At The Family Church here in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin concluded his Christmas Series of sermons that emphasized the theme of "irrational" when it comes to looking at God and his relationship with us. For this message, the title was Irrational Joy...a joy founded in God's love for us and not on our own circumstances. There were a number of scripture references...just click on them to read them via Bible Gateway...
At the start of his message, Pastor Philip made a point of distinguishing between the terms "happiness", which depends...as I had earlier mentioned...on our own circumstances, and "joy", which comes from God and being deeply rooted in him. Philip described that joy as surrendering control to God (Luke 1:46-47), knowing that we are loved and included (Luke 2:10, 1 Corinthians 1:26-27), and finding the answer to the deepest longings of our soul (Matthew 2:10, 1 Peter 1:8-9). Mary's joy depended on completely surrendering her control to God, for her circumstances were challenging on many fronts. God picked the lowly shepherds for the angels to announce the Lord's birth because this showed that everyone is included as his beloved. And for our souls' deepest longings, people and "stuff" will always disappoint, but God never will...
Although when I wrote this summary, the particular message from last Sunday hadn't yet been uploaded, I'm sure it eventually will appear on the church's YouTube video website, which you can access through the following link: [link]...just scroll down to the bottom left video on hat site to see the latest sermon. The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street (also known as Parker Road) and will hold its final Sunday morning services of the year at 9:30 and 11...starting in 2018 those times change to 9 and 10:30. I'm always learning something new every time I go there and hear messages full of insight, as well as the beautiful, inspiring music. Oh, and with friendly folks all around and delicious coffee, how can you go wrong?
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