Everybody
knows Frank. In fact, everybody kind of
avoids Frank. He is such a drain. Frank is walking negativity. He is negativity in the flesh. If you ask Frank how he is doing today, you
will soon find out that his neck hurts;
that his neighbors are stupid; that it’s so hot outside that he really
just wants to die. Frank never seems to
have a pleasant thought and it does not take a rocket scientist to know that is
because deep in Frank’s heart he is not a happy man.
I am sure that
we all know a Frank and at times we ourselves have been a Frank. Our outlook on life can sometimes be so
marred by bad happenings that all we want to do is complain. Then, this complaining becomes a habit. And soon, every word out of our mouths is a
complaint, all because deep down inside we’ve come to believe that life
stinks. We to believe in our hearts and
confess with our mouths through our complaints that life stinks. It is a rule of thumb that how we feel about
life in general or rather what we really believe about the very nature of our
existence will nearly always be revealed in our conversations, if not by what
we say, then by how we say it. What we
believe in our hearts, we will inevitably confess with our lips.
Paul says that
those who find themselves believing in their hearts that God raised Jesus from
the dead and confessing with their lips that he is Lord will find
salvation. This means in its simplest
form that if we have come to the conviction that almost two thousand years ago
God did raise a man, Jesus of Nazareth, from the dead we will find true
hope. We will find a whole new world
where we really experience the power of God at work. We will find that the life we had that was so
full of heartaches, complications and questions has passed away and we are being
changed to being hope-filled people.
Because we
believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, we will inevitably find
that what comes out of our mouths reflects that Jesus is Lord. In fact, we will be compelled to confess that
Jesus is Lord. Just as our old friend Frank
was compelled to complain by his fundamental belief that life stinks, so we by
the hope that is in our hearts that God did indeed raise Jesus from the dead
and will raise us from the dead and therefore death is not the last word in
God’s good creation are compelled to confess that Jesus is Lord. He is God’s last word.
When we
confess that Jesus is Lord we confess that there is no power on earth greater
than him, and we will demonstrate this by living by his teachings. Confessing Jesus as Lord does not end when we
speak the words. The power in the hope
of resurrection given to us by the Holy Spirit will enable us to live like people
who are certain that what we hope in is true.
We will live with joy.
Our scripture
today states that if we confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in
our hearts that God raised him from the dead, then we will be saved. Salvation has two aspects. First, we are saved in the end from God’s
final judgment on sin because of faith.
We know that God is our only hope, that the power which raised Christ
from the dead will also raise us.
Secondly, we are saved now. The
hope that God has given to us keeps us from the self-imposed hell in which our
old friend Frank lives. The hope of our
salvation compels us to live differently, to talk differently – to love. This change in our hearts and in our behavior
is a manifestation of God’s kingdom on this earth, a manifestation of our
coming salvation.
Today is not
Easter when we would typically hear a sermon like this. Today is the first Sunday of Lent. Sermons on this day usually deal with how to
deal with Temptation – Money, Sex, Power, Chocolate, and Coffee. But, we won’t consider that kind of
temptation this morning. Years ago the
theologian Karl Barth said we should start the day with the Bible in one hand
and the newspaper in the other. Reading
the news today it is obvious that there is a pall of hopelessness overshadowing
the world. Its like Frank suddenly
became a news media mogul. Our greatest
temptation as a people of faith today is buying into this hopelessness and
living accordingly. Hopeless people do
dreadful things in the attempt either to live for now or to not live at
all. Today, since it’s Lent, the Soul-searching
Season of the Church year, let us each search ourselves to see what we really
believe in our hearts. Each one of us
must ask inwardly, “Do I feel the hope?
Do I feel the change? Do I feel
the power which God raised Jesus from the dead raising me from the dead? Am I being saved?” If so, let us celebrate this meal together in
the hope that God has given us by raising Jesus from the dead making him Lord
and Giver of Life in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
