LOWLINESS
Matthew 11:28-30; Acts 20:17-19, 28-32; Ephesians 4:1-3;
Philippians 2:1-4; Colossians 3:12-15
It will be evident from the scriptures read, dear brethren, that I would like to speak, with the Lord’s help, about lowliness. I hesitate to speak of such a subject because I am conscious of my own failings in it. It is not a feature that comes to us naturally. Moses was said to be the meekest man in all the earth, but he was not always that way. You will remember that he slew the Egyptian (Exod.2:12) and the next day the Hebrew men were disputing and said “Who made thee ... judge over us?” (v.14). But then Moses spent forty years in the desert, tending his father-in-law’s flock; he was one who had a secret history with God. The result was that the Spirit of God could record that “the man Moses was very meek, above all men that were upon the face of the earth”, Num.12:3.
I am sure that all here have heard Matthew 11 referred to in the gospel preaching, and I am sure God has used it many times in that way, but it is addressed to those who are burdened; “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest”. Do you feel burdened, dear brother or sister? Do you feel discouraged? This scripture is appropriate if you do. The Lord Jesus knew what it was, speaking reverently, to take on the yoke – the yoke of doing the will of His God and Father. It is clear, from the gospels, the strength which He found in that unbroken communion with His Father. We are invited to take on this yoke with the Lord Jesus. It brings you into close relationship with Himself, and it also means that we are bound up with Him as true yokefellows. The Lord Jesus knew what it was to have His teaching rejected; there was opposition from the Pharisees here. I am sure that He knew what it was in His labour, speaking reverently, to be burdened. In John 4 it says that He was “wearied with the way he had come” (v.6). You might say that this brings out the reality of His manhood, in that He felt tired, but I think that it can also apply to the opposition which He encountered. He was wearied by it, but He bore that yoke with His Father.
The Lord Jesus is available to us, and He would invite us to “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest”. As that is truly experienced, what a source of strength it is in the pilgrim’s pathway here. The God that we have to do with is the “Father of compassions, and God of all encouragement”, 2 Cor.1:3. Discouragement comes from failure, and if you allow it, you can drift away from God in discouragement and you may be in danger of being overcome. What is the answer to that? “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me”. He is the model in all things, dear brethren, and the object of taking on this yoke is to learn from Him; “for I am meek and lowly in heart”. That was the kind of man that Jesus was. It does not mean that He was weak, far from it, but He was here in manhood and He displayed these features. The word from heaven, the Father’s voice, was “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, Matt.3:17. He was meek and lowly.
So in taking up the invitation to be a yokefellow with Him, those features would, I think, develop with you and me; “ye shall find rest to your souls”. The psalmist says, “Cast thy burden upon Jehovah”, Ps.55:22. You find that if you do that, the burden becomes light. What a support, what a resource we have in our Lord Jesus Christ, and it all is available to us; “for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”. You can simply commit everything into the hands of this One, and as you do so, you find that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Cast it upon Him, and in doing so, there will be the development of the meekness and the lowliness that is seen in absolute perfection in Him; “learn from me” is learning not by teaching exactly, but from His example.
Acts 20 is an interesting chapter in that there is a certain climax reached in it, as far as Paul’s oral ministry is concerned. There are his epistles from prison, as we know, and we have read from them, but first love was really reached here in Acts 20. The chapter begins with an expression of the love of Paul for the disciples, and the chapter ends with an expression of love of the saints for Paul; “specially pained by the word which he had said, that they would no more see his face” (v.38). It brings out the place that he had gained in their affections, and I would like to draw attention specifically to verse 19. Paul spoke about how ‘‘from the first day that I arrived in Asia, serving the Lord with all lowliness, and tears, and temptations, which happened to me through the plots of the Jews’’. That is how Paul was among the Ephesians, and from that came his effectiveness and his moral power. How did serving in “all lowliness, and tears” come into expression? It came into expression by what Paul said in verse 31, “Wherefore watch, remembering that for three years, night and day, I ceased not admonishing each one of you with tears”. That is how it came into expression. Think of the feelings that lay behind that service. It was no wonder that Paul had a place in their affections. This was first love. We know that Ephesus fell from it, but this was the way that Paul was among them.
He had called over the elders, those that took responsibility. Do you take responsibility, dear brother, dear sister, in the place in which you are? “Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock, wherein the Holy Spirit has set you as overseers, to shepherd the assembly of God”. I am tested; do I have part in that? Paul could see the dangers, very real dangers, which were to come in as he was about to depart from the scene. But the assembly of God is a vessel that has been purchased with the blood of His own; the blood of His beloved Son, His only Son. That gives us some impression of what the assembly of God is to God Himself. Paul had a vision of what the assembly was to the heart of Christ. He had it in his heart and he warned the elders, those that took responsibility, that there would be “after my departure grievous wolves, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall rise up men speaking perverted things to draw away the disciples after them”. All Paul could do was commit them to God, but he laid this upon them as elders who took responsibility. It is a very solemn thing, but on the other hand it is a very blessed thing. “Wherefore watch” – that is a word for us today – “remembering that for three years, night and day, I ceased not admonishing each one of you with tears”. He had had three years of it. It was not only what he taught. He went into the houses where previously he had ravaged those who were of the assembly; now he went in “admonishing each one of you with tears”. He left this responsibility with them.
I feel the responsibility of taking heed to it in the day in which we are; “the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of His own”. Paul is an example; he served the Lord with “all lowliness, and tears”. That is how he was. I think Paul was a true yokefellow. He learned from Christ; he learned the feature of lowliness from Him and it came into expression in Paul. The Lord Jesus is the model in all things; Paul learned it from the Lord in reality, and he was able to pass it on from his own experience, not just from what he had heard. As we had in the reading, David was one who had moral power because of his own relationship with God and as being restored to it.
Ephesians 4 is a great chapter, setting out the truth of the one body and how it functions. Paul wrote in verse 15, for example, that “holding the truth in love, we may grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ: from whom the whole body, fitted together, and connected by every joint of supply”. That conveys to me the experience of an organism; that is, you are bound up in affection for one another. The one body involves that Christ is in heaven as the ascended Man and He has given gifts. Then we are to have our part as a joint of supply. Paul began the chapter by writing about lowliness and meekness, as if those features are necessary for us to effectively have our part in the body. Paul was one who suffered; “I, the prisoner in the Lord”. He was not in prison as a criminal, he was there because of his faithfulness to his Lord, and he exhorted them to “walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye have been called”. How do you do that? What comes into expression? I do not apologise for being so practical, dear brethren, because Christianity is nothing if it is not practical. Walking worthy of the calling wherewith we have been called will come into expression in these features, as Paul goes on to speak of them, “lowliness and meekness”. That is how it comes into expression, “bearing with one another in love”. Then he goes on to say “using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace”. It is clear that in God’s assembly, there is only one will that prevails, and that is the will of the Lord. But we have been given one another. We have been given partners. So it also involves taking account of the feelings of your partners, keeping “the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace”. “There is one body and one Spirit”, Paul goes on to write. There is no room for independence in the one body. We are all bound together. The teaching of this chapter in Ephesians brings out that particular setting “with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love”. That is what makes it work.
What Paul brings out in Philippians 2, among other things, is the One who ‘”humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross” (v.8). What ignominy and shame there was at the cross. But Jesus has been “granted ... a name, that which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (vv.9,10). The One who went lower than anyone else is the One who has gone higher than any other. He has gone through all the heavens, and He has filled those heavens with His glory. God has given Him the first place. So Paul says “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (v.5). That, to my mind, is not just a picture on the wall but there is something morally to be worked out in you and me. I feel tested by it. Paul exhorted the Philippians to be of the same mind, “that ye may think the same thing, having the same love, joined in soul, thinking one thing”. The more we think of the Lord Jesus, and our position with Him, and the truth that has come into expression in Him, it is in that Person that we unite; “joined in soul, thinking one thing”. The “spirit of strife or vain glory” suggests a spirit of rivalry, but “in lowliness of mind, each esteeming the other as more excellent than themselves”. How testing that is, “regarding not each his own qualities, but each those of others also”. Can you look around your local assembly and take account of the work of God in the saints? Can you take account of someone that shines with a particular feature more than is found in yourself? You might be able to say ‘That brother is a faithful brother, he is more faithful than I am. That brother is devoted, he is more devoted than I am’. You can take account of these kind of features and esteem them as more excellent than yourself. This is what makes things work, so that it is not just a picture on the wall but it is something that comes into practical expression.
In Colossians, we have the putting on the new man. We had a reading recently on “Christ everything, and in all”, which immediately precedes this. That is, He is not only everything, but is in all. These features that I have been speaking of are in living expression in the saints, and a person to whom Christ is everything will be a person that puts on the features of the new man. What are the features of the new man? “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another”; these are the features of the new man. I would not put this on anybody else. In your own relationships with the Lord, in honesty before God, and not applying it to the brother next to you or the sister next to you, can you say that these are things which are in expression in you? That is something which I find very, very searching, but I think it is necessary. Be honest; we need to be honest with ourselves, but more importantly, we need to be honest with God. Paul did not look to be commended by the brethren. What was most important to him was that he was commended by the Lord.
Then it says “And to all these add love”. To my mind, dear brethren, that is like the oil in an engine. It makes things work and if the oil runs out the whole thing seizes up. It is not just incidental that in Corinthians, Paul devotes a whole chapter to this subject, “a way of more surpassing excellence” (1 Cor.12:31), “which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts, to which also ye have been called in one body, and be thankful’”. That is a picture of practical Christianity; it is to be enjoyed, and the feature of lowliness is an important part of it.
In closing I would share with the brethren what brought this thought of lowliness to my mind. Speaking in 1943, Mr Taylor commented that there had been comparative peace for thirty five years. He said, ‘Sovereign mercy is preserving us’ and then he added ‘It will continue to preserve us as we keep lowly’1. That came home to me, dear brethren; the importance of lowliness in the practical working out of the truth in our local settings. Whatever exercises may come in, lowliness is needed for the effective working out of the truth.
May God bless the word.
Address at Birmingham
10 January 2015
D.J. Wright