the only door that you can walk through and on the other side find purpose and fulfillment and contentment Thank you. I was at my house in Houston when we lived in Houston. We moved to Austin a few years ago. But in this house, I felt like I had arrived because I had this room I called my writing room. And it was just a place where I could be creative and write songs.

21:28 You know, I do that on the side when I'm not pastoring. And so I was writing songs and stuff. And for most of my musical career, my songwriting happened at the dining room table under a blanket as a signal to my children, leave me alone. I'm trying to work. I will go hide in the closet and just try to write my song, leave me alone. So I finally got my own writing room. And the best part about it was Lorna, my wife, she let me decorate it any way I wanted. your boy was at home goods just i put that thing on hgtv i said teach me lord and uh started picking stuff out i picked out green paint painted the walls green which was so fire was so fire and i didn't know this at the time but apparently geniuses pick green i didn't know that when i picked it it just happened to be that so i'm in my little writing room and it's a special night because we have friends and family coming over to the house. I do some Christian music, and for some reason, people give people awards for Christian music. It's kind of a controversial thing right now, but I was nominated for these awards, and my family was coming over, and I hear the little feet of my little boys upstairs running around chasing some imaginary monster or something, and then my wife is in the kitchen cooking something real good, and our friends are coming.

22:52 We're going to watch the award show that I'm nominated. What an honor. What a blessing. I know who I am. I know what I'm not. I know I'm really not that good to be getting any awards. So I'm just like, this is incredible. I thought this would be a great time to write a praise song. And I went over to the piano and I wrote, Praise! Just kidding. I didn't write that. I didn't do that. I wish I had, though. If the Lord really loved me. No, I'm just playing. I would have had joy if I wrote that. Praise God. No, that's not what I wrote.

23:31 That snuck up on me. I went over to the piano, and I thought, being surrounded by so much of the goodness of God, the obvious evidence of his hand in my life, that I would go over to those keys and a song of praise would come out. But many of you creatives in here, artists in here, you know this, that creativity is an excavation process. Very rarely do you come to something with an idea. You find the idea as you begin to dig. So when I went in this excavation of the heart, I started playing these melancholy chords and it caught me off guard and I started singing, you could have it all. You could have the best this life can bring Live in everybody else's dreams And still feel empty You could have it all You could have the whole world at your feet Every little thing you think you need And still feel empty

24:52 And I realized that somewhere along the way, I thought that like God's stuff and good stuff was as good as God. and it's not. At some point in doing things for God and chasing dreams and trying to honor different gifts and skills that he put in my life and opportunities I had missed, that doing things with God is of much greater glory to him and value to me than doing things for him. And I came to this realization that if God has placed eternity in the soul of every person, and we go out and we grasp to things that are good, but not God, we could actually end up drinking the whole world in and still be empty.

26:13 There's a man named David Murray. He gives us seven categories for happiness. Social happiness, happiness among friends and family, vocational happiness, happiness that you get from your work. Intellectual happiness that you get from putting your mind to the test and being involved in things. Humor happiness that you get from a good joke, a good comedian, time together. Nature happiness, which doesn't resonate with me. I like being indoors, not outdoors. I think we evolved beyond just being outside all of the time. And there's another one, and I'm forgetting that one right now. And then there's the seventh category, spiritual happiness. Now, the first six are available to every human because of God's common grace. Everybody can sit down with friends and laugh till you cry, even if you're not in relationship with Jesus.

27:16 Anyone can go to a job that they enjoy and enjoy it. The problem is if you don't have the seventh category of spiritual happiness, you can consume all of those other categories and your soul be leaking. Because spiritual happiness is unique from the other six categories. Spiritual happiness acts as a seal around the human soul. And if you don't seal your heart and seal your mind and seal your soul with the joy of the Lord, you can swallow the world whole and still be empty. With spiritual happiness, it changes how you experience the other six categories. When I'm satisfied in God, knowing that God is satisfied in me, I can go to a job that I don't even like.

28:15 and know that I'm not working for people, I'm working for God. And there is a blessedness, a joy that flows from that place. I can experience my children and not see my wounds in them. I can be thankful for the kids that I have and allow that source of love to be resourced through them into my life. Same with my spouse, same with other areas. Happiness is a seal around the human soul. Now, what's interesting about what Jesus teaches us in Matthew five is not just what he says. It's actually where he says it.

29:01 See, he could have gone to like Mount Sinai, 7,500 feet in elevation. Wow, it's a big mountain. he could have gone to Mount Zion 2,500 feet in elevation you got Sinai, you got 10 commandments, you got glory of God, you got the finger of God chiseling things into stone. Mount Zion is like this picture of God's people. Unbelievable. But Jesus doesn't teach about joy there.

29:36 He teaches about joy in a place called Aramis. And I know that it says mountainside, But Aramis wasn't a mountain. Aramis was a hill. Aramis was 400 and some change feet tall.

29:59 Some of y'all's houses are on hills higher than Aramis, just from your driveway to your front door. And this ordinary place is where Jesus uses the topography to give us the theology of joy. Because when you look at the word Aramis, the word Aramis means desolate, isolated, and strength. Okay, hold up. So Jesus takes them to the middle of nowhere, not on the highest mountain, not in the lowest valley, but somewhere in the middle. And he sits down and begins to teach. And he teaches in a place that's not beautiful.

30:49 If you ever see a picture of this place, you know what is in Aramis? Nothing. nothing no no no no beautiful foliage no no no beautiful plants no no beautiful scenery no no no soft ground no it's just dirt because the reality is many of us think that joy has to happen in some extravagant, extraordinary place, some mountaintop experience. And Jesus is saying, if joy can't happen in a desolate place, it ain't real joy. And if joy can't happen in an isolated place, it's not real joy. In fact, you find the strength of joy in the places of desolation and isolation in your life. That's where the joy is.

31:46 The joy has to work there. I had a friend try to give me some great parenting advice when we started having kids. He said, you know, we had two kids at the time. He was like, as you have more kids, it's really hard to get one-on-one time with them. It's really hard. So what you should do is every five years, you take one of them on a trip with you and Lorna, just one one-on-one time. I'm like, yo, that's dope. We'll get the memories. You know what I'm saying? It'll be wonderful. It was a good idea when I had two kids.

32:19 Now I got four of them things. That was an expensive idea that my friend gave me. But I started it too early. So I started with my first son, Canaan, at five years old. I'm like, hey, bro, we're going to go on a five-year trip. Just me, you, and mom, where you want to go? Now, I thought this man has not been out of his cul-de-sac. Where could he possibly have aspirations for going? My man came back with a trip of all trips. Some of y'all prophetic in here, you know exactly where we went. Disney World.

32:51 I said, bro, Disney World? So we went to Disney World, happiest place on earth. And then here comes my second son, lost him, five years old. I'm like, hey, bro, we going on a trip, me, you, mom, she's going to be fired. We're going to have so much fun. Where do you want to go? He thought about it for a second. He looked at me. He said, Dad, I want to go to Japan. I said, Japan, bro? Who do you think we are? We are not. No, no, my fault. My fault. In the intercontinental United States of America, where would you like to go? My man wept. He wept.

33:44 And after he finally dried his last tear, he said, fine. I'll go to Disney World. This is not how this is supposed to go. He's spoiled, and that's what's wrong with this generation. I'm just playing. It's our fault. Yeah. So, we took him to Disney World, and then here comes Navy. He was three. He already knew where he went. Disney World, Disney World, Disney World. So, we took him to Disney World, and then Banner, our last one he didn't know no better i said where you want to go he said san antonio i said okay i was like okay that's fine that's that's fine here's some mickey mouse ears that's the alamo wonderful happiest place on earth you love the river walk and it's wonderful happiest place on earth we took him to disney world but happiest place on earth.

34:45 It's so funny that we assign certain expectations to certain locations in life. When we get to Disney, it'll be the happiest place on earth. Y'all, I have seen more people stomping their feet, crying tears, throwing bits, and the kids were misbehaving too.

35:11 You think you got a strong marriage? See if you survive five days at Disney World, the happiest place on earth. Our marriage was so strong in which I went to Disney World. No, no, no, no. And this is why so many of us live in perpetual disappointment and frustration.

35:34 Because we have assigned certain expectations to certain locations in life. that's why the genius of Jesus wasn't just in what he said, it was in where he said it. Because a lot of us will think, oh, if I can just graduate from high school, I'll be in the happiest place on earth. I don't have to deal with my parents anymore. And some of us think, if I could just get out of college and get this degree, then I'll be in the happiest place on earth. And then you get out of college. If I could just find the right person for me, if I could just find my partner in life, if I could just fill that hole, then I'd be in the happiest place on earth. And then you get married. I looked up the Greek for what marriage means. The Greek, it's hard.

36:27 Just kidding. That's not true. That's false. That's not true. But it is beautifully difficult. and then you think well once i get married you have some issues and some problems and you think well i know how to solve this let's have a child and then you have the kids and they think well if I went back to work or if I finished the degree or if I got another if I and we're just pushing the goal line of happiness and joy further and further into the next season or the next phase and we never experience the joy of where we are even if it's a desolate place joy is possible even in an isolated place joy is possible why because joy isn't an idea joy is not an ideal in the scriptures in Matthew 5 Jesus is not giving us the characteristics of the Christian that really gives themselves wholeheartedly to the Lord. No, he is actually revealing himself to us. He is revealing himself.

37:51 That's the most beautiful part of Matthew 5. He is showing us who he is. He is the one who became poor in spirit. Though he was equal with God, he took his thought of his equality with God, not as something to be grasped, but he emptied himself, became a human, a servant, obedient to death, even death on the cross. You know where the joy is? And you realizing you're spiritually bankrupt without the wealth of heaven being deposited into your heart through an act of faith. That's where the joy is.

38:29 He was the one who cried, the God-man who wept. think about this Jesus God incarnate wept who has convinced you to be so strong talk about a savior complex. If Jesus died, if Jesus cried, you have permission to feel too. Because he's not just the God of all authority, he's the God of all empathy.

39:08 He feels. And one of the enemies of the church today is to liberate us in our emotions in every other space but sacred spaces. So we can go be as free emotionally as we wanna be in other spaces, but we come into the church and we just shut down emotionally. it's not about emotionalism. It's about allowing the gospel into your emotions to redeem what is broken there.

39:43 We don't come into church services like this to bypass our problems and our pain. We come into the presence of God to process them. It's the safest place to process your pain in the presence of the Lord. there is a reason why you weep when you feel God's presence there's a reason that you weep when you go through trauma it is your brain's way of healing itself of reintegrating your your mind will and emotions so how does the enemy keep you broken he keeps you emotionless and one of the greatest things Jesus gives us when he says, happy are those who mourn, for they will be comforted, is you have permission to mourn. You have permission to weep. You have permission to feel, and it's in the sowing of those tears that you reap in joy, but you will not experience the joy of the Lord if you do not release the pain of your tears.

40:48 See, we often think that the path to joy is paved with laughter. It's not. The path to joy is paved with tears. And the more willing you are to allow the gospel into your feelings, the more you release God in producing a harvest of joy and laughter in your life. He's the king crowned in meekness. He was the one who hungered and thirsted for righteousness, not for his own. He was righteous. No, the only thing that would quench his thirst was your hunger and righteousness being fulfilled. No, this isn't eight keys to becoming a happier you. This isn't eight keys to being a joyful Christian. This isn't eight ways to fake a Christian smile so you can fool everyone in your world into believing that you're not anxious, fearful, and depressed. No, this is permission to take off all of that pretense and allow God to meet you where you're actually at. Do you receive that today?

41:47 Just a freedom to allow the joy of the Lord to come into your heart. Why don't you stand up on your feet and just receive his joy.