Lament & Joy: The Christian Life

This past Lord’s Day, Pastor Harlow preached from Acts 8:1-8 on the inseparable tension of lament and joy that marks the Christian life. The passage opens in grief: Stephen is dead, Saul is ravaging the church, and believers are scattered across Judea and Samaria under fierce persecution. Yet what looks like catastrophe becomes the very means by which the gospel advances, as those scattered go out preaching the Word and Philip proclaims Christ in Samaria to great effect. The sermon called the congregation to hold both realities together honestly — that genuine sorrow over suffering and genuine joy in Christ are not opposites, but twin marks of life in the Spirit.