RECOVERED FOR GOD’S PLEASURE BY CHRIST AS HEAD
I may say, dear friends, I had no thought when I came here that I should be speaking in this way this evening. There has not been much time for exercise, but it seems to me that it would be well to go over what we had before us this afternoon, that we may be more distinctly impressed with the importance of the subject. Therefore I propose to go over the same scriptures, and will first read Luke 9: 28-36.
The remark was made this afternoon that the expression in 1 Corinthians 11: 3, “The head of Christ is God”, would fittingly cover the thought of this blessed book. That is, what we have preeminently before us in Luke's gospel is a Man who has God for His Head. It is a great thing to see a main thought of any part of Scripture as we read it.
I see in Luke's gospel the presentation of Man to God in Christ. It is the way God proposes to recover man for His pleasure: He will do it by the Head whom He has appointed. I ask the youngest Christian here, Do you rejoice in the thought that God proposes to recover you for His pleasure? I would like you to entertain that thought, because if you do, you will desire to know the truth of Christ as Head; God proposes to recover you for His pleasure in the life of another Man. That is the character of this gospel; it is the presentation of Man to God, whereas John's gospel is the presentation of God to men in a Man. The two gospels fit thus very well together.
What we have here is illustrated in the incident in 2 Kings 6: 5-7; the axe head was lost, but it was recovered for the owner. Luke’s gospel is the axe-head gospel. The axe head was lost, it went down into Jordan; but by the side of the river there was a beautiful tree, the Man of God’s pleasure in the scene of death. You and I were lost to God away down in the mud of self-love. That is the most degrading thing possible, for it leaves no room for God. I was the axe head lost, and I was down in the mud of self-love, self-complacency, and self-glorification. Would to God we felt it! The nearer you come to Christ the more you feel by contrast what moral degradation is. He is entirely opposite to us, speaking of ourselves as children of Adam. The nearer you get to Christ, and the more you know His perfections, the more you know the true character of the man who never answered to God. You do not measure him by what is outward, but by what is inward. I was a degraded creature, I did not love God, I loved myself.
God lost me, and He felt the loss; and His proposal is to recover me for His pleasure in the life of another Man, by the Man who grew there for God’s pleasure. He went down into death, into Jordan, and came up the other side in order that He might be our Head; because, remember, He is Head for man in resurrection. He must die; He must come on the resurrection platform, or He could not be our Head. He must meet the whole question of our condition, and our liabilities. “In that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God”. He always lived to God, but He now lives to God as having died to sin in order that we might live to God in His blessed life.
Let me say to you, young or old, that your happiness lies in living to God. You cannot be happy merely in the thought that you are going to heaven when you die, or that the Lord will receive you when He comes; Christian happiness lies in living to God. That is the reason why very few of us are really happy Christians; for happiness lies in living to God, in the sense that you are giving God pleasure. Would that we were exercised about it, then we should feel the necessity of having Christ as our Head. Our danger is in having things as a beautiful theory, and finding pleasure in the consideration of them, without being exercised to get the good of them. These things cannot be known unless there is true exercise of soul. You must get with God, you must get your spiritual exercise with God, you cannot live on God's servants. Many of us live on other people’s spirituality, but you must have a history of your own. There is no help from a gift or servant unless you are exercised. I beg your consideration of that. I feel the danger of living on other people's experience and exercises; you must have your own individual history and exercises.
And there is another thing: unless you at your little meeting, where the will of God has put you, are finding the sufficiency of Christ, you will not get the true gain of any special ministry that may be sent by the Lord. When you know the sufficiency of Christ in the meeting where you are, that He is sufficient for you there, and you are exercised in regard to it, then you will reap benefit when the Lord is pleased to send you special ministry. Do not refuse the present ministry, the ministry the Holy Ghost has raised up, but see that you get the true benefit of it by being exercised before the Lord in the meeting where you are gathered.
Have you got an idea of the importance of living for God’s pleasure? The angels might envy us. To be for the pleasure of God down here in this world in the midst of contrarieties is one of the most glorious things. Oh, that we were alive to it! Oh, that we had desires in our hearts to live to God! Then we should find what headship really means. My thought is what it is for us now, how we should be recovered for the pleasure of God, if we knew Christ in this way.
I would just touch another point which comes out in this Gospel, and that is, the angels were in sympathy with what was going on. How sweet it is to find when the Man for God's pleasure was seen here, to grow up for His delight, that “suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God”. God would have His creatures in sympathy with Him in whatever He does. There was an outburst from the heavenly host. Think of it, beloved friends! The earth was silent, save those in whom the Spirit had wrought, but heaven was not silent. There had come to pass the happy answer to the question, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels” (Ps 8: 4, 5); but the angels were in accord with God, and therefore they burst out in acclamation, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”, Luke 2: 13. Think of it beloved friends, these pure beings never had thought for themselves; they burst out in unselfish joy. God did not tell them to do it. “Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God”. I like that immensely; it was an outburst of unselfishness. In the ages that were past they had seen creation unfold before their delighted gaze, and had shown their joy in creatorial power and goodness. Now there is a deeper note. In fact, they see God for the first time, they see God manifest in flesh; and they see Man for the pleasure of God. How deep was the note, how true! How they were in intelligence and sympathy with God! Holy beings they were, and never thought of themselves. They were not like the one who had been of their number, and thought of himself and lost God, to be a degraded creature for ever. The devil sinned from the outset; the moment he thought of himself he became a wreck, he was not held to God. But these holy beings were held to God, and there was an outburst in sympathy with what was coming to pass in this world. God’s good pleasure in men was set forth in Jesus. A Man had come here to have God for His Head, and thus to be qualified to be Head of God's universe of bliss. As Man He is qualified to be Head. It says in Zechariah 6: 12, “He shall grow up out of his place” - out of the place of Israel’s departure and of our departure there has grown up One who is qualified to rule; “He shall build the temple of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne”. “He shall grow up out of his place” - who can contemplate that without joy? In the very place of our misery and degradation there has grown up a Man for God 's pleasure.
I come now to the centre of this precious gospel. At the beginning Luke says, I write to set things in order for you - “It seemed good to me also ... to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed”, chap 1: 3. He writes under the Spirit's guidance in beautiful order, and the climax of these synoptic gospels is always found in the transfiguration. If I were confining myself to this beautiful passage I should have begun at the 18th verse. If I had to write a title over it I should write this, ‘A journey from the speculations of men to the appreciation of the Father’. He was alone in prayer. He was feeling the state of men's hearts, that they were glad to have need met, but no one cared to know the Benefactor! They were glad to have the blessing, but no one cared to know the Blesser. Of course they were glad to have their need met, glad to be fed. He does meet our need, thank God, but there is more than this. He knew they were glad to be fed, but He said, Did they not care to know Me, to know who I was in My Person? If you make Christ an accommodation for yourself, that you may escape the peril you are in, and through Him secure eternal happiness, you are making yourself the centre all the time. But He does what He does, and gives what He gives, in order that He may reveal what He is, and everything blessed lies in the knowledge of what He is.
We love Thee for the glorious worth
Which in Thyself we see.
Does no one care to know Me? “He asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am? They answering said, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others say, that one of the old prophets is risen again”, Luke 9: 18, 19. Then He says, But what do you say? Peter says - he is the confessor always - “The Christ of God” - the Man who has God for His Head! In Matthew it says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (chap 16: 16); in Mark, “Thou art the Christ” (chap 8: 20); in Luke, “The Christ of God”. Mark the perfection of Scripture! “The Christ of God” furnishes you with the key to the whole gospel of Luke. Well then, He says, I am going to suffer and be killed; I am the Son of man. A wider glory opens out. He is not only the Christ of God, but the Son of man, who is going to suffer any things; He instructs them in the suffering goal to which He was moving on. No one can face the suffering goal unless he is in the presence of the glory goal. The way to glory is through suffering, and the power for suffering is found as we are in the presence of the glory. Christianity is suffering, but it is glory that enables you to suffer. “There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God”, v 27. How beautiful the unfolding that the kingdom of God is seen in a kneeling Man, a Man who has God for His Head! And the Man who has God for His Head must be found in reverence and trust. He kneels; that is the true expression of the glory of man. The true glory of man is to trust God, therefore He kneels in prayer. Many times did I read it, and thought of the fashion of His countenance being altered, and His raiment being white and glistening; but the time came when I saw the kneeling Man, and my heart was arrested. His moral beauty is seen there; the kingdom of God expressed in a Man governed by what is suitable to God. The kingdom of God is the moral apprehension you have by the Spirit of what is suitable to God known in grace. The great principle of the kingdom is sovereign grace, sovereign mercy; when you are governed by what is suitable to God, God's kingdom is set up in your heart. A short definition of it would be, God-consciousness instead of self-consciousness. I am God conscious, conscious of God known in grace, and my heart is governed by what is suitable to God , and I come thus into His pleasure. If I am governed by what is suitable to God, I am agreeable to God. He has recovered me for His pleasure.
I will now refer again to the scriptures that we had before us this afternoon. The first was Luke 7: 38. She “stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet”. That is the first blessed introduction to Him. It shows the way in which Christ endears Himself to us. He sets forth beautifully the situation of grace on God's part - “when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both” (v 42); but to me the commanding thought of the passage is the way in which the grace of God comes out in a Man, so that that Man endears Himself to us. “Seest thou this woman?”, v 46 What a wonderful thing it is that we learn to love Him by His feet, because “beautiful ... are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace”, Isa 52: 7! He had brought the glad tidings of the grace of God to her in her need; He was the vessel, the expression of that grace, and His feet were beautiful in her eyes. She washed His feet with her tears. Do you know anything about that?
No one ever loved the Lord Jesus apart from righteousness. I would say to parents here, You cannot teach your child to love the Lord Jesus as your child is taught to love you. It must be through an awakened conscience and on the line of righteousness. It is possible to clothe Christ with sentiment, just as Ritualists clothe the cross of Christ with sentiment and entwine it with flowers; we may do it with our feelings, and in this way the flesh may pride itself on its feelings about Christ without any conscience work. But if I approach Christ on the line of righteousness, the affection I have is reverential affection. I beg your attention to that, it is excessively important. The only way in which we are taught truly to love Christ is through an awakened conscience. How possible it is to speak of Christ in beautiful language without any real force in it! I pray, brethren, that we may be delivered from this kind of thing.
This woman was taught to love Him; she had come down to where she could find the Christ of God. It is in your own nothingness you find Him and in the sense of nothingness you are taught to love Him. She stands in contrast to Simon subjectively – ‘I am’ was the language of his heart. I am skilful, respectable, religious; but she said, ‘I am not’. In self-judgment you find Him; you cannot find Him by the activity of your mind, but you will find Him in deepening self-judgment. That always accompanies the finding of Christ. She was taught to love Him, and she went away and found the company of those who loved Him. The first few verses of the 8th chapter set forth beautifully the company of those among whom she was to go and live: she was to be found with the women who ministered to Him. She was to find her place amongst the company, who were taught in like manner to love the Lord Jesus.
The next thing is the 35th verse of the 8th chapter. This man was sitting, clothed in his right mind. He had been under a frightful domination, but now the kingdom of God is in view, he is sitting, subdued. Jesus was his Lord and subdued him. You are glad to be subdued by One you love; it is a question of affection. I say, Yes, He shall subdue me, He is my Lord; at His feet He subdues me.
What occupied us next was Mary, Luke 10: 39. Mary sat at His feet to be taught. That teaching lies in impression. He impressed her, for He was the living expression of what He said. She was there under this blessed formative impression. That is the way we are formed. If Christ becomes Head to you, you are so impressed by Christ that He forms you; He produces in you correspondence with what is in Himself. The Apostle Paul says in writing to the Philippians, “Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God”, chap 1: 11. The whole of practical Christianity is in that verse - “by Jesus Christ”, that is the Head, He produces it; and it is to the glory and praise of God, He is the Object of it.
Beloved brethren, what we want in these busy restless days is power to withdraw ourselves from present things, so that we may come under the influence of Christ as Head. I cannot explain it to you very well, but I am sure that as you are consciously in His presence, and His perfections are before you, your heart goes out to Him; you love Him, for He has subdued you. Then you are free to sit at His feet, and take in impressions; and the first comes out in you in the power of the Spirit, you answer to the Person who impresses you.
Christianity is not a thing of effort, not that I try to be like Christ. I have tried to be meek and lowly and have been very proud in my trying. Let me repeat a little parable to show you the good of headship. The sea out yonder sighed and cried and said, Oh, that I could reach the heavens; it said, Oh, wind, help me to reach the heavens: and the wind blew, and the sea rose up with mighty effort. But down it fell, and sighed again and said, Oh, wind, help me. And the wind blew again, and the sea leaped up the sides of the cliff; but only to fall back again and again. Then the poor sea moaned and said, I shall never reach it. But just then the sun shone out, and the sun said, Lie still, and I will shine on you and draw you up. That is Mary sitting at His feet. Beloved brethren, we should seek the shining of Christ; you have to do it for yourself; you must have an individual history, and the shining of Christ on your personal communion. I may go and listen to all the ministry in the world, but if I fail there it is of no avail. Mary sat there, and she appeared to her sister as indifferent, because Martha lived hard by the lawyer, the first husband; but Mary was married to Another, to bring forth fruit to God. Am I married to Christ? Yes, and I may sit down and enjoy all He is. Have you reached Christ like that? Trying to be good and trying to be better is weary work. If you reach this, all you wish to be is found in Him, and He invites you to come and be near Him, and to sit down and enjoy Him. You never expressed a bit of Christ unless you enjoyed Him! What ever you express you have enjoyed in Christ your Head.
The next thing is, He teaches you how to pray. I have felt the necessity of this of late. I do not want to be saying my prayers. We often say our prayers; they are doctrinally right, scripturally right, but we say our prayers without really getting to God. We need Christ to teach us how to pray. If He teaches me how to pray, I shall pray intelligently, I shall pray the right side up. What will it be? “Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done”. That is the order; that is praying the right side up. There is nothing about you, it is all His side. That is how Christ teaches us to pray; I do not mean words, or a formula, but that is a moral order of prayer.
Sweet it is to see Him seven times in prayer in this gospel. At His baptism; in chapter 5, when He is popular, a fame went abroad of Him; He was popular for a moment, but He withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed. He would not be detained by man, He would get alone with God; then in the 6th chapter they hated Him, and “communed one with another what they might do to Jesus” (v 11), He went into a mountain to pray; in our chapter here He prays when He is neglected, no one cared to know who He was; on the mountain He knelt in prayer to set forth the kingdom of God; in chapter 11 He teaches us how to pray, He was alone praying, and one of the disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray” (v 1), and He taught them; lastly, He prayed in Gethsemane. He says to poor Peter, “Watch and pray”. How we have to thank God for all that blessed grace! How we are led to appreciate it too! He says, “Watch and pray” (Matt 26: 41), but whether you pray for yourself or not, I have prayed for you.
Let us come close to this truth, “Satan has demanded to have you” (Luke 22: 31); he said to God; that man’s flesh belongs to me, and I will have him. He demanded to have him; that is the way it is put, but the Lord says, “I have prayed for thee”, that when you get into Satan's hands your faith may not fail you. He will sift you; “I have prayed for thee”. Then He drew into that sorrow. The Mount of Olives is very sweet. I think it has been said by another as to Bethany and the Mount of Olives, that Bethany is where you have the association of the saints, their sympathy and love, but you have to have your Mount of Olives, where no stranger can intrude on your sorrow, or on your joy. They were a stone’s cast from Him. The dear saints can only draw near so far, they were a stone's cast from Him. “Being in an agony he prayed more earnestly” (v 44), and to the very place where He prayed in His sorrow His blessed feet will come, on the Mount of Olives. Do you think of that, dear friends? When He sweat as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground - in all His true and perfect and holy humanity, deprecating the cup in His perfection - that blessed Man! His feet shall stand by and by on that very Mount of Olives. He is worthy of it, worthy of everything!
He had His Gethsemane, and no one can tell what it was to Him, no one can measure it. You and I have our Gethsemanes, we have our sorrows in which no stranger can come near to us. The sorrows may be deep and painful and abiding too. Oh, to have Jesus to come near to you, to hear Him say, I have passed that way. It is so real, He becomes exceedingly tangible, I say it with reverence. He can draw near to you, come close to you, though no stranger can inter-meddle with you. He can say, I can fill up every gap, every breach, and you can look up through your tears into His face, and say, Blessed Lord, I had to come this way to know Thee. The compensation is great, because we come to the knowledge of Him. You cannot learn it out of a book, you must learn it out of experience. So whilst the saints may come within a stone's throw of you! And sweet it is to hear them saying, We weep with you, we sympathise with you, the Lord can come close to you, and make known His blessed love. That is the good of the Head. We touch Him now in priestly sympathy. Oh, how blessed He is! Does He stand up before your soul in His sweet and blessed tangibility? Does He stand up before you as a Person known to your heart more than any living person on this earth? That is the good of knowing Christ as Head. It ceases to be doctrine, it is you know Him. May God grant that we may know Him, beloved brethren. I feel how poorly I have presented Him to you.
The other thought was the leper in the 17th chapter; he was on the verge of a discovery “as they went, they were cleansed”, v 14. They had said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us”. It was an appeal to sovereign mercy. Such an appeal opens the heart of God. “Go, show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed”, and one man stopped, he was arrested. Do you know what that one man represents? The others might have said, Jesus told us to go to the priests. No, he says, I am not going back to that system of things, that is over for me, I am on the verge of a great discovery. Have you not got healing? Yes, but I must be at the feet of the Healer. Back he comes; he “fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks”; he is effaced. “With a loud voice glorified God”. There is the kingdom: man effaced, God glorified, and a heart thankful. Do you know what that is? The blessing of a thankful heart, God is before you. The Pharisees came and demanded when the kingdom of God should appear. The Lord says, It does not come with outward show, it is here in your midst, and this Samaritan has discovered it. Where did he discover it? At His feet. He was cleansed in order to discover the kingdom; he was effaced. Blessed effacement, where God is all! In the next chapter I hear a man saying, “God, I thank thee”, v 11. It sounds like the leper! Wait a bit! “that I”. ‘God, I thank Thee that Thou’ - that is God's kingdom, Godconsciousness instead of self-consciousness.
The blessed Lord then goes on to show that there are three hindrances to God's kingdom: (1) The self-righteous I; (2) The mental I; (3) The I of acquisition. These three will keep you out of God's kingdom. How often this self-righteous I, the mental I, and the I of acquisition or wealth keep us practically out of God's kingdom! The kingdom of God is what the dear saints need to be in the good of. It would help us greatly if we knew it better; it would help us in the higher character of things in the assembly too. If we have no ability to enter into the truth of the kingdom, we shall have no ability to enter into higher things. If what has come before us produces a desire to enter into these things, my point will be gained. We have only a few minutes to stay down here. What are you going to do the remainder of your time? Seek ye first God's kingdom. “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost”, Rom 14: 17. Christianity proposes to make me happy in such wise that my happiness shall not depend on my circumstances; that is what I like in Christianity. That is the nature of the proposal in the Gospel.
Do you like it? How it would deliver us from many things that hinder us! One of the most terrible things is the I of acquisition. The desire to be rich and the love of money pierces saints through with many sorrows. If you are in God's kingdom you have a contented mind. To be in God's kingdom is a testimony, for it is evidence that you have found a spring of happiness outside this world. What a testimony it would be if saints impressed people with the fact that they have abiding peace and joy altogether outside this world!
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From an un-dated leaflet