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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity |
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Psalms 1 and 15 Deuteronomy
7:6-13 Galatians 2:15-20 Continue
in Holiness For
centuries theologians have argued over the relationship between the
sovereignty of God and the freedom of human will.
Many of the world’s great thinkers have weighed in on this
subject. Rivers of ink have
produced libraries of books on the subject, and still Christians have
questions about the issue. So
I thought I would take a couple minutes and solve the whole problem for
you (laughter from congregation). Of
course I am joking. There was
a time when I understood it all perfectly.
I was much younger then, and knew pretty much all there is to know
about everything. But as I
grow older I find there is much about God and His ways that is a great
mystery, and trying to understand Him with our finite human minds is like
trying to put the Atlantic Ocean in a bucket.
Some buckets may hold more than others, but none can contain the
sea. Of course we can say with certainty that His unseen hand is
guiding the events of this world. When
we look at the sky we see the handiwork of an omniscient Creator directing
the orbits of planets and galaxies. And
when we pray we confess that His will directs not only rocks in space or
even only atoms on earth, but also events in history, and even human
lives. Even our faith is not
so much the result of our choosing Him as of Him choosing us and calling
us to Himself. C.
S. Lewis, in his autobiography, Surprised
by Joy, recounts God’s calling in his own life. You many know Lewis was a die-hard atheist who would have
gladly spent his life in quiet unbelief.
In fact, Lewis purposely avoided all things religious. But God had other plans for him.
And Lewis’ book traces, step-by-step the process by which God
lured him into Christ. He
wrote; There
are traps everywhere-‘Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,’ …
‘fine nets and stratagems.’
God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous. He
compared God’s bringing him to Christ to a fisherman landing His catch,
saying, “And so the Great Angler played His fish and I never dreamed
that the hook was in my tongue.” I
do understand one thing very well. I
understand that it was love that caused God to create this physical realm,
and love that caused Him to create us.
He created to love. He
created in order to give life, love, creativity, and self-hood to us. In love He chose Israel to be His special people, to receive
His blessings and grace, His love. And
He chose us, like Israel, like Abraham like Sarah, not because of any
worthiness or goodness in us that made us attractive to Him, and not in
order that He might in any way receive
something from us. As He says
in Deut. 7:7; The Lord did not set his love upon
you, nor choose you because ye were more in number than any people; for ye
were the fewest of all people. He
is saying that Israel had nothing to offer to Him. That’s why He chose them, because they could not give Him
anything. They were simply
and completely needy before Him. Therefore,
He chose them solely for the sake of His love, that is, only for the sake
of loving them. And the same
applies to us. He chose us to
love us. As
we experience the love of God something happens inside of us, deep in our
souls. We become holy.
Now we should see holy not so much as something God requires of us
as something He gives to us. The
demand that we live holy lives is more a demand that we continue in His
gift than it is a demand for something from us to God Holiness
is the way of life and peace and happiness.
When we leave the paths of holiness we return to the way of strife
and sorrow and hell. Of
course there is morality in holiness.
Morality is behavior, and to become holy is to begin to behave like
God. We begin to treat people
as God treats us, with love, and respect, and mercy.
We begin to treat them as He teaches us to do in His Law, and in
this we find freedom, and our relationships with people deepen and become
more satisfying. In short, we
learn to love. “On this hang all the law and the prophets.” To
be holy is to be spiritual, not in the post modern sense of being in touch
with your spirit, but as in taking on the nature of God. To become like God in our outer actions; is to become moral,
and to become like God in our natures, in our souls is to become spiritual. And
holiness has a sense of ownership. We
belong to God. We have been
purchased for Him by nothing less than the precious blood of Christ.
This is the true meaning of holiness; to be set aside, consecrated
unto God, as we set aside a church building or the bread and wine in Holy
Communion. The best
illustration I can think of is food.
It is officially autumn now, and the Halloween candy is in the
stores. Every year I do my
best to rid the world of Halloween candy pumpkins.
Sue knows this and brings home several bags when she does the
shopping. She brings several
kinds of candy, each of us has his or her own favorite flavor, and she
indulges us with it wonderfully. Mine
is the pumpkins. I love the
candy pumpkins. So when Sue
brings it home, she always lays aside a bag or two of them for me.
No one else touches them. Even
the dogs won’t touch them, and they love them as much as I do. They’re mine. And
in a similar way we are God’s. We
belong to Him. We are set
aside for Him and His service. That
is the true meaning of holiness. And
this is God’s point. He is
saying to Israel, “I loved you when you were unlovable.
I chose you when you could not chose Me. I blessed you with great spiritual treasure when you had
nothing to give in return. I
freed you from your slavery in Egypt, and I gave you this good and
prosperous land. I gave you
My Law to direct you and My prophets to teach you, and I have kept My
promises to you and will keep them to you for a thousand generations. I
am faithful to you, therefore, be faithful to Me. I
think the whole heart of Deuteronomy 7:11-13 is this call to be faithful
in holiness. And this is its
meaning, to continue in the good things He gives.
Dwell in them. Do not
return to the old ways of sin. And
what He gives is good. Look
at Psalm 19:7-11. The law of the Lord is
perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making
wise the simple. The statures of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart:
the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of
the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than
much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by
them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward. Again
I emphasize that God wills us to enjoy what He gives us.
God’s demand for faithfulness stems not from a selfish desire or
need to be honored by us, but from a desire to bless us and give good
things to us. If we are
faithful to Him and obey His statutes, we
reap the benefits. We reap
peace, love, joy, happiness, and fulfillment.
If we go against His statutes we reap sorrow, strife, hate,
degradation and emptiness in this world, and the next. The
Lesson from Galatians talks about all of this in terms of being filled
with Christ. Paul writes of
putting away the old “pre-Christ” life in such a revolutionary way it
can only be described as killing it.
That old life, he says, is crucified with Christ, and the new life
of holiness so fills and controls us that it is nothing short of Christ
living in us. Now what is this but God giving us the very, very best we can
ever experience in this world? He
is giving us God Himself. So,
God did not redeem the Hebrews so they could continue to live the same
destructive, narcissistic life styles they lived before.
He redeemed them to give them a new and better life with Him.
Likewise, God did not leave His comfort and glory in Heaven, and
die on the cross so we could continue in the same old patterns that numb
the mind and kill the soul. He
came to redeem us from that and to give us a new life that is so radically
different it can only be described as Paul describes it in Galatians 2:20. I am crucified with Christ:
nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved me and gave Himself for me. God
grant that it may be so in our lives. In
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
Amen.
The Anglican Orthodox Church P.O. Box 128 Statesville, NC 28687 The Most Rev. Jerry Ogles, Bishop Metropolitan The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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