1 Chronicles 29:5

WILLING SERVICE

‘Who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord?’

1 Chronicles 29:5

This old-time question comes to us with special force and fitness on the day on which we commemorate the life of St. Matthew. At the call of the Master—‘Follow Me’—he rose and left all and followed Christ; he consecrated his service, his life, himself unto the Lord. As a result of that call the current of his life branched out in two great directions—the direction of devotion and the direction of service. It was nothing but intense devotion to the personality of Christ as revealed to him that could have enabled St. Matthew to have lived the life he did.

I would speak specially of service and of some of its characteristics.

I. A matter of obligation.—Let us be quite sure that all service is a matter of obligation. No one has ever yet been compelled to serve God, and there are plenty of people to-day who quite forsake the idea of ever serving God. But the Church never ceases to raise her voice—the voice of the holy Head of the Church—calling them in and reminding them of their obligation.

II. A matter of responsibility.—Being a matter of obligation, it is a matter of responsibility. It is a matter of responsibility, first, as to whether we think of it as a matter of obligation at all, and as to how we discharge that obligation if we at all recognise it as such.

III. A matter of fitness.—There is the law of fitness. This is a wonderful world, and we are wonderful people. It is mysterious how we fit into a certain niche and do a certain sort of work. It seems to us such a very little service, yet amongst all the great services rendered to this world, there we are in God’s eyes fitting that very niche that He has called upon us to fit. Do not you think that all labour is ennobled by the belief that we ourselves are given a work to do, which no one else could do? If we do it badly, the people with whom we mix, and those coming after us, must suffer.

IV. A matter of care.—Then there is the law of care in service. After all, what was there in the service of St. Matthew? Not, surely, How little can I do for Christ? but, How much? Only those who thus consecrate their work are doing their proper service to God and their generation.

V. A matter of diligence.—Again, there is the law of diligence. You know some people who are diligent—never weary in well doing, hiding their weariness, spending themselves in the service of others, by one idea—to do that which their hand finds to do, and to do it with their might.

VI. A matter of loyalty.—All service is consecrated to a Person—the Person of Christ Himself. Therefore, there must be loyalty in the performance of it. What caused the great sin of the betrayal? People say it was covetousness, and many other things. But what underlay it all? Absolute disloyalty. We have all to learn in serving the sacred Person of Christ that the first essential is that we should be loyal. So let it be with us. May we learn the lesson of loyalty to the Person of a living Saviour.

Rev. E. Tritton.

Illustration

‘It was David who laid the foundation of the Jewish kingdom. We trace the kings not up to Saul, but to David. Moreover, God had surrounded his life with promises, and he knew that what he left unfinished his seed after him would accomplish. He had raised his nation, and brought it into the front rank amongst the nations of the earth. He had developed its resources and its wealth. He had brought together its varied elements and consolidated them. And now for years he has been making preparations for a building which was to be the grandest in the whole land. It was work that any man might be proud of.’