By way of gathering up what has already been before us, may I very hurriedly bring before you again what we judge to be the Lord’s object, or our understanding and apprehension, at this time in these gatherings.
It is that the Lord is concerned about all things for the glory and honour of His name.
We have been seeing how God’s sovereignty and power are always brought into operation in the interests of His name, for no other reason.
The honour of His name is bound up with a people. He has bound up His name and its glory with a people; and that glory is found in a people in right, and wealth, and food, and wonders. These things, spiritually interpreted, are the things which display His glory in His people.
Then, in the third place, we went on to say that there are certain factors which God knows as the basis for His work in securing that state in His people.
Last evening, we gave our whole time to seeing the characteristics in Gideon, a typical instrument in the hand of God, altogether for the glory of His name in His people. Those of you who were here will remember the things which came to light as characteristics of Gideon in relation to God’s purpose.
This morning, we were occupied with the fact that God calls instruments specifically according to His purpose—that is, with His glory as the end in view.
Now, this afternoon, we shall look at that matter again from a different angle.
I just remind you of the words addressed to Gideon in Judges 6:12 and 14. You know them so well by now that you hardly need to look them up.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him,
The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.
And the Lord looked upon him, and said,
Go in this thy might, and save Israel.
Now I want to read some words that are familiar to you in the letter to the Philippians, chapter 2.
Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,
But emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men;
And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name which is above every name;
That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth,
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Our occupation this afternoon is the ground of the presence and power of God.
If one thing is evident about Gideon, it is that he illustrates the power of weakness.
I have on the flyleaf of my Bible something that I wrote there many years ago, in a time of perplexity and difficulty in the work of the Lord, when I was seeking very much to know the way of strength, power, and wisdom. I came upon this. It is in the life of Lilias Trotter, whose work in North Africa will be known to many of you.
It reads:
So many questions lie ahead concerning the work. A great comforting came to me this morning in reading the twenty-eighth chapter of the book of Job, about the way of wisdom and the place thereof. It tells how God findeth a way for the wind, and the water, and the lightning. And it came with a blessed power: the way for the wind is the region of the greatest emptiness; the place for the water is the place of the lowest depth; the way for the lightning, as science proves, is along the line of the greatest weakness. If any man lack, there is God’s condition for the inflow of spiritual understanding. Praise be to His name.
The ground of the presence and power of God, of course, inclusively and pre-eminently, is His jealousy for His name in the heart of any servant of His.
But the way of power is the way of the cross.
The words which we have read, with which we are perhaps too familiar in the letter to the Philippians, unveil to us the meaning of the cross.
Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
In other words, let your mentality be the mentality of Christ; your mindedness, the mindedness of Christ.
Oh, here we have a wonderful thing. In these words, we read the motive of the incarnation and the cross.
He looked right into the glory, into the presence of God where the Father is, and reached the decision there to leave that estate, to come here, and take the way of the cross. He reached a movement in the mind of Christ.
The motive was evidently the fact that another name had taken the place of the Lord’s name—His Father’s name—and had not only intruded, but had come into the place of the name of the Lord.
That being the case, we know the whole story: the story of the one who said, “I will, I will be equal with the Most High,” who sought to make for himself a name above every name.
It was not enough for the Son to retain equality with God in heaven while His Father’s name was dishonoured on earth. He could not be there and be comfortable, be satisfied. Indeed, He could not endure it: that He should be there in His glory, in possession of that estate, while in the creation another name was being honoured—another name had usurped His Father’s name.
The motive was jealousy for the name of God, jealousy for God’s honour. That lay behind everything. He emptied Himself, and all the other things mentioned here, which we are going to look at one by one.
First of all, the incarnation, the cross, and the answering exaltation above all rested upon one thing: jealousy for the name of God.
Of course, God highly exalted Him. Oh, the steps of that great cycle, from glory back to glory, that relate to this purpose. All that was in jealousy for His Father’s name.
This mind, this kind of mindedness—unless you have got a motive adequate to it, you will not do all this.
It is a bitter misuse to apply this Scripture to Christians and say, “Now, you ought to have the mind of Christ, and the mind of Christ works out in this way and that way; you have got to be like-minded.” That can bring a tremendous amount of pressure and weight, like a legal obligation, to bear upon people. I am not a bit like that. That is not at all my way.
You have got to have a motive strong enough to make you take this path of the cross—strong enough to make it something that you must do, that you cannot help doing. The very mindedness of Christ meant that He could not help it. The constraint of this jealousy for His Father’s name was so strong upon Him that there was nothing else to do. He must take this way.
Dear friends, I believe that at this very time there is a very great need in the people of God and in the service of God today for more of this terribly fierce jealousy for the name, the honour, and the glory of the Lord.
This whole thing begins, we see, with a motive. But that motive led to a reckoning.
In the motive was an account. It says, “He counted it not a thing to be grasped, to be held on to, to be equal with God.” He counted. A reckoning took place with Him—that is the implication.
On the one side, He had a place that He occupied with God. He had the glory of which He spoke in His prayer: “The glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” He had that. Here He was, in possession of all this.
But there was His Father’s name on earth, and another name had been put in its place.
Was His having this position and all this glory of greater importance than His Father’s name being glorified down there? He faced the conclusion: no.
Putting these two things in the balances—His own glory and personal position on the one hand, and His Father’s name being glorified on earth on the other—His own glory was of far less importance. The honour of the Father’s name in the creation altogether outweighed His own glory and personal fullness.
It was a reckoning. He counted. He reckoned.
Now the apostle says, “Let this mind be in you.” He sees the issue, the wonderful issue, of Christ’s committing Himself, we may rightly say, in a fuller way than ever before, to His life’s purpose. God gave Him the name which is above every name.
Now, in the name of Jesus—the incarnate Lord—every knee in the universe shall bow, and every tongue confess Him Lord of all.
In view of that, the apostle says, “Let this mind be in you.” In other words, if God is going to commit Himself to you, if God is going to manifest Himself with you, and if the power of God is going to rest upon what you do, you have got to have a fundamental reckoning.
This is something which every servant of God has to face at the outset, for this, after all, is the thing which constitutes the servant of God. This is the very essence of service.
What is service? What is the essence of service? What is it that makes a servant of God?
We talk about the Lord’s service. Sometimes we substitute the Lord’s work. We are concerned and anxious to be in the service of the Lord, and then we think about missionary work and ministry, one thing and another. This really is what we mean by the service of the Lord, and by being in the Lord’s service.
But what is the heart and essence of service? What is a servant of the Lord?
It is nothing more, because there can be nothing more; and it is nothing less, in truth, than bringing glory and honour to the name of the Lord. That covers and encompasses all service, and that makes the servant of the Lord.
We may do a thousand things, but unless it results in the Lord’s name being honoured, it is not service to God.
Jesus is the great Servant of the Lord. There never was a servant of the Lord like Him. He has served the Father as none other has ever served, or could ever serve, the Father.
How has He done it? He has brought back the Father’s name to its place of honour and glory. He has come down and entered into the dispute with the other name. Now He is above every name. He has dealt with the challenge to the Father’s place, and in that way He is the consummate Servant of all.
Let this mind be in you.
We have got to weigh all our personal activities and efforts in this way: how much is the Lord coming into His own, into His place? Not, “How much am I doing?” but, “How much positive glory for the name of the Lord is bound up with what I am doing?”
That is followed out in the fuller analysis of this great teaching in the letter to the Philippians. I was saying that this is something every servant of God, every aspirant to service for God, has got to settle at the outset: a reckoning, a reckoning of comparative value.
Moses made that reckoning. It is said that he accounted the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. Accounting—that is the word.
Look how very great were all the treasures of Egypt: his place, his learning, everything that he had in the palace of Egypt. On the other hand, there were a poor, despised, afflicted people, the Israelites.
He weighed it all out at the beginning, and the issue was this: there were greater riches down there than in all this. “I weigh these things up, and what is of greater importance is that the name of the Lord is involved. The Lord has chosen that people, the seed of Abraham, to be the vessel of the glory of His name. That is my place, whatever it costs.”
It was a reckoning.
Paul did the same. He weighed it all out: “The things which were gain to me”—and he tabulates them, and you know what they were—everything that the natural heart would prize. “The things which were gain to me, these have I counted loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.”
Here is a basic reckoning. But what that accounting led to: all the suffering, all the affliction, all the trials, everything. Yet Paul never abandoned that position.
That is one of the most wonderful things. All that he had to suffer, all the consequences of his great decision and reckoning—Paul, to the end, held on to this: “It is better. It is better to be here with Christ than to have all this and be back there without Him.” He weighed it all up.
Now that is a very, very serious challenge, is it not? You will not come to that conclusion for that name and take that step of letting everything else go—all other possibilities and prospects—unless you have that tremendously strong and high estimate of the glory of God.
But if you have an adequate and right conception of the glory of God, and what that is going to mean in this universe, you see everything else, however great, as very small in comparison.
“I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed.” I reckon. Weigh it up.
We are involved in a very great deal of suffering, affliction, trial, and difficulty when we take a stand for the name of the Lord, for the glory of that name. It is a very costly step.
We shall only be able to maintain that stand if we have made this fundamental reckoning.
The Lord Jesus always required such a basic reckoning, did He not? He never deceived anybody. When He called to discipleship and fellowship with Himself, He made it perfectly clear: “You are in for a bad time, I tell you frankly. This way is going to be a very costly way. Do not make any mistake about it.”
The man who is going to war sits down and counts his resources. “Can I not only make a beginning, but go right through with it? Have I resources to carry me through?”
The man who is going to build a tower sits down. “Now, have I the means not merely to lay a foundation and make a beginning, but to complete this thing? Can I go through with it?”
In those words, the Lord Jesus was only saying what we are saying now: “Look here, you have got to have a fundamental reckoning over this. This mind which was in Christ Jesus must be in you, and you have got to settle something. This is a thing that has got to be settled.”
It is a battle that seems to spring up again and again, does it not?
Yet something has got to be done about it. I do want to urge upon you, my younger friends, that you are going to have a very difficult time. All hell is going to range itself against you if you take a stand for the honour of the name of the Lord. You are going to have a bad time, but you have got to make the reckoning: “Is it worth it? Is that name worth it? Is that glory worth it?”
Well, after the reckoning came the emptying. “He counted it not a thing to be grasped, to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself.”
Although, of course, there is such a difference both in kind and degree between Him and ourselves that we can never empty ourselves of that of which He emptied Himself—we never had it; we have not got it—that is true. We have no glory that corresponds to His glory.
Yet, although there is so great a difference between Him and ourselves, the principle is the same. The principle is the same.
There is, even with us, strange as it may seem, that which is our personal glory. Poor wretched things as we are, and know ourselves to be, somehow or other it almost takes a lifetime to get emptied of the things picked up along the way which we prize and hold on to.
He emptied Himself; and if the principle were not the same with us as with Him, Paul would never say, “Let this same mind be in you.” Kind and measure make a difference, ah, but the principle is the same: the emptying.
The whole story of Gideon is a declaration that a vessel must never have any glory of its own. The pencil, the knife, that God uses, has no personal glory. Glory has got to be the Lord’s, and the Lord’s only.
The story declares that, does it not? Take the man himself. Take the means which the Lord used for the work. It was a case, as we shall see later, of reducing, reducing, reducing—bringing down, less and less—never allowing anything whatever to come into this business which would contribute to the glory of the instrument.
When that thing was done, everybody had to say, “Well, that is perfectly marvellous, to think that that could be done with such instruments in such a way.”
The Lord was taking precautions, was He not? “Lest Israel vaunt themselves.” There is no glory to the vessel. No; it is the glory of the name. And that glory of the name is exclusive of all other glory.
Dear friends, what am I talking about? I am talking about the ground of the presence and power of God.
“The Lord is with thee. Go in this thy might.” The presence and the power are grounded in this: the utter ending of all personal glory and ground of glory.
Or shall we put it the other way? It is providing the Lord with an utter ground for His own glory. The Lord takes infinite pains to secure that ground.
The whole story of weakness and limitation, and all those things of which we have spoken, are necessary simply because men love their names, their reputations, attention to themselves, and their own honours. They hold themselves by titles in the work of the Lord. They advertise themselves, or are advertised, as the great instrument that is going to do this. And there is the appalling state of things after two thousand years.
No, the ground of the presence and power is this. It was true in the case of the Lord Jesus, undoubtedly: He made Himself of no reputation.
Men are always trying to make reputations for themselves in the sphere of God’s interests, and God is not in it. He has nothing to do with it. Get on with it and do what you can with what you like, but you cannot count upon the presence and power of God.
The form and function: in man’s likeness, in a bondservant’s function. I am not going to stay with the technical points of the different words here in the original text; that would not be very edifying or helpful to you just at the moment.
But what it amounts to is this: in the form of a man, in man’s likeness, the function which He accepted, adopted, and fulfilled was the function of a bondservant. That is what it says.
As a man, in man’s likeness, all I am going to say about that here, in keeping with this whole matter of presence and power, is this: He did not appear here as some superior being of another order.
So far as the world looking on could tell, there was no difference between Him and other men. Whatever difference there was was altogether hidden from the world. They could look at Him, judge Him, speak to Him, handle Him, and deal with Him just as they would deal with any other man.
He was not some superior being of another order. You see, there is a principle there of tremendous significance and importance where the Lord is concerned.
We have said that the great tendency is to put men up and make them a superior kind. “They are great; they are wonderful; they are superior; they are above the ordinary kind of man in the work of God.” Oh, what is said in the columns about the wonderful things that this man has done, and so on.
Look at this poor thing, if you will—the man-form. Man-form; not angel-form, not some superior order of creation, just man-form.
We seek our embellishments to make an impression. We add things to convey to people that here is something different and other, to gain access and acceptance, and so on.
None of that was in the mentality, the mindedness, of the Lord Jesus. If we have not got spiritual influence, God save us from artificially trying to make it. You are having it by artificial means. Oh, no, none of that.
The name that God gives is not artificial, not self-advertised, not a name of one’s own making. That is enough for that.
The form of a bondservant—a bondservant. “I am among you,” said He, “as He that serveth.” “I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”
What a challenge, what a challenge to so much there is in Christianity. “I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” A bondservant, not a dictator; not an autocrat; not a master; a servant.
Surely He was Lord, but this is the ground of the presence and the power. That is the point. God was with Him because He was like that.
And then, obedience. He became obedient.
Before the incarnation, He could command, and angels would run quickly at His behest. At the slightest gesture or indication, they would move in obedience.
But now He was the One who had to be told, ordered, brought under direction: obedient unto death.
That little word “unto” has a double meaning. It means right up to death—the final phase, the final point, the final pattern of obedience, with no more to be done beyond it.
But, oh, it also implies the depth to which He went: unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
How utter was this bondservant functioning. How utter was this self-emptying. The cross here is set as the uttermost expression of God’s will, the fullness and finality of the will of God: right through to the last degree, and down to the deepest depth.
“Let this mind be in you.”
From that point, God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name which is above every name. That is the purpose.
Well, these things constitute, as we set out to say, the ground of the presence and power: “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.”
The strength of weakness, the strength of emptiness—what is the strength of this weakness, of this emptiness? What is the strength of all this that is no honour to man at all?
It is simply that the Lord is with us. That is all.
What more would you want? What more could we have? If the Lord is with us—if God is for us, who can be against us? That is strength. That is power. That is assurance. That is certainty.
It is all right because the Lord is with us, no matter how weak and empty we are, how little there is that we have to draw upon. It does not matter that we have no name, reputation, title, or merits—anything else to display and proclaim. If the Lord is with us, that is enough.
Strangely enough, it is not enough for many today. They must have the publicity, and all that sort of thing. They do not consider it enough to have the Lord with them. The Lord seems to them inadequate, so they depend upon newspaper advertisements and proclamations about their own wonderful gifts, persons, and works.
Not at all. It is enough, it is enough, if the Lord is with us. That will be all the power that is necessary.
Do you want to know the Lord’s presence? Do you want to know the power of God resting upon you?
Well, it is the strength of weakness, the strength of weakness. The wind, the water, and the lightning all find their way where there is weakness.
The Lord give us this grace, this mind which was also in Christ Jesus. We need Him, and we need His mind.