"Sojourner and pilgrim cognizance" is the phrase best descriptive of our little gallery: Pic #1 shows the Nov.1620 Landing at Plymouth Rock by Pilgrims seeking a homeland where they could have economic freedom as well as religious liberty from the Church of England; Pic #2 with all its crass and obscene gestures shows that not all people that migrate to a new land have good intentions; Pic #3 is just as crass but shows that there are no sojourners because they intend to stay with no intention of moving on neither to another earthly land nor a heavenly (spiritual) land. Pic #4 makes you cognizant of what you first viewed, in the gallery, and emphasizes that you have no intention to abide in your earthly home but keep travelling on the King's Highway until you reach your heavenly abode.
Photos #2 and #3 are part of the narrative of the gallery but are of lesser value since they are obscene.
This brings me to my address for this morning:
“Honor Your True Fatherland”
1 Peter 2:11-17 NKJV - Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, 12 having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. 13 Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, 14 or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men — 16 as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. 17 Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.
My Christian friends: The Greek word for “honor” means also “agreeable” or “virtuous.” It is also a synonym for another Greek word that implies “placing a value upon.”
If you are to be in the will of God, as a Christian, adhere to what St. Peter says, namely, that you conduct yourself as honorable among the unbelievers. Your conduct as a Christian should be seen as honorable among those who are not Christian. Peter calls you a sojourner, which is one who is just passing through and not intending to abide in one place; he also says you are a pilgrim, which is one who is travelling to his heavenly home, the true Fatherland. So as a sojourner, Peter begs you to “abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul” spiritually stopping your pilgrimage.
A great many people do not agree with good Christian conduct but they should not find any inconsistency or fault in what you do and what you confess as a Christian. If perchance the unbeliever should see anything dishonorable or impenitent within the Christian’s conduct, the Christian might bring disgrace on his true Fatherland which he desires not only for himself but for those who presently know nothing of the joy and peace that comprises the spiritual, heavenly kingdom of God.
If you are to be virtuous as a Christian, you should not settle into the ways of this world. Too many dishonorable people already can be found in the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of our Federal government. Instead of honoring God by trusting in His providential care, our government wants us to believe that a socialistic, Marxist government can bring about stability and comfort to our God-given freedoms as U.S. citizens. But this simply is not so. Our government borrows billions upon billions of dollars and prints just as much currency to spend on social programs just to give us a feeling of being comfortable, and a false sense of morality, as we are led gradually into a one-world government, and a one-world godless, civil religion.
Nevertheless, the Christian is to be submissive to every ordinance of man, not for his own sake but “for the Lord’s sake.” But if man’s ordinance runs contrary to the will of God, then you should do as Peter and the apostles responded in Acts 5:29, “But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: ‘We ought to obey God rather than men.’”
Just being in the world will have its disadvantages in that you might also sometimes fall short of virtue in expressing your Christian faith and the teachings of Jesus Christ; however, you must not be seen as the Nicolaitans who had one foot in the world and the other foot in the Church, trying to have the best of both worlds, having faithful deeds on the one hand and having unfaithful deeds on the other hand; confessing Christ on the one hand, and denying Christ on the other hand.
As Jesus revealed to John in Revelation 2:12 15 “And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write, ‘These things says He who has the sharp two edged sword: I know your works, and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. And you hold fast to My name and did not deny My faith even in the days in which Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. Thus, you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.’”
And yet the essence of Christianity is not mere morality but faith! Good morals should be had by all, especially by Christians, who should not be seen as adulterers or sexually perverse; who should not murder the unborn; who should not take the Lord’s name in vain; who should not be gluttonous or power hungry as the worldly are. In these matters Christians should be seen as strangers in this world. Morality, or good conduct, should also be a matter for legislation by the State and not just seen as a “Christian thing” that is being pushed upon other people. Saying that the State cannot legislate morality is simply not true since it has taken the Ten Commandments and incorporated what is said such as do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, etc., into the laws within the United States. And it also used to be that adultery was legislated as a crime against society but that is now seen as archaic and is now, by law, permissible.
St. Peter speaks of the Christian’s morality. And yet, when morality is just seen as a Christian thing, earthly Governments fall apart because of the lack of morality; after all, the earthly governments are instituted by God, as Paul testifies to in Romans 13:1.
When morality breaks down in society it tells you two things: There is no more a fear of God by the people; and, where there is no fear of God there is no wisdom, as the Scriptures say in Psalm 111:10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endures forever.” Also, St. Paul tells us, “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2 Cor.7:1).”
Does your residence in the present world make you long for your heavenly home? Do you value your eternal home above or do you place more value on the earthly one here?
Dr. Luther remarked about Peter’s epistle, saying in his sermon for this Sunday: “Thus, mark you, should every Christian conduct himself here on earth, according to Peter. In the first place, he should know where his real home is; his true Fatherland. We learn this through faith in Christ, whereby we become citizens of heaven. Accordingly, we sing: ‘Now we pray Thee, Holy Spirit, for true faith,’ etc., when we depart home from this wretchedness…Peter calls us ‘sojourners and pilgrims’ – wayfarers in earthly wretchedness, desiring home and casting our thoughts beyond the gates of this sojourning-place. Second, though we must suffer this wretched condition in a foreign land, we are under obligation to render every honor to the host and to respect the inn, making the best of whatever may befall us.”
George Washington commented on morality and the government, “It is substantially true that virtue or morality is the necessary spring of popular government.” It is this government we have now that has gone so far away from the “spring of popular government” in order to pursue its own agenda. And this agenda is, more often than not, an ungodly agenda.
The Christian, however, will not be moral in so far as the government tells him to be so since the morality of any earthly kingdom is, at the least, fickle, and ever changing. The Christian will be constant in his morality because he lives his life by faith – faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who died to set the Christian free from a depraved life; to set the Christian free to live a life of righteousness through faith, now and until the Christian is taken to his true homeland. This is what makes the world see the Christian as a misfit in society. But if there is one thing the world cannot or should not be able to say about the Christian it would be this, that the Christian is dishonorable.
Here is the main problem for the person of faith, namely, that the person of faith is a Christian and should always be true to Christ’s teachings in the Bible. For the teachings of the world’s religious Christian leaders are such that they deny that Jesus is the only Savior of the world; the only means by which a person can reach the true Fatherland. But what is explicitly set forth by the Second Vatican Council is an ecumenical spirit that embraces all the religions of the world as equally valid alongside the Christian faith. Mother Theresa did many great civil works of charity with the poorest of the poor and yet she may have never converted a single soul to Christ. Instead, Mother Theresa stated that she wanted them to be comfortable with their own beliefs, no matter what they may be.
In the archives of the library of EWTN (The Eternal Word Television Network), a Catholic broadcasting program, quotes Mother Theresa as saying: “There is only one God and He is God to all; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God. I’ve always said that we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic.”
My question is this: Shouldn’t Mother Theresa have concerned herself, not only with feeding and clothing the poor, but foremost with leading them to their true Fatherland through Jesus Christ as their only hope? You would have thought that eternal salvation would have been a priority as she ministered to the poorest of the poor, whose earthly lives were so fragile. However, for Mother Theresa, the concern was to help Muslims become better Muslims, etc. Believe me, what the world doesn’t need is better Muslims who follow the teachings of the prophet Mohammed. It is Jesus and only Jesus who is the God of your salvation, for as Scripture said, He has chosen you; you have not chosen him. That is Good News – that God is on your, the sinners, side and saved you, not by the works of the law that you have done, but solely by His good disposition based on the merits of Christ alone and the works that Jesus has done for you and in you.
Faith alone in Christ is what should be seen as honorable among the Christians who take this message to the world of lost sinners. If you start talking about how good you are, and about your rewards given you in this earthly realm, then you don’t understand what it is to live this life by faith. You don’t really understand where your true Fatherland is when you are too comfortable abiding in this world and in this earthly country.
As Christians, we need to constantly remind ourselves that there is no honor in us but that our honor (that is the value that God the Father places on us) is from Christ who helps us to keep the will of God for our lives: “Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation...For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men — as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bond-servants of God.”
The love of the brotherhood, which is the Church, is undoubtedly also a special thing within the will of God. This love needs to be based solely on Christ’s words and Christ’s teachings. And yet how many Christians, for the sake of living peacefully in this world, pervert our Lord’s teaching as expressed in the New Testament and yet still wish to have the name Christian?
Therefore, suffice it to say that when you abide by Christ’s teachings, you will be seen as strangers here on this earth, just passing through as pilgrims to your heavenly home; that is what a sojourner does. In the hymn, based on Hebrews 4:9, T.R. Taylor pens: “I’m but a stranger here, Heaven is my home; Earth is a desert drear, Heaven is my home. Danger and sorrow stand, Round me on every hand; Heaven is my Fatherland, Heaven is my home.”
Finally, Hebrews11:12-16 was also written for your edification: “Therefore from one man (Abraham), and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude — innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country.”
You, Christian, are but a sojourner and a pilgrim on this earth, and the sorrows you now have will indeed be turned into joy, even joy everlasting, when you at last reach your true Fatherland! Amen.
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