My Father Is Always At His Work

Over this last few days, I've been contemplating the extraordinary "ever-present" quality of God's nature - not just in terms of his divine attributes as the "ever-present God", but also in terms of his covenantal work in my life. While there is historical depth to God (he is, for example, called "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" - see Exodus 3:16; Acts 3:13), and while there is a future depth to his purpose (he is, after all, taking us toward an ultimate goal - note Philippians 1:6), the Lord Jesus made it clear that God is primary a "God of the living" - or a "here and now" God, to whom "all are alive" (Luke 20:37-38).

This news has a very real impact on the way I relate to God. For although both past and future are important to my relationship with the Lord, it is the present that is the hinge on which everything swings. It is about how I now respond to God that counts.

This morning I was drawn to John 5:17, where Jesus declared:

"My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."

The Amplified Bible brings out another level of meaning:

"...My Father has worked [even] until now, [He has never ceased working; He is still working] and I, too, must be at [divine] work."

The interesting thing is that the context of Jesus' declaration was healing (see John 5:9-16). Jesus had just healed someone on the Sabbath, and the Jewish leaders were complaining about a violation of Sabbath law. And so, when Jesus said that he was working (on the Sabbath) because "my Father is always at his work to his very day" (i.e. even on the Sabbath), he was inferring that the work of the Father at this time was a work of healing.

I've been pondering on this for the last few days. Although God's work is hardly limited to healing (note, for example, Philippians 1:6 and Philippians 2:13), healing appears to be a very important component of that work. For example, when Peter described Jesus' ministry on earth, he used these words in Acts 10:37-38:

"You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached - how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him."

Jesus himself declared that what defined his activity was the driving desire to "do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work" (John 4:34). And following on from John 5:17, Jesus went on to say in John 5:19:

"I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."

In other words, Jesus was doing the work of his Father because he recognised the ongoing work of his Father already in process. In fact, Jesus claimed no independent action whatsoever. He declared, "...the Son can do nothing by himself."

This is a lesson that I began learning in my early twenties, while working with Jackie Pullinger in Hong Kong. As a fellow-worker with God, it is all too easy to forget that the emphasis is on being a "fellow-worker". In other words, God himself is the prime mover, the senior partner in the work, and I am the one who labours alongside him (not the other way around). And just in case we might think that Jesus was talking uniquely about himself when he said "the Son of man can do nothing by himself" and "he can only do what he sees his Father doing", in John 15:4 (The Amplified Bible), Jesus applied the same principle to his disciple's lives:

"Dwell in Me, and I will dwell in you...Just as no branch can bear fruit of itself without abiding in (being vitally united to) the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in Me."

Again, in the next verse, The Amplified Bible says:

"I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit. However, apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing."

Jesus really couldn't get any clearer than that. There is no independent action in God's work. Like Jesus, I too must declare, "David can do nothing by himself" and "I can only do what I see my Father doing".

The last two decades of ministry have, for me, been a discovery process - learning to "see what the Father is doing" and to join him in his work. I've seen heroin addicts and prostitutes totally transformed by the power of the Gospel. I've seen miracles of healing, and times when the Holy Spirit has fallen on individuals so powerfully that I cannot even help them stand straight. I've seen God's power fall on congregations and on families. And at the end of it all, I can only stand back and say, "It wasn't me. I couldn't do any of this. The Father has been at work."

And yet, after more than 25 years in ministry, I feel like I'm still a novice. I'm only just beginning to learn to see the Father at his work, and to join him in that work. And now I feel like I'm back in kindergarten again...learning all over again what it means to recognise the work of the Father, but this time in my own life.

This morning, a group of leaders from Evangelical Community Church gathered in my home. This was, in fact, the second prayer meeting of the day, and my dear friend Kah Seng shared a passage of Scripture he had been reading in the earlier meeting. It was found in Acts 14:8-10, and it has a strong bearing on what I'm sharing with you now:

"In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, 'Stand up on your feet!' At that, the man jumped up and began to walk."

This is a remarkable account of healing - all the more remarkable because it shows exactly the same process in place that Jesus himself spoke of in John 5:17 and John 5:19. Paul had been preaching the Gospel in Lystra. There is no indication that he had planned to heal anyone at that time. But Acts 14:9 tells us that while Paul was preaching, he recognised a dynamic at work which he then, on the spur of the moment, responded to. The Acts record says that "Paul looked directly at him" and "saw that he had faith to be healed." The Amplified Bible brings it out even stronger and describes how Paul was "gazing intently at him and observing that he had faith to be healed..." What was Paul doing? He was seeing what the Father was doing! And notice that this "seeing" or "observing" wasn't in any abstract sense - what Paul actually observed was that there was faith welling up in the heart of the cripple.

If you look at the particular conditions into which Paul commanded healing, you couldn't get anything more adverse to a miracle. Acts 14:8 describes him as "a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked." And yet the miracle wasn't defined by the condition itself, but by the work of God already in process in the man's heart. This man had never heard the Gospel before. He had never heard the name of Jesus, or the work of the Cross, or the power of the resurrection. But at this "chance" encounter, he heard the Gospel for the first time, and the Father was at work in his heart, producing faith not just for salvation but also for healing. And all Paul did was recognise the work in process. His response then was to issue the command, "Stand up on your feet!" At that, Luke writes, "the man jumped up and began to walk."

In my limited experience, I'd say that this is also the main means by which I've recognised the work of the Father. There have been times, for sure, when I've been felt the strong impression upon my heart by God's Spirit, to which I've responded in obedience and then witnessed the divine work of God. But there have been plenty of times when it has been a simple recognition that God has already begun a work on someone's life, that there is faith present for a miracle, and all I've done is acted on what I've seen.

I've come a long way in this blog to share with you a simple lesson I'm learning at the moment. And that is this: faith lies at the crux of the work of God in a person's life. Faith is the fulcrum upon which a miracle turns. And that faith is not engineered, I believe, by the person himself - it is a very real part of the work of God already in process. It is a "gift from God" (Ephesians 2:8), the starting point for the miracle to follow.

Even Jesus appeared to be limited to the action of this work-in-process, for Mark 6:5-6 tells us:

"[Jesus] could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith."

1 Timothy 1:4 tells us that "God's work...is by faith." Jesus also, in response to the question, "What must we do to do the works God requires?", replied in John 6:29:

"The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

Tomorrow I'm going to share more on this dynamic "work in process" that pivots on faith. But for today, if I want to see the work of God in my own life, my response must be the response of John 6:29, which is, as The Amplified Bible puts it, that I continue to "believe in the One Whom He has sent [that I cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger]."

And so that is what I do today. I'm not waiting for God to begin his work in my life. He is already at work, stirring the faith upon which a miracle of healing will turn. And so, dear Lord, I simply believe in you.