Sermon Dec. 27,2020
Father, you have revealed your love by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ into our world. Help us to welcome him with joy, and to make room for him in our lives and homes, that we may abide in him and in us, Through the same Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, O Father, and the Holy Spirit, world without end Amen.
May you see Christ in others,
Be Christ to others,
That we may dwell in him, and he in us.
Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Israel offers thanksgiving for God’s triumph in restoring the people to their land. The Lord has wrapped faithful servants in a robe of victory. The Joy can be compared to a bride and bridegroom as they dress themselves for a wedding.
The restoration of Judah’s is described as the growth that springs from the earth to call forth praise in presences of all nature. We are being called to not sit idly by and wait for righteousness to spring up in us. We are being called to cultivate the righteousness and trust that God will do the rest.
Psalm 147
Psalm 147 is a song of praise and thanksgiving which tell us about how God is faithful in keeping his promise to his people. God not only shapes all things in the natural world but also cares for us. As Christians, we believe that Jesus Christ in his life, death and resurrection is the revelation of God.
Galatians 3:23-25; 4: 4-7
When Paul wrote to the Galatians, he was defining the process by which the believers could appropriate the salvation that the name of Jesus represented, the letter identified ways in which salvation could not be secured. Paul ties our adoption into the family of God to the coming of our Savior. God’s instruction had been designed against failure. It had also limited the creative and initiative, with the arrival of the Anointed One; gaining our trust in him has made us children of God and set us free from limitations. The human presence of God’s eternal Son has enabled other humans to be adopted as God’s children. We are heirs to God’s Kingdom.
John 1: 1-18
“THE WORD” is a theological phrase which expresses the absolute, eternal, and ultimate being of Jesus Christ. In the new testament the Gospel of John stated, “and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The word made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ calls us to grow into the lives he wills for us and to accept God as our Father. The “Word” we can see in the humanity of Jesus the anointed One is full of grace and truth. We all have received grace and truth from Jesus. While no one has ever seen God, Jesus the “Word” as God’s only Son makes God known.
“O God cause us to manifest in the world the light of your incarnate Word: Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, ne God, now and forever. Amen