WORKING FOR GOD | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 22, 1881

WORKING FOR GOD.

I MEAN by that, doing God’s work for God’s own sake, and from no other motive-power—receiving all your inspiration directly from him; not working to gratify, perhaps, a natural restlessness of nature, or simply because you were born with a good deal of quicksilver in your constitution, and must be doing something—not working simply to win applause or to be accounted successful; but working for God because you love him for his own sake, apart from any fee or reward. Personally I can only express the prayer which comes from the depth of my heart, “The Lord grant that I may learn what it means.” If I am engaged in God’s work from any other motive than the constraining power of love to him, I am serving him from an unworthy and base motive.

Let me set forth what I mean in a simple illustration. Doubtless many of you have seen water flowing along an aqueduct. It is being pumped up, and, as the water flows, you can count the strokes of the engine. Now it is full, and there is a rush. The water seems to say, “I flow because I am forced to flow—I flow because I am pumped—I would not flow if I could help flowing.” It flows because an external power is brought to bear upon it. But have you not often stood by the side of a mountain stream? There it comes, jumping over that bowlder, running round that stone, flowing over that shingle. There is no stroke of the engine in it. As it runs past it seems to sing, “I flow, I flow, because I have got my home on high. I was born amongst the clouds; my fountain-head is up there. I must flow because I have come from on high.” And the service which you and I want to render is that service which comes—not from external pressure, not because you have been pushed into the work, but because you are born from above.

And if this is the only right motive, I am certain that it is the only lasting power. What will keep a man really in earnest from the first day of January to the last day of December, and that year after year, but this? You often hear of laborers who have gone back. Why did they go back? Because, although they were engaged in the work of God, they did not know much of working for God. Nobody is ever likely to leave that which he loves, that in which he finds his highest happiness. Now, no one can work for God without being filled with delight. There is no temptation to give up God’s work when it is done for his sake. Therefore, nothing will keep a man at white heat year after year but working for God. Again, it is this emphasis on the “for” that leads to

THOROUGHNESS IN THE WORK.

The man who works from any other motive will, in all probability, only be anxious to get decently through his work. If he satisfies others, or, what is perhaps far easier, if he satisfies himself, he is quite content. But the very moment that a man works for God, his idea of service becomes higher. There will be conscience put into every stroke. When a Grecian sculptor was carving a statue that was to stand in a niche in a heathen temple, many of his friends were surprised to see that he took as much pains with the back part of the statue as with that part which was to be in front. They said to him, “Why are you so careful about that part? It has to stand in a niche, and it will not be seen.” “Because the gods will see it,” said he. Ay, and if we preach, and teach, and give tracts, and speak for God, there will be in it the most solid, and the best work that we can put into every detail, because God will see it; it is done for him. I might give a second-rate article to any one else, but the choicest and best must be his. It will not only be the piece of work that the public sees, which will be carefully done—there will be thought, and care, and prayer, and holy jealousy exercised about every part, if we are working for God. . .

HOW TO DO IT.

The Hebrews have this saying, that God is more delighted with adverbs than with nouns. That is, it is more to God how a thing is done than simply what is done. What style of working for God, then, is to be ours? I think we must put at the very head of the list, working for God cheerfully. We read that the Israelites sighed and cried as they worked. I do not marvel at it; they were working for a Pharaoh, and under the lash of the task-master; they were working for those who gave them no straw with which to make their bricks. But when we are working for God—for our Father—for One who guarantees our strength, and supplies us with all materials, and who talks with us all the time we are doing our little work, and who forgives us all our blunders, and is so quick in love to accept it, there is something wrong with us if we do not do it cheerfully. I am persuaded that if we perform even the best work for God in any other spirit than that of holy cheerfulness, we libel God. We ought to make the world see that his service is perfect freedom; that if he had no Heaven for us, if there were no crown hereafter, and no “Well done! good and faithful servant,” we would serve him just for the sheer joy of doing it.

Am I speaking to some naturally gloomy or depressed soul? I would recommend you to do what a child once did. As she was feeding herself with a spoon, the sun poured through the window and fell on the metal spoon, and she said, “Why, look, mother; I have swallowed a whole spoonful of sunshine!” It would be a splendid thing if we could get all God’s workers to swallow two or three spoonfuls of sunshine, so that when we meet the outside world it would be constrained to acknowledge that, at all events, our Master treats us well. Then, working for God must be done

UNINTERRUPTEDLY.

It is comparatively easy to do work for God by fits and by starts. I can imagine that some, through the influence of a splendid gathering like this, may feel wonderfully enthusiastic for a few days. But, oh, to keep on and on, and on, and on! “How do you account for your success?” was once asked of Dr. Carey. “I account for it all, under God’s blessing, by the fact that I have learned how to plod.”—From a sermon by Rev. Archibald G. Brown.