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Home » Martin Luther King, Jr.: 3 Dimensions of a Complete Life (Transcript)

Martin Luther King, Jr.: 3 Dimensions of a Complete Life (Transcript)

Martin Luther King Jr. delivered this sermon titled “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life” at New Covenant Baptist Church in Chicago on April 9, 1967.

Below is the text of the sermon.

Listen to the MP3 Audio here: Martin Luther King Jr. – The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life Speech

TRANSCRIPT: 

I want to use as the subject from which to preach: “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life.”

You know, they used to tell us in Hollywood that in order for a movie to be complete, it had to be three-dimensional. Well, this morning I want to seek to get over to each of us that if life itself is to be complete, it must be three-dimensional.

Many, many centuries ago, there was a man by the name of John who found himself in prison out on a lonely, obscure island called Patmos. And I’ve been in prison just enough to know that it’s a lonely experience.

And when you are incarcerated in such a situation, you are deprived of almost every freedom, but the freedom to think, the freedom to pray, the freedom to reflect and to meditate.

And while John was out on this lonely island in prison, he lifted his vision to high heaven and he saw, descending out of heaven, a new heaven and a new earth. Over in the 21st chapter of the book of Revelation, it opens by saying, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. And I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven.”

And one of the greatest glories of this new city of God that John saw was its completeness. It was not up on one side and down on the other, but it was complete in all three of its dimensions.

And so in this same chapter as we look down to the 16th verse, John says, “The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.”

In other words, this new city of God, this new city of ideal humanity is not an unbalanced entity, but is complete on all sides.