Joy | Advent: Week 3

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Merry Christmas.

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We're so glad to have you joining us here at Crossroads online.

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My name's Lena Schuler, the Crossroads Anywhere Community Pastor.

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I hope you like my attire right now.

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I'm here with my dad and boss and friend, Brian Tome.

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- Hey, it's great to be with everybody right now.

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I'm admiring your look.

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It's very, very impressive.

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- I do.

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- My sweater says bundle of joy, which is twofold.

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One, I'm pregnant with a bundle of joy.

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And two, we're talking about joy this week.

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So one of the things that I thought would give us some joy is if you looked like me.

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- I'm not going to look like you.

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why I look like you.

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- Ironically, I look like you, which is funny.

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But I actually brought you something.

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- Yes.

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- We know how much you love Peanut, your dog.

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- I do love Peanut.

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Who doesn't love Peanut?

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Everyone loves Peanut.

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So I thought that you could have fun today.

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- We right now should have a little picture, real life picture of Peanut coming up right now.

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- All right. Good.

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- So it's ugly Christmas sweater weekend.

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And we got you a very festive sweater with a dog like Peanut.

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- That does look like Peanut.

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- Yes, I know, so it's the perfect sweater for you.

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Which means I think you should put it on.

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- You want me to wear it?

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- All right, that's fine.

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- While you put that on, it is ugly Christmas sweater weekend across all of our sites.

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And people all over the country are wearing ugly Christmas sweaters right now.

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So we wanted to participate, too, as a church because we can.

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And I can't stop looking over here because you look so funny.

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I like it. I like it.

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I got I got Peanut nice and close to my heart here.

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I got a little, all kinds of stuff going on here.

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- But it really -- the black shirt really play well with the fuzzy neckline.

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- I have to have that on or else my trap are just like bam, bam.

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And like it would blow out Christmas holiday tubes in every TV all across our nation.

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- Holiday tubes?

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- Yeah. OK.

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Well, I think that you need to complete your outfit with a headband just to make it really real.

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Man, you've never looked better.

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- I am Christmas, man. All Christmas, all the time.

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This is very fun.

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But it's one things that we want to be about as a church, we want to be fun.

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- We need to be able to laugh at ourselves.

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We ought to be able do stupid things.

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The world is taking itself way too seriously.

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Everyone's on edge and everyone's like wondering what's happening.

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Hey, how about we just relax?

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All of us, in fact, let's do an inhale and exhale together.

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One, two, three. [inhales]

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Let's just live a little lightly, and if that means wearing a stupid, ugly sweater.

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Although this one isn't that ugly, because whatever Peanut is on, nothing is ugly.

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- You do jingle a little.

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[laughs] Great.

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Speaking of living lightly, last week you helped us do that in talking about peace.

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- Peace. Yeah.

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- In this Advent series we're in today and today, we're talking about joy.

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Why are we in an Advent series to begin with?

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- So Advent is somethein that's been around for, gosh, probably 1500 years.

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Followers of Jesus have been doing this wreath in some way, shape, or form.

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We're looking at key elements of what Jesus brings to us.

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Of course, Christmas is about the world having Jesus brought to them.

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And so these four key elements, character qualities of the advent or the arrival of are critical.

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So first week was hope.

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Second week was peace.

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This week is going to be joy.

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But yeah, peace.

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I realize with these things that we're looking at,

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we're not going to get these anywhere else in the world.

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ABC Nightly News, CNN, Fox News, they're not interested in giving you hope or joy or peace.

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We can't find these things anywhere other than in Jesus.

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And that's what Christmas is about.

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It's about Him.

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So I've been pretty stoked about what's been happening in this series so far.

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- That's right.

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And the Advent series comes to a close on Christmas Eve

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where we have services happening in all of our locations

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and right here online on Christmas Eve at 1 p.m.,

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3 p.m., 5 p.m.

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And then we go On-Demand after that.

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And we're gonna be live right here at Crossroads Oakley for the service.

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And it's gonna be great.

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The other thing that we do at Christmas

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that we've done as a church for years and years has been Awaited.

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So let's see a little bit of what Awaited looks like

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to just get you excited about what you could experience this Christmas.

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Awaited: a beloved holiday tradition experienced by over half a million people.

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Feel the wonder, the joy, and the hope of the holidays.

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Experience the traditional Christmas story brought to life in a completely new way.

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Coming to the Aronoff Center, visit CincinnatiArts.org.

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Well, that video right there is nostalgic for me

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because it's part of how I've celebrated Christmas for the last 12 years.

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And I'm excited that we get to do it again together as a family this year.

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So you can head to awaitedshow.com

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to get tickets today

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if you're gonna be in the greater Cincinnati area.

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And today, we are celebrating together the Advent of Joy.

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Jesus offers us a life of joy.

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A baby born in the city of Bethlehem 2000 years ago

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came for the shepherds, came for the Kings.

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He was sent for you and for me.

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A rescuer sent to save the world from itself.

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Jesus, the King, came so that every single one of us,

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shepherds and sheep alike, could have a chance at a full, thriving life.

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When we say yes to this life of joy He brings, gratitude bubbles over in to praise.

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Today we joyfully celebrate the one who brings us life.

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- Well, nothing says joy like an ugly sweater.

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Right?

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Well, hey, my name's Justin.

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Welcome to Ugly Sweater Weekend here at Crossroads.

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Some of ya'll didn't get the memo, but some of ya'll did right down here, right?

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Right.

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So make some noise in the place if you're rocking an ugly sweater.

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[cheers] There you go.

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Hey, can we give it up for the band?

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Show some love to the band.

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I mean, they went all out, like Hannah and Sophie.

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Ya'll showed some dedication, some dedication there.

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Well, hey, we like to laugh a lot around here and have fun.

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We don't take ourselves too seriously.

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So go ahead and stand up.

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If you're at home or online or at a coffee shop, man, turn it up, lean in with us.

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We're going to sing together about the joy that we have and about the One who gives us that joy.

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So, we're glad you're here. Let's sing together.

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- Yes, joy to the world.

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That's right.

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It's ugly sweater weekend.

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I'm in it to win it.

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In it to win it.

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Some pretty sad sacks up here.

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I'm not -- Sophie, that's not too bad.

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It says sweater, not the thing you sleep in at night.

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A sweater.

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Are you married?

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- That's why, right there.

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That's exactly why right there.

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What is up with the Bengals?

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This is not a Bengal's sweater thing.

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It's a Christmas sweater.

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Oh, do we have to hug right now?

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I'm so sorry, sweetie.

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That's one of my -- That's one of my --

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That's one of my love languages is verbal abuse.

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Sophie knows that.

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Hey, this song, Joy The World is actually my favorite Christmas song.

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And Chuck is going to be talking about it in a little bit, the concept of joy.

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Joy is not happiness.

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Happiness is when good things are happening.

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Joy is something that is much deeper, much wider, and much more unexpected than that.

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It's not dependent on what's going on around us.

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It's dependent on God and being in connection with Him.

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The Book of Romans 15:13, it says this:

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And the God of all hope fill you with joy, fill you.

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And we need hope when things aren't going that great in our lives.

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Some of us have lives that are going just as we planned

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or even better than we planned, it all good.

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All good.

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Some of us have lives that are just, they're not going as we planned.

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It's not all good.

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And yet Joy is an equal gift that God can give to all of us,

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He can fill all of us with.

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In the book of 2 Corinthians 7:4 it says:

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Well, what kind of afflictions might those be?

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It might be in my credit card debt I am filled with joy.

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In my separation I'm filled with joy.

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In my infertility I'm filled with joy.

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In my dead end job I'm filled with joy.

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In my loneliness I am filled with joy.

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In my frustration I am filled with joy.

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Joy is something that God gives us, just like He gives us His Son.

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The key line I love in this song is make Him room.

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You and I have to make a decision whether or not we will make room for Jesus.

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We have to make a decision whether we will make room for Him and His joy.

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And when we do and His joy fills our lives,

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no circumstance that we're dealing with can stand against the joy of God.

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So God, I pray that we would have joy today, You'd fill us with joy.

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We want to sing this song right now to train ourselves to have joy.

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We pray these things in Your name.

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Amen.

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Let me pray for us.

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God, I thank you.

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You put joy in a deeper place than just up on the surface.

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Like the things that I can just, I don't know,

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the things that are easy they're not often the best for me.

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The things that dwell deep down inside,

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that come with searching and even come with pain.

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I dig down deep and find this treasure that is joy and hope and peace and love.

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That's when I come alive.

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That's what I recognize there's something bigger than me happening.

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There's something deeper going on.

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I thank You and I sing to You because of that.

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So thank You for movement.

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Thank You for some sweaters and some laughter

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and some joy in the midst of what we face right now.

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God, we love You and I love You.

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And I thank you for Jesus, for showing us what joy, what life looks like.

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I pray this way because of You.

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Jesus, Amen.

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- Christmas songs are actually opportunity for us to worship.

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And one of the most worshipful moments I've had

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in the midst of Christmas songs was a few years ago at Awaited.

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So I brought my friends Meghan and Lauren with me to Awaited one year.

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And at the end we're standing and we're singing Joy to the World.

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And my friend Megan just has tears streaming down her face.

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And so it ends and I'm kind of wondering like what's happening here?

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And so I just asked her, I said, "Hey, what'd you think?

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It seems like you're feeling something new right now."

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She looked at me and she said, "I never knew that that was what Christmas was about."

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She said, "This changes everything."

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Which I chuckled at a little bit because that line,

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"This changes everything," is actually part of the Awaited show.

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And she meant it wholeheartedly.

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The joy I had in that moment of knowing that Jesus just broke into Megan's life

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in a new and fresh way was unlike anything else

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that I get to feel anywhere else during my week

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or during my year or during work or during any of the other parts of life.

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And so I had such joy seeing Meghan receive Jesus.

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And I believe that God had such joy seeing Megan receive His Son Jesus

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through the church because He loves His church.

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And so if you want to give to the church,

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you can do that by heading to Crossroads.net/give.

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And I do that because I love seeing how my friends are meeting Jesus in the midst of Crossroads.

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And today we're going to head right into the Advent of joy.

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- Thanks for being at Crossroads.

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It is ugly sweater weekend and I'm in it to win it.

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I mean, when I saw this sweater, I said, "I have to get this.

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This is my Christmas sweater."

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I mean, when your name is in the Christmas sweater, you know it's time to buy that thing.

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So people have asked me, like, did you custom order that?

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No, I actually just did a search.

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And when I saw fa la la la Mingo, I said, that is fa la la la my Christmas sweater.

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Doing that thing.

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It's a joyful time.

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It's been fun to see people online and in our sites and locations wearing their ugly sweaters.

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All of the community pastors have gotten in on the action.

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So we've got a bunch of my teammates, my community pastor teammates in their sweaters.

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I love this one right here.

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I don't know if you can see this or not.

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This is Josh Wade from Uptown.

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He's got Mike Tyson in the middle of a sweater saying "Merry Chrithmith."

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[laughter] That's good. That's really good.

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And we've got other community pastors from all of our locations that got in on the action.

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You'll be seeing those pictures scrolling.

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Now, here's here's the thing.

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You might think you have the ugliest Christmas sweater.

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If that's the case, we want you to tag us @crdschurch in your Instagram story.

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Who knows? We might put that into our full national feed.

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And we will share your ugliness with the rest of the world.

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So I'm just telling you, this is a great opportunity for you

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to represent your ugly Christmas sweaters.

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So all of these are my teammates doing this.

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But I want to pause here because

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I am really excited about this community pastor who does slay.

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Her name is Vicki Diller

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and very soon she's going to be launching our 13th site, Crossroads Columbus.

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Can we hear it for Crossroads Columbus?

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[applause]

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Yes, man, I'm excited about this for a bunch of reasons.

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I'm always excited when we open a new location.

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It is a really big deal.

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We believe that God has called us as a church

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to reach people where they are and to expand the message of Jesus.

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And we think we have a unique language and dialect and how we do that.

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And so I'm excited that people in Columbus will have a Crossroads

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that they can jump in and be a part of.

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I'm also very, very excited because Vicki is leading this camp.

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Vicki is someone who I've known for years.

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Actually, Vicki used to babysit my wife and I's children.

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She lived right behind us.

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And so I got to watch her and her husband, Tony,

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kind of grow in their marriage, grow as followers of Jesus.

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In fact, she used to be on our Oakley team here leading our Kids' Club team.

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And so I have just seen her blossom and she's an incredible leader.

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And I am so excited for her to be leading Crossroads Columbus.

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And so you might know people in the Columbus area, you might have friends or family.

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And we want them to know that we're coming to their neighborhood.

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So, if you go to Crossroads.net/columbusinvite,

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you will find information

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and tools that you can use to encourage your friends

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to be a part of the Crossroads Columbus launch.

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And so I'm going to jump in today to our message on joy.

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As I do that, I want to pray specifically, I'm going to pray for the Columbus launch.

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Let's do that together.

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God, thank You so much for the team of people in Columbus

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who have a heart for their neighbors and their friends

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and who are willing to create space

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and create a space where they can connect and hear more about You.

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So, God, I want to pray your blessings on the entire launch team,

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all of the people who are part of Crossroads Columbus.

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And God, I want to pray in advance for the people

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that You're going to reach through that campus,

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that they would know that there is a God that pursues them

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and we just get to be on that journey with them.

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So, God, I pray today as we lean into the idea of joy at Christmas,

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and specifically at Advent, that You would just speak.

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That You would connect with the hearts of all of us in all the different places that we are.

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In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen.

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So Advent has been really cool for my family and I.

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We've been celebrating it at home, using some cards

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that kind of everyday give us something to reflect on.

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And Advent is about anticipation, right?

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I mean, my kids are excited because every day

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that we turn a card over means we're a day closer to Christmas.

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I mean, they're excited about that and they're looking forward to that.

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Advent is meant to do that.

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That's part of why we light a different candle every week,

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because as these candles get brighter,

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we're reminded of the gifts that Jesus offers us through His coming to Earth.

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Gifts like hope and peace.

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And this week, we're talking about the gift of joy.

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And I don't know if you noticed or not,

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but one of these four is not like the other.

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I mean, you got three purple candles.

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And today we have the defiantly pink candle.

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We're going to talk about why that's the case.

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There is something for all of us to learn

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from this defiantly pink candle on Advent this week.

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And I don't usually title messages, but I have a title for you today.

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And it is this: I want to talk about defiant joy.

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Defiant Joy.

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I was thinking about this when I thought about the fact

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that my kids are going to defy me on December 24th.

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At Christmas Eve, when I say to them,

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what my wife and I say to them every night, "Hey, guys, time to go to bed."

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My kids are going to defy me on Christmas Eve.

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Right?

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Because they got to be so excited, so anxious about Christmas the next day.

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So we're going to have to tell them a couple of times,

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You know, because, you know, it works. Right?

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Basically, like they go to bed and then this magical thing happens

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where this man comes into our house and he delivers gifts to our kid.

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That's actually not what happens, right?

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But we need them to go to sleep first.

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So anyway, we need them to go to sleep so we can kind of do the Christmas thing.

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But my kids are going to defy us, they always do, because they are so excited.

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And I actually think there's something I can learn from my kids about defiant joy.

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Something that is embedded in the Christmas story.

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Has it ever struck you that the Christmas story takes place at night?

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I mean, think about it, if you read in Luke about the shepherds.

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When do the angels come to the shepherds?

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They were keeping watch over their flock by night.

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Right?

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The wise men, the magi see a star.

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They said there's going to be a star that would guide you in the sky.

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A star that clearly they would see more clearly at night.

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The Christmas story happens at night.

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And I think that there's a spiritual reason why that's the case.

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I mean, let me ask you this way.

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If daylight means all is right in the world and nighttime

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represents the turmoil, the tension, some of the challenge of living in the world,

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what time of day would you say it is in human history right now?

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I mean, I think it's night.

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I think all you have to do is flip open your newsfeed

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and you will see evidence that in some ways

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there is a night-ness to the world that we live in.

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That the world itself is at night.

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I think that's because the Bible makes it very clear

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this world has a level of darkness in it

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and it appears to be trending more toward that level of darkness.

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And so in some ways, all joy is defiant joy.

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But this is more personal to me this year than really it's ever been.

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I would say this is a very different Christmas because 2019 for me

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has been a year with a lot of dark nights.

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The dark night of losing a friend and a mentor,

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someone who I loved dearly, Kathy Beechum,

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who many of us were influenced by around here.

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It's been a it's been a year of night, the night of grieving.

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And then just a few months ago in October, I lost my father.

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And so 2019 for me has been a year of a lot of dark nights.

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But not only in the areas of grief, but also just in my personal life.

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There are some things that I thought

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I was going to take more ground on this year and I have not.

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One of them is just eating and my ongoing relationship with food and my weight.

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Like I had some goals this year of where I wanted to be.

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And I'm going to in 2019, actually heavier than I came into the year.

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And I'm like, man, I'm disillusioned by that.

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Then I wrote an article about that called The Gift of Disillusionment

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and what I'm learning through the disillusionment of that this year.

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There's been a lot of night for me and it all kind of culminated for me

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or I would say I had a symbolic experience of what 2019 has been like for me.

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I still do run and I'm glad that I'm able to run.

00:29:38

And I ran a half marathon a couple of weeks ago

00:29:40

and it was the slowest one I've ever done.

00:29:43

I was the third from the last person to get off the course.

00:29:47

And man, I just was -- it was cold, it was raining.

00:29:50

And I just said in a lot of ways this feels like 2019.

00:29:53

It feels like a year where there's been a lot of night.

00:29:56

Maybe -- Maybe I'm not the only one.

00:29:57

Maybe there are other people who can relate to that.

00:29:59

Maybe it hasn't been loss, but maybe it's been,

00:30:01

man, the night of a rejection letter from a college you really wanted to go to.

00:30:04

Or maybe it's been the night of a challenge that you can't seem to overcome.

00:30:08

Maybe it has been the night of a diagnosis that you didn't expect.

00:30:11

Maybe it's been the night of a relationship

00:30:13

that you thought was going to move to the next step

00:30:15

and you're finding that that relationship is no longer a part of your life.

00:30:19

There is darkness in the world, and oftentimes there's darkness in our life.

00:30:25

But I believe there's something in this story of Christmas.

00:30:28

There's something about the Advent of Joy

00:30:31

that can even penetrate the night of the world and the night of our own lives.

00:30:37

When Christmas is prophesied 500 or so years before Jesus came,

00:30:41

these are the words that are used by the prophet Isaiah.

00:30:43

Isaiah 9:2 says:

00:30:49

There is this hopefulness that there is coming a day when joy,

00:30:53

when light is going to break through.

00:30:55

So one of the verses that I've been leaning into

00:30:58

and praying regularly in my prayers is Psalm 16:11, which says:

00:31:04

I've been praying and asking, God, God, give me fullness.

00:31:08

Give me fullness in the places where I feel empty.

00:31:10

Give me give me fullness in the places where I'm feeling lost right now.

00:31:14

Because there's a difference between joy and happiness.

00:31:16

I'll never feel happy until I get to fullness, right?

00:31:20

Because happiness is based on happenings.

00:31:22

And if you're happenings aren't good, you're not going to feel happy.

00:31:25

But I believe that what God offers us is a full list of joy, no matter what's happening.

00:31:32

One of the people I've been leaning into and learning from in this season

00:31:35

where I'm leaning into this kind of defiant joy,

00:31:38

is a professor from Duke Divinity School who says this about joy:

00:31:48

Joy is like this defiant pink candle.

00:31:52

Joy is actually not about a happy mood, but here's the big idea today.

00:31:56

Joy is the defiant choice to trust God's presence and His light,

00:32:03

despite the night that might be going on in our lives.

00:32:07

So when you came in, you probably got one of these green cards.

00:32:10

I'm going to ask you to go and take that out.

00:32:12

And if you're tuning in online,

00:32:13

go ahead and grab your iPhone or your phone and pull up a note.

00:32:18

If you have a piece of paper, take that.

00:32:19

Grab a pen.

00:32:20

We're going to do something.

00:32:21

We're going to do a joy exercise right now.

00:32:24

Here's how this is going to work.

00:32:26

On the back of the card, yours is blank.

00:32:28

Mine is not blank and yours won't be blank in a minute.

00:32:31

Because here's what I'd like for you to do with this card.

00:32:34

I'm gonna give you 60 seconds and I want you to think about

00:32:36

all the things in your life that bring you joy.

00:32:38

And I want you to fill this card up.

00:32:41

I want you to just write down all the things that come to mind.

00:32:43

It can be things that have brought you joy from years ago.

00:32:46

It could be people, it could be places, experiences.

00:32:48

Whatever you put on here is all good.

00:32:51

60 seconds to fill this card with things that bring you joy.

00:32:55

Ready? Go.

00:34:01

All right. All right.

00:34:02

How many people were able to fill that card up,

00:34:04

fill it up with a bunch of things that bring you joy?

00:34:06

Keep that card nearby, we're gonna use it a little bit later.

00:34:12

Do you ever -- You know, we were playing our Christmas music,

00:34:15

Angels We Have Heard in between that.

00:34:16

You ever noticed Christmas is the only holiday that comes with it's own soundtrack?

00:34:21

And that's not true for any other holiday.

00:34:22

Right?

00:34:23

In fact, there are so many songs connected to the joy of Christmas

00:34:26

that whole radio stations turn their entire platform over

00:34:30

and they just play Christmas music all through the season.

00:34:33

Why is that the case?

00:34:34

I think it's because that was true for the very first Christmas.

00:34:38

Luke is one of the writers in the Bible who writes about

00:34:41

the Christmas story, The Coming of Jesus.

00:34:43

And in the first two chapters of Luke, there are four songs.

00:34:47

Including two that are still sung today in churches all around the world,

00:34:53

sometimes every week, and certainly during Advent.

00:34:55

And we're gonna look at one of those songs today.

00:34:58

Because we can go to school on how to have joy

00:35:02

despite the darkness of our life by leaning into this song.

00:35:05

This song was actually attributed to, I think, the baddest female in the Bible.

00:35:09

She's a rock star.

00:35:10

She's a hidden legend story.

00:35:12

She's kind of the key person in the Christmas story besides Jesus himself.

00:35:16

Her name is Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus.

00:35:20

And Mary has a song in the middle of the Christmas story that is about her joyfulness.

00:35:26

But let me give you some context on who she was.

00:35:28

I mean, we can we can gloss over this because all the pictures we see

00:35:31

of Mary show her very tranquil and very peaceful and all of that.

00:35:35

And I think she was.

00:35:36

But we need to understand what Mary found herself a part of in world history.

00:35:41

First of all, personally, Mary would have been a teenager.

00:35:45

And she was a teenager who found herself pregnant and unmarried in the first century.

00:35:51

And particularly in Israel in the first century,

00:35:55

an offense that could have gotten her killed.

00:35:57

In fact, we see in the Christmas story that she was almost stoned to death

00:36:01

because her fiance, she was engaged at the time, knew he didn't get her pregnant.

00:36:06

And Mary's response was, "No, God got me pregnant."

00:36:09

Ok. So that could have gone a bunch of different ways for her.

00:36:14

And so Mary was also very, very poor.

00:36:17

She would have grown up in a society where

00:36:19

she was probably making her living with her family, agrarian culture.

00:36:23

But not only that, she was oppressed.

00:36:25

She grew up in a time in history where the nation of Israel

00:36:28

was under the most strong, powerful oppression of the Roman Empire.

00:36:31

You couldn't find a person more vulnerable.

00:36:34

You couldn't find a person who could have more night in her life than Mary.

00:36:39

And yet God chooses Mary to give birth to a son.

00:36:43

Sends an angel to Mary telling her about this news.

00:36:47

And then Mary goes to her cousin, Elizabeth.

00:36:50

And in the midst of telling her cousin Elizabeth

00:36:52

what God has done for her, we find Mary's song.

00:36:56

And I want you to hear it, but I don't want you to hear it in my voice.

00:36:59

I want you to hear it in a voice that

00:37:01

would have been more akin to the voice and the energy of Mary.

00:37:05

So this is Mary song from Luke Chapter 1:

00:38:02

- Do you hear that joyfulness?

00:38:04

Breaking through the darkness of her life, Mary has a defiant joy.

00:38:08

She says, My soul magnifies the Lord.

00:38:12

If you grew up in the Catholic Church, you've heard this as the Magnificat,

00:38:15

because in Latin, that's the statement for that first thing she says,

00:38:19

Magnificat, my soul magnifies the law.

00:38:21

She says, my spirit rejoices in God, my savior.

00:38:26

And here's the crazy thing.

00:38:27

Mary's life didn't get any easier after this announcement.

00:38:31

She still had a husband who would have been able to leave her.

00:38:34

She still had people looking at her side eye and saying,

00:38:37

"You are pregnant. How?"

00:38:38

I mean, she was still in the middle of it.

00:38:40

There's more night to come in her story.

00:38:43

There's the night to come when they have to make this long commute

00:38:46

all the way to the city of Bethlehem, because Caesar decided

00:38:49

to tax the whole world that he owned and controlled at that time.

00:38:53

There's the night that would come when Herod,

00:38:55

another ruler in that time said,

00:38:57

"Hey, there's a king that's been born, a child king?"

00:39:00

And decided to slaughter every boy two years and under,

00:39:03

which caused Mary and Joseph to have to flee to Egypt.

00:39:06

There was a lot of night still in her life,

00:39:08

but yet in the midst of that, Mary has a defiant joy.

00:39:12

And we can learn from her why?

00:39:15

So one of the things we need to see is that the joy that Christmas brings

00:39:19

is the defiant joy that defies the darkness of our past.

00:39:23

It defies the darkness of our past.

00:39:26

Mary says in verse 46:

00:39:38

That word, rejoice, means to leap for joy.

00:39:41

And Mary says, "I'm leaping for joy, because God chose to engage with me

00:39:48

to bring His plan of redemption into the world."

00:39:52

That phrase humble estate in some places in the Bible is translated vile or sinful.

00:39:59

Mary was saying what we all should say,

00:40:02

"Why would God want to have anything to do with a vile, sinful person like me?"

00:40:09

The fact that he does made Mary rejoice and it should make us rejoice.

00:40:13

Here's the deal, Mary knew her past.

00:40:17

What's in your past?

00:40:19

I sound like that commercial: What's in your wallet?

00:40:21

Right?

00:40:22

I don't know your past, but I know mine,

00:40:25

and I can tell you there are vile and sinful things in my past.

00:40:29

Lying, living a double life, breaking laws, breaking commitments.

00:40:34

There are all kinds of things that are vile in my past.

00:40:38

But why can I have a defiant joy at Christmas?

00:40:41

Because Jesus has come, God did something with my past that you would not expect.

00:40:46

He defied what my past deserved, and instead of giving me what I deserved, He gave me grace.

00:40:52

He gave you grace, see because I don't know your past specifically,

00:40:59

but I do know generally what is true for all of humanity.

00:41:01

We see it in Ephesians Chapter 2.

00:41:03

It says:

00:41:07

The Bible says, apart from God getting involved in our lives,

00:41:11

we are spiritually dead.

00:41:13

I was thinking about this. I know this is true.

00:41:16

And here's how I know it's true.

00:41:17

You ever think about the things that you know are wrong

00:41:19

that you don't even have to try hard to do?

00:41:22

They just naturally come up in you.

00:41:24

I'll give you one.

00:41:25

Anybody ever been cut off in traffic

00:41:27

and you've had to struggle to do a thumbs up?

00:41:31

No, no, no, no.

00:41:32

You have to struggle to not let another finger come up out of who you are.

00:41:37

You have to try, right?

00:41:38

That just naturally comes. You know why?

00:41:40

Because there is a default nature that we all have,

00:41:42

and it is a sinful nature.

00:41:44

It is a vile nature.

00:41:47

But thankfully, Ephesians 2:5 says:

00:41:59

Spiritually alive.

00:42:05

What does God do with our humble estate?

00:42:07

What does God do with our vile past?

00:42:09

You know what God does with your past?

00:42:11

He gives you grace.

00:42:13

He offers you forgiveness.

00:42:15

So I don't know your pass, but I know that God does.

00:42:18

And that God offers you grace.

00:42:20

That's why when the angels came and shared this good news with the shepherds,

00:42:24

they said, "This is good news of great joy for all people.".

00:42:28

Why? Because, as one theologian put it:

00:42:38

God offers you a grace that defies your past.

00:42:41

That's why Jesus was born.

00:42:43

And because of that, you can have a defiant joy.

00:42:47

But not only is this joy, a joy that defies our past.

00:42:51

It's a joy that defies the darkness of our present pain.

00:42:55

Man, I know in a room this size and people who are gaging it,

00:42:59

there is present pain in this place.

00:43:02

That for all of us, Christmas is isn't going to be

00:43:05

this exciting, fun, wonderful, all of my thoughts are light.

00:43:08

For some of us, man, there are hard things that we are dealing with this Christmas.

00:43:13

And I love that the Bible recognizes the tension that we live in in this life.

00:43:17

That, yes, we can have joy as we lean into the presence of God.

00:43:20

And life can be hard, we can find ourselves in darkness,

00:43:25

even in the midst of knowing that God is with us.

00:43:28

So we find verses in the Bible, like 2 Corinthians 6:10 that say:

00:43:40

Do you read the tension in that?

00:43:43

This understanding that, man, you can almost be in both places at the same time.

00:43:47

But one of them, the joy, can be the thing

00:43:50

that actually overwhelms and takes over your life.

00:43:53

Philippians 4:4-5:

00:44:05

Let me tell you, it is unreasonable to be joyful

00:44:08

in the midst of the darkness of this world.

00:44:10

It is unreasonable to be joyful in the midst of the darkness

00:44:13

you might be experiencing in your life, unless the Lord is at hand.

00:44:19

Unless hope has come.

00:44:21

Unless peace has come.

00:44:22

Unless forgiveness has come and, friends, hope has come.

00:44:25

Peace has come.

00:44:27

And forgiveness has come.

00:44:28

Life has come.

00:44:31

You know, for me, this -- when I knew I was going to be talking about Joy, I knew this months ago.

00:44:37

And I was like, "Oh, man, that's great.

00:44:38

I love talking about joy at Christmas.

00:44:39

Man, who's not happy at Christmas time?"

00:44:42

I know differently now being only months from losing a parent.

00:44:49

I know differently now.

00:44:51

Grief is a crazy thing, right?

00:44:54

It comes up when you don't expect it.

00:44:56

It shows up in ways that you can't control.

00:44:58

I mean, it's just this uneven -- You're just --

00:45:01

It's just a thing. You're just walk in through it.

00:45:03

I'm just walking through it.

00:45:05

So what does it look like for me to be defiantly joyful in the midst of real grief?

00:45:10

Because it doesn't mean that I don't grieve.

00:45:12

But what doe joy look like in the midst of that?

00:45:15

Well, one of the things that I've done on my green card is

00:45:20

I have written things that make me joyful because they're gifts from my dad.

00:45:25

And I know that I'm going to have and have already had

00:45:28

moments this Christmas where, man, I'm not laughing, I'm not smiling.

00:45:31

I'm in the middle of whatever I'm feeling and missing him.

00:45:34

But here's what I do know, it is a gift to miss him because I had him.

00:45:40

And I know there are many people who wish they had a relationship with their father.

00:45:44

I'm grateful for the one that I had.

00:45:46

I'm grateful for all the years that I had it.

00:45:49

And I don't want to lose that in the midst of the real pain.

00:45:53

So when that grief comes, I'm feeling it.

00:45:56

I'm allowing myself to feel it.

00:45:58

And I'm also taking this card out and reminding myself about gifts from my dad,

00:46:02

like the fact that he showed me how God can change a life as I watch God change his life.

00:46:07

My dad showed me what it looks like to keep a covenant,

00:46:10

because he was married to my mom for 49 years.

00:46:13

My dad showed me a great work ethic.

00:46:16

My dad took pride in me.

00:46:18

My dad protected me.

00:46:20

He cared enough to correct me.

00:46:23

One of the things I've been thinking about with laughing is

00:46:25

that my dad always showed up in my life, usually early.

00:46:30

And let me tell you, like I don't know if you were this way,

00:46:32

but when you're a kid and you go to a sleepover or you go to a party,

00:46:36

you don't want to be the first one picked up.

00:46:38

Am I right?

00:46:39

You don't want to be the first one picked up.

00:46:40

You want to be the last one picked up because you get more time to play and hang out.

00:46:44

I was always the first kid picked up from every party.

00:46:48

Because I knew that if the time that my dad was supposed to pick me up was 10:00,

00:46:52

I knew for sure that if I peeked through the blinds

00:46:54

or if I looked out the window an hour before the party was over,

00:46:58

I was going to find my dad parked out front

00:47:00

reading his Philadelphia Daily News, waiting for the party to end.

00:47:03

My dad was never late.

00:47:04

He always showed up.

00:47:06

Man, you know how good that is, though?

00:47:08

It's not good when you're a middle schooler.

00:47:10

Is not good when you're in elementary school.

00:47:12

But man, when I needed him when I had kids, he always showed up.

00:47:15

And I'm telling you, I'm recognizing like

00:47:17

in the midst of the pain of missing him, I have a lot to be joyful around.

00:47:21

I've got great memories of my dad showing up.

00:47:26

So, friends, I want to tell you, I know, probably more than I've ever known

00:47:31

what it's like to live in the tension of joy in the midst of darkness.

00:47:36

But God offers us a joy that defies the pain that we experience right now.

00:47:42

Because you know what?

00:47:44

There's another Father and He always shows up.

00:47:48

There's a living Father who will be a father to you and He will always show up.

00:47:53

And like they said in the black church,

00:47:55

He may not come when you want Him, but he's always right on time.

00:47:59

So you can be encouraged by that.

00:48:01

You can have joy in the midst of your present pain.

00:48:03

But you can also have a joy that defies the promise that there will always be darkness.

00:48:09

One of the things I think we wrestle with in this world is

00:48:11

we can think it's always going to be this way.

00:48:13

It seems like it's always getting worse.

00:48:15

And I think that's true to a certain degree.

00:48:17

But thankfully, we're not looking at just what happens in this life.

00:48:21

There is a hope that we have in Jesus beyond this life.

00:48:25

And Mary in this song seems to understand that to some degree.

00:48:31

Let me read this scripture to you from her song.

00:48:33

She says in Luke 1:54-55:

00:48:47

Forever. What Mary is doing in this verse is she is reaching back

00:48:53

through the history of the nation of Israel 2000 years and saying, "God made a promise."

00:48:58

Actually, she's reaching back even further than that,

00:49:00

because in the very book of Genesis, right after Adam and Eve fall,

00:49:03

God says, "I am going to bring someone who will crush the head of the serpent."

00:49:08

And so she draws back and says,

00:49:10

"This promise that God made to Abraham is being fulfilled in me."

00:49:14

Literally in her through her womb as Jesus is being birthed.

00:49:19

She says, "This promise is not just about what God promised in the past,

00:49:23

but there is something to this promise that actually points to a future."

00:49:28

That points to forever.

00:49:32

Mary saw the present, but she also saw the future promise.

00:49:38

And so did the baby that she gave birth to.

00:49:42

Jesus would be born through Mary.

00:49:46

And for 30 years he walked this earth.

00:49:48

And during that 30 years he taught about a relationship to God

00:49:52

that was unlike anything anyone had ever heard.

00:49:54

People used to say, "We have never heard anyone teach this way with such authority."

00:49:59

Jesus healed people.

00:50:00

There were people who could hear after He touched them.

00:50:03

There were people who could see after He prayed for them.

00:50:06

There were people who literally would just walk by Him

00:50:08

and they would say, "Can you heal me?"

00:50:10

And he would say, "You're done. It's done, go and you'll be healed."

00:50:12

He walked with such authority, Jesus was present.

00:50:16

And where He was present, there was joy.

00:50:19

Where He was present 5000 people got fed on two fish and five loaves of bread.

00:50:24

When He was present, there was the joy of people who were dead

00:50:28

that actually were raised from the dead again.

00:50:31

He brought joy wherever He went.

00:50:34

Jesus was present, but he didn't just see the present.

00:50:39

Jesus too saw a future promise.

00:50:42

In Hebrews 12 it says this:

00:50:58

After 30 years on this earth of healing,

00:51:01

33 years of healing and teaching, there were people who didn't like Jesus.

00:51:06

There were people who said, you know what

00:51:08

He's saying he's God."

00:51:10

And that, too, is a death offense.

00:51:13

And those people eventually decided to crucify Him, decided to bring Him in and crucify Him.

00:51:21

And Jesus knew, He knew that He had come to this earth for this purpose.

00:51:25

He knew He had come to this earth for pain.

00:51:27

He knew He had come to this earth to eventually

00:51:29

be stretched out on a Cross and be sacrificed.

00:51:32

He knew that nails were going to go in His hands and His feet.

00:51:34

He knew that He was going to bleed.

00:51:36

He knew that a spear was going to pierce His side.

00:51:38

He knew that a crown of thorns was going to go in his head.

00:51:41

And in the midst of that, looking at that present pain, Jesus had joy.

00:51:46

That's what it says in Hebrews.

00:51:47

Why?

00:51:48

Because He was able to look beyond the present pain to see a future promise.

00:51:53

Because Jesus knew this story doesn't end on Good Friday.

00:51:57

The story doesn't end with me getting put in a grave.

00:51:59

This story ends three days later when I'm gonna walk out of that same grave.

00:52:05

Jesus for the joy set before Him endured the Cross.

00:52:10

And friends, I want you to know there is an Easter egg.

00:52:13

There is literally an Easter egg, if you know what that is.

00:52:15

An Easter egg is something that's like hidden in another meaning.

00:52:17

And if you discover it, it's a source of joy.

00:52:20

There is a literal Easter egg in the Advent story.

00:52:23

And you know what it is?

00:52:26

It's this pink candle.

00:52:28

You ever ask yourself, "Why is this candle pink?

00:52:31

Why is there this one pink candle?"

00:52:32

Let me tell you why this candle is pink.

00:52:34

This candle is pink because there is another series

00:52:38

in the life of the church every year,

00:52:40

a rhythm that is practiced every year, just like Advent,

00:52:43

where for six weeks, in this in this case, 40 days.

00:52:46

There is the sense of repentance.

00:52:47

There is a sense in some ways of bringing ourselves to the night of our life.

00:52:51

It's called Lent.

00:52:53

You know, when you give up chocolate.

00:52:55

You give up sweets or give up meat, eat fish on Fridays?

00:52:58

Right, that thing, Lent, right?

00:53:00

And Lent is a series of repentance where we reflect on our lives

00:53:03

and reflect on the need for someone to die in our place

00:53:06

because we reflect on the sinfulness, the vileness,

00:53:08

the humble state that we have as human beings.

00:53:13

But on the third week of Lent,

00:53:15

we take a break from all that fasting and we have a feast.

00:53:19

This is the way the church has practiced this for thousands of years.

00:53:22

There is a feast on the third week of Lent because there's a reminder

00:53:25

that, yes, we're talking about repentance and, yes, we're talking about death.

00:53:29

But friends, the story of Lent doesn't end on Good Friday.

00:53:32

It ends on Resurrection Sunday, it ends on Easter.

00:53:35

So let's not forget that.

00:53:37

So if you go to a church that practices this on the third week of Lent, you'll see the priest has pink vestments on.

00:53:43

Part of what they wear is pink.

00:53:47

Like a pink flamingo, maybe, I don't know.

00:53:48

Maybe not.

00:53:49

But there's something pink.

00:53:51

And so the third week of Advent's candle is pink to remind us

00:53:56

of the third week of Lent when we celebrate the resurrection.

00:53:59

Why? Because on the third day, the night of our lives

00:54:04

turned into an eternal day when Jesus walked out of that grave

00:54:07

and offered a life that you and I could never get for ourselves.

00:54:11

That's why that candle is pink.

00:54:13

That's why we can have a defiant joy in the midst of this Christmas season.

00:54:18

Because you know what?

00:54:19

As it says in Psalms 4:

00:54:26

I don't know what your night looks like.

00:54:27

I don't know where you're experiencing night.

00:54:29

But can I just be one person to tell you in the midst of your night,

00:54:33

your weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

00:54:37

Joy comes in the morning if you're in a situation

00:54:40

that looks like night in a relationship.

00:54:41

Joy comes in the morning if it feels like night right now with your health.

00:54:45

Joy comes in the morning if it feels like night right now with your family.

00:54:49

Joy comes in the morning if it feels like night right now with your finances.

00:54:53

And I don't know who I'm talking to today,

00:54:55

but you need to know there is joy in the mist of your night.

00:54:59

And Advent is an opportunity to borrow against that joy

00:55:04

because God keeps every promise He makes.

00:55:07

And just like Mary, we need to look back 2000 years.

00:55:10

And we need to remember that God sent Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice.

00:55:15

God kept His promise to be the Savior of the world.

00:55:18

God kept His promise to be the forgiver.

00:55:20

God kept His promise and then we need to be able to look forward

00:55:24

and recognize this celebrates the first Advent.

00:55:28

But friends, can I tell you, there's another Advent coming.

00:55:31

In Advent that is spoken of in Revelation, when it says

00:55:35

there will come a day when He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

00:55:39

There will come a day when death itself is defeated.

00:55:43

There will come a day when their joy will never end.

00:55:48

So here's what I want you to do.

00:55:50

I want you to take out that card and I want you to hold it up in the air.

00:55:55

Like you would hold up something defiantly,

00:55:57

because here's the reality of the joy that Christmas brings.

00:56:00

This is a defiant joy, friends.

00:56:02

This is a defiant joy.

00:56:04

So I don't know what your night looks like,

00:56:06

but when the night comes, I want you to look at this card and say, "You know what?

00:56:09

But God has given me joy."

00:56:10

When your night is being faced,

00:56:12

I want you to hold this card up and say, "God has giving me joy."

00:56:15

I want you to read the things on this card.

00:56:17

want you to rehearse the things on this card, because here's the thing.

00:56:20

Everything on that card is from God.

00:56:23

Every person that you put that brings you joy, every situation that you've experienced that brings you joy.

00:56:28

Every relationship that brings you joy.

00:56:30

Every time you've been rescued and it brings you joy.

00:56:32

If you put a healing on there and that gives you joy,

00:56:35

you need to know all of that is from God.

00:56:38

The same God that in James 1:17 it says this about:

00:56:51

There is a light that breaks through every darkness.

00:56:54

And when you see that light, the way that Mary saw that light,

00:56:57

you too will say, "My soul magnifies the Lord."

00:57:01

And I rejoice in the God of my salvation.

00:57:04

Let's have a defiant joy this Christmas.

00:57:08

God, I pray that for all of us, for whom our joy has to be defined

00:57:13

this Christmas for any reason, whether it's financial, relational, physical.

00:57:18

God, if that's the place that we're in, I pray that you would stir us up to Joy.

00:57:24

That we would see through the Christmas story how light breaks through the darkness.

00:57:29

And we would know that that's not just the story that was relegated to Mary,

00:57:33

but that that's the story of what You're doing in our lives right now.

00:57:37

May it be the story of what You're doing in our lives.

00:57:39

May it be the story of what You're doing in our country.

00:57:41

May it be the story of what You are were doing in the world.

00:57:44

And may it fill us with Your joy.

00:57:47

In Jesus' name, Amen.

00:57:52

Hey, so I think we should light this pink candle, right?

00:57:54

We're going have some joy.

00:57:55

I'm going to ask you guys to go ahead and stand up

00:57:57

and we're gonna sing the defiant song Joy to the World.

00:58:01

I don't know who this is for, but man,

00:58:03

maybe somebody this needs to be your Christmas song.

00:58:06

You need to put this on automatic play.

00:58:08

You need to put it on repeat.

00:58:09

You need to just tell yourself that

00:58:10

I can have a defiant joy no matter what I'm facing.

00:58:12

Let's sing this together.

00:59:31

- Hopefully you feel a little bit more joy today as a result

00:59:34

of the last hour and that you go into your next week full of joy.

00:59:40

Join us next week for the Advent of Love.

00:59:42

And don't forget about Christmas Eve services

00:59:45

happening right here online and at a location near you.

00:59:48

You can head to Crossroads.net

00:59:50

to see the times and places that that's happening.

00:59:52

And we'll see you next week for the Advent of Love.

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