I. +The proper nature of the ministry is not the word or doctrine of
man but of God.+--Ministers are taught to handle their doctrine with
modesty and humility, without ostentation, with reverence, and with a
consideration of the majesty of God, whose doctrine it is they utter.
II. +The dispensing of the Word must not be for the pleasing of men
but God.+--Ministers must not apply and fashion their doctrine to the
affections, humours, and dispositions of men, but keep a good
conscience and do their office.
III. +If we seek to please men we cannot be the servants of God.+--He
that would be a faithful minister of the Gospel must deny the pride
of his heart, be emptied of ambition, and set himself wholly to seek
the glory of God in his calling.--_Perkins._
_The Servant of Christ._
+I. There is nothing dishonourable in the idea of a servant
absolutely considered.+--On the contrary, there may be much in it
that is noble and venerable. Nothing can be more contemptible than an
affectation of independence which resents or is ashamed of a
servant's name. And many who despise servants should be told that
they themselves are so worthless that nobody would think of honouring
them with hiring them for service. It was Christ's honour that His
Father so employed Him for the work of our salvation, and said,
"Behold My Servant, whom I have chosen": and the highest honour of
the preachers of the Gospel is that they are the ministers, that is,
the servants, both of Christ and His Church. There are cases, no
doubt, in which servitude is degrading. The master may be infamous;
though even then the servant's condition is not dishonourable unless
he be employed in infamous work. Many servants have wrought out most
honourable names for themselves in doing good work under bad masters.
Matthew Henry has said well that there is nothing mean but sin, and
with such meanness and dishonour is every man affected who is not a
servant of Christ. There is for us all the choice of only two
conditions; there is not a third and neutral one. The alternative is
a servant of the Son of God or a slave of sin. It may not be of sin
in its most hideous forms, in the form in which it tyrannises over
the drunkard, the lewd man, or the ambitious, but even in its milder
and less-offensive form, when it may reign only with the power which
it exercises over the worshipper of wealth or of human applause;
still, it is a degrading vassalage. Let no worldly man, then, affect
to pity or scorn the disciple of the Gospel as being one whom
superstition enslaves, though it were admitted to be a slavery; he
himself labours under one infinitely more oppressive and degrading.
Whose appears the greater liberty and the least oppression, he who is
governed by the salutary laws of the Gospel, or he who is the sport
and victim of his own ignorance and passions, or of the opinion of
the world, to which, at the expense of the violation of his own
conscience, he feels himself compelled ignominiously to submit? The
question needs not an answer. There is everything honourable in the
one service, everything dishonourable in the other. Only that man is
truly a free man who is a servant of Christ.
+II. The servant of Christ.+--Others profess that they are servants
of God; the Christian replies that he is a servant of Christ. There
is perhaps nothing by which his faith is more distinctly
characterised than this. "Is he not, then, a servant of God?" some
one may ask, either in the spirit of a scorning objector or in that
of an astonished inquirer who is as yet ignorant of the beautiful
mystery of Christian salvation. When others profess that they are the
servants of God, and when the Christian replies that he is a servant
of Christ, does it signify that he is not a servant of the eternal
Father? Such is the question; and our reply is, that in serving
Christ he approves himself not only the best servant of God, but the
only one whose service is genuine. In serving Christ he serves God,
because God has so appointed and ordained. He has ordained that we be
the servants of His Son; and if we serve not His Son, then we resist
His ordination, so that we serve neither His Son nor Himself.
+III. The Christian is Christ's servant, not by hire, but by
purchase.+--This is a circumstance which claims our most thoughtful
consideration. In the case of a servant who is hired there is a
limitation of the master's right, by the terms of the agreement, in
respect to the kind and amount of labour to be exacted. There is also
a definite term, at the expiry of which the right of service ceases,
and the remuneration of the service is exigible by law. There is a
vast difference in the case of a purchased servant, or, as otherwise
expressed, a slave. He is his master's property, to be treated
entirely according to his master's discretion. There is no limitation
either to the amount or nature of the work which he may exact. The
period of service is for life, and no remuneration can be claimed for
the labour, howsoever heavy and protracted. Our servant-condition in
relation to Christ is of this character: He does not hire us but has
purchased us--purchased us by His blood, and made us His property, to
be used according to His sovereign will. But this is far from being
all. Our gracious Master often sinks, as it were, the consideration
of His past services--His humiliation, His privation, His wounds and
agony by which He saved us from punishment and woe--and reasons and
deals with us as if we were hired servants and could merit something
at His hand, animating us in our work by exhibiting to our hope that
crown of glory which He will confer on all who are faithful unto
death. Blessed servitude--the servitude of the Christian! Servitude
of peace! Servitude of honour! Servitude of liberty! Servitude of
victory and everlasting glory! 1. The Christian, as a servant,
_submits his mind to the authority of Christ_--submits it to Him in
respect of his opinions; at the utterance of His Word renounces its
own judgments and prejudices, and turns away from the teaching of the
world's philosophy and priesthood in scorn, saying, "You have no part
in me. Christ is the Lord of my conscience; I will listen to Him."
2. As the servant of Christ, the Christian _subjects his body to His
control and regulation_ in the gratifying of its appetites, and in
providing for its comfort and adornment; his lips in what they speak;
his hands in what they do; his ears in what they listen to; his eyes
in what they read and look at; and his feet in all their journeying
and movements. 3. As the servant of Christ, he _regulates his family
according to his Master's mind and law._ 4. As a servant of Christ,
he _conducts his business according to Christ's law,_ with the
strictest honesty, and for Christ's end, distributing his profits in
a proportion--I shall say a large proportion; nay, I shall say a very
large proportion--to the maintenance and education of his family, and
some provision of an inheritance for them, and even a considerable
proportion for the gratification of his own tastes. Is not that a
large allowance for a slave? But oh, some of you! you seize on
all--wickedly appropriate all to yourselves, or part, and that with a
grudge, a murmur, and a scowl, with but the smallest fraction to the
Master's poor and the Master's Church! Slaves indeed! Slaves of
Avarice and his daughter, Cruelty! 5. As a servant of Christ, _the
country of the Christian is Christ's,_ to be regulated, so far as his
influence and vote may extend, by Christ's rule, for Christ's
ends.--_W. Anderson, LL.D._