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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:
… mercifully
look upon our infirmities, and in all our dangers and necessities stretch forth
thy right hand to help and defend us …
In
the Collect, we are asking God to set aside our failure and protect and aid us
in all we do with His strong hand. God
is perfect, thus so is His counsel. When
we acknowledge our imperfection and ask Him for help, we should look to the
written record of His Son, our Savior.
We should do our best to follow His example, to be honest, hard working,
peaceful and helpful. When we do this,
we will prosper, not only in this world, but in our hearts. When we pray for His Help, we need to listen
for the answer, then act on it, not ignore it because it is not the answer we
wanted. This is a very common theme throughout the collects and by extension,
the Bible. As we have always the same problems, we have the same need, which is
to turn to God for help! Therefore, the theme will be similar, asking God to
open our hearts, souls and minds to Him, that in Him, we might get the help for
our sinful bodies and souls.
Why
the continuous emphasis on action?
Simple. The line of time
stretches from the far distant and unknown past to the far distant and
unknowable future. Yet, God is there, He
has always been there and He will always be there. Where His finger touches that line of time is
today. That is where we live; it is the
only place where action can happen in our time space continuum. Today. Not tomorrow nor the past, but today.
That is why worrying does nothing productive, we cannot act in the future nor
in the past right now, but only in the one dimension, that of the present.
Therefore, let us not worry about the past or the future but think about what
we can do and act within the present time. Let us keep ourselves busy doing
God’s work, so that we have no time at all to worry or fret, but act. The time
we spend worrying or fretting is time taken away from possible actions we could
perform in the present.
God,
our God, is a God of Action. No less is
His Son one of action. All throughout
the Bible, you find Jesus doing things, not just talking about them. His faith, shown in the action of His giving
His Life that we might live, speaks through His actions. No matter where you turn while reading the
Bible, what you find is Action, not Diction.
Recall the second half of the Book of Luke. It is known as the Acts of the Apostles, not thoughts, not prayers, not
meditations, not wishes or anything else; The ACTS. He expects us to act in our lives, not
talk.
The
Gospel provides a great example of how our God is a God of Action. In the Gospel we see Jesus performing his
first earthly miracle, turning water into wine at Cana. He was at first apparently reluctant to
perform it, telling his earthly mother that it was not the right time for Him
to perform miracles. Mary chose to ignore this and instead placed great faith
in her son by instructing the servants “Whatsoever he saith to you do it.”
She
had great faith in Him that He would perform a miraculous action. Mary truly
had the faith that Jesus talked about that could “move mountains.” When He referred
to this, He was not talking about moving mountains in the physical sense of
sorts, but in obstacles that get in our way in life.
His
actions created a wine that was so good, it caused the governor to remark that
usually they save the best wine for the first, then when the partygoers get
more drunk they bring out the worse wine. But the wine that Jesus created was
so good, he said, “You have saved the best for last.” in effect.
The
whole point behind the Gospel is that Jesus, and God is a person of action not
just diction. Jesus could have chose not to do anything or tell the servants
anything. But He chose to honor His mother’s request and perform a miracle that
set off His earthly ministry. When faced with the opportunity to act He always
acted. This was the first of those times when He was faced with a decision
point. You will note in all of his miracles that He chose to act.
This
shows that if we are to become like Christ, we are also to be men and women of
action and not just diction. There are
too many in this world who to paraphrase President Trumps’ inaugural address
“They talk the good talk and sit around on their hands and do nothing.” It is
all too easy to say the right words at the right times, however it is harder to
perform the right actions at the right times.
Actions
truly show our character more than words ever could. So it is important that we
pray for the Holy Ghost’s guidance to craft our actions that the light of
Christ might show forth through us and that when we reach critical decision
points, that we make the right choice and action at the right time.
So,
when we act, how should we act? To the
extent you are able attempt to do good to all.
We are not Christ, but if we do our best emulate His earthly actions, we
do well. If you treat your enemies with
respect and kindness, you oft make them your friends, with treating them with
that respect and kindness. It like many other things Jesus taught is hard to
do, it is easy to say however. But we must do our very best to do this, for we
shall become better people of His Flock for doing so. We have the right of self-defense, not of
vengeance. Bring them up, don’t lower
yourself. That is the goal, to raise us all up and not lower ourselves to the
low standards of this world, but to raise those around us to the heavenly
standards.
Like
Jesus at the well, remember that your purpose is to help bring people to
salvation. We are not called to do any actions that would push people always
from salvation, but rather to lead them by example towards that salvation. Any
step you take today may have future consequence. Your witness, your testimony, your actions
can bring people to the point they accept the Holy Spirit or not. Your interface may only be one small step;
but do your best to make it a step towards God, not away. Therefore, let us
think about our actions and the possible consequences they could have for
people turning to or away from Him.
Error
is error, wrong is not right. But, a
person’s final destination is up to God, not us. Fortunate for each of us, it should be
considered. During the journey of life
down that time space continuum, we need to do our best to keep ourselves and
those around us moving towards God, not away from Him. The direction is always clear, sometimes we
just do not want to read the signs.
If
we understand we are less than perfect, actually far less than imperfect, we
have a good start. We know we need God
in our lives to give us direction. We
need His guidance to direct our ACTION.
The common theme through the Collect, Epistle and
Gospel is that if we have hope and trust in God, we must dread naught, and
carry on, empowered through them in our daily lives here on Earth until we are
called to our heavenly home. These are
actions we must take not mere thoughts or words, actual actions!
Read
the Bible, find out what He wants you to do, then Do It. What can you do today to carry out His
Will? There are a multitude of things
you can DO to carry out His Will, but the question is, “Will you?”
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
