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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.
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O
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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.
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A
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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.
Because our sins do in fact hinder us from running the race that is set
before us, that is to make it through the trials of this world and life and
onto eternal life with our Lord. That is a thought that permeates or at least
should permeate our entire lives. It is
oft supposed Christians are dour souls, with no sense of happiness or
humor. Perhaps this thought comes from
those who have heard what the Bible says, filtered through some odd prism, but
have never actually read it. Reading the Bible as a whole proves this often
popular train of thought to be patently false. That may 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.
He goes on to tell us if we think we need something, simply ask God for
it! Speaking of God, John recounts John
the Baptist’s role in preparing the way for Jesus. The Pharisees just had trouble with the
simplicity of his message. They were
looking for something more complex, less straightforward, something more like
themselves.
They
were not willing to accept the change in the status quo that the New Testament
would break their role in finding ways around the commandments Jesus gave, as
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!
The
Pharisees were a case of no play, all work and led a rather unbalanced
life. The opposite of what Saint Paul
suggests we do. They neither held to rejoicing in the Lord always, nor did they
hold to moderation in all things. We are told to balance ourselves with play
besides work, to make us into a happier people who will rejoice in God’s
commandments and will do His Work without complaint. We will be happier in the end if we do it His
Way instead of our way as we are so wont to do, which is in our nature. The
whole of Scriptures is about us fighting against our nature so we will be
closer to what God intended us to be; a happy and holy people, living together
in harmony. This goes back to what the
collect says, we ask He would come into our hearts and help us to work towards
that harmony, to help us run the great race set before us.
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. 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! People can accept Him any at any time, but sooner rather
than later is preferable. It is better to accept Him right away rather than
wait until it is too late. That is why we much keep spreading and preaching the
Gospel to all peoples and nations to fulfill the Great Commission.
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 can be a really powerful negative emotion. But 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. There is
always going to be a great evil in this day and age and we do not need to add
to our existing problems by worrying. Worrying solves nothing and simply creates
more problems for you. It is an activity we need to do our best to stop doing.
When Saint John is recording the actions of John the
Baptist, he tells us that 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 that the kingdom
was not of this world, for the King was no 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 suggest 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 the actual “Okay.” thing, and 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
