Settled in Christiandom or Lost in God in the Desert 1978

Matthew 10, verse 39. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. Suppose that after many years of searching you finally have found the road that leads to the city of God, and the life that you now live as you walk this road is as different from your former life as day from night.

You get up in the morning with something to live for. Even when you have to battle wild beasts and cross rivers, your heart is filled with joy. One evening as the sun is setting, a city comes into view.

Your heart bleeds. Perhaps this is the city of God, my destination, and you hurry your pace. As you draw near, it looks as if this city, nestled at the foot of a small mountain, is made up of nothing but churches, spires and crosses everywhere.

As you come closer, there's this gigantic building with a neon sign, Cathedral of the Future. A little further on, this giant stadium must seat at least 50,000 people, all the lights are on, not for a night game, but for an evangelistic rally that goes on there three nights a week, 50,000 people. There are small New Testament churches, there are Hebrew Christian synagogues, there are all kinds of seminars and meeting places.

It's marvelous. Is this the city of God, you ask the lady at the information booth in the center square, and she says no. This is Christendom.

Well, I thought this road led to the city of God, and she smiles and answers, we all thought so. You'll get used to it. But the road, it keeps going up the mountain over there, doesn't it? Does it not continue on? And she answers, continue on? Where? And so you keep going on the road and climb the mountain in the darkness, and finally at the top of the mountain, you understand what she means.

It appears that the road simply comes to an end and there is nothing. With a shudder, you turn back and retrace your steps down the mountain and take a room in a hotel. First thing in the morning, you get up and climb that road again.

And now you can understand why it looked like there was nothing there. The road ends and a desert begins just as far as the eye can see, rolling sand, dry and hot. And there is a small trail that continues where the road ends.

But can this be the road to the city of God? Surely somebody in the city can tell me. And so once again, go back into Christendom and have your lunch at a Christian restaurant where they play Christian records 24 hours a day. Between records, you ask the man at the next table, that trail that continues where the road ends up there on the mountain, does that lead to the city of God? Don't be a fool, he snaps.

Everybody who goes out that path gets lost in the desert, they never come back. We have plenty of fine churches in this town. You would do well to pick one and settle down.

Weary and confused, you find a spot under a tree and try to collect your thoughts. And as you're doing this, an old man comes up to you and urgently pleads with you. Don't settle in this place.

Don't stay here. Keep going. Press on.

You'll rot if you stay here. I come from the desert, he says, and I'm here to encourage people such as you to keep going. You'll go for miles and miles.

You'll get hot, you'll get tired, you'll get thirsty. But angels will walk with you. And there are springs of water all along the way.

And at last your eyes will behold the city of God. Such a sight you have never seen before. And when you arrive at the gate, it will open for you because you're expected.

Now hurry, get going before you get too comfortable. He who finds his life will lose it. He who loses his life for my sake will find it.

Christendom is the dwelling place of those who want religion, but they do not want to lose their lives. The desert is the territory of those who are so thirsty for God and are also so sick of Christendom and all its ramifications that they will gladly lose themselves in God alone. When Peter brought his boat to land, forsook all and followed Jesus, he was penetrating the desert.

When Paul gave up being a Pharisee and Matthew gave up being a tax collector, they were leaving the city of religion and following Jesus over the sand dunes. But what does it mean for us to enter into that desert and get lost in God? In the early days of the church, there were those saints who believed literally the place to go was the desert, and they did. And they lived as hermits, many of them, and spent the rest of their lives in nothing but prayer and fellowship with God.

And no doubt we will see these people in the kingdom. But is this what God means for us to do in the Middle Ages? It was then thought that the way to get away from Christendom and leave the world behind you was to enter into a convent or a monastery. And there were many, many who did this but were bitterly disappointed when they discovered that the world was there too.

In modern days, it's often thought that if you really are serious with God and you want to get lost in God, the thing to do is be a missionary in the jungles or in the arctic wastes or perhaps find the most desolate slum that you ever heard of and bury yourself there. But is this God's will for us? Is this what he is calling us to do? Surely many of us have already discovered that you can go to the ends of the earth and still not lose yourself. On the other hand, if one opens one's eyes right where we are, we may begin to see that this is where the road ends and this is where the desert begins.

To lose ourselves in God means four specific things. First of all, we need to get lost in God's forgiveness. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Many of us have considered, you know, our need of really being enveloped in God's forgiveness. Now just letting go of ourselves and sinking ourselves into it. We say, I know I need it and I know it's there for me, but I can't seem to let go.

What if, what if somebody sees me cry or what if somebody hears me pray? What if I lose control of myself and end up at the rail in the middle of a service? See, but once we've decided that we are willing to be lost in God, such considerations don't make any difference. What does it matter if the whole town of Christendom comes and watches us disappear in the desert and jeers and makes fun of us? That's their problem. To absolutely and utterly be enveloped in God's mercy, to abandon ourselves to His goodness is the most practical, most effective, most necessary, most helpful thing that we can do.

The next day, John was standing with two of his disciples and he looked at Jesus as he walked and said, behold the Lamb of God. In other words, behold your forgiveness. The two disciples heard him say this and they followed Jesus.

Jesus turned and saw them following. He said, what do you see? And they said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying? And he said to them, come and see. And really they followed him into the desert of God's forgiveness.

Secondly, we need to be lost, utterly lost in the worship of God. And around the throne on each side of the throne are four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind. The first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle.

And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within. And day and night they never cease to sing holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever.

And they cast their crowns before the throne singing worthy art thou, O Lord and God, to receive honor and glory and power. For thou didst create all things and by thy will they existed and were created. The creatures, the four living creatures, the 24 elders were created for no other purpose really, but to worship God.

And so were we created for nothing else, but to worship God. That's what we're here for. Jesus is talking to the woman at the well, but the hour is coming.

And now is when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth, for such the father seeks to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. We don't know how to worship.

Nobody does, even the people who think they do. Come to our church, we'll say sometimes, we know how to worship. Dangerous.

We do not know how to worship. The spirit delivers us from our bondage to ourselves, floods our minds and our hearts with the flame of God, releases words and thoughts of worship from our tongues, lifts us up out of ourselves into the very presence of the divine. This, the spirit does when we are willing to leave the safe territory and envelop ourselves in the desert.

The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming. He who was called the Christ, when he comes, he will show us all things. He will show us what worship is.

And this is true. The purpose of the death and resurrection of the lamb of God was so that now it becomes possible for this lost and messed up human race to be lifted once again into the presence of God so that we can worship. Nobody teaches us to worship as Jesus does.

And he answered her, I will speak to you and he, and he will teach us to worship only when we are willing to follow him beyond the little safe territory of Christendom and all our preconceived ideas about what God is like and what he wants and lose ourselves in him, in the worship of God. We also need to be lost in a life of prayer. See, not just a little bit of prayer to round out our spiritual side, as people would think, but to be absolutely inflamed in a life of prayer, caught up into it, taken over by a spirit that does nothing but pray all the time.

Likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we are, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs, sighs too deep for words. He who searches the minds, the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. The spirit is the one who lifts us into a life of prayer, but he can only do this when we yield to him.

You know, lots of people, many of us have this in our heads cold. We know all the answers. That's our problem, but we won't abandon ourselves to him.

If the spirit is going to teach me to pray, I have to make myself available. I have to make myself available time-wise, you know, to be alone and let the spirit help me. And I have to turn my thoughts constantly back to him that he may get hold of them and lift me up.

How else can I find my way across the desert and come to the city of God unless I'm guided through prayer? Much of our prayer life is still all too colored by Christendom. You know, a little bit of prayer at convenient times and watch out that you don't become a fanatic. And so nothing happens until we abandon ourselves seriously to a life of prayer so that prayer becomes our life and every joy and every problem and every need, every question, every frustration is lifted up in prayer.

So that our ministry begins and ends with prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer all the time. If this was the way it was for our Lord, how can it be any less for us? And finally, we need to be lost in the labor of the harvest. Do you not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest? Still talking for the woman, or rather waiting for the woman to come back.

He's talking to his disciples now, but it's the same passage. There are yet four months, then comes the harvest. I tell you, lift up your eyes and see how the fields are already white for the harvest.

He who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. For here, the saying holds true. One sows, another reaps.

I thank you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor. Now, when we get a view of the harvest, when we really see it, it really becomes like that rolling desert that goes on and on and on.

No end to it. Just numberless lives. People that are hungry, people that are thirsty, people that are already ripe for God, waiting for somebody to come and harvest them.

You cannot harvest them by remote control. You can't harvest them by sending somebody as a proxy, nor can you harvest them by dabbling, whether you're a dabbling missionary in Africa or a dabbling missionary in Detroit. We can only harvest in any redemptive way when we are willing to be engulfed, just really overwhelmed, baptized in that harvest, surrounded by it, so there's nothing, no matter which way you look, it's there.

See, and this does not mean you have to leave your job and take a boat to China. It means that you open your eyes where you are and you lay aside your self-consciousness, your self-centeredness, and you speak the words that God has given you. Do the things he's showing you to do.

Stop worrying about being misunderstood by brothers and sisters or by those people and take care of business right under your nose and the harvest begins. If God wants you in China, you'll be there, but don't take a shortcut to China because you'll be as useless in China as you are here until you're serving him up here. He who finds his life will lose it and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.

Surely the Lord Jesus is not calling us to settle down in Christendom. I don't care how many churches or seminars or programs or spiritual truths we think we have in our heads. Jesus is calling us to lose our love in God and specifically for each of us.

This means in some way he calls us today to leave Christendom and follow him into the desert. May God through his spirit help us to get over the fear of losing ourselves in God, but we will find ourselves nowhere else.