Semon-Sunday June 22 2008
Sixth Sunday After Pentecost
Brothers and sisters
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you heard about “The Secret?” Yes “the Secret.” The Secret refers to an alleged revelation that a woman named Rhonda Byrne had. Much of what she supposedly learned in the revelation was released to the public in a movie and then, I believe with more detail, in a book and has become an international phenomenon, helped in large part by Oprah Winfrey who recommended The Secret on her show. A quote from the web-site for the Secret says.
The Secret reveals the most powerful law in the universe. The knowledge of this law has run like a golden thread through the lives and the teachings of all the prophets, seers, sages and saviors in the world's history, and through the lives of all truly great men and women. All that they have ever accomplished or attained has been done in full accordance with this most powerful law. Without exception, every human being has the ability to transform any weakness or suffering into strength, power, perfect peace, health, and abundance. The alleged secret to the secret is simply that your thoughts control the universe. Through this “law of attraction” you can manifest your desires.. If you imagine and envision hard enough that something is yours, it will become yours. There you don’t need to buy the book or see the film. I just saved you $20 and most likely a lot of frustration.
Seriously the fact that this is referred to as a secret shows that behind this theory, or whatever you want to call it, is the idea that it is now up to you to attain the benefits contained within the Secret, which will give you the fulfillment we all want.
And this is one of the ways that we know that the Secret is completely and utterly bogus, and is completely and utterly incompatible with the Word that our Lord brings to us this morning. For when we read the Gospel lesson for this morning we can see that our Lord Jesus refers to something that He shared with the disciples “in the dark” or “whispered in their ear.” In other words Jesus is referring to something that He shared with the disciples in private. But then Jesus also lets them know that they will soon be called upon to speak this “secret” in the daylight and proclaim it from the roofs.
Jesus is speaking here of course of the Gospel; of the good news of the coming of the kingdom of God in Christ Jesus, the good news that in Christ Jesus we are reconciled and made right with God, the good news that in the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, sin and the devil have been defeated and heaven’s gates have been flung open-wide and the good news that those who acknowledge the Lord Jesus before others, the Lord Jesus will acknowledge before His Father in heaven.
The Secret, referring now back to Rhonda Byrne’s movie and book promises the knowledge that we need to create a joyful life and the means to unlimited happiness, love, health and prosperity. And she claims that you can find it yourself if you know the secret and can envision effectively enough everything that you desire.
But what Ms Byrne and Oprah Winfrey and anyone else swept away by this mythical secret fails to realize is that our wants and desires are diametrically opposed to the good and perfect will of our Father in heaven. St Paul writes in Romans 7 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
And so left to our own desires we are left wallowing in sin and despair. There might be a part of you that desires truly good things, or that may be appalled at different varieties and aspects of sin but left to our own desires, reason and strength we just run from one sin to the next looking for the next secret to latch onto.
Whatever the Secret might be able to provide, or for that matter any of the other countless means that we come up with in our seemingly endless quests for self-fulfillment, they all fall short of the simple and eternal promise of forgiveness and eternal life that our Lord brings to us in His Word. They all fall far far short of the promise of Christ Jesus confessing your name to His Father in Heaven.
Left to our own reason and strength we are dead in our trespasses, but when we let go of the myths and lies that the devil and the world and our sinful nature tempt us with there is only One recourse left and that is to cling to the One who, in our Gospel lesson is speaking to the disciples of something that He had spoken to them of in private telling them that soon they would be called to shout it from the rooftops; and that was the good news of what He was preparing for, when He would lay down His life, taking upon Himself all of your sin, and sickness, and despair and your seeking after the latest self-centered secret to come cross the pike; taking all of that with Him to the cross for you where sin and the devil were defeated for you.
And three days later was raised from the grave for your justification as He daily justifies you by daily acknowledging you to His Father, the same as you acknowledge Him before others.
And so indeed we are called to acknowledge our Lord Jesus before others. We are called to continue the work of the disciples acknowledging and confessing our Lord Jesus before others. Indeed what was whispered to the disciples in the dark we are called to speak in the daylight, what was whispered to them we are called to shout from the rooftops.
Are you doing that? Do you confess the name of Christ Jesus as your Savior in public, to your friends, family, co-workers? Do you acknowledge Him as your Savior before others. I am not talking about standing on a corner preaching to strangers as they walk by or anything like that. But do people whom our Lord has placed in your life know that the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus has had an impact on your life? Or is that just something you do on Sundays?
It’s not always easy. Often it is much more convenient to just keep our faith to ourselves and limit it to being that thing we do on Sundays, but the truth is a non-confessional internalized faith is not what our Lord Jesus wants of us or calls us to. And in fact He says when we fail to acknowledge Him in public He will not acknowledge us before His Father.
We fear rejection but Jesus faced all the rejection we could muster and it led Him to the Cross, upon which He did nothing short of confessing your name to His Father in Heaven saying of the very ones who crucified Him, which included us “they belong to Me” as He bore the penalty for your sin and defeated sin and the devil for you. And so there is no reason to fear rejection or even death because as St Paul reminds us in the second lesson, in baptism we have already faced death. Indeed in baptism, we were baptized with Christ Jesus into His death. Death no longer has dominion over us, the wages of sin is death, and they were paid when our Lord Jesus laid down His life for us.
Indeed we do live in a world that is inclined to rejecting the Gospel. The assaults on the Gospel will continue through rejection, ridicule, false gospels and in some parts of the world confessing the name of Jesus could cost a person their life. But with Jeremiah we know that we don’t need to worry. We have been freed to proclaim the good news without fear of retribution. The One who claims you in baptism confesses your name before His Father, and so when you answer the call to confess His name in public, you are not performing a meritorious work, you are simply responding to the burning fire of the Holy Spirit shut-up in your bones and like Jeremiah you can’t hold it in, you are among the needy who has been delivered from the hands of the evildoers, and so as you hear this Word proclaimed to you and as you will soon come forward and receive the body and blood of the Lord Jesus, know that is nothing short of the work of the Holy Spirit nurturing, preserving and sustaining your faith and refusing to allow the Gospel that claimed you in baptism to remain a secret.
Amen
Brothers and sisters
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you heard about “The Secret?” Yes “the Secret.” The Secret refers to an alleged revelation that a woman named Rhonda Byrne had. Much of what she supposedly learned in the revelation was released to the public in a movie and then, I believe with more detail, in a book and has become an international phenomenon, helped in large part by Oprah Winfrey who recommended The Secret on her show. A quote from the web-site for the Secret says.
The Secret reveals the most powerful law in the universe. The knowledge of this law has run like a golden thread through the lives and the teachings of all the prophets, seers, sages and saviors in the world's history, and through the lives of all truly great men and women. All that they have ever accomplished or attained has been done in full accordance with this most powerful law. Without exception, every human being has the ability to transform any weakness or suffering into strength, power, perfect peace, health, and abundance. The alleged secret to the secret is simply that your thoughts control the universe. Through this “law of attraction” you can manifest your desires.. If you imagine and envision hard enough that something is yours, it will become yours. There you don’t need to buy the book or see the film. I just saved you $20 and most likely a lot of frustration.
Seriously the fact that this is referred to as a secret shows that behind this theory, or whatever you want to call it, is the idea that it is now up to you to attain the benefits contained within the Secret, which will give you the fulfillment we all want.
And this is one of the ways that we know that the Secret is completely and utterly bogus, and is completely and utterly incompatible with the Word that our Lord brings to us this morning. For when we read the Gospel lesson for this morning we can see that our Lord Jesus refers to something that He shared with the disciples “in the dark” or “whispered in their ear.” In other words Jesus is referring to something that He shared with the disciples in private. But then Jesus also lets them know that they will soon be called upon to speak this “secret” in the daylight and proclaim it from the roofs.
Jesus is speaking here of course of the Gospel; of the good news of the coming of the kingdom of God in Christ Jesus, the good news that in Christ Jesus we are reconciled and made right with God, the good news that in the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, sin and the devil have been defeated and heaven’s gates have been flung open-wide and the good news that those who acknowledge the Lord Jesus before others, the Lord Jesus will acknowledge before His Father in heaven.
The Secret, referring now back to Rhonda Byrne’s movie and book promises the knowledge that we need to create a joyful life and the means to unlimited happiness, love, health and prosperity. And she claims that you can find it yourself if you know the secret and can envision effectively enough everything that you desire.
But what Ms Byrne and Oprah Winfrey and anyone else swept away by this mythical secret fails to realize is that our wants and desires are diametrically opposed to the good and perfect will of our Father in heaven. St Paul writes in Romans 7 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
And so left to our own desires we are left wallowing in sin and despair. There might be a part of you that desires truly good things, or that may be appalled at different varieties and aspects of sin but left to our own desires, reason and strength we just run from one sin to the next looking for the next secret to latch onto.
Whatever the Secret might be able to provide, or for that matter any of the other countless means that we come up with in our seemingly endless quests for self-fulfillment, they all fall short of the simple and eternal promise of forgiveness and eternal life that our Lord brings to us in His Word. They all fall far far short of the promise of Christ Jesus confessing your name to His Father in Heaven.
Left to our own reason and strength we are dead in our trespasses, but when we let go of the myths and lies that the devil and the world and our sinful nature tempt us with there is only One recourse left and that is to cling to the One who, in our Gospel lesson is speaking to the disciples of something that He had spoken to them of in private telling them that soon they would be called to shout it from the rooftops; and that was the good news of what He was preparing for, when He would lay down His life, taking upon Himself all of your sin, and sickness, and despair and your seeking after the latest self-centered secret to come cross the pike; taking all of that with Him to the cross for you where sin and the devil were defeated for you.
And three days later was raised from the grave for your justification as He daily justifies you by daily acknowledging you to His Father, the same as you acknowledge Him before others.
And so indeed we are called to acknowledge our Lord Jesus before others. We are called to continue the work of the disciples acknowledging and confessing our Lord Jesus before others. Indeed what was whispered to the disciples in the dark we are called to speak in the daylight, what was whispered to them we are called to shout from the rooftops.
Are you doing that? Do you confess the name of Christ Jesus as your Savior in public, to your friends, family, co-workers? Do you acknowledge Him as your Savior before others. I am not talking about standing on a corner preaching to strangers as they walk by or anything like that. But do people whom our Lord has placed in your life know that the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus has had an impact on your life? Or is that just something you do on Sundays?
It’s not always easy. Often it is much more convenient to just keep our faith to ourselves and limit it to being that thing we do on Sundays, but the truth is a non-confessional internalized faith is not what our Lord Jesus wants of us or calls us to. And in fact He says when we fail to acknowledge Him in public He will not acknowledge us before His Father.
We fear rejection but Jesus faced all the rejection we could muster and it led Him to the Cross, upon which He did nothing short of confessing your name to His Father in Heaven saying of the very ones who crucified Him, which included us “they belong to Me” as He bore the penalty for your sin and defeated sin and the devil for you. And so there is no reason to fear rejection or even death because as St Paul reminds us in the second lesson, in baptism we have already faced death. Indeed in baptism, we were baptized with Christ Jesus into His death. Death no longer has dominion over us, the wages of sin is death, and they were paid when our Lord Jesus laid down His life for us.
Indeed we do live in a world that is inclined to rejecting the Gospel. The assaults on the Gospel will continue through rejection, ridicule, false gospels and in some parts of the world confessing the name of Jesus could cost a person their life. But with Jeremiah we know that we don’t need to worry. We have been freed to proclaim the good news without fear of retribution. The One who claims you in baptism confesses your name before His Father, and so when you answer the call to confess His name in public, you are not performing a meritorious work, you are simply responding to the burning fire of the Holy Spirit shut-up in your bones and like Jeremiah you can’t hold it in, you are among the needy who has been delivered from the hands of the evildoers, and so as you hear this Word proclaimed to you and as you will soon come forward and receive the body and blood of the Lord Jesus, know that is nothing short of the work of the Holy Spirit nurturing, preserving and sustaining your faith and refusing to allow the Gospel that claimed you in baptism to remain a secret.
Amen
posted by Steve at 1:50 PM
2 Comments:
Great sermon. I really liked the idea of the secret and the connection with that evil book and idea. (This is why I don't use illustrations-I can never think of them).
I absolutely loved this:
"We fear rejection but Jesus faced all the rejection we could muster and it led Him to the Cross, upon which He did nothing short of confessing your name to His Father in Heaven saying of the very ones who crucified Him, which included us “they belong to Me” as He bore the penalty for your sin and defeated sin and the devil for you."
I loved the line that Jesus faced all the rejection we could muster. Great line!
Very good! If it's secret then it's not from Christ. Everything we need to know is revealed not in revelations from flighty individuals but in the Word.
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