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Sermon
– Reverend
Jack Arnold - Time and Action
Church of the Faithful Centurion -
Descanso, California
Today’s
sermon tied the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together
and talked, as is oft the case, of the need for action, not simply diction.
Consider the words of the Collect, “…without thee
we are not able to please thee; Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in
all things direct and rule our hearts …”
The collect continues on the
theme from last week, that without God’s mighty help through the Holy Spirit,
we are not able to understand what we need to do to be one with God, to follow
His Will; we need Him, through the Holy Ghost, to direct us in our endeavors,
beliefs and understanding.
This trend is evident in the
Epistle, where Paul writes to the Ephesians, Chapter 4, Verse 17. “Yet
henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having
the understanding darkened and alienated from the life of the God through the
ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.”
Paul basically is saying we
should not do as the world does and look into ourselves for guidance for our
spiritual lives. If you look into your inner self, you will find blood, guts and
bodily fluids. Looking there for
guidance is just inviting a nasty disaster for our souls when we die and wake
up from our death to find we are not only physically dead but have died a
spiritual death, a permanent separation from God, as we are on the other side
of that “fixed gulf.” There is a way to avoid this fixed gulf, and that is to
accept His spiritual help and guidance and to let the Holy Ghost into our
lives.
To do that, we must openly accept
Him into our hearts and let Him guide our thoughts and actions. St. Paul tells
us that we must begin to live our lives anew, to leave off the old sinful ways
and thoughts of our old lives, to reboot as it were, and to start afresh by
being honest, not prone to anger, to work hard, and think, speak and act
kindness and to forgive as you would have God forgive you. In short, we are to act on His
Instructions and our lives will change as the natural result of doing what we
are supposed to be doing. Simply
saying you believe changes nothing.
Change your actions and your heart must in the end follow, with the help
of the Holy Ghost. Your heart will
be renewed through the entrance of the Holy Ghost. This will show up a little later on, but it is an important
message that bears repeating. It is the same with many changes you will need to
make in your life, you have to make them, not just say that you are going to
make them. To be a better person, to grow in the Spirit, you have to perform
actions that are consistent and that the Holy Spirit guides you to do.
To be successful, Paul says we
need to fix ourselves upon the waypoint of Christ and God and not use ourselves
for a moral compass. For if we use our sense of direction, we shall not get far
and indeed we will be in much distress, though we would not think of it
otherwise due to our easily corruptible minds. However, if we rely on Christ as
our navigator, He shall never fail us in His directions, if we will but listen
to him. He, unlike us, will never let us down or withhold anything that we need
to know, but the catch is that we have to be willing to listen to him. We have
to be willing and able to listen to Him and then willing and able to act on
what He tells us to do.
Paul also gives very practical
and simple, though hard to follow, directions on living our lives:
·
Be honest;
·
Avoid anger;
·
Do not let anger linger over night;
·
Follow not the guidance of the devil;
·
Quit stealing;
·
Work hard;
·
Think kindness;
·
Speak kindness;
·
Act kindness;
·
Forgive as you would have God forgive you, which
He hath done in Jesus Christ!
·
We move on to the Gospel, where
Jesus, attending to a sick man, picks up on the evil thoughts of the temple
scribes, who think to themselves Jesus blasphemed. However, if they realized
who truly the Son of God was, Jesus, they would be shocked if they realized
they had just accused God of being a liar and blasphemer. However, their
darkness in their hearts, like the vanity of the Gentiles minds that Paul
talked about, prevents them from seeing the truth of the person of Christ. Then he asks them, which is easier, to
say that the sins are forgiven, or to actually say “Arise and walk”, or in
other words, the command or the actual physical action of the healing, of which
is more important?
The command is important, but we
find Jesus doesn’t just talk to hear himself talk, unlike some of the more
modern “Christian” televised preachers who do. He talks to
make a point and acts in accordance with the point He makes. If we
believe His commandments, we will keep them, which means our behavior, our
actions, will match His Words. The
book Acts of the Apostles, isn’t
“Meditations”, “Philosophies” of the Apostles, but Acts. Jesus puts forth emphasis on “Actions
speak louder than words” through his actions. Actions truly show where a
person’s heart is set. He may profess to be a member of Our Lord’s church, but
if his actions do not match his profession then we shall clearly know he is not
truly our Christian brother. We must make sure our actions match our claimed
beliefs in Scripture. If our actions do not match the Scriptures, we are not
truly following Christ. We will all struggle with this from time to time, but
as long as we return to Christ with true repentant hearts, all will be fine
with our souls.
If we profess to be Christians,
then we need to act like Christians, not just say that we are Christians. The ending sentence at the end of the
sermons I have given thus far goes, “Be of God”, “Live of God” and finally,
last but especially not least “Act of God.” We have to Be of God, and Live of
God, to live our lives in a Godly and Christian way, which means as Paul said
“Henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk”, so should we not walk in the ways
of the world but that of God and His Heavenly Kingdom. Though originally, the
term Gentile meant non-Jews (Ephesus was an early Gentile Christian church),
nowadays Gentiles are those who conform to the world’s philosophies, including
Christians that are Christians in name only and not in deed/actions, who do not
follow “Be of God, Live of God and Act of God.”
To Act of God, we must follow the
commandments of Christ and act according to them, loving our neighbor as we
love ourselves. If we do the three step process “Be of God”, “Act of God” and
“Live of God”, we will find ourselves in a much better position than walking in
the ways of the World.
The time to act is NOW. Will you act? For whom will you act?
Will you count the cost before you act?
Action, not diction, is what counts. It is by your actions you are known.
Be of God - Live of God - Act of God
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