Myron S. Augsburger - "The Christian in a Revolutionary Age" (September 26, 1971) / Duke Chapel Recordings / Duke Digital Repository

(soft organ music)

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(indistinct singing)

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♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪

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♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪

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♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪

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Dearly beloved, we are not able

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to make ourselves acceptable unto God.

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He is able to make us acceptable,

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and He has given us a plan

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by which we may be properly in His presence.

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One of the things that we must do

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is to cleanse our hearts of sin.

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We do this first of all, by confessing that we are sinners.

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May we therefore now join together

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our hearts and our voices

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in our unison prayer of confession.

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Oh, eternal God and most merciful father,

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we confess and acknowledge here

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before thy divine majesty that we are miserable sinners,

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that in us, there is no goodness,

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but since we are displeased with ourselves

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or the sins that we have committed against thee,

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and do sincerely repent the same,

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we most humbly beseech thee for Jesus Christ's sake

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to show thy mercy upon us,

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to forgive us all our sins

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and to increase thy Holy Spirit in us.

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Help us to bring forth such fruits

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as may be agreeable to thy most blessed will.

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Not because of the worthiness thereof,

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but for the merits of thy dearly beloved son, Jesus Christ,

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our only savior.

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Amen.

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Our hope rests in the revelation

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which God has given us in this word.

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If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just,

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and will forgive us our sins

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and cleanse us from all uncleanness.

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Amen.

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(soft organ music)

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(singing in foreign language)

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The scripture lesson this morning is from Luke's gospel,

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the fourth chapter beginning at the 16th verse.

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"And he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up,

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and he went to the synagogue as his custom was

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on the Sabbath day.

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And he stood up to read.

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And there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah.

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He opened the book and found the place where it was written,

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'The spirit of the Lord is upon me

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because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

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He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

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and recovering of sight to the blind,

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to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

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to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.'

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And he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant

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and sat down.

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And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

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And he began to say to them,

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'Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'"

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May God grant to us an understanding

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of this portion of His holy word.

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(soft organ music)

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(indistinct singing)

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The Lord be with you.

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And with your spirit.

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Let us pray.

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Almighty God, our heavenly Father,

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in recognition of the fact

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that we are not entirely sufficient unto ourselves,

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that we are not our own creatures, creators,

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that we do receive, use and enjoy a great many things

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we did not ourselves provide,

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we now pause to acknowledge this.

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To be aware of our indebtedness to others

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and to the ultimate source

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of our belongings and blessings.

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We recognize you as that source.

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And we realize that we have not deserved these gifts.

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So we know that the only reasonable attitude we can have

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is one of gratitude.

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So here we are with Thanksgiving on our lips

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and in our hearts.

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We give thanks for the measure of health that we have,

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for the degree of peace there is in the world,

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for the percentage of employment we have in our nation,

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for the extent to which we have begun

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to master our courses this semester,

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and for all the pluses in our lives

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which tend to offset the minuses.

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And we thank you that even the minuses

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can with your help become pluses.

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We are grateful for light shining in darkness,

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for warm places on a cool day,

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for fresh insight in the midst of our confusion,

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for a friend in the time of our anxiety.

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We are grateful most of all

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for creative people in our lives,

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and supremely, Jesus Christ,

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who offers us friendship and salvation.

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Even, oh God, as we thank you

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for blessings already received,

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we pray for new blessings.

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We ask your blessings upon the efforts

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now being made to answer your son's prayer

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that we might all be one in him.

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Give courage and love to those who seek

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to bring Catholic and Protestant together,

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to those who seek to unite liberal and conservative.

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Grant to all of us a gracious portion of the mind of Christ.

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So that by his living in us, we may find our unity in him.

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We pray, oh Lord, that without being slaves

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to the letter of scripture,

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we may truly hunger and thirst after the living word of God

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to be found in the holy Bible.

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Give us liberal portions of the Holy Spirit

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to guide us into all truth, as Christ promised.

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Oh, Father, we pray for Christlike graces

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in the important little places of our lives.

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May we not automatically blame the bus driver

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when we miss the bus.

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Keep us from the tendency to blame the professor

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when we receive a low grade.

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Granted, we may not put wholesale judgmental labels

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on individuals by calling them establishment people

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or hippies or animals,

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when we don't even know them personally at all.

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We ask you, oh God,

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for the things we've prayed for so many times,

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that the habit of asking for them seems almost trite.

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And yet we still need food to eat every day,

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clean air to breathe every minute,

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healing for our hurts, as often as they come.

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Comfort for our sorrows and strength

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for the living of this present day.

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We make our prayer in the name of him

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who has taught us a better prayer to pray, saying,

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our Father who art in heaven,

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hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,

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thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us this day our daily bread

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and forgive us our trespasses

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as we forgive those who trespass against us,

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and lead us not into temptation,

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but deliver us from evil.

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For thine is the kingdom and the power

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and the glory forever.

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Amen.

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A few years ago in the magazine Fortune,

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there was an editorial in which this statement appeared:

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"In days like these,

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what we of the world need is a word from the Lord.

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We look to the church where that word,

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and all we hear is the echo of our own voice."

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And in that statement,

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there's been something of a description

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of the way society has looked at the church

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and the way the church has too often disappointed society.

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As I share today on the subject,

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being Christian in a revolutionary world,

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I do this in terms of something

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of the existential involvement that I have found

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with the risen Christ.

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Being a part of the life of the church, but in no way,

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simply given to the institutional forum

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about church in itself.

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In saying this this morning, I am deeply concerned

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that the modern world to see fleshed out in life

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once again in persons like you and me,

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what it means to take Jesus Christ

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with absolute seriousness.

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For me as risen Lord, he becomes in my life

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the guide for a kind of discipleship

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that I believe is radically different

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from the normal life in society.

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As I think with you today on this theme,

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I want to lift out from Paul's letter to the Colossians,

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a few verses to amplify what I have in mind.

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And here you have a very clear note of assurance.

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It is not a note of pessimism.

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And frankly, in our kind of world,

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the Christian cannot afford to be a pessimist.

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That's the person who's seasick

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on the whole voyage of life anyway.

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You and I ought to be optimists in our kind of world

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because we know who we belong to,

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what it's all about and where we are going.

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A few years ago, an American tourist was in Russia.

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He met a communist who ask him, "Have you read Karl Marx?"

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And he said, "Yes, I have read Marx."

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"Well, then" the communist said,

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"You know how it's all going to come out."

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That American tourists should have come right back and said,

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"Sir, have you read the Bible?

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Then you know how it's going to come out."

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This is our faith.

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That God has interpreted history from its middle

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in Jesus Christ.

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And now we know the end from the middle

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because God is knowing the end from the beginning.

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In affirming this kind of optimism,

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I believe that the Christian should never imply

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that he has all of the answers,

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but rather be aware that God is not static

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in terms of his dealing with man,

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but in the dynamic of God's work in

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and through the Holy Spirit,

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he can help us discover in every period of history,

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the meaning, the implication of living

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under the Lordship of Christ in that particular period.

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This matter of being confused reminds me

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of that delightful little story

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about the man who ran into a bookstore and said,

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"Have you got that book,

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"A Piece of My Mind" by Rabbi Norman Vincent sheen?"

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And there are many people about that confused

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when it comes to trying to find their way through life.

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In contrast, the apostle Paul is very clear.

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In Colossians 2:6-10, we have this statement.

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"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus, the Lord,

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so walk ye in him.

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Rooted and built up in him,

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and established in the faith as you have been taught

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abounding therein with Thanksgiving.

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Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy

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and vain deceit, after the tradition of men,

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after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

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For in him, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,

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and ye are complete in him."

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Sometime ago, it was my privilege to hear Albert Toffler

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speaking in something of a resume,

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what he gave us in larger form in his book, "Future shock,"

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which he exposed once again

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the problems facing us in society,

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but gave this an interpretation,

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in which he is saying that a kind of psychological illness

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has happened to us because we are living now

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with that kind of existential uncertainty

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with respect to the future.

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A few years ago, it would have been more

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of the dispensational fundamentalists

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who would have been talking about the end of the world,

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the end of the age, but not so today.

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In fact, one of the interesting phenomena today

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is that you will find among young people

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on campuses across the land,

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and I say this, especially having been in dialogue

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with persons on numerous campuses,

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and having spent some time last spring

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in a preaching exposure on Berkeley campus

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under the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship,

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and finding young people who are now talking

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about the end of the age, the end of the world,

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that it can't last very long.

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I know that some of the best ecologists we have

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say that by 1979, the seas will be dead.

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By 1981 to '84, it will be all over.

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I'm not at all sure about that.

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I'm glad that the whole matter rests in God's hand,

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but I am aware that these men are speaking

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to the kind of judgment that the Bible makes clear

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that man creates to a large degree,

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his own judgment in the processes

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of the way God works with man.

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We're living in a time

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that has been described as revolutionary.

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That is almost a trite statement by now.

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And I do not mean to labor it this morning,

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except to say there are factors

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that cause men to say this is a revolutionary age.

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I do not refer simply to the much change that we have had,

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nor to the rapidity of change

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that has affected us in society.

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But I refer rather to the fact that it is so involved,

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the total of man's experience.

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And one man analyzing this has said

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that revolution is caused because of the change

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with respect to authority since the 19th century.

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The second reason, because of the change regarding culture,

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there is no one culture anymore

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in a given area of the world.

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Or another reason is the meaninglessness of affluence,

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in which the middle-class American

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has suddenly discovered

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that all he was trying to gain out of his fear

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we might go back to another Depression,

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still has left in empty.

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And a fourth reason is because of the depersonalization

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of modern technology.

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I would like to add a fifth one.

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And that is because of the kind of existential immediacy

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that characterizes modern life.

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And that is, we want everything in the moment.

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Instant satisfaction in every level.

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It's not only instant coffee, but now it's instant pleasure,

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instant success, instant sex, instant everything.

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And the whole dimension of life

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as we knew it in the past is gone.

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And Francis Schaeffer talks about this

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in several of his writings,

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in which he described as the modern world,

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as one which has moved under the line of despair.

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My question this morning is really whether the Christian

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should simply run around parroting

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what I have run by in these moments,

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or whether we do not have something to offer modern man,

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that is revolutionary because of the radical depth nature

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of the change that it brings.

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And when I say a revolution comes because of total change,

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I know of nothing so completely revolutionary

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as an absolute commitment to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

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About two years ago, I flew to Miami, Florida

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sharing a city-wide preaching mission.

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And Judge Bill Meadows, Methodist layman,

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was chairman of the committee for that citywide crusade.

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And he took me to some television

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and radio stations for interviews.

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And as we walked into one of these, he said,

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"I'll have to tell you what happened here a few weeks ago."

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He said, "I came here for an interview myself.

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And as I stepped into the room,

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there was a young man sitting across the table

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from where I was to sit at the microphone."

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And he said that young fellow stuck his hand out and said,

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"I'm Joe Smith" or whatever it was, a disciple of Bhave.

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Bill Meadows said, "I slapped my hand in his and said,

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'I'm Bill Meadows, a disciple of Jesus Christ."

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Now Bhave here is the successor of Mahatma Gandhi in India,

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the man who has gone out and collected from the haves

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to give to the have-nots,

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and carried through a major program of reform in India.

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But the thing that Bill Meadows said to me

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was that he longs to see the day when more young people,

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when you step into their presence will reach out and say,

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"I am Joe Smith, a disciple of Jesus Christ."

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And that's my conviction,

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that this is the thing we need to see today.

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And somehow, I have the feeling that the spirit of God

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is creating this.

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Because all across the land, in the last few years,

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something new is happening.

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I've been in the ministry now 20 years or 21.

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I started when I was 21.

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And I have enjoyed many varied experiences in that ministry.

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And I have seen some wonderful preaching missions

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in which I was privileged to share.

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It was my privilege to share the one citywide

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preaching mission among Protestants

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that Salt Lake City has ever seen.

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And on the first Sunday afternoon,

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we got rained out on the Capitol steps

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where the meeting was being held

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by the kindness of the governor, Governor Clyde.

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And so over 3000 people pack the rotunda

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of the Capitol building in Salt Lake City.

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And I had the privilege of preaching

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the gospel inside to that audience.

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And I could give you other illustrations,

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but I say this only for one reason,

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and that is that having moved across this country

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and other parts of the world and preaching missions

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in those 21 years, I have not seen heretofore

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what is happening right now,

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especially among young people

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on college and university campuses,

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with a new awareness that most of the things

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that have been tried in the last few years

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have left them completely empty and disillusioned.

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And they are turning once again

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to find whether there is something

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in this Jesus of Nazareth of whom I speak.

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To me, this is one of the most heartening things in our day.

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I'm excited about it, I want to be in on it,

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there is much that I need to learn of the work of God

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and the work of the living Christ,

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of the work of the Holy Spirit

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in a deeper way in my own life.

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And I don't want to miss out on all that God is doing

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in this time.

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But having said that, I would like this morning

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to lift out three very basic, but rather simple things

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for your thinking and mine

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on this matter of being Christian in our kind of world.

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Because what we need today is more Christian Christians.

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People who'll flesh out in life

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what it means to walk with Jesus Christ.

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Men and women who will be genuine disciples

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and not persons who simply have a kind of intellectual,

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philosophical approach to Christianity.

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Persons who are not afraid to say,

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"Jesus Christ, my Lord,"

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instead of always talking about Jesus who lived yesteryear

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like Abraham Lincoln.

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And Christ as sort of a philosophical premise

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of Christ kind of ideals,

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but persons who actually believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord

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is a living person open for encounter at any moment,

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that you and I can meet and talk with

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and share with and walk with.

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Now, if you think that's mere mysticism,

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I would like to say this morning,

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then you have a stereotype regarding Christianity

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that has kept you from seeing that Christianity

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is neither legalism, a religion of a code morality,

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nor is it mere mysticism,

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but it is a relational kind of thing.

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I relate to Jesus Christ at the level of spirit and mind

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and volition in exactly the same way I relate to my wife

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or to other persons that I know at that level.

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Because the dimension of knowing Jesus Christ

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is not a kind of mere mysticism.

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The movement today in America,

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in which many persons are enamored

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with Far Eastern religions is not a surprise to me,

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for one reason, because American higher education

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is shot through and through

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with Greek thought and Greek philosophy,

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and has missed out on the unique dynamic

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of the Judaic Christian tradition.

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And Far Eastern religions, Hinduism and Buddhism,

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are not really religions.

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They are philosophies.

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And there's no small wonder

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that American people go for this kind of thing.

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I have spent hours discussing with professors in India

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of Hinduism and Buddhism, their philosophy.

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It's very little different from Greek philosophy

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in which the Greeks believe

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that the rational part of man is immortal,

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that will live on and eventually merge back

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into that great universal reason.

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And the Buddhist belief is that somehow

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if I can lose my identity as a person

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and drop like a drop of water in the ocean

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and merge back into that universal God, I will be at peace.

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Or the Hindu believing in universal life.

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If I can lose my identity and merge into this,

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then I will be at peace.

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He will tell you that it's a philosophy.

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And in our society, we're reaching for something.

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And this is the kind of thing that we're reaching for.

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But there's another reason for this.

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And that is because the rather general assumptions

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about Christianity in America have been so moralistic,

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I do not simply say legalistic, but moralistic.

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So moralistic that we can understand

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the relational aspect of knowing Jesus Christ.

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And because of that moralism,

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we are moving now to find something

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that will translate that

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into the more inner, meditative,

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psychological awarenesses that we have today.

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But at the same time that we are doing this,

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we are missing out on the uniqueness

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of what Jesus Christ brought.

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The moralism reminds me of what Dr. E Stanley Jones

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says about the Indian holy man.

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We found one day sitting on his ice sheet,

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the Indian holy man said, "I gave up sex 40 years ago."

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But E. Stanley Jones said,

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the interesting thing was that for the next 40 minutes,

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all he could talk about was sex.

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There are a lot of persons who don't understand

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that Christianity is not simply a moralism.

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It's a kind of relationship with an actual personality

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present in the world to work in one's life,

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the personality of God as He is known and Jesus Christ.

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And many people miss out on the fact

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that Jesus Christ makes clear a kind of God

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that is radically different

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from that mystical kind of religion

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that many people are going for today.

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Remember that the story of the gospel

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is a story of creation, incarnation,

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discipleship, and resurrection.

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God creating, making a good world.

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Humanness and sinfulness are not synonymous.

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Humanness in itself is affirmed by Jesus Christ

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in the incarnation.

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And the fact that God could come in Christ

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is the greatest compliment to man, to humanity,

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to humanism you can find anywhere in history.

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God affirming man.

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And then when God calls us to be disciples,

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he is not calling us to a kind of Christianity

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that has often been popularized

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as though it is sort of an escape hatch from real life,

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but he's calling us to put right into practice

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what it means to live for Jesus Christ

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in a world where you can't popularize that.

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And I know this, because I'm committed

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to a kind of discipleship that means I'm a pacifist.

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However, that word is far too weak and too small.

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Really, I believe in a kind of New Testament,

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non-resistant, redemptive love,

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the goes out to win my enemy to be my brother in Christ

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even if it would cost my life.

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I believe deeply in the matter of working

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for the relationship between races

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that makes me my brother's brother.

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So that I do not have to wait until the other changes,

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I can in Jesus Christ be that now in relation to him.

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I believe there is a way to take care of the problems

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that we call the economic gap.

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And somehow to reach across this gap

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between the haves and the have-nots,

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by helping persons understand

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that when you say value is not measured by money,

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by what a man carries in his pocket or his bank account,

32:09

you will also demonstrate it by putting yourself on the line

32:12

to be your brother's brother in helping him.

32:16

I believe in grappling with the social problems

32:19

in our world.

32:21

But I also believe my friends in being concerned

32:23

about the whole man.

32:26

His spirit, as well as his physical being.

32:28

And I agree with Dr. Elton Trueblood in his book,

32:32

"New Man for These Times," when he says

32:34

the church is suffering today from a polarization

32:37

between social action on one side

32:41

and evangelical action on the other.

32:43

And I am an evangelist.

32:46

I may be in a small degree an educator,

32:48

to a small degree as president

32:51

of a college and administrator,

32:52

to a small degree, a writer,

32:55

but I am first of all, an evangelist,

32:57

basically because of my theology.

33:00

I believe that if a man is in Christ, he's a new creature,

33:02

as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:17.

33:05

And knowing that I believe I can introduce a man

33:08

any time, anywhere, in any culture to Jesus Christ,

33:11

and he's not going to Americanize him,

33:14

he's going to Christianize him.

33:16

But the problem that we have in our society

33:19

is that while we talk about

33:22

the importance of freeing Christianity

33:24

from its cultural trappings,

33:26

we in America have been guilty of domesticating the gospel.

33:28

We have Americanized Christianity

33:32

so that in many parts of the world,

33:34

people can't really meet Jesus Christ

33:36

because they don't see him.

33:39

I remind you what happened when Mahatma Gandhi

33:42

was in Africa.

33:44

He was turned down from a church there

33:46

by being told, "This church is not for the likes of you.

33:48

It's for white Europeans."

33:51

And it has been said, that what Gandhi rejected

33:53

was not Christianity,

33:55

as much as the perverted picture of Christ

33:57

that he was given.

33:59

He went back to India, borrowing the teachings of Jesus,

34:01

but he never became a Christian because in his words,

34:04

he thought that to become a Christian meant

34:07

that he had to accept Western culture.

34:09

Gandhi said, "I am, first of all, an Indian,

34:12

not a Westerner."

34:15

And one of the problems in our world today

34:17

is that we have so equated Christianity with Americanism,

34:19

that many a person and other parts of the world

34:23

really hungering for God misses what it means

34:25

to meet God because of the kind of cultural trappings

34:29

that we have put around the Christian gospel.

34:33

And oftentimes, those who profess to be the most liberal

34:37

in their thinking are the most difficult

34:40

to get to understand what it means,

34:44

to actually lift Jesus Christ above their cultural trappings

34:47

in the verbalism by which they want to take the old gospel

34:52

and put it in new modern forms,

34:55

which in other parts of the world are nothing

34:58

other than Americanistic forms

35:01

in our verbal cultural symbols.

35:04

And to communicate the gospel in Africa or India

35:07

or Indonesia, means that the old gospel of Jesus Christ

35:10

as the one who reveals God who makes him clear,

35:15

who calls a man to come and walk with him,

35:18

to identify with Jesus Christ in his culture.

35:21

That gospel is so revolutionary

35:24

that the average American liberal

35:26

doesn't know how to cope with it

35:28

any better than the average American fundamentalist.

35:29

So what I am saying this morning

35:33

is to say that to be Christian in our kind of world

35:35

is demanding a new thing.

35:38

Dr. Glover of England said a few years ago,

35:40

the early church grew because it out thought,

35:42

outlived and outdied everybody around.

35:44

And the challenge you and I face is the challenge

35:48

of out-thinking our age regarding Christianity,

35:50

as well as outliving our age as a disciple,

35:53

and then being willing to out-die it if you please.

35:57

The things that I suggest to them,

36:00

for our thinking to elucidate

36:02

what I have presented this morning

36:05

are basically these three.

36:08

The first, what people experience determines

36:09

to a large degree what they believe.

36:13

The second, what people believe determines how they behave.

36:16

And the third, what people behave

36:21

determines the character of brotherhood.

36:24

What people experience does determine what they believe.

36:28

If all you've experienced is a kind of cold,

36:31

philosophical, institutionalistic Christianity,

36:34

then that's what you believe Christianity is all about.

36:37

If what you've experienced on the other hand

36:41

is a kind of religion that is all together

36:44

other than Christianity,

36:46

then that's what you tend to believe.

36:47

Or if what you have experienced is a kind of genuine,

36:50

honest, authentic commitment with Jesus Christ,

36:54

in your home among your parents, in your congregation,

36:58

then you will believe that this is a possibility.

37:03

Now, in our society in America,

37:06

where we have boasted of being a Christian society,

37:08

many people have never experienced fellowship

37:10

with persons who actually know what it means

37:14

to participate with Jesus Christ.

37:17

A few years ago, I was on the way to Stratford, Ontario

37:20

for a citywide preaching mission

37:23

under the Council of Churches,

37:24

in the Shakespearian art theater of all places.

37:26

I flew on the little Piedmont airline

37:29

from Harrisonburg, Virginia, over to Washington, D.C.

37:31

and transferred to the jet for New York and Toronto.

37:34

There had been a peace march in Washington that day.

37:37

And there were some peaceniks getting on the plane,

37:40

and I moved over and took the center seat.

37:41

And this young lady sat down beside me,

37:44

and a young fellow with hair

37:46

about as long and stringy as hers

37:47

sat down in front of her.

37:49

We were off in the air,

37:50

and so I opened conversation with her.

37:52

I said, I presume you were here in the march today.

37:54

And she said, "Yes, I was."

37:56

I said, "Tell me what brought you here for this march."

37:59

Well, she said, "Because I'm against killing."

38:01

Well, I said, "So am I, and many others are,

38:03

but why are you against it?

38:05

What brought you?"

38:06

Well, she said, "I'm against what's happening in Vietnam."

38:08

Well, I said, "So am I, and there are a lot of us that are,

38:11

but why are you against it?"

38:14

And she looked at me and said, "Who in the world are you?"

38:17

Well, I said, "I happen to be a Mennonite,

38:19

an evangelist on the way to Canada for a preaching mission."

38:21

She said, "You're a Mennonite.

38:25

Well, then you're a pacifist too."

38:26

Well, I said, "It depends what you mean by that term.

38:28

I'm committed to Jesus Christ and I want to be his disciple.

38:30

And I believe that the way of peace

38:33

is a part of his teaching."

38:35

And she looked at me and these were her words.

38:37

"Don't talk about God to me.

38:39

I don't even believe there is a God."

38:41

I said, "You have no association with the church?"

38:44

Oh yeah, she said, "I belong to such and such a church,

38:47

but that's just for identification.

38:49

That doesn't mean anything."

38:50

And so for the next 40 minutes,

38:53

until we scooted in on the runway at LaGuardia or JFK

38:54

in New York city, we talked.

38:58

I asked her to tell me how she saw the church

39:01

and how she read Christianity, and she did.

39:03

And when she got through, I said,

39:06

"You know, young lady, if that's what Christianity was,

39:07

I wouldn't wanna have anything to do with it either."

39:10

And then she looked at me and said,

39:14

"Well, you must think it's something different

39:15

or you wouldn't be involved in it then."

39:17

And so I told her what I thought Christianity was.

39:19

And then to get a little last barb in, you know,

39:22

because this has been a very amiable conversation,

39:25

but I didn't want to leave her without saying,

39:27

you can't talk about truth and remain neutral.

39:29

You've got to do something about it.

39:32

I said, "You know, it's a strange thing.

39:34

One of these days, it's gonna all be over,

39:36

the world will blow up and it'll all be ended.

39:37

And there won't be anybody around,

39:40

anywhere in the universe that remembers we ever happened."

39:41

The plane landed.

39:46

And she got up and started up the aisle with her friend,

39:46

and stopped and turned around and called back

39:49

over two or three people standing in the aisle between us

39:52

and said, "You know, preacher,

39:54

my position doesn't make much sense, does it?"

39:56

Now, as far as I was concerned,

39:59

I had done my job of evangelizing.

40:00

Because for me, evangelism is not pressure,

40:03

not manipulation, not coercion at all.

40:05

Christian faith will stand on its own feet.

40:08

I don't have to defend it.

40:10

But for me, evangelism is making faith in Christ

40:12

a clear option.

40:15

And I am saying that you and I have got to realize

40:17

that there are many people around

40:20

who have never experienced

40:21

a confrontation of Christian faith in a meaningful way

40:23

that will meet them at their level of life.

40:27

And so they tend to believe that Christianity

40:30

is not a real option.

40:32

Many of you are students at the university.

40:34

I'd like to remind you that one of the things

40:37

I find across the country that is probably

40:39

the most common mistake,

40:41

is that too many students will go to school

40:43

and they will take their Sunday school level

40:46

knowledge of Jesus and put it in a pigeonhole

40:48

and go on and advance in psychology and philosophy

40:51

and sociology and the arts.

40:53

Four years later when they graduate,

40:56

instead of being honest about the fact

40:59

that they did not put into their theology,

41:01

the same intellectual diligence

41:03

that they put in the other areas,

41:06

they will turn around and smirk

41:08

at their Sunday school level religion,

41:10

and pose with a kind of academic sophistication

41:12

that now says that religion that I had

41:16

when I came to college is naive,

41:18

and never admit that they are naive and dishonest

41:21

in that they haven't put into it

41:24

the intelligent, honest study

41:27

that they put into the other areas.

41:28

Is that too straight from the shoulder?

41:30

I'm saying that what you experience determines

41:33

in a large degree what you believe, and you can experience

41:35

if you open your life to see what God is doing around you.

41:39

I was out in the Midwest.

41:43

This wouldn't happen down here in North Carolina,

41:44

but I was out in the Midwest.

41:47

And a professor from university came to the meeting

41:49

I was speaking at and after the service, he said to me,

41:51

"I'm an honest intellectual agnostic."

41:55

And I complimented him for opening it up honestly,

41:59

and said, "I'm glad to chat with you.

42:01

You're a thinking man, you've got a right to your position."

42:03

And that surprised him a little bit, the way he talked.

42:05

And then he said, "What would you tell me to do?"

42:08

And I said, "One little experiment."

42:10

Will you try everyday for 30 days praying real honestly,

42:12

this little prayer?

42:15

"God, if you're around,

42:17

help me to recognize the evidence for you today."

42:19

I said, "You do that for 30 days.

42:22

If nothing happens, forget the whole thing."

42:23

You know what that man said to me?

42:26

Here's where his real honesty came through.

42:29

He said, "You know, preacher, I'm afraid to do that.

42:31

Something might happen."

42:34

There aren't many intellectual atheists.

42:37

There are a lot of moral atheists.

42:39

They don't want a God in their lives.

42:41

I turned to that second premise to say

42:45

that what you believe then determines how you behave.

42:47

I've told you a few things I believe by way of illustration.

42:50

I believe in Jesus Christ as Lord.

42:53

I believe in the reality of a changed life

42:55

because I'm committed to him.

42:57

I know the joy of experiencing his grace

42:59

and being born from above.

43:02

I believe in the reality of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

43:04

I believe in being a disciple.

43:06

Now, what you believe determines how you behave.

43:08

If you believe in something very deeply,

43:11

then you behave this way.

43:13

If you believe that God is known in Jesus Christ,

43:15

more clearly than in any other way,

43:19

I'm not saying God has not tried to get through to men

43:22

in some of the mystical forms of religion and the like,

43:26

but if you believe that God is knowing more clearly

43:29

in Jesus Christ than any other way,

43:31

it will affect your behavior, because you will seek to know

43:33

and understand Jesus Christ.

43:38

You will go to the word to do this.

43:39

You will go to people who experience of Christ

43:41

and ask them to tell you how they experience Christ.

43:44

If you believe that human personality

43:47

is the most valuable thing in the world,

43:49

then you will behave that way.

43:52

There is nothing I know that does more

43:54

to change the inequities in the area of the political

43:57

and economic and social scene,

44:01

than just this basic principle, but it's costly.

44:03

It's really costly to live this.

44:07

With respect to the issues of violence

44:09

and poverty and race and war,

44:12

it's a costly thing to live by this principle,

44:14

but personality is the most valuable thing in the universe.

44:17

And if you also believe that in reaching men for their good,

44:21

that you do not simply touch them at one level,

44:26

but at the total of their being, as in the passage

44:29

our brother read a moment ago from Luke 4,

44:32

where Jesus announcing his ministry

44:35

did not simply say that he came to preach,

44:36

but he came to heal the broken-hearted,

44:39

to give sight to the blind,

44:41

to give healing to those who are suffering and the like.

44:43

If you believe that the gospel touches the whole life,

44:46

you will never stop with merely giving a cup of cold water.

44:50

You will always give the cup of cold water

44:53

in the name of Christ so that men may be brought to God.

44:55

And so what you believe determines to a large degree

45:00

how you behave.

45:03

There is today an unhealthy situation across the land

45:05

in which people somehow have the idea

45:09

that religion is something you turn on

45:11

in the 11 o'clock hour on Sunday morning,

45:13

but the way you behave from Monday till Saturday night

45:15

or three o'clock Sunday morning has no part of it.

45:18

That's not Judaic Christian thought,

45:21

that's purely Greek thought.

45:23

You see the old Stoics believed

45:25

they could separate the real you down inside

45:27

from what happened to your body.

45:29

The prostitute operates on the kind of philosophy

45:32

that she can give her body if she keeps the real self

45:35

detached from what is happening.

45:38

But Christianity talks about something altogether different.

45:41

It says I, as a personality, the whole being, relate to God.

45:44

And when a man is saved, you are saving persons,

45:50

not just the soul as some little entity

45:52

wrapped up in a plastic bag down inside.

45:55

When you're dealing with Christian faith,

45:58

you're dealing with a whole person.

46:00

And when you understand that you were never being honest

46:03

with your fellow man, if you know Christ

46:06

and do not share him in an evangelistic witness.

46:08

The last thing I affirmed is that what people behave then

46:11

determines the character of brotherhood.

46:14

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his little book, "Life Together,"

46:17

points out that Christian community

46:20

is quite different from a mere sociological community.

46:21

And that in Christian community,

46:24

we always relate to one another in and through Jesus Christ.

46:26

That means that instead of a community

46:31

that is merely a commonality of taste,

46:33

where we click together because we like the same things,

46:36

and we say it the same way,

46:38

and we have the same symbols and we dress the same way.

46:40

Whether that's one pattern or another

46:43

from the redneck to the far out,

46:47

we have this commonality of taste,

46:49

but Christian community is not that.

46:52

Bonhoeffer says Christian community means

46:54

that I relate to my brother in and through Christ,

46:56

so that he is free and I am free.

46:59

Because if you relate directly, you may tend to manipulate,

47:03

to dominate, to intimidate, to coerce.

47:06

But when you relate in and through Christ,

47:10

you are both free.

47:11

The kind of community I'm talking about

47:13

is a community of disciplined people,

47:15

of discipled people.

47:17

People aren't afraid to say that I'm committed to Christ,

47:19

and what I want above everything else is to obey him.

47:22

People who have made that basic commitment to Christ

47:25

so when they come to the Bible,

47:27

they come with their minds already made up to obey it.

47:29

That's a radical thing.

47:33

To really sell out to the Lordship of Christ and say,

47:35

I'll come to that scripture with my mind made up to obey it,

47:37

that's quite radical.

47:40

It's a kind of brotherhood

47:42

in which we give and receive rebuke

47:43

of one another honestly.

47:45

We share to exhort in the good, old fashioned sense,

47:47

to exhort one another in the things of Christ.

47:50

And we will walk out like John Wesley

47:53

and put our hand on our brothers by saying,

47:55

"If your heart is as my heart, give me your hand."

47:57

And so the kind of brotherhood in which we share

48:02

depends upon our commitment,

48:04

because what we believe is expressed in our behavior,

48:07

and what we behave, expresses the character

48:10

or determines the character of brotherhood.

48:13

One group of people in our country today

48:16

who aren't afraid to talk about obedience

48:18

are the Jesus people.

48:20

I have been amazed by some of the insights

48:23

that some of these persons have from the word of God,

48:25

and they haven't studied theology.

48:28

But they can sit in a group and tell you in a few minutes

48:30

what it means to take Jesus Christ seriously

48:33

and put to shame many within our own churches

48:37

who are growing up around the Christian faith.

48:39

I'd like to leave with you this morning

48:42

the challenge of realizing that this age in which we live

48:43

is no age for weak,

48:47

timid, timorous, uncommitted souls.

48:51

It's an age for the kind of person

48:56

who's got enough intellectual integrity

48:58

to say that he can make commitments,

49:00

but at the same time, enough humility that says,

49:04

I will always review my commitments

49:06

because I can only surrender as much of myself

49:08

as I understand today,

49:11

to as much of God as I understand today.

49:13

I'd like to close with an illustration from Paul Tillich,

49:17

in one of his addresses to Union Seminary students

49:20

in which he said, and I quote,

49:22

"Don't give in too quickly

49:25

to those who want to alleviate your anxiety about truth.

49:26

Don't be seduced into a truth,

49:30

which is not really your truth,

49:32

even if the seducer is your church or your party,

49:34

or your parent or tradition.

49:38

Go with Pilate if you can't go with Jesus,

49:40

but go in seriousness with him."

49:44

Why do I quote a statement like that

49:48

to conclude this message?

49:49

For these reasons.

49:51

Number one, because the choice

49:53

that I am putting before you this morning

49:55

must be that clear.

49:57

No halfway ground.

49:59

It's either going with Jesus or going with Pilate.

50:02

It's that clear.

50:06

And so I say with Tillich, if you can't go with Jesus,

50:08

go with Pilate, but go in seriousness with him.

50:10

Know what you're doing?

50:14

Don't just water down Jesus and still claim to be Christian.

50:15

Either a genuine, honest, radical discipleship,

50:20

or else admit you're going with Pilate saying,

50:23

"What is truth?"

50:26

I can't commit myself because I can't be that sure.

50:27

The second reason I quote this statement

50:32

is because many people today are choosing to go with Pilate

50:34

rather than to go with Jesus,

50:37

because it is more palatable in our society.

50:39

It is more palatable in an academic community,

50:42

because there's some people still believing the myth

50:45

that the skeptic or the cynic is more honest

50:49

than the committed person and that's pure myth.

50:51

And so I quote this statement

50:56

because many people are going with Pilate,

50:57

instead of with Jesus, who are implying

51:00

that Jesus is a little less than real,

51:03

genuine academic sophistication.

51:05

And the third reason I quote this statement

51:10

is because of the kind of radical discipleship

51:12

to which I've sought to call you.

51:14

That is a discipleship that says,

51:17

if I take Jesus Christ seriously,

51:18

then I mean the Jesus Christ of the New Testament,

51:21

and not some watered down Jesus that people have handed me,

51:26

that has been domesticated and acculturated

51:30

until I can't meet him.

51:33

I trust that my words

51:36

have been less comforting than probing.

51:37

And I hope they have been less analytical

51:42

than they have been affirmative,

51:44

because if anything else I would share with you today,

51:47

it is the fact that I am not a professional preacher.

51:51

I'm speaking out of the genuine involvement

51:55

with Jesus Christ, that not only has changed my life,

51:58

but keeps changing it.

52:02

As I discover day by day, new things

52:04

that he's got for me to change my life into his image.

52:06

Let us pray together.

52:11

Father God, in this moment,

52:13

as we pray in the name of Christ,

52:15

we confess that there is so much in our world

52:17

that stands against faith.

52:21

So many problems and so many issues

52:23

and so many voices crying, "Where is God?

52:25

Don't let this happen."

52:28

But we thank thee this morning

52:31

for the freedom that you have given man,

52:32

for the compliment you have given us in that freedom.

52:35

Even to permit us to say no to you if we want.

52:40

But we praise you for the joy that comes

52:44

when we say yes to Jesus Christ.

52:46

Grant that in our lives, in these moments,

52:50

the Holy Spirit may quicken faith

52:53

to reach out and claim by greater work in our hearts

52:56

through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

52:59

Amen.

53:02

(soft organ music)

53:06

(indistinct singing)

53:36

Myron S. Augsburger - "The Christian in a Revolutionary Age" (September 26, 1971)

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1. Myron S. Augsburger - "The Christian in a Revolutionary Age" (September 26, 1971)

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