Good morning, dear brothers and sisters.
I’m a little nervous, as you can tell, I guess. In fact, I’ve been meditating for several weeks now, and I think I understand a bit of what the Lord wants to say.
Last week, I was sitting at the table with Kenny and Jerry, and I told them that I’m nervous. Jerry, in his immediate style, said, “Oh, that’s good, that’s good, that’s good.” Kenny said, “Praise the Lord.”
They say that Brother Stephen used to say, “Never ready, but ever ready.” We’ll see how much.
Loving, living, almighty, heavenly Father, everlasting and covenant-keeping God, mighty and wonder-working Lord, we come once again to Your presence with praise, adoration, worship, and thanksgiving.
Thank You that You’ve granted us open heavens since the morning, O Lord, and that You’ve been enthroned on the praises of Your saints. Thank You, Lord, for the beautiful reminder that You loved us and gave Yourself for us. Indeed, in doing so, Lord, You took care of our old nature as well, and You crucified us with You. Now, henceforth, we can live a life by the life of the Son of God.
Lord, even at this hour, as we come once again, Your Word says:
Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
Lord, we come once again. Humble us. Help us. We pray that You would speak to us—speak to each one of us.
Lord, we are all in need. We are all empty. We pray that You would speak to us according to our need. There are things on our hearts as individuals, as families, as an assembly, and as the body of Christ at large. There is so much on our hearts, O Lord, and we know that Your grace is sufficient for all things.
Help us, O Lord, that we can hear Your still, small voice. As to the ministry, we commit ourselves into Your hands. Lord, we pray that You would hide me behind the cross and use me as seemeth good in Your sight.
Lord, we pray that the time You would give us would be of blessing, binding all the seen and unseen works of the enemy by the victory of the cross; covering ourselves; claiming and acknowledging Your headship and Your lordship.
We ask all of this in the most precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, I request that you turn with me to 1 John 2:15-17.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh,
and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,
is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof:
but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
It might be useful to literally search the Scriptures.
The burden on my heart is the mind of Christ.
There is this American phrase—I am pretty sure I am going to falter at several places, so you would have to pardon me—“to take a bite that you cannot chew,” something like that, right?
The mind of Christ: this infinite Christ, Who is so close, but at the same time seems so far away—not because He is really far away, but because He is so infinite, ever-expanding. Every time it seems that we have touched Him, got a sense of Him, understood Him, and known Him, it immediately looks as though we just do not know anything of Him. There are waves and waves of horizon breaking forth before our eyes.
The depths of His humility are what we want to consider today.
At the beginning of His ministry, He said that the prince of this world comes, and “he hath nothing in me.” Then He said, “I am not of the world.” Then, in the high-priestly prayer, right before the night in which He was betrayed, He says that He is not in the world.
At times, we do not understand what He says, because what He is saying is beyond human words. That is why He said that He would send the Comforter. He would be with you, He would be in you, and He would speak to you.
Therefore, let us try and attempt to consider these things.
Just to break the ice, I am going to share an incident that I saw.
There is an Oriental bazaar in Sri Lanka. For some of you who perhaps do not remember where Sri Lanka is, it is an island country south of India, in the Indian subcontinent.
This bazaar has been there for generations. It is not like your high-tech malls and things like that. These are family businesses that have simply continued through the generations. The entire street has the same kind of business establishments—similar shops all over.
Now, you would think, what is so different about that? Here is the interesting thing—very interesting, in fact, funny.
At the end of the day, when they are about to close their businesses, an army of people descends upon the market. The closest comparison would be janitors—people who come to clean, sweep, and pick up the garbage.
They go to each business and do their chores. But here is the interesting thing: the businesses do not pay them for their services. Quite the opposite. These people who come to serve—to sweep, clean, and pick up garbage—pay the businesses for being allowed to render those services.
Did you get the weirdness of this? What do you think is really going on? What do you think these businesses are?
These are all gold shops. These are all goldsmiths.
After they have packed all their gold into their lockers and treasures and locked them away, these people come. What do they do? They pay the goldsmiths so that they can scrape off the last bit of gold dust that is on the granite.
They literally scrub the floors every day. In fact, some of those floors are now worn out. They scrub, gather the water, plug all the drains so that none of it escapes, and collect all that murky, dirty gunk. Then they sieve through it all.
And what do they get? Gold.
Even the dust of this Book is gold. I am pretty sure we might not get any gold bars today, but I pray that we get some dust, at least.
What we want to consider is the mind of Christ. To set the stage, I think the Lord’s table, as we meet week after week, is the perfect setting to remind us that we do not belong to this world.
Turn with me to John 13.
This is the beautiful scene of the upper room. There is so much in that upper room that you want to be there. In that upper room, we see that the Lord Jesus Christ now has to depart from the world. He knows Who He is.
Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands,
and that he was come from God, and went to God;
He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments;
and took a towel, and girded himself.
—John 13:3-4
What Christ did, as He picked up the towel and went down to the disciples’ feet, was an absolute, conscious decision in the full acknowledgment of His divinity. He knew Who He was.
As He knew Who He was, He did perhaps the most unexpected thing. He took the utter opposite of what that divinity would perhaps entail. He became a servant, and He began to wash the feet of the disciples.
At the Lord’s table, as we are brought here week after week and worship around the Lord’s table, there is a great danger in familiarity. It causes contempt—or, if not contempt, a sense of, “I know this. I think I know this thing,” and so on.
I think it is not so much a problem with the truth itself, but a problem with our flesh. The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and good; but it is my flesh which is weak.
Week after week, as we come, we enjoy the worship. It really is like heaven. Every time I have gone back, I have told the elder that I wish the worship was much longer. I could just enjoy that heaven—the foretaste of heaven in worship.
When it comes to the Lord’s table itself, however—to partaking of that bread and that cup—it can often become a little mechanical, even with all good intention and all the wonderful worship we have.
What I am trying to consider is that it is at the Lord’s table that the Lord brings us to examine ourselves in the light of the Word of God: whether we are in the faith.
There is always this balance of truth in the Christian life—the golden mean, as the brothers would call it. There is our position in Christ, and there is our practice in Christ. It is a balance of both. You cannot separate them.
At times, we casually think, “Well, it is all position in Christ,” and forget the matter of practice. At other times, we become overly concerned, picky, and worried about practice, when we ought to enjoy the liberty that is ours because of our position in Christ.
In my little mind, I have always thought that as we worship the Lord, it is our position in Christ. It is no longer a question of, “What did I do? What did I achieve?” It is entirely our position in Christ—what Christ has done for us on the cross.
Galatians 2:20 fit exactly with that thought:
I have been crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me:
and that life which I now live in the flesh
I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God,
who loved me, and gave himself up for me.
As far as worship is concerned, it is entirely Him. There is no condemnation, there is no guilt, and there is no element of repentance. It is almost as though we have never sinned.
But when it comes to the Lord’s table, it is our practice that is brought into the light—the balance of truth.
Having worshipped Him, as we partake of those emblems of His love—His body broken for us and His blood shed for us—it becomes a question of our practice.
In 1 Corinthians 11, the word Lord appears seven times. It is not the table of Jesus, and it is not the table of Christ. It is the table of the Lord.
The question is: if you have worshipped and acknowledged that He is Lord, where is the fruit of it? We have heard about that whole matter of fruit for the last two weeks. Where is the fruit of it?
The Lord’s table gives us an opportunity to judge ourselves before we could ever be judged with the world—which is never going to happen.
What is judgment? Judgment is when you acknowledge the truth as God sees it, is it not?
Remember the two thieves. One said, “If Thou art the Christ, save Thyself and us.” That is how some are.
But the other, the penitent thief, said:
We indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds:
but this man hath done nothing amiss.
What did he do? He judged himself. He acknowledged the truth—the sentence that should have come upon him. And, as he judged himself, the Lord said, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
The Lord is not necessarily trying to cause us pain or suffering. He is only raising the thermostat until we acknowledge the truth and see it as He sees it.
Sometimes my wife and I go back and forth discussing something. I am the more difficult one, so I keep going over it again and again. Finally, she says, “All right. If you say yes, it is so.”
Immediately I say, “No, honey—not because I said it. Don’t you see it?”
That is what it is all about. I know I have made it lighthearted, but the Lord is not trying to bring condemnation upon us. He is trying to bring conviction.
Remember the story of Joseph. When he met his brothers, we wonder, “Why would Joseph do that? Why would he hide himself? Why would he keep pushing them?” But he kept pushing them until Judah said, “Take me instead, and let this little one go.”
He pressed them until they remembered what they had done to Joseph. As soon as that happened, he turned the thermostat back down. He immediately unmasked himself, threw himself upon his brothers, and fed them.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is not legality, legalism, or mere correctness that the Lord is seeking. It is the acknowledgment of truth as He sees it.
And if that takes the furnace being heated seven times, He will do that.
The Lord’s table is therefore set before us as an opportunity to examine ourselves.
But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup.
—1 Corinthians 11:28
It is not a time for me to examine someone else. It is individual. As we come, we test ourselves and judge ourselves, acknowledging what the Lord’s Word reveals to us.
Of course, that assumes that you have been in the Word of God through the week. You have been touched by the fellowship of the saints, and the Word of God has been brought back to you again and again. What it has raised as conviction in your heart, you now seek to set right before the Lord.
One might say, “Does this really happen categorically at the Lord’s table itself?” Well, it happens all the time. But just as with everything else in the Christian life, there is a time of testimony. There is a time when you decisively draw the line and say, “This is where I draw the line.”
It is like baptism. Baptism is an outward testimony of something that has happened inwardly.
Likewise, the Lord’s table speaks of our practice. If you see these two ordinances—baptism and the Lord’s table—one speaks about our position in Christ. We bring nothing; we simply cling to the cross. The other, the Lord’s table, speaks of our practice: the balance of truth, the golden mean.
My intent is not to make you uncomfortable. But if, in the course of truth, it makes you uncomfortable, then let it be so.
Here in the upper room, the Lord Jesus Christ is fully conscious of His divinity—of where He has come from, where He is going, and what His mission is. He arises from the table, takes a towel, wraps it around His waist, takes a basin of water, kneels at the first disciple, and immediately they shrink back.
There are two disciples whose experiences are captured for us: Peter and Judas.
Allow me a little liberty. Those twelve disciples are certainly historical figures; I take nothing away from the historicity of it. But truth is comprehensive. It moves in infinite concentric circles—in dimensions that become bigger and deeper: at the level of the individual, the family, the assembly, and the cosmos.
In my little mind, I have thought of the twelve disciples as twelve traits that a believer has.
There is Peter. When the Lord comes to wash his feet, Peter asks, “What are You doing?” The Lord says that Peter does not understand now, but he will understand afterward.
Then Peter says, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.”
What do you see? Peter is saying, “Lord, if You thought that only my feet are dirty, no. I must acknowledge that my head is not right and my hands are not clean.”
That is examination at the Lord’s table. You begin to examine yourself. It may look okay. You worshipped. The Lord has saved you. But now, what is the Lord going to get back?
Someone may raise an eyebrow and say, “Oh, brother, you are slipping into works-effort.” No, under no circumstances.
Ephesians 2 says, “Not of works,” and then it goes on to say, “unto good works.” How strange is that? It looks like there is a dichotomy, but there is no dichotomy. It only appears that way to the flesh.
What God has put together, let no man put asunder.
Peter immediately examined himself: “Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” In saying that, Peter was basically acknowledging, “Lord, there is nothing good in me. I need this constant washing.”
There is no man who sinneth not. James says that in many things we offend all.
So sin is not the greatest surprise. I know I will get beaten up a little bit on this one, but sin is not really the surprising element. The shocking matter is the impunity not to humble yourself—not to acknowledge, “Yes, Lord, I am not okay. I am not right.”
That is the matter.
Why did the Lord restore Peter? Peter literally denied Christ. Judas, on the other hand, appeared to recognize Christ. In Gethsemane, Judas kissed Him. On the surface, it looks as though he was acknowledging, “He is mine, and I am His. My beloved is mine, and I am His.”
Peter, by contrast, seemed to say, “I have nothing to do with Him. I have never seen this man.”
Judging by the surface, whose iniquity is greater? Yet one is forgiven and restored, while the other goes to perdition.
What is really happening there? It is not so much about who committed sin and who did not commit sin. It is not about being holier-than-thou. The question is: who humbled himself before the Lord?
The question was never merely the absence of sin.
When I was born again, I thought, “Lord, how beautiful it would have been if You had just removed this sin nature and this presence of sin in me.” I struggled, questioned, and almost shook my fist at that so many times.
I was listening to dear Brother Ed Miller explain Deuteronomy 7—the giants in the land. The Lord said that He would not remove the giants immediately, but little by little, lest the beasts of the field increase.
I wondered, “Why will You not do that? Are You just trying to test us? Are You just trying to make us sorry about ourselves?”
That dear brother said something beautiful and precious: the Lord leaves those giants, those struggles, to remind us that the absence of giants is not the intention. The annihilation of sin is not necessarily the intention. That is the negative way of looking at it.
The positive is the possession of the land, the rest of the land, and the fruit of the land. That is what really matters.
How much have you come into the experience of the cross? How much have you surrendered yourself? That is what really matters.
The Lord knows that we will always need His help as far as sin is concerned.
And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
—1 John 2:1
He remains the Father in the midst of our failure. He does not suddenly become God in some distant sense, and He does not suddenly become judge. He remains Father.
The great question is: who humbles himself?
Most of the disciples, particularly in the context of the Lord’s Supper, addressed Him as Lord. Do you know what Judas called Him? He did not call Him Lord.
Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks. Judas did not acknowledge Him as Lord.
Who is Judas? Is Judas merely a person?
I have often looked at Judas as a trait, a characteristic, an attribute of my own human nature. Judas—what do we associate Judas with? Money.
He had the money bag. He stole from it. He objected when Christ was adored and precious ointment was poured upon Him. He said, “Why are you wasting all of that?” He betrayed the Lord for thirty pieces of silver.
What is money really?
If we use the principle of first mention, what is the first occasion in Scripture where something is actually purchased? It is the burial site for Sarah. What is bought is a grave.
Money speaks of that currency, that unit, that language of this world system.
Money does not simply mean that I need to buy something, have fancy clothes, nice cars, or other nice things. It is more than that. Money itself speaks of something in Scripture.
When people tempted Christ about whether it was lawful to give tribute to Caesar, the Lord spoke of two masters:
No man can serve two masters.
… Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
—Matthew 6:24
Newer translations may say “money,” but the older translation says Mammon. It is the deification of currency. It is a deity.
There is wisdom in reading, from time to time, the version that the old saints who changed the world and brought this testimony to us used.
John Milton, in Paradise Lost—and I am certainly not endorsing everything he said there—describes the principalities before their fall. He comes to Mammon and says that even when he was in heaven, he looked downward, toward the pavement of heaven, toward the gold itself.
That is the principality that looks downward, earthward—the most carnal tendency, that element of creation which clings to creation itself.
Perhaps the first mention of purchase being a burial site hints that this is where the power of money ends. Yet that is still where you need it and where you encounter it.
God and Mammon.
Judas Iscariot, in my little mind, represents that element of worldliness.
If in this life only we have hoped in Christ,
we are of all men most pitiable.
—1 Corinthians 15:19
It sounds good and poetic, but think about it. Why are we of all men most pitiable if we have hope in Christ only in this life?
If we take this wonderful sacrifice—the Son of God dying for a wretched, dead worm like me—and make it merely some surety for earthly blessings, a job, a comfortable life, family, children, myself, my ministry, my understanding, this and that, and me, me, me, that would be so obnoxious to the God Who sent His Son to die for us.
There are people who live better than us who have no idea Who Christ is. Those things are achievable outside of Christ in the common grace and common mercy of God.
We are talking about things that are eternal—with a capital E.
Peter judged himself. Therefore, even though he denied the Lord three times, he was restored.
In Luke 22, the Lord said to Peter:
Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you,
that he might sift you as wheat:
but I made supplication for thee,
that thy faith fail not.
—Luke 22:31-32
That intercession of Christ operates in the context of human willingness and acknowledgment of truth. Peter acknowledged, “My head is not right, my hands are not right, and You already know about my feet. Lord, I am absolutely at Your mercy.”
The Lord said, “I have prayed for you. You will get through this.”
But Judas did not do any of that. Judas marched out. He took the Lord’s table, but for him it meant nothing. For him, perhaps, it was merely tradition—a delicate, nice thing that people did.
He went to perdition. I will use that term. I do not know, properly speaking, every detail of what happened to Judas after that, but we know that he lost his place among the apostles.
Something even more interesting happens as soon as Judas leaves. This is what I want to dwell on.
He then having received the sop went out straightway: and it was night.
—John 13:30
The Lord had done everything possible for Judas. Judas had heard words such as no man had ever spoken. He had seen the Lord teach with authority unlike the scribes. He had seen the mighty works of God in the Lord.
He had seen the dead raised, the storm calmed, and lepers healed at His touch. He had seen healing flow even to the woman who touched the hem of His garment. He had heard the Sermon on the Mount and the Olivet Discourse. He had seen all of it.
There is good reason to believe that Judas was with the disciples when the Lord sent them to the nation of Israel in Matthew 10. He had tasted of the powers to come. He had seen and experienced so much.
But now he would lose all of that.
The Lord brought him to the Lord’s table. Jesus did not need to be told what was in man’s heart. He knew what Judas was about to do.
Knowing fully Who He was, what He was, and what His purpose was—that He was God Himself—He arose from supper, bound the towel, picked up the basin, and washed feet. Yet that did not melt Judas’s heart.
Here is something we can say accurately on the authority of the Word of God: if you do not set things right at the Lord’s table, there is good reason to believe that you have set condemnation upon yourself.
If one does not acknowledge the death of the Lord Jesus, does not recognize that it is the Lord Who has died, and does not bring himself into scrutiny, then we must take seriously the words:
For this cause many among you are weak and sickly,
and not a few sleep.
—1 Corinthians 11:30
This is not merely typological, allegorical, or parabolic language. It is a fact.
The Lord’s table is the last resort for you to fix things. How do I say that? Look at John 13:30: Judas went out, and it was night.
If I were there, I might lament: “I did so much for this man. I prayed for him all these years. I showed him all these things. I kept him close. I put every evidence of grace before him, and yet he has gone out.”
But Christ does something very different.
When therefore he was gone out, Jesus saith,
Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him;
and if God is glorified in him,
God shall also glorify him in himself,
and shall straightway glorify him.
—John 13:31-32
Every time I read that, I feel, “Lord, again, is that one of Your ways of saying something that does not make sense to us?”
But a brother explained that, as soon as the last thing holding Judas back from betraying Christ was removed, Judas committed himself to what he was going to do. Christ, as it were, could now see the cross.
As He saw the cross, He saw the resurrection. As He saw the resurrection, He saw the ascension. As He saw the ascension, He saw Pentecost. As He saw Pentecost, He saw His body. He saw His intercession, His return, His reign, and all things committed back to God, with the Lamb seated upon the throne of God.
If the Lord’s table did not bring conviction to Judas’s heart, nothing else would.
Dear brothers and sisters, I humbly admit that I have often brought myself under that condemnation, and perhaps there have been times when you have made that mistake as well.
If there is practical value in this, we must look at these things in our lives. We look at baptism. There have been times when I was deeply confused, and the thing that brought me back was the fact that I was put under those waters and raised again. It was the answer of my conscience.
Likewise, the physical reality that I must face Christ at the Lord’s table has kept me from going against Him. It has kept what they call the fear of God in my heart.
What is the Lord’s table to you? Is it merely a sacrament? Is it a nice, lovely, fluffy thing?
No. It is dangerous.
Beauty is dangerous. Extreme beauty is dangerous. Christ is, in a certain sense, dangerous.
The same table can be a cup of blessing, yet it can also bring a curse. It brought blessing to Peter, but it became a curse for Judas.
After Judas committed himself to his course, Christ opened His heart to the remaining disciples. As He saw His glory, He began to speak of things He had not spoken of before—heavenly matters.
In John 14, He speaks of the Father’s house, the many mansions, and His return. He speaks of the Comforter, Who would bring to remembrance what He had said.
Then He says:
Peace I leave with you;
my peace I give unto you.
—John 14:27
In John 15, He speaks about abiding in the vine—that precious truth to which we have run so often, to abide in Him and hide in Him.
The Comforter, He says, will testify of Him.
Then He says:
These things have I spoken unto you,
that my joy may be in you,
and that your joy may be made full.
—John 15:11
It goes from His peace to His joy.
In John 16, He speaks of persecution. John 15 speaks about the world and its troubles, but John 16 addresses religious persecution—people who think that in harming the people of God, they are doing God a service.
Again, He speaks about the Comforter:
He shall glorify me.
—John 16:14
It progresses: He will bring My words to remembrance; He will testify of Me; He will glorify Me.
Then the Lord speaks of His victory:
In the world ye have tribulation:
but be of good cheer;
I have overcome the world.
—John 16:33
He could not have spoken these things while Judas was in their midst—not merely Judas the traitor, but the trait of Judas.
Let us examine ourselves. Let us think about it.
Have you really resolved that nothing of this world, nothing of this system, will affect you?
None of us has reached perfection. Paul said, “Not that I have already obtained.” But what does he do? Forgetting those things which are behind, he runs. He runs.
He does not say that because he has not achieved it, he will cut it short, deny the target, or deny that this is God’s mind. He says, “That is God’s mind, but I have not achieved it. I will remain humble, and I will continue to run the race.”
Are we going to cut corners, or are we going to acknowledge, “No, Lord, who is sufficient for these matters? Please help us”?
If Judas is a picture of the world-minded person—someone who has sermons, miracles, gifts, and everything else, but lacks one thing—what is that one thing?
If I were to summarize it, perhaps oversimplify it, it is obedience.
Someone once asked, “Why did Christ die?” I quickly answered, “To die for my sins.”
He said, “Brother, that is one step. Why did He die?”
I said, “To build a church.”
He said, “Brother, that is another step. Why did He die?”
Then he showed me Romans 14:9.
For to this end Christ died and lived again,
that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
The ultimate issue of the universe is not whether there is a God. That is for the fool who says there is no God.
If you knocked on Satan’s door and asked him, “Is there a God?” he would say, “Absolutely.”
The real controversy is whether He is Lord—whether He is to have absolute dominion and unhindered allegiance.
The full name of our precious Lord is Lord Jesus Christ. He was not called “God Jesus Christ,” because His deity was never the point of contention.
The Lord Jesus Christ, by coming, proved to all principalities, to saints and seraphim, and to the entire creation that there is God, and that He has absolute lordship over every single thing.
Abraham Kuyper said that there is not one square inch in the universe over which the risen Son of God does not say, “This is Mine.”
The question this afternoon is: can you say that about your life?
Are we going to call Him Lord while retaining ties with the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life? These may be little things that seem innocent.
Spurgeon said, in effect, that if a man’s brother were stabbed and killed, and the younger brother took the knife that killed him and hid it in his bosom, what would you call such a person?
Every time we make some compromise with the world—even though it may not seem sinful—we must remember:
All things are lawful; but not all things are expedient.
All things are lawful; but not all things edify.
—1 Corinthians 10:23
I do not know what it is for you. Perhaps it is your way of life. I have things. I have baggage. There are things I prefer. They may be innocent, but in the mind of God, He can look at them and say, “This is the world.”
There are verses in the Bible that seem dangerous to me. I think, “No, Lord, You did not say that.”
Turn to 1 Corinthians 7:29-31.
But this I say, brethren, the time is shortened,
that henceforth both those that have wives
may be as though they had none;
and those that weep, as though they wept not;
and those that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not;
and those that buy, as though they possessed not;
and those that use the world, as not using it to the full:
for the fashion of this world passeth away.
The context is marriage, celibacy, and the whole teaching surrounding marriage. But this is where Paul comes to his conclusion.
Think about the one attachment that would seem most permitted in this world: family—your wife, your husband.
Paul is not saying to abandon anyone. But he says that he who has a wife should live as though he had none; he who weeps, as though he did not weep; he who rejoices, as though he did not rejoice.
What does it mean?
If even the most obvious, sinless, and God-ordained institutions are being brought under this principle—that none of it ultimately belongs to you, and that you must be ready to depart and be with the Lord at any time—how much more everything else?
My petty little car, my petty little job, my petty little dress—I do not know what it is. It is not one thing. It is anything that is not Christ and anything that does not exalt Christ.
The point is not to be an ascetic, to become monkish, or to beat your flesh. Colossians warns us that such things do not do any good.
It is like Isaac. Abraham said, “Lord, do You really want me to give my son?” The Lord said, “Yes, give your son.” Abraham brought him to the altar, and as he placed him there, the Lord said, “Now take him back.”
You may ask, “Lord, You asked for him, right?” Yes—as long as your heart is not upon him.
Are we going to search our hearts? Do we really want that vision Christ shared with His disciples in the upper room?
He reminds us: love not the world.
What does the world mean?
To contrast with Judas, I want to summarize what Christ Himself is. What does it look like not to be of the world?
Christ said, “The prince of the world cometh: and he hath nothing in me.” He went on to say, “I am not of the world,” and eventually, in John 17, He said that He was not in the world.
That is amazing. You think, “Lord, You are still here, right?” Yet He was so separate from the world.
What I am trying to portray and develop is the mind of Christ. Essentially, it is a mind that is Godward and away from the world—away from its fashions, pride, and lust.
It is a life that has nothing to do with the world, yet does not escape the world in a monkish way. That is where the cross is: it keeps things there, but nullifies their hold. You have everything, but your hands are not on anything. You are ready to let go and depart with the Lord at any time.
Have any of us arrived there? No. Paul reminds us that we have not, but we run toward it.
Now look at Christ Himself. In Luke 3:22, at His baptism, the Father said:
Thou art my beloved Son;
in thee I am well pleased.
When did Christ receive that testimony? How many sermons had He preached by then? None. How many lepers had He healed? None. How many dead had He raised? None. How many crosses had He gone to? None.
Then what was it that made the Father say, “This is My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased”?
Those thirty years are almost mystically buried in Scripture. But that is the point. They are buried because that is how life is.
Most of the testimony God gives concerning you is not based upon what you did in the pulpit, in public, or among people. It is based upon the silent tears, silent hours, and silent moments when only the unseen eye of the Lord saw you.
Christ lived as the perfect Man.
Psalm 1 says:
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of scoffers:
But his delight is in the law of the Lord;
and on his law doth he meditate day and night.
I have often read that and been convicted, because I do not see myself there. I am not that man. Who is that blessed Man? I think the only Man Who did it perfectly was Christ Himself.
His delight was in the law of the Lord, and in it He meditated day and night. I have never done that. If you have, praise the Lord for it. But Christ did it. It is He Who did it.
As He lived that life in those silent tears and hidden years, the heavens opened and the Father said, “This is My beloved Son.”
He received that testimony not in the capacity of His divinity, but in the absolute capacity of His humanity.
When the Lord embarked on His public ministry, He began to show forth His glory. At the marriage in Cana, He began to reveal Who He was, and people began to believe in Him. But until then, He was simply a nobody.
Consider the Passover lamb in Exodus 12. On the tenth day of the month, the people were to take a lamb, and on the fourteenth day at evening, they were to kill it.
What are those days in between? Those are the silent years, dear brothers and sisters. Those are the silent tears. They are the daily walk: how you speak to your wife, how you treat your family, how you do your job, how you speak, how you smile, and how you do little, simple things.
There are three things recorded of the Lord in His early life.
First, at the age of twelve, He was found in the temple of the Lord. For Israel, the temple was where the name of the Lord dwelt. For us, it is the assembly, the brothers and sisters, the fellowship, the gathering of the saints.
The first question is very simple: are you consistent in coming to the Lord’s house?
You may say, “Brother, this ought to be loftier, softer, or more philosophical.” No. It comes down where the rubber meets the road. It comes down to whether you obey in the little, mundane things.
Christ was found in the Lord’s temple.
What was He doing there? He was sitting with the doctors—the teachers, the rabbis.
In the Oriental picture, the rabbi would sit on a stair, and the students or younger pupils would sit on lower steps. The teacher would speak, the pupils would listen, and they would ask questions. It would go back and forth.
Paul said that he was taught at the feet of Gamaliel. Where was Christ sitting? He was sitting at the feet of a mortal.
And what was He doing? Hearing.
We immediately jump to the thought that He asked wonderful questions that no one could answer. But the Word says that He was both hearing and asking questions. He was hearing.
It boggles my mind. The One Who is the eternal Logos, the very expression of God; the One Who has shown us the Father; the great Expositor of God Himself—He sat at the feet of a mere mortal whom He had created, whose life and breath He held in His hand.
What humility.
When His earthly parents arrived and asked, “Why hast Thou thus dealt with us?” He answered:
How is it that ye sought me?
Knew ye not that I must be in my Father’s house?
—Luke 2:49
I thought preaching the gospel was the Father’s business. I thought healing the sick was the Father’s business. I thought fellowship and encouragement were the Father’s business. But Christ’s business is only to do what is God’s mind—nothing more and nothing less.
Consider the man at the gate called Beautiful in Acts 3. He was more than forty years old and had been lame from birth. How often would Christ have seen him? Why did Christ not heal him?
We are all at the level of good and evil. That is where we are born, where we are tuned, and how we are wired—the knowledge of good and evil. But there is another knowledge: the knowledge of the excellency of Christ, which is God’s will.
Christ did only God’s will.
He would have seen Roman oppression, the wickedness of Herod and his family, the oppression of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the zealots going haywire, and the pagan nations building larger temples to false gods. With the snap of a finger, He could have fixed it all.
But what concerned Him? “My Father’s business.”
What is His business? To be with the Word of God; to be a Son of the law.
Without being completely immersed in the Word of God, how can we imagine that we can interpret the mind of God for even a second? That is merely our sanctified and healed flesh speaking.
We cannot trust ourselves—under no circumstances, not in the least of matters. Everything must be settled by the Word of God.
Christ said, in effect, “That is My business. That is My Father’s business: to ensure that I am absolutely committed and a Son of the law.”
The second picture is that He went to Nazareth and was subject to them.
Subject. That is a staggering word. Christ was subject—the King of the universe.
Hebrews tells us that He is the heir of all things; through Him God made the worlds; He is the brightness of God’s glory, the express image of His person, and the One Who upholds all things by the word of His power. Having made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Yet He went to Nazareth and was subject.
Are you subject to your parents? Are you subject to the authorities the Lord has placed over you? What about the spiritual leadership the Lord has placed in your life? Are they optional?
Christ was subject. Therefore, the Father said, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”
The final picture comes when a strange man in the wilderness of Judea begins crying out in the wilderness. People ask him, “Who are you? Are you the Christ?” He says, “No, I am the voice.”
God is crying out. God is calling.
The nation begins to flow toward John the Baptist and comes to be baptized, repenting of sin and desiring to set things right with the Lord. They sense that something is happening, that the Messiah is about to come, that revival is taking place.
Then suddenly, the Son of God lifts Himself from His carpenter’s bench one fine day, lays His tools aside, walks toward the Jordan, and stands in that queue.
Just imagine: the Creator of the universe stands in the line where only sinners were supposed to stand.
He identified Himself with the people of God. He identified Himself with the movement of God. He identified Himself.
When He reached John, John saw his cousin. They were cousins, six months apart. John said:
I have need to be baptized of thee,
and comest thou to me?
—Matthew 3:14
I do not think John was only saying, “Because You are the Son of God, You should baptize me.” I think he knew how amazingly pure his cousin had lived—His sinless, spotless life.
He said, “Everyone else comes, but You should baptize me.”
But the Lord said:
Suffer it now:
for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.
—Matthew 3:15
Then down He went into the same waters where every other dirty sinner like me had gone.
He humbled Himself.
As He performed that final act of humility, identifying Himself even with the queue and line of sinners, the Father opened heaven, the Spirit descended, and the Father said:
This is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased.
—Matthew 3:17
Let us have a word of prayer.
Our loving, living, almighty, heavenly Father, thank You for Your precious Word. Thank You for what You have spoken.
Not everything, Lord, may make sense, but whatever is from You—whatever is of Your mind—let it remain.
Help us, O Lord, to have the mind of Christ: away from the world, completely committed to Your lordship, and acknowledging Your will.
We ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.