Commitment 1975

In two verses from Hebrews 12, verses 26 and 27, his voice then shook the earth, but now he has promised, yet once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase, yet once more, indicates the removal of what is shaken, what is shakable, what is impermanent, as of what has been made, in order that what cannot be shaken may remain. God alone knows what surprises may be in store for us in 1975, but of this we can be sure.

Whatever earth-shaking or heaven-shaking events may be on their way, and they probably are, God is working the work among us and among saints everywhere by way of preparation, and if we will fit in with what God is doing among us now, we'll be ready for whatever comes. Now, it's not for us to know the times and the seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. It's not for us to know what's going to happen by summer.

God wants us to know. He'll reveal that to us through the Spirit, otherwise, praise his name, we don't know. But we can know, and indeed we ought to know, the season in which we now live.

What God's Spirit is doing among us at this moment ought to be known clearly by us. God is working the work among his people here and in every place where they gather, really, that differs radically from what he was doing a year ago or two years ago or five years ago. On every hand, we have very clear indications that the Spirit of God is dealing with all of us right now in an area that we've talked much about and yet have never settled, and that's the area of commitment.

The very word commitment scares us, and it has always scared people. This is why Jesus never began by requiring commitment from people. He didn't say to the blind, well, listen, before I heal you, you've got to commit yourself to me.

He gave them their sight and let them free to do what they wanted to do with that. And he didn't say to the sick, you've got to commit yourself before I heal you, or to the hungry, I'm not going to feed you until you join my church. You know, he just did these things freely, with no strings.

But always, as the multitudes increased, the people who drew near to him for whatever reason, he would then bring them to a place where he showed them that it was now up to them to decide whether they would pay the price of coming on with him as disciples, as if he had said to them, okay, now I've shown you the kingdom, I've manifested God's love, I've revealed to you the God in the grip, and opened the door of his kingdom, but now, if you want to come through that door into the kingdom and be with me, then you must know that while up to now I've never charged you a cent, never asked anything from you, now if you want to come through that door and be my disciple, your life is never again going to be your own. You have to give it to me. From now on, if you want to come any farther at all, you have to commit yourself to me.

Now a great multitude accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not take his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. So therefore, whoever does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Now notice he doesn't say this is only for the twelve, or this is only for those who want to be missionaries. You don't want to be a missionary not to pay attention to this. He didn't say that.

He said, if anyone, he said, wait a minute, I thought we already did that. Didn't we already die with Jesus? Didn't we go down into the waters of our baptism and die? We are crucified with Christ. It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us, we say.

And how many of us have convinced ourselves for a long time that we have, see, by participating in some symbolic act, or entering into some sacrament, or by means of some dramatic moments of serious commitment, have thereby put ourselves forever in Jesus' hands, and now we belong to him. But do we really now belong to him? Indeed, and indeed, I dare say that there's not one soul in this gathering who in any way is claiming to be a follower of Jesus, who is not being brought through a season right now where God is beginning to show us how committed to Jesus we really are. See, now don't confuse commitment to Jesus with commitment to your own religious ambition.

Some of us will work day and night to advance ourselves along the lines of some plan or some dream, some unspoken lust for greatness, some, you know, compulsion to prove to those people who doubt us that we really do belong to God. We'll do anything, see, and we think that all the time we're busy doing these things that we are really committed to Jesus, until Jesus comes along and asks us to take a step which is going to destroy all that plan of ours, and then we have to decide it's going to be his way or our way. And some of us right now have been for some time going through a reaction.

A little while back we committed ourselves to a man, perhaps even a woman, who claimed to be a follower of Jesus and a servant, and they in one way or another demanded a radical commitment to their own person, and we went along with that. Or perhaps we committed ourselves to a set of ideas that purported to be the truth of God, and then we got burned. We woke up one day and found out that we were being led around by the nose by a phony.

This person let us down. And this body that we considered to be a body of truth turns out to be a bunch of exaggerations and lies, and now we're so bitter and sick about committing ourselves to something which was false, that we don't want to commit ourselves to anything. We're even afraid to commit ourselves to truth.

And then there are others among us who are still so tied down, wrapped up in the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, see, that we are so divided in our wills and so confused in our minds that we have no strength to commit ourselves to anything. And we're still saying to the Spirit of God, one way or another, but wait a minute, I'm sorry, maybe after my children are grown, or maybe after my house is paid for, maybe after I have a better job, but right now I'm not in a position to commit myself. And the Spirit answers us, but that's exactly what I'm calling you to do.

And not after your house is paid for, and not after you've ravished your bitter soul with bitterness against that so-called brother who led you astray, right down to the dregs of that bitterness. And not after you've made yourself the queen of the fellowship or a king-heavy brother, but right now. I am calling, Mr. Spirit, to the body of Christ on earth for a commitment such as the saints of God of this generation have never seen.

And it's a commitment to the person of Jesus. Not to ideas and theories about him, but to Jesus himself. And this commitment that we are being called to make is a commitment of life.

When we commit ourselves in marriage, what are we doing? We are committing ourselves to love that person through thick and thin, all the way until death parks us, you know, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, no matter what happens. See, but the love tie that we are now called to make with our Lord, far beyond, far, far beyond the commitment that we make in marriage. So far beyond it that the commitment, that other love tie, the love tie of marriage or any other union between two human beings, becomes as hatred compared with the commitment we have made now in love to our Lord.

See, and any other human commitment that in any way threatens our love tie with Jesus must become hatred. So that I belong all the way to Jesus. So that he's so completely the owner of my heart.

See, that I can now suffer the law of anything and all things except Jesus himself. And still go on. Notice that the Apostle Paul didn't suffer the laws of all things so that he could win himself a place in the kingdom.

He didn't suffer the laws of all things even so that he could win Saul. He suffered the laws of all things so that he could win Christ and be found in him. First, last, and always, Paul's commitment was to Jesus, for me to live with Christ and to die with him.

And instead of this, how often, you know, we get ourselves so wrapped up in, and it's so tangled around in things, and we fight all kinds of battles over trivialities and get ourselves all worked up over nothings, and the one love which demands that loyalty is allowed to wither. God, bring us back to love for Jesus. To just love him with all we have.

With such a love and such a commitment that nothing can get in his way. Nothing. And then if we're honest, you know, we begin to say, alright, how do I know if I'm committed to Jesus? And then the Spirit, again, is making clear to us several things that will help us to know.

First of all, if we're really committed to Jesus, then we're committed to his work. We don't just sit and look at a picture of Jesus with tears running down our cheeks. We get under the yoke with him.

We pull that load with him. We work at his side. Constantly.

It's work. We, says Jesus to us, must work the works of him who sent me while he was dead. The night comes when no man can work.

If we really love him, then it becomes our meat and drink to do his will. And to accomplish his work. And he opens our eyes so that we can see what that work is.

We don't have to sit around anymore and wonder, when is Jesus going to show me what to do? Suddenly, there it is. The work. Right in front of us.

The sea of humanity which needs to be reached one by one with the truth of how loving God is. How good he's been. And all we have to do is go to that man, listen to that woman, you know, minister to that child.

You know, and we begin to find ourselves. And it's not some kind of work that we can pick up today and then let go of tomorrow. Because we're committed to it.

We're committed to it, this work, even as we're committed to our Lord. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. For as much as you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

And let us not grow weary in well-doing. For we shall reap in due season if we don't lose heart. So that if we're still here a year from now, or two years from now, we're still going to be under that yoke.

And we're still going to be working. Where would we be without that work that Jesus gives us to do? That's our new life. Secondly, the Spirit is showing us right now, all of us, that if we're committed to Jesus, we're also committed to his saints.

To our brothers and sisters, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, that you love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, because you have loved one for another.

The proof that we love Jesus is that we love each other. See, we can think we have some kind of mystical relationship with the Lord, which is wonderful. But if while we're doing that we have a bitterness in our hearts, we're walking around with a sour attitude to our brothers and sisters, we're just hard, and we're critical, and we're negative, and we're sour in our hearts toward each other, how can we be like that? See, and this love that we have for each other is more than a warm feeling.

It's a commitment. This means that I'm committed to you, my brother and my sister, and you're committed to me, and we're committed to each other, to serve each other, and to pray for each other. I'm committed to praying for Prince.

I'm committed to praying for Kathy and for Joel, and you're committed to praying for me. And also we're committed to sharing our substance with each other. One of us is in need.

We're committed. There's no choice. This is done now.

We have to share what we have. And it's got to be that kind of commitment which goes all the way across. You know, what we often will do is we have a wonderful, close, loving, committed relationship with certain brothers and sisters that we feel close with.

They belong, let's say, to a clique that naturally forms. There it is. And we just seem to understand each other, and we trust each other, and here we are.

See, but we're just by ourselves over here. You know, we have a love toward Joel that makes us feel secure, but what about the other ones? What about the ones that are hard to get to know? What about those other ones who are called to have a love that goes right across the body and reaches up to the very oldest, down to the very youngest, to the ones that are way out there, apparently from our point of view in left field, and yet still struggling? Sometimes in our body, and probably other fellowships as well, there's a tendency for us to be very, very close with certain brothers and sisters. Now, granted, Jesus took only Peter, James, and John up on the mountain.

See, but at least he knew the names of the other disciples. You know, and with us, you know, we're real close to each other, and we don't even know their names, the people we see week after week after week. And as a start, why don't we just have a moratorium on anger and bitterness, so that anybody who wants to come up to you and ask you your name, all through the month of January, if the same person asks you ten times, pardon me, brother, what's your name, you're not going to get mad.

And that means that you can do the same to him, and he's not going to get mad. We get to know each other. You know, and so that by the end of the month where there's not a person around that we don't know their name.

That's a start. That's a little thing. But how in the world can we pray for each other? You know, what an insult this must be, is we come before the throne of God and say, dear Lord, bless that guy who comes to church, you know, you know who I mean, the guy with, you know, what's his name, and he's been coming, you know, for years and years, and so have I. You know, the Lord says, well, if you care about him that much, why don't you find out who he is? And it has to be a love that extends right over to the people who don't even like us.

You know, the love that we're called to have for each other is not just for those, as Jesus makes that so clear, who we think like us, but for those who don't like us. Those who are really hard to like and hard to get to know, we're to love them. It has nothing to do whether they respect us.

We're going to share what we have with them, we're going to serve them, and we're going to pray for them, no matter how we feel, they feel toward us. And how many times the person we think doesn't like us is praying for us like that. How often do we find that out? God shows us somebody who thought didn't like you has been pouring out his soul for you and doing, maybe he's the one who sent you that money.

Finally, to be committed to Jesus is to be committed to the lost. The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost, and how he loved them. So shepherded she.

See, and if we love them, how can we do anything but love them? I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, and to call the sinners to repentance, he has to go out there and find them. See, in the love of his Father, he goes out seeking those lost ones. He's committed to doing that, and so are we.

We're committed to finding the lost. We're committed to the poor, the maimed, the haught, the blind, the people this world forgets. Now understand, this does not mean that we're going to go on and on and on, trying to cram the gospel down the throat of a man who refuses to repent.

Nor does this mean that we are to cast pearls from God before those who have made very, very clear that they defy everything that's holy. These people are not lost. They know where they are.

They've chosen the hell that they're in. You know, and God will never know who those people are and how that is, but you don't keep forever casting pearls before swine, and that's that, and I hope I'm not misunderstood. But once a person has made very clear that they despise the holy, then we leave them be until they come around.

And we'll know when they come around. But meanwhile, those who are rejected by the world, those who are forgotten, those who are in prison, those who are just having an awful time, we're committed to them. It's not a matter of would we like to go out and reach out to them or wouldn't we.

We're committed. We have made this our obligation. You know, we can't, how in the world could we ever in a billion years pay back by going out there looking for others the love that has already been manifested for us? So we go out and seek the lost and we bring them home.

Not for us to know the times and the seasons which belong to God's future. Those things are in His hands. But the present season in which we now live, we ought to know.

We really ought to know what the Spirit of God is doing and how could we miss the fact that the Spirit of the living God is now teaching us commitment, what that really means, and dealing with us in such a way that we have to learn. When this period is over, this season that we're in is over, those who are uncommitted and those who are committed to their own ambitions will have been driven away like shafts blowing in the wind, and only the solid, the unshakable, will be left. God grant that we may be with them.

His voice then shook the earth, but now He has promised, yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase yet once more indicates the removal of what is shaken as of what has been made in order that what cannot be shaken may remain. Lord God, we just ask that this day you will purify our love for your Son and that you'll give us a glimpse again of the tremendous love that He has had and now has for us.

And we pray that we may just leave the unloving and the loveless and the critical and the hard and the self-pitying and all the other sloughs of this bond that we've been in and come up into His love again this day by faith and live that love and do whatever that love requires before we leave this place today. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.