Success
Clifford Henry Brown
Table of Contents
Success
The Apostle opens the third chapter of Philippians with the reminder that he was writing the same things to them. For him it was not grievous; for them it was safe. That is, he was having to repeat himself and he didn’t consider it out of the way because it was safe for them.
I sometimes have wondered, in connection with the little talks we have had with the young people, that, after all, they amount to a good deal the same line of things, and if one didn’t have scriptural sanction for repetition, perhaps he would not be encouraged to consider the same line of things. Young people in all ages meet with the same problems in life — they have the same difficulties and the same decisions to make. God’s Word is the only solution to the difficulties for the young Christian.
In addressing the young people on the subject of “Success,” I am not addressing those in their sins and outside of Christ, but those who have confessed the Lord Jesus as Saviour and Lord, and to such the subject of success is a very vital one. I carefully looked up that word “success” and found it to be a very rare word in the Bible. I haven’t been able to find it but in one verse in Joshua (ch. 1:8). I suppose it is a word found very frequently in the vocabulary of the present day. There never was a day when that line of things was more pressed upon the young than now. In order that their lives might be lived in a way to contribute to their own encouragement and the good of society, they must make what the world terms a “success.” If we are to be guided by worldly standards and ideals, we will live a different life from that mapped out for young Christians in the Word of God, and it is to contrast these two standards —the ideals of the Word of God and the ideals of the world about us — that I wish to speak now.
You hear someone referred to in the world; one of the questions generally asked about him is as to his standing or accomplishments, and one of the requisites to a satisfactory answer is to be able to say, “He has made quite a success.” If that question is answered satisfactorily, there is a sigh of relief. That is thought to be essential. In the world, we know success consists in having accumulated a certain amount of property or money. A man who can write his name at the bottom of a check and perhaps that check tells its story in six or seven figures — that one is, in the eyes of the world, a success. Here is another man kept busy going about looking after his interests — various properties. The world points to him and says of him, “He is a successful citizen.” Another one has not accumulated so much but is a great political leader. The world pays tribute to him. In each case, these men have lived in such a way as to place themselves in an enviable position in this world and others look at them and say, “That is fine; I wouldn’t mind being him myself!” That is what the world terms success. If you get a group of old school graduates together who have been separated many years, they begin asking about this one and that one. The prime factor before all is to go over the list and find out how each has gotten along in the world. I have heard that so many times.
“What do you hear about Charlie?”
“He went out west and went into the lumber business and has a thriving big concern in Seattle. He has done fine.”
Everyone feels satisfied and Charlie’s success reflects favorably on themselves. You find that all around. It is natural for us to be affected by these things and we feel under some sort of moral obligation to match up to it — to come up to the standard acknowledged all around us.
When we face that line of things with the Word of God as the measuring stick — taking the Word of God into account — how different everything is going to appear. This criterion — this standard —never fails to tell the truth. God’s Word is the only standard by which you and I can judge these matters. If you get hold of a faulty standard, how can your conclusions help being faulty?
I will just refer to a little recent experience to illustrate that. It is only a humble thing, but I believe it illustrates the point. I wanted a new pipe for my furnace. I took a measurement of the old pipe and it came out exactly a 10inch pipe. I ordered the pipe, and when it appeared it didn’t fit at all. I had a rather pointed argument with the one from whom I purchased it, and we couldn’t agree. I was baffled; I was so positive I was right. I found someone had cut an inch off the yard stick I used to take the measurement. I had the wrong standard. My conclusions were wrong, though I was absolutely sure I was right. So it is in measuring what is called worldly success. What is the standard you are using?
In Philippians 3 we have a man who started out with a worldly standard in view and then he received a sudden spiritual shock that caused him to change right about face. He adopted a new standard from that time to the day of his death that revolutionized his whole life. I believe it will do the same in its measure for any of us who are willing to make the exchange Saul of Tarsus made when he started on that journey to Damascus with the papers in his pocket to bring to Jerusalem to be punished any who called upon the Lord’s name. What kind of a man was he in the eyes of the world? I suppose he had almost everything a man in the world values and covets. We get a list of things here, beginning at verse 4. What a splendid lineage that is! Something to be proud of. Splendid breeding. “A Hebrew of the Hebrews” — that is true-blue blood. “As touching the law, a Pharisee” — that is his standing in the community; the Pharisees were at the top notch religiously. “Concerning zeal” — there is energy —“persecuting the church.” “Touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless” — there is reputation. In his case there was not only reputation but character too. What is he going to do with a start like that? How few get a start like that — a backing like that! What is he going to do with it? Cast it overboard! Have a wholesale housecleaning and start over again! Just listen to what he says: “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ” (vs. 7). What a change that was! It takes the mighty power of faith to enable a man to do that. He had seen the Lord in glory. He had experienced that light above the brightness of the sun at noonday, and that was a vision that never faded; it was ever present before him, and in view of that he could cast all away and say, “I count all things but loss.”
It takes faith for people to cast away things that are gain to them. There are some things we can easily cast away and are better off for it. I have seen young men quit evil habits — drinking and smoking. Those are good things to get rid of, but you couldn’t say that was casting away something that was gain to you. The Apostle said, “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.” Are we able, by the grace of God, to take those very things that minister to our temporal advantage in this world and count them as Paul did, refuse them that we might win Christ? That is true faith. That is the energy of divine faith at work in the soul. That is what is going to make a successful man. I believe if there ever was a case within the pages of the Bible that could be termed a success from God’s viewpoint, it was the Apostle Paul. When he got to the end of his career, in place of having a great harvest of regrets and remorse, he is just satisfied to look back with humble satisfaction, conscious in his soul that he had fought a good fight, kept the faith and finished his course, and that there was laid up for him a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, would give him.
Dear young people, that crown is not for Paul alone, but He will give it to all who love His appearing, and, surely, don’t you love His appearing? If you are a child of God at all, you cannot help rejoicing as you look forward to the time when the Lord Jesus is going to appear in glory and come into possession of all that is His by right and title. He is rejected now; He is not getting His rights; He is the maligned and outcast One. We feel that; we suffer with Christ; we feel He is not getting what belongs to Him, but we look forward to the time when He is going to have what belongs to Him. His joy in that day will be ours. Paul was able to finish his course with that satisfaction in his soul that he had kept the faith and had fought the good fight.
We sometimes meet young people who feel in some way or other that they have been endowed in a superior way. I met a young man not long ago who as much as told me that he was a little different from others because he had come into a superior mental endowment and he couldn’t afford to take up a path of reproach in this world; that might be all right for one of more mediocre attainment. For him, it seemed a loss — a shame — to step aside and disown all this remarkable attainment and live a humble life for Christ. I don’t say he put it in those words, but I couldn’t help feeling that was the burden that was going on in his own mind. I don’t dispute his claims for endowment. I think he was a clever young man. Perhaps such is the attitude of some who are reading this pamphlet. I think of what we have in 1 Corinthians 4:7 in this connection: “For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” Young Christian, are you among those favored ones who have received something superior in the way of mental equipment or capacity? Where did you get it? How many times have you congratulated yourself on having it? But where did you get it? “If thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory [boast]?” “Who maketh thee to differ?” It was God who gave it to you, and it is to Him you must give account for your use of it.
In Matthew’s Gospel where the Lord gives the talents to His servants, He gives to every man according to his several ability. He didn’t give the same to each man. When He came to reckon with them, He reckoned with them on that ground too. So He is going to reckon with you on that ground. You are a steward of that with which God has endowed you. What are you going to do with it? You can use all this splendid equipment you say you have to advance self, with each success as a stepping-stone to another one, pushing on and getting to the front and to the top. You can use all this endowment for that purpose; that is self. But what about this: “It is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful” (1 Cor. 4:2)? How will it be in that day when you have to give account, and the question is asked how you have used it? One came to the Lord and told Him he had kept what was committed to him laid up in a napkin. He got the Lord’s rebuke. God has given you these things to use for Him, and in that coming day He is going to require it of you again.
In this third chapter of Philippians again, “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (vs. 8). You say, “That is rather discouraging to ambition. I must have an object in life — something for which to live.” Granted; that is true; one must have an object, but the Apostle Paul had one object torn out of his grasp on the way to Damascus only to have another put into his hands. He laid down one to take up another. God never asks any of His own to go through life without an object. Our lives are formed largely by the character of the object we have before us and that is never more true than in the lives of Christians. We must have an object; God knows that, and what an object He has given us! It is such as this poor world knows nothing of.
There are some in the world, we believe, who are living what is called an altruistic life. They have grand moral purposes to serve humanity. They are unconscious how much of self is mixed up in it, perhaps, but they feel they have dedicated themselves to a life of sacrifice and service. But for you, God has placed an Object in the form of a Person, and that Person is the Son of God. The Apostle could say, “The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). In his race in life, there mingled not only the purposeful ambition but love and affection, all bound up for the Object before him. It was not a sense of duty; not that he resolved it so, but his heart’s affections were drawn out to that Object: “The Son of God, who loved me.”
Notice in verse 8 he doesn’t say, “Christ Jesus the Lord” — but “my Lord.” The Apostle Paul had the sense in his soul that the Lord Jesus Christ was his Lord. What is that? The One who had absolute authority over his life.
Dear young people, it is a blessed thing to have a Saviour, but do you realize that you have a Lord, and that that One who is our Lord has the right to demand all of us, not on terms of legal obedience, but because of what He has done for us? “The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” Doesn’t He have the right to the very best we have? Shall we hold anything back from Him? Shall we not sum up all we have — the best ambitions and desires we have — and take them all and lay them at His feet and say, “My Lord”? Thomas made that confession: “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). If we bring all to Him and put all into His hand and say, “Now, Lord Jesus, I have turned all over to Thee; Thou shalt be the one purpose of my life,” do you think a life lived with that sense in the soul can be a failure? Dear young Christian, it cannot be possible; it is bound to be a success.
I have often told about a young woman in Hamilton, Ontario, crippled and blind. Is she a success? Go with us someday into her room in the hospital and, as we speak about the Lord Jesus, witness the smile of joy that comes over her face and hear her speak in terms of affection about Him. Her whole soul is alive to the name of the Lord Jesus. Is that girl a success? Is her life a success or is it a failure? At one time she was enjoying health and was training to be a nurse; there she lies now, a hopeless cripple, a helpless invalid at the mercy of others. But has God made things in His Word so hard that it is necessary to have health and strength to be a success? That would be cruel. No; He has made it so that even an invalid, who cannot lift a hand or open an eye, can be a brilliant success. We hear that expression in the world: “He was a brilliant success.” I believe as the Lord Jesus looks down on that poor girl, confined for the rest of her days (she has been there now ten years), He can truly say, “A brilliant success.” I am only citing this to show how God views things here.
If we believe the Word of God, we must believe all things here are coursing on to one thing: Judgment is ahead. This world has been judged at the cross of Christ; what a poor place in which to display one’s self — a scene where the blessed Son of God was cast out and rejected and where His name is blasphemed to this day. What place has He in the world’s affairs — its counsels and schemes? Young people, you know Christ has no place in it at all. If you are ambitious to have your name heralded here, what a hollow ambition it is. Is this the place to cherish and nourish — even to permit — such an ambition in your breast? Can we not say with real energy of soul: “I am content to count all that loss for Christ — count it refuse —‘that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness’ but ‘the righteousness which is of God by faith.’ ”
Paul speaks here in verse 10: “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings.” How the world worships power these days. Here is the mighty power of God that raised Christ from the dead. That is a power you are to share. Christ is no longer in the grave; He is no longer in humiliation, but He is risen by the mighty power of God from the grave and all things are become new — a new beginning. God began things all over again when He raised Christ from the dead. That is where you and I are to start: with the resurrection of Christ from the dead. What does that mean for the old desires and ambitions? Put them in the place of death. “Being made conformable unto His death.”
“O worldly pomp and glory,
Your charms are spread in vain.”
Have we said “farewell” to all those worldly desires and ambitions? Have we put them to death? We have a life in association with Christ in resurrection and are partakers now of His sufferings. In that coming day, we are going to be partakers of His glory. If only we could get this thing lined up and see the advantages that would be ours from casting in our lot with Him. Moses did. He looked forward and chose “to suffer affliction . . . for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward” (Heb. 11:25-26). He was looking forward to payday at the end of the course. He wasn’t a loser. There he is on the mount sharing the glory of Christ.
I long to put this in such a way that it might arrest the hearts of our young people. Some of them are slipping away; some of them are drifting with the tide, feeling what they might be in this world, and saying, “Can I afford to live a hidden life? Can I afford to settle down and be nobody in this world?” Sad to say, some have made the wrong decision; they have turned their backs upon Christ as their Object and refused conformity to Christ in death. It is sad; it is actually happening.
I wonder if there are some reading this pamphlet who have things in the balances? Dear young souls, if you have Christ as your Object, you will never, never be disappointed. There never has been such a thing as disappointment at the end of a life that has had Christ as its Object, but if you have something less than Christ, you are surely going to get disappointment sooner or later.
Let’s read that verse in Joshua again:
“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success” (ch. 1:8).
If you want a recipe for success, there it is. That “book of the law” for you is the Word of God, and that promise stands as good today as when it was made to Joshua. I can say far better than when made to Joshua, because we have the thing made far more sure. We have the revelation of God in Christ and every assurance that if we make Christ first, we will have a prosperous way and we will have good success. So don’t for a moment imagine that a life for Christ means failure. It can’t mean failure. A life for this world must mean failure in the end, in view of that day. I would press it upon you young people to lay hold, by the grace of God, on Christ as your Object; make this book, the Word of God, that by which you live and have your being, and you shall have good success.