Meditation on Nothing
Background
In the post World Prayer Assembly environment, the Church in Perth is increasingly recognising its desperate need for a new type of leader. This teaching is designed to sharpen our focus on this point of need. As an arrogant Peter was crushed by the piercing eyes of Jesus (cf. Luke 22:61-62), as “know-all” Saul was traumatised into total fasting by the glory of Christ on the Damascus Rd (Acts 9:1-9), so our Church needs the shock of manifestly nameless-faceless leaders. Only a cohort of scandalously humble city-elders can guide the Church in Perth into her fullness in Christ (http://cross-connect.net.au/about/cross-connect-vision/). Insights into what this means came as I was lying in bed between 2 and 3 a.m. in a pathetic state. Awaiting cataract surgery, I had aches in both legs, nagging kidney stones on both sides and ongoing breathing struggles (cardiac issues). A sense, “I have nothing left to offer God or people”, led into Christ-centred meditation counter to the status quo. We must understand God’s plan to restore all things (Acts 3:17-21) always moves from humiliation to exaltation, from suffering to glory (Luke 24:26). This is inevitable because God alone must get all the glory (1 Pet 4:11).
The Only Pattern of Life
Jesus led U-shaped life, from the heights of heaven to a descent “the lowest parts of the earth” (Eph 4:9) and back again to the glory of the Father (https://www.qbchurch.org/daily-nugget/2023/09/jesus-u-shaped-life ) . So drastic is this humiliation that Paul describes it as Jesus “making himself nothing” (Phil 2:7). This is called the “scandal of particularity” (cf. 1 Cor 1:23). The lowliness of Christ offends all our natural thoughts which lie behind the Fall. Adam and Eve longed to be “like God” (Gen 3:5) as they understood him, but certainly not like his ultimate revelation in the self-sacrificing Lamb (Rev 13:8; 22:3). Failing to understand that the perfection of all human wisdom is in Christ (1 Cor 1:24), few acknowledge the symmetry expounded in scripture between lowliness and loftiness. “For thus says the One who is high and lofty, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isa 57:15 cf. James 4:6; 1 Pet 5:6). The Father sees himself in the lowliness of Jesus and is moved to commune with him. This was the Son’s total assurance that the debasement of the cross must be followed by the elevation of resurrection. Only Jesus could ever say “the ruler of this world is coming. He has nothing in me” (John 14:30), because only Jesus never yielded to the Adamic obsession of turning in on oneself. He consciously lived in the reality that only his Father alone was “greater than all” (John 10:29). God can only deal with us in the way he has first dealt with Christ.
Broken People
Every awakening is preceded by the crushing of a leader’s spirit by God. In scripture David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Ps 139:23-24) and then, by divine wisdom Bathsheba appeared in all her beauty (2 Sam 11:2)! The higher purpose was the revelation the revelation that the sacrifice acceptable to the Lord was, “a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps 51:17). The later experiences of the forerunners of revival: Luther, Knox, Edwards, Wesley, Whitefield, Finney, Spurgeon, Wigglesworth, Nee, Graham, Cho all come to mind. Some cast themselves repeatedly to the ground before a holy God, others in aguish, cried out, “Give me Scotland etc. or I die”, or, “Lord bend me” or, “Do it again O God”. They were all broken before their Lord and King and the one who inspired their humility replied with power. Not because of their fleshly zeal, but because of their conformity to the likeness of the Son of God.
Only One Priest
When Isaiah prophesies that the “high and lofty One who inhabits eternity” looks to nothing in creation except “he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (57:1; 66:2), we see a prophecy of Jesus shaking in awe in Gethsemane before the wrath he must bear for us on Calvary (Heb 5:7-10). The true terror of dereliction, “My God…why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) is that Jesus must left all alone with his self-conscious. This is a profound experience of the bottom of hell that makes Christ is the one truly broken-hearted human. It is this God-ordained lowliness that equipped him to be designated by his Father as “a high priest after the order of Melchizedek” ever “living to make intercession” for us (Heb 5:10; 7:25). The posture of our exalted High Priest (Heb 7:26) embodies the same “meekness and gentleness” (2 Cor 10:1) that he spoke of during his earthly ministry. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt 11:29). It is Jesus’ gracious yoke that the people of God need to receive today. For when it rests of the Church his holy peace and productivity flows.
Only Hope of Unity
There is a clear call on the Church in Perth to enter into the mystical unity Jesus promised, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:22-23). Glory, unity, and the supernatural persuasion of the world are inseparably connected. They will never arrive however until a deeper work of lowliness comes through a fuller revelation of our mutual nothingness before the Lord. Where nothingness is shared between city leaders so that they “in humility count others more significant than themselves” (Phil 2:3) competition and friction become impossible! At this point a deep interconnectedness will emerge in prayer, mutual regard, and holy united enterprise.
Conclusion
Andrew Murray, a holy man and revivalist, boldly proclaims, “Jesus has entered HIS REST in your name.” This deeper truth applies to each of us, but we need to appropriate it for each other. This is the essence of priestly ministry our Church desperately needs. We are far shallower than we presently imagine. When asked to respond to international adulation over an environment transforming revival in Fiji, catalytic native Christian leader, Vuniani Nakauyaca, unforgettably replied, “I celebrate my nothingness.” This is a maturity beyond anything I have yet seen in Perth. When we recognise we have nothing more to give to the Lord, an awakening will be ours. I exhort you then pray for those given to lead you into the ways of Christ that they be graced to enter Christ’s rest. Soli Deo gloria, Glory to God alone.