Good afternoon, brothers and sisters. Thank you for the invitation to come and fellowship together with you in these days.
We want to begin this afternoon by reading the whole first chapter of Ephesians.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ,
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love.
He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us.
In all wisdom and insight, He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him,
with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times: that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, Who works all things after the counsel of His will,
to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.
In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed—you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,
Who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints,
do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling,
what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.
These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ,
when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenlies,
far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as Head over all things to the church,
which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Our Lord, we come to Thee this afternoon. Many of us have hidden this first chapter of Ephesians in our hearts. We have heard these words many times before.
But we come to a God Who can make all things new, even make His Word live to us. We do pray that Your Spirit would work upon all of our hearts and open us to the dimensions and the reality of these things of which we speak.
We place ourselves in Your hands this afternoon and pray in the precious name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We have just read a tremendous passage. Bible scholars tell us that there are three great mountain peaks of revelation that the Apostle Paul gives us throughout his epistles. This is one of these great mountain peaks.
Perhaps this chapter has just become words to us. But Paul is an apostle laying the foundation upon which the church is to be built. As an apostle, he has been made a steward of the mysteries of God.
He comes to us in his mature years, after a fruitful number of years as an apostle traveling from place to place. But now he is a prisoner of the Lord. Yet in the fellowship of His sufferings, he has come to know more and more about this Lord.
The Lord has given him the liberty to write this letter, unveiling this mountain peak of God’s eternal purpose in the summing up of all things in Christ.
Now we stand this afternoon at the foothills of this mountain. Before we try to climb it, I want to ask the question: Have you ever been on that mountain?
I see many young people here. I do not know whether your parents brought you or whether you wanted to come. I do not know, but I am trusting that God is making you and calling you to be a servant of His.
My dear young servant, have you ever stood on this mountain?
Now, right away we have a problem, because this generation of young people is the most clever that has ever been created. Perhaps they have never heard of God’s eternal purpose as Mount Eternal Purpose. But if they had heard of this before, they would have immediately gone to their computer and Googled it.
And not just Google—Google Earth. Google Earth is a wonderful invention. We can stop all of our space program, because now we can just see everything from Google Earth.
Now many of our clever young people have already Googled God’s eternal purpose. They have heard of it. But have you ever been on that mountain?
Now we have some who have been servants for a while. Have you ever been on the mountain? Perhaps you have come this weekend because you want to hear from somebody who has been on the mountain, but you have not been there yourself.
But this is not New Covenant; this is Old Covenant. The children of Israel told Moses, “Moses, you go up on the mountain and tell us what God says.”
But in this dispensation, God calls His servants up upon the mountain themselves. Have you been on the mountain?
Maybe you are a servant and you believe your wife has been on the mountain, but you have not. Or maybe you feel your father has been to the mountain, but you have not. But we come before God as servants.
We have been reading Ephesians 1 for years. Can we steward the mysteries revealed?
I began with a confession. When I was saved, I was in college. I was not as fervent as our brother Stephen, who went to a map and pointed to Mongolia. But within one year of my conversion, I felt God calling me into the ministry.
At that time, I was in a conventional, traditional church. Upon completion of college, I went to seminary and studied for four years in this matter of ministry.
When I graduated, I became a pastor, and I preached the gospel. But I have to confess to you something.
If you had asked me, “Where is this phrase ‘eternal purpose’ in the Bible?” I could not have told you. I had studied at seminary for four years, but I had never even heard of this mountain: eternal purpose.
So, needless to say, I never climbed it. If somebody had asked me, “What is God’s eternal purpose?” I would have thought, and probably said, “He wants to save the world.”
Now, I hope you are merciful to young servants if this is their answer, because I wanted to be faithful to God and preach the gospel to all sinners. Yet I had never seen the mountain.
We have a problem as we speak upon this thing, because Paul is unfolding this mystery before us from a high vantage point. He is not speaking of this mountaintop as one who is standing at the bottom, but he is unveiling this great and glorious fullness as one who is upon the mountain.
As Paul has been meditating upon the greatness of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, he added a word to the Christian vocabulary to describe this vantage point. This word is the heavenlies.
You will not find that word anywhere else in the Scriptures. He is saying that our right as believers is to sit with Christ in the heavenlies.
Now, he is not talking about heaven. He is not talking about a place. He is talking about a spiritual vantage point from which things can clearly be seen.
Are you seated with Christ in the heavenlies? Unless this is our position, we cannot possibly see this mountain.
My brother, whom I have known for years, first came over here and helped translate for me thirty years ago. He reminds me that he was thin at that time, and now he has come to a fullness.
My brother comes from Seattle. If you visit Seattle, it is the most amazing thing when you see Mount Rainier. But, as they say, it is Seattle’s greatest secret. For most of the days of the year, you cannot see the mountain, though you are living in the foothills.
On a clear day, when you see Mount Rainier, your vision is consumed with this mountain. It is a beautiful, snow-capped volcano. I have flown over it on an airplane.
But most people in Seattle live under this wonderful mountain and do not even see it.
Are we servants who have been living in the foothills of this great and glorious mountain of God’s eternal purpose in summing up all things in Christ? When did you first hear of this mountain?
Have you heard the testimony of those who have gone before as pioneers and climbed the mountain? Brothers and sisters, you can tell if somebody has been to the mountain.
Moses radiated a certain glory as he had been on the mountaintop. Moses himself could not see this radiance, but everybody else could.
We may be clever and able to talk about this mountain. We might even revere this mountain. We may even be able to spell out its various levels and doctrines. But if you have climbed upon that mountain, you will be changed.
It is a strange reality as we face this Christ. Sometimes, when we see something that large, our words cannot even explain what we have seen. Often, when we have just seen a little bit, we can explain things with a lot of words.
But the question we will stand before one day, as servants of God, is: Have you been on the mountain?
Do you sense in the foothills that there are many servants who are just running around in the wilderness with no seeming direction? We have to admit they are busy. But have they seen the mountain?
Paul prays for the Ephesians. He can describe this mountain. He can unveil it to the best of his ability. But after having given the best account he could of this great mountain, he resorts to prayer.
He says, “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and of your love for all the saints.” These are wonderful Christians. They were built upon a good foundation.
As you remember from Acts 19, these saints were built in a time of great spiritual conflict. They were rooted and grounded in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they came to bear testimony as a church that they had first love.
Now there are many Christians today who have faith and who love the saints. Yet there are degrees of knowing that we find in the Christian faith.
If you want to turn to Job 42, there is a conclusion that Job speaks as he sees the living God. For me, it is an illustration of these two levels of seeing and knowing.
Job says to the Lord:
I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear;
but now mine eye seeth Thee.
He says, “Now mine eye sees.” I recant all of my questions. I take back all of my accusations. Now that I see You, my life is not built upon my questions. I see You. That is my answer.
Many Christians have heard Him with the hearing of the ear. We know that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.
I was saved because I heard the gospel and believed. Then, as a young Christian, I heard the Lord speak to me in the Word of God and tried to obey Him.
Our brothers and sisters in Ephesus had also heard of Him with the hearing of the ear. They had believed, and they loved the saints. But Paul was not satisfied.
He wanted them to ascend and to see the mountain that stood before them.
We as Christians have a twofold problem, and the two go together as one. The Christ we see is too small, and as a result, the calling that we fulfill is too small.
Paul says, “I have heard of your faith, and now I am praying to the God of glory.” Only the God of glory can reveal the Christ of glory.
“I am praying that He might give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Christ.”
In English, this passage is translated in one of two ways. Sometimes spirit is capitalized as representing the Holy Spirit, and sometimes it is left in lowercase as representing the human spirit.
In the end, either interpretation is fine, because only the Holy Spirit can reveal the Son of God to us, and the place that we receive revelation is in our human spirit.
But it seems in the context that Paul is talking about the human spirit. When we are born again, we are born of the Spirit, and our spirit comes alive to God. We begin to hear Him speak. Our conscience becomes sensitive to right and wrong.
It is this spirit that can receive revelation. Now there is a question: we as Christians can develop the capacity of this spirit.
We develop our minds by studying, but we are also to exercise our spirit. How developed is your human spirit? Does it have the capacity to be a spirit that can receive revelation and spiritual wisdom?
This is not automatic. It has to be developed. You come before the Lord, perhaps even with His Word, and you say, “I hear with the hearing of the ear. Oh, Lord, show me the reality.”
By His grace, the God of glory will begin to grant spiritual revelation to your spirit.
We know that the Holy Spirit has been given to us to reveal the things of Christ. But Christians can be lazy about this matter of spiritual development.
Having heard the Lord and having understood the Word with the mind, the clever Christian can think that is enough. But Paul is showing us that there are some things you can never know with your mind unless the Spirit reveals something to you.
Paul is praying for the Ephesians for this higher ground. My friend and servant of God, it is absolutely essential that we develop this capacity in our spirit to understand these things of God.
We gather together at this season of the end of an age, where people’s minds are quick and sharp, but impatient.
Today we want a sound bite, a tweet. I have heard some people say, “I do not want to talk to those people. I will just check it.” Unwittingly, we treat the Lord the same way.
“Lord, do not give me this matter of spiritual wisdom and revelation. Just give me the tweet.”
We are losing—losing—the art of meditation.
Many times, when the Lord takes His servant and shows him something of the mountain, it involves their retirement from employment and service altogether in order to be acclimated to the greatness of the revelation.
This seeing of the mountain involves the reconstituting of everything in our lives. If you climb the mountain, you will never forget about it.
But if you climbed the mountain in the past, you can be obedient or disobedient to the heavenly vision. There are servants of God today who seem to have seen something in the past, but they are in the worst possible spiritual condition because they have compromised that vision.
Now I ask you the question: Do you want to go up on that mountain and see things as Paul relates them, together in the heavenly places in Christ?
Let us take a look at this mountain. Words cannot express what can be seen from the mountain.
The first thing of which we are aware is that, from Paul’s vantage point, he can see from glory to glory. From this vantage point, he can see that God has chosen us before the foundation of the world.
As he says here in Ephesians 1, he sees the fullness of time in the glory. This is a true prophetic spirit.
We only see a few times in Paul’s history that he actually predicted some things as the typical Old Testament prophet. But when we sit together with Christ in the heavenlies, we see the true nature of spiritual prophecy.
From this vantage point, as he sees all things being summed up in Christ, all history makes sense beforehand. He sees everything that is taking place as part of this summing-up process, this integration of all things into Christ.
As an example, we remember in 2 Corinthians 2 that a door for service opened up to Paul while he was in Troas. But he was so bothered in his spirit about the condition of Corinth that he was waiting for Titus to come back to him and report.
He said, “I had to stop this gospel crusade because I was so stirred up about you, Corinth.” Now, from the world’s perspective, this was a failure. He failed as a servant because he stopped something that God was doing.
But from the heavenlies: “Thanks be unto God, Who always leads us in triumph.”
If you are a servant of God, you have failed the Lord at times. But can you ever stop praising God for His great mercy and wisdom—that He even uses our failures and our unprofitability in this gathering-up process of all things being brought to Christ?
What a wise and merciful God.
Now Paul is up in these heavenlies, and he looks down. What does he see? “God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
From the perspective of earth, many of these blessings you would think are problems. Paul was in prison. We know from Philippians that there were those preaching out of ambition and envy. There were problems with this church and that church, and many concerns upon Paul’s heart.
But as he gathered himself together with Christ in the heavenlies, what did he see? These were all working together for the good of this great summing-up purpose.
And so all is a blessing. When he was weak, he found he was strong. When he was insufficient, he found the Lord’s grace sufficient. How can you complain in the heavenlies?
You can never murmur and complain in the heavenlies, because not only do you see that God has blessed you with life itself, even with trouble, but during those times of trouble the Lord begins to show you His ultimate plan.
Look at this plan that Paul unveils before us. Paul is unveiling something that has to do with God’s final purpose.
As Paul looked over history, there were so many mysteries about what God was intending to do. But as he began to watch God unfold these mysteries, he saw the greatest mystery of mysteries: God’s mystery, Christ Himself, in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom.
The four Gospels tell us of this unveiling of the mystery of Who Christ is. It all has to do with glory.
When Jesus came down and was born in the flesh, it was unveiled what God was like. Jesus manifested the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
You could have asked any one of those devout Jews, “What is God like?” They never would have told you, “Oh, He is full of grace.”
But because Jesus came and died on the cross, something was revealed forevermore regarding Who God is: God is love.
Now you look at Jesus, and you know what God is like. Do not tell me God is mean. Do not tell me God does not love you. Jesus proved the testimony of God. God Himself is full of grace and truth.
Paul continued sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. The gospel shares this basic revelation of God. But now Paul brings us to the mountaintop here in the book of Ephesians, and he says, “Look. Look at Christ. Look what He is.”
Christ is much larger than we thought He was. He is more than just a Savior and a Friend.
Paul revealed that He was the Creator of everything. Who would have thought that? But God revealed and unveiled this through Paul.
God continued to unveil great things through the Apostle Paul. Since Jesus died on the cross, He has shown us the Father’s glory.
Jesus said, “While I was here on earth, I glorified Thee, Father.” And now He says, “Now, Father, glorify Thou Me.”
God the Father has been glorified, revealing just Who His Son is.
God highly exalted Him, and gave Him a name above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth,
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
To His disciples, Jesus said, “Let Me tell you about My Father.” Now, to the believer, the Father says, “Let Me show you My Son.”
How large is He? How great is His power? “I want you to see the exceeding greatness of His power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him on high above every principality and power.”
How great is the Son of God. Paul begins to unveil this fullness, this greatness of Christ.
Right now, in the end days, God is revealing the final part of His plan. The final part of His plan is that He is summing all things up in Christ.
This is a glorifying process. There are two mountain peaks in these two letters of Ephesians and Colossians, and they show us two different aspects of glory.
Right now there is a process going on: integrating glory. All things are being brought and summed up in Christ. Why?
The whole Law and the Prophets are being summed up in Christ. Jesus’ saving, finished work is so powerful.
Do you know what it has done? It has taken all creation and all of terrible human history, and the Lord Jesus is reversing the whole thing.
Sin had brought the world into corruption, and man into continual alienation and dissipation, one from another. We were even enemies of God.
But now Christ’s salvation is turning everything around. This whole old race of Adam, so fractured and fragmented, is now being reconstituted in Christ.
What is this glorifying process right now? It is said in two words: in Christ.
You cannot read the book of Ephesians without being very impressed with how often Paul says, “in Him.” What a tremendous mountain is being built. All things are being gathered into Him.
This integrating process reminds us of what happened with the tabernacle. There was an integrating process.
The furnishings were placed in the tabernacle. The oil was placed in the lamp. The bread was placed on the table.
When the tabernacle was filled with all things, the glory of God came down and filled the place. Glory only has one measurement: oneness.
All things are being gathered now into Christ. Very soon, when all things are in order, the glory of God will come down and fill this whole earth. What a tremendous process.
Do you see this mountain?
When Paul speaks about this mountain of all things being summed up in Christ, what is he talking about? He is talking about Christ.
Wait a minute. He is talking about more than just a Person. He is talking about something so wonderful, because part of this summing up has to do with the church.
In the heavenlies, when you see the greatness of the summing up in Christ, you see yourself in it.
That is why Paul says, “I want you to see by revelation.” You and I have a calling that goes from glory to glory. “I want you to know what is the hope of His calling.”
If you had asked me two weeks after I was saved, “What is your calling?” I had the answer: “He called me to be saved.”
Then, a year later, I said, “Oh, I know what my calling is. He has called me to the ministry.” Now, did He call me? Yes, and He has also called you. But I still had not seen.
He has called me into something from glory to glory. This is a high calling. It involves your whole life.
You are being changed from glory to glory as you are being summed up in Christ.
Servants of God, this is one of the keys of seeing who has been on the mountain: your calling changes.
Once it was the blessing; now it is the Lord. Once it was my ministry; now it is His.
When a servant has seen the mountain, he sees himself on the mountain. Of course, it is incredible. How can you see yourself in a glorious mountain? We are all so inglorious. We are all such sinners and so prone to the flesh.
But when you see the mountain, you see yourself. That is your destiny. Your destiny is glory.
We stand around down in the foothills, and we ask many questions: How will the bride ever be ready? How will the church ever come to union? How will sons ever come to glory?
Behind all these big theological questions, what we are really asking is, “How is the Lord going to change me?”
Then you see the mountain, and there you are—part of the bride, loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
He says, “The church, which is His fullness.” He fills all in all. That is the second part of the glory: the radiating glory, where He fills all things.
But if the Lord is just a mighty mountain—King of kings and Lord of lords—if all things are summed up in Him, things in the heavens and things on the earth, but He has no bride to satisfy His heart, then He is not full.
Now that is our part in the picture. Are you a lover of Jesus Christ? Are you there to fulfill His every need?
What miserable servants we are. We have so many complaints and so many weaknesses. Yet every morning since we have been saved, our Lord waits for us in our heart.
“Will you talk to Me today? Will you fulfill My heart today?”
When God created Adam and Eve, He was not really looking for some gardeners. He was looking for bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh—to talk to him, to love him, and to find their fullness in him.
We are not complete except in Christ, and He is not complete except with us.
This Christ was enthroned above everything. What does it say specifically? He has been lifted up to the heavenly places.
And now we are seated together with Him in the heavenly places. Who is seated with Him?
The old missionaries we have been praying for years? Do you think just the old servants of God, who can hardly walk anymore, must be in the heavenly places?
No. This is the right for all of us to be seated together with Christ in the heavenlies.
Do you feel yourself being gathered together into Christ? Sometimes it even seems against your will, and yet something within is drawn to the Lord to be gathered.
The whole letter to the Ephesians is just spelling out what this means to be gathered into Him.
Let us look at a few verses. I just want to wake up some of the younger servants here. Let us look at Ephesians 2.
You know you were a sinner, but you were quickened in Christ. You were raised up with Christ, and you were seated in the heavenlies.
We are seated with Christ. But when we see the very next phrase, in Ephesians 2:7, it is remarkable. Now we have an eternal vocation.
How many of you are servants of God and are ready to retire? I am sorry, your retirement papers are not accepted. You have an eternal vocation.
That in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
You have been gathered into Christ, gathered up in the heavenlies. There, together, this church is a trophy of His grace.
They will say, “Oh, look at the grace of God.” God has such grace. Multiply it by you. There we are, trophies of grace. The grace of Jesus saved all these sinners and turned them into holy ones.
What is your eternal vocation? A gospel song says, “When the angels see us, they will fold their wings. They have never seen such grace before.”
But look at Ephesians 3. We see here in verses 10 and 11:
So that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies,
in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul says, “Look at the way we are being gathered up.” The wisdom of God knows just how to gather us into Christ.
Why are we gathered? We have an eternal vocation: to show forth the many-sided wisdom of God in the church to the principalities and powers.
We are a testimony to all around of the love and wisdom of God’s choice.
Even though you and I feel that we are just sinners, God has a special wisdom in gathering you and saving you for His Son.
What is your life? What is your calling? “I just want to be the fullness of the Lord Jesus.”
There is so much more we could say about His gathering us up into a mature man, into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ in Ephesians 4.
In Ephesians 5 and Ephesians 6, He is gathering up our marriages. He is gathering up our families. He is gathering up our relationships—all summed up in Christ.
In Ephesians 6, He is taking the enemy and making him a footstool under the feet of the Lord Jesus.
This is what happens as a result of our spiritual warfare, as we put on the whole armor. This is a gathering-up process that has been in the heart of God and is now being revealed in these last days.
This is something that, when we see it, takes up our whole life. So I come back to my original question: Have you been to the mountain?
I want to finish with two Scriptures. The first is found in the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 12. It is a very pointed exhortation.
There were those accusing the Lord Jesus of having a power given by Beelzebub. Those saying this were standing right before their Messiah, and they did not see Who He was.
Even though these Pharisees thought they were serving God, they were actually working in opposition to the gathering process under the Lord Jesus.
He says, in Matthew 12:30:
He who is not with Me is against Me;
and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
Brothers and sisters, are you with Him? Are you a scatterer, or are you gathering all things under Christ?
There are many servants of God, and they know not what they do. They cause division. They scatter the sheep. They are not in coordination with God’s gathering process.
A servant of God who has seen something of the Lord with spiritual eyes is no longer under self-coordination, but under coordination from the Spirit of God.
We do many foolish things, perhaps even things that can hurt the saints. But may the Lord know our hearts—that we are gatherers and not scatterers.
Many servants, for the sake of their own little kingdom, are willing to scatter and divide the church. Those who take such a line, we know, have never been on the mountain.
But, on the other hand, we want to finish with this Scripture in Colossians 1:24. Paul makes a statement here as he is in the heavenlies, viewing this glorious Christ.
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.
If we are those who have truly seen the glorious Christ, and if we are before the Lord in order not to be disobedient to the heavenly calling, then we know the road to glory involves suffering.
Now, servant of God, our Lord loves you, and He will meet all your needs. But if you fill up that which is lacking of the church, today you might not become rich.
You certainly will not succeed in the way you would if you were just out for yourself.
If you see the glorious Christ and you are a steward of these mysteries before the assembly, then you will suffer, because the assembly does not want to go the way of the cross.
They say, “Give us some positive thinking. Tell us how to be a successful businessman.” But if you hold the church to the standard of Christ, and if you allow only that which is of Christ among us, then we will suffer.
But Paul, standing before his Christ, says, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.”
Now you know Paul has been to the mountain, because he is there in jail for the sake of the saints. He could have gotten out, but he lived his life in jail for the sake of the saints.
In order to stand for the spiritual liberty of the children of God, he was continually pursued by the Judaizers and those who opposed him. Paul did not have to suffer that.
He could have said, “Okay, all Christians should be circumcised,” and he would have been fine. One little point, and he would not have been in jail. But he could not do it.
Paul suffered much on our behalf. But we know that in the fellowship of His sufferings, he saw the greatness of the mountain.
There is a largeness that comes to us when we have seen such a vision.
I do not have time to share my own story. But I will just say that I was a pastor, a minister, in a large assembly—a good-sized group.
But then one day I saw the greatness of Christ. To make a long story short, I resigned from the ministry, and I went to fellowship in a house group.
They were small in number, but they had a largeness.
When I was in the larger gathering before, it was something large, but we were very small. Do you understand what I am saying?
It is not a matter of the size of the assembly. It is a matter of the vision that expands.
In these few days while we are together here, we will stand before this great mountain as servants of God.
Teenagers, young people, college students, I do not know what your vocation, your job, your schooling, or your preparation is. But I know your eternal vocation.
Get on that mountain.
In these last days, we need servants of God on that mountain—those who can speak as those who see from that mountain, not as those who have merely heard with the hearing of the ear.
Young people, it is your decision. You are not going to ride up the mountain in the back seat of your father’s car. It is yours to see. Your life bears the consequence.
For any servants of God who are here, who have been up on the mountain but have lost the song in their heart: sometimes somebody will say to me, “You know, eternal purpose—it is just words. Christ all in all—it is just words.”
Then I know they have never seen. Those cannot be just words.
We here, who have heard more of God’s eternal purpose than probably any other gathering of saints, are in need of repentance if these have become just words.
We are talking vision. We are talking about seeing a life-changing Lord.
Repent of the words. Repent of the traditions. Scale the mountain. It never gets old. Just scale up. You never want to leave the mountain.
May the Lord be merciful.
Our Father, we come to You, and we thank You that You have unveiled to us the mountain of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, Lord, that we might find servants willing to scale the mountain. Lord, develop our capacity to see, and give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him.
May we see Christ in glory, and may we see ourselves in that summing work.
Oh, Lord, help us to take our place faithfully as Your servants. We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus.