One great concern that Paul shared with all of us who undertake some difficult and personally emotional objective is that the work might turn out to be in vain.
An account executive might work for months in an attempt to woo a client only to have another firm swoop in and steal him away. A doctor can labor in an operating room for hours only to have his patient die on the way to recovery. A Christian can study with an unbeliever for months, see him converted and then watch as he shrinks back into perdition. All are filled with a sense that their work was in vain as Solomon put it first (Ecclesiastes 2:11).
For example, Paul writes the Thessalonians: “For this reason, when I could no longer endure it, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor might be in vain” (1 Thessalonians 3:5). Learning from Christ’s parable, Paul understood that tribulation and persecution had the power to uproot faith in the sapling stage and destroy it (Matthew 13:21). Yet the Thessalonians were standing firm and Paul’s work was not in vain (2 Thessalonians 2:3-12). They continued to be examples of perseverance to others (1 Thessalonians 1:6-2:1).
Still, Paul was also moved to write the Galatians with the same concerns. The Judaizing teachers had misled many of these former idolaters to place more trust in the law of Moses than in Christ. They were mingling defunct Old Testament commands with the grace of Jesus and creating a new gospel. Paul wrote, “I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain” (4:11). When we witness religious people claiming authority for their instruments in musical worship through the Old Testament, they are replicating the fearful error of the Galatians (5:4). When they raid Roman Catholicism for popular traditions like Easter, Lent and Ash Wednesday, they are going a step further and “teaching as commandments the doctrines of men” (Matthew 15:9). Both attitudes render vain the pure work done for them.
Paul had different concerns about the Corinthians. He had boasted to other churches about their generosity, but then began to grow concerned that it was all talk. Their willingness to make pledges was beyond dispute, but the real work comes when the sacrifices are made. “Yet I have sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this respect, that, as I said, you may be ready” (2 Corinthians 9:3). Every time we make plans with good intentions and allow them to be derailed by circumstances, we have planned and labored in vain.
Even the grace of God can be made vain by conduct unworthy of it. His words in Second Corinthians 6:1 punctuate a warning that commenced as far back as chapter four. There, Paul wrote, “Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame … We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed … Therefore we do not lose heart” (2 Corinthians 4-5).
The possibility of apostasy threatened a church that was afflicted by temptation and tribulation. While the creeds go to great lengths today to comfort the backslider, the Holy Spirit continues to shout in black and white that God’s soul takes no pleasure in him (Hebrews 10:38). Grace, once received and then rejected to revive a worldly lifestyle, is rendered vain, at least on a personal level. The Hebrew writer describes the man who partakes of the Holy Spirit and then falls away as being guilty of invading Heaven, kidnapping Jesus off David’s throne and returning him to a wooden cross on Mount Calvary to suffer anew the insults of man (6:4-6). Grace, for one man, is rendered vain when he turns his back on Jesus and embraces the devil like old times (2 Peter 2:20-22).
Moreover, belief itself can be in vain. Again, the creeds are fond of teaching salvation by means of faith alone, but in some cases, even faith becomes vain. Paul warned, “I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which you also are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you – unless you believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:1-2). Faith that is murdered by complacency or hypocrisy is dead, ineffective and vain (James 2:14-26). Far from bringing salvation, it forfeits Heaven and reserves a place in Hell. Paul’s abundant labor was his evidence that God’s grace toward him was not vain (1 Corinthians 15:10). James (2:17-18) and Jesus would call the same to testify against vanity (Matthew 7:24-27).
Paul foresaw the day of Christ, in which every man will be judged according to the deeds done in the body (2 Corinthians 5:10). A teacher’s work will be examined (1 Corinthians 3:1-15, James 3:1) and an elder’s shepherding recounted (Hebrews 13:17). Our interest in others will be instantly rendered vain or victorious. Paul warned the Philippians to work out their salvation with fear and trembling and to hold fast the word of life, that he could rejoice in that day that he had not run in vain or labored in vain (Philippians 2:12-16).
The decision between vanity and victory in your discipleship and eternal judgment will be determined by the gospel and your conduct according to it. “Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries” (Philippians 1:27-28).
Vanity is training for months to run the race and then wilting in the sun around the first turn. “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it” (1 Corinthians 9:24).
