BEING STRENGTHENED FOR THE SERVICE OF GOD

A. M. Brown

1 Chronicles 29: 10–13, 16; Ephesians 3: 14–21

The scripture read in Chronicles has been in my mind, beloved brethren, particularly the reference in verse 12, “and in thy hand it is to make all great and strong”. The passage is a most remarkable one. David was marked by liberty before God. He was able to speak to God in front of the people with remarkable intelligence and affection. He had a real knowledge of God and had liberty in God’s presence. It is interesting to look at the accounts in Scripture of what David has to say in the presence of God. There is more than one account. As you read of David and his great desire that God might be praised, you are reminded that he was a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13: 22). God loved him, He sought him, He brought him from the sheepfolds where he was feeding the sheep and He raised him up (Psalm 78: 70–72). There was something about the integrity of David’s heart that God admired and loved. He used such a man and He made him great and extended his kingdom. He conquered even to the Euphrates; he was a great man.

Of all the attributes and virtues that we can think of in relation to David, his knowledge of God, and his service in the praise of God are outstanding. He was able to speak to God as knowing Him, and being conversant with God’s desires for worship and in relation to His people Israel. In 1 Chronicles 17: 24 David asks that God’s name might be magnified and that the God of Israel might be God to Israel. David knew that that was what was in God’s heart, that He desired to be God to Israel, that is, that He should be God in the hearts of the people. Not only God over them, which would be conveyed by His being God of the people, but that He should be God to them David appreciated—it was what was welling up from David’s own heart as a result of his knowledge of that blessed One and of his own experience. David’s desire was to bless and to equip the people so that they might be employed in God’s praise also.

This passage is well known and it is often in our minds on Lord’s day morning in the service of God. When we sing Hymn 3 we are more or less singing the words that we have read tonight. David attributes everything to God, “the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the splendour, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is thine—thine, Jehovah, is the kingdom”. David speaks of God’s headship and His riches and His glory. How much David could say about God. These were not just words. David had substance in the knowledge of God. He speaks of God ruling over everything and then he says, “and in thy hand is power and might”. These were attributes of God, power and might—whatever was in God’s heart He would achieve that in His power and in His might. There would be no standing against what God purposed and what He desired. But then David adds, “and in thy hand it is to make all great and strong”. David was speaking about what God could do and would do with His worshippers, with His people. It was in God’s hand to make them great and strong. Why? So that they might worship. The very next sentence says, “And now, our God, we thank thee, and praise they glorious name”. David saw that God was able to imbue the people with greatness and strength so that they might worship Him. I do not think that the greatness and strength was with a view to the people going out, for example, to defeat their enemies; it was with a view to God being worshipped. “Now, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name”. So David appreciated the ability that God had to strengthen and give greatness to the people. He realised that God could do that, it was in God’s hand to do that. He also understood that God would act in that way so that there might be a full response to Him in worship and in praise from people made great and strengthened.

Greatness and strength belong to God, but He was imparting them. David had it in his heart that God would impart greatness and strength. Greatness conveys the idea of resource; there is resource with God as this passage bears out. David speaks about all this store, physical things that they had prepared for the construction for the house of God. It was all from God, so there was great resource in God’s hand. He makes it available, He makes all great. The matter of greatness would bear looking into further. The scripture speaks of Barzillai as a great man (see 2 Samuel 17: 27–29; 19: 32). When he was maintaining David at the time of the rebellion he was able to bring out of his house resources to maintain the king (although he failed later). He was a great man, he had resource. Of course the One who is the greatest of all is our Lord Jesus, “He shall be great”, Luke 1: 32. What a thing is said about that blessed One. He shall be great, none greater than He. We could say that something of that greatness in Christ as Man is imparted to the saints, so that they might be active and resourceful in the worship and praise of God Himself. I think David had that in his heart.

He does not say it is in His hand to make some of us great and strong, perhaps the king and his princes, the priests and the Levites, but he says ‘it is in Thy hand to make all great and strong’. I think David had some impression of what God was going to receive from His people. David knew that God’s desire was to secure for Himself a kingdom of priests (see Exodus 19: 6); that is, all the people. God’s desire was that all the people should be priests. The way things worked out because of failure in the people, the priesthood came down to Levi and within Levi to the family of Aaron, but God had in mind that all the people should be priests. God’s original thought was that they should be active in His service and in His praise. We can infer from this scripture that David appreciated that God had in mind that all of His people should be strengthened and should be great with a view to the service of praise. What a view David had. How fully and deeply he must have understood the heart of God, and the resources and strengthening that God had under His hand, to make available to the people. He includes all the people when he says, “And now, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name”. He gave expression to what would be in the heart of the people. He is able also to bring the people into what he says in verse 16. In that he would be like Christ as the Minister of the sanctuary, leading these praises and bringing all the saints with Him.

In thinking of a passage in the New Testament that might give us another light on this, I thought of what Paul writes to the brethren in Ephesus. He speaks about being “strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man”. That conveys something of the idea of greatness and strength, and of course Paul had in mind all the saints. He did not have in mind just a few in Ephesus, or only the saints in Ephesus, although he was writing to them here; he had all the saints in mind. His desire was that all the saints should be strengthened to come to the knowledge and appreciation of the revelation of God, and should respond to it. Sometimes we speak of the epistle to the Ephesians as the high point of Paul’s ministry, and that would be right. It has also been said that the brethren in Ephesus were really the high point of Paul’s ministry. They were the result of that ministry, they were the substantial fruit of his labours and of his pouring of himself out, of his expending himself in service.

But here he gives thanks “to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” and he asks that “he may give you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man”. It echoes what David said, “in thy hand it is to make all great and strong”. Paul was able to speak here with the knowledge that Christ’s work was completed, that He was raised, ascended and glorified, and that the Holy Spirit was here indwelling believers with the power to “make all great and strong”. Paul speaks in the light of that, and his earnest desire is that the brethren to whom he is writing might be strengthened, so that “the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts, being rooted and founded in love”. What resource that gives to the believer! Christ dwelling in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, rooted and founded in love. How resourceful a believer is, how much substance there is to bring out in the service of God as this is true by the Spirit. It is with a view to our appreciating something of the great things of God, which are not defined here, but are alluded to in the “breadth and length and depth and height”.

We are to apprehend them, not with a few of the saints but with all the saints. That is God’s thought. The desires of the apostle, the service of the Spirit and the desire of the Lord Jesus Himself would be that all the saints would be able to apprehend the great things of God. The result is that there is a full response. That response is in the assembly in Christ Jesus, and on the way to it the saints are filled to all the fulness of God, “that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”. Then he ends with “to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age and ages”, so that the response that the apostle has in mind and the response that God has in mind is full. It involves all the saints and all are made great and strong by the strengthening power of the Spirit. What a full answer to God’s coming out, what an answer to the heart of Christ. You see it in the assembly, that vessel of praise that is so responsive to God’s speaking and the Lord’s leading. What joy for the One who makes all great and strong that there is such an answer to His purpose and to His counsel.

May these things encourage us and help us to be strengthened, to desire to absorb the divine impressions by the Holy Spirit, that can be brought out and released in the service, whether audibly or silently, because this all applies to sisters and brothers, young people and old people. All are in it; that is the great thing, one of the many great things about Christianity, that all are included, none are excluded. God desires to make all great and strong and it is in His hand to do so, “in thy hand is power and might”. May we be encouraged by these thoughts, for His name’s sake.

Word in meeting for ministry, Grangemouth
25 January 2011