This Life our Trial for Eternity.
I. It is a great and awful thought which is put before us in these words by the Saviour and Guide of our souls; the great importance, namely, of every part of our behaviour here in this present world, seeing that, from beginning to end, we are here upon our trial. The Lord and Head and Father of the family tries and proves us His children and servants whilst we are here by the little things of this world, whether we are fit to be entrusted with the great things of the world to come. The life in which we now are is our place of education, our school, our apprenticeship, which, if we get through well, we shall be ready for that which God hath prepared for us in the eternal life by-and-by. The little, short, passing affairs in which the Lord employs us now, are to us in one way great, and enduring, and eternal for, by them, and by our behaviour in them, He would have us to become ready for the good, the true, the eternal things.
II. The true riches, given through God's mercy in Christ as a reward for our faithfulness in these mean, earthly things, are the very joy and glory of heaven itself, thatjoy and that glory of which it is written, that when He was rich in it, for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich. Nothing here can be truly called our own; it is only lent for a short time, just to see how we will employ it; how can it be our own, indeed, seeing we must so soon part from it? We may call it oursas little children call things their own which are put into their hands as playthings for a time; but really and truly that only is ours which we shall meet with in the other, the eternal, part of our being; that which we have committed in faith and love to the keeping of our Lord Jesus Christ, thatis ours, and will be so for ever. Our time, our money, all that we will call ours, is in reality His time and money, to whom we ourselves belong. To Him we must account for all. None of them have passed away for ever; they will one day surely find us out.
J. Keble, Sermons for Sunday's after Trinity,part i., p. 283.
I. From the highest point of view true faithfulness knows no distinction between great and small duties. From the highest point of view, that is, from God's point of view, to Him nothing is great, nothing small, as we measure it. The worth and the quality of an action depend on its motive only, and not at all on its prominence, or on any other of the accidents which we are always apt to adopt as the tests of the greatness of our deeds. Nothing is small that a spirit can do. Nothing is small that can be done from a mighty motive. "Large" or "small" are not words for the vocabulary of conscience. It knows only two words, right and wrong. This thought binds together in a very terrible unity all acts of transgression, and in a very blessed oneness all acts of obedience.
II. Faithfulness in small duties is even greater than faithfulness in great. We may legitimately adopt the distinction of great and small, a distinction which is founded upon truth, in regard to the different kinds of duties which devolve upon us in our daily life, if only we remember that all such distinctions are superficial; that the great and the small, after all, run down into one. Remembering that we may, then, fairly measure our different actions by two standards: one is the apparent importance of the consequences and the apparent splendour of the act, the other is the difficulties with which we have to contend in doing it; I think it is quite true that it is a great deal harder, in ordinary cases, for us to go on doing the little things well, than for us to do the great things well. The smallest duties are often harder, because of their apparent insignificance, because of their constant recurrence, than the great ones. Be faithful in that which is least, and the accumulation of minute faithfulnesses will make the mighty faithfulness of a life.
III. Faithfulness in that which is least is the preparation for, and secures our having, a wider sphere in which to obey God. Every act of obedience smooths the road for all that shall come after. To get the habit of being faithful wrought into our life, and becoming part of our second and truer self, that is a defence all but impregnable for us when the stress of the great trials comes, or when God calls us to lofty and hard duties.
A. Maclaren, Sermons preached in Manchester,1st series, p. 274.
How the Little may be used to get the Great.
I. Consider that strange new standard of value which is set up here. On the one side is placed the whole glittering heap of all material good that man can touch or handle, all that wealth can buy of this perishable world; and on the other hand there are the modest and unseen riches of pure thoughts and high desires, of a noble heart, of a life assimilated to Jesus Christ. The two are compared in three points: (1) As to their intrinsic magnitude; (2) as to their quality; (3) as to our ownership of them.
II. Notice the other broad principle that is laid down in these three verses, as to the highest use of the lower good. Whether you are a Christian man or not, this is true about you, that the way in which you deal with your outward goods, your wealth, your capacity of all sorts, may become a barrier to your possessing the higher, or it may become a mighty help. The world thinks that the highest use of the highest things is to gain possession of the lowest thereby, and that truth and genius and poetry are given to select spirits, and are wasted unless they make money out of them. Christ's notion of the relationship is exactly the opposite: that all the outward is then lifted to its noblest purpose when it is made rigidly subordinate to the highest; and that the best thing that any man can do with his money is so to spend it as to purchase for himself a good degree, laying up for himself in store a good foundation that he may lay hold on eternal life.
III. One word as to the faithfulness which thus utilises the lowest as a means of possessing more fully the highest. You will be faithful if through all your administration of your possessions there runs (1) the principle of Stewardship; you will be faithful if through all your administration of your earthly possessions there runs (2) the principle of Sacrifice; you will be faithful if through all your administrations of your earthly possessions there runs (3) the principle of Brotherhood.
A. Maclaren, A Year's Ministry,1st series, p. 341.
References: Luke 16:10. Homiletic Magazine,vol. xv., p. 106; W. M. Punshon, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 104; Ibid.,vol. xiii., p. 372; Ibid.,vol. xvii., p. 115; Ibid.,vol. xxxi., p. 140; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 239; J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity,part i., p. 283; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes,3rd series, p. 68. Luke 16:11. Ibid.,4th series, p. 18. Luke 16:11; Luke 16:12. J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity,part i., p. 274.Luke 16:12. Homilist,3rd series, vol. x., p. 346.