In this video, Fr. Theodore tells us the main reason why a Christian is always joyful and happy. Archpriest Theodore Gignadze is the rector of the Elevation of the Holy Cross Orthodox Church (JC), Tbilisi, Georgia. This sermon was delivered on January 7th, 2023 in Tbilisi.
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Fr. Theodore:
When one believes in the divinity of Christ, compared to Him, compared to Christ, everything is vanity, and this means that we can’t place anything above Him.
I’ve told you many times that we must keep reminding ourselves, every morning, evening and afternoon, every second of our lives, I must remind myself that
“I believe in the divinity of Christ!” This is such a great happiness that, compared to this, everything is meaningless, even death is nothing, in comparison to this.
This is such a great joy that we have, and we must continuously remind ourselves of this fact.
I said in the beginning that a human being must always be happy.
The cause of our happiness is that Christ is God… and He isn’t far away from me.
He is within me. This must be a reason enough for us to be happy and joyful.
And when you sometimes come with your head down, and I ask you:
“Why aren’t you happy?!”
The reason I ask you this is because there is no such thing as an unhappy Christian.
Every Christian must be happy and joyful if he is truly a Christian.
And Apostle Paul continues: “For His sake I have lost everything, and I consider it all garbage so that I may gain Christ”, so that I may not let go of Him, so that I may not lose Him, so that I hold on to this faith tightly, because having faith in Christ is a dynamic process. Apostle Peter directly tells us that – in the beginning, faith is like a candle, and it must then transform into a sun.
And if we ask ourselves: Do we shine the light from within us? No, we don’t!
And is this an acceptable condition? Is it okay for me to just be by myself? No. It is not acceptable, because it is a commandment of the Lord for us to be the light of the world.
He tells us: “Let your light so shine before men…” We know these words, right…
It is our obligation to be the light which people will see, feel, and experience, and which will fill them up with the desire to glorify God…This is an obligation. Whether we turn this candlelight into a sun or not, this isn’t simply an option or a matter of discretion.
It’s an obligation.
This is why often times, we are in the church, but our everyday life doesn’t correspond to the Holy Gospel.
And this is obvious when you come to confession… You come with certain problems, and you are implying that you are a Christian having these problems.
And then I tell you, you are not a Christian, because the way you see this problem, the way you see a solution to this problem, the goals and interests you have, are not at all in sync with the Holy Gospel.
The Holy Gospel demands something very different from us.
It is a revelation of God, right, and one of the things it demands from us is to be shining the light from within us.