'I seek . . . you'; not only for My love, but for My tools; for My
instruments in carrying out the purposes for which I died, and
establishing My dominion in the world. Now I want to say two or three
very plain things about this matter, which lies very near my heart, as
to some degree responsible for the amount of Christian activity and
service in this my congregation. Brethren, the surrender of ourselves to
Jesus Christ in acts of direct Christian activity and service, will be
the outcome of a real surrender of ourselves to Him in love and
obedience.
I cannot imagine a man who, in any deep sense, has realised his
obligations to that Saviour, and in any real sense has made the great
act of self-renunciation, and crowned Christ as his Lord, living for the
rest of his life, as so many professing Christians do, dumb and idle, in
so far as work for the Master is concerned. It seems to me that, among
the many wants of this generation of professing Christians, there is
none that is more needed than that a wave of new consecration should
pass over the Church. If men who call themselves Christians lived more
in habitual contact with the facts of their redeeming Saviour's
sacrifice for them, there would be no need to lament the fewness of the
labourers, as measured against the overwhelming multitude of the fields
that are white to harvest. If once that flood of a new sense of Christ's
gift, and a consequent new completeness of our returned gifts to Him,
flowed over the churches, then all the little empty ravines would be
filled with a flashing tide. Not a shuttle moves, not a spindle
revolves, until the strong impulse born of fire rushes in; and then, all
is activity. It is no use to flog, flog, flog, at idle Christians, and
try to make them work. There is only one thing that will set them to
work, and that is that they shall live nearer their Master, and find out
more of what they owe to Him; and so render themselves up to be His
instruments for any purpose for which He may choose to use them.
This surrender of ourselves for direct Christian service is the only
solution of the problem of how to win the world for Jesus Christ.
Professionals cannot do it. Men of my class cannot do it. We are clogged
very largely by the fact that, being necessarily dependent on our
congregations for a living, we cannot, with as clear an emphasis as you
can, go to people and say, 'We seek not yours, but you.' I have nothing
to say about the present ecclesiastical arrangements of modern Christian
communities. That would take me altogether from my present purposes, but
I want to lay this upon your consciences, dear brethren, that you who
have other means of living than proclaiming Christ's name have an
advantage, which it is at your peril that you fling away. As long as the
Christian Church thought that an ordained priest was a man who could do
things that laymen could not do, the limitation of Christian service to
the priesthood was logical. But when the Christian Church, especially as
represented by us Nonconformists, came to believe that a minister was
only a man who preached the Gospel, which every Christian man is bound
to do, the limitations of Christian service to the official class became
an illogical survival, utterly incongruous with the fundamental
principles of our conception of the Christian Church. And yet here it
is, devastating our churches to-day, and making hundreds of good people
perfectly comfortable, in an unscriptural and unchristian indolence,
because, forsooth, it is the minister's business to preach the Gospel. I
know that there is not nearly as much of that indolence as there used to
be. Thank God for that. There are far more among our congregations than
in former times who have realised the fact that it is _every_ Christian
man's task, somehow or other, to set forth the great name of Jesus
Christ. But still, alas, in a church with, say, 400 members, you may
knock off the last cypher, and you will get a probably not too low
statement of the number of people in it who have realised and fulfilled
this obligation. What about the other 360 'dumb dogs, that will not
bark'? And in that 360 there will probably be several men who can make
speeches on political platforms, and in scientific lecture-halls, and
about social and economical questions, only they cannot, for the life of
them, open their mouths and say a word to a soul about Him whom they say
they serve, and to whom they say they belong.
Brethren, this direct service cannot be escaped from, or commuted by a
money payment. In the old days a man used to escape serving in the
militia if he found a substitute, and paid for him. There are a great
many good Christian people who seem to think that Christ's army is
recruited on that principle. But it is a mistake. 'I seek you, not
yours.'