Meekness & Greatness

Tozer

“Dear Lord, I refuse henceforth to compete with any of Thy servants. They have congregations larger than mine. So be it. I rejoice in their success. They have greater gifts. Very well. That is not in their power nor in mine. I am humbly grateful for their greater gifts and my smaller ones. I only pray that I may use to Thy glory such modest gifts as I possess. I will not compare myself with any, nor try to build up my self-esteem by noting where I may excel one or another in Thy holy work. I herewith make a blanket disavowal of all intrinsic worth. I am but an unprofitable servant. I gladly go to the foot of the cross and own myself the least of Thy people. If I err in my self-judgment and actually underestimate myself I do not want to know it. I purpose to pray for others and to rejoice in their prosperity as if it were my own. And indeed it is my own if it is Thine own, for what is Thine is mine, and while one plants and another waters it is Thou alone that giveth the increase.” (from The Price of Neglect, 104-105)

tozer #priceofneglect

That terrible zone of confusion so evident in the whole life of the Christian community could be cleared up in one day if the followers of Christ would begin to follow Christ instead of each other.

tozer #godspursuitofman

Spurgeon on James 3:12

Sermon link

So it is in the church of God, all true believers are members of the mystical body of Christ, but all the members have not the same office. It would be very foolish if any one member of the body were to attempt to perform the work of all the organs of the body, or indeed, of any one beside its own. The best thing is for the eye to see, and let the ear do the hearing; for the ear to hear, and let the mouth do the speaking; for the feet to carry the body wherever the brain directs, and for the hands to perform their own special handicraft, and not to usurp the office of the organs of locomotion.

But why is it that the fig tree cannot bear olive berries, and that one Christian cannot do all kinds of work? I answer, first because the variety is itself charming. If anybody had the power to destroy all the fruit trees in the world, and then to make a tree that would bear all the fruits at once, what a pity it would be! It is much better to have three trees to bear figs, olives, and grapes than to have one tree bearing figs on one bough, olives on another, and grapes on a third. It might seem a fine thing to have Christians who could do everything—men who could preach and pray and sing, who could be entrusted with great wealth and great talents, who could lead the church and who could, at the same time control the world, but that is not God’s plan for any of His children.

There is a beautiful variety in the church of God, one exercises this gift and another exercises that, one is entrusted with one form of grace, and another is entrusted with equal grace but in quite a different form. It would be no improvement if all flowers were of one color, or if all precious stones were of equal brilliance, or if all stars gave exactly the same amount of light. Variety is a great part of beauty, and God delights to have it so.

Spurgeon on Rahab

Sermon Her faith was active in her own sphere. As I have already conjectured that she became willing to entertain strangers, so when she saw the servants of God in the form of the two spies she knew at once what to do. She took them home and she did her best to hide them. She did not set up to be a heroine, and say, “Now I am a follower of JEHOVAH, I must be doing something extraordinary.” She did not pack up her clothes, and start off to some distant place where she could find more glittering service for JEHOVAH, but she stopped where she was and served God there. She minded her own guests and kept her own house.

I believe that home duties are one of the very best forms of the activity of faith, especially in Christian women. Our business is not to do what we fancy but what the Lord appoints for us. Of many a Christian woman it is best to have it said, as of Sarah, when they said, “Where is Sarah?” and the answer was, “In her tent.” It is a good thing when a Christian feels he will not choose his work but will take the work God chooses for him🔥, he resolves not to ape somebody else, but to follow the special path which the Lord marks out for him.

Now Rahab was not to anticipate Joel, and drive a tent pin through the head of the King of Jericho, nor to be a Deborah and call some Barak to the battle. She had work at home ready to hand, and what her hand found to do she did with all her might. May we see in all of you who are Christians the faith which works in its own sphere, may you exhibit the religion of common things. Do not believe in knight-errantry. Do not be spiritual Don Quixotes. God has made you what you are, a mother, or a daughter, a husband, a servant, or a master, serve God as such. There is something for you to do in your position. Extraordinary calls may come, and I pray they may come to some here present, but they are not likely to be given to those who cannot use their present everyday opportunities. We may be called to very special service and have special grace given, but it is best for us till such calls are felt to mind our business in the station of life in which God has placed us. Moses kept sheep till he was bidden to deliver Israel, Gideon was threshing when the angel appeared to him, and the disciples were fishing when Jesus called them. They used diligence in their callings, and then threw their hearts into their higher calling. So Rahab did. The spies came to her, she received them in peace, she hid them, and after she hid them she let them down by a rope from her house on the wall, which perhaps she had done before to very different characters. Then she gave them the best advice she could, and was thus the means of preserving their lives. She fulfilled a very necessary part in Israelite history. Her faith was truly active and is to be commended.

spurgeon

EnduringWord on successful Christian work

also in growth#EnduringWord on successfuly Christian work Revelation3 v 8

The church of Philadelphia is commended for keeping the Word of the Lord and not denying His Name. Success in Christian work is not to be measured by any other standard of achievement. It is not rise in ecclesiastical position. It is not the number of new buildings which have been built through a man’s ministry. It is not the crowds that flock to listen to any human voice. All of these things are frequently used as yardsticks of success, but they are earthly and not heavenly measures.

barnhouse

Spurgeon on Psalm 131:2

Sermon Baruch had been writing the roll for the prophet, and straightway Baruch thought he was somebody. He had been writing the word of the Lord, had he not? But the prophet said to him, “Seek you great things for yourself? Seek them not.” And so says the mind of the Spirit to us all. Do not desire to occupy positions of eminence and prominence, but let your soul be as a weaned child—not exercising itself in great matters.

Very often we seek after great approval. We want to do great deeds that people will talk about, and especially some famous work which everybody will admire...

Frequently, too, we exercise ourselves in great matters by having a high ambition to do something very wonderful in the church. ==This is why so very little is done! The great destroyer of good works is the ambition to do great works!== A little thing can be done by a Christian brother well; but if it strikes him, “I will organize a society to do it and a committee, a secretary, a president, and a vice-president,” (it being well known that nothing can be done till you get a committee, a president and all that kind of thing), the brother soon hampers himself, and his work ends in resolutions and reports, and nothing more. But the brother who says, “Here is a district which nobody visits. I will do what I can in it”—he is probably the man who will get another to help him, and another and the work will be done. The young man who is quite content to begin with preaching in a little room in a village to a dozen is the man who will win souls. The other brother, who does not begin preaching till he can preach to five thousand, will never do anything—he never can. I read of a king who always wanted to take the second step first, but he was not a Solomon. There are many such about, not kings but common people, who do not want to do the first thing, the thing they can do, the thing which God calls them to do, the thing they ought to do. No, but they must do something great. Oh, dear brother, if your soul ever gets to be as it ought, you will feel, “The least thing that I can do, I shall be glad to do. The very poorest and meanest form of Christian service, as men think it, is better than I deserve.” It is a great honor to be allowed to unloose the laces of my Lord’s shoes! A young man, who once had a small charge once, and only about two hundred hearers, complained to an old minister that he wished he could move somewhere else. But the old one said, “Do not be in a hurry, brother. The responsibility of 200 souls is quite heavy a load enough for most of us to carry.” And so it is. We need not be so eager to load ourselves with more. He is the best draftsman, not who draws the largest, but the most perfect circle. If the circle is perfect, nobody finds fault with it because it is not large. Fill your sphere, brother, and be content with it. If God shall move you to another, be glad to be moved. If He moves you to a smaller, be as willing to go to a less prominent place as to one that is more so. Have no will about it. Be a weaned child that has given up fretting, crying, worrying, and leaves its mother to do just what seems good in her sight. When we are thoroughly weaned, it is well with us—pride is gone, and ambition is gone, too. We shall need much nursing by one who is wiser and gentler than the best mother before we shall be quite weaned of these two dearly beloved sins.

Now, from the simile itself, we gather that the condition of heart of which David spoke was this— that he was like one who was able to give up his natural food, which seemed to him absolutely necessary, and which he greatly enjoyed. The weaned babe has given up what it loved. By nature, we hang on the breasts of this world, and only sovereign grace can wean us from it. But when we give up selfrighteousness, self-confidence, the love of the world, the desire of self-aggrandizement, when we give up trusting in man, trusting in ceremonies, trusting in anything but God, then has our soul become like a weaned child. It has given up what nature feeds upon that it may feed upon the bread of heaven.

spurgeon

Maclaren on Simon in Mark 15:21

I. First, the greatness of trifles.

If Simon had started from the little village where he lodged five minutes earlier or later, if he had walked a little faster or slower, if he had happened to be lodging on the other side of Jerusalem, or if the whim had taken him to go in at another gate, or if the centurion’s eye had not chanced to alight on him in the crowd, or if the centurion’s fancy had picked out somebody else to carry the Cross, then all his life would have been different. And so it is always. You go down one turning rather than another, and your whole career is coloured thereby. You miss a train, and you escape death. Our lives are like the Cornish rocking stones, pivoted on little points. The most apparently insignificant things have a strange knack of suddenly developing unexpected consequences, and turning out to be, not small things at all, but great and decisive and fruitful.

Let us then look with ever fresh wonder on this marvellous contexture of human life, and on Him that moulds it all to His own perfect purposes. Let us bring the highest and largest principles to bear on the smallest events and circumstances, for you can never tell which of these is going to turn out a revolutionary and formative influence in your life. And if the highest Christian principle is not brought to bear upon the trifles, depend upon it, it will never be brought to bear upon the mighty things. The most part of every life is made up of trifles, and unless these are ruled by the highest motives, life, which is divided into grains like the sand, will have gone by, while we are waiting for the great events which we think worthy of being regulated by lofty principles. ‘Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves.’

Let us learn the lesson, too, of quiet confidence in Him in whose hands the whole puzzling, overwhelming mystery lies. If a man once begins to think of how utterly incalculable the consequences of the smallest and most commonplace of his deeds may be, how they may run out into all eternity, and like divergent lines may enclose a space that becomes larger and wider the further they travel; if, I say, a man once begins to indulge in thoughts like these, it is difficult for him to keep himself calm and sane at all, unless he believes in the great loving Providence that lies above all, and shapes the vicissitude and mystery of life. We can leave all in His hands-and if we are wise we shall do so-to whom great and small are terms that have no meaning; and who looks upon men’s lives, not according to the apparent magnitude of the deeds with which they are filled, but simply according to the motive from which, and the purpose towards which, these deeds were done.

II. Then, still further, take this other lesson, which lies very plainly here-the blessedness and honour of helping Jesus Christ.

And there is yet another way in which this honour of helping the Lord is given to us. As in His weakness He needed some one to aid Him to bear His Cross, so in His glory He needs our help to carry out the purposes for which the Cross was borne. The paradox of a man’s carrying the Cross of Him who carried the world’s burden is repeated in another form. He needs nothing, and yet He needs us. He needs nothing, and yet He needed that ass which was tethered at ‘the place where two ways met,’ in order to ride into Jerusalem upon it. He does not need man’s help, and yet He does need it, and He asks for it. And though He bore Simon the Cyrenian’s sins ‘in His own body on the tree,’ He needed Simon the Cyrenian to help Him to bear the tree, and He needs us to help Him to spread throughout the world the blessed consequences of that Cross and bitter Passion. So to us all is granted the honour, and from us all are required the sacrifice and the service, of helping the suffering Saviour.

III. Another of the lessons which may very briefly be drawn from this story is that of the perpetual recompense and record of the humblest Christian work.

So we may say, it shall be always, ‘I will never forget any of their works.’ We may not leave our deeds inscribed in any records that men can read. What of that, If they are written in letters of light in the ‘Lamb’s Book of Life,’ to be read out by Him before His Father and the holy angels, in that last great day? We may not leave any separable traces of our services, any more than the little brook that comes down some gulley on the hillside flows separate from its sisters, with whom it has coalesced, in the bed of the great river, or in the rolling, boundless ocean, What of that so long as the work, in its consequences, shall last? Men that sow some great prairie broadcast cannot go into the harvest-field and say, ‘I sowed the seed from which that ear came, and you the seed from which this one sprang.’ But the waving abundance belongs to them all, and each may be sure that his work survives and is glorified there,-’that he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.’ So a perpetual remembrance is sure for the smallest Christian service.

IV. The last lesson that I would draw is, let us learn from this incident the blessed results of contact with the suffering Christ.

And it is the only way by which any of us will ever learn the true mystery and miracle of Christ’s great and loving Being and work. I beseech you, take your places there behind Him, near His Cross; gazing upon Him till your hearts melt, and you, too, learn that He is your Lord, and your Saviour, and your God. The Cross of Jesus Christ divides men into classes as the Last Day will. It, too, parts men-’sheep’ to the right hand, ‘goats’ to the left. If there was a penitent, there was an impenitent thief; if there was a convinced centurion, there were gambling soldiers; if there were hearts touched with compassion, there were mockers who took His very agonies and flung them in His face as a refutation of His claims. On the day when that Cross was reared on Calvary it began to be what it has been ever since, and is at this moment to every soul who hears the Gospel, ‘a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death.’ Contact with the suffering Christ will either bind you to His service, and fill you with His Spirit, or it will harden your hearts, and make you tenfold more selfish-that is to say, ‘tenfold more a child of hell’-than you were before you saw and heard of that divine meekness of the suffering Christ.🔥 Look to Him, I beseech you, who bears what none can help Him to carry, the burden of the world’s sin. Let Him bear yours, and yield to Him your grateful obedience, and then take up your cross daily, and bear the light burden of self-denying service to Him who has borne the heavy load of sin for you and all mankind.

maclaren

Barnes on Matthew 5:3

To be poor in spirit is to have a humble opinion of ourselves; to be sensible that we are sinners, and have no righteousness of our own; to be willing to be saved only by the rich grace and mercy of God; to be willing to be where God places us, to bear what he lays on us, to go where he bids us, and to die when he commands; to be willing to be in his hands, and to feel that we deserve no favor from him. It is opposed to pride, and vanity, and ambition. Such are happy:

1. Because there is more real enjoyment in thinking of ourselves as we are, than in being filled with pride and vanity.

2. Because such Jesus chooses to bless, and on them he confers his favors here.

3. Because theirs will be the kingdom of heaven hereafter.

It is remarkable that Jesus began his ministry in this manner, so unlike all others. Other teachers had taught that happiness was to be found in honor, or riches, or splendor, or sensual pleasure. Jesus overlooked all those things, and fixed his eye on the poor and the humble, and said that happiness was to be found in the lowly vale of poverty more than in the pomp and splendors of life.

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven - That is, either they have special facilities for entering the kingdom of heaven, and of becoming Christians here, or they shall enter heaven hereafter. Both these ideas are probably included. A state of poverty a state where we are despised or unhonored by people is a state where people are most ready to seek the comforts of religion here, and a home in the heavens hereafter.

barnes

GotQuestions on James son Alphaeus

The lack of information about James the son of Alphaeus is a lesson in itself. This James was just as much an apostle as were Peter and John. He will sit on a throne in Jesus’ earthly kingdom (Matthew 19:28) with as much authority and honor as the other apostles. His name will be engraved in a foundation of the walls of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:14). James will not be considered “less” in eternity because he was faithful to his calling on earth.

James the son of Alphaeus can be an encouragement to those called to lives of obscurity. Our callings are just as sure, just as God-honoring, but few will ever know our names on earth. There will be no billboards, Time articles, or headlines praising our efforts. Some toil for decades in remote regions of the world with little to show for it. Others serve quietly in their homes or neighborhoods and then die relatively unnoticed. But God notices. James the son of Alphaeus reminds us that God uses a different set of standards to choose His heroes. He honors faithfulness (Luke 18:8), endurance (Matthew 24:13), obedience (Matthew 7:21), and sacrifice (Galatians 2:20). Our only responsibility is obedience, not the results of that obedience. While some apostles wrote books of the Bible and others were featured regularly in the gospels, it appears that James the son of Alphaeus was quietly faithful to his Lord. For that, he will be equally honored with them for all eternity.

Bob Sorge on simply standing before God

And then He takes the well-oiled ministry machine that you've become and places you on the shelf-and He says, "Just stand there."

This is what God did with Elijah. Elijah had this expression, 'As the LORD God of Israel lives, before whom I stand" (1 Kings 17:1) Elijah claimed, "I stand before God, that's what I do" So the Lord decided to test his claim by putting him under house arrest for three years. In the widow's home during the famine, he couldn't stick his head out the door because every nation on earth was looking for him. He was stuck in this hot, stuffy, bleak little house. No friends, no visiting prophets, no other voices to comfort or give him perspective. And the food? Frycakes for breakfast, frycakes for lunch, and more of the same for supper. I can imagine Elijah thinking, "Lord, why do You have all this ministry potential holed up in this widow's house? I mean, in the last three years I could have raised up a whole graduating class in the School Of The Prophets. We would be taking the nations by force! But no, here I stand and rot!" But Elijah didn't respond that way because God had already taught him to stand before Him. So when the time of testing came, Elijah was able to persevere and just stand before His God and minister to Him.

The Scriptures show us that God has mighty angels who stand in His presence, in some cases for hundreds of years, and wait for His bidding. With all their strength and might, God just has them standing around the throne and waiting on Him! If it were a matter of strength, God has all the strength in heaven He needs! And then the Holy Spirit whispered to me, "I don't need your strength." It wasn't the strength of the eternal Son that bought our redemption; it was the fact that He was crucified in weakness that brought us salvation. ===God doesn't need our strength; He needs our availability.=== He's just looking for us to stand in His presence, gaze upon Him, love Him, and His word when He speaks. Are you between assignments? Then just stand before Him enjoy Him, and let Him enjoy you!

bobsorge

^ needed to read that espcially in this season where I'm graduated and jobless. I feel useless and often doubt where I stand with the Lord. Help me to remain available and be satisfied wherever you place me in each season. 9/27/2022

jj