We Believe in These Things 12/8/46
Scripture: Isaiah 51: 9-17a
Text: Isaiah 51: 9a; “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old.”
There is an exhilaration that comes with the annual expression of intention to support the work of our church! All during the year, and through the years, we gather here as a congregation to worship- to sing our praises, to lift our prayers, to hear the Word, to find an interpretation of the good. Here we seek the presence of the living God.
From time to time, we bring our children for baptism into the faith and care of the church. Those who desire to unite in the fellowship are received into our membership. Here young people repeat their sacred marriage vows, and hither come the sorrowing and bereaved for comfort.
It is all a part of our vital, living worship of God; and out of this worship we take our direction in living, far more than we realize. For Christian is like life in a flower, like breath in a bird. Worship is an indispensable spring to all our living.
We gather here for fellowship with each other in this Christian bond of fraternity- the youth in the Sunday Evening Club; husbands and wives in the Ark; women in the Association and its circles; men in the new Men’s club. As we share in the worship, work and pleasure of the church, we feel closer to the church and love its fellowship more.
We carry on here a program of Christian teaching. Our children meet for weekly study in the church school, in the young peoples’ groups, in the pastor’s preparatory class before Easter.
Adult groups give thought to programs of learning, too. Boys and girls are led in practical expressions of good living in the scouting programs sponsored here. Children join in the Union Daily Vacation Bible school sessions of the summer. Our church school is good and we expect to make it constantly better.
From this church, stemming from worship, fellowship and teaching, we reach out in service to others, through the missionary agencies of the Congregational churches. For no Christian lives to himself alone. Christianity’s strength lies in the spending of itself, the sharing, the giving of self.
Once a year, we give our attention in consecrated and business-like fashion, to the organized support of these things we believe in. We must have a place of worship. It must be kept in constant order and repair. Here we have (1) a ministry of preaching, pastoral care, and leadership; (2) a ministry of music; (3) a ministry of care and maintenance.
And we gladly subscribe our support to these functions with the feeling that we would not have our house of worship for nothing. Do you remember the story of how King David wanted to build an altar; and to worship God with the sacrifices usual in his time? He wanted to build it on a certain flat space that belonged to a man in his kingdom named Araunah. The man used the space for a threshing floor, but he offered to give it to the king. David, with a fine sense of the fitness of things, refused Araunah’s offer. And he said, “I will not offer unto the Lord my God of that which cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor, and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver. There he built an altar and sacrificed and worshipped, and there his son and successor on the throne, Solomon, began to build a temple. We have some of the same satisfaction that King David had, in worshipping God with that which cost us something.
Further, we of this church are not satisfied to try to live unto ourselves. For we are a part of a greater fellowship which has a concern for the peoples of the whole world. Through the years, the people of our churches have thought of others, with action and effect.
Early in the 19th century, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was established to stand behind the consecrated, practical people who went to foreign areas with the gospel for peoples’ souls, minds, bodies, and fields. The Board has done a tremendous job with the contributions of Christian laymen.
Do you know what a statistical summary for 1944 showed? The churches founded by this missionary endeavor in many countries, 687 of those churches now, have 41 and one-half million parishioners. More than a thousand schools, half a hundred high schools and 8 colleges in foreign lands owe their existence and service to our missionary effort! We do not pay for all of them, but they began with Congregational support and continue with our help. Likewise 23 hospitals and 76 social centers. Through the century and more of its service, the Board has commissioned more than 4600 men and women for Christian service in foreign fields as ministers, teachers, physicians, agricultural advisors, nurses, social workers, and so on through the list of occupations for practical Christian service. It is a privilege to give, through our benevolences, to the continuation of this work. There are competent, trained young people who want to do the work. Let’s continue sending them!
At the same time a great work goes on at home within our nation. About a hundred years ago the sailing ship Amistad was sailing from Havana with 54 Africans in the hold. Somehow, on the 4th night out, the Negroes managed a meeting, killed the captain and cook, permitted most of the crew to escape in boats, and forced the two Spanish slave owners to turn about and sail toward Africa. But the Spaniards fooled the Negroes. Sailing slowly east by day, they brought the ship about and sailed swiftly each night in the direction of the North American coast. At length they reached it after about 60 days; the mutineers were arrested and imprisoned and put on trial. Feeling ran high. To the defense of the slaves came many people from all walks of life, among them Arthur Tappan, a young silk merchant. “Don’t do it,” pleaded a friend of Tappan. “It will ruin your business.” To which Tappan replied, “My business is for sale - but not my conscience.” Out of Tappan’s efforts to defend, free and educate these slaves who struggled to be free again, grew the American Missionary Association, now beginning a second century of service in the cause of human brotherhood in our country. The American Missionary Association is one of a long list of agencies grouped together in our Board of Home Missions.
All of the Mission work of our fellowship - foreign work, national work, and state work needs increased giving for post-war emergency needs. That is why we feel that our benevolence budget item must remain a strong one.
Now what of the work of the Committee on War Victims and Reconstruction? For a couple of years now we have asked our canvassers to present to you a special opportunity for gifts to this work at the same time we are asked to subscribe our own budget. This is the committee through which our churches seek to provide some relief, through church channels, to the victims of war; to reconstruct church life by keeping congregations together until they can rebuild churches and stand on their own feet; to provide a special ministry to our own returned service men at educational centers. The relief item alone is more acute than ever. UNRR is gradually withdrawing after this month. Meanwhile, despite bumper crops in the great grain-producing countries, the world’s carry-over of grain is 450 millions of bushels less than that of last year. People are going to die of starvation, lack of food and shelter. Perhaps we can’t prevent all of this suffering and despair, but we can help where our representatives are on the field. And the help is more than just handing out a bit of food. It is given in the working out of new low cost diet features, and otherwise helping people to help themselves.
The needs are so great that we are asked to give enough to average $2.00 per member for this special work. If we can increase our gifts in this church from about $900.00 this year to $1200 for next year our officers feel that we shall meet our share of this great work. Let’s do it!
How much shall I give? What should you give? Well, what do we want to give? This is spiritual business! We hold in our hands the keys of the Kingdom. We are stewards of all that we possess in trust for the uses of God, intended for us and others. The most satisfying policy in giving is to set aside a definite amount of one’s income for giving, and then have the fun of spending it for that. It is always fun to spend, and most fun when the spending has been planned and when it is worthy.
I call you with all earnestness to remember that, with all the darkness and storm of the world, it is morning again! There is a structure of human fellowship to be repaired and rebuilt after the hurricane of fear and hate and destruction. Voices call out of their hunger and loneliness, “Come over and help us.” Christ calls us to the work of restoration, reconciliation and regeneration. He has no hands or feet to do his bidding but ours. You and I are the arm of the Lord!
“Awake, awake. Put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old.”
This is morning of another day. Let us arise and be about these things in which we believe.
Prayer: Grant, O Lord, that what we do may be done with joy and heartiness as unto thee. Amen.
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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, December 8, 1946