Dear Friends
“I will join the Church and then I will be let into heaven,” I convince myself, “once I am baptised all will be well.” And I work at this as my backup plan for life—if I need something later on I can turn up and pray, if I get ill I can invoke my membership and God will heal me, if I desire a miracle it’s more likely to be answered.
How often, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, do we think like that? To consider Church to be like insurance or roadside assistance, there to help when necessary but I can forget about it for the most part of my life. But this is not true, and we know it not to be true, and only a huge act of self-delusion can make us believe it to be true. To desire to be holy merely by Church membership is akin to desire to become fit by a gym subscription.
Membership of the Church is a start, a good start, an essential start, but cannot be the totality: we also need to work, strive and struggle. We need to contribute our time, our talents, our money and our energy, we need to pray, we need to repent. And if we do not know how to do these things—to work through the Church for the sake of ourselves, each other and the entire world—then we need to ask and be willing to learn.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord is calling us, each of us, to be the Body of Christ, be the Church, be the embodiment of Christ in this world. And to do this it is not enough to have the right opinions, to have Church membership as a “Get out of jail free card,” to live merely in a moral way: it is necessary for us to be the Church.
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;
— Philippians 2:12–18
for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
Do all things without complaining and disputing,
that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,
holding fast the Word of Life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or laboured in vain.
Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.
For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me.
Let us then,
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal Life, to which [we] were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
— First Timothy 6:12–16
I urge [us] in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate,
that [we] keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing,
which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords,
who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honour and everlasting power. Amen.
This is our calling, this is our role, this is our purpose here in this land, to be members of the Church in more than our affiliation but in our deeds, our actions, our loyalty, that by our faithfulness to Christ we become inheritors of the Kingdom and heirs of eternal Life.
Come and be transformed by Christ, come and let us fulfil our potential to be as stars.
Come and see!
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Then God said, ‘Let there be Light;’ and there was Light.
And God saw the Light, that it was good; and God divided the Light from the darkness.
God called the Light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.”
— Genesis 1:1–5
And the light of the sun, the light of a candle or of a bulb, are images, types, of this Light. For the True Light of the World is Christ, “I am the Light of the World,” says He, “he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the Light of Life.” (John 8:12) “In Him was Life,” we are told by the beloved disciple,
“and the Life was the Light of men.
And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. …
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
— John 1:4–5, 14
Indeed, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Light has been revealed to us.
…
Read this Sermon, You are the Light of the World.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 18th July
Discussion on the Prophecy of Isaiah, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 19th July
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Sunday 20th July
Matins & Divine Liturgy, 9 am
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Online session is via Google Meet: please get in contact for the details.
Please join us: all are welcome, come and see.
Attending Church
We meet at 3rd URC Scout HQ, Kings Rd, Chandlers Ford SO53 2EY. The Scout hall is behind and to the left of the URC Church. Come and See.
Can I help you?
I am here for you, you need only ask. Is there a way I can support your life of faith? Get in touch.
Can you help the parish?
Yes, absolutely. Offer yourselves to the Lord: pray! Make available to him all your talents and ask him how he would like you to use them — listen for his reply.
Your prayers!
With love in Christ
Fr Alexander
webenquiry@orthodoxeastleigh.uk