Sermons

We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Do we hear them cheering for us? But what are they cheering for us to do? It isn’t for us to mope through life. It is for us to run the race with endurance. This is what we are called to do as disciples of Christ, in the good days and the bad. Our lives are filled with the endless, useless noise of sin. Only by cutting through the noise, and focusing on the call of the Lord and the cheers of the Saints, can we run the race with endurance.

The battle between good and evil must be fought within our own hearts each and every day. This is why our works can’t save us, because we can’t possibly do anything on our own merit to earn our salvation. Only one person lived that perfect life, and that was Jesus Christ, the God-man, who offered himself up as a sacrifice to God for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.

Our earthly lives are fleeting, and most people have great difficulty with that – a lament which is echoed by the author of Ecclesiastes. To cope with our mortality, so many of us resort to vanity – pride in our own achievements or appearance, and devoting our lives to worthless things. We pile up possessions on earth which we cannot take with us when we die. But our most prized possession should in fact be God. As the famous hymn says, “we are rich in things, but poor in soul.” But as Luke’s Gospel challenges us, we must instead be rich towards God.

A person who is held captive by ideology will use his end to justify any means. This is why we see our own social and political discourse breaking down today – ideology, not reason and the love of Christ, is what controls both sides of the debate. We as a people have been taken captive by philosophy and empty deceit. Listen as the Rector discusses Paul’s warning to the Colossians, and to us today.

What are you anxious about? By virtue of living on this side of the veil of tears, the list is long. Sometimes our anxieties are big: the safety and security of our country; the rising tension in national politics; the kind of future our children and grandchildren will be born into; the state of the economy (“did you hear we hit another 40-year high for inflation?”); nuclear war; natural disaster; widespread disease. We are anxious about many things. This is why the story of Martha hosting Jesus at her home is memorable to us, because it is relatable. Being anxious is normal, but it is not helpful. Listen as the Rector explains how we can focus on that which is necessary by the power of prayer.

If we don’t do what we ought, and if we don’t give due diligence to doing the things we should, then we are going to fall down, susceptible to the powers of sin. There is a fatigue currently affecting believers to do this due diligence in the midst of a culture of increasing opposition to the Gospel. We can only overcome spiritual fatigue by trusting God at His Word and resting in his Son Jesus Christ. Listen as the Rev. Galloway instructs us to overcome spiritual fatigue by following in the example of the Good Samaritan.

What is commonly understood and fought for as liberty today is in fact libertinism. A “libertine” is “a person devoid of most moral principles, a sense of responsibility, or sexual restraints, which are seen as unnecessary or undesirable, especially someone who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behavior sanctified by the larger society.” Saint Paul gives us a different definition of liberty. In his letter to Galatians, he writes, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Every sinful instinct we have tells us we can do it all on our own. We are beholden to our pride. We are so held captive by our pride, that we have a whole month to celebrate it! The bread of man is this: you can define who you are; you can define your identity; you can do whatever you want and expect the world to affirm you; you can define your own meaning of life; you get to define your meaning of love, your meaning of truth, your meaning of justice. All the answers, and ultimately your salvation, are found deep inside yourself. The Holy Eucharist is a repudiation of all of this, everything our culture stands for.

To paraphrase the late Dr. RC Sproul, we do not truly know who we are until we know who God truly is. Sproul’s greatest theological work as a minister of the Universal Church came in his clear explanation of the holiness of God, summarizing the fundamental difference between God and man with these words: “God is holy, and I am not.” We do not know ourselves because we do not know who God truly is. And if we do not know who God is, then how can we properly worship Him? Listen as the Rector examines our response to the God who is holy, holy, holy.