JOY

The Neighborhood Church

The theme for the third week of Advent is Joy. In our world and in our lives, we might be tempted to believe that joy is a limited resource or that there's nothing we can do to manufacture more of it. And in some ways...that's true. Because more than anything we can muster on our own, joy is a response. In this message we eavesdrop on an encounter between two expectant mothers and then we explore the responses of joy that break into our broken world. These experiences can remind us that joy is not only possible -- it's promised. NOTES -- // SCRIPTURE FOCUS -- Luke 1.39-45 // BIG IDEA 1 -- Joy is the response to a dream realized // BIG IDEA 2 -- Joy is the recognition and response to the presence of Heaven on earth. // A "Beatitude" is less about activity and more about geography -- "You are smack dab within the reach of God's blessing." // The experiences of joy are earthly appetizers to the banquet of heaven. // Joy is not only possible, joy is promised. // BIG IDEA 3 -- Joy is more fully experienced because sadness is part of our experience. Joy is our response to overwhelming goodness precisely because we know how overwhelmingly broken our world can be. // QUOTE -- “Joy is home...God created us in joy and created us for joy, and in the long run not all the darkness there is in the world and in ourselves can separate us finally from that joy, because whatever else it means to say that God created us in his image, I think it means that even when we cannot believe in him, even when we feel most spiritually bankrupt and deserted by him, his mark is deep within us. We have God‘s joy in our blood.” (FREDERICK BUECHNER, The Longing for Home)