Advent reading: Joy
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Churches all around the world celebrate the Advent season in December in the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas. While we have not lit the Advent candles as some churches do, we have been focusing our sermon messages on the themes of hope, prophecy, and today, joy. Joy is important for Christians at all times, however, it is extremely important around Christmas. Joy is important because it forces us to get our eyes off of ourselves and to look above at what God has done for mankind… send His Son! We celebrate that during this 3rd week of Advent and as a result, we are overcome with joy. It has been said that the greatest gift of all is joy. While the greatest gift of all is certainly Jesus Christ, the gift of joy is a result of Christ’s coming. Because Christ came to the earth, we are able to have pure, undefiled joy. Our joy is not predicated upon our circumstances or our feelings, rather our joy is based completely on what Christ has done. He has come. As a result of His coming, many will be saved. Many will be made righteous before the Father. If that is your story this morning, you should be overcome with joy and give thanks to God for this incredible gift.
If you do not know about this joy, I pray that today might be your day of salvation and that you might come to have a personal relationship with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That is why we celebrate Christmas. We celebrate not because of presents, independence, family or to end a calendar year, we celebrate because of Jesus Christ and how His coming brings salvation to mankind.
4 Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see:
5 the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
Matthew 11:
28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
29 “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Rejoice, church. Our Lord has come to bring life to those who are dead and to give life to those who walk in darkness.