 |
|
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it
were not so, I would have told you The entire AOC Sunday Report is RIGHT HERE! |
Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and
Action
Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California
Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and
Gospel together and is partly contained in the forewords above.
We are in the Easter Season which consists of Easter
and the following four Sundays, until we get to Rogation Sunday. This is a time we should work on
centering our lives on the central figure in our religion, Jesus Christ.
Consider these words from the
Collect:
… who
showest to them that are in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that
they may return into the way of righteousness; Grant unto all those who are
admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s Religion, that they may avoid those
things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are
agreeable to the same…
God is a Triune God; Father,
Son, Holy Ghost. The function of
the Holy Ghost is to open our souls, hearts and minds to God’s Will. It is to help us not be so deaf as
those who will not hear. Thus, to
open our “ears” to His Voice.
As is oft the case, the Collect really asks us to let the Holy Ghost in
so He can change us.
Today’s Sunday Report has a quote from Jack Lewis out of Mere
Christianity:
“When He said, ‘Be perfect,’ He meant
it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the
sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder—in fact, it is impossible.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder
for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And
you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be
hatched or go bad.”
It does not matter if it is
hard for us to listen to the Holy Ghost, we must do it. If we will listen to Him, God will
always provide the light to show us where “We have erred, and strayed from His ways like lost sheep. Where we have followed too much the
devices and desires of our own hearts. Where
we have offended against His holy
laws. Where we have left undone those
things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we
ought not to have done[1]…” He does this so that we might return to
His Path. He will show to us who
are in error the light of His truth, the One Truth. He does not show us where
we have erred for no reason, but rather that we might use His Light to return
to the path that brings us to His World. Then we can shine that Light for
others to see, that they might pick up their torches and bring His Light into
the darkness of the world, be it the Western Civilized Word or the Eastern
World. First we have to let His Light into our hearts before we can shine it to
others that they may see the works of His Light. Then we shall transform the
world from total darkness, to that of a total light. At least that is what we
are always striving to work towards, even when evil is often thwarting our
efforts to the maximum. If evil is thwarting our efforts then we all must put
in 110% to stop evil and combat it across the world wherever it is. We must
never, never, never, ever give up on this fight. It is far to important to give up. No matter how discouraged
we may get at times, we must never ever give up.
We must fight it wherever and
whenever we run across it. We must not let the little and big evils in this
life get us down or defeat us. We must rely on the guiding power of the Holy
Ghost and God’s unlimited grace to save the day. I know that this week, I am
counting my blessings that God gave me the grace to deal with an absolutely
horrific test situation and dealing with it. His Grace can help you out of any
horrific situation, but first you have to ask and accept His help, which is a
universal theme in our sermons here, because it is a truth and one that Jesus
preached, that is that we have to accept Him into our hearts, if we are to
become truly Christians.
A couple years ago, I met a
Navy SEAL in Guam, who gave an excellent sermon to the point we must be on the
offense in the battle against Satan, never defense. The SEAL noted that Paul
did not describe any sort of back armor whatsoever, showing us Christianity was
an offense based, not defense based religion. We must never our back towards the enemy, but rather face
forward and attack. The best defense is a good offense as in every case. We
must never cease our fight against Satan, for he is powerful here on earth,
tricking many. We are often outnumbered in the fight. Numbers matter not.
We must always fight with all we have every time. We must carry on; we must storm the
beaches of Hell itself, and keep on persevering in good times and in bad times.
Paul tells us that if we follow
Christ’s example, we will live lives like His to the extent we can. We will do good, be law abiding, work
hard, be generous to our fellow human beings, help where we can, pray for help
when we can find no physical way to help.
It may be hard to do any physical help, but if you are generous and
prayerful, you can often do good even when physical help is next to impossible.
Be good citizens, be good neighbors, take particular care of our Christian
family. In short, do what Christ
would do as far as it is in us. Although we can never be as good or perfect as
He is, we can at least do our best. Let us do our best to think in hard and
trying times, what would Jesus do in our situation, and then act in a manner
most like Him. In order to make the world a better place, we first have to start
with our selves then work out word, applying the principles of Christ to our
lives. God does not ask us to be perfect; He does ask us to do our best to try
to be perfect, to follow Jesus’ lead to the extent we have it in us. Each of us is different, some are in
truth better than others. God
holds us each to the same standard, that is to do our best. Not to be better than any other
particular person, but to do our best to follow His Instructions. Being better than someone else is of no
account, what is of account is following His Instructions to the best of YOUR
ability.
Don’t think of trying to be
better than your neighbor, think of being better than you are. Be better than
you were yesterday, if you do this, then you will improve day by day, year by year.
In the Gospel according to
Saint John, Jesus tells of His impending bodily death and resurrection. He reminds us if we have
eternal life, sorrow, even the sorrow of death is transient, for He has conquered
death. Any irritations or sorrows, large ones or small ones, are in the large
scheme of things (eternity that is) very small and insignificant compared to
our future with Him in heaven. It is a message that we should always strive to
remember, even in dark depressing times and places, that we always have this
promise of eternity with Him and His Light with us, to shine in the darkest
places. We have to keep this in mind throughout our travel along the straight
and narrow upward path. His One Sacrifice, made One Time, for All Mankind, for
All Time is that joy that no man can take from us. But, if we want to share in that eternal life, we need to
see the error of our ways in the Light of His Light and take actions to follow
Him.
Often it seems much easier to
take the path of least resistance, to quit our work at the first sign of
effort, to goof off when “no one” is looking. But in the end, the right thing to do is always the
easiest. The most profitable. The one that will result in
happiness. It might seem hard, but
it will not be as hard as doing the “easy” thing.
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
God • Honor • Country • Family
for all
eternity
As we go off on our
business, please recall this quote from GK Chesterton:
“Christianity has not been
tried and found wanting;
it has been found difficult and
not tried.”
