Then let me remind you that this one supreme aim of pleasing Jesus Christ can be carried on through all life in every varying form, great or small.  A blessed unity is given to our whole being when the little things and the big things, the easy things and the hard things, deeds which are conspicuous and deeds which no eye sees, are all brought under the influence of the one motive and made co-operant to the one end.  Drive that one steadfast aim through your lives like a bar of iron, and it will give the lives strength and consistency—­not rigidity, because they may still be flexible.  Nothing will be too small to be consecrated by that motive; nothing too great to own its power.  You can please Him everywhere and always.  The only thing that is inconsistent with pleasing Him is the thing which, alas! we do at all times and should do at no time, and that is to sin against Him.  If we bear with us this as a conscious motive in every part of our day’s work it will give us a quick discernment as to what is evil, which I believe nothing else will so surely give.  If you desire life to be noble, uniform, dignified, great in its minutest acts and solemn in its very trifles, and if you would have some continual test and standard by which you can detect all spurious, apparent virtues, and discover lurking and masked temptations, carry this one aim clear and high above all else, and make it the purpose of the whole life, to be well-pleasing unto Him.

II.  Now, in the next place, notice the concentrated effort which this aim requires.

The word rendered in my text ‘labour’ is a peculiar one, very seldom employed in Scripture.  It means, in its most literal signification, to be fond of honour, or to be actuated by a love of honour; and hence it comes, by a very natural transition, to mean to strive to gain something for the sake of the honour connected with it.  That is to say, it not only expresses the notion of diligent, strenuous effort, but it reveals the reason for that diligence and strenuousness in what I may call (for the word might almost be so rendered) the ambition of being honoured by pleasing Christ.  So that the ‘labour’ of my text covers the whole ground, not only of the act but of its motive.  The concentration of effort which such an aim requires may be enforced by one or two simple exhortations.

First, let me say that we ought, as Christian people, to cultivate this noble ambition of pleasing Jesus Christ.  Men have all got the love of approbation deep in them.  God put it there for a good purpose, not that we might shape our lives so as to get others to pat us on the back, and say, ‘Well done!’ but that, in addition to the other solemn and sovereign motives for following the paths of righteousness, we might have this highest ambition to impel us on the road.  And it is the duty of all Christians to see to it that they discipline themselves so as, in their own feelings, to put high above all the approbation