DISCIPLE DOING THE MASTERS WORK

THE DISCIPLE AT WORK FOR THE MASTER

“And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matt. 28:18-20)

            This is “pre-eminently” the fussy age. Everyone must be doing something. Nothing more clearly re­veals the spirit of the age than the contrast between the attitudes of the thought of men toward work now, and say, fifty years ago. Then the busiest endeavored to make it appear that they did nothing. Today the laziest are most eager for their friends to think of them as overworked. Personally, taking the largest outlook, I think this is a decided improvement, for it is an approximation to the Pauline ideal that a man must work or starve. It has touched the Church however, and there has wrought a great deal of mis­chief, if some good. There never was such a day of organizations, and meetings, and societies. Why, the alphabet is nearly exhausted in giving signs that stand for societies. We preachers are in danger of bewilderment as we give out notices concerning YMCA, YWCA, IBIZA, PSA, PME, YPSCE, SSU, and so on. Now, let no unkind word be said of any branch of service. All the honest and consecrated work represented by these very letters I have quoted, we welcome with delight and thank God for. Yet this very multiplication of work has in it an element of danger and one of the perilous sides to it has been the setting of unsanctified and even uncon­verted persons to work. They are Biblically para-church. Side by side with this de­mand for workers has come a rebound from that view of a "vocation" which culminated in priestism, and the fitness of a caste only for holy service. As is so often the case, the rebound has gone beyond proper limits. We have rightly contended for the rights of all believers to familiarity with the things of God, and freedom to serve. We have wrongly ex­tended to those outside the discipleship the oppor­tunity of helping in the work of the Master. This has been to their detriment, giving them a sense of security to which they had no right, and it has also been to the serious injury of the work itself. We must return to first principles. Personal relation to Christ is vocation for service. Apart from it, there can be none. On that occasion, when the crowds, having come by sea to Capernaum "seeking Jesus," asked Him, "What must we do that we may work the works of God?" He said, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent" (John 6:24-29). Of that saying Dr. Westcott writes, "This simple formula contains the complete solution of the relation of faith and works. Faith is the life of works; works are the necessity of faith."

            It cannot be too strongly insisted upon, or too fre­quently urged, that they, and they only, who are dis­ciples of Jesus, are called to, and fitted for, fellow­ship with Him in the great work to which He is pledged. If I am a disciple, I am inevitably a worker, for the new life which creates my personal dis­cipleship is the very life of Christ — compassionate, mighty, victorious. If I am not a disciple, I cannot do the work of God, for I am devoid of that life which alone is the divine compassion for man, and the divine energy for accomplishing the purposes of God.

            So much being granted, and the view gained, that the disciple at work for the Master is really the Mas­ter working through the disciple — that is, that there is oneness, we may now proceed to consider the aim, the methods, the strength, and the issue of the disciple's work by a contemplation of the Master's.

            1. Christ makes a great statement in John 9:4. "We must work the works of him that sent me." This "we" of the Revised Version teaches us that Christ identifies us with Himself in His work, and we shall best understand the force of these words by gaining a clear understanding of their setting. Take the para­graph chapters 8 and 9. In chapter 8:1-11 we have the account of Christ's dealing with the woman taken in adultery, in chapter 9:6 and on, that of His giv­ing sight to the blind man. Now, examine the part that intervenes. The opening statement (8:12) and the closing (9:5) are identical. Growing out of that statement in chapter 8 we have a long controversy on inherited privileges and divine Sonship. In chap­ter 9, the disciples' question is in the same realm, though it deals with the other side, that of inherited sin. Christ dismisses their speculations, and an­nounces the fact of His work, and proceeds to illus­trate it by another example, which at once answers their quibbling and reveals that work. This blind man is, as every man is, a revelation of human con­dition, and an opportunity for the display of the work of God. What, then, is the work of God? The remedying of the limitation and evil that is in the world, and the restoration of the natural — that is, the divine purpose. The illustration is simple. The underlying revelation is inspirational. The divine rest of Genesis 2:1, 2, was broken by man's sin. From that point God has been at work. "My Father worketh even until now and I work" (John 5:17). This is not a small thing. It grasps all in its compass. It cost all in its effort. The Cross is the ultimate expression of that divine work, and that is only understood when it is seen as the eternal force by which man's ruin and limitation are overtaken, and the first divine ideal for humanity realized. In the disciples of Jesus there moves that great life that works with ceaseless and unconquerable energy. "Thy will be done, thy kingdom come," is the disciple's prayer; it is also the aim of all his life and work. In the home, the busi­ness, the civic relation, national life, the Church, we are "workers together with Him," opening blind eyes, loosing prisoners, healing humanity's wounds, toiling ever on toward the morning without clouds, in which God will rest in the accomplishment of His purposes.

            2. If our aim is identical with that of the Master, it follows necessarily that our methods must be identical also. By reading carefully and in conjunc­tion John 5:17-19, and 14:10, we find that all His works and words were done and spoken, not on His own initiative, but on the will of the Father. That is to say, Jesus not only worked toward the same great consummation as His Father, but along the same lines, by the same methods. How very wonderful are these words, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing." "The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself." From this position the enemy directly and indirectly per­petually sought to allure Him, and, thanks be to God, uniformly and absolutely failed. In the wilder­ness He declined the kingdoms of this world, even though for these He had come, on any condition, or by any method save the divinely marked. It is just here where the evil of the "mixed multitudes" in our churches is manifest. The true disciple must be as particular about the methods of work as about the final issue; but so many have caught some faint idea of the divine intention, and now are prepared to adopt any method that seems politic and likely to achieve the end. And so the things that are worldly, sensual, devilish, are being pressed into the service of the churches — choirs of professionals, who give performances for their own glory, entertainments which approach as nearly as possible to the world; bazaars, too often another name for illicit trading. The devil's most prolific move is the secularizing of the things of God, tempting men to seek to possess the kingdoms of Christ by falling down and wor­shipping him. The disciple worker will not expect to find any "near cuts" to success, any more than his Master did, but will travel ever by the way of the cross of offence and the resurrection of power.

            The methods for the disciple are threefold, as it seems to me: (a) the example of the life, in all its details loyal to the Master; (b) the influence exerted by the character that is perpetually growing in grace, by unbroken attention to the lessons of the Teacher, and the resultant incarnation of those lessons; (c) the specific urging of the claims of. Christ upon oth­ers, so that no day passes in which an effort is not made to win a soul for Christ, by word spoken, or written, or intercession with God.

            3. The next point is a remarkable one, and we approach it reverently, yet without hesitation. The strength in which the Master accomplished His work is that by which we are to accomplish ours. It is worthy of special note that Luke, whose second treatise is that which gives us the account of the coming of the Holy Ghost, and of His acts through the first disciples, very clearly marks for us our Lord's dependence upon that same Spirit. In Luke 4:1, we see Him returning from Jordan "full of the Holy Spirit," and "led by the Spirit in the wilder­ness." From that wilderness experience He enters upon the work of His public ministry, and in Luke 4:14, we are told He did so "In the power of the Spirit"; and in the passage He read in the synagogue at Nazareth, He claims the anointing of the Spirit for service (Luke 4:18). So, "full of the Spirit" He lived, and "led of the Spirit" He went fearlessly through all the great conflicts of human nature, and "anointed of the Spirit" He undertook all specific service. Before leaving His disciples, in those won­derful discourses John has recorded, He promised them that His Spirit should come "to be with them forever" (John 14:16) , and that His mission should be to reveal to them the person and teaching of the Master (John 16:13, 14) . Thus, then, the disciple goes forth to his work in the self-same strength as that in which the Master Himself went forth to His. The only understanding I can ever have of the pur­pose of God comes by the revealing of the Holy Spirit, and the only force by which I can accom­plish anything is that of the self-same Spirit. What a glorious reserve of power there is in the Spirit-filled life, and the Spirit-anointed worker. All life becomes part of the great divine activity. Daily duties can no longer be drudgery, for every commonplace con­tribution to the day's necessities is done, for the hour present, and for the ages to come, toward that great consummation for which God works. Special forms of service have new meaning and new delight; for no word inspired of the Spirit returns void, and no work energized by Him is lost or worthless.

            4. Having taught them for three years and preparing them for that great event He came to do for mankind, He presented to them the alarming fact that He was about to leave them but to return another day after their preliminary work was finished and their preparation for further work in the heavenlies after preparation was finished. Matthew 28 is where that “Great Commission” was stated and it contains three parts all of which they would need that fullness of the spirit, that power of the Spirit, and that leadership and ministry of the Spirit to finish this great task. And by the way this task has lasted for over two thousand years. What a task He left the disciple here to perform. “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matt. 28:18-20) This power He gained through His faithfulness of executing His mission is to be shared with those who faithfully engage in this commission He left His disciple. His Spirit would lead them into the needed further understanding He promised would come with the Holy Spirit’s comforting ministry. And after baptizing those the Father would draw to Him and His disciple they were to teach the new disciple to observe all the things Christ had taught them to observe. They were to find these last disciples and then He would return at the end of this discipling age. Simple instructions but impossible without Divine help which comes from the Trinity of Persons Who left the disciple with this commission and promised to give Their assistance.

            5. Of the issue of our work, few words need be said. Again there is identity with Christ. "If we endure, we shall also reign with him" (2 Tim. 2:12). And by the way He shall not lose one His Father has given Him. If Christ ultimately fails, then the piece of work you did yesterday and are doing today will perish. Christ wins in the end after long suffering. And when He accomplishes all His great purpose, then nothing I have done toward His end, by His methods, in His strength, can be lost. There will be a gracious and searching day of testing, when love will burn up the hay, the wood, the stubble, and purify, to the brightness of the very home of God, the gold and silver and precious stones.

            Let us, then, do better work by living nearer to the King, and know more fully the privilege and joy of service by a completer abandonment to Him.