Untitled Sermon
And, mark you, for each one of us there is a special vocation in which we can 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. If you are a servant, you can follow Christ by ministering to the comfort of all who are in the house. If you are a mother, you can follow Christ by training up your children for him. Every man has his own particular calling, and every Christian’s calling should be specially for God. One is called to the foreign mission field; let him go, in God’s name, to the regions beyond; let him not stop at home. Another is called to go from house to house, to visit the sick, to care for the poor, and so on;—Bible-woman, City Missionary, I greet you in Christ’s name, and bid you keep to your own work, and never run away from it. One is called to teach an infant class, and another to care for the lads or the lasses; and all are fitted for the work to which they are called by God, and to each one the Master says, “Follow thou me, and keep to the work which my Father has given thee to do, even as I pleased not myself by selecting my own work, but did that which my Father had appointed for me.”
Further, this rule also applies to the character of others. How much some people are concerned because a certain man is so purse proud! It seems to be a sort of consolation to them to think how much better they are than he is. Another is very frivolous, and they frequently bring his character into their conversation, apparently as a means of showing how superior in sobriety they are. To everyone of that stamp, Christ seems to me to say, “ ‘What is that to thee? follow thou me,’ and then the imperfections of thy neighbour will not lie so near to thy heart.” I have heard of a minister who, wishing to bring the truth home to the hearts and consciences of his people, said that he should like to pass a Reform Act,—that everybody should reform one person, and then all would be reformed. He meant that they should all reform themselves, but one man said, “The minister is quite right; everybody is to reform one, and I am going home to reform our Mary.” That is often our idea,—that we must reform somebody else; but if we could bring ourselves to feel that weeding our own garden, and watering our own plants, and fulfilling our own vocation is what God requires of us, how much better it would be for the entire Church of Christ.