PRAISE FROM WEAKNESS

John A Brown

Romans 8: 26-29, 35-39

Hebrews 12: 1-3, 6, 7, 11

John 15: 1-4

         We spoke in the reading about the pathway of the believer, about having the Lord Jesus before us as our High Priest.  He is always that; He never stops being that.  Now I desire, dear brethren, to speak about the Lord Jesus as the One who has been in this pathway before us.  It is a wonderful thing that we can have the Lord Jesus before us in so many different ways.  He is a Man in heaven, a real Man in heaven, and soon we are going to be there with Him.  He is our great High Priest, but He is also the blessed lowly One who trod His pathway here and laid down His life.  He endured the contradiction, “so great contradiction of sinners against himself”.  So He is the Model for us, and He is able to sustain us as we are occupied with Him where He is now, but also to remember how He was here.

         Every single detail of the believer’s pathway is to yield fresh glory to God, no matter what it is; no matter if it is apparently negative or positive.  That is very difficult for the natural mind to accept, and I want to speak sensitively because there are those here who have suffered in ways that I have not suffered: the loss of loved ones or other loss, whatever it might be; and especially assembly sorrows.  I feel my lack of capacity to speak about these things; there are those here who have suffered much.  But my impression is that every single detail of each one of our pathways is intended by God to yield more by way of fruit to Him.  What I had in mind in John 15 is that even the branches that are bearing fruit are purged; they are pruned so that there might be more fruit.  That again is something that is difficult to understand in some circumstances, and yet it is all under the hand of the Father.  What a wonderfully comforting matter! 

         It is also comforting to know that “the Spirit joins also its help to our weakness”.  How weak we often feel, whether it be in health or in difficult circumstances or in loss - whatever it might be, how weak we feel!  What grace, what wonderful divine grace it is, that God has come into our circumstances in the presence within us of the Holy Spirit, and He joins His help to our weakness.  “We do not know what we should pray for as is fitting”: I suppose that most of us here will have had that experience.  What should we ask for in relation to suffering?  What should we ask God to do?  We do not know what to pray for as is fitting.  Mr Coates, in relation to this passage, said something which affected me.  He asked the brethren to suppose that a parent had a delicate child which had fallen ill.  The parent could kneel down and present it all before God in deep exercise, but the Spirit would know what is good for the child, vol 25 (Outline of Corinthians) p281.  It says here, “the Spirit itself makes intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered”.  How comforting that is.  The Holy Spirit, in His greatness as a divine Person, joins His help to our weakness, and He “makes intercessions with groanings which cannot be uttered”. 

         There are brethren here who are going through great trials at the moment, and some have had experience of that in the past.  We do not know what might be in the future for any one of us, but what a wonderful comfort it is to know that not only do we have our Lord Jesus who can sympathise, because He has been a Man here and has known the sufferings and the contradictions of sinners against Himself.  Not only do we have a heavenly Father who cares about us and on whom we can cast our cares (1 Pet 5: 7) - how blessed that is, but we have a divine Person who can join His help to our weakness.  That is a remarkable statement; it is not just that the Spirit sympathises with us: He joins Himself to our weakness, and He makes intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered.  I feel the need to be more sensitive to what might be allowed by God, because I sometimes tend to be rather stoical, but that is not the way the Christian should be.  If we feel these things as allowed of God, we will be able to go through them with God so that there might be more fruit for Him.  And so it says, “he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit”, because that blessed One, the Holy Spirit, “intercedes for saints according to God”.  So we have two Intercessors.  We have the Lord Jesus “always living to intercede for” us (Heb 7: 25), and we have the Holy Spirit interceding for saints according to God.  There is a blessed divine standard of help and support. 

         Then verse 28 was what I had in my mind most of all; “we do know that all things work together for good to those who love God”.  That requires faith.  I accept that there are experiences which brethren here are going through that I have never had to face, but I can say, and I trust every one of us can be encouraged to say, that “we do know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to purpose”.  We can link the everyday experiences, the tests, the sorrows - some of them excruciating - with the working out of the purpose of God.  It is not that He causes all of these things to happen, but He allows them in His ways so that His purpose might be brought to pass.  And as we have often been reminded, God’s ways always serve His purpose.  It is a wonderful thing to have the faith to hold onto that: it is always so. 

         And then, “Because whom he has foreknown, he has also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son”.  That is what these experiences are for, that we might be formed to be more like Jesus.  If everything is going well and there are no tests, I know how testing it is to be kept in exercise.  But whatever the circumstances, what God is doing is conforming us to the image of His Son.  That is a wonderful thing, but as soon as it begins to happen, the enemy will try to stop it because he hates seeing people on this earth who are conformed to the image of the Son of God.  He will do all he can to stop it.  He will do all he can to divert you, or to cause you to fail under the pressure of whatever it might be that God has allowed.  The enemy is against it, but there is a power within us that is greater than the power of the enemy.  What a wonderful resource we have in Christ and the Spirit, and it is all in relation to the purpose of God.  But there is something being worked out in view of being “conformed to the image of his Son, so that he”, that is Jesus, “should be the firstborn among many brethren”. 

         What a wonderful comfort that is, to know that there are persons who can be called the brethren of Christ on the side of privilege, and every one of that number has been formed through suffering.  As looking around this gathering today, I see persons who know far more about what I am speaking about than I do, but I do know that it is true.  I have proved it a little, and it is a wonderful thing to prove through experience that divine Persons, Christ and the Spirit, are for us in circumstances of trial and sorrow that there might be more fruit for God, and “that we might be conformed to the image of his Son”.  Every detail is to yield that.  Moral features of Christ are being developed in believers - the features described in Galatians 5 as the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience with each other, kindness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control.  These wonderful features are to be seen in believers          as a result of their experience with God, for we are “predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son”.

         Hebrews 12 speaks of chastening, which is really what these exercises are.  But first of all, the Lord Jesus is brought before us at the beginning of the chapter; “laying aside every weight, and sin which so easily entangles us”.  Well, I know about that.  The weight may not be a sin; it may be putting too much time into a busy job, it may be other things that would deflect us from communion with the Lord Jesus and with the Holy Spirit.  Whatever they are, we are to lay them aside, and what a blessed thing it is to do that as answering to the appeal of divine love.  I find the power of distraction strong sometimes, but there is a greater power.  These distractions would draw us aside but there are “bands of a man” and “cords of love”, Hos 11: 4.  It comes back to what we said this morning about the attractiveness of Jesus.  I trust that everyone here does find Jesus attractive.  There is no one like Him, in all His beauty and glory, His graciousness, His patience.  How great is the love of that Man for each one of us.  I trust we can all speak of the attractiveness of the Lord Jesus.  I trust that everyone here knows Him in that way as a blessed living Man, but He is One who has been here.

         Then, “looking stedfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith: who … endured the cross, having despised the shame”.  What it was for the Lord of life and glory to lay down His life for me as a sinner, but also to lay down His life so that all the thoughts of God should be secured.  Because, for the purpose of God to be brought out and secured, it required Jesus to go into death.  It required Him to go into death for sinners like me, but it required Him to go into death so that the purpose of God could be brought out in all its glory in the death and in the rising again of Jesus.  Oh, how much He has secured in that way, but how much He endured.  He endured the cross, having despised the shame; so we are to “consider well him who endured so great contradiction from sinners against himself”.  We are no longer, as it were, considering Him as the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; we are considering Him now as One who was here and who endured these sufferings and the contradiction of those who were against Him.  It is not now the High Priest: it is the lowly One.  He was lowly when He was here, and He is still the same.  That blessed One is still the same in all these blessed features that so endear Him to the hearts of those who love Him.  And I trust that this verse “consider well him who endured so great contradiction from sinners against himself” will be of comfort to those who are going through so much at the moment - some of them in this room - “that ye be not weary, fainting in your minds”.

         Well, we need to hold on to Jesus, the One who is available to you as a blessed, lowly Man, a High Priest in heaven interceding for us - but One who has been through these sufferings.  The chapter goes on to speak of chastening.  God, as the Father of spirits, is chastening, but it is always in love.  Divine chastening is never punitive.  Never; it is always in love.  It always has a positive outcome in view, that there should be fruit; “no chastening at the time seems to be matter of joy, but of grief; but afterwards yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness …”.  To whom is that fruit yielded, that peaceful fruit of righteousness?  To God, to the Lord Jesus.  And what is it?  How much it would embrace; but I think that praise would be included in the peaceful fruit of righteousness.  It embraces the response that God is looking for and sometimes He allows, in His wisdom, this chastening which is to bring forth the peaceful fruit.

         The Lord Jesus Himself speaks of fruit.  We have been reading today a lot from Hebrews and we have been thinking of the words of the Lord Jesus.  In John 15, He is speaking about Himself - “I am the true vine” - but He is also speaking about His Father.  We have spoken about how the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit help us in the exercises of the pathway, that there might be more for God, and now here the Father is doing something.  He is the Husbandman and “as to every branch bearing fruit, he purges it” - that means He prunes it - “that it may bring forth more fruit”.  I know virtually nothing about fruit trees, but I do know that careful pruning is needed to maximise the fruitfulness.  And that is really what we have been speaking about in the two previous scriptures.  Then the Lord Jesus says, “Abide in me and I in you”; that is the key to fruit bearing.  You might ask me what bearing fruit is.  Well, it could be a number of things: it could be worship; it could be service of different kinds; it could be good work.  It could be whatever would please God, but we cannot do any of it, it cannot be successful, we cannot produce anything for the Father’s pleasure, unless we abide in the Lord Jesus.  It flows from abiding in Jesus.  I would seek the Spirit’s help to convey a sense of what abiding in Jesus means.

         We were in the south west recently, and I saw in the doorway of an ancient church a little leaflet that explained to visitors what that church was about.  It said that people came together there for Christian worship, and the leaflet said, ‘Christian worship is communion with a living Lord’.  Whoever wrote that was a believer in the Lord Jesus.  Christian worship is based on communion; that involves the enjoyment of His presence.  “Abide in me”, not just ‘with Me’, but in Me.  It is knowing the restfulness, the joy of your sins being gone, washed away in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus.  It is knowing the enjoyment of nearness to Him, the experience of getting down on your knees, on your own, and opening your heart to your Saviour, not asking Him for anything, just speaking with Him, and the Spirit bringing thoughts into your heart, because communion is two-way communication.  Everyone here would surely be able to say something about their experience of abiding in Christ.  “Abide in me”, He says, “and I in you”.  What a wonderful thing that is - the comfort, the restfulness of it, the joy of it.  What a blessed thing communion is.  “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the vine, thus neither can ye unless ye abide in me”.

         As we gather for the Lord’s supper tomorrow, God willing, we will open our hearts to Him in collective praise and worship, but no one can be a worshipper unless they know something of communion with the Lord Jesus and with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, because that is where it begins.  And the fruit for God can be something essentially simple.  I was very struck by something that Mr Coates said about this chapter: ‘One might give vast sums of money to do good, and there might be no fruit for God because it did not spring from abiding in Christ’, vol 9 (Outline of Mark and Other Ministry) p258.  So every thought, every feeling, every action of the believer seeking to be pleasing to God would spring from abiding in Christ.  I found that very testing, that every thought of mine, every feeling, what I seek to do for Him, should spring from nearness to my Lord and Saviour, the Leader and Completer of faith, the High Priest who is ever living to intercede for me.  What a wonderful Lord and Saviour we have. 

         May we, each one of us, desire to experience more of abiding in Him and He with us, so that there is more fruit for God, for His Name’s sake.

Grimsby

8 June 2019