Irresistible discipleship - Chambers, Oswald
Talk given at Sunday worship service, family and YMCA workers , zeitoun camp near Cairo, Egypt. June 18, 1916
Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. (1 Corinthians 16:13
By a disciple we mean one who continues to be concentrated on our lord. Concentration is of much more value than consecration, because consecration is apt to end in mere religious sentiment. Concentration is the gist of the sermon on the mountbe carefully careless about everything saving your relationship to me, our lord says.
Irresistible, not in the sense of being exquisitely charming, or of being irresistible in war, but irresistible in the sense of not being deflected.
The practice of alert detachment watch ye . . .
There is a detachment that is fanatical. Detachment without discretion is delusive, so when the new testament uses the term watch (and the new testament has a great deal to say about watching), it means an alert detachment which comes from a dis- creet understanding of the lords will (see Romans 12:12).
One continually finds an encroachment of beliefs and of attachment to things which is so much spiritual overloading. Every now and again the spirit of god calls on us to take a spiritual stock-taking in order to see what beliefs we can do without. The things our lord asks us to believe are remarkably few, and john 14:1 seems to sum them up ye believe in god, believe also in me. We have to keep ourselves alertly detached from everything that would encroach on that belief; we all have intellectual and affection- ate affinities that keep us detached from Jesus Christ instead of attached to him. We have to maintain an alert spiritual fighting trim.
Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us (Hebrews 12:1). This does not refer to indwelling sin, but to the spirit of the age, literally the sin which doth closely cling to us, or which is admired of many, the thing that hinders us in running and keeps us attached. We have to see that we run alertly and run watching, run with patience, continually readjusting ourselves and determinedly holding loosely to all other things. Detachment without discretion leads us astray, but detachment with the discretion that is able to discern the lords will in daily occurrences will make us
The practice of attentive decisiveness
stand fast in the faith . . .
We hear a great deal about decision of character; in irresistible discipleship we have to learn an attentive decisiveness. There is a decisiveness that is destructive, a pig-headed decisiveness that decides without deliberation. Stand fast in the faith gives the idea of deliberate attentive decisivenessi will take the time to go through the drill in order to understand what it means to stand fast (cf. Ephesians 6:13). It is a great deal easier to fight than to stand, but Paul says our conflict is not so much a fight as a standing on guard. Our lord requires us to believe very few things, because the nature of belief is not mathematical, but something that must be tested, and there are a number of insidious things that work against our faith. A famous preacher once said he found in his actual circumstances he did not believe half so much as he did when he was preaching. He meant he found it difficult to stand fast in the faith in daily circumstances.
It is possible to preach and to encourage our own souls and to appear to have a very strong faith, while in actual circumstances we do not stand fast at all, but rather prove what herbert spencer said to be true. Herbert spencer said people were trained to think like pagans six days a week and like Christians the remaining day; consequently in the actual things of life we decide as pagans, not as Christians at all. The way of irresistible discipleship is to practise not only alert detachment, but also attentive decisiveness; after having deliberated on the relationship of our faith to certain things, we decide. Jesus said that the holy spirit would bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever i have said unto you. We hear some word of our lords and it sinks into the unconscious mind; then we come into certain circumstances and the holy spirit suddenly brings back that word to our conscious minds. Are we going to obey our lord in that particular, or take the ordinary common-sense way of moral decisiveness? Are we going to stand fast in the faith, or take the easier way of decision with- out deliberation? To think along this line will give the death blow to the dangerous method of making 8 irresistible discipleship talk given at Sunday worship service, family and YMCA workers , zeitoun camp near Cairo, Egypt. June 18, 1916
Principles out of our lords statements. To do that we do not need to maintain a detached life with him; all we need is, to gain an intellectual grasp of his principles and endeavour to live our life in accordance with them. We can never tell how we shall have to decide in certain circumstances, but we have to see that we stand fast in the faith. We know what the faith is when we have gone through with god in any par- ticular. The faith is faith in the redemption and in the indwelling spirit of god; faith that god is love, and that he will see after us if we stand steadfast to our confidence in him. It is easy to stand fast in the big things, but very difficult in the small things. If we do stand fast in faith in him we shall become irresistible disciples.
The practice of comprehending determination
quit you like men . . .
When we are children we are impulsive. Impulsive- ness grows up with us from childhoods state; we do not quit ourselves like men. If we have been in the habit of discerning the lords will and love and have to decide on the spur of the moment, our determination will be comprehending, that is, we shall decide not from the point of view of self-interest, or because of the good of a cause, but entirely from our lords point of view.
One of the finest characteristics of a noble humanity is that of mature patience, not that of impulsive action. It is easy to be determined, and the curious thing is that the more small-minded a man is the more easily he makes up his mind. If he can- not see the various sides of a question, he decides by the ox-like quality of obstinacy. Obstinacy simply means will not allow any discernment in this matter; i refuse to be enlightened. We wrongly call this strong-mindedness. Strength of mind is the whole man active, not discernment merely from an individual standpoint. The determination in a disciple is a comprehending one. For i determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified, says Paul.
The practice of actual dependability .
. . Be strong.
We can depend on the man or woman who has been disciplined in character, and we become strong in their strength. When we depend on someone who has had no discipline, we both degenerate. We are always in danger of depending on people who are undisciplined, and the consequence is that in the actual strain of life they break down and we do too. We have to be actually dependable.
When we are young a hurricane or thunderstorm impresses us as being very powerful, yet the strength of a rock is infinitely greater than that of a hurricane. The same is true with regard to discipleship. The strength there is not the strength of activity but the strength of being. Activity may be a disease of weariness, or of degeneration; to be dependable means to be strong in the sense of disciplined reliability. To convey stayability is the work of the spirit of god, not the product of convincing controversy.
These considerations convey the characteristics that the apostle wanted the Corinthian Christians to develop in themselves. If we keep practising, what we practise becomes our second nature, then in a crisis and in the details of life we shall find that not only will the grace of god stand by us, but also our own nature. Whereas if we refuse to practise, it is not gods grace but our own nature that fails when the crisis comes, because we have not been practising in actual life. We may ask god to help us but he can- not, unless we have made our nature our ally. The practising is ours, not gods. He puts the holy spirit into us, he regenerates us, and puts us in contact with all his divine resources, but he cannot make us walk and decide in the way he wants; we must do that ourselves. Paul says i do not frustrate [i. E. , make void, RV ] the grace of god.