Don't Just DO Something, STAND THERE!
By Quintin Morrow
Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord's work, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain (I Corinthians 15:58).
The church was in complete chaos. The Corinthians that the apostle Paul had just converted to Christ, discipled, and organized into house churches, were shortly upon his departure for other destinations on his missionary journey suing one another in secular courts, engaged in notorious sexual immorality, bickering amongst themselves, creating divisions, lording their spiritual gifts over other believers, misusing the Lord's Supper, and departing from apostolic teaching concerning the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle's solution to these internal problems was firstly to admonish the Corinthians to right belief (in a return to the Gospel he himself had received from the Risen Christ and delivered unaltered to them-I Cor. 15:1-11), and secondly to exhort them to right action (in the demonstration of humble and selfless love - the chief Christian virtue-toward one another-I Cor. 13).
Now, as Paul closes his letter to the Corinthians, he encourages them to one final and necessary characteristic of the Christian life: Unfaltering, tireless commitment to the Lord and His work. Notice the words he uses: steadfast , immovable . Paul conveys the image of a giant boulder. The apostle is talking about, however, nothing less than good, old-fashioned intestinal fortitude.
Throughout Scripture believers are encouraged to unwavering firmness and endurance. From the bad example of Adam and Eve being turned aside by the serpent from what God had said in Genesis 3, to Jesus informing the Disciples that it would be those who persevered to the end who would be saved in the Gospels, to James reminding us that the product of the testing of our faith is endurance in the opening verses of his letter, we are told over and over, from cover to cover, that the command is to stand firm . Don't move. Don't doubt. Don't waver. Don't be shaken.
But these virtues of steadfast certainty and immovability are not ones which are encouraged or valued by our culture. In fact, the opposite is the case. In our world such characteristics are ridiculed as "closed-mindedness," and a stubborn resistance to "new" truth. Christians who are steadfast, immovable, and excelling in the Lord's work are seen as arrogant, unenlightened, and hopelessly out of step with the times. It is the perpetually "open-minded" and persuadable man or woman who has it right these days.
The old saw, however, is quite true: If you do not stand for something you will fall for anything. And in God's economy it is the simple soul who clings to Jesus and His Word and promises, and continues his or her kingdom activities and striving for holiness, that will be rewarded. "Knowing," Paul says, "K-N-O-W-I-N-G," (being convinced of, in other words) "that your labor in the Lord is not for nothing." That's the apostle's usual understated way of saying that it is in fact everything.
The church is a beehive of activity, with all sorts of folks accomplishing all sorts of tasks. All are necessary. The Holy Spirit has imparted to every local church all the spiritual gifts required for it to maintain itself and grow (I Cor. 12:4-30).
But add to these activities an ironclad determination to stand firm with Christ until He returns, and you will be unique among the elect and most certainly blest.
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