Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn

Joy in Service; Forgetting, and
Pressing
by George Tybout
Purves, et al

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Title: Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day
Dawn
Author: George Tybout Purves

Release Date: July 25, 2007 [eBook #22141]
Language: English
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JOY IN SERVICE.
FORGETTING, AND PRESSING ONWARD.
UNTIL THE DAY DAWN.
REV. GEORGE T. PURVES, D.D., LL.D.
The Teacher and Pastor.
Prest. F. L. Patton, D.D., Ll.D.

[Illustration: Copyright 1900 By F. Gutekunst.
Hand written signature: George T. Purves]

American Tract Society 150 Nassau Street, New York
Copyright, 1901, by American Tract Society.

CONTENTS
PAGE

JOY IN SERVICE, 7
"Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me,
and to finish his work."
FORGETTING, AND PRESSING ONWARD, 45
"Forgetting these things which are behind, and reaching forth to those
things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
"UNTIL THE DAY DAWN," 83
"The things which are not seen are eternal."
* * * * *
THE TEACHER AND PASTOR, 87
Address of Dr. F. L. Patton, at the funeral of Dr. Purves.

JOY IN SERVICE.
"Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me,
and to finish his work."--JOHN 4:34.

JOY IN SERVICE.
This is one of the sentences that dropped from the lips of Christ, which
let us into his personal spiritual life and in some measure lay bare his
mind. To be permitted thus to share his confidence is one of our
greatest privileges. Viewing him from a distance, we may admire his
character; viewing him in history, we may confess his incomparable
power; viewing him when convincing us of our own sin, we may adore
him as our Saviour; but we desire, and may have, a still more intimate
acquaintance. He tells us about himself. He describes here and there his

personal inner life. He permits us to share his secrets, and all that we
otherwise feel of reverence, admiration, and gratitude gives new value
to these disclosures of the spiritual life of the God in man.
Now, in the words before us, Christ describes his joy in the service of
the Father. They reveal a devotion so complete as to entirely control his
mind. They reveal a soul so absorbed in doing the Divine will as to be
insensible for the time to ordinary physical needs. They reveal a
self-consecration which is absolute, and yet which is so spontaneous
and glad as to be self-sustaining; so that Christ needed no other support
in serving the Father than simply the opportunity of such service. We,
on the contrary, require support to enable us to serve. We must be
rewarded for our work, must be encouraged by sympathy, must be fed
with promises and spiritual gifts, in order to be strong enough to do our
duty. Christ found duty its own reward, service itself joy, obedience a
source of renewed strength. His will was one with the Father's; and thus
he discloses the, to us, marvelous spectacle of one who could truly say,
Not my desire or my duty, or my purpose is, but my meat--my
food--my source itself of life and strength--is to do the will of God, and
to finish his work.
And yet our Lord Jesus was a very genuine man. He did not impress
observers with the common insignia of holiness. It was the Pharisees,
not Christ, who stood at the corners of the streets to make long prayers,
who enlarged the borders of their phylacteries and chose the chief seats
in the synagogues. It was the Baptist, not Jesus, who clothed himself in
a garment of camel's hair and ate locusts and wild honey. Jesus, on the
contrary, lived the outward life of other men, consorted with them in
their usual places of resort, dressed and spake as they did; so that, in
outward manner, it was impossible to distinguish him from the
common mass