Lost in God 1975

On the surface, things around here look just about the way they've looked for a long time. But beneath the surface, there's a shifting going on right now in this fellowship that is very clearly the signal of the season of radical change for us. And the change that we're talking about isn't exterior.

You know, it'll be a long time before it shows up on the surface. But rather it begins with the Spirit of God turning on the light, showing us things about ourselves that we've been trying to avoid for a long time. You know, how do you feel when you wake up one day and discover that a certain area of your life that you always thought was really pretty good is actually a stench in the nostrils of God? Perhaps you've always thought of yourself as considerate and kind.

But then God turns on the light and shows that all that is nothing but a front. And there you see a selfishness in you that makes you sick in the stomach to look at, or you look in the mirror expecting to see the face of a follower of Jesus, and instead you're looking at a hypocrite who's never taken one serious risk for the kingdom of God. Or maybe we've always had the feeling inside that our faith runs deep until we're brought into a little two-bit trial, and suddenly our faith evaporates.

Or we're given a tour of the back warehouses of our minds, and there we see pile after pile after pile of grudges that have never been forgiven, and that we've coded over with all kinds of good religious reasons. Or to be brought into a situation that demands nothing more than a little bit of down-to-earth love. And to discover that we don't even have any love to give.

When this starts to happen to us, and if it hasn't happened to you, praise God it will. When this begins to happen, you cry out, now why is this going on in me? And how come God allowed me to go on for years and years thinking that things were pretty good, now suddenly he forces me to see my true condition? And don't think it's just happening to you or to this fellowship. It's happening to the body of Christ across the earth at this hour, and the reason is that God is going to have himself a real church to proclaim his gospel at the midnight hour.

Not a bunch of hypocrites, and not a bunch of religious phonies. Not some people who are full of hatred and bigotry, you know, beneath the religious mask. Not a bunch of self-righteous snubs.

Not people who are bound up in all kinds of habits, indulging their flesh left and right, body and flesh and other senses. And not people, you know, who are very religious, but really not at all committed to Jesus. But rather God is going to have a body of saints who are dead to self, and who are alive only to him.

And so out of this shifting, and this stirring, and this churning that is now going on beneath the surface in the body of Christ all over the earth, are emerging two groups. First we have a group of people who, while they continue to think of themselves as Christians, are really only interested in their own preservation. You know, all they want to do is make sure that they can make tomorrow as safe and comfortable as possible.

You know, they're even getting ready for the tribulation now, just in case the rapture, as they always thought, doesn't come in time. You know, so now they're storing honey and canned goods in their basements. Literally, this is going on.

Commando training for the tribulation. You know, they go to meetings and praise the Lord and do nice things for each other. You know, but all they're really concerned about is their own safety.

There are thousands upon thousands of red-hot Christians who are following not the gospel of the cross of Jesus, but the gospel of self. For many walk with whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are enemies of the cross of Christ. And you can tell that they're enemies of the cross of Christ not by the things that they say, but by their walk.

In other words, they're following a Christ, a false Christ, who carries no cross and demands no cross and floats in and out among them singing the theme song of Burger King. You know, have it your way. You know, and then we just put in Jesus' name and it's okay.

And this is the raw material for the church of the hand of Christ, soon to emerge. But while this is going on, praise God, there is also emerging a group of people who are trying really to do the opposite. They're trying to lose their lives.

They're cutting ties. They're burning bridges. They're getting rid of all the junk that they can find.

They're tearing out of their hearts and out of their lives and circumstances everything that offends until there's nothing left, until they're dead, until their lives are truly, in fact, lost in the doing of God's will. And he called to him the multitude with his disciples and said to them, if any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it.

And whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. Now, I guess just about all of us here know that passage by heart. We've heard it so many times.

And almost every time we hear it, Satan twists it in our minds and warps it and makes it sound like something terribly morbid. You know, and so we think about it as little as possible. You know, take up your cross and lose your life.

You know, tell me something cheerful. Give me something cheerful. I want a happy gospel.

And so what happens is that years and years go by and we never, many of us, have ever stopped to think exactly what it is that Jesus means when he tells us that if we would come after him, we don't have to come after him if we don't want to. But if we're going to come after him, then there is no choice. If we're going to come after him, then we have to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him.

What does he mean? You know, what is he expecting of me when he says that if I want to come after him, I have to lose my life for his sake and the gospel? He lost his life. He kept pouring it out and pouring it out and pouring it out until there was nothing left but a corpse hanging on a cross. They took that body down, wrapped it in linen, put it in the tomb.

Two mornings later, as day is breaking, into the darkness of that tomb and into that corpse comes the spirit of a living God who not only brings that body back to life but utterly transforms the life of that body, brings it up into a life it never knew before so that the Jesus who steps forth from that tomb is radically different from the Jesus who was on the cross, though he is the same Jesus, but so different. He was sown in corruption. He was raised in incorruption.

He is sown in dishonor. He is raised in glory. He is sown in weakness.

He is raised in power so that now the life that Jesus has himself and is able to give to those around him and those who seek him, that life is possible only after this body of flesh and blood is dead. And in the same way, the life that he purchased for us with his blood can make its abode inside us only as this flesh, this self, this religious self, this spiritual self, this I, which is forever standing up for its own rights, is dead. When it's dead, then God comes down and there is an earthquake, a shaking, followed by glory, life, resurrection, power, joy, unspeakable healing in abundance so that the you who steps forth from the tomb with Jesus is a very different you than the one you were before, but God won't take our lives from us in this way.

We have to lay them down. He won't, you know, perform the miracle all the way through by taking our lives and then raising us from the dead, slaying us and then raising us. We have to lay our lives down.

That's our job. Our job is to lay our lives down. His job is to quicken us with his spirit and the laying down of our lives is not a once and done thing, as we wish it were so often, any more than it was for Jesus.

Jesus was continuously laying down his life every day, offering himself up to God, constantly losing himself in the Father's will, and it was this constant outpouring of his life and giving it over to his Father's will that finally brought him to his cross. Likewise, it's the continuous laying down of self, losing ourselves in God's will that brings us to the cross that we have to die on, wherever that may be or whatever it may be. But we have to take up that cross at some point.

We have to make a beginning. We have to start. And the truth of the matter is that many of us here have never even really begun.

We've thought about it and thought about it and stood about it and even maybe prayed about it a little bit, but we haven't done anything. We're still expending our energies thinking of all kinds of reasons why we shouldn't do this, why I shouldn't lay down my life or lose my life. And we're constantly saying in one way or another, Lord, you know, can't I just follow you in this narrow, familiar little world that I am safe and comfortable in? Why do I have to follow you across the border of the known into the unknown? All I want to do is be saved, Lord.

I don't care about the rewards. Didn't you say, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved? Well, Lord, I believe and I've been baptized. Aren't I okay? And then the Lord comes back and says, what does your baptism mean? Your baptism means death.

It means that you're lost in God. Your bridges have been burned. You no longer belong to yourself.

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. To deny yourself basically simply means to turn. So to turn myself around so that my back now is against, toward my own interests and my face is toward Jesus.

See, I can't possibly see Jesus so long as I'm still wrapped up in my fishing boat. It's only as I, by an act of my own will, and God will not do this for us, by an act of my own will, turn away from my fishing boat, my fears, my dreams, my resentments, my bitterness, and all these other things that have me going, that I deliberately turn my back on that and look at Jesus. Only then can I begin to see his kingdom and understand the things he's saying.

And see, while that has to be done again and again and again, constantly, it has to be begun. And there's no reason why right now we can't deny ourselves in that sense. That with an act of will, we turn away from all these things we're clutching, let go of them and face Jesus.

Take up your cross. A cross is something you have to carry. You know, it has weight to it.

Now, basically it's carried in the heart. Jesus was carrying his cross from the time his ministry began. And the carrying of the cross means that I am now under the authority of this will of God which is causing me to pour out my life.

You know, I'm spending it, I'm losing it all the time. See, but I have to get to the place where I actually stop looking at the cross and go over and pick it up. And many of us are still looking at it, you know, and wondering when Mark's going to pick it up, you know, when's Dale going to pick it up.

You know, but never mind when they pick it up. Maybe they picked it up long ago. How about you? I pick up the cross and I say, now, Lord, I take it.

Which means I'm now under the authority of this sign of my own death. I'm going to be lost from the sight of men. I'm no longer going to be, you know, God's man for the hour.

And I'm going to be lost from my own idea of what I always wanted to be, a super saint. And that I'm now lost even from those things that I always considered my security in the past. That's all gone.

And I'm going to continue to lose myself and lose myself until there's nothing left to lose. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Notice he doesn't say admire me.

He has all kinds, millions of admirers, but who's following? You know, I'm walking in the will of my father, says the Lord. And I'm in that pouring out my life for my brothers, laying down my life for my brothers. And if you're going to follow me, you're going to walk in my steps and you're going to lay down your life for your brothers.

Now, the call of the Spirit of God to us today is to start truly losing ourselves. Never mind what tomorrow is going to bring. You know, think about right now, before we eat his flesh and drink his blood.

Do I really mean to be joined to that broken body, that shed blood, that death? See, it's not just food to energize you. In a sense, it's a food that kills you. God, help us all, whether for the first time, the hundredth time, or the thousandth time, to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow the Lamb.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we're asking that the barrier of pride, which hinders us from following you, which hinders us from hearing and understanding, this self-righteous wall of glass that blocks us off from the way of life, may by your grace and our obedience be broken today. And that whether we're in fear and trembling, or whatever the case may be, that you help us, Lord God, to take that step and to leave the familiar ground and to truly walk with you.

Lord God, we've heard the theory so long. Grant that now we may begin to make it actual in our living, that we may be lost in your will, and in being lost, may live a life that is not ours but yours. We ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.