Sundays this fall

Get your ‘want to’ back. As I read the little Bible book of Philippians I notice two thoughts that make it real: hardship and joy. ‘I have learned to be content,’the Apostle Paul says. I can use a little of that! This is not joy because God has removed difficulty but joy that transforms difficulty into life. Paul should have known what he was getting into. When he first preached Christ at Philippi, Paul was beaten and thrown in jail and ended up singing hymns in an earthquake! Joy was inserted into Philippi’s DNA at her birth!

Now Paul is inspired from a gritty prison cell. He is aware that even believers are finding satisfaction in his difficulty. How bad is that? Someone close to him had been terribly ill and had almost died. People who really cared about others in the church were almost nonexistent! In all of this Paul had discovered a deeper joy. He has found everything he needs in the righteousness of Christ and the glory of God. He admonishes, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice’! Embrace joy in this fall season of misery, oops, I mean ministry! God wants to transform you from ‘have to’ to ‘want to’ (as my friend Earl says). Join us for a new sermon series beginning September 9^th that I'm calling: 'More Joy; Less Stress.' And don’t miss the blue moon tomorrow night. We won’t see another one until 2015!