Collect:

O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature:  Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.  Amen.

Sirach 24: 1-12 . . . Wisdom is personified as an attribute of God permeating the creation and found among all the people of earth.

Wisdom of Solomon 10:15-21 . . . Wisdom, an attribute of God’s person and character, is praised for her wondrous work I the midst of God’s people.

Ephesians 1:3-14 . . . praise to God for God’s blessings, together with thanksgiving and prayers that these spiritual graces may be continued.

John 1:1-18 . . .  a hymn to God’s Word, the expression of god’s very being and the creative power of all life, who has now become flesh and lived among us.

Sermon: The way we get to be one of God’s children is though, is the way of Jesus, and not everybody wants that.

“To live as God’s children in the world is hard. It means choosing the kinds of things Jesus chose,” says Carla Pratt Keyes, pastor of Ginter Park Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia. But how do we choose Jesus’ way?