Chapter 15—What It Means to be a Laborer with God

“Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech, that can not be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.”TSS 67.1

Where sincere piety is lacking, where daily communion with God is neglected, the teacher in the Sabbath-school will be dry and tedious in his manner of teaching. His words will have no power to reach the hearts of his pupils. To be laborers together with God means a great deal more than merely to go to Sabbath-school, and attend the services of the church, and take part in the work of teaching, and in bearing testimony in the social service. To be a laborer together with God means that your heart is drawn out in strong desire for the salvation of the sinful souls for whom Christ has died. It means that you are filled with solicitude for the work, that you are ever planning to make your instruction interesting, to devise ways that you may draw with every intrusted power of your nature along the lines in which Christ is drawing, that souls may be won to His service and be bound to Him by the cords of His infinite love.TSS 67.2

Laborers together with God do not feel like shrinking from sacred obligations; but for Christ's sake they are willing to endure toil, to suffer privation and reproach. They are willing to meet with repulses, though this is hard to bear and humiliating to human pride. But the laborer together with God will remember that Jesus bore shame and insult, rejection and death, that He might save those who were lost. Every part of the varied labor in the harvest field means sacrifice and self-denial. It means that the time usually spent in matters of minor importance should be spent in searching the Scriptures, that you may know how to labor successfully in the work to which you are appointed. It means that you must become acquainted with the Spirit of God. It means that you must do much praying, and have much serious thought as to how you may put to use every capability of your nature, and carry forward the work of God effectively.TSS 67.3

You are God's employed servants, delegated to build up His kingdom in the earth, and you are to do your part in saving the souls for whom Christ has paid the price of His own blood. Is it then a slight matter to teach in the Sabbath-school, without a preparation of heart for this momentous work? Many who undertake teaching a class feel little interest in it, and they mar the sacred work by their unconsecrated efforts.TSS 68.1