Watch and Pray Series #2 – What Does It Mean To Follow the Lord?
Good morning. I am personally enjoying this study and I hope that it’s o.k. with you all that I’m approaching it at least primarily from a practical and a personal standpoint. I feel this is a really important and valuable study for me and my family. So I’m attempting to learn all that the Lord has for me and my family and share that with you all as I go along. I say that in the context of our discussion recognizing that some of these thing perhaps are a little bit, well it shouldn’t be too new for us but perhaps they are a little new to us in our culture today and how we think compared to how we should be thinking. I’m going to be mostly in the New Testament and we’ll be starting in the book of Matthew with some passages and this morning our topic is going to be focusing a little bit on the Word of the Lord. And if you’ll just pick up real quickly the springboard, after Jesus came back from being tempted in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, it says in verse 17, “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” So we’ve already spent a little bit of time looking last week at the whole idea that the message of John the Baptist, that’s Matthew 4:17, and we began looking at John the Baptist’s message for repentance and as Christ begins His ministry, he also begins with this whole concept, this whole idea of repentance for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. And in the context of verse 17, then we see the first picture of Christ’s work as He makes disciples, as He’s making disciples and in verse 18 the Scripture says, “And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea for they were fishers. And He said unto them, “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.” And so there’s a connectedness to the Gospel message, the message of repentance, there’s a connectedness from that message, “Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” and the manner in which Jesus began to make disciples saying, “Follow thou me.” So this morning we’re going to talk about that concept: what does it mean to follow the Lord.
Let’s begin with prayer. Lord we come to You this morning in the name of Jesus. We thank You Lord that it is He who has called us to You, by His blood He has won for us the privilege of being disciples, that our sins are set aside in complete forgiveness, that we have partaken in perfect righteousness which is Yours and Lord that we have been called to walk after Christ in a new and living way in this present perverse and wicked generation. Lord I ask that You would meet us this morning with Your Word and that You would nurture in us that desire of servants and children Lord to follow after You. We ask in Christ’s name, amen.
By way of introduction, there’s a few Old Testament passages that sort of strike me as generally something to consider. The whole backdrop of our discussion of course centers around the fact that Jesus is coming again. He’s gone to be with the Father and He promised that in the same manner that He left, He would come again and receive us to Himself. And while He’s gone there’s an assignment and we’re to be about that assignment and that is the continuing assignment that has never ceased and will not cease to be until the Lord returns. In the context of that assignment though, the Bible does talk about the fact that perilous times are going to come upon the face of the earth in the end times. And that as the world is being made ready for those times, the Scripture warns that judgment begins at the house of God. So there’s things that God is going to want to do in His house, in His church, there are things that God is going to want to do in terms of purifying us and working in us that which is His greater purpose and those are the kind of things that we need to be paying attention to for we are expected to be found ready and waiting and without spot and wrinkle. That’s a pretty big assignment in terms of what God is expecting. He has provided the means for that to be made possible, but it’s still that which God expects in the setting forth upon us. There’s a couple passages in the Old Testament that I wanted to read by way of introduction.
The first one is Lamentations, and if you want to turn there, Lamentations 3 beginning at verse 17. Just by way of brief introduction, Jeremiah is writing these words right in the midst of Jerusalem being torn asunder by the terrorizing armies of Babylon. And all that was dear and precious to that culture and to those people individually is being tranced upon and destroyed by the invading armies. It’s in this context of the experience of his native land being destroyed that Jeremiah writes these words and these are just a portion of the words that he’s writing here. Beginning at verse 17, he says, “And Thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forgat prosperity.” I want to say something this morning. If there’s any primary reason why my heart’s pressing this morning to say the words I want to try to say and I hope the words come out, but if there’s any reason I want to say something it’s because man always likes peace and prosperity. That’s our common nature, it’s our common desire. We like our peace and prosperity here. This is where we focus on that concept of peace and prosperity. And what we recognize, and this is one of the incredible mysteries of the kingdom of God, but what we recognize is this: there is for the people of God, peace and prosperity apart from the world and not dependent upon the world, but it’s a peace and a prosperity found in God and God alone; found in being God’s children, found in being those who lay a hold of and follow after the promises of God. So there is this spiritual purifying process for the church of Jesus Christ that needs to take place and that’s this: that which we would tend to be holding on to in terms of peace and prosperity as it relates to this world that we live in, that has to be pealed away from our clinging fingers in order for us to pry our fingers off and get us pure and separated from that kind of ambition, that kind of living. What God wants us to do instead is to lay hold of that which He has promised and in the process of having the worldly peace and prosperity put to nothing, in that very process, God is going to give us peace and prosperity of a different sort. A peace and prosperity of the inward man that’s based upon the confidence of the Lord. Before I finish reading this passage I want to share why I’m reading this particular passage, but this morning I was beginning and attempting to pray and direct my thoughts towards the Lord, the Lord allowed me to suddenly realize that it was morning and as I was reflecting on the condition of the morning, it was a rather beautiful morning, the temperature change is very pleasant, I heard the birds just singing and chirping away happy. I heard my roosters and their klutzy crowing. It’s a beauty of it’s own but it’s not quite as delicate as the song birds. I listened to the gentle breeze blowing outside; it was enough to stir the leaves and make a noise. And as I began just reflecting on the beauty of the morning I remembered this passage and I remembered the significance that morning should be spiritually for a believer. And as I was trying to reflect on that significance of why morning should be significant spiritual awakening for a believer, I realized that such a morning as this was created and made by God. And as I thought about it, I thought you know it’s incredible but God was meditating and thinking and He said, “I know how to make a really beautiful day,” and it’s the wisdom and the purpose and the love of God that has assembled together all things features. As I was preparing for my message, at one point I had to go out and just walk around a little bit in the outdoors and just enjoy the morning and I noticed the Canadian geese strolling and mothers are teaching their babies to fly and I just had a few minutes to drink in. And there was a kind of understanding that began to break upon me about this idea of peace and prosperity that is connected to the confidence that, “I have a God that is absolutely in charge and in control and has power and resources beyond any that are accessible to man in his own wisdom and it’s ours for the asking. I was thinking of this topic, “Follow Me,” and it just struck me that this is the God who’s saying, “Follow Me.” He’s saying, “I have resources that are beyond what you see and have for yourself,” so that is the echo. Getting back to the passage or we’re never going to get done this morning I can see that, these are just my introductory passages.
Lamentations 3:17, “And thou hast removed my soul afar off from peace. I forgat prosperity.” Here’s the trauma of the Christian soul struggling with this process of transferring his hope to the Lord. Look at the next verse, “And I said, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord.” This is an incredible insight into the nature of the Christian heart. This is not the world. This is not the unbeliever and the ungodly, this is the Christian heart. This is the heart that has laid his hand upon that which the Lord has promised and he’s put his hope in the Lord and now here in the world there’s this experiencing of the diminishing of the prosperity that we know in this world. And the first inclination of a believer when his worldly prosperity and peace diminishes, the first inclination of a believer is to do what Jeremiah did here and to conclude, “My hope is perished from the Lord.” Can anybody think of a Bible verse that reflects upon this substantively? Paul said in, I’m sorry go ahead, Hope thou in God. I think of Paul in one of his Corinthian epistles, he said in I Corinthians 15, “If we have hope in this life only, we (we Christians) are of all men most miserable.” We’re the most miserable brood of people there is. Why? Why would that be true? If we have hope in this life only why are we so miserable? Because the Christian life lived according to the Bible is a life that sets aside all worldly gain and all worldly ambition and sets it aside for another world. And what misery that you would bypass all of your life if this is the only life you have, that you would bypass it and simply pretend, “Oh I’m going to have something else,” and then die. It kind of reminds of some of these Shehite Muslim groups who believe that their heaven is assured if they make some great sacrifice of their life fighting the lord’s enemies. And so often when there’s a suicide bomber, they’ve been promised that if they will give their life and attack the lord’s enemies then they’ll immediately go to paradise and they’ll have an island, castle, and palace all to themselves and they’ll have 700 virgins for themselves. This is their idea, “Wow I’m going,” and how miserable can you be if you cast away your life for something that doesn’t exist and you go on the other side and you discover the judgment of God and the holiness of God and the righteousness of God and the purpose of God and the vanity of man. So here we are, “My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord.”
The next word is the most important word in the process. In terms of practical exhortation to you and I in this process of following the Lord and dealing with who we are and where we are, the next word is “remembering.” All that you will attain to, all of it, all that you will attain to in terms of spiritual strength and soberness is going to come about by you taking the time to reflect in your own mind and in your own heart and bring yourself forcefully to remember things as they truly are, as they accurately are, revealed from the Word and given for us to enjoy. As they are revealed in Creation, the newness of the morning this morning was a remembrance for me; it was a reminder. It instructed me, it taught me in the way that I should go. But this is what the Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 10 when it talks about you and I bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ. This is what this remembering is all about. Here I am, I experience a circumstance in the flesh. That circumstance may be horrible and difficult, indeed frightening to me and in fact I may see truly and completely the loss of all that I have leaned upon for comfort and peace in my earthly life and I may see that all being removed suddenly out of my reach, nothing I can do to stop it and at that point when the turmoil kicks in and my emotional response is a quick and careless, “my hope is perished from the Lord!” when that begins to rip my soul asunder, I am obligated as a discipline of Jesus Christ, to remember and to go through a process and count and consider and draw my soul to understand the facts of what takes place. And so the next verse, verse 19 says, “Remembering mine afflicting and my misery, the wormwood and the gall,” verse 20, “my soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me.” The first thing that begins to take place when I begin to remember is this disappointment of earthly expectation always brings me to a proper place of humility before God. The disappointment in my earthly expectations always brings me to a proper humility before God. Isn’t that marvelous, isn’t that incredible? The Lord commands us, we spoke on this just a few weeks ago, the Lord commands us, “Humble yourself before the Lord in the presence of the Lord.” “Draw near to God and He’ll draw near to you.” And I have an obligation to come to God on His terms and God wants to meet with me. He has a meeting room already established and the meeting room has a door that I come through and the door is called “humility.” And praise God that humility doesn’t come upon me by the willful exertion of my own spiritual effort. But praise God by the mercy of God, judgment begins at the house of God and it is God who comes into my affairs and sends me turmoil and robs me from that which would be pleasing and peaceful in this life and brings me to the place of needing to remember and needing to resign myself to the fact that I am nothing, I’m a worm and no man and I have nothing by which I can bring to be resting in, to be confident in and I am a man in need and by God’s grace humility begins breaking into my soul, hallelujah. So that’s what it is. “My soul hath still them in remembrance and is humbled in me,” verse 21, now here’s the continuation of that meditation, “this I recall to mind and therefore I have hope.” Do you see the transformation process? When I’m in humility I call to mind that which is truth beyond circumstance. “This I recall to mind and therefore I have hope,” next verse, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness.” This might seem to you rather elementary but I experienced this myself this morning just in my own quiet time. Just the simplest means of a resting my soul to a proper focus. He said, “This I recall to mind, it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed because His compassions fail not, they are new every morning.” And when you open your eyes in the morning and drink in the first breath of air and as your ears tune into the first sounds of freshness and life of the new day, you have immediate evidence that the mercies of God are upon you immediately. They’re upon you at this moment. They have been renewed for you one more day and in terms of that which we fear upon the earth, here is the simplest, this is the simplest rule for maintaining confidence instead of fear in difficult circumstances. You might lose your house, you might lose your job, you might lose a place to live, you might lose a source of food that’s ready and whole or what have you, you might have all these things that are a lost to you, but praise God if you open your eyelids in the morning, God has given you another day and His faithfulness is still upon you. You have existed from one day to the next and as you open your eyes there’s evidence that God is still preserving you, God is still on the throne. And what we need to recognize is this is actually the place that God desires for His children to be where we are looking to Him for our perseverance and where we measure prosperity in this life by one means alone: here I am, I’m alive. I can present myself to you this morning because of the Lord’s mercies, great is His faithfulness. So the very fact that I can stand up instead of grumbling and complaining and whining because of all that I don’t have, the very fact that I’m here is a testimonial by which I am to encourage my heart and stir up my hope in God that God hasn’t left me yet, I’m still here. I find that Jeremiah was an interesting prophet because God dealt with him in a different fashion as he was trying to reveal truth about himself in the context of Israel and prophecies, etc. and when all the prophecies for destruction and doom and wiping out the city and all these things happened, right in the middle of all this, guess what God said to Jeremiah? “Well I want you to go buy a piece a property and I want you to put in a crop and you’re going to reap this crop and you’re going to reap the next year and I’m going to bless you.” And it was that incredible sense of confidence in the midst of the storm that my connectedness is to my obedience to God, not to my perception of circumstance. And that’s an incredible statement. Who would buy a field in a collapsing economy? Well I guess somebody with a lot of money that has hope in the future, but really the average person, “I’m not going to sink money, if I have good money to buy a field I’m not going to sink it into,” all these little worries and fears come into our head. We find then the mercies of the Lord become the confidence of the believer. And the evidence of the mercies of the Lord is the very fact that I’m alive and awake today and that’s enough. How small a portion do we need to be encouraged? Isn’t that something? That’s all we need. We just need that sense of realization.
Now notice the assured heart of Jeremiah. He moves from this languishing. I wish I had time to have read to you all the verses before this. It talks about his teeth having gravel in them, just being rubbed in. All this negative outlook on life. But now the transformation takes place, verse 24, “The Lord is my portion, saith my soul.” Wow! What’s your portion? Is it in the store that you have in your house? No, the Lord is my portion. I’m transformed. The resource of my daily bread is the Lord. The Lord is my portion. “The Lord is my portion saith my soul, therefore will I hope in Him.” Do you know what the most important thing that you keep alive in your daily life is your hope, your hope in the Lord. And when your earthly prosperity is what’s giving you hope in the Lord, you’re on a road for collision, I guarantee you. If your earthly prosperity is your sense of hope in the Lord, you’re on a road of collision. Because God does not want us resting in that which our own hands can provide as it were as our confidence. He wants us to rest in Him and that’s where He becomes our own hope. The Lord is good to them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him. The Lord is good to them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him. What an incredible boiling down of the human life to its most primitive and its most stabilizing and its most incredible point of reference that I have my confidence in the Lord’s provision. The Lord’s going to take care of me. The Lord is good and He’s going to provide for those that wait on Him. That’s my confidence. I have no other thing to worry about. I have no other hope.
Now he goes on and he starts getting philosophical. He says in verse 26, “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” Our topic is following the Lord, following the Lord as He said from the time He went to Heaven until He returns in this period of time where we’re to follow Christ and wait on the Lord and tarry until He comes, what a testimonial for us, it is good that we would both hope and quietly wait on the Lord, hoping in the Lord. Our circumstances are such that we only need a need to connect to our hope and our waiting in the Lord, that’s all we need. What’s the essence of what you need in order to make a connection to God? You need to have a need. You need to have that which you can wait on the Lord for, that which you can hope in God on His behalf.
Habbakuk picks up this same theme. If you’ll turn to Habbakuk chapter 3, there’s a few verses at the end of the book beginning at verse 16. It’s a similar thing and I won’t spend quite as much time developing it, but verse 16 says this, “When I heard my belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice and rottenness entered into my bones and I trembled in myself that I might rest in the day of trouble.” What a beautiful description. That’s an incredible picture of how you and I are going to be purified God’s way as He begins judgment at the house of God for purification. The human experience is to look to that which is possible in terms of our demise, in terms of our difficulty and that just creeps into our inner being and you’ll probably not find a more graphic description of how the emotions grip us and rip us apart when we recognize the possible difficulty and terror that may be coming upon us as it’s beginning to be clearly visible and coming upon us. Trembling belly, quivering lips, rottenness in the bones, trembling in myself, those are all incredible adjectives of the starkness of stress that the human spirit feels when that which he’s trusting in in this world begins to collapse and it’s no longer there to trust in and it’s gone. Those are the signs of humanness coming to grips with the trusting and the hope. Brothers and sisters, you have to confess and admit that in America we have had such a blessing for so many years, God has prospered this country in such incredible ways for so many years that dear as you may be in your simplicity and humility I dare say you still have too much fastening of your securities in this world. I think so, I’m not judging you I’m just assuming that that’s the case of those who continually live in prosperity. It’s just easy to begin trusting. I asked myself one year, why should I bother planting potatoes? They’re too much trouble and I get almost nothing and it’s a lot easier to go down to the store and buy them. I can buy them about 80% cheaper than I can grow them. And there’s that just gradual sense where you just trust in the world’s system all around you and you just transfer that trust over. And so the Lord wants to deal with us. But what happens when the Lord deals with us? Just like Jeremiah, Habbakuk does the same kind of transfer. Notice what goes on. “I trembled in myself that I might rest in the day of trouble.” That’s an interesting thought. I wonder if that’s how you’re trembling. Just for the sake of the argument right now, we’re all in agreement whether you are or not, but we’re all in agreement that the day of trouble is coming. The Lord promised it. Paul said, “It’s closer now than it was ever before,” and if it was true 2,000 years ago when Paul said that, it must be really close now in comparison. A day of trouble is coming and I want to know what you’re troubled about? What are you trembling about in the day of trouble? May the trouble of Habbakuk be ours. “I trembled in myself that I might rest in the day of trouble.” You know what? You and I are salt and light. We’re given as an example to the world in a manner that’s called salt and light. In 1 Peter chapter 3 there’s a little description about how salt and light affects the surrounding neighborhood. Salt and light affects the surrounding neighborhood by causing that which is ill at ease to recognize someone that is not ill at ease and to wonder why is this person not ill at ease and that person of the world who is uncertain of themselves in every way, they come to your door and they say, “How come you have hope?” As the day of trouble slowly encroaches us and as this time is here for us to walk in the hope of the Lord, I want to ask two questions with Habbakuk. Number one, are you more worried about whether you’re going to survive in the day of trouble in the tangible, carnal way? Or are you more worried that when the day of trouble comes you’ll be a man or a woman of peace that when it hits you you’re going to be a calm pillar of confidence resting and hoping in the Lord. I dare say in that day, you will never have a greater chance to witness and to preach to the Gospel and to be an example of light and salt to the world as when that storm hits and you’re the one at peace. God wants His people to be at peace and the question here of Habbakuk is the question to you, will you be at rest in the day of trouble? What does it take for you to transfer your rest and your hope from that which is not in the Lord to that which is indeed of the Lord? And he describes His coming then, “When He comes up unto the people, He will invade them with His troops.” Now here’s a beautiful picture of a heart at rest in the day of trouble, this is a believer living next to an unbeliever when trouble hits: “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labor of the olive shall fail and the fields shall yield no meat, the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord is my strength and He will make my feet like hind’s feet. He will make me to walk among the high places.” That is the picture of faith on the earth.
I just want to express something as we try to move along here in terms of some practicals, there’s quite a bit of practicals here. And if we don’t get it finished we’ll move along to next Sunday. But in terms of some practicals we need to understand that we are not ready and we are not serving the Lord as He’s called us to serve Him unless we are going through the purifying process and getting our motives corrected in the day that we live and our response shall be, “Praise God,” if we see on the horizon something that may be that which attacks and affects our concerns for our well-being on this earth, for our security in this land that we live in. Praise God for that if we see that coming, praise God because while the circumstances will cause us to tremble and while certainly we will have a process of moving from the trembling of our hope being dashed to our transfer of the hope which cannot be dashed, while that surely will be a difficult process, what a glorious and what a privileged process that it might be for you and I to be strengthened in our hope in the Lord that we might be standing up strong as one who is at rest in the day when no one else can rest, when no one else has peace. Jeremiah 17 has this to say on this context again. And if you’ll turn to Jeremiah 17, if you’re following along, it’s at verse 13, I’ll pick it up reading and it says this, “The Lord the Hope of Israel all that forsake Thee shall be ashamed and they that depart from Me shall be written in the earth because they have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of Living Waters.” Now it’s interesting that curse that they “shall be written in the earth.” What does that mean? What is the implication that these who fail to hope in the Lord will be written in the earth? A man who fails to trust in the Lord, what else does he have to trust in? He’s going to trust in his prosperity. He’s going to trust in the circumstances of his experiential salvation that he knows that he’s comfortable with in the worldly wisdom. So his hope is not in Heaven nor the city to come but his hope is in the earth and what’s going to take place is his whole testimonial is simply going to be written in the earth and what testimonial is that going to be? It’s going to be the testimony of destruction and loss. And the monument to those who hope in this life is written in the earth and it’s written in ruins. It’s a testimonial of those that have nothing to show for their life except destruction. “They that forsake Thee shall be ashamed.”
Verse 14, “Heal me O Lord and I’ll shall be healed, save me and I shall be saved for Thou are my praise. Behold they say unto me, ‘Where is the Word of the Lord,’” that taunting and mockery that we hear in the world, “Where is the Word of the Lord? Let it come now.” Listen to verse 16, “As for me I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow Thee neither have I desired the woeful day, Thou knowest, that which came out of my lips was right before Thee. Be not a terror unto me, Thou art my hope in the day of evil. Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be confounded. Let them be dismayed, but let me not be dismayed. Bring upon them the day of evil and destroy them with double destruction.” What I see here in this little passage of Jeremiah is a real important insight into what’s taking place. When that which comes to try the earth tries the earth, when you use the word “try” what is the implication? We were just visiting this in Hebrews not too long ago. What’s going on? “Behold and once more I will shake the earth, that which can be shaken that it might be taken out of the way.” Here’s the thing: the flood’s going to come, difficulty’s going to beseech us and that very difficulty itself is going to be the trial, it’s going to be the fire and there’s going to be a tremendous contest. And Jeremiah’s a good prophet. He really lets you know how to feel and he shows you the feelings of the whole process. But in this whole process we have the scoffers denying the Word of the Lord and scoffing at the Word of the Lord saying, “Where is this Word of the Lord,” and they say, “Well let it come now.” And the scoffers only see the Word of the Lord as some means of arighting their temporal dismay. And so in blindness and ignorance and arrogance, it can never reach them, it can never serve them. But that very scoffing of the wicked is what to the believer ? It’s torment. Don’t think it’s not. If you’ve ever stood in circle of seven men and you’re the only one that’s not scoffing, there’s a torment there and there’s a time when you stand up and you learn how not to be ashamed of the Word of the Lord. Peter got caught in the garden warming his hands at the fire. How small a thing that the day of trouble were cold and we near a warming barrel and in that smallest sense of saving our life that condition of association and scoffing arises and our spirits are challenged whether we’ll own the Lord, whether we’ll walk in the Lord. And the question for you and I brothers and sisters is not a question of how will we survive or will we survive persay, the question is will you remain trusting in the Lord or will you forsake Him? What does it mean when the Scripture teaches about the Lord’s return, the second coming of the Lord, it talks about the time, it says there’s going to be a great falling away, there’s going to be a great departure from the faith? What does the Scripture mean when it says that? We talked about this when we were going through Hebrews, but there are lots of people sitting in churches today who are socially and culturally happy to be called a Christian. It’s an acceptable thing and it’s not a problem to them to be there and be counted among the elect so to speak. But there’s coming a day when that line is going to be shaken when the fires going to pass along and it’s a fire of decision, it’s a fire of correction, it’s a fire of establishing what do I trust in. And that is the whole thing to what we’re called as believers. It is the entire thing. We are called as believers to follow Jesus through the fire, to count the cost, to lay aside everything that would attract us on the earth and seek the kingdom of God and follow after that which the Lord has called us to.
Well I ask a question this morning then, how can we follow after Christ? How can we pursue Christ as He’s called us to? And what are some simple principles of Scripture that we might practically take with us? We’re reading from John 12:26, Jesus said, “If any man serves me, let him follow me that where I am there shall my servant be and if any man serve Me him will my Father honor.” It’s interesting, this is a little bit of a practical verse that addresses the practical desire of Christians. Very often we Christians are hungry to do Christian service, to be involved in Christian ministry. That’s a desire, it’s something that we want to do. We want to be serving God and reaching out with His message and we think of service freely. But when you look at this clarification of what it means to serve Christ, Jesus said “If you want to serve Me what you have to do is you have to follow Me. You have to be a follower of Me to be a servant of Mine. You can’t follow after your own way and serve me also.” What does that mean? What it really means often is often times we attempt to serve Christ and we add a little colorful twist to it and we say, “I’m going to be called to this group of people and I’m going to use the things that they’re familiar with to reach them with the Gospel.” And so in that attempt to reach people with the Gospel using their cultural appendages, I approach them in the garb of that which satisfies their flesh. And what happens to me? I’m suddenly not dressed in anything very offensive. I’m suddenly not seen as so distinguishful or diminished or different. And now in that context I feel well here I can serve Christ, here I can sprinkle the seeds of the Gospel, but what stirring up of hope or transfer of truth is going to occur in that kind of a session? The man on the one hand will think, “You’re no different than me, what good did this thing do for you?” (tape turned here..) …to deny oneself so there’s no call to the cross of Christ. And on the other hand there is no appearance of what it means to follow after Christ. How does one believe? How does one follow after Christ? Because as I look upon you I see nothing but following after that which is pleasing to the world. So here we find a great mystery and I say that in our culture today more than any culture perhaps in the history of the world, that’s just my judgment, that’s just my opinion, I’m not able to assert that but it seems right to my soul, but in this culture that we live in we’re filled with people “ministering for God.” But I don’t think we have many followers of God. And the first step of service to Christ is following Christ. And the greatest service to Christ is not going to come in work upon His behalf, but it’s going to be in being worked over by His very self so that I’m shredded and stripped and changed and I become a different kind of person. How many times do we get so focused on evangelistic means to reach the lost that we create a little carnival and in carnival land we dinkle out dotings of the Gospel? Very few people are saved that way but some are. But how sad that some are. Do you know why it’s sad that some are saved that way? It’s sad because it tends to justify the means. I’ll see someone got saved. I know enough about God to know this, God is going to reach and God is always humbling Himself to use us as servants, He’s always condescending, and so no messenger of the Gospel is perfect in every means and so God has chosen to use the foolishness of foolish men and so Paul says, “One preaches for a wrong motive, one preaches for a right motive but praise God the Gospel is preached.” He realizes that Christ is going to wins souls, but for you and I it’s a more serious question because for you and I it’s a question of, “are we doing something that’s useful, that is pleasing? Is it something the Lord’s going to own?” Look at the rest of that verse. “If any man serve me, him will my Father honor.” How is that honor going to be? “If any man serve Me let him follow Me and where I am there shall My servant be, where I am there shall My servant be.” And if I am where Christ is in my service, I’m at the place where God’s going to honor me because God is always honoring the Son. God is pleased with the Son, He’s set Him at the highest place of honor, He’s seated at His right hand and He’s seated on a throne above every throne of Heaven. So if I’m with Christ where am I going to be? I’m going to be seated with Christ and I’m going to be taking on the appearance of that which Christ appeared when He was on the earth. And that effect of Christ in me is going to be a spiritual affect and not a carnal mark and at that place God is going to be pleased with me and God is going to honor me and my service will be out of fellowship with Christ instead of out of an attempt to proffer a service for God so that we have some little thing that we hold up and say, “Look what I did for You God.” Remember that parable, I think it’s at the end of Matthew. I think it’s Matthew 7, it’s one of the last verses in Matthew 7 or 8, it said, “In that day there’s going to be those that say, ‘Lord Lord didn’t we do many wonderful works in Your name.” And you look at the works and you get kind of impressed, “Well we cast out demons in Your name, wow that’s pretty impressive, casting out demons? Well you must be a servant of God.” And what’s the response of the Lord to that group of people? “Depart from Me ye workers of iniquity.” What’s iniquity? It’s self will in action for God. It’s really an action for me but I’m labeling it for God. “Depart from Me ye workers of iniquity for,” what? “I never knew you.” So there’s an incredible importance to being a follower of Jesus Christ. And our responsibility in following Christ is to be where He is. Is this the way Christ was? That’s the way I’ll be.
Let’s explore a couple of these ideas. First of all, as I was thinking this morning about this new morning and as the Lord had granted me the freshness of just seeing that this was a magnificent morning that was prepared by the power and the love of God and He took time to contemplate and put this morning together so men might praise Him. And as I was thinking about that, a side thought struck me about following the Lord, this is the God that says, “Follow Me.” And when He says, “Follow Me,” He’s also saying, “Trust Me, trust Me, I’m the God that provides for your needs,” and my thought transferred immediately to the picture of marriage. Marriage is an important picture of following Christ. And so let me just highlight a few things. I can’t go into it very deeply. Some of you may be worried that I will, we’ve already had a long marriage series. But just in quick nutshell or picture, several things stand out for me, first of all, when a woman marries a man, she leaves her father’s house and she comes to her husband’s house. And you know what there is there? There’s a transfer of her trust from her father’s provision to her husband’s provision. And there’s a beautiful picture about the process of following after the Lord when we transfer our expectations from one thing to another. And a person who’s a follower of Jesus Christ has transferred his affections from the world and its system and its means of providing, he’s transferred it from that world and he’s transferred it over to Christ. And as a follower of Christ we’re confident, “well He who made all the world, shall He not provide for us every good thing, O ye of little faith?” Absolutely He will.
Another picture of this marriage analogy, I want us to remember from Ephesians 6 that the Scripture says that the whole nature of the church is a mystery built around marriage and the Christian marriage has exceptional importance in the way we carry out our own homes because it reflects a greater picture of the marriage that we have as the church to Christ. The church is the bride and Christ is the bridegroom and in this particular context then of the bride being one and taken by the bridegroom, we see that picture where the bridegroom is the one who is offering hope, who is offering sanctuary, who is offering a place of affection, a place of well keeping and that’s what we’re called to as the followers of Christ, we’re called to Christ as a bride. This is probably not a valid statement but I’ve thought about this once in a while and I’ve thought, “Women probably have an advantage to men in the Christian life because they know more about being a bride, they’re already more connected to the understanding that they’re not tied up in the affairs of this world and they’ve already experienced, at least those that are married, experienced that sense of transfer, the freeness, the willingness to transfer over to her husband and literally sell all and abandon all that you have to fasten yourself to your husband.”
So in that particular picture of following after the Lord marriage is an important analogy, it’s an important illustration of it. I’m just going to take a brief picture of it here in Genesis 24 and it’s a story of Abraham getting a wife for his son and basically I want to draw your attention to it, it’s in Genesis 24 and I’ll just read a couple lines here. Verse 5, Abraham’s servant having heard that he’s supposed to go bring a wife back said to Abraham, “per adventure the woman will not be willing to follow me into this land, must I needs bring thy son again to the land whence thou camest.” Picture, that is an incredible picture of spiritual recognition, the difference between you and Christ. I want you to know something. Christ is at the place that He must be and He will not move for any reason or for any person. Shame on you, shame on us if we ever try to take Christ and bring Him closer to the people so it’s easier to respond to Christ and answer to His call by reducing His call, by changing the focus and watering it down. It’s a stern word, Christ would rather be without a bride than to have to change the condition of His relationship to her. Christ would rather be without a bride. Are you willing to let that sink in? Are you one of those people who are constantly trying to make the Gospel easier for others to believe? Is your empathy upon the hardness of people’s struggle to say no to themselves? Are you one who’s willing to cave in and move the standards over to make it easier so somebody can look like they’re a part of the group by changing the standards? Shame on you. That has nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That has nothing to do with the call of God in our lives. The call is clear, the person is fixed. He’s seated, He’s high and He’s holy and He’s calling us to come to Him and the Gospel message isn’t a Gospel message that you bring down and reduce to come to people on their terms.
The next picture is the picture of Abraham. Perhaps I should have spoken of Abraham first. There’s a passage in the Old Testament that pictures Abraham, Isaiah 51 verse 1 says, “Hearken to me ye that follow after righteousness and ye that seek the Lord. Look unto the rock whence you were hewn and to the hole of the pit where you were digged. Look unto Abraham your father and unto Sarah who bare you for I called him alone and blessed him and increased him.” What a picture of the understanding of following after Jesus Christ. First of all I want you to notice that it’s an exhortation. It’s an exhortation to the Jews in terms of repentance. But he says, “Look unto the rock from which you were hewn, look unto the hole of the pit that you were dugged, look unto Abraham.” Three word pictures of what we’re to look to. And in all that picture of where we came from, the Lord wants us to understand this simple pattern. “I called him alone.” The call to following Jesus Christ will always be a singular call for each person. There’s not a group call, there’s not a family call. There’s not a national call. There’s not a cultural call, it’s a call to individual people. “I called to Abraham alone.” God is calling to you and I alone. It’s an individual, personal call. And He wants us to look and understand that God has made a call in Christ to you and I and that call needs to be answered by you and I. It’s an awful place to be, we can come together as God’s people, we can live in Christian homes and it is so easy children, it is so easy parents to gain a group sense of salvation, a group sense of following after God. Here I am I belong to a Christian family, I go to church with them, I read the Bible with them, I pray when they ask me to pray. I just participate in every little thing, therefore I’m a believer; I’m a part of a believing family and a part of a believing church and a part of a believing nation. No, sorry. It’s individual. It’s unique. It’s singular. It’s you, God’s calling you. Have you heard the call of God? Have you answered the call of God? It’s you He’s calling.
Now notice the singular call results in two singular responses. “I called him, I blessed him and I increased him.” When God calls us and we respond, He will bless us and He will increase us. Now in terms of following after Jesus Christ, in terms of following after God in His call upon our lives, those are the only two things that you need to know about God in your call. He calls you to Himself and He will bless you. He calls you to Himself and He will increase you. The increase may very well be the increase on the earth as a reflection of that great bounty of our Father in Heaven. But the increase more substantively however is an increase in Heaven. It’s an increase in a heritage, it’s an increase in who He is. And God is the one wanting to be our provider and there’s where the stress is. And if you go back and if you reflect on those three passages that we looked at to kind of introduce this discussion this morning, if you go back and reflect upon those ideas, the incredible thing that stands out with that point of reference is that in every case we see the stress pulling along the lines of where my confidence is, where my rest is, where is my provision. And God is on the throne and He is putting His hand into the affairs of men, striking terror into our hearts, separating us from false affections for this earth and suring us up rather in a confidence and a trust that God will bless me and when I need something tomorrow, He will provide it. God will bless me and He will give me the increase that I need to take care of myself. He’s a God who cares for me in the context of His greater purpose.
Now, these were all to sort of introduce the topic of following after the Lord and I had quite a bit of Scripture to look at about the disciples and it’s probably an appropriate place to break the message instead of continuing on with it today. But I want to ask some questions. We’ve been talking about repentance last week, we talked about covetousness the week before. These things all fit together so incredibly. Are we free from any guilt of looking to the world and trusting in the world for our circumstances? I don’t think we’re completely free, entirely free. That’s where repentance comes in. Ask the Lord to open our eyes, to open our understanding. Pay attention when circumstances come that seem to mark out the potential demise and destruction of our culture. I don’t know what’s coming but the Lord knows but I guarantee you this: it’s coming. It says it in the Word. It’s going to shake the world and one day it’s going to all be burned up, it’s going to be completely be done away with. So we don’t have here a continuing city and we have a need of having that dealt with in our hearts and there’s a need for repentance. That God would put His finger on you where you live that you might see yourself. You know it’s not wrong to have your first reaction be wrong. It’s wrong to persist in your first action being wrong. Let your first wrong action alert you to the fact that you’re veering towards the world’s way of doing things and do like Jeremiah did and abandon yourself from that and transfer your hope in the Lord and let the smallest encouragement be that which is sufficient and that is, “Hey I made it through another day. God is faithful. I’ll trust Him.”
I will ask a question as I close today, are there people that see you out in the world? They don’t necessarily know you’re a Christian but as they see you I wonder, do you shine like a light? Is there a distinction, is there a difference between you and the rest of the world? And as these acquaintenances of yours, these neighbors, these workmates, whatever they be, if these people are watching your life and as circumstances and difficulty comes in like a wave and crashes in upon us, do they see someone who’s steadfast, who’s at peace, who’s at rest because their God is their hope and their salvation, whom they’re not ashamed? Is there a difference between you and the world? That is our call. Our call is not to be kept from the calamity persay, our call is to be kept from the terror of it that we might be steadfast, that we might be confident and hopeful and that we might be salt and light as God has intended.
I have lots more to say but I’ll save it Lord-willing for next week. Let’s pray. Lord You’ve asked us to follow You, You’ve asked us to follow Christ. You’ve asked us to lay down that which is our worldly hope and ambition and to seek first the kingdom of Heaven and Your righteousness with the confidence that You’ll add the things that we need for today. Lord I sense that the times are becoming seriously close to the last days. And I sense Lord that there’s perhaps great opportunities ahead for Your people to be a different kind of people whereby the world might take note and notice that we’ve been with the Lord, that our confidence is in Heaven, that we have a hope that’s outside of us and where there is no tangible peace and prosperity, we are prospering and we are at peace. Lord I pray that we might be that kind of people, that we would be those that are able to not only weather the storm but Lord that we would be able to speak clearly unashamedly of the hope that lies within us, with meekness and fear. We ask in Christ’s name, amen.
