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Rev Jack Arnold
Church of the Faithful Centurion
- Descanso, California
Today’s
sermon tied the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and talked, as is oft the
case, of the need for action, not simply diction.
Consider the words of the Collect:
“…whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true
and laudable service; Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve
thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises…”
In our prayer to God, we acknowledge that His only or greatest gift is
that we are, through Him, able to give Him true service. For, it must be understood the only way we
can really be happy is when we align our being with His Being. Truly align, not get around
restrictions. There is a big
difference. We are not trying to avoid
being caught in a rule, but trying to live by the Big Picture and not worry
about little things. How do we do this?
Well, we first must trust God in our hearts, souls and minds. Then we love Him
with all our hearts souls and minds, this creates a solid foundation for
serving Him laudably throughout the rest of our days.
In order to serve him, we have to remember to love Him with all our
hearts, souls and minds and to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” This is the first step to following him. This
is kind of a follow on to last week’s message, but in a sense, the Bible echoes
itself at various points, especially in the New Testament. We need the help of
the Holy Ghost in order to love Him with all of our hearts souls and minds, so
we need to ask Him into our hearts, and only then can we truly love Him with
all of our hearts souls and minds. Then, you have to act upon your trust in
Him. If you trust Him truly, as a spiritual parent, then just like with your
earthly parents, you will take His advice into consideration and acting upon
them. It will be like whenever you make a big decision in later years, you
think of what your parents would counsel. So, too, it will be in spiritual
matters, you think of what God would counsel you to do. In the old times, God had to prepare the
people for the coming of Christ. So the Law of the Old Testament was an
intermediate step to prepare people for Jesus. People had to be trained to
follow the basic moral laws, before they could even comprehend the message
Jesus gave.
If we do what we should do, we will follow the little rules as a matter
of course. If we get the important
things the little things will follow soon after. The only rules that are
important really come from:
1. Love
thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind;
2. Love
they neighbor as thyself.
As Jesus says, “On these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” He means all of
the moral laws and preaching of the prophets past can be traced back to these
laws, which comprise the basis for all of the laws that would follow
thereafter, especially the Ten Commandments.
The 613 Mosaic Laws can call be traced back to these two commandments.
They are the “Basic Speed Laws” of the Christian faith; there is no way to get
around these two and be within the spirit or the intent of the Law.
Trying to follow the Law failed to solve the problems of the people it
was designed to help and they spent their time thinking about how to get around
technicalities which is different than doing what is right. To comply with the
Law is a different matter than finding loopholes around the Law. The Pharisees
did the latter, and we should do the former.
In California, we have this law called The Basic
Speed Law. It says you should drive no faster than is safe. If there
is a bend of road posted at 40 miles per hour, but it is really safer to go 25
mph, which is complying with the intent of the law?
The Pharisees would have you find a loophole in a 25 miles per hour
zone for example, by just going 25 miles per hour. But, what if the area it is
in is not safe for 25 mph, more like 15 miles per hour? Could you honestly think going 25 miles per
hour in what is actually a 15 miles per hour area is within the intent of the
law? No! It is the same with trying to go around the intent of the Law. We
cannot honestly say we are doing something within the spirit of the Law, when
we are only doing lip service to it. We must be within the intent or spirit of
the Law, rather than trying to find ways around the Law. Follow, not avoid.
With the Summary of the Law, we are meant to follow the spirit of the
Law, which actually is to love God with all of our hearts souls and minds, and
to love our neighbors as ourselves. When we act in this spirit we are following
the Summary of the Law or the framework for all of the other moral laws in the
Bible. We have to think of whether our actions are following within in this
spirit of the Law whenever we set out to do something. We must judge it by
these two and see whether it is a righteous action and within the spirit of the
Law or not. If it isn’t, then we probably should not do it. If it is, then we
should do it.
In the Epistle, we are reminded God chose Abraham not because of he
complied with The Law, for the Law was far into the future. God chose Abraham because he had faith, put
his trust in God and desired to follow Him.
The Law was an aid to man to help him be better when he had difficulty
following God’s Will.
If we do the same and put our trust in God, we will be able to perform
the laudable service He so desires for the rest of our days. We have to keep
this continuous process of faith and trust going. The best way to do that is to
learn and absorb the Scriptures as a whole, to see the large picture of what He
wants for us. The Law is a small part of the large picture, when we see how it
ties into the New Testament, we have a larger understanding of what God wants
in our lives, as individuals. Once you see how it fits into the larger picture,
then you can see how your actions are part of the much larger picture of God’s
Plan. That is to follow the Great
Commission, to spread the Gospel of our Lord, which will improve the lives of
those who truly believe upon Him and bring true Happiness throughout the globe.
However, not everyone on the globe will follow Him, and they will not
be truly happy as a result. An example of this are the Pharisees; religious lawyers
who specialized in the 613 Mosaic Laws, which brought them death, not
life. Their job was to help people not
break The Law without unduly interfering with their lives by forcing them to
embrace the intent of The Law.
When the Pharisee of the Gospel asked Jesus what he should do to gain
eternal life, the Pharisee correctly summarized The Law: Love God;
Love your neighbor. He would
have been fine had he stopped there.
But, he had to show the Son how smart he was. In doing so, the lawyer was about to learn
the first lesson of lawyering, ‘Never ask a question to which you don’t know
the answer.’ So he asked, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ The answer, of course, is everyone but you;
the rest of humanity. But, as was often
the case, Jesus presented the story of the injured man helped by the Samaritan,
then asked who was neighbor to the injured man?
The priest and the Levite would not see the injured man; there are none
so blind as those who will not see. They
could or would not follow the second commandment of the Summary of the Law, of
loving they neighbor as thyself. They were too prideful to see the truth of
loving they neighbor. They were too wrapped up in the riches and cares of this
world.
The material things of this world are temporary and they have blinded
and ensnared many. This is the reason the Jews have not yet come to Christ and
they will not come to Christ. They care too much about the symbolic rituals of
their Temple and are blind without the Holy Ghost. They are very much like many
churches of today in that respect, caring about their position on Earth more
than following God’s clearly stated will.
Focusing on this world, which is only a temporary state, is a foolish
and fleeting thing. Things on this earth will corrupt and rust and pass away,
but things in Heaven and life in Heaven will never corrupt and pass away. We
should focus on things eternal, not on things temporary. What they should focus on is their eternal
life. While they claim to know the concept of Heaven, they truly do not know it
or believe in it per se. For it is
action that demonstrates and validates claimed belief.
The Jews cared only about not breaking The Law on Earth and hoping that
flawed concept would bring them salvation. No matter how they followed it, they
could not obtain salvation on their own. The missing link to their solution was
one that has been here since The Creation: Jesus Christ.
They are searching for Him, but they cannot find Him, as He is right under
their noses. He is right in front of them, but they will not see Him as their
Messiah. So they are doomed to always looking for Him, but never being able to
find Him until they open up their spiritual senses. This is the problem with
the World as well. They search for the answers He provides, but they will not
acknowledge Him or His solutions.
The world would be better off if they learned the lesson the lawyer
learned in today’s Gospel. You will also note the Samaritan, one of those
separated from the chosen mass of Judaism, did his duty. When he left the injured man at the inn,
having given the innkeeper roughly two days wages, he said, “Do what need be
done, if I owe more I will pay when I pass by next.” You will note, he put no limit on his duty,
he just committed to doing what needed to be done, regardless of cost.
The lawyer to his credit answered honestly, “He that shewed mercy on
him.” Jesus told him, “Go, and do thou
likewise.”
Right is not a matter of quantum; it is not a matter of majority rules
or public opinion; actions speak louder than words.
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
