29 Sermon Illustrations on Service to God

It's not for money, It's not for fame, It's not for any personal gain. It's just for love of fellowman. It's just to lend a helping hand. It's just to give a tithe of self. That's something you can't buy with wealth. It's not medals won with pride. It's for that feeling deep inside. It's that reward sown in your heart. It's that feeling that you've been a part Of helping others far and near That makes you be a volunteer!

While Lincoln was a poor young lawyer in Springfield, he was going to his office one morning when he saw a little girl crying at the door of one of the houses. Lincoln stopped to see what was the matter. She sobbed out her story. She was going to visit a little friend of hers in another town. It was to be her first ride on the train, and the expressman had not come for the trunk. Mr. Lincoln lifted the trunk onto his shoulders and started off, calling to the little girl to "come along." They just caught the train. No wonder the little girl never forgot him! A great, brave, noble man he was-never too busy to be kind.

A discouraged young doctor in one of our large cities was visited by his father who came from a rural district. "Well, son," he asked, "How are you getting along?" "I'm not getting along at all," was the reply. The old man's countenance fell, but he spoke courage and patience and hope. Later in the day he went with his son to the free dispensary. He sat in silence while twenty-five poor unfortunates received help. When the door had closed upon the last one, the old man burst out, "I thought you told me you were doing nothing. Why, if I had helped out twenty-five people in a month, I would thank God that my life counted for something." "There isn't any money in it, though," objected the son. "Money!" the old man shouted. "What is money compared with being useful to your fellow men?" How true! Mercifulness carries within it its own reward and joy. The Sympathetic Jewel A man visited Tiffany's jewelry store in New York City. He was shown a magnificent diamond with its gleaming yellow light and many other splendid stones. But he observed one stone that was perfectly lusterless and said, "That has no beauty about it at all." The friend who was with him put the stone in the hollow of his hand and held it there for a few minutes. When he opened it, the man said, "What a surprise! There is not a place on it the size of a pinhead that does not gleam with the splendor of the rainbow. What did you do with it?" His friend answered, "This is an opal. It is what we call the sympathetic jewel. It only needs contact with the human hand to bring out its wonderful beauty." How many lives there are that need only the warm touch of human sympathy to make them gleam with opalescent splendor.

A boy who applied for work was told by the manager he did not think they had enough work to keep another boy employed. The boy said, "But I am sure, sir, that you must have enough work to hire me. You don't know what a little amount of work it takes to keep me busy." Many so-called disciples are like this boy. They want to follow Jesus, not to see how much they can do for Him, but how little. To such the Lord never says, "Follow me." Any who enter Christian service for the sake of having an easy time will be disappointed. Christ is a busy Commander of busy soldiers. Not for Money, for Christ Is our first interest in life the accumulation of wealth, or are we like that Burmese boatman who, when asked by a missionary whether he was willing to preach the Gospel to his fellow countrymen at only one-fourth of the salary he was now getting, said to the missionary, "I will not go for that small pay, but I will go for Christ." A Life of Service A certain family had two sons. The older said he must make a name for his family, so turned his face toward Parliament and fame. The younger decided to give his life to the service of Christ and turned his face toward China and duty. He was Hudson Taylor, the missionary, who died beloved and known on every continent. "But," someone wrote, "when I looked in the encyclopedia to see what the other son had done, I found these words, 'the brother of Hudson Taylor.' " It may be that some were inclined to ridicule him when he went to the mission field, but in the end, he was respected and admired. His mercifulness had not been in vain, even as far as the world was concerned. But the merciful also receive recognition and reward from God Himself. This takes place both in this world and, in its full measure, in the world to come.

I have an old mother away down in the Connecticut mountains, and I have been in the habit of going to see her every year for twenty years. Suppose I go there and say, "Mother, you were very kind to me when I was young--you were very good to me; when father died you worked hard for us all to keep us together, and so I have come to see you because it is my duty." I went then only because it was my duty. Then she would say to me, "Well, my son, if you only come to see me because it is your duty, you need not come again." And that is the way with a great many of the servants of God. They work for Him because it is their duty--not for love. Let us abolish this word duty, and feel that it is only a privilege to work for God, and let us try to remember that what is done merely from a sense of duty is not acceptable to God.

"In hunting, fowling, and fishing, though there be as much labour as in our ordinary employments, yet we count the toil nothing, because of the delight we have in them." It is wonderful what fatigue men will bear to hunt a fox or shoot a partridge, and yet they make nothing of it, but call it sport. In like manner many a zealous worker for the Lord Jesus will preach, and teach, and labour, and call it his recreation, with which he fills up his leisure hours. We know many such, and we hope we shall yet know more. Love makes labour light. Men will do voluntarily that which they would never undertake for pay, and they will keep up freely under an amount of pressure which would crush the hireling. There lies the grand secret. Make holy service a delight, and you can do any amount of it. Lord, thy servant has no need to reckon thy service to be his pleasure, for it is indeed so. Could he but serve thee perfectly, without hindrance and without mistake, it would be heaven to him. No avocation is like our divine vocation for pure delightfulness. It would be far more wearisome not to serve thee, O my God, than it ever can be to perform the most arduous labour for thy love's sake.

A little boy once said to his parents, "I should like to have lived in the time of our Saviour, that I might have done something for him." His mother replied, smiling, "What could a child of your age have done for him to prove your good will?" The little boy reflected an instant: "I would have run everywhere, doing his errands."

A dying soldier, in the hospital at Gettysburg, sent his last message to his friends; and then desired this postscript to be added, "Tell mother to urge my brothers to serve the Lord." At the last, Christ's service is always seen to be the important thing.

Our gifts and attainments are not only to be light and warmth in our own dwellings, but are, as well, to shine through the window, into the dark night, to guide and cheer bewildered travellers upon the road. Beecher.

Some men are kind to others but for their own ends; and, when they have once attained the end for which they were kind, there's an end of their kindness: they will serve you for their needs; and, when you have served their needs, you shall observe that they will neither serve nor observe you any longer. Alas! do not men serve God thus? Doth not rich Jacob forget to pay what poor Jacob did promise?

— Vening

Weep with them that weep, if you cannot relieve them. Bestow personal service, if you cannot give gold. Teach children, if you be not competent as an instructor of men. Be a support to the household, if you are not able to become a pillar of the state. Be a lamp in the chamber, if you cannot be a star in the sky. Gladden the circle of home, if it transcend your powers to illumine the town. Talk to the few, if you have no vocation to preach to the crowd. S. Coley.

G117. WORK, with God. Dr. Phillip, in a missionary speech, alluded to a remark made by Mr. Newton: "When I get to heaven, I shall see three wonders there. The first wonder will be to see many people there whom I did not expect to see; the second wonder will be to miss many people whom I did expect to see; and the third, and greatest wonder of all, will be to find myself there. I have also seen three wonders. I have seen men of great wealth and of great talent, who have had many opportunities of forwarding the cause of God, do nothing; I have seen many humble and despised individuals, but whose hearts were right with God, do wonders; but the greatest wonder of all is to find that so humble an individual as I am should have been at all useful in the work. I take nothing unto myself but shame and humility before God."

G118. WORK, A Good Day's. A Christian man in a Western city resolved that he would never allow a day to pass without speaking to some one on the subject of personal salvation. He was returning home late one evening, burdened with the thought that the day had gone by, and no one had been invited to Christ. He saw a man leaning against a lamp-post, put his hand gently on the shoulder of the stranger, and said, "May I ask you if you love the Lord Jesus Christ?" The stranger resented the freedom, and replied curtly, that that was a personal matter in which nobody else had any concern. But the Christian replied kindly, that they were fellow-travellers to another world, and one could not be indifferent whether others had a good hope of entering heaven. After a few more words had passed between them, they parted, the Christian fearing that he had given offence, but carrying the matter to the closet for earnest prayer. Three months after, just as he had retired for the night, a knock was heard at the door. He inquired what was wanted; and a gentleman replied he would like to see him. On opening the door, he recognized the stranger met at the lamp-post. The latter grasped him convulsively by the hand, and said, "The question you put to me, 'Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?' has been ringing ever since in my ear; and I have come to ask you what I must do to be saved." They prayed and talked together; and in a few days the stranger was rejoicing in hope of pardon. He became an earnest and devoted Christian.

G119. WORK, Health of. It is not work that kills men: it is worry. Work is healthy: you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction. Beecher. G120. WORK, Honorable. Nor can I honor too highly the faithful and industrious mechanic, the faithful man who fills up his chink in the great economy by patiently using his hammer or his wheel; for he does something. If he only sews a welt, or planes a knot, he helps to build up the solid pyramid of this world's welfare; while there are those, who, exhibiting but little use while living, might, if embalmed, serve the same purpose as those forms of ape and ibis inside the Egyptian caverns, — serve to illustrate the shapes and idolatries of human conceit. At any rate, there is no doubt of the essential nobility of that man who pours into life the honest vigor of his toil over those who compose the feathery foam of fashion that sweeps along Broadway; who consider the insignia of honor to consist in wealth and indolence; and who, ignoring the family history, paint coats of arms to cover up the leather aprons of their grandfathers.

Dr. Chapin.

G121. WORK, Law of. The law of Nature is, that a certain quantity of work is necessary to produce a certain quantity of good of any kind whatever. If you want knowledge, you must toil for it; if food, you must toil for it; and, if pleasure, you must toil for it. Ruskin.

G122. WORK, Natural. From the particle of dust at our feet to man, the last stroke of God's handiwork, all bear the impress of the law of labor. The earth is one vast laboratory where decomposition and re-formation are constantly going on. The blast of Nature's furnace never ceases, and its fires never burn low. The lichen of the rock, and the oak of the forest, each works out the problem of its own existence. The earth, the air, and the water teem with busy life. The world is animated with the same spirit. Onward unceasingly, unwearied, age after age, it pursues its course, itself, with all it contains, a perpetual lesson of industry to man. The joyous song of labor sounds out from the million-voiced earth, and the rolling spheres join the universal chorus.

G123. WORK, Perfect. There is not a more necessary and consolatory truth than this, — reason allows it, revelation affirms it, — "the work of the Lord is perfect." Whatever he does sustains its consistency and answers its end. Neither is there redundancy nor defect. The question of degrees, the scale of dimensions, cannot alter the fact. Whether the emmet or the leviathan, whether the atom or the world, each bears a stamp of entireness and self-sufficiency. The most cautious inspection, the most fertile imagination, can discover no want, can suggest no improvement. You can relieve no difficulty, you can facilitate no process, you can heighten no result. The system of the individual is as faultless as that of the species, the economy of the particle as that of the universe. The grain embedded on the shore, the star set among the constellations of the sky, in their differing ranks of constituted nature, exhibit the same matchless adjustment, fitness, and application.

Dr. R. W. Hamilton. G124. WORK, Power of. Dr. Cary, surrounded by his voluminous works, gave the secret of his success thus: "I can plod."

G125. WORK, Preservation for. A soldier by the name of Miller, who had from childhood, though unconverted, felt a strong desire to become a minister of the gospel, on his conversion felt a renewal of his call. In the battle of the Wilderness, he was badly wounded, and remained twenty-four hours on the field. The surgeon refused to operate upon him, because death was inevitable. He was removed to Fredericksburg, again examined; and his wounds pronounced fatal. To a friend he said, "The surgeon says I must die; but I do not feel that my work is done yet. When I gave myself to God last winter, I promised him that I would labor for his cause in the gospel ministry. I feel that he has a work for me to do; and I believe that man is immortal till his work is done." A few days after, a third consultation of surgeons was held, whose decision was, "You will recover; but it is the most miraculous escape we have ever seen." At a fourth examination, his wounds were pronounced mortal. After many months' confinement, he was able to begin his preparation for the ministry.

G126. WORK, Reward of. A few years since, Motley shot up to the first position as a historian. Many wondered; but it was no wonder. He had wrought patiently for years in the libraries of the Old and New Worlds, unseen of men. The success of the great artist Doré has years of study in the hospitals, and practice in the studio, behind it. This path to success is open to all.

G127. WORK, versus Sloth. Asa and Ira were two brothers, whose farms lay side by side in a fertile intervale. When the young corn, the oats, and the barley were springing up, the weeds took advantage of the rich soil, and came up with them. "Do you see," said Asa, "what a hold the weeds are taking? There is danger of their choking out the crops entirely." — "Well, well, we must be resigned," said Ira. "Weeds as well as grain were a part of the Creator's plan." And he lay down for his usual afternoon doze. "I can only be resigned to what I cannot help," said Asa. So he went to work, and ploughed and hoed until the fields were clear of weeds. "The army-worm is in the neighborhood," said Asa to Ira, one day. "It has eaten its way through the neighboring meadows, and is fast moving towards us." — "Ah!" exclaimed Ira, "it will surely destroy what the weeds have not choked out. I will immediately retire to pray that its course may be stopped, or turned aside." But Asa replied, "I pray betimes every morning for strength to do the work of the day." And he hastened to dig a trench around his land, which the army-worm could not pass; while Ira returned from his prayers only in season to save a portion of his crops from its ravages. "Do you see, Ira?" said Asa, another morning, the river is rising, and there is but small chance of preventing our farms from being overflowed. — "Alas! it is a judgment upon us for our sins; and what can we do?" said Ira, throwing himself in despair upon the ground. "There are no judgments so severe as those which our own sloth brings upon us," said Asa. And he went quickly, and hired workmen, with whose help he raised an embankment that withstood the flood; while Ira witnessed with blank looks the destruction of all his wealth. "There is one consolation," said he: "my children, at least, are left me." But, while Asa's sons grew up strong and virtuous men, among Ira's there was a drunkard, a gambler, and a suicide. "The ways of the Lord are not equal," said Ira to his brother. "Why are you always prospered, while I am afflicted, and my old age is disgraced?"—"I only know this," replied Asa, "that Heaven always helped me to meet my children's faults as I met the weeds, the caterpillars, and the flood; and that I never presumed to send a petition upward, without making toil, my right-hand servant, the messenger of my prayer. WORK AND PRAY."

At a meeting held in London, concerning the houseless poor, the Lord Mayor remarked, that he considered that one of the greatest causes of vagrancy was want of work. For the purpose of preventing this complaint, he would advise the adoption of a plan, which an old friend of his, Mr. Jackson, one of the overseers of the parish of St. Catherine Cree, had tried. He would provide work, whether that work proved a matter of pecuniary advantage or not; and the host of vagrants who hated work would soon disappear, as they had done in the case of his friend, when they found that without working for it, they could get nothing to eat. The case to which his lordship alluded was as follows: Mr. Jackson was considerably annoyed while he was overseer, by the solicitations of great hulking fellows of the parish, who always said they could get no work. "Well, my poor men," he at length said to some of them, "I'll see and get you a little work." He then took them to the church-yard, and ordered them to pick up all the loose stones that were laying about and throw them in a corner. In a few hours all but one got tired, and skulked off. He who remained calculated upon the contrast between his conduct and that of those who departed, and he actually stayed two or three days, which greatly increased his strength. He collected

# BENEF

# 36. Beneficence in Hazarding Life.

"The functions of a simple, earnest and skilful country surgeon," says Coleridge, "living in a small town or village, and circulating in a radius of ten miles, are, and might always be made, superior in real, urgent, and fitting relief, to the Lady Bountiful. I often think with pleasure of the active, practical benevolence of Salter. His rides were often sixty, averaging more than thirty miles every day over bad roads and in dark nights: yet not once has he been known to refuse a summons, though quite sure that he would receive no remuneration, nay, not sure that it would not be necessary to supply wine or cordials, which in the absence of the landlord of his village, must be at his own expense. This man was generally pitied by the affluent and idle, on the score of his constant labors, and the drudgery which he almost seemed to court. Yet with little reason; for I never knew the man more to be envied, or more cheerful, more invariably kind, or more patient; always kind from real kindness and delicacy of feeling; never even for a moment angry.

A man in W., who depended for support entirely on his own exertions, subscribed five dollars annually in support of the Bombay schools. His friends inquired, "Why he gave so much, and how he could afford it?" He replied, "I have for some time been wishing to do something for Christ's cause, but I cannot preach, neither can I pray in public, to any one's edification, nor can I talk to people, but I have hands, and I can work."