Gather with Me 1978

I'm going to read one verse to start out here from Luke 11, 23. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. The stress all through our Lord's teaching is that whatever we do as his followers is to be done always in union with him.

Apart from me, you can do nothing. He who abides in me and I in him, he it is, she it is, who bears much fruit. Don't go off on your own and try to do things apart from me.

Tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you be endowed, until you receive power from one eye. I will not leave you desolate. I will come to you.

Lo, I am with you always. And the reason for this stress that he gives continuously through his teachings obviously is because Jesus knows what we're made of and how prone we are to start out with him and then in very subtle ways to just swing off on a tangent of our own, still pretending in our minds that we are there with him and that what we are doing is in his name, but we know deep in our hearts and he knows that we have left him behind long ago, even though we still pay lip service to his words. He who is not with me is against me.

There's no other way. And if you're not gathering with me, then you're scattering. But what does it mean to be with Jesus? All we have to do is look back on our own lives.

And if we had the sense, we probably, some of us, perhaps all of us could look at things we're doing in our lives right now to see the silly. Evil. Devastating things.

That we have done all the while claiming that we are with Jesus. We're doing it in his name. We're on the right track.

Think of the wicked judgments that we have formed in our hearts against others. The bondage that we have brought people into and the condemnation that we have heaped on their heads all in the name of being with Jesus during the Inquisition. When people were burned at the stake for not holding to the right doctrine.

Jews were buried alive if they were unwilling to confess Jesus as their Lord. Countless people were put on the torture rack and tortured right out of their bodies to try to make them confess errors that they didn't even understand, much less never committed. And among the people who were behind this evil thing were men who spent hours a day going through what they were convinced was prayer and who were absolutely sure that they were in the will of God.

Now, how can this be that we and others can go up into such unmerciful, ungodly things and still think that we are with Jesus? The answer is that we have to be able to distinguish very carefully between two kinds of being with Jesus. There is the width of what we have called around here the insider syndrome. And there is the width of the heart.

Now, the false width of the insider disease is when I think that I have an exclusive relationship with Jesus, something very unique and special. When I think that I'm in the inside circle, it's just me and a few other heavies and Jesus and that we experience a relationship with the Lord, which others who are less enlightened, less versed in scripture, less humble than we are, less spiritual can't possibly enjoy. The time Jesus came into the region of Tyre and Sidon and this Canaanite woman came out and cried at the top of her lungs, Lord, thou son of David, have mercy on me.

She's not even a Jew, she's a Gentile, but she calls him the son of David. My daughter is grievously tormented, vexed with a devil. And Jesus just keeps walking, pays no attention, apparently.

And then his disciples come up to him and they beg him. Notice what they beg him to do. Do they beg him, Lord, please heal this woman's daughter.

Lord, do something for this poor, tormented Gentile lady. Help her, Lord. They begged him, Lord, send her away for she crieth after us.

After all, Lord, we're the insiders and she's an outsider and she's annoying us. Send her off. At that point, the disciples obviously were convinced that they were insiders, but they were so far away, so wrong, so unmerciful.

The insider was this Canaanite woman. And if you want to call anybody an insider, she was at least closer to Jesus than anybody else, because she came to him in a way that the disciples had yet to learn. And they did learn, praise God.

She came to him with her need from her heart. By the time Peter and John and James and John, rather, who were, remember, part of the inside three, James and John come up to Jesus and say, Lord, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. And he says, well, what do you want? Lord, grant that we may sit one on your right and the other on your left in your glory.

We want to be with you, Lord. We love to be with you. But how do they want to be with him as insiders? Obviously.

Then one day they're going down to Samaria toward Jerusalem. And they get to a village where the villagers refuse to receive Jesus and his disciples because they're heading to Jerusalem and they're Jews. Again, our two friends, James and John, and we're just like them.

Say, Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven and consume them? You know, they're trying to treat us as outsiders. Let's show who the outsiders really are, Lord. Well, the time they bring parents or bringing their children or grandparents or uncles and aunts, we don't know who they were, but they were bringing little children that Jesus should touch them.

And again, here come the brave inside disciples rebuking those. You know, get out of here. Jesus doesn't have time for that.

But Jesus, when he saw it, was much displeased, very displeased. And he said, let the little ones come to me for of such as the kingdom of heaven. Now, whenever we are with Jesus, you know, with our hearts thinking of ourselves very often secretly as insiders, we are doing the same thing those disciples are doing.

We're driving people away. We're misleading them. We're making it very, very difficult for people to find their way to that mercy, which is found nowhere else but in Jesus.

He who is not with me is against me. And he that gathereth not with me scatters. And to be with me.

What you have to do is leave behind your insider syndrome, your big ego, your spiritual rightness, all your knowledge, and come to me with your bare naked heart. And your desperate need, if you would only admit it. Then you're with me.

And when you are with me with your heart in that way, then you will be a door to which people can find their way to me instead of the wall you've so often been barring them from my presence. With your heart in your heart drawn near and be with me, first of all, says Jesus at my cross. What was it that drew that Canaanite woman? It was nothing but the aroma of Calvary, the aroma of the cross, which she with her mind surely didn't fully understand who does.

But she sensed that here was healing. Here was deliverance. Here was how the cross it was.

And it was the cross that drew these parents or whoever they were bringing the little ones. And it was the cross that drew the blind and the lame and the poor and the maimed and the sinners and the trouble and the demon possession, all the others to him. And finally, praise God, the disciples found their way to the cross.

Notice the difference between Peter before Calvary and after Calvary. Before Calvary, we see Peter also so often full of this insider thing. Lord, though all should forsake thee, yet will not I. I'm with you, Lord.

But after Calvary, we see that love, which was surely there underneath all that bluster. We see that love, which is now the only thing left. The bluster is gone.

The pride is gone. The self-righteousness is gone. And we see Peter with nothing but that silence.

Son of Jonas, do you love me? Lord, you know, I love you. Feed my sheep. Now it's a love that has been brought through the blood of the cross, tried in the fire, cleansed by that fire of suffering, you know, down into the death of Calvary and back up again alive.

And that, you know, that was a thing that the love of Calvary that really brought Peter to life and enabled him to come to Jesus and be close to him in a way that he never knew before. And it's at that point where we find ourselves truly at the foot of the cross that we experience a fellowship with Jesus that can be known nowhere else. And this does not happen just at the beginning of your walk with Jesus.

It goes on and on and on. And the minute you think you've come to the place where you don't need to be a Calvary anymore, you're in trouble. You know that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with a precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

He was destined from before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake. Through him, you have confidence in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. Secondly, our Lord is telling us, draw with me, come with me, be be near in your heart, in the mercy of God.

Now, there's absolutely no way that we can understand who Jesus is or have any sense of what he's about, what he's doing. Until we open our hearts to God's mercy and we begin to appreciate what that is. A few weeks ago, we were talking about Matthew nine, when the Pharisees who know their scriptures and know all about God begin to condemn Jesus for having dinner with a rich tax collector, a sinner.

And Jesus answer is, go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. And in that he's quoting Hosea six, six.

That's chapter nine of Matthew over in chapter 12. We see the same thing. These guys come again.

Now they catch Jesus with his red hot. You know, he's broken the commandment of the Sabbath. He's broken the Sabbath.

He and his disciples are going through the grain fields, plucking the grain. Now we know you've broken scripture. Now you've done it.

And Jesus answer to these guys, if you had learned, if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. You would not have condemned the guiltless. And in these answers to the Pharisees, Jesus is surely talking to us.

You want to know who I am. You want to get some sense of what I'm doing. You want to be part of what I am.

Go and learn. I will have mercy, not sacrifice. I think this is the shortest Psalm.

I'm not sure, but I'm sure it is. I think it is Psalm 117, one that we could well memorize. Oh, praise the Lord.

All you nations praise him. All you people for his merciful kindness is great toward us. And the truth of the Lord endureth forever.

Praise ye the Lord. When we open our hearts to that merciful kindness, which is great toward us, we will begin to understand what his truth is. And the mercy and the truth are always together, always.

And when we appreciate the mercy, then we begin to see Jesus and know him and love him and follow him. And we won't be so busy picking at everything else. We'll be just so busy praising and thanking him and then doing his merciful will that our lives will be fulfilled in that.

And we won't have to try to fulfill ourselves in picking up all the specks from our brother's eyes. Finally, I believe that Jesus is saying to us also in your heart, be with me through the Holy Spirit. Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated common men, they wondered and they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

When had they been with Jesus? Five years ago, two months ago, last week. That may all be true. But the significant thing was that these men were with Jesus right up to that moment.

They were with Jesus as they stood before the council. They were with Jesus when they were locked up in jail. They were with Jesus all the time through the Holy Spirit.

When they're released, they go back to the brothers and sisters and together they all pray. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to thy service to speak the word, thy word with all boldness, while thou stretchest out thy hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed in the name of thy holy child, Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.

Now, the spirit that was in that place, the wall can fill those things is among us now. And one desire, the one desire of the spirit is that we should be able to draw near to Jesus with our. He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattered.

It's probably true that there's more gathering going on ostensibly in the name of the Lord on the earth at this moment than at any time since the apostolic days. All kinds of gathering taking place, people are being gathered into this and into that. Very soon, God himself, and it's up to him to do it, not us.

Very soon, God himself will make it clear how much of this gathering was gathering and how much of it was scattering, how much of it was life and how much was dead, how much was building up and edifying the body and how much was actually tearing down and destroying and and splitting and dividing the body. And when God has finished making that clear, we can be sure that the only work that will remain and the only fruit that will last will be that which was performed by those who were with their hearts truly with Jesus. May God show us if it might be that in areas of our lives we are living with that insider syndrome.

May he make that clear to us. And may he help us to turn around and get near him with our hearts. If it's in any way true that we with our mouths or with our busyness are with Jesus as insiders and actually forming walls to keep the struggling, mercy hungry people away from him, if in any way that's true, may the Lord show us that we may turn around and come through that wide open door into those wide open arms of him who is the mercy of God, both for us and for us.

Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, get under my cross, get into the mercy of God, which is incarnate in me, and enter into my spirit, which is the spirit of self-emptying. Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you'll find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is not legalism, but easy, and my burden is not self-conscious commitment, but light. Let's pray. Just ask, Lord God, if you'd help us to answer the call of your spirit and in whatever way is necessary for each of us to leave whatever place may be away from Jesus and away from his cross and draw near to him.

Lord God, with our hearts and with our knees, Lord God, this day we ask it in his name. Amen.