James T. Cleland - "Grace Abounding; Grace Demanding" (January 18, 1970)
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| (organ music playing) | 0:03 | |
| (organ music continues) | 1:00 | |
| (organ music continues) | 3:00 | |
| - | Because of our need of being at fellowship | 3:53 |
| with God through Christ | 3:57 | |
| and of having no barriers between us, | 4:01 | |
| it is needful that we should cleanse our hearts | 4:04 | |
| by a whole hearted and sincere acknowledgement of our sin | 4:08 | |
| before God and in the presence of one another, | 4:15 | |
| in order that we may be restored to fellowship | 4:19 | |
| and cleansed of our sin. | 4:22 | |
| Accordingly, let us unite our hearts and our voices | 4:25 | |
| in our prayer of confession and for pardon, let us pray. | 4:29 | |
| Oh, Lord thou has searched us and known us, | 4:33 | |
| thou understand us our thoughts a far of. | 4:37 | |
| And art acquainted with all our ways, | 4:41 | |
| there is not a word in our tongues, | 4:43 | |
| but, Lo, O Lord, thou knowest it all together. | 4:46 | |
| Take from us all hardness and impenitence | 4:50 | |
| that we admitting our sins | 4:54 | |
| and honestly facing our faults before thee, | 4:56 | |
| may obtain pardon for all our guilt. | 5:00 | |
| Absolve us, O God, from every kind of sin. | 5:03 | |
| Forgive us for trying to be clever, | 5:07 | |
| when we should have sought wisdom. | 5:10 | |
| Heal us from the disease | 5:12 | |
| of trying to make names for ourselves. | 5:14 | |
| When we should've been seeking to glorify thy name. | 5:17 | |
| Enable us, O Lord, to find pardon now, | 5:21 | |
| and to attain everlasting redemption in the world to come | 5:24 | |
| through Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 5:28 | |
| Amen. | 5:31 | |
| Now let us hear the comforting and assuring words | 5:34 | |
| of scripture taken from the sixth chapter of Isaiah. | 5:37 | |
| Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, | 5:42 | |
| having a live coal in his hand, | 5:45 | |
| which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. | 5:48 | |
| And he laid it upon my mouth and said, | 5:52 | |
| "Lo, this has touched thy lips, | 5:55 | |
| "and thine iniquity is taken away | 5:59 | |
| "and thy sin purged." | 6:03 | |
| Amen. | 6:06 | |
| (faint organ music playing) | 6:12 | |
| (bright organ music) | 7:15 | |
| (choir singing hymnal music) | 7:34 | |
| (choir singing hymnal music) | 9:29 | |
| (choir singing hymnal music) | 11:32 | |
| (choir singing hymnal music) | 14:10 | |
| (choir singing hymnal music) | 17:42 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 18:10 | |
| - | And with your spirit. | 18:12 |
| - | Let us pray. | 18:14 |
| Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, | 18:21 | |
| in the inspiration and the quietness of this moment, | 18:26 | |
| we offer unto thee our hearts and thanksgiving. | 18:30 | |
| For every good and perfect gift, | 18:34 | |
| which has come down from thee. | 18:36 | |
| We are grateful for here and there, | 18:40 | |
| the sign of peace budding across the world. | 18:43 | |
| We are thankful for those courses | 18:48 | |
| which no assassin can kill. | 18:50 | |
| We are thankful that though the body may be killed, | 18:55 | |
| the spirit lives on with God. | 18:58 | |
| We thank thee four flowers, | 19:03 | |
| which at a wedding can add joy | 19:05 | |
| to an already joyous occasion. | 19:07 | |
| Or flowers which at a funeral, temper, sorrow and bitterness | 19:11 | |
| with reminders of new life and the return of beauty. | 19:16 | |
| We thank thee for righteous indignation against evil | 19:22 | |
| or non-violent goodwill. | 19:27 | |
| For open-minded inquiry. | 19:32 | |
| For the willingness to listen to another point of view. | 19:36 | |
| For the final resolution of a person's will. | 19:42 | |
| For unexpected grace here and there. | 19:48 | |
| And for the faith that in Jesus Christ, | 19:53 | |
| the world has a great hope. | 19:58 | |
| O, Lord, we intercede for all sorts and conditions of men | 20:03 | |
| or others and ourselves. | 20:10 | |
| We pray for those who now find themselves overworked, | 20:15 | |
| for those who have more responsibility on their shoulders | 20:22 | |
| than can be discharged between now | 20:25 | |
| and the time of their exams. | 20:28 | |
| But who are expected | 20:31 | |
| to fulfill those responsibilities regardless. | 20:32 | |
| Give them grace to endure and the strength | 20:37 | |
| to do the best that they can. | 20:40 | |
| As we are examined on the work of the year, | 20:45 | |
| keep us from all deceit and from fraud. | 20:50 | |
| Make us humble when success comes, | 20:55 | |
| and keep us patient and open-minded in disappointment. | 20:58 | |
| Grant that ill will and envy may find no room in our hearts. | 21:03 | |
| Give us grace to discipline ourselves inwardly | 21:11 | |
| and to persevere in the vocation of learning. | 21:14 | |
| And at the final accounting of all men before thee, | 21:19 | |
| may we by thy grace be able to give a good return | 21:22 | |
| on the talents which thou has given unto us. | 21:26 | |
| O Lord, we pray for those who are pushed aside | 21:32 | |
| because they are not campus leaders, | 21:37 | |
| because they are not outstanding athletes, | 21:41 | |
| because they are not in Phi Beta Kappa. | 21:44 | |
| But who are precious in thy site | 21:48 | |
| and who have great strength and potentiality. | 21:51 | |
| We pray for those in society as a whole | 21:56 | |
| that are pushed aside because they are poor. | 21:59 | |
| Whose ideas are not listened to | 22:04 | |
| because their financial weight is not impressive. | 22:05 | |
| Whose personalities are blighted | 22:10 | |
| because they are regarded as inferior | 22:11 | |
| on account of their poverty. | 22:14 | |
| We pray for those who are discriminated against | 22:18 | |
| because they are wealthy. | 22:21 | |
| Who's dedicated labor, | 22:24 | |
| whose sacrificial devotion to their fellow men | 22:26 | |
| are seldom appreciated because of our blind prejudice | 22:30 | |
| against anybody who has more of this world's goods | 22:34 | |
| than we have. | 22:37 | |
| Grant them grace to forgive, | 22:40 | |
| the patience to continue their dedicated labors | 22:44 | |
| and the strength to achieve well. | 22:48 | |
| O Lord, help us all to be less critical of each other. | 22:52 | |
| More critical of ourselves, | 22:56 | |
| less prone to generalize, | 22:59 | |
| more inclined to be helpful. | 23:02 | |
| Now, our father we pray for our former colleague, | 23:08 | |
| Professor Charles Vale, whose mother has died. | 23:11 | |
| For our choir member, Dr. Calvin Smith, | 23:16 | |
| whose father has died. | 23:19 | |
| Grant that these may find the kind of divine | 23:23 | |
| and human friendship, | 23:26 | |
| which shall deliver them from falling victims | 23:27 | |
| to bitterness or loneliness or unrelieved guilt or anxiety. | 23:30 | |
| May all of us who survive these death experiences learn | 23:36 | |
| what lessons death should teach us, | 23:40 | |
| and then resolve that these lessons will be put | 23:44 | |
| into practice now in our lives. | 23:48 | |
| God of the nations, | 23:53 | |
| we offer our prayers for the people of Nigeria. | 23:55 | |
| Especially for the starving and bruised in Biafra, | 24:00 | |
| that food medicine and love may come to them. | 24:04 | |
| Grant that they may have peace as well as surrender. | 24:10 | |
| Grant brotherhood and happiness to that nation. | 24:15 | |
| And along with this prayer, | 24:25 | |
| we offer our intersessions | 24:26 | |
| for the troubled and oppressed people of all the earth. | 24:28 | |
| We make our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, | 24:32 | |
| who has taught us the perfect prayer to say, | 24:35 | |
| our father who art in heaven, | 24:39 | |
| hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, | 24:42 | |
| thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 24:46 | |
| Give us this day, our daily bread. | 24:50 | |
| And forgive us our trespasses | 24:53 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 24:55 | |
| And lead us not into temptation, | 24:59 | |
| but deliver us from evil. | 25:02 | |
| For thine is the kingdom and the power | 25:04 | |
| and the glory forever. | 25:06 | |
| Amen. | 25:08 | |
| - | The peace of God be with you all. | 25:27 |
| Talking over today's service with the director of the choir, | 25:34 | |
| we came to a conclusion in which the chaplain | 25:39 | |
| and the chapel organist concurred. | 25:44 | |
| The anthem for today, just one anthem, | 25:48 | |
| since exams right now command and demand | 25:54 | |
| the waking hours of the choir. | 25:59 | |
| The Anthem was as you heard David McKay Williams, | 26:03 | |
| in the year that King Uzziah died. | 26:07 | |
| That passage is often referred to as the call of Isaiah. | 26:11 | |
| For We agreed that the sermon | 26:18 | |
| should be based upon these verses | 26:20 | |
| and that the choir should be the lector. | 26:24 | |
| Thus the ministry of music, | 26:31 | |
| shared liturgically in the ministry of the word, | 26:34 | |
| the reading of the lesson. | 26:40 | |
| And so now in prosaic sentences and paragraphs, | 26:44 | |
| let me seek to explicate what was so gloriously sung | 26:50 | |
| as the scripture of the morning. | 26:55 | |
| The words as you have noticed are printed | 26:59 | |
| in the order of the service. | 27:02 | |
| Now here is recorded Isaiah's picturesque description, | 27:05 | |
| how he consciously entered God's service as a prophet. | 27:11 | |
| He probably penned it years later, | 27:17 | |
| looking back on what happened in the year 740 BC | 27:21 | |
| in the temple which Solomon had built 200 years before that. | 27:30 | |
| This young Jerusalemite, | 27:39 | |
| 20 years old, about your average age in the student body, | 27:42 | |
| had gone into the temple and gazed toward the room, | 27:48 | |
| which was named The Holy of Holies. | 27:55 | |
| Because there ark The Ark of the Covenant, | 28:00 | |
| the symbol of God's presence in the midst of his people. | 28:06 | |
| Above there, were two huge seraphim, | 28:13 | |
| 15 feet high, | 28:18 | |
| carved of gold trimmed olive wood. | 28:21 | |
| Each with six wings, | 28:25 | |
| representative of those who attend God's throne. | 28:28 | |
| They symbolized lightning, | 28:35 | |
| the purifying divine fire. | 28:38 | |
| Now Isaiah must have seen all this hundreds of times, | 28:42 | |
| but on this visit, | 28:47 | |
| something out of the ordinary happened to him. | 28:50 | |
| The carved seraphim seemed to come to life | 28:55 | |
| and sing the Tersanctus. | 29:00 | |
| The smoke of incense filled the whole inner chamber | 29:04 | |
| with a cloud of glory | 29:09 | |
| and the threshold of the door shook, vibrated. | 29:11 | |
| Isaiah evidently shook too. | 29:17 | |
| Now what was his response? | 29:21 | |
| He tells us, he expected to die. | 29:24 | |
| This was the end for him. | 29:29 | |
| (mumbles) | 29:33 | |
| Why? | 29:34 | |
| Listen to him. | 29:35 | |
| Goodbye. | 29:37 | |
| I'm done for. | 29:40 | |
| I'm a man of unclean lips. | 29:42 | |
| I dare not sing the holy holy holy. | 29:45 | |
| I live among a people of unclean lips. | 29:51 | |
| They dare not sing, holy holy, holy. | 29:55 | |
| And I have actually looked upon the Lord of hosts. | 30:01 | |
| There's nothing to do, but die. | 30:07 | |
| Isaiah had been brought up to believe | 30:12 | |
| that no man could look upon God and live. | 30:15 | |
| Doesn't say so in the law? | 30:20 | |
| Isaiah offered no prayer of confession. | 30:25 | |
| He spoke no plea for pardon. | 30:30 | |
| He asked for no forgiveness. | 30:35 | |
| He just described the situation | 30:39 | |
| and the awaited the carrying out of the death penalty. | 30:43 | |
| His number was up. | 30:49 | |
| And at that crisis moment, | 30:54 | |
| as he contrasted God's eternal glory and moral perfection | 30:58 | |
| with man's transient creatureliness | 31:04 | |
| and unoriginal hypocrisy, | 31:09 | |
| as he was scared to death by the awful holiness of God, | 31:12 | |
| that high and uplifted God off his own bat, | 31:20 | |
| of his own free will, gave this over odd shiverer, | 31:27 | |
| a dramatic sign of forgiveness and acceptance. | 31:34 | |
| One of the seraphim in Isaiah's mind's eye or ratio, | 31:40 | |
| one of the seraphim flew to him with a hot coal | 31:47 | |
| from the altar and touched his unclean lips with it. | 31:52 | |
| This cauterized his lips, | 31:58 | |
| so as to destroy the infection of sin. | 32:02 | |
| Now remember, for this is a primary importance, | 32:07 | |
| this was not in any way Isaiah's doing. | 32:11 | |
| He had literally done nothing, nothing at all | 32:17 | |
| to make God accepted him. | 32:22 | |
| God did it all. | 32:24 | |
| This is a pictorial way of describing | 32:29 | |
| the theological word, grace. | 32:32 | |
| God moved. | 32:37 | |
| God acted. | 32:40 | |
| God sent the seraphim. | 32:42 | |
| Isaiah was on the receiving end | 32:46 | |
| of the whole transaction free, gratis and for nothing. | 32:48 | |
| I think of the peace which must've come to him, | 32:56 | |
| reprieved from death. | 33:00 | |
| When he heard the words, look, this has touched your lips. | 33:03 | |
| your guilt is gone, | 33:10 | |
| your sin forgiven. | 33:13 | |
| Now there's one more verse, which we must look at. | 33:20 | |
| God speaks again and Isaiah answers. | 33:25 | |
| God does not address Isaiah directly. | 33:30 | |
| He asks his recurring question. | 33:36 | |
| "Whom shall I send as my spokesman? | 33:41 | |
| "Who would go for us as my representative?" | 33:46 | |
| And Isaiah wasted no words in answering, | 33:52 | |
| "I'm ready, send me." | 33:58 | |
| He meant it. | 34:03 | |
| He didn't become a priest. | 34:06 | |
| He became God's spokesman for 40 years in secular affairs, | 34:09 | |
| as unofficial Secretary of State for Judah | 34:18 | |
| with the slogan, No Entangling Alliances. | 34:24 | |
| About 2,500 years | 34:31 | |
| before Thomas Jefferson almost coined the phrase. | 34:34 | |
| Now that experience of Isaiah was not so utterly unique | 34:42 | |
| that it befell no one other than Isaiah. | 34:50 | |
| The experience of the living God | 34:57 | |
| who acts to make himself known to man | 35:00 | |
| is a recurring phenomenon. | 35:05 | |
| Prior to Isaiah and ever after, | 35:08 | |
| think of the names which can be linked | 35:13 | |
| with God who reveals himself. | 35:16 | |
| Adam in the garden. | 35:20 | |
| Abraham at the alter when he was about to sacrifice his son. | 35:22 | |
| Moses at the burning bush. | 35:28 | |
| Paul on the Damascus road. | 35:31 | |
| Grenfell of Labrador in a revival meeting in London. | 35:35 | |
| And Schweitzer of Africa in his bedroom in Alsace-Lorraine. | 35:41 | |
| Meister Eckhart, the German mystic around 1300 AD. | 35:49 | |
| Know then that God is bound to act. | 35:56 | |
| To pour himself out into thee, | 36:02 | |
| as soon as ever, he shall find thee ready. | 36:05 | |
| Finding thee ready, he is obliged to act. | 36:09 | |
| To overflow into thee. | 36:14 | |
| Finding thee ready he is obliged to act. | 36:18 | |
| To overflow into thee. | 36:24 | |
| Now Isaiah might modify that. | 36:25 | |
| God will even catch you when you don't expect it, | 36:30 | |
| For he is full of surprising moments. | 36:39 | |
| When God does manifest himself, | 36:48 | |
| a sensitive person may well react like Isaiah | 36:52 | |
| for he also realizes that God is holy | 36:56 | |
| in two senses of the word. | 37:01 | |
| He knows that man is the creature of time and of a day | 37:04 | |
| as contrasted with the eternal creator | 37:10 | |
| and he doesn't enjoy the contrast. | 37:14 | |
| He may be almost literally scared to death. | 37:19 | |
| F B Myers, the great Baptist preacher of London, | 37:23 | |
| once told a Western Glasgow congregation, | 37:27 | |
| "You want to come into the presence of God? | 37:31 | |
| "Don't be ridiculous. | 37:35 | |
| "In two minutes, you would be crying to get out. | 37:38 | |
| "You couldn't stand his glory." | 37:43 | |
| I was in my early teens, | 37:48 | |
| when I heard him say that. | 37:51 | |
| I've never forgotten it. | 37:55 | |
| It's not necessarily an enjoyable encounter | 37:59 | |
| to come face to face with the Living God. | 38:02 | |
| One has have to feel spiritually woozy. | 38:07 | |
| He may well wish to pass out, if not to die. | 38:12 | |
| At least he would call God, Sir. | 38:17 | |
| But there's a second sense of holy. | 38:22 | |
| It is a model perfection, | 38:26 | |
| which is hardly a man's normal state. | 38:28 | |
| Man is a sinner as well as a creature. | 38:33 | |
| So much of his life has been in rebellion against God | 38:38 | |
| or sometimes of his own free will. | 38:42 | |
| Sometimes because of misunderstanding, | 38:46 | |
| sometimes due to social pressure, cultural circumstances | 38:50 | |
| and political demand. | 38:58 | |
| He's aware in God's presence that that are dark places | 39:00 | |
| in his private and corporate existence, | 39:05 | |
| which are condemned in the focus gaze of God's perfection. | 39:09 | |
| The biographies of the saints are filled with this fact. | 39:17 | |
| And not always in a modeling fashion | 39:22 | |
| or in a self abusive fashion. | 39:25 | |
| And then in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, | 39:29 | |
| the practice revealed, | 39:34 | |
| which so few of us accept willingly or believe seriously, | 39:36 | |
| that is we are on good terms with God | 39:41 | |
| if we genuinely want to be. | 39:49 | |
| Because that is what God wants. | 39:54 | |
| The dramatic self changing moment comes | 40:01 | |
| when a person discovers that to be right with God | 40:05 | |
| is not a matter of proving himself righteous, | 40:09 | |
| but of accepting as a sinner, | 40:15 | |
| the abounding grace of God. | 40:19 | |
| Martin Luther confirms this. | 40:23 | |
| He struggled to be right with God | 40:26 | |
| by fasting and self denial. | 40:31 | |
| He even wrote, | 40:34 | |
| if any man could have been saved by his monkery, | 40:35 | |
| I was that man. | 40:42 | |
| But he never felt saved. | 40:45 | |
| That is spiritually healthy. | 40:48 | |
| And then you read in St. Paul, that a man is saved by faith. | 40:52 | |
| Meaning what? | 40:59 | |
| By assenting to the almost unbelievable truth | 41:02 | |
| that God accepts a person just as he is. | 41:07 | |
| Why? | 41:15 | |
| Because that's God's nature. | 41:18 | |
| Ordinary Christians don't believe this. | 41:22 | |
| That's why they never become extraordinary Christian. | 41:27 | |
| This is grace. | 41:34 | |
| Grace abounding pressed down and running over. | 41:36 | |
| This is the good news of both testaments, | 41:42 | |
| of the Old as well as of the New. | 41:46 | |
| Now, if only the good news had stopped there, | 41:51 | |
| but it didn't. | 41:56 | |
| To grace abounding there has to be added grace demanding. | 41:59 | |
| It's not a matter of conscription | 42:05 | |
| of being drafted into some heavenly task for on earth, | 42:08 | |
| but there is a call for volunteers. | 42:14 | |
| Relaxation is not the culmination of the religious life. | 42:19 | |
| And man is not supposed to be at ease in Zion | 42:26 | |
| while he's still on this planet. | 42:31 | |
| One, doesn't go through such an experience as Isaiah's | 42:34 | |
| or Paul or Luther's in order to lugh | 42:39 | |
| Grace abounding is also grace which needs adherence | 42:46 | |
| to make it abound the more, here, there, everywhere. | 42:50 | |
| Overseas, amidst the down and out at home, | 42:54 | |
| in the legislatures, | 42:58 | |
| in a hospital ward, | 43:00 | |
| whom do we find there? | 43:02 | |
| Francis of Assisi, Santa Teresa, Lord Shaftesbury, | 43:03 | |
| Florence Nightingale, Albert Schweitzer, Alan Payton, | 43:08 | |
| and their disciples. | 43:13 | |
| Each of them found grace abounding and demanding. | 43:15 | |
| And perhaps Gladstone spoke for all of them, | 43:22 | |
| when he said the supreme task of statesmanship | 43:26 | |
| is to find out which way God is going | 43:32 | |
| during the next 50 years. | 43:38 | |
| The Supreme task of statesmanship is to find out | 43:42 | |
| which way God is going during the next 50 years. | 43:48 | |
| Now, these men and women found out | 43:53 | |
| and then went along. | 43:58 | |
| Do we need to spell out what Isaiah's vision | 44:01 | |
| in the temple means for us, or to us? | 44:03 | |
| God may reveal himself here | 44:09 | |
| for someone worshiping in this place. | 44:13 | |
| He may do it at the Sunday service of worship, | 44:16 | |
| through an anthem or a hymn, | 44:20 | |
| through a prayer or a lesson. | 44:24 | |
| Even through a sermon. | 44:28 | |
| He may do it through the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, | 44:32 | |
| which John Wesley described as converting ordinance, | 44:36 | |
| as well as a confirming ordinance. | 44:43 | |
| He may do it on any weekday | 44:46 | |
| when one of us is alone in the chapel gazing at the windows | 44:49 | |
| or the rear doors | 44:54 | |
| or the alter table. | 44:57 | |
| Should not surprise us | 44:59 | |
| that God may reveal himself in his house. | 45:01 | |
| It does suggest though, | 45:07 | |
| that we shouldn't be on tip toe with the expectation, | 45:09 | |
| ready for him. | 45:14 | |
| And yet, are we as honest as Isaiah | 45:17 | |
| about the kind of folk we are? | 45:20 | |
| About the kind of community in which we live? | 45:23 | |
| Or is the sin which doth so easily beset us, | 45:28 | |
| which makes us people of unclean lips. | 45:32 | |
| Anger, arrogant, carelessness, | 45:36 | |
| the unkind word. | 45:43 | |
| Or is it pride of past, racial clannishness, | 45:46 | |
| denominational tribalism, my country right or wrong? | 45:54 | |
| Let's turn over slowly in our minds every word | 46:02 | |
| of that phrase, | 46:06 | |
| the sin which doth so easily beset us. | 46:08 | |
| I'll place it under the eye of God. | 46:24 | |
| What's the result? | 46:31 | |
| We're lost. | 46:34 | |
| Fini. | 46:37 | |
| But thanks be to God, fini is not the last word | 46:40 | |
| in the encounter. | 46:45 | |
| The word we need in the first word he speaks is relax. | 46:47 | |
| Relax, | 46:53 | |
| yes, relax. | 46:55 | |
| Let us lay honest hold on the promise that God forgives, | 46:58 | |
| not because it's his job as the cynic said, | 47:04 | |
| but because it's his nature. | 47:09 | |
| He forgives, we accept. | 47:12 | |
| We take a long breath and say, thank you, sir. | 47:16 | |
| Then we unwind. | 47:23 | |
| We let the tension go out of it. | 47:25 | |
| We exhale, we smile | 47:28 | |
| and that's that. | 47:32 | |
| And this is the gospel, | 47:35 | |
| which most religious folk believe is too good to be true. | 47:37 | |
| Are you willing to risk it | 47:45 | |
| as Isaiah and Paul and Luther and Wesley did? | 47:48 | |
| A year from now an occasional person will rediscover it | 47:56 | |
| and then your life will be changed and fulfilled. | 48:03 | |
| What next? | 48:09 | |
| You know, a place of service. | 48:10 | |
| It should be determined by three things. | 48:15 | |
| First, the willingness to behave as God does. | 48:19 | |
| To forgive others. | 48:26 | |
| An awareness of a crying need. | 48:29 | |
| And an honest appraisal of our own abilities. | 48:35 | |
| God doesn't expect poets to be lab technicians | 48:40 | |
| or plumbers to be actors | 48:46 | |
| or nurses to be agricultural experts. | 48:50 | |
| He uses us with our own skills | 48:54 | |
| for service follows and forgiveness, | 48:57 | |
| if forgiveness is really understood. | 49:01 | |
| We know we are forgiven, how then should we answer? | 49:06 | |
| Here am I, thank God, send him. | 49:11 | |
| Or, here am I, thank you sir, send me. | 49:17 | |
| Grace abounding, grace demanding, | 49:26 | |
| this I think is what Isaiah was trying | 49:30 | |
| to tell his readers in the language | 49:33 | |
| of his pictorial imagination. | 49:37 | |
| This is the scripture | 49:41 | |
| which the choir sang to us two and a half millennia later. | 49:42 | |
| How do we respond? | 49:50 | |
| Does hymn 200, which we're about to sing, | 49:53 | |
| does that help us? | 49:59 | |
| John Haynes Hommes, | 50:02 | |
| one of new York's great ministers, | 50:04 | |
| in some ways the 20th century Isaiah, | 50:07 | |
| wrote this hymn as his contemporary understanding | 50:14 | |
| of here am I, send me. | 50:20 | |
| Let it be our sung prayer after the sermon. | 50:27 | |
| Hymn 200, stanzas one, three and four | 50:33 | |
| (organ music playing) | 50:42 | |
| (choir singing hymnal music) | 51:22 | |
| (faint organ music playing) | 54:02 | |
| (bright organ music playing) | 56:36 | |
| (faint organ music playing) | 57:19 | |
| (bright organ music playing) | 58:23 | |
| - | Almighty God, | 59:38 |
| we have heard thy voice saying, | 59:40 | |
| "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" | 59:42 | |
| And we stand here facing the altar, | 59:47 | |
| the symbol of thy presence, | 59:49 | |
| and we answer here is our body, send it. | 59:52 | |
| We also say, here are we send us. | 59:56 | |
| Now give us grace to mean it, | 1:00:03 | |
| through Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 1:00:05 | |
| O God, we are here at the end of this service of worship, | 1:00:13 | |
| and at the beginning of going out | 1:00:18 | |
| for a service of witnessing again, | 1:00:21 | |
| grant us thy piece as we go to witness, | 1:00:24 | |
| through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 1:00:27 | |
| (choir singing) | 1:00:32 | |
| (choir singing faintly) | 1:01:17 | |
| (church bell tolling) | 1:01:39 | |
| (organ music playing) | 1:01:55 |
