You Tube Theology

A service of worship in Duke University Chapel. The Reverend Dr Samuel Wells delivers a sermon entitled "There's Two Ways We Can Do This." Opening excerpt from the sermon: (41:00) "Let's suppose you're a student in a campus ministry. You really care about another student in the group, and they seem friendly and approachable. Before you know where you are, you've started dreaming of a long term future with them, maybe marriage, maybe children, maybe joy and companionship -- and of course eternal happiness and plenty else beyond. But quickly it becomes clear that there's another person who has similar designs on the object of your affections, and, in what seems like no time, there's pain and recrimination and misunderstanding and grief and bad feeling. And all along you feel, "This is a Christian group. We should have better ways of resolving these things than if we were just another group." But somehow you don't. In fact it feels like exactly the opposite. The goodwill looks like hypocrisy and the kind words sound like manipulation, and the next time someone says "Let's pray about it" you want to punch them in the mouth. Maybe you feel you have to stay away for a while, it's all too personal and humiliating and public." Closing excerpt from the sermon: (59:21) "So here's the good news for Christians trying to speak both languages, the language of contract and of covenant. Take contracts seriously. Care and detail over contracts is a form of love towards those we don't know very well. It's a recognition that life is full of unexpected pitfalls, and a way of holding one another to honesty and honor in the face of temptation and distraction. Never assume we can run our whole lives by contracts. If we do, we'll find ourselves unprepared for the deepest and most beautiful things God has to give us. Instead, try to turn contracts slowly but surely into covenants. Contracts can give us security and trust, but only covenants can bring joy and delight. And most of all, never treat our relationship with God as a contract. We never made a deal. God owes us nothing. We aren't God's equal. There's no court of arbitration we can go to if we get it into our head that God's not keeping the divine side of the bargain. In time everlasting there is no contract. What we have with God is a covenant. A covenant of grace that we did nothing to earn or deserve.--In the end, all contracts will fade away, and our covenant with God will be all we have. Forever." Bulletin: http://bit.ly/zUPTmB