Christ's Servants Lords of All
A. Maclaren, D. D. 1 Corinthians 3:21-23 Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;… I. HOW CHRIST'S SERVANTS ARE MEN'S LORDS. "Paul, Apollos, Cephas" were all lights kindled at the central Light, and therefore shining. Each was but a part of the mighty whole, a little segment of the circle — "They are but broken lights of Thee. And Thou, O Lord! art more than they."And in the measure, therefore, in which men adhere to Christ, and have taken Him for theirs; in that measure are they delivered from all undue dependence on, still more, all slavish submission, to any single individual teacher or aspect of truth. If Christ be our Master, if we take our creed from Him, if we accept His words and His revelation of the Father as our faith and our objective religion, then all the slavery to favourite names, all the taking of truth second-hand from lips that we honour, all the partisanship for one against another which has been the shame and the ruin of the Christian Church, and is working untold mischiefs in it to-day, are ended at once. "One is your Master, even Christ." "Call no man Rabbi! upon earth"; but bow before Him, the incarnate and the personal Truth. And in like manner they who are Christ's are delivered from all temptations to make men's maxims and practices and approbation the law of their conduct. "They say. What say they? Let them say." The envoy of some foreign power cares very little what the inhabitants of the land to which he is ambassador may think of him and his doings; it is his sovereign's good opinion that he seeks to secure. The soldier's reward is his commander's praise, the slave's joy is the master's smile, and for us it ought to be the law of our lives, and in the measure in which we belong to Christ really it will be the law of our lives, that "we labour that whether present or absent we may be pleasing to Him." II. CHRIST'S SERVANTS ARE THE LORDS OF THE WORLD. That phrase is used here, no doubt, as meaning the external material universe. He owns the world who turns it to the highest use of growing his soul by it. If I look out upon a fair landscape, and the man that draws the rents of it is standing by my side, and I suck more sweetness and deeper impulses and larger and loftier thoughts out of it than he does, it belongs to me far more than it does to him. The world is his who from it has learned to despise it, to know himself and to know God. He owns the world who uses it as the arena, or wrestling ground, on which, by labour, he may gain strength, and in which he may do service. Antagonism helps to develop muscle, and the best use of the outward frame of things is that we shall take it as the field upon which we can serve God. III. CHRISTIAN MEN WHO BELONG TO JESUS CHRIST ARE THE LORDS AND MASTERS OF "LIFE AND DEATH." 1. The true ownership of life depends upon self-control, and self-control depends upon letting Jesus Christ govern us wholly. So the measure in which it is true of me that "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" is the measure in which our lower life of sense really belongs to us, and ministers to our highest good. 2. Animals expire; a Christian man may yield his soul to his Saviour, who is the Lord both of the dead and of the living. If thus we feel our dependence upon Him, and yield up our wills to Him, and can say, "Living or dying we are the Lord's," then we may be quite sure that Death, too, will be our servant, and that our wills will be concerned even in passing out of life. Still more, if you and I belong to Jesus Christ, then Death is our fellow-servant who comes to call us out of this ill-lighted workshop into the presence of the King. IV. CHRIST'S SERVANTS ARE THE LORDS OF TIME AND ETERNITY, "things present or things to come." 1. The whole mass of "things present," including all the events and circumstances of our lives, over these we may exercise supreme control. If we are bowing in humble submission to Jesus Christ, they will all subserve our highest good. The howling tempests of winter and its white snows, the sharp winds of spring and its bursting sunshine; the calm, steady heat of June and the mellowing days of August, all serve to ripen the grain. And so all "things present," the light and the dark, the hopes fulfilled and the hopes disappointed, the gains and the losses, the prayers answered and the prayers unanswered, they will all be recognised if we have the wisdom that comes from submission to Jesus Christ's will as being ours, and ministering to our highest blessing. We shall be their lords, too, inasmuch as we shall be able to control them. We need not be like the mosses in the stream, that lie whichever way the current sets, nor like some poor little sailing boat that is at the mercy of the winds and the waves, but may carry an inward impulse like some great ocean-going steamer, the throb of whose power shall drive us straight forward on our course, what ever beats against us. That we may have this inward power and mastery over things present and not to be shaped and moulded and made by them, let us yield ourselves to Christ, and He will help us to rule them. 2. And then, all "things to come"; the dim, vague future shall be for each of us like some sunlit ocean stretching shoreless to the horizon; every little ripple flashing with its own bright sunshine, and all bearing us onwards to the great throne that stands on the sea of glass mingled with fire. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; WEB: Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,