Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost

Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost
Light of Christ Anglican Church
The Rev. Bart Morrison November 9th, 2025

Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost

No More Limping Between Two Opinions 

Text: 1 Kings 18:20–21 

Elijah’s question still echoes across the centuries:  

“How long will you go limping between two opinions? If the Lord is  God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him.”  

It wasn’t a crisis of information—it was a crisis of loyalty. Israel knew the truth,  but they didn’t have the courage to live it out.  

We’re standing on our own modern Mount Carmel. Before us are two rival faiths:  the ancient faith in the Creator and Redeemer, and the new religion of the self— what Carl Trueman calls ‘the triumph of the modern self.’  

In our age, the self has taken the place of God as the source of truth, meaning,  and morality. The old idols haven’t vanished—they’ve just been baptized into  new ideologies.  

I. From Covenant Memory to Cultural Amnesia  

Israel’s first failure was forgetfulness. They forgot who God was—and who they  were as His people. Trueman calls this ‘cultural amnesia’— what happens when  a society loses touch with its moral and spiritual roots.  

In earlier generations, truth and moral order were seen as gifts from God’s  design. But today, meaning isn’t discovered—it’s invented. Instead of asking,  ‘What does God command?’ the modern person asks, ‘What do I feel most  deeply?’  

And when a culture forgets its Maker, it forgets what it means to be human.  When it forgets the Cross, it forgets mercy. 

Elijah’s question—’Who is Lord?’—calls us to remember again that we are not  self-made. We are a covenant people, marked in baptism, redeemed by Christ’s  blood, and called to remember the Lord our God.  

II. From Worship of God to Worship of Self  

Our culture has a new creed: ‘I have to be true to myself.’ That’s what Trueman  calls expressive individualism—the belief that feelings define reality and that the  highest virtue is self-expression rather than obedience.  

But that’s just Baal worship in modern form. Baal promised control and  prosperity on human terms. Today’s idols promise the same—just with new  tools: medical precision, digital liturgies, and social approval.  

This spirit fuels the confusion of our times—gender redefinition, abortion, and  the reshaping of marriage—all rooted in the same idea: the self on the throne.  

When the self becomes god, desire becomes sacred. What was once governed by  divine law is now justified simply because it’s wanted.  

But Scripture says:  

You are not your own; you were bought with a price.’ (1 Cor. 6:19–20)  

Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. To reject God’s design isn’t freedom— it’s bondage.  

At the Cross, Christ didn’t express Himself—He denied Himself. And in that  self-denial, He redeemed the world.  

III. From the Sexual Revolution to Covenant Renewal  

The sexual revolution isn’t just moral confusion—it’s a new religion. It’s what  happens when truth is cut loose from creation and identity is separated from the  body.  

If the self is god, then desire becomes revelation. The body and sexuality, once  ordered toward covenant and fruitfulness, become tools of self-expression.  

The priests of Baal cut themselves seeking blessing. Our age performs its own  bloody rituals—sacrificing bodies, children, and consciences on the altar of  autonomy. 

But the fire that fell on Mount Carmel still burns in the Gospel. At Calvary,  judgment fell on Christ, and out of that judgment came redeeming love.  

And still God calls: ‘If the Lord is God, follow Him.’  

The cure for cultural amnesia is remembrance.  

The cure for expressive individualism is repentance. The cure for the sexual  revolution is redemption.  

IV. Redeemed Desire: The Christian Alternative  

God doesn’t erase our desires—He redeems them. True freedom isn’t doing  whatever we want; it’s learning to want what is good.  

Grace doesn’t silence love—it purifies it. The Christian life redirects our longings  from self toward the Savior.  

Modern culture says, ‘I’ll be happy when I follow my heart.’  

The Gospel says, ‘My heart will be whole only when it follows Christ.’  

1. The Heart of Augustine’s Teaching: “You Are What You Love” 

For Augustine, the Christian life isn’t primarily about what we know or even  what we do—it’s about what we love most. 

He taught that our desires (amores) are the engine of the soul. Every human  being is made to love—the question is what and how we love. 

In his Confessions and City of God, Augustine insists that sin is not loving bad  things, but loving good things in the wrong order. 

A rightly ordered life is one in which our love for the highest good is  supreme.”(City of God, XV.22) 

So the problem of sin is not that we desire, but that we misdirect our desires. 

We love things that are temporary as if they were ultimate—or we use God to get  what we really love, instead of loving God for His own sake.

2. Ordered vs. Disordered Love (Ordo Amoris) 

Augustine describes the moral life as a matter of ordering our loves rightly: 

• Rightly ordered love: Loving God first, and all other things in relation to Him. 

• Disordered love: Loving created things—wealth, pleasure, power, even family—more than the Creator. 

When the soul loves God, it loves itself rightly; but when it loves itself in place of God, it goes astray.”(On the Trinity, VIII.8) 

This means even good loves—like family, work, or community—become idols if  they are placed above God. 

Only by loving God supremely do our other loves find their proper balance and  joy. 

3. Grace and the Healing of Desire 

Augustine saw the human will as wounded by sin—we cannot rightly order our  loves by our own effort. 

We need divine grace to heal and redirect the heart. 

In Confessions, he prays: 

You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until  they rest in You.” (Confessions, I.1) 

This “restlessness” shows that our hearts long for God, even when we chase after  lesser loves. 

Grace doesn’t destroy desire—it reorders it, teaching us to love the Giver more  than the gifts. 

The Holy Spirit, for Augustine, is the love of God poured into our  hearts (Romans 5:5). 

Through the Spirit, God reshapes our desires so that we love Him above all and  our neighbor for His sake.

4. The Role of Worship and Habit 

Augustine understood that our loves are not shaped only by ideas but by habits  and practices. 

• This is why he placed such importance on: 

• Liturgy: Worship re-trains the heart to delight in God. 

• Prayer: Desire is disciplined by regular communion with God. 

Community: The Church is a “school of love,” where our affections are  reoriented. 

Modern theologians like James K.A. Smith summarize Augustine’s insight this  way: 

We are not primarily thinking beings, or even believing beings—we  are loving beings. (Desiring the Kingdom, 2009) 

Augustine would agree: discipleship is the slow re-education of desire. 

5. The Goal: Rest in God 

The end of all rightly ordered love is rest—not apathy, but the deep peace that  comes when the heart finds its home in God. 

For Augustine, this is what heaven itself means: perfect love, perfectly ordered. 

To love God is to love the good itself; to love the good itself is to be truly  happy. (De Doctrina Christiana, I.23) 

Conclusion: A Call to Wholehearted Faith  

Elijah’s question still stands: “How long will you go limping between two  opinions?”  

If Christ is Lord, then He must be Lord of everything—our bodies, our desires,  our families, and our nation. The Church cannot serve both Baal and the Cross.  

Our calling is not only to condemn the darkness but to rebuild the altar of the  Lord—in our homes, schools, and hearts. 

Each Eucharist renews that covenant. Each confession restores our memory. Each  prayer resists the worship of self.  

May the fire of the Holy Spirit fall again—cleansing, empowering, awakening us  to remember the God who still answers by fire.  

Closing Prayer  

Almighty God, who once answered Elijah by fire, kindle in us the flame of true  devotion.  

Deliver our generation from forgetfulness, from self-worship, and from the  confusion of unholy desire.  

Give us courage to confess Christ before the world, and grace to follow Him  fully—in body and soul, in life and in death.  

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy  Spirit, one God, now and forever.  

Amen.