I do not think there is a better characteristic of the more earnest thinking of these days than its profound reverence for faithful work; its profound sense that if a man have found his work he has found his felicity. In the text we have our Lord's own example, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." We are not able to understand much concerning God; but we are perfectly sure of this, that week-day or sabbath-day He is never idle. He does not abide in remote glory, hearkening to the praises of heaven. We think of Him as with the keen eye that misses not a movement of a being in nature; with the sharp ear that loses not a sound; with the unwearying hand that has wrought on from eternity and will work on to eternity. The Being who has set every man his work does not shrink from His own. And if He has appointed man's lot to be a laborious one, He bids His creature do no other than He does Himself. He does not say, Go; He says, Come.
I. God works in creation. When our bewildered mind owns its utter incapacity to grasp the millionth part of the awful sum that we name so easily when we say the universe, then remember that One Mind planned it all, and One Hand fashioned it; that all this, with its infinite relations and adaptations, of which science is daily telling us more, is God's work; and think what commentary it reads on my text "My Father worketh hitherto."
II. God works in Providence. It is fresh this day. It is sustaining each of us at this moment. The universe is not like a machine that just needed to be wound up once and then it could go by itself. It was not enough to launch a world on its orbit and then leave it alone; its course must be steered and prescribed, as it rolls on its way. To think that everything that is high and low, in earth, and air, and sea, is considered by God's eye, is tended by God's hand what a comment on the Creator and Redeemer's declaration, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."
III. God works in Redemption. What work on God's part is implied in man's Redemption! All the persons of the Godhead are tasked here. The Father so loved us as to send the Son; the Son came and lived and died; the Blessed Spirit must now apply the Gospel remedy to the refractory and repellent soul. Truly, in the case of each separate soul brought into the fold of the Good Shepherd, you may see a repetition of the work that was done in the creation, that is done in the Providence of the outer world.
A. K. H. B., From a Quiet Place,p. 225.
References: John 5:17. Christian World Pulpit,vol. xviii., p. 14; A. Blomfield, Sermons in Town and Country,p. 23 3 John 1:5 :19. C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons;p. 331. Joh 5:21-23. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 484.John 5:23. H. Bonar, Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 163; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. i., p. 49. John 5:22-23. Ibid.,vol. iii., p. 18.