Working for God! – by Andrew Murray
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Title: Working For God!
Creator(s): Murray, Andrew
Print Basis: New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1901
Rights: Public Domain
CCEL Subjects: All; Practical
LC Call no: BV4501
LC Subjects:
Practical theology
Practical religion. The Christian life
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Scanning, OCR, and proofing done by Claude V. King, September, 2000.
Note: In Scripture references Murray used Roman numerals. For the sake
of the modern reader, these have been converted to Arabic numerals in
the following public domain text.
WORKING
for
GOD!
A SEQUEL TO WAITING ON GOD!
by
Rev. ANDREW MURRAY
AUTHOR of “THE MINISTRY OF INTERCESSION,” “ABIDE IN CHRIST,” ETC.,
ETC.
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
Publishers of Evangelical Literature
1901
COPYRIGHT 1901
BY
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
(August)
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INTRODUCTION
The object of this little book is first of all to remind all Christian
workers of the greatness and the glory of the work in which God gives
a share. It is nothing less than that work of bringing men back to
their God, at which God finds His highest glory and blessedness. As we
see that it is God’s own work we have to work out, that He works it
through us, that in our doing it His glory rests on us and we glorify
Him, we shall count it our joy to give ourselves to live only and
wholly for it.
The aim of the book at the same time is to help those who complain,
and perhaps do not even know to complain, that they are apparently
labouring in vain, to find out what may be the cause of so much
failure. God’s work must be done in God’s way, and in God’s power. It
is spiritual work, to be done by spiritual men, in the power of the
Spirit. The clearer our insight into, and the more complete our
submission to, God’s laws of work, the surer and the richer will be
our joy and our reward in it.
Along with this I have had in view the great number of Christians who
practically take no real part in the service of their Lord. They have
never understood that the chief characteristic of the Divine life in
God and Christ is love and its work of blessing men. The Divine life
in us can show itself in no other way. I have tried to show that it is
God’s will that every believer without exception, whatever be his
position in life, gives himself wholly to live and work for God.
I have also written in the hope that some, who have the training of
others in Christian life and work, may find thoughts that will be of
use to them in teaching the imperative duty, the urgent need, the
Divine blessedness of a life given to God’s service, and to waken
within the consciousness of the power that works in them, even the
Spirit and power of Christ Himself.
To the great host of workers in Church and Chapel, in Mission-Hall and
Open-Air, in Day and Sunday Schools, in Endeavour Societies, in Y. M.
and Y. W. and Students’ Associations, and all the various forms of the
ministry of love throughout the world, I lovingly offer these
meditations, with the fervent prayer that God, the Great Worker, may
make us true Fellow-Workers with Himself.
ANDREW MURRAY.
Wellington, February, 1901.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. Waiting and Working.–Isa. 40:31, 64:4 11
II. Good Works the Light of the World.–Matt. 5:14, 16 16
III. Son, go Work.–Matt. 21:28 21
IV. To Each one his Work.–Mark 8:34 26
V. To Each one according to his Ability.–Matt. 25:14 31
VI. Life and Work.–John 5:34, 9:4, 17:4 36
VII. The Father abiding in Me doeth the Work.–John 5:17-20, 14:10 41
VIII. Greater Works.–John 14:12-14 46
IX. Created in Christ Jesus for Good Works.–Eph. 2:10 51
X. Work, for it is God which worketh in you.–Phil. 2:12, 13 56
XI. Faith working by Love.–Gal. 5:6, 13 61
XII. Bearing Fruit in every Good Work.–Col. 1:10 66
XIII. Always abounding in the Work of the Lord.–I Cor. 15:58 71
XIV. Abounding Grace for abounding Work.–2 Cor. 9:8 76
XV. The Work of Ministering.–Eph. 4:11, 12 81
XVI. According to the Working of each several Part.–Eph. 4:15, 16 86
XVII. Women adorned with Good Works.–1 Tim. 2:10. 5:9, 10 90
XVIII. Rich in Good Works.–1 Tim. 6:18 95
XIX. Prepared unto every Good Work.–2 Tim. 2:21 100
XX. Furnished completely unto every Good Work.–2 Tim. 3:16, 17,
2:15 104
XXI. Zealous of Good Works.–Tit. 2:14 109
XXII. Ready to every Good Work.–Tit. 3:1 113
XXIII. Careful to maintain Good Works. Tit. 3:14 118
XIV. As His Fellow-Workers.–1 Cor. 3:9; 2 Cor. 6:1 123
XXV. According to the Working of His Power.–Col. 1:29; Eph.
3:7 128
XXVI. Labouring more abundantly.–1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Cor. 12:9, 11 133
XXVII. A Doer that worketh shall be blessed in Doing.–Jas. 1:22, 25
138
XXVIII. The Work of Soul-Saving.–Jas. 5:19 142
XXIX. Praying and Working.–1 John 5:16 147
XXX. I know thy Works.–Rev. 2, 3 152
XXXI. That God may be Glorified.–1 Pet. 4:11 157
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I
Waiting and Working
`They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Neither hath
the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, which worketh for him that waiteth
for Him.’–Isa. 40:31, 64:4.
Here we have two texts in which the connection between waiting and
working is made clear. In the first we see that waiting brings the
needed strength for working–that it fits for joyful and unwearied
work. `They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they
shall mount up on eagles’ wings; they shall run, and not be weary;
they shall walk, and not faint.’ Waiting on God has its value in this:
it makes us strong in work for God. The second reveals the secret of
this strength. `God worketh for Him that waiteth for Him.’ The waiting
on God secures the working of God for us and in us, out of which our
work must spring. The two passages teach the great lesson, that as
waiting on God lies at the root of all true working for God, so
working for God must be the fruit of all true waiting on Him. Our
great need is to hold the two sides of the truth in perfect
conjunction and harmony.
There are some who say they wait upon God, but who do not work for
Him. For this there may be various reasons. Here is one who confounds
true waiting on God (in living direct intercourse with Him as the
Living One), and the devotion to Him of the energy of the whole being,
with the slothful, helpless waiting that excuses itself from all work
until God, by some special impulse, has made work easy. Here is
another who waits on God more truly, regarding it as one of the
highest exercises of the Christian life, and yet has never understood
that at the root of all true waiting there must lie the surrender and
the readiness to be wholly fitted for God’s use in the service of men.
And here is still another who is ready to work as well as wait, but is
looking for some great inflow of the Spirit’s power to enable him to
do mighty works, while he forgets that as a believer he already has
the Spirit of Christ dwelling in Him; that more grace is only given to
those who are faithful in the little; and that it is only in working
that we can be taught by the Spirit how to do the greater works. All
such, and all Christians, need to learn that waiting has working for
its object, that it is only in working that waiting can attain its
full perfection and blessedness. It is as we elevate working for God
to its true place, as the highest exercise of spiritual privilege and
power, that the absolute need and the divine blessing of waiting on
God can be fully known.
On the other hand, there are some, there are many, who work for God,
but know little of what it is to wait on Him. They have been led to
take up Christian work, under the impulse of natural or religious
feeling, at the bidding of a pastor or a society, with but very little
sense of what a holy thing it is to work for God. They do not know
that God’s work can only be done in God’s strength, by God Himself
working in us. They have never learnt that, just as the Son of God
could do nothing of Himself, but that the Father in Him did the work,
as He lived in continual dependence before Him, so, and much more, the
believer can do nothing but as God works in him. They do not
understand that it is only as in utter weakness we depend upon Him,
His power can rest on us. And so they have no conception of a
continual waiting on God as being one of the first and essential
conditions of successful work. And Christ’s Church and the world are
sufferers to-day, oh, so terribly! not only because so many of its
members are not working for God, but because so much working for God
is done without waiting on God.
Among the members of the body of Christ there is a great diversity of
gifts and operations. Some, who are confined to their homes by reason
of sickness or other duties, may have more time for waiting on God
than opportunity of direct working for Him. Others, who are
overpressed by work, find it very difficult to find time and quiet for
waiting on Him. These may mutually supply each other’s lack. Let those
who have time for waiting on God definitely link themselves to some
who are working. Let those who are working as definitely claim the aid
of those to whom the special ministry of waiting on God has been
entrusted. So will the unity and the health of the body be maintained.
So will those who wait know that the outcome will be power for work,
and those who work, that their only strength is the grace obtained by
waiting. So will God work for His Church that waits on Him.
Let us pray that as we proceed in these meditations on working for
God, the Holy Spirit may show us how sacred and how urgent our calling
is to work, how absolute our dependence is upon God’s strength to work
in us, how sure it is that those who wait on Him shall renew their
strength, and how we shall find waiting on God and working for God to
be indeed inseparably one.
1. It is only as God works for me, and in me, that I can work for Him.
2. All His work for me is through His life in me.
3. He will most surely work, if I wait on Him.
4. All His working for me, and my waiting on Him, has but one aim, to
fit me for His work of saving men.
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II
Good Works the Light of the World
`Ye are the light of the world. Let your light shine before men, that
they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in
heaven.’–Matt. 5:14, 16.
A light is always meant for the use of those who are in darkness, that
by it they may see. The sun lights up the darkness of this world. A
lamp is hung in a room to give it light. The Church of Christ is the
light of men. The God of this world hath blinded their eyes; Christ’s
disciples are to shine into their darkness and give them light. As the
rays of light stream forth from the sun and scatter that light all
about, so the good works of believers are the light that streams out
from them to conquer the surrounding darkness, with its ignorance of
God and estrangement from Him.
What a high and holy place is thus given to our good works. What power
is attributed to them. How much depends upon them. They are not only
the light and health and joy of our own life, but in every deed the
means of bringing lost souls out of darkness into God’s marvellous
light. They are even more. They not only bless men, but they glorify
God, in leading men to know Him as the Author of the grace seen in His
children. We propose studying the teaching of Scripture in regard to
good works, and specially all work done directly for God and His
kingdom. Let us listen to what these words of the Master have to teach
us.
The aim of good works.–It is, that God may be glorified. You remember
how our Lord said to the Father: `I have glorified Thee on the earth,
I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.’ We read more
than once of His miracles, that the people glorified God. It was
because what He had wrought was manifestly by a Divine power. It is
when our good works thus too are something more than the ordinary
virtues of refined men, and bear the impress of God upon them, that
men will glorify God. They must be the good works of which the Sermon
on the Mount is the embodiment–a life of God’s children, doing more
than others, seeking to be perfect as their Father in heaven is
perfect. This glorifying of God by men may not mean conversion, but it
is a preparation for it when an impression favourable to God has been
made. The works prepare the way for the words, and are an evidence to
the reality of the Divine truth that is taught, while without them the
world is powerless.
The whole world was made for the glory of God. Christ came to redeem
us from sin and bring us back to serve and glorify Him. Believers are
placed in the world with this one object, that they may let their
light shine in good works, so as to win men to God. As truly as the
light of the sun is meant to lighten the world, the good works of
God’s children are meant to be the light of those who know and love
not God. What need that we form a right conception of what good works
are, as bearing the mark of something heavenly and divine, and having
a power to compel the admission that God is in them.
The power of good works.–Of Christ it is written: `In Him was life,
and the life was the light of men.’ The Divine life gave out a Divine
light. Of His disciples Christ said: `If any man follow Me, be shall
not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.’ Christ is our life
and light. When it is said to us, Let your light shine, the deepest
meaning is, let Christ, who dwells in you, shine. As in the power of
His life you do your good works, your light shines out to all who see
you. And because Christ in you is your light, your works, however
humble and feeble they be, can carry with them a power of Divine
conviction. The measure of the Divine power which works them in you
will be the measure of the power working in those who see them. Give
way, O child of God, to the Life and Light of Christ dwelling in you,
and men will see in your good works that for which they will glorify
your Father which is in heaven.
The urgent need of good works in believers.–As needful as that the
sun shines every day, yea, more so, is it that every believer lets his
light shine before men. For this we have been created anew in Christ,
to hold forth the Word of Life, as lights in the world. Christ needs
you urgently, my brother, to let His light shine through you.
Perishing men around you need your light, if they are to find their
way to God. God needs you, to let His glory be seen through you. As
wholly as a lamp is given up to lighting a room, every believer ought
to give himself up to be the light of a dark world.
Let us undertake the study of what working for God is, and what good
works are as part of this, with the desire to follow Christ fully, and
so to have the light of life shining into our hearts and lives, and
from us on all around.
1. `Ye are the light of the world!’ The words express the calling of
the Church as a whole. The fulfilment of her duty will depend upon the
faithfulness with which each individual member loves and lives for
those around him.
2. In all our efforts to waken the Church to evangelise the world, our
first aim must be to raise the standard of life for the individual
believer of the teaching: As truly as a candle only exists with the
object of giving light in the darkness, the one object of your
existence is to be a light to men.
3. Pray God by His Holy Spirit to reveal it to you that you have
nothing to live for but to let the light and love of the life of God
shine upon souls.
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III
Son, go Work
`Son, go work to-day in my vineyard.’–Matt. 21:28.
The father had two sons. To each he gave the command to go and work in
his vineyard. The one went, the other went not. God has given the
command and the power to every child of His to work in His vineyard,
with the world as the field. The majority of God’s children are not
working for Him and the world is perishing.
Of all the mysteries that surround us in the world, is not one of the
strangest and most incomprehensible this–that after 1800 years the
very name of the Son of God should be unknown to the larger half of
the human race.
Just consider what this means. To restore the ruin sin had wrought,
God, the Almighty Creator, actually sent His own Son to the world to
tell men of His love, and to bring them His life and salvation. When
Christ made His disciples partakers of that salvation, and the
unspeakable joy it brings, it was with the express understanding that
they should make it known to others, and so be the lights of the
world. He spoke of all who through them should believe, having the
same calling. He left the world with the distinct instruction to carry
the Gospel to every creature, and teach all nations to observe all
that He had commanded. He at the same time gave the definite assurance
that all power for this work was in Him, that He would always be with
His people, and that by the power of His Holy Spirit they would be
able to witness to Him to the ends of the earth. And what do we see
now? After 1800 years two-thirds of the human race have scarce heard
the name of Jesus. And of the other third, the larger half is still as
ignorant as if they had never heard.
Consider again what this means. All these dying millions, whether in
Christendom or heathendom, have an interest in Christ and His
salvation. They have a right to Him. Their salvation depends on their
knowing Him. He could change their lives from sin and wretchedness to
holy obedience and heavenly joy. Christ has a right to them. It would
make His heart glad to have them come and be blessed in Him. But they
and He are dependent on the service of His people to be the connecting
link to brink them and Him together. And yet what His people do is as
nothing to what needs to be done, to what could be done, to what ought
to be done.
Just consider yet once again what this means. What a revelation of the
state of the Church. The great majority of those who are counted
believers are doing nothing towards making Christ known to their
fellow-men. Of the remainder, the majority are doing so little, and
that little so ineffectually, by reason of the lack of wholehearted
devotion, that they can hardly be said to be giving themselves to
their Lord’s service. And of the remaining portion, who have given
themselves and all they have to Christ’s service, so many are occupied
with the hospital work of teaching the sick and the weakly in the
Church, that the strength left free for aggressive work, and going
forth to conquer the world, is terribly reduced. And so, with a
finished salvation, and a loving Redeemer, and a Church set apart to
carry life and blessing to men, the millions are still perishing.
There can be no question to the Church of more intense and pressing
importance than this: What can be done to waken believers to a sense
of their holy calling, and to make them see that to work for God, that
to offer themselves as instruments through whom God can do His work,
ought to be the one aim of their life? The vain complaints that are
continually heard of a lack of enthusiasm for God’s kingdom on the
part of the great majority of Christians, the vain attempts to waken
anything like an interest in missions proportionate to their claim, or
Christ’s claim, make us feel that nothing less is needed than a
revival that shall be a revolution, and shall raise even the average
Christian to an entirely new type of devotion. No true change can come
until the truth is preached and accepted, that the law of the kingdom
is: Every believer to live only and wholly for God’s service and work.
The father who called his sons to go and work in his vineyard did not
leave it to their choice to do as much or as little as they chose.
They lived in his home, they were his children, he counted on what
they would give him, their time and strength. This God expects of His
children. Until it is understood that each child of God is to give His
whole heart to his Father’s interest and work, until it is understood
that every child of God is to be a worker for God, the evangelisation
of the world cannot be accomplished. Let every reader listen, and the
Father will say to him personally: `Son, go work in My vineyard.’
1. Why is it that stirring appeals on behalf of missions often have so
little permanent result? Because the command with its motives is
brought to men who have not learned that absolute devotion and
immediate obedience to their Lord is of the essence of true salvation.
2. If it is once seen, and confessed, that the lack of interest in
missions is the token of a low and sickly Christian life, all who
plead for missions will make it their first aim to proclaim the
calling of every believer to live wholly for God. Every missionary
meeting will be a consecration meeting to seek and surrender to the
Holy Spirit’s power.
3. The average standard of holiness and devotion cannot be higher
abroad than at home, or in the Church at large than in individual
believers.
4. Every one cannot go abroad, or give his whole time to direct work;
but everyone, whatever his calling or circumstances, can give his
whole heart to live for souls and the spread of the kingdom.
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IV
To Each one his Work
`As a man sojourning in another country, having given authority to his
servants, to each one his work, commanded the porter also to
watch.’–Mark 13:34.
What I have said in a previous chapter of the failure of the Church to
do her Master’s work, or even clearly to insist upon the duty of its
being done by every member has often led me to ask the question, What
must be done to arouse the Church to a right sense of her calling?
This little book is an attempt to give the answer. Working for God
must take a very different and much more definite place in our
teaching and training of Christ’s disciples than it has done.
In studying the question I have been very much helped by the life and
writings of a great educationist. The opening sentence of the preface
to his biography tells us: `Edward Thring was unquestionably the most
original and striking figure in the schoolmaster world of his time in
England.’ He himself attributes his own power and success to the
prominence he gave to a few simple principles, and the faithfulness
with which he carried them out at any sacrifice. I have found them as
suggestive in regard to the work of preaching as of teaching, and to
state them will help to make plain some of the chief lessons this book
is meant to teach.
The root-principle that distinguished his teaching from what was
current at the time was this: Every boy in school, the dullest, must
have the same attention as the cleverest. At Eton, where he had been
educated, and had come out First, he had seen the evil of the opposite
system. The school kept up its name by training a number of men for
the highest prizes, while the majority were neglected. He maintained
that this was dishonest: there could be no truth in a school which did
not care for all alike. Every boy had some gift; every boy needed
special attention; every boy could, with care and patience, be fitted
to know and fulfil his mission in life.
Apply this to the Church. Every believer, the feeblest as much as the
strongest, has the calling to live and work for the kingdom of his
Lord. Every believer has equally a claim on the grace and power of the
Holy Spirit, according to his gifts, to fit him for his work. And
every believer has a right to be taught and helped by the Church for
the service our Lord expects of him. It is when this truth, every
believer the feeblest, to be trained as a worker for God, gets its
true place, that there can be any thought of the Church fulfilling its
mission. Not one can be missed, because the Master gave to every one
his work.
Another of Thring’s principles was this: It is a law of nature that
work is pleasure. See to make it voluntary and not compulsory. Do not
lead the boys blindfold. Show them why they have to work, what its
value will be, what interest can be awakened in it, what pleasure may
be found in it. A little time stolen, as he says, for that purpose,
from the ordinary teaching, will be more than compensated for by the
spirit which will be thrown into the work.
What a field is opened out here for the preacher of the gospel in the
charge he has of Christ’s disciples. To unfold before them the
greatness, the glory, the Divine. blessedness of the work to be done.
To show its value in the carrying out of God’s will, and gaining His
approval; in our becoming the benefactors and saviours of the
perishing; in developing that spiritual vigour, that nobility of
character, that spirit of self-sacrifice which leads to the true
bearing of Christ’s image.
A third truth Thring insisted on specially was the need of inspiring
the belief in the possibility, yea, the assurance of success in
gaining the object of pursuit. That object is not much knowledge; not
every boy can attain to this. The drawing out and cultivation of the
power there is in himself–this is for every boy–and this alone is
true education. As a learner’s powers of observation grow under true
guidance and teaching and he finds within himself a source of power
and pleasure he never knew before, he feels a new self beginning to
live, and the world around him gets a new meaning. `He becomes
conscious of an infinity of unsuspected glory in the midst of which we
go about our daily tasks, becomes lord of an endless kingdom full of
light and pleasure and power.’
If this be the law and blessing of a true education, what light is
shed on the calling of all teachers and leaders in Christ’s Church!
The know ye nots of Scripture–that ye are the temple of God–that
Christ is in you–that the Holy Spirit dwelleth in you–acquire a new
meaning. It tells us that the one thing that needs to be wakened in
the hearts of Christians is the faith `in the power that worketh in
us.’ As one comes to see the worth and the glory of the work to be
done, as one believes in the possibility of his, too, being able to do
that work well; as one learns to trust a Divine energy, the very power
and spirit of God working in him; `he will, in the fullest sense
become conscious of a new life, with an infinity of unsuspected glory
in the midst of which we go about our daily task, and become lord of
an endless kingdom full of light and pleasure and power.’ This is the
royal life to which God has called all His people. The true Christian
is one who knows God’s power working in himself, and finds it his true
joy to have the very life of God flow into him, and through him, and
out from him to those around.
1. We must learn to believe in the power of littles–of the value of
every individual believer. As men are saved one by one, they must be
trained one by one for work.
2. We must believe that work for Christ can become as natural, as much
an attraction and a pleasure in the spiritual as in the natural world.
3. We must believe and teach that every believer can become an
effective worker in his sphere. Are you seeking to be filled with love
to souls?
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V
To Each according to his Ability
`The kingdom of heaven is as when a man, going into another country,
called his own servants, and delivered them his goods. And unto one he
gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each according
to his several ability.’–Matt. 25:14.
In the parable of the talents we have a most instructive summary of
our Lord’s teaching in regard to the work He has given to His servants
to do. He tells us of His going to heaven and leaving His work on
earth to the care of His Church; of His giving every one something to
do, however different the gifts might be; of His expecting to get back
His money with interest; of the failure of him who had received least;
and of what it was that led to that terrible neglect.
`He called his own servants and delivered unto them his goods, and
went on his journey.’ is literally what our Lord did. He went to
heaven, leaving His work with all His goods to the care of His Church.
His goods were, the riches of His grace, the spiritual blessings in
heavenly places, His word and Spirit, with all the power of His life
on the throne of God,–all these He gave in trust to His servants, to
be used by them in carrying out His work on earth. The work He had
begun they were to prosecute. As some rich merchant leaves Cape Town
to reside in London, while his business is carried on by trustworthy
servants, our Lord took His people into partnership with Himself, and
entrusted His work on earth entirely to their care. Through their
neglect it would suffer; their diligence would be His enrichment. Here
we have the true root-principle of Christian service; Christ has made
Himself dependent for the extension of His kingdom on the faithfulness
of His people.
`Unto one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to
each according to his several ability.’ Though there was a difference
in the measure, every one received a portion of the master’s goods. It
is in connection with the service we are to render to each other that
we read of `the grace given to each of us according to the measure of
the gift of Christ.’ This truth, that every believer without exception
has been set apart to take an active part in the work of winning the
world for Christ, has almost been lost sight of . Christ was first a
son, then a servant. Every believer is first a child of God, then a
servant. It is the highest honour of a son to be a servant, to have
the father’s work entrusted to him. Neither the home nor the foreign
missionary work of the Church will ever be done right until every
believer feels that the one object of his being in the world is to
work for the kingdom. The first duty of the servants in the parable
was to spend their life in caring for their master’s interests.
`After a long time the lord of those servants cometh and maketh a
reckoning with them.’ Christ keeps watch over the work He has left to
be done on earth; His kingdom and glory depend upon it. He will not
only hold reckoning when He comes again to judge, but comes
unceasingly to inquire of His servants as to their welfare and work.
He comes to approve and encourage, to correct and warn. By His word
and Spirit He asks us to say whether we are using our talents
diligently, and, as His devoted servants, living only and entirely for
His work. Some He finds labouring diligently, and to them He
frequently says: `Enter into the joy of thy Lord.’ Others He sees
discouraged, and them He inspires with new hope. Some He finds working
in their own strength; these He reproves. Still others He finds
sleeping or hiding their talent; to such His voice speaks in solemn
warning: `from him that hath shall be taken away even that he hath.’
Christ’s heart is in His work; every day He watches over it with the
intensest interest; let us not disappoint Him nor deceive ourselves.
`Lord, I was afraid and hid thy talent in the earth.’ That the man of
the one talent should have been the one to fail, and to be so severely
punished is a lesson of deep solemnity. It calls the Church to beware
lest, by neglecting to teach the feebler ones, the one-talent men,
that their service, too, is needed, she allow them to let their gifts
lie unused. In teaching the great truth that every branch is to bear
fruit, special stress must be laid on the danger of thinking that this
can only be expected of the strong and advanced Christian. When Truth
reigns in a school, the most backward pupil has the same attention as
the more clever. Care must be taken that the feeblest Christians
receive special training, so that they, too, may joyfully have their
share in the service of their Lord and all the blessedness it brings.
If Christ’s work is to be done, not one can be missed.
`Lord, I knew that thou art a hard man, and I was afraid.’ Wrong
thoughts of God, looking upon His service as that of a hard master,
are one chief cause of failure in service. If the Church is indeed to
care for the feeble ones, for the one-talent servants, who are apt to
be discouraged by reason of their conscious weakness, we must teach
them what God says of the sufficiency of grace and the certainty of
success. They must learn to believe that the power of the Holy Spirit
within them fits them for the work to which God has called them. They
must learn to understand that God Himself will strengthen them with
might by His Spirit in the inner man. They must be taught that work is
joy and health and strength. Unbelief lies at the root of sloth. Faith
opens the eyes to see the blessedness of God’s service, the
sufficiency of the strength provided, and the rich reward. Let the
Church awake to her calling to train the feeblest of her members to
know that Christ counts upon every redeemed one to live wholly for His
work. This alone is true Christianity, is full salvation.
_________________________________________________________________
VI
Life and Work
`My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to accomplish His
work. I must work the works of Him that sent Me. I have glorified Thee
on the earth; I have finished the work Thou gavest Me to do. And now,
O Father, glorify Me with Thyself.’–John 5:34, 9:4, 17:4.
`Work is the highest form of existence.’ The highest manifestation of
the Divine Being is in His work. Read carefully again the words of our
Blessed Lord at the head of the chapter, and see what Divine glory
there is in His work. In His work Christ showed forth His own glory
and that of the Father. It was because of the work He had done, and
because in it He had glorified the Father, that He claimed to share
the glory of the Father in heaven. The greater works He was to do in
answer to the prayer of the disciples was, that the Father might be
glorified in the Son. Work is indeed the highest form of existence,
the highest manifestation of the Divine glory in the Father and in His
Son.
What is true of God is true of His creature. Life is movement, is
action, and reveals itself in what it accomplishes. The bodily life,
the intellectual, the moral, the spiritual life–individual, social,
national life–each of these is judged of by its work. The character
and quality of the work depends on the life: as the life, so the work.
And, on the other hand the life depends on the work; without this
there can be no full development and manifestation and perfecting of
the life: as the work, so the life.
This is specially true of the spiritual life–the life of the Spirit
in us. There may be a great deal of religious work with its external
activities, the outcome of human will and effort, with but little true
worth and power, because the Divine life is feeble. When the believer
does not know that Christ is living in him, does not know the Spirit
and power of God working in him, there may be much earnestness and
diligence, with little that lasts for eternity. There may, on the
contrary, be much external weakness and apparent failure, and yet
results that prove that the life is indeed of God.
The work depends upon the life. And the life depends on the work for
its growth and perfection. All life has a destiny; it cannot
accomplish its purpose without work; life is perfected by work. The
highest manifestation of its hidden nature and power comes out in its
work. And so work is the great factor by which the hidden beauty and
the Divine possibilities of the Christian life are brought out. Not
only for the sake of what it accomplishes through the believer as
God’s instrument, but what it effects on himself, work must in the
child of God take the same place it has in God Himself. As in the
Father and the Son, so with the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, work is
the highest manifestation of life.
Work must be restored to its right place in God’s scheme of the
Christian life as in very deed the highest form of existence. To be
the intelligent willing channel of the power of God, to be capable of
working the very work of God, to be animated by the Divine Spirit of
love, and in that to be allowed to work life and blessing to men; it
is this gives nobility to life, because it is for this we are created
in the image of God. As God never for a moment ceases to work His work
of love and blessing in us and through us, so our working out what He
works in us is our highest proof of being created anew in His
likeness.
If God’s purpose with the perfection of the individual believer, with
the appointment of His Church as the body of Christ to carry on His
work of winning back a rebellious world to His allegiance and love is
to be carried out, working for God must have much greater prominence
given to it as the true glory of our Christian calling. Every believer
must be taught that, as work is the only perfect manifestation, and
therefore the perfection of life in God and throughout the world, so
our work is to be our highest glory. Shall it be so in our lives?
If this is to come, we must remember two things. The one is that it
can only come by beginning to work. Those who have not had their
attention specially directed to it cannot realise how great the
temptation is to make work a matter of thought and prayer and purpose,
without its really being done. It is easier to bear than to think,
easier to think than to speak, easier to speak than to act. We may
listen and accept and admire God’s will, and in our prayer profess our
willingness to do,–and yet not actually do. Let us, with such measure
of grace as we have, and much prayer for more, take up our calling as
God’s working men, and do good hard work for Him. Doing is the best
teacher. If you want to know how to do a thing, begin and do it.
Then you will feel the need of the second thing I wish to mention, and
be made capable of understanding it,–that there is sufficient grace
in Christ for all the work you have to do. You will see with
ever-increasing gladness how He the Head works all in you the member,
and how work for God may become your closest and fullest fellowship
with Christ, your highest participation in the power of His risen and
glorified life.
1. Life and work: beware of separating them, The more work you have,
the more your work appears a failure. The more unfit you feel for
work, take all the more time and care to have your inner life renewed
in close fellowship with God.
2. Christ liveth in me–is the secret of joy and hope, and also of
power for work. Care for the life, the life will care for the work.
`Be filled with the Spirit.’
_________________________________________________________________
VII
The Father abiding in Me doeth the Work
`Jesus answered them, My Father worketh even until now, and I
work.’–John 5:17-20.
`Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the
words that I speak I speak not of Myself: but the Father abiding in Me
doeth the work.’–John 14:10.
Jesus Christ became man that He might show us what a true man is, how
God meant to live and work in man, and how man may find his life and
do his work in God. In words like those above, our Lord opens up the
inner mystery of His life, and discovers to us the nature and the
deepest secret of His working. He did not come to the world to work
instead of the Father; the Father was ever working–`worketh even
until now.’ Christ’s work was the fruit, the earthly reflection of the
Heavenly Father working. And it was not as if Christ merely saw and
copied what the Father willed or did: `the Father abiding in Me doeth
the work.’ Christ did all His work in the power of the Father dwelling
and working in Him. So complete and real was His dependence on the
Father, that, in expounding it to the Jews, He used the strong
expressions (v. 19, 30)John 5:19, 30: `The Son can do nothing of
Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing’; `I can do nothing of
Myself.’ As literally as what He said is true of us, `Apart from Me ye
can do nothing,’ is it true of Him too. `The Father abiding in Me
doeth the work.’
Jesus Christ became man that He might show us what true man is, what
the true relation between man and God, what the true way of serving
God and doing His work. When we are made new creatures in Christ
Jesus, the life we receive is the very life that was and is in Christ,
and it is only by studying His life on earth that we know how we are
to live. `As I live because of the Father, so he that eateth Me shall
live because of Me.’ His dependence on the Father is the law of our
dependence on Him and on the Father through Him.
Christ counted it no humiliation to be ,able to do nothing of Himself,
to be always and absolutely dependent on the Father. He counted it His
highest glory, because so all His works were the works of the all
glorious God in Him. When shall we understand that to wait on God, to
bow before Him in perfect helplessness, and let Him work all in us, is
our true nobility, and the secret of the highest activity? This alone
is the true Son-life, the true life of every child of God. As this
life is known and maintained, the power for work will grow, because
the soul is in the attitude in which God can work in us, as the God
who `worketh for him that waiteth on Him.’ It is the ignorance or
neglect of the great truths, that there can be no true work for God
but as God works it in us, and that God cannot work in us fully but as
we live in absolute dependence on Him, that is the explanation of the
universal complaint of so much Christian activity with so little real
result. The revival which many are longing and praying for must begin
with this: the return of Christian ministers and workers to their true
place before God–in Christ and like Christ, one of complete
dependence and continual waiting on God to work in them.
Let me invite all workers, young and old, successful or disappointed,
full of hope or full of fear, to come and learn from our Lord Jesus
the secret of true work for God. `My Father worketh, and I work;’ `The
Father abiding in Me doeth the works.’ Divine Fatherhood means that
God is all, and gives all, and works all. Divine Sonship means
continual dependence on the Father, and the reception, moment by
moment, of all the strength needed for His Work. Try to grasp the
great truth that because `it is God who worketh all in all,’ your one
need is, in deep humility and weakness, to wait for and to trust in
His working. Learn from this that God can only work in us as He dwells
in us. `The Father abiding in Me doeth the works.’ Cultivate the holy
sense of God’s continual nearness and presence, of your being His
temple, and of His dwelling in you. Offer yourself for Him to work in
you all His good pleasure. You will find that work, instead of being a
hindrance, can become your greatest incentive to a life of fellowship
and childlike dependence.
At first it may appear as if the waiting for God to work will keep you
back from your work. It may indeed–but only to bring the greater
blessing, when you have learned the lesson of faith, that counts on
His working even when you do not feel it. You may have to do your work
in weakness and fear and much trembling. You will know that it is all,
that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. As you
know yourself better and God better, you will be content that it
should ever be–His strength made perfect in our weakness.
1. `The Father abiding in Me doeth the work.’ There is the same law
for the Head and the member, for Christ and the believer. `It is the
same God that worketh all in all.’
2. The Father not only worked in the Son when He was on earth, but
now, too, that He is in heaven. It is as we believe in Christ in the
Father’s working in Him, that we shall do the greater works. See John
14:10-12.
3. It is as the indwelling God, the Father abiding in us, that God
works in us. Let the life of God in the soul be clear, the work will
be sure.
4. Pray much for grace to say, in the name of Jesus, `The Father
abiding in me doeth the work.’
_________________________________________________________________
VIII
Greater Works
Verily, verily, I say unto You, He that believeth on Me, the works
that I do shall he do also and greater works shall he do; because I
go unto the Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will
I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask
anything in My name, that will I do.’–John 14:12-14.
In the words (ver. 10) `The Father abiding in Me doeth the works,’
Christ had revealed the secret of His and of all Divine service–man
yielding himself for God to dwell and to work in him. When Christ now
promises, `He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do
also,’ the law of the Divine inworking remains unchanged. In us, as
much as in Him, one might even say a thousand times more than with
Him, it must still ever be: The Father in me doeth the works. With
Christ and with us, it is `the same God who worketh all in all.’
How this is to be, is taught us in the words, `He that believeth on
Me.’ That does not only mean, for salvation, as a Saviour from sin.
But much more. Christ had just said (vers. 10, 11), `Believe Me that I
am in the Father, and the Father in Me: the Father abiding in Me doeth
the works.’ We need to believe in Christ as Him in and through whom
the Father unceasingly works. To believe in Christ is to receive Him
into the heart. When we see the Father’s working inseparably connected
with Christ, we know that to believe in Christ, and receive Him into
the heart, is to receive the Father dwelling in Him and working
through Him. The works His disciples are to do cannot possibly be done
in any other way than His own are done.
This becomes still more clear from what our Lord adds: `And greater
works shall he do; because I go unto the Father.’ What the greater
works are, is evident. The disciples at Pentecost with three thousand
baptized, and multitudes added to the Lord; Philip at Samaria, with
the whole city filled with joy; the men of Cyprus and Cyrene, and,
later on, Barnabas at Antioch, with much people added to the Lord;
Paul in his travels, and a countless host of Christ’s servants down to
our day, have in the ingathering of souls, done what the Master
condescendingly calls greater works than He did in the days of His
humiliation and weakness.
The reason why it should be so our Lord makes plain, `Because I go to
the Father.’ When He entered the glory of the Father, all power in
heaven and on earth was given to Him as our Redeemer. In a way more
glorious than ever the Father was to work through Him; and He then to
work through His disciples. Even as His own work on earth `in the days
of the weakness of the flesh, had been in a power received from the
Father in heaven, so His people, in their weakness, would do works
like His, and greater works in the same way, through a power received
from heaven. The law of the Divine working is unchangeable: God’s work
can only be done by God Himself. It is as we see this in Christ, and
receive Him in this capacity, as the One in and through whom God works
all, and so yield ourselves wholly to the Father working in Him and in
us,’ that we shall do greater works than He did.
The words that follow bring out still more strongly the great truths
we have been learning, that it is our Lord Himself who will work all
in us, even as the Father did in Him, and that our posture is to be
exactly what His was, one of entire receptivity and dependence.
`Greater works shall he do, because I go to the Father, and whatsoever
ye shall ask in My name, that will I do.’ Christ connects the greater
works the believer is to do, with the promise that He will do whatever
the believer asks. Prayer in the name of Jesus will be the expression
of that dependence that waits on Him for His working, to which He
gives the promise: Whatsoever ye ask, I will do, in you and through
you. And when He adds, `that the Father may be glorified in the Son,’
He reminds us bow He had glorified the Father, by yielding to Him as
Father, to work all His work in Himself as Son. In heaven Christ would
still glorify the Father, by receiving from the Father the power, and
working in His disciples what the Father would. The creature, as the
Son Himself can give the Father no higher glory than yielding to Him
to work all. The believer can glorify the Father in no other way than
the Son, by an absolute and unceasing dependence on the Son, in whom
the Father works, to communicate and work in us all the Father’s work.
`If ye shall ask anything in My name, that will I do,’ and so ye shall
do greater works.
Let every believer strive to learn the one blessed lesson. I am to do
the works I have seen Christ doing; I may even do greater works as I
yield myself to Christ exalted on the throne, in a power He had not on
earth; I may count on Him working in me according to that power. My
one need is the spirit of dependence and waiting, and prayer and
faith, that Christ abiding in me will do the works, even whatsoever I
ask.
1. How was Christ able to work the works of God? By God abiding in
Him! How can I do the works of Christ? By Christ abiding in me!
2. How can I do greater works than Christ? By believing, not only in
Christ, the Incarnate and Crucified, but Christ triumphant on the
throne.
3. In work everything depends, O believer, on the life, the inner
life, the Divine life. Pray to realise that work is vain except as it
is in `the power of the Holy Spirit’ dwelling in thee.
_________________________________________________________________
IX
Created in Christ Jesus for Good Works
`By grace have ye been saved through faith; not of works, lest any man
should glory. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for
good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in
them.’–Eph. 2:8-10.
We have been saved, not of works, but for good works. How vast the
difference. How essential the apprehension of that difference to the
health of the Christian life. Not of works which we have done, as the
source whence salvation comes, have we been saved. And yet for good
works, as the fruit and outcome of salvation, as part of God’s work in
us, the one thing for which we have been created anew. As worthless as
are our works in procuring salvation, so infinite is their worth as
that for which God has created and prepared us. Let us seek to hold
these two truths in their fulness of spiritual meaning. The deeper our
conviction that we have been saved, not of works, but of grace, the
stronger the proof we should give that we have indeed been saved for
good works.
`Not of works, for ye are God’s workmanship.’ If works could have
saved us, there was no need for our redemption. Because our works were
all sinful and vain, God undertook to make us anew–we are now His
workmanship, and all the good works we do are His workmanship too.
`His workmanship, created us anew in Christ Jesus.’ So complete had
been the ruin of sin, that God had to do the work of creation over
again in Christ Jesus. In Him, and specially in His resurrection from
the dead, He created us anew, after His own image, into the likeness
of the life which Christ had lived. In the power of that life and
resurrection, we are able, we are perfectly fitted, for doing good
works. As the eye, because it was created for the light, is most
perfectly adapted for its work, as the vine-branch, because it was
created to bear grapes, does its work so naturally, we who have been
created in Christ Jesus for good work, may rest assured that a Divine
capacity for good works is the very law of our being. If we but know
and believe in this our destiny, if we but live our life in Christ
Jesus, as we were new created in Him, we can, we will, be fruitful
unto every good work.
`Created for good works, which God hath afore prepared that we should
walk in them.’ We have been prepared for the works, and the works
prepared for us. To understand this, think of how God foreordained His
servants of old, Moses and Joshua, Samuel and David, Peter and Paul,
for the work He had for them, and foreordained equally the works for
them. The feeblest member of the body is equally cared for by the Head
as the most honoured The Father has prepared for the humblest of His
children their works as much as for those who are counted chief. For
every child God has a life-plan, with work apportioned just according
to the power, and grace provided just according to the work. And so
just as strong and clear as the teaching, salvation not of works, is
its blessed counterpart, salvation for good works, because God created
us for them, and even prepared them for us.
And so the Scripture confirms the double lesson this little book
desires to bring you. The one, that good works are God’s object in the
new life He has given you, and ought therefore to be as distinctly
your object. As every human being was created for work, and endowed
with the needful powers, and can only live out a true and healthy life
by working, so every believer exists to do good works, that in them
his life may be perfected, his fellowmen may be blessed, his Father in
heaven be glorified. We educate all our children with the thought that
they must have their work in the world: when shall the Church learn
that its great work is to train every believer to take his share in
God’s great work, and to abound in the good works for which he was
created? Let each of us seek to take in the deep spiritual truth of
the message, `Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God hath
afore prepared’ for each one, and which are waiting for him to take up
and fulfil.
The other lesson–that waiting on God is the one great thing needed on
our part if we would do the good works God has prepared for us. Let us
take up into our hearts these words in their Divine meaning: We are
God’s workmanship. `Not by one act in the past, but in a continuous
operation. We are created for good works, as the great means for
glorifying God. The good works are prepared for each of us, that we
might walk in them. Surrender to and dependence upon God’s working is
our one need. Let us consider how our new creation for good works is
all in Christ Jesus, and abiding in Him, believing on Him, and looking
for His strength alone will become the habit of our soul. Created for
good works! will reveal to us at once the Divine command and the
sufficient power to live a life in good works.
Let us pray for the Holy Spirit to work the word into the very depths
of our consciousness: Created in Christ Jesus for good works! In its
light we shall learn what a glorious destiny, what an infinite
obligation, what a perfect capacity is ours.
1. Our creation in Adam was for good works. It resulted in entire
failure. Our new creation in Christ is for good works again. But with
this difference: perfect provision has been made for securing them.
2. Created by God for good works; created by God in Christ Jesus; the
good works prepared by God for us–let us pray for the Holy Spirit to
show us and impart to us all this means.
3. Let the life in fellowship with God be true; the power for the work
will be sure. As the life, so the work.
_________________________________________________________________
X
Work, for God works in You
`Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God
which worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good
pleasure.’–Phil. 2:12, 13.
In our last chapter we saw what salvation is. It is our being God’s
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. It concludes, as
one of its chief and essential elements, all that treasury of good
works which God afore prepared that we should walk in them. In the
light of this thought we get the true and full meaning of to-day’s
text. Work out your own salvation, such as God has meant it to be, a
walk in all the good works which God has prepared for you. Study to
know exactly what the salvation is God has prepared for you, all that
He has meant and made it possible for you to be, and work it out with
fear and trembling. Let the greatness of this Divine and most holy
life, hidden in Christ, your own absolute impotence, and the terrible
dangers and temptations besetting you, make you work in fear and
trembling,
And yet, that fear need never become unbelief, nor that trembling
discouragement, for–it is God which worketh in you. Here is the
secret of a power that is absolutely sufficient for everything we have
to do, of a perfect assurance that we can do all that God really means
us to do. God works in us both to will and to work. First, to will; He
gives the insight into what is to be done, the desire that makes the
work pleasure, the firm purpose of the will that masters the whole
being, and makes it ready and eager for action. And then to work. He
does not work to will, and then leave its unaided to work it out
ourselves. The will may have seen and accepted the work, and yet the
power be lacking to perform. The renewed will of Romans 7 delighted in
God’s law, and yet the man was impotent to do, until in Romans 8:2-4,
by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, he was set free from
the law of sin and death; then first could the righteousness of the
law be fulfilled in him, as one who walked not after the flesh but
after the Spirit.
One great cause of the failure of believers in their work is that,
when they think that God has given them to will, they undertake to
work in the strength of that will. They have never learnt the lesson,
that because God has created us in Christ Jesus for good works, and
has afore prepared the good works in which we are to walk, He must
needs, and will most certainly, Himself work them all in us. They have
never listened long to the voice speaking `It is God which worketh in
you.’
We have here to do with one of the deepest, most spiritual, and most
precious truths of Scripture–the unceasing operation of Almighty God
in our heart and life. In virtue of the very nature of God, as a
Spiritual Being not confined to any place, but everywhere present,
there can be no spiritual life but as it is upheld by His personal
indwelling.
Not without the deepest reason does Scripture say, He worketh all in
all. Not only of Him are all things as their first beginning, and to
Him as their end, but also through Him, who alone maintains them.
In the man Christ Jesus the working of the Father in Him was the
source of all He did. In the new man, created in Christ Jesus, the
unceasing dependence on the Father is our highest privilege, our true
nobility. This is indeed fellowship with God: God Himself working in
us to will and to do.
Let us seek to learn the true secret of working for God. It is not, as
many think, that we do our best, and then leave God to do the rest. By
no means. But it is this, that we know that God’s working His
salvation in us is the secret of our working it out. That salvation
includes every work we have to do. The faith of God’s working in us is
the measure of our fitness to work effectively. The promises,
`According to your faith be it unto you,’ `All things are possible to
him that believeth,’ have their full application here. The deeper our
faith in God’s working in us, the more freely will the power of God
work in us, the more true and fruitful will our work be.
Perhaps some Sunday-school worker reads this. Let me ask, Have you
really believed that your only power to do God’s work is as one who
has been created in Christ Jesus for good works, as one in whom God
Himself works to will and to work? Have you yielded yourself to wait
for that working? Do you work because you know God works in you? Say
not that these thoughts are too high. The work of leading young souls
to Christ is too high for us indeed, but if we live as little
children, in believing that God will work all in us, we shall do His
work in His strength. Pray much to learn and practise the lesson in
all you do: Work, for God worketh in you.
1. I think we begin to feel that the spiritual apprehension of this
great truth, `God worketh in you,’ is what all workers greatly need.
2. The Holy Spirit is the mighty power of God, dwelling in believers
for life and for work. Beseech God to show it you, that in all our
service our first care must be the daily renewing of the Holy Spirit.
3. Obey the command to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Believe in His
indwelling. Wait for His teaching. Yield to His leading. Pray for His
mighty working. Live in the Spirit.
4. What the mighty power of God works in us we are surely able to do.
Only give way to the power working in you.
_________________________________________________________________
XI
Faith working by Love
`In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor
uncircumcision; but faith working through love. Through love be
servants one to another; for the whole law is fulfilled in this: Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’–Gal. 5:6, 13.
In Christ Jesus no external privilege avails. The Jew might boast of
his circumcision, the token of God’s covenant. The Gentile might boast
of his uncircumcision, with an entrance into the Kingdom free from the
Jewish law. Neither availed aught in the Kingdom of heaven–nothing
but, as we have it in 6:15, a new creature, in which old things are
passed away and all things become new. Or, as we have it in our
text–as a description of the life of the new creature–nothing but
faith working by love, that makes us in love serve one another.
What a perfect description of the new life. First you have faith, as
the root, planted and rooted in Christ Jesus. Then as its aim you have
works, as the fruit. And then between the two, as the tree, growing
downwards into the root and bearing the fruit upward, you have love,
with the life-sap flowing through it by which the root brings forth
the fruit, Of faith we need not speak here. We have seen how believing
on Jesus does the greater works; how the faith in the new creation,
and in God working in us, is the secret of all work. Nor need we speak
here of works–our whole book aims at securing for them the place in
every heart and life that they have in God’s heart and in His Word.
We have here to study specially the great truth that all work is to be
love, that faith cannot do its work but through love, that no works
can have any worth but as they come of love, and that love alone is
the sufficient strength for all the work we have to do.
The power for work is love.–It was love that moved God to all His
work in creation and redemption. It was love that enabled Christ as
man to work and to suffer as He did. It is love that can inspire us
with the power of a self-sacrifice that seeks not its own, but is
ready to live and die for others. It is love that gives us the
patience that refuses to give up the unthankful or the hardened. It is
love that reaches and overcomes the most hopeless. Both in ourselves
and those for whom we labour love is the power for work. Let us love
as Christ loved us.
The power for love is faith.–Faith roots its life in the life of
Christ Jesus, which is all love. Faith knows, even when we cannot
realise fully, the wonderful gift that has been given into our heart
in the Holy Spirit shedding abroad God’s love there. A spring in the
earth may often be hidden or stopped up. Until. it is opened the
fountain cannot flow out. Faith knows that there is a fountain of love
within that can spring up into eternal life, that can flow out as
rivers of living waters. It assures us that we can love, that we have
a Divine power to love within us, as an unalienable endowment of our
new nature.
The power to exercise and show love is work.–There is no such thing
as power in the abstract; it only acts as it is exercised. Power in
repose cannot be found or felt. This is specially true of the
Christian graces, hidden as they are amid the weakness of our human
nature. It is only by doing that you know that you have; a grace must
be acted ere we can rejoice in its possession. This is the unspeakable
blessedness of work, and makes it so essential to a healthy Christian
life that it wakens up and strengthens love, and makes us partakers of
its joy.
Faith working by love.–In Christ Jesus nothing avails but this.
Workers for God! believe this. Practise it. Thank God much for the
fountain of eternal love opened within you. Pray fervently and
frequently that God may strengthen you with might by the power of His
Spirit in your inner man, so that, with Christ dwelling in you, you
may be rooted and grounded in love. And live then, your daily life, in
your own home, in all your intercourse with men, in all your work, as
a life of Divine love. The ways of love are so gentle and heavenly,
you may not learn them all at once. But be of good courage, only
believe in the power that worketh in you, and yield yourself to the
work of love: it will surely gain the victory.
Faith working by love.–In Christ Jesus nothing avails but this. Let
me press home this message, too, on those who have never yet or only
just begun to think of working for God. Come and listen.
You owe everything to God’s love. The salvation you have received is
all love. God’s one desire is to fill you with His love. For His own
satisfaction, for your own happiness, for the saving of men. Now, I
ask you–Will you not accept God’s wonderful offer to be filled with
His love? Oh! come and give up heart and life to the joy and the
service of His love. Believe that the fountain of love is within you;
it will begin to flow as you make a channel for it by deeds of love.
Whatever work for God you try to do, seek to put love into it. Pray
for the spirit of love. Give yourself to live a life of love; to think
how you can love those around you, by praying for them, by serving
them, by labouring for their welfare, temporal and spiritual. Faith
working by love in Christ Jesus, this alone availeth much.
1. `Faith, Hope, Love: the greatest of these is Love.’ There is no
faith or hope in God. But God is love. The most Godlike thing is love.
2. Love is the nature of God. When it is shed abroad in our hearts by
the Holy Spirit love becomes our new nature. Believe this, give
yourself over to it, and act it out.
3. Love is God’s power to do His work. Love was Christ’s power. To
work for God pray earnestly to be filled with love to souls!
_________________________________________________________________
XII
Bearing Fruit in every Good Work
`To walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in
every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened
with all power, according to the might of His glory, unto all
patience.’–Col. 1:10.
There is a difference between fruit and work. Fruit is that which
comes spontaneously, without thought or will, the natural and
necessary outcome of a healthy life. Work, on the contrary, is the
product of effort guided by intelligent thought and will. In the
Christian life we have the two elements in combination. All true work
must be fruit, the growth and product of our inner life, the operation
of God’s Spirit within us. And yet all fruit must be work, the effect
of our deliberate purpose and exertion. In the words, `bearing fruit
in every good work,’ we have the practical summing up of the truth
taught in some previous chapters. Because God works by His life in us,
the work we do is fruit. Because, in the faith of His working, we have
to will and to work, the fruit we bear is work. In the harmony between
the perfect spontaneity that comes from God’s life and Spirit
animating us, and our co-operation with Him as His intelligent
fellow-labourers, lies the secret of all true work.
In the words that precede our text, `filled with the knowledge of His
will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,’ we have the human
side, our need of knowledge and wisdom; in the words that follow,
`strengthened with all power, according to the might of His glory,’ we
have the Divine side. God teaching and strengthening, man learning to
understand and patiently do His will; such is the double life that
will be fruitful in every good work.
It has been said of the Christian life that the natural man must first
become spiritual, and then again the spiritual man must become
natural. As the whole natural life becomes truly spiritual, all our
work will partake of the nature of fruit, the outgrowth of the life of
God within us. And as the spiritual again becomes perfectly natural to
us, a second nature in which we are wholly at home, all the fruit will
bear the mark of true work, calling into full exercise every faculty
of our being.
`Bearing fruit unto every good work.’ The words, suggest again the
great thought, that as an apple-tree or a vine is planted solely for
its fruit, so the great purpose of our redemption is that God may have
us for His work and service. It has been well said: `The end of man is
an Action and not a Thought, though it were of the noblest.’ It is in
his work that the nobility of man’s nature as ruler of the world is
proved. It is for good works that we have been new created in Christ
Jesus: It is when men see our good works that our Father in Heaven
will be glorified and have the honour which is His due for His
workmanship. In the parable of the vine our Lord insisted on this: `He
that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit.’
`Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.’ Nothing is
more to the honour of a husbandman than to succeed in raising an
abundant crop–much fruit is glory to God.
What need that every believer, even the feeblest branch of the
Heavenly Vine, the man who has only one talent, be encouraged and
helped, and even trained, to aim at the much fruit. A little
strawberry plant may, in its measure, be bearing a more abundant crop
than a large apple-tree. The call to be fruitful in every good work is
for every Christian without exception. The grace that fits for it, of
which the prayer, in which our words are found, speaks, is for every
one. Every branch fruitful in every good work–this is an essential
part of God’s Gospel.
`Bearing fruit in every good work.’ Let us study to get a full
impression of the two sides of this Divine truth. God’s first creation
of life was in the vegetable kingdom. There it was a life without
anything of will or self-effort, all growth and fruit was simply His
own direct work, the spontaneous outcome of His hidden working. In the
creation of the animal kingdom there was an advance. A new element was
introduced–thought and will and work. In man these two elements were
united in perfect harmony. The absolute dependence of the grass and
the lily on the God who clothes them with their beauty were to be the
groundwork of our relationship–nature has nothing but what it
receives from God. Our works are to be fruit, the product of a
God-given power. But to this was added the true mark of our
God-likeness the power of will and independent action: all fruit is to
be our own work. As we grasp this we shall see how the most absolute
acknowledgment of our having nothing in ourselves is consistent with
the deepest sense of obligation and the strongest will to exert our
powers to the very utmost. We shall learn to study the prayer of our
text as those who must seek all their wisdom and strength from God
alone. And we shall boldly give ourselves, as those who are
responsible for the use of that wisdom and strength, to the diligence
and the sacrifice and the effort needed for a life bearing fruit in
every good work.
1. Much depends, for quality and quantity, on the healthy life of the
tree. The life of God, of Christ Jesus, of His Spirit, the Divine life
in you, is strong and sure.
2. That life is love. Believe in it. Act it out. Have it replenished
day by day out of the fulness there is in Christ.
3. Let all your work be fruit; let all your willing and working be
inspired by the life of God. So will you walk worthily of the Lord
with all pleasing.
_________________________________________________________________
XIII
Always abounding in the Work of the Lord
`Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, , unmoveable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your
labour is not in vain in the Lord.’–1 Cor. 15:58.
We all know the fifteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians, in its Divine
revelation of the meaning of Christ’s resurrection, with all the
blessings of which it is the source.
It gives us a living Saviour, who revealed Himself to His disciples on
earth, and to Paul from heaven. It secures to us the complete
deliverance from all sin. It is the pledge of His final victory over
every enemy, when He gives up the kingdom to the Father, and God is
all in all. It assures us of the resurrection of the body, and our
entrance on the heavenly life. Paul had closed his argument with his
triumphant appeal to Death and Sin and the Law: `O Death, where is thy
victory? The sting of Death is Sin, and the power of Sin is the Law.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ.’ And then follows, after fifty-seven verses of exultant
teaching concerning the mystery and the glory of the resurrection life
in our Lord and His people, just one verse of practical application:
`Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord.’ The faith in a risen, living
Christ, and in all that His resurrection is to us in time and
eternity, is to fit us for, is to prove itself in–abounding work for
our Lord!
It cannot be otherwise. Christ’s resurrection was His final victory
over sin, and death, and Satan, and His entrance upon His work of
giving the Spirit from heaven and extending His kingdom throughout the
earth. Those who shared the resurrection joy at once received the
commission to make known the joyful news. It was so with Mary and the
women. It was so with the disciples the evening of the resurrection
day. `As the Father sent Me, I send you.’ It was so with all to whom
the charge was given: `Go into all the world, preach the Gospel to
every creature.’ The resurrection is the beginning and the pledge of
Christ’s victory over all the earth. That .victory is to be carried
out to its complete manifestation through His people. The faith and
joy of the resurrection life are the inspiration and the power for the
work of doing it. And so the call comes to all believers without
exception: `Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye always abounding in
the work of the Lord!’
`In the work of the Lord.’ The connection tells us at once what that
work is. Nothing else, nothing less than, telling others of the risen
Lord, and proving to them what new life Christ has brought to us. As
we indeed know and acknowledge Him as Lord over all we are, and live
in the joy of His service, we shall see that the work of the Lord is
but one work–that of winning men to know and bow to Him. Amid all the
forms of lowly, living, patient service, this will be the one aim, in
the power of the life of the risen Lord, to make Him Lord of all.
This work of the Lord is no easy one. It cost Christ His life to
conquer sin and Satan and gain the risen life. It will cost us our
life, too–the sacrifice of the life of nature. It needs the surrender
of all on earth to live in the full power of resurrection newness of
life. The power of sin, and the world, in those around us is strong,
and Satan does not yield his servants an easy prey to our efforts. It
needs a heart in close touch with the risen Lord, truly living the
resurrection life, to be stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the
work of the Lord. But that is a life that can be lived–because Jesus
lives.
Paul adds: `Forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not vain in the
Lord.’ I have spoken more than once of the mighty influence that the
certainty of reward for work, in the shape of wages or riches, exerts
on the millions of earth’s workers. And shall not Christ’s workers
believe that, with such a Lord, their reward is sure and great? The
work is often difficult and slow, and apparently fruitless. We are apt
to lose heart, because we are working in our strength and judging by
our expectations. Let us listen to the message: `O ye children of the
resurrection life, be ye always abounding in the work of the Lord,
forasmuch as ye know your labour is not in vain in the Lord.’ `Let not
your hands be weak; your work shall be rewarded.’ `You know that your
labour is not vain in the Lord.’
`In the Lord.’ The expression is a significant one. Study it in Romans
16 where it occurs ten times, where Paul uses the expressions:
`Receive here in the Lord;’ `my fellow-worker in Christ Jesus;’ `who
are in Christ, in the Lord;’ `beloved in the Lord;’ `approved in
Christ;’ `who labour in the Lord;’ `chosen in the Lord.’ The whole
life and fellowship and service of these saints had the one mark–they
were, their labours were, in the Lord. Here is the secret of effectual
service. Your labour is not `in vain in the Lord.’ As a sense of His
presence and the power of His life is maintained, as all works are
wrought in Him, His strength works in our weak ness; our labour cannot
be in vain in the Lord. Christ said: `He that abideth in Me, and I in
him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.’ Oh! let not the children of
this world, with their confidence that the masters whose work they are
doing will certainly give them their due reward, put the children of
light to shame. Let us rejoice and labour in the confident faith of
the word: `Your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Wherefore, beloved
brethren, be ye always abounding in the work of the Lord.’
_________________________________________________________________
XIV
Abounding Grace for Abounding Work
`And God is able to make all grace abound unto you, that ye may abound
unto every good work.’–2 Cor. 9:8.
In our previous meditation we had the great motive to abounding
work–the spirit of triumphant joy which Christ’s resurrection
inspires as it covers the past and the future. Our text to-day assures
us that for this abounding work we have the ability provided: God is
able to make all grace abound, that we may abound to all good works.
Every thought of abounding grace is to be connected with the abounding
in good works for which it is given. And every thought of abounding
work is to be connected with the abounding grace that fits for it.
Abounding grace has abounding work for its aim. It is often thought
that grace and good works are at variance with each other. This is not
so. What Scripture calls the works of the law, our own works, the
works of righteousness which we have done, dead works–works by which
we seek to merit or to be made fit for God’s favour, these are indeed
the very opposite of grace. But they are also the very opposite of the
good works which spring from grace, and for which alone grace is
bestowed. As irreconcilable as are the works of the law with the
freedom of grace, so essential and indispensable are the works of
faith, good works, to the true Christian life. God makes grace to
abound, that good works may abound. The measure of true grace is
tested and proved by the measure of good works. God’s grace abounds in
us that we may abound in good works. We need to have the truth deeply
rooted in us: Abounding grace has abounding work for its aim.
And abounding work needs abounding grace as its source and strength.
There often is abounding work without abounding grace. Just as any man
may be very diligent in an earthly pursuit, or a heathen in his
religious service of an idol, so men may be very diligent in doing
religious work in their own strength, with but little thought of that
grace which alone can do true, spiritual effective work. For all work
that is to be really acceptable to God, and truly fruitful, not only
for some visible result here on earth, but for eternity, the grace of
God is indispensable. Paul continually speaks of his own work as owing
everything to the grace of God working in him: `I laboured more
abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was
with me’ (1 Cor. 15:10). `According to the gift of that grace of God
which was given me according to the working of His power’ (Eph. 3:7).
And he as frequently calls upon Christians to exercise their gifts
`according to the grace that was given us’ (Rom. 12:6). `The grace
given according to the measure of the gift of Christ’ (Eph. 4:7). It
is only by the grace of God working in us that we can do what are
truly good works. It is only as we seek and receive abounding grace
that we can abound in every good work.
`God is able to make all grace abound unto you, that ye may abound in
all good works.’ With what thanksgiving every Christian ought to
praise God for the abounding grace that is thus provided for him. And
with what humiliation to confess that the experience of, and the
surrender to, that abounding grace has been so defective. And with
what confidence to believe that a life abounding in good works is
indeed possible, because the abounding grace for it is so sure and so
Divinely sufficient.
And then, with what simple childlike dependence to wait upon God day
by day to receive the more grace which He gives to the humble.
Child of God! do take time to study and truly apprehend God’s purpose
with you, that you abound in every good work! He means it! He has
provided for it! Make the measure of your consecration to Him nothing
less than His purpose for you. And claim, then, nothing less than the
abounding grace He is able to bestow. Make His omnipotence and His
faithfulness your confidence. And live ever in the practice of
continual prayer and dependence upon His power working in you. This
will make you abound in every good work. According to your faith be it
unto you.
Christian worker, learn here the secret of all failure and all
success. Work in our own strength, with little prayer and waiting on
God for His spirit, is the cause of failure. The cultivation of the
spirit of absolute impotence and unceasing dependence will open the
heart for the workings of the abounding grace. We shall learn to
ascribe all we do to God’s grace. We shall learn to measure all we
have to do by God’s grace. And our life will increasingly be in the
joy of God’s making His grace to abound in us, and our abounding in
every good work.
1. `That ye may abound to every good work.’ Pray over this now till
you feel that this is what God has prepared for you.
2. If your ignorance and feebleness appear to make it impossible,
present yourself to God, and say you are willing, if He will enable
you to abound in good works, to be a branch that brings forth much
fruit.
3. Take into your heart, as a living seed, the precious truth: God is
able to make all grace abound in you. Trust His power and His
faithfulness (Rom. 4:20, 21 ; 1 Thess. 5:24).
4. Begin at once by doing lowly deeds of love. As the little child in
the kindergarten. Learn by doing.
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XV
In the Work of Ministering
`And he gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some,
evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the
saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body
of Christ.’–Eph. 4:11, 12.
The object with which Christ when He ascended to heaven bestowed on
His servants the various gifts that are mentioned is threefold. Their
first aim is–for the perfecting of the saints. Believers as saints
are to be led on in the pursuit of holiness until they `stand perfect
and complete in all the will of God.’ It was for this Epaphras
laboured in prayer. It is of this Paul writes: `Whom we preach,
teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect
in Christ’ (Col. 4:12; 1:28).
This perfecting of the saints is, however, only a means to a higher
end: unto the work of ministering, to fit all the saints to take their
part in the service to which every believer is called. It is the same
word as is used in texts as these: `They ministered to Him of their
substance; Ye ministered to the saints and do minister’ (Luke 4:30,
8:3; 1 Cor. 16:15; Heb. 6:10; 1 Pet. 4:11).
And this, again, is also a means to a still higher end: unto the
building up of the body of Christ. As every member of our body takes
its part in working for the health and growth and maintenance of the
whole, so every member of the body of Christ is to consider it his
first great duty to take part in all that can help to build up the
body of Christ. And this, whether by the helping and strengthening of
those who are already members, or the ingathering of those who are to
belong to it. And the great work of the Church is, through its pastors
and teachers, so to labour for the perfecting of the saints in
holiness and love and fitness for service, that every one may take his
part in the work of ministering, that so, the body of Christ may be
built up and perfected.
Of the three great objects with which Christ has given His Church
apostles and teachers, the work of ministering stands thus in the
middle. On the one hand, it is preceded by that on which it absolutely
depends–the perfecting of the saints. On the other, it is followed by
that which it is meant to accomplish–the building up of the body of
Christ. Every believer without exception, every member of Christ’s
body, is called to take part in the work of ministering. Let every
reader try and realise the sacredness of his holy calling.
Let us learn what the qualification is for our work. `The perfecting
of the saints’ prepares them for the `work of ministering.’ It is the
lack of true sainthood, of true holiness, that causes such lack and
feebleness of service. As Christ’s saints are taught and truly learn
what conformity to Christ means, a life like his, given up in
self-sacrifice for the service and salvation of men, as His humility
and love, His separation from the world and devotion to the fallen,
are seen to be the very essence and blessedness of the life He gives,
the work of ministering, the ministry of love, will become the one
thing we live for. Humility and Love–these are the two great virtues
of the saint–they are the two great powers for the work of
ministering. Humility makes us willing to serve; love makes us wise to
know how to do it. Love is inventive; it seeks patiently, and suffers
long, until it find a way to reach its object. Humility and love are
equally turned away from self and its claims. Let us pray, let the
Church labour for `the perfecting of the saints’ in humility and love,
and the Holy Spirit will teach us how to minister.
Let us look at what the great work is the members of Christ have to
do. It is to minister to each other. Place yourself at Christ’s
disposal for service to your fellow Christians. Count yourself their
servant. Study their interest. Set yourself actively to promote the
welfare of the Christians round you. Selfishness may hesitate, the
feeling of feebleness may discourage, sloth and ease may raise
difficulties–ask your Lord to reveal to you His will, and give
yourself up to it. Round about you there are Christians who are cold
and worldly and wandering from their Lord. Begin to think what you can
do for them. Accept as the will of the Head that you as a member
should care for them. Pray for the Spirit of love. Begin
somewhere–only begin, and do not continue hearing and thinking while
you do nothing. Begin `the work of ministering’ according to the
measure of the grace you have. He will give more grace.
Let us believe in the power that worketh in us as sufficient for all
we have to do. As I think of the thumb and finger holding the pen with
which I write this, I ask, How is it that during all these seventy
years of my life they have always known just to do my will? It was
because the life of the head passed into and worked itself out in
them. `He that believeth on Me,’ as his Head working in him, `the
works that I do shall he do also.’ Faith in Christ, whose strength is
made perfect in our weakness’ will give the power for all we are
called to do.
Let us cry to God that all believers may waken up to the power of this
great truth: Every member of the body is to live wholly for the
building up of the body.
1. To be a true worker the first thing is close, humble fellowship
with Christ the Head, to be guided and empowered by Him.
2. The next is humble, loving fellowship with Christ’s members serving
one another in love.
3. This prepares and fits for service in the world.
_________________________________________________________________
XVI
According to the Working of each several Part
`That we may grow up in all things into Him, which is the Head, even
Christ; from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together
through that which every joint together supplieth, according to the
working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of
the body unto the building up of itself in love.’–Eph. 4:15, 16.
The Apostle is here speaking of the growth, the increase, the building
up of the body. This growth and increase has, as we have seen, a
double reference. It includes both the spiritual uniting and
strengthening of those who are already members, so as to secure the
health of the whole body; and also the increase of the body by the
addition of all who are as yet outside of it, and are to be gathered
in. Of the former we spoke in the previous chapter–the mutual
interdependence of all believers, and the calling to care for each
other’s welfare. In this chapter we look at the growth from the other
side–the calling of every member of Christ’s body to labour for its
increase by the labour of love that seeks to bring in them who are not
yet of it. This increase of the body and building up of itself in love
can only be by the working in due measure of each several part.
Think of the body of a child; how does it reach the stature of a
full-grown man? In no other way but by the working in due measure of
every part. As each member takes its part, by the work it does in
seeking and taking and assimilating food, the increase is made by its
building up itself. Not from without, but from within, comes the work
that assures the growth. In no other way can Christ’s body attain to
the stature of the fulness of Christ. As it is unto Christ the Head we
grow up, and from Christ the Head that the body maketh increase of
itself, so it is all through that which every joint supplieth,
according to the working in due measure of each several part. Let us
see what this implies.
The body of Christ is to consist of all who believe in Him throughout
the world. There is no possible way in which these members of the body
can be gathered in, but by the body building itself tip in love. Our
Lord has made Himself, as Head, absolutely dependent on His members to
do this work. What nature teaches us of our own bodies, Scripture
teaches us of Christ’s body. The head of a child may have thought and
plans of growth–they will all be vain, except as the members all do
their part in securing that growth. Christ Jesus has committed to His
Church the growth and increase of His body. He asks and expects that
as wholly as He the Head lives for the growth and welfare of the body,
every member of His body, the very feeblest, shall do the same, to the
building up of the body in love. Every believer is to count it his one
duty and blessedness to live and labour for the increase of the body,
the ingathering of all who, are to be its members.
What is it that is needed to bring the Church to accept this calling,
and to train and help the members of the body to know and fulfil it?
One thing. We must see that the new birth and faith, that all insight
into truth, with all resolve and surrender and effort to live
according to it, is only a preparation for our true work. What is
needed is that in every believer Jesus Christ be so formed, so dwell
in the heart, that His life in us shall be the impulse and inspiration
of our love to the whole body, and our life for it. It is because self
occupies the heart that it is so easy and natural and pleasing to care
for ourselves. When Jesus Christ lives in us, it will be as easy and
natural and pleasing to live wholly for the body of Christ. As readily
and naturally as the thumb and fingers respond to the will and
movement of the head will the members of Christ’s body respond to the
Head, as the body grows up into Him, and from Him maketh increase of
itself.
Let us sum up. For the great work the Head is doing in gathering in
from throughout the world and building up His body, He is entirely
dependent on the service of the members. Not only our Lord, but a
perishing world is waiting and calling for the Church to awake and
give herself wholly to this work–the perfecting of the number of
Christ’s members. Every believer, the very feeblest, must learn to
know his calling–to live with this as the main object of this
existence. This great truth will be revealed to us in power, and
obtain the mastery, as we give ourselves to the work of ministering
according to the grace we already have. We may confidently wait for
the full revelation of Christ in its as the power to do all He asks of
its.
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XVII
Women adorned with Good Work
`Let women adorn themselves; not with braided hair, and gold or pearls
or costly raiment; but through good works. Let none be enrolled as a
widow under threescore years old, well reported of for good works; . .
. if she hath diligently followed every good work.– 1 Tim. 2:10, 5:9,
10.
In the three Pastoral Epistles, written to two young pastors to
instruct them in regard to their duties, `good works’ are more
frequently mentioned than in Paul’s other Epistles. [1][1] In writing
to the Churches, as in a chapter like Romans 12 he mentions the
individual good work by name. In writing to the pastors he had to use
this expression as a summary of what, both in their own life and their
teaching of others, they had to aim at. A minister was to be prepared
to every good work, furnished completely to every good work, an
ensample of good works. And they were to teach Christians–the women
to adorn themselves with good works, diligently to follow every good
work, to be well reported of for good works; the men to be rich in
good works, zealous of good works, ready to every good work, to be
careful and to learn to maintain good works. No portion of God’s work
presses home more definitely the absolute necessity of good works as
an essential, vital element in the Christian life.
Our two texts speak of the good works of Christian women. In the first
they are taught that their adorning is to be not with braided hair,
and gold or pearls or costly raiment, but, as becomes women preferring
godliness, with good works. We know what adornment is. A leafless tree
in winter has life; when spring comes it puts on its beautiful
garments, and rejoices in the adornment of foliage and blossom. The
adorning of Christian women is not to be in hair or pearls or raiment,
but in good works. Whether it be the good works that have reference to
personal duty and conduct, or those works of beneficence that aim at
the pleasing and helping of our neighbor or those that more definitely
seek the salvation of souls–the adorning that pleases God, that gives
true heavenly beauty, that will truly attract others to come and serve
God, too, is what Christian women ought to seek after. John saw the
holy city descend from heaven, `made ready as a bride adorned for her
husband.’ `The fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints’ (Rev.
21:2, 24:8). Oh! that every Christian woman might seek so to adorn
herself as to please the Lord that loved her.
In the second passage we read of widows who were placed upon a roll of
honour in the early Church, and to whom a certain charge was given
over the younger women. No one was to be enrolled who was not `well
reported of for good works.’ Some of these are mentioned: if she has
been known for the careful bringing up of her children, for her
hospitality to strangers, for her washing the saints’ feet, for her
relieving the afflicted; and then there is added, `if she hath
diligently followed every good work.’ If in her home and out of it, in
caring for her own children, for strangers, for saints, for the
afflicted, her life has been devoted to good works, she may indeed be
counted fit to be an example and guide to others. The standard is a
high one. It shows us the place good works took in the early Church.
It shows how woman’s blessed ministry of love was counted on and
encouraged. It shows how, in the development of the Christian life,
nothing so fits for rule and influence as a life given to good works.
Good works are part and parcel of the Christian life, equally
indispensable to the health and growth of the individual, and to the
welfare and extension of the Church. And yet what multitudes of
Christian women there are whose active share in the good work of
blessing their fellow-creatures is little more than playing at good
works. They are waiting for the preaching of a full gospel, which
shall encourage and help and compel them to give their lives so to
work for their Lord, that they, too, may be well reported of as
diligently following every good work. The time and money, the thought
and heart given to jewels or costly raiment will be redeemed to its
true object. Religion will no longer be a selfish desire for personal
safety, but the joy of being like Christ, the helper and saviour of
the needy. Work for Christ will take its true place as indeed the
highest form of existence, the true adornment of the Christian life.
And as diligence in the pursuits of earth is honoured as one of the
true elements of character and worth, diligently to follow good works
in Christ’s service will be found to give access to the highest reward
and the fullest joy of the Lord.
1. We are beginning to awaken to the wonderful place woman can take in
church and school and mission. This truth needs to be brought home to
every one of the King’s daughters, that the adorning in which they are
to attract the world, to please their Lord, and enter His presence
is–good works.
2. Woman, as the image of `the weakness of God,’ `the meekness and
gentleness of Christ,’ is to teach man the beauty and the power of the
long-suffering, self -sacrificing ministry of love.
3. The training for the service of love begins in the home life; is
strengthened in the inner chamber; reaches out to the needy around,
and finds its full scope in the world for which Christ died.
_________________________________________________________________
XVIII
Rich in Good Works
`Charge them that are rich in the present world, that they do good,
that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute,
willing to communicate, laying up for themselves a good foundation
against the time to come, that they may lay hold on the life which is
life indeed.’–1 Tim. 6:18.
If women are to regard good work as their adornment, men are to count
them their riches. As good works satisfy woman’s eye and taste for
beauty, they meet man’s craving for possession and power. In the
present world riches have a wonderful significance. They are often
God’s reward on diligence, industry, and enterprise. They represent
and embody the life-power that has been spent in procuring them. As
such they exercise power in the honour or service they secure from
others. Their danger consists in their being of this world, in their
drawing off the heart from the living God and the heavenly treasures.
They may become a man’s deadliest enemy: How hardly shall they that
have riches enter the kingdom of heaven!
The gospel never takes away anything from us without giving us
something better in its stead. It meets the desire for riches by the
command to be rich in good works. Good works are the coin that is
current in God’s kingdom: according to these will be the reward in the
world to come. By abounding in good works we lay up for ourselves
treasures in heaven. Even here on earth they constitute a treasure, in
the testimony of a good conscience, in the consciousness of being
well-pleasing to God (1 John 3) in the power of blessing others.
There is more. Wealth of gold is not only a symbol of the heavenly
riches; it is actually, though so opposite in its nature, a means to
it. `Charge the rich that they do good, that they be ready to
distribute, willing to communicate, laying up for themselves a good
foundation.’ `Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of
unrighteousness, that, when it fails, they may receive you into the
eternal tabernacles.’ Even as the widow’s mite, the gifts of the rich,
when given in the same spirit, may be an offering with which God is
well pleased (Heb. 13:16). The man who is rich in money may become
rich in good works, if he follows out the instructions Scripture lays
down. The money must not be given to be seen of men `but as unto the
Lord. Nor as from an owner, but a steward who administers the Lord’s
money, with prayer for His guidance. Nor with any confidence in its
power or influence, but in deep dependence on Him who alone can make
it a blessing. Nor as a substitute for, or bringing out from that
personal work and witness, which each believer is to give. As all
Christian work, so our money-giving has its value alone from the
spirit in which it is done, even the spirit of Christ Jesus.
What a field there is in the world for accumulating these riches,
these heavenly treasures. In relieving the poor, in educating the
neglected, in helping the lost, in bringing the gospel to Christians
and heathen in darkness, what investment might be made if Christians
sought to be rich in good works, rich toward God. We may well ask the
question, `What can be done to waken among believers a desire for
these true riches? Men have made a science of the wealth of nations,
and carefully studied all the laws by which its increase and universal
distribution can be promoted. How can the charge to be rich in good
works find a response in the hearts that its pursuit shall be as much
a pleasure and a passion as the desire for the riches of the present
world?
All depends upon the nature, the spirit, there is in man. To the
earthly nature, earthly riches have a natural affinity and
irresistible attraction. To foster the desire for the acquisition of
what constitutes wealth in the heavenly kingdom, we must appeal to the
spiritual nature. That spiritual nature needs to be taught and
educated and trained into all the business habits that go to make a
man rich. There must be the ambition to rise above the level of a bare
existence, the deadly contentment with just being saved. There must be
some insight into the beauty and worth of good works as the expression
of the Divine life–God’s working in us and our working in Him; as the
means of bringing glory to God; as the source of life and blessing to
men; as the laying up of a treasure in heaven for eternity. There must
be a faith that these riches are actually within our reach, because
the grace and Spirit of God are working in us. And then the outlook
for every opportunity of doing the work of God to those around us, in
the footsteps of Him who said, `It is more blessed to give than
receive.’ Study and apply these principles–they will open the sure
road to your becoming a rich man. A man who wants to be rich often
begins on a small scale, but never loses an opportunity. Begin at once
with some work of love, and ask Christ, who became poor, that you
might be rich, to help you.
1. What is the cause that the appeal for money for missions meets with
such insufficient response? It is because of the low spiritual state
of the Church. Christians have no due conception of their calling to
live wholly for God and His kingdom.
2. How can the evil be remedied? Only when believers see and accept
their Divine calling to make God’s kingdom their first care, and with
humble confession of their sins yield themselves to God, will they
truly seek the heavenly riches to be found in working for God.
3. Let us never cease to plead and labour for a true spiritual
awakening throughout the Church.
_________________________________________________________________
XIX
Prepared unto every Good Work
`If a man therefore cleanse himself from them, he shall be a vessel
unto honour, sanctified, meet for the Master’s use, prepared unto
every good work.’–2 Tim. 2:21.
Paul had spoken of the foundation of God standing sure (2:19), of the
Church as the great house built upon that foundation, of vessels, not
only of gold, silver, costly and lasting, vessels to honour, but also
of wood and of earth, common and perishable, vessels to dishonour. He
distinguishes between them of whom he had spoken, who gave themselves
to striving about words and to vain babblings, and such as truly
sought to depart from all iniquity. In our text he gives us the four
steps in the path in which a man can become a vessel unto honour in
the great household of God. These are, the cleansing from sin; the
being sanctified; the meetness for the Master to use as He will; and
last, the spirit of preparedness for every good work. It is not enough
that we desire or attempt to do good works. As we need training and
care to prepare us for every work we are to do on earth, we need it no
less, or rather we need it much more, to be–what constitutes the
chief mark of the vessels unto honour–to be prepared unto every good
work.
`If a man cleanse himself from them’–from that which characterises
the vessels of dishonour–the empty profession leading to ungodliness,
against which he had warned. In every dish and cup we use, how we
insist upon it that it shall be clean. In God’s house the vessels must
much more be clean. And every one who would be truly prepared unto
every good work must see to this first of all, that he cleanse himself
from all that is sin. Christ Himself could not enter upon His saving
work in heaven until He had accomplished the cleansing of our sins.
How can we become partners in His work, unless there be with us the
same cleansing first. Ere Isaiah could say, `Here am I, send me,’ the
fire of heaven had touched his lips, and he heard the voice, `Thy sin
is purged.’ An intense desire to be cleansed from every sin lies at
the root of fitness for true service.
`He shall be a vessel of honour, sanctified.’ Cleansing is the
negative side, the emptying out and removal of all that is impure.
Sanctified, the positive side, the refilling and being possessed of
the spirit of holiness, through whom the soul becomes God-possessed,
and so partakes of His holiness. `Let us cleanse ourselves from all
defilement of flesh and spirit’–this first, then, and so `perfecting
holiness in the fear of the Lord.’ In the temple the vessels were not
only to be clean, but holy, devoted to God’s service alone. He that
would truly work for God must follow after holiness; `a heart
established in holiness’ (1 Thess. 4:14), a holy habit of mind and
disposition, yielded up to God and marked by a sense of His presence,
fit for God’s work. The cleansing from sin secures the filling with
the Spirit.
`Meet for the Master’s use.’ We are vessels for our Lord to use. In
every work we do, it is to be Christ using us and working through us.
The sense of being a servant, dependent on the Master’s guidance,
working under the Master’s eye, instruments used by Him and His mighty
power, lies at the root of effectual service. It maintains that
unbroken dependence, that quiet faith, through which the Lord can do
His work. It keeps up that blessed consciousness of the work being all
His, which leads the worker to become the humbler the more be is used.
His one desire is–meet for the Master’s use.
`Prepared unto every good work.’ Prepared. The word not only means
equipment, fitness, but also the disposition, the alacrity which keeps
a man on the outlook, and makes him earnestly desire and joyfully
avail himself of every opportunity of doing his Master’s work. As he
lives in touch with his Lord Jesus, and holds himself as a cleansed
and sanctified vessel, ready for Him to use, and he sees how good
works are what he was redeemed for, and what his fellowship with his
Lord is to be proved in, they become the one thing he is to live for.
He is prepared unto every good work.
1. `Meet for the Master’s use,’ that is the central thought. A
personal relation to Christ, an entire surrender to His disposal, a
dependent waiting to be used by Him, a joyful confidence that He will
use us–such is the secret of true work.
2. Let the beginning of your work be a giving yourself into the hands
of the Master, as your living, loving Lord.
_________________________________________________________________
XX
Furnished completely unto every Good Work
`Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that
needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth.’–2 Tim.
2:15.
`Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness;
that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every
good work.’–2 Tim. 3:16, 17.
A workman that needeth not to be ashamed is one who is not afraid to
have the master come and inspect his work. In hearty devotion to it,
in thoroughness and skill, he presents himself approved to him who
employs him. God’s workers are to give diligence to present themselves
approved to Him; to have their work worthy of Him unto all
well-pleasing. They are to be as a workman that needeth not to be
ashamed. A workman is one who knows his work, who gives himself wholly
to it, who is known as a working man, who takes delight in doing his
work well. Such every Christian minister, every Christian worker, is
to be–a workman that makes a study of it to invite and expect the
Master’s approval.
`Handling aright the word of truth.’ The word is a seed, a fire, a
hammer, a sword, is bread, is light. Workmen in any of these spheres
can be our example. In work for God everything depends upon handling
the word aright. Therefore it is that, in the second text quoted
above, the personal subjection to the word, and the experience of its
power, is spoken of as the one means of our being completely furnished
to every good work. God’s workers must know that the Scripture is
inspired of God, and has the life and life-giving power of God in it.
Inspired is Spirit-breathed–the life in a seed, God’s Holy Spirit is
in the word. The Spirit in the word and the Spirit in our heart is
One. As by the power of the Spirit within us we take the Spirit-filled
word we become spiritual men. This word is given for teaching, the
revelation of the thoughts of God; for reproof, the discovery of our
sins and mistakes; for correction, the removal of what is defective to
be replaced by what is right and good; for instruction which is in
righteousness, the communication of all the knowledge needed to walk
before God in His ways. As one yields himself wholly and heartily to
all this, and the true Spirit-filled word gets mastery of his whole
being, he becomes a man of God, complete and furnished completely to
every good work. He becomes a workman approved of God, who needs not
to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of God. And so the man of God
has the double mark–his own life wholly moulded by the
Spirit-breathed word–and his whole work directed by his rightly
handling that word.
`That the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished unto every
good work.’ In our previous meditation we learnt bow in the cleansing
and sanctification of the personal life the worker becomes a vessel
meet for the Masters use, prepared unto every good work. Here we learn
the same lesson–it is the man of God who allows God’s word to do its
work of reproving and correcting and instructing in his own life who
will be complete, completely furnished unto every good work. Complete
equipment and readiness for every good work–that is what every worker
for God must aim at.
If any worker, conscious of how defective his preparation is, ask how
this complete furnishing for every good work is to be attained, the
analogy of an earthly workman, who needs not be ashamed, suggests the
answer. He would tell us that be owes his success, first of all, to
devotion to his work. He gave it his close attention. He left other
things to concentrate his efforts on mastering one thing. He made it a
life-study to do his work perfectly. They who would do Christ’s work
as a second thing, not as the first, and who are not willing to
sacrifice all for it, will never be complete or completely furnished
to every good work.
The second thing he will speak of will be patient training and
exercise. Proficiency only comes through painstaking effort. You may
feel as if you know not how or what to work aright. Fear not–all
learning begins with ignorance and mistakes. Be of good courage. He
who has endowed human nature with the wonderful power that has filled
the world with such skilled and cunning workmen, will He not much more
give His children the grace they need to be His fellow-workers? Let
the necessity that is laid upon you–the necessity that you should
glorify God, that you should bless the world, that you should through
work ennoble and perfect your life and blessedness, urge you to give
immediate and continual diligence to be a workman completely furnished
unto every good work.
It is only in doing we learn to do aright. Begin working under
Christ’s training; He will perfect His work in you, and so fit you for
your work for him.
1. The work God is doing, and seeking to have done in the world, is to
win it back to Himself.
2. In this work every believer is expected to take part.
3. God wants us to be skilled workmen, who give our whole heart to His
work, and delight in it.
4. God does His work by working in us, inspiring and strengthening us
to do His work.
5. What God asks is a heart and life devoted to Him in surrender and
faith.
6. As God’s work is all love, love is the power that works in us,
inspiring our efforts and conquering its object.
_________________________________________________________________
XXI
Zealous of Good Works
`He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity,
and purify us for Himself, a people of His own, zealous of good
works.’–Tit. 2:14.
In these words we have two truths–what Christ has done to make us His
own, and what He expects of us. In the former we have a rich and
beautiful summary of Christ’s work for us: He gave Himself for us, He
redeemed us from all iniquity, He cleansed us for Himself, He took us
for a people, for His own possession. And all with the one object,
that we should be a people zealous of good works. The doctrinal half
of this wonderful passage has had much attention bestowed on it; let
us devote our attention to its practical part–we are to be a people
zealous of good works. Christ expects of us that we shall be zealots
for good works–ardently, enthusiastically devoted to their
performance.
This cannot be said to be the feeling with which most Christians
regard good works. What can be done to cultivate this disposition? One
of the first things that wakens zeal in work is a great and urgent
sense of need. A great need wakens strong desire, stirs the heart and
the will, rouses all the energies of our being. It was this sense of
need that roused many to be zealous of the law; they hoped their works
would save them. The Gospel has robbed this motive of its power. Has
it taken away entirely the need of good works? No, indeed, it has
given that urgent need a higher place than before. Christ needs, needs
urgently, our good works. We are His servants, the members of His
body, without whom He cannot possibly carry on His work on earth. The
work is so great–with the hundreds of millions of the unsaved–the
work is so great, that not one worker can be spared. There are
thousands of Christians to-day who feel that their own business is
urgent, and must be attended to, and have no conception of the urgency
of Christ’s work committed to them. The Church must waken up to teach
each believer this.
As urgently as Christ needs our good works the world needs them. There
are around you men and women and children who need saving. To see men
swept down past us in a river, stirs our every power to try and save
them. Christ has placed His people in a perishing world, with the
expectation that they will give themselves, heart and soul, to carry
on His work of love. Oh! let us sound forth the blessed Gospel
message: He gave Himself for us that He might redeem us for Himself, a
people of His own, to serve Him and carry on His work–zealous of good
works.
A second great element of zeal in work is delight in it. An apprentice
or a student mostly begins his work under a sense of duty. As he
learns to understand and enjoy it, be does it with pleasure, and
becomes zealous in its performance. The Church must train Christians
to believe that when once we give our hearts to it, and seek for the
training that makes us in some degree skilled workmen, there is no
greater joy than that of sharing in Christ’s work of mercy and
beneficence. As physical and mental activity give pleasure, and call
for the devotion and zeal of thousands, the spiritual service of
Christ can waken our highest enthusiasm.
Then comes the highest motive, the personal one of attachment to
Christ our Redeemer: `The love of Christ constraineth us.’ The love of
Christ to us is the source and measure of our love to Him. Our love to
Him becomes the power and the measure of our love to souls. This love,
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, this love as a Divine
communication, renewed in us by the renewing of the Holy Ghost day by
day, becomes a zeal for Christ that shows itself as a zeal for good
works. It becomes the link that unites the two parts of our text, the
doctrinal and the practical, into one. Christ’s love, that gave
Himself for us, that redeemed us from all iniquity, that cleansed us
for Himself, that made us a people of His own in the bonds of an
everlasting loving kindness, that love believed in, known, received
into the heart, makes the redeemed soul of necessity zealous in good
works.
`Zealous of good works!’ Let no believer, the youngest, the feeblest,
look upon this grace as too high. It is Divine, provided for and
assured in the love of our Lord. Let us accept it as our calling. Let
us be sure it is the very nature of the new life within us. Let us, in
opposition to all that nature or feeling may say, in faith claim it as
an integral part of our redemption–Christ Himself will make it true
in us.
_________________________________________________________________
XXII
Ready to every Good Work
`Put them in mind to be ready to every good work.’–Tit. 3:1.
`Put them in mind.’ The words suggest the need of believers to have
the truths of their calling to good works ever again set before them.
A healthy tree spontaneously bears its fruit. Even where the life of
the believer is in perfect health, Scripture teaches us how its growth
and fruitfulness only come through teaching, and the influence that
exerts on mind and will and heart. For all who have charge of others
the need is great of Divine wisdom and faithfulness to teach and train
all Christians, specially young and feeble Christians, to be ready to
every good work. Let us consider some of the chief points of such
training.
Teach them clearly what good works are. Lay the foundation in the will
of God, as revealed in the law, and show them how integrity and
righteousness and obedience are the groundwork of Christian character.
Teach them how in all the duties and relationships of daily life true
religion is to be carried out. Lead them on to the virtues which Jesus
specially came to exhibit and teach–humility, meekness and gentleness
and love. Open out to them the meaning of a life of love,
self-sacrifice, and beneficence–entirely given to think of and care
for others. And then carry them on to what is the highest, the true
life of good works–the winning of men to know and love God.
Teach them what an essential part of the Christian life good works
are. They are not, as many think, a secondary element in the salvation
which God gives. They are not merely to be done in token of our
gratitude, or as a proof of the sincerity of our faith, or as a
preparation for heaven. They are all this, but they are a great deal
more. They are the very object for which we have been redeemed: we
have been created anew unto good works. They alone are the evidence
that man has been restored to his original destiny of working as God
Works, and with God, and because God works through him. God has no
higher glory than His works, and specially His work of saving love. In
becoming imitators of God, and walking and working in love, even as
Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, we have the very image and
likeness of God restored in us. The works of a man not only reveal his
life, they develop and exercise, they strengthen and perfect it. Good
works are of the very essence of the Divine life in us.
Teach them, too, what a rich reward they bring. All labour has its
market value. From the poor man who scarce can earn a shilling a day,
to the man who has made his millions, the thought of the reward there
is for labour has been one of the great incentives to undertake it.
Christ appeals to this feeling when He says, `Great shall be your
reward.’ Let Christians understand that there is no service where the
reward is so rich as that of God. Work is bracing, work is strength,
and cultivates the sense of mastery and conquest. Work wakens
enthusiasm and calls out a man’s noblest qualities. In a life of good
works the Christian becomes conscious of his Divine ministry of
dispensing the life and grace of God to others. They bring us into
closer union with God. There is no higher fellowship with God than
fellowship in His saving work of love. It brings us into sympathy with
Him and His purposes; it fills us with His love; it secures His
approval. And great is the reward, too, on those around us. When
others are won to Christ, when the weary and the erring and the
desponding are helped and made partakers of the grace and life there
are in Christ Jesus for them, God’s servants share in the very joy in
which our blessed Lord found His recompense.
And now the chief thing. Teach them to believe that it is possible for
each of us to abound in good works. Nothing is so fatal to successful
effort as discouragement or despondency. Nothing is more a frequent
cause of neglect of good works than the fear that we have not the
power to perform them. Put them in mind of the power of the Holy
Spirit dwelling in them. Show them that God’s promise and provision of
strength is always equal to what He demands; that there is always
grace sufficient for all the good works to which we are called. Strive
to waken in them a faith in `the power that worketh in us,’ and in the
fulness of that life which can flow out as rivers of living water.
Train them to begin at once their service of love. Lead them to see
how it is all God working in them, and to offer themselves as empty
vessels to be filled with His love and grace. And teach them that as
they are faithful in a little, even amid mistakes and shortcomings,
the acting out of the life will strengthen the life itself, and work
for God will become in full truth a second nature.
God grant that the teachers of the Church may be faithful to its
commission in regard to all her members–`Put them in mind to be ready
for every good work.’ Not only teach them, but train them. Show them
the work there is to be done by them; see that they do it; encourage
and help them to do it hopefully. There is no part of the office of a
pastor more important or more sacred than this, or fraught with richer
blessing. Let the aim be nothing less than to lead every believer to
live entirely devoted to the work of God in winning men to Him. What a
change it would make in the Church and the world!
1. Get a firm hold of the great root-principle. Every believer, every
member of Christ’s body, has his place in the body solely for the
welfare of the whole body.
2. Pastors have been given for the perfecting of the saints with the
work of ministering, of serving in love.
3. In ministers and members of the churches, Christ will work mightily
if they will wait upon Him.
_________________________________________________________________
XXIII
Careful to maintain Good Works
`I will that thou affirm these things confidently, to the end that
they which have believed God may be careful to maintain good works.
Let our people also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses,
that they be not unfruitful.’–Tit. 3:8, 14.
In the former of these passages Paul charges Titus confidently to
affirm the truths of the blessed Gospel to the end, with the express
object that all who had believed should be careful, should make a
study of it, to maintain good works. Faith and good works were to be
inseparable; the diligence of every believer in good works was to be a
main aim of a pastor’s work. In the second passage he reiterates the
instruction, with the expression, let them learn, suggesting the
thought that, as all work on earth has to be learned, so in the good
works of the Christian life there is an equal need of thought and
application and teachableness, to learn how to do them aright and
abundantly.
There may be more than one reader of this little book who has felt how
little he has lived in accordance with all the teaching of God’s word,
prepared, thoroughly furnished, ready unto, zealous of good works. It
appears so difficult to get rid of old habits, to break through the
conventionalities of society, to know how to begin and really enter
upon a life that can be full of good works, to the glory of God. Let
me try and give some suggestions that may be helpful. They may also
aid those who have the training of Christian workers, in showing in
what way the teaching and learning of good works may best succeed.
Come, young workers all, and listen.
1. A learner must begin by beginning to work at once. There is no way
of learning an art like swimming or music, a new language or a trade,
but by practice. Let neither the fear that you cannot do it, nor the
hope that something will happen that will make it easier for you, keep
you back. Learn to do good works, the works of love, by beginning to
do them. However insignificant they appear, do them. A kind word, a
little help to some one in trouble, an act of loving attention to a
stranger or a poor man, the sacrifice of a seat or a place to some one
who longs for it–practise these things. All plants we cultivate are
small at first. Cherish the consciousness that, for Jesus’ sake, you
are seeking to do what would please Him. It is only in doing you can
learn to do.
2. The learner must give his heart to the work, must take interest and
pleasure in it. Delight in work ensures success. Let the tens of
thousands around you in the world who throw their whole soul into
their daily business, teach you how to serve your blessed Master.
Think sometimes of the honour and privilege of doing good works, of
serving others in love. It is God’s own work, to love and save and
bless men. He works it in you and through you. It makes you share the
spirit and likeness of Christ. It strengthens your Christian
character. Without actions, intentions lower and condemn a man instead
of raising him. Only as much as you act out, do you really live. Think
of the Godlike blessedness of doing good, of communicating life, of
making happy. Think of the exquisite joy of growing up into a life of
beneficence, and being the blessing of all you meet. Set your heart
upon being a vessel meet for the Master’s use, ready to every good
work.
3 . Be of good courage, and fear not. The learner who says I cannot,
will surely fail. There is a Divine power working in you. Study and
believe what God’s word says about it. Let the holy self-reliance of
St. Paul, grounded on his reliance on Christ, be your example: I can
do all things–in Christ which strengtheneth me. Study and take home
to yourself the wonderful promises about the power of the Holy Spirit,
the abundance of grace, Christ’s strength made perfect in weakness,
and see how all this can only be made true to you in working.
Cultivate the noble consciousness that as you have been created to
good works by God, He Himself will fit you for them. And believe then
that just as natural as it is to any workman to delight and succeed in
his profession, it can be to the new nature in you to abound in every
good work. Having this confidence, you need never faint.
4. Above all, cling to your Lord Jesus as your Teacher and Master. He
said: `Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall
find rest to your souls.’ Work as one who is a learner in His school,
who is sure that none teaches like Him, and is therefore confident of
success. Cling to Him, and let a sense of His presence and His power
working in you make you meek and lowly, and yet bold and strong. He
who came to do the Father’s work on earth, and found it the path to
the Father’s glory, will teach you what it is to work for God.
To sum up again, for the sake of any who want to learn how to work, or
how to work better:
1. Yield yourself to Christ. Lay yourself on the altar, and say you
wish to give yourself wholly to live for God’s work.
2. Believe quietly that Christ accepts and takes charge of you for His
work, and will fit you for it.
3. Pray much that God would open to you the great truth of His own
working in you. Nothing else can give true strength.
4. Seek to cultivate a spirit of humble, patient, trustful dependence
upon God. Live in loving fellowship with Christ, and obedience to Him.
You can count upon His strength being made perfect in your weakness.
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XXIV
As His Fellow-Workers
`We are God’s fellow-workers: ye are God’s building.’–1 Cor. 3:9.
`And working together with Him we intreat that ye receive not the
grace of God in vain.’–2 Cor. 6:1.
We have listened to Paul’s teaching on good works (chaps. IX.-XXII.);
let us turn now to his personal experience, and see if we can learn
from him some of the secrets of effective service.
He speaks here of the Church as God’s building, which, as the Great
Architect, He is building up into a holy temple and dwelling for
Himself. Of his own work, Paul speaks as of that of a master builder,
to whom a part of the great building has been given in charge. He had
laid a foundation in Corinth; to all who were working there he said:
`Let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon.’ `We are God’s
fellowworkers.’ The word is applicable not only to Paul, but to all
God’s servants who take part in His work; and because every believer
has been called to give his life to God’s service and to win others to
His knowledge, every, even the feeblest, Christian needs to have the
word brought to him and taken home: `We are God’s fellowworkers.’ How
much it suggests in regard to our working for God!
As to the work we have to do.–The eternal God is building for Himself
a temple; Christ Jesus, God’s Son, is the foundation; believers are
the living stones. The Holy Spirit is the mighty power of God through
which believers are gathered out of the world made fit for their place
in the temple, and built up into it. As living stones, believers are
at the same time the living workmen, whom God uses to carry out His
work. They are equally God’s workmanship and God’s fellow-workers. The
work God is doing He does through them. The work they have to do is
the very work God is doing. God’s own work, in which He delights, on
which His heart is set, is saving men and building them into His
temple. This is the one work on which the heart of every one who would
be a fellow-worker with God must be set. It is only as we know how
great, how wonderful, this work of God is–giving life to dead souls,
imparting His own life to them, and living in them–that we shall
enter somewhat into the glory of our work, receiving the very life of
God from Him, and passing it on to men.
As to the strength for the work.–Paul says of his work as a mere
master builder, that it was `according to the grace of God which was
given me.’ For Divine work nothing but Divine power suffices. The
power by which God works must work in us. That power is His Holy,
Spirit. Study the second chapter of this Epistle, and the third of the
Second, and see how absolute was Paul’s acknowledgment of his own
impotence, and his dependence on the teaching and power of the Holy
Spirit. As this great truth begins to live in the hearts of God’s
workers, that God’s work can only be done by God’s power in us, we
shall feel that our first need every day is to have the presence of
God’s Spirit renewed within us. The power of the Holy Spirit is the
power of love. God is love. All He works for the salvation of men is
love; it is love alone that truly conquers and wins the heart. In all
God’s fellow-workers love is the power that reaches the hearts of men.
Christ conquered and conquers still by the love of the cross. Let that
mind be in you, O worker, which was in Christ Jesus, the spirit of a
love that sacrifices itself to the death, of a humble, patient, gentle
love, and you will be made meet to be God’s fellow-worker.
As to the relation we are to hold to God.–In executing the plans of
some great building the master builder has but one care–to carry out
to the minutest detail the thoughts of the architect who designed it.
He acts in constant consultation with him, and is guided in all by his
will; and his instructions to those under him have all reference to
the one thing–the embodiment, in visible shape, of what the master
mind has conceived. The one great characteristic of fellow-workers
with God ought to be that of absolute surrender to His will, unceasing
dependence on His teaching, exact obedience to His wishes. God has
revealed His plan in His Word. He has told us that His Spirit alone
can enable us to enter into His plans, and fully master His purpose
with the way he desires to have it carried out. The clearer our
insight into the Divine glory of God’s work of saving souls, into the
utter insufficiency of our natural powers to do the work, into the
provision, that has been made by which the Divine love can animate us,
and the Divine Spirit guide and strengthen us for its due performance,
the more we shall feel that a childlike teachableness, a continual
looking upward and waiting on God, is ever to be the chief mark of one
who is His fellow-labourer. Out of the sense of humility,
helplessness, and nothingness there will grow a holy confidence and
courage that knows that our weakness need not hinder us, that Christ’s
strength is made perfect in weakness, that God Himself is working out
His purpose through us. And of all the blessings of the Christian
life, the most wonderful will be that we are allowed to be–God’s
fellow-workers!
1. God’s fellow-worker! How easy to use the word, and even to
apprehend some of the great truths it contains! How little we live in
the power and the glory of what it actually involves!
2. Fellow-workers with God! Everything depends upon knowing, in His
holiness and love, the God with whom we are associated as partners.
3. He who has chosen us, that in and through us He might do His great
work, will fit us for His use.
4. Let our posture be adoring worship, deep dependence, great waiting,
full obedience.
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XXV
According to the Working of His Power
`Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man, that we
may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus; whereunto I also
labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me
mightily.’–Col. 1:29.
`The mystery of Christ, whereof I was made a minister, according to
the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the
working of His power.’–Eph. 3:7.
In the words of Paul to the Philippians, which we have already
considered (Chap. IX.), in which he called upon them and encouraged
them to work, because it was God who worked in them, we found one of
the most pregnant and comprehensive statements of the great truth that
it is only by God’s working in us that we can do true work. In our
texts for this chapter we have Paul’s testimony as to his own
experience. His whole ministry was to be according to the grace which
was given him according to the working of God’s power. And of his
labour he says that it was a striving according to the power of Him
who worked mightily in him.
We find here the same principle we found in our Lord–the Father doing
the works in Him. Let every worker who reads this pause, and say–If
the ever-blessed Son, if the Apostle Paul, could only do their work
according to the working of His power who worked in them mightily, how
much more do I need this working of God in me, to fit me for doing His
work aright. This is one of the deepest spiritual truths of God’s
word; let us look to the Holy Spirit within us to give it such a hold
of our inmost life, that it may become the deepest inspiration of all
our work. I can only do true work as I yield myself to God to work in
me.
We know the ground on which this truth rests, `There is none good but
God’; `There is none holy but the Lord’; `Power belongeth unto God.’
All goodness and holiness and power are only to be found in God, and
where He gives them. And He can only give them in the creature, not as
something He parts with, but by His own actual presence and dwelling
and working. And so God can only work in His people in as far as He is
allowed to have complete possession of the heart and life. As our will
and life and love are yielded up in dependence and faith, and God is
waited on to keep possession and to abide, even as Christ waited on
Him, God can work in us.
This is true of all our spiritual life, but specially of our work for
God. The work of saving souls is God’s own work: none but He can do
it. The gift of His Son is the proof of how great and precious He
counts the work, and how His heart is set upon it. His love never for
one moment ceases working for the salvation of men. And when He calls
His children to be partners in His work, He shares with them the joy
and the glory of the work of saving and blessing men. He promises to
work His work through them, inspiring and energising them by His power
working in them. To him who can say with Paul: `I labour, striving
according to His power who worketh in me mightily,’ his whole relation
to God becomes the counterpart and the continuation of Christ’s, a
blessed, unceasing, momentary, and most absolute dependence on the
Father for every word He spoke and every work He did.
Christ is our pattern. Christ’s life is our law and works in us.
Christ lived in Paul his life of dependence on God. Why should any of
us hesitate to believe that the grace given to Paul of labouring and
striving `according to the working of the power’ will be given to us
too. Let every worker learn to say–As the power that worked in Christ
worked in Paul too, that power works no less in me. There is no
possible way of working God’s work aright, but by God working it in
us.
How I wish that I could take every worker who reads this by the hand,
and say–Come, my brother! let us quiet our minds, and hush every
thought in God’s presence, as I whisper in your ears the wonderful
secret: God is working in you. All the work you have to do for Him,
God will work in you. Take time and think it over. It is a deep
spiritual truth which the mind cannot grasp nor the heart realise.
Accept it as a Divine truth from heaven; believe that this word is a
seed out of which can grow the very spiritual blessing of which it
speaks. And in the faith of the Holy Spirit’s making it live within
you, say ever again: God worketh in me. All the work I have to work
for Him, God will work in me.
The faith of this truth, and the desire to have it made true in you,
will constrain you to live very humbly and closely with God. You will
see how work for God must be the most spiritual thing in a spiritual
life. And you will ever anew bow in holy stillness: God is working;
God will work in me; I will work for Him according to the power which
worketh in me mightily.
1. The gift of the grace of God (Eph. 2:7, 3:7), the power that
worketh in us (Eph. 3:20), the strengthening with might by the Spirit
(Eph. 3:16)–the three expressions all contain the same thought of
God’s working all in us.
2. The Holy Spirit is the power of God. Seek to be filled with the
Spirit, to have your whole life led by Him, and you will become fit
for God’s working mightily in you.
3. `Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming on you.’
Through the Spirit dwelling in us God can work in us mightily.
4. What holy fear, what humble watchfulness and dependence, what
entire surrender and obedience become us if we believe in God’s
working in us.
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XXVI
Labouring more Abundantly
`By the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed
on me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all:
yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.’–1 Cor. 15:10.
`And He hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My
power is made perfect in weakness. . . . In nothing was I behind the
chiefest of the apostles, though I am nothing.’–2 Cor. 12:9, 11 .
In both of these passages Paul speaks of how he had abounded in the
work of the Lord. `In nothing was I behind the chiefest of the
Apostles.’ `I laboured more abundantly, than they all.’ In both he
tells how entirely it was all of God, who worked in Him, and not of
himself. In the first he says: `Not I, but the grace of God which was
with me.’ And then in the second, showing how this grace is Christ’s
strength working in us, while we are nothing, he tells us: `He said
unto me: My grace is sufficient for thee: My power is made perfect in
weakness.’ May God give us `the Spirit of revelation, enlightened eyes
of the heart,’ to see this wonderful vision, a man who knows himself
to be nothing, glorying in his weakness, that the power of Christ may
rest on him, and work through him, and who so labours more abundantly
than all. What does this teach us as workers for God[?]
God’s work can only be done in God’s strength.–It is only by God’s
power, that is, by God Himself working in us, that we can do effective
work. Throughout this little book this truth has been frequently
repeated. It is easy to accept of it; it is far from easy to see its
full meaning, to give it the mastery over our whole being, to live it
out. This will need stillness of soul, and meditation, strong faith
and fervent prayer. As it is God alone who can work in us, it is
equally God who alone can reveal Himself as the God who works in us.
Wait on Him, and the truth that ever appears to be beyond thy reach
will be opened up to thee, through the knowledge of who and what God
is. When God reveals Himself as `God who worketh all in all,’ thou
wilt learn to believe and work `according to the power of Him who
worketh in thee mightily.’
God’s strength can only work in weakness.–It is only when we truly
say, Not I! that we can fully say, but the grace of God with me. The
man who said, In nothing behind the chiefest of the Apostles! had
first learnt to say, though I am nothing. He could say: `I take
pleasure in weaknesses, for when I am weak then am I strong.’ This is
the true relation between the Creator and the creature, between the
Divine Father and His child, between God and His servant. Christian
worker! learn the lesson of thine own weakness, as the indispensable
condition of God’s Power working in thee. Do believe that to take time
and in God’s presence to realise thy weakness and nothingness is the
sure way to be clothed with God’s strength. Accept every experience by
which God teaches thee thy weakness as His grace preparing thee to
receive His strength. Take pleasure in weaknesses!
God’s strength comes in our fellowship with Christ and His
service.–Paul says: I will glory in my weakness, that the strength of
Christ may rest upon me.’ `I take pleasure in weaknesses for Christ’s
sake.’ Andhe tells how it was when be had besought the Lord that the
messenger of Satan might depart from him, that He answered: `My grace
is sufficient for thee.’ `Christ is the wisdom and the power of God.’
We do not receive the wisdom to know, or the power to do God’s will as
something that we can possess and use at discretion. It is in the
personal attachment to Christ, in a life of continual communication
with Him, that His power rests on us. It is in taking pleasure in
weaknesses for Christ’s sake that Christ’s strength is known.
God’s strength is given to faith, and the work that is done in
faith.–It needs a living faith to take pleasure in weaknesses, and in
weakness to do our work, knowing that God is working in us. Without
seeing or feeling anything, to go on in the confidence of a hidden
power working in us–this is the highest exercise of a life of faith.
To do God’s own work in saving souls, in per severing prayer and
labour; amid outwardly unfavourable circumstances and appearances
still to labour more abundantly–this faith alone can do. Let us be
strong in faith, giving glory to God. God will show Himself strong
towards him whose heart is perfect with Him.
My brother! be willing to yield yourself to the very utmost to God,
that His power may rest upon you, may work in you. Do let God work
through you. Offer yourself to Him for His work as the one object of
your life. Count upon His working all in you, to fit you for His
service, to strengthen and bless you in it. Let the faith and love of
your Lord Jesus, whose strength is going to be made perfect in your
weakness, lead you to live even as He did, to do the Father’s will and
finish His work.
1. Let every minister seek the full personal experience of Christ’s
strength made perfect in His weakness: this alone will fit him to
teach believers the secret of their strength.
2. Our Lord says: `My grace, My strength.’ It is as, in close personal
fellowship and love, we abide in Christ, and have Christ abiding in
us, that His grace and strength can work.
3. It is a heart wholly given up to God, to His will and love, that
will know his power working in our weakness.
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XXVII
A Doer that worketh shall be blessed in Doing
`Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own
selves. He that looketh into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and
so continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth, but a doer that
worketh, this man shall be blessed in doing.’–Jas. 1:22, 25.
`God created us not to contemplate but to act. He created us in His
own image, and in Him there is no Thought without simultaneous
Action.’ True action is born of contemplation. True contemplation, as
a means to an end, always begets action. If sin had not entered there
had never been a separation between knowing and doing. In nothing is
the power of sin more clearly seen than this, that even in the
believer there is such a gap between intellect and conduct. It is
possible to delight in hearing, to be diligent in increasing our
knowledge of God’s word, to admire and approve the truth, even to be
willing to do it, and yet to fail entirely in the actual performance.
Hence the warning of James, not to delude ourselves with being hearers
and not doers. Hence his pronouncing the doer who worketh blessed in
his doing.
Blessed in doing.–The words are a summary of the teaching of our Lord
Jesus at the close of the Sermon on the Mount: `He that doeth the will
of My Father shall enter the kingdom of heaven.’ `Every one that
heareth My words, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man.’
To the woman who spoke of the blessedness of her who was his mother:
`Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.’
To the disciples in the last night: `If ye know these things, happy
are ye if ye do them.’ It is one of the greatest dangers in religion
that we rest content with the pleasure and approval which a beautiful
representation of a truth calls forth, without the immediate
performance of what it demands. It is only when conviction has been
translated into conduct that we have proof that the truth is mastering
us.
A doer that worketh shall be blessed in doing.–The doer is blessed.
The doing is the victory that overcomes every obstacle it brings out
and confirms the very image of God, the Great Worker; it removes every
barrier to the enjoyment of all the blessing God has prepared. We are
ever inclined to seek our blessedness in what God gives, in privilege
and enjoyment. Christ placed it in what we do, because it is only in
doing that we really prove and know and possess the life God has
bestowed. When one said, `Blessed is be that shall eat bread in the
kingdom of God,’ our Lord answered with the parable of the supper,
`Blessed is he that forsakes all to come to the supper.’ The doer is
blessed. As surely as it is only in doing that the painter or
musician, the man of science or commerce, the discoverer or the
conqueror find their blessedness, so, and much more, is it only in
keeping the commandments and in doing the will of God that the
believer enters fully into the truth and blessedness of deliverance
from sin and fellowship with God. Doing is the very essence of
blessedness, the highest manifestation, and therefore the fullest
enjoyment of the life of God.
A doer that worketh shall be blessed in doing.–This was the
blessedness of Abraham, of whom we read (Jas. 2:22): `Thou seest that
faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect.’ He
had no works without faith ; there was faith working with them and in
them all. And he had no faith without works: through them his faith
was exercised and strengthened and perfected. As his faith, so his
blessedness was perfected in doing. It is in doing that the doer that
worketh is blessed. The true insight into this, as a Divine revelation
of the true nature of good works, in perfect harmony with all our
experience in the world, will make us take every command, and every
truth, and every opportunity to abound in good works as an integral
part of the blessedness of the salvation Christ has brought us. Joy
and work, work and joy, will become synonymous: we shall no longer be
hearers but doers.
Let us put this truth into immediate practice. Let us live for others,
to love and serve them. Let not the fact of our being unused to
labours of love, or the sense of ignorance and unfitness, keep us
back. Only begin. If you think you are not able to labour for souls,
begin with the bodies. Only begin, and go on, and abound. Believe the
word, It is more blessed to give than to receive. Pray for and depend
on the promised grace. Give yourself to a ministry of love; in the
very nature of things, in the example of Christ, in the promise of God
you have the assurance: If you know these things, happy are ye if ye
do them. Blessed is the doer!
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XXVIII
The Work of Soul-Saving
`My brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert
him, let him know that he which converteth a sinner from the error of
his ways shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of
sins.’–Jas. 5:19[-20] .
We sometimes hesitate to speak of men being converted and saved by
men. Scripture here twice uses the expression of one man converting
another, and once of his saving him. Let us not hesitate to accept it
as part of our work, of our high prerogative as the sons of God, to
convert and to save men. `For it is God who worketh in us.’
`Shall save a soul from death.’ Every workman studies the material in
which he works: the carpenter the wood, the goldsmith the gold. `Our
works are wrought in God.’ In our good works we deal with souls. Even
when we can at first do no more than reach and help their bodies, our
aim is the soul. For these Christ came to die. For these God has
appointed us to watch and labour. Let us study these. What care a
huntsman or a fisherman takes to know the habits of the spoil he
seeks. Let us remember that it needs Divine wisdom and training and
skill to become winners of souls. The only way to get that training
and skill is to begin to work: Christ Himself will teach each one who
waits on Him
In that training the Church with its ministers has a part to take..
The daily experience of ordinary life and teaching prove how often
there exist in a man unsuspected powers, which must be called out by
training before they are known to be there. When a man thus becomes
conscious and master of the power there is in himself he is, as it
were, a new creature; the power and enjoyment of life is doubled.
Every believer has bidden within himself the power of saving souls.
The Kingdom of Heaven is within us as a seed, and every one of the
gifts and graces of the spirit are each also a hidden seed. The
highest aim of the ministry is to waken the consciousness of this
hidden seed of power to save souls. A depressing sense of ignorance or
impotence keeps many back. James writes: `Let him who converts another
know that he has saved a soul from death.’ Every believer needs to be
taught to know and use the wondrous blessed power with which he has
been endowed. When God said to Abraham: `I will bless thee, then shall
all the nations of the earth be blessed,’ He called him to a faith not
only in the blessing that would come to him from above, but in the
power of blessing he would be in the world. It is a wonderful moment
in the life of a child of God when he sees that the second blessing is
as sure as the first.
`He shall save a soul.’ Our Lord bears the name of Jesus, Saviour. He
is the embodiment of God’s saving love. Saving souls is His own great
work, is His work alone. As our faith in Him grows to know and receive
all there is in Him, as He lives in us, and dwells in our heart and
disposition, saving souls will become the great work to which our life
will be given. We shall be the willing and intelligent instruments
through whom He will do His mighty work.
`If any err, and one convert him he which converteth a sinner shall
save a soul.’ The words suggest personal work. We chiefly think of
large gatherings to whom the Gospel is preached; the thought here is
of one who has erred and is sought after. We increasingly do our work
through associations and organisations. `If one convert him, he saveth
a soul;’ it is the love and labour of some individual believer that
has won the erring one back. It is this we need in the Church of
Christ,–every believer who truly follows Jesus Christ looking out for
those who are erring from the way, loving them, and labouring to help
them back. Not one of us may say, `Am I my brother’s keeper?’ We are
in the world only and solely that as the members of Christ’s body we
may continue and carry out His saving work. As saving souls was and is
His work, His joy, His glory, let it be ours, let it be mine, too. Let
me give myself personally to watch over individuals, and seek to save
them one by one.
`Know that he which converteth a sinner shall save a soul.’ `If ye
know these things, happy are ye if you do them.’ Let me translate
these Scripture truths into action; let me give these thoughts shape
and substance in daily life; let me prove their power over me, and my
faith in them, by work. Is there not more than one Christian around me
wandering from the way, needing loving help and not unwilling to
receive it? Are there not some whom I could take by the hand, and
encourage to begin again? Are there not many who have never been in
the right way, for some of whom Christ Jesus would use me, if I were
truly at His disposal?
If I feel afraid–oh! let me believe that the love of God as a seed
dwells within me, not only calling but enabling me actually to do the
work. Let me yield myself to the Holy Spirit to fill my heart with
that love, and fit me for its service. Jesus the Saviour lives to
save; He dwells in me; He will do His saving work through me. `Know
that he which converteth a sinner shall save a soul from death, and
cover a multitude of sins.’
1. More love to souls, born out of fervent love to the Lord Jesus–is
not this our great need?
2. Let us pray for love, and begin to love, in the faith that as we
exercise the little we have more will be given.
3. Lord! open our eyes to see Thee doing Thy great work of saving men,
and waiting to give Thy love and strength into the heart of every
willing one. Make each one of Thy redeemed a soul-winner.
_________________________________________________________________
XXIX
Praying and Working
`If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall
ask, and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death.’–1
John 5:16.
`Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works’
these words in Hebrews express what lies at the very root of a life of
good works–the thoughtful loving care we have for each other, that
not one may fall away. As it is in Galatians: `Even if a man be
overtaken in a trespass, ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in
the spirit of meekness.’ Or as Jude writes, apparently of Christians
who were in danger of falling away, `Some save, snatching them out of
the fire; and on some have mercy with fear.’ As Christ’s doing good to
men’s bodies ever aimed at winning their souls, all our ministry of
love must be subordinated to that which is God’s great purpose and
longing–the salvation unto life eternal.
In this labour of love praying and working must ever go together. At
times prayer may reach those whom the words cannot reach. At times
prayer may chiefly be needed for ourselves, to obtain the wisdom and
courage for the words. At times it may be specially called forth for
the soul by the very lack of fruit from our words. As a rule, praying
and working must be inseparable–the praying to obtain from God what
we need for the soul; the working to bring to it what God has given
us. The words of John here are most suggestive as to the power of
prayer in our labour of love. It leads us to think of prayer as a
personal work; with a very definite object; and a certainty of answer.
Let prayer be a personal effort. If any man see his brother he shall
ask. We are so accustomed to act through societies and associations
that we are in danger of losing sight of the duty resting upon each of
us to watch over those around him. Every member of my body is ready to
serve any other member. Every believer is to care for the
fellow-believers who are within his reach, in his church, his house,
or social circle. The sin of each is a loss and a hurt to the body of
Christ. Let your eyes be open to the sins of your brethren around you;
not to speak evil or judge or helplessly complain, but to love and
help and care and pray. Ask God to see your brother’s sin, in its
sinfulness, its danger to himself, its grief to Christ, its loss to
the body; but also as within reach of God’s compassion and
deliverance. Shutting our eyes to the sin of our brethren around us is
not true love. See it, and take it to God, and make it part of your
work for God to pray for your brother and seek new life for him.
Let prayer be definite. If any man see his brother sinning let him
ask. We need prayer from a person for a person. Scripture and God’s
spirit teach us to pray for all society, for the Church with which we
are associated, for nations, and for special spheres of work. Most
needful and blessed. But somehow more is needed–to take of those with
whom we come into contact, one by one, and make them the subjects of
our intercession. The larger supplications must have their place, but
it is difficult with regard to them to know when our prayers are
answered. But there is nothing will bring God so near, will test and
strengthen our faith, and make us know we are fellowworkers with God,
as when we receive an answer to our prayers for individuals. It will
quicken in us the new and blessed consciousness that we indeed have
power with God. Let every worker seek to exercise this grace of taking
up and praying for individual souls. [1]
Count upon an answer. He shall ask, and God will give him (the one who
prays) life for them that sin. The words follow on those in which John
had spoken about the confidence we have of being heard, if we ask
anything according to His will. There is often complaint made of not
knowing God’s will. But here there is no difficulty. `He willeth that
all men should be saved.’ If we rest our faith on this will of God, we
shall grow strong and grasp the promise. `He shall ask, and God will
give him life for them that sin.’ The Holy Spirit will lead us, if we
yield ourselves to be led by Him, to the souls God would have us take
as our special care, and for which the grace of faith and persevering
prayer will be given us. Let the wonderful promise: God will give to
him who asks life for them who sin, stir us and encourage us to our
priestly ministry of personal and definite intercession, as one of the
most blessed among the good works in which we can serve God and man.
Praying and working are inseparable. Let all who work learn to pray
well. Let all who pray learn to work well.
1. To pray Thee confidently, and, if need be, perseveringly, for an
individual, needs a close walk with God, and the faith that we can
prevail with Him.
2. In all our work for God, prayer must take a much larger place. If
God is to work all; if our posture is to be that of entire dependence,
waiting for Him to work in us; if it takes time to persevere and to
receive in ourselves what God gives us for others; there needs to be a
work and a labouring in prayer.
3. Oh that God would open our eyes to the glory of this work of saving
souls, as the one thing God lives for, as the one thing He wants to
work in us.
4. Let us pray for the love and power of God to come on us, for the
blessed work of soul-winning.
_________________________________________________________________
[1] This thought is very strikingly put in a penny tract, One by One,
to be obtained from the author, Mr. Thomas Hogben, Welcome Mission,
Portsmouth.
_________________________________________________________________
XXX
I Know thy Works
`To the angel of the church in Ephesus–in Thyatira–in Sardis–in
Philadelphia–in Laodicea write: I know thy works.’ [2] –Rev. 2-3.
`I know thy works.’ These are the words of Him who walketh in the
midst of the seven golden candlesticks, and whose eyes are like a
flame of fire. As He looks upon the churches, the first thing He sees
and judges of is–the works. The works are the revelation of the life
and character. If we are willing to bring our works into His holy
presence, His words can teach us what our work ought to be.
To Ephesus He says: `I know thy works, and thy toil and patience, and
that thou canst not bear evil men, and thou hast patience and didst
bear for My name’s sake, and hast not grown weary. But I have this
against thee, that thou hast left thy first love. Repent, and do the
first works.’ There was here much to praise–toil, and patience, and
zeal that had never grown weary. But there was one thing lacking–the
tenderness of the first love.
In His work for us Christ gave us before and above everything His
love, the personal tender affection of His heart. In our work for Him
He asks us nothing less. There is such a danger of work being carried
on, and our even bearing much for Christ’s sake, while the freshness
of our love has passed away. And that is what Christ seeks. And that
is what gives power. And that is what nothing can compensate for.
Christ looks for the warm loving heart, the personal affection which
ever keeps Him the centre of our love and joy.
Christian workers, see that all your work be the work of love, of
tender personal devotion to Christ Jesus.
To Thyatira: `I know thy works, and thy love and faith and ministry
and patience, and that the last works are more than the first. But I
have this against thee, that thou sufferest the woman Jezebel, and she
teacheth and seduceth My servants.’ Here again the works are
enumerated and praised: the last had even been more than the first.
But then there is one failure: a false toleration of what led to
impurity and idolatry. And then He adds of His judgments: `the
churches shall know that I am He which searches the reins and hearts;
and I will give to each one of you according to your works.’
Along with much of good works there may be some one form of error or
evil tolerated which endangers the whole church. In Ephesus there was
zeal for orthodoxy, but a lack of love; here love and faith, but a
lack of faithfulness against error. If good works are to please our
Lord, if our whole life must be in harmony with them, in entire
separation from the world and its allurements, we must seek to be what
He promised to make us, stablished in every good word and work. Our
work will decide our estimate in His judgment.
To Sardis: `I know thy works, that thou hast a name to live, and thou
art dead. Be watchful and stablish the things that are ready to die:
for I have found no works of thine fulfilled before My God.’
There may be all the forms of godliness without the power; all the
activities of religious organisation without the life. There may be
many works, and yet He may say: I have found no work of thine
fulfilled before My God, none that can stand the test and be really
acceptable to God as a spiritual sacrifice. In Ephesus it was works
lacking in love, in Thyatira works lacking in purity, in Sardis works
lacking in life.
To Philadelphia: `I know thy works, that thou hast a little power, and
didst keep My word and didst not deny My name. Because thou didst keep
My word, I also will keep thee.’
On earth Jesus had said: He that hath My commandments and keepeth
them, he it is that loveth Me. If a man love Me, he will keep My word.
and My Father will love him. Philadelphia, the church for which there
is no reproof, had this mark: its chief work, and the law of all its
work, was, it kept Christ’s word, not in an orthodox creed only, but
in practical obedience. Let nothing less, let this truly, be the mark
and spirit of all our work: a keeping of the word of Christ. Full,
loving conformity to His will will be rewarded.
To Laodicea: `I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.
Thou sayest, I am rich and have gotten riches, and have need of
nothing.’ There is not a church without its works, its religious
activities.
And yet the two great marks of Laodicean religion, lukewarmness, and
its natural accompaniment, self-complacence, may rob them of their
worth. It not only, like Ephesus, teaches us the need of a fresh and
fervent love, but also the need of that poverty of spirit, that
conscious weakness out of which the absolute dependence on Christ’s
strength for all our work will grow, and which will no longer leave
Christ standing at the door, but enthrone Him in the Heart.
`I know thy works.’ He who tested the works of the seven churches
still lives and watches over us. He is ready in His love to discover
what is lacking, to give timely warning and help, and to teach us the
path in which our works can be fulfilled before His God. Let us learn
from Ephesus the lesson of fervent love to Christ, from Thyatira that
of purity and separation from all evil, from Sardis that of the need
of true life to give worth to work, from Philadelphia that of keeping
His word, and from Laodicea that of the poverty of spirit which
possesses the kingdom of heaven, and gives Christ the throne of all!
Workers! Let us live and work in Christ’s presence. He will teach and
correct and help us, and one day give the full reward of all our works
because they were His own works in us.
_________________________________________________________________
[2] In the A. V. we find the words in all the seven epistles;
according to R. V. they occur only five times.
_________________________________________________________________
XXXI
That God may be Glorified
`If any man serveth, let him serve as of the strength which God
supplieth: that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus
Christ, whose is the glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.’–1
Pet. 4:11.
Work is not done for its own sake. Its value consists in the object it
attains. The purpose of him who commands or performs the work gives it
its real worth. And the clearer a man’s insight into the purpose, the
better fitted will he be to take charge of the higher parts of the
work. In the erection of some splendid building, the purpose of the
day-labourer may simply be as a hireling to earn his wages. The
trained stone-cutter has a higher object: be thinks of the beauty and
perfection of the work he does. The master mason has a wider range of
thought: his aim is that all the masonry shall be true and good. The
contractor for the whole building has a higher aim–that the whole
building shall perfectly correspond to the plan he has to carry out.
The architect has had a still higher purpose–that the great
principles of art and beauty might find their full expression in
material shape. With the owner we find the final end–the use to which
the grand structure is to be put when he, say, presents the building
as a gift for the benefit of his townsmen. All who have worked upon
the building honestly have done so with some true purpose. The deeper
the insight and the keener the interest in the ultimate design, the
more important the share in the work, and the greater the joy in
carrying it out.
Peter tells us what our aim ought to be in all Christian
service–`that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus
Christ.’ In the work of God, a work not to be done for wages but for
love, the humblest labourer is admitted to a share in God’s plans, and
to an insight into the great purpose which God is working out. That
purpose is nothing less than this: that God may be glorified. This is
the one purpose of God, the great worker in heaven, the source and
master of all work, that the glory of His love and power and blessing
may be shown. This is the one purpose of Christ, the great worker on
earth in human nature, the example and leader of all our work. This is
the great purpose of the Holy Spirit, the power that worketh in us,
or, as Peter says here, `the strength that God supplieth.’ As this
becomes our deliberate, intelligent purpose, our work will rise to its
true level, and lift us into living fellowship with God.
`That in all things God may be glorified.’ What does this mean? The
glory of God is this, that He alone is the Living One, who has life in
Himself. Yet not for Himself alone, but, because His life is love, for
the creatures as much as for Himself. This is the glory of God, that
He is the alone and ever-flowing fountain of all life and goodness and
happiness, and that His creatures can have all this only as He gives
it and works it in them. His working all in all, this is His glory.
And the only glory His creature, His child, can give Him is
this–receiving all He is willing to give, yielding to Him to let Him
work, and then acknowledging that He has done it. Thus God Himself
shows forth His glory in us; in our willing surrender to Him, and our
joyful acknowledgment that He does all, we glorify Him. And so our
life and work is glorified, as it has one purpose with all God’s own
work, `that in all things God may be glorified, whose is the glory for
ever and ever.’
See here now the spirit that ennobles and consecrates Christian
service according to Peter: `He that serveth (in ministering to the
saints or the needy), let him serve as of the strength which God
supplieth.’ Let me cultivate a deep conviction that God’s work, down
into the details of daily life, can only be done in God’s strength,
`by the power of the Spirit working in us.’ Let me believe firmly and
unceasingly that the Holy Spirit does dwell in me, as the power from
on high, for all work to be done for on high. Let me in my Christian
work fear nothing so much, as working in my own human will and
strength, and so losing the one thing needful in my work, God working
in me. Let me rejoice in the weakness that renders me so absolutely
dependent upon such a God, and wait in prayer for His power to take
full possession.
`Let him serve as of the strength which God supplieth, that in all
things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.’ The more you depend
on God alone for your strength, the more will He be glorified. The
more you seek to make God’s purpose your purpose, the more will you be
led to give way to His working and His strength and love. Oh! that
every, the feeblest, worker might see what a nobility it gives to
work, what a new glory to life, what a new urgency and joy in
labouring for souls, when the one purpose has mastered us: that in all
things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.
1. The glory of God as Creator was seen in His making man in His own
image. The glory of God as Redeemer is seen in the work He carries on
for saving men, and bringing them to Himself.
2. This glory is the glory of His holy love, casting sin out of the
heart, and dwelling there.
3. The only glory we can bring to God is to yield ourselves to His
redeeming love to take possession of us, to fill us with love to
others, and so through us to show forth His glory.
4. Let this be the one end of our lives–to glorify God; in living to
work for Him, `as of the strength which God supplieth’; and winning
souls to know and live for His glory.
5. Lord! teach us to serve in the strength which God supplieth, that
God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the
glory for ever and ever. Amen.
_________________________________________________________________
Indexes
_________________________________________________________________
Index of Scripture References
Isaiah
[2]40:31 [3]40:64
Matthew
[4]5:14 [5]5:16 [6]21:28 [7]25:14
Mark
[8]13:34
Luke
[9]4:8 [10]4:30
John
[11]5:9 [12]5:16 [13]5:17-20 [14]5:19 [15]5:30 [16]5:34
[17]14:10 [18]14:10-12 [19]14:12-14
Romans
[20]4:20 [21]4:21 [22]7 [23]8:2-4 [24]12 [25]12:6 [26]16
1 Corinthians
[27]3:9 [28]15:10 [29]15:10 [30]15:58 [31]16:15
2 Corinthians
[32]6:1 [33]6:1 [34]9:8 [35]12:9 [36]12:9 [37]12:11
[38]12:11
Galatians
[39]5:6 [40]5:13
Ephesians
[41]2:3 [42]2:7 [43]2:8-10 [44]3:7 [45]3:7 [46]3:7
[47]3:16 [48]3:20 [49]4:7 [50]4:11 [51]4:12 [52]4:15
[53]4:16
Philippians
[54]2:12 [55]2:13
Colossians
[56]1:10 [57]1:29 [58]4:12
1 Thessalonians
[59]4:14 [60]5:24
1 Timothy
[61]2:5 [62]2:10 [63]6:18
2 Timothy
[64]2:15 [65]2:21 [66]3:16 [67]3:17
Titus
[68]2:14 [69]3:1 [70]3:8 [71]3:14 [72]3:14
Hebrews
[73]6:10 [74]13:16
James
[75]1:22 [76]1:25 [77]2:22 [78]5:19
1 Peter
[79]4:11 [80]4:11
1 John
[81]3 [82]5:16
Revelation
[83]2 [84]21:2 [85]21:24
_________________________________________________________________
Index of Pages of the Print Edition
[86]3 [87]4 [88]5 [89]6 [90]7 [91]8 [92]9 [93]11 [94]12
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This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
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generated on demand from ThML source.
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