Love and Put on Christ - Romans 13 (Lenten Class)

0:00 [Music] The name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen. Amen. Amen. So already holy week is upon us next week. Saturday we will be starting with laz Saturday of Lazarus. Tonight will be our last class for the Lenton season. and I will probably try to do something once a month in the future with some of our night liturgies. So this week during our Bible study in Romans, uh Paul was writing to the to the Roman Christians in Rome. And uh towards the

0:47 end of chapter 13, the beginning of chapter 13, he's talking about how we are required as Christians to respect the authorities, the governing powers, and even pay taxes. Okay? which was something that was really unc un unheard of especially since the Jews hated the the tax collectors and everything and especially Rome and Paul must have went through something pretty tremendous in order for him to come to this level understanding. Starting in verse 8, he goes into uh goes into two sections where he talks about loving your neighbor and then how then it's probably hopefully remind you of what we have we hear during our baptismal services in some of our

1:34 services to put on Christ. Okay. So verse 18, chapter 13 verse 8 verse 8 I apologize. He St. Paul talks about owe no one anything except to love one another. For he who loves another has fulfilled the law. So as we know God is love, right? God is the embodiment and knows nothing contrary to love. It is pure and it is holy. And this week ending the 30 steps to the latter of divine ascent. We al I also read this morning I read about prayer uh faith, hope and love. But yesterday I read about dispassion and it kind of came together. So understanding

2:20 what dispassion means, God is dispassionate at his judgment. Okay? He does not let emotions such as anger and envy guide his divine will or a choice. We are to participate in God's energy. All right? As I said, God is love and God's love is something that we are required to share as we are all baptized into Christ. be illumin being illumined by the strength and the power and the glory of the Holy Spirit. And when we do not love others, it is because of our selfishness and pride that allows other allows ourselves to that does not allow ourselves to to love others people and not love our neighbors. All right? So that is something that we must understand is that we are required to

3:05 love people. We're required to love even our enemies. And what we do al often times is we become very selfish in our love when we c when it comes to other people. We are to love everyone seeing them through the eyes of Christ. That is the debt we are to pay for the sacrifice that was made because God loved us enough. Right? He loved us enough which means he loved us completely. Okay? He loved us completely that he sent his only begotten son. You also must understand that because God is everlasting and eternal, that means God's love is everlasting and eternal. Theosis, we must understand, continues into eternity. We don't have enough time in our lives right now to

3:52 understand the fullness of God's love. No one really does. But once we fall asleep and once we're resurrected, God willing, he finds us merciful and finds us standing worthy to be in his presence. that the love that we experience with God is something that we learn for an eternity. All right? So, theosis continues for an eternity. Theosis is a process of us becoming like God. Okay? So, God is this passion in his love for us. As I said, the 29th step right before the end before reaching love, reaching the agape love, the 29th step of the divine ladder is dispassion. By definition, dispassion is the state or quality of being unemotional or

4:39 emotionally uninvolved. Okay, that does and later on I'll explain it even more, but that does not mean that we're supposed to be passionless. All right, God is more passionate about his love for us than we can even comprehend. Okay? But we when we work on the virtues, the virtue of dispassion is something that we must get to because a lot of times when somebody wounds us, the first thing we want to do is pay them back. But when somebody wounds us, we must understand what Christ did, right? When he was hanging on the cross, he didn't get angry. He wasn't frustrated. He wasn't he he was completely dispassionate because he prayed for God for his father to forgive the people that didn't know what they were doing. Okay. So St. John he states in in in his in his 29th step he says

5:28 stars adorn the skies and dispassion has the virtues to make it beautiful. By dispassion I mean a heaven of the mind within the heart which regards the artifice of demons as a contemptable joke. The heaven within the mind. Remember if he's talking about the mind that's our noose right? We're supposed to have the kingdom of heaven within us. We're supposed to have the con kingdom of heaven here in the now. And he's saying that we're supposed to have heaven of the mind, right? Within our heart, within our emotions, within our seat of our emotions. All right? And which regards the artifice, which means the works, right? The artifice of demons as contemptable joke. We get to get to the place where even if we are tempted to get angry, get tempted with lust,

6:15 that we don't even consider those things. Those things are be way beyond us accepting the sinfulness into our lives. He goes on to say, "A man is truly dispassionate and is known to be such when he has cleansed all the flesh of all corruption, when he has lifted his mind above everything created and has made its master of all the senses. When he keeps his soul continually in the presence of the Lord and reaches out beyond the borderline of strength to him." And there are some who would claim the dispassion uh in us the that that the dispassion in us the resurrection of the soul prior to that of the body while others would

7:01 insist that is the perfect knowledge of God a knowledge second only to that of the angels. So it's something as you can see even reading it it's very complex okay but that dispassion works on us that can move forward to get us to the point again like St. John says when we are cleansed when the the cleansed of the the flesh of all corruption later on I'm going to be talking about that keep the idea of dispassion in your mind as we go through these verses that St. Paul writes to the Romans. And remember the the most important aspect about the passions is that we're not supposed to conquer them, right? We're not supposed to conquer the passions, but master them. Dispassion is the highest level of virtue that teaches

7:46 us to augment our relationship with Christ with true understanding of our passions as we master them. We should not confuse or misconrue the theology of dispassion with being passionless. Okay. God in his essence is the most passionate of any being ever because of who he is in his essence. He alone knows all things and is in all and is in all things. His will is indefinite and eternal. And he can and he can allow all to happen within his will without interference or prejudice. So when his will unfolds in our life, he is working in our lives for everything that is best for us to move closer and closer to him. Again, the only unforgivable sin is

8:34 rejection of the Holy Spirit. But again, we can be forgiven that if we repent. So every everything that transpires is first filtered through his will, his first will. Okay? being completely dispassionate about the choices we make, but also paying attention to our intentions. God searches the intentions of our heart. God searches the intentions of who we are, our thinking, where we're at in our walk with him, where we're and and or the lack thereof. Okay? So, remember that as God works in our lives, he he meets us just like the prodigal the prodigal son on his way. when as soon as the father saw him he ran to him to accept him. Okay. So our

9:19 passions, sins and desires distort the virtues by poisoning our thinking with pride, selfishness and self-will because our noose is tainted with sin and our view of others is just as skewed when we look at others in criticism and think of ourselves above them. And then and as we learn about who God is and begin to have orthodox fima the mindset of the orthodox Christian we begin to understand that even our good intentions are mingled with our ulterior motives and our perception of God's will is clouded by our own selfish desires needs and wants. I again I have experienced this many times through my relationships, through my friendships

10:05 that a lot of times I wanted to manipulate the situation in order for me to get my will so I feel good about the situation. But with God, he looks past all those things. We cannot we cannot make deals with God. There's only one way to the kingdom of heaven and that is through Christ. And all the times when we come to God, when we want to repent, we even have ulterior motives. But we must learn to become dispassionate about all those things. Okay? Remember to being not being void of emotion but having in the right place in the right way in order for us to truly understand what's going on in our lives. We don't know how God works in his will. It's it's a plain and simple fact. None of us really know how the

10:50 will of God works, which which we must understand though is seamlessly intertwined unto every moment of our lives. We must learn to know that we are to trust and have faith in him because of his immunability and his perfect desire to save each of us through any means necessary. Which means we need to grow. We need to move. We need to we need to continue working in our lives to get closer and closer to God so that his perfect will will be in us. His desire is to save each and every one of us. And when we look at other people and when we get angry at other people, we must remember the struggles that they have as well. If we learn to be dispassionate in our lives, St. John says that is to

11:36 sanctify the mind the noose, right? and to detach it from the material things. And it is and it does so in such a way that after entering the heavenly harbor, a man for most of his earthly life is enraptured like someone already in heaven and he is lifted up to the com contemplation with God. We are supposed to already be putting oursel in the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is in the here and now. When Christ came, he said the kingdom of heaven is at hand. St. John is teaching us this that we need to be already putting ourselves in the kingdom of heaven. Not just one day when things get really bad and we really want to draw close to God. We need to prepare for anything. And when we remember that we when we are walking in this world,

12:21 we're walking our life. There's nothing good or bad that happens into our lives. It's God's will. Especially if you're searching for his will. Okay? The kingdom of heaven is suddenly upon us. The kingdom of heaven again is the here and now. So after St. Paul talks about that, after he goes through and says, "Oh no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. Only he has fulfilled the law." And then he goes on in verse 9 to say, "For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet. And if there is any other commandment, all are summed up in the in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as

13:07 yourself. When we love the Lord, we are to follow his commandments." Now, and and imagine King David right before the resurrection, he had an understanding where he says in Psalm 19, "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are sure, making the wise simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yay, than much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and the

13:54 honeycomb. Moreover, by them your servant is war is rewarded and to in keeping them there is great reward. Right? We are warned by those commandments. We are warned to do what we need to do to get close to God. And in in them even say even St. David, King David understood that there was something about the law. Even though he himself could not keep it, he knew that there was truth in the law. All right? He had no chance of keeping the law. Right? We understand this. All the people before Christ, there was no chance at all for them. The only way that they had a chance is when Christ was crucified and he rose again on the third day. That's what gave them the opportunity to come into the Lord and and the pres in his presence through

14:40 theosis. All right. Uh but he knew something greater was coming, right? He he predicted that he knew that the Messiah was coming through his psalms and through some of the things that he said. He understood he foretold the future and the coming of who he who who would fulfill the law, which was the same who could create in him a new heart. St. Paul when he's writing to the Romans, he knew this. He knew the Psalms. He knew the Old Testament well. He was a Pharisee. So he knew this. St. John of Constanad teaches that the heart naturally seeks happiness. Right? We are naturally inclined to seek happiness. And the devil gives a false direction to this tendency. And he allures it by earthly happiness. that is by riches,

15:27 honors, splendor or a splendor of dress, furniture, silver, gardens, and amusements. He that's what the enemy tries to get to to for us to understand is that we want those things. We want money. We want stature. We want a good vehicle. We want a good job. That's how the enemy gets to turn our hearts to happiness. Right? But again, just like in a marriage, what are we looking for? Holiness. Holiness, right? It's the same that we we're married to the church. So if the enemy can get us focused on happiness, he pulls us away from holiness. So people who have a compulsive who are have compulsive sin enjoy the feeling and the thrill of the sins that are committed. We justify our sins because we have taught ourselves to

16:13 be our own god and our own self-will. St. Luke the surgeon said to be kinder than necessary because everyone is fighting their war or battle and suffering losses. Live simply, love generously, care deeply for the needs of your neighbor. Speak softly and leave the rest to the Lord. It is not faith nor dogmatics nor mysticism nor aestheticism nor fasting nor long prayers but love that makes one a true Christian. Everything becomes pointless with uh I'm I'm sorry everything is pointless without this fundamental thing and it is only means something when we love our

16:58 neighbor okay everything else is pointless if we don't love our neighbor we can be feeding the poor but if we don't love them it doesn't matter so St. Luke had an understanding of what St. Paul was talking about he knew the scriptures too. Okay. So verse 10, love does no harm. That word harm in Greek is ill will a mode of thinking, feeling and acting troublesome, injurous, pernitious, destructive, baneful, or even in a new mode of thinking. What do we hear all the time people saying? being toxic and polluting our relationship with our neighbor. So love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of

17:44 the law. That is verse 10. He knew St. Paul, right? And he knew and King David knew what God had done for him. King David knew what God had done in his life. And so did Saul, right? He was before he became St. Paul. Saul was the man who was persecuting the church, going around and killing the Christians. But when Christ came into his life, he would be illumined to become the Apostle Paul. And St. Paul had to repent for the sin of murder and not keeping God's holy name. He learned to love despite his circumstances and found it all joy no matter the circumstances. Most of Paul's ministry was spent in prison. He wrote all mostly all of the the epistles in the prisons writing to the churches.

18:32 through God's mercy and grace, he was able to still minister and do everything he needed to do. And that prison time was actually the time he needed to rest. I'm I'm he rested during those times. Right? So love in the love in the virtue is the virtue on the divine ladder that repeats for forever. Even though it is the 30th step in the latter divine ascent, it is the one that lasts forever. is as you get closer to God, you again get you you again start at the beginning of the ladder where you keep on separating yourself from the world over and over and over again. You gain that love, you go back to the beginning. You gain that love, you go back to the beginning. As we draw closer to God, we learn how to love God because God

19:18 teaches us his wisdom about who he is. We slowly are transfigured and molded into the image of Christ. The only way we can come to Christ is by Christ calling us. And once Christ calls us, he will teach us how to love him. And as he teaches us how to love him, we learn how to love our spouses. We learn how to love our children. We love how to love the people we're going to church with. And then we als Jesus talked about it. We talked about the biatitudes a couple weeks ago. So Christ when he was incarnate was the pure and virtuous image of the Trinity, the embodiment of temperance and the blueprint of what it looked like to be truly human as God created us to be. He was man. He became a man. He was

20:05 incarnate and he kept the law. It's possible. He showed us that that it's possible. He became the fulfillment of the law through becoming man and showing the world that his standard was the standard. And every human being could do it with the help of the Holy Spirit, allowing the Holy Spirit to create in us a new heart, a new way of thinking, striving for dispassionate love toward ourselves as we learn to love ourselves and to not sin and to inflict the crucifixion with wounds from our own sinful nature. And as we disconnect from the world, as we deny ourselves, we actually begin to love our neighbor as we love ourselves because we have learned to love the Holy Spirit within us. God is within us. And most of the

20:51 time, we have a hard time loving other people because we can't love ourselves. And we can't see our own sinfulness or we see our sinfulness and we ignore it. And therefore we judge people sometimes about the same things that they are judging that that that we are angry about them we do ourselves. All right. So we must be we must understand that as we disconnect from the world and deny ourselves we actually begin to love our neighbor as we love ourselves because we have learned to love the Holy Spirit within us. So those first few first few verses St. Paul is talking about loving your neighbor. And now he goes on to he says to put on Christ. Okay. And to do this knowing the time that it is now high

21:37 time, right? This word high time at this very moment. It's not something that we're supposed to wait for to tomorrow. He's saying knowing the time. It is now high time to awake. Right? This whole idea of sleeping, right? is not just sleeping at night but it's the sleeping at sleeping at at the wheel that often most of us do throughout most of our life but to be awake again the idea of awake in the Greek is the idea of collecting one's faculties to awaken and that is to arouse ourselves from the sleep of death to do this knowing the time that is now high time to awake out of sleep for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed there There

22:22 is no time like today. It is time at this very moment to change our thinking and to strive for holiness. As we live this life, many of us are asleep. No, not the slumber our bodies. Again, not the slumber that we do at night in our bedtime, but the slumber of spiritual apathy and lethargy. The sleep associated with spiritual amnesia that we forget that our souls are on the line with every choice that we make. Today, this minute is closer to us to the end of time and the end of each of our lives. Today, at this moment, as we s as we watch the clock go forward, we must understand that today is the time that we need to start changing and we need to take it seriously. We need to get to become the

23:09 people that God is calling us to be because we can be our lives can be required at any moment, at any time as we're going home, we're lying on our beds. All right? anytime and every choice that we make either divides us from God or pulls us closer to God. So we must understand this in our lives that we need to go forward in every step knowing that the high time is time to awake. And then verse 12, he says, "The night," again a metaphor, "the night is when the time and when work ceases, the time of death, the time for deeds of sin and shame, the time of moral stupidity and darkness, the time when we when the weary and also the drunken give

23:54 themselves to slumber." I think a lot of us are probably recognize that time, right? the time when we're we're we're hammered in the middle of the night and we're stumbling through the house, stubbing our toe, falling down, passing out, right? This is what he's talking about. But this is what he's talking about in our lives that we're fumbling through our lives in darkness. We're fumbling through our lives. He's saying the night is far spent. Okay, the night is far spent. The day, now the word day is a metaphor again, is regarded the time for abstaining from indulgence, vice, crying, because acts of this sort are perpet per perpetuated at night and in the darkness. So he says the night is far spent. The day is at hand. The night

24:42 is far spent. The day is at hand. It's time. Now he's repeating himself two or three times in a row. That's how important he is talking about. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness. That word works ergo is an act, a deed, thing done. The idea of working is emphasized in opposition to that which is less than work. When we sin, it's actually less than work, right? It's sin is easy. Sin is easy for us to do. Sin is easy for us to fall into. Fighting it is hard. Going digging in. And if you actually start fighting some of these temptations and these sins, you go through sleepless nights, you go through pain, you go

25:28 through hurting, you go through times where you're feeling like you're losing your best friend. We got to understand that you have to dig in. I know that it's hard. I realize that it's hard. But we have to understand we as a church, if we get strong and we all uphold each other, that we can move forward as a unit and become an army. Okay? And the word darkness, he says, "Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness." Right? That word darkness is a metaphor of ignorance, of respecting divine things and human duties and accompanying ungodliness and immorality together with their consequent misery in hell. Persons in whom darkness become visible and holds its way. How many of

26:14 you have actually seen people that are so decadent you can just see it by looking at them, right? And a lot of you gals, right, when you see people when you especially when you see men that are creepy, you know it, right? You can look at the guy and that you can tell that they're objectifying you, right? That is a work of darkness. All right? That is a work of darkness. This is what St. Paul is talking about because you can see the difference between people that is f a person that is fooled with Christ or a person that is fooled with sin. And you have to understand the difference. Okay? He said and and again the the works of darkness are unfruitful. It comes to nothing. And then he says after that

27:00 after the he says the night is far spent, the days at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. God is light, right? We hear this. God is light. God is light because light has the extremely delicate subtail pure brilliant quality. God being light is of tr of of true is of truth and is is knowledge together with spiritual purity associated with it. All right. So God being pure light is pure in his virtue and it's a delicate thing. It's not something that's that that comes onto us and it encroaches into our freedom. The light that penetrates into our heart is

27:45 something that is gentle. Okay. Uh it is it is that which exposes to the view of all open publicly. It is the reason and the mind. It is the power of understanding especially moral and spiritual truth. So St. Paul is saying when we put on that armor of God, when we put on that armor of light, we're putting on into the noose, it's changing the noose. It's giving us understanding that only God can give us, right? It is believed that Adam and Eve in the garden when God when God clothed them, he actually gave them skin, right? Because before they were just beings of light. Okay? The whole understanding of Adam and Eve is they were beings of light. And after they sinned is when they

28:32 realized that they were naked. That sin tainted their noose. That sin tainted them just like it does us. But every time we do, every time when we are baptized, when we are crisismated, it realigns us into God's will and we become children of light again. We put on that armor of light. And when we do confession, again, it's a realignment. Every time we do confession, it realigns us to God's will. Therefore, that's it's important for us to constantly be confessing. Constantly be confessing and constantly working on repentance. So on onto verse 13, he says, "Let us walk." Right? That word walk is actually an interesting word. It comes from the Hebrew. It's a a word in Greek, but he translates it from Hebrew.

29:18 Let us walk to make one's way to make do use of opportunities properly. All right? And then again the word in Hebrew means to live and to regulate oneself to conduct oneself. So when we're walking in Christ, when we put on Christ, we are walking according to his statutes. We are thinking with his mind, we are living according to what he is directing us to do. When we are married, we treat our spouse with respect, dignity, and honor. When we have children, we become we need to be people that are worthy to be honored. When we are at the church, we need to respect people. And when people sin, we need to look at them with compassion and love. All right? Because

30:06 every time we encounter somebody that sins against us, you know what? That's an opportunity for us to do humble ourselves. It's a way for us to humble ourselves and to show the quality of Christ when we love that person. Okay? So it says, "Let us walk honestly, right? Honestly, in a proper way, becomingly of a Christian who loves God." Honesty is one of the highest the virtues for us to tell the truth. When people lie, it is it is something that is such an ingrained thing that they don't even know that they're doing it. A lot of times somebody that lies is I it's a bane to them because they have to lie in order to feel that they are

30:52 meaningful in some way. Satan is a liar. Satan does the same thing when he pours out into us that sin and bitterness. He lies to us when he teaches us that we need to sin in order for us to be whole. That is not how we are whole. It actually blows holes in us. All right. Only way that we can be whole is by repentance and putting on Christ. So he says, "Let us walk honestly as in the day." Again, remembering what we talked about the time that the violence and crime and things are done at night. As in the day, he's repeating himself. Not in revalry. That word revalry is orgies. Sexual immorality, carousing, riotist livering, sex before marriage. Those all those

31:38 things are what St. Paul is talking about that we are supposed to live honestly in the day not in revalries and drunkenness not in lwdness or chambering. Now this word chambering again he's kind of repeating himself is committing adultery. Okay committing adultery and acts of sexual intercourse and living with each other. Okay. So that word chambering and then he goes on to say and lust which is wantedness, excess, unbridled lust, lasuousness and leviciousness not in strife being in contention with people discord among other people. Isn't that a pretty normal one? Right? How many churches have you seen get destroyed because of strife, because of judging? Because of gossiping. How many times have you heard

32:25 me talk about it? Right? Over and over and over again. He says, "Not in strife and in envy." Right? Envy is the negative the negative side of zeal through jealousy. Okay? Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rivalry and drunkenness, not in lwdness or chambering and lust, not in strife and in envy. And then finally in verse 14 at the end of this chapter, the final thing St. Paul says is but right that word but he says all those things but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision that word provision is forethought provincial care

33:12 to make a provision of a thing make no provision for the flesh make no provision for the flesh he's saying we shouldn't even be thinking about sin Right? All sin starts with a thought. We get that temptation in our mind. Remember the loy me comes in with thought. The thought with energy. We have two choices. Cast away the thought or entertain the thought. And St. Paul's telling us, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. We're supposed to put him on. We're supposed to wear him, right? armor of light made no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. What does fulfillment mean? To give to, to

33:59 fulfill, to make whole. And what the body is trying to do for us is wanting us to fulfill its desires. And that word lusts in Greek is the desiring, cravings, the longing for the desire for what is forbidden. Okay? That's what happens to so many people is they're desiring the fulfillment of the lust. So again, St. Paul teaches us as a as the saints teach us and as St. Paul teaches us to be go on guard as we follow God's will. It's constantly as I said in my sermon on Sunday, we're supposed to be watchmen. We're supposed to be ever vigilant about watching out for everything that comes into our lives. St. us. Our beloved St. Narius of our

34:47 church teaches us that we are to be sure to guard in our heart the joy of the Holy Spirit and not allow the evil one to pour out his bitterness to pour out his bitterness. He says beware, beware, he says, lest the paradise that exists in you turns into hell. That's a powerful statement, right? Because we think in our justification that we are holy. None of us are holy. None of us are holy. None of us are justified before the eyes of God. Only by his grace can we stand before God. Only by grace can I stand at the altar. All right. So as we progress in this life, we go through many storms and struggles of the spiritual kind. St. Cypria, he

35:34 teaches that a helmsman is recognized in the tempest in the warfare the soldier is proved. A true sailor or a soldier cannot become the masters of their craft unless they know how to fight through the storms and the battlefields. And it is during the fight he realizes that it could cost him his life if he fails to give it his best. Right? If so, as a soldier, if you gave if you were half in the in the in combat, Anthony, and you gave half of yourself, who would you get yourself killed and other people in your in your platoon? Absolutely. Right. Right. So St. Sony is saying you need to give your best. Right. Because es especially those of us who are married

36:20 as husbands we need to give our best to our spouses. We need to give our best to our families because that is what is deter that determines us in the determination of what it proves to us to being Christians. So a true sailor, a soldier cannot become the masters of their craft unless they know how to fight through the storms and the battlefields. And it is during the fight he realizes that it could cost him his life if he fails to give his best. It is with excellence through the proving grounds that a veteran is made. We are all called to be veterans as Christians. At the beginning when everybody's a catechum, all of us are still catechumans by the way. We're all still learning. But at the beginning, the only thing that I always teach everybody is

37:06 get your prayer rule down. Get your prayer rule down. That is the only way that you are going to learn how to master your passions and to conquer on the battlefield. Okay? It is through experience that the Christian earns his faith and builds endurance to be able to lead others to the freedom of Christ to lead others as well. All of us when we go through heartaches in the church, we all go through it together. How many of us when our kids are sick and we're praying where it hurts us, right? When people go through breakups and when people go through pain, when people go through hurts, right? I hurt for you. I hurt for you. It wounds me. Okay? But it's through that experience that Christ allows us to grow our faith

37:52 and to gain the endurance that we need. So by doing so, by allowing Christ to become the master of our lives, we learn how to become the men and women that God has called us to be. Those are the those are the verses that St. Paul writes to the Romans. Okay? He's talking in chapter 12. He talks about being a living sacrifice, right? He understands everything that he's writing. He's writing through experience of what he experienced in his life, right? He did not have an easy life. Everything that we go through in this life hardly pay it pales in comparison what some of these people did, right? And a lot of the saints that you read their stories, they desire to go through those things because they know that through that

38:39 testing that they become more and more like Christ. Okay. All right. So, that's that. Anybody have any questions or statements or anything that they would like to add or say? Yes. I just when you were initially talking about hatred and anger um and you're talking about anger I mean where does irritation fit in with that is you know sometimes you feel irritated by something. Well, again, I mean like the first tough step to being angry or is that I mean, you know, I mean, again, going back to dispassion, right? We need to get to we need to become people that get to the

39:25 place where we don't even get irritated about stuff. You know, a lot of times we get irritated because it hurts. Again, that one prayer, that beautiful prayer in that in that prayer book, it says when people fail to meet to our expectations, we get irritated, right? We get irritated. Then that irritation, like you just said, is kind of the gateway to our anger, right? And to our and and then leads us ultimately to our hatred, right? When we get irritated at somebody and they continue to do it, we get frustrated and we get angry. Are can we be irritated and not sin? Of course we can. Are we supposed to get angry at injustice? Of course we are. Are we supposed to hate sin? Of course we are. Right? We're not supposed to hate people, but we're supposed to hate sin. Right? God hates sin, right? God and

40:13 Jesus tells us that he has no part with the people that sin, right? When when Jesus comes back and the people, remember the ver the parable of the virgins, right? They they were out and about and they're like, they're pounding on the door. I I never knew you. I don't know who you are. You weren't prepared. Right? So therefore, even even as we getting irritated, we need to get to the point and I know it's hard. I mean, I know all this is a very very high level of virtue that we're looking at, right? But we got to talk about these virtues, right? Because even when we're irritated, I try very hard not to even get irritated at my spouse, right? I I want to love her, right? Do I get irritated? Of course I do. Does she get irritated at me all the time, right? But but but the thing is, you

41:00 know, but but we've learned how to love each other, okay? We've learned how to honor, respect each other because we pray for those things, right? Every single day, my wife and I are praying for each other to help to teach us how to love each other, to teach us how to love God, right? God doesn't get irritated at us at our stupidity, right? He may get frustrated and Jesus got frustrated at at the temple, but that's in his humanity, right? The incarnation was something that God took on, right? He He became flesh. And I mean, we we see in the scriptures he got frustrated, right? When when when James and John said when they were when they were throwing the rocks at them, right? What did James and John say? Call down

41:46 fire from heaven and burn them up. And Jesus is like, "What?" Right? What are you talking about? You're going to use God's power because they were throwing rocks at us, right? You're going to use God's power. You know that, right? But that's how that's how small-minded a lot of times we are, right? So we I think I think even with irritation, we got to be wor we got to be cautious about what we get irritated about because it w those things wound us, right? When especially in the church when you hear somebody saying something or hear somebody doing something or they don't do what you think that they should be doing, you get irritated. Why get irritated? Right? I used to feel that way, you know, when people would come into the church late, I would get irritated. It would irritate me. Come on. Don't they respect God

42:31 enough, you know, and ultimately, what was I saying? Don't they respect me enough? Right? Yes, it should be God, but ultimately they irritated me, right? But at the same time, I should be like, "Oh, they came during communion. Glory to God, they at least made it." You know, glory to God. Even if you come five minutes before that one beautiful that one beautiful prayer that St. John Chrystome does during Pusca, right? For those of you who have fasted for the whole time, for you that fasted for one week, for you to fasted one day, all are welcome, right? All are welcome. All right. Nadia, about irritation. He always I'm irritated you're asking me that question. Yeah, I'm going to answer

43:18 irritated. The thing is about irritation. Sometimes you have to be irritated for righteousness. Yes. Okay. It's like somebody if you see misjudging someone is you and and or talking behind someone I just say okay this person is not here don't talk about it or I really and what's the temptation though right when you see somebody talking about somebody what's the temptation to listen to listen right then you then you become just as sinful right or if they're talking about somebody then you go up to the person that they've been talking about and then say you know what this person was telling you about talking about you know what I mean with this something else I mean irritation that

44:04 somebody's misjud misjudging and I just correct I said that's maybe it's not right just to talk about somebody oh absolutely if you can if you can keep it at that okay and also uh sometimes when uh and we talk about that some people even try to put this the church or something you know down and I get irritated with And I said that instead of not putting something thing, you know, supposed to defend it. This is your church. You're supposed to lift it up, you know, things like that. So, yes, you can can get irritated. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it won't, you know, it's a it's a source of pride for us too, right? I mean, I love saying nectar, too. And if somebody said something about the church, it would it would irritate me too. But again, a lot of times when people are talking, they

44:51 don't know the complete truth, right? They they don't know the complete story, right? Especially when you're when you're you're talking about other people, a lot of times you don't know the whole situation, right? So that therefore, we should actually not talk about anybody, right? We should not be and if you have a problem with somebody, you're supposed to go up to them and say, "Hey, I got a problem with you. Can we talk about this?" Right? Mhm. But a lot of times that's what people do is they they they chatter among themselves and then you get other people on board with your with your gossip, right? And you should be irritated. We should be we should be standing up for the church when it's called for for us to stand up for the church. Yeah. Just like you said, father, um we're not supposed to get rid of our passions. We're supposed to master them. So with anger, we're

45:39 supposed to have righteous anger. That's right. Right. So we're supposed to have anger at sin. If I see you sitting, I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at the sin for making you fall under sin. So, we got we got to learn how to master. It's like training. Every day is training. If you go to the gym cuz you want to get in shape or you want to get big, you got to train that same muscle group. It's the same with our souls cuz our body's gotten so used to running the show that our soul really doesn't have any say into it. But fasting and all these other tools that the church prescribed us flips the script. So now remember the the long-term goal is we want to submit to our spirit not our this disgusting flesh that we this is a suit like father said this is a soup you know we want to wear our best when Christ comes back which is that light garment you know god

46:26 willing we all get a shield right yeah but also another thing is about you know when when like uh Anthony said that's when you if somebody said why we don't go support and try to to support and get them in the right way again. Why we don't do that? Right? I mean, but what what's what's our natural inclination? You see somebody sending, "Did you know what that person did?" That's not what we're supposed to go to this person and say, you know, we notice something like this, you know, we're trying to get them back. When you show them support, you know, that maybe that's what's need to to go back to the right uh path, put them back on course, put them back on track. Yeah. Again, that's what that's what that's what repentance is, right? Matana is is is turning to 180 degrees,

47:15 right? Turning away from the sin, getting in the right direction, going in the right direction, right? And that and if we all are responsible for ourselves and if we see our brother or sister sinning, we go up to them and we tell them, why are you doing this? What's what what is your motivation? Right? Because a lot because a lot of times we don't know why somebody's doing something, right? We need to find out what the reason is. All right? Or you come talk to the me the priest, right? Then we take care of it. But we need we need to we need to deal with people gently in the church in order for us because we're all again on the same place going the same direction. Yep. Anybody else? You said something about being prepared

48:02 cuz we don't know what's going to happen next. Um, yesterday I was driving around. We were doing stuff and I saw an accident and then mama said something about you need to prepare because life can go like you need to be prepared and you were saying something about being prepared spiritually and I feel like that kind of worked out in a way that kind of like put it into perspective that you have to be prepared spiritually before something happens because we don't know what's going to happen. Those people probably weren't expecting to be in an accident, right? So, were they spiritually prepared enough? Do you think maybe that was a wakeup call? Like, and now and now as you're learning how to drive, you realize it's more than just looking forward, right? You're constantly looking to the left and the

48:47 right. You're con you're looking at your rear view mirror. Not as often as you, you know, you look at it, but you don't concentrate on the rear view mirror, right? Cuz not what's what's behind you is not as important as what's in front. That's why the windshield's big, right? The rearview mirror is small, right? Right? When you're backing up, unless you're backing up, you know, but again, even when you're backing up, you got to be aware of all your surroundings. Well, if you don't have the camera, you have to look back. Well, even on the road when you're driving, if you're constantly looking all around, if some if you see somebody about to hit you, you have that chance Yeah. to swerve and say you and your family. Be aware, like you said, but a lot of us are complacent. You know, the one thing that I realized like when I was in Colorado, you know, going going

49:33 going from my hometown of Craig to another town in Mer that that that whole 90 miles, that was one of the places that were the most dangerous with elk, right? And and if you were driving at night, a,200 lb elk jumping in front of you, the your vehicle's finished, you know? So, you always had to be ready. always had to be prepared, always had to be paying attention. And that's what we need to do in in in the road as well, right? And again, our vehicle, if we're using the metaphor of the vehicle, what does our vehicle need? Maintenance, right? Our vehicle needs an alignment, the confession. Our vehicle needs to be filled, right? Eucharist. Our vehicle

50:19 needs to to have the oil, right? The uncction. All of those things are needed in order for us to to for that vehicle to function correctly, right? And those are all the things that we not only driving, but you as you become a driver, you you prep you you you have to be prep listen to your your engine, right? When you have a vehicle and and and the engine's moving slowly, but all of a sudden it starts going tick tick tick tick tick and you're like, "Wait a minute, something wrong, right?" Well, that's the same thing that happens in our souls, too. You know, a lot of times there's something that's warning us, right? Especially you ladies, you know, you ladies have have an have the woman's intuition. Pay attention to that woman's intuition. Don't ignore that woman's

51:06 intuition because that intuition will teach you a lot, especially if you have it fine-tuned into paying attention to the spiritual aspect of what's going on around you. That's why St. Paul, they always tell, you know, in his letters, be aware. Yeah. to be aware of it. Be aware, be sober, right? He he's constantly talking about spiritual warfare, right? The spiritual warfare is such a huge aspect of our walk with God. And it's war because our souls are on the line. Yeah. Anybody else? All right. Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thank you. God be with you. Be blessed. Have a wonderful, blessed night. [Music]

51:58 for everybody. [Music]