Will you please turn to Philippians 3? We begin with verse 13.
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before,
I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also shall God reveal unto you.
Turn also to 2 Timothy 1.
Who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal,
but hath now been manifested by the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel.
And Hebrews 3:1-2.
Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus;
who was faithful to Him that appointed Him.
Finally, Revelation 2:7.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, as we gather here this morning, our hearts are full of thanksgiving. We praise and thank Thee for all the mercies, grace, love, and faithfulness that Thou hast bestowed upon us during these past few days.
We do want to bow and worship Thee, and give to Thee power, glory, honor, wisdom, and might, because they all belong to Thee. We also want to give to Thee the love that Thou hast implanted in our hearts. Lord, how we want to cry out and say, “Thou art worthy, O Lamb of God.”
As we come to this last meeting, Lord, we believe that Thou art with us, and we ask that Thou wilt continue to speak that which Thou hast yet to speak to us. We pray that nothing will be left unfinished, but we trust Thy Holy Spirit to finish the work that Thou hast begun, because Thou art faithful.
To Thee be the glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We have been considering together this matter of the recovery work of God. We know that what God has been doing, and is still doing—especially in our days—is the work of recovery.
Recovery is not only related to that which has been lost. Indeed, much has been lost. But recovery is more than that. It is not only to restore all that has been lost, but even to go further into the realization of the eternal purpose of God, which He has purposed in Christ Jesus.
He is going to recover all. We find that through our Lord Jesus, God has recovered. This morning, we would like to consider together the matter of the call to recovery.
When God is doing the work of recovery, He sends out a call to His people, calling His people to join with Him and to work with Him in this work of recovery. This is one of the mysteries of the work of God.
When God created the heavens and the earth, He did not send out that call. He did not ask for any help; as a matter of fact, there was none there to help Him. He created all things by Himself.
But when He came to this matter of the recovery work of God, we find that God does something very different. Instead of doing the work all by Himself, He has determined that He will not do that work unless He has the cooperation of His own.
In a sense, we are limiting Him, but it is His good pleasure to do so. We do not know why He changed His way. Why is it that in creation He did it all by Himself, and why is it that in recovery He refuses to do it by Himself and desires us to work with Him, even though we know fully well that He is actually the One who does the work?
We do not know why. It is the good pleasure of His will; that is all we can say. Probably it is because of the very nature of the work of recovery, because that work involves us.
Dear brothers and sisters, we feel that it is a great honor and privilege that, in this recovery work of God, He should ask us to work with Him. It should humble us deeply. Who are we? We are nothing. We are worse than nothing.
We know how we have delayed, postponed, endangered, and sometimes even tried to distort and hinder His work rather than help Him. We know it very well. Yet it is the good pleasure of His will that He wants us to be involved in this work of recovery.
On the other hand, this shows us that we have a very serious and great responsibility. We need to respond to Him.
Lately, I heard one brother define the word responsibility, and I thought it was wonderful. He said, “Responsibility is to respond to His ability.” I think that is very real.
On the one hand, it is our responsibility; but what our responsibility really is, is to respond to His ability. I do hope that we who have heard that call will respond to His ability.
In Philippians 3, the apostle Paul tells us that we are called to a high calling. In other words, the calling that comes to us is not a low one. It is a high calling. It is a tremendous calling that God has called us to.
It is a calling for us to pursue—to possess that which we have been possessed of by God. It is a calling that we should arrive at the goal that God has set before us. It is according to the prize that God has prepared for those who pursue Him. It is a high calling.
We know that the letter to the Philippians was written by the apostle Paul when he was in a Roman prison. He was chained to a guard and was waiting to appear before Caesar. His future was in the balance; he did not know what would come out of it.
Added to that, we find that those Judaizers who had dogged his steps and followed him throughout his ministry finally followed him even to Rome. Even when he was put away in prison, they were still trying to increase his bonds.
Paul was in a very bad situation. He was in Rome not because he had committed any crime; he was in Rome for the gospel’s sake.
Then he heard that the church he loved so much, and the church that loved him so much—there was such mutual affection between him and the church in Philippi—had something that cast a shadow over the whole church: two leading sisters had a lasting rivalry.
Because of the rivalry of two leading sisters, the whole church lost her joy. And you know, when you lose joy, you lose strength. When Paul heard about the whole thing, it must have added, in a sense, to the burden that was already upon him.
It would be very natural for a person in that kind of situation to give up, to be disappointed, and to be discouraged. “What is the use of it? I have been laboring, laying down my life for the gospel, and here I am in prison. The church that I have labored for and love so much has problems.”
It seemed as if everything was wrong. What was the use of continuing? But here in this letter to the Philippians, Paul says, “I pursue. I forget the things behind me, and I stretch myself forward toward the goal, the high calling, the prize that God has called me to.”
Brothers and sisters, why was it possible for Paul to react in this way? When we are in a bad situation, when we find ourselves bound, when the work God has used us to do seems to be falling apart, naturally we say, “What is the use of it? Just give it up.” That is the natural reaction.
But not with the apostle Paul. It was not because he did not know the situation. It was because he set his mind upon the Lord Jesus:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death;
if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.
Even though he was passing through all these problems and difficulties, his eyes were not upon the problems, the difficulties, or the falling apart. His eyes were upon the Lord. He pursued after the Lord.
Because he set his eyes upon the Lord, he set his mind on possessing that for which he had been possessed by the Lord. In other words, he wanted all that Christ had done for him to become a reality in him.
With that kind of attitude, he said, “I pursue.” The high calling is to possess Christ and all His fullness.
Brothers and sisters, the calling with which we are called is a high calling. It is not a low calling. The calling we receive is a calling of recovery. It is according to the fullness of Christ.
No matter what happens, no matter what we have gone through, there is only one response we can make: press on. We have to forget what is behind and stretch ourselves toward the goal, the high calling, to possess Him as He has possessed us.
In 2 Timothy, the apostle Paul mentions this matter of the holy calling: “He who has saved us has called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His purpose and grace, which He ordained before the foundation of the world in Christ Jesus.”
Brothers and sisters, we are called to a holy calling. Holy simply means an uncommon calling. It is very easy to be common. It is very easy to go with the current. This is natural to us because that is the easy way.
But we are not called with a common calling. We are called with a holy calling. It is uncommon, unique, and special.
This calling is not according to the unsaved, because the apostle Paul says, “He has saved us and called us with a holy calling.” In other words, it is a calling to the saved ones. We who have been saved are now called to a holy calling.
What is that holy calling? It is a calling according to purpose—the eternal purpose of God in Christ Jesus. We all know that the purpose of God is that Christ may have the preeminence in all things; that Christ may be all and in all; that all things may be summed up, headed up, in Christ.
We also know that the purpose of God is that He will have a bride, His counterpart, just like Him and united with Him for eternity in glory. That is the purpose of God, and this purpose constitutes that holy calling. It is so uncommon.
It is a real problem among God’s people today because we do not understand our calling. We think our calling is to be saved, or that our calling is to go to heaven. We do not know that our calling is a holy one according to purpose.
The apostle Paul says that it is according to purpose and grace. If we know the purpose of God and have a willingness to respond, then grace is there to fulfill that calling.
It is not according to our works. We cannot work to fulfill our holy calling. Nobody can. It is only by the grace of God that we are able to fulfill that calling.
Why did the apostle Paul mention this in 2 Timothy? We know that 2 Timothy was written by the apostle on the eve of his martyrdom. His condition was actually worse than when he wrote the letter to the Philippians.
When he wrote Philippians, even though he was chained to a guard, he had much freedom. He could live in his own hired apartment, receive people, preach the kingdom, and teach the things concerning Jesus Christ without hindrance.
But now the condition was entirely different. A few years later, probably in A.D. 67, perhaps in the winter of that year, he wrote the second letter to Timothy. He knew that martyrdom was before him, so he wrote to his son in the truth, Timothy.
The whole situation had changed. Nero burned Rome and made Christians the scapegoats. Persecution was everywhere, and Paul was arrested again and taken to Rome as a criminal of the nation.
Most likely he was put in a dungeon, hard to find. The brother who came looking for him eventually found him, but it was very difficult even to find him.
Paul said, “All Asia turned away from me.” Asia was the place where Paul had laid down his life. Yet at this critical moment, all Asia forsook him.
The churches in Asia might not have left the Lord or given up their faith, but they gave up Paul. Paul was too dangerous. Anyone associated with Paul would be in danger, and everybody was thinking of themselves.
Some commentators go further and say that they not only rejected Paul because of the danger, but that they actually rejected his teaching. They thought his teaching was too hard and too uncompromising.
During that period of change and persecution, they believed that one needed to be more diplomatic, more careful, and to compromise a little bit. They said, “You cannot go on in this absolute way.” So they rejected the teaching of Paul.
During his first defense, no one stood by him. No one would stand by him to testify for his character. He was there alone, but he said he was not alone, because the Lord was with him.
In that kind of background, Paul wrote this letter to Timothy. Paul knew Timothy very well. Timothy was not really a young man at that time, but he was naturally a timid person. He was not like Paul.
He was weak in temperament, as it were, and weak even physically. Paul knew that for Timothy to face that kind of situation would be very difficult.
Very naturally, when Timothy was faced with that kind of situation, he would probably try to hide himself and draw back.
So Paul wrote to him and said, “When you are in that kind of situation, it is not the time to retreat. It is time to advance. God has not given us a spirit of cowardice; He has given us the spirit of love, of faith, and of discretion.”
He exhorted Timothy to suffer as a soldier of Jesus Christ. He exhorted him to keep all that he had learned and seen in Paul. He exhorted Timothy not to give up, not to give in, but to be faithful to the very end.
Paul realized that, at that moment, the church was not what it ought to be. In 1 Timothy, he had written of the church as the house of God, the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, and the great mystery of godliness.
That was 1 Timothy, written shortly after Paul was released from Roman prison, probably in A.D. 64. But within a few years, everything had changed.
When he considered the church, he would not even say, “This is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth, the great mystery of godliness.” No. He says that the church is like a great house with vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor—vessels of gold and silver, and vessels of wood and earth.
The exhortation Paul gave to Timothy was this: “You need to purify yourself from these.” By this cleansing, you need to purify yourself from being a vessel of dishonor. Many had become vessels of wood and earth.
They had become common. They had lost their uniqueness. They tried to merge themselves with the world so that the world would not notice them. You can do the same in that great house.
But Paul says, “No. You need to purify yourself from these and become a vessel of honor.” When many have become common, this is the time that you have to be holy. You have to be a vessel of gold and silver, fit for the Master’s use.
When you find that everything is falling away, outwardly everything seems to have fallen apart, what do you do? Do you give up? Do you give in? Do you become common? No.
When you are faced with that kind of situation, it is the time that you should seek and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call upon the Lord out of a pure heart.
Brothers and sisters, are we not today in that kind of situation? The pressure of the world is so great. Among God’s people there is a falling away. The gospel has been compromised. Many have become common, wood and earthen vessels, though they are still in that great house.
Everything we hold dear seems to be falling apart. Outwardly, there seems to be nothing there. When you are in that kind of situation, are you offended?
The word of the Lord is: pursue. Pursue righteousness. Others may be unrighteous; they may not do the right thing or be right before God. But you must pursue righteousness.
Others may have lost their first love, but you need to pursue that love. Although they give up their faith and compromise, you need to stand firm in faith. Others may lose peace, but you have to pursue peace.
You have to pursue, with all that is possible to you, peace with your brothers and sisters. Thank God, you are not alone. Pursue these things with those who call upon the Lord out of a pure heart.
Brothers and sisters, do not look for great things. Do not go for great numbers. Do not look for a restoration of outward form. They will not come. But find those who call upon the Lord out of a pure heart, and pursue the Lord together to fulfill our holy calling.
We need to fight the good fight. We need to finish our race. We need to keep our faith. As Paul said, there is a crown of righteousness waiting for him—not only for him, but for all those who love the appearing of the Lord.
We know the Lord is coming soon. Our time is very short. This is not the time for us to draw back. This is not the time to brood over our wounds. This is the time to pursue with those who pursue the Lord with a pure heart. It is a call to recovery.
Again, we find in Hebrews that the writer says, “Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.”
Probably the letter to the Hebrews was written in the latter part of the sixties, before the temple was destroyed. It was probably already the time when Christianity, if we may use that word, was known as something different from Judaism.
In the beginning, people considered the followers of the Lord Jesus as another sect within Judaism. Because Judaism was recognized by the government, it was protected. Thus, in the beginning, the Roman Empire did not persecute Christians because it considered them another sect in Judaism.
But during this period, God had gradually separated the church from Judaism. This letter was written in view of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, and that would be the final separation.
Because the Roman government realized that Christianity was not Judaism, the Jews were still protected, but Christians became criminals.
At that time, many Jews who were converted to Christ still believed in Christ Jesus, but they were enticed and tempted to go back to Judaism.
That is the reason why the writer of Hebrews says, “You are partakers of the heavenly calling.” Your calling is not an earthly calling. Your calling is not to have your hands full of blessings upon the earth.
To the Jewish people, God’s covenant was a covenant of law. Under the covenant of law, God said that if they kept the commandments, He would bless them with earthly blessings. They would have many children, full baskets, sheep and oxen, riches, and wealth. They would be the head, above and not beneath.
This is an earthly calling, and that is Judaism. But we are partakers of a heavenly calling. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.
It is not for us to go back to the earth, even though it is the easy way. It is time for us to understand that we are partakers of the heavenly calling.
In Judaism, there were many forms, rituals, and outward things. One could feel that he was on secure ground. But the heavenly calling, unless you are moving in the Spirit, seems vague and intangible. You do not find outward security there.
No wonder that during that period many were trying to go back to Judaism. Judaism was calling them to come back to their former things.
So God used the book of Hebrews to encourage believers living in that kind of situation not to forget that their calling was a heavenly calling.
The only way to fulfill their heavenly calling was to consider Jesus—the Author and Finisher of their faith, the Apostle and High Priest of their confession.
Brothers and sisters, this is the heavenly calling. The heavenly calling is the call to recover—to recover to the very nature of God’s work.
We have a city with foundations, whose Builder is God. That is the country, the city, for which we are looking. In this world, we are just pilgrims and strangers passing by. We cannot expect favor from the world. Persecution is that to which we are called.
We jump a generation to the book of Revelation. Revelation was written in the nineties. The three epistles we have read before were written in the sixties; now we come to the nineties.
Here we find that only the apostle John, of the twelve apostles, was still living. He was in his old age and exiled to the island of Patmos. There he saw a vision.
He saw the vision of the risen Lord, ministering to the churches as the great High Priest. He saw seven lampstands, the seven churches in Asia. In a sense, they were representative of the church of God at that time and throughout the age.
The risen Lord told John to write seven letters to the seven churches. These letters are letters of recovery.
If you read these letters carefully, you find that in every letter there is a call to recovery.
First, the Lord Jesus revealed Himself to John in a vision. In Revelation 1, we have the vision of the Lord. That vision was given to the church.
The reason why that vision is recorded is that it is not just for John. That vision is for the church of God—not only for the seven churches in Asia, but for the churches throughout the centuries.
Brothers and sisters, we need to see that vision, that comprehensive vision, because in that vision He calls us into a vocation.
As you read the seven letters, you find that each letter begins with a part of that vision. We say that this vision of Christ is for the whole church. In other words, it does not mean that any church may have only a partial vision of Christ.
Every church, every local assembly, needs to have that full vision of Christ. But on the other hand, we are so limited—not only individually, but even corporately in a local assembly.
That is why, to each assembly, it is as if the Lord has given a part of Himself in a special way. Not in the sense that you only need that part and not the rest, but in the sense that this special part is given to you as your special responsibility.
That is why every local assembly is different. It gives a special nature and character to every assembly. Every assembly is entrusted with something special of Christ.
Therefore, fellowship should be not only among individual believers; fellowship should also be among assemblies, that we may fellowship one with another in order to arrive at the fullness of Christ.
In every letter, the Lord Jesus speaks to that assembly and calls for repentance. Aside from two churches—Smyrna, the suffering one, and Philadelphia, the one in brotherly love—we find that every church receives a call to repent.
We know that the call to repent is a call to recover. Something has been lost and needs to be recovered. Something has not been attained and needs to be attained.
Repentance is not a message only to unbelievers. Repentance is a message to the church.
At the close of the Old Testament age and the beginning of the New Testament age, the message to the Jewish nation was to repent. That message was not to the world; it was given to the Jewish nation, God’s chosen people.
They needed to repent because they kept the outward form of godliness but had lost its inward reality and power. They had reduced God’s revelation to a tradition. It had become a system.
Outwardly, everything seemed to go on as God had commanded, but actually they violated every spirit of it. They were on a wrong track altogether. They did not simply need to improve or reform a little bit; they needed to repent—to make a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn.
It was as if God said, “You are all wrong. You need to turn around and go in the right direction.” It was a very drastic message. No wonder those self-righteous Pharisees could not take it. Only the publicans and sinners saw the need of it.
Brothers and sisters, you find the same thing today. We are at the end of this age, and the message that God gives to His people today is a message of repentance.
Why did John the Baptist say to the children of Israel, “Repent”? Was it because they had sinned so much? No. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” They were not fit for it; they were not prepared.
The church of God needs to repent because the Lord is coming, and we may find ourselves unfit and unprepared. That is why we need to repent—to return to what we received in the very beginning.
The call to recovery is a call to the whole church. But unfortunately, the whole church does not respond.
Because of this, in each letter we find: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.” And then: “He that overcometh.”
Because the whole church does not respond, they have ears but do not hear. They do not hear the voice of the Spirit of God. Therefore, He says, “He that hath an ear, let him hear.”
Those who hear, who repent, and who return are the overcomers in the church. They overcome that which is common. They overcome that which is earthly.
Many years ago, when I was very young in the Lord, I read Ephesians 5. There we are told that Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, sanctifying it and cleansing it by the washing of water with the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish.
I had a problem. When would the Lord come back? Why would He come back? The reason why He will come back is that He comes back to receive His bride—a glorious church, just as He is glorious; without spot, as He is without spot; without wrinkle, as He is ever fresh; holy, as He is holy; and without blame, as He is without blame.
In other words, He comes back to claim His body: a grown-up body, a mature body, a body that has arrived at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
When He sees that, He will not delay a second, because He has been waiting a long time.
When I read that passage, I said, “That is hopeless. Christ will never return.” The more I knew the church, the more I saw how hopeless it was.
If you do not know the condition of the church, you may think the church is all right. But the more you are involved and the more you know the church, the more you see that it is hopeless. It is not getting better; it is getting worse.
If this is the case, when will the Lord return? I had that problem. I went to a dear brother and said, “Brother, how is that problem to be solved?”
He pointed out to me that it is solved by the principle of overcomers.
Just as in the Old Testament, when God’s people were captured in Babylon, the temple was destroyed and Jerusalem was destroyed, God in His mercy stirred up the heart of Cyrus, allowing the children of Israel to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the house of God.
God desired to have a name on earth—to be the God not only of heaven but also of earth—that the testimony of God might be found upon the earth.
Unfortunately, the call was to all God’s people in captivity. Cyrus did not specify who could go and who could not go. Every child of God could go. But unfortunately, only a remnant returned.
When that remnant returned, they built an altar with twelve stones, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. God is the God of Israel. What that remnant did represented the whole twelve tribes. It was as if God said, “They have done it.”
In the New Testament, this is the principle of overcomers. Brothers and sisters, the call is to the whole church. Whoever has ears to hear and responds to His ability—He makes that one an overcomer.
An overcomer is not a super-Christian. It is not that. An overcomer is normal. It is one who responds to the vision and revelation that Christ has entrusted to the church.
What the church ought to do will be done by that few—the overcomers. When the overcomers do the work—that is, cooperate with the Lord in this recovery work—and when that is done, God says, “It is done.”
So, brothers and sisters, it is not that hopeless.
In every church, there is a call to overcome. In other words, they overcome differently. There is not a fixed, rigid standard of who is an overcomer and who is not.
There is not a rigid criterion that says, “If you reach this, you are an overcomer.” No. God’s standard is always living and flexible. According to that which He has given you, that is what He requires of you.
Just be faithful to all that God has revealed to you, and if you do, you will be an overcomer. But never be too sure. When you become too sure of yourself, you are already overcome.
The apostle Paul, writing Philippians, was not sure. He said that he desired to attain unto the out-resurrection from among the dead. He did not say that he had already possessed it, but he wanted to possess all that Christ had possessed him for—all that Christ had predestined for him.
“I pursue. I stretch myself.” It was not until the eve of his martyrdom that he was given the assurance that he had fought the good fight.
Brothers and sisters, the call to overcome is the call to recovery. Do not look at your brothers and sisters. Do not look at what is around you. Be an overcomer.
If you look around, you will be overcome—I can assure you. The only way to be an overcomer is to set your face upon the Lord.
He has been faithful to you; therefore, there is no reason for you not to be faithful to Him.
To the church in Ephesus: recover and restore first love.
To the church in Smyrna: be faithful unto death.
To the church in Pergamum: be separated from the world. Rather be small, little, and hidden from the world than try to be great and noticed by the world.
To the church in Thyatira: return to the simplicity of Christ. Today, Christianity has become so complicated. Return to simplicity; that is where Christ is.
To the church in Sardis: be alive in the Spirit. Do not be dead in the letter. Be alive in the Spirit.
To the church in Philadelphia: be under the authority of David—our David, our King.
To the church in Laodicea: return to the very beginning, because He is the Beginning.
Brothers and sisters, thank God: He is doing the work of recovery, and He will finish it. God never does anything unfinished.
What He has purposed, He will fulfill. God is faithful. What He has begun, He will always bring to completion.
But He wants you to be there. Oh, that God may be merciful to us! While He is doing that work, may He not find us elsewhere. May He find us right there with Him.
Again, we must respond—respond to His ability. Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, it humbles us even to think that in this marvelous work of recovery—a work greater than the work of creation, far greater—Thou dost call us to be a part of it.
Lord, we do confess that we have failed Thee many times. We confess that we have even been offended by Thee. Oh Lord, have mercy upon us. Forgive our sins.
Stir our spirit that we may rise up and respond to Thy ability. Oh Lord, we pray that in this work of recovery we will not be put outside, but that we will be right there with Thee.
In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.