Stephen F. Bayne, Jr. - "The Purpose of God" (January 10, 1971)
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| - | We thank thee, O God, | 0:07 |
| for those causes which cannot be defeated. | 0:08 | |
| Those hopes, which no assassin can kill. | 0:14 | |
| We thank thee that though our bodies may be destroyed, | 0:20 | |
| the spirit is with thee. | 0:25 | |
| Thank thee for flowers which at a wedding | 0:29 | |
| add joy to an already joyous occasion. | 0:33 | |
| For flowers, which at a funeral, | 0:37 | |
| temper sorrow and bitterness, | 0:39 | |
| reminders of renewal and of eternal life. | 0:42 | |
| We thank thee, O God, for the capacity | 0:50 | |
| to have righteous indignation against people. | 0:54 | |
| We thank thee for the capacity to love and be loved, | 0:59 | |
| to love the sinner even while hating the sin. | 1:05 | |
| We thank thee for that willingness on thy part | 1:12 | |
| to love us, miserable sinners that we are. | 1:17 | |
| Help us come into thine image and one day into thy presence. | 1:22 | |
| We thank thee for open-minded inquiry, | 1:30 | |
| for a willingness on the part of many to listen. | 1:34 | |
| Thank thee for the resolution of the will | 1:39 | |
| that is possible following periods of uncertainty and doubt. | 1:42 | |
| We thank thee for unexpected grace here and there, | 1:48 | |
| now and then, which continually renews us, gives us hope. | 1:52 | |
| Thank thee for victories of health over disease, | 2:02 | |
| love over hate, unity over division, | 2:06 | |
| truth over error, order over anarchy. | 2:11 | |
| Thank thee for blessings (indistinct), | 2:17 | |
| for which we are profoundly grateful. | 2:23 | |
| God, as we think of our university and others like it, | 2:30 | |
| we think of our city, of our nation, of our world, | 2:35 | |
| and we are driven to ask for the graces | 2:42 | |
| which Christian faith can give us. | 2:44 | |
| We need light, love, fairness. | 2:49 | |
| As we contemplate on rest, riots and turmoil, | 2:53 | |
| we pray for those who cause trouble by (indistinct). | 3:00 | |
| We pray for those who cause trouble by their cold attitudes. | 3:06 | |
| For those who are troublemakers by inflamed speech. | 3:11 | |
| For those who are troublemakers by their greedy unconcern. | 3:16 | |
| As we think of our sick, our confused, our poor, our hungry | 3:26 | |
| our lonely and our orphans, | 3:31 | |
| we remember the testimony of our fathers | 3:34 | |
| and of the saints who have come before us. | 3:37 | |
| Thou were to them, a friend, a savior, a great position. | 3:41 | |
| Heavenly Father, be that to us. | 3:46 | |
| To God we pray for those who are friends of our students | 3:53 | |
| who have died recently. | 3:58 | |
| Steven Cummerford, Rebecca Scott. | 4:01 | |
| Let thy Holy Spirit comfort their parents | 4:05 | |
| their brothers, their sisters, roommates, | 4:09 | |
| fellow students, professors, friends. | 4:13 | |
| We pray likewise for the family of Mrs. William Preston. | 4:20 | |
| Grant that all these and others | 4:27 | |
| may find the kind divine and human friendship | 4:29 | |
| shall deliver them from falling victim to bitterness, | 4:33 | |
| loneliness, unrelieved guilt or anxiety. | 4:37 | |
| May all of us who survive them | 4:42 | |
| learn what lessons their deaths teach us. | 4:44 | |
| Then resolve that good features in their lives | 4:48 | |
| that we highlighted in ours. | 4:53 | |
| To God we lift our thoughts to thee in prayer for the church | 4:58 | |
| which has been given us by our Lord Jesus Christ. | 5:02 | |
| Do thou in thy mercy delivered from their personal ambitions | 5:07 | |
| of its leaders, from apathy of its members. | 5:11 | |
| Deliver its leaders from arrogance, pompousness. | 5:18 | |
| Deliver its scholars from sophistry. | 5:22 | |
| Deliver its pastors from a possessive attitude | 5:25 | |
| toward their churches. | 5:28 | |
| Deliver the members from prejudice and a closed mind. | 5:31 | |
| May thy church be united in spirit and in truth. | 5:36 | |
| And may it escape corrosion of the spirit of (indistinct). | 5:41 | |
| Cause us to have a unity in heart and mind | 5:47 | |
| even when we cannot be fully united in organization. | 5:52 | |
| May we in spirit and in truth join heart and hand | 5:57 | |
| thanking the witness, Jesus Christ, in our days, | 6:02 | |
| and for thy joy (indistinct). | 6:07 | |
| We make this prayer in his name, | 6:12 | |
| remembering that better prayer | 6:14 | |
| which he has taught all his disciples to pray and say, | 6:16 | |
| Our Father, who art in heaven, | 6:21 | |
| hallowed be thy name. | 6:23 | |
| Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth | 6:25 | |
| as it is in heaven. | 6:30 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread | 6:32 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses | 6:35 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 6:37 | |
| And lead us not into temptation, | 6:40 | |
| but deliver us from evil. | 6:43 | |
| For thine is the kingdom | 6:45 | |
| and the power and the glory, forever, amen. | 6:47 | |
| - | O God, let thy word be heard. | 7:08 |
| O God, let thy word be spoken. | 7:13 | |
| O God, let thy word be obeyed. | 7:18 | |
| God's (indistinct) is the word. | 7:23 | |
| (indistinct) call on Jesus Christ. | 7:27 | |
| I used the phrase, giving a title to this sermon, | 7:40 | |
| it struck me as a curiously off putting phrase for our time. | 7:48 | |
| It was a time when one could speak (indistinct), | 7:54 | |
| breathe of confidence about purpose of God, | 7:58 | |
| but I know a few preachers now which, (indistinct). | 8:06 | |
| More of our contemporaries. | 8:16 | |
| The world in which I grew up, set purpose on (indistinct), | 8:20 | |
| could and we didn't speak about a purposeful universe, | 8:32 | |
| that was (indistinct) which a direction, | 8:39 | |
| a movement took advance, (indistinct) point toward an enemy. | 8:43 | |
| But of our favorite truths, (indistinct), systems of God, | 8:53 | |
| was based on a sense that purpose (indistinct), | 9:00 | |
| was a purpose in history, | 9:06 | |
| the history of the unfolding, | 9:11 | |
| of a story, of a drama, of a whole evolutionary tale, | 9:15 | |
| genuinely had unfolded greater sense, greater richness, | 9:23 | |
| greater meaning until, (indistinct) to us, | 9:27 | |
| I think it was fear about what purpose laid beyond us, | 9:33 | |
| was part of the problem, because we found that (indistinct) | 9:39 | |
| talk about the purpose was literally the only way | 9:42 | |
| to describe the purpose by saying, "Here we are." | 9:45 | |
| Out a few men, some Christian way (indistinct), | 9:50 | |
| precisely because we had taken purpose | 9:56 | |
| in the narrowest possible sense. | 10:01 | |
| Had somehow to wind up by they | 10:05 | |
| that this world, this society, | 10:08 | |
| that these gifts, these Christians, | 10:12 | |
| bridged this technological skills | 10:16 | |
| as it was and all the rest of it. | 10:18 | |
| But this somehow had to be the climax | 10:19 | |
| as far as we could see of what the divine purpose was. | 10:24 | |
| And of course that was an act of faithlessness | 10:30 | |
| to have presumed divine purposes of God | 10:36 | |
| in such narrow terms. | 10:44 | |
| But however it was, time long had when men and women | 10:47 | |
| can talk about God's purpose in any assured way. | 10:53 | |
| You see, the time has passed, I think, | 11:01 | |
| when we are quite sure that we even speak | 11:02 | |
| about a purposeful God, | 11:05 | |
| much less a purposeful history or a purposeful universe. | 11:08 | |
| (indistinct) almost to be a malignant lack of purpose | 11:17 | |
| in the events. | 11:21 | |
| Or God. | 11:24 | |
| Almost bearing fear that there is no direction, | 11:26 | |
| no use of talking about purpose | 11:32 | |
| for a man or a woman to (indistinct), | 11:36 | |
| this is a way of talking about the despair that many feel | 11:42 | |
| in our time, and it is real. | 11:47 | |
| But I take my position where I am. | 11:53 | |
| Among the things Paul talks about internal purpose of God. | 11:58 | |
| which purpose in Christ Jesus are (indistinct), | 12:02 | |
| we have boldness, we have (indistinct). | 12:05 | |
| This has meaning today that I would like to say | 12:11 | |
| in my sermon of the meanings. | 12:16 | |
| I take them in a certain quarter, | 12:21 | |
| because I think something like onion, | 12:23 | |
| you go on getting meaning of the same words, | 12:28 | |
| of the same sense. | 12:31 | |
| The eternal purpose in Christ Jesus, our Lord, | 12:33 | |
| who we have boldness, faith in him, | 12:38 | |
| is I would say, first of all, | 12:45 | |
| a matter of our gaining the sense, | 12:48 | |
| that here I put it in a very simple and (indistinct) phrase, | 12:51 | |
| that Jesus is God's idea of what it is to be human. | 12:57 | |
| This is the first level of our understanding of purpose. | 13:03 | |
| Certainly, the first Christians did not begin | 13:10 | |
| by (indistinct) and convincing theological statements | 13:12 | |
| about God's incarnation in Christ. | 13:17 | |
| They started at the other end. | 13:20 | |
| They started with Jesus himself. | 13:23 | |
| They started with their growing understanding | 13:26 | |
| of the transcendent (indistinct), | 13:29 | |
| the luminous quality about it, | 13:34 | |
| the truth that was there, | 13:36 | |
| the extraordinary authority that Jesus spoke, | 13:39 | |
| and the extraordinary love where they started. | 13:42 | |
| This (indistinct) Christians to whom little by little, | 13:47 | |
| so much of their heart and soul and life was turned | 13:53 | |
| because he won them so, and because they felt in the end | 14:00 | |
| that they had to pour out all their life and loyalty, | 14:05 | |
| they came to understand | 14:11 | |
| that the only way they could say and make sense | 14:12 | |
| by saying somehow God was in Christ, | 14:15 | |
| showing us something, | 14:20 | |
| something only a God's love, but (indistinct), | 14:24 | |
| somewhat (indistinct) also showing us | 14:28 | |
| something about ourselves, | 14:31 | |
| saying that Jesus is God's idea what it is to be human, | 14:34 | |
| is to say, it's somewhat frighten (indistinct). | 14:39 | |
| That we are expected to measure up, | 14:42 | |
| that we are expected to be as great in spirit, | 14:46 | |
| we are expected to know and make the choices that made. | 14:51 | |
| Yet that is the way in which Christian faith (indistinct). | 14:59 | |
| To understand that the first purpose of God in Christ | 15:04 | |
| was that we should come some greater idea of ourselves | 15:10 | |
| and some greater understanding of what it was that Paul did. | 15:17 | |
| And this high calling | 15:22 | |
| has somehow brought us back time and time again, | 15:24 | |
| in an attempt at least, to live out our Christian faith. | 15:31 | |
| Eternal purpose of Christ Jesus, our Lord, | 15:37 | |
| first, that we should be ourselves in him. | 15:43 | |
| And almost one should (indistinct) and say second thing, | 15:49 | |
| it was not simply a meeting with ourselves. | 15:54 | |
| See (indistinct). | 15:58 | |
| But it is adjoining (indistinct) with God. | 16:01 | |
| (indistinct) with God is being brought, | 16:06 | |
| being brought into a new intimacy with God in Christ. | 16:10 | |
| It, again, is somewhat, and it certainly (indistinct). | 16:19 | |
| Jesus once used the word, talking to his disciples, | 16:23 | |
| he said to them, "Henceforth, call you no more servants, | 16:29 | |
| cause the servant does not know what his master is up to. | 16:37 | |
| I have called you friends | 16:43 | |
| for all things that I have learned of my Father, | 16:46 | |
| I have made known unto you. | 16:50 | |
| Not a servant. I have called you friend. | 16:54 | |
| First (indistinct) of the Word. | 17:00 | |
| Think how glorious to be able to understand ourselves | 17:08 | |
| as friends of God. | 17:11 | |
| But almost as soon as we have used the word, | 17:15 | |
| we suddenly have second thoughts about this. | 17:18 | |
| Servant does not know what the master's purposes are, | 17:22 | |
| does not need to know. | 17:27 | |
| He'd simply go on his way doing what his ought to do, | 17:31 | |
| has his work laid out for him, and all he brings to it, | 17:35 | |
| (indistinct) of ability and fidelity that he has. | 17:41 | |
| And then the time comes (indistinct). | 17:46 | |
| Put off all this till the next day. | 17:49 | |
| Got his wages. He's got his benefits. | 17:53 | |
| He got all the good things that are coming for them | 17:56 | |
| willing to do the job. | 18:00 | |
| A not uncomfortable post to have (indistinct). | 18:01 | |
| And if to be a friend of God means | 18:06 | |
| that Jesus said that "I have told you all things | 18:10 | |
| that I have heard of my Father," | 18:13 | |
| to be a friend of God means that we know God's secrets. | 18:16 | |
| If to be God's friend means that we have to do God's work, | 18:22 | |
| we are not sure we like this. | 18:27 | |
| Far easier, far better to be an employee of God. | 18:30 | |
| 'Cause God's faithful and pays the wages. | 18:38 | |
| Far better not to know anything about God's secrets. | 18:42 | |
| Far better not to be let in on a secret of the universe. | 18:47 | |
| Far better to know nothing of judgment and proof | 18:51 | |
| that (indistinct) and right, life and death, (indistinct). | 18:54 | |
| Far better to play the humble part of the servant. | 19:00 | |
| That just works on the ground. | 19:04 | |
| Yet, it brings benefit (indistinct) to be God's friend. | 19:08 | |
| There's no way in which a man or woman | 19:16 | |
| can unlearn what Jesus have taught humanity. | 19:19 | |
| There is no way in which without (indistinct) | 19:24 | |
| the greatness of a knowledge of God | 19:28 | |
| that God himself has taught us. | 19:31 | |
| No way (indistinct) for better or for worse (indistinct). | 19:33 | |
| And have been left in our midst. | 19:45 | |
| And we cannot forget that openness and solemnity | 19:49 | |
| can be men and women. | 19:57 | |
| In Christ we see not only God's idea of us, | 20:00 | |
| but almost (indistinct) of God, | 20:04 | |
| is joining with him. | 20:10 | |
| Then, as we go one step deeper, (indistinct) purpose | 20:15 | |
| of Christ Jesus is a commitment of God to men, | 20:23 | |
| the way we used to say this, | 20:34 | |
| not in delinquent terms about God's commitment to us. | 20:35 | |
| What we say is that men and women are (indistinct), | 20:42 | |
| that there is a concrete in reality to responsible freedom, | 20:49 | |
| to the choices that we have to make under God, | 20:56 | |
| have an abiding sense of justice, | 20:59 | |
| and an abiding sense of the matters somehow | 21:02 | |
| (indistinct) reality of matters, | 21:06 | |
| how a man or a woman decides, what he decides. | 21:08 | |
| We may not be able to articulate this | 21:12 | |
| in some convenient theology. | 21:14 | |
| I don't know that we ever have or ever could. | 21:18 | |
| But human questions the reality of it. | 21:21 | |
| This is the primary nature of our human self-consciousness. | 21:24 | |
| We are the people who have to choose. | 21:29 | |
| We're not always happy about this. | 21:34 | |
| What we see, happens (indistinct) | 21:36 | |
| only of the people who are free. | 21:40 | |
| When man makes foolish choices | 21:43 | |
| about universe, nature suffers. | 21:45 | |
| When he makes stupid choices about our own destiny, | 21:50 | |
| then human society shakes and forms (indistinct). | 21:54 | |
| If there is any justice in the world, (indistinct), | 22:02 | |
| we are concerned, we make ourselves. | 22:06 | |
| We determine what cells we're going to feed. | 22:10 | |
| That king of reality to it. | 22:12 | |
| Well, the other way of saying it | 22:17 | |
| is that God has the purpose of self, for men. | 22:19 | |
| That the purpose of God, | 22:25 | |
| part of it could be a simply the school, | 22:28 | |
| unrolling some (indistinct), or the (indistinct) light | 22:31 | |
| of some story, | 22:36 | |
| that we're gonna have a happy ending in (indistinct). | 22:37 | |
| If we talk about the purpose of God in those terms... | 22:39 | |
| Because human freedom is real, every day is a commitment. | 22:47 | |
| God has a purpose to man. | 22:52 | |
| But God had (indistinct) himself to us, | 22:57 | |
| and this and an escapable partnership between God and man. | 23:03 | |
| Because God has (indistinct) himself to us, | 23:10 | |
| there is a degree of reality (indistinct) to history | 23:17 | |
| and to all living (indistinct), | 23:19 | |
| which again, is somewhat frightening, | 23:23 | |
| that wished that history did unroll itself, | 23:28 | |
| it wished that there was a kind of soap opera about history. | 23:33 | |
| It wished that somehow we could imagine | 23:37 | |
| the unfolding itself, | 23:39 | |
| that everything coming like in the end. | 23:41 | |
| Like stories (indistinct) some kind of justice, | 23:45 | |
| like place that goes somewhere | 23:50 | |
| and comes an intelligible resolution. | 23:53 | |
| Like temporary equivalent of Cyrano de Bergerac, | 23:58 | |
| like be able to live just long enough | 24:03 | |
| to come out with the one beautiful phrase | 24:05 | |
| and then dark that knows | 24:08 | |
| that we don't often have a chance to that phrase. | 24:10 | |
| Die in the middle of (indistinct) or something. | 24:17 | |
| Never get a chance to get beautiful phrase out. | 24:20 | |
| To understand this, to understand about this (indistinct), | 24:23 | |
| that there's way to project... | 24:30 | |
| God has to (indistinct) himself in us, | 24:34 | |
| and therefore the future gets always somehow | 24:35 | |
| in the presence, therefore the contingencies of life | 24:39 | |
| are always here, | 24:43 | |
| therefore there's a solemnity about our choices | 24:44 | |
| of greatness about them, unaccustomed greatness about them | 24:48 | |
| that frightens as well as (indistinct). | 24:53 | |
| That choices that you and I make about the new church, | 24:58 | |
| our choices which determine, | 25:05 | |
| choices that men and women make about war, | 25:10 | |
| about justice, about this society, about the world, | 25:15 | |
| the (indistinct) of our choices, about the purpose | 25:20 | |
| and opinion, (indistinct). | 25:25 | |
| Therefore the only theology that makes any sense to us, | 25:32 | |
| the theology that puts all (indistinct), | 25:35 | |
| the theology of hope and (indistinct) sense or not, | 25:40 | |
| will be a theology that (indistinct) reality of the history | 25:43 | |
| in which we live. | 25:47 | |
| Will be a theology that accepts the (indistinct) of God, | 25:49 | |
| of us (indistinct). | 25:53 | |
| Will be a theology that speaks matching terms | 25:56 | |
| of commitment and a binding loyaly of the (indistinct). | 25:59 | |
| Will be a theology that takes human freedom very seriously, | 26:08 | |
| a theology that looks very open eyed at our times, | 26:11 | |
| at our society, (indistinct) science. | 26:13 | |
| There'll be purpose that Christ Jesus, | 26:27 | |
| we have boldness, we'll have structure, | 26:31 | |
| (indistinct) the way it talks about the greatness | 26:37 | |
| of human existence (indistinct). | 26:41 | |
| And the greatness and the seriousness of (indistinct) | 26:44 | |
| in which we are engaged, | 26:47 | |
| and the greatness and the soberness of the calling | 26:49 | |
| and the greatness and the joy, | 26:53 | |
| that God set in ourselves, (indistinct) Christ. | 26:56 | |
| (indistinct) alone, I believe, man or woman have measure | 27:03 | |
| (speaker speaks indistinctly) | 27:12 | |
| O God, we ask thee not to take us out of life | 27:21 | |
| but to prove thy power with in it. | 27:25 | |
| We ask not for tasks (indistinct) to our strength | 27:30 | |
| but for strength adequate to our tasks. | 27:35 | |
| Give us the great vision that inspires, | 27:41 | |
| and strength that endures, | 27:46 | |
| give us the grace of Jesus Christ, | 27:49 | |
| who wore our flesh like a King's robe, | 27:54 | |
| who walked the ways of earth like a conqueror in triumph. | 27:58 | |
| Now this (indistinct) spirit, | 28:04 | |
| God forever and ever. | 28:09 | |
| Amen. | 28:12 | |
| (gentle uplifting organ music) | 28:15 | |
| (choir sings indistinctly) | 29:14 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 32:22 | |
| (light organ music) | 33:49 | |
| (choir sings indistinctly) | 34:02 | |
| (bright organ music) | 38:01 | |
| ♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪ | 38:22 | |
| ♪ Praise Him all creatures here below ♪ | 38:28 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ | 38:33 | |
| ♪ Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts ♪ | 38:39 | |
| ♪ Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost ♪ | 38:45 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ | 38:50 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ | 38:56 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 39:02 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 39:09 | |
| (priest speaks indistinctly) | 39:20 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 39:57 | |
| (choir vocalizing) | 40:05 | |
| (dramatic organ music) | 41:43 |