SOME WORDS OF JESUS
D. C. Brown
Luke 2: 49; John 19: 30; 20: 15; 21: 23; Acts 9: 4; Revelation 22: 20
The words which we read in Luke’s gospel are the first words of Jesus that we have recorded in the Scriptures. He must have spoken before but the Holy Spirit has recorded these words which Jesus said as a boy of twelve; He speaks about being occupied in His Father’s business. The scripture that we read in John 19 gives us the last words that Jesus said before He entered into death, “It is finished”. It is interesting to see that there was one, Jesus, who had taken on His Father’s business and who finished it. He tells us in John’s gospel, “My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work”, John 4: 34. The Lord Jesus did not come without an objective, He came with something distinctly in mind. There was something to be finished. We are born into the world and we can hardly say that we have an objective, from man’s point of view. But the Lord Jesus came with something in mind and what He had in mind included you and included me. It was in God’s will and in God’s way that He came, but He came because He was interested in you and in me. There are other scriptures that refer to the Lord Jesus speaking about why He came. He speaks of His sheep and says, “I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly”, John 10: 10. So if you know that you are one of His sheep, you can say, That is why He came—He came that I should have life. Also He came to die. That was part of what was before Him, that He should die because of sins and because of sin.
We should first look at the perfection and beauty that is in Jesus as the One who had come to do the Father’s will. That was perfection to God. God looked on Jesus and He saw a Man who was always—in everything He did, in everything He said, and in everything He thought—entirely according to the Father’s will. Maybe with help or with discipline we can sometimes do right things, but very often even as we do it is not what we want to do. We have another will, another mind that is opposite to what is right. Jesus was entirely in His mind and in His will according to God. How perfect He was: no thought, no step, no word was apart from God’s will. His mind was perfect in every way. Think of how God appreciated that. Think of God making Adam. God looked at him because He wanted someone to communicate with, to speak to, to walk with. He wanted someone with whom He could share in the good things which God had provided in the garden of Eden. God would have enjoyed that but it was spoiled because of that man’s sin, because of that man’s disobedience. Ever since then throughout history there has been man and woman and child, one after another, and in each one there was something, in fact there was almost everything, that was contrary to the will of God, it was like that with everyone until He came to Jesus.
Think of the delight of the Father when it came to Jesus! He could have said, Here is One who is doing what I want Him to do. He is going as I want Him to go. He is thinking according to the way a perfect Man should think.
Jesus was God’s ideal of what a man should be, God’s ideal of man according to His own heart, I do not know if He is your ideal, if you read the Scriptures you will maybe know Isaiah 53: 2 where it speaks of Jesus, it says, “he hath no form nor lordliness”. That is man’s point of view. That is my point of view naturally. When I look for a hero naturally, I look for somebody who is different from Jesus, if you look for a hero you will look for somebody who is great in your eyes. You might look at some of the great conquerors, the great sportsmen, or whatever might suit your mind, but here is a Man who is God’s ideal. God’s ideal is Jesus.
That is the One who came and walked in this scene and we can think of the perfection of His way. It was a way of suffering, it was a way of sorrow because the perfect Man, Jesus, came into this scene and walked in the midst of a world where everything He looked at was against God. Everything He looked at was marked by sin. He grew up in a family, and sin was one of the features of it.
There were parents there and they were good from this world’s point of view but they were sinners. He had brothers and sisters, and He grew up beside them but they were sinners. He went out into the world, into the street, and there was sin there, and that very fact, all these things against God, against God’s will, would have an effect on the spirit of Jesus. Even believers are not sufficiently sensitive to what sin meant to God and what sins are to Him.
Day after day Jesus grew up, sensitive. He would see people who were ill, He would see people dying, and He knew that all of that was the effect of sin, that sin had come in and it had spoiled what was for God. What sorrow that would be to Him, but at the same time He had a great joy, and it is this very thing which we read, “my Father’s business”. As He went about He knew that He was pleasing to His Father; He knew that what He did was exactly according to the Father’s will and He enjoyed that. He enjoyed being of pleasure to God. He enjoyed coming in and rectifying what sin had brought in, in man’s weakness and frailty because of sin, it was the pleasure of love in operation. The love of God was being shown out in Jesus and what a source of pleasure it was to Jesus that He could show compassion, that He would touch persons and they would be healed. He could let divine love flow out. Let us think of that; it was a way of sorrow because of sin but a way of joy too because of His pleasure to the Father. And think of God looking down on every step, every day, every moment of Jesus and saying, That is just how a man should be. He is doing just now exactly what My ideal is for a man. Think of that, day after day, completing the will of God, His food to do that will. All had in mind that there was going to be a time when He would finish that work, and
if He was going to finish the work it meant that He would have to go the way that led Him to the cross.
So He is spoken about as going about His Father’s business. In doing that, in doing the Father’s will He had to go the way that led to the cross. There was an extreme point in the history of Jesus and that was at Gethsemane, where He had immediately before Him the fact that He would have to take on the question of sin and sins in a way of judgment, in a way of penalty. He had brought in help, He had done things to rectify what was in the world, but it was not enough for the work to be completed. He had to face up to the penalty and the judgment and the fulness of what God thinks about sin. He came to that point at Gethsemane and His spirit, being a holy spirit, recoiled from having to do with sin in that way. Think of what it meant to Jesus to come to that time when He said to His Father, “not my will, but thine be done”, Luke 22: 42. It has often been said that He took that cup, the cup He had to drink, from the Father’s hand and He did not turn away from anything. There are persons in the Old Testament who in a certain degree, in certain ways, took on sin. One who comes to mind is Ezekiel who had something to suffer on account of the people, and it was too much for him. He asked God, and God reduced what was to come upon Ezekiel. The Lord Jesus did not ask for it to be reduced and He did not have it reduced. He took on in every part the wrath of God, He took on all that was needed to deal with the question of sin. He did not have it reduced, He met it in its fulness, so that He could say, whilst hanging upon the cross, and anticipating the completion of the whole vicarious work, these words which are simple but so great, “It is finished”. What was finished? As far as God was concerned the matter was finished there. Now we have to think of what God’s view of sin is again. What is God’s view of sin? It is utterly repulsive. He cannot stand to have sin in His sight. I cannot express the greatness of God’s hatred of sin; He detests sin. His judgment must come out against sin and that is the very
thing that the Lord Jesus took on, so that when He took that cup He knew He was going that way to be on the cross, alone, forsaken by God. It could be said of him, “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us’”, 2 Corinthians 5: 21. So that God looked on Him and judged in Him the fulness of His own view, God’s view of sin. That was how He looked on Jesus then and He executed on Him the judgment of God against sin in its fulness. It is a wonderful fact that there was a Man, Jesus, a perfect Man who was able to take on and sustain the judgment of God. It is a wonderful fact that He could sustain it, that He could feel it in the depths and horror of what it was, that He could take on the fulness of the judgment of sin so that He could be available for you and for me as He is now, available as a Saviour. He has taken it on in its fulness.
It tells us as the chapter proceeds that He died, because death was the penalty of sin. It had been said to Adam, “for in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt certainly die”, Genesis 2: 17. Death came in because of sin. That was God’s penalty for sin and Jesus said in effect.
That is the way I have to go. He went the way of death as the penalty for sin, and as He hung there dead upon the cross His precious blood was shed. Think of the preciousness of the blood of Jesus, so that God had a witness before Him of Christ’s dying, and that He had finished the work. God is delighted with that precious blood and its value is shown in the scripture which says, “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin”, 1 John 1: 7.
You might say, Some things I have done are very, very bad. Can the work of Jesus be sufficient for me? We can tell you with full assurance, the work of Jesus is sufficient for you, for the worst thing you have done, for the most dreadful thing you have done. You know what it is—perhaps it may trouble your conscience still. The blood of Jesus, the work of Jesus, is enough to meet that matter, to wash it away. I think sometimes our temptation is in the other direction. There are some sins we think are so small
that we can bear them ourselves. We may sometimes feel that way, that there are some sins which are hardly worth mentioning. The blood of Jesus is sufficient for your smallest sins too. Do not think there is anything that you can meet yourself, do not think there is any sin that is so small that it does not need the work of Jesus. Every sin, from the smallest to the greatest, Jesus’ precious blood can cleanse you from. Jesus is available as a Saviour, and a believer, someone who has trusted Jesus, can say as Peter said, “who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Peter 2: 24. Have you ever said that and meant it. He bore my sins in His body on the tree? What does it mean? We have spoken of what God’s view of sin was, of my sins. Not my view, I would try to excuse myself, but God’s view of my sins in all their terribleness. Jesus bore them, every one, “in his body on the tree”. Can you say that with full assurance?
He went into the grave and He came out triumphantly, the power of sin, the power of death broken, the power that was against you and me broken. If you came out triumphantly from something, I expect there would be some kind of change in your character. You would change your way of feeling. I am just affected as we think of this. The Lord Jesus comes out of death, the Father’s glory having just raised Him. The Father had been so delighted with the completion of His work that He had been early at the tomb so that Jesus should be raised. The first thing He says as a risen Man that we have recorded is, “Woman, why dost thou weep?”
Is there someone here who is sad at heart, who has something troubling them in their heart?
Well, the affection and compassion of Jesus are still the same. He would say, Why do you weep? You have something troubling you. There was much to trouble this woman. She thought that she had lost for ever her Jesus, Rabboni. What a thought that must have been for her! He would come to you now, wherever you are, whatever your condition. If there is something troubling you He would say, Why? I will take it on. I will give you the answer to it.
I do not want to dwell on these other scriptures but just to look through them. What we read in John 21 is the last recorded word of Jesus in the Scriptures, the last thing that Jesus said which the Spirit has written down for us, because John’s gospel was the last gospel written; it is very simple, “Follow thou me”. There is a Man, Jesus. Has He attracted your heart? Has He affected your heart? Do you love Him? Do you know Him as your Saviour? He has a simple word to you, Follow Me. Are you a follower of Jesus? Peter here would look at another man and say, “Lord, and what of this man?” That is what we so often do, we look around and think of other persons. How are they getting on? How are they doing? Should I follow them? Jesus says, “Follow thou me”. We have spoken of the perfection of Jesus, the perfection according to God that was in Him. You might say that to follow Him is far more than I could possibly do, I could not possibly follow Jesus. If you said that I can tell you that you would be quite right because as you are according to nature you cannot follow Jesus. As you come to Him and know Him as Saviour there is a change. He is ready to give you His Holy Spirit and there is power in the Holy Spirit to follow Him. If you are not following Him, and it may be that you are a believer but you are not really following Him, the question is. Do you have the Holy Spirit? And the question is too, Have you asked for the Holy Spirit? That is what you need if you want to follow Jesus, you need the power of the Holy Spirit.
I have a simple impression in Acts. Here we have the Lord Jesus speaking, and this is the first time we have recorded what He says from heaven. He is a glorified Man, He is at God’s right hand, but He is still interested. Of course a message from Him had gone out in the gospel, but here we have a recorded word and He says, “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?” I am not going to go into the detail of the persecution, I am just thinking of that word, Me. What was He speaking about? Saul of Tarsus was not doing anything to attack Jesus personally. He could not possibly because Jesus was in glory, but he was attacking His people and the Lord Jesus associates Himself so closely with His people that He says, Me. How do you view God’s people? How do you view believers? How do you view those who are available for you to walk with? Do you say, They are a poor company in feebleness? That is perfectly true naturally, but you see that Me, that is Jesus. That is Jesus in His extension in His body. It is His body here. So what is your attitude to the body of Jesus as available and seen on this earth and in this condition now? What is your attitude to it? We would like you to know what it is to enjoy being in that company because Christianity would bring you into a company, into a circle of enjoyment of the good things of God, and all that comes from the ascended Man. If He has gone up in glory and is at God’s right hand, He is not there without being interested in desiring persons. The believer has a representative there at God’s right hand who is interested in him and from that place is sending the fulness of blessing down; the fulness of blessing is towards you now.
I finish with that last verse read. Again they are the words of Jesus, the last in this final book of the Bible, he says simply, “Yea, I come quickly”. The Lord Jesus is coming. He is going to take me to be with Him. He is going to take many in this room to be with Him. What will it be to see His face? What will it be to hear His voice? Are you looking forward to that? Every man, woman, boy and girl, is going to see the face of Jesus. Those who have trusted Him, those who know Him are going to see Him, the One that they have loved and the One who has loved them. When we see Him we shall be like Him. That is what He has in mind. We have to say to unbelievers, those who have not trusted Him, that they will see His face as a Judge because He is the Man whom God has appointed as Judge. Unbelievers will flee before His face. But now He is speaking to you from the throne, presenting you with the opportunity to come into blessing, and to be one of those looking forward to His coming.
Are you looking forward to Jesus coming? Do you think of that in the morning? Do you say, Is He going to come today? Beloved, let us bear in mind that there is a Man, Jesus, coming to take us to be with Him. He is coming also to take up His rights, we look forward to that, too; a whole world that is in perfect accord with God because of the work of Jesus. Do you know Him? Do you know that work that we have spoken of was for you? It was for you and are you looking forward to seeing that face? May it be so that every one of us looks forward to seeing Jesus. He says, “I come quickly”. Surely we would all say, “Amen; come, Lord Jesus”.
Preaching at Glasgow
1 November 1998