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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity |
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September 9, 2007 Answers and Questions Life is filled with questions. Sometimes I think there are more questions than answers. It is certain there are many things we cannot know, but there are also many things we can know, and over the next several weeks I intend, by the grace of God, to preach about God’s answers to some of the great questions of life. In a sense, I have already begun, for the last three sermons have been about the question, “What is the meaning of life?” Simply stated, the meaning of life is God. It is as Solomon wrote, “Fear God and keep His commandments.” It is as Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” And, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” (Mt. 22:37 & 39). Jesus also said, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” (Mt. 11:28), which is the result of loving God and keeping His commandments. Or to put it more correctly, rest is the result of being in Christ. In Christ we find rest from the guilt of our sins and the wrath of God. In Christ we are forgiven, and we are welcomed into the presence of God as beloved children, rather than guilty sinners. In Christ we find rest from all our worries, for God is in control and has promised that all things work for our good (Rom. 8:28). In Christ we find rest from our fears. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Ps. 27:1) “If God be for us, who can be against us? (Rom. 8:31). We need not fear the trials of life, nor even the pangs of death, for why do we fear death? Is it not because we fear hell? But if our sins are hid in Christ, hell has no fear for us. True, we are sinners and deserve to go there, but our sins are forgiven, and the Saviour who died for our sins also told us He has gone to His Father’s house to prepare a place for us, and will come again for us to take us to that place, where we will abide in perfect joy in the presence of God forever, (Jn. 14:3). We have rest from the great quest for meaning that engulfs so many people. We don’t have to wonder about the meaning of life. We don’t have to invent our own meanings, which we would know even as we invent them that they are simply the fabrications of our own imaginations, rather than reality. And we have rest from the terrible and debilitating fear that life has no meaning. Once you take God out of the picture you have nothing. Nothing matters. There is no meaning to anything, and meaninglessness paralyzes. Meaninglessness is the great destroyer of our culture and our time. Last night I read part of a book that I wish I had read before I preached the last three sermons. The book is Peace with God by Billy Graham, and it discusses the very things I was talking about in those sermons. Let me share a paragraph from it.
“We complain that the youth of this country has lost its drive,
its push, its willingness to work and to get ahead.
Everyday I hear parents say that they don’t know what’s the
matter with their children-they don’t want to make an effort, they just
want everything handed to them. Parents
don’t seem to realize that their well educated, carefully brought up
children are actually empty inside. They
aren’t filled with the spirit that makes work a joy.
They aren’t filled with the determination that makes pushing
ahead a pleasure. And why are
they so empty? Because they
don’t know where they’ve come from, why they’re here, or where
they’re going.
They are like rows of beautiful new automobiles, … with no
gasoline in the tanks,” (Peace
with God, p. 7). His words sound very up-to-date, like they were written this morning. But that book was published in 1953. And things have gotten much worse since then. But with God life has meaning, because God is the meaning of life. And, in Him, in Christ we have rest from the despair and disintegration of person and culture that surrounds us today. Over the next few weeks I want to address other questions. I want to address the question, “Can I know God?” “Why should I be ‘good?’” “Can I know that my sins are forgiven?” “What’s so special about Jesus?” “Why does evil prosper?” “Is Jesus coming soon?” and several others that I know people are asking today. I wanted to answer, “Can I know God?” today, but there won’t be enough time for that, so I’ll save it for next Sunday, and, if you know someone who is asking that question, or even someone who has stopped asking it because he has decided he can’t know God, invite him, or her, or them to come and hear the Bible’s answer. He might like it. Let me conclude today by reading one of the great passages of Scripture; a passage many of you may know by heart, and, certainly one that speaks to the meaning and purpose we have in this life through Jesus Christ. The passage is found in Philippians 3:7-14. “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss
for Christ. Yea, doubtless,
and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of
Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and
do count them but dung, that I may be able to win Christ, and be found in
him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by
faith: that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the
fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by
any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though
I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after,
if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended: but this one
thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth
unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”. That, dear friends, is the meaning of life. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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