PODCAST
The Way to Joy
February 19th, 2018
Isaiah 58:1-14
The way to joy is through community. Many times we worship as selfish acts of dedication, a means to affirm our Christian identity, or to get God to give us what we want. However, Isaiah 58 says joy is found in community with God and others. Community with God happens when we delight in Him, so our acts of worship are not just an obligation, but reveling in the nearness of our God.
It is also about serving the people that God loves, seeing their needs and meeting them. It’s about serving others justly and self-sacrificially, as Christ did. These are the two sides of the great commandment (Matthew 22:37-39). It is loving God with all our heart and loving our neighbor. Observing rituals of worship might be loving God, but ignoring the people that He loves makes for half-baked worship and thus is unacceptable to God. A holistic approach to worship leads to an abundance of blessings, but the greatest of all is hearing the Lord say: “Here I am” (Isaiah 58:9). There is no greater joy than this.
Author: Samantha Chambo
