An Eye to the Lord Jesus
“Serving the Lord
“ServixVg the Lord.” The title which JEimes and Jude take to themselves at the outset of their Epistles is ‘* James — Jude — a servant of Jesus Christ.” The original is more forcible still. In the inscriptions of these Epistles, as well as in this passage, a true and emphatic rendering would be,” a slave of Jesus Christ;” “Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, the Lord’s The believer is the happycaptive of Jesus Christ; he has fastened on himself Immanuel’s easy yoke, the light burden and delicious chains of a Saviour’s love; and though Christ says, “Henceforth I call you no more servants,” the disciple cannot give up the designation. There is no other term by which, at times, he can express that feeling of intense devotedness and self-surrender which fills his loyal bosom. “Truly, O Lord, I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid.” And far from feeling any ignominy in the appellation, there are times when no name of Jesus sounds sweeter in his ear, than” Jesus, my Lord! Jesus, my Master!” and when no designation more accords with his feeling of entire devotedness, than James, a servant, Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, David, a bondsman of the Lord. There are times when the believer has such adoring views of his Saviour’s excellency, and such affecting views of his Saviour’s claims, that rather than refuse one requirement, he only grudges that the yoke is so easy that he can - scarce perceive it, the burden so light that he can scarcely recognise himself as a servant. He would like something which would identify him more closely with his beloved Saviour, some open badge that he might carry, and which would say for him,
“I’m not ashamed to own my Lord.”
If Christ would bore his ear to the door-post — if Christ would only give him out of his own hand his daily task to do — he would like it well; and ceasing to be the servant of men, he would fain become the servant of Jesus Christ.
And going to the Saviour in this ardent mood of mind, and saying, “Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?” the Saviour hands you back the Bible. He accepts you for his servant, and he directs you what service he would have you to perform. The Book which he gives you is as really the directory of Christ’s servants, as is the sealed paper of instructions which the commander of an expedition takes with him when he goes to sea, or the letter of directions which the absent nobleman sends to the steward on his estates or to the servant in his house. The only difference is, its generality. Instead of making out a separate copy for your specific use, indicating the different things which he would have you do from day to day, and sending it direct to yourself, authenticated by his own autograph, and by the precision and individuality of its details evidently designed for yourself exclusively; the volume of his will is of a wider aspect and more miscellaneous character. It effectually anticipates each step of your individual history, and prescribes each act of your personal duty; but intermingHng these with matters of promiscuous import, it leaves abundant scope for your honesty and ingenuity to find out the precise things which your Lord would have you to do. Had it been otherwise, had there been put into the hand of ea;ch disciple, the moment he professed his faith in Christ, a sealed paper of instructions, containing an enumeration of the special services which his Lord would have this new disciple to render, prescribing a certain number of tasks which he expected that disciple to perform, and specifying the very way in which he would have them done; in proportion as this directory was precise and rigid, so would it cease to be the test of fidehty; so would it abridge the limits within which an unrestricted loyalty may display itself. As it is, the directory is so plain that he who runs may read; not so plain, however, but that he who stands still and ponders will find a great deal which the runner could not read. It is so peremptory, that no man can call Jesus Lord without doing the things which it commands; but withal so general, as to leave many things to the candour and cordiality of sound-hearted disciples. It is precise enough to indicate the tempers and the graces and the good works with which the Saviour is well pleased, and by which the Father is glorified; but it nowhere fixes the exact amount of any one of these, short of which Christ will inot suffer a disciple to stop, or beyond which he does not expect a disciple to go. The Bible docs not deal in maximums and minimums; it does not weigh and measure out, by definite proportions, the ingredients of regenerate character; but it specifies what these ingredients are, and leaves it to the zeal of each believer to add to his faith, not as many, but as much of each of these things as he pleases. Firmly averring, on the one hand, that without each and all of these graces a man cannot belong to Christ; it, on the other hand, omits to specify how much of each a man must be able to produce before Jesus will say to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” The Bible announces those qualities which a man must have, in order to prove him born from above, but it does not tell what quantity of each he must exhibit, in order to secure the smile of his Master, and an abundant entrance into his heavenly kingdom. By this definiteness on the outward side it leaves no room for hypocrisy; but by this indefiniteness on the inner side it leaves large place for the works and service of faith and patience, the filial enterprise, the affectionate voluntaries and free-will offerings, of those who know no hmit to their labours, except the hmit of their love to Christ.
You will observe, that at the time when you become a disciple of Christ, your Lord and Master takes the whole domain of your employments under his own jurisdiction. He requires you to consecrate your ordinary calling to him, and to do, over and above, many special things expressly for himself. Whatsoever you do, in word or deed, he desires that you should do it in his name; not working like a worldling, and praying like a Christian, but both in work and prayer, both in things secular and things sacred, setting himself before you, carrying out his rules, and seeking to please him. One is your Master, even Christ, and he is your Master in every thing, the Master of your thoughts, your words, your family arrangements, your business transactions, — the Master of your working time, as well as of your Sabbath day, — the Lord of your shop and counting-room, as well as of your closet and your pew, — because the Lord of your affections, the proprietor of your very self besides. The Christian is one who may do many things from secondary motives — from the pleasure they afford his friends — from the gratification they give to his own tastes and predilections — from his abstract convictions of what is honest, lovely, and of good report; but his main and predominant motive, that which is paramount over every other, and which, when fully presented, is conclusive against every other, is affection for his Heavenly Friend. One is his Master, even Christ, and the love of Christ constraineth him.
Look now at the advantages of a motive like this. See how loyalty to Christ secures diligence in business — whether that be business strictly religious or business more miscellaneous.
1. Love lo Christ is an abiding motive. It is neither a fancy, nor a sentiment, nor an evanescent emotion. It is a principle — calm, steady, undecaying. It was once a problem in mechanics, to find a pendulum which should be equally long in all weathers — which should make the same number of vibrations in the summer’s heat and in the winter’s cold. They have now found it out. By a process of compensations they make the rod lengthen one way as much as it contracts another, so that the centre of motion is always the same: the pendulum swings the same number of beats in a day of January as in a day of June; and the index travels over the dial-plate with the same uniformity, whether the heat try to lengthen, or the cold to shorten, the propelling power. Now, the moving power in some men’s minds is sadly susceptible of surrounding influences. It is not principle, but feeling, which forms their pendulum rod; and according as this very variable material is affected, their index creeps or gallops, they are swift or slow in the work given them to do. But principle is like the compensationrod, which neither k’ngthens in the languid heat, nor shortens in the brisker cold; but does the same work day by day, whether the ice-winds whistle, or the simoom glows. Of all principles, a high-principled affection to the Saviour is the steadiest and most secure. Other incentives to action are apt to alter or lose their influence altogether. You once did many things for the sake of friends whose wishes, expressed or understood, were your incentive, and whose ready smile was your recompense. But that motive to activity is closed. Those friends are now gone where your industry cannot enrich them, nor your kindness comfort them. Or if they remain, they are no longer the same that once they were. The magic light has faded from off them. The mysterious interest which hovered round them has gone up like a mountain mist, and left them in their wintery coldness or natural ruggedness; no longer those whom once you took them to be. Or you did many things for fame; and were well requited for a winter’s work 5* when the iiosannah of a tumultous assembly, or the psean of a newspaper paragraph proclaimed you the hero of the hour. But even that sort of satisfaction has passed away, and, meager diet as these plaudits always were, you stand on the hungry pinnacle, and, like other aspirants of the same desert-roaming school,* you snufF; but, alas! the breeze has changed. The popular taste, the wind of fashion, has entirely veered about; and, except an occasional tantahzing whiif from the oasis of a receding popularity, the sweet gust of its green pastures regales you no more. Or you are used to work for money — -lor literal bank-notes and pieces of minted metal. Yes, mere money is your motive. And you will sit up till midnight, or rise in the drowsy morning, to get one piece more. Do you not feel as if your money-safe were the metropolis of your affections? Where your m-Oney is, is not your heart there also? Were your fortune to clap its wings and fly away, would not you feel as if your happiness had fled away? Have not your very thoughts
* Jcr. xiv. G.
got a golden tinge? And tracing some o( this Sabbath’s meditations back to their source, would not you soon land in the till, the exchange, the counting-room? Is not gold your chiefest joy? But have not flashes of truth from time to time dismayed you? “What am I living for? For a make-believe like this? For a glittering cheat which (in the way that I am using it) will be forgotten in heaven or felt like a canker in hell? How shall I wake up my demented self from this spell-dream, and seek some surer bliss, some more enduring joy? For grant that I shall be buried in a coffin of gold, and commemorated in a diamond shrine, what the happier will it make the jne that then shall be T’ And even without these brighter convictions, without these momentary breaks in the general delirium of covctousness, do you not feel a duller dissatisfaction occasionally creeping over you and paralyzing your busy efforts? “Well — is this right? This headlong hunt of fortune — is it the end for which my Creator sent me into the world? Is it the highest end for which my immortal self can live? Is it the best way of bestowing that single sojourn in this probation-world, which God has given me? And what am I the better? Am I sure that I myself am the happier for it? Dare I flatter myself that in bequeathing so much money, I bequeath to my children a sure and certain good — -an inevitable blessing?” And such intrusive thoughts, whose shadows at least flit across most serious minds, are very dampening to eflort — very deadening to diligence in business. Merely serving your friends, in the pursuit of fame, merely seeking a fortune, you are in constant danger of having all motive annihilated, and so all effort paralyzed- But whatever be the business in hand, from the veriest trifle up to the sublimest enterprise; from binding a shoe-latchet to preparing a highway for the Lord; if only you be conscious that this is the work which He gave you to do, you can go on with a cheerful serenity and strenuous satisfaction; for you will never want a motive. And it is just when other motives are relaxing into languor, that the compensation we speak of comes into play; and the constraining love of Christ restores the soul and keeps its rate of activity quick and constant as ever. The love of Christ is an abiding motive, and can only lose its power where reason has lost its place. No man ever set the Lord before him and made it his supreme concern to please his Master in heaven, and yet lived to say, “What a fool am I! What a wasted life is mine! What vanity and vexation has Christ’s service been! Had I only my career to begin anew, I would seek another master and a higher end.” The Lord Jesus ever lives, and never changes; and therefore the believer’s love to his Saviour never dies. Growing acquaintance may bring out new aspects of his character; but it will never disclose a reason why the believing soul should love him less than it loved at first. Growing acquaintance will only divulge new reasons for exclaiming, “Worthy is the Lamb!” and fresh motives for living not unto ourselves, but unto him that loved us and gave himself for us.
2. Love to Christ is a motive equal to all emergencies. There is a ruling passion in every mind: and when every other consideration has lost its povrer, this ruling passion retains its influence. Deeper than the love of home, deeper than the love of kindred, deeper than the love of rest and recreation, deeper than the love of life, is the love of Jesus. When they were probing among his shattered ribs for the fatal bullet, the French veteran exclaimed, “A little deeper, and you will find the emperor.” The deepest affection in a believing soul is the love of its Saviour. And so, when other spells have lost their magic, when no name of old endearment, no voice of on-waiting tenderness, can disperse the lethargy of dissolution, the name that is above every name, pronounced by one who knows it, will kindle its last animation in the eye of death. And when other persuasives have lost their power; when other loves no longer constrain the Christian; when the love of country no longer constrains his patriotism, nor the love of his brethren his philanthropy, nor the love of home his fatherly affection, the love of Christ will still constrain his loyalty. There is a love to Jesus which nothing can destroy. There is a loyal-heartedness which refuses to let a much-loved Saviour go, even when the palsied arm of affection is no longer conscious of the benignant form it embraces. There is a love which, amidst the old and weary “feel” of waning years, renews its youth, and amidst outward misery and inward desolation preserves its immortal root; which, even when the glassy eye of hunger has forgot to sparkle, and the joy at the heart can no longer montle on the withered cheek, still holds u, faithful to Jesus, though the flesh be faint. This was the love which made Paul and Silas, fatigued and famished as they were, and sleepless with pain, sing praise so loud that their fellow-prisoners heard and wondered. This was the love which burned in the Apostle’s breast, even when buffeting the Adriatic’s wintry waves, and made the work which at Rome awaited him, beam like a star of hope through the drowning darkness of that dismal night. This was the love which thawed his pen, when the moan of wintry winds made him miss the cloak he left at Troas, and impelled him to write to Timothy a testamentary entreaty to “hold fast” the truths which were hastening himself to martyrdom. Devotedness to Christ is a principle which never dies, and neither does the diligence which springs from it.
If you love the Lord Jesus, you have every thing. Union to Jesus is salvation. Love to Jesus is religion. Love to the Lord Jesus is essential and vital Christianity. It is the mainspring of the life of God in the soul of man. It is the all-inclusive germ, which involves within it every other grace. It is the pervasive spirit, without which the most correct demeanour is but dead works, and the seemliest exertions are an elegant futility. Love to Christ is the best incentive to action — the best antidote to idolatry. It adorns the labours which it animates, and hallows the friendships which it overshadows. It is the smell of the ivory wardrobe — the precious perfume of the behever’s character — the fragrant mystery which only lingers round those souls that have been to a better chme. Its operation is most marvellous; for when there is enough of it, it makes the timid bold, and the slothful diligent. It puts eloquence into the stammering tongue, and energy into the withered arm,
A EYE TO THE LORD JESUS. Gl
and ingenuity into the dull lethargic brain. It takes possession of the soul, and a joyous lustre beams in languid eyes, and wings of new obedience sprout from lazy, leaden feet. Love to Christ is the soul’s true heroism, which courts gigantic feats, which selects the heaviest loads and the hardest toils, which glories in tribulations, and hugs reproaches, and smiles at death till the king of terrors smiles again. It is the aliment which feeds assurance — the opiate which lulis suspicions — the oblivious draught which scatters misery and remembers poverty no more. Love to Jesus is the beauty of the bvlieving soul; it is the elasticity of the willing steps, and the brightness of the glowing countenance. If you would be a happy, a holy, and a useful Christian, you must be an eminently Christ-loving disciple. If you have no love to Jesus at all, then you are none of his. But if you have a little love — ever so little — a little drop, almost frozen in the coldness of your icy heart — oh! seek more. Look to Jesus, and cry for the Spirit till you find your love increasing; till you find it drowning besetting sins; till you find it drowning guilty fears — rising, till it touch that index, and open your closed lips — rising, till every nook and cranny of the soul is filled with it, and all the actions of life and relations of earth are pervaded by it — rising, till it swell up to the* brim, and, like the Apostle’s love, rush over in a full assurance — “Yes, I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”