So we pray that our life may prove responsive to these influences of the Pentecostal season. And the first response it gives is when it rises up in the consciousness of the Spirit of God as a living power in the heart, a power to drive out evil, and
to inspire and strengthen us for what is good.
And if, under the inspiring associations of this historic and holy day, you feel your soul touched with a new spirit or consciousness rising up in you from the grave of its own dead self to new desires and new thoughts, and a new sense of the living nearness of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, then you know—and you need no prophet to tell you—that the Pentecostal gift has not failed, and there is good hope that you will not spoil either your youth or your manhood with any form of ignoble life.
XIX. SANCTIFIED FOR SERVICE.
“We are labourers together with God; ye are God’s husbandry; ye are God’s building.”—1 Cor. iii. 9.
In this passage St. Paul is rebuking the Corinthians for that spirit of party which was dividing them into followers of this or that teacher and so destroying their unity in Christ. You do not belong, he says, to Paul or to Apollos; we have no claim upon you; ye are not to be called by our name: you are God’s husbandry, and God’s building, not ours; we are but labourers in His service and ministers for your good. Therefore, see to it that you live as one society in Christ Jesus, discarding all divisions, factions, and party passions and watchwords, imbued with one spirit. It is a noble exhortation to unity of life and purpose; but we may notice in it more than this.
As Paul himself disclaims all personal merit—as he presses it on their attention that neither is he that planteth anything nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase, he is unconsciously exhibiting to us an example of that rare humility which is characteristic of all the greatest and most effective workers; whilst in the vivid and expressive metaphors of my text—ye are God’s husbandry, God’s building—he makes us to feel the value and the dignity of each human soul.
It would be interesting to dwell on these calls to unity of life in Christ, and the close connection between such unity and the spirit of humility; in fact, we might say, the absolute necessity of the spirit of humility and self-forgetfulness in individuals if there is to be unity in the society. And we might apply the thoughts with much profit to our own social relations, for they are never out of date; but I desire to turn to-day to that which is suggested by these descriptive metaphors, the value and dignity of each human life.
St. Paul pressed it on these Corinthians that their souls were nothing less than the seed-field of which God Himself was the Husbandman, or the temple built by His hand; and they could hardly have listened to such language without being stirred to take care how they sowed in that field, or without feeling the consequent value of their life in the sight of God.
If they were thus the objects of the Divine care they could not be thought of as insignificant units in a crowded city; or as living an obscure life which was of no particular importance, as they might otherwise have been tempted to fancy, as we are still sometimes tempted to think about an individual life. This picture of each life amongst us in its relation to God, as His seed-field or His temple, is a continual reminder that where a human soul is concerned there is no such thing as insignificance or obscurity.