The Will of God - Part 2 — T. Austin-Sparks

Christ’s Self-Emptying and Exaltation

In the letter to the Philippians chapter 2 verse 5, have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross, wherefore also God highly exalted him, gave unto him the name, which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, for things in heaven, things on earth, and things under the earth, and that every knee, every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Chapter 3, verse 8,. Yea, verily, and I count all things to be lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, to count them but refuse that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, even that which is of the Lord, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God, by faith.

The letter to the Hebrews, chapter 12,. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 24,. Thy faith Moses, when he was grown up, or refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be evil and treated with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, accounting the reproach of Christ greater richness than the treasures of Egypt.

The Word of God as the Law of Spiritual Progress

The Lord has directed that today we shall be occupied with the realization of his full will unto which he has called us. And this morning, you know, we were considering that great law of realization and fulfillment.

The law of the government of the word of God. We were only able just to touch the very fringe of that matter, and I can only trust that it at least introduced you to a new consideration. And that because of that emphasis, you will have much closer, more devoted regard for the word of God in every matter of life.

We who have been of service to the Lord, to others, have been people of the word. Not just of the letter of the word, but of heart relationship with the word of God. Men of the All who have in any way fulfilled the function of spiritual leadership, like Joshua, have, as we saw, been based so strongly and utterly upon the word of God.

We like that all the way through. But the greatest of all, the Lord Jesus, was meticulously careful that in everything he moved according to the word. Scriptures had such a place in his whole life, conduct, teaching and work, so that he became known as the word of God.

He was it. The word is not something only written in a book. It has to become personal, personified in life, character, in every way. We're going to be used to others, we're going to be able to fulfill any responsibility at all, like those men at the beginning in the church.

In Jerusalem and in Antioch, they were men who waited on God for his word. They didn't organize the church. They didn't decide upon programs, plans and schemes for the church. They never introduced anything until they had waited on the Lord for his word about it.

Is this according to what is revealed? It's the only way of the growth of the church. And it's building up. Well, as you see, that opens a very large door. We're not going to pass in further on that matter.

I just re-emphasize that a law, a binding law of spiritual progress in the individual life, in the church life, local and universal, is the absolute government of the word of God to the law and to the testimony.

If it is not according there to, then there will be a hidden peril in it. Well, we go on this afternoon to another law of this progress in the will of God unto its ultimate realization, remembering that we are called unto this.

It's inherent in our calling. It's not something extra to the Christian life. It is not something optional to have a Christian life and whether you can have this or not have it. It is fundamental, intrinsic in the Christian life.

The Law of Renunciation in the Christian Calling

And so is what we are going to say now about another law of the will and purpose of God in our calling. And it is what is suggested, more than suggested, presented to us in the scriptures which we selected for this purpose out of many others.

It's what I'm going to call the law of renunciation. The law of renunciation. In Philippians 2, the Lord Jesus is presented to us in terms of the great renunciation, being equal with God. St. Martin said he regarded it not as something to be grasped, held on to, tenaciously gripped, but he emptied himself.

He made the great renunciation in heaven. The Apostle Paul has caught that mind which he exhorts Christians to have. He has seen the point. It came to him, the great encounter with the Lord at the beginning of his Christian life.

He saw and then all other things, however great they were, and they were many, and they were great as he tells us in that letter to the Philippians. They lost their grip on him because something else got the grip on him, and he said he made the great renunciation.

Perhaps not in the same dimension as the Lord, but for him. It was everything as it was for the Lord. Our everything may not be as great as the Lord's everything, but it's everything. If it's everything, well, that's it.

It's full. It's final. He said that he counted all these things, this catalogue of advantages, which were his, by hereditary, by birth, by upbringing, by training, by acquirement, and so on. All these things he renounced.

He renounced. And in the great renunciation of his Master and of himself, the Church has benefited through all these generations. And that's the point. That's the point we have to come to before long.

Then we read of Moses. As we could have mentioned many others in that same chapter, Hebrews 11, picking out Moses. He renounced all that he had in Egypt. The learning of the Egyptians, the court of Pharaoh, all the advantages that were there.

He made the great renunciation. Why? Again, because of the people of God. Now, that's the point. Before we come to its application, let me remind you that one of the clear marks and traces of the devil and his handy work is the distortion of good into evil.

Good things made into bad things. Satan creates nothing. He is not a creator. He creates nothing. But he encamps upon what has been made, and what has been made for good to turn it into bad. Hence you have a whole list of paradoxes in the Bible.

Fascinating to follow them, which I am not going to do. I'll give you the hint. A whole list of paradoxes or seeming contradictions. And they lie in this realm of good things in divine intention turned into bad things.

Take the matter of ambition. Ambition indeed is the parent of many egos. Ambition in the world, what it leads to. Ambitious men, women, who to realize their ambition, who tread upon all principles, will ride roughshod over all sensibilities.

Ambition, a driving force to get, to be, to master, to dominate, to rule. And haven't we in our lifetime seen something of that? My, these ambitious people, whose names we could mention, who have thrown the world into the most distressing and awful state.

Literally multitudes being murdered for an ambition, man's ambition. Ambition, need not dwell upon it, it can come and has come into the Church of God. Men, as Peter calls it, lording it over God's heritage, wanting to be something in the Church, have power, just fulfilling some secret ambition.

They don't mean it perhaps and they don't realize it, but others do. That is, well here's something that is evil, but, but, God created ambition, that's a divine thing. Our translations don't help us too much in this, but Paul said, we make it our ambition.

To be well pleasing unto Him, we make it our ambition. Paul, you've redeemed a bad world, you have salvaged something disgusting that the devil has captured. Turn to his own use, for it was ambition in Satan before his fall that led to his fall.

And he, like the serpent, has injected that poison of the serpent into human nature. Ambition, we make it our ambition. Oh, should he keep that word out of the sacred language? No, something divine. And we could go on with a whole lot of paradoxes like that, contradictions.

Paul gave us a list in one place, sorrowing yet always rejoicing, it's a paradox, isn't it? Poor is making many rich, it's a paradox. So on. Now here we are in the presence of one of these, in this very chapter, Philippians 2, and in this very consideration of the great renunciation.

Satan has taken hold of something that God created and put into man and into his universe. What is it? To acquire, to possess, to have. Not wrong in itself to have. It is not wrong in itself to acquire, to possess.

Haven't you had many battles over that, whether you ought to have this, whether it's right to possess that? In your very nature there are the traces of this divine thing, to possess, to be enriched. There are words you like to use about it, this acquisition.

Yes, God put that in. The Bible is full of it. We were looking at Israel this morning, and what a lot the Lord said to them about having. I bring you into a land flowing with milk and honey and so on and so on, and this is for you to have.

I mean you to have it. To be a wealthy people, it's all for you. Every place in the soul of God puts a threshold. I've given it to you. Over against that, great renunciation. Is that a contradiction? Renunciation now as a law of having.

Renunciation as the Way to Divine Fullness

He let go and he was given. He renounced and was endowed with all the fullness of heaven. Satan then uses this divine thing and twists something which is divine, which is of God, which is quite right in its own nature, its own nature, quite right, and gives it this distortion to make it an evil thing, so that we have now in this world this terrible assertiveness to get control, to possess, to have.

Well, where does the solution lie? Where does it lie? What's it for? The answer to that question is the answer to the paradox. What is it for? What do you want it for? And you see, it just is there where the enemy has done his work, introducing the selfhood, power, self, drawing, having for self, holding for self, pricing it for self.

And when it says he emptied himself, that's all the story of redemption, in the emptying of self, and all the wonderful issue in this whole universe along the line of redemption. But what man is going to have by God's gift, and what we may have now by God's gift in a spiritual way, every blessing, are the spirits in heaven and the heavenlies in Christ.

All that fullness unto which we are called in the will of God, comes along the line of the conversion of self, turning around. Not now, this way, but that way, to God. Now don't please let that very principle work wrongly on what I'm saying.

You see, Peter slipped up there because he wasn't converted really at that time. I know I'm going to be challenged on that, as I have been. There was a real sense in which Peter was not converted until the day of Pentecost.

Now we won't argue that out, say what you like about it, but when the Lord came with the basin of water and power, Peter to wash his feet, Peter said, no Lord, you, you shall never wash my feet. Then the Lord said, if I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.

Oh well, I want a part. It proved in a few hours after that, very few hours after that, that really it was Peter who was in view, to have all he could get, even the divine things. And when I say you'll get a great, a great fullness, if only you will learn the lesson of renunciation, be careful, as to your ambition for fullness.

Who is it for? What is it for? Is it for self? It's for the Lord. Now the principle then lying behind Philippians 2 is just this, that the Lord Jesus let go all that he had, heavenly glory and equality with God, not for himself, it was his already.

Nothing, nothing whatever that he need do or could do to enhance his own possession and rights. But God had got to be vindicated in the creation of man. God created man, took that tremendous responsibility of creating man.

Have you often felt bad about this? Oh, some of your natures are better than mine. But I have sometimes, sometimes contemplated, was God justified in creating man collectively as he is today? I just think of the history of man, hardly bears thinking about.

God did it, took the risk, the responsibility, making, the whole race, making you, making me, me. I have to turn that back on the Lord sometimes and say, Lord you made me, you made me, you gave me a being, it was by your law that I came into being, your responsibility.

Well, that's helpful sometimes, but need that. God had got to be vindicated in his creating responsibility and therefore he had got to save this man that he had made. And he had got to be glorified in this man.

Christ’s Renunciation and the Redemption of Humanity

And there is no salvation and there is no glorification while man is a selfish creature. Selfishness spoils everything, doesn't it? And rots of old glory everywhere. Therefore, therefore, that deep thing had got to be touched and dealt with, not theoretically, not doctrinally, not theologically, but actually, actually dealt with.

And there is no way of dealing with anything actually, and do underline that word, really, truly, actually, but by taking that thing and destroying it in your own person and work and being the opposite yourself.

By a mighty deep work of God. It's the vindication of God, the justification of the Father, the justification of creation. The making possible man coming to that glory in fellowship with the Father in heaven forever.

That was the motive that led him to the great renunciation of letting go. It was outward first for his Father's vindication, outward secondly for man's redemption from that twist that the devil had brought in and by which so much mischief had been made.

Evil. It was your salvation and mine from something that the devil had planted in the race, which was a contradiction to what God meant. That was outward, not for himself. Not for himself. Now I'll read again his life.

All that is included in this description. He emptied. He humbled. He took the form of a foreign slave. He was found in fashion as a man. He became obedient until death, and the most shameful and ignominious form of death that this world has known.

Always been known that crucifixions were the worst form of death possible. Down to that. That's letting go self, isn't it? All self-interest. That's renunciation. All that was involved for God first.

The Father first. That's why he's always speaking here, that is Father, my Father, my Father. Vindication of the Father. The redemption of man unto glory. Transformation and transfiguration of humanity.

Noted. Ambition. Purpose. The will of God. Now, dear friends, you and I are in the way of this, aren't we? Have you not noticed that the Lord's dealings with us when he gets us in hand, when he really does get a purchase upon us along this line, again and again because of Christian experience, we come up against a situation where it is, are we going to hold on or let go?

Abraham, Moses, and the Cost of Letting Go

Are we going to let go? Can we let go? Can we really renounce? We are stuck until that settles. We are. We can't get past that. Maybe an incident in life, maybe what we might call a small thing in comparison with other things.

But there it is, there it is. Must I? Shall I do? Shall I? Get this bone between my teeth and worry it could end? Not let go. All right, let's repeat. No way on. Well, that is settled. And have you not on the other side experienced that when at last, having sought the grace of God by the grace of the Lord Jesus, you let go and you say, Lord, all right, my hands are off.

I'm not just resigning. Be careful. Becoming resigned to your fate. Resigned to your fate is not the will of God. I'm not just, well, no longer interested. No negative attitudes and no passive attitudes, but positive.

Lord, if this is what you want, you have it. And you have a purpose in bringing me to this position, letting go of renouncement. When we get there, something breaks. All that we had wanted, we get. It's strange, isn't it?

It works like that. What about Abraham and Isaac? Couldn't he have not? Couldn't he have argued with God? Couldn't he have supported his tenacity over Isaac by what the Lord had said? Oh yes, he could have built up a tremendous argument against offering Isaac, but he came to the point of the great renunciation.

He let go. To God. Let go to God. Go to God. What do you get? You not only got Isaac back, but you got a nation. And in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed, from inward to outward. You see the range of a renunciation.

The tremendous potential of renunciation. Moses, we have picked him out amongst all these. Moses could have argued on the ground of sovereignty. Well, Lord, your sovereignty so ordered that when all the babes were being slaughtered, I was spared.

And that girl of Pharaoh's came along that day, his daughter. In your sovereignty I was rescued and taken right into the palace and brought out in Pharaoh's house, educated according to all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

Your sovereignty was in this. That's the point. He left it all. He left it all. Up he go. Renounced it all. Why? Because he became converted. Not in the New Testament sense, perhaps, but converted. Turned around with reversion.

Or withversion. Turned from inward, the people. His race, as we know, were on his heart. People for God. He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God. That's his motive. The people of God.

What I may lose doesn't matter so long as the people of God get the benefit and the blessing. You see the point? You see the point? Christ repeating himself in these men's lives on this one principle, renunciation.

The Scope of Christian Renunciation and Reward

And because he, the Lord, the Son of God, did this, wherefore? What a wherefore. God, I say in the name which is above every name. In the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. Things in heaven, things in earth.

And here's a peculiarity, and things under the earth. You notice often something like that is said, but the third dimension is left out. The under the earth is left out. And other occasions were in heaven and in earth.

I leave that for you to think about. In this case, the underworld is also going to bow to him. His renunciation means that the underworld, the full dimensions of the universe, are affected. What a range.

Affected by the ability to let go unto God. I think I hardly need say more than that, to let go. It's one of the most difficult things that you and I have to learn. But he was meek and lowly in heart, and meekness is just that, just that, selflessness.

The outward aspect of life, that's meekness. Not for myself, but how much others can gain if I have to lose. If by my loss the Father can gain what he ought to have. If by my loss the people he has created may be benefited.

That's the law of enlargement, enlargement. I stopped short in the quotation about Moses. You noticed that, of course, if you were watching. You noticed I stopped short at a certain point. Because I'm always afraid, you know, of this wretched, wretched self-interest of ours.

It's always there. It's always like Peter at that time, really, to pounce upon. He had a recompense unto the rewards. Where I stopped I didn't say that. For he had a recompense unto the reward. Very well, very well.

If it's by way of renunciation and loss, he's promised enlargement along that line. We shouldn't be motivated by reward, should we? No servant of the Lord ought to be motivated by what he's going to get out of his service.

Not at all, when you've done all say we're unprofitable servants. Nevertheless, nevertheless, we can put right and proper emphasis upon it because of where we started. You're following the train of thought?

This is God's will for you, for me, for mankind. To be enriched with all his fullness. To have all that he can give, but not selfishly. Not for their own use, but for his glory, his vindication. And if you and I, put it that way, if you and I get to glory, and he is able to give us then of his fullness, endow us with heavenly riches, I'm quite sure that we will have found in the discipline of renunciation the right ground upon which to be rewarded.

Renunciation, Spiritual Trust, and Rest

That is, we've been through it. You see, a person, anybody who's really been through this, been right in that deep and desperate reality of facing some thing, some possession, something that is very much to them, indeed might be everything to them, might make or mar their life, they've been faced with the question of willingness to let go unto the Lord.

My, it's been something hasn't it? Almost devastating to selfhood, to ambition. And when that devastation has taken place and we come out on the other side, all right, no battle now, out on the other side, it's done.

It's done. Then the Lord has his glad, or rewarding, or giving. It's safe, it's safe. I wonder how many of you, especially you servants of the Lord, whoever you are, I wonder how many of you have sometimes said to the Lord, Lord, can you trust me with this?

Can you trust me with that lesson? Can you really trust me to do this for me? I know my own heart. I know it's pride, I know it's acquisitiveness, it's love of place, position, influence, and so I know it.

And I'm afraid, I'm afraid that if you do, Lord, bless, I may, all subtly take some gratification to myself. Can you trust me? And the Lord is working to get us to the place, dear friends, where he can trust us with eternal heavenly responsibility, because he knows that that evil thing in our nature has been dealt with by the discipline of renunciation.

You're following me? It's very true, isn't it? Spiritual life. We're really in spiritual history. There are so many tensions, aren't there? My word, aren't we suffering this life from nervous tensions, strains, many a nervous breakdown, a lot of this intensity, our own kind of intensity that does us harm, nervously and physically.

What is it due to? We're not getting what we want. We're not having what we've set our heart upon, doing it for us. And so we are in this state of tension, strain in life, and life becomes a strain. Even the Christian life becomes a terrible strain.

Now, if you don't know anything about this, you're a very fortunate person, but it's true, all of us. Here we meet people everywhere who are under strain. You see it in their faces. What's the matter?

They haven't learned to let go to God. Because I know, and you know by experiences that you've had, that when you have come to the place where you let go to the Lord, I'm very particular about saying to the Lord, mark you.

It may be to the Lord through other people or through somebody, something, but ultimately it's to the Lord. When you have done that and got there, the wonderful calm comes, wonderful rest, wonderful peace.

The battle's over. Strange God. It's very true. This great renunciation. So he identified himself with man in the form of a man. Temptation is not temptation. It has no meaning. Resolve this problem if you can, but it has no meaning at all if there is not something to work upon.

Not necessarily a sinful, evil, devilish nature, but just human nature as it is. And so when the devil came to him in the wilderness and offered him the kingdoms of the world, it was no temptation if he had no heart for the kingdoms of the world.

If he could say you can have them, I'm not interested in that. If he could say it doesn't matter to me at all about the kingdoms of the world, there was no temptation, was there? But if the kingdoms of this world were the very object for which he had come, there's a temptation, there's a subtle thing here, appealing to the soul life, even of the son of man.

And he became identified with man, knowing quite well the temptations of man, and knowing man's natural ambition, feeling tempted in all points, like as we are, sin apart. But he conquered how? He conquered not by saying I'm not a bit interested in that.

There's no temptation to him, no. By saying I'm going to have that, but not at your hands, Satan. Not by your gift, not along your line. By saying I'm going to the cross, and there I'll destroy you, and get this on proper ground.

And so he became in the likeness of man, knowing man's temptation, without the sinful nature, that's the theological problem of course, without the sinful nature, nevertheless, nevertheless with a human soul, which can have ambition for itself, or for God.

And so in that temptation everyone is the father, the father, the word that the father has spoken, the battleground you see, not for me, not for me, but for others, and for the father. I wonder if you follow me.

I think we're touching things that are very real to the spiritual life. They are a whole matter of identification with us in order to save us, and to save us from our selfhood, our self-towardness, and to save us by conversion, turning Godward.

The life of the Christian then simply is the life which is for God, isn't it? It's for God. We're tested on that so often, really tested. But when we get through, we come to rest, we come to peace, come to quietness, the battle is over, until the next time.

But that's the way we grow. Next time will be more severe, sorry to say that, but you've learned something. You don't come into the more severe without the knowledge of what it means, and the way through.

You've learned something, and you're able to say, Ah, well, I was up against something like this before, and I learned how to get through, by the grace of God. All right, this is a bit more difficult, but same principle, I'm not going to fight for my own way.

I am not going to fight for my own interest. I am not going to exercise this bulldog disposition of mine to get hold of this and not let go. I'm going to be ready to put that on the altar unto God. The solution comes that way, the law of renunciation in progress toward divine fullness.

Lord, give us understanding and help from His Word. I'm sure we want to be quiet for a moment. God has spoken so clearly, deeply to our hearts. We're thinking of the whole burnt offering on the altar laid.

Lord, expect some response from us to His loving call.