NOTE: I am putting my weekly sermons on the church website. It will be on for two weeks (usually posted on Friday) and then placed in the Archives area by date. You can download in a matter of seconds.
Let me know what you think. The church Email is: slumc@direcway.com, Phone: 480.895.8766
January
5, 2002
Sermon: "Erase, Delete, Destroy"
Scripture: Ephesians 1:3-14
Reverend Larry Gerber
State-of-the-art
shredders can destroy massive quantities of sensitive documents in
minutes, but some attempts at destruction go awry. One thing that can never
be shredded
is our sins ...... but they can be forgiven.
Shortly
after the Enron story broke last year, Jay Leno quipped, Enron
is now officially
out of the energy business. They are now in a new business: confetti.
The paper
shredders at Enron weren't the only ones cranking out confetti
in 2002. The
Arthur Andersen accounting firm as well as WorldCom were at it 24/7 until the
courts
told them to stop.
There is
no denying that human beings have laid waste to a great many things in the
course of time: cities, species and a vast amount of cultural, religious and
linguistic
heritage. Much has been lost through wanton and intentional eradication.
There are
times in our personal lives when what we want most is to hide something we did
or said or wrote. This isn't easily done. The Bible tells
us: Nothing remains hidden in
darkness, all is revealed (Mark 4:22).
Now we learn
that some of the shredded documents from Enron may also be recovered - a
task made easier by the fact that pages were sometimes put through the shredding
machines sideways, leaving individual lines of type intact.
Historically,
fire has been an effective and successful means of destruction. When that
sinful or sensitive information in your hard drive or in your file cabinet needs
complete
deletion, try the old-fashioned method. Acquire a local burning permit. Build
a big
hardwood bonfire in your backyard, toss on your paper files, then top it off
with your PC
hard drive. That ought to do it. Maybe.
To completely,
absolutely and with an irrevocable finality delete, destroy and demolish is
difficult. It doesn't matter if we're talking
crime scene evidence, files, records, books, art,
people, cities, cultures, languages or sins. It doesn't matter
if it's hard data, digitalized
information or personal folly. It remains dauntingly difficult to erase mistakes,
or crimes,
or sins, leaving behind no trace.
One way
to avoid the problems - be it greed or something less or more sinister - is
to live
perfectly pure and peaceful lives in the first place.
Do no wrong.
Always and in every way behave flawlessly. Say nothing wrong. Never lie.
Never hurt with words the ones we love. Never speak before thinking. Perhaps
never
speak at all. Think nothing wrong. Keep our thoughts wholesome, our minds upright
and
our imaginations unused. Perhaps not thinking at all is best. Commit no offense
or
transgression. Keep the slate clean. Keep the hard drive empty. Be perfect like
your Father
in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48).
Like that's going to happen.
Even if
we haven't lied about the existence of billions of dollars,
we all sin - big ones or
little ones - and do so nearly every day. It's a given. It's
the way it is; it's the way we are.
It's
as if our souls themselves are assembled with a divinely digitized storage device
endlessly and effortlessly recording all of our thoughts and all of our actions
over a
lifetime, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly for permanent playback
to God.
There just
isn't anywhere to hide. There isn't any
deletion program on earth capable of
that kind of obliteration.
Human beings,
all of us, are born with an advanced and natural capacity to mess up, to
hurt each other and to fall victim to our own desires. We tend to buy into whatever
supports our false self-image. We adore our various desires, addictions and
jealousies. In
short, we readily and easily fall into temptations and simply love those seven
deadly sins in
all their glorious forms: gluttony, lust, envy, pride, wrath, greed and sloth.
On our own we
can't undo the sinful events of our lives. Alone we can't
reinitialize our souls to a random
order of zeros and ones, effectively making our souls empty and blank and sparkling
new.
We can't erase, delete or destroy our life's
record. The data is never lost. The facts are
never destroyed. The statistics of our lives are embedded in the essence of
our souls.
There's no fifth Amendment to plead. God sees all hears all
and knows all. No sin, public
or private, is missed.
Nothing
- the bad, the good, the ugly or the beautiful - is ever hidden from God. What's
done is done. The record is made. The information is in there. Sin and its consequences
can't be covered up or ignored.
Even Paul,
the best of the brightest of his time, had his own struggles. In his letters
he tells
us that his spirit is willing but his flesh, like ours, is weak. He had his
troubles that led him
to sin. He had that thorn in his side which he took time to mention. Paul knew
how he
should behave, and Paul knew how to live the good and holy life, but he found
himself
doing the opposite. Just like us. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak
(Matthew
26:41).
So what can we do if we can't erase, delete or destroy?
It sounds
bleak but it's not really. God gives us each a get-out-of-jail-free
card. It's called
grace through Christ. It's simple to accept forgiveness through
Christ as God's greatest
gift to us.
Here's
the good news: Jesus Christ, in whom we have redemption -
the forgiveness of
sins (Ephesians 1:7 KJV). What we can't
do alone, Christ can do for us. Christ will
delete and destroy all evidence of every sin, if only we ask. Christ is our
hope and our
freedom.
Christ came to make God user-friendly by granting holy forgiveness to those
who choose
to believe. And it is a choice.
Accept in
your heart this offering of God's forgiveness, this gift,
no matter your personal
history of damaged relationships. No matter deeds done, or deeds left undone.
No matter
words said, or left unsaid. No matter the wounding of hearts, or minds, or bodies,
or souls
- your own or others.
Christ is the hope for the hopeless. This promise is given in the Scriptures:
Our sins will be
forgiven by God, by love of our Creator through Christ (Ephesians 1:7).
God through
Christ has this power to completely, absolutely and unabashedly erase,
delete, and destroy our sins and forgive us our trespasses.
We can't do it alone.
So, people
of God, have hope in your hearts. No matter what you have done. No matter
what you have said, or thought, or written. Have hope in Christ.
He's our sin-shredder.
Today, after
we partake in the service of Holy Communion, I want to invite you to come
forward for a renewal of mind, body, and spirit. Think about your life as the
elements
come your way. Look at the bread and the cup, and remember what God has done
for you
through the sacrifice and death of his son, Jesus. Think of the roughness of
the countryside
where Jesus carried his cross, the old rugged cross, not a smooth shiny one.
A cross full of
splinters and rough edges. His body was nailed to that old rugged cross until
death came
and he was put in a grave.
Jesus overcame
the grave and he made the rough places smooth. Figuratively speaking,
Jesus' horrible and ugly death was God's
gift to us, in order that our rough and sharp
edges (sins and faults), might be smoothed away.
When you
come forward to renew your covenant with God; when you come forward to
ask God to erase, delete, and destroy the sins and shame you are carrying, I
want you to
receive a stone, a smooth stone. As you hold it in your hand, and as you take
it with you, I
want you to remember that the beautiful, shiny, and smooth stone, was once a
piece of
jagged rock laying somewhere on the ground. Someone saw the beauty in it, polished
it
and smoothed it, and shined it, until it became a semi-precious gem. God can
do that with
you too. Come and give to God all that you need to dump, and walk away with
a shiny,
smooth, beautiful, redeemed soul. Prepare now for Holy Communion...On the night.........
Let us pray
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Source:
Louria, Donald B. "Second thoughts on extending life spans." The Futurist,
January-February 2002, 44ff.
Let me know what you think. The church Email is: slumc@direcway.com, Phone: 480.895.8766