There was hesitation; then an answer from somewhere,—"He is somebody who does what he is told."
"That would be a good servant," said Mr. Richmond, smiling; "but it will do. He is one who acts under the will of another, doing the work of another. A servant of Christ—what does he do?—and how does he do it?"
There was no answer this time.
"Let us look," said Mr. Richmond. "In the first verse of the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, Paul calls himself a servant of Jesus Christ; and in the ninth verse he says that he serves 'with his spirit.' Here is a mark. The service of Christ, you see, is in the first instance, not outward but inward. Not hand work, nor lip work, nor money giving; but service in the spirit. What is that?
"It is having your will the same with God's will.
"So now look and see. We all pledged ourselves the other night to do a great many sorts of outward service; good in themselves, and right and needful to do. But the first question is, Are we ourselves the servants of Christ? Do we in heart love and obey and agree to His will? If we are not doing that, or trying to do it, our other service is no service at all. It is a lie, and no service at all. Or it is service of ourselves."
Mr. Richmond paused a little.
"I have no reason to think that any of you did not mean true service, when the pledge was given the other night. So now let us see how this true service shows itself.
"Jesus said, you remember, 'If any man serve me, let him follow me.' All we have to ask is, How did the Lord himself walk, that we should follow Him? I recommend you to study the story of His life very carefully and very constantly, and be continually getting new lessons from it. But now let us look just at one or two points.
"Jesus said, 'As long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.' Has he commanded us to be anything like that?"