GIVING

Jim T Brown

Proverbs 23: 26 (to “My son, give me thy heart”); John 4: 7 (to “Jesus says to her, Give me to drink”); Genesis 24: 45 (to “and I said to her, Give me, I pray thee, to drink”), 17, 18; Numbers 28: 1-8

Giving is characteristic of Christianity. “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9: 7), because it reflects the disposition of His own heart. How unstintingly God has given: “He who, yea, has not spared his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him grant us all things?”, Rom 8: 32. Not only has God given the Lord Jesus, but as having given Him, He did not spare Him. John says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal” (chap 3: 16). John emphasises the giving of Jesus. What a gift unsurpassed! But Romans emphasises the fact that as having given Him, God did not spare Him. “Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and there offer him up for a burnt-offering …”, Gen 22: 2. How the Father loved Jesus! John again says, “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father” (chap 1: 18). What mutual, reciprocated affection was there! But God spared not His own beloved Son. What giving! In Paul’s epistle to Timothy, he says, “the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all”, 1 Tim 2: 5,6. “For all”, the whole of humanity is involved in that. Job sought a mediator; an umpire, who could lay his hand on God and him (chap 9: 33); but there is today and eternally a glorious Man, “the mediator of God and men”, who can lay His hand on God and on men because He has given Himself a ransom for all.

In Acts, we find words attributed to the Lord Jesus Himself, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (chap 20: 35). But if you scoured the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, I do not think you would find precisely these words uttered by the Lord Jesus. Is not the Spirit of God just saying that writ large across the life of Jesus was this spirit of giving? He gave the gift of sight to the blind: “more blessed to give than to receive”; He gave the gift of speech to the dumb man: “more blessed to give than to receive”; He gave the gift of life to a dead man: “more blessed to give than to receive”. See Him in Gethsemane: “not my will, but thine be done” (Luke 22: 42): how eloquently He was saying there “It is more blessed to give than to receive”. See Him at Calvary. Never did these words, “more blessed to give than to receive”, have greater import than when the precious Saviour from the cross exclaimed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Luke 23: 24.

Then Romans speaks about “the free gift in grace, which is by the one man Jesus Christ”, and “the free gift of righteousness” (chap 5: 15,17). You see there the apostle’s soul enthusing, welling up, as he recounts the magnanimity of a giving God, who gave His Son and spared Him not that we might be given entrance into the affections of His heart and the glory of His purposes.

Well God, having given, seeks that we might give in return. How often as we revel in the generosity of God and enjoy these wonderful gifts, we fail to respond to Him in a way commensurate with His giving. In the Proverbs God says “My son, give me thy heart”. Could there by anything more simple than that? It is as if the affections of God Himself are reaching out to our heart today, with the challenge: “give me thy heart”. Do you know that God has a heart? Genesis brings out that God has a heart. In a context in which evil had invaded the domain of His pleasure and man had been given up to unspeakable corruption, it says “And Jehovah repented that he had made Man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart”, Gen 6: 6. What God had invested in men! We were saying in the reading that man was the acme of his creation, the apogee of all that He had done. Think of God coming so near to Adam to breathe into him the breath of life! Yet man failed, and “it grieved him in his heart”. Have you thought of the longings of the heart of God? He seeks your heart. May we answer responsively to God’s desires.

Of course, He found what gratified His heart in the Lord Jesus here! It says of David, “I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart”, Acts 13: 22. What satisfaction and pleasure God found in David, typically, in Jesus! You might think of the attributes of God and, if it were holiness, the Lord Jesus fulfilled holiness as no other could: “holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners”, Heb 7: 26. If it were righteousness, He fulfilled the law and made it honourable. The scripture emphasises that, in Jesus God found a man who answered not only to His attributes, but to the affections and longings of His heart. We had a reference to Psalm 40 in the reading: “To do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight, and thy law is within my heart” (v 8). Encased, we might say, in the heart of Jesus was the law, just like the ark in the tabernacle overlaid with gold. Think of a man encompassing the law of God within His heart! It was as if the Lord Jesus placed it there, because it was so precious to Him, and God delighted in such a One, the Man of His choice.

Then too, He was “meek and lowly in heart”, Matt 11: 29. Sharp contrast to men around us! It says in Ezekiel about the prince of Tyre that he lifted up his heart to make himself as a god, and the Spirit adds, that terrible indictment “and thou art a man, and not God” (chap 28: 2). How awful that a man should presume to raise himself alongside God: “thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches” (v 5), to set his heart as the heart of God.

And then the Lord Jesus says affectingly in the Psalms, “Reproach hath broken my heart”, Ps 69: 20. He sought for comforters and found none. Not a glow of warmth in that madding crowd who mocked and sneered at Calvary.

Not a vestige of sympathy in that inveterate mob who falsely accused the Lord of glory. Not a heart that throbbed with love for the precious Saviour, God’s own Son. I wonder if there is a heart here that is in some way cold towards the Lord Jesus. Open your heart and let in that love of His creating in you an answering response. That the heart of Jesus should be broken by the attitude of the cruel and hateful men who surrounded Him in the hours of His sufferings must surely evoke a note of emotion from every true lower of His!

Thou soughtest for compassion –

Some heart Thy grief to know,

To watch Thine hour of passion -

For comforters in woe.

No eye was found to pity,

No heart to bear Thy woe;

But shame, and scorn, and spitting –

None cared Thy name to know.

O man! How hast thou proved

What in thy heart is found;

By grace divine unmoved,

By self in fetters bound.

That is the heart of Jesus. What about your heart, dear young person? Is it beating, is it pulsating with love, responsively to God Himself? “My son” – God addresses you personally. It is an appeal from God’s own heart. Let Me possess you! Remember David took the city of Zion? He took possession of it. It says at the end of Psalm 87, “As well the singers as the dancers shall say, All my springs are in thee” (v 7). Those who have their heart-springs in Zion are those who have given their hearts to God. These are hearts that God has possessed: “Jehovah loveth the gates of Zion more than all the habitations of Jacob …This one and that one was born in her” (vv. 2,5). Mr Darby has a commentary on that latter verse. He says that it is Zion boasting of her heroes. Think of that woman in Luke 7! That was a heart that throbbed for Christ, allured from the city and all its diversions into Simon’s house: “I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart” In she came to Simon’s house, a cold house it was. What an atmosphere of frigidity was there! But in that woman was a heart that pulsated with warmth for Christ. She was a true heroine of Zion! Christ had taken possession of her heart! So God would say to you today, “My son, give me thy heart”. When David takes the stronghold of Zion, he builds “round about from the Millo and inward” (2 Sam 5: 9), as if he is gradually, piece by piece, taking possession of your heart and constructing an enclosure within it for His pleasure, and in which His affections can reside. Let every constraint, every obstacle be swept aside so that the true David, Jesus Himself, can build within your heart, that your affections might be fully won for Him. Daniel, too, purposed in his heart. Oh that we might have the resolve of heart to give it unstintingly, unsparingly, to God Himself!

In John there is another appeal, and this time it is from the Lord Jesus Himself. You never fail to be impressed by John 4. Here is the Creator of the universe, sitting at a well, “wearied with the way he had come”, and He says to this sinful woman, “Give me to drink”. Now you know that as Creator He had formed all the rivers of the world. You think of the mighty Amazon; you consider the Nile; you go through the scriptures and read about great rivers; the marvel is that the One who sat at Sychar’s well had created these rivers with all the water in them, and yet in the perfection of His humanity, He asked of this sinful woman that she might give Him to drink. Isaiah says, He “measured the waters in the hollow of his hand”, Isa 40: 12. You reflect on the accumulated waters of oceans, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the quantity of the waters in the seas. He measured them all in His hand. But still in His grace at Sychar’s well He said to a woman, Give me some refreshment: “Give me to drink”. I wonder if all here would respond to that same appeal today. Let our hearts be freshly liberated in response to Him.

At Calvary He said, “I thirst”. Read again Psalm 69. It says, “I am weary with my crying, my throat is parched” (v 3). Read Psalm 22, it says typically of Him: “my tongue cleaveth to my palate” (v. 15). That is the Lord Jesus in His sufferings: In John’s gospel where the Lord Jesus says, “I thirst”, the scripture says “and having filled a sponge with vinegar, and putting hyssop round it, they put it up to his mouth” (chap 19: 24). I think of my Saviour at Sychar’s well asking for a drink and I say, Is He worthy of some refreshment from my own heart? I see some unregenerate hand at Calvary reach up with that vinegar-filled sponge and put it at the mouth of my suffering Saviour and I say, Is He not worthy, a thousand times worthy, or much, much more? Other gospels tell us that He did not drink, the Spirit of God no doubt indicating that the Lord desires something more than a vinegar-filled sponge. He desires your affections as He desires mine. I wonder if we are consciously giving Him to drink – the Man of sorrows as He was here, the Man of glory now. It is an appeal from His own heart to your heart and to mine: “Give me to drink”. May we be exercised to do so!

The Psalm says, “He shall drink of the brook in the way; therefore shall he lift up the head”, Ps 110: 7. The Lord Jesus now, even in His exultation, desires to “drink of the brook in the way”. No doubt, “in the way” is the Christian way. Saul of Tarsus before His conversion, persecuted those who were “of the way”, Acts 9: 2. The way we are on is a way of reproach, but out of the reproach, even perhaps in the confessing of His Name, there is refreshment for the Lord Jesus. He bowed His head at Calvary. He bowed it Himself. No force in the universe could bow that head. It was His own act. But how fine to see Him in glory above, as He lifts up His head as refreshed by “the brook in the way” from loving hearts that are responsive to His desires and longings. The brook is soft and gentle, refreshing, cool and clear. It was a torrent that flowed against Him at Calvary, the torrent of God’s wrath. Who can measure it! “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy cataracts”, Ps 42: 7. But how fine to be conscious of giving Him, in His present position, something refreshing for His own blessed heart. May we be exercised in that regard!

Genesis 24 is another chapter that throbs with urgency and affection, as the servant finds an answer to Isaac’s affections. You might say this was a very menial test that the servant set for Rebecca, that she should simply undertake to give him and his camels to drink. In verse 14 the servant says that the maiden who responded in such a way would “be she whom thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac”. Would the prospective bride of Isaac not deserve some more sophisticated, refined test? Ah no! The servant sought from Rebecca an answer to the characteristics which were seen in the true Isaac himself. He sought a bride who answered fully to the features Isaac himself displayed: “For also the Son of man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister …”, Mark 10: 45. He says, “but I am in the midst of you as the one that serves”, Luke 22: 27. How Rebecca typically displayed these features which answered so blessedly and so perfectly to what would be seen in the Lord Jesus Himself. So she came with her pitcher and I wonder if we have a pitcher. It is the capacity to respond to a situation as it arises. Could Rebecca have foreseen, as she went to the well on this particular day, that she would be met with this request? Often it is the unexpected circumstance that tests us most. Have we resource to meet it? Needs arise in our localities. Have we a pitcher – the capacity, the resource, to meet that need, unforeseen and unpredictable though it may be? Rebecca had that characteristic.

She had a pitcher and here she carried it on her shoulder. How important the shoulder is! It is the ability not only to identify the problem, but to be able to carry and bring to bear the resource to meet it in a practical way. The Kohathites carried the holy things of the sanctuary on the shoulder. It enters into the Nazarite’s offering, too, on the day his consecration is fulfilled. There was a boiled shoulder of a ram. It is the carrying power of Christ now to be reflected in His own.

So Rebecca displayed this beautiful capacity to carry the means for refreshment. She carried the pitcher on her shoulder and she came to the well. This did not seem to be an occasional pursuit; the implication is that she came daily. How often do we have recourse to the well? The exercise would be to make it a daily matter, getting into the divine presence, so that we can draw from the inexhaustible supply which will set us up not only in our individual pathways, but will also set forward the work of God in our localities and – most precious of all – bring refreshment for the heart of divine Persons. Rebecca was able to do that, by coming to the well. It is where resource and spoil are found. In Judges it says, “the voice of those who divide the spoil in the midst of the places of drawing water” (chap 5: 11). You get a sense of that in Rebecca here, as she says, “Drink, my lord!” It was the voice of one who was dividing the spoil “in the midst of the places of drawing water”. May we cultivate these positive habits so that we are able to provide delight and refreshment to the Spirit of God Himself.

“And she hasted and let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink”. It seems as if she took the pitcher from off her shoulder, put it down on to her hand and, in the intimacy of love, actually held the pitcher as the servant drank directly from it. How precious the opportunity available to us to develop these links in affection with divine Persons: “On her hand”, these hands of hers were safe. How we need to have safe hands to look after divine interests! The pitcher did not fall to the ground. Nothing was lost. None of the water was spilled. Everything was retained intact for the divine pleasure. She had the resource for this particular situation. She demonstrated her pedigree, and in doing so gave satisfaction and joy to the Spirit of God typically. May we be so exercised in our relationships with the Holy Spirit to have this resource, which is so gratifying to His blessed heart!

In Numbers, it is as if God is appealing directly to His people to respond to Him. It is a commandment, a divine fiat, that the heart of God might be gratified by what His own bring him. “My offering, my bread for my offerings by fire of sweet odour to me, shall ye take heed to present to me at their set time”. Little do we understand the longing of God for a response from His own. John says, “for also the Father seeks such as his worshippers” (chap 4: 23). That is from lovers who know the desires of His heart and are able to answer to Him in conditions suitable to His holy presence. It says in Chronicles, “for I have not dwelt in a house since the day that I brought up Israel to this day; but I have been from tent to tent …”, 1 Chron 17: 5. Think of God identifying Himself with the tribulations of the sorrows of His own in the wilderness, yet within His heart cherishing a longing that He should be served, that there should be an answer to the affections of His heart! “But I have been from tent to tent”: how affecting to think of God, speaking reverently, moving with His own people in the wilderness, feeling their grief, entering into their circumstances and yet within that heart of His, seeking a response to His own longings!

He says here, “two yearling lambs without blemish, day by day, as a continual burnt offering”. How God delights as we come into His presence with our continual appreciation of the Lord Jesus. “Yearling lambs” suggest a mature, developing appreciation of the Lord Jesus as the burnt-offering, the One, “who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God” (Heb 9: 14), another aspect of the giving of the Lord Jesus. The burnt-offering was wholly for God except its skin which was the portion of the priests. The burnt-offering was really a representation of what was in Christ in manhood and laid down in death that was so perfectly expressive of God’s own ideals and God wants to have our appreciation of it for Himself. How do we develop this on-going appreciation of the Lord Jesus? It is as we ourselves feed upon Him. Read about Him in Leviticus! Trace these offerings! How full they are! See the antitype in the gospels themselves!

And, then, the oblation too! The fine flour mingled in this chapter with the beaten oil. What a humanity was the humanity of Jesus! In Leviticus, we have its various aspects. There it was baked in the oven, or baked on the pan. What was baked on the pan was broken into pieces. However, God looked at the humanity of Jesus, it was infinitely fragrant to Him, not an inconsistency. Sharp contrast to the humanity around us was the perfect humanity of Jesus! May our hearts bring into the divine presence our appreciation of the humanity of Jesus thereby gratifying the heart of God Himself!

Then it says, “in the sanctuary shall the drink-offering of strong drink be poured out to Jehovah”. What satisfaction and pleasure there are for God’s own heart as what is so delightful to Him in Christ is poured out before Him in the service Godward. In John’s gospel, the Lord Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman” (chap 15: 1). See the Father as the husbandman! What a vintage there was from Christ for the Father’s heart in His pathway down here. The “pouring out” suggests hearts that are full and bubbling over with an appreciation of Christ so that God’s own heart is gratified.

Well, may we be freshly stimulated, as affected by the generosity of a giving God, from our own hearts and in our own lives to contribute sacrificially for His pleasure and interests here, for His Name’s sake!

 

SUNBURY

6 March 1999