“The Case for Christ: - Servants: Scribes/Poor in Spirit” 

How are the servants of Christ to understand their calling to service?

Christ had been moving steadily forward with His disciples, opening up to them different phases, keys, and conditions of the Kingdom of God to them.

Some of His unveiling of the kingdom we have already seen.

Tonight, let us continue with how His servants are to look upon their service in it.

We start with the very personal inmost place of the servant’s spirit.

And - then - we will move on into how they were - and are - to perceive their responsibilities in His kingdom. 
  
First, in the conversation Christ had with Peter in John 21,  the important recognition Peter received was his own deficiency to really love as Christ loved him.

Peter had to melt before the living Christ with each one of the approaches Christ made in questioning Peter’s love for Christ.

All Peter could finally say was: ‘Lord, You know all things.’ 

In other words, ‘You know better than I do about what lies within me.’

That was the point where Peter saw the poverty of his own spirit and submitted to the regeneration by the Spirit of God. 

And that was important! That was very important!

Why is that?

It is the starting point of service, that Peter had become a disciple of the kingdom.

It showed a clearing out so that out of his understanding and out of his very being, a genuine transference had taken place.

Christ was being given full authority to fill with His supply.

‘After thou art converted, Peter, - after thou art converted, - then strengthen your brethren!’, Peter had been told earlier.

Before we go on, let me just say something about the phrase: ‘after thou art converted’.

I am aware that down through church history, there has been much controversy about the meaning of this phrase.

I know that many have labeled it a number of things.

But, I do not make it a point of argument. My purpose is to bring you only the Word of God.

These things we do know from studying the Scripture: first, Peter believed in Christ during Christ’s earthly ministry and followed Him closely.

Then, he was given increasing revelation of Who Jesus was and is, and accepted that fact.

He had also accepted the fact of His death and of His resurrection. 

He knew of His ascension to come - not with a full understanding, perhaps, at the moment, but he did know about its soon happening.

And - let me remind you that it was Peter who, one day, sometime later, wrote, in 1 Peter 5: ‘...be ye clothed with humility...humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God.’

So, the point here is - that something needed to be clinched in Peter - something to complete him for service in the kingdom of God.

And Christ had to still deal with Peter, even at this time just before Christ’s general commission to all the disciples and before His ascension.

We also know that Jesus had taught from the very beginning of His earthly ministry: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit - the poor in spirit - for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’

Whether this was an instantaneous moment or whether this was a culmination that had extended over a long period of time in Peter is unknown.

And we cannot speculate one way or the other about it either.

But, we know that Peter had to be honestly and truly able to say, from the very depth of his heart: ‘In me dwelleth no good thing - nothing, absolutely nothing good at all!’ - just as Paul did when he made this statement.

And, then, Peter could acknowledge that the only means of deliverance from such a state was Jesus Christ Who he faced at that moment!

He had to see his own spiritual lack - his utter helplessness - in order to be endowed with the responsibilities that constitute life in the kingdom of God. 

Of course it was painful and humiliating for Peter - at this moment by the Galilee Sea - to be made to face Christ so directly and so, so honestly - for Christ to dig right down into the very spirit of this man!

Yes - Peter’s understanding was well opened to this truth.

He knew that no other foundation stone of truth could be laid than that which Christ was laying in him under the mighty hand of God.

It is the only foundation upon which other ‘stones of truth’ could possibly be added.  

You see - it is not what we have - either of our own piety or goodness, nor of any of our own methods, means, and plans, nor of our own wisdom, and not even of our own knowledge of things, nor our zeal - that is the starting point of service in Christ.

Oh no! It is simply facing Christ in utter helplessness - clearing the heart to ‘understand and see’!

And, it is coming to this place, in seeing the glory of Christ in comparison to ‘our glory’ [and I put quotes around that phrase ‘our glory’, for it is not glory at all!] - in seeing how ‘poor in spirit’ we all are as we look into His face!

And the wonderful fact about this is that it is determined only by Christ. We cannot bring ourselves to that place!

Only He knows the depth of a man’s heart and what yet lies in it.

The ‘old man’ in us thinks of himself as spiritually excellent, lies to himself, deceives himself.

‘Carnal security, natural merit, self-confidence’ - all, all are lies the natural man will sop up for himself.

And do not think: ‘Oh, others are like that, but not me!’ 

That is exactly how Peter felt about himself at one point!

These attitudes are forms of falsehood. They deceive the soul. 

‘If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.’ (1 Cor 8:2)

So - blessed - very, very blessed  - is the one who has been brought squarely face to face with Christ and has been given the knowledge and understanding of his own poor condition.

He is the one who is now in the ‘beginning school of wisdom.’

He is a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ to whom the kingdom of God has been given.

So, yes - yes - we need to catch the meaning of the questions of: ‘lovest thou Me, lovest thou Me, lovest thou Me’ that Christ asked Peter those three times in succession.

This is the foundation stone Christ laid for His servants: to know the beginning of spiritual life, to know of the seed of walking in divine wisdom, to be deemed by Christ as being ‘poor in spirit’.

This is the evidence of blessedness - this is blessedness, indeed!

This is how Peter and all others were to understand their calling to service. 

Servanthood - Christ-centered and Christ-directed servanthood - in the kingdom of God stems from a heart that has been broken in the face of Jesus Christ.

It looks upon the humbled spirit as that which is the most needful part of service unto Christ.

‘Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven’ is what Jesus had declared.

It is still the rule: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’.

Now - let us see how the Lord’s servants - those Christ deems as the ‘poor in spirit’ - how they are to perceive their responsibilities in Christ’s kingdom.

It was in Mt 13:51-52, after Jesus had expounded some of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven, that He asked His disciples if they understood what He taught.

When they answered ‘yes’ to His question, He went on to show them their responsibilities.

He described them as being like ‘scribes’ in their discipleship in the kingdom.

Scribes, as you know, were those who originally kept the historical records.

It was Ezra, the scribe, who changed that duty to being one of a reader and an expounder of the law of God.

He showed the meaning of the law by interpreting, making comments, and clarifying the hard parts of it.

But, by this time, in Jesus’ day, scribes were promoting more of the oral interpretations of the law.

And it was deteriorating to the point of superimposing their own philosophies into it.

It became so devoid of its deeper spirit that it made the scribe’s work defective in its original, intended spiritual sense.

It drew such a fence around the law that it shut people out of the sphere of the law’s true meaning.

But, in spite of that defect, Jesus chose the word ‘scribe’ to describe the office of His servants.

He said: ‘Every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the Kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder which bringeth forth, out of his treasure, new and old.’

By so doing, He suggested two things: that His disciples were like ‘scribes’, or teachers in the kingdom, and then, secondly, that they were to fulfill that office by bringing in both the new and the old in presenting it to the people.

He said, in effect, ‘You are to become the new ‘scribes’ of the Kingdom of God.

You are to show, in this new age of the Kingdom, the facts concerning the government of God through Me.’

The Old Testament promised the coming Messiah and His kingdom. It had laid out principles and standards of life that Christ fulfilled.

So - now - their discipleship to Him, the revelation of Himself that He gave them, their submission to the reign He inaugurated - and all that had been promised in the Old Testament writings about Him - was the background they needed to understand and bring out - from the ‘deep treasures of their hearts’ - the truth of His kingdom. 

And, now, the ‘scribe’ who had become a disciple of His kingdom, from the depth of the heart made ‘poor in spirit’, was to teach the same to others.

Oh, how blessed we are that Peter and the other disciples so thoroughly understood this.

They faithfully fulfilled their office as ‘scribes’. They brought in the old and confirmed the message it gave by teaching the truth of the message of Christ.

Their writings gave evidence to their full understanding of it.

You can search some of these out for yourselves. 

Look at 1 Peter 1:7-12, as one example - that is, again, 1 Peter 1:7-12.

There, Peter encouraged his readers of how they had received salvation through Christ, a salvation that the prophets could only inquire about and how they searched it out so diligently.

Why - even angels desired to look into them - to examine those great and wondrous things about the Christ!

These are the things Peter and the other disciples faithfully reported and ministered to the people.
 
Also, look further in that first epistle to chapter 3:18-22 to see the benefits of Christ and how He reached back to Noah’s day - 1 Peter 3:18-22.

And then go to 2 Peter 1:12-21 - 2 Peter 1:12-21.

John, too, bore a true record in bringing in the old and confirming it by the new, in John 19:35-37 - Jn 19:35-37. Take a look there, too, to see that.

Yes - the entire New Testament is confirmation of what took place in the hearts of the disciples.

And all that can be said is - it was an awesome, awesome responsibility!

It is the same responsibility transferred to Christ’s church!

It was - and is - a responsibility that could not - and cannot - be done short of becoming ‘poor in spirit’ as the heart is brought face to face with Jesus Christ!

How else would - or could - Christ and the glory of His astounding, wondrous work be adorned in all of its beauty by these disciples and by us - if each did what the scribes of Jesus’ day were doing?

It would have followed the self-same course of deterioration!

But - Christ’s servants, deemed ‘poor in spirit’ by Christ Himself, can truly magnify Him as He ought to be magnified!

There is more to consider about these things but I will stop here for tonight.  

I pray you will think seriously about them this week and just let Christ guide you into this truth in the coming days.

I encourage you, once again, - embrace this in your hearts and Christ will do the rest!

Amen.  
 
Let us pray.