♪ Elevates them to a presence ♪ ♪ As with this voice they cry ♪ ♪ Alleluia, alleluia ♪ ♪ Alleluia, Lord most high ♪ (organ music) 
(singing inaudible) ♪ Praise to the Lord ♪ ♪ Oh, let all that is in me adore him ♪ ♪ All that have life and breath, come now ♪ ♪ With praises before him ♪ ♪ Let the amen ♪ ♪ Sound from his people again ♪ ♪ Gladly forever adore him ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ 

- In the year that King Josiah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up. And the foundations shook and the house was filled with smoke, and I said, woe is me. For I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. In the presence of God, and in the company of one another, let us confess our sin as we pray together. Our loving God, who by your love hast made us, and through your love has kept us and in your love would make us perfect, we humbly confess that we have not loved you with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. And that we have not loved one another as Christ loves us. Your life is within our souls, but our selfishness has hindered you, we have not lived by faith. We have resisted your spirit. We have neglected your inspirations. Forgive what we have been. Help us to amend what we are, and in your spirit direct what we shall be, that you may come into the full glory of your creation, in us and in all people through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. And the Lord touched Isaiah and said, behold. This has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away. And your sin forgiven. Through Christ our Lord, amen. (organ music) ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ His works are marvelous ♪ ♪ By his grace ♪ ♪ And his might ♪ ♪ He has exalted us ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ His works are marvelous ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ His works are marvelous ♪ ♪ By his grace ♪ ♪ And his might ♪ ♪ He hath exalted us ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ By his grace ♪ ♪ And his might ♪ ♪ He hath exalted us ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ His works are marvelous ♪ ♪ By his grace ♪ ♪ And his might ♪ ♪ He hath exalted us ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ By his grace ♪ ♪ And his might ♪ ♪ He hath exalted us ♪ ♪ We shall not die ♪ ♪ But live forever ♪ ♪ And shall praise, shall praise the works ♪ ♪ Of the Lord ♪ ♪ We shall live to praise the works ♪ ♪ Of the Lord ♪ ♪ We shall not die ♪ ♪ We shall not die ♪ ♪ We shall not die ♪ ♪ We shall not die ♪ ♪ But shall live and praise the works ♪ ♪ Of the Lord ♪ ♪ Shall praise the works of the Lord ♪ ♪ We can praise ♪ ♪ Shall praise the Lord ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ Works of the Lord ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ 

- Would the congregation please rise for the reading of the gospel? The scripture lesson this morning is from Luke four, verses 16 through 21. And he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and he went to the synagogue as his custom was on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read. And there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book and found the place where it was written, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began to say to them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. May the Lord add a blessing to the reading of this word. (organ music) ♪ Glory be to the father ♪ ♪ And to the son and to the Holy Ghost ♪ ♪ As it was in the beginning ♪ ♪ Tis is now and ever shall be ♪ ♪ World without end, amen, amen ♪ 

- As with one voice let us affirm our faith. We are not alone. We live in God's world. We believe in God who has created and is creating, who has come in the truly human Jesus to reconcile and make new, who works in us and others through the spirit. We trust God, who calls us to be the church. To celebrate life and its fullness, to love and serve others To seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, our judge and our hope, in life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone, thanks be to God. Would you be seated please? This evening at seven o'clock, the chapel concert series is pleased to present in concert Mr. Francis Perry, artist in residence at the University this year. You will find on the back of the bulletin the program for the concert tonight, an outstanding musician who will be accompanied by, among others, the Chiampi quartet. You are invited to come and share in this special concert tonight at seven. Next Sunday morning, we invite you to come prepared to make a special offering. Last year, some 200 or more families in the Durham community were supplied with emergency money to help buy fuel to keep their homes warm during the wintertime, this money was over $22,000 and was supplied from the federal budget, it has been cut this year, there are no funds available. Operation Breakthrough, Women in Action and other groups and church groups in the community are trying to raise some money to help provide funds, emergency funds for families that need fuel to keep warm the rest of this winter so I invite you to come with some special offerings and some additional offerings next Sunday morning. This afternoon at four o'clock, we will be privileged again to have a service of worship in this place, when Dr. Skinner will preach for us again and when there will be special music provided by the Russel Memorial CME church choir, The Damascus Road Experience, and the Reverend and Mrs. John Borens and perhaps others. It will be a time of real celebration and a time when we can share as a community of believers the word of God as it comes to us in many ways. It's a real privilege this morning. To welcome again to the Duke campus Dr. Tom Skinner. He was here in January of 1973 and preached. We have invited him back again so that many of us may hear him again and many who have not heard him may hear him for the first and the second times. Dr. Skinner was born in Harlem, reared there. For over two years was head of the Harlem Warlords street gang, a gang of 130 or so young men bent on destroying others or at least ruling their communities, he was a fighter and as he said to my wife and one of our sons last night, a dreamer. He was indeed a leader and a thinker. And then he was converted to the lordship not of himself as king of the Warlords but to the lordship of Jesus Christ. As some of us learned last night, he is a man with a keen mind. He is a man who cares. He is a man committed to preach and to live the whole gospel. Among his diverse responsibilities, he is chaplain to the Washington Redskins football team. A witness that has profound effect not only upon a small group of men and their families, but otherwise. He is head of Tom Skinner associates. But most of all, I think all of us at the end of the service today will agree, he is a man who has been called by God and claimed by Christ to preach the word. So after we have the pastoral prayer, and the lord's prayer, it will be our privilege again to hear Dr. Tom Skinner, and Brother Tom, on behalf of all of us and this university committee, in the name and in the spirit of Christ, I say welcome and we look forward with eager anticipation and hopefully with open hearts and minds to the word which you will bring to us. The Lord be with you. 

- And with your spirit. 

- Let us pray. For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies, Lord of all, to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise. Oh, God, we thank you for this day, for this place, here of renewal and recommitment, for this time of worship, for this hour when we can come together in your name and in the name and in the spirit of your son Jesus Christ. Oh, yes, God, we thank you for life and health and food, for minds to think and bodies to work and spirits to feel. Help us. Help us to realize that all that we have and all that we are comes from you. It is indeed a time when we stop to realize it, a time to be thankful. For we can hear your word, we can sing your praise and we can receive your love and we can be drawn closer to you and closer to one another in Christ. It is a time for us to rejoice in the good news that Christ cares for each of us and for all of us. That Christ loves us and wants us to love one another. Hear our prayers, oh God, in your mercy, not only for ourselves, but for those whom we are to love even as we love ourselves, that is our neighbors. God we ask for a special blessing of your Holy Spirit, your living spirit to be in the ruins of Guatemala. We know not, we understand not the mystery of destruction and devastation, when it is caused by nature or often, oh God, even when it is caused by human force and so we only cry out for mercy or peace of mind, for healing, and strength to those who suffer. Oh, God, help each of us to be an instrument of peace. Where there is bitterness, let us bring love. Help us to be instruments of justice so that where there is discrimination, we may bring understanding. Help us to be instruments of joy so that where there is sadness we may bring a song of hope. And God, may we truly care for those who are lonely in prison, those who are sick and suffer, those who hunger, are naked, or weary and lost. Now oh God, by the power, the mysterious but very real power of your spirit, speak to us one by one, draw us together in a bond of love and commitment which will make of us one mind and one spirit in this hour. May we hear your word as your servant speaks to us. Hear us now as we pray the prayer which our Lord has taught us to pray, saying, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever, amen. 

- May I begin at the outset of our message this morning, to say that I am very happy to have the opportunity to share in this worship service with you. At the turn of this decade, the late '60s, the early '70s, a great number of people had come to the conclusion that in our society Humpty Dumpty had fallen off of the wall What most people could not agree on is how we were to put him back together again. Many voices in our society that spoke to the moral and spiritual decadence were considered to be prophets of doom, most of the people said speak to us good things, things can't possibly be as bad as you say. We made the sad mistake in our country of comparing ourselves with other people and convincing ourselves that we were still numero uno, ahead of most societies. We had greater technological advancements, we had mightier armies, we had more missiles, more destruction, we had higher standards of living. But there were others who kept saying that a nation cannot be measured by its technology, it cannot be measured by its defense, it cannot be measured by its affluence, but that it must be measured by its character, its morality, its spiritual maturity. And suddenly, all of the props that we had traditionally been dependent upon began to... Fall beneath us. One scandal after another rocked our nation. We soon learned that all the things that we had been taught in our history books about how the system really functioned wasn't the way it really was. We soon discovered that we had been consistently lied to, deceived, we soon discovered that the people who had been elected to high offices in our society, that their moral and spiritual character did not meet the demands of those offices. And a tremendous amount of insecurity and lack of trust has set in our nation and people began to look for alternatives. One group said that the best way to change the world in which we live is to simply destroy it and start all over again. Their argument was that the society was too decadent in its present structure to do anything about it and their argument was that we must bomb the system out and begin again and you will remember those people. Some idiot would put a bomb underneath a General Motors plant, blow it sky high and feel that he had changed the system. He soon discovered that that wasn't the case because the executive committee of General Motors would meet the following morning, make plans to build a new plan at a new location, they would double production facilities in the existing plants to make up for the loss of production in the one that was bombed, the insurance would cover the rebuilding of a new plant and what the insurance didn't cover would be written off of next year's income tax, but all they had done was inconvenience General Motors, they really didn't change it. Because the people who were arguing for the destruction of the system had made the same mistake that the people who ran the system made, and that was to assume that the system is made of facilities and that simply by destroying the facilities of the system, you could change the system. Unfortunately, we suffer from the same problem even within the church, we suffer in American society from what I call an edifice complex. We worship our structures and our buildings and our institutions without really understanding that that is not where the real problem lies, it lies with people. We make the sad mistake even within the church of talking about attending church, going to church, but very seldom do we talk about being the church. The church becomes something that we go to or that we attend, it becomes wrapped up in our structure but we do not come to the point where we understand that spiritual renewal and revival does not lie in rearranging the furniture, it lies in radical change within people. But there was a second alternative. The second group of people said the answer does not lie in simply seeking to destroy the structures of the system but the answer lies by going inside the system and changing it from within and you will remember those people, they were the fair haired children of the late '60s and the early '70s who had become baffled, fatigued with all of the activism of the '60s. We were tired, we had marched, demonstrated, prayed in, sat in, swam in. We had faced up to all kinds of challenges, we had lived through the assassinations of John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, we had lived through the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the ecology movement and the disaster of the Vietnam war and by the time we came to the end of the '60s we were tired and battle fatigued and those of us who had been the activists of the system began to become disturbed. We looked on the other side of the fence and we saw those young people who had gone to school with us who had decided not to become involved, we had noticed that they were succeeding, they were climbing the business and social ladder, they were making more money, they had moved into communities of affluence, they were working on their second homes, buying their summer cottages. They had four or five cars in the garage. They were taking their trips to Europe. They were saving their money, they were not involved. They looked at us with sympathy while we struggled and sacrificed and something within us wanted at one point to maintain integrity to the movement to try to change the world, on the other hand, we noticed how green the grass looked on the other side of the fence and so we decided that the best way to enter a compromise was to argue that we wanted to go in the system in order to change it from within. The problem was that after several years, we are yet to meet one who has succeeded because we had discovered that in order to change the system from within, that first we had to get within the system. Then we had to work ourselves up to a position of authority and power so we could effect change and the question became what degree did we have to prostitute ourselves on the way up that when we got to that position, we forgot what we came there for and so we continued to look for alternatives. It was kind of summed up on the parts of those of us who while in college preparing for the ministry used to sit in the student lounge and have those tremendous rap sessions on how we were going to change the church when we became leaders in the church. We argued in those days that when we got into positions of leadership, we were going to make the church relevant. Now as I travel across the country and I run into guys that I went to school with, who are now pastors of strategic churches, leaders of their denominations, heads of church agencies, bishops of various councils and I ask them how they are doing on the basis of the conversations we used to have in school, most of them don't even remember the conversation, not less are they doing it, because we soon discovered it was very difficult to change an institution that was writing out our paycheck. But there was a third alternative and the third alternative was based on the fact that almost everything that one learns how to do that requires any degree of physical skill, we learned because someone showed us. I learned how to play golf because someone showed me how to keep my head down and my left arm stiff and to swing in a pendulum form. I learned how to play tennis because someone showed me how to serve and how to volley. I learned how to play baseball because someone showed me how to throw and how to catch and how to bat and how to slide, I learned how to play football because someone showed me how to block and how to tackle, in other words, I had a model that I could look at and say that's what I want to become. The issue that we face today is simply this. If we are to be the difference in the world in a world that's filled with hunger and oppression and racism and broken relationships, in a world of injustice, the question is where is there a model of what the world ought to become? All of us know that we live in a world of injustice, but the question is where is there a model of what justice looks like? We all know that we live in a world of hate, but the question is, where do I turn to to find a model of what love looks like? It is illustrated in the picture entitled Billy Jack, story of a young man, part Indian, part Caucasian, served in the Vietnam conflict, was an expert in karate and judo, returns to his hometown to find the town filled with animosity and hate and most of the people seeking to pick fights with him day after day. Finally one day, a group of fellas in town rape his girlfriend. Livid with anger, he decides that he's going to march into town and take them all on and tear them to pieces. His girlfriend seeks to intercede by saying Billy Jack, you can't do it, we've got to leave here and go someplace in the world where there is peace and where there is justice and where there is love and where people care. Billy Jack's response was, you lead me to one square inch on the face of this earth where there is such a place. You see we have done a tremendous job in American society of reciting the rhetoric about justice and tranquility and peace and happiness and joy and liberty and fraternity and all the other beautiful things that we so nobly aspire, but the question is where is the model of that? If I wanted to find justice, where people are practicing justice day by day, what community could I go to, where could I find on your campus or your neighborhood, a group of people who have entered into a covenant relationship to practice justice. If I wanted to discover love aside from reading it poetically in books, aside from Shakespeare or Bacon or any of the other great poets or writers who talked about love, where could I go where I could see by watching and observing a group of people in their relationship with each other, day by day, demonstrating what love looks like? In other words, where is the model? It was this that Jesus had in mind when he had finished praying in the fourth, rather in the 11th chapter of Luke. And his disciples came to him and said, Lord, why don't you teach us to pray as John taught his disciples? And someone said that the disciples in observing the way Jesus prayed discovered that he prayed as naturally as he breathed, that prayer was not an extracurricular activity in the life of Jesus. Jesus didn't wake up in the morning and on the way out of the door say oh, I forgot my quiet time. Rather, prayer was a natural process in the life of Jesus. He prayed as naturally as he breathed. It was like exhaling and inhaling, and his disciples, noticing the degree to which he was free to converse with his father, asked to get in on it, so Jesus said, when you pray, here is what you will lay on the father. You will say our father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth the way it is in heaven. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth the way it is in heaven. Which meant that obviously in the mind of Jesus there was something going on in heaven that he wanted to happen on earth. Now if for a moment you could forget the gates of pearl and the streets of gold and the crystal fountains flowing forever, heaven would be defined as that sphere of influence where God is in control. What makes heaven heaven is that in heaven Jesus is Lord and heaven is that sphere of influence where everything is happening precisely the way God wants it to happen, in heaven, Jesus is Lord. He is owner, he is ruler, he is having his way. So that in heaven, there is no poverty, no hunger, no racism, no broken relationships, no prejudice, no oppression, no war and no violence. Because all the things that I just listed to you are the works of the devil and the Bible tells us that the devil has no influence in heaven. But that is obviously not true about earth. Because on earth there is violence and there is war and there is oppression and there is conflict and broken relationships, because on earth, Jesus is not Lord. Jesus is not owner. Jesus is not ruler. Now for most of us in American society who live under a form of civil religion, it is very difficult for us to accept that. Because we have created a certain kind of Americanism, in the name of religion and God, which sanctifies our system in God's name. You see, we have very cleverly stuck God's name in the salute to the flag, which says one nation under God. We have even put his name on our money. It reads, in God we trust. We all know that deep down within that that is not true, it may be what we want, it may be what we like, it may be what some of us aspire to, but we are not one nation under God. God does not run our society, he does not run the Senate or the Congress or the state legislature or the city council He does not run the boards of education of our cities, he does not run most of the major businesses in American society, we are not one nation under God. If it were true, it would mean that God is an awful administrator, he's fouled up his own system, polluted his own air, polluted his own water, massacred all of those Indians, instituted slavery and is in the process of creating a society where one percent of the population has 45% of all the dollars, 1% of the population has 43% of all the common stock invested in the major corporations and that 1% of all businesses make 75% of all profit. Not only is he a horrible administrator he cannot even balance a budget. The fact of the matter is that God doesn't run our society. It is not one nation under God. The inscription on our coin may be a noble aspiration, in God we trust, the fact of the matter is, we do not trust God, it is the money we trust. We trust our missiles and our bombs and our defense. We trust our national security council. We do not trust in the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. We do not have the faith of the scripture which says that the angel of the Lord encampeth around those who trust him, rather our trust lies in our radar systems and our abilities and our anti ballistic missiles and our bombs, it lies in our defense budget but not in the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of our Lord Jesus Christ who promises to be with those who trust him. And so the prayer of Jesus, Lord, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth the way it is in heaven, is because obviously God does not have the option to do on earth what he is doing in heaven because there are not the vehicles available to him to do so. Which means when he prays, Lord, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth the way it is in heaven, is that it is the will of God to put together a community of people on earth, called the church, who are to be the live models on earth of what is happening in heaven so that any time anybody wants to know what is happening in heaven, all they have to do is watch us, it is the function of the church, then, to become the fifth columnist of the kingdom of God, the saboteurs in Satan's world for the purpose of producing on alien territory what it looks like in heaven, to model on earth, on enemy turf, what is going on in heaven. It's perhaps illustrated by a study of certain colonial powers in contemporary history. The British were such a power. It is safe to say that when the British arrived in Africa, the average African had never been to England. But by watching the lifestyle of the British in Africa, the Africanssoon learned what was going on in England. He watched the recreational habits of the British and he noticed that they would take this ball, go out on a field and kick it up and down the field trying to knock it through these two uprights with a crossbar and they called the game soccer and the Africans soon learned that in England, they played soccer, he watched them at another recreational activity where they took to the field with a flat bat and an individual would stand near a thing with three sticks coming up out of the ground with a pug sitting on the top, 75 feet away would be a gentleman with a ball who would pace about 15 feet towards this wicket and he would throw the ball and try to knock the pug off of the wicket and the batsman would try to hit the ball before it hit the wicket and they called the game cricket and the Africans soon learned in England, they played cricket. He watched the social habits of the British and he noticed that every afternoon at four PM, the British stopped to have a spot of tea and so he soon learned that by watching the habits of the British he could learn what was going on in Africa. In a real sense that is God's mission for the church. It is the function of the church to colonize earth, to become the colony of heaven on earth, on Satan's territory, on enemy turf where there is injustice and hate and oppression and violence and war and poverty and hunger. It is God's purpose that the church be the colony of heaven on earth so that any time anybody wants to know what God is doing and what God is about and what is going on in heaven, all they have to do is check with us. Who are these people who are the alternative communities? Who are these people called the church who are to model what the kingdom of God looks like? And it is obvious that it is a tragedy that the average churchman doesn't realize that their function is to model on earth what is happening in heaven. Most of us see our responsibility as churchmen to put in our one hour on Sunday morning, to give a few dollars to some good noble causes. We might memorize a few verses of scripture and some of the hymns and maybe some sections of the catechism, but for most of us, we do not see ourselves as the fifth columnist of God. We do not see ourselves placed in the world to be salt and light, to model what God is about. Let me suggest to you in the first place that this new order, this new community called the church has to be made up of new people. You cannot have a new order without new folks. We continue in the world in which we live to try to change the world simply by rearranging the furniture, we call people to reform. We call people to social change without understanding that change cannot occur until first changes occur in the deep recesses of man's being. It was this that Jesus had in mind in his dialog with a certain gentleman in the third chapter of John by the name of Nicodemus. Nicodemus was one of the rulers of the Jews, a ruler of the Sanhedrin council, the most powerful religious and political council among Jews. Nicodemus was a very religious man, fasted twice a week, prayed three times a day, gave 10% of all of his earnings to the synagogue, and never missed a sabbath go to meeting. He comes to Jesus by night and begins his dialog by saying, master we know that you are a teacher come from God because no one can pull off the things that you're pulling off except God be with him. And noticed he said we, which meant that back at the Sanhedrin, we have discussed you. Your name has been on the agenda at numbers of our meetings and all of us have come to the conclusion that you are a teacher come from God. And the logical question is if they agreed that he was a teacher come from God, why then were they giving him so much flack? Why were they fighting him, why were they resisting this new order that he was building, this new teaching he had come which was radicalizing the hearts of so many people? Well, it was very simple. What Nicodemus was saying is that Jesus, we have no argument or fight with you, we think that the things that you are doing are really groovy. Blind people seeing, dead people coming alive, lame people walking. We have no argument with that, we think that's heavy stuff. We think that's groovy stuff. There is no argument with the miracles you are performing. We even like your welfare program, thousands of folks eating off of a couple of loaves and fishes, I mean, we have no problem, Jesus, with what you are about. The problem, Jesus, is that you are not one of us. You are not a member of a council, you don't come out of our social group and all we're asking you is that you come and join us, become one of us. After all, we have a lot in a common. You're a Jew, we're Jews. You can trace your family heritage back to Abraham and so can we. You come from one of the 12 tribes of Israel and so do we. I mean, man, we are brothers, we need to get together. We want to change the world, you want to change the world. Now we have different words for it. We call it social reform, political change, economic evolution, you call it something called the kingdom of God, but what's a few words among friends? I mean, what's semantics among people who are about the same task, you want to change the world, we want to change the world. You want a better place to live and we want a better place to live, we call it social reform and you call it the kingdom of God, but it's the same difference. It's at this point that Jesus understands that Nicodemus doesn't understand, so Jesus says to Nicodemus, Nic, I don't want you to climb a wall when I lay this on you and don't get uptight when you tell you this, but except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. Now Jesus didn't mean that Nicodemus would never see heaven, the gates of pearl and the streets of gold and the crystal fountains flowing forever, but what Jesus was saying is that Nicodemus, except a man is reborn in his spirit, he will never be able to see, to comprehend, to understand that in the middle of all of the violence and war and poverty and greed and hunger and self interest that exists in our world, that amidst all of the headlines that speak of despair and disillusionment, that God has his own agenda, that God is doing his own thing That God is building his own kingdom. Except a man be born again, he will never see that. But Nicodemus was an intellectual. He was a member of the academic community, a man well schooled and versed in the philosophies and religions of his time and Nicodemus, this great scholar, turns to Jesus and says, born again? You mean that I am to go back into my mother's ovule and start all over again? You see, the amazing part about an intellectual is that no matter how intellectually sophisticated he is, how academically and scholastically inclined he may be, if he starts on the wrong premise, he can be awful dumb. (audience laughs) Of course, the tragedy with most so called intellectuals today that it is not really important that they think through the basic issues, it is only necessary that one sounds sophisticated. It reminds me of my days at school. In those days it was necessary to put on a certain academic attire. In those days it was a kind of a tweed sports jacket with padding on the elbows and we wore a certain kind of Ivy League type tie, button down shirt and we had a pipe, the pipe of course being the epitome and highest symbol of intellectualism. We walked around with our pipes, pontificating on our navals, never really speaking to the real issues and so when we spoke, we said, hithertofore it has been said existentially speaking, that when one considers the rationalistic approach of Jean Poissot or even Socrates or Plato, one comes to recognize the all encompassing philosophy then of Kierkegaard when he spoke of the need of man to face existential reality, and as you see, that was a very profound statement. (audience laughs) Now Nicodemus was such an intellectual who could not grasp was Jesus was talking about when he said a man has to be reborn. And what Jesus was saying is that just as you were born, years ago, physically of your mother's ovule and you came alive biologically and mentally and emotionally your spirit was dead, your spirit can only come alive when it is infused by the life and the power of God. And to be reborn, Nicodemus, is to take all that you are and all that you have and make it totally available to all that I am. So that my spirit is able to saturate the common clay of your humanity and that your humanity becomes the vehicle through which I express myself. The urgent message of today is that in spite of all kinds of very good attempts at changing the world legislatively, politically and economically, with all of the great sociological dissertations being written on the tremendous problems and crises of our time, our society must understand that there can be no change in an oppressive social structure until we radically change human nature, until we bring dead men into live confrontation with the resurrected Christ, until a man is prepared to come and to say to Jesus, I hereby renounce all rights to myself and I give to Jesus Christ the right to own me, there will never be significant social change. There was some other ingredient about this new order. That this new order is then not just made up of people who decide to join church, to become Methodists or Baptists or Episcopalians. They're not simply people who recite catechisms or creeds or who sing hymns, but they are a people whose loves will become saturated by the life of Jesus, who have renounced all rights to themselves, who have turned their backs on all personal ambition and personal goals to adopt the goals of Jesus Christ, to allow him to become the Lord and owner of their lives. But then this changed people, this reborn people come together to create what the scripture calls a fellowship or the church and the word fellowship means exactly what the word says, it's fellows in the same ship, it's a group of people who have entered into a covenant to hurt together, bleed together, celebrate together, rejoice together, overcome together. Jesus set the pace by saying a new commandment I give you in the new order, that you love one another. Now if he would have stopped there, that would have been great because I would have been left to my own interpretation of what love is. But Jesus closes the door and says a new commandment I give you, that you love one another the way I love you. Now I have a problem because I have to then discover how God loves Tom Skinner. And I soon discover that God loves me the way I am, that God does not require that Tom Skinner go through any changes in order for him to love me, that he loves me the way I am and he calls upon me to enter into a covenant relationship with other people where I am committed to them on the same basis that God is committed to me. Now I must confess to you that I tried to talk God out of it I thought it was utter nonsense for him to demand of me that I love people the way he loves me because after all, he didn't have to live with them. I tried to explain to him that sitting in all of his pomp and glory in heaven, he didn't understand what it meant to live with a lot of those folks. I tried to explain to him that I really had nothing personal against that Indian moving into the neighborhood except I couldn't deal with him pitching a teepee next to my $50,000 split level, and God didn't seem to understand that, I tried to argue with him that I had no problem but that some of those people were wild and boisterous, that when they moved into the neighborhood, they had the tendency to run the property values down and he wasn't going to work every day like I was and that God didn't save that money like I did and that was my hard earned money and my hard earned property and how dare he require me that I love all men the way they were? After all, one day one of them might come over and want to marry my daughter, and he didn't have to deal with that, I did. And the more I argued with him and the more I fought with him, the more he resisted my fight, calling me to take on his nature and his attitude towards all men. He goes further and says, by this all men will know you are my disciples, by the way you love one another. In other words the only way that the world will ever know that you and I are the disciples of Jesus Christ is not that they see us enter these walls or that they see us going to church or that they hear us recite the creed. They will only be able to know that we are disciples by virtue of the way we commit ourselves to one another and then he puts the cream on the cake by saying, there is no greater love than one person laying down his life for another, that what the church is about is that the church is made of people who have been reborn by the spirit of God who enter into a covenant with one another, to belong to each other, to be committed to each other, to lay their lives down for one another, may I ask you a question this morning? Outside of your immediate family, your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your husband, your wife, who in the church, what group of people in the church fellowship are you in covenant with that you are prepared to die for? That is what the church is about. We discovered at my home church we had no fellowship, no relationship with each other. We entered the church on Sunday morning and we handed the people a program which told them what God was going to do in the next 59 minutes with one minute for chimes. When the service was over, we would shake the preacher's hand and tell him what a marvelous message and we would wave at each other in the parking lot as we got in our cars to drive away, but we had no fellowship, no relationship with each other. Occasionally there would be an announcement at the close of the service which would say immediately after this evening's service we will retire to the basement of the church or to fellowship hall where we will have a time of fellowship, namely Christian booze, tea, coffee and cookies and we called that fellowship. Once a year there would be a fellowship supper at our church where we would all bring potluck dinners and we called that fellowship but none of us knew each other, none of us hurt together or bleeded together, none of us celebrated together, none of us were involved day by day in each other's lives. But the church as God intends it to be is a community of people who are prepared to lay their lives down for one another. And then this church fellowship does something very significant, it is not only a reborn community, it's not only a fellowship of people who are prepared to die for each other, but then this community called the church breaks huddle and goes out into the world to commit sabotage on that world in the name of Jesus. Now I realize that some of you this morning are more politically inclined than you are kingdom inclined and the use of my words such as infiltration, saboteur, and fifth columnist conjures up political connotations in your own mind. That is not my intent. I am talking about the kingdom of God, I am not talking about capitalism or communism or socialism, I'm not talking about being democrat or Republican, I'm not talking about being left, right, I'm not talking about being conservative or liberal. I'm talking about the fact that the function of the church is to be the colony of God in the world, to commit sabotage on Satan's world for the purpose of the building up of the kingdom of God so that the reason you are a student at Duke University is not simply to get an education, that's part of it, but you are here to destroy the works of the devil on this campus, you are here to model the kingdom of God on this campus. The reason you work in the business you do and the reason you are to go into business is not simply to make money because if money were the problem, God could dose that out with no sweat, but the reason you're in business is for the purpose of destroying the works of the devil in business, the reason that you go into education is to destroy the works of the devil in education. The reason that you go into law is to bring the kingdom of God to bear on the legal system in our society, your job is not the place to make a living. Your job is not in existence so you can pay your bills. Your job does not exist for you to pay your mortgage or your car or your education or whatever else there is. Those are only the side effects. The job you have or will have is the place that God has put you to model the kingdom of God, to be God's representative in Satan's world, to be the salt that goes and penetrates the world and salts it and lights it in the name of Jesus. Finally, it is the function of the church to take those people who respond to its witness because if we truly become the colony of heaven on earth, if we truly become salt in the middle of a decadent society, if we truly go into the world to destroy the works of the devil for the building up of the kingdom of God, there are people who will respond to our witness and our lifestyle and like the Christians of old, they will come running to us saying brothers, sisters, what do we have to do to be saved? It is then the function of the church to take those people who respond to its witness and disciple those people and build those people up in the faith. So that they become mature followers of Jesus Christ. There is no area in the church in which the church is most sick and more immature than in the area of making disciples. Most of us have not grown any further in our relationship with Jesus Christ than the day we first acknowledged him. A great number of us have never entered into the experience of daily growth and development where Jesus becomes more of a reality in us today than he was yesterday. It is like bringing a newborn baby home from the hospital. He's five days old, we place him in the bassinet on the kitchen table and we say welcome home, Junior, glad you could make it. Now Junior, the refridge is right behind you, and we keep lots of goodies there, chicken and meat, vegetables and fruit and dairy products, and Junior, when you get hungry, the need arises, just open up the refridge and help yourself. Oh, by the way, Junior, you're gonna be needing a lot of change of clothing these days and we keep all of your clothes in the linen closet down the hall in the right, as the need arises, just crawl on down and help yourself. Oh, yes, Junior, you will be doing a lot of sleeping these days, we knew you'd be a boy, we've got your room all decked out in blue, when the need arises, and you feel sleep coming on, just make your way into your room and climb in. Now we know that that's ridiculous because at five days of age, Junior cannot feed himself, clothe himself and teach himself and help himself to grow. That's the reason he has to have parents who feed him, give him love and affection and discipline him and correct him and feed him and give him love and attention and discipline and correction until the day comes when Junior is presented to the world as a man. The function of the church is to take people as they commit themselves to Jesus and take them through those steps, the tragedy is that most of us assume that because people are sophisticated in their vocational lives that they will bring to the kingdom of God the same degree of sophistication. It doesn't occur to us that a man in our fellowship who's a brilliant surgeon knows little about what it means to walk with God, he's brilliant in medicine but he doesn't bring to his understanding of the word of God and his understanding of the scriptures and his understanding of the kingdom of God the same sophistication that he brings to medicine. We look at the businessman, the multimillion dollar businessman in our church fellowship and we assume that he is as sophisticated about the kingdom of God as he is about management and how to run a business and we fail to recognize that in management he's sophisticated and mature but when it comes to the scriptures and his understanding of the operation of the spirit of God in his life, he's like a newborn baby. But the tragedy is that when we must elect trustees and deacons and elders in our churches, we go pick the sophisticated businessman, the sophisticated surgeon, the sophisticated astrophysicist, the people who have succeeded in the vocations because we assume that because they are sophisticated and successful in their business that they will know how to sophisticatedly run the church. And we never check out which side of the argument they're on, which is why the church has been on the wrong side of every major social argument in recent times because the leaders of the church vote on the side of their business interests and not on the side of the kingdom of God. Simply because we have not developed them and matured them to be disciples of Jesus, to make them as mature and sophisticated in their walk with God as they are in their vocations and so there you have it. It is the function of the church then to be a group of people who have been reborn by the spirit of God where Jesus becomes the priority in their lives, to enter into relationships with each other where they're prepared to lay their lives down for one another, to break the huddle and go into the world to become salt and to commit sabotage on Satan's world for the building up of the kingdom of God and then to take those people who respond to Jesus Christ and build them up in the faith so that they become sophisticated, mature disciples of our Lord Jesus and then we set loose in Satan's world, a world of violence and injustice and poverty and hunger and a world of decadence and spiritual immaturity. We turn loose in that world men and women who walk with God and who turn the world upside down so that the prayer of Jesus may come to reality in our lives and in our time. May it happen in our hearts beginning today, shall we pray. Father, it is our prayer that your kingdom will come on this campus. And that your will be done in this neighborhood. That it will be on our campus in our places of business the way it is in heaven, we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. (organ music) 
(singing unintelligible)