THE LORD JESUS AS THE REFINER
Philippians 3:3-10 (to “off his sufferings”)
I would like to say a few words, dear brethren, about the great matters of deliverance, devotion and dedication. The Lord is working with us all constantly through a refining process, so that we may come into the gain and good of deliverance, so that we might be here in devotion to Himself and dedicated to the service of God.
I read in Malachi to indicate how God is set upon this matter of refining His people. Malachi wrote at a time when there had been much departure from God; even the sacrifices that were made were not acceptable to Him. God was indicating in this chapter that He was going to come in and bring about a change, and that He would send a messenger ahead. In a sense, it relates to the coming of Jesus into manhood. It also relates to the day yet to come when the Lord will come to Israel and everything will be purged and changed, and He will “sit as a refiner”. What a time that will be when the Lord comes publicly and purification takes place publicly. All the impurities in the whole system of this world will be dealt with by the Lord Himself when He will “sit as a refiner”. But it particularly applies to us now, and this is why the prophecy of Malachi was written – to apply to the people of God in this dispensation, so that they could realise that God is looking for what is pure in His people, looking for a refined product that will answer to His desires, and be an answer to His love. Malachi anticipated that Levi would “offer unto Jehovah an oblation in righteousness”, and while this applies to Israel in the context of this scripture, we can make the application to ourselves. The refining process that goes on in our lives and in our circumstances here is all calculated that there may be an answer to God in righteousness, and an answer to His wondrous love.
I thought that what we read in John 21 shows the wondrous grace of the Lord Jesus in this process of refining. He knew the gold that was there in Peter and in Nathaniel, and in these other persons who went out fishing. He knew the silver that was there. It was a result of His own work in them. There was silver, there was gold there in them, but they went off to fish, and I suppose in a sense the gold and silver was submerged for the time. It is like ourselves; we may take an independent course and forget about the things we have just had revealed to us. The Lord had come in amongst them on two occasions already. On the first occasion, He breathed into them. How intimate the Lord was with His own. Peter received the breathing into him of the Lord Jesus. John did and Nathaniel did, but Thomas missed it. Oh, it is a sad thing to miss the Lord’s breathings, especially when He is seeking to imbue us with His own Spirit. That is what He was doing in John 20; He came in amongst them and said to them, “Peace be to you” (v.19). And eight days later, He came in again – what wondrous grace! He held out His hands to Thomas and said, “Bring thy finger here and see my hands; and bring thy hand and put it into my side” (v.27). What grace on the part of the Lord. Refining was going on in Thomas; He came to it that this One was his Lord and his God.
But here in chapter 21, and in spite of the fact that Jesus had been manifested to them in these distinctive ways already, the Lord in grace prepared to manifest Himself a third time. “This is already the third time”, John says. Mr Taylor Snr often said that this chapter is an appendix to John’s gospel, but what a wonderful appendix! The Lord in grace was prepared to come into this manifestation of independence on the part of this little group. It may have sounded legitimate to go off to fish, but Peter had left that behind at least three years before. He and Andrew, along with James and John, had left the ships, the nets, everything. Why go back to something you have left? I read in Philippians to show that Paul never went back to what he left. He had left it all; he discarded it. He realised that, under the refining hand of the Lord, he had been delivered from it. Deliverance is a wonderful thing, and the Lord continues to work with us all the time to bring about more and more on the line of deliverance. Mr. Raven said we need to be delivered from sin, the world, and the flesh1; I think that covers almost everything that the Lord is working out in our lives – to be delivered from these things so that we might be devoted to Him.
I did not read on in John’s gospel because it is a long passage, but the Lord was working toward devotion to Himself in these men, devotion in Peter. A little further on, if we had read it, He says, “Follow thou me” (v 22). That is the devotion which the Lord is looking for. But think of the grace of it – wondrous grace towards this apostle who was to be so important under the Spirit’s hand after He came at Pentecost. This servant, Peter, who went off to fish and led the rest away with him – the Lord was going to work with him to refine what was there and bring about devotion, and to help him see that he was delivered from self and from the world and from sin.
The word says, “And early morn already breaking, Jesus stood on the shore”. He knew where they were. He knows where we are all the time. That is something for the young people to remember; the Lord knows where we are all the time. He knows our circumstances. When you go off to school, He knows that. When you come home from school, it is the same. When you go off to business, He knows that; He is watching us all the time. Think of the wondrous grace and glory of that – the Lord taking account of His people and the circumstances in which they are. He knows when we are acting independently too, as these persons were, and sometimes He arranges it so that we get nothing out of it. That is what He did here. They had been casting the net over the side of the ship, over and over again all night long, and nothing had happened. Not one fish in the net! How often the Lord has to do that with us to show us that He is in charge and that we need to depend on Him. But there He was on the shore, and He said, “have ye anything to eat?”, and they had to say, No, we have nothing to eat.
He had asked them when He came in amongst them, “Have ye anything here to eat?” (Luke 24:41), and they had something then; they had a part of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb and they could give Him something. The Lord is always looking for some answer from us to His own desires, but here they had nothing to give Him. How solemn that is; someone has said of it that it was ‘night, nothing and nakedness’ 2. How they were tested, but all of this is in view of the refining of His own. And John recognised who was there. Why do you suppose it was John who recognised Him? Because he was the one who had leaned on the breast of Jesus, he had been the most intimate with Jesus and he was the one who could immediately detect that this had to be the Lord. You might say that they should have all known who it was. When the Lord had told them to put the net down at the right side of the ship, it became evident that the fishes, you might say, had swum right into the net. It had to be the Lord. It was the very thing that had happened back in Luke 5, when Peter was asked to draw out into the deep (v.4). How the Lord is prepared to repeat Himself in His grace towards us so that we eventually get the point, eventually realise who is there, eventually realise who is having to do with us. How beautiful that is!
John realised who it was immediately. It seems that Peter had to be told that it was the Lord. Thank God, we have brethren who sometimes remind us that we have to do with the Lord, and that the Lord is speaking to us. That is what John did; what a fine service that was. Peter realised how naked he was, and then they come to the shore. The Lord does not rebuke them. He says, “Come and dine”. What grace – what wondrous grace! But what I want to lead onto is the probing of Peter. They were all there, and they all got the gain of the Lord’s probing of Peter. The Lord had Peter in view particularly, but also the company, so that they were all to get the gain of how the Lord handled the refining of His work in this beloved apostle, Peter. He was probed three times over; “lovest thou me … lovest thou me … Art thou attached to me?”. The third time Peter was grieved about it. I suppose I would have been too, but the Lord kept on until He received this commitment from Peter; “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I am attached to thee”. It was sufficient; now the Lord can tell him what was going to transpire when he was old. Is that not fine, that Peter was told by the Lord Jesus about what would transpire at his death, that he would glorify God in his death. How fine that is, but in the meantime, the Lord says, “Follow thou me”.
The Lord is working toward that end with all of us, to help us arrive at devotion in following Him. How often we need the refining process to probe the depths of our attachment to Christ. How deep is my attachment to Christ? How firmly is my heart linked with the Lord Jesus? That is always the test. It is often the test in what the Lord may allow in our circumstances or in our affairs, or whenever we feel the Lord probing us. It may be in our meetings when we are together; it is all in view of bringing out the silver and the gold that He has put there by His own work. What a work had been done in Peter already. What a work had been done in John. What a work had been done in Nathaniel and these others that are mentioned here; Thomas called Didymus, Nathaniel and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, as well as two other disciples. Well, we can put ourselves along with these two others. I suppose I would have gone fishing with them too if I had been there; that is my inclination, to do things with other people. There were these two others anyway, and they were all being refined by the Lord Jesus. The silver and the gold was there, and it was soon going to be apparent how much silver and gold was in these disciples and in the others who would be with them in the upper room. That was where the gold and the silver was that the Lord had been refining in His life and death here.
I read about Paul because he illustrates so fully the result that the Lord is seeking in this matter of refining. Paul indicates what deliverance had taken place with him. If you read the epistles that Peter wrote, you can see what deliverance had come about with him. You can also see the devotion that was there in Peter when you read these epistles. What dedication he had to Christ as a result of what the Lord had been doing in his soul, a refining process working out in Peter’s soul. Paul expressed his experience of this great matter of deliverance so beautifully in chapter 3 of Philippians. He writes of how he had had his trust in certain things. He was, you might say, head and shoulders above so many, even among the Jews. He had been found blameless as to the law – a most remarkable thing to say, but I am sure it was true. Paul was blameless, he had never contravened the law at all, yet he had persecuted the assembly. But he says, “what things were gain to me these I counted, on account of Christ, loss”. That is deliverance. It is wonderful to be delivered from the things that you might take the greatest pride in. You might have the most impressive accomplishments, natural abilities and other things. Discard them! Paul says, Discard them and count them loss on account of Christ.
I did not read the whole of this wonderful chapter, but it goes on to devotion. Deliverance first, then Paul says, “surely I count also all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all, and count them to be filth, that I may gain Christ”. What devotion, what wonderful devotion on the part of the apostle. No wonder the Lord was prepared to reveal such wonderful things to him concerning the truth of the assembly, concerning the worship of God, concerning the things we have been speaking over in the readings here – things that are available to us now. Here was a man fully delivered from sin, from the world, from self and devoted to Christ.
Paul goes on (vv.12-17) to speak about this great matter of the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. He says, “to know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, if any way I arrive at the resurrection from among the dead.” That is dedication. What dedication to Christ there was in the soul of this beloved apostle. He was dedicated, you might say, to reaching to the fullest extent the things available to him through the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. And then Paul goes on to admonish others to follow him, to be imitators of himself. He says, and it is very important, “I pursue, if also I may get possession of it.” You might ask, ‘Did he not have possession already’? Well, he indicated that there was still more to reach out for, more to be devoted about, more to dedicate himself to. And then Paul says, “Brethren, I do not count to have got possession myself; but one thing – forgetting the things behind, and stretching out to the things before, I pursue”. What a wonderful word that is – to pursue – and he encourages us. As you read on in this chapter, Paul encourages us to pursue. How much there is to pursue in Christianity!
Paul speaks that way to Timothy. In the first epistle, he says that there are certain things to pursue, and in the second epistle he says it again: “pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart”, 2 Tim 2:22. That means that we can pursue these things together with others – righteousness, faith, love and peace. That is what Paul is doing here; “I pursue, looking towards the goal” – what a goal it is – “for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”. Then he says “As many therefore as are perfect…”; he puts it on us. You might ask about this word ‘perfect’. Paul had in mind full grown persons to be devoted like himself – delivered and devoted to Christ. “As many therefore as are perfect, let us be thus minded”. It is a remarkable word Paul uses, this word “minded”. He used it in his letter to Corinth too. Your mind is a faculty, and to be “minded” means that the bent, the direction of your mind is to be looking towards the goal. And “if ye are any otherwise minded, this also God shall reveal to you. But whereto we have attained, let us walk in the same steps. Be imitators all together of me, brethren, and fix your eyes on those walking thus as you have us for a model”. What a wonderful thing that a man as delivered as Paul was, from sin, the world and self, devoted to Christ, was saying that he had not already obtained the prize, but he was still stretching out and pursuing. “Be imitators all together of me”; he is saying ‘That is what I am doing, you do the same’.
What a refined person Paul was. Think of how the Lord worked to refine His apostle. No doubt in each case, the Lord works individually with each one to bring out the silver and gold that would be so valuable in the testimony. Paul came after the other apostles, and the Lord was still continuing to work from on high. That is what He is doing now. He is not here with us as He was with the twelve: He worked with them personally while He was here, refining what was there for God, but then He ascended. Paul is a great example of the way in which the Lord can work from on high to bring about a refined product, the gold and silver for His glory and praise.
I trust that we might be encouraged, dear brethren, to pursue and walk in the same steps, to be imitators of persons like Paul, to be formed by the refining process that the Lord brings into our lives. We can see it in others. Those disciples there on the shore with Jesus – they could see what the Lord was doing with Peter. We can see it in others, can we not, in our dear brethren who are going through great exercise? It is a refining process that the Lord is working out, and you can say, ‘Can I get the good of that for myself, what the Lord is doing with that dear person?’. Let us take it to ourselves and see that the Lord is seeking to bring out this precious silver and gold that will be for His glory when He comes. This chapter goes on to His coming; we await the Lord Jesus as Saviour. Paul says, “our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens, from which also we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to his body of glory, according to the working of the power which he has even to subdue all things to himself” (vv.20,21). That is what we are looking forward to, and what a refined product there will be in the assembly when the Lord comes. Is that not wonderful? Think of it; the saints all having been through this refining process through the activities of the Holy Spirit here, and the Lord working from on high, to bring to light the gold and silver in the souls of the saints, the work of God in its lustre and glory for His own praise when the Lord comes.
May He bless the word for His name’s sake.
Address in Grimsby
7 June 2008
Henry W Jensen