Christian Resources 6/4/44
Scripture: I Corinthians 3: 9-23
Text: I Corinthians 3: 21; “For all things are yours.”
I hope that those who have had the idea in the past that a Christian must renounce the world and all that is therein, and fold his hands to keep them out of mischief, may be forgiven and corrected. It must be said that there have been those, both in and out of the Christian church, who have entertained that impression. And certainly there have been a great many foolish prohibitions tacked on the Christian living in times past.
The early Wesleyamites prohibited the wearing of jewelry - at least many of them did. And many of them may have found that the absence of jewelry helped them to be wholesomely humble. But for anyone to say that the wearing of jewelry is unchristian, is foolish.
John Wesley, accompanied by a somewhat crude local preacher, was invited to dinner at the home of a wealthy sympathizer with Mr. Wesley’s work. Noticing that the daughter of the wealthy man was wearing a beautiful ring while seated at the dinner table, the local preacher seized her hand and held it for Mr. Wesley’s disapproval. “What do you think of this hand?” he asked. Mr. Wesley promptly rebuked his act and manner by saying, “I think that is a very beautiful hand.” Of course, Wesley knew that a mere rule is not always to be applied.
There have been prohibitions of theater-going, reading of novels, wearing of jewelry or colored clothing. I understand that there is a law in Texas prohibiting card playing. There are many people who still look upon monks and secluded nuns, like John the Baptist in the wilderness, as peculiarly holy. They forget that Jesus said of John the Baptist that the least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than he.
Some people have the idea that a minister can be described as one who renounces all except churchly interests and is mysteriously called to his work. This is neither true nor biblical. Every man and woman is called to some good task. We ought to be in this world’s swim, but not lost in it.
Some people ought to earn a great deal of money, of course not to hoard it, or misuse it, but to administer it wisely for the benefit of those who need and have some moral right to its benefit. Some people should wear rings, not for vanity, but for the beauty and joy that they can create.
The work of this world is not all hollow drudgery. Much of it has a splendid aim in view which the worker should see and by which he benefits. A story is told of three stone masons who were at work on part of a great cathedral. An inquisitive onlooker asked one of them what he was doing. “Why, can’t you see,” came the almost surly answer, “I’m cutting a stone.” In answer to the same question, the second one replied, “Don’t you understand, I am working for my wages.” The third mason, when questioned, deliberately looked over the rising walls of the beautiful structure and smilingly replied, “Why, I’m building a cathedral.” Is there any reason why excavator, mason, carpenter or architect should not all be thought of as builders of that cathedral?
By staying clear of the meaner kinds of worldliness while we work and play in this world we keep ourselves better fitted for the most satisfying kind of service. But if we become tainted with the dirt and scum and slime of life it is harder to keep our spirits up. It is said that there were many birds in years past in New York harbor, which are not found there now. The more recent use of fuel oil by the great ships has resulted in much dirty oil on the surface of the harbor. And the birds are said to have had their feathers soaked with it when they alighted on the water’s surface for their customary food. Then they could not fly again.
I think we find that one of the important considerations that differentiates a true Christian from a modern pagan is that he is in the world and its work - not separate from the world but in it - for the good that he can put into it rather than for the selfish loot that he can get out of it. He makes better use of his resources than the selfish person does. But for the most part he uses about the same kind of resources.
What are some of the Christian resources? Why truth is one of them. Not alone the particular truths discovered by Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Catholics; or by scientists, theologians, philosophers; but all truth. Truth is not to be copyrighted for it belongs to everyone to be put to good use. That particular body of truth known as modern science is one of the Christian resources. Science is really orderly and authenticated truth that has been discovered and can be tested by laboratory methods. To a thoughtful mind it does not undermine religion, as many have tried to tell us, but it enlightens and sometimes corrects our religious beliefs, thereby strengthening the spirit. President Butler of Columbia University once told a prominent clergyman that he had interviewed many of his leading science teachers and that they all agreed that they could not work without assuming that there was a God.
It has been my experience that the teachers who assume that science knocks religion out of consideration are the half-baked, two-by-four variety who have not yet attained any prominence among scientists. In the great universities, they may be found among the instructors, tutors and assistants, but almost never among the real heads of departments. The prominent men of science of today look toward religion with a kindly and faithful eye, though of course they may criticize questionable or erroneous beliefs. Man has a spiritual nature; and if that spiritual nature is not fed regularly a man becomes warped in his thinking, unsteady in his habits and lacking in moral courage.
Money is a Christian resource. We used to be told [in the words of a well-worn gospel quartet selection] that Heaven’s streets are paved with gold, and perhaps the idea was not a bad one. Gold is safe when it is under our feet supporting our weight. It is only when gold becomes an aim that it becomes dangerous.
One man wrote that “The fool is one who keeps his money in his heart instead of his head.” Another prayed, “Lord, give me a getting hand and a giving heart.” Early in his career, John Wesley lived one year on about $135. He consecrated himself to continue living on this budget and stuck pretty close to it throughout his life. He had a considerable income from the publication of his many writings so that he was able to give away during his lifetime more than $100,000 [which might perhaps be increased to $1,000,000 in terms of our monetary values of today.] His giving was not mere handouts, but was intelligent distribution of funds for the relief of particular suffering, founding institutions, homes and schools, and the like.
A young man wanted to go into mission work in Africa, but the doctors declared that his wife could not stand the climate and so he was rejected. Disappointed, he returned to his home determined to make all the money he could honorably earn, to be used in the work that he had personally longed to enter. His father was a dentist and had started on the side to make an unfermented wine for use in communion services. The young man took over the business and developed it until it became internationally known. His name was Welch, and his family still manufactures grape juice. He gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the work of missions.
Two brothers in New York went into partnership as bankers. One liked Sunday School work and resolved that when he had made $100,000 he would retire and give the rest of his life to Sunday School work. He did so and became one of America’s great Sunday School workers. When he died, he left very little money, and this record: (1) he had written many helpful books on the Sunday School; (2) he had influenced dozens of young people into Christian service; (3) his daughter became a great Christian worker among young people. His brother continued all his life in the banking business; it was his sole occupation. When he died he “left” $7,000,000. What good had it done him and his friends? And which of the brothers served the world best and left the greatest heritage?
At a certain young people’s institute, quite a large group of young people volunteered in answer to the challenge to Christian service, to dedicate their lives to Christian service as ministers, missionaries, and deaconesses. The man who had charge of the meeting noticed that there were quite a number of young people who looked dissatisfied and rather wistful. So he put the challenge to Christian service in a different form for them. “How many of you folks,” he said, “will dedicate yourselves to make all the money you can and to live on as little as you expect these other volunteers to live on and to give the rest to the advancement of God’s kingdom?” There were thirty-two young people who thus dedicated themselves! That kind of young people, grown mature, have seen to it that the church of their future was properly supported and backed.
An associate chief justice of Colorado told Christian F. Reisner, years ago, that some people had offered a vast rental for the finest business location in his city. But he added, “They want to open a saloon; my mother taught me to hate the liquor traffic and therefore they do not have enough money to hire it!” It is stewardship of money such as Christian men and women have showed, that helps to bring in the kingdom of God.
Business is a Christian resource. An owner of vast forests had made a fortune turning them into lumber. He retired so that he could take life easy. About that time, he was converted in a old-fashioned country church revival. Then he went right back to his business to make all he could for the work of the kingdom. During his lifetime, many notable movements were founded and maintained by his money.
John Wanamaker was originally a YMCA secretary, but came to feel that he could render greater service by going into business and making certain changes in business methods. He did so and tried his best to illustrate honesty practically in commercial transactions. He transformed the mercantile methods of this country with his “one price” rule. At the same time that he was doing this, he retained the leadership of a big Sunday School. When he went to Washington, DC as postmaster general, he returned regularly every week to help run that Sunday School. When he was past seventy years of age, he spent one hundred hours of a vacation in writing personal post cards to every member of his Men’s Bible Class.
The president of a great American corporation once told the story of his success in the following way: “I was peddling our produce with a horse and wagon,” he said, “and on Thursday morning I said, ‘Unless I can do better today, and the rest of the week, we shall be bankrupt by Saturday night.’ Thursday was the worst day I had had, and coming home I repeated the prediction of failure.” That very evening he had the clear-cut feeling that he was failing because he hadn’t taken God into partnership. Something about the way he was running the business was ungodly. Immediately he said, in prayerful language, “All right, Father, from this moment on, you shall be a partner in this firm!” This man asserts that from that day prosperity came, and continued. Years later he held national offices in Sunday School work, gave thousands of dollars to religious work through his own denomination, and gave more than one-third of his time to the work of the church and affiliated causes. When God is one’s silent powerful partner, there is no limit to his field of usefulness in the business field.
Politics is a Christian resource. Granted that a man has political ability, knowledge, and insight; who could possibly get a better vision of a harmonious and constructive social brotherhood than a spiritual follower of Jesus? At the beginning of his political career, Theodore Roosevelt said, “I mean to enter politics and show that it is possible to be a success at it while keeping clean in life and method.” And he gave the world a noteworthy demonstration of what he said he would do.
A blacksmith in Kansas City, who was an active member of a Methodist church, decided to enter the politics of his labor union. He first became secretary of his union and was later elected its president. By his leadership and influence, he managed to transform the attitude of that union toward consumption of liquor. Through his influence, scores of men changed their habits from heavy drinking to abstinence.
Life itself, as long as we have it here, is our greatest Christian resource. There used to be a foolish old saying that “the good die young.” And I am afraid that here and there some well-meaning Sunday School teacher tried to capitalize on the idea. A Sunday School teacher once asked a class of boys if they wanted to go to heaven. They knew what answer was expected, and all except one chimed “yes!” The one other boy had thought about the matter a little more than had his classmates. When the shocked teacher said, “Why, Rudy! Don’t you want to go to heaven?” He promptly answered, “Nope, not yet!” Most of us sympathize with that boy. Why should he want to leave this life? There are a lot of interesting and constructive things that can be done with a life.
Joy is one of the Christian resources. There may be a few people left who do not know that a solemn, long-jawed variety of religion is out of date. And though it may have had its vogue, that variety of religion was never really proper. David prayed, “Restore unto me the joy of salvation. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways and sinners shall be converted unto thee.” [Psalm 51: 12, 13]. Jesus said to his disciples, “I am come that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.” [John 15: 11].
Beauty is a Christian resource. John the Baptist lived in the lonely wilderness, but Jesus chose to travel through beautiful fields, on the blue inland sea of Galilee, to the temple, into the gardens. Beauty is being recognized as one of the Christian resources and there is now a concerted attempt to make the average church more beautiful within as well as without, to make the average factory more neat in grounds and appearance as well as more airy and efficient, to make the average farm house more attractive and cozy and to make the average city home in better architectural taste.
Courage is a Christian resource. Grenfell recounts an experience in which the northern ice broke through and dropped him into the icy water. He had very little clothing on when he clambered up on a cake of ice; some of his dogs climbed up with him. He killed a couple of them out of sheer necessity and wrapped their fresh skins around him, and then tied bones together and put a white rag on top of this improvised staff. Then he gathered the warm live dogs about him and, while the ice drifted out to sea, he lay down and went to sleep among the dogs, not knowing whether he awoke in this world or the next. [rescued next morning.]
He to whom a thing seems good, to him it can be made good. What good thing is not a Christian resource? We shall rightfully claim them all - truth, science, money, business, politics, life, joy, beauty, courage, love, present experiences, past experiences, hope, faith, confidence, trust - we do claim them all as ours.
100 years ago next Tuesday, on June 6, 1844, the Young Men’s Christian Association was founded. Hundreds of thousands of young, and older, men have found that organization one of the effective channels for the introduction into wholesome, Christian activity. There are resources without limit, and channels almost without number, for the man or woman who is willing to give of self, as well as to receive from his world.
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Dates and places delivered:
Kahului Union Church, October 19, 1930
Paia Japanese Church, November 2, 1930
Korean M. E. Church, November 2, 1930
Wailuku Union Church, November 16, 1930
Puunene Japanese Church, December 14, 1930
Wailuku Japanese Church, December 14, 1930
Puunene Filipino Church, September 13, 1931
Kahului Union Church, May 21, 1933
Haiku Japanese Church, July 23, 1933
Puunene Hawaiian Church, July 20, 19[35]
Puunene Hawaiian Church, May 10 1936
Pilgrim Church, Honolulu, September 20, 1936 PM
Wisconsin Rapids, June 4, 1944