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The scripture reading for the morning is from the Gospel according to Matthew, the 16th chapter. I begin the reading at the verse number 13. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do men say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say

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Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are

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Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell

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no one that he was the Christ. And may the same Spirit that inspired these words incline our hearts to the understanding of them. Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. The little girl had followed her mother patiently all day. They had been

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Christmas shopping and the youngster didn't want to go, but she went because her mother promised her that at the end of the day she could make her visit to Santa Claus. So the youngster tagged along hour after hour, listening to her mother's conversations with sales personnel and the like, and finally the

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moment that she'd been waiting for arrived. And she got up onto Mr. Claus's lap and proceeded to give him her list. And when she was done he said to her, "Well, goodbye now, and you be a good little girl." And as she turned to get down from Santa's lap, her mother said, "Well now, what do you say?" And the little

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girl thought for a moment and then looking at Santa Claus said, "Charge it." Well, sometimes we say things the exact meaning of which we do not understand. Sometimes we say things the implications of which we do not understand. Take for example the phrase, "His only son." Now we say that almost every Sunday morning when

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we repeat as a congregation of believers the Apostles' Creed. We say, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son." But what do we mean when we say those words? What's the implication of the phrase? It's a very profound implication, but if you'll work with me

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for a few minutes I think we can gain some of the truth of it. We must begin by understanding the confusion in men with regard to the nature and the personality of God. Very early in my ministry I was called upon to serve as the Protestant chaplain in a home for difficult and troubled boys run by the Roman Catholic

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Church. One night I was speaking to the Protestant boys there about the fatherhood of God, and when I had finished, one of the boys came up, stripped off his t-shirt, showed me a hideously scarred back, and said, "This is what my father did to me." To speak of God as a father to that boy was not to speak of

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God in positive terms. You see, we define words in terms of our experience of them. If I say to you the word "friend" and you have many good friends who stand by you and support you and encourage you, then that word is to you positive. But if you have been betrayed and abandoned by those who claimed to be your friends,

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then that word carries a very negative connotation. We define words in terms of our experience of them, and this is what makes it so difficult for us to think about God. Because, you see, God is other from us, there is no parallel to God that we can set up in order to come to an understanding of him. And most generally

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what we do is to try to come to our understanding of God as we experience him in other people. Suppose this morning I were to say to you the word "hopox legomena." Now I select that word because it's not an often used word, and I don't think that most of you would have had any occasion to be familiar with it. I

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define the word for you, "hopox legomena," is a word which appears in the Scriptures only one time. Now you know the meaning of the word "hopox legomena" because you have had it defined in terms of the word and Scripture and the frequency of its appearance. The illustration helps you understand the

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word, but how do we illustrate God? God who is spirit, who is eternal, who is omniscient and omnipotent and almighty, who is so utterly beyond us. How do we come to a definition of him? Most often through the way we experience him in other people. And this is the way God wanted it to be. This is the reason he

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made us in his image. And this was a beautiful arrangement, that we could discover God in one another until, until man sinned. And when man sinned, the image of God within him became blurred, twisted, distorted, and broken. So that when we look at one another, we no longer get an accurate reflection of God. His

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image has been distorted in us, and you see the results of that even as I see them. How many young people do you know, for example, who have separated themselves from the Church and who want nothing whatever to do with the things of God? And if you ask them why, they'll say things like this, "Well, they make you

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dress up there, and I don't like the music that they play, it's so stodgy, and they have these rules and regulations, these legalisms, and their traditions are all out of yesterday." Now all of those things you see are of men. They are not of God. But the young person, in reacting negatively to God, does so on the basis

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of the experience of God that he has found in those who call themselves God's people. I'm sure all of you have had the experience at one time or another of confronting someone who is a non-believer, and they say things like this to you, "Well, if those churches down in the Bible Belt which call themselves

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Christian churches and still won't let black folks worship with them, if that's Christianity, I don't want anything to do with it." Now with regard to riches, I see how much the churches spend on themselves and how little they spend on others. Now if that's what God wants from his people, then I don't want anything

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to do with God. And when it comes to rigidity and being hidebound and tradition-clasped, if that's what it means to be one of God's people, then I don't want to have anything to do with God. And I know enough of these Christians and how reactionary they are, how their theology has never faced up to the

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pressing questions of the day. Have they ever looked at what a black hole says about their doctrine of creation? Have they ever discussed what a time warp says about their concept of eternity? Have they ever honestly looked into what quantum mechanics means in the doctrine of providence? No, they are

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anti-intellectual, they are bound in darkness, that's the way the things and people of God are, and I want nothing to do with it. Now what's that man doing? He's taking the errors of men and applying them to God. And that's what most non-believers do. They see God in other people and what they see they do

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not like, and so they turn away from him. But interestingly enough, at the same time that they turn away from him, they're still curious about him. Have you ever noticed how often non-believers, those who have rejected God, still ask questions about him, still bring up the subject? Jean-Paul Sartre, who's probably

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the most noted atheist of the 20th century, said we should forget about God. God should never enter into our thinking. And then in every play that he wrote, in every book that he wrote, including his autobiography, he wrestles again and again with the question of God. He killed God, no need of God. And then when things

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would get dark, he would go out in the night of his soul and howl over the grave of God. Those who reject God because of the distorted image of him that they've seen in other people still get down on their knees every once in a while to peep through the keyhole and try to discover what God is really like.

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And that brings us to the second major thing I'd like to suggest this morning, which is that this confusion on the part of man has been met by the compassion of God. You see, while the non-believer is down there on his knees peeping through the keyhole, God walks up behind him and taps him on the shoulder. He says, "You

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want to see me in terms of other men? All right. Then I will come to you as a man. And I will come to you as a man, not one in whom my image is distorted and broken and perverted. I will come to you as a perfect man." And in Jesus of Nazareth, he presents himself before us. He says, "If you want to know what I am like, then

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look at him. Don't look at evil. Don't look at prejudice. Don't look at the established religion. Don't look at legalisms. Look at Jesus. Listen to Jesus. I'm not outside of your life." What does Jesus say? "I am God with you. I'm not a God who enslaves and crowds people so that they have no space and no room. Look

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what Jesus says. I have come to bring you the truth that you might be set free. I'm not some Olympian God who sits off on a cloud and observes you from some safe distance." What does Jesus say? He says, "Lo, I am with you always. I'm not some supercop who's always ready to blow the whistle on you, ready to play the game of

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gotcha. Look at Jesus. Jesus says, 'Neither do I condemn thee. I'm not someone who puts you down. I'm someone who lifts you up. Look at Jesus. Come unto me and I will give you rest. I'm not one who waits with joy to condemn. I'm rather one who comes with words of encouragement and warning. If you persist in this, then," Jesus says,

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"you will have your own reward. I'm not one who crashes and intrudes into a life. Look at Jesus. Jesus says, 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock. I'm not arrogant. I am not one who stands in pridefulness above all the sins and difficulties and vicissitudes of the human experience. I want you to come to me." Look at Jesus.

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He had compassion upon them. "Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven." The perfect man, Jesus, gives us the perfect reflection of God. If you want to know what God looks like, don't look at other men in whom the image is distorted, but look at Jesus. Of course,

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Jesus, at the same time that he shows us what God is like, also shows us what we are to be like. You know, every once in a while we encounter someone in life who does a magnificent and a noble thing. Someone, for example, who risks his life to save a child. Some woman, like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who spends her whole

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existence, every soo that she has, lays it all out in the service of those who will never be able to repay. And when we see that, we're touched by it. Something in us responds. But the truth about Jesus Christ is that in him, there are not just brief moments of that kind of thing. His whole life is lived in that spirit.

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That's the reason that more than a billion call him Lord today. That's the reason that the highest compliment you can pay to a person is to say, "You are like Jesus." We see something like that and it thrills us, because we're suddenly confronted with what all men are to be. But at the same time that it thrills us,

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it also shames us, because we recognize how far short of that we fall in our own lives. If there's anything that marked the relationship between Jesus and his Father, that thing is obedience. All through his life, remember when he was 12 years of age in the temple, what did he say? "Did you not know that I must be

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about my father's business?" When he was baptized, what does he report to others that God said to him, "Thou art my beloved son, and with thee I am well pleased." When he was tempted, how did he respond to every temptation? By saying, "It is written, and thou shalt not disobey God." In the Transfiguration, when he stood

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on that mount so close in his obedience to God that the very Shekinah glory of God radiated throughout all of him. And Gethsemane, when he confronted the cross, but hours ahead, what does he say in obedience? "Not my will, but thy will be done." When he is on trial and being humiliated and beaten, and the Scriptures

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testify that he could summon legions of angels to his defense, did he call upon them? No, he took what he had to take in obedience. And on the cross, make no mistake, he was not held there by the nails. He was held there by the cords of his loving obedience. And when we confront that obedience in Jesus before

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God his Father, if there is in us any honesty at all, we are confronted with the reality of our own disobedience. And still, God loves us. The Bible says God is love. We quote that so easily that I sometimes think we get the sense of it backwards in our minds. We say it as if love defines God. God is

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love. But what the verse really says is that love is defined by God. God is love. If you want to know what love is, then look at God. Love does not define God. God defines love. And look how that love is poured out. It starts in Eden. It goes through the lives of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. It leads the people of

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Israel out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses. It speaks to us through the voices of the prophets. All of this leading up to that beachhead at Bethlehem when God came in the person of his own Son. He spent centuries readying the world for his coming, preparing the world for that lesson which it has never

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learned but never been able to forget. Think with me for just a moment about the cost of that kind of loving and caring, about the length of God's patience, about the height of his power, about the width of his compassion, about the depth of his mercy. What does that say to us about our loving? Is there risk

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in our loving? Do we love those who expect our love and do we love those who do not expect our love? Do we love those who are in need and do we love those who are not in need and do we love those who do not know that they are in need but who are in need? I mean this love of God is a love that is careless about things

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like crosses and swords and arenas and scaffolds. This is a love that never manipulates and never maneuvers. This is a love which pours itself out in the gift of a son. Did you think at all when you said this morning, "His only son, how much God loves Christ?" When Jesus is speaking about love in the 10th chapter

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of John, he holds up as the highest example of love this, he says, "As the Father and I love one another." The highest example of love is the love that God has for his Son. In Matthew 11 we read that God has entrusted all things to Jesus. In John 3 we read that God has given all authority to Jesus. In John

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chapter 5 we read that God has given all jurisdiction to Jesus. In John 16 Jesus says, "All that the Father has is given to me." That's how much God the Father loves God the Son. And then beside that, put this, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but

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have everlasting life. One day back in the early 1940s, a father and his son were out walking one evening. You older people remember how gasoline was rationed then. And they were out walking and as they walked along, a little boy said to his daddy, "Daddy, what are those little banners hanging in people's windows?" And

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the father explained that every time a family sent a son to the war, there was a little red, white, and blue banner that they would hang in their windows. And in the center of the banner was a star, and there would be one blue star for every son who had gone into the military. And a silver star if the son had been wounded,

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and a gold star if the son had died in the service of his country. And the little boy thought of this as they continued walking along, and then he looked up and they'd come to the place where there was a vacant lot. And looking up into the night sky, he saw the evening star. And then looking at his daddy, he

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said, "Daddy, look! There's a star in God's window also." Some of you who are parents and who have lost a son or a daughter know that when your child dies, part of you dies. So God, in infinite love, gives his only son. Mark Conley, the great dramatist who was from here in our Pittsburgh area, his masterpiece is

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generally considered to be his play "The Green Pastures." It's an attempt to depict heaven as it would have been seen by black people in the late 1800s. It's a very unsophisticated, but a very pure and very beautiful view of heaven. And at the end of the play, God is seated on a throne, and the angel Gabriel is standing

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beside him with his horn in his hand. And Gabriel says, "You look very pensive, Lord." "Is it serious, Lord?" And God says, "It's very serious, Gabriel." "Is it time for me to blow my horn?" "No. I'm just thinking. I'm just thinking about how mercy comes through suffering." "Yes, Lord." "About how mercy comes through suffering." "That's

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awfully important, Gabriel." And then another angel on the stage, who's looking out over the battlements of heaven down toward the earth, cries out a long, hard, sobbing cry. And then, having so cried, says, "Look at that. They're making him carry it up that high hill, and now they're gonna nail him to it. That's a

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terrible burden to be carried." And God stands, and looking, says, "Yes." Just that word. "Yes." Not too many years ago, in England, a rich man who was married to a rich lady, they had a son. She died. So he brought a housekeeper into the house to take care

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of the little boy, but the little boy died. And with the death of the little boy, all the life went out of the man. The housekeeper, of course, left. There was no child to be taken care of. He stayed alone, became some kind of recluse, and then died himself. When he died, they searched through all his papers trying

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to find a will. They could find none. So it was finally decided to auction off everything that he had. And the old housekeeper, the poor woman that she was, knew that she would not be able to buy any of the gorgeous items with which the house was furnished, but she went to the sale. And when she went to the sale, she

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saw on the wall a picture, a photograph, of the little boy that she'd taken care of. And she loved him so much that she bid in the auction for that picture. Nobody else wanted it, so she took it home. It was somewhat dusty and dirty, so she took it apart to clean the glass. And when she took it apart, she found inside the back

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of the picture some important-looking papers. She took them to the attorney. He read them over and then said, "Well, you will be pleased to know that you have inherited the whole estate. The father decided that he would leave everything he had to the one who loved his son enough to buy this picture." And God said,

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"Yes, to someone who loves my son, I give all the glories and treasures of heaven. He cared enough to send the very best. Yes, let us pray.

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Oh God, deliver us from our theologies. Untangle us from our philosophies. Make us simple enough to understand how much a father loves his son, and how in giving us Jesus, you gave us the perfect picture of yourself, and how you long for us to love him as you loved him. To your great soul-changing and soul-

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challenging, yes, oh Lord." We now respond. "We will be your disciples, yes. We will confess our sin to your son and accept the cleansing that he offers, yes. We will be part of that great army of believers who loves Christ as thou dost love him, yes.

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Hear our yes, Lord. Claim us for thyself forever and forever, yes. A thousand times, yes. Amen. [Music]

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