A Forward-Moving Church                                                   9/13/42

 

Scripture : Ephesians 4: 1-8, 11-17   (Read)

 

Everyone likes to belong to a going concern!  If you belong to a club you want to see it doing things.  When you enter a business enterprise you want to see it accomplishing its purpose of giving, for fair return, fair services to enough people, so that the bookkeeper’s figures in black ink will show a thriving concern.  I suppose that most people enjoy the years when their own political party is in the ascendancy, particularly if its work and policies seem to be accomplishing much for the common good.

 

It is natural that we who are in the church expect it to be a going concern.  We want to have the sense of moving forward with it.  It is a part of our faith that the fellowship which we call our church, so long as it is at all an instrument of the Divine expression, will move ahead in positive fashion year by year.

 

Now as to the part of Divine Righteousness in the church, I have no doubt.  All the resources of God are available on the side of those who wish, with singleness of purpose, to do positive right.  But God has a curious way of using man for the promotion of His ends in this world.  And so we have to concern ourselves with our duties in the great partnership between the human and the Divine.  The progress of the church depends, in great part, upon what we believe, what we have thought through, what we are willing and ready to do through the church.

 

The church is not, of course, an end in itself.  We are sometimes tempted to judge the church by numbers.  How many people are in a church school class?  How many joined the church during the year and what is the total membership?  If the church were an end in itself, we would have to be concerned primarily with numbers, for would not the church of the largest membership and greatest numbers in its various organizations be the best and most successful?  But the church is not an end in itself and therefore the numerical standard of judging it is false.  Numbers are merely a symptom like the symptoms by which a doctor begins his search for the fundamentals of our state of health.

 

A church truly justifies itself in the light of its aims, and the degree to which it is able to accomplish those aims.  And what are some of the church’s aims?  There are schools whose definite aim is to train people to make a living in certain ways.  Some vocational and trade schools aim to increase the manual skill of those who study there.  Business colleges train people to make a living in the various branches of commerce.  Agricultural schools help people to make their living through a better understanding of the cultivation of food crops.  But to make a living is not the primary aim of the church.  As a lay member of a church said to me more than once, “the Church is interested in making lives!”

 

There have been times when the church has had, properly, to be concerned with making a living in order to make lives.  The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions definitely commissioned those first sent to the shores of the Sandwich Islands to help the native people there to “make their fields green.”  Father Bond of Kohala started a sugar Plantation for the avowed purpose of enabling people there to make a good living, thereby reducing the temptation to go to the city where so many lives were being ruined.

 

The church is rightly concerned with the whole field of economic justice, in general and in particular, because the ability of people to live has a bearing on their life.  But the ultimate aim of the church and its greatest concern is not the making of a living but the making of a life! -  many lives!

 

The church is made up of people who have faith in Something greater than mere human ability.  Believing in the need of man for a better acquaintance with this Greater-than-self, we are engaged in the effort to know more of the experience of God in the lives of men.  That is what our Bible study is for.  We are engaged in the effort to know God better for ourselves.  That is what our worship is for.  The is one of the reasons why we pray.  We are tremendously interested in the grace of God for ourselves - because it makes a world of difference to us - and for others.  For we have a desire to share with others what is precious to ourselves.  This concern with the Kingdom of God in the hearts of men is the first requisite of a forward-moving church.  Without it a church might as well give way to other, and often more efficient, secular agencies.  The church’s concern with the Kingdom of God is its very reason for being and is the source of its effective expression.

 

Now, of course, the organized fellowship of the church moves forward with the practical devotion of its members.  A “going” church is one whose members take their membership in earnest, whose faith is a faith at work.  Church members have expressed their faith in God and promised to follow Christ as the best known example of what God means.  People who have seriously made that promise will want to live so that “men may see their good works and glorify their Father which is in heaven.”  Jesus Christ said of people, “By their fruits ye shall know them.”  And the members of his church desire to live so that the evident fruits of their lives will be good.  Church members are rightly expected, by Christian and non-Christian alike, to lead clean, honest, sober, upright lives.  They are expected, rightly, not to lie, swear, steal, hate, lust or to debauch themselves, or others.  Naturally we won’t be guilty of these things if we are concerned with the Kingdom of God in the lives of people.

 

The forward-moving church is one where others - people of all sorts and conditions - are welcomed.  If our church is to be considered a forward-moving church, it will be one where anyone who has in common with us a faithful concern for the Kingdom of God and a willingness to work for it will be welcome.  It is a part of our faith, that we share it eagerly with others.  We shall invite others and try to persuade others to join in this fellowship as a testimony of our own love for Christ.

 

Look at any church that seems evidently to be “on the move” and you will find it a church of serving people.  The desire to serve, I am convinced, is also an expression of the Kingdom of God.  Any forward-moving church will be found to have a working, giving membership.  Here I mean not the giving of mere surpluses.  It is relatively easy to say, “Well I’ve got an extra dollar or two this week, guess I’ll give it to a church or something.”  or  “I have plenty of time on my hands; maybe I can do something over at the church, if nothing else turns up.”

 

Churches and lives are built out of sterner stuff than that!  Churches are moved ahead and lives are disciplined and built on a more personal type of giving.  When you and I believe so thoroughly in the work of the church as an effort to realize the Kingdom of God, we deliberately set aside time to attend its worship and take part in its work.  We deliberately set aside a portion of our money and dedicate it to the work of the church.  These gifts of time and effort and substance often represent the sacrifice of something else that the selfish side of our nature might want very much.  We do not have to look outside the membership of our own church to see the effect of a liberal amount of one person’s time given to the boys of the church and community.  We do not need to look further than our church school to realize what it means to have teachers giving time and preparation regularly and sacrificially to the work of educating us and our children in the religion of Jesus Christ.  The worship service of every Sunday morning is enriched by the personal, faithful time-consuming devotion of those who prepare themselves to lead in our music.  And so it goes.  The more a people are willing to sacrifice for a great cause, the greater will be the progress in that cause.

 

I can not close this brief consideration of the forward-moving church without reference to the necessity for looking ahead.  We pray for guidance.  That prayer is answered best when we are ready to look ahead.  Only those who are blind of necessity can be satisfied to be blindly led.

 

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  And human experience testifies over and over again to the success of vision-inspired people!  They are leaders!

 

As an organization of Kingdom-loving people we must take the time to look ahead and plan deliberately the course along which we seem to be led.  This is necessary for our church in the months just ahead.  In order to know how best we may serve in promoting the Kingdom of God we must now again take stock of our selves, our neighbors, our friends in service, our mission to the community, our duty to God, and plan the policies by which we expect our church to go forward during this year.  May our “old men dream dreams and our young men see visions” and vice versa.  May others desire and be invited to join with us.  May our church find a finer field of service in the Kingdom than ever before.  This is our prayer, and it will be heard if we stand ready to be used of God in the answering.

 

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dates and places delivered:

 

            Pilgrim Church, Honolulu, March 26, 1939  AM

            Wisconsin Rapids, September 13, 1942