Today's Sermon:
"Surprised by Joy"

“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”-C.S. Lewis

I. Christ is Glorious as ....

“Christ Jesus has true excellency, and so great excellency, that when (the mind) comes to see it, it looks no further, but the mind rests there. It sees a transcendent glory and an ineffable sweetness in (Christ); it sees that until now it has been pursuing shadows, but that now it has found the substance; [that before it had been searching for beams, but now has found the Sun]; that before it had been seeking happiness in the stream, but now it has found the ocean…The soul is exceedingly ravished when it first looks on this beauty, and it is never weary of it... No other object is so great, noble, and exalted. This excellency of Jesus Christ is the suitable food of the rational soul. The soul that comes to Christ, feeds upon this, and lives upon it…here the longing soul may be satisfied, and the hungry soul may be filled with goodness…The soul has found the river of water of life, and it desires no other drink; it has found the tree of life, and desires no other fruit.”-Jonathan Edwards

II. Those Who Treasure Christ are ....

“As I grew to manhood, I was inflamed with a desire for hell’s pleasures…I went to Carthage, where I found myself in a hissing cauldron of lust”
“I, a miserable young man, supremely miserable even in the very outset of my youth, had pleaded to You for chastity, and said, 'Grant me chastity and self-control, but not yet.' For I was afraid that you would hear me soon, and soon deliver me from the disease of sexual sin, which I desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished.”
“But You, O Lord, are good and merciful, and your right hand had respect unto the profoundness of my death, and removed from the bottom of my heart that abyss of corruption…How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without the delights of trifles! And what at one time I feared to lose, it was now a joy to me to put away. For You cast them away from me…and instead of them did enter in Yourself- sweeter than all sweeter than all pleasure.”-Augustine

III. Those Filled with Joy Forsake ....