HOW BELIEVERS ARE AFFECTED BY THEIR OUTLOOK

E. C. Muggleton

John 1: 36; Hebrews 12: 1, 2; Philippians 3: 13–17

I have been thinking about the word of Jehovah to Abraham, when God said to Abraham,

“walk before my face, and be perfect”, Genesis 17: 1. We have been speaking about the steps of Abraham. I wanted to speak about the footsteps of Jesus. Peter reminds us in his epistle that He, has left us a Model that we should follow in His steps (1 Peter 2: 21). How wonderful were the steps of Jesus! We think of the walk of Jesus. We get a word here in John’s gospel, “Again, on the morrow, there stood John and two of his disciples. And, looking at Jesus as he walked …” I wonder how much time we spend in looking at Jesus. I would like to encourage the younger brethren to spend time in looking at Jesus. The point here is looking at Jesus as He walked. There never was such a walk as the walk of Jesus, every step in that walk was pleasing to the Father. Let us get our

eyes on Jesus as He walked. We need an object for our affections, and God has provided an object for our affections in Jesus, that we should walk and follow in His steps; every step was in relation to the will of God. What pleasure God had in every step of the life of Jesus. What time have I spent today in looking at Jesus as He walked? We can think of the walk of other men besides Abraham; it says of Enoch that he walked with God and he was not for God took him (see Genesis 5: 24). We love to think of examples that we have had, men who have gone before us in the testimony. It says of Enoch, “before his translation he has the testimony that he had pleased God”, Hebrews 11: 5. I am sure it would be in the heart of every one of us that we want to be pleasing to God.

I want to show from these passages how we can be pleasing to God. Paul says in Thessalonians to the saints, “how ye ought to walk and please God”, 1 Thessalonians 4: 1. It is an obligation put upon us that we ought to please God; every real Christian would desire to be here pleasing to God. I think one way in which we can be helped in walking in the steps of Jesus is to be looking at Him. It speaks of Enoch in that way that he had the testimony. We want to have the testimony before our translation. The testimony today is in the saints. When Jesus was here in manhood He was the testimony. We come into the testimony by looking at Jesus and following in His steps, because He has left us a model for it; a model is something you can look at. That is why I think John here helps us, “looking at Jesus as he walked”. He was the Man of Psalm 1, where it says, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked, and standeth not in the way of sinners, and sitteth not in the seat of scorners; But his delight is in Jehovah’s law, and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1: 1, 2).

That is what governed Jesus here in His walk. The reference to the law is the will of God and He came to accomplish that will. It could be said prophetically in Psalm 119, “Oh how I love thy law! it is

my meditation all the day” (v.97). There never was such language! I think of those precious words, “Oh how I love thy law!” What was in the heart of Jesus, was the law, was the will of God.

It is a test, beloved brethren, as to what is in our hearts. Could it be said of every one of us,

“Oh how I love thy law!”? I think one evidence of it would be in the way we present our bodies, as Paul says, “to present your bodies a living sacrifice”, Romans 12: 1. It means that we are committed to the will of God, and that is to be in the hearts of the saints. We love to be here to do the will of God; we are not here to do our own will or to pursue our own way.

So we have a path of perfection in the Lord Jesus Himself. The only man that it could be said of, “Oh how I love thy law!” and He was like a tree planted by brooks of water, and everything He did prospered. I would encourage us, beloved brethren, to look at Jesus as He walked, so that we might walk in the same steps. This is not the steps of Abraham our father, but it is the steps of Jesus; this is the Man of the Father’s choice. What a wonderful moment when we can just look at Jesus; what pleasure it gave to the Father to look down on the walk of Jesus. In that walk He was weary, it says, “Jesus therefore, being wearied with the way he had come”, John 4: 6. Think of the perfection of the humanity of Jesus, perfect, holy Man, and He was here to do the will of His Father. I do always the things, He says, that please the Father (see John 8: 29). Every step in that way was pleasing to the Father.

Well, what are we looking at, beloved brethren? Let us spend a little more time looking at Jesus as He walked. It will involve separation from the world. Think of the violence and corruption in the world today. Peter speaks about escaping the corruption that is in the world; the one who escapes the corruption is the one who follows in the steps of Jesus. So let us just be looking more at Jesus. We think of a man like Noah, how he

escaped the corruption that was in the world; God could look down upon Noah in his day, He could say, “thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation”, Genesis 7: 1. It says in Noah’s day that the earth was corrupt and full of violence. I would make an appeal to all our younger brethren, and all of us, to escape the corruption that is in the world. The world is no different from what it was in the days of Noah. It is very remarkable that the Lord Jesus Himself refers to the days of Noah. We can all see that the earth today is full of violence and corruption, and our escape from it is to follow in the steps of Jesus. Let us have our eye on Him as He was here and as He is now.

That is why I refer to Hebrews, we are to lay “aside every weight, and sin which so easily entangles us”, that would divert us. It says, in the footnote, ‘It means, looking away from other things and fixing the eye exclusively on one’. It is a race and we do not want to be entangled in the race, so we are to run with endurance. You need to have your eye on the object before you run the race. So it says, “looking stedfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith”. What a wonderful Leader we have in Jesus; He is the Leader and Completer of faith. Just let us spend a little more time looking on Jesus. John was looking at Jesus as He walked, but the word in Hebrews is looking stedfastly on Jesus “who, in view of the joy lying before him, endured the cross, having despised the shame”. If we are following in the steps of Jesus we shall be brought into a path of reproach and suffering. Think of what He endured, He endured the cross; all the reproach that was related to the cross of Christ.

Paul says, “But far be it from me to boast save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world”, Galatians 6: 14. The corruption and violence are in the world, and if we are to escape the corruption we must be on the line of looking steadfastly on Jesus. What an encouragement that is for us. We are tested as to where we are looking. So we want to

have a right objective before us, and what an objective we have before us in the Lord Jesus Himself. Let us look away from the things which would hinder us and have our eye on the Man in the glory, because He is now in the glory. Let this glorious Man who has completed the path of faith be the object before us.

I read from Philippians because we have another reference to looking. Paul has often been referred to as the heavenly man down here, and Paul refers to his steps too, that we should walk in the same steps. It would mean that we are in the same path that Paul was in. So he encourages us by saying, “forgetting the things behind”, let us forget certain things that are behind, and “stretching out to the things, before”. There are many things we can stretch out towards, heavenly things. So Paul says, “looking towards the goal”. Let us keep the goal before us; it is heaven for the saints. We are to be a heavenly people down here with our affections on Christ where He is. Think of Paul’s aim as a Christian! We should have a right aim in our lives as Christians. Paul does not say that he has reached perfection, he says, “Not that I have already obtained the prize, or am already perfected”, Philippians 3: 12. We do not want to be afraid of the word ‘perfect’. Paul’s aim was to reach the goal. He says, “fix your eyes on those walking thus as you have us for a model”. Think of the great objective he would put before the saints, to reach Christ where He is in glory.

It may bring us into suffering and reproach; we may be brought into reproach as confessing the name of Christ. There is salvation for us in confessing Jesus as Lord. It would be a question whether I am a real Christian, if I am not brought into suffering and reproach. That is what Peter says, if we suffer as Christians, “blessed are ye; for the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you”, 1 Peter 4: 14. How the Spirit of glory rested upon Stephen!

They were stoning Stephen, but the Spirit of glory rested on him. So let us have a right

outlook in our Christian life. We have not reached the goal yet, but we are looking towards it.

If we want to get the prize we must reach the goal—“looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”, that is the great objective before the Christian.

We want to be real Christians.

I thought of our walk here involving the testimony. The testimony is maintained today in the walk of the saints, as we follow in the steps of Jesus. How Paul would value those steps. So he says, “let us walk in the same steps”, the steps of Paul were the steps really that were set out in the Model, in Jesus. What suffering was involved for Paul, and what suffering we may yet have to go through. Think of the martyrs who have gone before us, how the Spirit of glory and of God rested upon them. May we be prepared more for the suffering path, for if we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him in glory. The great end in the pathway of the Christian is glory. What an incentive it would give us to follow in the steps of Jesus.

May we be encouraged to be looking at Jesus more as we walk, and looking steadfastly too on Jesus. How often things come in and we waver in our steps. I believe God has great pleasure in looking down on the walk of the saints. May we be encouraged in looking at Jesus more and more for His name’s sake.

Address at Endbach, 11 October 1980

PEACE WITH GOD

R. Taylor

Ephesians 2: 11–14; Romans 4: 25; 5: 1, 2

It is a wonderful thing that men can have peace

with God. The verses we have read in Ephesians show how far off we are without Christ, an immeasurable distance. Paul goes over it to these gentiles that they had no claim at all on God. It says, “without Christ ... without God in the world”. What circumstances to be in, without God! Not that God has given men up, God remains in His faithfulness towards His creature in spite of man’s unfaithfulness. He remains a faithful Creator giving food, and seasons, blessing with His goodness in spite of man’s indifference. Yet what despair lies upon the human heart away from God. It is what has come into the world through sin. It has brought in this great distance between God and His creature, distance that man could never measure or remove. But God in His grace and in His mercy, looking on our condition, has moved from His side.

Job in the Old Testament said, “How can a man be just with God?”, Job 9: 2. What could man do? Job, I suppose, an outstanding example of a righteous man in his generation, saw that man could never make peace or be just with God. He says no matter what man brought, would anything be pure in His sight? Would anything that man could bring ever satisfy God about man’s condition and the sins of man’s history? Job rightly assessed that there was no way that man could ever reach or be just with God. If man could not make any move, God has made a move from His own side. In the riches of His own grace and mercy He has made the move. In Christ Jesus a Man has come onto view from God’s side who was able, as Job says, to “lay his hand upon us both” (Job 9: 33), that is upon man, the sinner, and upon God.

What a Man! Paul speaks of Him like that, “the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus”, 1 Timothy 2: 5. How wonderful that there is a Man who has been able to glorify God in the very scene where He has been dishonoured. That is what it says about Him, “Christ Jesus came into the world”, 1 Timothy 1: 15. That Person came into the world to save sinners. There is told out in a Man, God’s heart of love

in all its fulness, as no angel or law could ever express it. He came into the world, came into the circumstances that you and I are found in, came in to save. The hymn-writer says as to mercy—

‘Brightly it beamed on men forlorn,

When Christ, the holy Child, was born’. (Hymn 366)

What a day in the history of time when God in the Person of His Son. Christ Jesus, came into the world, bringing with Him in His body all that was needed to reach the sinner in all his despair. O how accessible He was! The outcasts of society found refuge in the arms of Jesus; persons whom men would have nothing to do with. He reached them and freely handled them. Think of how He spoke to the lepers, how He spoke to the demoniac, these outcasts shut out as unfit for man’s company, the Lord Jesus reached them as coming near to where they were. He touched the circumstances in which they were, sin apart, holy, blessed, glorious Man. The whole world under God’s eye took on a different colour when Jesus came in. The angels celebrated that. They had seen the guilt that lay upon the world, perhaps they felt the impossible position the world was in. They must have felt what had come into the race, into God’s fair creation, marred and stained by sin and all that had developed from it.

The angels must have seen that and wondered. But at the incoming of Jesus they saw the world as a different place, they saw something fresh there. They celebrated the One who had come in. How just those acclamations, as the hymn says, when Jesus was born—

‘How rightly rose the praises

Of heaven that wondrous night,

When shepherds hid their faces

In brightest angel-light!’.

They saw there, as they proclaimed that message, that a Saviour had been born. What a day it was for this world! A Saviour was born to men, “a Saviour has been born to you ... who is Christ the Lord”, Luke 2: 11. He

was distinguished. Even as a Babe He was distinguished, “who is Christ the Lord”. A Man was there, but a Man of a different kind, “taking his place in the likeness of men”

(Philippians 2: 8), coming into the conditions of humanity, but coming into them and bringing into them the grace and wealth of divine love that was never expressed before. It says, “I will send my beloved son—perhaps when they see him they will respect him”, Luke 20: 13. Think of God’s feelings in sending His Son, proclaiming the wealth and glory of His nature, not through an angel or a prophet, but in His own Son. It says, “perhaps when they see him”, as if God could hardly understand that man would turn away from the presentation of His grace and love in the person of His Son.

But now in the Mediator there is One who could lay His hand upon the throne of God, and uphold the righteous claims of that throne, and yet could lay His hand upon you and me, sinners in all our need. What a Saviour! He is the Man of God’s providing, who could meet all that lay upon the sinner, and yet could uphold the righteous claims of God’s throne, because God could never change in His nature. Much as God loved His creature, He could never give up the holiness of His being and nature to accommodate man in his sinfulness. But the wonder of His love is that God in His Son has upheld the holy, righteous claims of His throne and has provided, at infinite cost to Himself, in the Saviour the means whereby man can be reconciled to God.

What a message He thus proclaims in the gospel. Would that all who are without Christ would feel it that there is no hope without Christ. The hopelessness of man’s arrangements becomes more apparent day by day, as the years go on and man’s intelligence seemingly improves, but yet the hopelessness of his position becomes more and more apparent without God and without Christ. But to bring near those who were afar off, it says it was by “the blood of the Christ”. The price had to be paid that man could never pay. The

claims of God’s throne had to be met in their fulness, and could only be met, by Christ Jesus and the blood of His cross. Not even His person being here alone could meet those claims; but in being here in those days of His flesh, thirty-three and a half years, there was portrayed the worthiness, the substantiality of the Man Christ Jesus. He was tempted of the devil and the devil had to leave Him. As He Himself says, “the ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing”, John 14: 30. No one in His presence was ever left in despair. The hymn-writer says—

‘Thousands have fled to His spear-piercèd side;

Welcome they all have been, none are denied;

Weary and laden, they all have been blest;

Joyfully now in the Saviour they rest’. (Hymn 169)

It brought out the worthiness and the ability of such a Man to meet the claims of God’s throne, and it is from that basis and through that price that the gospel goes forth; the claims of God’s throne and His holiness have been met by “the blood of the Christ”. That meant that He took our place. Elsewhere it speaks of “the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1: 20), the blood of those sufferings, the blood of One who was there in the sinner’s place. He endured the wrath and the judgment of God that was due to the race. Who else could have met it? The people cried, “his blood be on us”, Matthew 27: 25. Had God taken them at their word there would have been eternal judgment. But there was One who Himself took the sinner’s place before God. He moved in the majesty of His person to that cross. Men took Him it would seem, but they were powerless. It seemed man’s hour, it seemed Satan’s hour. My friend, it was God’s hour, it was Christ’s hour when He was meeting the holy claims of God’s righteous throne, and meeting it to God’s eternal satisfaction. It involved for Him that He was forsaken there on the cross as bearing the judgment of God on our account.

‘None could follow there, blest Saviour,

When Thou didst for sins atone’. (Hymn 298)

Those were the greatest three hours I believe in the history of the universe, when Christ was forsaken by God on the cross. What He bore, what He endured, none can ever know, and yet the blessing of that work flows through time and will flow through all eternity. He has met the claims of God’s holy throne so that “now in Christ Jesus ye who once were afar off are become nigh”. God would tell you afresh tonight how near He wants you. The whole wealth of His house is open to the sinner as becoming nigh through the blood of Jesus. A price that none other could pay, He has paid in full. It says, “now in Christ Jesus”, God’s anointed Man.

He has been given a name that is above every name, because if He went that way to the cross, to the tomb, in holy love, He has been raised from the dead by the Father’s glory and exalted.

The work is finished; a work that involved the sacrifice of Himself, the shedding of His blood, and that He was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. That is how far, how deep, the Saviour went. He speaks about Himself as the Son of man, being three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12: 40). What a feeling matter it was to Him as He contemplated that He should measure the distance, He should taste the awfulness, but Christ Jesus is the Man who has been exalted. The cross could not hold Him; the grave could not hold Him. He fills heaven and will fill it for all eternity, the Man Christ Jesus.

From God’s side peace has been made; peace that man could never make. The scripture says,

“he is our peace”, “he”. The hymn-writer says that the sinner who believes can point to the atoning blood and say, This made my peace with God. Can you say that? As Paul says, “we have peace towards God”. It is one of the greatest possessions that the human heart can have, to have peace with God. It may be it will not change the circumstances of your life, whatever they may be, at school, or work, or elsewhere, but it changes you in those circumstances if you have peace with God in the circumstances. Then whatever they may be or however

they may change, there is a peace with God that cannot be changed because it is in Christ Jesus. It is not only His work, that is the basis of it, but He, the Person, the Man whom God has exalted to his right hand, “he is our peace”.

So Paul says, “on the principle of faith, we have peace towards God”; faith in what Jesus has done; faith that He bore my sins. That is what peace flows from, that He bore my sins in His body on the tree (1 Peter 2: 24). He established peace, He laid the righteous basis of it, that all may come into the blessedness of peace with God, but it is on the principle of faith. Do you believe God, that without Christ you are lost? Faith means that you believe God has paid the price in the work of Jesus, and through faith in Christ God looks upon you as in Christ Jesus.

Because He is no longer here on earth; He is a glorified Man in heaven, but He is there for my acceptance. Blessed truth! Christ is in the presence of God for the believer’s acceptance.

That was the meaning of the type of the burnt-offering. As you look at the offerings, the burnt-offering was the most precious, speaking of Jesus in His humanity, in all His preciousness and His sweetness; it says that the burnt-offering was for our acceptance.

Believers are accepted in the blessed worth and glory of that Man. As having put their faith in Jesus about their history and their sins and their condition. God accepts and looks upon them as in Christ. That is peace.

Will God ever change His view of Christ? He has given Him a name that is above every name (Philippians 2: 9). He has exalted Him to the highest place in heaven. He is installed there in all His glory, and that eternally. It is impossible for God to change His mind about Christ, and so it is impossible for God to change His mind about believers who have put their faith in Christ, and that is peace. We may lose the joy of it through our lack of faith but peace with God can never be disturbed. Paul says, “we have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom we have also access by faith into this favour in which we stand”. It says earlier, “Jesus our Lord, who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification”. I believe that because we are justified our souls are assured of peace towards God. God’s justification means that you are cleared about all your history, “It is God who justifies”, Romans 8: 33. If He has justified, does it matter if any other voice is raised in condemnation? What a critic we have in Satan, the accuser of the brethren, it calls him (Revelation 12: 10), but it is God who justifies. God has the last word. Satan has no power in the presence of the word of God, which says, “Jesus our Lord ... has been raised for our justification”. Our justification is in a Man who has borne our sins, who has been raised from among the dead and is now at the right hand of God. Justification means that you are cleared from all your history. God has removed it. Something that man could never do. Men’s records remain. You can think of a prisoner whose record is there, and it may be written over the record that the court has cleared him, but the record remains. But in justification God has destroyed the record. All that we ever were is removed eternally from His eye, and we are placed, justified, in the Man at His right hand. How precious Christ is to God!

So we have peace with God that can never be disturbed; peace that is to fill the believer’s heart through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. In the circumstances of life God sets Him forth to be everything to the believer. Whatever comes up, we are justified in Christ. The passage goes on to speak of much more. It is not only that we have been cleared; that is a blessed matter to be cleared of all that we are and of all our histories, but it is only one step. The next step is that we are embraced in the arms of divine love, and that is reconciliation. Justification in Christ means that our past is cleared, but reconciliation means that we are embraced in all the fulness of what divine love has

purposed. It is all part of having peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. May we know the blessedness of that unchanging peace, through our Lord Jesus Christ. He is our peace. May it be more firmly established in our hearts tonight, for Christ’s name’s sake.

Preaching at Rotherham
5 March 1995