Episode 29: 3/04/09

Readings:

Psalm 49
Deuteronomy 9:13-21
Hebrews 3:12-19
John 2:23-3:15

Sermon:

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
James 4:7

Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

How do we submit ourselves to the Lord?

Lent is a time of submission, a time when each and every child of the Heavenly Father is called to look upon the life, death and resurrection of Christ, to look upon that great sacrifice he would make in his suffering on this earth and in taking up the cross, shedding his innocent blood for the sake of humanity and all of its sin. The believer is called upon to look at their own lives and the iniquity of their sins with a contrite heart humbled by the price that was paid for our salvation.

Within that love each of us must come to realize that there was mercy and there was love in that atonement. After all, the wages of sin, they are death (Romans 6:23) and if left to our devices, to our own nature, each of us would find us deserving of eternal damnation. Condemnation from the justice of God. There is none, not one, who is deemed, by the law to be considered righteous by their own works, by their own hands (Romans 3:10). But, in that, God through His only begotten son, would reconcile Himself to us even as we found ourselves lost amidst a world of pain and suffering and sorrow.

There would be freedom that would come in that sacrifice, a liberation of the soul that would blot out the darkness that would stain our souls as we found ourselves giving in to the temptations of this world.

But within that freedom that we would find there would come a truth that cannot be avoided. Though Christ would come to free us from sin, he would not free us to sin. Instead our lives would be turned over to God through him that the old flesh, the old human nature would be set to flight as the new man would encompass our being. Yes, we would still sin and fall short of the glory of God, and yet, in humble submission to the Lord we would all be called upon, as imitators of Christ to sincere repentance and to walk in the path of righteousness paved by the Savior.

Yet it still begs of each believer the same question, how do we submit ourselves to the Lord?

In St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians we read the words of the Disciple teaching to the believers in Ephesus a doctrine that rejects works righteousness in all of its forms, that belief that somehow believes that if we are somehow good enough, if we do enough good things then we can find our own salvation, not through Christ but by our hands. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8 and 9)

With his words the Christian is rightly called to understand that it is never by their works that they find their salvation. After all, if to compare the good works that we do to the iniquity of our sins then the simple truth is that one would find that it is a completely one sided equation. And more than that it breeds in and of itself that same self righteous spirit that would overtake the Pharisees that would look at themselves as pure, overlooking their transgressions, while finding the occasion to condemn their fellow man with a judgmental heart devoid of the love and mercy of God.

But even as we find that our salvation is not reliant on our works, we also find that our faith does not mean that we need not produce good works.

Earlier in that same Epistle of St. James we read that “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). Why? Well because as we read throughout the Gospel and in the Epistle to the Romans, each believer is grafted on to the Tree of Life. There, they produce the fruits of the spirit, those works that done that edify and uplift, that nourish the body of believers. To find that the fruits are not produced then one has to assume that the branch, so carefully nurtured by the vine keeper, has withered and died.

And there we learn of the true nature of the submission to the Lord God Almighty.

It is when we, as taught to us in the Word, turn ourselves over to God, the Father, seeking to be as Imitators of Christ, allowing for Him to graft us on that Tree of Life so that we might produce the fruits of the Spirit that we are called to. It is when we strive to live by His commandments in service of Him and our fellow man not out of a feeling of obligation but in a spirit of love and kindness, compassion and mercy. It is when we, in hearing the call of the Holy Spirit, turn our lives over to Him that we might be lead down the path of righteousness, letting Him mold us and remold us according to His divine plan and His divine will.

Our submission to the Lord comes when we, in that deeper understanding as to the nature of our salvation look to all that has been given to us with a humble heart and strive to hear the call of God that we, like the prophet, may say “Here I am Lord, send me” (Isaiah 6:8), even when we know that the road ahead will be tough and wrought with challenges, but still placing our faith in God, our Father, that He will always care for us and provide for us, never leading His children to be like Lambs unto the slaughter.

Submission to the Lord, dear brothers and sisters, never means forced servitude or slavery. God never uses force, seeking to make us follow Him. God does not want or need robots, or empty, hollow vessels with no heart or thought or mind of their own, with no personality that belongs to them. If that had been what it meant that would have been how He created us, how He breathed life into our lungs. But that was never what He intended. What it does mean is a further extension of that liberation that He grants unto all of us in the redemption found through Jesus Christ. By saying unto the Lord, our God, that this is my life, it is Yours, I am yours, save me, we are saying provide for us, make us instruments of Your divine will and Your divine plan, knowing that You will never fail us or forsake us (Joshua 1:5). Submission to the Lord means that we pray to God, our Father, for the strength and the courage to faithfully adhere to His word that, through His divine revelation, His plan for our lives will be made manifest so that we may serve Him in all that we are and all that we hope to be.

When we submit ourselves unto the Lord God Almighty we there come to realize that nothing… absolutely nothing in this world or of this world can be as freeing as to find ourselves walking in the gracious, loving precepts of the Lord, bondservants and yet freemen of Christ.

Lord, grant this understanding unto us all.

Now may the peace of the Lord, that peace that transcends all Human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus even unto life everlasting. Amen.