He Is Our Peace (Part 2)

0:34 Just for the record, we're really looking at the same passage and the same idea for one more week. He is our peace, part two. We're looking at Ephesians chapter two. And I'm going to read verses 11 to 16. Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision, that done in the body by the hands of men, remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world, But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Jesus Christ.

1:33 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one, and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man, out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near. For through him, we both have access to the Father by one spirit. Let's end right there. Now, we want to go back to the basic subjects we introduced last week, and we want to move on elaborating on them, applying them for one more week a little bit more thoroughly. Last week we said that if you read the book of Ephesians, Paul's letter to the Ephesians, the last chapter ends with a mighty prayer for the readers.

2:45 Paul is praying that the readers will have a grasp on the greatness of God's power. And therefore, Paul thinks there's nothing more healthy for us and nothing more important for us than to understand that the God that we worship is a God of power. And Paul says he wants us to know the surpassingly greatness, the surpassingly great power of God, the surpassing greatness of his power. Then if you understand that, then you can see all of chapter two as actually simply an elaboration of that prayer. In chapter two, which is 20 verses, Paul gives us first one evidence for God's power, and then in the last 10 verses, a second evidence of God's power. See, this is Paul arguing in chapter 2. How do we know that God is powerful? And he says, I give you two evidences. In verses 1 to 10, he says, God can, if you put yourself in his hands, he can take your broken life and make it whole. He can take your deadness and make it vital.

3:54 He can come in and transform and change you. Great. Then in verse 11 to 20, which is what we began looking at this week, last week, excuse me, Paul says the second evidence of God's power is not just that he can put together the broken human life, but he can also put together the broken human community. The first evidence of God's power is he can take a mess-up person and make you into a whole being. But the second evidence of God's power is that he can take people who would never otherwise get along and put them into the church and put them into a community and get people at peace and make for a unity, a supernatural unity amongst people who otherwise would never be able to live together. Now, I said last week, modern Americans, and a lot of you aren't modern Americans, a lot of you aren't Americans, but you'll certainly understand this. Modern Americans are radically individualized. We're individualistic. And so whenever you hear a minister or anybody actually say, God can take you and fulfill you and meet your needs, we tune right in. You know, little antenna, you know, all the radar units go around and say, wow, that's for me.

5:13 But you see, Paul also says that the second thing that God does is he brings you into a new community and he makes you part of a new humanity. It says, for he himself is our peace who has made the two one. He's broken down the hostility and he created in himself one new man out of the two making peace. And what he's saying is the second great evidence and the second purpose of the death of Christ and an additional purpose to the very purpose of the cross is not just to get you happy and whole and get you unbroken and now vital, his other purpose, every bit as important a purpose, is to get you into a community. Do you see that? And I said last week, we don't see that. Modern Americans don't hear that. We get real excited about commitment to Christ, but as soon as we start talking about commitment to the church, we tune right out.

6:12 And all the Gallup polls and all the Harris polls and all the surveys show that Americans actually are fairly positive about Jesus, but they're completely turned off by the church. Now, that makes sense. Jesus is perfect and the church is not. But it goes beyond that. Our disillusionment goes beyond that. It's not all the church's fault. Because we're so individualistic, we love to hear fulfillment, but we don't like to hear come in and become part of a whole, a bigger whole. we really want to be on our own we really want to be committed and fulfilled but we really are very anti-institutional so when you hear the bible say i can make you a new person and we perk up our ears but when it also says and i can make you part of a new humanity we go huh and we get uninterested that shows that we're really being molded by the world we have to see we have to understand that and that's what we're looking at in these 10 verses. Now, last week we said that though Paul, let me go on one more step, though Paul is talking about Jew and Gentile and how the circumcision, that's the Jew, and the uncircumcision, that's the Gentile, have through the cross been brought together. And though Paul, and we spent more time last week, I'm not going to recount it this week, Paul is actually giving us a wonderfully insightful and detailed description of why Jewish and Gentile people have not gotten along over the years. It's so important for us not to think that that's Paul's main purpose, is to show that the purpose of the cross is to bring just Jew and Gentile together. The purpose of the cross is not just to bring those particular two warring factions together. The purpose of the cross is to bring all warring factions together. See, Paul is being humble here. He's not picking on his own people.

8:06 He's not picking on the Jews. He's actually being humble, and he's confessing his own sins. Because he's Jewish, and because he's working amongst Gentiles all the time, it's just the most convenient illustration he's got. But we've got to look beyond, and tonight I really want to look beyond. What Paul is saying is the only way to overcome racial divisions and class divisions, the only way to bring people together who are not able otherwise to ever get along is through the cross. And he's also telling us, look, his purpose, when he died, his purpose was to create in himself one new humanity. I don't know that I got this across last week, but I'm trying to get it across this week.

8:58 You are frustrating the purpose of Jesus when he died unless you are committed to creating a new humanity, to creating the church, to developing the church the way he wants the church to be. What does he want? He wants a new nation. He wants a new humanity. He wants us, and he is enabling us and he's availing himself to us and he's saying, this is what is possible in the church. If you apply what I've given you, if you take the power I've given you, if you take the cross into your heart, if you understand it, I want to create a community in which economic relationships and racial relationships and family relationships and gender relationships work. Where they work. everybody will be astonished because they don't work anywhere else really.

9:51 He says, one of my purposes in dying the purpose of the cross is to create one new humanity. See, are you committed to seeing that happen anywhere? I mean, not everybody here is a member of Redeemer. Fine. I mean, I know that. Some of you are visitors from other cities. Some of you are visitors from other churches, other parts of the city that have come here. That's fine. I'm not saying you necessarily have to be committed to doing this at Redeemer. Are you committed to doing it? Is it something you can't wait to see happen? Is it something you hunger for, you salivate over? You say, look at this. One of the purposes of the cross is for us to create a renewed humanity, to show the world what relationships, what relationships can be like, how well they can work in Christ. One of the reasons why, you know, here's the vicious circle, the catch-22. One of the reasons why the churches are not anything like that is because we don't expect, we're not hungering for it.

10:52 You just want a place where you like the music. You're so happy to find a place, gosh, I like the music. I like that church. Boy, are you settling for crumbs or what? Or you like the sermon. Well, that's nice. But let's get a little bit beyond that.

11:13 And if the concept that I'm laying out for you is foreign to you, it's really because you're unfamiliar, and that's fine. That's why I'm here. I'm trying to familiarize. I'm not trying to frustrate you in any way. I'm saying you're unfamiliar with the very essence of the purpose of the death of Christ. if you don't see that's one of the reasons why he died that's what the text says it's not good enough to look around your church and say, you know, people don't get along. This is really a very, very poor community, but, you know, I've got to serve somewhere. I'm a Christian. I mean, there's got to be, there has got to be a commitment and a hunger and a vision for this. There's got to be a vision for what the church is supposed to be, a chosen people. We sang about it, a royal nation, in a sense, a new ethnic. Now, we'll talk in a minute of what that means. It doesn't mean the destruction of our earthly racial characteristics by any means, but it really means a new community in which our relationships work with such power and such facility that people come and say, so this is the way it's supposed to be. That's what it says.

12:28 his purpose is to make the two one. Now, we also learn here not only why he died to bring the two one, but we also learn the real root of racial and of class divisions. What's the real basis for racism and classism and those kinds of things? Paul shows us here it's much more deeply rooted than we think. I think I mentioned this last week, and again, I said I'm not going to go right back into it at all. I'm trying to move on beyond. But Paul points out that the thing that divided Jew from Gentile was the law. It's amazing. He says, Jesus Christ, by abolishing in his flesh when he died, the law with its commandments and regulations, which was the dividing law between Jew and Gentile, made the two one. Now, we said last week, what's wrong with the law? Is there any place in the Bible that says the law was bad? Any place at all? You know, Paul goes out of his way to say, there is nothing wrong with the law. The law is spiritual. The law is spiritual. I'm carnal, he says in Romans 7. Consistently, Jesus says nothing is wrong with the law. Well, then how in the world could the law have been a source of division? And what Paul is admitting is it was a gift. It was a great thing. The Jews had the law, and yet it was something that divided.

13:47 The fact is we all take our gifts, and because of the sin in our heart, our gifts lead us to pride. And this isn't just something that one ethnic group has got over others. Some ethnic groups are more successful than others at oppressing other people, but all ethnic groups want to oppress other people, and that's what the Bible is saying. The root of racism is the pride of the heart, the inveterate self-centeredness of the human heart. The root of racism is sin itself. Now, that's clearly what he's saying. He's saying that if Jesus hadn't died, the hostility couldn't go away. The hostility comes from pride. It comes from sin. And without the cross, racism is not something that can go away. Now, I hope you see that. Let's spend a moment on this. Do you see what we're saying? Our first point was Jesus, this passage teaches us that Jesus died to bring people together who ordinarily couldn't get together, and that the church is supposed to be a new humanity, a place where different races, different classes, different genders, different sorts of people get along and have a unity. The second thing we're saying is that we're told here the analysis of the basis for human disunity and racism, and that is it's sin and pride, and that it's inveterate in every human heart. And it's only an accident that some races have gotten ascendancy over other races, and therefore their racism is more obvious.

15:13 but the fact of the matter is racism is endemic to the human nature that's what the text says i know that goes totally against what many people teach but that's what the text says i want to show you why it's a much more deep analysis and a much less superficial analysis than what you're going to hear otherwise uh put it this way let me let me be real honest about it one of the great things about living in new york is that you're continually around people who are diverse and I want you to know that it's, if you really, if you really think about it, racism is made of the smallest little irritations. Racism and classism, those divisions are terribly deep and they're terribly bloody and they're terribly tragic, but they're made out of such little things. Yesterday, I spent five hours in the airport, a very crowded airport, trying to help my family, the rest of my family, not me obviously, go to see my parents in Florida and it's very hard when it's been snow and it's very hard when, you know, it's a holiday time to get people out, especially to Florida. So I spend a lot of time, like you usually do, around New York, in airports, in subway cars, sitting around with a lot of other people of different cultures.

16:23 And the things you begin to notice is your heart is so sensitive to the little things. Some cultures are much more emotionally expressive than others. we all eat different things we all have different diets and so we smell different to each other different cultures have very different concepts of time and what is punctuality different cultures have very different ideas of what is considered clutter what is considered appropriate behavior for children it doesn't take much and next thing you know if you're a little strung out, if you're a little stressed out, you find yourself absolutely despising the people who are different than you. And not only that, you can see them doing it to you. If they're in a good mood, they might not. If they're busy, they might not. But if they're a little bit stressed, then you begin to see that's really what this is all about. My heart looks through the strengths of my own culture at the weaknesses of other culture and refuses to refuse, I can't see the weaknesses of my own. Why? Because of sin. Why else?

17:38 Now, I know that this analysis is very different than what you're going to get from a lot of people. There's a certain crowd of people that tells you regularly, racism is terrible, and here's how to solve it. Racism is awful, but here's how we have to solve But we have to see that since there's no truth, all cultures are relative, therefore they're all wonderful. Since there's no truth, since there's no way of judging people, and there's no way of judging right and wrong, since there's no truth, everything is relative, so all cultures are equally wonderful. And generally, as a... Well, the fact of the matter is, it doesn't work. Or I'll put it this way. have you ever seen those advertisements in which you have a little black baby and a little white baby and a little Asian baby, and they're all playing together, and over top it said, no one's born a racist. Have you seen those? And you know, righto, at first, there's an emotional logic there. You say, of course. Little kids of different races, they get along just fine. No one's born a racist. And Paul says, think of the logic of that for a minute. The Bible says, think of the logic. What do you mean nobody's born a racist? Well, the implication is you're taught to be a racist. Okay, so these little kids are going to be taught to be racist. Well, who taught them?

18:59 Well, somebody who was taught. Well, who taught them? Somebody was taught. If it didn't come from the heart, where did it come from? Who was the first person? A Martian? that showed up and says, well, I can, you know, 5,000 years ago, I said, we can really wreck human history really well. I'm just going to get down some little kids and look at all these little kids. They all get along and there's no racial hostile. I'm going to teach one of them to be a racist and that'll start it. When you say, as much as the people who are from multiculturalism yell and scream about racism, they believe, if they really believe that no one's born a racist and therefore you can solve it through education, they are doomed to failure. The Bible's analysis is much more penetrating and a lot of those folks don't like it. The Bible says, of course you're born a racist.

19:53 The kids just can't recognize the differences, that's all. They're already selfish. Listen, as soon as your child is old enough to lie verbally, he or she does, without blinking. As soon as that child is able to cheat, he or she does. You're trying to tell me when I know my child is by nature a liar, and I know my child is by nature a cheat, that my child is not by nature a racist. my child without blinking, without being taught at all, if any of my children sense that they are superior in any way, smarter, faster, they're going to rub the noses of any other children in it. You're going to tell me that no one's born a racist? As long as you believe that, you're doomed to failure. The Bible says the only way to overcome racism is to overcome sin. The only way to overcome sin is not through education It's through the cross and the blood of Christ we are born racist.

21:02 Of course we're born racist. We take our gifts, you know, see what Paul is saying? The law, which was a strength given to one particular racial group, and it turned into a stumbling block. It turned into an area of superiority. It turned into a dividing wall. Now, what are we going to do about it? So we've already seen, Paul says, number one, the purpose of the church is to bring people together who otherwise wouldn't be able to live together. Secondly, the heart of racism is pride in human sin, and if you think education is going to deal with it, if you think just by simply saying everybody is wonderful and there is no truth and everything is equally relative and everyone is equally wonderful in their own way and everybody is special in their own way and all we have to do is tell each other that and all we have to do is educate people, we're doomed to failure.

21:57 Paul says in a much more radical analysis, oh, racism is a much deeper problem than you know. You know, Christians don't really fit into the spectrum, do they? The media's got a spectrum from left to right and they set it up and anybody they talk to, Anybody they hear, they've got to stick you somewhere in one of the little niches. Where are you going to put biblical Christians? Where are you going to put us? So on the one hand, we don't not think that racism is unimportant. We think it is extremely important, that racial reconciliation is extremely important. Look at the Bible. Paul is almost obsessed with it. In Christ, there is no slave or free. There is no Jew or Gentile. He says the most important thing about the cross. One of the most important things about the cross is it gets rid of these divisions. Christians see the divisions, we realize how bad they are, and we say one of the reasons Jesus died was to heal the divisions. Of course it's a problem.

22:50 So we would never shrug. We never think, oh, well, I have to each his own. We would never shrug about that. We would never say, oh, this isn't important. But on the other hand, we would never, ever say that just simply education and moral relativism is the way to overcome it. So where do we fit? I don't know. But we're not there. We're not anywhere on the spectrum. Maybe below it, maybe above it, maybe off here. I don't know.

24:26 Now, and lastly, Paul also teaches, and again, we alluded to this last week, but now we have to bring it out, that the only way, therefore, for us to heal, the only solution for racial divisions is the cross. Now, here's why. Because, number one, the cross utterly changes the way you look at yourself. That's the first thing it does. And then secondly, it utterly changes the way you look at other people. And unless the cross has come into your life, and unless you've recognized what the cross means, you're not going to have these changes, which Paul says is the only way for you to have this kind of racial unity. Let's explore that for a while. He says the cross is what has destroyed your hostility. If you don't think you're hostile, if you don't think you've got a hostility in your heart toward people who are different, you don't understand yourself.

25:23 And Paul says, if you think you can overcome it simply by education and self-control, you don't understand yourself either. It's only the cross that will do it. first of all, the cross utterly changes the way you look at yourself. We made a reference to it last week, so I don't want to reiterate that, but I do want to try to elaborate on it. In Galatians chapter 5, verse 11, Paul talks about the offense of the cross. The cross offends people. It's supposed to offend people. The cross is insulting, and the cross is humbling. And if racism is based on a pride in the heart, then racism will never be healed unless you have been humbled. The cross is an insulting thing. It's a humbling thing. And it's necessary if you're ever going to overcome your racism. You've got to see that you're a sinner. You've got to be humbled. I said humbled, not humiliated. Some of you know that humiliation does not get rid of pride at all.

26:25 Do you know what humiliation does to pride? It makes it worse. it hardens it. If any of you have been racially oppressed, if you've been humiliated, you know that that didn't help your pride, did it? It actually, in many ways, inflamed your pride. It made it harder. It might have made you a reverse racist, in some small way, at least, or in a large way. Now, see, the cross doesn't humiliate you. It humbles you, because the cross is insulting. That's why Paul says the cross offends. It's supposed to offend. Now, you know, modern people have a lot of trouble with the doctrine of the cross. They won't be humbled by it because they insist on reinterpreting it so that it's less insulting.

27:20 The church we're in right now is a Unitarian church. Unitarians are one of many, many, many, many, I'm not trying to pick on Unitarians, many people who have felt that the old doctrine of the cross is too insulting to human beings. And over there, I don't know who this gentleman is, and I'm sure he was a wonderful person, but underneath it says, it says he was a devout Christian trusting in God and hoping all things of men. Hoping all things of men. It says in John chapter 2 that Jesus trusted nobody because he knew it was in the heart of men. Did you know that? One of the nastiest things you could say is this person doesn't trust people. Do you know what it says? It comes right out in John chapter 2 and it says Jesus never trusted anybody because he knew it was in the hearts of men. By men, he means humanity. That's what the writer means. The fact is that many of us don't like the old doctrine of the cross because the old doctrine of the cross says you're so sinful that only the death of the Son of God could possibly save you. Other religions, other philosophies say no, moral effort, trying real hard, that's enough, and the doctrine of the cross says no. Jesus had to die because you're that sinful. Many, many people want to reinterpret the cross so it's less humbling, so it's less insulting. Many people say, oh, the cross. Now, maybe, and I have to say this because I'm sure there's people here tonight like this. Many people say the old doctrine that says God is angry at sin and Jesus had to assuage the wrath of God and he had to die as a substitutionary atonement for our sin and people say, how primitive. We need to think of the cross more as a symbol of sacrifice, how you should lay down your life for your friends. Well, now there's a lot of ways of showing how nonsensical that is. You can't take away the offense of the cross. It makes no sense unless it's offensive. Look, I live in Roosevelt Island. Here's the best illustration I can give you.

29:25 and I take the tram, which is a cable car over the East River, and if I was in the tram one day with you and I said, you know, I want to show you how much I love you, and I open the door and I jump out to my death, would you say, wow, he really loves me. I can see how wonderful it is. No. Of course, what you'd say is, the poor guy is crazy. Why?

29:48 If my death wasn't absolutely necessary, then it's no love. If I give my life for you and it's not necessary that's not love. Why? In that case the reason it was stupid was because you were getting across the East River fine without me. But if on the other hand the tram is stalled or there's an accident or it's about to fall and if I give my life saving your life that's a whole different thing. Don't you see how you can't get out from under the offense of the cross? if Jesus died, why? If he didn't die, because you're lost.

30:29 You're cut off. You're condemned. And the only way for you to be saved, the only way for you to be forgiven, is not through your moral efforts, but through his death. Then the cross makes no sense at all. Do you understand that? It's offensive because it says the only reason that Jesus could possibly die that isn't nonsense is if it was absolutely necessary. And that humbles you. You know why? Because it humbles not only the modern person who thinks that's just too primitive, but it also humbles the uptight Victorian who says, you mean to tell me that a moral person, an upstanding person, is just as sinful and is just as lost as a person who has lived a life of licentiousness and vice and sin and degradation? And of course, the answer of the doctrine of the cross is yes, it doesn't matter who you are.

31:22 Jesus had to die for you. It makes no sense. Why in the world would he possibly die unless it was absolutely necessary? And therefore, it doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter your class. It doesn't matter your standing. It doesn't matter your record. It doesn't matter whether you're for the right side of the tracks or the left side of the tracks. Not at all. Why doesn't it matter? because no matter who you are, you're a sinner and you needed the death of Christ. You needed the cross. The cross comes in and it humbles you. The cross will either offend you and have you go away or offend you and humble you into the dust. And when that does, you utterly are changed in the way you think about yourself. And you realize I am no different than anybody else. And really, when you see a homeless person and that homeless person is walking around and walking along, and you smell that homeless person, and you see that homeless person is totally bankrupt.

32:16 No resources left, maybe no mind left, certainly no money left, no ingenuity left, no friends left, nothing. A Christian looks and says, that's exactly where I am spiritually. Apart from Jesus Christ, I look exactly like that. I smell like that to God, except for Jesus. No matter how good I have been or how bad I've been, no matter how moral I've been, I fall short. That's the doctrine of the cross. Does that offend you? Of course it offends you. It depends on what you're going to do with that offense. Are you going to let it humble you, or are you going to let it harden you? The only two possibilities. Don't try to reinterpret it to make it less insulting. That's the value of it. It's there to insult. It's there to humble. So that it gives you one blow to racism. And the other blow, and the final thing we'll say here tonight, The cross doesn't only utterly change the way you see yourself, so it begins to heal the pride that's the basis of racism, but it utterly changes the way in which you look at other people.

33:13 You'll never, ever, ever be able to look at other people the same way again. And here's why. When you look at, let's just say, for a minute, when you look at other Christians, when you look at another Christian after you've understood the cross, you realize the most important thing about that person is that Christ died for them. You're a Christian first, and you're an American or an Asian second. You're a Christian first, and you're white or black second. You're a Christian first, and you're this or that second. You see? That's the most important thing.

33:44 And that's the reason why, let's put it in a number of ways here. You completely, that's the reason why Paul says, we no longer regard anyone after the flesh. That is a deep, insightful statement. This doesn't mean that you lose your ethnic earthly bearings. In fact, I don't know how many Christians have told me, especially Christians who live in this country and are part of a racial or ethnic minority, have told me that Christianity has liberated them to enjoy their ethnicity. You know, if you're an ethnic minority in a country, you've always got a problem, and that is you can either try to almost play your ethnicity down and assimilate so you can be more accepted, or else you kind of put a chip on your shoulder. and many Christians have told me that when I realized that in Christ I'm accepted and when my identity wasn't so wrapped up in how people looked at me, I was free to appreciate my ethnic heritage. I'm not trying to say that Christians, when you become a Christian, you lose sense of that at all. What I am trying to say is inside the church, we no longer prejudge each other.

34:52 The one thing you're not allowed to do is look at somebody and you say, outside the church, you see, you learn to make judgments on people because of which side of the tracks they live on, or their education, or their profession, or their race. But in here, it's different. There was a big fight in Acts chapter 15 between Paul and Barnabas. Barnabas wanted to take John Mark on their next missionary journey. Paul wanted to take Silas, and they had to split and go their own ways. And you know what the big division was? John Mark was Barnabas's relative. And what Paul was saying is we can't have that kind of nepotism and favoritism in here. In here, it's a new humanity. We don't look at another person and say, I know what kind of person she is. The past is gone. Remember the sin of the elder brother in the prodigal son? Remember the sin of the elder brother? What happened was the elder brother saw the younger brother come back, and the elder brother would not forget what the younger brother had done and where he'd been.

35:52 and the father says, that's gone, because he's come to me, and now behold, it's a new creation. You see what, put it another way, Philip Henry, I don't know if you've ever heard of Matthew Henry, he wrote the great commentary, it's been around for years, lived in the late 1600s, his father was a fine Christian man, his name was Philip Henry, and he became a great minister of God, and his mother, Matthew Henry's mother, when Philip, when his father and his mother were dating, his mother was from a very prominent family and his father was not from a very prominent family. And when they were falling in love, Matthew Henry's mother was approached by her parents and they said, we're very concerned about this Philip Henry. He's not in the social register. None of our friends know his family We don't know where he's from and she looked at him and said, I don't know where he's from. I only know where he's going, and at that point, she made a radically biblical statement, which she says, I know where he's going.

37:02 You know where he's going? He's going to the throne of God, my king. He's going to the bosom of God, my father. He's going into the arms of Jesus Christ, my brother. It doesn't matter where he's from. It doesn't matter what he is. It doesn't matter where he's been. The gospel changes those things. Those things aren't as important now. They're not the controlling factor anymore. We no longer regard each other after the flesh. We put it another way. A good friend of mine who's now dead, he was a professor of mine named Addison Leach. And he told me a story once in class that I'll never forget. Addison Leach was an intellectual. He was the president of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. He was a, figures, it was a Presbyterian Seminary. He was a graduate of Cambridge University, PhD, and he was a cultured man, a scholarly man, and he knew Christ and he was a born-again Christian. And one day he was driving along through, he was driving a long distance, he was driving through a state that he hadn't ever been in before, and he turned on the radio, and he was listening to one after another inarticulate, well-meaning, but inarticulate radio preachers, saying a lot of foolish things, a lot of indefensible things, a lot of rash things. And he suddenly, as he was driving along, he said, I suddenly began to realize these people have not, I have nothing in common with them educationally. I have nothing in common with them culturally. I probably wouldn't enjoy the same sort of hobbies that they enjoy.

38:36 But he was on his way to go to a meeting of other men who had also had PhDs like he did and taught like he did, who would probably enjoy the same books and the same kind of music and the same kind of surroundings. They probably smell the same way. They probably live the same way. They dress the same way. And he suddenly realized, the guys on the radio, they're my brothers. and one of the most amazing things about becoming a Christian is to realize that if you've never experienced this, you're either a very new Christian or a very mature Christian or not a Christian at all, and that is this. You begin to realize that people who are utterly different from you, culturally, educationally, professionally, but who are Christians, you've got more in common with them, and you can look at people who are like you culturally and educationally and professionally and sense that there's this great gulf fixed. And it's an amazing thing. And Dr. Leach was saying to me, he began to realize what astonished him was when I talk with these people, as silly as they can be, as different as they can be, sometimes as much as they make me tear my hair out, they're my brothers. And the people who are just like me, I just sense that we're living in a different universe.

39:50 Because, you see, the cross has utterly changed the way in which we look at other people. But not just Christians. Lastly, lastly, the Christian worldview does not just change the way in which you look only at Christians. You know, recently a minister friend of mine said that he went to a... his daughter was in junior high school, and he went to an assembly at the school, and the superintendent of schools was giving a talk, and the superintendent of schools was trying to say, you've got to understand that every one of you is very special. You have dignity as a human being. You're extremely special. You've got to understand that, and you've got to like yourself, and you've got to know that you're worthy of honor and affirmation. And my minister friend said, he looked around, he looked at all those junior high school kids, and they just had, they just had that MECO look, M-E-C-O, you know what MECO is? My eyes glaze over. And he said he began to realize, look, if you're a Christian, you can believe that every human being is worthy. Every human being has dignity. Every human being has value as being in the image of God. But nowadays, I thought we said, we don't know whether there's a God or not. And the average kid out there doesn't really know what's right and wrong. And the average kid has had too many negative experiences to believe that unless somebody can say, what's the basis? How do I know that the person next to me is worth anything? You know, Sigmund Freud said, and I quote, most people are trash.

41:28 What's the evidence against that? There is no evidence against that. but you see the Christians have a totally different approach they say in spite of the evidence we know what Jesus has said to us we know what the Bible says listen this is the Christian view of people who may or may not be Christians they're not my brother they're not my sister but they're my neighbor this is the end of C.S. Lewis's favorite famous sermon called the weight of glory. He says, Meanwhile, the cross comes before the crown, and tomorrow is Monday morning. A cleft is open in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great captain inside. The following hymn is, of course, the essential point.

42:23 I can think of one use of all that he teaches us. It may be possible for us to think too much of our own glory, but it's hardly possible for us to think too often or too deeply about the glory of my neighbor. The load or the weight or the burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid daily on my back. It's a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses. Now, understand what he means by that. Listen, we have to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person that we talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. Or, if going not to heaven but to hell, someday a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long, we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations.

43:26 Do you see that? See, a Christian understands that the people, every person in this room, five billion years from now, will still be alive in some form. Every person in this room, that's what the Bible says, the Christian worldview has a radical view of people. People are not throwaway. People are not discarded. People really are special. You see, that's not just a word. There's a basis for it. It's intrinsic to our theology. It radically changes the way in which we look and treat people, and he goes on. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities. It is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them that we should conduct all our dealings with one another. Can I say that again? I've read this before in an evening service, but we keep forgetting. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all plays, all politics.

44:23 There are no ordinary people. You've never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. It is with immortals with whom we joke, with whom we work, marry, snub, exploit. This does not mean we're to be perpetually solemn. We have to play, but our merriment must be of that kind, which is in fact the merriest kind, which exists between people who have from the outset taken each other seriously. no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our love must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner, no mere tolerance or indulgence, no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love, like flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the blessed sacrament itself, next to the Lord's Supper itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. And if your neighbor is a Christian, your neighbor is holy in almost the same way. For in your neighbor, your Christian brother and sister, Christ, very lauditat, the glorifier and the glorified, glory himself is truly hidden. The cross and all of those doctrines surrounding the cross, the gospel itself has to be expressed in our relationships.

45:59 It has to change everything. This is not just a place that you come because you like the music. This is a place where bonds have got to be drawn. drawn. Bonds have got to be created stronger or as strong as in a family. This is a place where we're building a family, where we're building a nation, where we're building a community, where we're building a new humanity. And if you're not doing it here, you've got to be doing it somewhere because that's why Jesus died. He died to destroy the hostility and to create a new humanity. And there's no other way except through the cross to realize that which all human hearts yearn for and desire most deeply. It's through him. Let's pray. Now, Father, as we close our service, help us to consider both in general and in particular how we are going to be part of this great purpose of yours, to build churches, to build new communities in which people live together and enjoy one another and love one another and are one even as you are one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

47:15 We ask this in Jesus' name.