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[ Silence ] [MUSIC PLAYING] (slow jazz music) (gentle music)

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(upbeat music) [ Music ] Oh, to be kept by Jesus, kept by the power of God, Kept from the worm on spotted, treading where Jesus trod.

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♪ For to be kept by Jesus ♪ ♪ Lord at my feet at home ♪ ♪ I would be nothing, nothing, nothing ♪ ♪ Love shall be over and all ♪

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♪ Oh to be kept by Jesus ♪ ♪ Kept by His power divine ♪ ♪ Kept through torment and trial ♪ ♪ Kept by his hand in mine ♪

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♪ All to be kept by Jesus ♪ ♪ Would have got me at all ♪ ♪ I would be nothing ♪ ♪ Nothing ♪

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♪ Nothing ♪ ♪ I would just be all in all ♪ ♪ Built by His Holy Spirit ♪ ♪ To me is His best of all ♪

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♪ I'm safe in His holy keeping ♪ ♪ He'll ever hear my call ♪ ♪ All to be kept ♪ ♪ By Jesus ♪

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♪ Lord as I be ♪ ♪ At home ♪ ♪ I would be nothing ♪ ♪ Nothing ♪

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♪ Nothing ♪ ♪ Now I'm just a boy at all ♪ ♪ Born to be kept ♪ ♪ By Jesus ♪

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♪ Lord at thy feet I fall ♪ ♪ I would be nothing ♪ ♪ Nothing, nothing ♪ ♪ All shall be all ♪

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(Singing) "Shall be all and all." Amen. Amen. Hear this Word recorded in the Gospel according to Saint John, the 14th chapter. beginning with the 23rd verse reading to the 29th, the 14th through the 29th verses of the 14th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John.

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He is about to go away and he announces this to his disciples and it is a rather disturbing time. They are troubled by his talk about being absent as is usually the case with a child when a parent announces that he or she is going to be awake

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for a while, but when are you coming back? How long will you be gone? Do you just have to go? These are ordinary questions that arise

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when there is this separation. when grandmother was keeping us and there's several children there and she was saying, "I'm going to town

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"and I want you all to be good while I'm gone. "And if you are not good, "there will be a price to pay." Now when I come back, I'm going to bring you something special.

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So we had something to look forward to. So this is the kind of experience Jesus and his disciples have. It's the kind of experience it brings for us to talk about

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absence and presence. absence and presence. There is this concern about absence and presence throughout the Bible.

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In fact, we know and come to relate to God in terms of his absence and his presence.

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We often pray, you know, stop by here. God was there. It didn't seem that God was present this morning. Where is he?

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Where is he? Adam and Eve are in the Garden of Eden and the writer of Genesis tells us that God came to the garden in the cool of the evening

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and walked with Adam. Where was he when he was not walking with Adam in the cool of the evening? Where was he?

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He seems to be absent from the garden at certain times and present in the garden at other times. And so we understand God in terms of his absence and his presence. So he's about to leave them, Jesus is preparing the disciples for his departure. He's about to go away.

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quite a serious time going away, separating from his students, going on a journey. Where are you going? When are you coming back? I told you about my dear friend, John Favors, whom I funeralized a few weeks ago in California, Oakland, California. And his family tells this story that before he died, he had all

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the members of the family in the household and around in the city's grandchildren to come into his room one by one and he talked with each one of them, told them that he was going away. The little one was saying, "Granddaddy is going to heaven."

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all told and there was the effort made to help them understand his death and his absence. Well many of us don't want to talk about that. We want to hear sermons that celebrate the goodness of God by what we receive in the prosperity and good health. And we say, "Oh, how good God is

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because he's given me good health." We don't hear him talk a great deal about the goodness of God when we don't have good health. But he's still just as good. Just as good. So So here is a lesson for us regarding the absence of God.

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Jesus has been with his disciples for three years in his public ministry. He has been on planet earth for 30 years, a total of 33 years. and now is the time of his departure. And he is seeking to prepare them

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so that they will be able to carry on. Some time ago I told you a story when I started the school. First day of school, I had to cross the railroad track that ran across right near our house.

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And my mother explained to me, you know, be sure to look both ways when the train is coming and the like. And I left home and I got to the train track

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and the train was coming and it frightened me to death. And I ran all the way back home crying about this train that was on the track. And she tried to explain to me that the train was on the track. It wasn't going to get off the track and run after me.

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But I wouldn't hear that. I just said, "No, no." I just said no, no, and the more she tried to explain, the more and the louder I cried.

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And so she finally decided to go with me to school. And when she took me, she tried to take me and put me on the track and let me see that, you know, the train that was harmless,

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But putting me on the track with the train coming and stopping and huffing and puffing made me even more frightened. I was comforted when my mother was walking with me,

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but I was afraid when she was not there. But I want to introduce a thought which isn't very popular in our thinking as far as our theology is concerned.

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And that is how to live without God. God wants us to be in such a way that he's not some policeman. In other words, every parent wants to prepare the child

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in such a way that when you become an adult or when you're away from the parent, that you can sort of take care of yourself. And God wants us to be the kind of persons

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that will live the godly life without having a big stick over us, without making a lot of demands, but to do it because you just love God.

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Just do it because that's the thing to do. Now there's some people, you know, we have a bulletin and we put in there what people give and so on. And there's some people who wait

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until that bulletin is published and they run and they bring their offering. (audience laughing) As if that's a sort of a club,

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to see to it that I give. That's not really the purpose of it. It's not the purpose. In other words, we ought to be,

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if we never saw a bulletin, we ought to be running and eager like that poor widow to bring our offering and say, Lord, here it is, I wish I had more to give you.

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You've been so good to me, I just wish deep down in my heart that I could show my love and my appreciation in a more telling way.

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That's the way to live. This is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer was talking about when he talks about in his theology a religionless Christianity.

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A religionless. Now when we think about religion, you know we think about the creeds, we think about the ritual that we go through

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and the structure of our worship, what we do in prayer meeting and how many times we read the Bible and all of that. That's religion. Beliefs, do you believe this, do you believe that, all of that and we memorize all of this. But that does not make us good Christians. He talks about a religion-less

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Christianity. Pharisees had all those things I'm talking about. They had that. They had their long flowing robes to put on their show about how pious they were. They memorized the law. They had all their beliefs. They can categorize them and recite the man, all of that.

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But a religion-less Christian's way, you don't need any of that. You just love God. And you're so close to him

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that even God, as he did with Job, could say, "Have you considered my servant Job, "that he is a perfect, upright man, "and there is not another in the world like unto him?"

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That's what He wants. And that ought to happen, not because God is walking in the garden, but we should have it when He walks in the garden with us, and we should have it when God's presence is not manifest to us in the garden. Where are you going? Jesus says, "Have I been such a long time with you, and you don't know where I'm going?" I'm going to prepare a place for you that where I am, there ye may be also.

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So there is a time of absence and there is a time of presence and oh how it disturbs us when we have these times of absence. Somebody said well Reverend my spirit was there, my body wasn't there but but but my spirit was there. I said well Well, next time you send your body.

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But we need both the body and the spirit. - Yes, yes. - Absent, the role call, some absent, some present. So Jesus is present.

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He's present in the crucifixion, he's present. Nails are driven in his hands and feet, the wound in his side, and he is present. He cried out from the cross,

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but he's present in the midst of the suffering. Jesus, and oh, the wonderful thing, my brothers and sisters, is the gift of his presence. Say, I will be with you.

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I'll be with you when you walk through the valleys. I'll be with you when you walk beside still waters. I will be with you.

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I'll be with you when you journey through the wilderness. I will be with you. I will be with you when you walk in the fire. I will be with you.

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That's the gift of his presence. He has promised to be present with us wherever we are. Even though we may take the wings of the morning and fly away to the utmost parts.

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Or even if we make our bed in hell, He comes. He comes wherever we are. And He even comes to the gates of hell

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in order to rescue us. As that Psalm says, "I know my robes gonna fit me well because I tried it on at the gates of hell."

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God comes wherever we are. He comes to be with us in our struggle. And so we have, that's a comforting note to know that we have the gift of his presence.

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The gift of his presence in the crucifixion. no matter how you may be crucified in the flesh. And all flesh is grass. We're all withering away.

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All flesh is grass. But he said, I will be with you. And I want to commend Sister Jackson for having the courage to say what she said.

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You know, so often we want to sort of push it aside like it ain't happening. >> Yeah. >> You know.

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I went to the funeralize -- I was funeralizing a young man from this church some time ago, and I went up with the undertaker. And I said to the mother, I said,

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"What did this young man die from?" And she said it loud to AIDS, AIDS. And I was proud that she had the courage to face reality. You know, so often we say, you know, this is my private.

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We want somebody to pray, but we don't want them to know what they praying for. But get it all out in the open. Present and absent.

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that God will be present with us when the worst thing happens in our lives. He's there to undergird us. He's there to sustain us.

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Zan Holm tells the story of one of his friends who had cancer. So he went to him and he was trying to console him. Tell him how sorry he was.

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He said, "Wait a minute." He said, "You don't understand, Zan." He said, "I said that I have cancer,

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"not that cancer has me, "but I have it, I have control. "I mean, even though the worst thing happens, "I am still in control.

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"I'm God's child." And God is not going to let anything happen to me that he's not going to be with me in the struggle. And that's why we can shout and be glad

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that he is present. Oh sure, there are times when it seems that he is absent, but he is present. And so he's about to leave his disciples now.

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He's about to ascend into heaven to be with the Father, he's on his way home, but he says, "I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, there I am, there you will be also." That's That's good news in a world of bad news.

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So he has promised to return. See now the absence, we're pained by the absence. We're pained by the crucifixion, but we are comforted by the fact that he's coming again.

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Jesus' presence is in the crucifixion. Jesus' presence is in the resurrection, but he gets up again and his presence, the gift of his presence is in his promise to return. That's good news. His comforting presence is with us, comfort us in our loneliness. He's there. People

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and say, "Well, I'm the only one left in my family. "I'm the only one here." No, he's here. - Yes, Lord. - He's here.

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And I've seen people, they've left and they've gone to some far place because they had some distant relative and sometimes the relative is in worse shape than they are.

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- That's right. - We have to depend on God. - Yes, Lord. - Painful absence, comforting presence,

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But he is there with us. And how is he present? How is he present? How is he present?

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In all of the things of life, when I was growing up, my mother was always there. She would take time off for me in elementary school to be present.

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If I was in a school play, and was in the middle of the day, she would be there. Take time off to be there. Graduations take time off to be there.

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But she can't always be there, she's gone. But God can be everywhere at the same time. And that's the divine mystery of our history. So Paul says, good thing about,

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whether we have the experience of his absence or his presence. Paul says, "When I am absent from the body, "I am present with the Lord."

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There's no way you can lose. He's with us in our absences when we feel that God is hidden. So when I can't see God, well, he's hidden.

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He's in the situation, he's hidden. the cosmonaut who went up here some years ago from Russia. He came back, he reported, said, "We didn't see anybody up there."

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Well, not with the natural eye, but he's given us a spiritual eye. That you can say, "Well, God, God is in this place!" And I didn't recognize it, but somehow,

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He's given me the eyes to see that as I walk through the difficulties of my life, that he was there. And as I look back and reflect upon it, I can see how he helped me and led me

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when I didn't know that he was there. But I can appreciate the fact that God was there. So as we come to the hymn of invitation, we extend the privilege of the church to accept this God

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as our Savior and as our Lord, as we sing hymn 228, Come Ye Disconcerted. He's with us in the sorrowful conditions,

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in the grief of life, the disappointments of life. So often it seems that we are forsaken, that God is absent, but he's present.

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He's absent and present. So as we say, we extend the privilege to accept this God as Lord of your life. [MUSIC] The door of the church is open.

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You may come by letter, Christian experience, or professional faith. We invite you to come this morning. Come. (soft music)

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Come, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, come ye who are disconsolate, come, come. Invitation to come to the fountain of strength, hope. Comfort.

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♪ Ye disconsolate ♪ ♪ The herald angels sing ♪ ♪ Unto the mercy seat of the king ♪ ♪ Oh, tell me the story of ♪

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♪ In the land of anguish ♪ ♪ There has no sorrow ♪ ♪ Let it ♪ ♪ Let it be ♪

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♪ Joy of ♪ ♪ The desolate ♪ ♪ Light of the ♪ ♪ Strange ♪

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♪ The hope of the penitent ♪ ♪ Faithless and pure ♪ ♪ He speaks the comforter ♪ ♪ Is tenderly saying ♪

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♪ That earth has no sorrow ♪ ♪ That heaven cannot cure ♪ ♪ Here, here see the bread of life ♪ ♪ Sea waters flowing ♪

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♪ Forth from the throne of God ♪ ♪ Pure ♪ ♪ It's pure from above ♪ ♪ Come to the feast of love ♪

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♪ Come ever knowing ♪ ♪ That earth has no sorrow ♪ ♪ But heaven can remove ♪ ♪ How come ye this consulate ♪

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♪ Jesus consulate ♪ ♪ Where ye languish ♪ ♪ Come to, come to, come to the mercy seat ♪ ♪ Fervently, fervently, fervently kneel ♪

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♪ Kneel ♪ ♪ Here ♪ ♪ Bring, bring your wounded hearts ♪ ♪ Just tell the Lord, tell the Lord ♪

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♪ All your anguish ♪ ♪ That I had no sorrow ♪ ♪ Tomorrow ♪ ♪ That heaven can ♪

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♪ Cannot hear ♪ ♪ Oh, thank you ♪ - All of those who stood celebrating birthdays, would you stand and come back here where I am?

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Dr. Watt, who is the principal of Keeling. Where are you, Dr. Watt? Could you come stand here by me, please? All right.

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We're delighted to have you here this morning. Lord, you are with us. at all times. And we have learned to appreciate your absence

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and your presence. Help us manifest your presence in our lives as we go forth this day. In the strong and perfect name of Jesus.

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Amen. [ Music ] [ Silence ]