Intimacy Releases Inheritance

Tim and Laurie Thornton's Podcast

Our surprise keynote from Resound Conference 2013. Jesus is our inheritance, and has inheritance for us. An inheritance gained too quickly will not be blessed in the end, so seek the Father and he will release your inheritance at the proper time.

If you’d like to skip the entertaining introductory portion straight to the teaching, move the slider to -1:20:10.

Technical note: It seems that a noise gate was applied to the audio to help the live sound, please excuse us for the resulting sensation that the talk is over every time we take a breath.

Tim: Your destiny is this. This is what God said when He created you. He said, “Let us make man in our image and our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth.” This is like a menu of surf and turf. It says, “God blessed them and said to them ‘be fruitful and increase in number.’”

How do you be fruitful? Be intimate.

How do you want to be fruitful for the Lord in your life? How can you do that? Be intimate.

Someone said, “There are lovers and there are workers, and lovers get more done than workers do.”

If you want to be fruitful, be intimate.

He said, “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it.” If I asked all of you in this room what your favorite memory is, I bet each one of you would have something about intimacy in it. Something about feeling so close to someone, whether it’s a lover, a parent, a grandparent, and usually it takes place in a special spot. Maybe it’s in the mountains, maybe it’s down at the lake–it’s a special place that feels like a little Eden. A lot of you are thinking about this place right now, it feels good, doesn’t it? It’s ok to go there for a second. If I asked you all what the dreams are of your heart, it would often be to go make a place like that. Why?

It’s imprinted in you to be intimate and to be fruitful, to enjoy the love and the relationship with God and with the people that he gave you. And then to establish that, to take it further. To take that overflowing love and establish places where other people can enjoy it in the earth. That’s what we were created for. Intimacy and then inheritance. And intimacy releases inheritance.

Now, you can be saved and still not live from your love relationship with the Trinity. It’s possible to do that. It’s possible to go and try to get the inheritance first and not worry so much about the intimacy, and that was the lie that our forefathers were tricked with in the Garden, that’s what we bought into–that we could have inheritance without intimacy. We’re in the Garden and the snake comes and he says, “You know, you’re so great, you have so much potential. God doesn’t want you to be like him. You can get this without Him. You can be like Him without Him.” That’s the lie.

When people started building the Tower of Babel, the Lord came and He said, “Oh no, they’re going to be able to accomplish anything. They’re building up this tower of their own kingdom and their own greatness—“

Laurie: They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach into Heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name.”

Tim: That’s pretty independent thinking. I can be great without Him, watch what I can do, watch what I can build for myself, I can show that I’m alright. I can be righteous on my own. It’s all a matter of trying to get inheritance without intimacy. Why did God strike it down and scatter the people? Do you think He felt threatened by the Tower? Do you think He felt threatened by their greatness? No, that’s the trick of the thing. It’s not our greatness that He’s against, but He knows that when we build something great apart from Him, we are building the size of the wall between us and our lover. And in His mercy, He has to scatter it and break it down, because He is a jealous lover, and He will not yield His glory to idols. In His mercy, He destroys the unworthy things that we hope in the most. Because it is love, because He wants us to move in the way of the Kingdom, which is that intimacy releases inheritance.

Turn your bibles to Luke 15. And while we’re going there, realize how all over the Bible this is. “Be appalled, oh Heavens, be utterly desolate. For my people have committed two sins. They’ve carved out for themselves broken cisterns that can’t hold water. They’ve forsaken the spring.” These are the two things that make Heaven appalled and desolate, because the Lord created the earth, and created you, His sons and daughters, to be fruitful, to be intimate, and to establish the Kingdom. And when we try to establish without intimacy, it makes Heaven–the most amazing, wonderful place you can imagine–appalled and desolate.

Laurie: I mean think of it. Even before the first documented sin, right? When they confirmed their doubt and mistrust by eating a fruit that we were never meant to eat. We were never meant to eat the fruit that puts us on a throne that doesn’t belong to us. We don’t have the shoulders to carry that weight. We don’t have what it takes to judge justly, to build our own thing apart from the Lord. Adam, he knew the sound of the Lord walking in the cool of the day. He was familiar with it. Because they walked all the time. It was a familiar sound to him. What we were made for is to walk with the Lord in the cool of the day, chat, talk, spend time, name some animals, play, toss a coconut around. You know? That’s what we were made for. To be His sons.

And then, out of intimacy we carry his Kingdom, we name the animals, we rule the earth and subdue it out of our intimacy. It’s like my dad–he’s so excited that he has a son because his name carries on, right? It’s a generational thing. And we are made to carry the name of our Father, and to do amazing things. Remember, Jesus says you’re going to do even greater things than these! Nothing will be impossible for you in me. Then, when we ate the fruit in the garden, we said, we’re going to be able to make our own way, make our own judgments about things, right? Go our own path, because God’s holding out on us and all the lies and false narratives of the enemy came in.

What did Jesus say his food was? To do the will and the work of His Father on the earth. That is the food we’re supposed to eat, the food of Christ himself, and Jesus was the greatest model of walking out the Kingdom on the earth in submission to the Father’s mission. Greater things will you do because of me, because you’ve eaten of my food, and my bread, and I bring life.

I think that’s just miraculous. Even in the covenant that he made with Abraham, “I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you. I established my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you threw out their generations for an everlasting covenant. For what purpose? To be God to you, and to your descendants after you. I will be your God, and you will be my people.”

That was the covenant: “I will be your God and you will be my people.”

And He even repeats it. In Jeremiah when there’s an echo, a prophetic echo of the new covenant, which says the same thing, “I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I’ve drawn you with loving kindness.” And then skipping ahead a little bit, “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “When I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant, which they broke, although I was a husband to them, although I was there keeping my part of the covenant, being their God. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law within them, and on their heart, I will write it. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. They will not teach again, each man, his neighbor, and each man his brother saying ‘Know the Lord!’ for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord. They will all know me.

There’s nothing, nothing that we desire in our deepest, deepest hearts more than to know that God loves us, and He has chosen us as His own inheritance. We are the royal priesthood, set apart for His own pleasure, His own play. To establish his Kingdom on the earth.

Tim: You know what strikes me as Laurie reads those scriptures? This is not a God who is afraid of your greatness. He’s telling you where your greatness is. He’s calling you to it. Just like Laurie was saying earlier: my greatness is in Christ. He’s calling you away from establishing your own kingdom, striving for your own inheritance apart from him. He’s calling you into inheritance, He’s saying, as Jesus said, “You will do greater things than me,” He’s trying to call us into the place where our greatness can be glorious instead of destructive.

He knows we have two choices. You can build your own kingdom and you will be a slave to it. Or you can seek His Kingdom, and He will make you a king in it.

Laurie: Say that again!

Tim: You can build your own kingdom and you will become a slave to it, but if you seek His Kingdom, He will make you a king in it.

Now we’re going to read the Parable of the Lost Son in Luke 15, and I want us to pay attention to the motivations of each of the two sons and the motivations of the father. What are they trying to get? What are they after?

I’ll probably cry while we do this.

This is verse 11 of Luke 15: “There was a man who had two sons, the younger one said to his father, “Father, give me my share of the estate.” So he divided his property between them. What does this son want? —–

This is a slow pitch. His inheritance without what? Without relationship. He wants his inheritance without intimacy. He’s trying to get it early. Dad’s not even dead yet, you want it now?

“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need, so he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating. But no one gave him anything”

You know what this is the proof of? Proverbs 20:21, “An inheritance quickly gained at the beginning will not be blessed at the end.”

This is not just good financial advice, although it is that. This is probably the best advice you can ever have for how you manage your heart and live your life. Don’t try to get your inheritance too soon. All the things that you think that you want, you think that you want them more than you want intimacy with the Lord, they will break you. They will ruin you. This son ended up in a distant land, far away from anybody that he loved. He lost everything that mattered to him. And he couldn’t even get pig food to eat. No one would even give him that.

Proverbs 20:21, “An inheritance quickly gained at the beginning will not be blessed at the end.”

“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare and here I am starving to death. I will set out and go back to my father and say to him- Father, I have sinned against Heaven and against you.’ “

And this is probably the most tragic phrase in this whole story, maybe in this whole book. “I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired men.” And in that, he decided to give away his identity. In that, he decided to give away the way that he relates to the father. And he gave up the most important treasure of his life, his sonship. I’m no longer worthy, make me a slave.

So he got up with this ridiculous plan and went to his father.

Now let me ask you a question, let’s stop here. What does this son want now? What does he say? When it says he came to his senses, let’s find out what senses he came to. “‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare? And here I am starving to death.’” I don’t think this son has changed yet. I think he wants what the father can give him, he still wants inheritance without intimacy, because he gave up intimacy when he gave up sonship. He said I’m not worthy to be a son. He’s still trying to come and get what he wants without coming in love relationship with his father.

This is like what George McDonald said in Unspoken Sermons. He said, “You are not yet a child in the Kingdom. You do not care for the arms of your Father. You value only the shelter of His roof.” How many of us come to the Father for the shelter of His roof? For the food that we need because we’re starving, but not for the love of His arms? You want to walk in the way of the Kingdom? You want to walk in authority and power? You want wealth? You want influence? Let me tell you where that starts. In the arms of the Father.

Inheritance is released by intimacy. It’s released by your sonship. There is nowhere else you can get it that it will not destroy you.

Let’s keep going in Luke 15. You think this is rich already, but it’s just gonna get a lot better.

“He got up and went to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him.” Now we’re going to get to see what’s in the father’s heart. “His father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.”

The mouth that was about to give his slave’s plan to get more inheritance without intimacy, what’s the first thing it gets? A big, wet one. The mouth that basically pronounced the father dead by saying I want my share early gets a kiss. How amazing is our Father’s heart? When you and I just come to Him saying ‘I want what I want, I just want to be powerful, I just want to be recognized, I just want to be rich, I just want to be famous, I just want my problems solved,’ what’s the Father waiting to give you and I? He’s waiting to run to us. He has a totally different agenda. What He wants is intimacy with you. What He wants is intimacy with me. It gets better.

“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ The father says nothing in regards to this ridiculous notion, this surrendered identity that says I’m going to work for you and be a slave instead of being your son.

The father says something to the servants instead, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate for this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found’. So they began to celebrate.”

How many of you feel absolutely lost in your desperate search for your inheritance? How many of you feel like you put on a good face but this is actually just killing you? How many of us are lost and dead? Why are we lost and dead? We’re trying to get inheritance without intimacy. Everything we want is in the Father who has a different agenda. To celebrate together. Despite whatever plans you have made for yourself, whatever slave plans you might be operating in right now, the Father has no regard for them. He has an agenda, it goes like this: Kisses. The ring of His authority. Sandals for the feet of the son who wandered. Now they’re feet that establish the Kingdom wherever you go. A robe that covers everything you have ever done that you have to be ashamed of. Covered. You put on Christ himself when you put on the robe, you receive the Spirit who testifies of your sonship. This is the Father’s agenda. Smoked meat. Dancing. Musical instruments. These are the things our Father is all about and we would do well to have those agendas as well.

You see what happens? The Father says, “The first thing you get is this. My son is home! He’s back, he was dead, he’s been restored to me. He was lost, and now he’s found.” And then you get everything else.

This is what C.S. Lewis was talking about when he said, “Aim at Heaven, and you get earth thrown in. Aim at earth, and you will get neither.”

“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.” That’s good dancing when you hear it from out in the field. There is some hoe-down stomping going on.

“So he called one of his servants and he asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied. ‘And your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father did what? Went out.”

You and I refuse to go into the celebration of those who are in intimacy with God, those who are enjoying intimacy first, because we don’t feel like we have gotten ours. We don’t feel like we’ve gotten what we deserved. What does the Father do? He comes for you. He is a jealous lover. He comes to where you are, to rescue you, to rescue you from your mindset.

“His father went out and pleaded with him. The father is pleading come, be intimate, come, celebrate, come, let’s be together. But he answered his father, ‘Look, all these years I’ve been slaving for you,’” And his heart is revealed. Just like the son who wandered to the foreign land, he had a plan. To build his own kingdom. To establish his own righteousness. It doesn’t matter if you do it in foreign land or if you do it right here where everything is all nice. Where you look all religious and clean. If your plan is, ‘all these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders, yet you never even gave me a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends, but when this son of yours’- he doesn’t call him his brother- ‘When this son of yours, who has squandered your property with prostitutes come home, you killed a fattened calf for him and hired a bluegrass band!”

What does the older son want? He says, “I’ve been slaving for you, I’ve never disobeyed you. And you never gave me…what?” Inheritance. Specifically he wants a young goat. Or what he’s saying is- you never even gave me a ham sandwich so I could go out here and celebrate with who? My friends. Does he want intimacy with the father? Does he want to have a feast and celebrate love and togetherness? No. He wants something to show his friends. He wants something to vindicate his self-righteousness. Now, the father’s heart is magnificent in what happens next.

What is the first thing the father tells him? What is the first thing the father says? “My son.” The father has no regard for his ridiculous plan either.

The father begins with intimacy. “My son.” He tells him who he is. This son does not know who he is! Even though he’s at home, he thinks he’s a slave. The father starts by giving him his identity, just like he gave the other son his identity back. He gives the son his identity first. What is his identity? Son. An intimate word. A family word. A word of belonging. Jesus said, ‘Slaves can’t be sure of their place in the house. But a son belongs forever.’

No matter how ridiculous your slave plan is, you belong in the Father’s House forever.

George McDonald said, in Unspoken Sermons, “Because we are the sons of God, let us become the sons of God.” Friends, because we are the sons of God, let us become the sons of God. Let us be who we are.

“My son,” the father said, “You were always with me. And everything I have is yours.” Intimacy releases inheritance. Will you take it? Will you come to the Father first? Will you come to be intimate before you’re fruitful?

“My son,” the father said, “You are always with me, and everything I have is yours, but we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours—“ See this? The father gives him back to his brother. The father does not only want to give you himself, he wants to give you back to each other. He wants to give me back to you. He wants to give you back to me. The person you have the most contention with, he wants to give you back to each other. Come in. He’s pleading. The meat was smoked over mesquite wood, the bluegrass band is hot. Come! Let’s celebrate. Come be found.

The son gets a choice. As do we. Are you willing to be found? Or do you insist on building a kingdom that you will be a slave to? Are you willing to be brought into the celebration, to become a king, to belong forever in the Father’s House? That’s what you’re entitled to. Delight yourself in the Lord. Delight yourself in the Lord. Delight yourself in the Lord…and He will give you the desires of your heart. Intimacy releases inheritance.