Order
Notes
Transcript
The Same Page
The Same Page
We have read, looked at, talked about being on the same page about
God’s Mandate and Our Mission as a church - to make disciples, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
God’s Glory is our main motivator, our greatest desire, our hope to experience and witness. Seen throughout the Bible. - John Bevere said that God’s glory is mentioned several hundred times. It was abused in the 80s and 90s. God’s glory as far as a word or term to use, was so often abused that the understanding of what it was became lost.
We can’t grasp or be in awe or even want to experience the glory of God if we don’t accept that we should have a fear of the Lord.
God’s glory was Moses’ heartcry.
18 And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.
19 And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.
20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
21 And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:
23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.
2 To see thy power and thy glory, So as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
19 And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.
19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
PROCLAIM - Example of the King entering the palace with a herald. A king in his home and to his wife and children is daddy or husband, but in the throne room he is proclaimed. He is the KING, not the daddy or the husband. He’s professional, and everyone knows what his position is, what his authority holds, what his aims are, because he speaks them plainly and clearly, so that there isn’t a mistake in what his will is. Nothing is held back from his position.
God’s passion is to bring us into the presence of His glory. In the time when his servants are brought to him in heaven it says...
4 they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.
This reminds me of the scripture we just read. Moses was in God’s presence, experiencing a strong taste of God’s glory, but not in the same way we will, those who are brought to Him through salvation in Jesus.
What hope we have to be in the presence of the King.
Before God’s glory is revealed there has to be ORDER.
Once His Glory is revealed there is great blessing and benefit.
THERE MUST BE DIVINE ORDER
2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
God ORDERED creation out of CHAOS, then on the 6th day He forms man in His image and breathed the Spirit of God into man and he became a living being.
They were both naked
25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, And hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Adam and Eve were CROWNED (covered, encircled, surrounded, framed), not just the head that was impacted or centered on, they were clothed with the glory of God.
I WONDER if this has any impact or reason why Adam and Eve didn’t need clothing, why they were not ashamed, they were clothed or covered by God’s glory and majesty.
POINT : The blessings were indescribable,
The fruit of the ground yielded its increase.
The animals were in harmony with one another.
No “natural” disasters.
No disease, sickness, poverty.
GREAT BLESSING through God’s glory and honor/majesty.
POINT: But what happened when man sinned? Everything changed, because God put everything under Adam’s care. When Adam fell, everything that was placed under his care fell with them, were cursed because of their (Adam and Eve’s) sin.
Nature is groaning for the time where we will be reigning with Jesus. When our relationship is restored because of the work of Jesus on the cross after His second coming foretold in the book of Revelation and nature will be liberated under the bondage it is currently in.
Couple thousand years later....
Abraham
Moses: Exodus 25:8
8 “Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them.
God couldn’t reveal Himself publically He gives His people instructions, procedure to follow to build a sanctuary were a portion of his GLORY, His GREAT presence, to have some resemblance of the relationship I had and a taste of what they will have some day when our relationship is restored. BECAUSE GOD DESIRES TO BE NEAR US. So, God gives Moses specific details about how to build and organize the sanctuary PATTERNED AFTER THE ONE IN HEAVEN.
Skilled craftsman spend one year crafting the space that will be called the Tabernacle.
33 He erected the court all around the tabernacle and the altar, and hung up the veil for the gateway of the court. Thus Moses finished the work.
34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
THE WORK - DIVINE ORDER
It wasn’t until the obedient task of building and ordering, structuring of the tabernacle of meeting that the glory of the Lord came down.
35 Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
15 which He will bring about at the proper time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords,
16 who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.
The reason PAUL could write this about God’s glory and connecting it to blinding light is because he experienced it to a degree, a portion of God’s glory, when he encountered Christ on the road to Damascus.
God’s glory is like a light, and His light is so bright that all other light is dim or dark. Its like when its daytime, have the stars stopped shinning? No, they still shine, they still emit light, however, the light from the sun is so much more intense because of our proximity to it that the light from the sun overpowers the light that reaches us from the stars.
BACK TO MOSES, once the glory of the Lord came to the Isrealites there was great BLESSING and PROVISION for them.
BUT
1 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not.
2 Sons of Aaron of the 4 sons, out of everyone who was authorized to come into the presence of the Lord, Nadab and Abihu - and they treated what was sacred as common. They treated what was HOLY as UNHOLY, they used something that was familiar to them or even good to them but it was NOT appointed by God to be used to honor Him.
A similar image of what Adam and Eve did. They used something that wasn’t meant to be used in a way that was not glorifying to God.
IRREVERENCE
We can’t treat what is Holy as Ordinary.
2 And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
Priests of the Lord, Aaron’s sons, Moses’ nephews, DEAD
3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what the Lord spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be honored.’ ” So Aaron, therefore, kept silent.
Universal and Eternal decree reminder of God through Moses - Reminder from last weeks sermon on the Glory of God.
We might have a hard time understanding or looking at this situation from our OWN forgetting of our place in the order of things given to us by God. God is HOLY, and He WORTHY of being worshipped in the way that actually HONORS Him. When we believe and say things that warp or bend who He actually is. When we say God’s word says something that it doesn’t actually say, especially about who He is and what standards He has for those who follow Him through His son Jesus, we condemn ourselves.
It matters that we KNOW Him, and HONOR Him, and WORSHIP Him in the ways HE has told us to. To seek Him as a church for WHO HE REALLY IS and to OPERATE as the BODY in the ways HE wants us to.
God is not a God of Chaos, but of ORDER. God desires Us to REFLECT the same ORDER that He has communicated to us since creation.
What do I mean?
Lets look at one more story.
500ish years later...
God has David’s son Solomon build a temple to the Lord, a living place for the Lord where people could come to worship him.
1 Thus all the work that Solomon performed for the house of the Lord was finished. And Solomon brought in the things that David his father had dedicated, even the silver and the gold and all the utensils, and put them in the treasuries of the house of God.
Example again of DIVINE ORDER.
11 When the priests came forth from the holy place (for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves, without regard to divisions),
No IRREVERANCE, maybe they remembered the story of Nadab and Abihu
OR
Maybe they remember what happened to Eli’s sons who treated the Ark of the Covenant in the same way that Nadab and Abihu did...
TELL THEIR STORY...
13 in unison when the trumpeters and the singers were to make themselves heard with one voice to praise and to glorify the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice accompanied by trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and when they praised the Lord saying, “He indeed is good for His lovingkindness is everlasting,” then the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud,
Doesn’t this sound awesome?
So many churches/people, are wanting to experiencing the glory of the Lord in the same way we read stories like this.
Talk about wanting to “RELIVE YOUR GLORY DAYS...” lol.
Divine Order - Temple being built for 7 years.
Blessing/prosperity followed the obedience and order that
Our obedience to the Lord in His leading of us as a church will bring blessing and prosperity to those in our church and community IF it is His will. Our motivation can’t be for the blessing and prosperity that might come upon being obedient to Him. This would be a version of the prosperity Gospel.
However, this should not deter us from being obedient in persuing to WORSHIP, HONOR, GLORIFY, Him as a church by preparing, building, organizing, coordinating this church, HIS body, in the way He leads us to, for HIS PURPOSES.
What does this look like, what do I mean. For TODAY, what this means, is that we seek Him in PRAYER, through the study of His WORD, ENCOURAGING and BUILDING UP in WORDS and DEEDS,
John the Baptist
11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
John leveled the ground, made it flat and straight to receive Christ through repentance.
Those who RECEIVED John RECEIVED JESUS, those who REJECTED the message of REPENTANCE FROM JOHN, REJECTED JESUS.
1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
2 And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
Jesus set ORDER, prepared the way for the HOLY SPIRIT, and God SENT HIS SPIRIT to LIVE IN US, to GUIDE US, to CHANGE US to the LIKENESS OF CHRIST, so that we will GLORIFY HIS NAME.
18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
My desire, my aim, as the pastor of Keystone church, is to be as obedient as I can be, to be made more into the likeness of Christ. I am NOT the ideal, I am not to replace Christ in anyone’s mind/heart, I am a sinful man.
But I can point you to Jesus. I can show you His word. I can by His grace tell you that He wants us as a church to prepare the way for more to hear and see who He is through us by being obedient to Him.
For now, right now, that means becoming more orderly. Appointing people to areas (committees, teachers, servant-leaders, prayer people, etc.).
21 And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch,
22 Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.
23 And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed.
1 And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.
2 Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables.
3 Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.
4 But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.
5 And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch:
6 Whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them.
7 And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.
8 And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people.
9 Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen.
10 And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake.
11 Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God.
12 And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council,
13 And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law:
14 For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us.
15 And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.
When John saw God while on the isle of Patmos, he saw Him (God) in His glory.