We thank the Lord for this privilege of being together for this weekend. The Lord has blessed us with wonderful weather and with a huge gang of saints from various places. It is so wonderful to gather. I do not believe we have ever been with such a crowd before. Now we have the gymnasium; I do not know where we go from here—perhaps outdoor meetings.
Well, the Lord has blessed us through the years. Raise your hand if this is your first year actually here. Well, there are quite a number—quite a number. We have been meeting here for, I do not know, twenty-four years, at Harvey Cedars. Back in those days, it was just called Harvey. Oh, no kidding.
For years we have been taking up tremendous topics: seeking higher ground, seeking higher hymns. One day, when we all get to Jerusalem, we will be able to actually sing those hymns. They are all written in angelic keys. But how wonderful that we can sing such hymns that have content.
I know today the popular thing is just to sing choruses, and that is fine; it has its place. But sometimes it is good to have actual words with substance. I like this song we just sang about Zion, the city of God, which just happens to be the topic that I am speaking on in these two times.
Now, I am fortunate to be here and speaking this evening, because I can share the same thing I shared last night and only half of you will know that I am just repeating myself. A few brothers asked me if I would sort of retrace the ground of last night, which is impossible. I speak too quickly. We run through Chinese interpreters, two or three every message.
I just want to encourage you: if you were not here last night, after you listen tonight, somehow get this MP3, or however you want to get it. You will understand what I was sharing last night.
You know our theme: that we might walk worthy of God, Who calls us into His own kingdom and glory. What a tremendous theme. For those of you who have been coming for years, you know we have actually been going through a series: spiritual authority, spiritual discernment, spiritual stewardship, and virtually we could say that this year is spiritual kingdom.
This is the burden that is on our hearts. The Lord is trying to encourage us to walk worthy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to walk worthy of His name. If we bear His name, let us walk worthy of His name.
Since this kingdom into which we have been ushered is such a tremendous kingdom, let us walk worthy of this kingdom, with the high calling to which we have been called. By the grace of God, we sinners have been called and translated out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of the beloved Son.
We have been saved by grace. To use a worldly analogy, it is as if suddenly you have been called by Buckingham Palace and told that you are a princess in waiting. Now you must walk worthy of that princesshood. You have to learn how to eat differently. It is more than just buying a new wardrobe. You have to learn to talk differently, how to treat people more kindly, how to be more compassionate, how to think wider, because now you are representing something so much bigger than yourself.
Can you imagine yourself in those shoes? There you were, just the old sloppy sinner that you were, and suddenly this guy comes along in a big Rolls Royce and says, “You are a princess of God. Now you need to learn how to walk with books on your head and do things in a different way than you have ever learned before.” You see, that is exactly what we are talking about in spiritual things.
Walk worthy of the God Who has called us into His kingdom and glory.
As I try to think about this tremendous privilege of being in His kingdom and the responsibilities of it, I fell upon Hebrews 12, which I felt, in a unit, brings to us two great matters. One: you have come to Mount Zion. This is what I tried to share last night.
Tonight, I want to share from the end of Hebrews 12, that phrase which says:
Therefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken,
let us have grace,
by which we may offer to God acceptable service
with reverence and awe.
When the children of Israel came before Mount Sinai, they were trembling with fear. We, as Christians, are trembling with reverence. Those who tremble with fear are afraid they may be disqualified or judged. Those who tremble with reverence are afraid lest they find disapproval from the Lord they love so much.
When we come to matters of the kingdom, there is this matter of reverence and awe, because our God is a consuming fire. While everything is shaking about us, let us have grace. My translation says, “Let us show gratitude,” which is a very interesting translation of grace, but applicable.
Can we offer to God with reverence and awe? He is worthy, is He not? Indeed.
Let us read some verses again in Hebrews. I just want to pick up part of chapter 12, trusting that you have had time to look it over or that you know the context from the past. Beginning in verse 18, we might once again touch on this matter of Mount Zion.
For ye are not come unto a mount that might be touched,
and that burned with fire,
and unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,
and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words;
which voice they that heard entreated that no word more should be spoken unto them;
for they could not endure that which was enjoined,
If even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned.
And so fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:
but ye are come unto Mount Zion,
and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and to innumerable hosts of angels,
to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven,
and to God the Judge of all,
and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant,
and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel.
That is the picture of Mount Zion.
See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.
For if they escaped not when they refused Him that warned them on earth,
much more shall not we escape who turn away from Him that warneth from heaven:
Whose voice then shook the earth:
but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven.
And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made,
that those things which are not shaken may remain.
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken,
let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God, with reverence and awe:
for our God is a consuming fire.
O Father, we come to You and pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus, that Your Spirit would consume our hearts aflame with love for our Master, King, and Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord, restore unto us any lost first love. Gather us with purpose in this high calling to which we have been called. Help us, Lord, help us.
We sense in our great weakness that You are so ready to help. We draw near boldly, near to the throne of grace, to receive mercy and find grace to help in this needy time. Lord, thank You for gathering us in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Our brother had us sing this last hymn. I would like for us to turn to Psalm 87, from which that hymn was inspired, because it talks about Zion.
As we mentioned last night, Mount Zion was a physical mountain, part of the larger city of Jerusalem. Zion was David’s stronghold. But with time, in the history of Israel, Mount Zion took on a more transcendent meaning and became more precious to the saints, because it was a symbol that the Lord was on His throne in Zion. There was the house of God, where all could go and worship. So they loved Zion.
As we read in Psalm 87:
His foundation is in the holy mountains.
The Lord loveth the gates of Zion
More than all the dwellings of Jacob.
Glorious things are spoken of thee,
O city of God. Selah
I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon as among them that know Me:
Behold, Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia:
This one was born there.
Yea, of Zion it shall be said,
This one and that one was born in her;
And the Most High Himself will establish her.
The Lord will count, when He writeth up the peoples,
This one was born there. Selah
They that sing as well as they that dance shall say,
All my fountains are in thee.
Is that not wonderful? Oh, how the Jews came to love Mount Zion. Have you ever seen a happy Jew?
Next week begins the Feast of Tabernacles. Those Hasidic, God-loving Jews—this is the most fun time they have all year. Even the men with their black paraphernalia and their prayer shawls get out in the streets and dance around and sing about Zion.
They got happy when they thought about Zion. The Feast of Tabernacles celebrated Zion. In the temple of Solomon, they built those four huge candelabras in the Court of the Women just for this occasion, so that in the evening during the Feast of Tabernacles, the men could dance around while the women stood on the side and laughed and giggled and sang, and the children as well. What a happy time. They sang well into the night during the Feast of Tabernacles, and they sang about Zion.
Did you ever wonder what it meant when it says that the children of Israel were taken into captivity and hung their harps upon the willows by the rivers of Babylon? Those Babylonians came along and said, “Hey, hey, you Jews, sing us one of them Zion songs.” Why do you think they said that? Because those Zion songs were full of joy, full of faith, and full of hope.
If you want to get the Jews excited, talk about Zion. But all they could do was weep; they were in Babylon. Give a Jew a chance, even today, who really loves God, and get him to talk about Zion, and he will stomp around and sing like the fiddler on the roof.
They love to sing and dance: “Zion, Zion, God’s great city! He is on His throne. Zion, Zion, we love Zion. All His children gather here.” They sing about the walls, the homes, and the temple. They say, “Let us go up to Zion and worship our God.” Yes, sing hallelujah. They get so excited about Zion. They loved Zion.
The writer says to these Jewish Christians, two years before the actual Zion was razed to the ground by the Roman armies, “You have come to a Mount Zion that can never be destroyed. You have come to an eternal Zion, to a spiritual Zion. You have come to the city.”
Last night, we took the particulars mentioned in Hebrews 12 as he defines Mount Zion: the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. I took all of those points and tried to show us how they have to do with the kingdom. But the point of the writer was this: you have already come to Mount Zion.
Mount Zion is a mystery. As we always know with a mystery in the Bible, it means this: there is an earthly reality that is just a shadow of a heavenly reality. There is the Mount Zion in heaven, the perfection of beauty. Jesus is on His throne. He is Lord over all. In that heavenly Zion, all the angels are worshiping and serving the Lord. It is Mount Zion, which will abide forever as the New Jerusalem comes down one day.
But on earth there is a counterpart. Just as the real hill of Mount Zion became, transcendently, a symbol to the Jews of a heavenly Mount Zion around which, one day when Messiah comes, they would all gather, so we know that the church is now Mount Zion.
We have been gathered together by a gracious God to enter in now and have a foretaste of what it means to live in the city of our God. Of course, we know there is still a day of fulfillment, when Jesus comes with His kingdom. It is not just spiritual, but a spiritual, physical, and eternal reality that goes beyond the description of any man.
You have come to Mount Zion. Sometimes it is hard for Christians to realize that. As our brothers shared this afternoon, the kingdoms of the world keep our attention. Every channel on television, even the Christian ones, keeps us focused on the kingdom of this world.
But there is this Mount Zion in which we are now living. Do you see it? Aha! You do not need Panavision, not this vision—you need Zion vision. Do you have Zion vision?
Do you see, in the midst of your walk on earth, as you gather with the saints two and three and call upon His name and worship, the heavenly Zion in the midst? I think some of you say, “Gee, I do not know if I ever have.”
Have you ever felt the touch of the Lord Jesus when you came all broken and discouraged to His throne of grace? Instead of finding condemnation, you found mercy and grace. Then you have been in Zion.
Have you ever gathered two and three and begun to worship, and somehow the Lord caught us up beyond ourselves? We began to go through and into the Holy of Holies; tears came down from our eyes, and we felt so close to God. Have you ever been there? You have been in Zion.
Have you ever gone out to serve the Lord and felt such weakness and inability, but as you went in obedience to Him, suddenly found a divine authority and a strength enabling you to serve Him faithfully? You have been in Zion.
Have you ever gathered for prayer when the enemy was attacking the assembly, attacking the children of the assembly, attacking some weakness—some gate that was unprotected? We brought this matter to the throne, and as we prayed, we felt the gates of Zion resist and conquer the gates of hell. If you have been in such a prayer meeting, you have been to Mount Zion.
It is a spiritual reality. The Lord wants us more and more, as our brother Paul said as he advanced in this whole kingdom matter:
While we look not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen:
for the things which are seen are temporal;
but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Paul was talking about glory and about that which is going on, most of the time hidden to our eyes, but nevertheless a reality. Have you ever been in a meeting where there was a lot of weakness, and suddenly we all stood up together and sang, “He is Lord, He is Lord,” and the whole meeting lifted into life and victory? We have been in Mount Zion.
This writer is trying to encourage these Hebrew Christians: listen, there is need for—and he uses several phrases, but they all mean basically the same thing—perseverance. If you count your life in Zion, your life in the kingdom, as worth and value, persevere.
You need boldness of hope, confident assurance, faith that endures, in order to inherit the promises. In many different ways, our dear brother exhorts these saints who are in such troubled times. Unfortunately, they are taking their eyes off their Mount Zion and looking back at the Zion that is about to be destroyed, perhaps thinking of falling back into Judaism and its practices of sacrifices.
The writer is saying, “No. Jesus is your sacrifice, and He is the last one you will ever need. Now you have come to Mount Zion. Walk as a citizen of Mount Zion.” What a tremendous exhortation, and something we all need to take to heart.
I hope you see the value of your calling to the kingdom. Our brothers have been sharing on it. I think you have heard it all before: born again by grace, now privileged to partake in the kingdom.
Our brother says, “You have come to Mount Zion,” not as an observer, not as somebody on the outside looking in, and not even as somebody at the bottom of the mountain. Mount Zion—you can only live in one place on Mount Zion. Where is that? At the top of the mountain, where the city is.
You do not live on a hill: “Oh, just give me a cave in the side of the hill.” No. You live in the city up on the top, where the Lord reigns from His throne, where the saints gather together as the house of God. That is what we need to persevere in.
When we go back to Hebrews 12, we see that he is telling saints who are being shaken to the core that they have received a kingdom which cannot be shaken. He gives so many exhortations, and I know you have heard them before, but they all speak of the kingdom.
We have this great phrase: so great salvation. It is yours by grace, but do not neglect it. He says that we are the house of God, built by Jesus Himself, if we hold fast. Hear Him speaking today: “If ye hear His voice,” then we are the house of God in Mount Zion.
He says, “Now you have entered into rest.” It does not say, “I hope you one day will find rest when you die and go to heaven,” because Mount Zion can be tasted now and participated in now. You can enter into His rest if you cease from your own striving.
The Jews were so given to striving—doing another sacrifice, saying another prayer—and in their striving they were not resting. But they were now to rest in Jesus and trust in His Word to do its work within their lives.
Even in Hebrews 6, we know that exhortation: “Brothers and sisters, you have come to Mount Zion. Now listen: you need to go on to maturity.” Do not go back to square one in the sense of saying, “Well, I have forgotten everything.” No, the Lord has begun to put a deposit into you. The Lord has begun to put a treasure into you. Now let us go on to maturity. Let us go on into the practice of righteousness. Do not shrink back. Do not shrink back.
Our kingdom privileges are so great, but through neglect, unbelief, and self-preservation, we might shrink back. So we have a book full of these reminders.
In Hebrews 12, I want to show you four reminders. If you are going to walk worthy of God, Who has called you into His kingdom and glory, here are four exhortations we need to heed. Practically, it all boils down to one thing: if we want to grow and find an abundant entrance into the kingdom of God, there is a need for practical and daily consecration of our lives.
Anybody who truly does that never needs to fear that he will come short in any way. Daily, practical consecration. If you have read 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians in relation to this matter of kingdom, you will notice how often holiness is mentioned. We will get to that in just a moment.
This matter of living in Mount Zion daily is a very practical thing. The first exhortation is found in the first three verses of Hebrews 12. We all know these things, but let us look at them in the light of the kingdom.
Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,
lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith,
Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising shame,
and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider Him that hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against Himself,
that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls.
Since we have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us walk worthy by enduring the cross. That is what Jesus did. How did He do it? He set His eye upon the goal. For the joy before Him, He endured the cross, despised the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of God.
Do you get it? Keep your eye on the goal, which is, practically speaking, to look away unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. What could be simpler?
But if we will run as Jesus ran, we will have to endure a cross, even as He endured the cross. The writer gives us two practical matters where denying ourselves and embracing His cross become practical realities in our lives.
First of all, we try to run with weight. That is not a good idea. If you try to run carrying your television, you cannot run far. We need to lay aside every weight. In the end, that involves a denial of self and a putting aside of the things that are slowing down your progress.
Then there is the sin that so easily besets and entangles. The writer is being very practical. For everybody, there is some sin that hobbles you and trips you up. It will continue to do so until you embrace the cross, deny yourself, turn from that sin, and treat it as a mortal evil.
As long as you push your foot around with these weights and besetting sins, you will not be able to run with endurance the race that is set before you.
This may seem simple in the Christian life, but it is not only outward sins that beset us. Some of our chronic problems include unbelief, discouragement, self-pity, fear, bad temper, and short endurance—how we quit on things. Whenever we encounter a little flack from the enemy, which surely he is going to give us, these chronic things become sins that prevent us from running with Jesus.
If we are going to run with Him, and thus be worthy of His kingdom, we must follow as the Spirit leads. Surely the Holy Spirit is the One Who convicts us of our sin. As the Holy Spirit convicts us that something is a weight on our lives, whether it is considered sin or not, if we obey the Holy Spirit, we will discover a remarkable enablement to run.
The Scripture does not merely say “looking unto Jesus.” It actually says in the Greek, “looking away unto Jesus,” and it is trying to tell us the secret of how to run. We need to look away from those weights that trip us up, and we need to look away from our preoccupation with those sins that beset us.
Now that you have been forgiven, and those sins have been covered by His precious blood, by the power of His cross He means to deliver us from the things that chronically bother us. But if we are going to run, it is necessary to deal with these things.
We may live in Mount Zion, but just over the walls there are all kinds of things wooing us. The worst one is that huge spiritual presence just over the wall called Mammon, promising riches, wealth, possessions, and all of those things. They are just beyond the walls of Zion. You can hear it night and day, on the radio, on television, and in conversation. Things are weighing upon us.
But the writer says, “Strip those off, and look away from those things unto Jesus.” You will find an empowering to run today by the grace of God.
When you are getting over and finding victory over some sin that has befuddled and beset you for a while, it has to be done on a daily basis initially. You take grace for today; then tomorrow morning you get up and take grace for tomorrow. But after a while, you will find that that sin stops knocking on your door because you keep taking His grace and finding the victory.
If we are going to walk worthy, we have to do something about these things that are tangling us up. There are Christians who want to run the race, but they keep making excuses: “Well, I am sorry, I cannot do it now because I have got this, I have got that, da, da, da—things going on, you know.” Weights that they put in their own pockets.
Sometimes the Lord says, “You know what? I think we need to strip down a little bit to run faithfully in this race.” Endure the cross for the joy set before us. What a great kingdom we have. Is it worth these little things? They may seem like little things, but if they trip us up, they become big things.
If we are going to learn and participate fully in the glorious and high calling of the kingdom, we are going to learn how to deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Him.
The second exhortation begins in Hebrews 12:4 and runs through verse 14. We might read verse 7:
It is for chastening that ye endure;
God dealeth with you as with sons;
for what son is there whom his father chasteneth not?
Here we come to a second aspect of walking worthy of our calling to the kingdom and glory. Praise God, by His grace we have become His children, and He wants us to become mature sons: sons who are responsible, faithful, who live in righteousness, who know holiness.
The writer has to say, “Do not get discouraged when the Holy Spirit begins to discipline us.” Why not count our value in terms of the One Who is disciplining us? Forget about yourself for a minute. How precious it is that our God and Father loves us so much that He calls us sons and disciplines us as sons.
“Now, son, I want you to learn responsibility. Right now you are very irresponsible, so here is what I want you to do.” This is child training and sonship. Very practically, the writer seems to focus primarily upon this matter of holiness.
The Holy Spirit—the Spirit of holiness, the sanctifying Spirit—comes, and He is holy. If He is in your life, He is going to be sanctifying you.
Look in 1 Thessalonians as a point of reference, because these young Christians were learning this same lesson. In 1 Thessalonians 4:3, Paul says:
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification,
that ye abstain from fornication;
that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor,
not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who know not God.
This is the will of God: your sanctification. The Holy Spirit comes into our lives, and He is the great Separator Who removes things from our lives that are unholy. But we have to hold our vessel in sanctification and honor. We have to know these things, and we need to abstain from sexual immorality.
Having said that, we turn to 1 Thessalonians 5 and see that Paul gives us the balance. In sanctification, we need to abstain from sexual immorality, but it is the Holy Spirit and God working in us Who will do the sanctifying work. This is part of our sonship.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24, Paul says:
And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly;
and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire,
without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is He that calleth you,
Who will also do it.
He has called us to a high calling. It involves this matter of holiness, and He will bring it to pass. His Holy Spirit is the One Who disciplines us and strengthens us in righteousness and holiness.
When we go back to Hebrews 12, verse 11 says:
All chastening seemeth for the present to be not joyous but grievous;
yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness.
Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the palsied knees;
and make straight paths for your feet,
that that which is lame be not turned out of the way, but rather be healed.
Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Sanctification is necessary in our lives because, in order to see the Lord, we need to be able to come before Him.
It is a very practical matter. Everybody has a different weakness. Some people need to strengthen the hands; some need to strengthen the knees. I recently tore my right knee up and had to go to a physical therapist who almost killed me three times. These people are sadists—stay away.
But it takes rehabilitation. Believe me, I would be hobbling tonight if this masochistic Brazilian physical therapist had not done me in with the thumb and begun to cause my muscles to stop spasming and healing to take effect.
Everybody has some kind of weakness in the legs or hands. Whatever it is, the Holy Spirit comes there, looks over your body—ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths percent perfect—and points out the one weakness. He says, “Let us work on that,” because He wants us to be strong, to live in righteousness, peace, and sanctification that gives us Zion vision.
The third exhortation is very important for us to understand. After talking about pursuing peace with all men, the writer remembers somebody who did not do that: Esau. He uses Esau as a very important example of what it means to walk worthy.
To walk worthy of your calling to the kingdom means not despising your birthright.
Listen to Hebrews 12:15–17:
Looking carefully lest there be any man that falleth short of the grace of God;
lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby the many be defiled;
lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau,
who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright.
For ye know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected;
for he found no place for a change of mind in his father, though he sought it diligently with tears.
Esau is a good example because we see that we become sons by birthright. Esau was the oldest son. What did he do to deserve that? Nothing. It was his by birthright. Did he have to win this birthright? No. It was his by the grace of his father and mother and by the matter of his birth. He did not have to win it or prove it. He was the eldest son.
His father, from the earliest days, told him the stories about the God of Abraham: God being with them as they left Babylon and went through the promised land; defeating the enemies of the northern kingdoms; meeting the Lord Who sees, Possessor of heaven; meeting God Almighty; meeting God in all these gracious ways; and then, of all things, providing the ram for his own son.
Isaac was talking to Esau. Esau heard the same stories Jacob heard. He grew up hearing about the inheritance and the blessing of the family that would, in the end, bless the world. Esau heard the same stories. But he devalued it. It was his. No big deal.
One day he came back especially hungry. Jacob was not tricking him; he was just making clam chowder, trying to win the award here on Long Beach Island. Esau came in and said, “I am starved. Give me some of that clam chowder.”
Jacob said, “Give me your birthright,” because Jacob did not have the birthright. But, oh, how he wanted it. He wanted to be leader. He wanted to be priest. He wanted to be an executor of the blessings of the family of Abraham. He wanted the God of Abraham.
Esau said, “Ah, phooey. What is a birthright anyway? All right, you can have it. Now give me that clam chowder.” Can you believe that, in a moment of temptation, he threw away his inheritance?
The Bible says not merely that Jacob was bad—sneaky Jacob, he was. The Bible says, “Esau despised his birthright.” Then the Bible says, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” The person who despises his birthright in the kingdom is hated by God. Now understand that in the right way.
Was Esau still a child of Isaac? Yes. Was he still part of the family? Yes. Did he still have blessing? Oh, yes. But he caused trouble for the rest of his life. He married Hittite women and discouraged his parents. He was trouble for Jacob, even to this day.
That is who Esau is: a wild man, a child of the family of God who, because of his own self-gratification, gave up, threw away, and forfeited his inheritance. Jacob collected it all, and that is a whole other story.
There is a lesson in this. We have to be careful, because this is an example. The writer is not saying, “You had better watch out, or if you do one thing wrong for one moment, you are going to lose everything.” But he is saying that behind the scenes, long before Esau forfeited his birthright, he had devalued his family, his God, his blessing, and the city that Abraham was looking for. He devalued the whole thing.
Dear brother and sister, if you devalue the kingdom of God, then you are devaluing the kingdom of His Son. The Lord has issue with that.
From the moment you are saved, the Lord is there, working within you night and day, showing you the things of Jesus, building a deposit, building a treasure, building works, building a testimony, building righteousness. If, in one moment, you are willing to throw all of that overboard for momentary pleasure, then there is a possibility of forfeiting what you were called to be.
I do not know what your inheritance will be in Mount Zion, neither do I know mine. But I know this: each one of you was created by God to fulfill a specific role in His kingdom. If you will be faithful, by the grace of God, to fulfill that role, as small as it might be, you will have your reward. You will have your inheritance.
It is not like we have to gain our inheritance, but we will have to prove our inheritance. The writers of Scripture, whether Peter or the writer of Hebrews, say, “Endure, that you might receive what has been promised. Make your calling and choosing sure. Gain abundant entrance into the kingdom of God by increasing the Lord in your life day by day.”
All these exhortations say this: we have a great inheritance, each and every one of us. How will we come to that inheritance? By working hard? Trying? No—by the grace of God.
The grace of God says, “There is your inheritance.” The grace of God enables you to understand your inheritance, exercise your inheritance, and find that you have a certain authority in a certain ministry and a certain service of God that is pleasing to Him. It is all by grace from top to bottom. But here is the warning: do not come short of the grace of God.
A lot of times it actually has to do with being offended by other Christians, or by God Himself because He did not do what we asked Him to do. “Well, that did not work out like I thought it was going to work out.” Well, it worked out the way God thought it was going to work out.
Our brother DeVern Fromke said something a number of years ago that stuck inside of me: “If there is any place in your life where you can be offended, the enemy will try to touch that place.” If you can be offended, you will be offended. Believe me, there are saints who are offensive. God sometimes does not answer your prayers. Does that offend you?
Would that cause you to devalue your place in the kingdom? Suppose you want to be a prince sitting at the right hand of God in His kingdom, like His disciples came and claimed. God says, “You know, I have a better position. How about you being a foot-washer in the kingdom?” Are you willing to be?
I want to be gracious in regard to this warning. It is a very strong warning, but it seems that many people, for one reason or another, disqualified themselves and, for momentary pleasure, let go of their inheritance and their calling.
Yet somehow, later in their lives, they discovered that and came back to the Lord. They said, “Lord, like the prodigal son, just let me serve at the lowest level.” The Lord restored them.
I would never say, as long as you have breath, that it is not possible for you to come back, even if you have despised your birthright. God is merciful. But you have received fair warning: a high calling demands a worthy walk.
We need to be careful of the enemy who is trying to cause us to take offense, despise, stop walking by grace, and come short. What happens when you come short of grace? Bitterness immediately comes up. Is that not interesting?
Have you ever seen somebody who was gracious last year, but bitter this year? What is the difference? There is only one way we come to our inheritance: by the grace of God. Hang on to the grace of God. Endure by the grace of God. Be faithful by the grace of God.
The last exhortation is the one we briefly read, beginning in Hebrews 12:25: this matter of the great shaking that is coming.
See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.
For if they escaped not when they refused Him that warned them on earth,
much more shall not we escape who turn away from Him that warneth from heaven:
Whose voice then shook the earth:
but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven.
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken,
let us have grace,
by which we may offer to God acceptable service
with reverence and awe.
You know something? Our Lord is so gracious and merciful to us. Here is what He is doing: He is telling us beforehand what is going to happen. There is going to be a shaking of everything that can be shaken—in your life and in my life too.
When that shaking comes, something may get shaken out of your hand: something you thought was permanent, that job which was going to last until you retired, that health you were so happy to have. As things start to shake in our lives and slip through our fingers, it is a mercy.
Those are just shakable things anyway. What you will discover is that your part in the kingdom is unshakable. The more that gets shaken from us as a country—if we are now in the process of a shaking economically that will not recover, I do not know; if our government gets shaken to the place where they actually try to be a government, we do not know what is ahead—but it is the mercy of God that He is preparing us so that we do not faint when things start shaking around us.
Quite the opposite is true: the more the shakable gets shaken from us, the more we realize what is unshakable, and the more gratitude we have.
One of the most amazing things to me, from my little travels around the world, is that the Christians who have the least are filled with the most gratitude. Some Christians we know have only the clothes on their back, enough food for today, their Bible, and the Lord Jesus—and they are singing the songs of Zion.
Here we are, the Laodicean rich church, and we are miserable and complain. May the Lord shake every shakable thing from us. It is a mercy. It is a mercy of God, that we might learn what the bedrock, unshakable reality is.
It is this:
I will in no wise fail thee,
neither will I in any wise forsake thee.
Stop worrying about those things. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Come on, get your focus off those things.
We can say, “Oh yes, we can do that,” and be spiritual in good times. But then came 2010; now 2011. Can you continue to realize that you are living in Mount Zion?
This is a tremendous matter, a tremendous testing. It is easy for Christians to be spiritual when things are good. But when things are shaking, here is the essence: there is still grace to be taken. There is still service to render to God.
Dear brothers and sisters, some of us have been too busy most of our lives to serve God the way He has desired. May those things be shaken from us that prevent us from being His servants.
Seeing that we have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us take grace that we may offer to God service with reverence and awe. Not everybody is a preacher in Zion. We have actually got enough.
But there is need for worshipers. There is need for intercessors on the wall. There is need for those who help those in need with cheerfulness. Oh, there is such wonderful service that we can give to our Lord with gratitude, even in a time of shaking.
Here we are. This is the mercy of God: He has told us beforehand. We do not know when the shaking will come. Hey, I am hoping that the Dow Jones average will go up over twelve thousand real soon, that unemployment will go down real soon. We do not know.
We do know that our country is on completely the wrong basis right now, and it has forgotten that its secret has always been the blessing of God. Now that that has been thrown overboard, I do not know how much longer we will go on, even in our present prosperity.
But whatever happens, will you press on by the grace of God? It is your proving. Others will faint for fear of heart, but Jesus says, “Do not be surprised by these things. Look up. Your redemption draweth nigh.”
We have come to Mount Zion. We have tasted and seen. The only thing that is incomplete is that He has not come back yet to set it up in a more manifest and glorious way.
One day His glory will fill the earth. Then we will be like a whole bunch of old rabbis going around: “Zion, Zion, I love Zion. I love Zion. Jesus is on His throne. I love Zion.” Are you ready to do a dance? Not now.
Let us hold on to that Zion vision. You are much closer than you realize. The throne of the Lord Jesus is much nearer than you realize. The Holy of Holies is our possession by His new and living way. His intercession is our strength as He saves us to the uttermost.
Come on. You have come to Mount Zion. You have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken. So put aside all these lesser things and walk worthy of God, Who has called us into His kingdom and glory.
Let us have a few prayers.