Now the two words which the Apostle employs here are both of them very
emphatic. 'His words were half battles,' was said about Luther. It may
be as truly said about Paul. And that word 'work' which he employs,
means, not work with one hand, or with a delicate forefinger, but it
means toil up to the verge of weariness. The notion of fatigue is
almost, I might say, uppermost in the word as it is used in the New
Testament. Some people like to 'labour' so as never to turn a hair, or
bring a sweat-drop on to their foreheads. That is not Christian
Endeavour. Work that does not 'take it out of you' is not worth doing.
The other word 'striving' brings up the picture of the arena with the
combatants' strain of muscle, their set teeth, their quick, short
breathing, their deadly struggle. That is Paul's notion of Endeavour.
Now 'Endeavour,' like a great many other words, has a baser and a nobler
side to it. Some people, when they say, 'I will endeavour,' mean that
they are going to try in a half-hearted way, with no prospect of
succeeding. That is not Christian Endeavour. The meaning of the
word--for the expression in my text might just as well be rendered
'endeavouring' as 'striving'--is that of a buoyant confident effort of
all the concentrated powers, with the certainty of success. That is the
endeavour that we have to cultivate as Christian men. And there is only
one field of human effort in which that absolute confidence that it
shall not be in vain is anything but presumptuous arrogance; namely, in
the effort after making ourselves what God means us to be, what Jesus
Christ longs for us to be, what the Spirit of God is given to us in
order that we should be. 'We shall _not_ fail,' ought to be the word of
every man and woman when they set themselves to the great task of
working out, in their own characters and personalities, the Divine
intention which is made a Divine possibility by the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ and the gift of the Divine Spirit.
So then what we come to is just this, dear brethren, if we are
Christians at all, we have to make a business of our religion; to go
about it as if we meant work. Ah! what a contrast there is between the
languid way in which Christian men pursue what the Bible designates
their 'calling' and that in which men with far paltrier aims pursue
theirs! And what a still sadder contrast there is between the way in
which we Christians go about our daily business, and the way in which we
go about our Christian life! Why, a man will take more pains to learn
some ornamental art, or some game, than he will ever take to make
himself a better Christian. The one is work. What is the other? To a
very large extent dawdling and make-believe.
You remember the old story,--it may raise a smile, but there should be a
deep thought below the smile,--of the little child that said as to his
father that 'he was a Christian, but he had not been working much at it
lately.' Do not laugh. It is a great deal too true of--I will not
venture to say what percentage of--the professing Christians of this
day. Work at your religion. That is the great lesson of my text.
Endeavour with confidence of success. The Book of Proverbs says: 'He
that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster,'
and that is true. A man that does 'the work of the Lord negligently' is
scarcely to be credited with doing it at all. Dear friends, young or
old, if you name the name of Christ, be in earnest, and make earnest
work of your Christian character.
And now may I venture two or three very plain exhortations? First, I
would say--if you mean to make your Christian life a piece of genuine
work and striving, the first thing that you have to do is to endeavour
in the direction of keeping its aim very clear before you. There are
many ways in which we may state the goal of the Christian life, but let
us put it now into the all-comprehensive form of likeness to Jesus
Christ, by entire conformity to His Example and full interpretation of
His life. I do not say 'Heaven'; I say 'Christ.'
That is our aim, the loftiest idea of development that any human spirit
can grasp, and rising high above a great many others which are noble but
incomplete. The Christian ideal is the greatest in the universe. There
is no other system of thought that paints man as he is, so darkly; there
is none that paints man as he is meant to be, in such radiant colours.
The blacks upon the palette of Christianity are blacker, and the whites
are whiter, and the golden is more radiant, than any other painter has
ever mixed. And so just because the aim which lies before the least and
lowest of us, possessing the most imperfect and rudimentary
Christianity, is so transcendent and lofty, it is hard to keep it clear
before our eyes, especially when all the shabby little necessities of
daily life come in to clutter up the foreground, and hide the great
distance. Men may live up at Darjeeling there on the heights for weeks,
and never see the Himalayas towering opposite. The lower hills are
clear; the peaks are wreathed in cloud. So the little aims, the nearer
purposes, stand out distinct and obtrusive, and force themselves, as it
were, upon our eyeballs, and the solemn white Throne of the Eternal away
across the marshy levels, is often hid, and it needs an effort for us to
keep it clear before us. One of the main reasons for much that is
unsatisfactory in the spiritual condition of the average Christian of
this day is precisely that he has not burning ever before him there, the
great aim to which he ought to be tending. So he gets loose and
diffused, and vague and uncertain. That is what Paul tells you when he
proposes himself as an example: 'So run I, not as uncertainly,' The man
who knows where he is running makes a bee-line for the goal. If he is
not sure of his destination, of course he zigzags. 'So fight I, not as
one that beateth the air'--if I see my antagonist I can hit him. If I do
not see him clearly I strike like a swordsman in the dark, at random,
and my sword comes back unstained. If you want to make the harbour, keep
the harbour lights always clear before you, or you will go yawing about,
and washing here and there, in the trough of the wave, and the tempest
will be your master. If you do not know where you are going you will
have to say, like the men in the old story in the Old Book, 'Thy servant
went no whither.' If you are going to endeavour, endeavour first to keep
the goal clear before you.
And endeavour next to keep up communion with Jesus Christ, which is the
secret of all peaceful and of all noble living. And endeavour next after
concentration. And what does that mean? It means that you have to detach
yourself from hindrances. It means that you have to prosecute the
Christian aim all through the common things of Christian life. If it
were not possible to be pursuing the great aim of likeness to Jesus
Christ, in the veriest secularities of the most insignificant and
trivial occupations, then it would be no use talking about that being
our aim. If we are not making ourselves more like Jesus Christ by the
way in which we handle our books, or our pen, or our loom, or our
scalpel, or our kitchen utensils, then there is little chance of our
ever making ourselves like Jesus Christ. For it is these trifles that
make life, and to concentrate ourselves on the pursuit of the Christian
aim is, in other words, to carry that Christian aim into every
triviality of our daily lives.
There are three Scripture passages which set forth various aspects of
the aim that we have before us, and from each of these aspects deduce
the one same lesson. The Apostle says 'giving all diligence, add to your
faith virtue,' etc., 'for if ye do these things ye shall never fail.' He
also exhorts: 'Give diligence to make your calling and election sure.'
And finally he says: 'Be diligent, that ye may be found of Him in peace,
without spot, blameless.' _There_ are three aspects of the Christian
course, and the Christian aim, the addition to our faith of all the
clustering graces and virtues and powers that can be hung upon it, like
jewels on the neck of a queen; the making our calling and election sure,
and the being found at last tranquil, spotless, stainless, and being
found so by Him. These great aims are incumbent on all Christians, they
require diligence, and ennoble the diligence which they require.
So, brethren, we have all to be Endeavourers if we are Christians, and
that to the very end of our lives. For our path is the only path on
which men tread that has for its goal an object so far off that it never
can be attained, so near that it can ever be approached. This infinite
goal of the Christian Endeavour means inspiration for youth, and
freshness for old age, and that man is happy who can say: 'Not as though
I had already attained' at the end of a long life, and can say it, not
because he has failed, but because in a measure he has succeeded. Other
courses of life are like the voyages of the old mariners which were
confined within the narrow limits of the Mediterranean, and steered from
headland to headland. But the Christian passes through the jaws of the
straits, and comes out on a boundless sunlit ocean where, though he sees
no land ahead, he knows there is a peaceful shore, beyond the western
waves. 'I work striving.'