Following Him to the Vineyard

This is part three of my message based on the text found in Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

We began this series focusing on verse one in which God told Abram: “Go forth from your country, and your relatives, and from your father’s house, to a land which I will show you.”

And simply said: “Abram followed Him.” But Abram isn’t the only person whom God has ever called to follow Him. Old Testament history is abundant testimony of how often God said to His Chosen people through the prophets, “Follow Me.” The New Testament gospels also give ample testimony of how often the Lord Jesus said to those of His day, “Follow Me.”

There are many reasons God calls us to follow Him – besides the obvious, “He is our Creator.” We saw two weeks ago that He calls us to follow Him because He alone has the words of eternal life. Last week we reminded ourselves that it is only to those who follow Him through obedience to the Scriptures that enjoy God's spiritual protection.

Today I want us to look at a third reason God calls us to follow Him, and it is this: We are, as the apostle Paul told the Christians at Corinth (1 Corinthians 3:9) “God’s coworkers.” The Creator of heaven and earth, of all things in the earth and the universe – He gives those who follow Him the incomprehensible gift and the wondrous and inexplicable privilege of actually joining with Him to not only RESCUE men and women from the earthly ravages and pains of sin, but to also work with Him to bring them to eternal life.

I will not spend a lot of time this afternoon talking about that horror which awaits EVERY man and woman living in Ashwood Meadows today who have rejected God's offer of eternal forgiveness and eternal life. Such a wondrous gift is offered only to those who will come in humble repentance and obedience to the Savior.

But for now, let this picture say what a thousand words could not adequately say. Most of you know the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, found in Luke 16. The rich man lived in splendor, while Lazarus sat outside his gate, covered with sores and begging for crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. When both eventually died, the rich man went to what we would call hell. Lazarus went to what we would call Paradise. We pick up the dreadful story in verse 23 of chapter 16 with the Rich Man:

“In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ 

Scripture paints a terribly clear picture of what is the sure destiny of those who reject Christ’s atonement for their sins. That destiny is an eternity in torment. I could cite dozens of such passages in both the Old and New Testament, but I will not because I do not want to focus our attention today on that particular reality – except to assure us that when we REALLY follow Jesus – and not just ‘play church’ – when we really follow Jesus, we have nothing to fear of death or of hell. Rather, when we really follow Jesus, He permits us to actually work together with Him to RESCUE others from that horrible and inevitable fate.

Just think for a moment what it means that the Almighty King of the universe invites us to work with Him to pull to safety men and women who are without Christ’s atonement for their sins and therefore lost to an eternity of unthinkable horror in the Lake of Fire.

Fanny Crosby, who was blind since infancy, urged us well: “Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen, tell them of Jesus the mighty to save. Oh, Rescue the perishing, care for the dying; Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save.”

So, as I said, I will not spend any more time today talking about how following Jesus lets us work with God to pull others from the Lake of Fire. Instead, I want to take us down an overlapping road we walk when we follow Christ. That road is the one on which, working together with Christ, we save men, women, boys, and girls also from a life of loneliness, isolation, despair, emptiness, and a deep sense of worthlessness.

Think of THAT glorious truth – a truth I certainly can attest to as true, because I can easily extrapolate where I’d be today if Christians along my path had not told me about Jesus. I can infer from my past life – just as many of you can also draw conclusions as to where YOU would be today if no one had told you of Jesus. Those who were blasphemers, sexually immoral and perverse, drunkards and liars, murderers and adulterers, self-righteous and thieves – the list of sins that men and women – even some of us here – the list of sins people commit seems endless.

But – and this is the point – the Almighty and utterly holy God grants all who follow Him the right to work with Him to save those who were just like we were. He grants us the privilege to pull them from that kind of life in THIS life.

Now, if I was talking to a group of teenagers or 20 or 30- somethings, most would not have an idea of what I’m talking about. But we in our 60s, 70s, 80s maybe even 90s know from personal experience what it’s like to reap the sorrows of sin’s wages. We know from personal experience the truth of Jesus’ statement in John 10:10 “The thief [Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

To ‘steal and kill and destroy.’ Listen to only some of the evidence of the Thief’s work:  Nearly 50 million Americans 12 years old and older are addicted to drugs. Recent divorce statistics tell us nearly 45% of first-time marriages are dissolved. But it doesn’t get any better for subsequent marriages. Sixty percent of second marriages and nearly 75%(!) of third marriages end in divorce. And on that same subject, did you know that nearly one in four children under the age of 18 live in one-parent homes? Furthermore, did you know that children in Christian homes are just as likely to be living with only one parent as those in non-Christian homes?

But that is not the end of the evidence of the Thief’s ongoing work. Let’s look at suicide statistics. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for CHILDREN between the ages of 10 and 14. And those aged 75 and older had the HIGHEST suicide rate among all age groups. I could stand here and cite yet more mournful proof of the Devil’s work in our world, but why? It’s clear we are in a deadly spiritual and supernatural battle – a battle to which God actually calls you and me who follow Him to rescue those who are trapped by Satan’s talons, and those who are on the edge of being trapped.

Oh, may God help us understand the wonder of what He grants those who follow Him. God help us know the immeasurable gift He gives us to rescue the perishing and care for the dying. He offers us the right and the privilege to rescue people not only from an eternal grave in the lake of fire, but also from a lifetime of regrets in this life. You know from experience as well as I how sin results in broken homes, broken bodies, broken hearts. We know from personal experience how sin will take us farther than we want to go. It will keep us longer than we want to stay. And it will cost us more than we want to pay.

A life of regrets. As I prepared this message, I thought of the man whom Nancy and I met very briefly nearly 25 years ago as we waited to board a boat for an evening cruise around the San Diego harbor. His name was William. I didn’t know why he started talking with me, but I mostly listened as he related his story.

He’d just turned 64 a few months earlier. He’d been 17 when he enlisted in the Navy at the beginning of Viet Nam. By the time he was 18 he was already an alcoholic and his life on the path to ruin. And ruined, he was. Eventually he lost his wife, his three children, and couldn’t hold a job. When we met him, he was living in a local flop house for about $100 a month.

Have you known men or women like William? Whether it’s alcohol, or drugs, or pornography, or whatever the addiction, William and those like him live with a ton of regrets and a history of wrong choices that beat them into the ground.    

And that is where you and I who follow Jesus – who REALLY follow Jesus – where we come into the story of men and women living with regrets or who are on the path of eventual regrets. Listen to what the Lord Jesus told His disciples: (John 4:35) “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.” 

Do you WANT to work with God in the whitened fields? I’ll ask the question again as I asked earlier – think of where YOU would be today, what YOUR life would be like today if no one had told you about the love and mercy and forgiveness and new life – NEW LIFE – offered by the Father through Jesus Christ.

Someone told YOU, and now YOU have the opportunity to tell others, and in so doing, work with God to snatch them from disaster.

And what can you tell them? That’s easy. Tell them what God has done for you. How He changed your trajectory as you moved through life making one bad choice after another. Tell them.

But I have found in talking and listening to other Christians that so many of them are unwilling to be honest AND humble with others about their past failures and current flaws. And in being resistant to admitting their faults they erect a wall between them and those in need because those in need do not believe the Christian can truly understand what they’re going through.  And therefore the Christian MISSES the opportunity to be a co-worker with God for the person’s rescue.

It is for good reason the apostle Paul – and if you are familiar with his epistles you know he was very open with others to tell them of his own failures – and so Paul wrote these words to the Corinthian Christians – words that certainly ought to encourage us today: (2 Corinthians 1:3-4) “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

Are you following him? Are you humble before others, willing to talk of your own failures and flaws, and how God came to you IN those failures and flaws? Listen, God is not expecting perfection in our work with Him for the Kingdom. He knows our frame. He is mindful that we are but dust. But the question remains: Are you following Him? Are you trying to please Him? Because if you are, He WILL use you. All He’s looking for from us is our heart. The rest will come. Perfection – as much as is possible in this life – perfection in our working together with God will come.

Does Jesus have your heart? Are you asking Him to make you fall more deeply in love with Him? If you are doing these things, then be ASSURED, He WILL use you in His vineyard.

God called Abram to leave his friends and neighbors and, very likely, many of his own family members and follow Him to a place as yet unknown. In a similar way, when God called me back in December 1972, He called me to leave all that I had once embraced and follow Him. Follow where?  At the time, I did not, nor could I know. And here I am today.

In a similar way, when God called YOU, back whenever it was, He called you to leave all that YOU once embraced to follow Him. Follow where? At the time you didn’t know, nor could you know. But here you are.

You and I followed because we knew, at least intuitively at the time, that He alone has the words of eternal life. We followed because we knew, at least intuitively at the time, that He would provide us supernatural protection from theological heresy.

And we follow Him because He offers us a job – so to speak. He offers us a CRITICALLY important role in His kingdom, and that is to work WITH Him not only for the eternal salvation of souls, but to also lead others by the hand away from the broad road that leads inexorably to heartache, loss, and a ton of regrets.

Christian – are you following Him? The fields are truly white and waiting for harvesting. Then seek Him now – today and every day – how you can work with Him every day in His vineyard.