6. Consummating His Fulfilment at the Goal (Luke 23:33)
The Missionary Goal
In natural life we have ambitions and aims which alter as we develop; in the Christian life the goal is given at the beginning, viz., Our Lord Himself. “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” We do not start with our idea of what the Christian life should be, we start with Christ, and we end with Christ. Our aims in natural life continually alter as we develop, but development in the Christian life is an increasing manifestation of Jesus Christ.
1. Companionship with His Goal (Luke 18:31-34)
Behold, we go up to Jerusalem.††
That is not the language of a martyr living beyond His dispensation. Our Lord is not foreseeing with the vision of a highly sensitive nature that His life must end in disaster, He states over and over again that He came on purpose to die. “From that time began Jesus to shew unto His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up” (Matthew 16:21†† rv). The Scriptures leave no room for the idea that Our Lord was a martyr (cf. Luke 24:25-27). Jerusalem stands in the life of our Lord as the place where He reached the climax of His Father’s will.
This word of our Lord’s is taken as exhibiting the missionary goal, “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem,”†† and unless we go with Him there, we shall have no companionship with Him. The New Testament centres round one Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are regenerated into His Kingdom by means of His Cross, and then we go up to our Jerusalem, having His Life as our example. We must be born from above (rv mg) before we can go up to our Jerusalem, and the things He met with on His way will throw a flood of light on the things we shall meet with. Our Jerusalem means the place where we reach the climax of Our Lord’s will for us, which is that we may be made one with Him as He is one with the Father.†††† The aim of the missionary is not to win the heathen, not to be useful, but to do God’s will. He does win the heathen, and he is useful, but that is not his aim; his aim is to do the will of his Lord.
2. Considering His Facing of the Way (Luke 9:51-55)
He stedfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.
The set purpose of Our Lord’s life was to do the will of His Father†††; that was His dominating interest all through. He went on His way to Jerusalem unhasting and unresting, not hurrying through the villages where they “did not receive Him, because His face was as though He were going to Jerusalem” (rv); nor loitering in those villages where they welcomed Him. Our danger is to be deflected by the things we meet with on the way to our Jerusalem—“I am so misunderstood and so persecuted here that I must get away; or, this is where I am so useful that I must stay awhile.”
Ambition means a set purpose for the attainment of our own ideal, and as such it is excluded from the Kingdom of Our Lord. When the disciples asked “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (rv) Jesus called to Him a little child and said—“Except ye . . . become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven”† (rv). The nature of the kingdom of heaven is revealed in the implicit nature of a child, because a child does not work according to a set ambition, he obeys the simple law of his nature. If we are children of God, the simple law of our nature is the Holy Ghost; His one set purpose is the glorification of Jesus, and He pays no attention to our secular or our religious notions.
Are we entering into competition with the purpose of the Holy Ghost by having purposes and ambitions of our own? As we face the way to our Jerusalem, we must adhere to the set purpose of the Holy Ghost, which is to glorify Jesus. We must never be deflected by the pride of those who reject us because of that purpose, nor be deterred by the prejudices of those in the same way with us. We must consider Him, and go up to Jerusalem with Him. The “one thing” in the life of the apostle Paul was not an ambition; it was a set purpose born of the Holy Ghost in him.
3. Comparing His Faring on the Way (Luke 13:22-35)
And He went on His way through cities and villages, teaching, and journeying on unto Jerusalem. (Luke 13:22 rv)
Our Lord was not fanatical. Had He been a fanatic, He would have said—“Because I am going up to Jerusalem there is no need to stay in this village or that; I have only one duty, and that is to go up to Jerusalem.” Our Lord took plenty of time to do His duty in the cities and villages that He went through on His way up to Jerusalem. Nothing made Him hurry through the villages where He was persecuted, or linger in those where He was blessed.
Verses 31-33. Our Lord met deceit on His way to Jerusalem, but it did not deter Him from His set purpose.
Verses 34-35. Our Lord also realised desperate distress on His way, but nothing caused Him to swerve one hair’s breadth from the set purpose of God.
As workers for God we shall meet with deceit and with distress on our way to Jerusalem, for “the disciple is not above his Master.”† It is true of the Master that “He shall not fail nor be discouraged.” In the intimate circle of Our Lord’s own disciples there was one whom He called a devil, but He never allowed that to deter or discourage Him.
Various things will make us forget to do our duty, e.g., excess of joy (see Acts 12:12). In the excitement of a revival we become so taken up with joy that we forget the home duties and everything else.
4. Contemplating His Findings on the Way (Luke 17:11-19)
And it came to pass, as they were on the way to Jerusalem . . . there met Him ten men that were lepers. (rv)
Our Lord met ingratitude on His way to Jerusalem—“Were not the ten cleansed? but where are the nine?” but it did not turn Him from His purpose. We shall meet the same thing on the way to our Jerusalem, there will be people who get blessed and one or two will show gratitude, and the rest gross ingratitude. Never allow this feeling to come in—“Well, I am going to do no more for that one, I did everything I could for him and all I got was gross ingratitude.” That sentiment will deflect us from going up to our Jerusalem. We are not here to serve our own purpose; we are here, by the grace of God and by His indwelling Spirit, to glorify our Lord and Master. If He brings us up against callous people, mean, ungrateful, sponging people, we must never turn our faces for one second from our Jerusalem, because that is a temper of mind in which Jesus cannot be glorified.
We have to learn to go the second mile with God. Some of us get played out in the first ten yards because God compels us to go where we cannot see the way, and we think we will wait until we get nearer the big crisis. We can all see the big crisis—“Oh yes, I would like to do that for God”; but what about the obscure duty waiting to be done? If we do not do the walking, steadily and carefully, in the little matters, we shall do nothing when the big crisis comes. We shall flag when there is no vision, no uplift—just the common round, the trivial task; but if we keep our faces steadfastly set towards our Jerusalem, and go there considering Him, it will not be possible for drudgery to damp us.
5. Concerning His Finishing on the Way (Luke 19:11-28)
And He added and spake a parable, because He was nigh to Jerusalem.
As Our Lord drew near to His Cross the disciples became more and more perplexed; until at last, at the end of three years of the most intimate contact with Him, they said “What is it that He saith unto us? . . . We know not what He saith” (rv). After the Resurrection, Our Lord breathed on them and said—“Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” “And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him.” “Then opened He their mind, that they might understand the scriptures” (rv). If we try to get “head first” into what Our Lord teaches, we shall exhibit the same stupidity as the disciples did, until we have received the Holy Spirit and learnt to rely on Him, and to interpret the words of Jesus as He brings them to our mind.
6. Consummating His Fulfilment at the Goal (Luke 23:33)
There they crucified Him.
That is what happened to Our Lord when He reached Jerusalem, but that “happening” is the gateway to our salvation. By His death on the Cross, Our Lord made the way for every son of man to come into communion with God. The saints do not end in crucifixion; by the Lord’s grace, they end in glory. In the meantime the missionary’s watchword is—“Behold, I too go up to Jerusalem.”