- Home
- Speakers
- Oswald Chambers
- Our God Given Purpose
Oswald Chambers
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917). Born on July 24, 1874, in Aberdeen, Scotland, to a Baptist minister’s family, Oswald Chambers became a renowned Bible teacher and author, best known for My Utmost for His Highest. Raised in a devout home, he studied art at the University of Edinburgh and Dunoon Theological College, developing a gift for preaching influenced by Charles Spurgeon, whom he heard at 16. Converted in his teens, he felt called to ministry after a profound spiritual experience and traveled globally, teaching at Bible schools in the UK, U.S., and Japan. In 1910, he married Gertrude “Biddy” Hobbs, who later compiled his teachings; they had one daughter, Kathleen. Chambers founded the Bible Training College in London (1911–1915), closing it to serve as a YMCA chaplain in Egypt during World War I. There, he ministered to soldiers at Zeitoun Camp until his death from appendicitis complications on November 15, 1917, in Cairo, at age 43. His books, like Biblical Psychology and Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, were published posthumously from Biddy’s shorthand notes. Chambers said, “The great essential of the missionary is that he remains true to the call of God.”
Download
Topic
Sermon Summary
Oswald Chambers preaches about the purpose of believers in Christ, emphasizing that our primary aim is to bring praise to God's glory by trusting in Him. He warns against focusing solely on winning souls or doing good deeds, as our true passion should be for Christ Himself, not just for Christian work. Chambers highlights the importance of manifesting the life of Jesus in our daily struggles and challenges, showing that our response to disagreeable situations reveals whether we are truly reflecting Christ's character in our lives.
Our God-Given Purpose
" ...that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory." Eph 1:12 "The joy of anything... is to fulfill its created purpose: 'that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.' (Eph 1:12) "We are not here to win souls, to do good to others. That is the natural outcome, but it is not our aim, and this is where so many of us cease to be followers. We will follow God as long as He makes us a blessing to others, but when He does not, we will not follow. "Suppose our Lord had measured His life by whether or not He was a blessing to others. Why, He was a 'stone of stumbling' to thousands, actually to His own neighbors, to His own nation... and in His own country 'He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief' (Matt. 13:58). "If our Lord had measured His life by its actual results, He would have been full of misery. We get switched off when instead of following God we follow Christian work and workers. We are much more concerned over the passion for souls than the passion for Christ.... "The passion for souls in not a New Testament idea at all, but religious commercialization. When we are taken up with this passion, the joy of the Lord is never ours but only an excitable joy which always leaves a snare behind." The habit of enjoying the disagreeable "That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." 2 Cor. 4:10 "...It is not a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved in order to manifest the life of the Son of God in our mortal flesh, and it is the disagreeable things which make us exhibit whether or not we are manifesting His life. Do I manifest the essential sweetness of the Son of God, or the essential irritation of ‘myself’ apart from Him? 'The only thing that will enable me to enjoy the disagreeable is the keen enthusiasm of letting the life of the Son of God manifest itself in me. No matter how disagreeable a thing may be, say 'Lord, I am delighted to obey Thee in this matter,' and instantly the Son of God will press to the front, and there will be manifested in my human life that which glorifies Jesus. "There must be no debate. The moment you obey the light, the Son of God presses through you in that particular; but if you debate you grieve the Spirit of God. You must keep yourself [spiritually] fit to let the life of the Son of God be manifested, and you cannot keep yourself fit if you give way to self-pity. Our circumstances are the means of manifesting how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure the Son of God is. The thing that ought to make the heart beat is a new way of manifesting the Son of God. It is one thing to choose the disagreeable, and another thing to go into the disagreeable by God’s engineering. If God puts you there, He is amply sufficient." (May 14)
- Bio
- Summary
- Transcript
- Download
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917). Born on July 24, 1874, in Aberdeen, Scotland, to a Baptist minister’s family, Oswald Chambers became a renowned Bible teacher and author, best known for My Utmost for His Highest. Raised in a devout home, he studied art at the University of Edinburgh and Dunoon Theological College, developing a gift for preaching influenced by Charles Spurgeon, whom he heard at 16. Converted in his teens, he felt called to ministry after a profound spiritual experience and traveled globally, teaching at Bible schools in the UK, U.S., and Japan. In 1910, he married Gertrude “Biddy” Hobbs, who later compiled his teachings; they had one daughter, Kathleen. Chambers founded the Bible Training College in London (1911–1915), closing it to serve as a YMCA chaplain in Egypt during World War I. There, he ministered to soldiers at Zeitoun Camp until his death from appendicitis complications on November 15, 1917, in Cairo, at age 43. His books, like Biblical Psychology and Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, were published posthumously from Biddy’s shorthand notes. Chambers said, “The great essential of the missionary is that he remains true to the call of God.”