The Father

Be This Your Joy

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Father Leave a comment

Supposing Him to be the gardener. – John 20:15

One of the duties of a Christian is joy. That is a blessed religion which among its precepts commands men to be happy. When joy becomes a duty, who would wish to neglect it? Surely it must help every little plant to drink in the sunlight when it is whispered among the flowers that Jesus is the gardener. “Oh,” you say, “I am such a little plant; I do not grow well; I do not put forth so much leafage, nor are there so many flowers on me as on many round about me!” It is quite right that you should think little of yourself: perhaps to droop your head is a part of your beauty: many flowers had not been half so lovely if they had not practiced the art of hanging their heads. But supposing Him to be the gardener,” then He is as much a gardener to you as He is to the most lordly palm in the whole domain. In the Mentone garden right before me grows the orange and the aloe, and others of the finer and more noticeable plants; but on a wall to my left grows common wallflowers and saxifrages, and tiny herbs such as we find on our own rocky places. Now, the gardener had cared for all of these, little as well as great; in fact, there were hundreds of specimens of the most insignificant growths all duly labelled and described…Oh feeble child of God, the Lord taketh care of you! Your heavenly Father feedeth ravens, and guides the flight of sparrows: should He not much more care for you, oh ye of little faith? Oh, little plants, you will grow rightly enough. Perhaps you are growing downward just now rather than upward. Remember that there are plants of which we value the underground root much more than we do the hull above ground. Perhaps it is not yours to grow very fast; you may be a slow-growing shrub by nature, and you would not be healthy if you were to run to wood. Anyhow, be this your joy, you are in the garden of the Lord, and, “supposing Him to be the gardener,” He will make the best of you. You cannot be in better hands. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1699.cfm

Our Vine-dresser

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Father Leave a comment

She, supposing Him to be the gardener… – John 20:15

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” – John 15:1

He says, “I am the true vine: My Father is the husbandman,” and that is one view of it; but we may also sing, “My Well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine”-that is to say, He acted as gardener to it. Thus has Isaiah taught us to sing a song of the Well-beloved touching His vineyard. We read of our Lord just now under these terms-“Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to Thy voice.” To what purpose does He dwell in the vineyards but that He may see how the vines flourish and to care for all the plants? The image, I say, is so far from being unnatural that it is most pregnant with suggestions and full of useful teaching. In one of His own parables our Lord makes Himself to be the dresser of the vineyard…When the “certain man” came in and saw the fig tree that it brought forth no fruit, he said unto the dresser of his vineyard, “Cut it down: why cumbereth it the ground?” Who was it that intervened between that profitless tree and the axe but our great Intercessor and Interposer? He it is who continually comes forward with “Let it alone this year also till I shall dig about it and dung it.” In this case He Himself takes upon Himself the character of the vine-dresser, and we are not wrong in “supposing Him to be the gardener.”

If we would be supported by a type, our Lord takes the name of “the Second Adam,” and the first Adam was a gardener. Moses tells us that the Lord God placed the man in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it…Behold, the Church is Christ’s Eden, watered by the river of life, and so fertilized that all manner of fruits are brought forth unto God; and He, our second Adam, walks in this spiritual Eden to dress it and to keep it; and so by a type we see that we are right in “supposing Him to be the gardener.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1699.cfm

Our Lord Thirsts for Us

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Father, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

“I thirst.” – John 19:28

Our blessed Lord has at this time a thirst for communion with each one of you who are His people, not because you can do Him good, but because He can do you good. He thirsts to bless you and to receive your grateful love in return; He thirsts to see you looking with believing eye to His fulness and holding out your emptiness that He may supply it…And what makes Him love us so? Ah, that I cannot tell, except His own great love. He must love, it is His nature. He must love His chosen whom He has once begun to love, for He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. His great love makes Him thirst to have us much nearer than we are; He will never be satisfied till all His redeemed are beyond gunshot of the enemy. I will give you one of His thirsty prayers-“Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory.” He wants you brother, He wants you, dear sister, He longs to have you wholly to Himself. Come to Him in prayer, come to Him in fellowship, come to Him by perfect consecration, come to Him by surrendering your whole being to the sweet mysterious influences of His Spirit. Sit at His feet with Mary, lean on His breast with John; yea, come with the spouse in the song and say, “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth, for His love is better than wine.” He calls for that: will you not give it to Him…Let all your love be His. I know He loves to receive from you, because He delights even in a cup of cold water that you give to one of His disciples; how much more will He delight in the giving of your whole self to Him? Therefore, while He thirsts give Him to drink this day. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1409.cfm

Christ’s Desire to Save Men

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father Leave a comment

There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, “Give Me to drink.”…In the mean while His disciples prayed Him, saying, “Master, eat.” But He said unto them, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” – John 4:7,31-32

“I thirst.” – John 19:28

I cannot think that natural thirst was all He felt…”I thirst” meant that His heart was thirsting to save men. This thirst had been on Him from the earliest of His earthly days. “Wist ye not,” said He, while yet a boy, “that I must be about My Father’s business?” Did He not tell His disciples, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?” He thirsted to pluck us from between the jaws of hell, to pay our redemption price, and set us free from the eternal condemnation which hung over us; and when on the cross the work was almost done His thirst was not assuaged, and could not be till He could say, “It is finished.” It is almost done, Thou Christ of God; Thou hast almost saved Thy people; there remaineth but one thing more, that Thou shouldst actually die, and hence Thy strong desire to come to the end and complete Thy labour. Thou wast still straightened till the last pang was felt and the last word spoken to complete to full redemption, and hence Thy cry, “I thirst.”

Christ was always thirsty to save men, and to be loved of men; and we see a type of His life-long desire when, being weary, He sat thus on the well and said to the woman of Samaria, “Give Me to drink.” There was a deeper meaning in His words than she dreamed of, as a verse further down fully proves, when He said to His disciples, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” He derived spiritual refreshment from the winning of that women’s heart to Himself. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1409.cfm

Our Glorious Samson

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father Leave a comment

After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, “I thirst.” Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, “It is finished” and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost. – John 19:28-30

It seems to me very wonderful that this “I thirst” should be, as it were, the clearance of it all. He had no sooner said “I thirst,” and sipped the vinegar, than He shouted, “It is finished”; and all was over: the battle was fought and the victory won for ever, and our great Deliverer’s thirst was the sign of His having smitten the last foe. The flood of His grief has passed the high-water mark and began to be assuaged. The “I thirst” was the bearing of the last pang; what if I say it was the expression of the fact that His pangs had at last begun to cease, and their fury had spent itself, and left Him able to note His lesser pains? The excitement of a great struggle makes men forget thirst and faintness; it is only when all is over that they come back to themselves and note the spending of their strength. The great agony of being forsaken by God was over, and He felt faint when the strain was withdrawn. I like to think of our Lord’s saying, “It is finished,” directly after He had exclaimed, “I thirst”; for these two voices come so naturally together. Our glorious Samson had been fighting our foes; heaps upon heaps He had slain His thousands, and now like Samson He was sore athirst. He sipped of the vinegar, and He was refreshed, and no sooner has He thrown off the thirst than He shouted like a conqueror, “It is finished,” and quitted the field, covered with renown. Let us exult as we see our Substitute going through with His work even to the bitter end, and then with a “Consummatum est” returning to His Father, God. O souls, burdened with sin, rest ye here, and in resting, live. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1409.cfm

The Blood of Sprinkling

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father Leave a comment

But ye are come unto mount Sion…and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling… – Hebrews 12:22,24

What is this “blood of sprinkling?” In a few words, “the blood of sprinkling” represents the pains, the sufferings, the humiliation, and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, which He endured on the behalf of guilty man. When we speak of the blood, we wish not to be understood as referring solely or mainly to the literal material blood which flowed from the wounds of Jesus. We believe in the literal fact of His shedding His blood, but when we speak of His cross and blood we mean those sufferings and that death of our Lord Jesus Christ by which He magnified the law of God; we mean what Isaiah intended when he said, “He shall make His soul an offering for sin;” we mean all the griefs which Jesus vicariously endured on our behalf at Gethsemane, and Gabbatha, and Golgotha, and especially His yielding up His life upon the tree of scorn and doom. “The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.” “Without shedding of blood there is no remission;” and the shedding of blood intended is the death of Jesus, the Son of God.

Remember that His sufferings and death were not apparent only, but true and real, and that they involved an incalculable degree of pain and anguish. To redeem our souls cost our Lord an exceedingly sorrowfulness “even unto death;” it cost Him the bloody sweat, the heart broken with reproach, and especially the agony of being forsaken of His Father till He cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Our Mediator endured death under the worst possible aspects, bereft of those supports which are in all other cases of godly men afforded by the goodness and faithfulness of God. His was not merely a natural death, but a death aggravated by supernatural circumstance, which infinitely intensified its woe. This is what we mean by the blood of Christ, His sufferings, and His death. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm

Covenanted Fellowship

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, The Father Leave a comment

But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. – Hebrews 12:22-24

Brethren, our fellowship is with the Father, our God. To Him we have come through our Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover, in the power of the Spirit of God we realize the oneness of the Church both in heaven and earth, and the spirits of just men made perfect are in union with us. No gulf divides the militant from the triumphant; we are one army of the living God. We sometimes speak of the holy dead, but there are none such, they live unto God, they are perfected as to their spirits even now, and they are waiting for the moment when their bodies also shall be raised from the tomb to be again inhabited by their immortal souls. We no longer shudder at the sepulcher but sing of resurrection. Our condition of heart, from day to day, is that of men who are in fellowship with God, fellowship with angels, fellowship with perfect spirits.

We have come to Jesus, our Savior, who is all and in all. In Him we live, we are joined unto Him in one spirit; He is the Bridegroom of our souls, the delight of our hearts. We are come to Him as the Mediator of the new covenant. What a blessed thing it is to know that covenant of which He is the Mediator! Some in these days despise the covenant, but saints delight in it. To them the everlasting covenant, “ordered in all things, and sure,” is all their salvation and all their desire. We are covenanted ones through our Lord Jesus. God has pledged Himself to bless us. By two immutable things wherein it is impossible for Him to lie, He has given us strong consolation, and good hope through grace, even to all of us who have fled for refuge to the Lord Jesus. We are happy to live under the covenant of grace, the covenant of promise, the covenant symbolized by Jerusalem above, which is free, and the mother of us all. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1888.cfm