982
THE KING’S BUSINESS
put it in -'his own words “That I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.” | THE MISSIONARY IDEA This involved the thing he speaks of in Romans 15:20. He was ambitious “to preach the Gospel ” and especially to preach it where Christ had not already been named. In other words he was ambitious to be a preacher and a foreign missionary. There was no other way in which he could serve his day and generation so well. By* abandoning himself to God to be poured out as an interpretation of the truth that he so magnificently experienced in his own life, he realized his own life at its best and rendered the greatest possible service to the church and the world for all time. That ambition was infinitely worth while and worthy of the greatest of men. It is a question in my mind as to whether Paul would have been heard of beyond his gen eration had he not made God, truth, and his fellows the aim’of his life. In abandon ing his life to God for others he found himself in a sublime influence that has gripped the heart of the generations. Yet we fear that the aim of his ambi tion is not a popular one in our day. The most of people are not particularly ambi tious to be preachers and especially for eign missionaries. The majority of Chris tian fathers and mothers, when they dream great dreams concerning the future of their boys, do not class the calling of the min istry as one of the great challenges of bur day to a great life. There may be a good reason for this. The calling has been degraded into a mere profession and fre quently sought for its social advantages. Parents cannot be particularly blamed for not being ambitious to have their boys mere ecclesiastical flunkeys, performing the little formal duties of a church that is lit tle more than a social club. Of all the drudgery in life there is none more humiliating and galling than the drudgery of a mere professional minister whose whole aim in life is to be popular with his people—the man who is more
anxious to know what the people like, than he is to know what God would have him say. But that is not the kind of thing Paul had in mind when he Said that he was ambitious to preach the Gospel. He was ambitious to make known to men the real ities of God that he experienced in his own life. They were so real to him and their power in his life was sq great that he lit erally burned to tell others about them. He felt the throbbing life and freedom that came to him when he was made free from the law of $in and death by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and he felt that the only thing that was infinitely worth while was the making of that expe rience real in the life of the world. Preach ing, to him,'.was not mere talking in smooth, xeloquent words, and cleverly- turned phrases, but the living and experi encing of Christ in his own life, and mak ing Him real to the men of his day—that is an ambition worthy of the greatest man hood and womanhood. There is nothing that is more needed in this acute crisis in the life of the church and the world than this very thing—men and women who have a living experience of Jesus Christ and can make the deep realities for which He stands, real to the men with whom they come in contact. Nothing in human experience gives a greater opportunity for truly great living. It is - a challenge that is worthy of the biggest and the truest men and women of our age, and it is the solemn duty of Chris tian fathers and mothers to make this clear to their children. They ought to so live and teach as to make their children con-' stantly feel that the ministry, instead of being a calling for weak and second-rate men, is by far the first and greatest chal lenge to great manhood and womanhood. It is not a call to make a lot of money, but it is a challenge to great living and to the most sublime service possible in this life. This is a very much worth-while- ambition. We opened this study with a picture of
Made with FlippingBook Annual report