Resources for Service and Worship
by T. Austin-Sparks
Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.
Reading: John 11:1-2; 12:1-5; Psalm 66:9-15; Genesis 26:12-15,18-19.
These several passages are brought together in relation to one simple but helpful thought. It is the way in which we become possessed of resources for service and for worship.
In the case of the passages in the gospel of John, what comes out is Mary offering something very costly in worship, adoration, and service to the Lord. It looks very much as though Judas and those of like mind stood in the place of the Philistines, who envied and coveted. He, and they, were impressed with the wealth, the value, the preciousness of what was being expended upon the Lord, and what the Lord was receiving. They were putting the value very high. Of course, from their standpoint it was too high for its purpose, it was more than Himself; but from Mary's standpoint it was a very small thing in comparison with Him.
The thing which is quite clearly thrown up in that passage is the preciousness, the value, and the Lord's appreciation of it. The question is, what brought this about? How did it come to be? By what way did the Lord come to receive this wealth, this richness, this preciousness? The answer is seen in the history of her relationship to Him. It was a history of sorrow, suffering, discipline, some mystery in which the soul was torn and rent with perplexity. John 11 is the story of a good deal of inward suffering, perplexity, and anguish. She undoubtedly went through a deep time. Mary's life was evidently marked by more than one deep time, and it was out from those depths, out from that suffering, out from that discipline, that there came this which is marked for ever in the Divine record as something characterised by preciousness and value, wealth and riches; something which became the envy of the carnal.
So it ever is, that it is by the way of suffering, by the way of pressure, by the way of travail, that we become possessed of the resources for the service of the Lord. That hardly needs emphasising, it is too manifest a fact, and yet it is something to meditate and reflect upon. We do not get resources which really serve the Lord by mechanical means. We never serve the Lord with the accumulations of mere study. The resources for service are not what we collect outwardly. The means for the work of the Lord are not the result of the activities of our brains. What really serves the Lord is something very costly, and the costly things are never got easily. When they are spiritual things they are only got by very much spiritual suffering. Perhaps there is need for some revision as to what it is that really serves the Lord; what the means are by which the Lord is really glorified. It is not a matter of what we have said, or do say, about the Lord as something grasped. It is what comes out of the suffering through which the Lord Himself allows us to go.
The mystery of John 11 for those concerned was that the Lord was so obviously refusing to prevent that particular sorrow coming into that life. "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died", and yet we know from the fuller history given us by a disciple who was there, and given us much later, that His not being there was quite a deliberate thing. He might have stepped in and prevented that sorrow, but He deliberately took the other course. That was a mystery to them, and we know that it is the mystery of God's ways with us that is a very large factor in the intensity of the suffering. He does not tell us all about it in advance. He does not just lay it all clearly before us, and say: "Now, that way leads to so-and-so; if you go this way, such-and-such will be the result". He simply begins to lead us by a way that is inexplicable, which seems to be totally contrary to Himself and to His nature, and we have to go on. The end is that we are in possession of a wealth with which to serve Him, a wealth which goes down to history in spiritual annals as something which the Lord prizes very greatly. These are the true resources of service, and, after all, the measure of real value to the Lord is the measure of what is wrung out of life's travail. Enrichment, the valuable possessions for the Lord, come that way.
The passage in Psalm 66 is given a special significance by reason of the context:
"For Thou O God, hast proved us:
Thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.
Thou broughtest us into the net;
Thou layedst a sore burden upon our loins.
Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water."
"I will offer unto Thee burnt-offerings of fatlings,
With the incense of rams;
I will offer bullocks with goats."
Through it all there is something for worship; that is, worship comes out of all that. It is impressive to notice David one moment is saying: "Thou hast done all this in my life, which was calculated to destroy me". And then: "I will worship, bring an offering, the very best. As a result I am not just bringing the reticent, hesitating acknowledgment of the Lord which is grudged, and grudgingly given, because of all I have gone through. 'I will offer unto Thee burnt offerings of fatlings, with the incense of rams; I will offer bullocks with goats.'"
The large sacrifices are here. David is saying: "I am not going, because You have dealt so hardly with me, to bring You a dove," the smallest of all the offerings. The thought here is of wealth, fullness, largeness, resulting from suffering. The Lord gets something big out of the suffering through which He brings us. There are resources for service through suffering. Here it is worship given, but worship which is produced, not by some objective contemplation of God, but by reason of an inward history of suffering. There is some value in that.
