Sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Lance Moore on Sunday, March
30, 2008
Colossians 2:2-7 “My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
1st Thessalonians 5:16-18 “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.”
John 18:19-21 “Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. "I have spoken openly to the world," Jesus replied. "I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said."”
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People today are seeking some deep, dark secret of the ages which has been hidden from the masses but if discovered, will provide instant gratification for the user. Perhaps it is the “buried treasure” instinct, or maybe the fairy tale dream of a magic incantation. About two years ago, Oprah Winfrey announced that her program would present “The Secret” to wealth, finding happiness and love, losing weight, and winning success. I didn’t see the show, I don’t watch Oprah, but after the show, Oprah's website was overwhelmed, emails poured in, and within hours, a book titled The Secret became the best-selling book in the nation. For a period, The Secret, by Australian author Rhonda Byrne, even outsold the final Harry Potter book.
Now, in the “small world department,” the publisher of this multi-million-dollar book called up my very own literary agent, Lee Hough, and told him, “We want you to get one of your writers who knows the Bible well to work up a book that is a Christian version of The Secret.” It turns out that before I ever talked to my agent, I had a similar idea for a book. Well, Lee picked up his Rolodex—that’s right, the one that has MY number in it—and called... somebody else!
Of course, I could not have written a Christian version of The Secret because it turns out there is very little Christianity in it. I will save you the price of the book by giving you two sermons about it, in which you will hear a) what’s wrong with Rhonda Byrne’s book and b) why, at the same time, there ARE some great truths to be found in her book, and there ARE secrets or principals that can enhance your life, which I will share with you.
Byrne would like you to believe she found some great powerful mystery. Her book is marketed as if readers would never discover The Secret on their own. To quote the back cover: The Secret “has been passed down through the ages, highly-coveted, hidden, lost, stolen, and bought for vast sums of money. . . . Now The Secret is being revealed to the world.” Truth is, she is right in saying that most of these secrets have been around for thousands of years. In fact, the most accurate version of the secrets are found in the Bible. And the best part is, they cost you absolutely nothing to try. You don’t need to buy a book or a tape or enroll in a course or seminar. All you have to do is deposit another $50 in the offering plate and I will finish this sermon! I’m waiting. Ha.
Seriously, here’s the secret, free and clear: 1. What you believe in your mind and heart will usually become manifest in the world around you.
2. Visualizing goals and setting specific plans are essential steps to success.
3. An attitude of gratitude and positivity will attract good things into your life.
Before I expound on what the Bible says about those three truths, let me first point out the fallacy in Byrne’s writing. She says that the essence of The Secret is “the law of attraction,” and she tries to prove it by science. She says that science teaches that “like attracts like.” Well, I learned in the third grade that two magnets of the same polarity do NOT attract each other, but repel! Still, according to Byrne and her 29 co-contributors, everything in the Universe vibrates on a particular frequency. When you think in harmony with the frequency of something, you attract it to you. If you think about wealth, you will receive wealth. If you think about your potential sweetheart, she will be drawn to you. Well, I’ve been thinking about Raquel Welch for 40 years and she’s yet to knock on my door! [during the first service, Diana spoke up and said, "He's dreaming!"] Truth is, my brother the physicist can tell you that there are indeed frequencies that permeate all objects in the universe, but there is no single frequency in any single object. The speakers in this P.A. system are vibrating, simultaneously, at 20 thousand cycles per second, and at 14 thousand cycles per second, and also 800 hertz and 90 hertz and everything in between... and nothing in this room is being attracted to those
vibrating speakers. In short, what she states as fact is scientific nonsense. Hokum. Baloney. But Byrne says “Nothing can come into your experience unless you summon it through persistent thoughts,” and that by thinking the right magical thoughts, you will magically attract those things.
The Bible says, no, “the rain falls on the good and the wicked.” Proverbs warns that good and bad fortune will come to anyone. Jesus said that the blind man was not made blind because of his sin or because of any negative thoughts. Paul warns that being a Christian will sometimes mean you suffer and sacrifice.
But Byrne says, “The Secret can give you whatever you want” and “you can have, be, or do anything you want.” When someone wins the lottery, it is sheer random chance, not positive thinking... and conversely, Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina did not hit us because we were thinking negative thoughts. That is total “Bull Durham.”
But even if it were true that just by thinking the right thoughts you could attract wealth and material goodies, that doesn’t mean you should do it. Jesus warned, “For what will it profit a person if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). The biggest problem with the prosperity philosophy is that it is self-centered, focused on narcissistic materialism. As critic Donald S. Whitney wrote, “The Secret is nothing more than Name It-Claim It, Positive-Confession, Prosperity Theology (but without God and the Bible), built on a foundation of New Age self-deification.… The earth turns on its orbit for You. The oceans ebb and flow for You. The sun rises and sets for You.” Only a delusional person can believe that they alone are the center of the universe. Her “Secret” is nothing more than the age-old heresy of Gnosticism combined with 1990’s style GREED.
And yet, I must confess that the principles behind books like The Secret, Clement Stone’s Success Through Positive Mental Attitude, and Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, do work!! They don’t work in every single case, and I can’t guarantee you will get rich, but IF you will apply these basic principles consistently and longterm in your life, I am convinced your life would be better than if you did not.
Three principles—thinking positive; visualizing or setting goals; and keeping an attitude of gratitude—are not only powerful and effective, they are biblical principles if you leave out the greedy, self-centered parts. With that said, let me repeat these three principals and spell them out: 1. What you believe in your mind and heart will usually become manifest in the world around you. Usually, but not always. No guarantees. But the Bible does teach us that our thoughts and beliefs have great power for change. Paul said in Romans 12:2 that we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Transformed! That means, in Greek, that our very form or matter can be changed by mental power. Do you believe that? Can I change a frown into a smile by thinking? Yes. And can that smile then help me land a better job or improve my relationships? Yes! Are great inventions and improvements for humanity born first as a thought, then an action, and later turned into reality? All the time. Thoughts ROUTINELY shape our world, so for goodness’ sake, let us make our thoughts a force for the good. Fill your thoughts with goodness. This is why Paul said to the Philippians, “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” If something makes you happy and joyful and pleasant, think about that. If something makes you resentful, angry or bitter, QUIT thinking about it! Anyway, this is closely related to the second principle:
2. Visualizing goals and setting specific plans are essential steps to success. Yes, positive thinking can make you happier and successful, but the reason many people don’t see or experience this is that they never become intentional, persistent and specific in the process. Vague or infrequent thoughts tend to create slow or insubstantial results. Did you hear that? Maybe it will register more clearly if you think about piano lessons. Suppose you had this pleasant thought: “I want to become a famous concert pianist.” If you think about that thought once a week for two months, I doubt seriously it will happen. Well, I suppose Karen Bond rolled out of the playpen one day and just starting playing piano beautifully—but she is the exception, not the rule. To learn to play music is a wonderful idea and anyone who loves music has probably once thought, “I would like to be able to play piano.” But if you thought “I want to play piano” and repeated that thought every single day for 360 days, plus somewhere along the line came up with a plan to find a teacher or get some music books, and visualize a goal of practicing an hour everyday, the odds are pretty darn good that in four or five years, you WOULD be able to play the piano quite well.
That same intensity of thought, visualization of results, and specific (preferably written) plan for success in other areas of your life will almost assuredly work... but only if you have the patience and persistence to pursue the clear-cut goal. But guess what? It all begins with a thought, an idea of something good and positive that you’d like to do or be or attain. Which leads to the final point:
3. An attitude of gratitude and positivity will attract good things into your life. The one thing good I can say about the book, The Secret, is its emphasis on gratitude. Byrne encourages just what the Bible teaches in 1 Thessalonians 5:18: “In everything, give thanks,” and Colossians 4:2: “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.”
The words “thanks, thankful and thanksgiving” are found over 125 times in the Bible. Old and New Testaments COMMAND us to be thankful. Byrne says she’s grateful to “the Universe.” The Universe hasn’t done much for me lately. I’m thankful to God, for loving me, creating me, and blessing me in more ways than I can count. The more we dwell on our blessings, the more we fill our hearts with gratitude, the less room there is for sadness and madness and badness. It is so simple, and yet, we almost act as if thankfulness WAS a secret.
We forget this truth, we act as if we don’t know the secret. We complain and whine and look on the dark side of things and sometimes we step so far out of the Light that we make joy and happiness a hidden secret, a secret even from ourselves!
I will continue this sermon next week, but I will go ahead and tell you that the Bible gives us the Greatest Secret of all. The Secret to the abundant life is no longer secret at all, but has been revealed, according to Colossians 2:3, in Jesus Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.“ God has freely told us in the Bible everything we need to know about discovering the unlimited “treasures of wisdom and knowledge” found in Christ. But He remains an unknown Secret to those who have not heard the good news. When was the last time you shared that Secret with someone? When was the last time you invited someone to church? Or gave them a Bible or a Christian book?
Or for that matter, when was the last time you gave a stranger a smile? Don’t keep the secret any longer. To repeat our opening Scripture: “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1st Thessalonians 5:16-18)
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Foley, Alabama