We Happy Few

...and who are my brothers? -Matthew 12:48b

Leadership training classes start at GPC this Sunday. Looks like
seven guys are signed up to take part.

Our numbers here at Grace have never been impressive. And  that tempts us, at times, to become discouraged.

I look around me, however, and count myself blessed. The dedication of each of these happy few inspires me. Out of a Sunday morning attendance of perhaps sixty, we see twelve or fifteen or (once?) even twenty show up an hour before Sunday School to pray. For friends, neighbors, our church, the church universal, for our nation.

A disproportionate number of our members contribute to the writing ministry which has placed a weekly article in the local newspaper for over four years now.

Though our numbers have thinned from when we started, this church was founded  and still exists in answer to many fervent prayers that God place a Reformed witness in this county.

So here we are. At times the ignorance and indifference seem overwhelming. Ignorance of the history of the Christian faith and what the Church has taught through the centuries. Indifference to how the doctrine of salvation by grace alone (Ephesians 2:8-10; can it be stated any more plainly than this?) was lost, then recovered. Recovered at great cost to a great many believers.

Ignorance of and indifference to the sacrifices made so that we might be free of a works-based salvation are a shame upon the Body of Christ. How is it that one can profess a love for Christ, a love above all other loves, and not desire to know all there is to know about Him and all He has done to bring salvation to the nations?

You know it does seem like a few against the whole world at times, and I am reminded of the battle of Agincourt very nearly 600 years ago. Cut off and cornered in rural France, the bedraggled and hungry English army prepared for a battle in which it looked likely to be destroyed.

In one of the great speeches in English literature, Shakespeare has King Henry V address his troops. Henry speaks of the tiny size of his army, but does not desire one single man more to fill his ranks. The fewer the numbers, he states as he rouses his men, the greater the glory. The tiny English army inflicted a devastating defeat upon the French.

There are no super-Christians here at Grace. We simply stand upon God's assurance that He will use the weak and seemingly foolish to confound the strong and the wise of this world. Not that we might receive the greater glory because of the fewness of our numbers. But that God might receive all glory, honor and praise.

Because He alone is worthy.

And He has done it.