Are My Secret Thoughts Really Secret?
Uncovering Sin
Ephesians 6:5-9
Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill
This last week, we in London all went to August Bank Holiday. It’s a special holiday in England and it was last weekend and so we all went on different little picnics and that kind of thing and some of us went to what is known as a Roman Palace in town northeast of London. And it is amazing, they dug up this palace that the Roman army originally established in Britain and dug it up from several layers down, and they now have it all exposed and you were able to see mosaic floors that were laid there as the Romans originally put them down. And the amazing thing was they were put down in 75 A.D. That’s about 45 years after Jesus died, and certainly during Paul’s lifetime.
You could see the mosaic floors exactly as they were laid down. It’s interesting as a sidelight, one of the descriptive panels says that the mosaic of this floor is not really very good. It’s kind of second rate compared with the other one across the way in another room and my wife said, “You know, I bet that guy thought “Oh, nobody will ever see this”, and all of us are looking at it now. Maybe we say that in our own lives and don’t realize that it will all be seen eventually. But, that certainly gives you a sense, doesn’t it? Nineteen hundred years ago is not so long, really. Isn’t that true?
It really telescopes time when we can look at mosaic floors, little pieces of mosaic, put into cement and they’re exactly as they were 1900 years ago. You can see how close that time is to us and that in a sense loved ones, time is very deceptive. You and I think of 1900 years ago, as centuries ago. It’s really true that it’s not so very long ago and just about 1,953 years ago, a man stood up in an upper room and said, “This is My body” and He broke the bread, “which is given for you” and then He took wine and He held it up to them and said, “this is the new covenant in My blood which is shed for you”. And then He died, you remember on the Cross and came back from being dead, came back from being dead and appeared among His followers at different times, over a period of 30 or 40 days.
This is what He explained to them. “You can see that all I said was true. I am not an ordinary man as you yourselves began to realize. I am the Son of the Creator of the world and My death on that Cross was not just a physical death there. That death of Mine, took place even before the beginning of the world. My Father who made you,” and now of course, His words come right down to us in this room, “My Father who made you, each one of you, made you as free agents so that you can do what you want, but in His great infinite wisdom, He foresaw what you would do and He foresaw the kinds of people you would become and He knew you would mess things up as you have messed them up in different ways, He knew that.”
So loved ones, Jesus says that your Creator is not caught off balance about the things in your own life at the moment that you know are wrong. You know things that make your own life miserable, that make everybody else’s life miserable. You find yourself criticizing people, and you don’t want to criticize them. You know that’s wrong and it makes life depressing for you because you’re always seeing the bad things in everybody. Or the way you get anxious, anxious, anxious and worry, worry, worry and it gets a grip on your heart and knots in your stomach and you don’t know how to get out of it. You know it’s wrong and you know it’s bad, but you can’t change it even though you’ve tried.
Jesus says, “Your Creator knew you would live in such a way that you would become like that, and because He dwells in timelessness above time, He put you all into me.” Jesus says, “And when I died on Calvary in your history books, but way before even the beginning of the world, you were destroyed and all those things in you that are wrong were destroyed with Me and when I was raised from the dead, you were raised up and made new.” And that is reality, that’s what He said.
That’s reality. The things in your life at present are the result of you believing a lie and they’re very real but they’re not reality. Reality is that you have been remade in Jesus. Jesus says, “If you’ll just believe that this morning, My spirit will flood into you and make that reality real in your life this morning.”
Now loved ones, I just like to say three things that are appropriate to that, if that’s true. Don’t cover your sins this morning. You only need to cover them if nothing has been done about them, or if you don’t want to rid of them. But don’t cover them. It’s covering your sins that makes life miserable and actually can bring sickness to you. That’s why the bible says, “Confess your sins to one another that you may be healed.” Don’t cover your sins.
You know the way you get used to rationalizing things and covering them over and saying they’re not so bad. Don’t cover them. God can only cover with Jesus’ blood what you uncover. So, uncover things between you and God this morning and indeed if they’re sins that have affected other people, uncover them with the other people, apologize to the other people, make the thing right, show God that in every way Lord, what You’ve done to me in Jesus that’s what I want, that’s what I accept into my own life.
So don’t cover your sins, uncover them this morning, confess them to God. Some of us have been amazed at how many of us live in misery year after year after year, because we cover up something that we’re ashamed of that we did years and years ago and we’re still trying to cover it instead of be open about it. Really loved ones, we just need to uncover those things and see, “Look I am a miserable creature that’s why I was crucified with Christ and Lord, I accept that. I just want to be open and honest about this thing,” otherwise do you see what you do, you end up trying to establish your own righteousness.
You know you try to pretend, “Oh well, I am not really so bad,” no, just say, “Lord, I uncover everything that You have covered with Jesus blood,” and then stop doing them. You can’t plead the blood of Jesus and shed the blood of Jesus at the same time. Do you see that? I mean if you keep on doing the thing that’s wrong, you’re actually crucifying Jesus afresh and you can’t plead His blood and shed His blood at the same time.
So, stop doing it in your life, whatever the cost. Whatever the cost, stop, just stop it now, and then lastly, give your life to Him. He has given His life up for you, give your life to Him, give it to Him, say, “Lord, I have been looking out from myself and my job. I’ve been looking out from myself and my career. I’ve been looking out from myself and my future. Lord Jesus, I am going to give my life to You. You gave up everything for me, here is my life. Anyway, my life has already gone, it was crucified in You. Lord this thing that I have is nothing. It’s an imitation of what You wanted it to be.
So, Lord Jesus, I give my life to You for You to live over again inside me”, and loved ones, if you do that, this communion service will mean that the spirit of Jesus will come into your heart and
you’ll certainly sense that you’re reconciled to God. But the wonder is, you’ll begin to have your heart cleansed by the Holy Spirit and you’ll begin to be new and different in your own life. So you know, that can be yours. All I am saying is believe reality and behave according to it this morning as we take communion.
So, during the time that the bread and wine are going around, I would suggest that we uncover our sins and that we resolve to stop them, so that we stop shedding Jesus’ blood and then that we deliberately give our lives into His hands for Him to prosper or destroy. That’s it, for Him to prosper or to destroy. What’s killing most of us is, we have a grip on our lives that we won’t let go of. It wears you out. Just let it go and leave it to Him. You’ll begin to see a life that flows instead of one that judders along. All right, let us pray.
Dear father, we want that change badly. We have fiddled and we have tinkered and we have tried to improve and Lord we know it is all to no avail. It seems that every part of us has to be changed. It does seem indeed that the only way to do anything with us is to destroy us and make us all over again and be born again. No, Lord we come to You now to do those things, to uncover these things that are deep within us that we’ve maybe done for years or that we did years ago.
Lord, we would uncover them now for You to see. Lord, You already can see them, so all we’re doing is being honest with You. Lord we would be honest with You because we know that will enable You to give us Your spirit. So Lord, we would be honest and then we would stop these things. Lord we would make this the last day for them. Father, we don’t care how often we have to make that decision, we would make it firmly today. This is the last day that we will do those things and Lord, we will not make provision for these things in our lives.
We will finish with them now, this very day. And then Lord, we would give You our lives. Lord Jesus, You gave Your own life up at 33 for us. Lord, we give You our lives, here they are Lord Jesus. If You can live Your life over again in this world and make some change in it through our bodies, then Lord here, will You take these and we will be Yours and do what You ask from this day forward.