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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 because as is always the case there is a unifying message in the
Scripture for this Sunday.
The First Sunday in Advent
The Collect.
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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.
Today’s
Collect, like almost all of them, starts out asking God’s Grace, His Help, His
intervention to allow us to turn our backs on evil and our own desires that we
might make His Desire our desire. This theme is constant through ought most of
the collects for the simple reason that it is truth. And it is the truth that without God’s
intervention in our lives through the help of the Holy Ghost we are doomed to
fail. If you will understand how much we fall short in our “natural” desire,
you will understand that to cast off the works of darkness and don the armour
of light, we must turn to Christ, who came to visit us, born in a simple and
humble inn in Bethlehem. As His manner
of birth, we must be humble as well, not boastful and proud like the rich[1], but meek and lowly, to
embrace light and cast off the works of darkness. We have to let go of our pride in order to be
humble and be able to cast off the works of darkness. Though He came in a
rather humble manner, He shall return in a glorious and majestic manner, a
rather stark contrast to His original incarnation, leaving no doubt who has
come to lead us.
The
simple truth of the matter is that we must embrace lightness and reject the
darkness. We do this by allowing the Holy Ghost into our hearts, to shine the
light in our hearts and expel the darkness. It is a truly bright light that
will cleanse our hearts of the inner darkness and will send the darkness
scattering like insects. Only then can we truly don the armor of light. We need
to train our brains and minds and souls in this way, so that we can act for
Christ. This is a constant process that will occur for the rest of our lies
until we are called home to join our friends and family who have gone before
and Christ and His Father. We have been called to do these things, as sons and
daughters of God, but only with a conscious effort on our part to accept Him
and more importantly to listen to Him, can we do these things. To do these
things we have to live it. Not just say we are living it, but physically
perform the actions needed to live it.
This
point brings us straight to the Epistle. Paul tells us that we need to live the
life we aspire to. He cautions us to not
borrow for what we do not need that we might owe others nothing but our
love. This is sound financial advice sorely
needed in this country these days. If we
do, we are ensuring that we will not have a worldly obligation to any who might
hold that over us to influence our path away from that Christ set out for us.
We ideally owe no man anything but that of our love. Paul asks us to love our neighbors, by love
he means to take care for them as we would for ourselves or our own close
relations. Not necessarily to “give”
them money, but to help them to attain self-sufficiency that they might prosper
both in soul and body.
This
takes us right into the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. We must not be for God in speech only, but in
deed. When Jesus came into this world,
He came knowing the true purpose of His coming, He came knowing how He would
leave, He came knowing the cost at which our souls would be accounted at
perfect. His whole ministry, including his death and resurrection can be best
summed up in one word; action. He consistently backed up His Message with
actions and not just words. This is a pattern for us to follow as believers, we
are called not just to say good words, but back those good words up with
actions. The story of Palm Sunday is the
same as that of the Nativity. For on
Palm Sunday, there was joy in the crowd at the arrival of the Savior, much as
there was in the stable at the arrival of the Child Jesus. Yet, many in the very same crowd who cried
“Hosanna” on Palm Sunday were there early on Good Friday. For what did they cry then?
“Crucify
Him, Crucify Him!”
Pilate
asked for them to cry for mercy, they cried for vengeance on their Lord and
Savior!
A
swift 180° turn from “Hosanna to the Son of David.” How quick are men to turn upon that of a good
thing. As Charles Spurgeon said "It is an astounding thing and a proof of
human depravity that men do not themselves seek salvation. They even deny the
necessity of it and would sooner run away than be partakers of it." This is due to our natural inclination to
choose the fruit of death rather than the bread of life, which comes from the
Baker of Life, Jesus Christ.
The Bread of Life is Christ’s sacrifice for us, and every
time we partake of it in Holy Communion and listening to the Gospel and the
Epistle, we must always remember the cost of our freedom from death. This Bread
did not come to us without a cost namely His Death and resurrection. It also comes with conditions, namely that we
profess Christ as Our Saviour and to put Him first in our lives, love God with
all our heart, soul and mind, and love our neighbors as ourselves. We have
heard this before in the Summary of the Law. This is what the Law of God
condenses down to, and this is what all laws we set forth must be based upon,
for there is no other rational or foundational base so great and solid as
Christ. He must be the Chief Cornerstone in our lives, if our lives are to have
any meaning. There are those who He is not chief in, and they are those who may
vainly profess His name with their lips, but not in their actions. This is a
great sorrow for them. They have not kept the Word of God in their hearts,
though they may shallowly profess it with their lips. It is action and not
diction that counts!
We
must not be like them. We must put on
the great Armour of Light and so reject our former lives of sin and vanity. We must switch from our old selfish lives to a new
unselfish, Christ filled life. It is
something we always struggle with, but God never gives up on us. We can be
comforted by the assurance He will never give up on us. We just have to never
give up on Him and do our very best to follow what He says. As long as we
repent from our sin and turn back to God in our private prayers and devotion,
he will wipe our slate clean. I know I have a hard time keeping on the straight
and narrow path, so I am glad He left the Scriptures to guide us.
Through
following His Word and Instructions, we shall be given a greater reward than
anything existent on the Earth; past, present or future, that gift of immortal
life, life for all eternity, that will outlast this physical world. To don the
armour of light is not merely putting it on, you must utilize it, the helmet,
the buckler and sword (Scriptures and Christ’s teachings). You need the whole complement of weaponry to
go into combat with the Prince of Darkness in this fallen world. And you not
only need the complement of weaponry, but we need to train with these weapons.
The best way is to be reading Scriptures regularly and discussing the meaning
of it with your fellow believers. This way you can ingrain the Scriptures in
your heart and be ready to do battle with those who follow the Prince of this
World.
Make
no mistake, we are engaged in a World War with the Prince of Air, the Prince of
This World for the souls of men, starting with our own, a World War which has
been going on since the beginning of time. But we
know the ending is in our favor for certain, for the Book of Revelation tells
us so.
As
individuals we may not experience victory here on earth. We may struggle with problems in this world and our own,
our whole lifespan on this planet. We may not see and savor that victory
here on earth; but we know in the end He will be victorious as we know the
Savior. We will win, for we are on His
Side.
Cast
off the dull worn robes of darkness, which lack luster, give no warmth, protect
not from the heat, and put on the shining glorious armour of light. So kitted up, we walk in light, not in
darkness where we may stumble and fall.
Unlike moths, for us light is life, not the destruction of darkness.
Come,
put on the Armor of Light and go forth to destroy that last enemy, death!
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] It is
not that worldly wealth is, in and of itself, bad, but rather the attitude it
can bring, one of self-worth beyond that which is correct. Wealth often brings to us a “better than
thou” attitude, which soon turns to “Holier than thou.” The kind of thing that was referred to when
Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” Mark 10.25
