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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, wherein we ask God who is … more ready to hear than
we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve; Pour
down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our
conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy
to ask …
For the
first time in a long time, this collect acknowledges we are continually pray to
God, asking Him for what WE want. Yet,
how oft do we listen to Him when He responds with what we need?[1] If we will listen to Him and DO what He asks,
He will give us more than we have need of, more than we ask for, more than we
can even desire. The point of the collect is that He has unlimited resources
for this and also able to forgive us for things bearing on our conscience. Yet,
it requires us to listen to Him, then ACT[2]
on what we are told. When we ask His
forgiveness, when He gives it, we need to accept it and live it; if we live in
the past, we never will benefit. We have to accept it in the present. The
present is the only realm of time in which we have any control of our actions
and thoughts and can influence people around us. We cannot influence things in the past or in
the future, we can only do our part in the here and now. The Line of Time
stretches from the unfathomable past, back to The Beginning, all the way to the
unknowable future, all the way to The End.
God is in both places all the time, thus He knows The Beginning, as well
as The End. But, where God’s finger
touches that line lies The Present.
Right now; where we live; the only place we, as humans, can live.
We can change the future through our actions. The future is always in motion and can change depending on our actions in the present. However, we cannot influence the past, which stays static and cannot be changed. Therefore, it is useless to concentrate on the past. However, we can learn valuable lessons from the past and use those when we are applying our actions towards the future. We can only of course help change the future the right way if we have the Holy Ghost in our hearts. We need to be constantly moving forward. Tomorrow will never arrive, we are always in today and that is where our actions can be effective. Let us not wait until tomorrow to act, for it may not arrive. Let us accept His Forgiveness now, today and go forth and act.
We will
receive the Holy Ghost into our hearts if we accept Him. God offers His Help to
us, but we can only have it if we accept His Help. If we don’t accept His Help,
we can never have the Holy Ghost into our hearts. He gives us the power to act in the spirit of
The Law. The Law, or actually 613 little
laws, turned out to be in of itself a death sentence. The Jews could not, or would not, comply with
the 613 Mosaic Laws, which brought them death.
The Law brought Death, but the New Testament of Jesus Christ brought to
us Life, true everlasting life.
The Jews
only cared about not violating the Law, not about the spirit of the Law which
was intended. They were more concerned with following the letter of the Law.
However, following the spirit of the Law is what counts. Following the letter of the law does not by
itself save you. To following what the Law was meant for, you have to follow
the spirit or the intent of the Law. Jesus is the ultimate embodiment of the
Law. As the embodiment of the Law, He gave us the important bits of the law,
when He gave us the Summary of The Law, which through Him would bring life,
everlasting life and happiness here on earth.
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HOU shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great
commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.
Only two
laws to comply with, which though simpler, are harder:
1.
Love God
2.
Love your neighbor like yourself
If you do
those two things, you will not need much instruction in the moral laws. For all
the moral laws that God devised hangs around those two keystones, Love God and
love your neighbor as yourself. Abiding
by those two principles will greatly improve not just your life, but the lives
of other people Christian and non-Christian around you. It may even lead the
latter group to Christ. This is the true spirit of the Law which we are meant
to follow. Christ wants us to not just follow the letter, but follow the
spirit, which is more important than the letter. If we do these things, with
the help of the Holy Ghost, then we are in good shape.
The two
laws are seemingly contrary to our sinful nature, but with the help of the Holy
Ghost, they can be overcome. And they are also both things that will greatly
improve our lives here on Earth. If not in a monetary sense, most certainly our
lives will be improved spiritually if we follow the Summary of the Law. If you
understand the Big Picture, you know what to do on your part of the Little
Picture to make your world line up with His World. The easiest way to do this
is to accept the help of the Holy Ghost and align your little picture with
God’s picture or the Scriptures.
The problem
is just like the Jews, we cannot perfectly follow those either. Because we come
from the same common ancestor, Adam, we have the curse of free will. We often
exercise this free will poorly, rather than in the way God intended, which is
to focus on Him. But we can at least do
our very best to follow those directions and change course whenever we aren’t
headed in the right direction. That is
where the Holy Ghost is so useful for us, inputting change of course
corrections to us. We just need to listen to His input and then act upon it
accordingly.
In the
Gospel, Jesus helped a deaf man with an impediment of speech. This is very much
a metaphor for our own sinful selves. We are deafened by our state of being
sinful beings and without the help of God, cannot hear His call and commands.
We need Him in our hearts to heal us of our spiritual dirtiness and deafness.
We have a speech impediment in that we often utter incorrect or outright sinful
words in our day to day lives. We are asking for Him to heal us of both
spiritual impediments. Without His Help, we cannot be cleared of our spiritual
deafness and uncleanliness.
Like that
deaf man, if we will allow Him into our hearts, Jesus Christ will clean our
hearts from the bacteria that causes the spiritual deafness and uncleanliness.
That is to say sin. The key phrase here is that we have to allow Him into our
hearts. He won’t come in uninvited; we
have to of our own will, willingly invite Him in. Only then can He start the
cleansing process. Only with a continual, conscious effort, can He dwell within
our hearts and save us. It is through His faith, His sacrifice we are saved,
but we must show that we are with Him, by acting for Him. This is a continuous
process that will go on for the rest of our earthly lives.
Doing our
best is all that God asks of us, not just saying we are doing our best when we
aren’t. But, happily for us Jesus’
sacrifice on our behalf accounts us as just before God. So, now we know that, who do we tell about
it? Do we let people know, or do we hide
our allegiance to the Lord? If you hide
your allegiance, you really have none.
Thus, we must be open about our allegiance and share the Good News with
others, so they in time may come to seek the joys of His Kingdom. They may not
understand right away, but the seed of the Lord may germinate and grow within
them, so that within due course they may understand the Word and come to seek
Him. A seed does not instantly become a large sycamore tree, it takes years of
watering and good sunshine for the plant to grow into the large tree. It is the same with us, it takes
years of good spiritual food and drink (Holy
Scripture and the Holy Ghost) and of being with fellow believers who are
learning along with you to grow spiritually. We have to remember this every
time we bring the Word to an audience who may not have received much nurturing.
We may not see results right away, but the Holy Spirit will plant the seed and
over the years, with constant nurturing, that seed will grow into a great
Sycamore tree of the Spirit.
The Holy
Ghost is a large part of our spiritual lives. Without Him, we could not be
considered one of Christ’s sheep. We have to let Him into our hearts and lead
the transforming and renewal of our minds. Without His help, we cannot
adequately follow Him. In other words, we are doomed without the help of the
Holy Ghost, who will give us His guidance and advice in conducting our church,
professional and personal lives.
When Jesus
opened the ears and mouth of the deaf mute, He did for him what the Holy Ghost
will do for us If we will but let Him
open first our ears to hear, then our mouths to testify, communicate and
direct. We must lead people to God, not
try to push them. Thus, we need to
strive, each of us, to follow God more closely so we can pull on the lead
rope. Leading requires being in front of
the people you are attempting to lead, having them follow your example towards
an objective. Study Jesus’ life, He is a
perfect example of a leader. We cannot
ever be perfect, but we can strive for that perfection in our actions.
Action
counts. For by their actions ye shall
know them.
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
[1]
Herein lies another
problem. If we pray, it seems we
continually pray for what we want and we oft want things that are contrary to
our actual needs. Imperfect creatures
with free will, a bad combination in itself, we continually use and understand
in our hearts two words: need and want, to mean the same thing; when in
fact they often mean two diametrically opposed things. Thus, amongst other things and perhaps
before, we need to pray for the Holy Ghost to help us to understand the
difference and ask for what we need.
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