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(text, and Mark 6:3): — Scripture speaks of Christ as the Servant of the Lord. But not till most of His brief history had passed did He begin to preach the gospel. For thirty years He was engaged in the everyday duties of life.

I. OUR DAILY WORK MAY BE TRUE SERVICE FOR GOD. Housework, the innumerable details of a mother's lot, manual labour, a sufferer's duties, commercial life, brain-toil — for these we may be as truly sent of God as an apostle or a prophet.

1. God's providential appointment shows where He wants our work. That we have our particular gifts, that our training fits us for a special post, that circumstances uncontrolled by us have brought us to a certain position, that our position involves definite duties — what are these but God pointing to what He requires us to do.

2. It were unlikely that most of our life should be necessarily spent on what has no vital bearing on eternity. No small feature of the blessedness of heaven is that there they serve Him. Consecration to Christ involves that He be glorified by our entire being. He claims us wholly. It is said that there is a point in the upper air where the discordant sounds of earth blend in harmony, the noise of the streets cannot be distinguished from the murmur of the sea, nor the shout of the battle from the chime of bells, nor the mirthful song from the sufferer's moan — there they are one; so the varied parts of our life may blend in a harmonious voice of praise ceaselessly rising to our exalted Lord, as by Himself the will of God was done as truly at the carpenter's bench aa in the most solemn agony of the garden and the cross.

II. SOME OF THE DIRECTIONS IN WHICH THIS DIVINE SERVICE MAY BE RENDERED.

1. Our daily toil tends to the well-being of others. The domestic servant contributes to the comfort of the home, the mechanic serves many a real human need, the teacher by voice or pen spreads knowledge, the physician and the nurse heal the body, the artist trains some of the higher faculties of the mind, the merchant produces or makes earth's productions available; there is no right calling which does not in some way benefit mankind.

2. And daily toil presents the best opportunity for manifesting the religion of Christ.

3. Daily toil is one of the great schools for training spiritual life.

III. THE POSSIBILITY OF THIS SERVICE SHOWS THE SACREDNESS OF OUR WORKDAY LIFE.

1. That all work may be Divine may well reconcile us to tasks that seem lowly.

2. This suggests a searching test of our belonging to Christ. For what is it to be Christ's, but to share His life. If we are only Christians on Sundays we are not Christ's.

3. This shows God's way to larger service presently. Was it not because He did the will of Him that sent Him in that humble village home, that He learnt to say in trial more awful than man can know, "Father, not as I will, but as Thou wilt"?

(C. New.)

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KJV: For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

WEB: For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.