Reflect: Open the Gifts of Faith - 2 Dec Worship at South Meriden Trinity United Methodist Church

Grace and peace from God our creator in the Lord Jesus Christ in God's holy spirit. Good morning from South Meriden Trinity United Methodist Church. We had problems with our equipment this morning. So this is a recording of the sermon from this morning and other materials. Would you join with me in prayer, please?

gracious loving God

God of Second Chances

God of all hopes we thank you for this Sunday the first Sunday in Advent when we begin our journey and Faith towards the Christ child and Beyond. And we thank you for the time that encourages us to reflect. Inquired in the bottom of our hearts to understand everything that you want to communicate to us. So that we may become more like the Christ child. And so may the words of our mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable unto thee O Lord our Rock In Our Redeemer either through a sore in spite of us speak to us by people. We pray. Amen. Good morning. Happy New Year. Here. We are in a whole new Christian year. Advent the season when we get ready to celebrate the coming of Jesus. The Christ is our first season as Christians, it's when we invite ourselves and our friends to begin the story of God in our lives over again. This story of Faith this story of who and how God is with us and for us and guiding us towards who were meant to be is the most precious gift that we will ever receive a mess. Our lives are a gift from God. Our lives are regifted To Us by God through faith in Jesus Christ and our lives become the most alive most connected to God's amazing possibilities through God's holy spirit faith is the gift of true and Lasting life. Faith is all about opening gifts that is constantly trying to give us Gibson trying to make us aware of our gifts when we hit a dark spot in our lives. God points towards God's gifts in the middle of the darkness and points towards new light ahead. God is a giver from the get-go. Never stops trying to give us good things in our lives. If we invited God to our houses Santa Claus would be put to shame all of the gifts that God wants to give us wouldn't come close to fitting down the chimney. And yet in spite of the amazing generosity of our God in spite of God's best efforts to give us great gifts. Always ready to open them. God has had gifts waiting for us since before the beginning of time, but somehow we're not always ready to open them. In a children's message recently. You may remember that I mentioned how my grandfather always made it a point to make sure that we saw him using our gifts even a simple ballpoint pen. Now my grandmother was kind of the opposite after my grandfather died. I was helping her to clean out some closets in her house and I found all of our childhood Christmas gifts to her all lined up unopened and unused she cherish them.

She never really used to them. Thinking about all of the feelings that I had when I saw those gifts in my grandmother's closet. I can only imagine what God feels when we don't get around to opening the gifts of faith that God offers us God is always calling to us through the gifts of God's grace. But God's joy in giving is not complete until we open the gifts of faith and use them. Skip's of Faith ending something received and then put away in the closet of our hearts. They are a beginning a beginning of a journey in faith. That's why are Christian years starts with Advent? Evan is becoming a coming to the arrival of Jesus in our hearts a journey to Jesus that prepares us for the Journey of Faith ahead in the new year with Jesus in our hearts. We're not there yet. Where you're meant to prepare for the coming of God's new and renewed Gifts of faith. As you came into our Sanctuary today, you received a special travel kit and we hope that you use this gift for real and don't just tuck it away, but you'll also find it it important reminders in tools. We hope that will help you to remember to open the gifts of Faith throughout the year. And my for serving sermons this Advent each will focus on an important tool in our kit that we can use to open the gifts of faith in our Journeys through life.

Our first tool for you to open the gifts of faith is the mirror. We usually see mirrors to see ourselves reflected. This is a reminder to us that if we want to open our minds and hearts and lives to the gifts of faith, it starts with taking time for reflection. Usually when we use the mirror, we look at ourselves on the outside, right? And in a world where people are sharing selfie pictures of themselves to the world from their phones. We seen to be obsessed at times with making our outsides look good to the world. But that's not the kind of reflection that were talking about for opening our Gifts of faith. And then no for people of Faith reflection is about trying to see what is happening to us on the inside in relation to ourselves and to God's world. Reflection from a faith point of view is taking time to see things from God's point of view. The word time is the key ingredient, isn't it? Usually we look in a mirror and a Dash through the bathroom making sure that we don't look like a mess to the world. Although I'm sure some of us do better. Chase reflection asks us to invest time and seeing things as God sees them we drop trying to make what we see in the mirror that are will we slow down enough to see our connection to God's will And what we see. Sometimes what we see in the mirror of Faith reflection is comforting and amazing. If you've been serious about firing up as saving faith is here as we explored in are summons summer sermon series then maybe you Reflections. Bring you to have faith has opened up God's possibilities in your life. If we put aside the phone the PC the TV the car the job the family or whatever distracts us and reflect on being creations of God. We can reclaim the sense of deep down you and work that God gifted to us. And sometimes reflecting in faith brings us to the things that we'd rather not see in ourselves. Thankful Jewish people. start off their Year of Faith with yon, Kippur a day of prayer and reflection on their personal sins before the God of all gifts their faith requires people to spend time good time reflecting on what they see in themselves. Does it look like God's reflection the image of God or not? Time spent on faith reflection is not wasted It prepares us for spending our time and energy on dealing with life in the light of God's greatest gifts truth. and forgiveness

the Jewish prophets in the Hebrew Bible understood the power of reflection. They spend time allowing God's vision of how things were and how they could be to fill our lives until what they saw reflected was not just their own lives and times but all life. and all time In today's reading from the Prophet Jeremiah he tells us about a time when their destroyed Nation would know a time of redemption a time when the restored city of Jerusalem would be known by its people living in the righteousness of God loving God in the world is God already loves us. You can't see a vision of God restoring Our Lives until you reflect on God's vision. What we see in times of Faith reflection doesn't always seem to fit our life in our time that we live in today, though. Sometimes God gives us the gift of vision and it can take a long time for us to see it opening. I'm still opening the gift of the vision for Ministry the God gave me 40 years ago. Go now when my hair is great. That's why we give you a travel kit for the year ahead as we open the gifts of Faith be ready for a journey that will call us to reflect on God's will for us again. And again until we stop seeing start seeing less of us in the mirror. And more of what God has planned for us and for God's world.

On this first Sunday in Advent. Even Jesus is guiding us to the gifts of faith that come from reflection. Today's reading from Luke's gospel. Jesus is reminding us that the ending of God story will be a time like Jeremiah saw in his Reflections a time when evil has been conquered a time when Even Heaven and Earth will give way to the victory of Jesus God's Living Word. Jesus reminds us at the start of our year of Christian faith that people who take the time to reflect on God story through faith will see God's plan unfolding and know that God's Redemption of us end of all of creation is near right now

welcome to Advent. Welcome to a time when God invites us to take time to unwrap all of God's gifts of faith. I asked us to start our New Year of Faith by putting aside our busyness and to make time to just be to just be children of God eager to receive God's Gift of Jesus on Christmas and Beyond. Put down your phones. Put down your sense that every problem should fit into neat little Solutions like a 2-hour movie. Open the gifts of Faith gifts that will help us on a journey that has a path in a destination already prepared for us through God's grace.

Take a walk through God's creation cool and still preparing for new possibilities. Put your hands together and pray or better yet. Put your knees on the floor as you pray. So that your Reflections will leave more Headroom for God's possibilities take your hands and try opening the story of God's Redemption the Bible and reflect on your life Through The Eyes Of God story on your own and then our faith groups. And then look up and see your life and the world as an invitation to God's amazing possibilities gifts that God wants us to open true faith. Have a blessed Advent as we journey towards the Christ child and Beyond. almond

We had a blessed time in prayer this morning. And we prayed the first of 78 prayers that came into our prayer jar. As the result of our Christmas in the village Outreach yesterday. We had over 800 people come into our church we estimate and it was a joiner privilege to serve them all in to serve them in prayer. I would like to share with you in this recording a reminder of how we are praying now is a church as I recite. Our church is prayer of invitation to God's possibilities. I bow my knees before god father in Lord of all the invites everyone in Heaven and on earth into God's family through Jesus Christ. I pray that God's most precious and amazing Treasures which come to us through God Spirit May strengthen us in our deepest being they Christ live in our hearts through faith as our faith groups and routes and grounds as deeply in God's love. I pray that we will know the full breadth and height and length and depth of the love of God love that is always Beyond cleat complete knowing together with all people of Faith so that we may all be filled completely with the fullness of God. All glory be to God who can accomplish abundantly in US far more than all we can ask or imagine all glory to God and God's church and in Jesus Christ for all generations forever and ever amen.

Thank you for listening to this recording of our worship this morning. We had a blessed worship and we send people out with this charge to keep in this new year of Christian faith turn to God and two people seeking faith in God to open your gifts of Faith look in the mirror. Your Redemption is near and now may the Lord bless us and keep us may the Lord shine God's face upon us and be gracious unto us may the Lord lift up his countenance upon us and grant us peace now and forever. And may the people of God say Amen. Have a blessed Sunday and a blessed week. Thank you.