Fourth Sunday in Lent

Sermon – Reverend Hap 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. 

Consider these words from the Collect:

… we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of thy grace may mercifully be relieved …

In the Collect, as is often to the case we acknowledge to God we have fallen way short of our goals He set for us. We are also acknowledging we deserve to be punished for our failures; by His Grace we are relieved of that punishment. Jesus accomplished that relieving by laying down His Life that we might be free of eternal damnation. 

                                                                                        

In order for us to enter heaven, we have to be accounted as perfect.  Most of us know we are so far away from perfect, it would not seem to be possible. 

How then can we get into heaven, if not by our own means?

Death is oft referred to as the “Final Accounting.” As as businessman, I can tell you things are sometimes be accounted as what they are not, legally, too!  

At that final judgment day, if we stay the course and follow God’s guidance, we can be accounted as perfect through the Grace of God’s Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, Paul is right on point when he talks about the two sons of Abraham, one of the bond, one of the free.   Being adopted into the freewoman’s family requires us to follow Him and His guidance. This gift of eternal life is not free. It was paid for by Jesus’ death on the Cross and it requires us to actively following and working for Him here on earth.

The son of the bondwoman represents our state before Christ and those who refuse to follow Him.  They are stuck in bondage to their own sins and to Satan and will never truly be free. They are in essence slaves of their own will. We have free will, let us exercise it in the way God intended, to follow the path of righteousness towards Him.

The two are representative of the two covenants with God, the bond under The Law and the free under The New Covenant.  

The people of old are The People of The Law. Six Hundred Thirteen Laws each of which they were to follow.  They really did not  attempt to follow them, rather not to break them., A very complex and even more difficult life to live, to comply and uphold those laws and failing. We still fail miserably at times, but we only have two laws, which we will hear about in a second. They are still hard to uphold, but if we manage to, easier to remember.  The big thing to remember about the 613 laws is that they could not accomplish what Christ accomplished in His Sacrifice and establishing the New Covenant. The Holy Ghost helps us along the journey to this goal, to bring us to that eternal life.

The New Covenant is so much less complex than the Old Covenant.  It is much easier to remember the ways of the New Covenant than the Old Covenant. However, the Old Covenant had to come first to get people’s hearts ready to follow the New Covenant.  For the New Covenant could not be introduced, or in other words, Jesus could not come to Earth until the people were ready for His Teachings. The Old Covenant was a stepping stone to the New Covenant.

Remember this from Holy Communion:

Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith:

T

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.

Under the New Covenant, we have only two laws with which we must comply.  But, there is a catch.  We are not to just avoid breaking those two laws, we must actually live them in our hearts, souls, minds AND bodies.  We must actualize them. It is the common theme of Action not just Diction, that appears in sermons past here. The only way in which we can follow these two laws is we have to put them into practice in our day to day lives, which requires Action and not just Diction. 

That is way harder.  We are imperfect creatures with free will; a combination doomed to failure.

True, but we have the ultimate Get out of Jail Free card – Jesus Christ the righteous and He is the propitiation for our sins! Remember that?  He accounts us as perfect at our final accounting!

There are two choices, two covenants, we can choose either to be enslaved to sin and Satan; or to be free under God and Jesus. These are the two sides of which Paul speaks. We can be either enslaved to sin or we can be truly free and under God.  The two choices boil down to either eternal slavery or eternal freedom. I know which side I want to be on, do you?

We always have a choice, it is upon us to choose and decide. Nobody else can make that critical choice.  This brings to mind a quote from Lord of the Rings, All we have to do is decide what to do in the time that we are given. We must pick a side; in this spiritual war here is no middle ground. 

We cannot stand with one foot on the  side of slavery and one on the free. We cannot be fence sitters, we must have our feet planted on one side.  From rational viewpoint, there is only one side to pick, and that is the side of freedom, of the New Testament offered to us by Christ himself. As people of The New Covenant, the original and real New Deal, we have only to live those two laws or rules; To love the Lord with all our hearts and to love our neighbor.  Those are much harder to comply with, however, if we seek God’s guidance out and follow it, then all will be well with our souls. 

Now, think about the Gospel.  When we need help, how about instead of worrying all the time, we substitute it with action?  Trust God will give us what we need.  And, then act based on what we can and should do, not what we want to do.  Actions gets results.   These results may or not be obvious right away, but they will be soon enough. A hard principle to follow; but in the end, it is the easiest way and worth the struggle to trust God instead of worrying and or doing what we want to do. 

Action will always benefit our spiritual state compared to inaction. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we are compelled to act upon our faith. Perhaps not what we want right at the time, but certainly what we need then and in the eternal future.  In the middle of nowhere, two thousand years from the nearest McDonalds, the disciples looked to Jesus to fill the needs of their congregation. Jesus took what they had and gave them what they needed; “for he himself knew what he would do.”  He actedto help them.  Do ye likewise:

ACT

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 in Lent

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. 

Consider these words from the Collect:

… look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants, and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty, to be our defence against all our enemies …

In the Collect, we ask God look in to our hearts, and see our desire to be His children and defend us against evil.  That also means we are looking for His Help which comes in the form of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost will assist us in the process of changing of our hearts to actually have “hearty desires” to do His Will and to be “humble servants”, not our usual and customary self-centered selves. Quite a combination of thoughts in a small bit of verbiage!  It is amazing how much we can put in a short sentence if we use our words to their best advantage! If we will be follow Him, He will defend us in all assaults of our enemies. [1]  If we will not accept His Help, He will not force it on us.  Back to that old, “Thy will be done.”  The question arises once again, from whose mouth does it proceed, ours or God’s? 

We need to desire that which would place us walking on the path towards God and not away from God. That is we need to refrain from malicious, self-serving acts incongruent with the message of Jesus and need to instead embrace more Christ like behavior, and more loving our neighbors as ourselves. If that is indeed the backbone of the Law as Christ explained, then we should be focusing our energies on serving our neighbors and behaving in a Godly manner. While this seems like an impossible task, we do have heavenly help, that is the Holy Spirit. 

Today’s Epistle and Gospel share the same theme. This theme is centered around action. In order to be a Christian, you have to act as a Christian and not just say we are.  Saying we are Christians and actually being Christians are two different states of being. It is quite easy to say we are Christians, it is quite another to act like we are. Again, that is where the Holy Ghost will come in, if we let him, to help guide and direct us.  This is a key theme through ought the Bible for the simple reason it is always true. We have to be willing to let the Holy Ghost in, in order for positive change to be affected.

In his Epistle, Paul tells us in order to live out our faith, we need to make our actions match our stated desires, very much in line with the thought above.   Actions! Not just Dictions, but Actions! There can be a distinct difference between the two.  If you actually believe, you will act.  If you just say you believe, you will not.  There is a distinct difference between the two states, action and inaction. Faith requires action, unbelief is equal to the state of inaction.

There are how many people claim to be Christian, yet do not actually act on the principles of Christ and follow His Instructions. They do not truly understand what it means to be a Christian. A Christian is called to a life of action and not just diction. To be Christian, we have to actually follow those said principles. The key word here is following or acting. Action is the central theme of the Christian faith, which was first shown with Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection. He came to act for us, not just to talk or meditate; His great plan involved action, though it was painful, it was His action that released us from the wages of sin. We have to follow His Example that He set for us and live our lives in a manner that reflects we believe the Gospel. 

Think about the Gospel.

It is very important to be unified in our worship and maintain mutual support; a team always beats individuals.  That is not to take away from individuality, but rather to note we need to remember whose side we are on and work together with our teammates. We have to remember that we need to utilize specific talents given to us by Our Lord to help further His Cause here on earth. In order to truly serve Him, we must be willing to put aside our old selves and truly accept the regeneration He offers us and become the New Man Paul talks about. 

The satisfaction of doing a job well done should be enough for our reward. It does not matter who gets the credit; all that matters to our Lord is we work together with other believers to get the job done and to get it done right. In the end that matters is that we get the job done. If people refuse to hear the Good News, it is not our problem. We just shake the dust off our feet and move on to the next group of people. We are not called to behead and murder people unlike Islam. We are called to not worry about the people that will not follow us and move on to more receptive groups. 

There are two phrases particularly worth remembering, “a house divided against a house falleth” and “He that is not with me is against me.” Middle ground exists, but it is quicksand.  Eventually one has to choose a side. It is very clear to us what side we should choose. The only rational side to take is that of God, that side that will lead us to eternal life not that of eternal death.

And, we cannot keep with the opposition.  It is the natural part of the history of the Bible and of life. We have to choose to follow God, as there is no other reasonable option, which will give us the result following God will result in. We must decide who we will follow. We do not have true faith if we do not act upon the words that our lips speak, of believing in Christ and His Father.

Christ himself came not to unite the world, but to divide it, father against son.  In Matthew 10:32-34 he says “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”He is saying here that he has not come to unite the World, for the World is not on our side. But to clearly divide the world to show who is with God and who is against God. For as earlier explained, one man cannot serve two masters. And also the saying of where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. In this life by reading through Scripture we can easily tell who is for Him and who is against Him. It is simple, who holds to the principles of Scripture is for Him. They who do not hold to them are not with Him. 

You must keep constant vigilance against backsliding, for a fallen Christian is in worse shape than one who was never exposed to The Word. In order to do that, you have to be always constantly acting upon your faith. The Epistle and Gospel both talk about the curious dichotomy; you are saved by faith, Jesus’s faith, and your faith alone saves you, not what you do; yet if you have faith, you must act on that faith.  

To be a Christian, and not a Christian in name only, you must truly turn a new leaf and start on the new course of life with Christ, and not slip back into the old man. This is one of the most difficult challengers as a Christian, but with the help of the Holy Ghost, we can do it. You must receive the Word, hear it, and act upon it and spread it joyously to others, in order for your faith to have any meaning at all. Otherwise we will have been for the worse than if we never had heard the Good News. It is not a gift to selfishly lock up, but to share and give to others. That is the true joy of the Good News. It is most certainly more blessed to give than to receive in this case.

You must grasp that your acceptance of Jesus Christ as your savior and your repentance is the beginning of your life as a New Man in Jesus.  

Will you slip?  Without doubt.  But, when you do, will you again repent and continue to do your best to follow the Word of God, the Light and the Truth?  All that matters is you get up and do your best not to do what you did to slip. Life is a continuous learning process. Indeed, if you are a Christian that is what you must do.  We will always slip up in our lives, that is in our fallen nature. But we have to get up and get back on track, using the Holy Gospel to guide us like the instruments in an aircraft.  We cannot trust our feeling, but only our instruments (God’s gift of Holy Scripture). You are called to believe and act on those beliefs to the best of your ability.  If you do not, then prepared as you were for life, you will so be prepared for the pit.  As you read Luke, remember the second half of the Book of Luke is The ACTS of the Apostles, not thoughts, wishes, prayers or meditations. 

For, “blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.”

ACT

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

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[1]A Collect for Peace – 1928 Book of Common PrayerPage 17

Second Sunday in Lent

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. 

Consider these words from the Collect:

… we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul …

In the Collect, we acknowledge to God that we cannot direct our own lives; if we listen to our own selves we are without guidance.  Consider the airplane flying, it orders its movements according to Polaris, the Pole Star of True North.  If a pilot flies guided by his “inner self” he soon knows only where he is: at the controls, and little else.  Like the pilot who needs to know where the True North is so he can orient himself, we need God’s guidance to move towards our goal of eternal life with Him. In obtaining my Private Pilot’s License, while flying my aircraft, I have to maintain altitude, heading and airspeed all at the same time. I look outside and re-checked my instruments against what I am seeing to ensure that I am remaining on course. Looking back on these experiences, I thought about how these principles could be applied to being a Christian. The Holy Scriptures are our instruments and we re-check our progress in the world by the instruments of His Word to make sure we are on the right heading and not stagnating in our progress as pilgrims. God is also our infallible co-pilot, always making sure that we stay on course. He has the charts that lead us towards heaven, the Holy Scriptures. If we will but use them, we shall find success on Earth and after our time on Earth. If we are good pilots of our future, then we shall listen to God and His Holy Word so that we might be on course.

We, of course, need to rely on God and His Word to keep on course, as noted in the collect, we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves. If we had a power to help ourselves from within us, then Jesus would not have needed to come to die for us, we could have just used this magical power to help ourselves.  But the reality is, we are dependent on God to help us keep on course. We will deviate from our course if we do not have God as our One True Navigator.  We will get easily lost and not find our way back if we do not rely on His Navigational Aids of the Scriptures and the Holy Ghost. We are dependent on His Guidance to steer us through life.   We are also dependent on Him to as the collect says, keep us outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls. When we fail to listen to that guidance, our problems occur.

It should also be noted our life here will be a lot more pleasant if we stay on course. There may be temptations of a shortcut thrown in our path, but that shortcut will in the long run not be a shortcut at all. It will be a long cut.  So, we must do our best to let God into our hearts and help us to tune out these temptations. Lent is one of the best times of the Christian year to help us to renew this focus.  A while back, I read something which said at the end of our lives, the words will be “Thy will be done.”  The question is will it be us saying it or God?  We need to listen to God and do His Will.  His guidance will bring us on a path to success in our lives, if we listen to His guidance. We have to initiate the contact/relationship with Him. He does not do it on His own. He waits for an opening into our hearts. He will not force His way in. He waits until He we are ready to receive Him willingly.

We have to let Him into our hearts in order to let Him guide us. If we do not do this, then how can we expect to have Him guide us, if we are not open and ready to receive Him and His Guidance? We have to be willing and ready in order to receive His Guidance, then we have to act upon the information His Guidance gives us.

Thus, when Paul tell us to keep our bodies under control of our minds and our minds to be guided by God only, He helps move us on course. This ties in very well with the collects request for God to keep is outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls. It links the theme of both spiritual and physical moderation extremely well.  We are to be true and honest in all our dealings, both physical and fiscal and to live our faith.  His Epistle ties in well with the theme of the collect to keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls. To do this, we must live the faith. Living the faith requires us to restrain our bodies and our minds from doing foolish/evil actions which hinder our walk towards heaven. This is a very difficult task and one we will slip up from time to time on, but as long as we repent and return back to the course God has set, all will be well.

Being honest with others and especially ourselves is one of the most important things we can do. If we are not honest with ourselves to start, how can we be honest with others?  For only by living our faith can we demonstrate that we in fact have faith.  For professed faith with no action when you are able to act is not real.  You must actualize what you claim to believe. We are called to be as God wants us to be, not as we would be without His guidance and help.  God does this, not that we would miss fun, but rather that we would enjoy true happiness.

Keeping evil thoughts under control can be a difficult task, but we do not have to face it alone, we have the Holy Ghost in our lives and other Christians and friends that support us and guide us, that can help us battle evil thoughts. We have to remain in control of our good sides. We are in a sense like the character Gollum from Lord of the Rings, who had a good personality and a bad one. Unfortunately for him, he let the evil side possess him and it won out. Unlike him, we need to make sure our good side is winning.

We need to be willing to talk to our good friends within the Church about our problems and evil thoughts and listen to their advice, and more importantly to the Holy Ghost’s advice to combat these evil thoughts and drive away the temptations of the devil.  As we have discussed before, Christianity is not a hermitic religion, but a social one. Christianity did not flourish because its followers were hermits, it flourished because its followers evangelized the religion throughout the known world. It is an active religion and it requires its followers to actively participate in it by spreading the Good news. 

Matthew gives us a fine example of faith that demonstrates how we must be guided by faith in our Lord.  The woman who cries unto Jesus is a Gentile, just like us. Just like us she longs for His Mercy. In her case, she asks only for the mercy rejected by others, the crumbs of the Master’s Table[1].  This is the essence of our faith, we are not worthy to dine at His Table, no more than dogs are meet to dine at our table.  Yet, what is left over is more than enough for us.  And we are content with that, knowing what miserable creatures we are.  And, even more important, even knowing what miserable creatures we are, Jesus offers to share His Table with us.  He is not content for us to grovel for His crumbs. If He offers His love for us, should we not love Him back, by acting upon our faith?  If you truly believe, you are compelled to act upon the faith you have. Action is the key principle, the cornerstone of the faith of Christians. Christ set this example for us by doing, that is action.  This is seen throughout Scripture, but nowhere is it as clear as His Action of sacrificing Himself for our sins on the Cross. This is the prime example of action not just diction. Action is far more important than diction only. Diction is nice, but it needs to be paired with Action in order for it to have any sort of meaning.

It is also important to understand if one loves God, He still has the exact same amount of love available for any other person or group. His love is infinite, even if it wasn’t, love multiplies in use! We do not have to worry about God running out of love at all. There is more than enough to go around!

Recognize how poorly you do with your own guidance, accept His Guidance, stay on course and accept the fruits of that action.

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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[1]Sound familiar?  Check out the Prayer of Humble Access, Holy Communion, BCP Page 82.

First Sunday in Lent

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. 

Consider these words from the Collect:

… Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness, and true holiness, to thy honour and glory …

In the Collect, we ask God to help us change our natural evil tendencies so we can live life here His way and honor His wishes so we can be truly happy.  Without His help, we end up with what we want, not what we need.  Lent is the time in which we focus on fighting our sinful selves and working with the Holy Ghost to reconcile us with what God wants for us. What we want is not the same as what we need. We are asking him to help us fight our human nature and follow His divine nature, we are attempting to replace our nature with that of God’s. It is a long and difficult road we must travel, doing this, but we are going to be much happier in the long run if we at least do our best. Do or do not, there is no try, Yoda is quoted as saying, and I find it applicable here and in my own life. We have to act, not just say we are going to act, but we must physically perform ACTIONS!

                                 

Wantand Need; two words, used interchangeably in both our speech and thought that do not mean the same thing. Think about that!

Following the thought of the Collect, Paul asks us to be worthy of the grace God has given us.  He tells the people when they needed him, He was there.  Following his example, we need to be there for those around us.  We must not frustrate God’s work by showing up late, or not at all. It all goes back to Jesus’ saying, No man can serve two masters. We have to make a choice in this life and decide whom we are to serve, God or the Devil, and then act on it.  Our life as a Christian depends on our actions here on Earth. Our actions here on earth reveal who we truly serve God or Satan. The Holy Ghost will help us guide us towards actions that serve God, but we have to let Him into our hearts.

There is only one good choice for us and that is to serve God, of course. Paul is advising people they can’t simply hold a position between the two, for there is no middle ground here. We have to be on one side or the other.

We have to put in our 110% for Him, as He sent His Son to die for us and redeem us, so we should truly show our gratitude for His actions, by serving others and performing actions for Him, with His Help. We actually have to act upon our faith in order to live it. We do not have any faith if we are not actively acting upon it. It is a constant truth that we will always be largely outnumbered in this world by the enemies of God.  

It goes along with the saying, The best defense is a good offense. So, too, is it in this hostile world. While spreading the Word we need to be always going on the offense, spreading it to those who have not heard it. We have to always keep moving, or else we will be overrun by the Forces of Satan. We have to do this by doing actions that are consistent with His Word and show that we truly believe in Him and not just say we do.

Those around us are watching our actions in the time of testing.  God is also watching us in the time of testing to see how we perform with the talents He has given us. He is not testing us per se, but is evaluating our performance under the pressures of temptation and the hardships of this world.  It is truly is a hard battle we are fighting, against the forces of wickedness, of the Devil, all across the globe.  To paraphrase Winston Churchill, we must never never never ever give up in the battle against the forces of darkness. We are on the side of the Word, of the Light and in the end we will prevail.

Our actions show God and those around us whom we truly serve,  God or the Forces of Satan. Which side will you serve? You in the end have to choose one side or another. Pick the winning side now, which is the Forces of God, and you will have a rich everlasting life. The key to winning this battle for souls is to never ever ever give up and to trust in God and Dread Naught. 

We have been given eternal salvation by Jesus’ sacrifice, the understanding of the Gospel by the Holy Ghost.  We are at this time dying here on earth, yet progressing towards eternal life in the next world, in Jesus’ World, with His help. While we may never be wealthy here on earth, our actions can make our fellow Christians wealthy in spirit beyond measure.  

If you claim to be a Christian, you know what is right.  If you are a Christian, you do what is right, you don’t take a vote to see what the right course of action may be. Doing what is right does not depend on public opinion and we must do the right thing. In fact the public opinion oft times is rather in the wrong; see people’s opinions on slavery, homosexual marriage and abortion to understand this. It does not matter what others’ opinions are, that does not change the universal truth of God and His Message. We will be despised because of the opinions we hold from understanding the Gospel and His Message, from being on the side of righteousness. 

All we wish is for these individuals to repent of their sinful ways and turn back to God.  There is nothing hateful about that. It is the depravity of sin that causes those to accuse those who are on God’s side of being hateful. It blinds them to the bright light that those of God’s flock shine upon the darkness. However, it goes back to There are none so blind as will not see and none so deaf as will not hear. There will be many whose ears are closed off to the message as they are blinded by mammon. But there will be some who eventually open their ears. All we can do is plant the seed and let the Holy Spirit germinate it. 

We must go especially against the grain to become Christians. The truth does not change, as it is the constant that never changes. God is the Truth, The Word and the Life of this universe. The Truth is God, and like God, the Truth never changes. It is our actions that count, in good times or bad.  We are Christ’s ambassadors to this world; unfortunately, we do not have diplomatic immunity. 

When the Devil attempted to tempt Christ, he showed how little he knows of Him.  If we emulate our Lord, it shows how little the Devil will be able to tempt us with his deceit. If we follow Him we will be able to withstand any temptation that arises as our Lord showed for us in the desert 2,000 years ago. 

Consider how little the Devil really offers you and how much Christ offers, the temptation is ever so much less.  The Devil is often referred to as the Deceiver or Dissimulator.  His forte is deception; he seems to be one thing, but is another.  He offers what he has no intention or ability to deliver. He actually has zero ability to deliver on his large promises, he has no right to give away what is not his! 

The Devil clearly knows Jesus is the Son of God.  There is no doubt in his mind.  So, having understood that, consider what he offers Jesus in temptation.  

Remember, Jesus has fasted 40 days OF HIS OWN CHOICE; now comes the devil daring Him to show His Power by turning the stone into bread.  This to the Son of He who delivered manna daily to the Jews in the wilderness for 40 years.  

Cast thyself down and let angels catch thee; this to He who walked on water.

Up to the mountain lookout – Here is it all yours if you worship me.  This to He, who as it says in Psalm 95:

I

N his hand are all the corners of the earth; * and the strength of the hills is his also.

The sea is his, and he made it; * and his hands prepared the dry land.

O come, let us worship and fall down, * and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

For he is the Lord our God; * and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

The devil promised Jesus nothing that was his to give, nothing that would help Jesus in the real world beyond the Shadowlands. He never does.  The devil is all about shortcuts.  Remember, if the shortcut was the best way, it would not be a shortcut. The devil will not help us at all in the long run, if you look at things from the eternal perspective. That is what we need to keep in mind every time he tempts us. 

The temptation of Jesus is no different than the Devil’s attempt to tempt us!  The Devil never delivers what we need, only what we, in our imperfection, want.  He can’t understand what we really need, he only knows what we want. This is an advantage we have over him. We understand what we truly need; if we remember it, then holding off against the temptations is easier. Rememberas little as the Devil understands of Christ, the same way, as we are in God, so he understands little of us.  He will never offer you real help.  Remember that and the temptation is ever so much less.

Or, as my grandfather said, “Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole”

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

Quinquagesima Sunday

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. 

Consider these words from the Collect:

… that all our doings without charity are nothing worth; Send thy Holy Ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity …

In the Collect, we acknowledge to God that if we have not charity, nothing we do is worth anything; we then ask Him to send the Holy Ghost into our hearts with the precious gift of charity.  Webster tells us that Charity is love; universal benevolence; good will; the word which properly denotes love. What it really means is Love in Action! Like many areas of our Christian development, we will never fully get there. But if we never put Love into action we will never even get close to getting there. The key word is in action. Meaning we just can’t think about loving people, we actually have to go out and do actions showing that we really do love them, not just say it. This is a common theme with all of the principles of Christian living. In order to make progress, we have to continually put these principles, namely charity or love, into practice each and every day. We may not do it perfectly, but we shall make progress so long as we do not give up! As Winston Churchhill once said “Never, never, never, never EVER GIVE UP”.  So should we never give up in our Christian development. We may stumble and fall at times, but if we get up and keep going and return to our Lord, then all will be well in time.[1]  It might be slow going, but as long as the progress is constant, then that is all that matters. Properly understood charity is the Love of God, that perfect love, to which man should aspire. Charity is not giving oodles of money away to an organization, hoping to make yourself look better, like many modern “philanthropists.” 

Charity is the purest form of love there is, with no self-seeking motivations, just the goodness of God in it; this is the love that God gives to us to give to others. This is the strength of the Christian faith. This is what powered Jesus to sacrifice Himself one time for all time for us pitiful sinners, that we might have eternal life. He loved us, He had that purest form of love and used it each and every day in His Earthly Ministry and even after He departed this Earth, by sending the Holy Ghost down to give his comfort and guidance. The collect points out it is the very bond of peace and of all virtues. In other words, love is the bond that holds peace and is behind all virtuous qualities that can be found in people though the help of the Holy Ghost. Love is one of the prime driving forces of the Christian Faith, through the Holy Spirit’s guidance, which allows God’s cause to be advanced here on earth. It is a purely unselfish emotion, in its purest form it is an emotion that does not cause evil or bad things to happen, but to cause wonderful and good things to happen. It stems forth from God the Father, spreads through Jesus and the Holy Ghost; when we open our hearts to it, we can do some really amazing things,

It is to help people with the love in your heart that Christ and God has given us, to enable us to act on His behalf here on this Earth. Love is not selfish or wasteful, but kind and abundant. We are to be agents of good change, not bad; with Charity, we will act with love towards one another.  If we do not have love in our hearts towards one another, how can we expect to be able to effect positive change on the world around us?

In connection with the Collect which talks about one who is brought before God without love in his heart is a dead person. Paul makes this very point in his Epistle, saying that no matter what talents we have, without the Love of God in our hearts, it is all for naught.  We cannot do anything for God without that Love in our hearts. We must have the Love in us, brought to us by the Holy Spirit in order to be effective in our ministerial efforts. He is the reason we are here in this life and He is the one we must act for.   It must be clear to us that our understanding here on earth is limited, while here we will never see the fullness of God’s Plan, yet the part most clear is the love we are to have one for another, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, for no reason other than we know it is right so to do.  It does not matter to us we will never see the fullness of His Plan, each of us are a small piece of a much bigger plan. And all of us small pieces work together to fulfill the bigger plan. We only need to find our part in the plan and act, again with Charity in our hearts. Charity is vital to our Christian life. We need to have it in us to perform good works for Our Lord.  For if we do not have true love or Charity within our hearts, we cannot act for God. 

Having Love in our hearts is a must if we are to perform actions for Him here on this world. In order to have love in our hearts, we must be open to the Holy Spirit. Only then can we truly receive His Love to spread around. And do not fret, there is an unlimited supply of love for everyone. When Paul talks about God’s great plans, he uses the phraseology “through a glass, darkly”, which is very interesting inasmuch as CS Lewis uses a variation to describe earth as compared to heaven.  He calls the earth The Shadowlands and says in heaven all is clear and bright, not dark and muddled as here on earth.  So, here our understanding is limited, it will not always be so. That will be fulfilled when we pass the Pearly Gates into heaven, and in order to do that, we have to have faith, and act in good works with charity. If one of these ingredients are missing, we are not acting according to what He wants for us. So, we have to believe with all our heart in God and Christ, and act upon that belief with great Charity.

As they were coming in to Jericho, Jesus told the disciples of what was to come, yet they could not grasp their leader would submit to such treatment on their behalf.  He was the Conqueror; in a sense they were right, He came to conquer death for us, not the Roman Empire. He had the Love of God with Him and He loved us so much that He would die a painful method of execution and go into Satan’s realm in order to free us from the terrible wages of sin, that of death. As they went along, they encountered the blind man who was, like many of us are, blind. His blindness was of the eye, not the heart, he knew the power of God and of love. The blind man who wanted his sight and knew Jesus had The Power.  He cried unto the Lord and was rebuffed by His People. This is the key and it applies to us as well. Did he give up?  No, he cried the more.  As we should not let others discourage us from following the Lord, indeed we should increase our prayers and serving fervently.  Knowing what we want, we should not let others in this life rebuff us and hinder us from following Him. This is one of many lessons we can take from the blind man.

When Jesus heard him, he turned and asked what the man wanted.  MY SIGHT! No generalizations, no beating about. The blind man asked of Him what he truly wanted.  Ask and it shall be given unto you.  He lacked sight, not vision.  Nor, it might be added, did he lack faith. We should ask God to have to sight and hearing that we might see, hear and act upon the Word. To some, the faith he had might seem a blind faith, but it was one he acted on and gained what he lacked.  Will we have the faith to act?

True love is Faith, Hope, Charity[2].

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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[1]To quote Winston Churchill, “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”  (29 October 1941)

[2]The three Gloster Gladiator fighters Faith, Hopeand Charitydefended Malta against the Italian Air Force during the early part of the siege of Malta in World War II.  Legend has it all three persisted and of the three, Charitynever failed.