Lord, we would follow thee. We would be and do all that you have created us to be and do. Guide, O Lord, the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts - at this time - and indeed always. Amen
Hear this text again - from Romans 13:11 - the Contemporary English Version Paul writes:
"You know what sort of times we live in, and so you should live properly. It is time to wake up. You know that the day when we will be saved is nearer now than we first put our faith in the Lord. Night is almost over, and day will soon appear. We must stop behaving as people do in the dark an be ready to live in the light."
Live properly - be ready to live in the light.
I would like to start by sharing something I read some years ago with the heading:
"Holier, Happier, Healthier":
"Attending church regularly is not only good for your soul, it is also good for the rest of you, according to Time magazine. In a recent cover story about changing attitudes to health, the magazine cited several scientific studies which indicate people who are religious are markedly healthier than those who are not. Their blood pressure is lower, they have fewer heart problems, they're less prone to depression - they even recover faster and more completely from hip fractures."
Neat stuff -- Something that we all should think about - especially those of us who are not regular in the worship of God - and those who are thinking about giving up on church.
It is the stuff of biblical promises which have always said that if we follow God - if we love God and obey the Lord's commands that we will prosper... Let me share some
Moses - speaking to the people just before his death said:
(extracts from Deuteronomy 28:1-13) - "always obey the laws and the teachings of the Lord and the Lord will make your businesses and your farms successful - he will make you his own special people - he will make you successful in your daily work - he will open the storehouses of the skies where he keeps the rain and he will send rain on your land at just the right times - he will make you a leader among the nations and not a follower"
Jesus - in the Sermon on the Mount, speaking about anxiety and worry about what to wear, what to eat, how to get by says, as it is put in the hymn based on that same passage - and you better sing it with me so that it sounds right:
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and God's righteousness, then all these things shall be added unto you - Allelu - Alleluia" (Matthew 6:33)
Allelu, Alleluiah indeed!!...
Of course there is not a strict relationship between faith, between attending church regularly, between keeping the commandments of God and worldly success - THE CROSS should tell us that - the Book of Job tells us that the Spirit in our hearts tells us that but all in all - being with God, being in the family of God, and acting out - living out -your faith in a community, in a church, in worship with one another, is one of the best things you can do - in worldly terms - as well as spiritual.
But even as I say this - let me remind you - around the world Priests and missionaries - and people who gather for the worship of God - are killed simply because of the Gospel they believe in, because of the name that they bear.
Faith is not simply about attending church and prospering because of it.
It is about commitment.
About belief.
About courage.
About passion.
About love.
Love even when you don't want to love.
Love even when your brother or your sister hurts you.
Love even when it takes you to a cross instead of to a Rolls Royce.
Nevertheless I marvel my friends - and so perhaps ought you: I marvel at how so many people who do not believe miss what seems to be so obvious to those who do believe - that God's promises are sure and that the faithful are rewarded in this world by what Jesus calls, in tenth verse of the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John - "abundant life" or "life in its fullest" - and in the next by what we call "eternal life"
The abundant life is not a life of worldly riches - but rather a life full of spiritual treasures - a long life which commences now - and continues forever.
Think on it long and hard my friends: statistics suggest and the honest scientist can't rule out the idea that the claims of our faith are true - that loving God and obeying his commands, that attending church regularly and living properly, that living in the light - has real benefits.
So what does it mean to live properly - to live in the light???
Well, Paul suggests that it means several things - some of them very pedestrian, very simple, very common sense - very much like what good mothers and good fathers have told their children for centuries: (Verse 13)
- don't go to wild parties or get drunk or be vulgar or indecent
- and don't quarrel or be jealous.
There are obvious benefits to these things are there not???
- no bad reputation - no hang overs
- no having done things one would regret if only one could remember what it was one had done
- no people looking askance at you because of your vile mouth or avoiding you because of your inappropriate acts
- no senseless feuds brought about by insisting that your point is correct and someone else's is wrong
- no green tinge about your gills as you fume about how someone else has managed to get more than you have
- no more pain in the gut as you think about how little you have
Pretty obvious stuff with pretty obvious benefits.
But there is more to this living properly - living in the light - than what is obvious.
Paul goes on in verse 14 to say
"Let the Lord Jesus Christ be as near you as the clothes you wear. Then you won't try to satisfy your selfish desires."
To live properly, to live in the light, is to do more than simply follow a bunch of rules; it is more than the legalism of the scribes and pharisees and the doctrinaire approach to things of the rabidly orthodox and the politically correct.
To live properly, to live in the light, is to be close to the one who is the light. It is to be in intimate communion with, to be in touch with, the one who vanquishes darkness. It is to put on, to wear, to be indwelt by, the Spirit of the one who made the heavens and the earth and who knows from his own experience our every weakness.
And this my friends is above all a matter of attitude - a matter of desire - a matter of the Spirit which is in us.
The Christian life is not a matter of rules and regulations! It is a matter of wanting to be like the Lord Jesus and of believing in him - and of following him, of living by the love that he showed us when he went to that cross and died for us.
Listen to Paul again as God speaks through him -reading back in verses 9 and 10 of today's reading:
"In the law there are many commands, such as, 'be faithful in marriage. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not want what belongs to others.' But all these are summed up in the command that says, 'love others as much you love yourself'.
Love is the basic stuff of living by faith and love is not a matter of the law - nor even is it a matter of what we feel - it is a matter of the will.
What do you will?? What do you want?? What do you desire?? What do you strive to bring about??
To return to a passage I quoted - or sang - a bit earlier. Matthew 6:33 - this time from the Contemporary English Version of the Bible:
"More than anything put God's work first and do what he wants. Then the other things will be yours as well."
Live properly, live in the light. Let the Lord Jesus Christ be as near to you as the clothes you wear. More than anything, put God's work first and do what God wants....
Today we celebrate a special moment in our faith community - to every member of their family a special moment in the Kingdom of God.
We celebrate how the lost have been found.
How the dead have come to life
How the wounded have been healed.
How the blind have received sight.
How the crucified have risen.
That is what baptism and confirmation are all about. That is what the Lord's Supper is all about. That indeed is what the Kingdom of God is all about.
Living in the light is a marvellous thing my friends. But it has its deep and serious side.
The light asks us - and shows us - that we owe to one another the kind of love God has for us.
It calls us to take upon ourselves a solemn obligation - a solemn debt, the debt of gratitude and thanksgiving, the obligation of actually giving a hoot.
That means my friends - that we must be willing in our relationships with one another to go first.
- To be the first to reach out after a quarrel.
- To be the first to try to work things out after we have been sinned against.
- To be the first, when things can't be worked out, and even when they can, to trust God for results,
- to be first in seeking reconciliation - and the first to refuse to fret or grow anxious or bitter or hateful because of what has happened to us.
Living in the light is a wondrous thing to do, a hard thing to do - a glorious thing to do.
A thing that benefits us from now - to eternity.
A thing that transforms us - and which can transform our world.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, hear today - as we come to perform the sacrament of Holy Baptism and to confirm the presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Joseph and Mary and Robert, the words of Jesus. Hear and remember how before Jesus ascended into heaven he spoke to his followers, saying:
"All authority in heaven and on earth have been given me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.
I am with you always. even to the close of the age....
This is the promise of God for all - and all those who walk in the light know it and rejoice in it. Praise be to God.
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