Jehovah's Perfect Servant.

I. —"JESUS CAME FROM NAZARETH" (Mark. 1. 9).
MATTHEW writes of the King, His Person, His Programme, His Passion, and His Power.  Mark delineates the character of the True Servant.  The writer had himself been so imperfect, that he could not but recognise in his Master the traits in which he had failed signaIIy.  Of Him, we, too, may learn if we will, for a disciple is one who learns to follow and then follows to learn.  All who follow Him, even when they are conscious of having caught a little of His spirit, and learned a little from His ways, will be constrained to say with John the Baptist, "There cometh One mightier than I."  Yet we may humbly and profitably watch Him as He serves Jehovah as His appointed and devoted Servant.  He will kindly whisper to our hearts in the silence of our meditation, as He called to men when He walked among them, "Follow Me."  It will be to our present joy and our eternal benefit if we heed His call.
Mark makes no apology for announcing the Servant as the Son of God.  He writes of Him that He came from Nazareth.  Men knew Him there.  To them He was simply "Jesus."  Yet that city was the place where the self-renouncing Servant demonstrated in the ordinary vocations of life that He was flawless.  There His approval took place, discharging, in the home, at the bench, in the synagogue, and in visiting the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and in keeping Himself unspotted from the world, His obligation to His Father by doing His will.  No detail of life was regarded as so trivial as not to be an opportunity of doing what was well-pleasing in His sight.  Mark does not tell us, but Luke does, that His first memorable words were, "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?"
Eighteen years were spent doing the Father's will in the seclusion of Nazareth, where He was the reputed son of the carpenter.  He was working far within the limits of His power, but His time was not yet come.  He had learned to wait the hour of the Father's choice. There every true servant begins.  Failure, there is failure everywhere.
In Nazareth, the True Servant stored His mind with the verbal knowledge of the Scriptures, for, one presumes, He Who was soon to say, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," did Himself feed upon these words of God.  Out of Nazareth He came preaching the gospel, reminding us that he who has not devoted much time in patient reading, quiet study, and spiritual assimilation of the Scriptures will hardly be fit to preach the gospel.
II.— INTO THE WILDERNESS. (Mark 1. 12-13).
Nazareth was the place of steady growth, of increasing knowledge, of unbroken intimacy, of unceasing testing in ordinary vocations. Jordan was the place of crisis, of public announcement, of divine attestation.  The opened heavens, and the Father's approval, were the inevitable climax to thirty years of unfailing compliance with the Father's will.  Private consciousness of that blessed fellowship had its reward, as angels and men (at least John Baptist) heard the unqualified acknowledgment by the Father of the Son Whose character was without flaw and Whose conduct was without fault.
The act of Baptism was an act of identification with man.  It declared the Son's acceptance of the position of Representative.  He closely associated Himself with man's need, prefiguring that greater and more blessed act when "Christ died for the ungodly."  Obedience marked His pathway from commencement to consummation.
After Jordan, with its sorrowful tale of obligation because of sin, and its joyous acceptance of a beneficent Father's will; came the wilderness.  Upon Jehovah's Servant had descended out of Heaven, to rest upon His shoulder, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. That signified His equipment for service, without measure.  His was to be work nobly done, because done in perfect accord with the Father's plan.
Mark gives few details of the wilderness experience, but his graphic narrative indicates several important truths.
FIRST—The temptation was all in the purpose of God.  It was designed evidently to display the Father's confidence and to demonstrate the veracity of the Father's declaration at Jordan.  Following immediately upon that scene, the experience in the wilderness gave angels and demons opportunity to witness a visible corroboration of the Divine announcement.
SECOND—The temptation was continuous.  For forty days, the Spirit kept Him there.  He knew He was doing the Father's will because He was ceaselessly under the "urge" of the Spirit; His fellowship was unbroken.  For forty days, the Devil remained with Him, too.  Of what nature this long temptation was, we have no means of ascertaining.  This much we know, that like a cunning strategist, the Enemy launched his most malicious attack at the supposedly weakest moment.  That triple assault failed.
THIRD—The True Servant emerged in triumph because He kept within the circle of the Father's will.  He leads the army of victorious, less-perfect (because sin-girt) servants, who triumph as they follow Him.  None need fail who have His Spirit.
III. —HOW HE TAUGHT.
"And they went into Capernaum" (Mark 1. 21).  With such words does the Evangelist introduce a new phase of the work of the Perfect Servant.  To Him, He had called others, not to idleness, not to mere passive following, but to public witness and public testing. Capernaum was a strategic point, a meeting-place of routes where men of all conditions and classes mingled.  There the Witness for Jehovah might meet the maximum of people with the minimum of effort.  The result of His visit was such that "Jesus could no more openly enter into the city" (1. 45).  What caused such attraction?—nothing spectacular, but something morally grand.  His teaching and healing provoked questions, which He alone could answer.  People were "astonished," and ''amazed/' saying, "What thing is this?  What new doctrine is this?"  How can we account for the almost universal admission of His uniqueness?  By answering the question, we may help ourselves to discover our own insufficiency and our personal failures.
1. —"He taught as One that had authority" (v. 22).
Accustomed to the wearisome discussions and quarrels of the religious parties of the synagogues, the people felt the vigorous simplicity of One Who taught them about God.  He spoke the language "of the people," not "of the pulpit."  He declared certainties about which He had first-hand knowledge.  He appealed to them "out of His Own experience." The ring of sincerity broke upon their ears.  The voice of authority penetrated the conscience.  Whereas the scribes quoted from recondite annotations of the sacred text of the Old Testament, He repeatedly declared, "But I say unto you."  He said what He meant; He meant what He said, and withal, there was a winsome wooingness in His words.  How unusual is such a combination—authority and sweetness!  In Him the mingling was perfect, unique; with us seldom well-blended at all.
2. —"And Jesus rebuked Him" (v. 25).
The note was stern; the command peremptory.  Sin, He could not condone, for it, He could make no compromise.  His denunciation was unmitigated.  He knew what sin does— ruins a man's moral and physical life.  How often this burning note of passionate rebuke has been uttered when men awoke to a sense of the terrible nature of sin!  Then men like Savonarola, Knox, Wesley, Fox, etc., spoke the flashing words of God against it.  We are fallowing the Perfect Servant's example when we do so.  We need to, in these days.  Let us not be afraid to denounce sin.  We have a Saviour to announce to every sinner. 
IV. —(Mark 2.).
Here is a chapter replete with instruction.  Isaiah's prophetic word, "Behold My Servant shall deal prudently" (52. 13), finds apt illustration in the conduct and words of Him Who fulfils the predictive announcement.
(1)—His Immunity from the frailties and fears which afflict men.  
Difficulties did not deter Him.  He was not afraid to return to His God-appointed tasks.  "Again, He entered into Capernaum" (2. 1); "He went forth again by the seaside" (2. 13); "He entered again into the synagogue" (3. 1).  Fear of encountering opposition did not assail. Because He lived within the will of Jehovah; He was "proof" against cowardice.  He had no "inferiority complex" in the presence of His self-styled superiors.  Critical Pharisees, punctillious scribes who were sticklers for the minutiae of ceremonial observances, and partisan disciples of John did not perturb Him.  The poise of His perfect reliance upon God, suffered no disturbance. Always aware that the rightfulness of His conduct could not be challenged; He kept complete control of His words and actions, because He was morally above the selfish temptings of His shallow-minded critics.
(2)—Popularity did not unsettle Him.
Crowds waited upon His every ministration.  He championed the cause of the social outcast, like Levi; by deigning to find scope for His labours among the disreputed.  He provoked the censure of the undiscerning snobbishness of the hyper-religious Pharisees.  He found Himself "the observed of all observers," when the miraculous healing of a sick man compelled the people to be amazed, and to say, 'We never saw it in this fashion."  Yet we discern no sense of pride, no display to His opponents of the position of confidence He occupies in the estimation of the common people.  He was ''too big" to be "so little."
And are not such attitudes in the Lord Jesus so many reminders that, while He was made like unto His brethren, He was not such a one as we, being "God manifest in flesh?"  Yet He is the example of His followers.  "In His Spirit" they may rise above the fears that rob ordinary men of the power to perform; they may even escape the worst of all "service-sins," the sense of pride provoked by a sense of self-importance induced by popularity.
V. —HE . . . PRAYED (Mark 1. 35) .
One of the most remarkable features of our Lord's earthly life was the fact that He devoted much of His time to prayer.  Never was there One who saw such tremendous need and so few to meet it as did our Lord, and yet He did not devote His energies entirely in the direction of meeting that need Himself.  How often we find Him in the attitude of prayer.  Here is a most solemn lesson for every Christian worker who would in any remote way follow the Perfect Servant.  The complete record in the verse quoted is worthy of a further reading: "And in the morning, rising up a great while before day; he went out, and departed into a solitary place, AND THERE PRAYED."
He devoted the best part of the day to communion with God.  "In the morning" He prayed.  The mind is then freshest after sleep.  The communications then received, govern the subsequent activities.  The sequel in the chapter is noteworthy: "Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also."  Passion for the souls of men is born in private prayer.  Power and unction for preaching is discovered in the secret place.  Great soul-winners have followed the Master's example.  Hudson Taylor, C. T. Studd, to choose but two, made it a habit to rise long before the sun, to commune alone with God, and to seek guidance for every particular in each projected work for the ensuing day.  And who can compute what God has done through the devotions of such men?  Our impotence lies in our neglect of prayer.  The Master's method is a challenge to our laziness, for it requires more sacrifice to pray than to preach.  We labour little and in vain, because we pray infrequently.
Our Lord escaped interference by avoiding social intercourse.  None loved men more.  He sought their company for their salvation and laid Himself open to the bitter criticism of the orthodox Pharisees by eating with "publicans and sinners."  But at times "He went out . . . into a solitary place, and there prayed."  He loved to be alone with God.  We cannot do better than follow His example.  He had nothing to dread or confess in that presence.  But what of us?  Being alone with God makes faith real, until a love for solitude indicates simply a love to be with God.  There, sinful desires die, worldly ambitions disappear, selfish longings are rebuked, lukewarmness is shamed, and love and sacrifice are encouraged.
Let us pledge ourselves before God to follow the example of our Lord and Master.
VI. — ABSORBED IN LABOUR.
A reader of Mark's Gospel cannot but be impressed with the fact that our Lord was completely dedicated to His task in fulfilling the purpose of God by serving His "fellowmen."  He sums His mission thus: "The Son of Man came to serve."  His public ministry was one of absorbing activity, not restless, but directed towards a perfectly conceived end, viz., the redemption of men by the sacrifice of a sinless life.  Ceaselessly He moved, urged by an ever-deepening sense of need, as crowds surged around Him and necessity impelled Him to labour while it was called day.
"Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also."  "They came to Him from every quarter."  "A great multitude followed Him."  Such quotations impress upon us the fulness of the life of labour our Lord lived.  Here we observe the fulfilment of His Own early announcement, "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?"  So strenuous was His day's toil, that we read, "they could not so much as eat bread," or "there were many coming and going and they had no leisure so much as to eat."  What self-effacement!  What sacrifice in the presence of constantly recurring need!  Personal convenience did not deter Him from His labours.  Tiredness of body did not overcome the ardour of His spirit, and sleep had sometimes to be snatched during a lake-crossing in a storm.  Such demands did His devotion to duty make on Him that His friends sought to lay hold on Him, saying, "He is beside Himself."
If our Lord's life was far from leisurely, dare any of His followers become idlers?  So easy is it for us to develop an attitude of physical lethargy in service that is spiritual, that we need constantly to set before us the example of our Lord as a strenuous Servant, living a life of sacrificial devotion to duty, both for man and for God.  If our friends should be tempted to deter us from legitimate service, let us remember that some said of our Pattern, in His day, "He is beside Himself."
VII—"I HAVE COMPASSION" (Mark 8. 2).
Several times over, Mark notes the compassion of the Lord Jesus, and on more than one occasion, discloses the hidden sympathies of our Perfect Saviour.  How human He appears to be!  And yet how Divine He is!  On two occasions, when His compassion is referred to, there is mentioned "the multitude."  A crowd of people stirred our Lord to the core of His Being.  He could see as no others saw, and He could feel as no others felt.  On both such occasions, too, He performed the miracles of multiplying bread to feed the hungry crowds. He feels as much to-day for the crowds that faint for lack of that Bread which perisheth not—Himself, the living Bread.  His servants can catch His spirit of compassion only as they follow His example.  Observe the inspired record of one of the incidents: "And Jesus, when He came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd, and He began to teach them many things" (Mark 6. 34).  From that verse four points are worthy of consideration.
1. ISOLATION FROM THE PEOPLE—"He came out."  Had He been alone praying?  Possibly!  And in that attitude must every true servant find his inspiration to service.  "No isolation" from the people means "no power" with the people.  Prayer alone with God is the guarantee of strength for witness.  Perhaps we fail most here—in the realm of prayer in secret.
2. HE SAW MUCH PEOPLE—The crowd arrested Him.  He had tried to escape from them but follow Him they would.  He saw beneath the surface.  He saw the hunger of the heart—like sheep worn and worried for lack of food.  Does a crowd arrest us so?  Is it merely an assemblage of people, or is it a company of individuals with souls to save?
3. HE WAS MOVED WITH COMPASSION—The heart of the Lord felt for the people.  How could He refuse them?  They had interrupted the quiet holiday contemplated, but they were in need.  That characteristic of our Lord is worthy of cultivation—to put personal convenience in subservience to the needs of others.  When a preacher is moved with compassion, there is power.
4. HE BEGAN TO TEACH THEM—The Lord put first things first.  The "Soul-service" was of more urgency than the "Social service."  The tendency to-day is to reverse the order.  The Saviour of men combined both, but He taught men the things of God first.  May we all be shown how to avoid the positive danger of our democratic age!
VIII.—THE INCOMPARABLE TEACHER.
JESUS CHRIST stands apart.  Men of every shade of opinion, of every kind of religious pretension, acknowledge Him as supremely greater than the greatest.  No teacher has ever commanded or ever will command the respect, the admiration, or the obedience that men have rendered to Him.  Yet we have only transcripts of His oral ministry.  From His pen came no voluminous codes of rules, no long and ornate discourses on theological intricacies, and no involved disquisitions on man's relationship and responsibility to God.
His disciples record His words, and at the same time, reveal His methods.  How frequently we read that "He taught."  No better exercise could engage the followers of Christ than a re-reading of the Gospels to discover the Master's manner in imparting knowledge.  Mark's Gospel is alive with impressions of this nature.
A teacher must first be sure of his audience.  Our Lord had never any difficulty there.  His personality was magnetic.  The people "came to Him from every quarter," and listened to His discourses with spell-bound attention.  His words were often as goads fastened in a sure place.  Not only by His miraculous acts of healing, but by His words He arrested the people.  And we cannot but enquire, for our own good, what it was that gave to His teaching its unique quality of attraction to both common people and learned religious classes.  It was to Him as a Teacher that Nicodemus came to ask questions regarding "The Kingdom."  It was to Him as a Teacher that a young Lawyer (i.e., one trained in the Mosaic Law) came begging of Him an answer to the question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"  Why were such men arrested and attracted?  Their attitude is all the more remarkable when we remember that men of such professional standing as the rabbis deemed a layman (i.e., one who had not had the regular scholastic training in the Law) unworthy of consideration in momentous questions.  The only persons of account were the authorities, dead and living.
One certain answer to the question is this: Jesus Christ lived out His principles in practical reality before He attempted to systematise them into doctrines for people to obey.  He was a living embodiment of what He taught.  The record of His life is summed up by one of His disciples as “A prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people."  His appeal was not from a book but from the heart.  His teaching was related to life, not divorced from it.  His followers succeed in this teaching only in so far as they follow His example.
IX.—THE INCOMPARABLE TEACHER.
As a Teacher, our Lord is incomparable; none ever taught like Him.  He "spake with authority."  Three times the divine record signally separates Him from all others.  At the close of His earthly ministry, He declared, "All authority is given unto Me in Heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28. 18).  In Mark's gospel, we read in the story of the man sick of palsy, "The Son of Man hath power (authority) on earth to forgive sins."  Little wonder is it then that He attracted to Him the needy and the ignorant.  When He spoke, the people listened.  But He was more than a preacher—He was a teacher.
The province of the teacher is much more circumscribed than that of the preacher.  His task too, is much more difficult because it is much more concentrated.  It requires much more patience and much more perseverance.  The preacher takes very little account of the individuality of the members of his audience; the teacher will never succeed who does not know the peculiarities of each of the taught. Results are obtained most rapidly where the teacher approaches his pupils along the avenues most accessible.  Consequently, the teacher limits the numbers who are permitted to attend on his ministrations.  So our Lord chose out from the mass twelve who might be with Him, whom He might teach, and whom He might send forth.  What patience and forebearance He exhibited!  What repetition there was in His lessons!  What simplicity in His instruction!
Did He succeed?  The answer is found in the fact that while our Lord Himself wrote nothing, His disciples, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, produced the New Testament.
Teachers may take courage and follow the Master's Example.  A Sunday School Class may not be "a multitude." Nothing sensational attaches to teaching a few children, but what a privilege it is to instruct a few in divine truths so regularly that these very truths definitely shape the lives of the pupils who in turn may themselves become teachers of others.
X. —HE DID NO SIN.
Peter's first Epistle deals with the "Stranger and pilgrim” character of the life of the Christian, who, passing through a scene that is both foreign and hostile, is subjected to suffering and tests from which the unconverted are entirely free.  For conscience toward God, the servant of Christ may be compelled to endure grief, suffering wrongfully.  
In such circumstances, the question inevitably rises in the mind: How should a Christian conduct himself?  Should he resist?  Should he resent interference with the affairs of his life?  The apostle has his answer ready, guided, undoubtedly by the Holy Spirit: "Hereunto ye were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow His steps, Who did no sin."  Several lessons emerge from the quotation; but let us bear in mind that as a Saviour, His sufferings were unique, both as to nature and to purpose.  As such, He was bearing our sins, suffering under the wrath of God on account of the sinner, putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.  That no other being has ever done or will ever do.  Yet suffering at the hands of men, both before and at His death, He has left all who call Him Lord, an example that they may follow Him.
The word for "example" (hypogrammos) conveys the idea of a learner attempting to follow the headline of a copy-book, written in such a way as to be worthy· of emulation.  Does not the word throw us back upon the record of the life of our Lord as given in the New Testament?  There, and there only, can we trace a perfect life below.  We have no occasion to turn to the many recent lives of "The Human Jesus" to discover what our Lord was like.  The material in the four Gospels is sufficient and is absolutely trustworthy.  The finest Christians are those who are most deeply imbued with the Spirit of their Master as they learn of Him from what is written about Him by the four Evangelists.  We cannot but insist upon the need for every Christian worker to be thoroughly acquainted with the story of their Master by a constant reading of the divinely-inspired records.
Part of the example is, "He did no sin."  That cannot mean for the Christian that he will be, like his Lord, sinless in an absolute sense. Our Saviour was unique.  God bore witness to Him on more than one occasion, saying, "This is My Beloved Son."  Of none other will He ever again say that.  And before men, Jesus Christ did no sin.  None could find fault with Him.  Tried to-day in the circles of men of all kinds, the same verdict is passed.  In His earthly sojourn, He gave to none, opportunity to bring accusation against Him.
XI. —"NO GUILE IN HIS MOUTH."
The context from which the quotation is taken throws light upon the meaning and application.  Peter is presenting his Lord as an example to servants and advises them "to be subject to their own masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward" (2. 18).  It was common for servants to be guilty of petty acts of theft and dishonesty, and in an attempt to screen themselves from punishment, of petty deceits and lying.  Against such practices, the apostle presents the Lord whose steps they should follow as One in whose mouth no deceit or guile was found.
How perfectly these words describe our Lord!  The disciple had heard his Master before His judges in the High Priest's Hall and had been impressed by the "guilelessness" of His words.  Never once did He attempt to screen Himself from their malicious accusations by deceitful words.  Both before Caiaphas and before Pilate, He answered "never a word," so that they all marvelled.  Isaiah's prophecy declared that He would be dumb like a sheep before her shearers, opening not His mouth in self-defence or counter accusation.  Even when He might have defended Himself against the suborned witnesses and made His detractors wince under the undeniable truthfulness of His assertions, He said nothing.  In this, as on every other occasion in life, He is set forth as an example for His disciples.
When they find themselves in circumstances somewhat similar, it is their duty to follow Him.  In their mouths, too, there must be found no guile.  They must never attempt to deceive in order to screen themselves from punishment, unjust though it may be.  And this they can do only as they follow Him.  The word the apostle uses is peculiarly impressive.  It implies closeness and diligence and persistence.  In 1 Timothy 5. 24, it means "follow up," and gives the sense of concentrated attention.  How otherwise could persecuted saints give a good account of themselves in the hour of need!  A studied desire to do as the Lord did and would do, is the best safeguard against disaster in the unexpected moment of trial.  Whatever may befall us, let us follow Him in whose mouth was found no guile. 
"The Christian Worker & Scripture Subjects for Students" 1935