Joy Vs. Happiness

Joy (used in "Joy Born at Christmas" sermon - 12/11/2019)

From Isaiah 35:8-10 (verses below)

Someone once said, “The difference beween happiness and joy is that happiness comes from happenings and joy comes from Jesus.”

A few years ago Michael Bublé wrote a song that became very popular among the young military members deployed and their loved ones back home. The title was simply, “Home.” One part of the lyrics describes this painful separation from those we love with the words,

Let me go home

I'm just too far

From where you are

I wanna come home.

As we walk this adventure of life together on the highway to heaven, we know that every day brings us a little closer to the other side of eternity, when we will be with our beloved Jesus face-to-face, along with all others who love him. That’s our true home. We don’t rush our homecoming; we depend on God’s timing. Yet, because of the certainty of the life ahead, we can have an eternal joy, no matter what life brings our way here.

"Joy to the world, the Lord is come!"

8 And a highway will be there;

it will be called the Way of Holiness;

it will be for those who walk on that Way.

The unclean will not journey on it;

wicked fools will not go about on it.

9 No lion will be there,

nor any ravenous beast;

they will not be found there.

But only the redeemed will walk there,

10 and those the Lord has rescued will return.

They will enter Zion with singing;

everlasting joy will crown their heads.

Gladness and joy will overtake them,

and sorrow and sighing will flee away.