12-1-74. Anticipating a ~ew Beginning. All of us like to have a new beginning. People changing jobs, or moving to a new town, always think of it as a new beginning, a fresh start. Some of us prefer the spring to the other seasons because it gives us a chance to start over with nature as the flowers bloom and the buds burst, the garden is plowed and the seeds of a new year are sown. Each new year is a new beginning, just as each month and week and day. We can start all over, get a new deal of the cards, wipe the slate clean and rr i.t.e something fresh. ~-Te are inspired and en• courages· by the thought that whatever mistakes we may have made are over and done with and we can start aaew, hopefully not to go make some new ones. So we put the old away and look toward the new. And this is what our lesson for today is about. It is the start of a new day, a new week, a new month, and a new quarter. And ~re contin our series, the survey of the Bible,,with a new topic, the Living God seeks man in the NT. Last qr we surveyed the OT, saw the highlights of the early covenants between God and his people, the creation and the flood and the promised land. ,re looked briefly at the heroes of the OT--the father of the Hebr nation, the lawgiver, the prophets and priests. The theme of that series, as is the theme of the OT, is that the living God seeks man his creature, to keep close and vivid the relationship between God and man. 1'1an does not seek Jod, which is the pagan underst of the relatship, but God seeks man, thru covenants and protection and punishment and defeats. God gave the Law but man could not keep it; God sent the prophets but man would not listen; God watched over the nation but the nation felt that faith was unnecessary. So now we come to the crossroads lesson between two covenants, two testaments, two ways of keeping intact the relat betw God ane man. For our Bibl backgr we have passages from 2d Isa and from Paul's ltr to the Galatians, both dealing with the fresh start God offers his children in the person of the Xr· First is the beauti• ful beginning of 2d Isa, Ch 40: 1-S. This is the beginning of the 2d part of Isa, in which the promise of the Messianic king of the first part becomes the Suffering Servant. The first part is the promise of the return from exile of the remnant, while the 2d part is a praise for the incom• parable God, the universal Creator, the always-present Ruler. The Hebr people were in exile in Babylon, and in the depths of despair came the joyous vision of the prophet, in words which are the most eloquett and beautiful of all Oriental lit. It is an excstacy of joy, a glow of hope, a certainty of conviction. The long dark night is over and the dawn is coming up. So be comfor• ted, the warfare is ended, the sin is pardoned, a new s t.ar-t is at hand. I-repare the lJay for the coming of God, in which all of nature will be exalted and the glory of God will be revealed and all flesh shall see it. This is the promise of God. Isa 40: 27-31. Do you not know that God is above all, is creator (the word create occurs 15 times in these lS chapters) is everlasting God who does not faint or grow weary. It is for us to wait for such a God who will not fail. Those of us who are his people will be carried upon wings, and will no longer toil in weariness. Here is the anticipation of the new beginning, the pledge of the new covenant in the suffering servant of God who took our lashes upon himself, who was punished for our sins. This idea of the newness of the Xr covenant was one of Paul's major themes in interpreting the theol meaning of the Xr. He saw new meaning in the suffering servant prophecies of Isa, and he also saw a new beginning for all mankind in the experience of the Xr. Gal. 4: 1-7. Here he contins the thot of the earlier paragr, in which the new personality is descr. In Xr Jesus wer are all sons of God thru faith; as we are baptized into Xr we put on Xr; there are no longer any distinctions between us, neither slave nor free, neither Jew nor Grk, neither male nor female, we are all one in Xr. And as we are Xr's, we are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. The heir, when a child, is like~ slave; he is under authority of guardians and trustees. So with us; when children werwere slaves of the elemental spirits--superstitions and fears. But when the time came, God sent his Son, born under the law, to buy back, redeem, those under the law so they might be adopted as sons. And because we are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying Abba, Father. So thru God we have a new beginning. We are no longer a slave but a son, a member of the family, an heir to the riches of God. This is what the new beginning in Xr means. When we were under the old covenant, under the law, we were slaves and not free men. We were outside the family of God by our own failures and rebellions. But because Xr came we can start off fresh. ''Te can put on Xr so that we are new creatures, heirs to all that God has promised. We can even be adopted sons of God thru him. And when we are sons, God sends the spirit of his son into us so that we become new. We put off the old garments and put on the new. r.re step out from under the rule of the law and into the warmth of God's love. We step out of our unrighteousness and into the righteousness that Xr gives us. This is truly a new start. The long dark night of exile is over, the dawn is breaking, the light is coming thru. Have you not seen, have you not heard? No longer need we toil and suffer and strive to meet God's favor. In the supreme act he has broken into our lives in the person of his son, and has restored the broken relatship we could not of ourselves heal. Eternity came into time as God became flesh and d~elt among us. It divided thP- calendar into two parts and made all things new. Let us give thanks unto God for reaching down to our weakness and giving us a new begin Ding 12-15-74. Celebrating the Promise. In all our survey of the Bible this fall, one fact has come clear--God keeps his promises. God made promises to Abram long after the normal time for his wife Sarah to bear a child; God made oromises to Israel and to Moses and to the prophets. He promised a land and a relationship in the covenant; he promised his presence and his protection. And God kept all his promises. Only mankind broke their word, again and again. Men did not keep the com• mdmts, men spurned and stoned the prophets, men asserted their indep of God and estranged them• selves from him. And now, in 3d Sun in Advent we are coming upon the grand event in all of Bibl history--God keeping his promise to seed a redeemer, to live and move among his people as one of them, to take on the flesh and the traits of humanity in order to save humanity. This is the msg of Christmas. It is Emmanuel, which means, God with us. Not God up there somewhere looking down on us, not God out there somewhere looking on, but God with us and in us, which is the hope of glory. Not man trying to eter the realm of God, but God entering the realm of men. This is the Living God seeking man in the ultimate sense of the term. God revealee himsel~ in many ways in the long stu;oy of his quest for a close relationship w/man, but now he revealed himself in the flesh, like unto men, limited in time and space, but perfect in all aspects. Earlier revelats were only partial, therefore imperfect. But now, praise the glory of God, the revelat will be complete and perfect, with nothing hidden or kept back. This is God's master play, the ultimate act in the drama, pouring it on with no stops and no uncertainty. Humanity may no longer wonder about God's nature, or his purpose, because mankind may now look upon the face of God. Jesus, as someone once said, is God with skin on his face. So with the advent we celebrate the promise as we celebrate the fulfillmt. And if men do not respond to God in Christ with repentance and faith There is only the promise of destruction and judgmt left. And as God has kept all his other pro• mises let us not think he will not keep this one too. The gift is too precious to reject, the new relationship of sonship w/God and brotherhd w/Jesus, too wonderful to deny. This is IT, the prom• ised advent of God among men. And for our Bibl lesson we have a most beautiful poem in honor of the birth of God in Christ and some of the most profound theol-philos imagery in all of human thought. First, the poetry. Lk. 1: 39-55. The most compl accts of Jesus' birth are in Lk, along w/se~eral songs in praise of the coming event. We have already seen how God promised a son to Eliz when she was ad• ~anced in yrs, and how God moved upon Mary in spirit and she conceived a child. Now she went to visit her cousin in the hill country, and when she called Eliz the child leaped in thH womb. She then spoke the Hail Mary, the prayer of many Xrs thru many cens--blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. There follows the Magnificat, which many composers have set to music in many ways. She gives praise (a major theme in Lk) to God for selecting her, a lowly hand maiden, to be the mother of his Son. Henceforth all generats will call her blessed because of wha God has done for her. God, like mary & Eliz, hasea certain prejudice against the rich and well• fed in favor of the simple folk who heard J gladly and welcomed him. But J did not ask for the overthrow of the rich; he was sorry for them rather than resentful against them. Sorry for them because of their misplaced values, their preference for things rather than the spirit, their blind spots, their inability to sense the need around them. And what would God be saying to us today, knowing as we do that millions are facing starvat in Afr & Asia and even here at home? Would he put down the mighty from their thrones, feed the hungry and send the rich away empty? Today, as we hear the magnificat sung, let us think on these things. This is the promise of the coming Lord which we celebr at Christmas. My soul magnifies the Lord, my spttit rejoices in God my savior. All the 1rniting is now over and the happy moment is at hand. But what does it mean, that God will give Mary a child whose name shall be Jesus the sav• ior? For this we must go to those familiar words in John about the incarnation. John 1: 1-5, 9- 18. This is the familiar prolog to the 4th gospel in which God is likened to Logos, which means Angel, spirit, wisdom, word, all personalized. It was a familiar term in Grk philosophy at the time, tho in philos was considered apart from God, or prime mover. vhat the author does here is to make them the same, and make the bold assertion that God became man, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. That is the most audacious thing anyone ever said--and it is either divine truth or a shabby hoax, a pointless joke. The Word is God's self-revealing activ within God Himself be• fore the worad was, seen as Reason or Wisdom, distinguished from God but not apart from God. The Word, God's self-revealing activ, was within the creation of all things, and also within the giv• ing of life and gmidance to Man--an illumination, or guidance, which men in their spiritual blind• ness have failed to receive. He was the light of men that shone in the dar1<:ness, and the darkness has not overcome it. It is the true light that illumines, or enlightens, every man, now coming into the world. The illumination was constant--always coming into the world--and it was universal --it was for every man, not just for a few. The world into which it was coming was not the physic universe, but humanity, mankind apart from God and constantly asserting their indep from God. So the creative presence of the word was ignored, but now comes the appearance of the word made flesh. V. 14 is the assertion of the doctrine of Xmas, of incarnat. And from the incarnat God will taber nacle among us as of o~d, full of grace andtruth--which means that the shekinah, or visible glory of God rested upon him. This is different, though, because the divine sonship is revealed among menin the perfect revelation. The law of Moses was one revelat, but grace & truth come thru J Xr. Here is the comparison betw 2 covenants, 2 reielats. Only thru the Son in intimate relat withe Father could the fatherhood be fully revealed (vl8). This is the msg of advent, of Xmas. It is a story of praise to a faithful and loving God who never gave up his quest for men. Emmanuel, God with us, is the ultimate effort of the hound of heaven to get thru to men. God never gave up. For that we should all give thanks. 12-29-74. The Man of Compassion. For mariy.years now it has been my custom to spend the final hour in my recent U.S. hist class on the subj thatI regard as the most important in the present. For much of the 601s that meant the history and impact of the civil rts struggle. Then in 1971 I did a lecture on the generation of the young, the gap, the conflicts. But in 1972 it seemed to me that something important was happening in the mood of America. The highest officers in govt were charged with wrongdoing, the big businesses were profiting from the destr of the environmt, the war was dragging on and on--even under the man who said that if a party could not end a war in 4 yrs it shld be removed from office. And nobody seemed concerned. The sense of outrage was missing. The moral fervor, the conscience of the country, the ethical stds we once reppected, seemed to be gone. And so I did a lecture on the subject, doesn't anybod~ care anymore? It seemed to.me then, and now, that what makes a people great it its capacity for moral outrage, its intol• eraoee for wrongdoing wherever it be found, its refusal to turn the other way and go by on the other side when there is hurt in the world. I concluded that people just didn't care anymore. Maybe everybody got burned out marching and pu~testing and petitioning, gave up, and turned off. But I told those students then that they should listen to that motto of the greeting-card company: when you care enough to send the very best, send yourselves. This past week, thinking over this lesson, it seemed to me that what I said in class 3 yrs ago in another context is a good text for a just-after-Xmas lesson. Because that is just what God did. He cared enough, and he sent the very best, and it was Himself. Because God cared, God so loved the world--not the good, but the bad--world, he gave. He did not burn out, give up, and turn off. And because God cared, Jesus cared. In our lesson today, another in our series on the survey of the Boble, we have some ex• alf?1)les of Jesus the Manof Compassion. This is the first of a new topic, the Living ~od seeks man thmr a new Man--Xr. The first 4 lessons in this qr ' s survey of NT wase on topic, Li.v God seeks Man thru a New Beginning. Now we t~ke up the New Man--the man of compassion, the master teacher, the suffering Savior, the Lord of Life. And for our text we have some passages from Lk, who was as a physician especially concerned about human suffering. He showed J to be friend of the poor, the sinner, the non-Jews shut out of the intimacies of the Hehr faith, the women, the children-• the excluded. And in this he showed a humane, compassionate Jesus, a man of deep sympathy and sorrow for pain and loneliness and shut-outness. J was both human and divine, and we should not forget his human side. He laughed, he told jokes, he knew the folklore of his day, he wept, he got angry, he got hungry and thirsty. He was concerned about the sin of humanity, but he was also concerned about the~r personal probls. He cared, and he cared deeply. In a world in which it seems that many people have stopped caring and dropped out, it will increase our reverence for J the Xr to see him as a man--a man of compassion. We pick up the story in Lk1s acct just aften the temptat in the wilderness when J returned to ~alilee. LK 4: 14-21. This is J1s homecoming to Naz, and the sermon he preached there is the key passage in Lk's biogr. As his text he chose the ~ramaic transl of the OT, Isa 61-1,2. Lk makes it the key passage because it is a preview of J ministry and eventual rejection by the Jews. It is a prelude and an overview; it sets the theme for what folws. And Lk, unlike other synoptics puts Naz rejection at beginning rather than at the end. Proof in the story itself that it doesn't fit. V.23 assumes that J already has a reputat as healer at Capernaum tho Lk ignored the Cap ministry, But what is noteorthy is that here J is bringing religion home, in 2 meanings of the phrase. He is at his home in Naz, where everyone knows him as the son of the carpenter in town, and he tells them that the prophecy of Isa is fulfilled in their hearing. This was his mission-• to fulfil prophecy. And he could do that because the spirit of God '\ilas upon him. Only the power of God expressed in the Spirit is capable of giving a new interpr of the old prophecy. J was a new Man because the spirit was fully given him because of his birth, because of his faith. The spirit had been given only sparingly before, but now fully. But what is the prophecy he sees him• self as fulfilling? The core of the sermon is a compl progr of action for the downtrodden. God~ news to the poor--the econ disinherited; release to the captives--the pol & soc disinherited; sight to the blind--the physically disinherited; liberty to the oporessed--the spiritually disin• herited; and for all the acceptable year of the Lord--a fresh beginning, a new deal, a collective redemption. Hewe was a broad interpr of relig to care for total needs of man~ind. Too much relig gets caught at the spiritual level and is therefore warped; again, too much gets caught at the more pratical, material level of do-goodism, and is therefore warped. Heresy is not the holding of error, it is the enthronemt of the partial. J did not restrict God to any particular need; He meets all needs. Now, it may be all right to talk about such a progr, but J announced that it was going into effect that ~ery day. He brought it home to them in a way they could not escap$i. No tinsel or wrappings or greeting cards this time, no way to evade. This day this goes into effect. This day this has become real. No wonder they took up stones to stone him. Lk 5: 18-25. I have heard sermons about the faith of the four friends who let down their paralytic friend thru the roof. But the point of the story is that J was crtticized for saying he could forgive sin. It may be that the man was paralyzed because of his guilt. At any rate, J saw what they were thinking and asked which would be easier, to say to him that his sins were forgiven, or to tell him to take up his bed and walk. Everyone who came to J with an LLl.ne ss; got it cured; those who came to him on stretchers walked away earring them; those who died were called back to life. Because he cared, he could not abide pain or illness. Here is the man of compassion, preaching a broad relig to me.et the needs of all of humanity 1 s Elisinheri t.ed , reaching out to heal atrophied muscles and to forgive sin. This day the prophecy of a caring God is IX]fYDQd• fulfilled in your hearing. Let us rejoice and give thanks to God that this is so. 1-12-75. The Suffering Savior. Suffering is one of those things we do not like to talk about. It is unpleasant, and if we talk about our suffering people sometimes think we are just looking for cheap pity. Yet we all have known suffering, for it is a part of life. We have all known pain, we have all been ashamed of ourselves and suffered for it, we have all lost friends and loved ones. We have all seen people in whom we had some respect go wrong, and that has brought us suffering. So we are afraid and we suffer, we hurt and we suffer, we see our values ridiculed and our ideals--for ourselves or for our country--trampled undefoot and we suffer for it. There is a sense in which our character is revealed in the way we deal with suffering. It is noble to ignore our own suffering while taking an intense and personal interest in the suffering of others. Suffering is the way we know we are alive; it is the way we know what it is to be blessed. uome of us take from suffering only weakness and doubts; others take from it growth and inspiration, faith and survival. r,re grow or we fail as we deal with our suffering, for suffering is the divid• ing line. Some of us even reach the point of realizigg that suffering is not only to be lived with and overcome, it is necessary to spiritual growth. Some yrs ago there was a book interpretin Beethoven the composer, who certainly knew the meaning of suffering. He was lonely and almost w/o friends, he was offen full, and worst of all he went deaf. Yet, to the author of that book, he reached the point of realizing that suffering was not only a part of life; it was the absolute necessity by which he could go further in music than anyone ever had gone. That is taking the ve worst that life could deal out and still come out the victor. And that is what J did. 1·Je are studying the NT, in a series on the new man--Xr. We are emo phasizing the human side of J--his concern, his masterful teaching, his suffering. He was God, but he was also man. He got tired and fe~l asleep, he got hungry, he knew the pang of leaving his family and friends, he got hot and cold, he got dirty feet, he told jokes, he got mad and lost his temper. nnd yet in all of that he was more than man, he was healer and teacher w/o parallel to his folwrs and to the people of that day. Some of them began to think of him as the promised Messiah kho would take the throne of David and drive the hated Romans out of the country. He woul be conqueror in the old sense of the word. But what he had in mind was something else again. He would be conq, he would be victor, but in a new sense. He would be victor by suffering in the WRY foreseen in 2d Isa, Ch 53. He would win over evil by defeat triumphant. The Bible passage for this is from Mk 8, one of many prophecies by J of his suffering and violent death to come. M~ 8: 27-30. The scene is the city of Caesarea Philippi, named for Philip the local ruler and also for Caesar, on an annie~y site at the sources of the Jorean Riv. In that neighborhood Herod had built a large temple to the emperor Augustus, a temple in which the forces of nature and of pol pwr were worshipned. It was in that city that J gave his discs definite info about his character as the Messiah. To do this he asked them what people were saying about him, and they replied that people were comparing him to the great prophets--John, Eli~ah, Jeremiah This is in itself signif, for they w;re known as prophets of great courage, of strong devotion, and of simplicity of life and self-discipline. The replies meant that people were favorably im• pressed w/J. But then he asked them what THEY thou~ht about him--all synpptics emphasize the YOU. And Peter, the leader of the Group, replied, You are the Xr, the son of the livingGod. That said two things about J--his messiahship, his divinity. But even Peter did not underst in the new way, for J "charged" them to keep silent. That Grk verb means to address angrily, to blame, to speak solemnly, to bring something to an end or prevent something's being done. It is a strong ver) that carries the idea that J was angry about something, dissatisf w/Peter's confession. If that be true, it was not because of what P said, but that something in his tone of voice implied that he was still under the old ideas about the messiaashp. For J quickly made known his underst that he was to be the suffering savior, the Redeemer who must die so that men may live. Mk 8: 31-33. He began to talk about his coming passion, that he must be rejected, must be killed and after 3 days rise again. That was too much for Peter. Altho in 11a.ttwe are told that J blessed his conf and said that upon that rock he would build his Ch--whether to make Peter the first Pope, as some would have it, or whether it was the confession that was the foundat--now it was Peter who objecte suffering is something we do not like to talk about, or think about. And that it should happen to God's anointed, to the divine somiof the father, was too much. And Peter voiced his objections. Here is the best evidence that he had not yet underst the meaning of J's messiah character. But J put him aside and rebuked him for it. Get behind me Satan--you are not on the side of God, but of men. The foundat stone haH become a stumbling block, and because Peter did not underst J new underst of Messiah. The new kg would not rule by force but by love, and he would sit on throne of men's hearts because he suffered for them. Suffering would no longer be a thing to avoid; it would be the means bf which mankind would be redeemed. He would be savior by suffering. And, moreover, that would be the price of discipleship. Mk 8: 34-38. Here he told his discs that the naradox of his own life--victory thru defeat, redemption thru suffering--must be the para dox of his folwrs. They could know themselves only by suffendering themselves. They must deny themselves and take up cross and follow. This before the cross of Xr, so it could only mean to them then and theee that they were to face suffering and death as the price of folwg. To lowe one's life in God is to gain a higher life. ~ost of us go arouhd all the time trying to save our lives--that is not living at all. Living begins when we give of ourselves as Xr did;· when we lose ourselves in the gospel of Xr. Thus s~ffering is the means of saivat for all men for all time. The words of J concerning his sufferings made a profound impact upon the early church, facing martyrdom and the dark experiences of persecution. vlhat those words meant to the Ch then was that J himself faced the same kind of rejection and suffering and death. He was not taken by surprise but foresaw what would happen. E en so the early Xrs must realize the suffering that was ahead sr for them. It was a way of testing their faith. '·le too need to see suffering in that kind of per- spective. It hurts, but it tests and proves us. And we should never forget that God the ~~ther never sends suffering more than we can stand. And we should never forget that J suffered as the suffering savmmr. 1-26-75. An Empowered People. 1Je are engaged these days in what is called an energy shortage, a crisis, a crunch, a problem. For the past 2 cens enetrbEY other than that of the wind in sails, or the muscles of humans or animals to pull and push, or the weight of falling water, has made a fundamental change in the way we live. Our tpn, our production, our leisure and entertainmt, our jobs, all depend upon cheap supplies of energy to turn wheels and to make light. But now we are running out of the planet's supplies of the older forms of energy, snd there is much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. World ?Olitics may undergo profound changes, the way we live may become more a matter of survival than of enjoyment, we may have to learn to live much lower on the hog. All that because of the energy shortage. It would be foolish indeed if we were to find out that we had unlimited energy in some form or other--solar, or wind, or nuclear--and did not take advantage of it. Imagine, pwople would say, they had all that energy and did not even use it. The story is told--not altogether accurate--that Wash & his army at Valley Forge Pa suffered and froze in the winter even tho they were on top of great quantities of coal in the ground. Some of them did not know about it, others did not know how to use it or get to it. That is the probl of Xrs in the world in these days. ·we have access to the source of power in the universe, more power than was ever available to any other people. Yet we suffer from helplessness and weakness becaase we do not know about the power, or we do not know how to get to it. Our lesson today is about that power available to Xrs, who are empowered by the Holy Spr. It is the 1st lesson in the fourth unit of these lessons on the Bible, a unit wfuich has as its theme The living God seeks man thru a new people. In lessons to come we shall see that the new Reople is empowered, it worships, it serves, it reconciles, and it is always a people of hope. 1oway the empowered people. And for our scripture we begin with the story of Pentecost. A ts 2: 1-4. This is the virgin birth of the church, the fulfillmt of Xr on earth, born of the Holy Spr. A sound as of wind,filled the house, and what appeared to be tongues of fire ~ested on each head. And they were empowered and changed forever. They were in hiding for fear of the Jews; they be• came bold and outspoken in his name. Peter preached and all understood in their own tongues. They came out of hiding, got a miraculous burst of self-confid, and went out to procl the gospel. That is what happens when God empowers a people. They are no longer WPak and afraid, no longer fearful For they know that whatever happens to them, they have the power of God on their side. We have the same promise and the same power offered to us, spirit·1al power, not as the world knows, or can ever underst. Joe Stalin at Potsdam and the Pope's troops. But there are other referendes to the power of oridnary people when empowered by God. Rom. 1: 16-17. Paul was not ashamed (or disappointedQ in the gospel because it was power. He was in• debted to all men because of his salvation; it did not matter whether they were cultured or barbar ian, learned or illiterate, he was prepared to preach to all. He was not ashamed in the presence of high learrnimg or great civilizat, because the gospel was a Divine ~·orce productng s alvat. It is the power of God to every one who has faith, whatever his background, for in it the righteous• ness of God is reaea~ed by faith to faith. We respond in faith, we confess our inability to solve our own pll1Dbls and to save ourselves, God extends the grace and we can know the righteousness of God. We can have our unrightousness covered so we can stand in the presence of a righteous God. This is power, divine power, from God, available to all who respond in faith. It is the power of the man who complained that in fuims lf he could never do what he ought to do--the good he would he did not, the evil he did not want he did--but then could prom~aim for all to henr--I can do all things thru God who strengthens me. That is the empowered man--in himself weak, helpless, victime of his own lusts--but in the strength of God is victor who can do all things. The gospel is the power of God to all who believel And aryain: 1 Cor 2: 1-5. This is a similar story. Paul came to Cora worried man, perh~?S a siok man, perhaps also a beaten man. He had to flee Macedonia because of persec and was fear• ful of the fate of those young Xrs. He came thru Athens and was discouraged at the near-failure of his speech there. He was depressed, and he reminded Cars of his condition when he arrived. He also pointed out that he did not use big words or complic theol argumts--nothing but Xr and him crucified. But in his weakness he demostr pwr of spirit, so that their faith would not depend up• on anything other than the pwr of God. Thw wisdom of men is not power, but faith is power. There is no energy shortage in God's generating plant, no lack of pwr to those who are of the faith. And as we accept the word of God, and come into the will of God, we have power that human wisdom cannot match. And again, Eph 1*16-2:7. Paul gives thanks to God for the people of Eph, that God might give them a sJirit of wisdom & revelat, that they might know they hope they have been called to, the glorious inheritance of the saints, and the immeasurable greatness of God's po ,1er in us who believe,X11X That great power was proved in the resurrection, a miracle only the pwr of God could accompl. On the same level with that was the salvat of the sinful--life to the dead children of wrath, by nature living in the passions of the flesh. But God, rich in mercy and gr' eat in love, lifted us out of this death to live in Xr. This is the empowered people, made alive thru Xr, thru grace & mercy of God. The people of faith are empowered to do great tings by the Uod who loved and saved us. Yes, we are an empowered people, for which God be praised. It is not of ourselves, lest any should boast. But too often we do not use the pwr which is ours in Xr. P.Marshall said Xrs are like man fitted for depths, pulling tub plug. We are like giant aircraft, able to fly over oceaes, contenting selves with riding up and down the runway. Afraid to take off, afraid to fly, and that power which is ours is wasted. le are like wealthy people who live in rags and ruins, not drawing upon the power which is in our hands. We are like swift runners, pwrful athletes, riding around in wheel chairs. Let us humbly than< God for the pwr of the spirit, the pwr of the gospel to sal• vation, the pwr to be more than conqs over all that life can throw at us. For there is no energy crunch in the economy of God. 2-9-75. A Serving 0eople. We are now getting to the heart ofour study of NT. We have seen that the living God sought people thru the new Man, Xr, and now seeks people thru the new People, the believers in Xr. 1,Je have been considering the character traits of the New People in Xr--an empow• ered people, a worshipping people, and now a serving people. And with this we are getting to the real meaning of the new People. They are people of faith who have recs the pwr of the Spirit, the express their gratitude in the attitude of worship, but they show the effect of their faith, their newness of personality, in the good deeds they do. It is faith that saves man, faith in God's grace, but it is the good life of service to others that gives evidence of that faith. It is the expression of love and gratitude for what God has done for us that we love and serve our fellow men. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, Jesus said, that ye love one another. And the expression of that love is service. It means being sensiti~v to the need around us, and responding to that need by doing something about it. It means to see our church, our community, our country, our world, thru the eyes of God, using the spectacles of J Che, and to act to ease its hurt and its pain and its loneliness. Recently the preacher said in a sermon that we should not be jealous of those whose families are hapoier than ours, whose children are more obedient. Itold him later he was asking me for the impossible ••• but everybody has troubles. It is likely that if we had the chance to trade our troubles for those of somebody else we would want our own back when we saw how heavy the burden even of the seemingly happy. L~fe is like that, and we show our faith in God, and our gratitude to him, when we serve others, understand, help, stand beside. This is the nature of the Ne~ People, and it is the way to the only kind of lasting, real happi• ness this world can afford and can never understand. For our Bible lesson on the serving people we begin with a verse from the 1stepistle :fXJdOrlLx I Pet. 2:9Tl0. This is part of Peter's discourse on the people of faith as God's spirit• ual temple. J & Paul both commented that while the Jews in Jerus had a temple, Xrs had none excep as they themselves were the spiritual home of God. In this chap Peter makes the same point, that each believer must be a spiritual stone built into a new house of God. In this passage he says 4 things about the new people of God. A chosen race--with OT connotations, but different; a royal prievthood--again OT, but again with a difference; a holy nation--holy means set apart, consecra• ted, out of the Hebr tradtition to the Xr reality; God's own people--put even stronger than before The people of the faith are the new chosen peonle, Qod's own people. The KJ transl was God's peculiar people, which says it exactly, because in 17th cen peculiar meant the particular property of one person and belonging to no one else. But in the yrs after peeculiar came to meen odd, ec• centric, crazy. And people thought they should act crazy to be God's peculiar people .•• and some of them did just that. So the new transls all put it to mean what it originally meant--a people for God's own possession. And why are those 4 things said about the new people of God? That they may declare the wonderful deeds of Xr who called us out of darkness and into his marvellous light. And again he goes back to Hosea and his child, Not My People, for we were no people but are now God's people, we are somebody, because we have received mercy. This is the motive for the serving people. How many times have we heard stories of people whose lives were saved, or whose honor was protected, by someone, and hearld them say, he has been so good to me that I will serve him all my days to try to make it up to him. We have known mercy, so we serve in gratitude and joy. Because we are precious to God, God is precious to us. Next we have Paul's testimony about the good works of the Macedonian churches. II Cor 8: 1- 7. It may have upset the ch of Cora bit to hear such good things of the much poorer Maced chs, for they were much better off. lBJut Paul makes them his example of giving to meet a need. W/o being asked, those people begged to share in the privilege of relieving their poor brethren at Jerus, and had given beyond all expectat because they dedic selves and small savings to the Lord. So Paul has asked Titus that he should continue his work in Cvr, and because they are richer they should give much more. Not that 0aul would put any pressure on them, but he knows they would wan to show that their love is equally as sincere as is that of the Maced brethren, and because he knows they excel is all things. The people of faith are givers--of selves; of time, which means of life itself; of talents and abilities, which means of the whole person lity; of money, which is time and talents and personality translated into a medium of exchange. Selfish people are not that way because they are mean, but because they do not have faith in anything but the material things. Since to them there can be no life beyond this, and nothing of value beyond the physical they grab and keep. But the new people in Xr are givers, of selves, and of all that self has accumulated. Finally we have the famous passage about faith and works in James. Jas 2: 14-!l'P~ Because the author uses faith in an unusual way, this has created differing interprs. He does not rrean faith in Xr, for he knows full well that saves (v.S). Here he uses the word to mean creed--the same sort of faith that the devils themselves have, and cannot save them or anyone else. l11hat he means is that orthodoxy is of no value at all unless it produces good works. A creed can no more save a man's eoul, he is saying, that a good sermon can feed the hungry or clothe the naked. He means that faith cannot be proved except by good wo~ks, and a faith like that of the devils which does not result in good works produces nothing but terror. So faith without works is dead, being along. Faith and works can no more exist apart than can body and spirit. So the new people are people who serve. Because they have been given much, they give; because they have recd mercy, they serve in joy; because they have faith, they stand out in a selfish world because of their unselfishness. God cannot seek man thru the new people.unless that new people are servants of God and of their fellow men. 2-23-75. Living in Hope. It was on one of the coldest, rainiest days in Jan that my seed catalog came, and I laughed as I looked at the glorious color pictures of flowers and fruits and vegetable while outside the world loo~ed dead. But I put in my order, and as you might guess, the box of seed packets came on the day the ground was covered with snow. So it is with the people of faith. Living in a world that seems as drear and dead as the winter landscape we look forward with ex• pectation and conviction for a better future. This is the meaning of hope. Hope is a seed catalo in Jan; it is a seed in winter, knowing beyond the shadow of doubt that better times are coming in which the tiny plant in the seed can unfold its leaves and grow into its real nature. Hope is living in the faith that tomorrow--the future--will be the best thing that ever happened. It is not a fearful guess that this might be so--it is the certainty of it. Without that kind of hope none of us could go on living. The Grks recogn that in story of Pandora's box, w/all kinds of miseries there also flew out Hope that enables us to bear them. And the Xrs had always held that their faith in the mercies and grace of God is expressed in their hope for the future. They are, then, people of hope. For not only do they order seeds in winter--other people also do that-• they live in a meaningful way in a world that is meaningless, they keep the faith in a society that has no faith, they look to the future instead of the past because their guilt has been for• given and they have been given, not a presidential, but a divine pardon for their sins. With this lesson we come to the end of our 6-months' survey course of the Bible, and to the mid-point in the church school year which begins in Sept. Next Sun we shall have a new topic-- S lessons from the epist to Hebrs. But for two months this yr we have taken a loo( at the char traits of the Xr and of his People, thru whom the living God seeks man. :le have seen them full of the pwr of the S~irit, as worshippers and servers and reconcilers of man to God and man to man. In concl--and what a concl--we consider the hope that is the promise of God to his people. The dictionary defines hope as "desire accompanied w/expectation ofobtaining what is desired, or belief that it is obtainable." It also defines it as trust, reliance, and the ground or source of happy expectation. But as we shall see, to the Xr hope is much more definite than thaa. It is a faith, but it is also a certainty because that faith is placed in the promises of God, and they are not in the category of happy expectation--they are under the heading of conviction, of certain ty. For our scripture background we have 2 passages from the ltr to the Ch at Rome. It was not very long ago that we had a series on Romans and some of you remember my comments about the ltr. Because it was addressed to the '-'hat the imperial capital, and would be widely read and published, Paul polished its language and sharpened his logic and expanded his theilil in the ltr. He addresse two questions--how do we find salvation? and how can we unrighteous enter the presence of the all• righteous God' And as you know he found that we have salvat not by anything we do, for we cannot keep the laws of God or man, but rather by faith, not by doing but by bP.lieving. And we can enter the presence of God because our faith is accepted as righteousness. But along with that he has something valuable to say about our hope in God's promises. Rom. S: 1-S. Being justified by faith, he says, let us not omit the next step. Let us be at peace w/God. Let the effect of Xr•s death on cross have its full effect upon us, not stopping w/being made right w/God but going on to peace w/God, the deep sense of restoration of lost fellowship. For wXr we are now in a new relat w/God, lifted above the old legal level and obedience out of fear. More than that, let us rejoice in the hope of sharing the glory of God. And w/that he begins that amazing crescendo that starts w/suffering and ends w/hope. Tribul comes from L word for a flail to beat out the grain; Urk word used here means press or mill to press oil out of the olives. Suffering, or tribulation, means flailing and pressing to let the goodness out--whether grains of wheat or oilive oil. But the point is that suffering gives us staunch endurance to bear it, and endurance makes us stronger people, and that produces hope. By hope Paul means much more than the tendency to expect the best of people or times. It is not that kind of hope. It is much closer to conviction, or faith, for the fact that this hope is not disappointed is guaranteed by the love of God which floods our hearts & lives, thanks to the actions of the holy Spririt. Everything that can .1appen to us does so on the level of divine grace, and this is how suffering becomes something we can be thankful for. A few chapters further along he comes back to the idea of present suffering and future glory. Rom 8: 18-25. There is nothing is the sufferings of the present world that can compare with the glory that is to be ours. That glory is something that all created things have been waiting for--the disclosure that there is a new type of humanity in the world, the sons of God. This revelat will SPt all created things free from degay and open the way for the liberty of the children of God. This is what the creation has been laboring in childbirth for so long to bring about--our adoption as sons and the redemption of our bodies thru the transformat of the naturaa body of flesh into the spiritual body of he life to come. This is the hope we have in our sal• ~ation, that.all this would co~e to pass. But if we can see what we hope for we do not hope for it anymore, it has become reality--and here he changes the meaning of the word from faith to the expectation of something good. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. This is the attitude of the people who live in ho~e. Firmly convinced beyond all doubt that Xr is Lord over all, this look to him in faith to justify them before God, and they look forward in hope to a future w/Bod. But it is not wishful thinking, or fearful 8Xpectation. It is certainty, assurance, conviction. The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light, for ghe people who live in faith are also living in hope. Hope for a better tomorrow, hope also that all creation shall be transformed and made over. It was in this hope that we were saved, and~ w/this hope we live in confidence. God is with us. Nothing else matters.