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‘Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be asbamed.’
2Ti_2:15
I. What is the workman’s task, set before us as Sunday-school teachers? His task is this, and simply this—the rearing of children for God; his task is this, and simply this—the arming, equipping, and preparing the young of our great cities or of our lonely hamlets with these weapons from the Divine armoury whereby they shall be able to do a good battle against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue Christ’s faithful soldiers, and serve Him even to their life’s end.
II. The tools to be employed.
(a) First among these tools I would place, not only in order but in prominence and supremacy, the Holy Scriptures of the blessed God. Whatever else we may work at or work with, if our Sunday-school teachers are not diligent in imprinting upon the youthful nature the power and blessedness of God’s most Holy Word, their teaching and their most holy work will go for little.
(b) And let our attention be directed, too, towards the imparting of the Word of God, not as the dry bones of an ecclesiastical history, or as abstruse symbolism, or as cold and negative philosophy. Let us make the Lord Jesus the animating principle and power of every word we teach from out of the Word of God.
(c) The Prayer Book and the Catechism should form definite elements in the teaching of our Sunday-schools.
III. The workman’s character.
(a) There must be prayerfulness.
(b) There must be intelligence.
(c) There must be patience. Sometimes we get restless, impatient, and we sometimes get indignant. The moment we do our power for usefulness is almost instantaneously paralysed.
Rev. Prebendary Cross.
Illustration‘St. Paul looked down the long current of that Church’s history, and he was able to see, and because of that vision was able to enforce, with all the stern dignity of masterful power, that what that Church wanted in his day—and in all ages—was a body of men who would labour faithfully for the truth of the everlasting God; and, therefore, with almost his dying breath, with a hand not so much palsied with age as unnerved by the approaching trial that was awaiting him, he committed to writing this last, this stern and yet almost tender admonition.’
THE SPIRIT OF WORK
I. Ordinary work.—We who come to church, most of all we who are communicants, ought to do our work so splendidly that people will say when they see us doing our common work, ‘Oh, I did not think much of religion; I used to think it was a matter of form, and very good for a Pharisee, but now I see that that man or that woman who goes to church and receives the Sacrament, that that man or that woman brings a brightness and a spring and an earnestness and a thoroughness into the work which others who are not moved by the power of religion do not.’ Is that so with you?’
II. Work in our souls.—St. Paul would have me, when I read these words, think about my religion as work. Now that is just where most people do not think about religion. What I want to do with the thoughts of my Judge coming, and what I want to see you do, is this: to think perhaps if you would on your knees about your religion as work. Is it work? Now, come, be honest—is it work? Some people’s religion is merely pleasure. Some people’s religion is merely relaxation. They come to church because of the music, or come to church because of the pleasure of hearing the Word of God, and so on. But what I want about my religion is that it should be work. Now, how far is your religion work? I will tell you how far it ought to be work. Do you know anything about the struggle to be a good man? Do you know what it is to get on your knees with some horrid sin, such as temper, or worse, before you, binding you fast in its horrible chains, and working in prayer? Do you know what it is to go into this busy, noisy city, and when the temptation comes with its whole force a thousandfold stronger, perhaps, because you have been wrestling in prayer, then to fight against it and nail the temptation to the Cross of Christ?
III. Work in self-sacrifice.—There is one other way in which I would have you test yourselves, and that is about our willingness to sacrifice things for God. No man who has led a selfish life can have a share with Him Who emptied Himself of all and was bound to the rude planks of Calvary. You cannot be, as some one has said, delicate members of the thorn-crowned head. What about yourself? What do you know about sacrifice? It is hard to give up things. It is a hard thing to give up our will and our pleasure for others. It is a hard thing to give up our money to God’s cause. What do you know about sacrifice? Please God, much. Only since He is coming to give to every one according as his works shall be, since He is saying to you and to me, we must be a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, surely we will kneel down to Him and ask Him to give us more richly of the grace of sacrifice, working in order that the nails which nailed Him may nail us also to the Tree, working so that in our measure, when we come to die, we may be able to say, ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’
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Rev. Canon T. B. Dover.