ACCEPTING RESTRICTION

Philippians 2:5-11; 3:8-14,20,21

I have in mind to speak of the matter of restriction. Since March of last year we have faced additional restrictions as to where we can go, and what we can do. To a greater or lesser extent, there was some relief from these restrictions and then they were increased again, and now in the goodness of God we see some relief from restrictions again. One of the things that is true, certainly of me anyway, in relation to restrictions whatever they are, and however they are imposed, is that we may find them irksome, and we do not enjoy them. In some cases we are not meant to enjoy them exactly, but we are meant to learn from them. It has been trying not to be able to see those we normally meet with as regularly as we would have liked, or to see the wider circle of our brethren, and we have felt the limitation too in the opportunity for response to God and the service of praise, although we are thankful for what has remained available to us.

But these restrictions are all in the will of God and we are intended, as remarked, to learn something from them. One of the things we learn is that the Lord Jesus Himself accepted restriction in coming into manhood. It tells us in verse 6 of Him subsisting in the form of God, and it tells us that he “did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on equality with God”. That means He was not taking anything that did not belong to Him; this verse confirms that He was and is equal with God. It belonged to the Lord Jesus to say He was equal to God because it was true, and He never ceased to be equal to God, but He did become man and that involved restriction, so He became obedient. For a certain period of His life He was a small child, and that would involve being carried about by His mother and His father – that was a restriction that He had never known before. He was restricted as to where He could go, because largely, as far as we can see, He went on foot or in a boat. When He was in His time of service, on at least one occasion He sat on an ass, but He would be restricted in where He would go. He knew what it was to be hungry and to be tired, He knew what it was to be sorrowful.

All of these things were part of His manhood, and He accepted a place to which obedience attached. It says in another scripture, “he learned obedience from the things which he suffered”, Heb.5:8. It is interesting in that it does not say He learned to be obedient, as though He had perhaps at some other point not been obedient. He was obedient as Man. He never required to be obedient in His place in deity; obedience did not attach to that place, so He learned the restriction which obedience involved in coming into manhood. Think of Him when Lazarus died (John 11); the Lord would have known that Lazarus was dead, but it says He abode two days in the place that He was. He waited two days, until it was His Father’s will that He should move.

Then Jesus accepted the restrictions that going to the cross involved, even the very matter of His hands and His feet being nailed to the cross. Men thought they would restrict His movements, that they would stop His movements by nailing His feet to the cross and stop His blessing others by nailing His hands to the cross. They did not know that nothing could stop the blessing and nothing could stop the movements of God’s love. They did not know that, but they would try to restrict Jesus. Peter tried to restrict Him too, and told Him He should not do something, but the Lord rebuked him for that (Matt.16:22,23). The only will that the Lord accepted was the Father’s will; no other will would do for Him! Even when it came to tasting death on the cross, He said to the Father, “not my will, but thine be done”, Luke 22:42. He accepted all the restrictions that the Father’s will involved; He accepted the restriction of death itself. It says in Job, “By the breath of God ice is given; and the breadth of the waters is straitened”, Job 37:10. In the Lord’s movements when He was here from day to day, Scripture tells us that each day had something special about it, something special for God, but then, as it were, the ice was formed – there was no movement. Jesus was taken down from the cross by those who loved Him and put in the grave. He did not do that for Himself, others did it for Him, and then men sought to restrict Him again. They put a great stone over the grave, but that restriction had no effect. He came out of death in triumph and glory, He came out in dignity without a struggle. The linen grave clothes were there in the tomb and the handkerchief was folded up in a distinct place by itself (John 20:6,7): He came out in dignity. Death could not restrict Him, it had to yield to Him.

The Lord Jesus knew what these restrictions were, but as out of death He was like the bird let loose in the open field. There is a link between His resurrection and Leviticus chapter 14, which speaks of a living bird let loose in the open field – it represents Christ in resurrection. He could say to Mary “go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”, John 20:17. Out of death and in resurrection, He is not restricted now! He is at God’s right hand, He is the One whom the heavens must receive (Acts 3:21). He could not be restricted and He has ascended into a sphere to which no restriction attaches.

I just wanted to touch briefly on chapter 3, for Paul had to accept restrictions. As Saul, he thought he had no restrictions, he thought he could do what he liked. He went on the road to Damascus, and he had letters that would cause believers in the Lord Jesus to be imprisoned and then possibly put to death. But the Lord brought him down and restricted him. He took away Saul’s sight from him so that he could not move on his own; someone had to take him by the hand and a brother had to come and set him free again. Saul accepted that, he accepted these restrictions as the Lord placed them on him because the Lord had broken through that self-willed path of his and He did that in love. He did not do it in anger, He did not do it as penalty, He did it in love. We sometimes sing a gospel hymn;

‘Just as I am – Thy love, I own,

Has broken every barrier down;’      Hymn 446.

And that is what the Lord did for Saul of Tarsus, He broke down all the barriers. All the restrictions that Saul had erected to keep God out, the Lord broke them down, and He came into Saul’s heart.

And now he says, “to know him”, this Jesus, “to know him, and the power of his resurrection” – death is a restriction that people fear, but there is One who is in the power of resurrection, having broken the power of death – “and the fellowship of his sufferings”. The Lord would have sympathy with us in our sufferings. Our brother who spoke earlier has said that He bears things for us; but also we are to know “the fellowship of his sufferings”. Beloved brethren, it would be good if we could carry this away, that by accepting the restrictions that have been imposed upon us we touch – no doubt in a limited way – what is involved in “the fellowship of his sufferings” and we are to accept this in the same spirit as the Lord did. That really gives a different tone to the restrictions. It may cause us to think of them a little differently. Of course we will rejoice when we can be together more fully if we are left here, but the “fellowship of his sufferings” involves accepting the restrictions as well. And being conformed to His death involves accepting restrictions too, because His death was a separating point; it finished certain things, and as believers there are certain things we should be finished with. Conformed to His death would involve that certain things were finished for us at the cross. They were dealt with in righteousness and dealt with in love, and finished there.

Then Paul writes, “if any way I arrive at the resurrection from among the dead”. There is a whole sphere of life on the other side. We referred to Hymn 288 and what it will be like

‘where more

By far than Eshcol’s grapes is found’.

The two spies said the land of Canaan was a very, very good land; it was “a land of waterbrooks, of springs, and of deep waters, that gush forth in the valleys and hills” and “out of whose mountains thou wilt dig copper”, Deut.8:7,9. It was a wonderful land, but the land we as believers have is a better land because Christ is there! Christ defines that land, it is our place, “our commonwealth which has its existence in the heavens”. All the restrictions that there are down here pale into insignificance when you see what God has prepared for those that love Him. So Paul says, as it were, that he is not there yet, but he is pursuing and I would encourage each one of us here to be on the line of pursuing, and being taken possession of by Christ Jesus, the Man who is at God’s right hand, for “the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”.

The last thing I want to say is that even the bodies that we have can restrict us. We are described as seeing “through a dim window obscurely” (1 Cor.13:12), but these bodies will be taken away and we will be given a body of glory. We await the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, not then as Saviour for our sins, for that is all dealt with, but the One who will give us a body of glory and transform us into “conformity to his own body of glory” so that we can enjoy things fully, face to face.

Beloved, we are meant to learn in the restrictions, and Christ would walk alongside us as we do; He would say, “Take my yoke upon you”, Matt.11:29. A yoke in itself restricts, it restricts us from going here, there and everywhere, but He would say, ‘I will walk beside you and then when the time comes, I will take away the body of humiliation and I will give you a body of glory’ – “according to the working of the power which he has even to subdue all things to himself”. I just wanted to leave that thought in closing. The Lord’s power is not restricted. Nothing that Satan can do can restrict divine power, and it is still working. It is what is carrying us through. Divine love is carrying us through and it will carry us through to the end; “he who has begun in you a good work will complete it unto Jesus Christ’s day”, Phil.1:6.

May we be with the Lord in His view of things at this moment.

Word in a meeting for ministry, Linlithgow

3 June 2021

 

Paul A Gray

 

 

 

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