Where We Find Happiness

There are two things that can be simultaneously true. Marriage is a great delight for husbands and wives, and marriage is hard work for husbands and wives.

Here's Derwin Gray. One of the things that I tell young couples before they get married is this, pay more for premarital counseling, spend more money on that on the wedding. The wedding is a day the marriage is a lifetime. And so we bring to the marriage our past hurts.

It's like we bring this invisible suitcase that becomes visible over time. And as you know, the first four years that you're in love, you're high. God gets us high. All these chemicals that make us feel good. That's why we get married. Because if we were sober, we would never get married because we'd be like, girl, you're kind of bossy. You know what I'm saying?

So, but when the highness wears off, that's when you begin the real work of learning to put down your preferences and picking up your cross. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine.

You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. Having a successful marriage, a marriage that thrives? Well, there's a mindset involved in that. We'll talk about what that mindset is today with Derwin Gray. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. So I thought maybe, you know, now that the game is like over, over, I thought maybe we could do this and not talk about football. But then I realized when you get when you get Dave and Derwin in the same room together, football is going to come up somehow, don't you? I mean, that's just the fact, right? I think God gave us football as an analogy of how to do life.

That's what it's about. Well, yeah, because I was reading, I was reading the ancient Egyptian text of the book of Genesis, and on day seventh, when God created Adam and Eve, he created football. That was day six that he created Adam and Eve. Oh yeah, day six.

The ancient Egyptian text might be a little out there. This is our friend Derwin Gray joining us again on Family Life Today. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Derwin is the pastor of Transformation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, six years in the NFL, a standout college player at BYU before that.

And we should just say, so we clear it up. You said this already this week, but you were a non-Mormon playing at BYU. I was, yeah. I was and still continue to be a non-Mormon. What I will say in God's sovereign love, allowing me to go to BYU was one of the best experiences of my life.

Because one, I had to learn how to adjust and to adapt to people and cultures that are vastly different than mine. So now I see the fingerprints of God because our church, Transformation Church, is a multi-ethnic, multi-generational church. And so as a pastor, when I am preaching and teaching and leading, I'm always thinking about the other. I'm always thinking about how to include others at the table of God.

And so, like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, 22 through 23, I become all things to all men and one may know Christ, is it has allowed me to appreciate people's differences and to invite them to the table. I follow you on Twitter, so I know you love the Cougars. You still watch their games every week. I do. I do.

Yeah. BYU, the old, like I said, like I said the other day is the older you get, the more appreciative you are of your experiences. And man, when I go back to BYU, I am like a rock star. So if my self-esteem is ever low, let's go back to BYU. Although I heard something about you running on the field back at BYU. It didn't go so well.

No, it went great. Are you kidding me? So I was asked to run out the flag with the team. And I told my wife, I said, Vic, look, I'm going to be the first one out on the field with the flag. Meaning you're going to be the fastest. Yes, I'm going to be ahead of the team.

I said, I am going to pull my hamstring. So just know it's going to go. And man, when I heard the crowd cheering, it just threw me back in time and I thought they was cheering for me. The adrenaline.

The adrenaline kicked in. And before I knew it, I passed the players. I even passed the team mascot Cosmo. I passed Cosmo. And when I passed Cosmo, my hamstring said, no more.

And it just, it just pop. Did you not stretch? Well, when you're 40, I was 48 at the time and there wasn't enough stretching to help that hamstring. My hamstring was like, really, Derwin? Like, seriously, bro? Like, come on.

But it was a worthy pop of a hamstring. We ask you to join us because you've just written a book called The Good Life, which is about what Jesus teaches in Matthew five, the Sermon on the Mount, about where happiness is found, where satisfaction for your soul is found. It's the Beatitudes that begin that sermon. And as I looked at your book, I thought, you know, the antithesis to what you're talking about, what Jesus is talking about here is the whole issue of pride. Our pride is what keeps us from the good life, isn't it? Yeah.

You know, let me let me take a step back. And so even the title and the cover of the book. So the cover of the book is yellow, right? I mean, that's that that speaks life. Even the title, The Good Life, the subtitle, what Jesus teaches about finding true happiness.

That was intentional. Like, I love to fish. My Sabbath days, I go and fish. I catch bass. I catch crappie. I catch catfish.

I use the lure. Well, that title was the lure to catch people, because as Americans, not only do we want the good life, we believe we're entitled to the good life, but the good life that Jesus is offering us is not about good things perpetually happening to us. It's actually about Jesus making us good for the world. Here's a question that I ask our church.

If all of your prayers came true, how much more holy would your life be? Well, that's a good question, because oftentimes our prayers are like going to Thanksgiving dinner with Jesus. We walk in with dirty shoes. We get to the table. We see the table is filled with food and we stuff our faces. And the only time we look up to speak to him is to say, is there any more gravy?

And when we're done, we get up and we leave and say, hey, Christmas is coming and I'm going to need you to do some things for me. So oftentimes our prayers are more like a superstitious wish list that we give to a butler instead of a king that we give allegiance to. And so the good life is a life in which God makes us good for the world. And when you look at Matthew, chapter five, Jesus beautifully walks through these eight characteristics from Matthew 5, three through 12 of what a happy life is. And then he says this in Matthew 5, 13 and 14 and then going into 16, you are the salt and light. Let your light so shine that it glorifies your Father in heaven. Well, the life that God uses to shine, the life that God uses to be salt, the life that God uses to change the world is the good life. It's a life of holiness that our happiness is no longer contingent upon paychecks.

It's no longer contingent upon circumstances. It's contingent upon a bloody cross and an empty tomb. You're going to get to know Jesus more through reading this book.

You may approach it with one expectation in mind, but Jesus wants to transform your mind and go, no, the good life you're looking for is found in this happy are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons and daughters of God. But it starts with, Bob, like you pointed out, it starts with this thing called pride. Now, most people understand pride as, well, look how great I am. I can do it myself. But there's also a more subtle understanding of pride.

That's this. I'm not worthy. How could God love me? He can forgive other people, but he can't forgive me.

Well, who am I that he would use me? So, so notice what takes place here is on one side of pride. It's look how great I am. On the other side of pride is look how bad I am. And both of those sides miss the grace of the great I am.

Now, that's really interesting because like a lot of people just say, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm struggling with unworthiness or shame and I'm kind of I'm just lost in it. And you're saying that could be a sense of pride.

Yeah, because and here's why. If you follow Jesus, he said these words to Telestai. It is finished. That once you've taken a bloodbath in the grace of Jesus, your status has forever changed. Your status is now Jesus's status. What's true about Jesus is true about you. That Jesus's past behavior absorbs your behavior and you're united to him. So everything that God the Father believes about Jesus, he actually now believes about you as though it's true.

Why? Because Jesus lived the sinless life we could never live. Jesus died the death we should have died on the cross. Jesus rose again, defeating sin, death and evil to unite our lives with his life.

And even as I listen to myself talk, that is absolutely unfair. That's why it's called grace. Grace not only brings you into the family of God, but grace keeps and sustains you in the family of God. And I think a lot of us, maybe it's pride, almost laugh at that. Honestly, I'm thinking, you know, I grew up thinking, OK, if you're a Christian and you believe the stuff, Derwin, you just said, that's not the good life. I mean, I want that.

That's that's good to have on the side. But the good life where you start the book is like, man, you're chasing after happiness through. I mean, I used to call it when I preach on this, I call it the theology of it. And I think we all have this theology of it.

When I get it, then I'll be happy. Yeah. And it starts when you're a little kid.

I mean, I'm guessing we all have stories. I remember Christmas when I was six years old, saying to my mom, I wanted a stingray bike. You guys remember Stingrays? I do.

With the raised handlebars. Oh, yeah, those are sweet. You know, and I wanted that thing. And I get that. And I'm like, whoa.

I mean, you can literally go through your life thinking the good life. I remember then it was Meg Sin. Now, you don't know Meg Sin, but she lived across the street. Her dad was a doctor. And when I was 10 years old, she was the hottest thing I ever saw in my life.

And if I could date Meg Sin. You're 10? I'm 10.

You know, I didn't have a dad in my home. And Dave, hold on. Wait, wait, Dave.

We need Dave. We need to talk about this, bro. Ten years old and you think it like that?

Well, dating means going over to her house and having chocolate, milk and cookie and going home. That's what I thought. But aren't you so glad? Let me use my preacher voice.

But aren't you glad that God said no to Meg and brought you this blonde woman right here? Well, that's the thing. I mean, you go through your life and we all have the it, right? It becomes I want to be the starting point guard in middle school. And I got that. And it wasn't a high school quarterback. I can remember winning in college because I was an amazing college quarterback. Winning the MAAC championship.

That's big time. You know, you played at BYU. I was a big time Ball State. But I can remember beating Northern Illinois, throwing the winning touchdown in the shower. With the water coming over my flowing locks of hair that I used to have. This is after the game.

Yeah, I can remember it had to be an hour after the game with my head under the shower. Just this sense, this feeling of that's it. Yeah. You know, that was I thought the good life. And you've said it already. It's like it became an idol. And when it did, I remember looking at Anne when we're dating, thinking, if I marry her, I'll be so happy. And you are. And then we got married.

And I'm the happiest guy you ever meet. But here's the thing I want to get at, because I think we all feel this. It's like when you look at what you just said about the Beatitudes and real happiness is following God, you almost go, is it? But here's the thing.

Nothing else has worked. So it has to be something else. And you've nailed it. That is the happy, good life. But help us understand how that really is fulfilling the DNA of our longing and our soul. You know, let me let me add this, too, because I think it's important that let's let's say if we could supernaturally go back in time where you had your long locks like Fabio. And if Jesus was forming the Beatitudes in you after you won that Mac championship, it would have been a different sensation. You would have been grateful to God. You would have been thankful to him like you would have appreciate winning more because you wouldn't have been a shadow. You would have been the real thing.

I think it was C.S. Lewis who who said that that were, in essence, shadows were not solid. Well, the Beatitudes make us solid. So what I want to say is Christian men, Christian women, Christian teenagers, whoever you are, go for it for the glory of God and be phenomenal. Bob, earlier yesterday when we were eating and you were praying like that voice, man, like you have a voice for radio.

Definitely not a face for TV, for sure. But but it's like we should be the best we can be in God's strength for God's glory. And so accomplishing things are wonderful if it's for his glory and he's formed us to the people that he wants us to be. And the second part of your question is this is like you you have to jump into the water and see if this is true. So years ago, my wife and I were on vacation somewhere in the Caribbean. She's very aquatic. I am not so much aquatic.

OK, if there's more water than a jacuzzi, Derwin ain't getting in it. Anyway, she would do she what is it? What is snorkeling? She would snorkel. Black people don't snorkel, but she was snorkeling. Anyway, she was snorkeling and she'd come out and go, it's beautiful. It's incredible. And for years, I'm like, that's good, honey.

She's like, no, you have to see it. So one day I was like, all right, I'll do it. So I jumped in the water, tried to swim, messed up a little bit. Some some Caribbean boys were like, look at your man with all those muscles and you can't even swim. And I was like, no, I can't swim. Eventually, I figured the snorkeling thing out. And lo and behold, I was like, boom, this is better than she described. I was like, this is looking at life from a whole new reality. I didn't want to get out of the water.

And when I came out, I was like, whoa, how did I miss out on this for so long? Well, Jesus, when He invites us into His kingdom, when He invites us into the good life through the Beatitudes, He's saying, I want you to jump into the water so you can see how beautiful life can really be. And a lot of times, particularly for us as Americans, we're very pragmatic and we want like, well, what's the how to step? And Jesus is going, I just want you to dance to the rhythm of my grace. Let me love you. Spend time reading the book. Spend time praying.

Spend time talking to friends. And I'm going to give you plenty of opportunity to be humble in spirit because that person at work that you don't like, you're going to have an opportunity to instead of cast back vile speech, you're going to love your enemy because Jesus says so. You're going to live peaceably towards them. So it's not so much about a how to. It's about dancing to the rhythm of God's grace. Because the good life isn't always the easy life. Oh, goodness. Talk about that, because you just say like you open your snorkeling and you open your eyes to this whole new world.

And yet it's not always easy. No. Oh, gosh. Well, there's a chapter that I wrote called Blessed Are the Peacemakers or Happy Are the Peacemakers. And I open up that chapter with the beating of Rodney King in 1992. Some of the listeners may not remember this, but in 1992, a man by the name of Rodney King in Los Angeles had took police on a high speed chase and the police beat him with batons and someone was filming it.

This is before we had smartphones. And for many of us in the black community, it was like finally people will see that this type of police brutality is true. Now, let me affirm. Do we love policemen? Do I love policemen?

Yes, I pastor many of them and pray for them and love them. We get awards at Transformation Church for our work with the police department. One can be for police and for police reform simultaneously. And for those of us who are theologically minded, the idea of total depravity doesn't skip the police department, just like there's bad pastors. There are unhealthy, bad police officers who enforce police brutality. So anyway, I write blessed are the peacemakers and I describe that experience. And lo and behold, in America, we're still having these types of issues.

We're having the the racial divide. So I'm writing this chapter about how to be a peacemaker across ethnic and cultural lines. How do you love people who despise your existence? Well, the way you love people who despise your existence is to keep your eyes on Jesus, who gave you an eternal existence and who says, love your enemies. I'm not going to persuade you by giving evil for evil. The only way I can try to persuade you is to love you. And besides, listen, if I love you with the love of Jesus, it may not stop you from hating me, but it will stop me from hating you. And so I lay open this theology of ethnic reconciliation for God's people to be able to walk through so that the Gen Z and the younger generations can say, these Christians in America would not stand by and allow the dark forces of racism to continue.

They're going to be salt and light. That's the good life. So, yeah, that's tough. That's really hard. But nowhere in the Bible does Jesus go, hey, by the way, it's going to be really easy today. Right. Matter of fact, he said this in John 16, 33, in this world, you will have trouble but take courage because I have overcome the world.

And he overcame the world by breaking the shackles of sin and death and evil. No one can make me not act like a Christian. I can only give them the power to do so. As we walk back to the humility part, talk about what being humble, how it plays out in marriage. Wow.

Yeah. You know, one of the most incredible gifts of being married is God reveals to you how selfish you are. That has been one of the incredible gifts as you see how selfish you are. That doesn't sound like a gift to have a mirror held up to you. Look at this.

Look how selfish you are. Did you discover that on your own or did Vicki kind of point that out? No, Vicki is really good at pointing that out.

That was, yeah, she was really good at pointing that out for sure. See, but my pride was the more dangerous kind of pride. My pride was a proudness in my humility. And I think that's actually more dangerous than the loudmouth jerk. I think the person, well, I'm humble.

Why are you treating me this way? The very fact, like if you have to say you're humble, you're not. Or if you take pride in your humility, you're not. But let's talk about selfishness.

And I want to look at it from this perspective. My whole life, Dave, I had been taught this. If people got close to me, they could hurt me. So therefore, I'm not going to let you get close to me to hurt me.

If anybody's going to hurt Derwin Gray, it's going to be Derwin Gray. And so I brought that into marriage. One of the things that I tell young couples before they get married is this. Pay more for marriage counseling than the wedding.

Premarital counseling, spend more money on that on the wedding. The wedding is a day the marriage is a lifetime. And so we bring to the marriage our past hurts.

It's like we bring this invisible suitcase that becomes visible over time. And as you know, the first four years that you're in love, you're high. God gets us high. All these chemicals that make us feel good, that's why we get married. Because if we were sober, we would never get married.

Because we'd be like, dang, girl, you're kind of bossy. You know what I'm saying? So, but when the highness wears off, that's when you begin the real work of learning to put down your preferences and picking up your crosses. And so the humility part was this, is about 10 years in, oh gosh, 10 years in, it really hit us like, wow, okay. We're like glorified roommates, but there's so much more that God wants to do.

And humility is God strips you of everything that you think you are, and He begins to reconstruct you. And so there are various things that we went through from dealing with the pain and trauma of our past. Vicki went through cancer in 2004. When she was pregnant, she went through what's called hyperemesis gravidarum, which is a Latin word for throw up all day, every day. And so I'm thinking to myself, how in the world can I be prideful towards her when she's literally feels like she has the flu for nine months?

With our last child, Jeremiah, we had a miscarriage in between. With Jeremiah, she actually slipped into clinical depression. And before then, you know, I was a typical guy athlete, well, just drink some Gatorade.

No, clinical depression is not drink some Gatorade. And it became serious when she looked at me and said, I don't want to live. And when we were at her doctor, the doctor closed the door and there was a list on the door that said, you're depressed if in all 10 of those characteristics of depression, we went yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So a part of my humbling was watching her strength to bring our children into the world, watching her strength walk through cancer with incredible faith. One night, no one ever tells you this, but when you're diagnosed with cancer the first night, you just can't sleep.

And I remember us being in the bed and we're both sniffling and crying. And she just quoted a scripture. And then I quoted a scripture. Then she quoted a scripture. Then I quoted a scripture. And before you know it, we were literally playing scriptural tennis, going back and forth. And our tears of fear turned into tears of hope, tears of joy.

And so a part of my humbling was watching the way she walks with Jesus, like the woman knows Jesus, like I am a better man because of her. You know, I think about Jesus' statement, blessed are the poor in spirit. And I think we can tend to have this idea. That means we must think that we're terrible people. I think what it means is we must acknowledge the reality of the condition that we're in, because most of us think we're better than we are. So poor in spirit is to say, I'm not as good as I think I am.

And you mentioned this, or when you said there can be this other kind of pride that's, oh, I'm a terrible person. The reality of your spiritual condition is to acknowledge two things simultaneously. I am created in the image of God. I have value, worth, and dignity as a result of that. And I am riddled with sin that keeps me separated from the God who created me. Yeah, so the way I like to say it is that grace humbles us without deflating us and exalts us without moving us to the place of thinking that we're greater than God. That's good. There's a song we sing at church from time to time that has the line in it, two wonders here do I confess, my worth and my unworthiness.

And those are simultaneously true. We have worth and we are unworthy. And when we recognize that reality, we're finally in a place where we can go, now I see what I really need. Yeah, and to be poor in spirit is Jesus saying, happy are those who are God-reliant, that every breath you take is a gift of God. We even take breathing oxygen for granted. We take for granted that the sun is going to rise. No, we're not entitled to any of those things. And so being poor in spirit is pure gift, it's pure grace. It's God thank you that I can even say thank you.

Yeah, it's the idea that we are spiritually bankrupt and if we think to ourselves, wow. It's right here. It's right here. What does it say? The Happiness Manifesto.

Yeah. I mean, you ended the book with this and you even said, hey, maybe you put this on your wall or your bedroom door and say that. I thought this captures. I think you should read it. I'm going to read it. I mean, I was going to make you read it. No, I want you to read it. You wrote it. You're a quarterback. I'll read it, man.

It says, I blank, so you put your name in. I, Dave, declare that all I would ever hope to be is found in all of who Jesus is. My life is hidden in his life.

His life is my life. As a gift of grace, Jesus lived a sinless life because I couldn't. In his unending mercy, Jesus died the death that I should have to atone for my sin. Today I am free from the power of sin and death. Because of his great love for me, I am holy, blameless, righteous, adopted child of God.

I am pleasing to the Father because I am in his beloved Son. The happiness that I seek can never be satisfied by created things. The happiness I was created to experience is not found in happenings. True happiness is more about God making me good than good things happening to me. Today I declare that I choose happiness because I choose Jesus, his kingdom, and his glory. Today I declare that I will choose the ways of his kingdom, the truth of his gospel, and live from his life. Signed, Dave Wilson.

Word. Man, I want to go body slam the devil after that. I want to, too. What a great thing to say every morning. Like, this is who I am. This is who Jesus is.

And this is what he has for me. And speaking a scripture-infused declaration over yourself is worship. And I want to go back to the other part of pride of I'm unworthy, I'm this, I'm that. If you belong to Jesus, don't call him a liar.

You may feel that way. Sometimes your actions may reflect that. But the greatness of our God, as he says it, before the foundations of the world, the Lamb of God was slain. That God loved us before the foundation of the world. And so God has already taken into account past, present, future sins. And what he declares to be so, we believe it.

And when we believe it, our feelings and our actions catch up to his truth. Are you living the good life? I am. You know, it's interesting. Years 42 through 46 were rough. And I remember hitting 42 and I was like, midlife crisis?

Man, I don't know what these guys are talking about. And then 42 through 46 was rough. Now, from an external perspective, church was booming, marriage was healthy. But there was an extended family conflict and learning how to parent teenagers. And it was rough. It was really hard.

There was a season where I was in mild depression and really didn't know it. And I was like, I'm going to go see a therapist. And I found myself, I was angry that I wasn't parented the way I was parenting my kids.

I was angry about that. Like, how could you let me raise myself this way? Like, I remember coming home from school in the fifth grade and having to cook myself eggs.

I could ride across the city of San Antonio on a bus at 11. And there were things that I seen and experienced that no child should ever see and experience. And I was angry about that. And the Lord really ministered to me through therapy, my depression lifted. Also, what I discovered too is I was working through my doctorate and I was sitting down and writing and I wasn't exercising as much.

Exercising is good for your mental health, getting outside. So, 42 through 46 was rough, but God has given me new rhythms and new graces. And if this book doesn't help anybody, it helped me.

It really taught me new ways of how to engage Jesus, but also new ways of how to see and be in the world in which I'm not codependent on the world for my happiness. And God gave you a good, good, good woman. Yeah. Oh, no doubt. To walk with you through that. Oh, gosh.

Oh, my goodness. I think you can add us to the list of people the books helped, so it's not just you. And I hope it's going to help a lot of our listeners as well. Thank you for being with us and talking about this.

Thank you so much. We're making Derwin's book, The Good Life, available this week to those of you who can support the Ministry of Family Life with a donation. What you're actually doing when you donate is you're investing in the marriages, the families, the lives of tens of thousands of people every day who are receiving practical, biblical help and hope for their marriage through this daily radio program. I should say hundreds of thousands, because really the reach of this program has expanded so much over the last decade because of the number of channels where family life today is being heard. And there are people all around the world who are accessing this program thanks to the generosity of listeners like you who make all of this possible with your donations. So, again, if you're able to help with a donation today to help expand and increase the ministry of family life today, you can donate online at familylifetoday.com, or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY.

And when you do, ask for your copy of The Good Life by Derwin Gray, What Jesus Teaches About Finding True Happiness. It's our thank you gift to you and appreciation for your support, and we do look forward to hearing from you. Now, tomorrow we're going to talk about what real love looks like, because I think honestly all of us need to have our thinking recalibrated a bit when it comes to our understanding of love. And besides, with Valentine's Day coming up this weekend, we're thinking about love.

Let's think about it rightly. We'll talk more about what real love looks like tomorrow. Hope you can tune in for that with us. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. Special help today from Justin Adams. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.