T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 4

A Great and Effectual Door

Reading: Philippians 1.

"I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ" (Phil. 3:8).

The Fight for a Continent

The letter to the Philippians will mainly occupy our attention, but before we come to it, actually we shall be more in that chapter which brings before us the establishing of the Lord's Testimony in Philippi, namely, chapter 16 of the book of the Acts. I think that very few of the Lord's people who have read it thoughtfully have failed to be impressed very deeply with the little letter to the Philippians. It is one of the gems of Scripture, and perhaps its outstanding feature is that more than in any other instance the Apostle found it possible to open his heart widely, and just pour out a stream of affection. In no other place do we find him in that matter so unrestrained.

There are special things about these Philippian believers which make that possible, and which so draw him out. When that is recognised as over against his great difficulty in opening his heart in many other directions - the longing, but the inability because of prevailing conditions, because of so much which had to be waded through of what was not according to the Lord's mind, all of which straightened him in his desire to get into the closest personal touch in the life of the Lord - I say when we recognise that, we are bound to conclude that the Philippians represented something very precious for the Lord. They stood in a position which - if the Apostle himself reflected the Lord's own relationship to them - brought great joy to the heart of the Lord. We have come to know this letter as the letter of triumphant joy.

There had just streaked across the horizon slight vapours. At one point it seemed almost that a cloud crossed the sky, a cloud of very unpleasant memory. But apart from those passing clouds or vapours, the letter is just full of joy, wonderful, overflowing joy. And if these Philippians were the occasion of it, as undoubtedly they were, remembering the conditions and the position of the Apostle at the time, then surely they present something in which the Lord has great delight, something which stands for the Lord as being of great value to Him. That being the case, it is always good to look at the history of such a people, and especially at the commencement of their spiritual history, or of their relationship to the Lord. Thus we turn back to chapter 16 of the Acts, to see something as to the spiritual origin of the assembly of believers in Philippi.

A Great and Effectual Door

We know that Philippi was of very great strategic value so far as the Gospel in the nations was concerned. We know that Philippi was the door into the Western world, into Europe, and it was through that door at Philippi that the Gospel came to us, and into these Western nations. So that, so far as this world is concerned with the Gospel, Philippi was of great strategic value. You are not surprised, therefore, that the opening of that door, the passing through it, and the establishing of the Testimony on the other side of it, was fraught with terrific conflict; a conflict in which it seemed that all the cosmic and universal forces became engaged.

The Divine Mind and our Sanctified Common Sense

Glance through chapter 16 with that thought in mind and you will be impressed with the forces which were active in relation to the Testimony being established in Philippi. You begin with - we will not say a conflict - but a difference between a good sanctified human judgment, and the revealed will of God. That is where things commenced. You find that Paul and his companions, Silas, Timothy and Luke, were moving in a certain direction, and their own minds were undoubtedly working with certain fields of labour in view. There was the great, and apparently wonderfully fruitful, field of Asia. Think of all that there was in Asia! Wonderful possibilities! Their minds were moving in that direction as the field of activity. Then we are told that they were forbidden to preach the Word in Asia. Then they assayed to go into Bithynia. The mind is working in another direction, and has definitely decided that that would be a fruitful field for the Gospel. And so they follow - or assay to follow - that sanctified human judgment. We mean by that that all their powers are on the Lord's side, mind, heart and will, spirit, soul and body. There is no question about that. They are wholly consecrated men. There is no working for themselves; there are no ambitions of their own; they have no personal enterprises and interests to realise; they are wholly out for God, and in that devotion to the Lord, and in that full consecration of their entire being, they contemplate certain things, they assay to move in certain directions. Then even so they come up against something else, which transcends even a consecrated human judgment, and they are forbidden to preach the Word in Asia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not to go into Bithynia. That is something to think about!

You see you have laid down a law, established a principle, right at the outset, by which the fulness of Christ is to be realised. I believe that that is a basic law to this very thing which we have in view; the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. We have no wish to stay with that very long; we mention it as something to take account of. We hear people reason that way in these days. "Well, use your sanctified common sense!" they say, as though that were the last word in direction. But here it is clearly revealed that there is something which transcends sanctified common sense. There is a revealed will of God which is other than the very best consecrated human judgment.

So often a position like this arises, and we assay to proceed along lines which are commended to us by our very devotion to the Lord. We are all out for the Lord; we are consecrated to the Lord; we are quite sure that we are not actuated by personal ambitions, and it is not that we have plans of our own that we are trying to carry out, but we really are for the Lord; and because of that we would allow our own activities of mind, and heart, and will, in the interests of the Lord, to dictate our course, to create our policy, and we would think that zeal for the Lord, devotion to the Lord, heart consecration to the Lord warrants our doing anything that comes into our mind for the Lord. Even so we often live to discover that that is not the most fruitful way, that even that zeal for the Lord may mean that the fruit is much less than it ought to have been.

The Things which Differ

We are seeking, by the enablement of the Lord, to keep very close to the text of the letter to the Philippians, and in that chapter it seems that (although we do not suggest that this relationship was in the mind of the Apostle) in the mind of the Holy Spirit there is an underlying relationship between what we have just mentioned as a principle and that word of the Apostle to the Philippians: "That you may be able to discriminate between the things which are excellent." The Apostle is saying that it is not a matter of discrimination between right and wrong, good and bad. That is not what is in view at all. He is speaking in the excellencies. There is a very high level here. He speaks about the excellency of the knowledge. The word really is "super-eminence." There may be very eminent things in Christ and in the Christian life, but Paul is after the super-eminence, the transcendence, the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, something above the average. And so he says to them, not that they may be able to discern, judge, discriminate between good and bad, right and wrong, the things which are of the Lord and the things which are not of the Lord, but that they may be able to discriminate between good things and better things, or the best things and the things which do not just reach the best, but which are superior. It is good to be wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord, thoroughly consecrated to the Lord. It is very good to have consecrated spirit, soul and body, mind, heart and will, and all your powers to the Lord. But there is something above that, and the something above that is that the Holy Spirit may be even better than our very best consecrated and sanctified judgment. The Holy Spirit may even go one beyond our most ardent devotion to the Lord and swing us in the opposite direction from that in which our devotion would take us. We are not to make our consecration to the Lord and the fact that we are out for the Lord, the governing factor in the planning of our life and in the arranging of our course.

Every Need is not a Call