5 Things I Saw, Felt, and Heard on Sunday at New City
1. Only those who follow Jesus will ever experience true happiness
Yesterday we continued our series Things Jesus Never Said by looking at the phrase "God wants you to be happy." We saw that above all us, Jesus wants us to follow him, not to pursue happiness as our highest goal. God never says he wants us to be happy, instead Jesus calls us to follow him as our highest priority.
That being said, it's a complete lie to believe that God wants us to be miserable. You can watch/listen to the sermon here, but suffice to say Scripture is full of references to follow the Lord with gladness and joy. In fact, the Kingdom of God is literally a place where we will experience nothing but happiness and joy. It will also be a place for people who have trusted and followed Jesus and what he accomplished for us and will forever experience the joy of being with him.
You can experience times and moments of happiness without Christ, but pure joy and happiness will only be realized in his Kingdom.
2. My nose itched so bad the entire second service
I don't know why, and I have never experienced this before, but my nose itched the entire time during the sermon in the second service. I have no idea why. Even the few times I tried to quickly scratch it, it only helped for about half of a second.
As soon as the service was over, it felt normal again. It was so strange.
3. We had an even amount in both services
The past few weeks we have had one of our services be pretty full, and the other one be just fine. This is largely due to the size of our space, as just a 10 person difference can make a big difference. This is part of the reason why we are going to three services in September so that we don't run out of space at our larger service.
Yesterday, however, we only had a two-person difference in the auditorium between services, so while we put down extra chairs in both services, it still didn't feel cramped. At least not to me. But then again I'm not sitting in the audience :).
4. Romans 100 doesn't exist
Towards the end of the message, I quickly shared various passages where Scripture tells also to rejoice in the Lord, live with gladness, have cheerfulness, etc. Apparently, I misspoke in the first service and referenced Romans 100 as one of the passages. Best of all I, didn't even realize I did that.
5. Memes are the best, even if people don't appreciate the ones I appreciate
Speaking of happiness and following Christ, on Saturday I found a perfect meme that went along so well with the message so I had to share it. I love a good meme and share them often in our New City staff group chat (to which I often get ignored).
That said, I had to stay true to myself and share the meme I found on Saturday for everyone to take in. I'm still not sure how much everyone enjoyed it, but I sure did.
