The Joy Of The Angels

We’ve Got Joy For You, The Joy Of The Angels

Glenville 12/16/12 Genesis 3”:1-12 Luke 2:1-20

Today we are in our third sermon in the series We’ve Got Joy. Pastor Kellie began with the Joy of the Church, Pastor Toby spoke on the Joy Of the Lord, today I will speak on the joy of the Angels, and next week Pastor Kellie will preach next week on the Joy of the People. It’s hard to go through the Christmas season and not see the word Joy. Joy is that feeling you get inside when something wonderful has happened or something exciting is taking place, or you are just overcome with thankfulness.

Is there anybody here who has ever told somebody a secret? What’s the first thing you say, when you are about to tell somebody a secret? Right-Don’t tell anybody. But if the secret is some really good news, and you’re the person who is being told the secret, your face lights up, your eyes get big, a smile comes on your face. You then want to know how long do I have to keep this secret. There is something inside of you that wants to let it out and share it with the world. There is a joy inside of you. You are happy for the person, and you’re excited about the joy the news that you have is going to bring to others.

To understand the joy of Christmas, you have to understand where Christmas began and what made it so exciting. Many people think that Christmas began in Bethlehem when Jesus was born, but others would argue “no it started in Nazareth when the angel came to Mary.” But I tell you that Christmas began thousands of years before that in a garden called Eden.

God had created the first two people, Adam and Eve and placed them in a garden where they had great joy with each other. Everything Adam and Eve needed was in the garden. They knew nothing of sickness, disease, sorrow, pain or heartache. They didn’t argue with each other. They wanted what was best for the other person.

Now God could have created them as obedient robots who faithfully worshipd and served God. But God was interested in a living relationship in which they had the choice to serve God or to serve themselves. God never forces us to worship Him. So God sets up a test for them.

God says, there are many, many, kinds of trees here in the garden that you may eat of. There is one tree, that one there, called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You must not eat from that tree, because the day in which you do, you will surely die. There was just one rule to keep, to demonstrate a willful obedience to God. God gave them such a huge variety of choices for enjoying themselves, if they just avoided that one tree.

Things worked out beautifully until one day a good looking fellow showed up showed up in the garden. This serpent was beautiful and intelligent. You know him by the name of Satan. He convinced Adam and Eve that God was trying to hold them back from having a good time. God was not telling the truth about the tree leading to death. As a matter of fact, if they did the opposite of what God had instructed, they would become just as smart as God.

How often do we think that God is holding is back from having a good time, from some of the rules God has in place. How many of us discovered the hard way, God was right the first time and we wished we would have listened. There are some of you here who would be about ready to get your college degree, if you had of believed what Pastor Toby, Pastor Kellie, and Pastor Rick and preached, rather than the advice your friends gave to you on what they would do.

Let me ask you this, why were Adam and Eve hanging around the tree that they were not suppose to be near. How many of us are hanging around something or someone that we know can get us into trouble?. All we’re doing is looking for a possible good time and imagining what it might be like. Well Adam and Eve, chose the good times over God and went ahead and ate from the tree. The first bite was so good that she passed it to Adam. He took a bite but didn’t get to enjoy it. Immediately they felt ashamed of their bodies. They found out the consequences of their actions were far worse than they had imagined they could be.

Sometimes with temptation in our face, we are so busy thinking of what we are going to get, they we don’t consider what it is we are going to lose. They found they had broken their relationship with God, they had strained the relationship they had with each other, they had begun to know what sorrow was, they were removed from the garden of Eden ,and they would no longer live forever because death was now a part of creation. God was heartbroken over his loss of relationship to them, but God is holy and cannot accept sin without a payment for it.