Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship (18 page)

Barry, remember, is the guy who never liked anybody telling him what to do; everything had to be his idea. “I can’t do it, Jack,” he moaned as he rolled around on the deck in pain. “I’m too busted up.”

“Barry!” I screamed louder, “I can’t leave the wheel or we’ll turn sideways to the waves and capsize! You’ve got to do everything I tell you to do or we will sink in a matter of minutes!”

“I can’t do it! It hurts too much to move! Oh, it hurts …”

“BARRY, GET BELOW AND UNCLOG THOSE PUMPS
RIGHT NOW,
OR WE ARE GOING TO
DIE
!!”

I was injured more seriously than Barry, and it was all I could do with one good arm to keep the bow of the boat pointed into the seas. With all the excess water in the boat threatening to capsize us at any moment and with the bilge pumps clogged, Barry faced a choice—be subject to the captain’s mission or die.

He could have justified doing nothing by blaming me for the trouble we were in and how poor my judgment was for keeping the boat at sea too long in heavy weather. But something finally clicked in Barry’s brain. He comprehended the peril we were in and went beyond his and my brokenness and started listening to me. He jumped right in there to help as if a little voice had told him, “It’s time for you to take on an attitude of sonship.” Although in great pain from his own injuries, Barry followed every command exactly as I told him. He had his part to do, and I had mine if we were going to fulfill our mission—finding our way home.

Somehow Barry managed to get the engine room hatch off and went below, and with his hands and broken fingers dug shattered safety glass and other debris away from the bilge pumps. He filled buckets with trash, climbed back out of the engine room, threw it overboard, and climbed back in, repeating the process over and over. For the next two hours, Barry overcame his fears and pain in order to get the bilge pumps working again. Then, using the same buckets, he bailed water until the boat was empty and stability was restored.

With the immediate crisis over, I determined that it would be difficult to make headway in heavy seas without a windshield to block the water that often broke over the bow from the waves, so we anchored during the remaining few hours of darkness. Barry lay down in the back of the boat torn with pain and paralyzed with
fear. I passed the night worshiping and singing in the Spirit in order to keep fear from consuming me. In all my years at sea, this was perhaps the closest to death I had ever come.

The next morning, the wind and seas eased up, and we limped into port. Barry was still in numb-numb-ville, frozen to the rear deck in fear. As we began to pull into the marina, fishermen at the docks saw the unbelievable damage to the
Bronco
and came running from every direction to help secure the dock lines. No one had ever seen a boat as mangled as ours come in under its own power. A later inspection revealed that the boat was not even worth salvaging but was junked. It truly was a miracle that Barry and I even survived.

As soon as we docked, Barry crawled on shore and got down on his hands and knees and kissed the ground. While I went to the hospital to get sewn up, Barry drove to our pastor’s house. “Forgive me,” he said to our pastor. “Forgive me for rebelling against you and stirring up discontent.” Then on Sunday, he stood before the whole church and asked them to forgive him. As he lay on the deck through that long and terrifying night, he saw with crystal clarity how his whole life had been of independence, rebellion, and discontent. But that night on the deck of a crippled boat called the
Bronco
, he learned obedience by the things he suffered.

Barry had previously never been able to hold down a decent job, and he had always lived in poverty. After our close call at sea, however, he went back to work with a new spirit of sonship. He apologized to his boss for not making what was important to him important to Barry. In that first week, he led three people to Christ by telling them about our ordeal. Within a year, he was promoted to the safety manager over the plant because, instead of whining
and complaining about everything he didn’t like at work, he got underneath and supported his company and his boss, just like he had done with me that night on the raging sea. And Barry has grown and prospered financially and spiritually ever since. He became a man who lives to dispense gifts of honor and blessing to others. He moved from slavery to sonship.

The moral of the story from my point of view—don’t take Jonah to sea with you. The moral from Barry’s point of view—don’t go fishing with someone who is more concerned with catching giant Warsaw than he is in maintaining healthy relationships.

What crisis will it take for you to begin movement from slavery to sonship? Why wait any longer? Perhaps today is a good day to talk to your pastor or prayer partner about your need for a homecoming in Father’s love.

That brings us to truth #3 in our quest to be subject to Father’s mission.

Now, the only subject Barry could talk about after we returned was how I had saved his life at sea in the bloodied and wounded state I was in. But it was his getting underneath me that saved my life as well as his. A heart of sonship recognizes its need for interdependence. So often, we see the bloodiness of our pastor or our boss and use their faults and weaknesses to justify our inaction instead of getting underneath, supporting, and saving both their lives and ours.

Sonship is a heart attitude of submission that brings self-redemption. When Barry and I were on that sinking boat, one of us had to submit to the other who was more knowledgeable and experienced in order for both of us to survive and overcome.

Somebody had to be a son. Somebody had to get underneath and push up. Somebody had to get his or her hands dirty, even if those hands were broken. Somebody had to lift up in support to ensure the success of our mission—to find our way home. And with the success, both of us survived, had a change of heart, prospered, and ended up with an adventurous story to tell.

In a gathering of like-minded ministers, most of whom had been mentored by Jack Winter, a 20-minute conversation revolved around Jack and his life as a spiritual father to many of us. During this time, he remained very quiet and seemingly uninterested, and finally he spoke up and said, “I do not want to be anyone’s father. I want to focus my life upon what Jesus focused His life upon. Jesus focused His life upon being a son. Until I am more secure in being a son, I think I would just like to focus my life there.”

He went on to say, “When you focus your life on being a leader, it becomes very easy to become controlling or authoritarian. That is characteristic of an orphan heart. Then you produce children after your kind. Instead, why don’t we all start focusing on being a son or daughter who seeks to do only what the Father does, and lives to serve, honor, and bless others? When you do this, people around you will start living and acting like sons and daughters too.”

Something in my heart sung out in agreement. “That is what I want! Who do I seek to honor and get underneath and push up, making their lives and ministry a blessing? Whose son am I?”

No one can be a father who has not first been a son. No one can be a mother who has not first been a daughter. Sonship begins in the natural before it moves to the spiritual because the natural precedes the spiritual according to Paul in First Corinthians 15:46. Before you can be a son or daughter in the spiritual, you must be one in the natural.

You do not come into your inheritance or become an effective influencer in the lives of others by focusing on being a leader or even by focusing on being a spiritual father. You come into maturity by focusing on being a son. That is what Jesus did. We saw in Chapter Five how Jesus focused on being a son the entire time He was on the earth, first as a son to His earthly parents, and then as the Son of His heavenly Father. Everything Jesus did and said was from the perspective and mind-set of a son. Jesus was the man He was, because of the Father He had. Whose son are you?

Scriptural support for this whole idea is found in Hebrews 13:17:
“Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you”
(NAS). We must acknowledge our need to be a son or a daughter to someone else, or it will become unprofitable for us. If Barry had chosen the way of blame-shifting, fault-finding, and justifying (orphan thinking) in the midst of our crisis at sea, what would he have gained from that? Being right? Sure—being dead right!

What thoughts do you think arise in your pastor’s mind when your name is mentioned? Would it be,
Oh, yes! Their heart is given to bringing honor and blessing to others!
or
Oh, no! What are they agitated and discontent with now?
How about your boss? Does your boss see you as someone who chooses to stoop underneath and push up, doing everything to honor him and make the business succeed, or does he or she seek to avoid you? It is your future that is at stake. What you reap in life next year is often determined by how the authority figures in your life see you right now. Are you an orphan with your own mission, or are you a son or daughter committed to their mission? Your future inheritance depends on whether you have a heart of sonship or an orphan heart. There is no inheritance for orphans.
“And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another’s who will give you that which is your own?”
(Luke 16:12 NAS).

The heart of sonship is a heart that has learned to
honor
all people! Blessings in life are promised if we honor our mother and father (see Eph. 6:1-3). Answered prayer and intimacy with God is promised to husbands who honor their wives (see 1 Pet. 3:7). Favor with God is found by honoring those in authority as well as honoring every person you come across (see 1 Pet. 2:17-20). Sonship, humility, submission, being subject to Father’s mission—these character qualities are often interchangeable and are a natural manifestation of a heart that has had a personal revelation of honor.

Honor involves a decision that is made to put love into action, to give a person a position of high value and worth. Even when we have been disappointed, hurt, or wounded by a person, honor chooses to make a decision not to respond in kind. No matter what is felt coming from another person, honor chooses to not expose but speak words that give grace to the hearer. Honor views each person as a precious gift of God’s creation and grants them a position that is worthy of great respect. Honor chooses not to respond with an unwholesome word or tone.

Not to give honor is to assign dishonor. Judgment, resentment, anger, exposure, sarcasm, criticism, comparisons, favoritism, jealousy, selfishness, envy, and racism are weapons of dishonor that are used against those who are considered of little value or worth.

Each time we have a point of contact or interaction with another person, we have a decision to make. We will either arm ourselves with a weapon of dishonor, or we will give an unmerited gift of honor. Have you noticed there’s no middle ground? We can be 100 percent right in our evaluation of a person’s faults or weaknesses or how they’ve disappointed us or how they have not matched up to our expectations, but love covers and does not expose others’ weaknesses or whine about them.

What are we communicating when we talk to other people? Do people feel value and worth being spoken by us about those whom others may feel have little worth? Genuine sonship gives honor, while an orphan heart takes honor and dispenses dishonor. Not to honor can actually become a self-imposed curse and may result in a cloud or shadow of judgment hanging over our home, workplace, church, or relationships. Dishonor does not serve our personal interests and values, even if our judgment is accurate. It is unprofitable, and our inheritance in the Kingdom of God is delayed.

Probably my greatest pitfall in walking in honor is that I am often right in my evaluation of others’ attitudes, behavior, and weaknesses and the way they have let me down or disappointed me. But is my body language covering or uncovering them? Is my conversation bringing exposure, or is it leading to restoration? When the name of someone who has disappointed me comes up in a conversation, do my words, tone, or body language bring honor, or do I draw out a weapon of dishonor? Is that person’s redemption at the root of my words, or am I seeking to make myself look innocent by uncovering the fault? Honor is the acid test for a heart of sonship.

Some Christians have trouble focusing their life upon being a son or daughter because their past experiences with authority have been negative. But the sonship that we’re talking about here really has little to do with authority in our life. It is an issue of honor. Sonship is not for the benefit of authority. Getting underneath and pushing up and being subject to another person’s mission isn’t about that person. It is about honor and whether or not you choose to be subject to Father’s mission.

I feel like one of the central themes of this whole discussion is found in verse 17 in the phrase,
“Honor all people.”
A heart of submission is a heart that honors all people. Honor begins at home. Do you honor your spouse? Do you honor your children? Or do you inflict emotional pain on them with weapons of dishonor?

Do you honor the waitress at the restaurant and the checkout clerk at the grocery store? Do you honor the people who deliver your mail, pick up your garbage, or baby-sit your kids? Do you honor your coworkers, including those under your authority?