Quiet Talks on Service by S. D. Gordon
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10 QUIET TALKS ON SERVICE
by
S. D. GORDON
Author of "Quiet Talks on Power" and "Quiet Talks on Prayer"
1906
Contents
Personal Contact with Jesus: The Beginning of Service
The Triple Life: The Perspective of Service
Yokefellows: The Rhythm of Service
A Passion for Winning Men: The Motive-power of Service
Deep-Sea Fishing: The Ambition of Service
Money: The Golden Channel of Service
Worry: A Hindrance to Service
Gideon's Band: Sifted for Service
Personal Contact With Jesus: The Beginning of Service.
The Beginning of an Endless Friendship.
An Ideal Biography.
The Eyes of the Heart.
We are Changed.
The Outlook Changed.
Talking with Jesus.
Getting Somebody Else.
The True Source of Strong Service.
Personal Contact With Jesus: The Beginning of Service.
(John i:35-51.)
The Beginning of an Endless Friendship.
About a quarter of four one afternoon, three young men were standing
together on a road leading down to a swift-running river. It was an old
road, beaten down hard by thousands of feet through hundreds of years. It
led down to the river, and then along its bank through a village
scatteringly nestled by the fords of the river. The young men were
intently absorbed in conversation.
One of them was a man to attract attention anywhere. He was clearly the
leader of the three. His clothing was very plain, even to severeness. His
face was spare, suggesting a diet as severely plain as his garments. The
abundance of dark hair on head and face brought out sharply the spare,
thoughtful, earnest look of his face. His eyes glowed like coals of living
fire beneath the thick, bushy eyebrows. He talked quietly but intensely.
There was a subdued vigor and force about his very person.
One of the others was a very different type of man. He was intense too,
like the leader, but there was a fineness and a far-looking depth about
his eye such as suggests a gray eye rather than a black. His hair was
softer and finer, and his skin too. In him intensity seemed to blend with
a fine grain in his whole make-up. The third man was a quiet,
matter-of-fact looking fellow. He did not talk much, except to ask an
occasional question. The three men were engaged in earnest conversation,
when a fourth man, a stranger, came down the road and, passing the three
by, went on ahead.
The leader of the three called the attention of his companions to the
stranger. At once they leave his side and go after the stranger. As they
nearly catch up to him, he unexpectedly turns and in a kindly voice asks,
"Whom are you looking for?" Taken aback by the unexpected question, they
do not answer, but ask where he is going. Quickly noticing the point of
their question, he cordially says, "Come over and take tea with me."
They gladly accepted the invitation, and spent the evening with him. And
the friendship begun that day continued to the end of their lives. Both
became his dear friends. And one, the fine-grained, intense man, became
his closest bosom friend. He never forgot that day. When he came years
after to write about his hospitable friend, found that afternoon, he could
remember every particular of their first meeting. We must always be
grateful to John for his simple, full account of his first meeting with
Jesus.
An Ideal Biography.
His simple story of that afternoon contains in it the three steps that
begin all service. They looked at Jesus; they talked with Jesus; forever
to the end of their lives they talked about Him. Here are the two personal
contacts that underlie all service, that lead into all service. The close
personal contact with Jesus begun and continued. And then personal contact
with other men ever after. The first always leads to the second. The power
and helpfulness of the second grow out of the first.
There is a little line in the story that may serve as a graphic biography
of John the Herald. There could be no finer biography of anybody of whom
it could be truly written. It is this: "Looking upon Jesus as He walked,
he said look." He himself was absorbed in looking. Jesus caught him from
the first. He was ever looking. And he asked others to look. His whole
ministry was summed up in pointing Jesus out to others.
He was ever insisting that men look at Jesus. Looking, he said "look."
His lips said it, and life said it. John's presence was always spelling
out that word "look," with his whole life an index finger pointing to
Jesus. If we might be like that. Every man of us may be in his life, in
the great unconscious influence of his presence, a clearly lettered
signpost pointing men to the Master. All true service begins in personal
contact with Jesus. One cannot know Him personally without catching the
warm contagion of His spirit for others. And there is a fine fragrance, a
gentle, soft warmth, about the service that grows out of being with Him.
The beginning of John's contact with Jesus that day, and Andrew's, was in
looking. Their friend the herald bid them look. They found him looking.
They did as he was doing. Following the line of his eyes, and of his
teaching too, and of his life, they looked at Jesus. And as they looked
the sight of their eyes began to control them. They left John and
quickened their pace to get nearer to this Man at whom they were looking.
There never was a finer tribute to a man's faithfulness to his Master than
is found in these men leaving John. They could not help going. They had
been led by John into the circle of Jesus' attractive power. And at once
they are irresistibly drawn toward its center.
The basis of the truest devotion and deepest loyalty to Jesus is not in a
creed but in Himself. There must be creeds. Whatever a man believes is of
course his creed. Though as quickly as he puts it into words he narrows
it. Truth is always more than any statement of it. Faith is always greater
than our words about it. We do not see Jesus with our outer eyes as did
these men in the Gospel narrative. We cannot put out our hands in any such
way as Thomas did and know by the feel. We must listen first to somebody
telling about Him.
We listen either with eyes on the Book, or ears open to some faithful
mutual friend of His and ours. What we hear either way is a creed,
somebody's belief about Jesus. So we come to Jesus first through a creed,
somebody's belief, somebody's telling: so we know there is a Jesus, and
are drawn to Himself. When we come to know Himself, always afterwards He
is more than anything anybody ever told us, and more than we can ever
tell.
The Eyes of the Heart.
Looking at Jesus--what does it mean practically? It means hearing about
Him first, then actually appealing to Him, accepting His word as personal
to one's self, putting Him to the test in life, trusting His death to
square up one's sin score, trusting His power to clean the heart and
sweeten the spirit, and stiffen the will. It means holding the whole life
up to His ideals. Aye, it means more yet; something on His side, an
answering look from Him. There comes a consciousness within of His love
and winsomeness. That answering look of His holds us forever after His
willing slaves, love's slaves. Paul speaks of the eyes of the heart. It is
with these eyes we look at Him, and receive His answering look.
There are different ways of looking at Jesus, degrees in looking. Our
experiences with Jesus affect the eyes of the heart. When this same John
as an old man was writing that first epistle, he seems to recall his
experience in looking that first day. He says "that which we have _seen_
with our eyes, that which we _beheld_."[1] From seeing with the eyes he
had gone to earnest, thoughtful _gazing_, caught with the vision of what
he saw. That was John's own experience. It is everybody's experience that
gets a look at Jesus. When the first looking sees something that catches
fire within, then does the inner fire affect the eye and more is seen.
You have been in a strange city walking down the street, looking with
interest at what is there. But all at once you are caught by a sign that
contains a familiar name, and at once a whole flood of memories is
awakened.
The little Jericho Jew peering down from the low out-reaching sycamore
branch was full of curiosity to see the Man that had changed his old
friend Levi Matthew so strangely. But that curiosity quickly changes into
something far deeper and more tender as Jesus comes to abide in his own
home.
That lonely-lifed, sore-hearted woman on the Nain road looked with
startled wonder out of those wet eyes of hers as Jesus begins talking to
her dead son. What love and faith must have been in her looking as Jesus
with fine touch brings her boy by the hand over to her warm embrace again!
We are Changed.
Looking at Jesus _changes us._ Paul's famous bit in the second Corinthian
letter has a wondrous tingle of gladness in it. "We all with open face
beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are changed from glory to
glory."[2] The change comes through our looking. The changing power comes
in through the eyes. It is the glory of the Lord that is seen. The
glorious Jesus looking in through our looking eyes changes us. It is
gradual. It is ever more, and yet more, till by and by His own image comes
out fully in our faces.
We become like those with whom we associate. A man's ideals mold him.
Living with Jesus makes us look like Himself. We are familiar with the
work that has been done in restoring old fine paintings. A painting by one
of the rare old master painters is found covered with the dust of decades.
Time has faded out much of the fine coloring and clearly marked outlines.
With great patience and skill it is worked over and over. And something of
the original beauty, coming to view again, fully repays the workman for
all his pains.
The original image in which we were made has been badly obscured and faded
out. But if we give our great Master a chance He will restore it through
our eyes. It will take much patience and a skill nothing less than divine.
But the original will surely come out more and more till we shall again be
like the original, for we shall _see_ Him as He is.
The old German artist Hoffmann is said to visit at intervals the royal
gallery in Dresden, where he lives, to touch up his paintings there. Even
so our Master, living in us, keeps touching us up that the full beauty of
His ideal may be brought out.
How often a girl growing up into the fullness of her mature young
womanhood calls out the remark, "You are growing more and more like your
mother." And the similar remark is heard of a young man developing the
traits and features of his father.
There is a law of unconscious assimilation. We become like those with whom
we go. Without being conscious of it we take on the characteristics of
those with whom we live. I remember one time my brother returned home for
a visit after a prolonged absence. As we were walking down the street
together he said to me, "You have been going with Denning a good deal"--a
mutual friend of ours. Surprised, I said, "How do you know I have?" He
said, "You walk just like him." What my brother had said was strictly
true, though he did not know it. Our friend had a very decided way of
walking. As a matter of fact, we had been walking home from the Young
Men's Christian Association three or four nights every week. And
unconsciously I had grown to imitate his way of walking.
That sentence of Paul's has also this meaning, "We all with open face
_reflecting_ as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are changed." We stand
between Him and those who don't know Him. We are the mirror catching the
rays of His face and sending them down to those around. And not only do
those around see the light--His light--in us, but we are being changed all
the while. For others' sake as well as our own the mirror should be kept
clean, and well polished so the reflection will be distinct and true.
The Outlook Changed.
Looking at Jesus _changes the world for us._ It is as though the light of
His eyes fills our eyes and we see things all around as He sees them. Have
you ever gone out, as a child, and looked intently at the sun, repressing
the flinching its strength caused and insisting on looking? You could do
it for a short time only. It made your eyes ache. But as you turned your
eyes away from its brilliance you found everything changed. You remember a
beautiful yellow glory-light was over everything, and every ugly jagged
thing was softened and beautified by that glow in your eyes. Looking at
the sun had changed the world for you for a little.
It is something like that on this higher plane, in this finer sense. That
must have been something of Paul's thought in explaining the glory of
Jesus that he saw on the Damascus road. "When I could not see for the
glory of that light." The old ideals were blurred. The old ambitions faded
away. The jagged, sharp lines of sacrifice and suffering involved in his
new life were not clearly seen. A halo had come over them.
I recall a bit of a poem I ran across in an old magazine somewhere. It was
one of those vagrant, orphan poems with fine family lineaments that find
their way unfathered into odd corners of papers. It told about a man
riding on horseback through a bit of timber land in one of the cotton
states of the South.
It was a bright October day, and he was riding along enjoying the air and
view, when all at once he came across a bit of a clearing in the trees,
and in the clearing an old cabin almost fallen to pieces, and in the
doorway of the cabin an old negress standing. Her back was bent nearly
double with the years of hard work, her face dried up and deeply bitten
with wrinkles, and her hair white. But her eyes were as bright as two
stars out of the dark blue, it said.
And the man called out cheerily, "Good-morning, auntie, living here all
alone?" And she looked up, with her eyes brighter yet with the thought in
her heart, and in a shrill keyed-up voice said, "Jes me 'n' Jesus, massa."
But he said a hush came over the whole place, there seemed a halo about
the old broken-down cabin, and he thought he could see Somebody standing
by her side looking over her shoulder at him, and His form was like that
of the Son of God.
How poor and limited and mean her world looked to him as he rode up. But
how quickly everything changed as he saw it through her seeing of it. With
the keen insight into spirit things so often found in such simplicity
among her race, she had gotten the whole simple philosophy of life. Her
world was changed and beautiful in the loneliness of the woods by reason
of her Master's presence.
This removes the commonplace at once clear out of one's life. There is no
drudgery nor humdrum nor hardship, because everything is for Jesus, and
seen through His eyes. Whatever comes in the pathway of his work is
gladdest joy, whether an obscure narrow round of home work or shop or
store, or leaving home for a strange land far across the sea with a
peculiarly uncongenial spirit atmosphere. Contact with Jesus, seeing Him,
changes all for us.
Talking with Jesus.
These two men in the story went from their first looking into closer
contact. They looked at Jesus. Then they talked with Jesus. It was at His
own request. He wanted them. He wanted their friendship and their help.
Having started, it was easy for them to go. Having seen, they naturally
wanted more. At least two hours they talked, maybe longer. Judging by what
they did as soon as they got away, it was a most wonderful talk for them.
This Jesus took them at once. His face, His presence, His talk, Himself
filled all their sky. Everything swung around into a new setting. He was
its center. All things began to adjust themselves for these men about
Jesus. He was irresistible to them. These two men went through some most
trying experiences as a result of the friendship formed that evening hour,
but these counted not in the scale with _Him_. They never got over the
talk with Him that twilight hour.
That two hours' talk lengthened out into many another during the years
immediately after. They got into the habit of referring everything to Him,
and of judging everything by what He would think. It was so clear to the
end of their lives. For a little over three years did they keep Him by
their side actually, physically. But the habit of keeping Him there was
fixed for all the longer after years. The looking at Jesus and talking
with Jesus ever went side by side clear to the end of the years.
It will be so. Getting a good look at this Master draws one off into the
quiet corner with the Book to listen and talk and learn more. And out of
this naturally grows (if one will give a little attention to good
gardening rules) the habit of talking with Him all the time. In the thick
of the crowd, in the solitude of one's duties, with hands full of work,
the heart talks with Him and listens, and sometimes the tongue talks out
too. Our common word for it is prayer. Prayer precedes true service, and
produces it, and sweetens it. Only the service that grows up naturally out
of this personal contact with Jesus counts and tells and weighs for the
most.
Getting Somebody Else.
These two men went away from Jesus that evening only to come back with
some others. They went from talking with Him to talking with others for
Him. Their personal contact was the beginning of their service. This is
one of the famous personal work chapters. There are three "findeths" in
it. Andrew findeth his brother Peter. That was a great find. John in his
modesty doesn't speak of it, but in all likelihood he findeth James _his_
brother. Jesus findeth Philip and Philip in turn findeth Nathaniel, the
guileless man.
That word findeth is very suggestive, even to being picturesque. It tells
the absence of these other men. Their whereabouts might be guessed, but
were not known. There was in the searchers a purpose, and a warmth in the
heart under that purpose. As Andrew looked and listened he said to
himself, "Peter must hear this; Peter must see this Man." And perhaps he
asks to be excused and, reaching for his hat, hastens out to get his
brother and bring him back to the house. He wants more himself, but he'll
get it with Peter in too. And so it would be with John likely.
Peter had to be searched for. Most men do. He was probably absorbed with
all his impulsive intensity in some matter on hand. May be Andrew had to
pull quite a bit to get him started. But he got him. Andrew was a good
sticker: hard to shake him off. His is a fine name for a brotherhood of
personal workers. And when Peter once got started he never quit going. He
stumbled some, but he got up, and got up only to go on. Most men need some
one to get them started. There's need of more starters, more of us
starting people moving Jesus' way.
I think the memory of this evening's work with Peter must have come back
very vividly to Andrew one morning a few years afterwards. It's up on the
hills of Judea, in Jerusalem. There's a great crowd of people standing in
the streets, filling the space for a great distance. There are some
thousands of them. They are listening spellbound to a man talking. It is
Peter. And down there near by, maybe holding Peter's hat while he talks,
is Andrew. His eyes are glowing. And if you might listen to his heart
talking, I think you would hear it saying softly, "I'm so glad I brought
Peter that evening I met Jesus." Peter's talk that day swung three
thousand men and women over to Jesus. Somebody has said that if Peter were
their spiritual father, certainly Andrew was their spiritual grandfather.
And I think God reckons the thing that way, too.
There is a great deal of good talk these days about regenerating society.
It used to be that men talked about "reaching the masses." Now the other
putting of it is commoner. It is helpful talk whichever way it is put. The
Gospel of Jesus is to affect all society. It _has_ affected all society,
and is to more and more. But the thing to mark keenly is this, the key to
the mass is the man. The way to regenerate society is to start on the
individual.
The law of influence through personal contact is too tremendous to be
grasped. You influence one man and you have influenced a group of men, and
then a group around each man of the group, and so on endlessly.
Hand-picked fruit gets the first and best market. The keenest marksmen are
picked out for the sharpshooters' corps.
The True Source of Strong Service.
One morning with a friend I walked out of the city of Geneva to where the
waters of the lake flow with swift rush into the Rhone. And we were both
greatly interested in the strange sight which has impressed so many
travellers. There are two rivers whose waters come together here, the
Rhone and the Arve, the Arve flowing into the Rhone. The waters of the
Rhone are beautifully clear and sparkling. The waters of the Arve come
through a clayey soil and are muddy, gray, and dull. And for a long
distance the two waters are wholly distinct. Two rivers of water are in
one river-bed, on one side the sparkling blue Rhone water, on the other
the dull gray Arve water, and the line between the two sharply defined.
And so it continues for a long distance. Then gradually they blend and the
gray begins to tinge all through the blue.
I went to the guide-book and maps to find out something about this river
that kept on its way undefiled by its neighbor for so long. Its source is
in a glacier that is between ten thousand and eleven thousand feet high,
descending "from the gates of eternal night, at the foot of the pillar of
the sun." It is fed continually by the melting glacier which, in turn, is
being kept up by the snows and cold. Rising at this great height, ever
being renewed steadily by the glacier, it comes rushing down the swift
descent of the Swiss Alps through the lake of Geneva and on. There is the
secret of purity, side by side with its dirty neighbor.
Our lives must have their source high up in the mountains of God, fed by a
ceaseless supply. Only so can there be the purity, and the momentum that
shall keep us pure, and keep us _moving_ down in contact with men of the
earth. And we must keep closer to the source than is the Rhone at Geneva,
else the streams flowing alongside will unduly influence us. Constant
personal contact with Jesus is the beginning ever new of service.
The Triple Life: The Perspective of Service.
On An Errand for Jesus.
The Parting Message.
A Secret Life of Prayer.
An Open Life of Purity.
An Active Life of Service.
The Perspective of True Service.
A Long Time Coming.
The Triple Life: The Perspective of Service.
(Luke ix:1-6; x:1-3, 17; John xx:19-23; Matthew xxviii:18-20.)
On An Errand for Jesus.
You remember there were four times that Jesus picked out a group of men,
and sent them on a special errand. About the middle of the second year of
His public life, He chose out twelve men and commissioned them for a
special bit of work. Six months before the tragic end, He chose seventy
others and sent them out in twos into all the places He was planning to
visit Himself. It was a remarkable campaign for carrying the news which He
was preaching into all the villages of that whole country through which
His journey south lay.
Then the evening of that never-to-be-forgotten resurrection day, under
wholly changed conditions, He again commissions ten men of that first
twelve. Things had radically changed with Jesus. And there had been a bad
break in the loyalty of these men. Two of their number are absent. Judas
has gone to his own place, and Thomas was not there that evening. His
absence cost him a week of doubting and mental distress. Ten of the old
inner circle are commissioned anew. And then do you remember the last time
they were together? It was about six weeks later, on the rounded top of
the old Olives Mount, the eleven men with the Master. Four times He
commissioned a group of men for some service He wanted done.
There are two things in these four commissions that make them alike. The
same two things are in each. The first thing is this: they are bidden to
"go." That ringing word "go ye" is in, each time. "As the Father hath sent
Me even so send I you." It is a familiar word to every follower of Jesus
then, and now, and always. A true follower of His always is stirred by a
spirit of _"go."_ A going Christian is a growing Christian. A going church
has always been a growing church. Those ages when the church lost the
vision of her Master's face on Olives, and let other sounds crowd out of
her ears the sound of His voice, were stagnant ages. They are commonly
spoken of in history as the dark ages. "Go" is the ringing keynote of the
Christian life, whether in a man or in the church.
The second thing found always in each of these commissions is this: they
were qualified, or empowered to go. Whom God calls He always qualifies.
Where His voice comes His Spirit breathes. If there has come to you some
bit of a call to service, to teach a class, or write a special letter, or
speak a word, or take up something needing to be done. And you hesitate.
You think that you cannot. You are not fit, you think, not qualified. The
thing to do is to do it.
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