Do You Know your soul Name? (A4 Paper to tear up - Scottish FudgeTablet or fudge and Samsung with me)
1/Keeping yourself secret in the world
Happy New Year, this is my first sermon of 2015 so this is my 2015 New Year sermon and here you and I are in the house of God. And this is of course, is where we ought to be as we embrace the Year 2015.
Let’s make this the year of the lamb, the year of the Lamb of God. It’s the Chinese year of the sheep as well. I’ll return to this idea of the year of the lamb later in the sermon. But I’m going to start with a question.
Did you ever wonder why New Year’s Day occurs 8 days after Christmas? On the eighth day, the Jewish child was circumcised and received his name. The eighth day is what is known as the octave day of Christmas.
And so it came about, in the Western world at least, that the octave day of Christmas became the beginning of the New Year. It is a happy omen for the New Year to begin on the day when the child Jesus received his name, the only name by which we can be saved (Matt. 1:21; Acts 4:12).
If you haven’t managed a prayer for the new year yet or even if you have how about this one:
`Lord you are mighty to save, I confess in the year past I could have served you better, but I offer my genuine sorrow and regret and I thank you with a grateful heart that you are a forgiving and forward looking God. I bow my head in awesome wonder, that I can plant my feet at the beginning of this year on the bedrock of faith that is knowing the name and the person of Jesus. Help me and mine to better know and serve you in 2015. Amen’
I don’t know if you are crazy enough to go to the sales in between Christmas and New Year, what that was like?
But I do know that my family shared the same experiences as many others in the run up.
We did much of our shopping both on the internet and from shops
There was a common feature we all shared, and had to have, as we searched for stuff and information and bought things. See if you can guess what it is.
On the internet we bought from Amazon, Tesco Direct, and PC World
we paid by PayPal, debit or credit card, from the shops we bought a number of items that asked us when we got home to register our product `on-line’ at which point you had to set up a user name and account, and then check your emails so that THEY …………… could verify that….YOU the customer who had taken the trouble to buy something from them ……………………was who you said you were.
I bought a tablet, not a delicious Scottish fudge tablet, but a Samsung Galaxy Tablet, an amazingly thin computer which apparently manages to store most of its data in the clouds, which are not the fluffy white clouds in the sky but massive big big computers linked to each other all round the world. So when I save a photo on my little tablet it can end up on a big computer in China or India or anywhere.
Anyway when I turned on my Tablet it wanted to be able to Sync. That’s not to say go under water, but to synchronise with my I-phone, google, calendar, contacts, Facebook and loads more
But to do that I had to first become a Samsung person and get a Samsung ID, then I had to get a Samsung account, Samsung user name, and a Samsung login, and then I had to remember my Google, Facebook, calendar, Amazon, email and I-phone names and I phone and other logins, And I couldn’t remember them I had forgotten half the information and I got fed up
The technology is amazing, incredible really thinking that in my lifetime a great advance was the electronic calculator from the slide rule
but in order to use this wonderful technology you have to do a certain something
Can you spot the common feature? And it’s not just to have buckets of patience and a phenomenal memory
You might have thought the common feature is the internet and you’d be right but it was something else.
Logging on to e-mail or Amazon or some account
Registering a product
Paying by credit or debit card in shop or on-line
Even sometimes to look at stuff for sale
You had to have something – and that something was………………….. a secret pin code or a password. You wouldn’t even get past Go without a password in many cases.
Your password - It’s your secret code that reveals your secret self. Your secret name if you like. Later on I’m going to give you a new password or passcode – a special one with a unique access to something good.
Of course some-things do need to be secretive. Like banking details which is all very worrying of you are putting them in clouds. But how many of us would want all our e-mails open to view. Or Texts messages, it’d be like opening our private letters to the world!
We do like to keep our secrets don’t we? And we manage to keep our secret self, secret………… if ……………………..we keep our passwords secure.and our encryptions encrypted
Or do we………………………….?
2/NO SECRETS FROM GOD
Well you might be good with computers and security and it’s all over the bible: We might be able to keep secrets from each other but we can’t from God!
A quick look reveals well over 30 verses that suggest nothing is hidden from God. Here are a few:
Luke 8:17 and Mark 4:22
For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all
Hebrew 4:13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable
Ecclesiastes 12:14
For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
Psalm 44:21
God would surely have known it, for he knows the secrets of every heart.
Luke 12:3
Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
Imagine that! I’m afraid there are no passwords we can make up that can keep our secret self, our secret name, from God’s eyes. You can’t hide who you are or what you do from God!
3/ And Jesus names!
In today’s gospel text there is no password needed to find out about the `self’ the person that this newly born child Jesus is. There is a public declaration of Jesus’`self’, using his name. This is the name revealed by Gabriel to Mary when the angel made his annunciation to her (Luke 1:26-38).
The name “Jesus,” Joshua in Hebrew, means “Yahweh saves.” Or God to the rescue. It is not an unusual name. It is, in fact, a quite common name. The most extraordinary birth in history came wrapped in a very ordinary name. The One whose name is above every name (Phil.2:9) is given a common name.
But Jesus is not this child’s only name.
Immediately after Jesus’ name is declared in the temple, Simeon reveals another name for this child: “the Lord’s Messiah.” Along with the identity of “Messiah” comes a host of other new names.
*In Isaiah 9:6 this messianic child is given the names “Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
*In Matthew’s gospel Joseph is told the child will be known as “Emmanuel” (“God is with us”) and “Saviour.”
*Simeon also dubs the baby Jesus as the “Consolation of Israel” and as the “Revelation to the Gentiles.”
*At Jesus’ baptism the heavenly voice declares him to be “My Beloved Son” (Mark 1:4; Matthew 3:17).
*John the Baptist names Jesus the “Lamb of God” (John 1:29).
4/Your New Name- Your Soul Name
*Finally, in Revelation 2:17 there is a reference to yet another name, a secret name “a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.”
When Jesus the one who has come, whose name means God to the rescue, who is the Messiah, the wonderful counsellor, the mighty God, the Saviour who is with us, and is the revelation to the Gentiles.
He if we hear him, is in the future going to give us a new name.
And it’s this I’m really interested in today. Giving you the password to the new name God will give you in the future. And maybe getting an insight into what that new name is ----------------we’ll call it your soul name.
Firstly, we need to accept that God can see all things. There are no human passwords or codes that block his access.
Secondly, it’s about what he sees. That we might be given this new name later on, a soul name we’ll call it, there is a need to accept the truth behind the name of Jesus, all that it means, he is The Father’s beloved son, and that Jesus is the saviour.
And thirdly, we need to accept what God sees and that there is a need to reject the ways of the world and repent of sins.
But we know that we have a worldy name and a wordly password to protect that secret self and that somehow we can sort of try and hide all of that from God.
So we need to get rid of that. I read about a minister who helped his people by doing it this way.
Here is the password or passcode that opens the way to the secret or soul name of revelation 2.
Get a piece of paper- when you go home- you think about 2014, the biggest regrets you might have had about yourself, about those secret self-things you wouldn’t have others see, that sinfulness you know to be true.
It might be a big piece of paper. When you have done that say a private genuine heartfelt sorry to God for all of that, tear up that piece of paper and realise they are all shredded never to be seen or worried about again, watch all the regrets and sins are gone. They are given to Jesus who carries them for us to the cross – more on that in a minute
Now you can start again in 2015, free, forgiven, if you genuinely repent. You don’t actually have to even write it down but it might help.
And you can begin to grow then into that soul name that Jesus has for you. I don’t know what yours will be,
Mary’s in the text as given by Gabriel was God’s favoured one. But Simeon in 2 verse 35 said her soul would be pierced. So this repentance is necessary but doesn’t guarantee that 2015 will be an easy one.
So how will you find out what your secret soul name is?
Well we can only begin to know our secret soul name gradually, as life unfolds. And as life unfolds we need to be more something – more Christlike, more sacrificial, compassionate and caring in a real way for others. And more committed to his Church.
So what are you going to do for others in 2015, have you even thought about it yet?
And we can not be certain what our secret name is until we see ourselves reflected in God, in whose image we are made (Rev. 2:17).
But we do have some clues: Here are some “secret names” would any apply to you?
Do you know what you’re your secret soul name might be?
Your secret name might be: “The Giving and Forgiving One.” Or `The one who provides’ or ……
your secret name is: “Blessed to Bless.”
or the generous one, or the compassionate one, or the one who praises and pleases with musical instrument and voice, or the one who leads with integrity and care, or visionary one, or the one who brings others to Jesus.
I don’t know there are so many. . . . but I do know that you can grow into yours.
So why not start 2015 by admitting your sins, repenting of them and then re-committing yourself to God’s work, asking Jesus to reveal to you what your soul name as written on the white stones in Revelation 2:17 might be and then living the life in the name. Do that and whatever else happens it will be a great year. And you will create with God’s help a blessed one.
5/ The Year of The Lamb
That’s for you, earlier I asked why not make for our church this year to be the year of the Lamb?
*John the Baptist names Jesus the “Lamb of God” (John 1:29).
The Lamb of God, is the descriptive name given to Jesus by John the Baptist and repeated in John’s gospel (John 1:29, 36),
You might think it’s an unusual name to give to someone you regard in the highest esteem.
Lamb….. It’s an strange name to give to a person one held most high.
Lamb, a sheep less than a year old, a quadrupedal ruminant mammal not exactly known for its brains, bravery or brevity, but here we have it, Jesus the Messiah, named as the lamb, the lamb who takes away the sins of the world.
What was John thinking?
In the Old Testament times the sacrifice of lambs played a very important role in the Jewish religious life and sacrificial system. When John the Baptist referred to Jesus as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), the Jews who heard him might have immediately thought of any one of several important sacrifices.
With the time of the Passover feast being very near, the first thought might be the sacrifice of the Passover lamb. The Passover feast was one of the main Jewish holidays and a celebration in remembrance of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt.
In fact, the slaying of the Passover lamb and the applying of the blood to doorposts of the houses (Exodus 12:11-13) is a beautiful picture of Christ’s atoning work on the cross. Those for whom He died are covered by His blood, protecting us from the angel of (spiritual) death.
Another important sacrifice involving lambs was the daily sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem. Every morning and evening, a lamb was sacrificed in the temple for the sins of the people (Exodus 29:38-42). These daily sacrifices, like all others, were simply to point people towards the perfect sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
What is even more incredible than that significant signpost of three and a half thousand years ago is that in the gospel of Mark in chapter 15 we learn the time of Jesus’ death on the cross corresponds to the time the evening sacrifice was being made in the temple. The sacrificial lamb that is Jesus replacing forever the need for animal sacrifice.
What’s more the Jews at that time would have also been familiar with the Old Testament prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah, who foretold the coming of One who would be brought “like a lamb led to the slaughter” (Jeremiah 11:19; Isaiah 53:7) and whose sufferings and sacrifice would provide redemption and liberation for Israel. Of course, that person was none other than Jesus Christ, “the Lamb of God.”
He was to become the perfect sacrificial offering, unlike the sheep in the old testament Jesus became the agent of God willingly doing God’s will. And that is what I mean by being a people of the year of the Lamb, added to our individual soul name is the collective name
`a sacrificial people, agents of God doing God’s will’. Is it not only then can we become as Jesus wants, as is revealed in the book of Revelation. The lamb that is now like a lion who returns to defeat and conquer all of God’s enemies, and he wants us to be a people who share and live a life of complete assurance in the sure knowledge of that ultimate victory
So seek and take your soul name, and let’s set our hearts on being a sacrificial people and claim the authority of the lion and the lamb, fearing no one and asserting our faith in the name of Jesus in 2015. Amen
Song: Lion of Judah
