Remembrance of Saint James superseding the Eighth Sunday after Trinity

  

One on His Right Hand and the other on His Left Hand.
Be careful what you ask for, you may get it.

Rev Jack's sermon is available on video RIGHT HERE!

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 the words from the Collect, wherein we ask God that we might be like … James, leaving his father and all that he had, without delay was obedient unto the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed him; so we, forsaking all worldly and carnal affections, may be evermore ready to follow thy holy commandments …  

 

The Collect reminds us as James forsook the world and the carnal pleasure of it to follow Christ, if we too are to truly be followers of Christ we must follow his example. He was making a good living being a fisherman but he forsook that when he followed Christ. We don’t necessarily have to give up our jobs, but the message is clear that if doing our jobs will hinder our ability to follow Christ (i.e, if they ask us to do anything immoral/against Scriptures) then in that case it probably would be a good idea to quit our jobs and find one with a corporate culture that is more aligned with the values of Scripture. It is getting harder and harder to find one these days, but I believe it is still possible.  It is getting harder and harder to be a professing Christian in this country as the liberals have obtained all the power in the government and are using the full power of the government to persecute Christians.

                                        

The second half of the Book of Luke the Physician is entitled The Acts of the Apostles and recounts the time after the crucifixion and resurrection.  It covers the demise of many of Christ’s followers, among them James, the son of Zebedee.  It warns us that if we are to truly follow Christ we must expect we will be persecuted and quite possibly killed for our faith. That is the cost of following Christ, we lose the respect of the world, but what we do gain is eternal life and the respect of God. If you look at it in those terms, losing the respect of the world is a fleeting thing and only temporal, but eternal life and God’s respect is eternal. 

 

The Gospel recounts James’ mother asking her sons be Jesus’ righthand men.  Her request somewhat reminds me of Jesus’s words, Forgive them Father for they know not what they do… Jesus went on to explain that position was not His to appoint but that of God the Father’s and that positions are not worth squabbling over. It is what you do with that position to help others that makes difference. To have a higher position and abuse it or not use it properly is not what the church is about. Jesus explains it is about helping other people and sharing the Good News with those people and it is in the end all about the individual’s actions that make the position. 

 

So, what to make of this?

 

Action counts.  For by their actions ye shall know them. 

 

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

 

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

 

It is by our actions we are known.

 

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Seventh Sunday after Trinity

Rev Jack's sermon is available on video RIGHT HERE!

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 the words from the Collect,  … author and giver of all good things; Graft in our hearts the love of thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same (that is to say keep us in goodness)…

 

To get anywhere, we must acknowledge in our hearts all good is of and comes from God.  Once we acknowledge this, we are in a position to ask God to put in to our hearts love of Him and all that is His.  We are asking Him to have His Love in our hearts so that we can do good for Him. With His Love in our hearts  there is very little we cannot accomplish; without it, we can accomplish nothing good. We have to recognize this and pray continually for God’s love to enter into our hearts and stay in our hearts.

 

Because of our human nature, there will be plenty of times when we fail, but if we turn back to Him, then we shall succeed. We just have to listen to what He says and then not just listen but act on what He says. This holds true not just for myself, but all of us who follow Christ’s banner.

 

The clear message in today’s collect, Epistle and Gospel is that we need to be in God and have His Love acting within us. For without His Love within us we can do no good thing and we cannot be regenerated or be “born again” without the help of the Holy Spirit. Being a part of this world and being of God is impossible. As Jesus said, one man cannot serve two masters. We are in this world but we are not called to be of this world but of God.  Before we are of God, we are of this world.  Our life is here, our end is here.  However, once we are transformed via the Holy Ghost, then we are merely sojourners here; our life is not really here and certainly does not end here. We are merely passing through this world as a portal to our new unending life with God.  The only way to be of God is through God, that is His Son, our Lord. I am the way, the truth, the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)  Jesus himself clearly says the only way to be of God is through Him. Nobody comes unto God but by Christ. What does that mean for those of other faiths? Nobody knows but Christ. The only sure way to get into heaven is to follow Christ to the best of ouor ability. 

 

So, recognizing we cannot be a part of this world, we need to be holy, that is, set apart from the world in our thoughts, deeds and actions. Thus, when Paul wrote to the people of Rome, he was writing to all of us; for truly nothing is new in the world. There is truth to Solomon’s saying there is nothing new under the sun[1]. For there is no new sin in the world that has not existed since the time of Adam. It may take different forms over the eons, but all sins are still the same since the dawn of man[2]. Up until the time of Christ, we were still bound in our chains to Satan. We could not pass into the kingdom of heaven, even the Law of Moses could not redeem us, because, on our own we cannot be redeemed. It was only with the coming of Christ we could be redeemed. 

 

He redeemed us through His Death on the Cross and His Resurrection. All three components of God, The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are necessary for our salvation and four our faith. The Father as the one who created us, the Son who died for us, and the Holy Ghost who breaths God’s love and truth and the Word into our hearts.  All three elements of God are active in our ongoing salvation. It is an infinite loop of sorts. God the Father passes His Will to us through the Holy Spirit. The Son, Jesus Christ is our mediator and advocate before the Father. While we do not know exactly each of their functions, we do know all three work together and Jesus is our mediator and advocate to the Father and the Holy Ghost breathes God’s Knowledge into us and believing and acting on what God asks and by what we get from the Holy Ghost brings us to be of God. 

 

Moving on to today’s Gospel, the clear message of the feeding of the multitude is action, and the whys and hows behind all of it does not matter as much as the simple message that He did it. It is all too easy to get wrapped around in fine details, when it is the bigger picture that matters. The clear moral of this story is that He acted, not just talked, but He actually acted and fed the people. It lines up with the collect and the epistle in that if we are to be Christians we need to follow the example that Jesus said, and act on our beliefs and not just say we believe. 

 

That is a model we should follow; not just talk, but act as well.  It serves as a template for our ministries here on Earth, to follow this plan of action and not just diction. Our love for God will be demonstrated through our actions, if we act for Him. Does this story recall the words from the Last Supper used in Holy Communion at the Consecration? He took Bread; and when he had given thanks, He brake it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is my Body, which is given for you; Do this in remembrance of me.  Those few words produced The Word, which has satisfied so many over millenniums.  It does not take a lot of words to satisfy us, but they have to be the right ones, which come from Our Lord.

 

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] 9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

[2] In some respects, this is a key to the Bible. Regardless of our own self-centered thoughts, we are the same people since Adam and will be until the end of time. Thus he who writes the Romans just as well writes to us. We would like to think we are better, but we are not. We are the same. But, on the other hand, that is convenient for what worked for them will work for us.  

Sixth Sunday after Trinity

   

Rev Jack's sermon is available on video RIGHT HERE!

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, … who hast prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass man’s understanding; Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire …

 

We acknowledge God will give those who love Him more good than they can imagine, let alone ask for.  But, first you have to love Him. How do we accomplish this? We do it by asking the Holy Ghost to enter in to our hearts so we might truly love Him.  If we do, more good will come to us than we can even imagine or hope for.  The point of the collect is that we cannot fathom how much goodness will happen to us, if we follow Him. With His Infinite Grace and Love, God has the potential for unlimited amounts of Goodness.  But the key word here is Love. And where we do we get that love from? We are back to the Holy Ghost. He is a key element of love, without Him we cannot even love Him. If we cannot love others we have seen, how can we love Him who we have not seen? He gives us far more love than we can possibly deserve.  

 

Who is the other component in this equation?  Jesus!  Jesus is that missing variable in our complicated equation state. He is the X. He can give us his guidance and grace via the Holy Ghost, to make us better men and women of the Lord.  He will help us to utilize the Holy Ghost to love God the Father. He is who we need to gain eternal life. By His Sacrifice, made one time, for all mankind, for all time, we are accounted as perfect by His Faith and Action. 

 

This is a rather stark contrast  to  our rather usual shortsighted short term view, we must think in the terms of the big picture, not the tiny speck in the picture. We are not used to thinking in the long term view.  Think of going through life to get to Heaven as like flying an airplane. Flying an airplane requires constant adjustments and as you can imagine everytime you fly you learn something. That concept carries over into general day to day life. Every day we learn something be it big or small. What matters is that we learn from what we did wrong and not just what we did right. We endeavor to repeat what we did right and not repeat what we did wrong.

 

Lots of little tiny fluid adjustments are required in our lives here on Earth. Some will be easier than others of course. And we will fail from time to time as that is just our human nature. We have to get back up and be ready to start again and not the same mistake again that caused us to fail. When acting, think of how your actions will impact you, your family and others down the road, before acting and make the necessary fixes, if any are needed. The Holy Ghost can provide the inspiration and guidance we need to think through our actions. We just need to listen to Him at the moment when we need to act and remind ourselves that our future will be better if we listen to the Holy Ghost rather than ourselves.  

 

We have to think of ourselves as a part of God’s much bigger plan, and act to the best of our abilities and with the guidance of the Holy Ghost as a positive aspect of that larger picture.  Each of us has a role to play in His Plan. We do not know the whole details of that plan, but God will give us our part of His Plan if we but listen to what He has to say. And the key word here is to listen. We have to listen to what He actually says and not what we want Him to say. There is a distinct difference between the two.

 

In today’s Epistle, Paul says as Jesus Christ died and rose again, so too should we die to our sins and rise again in a better state. He uses this metaphor to describe both our life here on earth as previously we had been living in our corrupt natural state and through the renewal of the mind through the Holy Ghost, we are transformed into something more pure than we had been. 

 

And as he says, as death has no dominion over Jesus Christ, so too shall it have no more dominion over us. For by His death and resurrection, He has paid the wages for our sin, which as Paul says in Romans is death. His death paid for our sins, so we might be accounted as perfect to get into heaven. Paul is telling us about that same accounting irregularity we mentioned earlier and Christ is that accounting irregularity. As we of our own volition cannot resolve the accounting issue, and thus cannot be worthy on our own to get into heaven.. 

 

The resurrection truly is the greatest miracle Jesus performed. Because before He came and died for our sins, we could not get into heaven on our own and in fact still cannot. It is by God’s Grace, that He sent His only begotten son, that we should not perish, but have everlasting life..  I find myself still amazed every time I think of it. How we poor sinful creatures who could not make it to heaven on our own, have had our wages of sin paid by our Lord’s death upon the Cross.

 

 

The lesson of the Gospel is that we must put aside our often foolish and angry thoughts and not act upon them, but rather have Christly thoughts and act upon those. We can’t advance God’s cause here on Earth if we are angry all the time. We have to be able to think and make rational decisions and we can’t do that if we are angry. This is another concept easier said than done. Instead of acting irrationally, we must instead think calmly and figure out the best way to handle whatever situation we are in without losing control of our emotions. How do we do this? The clear solution is to pray to God and ask for His Help in bridling our tongue and have it be a tool of reason rather than a tool of anger and deceit! And to also remember this every time we are in a moment of heated emotion.

 

When Jesus gave His Life for us, He did it knowing we would fail to follow in perfection, but fully aware some would follow to the best of their ability. We must get back up after we make our mistakes and continue on trying the best we can to follow Him. That is all He asks, do your best.  Even Saint Paul had trouble following our Lord, but he kept trying and doing his real best not to make the same mistake again.  Doing your best is not the same as saying you are doing your best.

 

There are none so deaf as those who will not hear. 

 

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

Fifth Sunday after Trinity - Independence Day

Rev Jack's Sermon can be viewed as a video RIGHT HERE!

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:

… through whose mighty power our fathers won their liberties of old; Grant, we beseech thee, that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain these liberties in righteousness and peace…

 

In the Collect, we acknowledge God’s role in the struggle for our independence and founding of our country and ask His favor in maintaining the liberties so dearly purchased while living according to His Will in peace and tranquility.

 

The collect acknowledges that we need God’s help to maintain our liberties and to live in righteousness and peace. Without God’s help and influence we will see a lot of turmoil and strife, which is what is happening in our country right now. As we have turned our back on God, instead of living together in harmony and peace, we are divided against each other and in turmoil and confusion. Turmoil and confusion are not of God but of Satan. We can see how through the influence of Satan, the liberals and the communists have infiltrated all of our important institutions, the schools, the churches and now the military. They have embraced the debauchery that is the transgenderism and homosexuality and abortions. These are all behaviors that have brought down every single country or empire in the past and ours is no exception.

 

If we as a country would repent of these behaviors and turn back to God, then our fall might be stopped or at least suspended.  The Epistle reading from the book of Deuteronomy reminds us that our God is a just God, mighty and terrible. It is wise to not provoke Him. Unfortunately a large portion of our country are set on tempting Him. Our founding fathers knew His Wisdom and founded our Country on His Wisdom. They sought his counsel frequently. George Washington prayed fervently to Him and did his very best to follow His counsel and examples. He was not perfect, neither are we, but he knew he was not and sought the advice of the One who is, the great I am. Our founding fathers relied on His wisdom as they created the framework of the Constitution which is the bedrock of our country’s founding principles.

 

How are we to deal with our country men in today’s uncivil environment? The Gospel provides us with the convenient answer. Love our enemies, bless them that curse us, and do good to them that hate you. This is essence killing them with kindness. Two evils do not make a right, so do not repay evil deed for evil deed, but do your best to follow Christ’s example and choose do good. Also following the words of Saint Paul, live as peaceably with your neighbor for as long as you are able to. Jesus is counseling us in all things we need to follow the Father’s example and try to work on getting as close to perfection as we can in our imperfect bodies and souls.

 

However not all of those who we will try and reach out to will listen to His Message. 

 

There are none so deaf as those who will not hear. 

 

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