^ Christian prayer is earnest and believing, but it asks for blessings in accordance with the will of the Father. It means good, not harm, for our neighbours as for ourselves ; it means bringing ourselves into harmony with the laws of health and right living ; it means using to the utmost all the strength and energy that God has put into our hands to bring about the result that we pray for. We cannot pray for food and expect the ravens to bring it to us, like one misguided man whom I met some years ago. He excused himself from work and lived on charity or the small earnings of his wife, on the plea that the Bible commands us to take no thought for the morrow. Prayer means not the halting of effort, but its spur. We cannot ask for peace, and give way at the first provocation to ill-temper and irritability. We cannot pray for unselfishness, and refuse the opportunity to practise it. We cannot pray for success, and expect to achieve it without work. Prayer gives us the assurance that behind our effort is infinite strength, but that effort must measure the best that we have of will, energy, and intelligence. We must bring the inspiration of our ideals into daily living.^
We doubt the word that tells us: Ask,
And ye shall have your prayer ; We turn our thoughts as to a task,
With will constrained and rare.
And yet we have; these scanty prayers
Yield gold without alloy : 0 God, but he that trusts and dares
Must have a boundless joy ! ^
^ S, Fallows, Health and Happiness, 12.
2 George MiicDonald, "Organ Songs" {Poetical Works, ii. 292).
The Indwelling Word.
sn
LITERATURE.
Binney (T.), Sermons in King's Weigh-House Ghapel, 1st Ser., 214.
Dixon (A. C), The Person and Ministry of the Holy Spirit, 118.
Gibbons (J.), Discourses and Sermons, 97.
Gregg (J.), Sermons Preached in Trinity Church, Dublin, ii. 131.
Hamilton (J.), Works, ii. 419.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Colossians and Philemon, 320.
Nicoll (W. R-X Ten-Minute Sermons, 259.
Plumptre (E. H.), Theology and Life, 115.
Ridgeway (C. J.), The King and His Kingdom, 101.
Sadler (M. F.), Sermon Outlines, 19.
Sauter (B.), The Sunday Epistles, 88.
Christian World Pulpit, xxix. 302 (Kegliead) ; 1. 218 (Davidson) ; Ixxi.
11 (Chad wick). Cliurchman's Pulpit: Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, iv. 182
(Carruthers).
5iB
The Indwelling Word.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.— Col. iii. i6. We used to read when we were children about the magician's wand which was waved over the hill-side, and the hill-side opened and disclosed caves full of treasures. Here is a text which misht open before us as regards the origin of character and life just such a wealth of unsuspected treasure ; or, rather, it might be like that hard rock from which, smitten by Moses at the command of God, there trickled, then poured, then gushed, and then flowed like a river, water which satisfied the thirst of rebellious and murmuring Israel for many a long day.
1. The passage from which the text is taken contains one of the noblest ethical exhortations in the New Testament. The subject of the Epistle is Christ. From first to last it is " Christo- logical " in the fullest sense of the term. It is addressed to those who profess to have accepted Christ ; it asserts what that profession must involve. In a very true sense the doctrine or philosophy of the Christian life, which St. Paul is convinced is the true philosophy of humanity, is summed up in one word, the word " Christ." St. Paul seems to say : " You tell me you have accepted Christ, you profess to believe in Christ; you must therefore realize what this profession means, for it is only when you are filled with, and inspired by, an adequate conception of the doctrine of Christ that you can lead, and that you can induce others to lead, a truly Christian life." For St. Paul knew that the life of every man and of every society must inevitably be the expression of some individual and social philosophy. If there is one book in the New Testament which more than another asserts that it does matter what we believe, and that life and conduct,
520 THE INDWELLING WORD
both individual and social, are ultimately ruled by ideas and convictions, it is this Epistle to the Colossians.
2. Now the Apostle seeks to set forth the true idea of the Christ, as against the false conceptions that v^ere current. He knows that the true conception of the personal Christ is expressed in the Jesus of the Gospels. In the Gospels we study His life, His work. His teaching. His atoning death, His glorious resurrec- tion and ascension, which are all steps in the one process termed by St. John His "glorification." In the Gospels we learn the principles which inspired Him, and of the power with which God endowed Him, for " He was raised by the glory of the Father." At once, so urges the Apostle, follows the inevitable conclusion ; the whole human race must walk (for it has received the power to walk) in newness of life.
3. But how are Christian believers to be adequately equipped to present Christ to those outside ? You are, says the Apostle, members of a body with mutual obligations, but also with obligations or responsibilities to the world outside you. For tiie discharge of these obligations, which is of the nature of a continuous service, you must have an equipment. That equipment must satisfy two conditions. The equipment itself is the " word of the Christ," and the first condition is that this " word " — the whole Gospel, the whole body of Messianic truth — dwell in you richly. You must be richly endowed with its contents and its meaning ; your relation to it must be that of men who have made themselves masters of a rich possession, who have so thoroughly assimilated this knowledge that it has become part of themselves. This is the first condition. The second is to remember that towards this wealth you have a stewardship, whose exercise and discharge must be characterized by skill. There must be the skill which comes from intimate knowledge, coupled with constant careful practice, but which also assumes the possession and use of an intimate knowledge of the conditions and needs of those towards whom you are stewards. We must remember that knowledge is only one factor in skill. The word presumes the idea of art as well as that of science. So this practical skill is an essential part of your equipment, namely, the skill which comes