When you think of the word joy, what comes to mind? For many, joy is often synonymous with happiness or contentment. You have joy at a wedding, the birth of a child, seeing the beauty of nature, spending time with your family, spouse or friends. However, the truth is that life is not always full of joy. Circumstances and situations often rob us of our joy because we live in a world where we are surrounded by suffering, death and destruction.
This past year many people suffered with a lack of joy due to isolation, unemployment and financial strain from the pandemic. For many people joy is circumstantial – when things are going well, they have joy, when things are at their worst, they have an absence of joy. For Christians, our joy is not found in our circumstances, but is found in our relationship with God.
This Sunday we are going to be looking at Psalm 33, and what we find in this Psalm is that joy for Christians is a choice. We have to choose to have an attitude of joyfulness despite our situation. The writer gives us the reasons as to why we can confidently adopt this attitude of joyfulness; because God is faithful to all of His promises. He is omnipotent, which means He is all powerful; and He loves righteousness and justice.
Pastor Justin Nelson
