From His Fullness - 1/9/2022
Call to worship:
L: Sing aloud with gladness!
P: Shout with great rejoicing!
L: Proclaim the news with all your hearts!
P: And praise the heavens with all your souls!
A: God has saved all the peoples!
Opening Hymn: Hail to the Lord’s Anointed #203
1. Hail to the Lord's Anointed,
great David's greater Son!
Hail in the time appointed,
his reign on earth begun!
He comes to break oppression,
to set the captive free;
to take away transgression,
and rule in equity.
2. He comes with succor speedy
to those who suffer wrong;
to help the poor and needy,
and bid the weak be strong;
to give them songs for sighing,
their darkness turn to light,
whose souls, condemned and dying,
are precious in his sight.
3. He shall come down like showers
upon the fruitful earth;
love, joy, and hope, like flowers,
spring in his path to birth.
Before him, on the mountains,
shall peace, the herald, go,
and righteousness, in fountains,
from hill to valley flow.
4. To him shall prayer unceasing
and daily vows ascend;
his kingdom still increasing,
a kingdom without end.
The tide of time shall never
his covenant remove;
his name shall stand forever;
that name to us is love.
Opening Prayer:
O Lord, like a faithful shepherd, you have gathered us from mountain and valley, from country and city, from every corner of the earth. Though we speak with different tongues and see through different eyes and cling to different beliefs, you have brought us together to understand one another.
You have made us witnesses to a nativity, with all its mystery and beauty and possibility. How could this newborn child not bring us together? How could he not turn our mourning into joy, our sorrow into gladness?
Shepherd of the world, you have, indeed, brought us into a pleasant place. Feed us in green pastures, lead us beside still waters, restore our souls.
Epistle Reading: Ephesians 1: 3-14
³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. ⁵He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. ⁷In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace ⁸that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight ⁹he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, ¹⁰as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. ¹¹In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, ¹²so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. ¹³In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; ¹⁴this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
Hymn: The First Noel #245
1 The first Noel the angel did say
was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;
in fields where they lay keeping their sheep,
on a cold winter's night that was so deep.
Refrain:
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
born is the King of Israel.
2 They looked up and saw a star
shining in the east, beyond them far;
and to the earth it gave great light,
and so it continued both day and night.
(Refrain)
3 And by the light of that same star
three Wise Men came from country far;
to seek for a king was their intent,
and to follow the star wherever it went. [Refrain]
4 This star drew nigh to the northwest,
o'er Bethlehem it took its rest;
and there it did both stop and stay,
right over the place where Jesus lay. [Refrain]
5 Then entered in those Wise Men three,
full reverently upon the knee,
and offered there, in his presence,
their gold and myrrh and frankincense. [Refrain]
Prayer of Dedication:
O Lord, in the beginning the Word came from your mouth and covered the earth like a morning mist. The earth, thirsting for life, opened her lips, and as she drank, living things sprang forth – deer on the land and dolphins in the sea, birds in the sky and beasts in the field. The mist watered the whole face of the ground, until the dust no longer blew in the wind; and then you formed us from the clay and breathed into our nostrils your holy breath.
O Lord, to have you inspire us this way each and every day, we pray for your breath to fill our lungs. Amen.
Gospel Reading: John 1: 1-18
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
¹⁰He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
¹⁴And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵(John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
Sermon Title: From His Fullness
We live in a country and an age of abundance. We reside in homes where we can adjust the temperature inside in accordance to the temperature outside. We can purchase food at a moment’s notice and enjoy it in the car on the ride home or in an establishment featuring people who will cater to our every whim. We can talk with friends, relatives, or even strangers all over the world with a hand-held device of our choosing. We have televisions that rival movie screens in our living room and can watch any one of hundreds of channels depending on what entertainment package we are paying for. In other words and in the opinion of many, we have it pretty good.
Unfortunately, when any one of these ways of living abundantly fails, we feel as if we have been lowered to the level of the poverty stricken and homeless.
Paul, in one of his letters to the Church at Philipi, wrote, “I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned for me, but had no opportunity to show it. Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. In any case, it was kind of you to share my distress.
You Philippians indeed know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you alone.”
Paul was in prison when he wrote this letter and still expected nothing more to be given to him and he expressed his thankfulness for what he had been blessed with.
What a concept! To be thankful for what you have already been given without asking for more and praising God the whole time, even though he was in prison for serving Jesus Christ.
Of course Paul was not always this amicable. Before he became Paul, he was Saul of Tarsus and he did everything in his power to discredit Jesus and his ministry until God knocked him down one day and blinded him. God then directed him to a person who would heal his blindness. But it wasn’t just Paul’s eyes that were healed, it was also his heart. From that point on, Paul became arguably the best earthly advocate Jesus ever had. He did this because he now lived in the fullness of Jesus’ love and mercy and grace.
Paul’s transformation was nothing short of a miracle, but as we read in John today, the miracle really happened in the beginning, when the Word (God’s Word) became flesh and the light shone in the darkness and the darkness did not, could not, will not ever, overcome it.
This passage is one of the most important and affirming scriptures that we are able to read. It tells of the plan that God made and then executed to ensure that we would be with Him forever.
He John into the world to let everyone know that Jesus was coming to save the world and all the peoples in it. And even though the world did not accept Jesus, he still did what he came to do because of the Love in his heart for his creation. And through this love, he gave all the power to become children of God once more. Yes, the Word became flesh, and it came to live among us; to teach us how to live and how to love and how to live eternally in spirit. He taught us how to live completely from his fullness.
As it states, we have all received from his fullness grace upon grace. Grace to wipe our slates clean. Grace to cleanse our hearts and purify our thoughts. Grace that would enable us to get to heaven to live eternally with our Father God.
It is from his fullness that we can drink the living water that will quench the thirst in our throats. We will know whose we are as well as why we are, and we will then know what we are supposed to be doing.
From his fullness, we become full. And because we are full, we can sing and write letters just as Paul did from prison; we will have courage and opportunity to spread the message of the grace of Jesus Christ to all who will listen; because in the fullness of our hearts, they will know Jesus in theirs.
So even when we feel that we are not living in the abundance that we believe we merit, we can still know that we are full from his fullness.
Amen.
Closing Hymn: We Three Kings #254
1 We three kings of Orient are;
bearing gifts we traverse afar,
field and fountain, moor and mountain,
following yonder star.
Refrain:
O star of wonder, star of light,
star with royal beauty bright,
westward leading, still proceeding,
guide us to thy perfect light.
2 Born a King on Bethlehem's plain,
gold I bring to crown him again,
King forever, ceasing never,
over us all to reign. [Refrain]
3 Frankincense to offer have I;
incense owns a Deity nigh;
prayer and praising, voices raising,
worshiping God on high. [Refrain]
4 Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume
breathes a life of gathering gloom;
sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
sealed in the stone-cold tomb. [Refrain]
5 Glorious now behold him arise;
King and God and sacrifice:
Alleluia, Alleluia,
sounds through the earth and skies. [Refrain]
