Session 1: Our Eternal Identity Priests Who Declare the Beauty of God I. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD FUEL FOR THE HUMAN SPIRIT A. We tend to give more time to our individual assignments in the kingdom than we do to our eternal calling. 1. Our individual assignments come and go. Some are enjoyable and fulfilling and others are difficult and drudgery. 2. However, we have an eternal calling that is glorious and once we connect to that we can experience pleasure even when our assignments seem difficult. 3. You must know why you were made to live the life of a true human. B. The great need in our generation is a people satisfied with God, feeding off God. We are feeding off a thousand lesser, worthless things. We are actually starving because we are overfed by feeding on the wrong things. 1 Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. (Isaiah 55:1 2 ESV) C. In our generation, we are under an assault from the enemy on the issue of beauty. The assault is unique in this generation because of the proliferation of media and the internet. Everything we imagine can be brought to life through virtual media. Every form of false fascination is in front of us. We are being flooded with false gods and false beauty. We create virtual reality to fascinate our hearts with things we could only imagine in previous generations. However, just like the person wearing the virtual reality device trying to interact with what he is seeing, we are ultimately grasping at nothing. It has no substance and no value. D. The church stands alone as the only true defense against Satan s rage the only institution that can preserve what it means to be essentially human because the church alone has a revelation of true beauty. However, it is important how the church answers this crisis:
PAGE 2 1. The church tends to respond to this crisis by warning the earth of the errors of overconsumption. We call people to curb their appetites. This is valuable in so much as it refers to the things that do not satisfy, but it is an incomplete answer because it does not answer the root issue. 2. If you are eating food which is destroying your body the answer is not to stop eating. The answer is to begin eating the correct things. It is the same thing with our spiritual man. We are made to crave the beauty of God. The answer to the pollution in our culture is not abstinence from pleasure, it is a shift in appetite from counterfeit pleasures to divine pleasures. 3. The church is also to call the nations to redirected appetites, not only suppressed appetites. Notice what God said in Isaiah 55: a. He does not rebuke us for hunger and thirst; He commands us to come and eat and drink. b. He does not rebuke us for consuming. He rebukes us for consuming for that which does not satisfy. c. If you are destroying your body by eating the wrong things, the answer is not to stop eating. The answer is to eat the correct things. Your appetites are not your problem your appetites simply need to be redirected into the beauty of God. E. We are in a conflict over the issue of beauty and to understand this war we have to understand the purpose for which human being were made. II. OUR ETERNAL CALL WORSHIP AND INTERCESSION A. Worship and intercession are deeply related and associated in Scripture. We can define them as follows: 1. Worship Agreeing with who God is. 2. Intercession Agreeing with what God wants to do. B. The crisis in the nations is a crisis of worship because of the immense power of worship. The sin of idolatry is central to the human predicament because idolatry is more than worshipping a physical idol. It is giving worship to anything that does not deserve ultimate worship i.e. anything that is not God.
C. We were given dominion over the earth and worship with intercession is the first means of exercising that dominion. 1. Whatever we give our worship to we give our authority to. 2. Whatever we worship we become like. D. This is why God s command to worship is the kindest command He can give. PAGE 3 1. God is the only one who can be trusted to be enthroned because He is the only one who gave Himself for the sake of others (Philippians 2:5-8). Therefore, He is the only one safe enough to enthrone through worship. Everyone and everything else that we enthrone eventually oppresses us. 2. God also knows that worship is an invitation for us to love what He loves and become a reflection of who He is. E. Our words have immense power. We are not aware of the power our words have. Consider the way a few words from a friend or even a stranger can suddenly shift your entire disposition. We are quite literally in a war of words and whatever we direct our words at we enthrone. 1. Power is released by words. Visual Images deceive and seduce, but words mobilize and direct people for good or evil. Our words have far more influence and weight than we realize. 2. Our words give place to powers and principalities. Our intercession asking God to rule is in direct conflict with the wicked words of men who agree with darkness every day. Their words empower darkness and our intercession makes war against their words. 3. God created by His words (Genesis 1). Jesus is His Word (John 1). Words are an open expression of our inward reality (Matthew 15:18-19). 4. This is why it is so critical that we get up above the words of our culture. The words of our culture are unclean. Media, whether it is right wing or left wing is unclean. It pollutes us and renders us unable to speak pure words. F. This is why God s people have always gathered around night and day worship and prayer. 1. During the Exodus God established Israel around night and day prayer.
2. Israel s greatest king David was a priest before he was a king and he established an order of night and day worship and prayer. PAGE 4 3. Every reformer in Israel set the singers and musicians back in place. 4. John the Baptist, the greatest man who had been born to that point, taught his disciples to pray (Luke 11:1). 5. Jesus taught His disciples to pray (Luke 11:1) and challenged the church to stay in the place of prayer (Luke 18:7-8). 6. Throughout the book of Acts, we find the church engaged in corporate prayer (Acts 2, 6, 12, 13, 16). III. OUR ETERNAL INHERITANCE THE BEAUTY OF GOD A. In the book of Revelation, John is given a stunning vision of what s coming. In this vision, John encounters the glory of who Jesus is and the glory of man s calling. We have to understand what John saw in order to understand our own calling as human beings. Central to God s redemptive plan is His commitment to fill the earth with the revelation of the beauty of His Son Jesus. B. In Revelation 1, God states His divine intention. He is going to reveal the beauty of His Son. He will destroy everything that contends against it and in the process set a stage for the earth to see the beauty of the Son He so dearly loves. This is why the most dramatic book in the Bible is introduced with the phrase the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, (Revelation 1:1 ESV) C. God amplifies this point to John by letting him encounter the glory of Jesus on the earth in a way John had never seen Him. John was one of the disciples closest to Jesus. He was very familiar with Him. He knew the resurrected Jesus. He saw Jesus ascend. However, nothing prepared him for what he encountered in Revelation 1. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet 12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his
PAGE 5 feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. (Revelation 1:10, 12 18 ESV) 1. When John saw Jesus all he could say is that He was like a man. He encountered Jesus in a way that was completely different from anything he had seen before. 2. He encountered Jesus on the earth as a statement of the Father s intention to reveal Jesus in this way to the earth. 3. Imagine what went through John s frame when he both could not believe what he was encountering and at the same time felt that familiar hand touch him and tell him to not fear. D. In Revelation 4, John is given two key phrases: 1 After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this. (Revelation 4:1 ESV) 1. Come up here This is a statement to John concerning how God is going to redeem man s calling. We will consider this more in a moment. 2. I will show you what must take place John is being given more than revelation of God s beauty in His throne room. John is being given a prophecy of what must happen. E. Understanding these two key phrases is key to understanding our purpose as human beings and God s divine plan to recovering that purpose. We will look first at what must take place. F. After hearing the voice, John is caught up and he sees the living creatures gazing and responding to the beauty of God. 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around
PAGE 6 and within, and day and night they never cease to say, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come! (Revelation 4:2-3, 8 ESV) G. In the middle of his encounter John suddenly remembers the prayer that Jesus asked Him to pray: 9 Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:9 10 ESV) 1. John is seeing what Jesus asked Him to pray for. He is seeing what Jesus wants to fill the earth the revelation of the beauty of God followed up by the response of creation. 2. From the beginning, God has told His people to build according to a heavenly pattern. First it was Moses (Hebrews 8:5), but now the church is called to build according to that pattern as well. H. I imagine John s mind suddenly flashed from Jesus prayer to Moses account of Israel s encounter with God in the wilderness. 16 On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. (Exodus 19:16 ESV) 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, (Revelation 4:5 ESV) 1. The similarity between Exodus 19 and Revelation 4 is clear. When God visited Israel in Sinai He made His intensions known: He wanted a nation of priests (Exodus 19:6) and He wanted them to be fascinated with His glory so they would not sin (Exodus 20:20). Moses felt God s desire that the entire nation would prophecy (Numbers 11:29). Paul shared this same desire (1 Corinthians 14:1). 2. The problem was that sin had created an awful separation and instead of drawing near to the glory, the people cried out to Moses and asked him to serve as a mediator between them and the divine glory. 18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die. 20 Moses said to
PAGE 7 the people, Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin. 21 The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. (Exodus 20:18 21 ESV) I. John encounters the glorious God of Sinai, only this time there is a better mediator. Moses mediated by separating the people from God. Jesus mediates by drawing us near to God. Therefore John can encounter the glory and survive. The reason he can survive is because of the slain Lamb of Revelation 5. J. The living creatures reveal God s intention for all of creation and especially for man. 1. The creatures are covered in eyes. They were created to gaze at God s beauty and encounter it. 2. The creatures are gripped by pleasure. Eyes are a doorway into pleasure. We are born with greedy eyes. We long to look on what is beautiful. God designed us to that looking at beauty would be pleasurable. The creatures are not required to gaze they take deep pleasure in gazing. 3. The creatures cannot help but respond to the beauty they see and so they cry out. Their cry is a call to us to recognize the beauty that they see. K. John tells us this drama is unceasing the creatures never stop. 1. They never stop because they are gazing at infinite beauty. It cannot be exhausted. We stop gazing at something when it ceases to be beautiful. They never stop gazing because God never ceases to be beautiful. 2. The creatures are giving us an invitation to gaze. He s more beautiful than we think. We will never exhaust His beauty. 3. Our cravings in this world are exhausted, but not so with God s beauty. This is why we have an endless appetite and why everything in this age falls short. God designed us so that He is the only one who can satisfy us. 4. Creation is designed to experience God day and night without limitations (Habakkuk 2:14). Proclamations of God s beauty should be day and night because His beauty never fades. L. Human beings are the only creature on this earth created with a longing for beauty. When we encounter beauty, we respond to it and we tell other people about it.
PAGE 8 1. This is the origin of man s messenger calling. We are made to point creation to true beauty. God could have revealed Himself by Himself, but instead He decided to share that with us so we could enjoy the pleasure of encountering God and communicating who He is to creation. 2. Because our authority over the earth is real, when we fail to point to true beauty and point instead to lesser beauty it results in tragedy and empowers darkness. 3. Israel was preserved by the priestly ministry in her midst and to this day, worship is what preserves nations and destroys nations. 4. Priestly men with clear visions of what is beautiful can move entire nations towards what they have seen. This has disastrous consequences when men who embrace evil function as priests, but it has glorious effects when righteous men function in their priestly identity. M. In Revelation 5, John s vision continues and he sees Jesus as the slain Lamb in the midst of the throne. The elders worship the Lamb because He has redeemed the calling of man: 8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, 10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. (Revelation 5:8 10 ESV) 1. Jesus shed His blood to produce a priestly people from every tribe and tongue. He has made us a kingdom of priests who must reign on the earth. He is going to rescue man s calling. 2. The blood of Jesus enables people of every nation to stand before the God of the Exodus who consumed a mountain in fire and draw near to Him. 3. God does not simply want priests in the heavens. He wants priests on the earth. Jesus is a priest in the heavens so that we can be priests on the earth and this is God s solution to the crisis on the earth. This is why Revelation 5 continues with an expansion of worship throughout creation. Once man takes his place, it begins the restoration of the worship of creation.
N. In the same way that the emergence of the modern state of Israel is a statement of God s commitment to bring Israel into her calling, the dramatic growth of night and day prayer in the earth is a statement of God s commitment to bring man into his priestly calling. He is going to reign on the earth. This is what must take place. PAGE 9 IV. OUR CALLING RESTORED A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS A. Jesus has restored mankind s calling by redeeming us so that we can be priests. We have been made priests now and will be priests forever - It is our eternal occupation. B. In order to function as priests, we need to understand what it means to be priests in this age on the earth. The Levitical priesthood in the Old Testament was a type and a shadow of God s ultimate intention for a priestly nation and a priestly people. When we look at that prototype in context to John s encounter in Revelation 4-5 it gives us the essential elements of the priestly call. 1. We are designed to encounter the beauty of God. 2. We are designed to respond to that beauty by declaring it. We do not just enjoy encountering beauty, we take incredible pleasure in talking about it. This is what it means to prophesy and this is why Moses had such zeal that all the people of God would prophesy. 29 But Moses said to him, Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them! (Numbers 11:29 ESV) 3. We are to create a context where people can encounter the beauty of God. That context is the church. The church is an embassy of a foreign kingdom a kingdom that is coming but is of another realm (John 19:36). In the church people encounter the value system and reality of that coming kingdom and are invited to shift their allegiance to that new kingdom. This is why we are called ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20; Ephesians 6:20) who have citizenship in another kingdom (Philippians 3:20). C. This is why you were born. This is what you were made for. V. COME UP HERE THE DIVINE INVITATION A. The key to the Rev 4 and 5 inheritance is: Come up here. Though we see in part in this age (1 Corinthians 13:9), vital access has been restored to the beauty of God through fellowship with the Spirit.
B. It was the resurrection and the ascension that ultimately proved Jesus identity and convinced the apostles that He was who He said He was. It is also Jesus ascension that secures our priestly calling. 1. As soon as He ascends, He sits in the place of intercession. 2. His place creates access for us to stand in the same place. C. While Jesus alone is God, when He ascended, man ascended with Him. This is why Paul says we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. Being seated in heavenly places is a governmental statement. PAGE 10 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, (Ephesians 2:5 6 ESV) 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, (Philippians 3:20 ESV) 1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. (Colossians 3:1 2 ESV) 1. We have been seated with Christ in heavenly places. When He ascended, there is a sense in which we ascended as well not to divinity but to a priestly position. 2. Our citizenship is in heaven. This is not a metaphysical statement, but a governmental one. We are citizens of another kingdom. Our king dwells in the heavens. 3. Colossians tells us to set our mind on things above. This is not a metaphysical statement about heavenly vs. earthily. It is not primarily a statement of morality (i.e. think about good things in heaven and avoid bad things on earth.) It is a statement about our calling. We have to shift our thinking and seek the things above: a. The Beauty of God b. The government of God c. The Divine perspective.
d. We have to get up above the human storm to have clarity. PAGE 11 D. In the ascension of Jesus our calling is recovered, and we can see this clearly in the two most quoted Psalms in the New Testament Psalm 2 and Psalm 110. 1. Psalm 2 Jesus functions as a priest to enter into His calling. Notice the progression of the Psalm: The Father commands Him to ask for the nations and then says, you shall break them. The nations are Jesus destiny, but He shatters the nations after He asks the Father for them, not before. Because Jesus is a man He must function as a priest before He enters into the fullness of His calling. Because we have been seated with Him, we are invited into this same intercession. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter s vessel. (Psalm 2:8 9 ESV) 2. Psalm 110 The Father directs Jesus to sit and wait for Him to move on Jesus behalf. Then in verse 2 He tells Jesus to rule in the midst of his enemies. So Jesus is to sit, wait for the Father s action on His behalf, and yet rule His enemies at the same time. How does He do that? As a priest. Again, this is because Jesus is the exalted man and must receive His inheritance as a man. This is why in verse 4, the Father declares to Jesus, You are a priest forever. Yes, Jesus is the unique Son of God, but He is also a man and called to be a priest forever because this is our ultimate calling. We rule in the midst of our enemies by sitting and interceding for God s activity. 1 The LORD says to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool. 2 The LORD sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies!... 4 The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. (Psalm 110:1-2, 4 ESV) E. Jesus s ascension initiates a new priestly order. 1. Because He is a man, He will govern forever as a priest. 2. Right now He is assembling a kingdom of priests who, like Him, will rule from a priestly place. This is why He is called a forerunner. He has gone ahead of us as the great high priest to make a way for us to step into our priestly calling. 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6:20 ESV)
PAGE 12 F. This age both for Jesus and for the church is primarily the age of priestliness. That priestliness is preparing us to govern with Jesus in His kingdom in the age to come. Sometimes we tend to get things backwards and put the emphasis on taking dominion and rules and reigning. However, God s agenda is the establishment of a priesthood that rules. G. We must first recover the priestly place and then we can rule and reign with Him. This is why the Father tells Jesus to ask for the nations. This is why Jesus sits as a priest right now patiently waiting for the Father to give Him rulership over the nations. Dominion will be given to the priests. This age is primarily about recovering the priestly place so that we can rule and reign with our great High Priest. 1. Man s fall was a fall from priestliness. 2. David, the great Messianic prototype, was a priest in the wilderness before he became a king. He ministered to God and he wrote songs as a response to the beauty of God. He had no idea his songs would ever be sung, but he had to respond to the beauty he encountered. 3. When David became a king, he prioritized priestly ministry and put worship and intercession in the center of his government. 4. God s restoration of humanity is a restoration to priestliness. 5. Jesus sits as a priest before He takes the nations. 6. We must restore priestly foundations before we will be given dominion over the nations with Jesus. VI. ENTER INTO YOUR ETERNAL CALLING A. Our inheritance as human beings is access to the beauty of God. In Jesus we are called to come up here and be fascinated by the beauty of God. B. We tend to spend significant time searching out our individual assignments, but we need to give even greater attention to our eternal occupation. We will do certain assignments for years, or even decades, but we will be priests forever. We must understand this assignment. It is the reason we were created. C. We must be confident in our identity before God and know who we are. As long as we do not know who we are, we will not respond to the invitation to come up here nor will we have a vision for the things to come.
D. In this age, our assignment as priests begins with three simple things: PAGE 13 1. Gaze on the beauty of God. 2. Declare the beauty of God. 3. Create a context for people to encounter the beauty of God. E. Our words are powerful. Words you speak reverberate throughout eternity. This is why Jesus said that we would be justified our condemned by our words 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. (Matthew 12:36 37 ESV) F. We have no idea how powerful our worship is. We have no idea how powerful our prayer meetings are. When we speak weak words into the atmosphere we are engaging in war with the powers of darkness. Small prayer meetings and small times of worship have a power that we cannot imagine. They are statements to powers and principalities (Ephesians 3:10) and especially dear to Jesus. G. Isaiah called the nations to feast on the Lord. The Lord invites us to feast on the knowledge of God and then call the nations to that same feast. Only those who are satisfied by God Himself can call the nations to that same satisfaction. 1 Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. (Isaiah 55:1 ESV) 1. The Lord cries out to us, Come and eat! 2. We are called to cry out to the nations, Come and eat! VII. FOR FURTHER STUDY A. /category/04-series/the-priestly-ministry-that-must-comeon-the-earth