KEEPING IN TOUCH

Then he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.  Matthew 14:22-23

he world of Christendom with its thousand-and-one gimmicks for "win-      ning souls" must not only look strange to the world around it but you can be sure it looks strangest of all to God. All the effort that goes into figuring out some new way to "win people to the Lord!" All the gospel blimps that have been launched! All the money and the organization and the strain! And when it's done, the souls that are caught are caught all too often into something which is not the kingdom of God at all.

Jesus once said to the scribes and Pharisees, "You traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." It can al­most be stated as an axiom that when the winning of souls into the kingdom involves complex machinery, intricate techniques, and gobs of money, the enemy kingdom is involved in the operation. Jesus always insisted that the harvest is plentiful...the fish are out there waiting to be drawn. All we have to do is lower the net!

The catching of souls for the Kingdom of God is the easy part. If we cast the net on the right side of the boat the fish are always drawn. All we have to do is start proclaiming and living the mercy of God in Jesus among the people under our noses whom the world has rejected and we quickly have more fish in our net than we can handle. The problem is not how to be successful at catching fish. The pro­blem is what to do with success. What do we do when the fish start coming? When people are drawn to us and find help and others are drawn and they find help, and life starts getting busier and busier, more and more complicated, we have reached a critical stage. The danger is that we get so involved in attending to our booming fish­ing operation that we lose touch with the One who sent us fishing in the first place and who drew the fish into our net.

Now our eyes are on the fishing, the boats, the workers, the oppor­tunities for expansion. Before we know it what started out as supernatural fishing in the Kingdom of God is now fishing for the kingdom of self. Now it's our fishing operation. God is still given lip service, but he has long since been bypassed. This kind of thing has happened again and again in the history of the Body of Christ on earth and it could happen to us. It will happen to us unless individually and corporately we give first priority to staying in touch with the One who sent us. Listen to the passage that immediately follows the miracle of the fish in Luke 5:

...and Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men." And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and besought him, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." And he stretched out his hand, and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." And immediately the leprosy left him. And he charged, him to tell no one; but "go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing as Moses commanded, for a proof to the people." But so much the more the report went abroad concerning him; and great multitudes gathered to hear and to be healed of their infirm­ities. But he withdrew to the wilderness and prayed.    Luke 5:10b-16           

After the miracle of the fish Jesus shows the disciples  how people are caught into the kingdom.

A man is healed. Quickly, without any publicity, a multitude is drawn. And then, just as the thing begins to boom Jesus withdraws into the wilderness and prays. Our natural tendency is to take advantage of the building momentum of interest.... stay on top of it, exploit it, expand it into something even bigger, institutionalize it, make it permanent. But divine wisdom is to withdraw and restore our souls in the presence of God, even if we lose our grip on the multitudes, even if the multitude evaporates.

When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." They said to him, "We have only five loaves here and two fish." And he said, "Bring them here to me." Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate, and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. And he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.

                                                                                      Matthew 14:15-23

Jesus never sought crowds. Primarily he sought his Father. Secondarily he sought the lost. As he did these things crowds sought him and Jesus had compassion on them. But Jesus never let himself become intoxicated by the power and the glamour of being sought by multitudes. He dismissed the multitudes, withdrew, and sought his Father in prayer.

If Jesus hadn't given first priority to seeking the Father in prayer, Son of God though he was, he would soon have had nothing to give the multitudes. It was of supreme importance to him to stay in touch with the Father. And to do that Jesus had to withdraw.

Now in those days when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the body of the disciples and said, "It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve table. Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.            Acts 6:1-4

The corporate life of the Body of Christ was threatened by the hassles that always come with increasing numbers. Notice that the organizing and structuring that was done that day was not so they could "win more souls" rather, it was so that the word of God and prayer would not be engulfed by the pressing needs that had to be attended to. From all this we can see that just as surely as we need to get out and mingle with the multi­tudes with that word he has put in our hearts and on our tongues, we also need to withdraw. If we learn from our Lord how to repeatedly withdraw into the presence of God, our going out will always be fresh. If we don't learn how to withdraw we'll never survive.

First, there is the withdrawal of the believer into the presence of  God

This is not only a necessity, it's our increasing pleasure. It's walking into peace. It's being bathed in forgiveness, being renewed. It keeps our active life dwelling in the Sabbath rest of God. Many of us still have a very limited idea what this daily withdrawal into the presence of God can be. We see it as a duty, as a time of semi-boredom as we plod through chapters of scripture, and semi-drudgery as we try to offer up prayers and intercessions .... remembering those same names before God day-after-day.

But the more we do it, even when we're weary, even when we have headaches and backaches, we find that this time alone with God is like an oasis of sanity in a desert of the absurd. How will we ever face the clamor and the confusion and the heartbreak and the blatant sin which come in on us like a flood everyday unless we get that inner re­newal, which occurs only in the presence of God, on the other side of the veil torn apart for us by the Lamb?

Second, there is the withdrawal of the believers into that fore­taste of heaven which is corporate worship.

The weekly gatherings of believers to worship and break bread may seem rather tame and uneventful. But when we finally arrive at the end of the journey and enter into the courts of glory we will find that these gatherings were closer to the worship of heaven than we ever dreamed, and we will wonder how we could have been so stiff-necked and hard-headed not to really put our hearts into it.

"Therefore with angels and archangels and all the  company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name evermore praising thee and saying....."

When we come together to worship we're not just "coming to church," we're coming to the city of the living God.

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel.    Hebrews 12:22-24

We eat at his table. We make ourselves one with his broken body and his shed blood.

The Lord has sent us out to fish, and to our amazement we are finding, as brothers and sisters all over the world are finding, that when we lower the net he draws the fish. Our hands are full, and getting busier. The multitudes are increasing. But while the fishing is unbelievably good as God-thirsty souls are finding their way to us everywhere we go, it's essential that we stay in touch with the source of our life. No need that cries out to us can be allowed to take precedence over our own need of God. The busier we get and the more complex our life becomes, the more urgent is the need to keep our relationship with Jesus simple and clear.

The source of our life is not the heady wine of "success" as we go out there fishing. The source of our life is the cross of Jesus.

We can survive without the glamour of success, but we cannot survive without the fellowship of Jesus' cross. And our goal, as fishers of men and women, is not greater and greater numbers, but a cross where we lay our lives down along side of his.

If we stay in touch with Jesus Christ and him crucified we will bear much fruit. Souls will be drawn into the kingdom in ways and with an abundance that will stagger our minds. And we will come at last to the place where we will be able to lay down our lives with joy at the feet of our Master.