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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. We
must be truly aligned, not trying to get around by using loopholes. There is a big difference. We are trying to live by the Big Picture and
not worry about little things. Sometimes that is easier said than done. But it must be done nethertheless. How do we
accomplish this? First, we must trust God in our hearts, souls and minds. Then,
we can love Him with all our hearts souls and minds, this creates a solid
foundation for serving Him laudably throughout the rest of our days. This is
the Summary of the Law.
To serve
him, we have to truly 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 a follow on to last week’s message.
This is because the Bible echoes itself at various points, especially in the
New Testament. There are many themes that repeat in the New Testament; this is
one of those themes. 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; 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 as a spiritual parent,
then just like with your earthly parents, you will take His advice into
consideration when acting. It will be like whenever you make a big decision in
later years, you think of what your parents would counsel. So too will you
think of the counsel God as your spiritual parent would provide. 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 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. This is because the people spent their time thinking about how to get
around technicalities which is different than doing what is right. Complying
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 section of road posted at 25 miles per hour, but it is really safer to go
15 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 should not do it. If it is, then we should do it.
In the
Epistle, we are reminded God chose Abraham not because 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. These characteristics are to be a model for us as Christians.
Have faith and put your trust in God and desire to follow Him to the best of
your abilities. 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 far better 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. What ever the reason it ended in the same result, they
turned their heads away and walked by not even thinking of the injured man and
his suffering. 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 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
