A Higher Test of Christian Living 7/6/41
Scripture: Matthew 22: 23-46; John 21: 15-17.
Text: Matthew 22: 42; “What think ye of Christ?”
I once heard Charles Reynolds Brown say that in spite of a certain tendency to make little of the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian, there nevertheless does exist such a difference. And it is a great difference. The difference is embodied chiefly in the answer of any given person to the question which Jesus himself put to the Pharisees nineteen centuries ago - “What think ye of Christ?”
By their heartbeats, men may under questioning betray to a police investigator their innocence or guilt. By the unconscious expression of their prejudices, they may show their attitudes toward institutions and other people. By their attitude toward the Supreme Person in history, they certainly define themselves as Christian or non-Christian.
And so, from the time of Jesus himself, down to the present time, there have been attempts to separate people into Christian and non-Christian groups by ascertaining their attitudes toward Christ. And there have been arranged many standard ways in which to express one’s attitude toward Him.
I refer to the development of the church creeds.
A creed may be an expression of belief in Christ and also in doctrines about Him, and about God, and about the Holy Spirit, and about the Church. There have been many creeds, laboriously created, and calculated to be as air tight, as nearly perfect, and as binding as possible from the point of view of ecclesiastical law and doctrine. By assenting to a given creed, a man has been stamped as a believer in Christ according to a definite pattern or attitude. The creeds have been many. They have been, and still are, very precious to many people as expressions of faith in Christ. Men have in ages past been put to death or have solemnly put others to death because of their assent, or failure to assent, to a creed.
Of the many creeds of the Church of the past, there have been three main ones; the Athanasian creed, the Nicene creed, and the Apostles’ creed. The last named is scarcely more than a hundred words in length, yet it, like the others, has been a truly great expression of Christian belief.
These creeds are deserving of their place in the history of the church. They have been mighty slogans, and men have rallied around them to find their scattered weakness turned to solid strength.
But assent to the creeds, great and important as they have been in the past, is not the highest test of Christian living. Many a man has assented to a creed without really understanding it and has failed to put into practice the words that he used in repeating it at the place of worship. A higher test of Christian living than is found in any of the longer creeds is found in the answer to that brief but exceedingly pointed question which Jesus directed to the Pharisees: “What think ye of Christ?” Whether a man is really Christian or not depends not upon the church to which he belongs, nor to the creed which he recites in his church services, but upon his real, active attitude toward Christ. Here is the higher test of Christian living, regardless of your church, your theology or your philosophy - “What think ye of Christ?”
We may say that people, in their attitudes toward Christ, fall into these four classes. First there are those on the fence. “The fence, says Dean Charles R. Brown, “is long and broad, and there are many who roost on it.” The world is full of people who wait to see which way the crowd goes before they move. Their actions and so-called beliefs are dependent upon finding out what will be best for number one. They never make any contribution to the real advancement of the world and must be dragged one way of the other by whatever leader is strong enough to secure and use them as his pawns. They are about as much good to intelligent progress as are fence straddlers in politics or any other realm of human activity.
Second, there are those who are opposed to Christ. And there are some who are honestly opposed. A certain scientist was quoted several years ago as saying that he was so glad that science has gotten rid of God, so that it could proceed without having its hands tied by superstition and magic. I admire the man’s frankness, but I heartily disagree with his judgment. I think he interprets God in terms of outgrown and undesirable elements in religion of the past. His concept of God has not developed with his scientific concepts, and with modern religious concepts. He simply does not understand God in the enlightened terms in which we understand Christ to have interpreted Him. This scientist still has a child’s idea of God. If he should study Christ more, and with the aid of modern students of the Great Teacher, and if he would practice the presence of God, he might have some hope of becoming up-to-date in his religious as well as his scientific ideas.
Of course there are many, too, who think that Christ’s ideas of social justice and the brotherhood of man won’t work in the world as we find it. They are used to the gospel of force and they have seen many instances in which the man with the big stick or the clever brain or the large payroll or the overbearing attitude wins fairly consistently. But the sole reason why it wins is that the stronger appeal of love and justice is not faithfully and consistently tried. When Christ’s principles are actually put into practice in society and industry, they are effective . And the clever brain and the large payroll become their invaluable assistants in spreading the Kingdom of righteousness.
Mr. John Calder, at that time chairman of the Social Service Commission of Congregational Churches, and consulting Engineer of Swift and Company, once testified in my hearing that in his experience people really want to be fair in everything. His belief is that the best solution of industrial and social problems is to publish the truth and to give good, honest information. Calder believes that everyone, whether an employer of men or an employee of men, want the same things: wants success; wants to make his own mistakes and find out for himself the means of avoiding these mistakes in the future; wants a chance to find a definite station in society; wants a steady job with fair compensation; wants good leaders (not drivers); wants a voice of his own; and wants a chance to rise on his own merits.
When the men who are frankly opposed to Christ, can be led to see that this is exactly what Christ wants for them, and that that is what they will get if and when Christ’s principles are put into practice, the majority of them, except for a few fanatics, can be expected to tun from opposition to support.
Third, there are those who give nominal support to Christ. They say, “Lord, Lord!” though their hearts are far away from Him. They may attend the church and belong to its membership. Some of them may even take the Lord’s Supper. To use a political expression, they “vote the straight party ticket.” They do what it is customary to do under the circumstances. Such a person is, if there is nothing more to him than that, to use another of Dean Brown’s phrases, “a piece of polite sham.” So much for mere nominal Christians.
Fourth, there are those who are for Christ because they believe in Him and hence are willing to go anywhere his example and spirit leads them. These are the people who are vigorously loyal to Christ and who stick to him and support him in the face of decadent institutions, outgrown religious ideas, public criticism, the devil and his works, and all. They know the power of his teachings and the tremendous imprint of his personality. They are throwing themselves into the struggle for Christian righteousness wherever they see an opening to do so. They comprise the force that is valiantly endeavoring to keep active religion apace with the tremendous progress of science and the mechanical progress of our century. They are the hope of this confused and semi-blinded world.
I have already expressed my opinion that church membership and Christian living are not synonymous. Affiliation with other Christians is usually an invaluable aid to Christian living. But Church membership in any particular denomination makes no essential, fundamental difference to a man’s real Christian worth except as that association helps him to be more Christ-like.
The time was when the Camerons of Scotland were, so I am told, so severely conservative in their religious beliefs that they had very little hope of eternal life for members of their own fellowship and none for the others! And perhaps you have heard the story of Sandy, a Scotch Presbyterian of rigid convictions, who fell into an argument with a liberal. The argument was long and vigorous and there was enough friction to generate a certain amount of heat. It was finally concluded in this manner. The liberal said, “Well, after all, Sandy, there aren’t many differences between our religious beliefs.” And Sandy stiffly replied, “There is one great difference; we will be saved and you will be damned.”
Of course all of us respect Sandy’s devotion but most of us now disagree with his concluding conviction. Consider how far apart in their church affiliations and creedal beliefs were these three men: Cardinal Mercier, John G. Paton, and William Booth. Cardinal Mercier, a Catholic, is one of the most outstanding Christian men of the past generation. A Belgian priest of some ecclesiastical prominence, though unknown to the world, he sprang into fame during the last world war. During the German occupation of his country, he was outspoken against the injustice of the invasion. He openly denounced the invaders from palace and pulpit and through pastoral letters. He calmly ignored or outwitted the German governor-general of Belgium. He was so thoroughly saturated with the righteousness of the Belgian cause and he so impressed it upon others that, together with the Belgian king of that generation, he won the admiring respect of the world.
After the war, statesmen were repudiated by their peoples, soldiers taken from their pedestals by critics, kings were dethroned and exiled. But Cardinal Mercier remained as great in men’s eyes as during the worst heat of conflict. During the years following the war, he was a prominent figure in the discussion of church union between the Catholic and Anglican churches. Protestant ministers were quick to grant that he towered above sectarian differences. Newspapers proclaimed that he belonged not only to the Roman Catholic Church or to Belgium, but to the entire human race. When he died, the entire world, Protestant and Catholic alike, paused to pay him reverent and grateful tribute and to avow that the world is nobler and holier and better because of the imprint of this man of God.
Consider John G. Paton, a Scotch Presbyterian who could swallow the Westminster Confession whole and literally “without turning a hair,” a totally different man, ecclesiastically and creedally, from Cardinal Mercier. He went to minister to the cannibals of the South Sea Islands. The cannibals were restrained from killing and eating him by only two sentences: “God loves you” and “I love you.” These two sentences, the only ones he knew in their language when he went there, were the means, through Paton’s life, of converting heathen man-eaters to Christian faith and civilization.
Now consider William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. Ecclesiastically and creedally he was sharply different from either of the other two men mentioned. He would not conform to the church. He discarded the sacraments, even the Lord’s Supper. He interpreted Christ’s message to mean that he should labor among the down-trodden and the outcast. And his life, and his organization, leave no doubts as to his success. Calder says that there was no practical Savior in the world of his day like General Booth of the Salvation Army. He saved hosts of harlots and drunkards who could never sit in the same pews with so-called respectable society. But Oxford University gave him an honorary Doctor of Laws for his work.
These three men, though widely separated in creed and church and spheres of influence, were nevertheless eminently Christian according to the simple test: “What think ye of Christ?”
Jesus himself required no more complicated statement of belief than a whole-hearted, affirmative answer to such a question. When he wanted Peter for the work that was to be carried on after he left, he tested him with a single question, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” This question was thrice repeated and thrice answered, each time with increasing fervor. And Christ ordained Peter to the ministry of his church on the outcome of that simple examination.
“What think ye of Christ?” If any man would be for Christ, let him answer Christ’s question, “Lovest thou me?” “Yea Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.” And let him take up his burden and follow the Lord.
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Dates and places delivered:
Makawao Union church, August 18, 1929
Maui Association at Paia, September 19, 1929
Wailuku Union Church, September 22, 1929
Pukeli Japanese Quarterly meeting, young Peoples
meeting, September 22, 1929
Kahului Union Church, October 20, 1929
Congregational Church, Huron SD, May 15, 1932
Mokuleia Conference, October 25, 1932
Kahului Union Church, January 22, 1933
Puunene Japanese Church, June 11, 1933
Paia Japanese Church, June 25, 1933
Wananalua Church, Hana, September 16, 1934
Kahului Union Church, September 16, 1934
Puunene Hawaiian Church, December 2, 1934
Pilgrim Church, December 27, 1936 AM
Wisconsin Rapids, July 6, 1941