So I'm going to have to start this message off by asking for your forgiveness, because I'm going to

ask you to bypass your religious reflexes just for a moment today. I'm going to ask you to forget

the scowl of that mean Christian that you encountered at some point in your childhood.

I want you to, for a moment, move to the side the disdain that some people happen to carry

for just the idea of a happy Christian.

Some people are tormented by this idea that we are following Jesus and we're happy about it.

That we serve a God who is not endured, but a God who is meant to be enjoyed.

I want you to set aside for a moment the notion that happiness is based on personality,

circumstances, temperament, emotional state. And I just want to investigate a wild idea

that you were created by the God of infinite joy.

And if you're created by the God of infinite joy, can I dare tell you today that your happiness

matters to God.

Y'all remember Myth Busters? This was a TV program, as the old heads would say,

where they tested ideas and they busted these myths that had been absorbed as truth, but they didn't

know if they would really hold up.

And so I want to do a little bit of myth busting before we get into this conversation

today.

I want to deal with a few misconceptions.

The first misconception is this, that the Bible makes a distinction between happiness and joy.

This is a modern-day misconception.

The distinction between happiness and joy does not exist in Scripture.

Words like joy, blessed, delight, happy are used almost interchangeably

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