Philippians 1:12 – 18 Gospel – Centered Joy
Your priorities will determine what gives you joy and what makes you sad. Many of our joys lie in in those things God made to be important to us like family and work. But sin is an opportunist that is always looking to distort things, and this is often revealed in our joys and our sadness. Because we love things inordinately, in other words we love the wrong things or in the wrong way or to the wrong extent, we have our joy and sadness in the wrong things. Because we put our treasure in the wrong place we...
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Luke 2:10-12: Joy to the World
INTRODUCTION Christmas time is supposed to be a time of great joy. But many people are sad. You have heard of S.A.D., seasonally affected disorder. This usually describes people who react badly to winter weather because there is less sunshine, but many are affected by the approaching Christmas season as well. There are the usual reasons for feeling sad, maybe it is separation from loved ones, or the loss of a loved one. Maybe it is coming to the end of a rough year where many expectations went unmet and many hardships surprised us. There are added troubles this...
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Luke 15:1-10: Seeking and Saving the Lost
God loves sinners and He seeks for them to save them. John Stott shares this truth from the experience of Augustine: ‘He was born in North Africa (in what we now call Algeria) in the middle of the fourth century. Already in his teens he was leading a dissolute, even promiscuous, life, enslaved by his passions. He wrote in his Confessions: “Clouds of muddy carnal concupiscence filled the air. The bubbling impulses of puberty befogged and obscured my heart so that it could not see the difference between love’s serenity and lust’s darkness. Confusion of the two things boiled...
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Luke 10:17-24: Reasons for Rejoicing
The Christian life can be depressing at times. Ecclesiastes 1:18 gives us a reason why, ‘ For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.’ The more truth you have, the more you realize how bad things are, and that can be depressing. We can get depressed because of the internal love that we still have for sin and the way we continue to sin. We get depressed because we see so much suffering so much of it self-inflicted as people live without God. We are sad because the God we love is not...
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Isaiah 9:1-7: Jesus, the prophesied Messiah
You noticed perhaps a similar theme between the two portions of Scripture this morning, and that is one of celebration and rejoicing. So let me ask you this question, what do you celebrate at Christmas time? Perhaps you are happy about the time off work? Perhaps you enjoy spending the break with family and friends? Perhaps you are like the neighbour down my street, and use it as an occasion to put lights on every available surface outside your home? Maybe you like the giving of gifts, or if you are a child, you like the receiving gifts? If...
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Romans 15:13: The First Benediction
Introduction: We come to the end of the teaching part of the book of Romans as Paul pronounces the first of three benedictions, Romans 15:13, ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.’ These words may be familiar to you because you often hear a benediction at the end of a service. Why do we do that? If you go to older denominations that have liturgy you would also find benedictions, is this simply a return to ‘dead religion’?...
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