Your Inheritance (Mark 1:9-15)
I have shared this before of how I saw below a cross many dead and naked people, so many I could not count. It looked like they had been, like Jesus, on the cross but had fallen and lay lifeless below it. They were not entombed but just laid upon one another uncorrupted. Jesus then came into the scene and took me to another rise in which was driven a stake and He faced me with His hands on my shoulders and gestured to the dead saying, “All this is yours.”
Just like our parable Sid the Seed is the state of many Christians today in the kingdom of God as we should see from Jesus’ testimony Luke 7:28, “Among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he.” And Luke 16:16b “Since that time [of John] the Kingdom of God has been preached and everyone is pressing into it.”
John the Baptist was an extraordinary prophet; there was none greater said Jesus yet those who enter into the Kingdom of God, even the humblest weakest member, is greater than he. How can this be? Well somehow, for some reason, John seems not to have been in the kingdom of God. John’s testimony three times concerning the kingdom of God notes…
John 3:3 Jesus testimony, “Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again [from above] he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And again John 3:5 “Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” And finally John 3:7, “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”
Leonard Ravenhill in his book Why Revival Tarries” fortifies my vision of the Lord when he writes, “The Church alone can limit the Holy One of Israel, and today she has consummate skill in doing it. If there are degrees in death, then the deadliest I know is to preach about the Holy Ghost without the anointing of the Holy Ghost.”
And again the great evangelist Ravenhill writes, “I do not marvel so much at the patience of the Lord with stonyhearted sinners of the day. After all, would we not be patient with a man both blind and deaf? And such are sinners. But I do marvel at the Lord’s patience with the sleepy, sluggish, selfish Church! A prodigal Church in a prodigal world, is God’s real problem. Oh, we bankrupt, blind, boasting believers! We are naked and we don’t know it.”
According to my own testimony and vision I assure you that death and nakedness both sit side by side in the church today. There is so much more to this faith than an inherited religion which is found satisfied in worshipping a distant Christ. There is an abundance and authority some have never found in your Christian heritage. There is joy in the kingdom of God and without according to scripture there is a weeping and gnashing of teeth.
In ones seeming comfort like Sid the Seed one can fail to achieve his potential. But even worse in our comfort we can also deny others their potential. Jesus the Son of God was a man who, divinely enabled by virgin birth of a woman, sidestepped the sinfulness common to mankind and was empowered by the Holy Spirit brooding upon the waters at his baptism. This spiritual empowerment was the authority to spread the kingdom of God on the earth.
Of my own experiences I have made no secret of but there is more. Before I was born of the Spirit of God I had awful nightmares. There were happenings which my conscience led me to believe were unacceptable. I lived with confusion and guilt and therefore was uncertain about myself. Too easily I did things which reaching the light of day would destroy my integrity.
I did not know who I was; in my own eyes I did my best to live up to the traditions of my fathers in the expectations of society. I felt as though I had no identity card of my own and looked to copy that of others. I did not know this wonderful heavenly added value that Jesus came to give us even though I had been brought up in the Presbyterian Church.
That was until I met Jesus and received into my being His Spirit. Following this quiet impartation the nightmares ceased and pleasant Godly dreams began. Suddenly my reading disability left me and I could begin to devour books. I even began to write things I never before imagined so that I produced original poetry and songs which I felt led to publish as a small booklet. I authored a novel and gained a voice to sing and preach. But more than this my once rather selfish relationship with my wife and family became injected with a deep level of concern and respect – the sort of love which unsettles.
I awoke one morning to words from heaven suggesting “Consider calling yourself Christian,” I tried speaking it aloud, “Michael Christian.” I suddenly felt separate from the things I didn’t like about my family and adopted to become this loved and included child of God and brother of Jesus. Suddenly I had an identity. God said I Am.
Assuredly I say to you, religion of the fathers did not do this for me as it did not do it for John the Baptist. Maybe this is why he asked of his cousin Jesus, “Are you the one?” It speaks of his uncertainty of adoption and knowledge as a child of God? The religion did not do this for us but the inheritance is available.
Assuredly I say to you that one knows when one is a child of God – when the Spirit of God is at work in your life – there are so many changes which take place. It may or may not happen instantly but it will happen. Are you comfortable in the traditions of your fathers or perhaps fearful of what liberal teachers had told you about being born of the Spirit?
Once in the early days in this parish I was cautioned about saying so much about the Holy Spirit. But how can I not preach the kingdom of God without Him who springs from my Father in Heaven and gushes out from me? How can I deny the abundant life of Jesus Christ within me?
Do not let fears generated by the questions of unbelieving preachers deny you of your full inheritance and authority as children of God! Rather, let the Spirit bear witness that our Father in heaven is gentle and kind and loving and full of great joy. In front of me I do not see lifeless bodies beneath the cross but sons and daughter of the Most High awakening.
I do not look to keep down but to raise up God’s children. I see before me giftings and talents far beyond the natural. I refuse to see the naked and dead in Christ. I refuse to see the unprofitable servant mentioned last in the parable of the talents, who not even investing his one talent when found out was cast into the outer dimness.
Rather I chose to see the glorious servant who invested his five talents and gained five more. Again I chose to see the servant given two talents who gains two more. Woe to the Christian in heaven who did nothing with what was given. Call me an optimist, or a fool, but I want the best for every one of you no matter what you have been led to believe is true.
Our Father in heaven sent His Son to redeem you from the dust of the earth. He was sent not to make you in your earthly parent’s image but rather in your heavenly Father’s image. Our Father has a plan for even the vilest of His children and that involves righteous blood already shed for a shameful past.
Today He does not judge but rather offers the joy of His kingdom for all those who are tired and heavy laden. If you need something to give up this Lent than let it be unbelief and fear for assuredly I say “doubt shuts God out!”
Because of the work of Jesus Christ we have salvation and the offer of abundant life in His Spirit. The kingdom of God is at hand. Do not leave this place without the redemption and promises of abundant life in His name. Your name is Christian, coined by the Romans who saw Jesus followers as little Christ’s, sons and daughters of the Living God.
Come receive from Jesus before it is too late. We don’t know what tomorrow brings. Your sins are forgiven and your diseases and infirmities healed. Come to me and receive your inheritance for the King of kings, who is the One, who has been given all authority in heaven and earth, is at hand.
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