Charles K. Robinson - "Comparison Proves?" (August 28, 1977)
MP3
Loading the media player...
Transcript
- Download transcript as:
-
Text
-
PDF
-
WebVTT (includes timecodes)
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| - | Duke University Chapel service of worship. | 0:05 |
| 13th Sunday after Pentecost, August 28th, 1977. | 0:08 | |
| (dramatic organ music) | 0:19 | |
| (gentle organ music) | 10:14 | |
| - | Our soul waits for the Lord. | 12:21 |
| He is our help and shield. | 12:25 | |
| Ye, our heart is glad in Him | 12:28 | |
| because we trust in His holy name. | 12:30 | |
| Let Thy steadfast love of the Lord be upon us, | 12:34 | |
| even as we hope in Thee. | 12:38 | |
| I will bless the Lord at all times. | 12:41 | |
| His praise shall continually be in my mouth. | 12:44 | |
| My soul makes its boast in the Lord. | 12:48 | |
| Let the afflicted hear and be glad. | 12:52 | |
| O, magnify the Lord with me | 12:57 | |
| and let us exalt His name together. | 13:00 | |
| Let us join in singing. | 13:05 | |
| (uplifting organ music) | 13:07 | |
| (congregation singing solemnly) | 13:40 | |
| Let us together confess our sins to our God. | 16:23 | |
| O God, we admit that too often | 16:29 | |
| we live on the surface of life. | 16:32 | |
| We are afraid of the depths, | 16:36 | |
| though we try to hide many things deep within us. | 16:38 | |
| We are disturbed by the knowledge that we have hurt others | 16:43 | |
| by our own selfish acts. | 16:47 | |
| We are troubled by the realization | 16:50 | |
| that our sense of priorities and our laziness | 16:53 | |
| have prevented us from responding to other people | 16:57 | |
| and other situations | 17:01 | |
| where we might have made helpful difference. | 17:03 | |
| We do not know what gets into us to make us miss the mark | 17:07 | |
| of true Christian witness time after time. | 17:13 | |
| Our Lord Jesus has declared | 17:37 | |
| that in His death and resurrection, | 17:39 | |
| there is newness of life for all those who come to Him | 17:41 | |
| and to repent of their sins. | 17:46 | |
| And therefore I declare unto you | 17:49 | |
| that your sins are forgiven. | 17:51 | |
| Welcome the new life in Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen. | 17:53 | |
| (solemn organ music) | 17:59 | |
| (congregation singing solemnly) | 18:27 | |
| (faint voice talking) | 20:35 | |
| - | He is despised and rejected of men, | 20:37 |
| a man of sorrows and acquired with grief. | 20:40 | |
| And we have hid it as our faces from him. | 20:44 | |
| He was despised and esteemed Him not. | 20:47 | |
| Surely has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, | 20:50 | |
| yet we esteemed Him stricken smitten by God and afflicted, | 20:54 | |
| but He was wounded for our transgressions. | 20:59 | |
| He was bruised for our iniquities. | 21:01 | |
| The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, | 21:03 | |
| and with His stripes we are healed. | 21:06 | |
| All we are like sheep who have gone astray, | 21:08 | |
| have turned every one to his own way. | 21:12 | |
| And the Lord has laid on Him our iniquity of us all. | 21:14 | |
| And it came to pass that Jesus sat at the meal in His house, | 21:19 | |
| many publicans and sinners sat together with Jesus | 21:23 | |
| and His disciples, for there was many | 21:26 | |
| and they followed Him. | 21:29 | |
| When the scribes and the Pharisees saw Him eat | 21:31 | |
| with the publicans and sinners, | 21:33 | |
| they said unto His disciples: | 21:35 | |
| "How is it that he eateth and drinketh | 21:37 | |
| with publicans and sinners?" | 21:39 | |
| When Jesus heard this, He said unto them, | 21:41 | |
| "They that are whole have no need of the physician, | 21:44 | |
| but they that are sick: I came not to call them righteous, | 21:47 | |
| but the sinners to repentance." | 21:51 | |
| (solemn organ music) | 21:57 | |
| (congregation singing solemnly) | 22:07 | |
| - | Let us affirm what we believe. | 22:45 |
| We believe in God who has created and is creating, | 22:48 | |
| who has come in the truly human Jesus to reconcile | 22:53 | |
| and to make new, who works in us and others by the Spirit. | 22:58 | |
| We trust God who calls us to be the church; | 23:04 | |
| to celebrate life and its fullness; | 23:08 | |
| to love and serve others; | 23:11 | |
| to seek justice and resist evil; | 23:15 | |
| to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, | 23:18 | |
| our judge and our hope. | 23:22 | |
| In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. | 23:24 | |
| We are not alone. | 23:31 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 23:33 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 23:36 | |
| - | And with your spirit. | 23:39 |
| - | Let us pray. | 23:41 |
| Almighty God, | 23:53 | |
| we come to You this morning at the beginning | 23:56 | |
| of a new school year, | 23:58 | |
| praying for all those in this community of learning, | 24:02 | |
| who will approach it with expectation and excitement | 24:05 | |
| and perhaps with a feeling of uncertainty | 24:11 | |
| for those who are new to this community. | 24:15 | |
| We pray that You will enable us all to be | 24:19 | |
| ambassadors of Your goodwill and to welcome new students; | 24:25 | |
| to show them a fellowship of love | 24:32 | |
| inspired by Your word here at this university. | 24:38 | |
| And we pray for a wholeness and an integrity of life, | 24:44 | |
| that the things that we do and say here at worship | 24:52 | |
| may permeate and enrich all that we do | 24:57 | |
| and say on campus during the week. | 25:04 | |
| We pray also for our Christian brothers and sisters | 25:10 | |
| in the city of Durham, | 25:14 | |
| that You will give us all imagination and insight | 25:17 | |
| that we may work together in this new year, | 25:21 | |
| both to tell the good news and to serve Your needy children | 25:27 | |
| in this community. | 25:34 | |
| We pray for Your presence even here and now | 25:37 | |
| that You will enable us to pray as Your Son | 25:42 | |
| has taught us to do. | 25:45 | |
| Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, | 25:47 | |
| Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth | 25:54 | |
| as it is in heaven. | 25:58 | |
| Give us this day, our daily bread, | 26:00 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses | 26:04 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us; | 26:07 | |
| and lead us not into temptation, | 26:11 | |
| but deliver us from evil. | 26:13 | |
| For Thine is the kingdom and the power | 26:16 | |
| and the glory forever, Amen. | 26:20 | |
| - | Let us pray. | 26:41 |
| Let the words of my mouth | 26:47 | |
| and the meditations of our hearts | 26:51 | |
| be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, | 26:56 | |
| our strength and our Redeemer. | 27:00 | |
| Amen. | 27:04 | |
| Let's face it, I imagine it's a little bit warm out there | 27:12 | |
| where you are. | 27:15 | |
| One reason I imagine that is I'm up a little bit higher, | 27:16 | |
| at least I know it's pretty warm up where I am. | 27:19 | |
| In case though I happened to keel over | 27:25 | |
| and no one needs to get excited. | 27:27 | |
| We can just conclude with a different hymn, | 27:28 | |
| revive us again, and go out with the Spirit of the Lord. | 27:31 | |
| Our gospel text for the morning | 27:43 | |
| tells us something about how it was that | 27:48 | |
| Jesus got into trouble. | 27:53 | |
| I guess we all know that Jesus did get into trouble. | 27:57 | |
| He got into trouble rather early | 28:01 | |
| in His fairly brief career. | 28:07 | |
| And the Gospel text for the morning tells us a great deal | 28:12 | |
| about how He got into trouble and what kept Him in trouble | 28:14 | |
| and what finally brought Him to the cross. | 28:18 | |
| He was a strange sort of man. | 28:22 | |
| And one of the strangest things about Him | 28:26 | |
| that began to disturb good people like the Pharisees | 28:30 | |
| was that He wasn't very careful about the company He kept. | 28:35 | |
| So the Pharisees wanted to know why He acted that way. | 28:42 | |
| There he was | 28:50 | |
| with publicans, tax collectors. | 28:53 | |
| And I remind you that the country | 29:02 | |
| was under the foreign army occupation. | 29:07 | |
| Just ask yourselves how some of your granddaddy's | 29:10 | |
| great granddaddies, whatever, might've felt | 29:13 | |
| about back in that time of reconstruction, | 29:15 | |
| some fellow southerners who cooperated | 29:19 | |
| with the army of occupation in terms of collecting taxes | 29:21 | |
| or how we'd feel now if we were under a Soviet Army | 29:26 | |
| of occupation, about some friends and neighbors | 29:28 | |
| who made a little profit by collaborating | 29:30 | |
| with the occupying army to collect taxes. | 29:33 | |
| Yeah, Jesus associated with different kinds of people. | 29:40 | |
| Jesus associated with people that a decent person you see | 29:46 | |
| would cross the street in order to avoid even meeting. | 29:50 | |
| Harlots, hmm. | 29:55 | |
| Tax collectors, rabble, no goods, bums. | 29:58 | |
| In fact, He just seemed to associate | 30:05 | |
| with all sorts and conditions of men and women. | 30:08 | |
| In fact, you might almost think He loved them. | 30:12 | |
| But that bothered the Pharisees. | 30:18 | |
| That bothered the good, respectable, pious, fine, | 30:20 | |
| churchgoing, church leaders clergymen of the time. | 30:28 | |
| That bothered. | 30:37 | |
| They wanted to know why it was that Jesus acted that way. | 30:39 | |
| They were comparing Him with what they already knew | 30:47 | |
| to be good, and He was flunking the test. | 30:50 | |
| So they asked His disciples why Jesus | 30:55 | |
| was willing to associate with, rub elbows with, | 31:00 | |
| and eat with just anybody. | 31:03 | |
| And His answer was: | 31:08 | |
| "Those who are well have no need of a physician, | 31:14 | |
| but those who are sick, | 31:20 | |
| I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." | 31:24 | |
| I don't know that it's entirely self-evident | 31:35 | |
| what Jesus meant by saying that. | 31:37 | |
| I guess there are roughly two possibilities. | 31:41 | |
| One possibility would be that He was convinced | 31:46 | |
| that there really were lots of people in the world | 31:53 | |
| who are quite healthy in terms of their spiritual life | 31:55 | |
| and are in no way sick and therefore didn't need | 31:59 | |
| whatever it was that Jesus, the physician, came to bring. | 32:03 | |
| It was just some who needed that, just the sick, | 32:07 | |
| and that He was quite convinced that there were indeed | 32:12 | |
| lots of righteous people in the world, | 32:17 | |
| and indeed He didn't come to call them | 32:20 | |
| because they didn't need Him. | 32:21 | |
| He had only come to call just that certain group of people | 32:24 | |
| who were sinners. | 32:26 | |
| Now that's one possibility, | 32:31 | |
| but I kind of doubt that that's what Jesus meant. | 32:32 | |
| The other possibility is that when He was using the words | 32:37 | |
| "those who are well" and "the righteous" | 32:40 | |
| that he was using those words so to say in quotes, | 32:47 | |
| ironically, maybe even sarcastically. | 32:52 | |
| In short, He was saying | 32:58 | |
| that while indeed He had come to call everybody, | 33:00 | |
| that He found it to be increasingly true | 33:07 | |
| that there were some people who were already quite sure | 33:11 | |
| they were well and some people who were quite sure | 33:14 | |
| they were righteous, | 33:18 | |
| and that He had a hard time getting through | 33:21 | |
| to people who already believe that. | 33:26 | |
| In short, that this very saying was a barb saying, | 33:29 | |
| aimed back again at the various Pharisees | 33:32 | |
| who had raised the question in the first place, | 33:34 | |
| that indeed by their very own conviction, | 33:38 | |
| that they were quite well, quite healthy, | 33:40 | |
| "Everything is okay with me and God. | 33:42 | |
| I'm all right. | 33:44 | |
| It's others that have a problem, not me," | 33:44 | |
| that that very attitude was cutting them off | 33:48 | |
| from His call and His healing. | 33:54 | |
| Similarly, there's another similar parable | 34:00 | |
| about the lost sheep in Luke. | 34:04 | |
| And you may remember the conclusion of that also | 34:07 | |
| uses the word the righteous. | 34:10 | |
| Conclusion is, and there is more rejoicing in heaven | 34:13 | |
| over one sinner who repents than over | 34:17 | |
| 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. | 34:27 | |
| Now, once again, | 34:35 | |
| Jesus just might have to conceivably believed | 34:35 | |
| that 99% of the people in this world A-okay, no problem, | 34:37 | |
| no need for repentance, they're righteous, | 34:40 | |
| but I kind of doubt it. | 34:43 | |
| I kind of think that when Jesus uses the word | 34:44 | |
| "the righteous" in these ways | 34:47 | |
| that it's intended as a barb to help perhaps | 34:51 | |
| to wake us up to the recognition | 34:56 | |
| that any notion that we can cut it by ourselves | 34:59 | |
| is an illusion from which we need to be awakened. | 35:03 | |
| Phariseeism was basically and essentially | 35:12 | |
| the way we're speaking of it, | 35:17 | |
| an expression of the spirit of comparison; | 35:19 | |
| the fundamental assumption of one's own superiority | 35:25 | |
| supported by comparison with others | 35:29 | |
| and drawing the boundary lines on that basis. | 35:35 | |
| Now of course Phariseeism is something that existed, | 35:38 | |
| what, about 2,000 years ago, right? | 35:41 | |
| Yeah, it did. | 35:47 | |
| But I'm here today to suggest to you that Phariseeism | 35:49 | |
| is alive and well. | 35:52 | |
| Phariseeism may even | 35:55 | |
| grow on Christian soil. | 36:00 | |
| Because I think Phariseeism is not so much | 36:05 | |
| the matter of necessarily what one believes, | 36:07 | |
| as the matter of how it is that one uses, | 36:11 | |
| whatever it is that one believes. | 36:17 | |
| Insofar as in our hearts, | 36:23 | |
| no matter what we believe in our minds. | 36:28 | |
| Insofar as in our hearts, | 36:30 | |
| the basis of our life is the assumption that | 36:34 | |
| God and I, | 36:41 | |
| we got it going and that makes me somehow | 36:44 | |
| better than that other group of people | 36:52 | |
| that don't have it going with God. | 36:53 | |
| Insofar as that's how we feel in our hearts, | 36:58 | |
| even if we don't recognize it, we are Pharisees. | 37:00 | |
| Insofar as we live live with the sheep and goats' mentality, | 37:07 | |
| the good guys, of course, | 37:12 | |
| that always includes me and my group and the bad guys, | 37:13 | |
| the sheep and the goats, | 37:16 | |
| me and us and the others, | 37:18 | |
| drawing boundary lines, playing one-upmanship, | 37:21 | |
| making comparisons, needing to make comparisons | 37:26 | |
| then Phariseeism dwells within our hearts. | 37:32 | |
| It doesn't make any difference what we believe | 37:34 | |
| or think we believe with our minds, | 37:36 | |
| Phariseeism dwells in our hearts. | 37:37 | |
| You remember the parable of Jesus, Of course. | 37:41 | |
| Now I said, "Do you remember it?" | 37:46 | |
| Let's see if I remember it. | 37:47 | |
| Any rate, the one about the, | 37:50 | |
| the Pharisee and the publican, | 37:53 | |
| the Pharisee and the tax collector. | 37:54 | |
| Luke says that Jesus told this parable to some | 37:56 | |
| who were convinced in themselves that they were righteous, | 37:59 | |
| and on that basis, despised others. | 38:02 | |
| Jesus said, "Two men went up the temple to pray. | 38:07 | |
| The one, the Pharisee; the other, tax collector. | 38:15 | |
| And the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself: | 38:22 | |
| 'Lord, I thank Thee.'" | 38:27 | |
| Now, doesn't that sound pious? | 38:33 | |
| It did not only sounds pious, it is pious, friends. | 38:36 | |
| Phariseeism can be very, very pious. | 38:40 | |
| "Lord, I thank Thee that I'm not like other people: | 38:44 | |
| adulterers, | 38:52 | |
| even like this tax collector. | 38:57 | |
| But I, I fast twice a week. | 39:01 | |
| I give tithes all that I give. | 39:06 | |
| I'm all right. | 39:11 | |
| Ain't I, God?" | 39:12 | |
| And the tax collector would not even lift up | 39:16 | |
| his eyes to heaven, standing afar off. | 39:19 | |
| He just beat his breast and he prayed, | 39:24 | |
| "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." | 39:29 | |
| And Jesus said, "I tell you, | 39:41 | |
| this man went back home justified by God, | 39:44 | |
| rather than the other. | 39:53 | |
| For he who exalts himself will be humbled, | 39:57 | |
| but he who humbles himself shall be exalted." | 40:03 | |
| That basic language in that parable, | 40:14 | |
| "Lord, I thank Thee that I am not like," such and such, | 40:16 | |
| fill in the blank, "but rather I," such and such, | 40:20 | |
| fill in the blank, | 40:24 | |
| that's the very heart and spirit of Phariseeism | 40:25 | |
| and it doesn't make much difference | 40:28 | |
| what you fill in the blanks. | 40:29 | |
| There are all kinds of Christian ways | 40:30 | |
| filling in those blanks, | 40:31 | |
| whether you're a modernist or a fundamentalist | 40:35 | |
| or a this or that or something else, | 40:36 | |
| I'm lucky this morning to discuss what correct theology is, | 40:38 | |
| I'm just here to suggest that perhaps no matter | 40:40 | |
| what one's theology is, and however correct it might be | 40:42 | |
| that Phariseeism can still lurk in the heart. | 40:46 | |
| Just take the language in that parable, | 40:50 | |
| put in three little dots there for fill in the blank, | 40:51 | |
| and fill it in any way you want to. | 40:55 | |
| We all can find our own ways of doing it. | 40:57 | |
| Lord, I thank Thee that I am not (mumbles), | 41:00 | |
| but I (mumbles). | 41:04 | |
| That's the spirit of Phariseeism. | 41:08 | |
| Choose you this day whom you shall serve: | 41:12 | |
| the spirit of comparison, | 41:16 | |
| the spirit of Phariseeism, | 41:17 | |
| the spirit of drawing boundary lines, | 41:19 | |
| or the spirit of that Jesus who calls and heals | 41:22 | |
| the sinful and the sick. | 41:28 | |
| What is the point really, honestly, | 41:35 | |
| in my feeling the need to make ultimate comparisons | 41:38 | |
| between myself and someone else? | 41:42 | |
| I am not God. | 41:48 | |
| I don't need to do that, not really. | 41:51 | |
| And how do I know what I would do | 41:56 | |
| if I were in somebody else's skin? | 42:00 | |
| Yeah, it's so easy for me to say, | 42:04 | |
| "Oh, I would do that, and I wouldn't do that." | 42:06 | |
| How in God's name do I know? | 42:09 | |
| How in God's name could any one of you know | 42:12 | |
| what you would really do if you were | 42:15 | |
| in somebody else's skin? | 42:17 | |
| You don't even know what you would do | 42:20 | |
| if you were in the skin of whoever's sitting | 42:21 | |
| right next to you this morning | 42:23 | |
| out there in the congregation. | 42:25 | |
| That's an illusion. | 42:27 | |
| Friends, it's task enough in life to do what we need to do | 42:28 | |
| without assuming we know what we do | 42:35 | |
| if we were in somebody else's skin. | 42:37 | |
| Jesus embodied, | 42:47 | |
| manifest, showed, | 42:51 | |
| revealed the ultimate power of the universe. | 42:54 | |
| And that's a funny kind of power, friends. | 42:58 | |
| It's a kind of power that was made perfect through weakness. | 43:03 | |
| The kind of power that for that matter was manifest | 43:06 | |
| in the life of him who one time, | 43:09 | |
| when somebody came along and said, | 43:10 | |
| "Oh, good teacher, tell me what I must do | 43:11 | |
| to inherit eternal life." | 43:13 | |
| And Jesus cut him off right there and said, | 43:14 | |
| "Why do you call me good?" | 43:16 | |
| Embodied in the life of one who was the servant, | 43:20 | |
| a power made perfect in weakness, | 43:24 | |
| the power of one who didn't have to make comparisons. | 43:25 | |
| I wanna tell you a brief little, | 43:31 | |
| I guess you could call it a parable of my own. | 43:33 | |
| We'll call it a country boy story. | 43:37 | |
| And we'll say someplace out there in the country, | 43:41 | |
| there's a boy | 43:45 | |
| working in the barn. | 43:49 | |
| And he's not that big a boy but he's getting fairly big. | 43:53 | |
| And he happens to notice at the corner's eye, | 43:56 | |
| here comes big daddy | 43:59 | |
| and his muscles tensed, | 44:04 | |
| and his hand goes for his belt buckle | 44:06 | |
| because he knows what's coming. | 44:09 | |
| And big daddy comes up, says, | 44:12 | |
| "All right, boy, get him down. | 44:17 | |
| You know what you've done and you know what you got comin', | 44:21 | |
| and you're gonna get it. | 44:24 | |
| And I'm gonna give it to you. | 44:26 | |
| Now get him down, boy, I'm gonna bone your hide." | 44:27 | |
| And the country boy doesn't say a thing. | 44:33 | |
| He gets him down, | 44:36 | |
| but inside he's thinking. | 44:39 | |
| And he's thinking, "All right, big daddy, | 44:43 | |
| you used to scare the shit out of me | 44:48 | |
| but you don't scare me anymore. | 44:51 | |
| Big daddy, I don't scare me anymore. | 44:52 | |
| You just show your coward in your way, big daddy. | 44:54 | |
| You lay it on, and I'll show you my power in my way, | 44:58 | |
| because anything you can lay on, I can take, | 45:02 | |
| so lay it on, big daddy." | 45:04 | |
| I might add, there are some who either believe | 45:11 | |
| or act as though they believe that that's what | 45:14 | |
| God's power's like. | 45:16 | |
| But to complete my little country boy parable, | 45:18 | |
| let's say later on in the afternoon | 45:20 | |
| country boy wanders in at the house. | 45:24 | |
| And since he's walking across the quiet rug, | 45:29 | |
| mama doesn't hear him. | 45:30 | |
| And as he starts to cross the threshold, | 45:34 | |
| he sees mama there. | 45:38 | |
| Hand over the table, | 45:41 | |
| with her head in her hands and he can see that | 45:45 | |
| there are tears flowing down her cheeks. | 45:50 | |
| And he knows she knows, | 45:55 | |
| and he knows she's hurting. | 45:58 | |
| And he knows she cares. | 46:01 | |
| And that gets under his skin. | 46:06 | |
| The agape love of God, | 46:15 | |
| brothers and sisters, is like that. | 46:17 | |
| God's power is the power | 46:29 | |
| of a love that would blow our minds | 46:32 | |
| if we let it get through. | 46:34 | |
| The ultimate power of the universe, | 46:38 | |
| the ultimate power of the universe | 46:41 | |
| loves you just as you are, | 46:45 | |
| loves you as much as He loves anyone else | 46:54 | |
| in this entire universe. | 46:58 | |
| And the other side of that funny coin is, | 47:08 | |
| "also loves every one else in this entire universe | 47:12 | |
| as much as He loves you." | 47:20 | |
| The Spirit of Him who calls and heals | 47:40 | |
| the sinful and the sick can set us free from many things. | 47:45 | |
| And among those many things, | 47:54 | |
| the power of that all-loving Jesus can set us free | 47:57 | |
| from the need to have to live life | 48:04 | |
| on the basis of making comparisons, | 48:07 | |
| can set us free just to live life | 48:11 | |
| one day at a time without drawing boundary lines, | 48:14 | |
| without having to make comparisons, | 48:19 | |
| without sweating it, | 48:22 | |
| just one day at a time to live life as God gives it. | 48:25 | |
| Endeavoring to be open to His power, | 48:31 | |
| to His will, to His love | 48:34 | |
| and to be open to the need | 48:38 | |
| of the neighbor, | 48:42 | |
| to the need of any other human being | 48:46 | |
| whose needs we can serve. | 48:49 | |
| So grant it, Father, | 48:55 | |
| in the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen. | 49:00 | |
| (solemn organ music) | 49:14 | |
| (congregation singing solemnly) | 49:56 | |
| (gentle organ music) | 52:43 | |
| (uplifting organ music) | 57:27 | |
| (congregation singing solemnly) | 57:53 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 58:23 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 58:25 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 58:28 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 58:31 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 58:35 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 58:44 | |
| - | Our Lord. | 58:56 |
| We return unto You some of the bounty | 58:58 | |
| that has been given unto us, | 59:02 | |
| in who our stewardship, | 59:05 | |
| and we pray that it may be used to spread the good news | 59:09 | |
| and to serve Your children in this community | 59:15 | |
| and in the community beyond this city. | 59:20 | |
| And we pray that we may continue to devote our entire lives | 59:24 | |
| to Thy service, in Jesus' name, Amen. | 59:30 | |
| (solemn organ music) | 59:37 | |
| (congregation singing solemnly) | 1:00:08 | |
| - | Now may the love of God, | 1:02:43 |
| grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, | 1:02:46 | |
| and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be and abide with you | 1:02:49 | |
| now and forevermore, Amen. | 1:02:53 | |
| (grand organ music) | 1:03:02 |