Sixth Sunday after Trinity - Propers with explanation – Rev Jack’s Sermon– With Video

The Propers for today are found on Page 197-198, with the Collect first:

 

The Sixth Sunday after Trinity.

 

The Collect.

 

O

 GOD, who hast prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass man’s understanding; Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

As is oft the case, the Collect asks for help from the Holy Ghost to enter into our hearts that we might love God and, thus obtain His most excellent Gifts.  As imperfect creatures with free will, if we ask God for something, it tends to be what we want, not what we need.  He knows.  Thus, we need His Help in the form of the Holy Ghost.

 

The Epistle came from Paul’s letter to the Romans, beginning at the First Verse of the Sixth Chapter. Paul tells us that as we were baptized unto Jesus in life, so we are baptized unto his death.  We share His death on the Cross for our sins and by His death, our sin is dead; then as He was raised up, so are we.  It is intended the death we die unto sin is to be permanent and that we go forth and sin no more.  Yet, as long as we live here on earth, we sin.  Yet, as long as we live in Christ, we live.  Thus, we reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

K

NOW ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Today’s Holy Gospel started in the Fifth Chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, beginning at the Twentieth Verse. Jesus tells his disciples, Except your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.  Very worrisome indeed!  Scribes and Pharisees spent their entire lives acting the epitome of righteousness.  There is no way mere mortals could exceed their righteousness, or so it would seem.  Jesus goes on to tell us that not only would we not go to heaven if we commit murder, but we are in danger of the same judgment of we are angry without just cause.  If that were not worrisome enough, we are in danger of hell-fire if we call one another a fool!  Let not the night fall on discord with your family and friends, your neighbors in the Christian sense of The Word.  The text following asks us to do our best to follow Jesus and in return, his sacrifice will serve to set aside the just judgment and we shall be accounted as righteous before God.

 

J

ESUS said unto his disciples, Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt do no murder; and whosoever murdereth shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Rev Jack’s sermon can be viewed on video RIGHT HERE!

 

Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and is partly contained in the forewords above. 

 

Consider these words from the Collect, … who hast prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass man’s understanding; Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire …

 

We acknowledge God will give those who love Him more good than they can imagine, let alone ask for.  But, first you have to love Him. How do we accomplish this? We do it by asking the Holy Ghost to enter in to our hearts so we might truly love Him.  If we do, more good will come to us than we can even imagine or hope for.  The point of the collect is that we cannot fathom how much goodness will happen to us, if we follow Him. God will give us more goodness than we could possibly ever deserve if we will follow Him. And this goodness is far more precious than anything the world could ever give us. With His Infinite Grace and Love, God has the potential for unlimited amounts of Goodness.  But the key word here is Love. And where we do we get that love from? We are back to the Holy Ghost. He is a key element of love, without Him we cannot even love Him. If we cannot love others we have seen, how can we love Him who we have not seen? He gives us far more love than we can possibly deserve. 

 

Who is the other component in this equation?  Jesus!  Jesus is that missing variable in our complicated equation state. He is the X. He can give us his guidance and grace via the Holy Ghost, to make us better men and women of the Lord.  He will help us to utilize the Holy Ghost to love God the Father. He is who we need to gain eternal life. By His Sacrifice, made one time, for all mankind, for all time, we are accounted as perfect by His Faith and Action. 

 

This is a rather stark contrast with  our rather usual shortsighted short term view, we must think in the terms of the big picture, not the tiny speck in the picture. We are not used to thinking in the long term view.  Think of going through life to get to Heaven as like flying an airplane. Flying an airplane requires constant adjustments and as you can imagine everytime you fly you learn something. That concept carries over into general day to day life. Every day we learn something be it big or small. What matters is that we learn from what we did wrong and not just what we did right. We endeavor to repeat what we did right and not repeat what we did wrong. This is a continuous process that will occur the rest of our lives. Some of our days may be harder than others, but as long as we never give up, trust in God and carry on, all will be well with our souls. This may be hard to accomplish sometimes, but if we let the Holy Ghost into our hearts, we will find that there is no limit to what we can accomplish for Him.

 

Like flying an airplane, lots of little tiny fluid adjustments are required in our lives here on Earth. Some will be easier than others of course. And we will fail from time to time as that is just our human nature. We have to get back up and be ready to start again and not the same mistake again that caused us to fail. When acting, think of how your actions will impact you, your family and others down the road, before acting and make the necessary fixes, if any are needed. The Holy Ghost can provide the inspiration and guidance we need to think through our actions. We just need to listen to Him at the moment when we need to act and remind ourselves that our future will be better if we listen to the Holy Ghost rather than ourselves.  

 

We have to think of ourselves as a part of God’s much bigger plan, and act to the best of our abilities and with the guidance of the Holy Ghost as a positive aspect of that larger picture.  Each of us has a role to play in His Plan. And each of us has an important part to play in His Plan. We do not know the whole details of that plan, but God will give us our part of His Plan if we but listen to what He has to say. We just have to focus on doing our part for Him in His Plan. And the key word here is to listen. We have to listen to what He actually says and not what we want Him to say. There is a distinct difference between the two.

 

In today’s Epistle, Paul says as Jesus Christ died and rose again, so too should we die to our sins and rise again in a better state. He uses this metaphor to describe both our life here on earth as previously we had been living in our corrupt natural state and through the renewal of the mind through the Holy Ghost, we are transformed into something more pure than we had been. 

 

And as he says, as death has no dominion over Jesus Christ, so too shall it have no more dominion over us. For by His death and resurrection, He has paid the wages for our sin, which as Paul says in Romans is death. His death paid for our sins, so we might be accounted as perfect to get into heaven. Paul is telling us about that same accounting irregularity we mentioned earlier and Christ is that accounting irregularity. As we of our own volition cannot resolve the accounting issue, and thus cannot be worthy on our own to get into heaven. 

 

The resurrection truly is the greatest miracle Jesus performed. Because before He came and died for our sins, we could not get into heaven on our own and in fact still cannot. It is by God’s Grace, that He sent His only begotten son, that we should not perish, but have everlasting life.  I find myself still amazed every time I think of it. How we poor sinful creatures who could not make it to heaven on our own, have had our wages of sin paid by our Lord’s death upon the Cross. Think of how much Jesus loved us, He willingly let Him self be arrested, tried and put to the painful death upon the Cross, and then went into Hell to battle Satan for our souls, because He loved us. It must have been hard for Him to do those things, but He did it anyway. That is a lesson for us, even if things are hard sometimes, we must do them anyway regardless of the cost or spiritual pain if God commands us to do those things. In the end, all the suffering we endure on this Earth will be worth it with all the goodness that awaits us in Heaven.

 

The lesson of the Gospel is that we must put aside our often foolish and angry thoughts and not act upon them, but rather have Christly thoughts and act upon those. We can’t advance God’s cause here on Earth if we are angry all the time. We have to be able to think and make rational decisions and we can’t do that if we are angry. This is another concept easier said than done. But if we allow the Holy Ghost to enter into our hearts, we will find that we have the spiritual strength to accomplish this. Instead of acting irrationally, we must instead think calmly and figure out the best way to handle whatever situation we are in without losing control of our emotions. How do we do this? The clear solution is to pray to God and ask for His Help in bridling our tongue and have it be a tool of reason rather than a tool of anger and deceit! And to also remember this every time we are in a moment of heated emotion.

 

When Jesus gave His Life for us, He did it knowing we would fail to follow in perfection, but fully aware some would follow to the best of their ability. We must get back up after we make our mistakes and continue on trying the best we can to follow Him. That is all He asks, do your best.  Even Saint Paul had trouble following our Lord, but he kept trying and doing his real best not to make the same mistake again.  Doing your best is not the same as saying you are doing your best.

 

There are none so deaf as those who will not hear. 

 

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

 

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

 

It is by our actions we are known.

 

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Fifth Sunday after Trinity - Propers with explanation – Rev Jack’s Sermon– With Video

 

The Propers for today are found on Page 195-196, with the Collect first:

 

The Fifth Sunday after Trinity.

 

G

The Collect.

RANT, O Lord, we beseech thee, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by thy governance, that thy Church may joyfully serve thee in all godly quietness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

The Epistle came from the Third Chapter of the First Epistle of Saint Peter beginning at the Eighth Verse. Peter tells to be of one mind, have compassion and pity for each other, to be courteous, to give good to all our brethren, to return good for evil, to seek peace, to do good, not just talk good.  Peter tells us to not only talk the talk, but walk the walk.  To put ourselves in others’ places, understand when they fall short and make good things happen.

 

B

E ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.

 

Today’s Holy Gospel started in the Fifth Chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke beginning at the First Verse. This is one of the classic stories of Jesus in the Bible.  Jesus had gone down to Lake Gennesaret to pray and then speak to the people.  As they pressed in on him, he asked Simon Peter to use his boat as a speaking platform.  Speaking from a small boat near the beach is almost like speaking in an amphitheatre.  When he finished talking to the people, he told Simon Peter to go out and set his nets.  Simon pointed out they had fished all night with no result, but at His word, he would set his net.  The net gathered an incredible catch that Simon Peter and his friends could not board.  At that point, it was clear to Simon Peter he was in the presence of one far greater than himself.  He fell to his knees, saying, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”  Then Jesus said, “Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.”  From then on Simon Peter followed Jesus.

 

Do not misunderstand, every day Jesus speaks to you telling you what to do.  It is your choice, you can listen like Simon Peter, or you can ignore Jesus.  He has the pony for the lottery.  He wants to give it to you, all you have to do is accept.  While He is a bit more subtle than a Drill Instructor, the question is the same, “Can you hear me?”

 

There are none so deaf as those who will not hear. 

 

I

T came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, and saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship. Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken: and so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Rev Jack’s sermon can be viewed on video RIGHT HERE!

 

Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and is partly contained in the forewords above. 

 

Consider these words from the Collect:

 

… the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by thy governance, that thy Church may joyfully serve thee in all godly quietness …

 

In the Collect, we ask that the events of this world might follow God’s governance or will.  Why?  Because in those places where it does, we find happiness and joy.  It is that simple, it means more, reflect on that.  After all, amazing is it not?  Since the Garden, it has always been one of the two same choices:

 

1.     We follow God’s Will for us, we do what is good for us, individually and as a people or a country.  It is hard work, but easier than we imagined; we prosper when all goes well.  It was all our doing, we are happy because we were so smart.

 

2.     We ignore God’s instructions, doing what we want to do, not what we are supposed to do.  It turns out to be way harder than we thought possible, in the end everything turns to weasel spit.  It was not our fault, it is God’s fault, He is punishing us.

 

As long as we are imperfect creatures with free will, humanity will not change.  The key word in this phrase is will. The will of humanity is set towards embracing sin and running away from God. But there is the possibility that through the Holy Ghost, we as individuals can change and with enough individuals changing, the whole of humanity of change.  Humanity would be better off if we fully embraced the principles found in the Gospel.  However, there is a big obstacle to this: human nature. By our own nature, we are naturally resistant to embracing any kinds of change and most especially change from doing what we want to doing what God wants. We have to understand doing what God wants will be better for us in the long run than doing what we want. 

 

This is a difficult concept for us to grasp without the help of the Holy Ghost. But it is not so hard once we let the Holy Ghost into our hearts. But the key is that we have to let the Holy Ghost into our hearts. Then once we let Him into our hearts, we have to shift our focus to doing what God wants from doing what we want. That is a little more difficult but it can be done. We just have to let the Holy Ghost guide is in our course change and then listen to Him and then act upon what He says in order to maintain our course. We don’t have to worry about straying from the course, as long as we rely on the infallible navigator, the Holy Ghost.

 

If you think about it, all of our problems can be solved by doing what God asks! Don’t try to get out of doing what God wants to do what you want, and don’t look for loopholes.  Don’t be a Pharisee! Consider when Jesus told Simon Peter to go out and set his nets.  Simon was tired, he was hungry, he had fished all night with no result.  After making excuses, he decided to do what he was told! There is a lesson there, instead of making excuses why things are the way they are, why not be quiet and do God’s will instead? It will have a lot better result, that is for sure! 

 

That is what happened to Simon Peter; that is what will happen to you, if you will but listen and act. Listening and then acting are the key principles of this Gospel, we must listen to what He says, and then ACT upon it. It is not good enough to just listen and go on your merry way and not ACT upon it. We must have actions in order to show that our faith has any meaning at all.

 

Without actions, our faith would be a very shallow one. It is very easy to talk the talk, but can we walk the walk too? People watching will notice if our words are backed up by our actions. As the verse from the Book of Matthew goes, wherever our treasure is, our heart will be there also. So if we do treasure Jesus and His teachings, our heart will be fixed there also and our actions will reflect that. Same to somebody whose heart is in earthly things or mammon, their heart will be fixed upon those things and their actions will reflect that.

 

The point Saint Peter makes in this mornings Epistle is that it is easy for us to be sinful creatures and not do good. It is much harder to resist that sin and to do good, but yet that is what God calls us to do. The Holy Spirit will give us that strength to resist the sin and to good and to overcome obstacles and feelings, but only if we let it. God is open to those who do good and He is against those who are evil. God will open his ears to us, but we have to also open our ears to what He asks us to do. Action and not just diction are what counts in the end. That phrase is what St. Peter’s Epistle boils down to and it is also a shared theme with this mornings Gospel. When Simon Peter finally listened and acted according to Jesus’s instructions, wonderful things happened. So too will they happen for us when we finally actually listen to what God wants and do it instead of doing what we want.

 

We will find that our life will improve significantly once we start doing what God wants us to do instead of what we want to do. We will find things become better for us in a lot of aspects of our life thanks to doing what God wants. People who do not have the Holy Ghost in their hearts may not be able to see this, but us with the Holy Ghost in our hearts will be able to see it once we apply God’s principles into action. We can make things better for us and those around us by doing what God wants us to do. Our communities will become a better place the more we start to do what God wants instead of what we want to do. A lot of the problems in this world are caused by people doing what they want to do instead of what God wants us to do.

 

Do not misunderstand, every day Jesus speaks to you telling you what to do.  It is your choice, you can listen like Simon Peter or you can ignore Jesus.  He has the pony for the lottery.  He wants to give it to you, all you have to do is accept.  While He is a bit more subtle than a Drill Instructor, the question is the same, “Can you hear me?” The problem with us is that we just do not want to hear. That is why we need the Holy Ghost to open up our ears, that we might hear and obey. We need to tell ourselves that listening to Jesus and the Holy Ghost will produce better results for us in the short and long term than if we ignore them. We have to remind ourselves that our eternal life starts right now and not when we die, so we might as well get on following Jesus and the Holy Ghost’s instructions.

 

There are none so deaf as those who will not hear. 

 

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

 

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

 

It is by our actions we are known.

 

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Fourth Sunday after Trinity - Propers with explanation – Rev Jack’s Sermon

The Propers for today are found on Page 194-194, with the Collect first:

 

Fourth Sunday after Trinity.

The Collect.

 

O

 GOD, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

The Epistle came from the Eight Chapter of St. Paul‘s Letter to the Romans, beginning at the Eighteenth Verse. Paul tells us that walking God’s path, though it may seem hard at the time, is nothing compared to the reward we receive in heaven for following God’s will.  God gave us free will, which if we exercise it properly, that is the will to overcome temptation.  What at first seems like a constrained way of living, once actually lived is really perfect freedom.  If we overcome temptation to do what we want and do what God wants, we will receive the gift of eternal salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.  For until Christ, there was no delivery from the pain of worldly existence; through Christ there is redemption of our souls and our resulting bodily resurrection.

 

I

RECKON that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

 

The Holy Gospel came from the Sixth Chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke, beginning at the Thirty-Sixth Verse. This is a simple message, yet often misunderstood, with majestic language that brings the message to a point of incredible sharpness.  “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven; give and it shall be given unto you… …Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?”  “… why beholdest thou the mote that is in the brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?  …How canst thou say to thy brother, Brother let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest no the beam that is in thine own eye?”  This is often quoted, but the following sentence is left out, “Cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the more that is in thy brother’s eye.”  

 

Only when we first take care of our own spiritual health, look to our own relationship to God and evaluate and improve how we follow His Word, we will be able to effectively spread the Word of His love for us.

 

B

E ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Rev Jack's sermon can be viewed on video RIGHT HERE!

Today Rev Jack brings the propers together; the Collect talks about our continual need for God’s guidance in everything, in the Epistle Paul tells us that walking God’s path, though it may seem hard at the time, is nothing compared to the reward we receive in heaven for following God’s will.  God gave us free will, which if we exercise it properly, that is the will to overcome temptation.  What at first seems like a constrained way of living, once actually lived is really perfect freedom.  If we overcome temptation to do what we want and do what God wants, we will receive the gift of eternal salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.  For until Christ, there was no delivery from the pain of worldly existence; through Christ there is redemption of our souls and our resulting bodily resurrection.  The Gospel is Jesus warning us to beware of pointing out the mote in others eyes while being oblivious to the beam in our own eye.

Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and is partly contained in the forewords above. 

 

Consider these words from the Collect:

 

… protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal…

 

We desperately need God’s Help, yet paradoxically, God can only help us if we put our trust in Him; we can never be strong, nor set aside to Him, if we do not let Him be our leader.  No one except God can be their own leader, no one.  Each of us, no matter our position, must have an immutable directional reference or we become hopelessly lost.  For navigation, we have a magnetic compass or better yet the Pole Star, Polaris, which will tell us True North so we can keep headed in the right direction.  People have died of starvation in a closely wooded area less than a mile across because they became lost while following their own sense of direction.  By definition, they were always less than 3,000 feet from safety, yet they died after many days.  So it is with our spirits. 

 

This message is a constant theme in most of the collects, as it is a pretty common theme for us that we are totally lost without God’s guidance. Like Peter, if we are separated from Christ, then we too shall become lost. But, if we have the Holy Ghost, we are not separated from God and Christ and will thus become stronger. So, if we have the Holy Ghost in our heart, he will both strengthen us and help us to holy, that is set aside. He can also help us be merciful to other people. We just need to listen to what the Holy Ghost says and act upon it.  

 

It is a simple truth that we cannot be our own leaders. We need a leader that is infallible and perfect and we do not meet those requirements.  If we try to become our own leaders, it will not work. But fortunately for us, we have God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost.  if we will follow Their Lead, we will pass through this world in good order and go on to the next in eternal happiness. This is a very common theme within Scripture, do what God asks, be happy; don’t do what God asks, don’t be happy. It seems simple enough in theory, but a lot harder in practice. It is a lot easier said or thought about than done.   We want to do what we want to have fun, God wants us to do what we need to do to be happy.  Fun and Happy do not mean the same thing, they are used interchangeably, their meanings are orders of magnitude different.

 

We should not consider what man thinks of us. In the end it will matter less what man thinks of us than what God thinks of us. We need to be concerned with what God thinks of us.  If we follow Him, then those who really matter will like us for who we are and how we conduct ourselves while following God and those who don’t are of no concern. Do what is right, avoid what is wrong and you will be happy are the basic principles of the Christian faith.

 

Paul builds on this, telling us walking God’s path, though it may seem hard at the time, is nothing compared to the reward we receive in heaven for following God’s will. And it is certainly a lot better than going to the Pit! There may be quite a struggle on this Earth before we go to our heavenly home. Paul assures us that heaven will be worth the wait. It ties in also with the collect saying that we need to focus not on things temporal, but things eternal. Meaning we need to look at ourselves and our actions with the long long term view with the goal of getting to heaven for eternity. It must be remembered eternal life doesn’t just start when you die and leave this Earth for Heaven, it starts right now. The Collect is asking for God to help us make our way through this temporal universe to His Realm, the ultimate eternal universe of Heaven. We need His help to guide us through all of life’s trials and temptations 

 

In the end, our reward will outweigh all of our struggles, if we will but keep our eye on the true prize.  Our struggles here on Earth in the eternal view will not be as big as what our eternal reward will be, if we but stay the course that God has set for us. God gave us free will, which if we exercise it properly, that is the will to overcome temptation.  We just have to let the Holy Ghost into our hearts and focus on never ever giving up! And remembering Paul’s message to us whenever we are tempted to give up!

 

What at first seems like a constrained way of living, once actually lived is really perfect freedom. It only seems constrained, because we cannot conceive how following His Word will allow us true freedom.  If we overcome temptation to do what we want and do what God wants, we will receive the gift of eternal salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.  

 

Luke presents a simple message, yet one that is often misunderstood, with majestic language which brings the message to a point of incredible sharpness.  We are to be a guide to others to Christ, yet we cannot help others until our own problems are on the way to “solvation”, that is being solved through the salvation offered by Christ.  We need to follow Him, before we ask others to follow us.  After all, if we are not going in the right direction, what positive value is there in others following us?  We can’t very well lead people to Christ if we ourselves are not on the road to Christ.

 

We do not want to be leading others towards The Pit, rather, we want to be sure we are on the right path before we guide others along the path. We must not lead others astray by our actions and judge unrighteously, but judge with righteous judgment through the Holy Ghost and on the solid foundations of Holy Scripture. 

 

When he said use righteous judgement, he was talking about judging people’s behavior by the standards of Scripture, not condemnation. He was talking about using the Scriptures as the standard for judging individual’s behavior. He does not mean us to condemn others. That is for God to decide and not for us to decide. We must trust in God’s superior and perfect judgement. This is connected with the parable of the mote. Often times when we are tempted to condemn somebody, we often ignore our own failures and focus on theirs. Let us get our act together first, before we help others. So, how can we, imperfect as we are, be honest with ourselves?  The answer is easy, hard to implement, but easy!  The Holy Ghost!  Let Him into your heart and do what you are told.  Simple, yet hard to do.  

 

Speaking of doing, what we do to others is a good measure of how we follow God’s Will and Direction.  We are expected to treat others as we would be treated. Remember the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have done unto you. How you treat others says a lot about your spiritual and moral character. Our real earthly fortune, as well as are eternal lives, are a reflection of our commitment to God.

 

We are so ready to condemn the performance of others when our own is even worse.  It is common within all of us, especially me particularly. As Paul tells us, “all fall short.”  The operative word here is ALL.  If we look to condemn and repair our own spiritual lives before condemning others, we will be better suited to help them.  Our beam before their mote.

 

For only when we have taken care of our own spiritual health by looking to God for help to evaluate and improve how we follow His Word, we will be able to effectively spread the Word of His love for us.

 

And that is our job, to improve ourselves to effectively spread His Word by example; our action, not our diction, is the measure.

 

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

 

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

 

It is by our actions we are known.

 

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Third Sunday after Trinity

  

 

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Rev Jack's sermon can be viewed on video RIGHT HERE.

Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and is partly contained in the forewords above.  

 

Consider these words from the Collect:

 

… hear us; and grant that we, to whom thou hast given an hearty desire to pray, may, by thy mighty aid, be defended and comforted in all dangers and adversities …

 

The Collect starts as they often do by asking God to hear us.  It seems to me this is rather odd a thing to ask as He hears us all the time; the problem is when we need His Help we so rarely ask, then when He answers, we will not hear Him.  That being said, when we do accept the Holy Ghost’s Help to pray, we can expect to receive spiritual, mental and physical comfort from God.  The key word in this is accept.  In order to receive the comfort from God, we have to first let him into our hearts to begin his renewal of our spirit. If we do not accept the Holy Ghost’s help, then God will not be able to help us.

 

It would be foolish not to accept the Great Physician’s help to transform our spirits. It would be like having cancer, and there being a cure for cancer and rejecting that cure because we don’t like it.  Without the help of the Holy Ghost into our hearts, we truly cannot follow Christ. We, of ourselves, cannot follow God without His Divine Assistance. We are sheep gone astray from our shepherd and without Jesus, are wolf food. But with Jesus’s protection, we are safe from the wolf/lion known as Satan.  

 

In order to have the Holy Ghost’s help into our heart, we must let go of self centered and prideful  ways. Prideful beings cannot be followers of Christ. Peter makes this point when he says that God resists the proud and gives His Grace to the humble. The humble are those who are more likely to accept His Grace and the Holy Ghost’s help to renew their spirit. The proud believe they are self-made people and scoff at the very idea of God sending his only begotten Son that we should not perish but have life everlasting (John 3:16). These people are very resistant to God and the Holy Spirit. These are the people that scoff at us and do not understand the benefits of the power of God and the Holy Spirit. They will continually be living in their own delusion unless they are otherwise shaken from it. And this is an extremely powerful delusion and it is difficult for these folks to be shaken from it. It is possible, but it does require that they allow the Holy Spirit in them, in order to be snapped out of the delusion. They do not understand that our self centered and prideful ways hurt us way more than it can ever help.

 

The humble know they cannot make it into heaven on their own; thus they know they need that divine help and are willing to accept it. They know that without God’s help they are nothing and thus they are more willing than the proud to rely on God. 

 

We must strive to be humble in our lives and less prideful. When we let go of our pride, we can see where we are in error.  This is a life long process for most of us. It is a very difficult thing to let go of our pride, but it is something that must be done to further our character development all the same. Next time you are thinking prideful thoughts, stop and try and switch to a more humble attitude. In life, being humble will get  you a lot farther than being prideful ever will.

 

When we accept help from the Holy Ghost, we can begin to fix the cracks and faults in our spiritual character. He can shine a light into the darkest areas of our hearts. Jesus could do this as well and He knew very well the spiritual character of each person He encountered in His Earthly Ministry.  He knows which areas we need to most work on and He will tell us. We just have to listen to Him and then act upon it. Listening and then acting is the key phrase here. Without listening we’ll never know what we need to change and without acting we will never be able to change. So we must listen to what He has to say, regardless of how we feel about it and then act

 

With a clear view of the inner most thoughts of their hearts, Jesus tells the Pharisees the story of the shepherd who loses a sheep and searches for it.  When he finds the sheep he carries it back to the flock on his shoulders.  He goes on to tell the story of the woman who loses a piece of silver and turns her house inside out to find it.  That story ends in a very interesting word play in English, “Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece (peace) which I had lost.”  Jesus ends the story with, “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” No doubt the Pharisees missed the point of the parable as their hearts were too blackened by pride to hear His Word. 

 

The moral of the parable is Jesus is all about saving the sinners, not those who are already “righteous.” But for realists, there are none who are already “righteous.” I liken the church as a hospital for sinners. And all of the saints were sinners in their past too.  Therefore Jesus is all about saving all of us, as none of us are truly righteous without His Influence in our lives. Having said that, there is also joy when we do not sin, but choose God’s way.  And we enjoy it more also. So, it is preferable if we do not sin in the first place, but if we can’t do that, then God finds joy when we truly repent and turn back to Him and ask for His help and be willing to listen. There are no holier than thous in Christ’s flock, we are all equally non perfect folk or sinners that have let the Holy Ghost into our hearts to inspire us to change and become better humans and children of God.

 

Notice Jesus’ actions when He finds a lost sheep, He carries it back to the flock on His shoulders with a smile on His face. He rejoices in each lost soul saved. This is what the Church is about, bringing lost souls to Our Shepherd of Souls, Our Savior, Our Advocate, Jesus Christ, to His Kingdom of Heavenly Joys.

 

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

 

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

 

It is by our actions we are known.

 

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God