WHAT IS OF VALUE TO GOD
Alistair Brown
Hosea 6: 6; Philippians 2: 5-11; 1 Peter 2: 1-7 (to … is the preciousness); Leviticus 27: 1-8
I seek to say something as to what is of value to God. These scriptures might help us to understand more about what is valuable to God. We can all understand what this means, what is valuable. There are things which each of us can think about which are valuable to us. If something is valuable we care about it and we care for it and we look after it. That might help us to understand that there are things that are of value to God, things that He cares about, things that He finds precious to Him. I think that things which are really valuable to us are precious to us. We can say that of the blessed God: those things that are of value to Him are precious to Him.
It is a very attractive matter to think of what is valuable and precious to God. One thing that you can find out about a person is what they are interested in and what is valuable to them, and that tells you something about the person themselves. When we are speaking about God we must always speak reverently, but if we can get a glimpse, if we can see what is of value to God, then we have some greater appreciation, some insight into the heart of God, into the Being that He is, that He has things that are valuable to Him. The scripture tells us about them and the Holy Spirit would help us to understand something of the things that are of value to God. As having some impression of that we have a fresh and deeper view and insight into the heart of God, what He values, what He takes delight in. It is a wonderful occupation, to be interested in what is precious and valuable to God. The brethren have been taken up with things that are precious to God these last two days. The things that we have been speaking about and enjoying together have been things that are of little value in this world, but are of infinite value to God because they concern the Man of His choice. That Man, Jesus, whom we have been speaking about and with whom we have been occupied. How valuable, precious and blessed it is in the sight of God to see souls on this earth taken up with these matters, taking an interest in the things that are precious and valuable in the sight of God.
The things that are valuable to God are not of value in this world. We see that in 1 Peter: that blessed One who with God is chosen, precious and elect, the One in whom He found His delight, that blessed One was cast away by men as worthless. I do not want to dwell on what the world’s valuation is because it is so poverty stricken and so tawdry, but it might be as well to remind ourselves that the world values things according to the pride of the eyes, the pride of life, the lust of the flesh and all these things. They are not to be the valuation of the believer, they most certainly are not the valuation of God. God’s desire and the desire of every one in this room who knows the Lord Jesus and has come to know God for themselves is that we might take on the valuation that God has and that we might not be marked by the values of the world. There are things that God has no delight in. It says that He does not take pleasure in the strength of the horse or the legs of a man (see Ps. 147: 10). You can write that across a great deal of the world’s valuation, whether it is the strength of a horse, or horsepower, or whatever the legs of a man might mean in the ways of sport and these things. God does not have delight in, nor does He value, these things. Neither should we because we have something infinitely better before us, a whole order and living world of things that are valuable to God. God’s desire is that we might come into them and value them, at least in our measure, as He values them.
We began by reading of two things that God delights in, “I delight in loving-kindness … and the knowledge of God”, the knowledge of Himself. How these matters stand in contrast to all that is around! He delights in loving-kindness. In the New Testament this word would be translated grace or mercy. When the Lord quotes it in Matthew’s gospel, He says, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice” (9: 13); this scripture is quoted by the Lord Himself. God has delight in loving kindness and He has delight in the knowledge of God. How wholesome it is for us to think of that, He has delight in loving kindness. That is the expression of His own nature, He has delight in that, He sees what represents Himself because God is a God of grace, a God of loving kindness and He delights in loving kindness. He delights in His own loving kindness and I believe He delights when He sees it represented, and He delights in the knowledge of God. Think of God speaking through this prophet Hosea in the midst of departure and unfaithfulness on the part of His people. What a sorrowful history it is to read of the children of Israel as they departed from God and followed their own wills. They did not keep the law, they may have been going on with the outward form of sacrifice and burnt-offerings but in their hearts they had departed from God. They followed them with their lips but in their hearts they were far from Him and yet God was looking for, what He delighted in, “loving-kindness … and the knowledge of God”. He found it in measure in men that we read of in the Old Testament. He would have found the knowledge of God in Enoch, a man who walked with God and then He was not because God took him, and He would have found the knowledge of God in Moses. You can trace how God found and took delight in loving- kindness and in the knowledge of God. He most certainly found it in Abraham, a man who believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (see Gen 15: 6). Think of God taking account of these features in which He finds delight and He found them in these men outstandingly. He would have found the knowledge of God in Daniel, a man who was faithful. He was given a very senior position in the kingdom of the Babylonians and yet he was faithful, he opened his windows as he did before towards Jerusalem and prayed (see Dan. 6: 10). Think of the faithfulness of one such as Daniel, God found delight in that, He found delight in these features. But what these men of the Old Testament lead up to is one blessed Man who was introduced into this scene, the Lord Jesus Christ, the One we have been speaking of together, the One whose Name is Jesus, “He shall be great”, Luke 1: 32. In Him God found His delight, He found loving kindness there, He found the deepest and fullest knowledge of God, He found His delight in one Man. Every other man God could not find His delight in but He found His delight in Jesus. I just want to occupy our hearts and minds with that blessed One.
We read about Him in Philippians. The passage does not use the word value, it does not say in terms that God valued this One of whom the passage speaks but we can fully and safely infer that God valued this One of whom the passage speaks, Christ, above all others. What a blessed perfect Man He was under the eye of God, pleasing God in everything and not only pleasing God but glorifying Him, that is that every thought that God had for man was fulfilled fully and perfectly in every respect in Christ. Every one of God’s thoughts was fulfilled in Him, was filled out, was seen perfectly expressed. Think of the pleasure of God in that One! It is tremendous to bathe our souls in that.
What I wanted to draw out of this passage in Philippians is His descending, gracious manhood, the fact that He came from glory, that He, “did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form, taking his place in the likeness of men”. It was this kind of Man, this Man descending from glory, in whom God found His delight. This was the One that God took pleasure in, the One that God valued above all else. The hymn speaks of that:
We see Thee, Lord of glory,
Descending from above,
And learn the wondrous story
Of God come down in love.
Thus cradled in a manger (Hymn 188)
How He emptied Himself, made Himself of no reputation;
We see Thee, Jesus, there,
A houseless, homeless Stranger,
Our sorrows all to share.
Is it not a tremendous thing to feed our souls on that? The Man in whom God found His delight was characterised by going down, by emptying Himself and then humbling Himself and becoming obedient even unto death. A wonderful blessed feature that we see in Christ that made Him so pleasurable to God was His obedience to the will of God. Never any thought of His, never any word, nor any footstep was outside the will of God, everything absolutely, perfectly in accord, in submission, willingly and joyfully, to the will of God. That was Jesus, the One whom God delighted in, the One whom He valued. What intrinsic worth there is in that blessed One! In Jesus we see that same worth through and through. When they came to Him, and asked Him who He was, He was able to say, “Altogether that which I also say to you”, John 8: 25. That value, that worth, ran all through, it ran through His blessed being, it ran through what motivated Him, what He thought, what He said and what He did. What preciousness to God! How God took delight in that blessed One. Then it says, “becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. Think of the obedience of Jesus leading Him to the cross, suffering there, suffering for me and for you. Dear friends, He suffered there because of His obedience to the will of God, because of His committal to that One. What worth God found in Him! It is said, and it is something I find I need to contemplate more, that He was never more pleasurable to God than when He hung there on the cross in all His perfection, the spotless offering. The only One who could offer Himself offered Himself spotless to God by the eternal Spirit. What worth, what infinite value in that blessed One who gave up His life. What value there is in that life given up! You might say the turning point of the entire universe, every righteous claim of God acknowledged and satisfied in the death of the One who so pleased and delighted Him. The value of that blood shed, “precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish … foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world”, 1 Peter 1: 19, 20. Infinite value! None other could give His life, none other could shed such blood as Jesus did, “becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. What worth, what value God found there.
Then we have this wonderful result of God’s valuation: it says, “Wherefore” -that is as God took account of the worthiness and the value that was there – He “highly exalted him, and granted him a name, that which is above every name”. What a wonderful answer to the humiliation of Christ, to His death of scorn, that God has exalted that blessed One, “highly exalted him, and granted him a name, that which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow”. It was said this afternoon what a wonderful thing it is to bow willingly to Jesus. I trust that every heart and every knee in this room has bowed willingly to Jesus. Every knee shall bow. That is a future matter when – willing or not – knees will be made to bow to the Lord Jesus when He takes up His rights here. His power will be such that every knee shall bow, but how wonderful it is to bow now willingly and gladly to the One whom God has given this place. He has such worth, such incalculable worth in the sight of God that He has given Him that place, and we have the opportunity now to bow gladly and willingly to the Lord Jesus. What a Man He is for our hearts! He is the Man in God’s sight, the Man in God’s presence to whom He has given everything, every glory is accorded to Him. How rightly crowned He is but how right it is that He should be crowned in our hearts, the worthy One. How wonderful and blessed for us to bow the knee to Him and crown Him in our hearts and to acknowledge that that Name is the Name that is above every name. No other name more worthy, no name to be compared, beloved brother or sister, with the Name of Jesus. May His worthiness be magnified in our hearts, then may these blessed features that are seen and spoken of in this scripture as to Christ be seen in us. It says where we began reading, “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”. I think it is a wonderful thing to see that what God has so valued in Christ, what He values so immensely, the value of Christ to God, that mind, that way of thinking that led Him down from glory’s height to take His place in figure as a Man and be so obedient to the will of God, that mind is to be found in us. So that what God values is to be seen in those upon whom He has set His heart. What God desires to see are these features that are fully, blessedly and absolutely expressed and seen in all their substance and worth in Christ, over again in His own, in His people. Is that not wonderful grace? It would also bring us to see the glory of God’s operations that that mind should be in us and should be found among us. These matters that we have been speaking of together are to have a practical effect with us as we have some impression of the worthiness, the value of Christ in the sight of God. We are to have this mind, “let this mind be in you”, and as that mind is in us we will see increasingly the blessed value of Christ in the sight of God. It is a wonderful thing to have an impression of how infinitely precious, delightful and valuable, that One is in the sight of God. That I think would be one of the effects of this mind being in us.
There would also be the matter of conformity to Him, which we get in 1 Peter. I was attracted to this scripture because we have here the blessed reference to the Lord Jesus as being “with God chosen, precious”, and then later, “a corner stone, elect, precious”. So God had His valuation of this One and in God’s sight He was chosen and elect and precious. Much could be said about these matters, I can only speak simply, but the idea of preciousness carries with it the thought of worthiness. God took account of Christ here in all His preciousness and worthiness and God valued every step of that way, finding His delight in every footstep. What intense delight there was to God in that. Chosen, faithful and tried, we sometimes sing of that (see Hymn 33), the One who in every respect fully justified God’s choice of Him. Nothing in the testing that came in (and it was the most severe testing) was Christ not able for. His perfection shone out, the more rigorous and deeper the tests were. The greater the temptations, the tribulations, through which He went the more perfectly His worthiness shone out. What beauty in the sight of God, “with God chosen, precious … elect”. It speaks of Him as a “living stone” and also as a “corner stone”. That is that God has in mind, that this One should be the foundation and pattern of all that is for Him, for His glory, praise and dwelling. It says, “with God chosen, precious, yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ”. We are to prove something of desiring the pure mental milk of the word; it is open to all of us, it is for all of us and it can be taken in by all of us. We taste that the Lord is good. Reference has been made during these meetings to taste. We take Christ in and we prove for ourselves that He is sweet to our taste. How blessed it is to take Christ in, to give Him the opportunity to prove that He is sweet and good to our taste. I think for young people, and for all of us, the Lord Jesus would love to prove to you how sweet He is. May He be good to your taste and then your desire will be to grow up to know more of Christ and to come to Him, the living stone, the One who imparts life and yet the One who is absolutely reliable and dependable. Do you rely and depend upon Christ? God does, God has established Him as His corner stone, the corner stone upon which all that God is building is being built. He is chosen and precious to God and we are to come to Him as living stones to be built up a spiritual house. The picture here is of those who have taken on the features of Christ, “yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ”. How is God going to value what He builds on this corner stone? How is God going to value something He is building on Christ? It says later on, “this is become head of the corner”, that is God is building something, the dimensions of which are derived from Christ and the scale and the true measure of which is derived from Christ. How is He going to value something that is founded on and given scale and measure according to Christ? How highly God values what is being built on that foundation! Are you one of those that have come to Him as a living stone and “are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ”? How valuable that is, how valuable the living stones are in the sight of God. May we be exercised to come to Jesus as living stones and then to take our place in this building that is going on. Building has been going on these last two days, building in our hearts of appreciation of Christ and love for Him and committal to Him and God is looking upon that and He values that. How He values anything that is patterned after Christ. You might say, however small it might be, if there is appreciation in your heart of that blessed One, God values it. How He loves to see living stones built together.
Then there is functioning as “a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God”. If the Lord leaves us here until tomorrow morning we will know something of that, indeed we have known something of it as being together, but I think we prove it particularly as we come together to remember the Lord and be engaged together in the service of praise as built upon the foundation of that living stone. As living stones, whether we are giving vocal expression to the appreciation of Christ and appreciation of the Father that is in our hearts, or whether we are worshipping silently, we can function in this way. How valuable, how pleasing, how delightful to the eye of God! He sees what is patterned according to Christ, what takes its dimensions from Him, what takes its moral character from the Head of the corner. Then the point is that there is to be a spiritual house. That means conditions where God can find His pleasure, where God can dwell, conditions where there is priestly function going on, believers thinking for God, thinking of His holiness, not thinking of themselves but thinking of that One and then offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. It is a wonderful thing to be taken up in a service that is acceptable to God. I cannot think of anything more blessed. You might say, ‘what is in it for me?’ Friend there is everything in it for you, because as you are found here acceptable and pleasing to God He is able to fill your heart with joy and satisfaction, the way that this world certainly cannot. Friend, the Holy Spirit is here to fill your heart with joy and satisfaction and with thoughts of Christ. Prove Him and see. Speak to the Spirit and ask Him to magnify the Lord Jesus in your heart, to show you fresh glories of that One that you might appreciate Him more. The Spirit loves to help you to be a living stone, coming to the One who is the living stone. May we prove these things and may we know what it is to be built up as “a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God”.
I wanted to speak briefly about this scripture in Leviticus 27. You might think that it rather undervalues those who are very young and those who are old and those who are female. What is in mind here is that there is a full valuation. God has a valuation and it is a full valuation. One thing to say is that there is no difference in God’s valuation of the saints between males and females. We learn that in the New Testament. There is full growth in mind for everyone, because we are told in Ephesians that there is work going on in the assembly “until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ; in order that we may be no longer babes” (4: 13,14). I simply wanted to speak from this scripture as to the valuation of full-growth, it is fifty shekels, “When any one devoteth anything by a vow, the persons shall be for Jehovah”. I understand that these were referred to as votive offerings, where people vowed themselves, they devoted themselves and then they gave the money to redeem themselves, they gave the money in place of themselves. The valuation of full-growth was, “fifty shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary”. I would just encourage myself and everyone here that we might go in for full-growth. We ought not to be content to remain on our way to full-growth, or reaching some plateau, but we ought to go on until we arrive at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ. God values every one, let us make no mistake as to that. Dear young person, God values you and He values you more accurately than you can yourself. You might say, I am not worth anything in God’s system, I have very little understanding, I know I love the Lord Jesus but I cannot say much more than that, many of the things that the brethren speak about in the meetings I do not understand. You might say that, but friend, if you love the Lord Jesus then God values you. God values you and what I would encourage all of us to do is to identify what is of God in ourselves and to value it and to take care of it. We said that what we value we take care of, we look after. Look after what is of value to God in yourself, dear young friend, and all of us, and then be concerned and be exercised that it might grow in value and that we might grow in our love for Christ and in our appreciation of Him. Let us be exercised that there may be full-growth. I think full-growth is valued according to the shekel of the sanctuary, all these valuations were according to the shekel of sanctuary, that is valuation by God’s standard. The children of Israel were not to change the shekel. That was a very important instruction to them and one of the sad features of their falling away was that they made the shekel great, that is that they made it more difficult for people to pay the shekel. But God’s standard is the shekel of the sanctuary, that is what is before Him and I think it would speak to our hearts of the value that He finds in Christ, and God values every expression of Christ that He finds in His own and He values that in you. You may feel that you are worth only three shekels. You may feel very small, I know I do, I feel very small in my appreciation, but God values that. Then His desire is that you should not remain with a small valuation but that your value might increase. As we apply ourselves in committal, love and exercise we will find that our appreciation of Christ increases and we will know something of growing up to Him in all things, something of approaching to that measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ. What a blessing that is! One impression I have is that an indication of increasing growth in us is that we appreciate something of the value and the worth of Christ to God. How valuable He is to us, but how valuable He is to God. There is a hymn which I always find very affecting and touching, a hymn to the Father:
In thy grace Thou now hast brought us
Sharers of Thy joy to be,
And to know the blessed secret
Of His preciousness to Thee. (Hymn 277)
I think there is something about appreciating the blessed secret of Christ’s preciousness to God that belongs to full-growth. As we grow up to Christ and increase in our love for Him and our appreciation of Him we will have a greater understanding of His preciousness to God. I think these days together have helped us in that. What encouragement and support there is in this matter of growth and of valuation. Christ’s value is infinite, but what is our valuation of Him? What is our appreciation of Him? Is it growing? Friend, as a result of our times together, may our valuation of Christ grow. God would love to see that happen, He would love to see our valuation become more and more aligned with His. His valuation is perfect and His valuation of Christ is infinite. May the Lord bless His word.
SUNBURY
26 March 2005
[It is expected that the readings and preaching on this occasion will be published separately]