Obsessed with Reality 1980

You've been wandering around in this forest for three days, trying to find your way out, looking for some food, scared to death, just when you're about to decide that you might as well just give up and lie down and die. That's right. Santo Serrati up here.

OK, stick with me, Santo. Praise God. Just when you're about to do that, and Santo and the rest of us know what that's like, along comes some guy crashing through the forest, singing at the top of his lungs.

Oh, I didn't know anybody was here. Are you all right, he says to you. And as he draws closer, he can see that you're half dead with fear and hunger.

So he pulls some food out of his knapsack and gives you a drink from his canteen. He says, you're lost. Come with me.

I'll get you out of here. And very soon, this stranger has you walking along a white stone path that you never even saw in all the time of crisscrossing and zigzagging around during those three days. Now, he says, pretty soon, we're going to go into a patch of fog.

And he says, be sure to stay close to me. Don't let me get out of earshot from you. The conversation continues as you enter a low region that's covered with mist.

And you're telling him about your life and all the things that have happened to you and what you're going to do when you get back to civilization. And he has to interrupt you about three times. Look, you're not staying with me.

Now, stay close to me. Don't get away from me. Now, you're telling him about the people who have wronged you and how you stumbled into this forest in the first place and how depressed you've been for the last six months.

And all of a sudden, you stop. And you say, how come you're not answering me? Hey, where are you? And you look down at your feet, and you can see that you're no longer on that path you were on before. And there's total silence around you.

And you begin to realize that for who knows how long you've been walking along thinking you were talking to your friend, and he was nowhere around. From Philippians 3, indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, that I may know him in the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.

For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. No doubt all of us here would agree that the Christian faith boils down to a personal relationship with Jesus. Paul's life was lastingly changed not by mastering a body of spiritual truth, but by coming to know Jesus.

And the radical, drastic changes which have occurred in our lives took place in the same way. It didn't happen when some new idea hit us, but when we got to know Jesus. But the problem is, as time passes, it's so easy to think we still have a relationship with Jesus where, in fact, our side of that relationship has dried up and died way back the path.

We're walking along, talking to the Lord, but we're really talking to ourselves. We left his road way back and didn't even know it. There are two basic ways in which we can allow our living relationship with Jesus Christ to subtly slip into something totally unreal.

The first is by allowing the person of Jesus in our lives to be replaced by religious ideas. It's so much easier to have ideas, doctrines, principles, that may be very spiritual, in place of Jesus in our lives. See, because you don't have to open your heart to an idea, and you don't have to share your life with a doctrine.

You can do what you want. And so as time passes, we turn into catalogs of scripture quotes and theological truth. But the fire of the relationship has burned to the ash of religious legalism.

Like a man who still lives in the same house with his wife, eats at the same table, sleeps in the same bed. Well, it's been years since he has had any kind of genuine personal relationship with her. All she is now is an idea in his head, a thing he tries to manipulate, a voice that nags him, a threat to his freedom.

But how long it's been since he ever looked upon this woman as his friend. Now, the other way we find ourselves losing, living touch with Jesus is when we try to manipulate our relationship with him into something we want it to be. And we push it, and twist it, and warp it, until finally, Jesus is left far behind, and we're walking hand in hand down the road with a delusion.

We're still talking to Jesus. And we're still holding fellowship, apparently, with followers of Jesus. But this Jesus of delusion is actually taking us out of touch with reality and away from people.

We're so caught up in our perverse image of Jesus that we stumble right over hungry people and don't even see them, pass by the cries of the sick and don't even hear them, and ignore the hurt and the wound of the rejected people all around us. See, now, instead of having hearts, which always are developed in people who walk with Jesus, that are tender toward God and tender toward those around us, our hearts become brittle, and angry, and mean underneath our little, smiling, religious mask. So how do we maintain a relationship with Jesus that never drifts off into stagnation, or never wanders away into some weird perversion, some delusion? Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse, that I may gain Christ and be found in him. We need to keep asking ourselves again, and again, and again, is the relationship which I have with Jesus right now alive, real, and does it satisfy my longing for God? Does this relationship put me in touch with reality? Does it open my eyes to the people around me to see them as they are, as God sees them? Does this relationship guide my life? And does it give me power over evil, particularly evil in my own heart? The same Jesus who called Paul calls you and me into such a relationship that does all those things and is willing and able to sustain us in that relationship. But there are certain things that we need to consider about our side of it.

In order to keep our union with Jesus fresh, we have to make sure that we are abiding in the vine and not in some other branch. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing. Each branch abides in the vine. No branch draws its strength from other branches.

Praise God for the opportunity that is given to us still to be able to come together like this and worship God. But the power of our corporate life, as we worship God together and as we go forth into the world to do the will of God out there, the power of our corporate life rides on the integrity of our individual life before the Lord. Nobody can do your repenting for you.

Nobody can do your praying for you. Nobody can seek God's face for you or do your listening or your worshiping or your serving. You abide in the vine.

In fact, gathering together like this week by week to praise God will become an escape from reality rather than a door into reality if, as individuals, we aren't doing our homework. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, she who abides in me, she it is, he it is who bears much fruit.

For apart from me, apart from a living relationship with me, I can do nothing. Also, to keep this relationship with Jesus alive, we need to stay near the cross. The cross is the place where the curse broke and the door opened.

The cross is the place where Jesus did what he came to do. And it's the place where you and I really get to know him as no other place. When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom.

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. For Jesus did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel. And not with eloquent wisdom lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth on the cross, will draw all unto myself.

And when we're drawn to him, the place where we find him is the cross. People complain, and we have often complained, I just can't seem to get near God. I don't have any sense of his presence.

He's no longer real to me. When this happens, the thing to do is turn around and go up that hill and look once again at the one who hangs on that cross against the dark sky and ask the spirit of God to show you again what's going on. The film Jesus Christ Superstar had its good points and bad points.

But without a doubt, the most powerful scene in that whole film was the last one. They show this scene. Remember, those who saw it, the actors have finished producing this or putting them on this film.

And now they're getting back on the bus over there in the Middle East. And as they get on the bus, one after another stops and looks up there at the hill and sees that cross. And it's almost as if, and I dare say this is what happened, the people who put that thing on had no conception of what they were getting into.

And I dare say that since that day, the cross has been haunting them. Maybe they don't know what's going on up there, but they can't forget it. And the same with us.

We don't know. We don't understand the half of what went on there. But we can't forget it.

That's where the change takes place. We say, I'm so burdened down with guilt. I'm so full of bitterness.

I can't get near to God. Take your bitterness, and your guilt, and your self-pity, and all the other crud to the cross and wash in the Lamb's blood, and you'll come clean. John the Baptist announced Jesus to the world.

And he didn't say, behold, the greatest teacher who ever lived. He said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. God help us to draw near and stay near the place where we got our freedom and where our freedom is maintained.

To keep our relationship with Jesus alive, we need to learn to function as part of the body. See, we abide in the vine as an individual, but we function corporately. And there's no getting away from that from any of us.

For by the grace given to me, I bid everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. I don't belong with those thickheads over there. You know, I'm going to find a church where people understand.

You know, I just can't seem to find any place where people are really spiritual. Everywhere I go, nobody's committed. But to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned to them.

For as in one body, we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. The body of Christ is not a spiritual gas station where each of us drives up, fills up the tank and goes on his own way. Her own way.

The body of Christ, praise God, is a spiritual, heavenly potluck dinner where everybody who has any food at all brings it. You bring your dish, and that's what the real meaning of that altar is. You know, the bread and the wine up there are the stuff we're bringing.

And when the plates go up there, that's the stuff we're bringing. You bring what you have of your life. And you lay it there on the table.

And the Lord transforms it into burning light for everybody else, especially for those who came to the banquet and had nothing to bring. God help us to get down and fit in the body, to function with brothers and sisters, instead of being the eternal critic of the body or the eternal taker who's always taking and always measuring whether you've got enough. And God spare us from also being the patron, you know, who does little things for the body but stands in the loom of superiority.

And get down into it! Be part of it! Even if they are all dumb, so are you, so am I. This is what we need. The only thing we have in common, praise God, is not our IQ, but our need of forgiveness. Get down there and be part of it and expose yourself to it.

Take some risks. Contribute something to it. And as we do these things, our vision of the Lord becomes the clear.

And we begin to hear His voice and experience His peace as never before. The glory which Thou hast given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, Thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that Thou hast sent me and hast loved them, even as Thou hast loved me.

That prayer of Jesus is being answered by the Father now all over the world, including here. Whether as individuals we are part of the answer hinges on whether we allow it. God help us to fit in.

God help us to fit in with brothers and sisters, to keep our relationship with Jesus fresh. We also need to get out there where He sent us to go. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. He finally did it. God help us to do the same.

Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And it's as we go out and do this, as we plunge into that sea, that raging sea of humanity, and move into the streets and lanes of Nineveh, where they don't know their left hand from their right, that we begin to get a vision of the Lord.

The promise, Lo, I am with you always, is tied to the command, Make disciples of all nations. We can sit in here inside these walls and hold hands and love each other for a hundred years. We'll never experience the power of the Lord's presence in our lives the way we will when we go out and start doing it.

Doing what we were sent to do. As the Father sent me, so send I you. It doesn't just go for those twelve.

It goes to the church, the body. And as you go and do that, you will know my presence, saith the Lord. For me, to live is Christ, to die is gain.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count Him as refuge in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him. May God bring us to the place where we count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.

Today as we eat His body, drink His blood, may the Spirit of the Lord refresh and cleanse and quicken our union with Him. Let's just wait upon Him in prayer.