The principle which makes work Christian is the will and the glory of God. In the midst of our working life, in the midst of our religious thought, in our times of devotion, in our hours of prayer, Jesus speaks to us and bears His unflinching testimony, calling upon the Christian to persevere, making his work true.
He does it, I submit to you, in three ways.
I. He does it because He has robed Himself in our humanity. Robing Himself in our humanity, Jesus has added a dignity to our nature. It was made in the image of the Eternal; it was created indeed with that stamp upon it which even original sin could not altogether wipe out. But Jesus, by the Incarnation, has done something more. He has robed Himself most high God in that nature; thereby He has added dignity; and by the fact that you have been dignified, by your nature being taken into God, by that fact you are taught that the dignity of that nature is never satisfied, unless entirely you aim in your work to do God's will, and set forth God's glory. So He has borne and is bearing His witness.
II. He bore it further, by Himself toiling and teaching in that nature; He showed to you and me not only its dignity He showed its power. The power of human nature is all but infinite all but infinite as seen in the work it can do, when it is assisted by the power which our blessed Master exerted most by the power of God. You have, in a sense, power to do even as God does, rising up into the life of God.
III. Need I add that He witnessed to it by His death? Not only by being robed in humanity, not only by showing the power of humanity to God; but by dying in this humanity; by exhibiting to us, in this way, the immensity of the value that God placed upon it, He taught us its only end in labour. If the Christian is to do his work, it does not matter about the dimensions of its outward expression; it does not matter about the texture of the material; the great point for you and me to see to, is that the principle lying behind it be real, one that is maintained in its reality by the grace of the blessed Spirit, by the example of our divine Redeemer that principle being that its aim and object are the will and the glory of God.
W. J. Knox-Little, Characteristics of the Christian Life,p. 1.
Christ's words and Christ's work
In these words of our Lord there is nothing which peculiarly belongs to His Divine nature, nothing even which belongs to Him as a prophet; they were spoken as by One who was in all points tempted like as we are, by One who became fully partaker of our flesh and blood. They are His words spoken as He is our great example. It is no presumption, no claiming to ourselves any portion of His power, if we pray and labour to be able to repeat them ourselves truly.
I. We must work, and that diligently; but not Satan's work or our own, but the works of God. The soil must bear much, but its strength must not be wasted on weeds, however luxuriant; it must bear that which will be kept for ever; we must work while it is day, for the night is coming. Even while working busily, and working the works of God, we must not forget our own infirmity, we must remember and repeat Christ's words in the text for in them He speaks as one of us, and not as our God. "The night cometh, when no man can work," the day which is so happy to us, and we would fain hope not unprofitably wasted, is yet hastening to its close. It is of no less importance that we should remember that the time is soon coming when we cannot work, than that we should avail ourselves of the time present, to work in it to the utmost.
II. One difficulty which arises is this, that in one sense we are working the work of God probably already; for certainly the particular business of our profession, or calling, or situation, is to us the work of God. This seems to me one of the most dangerous snares of all; we are busy, and we are busy about our duty, so that the more we work, we fancy that we are doing our duty more, and the very thing which seems to be our help is unto us an occasion of falling. That it should not be so, two things are to be observed: First, that we say to ourselves that we are busily engaged in our duty, and that our duty is God's work. It would be well if we said this not to ourselves only, but to God in one short prayer: "Lord, I am Thy servant, this is Thy will and Thy work; bless me in it for Christ's sake." The second caution is contained in the latter words of the text. The shortness of our own life bids us remember that we are but God's instruments, appointed to labour for a little while on a particular little part of His great work, but that neither its beginning nor its finishing belongs to us, neither can we so much as understand the vastness of its range.
T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. vi., p. 164.
References: John 9:4. J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide,p. 367; W. Cunningham, Sermons from1828 to1860, p. 303; D. Fraser, Metaphors of the Gospels,p. 305; F. Meyrick, Church of England Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 208; G. Litting, Thirty Children's Sermons,pp. 43, 67; A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons,p. 160; Preacher's Monthly,vol. x., p. 354; T. Gasquoine, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 342; H. W. Beecher, Ibid.,vol. ii., p. 35; vol. x., p. 36; vol. xxviii., p. 121; E. H. Ward, Ibid.,vol. xiv., p. 318; H. P. Liddon, Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament,p. 84.John 9:4; John 9:5. S. Cox, Expositions,4th series, p. 179. John 9:6. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. v., p. 383; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xv., p. 340.