Fourth Sunday after Trinity - Propers with explanation - Rev Jack's Sermon

  

The Propers for today are found on Page 194-194, with the Collect first:

 

Fourth Sunday after Trinity.

The Collect.

 

O

 GOD, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

The Epistle came from the Eight Chapter of St. Paul‘s Letter to the Romans, beginning at the Eighteenth Verse. Paul tells us that walking God’s path, though it may seem hard at the time, is nothing compared to the reward we receive in heaven for following God’s will.  God gave us free will, which if we exercise it properly, that is the will to overcome temptation.  What at first seems like a constrained way of living, once actually lived is really perfect freedom.  If we overcome temptation to do what we want and do what God wants, we will receive the gift of eternal salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.  For until Christ, there was no delivery from the pain of worldly existence; through Christ there is redemption of our souls and our resulting bodily resurrection.

 

I

RECKON that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

 

The Holy Gospel came from the Sixth Chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke, beginning at the Thirty-Sixth Verse. This is a simple message, yet often misunderstood, with majestic language that brings the message to a point of incredible sharpness.  “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven; give and it shall be given unto you… …Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?”  “… why beholdest thou the mote that is in the brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?  …How canst thou say to thy brother, Brother let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest no the beam that is in thine own eye?”  This is often quoted, but the following sentence is left out, “Cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the more that is in thy brother’s eye.”  

 

Only when we first take care of our own spiritual health, look to our own relationship to God and evaluate and improve how we follow His Word, we will be able to effectively spread the Word of His love for us.

 

B

E ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.

 

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:

 

… protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal…

 

We desperately need God’s Help, yet paradoxically, God can only help us if we put our trust in Him; we can never be strong, nor set aside to Him, if we do not let Him be our leader.  No one except God can be their own leader, no one.  

 

Each of us, no matter our position, must have an accurate and unchanging directional reference or we become hopelessly lost.  For navigation, we have a magnetic compass which can tell us which way is Magnetic North, and with local corrections True North or better yet the Pole Star, Polaris, which will tell us True North directly so we can keep headed in the right direction.  People have died of starvation in a closely wooded area less than a mile across because they became lost while following their own sense of direction.  By definition, they were always less than 3,000 feet from safety, yet they died after many days of trusting in their own sense of direction.  So, it is with our spirits and right and wrong. 

 

Like Peter, if we are separated from Christ, then we too shall become lost. But, when we have the Holy Ghost to guide us and link us to the rest of the Trinity, we are not separated from God and Christ and will thus become stronger. Holy Ghost in our heart will both strengthen us and help us to holy, that is set aside; in this world, but not of this world. He can also help us be merciful to other people, something most of us in truth have difficulty with. We just need to listen to the Holy Ghost and act upon His guidance.  

 

Each of us needs a leader to follow. We cannot be our own leaders. If we try to become our own leaders, it will not work. But fortunately for us, we have God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost.  if we will follow Their Lead, we will pass through this world in good order and go on to the next in eternal happiness. This is a very common theme within Scripture, do what God asks, be happy; don’t do what God asks, don’t be happy. It seems simple enough in theory, but a lot harder in practice. It is a lot easier said or thought about than done.   We want to do what we want to have fun, God wants us to do what we need to do to be happy.  Fun and Happy do not mean the same thing, they are used interchangeably, their meanings can be orders of magnitude different.

 

We should not consider what man thinks of us. We need to be concerned with what God thinks of us.  If we follow Him, then those who really matter will like us for who we are and how we conduct ourselves while following God and those who don’t are of no concern. Do what is right, avoid what is wrong and you will be happy are the basic principles of the Christian faith.

 

Paul builds on this, telling us walking God’s path, though it may seem hard at the time, is nothing compared to the reward we receive in heaven for following God’s will. There may be quite a struggle on this Earth before we go to our heavenly home. Paul assures us heaven will be worth the wait. It ties in also with the collect saying that we need to focus not on things temporal, but things eternal. Meaning we need to look at ourselves and our actions with the long term view with the goal of getting to heaven for eternity. It must be remembered eternal life doesn’t just start when you die and leave this Earth for Heaven, it starts right now. The Collect is asking for God to help us make our way through this temporal universe to His Realm, the ultimate eternal universe of Heaven. We need His help to guide us through all of life’s trials and temptations 

 

In the end, our reward will outweigh all of our struggles, if we will but keep our eye on the true prize.  Viewed through the prism of eternal life, our struggles here on Earth are nothing compared to our eternal reward, if we but stay the course God has set for us. God gave us free will, which, if we exercise it properly, is the will to overcome temptation.  What at first seems like a constrained way of living, once actually lived is really perfect freedom. It only seems constrained, because we cannot conceive how following His Word will allow us true freedom.  If we overcome temptation to do what we want and do what God wants, we will receive the gift of eternal salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

 

Luke presents a simple message, yet one that is often misunderstood, with majestic language which brings the message to a point of incredible sharpness.  We are to be a guide to others to Christ, yet we cannot help others until our own problems are on the way to “solvation”, that is being solved through the salvation offered by Christ.  We need to follow Him, before we ask others to follow us.  After all, if we are not going in the right direction, what positive value is there in others following us?  We can’t very well lead people to Christ if we ourselves are not on the road to Christ.

 

We do not want to be leading others towards The Pit, rather, we want to be sure we are on the right path before we guide others along the path. We must not lead others astray by our actions and judge unrighteously, but judge with righteous judgment through the Holy Ghost and on the solid foundations of Holy Scripture. 

 

When he said use righteous judgement, he was talking about judging people’s behavior by the standards of Scripture, not condemnation. He was talking about using the Scriptures as the standard for judging individual’s behavior. He does not mean us to condemn others. This is connected with the parable of the mote. Often times when we are tempted to condemn somebody, we often ignore our own failures and focus on theirs. Let us get our act together first, before we help others. So, how can we, imperfect as we are, be honest with ourselves?  The answer is easy, hard to implement, but easy!  The Holy Ghost!  Let Him into your heart and do what you are told.  Simple, yet hard to do.  

 

Speaking of doing, what we do to others is a good measure of how we follow God’s Will and Direction.  We are expected to treat others as we would be treated. Remember the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have done unto you. Our real earthly fortune, as well as are eternal lives, are a reflection of our commitment to God.

 

We are so ready to condemn the performance of others when our own is even worse.  It is common within all of us, especially me particularly. As Paul tells us, all fall short. The operative word here is ALL.  If we look to condemn and repair our own spiritual lives before condemning others, we will be better suited to help them.  Our beam before their mote.

 

For only when we have taken care of our own spiritual health by looking to God for help to evaluate and improve how we follow His Word, we will be able to effectively spread the Word of His love for us.

 

And that is our job, to improve ourselves to effectively spread His Word by example; our action, not our diction, is the measure.

 

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