The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

pardon them, then you shall be saved. The one question, then, I have to ask of you, then, is — “Do you have Christ?” For if you do not, then you do not have the holy seed; you are a dead tree, and in due time you shall be tinder for hell. You are a rotten hearted tree, all touch wood, ready to be broken in pieces; eaten by the worms of lust; and ah! when the fire shall take hold of you, what a blazing and a burning! Oh! that you had life! Oh! that God would give it to you! Oh! that you would now repent! Oh! that you would cast yourself on Jesus! Oh! that you would turn to him with full purpose of heart! For then, remember you would be saved — saved now, and saved for ever; for “the holy seed” would be “its substance.”

      {a} Argosies: Great cargoes.

      Christ About His Father’s Business

      No. 122-3:121. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, March 15, 1857, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

       Do you not know that I must be about my Father’s business? {Luke 2:49}

      1. Behold, then, how great an interest God the Father takes in the work of salvation. It is called “his business”; and though Jesus Christ came to accomplish our redemption, came to set us a perfect example, and to establish a way of salvation, yet he did not come upon his own business, but upon his Father’s business — his Father taking as much interest in the salvation of men as even he himself did — the great heart of the Father being as full of love as the bleeding heart of the Son, and the mind of the first person of the Trinity being as tenderly affected towards his chosen as even the mind of Christ Jesus, our substitute, our surety, and our all. It is his “Father’s business.” Behold, also, the condescension of the Son, that he should become the servant of the Father, not to do his own business, but the Father’s business. See how he stoops to become a child, subject to his mother; and notice how he stoops to become a man, subject to God his Father. He took upon himself the nature of man, and though he was the Son, equal in power with God, who “counted it not robbery to be equal with God,” yet he “took upon himself the form of a servant and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.” Learn, then, oh believer, to love all the persons of the Divine Trinity alike. Remember that salvation is no more the work of one than of the other. They all three agree in one, and as in the creation they all said, “Let us make man”; so in salvation they all say, “Let us save man”; and each of them does so much of it that it is truly the work of each and undividedly the work of all. Remember that notable passage of Isaiah the prophet — “I will divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong.” God divides, and Christ divides. The triumph is God’s; the Father “divides for him a portion with the great”; it is equally Christ’s; he “divides the spoil with the strong.” Do not set one person before the other; reverently adore them alike, for they are one — one in design, one in character, and one in essence; and while they are truly three, we may in adoration exclaim, “To the one God of heaven and earth is glory, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”

      2. But now I shall invite your attention, first, to the spirit of the Saviour, as breathed in these words, “Do you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” and then, secondly, I shall exhort the children of God, with all the earnestness which I can command, with all the intensity of power which I can summon to the point, to labour after the same spirit, that they too may unfeignedly say, “Do you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?”

      3. I. First, then note THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. It was a spirit of undivided consecration to the will of God his Father. It was a spirit urged onward by an absolute necessity to serve God. Note the word “must.” “Do you not know that I must?” There is a something in me which prevents me from doing other work. I feel an all-controlling, overwhelming influence which constrains me at all times and in every place to be about my Father’s business; the spirit of high, holy, entire, sincere, determined consecration in heart to God. “Do you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?”

      4. First, what was the impelling power which (as it were) forced Christ to be about his Father’s business? and then, secondly, how did he do his Father’s business, and what was it?

      5. 1. What was the impelling power which made Christ say, “I must be about my Father’s business?”

      6. In the first place, it was the spirit of obedience which thoroughly possessed his heart. When he took upon him the form of a servant he received the spirit of an obedient servant too, and became as perfect in the capacity of a servant as he had ever been in that of a ruler, though in that he had perfectly executed all his office. Beloved believer! Do you not remember when you were first converted to God, when the young life of your newborn spirit was strong and active, how impetuously you desired to obey God, and how intense was your eagerness to serve him in some way or other? I can remember well how I could scarcely abide myself five minutes without doing something for Christ. If I walked the street I must have a tract with me; if I went into a railway carriage I must drop a tract out of the window; if I had a moment’s leisure I must be upon my knees or at my Bible; if I were in company I must turn the subject of conversation to Christ, that I might serve my Master. Alas, I must confess, much of that strength of purpose has departed from me, as I do not doubt it has from many of you who, with a greater prudence, have also received diminished zeal. It may be that in the young dawn of life we did imprudent things in order to serve the cause of Christ; but I say, give me back the time again, with all its imprudence and with all its hastiness, if I might only have the same love for my Master, the same overwhelming influence in my spirit, making me obey because it was a pleasure to me to obey God. Now, Christ felt just the same way. He must do it. He must serve God; he must be obedient; he could not help it. The spirit was in him, and would work, just as the spirit of disobedience in the wicked impels them to sin. Lust, sometimes, drags the sinner on to sin with a power so strong and mighty that poor man can no more resist it than the dead leaf can resist the tempest. We had lusts so omnipotent, that they had only to be suggested, and we were their willing slaves; we had habits so tyrannical that we could not break their chains; we were impelled to evil, like the straw in the whirlwind, or the chip in the whirlpool. We were hurried wherever our lusts would bear us — “drawn away and enticed.” Now, in the new heart it is just the same, only in another direction. The spirit of obedience works in us, impelling us to serve our God, so that when that spirit is unclogged and free we may truly say, “We must be about our Father’s business.” We cannot help it.

      7. 2. But Christ had what only some men have. He had another motive for this, another impelling cause. He had a sacred call to the work which he had undertaken, and that secret call drove him on. You think, perhaps, it is fanatical to talk of sacred calls; but call it fanatical or not, this one thing I will own — the belief in a special call to do a special work is like the arm of omnipotence to a man. Let a man believe that God has appointed him to do a particular work, and you may sneer at him: what does he care? He would give as much for your sneer as he would for your smile, and that is nothing at all. He believes God intends him to do the work. You say no: but he never asked you for your vote upon the question; he has received God’s message, as he thinks, and he goes on, and you cannot resist him. If he sits still for a little while, a spirit haunts him — he does not know what it is, but he is unhappy unless he engages in a business which he feels is the commission of his life. If he holds his tongue when God has commanded him to speak, the word is like fire in his bones — it burns its way out, until at last he says, with Elihu, “I am filled with matter; I am like a vessel that needs a vent”; I must speak, or burst; I cannot help it. Depend upon it, the men that have done the greatest work for our holy religion have been the men who had the special call to it. I no more doubt the call of Luther than I doubt the call of the apostles, and he did not doubt it either. One of the reasons why Luther did a thing was because other people did not like it. When he was about to strike a blow at the Papacy by marrying a nun all his friends said it was a fearful thing. Luther consulted them, and did the deed, perhaps, all the sooner because they disapproved of it. A strange reason it