Life the Service of a Generation.
I. "He served his generation." The expression is vague till we interpret it. To one of us it may seem a small thing to have the possibilities of life confined within the limits of a single generation. We may have formed a grander conception of the capabilities of a life our own or another's. We may have dreamed of far-reaching consequences to a church or a country, to literature or history, and thus to the world itself, from the fact that a certain person has lived and moved and had his being upon the face of the earth from which he was taken. But, speaking of average men, and of men above the average, it is true, painfully true, that they can at the best serve but one generation, and then must see corruption. Great ability, great knowledge, great sagacity, great personal influence, great oratory, great generalship, great statesmanship all are of the generation.
II. Shall we count this a small thing? Is it not enough if it can be said with truth of any man? If there is here the reproof of human vanity, is there not also here the repose of human restlessness? The service of the generation is capable of every possible variety. It is to fill the post assigned with diligence, with seriousness, with unselfishness, with God in sight. No one touches his generation at more than a few points; most touch it but at one. That point of contact is the place of service.
III. "He served his generation." In doing so he served God's counsel concerning himself. David, in his shepherd vigils in the hills around Bethlehem; David, exiled and outlawed by the king whom he loved through all; David, meditating his psalms, immortal in their use for churches and solitudes; David, at last anointed king, to reign seven years in Hebron and thirty and three in Jerusalem, was the subject, all through these vicissitudes, of a changeless will and counsel, which he persistently, though with frightful aberrations, served through all. So has it been with lesser lives and less illustrious fortunes. We, we ourselves, in our childhoods and manhoods, in our advancements and disappointments, in our little enterprises and less achievements, have been serving a counsel, and that of God. Oh, let us feel as we ought the mighty honour! These lives are trivial and uneventful, but they have been the subject of thought in heaven: let us live them well. Let us fulfil their high destiny. Enough, if of one of us this may be the record: "He served the counsel of God, and he fell asleep."
C. J. Vaughan, University Sermons,p. 511.
References: Acts 13:36. W. Arthur, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 97; W. Braden, Ibid.,vol. v., p. 152; J. P. Chown, Ibid.,vol. ix., p. 113; S. G. Matthews, Ibid.,vol. x., p. 8.