You might want to read a few more verses, and then I’ll get into both of those.
I’m sorry—see, I’m not an hour now. I’m sorry.
Turn to 2 Chronicles 6.
This is Solomon’s prayer as he has built the temple. You know, when he built the temple and they were dedicating the temple, the Shekinah glory of the Lord came and filled the temple. This is what he has to say about it.
I’ll start in verse 17.
And now, O Lord, the God of Israel, let Thy word be verified, which Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant David.
But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?
Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this house which I have built!
And then in Hebrews, chapter 2.
Hebrews 2:10:
For it became Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory.
And then in Ephesians, chapter 1, starting with verse 15. Paul says:
Wherefore I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which ye show toward all the saints,
cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him;
having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
and what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might
which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places,
far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come;
and He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
Now, you’ll notice that in these verses there is an idea, first in Solomon’s verse, that God is so great. How can this one building contain Him?
It is the same thing for us: God is so great that He cannot just be kept in just me. He is beyond me. He is greater than I am. I am finite; He is infinite.
He needs more than just me to reveal His totality to the earth. Yes, He uses me as an individual, and other people may touch Christ and catch glimpses of Him. But He needs more than me. So that is fullness.
Then, looking in Hebrews, we see that it is God’s desire that many sons be brought to glory—many sons be brought to the completion of what He has begun in them. Not just one, not just a generation even, not just a generation in the twentieth century even, but many sons from all generations, in all times, and all times yet to come.
And then here in Ephesians, you’ll notice these little words: “the glory of His inheritance in the saints,” plural; “toward us who believe.” There is an idea of plurality there.
Does that negate the singular? No, because it takes the singular to make the plural.
Now, I like arithmetic, because I can understand this. I don’t like math, but I like arithmetic, right? I know that if you add certain things up together, you have those single numbers, and together they make a greater number. But it is the singular that makes the plural.
Now, how can we illustrate these things without trying to say, “Hey, all this individual stuff, that’s not the real issue”? Because really, to begin with, it is.
So I want to take the life of Joseph for a few moments. The story of Joseph in the Old Testament is found in Genesis 37, then chapters 39 through 41—and actually, you can go all the way to the end of Genesis.
You skip Genesis 38. It is not about Joseph, but it does have something about another person’s heart that brings about something that happens to Joseph. Then chapter 39 and on.
In looking at Joseph, the first thing we want to consider is this: it says about Joseph that he was loved by his father.
Brothers and sisters, if you do not get anything out of what we are talking about this week, know this: you are loved by God.
That is the springboard of everything. That is the solid rock on which you stand.
You know, I heard a brother pray last night, “I want to do this, but I’m such a bad guy.”
Well, you know, yeah, that is probably true. You probably are a bad guy. But the thing is, it does not make any difference to God, because He loves you.
Brother Jose last night talked about God’s right to you because He loves you, and because of what Christ has done, He has a right to you. And you come to Him on His right, because He has made it for you.
Brother, I hope you can see that. I hope you get hold of that, so you can get out of that place and see that you stand in Christ.
Now, the next thing about Joseph—and we know that probably the best thing about Joseph is that he had a dream. He had a couple of dreams. I think it was because he ate too soon before he went to bed, but he had these dreams.
These were not just dreams. These were God speaking to him about Himself.
Well, Joseph first of all thought it was about himself—that God had a purpose for him.
Joseph went and told his brothers, “Brothers, I’ve had a dream. I’m a butterfly, and you’re all caterpillars. Isn’t that great?”
They said, “You’re full of stuff. And we hate you, precious thing. Dude, you’re nothing but a caterpillar like us.” No kidding.
Then he had another dream. It was the same kind of thing: “I’m a butterfly, and even Mom and Dad are caterpillars.”
But the thing was, that thing that he saw—brothers and sisters, if we can see what the Lord has purposed for us—so we have Christ in us, Christ in you, the hope of glory. If that can get hold of us, He is able to complete that work.
That is what Joseph saw. Yeah, he had that vision. He had that sight of something happening there.
So what happened next? His brothers got ahold of him. They roughed him up first and threw him in a ditch. They wanted to kill him, but they got talked out of it because they were good economics majors, you know. They sold him away and got a nice profit out of it.
Joseph went down to Egypt, and here the vision got tested.
This is where we find that he had to submit to something else. He had to submit to that vision. He had to submit to the God of that vision.
Brothers and sisters, what you are going to find is this: you get the spiritual vision up here, and you have the Lord speak to you up here. It is well and good. Then you are going to get home, and you are going to tell people about it, and they are going to look at you and say, “Hey, you’re just a caterpillar like us. Get off the high horse. Come on back down.”
All of a sudden, you find yourself stuck in Egypt. Now here is where it is all tested in regular life.
What happens? The vision kind of fades. You know, like a television: you turn off the television, or you turn off the computer, and the tube kind of… You know, there is still a little light there, but it is not specific.
Or there is just a little bit of that light that sticks in you, and you hold on to it. When you start to think, “You know, it’s not—it’s not—I’ve got to hold on. God has this purpose. I’ve got to hold on to it. I don’t see it happening. I see everything around me opposite, contrary to me, but He told me this.”
And you hold on to it.
Then what happens is, as he goes through this, he goes to Potiphar’s house. He starts to look at himself and says, “I don’t see the butterfly.”
He bemoans himself as that little caterpillar that he is, with the butterfly locked inside. But the thing is, even though he is saying, “I see this caterpillar, this caterpillar,” the Lord is starting to bless.
He is starting to grow. What is happening is that skin starts to crack, and that part lifts up, and he has this new skin. He continues to eat and be what caterpillars do.
He is at his job. He is at his school. He is just being what he is, or what he thinks he is. He looks at himself on the outside and says, “God, I’m a caterpillar,” but on the inside there is that butterfly life.
There are just glimpses of that butterfly life actually working in him. So he goes to Potiphar’s house and works there. All of a sudden, they recognize, “There is something different about this guy.”
He rises up to this place in Potiphar’s house, and then, because of the workings of the enemy, there are temptations to sin. But he stands, and he runs from it. Because of that, he is falsely accused.
Now he winds up in prison. It was worse than being a slave. I mean, you think being a slave is worse, but now he goes to prison.
Those prisons are not the ones Martha Stewart was in, where you can go around and bake cookies and do these little goodies. You know, tennis courts and all that.
Prisons in those days, I mean, they were dark places. You threw them in there. In some places, they did not even feed you. If your family was around, they could see you. There was no kind of system that said, “We take care of the prisoners.” You got yourself there.
So he is down in prison, and he goes back to being just a caterpillar. Again, we find out that even though he is a caterpillar, there is that little bit of life working in him. It continues to grow, and pretty soon we find him at the top of the prison.
The guards are saying, “Oh, there is something about this guy. There is something in him that allows him, no matter how bad the circumstance, to just keep rising to the top.”
You know, have you ever had one of those things, like those little noodles you take in the swimming pool? You ever try to stand on them? Or better yet, one of those beach balls. You ever try to sit on one and keep it underwater?
It has a way of finding out, because it is round. You cannot sit on it; it squirts out, okay? That is the life in us. The life that God is putting in us cannot be held down. It is going to get out.
So he goes into prison, and that life is rising up. Even though he sees only the caterpillar, that life is rising up. Other people are noticing, “There is something. You cannot keep this guy down. What is the matter with this guy? There is something about him.”
Then he gets there with the baker and the cupbearer, and they have these dreams. He discerns them, but he does not say, “Hey, I could do this.” He says, “The Lord can do this.”
The Lord gives him the interpretations of these dreams, and they come to pass. He says to the one, “Please remember me before Pharaoh.” The guy says, “Yeah, okay.”
And two years later, he remembers. Joseph is thinking, “Oh, this is my chance,” and he is back nowhere.
Then finally, he comes up before Pharaoh. We see him coming to this place where I would call it that life really gets hold of him and gets on the upper side again.
Remember, we were talking about wrestling. All of a sudden, we find he is not down under anymore, but he is on top.
Now, I have heard it in very big spiritual words: that life in him has ascendancy. It comes to the top. But sometimes I think that word ascendancy is just too spiritual for us.
So let us just bring it down: what happens is, the life in him starts to win. It starts to get the upper hand.
Because of it, it leads him to be in a place where he is serving Pharaoh—not just serving in the prison, not just serving here, but actually serving the lord of all Egypt.
Now, you would think, “Oh, this is the great thing. He has come to the end of that dream.” Not—not yet.
You would think, “Yeah, he is there.” But, you know, it says his brothers have to bow down. And I am thinking about those brothers.
Starting in Genesis 42, the brothers come back and something happens with Joseph. In a way, I think he could put things behind him and say, “Okay, I’ve been able to forget this and forget that.” But all of a sudden something else comes up—something of the Lord’s working in him.
When he finally reveals himself to his brothers—this is in Exodus, I think, chapter—no, Genesis. Just seeing if you are awake. I’m not saying that you are awake.
In Genesis 45:4, it says:
And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years, in which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest.
And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance.
My brothers and sisters, this is the transition. There we come from the singular to the plural.
You know, in the very beginning, when we get saved, we are like children. It is all about me.
You know, there is that worship song: “I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about You, it’s all about You.”
Well, when I first heard that, I did not know it was a Christian song. I was still doing garage sales with my wife, and they were playing it. I thought it was just a love song. I thought it was this guy who had been breaking up with this person, and the reason was, “It’s all about you. It’s all about you.”
Or I once got a birthday card for a friend. You know, there are these birthday cards that have some really kind of erudite, snobby guy with glasses. The front of the card says, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.” And on the inside: “It’s always about you, isn’t it?”
Okay, you can only give that to a close friend.
But the thing is, as we are here, getting things from the Lord, we want things for us. There is nothing wrong with that, because that is where we start. We start with us.
Even when God called to make His people, when He called out a person to make a people, He started with a person. He started with Abraham. He always starts with an individual.
But then the individual turns into a nation.
So here we have Joseph. At the very beginning, he goes down to Egypt and it is all about him: “Where is my dream? You said You would do this for me.”
As these things are happening, God begins to show him something else. He begins to serve at home, because he gets to serve at work. The Lord, the Holy Spirit, is moving, and he starts to see that it is not just about him.
You look at these things in Joseph’s life, and you see that he goes as a slave to Potiphar. I think if I had been there, I would have moped around. Somebody would have said, “Oh, this stinks. I’m not doing anything. You’re going to have to whip me before I do something.”
But Joseph just goes down there and starts to serve whoever is ahead of him. He does that, and we start finding out that he becomes interested in others.
In other words, he starts to see that the Lord has interest in others besides himself. So he says, “Okay, Lord, I will serve this. This is why I am serving You.”
That is one of the exhortations Paul gives in Ephesians and Colossians: slaves are to serve, serving the Lord, not what is seen. There are certain rewards.
So he serves Potiphar, he serves the jailer, and he serves Pharaoh because he serves the Lord’s interest in others.
Then something happens. He gets to the place where he sees it is not just the Lord’s interest in others, but actually, “Lord, I want my life to serve Your interest, Your own desire.”
In other words, it is not what I can get out of serving people. Pretty soon it becomes, “Lord, what do You want? I want to give You the reason.”
A whole big change.
You know, think of this: he could have lived in Egypt the rest of his life and been very prosperous. But toward the end of his life, one of the things he says is, “Don’t leave me here. This is not my home. My heart is not here.”
We think of serving God in this world. This world is going to pass away. It is going to be gone. This world is temporal.
I think what we have to get a glimpse of is that we are not about temporal things anymore; we are about eternal things. The temporal things pass away. The eternal things last.
Joseph gets a glimpse of that, and all of a sudden he sees that it is not just an individual thing—that God has some other ideas in mind.
He sees that there is a greater work, and he becomes aware of it. This is what I believe he begins to see in Ephesians 2.
Ephesians 2:19 says:
So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,
being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief cornerstone;
in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord;
in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
Once we start walking with the Lord, and the Lord starts bringing us out of ourselves, we begin to see there are other people who are just the same. There are other people who have a vision of God for His completed work in them.
We start to notice them, and all of a sudden the Lord says, “You do not have to live apart. Go join with them. Go and join with them, because when you guys get together, I have a bigger house. I have a bigger place to live. I can be more of who I am.”
All of a sudden, we need to see that there are other butterflies in training. We notice that there is that butterfly life in them, and we are able to look beyond the caterpillar.
Because caterpillars are really ugly things. Some of them are hairy; some have those bumps. You watch them on those PBS things, and they do those zoom-in shots. Oh, man, they are ugly.
But the thing is, there is a butterfly. Being able to look beyond the caterpillar and see the butterfly, and say, “Man, there is a butterfly in you. Let’s get together.”
Then in 1 Peter 2, verse 4:
Coming unto Him, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious,
ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Then further on in 1 Peter 2:9, it says:
But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light;
who in time past were no people, but now are the people of God: who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
Have you noticed the plural there? Living stones.
Living stones. You know, He said to Peter, “You are Cephas. You are a stone.” You are a stone; you are one of many. And on this rock I will build.
Little stones built on this bedrock of Christ, being built up together. It takes more than one stone to make a house. Otherwise, it is just a carved-out tomb.
Think about that. It is a carved tomb. But a house—a tomb is for dead things; a house is for living.
So what happens is, we are built together. We are put next to each other because of what we have inside us. The more stones there are, the more glory there is. The more Christ there is, the more you can see of that.
Pretty soon, what is happening is the caterpillar is being rubbed off. The cocoon is being made. The cocoon is all the time working. Death is working in as the life comes out of us.
But it is not just by ourselves. It is with others.
Then finally, in Matthew 5, in the Sermon on the Mount, it says He called His disciples to Him—again, plural, He called His disciples to Him.
In Matthew 5:14, it says:
Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.
A city. A city has lots of people.
It is really interesting to think about. One person can be hidden pretty well, but how do you hide a city?
One of the cities probably known as Sin City, Las Vegas, has all those lights in it. But when you are driving in the desert, you know when you are getting close to Las Vegas. You just see all this light.
“What’s that?” I mean, even when you are riding in an airplane, you can tell when you are getting close to the city. There is just all this light. You cannot hide it.
In World War II, they had to hide the cities from being bombed, so they would say, “You have to turn out the lights. You have to cover up the lights.”
But brothers and sisters, the light in us cannot be hidden. We can try to hold it down, but it is going to pop out. It is going to ascend. It is going to come through.
That is why the Lord says, “It is not just you. It is not all about you. I am in you, and I want this to come out.”
Now, the work is not finished. The work God is doing in us is not going to be finished until there is the transition from the singular to the plural.
He is not just in there to bring us as individuals. He is in there to bring many sons to glory—many of us coming here.
Now, this really rubs our nature, because we, as Americans—I do not care if you are Canadian or from the United States—we are individualists. That is our nature.
But the Lord says, “This nature I put into you, and you are not going to be complete until you are hooked up to that.”
You know, I hate those sayings in love movies: “Oh, you complete me.” What a bunch of foolishness.
But I will tell you this: our experience of the Lord will not be complete until we are joined with loving brothers and sisters on that same path.
Let me just show you why this is so. Just kind of the last few minutes. I told them, “Forty-five minutes, man.”
In Hebrews 11, starting with verse 8, it says:
By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
Brothers and sisters, that is a good picture. When we become Christians, we go out not knowing where we are going, but we go out as an individual.
Abraham went out. But now watch this.
By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.
Isn’t it interesting that it does not just stop with Abraham? Sometimes I think we want that experience that Enoch walked with God and God took him. That is it. But that is not God’s plan for us.
God’s plan for us is that we go out not knowing where we are going, and all of a sudden we find ourselves dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob.
Then listen:
For he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
He saw something, and he said, “You know, with these brothers and sisters, God wants to do something. I do not see the whole complete thing, but I know He wants to do something.”
Here is the crux of the matter, right here, verse 13:
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar.
Now, brothers and sisters, yesterday we talked about seeing the finished work for our life—being assured that the Lord who began that work was able to finish it in us, and He would do it in Christ Jesus.
There is the assurance that God is going to finish what He starts. But at the same time, there is an embracing of it. There is a seeing of what God wants to do in my life and taking it into my heart, embracing it, and not letting go.
Because listen to what happens in that embracing:
And having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own.
And if indeed they had been mindful of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.
But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city.
In other words, they caught a glimpse of something that made them say, “I do not even want to look back at that.”
Sometimes I think, “I wish God would burn the bridges behind me.” I wonder if Abraham would have thought like this: if God had said, “Okay, Abraham, I am going to make sure you do not turn back. Once you get twenty miles outside of Ur, look back.”
And he looks back, and God nukes it. “Now you cannot go back. Sorry, now you are stuck with Me.” But He does not do that.
Instead, He shows you something so wonderful that you cannot go back.
There is a little hymn on this:
Make me a captive, Lord,
And then I shall be free;
Force me to render up my sword,
And I shall conqueror be.
Oh, brothers and sisters, that is what it is. It is not in the doing life that we are going to get what we want. It is the dynamic of a heart captured by what we see in Him.
Then, having that vision like Joseph, all of a sudden having that vision transformed, it is not only a singular vision, but a vision that includes all kinds of people—to see the most part of it built into it and then taking place.
Brothers and sisters, that is what God wants.
I want to say once again: it starts with the individual. Do not think, “Oh, wow, now you are talking about this.” No, it starts with the individual.
And He will draw you to a place where you can see Him dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob. But it starts with Abraham.
My brothers and sisters, let us just look to the Lord and ask Him to bring us into this, and take us on until we see the whole thing. That is great.
Lord God, You are so great. And I do not mean great in the sense that You just do great things, but You are so big. How can I behold all that You are?
Lord, I want all of You. I want all that You really are in me. I want You coming in and leading me and being my resident.
But Lord, I also want what is in these brothers and sisters. I want that Christ that is in them, because apart from it, Lord, I know I am not complete.
Lord, open my eyes to see my need for them. But also, Lord, we are all in something that You are doing that is much greater than what we could ever imagine.
Lord, I do not ask for an understanding of this. I just ask to be brought in. I just want to be a part of it. And I pray this for all my brothers and sisters.
Oh, Lord, impart that to them which cannot be lost. Not only cannot be lost, but which takes hold of them.
May they have the resiliency as they go through Egypt, as they serve in Potiphar’s house, and as they suffer in the jail. Even if they are exalted before Pharaoh, may it not let them go, saying, “Oh, it is enough that I am the ruler of the folks here.”
But may they be caught up in saying, “No, no, no, no. It is not this, Lord. It is what You mean. It is what You desire for Yourself.”
Oh, Lord, that is what we want to do. Thank You that we can be caught up with what You want for us, but Lord, take us further. Do not let us just stay in that one place.
Bring us there to begin with. Give us that start, Lord. Bring us. We entrust ourselves to You for that. Jesus.