New Church Westville Weekly Sermon Podcast

You can’t buy your way into heaven, no matter how much wealth you amass. That won’t come as a surprise to most of you. Yet somehow, subconsciously, we end up trying. Every time we feel entitled to reward because of our good deeds, we have diminished good deeds to a mere currency with which we can buy a slice of heaven. Every time we feel slighted for the ill fortune that befalls us in spite of our goodness, we have reduced God’s living Providence into a mere balance sheet of good countered by evil. It is only when we realize that goodness is its own reward that we can be free from the allure of heaven as a reward. Heaven is not a reward; heaven is the natural result of a life of goodness.

Last week we explored how the Last Judgment is not a future event that will sweep away all the evil of the world and bring an end to all our issues, but rather a spiritual event that took place hundreds of years ago, paving the way for us to freely deal with our issues. That was not the only thing that happened though: at the same time the Lord made His Second Coming, His long-awaited return to Earth. He made His advent not by appearing in person however, but through a series of books that we know today as the Heavenly Doctrines, or the Teachings of the New Church. This Sunday we’ll talk about how the Lord comes to each one of us through these new ideas.

One of the most astonishing teaching of the New Church is that the Last Judgment and the Second Coming of the Lord have already taken place... and hardly anyone noticed! This is because they are spiritual events rather than physical ones. This Sunday we'll talk about how a Last Judgment, which took place in the spiritual world hundreds of years ago, paved the way for a new spiritual era and impacts all of us even today. Then the following Sunday we'll explore how the Lord can come again into our lives, as His Second Coming continues with every individual.

With the recent elections many of us are reflecting on the future of this country. There is a decent amount of fear and worry, along with some hope perhaps. But how are we to think of these things spiritually? Sometimes we separate the political from the spiritual as if they are totally distinct parts of life. But the realm of laws and governance is supposed to be a support for a moral and spiritual society. If that support is shaky, morality and spirituality suffer. But regardless of the despair or hope we may feel, the Lord calls us to remember to put our trust in Him, and believe that He is still in charge, regardless of the apparent outcomes.

The Lord asks us to see in a new way.  Maybe that is why healing from blindness was a such a common miracle.  But it was not physical blindness the Lord healed but spiritual blindness as well.

Anxiety is all around us in today’s world. It is in ourselves, our friends, our communities. Does this abundant anxiety exemplify a lack of faith in the Lord? Not necessarily. It is true that faith in the Lord can help overcome anxiety; and as we grow in faith we may find that anxiety lessens. But as long as we love what is good, we will feel fear when that good thing is put at risk. The real question is what will we do with the anxiety that we feel, and can we be motivated by it to make a more loving, safe, world?

And she made a vow, saying, “LORD Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

(1Samuel 1:11)

Have you ever seen a person who struggles with some particular evil and thought to yourself, “I’m so glad that I’ve never had to deal with that”? It helps to put our own struggles into perspective when we can see how much harder other people have it. We could put much of this up to chance: we happened to be born into a certain family, at a certain time in history, in a particular location. But on closer inspection, none of this is random chance: all of us, like it or not, incline towards the same struggles and challenges as anyone else. It is only through the Lord’s almighty power that we can be held back from falling headlong into unimaginable evils. Today we will explore the ways that the Lord fights battles on our behalf that we will never be aware of, and how much we have to be grateful for.

Everyone needs help; none of us can get through life on our own. And yet when help is available there are many times when we don’t take advantage of it. Why is that? Why especially do we not take advantage of the help that the Lord offers? We’ll explore what gets in the way and how to have a better attitude towards the help that we are given by other people.

When someone you care about is in need, you give them help. That is a good thing, obviously! But what if they don’t want our help? Or if they need a different kind of help? Or if they reject our help? Our immediate response can be hurt; after all, we are trying to help them! But if we are going to truly help people, we need to learn to make it less about us and how we are received, and more about what the person actually needs. Giving help is about the receiver, it is not about the giver.