Joseph B. Bethea - "When Pentecost Came" (June 6, 1976)

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	(choir singing)	0:03
-	On Friday evening of this week,	0:54
	beloved and highly esteemed member of	0:57
	the Duke University faculty died.	1:02
	Dr. Robert S. Rankin professor emeritus	1:06
	of political science.	1:10
	A man actively involved in the life of this community	1:13
	and of this nation.	1:17
	One who served on the National Civil Rights Commission	1:20
	ever since he was appointed until his death.	1:24
	A man highly respected and appreciated by us all.	1:28
	And so, as we gather to worship	1:34
	on this Pentecost Sunday here,	1:36
	let me ask you to pause as we offer to God,	1:39
	a word of thanksgiving for his life	1:42
	and his ministry among us.	1:44
	Let us pray.	1:46
	Oh God, we pause to praise you for the gift	1:51
	of your beloved servant, Robert Rankin,	1:54
	whose witness has touched deeply the life and the way	1:58
	of this university, this community, indeed of our nation.	2:02
	As one who stood unflinchingly	2:09
	for right and justice for all.	2:11
	As one who loved learning and shared not only his knowledge,	2:15
	but his entire self with other.	2:19
	As one who studied, wrote and taught	2:24
	so that life might be more authentic for others.	2:27
	As one who loved his family and friends and cared for them	2:33
	with affection and warmth and firm gentleness.	2:37
	As one who loved and served you, oh God.	2:43
	And whose life was committed to the Lordship	2:47
	of Jesus Christ, yes oh God,	2:49
	for his life and his witness we give you thanks and praise.	2:53
	And so with gratitude, we praise you and we thank you	3:01
	for the life and the love of Robert Rankin.	3:04
	Now, oh God, may your Spirit be very close to sustain	3:10
	and to uphold his wife and his loved ones,	3:15
	we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.	3:20
	Let us continue our worship.	3:29
	As we confess our sins in the company of one another	3:32
	and to all mighty God, let us pray.	3:36
	Our loving God, who by your love has made us	3:42
	and through your love has kept us.	3:45
	And in your love would make us perfect.	3:48
	We humbly confess that we have not loved you	3:52
	with all our heart and soul and mind and strength,	3:54
	and that we have not loved one another as Christ loves us.	3:58
	Your life is within our souls,	4:03
	but our selfishness has hindered you.	4:05
	We have not lived by faith.	4:08
	We have resisted your Spirit.	4:10
	We have neglected your inspirations	4:13
	forgive what we have been.	4:16
	Help us to amend what we are	4:19
	and in your Spirit direct what we shall be.	4:22
	That you may come into the full glory of your creation in us	4:26
	and in all people, through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.	4:30
	Oh God our Lord Jesus Christ has said to the repentant woman	4:55
	and says to us, "Neither do I condemn you.	4:58
	Go and sin no more."	5:02
	May your Spirit, oh God, receive our prayers of confession,	5:05
	forgive and cleanse us from our sin,	5:11
	renew our lives inwardly and outwardly.	5:16
	And then give us our lives back again with new hope	5:20
	and with the assurance that the future is open and free	5:25
	for us to receive and to live	5:29
	through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.	5:34
	(choir instrumental music)	5:51
	Let us hear the word of God.	8:33
	First, as it is contained in the book of Jeremiah	8:35
	chapter 31, reading verses 31 through 34.	8:39
	"Behold the days are coming, says the Lord,	8:44
	when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel	8:49
	and the house of Judah, not like the covenant,	8:52
	which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand	8:55
	to bring them out of the land of Egypt,	8:58
	my covenant, which they broke	9:00
	though I was their husband says the Lord.	9:03
	But this is the covenant which I will make	9:07
	with the house of Israel after those days says the Lord.	9:09
	I will put my law within them and I will write it	9:14
	upon their hearts and I will be their God	9:18
	and they shall be my people.	9:22
	And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor	9:26
	and each his brother saying know the Lord,	9:29
	for they shall all know me from the least of them	9:32
	to the greatest, says the Lord.	9:36
	For I will forgive their iniquity	9:39
	and I will remember their sin no more."	9:42
	Then from the book of Acts 2:1-4.	9:50
	"When the day of Pentecost had come,	9:58
	they were all together in one place.	10:01
	And suddenly a sound came from heaven,	10:05
	like the rush of a mighty wind	10:07
	and it filled all the house where they were sitting.	10:10
	And there appeared to them tongues as a fire,	10:14
	distributed and resting on each one of them.	10:18
	And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit	10:22
	and began to speak in other tongues	10:26
	as the Spirit gave them utterance."	10:29
	Here ends the reading of the lessons.	10:34
	May God's Spirit speak to you	10:36
	and to me through these words, amen.	10:39
	(choir instrumental music)	10:43
	We are not alone.	11:28
	We live in God's world.	11:30
	We believe in God who has created and is creating,	11:34
	who has come in the truly human Jesus	11:39
	to reconcile and make new.	11:42
	Who works in us and others by the Spirit.	11:45
	We trust God who calls us to be the church.	11:49
	To celebrate life and its fullness	11:54
	to love and serve others,	11:57
	to seek justice and resist evil,	12:00
	to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen	12:03
	our judge and our hope.	12:07
	In life, in death, in life beyond death,	12:10
	God is with us, we are not alone.	12:14
	Thanks be to God.	12:19
	The Lord be with you.	12:22
	Let us pray.	12:25
	Oh God, we gathered this day to praise you,	12:35
	to worship you, to hear your word,	12:40
	to sing with joy, to be forgiven	12:45
	and to commit our lives again,	12:49
	to greater more loving service	12:51
	in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.	12:54
	May our lives, oh loving God, reflect our gratitude to you	12:58
	for we know that whatever is good in us comes as we recall	13:03
	how your Spirit has blessed us.	13:07
	Whatever is generous in us comes as we know how generous	13:11
	and gracious you have been to us.	13:14
	Whatever forgiveness and understanding we show	13:18
	comes because we have been forgiven	13:21
	and we have been understood by you.	13:24
	Oh mighty, ever merciful, ever good and loving God,	13:28
	we praise you with heart and soul and mind and strength.	13:35
	But oh Lord help us to love and to care for our neighbors	13:42
	in this same manner with heart and soul	13:46
	and mind and strength, or at least, oh God,	13:49
	to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves.	13:52
	We offer in this moment, oh God,	13:57
	our concern for all sorts and all conditions of humanity.	14:01
	Those who have lost their will,	14:06
	feeble because of sickness are dragged down	14:11
	by an aching alien body.	14:13
	Their minds focused only on their pain.	14:15
	Those, oh God, for whom life is boring and futile.	14:21
	Those oh God, who have not known the taste of success	14:27
	or satisfaction, or at least have forgotten it.	14:31
	Those who have suffered in life and are hostile and bitter,	14:36
	we think of these folk today oh God	14:42
	and wonder how we can bring zest to their lives,	14:44
	how we can turn bitterness and cynicism into joy and hope.	14:47
	We know, oh Lord, that we are not miracle workers.	14:53
	We know deep down within us,	14:58
	that there is much more that we can do.	15:00
	So help us to try to understand,	15:04
	to lift the dejected and to comfort the afflicted.	15:08
	And now, as we seek to do better in the future, oh God,	15:17
	help us to commit our lives to the Lord of life,	15:22
	to receive this day, the power, the peace,	15:27
	and the presence of the Holy Spirit.	15:30
	To think and act and love as our Lord Jesus Christ would do	15:33
	hear us, receive us, empower us now by your word,	15:39
	as we hear it and send us forth in the name	15:47
	and in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, our Lord	15:51
	who taught us to pray as we pray together.	15:53
	Our father who art in heaven,	15:57
	hallowed be thy name.	16:01
	Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth	16:03
	as it is in heaven.	16:08
	Give us this day, our daily bread	16:10
	and forgive us our trespasses	16:14
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	16:16
	Lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil.	16:20
	For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory	16:25
	forever, amen.	16:30
	We welcome you to Duke Chapel this day	16:35
	for this service of worship on Pentecost Sunday,	16:37
	when we celebrate the gift of God's Holy Spirit.	16:42
	We invite you to remain following this service of worship	16:47
	if you would like to share	16:50
	in the sacrament of the Lord supper.	16:51
	The service of holy communion will be celebrated	16:54
	in the Memorial Chapel to my right, to your left,	16:56
	immediately following this service.	17:00
	It is our privilege this morning to have us	17:03
	the preacher for the day,	17:05
	the Reverend Dr. Joseph Bethea,	17:07
	Director of Black Church Studies	17:10
	in the divinity school here at Duke.	17:12
	His ministry, however only begins there.	17:15
	His life and influence go far, not only in the church,	17:19
	in the ecclesiastical world,	17:23
	but also in the political and the social world.	17:25
	He and his wife and daughter have just returned from Jamaica	17:28
	where he was one of two delegates from the United States	17:32
	at the conference, the 10th conference	17:36
	of the United Methodist Church in the Americas.	17:38
	Joe's influence is very richly and deeply felt	17:42
	in the life of this university community.	17:44
	We welcome him to Duke Chapel this morning,	17:48
	and we hear him gladly as he brings God's word to us.	17:50
-	Thank you, Reverend Young,	18:08
	for those very kind words of introduction.	18:09
	It is indeed good to come again to this place	18:12
	and to be privileged to bring the message.	18:17
	Today is Pentecost Sunday,	18:22
	said by many to be the anniversary	18:26
	of the birthday of the church.	18:30
	The risen and living Christ of our Easter faith	18:33
	had exhorted his disciples	18:39
	to wait for the promise of the father.	18:42
	And he'd said to them, "You shall receive power	18:46
	when the Holy Spirit has come upon you."	18:50
	When this Christ had ascended, as it were into heaven,	18:55
	these disciples return to Jerusalem	19:01
	where they secretly obeyed the injunction of their Lord	19:05
	and waited in the upper chamber	19:11
	for the promise of the father.	19:15
	Though they were not quite sure what they were waiting for,	19:18
	they had the promise and they waited with patient	19:23
	and confident expectation.	19:28
	Indeed, they were standing on the promise of Christ	19:32
	their king and the waiting was not in vain.	19:36
	The promise was fulfilled.	19:41
	The prophecy of Joel and Jeremiah	19:43
	and many other prophets was fulfilled.	19:47
	When the day of Pentecost was come	19:51
	50 days after the resurrection,	19:54
	the apostles were all together in one place.	19:58
	"And suddenly a sound came from heaven,	20:03
	like the rush of a mighty wind	20:06
	and it filled all the house where they was sitting.	20:10
	And there appeared to them tongues as a fire	20:15
	distributed and resting on each one of them.	20:19
	And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.	20:24
	On this anniversary Sunday of the Pentecost experience,	20:29
	I want to reflect on that first experience	20:36
	in an effort to understand if we can at least	20:42
	some of what happened when Pentecost came	20:47
	so that we might have some understanding	20:51
	of what happens when Pentecost comes.	20:54
	But while we may not be Pentecostal in name,	20:59
	every community of Christians	21:04
	is or ought to be Pentecostal in nature.	21:08
	Indeed, the church is the product	21:14
	of the work of the Holy Spirit.	21:18
	The character of the church, its performance,	21:21
	indeed its life and authentic existence	21:26
	is determined by the Spirit.	21:31
	Where the Spirit of the Lord is,	21:35
	there is the one true church.	21:38
	And where the Spirit of the Lord is not, there is no church.	21:42
	The story then of the Holy Spirit at work	21:51
	in the primitive church,	21:55
	the book of the Acts of the apostles	21:57
	catalogs taught us certain evidences	22:01
	of the coming of the Holy Spirit	22:05
	when Pentecost came and when Pentecost comes	22:09
	When Pentecost came, a new fellowship was created.	22:19
	A new community came into being.	22:24
	The disciples were all together.	22:29
	The sound from heaven filled all the house.	22:33
	Tongues of fire rested on each of them.	22:39
	And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.	22:45
	They spoke in tongues so that people gathered there	22:51
	from every nation under the sun could understand.	22:56
	It was a new community of people.	23:02
	Indeed it was a new community of people	23:07
	because it was a community of new people.	23:10
	How is it that Jews and Gentiles	23:16
	and people from every nation under heaven	23:20
	could communicate and come together in fellowship?	23:24
	They had their differences, both real and imagined,	23:28
	but they had found a new devotion.	23:35
	They had found a new impulse,	23:38
	something that was stronger than	23:42
	anything that separated them.	23:45
	That new impulse, that new devotion was to Jesus Christ,	23:48
	who was now alive in their hearts	23:54
	and pulling them out of themselves and beyond themselves	23:57
	into a new creation as persons in community.	24:03
	A new creation as a community of persons.	24:08
	In his book, "The Community of Faith,"	24:15
	Ralph Martin wrote,	24:19
	"The first and most important note	24:22
	was simply that Jesus was king of their lives.	24:25
	They were no longer under subjection to the customs	24:31
	of other men and other systems.	24:35
	They were a company of men and women who lived	24:40
	as Jesus had taught them to live.	24:44
	They lived under his rule	24:48
	and let his teaching order their lives.	24:51
	So as the first community to share the memory of Christ	24:55
	and to experience the Holy Spirit of God,	25:03
	they were koinonia, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.	25:07
	All who believed were together and had all things in common.	25:14
	They sold their possessions and goods	25:21
	and distributed them to all as any had need.	25:25
	And day by day, attending the temple together	25:30
	and breaking bread in their homes.	25:35
	They partook of food with glad and generous hearts,	25:38
	praising God and having favor with all the people.	25:43
	And the Lord added to their number day by day	25:48
	those who were being saved.	25:53
	People from every nation,	25:57
	every nation under heaven became the new Israel.	26:00
	The body of Christ, where there was neither Jew nor Greek.	26:06
	There was neither slave nor free.	26:12
	There was neither male nor female	26:15
	for they were all one in Christ Jesus.	26:18
	That is what happens when Pentecost came.	26:24
	And that is what happens when Pentecost comes today.	26:30
	Oh, modern civilization seems to have	26:36
	a tragic genius for division.	26:40
	And what Dr. Alan Walker wrote more than 15 years ago	26:45
	is still true.	26:49
	A startling contrast is apparent in today's world.	26:52
	It is the contrast between physical might	26:57
	and moral and spiritual helplessness.	27:00
	We can cross vast distances at great speed,	27:04
	but we cannot negotiate the guff	27:09
	that divides nation from nation.	27:11
	We have broken the sound barrier,	27:15
	but the (indistinct) defeats us.	27:18
	We have penetrated out of space,	27:22
	but not the wall that separates East from West.	27:24
	We have taped the secret of the atom,	27:29
	but the secret of peace escapes us.	27:33
	We live in a world of physical power,	27:37
	the moral and spiritual impotence.	27:42
	Concorde supersonic transport	27:47
	flies at twice the speed of sound.	27:51
	You can get that before we leave here	27:55
	and has been said so often our world is becoming	28:00
	a neighborhood, but we cannot be neighbors.	28:05
	We experience some real problems	28:11
	when we try to live together in neighborhoods,	28:13
	or when we try to go to school together.	28:17
	And even when we try to worship together.	28:21
	And I want to suggest that if love and fellowship	28:25
	and community is to be found anywhere,	28:28
	it ought to be found in the church.	28:32
	What do we have?	28:36
	We've permitted the world's way of selfishness	28:40
	and individualism to pervade the church of God.	28:46
	And a growing number of people are lonely	28:51
	and lost because of our lack of fellowship and community.	28:54
	Dr. (indistinct) wrote,	29:01
	"When the sophisticated modern thinks of fellowship,	29:03
	he or she thinks of a cocktail party and not the church."	29:08
	When the man on the street look for fellowship,	29:14
	he doesn't go to church, he goes to a tavern	29:17
	or to the union hall or to a lodge.	29:21
	This should not be so,	29:27
	and this need not be so.	29:30
	For if the church is to be true to its Lord at our time,	29:31
	we must still be a fellowship	29:36
	where different people can come together and live together	29:40
	with common purposes, common loyalties,	29:44
	and common allegiances.	29:46
	We must achieve that community which Christ prayed for	29:49
	that they all may be one.	29:54
	All who Lord?	29:59
	Learned and unlearned?	30:01
	Haves and have not?	30:04
	Males and female?	30:07
	Masters and slaves?	30:10
	Black and white?	30:13
	Red and brown and yellow?	30:16
	That they all may be one that they all may be	30:18
	in Christian Love and fellowship and community.	30:22
	It happened when Pentecost came and it will happen today	30:26
	if the Spirit comes into our midst.	30:32
	When Pentecost came, a new power was experienced	30:39
	by the disciples.	30:45
	Was a power and the presence that changed them	30:48
	from what they had been.	30:51
	We can't adequately describe what really happened	30:54
	on that occasion.	30:58
	And yet most of us know how hard wind can blow	31:00
	and how hot fire can burn.	31:04
	Something blew upon them.	31:09
	Something burned within them.	31:12
	It was the breath and the fire of the power of God.	31:16
	C. J. Barker wrote, "And there were signs,	31:24
	there were signs for those without."	31:29
	Something happened that told the masses of people	31:34
	that strange things had taken place.	31:38
	From the upper room impaled by an imperious impulse,	31:43
	the disciples went out, breaking into ecstatic utterances,	31:49
	which call from some, the caustic interpretation	31:55
	that the men were drunk.	32:00
	Two marks of drunkenness or excitement and exhilaration.	32:05
	The collapse of habitual inhibitions	32:13
	so that the jibe hurled against the disciples	32:19
	must have had real plausibility.	32:24
	But man noted that old inhibitions and restraints were gone	32:27
	and the Christians were almost wild.	32:35
	Chatting the mighty acts of God.	32:39
	Look at Peter.	32:44
	Look at fearful, timid, cowardly, Peter.	32:47
	Is this the same person whose courage disappeared	32:53
	when Christ was crucified?	32:57
	Is this the man who three times denied	33:01
	that he had ever known the man from Galilee?	33:04
	It cannot be.	33:09
	But it is and yet it is not.	33:11
	It is Peter,	33:17
	but it is Peter filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.	33:19
	"He stood with the eleven and lifted up his voice."	33:25
	Brother Young, he didn't whisper.	33:33
	He stood and lifted up his voice and said	33:37
	"Not so, it's just nine o'clock in the morning	33:42
	and we don't customarily drink this early.	33:47
	We are not filled the new wine,	33:51
	we all filled with new power.	33:54
	We are filled with the power and presence	33:58
	of the Holy Spirit.	34:03
	Gave them hope, peace.	34:06
	Gave them joy and enthusiasm	34:10
	amid what otherwise would have been only struggle	34:14
	and pain and depression.	34:18
	Christ had kept his promise.	34:20
	That is what happened when Pentecost came.	34:23
	And that is what happens when Pentecost comes.	34:27
	New power is experienced by those who believe	34:32
	and persons who have been powerless to hold out	34:38
	against the pressures up temptation.	34:41
	Against the pressures of opposition,	34:45
	against the pressures of ridicule,	34:48
	against the pressures of loneliness.	34:50
	Against the pressures of selfishness and individualism.	34:53
	Against the pressures of lossless.	34:58
	Persons begin to overcome	35:03
	by the power of something within.	35:06
	St. Agustin and St. Francis, Martin Luther and John Wesley,	35:11
	and many others in the history of the church	35:17
	have told us how their experience of the Holy Spirit	35:19
	changed their lives.	35:23
	Persons who were timid became brave.	35:26
	Ordinary persons became extraordinary.	35:29
	Selfish persons became unselfish.	35:33
	Persons who were weak, became strong.	35:37
	Lost persons found salvation	35:40
	and thousands upon thousands today	35:43
	are experiencing the change that takes place	35:48
	when the Holy Spirit comes.	35:53
	Spirit gives a life, it gives new life,	35:56
	so that those who feel its presence proclaim something	36:02
	within, something within me that hold us the rain,	36:06
	something within me that banishes pain.	36:11
	Something within me I cannot explain.	36:14
	All that I know there is something within.	36:18
	We can all have it.	36:25
	For God says, "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh	36:28
	and whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."	36:35
	God pours.	36:43
	And we need to understand that the pouring of God	36:46
	may affect different people in different ways.	36:51
	To some it may be a highly emotional and dramatic experience	36:57
	to others it may not be.	37:04
	I hope that that day will come	37:08
	when people of varying religious experiences	37:11
	can embrace each other in love and live together	37:16
	as spirit-filled persons.	37:21
	For God pours.	37:25
	God alone pours.	37:28
	The wind blows where it wills.	37:31
	You hear the sound of it,	37:36
	but you cannot tell from which it comes or whether it goes.	37:39
	So he is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.	37:48
	God pours, it happens now when Pentecost comes.	37:53
	One other word must be said.	38:00
	When Pentecost came, the disciples were given a new task.	38:05
	When Jesus presented himself alive to his disciples,	38:11
	after his passing, he charged them not to depart	38:15
	from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the father.	38:19
	"For many days you shall be baptized	38:25
	with the Holy Spirit," he says.	38:29
	"And so when they had come together, asked him, Lord,	38:32
	will you, at this time, restore the kingdom to Israel?"	38:36
	He said to them, "It is not for you to know	38:42
	the times of seasons, which the father has fixed	38:45
	by his own authority,	38:48
	but you shall receive power	38:50
	when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.	38:54
	And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem	38:57
	and it all Judea and Sumeria and to the end of the earth."	39:03
	You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come.	39:10
	You shall receive power.	39:19
	It will change your being.	39:22
	It will make you something different	39:27
	from what you have been.	39:29
	You will receive power.	39:33
	It will create community.	39:36
	It will make you love and have fellowship	39:40
	with those who otherwise you would not.	39:43
	But it is also power to do something.	39:48
	Power to do something.	39:55
	Peter preached and 3000 souls were added that day.	39:58
	And they went out preaching and healing and suffering	40:04
	for the liberation and salvation of all people.	40:09
	They went out from that Pentecostal experience	40:16
	proclaiming the good news of God in word and indeed.	40:21
	They had received God's power	40:27
	and they had to do God's will.	40:32
	This is what happened when Pentecost came.	40:37
	And this is what happens when Pentecost comes today.	40:43
	In 1969, the Social Science Institute of Fisk university	40:49
	published a book called "God Struck Me Dead."	40:56
	It's a volume of narratives of the religious conversion	41:01
	and experiences and auto biographies of ex slaves.	41:05
	In varying ways, the Spirit took hold of them,	41:13
	but it always gave them something to do.	41:19
	One said that when the Spirit came into my life,	41:23
	I heard a voice saying,	41:28
	"Go preach my gospel to every creature	41:30
	and fear not for I am with you and everlasting crop."	41:33
	Another said that, "When the Spirit of God entered my life,	41:41
	I heard a voice saying, go and I will go with you.	41:44
	You have a deed to your name and you shall never perish."	41:50
	And still another said, when the Spirit came into his life,	41:56
	voice was heard to say, "Go into yonder world	42:02
	and tell them what a dear savior you have found."	42:06
	I didn't want to leave.	42:11
	"And I said, Lord, they won't believe me if I go."	42:14
	But he said, "I command you to go and you shall go.	42:19
	Speak and I will speak through you."	42:25
	And ever since that day, the narrative continues.	42:29
	I've been falling down and getting up,	42:34
	but always looking to God because	42:38
	he promised never to leave me,	42:40
	never to leave me alone.	42:45
	When the Spirit speaks to me now,	42:49
	I move with certainty."	42:53
	indeed, when the Spirit of God comes into our lives,	42:58
	however varying it may be in different people,	43:03
	we have to move.	43:07
	We have to move to right the wrongs of our time.	43:10
	We have to move to heal those who are hurting.	43:15
	We have to move to preach and bring good news	43:18
	to the poor and all that it means	43:22
	to preach and bring good news.	43:24
	We have to move to set at liberty those who are oppressed.	43:27
	We have to move to feed the hungry of the world,	43:32
	to give water to the thirsty, to welcome the stranger.	43:35
	We have to move and our concern for those who are sick	43:41
	and those who are in prison.	43:45
	Jesus said, "If you didn't do it for them,	43:48
	you didn't do it for me."	43:52
	My reading of the tradition then, it seems to me	43:56
	that if we have God's Spirit in us,	44:00
	we have to do God's work.	44:04
	God's will in the world and I have a bit of a problem	44:07
	with those who say they have the Spirit of God	44:11
	and are not at least trying to do his will and his word.	44:15
	This is what happened when Pentecost came.	44:23
	This is what happens when Pentecost comes.	44:28
	New people make up new communities	44:32
	to do new tasks.	44:38
	The Presidents of the World Council of Churches	44:42
	send a message to the churches called Pentecost 1976.	44:44
	In that message they said,	44:51
	the Holy Spirit makes Christ known	44:53
	to those who did not know him.	44:55
	He sustains and renews the faith of the believers,	44:58
	leads them back to the source of their faith.	45:03
	He gives Christians courage and power to witness for Christ.	45:07
	Helps them to discover in the tensions and struggles	45:11
	of our time, what is God's will for his people?	45:14
	He binds them together in a fellowship	45:19
	that transcends all human divisions.	45:22
	This is also what the Holy Spirit did for us	45:25
	at the World Council Assembler in Nairobi.	45:30
	Once again, we were brought face-to-face	45:34
	with those central truths of the gospel.	45:37
	We were shown new ways of living in obedience to our Lord	45:40
	thus, we were enabled to stay together,	45:45
	even in spite of the forces,	45:49
	which can so easily divide us.	45:52
	And we open our lives to the Spirit they continued.	45:56
	We will also be able to make a decisive contribution	46:01
	to humankind's great struggle for survival	46:05
	for our world of justice, freedom and peace.	46:10
	We have been warned that our world must change its values	46:16
	if it is to avoid catastrophe.	46:21
	The Spirit who glorifies Christ,	46:25
	than all that he stands for,	46:27
	will send us the true priorities.	46:30
	They concluded the message with the prayer	46:35
	that was used and the pausing service	46:39
	of the assembly at Nairobi.	46:42
	And I use it now as the prayer for this message.	46:46
	Holy Spirit of God, fill us with confidence	46:51
	and make us available.	46:56
	Teach us to pray and to hear the mournings of men.	46:58
	Help us interpret the signs of the time	47:03
	and prepare us for the Kingdom of God	47:07
	each day and forever, amen.	47:11
	(choir instrumental music)	47:22
	(choir instrumental music)	50:56
	(choir instrumental music)	58:34
-	As we dedicate these our gifts today,	1:00:00
	may we rededicate our very selves to you, oh God	1:00:04
	and to our neighbors.	1:00:08
	In a broken world where we have nothing to lose,	1:00:11
	but everything, may we be Christ's agents of reconciling,	1:00:14
	renewing love to those known to us	1:00:20
	and to the strangers whom we meet unawares.	1:00:24
	Accept now our gifts, we dedicate them to you.	1:00:29
	Accept now our lives,	1:00:36
	we commit them again, oh God, to you.	1:00:39
	To love you, and to love our neighbor	1:00:43
	through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.	1:00:47
	(choir instrumental music)	1:00:53
	The grace of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ,	1:05:39
	the love of God,	1:05:45
	the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit,	1:05:49
	be with you and those whom you love.	1:05:54
	Now and forever.	1:06:00
	(choir singing)	1:06:08
	(bell chiming)	1:07:02
	(choir instrumental music)	1:07:19

Item Info

Title:

Joseph B. Bethea - "When Pentecost Came" (June 6, 1976)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4x062d79

Date:

June 6, 1976

Speaker:

Bethea, Joseph B.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0839
ref6878_fq4
uachapelsermaud
duke:628254
dcrau002798
ark:/87924/r4x062d79
58eefb9f-e7dd-4e30-8904-541aa3e854d0

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Durham (N.C.)

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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Joseph B. Bethea - "When Pentecost Came" (June 6, 1976)

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