Stephen F. Bayne, Jr. - "The Purpose of God" (January 10, 1971)

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

Item Info

Title:

Stephen F. Bayne, Jr. - "The Purpose of God" (January 10, 1971)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4348mh9x

Date:

January 10, 1971

Speaker:

Bayne, Stephen F., Jr.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0554
ref6311_xrv
uachapelsermaud
duke:628690
dcrau002543
ark:/87924/r4348mh9x
fc238756-c482-46d7-80c3-3d8dd2a08d10

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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

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Stephen F. Bayne, Jr. - "The Purpose of God" (January 10, 1971)

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