Joy is the global focus on this 3rd Sunday of Advent. Since God is the most joyful person in the universe and He has gifted us with joy for our interior lives, today we consider what true joy is, a few thieves of joy and the key to obeying His command to “Rejoice!” in the calm and stormy seasons of life.
"Advent" Tagged Sermons (Page 2)
The Word comes in the wilderness. Preparing the Way for the coming of the King, then, now and in the future.
We often put our hope in things that crumble. It is easy to do in our day. But there is a hope that lasts, that will culminate in Christ’s second coming. What did this hope look like for believers in his generation, and what does that hope look like today? And are you truly ready for Jesus to come again?
We know the nativity story. But the iconic scene we imagine is incomplete by itself. It’s a picture framed by the hardship and pain of Mary and Joseph and of the people of Israel for the centuries that came prior. By observing the sorrow, we see the joy all the more clearly. The tyranny of empires and the death of our Savior make His birth, His resurrection and His return all the more powerful.
Joy takes center stage at Christmas. We sing Joy to the World, we call it a season of joy and we celebrate the night when an angel of the Lord brought shepherds “good news of great joy.” What is joy? John Piper rightly says, “According to the Bible joy is a good feeling in the soul produced by the Holy Spirit as he causes us to see the beauty of Christ through his word and his world.” On this 4th Sunday of Advent we consider 3 reasons, revealed in Psalm 98 and verse 4 of Joy to the World, why beholding Christ awakens joy in us. If there is room for more joy in your soul today, these Jesus-exalting realities may be just what you need.
In this 3rd week of Advent we consider, “What is it we are waiting for?” In other words, what is God’s vision for the future? Jesus and the whole Bible reveal that God’s vision for the future is a second advent of Christ followed by a renewed cosmos free from destruction, racial division, injustice and everything else that disrupts the harmony that once existed in Eden. Once this picture becomes clearer a second question must be addressed, “In light of this hope, how shall we now live?” This week we hear God’s invitation for us is to participate in making earth look more like Heaven while we anticipate Christ’s 2nd advent after which He will make all things new.
Has life been more difficult than you expected? If so, December may be a tough month as you see others celebrating while you struggle. On this second Sunday of Advent we recall a series of disappointments in Joseph’s life and we discover how these difficulties were used by God in a way that Joseph could have never imagined. His setbacks paved the way for the coming of Christ for the good of the whole world. In his first advent (“coming”), Jesus also modeled bowing in the midst of unexplainable difficulty and He taught His disciples to do the same. Therefore, we bow to our Sovereign God to plead our case, worship in our pain, and trust with full confidence that our difficulties in this damaged world will contribute (most likely in ways that only God currently knows) to God’s glory, our future joy and the restoration of all things.
The word Advent comes from a Latin word meaning “to come.” On this 1st Sunday of Advent we celebrate the first coming of Jesus as the light of the world. Similar to the transformation from darkness to light that we all experienced when we were born, so everything changes when the light of Christ shines into our spiritual darkness and we experience our new birth from above.