I read an article awhile back about a pastor who had joy in serving God.
“As I write this, an oversees church leader I’ll call Dominic comes to mind. I met him once while visiting a communist nation. Dominic is now in his sixties, and he has been the pastor of a relatively small house church for most of his life. Dominic’s passion is telling people about Christ. He was once brought before the communist council in his community to be questioned about his evangelistic work. He walked in the interrogation room with a large rock in his hands and set it down on the table in front of the men who were about to question him.”
“Surprised, one of the men asked Dominic, ‘Why did you bring this rock with you?’ Dominic replied, ‘Before we begin my questioning today, I want you to know something. If you try to stop me from telling people about the greatness of Jesus Christ, then this rock is going to start speaking for me.’ Dominic was alluding to Luke 19:40, where Jesus says that if the disciples didn’t proclaim his glory, the stones would cry out instead. The communist leaders, of course, had no idea what Dominic was talking about. They conferred and decided he was out of his mind, so they released him without further questioning!”
When we have joy in Christ, the world isn’t going to understand our joy. Sometimes they’ll think we’re crazy!
And maybe we should be a little crazy. We should be crazy in love with Jesus so that we’ll serve Him, not out of fear, but out of joy for what He did for us.
From the sermon, “Being Touched by the Untouchable God,” delivered June 2, 2013.