JESUS ABOUT HIS FATHER’S BUSINESS – Charles Spurgeon

JESUS ABOUT HIS FATHER’S BUSINESS

“Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” John 4:34.

Introduction: The Father’s Interest in Salvation

It is peculiarly pleasing to the Christian to observe the interest which God the Father takes in the work of salvation. In our earlier days of childhood in grace, we conceived the idea that God the Father was only made propitious to us through the atonement of Christ—that Jesus was the Savior and that the Father was rather an austere Judge than a tender friend. But since then, we have learned the Father, through the Son—for it was not possible we could come unto the Father except through Jesus Christ. But now, having seen Christ, we have seen the Father also, and from henceforth, we both know the Father and have seen Him, since we know the love of Christ and have felt it shed abroad in our hearts. It is always refreshing, then, to the enlightened Christian, to call to mind the intense interest which the Father takes in the work of salvation.

Here, in this verse, it is three times hinted at. Salvation-work is called the Father’s will: “It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” But more, it is His will that His chosen, the blood-bought ones of Christ, should, every one of them, be redeemed from the ruins of the fall and brought safely home to their Father’s house. Note again, we are told that Jesus was sent of the Father. Here, again, you see the Father’s interest. It is true that Jesus tore Himself away from the glories of heaven, from the felicities of blessedness, and voluntarily descended to the scorn, the shame, and the spitting of this lower world. Yet His Father had a part therein. He gave up His only begotten Son; He withheld not the darling of His bosom, but sent away His well-beloved and sent Him down with messages of love to man. Jesus Christ comes willingly, but still He comes by His Father’s appointment and sending.

A third hint is also given us. Salvation is here called God’s work—“It is My food to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.” We know that when this world was made, the Father did not make it without reference to the Spirit, for “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” brooded over chaos and brought order out of confusion. Nor did He make it without the Son; for we are told by John, the apostle, “Without Him was not anything made that was made.” Yet, at the same time, creation was the Father’s work. So also is it in salvation; the Father does not save without the Spirit, for “the Spirit quickens whom He will.” He does not save without the Son, for it is through the merit of the Redeemer’s death that we are delivered from the demerit of our iniquity. But, notwithstanding this, God the Father is the worker of salvation as much as He is the worker of creation.

Let us look up then, with eyes of delight, to our reconciled God and Father. O Lord our GOD, You are not an angry One! You are not an austere ruler! You are not merely the Judge, but You are the grand patriarch of Your people! You are their great friend! You love them better than You did Your Son, for You did not spare Him—you did send Him down to suffer, and to die, that You might bring Your children home! “Glory be unto the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.”

Christ’s Devotion to His Father’s Will

The particular contemplation of this morning will be, however, to describe Christ Jesus as He manifests Himself as doing His Father’s will, and finishing His Father’s work. Our Lord and Master had but one thought, one wish, one aim. He concentrated His whole soul, gathered up the vast floods of His mighty powers, and sent them in one channel, rushing towards one great end—“My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.”

I. The Whole Soul of Christ in His Mission

In bringing out the great truth of Christ’s entire devotedness to the work of salvation—a devotedness so great that He could say, “The zeal of Your house has eaten Me up”—I shall need to call your attention, first of all, to the fact, verified by the gospels, that His soul was in all that He did. Mark our Master when He goes about doing good. The task is not irksome to Him. There are some men who, if they distribute to the poor, or if they comfort the fatherless, do it with such reserve, with such coldness of spirit, that you can perceive that it is but the shell of the man that acts and not the man’s whole soul. But look at our divine Lord! Wherever He walks, you see His whole self in flame; His whole being at work. Not a single power slumbers, but the whole man is engaged!

How much at ease He seems among His poor fishermen! You do not discover that His thoughts are away in the halls of kings, but He is a fellow with them, bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh. He walks in the midst of publicans and harlots and He is not ill at ease; not as one who is condescending to do a work which He feels to be beneath Him; Jesus is pleased with it, His whole soul is in it. Mark how He takes the little children on His knees, and though His disciples would send them away, yet His whole Spirit is set truly with the poor, with the sinful, whom He came to save! He says, “Allow the little children to come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Look up into that face and there is a whole man there; not as one whose thoughts are set on dignity and power and who is schooling Himself down, toning down his mind to the circle in which He moves, as a matter of constraint and duty. No, Jesus’ vocation becomes His delight! His Father’s service is His element. He is never happy when He is out of it. He casts His whole being, His whole Spirit into the work of man’s redemption!

II. The Joy of Success in the Work

As a further proof of His devotedness, you will observe that whenever He takes anything to heart as being the objective of His life, it always makes Him glad when He sees it succeeding. Now you notice in our Savior’s life that when He goes into a Pharisee’s house to eat bread, He always seems under constraint. In any chapter which records what Jesus said in the house of a Pharisee, there is a need of liveliness. He speaks solemnly, but evidently His spirit is spell-bound, He is unhappy. He knows that He is watched by quibblers who resist His good work and He there says but little, or else His discourse has but little joy and brilliance to it.

But see Him among publicans! When He is sitting down with Zacchaeus, or when He has come into some poor man’s house and is sitting down to His ordinary meal—there is Jesus Christ with His eyes flashing, His lips pouring forth eloquence and His whole soul at ease! “Now,” He says, “I am at home. Here is My work—here are the people among whom I shall succeed.” How the common man snaps Jesus’ chain! You see the Lord Jesus Christ as the child-man, no more restraining Himself before the watchers, but speaking out of His full soul all that His heart thinks and feels!

Now you generally know when a man’s heart is in his work, by the joy he feels in it. You see some preachers go up into their pulpits as though they were going to be roasted at the stake; and they read their sermons through as if they were making their last dying speech and confession. What do you think they call it?— why, doing their duty! True ministers call preaching, pleasure, not duty! It is a delight to stand up to tell others the way of salvation and to magnify Christ. But mere hirelings cannot go higher than the idea of doing their duty when they are telling out this glorious tale. Jesus Christ was none of these. “My food is,” He said, “to do the will of Him who sent Me.”

The only times that Jesus ever smiled and rejoiced are the times when He was in the midst of poor sinners. At that time, “Jesus rejoiced in Spirit and said, I thank You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hid these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them unto babes.” Let Him see a penitent; let Him hear the groan of a sinner mourning over his evil way; let Him discern a tear trickling down the cheeks of one of His hearers, and Jesus Christ begins to be glad—and the Man of Sorrows wears a smile for a moment upon that pale and sorrowful face!

III. The Righteous Anger Against Opposition

There is another test by which you may know when a man’s spirit is in his work. When a right noble lord, some little time ago, stood up in the House of Lords to speak against the infamous productions and prints of Holywell Street, I felt quite sure that His Lordship was thoroughly in earnest, because he grew angry. After some person had ventured to defend the filth that comes forth from that street, as if it had some connection with the glories of art, His Lordship replied in a very tart speech, which at once let you see that he meant what he said and that he felt the work upon which he had entered to be an important one!

Now, our Lord Jesus Christ sometimes grew warm in speech, but He was never angry except with men who opposed the good work with which He came—and not even with them if He saw that they opposed it through ignorance—but only with those who stood up against Him on account of pride and vainglory! Did you ever read such a mighty tirade of threats as that which roars from Christ when He is speaking against the Pharisees? “But woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men—for you neither go in yourselves neither allow you them who are entering to go in! Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayer—therefore you shall receive the greater damnation!”

IV. The Tears for Unsuccessful Efforts

A sure evidence that a man has espoused some mighty purpose and that his purpose has saturated his whole soul and steeped him in its floods, is that if he is unsuccessful, he will weep. Now, see our Lord. Were there ever such tears shed as those which He poured forth over Jerusalem? Standing on the hilltops, He saw its towers and its glittering temple and He discerned in the dim future the day when it should be burned with fire and the plowshare of destruction should be driven over its once fair, but then desolate, foundations, and He cries, “O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings but you would not!”

V. The Silent Endurance of Defamation

It often happens, however, that when we are really earnest about some purpose, some enemy will rise up. Unconscious, perhaps, of the nobility of our purpose, he will misconstrue our motives, vilify our character and tread our fair name in the dust. There is a strong temptation at such seasons to defend one’s self. We desire to say just a word about our own sincerity and heartiness of purpose.

But in our Lord Jesus Christ, you see nothing of this! He is so set upon His purpose that when they call Him a drunkard, He does not deny it; when they say He is a Samaritan and is mad, He takes it silently and seems to say, “Be it so. Think so, if you will.” Now and then there is a word of complaint, but not of accusation. He treated with silent pity the slanders of men and walked on in the majesty of His goodness, defying all men to say what they pleased, for all their devices could no more make Him turn aside from His course than the baying of the dog can make the moon stand still in her orbit!

VI. The Endless Toil of Christ’s Ministry

Then, mark again—another proof of the full devotedness of Christ to His ministry namely, that you always see Him laboring. The three years of Christ’s ministry were three years of ceaseless toil. He never rested—one wonders how He lived at all! It is but little marvel that His poor body was emaciated and that His visage was more marred than that of any man. Think of the stern conflicts with Satan in the desert—conflicts so severe, that if you and I were to undergo them, they might make our hairs turn gray in a single night!

VII. The Refreshing Strength of His Work

And here let me remark, again, that I may give you another proof that His food was to do the will of Him who sent Him, namely, that at many times when He was in full labor, He does not seem to have felt fatigue at all. He had been walking one hot day along the dusty road, under the burning sun; He comes at last to the well of Sychar. Being very weary, He sat down on the well. He was hungry, too, for His disciples had gone away to buy food.

“A little before ten o’clock, I felt faint, and I began to think at what hour I had had my dinner, and I found that I had had none. I never thought of it; I never felt hungry, because God had made me so glad with success! I think we could live right on, almost without food, if God would sustain us daily with this divine manna—this heavenly food of success—in winning souls! This showed that our Master’s heart was in it—for the toil needed no refreshment.”

Christ’s Whole Spirit in His Mission

VIII. Then, again, if I have not said enough to convince you that He gave His whole Spirit to the work—let me remark that many a man has espoused a purpose and, as he imagined, has betrothed himself to it by eternal nuptials, yet at last he has been divorced from the darling object. He has seen some path of brightness opening to him with some glittering honor at the end, and he has turned aside to self-aggrandizement and glory. But our Lord had a prospect before Him, such as no man ever had! Satan took Him to the brow of a hill and offered Him all the kingdoms of this world—a mightier dominion even than Caesar had—if He would bow down and worship him. That temptation was substantially repeated in Christ’s life a thousand times! You remember one practical instance as a specimen of the whole—“They would have taken Him by force and would have made Him a King.” And if He had but been pleased to accept that offer, on the day when He rode into Jerusalem upon a colt, the foal of an ass, when all cried, “Hosanna!” when the palm branches were waving, He had needed to have done nothing but just to have gone into the temple, to have commanded with authority the priest to pour the sacred oil publicly upon His head, and He would have been King of the Jews! Not with the mock title which He wore upon the cross, but with a real dignity, He might have been monarch of nations! As for the Romans, His omnipotence could have swept away the intruders! He could have lifted up Judea into a glory as great as the golden days of Solomon—He might have built Palmyras and Tadmors in the desert—He might have stormed Egypt and taken Rome! There was no empire that could have resisted Him! With a band of zealots such as that nation could have furnished, and with such a Leader capable of working miracles walking in the van, the star of Judea might have risen with resplendent light, and a visible kingdom might have come—and His will might have been done on earth, from the river unto the ends of the earth.

But He came not to establish a carnal kingdom upon earth, else would His followers fight—He came to wear the crown of thorns, to bear our griefs, and to carry our sorrows. And from that single objective, the most splendid temptation could not make Him diverge! You may heap together the glittering pomps and the gaudy jewels, but He treads them all beneath His feet! The cross, to Him, is brighter than a crown; the suffering more dear than wealth and honor. So then, in this, too, we may see how full was His purpose, and how firmly He was set on the salvation of man.

Christ’s Willingness to Die for His Purpose

IX. One other thought here. If we knew that some purpose which we had undertaken could never be achieved unless by our death, do you suppose that we could bring our minds to give up our blood as the price of success? If we knew that after the most toilsome effort, though the walls of the structure might rise, yet our own tomb must furnish the topstone—if we resolve to die for it, yet I can well conceive that firmly as our purpose might be set, we should dread the hour! Let it be at a distance, we would say; and if we were told it was drawing near, we would sigh, and our spirit would sink. But not so, Christ! Do you observe throughout His life in what a hurry He is? Read the gospel according to Mark. The gospel of Mark is the gospel of the servant. The chosen emblem in the old church windows represents St. Mark as the ox, the laborious ox. Each of the evangelists had his own particular idiom, and the idiomatic expression of St. Mark is the word, “Eutheos,” which we translate, “straightway,” “immediately.” You will see, if you read the evangelist through, that the word, “straightway,” “immediately,” occurs more frequently in that book than in any other, perhaps more times than in all the rest of the Word of God besides, to teach us this lesson—that Christ, as a servant, was in haste to fulfill His mission—never loitering, but always doing it straightway! He seems to me to be always stretching out His hands after the cross. Not standing back from it, as if He knew it must come to Him by necessity. No, He said, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it is accomplished.” His soul was speeding towards the cross, and His body seemed to be straitened, encaged, imprisoned, that it could not get to the end of this three years of labor! His soul was panting after suffering—groaning, crying out to be permitted to drink of the cup of our redemption, even to the dregs! Now, this majesty of purpose—not merely to die, but to pant for death—not simply to climb the wall, to lead the forlorn hope, and to long to do it, to be panting for that bloody sweat, to be sighing for those nails, that shame, that spitting—this is heroic ardor, self-devotion entirely unexampled! I could imagine a man panting for the fight an hour before it begins, but all His life to be desiring to enter upon it, to be panting for that bloody sweat, to be sighing for those nails, that shame, that spitting—this showed how strongly our Lord Jesus Christ had bent all His thoughts to the divine purpose of doing His Father’s will, and finishing His Father’s work!

Practical Application: Trust in Christ’s Willingness to Save

Now, I shall say no more upon this subject by way of proof. I come very briefly to make the practical application thereof. The first practical inference is addressed to the timid, agonized soul who desires salvation but who thinks that Christ is unwilling to give it to him. Timid spirit, timid spirit, put away the thought that He is unwilling to save! It is a lie against your own soul! It is a libel against His character! What, Jesus unwilling to distribute that which He so freely bought at such an immense price? Do you see in any one period of His life an unwillingness to save? There might be once a shrinking of the flesh, but that is now over. No more the crown of thorns; the cross and nails no more; the flesh has nothing more to shrink at. It is done! Redemption is accomplished, and do you think He was so earnest and so intent on the work of redemption and now is unwilling to reap the fruits of it? Why, do you not know, poor penitent, that He died to save you, and do you think that it needs much argument to move the heart that once was pierced to pity and compassion?

Get rid of the thought once and for all! He is able to forgive. That you know. He is as willing as He is able! Infinite is His ability and as infinite His willingness! I beseech you, trust Him! Come as you are, with all your sins about you. Come, and put your trust in Him. You shall find the door of heaven’s gate not creaking on its hinges, but standing ajar and easily opening! John Bunyan says the posts of the gates of the temple were made of olive trees. And he allegorized it thus: They were made of that fat and oily tree, that so the hinges might move readily and smoothly, that there might be no difficulty in opening the temple gates when timid souls came flying in. When mothers are unwilling to receive their children, when fathers are unwilling to give food to their own offspring, then—no, not even then, will Jesus be unwilling to forgive! When the hard-working man is unwilling to take his wage, when the toiling politician is unwilling to grasp the honor which he has achieved, then—no, not even then, may Christ be unwilling to lay hold upon the sheep which are His own, purchased with His own blood and to pluck that jewel from a dunghill which He has redeemed with His own suffering! He is not unwilling! You are unwilling! If there is any hardness of heart, it lies with you and not with Him. If there are difficulties in the way of your salvation, they are difficulties in yourself, not in Him. Come, and welcome! This is the invitation which reaches you today from heaven’s festal board. Come, and welcome!

A Call to Christians: A Challenge of Devotion

Come, and welcome! Come, and welcome, sinner, come! Let nothing make you linger; He thirsts to save. He pants to bless. He longs to redeem and ransom. Only trust Him—and if you are made glad when you trust, He will be glad, too! If the prodigal is glad when he returns, the father’s joy is not an atom less! If there is mirth in the heart of the returning one, there is as much mirth in the heart of the parent to whom he returns! So come, and make your Savior glad! Come, and make Him see of the travail of His soul that He may be abundantly satisfied! This is my first practical inference.

There is yet another. Christian brothers and sisters, it is but fair that we should give you one lesson from such a subject as this. Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. I would not be censorious, but solemnly and seriously, I fear there are not very many whose whole heart is set on Christ’s glory. We have church members, men of wealth; do they not spend more upon themselves than upon Christ? And may I not infer from this that they love themselves better than Christ? We have other members of our churches, men who are but comparatively well-to-do. These spend more on their mere pleasures than on Christ! What am I to suppose, but that they find more pleasure in the enjoyments of the flesh than they do in serving Christ? Oh, have we not tens of thousands in the army of the Lord who strike for themselves in their own battles with an arm as strong as that of King Arthur of our fable, but when they come to fight for Christ, their arm drops nerveless at their side? We have men who are all eyes, all ears, all hands in business, but they are blind and deaf and impotent when they come into Christ’s church! The fact is, we have in too many of our churches the chrysalis of men, but not the real body. They give us their names, but they keep their whole influence for the world. Ah, and is this what Christ deserves of you? Is this the reward of His selfless devotion? Do you thus repay Him who saved others but could not save Himself? And you profess to be a follower of the Lamb; is this your following? An imitator of Jesus and is this the imitation? Oh, sirs, the likeness is marred and blotted! You are poor sculptors, indeed, if you imagine yourselves to be sculptured in the image of Christ!

Brothers and sisters, this matter may not seem to be of interest to you, but I feel it to be a subject of the most intense importance to the world that lies in the wicked one. If we were more like Jesus, it would be a happy day for the poor dying sons of men. Oh, if our divided aims could but be exchanged for singleness of heart; if our littleness of zeal could be consumed in the intensity of love to Christ; what better men should we be and what a happier world would this be. Do you imagine that you are pleasing to God when you are living for 50 aims instead of one? When you bring to Christ your lukewarm love, your lukewarm zeal, do you think He is pleased with you, and that He accepts your offer? Oh, church of Laodicea, you have moved from Asia, you have come to England, and taken up your abode in London! Truly mIght the Lord say to many of our London churches, “You are neither cold nor hot; you are lukewarm and I will spew you out of My mouth.” There is nothing God abhors more than our cold Christianity, such as we have in these modern times—a religion which professes to live, but which lives like a gasping, fainting, trembling creature that is on the verge of death! And do you think to shake the world while you are shaking yourself with the chill of your cold indifference? You cry to God, “Arise!” And yet you rise not yourself! You ask a blessing, and yet you will not win it! You crave for victory, and yet your swords rust in their scabbards! Out with you, sirs; be rid of this hypocrisy! Begin first to ask for singleness of soul and devotedness of purpose, and when this is given you, and then shall there come days of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Then shall sinners be converted, and Christ shall see of the travail of His soul! But for all this, we need the influence of the Holy Spirit, for without Him we shall never give our whole hearts up to the sacred mission of winning souls for Christ. Spirit of the living God! Descend upon us now! Rest on Your saints, and fill them with love for perishing souls, and rest on the sinner, to bring him to this willing Savior, and make him willing in the day of Your power!

—Charles Spurgeon