09/08/2026
Join us in person next Sunday at 10 a.m.! Ben Lippen School 500 St. Andrews Rd.
For now, enjoy this sermon from last Sunday.
What do we do with sorrow? Not the polished, manageable kind we talk about in polite company, but the kind that fills the whole house of our hearts and leaves no room for anything else? In John 16, Jesus sits with his disciples on the last night before the cross and does something remarkable: he tells them the truth. He does not dress up the difficulty ahead or promise them smooth sailing. He tells them they will weep, they will be scattered, and the world will rejoice while they grieve. And then, right in the middle of all of that honesty, he says something that changes everything: your sorrow will turn into joy. Not be replaced by joy. Turn into joy. The very source of their grief becomes the ground of their greatest gladness. That is the paradox at the heart of the gospel, and it is the message we need to sit with. Because most of us are carrying something heavy right now, and the temptation is either to pretend we are fine or to despair that things will never get better. Jesus refuses both of those options. He calls us into something harder and more hopeful than either: honest faith. Faith that grieves without despairing, that suffers without surrendering, that looks tribulation in the face and holds on because Christ has already overcome the world.
