THE HOME AND THE RACE
[p. 352] THE HOME AND THE RACE
There are two subjects here, the home and the race - what is commonly called your mission. You must know what it is to have a home before you can rightly start on the race. Even in the commonest walks of life a man who has not a home is not looked upon as a desirable man. There is something about a man who has a home which gives him character. Home is the great place of education; it is always at home a child’s manners are formed, not at school.
Home is the place to which a man returns after the toils of the day, and from which he can start out fresh for his work in the morning. I have boldness to enter the holiest (that is the believer’s home), and I have patience to run the race (Hebrews 10: 19; 12: 1) - boldness up there, patience down here.
The first time the Lord Jesus entered the temple - God’s house on earth - He was greeted by two saints, Simeon and Anna, and these two represent the double condition of every saint. Now, Simeon says, I know what He is for me; and Anna says, I am for Him. These two things ought to characterise every saint now. Simeon could let go everything here the moment he saw the infant Jesus, and Anna continues in fastings and prayers, and then she makes Him her object - she “spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem”. This was the first appearance of the Lord, and they did not know much about Him. We surely know much more, but the question is, have we the marks that these two saints had? I do not think a person could be an Anna without being a Simeon first; you must know Christ for you before you can be for Christ. People often make the mistake of thinking they must do something here for Christ in [p. 353] order to understand and become happy about what He has done for them. That will not do; you must have the home before you can run the race. If you have not a home you cannot come orderly to your work. If you have this home you are not like the Old Testament saint crying, “O that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest”; but you have the wings, you have a place to retire to. It is just as if a man had a room in his house of which he could say, When I go into that room all care vanishes, I have perfect relief and rest. How often he would retire to that room!
You can never properly fulfil your mission without first knowing your origin. “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world”. Then you were taken out of it before you were sent into it. The most exemplary man will fail to understand his mission if he does not know his origin. You are come into this world as one who was outside of it; everything turns upon this.
Now we come to the second thing, your work or mission. “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee”. A child converted today has a mission; everyone has a mission. You start with an origin outside this world and a home outside it - a place to which you can retire and where there is no interruption or check; “they will be still praising thee”. Thus the apostle could say that to God he was beside himself, to men he was sober. “Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well” - you come to the world as a channel of mercy. No man was ever sent into this world by Christ to make business his mission. It has its place, but your mission is to bring into the world some of the blessing and knowledge of the grace that has given you a home outside it. That is making a well, and there was never yet a well the water of which did not come down from above. I am not now talking of special gifts; everyone has got grace and everyone [p. 354] has got a mission. Grace and responsibility are always kept distinct in Scripture. Everyone gets grace when he is not entitled to anything, but having got grace he is responsible. Thus the apostle could say of himself to the Corinthians, “By the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured”, etc., and “.. . receive not the grace of God in vain”.
You come from your home into this wilderness not expecting anything from it but to be a contributor of blessing to it. This is what the Lord announces in John 7: 37, on the last day of the feast of tabernacles, when the people were delighting in the abundance that God had caused the earth to yield to them - it was something like a harvest-home in this country. Up to this point the earth was made the sphere and the channel of blessing to man, but now, on the contrary, by faith in a glorified Christ, man would become a channel of blessing to the earth. “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. Thus the church takes a very different place towards the earth from what the Jew did.
This is of interest to every saint here, for every one has it in his power to be a channel of blessing in this way. Does anyone say, I cannot be of much use; it is but little I can do? I ask you, are you as old as Anna or as feeble - a widow of eighty-four years? She did two things: she served God day and night, and she spoke (not preached) of Christ to all that looked for redemption in Jerusalem - and Jerusalem was a larger place than this. That was the activity of one who felt she was here for God. A few Annas would make a wonderful difference in this town. How true it is, that where there’s a will there’s a way.
In Romans 12 we have seven gifts: prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, ruling, showing [p. 355] mercy. This chapter is the responsibility side of the gifts; 1 Corinthians 12 is the action of the gifts in the assembly; Ephesians 4 is the derivation of the gifts from the Head. Have you no gift? Is there anyone who could not show mercy? I certainly would rather have this last gift without the first than the first without the last. I would rather be a man showing mercy with cheerfulness than a prophet without this. What everyone can be is a greater thing than what is special.
The next point is: whom am I to serve, to whom am I to direct my attention? This is a difficult subject, because we find philanthropists occupied with the very same things that we are. How are we to distinguish between a person who is simply a philanthropist and one who knows that he has a mission from God? I see one doing a kind act and the other doing a kind act, how am I to distinguish? Everyone can distinguish for himself. If a person is acting as the agent of a society and getting his directions from a committee the case is clear enough. If one is acting for God he will, on the contrary, be looking to the Lord for direction and grace. Suppose you found a man with a broken leg, what would you do? I would see to getting his leg mended. A philanthropist would do the same. But I believe I would not be occupied so much about the broken limb as about the man. This is the difference between benevolence and love; benevolence is occupied with the misery of its object and when the misery is removed its interest ceases, but love is more occupied with the object after the misery has been removed than before. A mother has more delight in her child when it is well than when it is sick. So much as I know of the old philosophy there was no such thing as love in it (except in a very low miserable way); there was benevolence in it. Man never knew love from philosophy; it was brought in by the gospel.
[p. 356] There are two spheres in which you are called to act according to your mission. One is your private circle and the other the church. We are members one of another, and we are members of Christ’s body, but each of us has his own individual orbit as well; just as the earth has a diurnal motion and an annual motion. Both go on at the same time, but the one is greater than the other. The private is subject to be challenged by the corporate, so that in your private circle you do nothing that would affect your connection with the corporate circle. Have you a right to interfere with me in my private circle? No, unless I infringe on the privileges of the corporate. An evangelist may say, I can preach where I like. Yes, you may, but if you preach what is wrong then the assembly will pull you up. If a person is not walking right in his private circle he affects the corporate circle, and then he is amenable to it. “If one member suffer all the members suffer with it”. Is that when they come to know it? No, it is a fact, whether they know it or not. No one can be a help to the church who is not walking with God in his individual sphere. This is what gave rise to the plan of a week’s preparation, but that will not do; for you always belong to and affect the corporate circle - not only on Sundays. There are two houses, your own house and the house of God, and the person who could not rule his own house was not fit to be a bishop to rule in God’s house; 1 Timothy 3: 5.
The next point is, how am I to know my mission? It is no doubt a difficult question, but it is a great help to see that my behaviour in my private circle will determine whether I will be of use in the corporate circle. A child in a family has first to be obedient and dutiful there. It is a most serious movement to bring the service of Christ and the ordinance of God into collision; when a child must go contrary to his parents’ commands or a wife to her husband’s in order [p. 357] to serve God. It is a sad moment and a moment that no one ought to hasten. In such circumstances I should submit to anything so long as I am able to keep a good conscience towards God. Would you sacrifice your rights? Certainly. The Lord works wonders when a person walks in that way - the walls of Jericho fall down.
Another interesting point in connection with your mission, and one which very often marks special gifts, is that one may be a long time serving his apprenticeship, so to speak. One does not become a practitioner all in a moment. Even Samson went through an education before entering on his mission; Judges 13: 25. God bestows much time and care on us to fit us for our calling.
Next, as to employment. I do not believe a man is sent into this world for employment, but also I do not believe a man would be fit for his mission without employment. It is a proper and necessary discipline. A horse must submit to the curb or the bearing rein if it is to be made useful, though it may have plenty of mettle. One man who is obliged to work nine hours a day perhaps envies another man who only works three hours, but that man would be worthless without that nine hours a day. Men who give up their employment often come to grief.
God gives distinct gifts, and there must be along with the gift a nature to carry it out, which God also gives, and this is charity. Much of the discipline that God’s servants go through is to produce this which makes the gift of value. A horse may have plenty of strength and spirit and willingness but he must be submitted to a deal of exercise and training to make him tractable. Very often a man who is richly gifted is not at all tractable. Charity is tractability - that quality which makes a man turn whatever way the Lord would have him go. Every builder must have two things - materials and skill. Look at Moses - [p. 358] had he not got a will and purpose for service? Yes, but he had not the nature. When God brings him back after forty years’ training he is fit to receive a gift. And Moses gives us a very clear idea of how one gets at gift. A certain presentation of the Lord Himself is made to the soul, and that man’s mission is according to that presentation. The highest thing that Moses could ever speak of was the blessing of Him who dwelt in the bush. So Paul was to be a minister and a witness of the things which he had seen (Acts 26: 16); the same also with Peter and the rest; Acts 1.
What makes a servant is this distinct personal sense of the Lord; then he gets information from the word; and thirdly he gets preparation - that is, the heart so kept before the Lord that those points in the information which are needed at the time may be brought out. Each servant comes to act for God according to the impression He has given him. Thus no one can in that sense entrench upon another; no two are at exactly the same thing. There are not two flowers of the same kind in God’s garden; He has not a second of anything.
What a thing it is to be within the compass of every saint, to show mercy with cheerfulness! To come as angels of mercy from God to this world, as missionaries from the Lord Jesus Christ, all my domestic duties and daily employments subserving this grand end!