Sons in the Marketplace – At What Price?
October 18th, 2007 | Michael Q. Pink
John tells us in 1 John 3, “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God:” He has called us sons, and if we are sons, Paul tells us in Romans 8, we are “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified with Him.” Now I love this sonship concept, this idea of being a joint-heir with Christ. It sounds powerful and the ramifications truly are life altering, even nation altering. But there’s a price…
Hebrews 12 tells us “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked of Him: For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons;” Want to know what it really means to walk as a son in this world? Submit yourself to God as your father. Learn the meaning of obedience. Without obedience to the Father we are wayward children, “walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience: and are by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” (Eph 2)
That promise of being a joint-heir has a condition attached… “if indeed we suffer with Him.” There appears to be a certain kind of suffering, even a scourging that is necessary to train us as sons that we may properly steward the responsibility of being a joint-heir. “Now no chastisement for the present is pleasant, but grievous: Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them who are trained by it.” (Heb 12:11) Are you being trained by it? Or are you avoiding it at all costs? Consider our Lord, “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered;” If Jesus had to learn obedience by the things He suffered, who are we to think we can rule and reign with Him as sons if we haven’t been trained by the things we must suffer?
Even now, “All of creation waits in earnest expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.” (Romans 8:19) And the cost of that revealing? Obedience through the things we suffer. What will it look like to see a corporate body of sons rising in the marketplace? Join me next time for more…
October 18th, 2007 at 7:14 am
It is true that the sons are being revealed and the suffering for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a wonderfull and blessed topic.
However, it has nothing to do with the market place! Do not justify your income from selling the word of God. Forget about the market place. Humble yourself and in due time the Lord will lift you up. We are created for His purpose and not our selfish desires that we justify through good works. Like Joseph, the Lord can use any of us if He desires to do so. If you feel that God gave you revelation, then give it away freely. Is he not able to reward you a hundred fold?
Eze 16:48 As I live, says the Lord Jehovah, Sodom your sister, she nor her daughters, has not done as you have done, you and your daughters.
Eze 16:49 Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom; pride. Fullness of bread and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters. Nor did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
Eze 16:50 And they were haughty and did abominable things before Me, so I turned away as I saw fit.
(Hag 2:11) So says Jehovah of Hosts: Now ask the priests the Law, saying,
(Hag 2:12) If one carries holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and touches his skirt to bread, or boiled food, or wine, or oil, or any food, will it become holy? And the priests answered and said, No.
(Hag 2:13) Then Haggai said, If one unclean of body touches these, is it unclean? And the priests answered and said, It is unclean.
(Hag 2:14) And Haggai answered and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before Me, says Jehovah. And so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean.
Why did God tell Israel to destroy the nations completely - people, livestock, etc, when they were supposed to enter into the promised land? Becaue He knew that they will fall into entrapment!
Jesus declined the offer to participate in the riches of the worldy kingdoms.
Luk 4:5 The devil also took him to a high place and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in an instant.
Luk 4:6 He said to Jesus, “I will give you all this authority and the glory of these kingdoms. For it has been given to me, and I give it to anyone I please.
Luk 4:7 So if you will worship me, all this will be yours.”
Luk 4:8 But Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’”
Today, if you will hear His word, do not harden your heart as in the rebellion.
October 18th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Thursday, Oct. 18, ‘07, 7:40 pm
Hey Mike,
I like your observation concerning suffering (aka discipline/disciples).
My question is how do you work that out in light of “we are more than
conquerors.” Please divide the Word ’suffering’ for us from the Word,
so there is no confusion. Wisdom and understanding of this principle
of ’suffering’ is wanting… by many Christians.
Cheers!
October 18th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Blessings to you!
I must disagree with Pieter. I believe this word about discipline/suffering has everything to do with the marketplace. I work in an office with 7 others and no partitions between us. It is thru suffering that I am learning to love them without judging them. Our Lord is teaching me to love with His love and to see them as He sees them. Then when I hear the things they talk about, it gives me prayer points for intercession. For the most part my mouth has been shut by the Lord so I can observe, bring those observations to Him and He will then give His instructions for how to speak to them so that His name will be glorified and their hearts will be pricked by Holy Spirit. This process is quite hard because as a human, we usually have a tendency to speak first our opinion or pint out the wrong in another before we treat them with the love that come sform above…this is suffering because there is travail in seeing people like God sees them.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:28 am
I disagree with you as well, Pieter. No one is “selling” the word of God here. How many non-believers can we reach by running our businesses or doing our job according to His will? We, as Christians, are charged with going out and sharing the gospel. For most of us, that’s through the marketplace where we spend MOST of our lives! We can touch so many by our example as Christians. Cheryl stands a good chance of saving someone because of what she’s doing in the marketplace. How can that be wrong? It’s not all about the money. “Forget about the marketplace” and millions of people would be lost.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Great topic, Michael. I am not sure American Christians can really relate to suffering. And Jesus in not talking about a little discomfort, like driving a used car instead of a new one, doing without steak and having to eat hamburger. He is talking about suffering unto death, losing everything for the sake of the Gospel.
Great verse on this is Hebrews 10:34. The Christians JOYFULLY were willing to lose everything to visit and encourage other Christians who were in prison.
More later.
October 18th, 2007 at 11:27 am
YES THERE IS A PRICE TO PAY. ARE YOU UP FOR THE CHALLENGE? ONLY THE STRONG WILL ENDURE. AS IN ALL THING SPIRITUALLY OR NATRULLY THERE IS A TEST OF ENDURANCE. THE RACE IS NOT TO THE SWIFT BUT TO THE ONE WHO ENDURES PATIENTLY. HOW YOU ENDURE HOLDS THE KEY TO SUCCESS. IF A SON OR DAUGHTER WILLFULLY SUBMITS TO POTTER’S HAND ,THEN AND ONLY THEN CAN YOU BECOME A REAL SON OR A REAL DAUGHTER. OBEDIENT, TRUSTWORTHY,AND FAITHFULL.
October 18th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I too appreciate your insights Michael! I am grateful for them. As a person who was once under the control of a very legalistic “cult” type person, sometimes I cringe at the legalistic responses you receive. I am reminded this propensity also dwells in me. I pray HE will continue to help me to work at my ministry as an abstinence educator, operate my business as a beauty consultant, maintain a balance and not judge others with the cruel whip of a task master. Not one of us has ALL the truth, or we would be like HIM, but are called to encourage one another. Thank you again and blessings to you.
PS I am neither naive nor easily misled, I am a seeker of HIS Word, finding a place in HIS presence on a moment to moment basis.
October 18th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Dear Pieter…
I have not sold you anything. You freely received this teaching which is derived in part from a lifetime of experience and the instruction of the Word. I have also spent many hours writing this series for the benefit of my brothers and sisters in the faith worldwide. Again this was done freely and without charge.
While I am quite happy to admit as Kara Harris says that none of us have ALL the truth, my heart and intent was to labor in the Word and wrestle with difficult subjects to come to a higher level of understanding. You are cordially invited to participate. It would help if you could sprinkle some kindness with your words and perhaps reserve judgment until you have walked with us for awhile.
As for your comment that being a “son” has nothing to do with the marketplace, pray tell, are sons to avoid going to the marketplace? Are they to behave as children in the marketplace but sons in church? If we are not sons in every venue, we are not sons at all. The point of this series is to help us all learn what it means to act as a mature one, a son, while carrying out our God given calling in the marketplace.
May I ask you Pieter, are you in business? ministry? other? Thank you for the kindness of a reply.
October 18th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Gerry;
Great question. It invites a longer answer, but for the meantime I will try to cast a quick beam of light upon the question. Suffering can take many forms. Some of it we are called to walk through and much of it we walk through unneccessarily. If a man drives drunk and drives head-on into an oncoming truck and ends up a parapalegic, that would be tragic and a life of suffering, but it could have been avoided. Sometimes we are not the drunk, but rather the victim who the drunk hit. We still suffer the same, but that is not what we are speaking of here.
Christ did not suffer as a fool. He suffered by willingly laying His life down for us. When we lay our life down for others, we will suffer similar scourgings, betrayals and forms of crucifixion.
Furthermore, there is another form of suffering. It is when we deny our flesh, subjugate our will to the Fathers and pay a price to follow Him. We often suffer in silence when wrongly accused rather than defend ourselves. The many examples we could site, are the ones that as we walked them out, become examples of exactly what it means to be more than conquerors through Christ who loved us.
I welcome any other feedback from the community.
October 18th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Dear Cheryl, Lorisa, Kern, Mildred & Kara….
Thank you for weighing in and offering your kind encouragement!
Blessings, Michael
October 18th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
I believe it is absolutely necessary that the sons of God, joint-heirs, move out of the church building and move into the marketplace and become the real “church”, giving to others, loving one another. It is our duty to “go into all the world”, not to sit in pews and expect the lost to come to us. Jesus was out among them and so should we.
October 18th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Suffering. AS with Michael, I do not have all the answers but here is my two cents worth. We must remember that with the good times and the suffering times, God is in control and will use our suffering to further His Kingdom.
Sometimes suffering does not stop.
But in this fallen world of futility that is not all that sustaining grace does.
Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.
One of the young men in our church is going through some deep waters right now which are testing his faith almost to the limit. He said to me recently: it would be easier if Jesus hadn’t healed but instead had given grace to endure the absence of healing. One of the things I said to him was this: That’s exactly what Jesus did do—and for that very reason—in 2 Corinthians 12:9–10. God’s grace ordains that Paul have a thorn in the flesh for the sake of his humility and then will not remove it in answer to prayer. But he says,
My [sustaining] grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.
To which Paul responds,
Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Our experience and the Bible teach us that grace does not prevent pain, but orders and arranges and measures out our pain, and then in the darkness is there to sustain. For example, Bob Ricker, the president of the Baptist General Conference, spoke of precious reminders of God’s sustaining grace. Not quite ten years ago Bob and Dee’s daughter was in a serious automobile accident. She is alive today for one reason. In the car behind her was a doctor who happened to have an air tube in his pocket. By the time he got to her she was already turning blue. He forced the tube into her throat and saved her life. At her wedding a few years later, Bob told her: those facial scars you have to live with—they are memorials of sustaining grace.
Now Bob Ricker is not naïve. He knows that if God can ordain that in the car behind there be a doctor, and that this doctor have a breathing apparatus in his pocket, and that he have the presence of mind to use it savingly, then this God is fully able to prevent the accident in the first place. In fact, earlier Bob had quoted Ephesians 1:11, “We have been predestined according to his purpose who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” And he stressed: “All things, means all things”—including, I assume, the paths of cars and airplanes and arrows and bullets.
October 19th, 2007 at 1:47 am
Business situations have driven me to my knees time and time again, especially in the past six months or so. I have not suffered physically or financially, but I cry out to him and have heard God tell me that although I keep looking for a fleshly human answer, he won’t give me one because he loves me too much. He wants me to learn faith, obedience, and submission. He told me he is not leading me through things to accomplish a business goal, but to build my relationship with him through business challenges that are beyond my human ability.
Thanks for this message. It confirms the word he has given me.
October 19th, 2007 at 2:32 am
The church is the body of Christ. It has nothing to do with denominations or congregations. The body of Christ is active where we live and we participate in it. Jesus is the head of the body. He was not part of a congregation or denomination. He ministered in the world to the world (in the streets, businesses, temple, synagogue, open field)
We are witnesses for Jesus Christ in the world. When filled with the Spirit, we are led by the Spirit and will be found where He wants us for His purposes. It does not matter if in business or working on the land or being a slave. Our desire is to do His will and to be obedient. We desire to serve Him and worship Him alone.
We have died to our own fleshly desires and we have taken up Christ to be changed by trial and tribulation, by fire, into the image of Christ. We do not seek the things of this world, the pride of life, the lust of the flesh. Business or no business is not important. To be obedient ONE day at a time, sharing in love, having compassion, giving a word of encouragement, or an exhortation, meeting and praying for strangers and loved ones.
To be christlike, to love Him, to be holy, to be filled with joy! To know Him and the power of His resurrection. Jesus. Every knee shall bow, whether riches, wealth, honor, pride of that which is on earth or in heaven or under the earth.
Put your eyes upon Him and then He will give you the desires of your heart ( to know Him, to fellowship with Him, to walk with Him…). Do not think about the things below (on earth). When your eyes are upon Him, then you will endure anything, suffer long and your hope will not be ashamed.
Now therefore, let us lay aside that which the world offer and put our eyes on Him, the author and finisher of our faith.
May the Lord, the Omnipotent One, who can do more, beyond what you could see or imagine, strenghthen your faith and make you abound in His love so that you may know Him and His purpose in this end time.
October 19th, 2007 at 6:30 am
Michael,
Your article has challenged me to treat my associates at work with compassion realizing they don’t know how to act without Christ. I have Holy Spirit within me and know how to treat others; to not do what I know is right toward them is sin. Thanks for the teaching! Keep them coming!
October 19th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Kern,
Thanks for the reminders on suffering. We do need all of God’s counsel. I guess I’m wondering about perspective on it, and what we are to do in the midst of it. I look at the verses in Philippians about meditating on what is good, true, pure, etc. Also in Hebrews where it says that Jesus, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, scorning its shame. He saw the end and kept that in mind. Yet, he did suffer in His body and was sorrowful. Also, I think of that verse where it says that he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.
There are clearly examples of believers around the world who suffered - Corrie Ten Boom, Richard Wurmbrand, Brother Yun of China - these are known because books have been writtten about them; there are many more others who have not been known.
I guess the point of inflection on all this is where it applies to us, what our individual callings (in the context of God’s larger corporate purposes) are, applying His Word to our lives, being related to His body and to unbelievers. It’s no accident (Acts 17:26) we were born where we were born, we were given the gifts we have, etc. I’ve read where only 5% of people are actually called to serve in full-time capacity in the church. The remainder (whatever the actual % is) are called outside, be it as a mom, student, business person, etc. Business people have mostly been relegated as 2nd class citizens of the kingdom. We don’t want to go the other way and say we’re the top dogs either. But we’re just as called as the mom, student or pastor. I believe it relates to being secure in God’s love for us.
Lastly, John Wesley is becoming one of my heroes of the faith (in addition to the Biblical heroes and the ultimate HERO). He purposed to live a on a certain amount each year, yet sought to excel in business and God blessed him. He also fasted 2 days a week (I’m not there yet but I want to be!) until 4 PM (Wed & Fri’s) and impacted two nations (at least) - England and America. Also consider Cornelius, his prayers and giving came before God as a sweet incense. How about Job, who was a godly and wealthy man of whom almost every believer has had the opportunity to read about his life - literally billions of people!!
Blessings,
Dennis
October 19th, 2007 at 8:47 am
A World of Suffering
Three thousand children die everyday of malaria. Our missionaries get malaria like headaches. Thirty million people have died of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Fifty million die each year—and most die young and in agony. While you’re reading this, one hundred are dying each minute. If you could hear them all, you’d hear so many screams you’d go insane. Only God can hear them all and not go insane. God parcels out our awareness in small amounts lest we go under.
How can you live in a world like that as a loving person and rejoice in the Lord? How can we, American Christians, enjoy our many cars, our second beach houses and lake homes, our large retirement accounts, our large bank accounts, our saving plans and all of the other stuff we have when people are dying in agony each hour throughout the world. I believe God will hold each one of us accountable. And we complain when a little discomfort comes our way. May God have mercy on us.
October 19th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Kern,
Not all “American” Christians fall under that category. I don’t understand why you belittle so often. WE, as Christians, American or not, need to encourage each other, not beat each other down.
October 19th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Lorisa,
Thank you for your insight.
I am not belittling. Please forgive me if that is how it came across. When I speak of Christians I do not mean all but most. Yes it is true some are giving but that is a ,very small part. The average American Evangelical Christan gives less than 3% of their income. We have billions in our 401k’s extra houses, savings for retirement and all the rest. I believe we Christians, me included, spend to much time hording and not giving.
Again, not all but many are living just like the world when it comes to handling God’s money. I encourage all Christians to look and see where their priorities are. Is it making more and accumulating more stuff or is it to give it away to further God’s kingdom.
October 19th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
I believe the issue of how much one has calls for balance. It’s so easy to go to one extreme or another. Kern, I agree some do look like the world and act like the world. Part of that can be the accumulation of debt so as to “live like the Joneses.”
However, I believe it depends on the sphere one is called to. If I were called to live and work among the power brokers of Wall Street (I don’t believe I am), to be able to communicate with them and reach them, at some level, I would have to live on their level, otherwise I would not be able to gain an entrance in their life. This could trickle down to where I live, what I drive, what I wear, etc. One could look at that and say it’s being overly extravagant if I were to live in a million dollar home, drive a BMW, wear $2,000 suits, etc. I’m reminded of the verse (and I’m not accusing you of this, I’m using it to guard my heart and keep me from doing it!), “why do you judge your brother? Before his God he stands or falls, and God is able to make him stand” (paraphrased). That’s what it really comes down to - God, what is my responsibility before You, how am I to live before You, what am I to give, etc.
For those of us who have possibly grown up in non-Christian homes with parents who were hurting, we might feel guilty if we were to go out and buy a new car even if we could afford it, and needed it. That is not from God just as much as buying a car you can’t afford.
John Wesley is becoming one of my heroes. He purposed to live on a certain amount each year, and despite making more and more each year, kept his standard of living the same. I’m not in the more and more stage yet! (more character and skill development needed) but I want to be. I also am reminded of Cornelius, whose prayers and giving came before God as a sweet incense. I know (not personally) an example of a person who is very gifted in business who lives in a simple house, and has given away millions into the kingdom, because this person’s gift is to make money. I’m sure he enjoys what he does, and enjoys the giving.
I don’t disagree, we do need to examine ourselves. However, I am not Jesus, I cannot solve the world’s problems, nor do I want to be unduly burdended beyond what is necessary (for intercession, appropriate giving, etc). I can only be faithful in my sphere and pray that others are in there’s. This calls for wisdom!!