Sunday, October 19, 2025: "The Heart of the Matter: Filled with All the Fullness of God"

Watch the Sermon here

The First United Presbyterian Church

“The Heart of the Matter: Filled with All the Fullness of God”

Rev. Amy Morgan

October 19, 2025

Ephesians 3:18-19

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

It’s the classic question, right? Is the glass half full, or half empty? It says something about how we perceive reality. Are we grateful for the half we have, or upset about the half that is lacking? Are we hopeful that the rest will fill up, or are we anxious that we’ll empty out? 

But these are not the only two ways we experience life. Sometimes, we feel like this: fill glass all the way full. Our metaphorical bucket is full. We feel like we’ve got enough – time, energy, resources, emotional capacity, knowledge, etc. We feel like we are enough. We’re feeling confident, grounded, whole. This is a great feeling.

And sometimes, we feel just full to bursting with love and how great life is: pour water into container and let it overflow. We are just overflowing with how wonderful everything is, full of awe and wonder and gratitude. We feel like we have so much, and we have so much to give. 

But then there are other times we feel like this: pour water out of container. We are drained of life and energy. We feel like we have nothing to give. We are empty, dried out. It’s a terrible feeling. 

A lot of us feel that way a lot of the time. And it’s awful. More and more is asked of us. There are so many needs in the world, so many problems to solve, so many people who are suffering and need our help. We get daily reminders in the news about all the resources needed to fix all the things that are broken. From the impacts of climate change to the cost of healthcare, from global conflicts to distrust and division in our personal relationships, from systemic injustice to the daily frustrations of trying to pay bills and figure out the latest cellphone update – all of this just drains us.

Now, there are a million businesses trying to sell us something that will fill us back up. Buying the right clothes, the right car, the right homeowners’ insurance is going to make it all okay. If we just do more – learn a new language, join a gym, travel to a new destination – that will surely fill us up. If we indulge in that extra pumpkin spice latte, that luxury brand of shampoo, or (my personal weakness) JUST ONE MORE BOOK, we can get some relief from the emptiness. 

And that’s what we all really want. Just to not feel so empty. 

Believe it or not, this is not a new challenge for humanity. Greek philosophers thousands of years ago pondered these questions: what makes us feel full? Why do we feel so empty? What gives life joy and meaning? And what causes despair and apathy?

For some first century philosophers, the answers involved a cosmology that drew a hard line between the material world and the spiritual realm. While there were several strains of this philosophy, they are collectively called Gnosticism, from the Greek word gnosis, meaning “to know.” The mythology developed around this thought proposed that the material world was a mistake, an error caused by a divine being known as Sophia or sometimes called the Logos. The divine hierarchy that produced Sophia, the supreme God or “One beyond Being,” was called the Pleroma, or “Fullness.” The goal of human life, the way to feel full and content, was to disregard the material world and seek after the spiritual realm. 

There were two ways this tended to work out, practically. Some who ascribed to this philosophy determined it was best to simply ignore the material world, shun their physical needs and desires, and live an ascetic life. Others decided that, since the material world didn’t matter, nothing they did or did not do had consequence. So they may as well live hedonistically, indulging whatever made them feel good in the moment. 

The letter to the Ephesians was written in the context of this popular philosophy and clearly in conversation with it. This phrase, “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God,” is a nod to the Pleroma, the “Fullness,” that supreme deity that resided in the spiritual realm. Christians across the Eastern Roman Empire, heavily influenced by Greek philosophy, were struggling to understand what difference belief in Christ made in their lives. Some were following the ascetic Christian desert dwellers, and others were continuing to indulge in hedonistic pagan rituals. They were trying to experience fullness, trying to fill the emptiness, and trying to understand where this new faith in Jesus Christ fit into it all. 

Most of the letter following the segment we’re reading this month is concerned with exactly that, outlining in detail how and why Christians are able to live differently in the new reality of life in Christ. But first, the writer prays that believers would have the strength to attain, not just for themselves personally, but with the whole community of believers everywhere, the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. It’s no accident that the writer uses the Greek word gnosis here twice. In contrast to Gnosticism, Christians understand that Christ’s love surpasses knowledge. There’s no special secret, there’s no other, spiritual realm we have to attain to fill our bucket. Because Christ’s love is so voluminous, we are immersed in it, always. Immerse cup in pitcher of water.

We don’t have to find ways, develop philosophies, or buy things to fill ourselves up. There’s not a fullness that exists somewhere, out there, in some spiritual plane, while we suffer in the emptiness of the material world until we’re someday released from it. The fullness, the fullness of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the fullness of God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ, the fullness of the abundant life offered to us in Christ, is all around us and within us. We are immersed in it, now and always. 

And this says everything about how we perceive reality. When we recognize and realize that we are immersed in God’s fullness, when we recognize and realize the infinite capacity of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ, we can be grateful, hopeful, generous, confident, joyful, content. When this is the reality we allow ourselves to see and experience, we are transformed, and we become agents of transformation. 

Because those of us who know we are filled with the fullness of God can be grateful for all that abundance without worrying it will drain away. We don’t have to wait until we’re full to overflowing to share that abundance, because it never, never runs out. We’re not optimistic or pessimistic – we’re filled with hope and dwell in wholeness. 

Now, we may not feel this way all the time. The stories we tell ourselves about how reality functions are powerful and difficult to change. So if we’ve trusted this narrative about glasses that are full and empty, about our responsibility to keep them full or find something or someone to blame when they get emptied, it may not come naturally for us to realize we are always immersed in the fullness of God.

And that’s at least part of the reason we are here today. Because here, we can be with folks who, at least on occasion, see this reality, the reality that we are filled with the fullness of God. Here, we can imagine that this sanctuary is a giant pitcher filled with God’s love, and we are all little cups floating around in it. Here, we can remind each other, show each other, the fullness of God. 

Researchers have all kinds of ways to measure church health and vitality. Membership and attendance, increased giving and financial sustainability, programs and mission outreach, community connections and innovative initiatives. But what makes all those kinds of vitality possible, and the thing that is difficult to measure, is how transformed people transform communities. Those who live in the reality of immersion in God’s love cannot help but carry that out into every aspect of our lives. That fullness of God overflows in our families and friendships, in our civic engagement and our spending habits, in how we spend our time and what we do with our talents. 

This church is a place where we are filled with the fullness of God, where we recognize and remember that we – any everybody and everything else – are immersed in God’s boundless love. And it’s a place where that fullness overflows into generosity. If the way we perceive reality is defined by abundance, fullness, wholeness, unending love – then generosity is our natural response. 

As we discern in this season of stewardship what that generosity looks like for each of us in the coming year, may we first and foremost have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Cheers to that!

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.