Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist

Sermon - Rev Jack Arnold
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. 

 

Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist.

[December 27.]

The Collect.

 

M

ERCIFUL Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it, being illumined by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John, may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

 

The Christmas Collect is found on Page 96:

 

The Nativity of our Lord, or the Birthday of Christ,

commonly called Christmas Day.

[December 25.]

The Collect.

 

A

LMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit ever, one God, world without end.  Amen.

 

¶ This Collect is to be said daily throughout the Octave.

 

As is oft the case, today’s propers all tie together to reinforce a point and build our understanding of what God wants and expects from each of us.  Consider these words from the Collect where we ask God to “…cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it, being illumined by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John, may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to life everlasting…”  As is almost always the case, we are asking God to help us by lighting up our lives and that of the Church that we might hear and understand the words left by Saint John so to grow closer to what God wants us to be here and our eternal life.  There is a great reason for this.  John was the longest lived of the disciples, he lived probably to about age 90!  The Books of John are the most theologically filled books of the Bible.  John explains so much of what we need to know.

 

In his First General Epistle John tells us he is passing on what he has seen and heard from Jesus with his own eyes and ears.  It is not a secondhand account, it is not what someone told him.  He saw it, he saw it all.  He wants us to know what happened with Jesus, how He rose from the dead as a very practical demonstration of our life eternal with Him.   John also wants us to know that if we claim fellowship with Jesus, then we will need believe on Him, which means doing our pitiful best to follow Him. If we truly do this, He will then account us as perfect at our accounting.  Anyone who thinks they can “work” their way into Heaven is deceiving themselves.  Good works alone do not get us into heaven. We need faith, but if we have faith, then we will produce those good works.  If you truly believe on our Lord and in our God, you will be unable not to do what you are supposed to do.  Odd, that. 

 

God will give us the guidance we need to do His Work on Earth. We have to do our part and accept and act upon that guidance. Without the acceptance and letting the Holy Ghost in, we cannot do His Work here. So, we have to train our hearts souls and minds to believe on Him and listen and act upon His Guidance.

 

When we look at the Gospel, we see John making an excellent point; words mean something, thus in our study of the Word the translation is important.  If we are going to trust in the written word, we need to make certain it is indeed The Word.  This could lead us to an entire discussion of the various translations of the Bible and why it is so important to use a translation based on the Received Text and why we use the King James or Authorized Version.  Luckily, today is not the day for that!  

 

John, who oft refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved, asks who will betray Jesus?  Jesus does not answer.  Peter asks what shall become of John? Jesus answered, I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?  That is where the listening stopped.  He went on to say, Follow thou me.  No one noticed that.  The word then spread that John would not die, but live until Jesus returned to earth.   Of course, as John pointed out, He did not say that.  What Jesus in effect said was, It is none of your business what happens to John, your job is to follow Me!  Likewise, we need to keep this in mind, our job is not to worry about what others do or do not do, our job is to do what we are supposed to do. It is definitely relevant to us, who naturally are inclined to put our noses in other people’s business. Jesus’s point is we need to let people handle their own business and we just need to worry about ourselves and doing our best to follow Him.  Hard to do, that.  But it is what we are supposed to do nevertheless; focus on what we are supposed to do and not what others are supposed to do. 

 

This section of John’s Gospel closes with an interesting line that makes you wish he had been a bit more prolific in his writings, And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.   Still considering the difficulty in getting words into print in those days, we are grateful for what we have. What we do have is sufficient for our knowledge as we journey on the narrow, winding uphill trail towards heaven.

 

The entire New Testament is a consistent call to belief in our Lord and action on that belief.  Here at Christmastide, at this very joyous time we need to remember Jesus came into this world with the certain knowledge of precisely how He would leave, yet He came anyway that we might have life eternal.

 

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

Christmas Day

  

Sermon - Rev Hap Arnold
Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Before we start, let me say to me the most amazing and impressive thing about Christmas, the celebration of the earthly birth of our Lord and Savior, is that Jesus came into this world to give us eternal life, guidance and inspiration knowing exactly how He would leave.  But, He came anyway, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15.3)

 

Today’s sermon is the message of Christmas.  He came unto his own, and His own received Him not.[1]  Christ came unto His own, the people he created, to show them the Word which He is the living embodiment of, the Living and True Scripture. They received neither the written Word His Apostles wrote, nor the spoken Word from His Mouth He spake unto them. But as many as received Him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God.  He has adopted us unto his family, through His Word, which he has spoken unto us, that we may fulfill it and live in harmony with others in this word.

 

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.  This speaks to the living incarnate nature of the Word, (Christ) who dwelt among us 2,000 years ago, that He might understand our nature completely, so that He could teach us with understanding, understanding to which the Devil has no access. If He lived in our conditions, it would be easier for Him to relate to us when He taught and spake the Word of His Father.   And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  In That Word, He spake both full of grace and of truth as John said in the last Gospel.  If we will accept His grace and truth though the Holy Ghost, then can we do things for His Glory. Without that in our hearts, we cannot do anything for Him.  We are imperfect creatures, but now accounted for and spoken for by Christ. With the Word, we are empowered to do things for Him. The birth of Christ would foreshadow his death, which would bring about the ultimate freedom, that from sin and death.

 

That is such an important point. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)  Not just that God, the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth, would send His only begotten Son, but that the Son came knowing not only that He, King of Kings, would be born in a manger, live a life of relative poverty, but that He would die a horrible, horrible death so we might have eternal life.  He came to this miserable planet for us, to give us life eternal!  He knew when He came here precisely how He would leave, yet He came anyway.  Think of that on this Christmas Day!

 

Today we recall the birth of our Lord and Savior, the only means by which we, imperfect creatures with free will, might be accounted as perfect before God when our day of judgment comes.  Born, not in a palace, but in a stable, He is all that we have been promised.  Taking the substance of Man, all Man and all God, He knows our temptations, He knows our failures, He knows our failings, He knows our sorrow; He also knows our happiness, our small triumphs, our hopes and our dreams.  He is the only one in this world who will never fail us in the slightest.  He gives us His example to follow.  If we will but follow Him, we will draw closer to God.  He made the world, He knows the world.  He defeated the Prince of this World, thus with His Help, so will we.  This is a day of joy, foreshadowing a day of sorrow, leading to the greatest joy of all.

 

Let us joyfully receive Him into our hearts and homes, that we might do what He asks and spread the Joy of His Arrival on Earth that we might prepare for His Second Coming. If we do this and what he asks, which is a common theme that stays the same throughout the Christian Year, we shall be Blessed with good things, as a result of doing what He asks. On this Christmas Day, let us Rejoice in His Coming and begin our preparations for His Second Coming.

 

Let this be a blessed and happy Christmas.  He has come to us!

 

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

---

[1] John 1:11

Fourth Sunday in Advent

Sermon - Rev Jack Arnold

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. 

 

The Fourth Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

 

O

 LORD, raise up, we pray thee, thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be honour and glory, world without end.  Amen.

 

The Collect for the First Sunday in Advent is on Page 90:

 

The First Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

 

A

LMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

 

¶ This Collect is to be repeated every day, after the other Collects in Advent, until Christmas Day.

 

As is oft the case, today’s propers all tie together to reinforce a point and build our understanding of what God wants and expects from each of us.  The Collect asks for God’s help for us to accept His Help and do it His Way.  We are asking for this because of our natural infirmities. By natural infirmities, I mean our sins. Our natural infirmities do in fact hinder us from running the race set before us, that is to make it through the trials of this world and life and onto eternal life with our Lord. They are a big stumbling block that we ourselves cannot overcome without significant help. Luckily for us we have significant help available in the form of the Holy Ghost.

 

This is a thought that is constantly resonating throughout the Collects and not only them but all of Scriptures. That is because it is a constant truth that without the help of the Lord, we are doomed to fail to follow Him.   It is oft supposed Christians are dour souls, with no sense of happiness or humor.  Perhaps this thought comes from those who have heard from others what the Bible says, but have never actually taken the time to read it and understand it. For if they understood it then they would not be thinking that we are dour at all!  Reading the Bible as a whole proves this often popular train of thought to be patently false. That may or may not have been the way the Puritans thought, but then again, the Puritans were not holding to the consistent truth of the Bible. After all God commands us to make a “joyful” noise unto the Lord! Not, a dour, grumbling and solemn noise, but an exceedingly JOYFUL noise unto the Lord! There is nothing in the Bible that says you cannot have fun whilst worshipping our Lord; in fact that is the preferred way to worship Him! If we enjoy worshipping the Lord, then we are most apt to do more of our best to follow Him, if we are enjoying ourselves whilst doing so!

 

After all, the one said to be the most dour of all, Paul, tells us to be happy. In his Epistle he mentioned rejoicing in the Lord always. Not just happy, but to REJOICE.  REJOICE in the Lord ALWAYS and AGAIN I say REJOICE!  How much more fun can you have?  At the same time though Paul cautions us to be moderate in everything we do, no excesses, an even keel.  Work hard, but maintain a time and space for our family, honor our country, and above all honor God.  Maintain an even balance between work and play so to speak and moderation in both areas.  However, that is nowhere near being dour; just being happy, but a cautious people. After all, if we eat too much, we end up paying the price for the gluttony. So, too, do we pay both spiritually and physically for exceeding moderation in all things. Paul is not trying to stop us from having fun, he is trying to help us use common sense in all things, so that we can be able to use our full faculties as God intended. He goes on to tell us if we think we need something, simply ask God for it!  

 

In the Gospel John recounts John the Baptist’s role in preparing the way for Jesus.  The Pharisees were troubled with the simplicity of his message.  They were looking for something more complex, less straightforward, something more like themselves. We have heard this often about the Pharisees; what they are looking for is something that people tend to look for instead of following God’s actual message. For it is easier to get around this sort of message than God’s very simple and straight forward one. In the end however, it is always easier to take God’s way then to try and find away around God’s way (which there is not).

 

The Pharisees were not willing to accept the change in the status quo; the New Testament would break their role in finding ways around the commandments Jesus gave. They were much like modern day lawyers and liberals, always searching for a loophole in the law so they can do what they want to do without following the law. There is no way around the two commandments, namely of loving God with all our heart, soul and mind, and loving our neighbors as ourselves! Without those, we are just pitiful, weak, sinful beings! But, if we embrace those commandments, we start to shed our old man image, and put on a newer, shinier and better image. We then become, Man 2.0, quite the upgrade from the first version! 

 

 

If the world would do what God asked, our lives would be so much better, we would all be living together in happiness. Peace on earth will not be possible until the world accepts Him into their hearts. All of the problems on earth stem from the world not accepting Him into their hearts and souls. This is the perfect season for those who haven’t yet, to accept Him, to acknowledge Him at His first true appearance amongst us, at His Birth. Up until the end of our time here on earth, there is always time to accept Him, but do not wait until it is too late to do so!

 

Jesus also tells us to put our trust in the Lord, then not to worry.  He knows how counterproductive, indeed, how destructive, worry can be in our lives.  We know it not only cannot, but will not do good, we know it will only hurt our cause; yet we do it.  Is this not a proof positive of how much we need His Help?  How hard is it to Trust in God and Dread Naught?  Very!  Extremely difficult as a matter of fact. Worry is a really powerful negative emotion.  We need to fight this emotion as nothing good comes from excessive worrying.  The best cure to worry is to pray for God for guidance and to act upon that guidance.  Even though it is very hard to trust somebody you can’t see physically, you must trust your spiritual sense and follow Him anyway!  Knowing you will see Him physically one day is one of our great rewards. This greatly eases at least my worries and should ease yours as well. 

 

When Saint John is recording the actions of John the Baptist, he tells us when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?  They got an answer they neither expected nor really understood, he said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias … I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; he it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose. They had no clue what he was talking about.  All they could see was what they expected, a king of this world.  Yet, John the Baptist knew the kingdom was not of this world, for the King was not of this World, but the Eternal King of Eternity.  John the Baptist later says He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30)  This is true of us, also.  We must let Jesus permeate us and become the dominant force in us.  But, it does not happen in the twinkling of the eye. Jack Lewis tells us, We are doing well enough if the slow process of being more in Christ and less in ourselves has made a decent beginning in a long life (it will be completed only in the next world). Jack Lewis suggests you try his plan; I pray ‘Lord, show me just so much (neither more nor less) about myself as I need for doing thy will now.’

 

The world is extremely complex; it is full of problems, temptations and difficulties.  It is full of obstacles for us, yet all Christianity offers is a few simple solutions.  We often hear there are no simple answers to complex questions.  Actually, that is not true.  There are simple answers to complex problems, they are the only ones which can and will work.  The problem is they are not the answers people want.  Most people do not want to know what they are supposed to do, lest they have to do it.  They want to be told what they want to do is at least okay, even though it is clearly not okay. But we need to know what we are doing is actually “Okay”, not what Joe on the corner claims is Okay. To do that, we have to read the Scriptures and listen to what God says is Okay, because He really does know the best in this matter for us. 

 

Once again, when you think about being a Christian, think a bit about these quotes from GK Chesterton:

 

·      Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.

·      The word good has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man. 

·      The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people. 

·      Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. 

·      A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.

 

 G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

 

We are called to a new and different life, we ask the Lord to both lead us and follow us, to keep us always.  Our goal is to do the Lord’s will, not to avoid 613 laws.  To do what is right and be humble.

 

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 Advent

Sermon - Rev Jack Arnold
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. 

 

The Third Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

 

 

O

 LORD Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee; Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

 

The First Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

 

A

LMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

 

¶ This Collect is to be repeated every day, after the other Collects in Advent, until Christmas Day.

 

In the Collect for the Third Sunday in Advent, we are referred to as the ministers and stewards (caretakers) of the mysteries of God: the Scriptures and His Word. We ask for help in getting the hearts of the disobedient, which is us, by the wisdom of the just, which is God and the Holy Spirit, to turn and look to the Kingdom of God for answers and not this world. We are in a way like John the Baptist who prepared the way for Christ’s coming by preaching and preparing the path for Christ to begin his ministry. By preaching the Word, we are likewise preparing the World for His Return, by getting their hearts ready by being guided by the Holy Spirit and spreading the Good News across the globe. 

 

The collect gets to the heart of the matter directly. It says that in order for us to follow God and to point the way to Him, we need our disobedient hearts to shift focus to that of being just, in order to be ready to follow Him. This world will not help us follow Him nor will their solutions help us to follow Him.  When we look to the world for solutions, we find the solutions of the devil himself!  But Only God’s Solutions will help us to follow Him. We will only prosper if we follow His Solutions, that is God’s solutions. What will people think when we reject worldly solutions to worldly problems.  There is an answer for that, conveniently following the Collect.  In order to help point the way towards Him, we have to be on the straight and narrow uphill path towards Him ourselves, before we can guide others. Let us make sure we have the Holy Ghost in our hearts guiding us before we attempt to guide others to Him. If we are not sure of the way, how can we expect others to follow Him? The answer is we must let the Holy Ghost in our hearts; only then can we help others on the way that narrow and uphill path.

 

In the Epistle, Paul tells us not fear what others think of us, but rather be concerned about what God thinks of what we are doing and what direction in which He wants us to go.  Rather than spend the mental energy on being concerned with what others think, let us use that same mental energy to do our best for God, our family and our country. We can get a lot more done for God this way; it will be better for our hearts, souls and minds if we think this way. Worry does not solve any problems; but it can create problems if we let it. So, let us not worry about man’s opinions, but of God instead. We will profit spiritually this way.

 

This is a very hard concept for many people to act on, including myself. There are so many things in this world that can cause tremendous concern and worry. However, we should note none of these things are greater than God. God will bear our worries and concerns, but only if we allow Him into our hearts, souls and minds to do so. And besides we don’t have to consider what man thinks of us, only what God thinks of us.

 

Rather than fear man, we must fear God, and do what He wants us to do. We must concern ourselves with God’s opinion rather than Man’s opinion.  Then perhaps maybe, some in this world will see what we are doing for Him and come to know Him and join Him. We will never know how much and impact we have on others around us. That is why we must be mindful of how we act around others.  It is on us to be good ambassadors of Christ and to make good and lasting positive impressions on everyone we encounter. We aren’t called to force God’s message on others, but to offer it if they wish to hear it. Otherwise, we must do our part to be polite and kind to others, believers and other sorts of believers/non-believers, be it at work, school or home. Following God’s ways, we will be a much happier people. 

 

We will never get anywhere if we follow the ways of this world. As in John 1:11-13 He came unto His own and His Own received him not.  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become the Sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.  Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.

 

If we are born of God, then it is Him to whom we must return and not man. As the verse from John points out, even Jesus came to us and we refused him; how can we expect any better treatment from man, than that given God Himself, who came down for us?  We should not be surprised when our fellow men treat us like dirt. We know ourselves how depraved we can be without the guiding light of the Holy Spirit in us. 

 

But the next part of the verse tells us what we will get if we join with him. He gave us the power to become the Sons of God, as we are His adopted children. He is giving us our eternal inheritance, if we will but follow Him. We are going to get an absolutely wonderful reward, if we do our very best to follow Him.  There is a distinct difference between saying you are doing your best and actually doing your best. 

 

The treatment we receive in this world will pale in comparison to the treatment God will give us in the next world if we but do our very best to follow Him. He has given us the power to become the Sons of God; we are God’s adopted children. This is a power greater than any in this world not of God’s Hands. This is a power that cannot be taken from us, as we are tightly in God’s Hand. The enemy cannot pluck us out of God’s grasp, once we have willingly joined ourselves to God through the help of the Holy Ghost. We need the unifying spirit of the Holy Ghost to help us understand the concepts of Scripture; not only to understand them, but to follow them. With the help of the Holy Ghost, we can understand what we are to do; more than that, we will be able to apply the concepts we learn from Scripture to our everyday lives.

 

In the Gospel, Christ asks the crowd of what they expected to see?  Some great big flashy sign He was going to overthrow the Romans and unite the Jews to conquer the world?  That was what they expected, but not what He came for! He says more than a prophet and that is true. Jesus is more than a prophet, He is the Son of God who came to die for our sins that we might not perish but have everlasting life.  He did not come to rule the world, for it would be only a temporal state.  He came for far more than that; to prepare our hearts for eternity and begin to change us from unjust to just creatures, worthy of God’s creation and His Hands. As John the Baptist came to prepare the way for Christ’s preaching, Christ came to prepare our way to join our Father in Heaven. Without this preparation, we would not have the wonderful gift of eternal life.

 

His sacrifice was the physical and spiritual action which paved the road for our ascent to heaven. He came to mold and to shape us from being roughly made to something very valuable. He came to transform us from death to being truly alive. 

 

Life is a continual process of learning in every aspect of our lives, not least of these aspects is our spiritual growth and development.  The Japanese have a word for this, introduced into their industry by the American engineer W. Edwards Deming, Kaizen (改善), that is to say continuous improvement.  Never perfect, but always endeavoring to improve.  Day by day.  Our goal is to make the next day better than the last. This is how we must continually develop as Christians.

 

To care for the mysteries of God properly, we must continue to learn in our spiritual lives; if we do this, we will keep growing more and more every day.  Reading Scripture is one way to further our spiritual development, as well as helping others without thought for ourselves. We have to undergo our spiritual rebirth before we can help to transform others and to serve others.  To accomplish this, we need to have the mental state only the Holy Ghost can give us. We must keep trying our best to improve and learn from the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit and to trust in God and dread naught.

 

As Jesus came to change us for the better, Paul and the Collect remind us to do the same for others.   We have to keep trying to do our best to help our friends and family to be better, all the while doing our best to be the best Christians and humans we can be. All the while shining the light of Christ into the darkness of this world as His ambassadors. We know not what seeds we plant when we perform such actions and in a future time they may bear fruit. We must not try and rush the work of the Holy Spirit, who works on God’s time and not that of our own time. All good things will happen in due course. If we do our part by planting the seed, the Holy Ghost will nurture and develop this seed to bear fruit. We must put our hearts and minds together and think about what God wants us to do in the end, rather than what we want to do. Put God first and all will be well, is what can be taken from today’s collects and lessons, ultimately.  We must be willing do to this; then we can be properly caring for the mysteries of God.

 

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

Second Sunday in Advent

 If you need a short service booklet for use at home on Sundays or any other day derived from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, one is available RIGHT HERE!

Sermon - Rev Jack Arnold

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. 

 

The Second Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

 

B

LESSED Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

The First Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

 

A

LMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

 

¶ This Collect is to be repeated every day, after the other Collects in Advent, until Christmas Day.

 

The Collect and the Epistle and the Gospel all tell us we are to learn from Scripture and to place our hope and trust in God, not man. They tell us God provided Scripture so that we might learn from the history of old believers in the Old and New Testament. As the saying goes, if we do not learn from history we are doomed to repeat it. It is the same with Scripture; for much of Scripture is history.

 

Scriptures have been given to us as a tool for learning so we might become wiser through the Holy Spirit, whose guidance as we read and study Scripture will allow us to come to a fuller understanding of the meaning it should have in our daily lives. The key concept is learning, learning by growing closer to the concepts found in Scripture and finding out how to learn from the mistakes we have made.  Scriptures are here for our personal and spiritual development. The guidance of the Holy Spirit is necessary for us to read the Scriptures and implement the concepts found in them in our day to day lilves. 

 

We need His Influence in our hearts in order to understand what we are preaching; to live what we are preaching, in order for our faith to have any meaning.  Then we also have to live what we preach, other wise we become hypocrites. Today there are far many preachers and for that matter politicans, out there who preach a nice message; but ultimately they do not live the message they preach. It all goes back to action, not just diction, is what counts. People will notice if our actions are not congruent with our professed belief. 

 

Following that point,  if we do not have understanding or act upon our preaching, how can we ask others to follow God, when we ourselves are not?  We must strive to avoid hypocrisy, to live a geniune life following His commandments He has set for us and to be a beacon to guide others to Him. We are not an icon or image of Him, but merely pathfinders, and once we find the path, we guide others to Him. We do not posess any special powers as ministers of the Lord, except as we have the Holy Ghost within us, directing us. And that special power is not of our own to claim, but He who sent Him. We are merely being allowed to have Him within us and we should not boast of any deeds done with His Inspiration, but must simply point back to the source who sent Him. We cannot claim any credit on our own for the power He has bestowed upon us to perform great good works for Him.  He works not only in ministers, but in each and every member of the church.  For, each of us is an emissary of Christ to the world. 

 

He gives each of us in His Church special talents, so members of the Church may use these talents in conjunction with one another to bring people to Christ. As in a professional workplace, each member of the Church has a special talent, used in conjunction with other people with each of their own talents, which can be used together to bring people to Christ. For when we all work together the Church becomes team, each and everyone in it, the clergy and the lay people all having the common goals of spreading the Gospel to those who are in need of it and tending to those who need help. We become an unstoppable force, doing good in His Name.  This is all made possible if we read and act upon the precepts of Scripture with the help of the Holy Ghost.

 

We must act upon the words of Scripture and the sermons we hear, so our faith will be manifest to all those watching us.  We will make mistakes and sin, as we are imperfect beings; if we admit our wrongdoings to God, and come back to Him, all shall be forgiven and we shall have a fresh slate on which to start anew. 

 

In the Epistle, Paul tells us Scripture was written so we might have hope, even in times of darkness.  Times like these with unbelievers in high places doing their best to defile and ridicule our faith can try our souls.  We must treat others as Christ taught us, with respect and humility, no matter our personal feelings/opinion on them and how they conduct their lives. If we are kind to them, we may plant a seed in their lives for the better, causing perhaps a change for the better in them. We do not know what impact our actions may have in the future; we can only hope they may influence an individual for the better. It may not be until way later we find out what measurable impact we may have had on these peoples lives. It takes a while for seeds to germinate and grow into  large and wondrous trees, it is the same with the seeds we plant spiritually. We have no idea what our actions will inspire others to do. That is also why we need to be extremely careful in how our actions influence others. We want to be a positive influence, rather than a negative one. 

 

This is where applying the love thy neighbor as thyself concept plays a big part. For if we follow Christ’s Summary of the Law, our actions are more likely to cause a positive impact on others around us.  If we follow ourselves instead of the Holy Ghost, we are more likely to cause a negative impact to others around us.

 

Turning to the Gospel, Saint Luke describes the signs of the Second Coming and how we are to prepare for it.  We are not to be caught unaware of the signs; if we read the signs, then we shall be prepared to meet our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.  At the same time remember Christ’s words in Matthew 24:36 - But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.  This means every day we have to be active in our faith, and not brain and faith dead like so many around us today. We have to be spritually aware of our spiritual surroundings, much as a good and safe driver/motorcyclist must be aware of the cars around him and possible hazards in the road at all times.

 

We have to use the tools given to us by God; Scripture, our faith and our friends in the faith to combat the evils of this world.  They are given to us for learning the faith and for defending the faith from the multiple assaults of the wicked one. We must do our best to make this world the best place we can.  If we study, digest and use Scripture in faith, we will have hope in these times of darkness; we will go forth and spread the Good News, which will give us satisfaction and hope for people; therefore renewing our spirit and vigor and the knowledge that in the end we will triumph, will fill our hungry spirits. It will renew our sense of purpose and redirect our focus outward instead of inward.

 

Our hungry spirits can only be satisified by God’s Goodness and His Word and His Love, of which He has infinite capacity; nobody is stealing anybody else’s share, as God has more than plenty to go around for all of us!  In fact, the more of God’s Love you take, the more there is for others!  So we must concentrate then on sharing the Gospel and God’s love, so others might finally find true happiness, as we find ours, in serving the Lord for the rest of our days. We also have to concentrate on living a genuine Christian life and not a shallow Christian life; showing the way to Christ for others to see and follow.

 

The common theme through the Collect, Epistle and Gospel is that if we have hope and trust in God, we must dread naught, and carry on, empowered through them in our daily lives here on Earth until we are called to our heavenly home.   These are actions we must take; not mere thoughts or words, actual actions!

 

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

First Sunday in Advent

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together because, as is always the case, there is a unifying message in the Scripture for this Sunday. 

 

The First Sunday in Advent

The Collect.

 

A

LMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

 

¶ This Collect is to be repeated every day, after the other Collects in Advent, until Christmas Day.

 

Today’s Collect, like almost all of them, starts out asking God’s Grace, His Help, His intervention to allow us to turn our backs on evil and our own desires that we might make His Desire our desire. This theme is constant through ought most of the collects for the simple reason that it is truth.  And it is the truth that without God’s intervention in our lives through the help of the Holy Ghost we are doomed to fail. If you will understand how short we fall in our “natural” desire, you will understand to cast off the works of darkness and don the armour of light, we must turn to Christ, who came to visit us, born in a simple and humble inn in Bethlehem.  As His manner of birth, we must be humble as well, not boastful and proud like the rich[1], but meek and lowly, to embrace light and cast off the works of darkness.  We have to let go of our pride in order to be humble and be able to cast off the works of darkness. Though He came in a rather humble manner, He shall return in a glorious and majestic manner, a rather stark contrast to His original incarnation, leaving no doubt who has come to lead us.   

 

The whole point of the Collect, Epistle and Gospel is that we must embrace light and reject the darkness. We do this by allowing the Holy Ghost into our hearts, to shine the light in our hearts and expel the darkness. It is like the light Galadriel gave Frodo in Lord of the Rings, a light to shine in the darkest of times and places and will cleanse our hearts of the inner darkness and will send the darkness scattering like insects. Only then can we truly don the armor of light. We need to train our brains and minds and souls in this way, so that we can act for Christ.  It is like any other skill that we develop, it takes lots and lots of practice of training our minds to do God’s will. We have been called to do these things, as sons and daughters of God, but only with a conscious effort on our part to accept Him and more importantly to listen to Him, can we do these things. To do these things we have to live it. Not just say we are living it, but physically perform the actions needed to live it. 

 

This brings us straight to the Epistle. Paul tells us we need to live the life we aspire to.  He wastes little time on the don’ts which the Jews were famous for getting around, but goes right to the dos; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. By going through the dos, Paul is saying we need to let in the light and allow the Holy Spirit to expel the darkness. We cannot hope to accomplish any of the dos if we do not have the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Following God requires us to reject the dark and cling to the light. 

 

Paul cautions us to not borrow for what we do not need that we might owe others nothing but our love.  To know the difference between want and need.  This sound advice is sorely needed in this country these days.  If we do, we are ensuring that we will not have a worldly obligation to any who might hold that over us to influence our path away from that Christ set out for us. We ideally owe no man anything but that of our love.  Paul asks us to love our neighbors, by love he means to take care for them as we would for ourselves or our own close relations.  Not necessarily to “give” them money, but to help them to attain self-sufficiency that they might prosper both in soul and body. 

 

This takes us right into the key theme of the Gospel.  We must not be for God in speech only, but in deed.  The Collect and Epistle and Gospel’s key theme is action. Acting to remain in the light rather than the darkness is the overall message. When Jesus came into this world, He came knowing the true purpose of His coming, He came knowing how He would leave, He came knowing the cost at which our souls would be accounted as perfect. He knew what He had to do to save our souls for eternity.  His whole ministry, including his death and resurrection, can be best summed up in one word; action. He consistently backed up His Message with actions and not just diction. This is a pattern for us to follow as believers; we are called not just to say good words, but back those good words up with actions. Jesus expects us to not just say we believe Him, but to actually believe Him and the best way to accomplish that is through our actions. The story of Palm Sunday is the same as that of the Nativity.   For on Palm Sunday, there was joy in the crowd at the arrival of the Savior, much as there was in the stable at the arrival of the Child Jesus.  Yet, many in the very same crowd who cried “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday were there early on Good Friday.  For what did they cry then?

 

“Crucify Him, Crucify Him!”

 

Pilate asked for them to cry for mercy, they cried for vengeance on their Lord and Savior!

 

A swift 180° turn from “Hosanna to the Son of David.”  How quick are men to turn upon a good thing.  As Charles Spurgeon said "It is an astounding thing and a proof of human depravity that men do not themselves seek salvation. They even deny the necessity of it and would sooner run away than be partakers of it."  This is due to our natural inclination to choose the fruit of death rather than the bread of life, which comes from the Baker of Life, Jesus Christ. 

 

The Bread of Life is Christ’s sacrifice for us, and every time we partake of it in Holy Communion and listening to the Gospel and the Epistle, we must always remember the cost of our freedom from death. This Bread did not come to us without a cost, namely His Death and resurrection.  It also comes with conditions, namely we profess Christ as Our Saviour and to put Him first in our lives, love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and love our neighbors as ourselves. We have heard this before in the Summary of the Law. This is what the Law of God condenses down to, and this is what all laws we set forth must be based upon, for there is no other rational or foundational base so great and solid as Christ. He must be the Chief Cornerstone in our lives, if our lives are to have any meaning. There are those who He is not chief in, and they are those who may vainly profess His name with their lips, but not in their actions. This is a great sorrow for them. They have not kept the Word of God in their hearts, though they may shallowly profess it with their lips. It is action, not diction, that counts!

 

We must not be like them.  We must put on the great Armour of Light and so reject our former lives of sin and vanity. We must switch from our old selfish lives to a new unselfish, Christ filled life.  It is something we always struggle with, but God never gives up on us. We can be comforted by the assurance He will never give up on us. We just have to never give up on Him and do our very best to follow what He says. As long as we repent from our sin and turn back to God in our private prayers and devotions, he will wipe our slate clean. I know I have a hard time keeping on the straight and narrow path, so I am glad He left the Scriptures to guide us.

 

Through following His Word and Instructions, we shall be given a greater reward than anything existent on the Earth; past, present or future, that gift of immortal life, life for all eternity, that will outlast this physical world. To don the armour of light is not merely putting it on, you must utilize the helmet, the buckler and sword (Scriptures and Christ’s teachings).  You need the whole complement of weaponry to go into combat with the Prince of Darkness in this fallen world. And you not only need the complement of weaponry, but we need to train with these weapons. The best way is to be reading Scriptures regularly and discussing the meaning of it with your fellow believers. This way you can ingrain the Scriptures in your heart and be ready to do battle with those who follow the Prince of this World.

 

Make no mistake, we are engaged in a World War with the Prince of Air, the Prince of This World, for the souls of men, starting with our own, a World War which has been going on since the beginning of time. But we know the ending is in our favor for certain, for the Book of Revelation tells us so.

 

As individuals we may not experience victory here on earth. We may struggle with problems in this world and our own, our whole lifespan on this planet. We may not see and savor that victory here on earth; but we know in the end He will be victorious as we know the Savior.  We will win, for we are on His Side.

 

Cast off the dull worn robes of darkness, which lack luster, give no warmth, protect not from heat or cold and put on the shining glorious armour of light.  So kitted up, we walk in light, not in darkness where we may stumble and fall.   Unlike moths, for us light is life, not the destruction of darkness.

 

Come, put on the Armor of Light and go forth to destroy that last enemy, death!

 

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

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[1] It is not that worldly wealth is, in and of itself, bad, but rather the attitude it can bring, one of self-worth beyond that which is correct.  Wealth often brings to us a “better than thou” attitude, which soon turns to “Holier than thou.”  The kind of thing that was referred to when Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”  Mark 10.25