David C. Steinmetz - "Hope against Hope" (November 28, 1976)

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	(gentle uplifting music)	0:04
-	Let us pray.	11:13
	Oh, holy God we pray send your spirit	11:16
	that we may worship you in truth and in love	11:21
	in this beginning of the advent season.	11:28
	We pray in the spirit of Christ.	11:30
	Amen.	11:34
	(gentle uplifting music)	11:36
	As we come to this time of confession,	14:50
	we ask that God would give to us	14:54
	the grace of humility and contrition	14:58
	so that we may know ourselves as we truly are,	15:02
	and have the courage to make this confession	15:07
	with assurance of God's forgiveness.	15:12
	Let us pray.	15:16
	Oh God, at this point,	15:19
	we would like to spend a few moments of not doing anything,	15:22
	but just being in your presence	15:27
	and realizing what you did for us.	15:30
	Oh Lord, especially when we think of your death	15:34
	upon the cross, we feel very ashamed;	15:38
	because we, and all these nice people	15:43
	whom we love around us, we all put you there.	15:46
	And we continue to keep you there, so to speak.	15:52
	Now we know, not literally,	15:57
	but like it said in Hebrews about people	16:01
	who crucify the Son of God afresh	16:04
	and put Him to an open shame.	16:08
	Well, what else can we say about all of us	16:12
	who profess ourselves your followers,	16:16
	and don't have your concern.	16:20
	Lord, Lord, forgive us.	16:22
	Forgive us, purge our hearts	16:26
	and give us the courage and goodness of your Holy Spirit	16:30
	to change our complacency and move to others in love.	16:35
	And here again, let us be quiet awhile.	16:42
	Amen.	17:06
	We dire to live as forgiven people,	17:09
	because we are certain that God is always seeking us	17:12
	in the silence and in the rush;	17:19
	loving us, forgiving us and enabling us	17:22
	to accept this love and forgiveness.	17:28
	And for this, we give the thanks.	17:32
	(gentle uplifting music)	17:41
	♪ Turn Thee to me and have mercy ♪	18:46
	♪ For I am desolate and sore distressed ♪	19:00
	♪ Great, great are the sorrows of my heart ♪	19:26
	♪ Bring me out of my distress ♪	19:39
	♪ Bring me out of my distress ♪	19:55
	♪ Oh be merciful, look on my sorrow, see mine affliction ♪	20:14
	♪ And forgive me all my wickedness ♪	20:29
	♪ Oh, keep my soul in safety and deliver me ♪	20:38
	♪ Let me never be confounded ♪	20:50
	♪ For my hope is in Thee ♪	21:03
	♪ For my hope is in Thee ♪	21:19
	Hear the reading from the Old Testament lesson,	21:55
	the 15th chapter of Genesis verses one through six;	21:59
	"after these things,	22:06
	so the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision:	22:07
	'Fear, not Abraham, I am your shield.	22:11
	Your reward shall be very great.'	22:15
	But Abraham said, 'Oh Lord God, what will Thou give me?	22:18
	For I continue childless	22:23
	and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus.'	22:26
	And Abraham said, 'Behold, thou has given me no offspring	22:32
	and a slave born in my house will be my heir.'	22:36
	And behold, the word of the Lord came to him;	22:40
	'This man shall not be your heir.	22:44
	Your own son shall be your heir.'	22:46
	And He brought him outside and said,	22:50
	'Look toward the heavens and number the stars	22:53
	if you are able to number them.'	22:56
	Then He said to him, 'So shall your descendants be.'	22:58
	And he believed the Lord	23:03
	and he reckoned it to him his righteousness."	23:05
	And here the reading from Romans	23:10
	the fourth chapter, 16 through 25th verses.	23:14
	"That is why it depends on faith,	23:22
	in order that the promise may rest on grace	23:25
	and be guaranteed to all his descendants.	23:29
	Not only do the adherence of the law,	23:33
	but also to those who share the faith of Abraham;	23:36
	for he is the father of us all; as it is written,	23:40
	'I have made you the father of many nations	23:45
	in the presence of the God in whom he believed,	23:49
	who gives life to the dead and calls into existence	23:52
	the things that do not exist.	23:57
	In hope he believed against hope	24:02
	that he should become the father of many nations	24:06
	as he had been told; 'so shall your descendants be.'	24:10
	He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body,	24:15
	which was as good as dead	24:19
	because he was about 100 years old.	24:20
	Or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.	24:24
	No distrust made him waiver concerning the promise of God.	24:28
	But he grew strong in his faith	24:33
	as he gave glory to God, fully convinced	24:36
	that God was able to do what He had promised.	24:40
	That is why his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness.	24:43
	But the words, it was reckoned to him,	24:49
	were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also.	24:52
	It will be reckoned to us who believe in Him	24:58
	that's raised from the dead Jesus, our Lord,	25:02
	who was put to death for our trespasses	25:06
	and raised for our justification."	25:09
	And here ends the reading of the morning lessons.	25:14
	(gentle uplifting music)	25:18
	Let us affirm what we believe.	26:03
	We believe in God who has created and is creating,	26:07
	who has come in the truly human Jesus,	26:12
	to reconcile and make new,	26:16
	who works in us and others by the spirit.	26:19
	We trust God who calls us to be the church	26:24
	to celebrate life and its fullness,	26:29
	to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil,	26:32
	to proclaim Jesus; crucified and risen,	26:39
	our judge and our hope in life and death;	26:44
	in life beyond death, God is with us.	26:50
	We are not alone.	26:54
	Thanks be to God.	26:57
	The Lord be with you.	26:59
	(indistinct congregation chattering)	27:02
	Let us pray.	27:03
	Oh holy God, there is a quickening in our hearts,	27:14
	as we begin again,	27:19
	the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Christ.	27:20
	We bow in awe, at the incomprehensible mystery	27:27
	of you being born in human form.	27:33
	And we wonder and marvel at the miracle of all birth.	27:37
	We pray that this advent will be a time	27:45
	when the horizons of our minds will be enlarged,	27:49
	our sympathies quickened, our imaginations fed,	27:55
	and our spirits developed so that we become more obedient	28:02
	and responsible to you who created us,	28:08
	redeemed us and continue to sustain us.	28:12
	Hear us now, as we pray for our community,	28:19
	our nation and our world;	28:24
	that they may become communities of justice and peace.	28:28
	Places where all people have self-respect and are respected	28:35
	where no one has to beg for food or love or shelter.	28:40
	Hear our prayers for those who have no home,	28:49
	for those who are badly housed, for those who have no work,	28:53
	for those whose work is a burden, for those who are hungry	29:01
	for those who are lonely, for those who are barely alive.	29:09
	We also pray for those with abundance of love	29:18
	and food and shelter,	29:21
	that they may keep their hearts and homes open	29:24
	to those in need and learn to share in ways	29:28
	that are not patronizing and dehumanizing.	29:34
	Now, oh, God lift before you,	29:40
	those who have been struck by illness or misfortune,	29:42
	those who are bored or anxious or in despair.	29:48
	We pray for the sick, the aged, the dying.	29:53
	Oh God, we pray for the well-being of all people,	30:01
	that no one life should be endangered	30:06
	or taken by another's callousness or anger or mental stress.	30:10
	We grieve all death,	30:16
	but especially those whose death seems needless and cruel.	30:19
	We give thanks for all who care for people in their need,	30:27
	and pray that we may be enabled to bring love and hope	30:31
	to those who seek it through us.	30:35
	We give thanks for our friends	30:41
	who surround us with affection.	30:43
	And help us oh God, to pray for those	30:48
	who are not well disposed to us,	30:52
	for those who cause us trouble,	30:55
	and for those for whom we cause trouble.	30:58
	We give you thanks that you continue to come to us	31:04
	in unexpected ways,	31:08
	and pray that we will be open to accept you again	31:11
	during this advent time.	31:16
	And hear us as we pray the prayer	31:19
	Jesus taught His disciples and us.	31:22
	Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.	31:27
	Thy kingdom come,	31:34
	Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	31:36
	Give us this day our daily bread.	31:41
	And forgive us our trespasses	31:45
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	31:48
	And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.	31:52
	For Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory;	31:58
	forever and ever.	32:03
	Amen.	32:05
-	Let me read one more time the text from St. Paul.	32:22
	"That is why it depends on faith;	32:29
	in order that the promise may rest on grace	32:33
	and be guaranteed to all his descendants.	32:36
	Not only to the adherence of the law,	32:38
	but also to those who share the faith of Abraham	32:41
	for he is the father of us all.	32:43
	As it is written,	32:46
	"I have made you the father of many nations."	32:47
	In the presence of the God, in whom he believed,	32:51
	who gives life to the dead	32:53
	and calls into existence the things that do not exist.	32:56
	In hope, he believed against hope	33:01
	that he should become the father of many nations;	33:02
	as he had been told, 'So shall your descendants be.'	33:05
	He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body,	33:09
	which was as good as dead,	33:13
	because he was about 100 years old.	33:15
	Or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.	33:18
	No distrust made him waiver concerning the promise of God	33:22
	but he grew strong in his faith;	33:25
	as he gave glory to God, fully convinced	33:27
	that God was able to do what He had promised.	33:30
	That is why his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness.	33:35
	But the words, it was reckoned to him,	33:40
	were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also.	33:41
	It will be reckoned to us	33:46
	who believe in Him that raised from the dead,	33:47
	Jesus, our Lord, who was put to death for our trespasses	33:50
	and raised for our justification."	33:55
	A letter of St. Paul to the church at Rome is a long essay,	34:00
	which repeats again and again the theme,	34:04
	that God has acted for the salvation of the world	34:07
	in Jesus Christ.	34:10
	And that this salvation	34:12
	is given to everyone who trusts in God's saving activity.	34:13
	Salvation is not a reward	34:18
	for a life of exemplary moral conduct.	34:20
	The justification of the sinner is a gift granted to faith.	34:24
	But what is meant by faith?	34:30
	The traditional response to this question,	34:36
	whether Protestant or Roman Catholic,	34:39
	has been to analyze the act of faith itself.	34:42
	The theological manuals abound with terms	34:46
	and distinctions designed to clarify the nature of faith;	34:50
	acquired faith, unformed faith,	34:56
	historical faith, faith formed by love;	34:59
	faith as act, faith as habit.	35:03
	The most famous Protestant theological textbooks	35:08
	of the 16th and 17th centuries,	35:11
	they usually identified three moments in the act of faith;	35:14
	knowledge, explicit knowledge	35:19
	of propositions to be believed.	35:23
	Propositions either found in the Bible	35:26
	or deduced from the Bible.	35:29
	The ascent of the mind to those propositions,	35:33
	an a scent which the textbooks warn us,	35:37
	is absolute and unqualified.	35:39
	And finally confidence; the commitment of the will	35:44
	to the trues ascended to, by the mind.	35:48
	And this confidence always results	35:53
	in a modification of behavior	35:56
	as the believing man or a woman acts on the propositions	35:58
	which he or she believes.	36:03
	The 19th century also struggled with the meaning of faith	36:09
	from John Henry Newman;	36:13
	who pointed out that every act of knowing involves a leap	36:16
	that no one ever has or ever can wait	36:20
	until all the evidence is in	36:23
	before making a cognitive decision and committing oneself	36:26
	to a course of action.	36:31
	From John Henry Newman to William James,	36:33
	who gave a probing psychological analysis	36:37
	of the will to believe.	36:39
	And no one who has ever read Paul Tillich's	36:43
	"Analysis of Faith" as the courage to be,	36:46
	can never forget his penetrating comments on doubt;	36:49
	as a constituent element of faith itself.	36:53
	From Ebeling to Louis, from Barth to (indistinct),	36:57
	the 20th century has made its own contribution	37:02
	to the literature on faith.	37:05
	The shelves of the library Creek,	37:08
	under the weight of the careful distinctions,	37:11
	the definitions and redefinitions,	37:14
	the phenomenological analysis of faith.	37:17
	It is therefore all the more surprising,	37:24
	that St. Paul does not give a definition of faith.	37:29
	St. Paul answers the question, what is faith,	37:39
	by telling a story.	37:44
	Or rather he comments on a story,	37:47
	which everyone in his audience know so well	37:51
	that he does not need to repeat it;	37:54
	an illusion will suffice.	37:57
	The story is the ancient account	38:01
	from the Torah of a promise which was given to Abraham.	38:04
	According to this story,	38:11
	Abraham was promised a son by his wife, Sarah.	38:14
	Now, Abraham was an old man when he received the promise,	38:19
	and a much older man before he saw its realization.	38:24
	The son who would be born would become in his own turn,	38:29
	the father of a line of descendants	38:35
	as numberless as the stars in the heaven	38:37
	or the grains of sand on the shore.	38:41
	The text from Genesis 15:6, which St. Paul quotes,	38:44
	says that Abraham believed this promise	38:51
	and was accounted or reckoned by God as righteous.	38:55
	Not because of anything Abraham had done,	39:01
	but because of his confidence or trust in a promise.	39:05
	Now, you might think this a very straightforward	39:13
	and unexciting story with no romance	39:16
	or adventure about it at all.	39:18
	Children are being born into our world every day;	39:21
	indeed too many children are being born into our world.	39:25
	The promise of a son to a childless couple is a fine thing,	39:30
	but hardly the stuff out of which high adventure is made;	39:36
	unless of course you consider the difficulties.	39:42
	The Jewish Christians in Rome,	39:49
	to whom the letter was written,	39:51
	had read and pondered the stories of the Torah	39:53
	since they were small children.	39:56
	They remembered what the difficulties were.	39:58
	Paul was counting on the fact, they would remember	40:01
	when he pointed to Abraham	40:05
	as an example of what faith means.	40:06
	Let me list the difficulties for you	40:11
	in case you have forgotten them.	40:14
	There was the age of Abraham.	40:18
	He was well past the normal age for retirement.	40:22
	If he were alive today,	40:26
	he would subscribe to modern maturity	40:29
	and take lessons in woodcarving	40:32
	at the Local Senior Citizens Center.	40:34
	He was at an age when people seek out a geriatrics clinic,	40:38
	rather than an obstetrician.	40:43
	To complicate matters still more,	40:47
	Sarah was not only past the normal age of childbearing,	40:49
	she was even, according to the author of Genesis,	40:56
	well on the other side of menopause.	41:00
	When Sarah heard about the promise, she laughed!	41:04
	You would laugh too if your grandfather announced	41:09
	that he and your grandmother	41:13
	were expecting a child in due course.	41:15
	If that were not enough, Sarah was not only an old woman,	41:21
	she was an old woman	41:27
	who had never been able to become pregnant	41:29
	during her youthful childbearing years.	41:33
	Even if the promise had been given to Abraham	41:37
	before Sarah had gone through change of life,	41:40
	it would have required more confidence than most of us have	41:43
	to expect that a childless woman,	41:46
	with a medical case history of infertility, which Sarah had,	41:50
	whatever being able to conceive and bear a son.	41:54
	Finally, when Abraham and Sarah did, against all odds,	41:59
	managed to conceive and give birth to Isaac;	42:07
	Abraham, and one must have seen	42:12
	struck of any disinterested observer,	42:14
	as a fit of excessive religious fervor;	42:18
	Abraham took Isaac into the wilderness	42:21
	in order to offer him as a human sacrifice to his God.	42:25
	Now, these are the difficulties which Genesis lists.	42:31
	These are the difficulties which Paul remembers	42:37
	when he cites Genesis 15:6.	42:41
	Abraham believed God, God who promises Abraham a son.	42:45
	Abraham believed God,	42:52
	and it was reckoned to him for righteousness.	42:56
	The faith, which justifies us, is a faith like this.	43:03
	The key to the Pauline doctrine of justification	43:11
	is the figure of Abraham.	43:15
	The ancient story of Abraham from the Pentateuch	43:19
	is the context in which God's saving act	43:22
	is interpreted and understood.	43:26
	There are three things about Abraham's faith	43:33
	which Paul emphasizes.	43:35
	First of all, faith, it says in our text,	43:39
	is confidence in a God who gives life to the dead	43:45
	and calls into existence things that do not exist.	43:51
	Death is the exhaustion of all human possibilities.	43:59
	Death means I have no more possibilities	44:04
	for life left in me.	44:10
	My wife was for two years,	44:16
	the advisor to a group of student wives	44:18
	at a seminary where I previously taught.	44:21
	And when she finished her term of office as counselor,	44:25
	the girls presented her with a vase of cut flowers.	44:29
	We put the flowers in fresh water and brought them home.	44:34
	They were as lovely and as fragrant for a day or two;	44:39
	as if they were still growing in the garden.	44:44
	But on the third day, they began to wilt.	44:49
	They had exhausted the reservoir of life left in them,	44:53
	separated from the source of new life,	44:57
	they were green and dying.	45:00
	We too are green and dying.	45:07
	The possibilities which are open to us	45:11
	are constantly diminishing.	45:14
	I choose to become a plumber	45:17
	and die to the possibility of becoming a dentist.	45:20
	I choose to live in the city	45:23
	and die to the possibility of living in the country.	45:26
	For every possibility which I realize,	45:30
	there are 1000 others to which I die.	45:33
	The possibilities which are open to us	45:37
	are constantly diminishing.	45:39
	When I am young and healthy, I play basketball	45:41
	with a team of friends or with fellow students.	45:46
	When I am middle-aged,	45:50
	I pay for a ticket to watch young men play.	45:53
	And when I am old, I am glad if I can shuffle	45:58
	from the bedroom to the living room to watch on television,	46:02
	young men play and middle-aged men and women watch.	46:06
	The possibilities diminish	46:13
	until there are no possibilities left.	46:16
	But one day a procession will drive to the cemetery	46:20
	and everyone will go home except me.	46:24
	Death means that I have run out of all human possibilities	46:30
	and there are no further options open to me.	46:38
	Abraham's faith, the faith that justifies;	46:45
	Abraham's faith is confidence	46:52
	in a God who creates new possibilities for me	46:55
	when there are no possibilities open,	47:00
	or when I have exhausted all the possibilities I have.	47:03
	He is a God who gives life to the dead,	47:08
	who calls into existence things that do not exist.	47:12
	In the second place,	47:23
	Abraham's faith runs contrary to ordinary human expectation.	47:26
	An old man with an old wife,	47:37
	ought not to be building a nursery.	47:42
	He ought to be writing his will and planning his estate.	47:46
	Paul calls Abraham's faith, hope against hope.	47:52
	It is hope, that is, it is confidence	48:00
	in the God who gives life to the dead,	48:04
	in the God who creates possibilities	48:07
	where human possibilities have been exhausted.	48:09
	It is hope against hope,	48:12
	against the ordinary human expectations	48:16
	of sane and sensible people.	48:19
	Abraham is reckoned as righteous	48:24
	because he is not sane and sensible.	48:27
	Abraham has more confidence in the promise of God	48:33
	than he has in his own common sense.	48:38
	He thinks so much of a God who gives life to the dead,	48:42
	who calls into existence things that are not,	48:47
	that he can fly in the face of ordinary human expectation.	48:51
	Abraham's horizon is not defined	48:59
	by what sane and sensible people know	49:01
	they have a right to expect.	49:04
	Abraham's confidence in God	49:08
	is not grounded in empirical evidence.	49:11
	Abraham does not believe the impossible promise of a child	49:14
	because the probabilities which Abraham can assess,	49:18
	run strongly in its favor.	49:21
	It is in spite of the probabilities,	49:23
	not because of the probabilities, that Abraham trusts God.	49:25
	His faith is hope, but it is hope against hope.	49:31
	And this hope against hope is reckoned as righteousness.	49:37
	Because faith is hope against hope,	49:50
	Abraham clings neither to the past, nor to the present.	49:55
	His life is built on a future, which is promised by God.	50:03
	When I was a junior in college,	50:09
	I knew a girl who was depressed	50:11
	for six weeks before she turned 20,	50:16
	and for four weeks after.	50:19
	She was desperately eager	50:23
	to hang on to the present stage of life.	50:26
	And she had no desire, at least none I could discern,	50:29
	to enter the future.	50:33
	In a letter dated November 21st, 1962,	50:37
	written a year before his death,	50:41
	as CS Lewis observed to a friend,	50:44
	let me quote from the letter;	50:46
	"I think I shared excess your feelings about a move.	50:50
	By nature, I demand from the arrangements of this world,	50:56
	just that permanence, which God has expressed they refuse	51:01
	to give them.	51:05
	It is not merely that nuisance and expensive,	51:08
	any big change in one's life that I dread.	51:10
	It is also the psychological uprooting, and the feeling,	51:14
	to me or to you intensely unwelcome	51:18
	of having ended the chapter.	51:21
	One more portion of oneself slipping away into the past.	51:24
	I would like everything to be immemorial.	51:31
	To have the same old horizons, the same garden,	51:36
	the same smells and sounds, always there, changeless.	51:39
	The old wine is to me, always better.	51:45
	That is, I desire the abiding city	51:50
	where I well know, it is not, and all not to be found.	51:54
	I suppose all these changes should prepare us	52:01
	for the greater change, which is drawn near,	52:04
	even since I began this letter.	52:08
	We must set light, not only to life itself,	52:11
	but to all its phases.	52:16
	The useless word is (indistinct)."	52:19
	Abraham had the same ambivalence	52:28
	about ordinary human expectation that we all have.	52:31
	The ambivalence which drives us to cling with both hands	52:36
	to 19 or 39 or 59.	52:41
	Better adore present than an uncertain future.	52:50
	But Abraham was not defined by ordinary human expectation,	52:57
	Abraham was not defined by what ordinary people,	53:03
	have an ordinary right to expect	53:06
	in the ordinary conduct of their ordinary lives.	53:09
	Abraham was defined	53:13
	by confidence in a God who gives life to the dead.	53:14
	He was defined by confidence	53:18
	in a God who creates new possibilities.	53:20
	When our situation has no inherent possibilities left in it,	53:23
	Abraham risked his life on an invisible future.	53:28
	Abraham set light; not only to life itself,	53:32
	but to all life's phases past and present.	53:37
	This hope against hope,	53:44
	this confidence in a God who calls into existence,	53:49
	things that are not; this freedom from past and present	53:54
	was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.	54:03
	Finally, according to Paul, Abraham's faith centers in a son	54:13
	who is raised from the dead.	54:23
	Now, Abraham and Sarah are not dead	54:27
	in the sense that they have stopped breathing;	54:30
	all their vital signs are stable.	54:34
	But they are as good as dead,	54:38
	if one considers the normal possibilities	54:41
	of conception and birth.	54:43
	According to the Torah,	54:46
	Abraham was about 100 years old.	54:47
	Sarah was old, not quite that old but old,	54:51
	and chronically infertile.	54:54
	But says Paul, "Abraham did not weaken in faith	54:58
	when he considered his own body which was as good as dead,	55:04
	because he was about 100 years old.	55:08
	Or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb."	55:12
	Isaac was a child of resurrection.	55:19
	Isaac was raised from the as good as dead body of Abraham	55:23
	and the barren womb of Sarah.	55:28
	Indeed Isaac was doubly a child of resurrection;	55:32
	if one considers the fact that Abraham	55:35
	was willing to offer Isaac as a sacrifice to God.	55:37
	According to Genesis,	55:41
	Isaac is only snatched from the jaws of death	55:42
	at the last moment.	55:45
	Abraham ought to have reacted	55:50
	to the promise of God sensibly.	55:51
	He ought to have dismissed his visions	55:57
	as a case of senile fancies,	55:59
	brought on by hardening of the arteries.	56:02
	He ought to have been content	56:07
	with a horizon defined by normal human possibilities.	56:10
	He ought to have been satisfied	56:15
	to live by common sense and prudential reason.	56:16
	He ought to have been satisfied to sit on the porch,	56:22
	to dream the dreams	56:27
	and to cherish the hopes appropriate to his age.	56:29
	He ought in other words, to have been content to be like us.	56:33
	But Abraham trusted the God who gives life to the dead.	56:43
	Abraham trusted the God who calls into existence	56:51
	the things that do not exist.	56:56
	Abraham was not satisfied with hope,	57:01
	which is nothing more than normal human expectation.	57:05
	Abraham's future was not defined by his as good as dead body	57:10
	or the barren womb of Sarah.	57:15
	In hope against hope,	57:17
	Abraham placed his confidence in the God	57:20
	who is Lord of death.	57:23
	And this faith, this hope against hope	57:25
	was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.	57:29
	Faith is hope against hope.	57:37
	Faith is confidence in the God who creates possibilities,	57:45
	where, and when we have exhausted	57:52
	all the possibilities open to us.	57:56
	It is by this faith, by this hope against hope,	58:02
	and by nothing else,	58:10
	that we are justified in the presence of God.	58:13
	In the name of the Father and of the Son	58:18
	and of the Holy Ghost.	58:20
	Amen.	58:22
	Let us pray.	58:23
	(gentle uplifting music)	58:28
-	Oh Lord our God, send down your Holy Spirit we pray;	1:06:52
	to cleanse our hearts, to make holy our gifts,	1:06:58
	and to perfect the offering of ourselves to you	1:07:04
	through Jesus Christ our Lord.	1:07:08
	Amen.	1:07:11
	(gentle uplifting music)	1:07:15
	The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,	1:09:41
	the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,	1:09:45
	be with you this day and forevermore.	1:09:51
	Amen and amen.	1:09:56
	(gentle uplifting music)	1:10:05

Item Info

Title:

David C. Steinmetz - "Hope against Hope" (November 28, 1976)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4fj2ff4h

Date:

November 28, 1976

Speaker:

Steinmetz, David C.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0866
ref6932_o92
uachapelsermaud
duke:628677
dcrau002822
ark:/87924/r4fj2ff4h
7674360a-8488-4ce3-b82e-a8d638e363b9

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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David C. Steinmetz - "Hope against Hope" (November 28, 1976)

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Duke University Archives