Bishop Jerry is on travel at present heading home from Atlanta; we think you will enjoy this sermon until his is available.
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
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| The entire AOC Sunday Report is RIGHT HERE |
forewords above.
Consider these words from the
Collect:
… hear us; and
grant that we, to whom thou hast given an hearty desire to pray, may, by thy
mighty aid, be defended and comforted in all dangers and adversities …
The Collect starts as they often do by asking God to
hear us. It seems to me that this
is rather odd a thing to ask as He hears us all the time; the problem is that
when we need His Help we so rarely ask, then when He answers, we will not hear
Him. That being said, when we do
accept the Holy Ghost’s Help to pray, we can expect to receive spiritual,
mental and physical comfort from God.
But, as the old radio talk show personality Bruce Williams was fond of
saying, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” So, ask. And don’t be afraid to ask, as God can help us with
whatever difficulties we happen to be facing. No problem is too big to help,
with God’s help, that is. We are talking about the same God who parted the
waters of the Red Sea, who inflicited the 12 plagues on the Egyptians, who took
Abraham and made him the patriarch of a great nation, whose Son rose up from
the dead. With all of these deeds and many more that He has done, do you think
your problems are too big for Him to handle? I do not think so!
When we ask for help and get it, we get great
results. But, when we get those
results, who should really get the credit? As Peter tells us in his epistle, we should not spend or
time being proud of what we have been given, rather we should use those gifts to
the benefit of those around us. God should be the one who gets the credit, it
is all His doing in the end and not ours. We have been given His Grace and
Inspiration, and all of our talents are sourced from Him, who is our creator.
It is a waste of our talent to be bragging about it, but to effectively use our
talents, we should just use it to God’s glory and not waste time with boastful
statements. We could use the time we spend bragging about our talents more
productively, such as using them to further His Glory and Word in this world.
This is what He wants for us, to paraphrase the Great Commission, to carry out
the Word to all Nations and Baptize all of them who would believe on His Son
Jesus, in Jesus’ Name. He will give us the needed guidance and talents to carry
out this magnficient task. And, when we have troubles, we should bring them to
God and ask Him to carry our concerns and worries so that we might tend to the
tasks set before us. We cannot do
this mission alone, we desperately need His help at all times, which is
something everybody struggles with. But we must ask His help and be willing to
listen to what he says. Often times He answers and we do not hear, due to our
selfishness, we must clear our ears and be able and willing to listen to His response
to us. That is critical if we are to follow the principles our Lord has set
forth for us. The biggest message in the Bible, which repeats, is that actions
have more meaning than mere words. We must try to have our actions fit our
words of belief.
We must pay attention to the
world around us and take care not to fall prey to the devil, for he is
constantly looking for ways to help us drift off our path towards heaven. We must keep situational awareness at
all times, so we do not fall into any of his traps that he has laid out for us.
You must understand that other Christians come from the same pool you do,
humanity, they have the same frailties and problems you do. We all are the
sinful creatures in the pattern of Adam. The word pictures painted of “your
adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may
devour” is both vivid and true! It
is not enough to just not follow the devil and look to him for help. We must actively turn away his so
called help and look to God for Guidance, Help and Comfort. We must fight our
evil nature which would lead us towards the side of the devil and to follow the
voice of our Creator, of His Son Jesus, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit and
stand fast in His Word.
Hang in there and do your very
best, God will take care of you in the end. There are none so poor as cannot purchase a noble
death. Never ever forget that.
Trust in God and dread naught.
For there are sufficient evils to the day thereof, as Christ said (Matthew 6:34
KJV)
When Saint Luke tells that Jesus not only talked to
“sinners” but broke bread and ate with them, he related a story that was a
particular concern to the Pharisees.
They were quite appalled that those who were particularly sinners in
their very qualified eyes were attracted to Jesus. They knew a sinner when they saw one (except in the mirror)
and were quite certain sinners would never get in to heaven. But, not only did Jesus appeal to the
sinners, He even talked to them.
My goodness, He went so far as to break bread with them and engage them
in conversation at meat! We should
not be like the Pharisees and make a proud and loud show of how we are better
than anybody else (not true, some of us are less worse than others but none
better), and act “superior” to the modern day Gentiles, the non-believers. If
we act like that, we give Christianity a bad name. It does not need any more
help getting a bad name, with the lies of Satan spreading around the world, so
let us act in the manner that Christ would have us act and show the world the
light of Christ.
This really bothered the the Pharisees who thought
they knew everything there was to know about the Law. They counted upon the Law
saving them. They were wrong, as it is Our Lord Jesus who saves, and the fact
he talks and engages the sinners, meant that He cares for each person in this
World deeply, and loves them enough to die for them. All they have to do is
accept Him and follow Him. The Pharisees just could not grasp this.
With a clear view of the inner most thoughts of their
hearts, Jesus the Pharisees the story of the shepherd who loses a sheep and
searches for it. When he finds it
he carries it back to the flock on his shoulders. He goes on to tell the story of the woman who loses a piece
of silver and turns her house inside out to find it. That story ends in a very interesting word play in English,
“Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece (peace) which I had lost.” Jesus ends the story with, “there is
joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.”
The moral of the parable is that Jesus is all about
saving the sinners, not those who are already “righteous.” But for us, there
are none who are already “righteous.” I liken the church as a hospital for
sinners. And all of the saints were sinners in the past too, to paraphrase my
mother. Having said that, there is also joy when we do not sin, but choose
God’s way. And we enjoy it more
also. So it is preferable if we do not sin in the first place, but if we can’t
do that, then God finds joy when we truly repent and turn back to Him and ask
for His help and be willing to listen.
Notice Jesus’ actions when He finds a lost sheep, He
carries it back to the flock on His shoulders with a smile on His face. He
rejoices in each lost soul saved. This is what the Church is about, bringing
lost souls to Our Sheppard of Souls, Our Savior, Our Advocate, Jesus Christ, to
His Kingdom of Heavenly Joys.
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
