Sons in the Marketplace – At What Price?

Sons in the Marketplace – At What Price?

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...