"WHAT GOD HAS JOINED TOGETHER"

“WHAT GOD HAS JOINED TOGETHER”

Acts 2: 36; Ephesians 4: 8 - 14; 1 Peter 2: 25

I trust, beloved brethren, that what one would bring before us at this time may strengthen what has already been said as to the continuity of the work of God from generation to generation. I would speak a little of several thoughts that the Spirit of God has connected so that they truly may be together in our hearts and minds and exercises. For what God has joined together, let not man separate.

The first passage read connects together our blessed Lord’s position on high as Lord and Christ; the second scripture connects shepherds and teachers, and the third, shepherd and overseer. These great activities prosper as we hold them together. As we are truly subject to our only Lord; the One who has been made Lord; the One who is entitled to the bowing of every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth; as our Lord is truly our Lord we get the gain of what He is as Christ. How much there is for us all to consciously enter into in relation to Christ! Think of what He is as the anointed Man to whom God has entrusted everything! Think of His ability to direct and influence every man, for the word is: “Christ is the head of every man.” Think of every man on the earth! There is sufficient influence and wisdom and power to direct, in Christ, for Him to be head to every man. But who are they who get the benefit of this? Those who truly accept His lordship. Then, too, He is Head of the assembly, He is “Head over all things to the assembly, which is his body.” He is capable of directing and influencing her entirely for the pleasure of God. But, beloved brethren, how many of our dear fellow Christians miss it? It is because they do not truly submit to His authority. In the coming world,

before everything in heaven and on earth is headed up in Christ, every knee is to bow! He is going to reign and His reign prepares for His headship. I submit that to us all and especially to the beloved young ones, for whom we thank God, with the possibilities that are available to them, that we can have the profound blessedness of Christ known in headship if we maintain the fact of His lordship. So that in that sense Lord and Christ are inseparable. That is the divine order — Lord and Christ. The Lord said, in John 13, “I therefore, the Lord and the Teacher ... .” We will never be taught by the blessed Teacher to whom each one of us may say, Rabboni, unless first of all, He is Lord to us. In that passage He said, “Ye call me the Teacher and the Lord,” but then He reversed it. He said, “If I therefore, the Lord and the Teacher ... .” And so, beloved brethren, we are taught by the blessed Lord, and by those who are qualified to teach, as first of all, we maintain in our souls the principle of subjection to the Lord.

I have been impressed with the thought of the gifts with which the Lord has endowed the assembly from that place outside of all limitations. He has “ascended up above all the heavens,” where limitations are unknown which, in grace, He accepted here. But He is not limited now. He was never limited, inherently, but He accepted limitations as He said, “How am I straitened.” But now He is in a place of unlimited power where no restrictions can ever be imposed in any way. He has ascended up above all the heavens, and from that exalted place He has endowed the assembly, as it says, “some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers.” I desire, beloved brethren, that we should all lay hold of the wonderful combination and order of shepherds and teachers combined in the one gift and service. The teaching is abundantly more effective when it is related to the activities and affections of a shepherd. Our blessed Teacher, the Lord Jesus, unites perfectly the features of the shepherd and the teacher. And what an example of a shepherd and teacher the apostle Paul was! And so with Peter! And we all can say truly of the honoured servant whom the Lord has just claimed, that over the long years of his service he blended these two features — shepherd and teacher. Hence the effectiveness of the teaching combined with self-sacrifice and care and tender affection for the sheep. As one thinks of what lies ahead of our young men, available to be endowed and maybe already endowed to teach, one would say, with the tenderest affection, that the power to teach and the effectiveness of the teaching will largely be governed by their hearts being secured as shepherds. Thus we have the combination of shepherds and teachers.

The apostle Peter has also united two thoughts — shepherd and overseer. Christ, personally, stands out supremely in the oversight of souls. Think of His oversight over the soul of Peter! It was exercised with all the feelings of a shepherd. This is not a gift, but a service to be rendered. How much it is needed! Oversight — watching over and caring for the spiritual welfare of the saints. It is needed everywhere, but it is needed, beloved brethren, combined with the feelings, affections, longings and activities of shepherds. According to the apostle’s word it is right to desire to exercise oversight, but the oversight will be abundantly more effective when rendered along with the tender self-sacrificing service of the shepherd. It is “the shepherd and overseer of your souls.” One thinks of the cares of the gatherings of the saints; the individual care; the care that is needed in a place like this and places elsewhere — and what is needed is persons who combine the features of the shepherd with the service of oversight. The Lord will bless such oversight, and He does bless it.

Well, I had these thoughts in mind as connecting with the way things are continued — continued by the maintenance in each of our hearts of the authority of the Lord, thus making room for His blessed headship; continued in the service of teaching blended with the feeling service of the shepherd, and in the effective oversight of those who exercise it as deriving from Christ the blessed features of the shepherd.