December 17 - Habakkuk 3:18

Hello, Northland Church. This is Pastor Blake, coming to you to talk briefly about joy. Uh, the passage I'm looking at for this ad that season is a back at 318. which says, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. And back it wrote these words at a time when his whole world has fallen apart. He was struggling to find peace. He was struggling to find wholeness he was struggling to find any anything in which the world made sense to him. And he cried out to God about this, and God was said he was sending more judgment. And Habachik really struggled with this. His world was falling apart. And yet he pens these words at the end of his book. that he found joy in the person of God, the God of his salvation. This doesn't mean that his other feelings went away necessarily, or that his circumstances necessarily changed. And it was still a rough situation for him. We may experience the same type of things at Christmas time, where we struggle to find joy. Joy seems elusive. We remember those things of past Christmases that were lost, maybe, and there's a sense of grief. Uh, loved ones that are no longer with us, circumstances that may be stressing us out. All these things can bear down on us in a time when we feel like we should be happy. And yet we struggle. Well, like back, we can find our joy. In the person of God. And in particular, we celebrate God made flesh in the form of a little baby, that came and was born to live, teach, die for our sins, and then overcome death, so that we too can have eternal life. There is the source of our joy. If we find a try to find joy just for ourselves. We will often miss it. If we find joy in the relationship we have with God. We will truly find joy. Other things may still be there, the world may not be perfect for us, and yet we can find joy in the person of God. That is my hope for you this Christmas, and God bless Northland.