Joy Or Happiness? "Lost In Translation"

“Lost in Translation”

Introduction:

Many times we can approach life with a sense of defeat. I had a negative friend I used to hang out with in High School. He was always complaining about how negative things were in life. Even now I get emails from him about how the world is going down, how Bush is a bad person and doesn’t care for the country… so on and so forth. I eventually had to put him on my spam blocker because he would just email these to all his friends. It was so negative and it would make me irritated to read these, even putting me in a bad mood.

We have choices. We can approach life with a positive attitude, or a negative, defeated attitude.

It is my hope that you will tune in today. If you will allow, today can be a day of change about how we approach life. I want you to anticipate that God wants to speak to you today.

God wants you to know that he cares for you and he wants you to approach life in victory and joy, not defeat.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. - Jeremiah 29:11

Children’s Sermon:

“The Gift” - Get a wrapped gift and a plain box. Inside the packages but a Bible. Joy is like the wrapping paper that lets people know that there is something good inside. Which one would you want to get. Which one do people see in us? Ask questions like: What do you like the most about Christmas? Which of these two packages would you rather have? Etc.

If you are like me then many times we can forget how to live a daily life of gratefulness. I don’t know about you but many mornings I just don’t remember to get up and thank God for the blessings in my life. But we should and here is why. It is difficult and I would say almost impossible to have joy with an ungrateful heart.

One of the battles we face as followers of Christ is confusing the language or the world with our language. I think one area this happens in is with the differences of joy and happiness.

Often times as followers of Christ we confuse joy with happiness. I believe there is a difference though at times we use the words interchangeably even in the Bible. There are times in our English Bibles where joy and happiness are used interchangeably because we use these words interchangeably.

Joy – is the word chara – If you have been keeping up with us when we share these greek words with you, you will know that charis- is the word for grace, thanks. It is the word we get charisma and character. In short, it means it is of God.

Worldly happiness or pleasure – is the word hedone – where we get the word heathen.

There is a difference between worldly happiness and joy. Happiness has its roots in desire, pleasure or self beneficial situations. To some it up, it’s rooted in worldly things or situations. Whereas joy is rooted in gratefulness to God.

Joy and happiness come from two different sources. The people of God have a different source of power than the people of the world. We have different values and different perspectives. So we can see that there is a difference between joy and worldly happiness.

(***BEGIN*** This section used from La Juana Morris –sermoncentral.com)

What do I mean by this?

- Have you ever found money in your pocket you don’t remember having?

- Get a new home or car

- Find a new love in your life

- Get a new job.

I would say that many if not all these things are things that give us happiness not joy. If any of these things were to disappear, such as the new home gets termites, or you get that first dent in the car, or the new job doesn’t work out… the happiness is suddenly gone.

(***END*** This section used from La Juana Morris –sermoncentral.com)

Brand new French Horn Story – First Dent

Ebay story. I remember the first purchase I ever made on Ebay. I was living by myself and I bought a horn online. I just wanted it and I had a few extra dollars to spend. Better yet the horn only cost $5.00 to purchase. What I didn’t know when I bid on it, was that it cost $100 to ship from India. So you can imagine my disappointment when the bill came online for $105.00. I was happy to find this deal for $5, but my happiness was gone when I saw the full price. Now I think it just sits in my closet. I had buyers remorse.