Saint Paul’s Sermons

Jesus regularly used parables to teach his followers and hearers lessons about the Kingdom of God. Luke chapter 14 recounts Jesus's experiences at a dinner hosted by a ruler of the Pharisees. First everyone watches him and hope to trip him up, especially when he heals a sick man on the Sabbath. Then he tries in a parable to teach them humility. They don't get it and in fact rest in self assurance as children of Abraham that they will be in the banquet at the final coming of God's kingdom (Isaiah chapter 25). So Jesus tries another story of invited guests to a banquet who say they will come but then all make lame excuses, putting other concerns ahead of their commitment to the host. Likewise, we are all prone to put other things first, ahead of God. God requires us to put him first, even ahead of other good things, and to "seek first the Kingdom of God."

We should not only read the Bible, but internalize it. It should work in our lives. Lord, give us ears to hear!

"Let not your hearts be troubled," Jesus says to the disciples in John chapter 14. How can he say that to them (and to us) as he is about to suffer and die, shattering their hopes and understanding of what he came to accomplish. He says it because he leaves his peace with us, a peace surpassing all understanding and that never fails. He joins with the Father in sending us the Holy Spirit, "another comforter," to guide us into all truth and to walk by our side until Jesus returns for us.

Everything we do in worship and church ceremony is trinitarian. We baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We pray in the name of the trinity, confirm in the name of the trinity, marry in the name of the trinity, bury in the name of the trinity. As Saint Augustine taught, all the actions of the Godhead involve all three persons of the trinity. Yet the trinity is unfathomable to our mortal understanding. The third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit, is active in our lives now, our Comforter, our advocate, the one who gives understanding of the scriptures. The Holy Spirit is personal. He works with the word of God to convict us of sin and our need for Jesus as savior. Jesus taught that it was "better" for us that he return to the Father so that the Holy Spirit would come to comfort us and guide us into all truth. We don't want to neglect the Holy Spirit! We also don't want to be deceived into thinking the Holy Spirit could ever teach anything contrary to the word of God. All claims that "the spirit" had revealed something, or someone has "discerned" something "in the spirit," which is often a cover for attempts to rewrite scripture, must be tested against what the scriptures actually say. "The text cannot mean what it never meant." Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stewart, How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth: A Guide to Understanding the Bible (Grand Rapids: Academie, 1982), 27.

The Coronation of King Charles reminds us there is but one true faith offering salvation and a path to right standing before God. That path is through the God Man, our savior, Jesus the Christ.