Reckoning that Counts

So we're taking a look at Chapter 13, The Rest of Reckoning. And let's just start blazing through the questions. The first one, true or false? Our testimony regarding the identification truths should first be observed by others and then heard. Yeah. Has anybody ever fallen into this trap where we have a tendency to want to tell everybody about the identification truths as soon as we see them. It's so overwhelming when you first learn about it and then you just want to go up to everybody.

He's not prepared well enough for himself, you know, but it's just so exciting. I found a verse that relates to this, in addition to the one that was in the book, that helped me see that this is actually biblical. In 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul is pointing out to the Thessalonians that his witness was validated by his walk.

Here it says, We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else. As apostles of Christ, we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much. that we were diligent to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship. We worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.

You are a witness, and so is God, of how holy, righteous, and blameless we were among you who believed." These characteristics that they weren't looking for praise from men or from anyone else, that they were gentle to the people they were witnessing to, who they loved, who were dear to them, so that they wouldn't be a burden. These were observable characteristics of their walk before they could ever have an effective testimony. What was the first memory of them?

That was 1 Thessalonians 2, 6 through 10. Is that what you're asking? All right. Once we see his standard for us in the Word, we should fret and struggle to become mature. That's just wrong. We shouldn't fret and struggle, huh? So you guys have this all pegged. You don't fret or struggle at all. Well, the chapter, the title kind of gives it away. The rest, right?

The objective here is to enter into his rest through reckoning on the facts of our identification. And I would say even before we mature enough to actually enter in and fully rest, fully reckon on those, we trust Christ with our lives and our walk, understanding that he is driving that spiritual growth and that it takes time. So struggle and fret doesn't really enter the equation. Miles in the book said, we abide in Christ during the processing required for us to be brought to the fulfillment of his purpose. We do not fret and struggle because we are not mature the moment we see his standard for us in the word.

We have a tendency probably to look, I would say, at our our lives for fruit and for good works, and perhaps struggle to produce them, certainly, as an immature Christian. But that would be producing them out of our own effort, and those will always fail. We'll waste another year trying to produce them in our own effort, rather than looking to the source. It's not to say that God won't use that failure and create a need. So we're on question two. So we're going to put you on the spot here now since everybody already got the answer right.

Once we see his standard for us in the Word, we should fret and struggle to become mature. In the book it said also, it is certain that there is no rest of faith as long as we struggle to produce. And the hungry heart will not cease in striving until the truth of the finished work is seen and counted upon. This is the principle of rest by which we are born in him and by which we grow in him. Does everybody buy that? Okay, number three, knowing and resting in the finished work of our identification could cause us to be slack and self-confident.

See, it's so easy to figure out whether it's true or false, but it's so hard to actually believe that. This is the age-old objection to the gospel of grace in one sense, right? How can you just simply believe? How can you just simply trust? And how will that work, right?

I mean, the Jews objected to this idea of replacing the law with grace, so to speak. Denominational churches through the ages have slowly imposed legal systems of one form or another, probably because they were worried about their congregations and wanted a sense of control, right? They were worried that they would slack and be, you know. I've met unbelievers who use this as an objection and say, It can't be that easy. I met one guy, he said, Gary, I think the keys to the kingdom, if you will, are all about just trying to be the best person you can be, right? I mean, how often do you hear that?

They see Grace is lazy, and they say, hey, if you don't work at it, how are we going to make any progress? How can progress really be made? And I think if we're honest with ourselves, we even see that objection come up in our own heart, right? Well, at least speaking for myself, I certainly go through periods of time where I feel like I'm not doing anything. I'm just trusting, just abiding. Have you ever felt this way? You begin to get tempted to feel spiritually lazy, just trusting, abiding, and reckoning.

Some of us have a tendency to say, you know, just in case, you know, that will be my full time job, abiding, trusting. But but just in case, part time. I'm going to try to be a nicer guy, right? Or I'm going to try to be a better husband or a better dad. But the truth of the matter is, when we do that, we're counting on the old man to pull it off. We have fundamentally, I believe, two choices.

You know, trust in your own abilities or trust in Christ's program. And the thing we can know is that this notion of slacking or being self-confident just isn't the natural outgrowth of trusting in Christ. It just isn't what is produced. It seems from a human perspective that that might be a concern because we've let go of the shackles of the law and of control, but that's not giving God credit for being able to work in our lives. So Miles in the book said, Knowing and resting in the finished work of our identification causes us to be neither slack nor self-confident.

Rather, knowing what he has done for us on the cross and with us in Christ makes us all the more hungry and eager to know experientially what is already ours positionally. Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Christ. Okay, number four. In most sound, active congregations, There are a large number of individuals who are ready to enter into the truths of the cross. Yeah.

Yeah, he made some pretty strong points about this and that there are very few and that the pulpit isn't always the best place to try to communicate. It's not the ideal medium, he said, for sharing the truths of identification. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that. I wish every pulpit were preaching identification. I don't know. If it's a sound congregation, you would think that it would be. So I don't know what that definition is.

But also we know that the Lord can work beyond all that. It seems experiential. This is proof. When you read in here too, you want to tell people. And lots of times it's just over the heads around them. They're not the hungry hearted. Mike and I have talked about this too. Sounds strange, but it seems like the Jim Jones and we're all drinking Kool-Aid here. Why isn't it this group? Why isn't it the huge congregation? Why isn't there a 5,000, 10,000 member church that is teaching this? Why isn't it?

It just makes so much sense. I don't know. traveled over Israel and taught people. But there were only 12 that actually believed him in the first place. And then a few out of these bonds of multitudes of people. And I think we were dealing with the same thing. Well, yeah.

And I think it goes back to the hungry heart. Whether they're hungry hearts, if it's really there or not, whether you can get a whole congregation That would be great, but experientially I haven't seen this. I know learning these and then you want to go out and tell me. It feels weird now going to other assemblies or groups. It's the programs, it's the guilt, it's the, you know, all these things and you just kind of sit there and I, you know, I'm on the board of directors of the Christian camp and it's really kind of, I sit there in meetings now and it's kind of like, So the message is OK, but it's not grace. There's still some things, and I'm just kind of like, ugh. I feel kind of different about it.

And it's like I try to kind of, in a heated mice war, I want to jump on them and strangle them and say, don't you know this? And slowly, and that's the way you do it. But still, it's kind of like, unless they're really hungry and want that, it doesn't seem to happen. You know, it's just hard, I think, to get over that, the old man, I've got to do it. I think that's the hardest part.

It seems to be a ministry that the Holy Spirit takes on individually with people at a point or points in their own individual spiritual growth, right? It's very personalized when you're ready. And it also seems to be that the that the best you can do with somebody who's not there is kind of point them to the word. And so it starts to stir that hunger.

I remember when I was, you know, I thought Mom and Ben had gone off the deep end. I was a Christian long before they were. All three of us kids were in this Presbyterian church, and it was a very typical Presbyterian church. You know, I'd come home from college and they were claiming to be, you know, born-agains. And I thought that was weird.

And we would talk and talk, but the only thing that they said that I even remember that made any impression on me was, you know, they pointed me to scripture where it says, the Lord said, you must be born again. That was the only thing to this day that It sticks with me.

I kind of think the best you can do is point folks to scripture. You're not putting me on the spot. I have no idea why. I've gone through this, and really it's just other than because that's the way the Lord wants it. It is more an individual ministry. I'm always looking for the spirit, the scripture that says, yes, it'd be an individual or something, and it really doesn't. You know, I don't know why it is. I'm in St. Boat, I don't know why and I haven't gotten a good answer. Why isn't there a huge church that is just set up that the Lord has prepared with hungry hearts?

To me it's very logical. I mean, if you look at the flesh, the world, and Satan, those three influences that influence us as non-believers and at times as believers, the miracle is You believe the identification truth. That's the miracle. And we forget that. You know, we look at other Christians and go, why don't they get it? The miracle is that you did get it. That's the miracle. That's what I think we should hold on to, not look at them and say, well how come they don't get it?

Those are brothers and sisters who are in bondage. And rather than dwelling on that side of it, to me, to treasure what we have and to know that this is a golden nugget that the Lord has shared with you, and to treasure it up in your heart like that. Because we tend to get frustrated with our brothers and sisters in Christ, you don't get it. You know, and we only get it because, you know, I mean, you know, Jesus said to Peter, you know, this was not revealed to you by any man but by the Holy Spirit, by the Spirit of God.

You know, and to back up and stop saying, why them? Why me? How come, how can you show this to me? Because until you understand that, you know, you're still working on your own efforts. And then when you start to understand it and the Lord starts working your life and He touches lives and lives and lives and lives and lives and you think, why me? Why choose me to show me this? Because I can be just like them and odds are, better in that direction than the other direction. You know, so to me, I guess I... I don't look at that side anymore. I just look back and go, wow. Because percentage wise, I'm right over there.

And knowing my, I'm a pretty high energy person. You know, I mean, you know, quite frankly, early on, knowing the believer, it was working for me. I'm a high energy man, I've got an organizational fit for that, and you know, all this crap, you know, it's just crap. Thank God he showed me it was all crap. Because I could have fished them all and probably lived out all my days on earth.

With it working. Working just fine. Oh, you're making me think. I agree. You know, aggressive, go after, build, do. You know, and this has been a very humbling experience to do that. I mean, you don't have to. But on the same, you know, just we were talking the last few weeks, the peace. There is so much more peace in that than working. That's the key.

You know, that's when, that's kind of when I know I'm gravitating back to the old is when it's work. If it's work, if it hurts, it's kind of like, you know, If it's easy and rest, I think that's where he wants us. And it's not that you're building churches and running and doing 59 things. As an elder at another church, it was like always putting out fires and doing 59,000 things.

And that's where you think, man, boy, yeah. But it isn't. And I look back now. It's like, wow. It's not get busy. It's get rest and relax. So to me, the wonder is not, why don't they get it? It's, wow, how am I going to do this? And be thankful, right? Everything, everything was warring against my understanding of it. But I think out of a compassionate heart, I'm going, you know, I agree wholeheartedly. It's YB and I treasure that. It's kind of like why are some in the baby stage with just salvation? Maybe it's just his timing and all that. It's kind of going back to Job. You can't question what he's doing.

Well, look at our children. Look at your children. Especially the oldest one always wants to parent the middle one or the younger one and tell them what's going on. And as parents you're going, you know what? They're my child. All the old ones. At my own pace. I know better than you do. Get your hands off of them. They're mine. I got it all under control. Good conversation. Number five. The old nature will never change. It will always be sinful. Never possessed of one good thing. What do you guys think? True or false?

There are very few believers who are responsive to the so-called Deep Earth truths. I think we kind of went through this. And so here's the snippet out of the chapter where Miles addressed this. It doesn't quite give us the why, but he says, It's easy to forget how long it took for us to come to the threshold of this realm of reckoning and how thoroughly we had to be prepared before we were at all interested in the so-called deeper truths. But we soon discover that there are very few believers who are responsive.

Number seven, as hungry and growing believers, we press on to produce. Yeah. John 15, 5, I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. As hungry and growing believers, we press on, but we don't press to produce. The Holy Spirit instills within our being a determination that will not be denied, a hunger that must be satisfied. Our pressing on to His very best is fostered by the fact that we will never be satisfied in ourselves, but we will always be satisfied in Him. We are ever being drawn forward because of our realized need for freedom and growth. This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the market for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3, 13, 14. Number eight. Once one is awakened to the liberating truths, he should immediately begin to teach them. We kind of talked about this. I'm certainly guilty of this. One of the funniest examples I've seen of this is my wonderful wife.

If any of you know her, you know she came from a large Catholic family. And boy, when she first came to the Lord, her eyes were opened. She was going to go set them straight. She couldn't understand why they couldn't see what she saw. So now she will always live with this stigma of being the crazy born again in the family.

OK. Number nine, those about us have the right to observe over a period of time whether or not our witness and our walk are valid. We kind of talked about that. Our needs are the primary impetus towards his abundant life. What do you think, Courtney? Well, it's true. It's kind of an odd thing, though. It seems like an odd question. Our needs are the primary. But I guess he does all things for us and knows us the best. Yes.

Well, this is, you know, this is I don't think everybody buys into this. This is kind of a, I mean Miles certainly makes this point clear and Mike emphasizes it and I don't quite, haven't quite figured out where I stand. I know when, I know Romans 7 comes before Romans 8 and I know that, that in my own personal walk, need seems to come before my reckoning on His truth. I don't know. What do you guys think?

Psalm Psalm 116 says the Lord is gracious and righteous. Our God is full of compassion The Lord protects the simple hearted when I was in great need he saved me But at rest once more. Oh my soul for the Lord has been good to you So I think I Mean I think the question in my in my mind is I Is this need, is it suffering? Is it always traumatic kind of suffering in our lives? Or is it because as we gradually learn more of Him, and at the same time we're learning more of our sinful nature, the difference just manifests itself as need? I think also it shows the intimacy in the individual relationship.

You know, your needs are not the same as mine. And it's not a one-size-fits-all, you know, and here's the program. I don't know the purpose of your life. It's not that really... I think the stuff that I've gone through in my life, you know, busy and going crazy and doing all that stuff. Well, that brought me to this point where I realized grace. I also go back to these needs and the spiritual growth is my whole lifetime. It is not a two more years and I get the medal and I'm done. My needs are going to happen all the way and he knows me and he knows my needs.

I think it points out the individuality of our relationship and it's hard to swallow. Well, I take it as being in contrast, sort of like suffering. I mean, when things are going great, we have a tendency not to stay in dependence on Christ. And we have a tendency not to reckon on the truths of our identification.

But when things are going hard and the real pressure takes place, you know So when I when I hear our need I kind of think of suffering I think of you know when we are really in need There are times where I'm not suffering, but he's working on me. A lot of times it's through trials and tribulations and different things, sufferings, but there's also the quiet time at rest.

He's meeting our need at that point too. Well, you know, if we really leave number five, then we would see ourselves always being needed for it, you know? Yeah, well, exactly. Yeah, that's right. OK, the pulpit is the best place from which to share the truths of identification. We already talked about this, but I loved his phrase feeding the few instead of offending the many.

By the way, just just curious from your perspective, what What is it that's so offensive about the identification truths to do anything? To trust, to simply trust. But why is that offensive to a believer, granted, but a believer who maybe doesn't understand the identification truths yet?

I think we're too high on ourselves. We're arrogant to think that we can help God. Yeah. It's about us and what we can do. Yeah, when we exclude that. and say just chill out, especially in American culture too. And we haven't seen the fact that it's only Christ doing it, that we actually can't do anything. We don't have the tool to improve ourselves, the old self, the old man.

And I think this is quite shocking when we first find out about it. your whole nature the whole society is always lifting up and praising the one who has accomplished that whether it's in the Olympics or whether it's in sports or wherever even in the academic world when if somebody just simply walks the alleys with a bag on his back I mean that's not praiseworthy Right? And you may have Christ more in his heart, maybe, than those who race around.

Yeah. And I still had a question regarding forth. If you were to make that, what pronouns would you choose to put Ollie Hills in that place? How could we make number four positive? To cut somebody up and sort of show the negative is somewhat easy, but if we at all would come up with a phrase which is What would you say?

Well, you know, I think that... What I wrote to you is that this is a most large program-oriented congregation, but the moment you say sound and active, I mean, I'll be really lazy and... Unsound. Unsound. I struggled with that a little bit. Well, what would you call it? Call it Holly Hills. Well, I'd call us sound. I'd call us sound.

I doubt he's saying that churches that hold believers that are reckoning on the identification truths are unsound. I don't think he's saying that. I think he's saying that there are large churches that are very sound. We're not talking about, you know, I mean, we're talking about people who trust the Lord, who are saved, but maybe just have not come as a congregation certainly to the point of. to the point of understanding the identification truths.

I think there's pockets of people all over the world. Every now and then you run into them, right? And you know them right away because you know the same Lord. Even in the New Testament, when Simeon was there, Christ laid it upon the temple and the Pharisees, and so there were some holy people even there. In that setting, the same setting.

But that's exactly what you're trying to say. I think there may be sound, as far as the gospel is concerned, I think a lot of mainstream churches are held to the philosophy of get them saved and get them busy. And that could be true. But I think doctrinally, as far as position and condition is concerned, that most churches don't. I think the key word is active. These people are busy and so they don't have time to stop. I've been active and busy and I've failed and I've done nothing and I've failed and it brought me to this point where I'm at now. I think that's where most churches are. I don't think they are really sound.

They stop. I agree. They're sound in the initial salvation and the truth of the gospel. The birth truths, if you will. Miles has said, what Mike was saying too, the realization of the foundational truths. those four pillars or whatever, and then those are my growth roots. So there's some basic foundation in that platform to go on. A lot of them are maybe one or two of the pillars maybe, and then a slow growth after that point.

It's not for the grover. There aren't that many that have the full foundation, so to speak. teachers in Hebrew are not all the writer of Hebrew. Like them still needing to build a mill instead of a meeting. I think that's where most churches are. They just stop after the salvation. Because of the doctrine, it stops right there where you are after you're saved.

I think what Peggy said makes a lot of sense. It's hard to answer the why, but it's easy to be thankful and recognize that... Are we forgetting that there is a time for milk? I came to the Lord in one of those milk-bearing covenant churches, and I thank God for it. We can't say that somehow those churches are out of the Lord's control. He has purpose in every little thing, and thank God for them.

Because they are bringing people to the Lord, and granted they may be bringing them in to something that later on they're going to find out doesn't work for them, but that's good news too. At least they're in. OK. Number 12, we have assurance that as we. The truth is the. Will cause us to grow in them. There is. In the midst of. Oh. I had it the other way. Well, I think both are true. Number 13, often barriers are raised by teaching by premature teaching. These may take years to remove and sometimes are.

Number 14, when our reliance is wrenched from and every other broken reed, the Spirit has us prepared to rest upon the written word and the living word. Number 15, we must ever count upon the to separate us from the influence of comma, freeing us in the life of our Lord. Number 16, the Holy Spirit would have us Perfectly watch for the hungry heart feeding the few in preference to 17 we have entered into his because we know our position of freedom through the cross and life abundant in our risen Lord. And the last one, knowing what He has done on the cross and with us in Christ makes us all the more hungry and eager to know Experientially, that which is already ours, positionally, positionally. Great.

So then the essay questions explain the paradox concerning rest in in Hebrews four, nine through 11. How could one labor? to have rest. And so, let me just read for you. Hebrews 4, 11 and 12. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience. So the question is, doesn't that seem a bit contradictory? Let us make every effort to rest.

What did you all come up with? I think that's right. Couldn't that, though, still be taken to be legal? So, is that to say, then, It depends that much on us? I'm setting you up. I mean, this is the problem with this. First, I think you're absolutely right. Scripture is pretty clear that, I mean, the rest grows out of believing and reckoning.

The labor is certainly referring to believing, not some other kind of work. But doesn't that have the risk of being interpreted as legal? Or is it? Maybe it is. Maybe we here think that it completely depends on us to believe. What does Jesus say? What is the work that we are to do? The work of God is this, to believe. So that's our work. So, by believing that we enter into that rest. That's our labor.

It's like you said about John 15, the wine is just, you know, it's just there sucking up the nutrition from, no, no it's wrong, the grape, right? The wine is Christ. Oh, the vine and the branches? Yeah. So the only work that the branch is doing is just staying there with the vine. Abiding, yeah. Absolutely. the hungry heart never ceasing, Miles does, because we won't be finished until we're dead. So that's the labor, that's our hungry heart seeking God and seeking His truth. But why is it labor? That's what I'm trying to get at.

I mean, I wouldn't want It would be pretty easy, I think, to take this as a law and say, you know, my wife teases me when I try to get my kids to sleep. She goes, you can't yell them to sleep, right? That's kind of what this is doing if you take it legally. If it's the Lord saying, work hard to rest, It's a contradiction in the legal sense, because what is it that makes us unrestful?

Any thought that it depends on us, because we fail. I'm drawing that fine distinction here between legalism and this word, labor. I totally agree it's referring to belief, and that's our role in this. There's no question about that. But I think it's the Lord that brings us to that point, ultimately. I think when we believe, He puts the Holy Spirit in us, and the Holy Spirit ministers to us His Son.

And the more taste we get for Him, the more we want of Him. We talked about earlier, when we're struggling to become mature, it's about our old nature, cleaning up the old nature. It's about self. And when we become slack and self-confident, that's about self too.

So this laboring is about Christ. I don't know if that helps. The laboring, I believe, is because of our old man. The laboring is accepting and believing and reckoning on the truth of our identification and the truth of our position in Christ. even though what we're hit in the face with every day is our condition. That's the labor, right? It's hard. It's just hard. It's hard to know that we're born again, that we're dead to sin, we're alive to Christ, when we see sinfulness in our life every day.

I think that's what the labor is. I don't think it's a legal thing. So it's coming out of what we knew once to be true about ourselves, trying not to believe that anymore? Believing that what the Lord says in the Word is more reliable than what we see every day, right? That's hard.

I mean, it's a labor in a sense. Abiding takes constant diligence, doesn't it? Isn't the labour also, as our mind drifts, we cannot always control it, but the discipline which we can exert in our mind, isn't that also a labour? Say that again? I don't know how your mind operates. My mind operates all over the world, all over.

Suddenly you, I don't want to be too, it's tough to find a good example, but suddenly you think of a picture you never saw for a long time, or you think of something you should should do or not do, and this disciplining and turning our eyes towards Jesus, that is for me a tremendous labor. This rooting out of all this noise in my mind.

Yeah, I think that's a great point. Well, I think The way I would say that is, abiding in Christ does mean not abiding in anything else. And that's hard because it's so insidious. I find myself abiding in my position at work all the time because I get engrossed by it. I love it. I enjoy my work.

But I don't look to that for shouldn't be looking to that for my identity or for my value, right? So if I hear what you're saying, yeah, there is effort in remembering, right, where we find our source, where we find our lives in Christ and not anywhere else. What I wrote here, as we look at ourselves and our conditions, certainly we have difficult reckoning that we have died to self. It's a labor that requires diligence and effort to remember what you know, to remember the Lord's faithfulness in all His gracious handling of you. to trust Christ and accept that since he said you died, you did.

And since he said you're free, you are. And since he said you're resurrected, a new creation in Christ, you are. Focusing on him by way of trusting him and accepting who we are in him. Abiding in him by way of abiding nowhere else and beholding him in his word.

It is in that sense an ongoing effort and labor. The flip side, of course, is that God creates this hunger, sets up the needs, woos us with love, and ultimately draws us to himself. Indeed, isn't that another facet of his grace, that we're trusting about him? So it's labor, but it's not legal. It doesn't ultimately depend on our success or failure. If it did, they couldn't call it rest.

Okay, we have time for one more. Last one. How can you be confident in the Lord Jesus for your growth to maturity and not be discouraged by the length of time it takes or by the unchangeableness of the old nature? Give verses. Does anybody want to take a crack at this? He who began a good work is able to complete it. Yeah.

So, Philippians 1.6, that's a great one.

Miles enlisted Romans 8.28. And we know in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those who foreknew, he also predestined to come forth to an individual's side.

So there you go. Any others? Philippians 3, 13, 14. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. The one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on to the goal and prius of the upward call of God, Christ Jesus. I like Colossians 2, 6, and 7, especially when you couple it with Ephesians 2, 8, and 9.

It says, So then, just as you received Christ as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. But then you have to ask, how did we receive him? Because we're supposed to continue just as we received him, and we received him, for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. As long as it's dependent on him, it gives us that confidence, that, how did Miles put it? The confidence that the Lord Jesus will grow us to maturity.

Any others? Okay. Let's close. Lord, thank you so much for this time together today. Thanks for sharing your word with us. We just pray you'd work these truths into our life and help us to recognize our position in you. We love you so much. Bless this week. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.