Fighting for Joy During the Holiday Season

By Seeking, Believing, and Remembering Jesus

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I.                   Introduction.

A.    The joy of the holiday season.

B.     The sadness of the season for those who have recently lost loved ones.

C.    The necessity of learning to find joy in Jesus.

1.      The difficulty of finding joy in Jesus.

2.      The means of finding joy in Jesus.

II.                Seeking Jesus.

A.    Seeking Jesus dependently.

1.      Repent; we often ignore Jesus until a crisis comes.

2.      Rejoice; the bridge back to Jesus is never burned.

B.     Seeking Jesus humbly.

1.      Repent; we often respond to God in anger when He does not spare our loved ones.

2.      Rejoice; no suffering is wasted, even if we do not presently understand it.

C.    Seeking Jesus trustingly.

1.      Repent; we often imagine that God does not love our loved ones as much as we do.

2.      Rejoice; God loves them with the kind of love that eventually ends their suffering.

D.    Seeking Jesus persistently.

1.      Repent; we often treat God like an errand boy.

2.      Rejoice; God is not offended when we seek Him persistently.

III.             Believing Jesus.

A.    Repent; we often demand to see the reward of our faith on earth.

B.     Rejoice; we will see the reward for our faith in heaven.

IV.             Remembering Jesus.

A.    Repent; we often forget the ways God has been faithful in the past.

B.     Rejoice; by remembering the faithfulness of God in the past, we can find reason to look forward to the faithfulness of God in the present and in the future.

 

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