November 20, 2022
Christ the King

Lighting the Christ Candle

Welcome and Announcements:

Called to Worship:
God has called all of us here beloved.
We are given new names of hope and promise.
Even though storms and trials have assailed us,
God has drawn us through to the time of salvation.
Thanks be to God for God’s victory in Jesus Christ!
May Jesus reign in our hearts all of our days. AMEN.

Hymn: 267 Rejoice the Lord is King

Prayer of Adoration
In your kingdom, Lord, there are no favourites, all are equal, all carry the
image of the one who made all things, and all are welcome in your home.
We understand the great honour you have given us, and we come to praise
you and to thank you. Everything we have is a gift of your grace, how do
we say we love you adequately.
Such love, beyond our imagining. Such love, that could die for us.
Such love sown into hearts, that we might display its beauty through lives
and words. Thank you Lord, we are humbled by the gift, and confess our
sense on unworthiness:
Unison Prayer of Confession:
Forgiving God, how many times we have spoken words of
commitment and faith and then turned our backs on these
commitments to follow the temptations of the world. We wander after
the false prophets of greed, selfishness, arrogance, ignorance, hatred,
stubbornness, and then shout our displeasure at how we are being
treated. We want you to come in and clean up all our messes, excusing
us from any responsibility for them. Forgive us for such foolishness.
Help us remember the power of your healing love, which has been
given for us. Forgive us when we think we know everything and then
discover that we have behaved and thought in ignorant ways. Teach us
to listen and to place our trust in your abiding power. For we ask this
in Jesus’ Name. AMEN.

Assurance of Pardon
God is steadfast in God’s love for each one of us. Receive that love in your
hearts this day. Know that you are healed and forgiven in God’s sight.
AMEN.
The Peace

Hymn: 350 To God be the glory

Scripture Lessons:

Psalm 42 Responsive
Colossians 1: 11-20

Sermon: Sharing the Inheritance
One of the things that I have been called on to arbitrate more than a few
times when preparing for funerals is surprisingly the sense that one person
or another is feeling like they have been unfairly treated in regard to the
inheritance.
There are 6 granddaughters and 5 rings. So the one whom the
grandmother had previously given a ring to is left out of the distribution.
It caused a huge fight amongst the cousins.
Or another will say, my sister stole the antique sideboard that has been
promised to me and won’t give it to me. Complaints of this nature about
other special heirlooms that “should have” gone to one and went to
another are frequent. The fight so often includes the rebuttal that the
sister/brother was never present and the entitled sibling was present day in
and out and doing all the work and deserved what they took out of the
house.
And then there is the practice of primogeniture, where the oldest son is the
primary heir and everyone else may, or may not receive anything.
There is nothing I can do except listen. There is nothing I can do to resolve
what are often legal matters.
All I know is that in families that are already fractured, who gets what and
who is left out is a final blow at an already difficult time.
Biblically inheritance laws were very clear.
Torah law specified who was to be considered an heir—and how much each
heir was to inherit. The oldest son was to get two shares, and each
additional son was to receive one share (Deuteronomy 21:17). … It was all
quite cut and dried. There was no provision for inserting someone other
than a son into the inheritance. Fathers were not even permitted to alter
this formula to favor a well-liked son or to punish a son. (Deuteronomy
21:16).
What a difference in our Godly inheritance in Jesus.
What we read from Colossians today is Paul reminding us that God’s will
includes giving us everything. Although the title I gave this sermon was
initially “Sharing the Inheritance”, I’ve have come to reconsider that
concept. WE don’t share everything, each one of us gets everything.
Everything that Jesus has, we have.
It seems like an odd thing to focus on during a celebration of Christ the
King; but we are reminded that Jesus is a king like no other king. This is a
matter in which we should not be constrained by the limitations of human
thinking and knowing. Jesus does not hold onto the riches that God has
given him, he rather, gives it all away.
This lesson from Colossians includes a portion of the prayer that Paul prays
for the people of Colossae.
One of the commentators S. Brown, points out that the people of Colossae
were often considered to be less than other believers. The question about
Jewish followers and Gentile Greek or Roman followers had been mostly
settled, mostly but not completely settled, but Colossae is in Asia Minor.
These people were neither Greeks nor Romans nor Jews.
Brown points out that, for the beleaguered Asian believers there were
continued difficulties. Christians in Colossae and other cities of Asia Minor
were the victims of suspicion and therefore ill-treatment because of their
race. Then Brown reminds us that Paul affirms that God has made them
heirs with all the “saints” who live in the “light”
This inheritance is completely a part of the gift of redemption, salvation and
forgiveness that God provides for us in Jesus. In many of his letters Paul
points out that we are brothers and sisters, all of us children of Abraham,
and all of us the beloved children of God. We are a part of all of the
covenants that God has ever made with his people.
The rainbow covenant in which God promises to never again destroy the
whole earth on account of our sinful living. The Abrahamic Covenant in
which we are called to follow and God will give us a land flowing with milk
and honey. More importantly we are a part of the Covenant in Christ who
gave his life in order to provide us with the forgiveness of sins and eternal
life.
We inherit the full Covenantal rights because God keeps providing the
means and the ways for us to live with righteousness and faith. When we
believe we are gifted with every good thing in the Kingdom, then we realize
the true extent of our blessing.
So whether we are Jew or Greek, Asian or Black, Indigenous or Immigrant,
in the Church we are all equal with absolutely no distinction made between
us. WE may all have different responsibilities in the Kingdom, but we are all
equal, now and in the future prepared for us.
So Paul prays for the people of Colossae, and subsequently for all believers
to come, that we may know that inheritance here on earth.
He prays for the followers to be filled with all knowledge, wisdom and
understanding of the Spirit.
He prays that followers will all be strengthened in power.
He prays that followers will have endurance and patience.
Paul ends by giving thanks to God who has qualified all followers to share
in the inheritance. Not to get “a share”, but to share in the inheritance. In
the Message we read that the Father makes us strong enough to take part
in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us. This is because
everything of God finds its proper place in Jesus, who properly fixed
everything and fit it back together in vibrant harmony.
Today we celebrate Christ the King, by recognizing the depth of the
humility of Jesus. He did not consider suffering for us to be beneath him.
He suffered, died, and in so doing bought our freedom and redemption.
He is the one who deserves all the glory and yet all of his glory is poured
out on us.
Brown writes: Baptism reveals our true destiny and identity. Whatever our
life stories may turn out to be, their inconsistencies will be reconciled and
their coherence revealed in the reigning, cosmic, visible God for whom we
were made.
Fixed by Jesus and brought into perfect harmony.
Sinners become the redeemed and are counted as
the righteousness of God.
There is insight in the blog, Sermon Writer where it is proposed that the
only explanation for believers counted fit for this saintly inheritance is that
the Father has made them fit—has rendered them worthy. Because they
have accepted the gift of grace as offered by the cross of Christ, they are no
longer reckoned as sinners, but heirs.
The Commentator M. Kamall ponders these questions:
What would happen if every believer was confident in the
Father’s rescue and promise of inheritance?
what would happen in the world if Christians realized that in a
very real sense we are the one percent, with a wealthy father
and a certainty to our inheritance due us?
I think about one of the women in a summer student charge I served. She
was faithful and present at every worship service. She took great pride in
cooking dinner for the minister every week. But on the first Communion
service she explained to me that she would not be present because she was
not worthy to receive the communion.
I wondered what she had been taught about grace, and what God designed
that grace to be in order to make all of us who are not worthy, to become
co-heirs with Jesus?
Denying our inheritance is denying Jesus the lordship he has earned. He
cannot be Lord and tell us he gives us everything if we refuse to receive
what he gives us. We either believe and accept, or we don’t believe. There
is no middle ground.
To believe in Jesus as Redeemer and King means to believe that you are
equal to him in the sight of God. This is what I call the oxymoron of faith.
Those concepts feel as if they cannot both be true at the same time, and
yet they are.
Jesus is King and we are his equals. We have the full inheritance simply
because Jesus is King.
Jesus is a King whose only desire is to disperse grace in abundant supply.
Glory be to God for his amazing gift.
Amen.

Hymn: 352 And can it be that I should gain

Offering
Doxology
Offertory Prayer
We offer these gifts, in celebration of our participation in your present and
coming reign, that life—even life abundant—might multiply for all people.
Bless these gifts, that they may be used according to your will. Amen.

Gathering Prayer Requests
Prayers of the People and the Lord’s Prayer

Splendor and honor and kingly power are yours by right, O Lord our God,
For you created everything that is, and by your will they were created and
have their being;
And yours by right, O Lamb that was slain, for with your blood you have
redeemed for God, from every family, language, people, and nation,
a kingdom of priests to serve our God.
And so, to him who sits upon the throne, and to Christ the Lamb,
Be worship and praise, dominion and splendor,
Good Lord, we pray for those who dwell in darkness today, and for those
who are afflicted by the forces of human evil and the schemes of the prince
of this world...
Lord, hear our prayer...
Lord, we pray for the particular persons and concerns
that have been raised before you this day,
and those we now hold before you in our hearts
and with the words of our lips....
Lord hear our prayer…..
We pray for our nation and for all who are in authority over us,
and indeed for all nations of our world,
that there may be peace with justice within them and between them ...
Lord, hear our prayer...
We pray that you would strengthen us with your glorious power, so that we
would have the patience and endurance we need to live with joy and
integrity, always giving thanks for the mercy and love you have shown us in
Jesus Christ our Saviour who taught us to pray saying,
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bred
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory, forever. Amen.

Hymn: 274 Crown him with many crowns

Charge and Benediction
Christ is the King, the Lord of light and love and reigns in us and through
us. May the power of God’s love be in your hearts and reflected in your
lives now and always. Go in peace and may God’s peace be with you.
AMEN.
Sung Blessing

Take O take me as I am; Summon out what I shall be;
Set your seal upon my heart and live in me. (2x)