Dear Friends and Family of RRUMC,
Happy New Year! I know that it is well into January by now but this is my first opportunity to say that here in the Circuit Rider.
That also means that we are already looking into February and the new sermon series Pastor Paul and I are preaching. It is entitled, “Stirred, Not Shaken.”
This new sermon series is one Paul and I have wanted to preach for a while now. We will be talking about the many emotions Jesus experienced in the Bible. We know that God sent Jesus into the world to understand wholly and completely what it means to be human, what it means to be just like you and me.
He knows what makes us cry, what makes us laugh, what gets us mad, what frustrates us, and all the other emotions that rule our day-to-day lives. Reflect on the way you feel when someone cuts you off in traffic. How do you feel when someone has 28 items in the 12 items or less express checkout line? What runs through your mind when someone lets the door at the grocery store slam in your face? Our emotions have us up and down like a roller coaster at Cedar Point. Our lives are stirred by all those human emotions that are completely dictated by our outside circumstances.
The question is, how can we make sure our faith is not shaken even though our emotions can stir us at times? What matters most is what you have on the inside. What is it that is within us that can become a hedgerow of protection against the roller coaster ride of daily emotions?
In the Gospel of John, chapter 15, Jesus says it this way, “Just as the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; remain in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”
It is the JOY of Christ that lies within us. It is that joy that enables us to be stirred by our emotions and yet not shaken in our faith. The joy that makes us full, as Jesus describes it, is the very thing that conquers all of the emotions of this world that seem to throw us around like the waves of the sea.
Does that mean you will not experience emotions? Of course not. What it does mean is that joy will always be the cornerstone of your life regardless of the emotions that come along with being human.
As you live into the year 2022, may you live from the inside out and not from the outside in. God bless you and this New Year. May yours be filled with happiness, health, and a joy that is made full in Christ.
Peace and Blessings,
Rev. Dan