NO MORE SECRETS

Dear friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

1. The gospel text for this week scares me.  And I think it should scare me.  It’s a text that makes us sit up a little straighter and pay attention.  It’s a text that pushes us swiftly and completely out of our comfort zone.  It challenges us and calls us into something new.
1. The gospel text reveals Jesus’ words to his disciples about their lives as Christians—about the cost of discipleship. 
1. It is not going to be easy.
2. It’s going to call them into difficult places and situations.
3. God is with them.
2. Of course, the disciples lived in a specific time and place.  What about our time and place?  What is the cost of discipleship for us today?
1. What are our challenges?  How is God calling us into something new?
2. God is calling us into the scary places.

1. Verse 26 is intriguing.
1. “So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.  What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.”
1. “Nothing concealed will not be disclosed”
2. “Nothing hidden that will not become known”
3. “Everything hidden will be found out.”
2. Every secret will be known.
1. EVERY SECRET…what is your secret?
2. What are you most afraid of coming to the light?
3. What are you terrified of proclaiming from the rooftops?
2. Secrets are a part of our lives.  Some of them are good.  Some of them create pain and barriers for us.
1. A secret can make you feel isolated and alone…like no one understands exactly what you are going through.
2. A man named Frank Warren started an extraordinary project 2004.
1. He asked strangers to write their secrets on a postcard and mail them to him.
1. There were only 3 tips—be brief, be legible, be creative.
2. Frank decided to post these secrets anonymously on a web page.
3. Today, Frank gets 1,000 postcards a week and 1 million people read his blog every week.
4. Some of the secrets are funny
1. “I give decaf to customers who are rude to me.”
5. Others are sad, tragic, deep, personal, or beautiful and uplifting.
1. “I am 57 ½ and am as happy and content as I have ever been.  No more secrets.”
3. Why are people so intrigued by reading one another’s secrets?
1. Why are people so willing to send in their secrets?
2. It’s a shared community.
3. It’s knowing you’re not alone.
4. Feeling like someone will listen to you.

1. This leads us to the question:  Is our faith a secret?
1. One of the postcards said, “I work as a DJ for an atheist radio station.  But I believe in God!”
2. How many times in our lives have we kept our faith a secret?
1. How many times have we avoided talking about it, for fear of making someone else uncomfortable?
2. How many times have we avoided it, for fear that we would isolate ourselves for the people around us?
3. There are so many reasons why we keep our faith a secret.
3. Or even more importantly—what secrets are you keeping from God?
4. Telling our secrets—sharing our faith boldly—is scary.
1. But God calls us into those scary places.

1. What is God calling us into now—in this time and place?  How are we called to be and do something new in this world?
1. We are called to share in one another’s secrets.
1. As Christians, we are called to be “place sharers” for one another.
2. We are to share deeply in the joys and suffering of one another
1. We are to look at each other directly and not be afraid of seeing the difficult or scary parts of one another’s lives.
1. This may include knowing a secret, or being a listener for someone’s secret
2. We are called to reveal damaging secrets.
1. We are called not only to share in each other’s pain, but we are called to keep each other accountable
2. If we see something damaging in someone’s life, we are called to confront that person (or organization)
3. This leads to transformation
3. We are called to proclaim our own faith boldly—and not keep it a secret.

• Jesus not only tells us to proclaim our faith boldly, but he tells us God is with us in this task.
• Knowing the full extent of God’s grace, we feel the need to share it
1. Like in our Jeremiah text where he feels a fire in his bones if he doesn’t share his faith in God…
• We know that God is for us. 
• Every hair on ours heads is counted—we are more than valuable to God.
•  Amen