THE CHURCH IN THIS CITY

         Chapter  6                     OUR WORK OR HIS?

             There is more to following Jesus than getting saved, joining a

         church, and living a “good clean Christian life” until the trumpet blows.

         The call to follow Jesus is always a call to work.

                     “Go work in my vineyard...Here, trade with

                      this money until I return...Lift up your

                      eyes and see the fields ready for harvesting...

                      I will make you fishers of men.”

             In man’s order we have “religion” where the work is done by

         missionaries and preachers while the rest of us provide a few painless

         dollars. In God’s order the work is done by the entire Body. There

         are no professionals. Everybody works. Everybody gives. Everybody

         prays. Everybody rejoices as the harvest comes in.

             But as we begin to catch on to the truth that we all share in

         the actual work of proclaiming the gospel and gathering men into the

         kingdom, another danger arises: the danger that we get involved with

         a work indeed, but a work which is not our Lord’s at all. We may be

         busy with our work, excited about the progress we’ve been making and

         planning for even greater things when suddenly the Lord is at the door.

                      “Let’s see what you’ve been doing.

                      “Of’ course, Lord. Look at all the members we

                      got for our church. Look at the reputation

                      I’ve built up among the saints. Look at the

                      sick I healed. Look at the signs I performed.

                      Look at all the misguided believers I straightened

                      out with my pure doctrine.“

         And he will answer;

                      “But where are the men and women of God I sent

                      you to bring to birth? And look at the condition

                      of the church in this city! While you were busy

                      building up your fellowship and your reputation,

                      the church in your city was floundering. While

                      you were busy correcting all the saints on their

                      shoddy doctrines, their hearts were crying out

                      for encouragement. Your door was being stormed

                      by desperate souls looking for me, and you went

                      on building your own kingdom.“

             We need to make sure that the work in which we are engaged as

         fellowships of believers is really his work.  Are we harvesting men

         for the kingdom or for our own cause? Are we edifying the church, or                                             

         enriching our own club?

             Jesus told Peter to let down his net. The net came up full be-

         ginning to break. Notice that Peter beckoned to his partners in the

         other boat to come and help. Peter did not insist that the fish were

         his since they came up in his net. He knew that he had no claim on

         those fish. Peter didn’t draw those fish into his net. The power that

         drew the fish into Peter’s net was not magic. Nor was it Jesus’

         “charisma.” Nor was it the fact that Jesus was the Son of God, so that

         he can make those fish do anything he wants them to.

         The Power That Draws

             The power that drew the fish into Peter’s net was the same power

         that drew people to Jesus, caused the bread to multiply in Jesus’

         hands, made the water solidify under Jesus’ feet that stormy night on

         Galilee. Jesus was moving toward a goal that was going to change the

         destiny of this planet and everything on it. Although Jesus wasn’t

         there yet, the heat of this baptism of fire which was soon to consume

         him was already moving out upon his body and mind. Jesus knew well

         why demons shouted his name, why those Greeks came looking for him at

         his last passover, why children sang his praises. They were being

         drawn to him by the power of his coming crucifixion. Somehow, by the

         Father’s mercy, these people, and even the winds and waves and rocks

         and trees, were being made to know that Jesus’ cross was their only hope.

                    “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth,

                   (on the cross), will draw all men to myself.”

             What was it that attracted the multitudes to Jesus to hear the word

         of God and be healed, but the power of the cross that was already burn-

         ing in his heart? What drew that woman to the house of Simon the

         Pharisee to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears and wipe them with her hair?

         It was the power of the cross which her tormented conscience could al-

         ready see resting upon him in all its weight. What made Zacchaeus climb

         the tree to get a look at him or drew that tortured demon-bound man out

         of the tombs to cry to Jesus, or guided those mothers to bring their

         little ones to Jesus to have him put his hands on them? It was as if

         somehow they could already see the cleansing blood and were drawn by its

         power.

             When people who have even an ounce of integrity left in them see

         the Lamb of God laying down his life to atone for their sins, when they

         see holy, divine, self-emptying love doing the ultimate this love can

         do: dying....they cannot help but be drawn. At Calvary they stood at

         a distance, but the memory of that thing was something they could never

         again erase from their minds. It drew them.

           You wonder why the ministry of the apostolic believers was so

         effective in those early years after Pentecost? The answer is simple:   

         they relied on nothing but the word of the cross. Read the sermons in

         Acts. Every one of them revolves around the cross. Peter’s sermon on     

         Pentecost:

                      “This Jesus, delivered up according to the

                      definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you

                      crucified and killed by the hands of lawless

                      men. But God raised him up.

         Or Peter’s sermon after healing the lame man:

                      “But you denied the holy and righteous one

                      and asked for a murderer to be granted to you

                      and killed the author of life whom God raised

                      from the dead.”

         This relentless testimony to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ

         and the healing and the forgiveness that flowed from it drew men like a

         magnet, not into some “church” but into the kingdom of God, the real

         church.

             Paul ministered on the same basis:

                      “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to

                      preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom,

                      lest the cross be emptied of its power. For

                      the word of the cross is folly to those who are

                      perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is

                      the power of God.....

                      When I came to you brethren, I did not come

                      proclaiming to you the testimony of God in

                      lofty words of wisdom. For I decided to know

                      nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him

                      crucified, and I was with you in weakness and

                      in much fear and trembling, and my speech and

                      my message were not, in plausible words of wis-

                      dom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit

                      and power, that your faith might not rest in

                      the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”

            To this day people wearing every conceivable front are inwardly beside

         themselves trying to figure out what to do with this burden of guilt that

         weighs on them. They know that the gimmicks they try for relief never

         work. But when they see Jesus, not as the greatest man who ever lived,

         nor as the prophet of all prophets, but as the Lamb of God who takes away

         the sin of the world, they come.

             If we draw men into our net by any other name or any other power than

         by Jesus Christ and him crucified, we are doing our own work. And even

         if we coat our ministries with Christian jargon, quote the Bible, say      

         prayers and pretend that we’re busy saving souls, these people haven’t

         been drawn to Jesus! They have been drawn to us. They start looking to

         us for things that only Jesus can give and soon they’re disillusioned.

         When someone else’s net comes up with a beautiful load, we’re jealous.

         When souls that came into our net decide to leave our boat and go to

         another, we’re angry. And when the Master comes to try our work by fire

         it all goes up in smoke.

             Only if we draw men into our net by the power of the cross of Jesus

         are we doing his work.. .or those who come into our net by the power of

         the cross haven’t come to us at all. They’ve come to him, We have no

         claim on. them. They are his exactly as we are his. And they will serve

         him even as we serve him. And they will serve Jesus wherever Jesus

         chooses to have them serve him. They may come into our net today. Six

         months from today they may be serving Jesus in Windsor, Atlanta, Dallas,

         Shanghai, or New York, praise God. They may come into our net today.

         A year from today they may be working on the other side of town bearing

         a hundred times more fruit than we, praise God! Then we are drawing

         men and women into our net by the power of the cross, and our brother’s

         net a mile away comes up five times heavier than ours, we rejoice with

         him without a tinge of envy. For the work is the Lord’s and the glory

         is his, and the only thing that matters is that human souls are drawn

         to him and see him as he is.

             Can we honestly say that in the place where God has put us to work

         we have been relying on the power of Jesus Christ and him crucified?

         That we are determined to know nothing else? To add nothing to the cross

         If it is Jesus only and him crucified, then we are going to be working

         in harmony with all who love him, patient with those who consider us

         doctrinally unsound, compassionate toward those who intentional1y twist

         what they see or hear us do. We will go on working, for it is not our

         work. We do not have to defend it. It is his work and it will be done

         and it will bear fruit. -

             May God help us remember that the power to draw people into the

         kingdom has nothing to do with how well we can speak or how fine we

         look or whether we have a heavy reputation. The power to draw men to -

         the kingdom is in Jesus and him crucified.

                     “I will draw all men to myself. Let down your net.

                     And remember, - the work- is not yours, but mine.

                     And you will see things happen you never dreamed of.”