'Labourers together with God.' Cannot He do it all Himself? No. God
needs men to carry out His purposes. True, on the Cross, Jesus spoke
the triumphant word, 'It is finished!' He did not thereby simply mean
that He had completed all His suffering; but He meant that He had
then done all which the world needed to have done in order that it
should be a redeemed world. But for the distribution and application
of that finished work God depends on men. You all know, in your own
daily businesses, how there must be a middleman between the mill and
the consumer. The question of organising a distributing agency is
quite as important as any other part of the manufacturer's business.
The great reservoir is full, but there has to be a system of
irrigating-channels by which the water is carried into every corner
of the field that is to be watered. Christian men individually, and
the Church collectively, supply--may I call it the missing
link?--between a redeeming Saviour and the world which He has
redeemed in act, but which is not actually redeemed, until it has
received the message of the great Redemption that is wrought. The
supernatural is implanted in the very heart of the mass of leaven by
the Incarnation and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; but the spreading of
that supernatural revelation is left in the hands of men who work
through natural processes, and who thus become labourers together
with God, and enable Christ to be to single souls, in blessed
reality, what He is potentially to the world, and has been ever
since. He died upon the Cross. 'It is finished.' Yes--because it is
finished, our work begins.
Let me remind you of the profound symbolism in that incident where
our Lord for once appeared conspicuously, and almost ostentatiously,
before Israel as its true King. He had need--as He Himself said--of
the meek beast on which He rode. He cannot pass, in His coronation
procession, through the world unless He has us, by whom He may be
carried into every corner of the earth. So 'the Lord has need' of us,
and we are 'fellow-labourers with Him.'
But this same thought suggests another point. We have here a solemn
call addressed to every Christian man and woman.
Do not let us run away with the idea that, because here the Apostle
is speaking in regard to himself and Apollos, he is enunciating a
truth which applies only to Apostles and evangelists. It is true of
all Christians. My knowledge of and faith in Jesus Christ as my own
personal Saviour impose upon me the obligation, in so far as my
opportunities and capacities extend, thus to co-operate with Him in
spreading His great Name. Every Christian man, just because he is a
Christian, is invested with the power--and power to its last particle
is duty--and is, therefore, burdened with the honourable obligation
to work for God. There is such a thing as 'coming to the help of the
Lord,' though that phrase seems to reverse altogether the true
relation. It is the duty of every Christian, partly because of
loyalty to Jesus, and partly because of the responsibility which the
very constitution of society lays upon every one of us, to diffuse
what he possesses, and to be a distributing agent for the life that
he himself enjoys. Brethren! there is no possibility of Christian men
or women being fully faithful to the Saviour, unless they recognise
that the duty of being a fellow-labourer with God inevitably follows
on being a possessor of Christ's salvation; and that no Apostle, no
official, no minister, no missionary, has any more necessity laid
upon him to preach the Gospel, nor pulls down any heavier woe on
himself if he is unfaithful, than has and does each one of Christ's
servants.
So 'we are fellow-labourers with God.' Alas! alas! how poorly the
average Christian realises--I do not say discharges, but
realises--that obligation! Brethren, I do not wish to find fault, but
I do beseech you to ask yourselves whether, if you are Christians,
you are doing anything the least like what my text contemplates as
the duty of all Christians.
May I say a word or two with regard to another aspect of this solemn
call? Does not the thought of working along with God prescribe for us
the sort of work that we ought to do? We ought to work in God's
fashion, and if we wish to know what God's fashion is, we have but to
look at Jesus Christ. We ought to work in Jesus Christ's fashion. We
all know what that involved of self-sacrifice, of pain, of weariness,
of utter self-oblivious devotion, of gentleness, of tenderness,
of infinite pity, of love running over. 'The master's eye makes a good
servant.' The Master's hand working along with the servant ought to
make the servant work after the Master's fashion. 'As My Father hath
sent Me, so send I you.' If we felt that side by side with us, like
two sailors hauling on one rope, 'the Servant of the Lord' was
toiling, do you not think it would burn up all our selfishness, and
light up all our indifference, and make us spend ourselves in His
service? A fellow-labourer with God will surely never be lazy and
selfish. Thus my text has in it, to begin with, a solemn call.