PASSING THE BATON 17
‘Knowing God’s Ways’
30th August 2008
Welcome:
Welcome to Passing the Baton number seventeen. I sense that we are making real progress, particularly at the last meeting when we stormed the heavenlies in regard to this nation of ours. I have since heard that a number of organisations are calling people to prayer for 30 days – the Spirit is speaking to the churches. I am constantly amazed at how little Christians seem to recognise the power and importance of prayer.
I want to start by acknowledging Graham Cooke’s brilliant teaching entitled ‘Crisis to Process’ and ‘Cycles of Intimacy’ which I was privileged to hear some ten or so years ago. Those of you who know me, know that Graham, without his knowledge, is my mentor! I have sat under his ministry now for more than 12 years and put into practice most of his teachings, so what follows is my life’s message formedfrom the teaching which I received and went over, time and time again. It has become flesh on me as I have lived it out, I recommend it.
I also want to give credit to the late Roger D G Price from whom I first heard teaching on the ages and stages of Christian growth. My thanks to you both, guys. I have reason to believe that Graham sat under Roger’s ministry too! So, here we go –
God’s goal for us is maturity and the journey He takes us on is called ‘process’.
It is no use accumulating books full of notes, cupboards full of tapes and CD’s, this revelatory truthhas to be put into practice for it to bring change and power in your life.
‘“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways”, says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”’ Isaiah 55:8,9.
God doesn’t think like us. Pretty obvious statement, but how many of us actually do believe, deep down, that He thinks the same way as we do and agrees with our point of view? Psalm 50:21 says,
‘you thought I was altogether like you..’ dream on!
God’s goal for us is maturity, maturity, maturity. The journey He takes us on to accomplish this is called – process. Process is a series of steps to take us from one place to another.
Process is our journey of development from a child to a mature adult. From ‘Abba’, daddy, to Father, the steps we take from one level to another in the spirit.
Notice please, I didn’t just say from ‘a child to an adult’ – there are many immature adults around, children in the body of an adult, teknions, I’ll explain that later - what God is looking for is maturity, and mature sons, huios, mature adult Christians to whom He can entrust the secrets of the Kingdom, to whom He can safely delegateresponsibility and His power because they have His heart and know His ways.They have stood the test and have been proven to be trustworthy in their daily lives, through manifold difficulties and trials. He will not bestow His power upon babes – even if they have been on the road 25 years and think it is time they gave up their tricycle and started with the Lamborghini!
As Graham says ‘God is the Architect of your faith, but you have to give Him planning permission’.
When the opportunity of a lifetime presents itself we have to make sure that we act within the lifetime of that opportunity. I believe that God is holding out to you today the opportunity to go on in your relationship with Him, which means you have to act within the lifetime of the opportunity. It has a given season for you to respond. In these days of acceleration, God is looking for those who will receive that acceleration in their relationship with Him – and run.
The requirement for this is that you live in present future, not in present past. This is going to mean some quality decisions and determination from you. You are responsible for your spirituality, God is the architect of what He is planning in you, but you have to give Him that planning permission.
It is one thing for you to trust God and a completely different thing for Him to trust you. Friendship with God is earned by faithfulness of service. ‘You are My friends if...’
Son-ship is bestowed upon you by the Father when He says you are ready, not before.
Once you are born again you are a child of God, it is at that point that you start your journey. The rebirth is but the first step, there remains much ground to be taken. We go from a child of God, to a servant of God, to a friend of God, and finally, to a love slave of God. That is the cycle He takes us through.
This may all be a new concept to you, if it is, sit back, relax, and enjoy what is about to unfold for you this could be your opportunity of a lifetime. If you haven’t heard it before, don’t fret about why you haven’t heard it, just be thankful to God you are hearing it now and being given the opportunity to respond.
Nepios to huios - the growth process:
The first thing we need to understand is that God is a family man. He loves family, He created it, and like any good Father, He wants His children to grow up and become responsible adults as I said before. Ours is the only religion where we are able to call God, Father. He desires an intimate Father/child relationship with us and His goal for us is to conform us into the likeness of Jesus – so we become sons of God.
‘But as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become thesons of God, to those who believe in His name’.
John 1:12 KJV most versions say ‘the right to become children (or a child) of God’ but I prefer the Old King James version – says it like it is – God gives us the power as His children, to becomesons – process.
He is bringing many sons to glory.
Romans 8:19 tells us that -
‘the whole creation groans, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.’
So, we are all children, we are not all sons, but we are on our way.
There are at least four stages we can determine from the scriptures. The Greek word for a little child, one who is still a babe in arms, an infant, is nepios, literally – without the power of speech. It is used of infants, andof those who are carnal, and have not grown, as they should have done in spiritual understanding and power, the spiritually immature, 1 Corinthians 3:1 Paul says to the Corinthian church -
‘Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly – mere infants in Christ.’
The word here is nepios. Those who are, so to speak, partakers of milk and without the experience of the word of righteousness, this word is always used to describe believers in an immature condition.
Babes -‘all noise at one end and smell at the other with a smile in between’ as Graham Cooke would say! They live in their own mess and constantly need someone to clean up after them. If they make enough noise someone will come and help them, feed them, clear up their mess. This is fine during our first few weeks andmonths, even sometimes years,as Christians, but if I find that I am still having to clear up after you’ve poured your porridge on your head and change your nappies when you are 40, I will have to deal with you! Nepios.
When we are dealing with a babe in Christ, a new believer, it is important that we make sure we develop their dependency on God and not on us. They will depend on us at first, but this must quickly be turned into a dependency on God and relationship with Him, teaching them to walk with Him and hear Him are imperatives for those discipling or in leadership of any kind, because if a Christian stays at this stage, you will have a 40 year old, who is dependent on you, or other people, for everything, which is very unhealthy for you and for them.
The next stage of growth in the scriptures is the teknion stage. Teknion is the plural – little child, little children – this is used figuratively in the New Testament and always in the plural. It is a term of affection by a teacher to his disciples under ‘circumstances requiring a tender appeal’. At this stage the children are weaned, they are beginning to take solids and ‘chew’ their food, the process of individuation is beginning, they are no longer part of you, but are seeing themselves as individuals before God. Healthy growth is taking place.
The down side at this age is that their discernment is not developed, just like young children, and all they want is what tastes good, feels good, looks good, and sometimes any old thing will go in. They are consumed with how they feel and their whole relationship with God is emotional – if they can’t feel Him they don’t think He is there. Feelings and emotions are the evidence for everything at this stage, you will find them constantly going to meetings, events and conferences, because they want something to happen that is outside them. They are waiting for the Holy Spirit or an ‘impartation’ to drop on them like a cow pat from above.
This is fine if they don’t stay there, but an awful lot of Charismatics in renewal have stayed there: doing the rounds of the conferences and getting an ‘impartation’ at every one, never realising that they have lost whatever they thought they had before they get out of the building, because what they are looking for is a quick fix. They are not prepared to put the work in, and are missing God’s best for their lives.
They are looking to make it to the next level in God – painlessly and with no effort on their part. They don’t understand process and they don’t want it. As a consequence they actually stay in that place of childishness, always looking for the sweet stuff and never eating their sprouts, never growing and never proving themselves able to be trusted. Silly children.
Teknions don’t understand that everything God does is through a process with them. Process is a series of steps that takes you from where you are to where God wants you to be, and Godwill notdo anything outside of that. He will never allow a conference, a meeting or an event - no matter how anointed the speakers are - to take the place of your walk with Him.
He will never allow idolatry of persons to take the place of relationship with Him. If you find you have a tendency to follow the latest Christian celebrity, or fad, check it out – that person doesn’t want to be in the place of God to you, you are supposed to be following Christ, not them. You are placing them where they shouldn’t be and God will have to remove them, or deal with you. Sometimes I wonder how much the body of Christ has been the downfall of leaders, because of the idolatry of their person which they couldn’t handle and didn’t want. Beloved, we are responsible in this area. If this is speaking to you, you need to examine yourself and repent – change your mind, change your focus.
Teknions won’t have this. They are out for the short cut, the quick way; they spend their time avoiding the process to which God wants to commit them. They are stuck in that place of childishness wanting to avoid pain, wanting to avoid the work, wanting to avoid the process,wanting to avoid God, and they condemn themselves to their own immaturity. They pout, they shout, they rant, they turn their back to try to get Him to change His mind, all they are proving is their immaturity. They become, if you like, dedicated to remaining childish,never achieving the childlike trust and rest in Him that is His goal for them.
So, impartation is no substitute for process. God enjoys the journey. He desires it, whether we desire it or not, and as He is God, and you aren’t, guess who gets to win on this one? Paul says -
‘we work out our salvation with fear and trembling’ Philippians 2:12 – for work out read walk out. This is a daily walk, step by step with Him. This means we have to do the whole thing His way, with Him.
The next stage is the paidion, the adolescent, spotty teenager, all hormones, moods and knowledge. It is used metaphorically of believers who are deficient, again, in spiritual understanding 1 Corinthians 14:20 –
20 ‘Brothers, stop thinking like children’ (paidion)
And Jesus used it in affectionate and familiar terms to His disciples, almost like we would say ‘lads’. John refers to them as young believers in the family of God in 1 John 2:13, 18.
These know the stuff, in fact they know it all, but they haven’t put the time in. Again, they haven’t paid their dues as it were. They have gone up and down the supermarket aisles, putting all the lovely gifts in their trolley, but when it comes to the checkout, they don’t want to pay the man! They are all gift and very little character. They haven’t sorted their flesh out from their spirit and they live their lives largely subject to their own carnality.
Sometimes because of their gifting and their inability or unwillingness to be corrected, nobody dares to address the issues in their lives and as a result they never grow beyond the spotty adolescent stage. This is as true of leadership as it is of the congregation. Beloved, true love corrects, it doesn’t back down from the difficulty of facing bad behaviour and encouraging people to grow.
There are people in leadership right now who would benefit from being faced with their behaviour so they could understand about process and move on in God to become...huios.
Huios – now these are the sons who have stood the test. Jesus uses the word ‘huios’ in a very significant way, as in Matthew 5:9 where He says –
9’Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God’
The word here is ‘huios’ fully mature sons. They have followed the injunction to ‘Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; that you may be (or become) sons of your Father which is in heaven’.
The disciples were to do these things, not in order that they might become childrenof God but that being children, they might make the fact manifest in their character, that they might become – sons.
The difference between believers as children of God and as sons of God is brought out in Romans 8: 14-21. ‘The Spirit bears witness with their spirit that they are ‘children’ of God and as such, they are His heirs and joint-heirs with Christ.’ This stresses the fact of their spiritual birth. On the other hand, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God, i.e. these and no other, their conduct gives evidence of the dignity of their relationship with Jesus and their likeness to His character.
These are the people who have endured and embracedboth the cross and the process;the privation, hardship, difficulties, humiliations, rejections and pain of growing up in God. They have not avoided the cross, they have embraced it. They have allowed the stripping that is a necessary part of son-ship,nothing holds them, and they hold on to nothing. God can pass the riches of His grace and provision through them, knowing that they will not keep anything for themselves. ‘Channels only Blessed Master’ as the old hymn puts it. These are sons who have understood the ways of God and have co-operated fully with His process in their lives.
If you asked them, they would tell you they wouldn’t change anything, because what they have experienced has resulted in such treasure, a relationship with the Lord they could not have imagined before and they would have had it no other way.They understand His ways,they know His Presence, they understand His process with them, they know His comfort in sorrow and distress, and they do not resent or hide from His dealings with them. They have paid the price. Like Enoch and Noah, they walk with God in the high places of His trust and affection.
This is our goal then, to become well beloved sons of the living God whom He can trust with the riches of the Kingdom.
The Adoption Ceremony: huiothesia: Greek: ‘tithimi’ to place and ‘huios’ – an adult son. Thus to place a son.
In the ancient world when a son reached this stage, there was what was known as the adoption ceremony. This is not the way we think of adoption in the west.
When a Roman child was young his father made sure that he had the best education available and very firm discipline. Often cultured Greek captives would be put in charge of the teenage boys, and the children learned from them much that Greece had to teach.
Those who excelled and who impressed their families and tutors with their responsible, self-controlled, mature behaviour were chosen to go through the adoption ceremony. They were taken to the Forum, introduced to the people and then the father read a proclamation to the effect that he was delighted with his boy and from now on counted him a son (huios).