This week's discussion is about how are souls are saved. There is commentary following the Gospel reading. Most of the commentary relates to the 2nd reading from Romans. We will discuss sin, God's help, and Faith as the way to salvation.
Reading 1
Dt 11:18, 26-28, 32
Moses told the people,
"Take these words of mine into your heart and soul.
Bind them at your wrist as a sign,
and let them be a pendant on your forehead.
"I set before you here, this day, a blessing and a curse:
a blessing for obeying the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin on you today;
a curse if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
but turn aside from the way I ordain for you today,
to follow other gods, whom you have not known."
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 31:2-3, 3-4, 17, 25
R. (3b) Lord, be my rock of safety.
In you, O LORD, I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame.
In your justice rescue me,
incline your ear to me,
make haste to deliver me!
R. Lord, be my rock of safety.
Be my rock of refuge,
a stronghold to give me safety.
You are my rock and my fortress;
for your name's sake you will lead and guide me.
R. Lord, be my rock of safety.
Let your face shine upon your servant;
save me in your kindness.
Take courage and be stouthearted,
all you who hope in the LORD.
R. Lord, be my rock of safety.
Reading II
Rom 3:21-25, 28
Brothers and sisters,
Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law,
though testified to by the law and the prophets,
the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ
for all who believe.
For there is no distinction;
all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.
They are justified freely by his grace
through the redemption in Christ Jesus,
whom God set forth as an expiation,
through faith, by his blood.
For we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
Gospel
Mt 7:21-27
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,'
will enter the kingdom of heaven,
but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
Many will say to me on that day,
'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?
Did we not drive out demons in your name?
Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?'
Then I will declare to them solemnly,
'I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.'
"Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock.
And everyone who listens to these words of mine
but does not act on them
will be like a fool who built his house on sand.
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.
And it collapsed and was completely ruined."
Help Wanted
Paul says that "ALL have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God." What does that mean? We have sinned. In doing so, we have hurt God. Out of great love, God created us knowing the risk that we might not love him back. For God, the risk was worth it. It was worth giving us life and an opportunity to love him. Before he created us, he knew that we would find joy in knowing him and loving him. This generosity and love is the "glory of God". It's bad to be deprived of this love.
When we sin, we walk away from the "glory of God". The true purpose of our lives is to love God in response to his love. So in sin, we turn our backs to God and say, "no" to our true purpose. Saying "no" to our true purpose "deprives us of the glory of God." Saying "no" to our true purpose means we say "no" to true love.
"All have sinned." We have problems and we need help. But God "makes no distinction." In other words, God does not discriminate. Rather, he wants to help ALL of us and he knows that we have sinned. We are given help even though we haven't done anything to deserve it. We are screwups. We need help (grace).
Grace
In the 2nd reading, Paul says that sinners are, "justified freely by his grace". What is grace? Our Church describes grace as "undeserved help from God".1 Grace is also described as "a participation in the life of God."2 This is God's gift to us; he wants to help us by letting us participate in his life. We cannot be saved without "undeserved help from God." We are saved ONLY because God wills and desires it. God is the one moving towards US. He chooses US. He takes the initiative and he CHOOSES to reveal himself. In this reading, "justified freely by grace" means that we are saved ONLY because God wants it to happen and he makes it happen. It is a real relief to know that it is God who saves US and we don't have to depend on ourselves for salvation. However, we have to respond to God's love properly.
Recap:
- Because of sin, we have turned our backs to the best friend we could ever ask for. We have turned our backs on the ONLY PERFECT FRIEND we have.
- God knows we have messed up, so he gives us "undeserved help" because he loves us. We cannot be saved without God's help.
- God helps us by allowing us to participate in his life.
Responding to Grace
Our perfect response to God's grace is faith in Jesus Christ. Why is it important to have faith in Jesus? How is faith in Jesus the perfect response to the "undeserved help" that God gives us?
Imagine that you are married to the perfect spouse. You cheat on your spouse (that's what sin is- cheating on God). Your spouse catches you in the act. Instead of divorcing you or getting revenge, your spouse, says the following: "You have cheated on me and I forgive you. I accept this suffering. I forgive you because I love you. Will you accept my forgiveness?
God offers this same generous forgiveness to us. We have cheated on him by sinning. Instead of divorcing us, he forgives us. He says, "you hurt me, but I'm going to make up for your mistakes". I am going to become human and then I am going to die for your sins. Will you accept my forgiveness?
This is why it is important to have faith in Jesus. God offers us help. We MUST accept this offer from our loving creator. This is why faith in Jesus is the perfect response to God's undeserved help. Faith in Jesus in necessary for our salvation. If he goes so far as to die for us, we had better take notice of his love and we must accept it. We must respond perfectly by saying "yes, I have faith in Jesus. Yes, I accept your forgiveness my God."
Faith
So we need to have faith in Jesus in order to save our souls. How do we have faith? Faith is an act. In faith, we say to God, "I don't understand you completely, but I give myself to you. I want to do your will."3 "Faith is a willing expression of agreement to the whole truth that God has revealed"4 In other words, faith means that we willingly accept ALL that God gives us and to teaches us.
To trust another human in this way would not make sense. Why should you agree with EVERYTHING that someone says and then submit to the will of someone else? That's why many of us are afraid to give ourselves to God completely. We have never met anyone we can completely give ourselves to. We have never known a person whose every word we are willing to obey and agree with. So we think that God is like every other person we have known. We think that God is probably flawed just like everyone else so we don't want to trust him completely. So we think it would be irresponsible and just plain to dumb to have this type of faith and surrender to a person. It WOULD be dumb to do this, unless the person is Jesus. It makes complete sense to give ourselves completely in submission and obedience to our loving God and ALL that he wishes to teach us. It is necessary to put our faith in God.
Faith is an action. The action is this- we give ourselves completely to God. We hand the steering wheel over to God.
- Well, I want to go to the local bar, but God doesn't. He steers me away from the bar.
- I want to go to the pornography store. God steers me away from pornography.
- I want to look at my refection all day long. God steers me away from my vanity.
Well, I don't want to give the steering wheel to someone else. But I do it because we are talking about God here. He's the only person I trust to do the driving.
Justification
Faith is a surrender of our will and intellect to God.5 Faith means saying, "hey God, I trust you more than I trust myself. You can drive from now on." We have to give our will and our intellect to God. In the second reading, Paul mentions that we are "justified". Justification means "to cleanse us of our sins and to communicate to us the righteousness (perfect morality) of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and baptism"6 And so, by giving our will and intellect to God, we are justified- our souls are saved. Again, we are saved when we accept God's love and we let HIM run our lives instead of running it ourselves.
In order to be saved, we must let God be the boss of our lives. So how do we know if we have actually done this? Faith is an act.7 How do we know if we have "given our will and intellect to God" (faith)? Well if you took a shower for the first time in your life today, you would notice a difference in the way you smell. You wouldn't need anyone to tell you that you smell different. It is the same with an act of faith. Faith is easy to see. Once you have made an act of faith and have given yourself to God you will know it, just the same as you would know that you smell different after the first shower of your life. Those who've made an act of faith know that they've done it. If I don't know it, I probably haven't done it. Remember that it is faith in Jesus that saves us. That means that without faith in Jesus, we are not saved. This is serious stuff. I want to go to be saved. I want to go to HEAVEN! Handing the steering wheel to Jesus is not just some fancy poetry. It is real. It is something you can see. Do you want to know what it looks like?
Pictures of Faith
There are fantastic examples of acts of faith in Hebrews, chapter 11. We must read this chapter so that we can see what faith looks like. We need to imitate these people in Chapter 11. Hebrews 11:24-25 says that by faith, "Moses when he had grown up, refused to be known as Pharoah's daughter; he chose to be ill-treated along with the people of God rather than enjoy the fleeting pleasure of sin."
As the son of Pharoah's daughter Moses would have been rich and no woman could have refused him. Most men would like to be in this situation (unlimited money, power, and women). But Moses trusted God. He gave his will and his intellect to God. You can SEE that he gave his will to God because Moses probably wanted the pleasure of being Pharoah's nephew, but he refused. Instead of trusting his own will, he did God's will instead of his own. You can SEE that Moses gave his intellect to God because Moses put blood over his door for protection against the angel of death. Whose intellect, could possibly understand how lamb's blood would protect from the angel of death? Moses didn't understand it, but he surrendered his intellect to God. He made an act of faith.
We must remember that it is necessary to follow the commandments in order to be saved. This is mentioned in the Gospel reading. If we have truly named Jesus as the boss of our lives, keeping the commandments will be easy because Jesus will help us. I have attached a link to a previous edition of "Mass Excitement" in which I discuss the commandments. If you haven't read it already, I suggest that you do since following the commandments is necessary for salvation. We don't want to be like the fool in Sunday's Gospel who listened to the words of Jesus, but did not act on them.
The Point
- We have sinned. We have turned our backs on God.
- God wants us to be happy. He wants us to go to heaven. So he gives us "undeserved help"
- Jesus' death on the cross is the means by which God helps us. We MUST accept his help
- In order to be saved, we must have full confidence in Jesus's help. We must believe EVERYTHING that he tells us.
- Having faith in Jesus means to let him have complete control over our lives. He becomes the decision maker instead of us
- It is impossible to please God without faith. In faith, we give our minds and ALL of our will to God.
- An act of faith can be seen. Once we've made an act of faith, we will know it.
- We can see what acts of faith look like in Hebrews chapter 11.
- We cannot be saved if we don't follow the commandments. But if Jesus is in control of our lives, he will help us follow the commandments.
- Since you want to go to heaven, make a resolution today to let Jesus be the boss of your life. Give him complete control!8
Real Life
About a week and a half ago, I was talking to a lady who literally grew up in a tropical paradise. When she was in college, she had plans to graduate. She went on a mission trip in the desert where many poor people lived. The desert was ugly and the weather was not like it was in paradise. There in the desert, she felt God's call to stay forever. She did not want to stay forever in the desert. Leaving school, and moving to the desert to work without pay makes no sense at all.
But she surrendered her will and intellect to God. She gave the steering wheel to Jesus. More than 20 years later, she is extraordinarily happy. She is picture of peace, joy, and happiness.
So you don't have to talk to God in the burning bush in order to make an act of faith. Any guy or gal can do it. That includes me and you.
Mass Excitement
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1- CCC 1996
2- CCC 1997
3- CCC 26
4- CCC 150
5- CCC 143
6- CCC 1987
7- CCC 154
8- It should be noted that baptism is necessary for salvation. (CCC 846; Mark 16:16; John 3:5) CCC 1987 says, "The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify us, that is, to cleanse us from our sins, and to communicate to us "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and through baptism.
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