Probing Our Faith: Are We Serving God for the Spoils?

I was interested, some time ago, to read an article on the attitudes and values of American university students. The article had the intriguing title, “Sex, Sympathy, and Success.” The article, however, raises questions of more than local interest: the article raises questions which are of quite fundamental importance to Christians all over the world.

The author begins by pointing out that American students are desperately anxious to abide by the values of their social group, to do the right thing, to conform to social patterns, and to achieve success. American students, in this regard, differ little from university students in other parts of the world. The writer discovered that most students think that religion is a good thing; several students expressed the view that religion gives you poise; it facilitates the process of psychological adjustment; and it helps you to become a well-rounded personality. Not only does religion help you to achieve adjustment, it also helps you to win social acceptance. One freshman expressed the view that “religious qualities and high moral character are essential to success.” Thus the profession of religion, in the competitive economic world today, helps a man to get to the top. As though personal adjustment and social acceptance were not enough, there is also the prospect of financial reward. “The warmth derived from spiritual satisfaction,” another student says, “is a prime requisite in success. Religion and business serve one another.”

I want to examine, in a little more detail, the implied assumptions behind these comments and assertions. What we need to note, and to note carefully, are the reasons which are advanced for being religious. It is not that religion is necessarily true, the question of truth or falsity of religion is not raised; it is rather that religion pays. The question that we must ask is this: is the value of religion comparable to a course (with credits) in the psychology of Dale Carnegie? One student, for example, speaks of the importance of feeling contented, and the business value of plentiful smiling: “In one of Dale Carnegie’s books,” he says, “he gives you six ways to make people like you. One thing he stressed is a ready smile. It not only makes you feel better, it helps your appearance.” Now the question is: Is the religion of Jesus Christ in the same category as the psychology of Dale Carnegie? Is it simply a technique for self-improvement, an easy and convenient road to success?

Jesus, in the days of his ministry, rebuked the insincerity of those Jews who sought him, not because he was the truth, but because he gave them bread to eat. He knew, only too well, that their patronage and support was not disinterested: “Ye seek me,” he said, “not because ye saw signs but because ye ate of the loaves and were filled.” That was the plain and unpalatable truth: they simply followed him because their bellies were filled. And today we are all tempted to serve God out of prudential considerations of personal profit; for the benefits we hope to enjoy and the advantages we hope to gain. And what we forget is that God can not be exploited, he can only be worshiped.

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Let me speak in terms of greater particularity. The followers of Moral Rearmament are urgent that Christianity should be proclaimed in Africa and Asia: it is, they reiterate, the only possible defense against Communist infiltration and advance. “We need,” said the late Frank Buchman, “an ideology that is big enough and complete enough to outmarch any of the other great ideologies. Today we see three great ideologies battling for control. There is Fascism, and Communism, and there is that other great ideology, “Christian Democracy.” But we dare not use Christianity as a weapon with which to fight our political battles: the question is not whether God is on the side of the western democracies, but whether the western democracies are on the side of God. And we ought to proclaim the Christian faith in Africa and Asia, not for its utilitarian value in providing a bastion against Communism but because it is the Gospel of God; that is, we should proclaim Christianity, not for its consequences, but for itself; not because it pays, but because it is true.

Let me bring the matter nearer home. Again and again men and women are urged to go to church for reasons which are patently selfish, and for the advantages which they hope to gain. One notorious example will suffice. One church, which charity indicates should remain anonymous, displayed the slogan: “Come to Church and cure your stomach ulcer.” What we have is the right thing urged for the wrong reason. Of course it is true that the person who goes to church is less likely to suffer from stomach ulcer than the person who consistently absents himself; of course it is true that there is a therapeutic value in the confession of sin and the experience of absolution and forgiveness; of course it is true that those who worship God are conscious of an inner serenity, a sense of peace, a feeling of tranquility. But these things are not an end in themselves, although they are often gracious by-products of the service of God. The service of God is not a tranquilizing pill, nor is the worship of God a sedative for tired and jaded spirits. And the worship of God is not an insurance policy against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as though the profession of the Christian faith exempted a man from the toils and tribulations which are an inseparable part of our common life. No! It is not for these reasons that the Christian man serves God; he serves God, not for his benefits, but for himself.

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Pursuit of Material Rewards

Jesus refused to win men by the offer of material rewards. In the wilderness he refused to turn stones into bread; that is, he refused to win men by the offer of economic security. Of course it is true that man cannot live without bread, but it is also true that man cannot live by bread alone. Again, after the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus was confronted by the same temptation. The crowd tried to take him by force to make him a king. Jesus immediately withdrew himself from them. He knew the selfish motives which moved them, the material considerations which swayed them. He refused to be a party to their game.

When he hung upon the cross he was urged to demonstrate the truth of his claims by exercising his divine power. “If thou be the Son of God,” they shouted, “come down from the cross,” and we will believe thee. He was tempted to use his divine power to compel belief, to win men by a spectacular display of miraculous power. He also rejected this temptation: He would win men by nothing save a cross, and he would offer to men nothing but a cross. “If any man will come after me,” he said, “let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” We need to ask ourselves what are our motives for the profession of Christian faith. Are our motives selfish and prudential? Worldly and utilitarian? Are we serving God for gain? Seeking him for profit? Pursuing him for rewards? Are we guilty of the monstrous presumption, the unutterable blasphemy, of treating the Sovereign Lord of the Universe, the Creator of heaven and earth, as a magic charm or lucky mascot?

The Motive of Gratitude

There is only one adequate motive for worship and that is love, and there is only one adequate reason for service and that is gratitude. “We love him,” wrote the Apostle John, “because he first loved us.” God, this is the Christian gospel, took the initiative on our behalf: “He first loved us,” and he paid the price of our salvation. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but heve everlasting life.” Jesus endured, for us men and our salvation, buffeting and spitting, scourging and torture, agonizing pain and cruel death. “Herein is love, not that we loved God,” writes John, “but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” “He bore our sins,” wrote Peter, “in his own body on the tree.” God incarnate, a naked Figure upon the gallows, that is the measure of God’s love. That is why, with Isaac Watts, we sing:

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Love so amazing, so divine

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

In the Nuremberg war trials a witness gave evidence concerning his experiences during the war. He had lived for some time in a Jewish cemetery in Wilna, Poland. This witness had miraculously escaped the Nazi gas chambers by hiding in the cemetery. There were also others who had made the cemetery their secret hiding place. One day, he related, in an open grave, a woman gave birth to an infant boy. The old Jewish grave digger, aged 80 years, assisted at the birth. When the newborn baby uttered his first cry, the devout old grave digger said, “Good God, hast Thou finally sent Messiah to us? For who else than the Messiah himself can be born in a grave?” But after three days he saw that the baby was sucking his mother’s tears because she had no milk for the child.

It is, of course, a story of profound poignancy, of moving emotional power. And yet we tend to forget that the Son of God, the Messiah, was born in an animal’s feeding trough, in the stinking stench of an eastern stable, and that he died in loneliness and dereliction upon a cruel cross, having drunk to the bitter dregs the cup of human tears.

The remembrance of this fact should humble our pride. It should move us to penitence. It was our sin which nailed him to the cross; it was in our place that he bore the penalty instead. It is the recollection of this fact, this fact above everything else, that should evoke our gratitude and win our love and inspire our service.

Let me conclude by quoting the haunting words of that lovely seventeenth-century hymn in Edward Caswell’s translation from the Latin:

My God, I love Thee; not because

I hope for heaven thereby,

Nor yet because who love Thee not

Are lost eternally.

Thou, O my Jesus, Thou didst me

Upon the Cross embrace;

For me didst bear the nails, and spear,

And manifold disgrace.

And griefs and torments numberless,

And sweat of agony;

Yea, death itself; and all for me