If you will turn with me to one or two Scriptures: first of all, to 1 Samuel 2:11.
And Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. And the child did minister unto the Lord before Eli the priest.
Then in 1 Samuel 3:1:
And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli.
Then, if you would turn with me to the New Testament, to Paul’s letter to the Colossians, Colossians 1:14-20.
In Whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins:
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;
For in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through Him, and unto Him;
And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
And He is the head of the body, the church: Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence.
For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell;
And through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens.
Also, in the New Covenant, the Gospel of Mark, Mark 12:28-31.
And one of the scribes came, and heard them questioning together, and knowing that He had answered them well, asked Him, What commandment is the first of all?
Jesus answered, The first is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one:
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
The second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
Beloved Lord, we want to thank You this evening that we have found here in Your presence, worshipping You. And, Lord, we are so glad that we are that much nearer to Your coming.
However long it may be, or short it may be, we are those few days nearer to Your coming. And for this we thank You and worship You.
We thank You for the salvation which You have wrought on the cross, and into which, by the Holy Spirit, You have brought us.
We ask You, Lord, now, as we are here gathered and we come to the ministry of Your Word: will You anoint the speaking of Your Word? And will You anoint our hearing of it?
Let a double portion be ours this evening, that there be no sleepiness or complacency, but that we may feel as if the Lord is speaking directly to us.
And we ask this in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
As you know, we are considering in these days of being together what it is to be a link to the Lord when a new era, or a new phase in divine history, is taking place.
However we like to call it—epoch, era, or phase—the Lord, it seems, finds a person at every point of history, at the turning point. Whether it is Abraham, whether it is Moses, whether it is Samuel, whether it is David, or whether it is John the Baptist, everywhere you turn you will find that at the turning points in divine history there has been a servant of the Lord, or servants of the Lord, who have been linked to the power of heaven, to the will of heaven, and to the throne of God, and have been used, as it were, to bring in that change.
Now, my responsibility is Samuel. I read to you those interesting comments on Samuel that we have in the Word of God: he ministered unto the Lord.
Many people would just gloss over that. They would not think about it. But it is very interesting that, as a lad—probably not more than seven or eight years of age, if that—it describes him as ministering to the Lord.
Not ministering to the temple, not ministering to Eli the high priest, not ministering to the work, or the organisation, or whatever else, but he ministered to the Lord.
Why does Scripture say of Samuel that he ministered to the Lord? He was doing very ordinary things, watching over things. Why is he so described as ministering to the Lord?
As I said yesterday evening, in our Jewish tradition Samuel is treated with awe and enormous respect. There is something about his character and something about his spiritual stature that has left an impression upon the rabbis through our history.
In one place it says, “Even if Abraham, Moses, and Samuel were to intercede, I will not hear.” Meaning that these three were of incredible spiritual stature.
So my responsibility is to say something about Samuel.
Last night I spoke about the three Ts:
That is what made Samuel so great. He was the king-maker. He was the one who brought in the king—David. Saul was a mistake, but David was the real king for whom the Lord was looking.
Tonight, I want to speak about this phrase: “ministering unto the Lord.”
From the very beginning, Samuel ministered to the Lord. It could not have been that easy. His mother left him in what, for him, must have been somewhat austere and strange surroundings.
He was with the high priest daily. Eli’s two sons were crooks. In many ways, it could not have been easy for this lad to grow up as he did. But we are told that he ministered unto the Lord.
He did not minister merely to the high priest, or to the temple, as I have said, but he ministered to the Lord.
It is so possible to minister to the work, to the system, to the organisation, even to a movement, and not to the Lord.
Overcomers are separated from all others because, at the heart of their service, is a ministry to the Lord. They do not minister merely to things, or to the organisation, or to the temple, tabernacle, or church, but to the Lord Himself.
It is possible to work for the Lord and not with the Lord. You know, I meet many people. Now, I am somewhat older—not quite as old as Brother Stephen—but I am old enough to have seen an enormous number of Christian workers who work for the Lord, but do not work with the Lord.
There is an enormous difference between working for the Lord and working with the Lord. When you work for the Lord, you are all the time advertising your needs. You are all the time looking for help, for support, for a thousand and one other things.
But when you are working with the Lord, you suddenly discover that God provides completely for what He commands. When the Lord is the Worker and you are a co-worker with the Lord, you can trust Him for everything.
That is really the heart of this matter of ministering to the Lord: it is to work with the Lord.
He is the Master. He is the Lord. He is the key to the whole work. It is His commands we follow, and it is the work He apportions that we do. But, in the final analysis, it is the Lord’s work that we are in.
I hope I am making myself clear this evening. There is a huge difference in ministering to the church, or to the work of the gospel, or to evangelistic works, and ministering to the Lord.
If I could pursue the matter even more, I would say there can be no ministry to the Lord without those three Ts I talked about yesterday evening.
If there is no unconditional, total commitment to the Lordship of Jesus—to the person of Jesus—there can be no ministry to the Lord. There may be ministry to things, but no ministry to the Lord.
If there is no total surrender of my will to His will, I will be doing my own thing with the Lord’s name attached to it.
When my will is surrendered to His will, I begin a ministry to the Lord.
Let me take it one further step. If there is no total obedience to His will, there is no ministry to the Lord. Then my work becomes a self-satisfying work. It is something that can become self-centred.
Some of us are by nature—not all of us, by any means, but many of us—well, I do not know how to put it without upsetting everybody, but we are sort of workaholics. That is the best way to put it. We have an addiction to work.
Some other people have an addiction to sleeping—an addiction to lying down, doing nothing, and just enjoying themselves. But there are also those who are workaholics, and I am not sure which is the greater threat to the kingdom of God: a workaholic or someone addicted to sleeping.
The work of the Lord can very easily become a self-expression, a self-fulfilment, something to do with myself.
This little phrase has within it the key to genuine service. The thing that made Samuel so great was that he ministered to the Lord, and that from an extraordinarily young age.
Let me put it another way. Ministry to the Lord can only come when the Lord is the centre and circumference of our life.
When our life is cluttered with a whole lot of other things, there is no way we can minister to Him. He has to be not only the centre, but the circumference. He has to be everything.
Did you notice the Scripture that I read from Paul’s letter to the Colossians? It is extraordinary when you really sit back and think of what he said.
He began simply by saying, “In Him”—that is, in Christ—“is redemption.” But then he goes on to speak about the Lord Jesus as the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
He then says there is nothing made in the universe, on this planet, in the universe, in the universes—nothing that was made by God that was not made through the Lord Jesus and for the Lord Jesus.
Then he makes this incredible statement: “In Him, everything holds together”—consists. That is a fabulous statement.
Everything holds together in Him. You will remember that when they crucified Jesus at nine o’clock in the morning, at three o’clock in the afternoon He died.
Before He died, He cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” It was the moment that the sin of the world was laid on Him, and the serpent entered the Lamb.
In that moment, the sun withdrew its light. Now, people who do not understand these things think it was an eclipse, but no eclipse has ever lasted as long as that day of the crucifixion.
It was as if a sword went to the heart of the Father. And in that moment, because all things hold together and consist in the Lord Jesus, the sun itself stopped shining.
It is amazing to consider the greatness of the Lord Jesus.
Do you realise that the One who saved you is so great? Do you realise that everything you can see was made through Him and for Him? Do you realise that He is the invisible energy and power that holds this whole universe together? And do you realise that He is your Saviour?
If He is so great, is there anything impossible with Him? Is there anything He cannot do? Is there any need He cannot meet? Is there any obstacle He cannot overcome? Any problem He cannot solve?
If, in fact, everything was created through Him and for Him and holds together in Him, this One who is your Saviour and Lord—there is nothing impossible to Him.
Think again. It means very simply this: if you do not make Him Lord, if you are not totally committed to Him, if your will is not surrendered to Him, if you are not obedient but disobedient to Him, then your life, in the end, becomes a mess.
Even as a Christian, a child of God, you believe everything, but nothing works. Because the key to it all lies in the person of the Lord Jesus.
He is the centre and circumference of everything. And the wonder is that He became Man in order to die for you and me, to save us, and then to prepare us for eternity to come.
When you are totally committed to Him, He can do His work in you. He can produce spiritual character in you.
When you surrender your will—which is the most difficult thing of all—to His will, He does not have any problem with you. He can handle you. He can mould you. He can form you.
When you are obedient to Him, the way to conform you to the image of His Son is open.
So simple is this gospel, and yet so misunderstood.
Many Christians have absolutely no idea about the person of the Lord Jesus. They think of Him as a person, but not with the greatness that He has. He is the centre of everything.
When it comes to eternal life, He is the beginning and the end. He is the centre and circumference. He is eternal life. When you receive Him, you receive eternal life.
He is the salvation of God. His very name, Yeshua, means salvation. He is the beginning and the end of salvation. He is the start of it, the progress of it, the development of it, and the completion of it.
Take your Bible. This Lord Jesus is everywhere in your Bible. There is not one of the sixty-six books and letters that make up the Bible where the Lord Jesus is not the beginning and the end. He is the Alpha and Omega. He is the divine alphabet. He is the Word of God.
You might sort of look at me and say, “Oh dear, what is he talking about?” Well, I mean, you are at liberty to go to sleep if you wish. But the amazing thing is this: who was it that walked in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day, every day? Who?
No man hath seen God at any time. Who then was it that Adam and Eve saw, if it was not the Lord Jesus?
Who was it that Moses saw face to face and spoke with? Who was it that Abraham saw—the God of glory who appeared to him, and in Whom he saw the city of glory? It changed his life, and God called him, “My friend.”
There is no greater testimony to Abraham’s character than that God Almighty should call him, “My friend.”
Who was it that stood in the temple and said, “Samuel, Samuel”? To Whom was it that Samuel said, “Speak, Lord; Thy servant heareth”?
Who was it that changed Jacob into Israel, and of Whom Jacob said, “I have seen the face of God, and lived”?
Who was it that Isaiah saw in the temple, high and lifted up, His train filling the temple? Who?
I could go on and on. Your Bible, my Bible, our Bible—the Lord Jesus is central to every part of it. He is the beginning and the end.
Now, if you want to get to know the Bible, the only way to get to know your Bible is to be utterly committed to the Lord Jesus—to the person of the Lord Jesus, not to Christian religion, not to Christian theology.
The only way to get to know your Bible is through the Lord Jesus. It is to know the person of the Lord Jesus. It is to minister to the Lord.
I have to be careful, because I get carried away with this kind of thing. I mean, it is so colossal.
Listen to this. This is how he ends it: “And He is the head of the body, the church, that in all things He might have the preeminence.”
Now, think of your body and your head. Head and body belong together. You cut your head off—or someone cuts it off for you—and you are finished.
The very fact that the Bible speaks of the church as the body of the Lord does not mean it is some kind of description of the church existing on its own. It is something to do with the Lord Jesus.
Our greatest problem is when we serve things, organisation, theology merely, when we do not serve the Lord.
In the final analysis, it is our devotion to the Lord that is the key—our devotion to the person of the Lord Jesus.
I can take it even further. I can say: the Lord Jesus is not an agency. He is not a power. He is not an instrument. He is not an “it.” He is a person.
Now let me ask you something: are you getting to know that Person?
I remember years ago, I was at a conference in Honor Oak. Mr. Sparks was the leader of that conference, and a brother came from another country far away. He was a very interesting person, very forceful, in some ways quite dynamic.
It was very interesting to listen to him. I went and listened to each of the sessions. He spoke of the Lord Jesus as food. He spoke of the Lord Jesus as drink. He spoke of the Lord Jesus as air to breathe. He spoke of the Lord Jesus as an exercise for your spiritual muscles.
I was informed that the man had impact. His ministry was very strong, very incisive.
I remember speaking with a wonderful old brother in Honor Oak. His name was Oliphant. Brother Watchman had called him “the womb of the church” there.
He said, “How did you find it, Lance?” And I said, “I was so impressed. That man is so powerful, and the way he spoke, so incisive. I found it marvellous to think of the Lord Jesus.”
I noticed that he looked a bit clouded. Then he said, “Well, there is a problem.”
He said, “When Jesus is food that you eat, and when Jesus is water that you drink, when Jesus is power that you avail yourself of, when He is an instrument in order to get on, how do you worship Him?”
He said, “In a way, it is a kind of self-worship, because He is in you.”
I was very—not shocked—I was very surprised. Now, with the wisdom of years, much, much later, I realised that Brother Oliphant had put his finger on a problem.
You cannot worship someone who is an “it.” Of course, the Lord Jesus is food; He is the bread of life. Of course, He is water, the water of life. Of course, we grow as we receive Him, as we possess what is ours in Him.
But what about ministry to Him? How do you minister to someone who is only in you?
It is when you see the Lord as the Lord, and in His greatness, that you fall down at His feet as one dead. That is ministry to the Lord.
What is ministry to the Lord? It is worship.
Now, if you will let me, in this area of Virginia, speak about the word worship: worship is an old English word which also came here, and it originally means worth-ship.
When you worship, you acknowledge the worth of the person you are worshipping.
That is why, in the old Episcopalian marriage service, when the husband makes his vows, he says, “With my body, I thee worship.” So many people would say, “Oh my goodness, what, he is worshipping her?” But he is actually saying, “With my body, I acknowledge your worth.”
That is worship. Nobody has ever really ministered to the Lord who does not know how to worship Him.
Real worship, when it comes out of your heart, is something mind-blowing. I think it is a word you often use on this side of the Atlantic: it is awesome.
Somehow or other, you are lifted out of yourself. When you have ever touched worship like that, you will never be the same again.
That is the essential heart of ministry to the Lord. It is to worship Him, to acknowledge His worth, to worship with your whole being.
These people who are at the turning point in divine history are those who really worship the Lord.
There is in those people an utter devotion to the Lord. It was so of Samuel. It cost him everything to side with the Lord against King Saul, and he did it again and again.
But his utter devotion to the person of the Lord Jesus meant he could do no other. He could not deny the Lord. He could not compromise his relationship with the Lord.
That is the amazing power of this ministry to the Lord.
Do you know anything about ministry to the Lord like that? In your quiet time, is your quiet time what you get? “Gimme, gimme, gimme,” and more? Or is your quiet time a ministry to the Lord? You are worshipping Him.
Did you know that we human beings were created to worship? I know many older ladies often tell me that the birds are worshipping the Lord, but in fact some of those birds are singing because it is all to do with territory. It is all to do with marking their territory, and it is wonderful to hear them.
But animals were not created to worship. Birds, fish, dogs, cats, horses—they can develop a relationship with human beings, but there is no worship, not even from a dog. They are the most obedient of them all.
But human beings were created to worship. And until a human being worships, they have never fulfilled the meaning and significance of their constitution.
The moment they begin to worship, you will discover that you will never be the same again.
I think that brings us, finally, to that passage I read in Mark’s Gospel. They asked the Lord Jesus a trick question: “What is the greatest commandment of all?” The rabbis were always discussing this.
Jesus said, “The first and greatest commandment is this: ‘Hear, O Israel; the Lord thy God, the Lord, is one. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.’”
And out of that, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Matthew puts it this way: upon this hang all the law and the prophets. Mark said, “This is the greatest commandment of all.”
To minister to the Lord is to express our love for Him, our adoration. That is ministry to the Lord.
Furthermore, when we begin to love the Lord like that, certainly all the chores that we have to do in our service are gilded. Somehow or other, it permeates everything we do.
That is the love of God shed abroad in our hearts.
You know, of course, better than I, that the apostle Paul rose to unbelievable heights in his Corinthian letter when he said that if I preach or prophesy without love, I am nothing—just a tinkling, clanging cymbal. If I give my body to be burned without love, it means nothing.
Supremely, he was saying this: it is to be in love with the Lord that is the key. That is why He sought you. That is why He saved you. And that is the one thing, and only thing, that will satisfy Him: when you return that love and your service becomes a service permeated with the love of the Lord Jesus.
I remember in the book of Exodus—my notes are not so good—but you will all remember it, those who know your Bible. Moses said to the Lord, “If Thy presence does not go with us, do not carry us up hence.”
Then the Lord said a most extraordinary thing. He said, in Hebrew, “My presence shall go, and I will give you rest.”
He never put “with us,” which is in your English translation, because it did not seem to be good English to leave it out. But in the Hebrew it makes so much sense: “My presence shall go.”
In other words, this work of the Lord is when His presence goes. And when His presence goes, we go with it. And when we go with it, we find rest.
Where there is no love, there is no rest. And where the love of God is there in power, we find rest.
I must bring this to a close. But do you remember the Lord Jesus spoke a word to one of the finest churches in the New Testament era, the church of Ephesus?
He said, “I have this against thee: thou hast left thy first love. Repent; or else I will come to thee, and will remove thy lampstand”—that is, the testimony of Jesus—“from thee.”
So important is this first love. It is not popularity; it is a quality of love. When a person is in love, they do not talk about how much it costs, or how far they have to go to see the loved one, or what they have gone through. It means nothing, because love somehow transforms it all.
This first love, which the church at Ephesus had, they lost. It is interesting that the Lord should point out that they were doing so many other good things, but the ministry to the Lord had stopped. It was now a ministry to things.
I will finish by reminding you of the way the fourth Gospel ends. Perhaps the Gospel of John is the most remarkable of the four Gospels. It is a revelation. I think most of you know it is not a history like the other three Gospels.
John selects the claims of the Lord Jesus: “I am the bread of life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the true vine.”
I have always said that John’s Gospel is the most Jewish of the four Gospels—far more Jewish than Matthew. “I am” is the unmentionable name of God, linked to the bread of life, to the way, the truth, and the life, to being the door, to being the true vine. It is amazing.
And the way this Gospel ends is extraordinary. The Lord met His disciples at the Lake of Galilee, and He cooked them breakfast.
Then He said to Peter, “Simon Peter, dost thou love Me more than these?”
Peter, stuttering, having denied the Lord three times, said, “Yes, Lord; Thou knowest I love Thee.” But he used another word for love.
Then the Lord said the second time, “Dost thou love Me?” When He said it the first time, He said, “Feed My lambs.”
A second time He said, “Dost thou love Me more than these?” And Peter said, “Thou knowest I love Thee.” And He said, “Tend My sheep.”
And the third time He came down to Peter’s level, and He used the same word for love that Peter was using. He said, “Dost thou love Me more than these?”
Peter was annoyed that He had said it the third time, and he said, “Thou knowest I love Thee.” And then He said, “Tend My sheep.”
In other words, it was ministry to the Lord.
It was as if the Lord Jesus was simply saying, “You cannot feed My lambs or tend My sheep unless first you are in love with Me.”
Do you love Me more than anything else? Then your service will be a service and a ministry to the Lord.
It is that kind of service, and that alone, which determines whether a person becomes the kind of person the Lord can use at a turning point in history.
It is rather challenging, in a way, because it finds us out. It is much easier for us to be caught up with doctrine, which is good and essential, even with theology, with the things of God, with service—all that is required in service.
It is much easier than to stay within first love. But, in the final analysis, it is whether that love of God shed abroad in our hearts is first and foremost directed to the person of the Lord Jesus, and then to our neighbour.
May the Lord help us in feeding lambs, tending them, feeding and tending sheep, to know that it means nothing unless, first of all, we are in love with the Lord Jesus.
May He help us to minister to Him. Shall we pray?
Beloved Lord, we bow in Your presence. We come so short of what we should be. And particularly, Lord, we want to ask Your forgiveness if we have left our first love and lived somehow in routine, and things have taken over our lives instead of a ministry to Yourself.
Lord, hear our cry. Renew our first love. Fan that flame of Your love in every heart. Fan it into a great fire.
Lord, hear us. There is no other way that this nation will be touched, and no other way that this terrible collapse of so much in this nation could be halted, unless our hearts are filled with a renewed love for Yourself.
Do it, Lord, we pray. We ask it in Your name. Amen.