Our Lifework

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit

If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be… – John 12:26

I do not believe that any Christian was created merely to keep a shop—he was created to serve God in his trading. Notwithstanding all man’s sin, a man is such a noble work of God that he cannot have been intended merely to measure off yards of silk, or to weigh pounds of sugar, or to sweep street crossings, or to put on crowns, robes and diamonds. There is something grander than that for man to do! The little birds are made to sing God’s praises and I, who am of more value than many sparrows, must be meant to sing God’s praises too! This is especially true concerning us who profess to have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ and to have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Our life has an outlook towards the Infinite—there are windows in our life that look towards God. Look out of them, O Christian! With your windows open towards God, live in the light of His Countenance and seek in all things to please and honor Him! It is your lifework to honor God, to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, to be the instrument by which God shall illustrate His almighty power—the black foil from which He shall display the brightness of His Grace. You are to be the means of spreading abroad in this world the savor of Christ’s name—but you cannot do this unless you follow Christ.

I do not believe that all of you would be following Christ if you were to attempt to preach. Even Christ never attempted to do what His Father did not intend Him to do. A man once asked Him to officiate as a lawyer or a judge, but He replied, “Who made Me a judge or a divider over you?” One beauty of Christ’s life was that He kept to His calling and did not go beyond His commission. And you will be wise if you do the same…Every man has his own particular calling and every Christian’s calling should be especially for God…all are fitted for the work to which they are called by God. And to each one the Master says, “Follow Me and keep to the work which My Father has given you to do, even as I pleased not Myself by selecting My own work, but did that which My Father had appointed for Me.”

Following the Risen Christ by C. H. Spurgeon

The Holy Spirit’s Chief Office

Sherry sermon

You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

Sermon Text

We Must be Like Jesus

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit

Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. – Matthew 16:24

When sin is pardoned and the eternal safety of the soul is ensured, the next thing is to seek the purity of the soul and to secure a character that shall be worth having throughout eternity. There is no character which is worth having which is not fashioned according to the Character of Christ. He is absolute perfection! In Him is nothing redundant and from Him nothing is omitted which ought to be there. To be perfect, we must be like Jesus. “Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith,” we are to conquer this sin and to overcome that passion and, in the power of God’s Spirit, to cultivate this tender Grace and that other bolder virtue! The one thing we are to aim at is to tread in Christ’s footsteps, to do what He did and, as far as He is imitable by us, to do it as He did it and to be as He was in the midst of the sons and daughters of men. If I am a Christian, I am not to be following Calvin, or Arminius, or any other earthly leader—I am to mold my doctrinal opinions, my thoughts, words, character and acts after the model of Christ’s!

The same Law applies to the whole of our life-service. If we would do what we were created to do—if, being trees of God’s planting, we are to bear the fruit He meant us to bear, we must follow Jesus Christ! We are sent into the world, under Him, upon the great errand of seeking the lost—

“‘Tis all our business here below
To cry, ‘Behold the Lamb!’”

—some from the pulpit, but every Christian from some place or other. To each individual Believer, Christ has given a position which nobody else can so well occupy and from that position he can influence some other person or persons whom God will bless through him.

Following the Risen Christ by C. H. Spurgeon

Your Most Important Concern

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved… – Acts 16:31

Procrastination often comes in to cause the solemnities of the Gospel to seem less serious. “There is plenty of time,” we say. “We are quite young as yet and we have many years in which to think of these things.” Where the sere and yellow leaf is beginning to fall, there is something else to put away thoughts of eternity. There is another daughter to be married, so a few more hundreds of pounds must be saved up for her. And then when you have retired to your country house, you will think about “making your peace with God”—as if it were nothing to you that you are “condemned already” because you have “not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God,” and as if it were a matter of no importance to be an enemy of God and to be unsaved for 50 or 60 years of sin—as if it were a small thing to have the leprosy of sin still eating into your immortal spirits!

We live in vain if we do not live unto God and if we do not live by faith in Jesus Christ, the one and only Savior. “Live in vain,” did I say? It were better for you, dear Hearers, and for me, that we had never been born if we should live and die without faith in Jesus Christ! You may neglect your business, you may neglect what you will—but do not neglect your souls. First, first, FIRST—beyond and before everything else—must be the matter of your own personal salvation! On board a vessel that is going down, a man may forget his luggage and many precious treasures that he has with him. It is for his life that he is concerned. Even Satan spoke the truth for once when he said, “Skin for skin, yes, all that a man has will he give for his life.” Let it be so with you in the highest sense. Make your soul your first care, for what shall it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul? So the first thing for you to do is to follow Christ for life, for salvation—looking to Him by faith, in obedience to the Apostolic command, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.”

Following the Risen Christ by C. H. Spurgeon

Delight in Jesus

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. – Colossians 3:2

You who are in business and mix with the world by the necessity of your callings must find it difficult to keep quite clear of the dragging down influences of this poor world—it will hamper you if it can. You are like a bird which is always in danger when it alights on the earth. There are twigs and traps and nets and guns, and a poor bird is never safe except upon the wing and up aloft. Yet birds must come down to feed, and they do well to gather their meal in haste and take to their wings again.

When we come down among men we must speedily be up again. When you have to mix with the world and see its sin and evil, yet take heed that you do not light on the ground without your Father. And then, as soon as ever you have picked up your barley, rise again—away, away, for this is not your rest! You are like Noah’s dove flying over the waste of waters—there is no rest for the sole of your feet but on the ark with Jesus!

Fence out the world! Let us chase away the wild boar of the woods and let the vines bloom and the tender grapes give forth their good smell and let the Beloved come and walk in the garden of our souls while we delight ourselves in Him and in His heavenly gifts. Let us not carry our burden of things below…Put these away, Beloved, for we are risen with Christ and it is not right that we should wander among the tombs! No, rather let us sing unto the Lord a new song and praise Him with our whole soul.

Following the Risen Christ by C. H. Spurgeon

These Sweet Thoughts

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. – Colossians 3:2

Need I press upon you, Beloved, to set your love upon the Well-Beloved? …I know you love Him! Fix your mind on Him, then. Often meditate upon His Divine Person, His perfect work, His mediatorial Glory, His second coming, His glorious reign, His love for you, your own security in Him, your union with Him! Oh, let these sweet thoughts possess your breasts, fill your mouths and influence your lives. Let the morning break with thoughts of Christ and let your last thought at night be sweetened with His Presence. Set your affection upon Him who has set His affection upon you!

And what else is there above that our hearts should love but Heaven itself? It is the place of holiness! Let us so love it that we begin to be holy here. It is the place of rest—let us so delight in it that by faith we enter into that rest! O my Brothers and Sisters, you have vast estates which you have never seen—and I think if I had an estate on earth which was soon to be mine, I would wish to take a peep over the hedge now and then. If I could not take possession, I should like to see what I had in reversion. I would make an excuse to pass that way and say to any who were with me, “That estate is going to be mine before long.”

In your present poverty console yourselves with the many mansions. In your sickness delight much in the land where the inhabitants shall no more say, “I am sick.” In the midst of depression of spirit comfort your heart with the prospect of unmixed felicity…What? Are you fettered to earth? Can you not project yourself into the future? The stream of death is narrow—cannot your imagination and your faith leap over the brook to stand on the other shore awhile and cry, “All is mine and mine forever! Where Jesus is there shall I be! Where Jesus sits there shall I rest. ‘Far from a world of grief and sin, with God eternally shut in’”?

Following the Risen Christ by C. H. Spurgeon

Set Your Affection

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Father

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. – Colossians 3:2

“Set your affection.” These words do not quite express the meaning, though they are as near it as any one clause could well come. We might render it thus—“Have a relish for things above” or, “Study industriously things above” or, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” That which is proper enough for a dead man is quite unsuitable for a risen one! Objects of desire which might suit us when we were sinners are not legitimate nor worthy objects for us when we are made saints. As we are quickened, we must exercise life and, as we have ascended, we must love higher things than those of earth.

What are these “things above” which we should set our affection upon? I ask you, now, to lift your eyes above yonder clouds and this lower firmament to the residence of God. What do you see there? First, there is God Himself. Make Him the subject of your thoughts, your desires, your emotions, your love. “Delight yourself, also, in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” “My Soul, wait only upon God, for my expectation is from Him.” Call Him, “God my exceeding joy.” Let nothing come between you and your heavenly Father! What is all the world if you have not God and when you once have God, what matters it though all the world is gone? God is all things and when you can say, “God is mine,” you are richer than Croesus. O to say, “Whom have I in Heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside You”! O to love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength—that is what the Law required—but it is what the Gospel enables us to render.

Following the Risen Christ by C. H. Spurgeon