ICYMI: Back to the Future: Speak Now
If you missed Sunday's service or could use a refresher, here's a quick recap featuring a song from Sunday on Spotify, the sermon's main point, a key quotation, a prayer, and our weekly Next Step Practice. Scroll to the bottom for the full sermon recording.
📖 Focal Scripture
🎯 Reflection
Joy, as experienced in the birth of John to Elizabeth and Zechariah—and in Zechariah’s ability to speak again—doesn't erase weariness or sorrow but coexists with it. Like an Easter egg, each moment of joy is a clue to God's ongoing work in the world, pointing toward a future filled with justice, peace, and joy made complete in Christ.
🗣️ Key Quotation
“Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing — sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death — can take that love away.” — Henri Nouwen
🙏 Prayer
God of justice and joy, in times of weariness, I pray that moments of joy might feel like resistance. Help me to savor these moments as reminders that your promises are real, your love transforms, and your coming reign will bring joy in all its fullness. Help me to share this joy with others that it may be sustained in us as we wait for that day. Amen.
➡️ Next Step
Think of a time when you have recently experienced joy. What made it joyful? How might it point to something beyond itself? Then, find a way to share that joy with someone else. As Adam Grant writes, “Joy shared is joy sustained.”
