Psalm 100:3-5 Know you that the LORD he is God: it is he that has made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.… "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever." There is a vast amount both of theology and philosophy in that simple answer, which our old divines have put into the mouth of a child. Were we to-day what we should be, it would be our element to love, to serve, to adore our God, and we should not need ministers to stir us to our pleasurable duty or remind us of Jehovah's claims. I. THY CLAIMS OF GOD, ON WHAT ARE THEY GROUNDED? 1. They are grounded, first of all upon His Godhead. "Know ye that Jehovah He is God." As Matthew Henry has very properly said, ignorance is not the mother of devotion, though it be the mother of superstition. True knowledge is the mother and the nurse of piety. Really to know the deity of God, to get some idea of what is meant by saying that He is God, is to have the very strongest argument forced upon one's soul for obedience and worship. 2. The second ground of the Lord's claim is His creation of us. "It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves." You never saw a child startled when it was told for the first time that God made it, for within that little mind there dwells an instinct which accepts the statement. 3. A third reason for living unto the Lord lies in His shepherding of us. "We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture." God has not left us and gone away. He has not left us as the ostrich leaves her eggs, to be broken by the passer's foot. He is watching over us at every hour; even as a shepherd guards his flock. Over us all He exercises an unceasing care, a watchful providence, and therefore we should return to Him daily praise. Men, because ye are men, adore the God who keeps you living men; but saintly men, men renewed and fed out of the storehouse of Divine grace, serve your God, I pray you, with all your heart, and soul, and strength, because you especially are the sheep of His pasture and the people of His hand. 4. A fourth reason for adoration and service is the Divine character (ver. 5). Here are three master motives for serving the Lord our God. Oh that all would feel their weight. First, He is good. Now, if I were to lift up a standard in this assembly and say, "This banner represents the cause of everything that is just, right, true, kind, and benevolent," I should expect many a young heart to enlist beneath it; for when pretenders in all lands have talked of liberty and virtue choice spirits have been enchanted and rushed to death for the grand old cause. Now, God is good, just, right, true, kind, benevolent; in a word, God is love, and therefore who would not serve Him? Then it is added, "His mercy is everlasting." Who would not serve one whose mercy endureth for ever? Cruel is that heart which infinite gentleness does not persuade. If God be merciful, man should no more be rebellious. It is added, "His truth endureth to all generations," that is to say, you will not find in God one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow. What He promises He will perform. Every word of His stands fast for ever, like Himself, immutable. Thus I have set before you the grounds of God's claims; are they solid? Do you consent to them? Oh, that sovereign grace would constrain each of us to live alone for the glory of God. It is His most righteous due. II. THE CLAIMS OF GOD — HOW HAVE WE REGARDED THEM? Answer for yourselves. Alas, some have paid no respect to these claims — in fact they have denied them, and have said in effect, "Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?" Sorrowfully must we all confess also that where we have tried to honour the Lord, and have done so in a measure by His grace, yet we have failed of perfection; we have to confess that oftentimes the pressure of the body which is near, and of the things that are seen and tangible, has been greater upon us than the force of the things which cannot be seen, but are eternal. We have yielded to self too often, and have robbed the Lord. What shall we do in this case? Why, we have to bless our everlasting God and Father, that He has provided an atoning sacrifice for all our shortcomings, and that there is One, partaker of our nature who stands in the gap on our behalf, in whom we can be accepted, notwithstanding all our shortcomings and offences. Let us go to God in Christ Jesus. III. THE CLAIMS OF GOD, WHEN THEY ARE REGARDED, HOW DO THEY INFLUENCE MEN? Let me show you how healthy it is to serve God. The man who serves God, led by the Spirit of God so to do, is humble. Were he proud it were proof at once that he was not serving God; but the remembrance that God is his sovereign, and has made him, that in His hand is his breath, makes the good man feel that he is nothing but dust and ashes at his very best. How horrible it is when man lives for lust, and puts forth all his strength to indulge his passions! Brutes! beasts! Alas! I slander the beasts when I compare them to such men. The man who lives for God is a far nobler being. Why, in the very act of self-renunciation and of dedication to God the man has been lifted up from earth, and from all that holds him down to its dust and mire, and he has risen so much nearer to the cherubim, so much nearer, in fact, to the Divine. This makes a man a man, for a man who serves is courageous, and too manly to be a slave. The love of God makes heroes. Give a man a resolve to serve God, and he is endowed with wondrous perseverance. Look at the apostles, and martyrs, and missionaries of the faith, how they have pressed on, despite a world in arms; when a nation has been apparently inaccessible they have found an entrance; when the first missionary has died another has been ready to follow in his footsteps. The first Church, in her weakness, and poverty, and ignorance, struggled with philosophy and wealth, and all the power of heathen Rome, till at last the weak overcame the strong, and the foolish overthrew the wise. O Lord, Thy service makes us akin to Thee. Blessed are they that wear Thy yokel How strong they grow, how patient to endure, how firm to stand fast, how swift to run. They mount with wings as eagles when they learn to serve Thee. The man who is led by the Holy Ghost to serve God is incited thereby to a zeal, a fervour, and a self-sacrifice to which nothing else could bring him. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. |
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