OUR WORK OR HIS?

On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Luke 5:1-11

There is more to following Jesus than getting saved, joining a church, and then living a “good clean Christian life” until the trumpet blows.

The call to follow Jesus for every single one of ….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.”

All these things are directed to all believers.

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 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 my 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 never bothered to open it because you were too busy 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 of God 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 beginning 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 burning 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 already 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 life 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..... (1 Corinthians 1:17-)

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 wisdom, 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.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)

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 try to draw people 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…we are drawing people to ourselves.

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 when people are drawn 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 Jesus as he is.

Can we honestly say that in the place where God has put us to work that we have been relying on the power of Jesus Christ and him crucified?

That we are determined to know nothing else, adding 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 intentionally twist what they see or hear us do.

And we will go right on working, because 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 respected reputation.

The power to draw people into the Kingdom of God - is Jesus and him crucified.

“I will draw all men to myself.”

“Let down your net.”

And remember, - the work- is not yours, but His. And you will see things happen you never dreamed of.