'In all things everywhere',
which means in everything and in all things, every single thing
in detail, all things together. Now Paul divides it up
like this quite deliberately. He wants to say that there
is no limit to what he can do in this respect - 'In every
single, particular thing I am like that.' Then he adds;
'now I will put them together - in all things, whatever may
happen to me, I am self-sufficient,
I am not dependent upon them, my life and happiness and joy are
not determined or controlled by them.'
That, according to the
Apostle, is the way to live, that is Christian living. It
is good for us to face this mighty statement. We are
living in days and times of uncertainty, and it may well be that
the first and the greatest lesson we have to learn is how to
live without allowing circumstances to affect our inner peace
and joy. And yet perhaps there was never a time in the
history of the world when it was so difficult to learn this
lesson as it is today. The whole life is so organized at
the present time as to make it almost impossible to live this
self-sufficient Christian life. Even in a natural sense,
we are also dependent on the things that are being done for us
and to us and around and about us, that it has become most
difficult to live our own lives. We switch on the wireless
or television and gradually become dependent upon them, and it
is the same with our newspapers, our cinemas, our
entertainments. The world is
organizing life for us in every respect and we are becoming
dependent upon it. There was a good illustration of
that in the early days of the last war when the blackout
regulations were first imposed upon us. We used to hear of
something which was described as the 'boredom of the blackout.'
People found it almost impossible to spend a succession of
nights in there own homes doing nothing.
They had become dependent upon the cinema,
the theatre, and various other form of entertainment, and when
these things were suddenly cut off, they did not know what to do
with themselves. But increasingly it is
becoming the tendency in life today: increasingly we are
becoming dependent upon on what others are doing for us.
This, alas, is not only true
of the world in general, it is becoming true also of Christian
people in particular. I
would suggest that one of the greatest dangers confronting us in
spiritual sense is that of becoming dependent upon meetings.
A kind of 'meetings mania' is developing, and there are
Christian people who seem to be always at meetings.
Now meetings are undoubtedly of great value.
Let nobody misunderstand me and imagine that I am saying that
you should only go to a place of worship on a Sunday.
Meetings are excellent, but let us beware lest we become
so dependent upon meetings that one day, when we find ourselves
ill and laid upon our bed we do not know what to do with
ourselves. We can become too
dependent even on Christian meetings - even on a Christian
atmosphere. A man was discussing with me the
other day what is referred to as the 'leakage' that takes place
among the members of certain Christian organizations mainly
concerned with young people. There is a very real problem
here. While they are in the atmosphere of the Christian
organization these young people are keen and interested, but in
a few years time they have become lost to the Church. What
is the cause of the leakage? Very frequently it is that
they have become too dependent upon a particular fellowship, so
that when they go out to the world, or move to another district
where they are no longer surrounding by this Christian
fellowship, they suddenly flag and fall. That is the kind of
thing against which the Apostle is warning us. We must beware of the danger of resting on props, even in Christian
service and witness. The Apostle therefore exhorts us to
get into that state in which we shall be independent of what is
happening around and about us even in these things.
We must cultivate this glorious
self-sufficiency.
