Dr Joel Gregory

3:58 this evening who've made this possible. I want to express appreciation for all of the churches represented here, the folk of First Arlington, my dear friends, many of you here from Mount Ollie, where I've preached the revival for the last dozen years. I told them that they've heard every sermon I had, and they were kind to come back and see if I could rearrange the points.

4:26 And Donald Smeldecoff, thank you for inviting me from Bailey University. Thank you for all you've done to make this possible. If I were to call names, be too many. I did think Dr. Smeltikoff was a dear personal friend until he put me up to preach after Dr. Michael Eving. Gonna have to check on that on the way. I'm riding back to Waco with you. We're gonna talk about that. It is good to be here this evening under the theme that has been announced. So we'll be discussed by our panel. I would call your attention this evening for a word from God from the 17th chapter of John's Gospel. I won't keep you long because I wish to underscore one vital and energizing truth. From Jesus' prayer in John 17, under the very shadow of the cross, with the eleven, but for you.

5:28 John 17, verse 20. I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me, and the glory which you gave me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one. I in them, you in me, that they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.

6:31 Part of Jesus' prayer that evening. My message this evening is both from this text and also some reverie of personal experience. Adjacent to the topic this evening, not in any way to supplement but to complement the words that we have already heard, spoken so ably this evening in the message from Dr. Evans. It was at the Edgefield Baptist Church in South Waco in 1969 that I became the 19-year-old pastor as a junior at Baylor University. At that time, Edgefield was the poorest community in South Waco, tri-ethnically integrated. There was Hispanic, black, and white, all of them the poorest people in Waco.

7:28 What I did not know about pastoring would fill the Encyclopedia Britannica. I moved into the community. I wanted to pastor. I found out something about Baptist pulpit committees at that time. They told me that they had run off the previous pastor because he had a bad temper. I found out my first Sunday there. we say that was just part of the story. My predecessor had sought for the church to vote in 1968 to integrate. he walked out with all of the progressives who went to South 3rd Street Baptist Church. I was left with the bigots and the racists.

8:22 And I found that my first Sunday. I started to witness to everybody in the community, up and down River Street, First Street, Cottonwood, knocking on doors. A few months later I gave the appeal to come to Jesus and a nine-year-old black boy got up walked down the aisle. I said why did you come and he said I I want to trust Jesus. I stood him around put my arm around him I was thinking to myself well I'll probably get out of Baylor quicker without a job anyway. So I presented him to the church. Let me tell you something I learned that day. The man who had a used car lot and who had led the opposition to my predecessor's vote to integrate the church stood up in the presence of that nine-year-old boy and said, I move that we accept him as a candidate for baptism and that he be baptized.

9:32 You know what I learned that night? And that is what people may debate in the abstract, they often come to accept in the concrete. When it was that little boy and Jesus and that man, he said, I move, we baptize him. And for the first time in the history of that 112-year-old church, that evening the baptismal waters were stirred by a nine-year-old African-American and many more followed him. I think what we're doing here tonight is a good example of just that. And that is not meeting in theory, but in fact, not as a mass, but individuals here together.

10:25 in John 17. May be in the upper room, some people think. There, the faithful followers of Jesus, their shadows flicker against the wall, 11 of them. Judas is already gone. crumbs of the Passover bread still on their fingers sharp tannins from the Passover wine stinging their tongue lamb bones askew there on the plate they could smell the mixture of roast lamb and herbs and that pita bread and the burning of the and out of that Jesus prays he prays for himself he prays for the eleven but then he looks at you.

11:17 For he makes this statement, I'm not praying for these 11 but for all of those who will believe on me through their witness. I imagine he looked at Peter and there in a long line extending behind Peter he saw Pentecost, he saw Cornelius all the way out to the horizon. There's John. he sees the churches of Turkey and the Greek island all the way out to the horizon there's Thomas, if tradition is right in a long line behind Thomas he sees the swarthy faces of those who would become the indigenous church in India there's the gap where Judas would have been I think he saw somebody there Saul of Tarsus and the western church and he said I'm praying for those who believe in me through your witness you know there's an interesting thing about this right on the front porch of this text is a good spiritual energy for our being here tonight because it's a reminder that we all belong to the same spiritual family maybe you've visited this site ancestry.com I can trace some of my relatives a few generations.

12:41 Tracing relatives can be an interesting thing. I had one uncle up in Gainesville who kept a used car too long. They traced him, but that's a whole other thing. But trace... tracing relative. But you know what? If there were a spiritualancestry.com, every one of us in this room would trace our ancestry back to one of those around that table or the one who would join them, Saul, Paul. The basis of our being together is that we have a shared spiritual ancestry. I think Jesus looks at us because of that tonight. He said, I pray you'd be one.

13:33 Up on a mountain over Paris is a beautiful cathedral, Sacré-Cœur. It's a Catholic cathedral built by two businessmen who made a pledge that if Jesus would help them get rich, they'd build a big church. And he did, and they did. It's beautiful. it has the biggest mosaic of Jesus in the world. Huge face. Huge. Fills the whole apse of the church. And wherever you stand, I've played a little game with, look straight at it, he's looking at you. Go over here, he's looking at you. You cannot get it too sharp an angle for Jesus not to be looking at you. That became a metaphor for me when I think about this text. He's looking at you. And saying, my prayer is that you will be one. And the reason I'm praying is that unless you are, you'll negate why I came.

14:32 Did you read that? It's hard to miss it. Three times, they may be one. 22, they may be one. Verse 23, they may be one. And two times, that the world may believe that you sent me. We're not dealing with a peripheral issue, not some marginal concern when he prays that. I just say this, the one thing Jesus prayed for in this prayer, can you imagine what he might have prayed for that night? My soul, distraction? One of his own was going out to betray him. He went out of the room in chapter 13. Judas went out and it was night. I'd have been distracted bitter. He might have been praying about Peter. he'd already told him according to Luke you're going to deny me three times his main man he could have been consumed with the fact that he faced six trials that night three ecclesial but he wasn't with all of that and with the premonitory understanding of his own death he said I pray that they'll be one.

15:41 Now let me back up from that a minute and just say Jesus wasn't the only one in the ancient world that was concerned about oneness. Oh, they were greatly concerned about it. Both in the Hellenistic empires and in the Roman Empire. Oh, Plutarch said we can all be one if we just have one God. Just get one God. Well, we might as well ask how that's working for us today. The three great monotheistic faiths, faiths, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have taken turns annihilating one another. Just having one God doesn't necessarily make people one. Alexander the Great, who conquered most of the world, wanted everybody to drink out of a loving cup, he said. His idea was to try to act like the people he conquered. Everybody who wasn't a Greek was a barbarian, and when he conquered barbarians, he started dressing like and talking like barbarians.

16:40 That is, he thought he would make people one by giving up his greatness and becoming like them. Could I just say something parenthetical tonight? That's not what Christian unity is about. My great friend, Reverend Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr., former president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, says that you never cross racial lines by despising who you are to reach out to somebody else. That doesn't mean white people start despising white people, black folks start despising black folks, and then we'll all get together. No. We live in the boundary of our habitation while respecting the habitation. You know, I learned that many of you all know I spend a good deal of time preaching in African-American churches. When I first started doing that, I don't know if I've ever said this before or not, but when I first started doing that, I said, you know, I'm going to memorize some rap songs so I can.

17:44 Oh, I started quoting 50 Cent and then Snoop. I had a great African-American pastor friend come and say Gregory would you please stop that there is nobody here who thinks you're listening to rap I was not respecting the boundary of my habitation no no that's what Jesus was talking about no then Plato came along and said law will make us one and Plato's Republic, just get perfect laws and we'll be won. Sometimes God throws a story right in your lap. I preached in New Orleans yesterday morning. They were taking me to the airport this morning. I had stayed in a mansion named for Henry Hubbard, one of the leading African-American citizens in New Orleans.

18:37 He was a fight promoter, brought Ali to New Orleans the first time. Stayed in the Hubbard mansion. my host was telling me on the way to the airport how he got that land this is 2012 he wanted a piece of land on St. Charles it belonged to the crew of Rex one of the clubs that runs the Mardi Gras a lily white group on the way he got the land in the 21st century was to have a white lawyer fronted for him we've seen what law can do that doesn't change everybody's heart law can take you so far but it can't take you all the way no it takes something else and that's what Jesus talked about in here and this is I don't have any insight into this other than what this revelation says right here and that is the way you get to be one is to participate in what Jesus said is this that they may be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you that they may be one in us.

19:51 Whatever it is that makes people to be really one is participating in something from beyond ourselves. And until we participate in whatever that reality is, I in you, you in me, and we're in them, we're never going to find. that reality. Now we can see what philosophy, theology, politics, law, common humanity can do, and we've seen what it can do. But until there is something more transcendent than that, we're really not going to be one. Now Jesus said this had a very definite outcome for him. In the shadow of Calvary, he said, I want them to be one so that the world will believe that you sent me. When the world sees an outcome like that, when it sees that kind of effect, it will believe in a supernatural cause.

20:56 When it sees unity, it will believe in Jesus' divinity. I'm collecting sermons now for the Baptist World Alliance in a Baylor Press book Baptist World Preaching collecting six sermons from the six areas of the Baptist World Alliance got one the other day from Reverend Lama in India it's interesting what he's saying trying to bear witness to the Hindus he said the problem I've got is they come to me and say you Baptists come over here to India you've got American Baptists, Northern Baptists Southern Baptists, General Baptists, Regular Baptists missionary Baptist, Reformed Baptist, and then we got British Baptist, who are Baptists?

21:37 And he put his finger on the scandal that has kept the world from believing that the Father sent the Son. I didn't see. He said, I pray there'll be one that the world might believe that the Father sent me. That happened in the early church, and that's why it conquered in that Roman Empire. Here was Peter, a Jew, taking a nap, hungry at lunchtime, and a sheet came down with a whole zoo in it. And a voice said, Peter, eat the zoo.

22:18 It did. And Peter said, I'm a Jew. I'm not going to eat the zoo. And he ate it. And then God said, that was just kindergarten, Peter. now I want you to go across the threshold into a Roman Gentile. And when Peter crossed that threshold, the earth shook, hell shook, and an invisible angel with an invisible real estate sign flew over and said, this is really big. And the rest of the book of Acts shows what caught that Roman world. When people who wouldn't even go into one another's house started meeting and praying. That's a dynamic that can make us to be one.

23:15 Well, you might call it gazing at the glory outlook at this, you know. Verse 22. He says that the glory which you've given me, I have given to them. Back in the first chapter of John, where it became flesh, he dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. When Jesus turned water into wine at that wedding, you remember the story. They said they usually give you the best stuff first. Then later they get.

23:59 And it said he showed them his glory. If we think we face division today, just consider those 12 that Jesus called. I don't have to tell you about Peter. You know, sometimes he almost hugged himself to death. I don't hear that. John, the disciple of love, really? He said, look, that village over there, they're not with us. Call down fire on them. Matthew, a sellout to Rome to collect taxes. Simon the zealot wanted to slit the throat of people like Matthew. Can you imagine giving the keys of the kingdom to that bunch?

24:41 Philip, who was always out of his depth. and yet because they gazed at his glory they got closer to him until they got closer to one another I didn't come here with some philosophical theological new thing to say I don't know anything to say that the only way I see that folks can get closer to one another is to get closer to him it's like spokes on a wheel spend time with him talk to him meditate on him live with him and the closer you're drawn to that hub the closer you'll be drawn to one another I think that's what Jesus meant when he said gazing at the glory Years ago, I was over preaching to the European Baptist Convention with the late Dr. Bill Hendricks.

25:45 We were at Interlocket. They really know where to have conventions. They had it at Interlocket. We preached and Hendricks wanted to take the highest railway in the world, the Jungfrauach. Thing goes up to the top of the Alps. You get on this little cog train. Go up the Alps. Most of us were scared to death. We were a prayerful group all the way up there. The interesting thing was, in those cars, humanity was represented in those cars. It was hot. It was close. There were at least a half dozen languages. White folk, black folk, brown folk. It was a UN in those cars. And really we were getting on one other's nerves. We were packed in there. It took longer than we thought. Finally, though, at the Jungfrau Hall, the train station, the highest one in the world, we emerged from the last tunnel.

26:51 and the most breathtaking scene in the world. Alpine peaks punctuating either side, and a glacier running down as far as the eye could see. And you know what happened? All those irritated people got quiet. When we gazed at the glory of that scene, For one little moment, we were all just human beings gazing at something that took our breath away. Now, churches, if that's true on a lower, lesser, lighter level, how much truer is it on a higher, holier, heavier level?

27:49 that if we gaze at his glory. will move toward being. One. May we gaze. at the glory. Let's bow for a moment in prayer.

28:13 Eternal God, our heavenly Father. may I may we sense Jesus looking at us as we read this prayer Our efforts are so partial, our motives so mixed, our excuses so lame, that this text towers over us and says this is the only way. so as we're gathered here together from churches Christians brothers and sisters in Christ first of all grant that somehow we might so gaze into the embracing eyes of the Lord Jesus Christ that being drawn to him we might be drawn closer to one another.

29:16 until that day comes when we will all be together, all of us, in the presence of our risen Lord.