Trinity XV Sept 9, 2018 Fr. Michael Cawthon
This week – This day – LET US PRAISE THE LORD…
He that is beyond good,
He who loves you,
He who cures your body and soul,
He who gives / that you might receive,
He who came into the world to save sinners – to save us:
Yes, it is He who we do praise this day and forever!
And it is He, this wonderful God of Creation, who moves us.
In The Collect we are told that we
who are “Without God cannot but fall” (yes, without Him we will fail.)
And Paul even tells us that he glories “in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto him, and he unto the world”
You See – PAUL IS PROCLAIMING THAT
THE WORLD IS DEAD UNTO HIM
AND HE UNTO WORLD.
The world – with its sin and filth means nothing to PAUL any longer
as his desire has died, to be in “this world.”
The words of Paul steers us to not “falling”, draw us to things profitable for our salvation as our desire becomes not of this world,
but our Lord’s as we turn to Him and Him only.
The Good News this morning is revealed to us as in a map which is clearly laid out for us.
This map will move you from your current road upon which you travel
As it moves you onto a new road, a road leading to your God.
Week after week we speak of faith, faith in a God who loves us – who loved us first.
Week after week we speak of the importance of faith – the importance of a Christian religion within our lives.
Recently, we have spoken of being “all in” when it comes to our faith.
If you are not “all in,” then you are leaving yourself open
(wide open to the things of this world sin, stuff, and sorrow.)
However, if you go “all in” and live your life with your Saviour,
then a true and lively faith will drown out the sin, stuff, and sorrow of this world.
Some people of our Christian Faith often place the Word of Scripture against The Church; / and Her Sacraments against the Word.
Some say that you need just the Word and others will just stress the need of the sacraments;
One could make the case that these two fundamentals, Word verses The Church, were at the core of the Reformation.
The reality however; as seen in the early Church, teaches and shows us the need for the Word and the Sacraments.
If you are in church just to hear the word of God only, or to just receive the Sacrament,
then you are lessoning and cheapening the true meaning of Scripture.
In life, there are consequences to everything.
When we profess “I believe” in the creeds (or other places within the Prayer Book) there are consequences.
The consequence of someone giving oneself to God is to cause a for
complete turn-around
of your life and it demands an
“effort, of your WILL AND YOUR DESIRE.”
Therefore, if we give our lives to Christ, then we must motivate ourselves to walk in the future on a different path,
and it will probably be painful and difficult at the first,
and yet, it will be beyond rewarding as it brings you to the glory of eternal life, with your God and Saviour.
This God that loves and desires you, is a forgiving God (so look forward not backward)
and yet, He is a God of Justice…
and some may ask how this can be, for Justice would demand punishment (consequences for our past sins and misdeeds.)
How can a God, be of Justice, and then not punish us.
The answer is found in His total love for YOU – YES EACH ONE OF YOU.
A love so great that He provides a way, an alternate road for us to travel…
and the name of that road called Jesus Christ.
This road less traveled, has always been, and is now revealed to us through His only Begotten Son,
who through His Word and His Church & Her Sacraments, came to save us from the dangers of the road upon which we all have travelled.
God himself has warned us of the road of sin, of which “if you eateth” (if you travel upon this road) then you will “surely die.”
And it is through the wounds, death, and resurrection of that same Son, which now reveals the road of Salvation.
You do not have to any longer “surely die” but you can surely live forever!
It is He – Jesus Christ – who has place himself between death and you.
I am going to end with a few words which I admit are difficult to hear… difficult because of their difficulty in performing
(one could say they are impossible – because we are human.)
Our God: the God of Israel who is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob is the only God of the Universe …
Period, there are no others.
And if this is so, which it is, then we must confess to ourselves:
that I do not have God
until I no longer have another God of my own.
Accordingly, I must rid myself from things and stuff which leads me away from my God: and we all know the temptations….
The intense selfish desire
of money,
of fame and popularity,
of drugs and alcohol,
of sexual perversions,
and all of those desires that are contrary to God’s Will as revealed in Scripture.
For once we understand our feebleness
and seek that complete turn-around,
then, we can truly say: “Amen” (so be it) to the words of Jesus:
“No man can serve two masters”
for then, and only then, we may truly say we have one ONE GOD
and then we are capable of truly loving the one, thus despising the other.
Travel your road of life with Jesus –
hold His hand (the Hand of God) and never let go.
Eliminate those things in your life, one by one, which pull you away from eternal life with Him.
If you do these things, then your anxiousness for the future (the morrow) will subside
as you begin to feel the warmth of His Love.
Love the one true God, and He will give you eternal rest within His Peace and His Love.
Yes indeed, let us praise the Lord this day and forever.
The hour cometh and now is….
