This morning, we will turn to a number of Scriptures, beginning in Exodus 25. We want to read the first nine verses of this chapter.
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Tell the sons of Israel to raise a contribution for Me; from every man whose heart moves him, you shall raise My contribution.
And this is the contribution which you shall raise from them: gold, silver, bronze, blue, purple, scarlet material, fine linen, goat hair, ram skins dyed red, porpoise skins, acacia wood, oil for the lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, onyx stones, and setting stones for the ephod and for the breastpiece.
And let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them.
According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it.”— Exodus 25:1-9
Then, in Matthew 27, we want to read verses 50 through 53.
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.
And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split.
The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many.— Matthew 27:50-53
Revelation 21, just verse 3:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them.”
— Revelation 21:3
Finally, in Ephesians 2, beginning in verse 19 to the end of the chapter:
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in Whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in Whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
— Ephesians 2:19-22
Can we join our hearts once again and ask for the Lord to be with us during this time?
Our gracious Lord, we want to thank You again, Lord, for the wonderful opportunity to be gathered one more time at Your table, to remember You and to look forward to Your coming. We thank You that, as we come now to this time, in Your mercy You have placed in our hands a copy of Your written Word. How we thank You so much that we have it. We do not take it for granted, but we see it as a precious gift from You.
We thank You as well that today, as we open Your Word, we have the promise of Your Holy Spirit to be with us. He is the Spirit of truth, and He has come here to lead us into all truth. So today we want to open our hearts to Him, that He would take the written Word, breathe upon it, and cause it to become a fresh and living Word in each of our hearts.
Lord, we want to acknowledge that without You we can do absolutely nothing. So we cast ourselves upon You, and by faith we take our place of abiding in You, that You can have Your way in the ministry, the hearing, and the response to Your Word. We ask it in Your name. Amen.
In the verses we read from Exodus 25, I think often there is a problem that arises when we read certain portions of the Word of God. We are so self-centered, so egocentric, that we do not pick up what it is that God is saying.
Notice again verse 8 of Exodus 25:
“Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them.”
— Exodus 25:8
When we read it, we get it turned around. Because we are so focused on our own personal needs, we somehow overlook what is really being said by God.
Today, I want us to have some fellowship in the Word of God regarding this matter of God’s great, deep desire to be present with His people.
Look with me at Psalm 132. Beginning in verse 13, we read verses 13 and 14:
For the Lord has chosen Zion;
He has desired it for His habitation.
“This is My resting place forever;
Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.”— Psalm 132:13-14
To me, brothers and sisters, that is an interesting statement made by God. Consider the fact that God can have anything He wants, because He is God. Yet, as He looks upon this earth, there is a place that He desires—a very specific place.
It is a barren hill, in our estimation; but in His heart, it is a very special place. It is called Zion. Twice in these two verses, God says, “I have desired it.”
This ought to awaken something in our hearts. Above all the needs that we have—and we have many of them—God has a desire. If we simply took a few moments today to share with one another some of the deep needs in our lives, there simply would not be enough time.
Sometimes those needs come crowding into our lives in such a way that we do not pay attention to what it is that God desires. When God said, “I have desired Zion. This is My resting place. This is where I want to come and have a habitation for Myself,” He was revealing His own heart.
The first thing we see is that God has a passion. He has a deep desire for something. His desire is that He might be among His people; that there may be a place where God Himself can make His presence real, and where His people can come into that presence and enjoy unhindered fellowship with Him.
Now look with me back to Genesis, to the very beginning, to see how God began to reveal His heart in this way. Genesis 3, beginning in verse 7.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”— Genesis 3:7-9
We do not have all the details we would like concerning what actually occurred, but here we have the record that after God created the man and the woman, created a garden, and placed them in the garden, God faithfully came to meet with them. He made His presence real to them every day in the cool of the day.
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why God would take such action? Why would He even be concerned? When He created man, man was perfect in the sense that there were no imperfections in him. He was not everything God wanted him to become, but he was perfect.
Why was God not satisfied simply to create the man and the woman, place them in the garden, let them do their job, and then go on about His own business? Because there was something deeper in His heart that He desired.
In the man and the woman, God saw a potential for satisfaction in His own heart that could be satisfied in no other way: that He Himself would provide a way whereby God and man could be in full fellowship with one another.
I think all of us, to one degree or another, could give testimony to the blessedness we experience when we come into God’s presence. But have we ever stopped to think what it does to the Father’s heart when He is able to provide a means whereby we can come into His presence?
To illustrate how this has become a real problem, remember Luke 15. The Lord Jesus tells a parable in three parts. He tells of a shepherd who lost a sheep, a woman who lost a coin, and a father who had lost two sons.
We usually think about the one son, and traditionally we have referred to this portion of Scripture as the parable of the prodigal son. Why do you suppose, as human beings, we would put such a title on this parable? Because we are focused on ourselves.
We can easily identify with the prodigal son who spent all of his inheritance, got in a big mess, and then wanted to come back home to his father. We can all identify with that.
But, brothers and sisters, it seems to me that if we carefully read what our Lord is saying, we see where the rejoicing took place. It was in heaven. There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents. It brought joy to the Father’s heart.
When we tell the story of the prodigal son coming back home, most of the focus is usually placed on the son’s return. But, brothers and sisters, in my own estimation, we need to retitle this parable: the parable of the brokenhearted father whose son returned.
When the older son complained, what did the father say? “We had to rejoice.” There was no other alternative. “We had to rejoice because my son who was lost has come back home. You cannot understand what it has done to my own heart.”
The father had another son who stayed there, but who was a prodigal in his own way. Even though he was at home, the father did not have the opportunity to have the kind of fellowship with him that he desired.
From the very beginning, with Adam and Eve, what was in God’s heart was to provide a means whereby man could come into God’s presence and know His presence in a living and wonderful way.
Look with me again at Exodus, this time in chapter 40. In chapter 25, as God gave instructions to Moses to build the tabernacle, He told him to do it exactly as God had said.
Is it not interesting that the Lord did not give Moses the freedom to decide how all this was going to be done? God gave specific details regarding the materials, the size, the shape—everything. Nothing was left to man. It was all of God’s design and God’s desire.
After everything was constructed and all the furniture was put in its proper place, we read in Exodus 40, beginning in verse 34:
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
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.— Exodus 40:34-35
Again, have you stopped to consider why this was such a big deal? God tells us in His Word that He is present with us all the time. Psalm 139 asks, “Where can I flee from Your presence?” No matter where we go, God is there.
God was with His people as they came out of Egypt. He opened the Red Sea and allowed them to go through on dry ground. But why would God instruct them to make a place where He could come and tabernacle among them?
It is an uncovering, an unveiling, of the heart of God. When everything was brought into its proper place, all the furniture arranged, the tabernacle constructed exactly as God wanted it, then the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Can you begin to imagine, even as mere mortals, some of the joys you experience in your life? What joy must have welled up in God’s heart? Here were two million former slaves, with whom He had made a covenant through their forefather Abraham. They were now out of bondage, wandering in the wilderness.
God was saying to them, “More important than getting you out of bondage, I want to be in your midst. I want to be present with you.”
It must have brought tremendous joy to God’s heart to have this little tent, a place where He could make His presence so very real.
It is still a dilemma to me how God can be present everywhere, yet present in a concentrated way in a particular place. But there is a way in which He takes His own presence and deposits it in a certain place.
There, where the two cherubim faced each other over the mercy seat, God told Moses, “There I will meet with you.” God took His presence and placed it right there.
How did they know that God was present there? There was an outward indication of God’s inward presence: a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
There is no way we can fully describe the benefit that the people of God derived from God’s presence with them. The cloud surely provided protection from the sun during the day, and the pillar of fire provided warmth at night. But was that the main reason God made His presence real? No, brothers and sisters. This is what He desired.
This is what He has wanted from the very beginning. The reason you were created, the reason I was created, the reason any human being was created, is that they could become a means whereby God could come and make His presence so very real in the midst of His people.
Look with me at 2 Chronicles 5. Let us begin in verse 11.
When the priests came forth from the holy place (for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves, without regard to divisions), and all the Levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and kinsmen, clothed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps and lyres, standing east of the altar, and with them one hundred and twenty priests blowing trumpets 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, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.
— 2 Chronicles 5:11-14
This describes what happened after the temple was completed. Previously, there had been a tabernacle, a portable means of providing God a place where He could make His presence real. But when they came into the city of Jerusalem, God placed it upon David’s heart to provide a permanent place where God could put His name and make His presence known.
Again, I get the sense, brothers and sisters, that God’s heart was tremendously blessed by this opportunity to come. His presence was so rich and so full that the priests could not perform their responsibilities.
This is another indication of how important this is to the Lord. There is no way for us to measure what it does for us, but let us not forget that God desires a place where He Himself can be present among His people.
Now notice the statement made in Matthew 1, verse 23:
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”
— Matthew 1:23
When we look at the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, we see God the Son incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth. But we also need to see that here, once again, God has been able to make His presence real among His people.
If you and I had lived during the time our Lord Jesus was here on earth, and had the opportunity to meet Him, I do not know that we would have been occupied with the thought that, finally, once again, God had found a place where He could be among His people.
As you read the Gospel accounts, have you ever asked why the Lord Jesus so often made His way to the little house in Bethany, where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived? Why did He not stay in Jerusalem with the religious leaders and the sophisticated people?
He came to His own, and His own received Him not. That is why.
Even when our Lord came here in physical form, it was another indication of the Lord’s great desire to be among His people. God with us—that is what it is.
Again, we have been so preoccupied with what we receive from that, that we sometimes overlook what God gained by His Son becoming a human being.
Then we find an amazing account in Acts 2.
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.— Acts 2:1-4
This is the one hundred and twenty who had waited in that upper room for ten days. Brothers and sisters, do you see what happened? God found a place of rest—this time composed of flesh-and-blood human beings, born again by the Spirit of God and being brought together, formed together, into a place where God could come and make His presence real.
Pentecost is a marvelous event. From our point of view, it brings very great benefit. The Lord Jesus spent John 14, 15, and 16 helping His disciples understand that when He was gone, He would send Another. He would not only be with them; He would be in them and among them. He would be Christ in the form of the Spirit.
But when we look at it from God’s vantage point, we see God providing for Himself an opportunity to come and deposit His presence. “Suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind.” It was almost as if God could not wait to get there.
There was an outward indication accompanying the coming of the presence of God into that place. It was different from what happened in the tabernacle and in the temple, but it speaks to the fact that God saw this wonderful opportunity, came, and made His presence real.
It impacted everybody who was in that place that day, then began to impact the whole city of Jerusalem, and then, as we know, history went on from there.
When we look at Revelation 21, someone has pointed out that if you want to know what God wanted in the beginning, you need to see what He gets in the end.
Ultimately, what God gains from all His work is found in Revelation 21:3:
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them.”
— Revelation 21:3
This is the ultimate outcome of all that God has done: all the creating He has done, all the creating of man, all the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ, and all the keeping work of the Spirit of God. It has this one objective: that God Himself would have a place where He could come and be among His people.
There will be nothing there to offend Him. He is wanted, He is invited, and He is there. God is satisfied.
What does this have to do with us? When we come back to Ephesians 2, we find that we are to be a dwelling place of God by the Spirit.
When we read the letter to the Ephesians, Paul faithfully sets before his readers the understanding he received by revelation concerning what the church is. We are not going into all those passages, but here in chapter 2 Paul points out that the church is to be a holy temple in the Lord, a dwelling place of God by the Spirit.
I know I have harped on this this morning, but I am going to harp on it again. When we think about the church, what do we think of? A place where we get our own needs met?
Most of our judgment regarding where we are going to meet with God’s people is determined by how we are helped by going there—not whether God is pleased to be there, whether we encounter God when we go, or whether we ourselves get what we are looking for.
But Paul points out that it is to be a dwelling place of God. It is God’s house, not ours.
How many times have you heard people say, “Our church,” or “My church”? It is not ours, brothers and sisters.
Suppose you went to all the effort to have a dream house constructed. You went to an architect, told him what you wanted, carefully drew up all the plans, went to the contractor, and finally had the house built. Then somebody else moved in and took over. How would you like that?
That is exactly what has happened in the house of God. We have occupied it for our needs when it is a reality for Him.
Certainly we need an experience of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other way into the house of God. But let us not ignore or overlook the fact that what God desires in His heart—the thing that will satisfy Him most—is that we would provide Him, on an ongoing and continuous basis, an opportunity to be among His people.
This is His passion. This is His desire. “I have desired it.”
We notice as well that God not only desires it, but He provides a way.
In my years as a Christian, I have never heard much ministry on this matter of the rent veil. I know there is much there that I need to gain in understanding. But the Scripture tells us that the veil was torn from top to bottom. It was not torn from bottom to top.
In other words, the desire to have this veil rent did not come from man. It came from God. Man could not have done it. Ever since Babel, men have tried to find a way to get to God, to find a place where they can be in God’s presence. But only God Himself can provide such a way.
When the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom, God acted sovereignly to provide a way. When we think about it, we think it means that we have a way in. But when God looked at it, He looked at it as a way out. He wanted to come out of that little cubicle and find a place among His people.
God was not satisfied merely for the high priest to come in once a year. That was not His heart. He was willing to settle for it, but that was not what He wanted.
Originally, in Exodus 19, God said, “I want you to be a kingdom of priests.” He wanted every one of the people who came out of Egypt to be a priest. They refused, and therefore God had to settle for the Levites. But it was never God’s heart, and it is not God’s heart today.
Because God desires to be among His people, He has rent the veil in two and made it possible for Him to come and make His presence real in and among His people. The provision has been made by Him, not by anything we have done. It is a declaration of His own heart’s desire—how much it means to Him to be among His people.
In the tabernacle and temple, God’s presence was limited, restricted, if you put it that way, to that place between the two cherubim facing one another. But that was not what God really wanted. He wanted to be among all His people.
The rending of the veil was an indication of something of great significance. The whole universe was affected by it. God was free.
To me, Pentecost could not have been a reality unless there had first been a rent veil. God could not come on the day of Pentecost if He still had to restrict Himself behind that veil. But now the veil has been rent, and God is free to come out and have a habitation among His people.
The writer of Hebrews points out that we have a new and living way. We need to be encouraged to take advantage of all that God has provided. But we also need to keep our focus: the primary concern is whether God has been provided an opportunity to be among His people, as He greatly desires to be.
Remember when the Lord Jesus was speaking with the woman at the well in John 4. He told her that the Samaritans worshiped on their mountain, while the Jews worshiped in Jerusalem. But an hour was coming when worship would be neither in that mountain nor in Jerusalem.
True worship would be in spirit and truth. In other words, God’s economy—the way He had done things previously—was being changed because God had provided a means whereby He could come and be among His people.
The opportunity for God to find a habitation has finally been accomplished. The hour has come. It is not merely coming; it has come.
It means that you and I need to provide God an opportunity to be among His people.
How can we do this? God has indicated very clearly how much He desires it. I think it is clear concerning the provision He made in rending the veil. But what responsibility do we have? What can we do as individuals and as an assembly of the Lord’s people to see that God finds among us an opportunity to make His presence real?
When we leave a meeting, for example, we ought to go away with a sense that we have actually been in the Lord’s presence, that the Lord has been able to make Himself real in a wonderful way.
It should never happen otherwise, brothers and sisters. We are talking about the ideal, and we do not have the liberty to lower God’s standard. We need to leave it where it is. This is what God desires. He is not satisfied, and we should not be satisfied either.
Unless, on a regular basis, God is free to come and make His presence real, there is a real problem.
I want to suggest some things from my own reading of the Scriptures that may be words of encouragement to us as we seek to provide God this opportunity. There is a pattern. Just as God gave Moses a pattern for the tabernacle, there are specific things that need to be done if God is consistently to make His presence real among His people.
I am sure there are many more things than those I will suggest, but perhaps these may help us begin to think along these lines.
The first thing I want to suggest is reverence for God Himself.
When God says that He is holy, it means there is absolutely nobody else in the universe like Him. As one theologian said, He is “wholly other.” He is so different from us.
Our temptation is to create God in our image. We take human characteristics and ascribe them to God. But that is not the way it is supposed to be. God created us in His image. The image has been greatly marred, but He has not finished the job yet.
Those whom He foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. When He has finished, the image of God will be imprinted upon our lives, and our character will reflect the character of God.
But we need reverence for God—a sense of the holiness of God. I think this may have slipped out through the cracks somehow.
We have allowed the things of God to become common. It is not that we necessarily do unholy things, but we allow things that are holy to God to become common.
Do you understand that there is a tremendous danger in gathering week after week after week at the table of the Lord? The danger is that it will become common. It will become something we do without even thinking about. We simply go through the motions.
I think it is a very serious issue that we keep this time holy. The Lord has said, “I have sanctified it. I have set it aside. I have made it holy. It is special to Me.” To treat it as common is very serious.
One of the first things we need to consider together is how we can show reverence to God Himself. Remember the prayer that our Lord Jesus taught us:
“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”
— Matthew 6:9
That prayer is so common that we may not stop to think about what we are praying. “Hallowed be Thy name.” We see You as a holy God, wholly other than we are—perfect in every sense of the word. There is no unrighteousness in You. You cannot do anything wrong. You are absolutely faithful, the perfect God. You are to be hallowed.
There is to be a deep reverence in our hearts for Him.
Look in Psalm 5, verse 7:
But as for me, by Thy abundant lovingkindness I will enter Thy house,
At Thy holy temple I will bow in reverence for Thee.— Psalm 5:7
Brothers and sisters, I do not know all the things that impact our lives, but there are many things in daily living that cause us to lose sight of those things that are holy, precious, important, and significant to the Lord Himself.
What I would like to suggest this morning is that we allow the Holy Spirit to take inventory in our lives and point out areas where, through attitude, heart condition, or action, we touch the things of God in such a way that we make them common.
If there is anything we need to protect, it is our time in the Lord’s presence. We do not need to make it common.
I do not know how you need to work that out for yourself; that is between you and the Lord. But we need to conduct ourselves properly, come with a right attitude, and have issues dealt with in our lives so that, when we come into the Lord’s presence, we come with a real sense of reverence and respect for Him.
The fear of the Lord is something we do not like to talk about. We like to talk about the love of the Lord, but what about this matter? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The fear of God does not mean that you fear Him in the sense of not wanting to be with Him. You fear Him because of your great respect for Him.
I remember a number of years ago when we were in a weekend meeting with Brother Stephen, and Brother Lance Lambert was there as well. We were trying to provide an opportunity for some brothers to receive help in learning how to minister the Word of God.
Certain brothers would get up and minister the Word, and then they would be critiqued. Prior to their opportunity, some of these men would shiver in their shoes. Their knees would begin to knock.
I remember Brother Stephen saying, “You know, sometimes we are more afraid of men than we are of God.”
It is true, brothers and sisters. Sometimes we are so fearful of what other people think, but have no regard for how God views things. We take liberties simply because He does not react in a violent way.
We barge into areas where angels fear to tread, just because we are His sons and because we assume that gives us liberty to do anything we want.
My son is here, so I want to be careful what I say. But when my boys were little—when they were perhaps eight and three, or whatever—one of the things we loved to do was get on the floor and wrestle.
It was not long into the wrestling match before they began to forget whom they were wrestling with.
Sometimes that is what we do with the Lord. Just because we are able to call Him Father does not give us liberty to do anything disrespectful toward Him.
We should never, ever, ever allow ourselves to forget that He is God. He may be our Father, but He is still God. We need to be careful how we respect Him.
Even in the things of God, I know this may seem petty and you may think I am picking at things, but, brothers and sisters, I am grieved at times when I see the way certain people handle their Bibles. Some have no problem throwing them on the floor. I cannot do that. I am sorry.
I do not understand how some people can do that, because this is something of such precious value. Do we understand what God has gone through to get this into our hands?
Just because there are many copies of it does not mean that you and I have the liberty to mistreat it. We need to show respect for it.
Anything having to do with the things of the Lord should never be treated in a common way. They are special. They are holy. They are sanctified. They are set aside for the Lord’s use. We do not have freedom to misuse them or use them in a common way.
Another way that we need to show reverence to God is by the place we give the Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:18 tells us that He might have first place in everything.
Brothers and sisters, God deeply evaluates our attitude toward His Son.
Again, I want to point out something we already know. We are so preoccupied with our own needs that even when we come to the Lord’s table, many of us are not free from the things that entrap us, the problems we are going through.
Can we take a break from all of that and spend at least fifteen or twenty minutes undisturbed at the Lord’s table? Let us be honest: do we not find it a real struggle?
In some meetings I have attended, I have seen this very clearly. It is hard for us to stay focused on the Lord for more than two or three minutes. We get dragged off in another direction.
My brothers and sisters, it is a discipline that I think the Holy Spirit would have us undergo. When the Lord Jesus Himself invites you and me to His table, we need to take that as the greatest honor that could be bestowed upon us.
Forget about politics for a moment, but suppose the President of the United States invited you for a meal. You may not like his politics or some things about him, but he holds an office of tremendous power. If he invited you to come and have a meal with him, you would recognize that as an honor.
If you multiply that honor by an immeasurable amount, the honor you and I have in coming to the Lord’s table is far greater. How could we ever treat it as something common?
We need to diligently guard ourselves so that we never allow that to happen. Just because we do it every week, the danger is there. The inherent danger is there.
In Ephesians 4, Paul tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Our direct contact with God the Father and God the Son is through the Holy Spirit.
We need always to be sensitive not to grieve Him, not to upset Him, not somehow to disturb His own heart. We do not need to do things or come with attitudes that grieve Him.
Most of what I am sharing this morning is in the context of our meetings, but, brothers and sisters, we are a dwelling place of God by the Spirit twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
When we come together, the Lord Jesus said that where two or three have gathered together in His name, He is in their midst. It is a special time. It is not that He is not with us at other times, but it is a special time.
The whole reason for our gathering is for Him to be there, so that He can impart something of Himself to us, give direction to our lives, and show us what it is that He desires.
When we are gathered around His table, that time is solely for Him. We do not ask for anything for ourselves at those times—only for Him. Even when we ask Him for something so that we can give it, it is only so we can give it to Him.
That takes great discipline. But if our desire is to show reverence to God and give the Lord Jesus first place in everything, I guarantee that the Holy Spirit will rush to our aid to assist us in doing that.
The second thing, in addition to showing reverence, is that we need to be cleansed, clothed, and anointed.
We will not take the time, because as usual there is not enough time, but in Exodus 29:1-7 instructions are given as to what was to be done with the priests.
This whole matter of us being priests is another issue, but it is one to which we need to give serious thought. Through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have been constituted priests.
According to 1 Peter 2, we are a holy priesthood and a royal priesthood. Through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, every believer, upon becoming a believer, is also a priest.
It is our responsibility as priests to know the presence of the Lord, to know how to enter the presence of the Lord, and to provide an opportunity for the Lord to make Himself fully present. It is our responsibility.
In Exodus 29, the instruction was that first they needed to be washed, then clothed, and then anointed.
Brothers and sisters, we need to be cleansed. Sometimes what prevents us from giving the Lord an opportunity among us is our own heart condition.
The writer of Hebrews speaks of the blood of Jesus Christ cleansing our hearts from an evil conscience. If God is holy and we have unholy actions, there will be a barrier, just as there was with Adam and Eve.
When they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, nobody needed to tell them something was wrong. They knew it inwardly. They knew they were naked.
Before that, they were not conscious of themselves at all. But suddenly they became conscious of themselves. This is what happens when sin, disobedience, and rebellion begin to have power in our lives, and we do nothing about it.
It causes us to stay farther and farther away from the Lord, and it does not provide the opportunity that the Lord desires.
You have heard the story, I am sure, of the little boy who lived next door to a man with whom he was very friendly. One day, he drove a baseball through his neighbor’s window. After that, he hid himself from his neighbor.
The neighbor knew who had done it, but because of his guilt the boy could not remain in relationship with that man. The same is true with us.
In order to enter in and provide God an opportunity, we need to know the preciousness of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was the high priest who took the blood of a spotless lamb once a year into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it upon the mercy seat, so that God could have a continuous place of abiding among His people and sin would not cause Him to withdraw His presence.
We need to know, perhaps for some of us in a fresh way, the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ.
It is almost impossible for us to apprehend and receive that God can now look upon every person in this room who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ as if they had never committed a sin at all.
That is what it means to be declared righteous. It is not merely that your sins are forgiven. It is as if you had never sinned.
We need to understand this concerning the blood, and we need to be clothed in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord giving us His life enables us to live the kind of life that He considers right. Unless our righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
On a daily basis, we need to discover in a full way the indwelling life of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that when He is living His life through us, the life we are living is a righteous life.
We come providing God this opportunity, clothed in the Lord Jesus Christ—clothed in Him as our righteousness. Not that He gives up His righteousness, but that He Himself becomes our righteousness.
This provides the way. The Lord does not want a bunch of nervous people when He is present. He wants us to enjoy Him. In His presence is fullness of joy.
He does not want us nervous or cowering in a corner somewhere. He wants us to be free to be who we are in His Son. That is why we need to be clothed in this righteousness.
Then we need to be anointed. Hebrews speaks of a new and living way—a fresh way.
One danger we face when we meet meeting after meeting is that we learn how to do it, and then we do it the same way all the time. If it worked once, we assume it must be right for every time.
I am amazed sometimes that, as the Lord’s people, we do not give the Holy Spirit freedom. It is almost as if we do not trust Him to come up with something fresh. We are convinced that the way we have found must be absolutely God’s way, and so we will go that way every time.
We are creatures of habit. It is hard for us to move away from habits.
Some of us are critical, including myself, of going into a meeting and receiving a piece of paper that says, “Sing this song, sing this song, pray this prayer, receive the offering,” and so on. I am critical of that, but we can do the same thing without the piece of paper.
We can become just as fixed in our routine without having a written order of service.
When we have the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon us, please do not think for a moment that being under the influence of the Holy Spirit means that we can have a free-for-all.
God is a God of order. We are told in 1 Corinthians 14 to do all things decently and in order.
It does not mean that, because the Holy Spirit is upon us, we have freedom for a free-for-all. It is not a matter of me being able to do what I want to do. It is a matter of God’s Holy Spirit being able to lead us in such a way that we are providing an opportunity for God to make His presence real.
There must be nothing going on among us to offend Him. Have you ever been in a meeting where you sensed the Lord’s presence, but then something happened and you no longer sensed His presence?
We need to stand up and take notice of these things. We need to ask—not merely ourselves, but the Lord—“What are we doing wrong?”
We need to know this anointing of the Holy Spirit upon our lives.
Two more things, and then I will close. If we are going to provide the Lord a consistent place where He can make His presence real, we need to come as prepared people.
Let us be honest with each other and with ourselves. Most Sunday mornings, we come running in here by the seat of our pants, having had no time—at least no time we thought we had—with the Lord in preparation for the meeting.
You may have had an argument with your wife on the way to the meeting, or perhaps the children threw a fit. By the time you get to the meeting, you are not in any shape to have a meeting. You want it over in a hurry so you can go home.
But, brothers and sisters, if we come with these kinds of attitudes, how do you think this affects the Lord being able to make His presence real?
Suppose you invited a very good friend to come and spend time at your house. When he arrived, you and your wife were arguing, the children were having a fit, and you never paid attention to the guest you invited. You just ignored him and continued in your bad attitude.
Do you suppose that person would feel that he wanted to be there? Or do you think he might like to go back home where he came from?
I know that is a human illustration, but I wonder sometimes whether this is not the kind of thing the Lord faces. Our attitudes may be in such a condition that we are unprepared to provide God a place where He can make His presence real.
He desires it, but we need to provide Him the opportunity.
In 1 Corinthians 14:26, Paul says, “What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has…” Where did you get what you have? Hopefully, you got it before you came.
God is merciful. Sometimes you show up without anything, and God in His mercy gives you something. But what a different atmosphere, what a different heart attitude, and what the Holy Spirit would have available if every one of us came to our meetings with something for the Lord.
If we are faithful to stay before the Lord, the Holy Spirit will be faithful to give us something—a hymn, a song, whatever it may be—that will contribute to a place where God Himself can make His presence real.
So we need to come as prepared people.
The final thing is that we need to be harmonized. We mentioned this verse earlier in Matthew 18: where two or three have gathered together into His name, there He is in the midst.
In the previous verse, the Lord Jesus says that where two or three agree on earth concerning anything, it shall be done. This is not primarily a matter of agreeing with one another. That is secondary. The primary agreement is agreement with Him.
What if you went into a household to which you had been invited, and it reeked with disunity and disharmony? You would not want to be there. You know the uneasy feeling of having to be around people who are out of sorts with one another.
But remember what David said in Psalm 133:
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
It is like the precious oil upon the head,
Coming down upon the beard,
Even Aaron’s beard,
Coming down upon the edge of his robes.
It is like the dew of Hermon
Coming down upon the mountains of Zion;
For there the Lord commanded the blessing—life forever.— Psalm 133:1-3
Again, do you see it, brothers and sisters? God has a great desire to be among His people. But if there is not oneness, unity, and the preserving of the unity of the Spirit, then it will offend God, and God will not be comfortable among us.
It is not that God is supersensitive, as though His feelings are easily hurt. But we, as God’s people, can provide a place where He simply is not comfortable among us.
When we are not in oneness with one another and in oneness with our Lord Jesus Christ, it creates that kind of atmosphere.
I want to conclude by going back to Psalm 132 and reading the first portion of the psalm. We have already read the portion that speaks about God’s desire. Let us begin in verse 1 and read through verse 5.
Remember, O Lord, on David’s behalf,
All his affliction;
How he swore to the Lord
And vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob,
“Surely I will not enter my house,
Nor lie on my bed;
I will not give sleep to my eyes
Or slumber to my eyelids,
Until I find a place for the Lord,
A dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.”— Psalm 132:1-5
Do you understand now why God said of David, “He is a man after My own heart”? David understood how much God desired to be among His people, and he was willing to pay whatever price God required of him.
If you go to 1 Chronicles 29, you will find a description of how David gave generously from his resources so that God could have a dwelling place for Himself.
If I were to sum up what I feel in my heart concerning this, it is that you and I, as God’s redeemed people, need to find our own individual way—and then, corporately, find a way—in which we provide God an opportunity to make His presence real among us.
We need to be willing to pay whatever price He may require of us.
Father, this morning it continues to be a mystery in my own heart why being among Your people is so important to You.
Lord, when we look at all these different verses—and these are only a few—it becomes very, very clear how valuable this is to You and how important it is to Your own heart.
Lord, we ask You today to take these feeble words and use them to speak into our hearts something that will alert us to this great desire that You have.
Lord, would You continue to open our eyes to see what has been provided, so that this can be a reality among us?
Lord, we want to be those who know what is required of us. Through the working of Your Spirit, help us discover the attitudes, the actions, the preparation, the harmony with one another, and the other matters that will always provide You a place where You can be among Your people.
We ask it in Your name. Amen.