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Holy Trinity’s Podcast brings you inspiring sermons, deep theological reflections, and meaningful discussions rooted in the Anglican tradition. Join us as we explore our ”Ancient - Future Faith,” Whether you’re a lifelong Anglican or seeking to learn more, this podcast offers wisdom, encouragement, and a sense of community in Christ.
Welcome to the podcast of Holy Trinity Anglican Church located in Madison, Mississippi. Join us as we explore our ancient future faith.
Speaker 2:Dear people of God, the first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our lord's passion and resurrection and it became the custom of the church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for holy baptism. It was also a time when those who because of notorious sins had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness and restored to the fellowship of the church. In this manner, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the gospel of our savior and of the need that all Christians continually have to renew our repentance and faith. I invite you therefore in the name of the church to the observance of a holy Lent by self examination and repentance by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and by reading and meditating on god's holy word.
Speaker 2:And to make a right beginning, let us now pray for grace that we may faithfully keep this Lent. Almighty and everlasting god, you hate nothing you have made, and you forgive the sins of all who are penitent. Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you the god of all mercy, perfect remission, and forgiveness through Jesus Christ our lord who lives and reigns with you and the holy spirit, one god, forever and ever. Amen. You may be seated for the reading of the lessons.
Speaker 3:A reading from the book of Joel. Joel chapter two verses one through two and twelve through 17. Blow a trumpet in Zion. Sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the lord is coming.
Speaker 3:It is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness. Like blackness, there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people. Their like has never been seen before. Nor will be again after them through the years of all the generations. Yet, even now, declares the lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments.
Speaker 3:Return to the lord your god for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. And he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him? A grain offering and a drink offering for the lord your god. Blow the trumpet in Zion.
Speaker 3:Consecrate a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the people. Consecrate the congregation. Assemble the elders.
Speaker 3:Gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. Between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of the lord weep and say, spare your people, oh lord, and make not your heritage your reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, where is their god? The word of the lord.
Speaker 3:The Psalm for this evening is Psalm one zero three verses eight through 14. To be read responsibly by half verse. The lord is full of compassion and mercy. He will not always chide us. He has not dealt with us according to our sins.
Speaker 3:For as the heavens are high above the earth. As far as the East from the West. As a father pities his own children. For he knows whereof we we are made. Glory be to the father, and to the son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
Speaker 3:Amen. A
Speaker 4:reading from the second epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ. Be reconciled to god.
Speaker 4:For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin. So that in him, we might become the righteousness of god. Working together with him then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of god in vain. For he says, in a favorable time, I have listened to you and in a day of salvation, I have helped you. Behold, now is the favorable time.
Speaker 4:Behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no one we no obstacles in anyone's way so that no fault may be found with our ministry. But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger, by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the holy spirit, genuine love, by truthful speech, and the power of god, with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left, through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors and yet are true. As unknown and yet well known.
Speaker 4:As dying and behold we live as punished and yet not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything. The word of the lord. Please stand for the gospel. The holy gospel of our lord, Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew.
Speaker 2:Glory to you, lord Jesus
Speaker 4:said, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. For then, you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you As the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret.
Speaker 4:And your father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret.
Speaker 4:And your father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you.
Speaker 4:Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The gospel of the lord.
Speaker 2:Praise to you, lord Christ. Today, we we make our annual pilgrimage into the desert where we begin our forty day Lenten observance. Forty six days if you were to count Sundays, but the reason that we do not count Sundays is because Sundays are always feast days in the life of the church. Right? Every Sunday is a mini Easter.
Speaker 2:Whether it's in the season of Lent or any other season, Sundays are feasts of the resurrection of our Lord. But our Lenten observance is forty days because, as you know, the lord after his baptism went out into the desert where he prayed and he fasted and he resisted the devil for forty days. The two men that we saw with him this past Sunday on the Mount Of Transfiguration, if you'll remember Moses and Elijah, they also fasted for forty days in the desert in the life of their ministry. And you know what was common to each one of them? Their forty day fast came on the heels of a figurative mountaintop experience.
Speaker 2:For Moses, it came right after God had just used him to redeem Israel out of the clutches of slavery to Egypt. If you remember, God had just rescued the Israelites there out of Egypt with a strong-arm and drowned the Egyptian army in the Red Sea, a great victory, a a great salvation, and then they were led into the desert. For Elijah, it came right after that great victory over the 450 prophets of Baal who were who were corrupting the people of Israel with their worship, their child sacrifice. The lord showed his power and gave Elijah a great victory, a great salvation after which he was led into the desert to be to fast for forty days and forty nights. And for the lord Jesus, it came right after he came up from those waters of baptism where the the heavens were opened and the spirit of god came down and the father's voice was heard saying, this is my beloved son.
Speaker 2:An incredible moment. And then he was led out into the desert to be tempted for forty days. And I think that the lesson for us in these three men's forty day fast is that our going into the desert, our Lenten observance is a time and it is a space that is carved out for the person who has experienced the salvation of God already. The the Lenten observance, it is a time and a space for the person who has already come into union with God through faith and through baptism into Christ. That they know that their sins are forgiven in Jesus.
Speaker 2:They know that their sins are drowned in the Red Sea, drowned in the waters of baptism. They are they are nailed to the cross. They have been given the dove, given the holy spirit through whom we have relationship with the lord. Right? So that's that's the first truth that we need to be reminded of here as we make our journey once again into the Lenten desert.
Speaker 2:It is that, yes, we are making our way into the desert, but we will not trek through this desert alone. The one who has already gone through the desert and has conquered and defeated every temptation through the desert goes with us. Yes. The lord is with us here in this desert. Let me put it another way.
Speaker 2:The disciplines that you and I, that we take on during our Lenten observance, they are not purposed to get us into the lord's good graces. They are they are not meant somehow to put us into right relationship with god. No. That that can only be received as a gift of grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Rather, the observance of Lent should flow out of our our union and our communion and the relationship that we already have with the lord.
Speaker 2:Because we've already been to the cross. We've already received his salvation. We've already entered into. We've already been plugged into the divine life. We we've already been made regenerate, born again.
Speaker 2:We've already received the Ephesians six whole armor of God. So then what's this season all about? Why why are we observing it? What are we doing in this desert with Jesus? Well, there are several different ways that we could frame what we are doing during Lent, but this year, want you to think about it in a a particular way and perhaps it's a way that you've never thought about it before.
Speaker 2:But this is my Lenten exhortation to you. I'm echoing Bernard of Clairvaux's final Lenten sermon back in the twelfth century. Use this holy season with all devotion to repair your spiritual armor. Use this holy season with all devotion to repair your spiritual armor. Do you remember what's been given to each believer in Christ for spiritual armor?
Speaker 2:The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of readiness given by the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit praying at all times in the spirit. Now you know as well as I do that sometimes these pieces of armor can get dirty, can get grimy, even rusty, and and sometimes they get they get covered over in spider webs because they've been put into a closet or a shed somewhere and forgotten because they're not being used. But look, the bible says that there is something serious happening. There is a war that is going on, and every day we are being assaulted by forces unseen. Well, these pieces of armor are the gifts of grace by which God has given us, you and me, to resist them and to defend the deposit that he has planted deep within our hearts, the deposit of faith.
Speaker 2:And they are the instruments of power, the power of God that he has put into our hands to be exercised, the instrument by which we must advance the kingdom. And so it it makes good sense for us each year to take time and space to kind of to kind of reset, to to pull out our armor, to inspect it, to examine it, and to repair it. But you know how we do it? We've already heard the answer today. It's it's it's by putting into practice the invitation that was just given to you and me at the beginning of this Ash Wednesday service.
Speaker 2:Let me here it is again. I invite you, therefore, in the name of the church, to the observance of a holy Lent by self examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and by reading and meditating on God's holy word. If you will give yourselves to these practices as best you can with the Lord's help over these next forty days, you will do well in the repairing of your spiritual armor. So that when the Paschal feast arrives, you will be ready to point the sword forward and charge the gates of hell with the joy of Easter. On Wednesday nights during Lent during our our Eucharist feast, we are going to focus on each one of these these these disciplines.
Speaker 2:But today, with the just the the brief time that I have left, I want us to begin in on the first one. The first one that was stated here, self examination and repentance. Right? If you are going to walk, if you're gonna walk in the freedom which has been bought for you in Christ, if the well of God's love and the the joy of your salvation is to flow freely through you. From time to time, you're gonna have to you're gonna have to free up the channels through which it flows.
Speaker 2:The the pipes connecting your outer being to your inner being are going to have to be unclogged. How many of you have ever had to pour Drano into a shower or a sink drain in order to unclog it enough for the water to freely flow through those pipes? Well, from time to time, we need a spiritual drain out for our souls so that the graces of God can freely flow through us. And for that has given us this medicine of the discipline of self examination and repentance. Here's a way to do it, and I'm just I'm gonna be very simple and very practical here.
Speaker 2:If you've got a pen and a piece of paper, you can write these down, but I'm gonna give you the steps in which I take. First, set aside a time where you can get to a quiet space. I know that this is harder for you moms with little ones in the house. It it almost seems unfair. So just get to it as quiet of a time and space as as you are able.
Speaker 2:Second, carry a bible with you. And you can either read through the 10 commandments in Exodus 20 or the beatitudes in in in Matthew five or the exit exhortations in any of Paul's letters about the putting on of the old man and the putting on of the new man or Peter's letters or John's letters or wherever. Right? It doesn't have to be the same part of the bible each time. It is all inspired and it is all useful for the training in godliness.
Speaker 2:Okay? Third, and here's here's what you're gonna do. Very intentionally and seriously, you are going to ask God the Holy Spirit to do something very specific. You're going to ask him to reveal any hidden, unconfessed sins that you've committed against God or your neighbor. They can be big sins like idolatry.
Speaker 2:Right? Any involvement in the occult, the use of a Ouija board, a psychic, a new age spirituality, they would all fall into this category of idolatry that must be confessed and repented of. It could be adultery, use of pornography, stealing, lying, coveting, disobeying, and dishonoring one's parents. But it could just as easily be a failure to act righteously or courageously or lovingly in some way. It could be sinful thoughts or or words or attitudes.
Speaker 2:Unforgiveness is one of the biggest sins by which the enemy gets a foothold in our lives and clogs up our freedom and our joy. And and unforgiveness, the withholding of forgiveness from someone in our hearts, it actually what the what it what what we learn is that it puts us outside of a state of grace. Since Jesus says if you do not forgive, neither will I forgive you. Listen. Don't wait for someone to come to you and ask for forgiveness before you're ready to forgive them and release them before God.
Speaker 2:Now that that's necessary for them to receive forgiveness, but it's not necessary for you to be able to release them from your unforgiveness before God. And so so whatever sin it is that that that the Holy Spirit highlights during your self examination, here's what I want you to do next. I want you to write it down on a piece of paper. Write it down on a piece of paper. Whatever the Holy Spirit reveals to you during that time, write it down.
Speaker 2:So that's the third step. It is to ask the Holy Spirit to highlight any unconfessed sin that you've committed against God or your neighbor and write it down. Here's the fourth. Take the piece of paper on which you've written the sins that the Holy Spirit has brought to your attention. And with true contrition, sorrow, confess your sins to God.
Speaker 2:Right? Confession in the Bible, it simply means this. It means to say the same thing. And so what you're doing is you are saying the same thing that the Holy Spirit has already said to you, whether it was when you asked him to reveal it or any other time during the day when he has revealed your sin to you, when he has convicted you of sin. When he convicts you and and and you confess it, what you are doing is you're simply agreeing with the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:You're agreeing with God, and you're saying, yes, Lord. You're right. I have sinned against you or my neighbor in this way. I know that you are bringing it up to me in order to to heal me. I I I'm I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I confess it to you, and I ask you to forgive me. Now there are times that there there there's a certain sin that we may have committed that that we just we cannot feel free from, or maybe it's a it's a pattern of sin, and it it it absolutely plagues us, and it feels like the Lord's hand is heavy upon us, that his arrows are sticking in us, that there is a true taste of hell in the contrition that we are experiencing. And in those times, we may need to go to a priest for sacramental confession because what we need more than anything else right now is to hear God's minister declare God's mighty absolution and forgiveness. Now this is one of the most powerful medicines that the church freely administers to the to free the sinner's conscience. But when it comes to this this sacramental confession to a priest, we must hold to the to the dictum that our Anglican fathers at the time of the Reformation handed down to us, And that is this, all may, none must, some should.
Speaker 2:All may confess their sins to a priest. None must, but some should. I will say that regular sacramental confession to a priest is a discipline that I personally practice and have have found so beneficial in my walk with the Lord because I found that that I need to hear from someone external to myself. I need to hear God's his declarative forgiveness over my own particular and my own personal sins. I cannot tell you the peace and the joy that I that I sense from the spirit in hearing his forgiveness over me, the cleansing of the effects of sin over my soul.
Speaker 2:It is just pure gospel, pure gift of grace. What I'll do is I'll keep a revolving date and a time on my calendar. And I and I I show up to the priest's office with my paper of sins that I have recorded in the weeks between my last confession and when I go to confess them. Other people that I know will just they'll go when something particular is plaguing their conscience, bothering their conscience. That's fine too.
Speaker 2:Others will will go at different times of the year, Ash Wednesday. Some of you came today. Some will go before Easter. Some will go, during Advent, before the the nativity feast. And it's also fine just to confess your sins directly to God in faith and trust.
Speaker 2:That's that's the key here, and trust that he forgives you. As I say, all may, none must, some should. But please know that the priests here are always available to hear your confession if it will benefit your soul. It generally takes ten minutes. In fact, you can find the rite for reconciliation of penitence that we would use if you come to us on page 223 of your book of common prayer.
Speaker 2:It's in there. Here's a here's a way to think about the effects of sin and the cleansing power of confession. Talked about it already a little bit. If if if we were to think about a pipe leading down to a drain, what the effects of sin does is it creates clog within the pipe, grime, buildup. So as the effects of God's grace and and peace and joy tries to come down the pipes into the individual, it is blocked by the effects of sin.
Speaker 2:But that's okay. As I said earlier, we have been given a solution, a remedy. Confession is the drain o for the soul. It dissolves the sin blockage, and it allows all the graces of God to come in and to flow freely through the soul. It even breaks off the little hooks that the enemy has left in us through his claws, and it closes the open doors that they use to get in different areas of our lives.
Speaker 2:So thanks to the medicine of confession, the experience of sin does not have to degenerate into despair for the believer. Let me say that again. Thanks to the medicine of confession, the experience of sin does not have to degenerate into despair for the believer. So that's the fourth step. Confess your sin.
Speaker 2:Confess it. Here's the fifth step. Burn the paper on which you wrote your sins or else destroy it in some way. But the point is tangibly tangibly obliterate them. Right?
Speaker 2:Release them to God. Release them to the one who promises, as you heard in Psalm one zero three this evening, that he removes your sins as far as the east is from the west. Destroy them. Any evidence of them? Here's the sixth and final step.
Speaker 2:With the help of God the Holy Spirit, with with with the nourishment of God's word and hearing the gospel of absolution that your sin has been put away at the cross with his grace now flowing through your person freely and unclogged. Make a good faith effort to turn away from your sin, to turn away from it. And the way you do that with the help of God the Holy Spirit is by by putting on the corresponding virtue of the vice that you have just you have just confessed and put off and put to death through confession. If it is anger, put on patience. If it is lust, put on purity.
Speaker 2:If it is gluttony, feed on the holy word of God. That wonderful meal. If it is if it is if it is unforgiveness, put on a readiness to forgive. If it is pride, put on humility. If it is fear, put on courage.
Speaker 2:In other words, concentrate on doing actions and creating habits in your life that exemplify those virtues that correspond to the vices by which you were living before. Listen. And and when you fall notice I say, when you fall. When you have to go before God and confess the same get sin again and again and again, don't get discouraged. Discouraged discouragement can ruin you in all this.
Speaker 2:Right? Jesus has he has paid for all the spiritual drain o that you'll ever need. He's paid for it with his precious blood. Yet there is an inexhaustible well of God's mercy and grace for you to start again, to start again, such as the Christian life. Sin will it will generally need to be thrust through again and again and again before it finally withers.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it needs a long winter to rot. And God has given you the tools. He's given me the tools to rot it, to kill it, to do it. So welcome to the desert. Forty days to repair our spiritual armor.
Speaker 2:Forty days for self examination and repentance, forty days to get ready for the joy of Easter. And may God in his great mercy meet you and lead you through these desert times. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Holy Trinity Anglican Church podcast. We are located in Madison, Mississippi. For more information, please visit us at htacms.org.