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Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action
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, wherein we ask God who is … more
ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire
or deserve; Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those
things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which
we are not worthy to ask …
For the first time in a long time, this collect acknowledges that we
are continually pray to God, asking Him for what WE want. Yet, how oft do we listen to Him when He
responds with what we need?[1] If we will listen to Him and DO what He asks,
He will give us more than we have need of, more than we ask for, more than we
can even desire. The point of the collect is that He has unlimited resources
for this and also able to forgive us for things of which are bearing on our
conscience. Yet, it requires us to listen to Him, then ACT[2]
on what we are told. When we ask His
forgiveness, when He gives it, we need to accept it and live it; if we live in
the past, we never will benefit. We have to accept it in the present. The
present is the only realm of time in which we have complete control of our
actions and thoughts and can influence people around us. We cannot influence things in the past or in
the future, we can only do our part in the here and now. The Line of Time
stretches from the unfathomable past, back to The Beginning, all the way to the
unknowable future, all the way to The End.
God is in both places all the time, thus He knows The Beginning, as well
as The End. But, where God’s finger
touches that line lies The Present.
Right now; where we live; the only place we, as humans, can live.
The past has already happened; we cannot change the past. The future
has not yet happened, but can only be influenced through our actions in the
present. So that brings us to the present, which is the most important part of
time, the only place where we can act directly for Him. We have to remember the
only time in which we can influence our action with the help of the Holy Ghost
is within the present. We just need to remember the past for our future actions;
if there was any bad we did in the past, we just need to not repeat it. We can
learn from the past and use it as object lessons, but we must not stay there.
We need to keep moving forward. We will never be in tomorrow, and we can never
go back to the past, but we are always within the present. We must prepare for
the future, but not live or even live in dread of there. So, then let us accept His forgiveness now,
not tomorrow, not yesterday, but today.
God gives us guidance through the Holy Ghost, if we will but accept
it. He gives us the power to act in the
spirit of The Law. The Law or actually
613 little laws turned out to be in of itself a death sentence. The Jews could not, or would not, comply with
the 613 Mosaic Laws, which brought them death.
The Law brought Death, but the New Testament of Jesus Christ brought to
us Life, true everlasting life.
The Jews only cared about not violating the Law, not about the spirit
of the Law which was intended. Following the letter of the Law does not save an
individual, following the spirit of the Law is what counts. If you follow the
spirit of the Law, you are following what the Law was meant for. Jesus is the
ultimate embodiment of the Law. As the embodiment of the Law, He gave us the
important bits of the law, when He gave us the summary of The Law, which
through Him would bring life, everlasting life and happiness here on earth:
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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.
Only two laws to comply with, which though simpler, are harder:
1. Love
God
2. Love
your neighbor like yourself
Think about it, if you do those two things, you will find you need no
other real moral guidance. Loving God
and loving your neighbor like yourself will greatly improve your life and
others around if you consistently follow it.
The Summary of the Law is the spirit of the New Testament, which is we
are to love God and love our neighbors. These are both things seemingly
contrary to our sinful nature, but with the help of the Holy Ghost, they can be
overcome. And they are also both things that will greatly improve our lives
here on Earth. If not in a monetary sense, most certainly our lives will be
improved spiritually if we follow the Summary of the Law. If you understand the
Big Picture, you know what to do on your part of the Little Picture to make
your world line up with His World. Just
like the sight picture on a rifle, lining up the sights with the target. We
want our sights to line up with His Picture. We want our sight picture to be
the same as His. The problem is just like the Jews, we cannot perfectly follow
those either. Because we come from the same common ancestor, Adam, we have the
curse of free will. We often exercise this free will poorly, rather than in the
way God intended, which is to focus on Him.
But we can at least do our very best to follow those directions and
change course whenever we aren’t headed in the right direction. That is where the Holy Ghost can be so useful
for us, inputting change of course corrections to us. We just need to listen to
His input and then act upon it accordingly.
In the Gospel, Jesus helped a deaf man with an impediment of speech. We
are like that deaf man, who cannot seemingly hear God’s commands, or won’t. We
have a speech impediment in that we often utter incorrect or outright sinful
words in our day to day lives. We are asking for Him to heal us of both
spiritual impediments. Without His help, we cannot be cleared of our spiritual
deafness and uncleanliness. And like
that deaf man, if we will allow Him into our hearts, Jesus Christ will remove
that spiritual block that causes the spiritual deafness and uncleanliness. The
key phrase here is that we have to allow Him into our hearts. He won’t come in uninvited; we have to on our
own will, willingly invite Him in. Only then can He start the cleansing process.
Only Christ can purify our hearts, souls and minds. However, before He
can do that, we have to make the conscious effort to let Him into our hearts.
He does not enter into hearts where He is not wanted. Only with that continual,
conscious effort, can He dwell within our hearts and save us. It is through His
faith, His sacrifice we are saved, but we must show that we are with Him, by
acting for Him. This is a continuous process that will go on for the rest of
our earthly lives.
Doing our best is all that God asks of us, not just saying we are doing
our best when we aren’t. But, happily
for us Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf accounts us as just before God. So, now we know that, who do we tell about
it? Do we let people know, or do we hide
our allegiance to the Lord? If you hide
your allegiance, you really have none. Thus, we must be open about our allegiance and
share the Good News with others, so they in time may come to seek the joys of
His Kingdom. They may not understand right away, but the seed of the Lord may
germinate and grow within them, so that within due course they may understand
the Word and come to seek Him. A seed does not instantly become a large
sycamore tree, it takes years of watering and good sunshine for the plant to grow into the large tree. It is the
same with us, it takes years of good spiritual food and drink (Holy Scripture and the Holy Ghost) and of being with fellow
believers who are learning along with you to grow spiritually. We have to
remember this every time we are preaching to the Word to an audience who may
not have received much nurturing. We may not see results right away, but the
Holy Spirit will plant the seed and over the years, with constant nurturing,
that seed will grow into a great Sycamore tree of the Spirit.
The Holy Ghost is a large part of our spiritual lives. Without Him, we
could not be considered one of Christ’s sheep. We have to let Him into our
hearts and lead the transforming and renewal of our minds. Without His help, we
cannot adequately follow Him. In other words, we are doomed without the help of
the Holy Ghost, which will give us His guidance and advice in conducting our
church, professional and personal lives.
When Jesus opened the ears and mouth of the deaf mute, He did for him
what the Holy Ghost will do for us, if we will but let Him open first our ears
to hear, then our mouths to testify, communicate and direct. We must lead people to God, not try to push
them. Thus, we need to strive, each of
us, to follow God more closely so we can pull on the lead rope. Leading requires being in front of the people
you are attempting to lead, having them follow your example towards an
objective. Study Jesus’ life, He is a
perfect example of a leader. We cannot
ever be perfect, but we can strive for that perfection in our actions.
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
[1]
Herein
lies another problem. If we pray, it
seems we continually pray for what we want and we oft want things that are
contrary to our actual needs. Imperfect
creatures with free will, a bad combination in itself, we continually use and
understand in our hearts two words: need and want, to mean the same thing; when in fact they often mean
two diametrically opposed things. Thus,
amongst other things and perhaps before, we need to pray for the Holy Ghost to
help us to understand the difference and ask for what we need.
