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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.
…
keep thy Church and household continually in thy true religion; that they who
do lean only upon the hope of thy heavenly grace may evermore be defended by
thy mighty power …
In
the Collect, we are asking God to keep His People (that is US) in line with His
Wishes, not our own, so that we might be defended by Him. We of course need the Holy Ghost to help keep
us in line with His Wishes, to enable us to be defended by Him. We need to be
acting in accordance with His Will before He can defend us. We cannot expect
Him to defend us from the slings and arrows of this world if we will not line
up behind Him. This is a pretty simple
concept, but one that escapes so many.
We find God being blamed by people who do what they want, not what He
wants them to do.
Our
problems are not caused by God or by following Him, they are caused by us and
not following His will and guidance. We find that if we follow God and do what
He asks, our problems will be more easily solvable than if we do not. However,
on the flip side, if we do not follow God and His Word, then we find that our
problems are never solved and it makes our life here on Earth much harder than
if we turn to Him.
The
truth of the matter is that it is not God we should blame; the blame rather
lies with us. We are the cause of all our problems due to our inherent nature
of pride, vanity, and other aspects of our sinful fallen nature. We need His
help to cure us of this dreadful sickness known as Sin. It is not a surprise a
lot of Jesus's miracles were healing of various long suffering people with
sickness. In a way, they are of themselves allegorical, He heals us of our
sins, as He healed them of their physical sickness.
Sin
is of course a sickness, a spiritual one, and it is like cancer in that there
is really no cure for it without God’s intervention. God’s intervention is of
course the Holy Ghost, who will not come in unless invited. So, in order to be
healed of our sins, we need to recognize we have the sickness and refer to the
appropriate physicians, the Holy Ghost and God, for treatment.
The
treatment He prescribes is to accept the guidance of the Holy Ghost and the
reading and digesting of Holy Scripture. This multi-step process will be one
constantly repeating through ought our entire lifetime until we are called Home
to be with Him. While we will never be able to fully stop sinning while we are
here on Earth, He expects us to limit the sinning to the best of our abilities.
When
we do fall out of step from time to time with the great physician’s
instructions, we are called to return to Him, repent and do our very very best
to go forth and sin no more. This means we have to renew our efforts
continually to not walk in sin and darkness and to follow the narrow, uphill
lighted path towards Heaven.
Paul
reminds us that God wants us to treat others as we would be treated; having “a heart of compassion, kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one
another…” Jesus forgave us, stood in
our place, accounted us (who are guilty of capital crimes) as perfect. We are no more worthy than the next human
being to get into heaven on our merits alone. Our merits do not outweigh our
multitude grave offences we have committed by the virtue simple fact we are
sinners. Yet, we want to hold a grudge against someone for leaving us alone a
few minutes too long. How is that right?
In
addition to being forgiving, we are to be sharing of His Word and joyful while
doing it! Let us think about Psalm 100,
the Jubilate Deo:
O
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BE joyful in the Lord, all ye lands: * serve
the Lord with gladness, and come before
his presence with a song.
vBe ye sure that the Lord he is
God; it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; * we are his people, and
the sheep of his pasture.
O go your way into his gates
with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; * be thankful unto him, and
speak good of his Name.
For the Lord is gracious, his
mercy is everlasting; * and his truth endureth from generation to generation.
Does
this psalm not give a lot of insight into how we are to live our lives?
So,
what if we choose not to live our lives God’s Way, but rather our way? Did you ever notice weeds normally flourish
far above the crop plants? While they
oft succeed in growing taller and quicker, they are not useful. They bear no
benefit to a farmer’s harvest and they contribute absolutely nothing to the
nature around them. A wise farmer will
let them abide in the field and separate them out at the harvest. God is that
wise farmer, who will sift us out before His judgment seat. So, while we still
have time, let us repent and turn back to Him and give thanks for His mercy!
Jesus reminds us our lives here on earth can be that way. Those who follow the Prince of this World oft
soar in earthly riches far above us; when their time here is done, their
destination is not the same as ours. In the end, we shall be soaring high above
them in Heaven, while they will be in the Pit.
Follow
God’s will and you will do well enough in earthly riches, which are transient
in nature, but we will have for “…ourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves do not break through nor steal.” (St. Matt. vi. 19, 20)
It
is our actions here that count, what we do in response to the eternal life
Jesus has given us. Will we throw it
away or use it wisely?
Error
is error, wrong is not right. But, a
person’s final destination is up to God, not us. We might think certain
individuals may be beyond redemption, but their eternal fate is beyond our
speculation and is ultimately up to God. During the journey of life down that
time space continuum we need to do our best to keep us moving towards God and
not away from Him. We also need to keep others around us moving towards Him as
well, by the example that we set here. We need to be sure we are setting a good
example and not a bad one. The direction is always clear, sometimes we just do
not want to read the signs. So, let us trust and turn to God, He is our
infallible navigator, if we will but listen to Him and act upon his
instructions we shall navigate through every storm and trial in our lives with
the least pain.
If
we understand we are less than perfect, actually far less than imperfect, we
have a good start. We know we need God
in our lives to give us direction. We
need His guidance to direct our ACTION.
Read
the Bible, find out what He wants you to do, then Do It. What can you do today to carry out His
Will? There are a multitude of things
you can DO to carry out His Will, but the question is, “Will you?”
There is
but one way to heaven.
That easy
to find, easy to follow, easy to hike path does not lead to the summit where
eternal life in the real world awaits.
Open your heart to the Holy Ghost, use His Power to follow our Lord to
God who awaits in heaven.
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
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