SERMON X.
THE REWARD OF FINISHED WORK.

SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION DAY.

S. JOHN xvii. 4, 5.

"I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do: and now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was."

GOD Almighty gives every one a work, and prepares for every one a reward. So it has been with all the children of men, ever since the time of Adam. Adam had his work given him, to dress and to keep the garden of Eden, keeping himself with religious care from going near the Tree of knowledge. His reward also was prepared for him; freely to eat of the trees of the garden, and especially of the Tree of Life, the fruit whereof would cause him to live for ever. In like manner we children of Adam, all the men and women upon earth, have had their task assigned them one by one at the will of the heavenly. Work-master, the great Householder, the Lord and Owner of us all: and He is not a hard nor an unfair man: He never appoints any one a piece of work without providing for him beforehand an ample recompense. We belong indeed absolutely to Him. He gives us life and health and all things, so that we should be bound to do His work without any recompense at all: yet still He is so bountiful, that He offers us large and abundant wages. "Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour until the evening." He works on, or neglects his work, until the shadows of death fall: and then begins the time of reward: then the Lord of the vineyard says, "Call the labourers, and give them their hire:" then he that hath wrought, receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: and he that would not work, but chose rather to be unprofitable, receives his sentence, to be cast into outer darkness.

All this is so well known to us, that, if we have any serious consideration at all, we think of it, I suppose, very often: and especially as often as any person dies. As we stand by our neighbour's death-bed, or by his grave, whoever and whatever he was, these are the two thoughts which naturally come into our minds, "his work is done," and, "he is gone to his reward." And we begin, according to our knowledge of the man and the interest we take in him, to consider how he did his work, and what sort of a reward it is likely his will be.

Now in this, as in other respects, the great Almighty Son of God, our Lord and Saviour, made Himself one of us. He too, when He came on earth, had His ordained work, and when He departed from earth, He too went to His ordained reward, to His own place, as any of us, His poor earthly creatures, might do. Of this work He often spoke, while He was going about in accomplishment of it. "My meat" and drink "is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work." And in another place, "I must work the work of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work." This was our Lord's way of speaking: just as one continually hears hard-working labourers say, " they are not their own masters, they have not their own choice, they would like to do so and so, but they cannot, because they have a task to finish before night." "We say such words, too often, in a dissatisfied, complaining way. At least, let us learn to say them with patience, seeing that our good God and Saviour had to say the very same, when He was among men. He too was in that condition, that neither His time nor His labour was His own. He was as a servant or slave among men, not pleasing Himself, not doing His own will, but bound to do a certain work before His life ended. He too denied and humbled Himself for the Glory's sake, into which He was bye and bye to enter: as He tells us by His Apostle, "For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising the shame." Let us not grudge one against another, nor vex ourselves at the restraint we live in, but rather let us try at least to be very thankful for our Lord's exceeding mercy in so coming among us, and vouchsafing to be one of us; to have a work and a reward, as we have.

Our Lord's work was His perfect Sacrifice: that Will of His Father, which He came into the world to do. He began it by taking to Himself that Body, which the Holy Spirit prepared for Him in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, and He ended it by offering up that same Body on the Cross, and commending His Soul into the hands of the Father, with the words, "It is finished." Looking forward to that moment, He had said a few hours before, "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do:" reckoning it already finished, because its accomplishment was now so very near. Indeed His Passion had now in a manner begun, for Judas had gone out to betray Him, and He had offered Himself sacramentally in that first Holy Communion. Now therefore we hear Him saying, "I have finished My work: it is time for Me to receive My reward." And what is His reward? To be glorified by His Father, with the glory which He had had with Him before the world was. That is, that His very Body, that humbled, scourged, crucified, buried Body, should be taken up into heaven, and with His Human Soul made partaker of that Infinite glory, which His Divine Person had with the Father before the world was, and from which, as God, He could never be separated for a moment. This, We know, took place at His Ascension. That was the great Day of our Lord's Glorification, as the Crucifixion was the great day of finishing His work. His work was, to save us from hell by the Sacrifice of Himself, and His reward, if we may so call it, was that His crucified Body should go up into heaven, and sit there in the highest place; on the Eight Hand of God, in the Glory of the Father.

This was the work, and this the reward, of Jesus Christ, our Head and our pattern. And though, as the heavens are higher than the earth, and as God is greater than man, so infinitely high are His work and His reward above ours, yet is the one in some sort the pattern of the other. As His day's work was, to offer Himself in Sacrifice for the souls and bodies of all men: so our day's work is, to save each one his own soul, and the souls committed in any way to his care. Not that we can, properly speaking, save ourselves, any more than we can create ourselves, or raise ourselves from the dead. But the Scripture calls it saving ourselves, if we do what in us lies, not to destroy our own souls, not to forfeit and cast away God's mercy. Therefore, as I said, our day's work is, to save each one his own soul and the souls committed to him. That is the common work or calling of us all: the priest and the labourer, the king and the wandering beggar, have so far the same task. But then God Almighty has given also to each of us a separate work, task or calling of his own, for which we have bye and bye to give in our separate accounts. Thus, the labourer has to save his soul, by dutiful, diligent, religious care in his day-labour; the priest, in his ministry; the rich man, in the spending of his money; the sick man, in enduring his affliction: and so of all others. God has given them a work to do: and the great question hereafter will be, How was that work done?

Our work is a shadow of our Lord's work, because whatever it is outwardly, in the end it will be found to pertain to the salvation of souls. And our reward, if we be found faithful, will be a shadow of our Lord's reward. It will be some portion, more or less, of His bright unspeakable glory: as in the pictures of our Lord with His saints we commonly see a sort of lesser brightness round the heads of those whom we know He delights to honour; not in any degree so wide nor so dazzling as the glory which is around His Head, yet still enough to shew that they are partakers of His light, and by it shine forth far more brightly than ordinary men. And this, in fulfilment of His own most gracious promise, when, speaking to His Father, He says, "The glory which Thou gavest Me, I have given them, that they may be one as We are." In some heavenly and wonderful manner, Christians are even now, at a great distance, partakers of their Lord's glory. How much more, when they come to the other world: when our vile bodies shall be changed, and made like unto His glorious Body: when "the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father:" when we shall be made like unto Him: "for we shall see Him as He is!"

This is our exceeding great reward: and our day's work is, to prepare ourselves duly for it. We have to work under Jesus Christ in this world, that He may give us a crown of life in the next. You see at once, surely, that there is no proportion between the work and the reward. A few days or years in this world is nothing, yea less than nothing, and vanity, compared with a happy and glorious eternity. A joyful and pleasant thing it is, at any time, to look back on our hours of work, and feel that they have not been spent in vain: that we have, in some tolerable manner, fulfilled our task in its proper time. Joseph, for instance, must have felt a great and peculiar delight, when he had finished storing up the corn which was to feed all the country in the famine: and Moses, when he had completed the tabernacle; and Joshua, when he had brought the whole land of Canaan into subjection to the Israelites; and Solomon, when he had made an end of building the temple: and S. John, when he had baptized our Saviour. All men have special satisfaction in having finished their work, although, strictly speaking, none ever did finish his work entirely, except Jesus Christ, Who said on the Cross, "It is finished." Still each one of us has a special delight in thinking over what he has gone through with, though it be done but indifferently well. How much more, when, by God's mercy, he has to look back on his whole life, with the certainty that it has not been a failure: that in some way, by innocence or by penitence, his task is in God's sight accomplished, and his soul saved for Christ's sake! Consider. Imagine but for one moment what the joy and the sweetness will be, should the merciful Lord at the last Day meet you with the words of approving love: "Well done, good and faithful servant." Then all doubt, all regret, will vanish in a moment: then will Christians no more disquiet themselves, as now they may and do but too reasonably, with the conscience of their manifold infirmities. This one thought, "God now accepteth my works," will fill and entrance the soul, and carry her out of herself; she will never more have leisure, as one may say, to grieve that she has not acted more entirely up to the rule which God had set her. The overflowing transport of that one moment will spread into a deep and wide sea of pleasure, which will bear us on to all eternity, and bring us nearer and nearer Him, in Whom, though now we see Him not, we "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.''

All of us know something, some little, of these unspeakable encouragements, held out in God's Word to those who do but seriously endeavour to finish their work. How then does it happen, that any of us should wilfully leave his day's work undone? It is, because, though we know of the great reward, to be given us at the end of our day, we do not earnestly care enough for it, to think often of it. It would be well for each one of us to examine ourselves this night, before we lie down to rest, on this one matter: " How have I been keeping the Day, on which our Lord went up into heaven? How often have I thought to-day of the happiness of heaven? How often have I thought of seeing His Face with joy? of hearing from Him,l Come, ye blessed of My Father?' of beholding Him, not *h through a glass darkly,' but 'face to face,' even as He is? Did I think of it, when I waked from my sleep this morning? Did I think of it, when I said my prayers? Did the blessed remembrance ever come into my mind, to assist me in bearing the burden and heat of the day?" Alas! I fear, were all to ask themselves such plain questions as these, very many, perhaps the greater part, would be compelled to reply that they had not once thought of the matter. And if we have not really thought of eternity, what else was there, to make us do our work well, so much of it at least, as is not done in sight of man? Then, if we have spent this one day without thinking of heaven, how did we spend yesterday? and the day before that? and the third day again, and all our past days? Must we not confess before our God, that we have hitherto slighted His promises? We have said, over and over in His hearing, the words which He meant to put us in mind of heaven, such as, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done;" "Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory:" or again the words of the Creed, "He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the Right Hand of God, the Father Almighty," or, "I believe in the life everlasting." These words we have said over and over in the hearing of our God, and all the while He saw that our hearts and minds were far away from Him, set on any thing but His promises. It is high time, surely, that this were amended; for as long as we are in this mind, I do not see how we can say a single prayer well: and then what is to become of us?

Perhaps, however, we are not so bad as this: we do sometimes recollect the happy place prepared for us; nay even, we wish ourselves there, especially (for such is the profane way of some) when anything goes wrong and discomposes us. But in how many instances have we given up anything for this blessed reward's sake? What sins have we broken ourselves of, to make the reward sure? What imperfections have we fought against, to make it purer and more precious? Too commonly, I fear, every little worldly trifle has more power to draw us away from remembrances of heaven, than all Christ's words to invite us. We kneel down to pray, and time after time, before the prayer is half over, our frail thoughts fly off, and we scarcely know where they are. Instead of being with God in heaven, and with that good Saviour Who is waiting there to present them before His throne, they are busy with some ordinary affair of work or amusement: and the saddest part of the matter is, that Christians content themselves with this, and take it as a matter of course, and quite leave off striving against it.

When our prayers are over, and we go out into the world, and set about our day's work, temptations of course come in our way. Sometimes people are very provoking, and anger and ill-blood begin to stir within us. Now if we were in a way of striving in earnest to think often of Christ in heaven, we might presently put down the unkind thought, before it had broken into words, by just wishing in earnest that He would help us to do so. But we are not used to this, and so unhappily we soon become used to give way to our evil tempers, and we spoil our dealings with our brother by all manner of cross words, angry looks, and harsh imaginations. Or it may be, a different sort of temptation comes across a man. The devil brings before him some object, from which Christ has commanded him to turn away his eyes and his heart. If now he were used to look upward, to think of that heaven where no unclean thing can enter, and of that Saviour Who is always watching him there, this would give him strength to pray in earnest that very moment: and no unclean spirit, no evil desire or fancy, can ever prevail against real and serious prayer. Pray with the heart, and courageously turn away the eyes, and you will, by God's blessing, win in a moment a great spiritual victory, which may do you unspeakable good as long as you live. But such prayer and such self-command will not come of themselves to a person who has gone on idly and carelessly, without any regular endeavour to muse and meditate on heavenly things.

Therefore, my brethren, in one word I say to you, Try. There is no good to be had without serious trying. Try to think earnestly, at least twice a day, of the work which your Father has given you to do, and of the reward which He has prepared for you. Try to remember these your earnest thoughts at other times of the day or night, and especially when temptation of any sort comes on. Try to-day, try to-morrow, try every day, try again and again. God is merciful: He will surely lend you a hand. God is true, and He has promised to help you. Holiness and heaven are great things; but through His unspeakable love, they may be had for trying!

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