For the Lord hath chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him.
Divine service
I.Some persons may ask, “why should we serve God?Hedoesn’t seem as if He troubled about us?” We admit that so far as outward appearances go, it seems as if this great universe was something like a well-regulated machine with God as the invisible engineer. When a human being, man, woman, or child, goes against the laws of this great machine, God does not stop it, as a human mechanic would his engine. The Christian believer sometimes wonders why God does not in some critical emergency interfere; but shall we that are but as the creatures of a day express any doubt of the wisdom of God?
II. Permit me to say a few words to those who are now serving God.
1. Be cheerful in your service.
2. Let your service be pure and unselfish. One man who had been helping in a good work for a few months, with a cry of discontent said, “I shall not come any more because nobody ever thanks me.” Does the violet, or the rose, or the sun need thanks for giving forth beauty, and perfume, and light? The beat reward of good service is in the heart of the server. A man who engages in the Divine service from selfish motives is like a fettered bird. The bird could wing itself into the vault of yonder blue sky; but it has a stone tied to its leg. Your selfishness is a stone which fetters your usefulness.
3. Let your service be continual.
III. Let me speak to those who have no hope of ever becoming the servants of God. God knows and cares for you. (W. Birch.)
Diligence and exertion in the Chistian ministry
Let us endeavour--
I. To explain the counsel or Hezekiah to the priests and Levites: “be not now negligent.” This is sometimes rendered: “be not now deceived.” This conveys the idea that we are never more apt to impose upon ourselves than when we are remiss in duty, for we vainly imagine that God will not be strict to mark against us what is so natural and so pleasing to the depraved heart of man. It implies a former deficiency in the performance of duty. This counsel was--
1. Most necessary.
2. Highly important and useful
3. Peculiarly reasonable.
II. To consider some motives to its enforcement.
1. If we would act in accordance with the design of God in the appointment of the sacred office of the ministry, we will use the utmost diligence in His service.
2. The number, the variety, the difficulty and importance of the duties connected with the office of the ministry, require diligence.
5. Consistency with your professed character.
4. The shortness and uncertainty of the time allotted.
5. The sense of responsibility. “Ye serve the Lord Christ.” (W. Schaw.)
The Christian ministry
I. While all God’s children are called “to serve Him,” there is a special sense in which the minister of God is “chosen to serve Him”
1. He is outwardly “chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them” inthe church.
2. He is inwardly brought to it; for he declares that he “thinks in his heart that he is truly called.”
II. The object of the ministerial office is the glory of God in the salvation of sinners.
III. The means whereby this result is to be effected are--
1. The preaching of the Gospel.
(1) Faithfully.
(2) Boldly.
(3) Affectionately.
2. The right discharge of his regular official duties, baptism, marriage, etc.
3. Personal intercourse with his flock.
4. The minister’s consistency of life.
IV. The attitude of the minister is one of peculiar dignity; it is to “stand before the Lord.” Exhortation; “be not now negligent.”
1. In Prayer.
2. In study, It is said of the Venerable Bede, that “he never knew what it was to do nothing, and always found it sweet to be either learning, teaching, or writing.”
3. In labour.
4. In conduct. (F. B. Ashley.)
The complex idea of worship
We make mistakes if we suppose that worship is a mere cloud, a foam of sentiment; it is work of all kinds, door-opening and lamp-lighting and floor-sweeping, cleansing, preparing, ventilating, expecting the people and welcoming them with joy; and then incense-burning, and cross-uplifting, and cry of thunderous and mute eloquence, and hymn, sweet, gentle, tender, and prayer that beats against heaven like artillery--all these things and many more ere included in the complex idea of worship. Let each man, therefore, do what he can in this matter, knowing that no one man works the whole ministry of worship, but that it is an act of co-operation and combination, one part playing with another part, and each interrelating itself with each other, so as to constitute a sum total significant of unity, adaptation, music, and homage. (J. Parker, D.D.)
