Giving your Life Away to Find Joy

no I used to think everyone was looking for something to die for but I think when you find someone to die for the mission becomes irrelevant I'd rather have someone to die for than something to die for Jesus said it this way he said whoever loses his life will save it but whoever tries to save his life will lose it I often think you know one of the best ways to ruin a perfectly good marriage is just make it your spouse's responsibility to make you happy how many you know nobody makes you happy happiness is an inside job I married her because she makes me happy I all we all know with what we mean by that and of course we wouldn't want to be with someone who makes you sad but the truth is is that happiness is something that you cultivate internally no person can make you happy except for Jesus Christ who lives inside of you and so I want to talk a little bit about covenant love and about finding life by laying down your life for someone you know how many of you have children how many of you your children have gone through something painful have they ever gone through anything painful that you didn't feel the pain have you ever tried to not feel the pain try that hey this is your life there you go stay over there they may stay over there but your heart goes with them has anyone ever think you can harden your heart to them just get mad at them and be angry and bitter and hateful but then you're dying from something else and so it is true that love suffers long you know um just thinking about you know the difference between cohabiting and a marriage you know we we know people they have three and four children and they've never married you know I mean three and four children together and they never married and you're like why don't you you know you got three children why don't you get married they're like oh it's just a piece of paper like if it's just a piece of paper why don't you sign it I tell you why you don't sign it because cohabiting says I'm in this relationship before I can get but marriage covenant says I'm in this relationship for I can give see I've come to this relationship to lay down my life so that you can live but in cohabiting see and the reason i want to sign that piece of paper is because that piece of paper metaphorically says i will be with you forever see and the truth is is that I'm in this relationship for what I can get and I don't want you to feel secure that I'll be here forever because I use the fear of abandonment to keep you doing what I need you to do therefore cohabiting is based in insecurity I want you to know I'm not signing a piece of paper that I'll stay forever because then you may take advantage of me and do something I don't like but marriage says I've come to this relationship for what I can give I've come to lay down my life I've come to die for you you know it's it's there's something amazing about this if you haven't experienced it it's a little bit like trying to tell blind man what color blue is but the truth is until you find someone to die for you don't really live some people are out there you know what I know I just I want to have pleasure you haven't even know that you can have joy and not have pleasure that pleasure and joy aren't the same thing mmm consider it all joy when you encounter various trials knowing that the testing your faith produces endurance how many know it doesn't say consider it all pleasure how many know if you replace the word joy with pleasure there it gets a little sadistic I think I'll just punish myself what are you doing I like to hurt no no in the midst of pain I can still have joy last night we were wrapping presents what am I most well know them I hate shopping like Bill says he has this much attention span that would mine's less than that like a DD on a DD so I I really hate shopping now it's kind of weird cuz I love giving just hate shopping I just rather give you money to find whatever you want but my next great hate is I hate wrapping gifts you know why it seems so stupid you're going to wrap them up and in five it takes you you know fifteen minutes to wrap something the kids rip it off play with the box and can give a rip about the gift like this is dumb and we have gifts you can't even see the tree hardly now so my wife has been wrapping gifts for two days and so last night I came down and said you want some help she said yeah so we're wrapping gifts for like hours in about the second hour she goes do you like to wrap gifts I said now she said why are you doing this I sick as I like being with you I like being with you I don't like wrapping gifts I like being with you people kept it but yeah you can find joy when you're not having pleasure we bought some horses we have two famous horses I mean our fit horse is almost famous mr. Edie I have already said this many times but we have two Supernatural horses I prayed for them they don't talk but you you feed them one one bale hay and they poop too seriously I'm gonna make a lot of money on those horses I'm people you know horse people they're just they'll you know they find other horse people they do they're like uh some kind of genetic thing there's some kind of they can mmm they can find each other in a crowd they don't even have to be wearing Spurs or anything they just seriously there's some kind of magnetic connection between them um people those kind of people they come up all the time they go oh you Morse's I don't know no I don't have horses oh well they're on Facebook no Kathy has horses I pay for the horses oh you like horses no horses do you help take care of him yeah thought you didn't like horses I don't I like her I like her she likes horses I get a lot of joy out of doing what she wants to do this is not hard but it's rare it's a whole lot easier just to live for yourself but the problem when living with yourself is you never really find life until you give it away until you give your life away you really don't ever find it it's the truth I'm having a tough marriage you know I don't know what your marriage problems are and you know this probably won't fit you but have you tried living for her have you tried living for him we have exchanged joy for pleasure and we marry for pleasure but not for joy I posted on my on my facebook let's see if I can find it it's here someplace here it is don't marry the person you fall in love with a fall is an accident not an act of your will if you fall once chances are you'll fall again for someone else a great marriage is never an accident it's a covenant shall chase the two people make with each other for life it's it's only in the soil of this garden that true love can take root in the hearts of its companions and then I got a bunch of comments that some were not nice and so I wrote this the next on the next post if you do fall in love you better make a covenant to grow in love because what began as an accident needs to be done on purpose you're like I fell in love it's like okay let's see if you grow in love because if you fell once you can fall again let me know that covenant love is the kind of love that grows but and how many of you know that you have to cultivate love how you ever have you ever loved somebody and not felt it this is really tough tonight have you ever have you ever had have you ever loved somebody and you go through a season where you don't feel it yeah and the rest of you would you're like I don't I don't know I thought I was in love and I'm out of love then I'm in love then I'm out of love then I'm in love and I just want to make sure that I no never mind I just want to finish with a few thoughts what would happen if you actually laid down your life for someone like what would it be like if you just found a place with God where literally you gave up your life so that you could actually live would it be like if if all of us in this room including me if everyday we just lay down our life so that someone else could actually have light if we just stopped chasing pleasure and started chasing joy and huh me know that joy has a name his name's Jesus you know Jesus um he said if you love those who love you what do you do any different than the Gentiles if you love those who love you but he said that if you do love but if you love those who hate you he said then you'll find and the Greek word there is Grace you'll find grace for yourselves if you love people who don't love you you will find grace for yourselves how many I'd like to have more grace in your life I'm you'd like to find a deeper place with God someone that so much of that is comes from giving up living for pleasure and start living for joy I want to pray for y'all well all y'all all y'all and people are watching by I Bethel TV you know you don't come to church you become the church Yeah right the concept I go to church because they have a great youth group how many of you know if you go to church because you that's that's your dad there's your mom your brother's your sisters your cousins but it's supposed to be a family so Lord I just I pray tonight I feel compelled to pray for marriages i-i-i pray tonight for marriages god i pray lord i pray against selfishness and self-centeredness and it's all about meanness and lord i pray tonight that you would give us grace to be able to lay down our lives for other people and we define much joy I want to stop I don't wanna preach this to you I find so much joy like I like to go out my crazy pleasures is going out and watching Kathy ride the horses I mean honestly she I haven't rode though I haven't rode a horse yet she's like why do you come out here and watch me I say this is my greatest joy this is one of my greatest joys watching you have fun in something that I helped to get you there's just something about it I can't even explain I'd rather I'd rather watch you do that then go do something I enjoy doing there's something about living for someone else so lord I pray that everybody in this room would find that pleasure would find that place of joy would find that place that find have that experience of what it's like to live for someone else to lay down your life for someone else and in laying down their life for someone else they would find their life Lord I pray for everyone who's been chasing rainbows to find the master artists and everyone who's fallen in love to get up and grow in love Lord I pray for that in the name of Jesus teach us how to be a royal noble family teach us the ways of royalty teach us how to be loyal teach us how to make a covenant teach us how to be faithful in Jesus name Amen

Channel: Kris Vallotton

Views: 78,943

Rating: 4.9449539 out of 5

Keywords: kris vallotton, bethel church, bill johnson, covenant, love, laying down your life, sacrifice, joy, pleasure, marriage, insecurity, fear, cohabiting, happiness, falling in love, feelings, gentiles, enemies, hate, grace, selfishness

Id: cJSHwV4BzVI

Length: 13min 34sec (814 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 07 2014