In a recent marriage enrichment retreat, the keynote speaker emphasized how much work it took to create a healthy and growing marriage. After nearly 35 years of marriage myself, I can identify. Or at least I can imagine how much work it took for my wife to tolerate me all this time and refrain from making herself a widow. As one minister said to a young couple in the midst of premarital counseling, "When you wake up each morning and look at your wife in curlers, you have to tell yourself again you love her. She'll have to say the same thing each day as your stomach expands and your hairline retreats!" Love comes out of the commitment, and commitment takes work. Got sweat?
Marriage isn't the only thing that takes work to keep the commitment strong. Keeping a church on track in fulfilling its purpose and mission takes work. It takes cooperation. It takes personal sacrifice. It takes humility. It takes honest acknowledgement that the body of Christ is not made up of one part, but rather many parts, and they are all important (Romans 12; I Corinthians 12). Every contribution made by a church member in the name of Christ for the sake of the Kingdom of God is valuable and is to be honored.
Giving honor to others when you'd like some is work. Working when others get the honor takes humility, patience, and perseverance. Making the effort to get the job done regardless of whose responsibility it might be takes work. Doing all things for the glory of God and as if you were doing it for Christ himself may be rewarding, but it is still work. Making sure you are effective (that's doing the right thing) instead of being dominated by doing things right (that's being efficient) takes hard work. Yet it is the only way a congregation will find itself obedient before God.
The one supreme purpose of the people of God is give him glory and honor. Everything else that might be named is a method by which we can do that. The first and greatest commandment is to love God (Matthew 22). No one shows love by sitting on their anatomy all day. Ask any wife who has to look at her couch-potato husband. He could show a lot more love by mowing the yard and painting the house, or better yet, vacuuming the carpet and washing the clothes. That's love! It's also work.
The church honors and glorifies God best when it in obedience goes into the fields of the world where souls are ready to be harvested and loves those souls as God loves them (John 4). In those fields the church will work up a sweat feeding the hungry and providing a roof for the homeless. The church will visit the sick, the elderly, and the imprisoned. The church will offer a hand to the weak and friendship to the lonely. The church will provide hope to the hopeless and the path of salvation to those who are dying while trying to make it on their own (Matthew 25). The church will do it all in the name of Jesus Christ. That may be joyful, but it can turn into hard work.
You cannot exempt associations and conventions. They have responsibilities before God as well. They too will be held accountable for putting feet and hands to the love they are supposed to be showing their God. As they support the local church in its efforts to fulfill the Great Commission, they are doing the work for which they were created. As they provide resources which can only be provided as churches work together, they are accomplishing their purpose. Associations and conventions cannot be successful holding meetings and talking about the terrible condition of the world. They must be at work and that will create sweat.
It is the rare thing of value we find in this world that can be gained without work and personal investment. Most often they require a great deal of effort. They require personal sacrifice. Marriages, friendships, freedom, these require work and effort and sweat whether physical, emotional, or mental. One thing that stands out from all these is the love of God and the grace for eternal life we find in it. No amount of work can earn it. No amount of personal sacrifice will make us good enough to have it. It's free (Romans 6:23). The sweat we save for the life of obedience that says thank you.
