Sisters, let’s turn to some Scriptures this morning, beginning with Isaiah 56.
Also the sons of the foreigner
Who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him,
And to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants—
Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath,
And holds fast My covenant—
Even them I will bring to My holy mountain,
And make them joyful in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
Will be accepted on My altar;
For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.
Let us turn also to Luke 11.
Now it came to pass, as Jesus was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
So He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us day by day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”
Let us go back a couple of Gospels to Matthew 6. It is the same prayer, but Matthew adds something in Matthew 6:13.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
I would also like to read one verse in Matthew 16:18, which we are very familiar with. This is after Peter’s great confession.
And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank You this morning for such a great entrance into Your presence. Just the idea of redemption, and how personally it comes to each of us—how personally it was from You, and how personally You extended the invitation to us.
Lord, how can we not thank You and praise You and tell You how much it means to us that You love us the way You do, that You would come out to us personally and show us and call us to Yourself? Lord, we do want to tell You how much that means to us and how we love You because You love us.
And now, Lord, as we come to Your Word and talk about Your house, we cannot talk about Your house in a way that does it justice. Nor do we want to try to make Your house something that it is not. But, Lord, all we want is this: You have a desire. We just want You to make Your desire known to us. Use Your Word to do that.
We pray that You would speak to our hearts. We pray that You would go beyond our intellect, beyond merely giving us notes and things that we can say about this or that. Really speak to our hearts and draw us into Your house.
Lord, we feel that this is Your will: to draw us into Your house. So, Lord, that is what we are asking You to do. Take Your Word and break it to us in this way, that we can see Your desire and hear Your voice. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Okay, as all good teachers do, we review, right? And I got the green light to review. The review will be very brief.
Last week we talked about the house of God—what the house of God is. There were about eight things that we mentioned.
First, from Jacob’s dream, we saw that it is where heaven and earth are joined: the house of God, where heaven joins earth.
We also saw that the house is where God can dwell with man. It is where God communes. By “communes,” I mean that He lets His heart be known. He lets His mind be known. It is not a ritual or ceremony; it is the way that He is able to express Himself to us. This is where He does it.
It is where God can rest with man. What I mean by rest, again, is that because of what Christ has done, He can now sit down. He has finished everything that He had to do in redeeming man as far as forgiving sins. All that is done. He can rest now with man, and man can rest with Him, because there is nothing man needs to do other than enjoy the presence of God, now that he has been redeemed by the blood of Christ.
We also said it is where the purpose and will of God are revealed, so that He can send out His servants. When He reveals His will and purpose to them, they can go out and accomplish those things.
It is a place where God puts His name, or takes ownership, and that ownership is reflected in the servants of His house. We talked about the servants of Solomon when the Queen of Sheba visited.
We also said that it is where God is loved. God is not loved in the world, but He is loved in His house. Just like your family—that is where you are loved. If you are not loved anywhere else, you know you can go home. At least your mother will love you; your father will love you; maybe your brothers and sisters.
Finally, we talked about where two or three are gathered in His name. That is where the house of God is. I just want us to remember that, just because we have some name or placard somewhere that says, “We meet in Jesus Christ’s name,” that is not necessarily meeting in His name.
I used the example of the six young men who met because they were trying to find out what the will of God was for their lives. They came to find out His will because they wanted God to be Lord of their lives, and they wanted to do His will—not just know His will, but do it as well.
When people come to meet for those purposes, you will find that is where the house of God is, where His presence is. When people come like that, He wants to reveal Himself in those ways. That is what we summarized last week.
We also said that some of us need to see, or be shown, this house for the first time. We may know the teaching of it and things of that nature, but we really need to see it for ourselves for the first time.
When we see the house for the first time, it is different from merely listening about it. It is different from just reading a book about it, because we see the actuality. We see it in flesh and blood. That is a big difference. It is then, when that revelation comes, that our hearts are captured.
Some of us also need to come back to the vision that we first saw, because life has hit us in a way that we have gotten away from the house of God. We have come to say, “Hey, I’ll have my own Christian life and forget about everything else. I’ll do the things that Christians are supposed to do, and that will be it.”
“I’ll go to a meeting. I’ll read my Bible. I’ll have my devotional time. I’ll do all those things. But as far as the house of God is concerned, and what God really desires in saving me, I’ll have to see that when I go to heaven.”
That is really what we talked about last week.
Now, this week, you noticed that I used these verses, and a lot of them were about being a house of prayer. I am not going to talk about prayer. That is a shock, huh? I gave you all these verses about prayer, and I am not going to talk about prayer.
I mean, I am not going to tell you how to pray, what to do, or things like that. Only to say this: when we look at the house of God, what does it mean that He wants it to be a house of prayer?
I want to look at it this way: Why do you pray?
That is a question you can answer. So that God can have His will done. Because we want to talk with God; we want to commune with God.
You know when I pray the most? When I am desperate. When I have to have something, to be honest with you. When I really need something, that is when I really pray.
I am not saying that the other times are fake praying, but you know what I mean. I mean when I really have to find the Lord and say, “I need You. I need You in this situation.”
Prayer tells us that we are dependent on Someone greater than ourselves. And that is what the house of God is: it is a place where the people who live in it depend on Someone greater than themselves.
That is what God is looking for. He is looking for a people who look to Him, who do not look to themselves to do things, but look to Him. They are dependent on Him.
I also wanted to talk about why I included that last verse, Matthew 16:18. It is because this house is very strong. I want you to see that it is strong. You have this bunch of dependent people, but a bunch of dependent people is strong—not in themselves.
The other thing I want us to get out of this is to see how God draws us into this house. It is not simply that we read something about it or hear a sermon about it and say, “Well, I want to be in the house of God.” God is trying to draw us into this house.
Why did He give Jacob this dream? Was it just to show him a dream and say, “Oh, this is what I am all about”? No. He was trying to draw Jacob into something greater than just something about himself. That is what we want to see here. This is what His house is about.
We are talking about the house of God again, but it is like my oldest daughter. Both my daughters were art majors; they graduated with art degrees. Not that I wanted them to graduate with art degrees, because it is hard to get a job with an art degree, and people with art degrees know that.
But something my oldest daughter, Katie, said has really stuck with me, and I use it in my classroom all the time. We were talking about her being in art, and she said, “Dad, I am really glad I was an art major.”
I said, “Oh, well, tell me about it.”
She said, “Because it made me look at things differently. An artist does not look at one thing from just one angle. An artist looks at all different angles and sees things in different ways.”
I thought, “Man, that is really profound.” She did not get it from me. You know, I had to be profound.
When I teach history, that is why we look at primary documents: because we see an event from different angles, and we understand it. Well, this is just a different way, a different angle, of looking at God’s house.
We cannot look at it from only one angle, because it is bigger than one angle. It is like a diamond. A diamond is many-faceted. Why does it give off so much light? Because it has all these different angles that reflect the light.
It is the same with the house of God. It is big. We cannot define it and put it in a box. But we can look at it in some ways, and that is what we want to do. Today we want to look at what the house of God is through this angle: a house of prayer, prayer being that of dependent people.
We want to see its strength, and also see that, in all this building, God is trying to draw us into it.
Any building starts with a foundation, right? You cannot build a building if you do not have a foundation.
A few weeks ago, Kenny gave a word on the house of God. He brought his engineer hat and everything. I think some people—maybe some of the kids—wanted to wear that hat afterward. But, you know, it would mess my hair.
All buildings start with a foundation. I know very little about foundations, but I worked as a carpenter for about nine months. My job was to nail those forms together every day—eight hours a day. You see those trenches there? It was dirty work. That is why I am a teacher today.
I kid you not. If I had started out framing, I would still be in California—suntan, beautiful. But now I am pasty-skinned and I am a teacher, because that is what I had.
Foundations are very, very important because you cannot build a house without a foundation. You can go home and check out your foundation. Some of you might find cracks in it and discover that you need to repair your foundation.
Kenny talked about this, and he used the same verse here. When we talk about the foundation of the house that God is building, we know this from 1 Corinthians 3:11:
For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
That is a textbook quote, isn’t it? But the question always is: What does that mean? What does it mean that Jesus Christ is our foundation?
It is good theology. It is in the Bible. But some of us read that and say, “Well, I do not know what it means,” so we gloss over it.
When we look at a foundation, some of us think that only the part where the house is actually going to be built is the foundation. You put down the mudsill and then the frame, and it all goes up on that. But if you are really building a house, the foundation starts before that.
Before they even pour the slab, you have to have something that will hold the form. That is why they call them forms. Then you put rebar in there so there is strength in the foundation, so the cement does not break up easily.
When we look at the foundation and want to understand what it means that the foundation of the house is Jesus Christ, we have to look at it this way: we are founded in who He is as a Person and in His work. That is what we are founded on—exclusively.
Notice I said exclusively. We are founded only on Jesus Christ and His work—who He is and what He has done. That gives form to the slab. It holds it together and gives it shape and form.
First, when we talk about the Person of Jesus Christ, we are talking about His deity. Notice I did not say merely that He is the Son of God. He is God the Son. He is deity. He is God become flesh.
When we see Jesus Christ, we see God. We see His nature—not His physical presence, but who God is in His character and nature.
If you read the Gospels, you see this. Everything that Jesus Christ does, everything that Jesus Christ says, everyone He touches—that is a picture of what God would do, because He is God. He is deity. Our faith is based on that: He is deity. He is not just a man.
But He is a man. He has a human side, and His humanity came through the virgin birth. He is the Son of Man.
A lot of times you will have thrown at you the idea that “virgin” can mean anything. But when you look at the Scriptures and Mary says, “How can this be, when I have never known a man?” Scripture tells us. It is not that she was merely a young maiden; she was a pure virgin.
When we talk about the Son of Man, He was perfect and sinless. What I mean by perfect and sinless is this: He was not born of Adam. There was no Adam in Him, so to speak—no sinful nature.
He was born without a sinful nature. He was born as man was meant to be born, without sin—just like Adam was: perfect, virgin-born, sinless, without that sin nature; man as he was meant to be.
Then He was blameless. That sinlessness in Him was tried, just as Adam’s was tried in the garden. Adam was sinless, and he was tempted and fell. Jesus Christ was tempted also.
Hebrews tells us that He was tempted just as we are in every way, yet without sin. In other words, not only was He sinless, without the Adamic nature, but in living out the life that He had, He did not sin.
God saw Him as blameless. If you read Matthew 3:17, where He is baptized in the Jordan, and then Matthew 17:5 at the Transfiguration, you see God speaking:
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
He was pleased with Him because He was sinless. He was without sin. “I am well pleased.” Not just pleased—well pleased. There was nothing between the Father and the Son, no sin by which He could say, “I am disappointed with Him.”
Man also testified of His blamelessness. Pilate said three times in John 18:38, John 19:4, and John 19:6, when the people were looking to condemn Jesus:
I find no fault in this Man.
If you read books about Jesus, you do not find anyone who can find fault with Him. Even before man, He was blameless. Our faith is based on this Person.
This is the Person. This is the form. Without this, the value and shape of the rest does not matter. But this gives it shape, form, and strength.
Beyond this, we see the work of Jesus Christ. What is the work of Jesus Christ? First of all, He was crucified for us.
1 John 4 speaks of Christ as the propitiation for our sins. In other words, He was the One who took our sins upon Himself and took our sins away. Our sins were judged in Him.
A lot of times this is where we stop. We think the work of Jesus Christ ends at the cross. Or we might say, “Oh, He was raised from the dead,” and think that it ends there. But that is only looking at it partially.
The work of Jesus Christ goes beyond the cross and the resurrection, because the next thing we see is that Christ ascended into heaven. Now He is out of our view, but does that mean His work is done?
His work on the cross, as far as propitiation for sin, is done. Hebrews 1 says that when He had purged our sins, He sat down. That work is done.
But what work is He doing now? Hebrews 7:25 says that He ever lives to make intercession for us.
This is His continued work: He ever lives to make intercession for us. Sometimes we do not know how we got through something. It is because Christ is interceding for us, even now.
It is a wonderful picture. We kind of put Jesus out of mind after His death and resurrection. When He ascended, He is out of sight and out of mind. But we need to remember that a valuable part of His ministry to us even today is His prayers for us, that we make it through.
Just as He prayed for Peter:
Peter, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.
That is what Christ is doing for us now. He does not necessarily pray us out of situations; He prays us through them. That is a wonderful thing we have in our Savior, Jesus Christ, and that is part of our foundation.
I am not alone. Even if there is no one here who will help me out, there is One at the throne who will.
There is that wonderful hymn by Charles Wesley, “Arise, My Soul, Arise,” where it says:
Five bleeding wounds He bears,
Received on Calvary;
They pour effectual prayers,
They strongly plead for me:
“Forgive him, O forgive,” they cry,
“Nor let that ransomed sinner die.”
It is a wonderful hymn. Read it. I think it is number 230 or something like that, but do not trust me on that. Look it up in the index.
This is the work of Jesus Christ.
Now that we have the foundation settled, I want to take the Lord’s Prayer. I did not call it the disciples’ prayer; I call it the Lord’s Prayer because He taught it.
I want to go backward through it, because we want to see, number one, the strength of this house, and, number two, how God draws us into this house.
The back side of the prayer starts with forgiveness:
Forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
Even when God appeared to Jacob in Genesis 28, Jacob had just left his house. Why? Was it because God had given him the blessing? Was it because God had given him the birthright? Why was he leaving home? Why was he running for his life?
He had tricked people. He had deceived people. God was going to give him something, and he went about getting it the wrong way. He went about getting it by deceit. Could we call that sin?
Jacob had sinned, and he was on his own. His parents sent him away because they knew his brother Esau was going to kill him. Isaac knew that these things were meant for Jacob, but Esau did not, and he was going to kill him.
Jacob was running away. He was being driven away because of his sinful nature. His sinful nature had to have things in the way that he thought they could be obtained.
Isn’t it interesting that, in this very state Jacob was in, God appeared to him in Genesis 28? You would think, God being who He is, why would He go and appear to someone like Jacob?
Because the nature of God is love. Because God had a purpose in Jacob seeing the house of God.
When He appeared to Jacob, He confirmed everything. He said, “You are right, Jacob. The birthright is meant for you. The blessing is meant for you. And we will get some of that nature out of you. Do not worry about that.”
How can God, who is holy, do this and accept such a person? It is because He saw Jacob in Jesus Christ.
Remember, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, was slain before the foundation of the world. In the counsels of God beforehand, He had already seen His Son slain, and He could look at Jacob in Christ just as He looks at us in Christ.
In John 10:7, Jesus says:
I am the door.
When God begins His building, after He lays His foundation as a wise master builder, He builds a door first. That is weird, isn’t it? He puts in a door because He wants people in the house. He puts in a way to get in. That is the first thing He does after He lays the foundation.
What is that way in? We can say it is Jesus Christ, but I want to use another verse to show that: Hosea 2:15.
Hosea is a wonderful prophecy if you have not read it in a while, because it is about the whole love of God. It is about a people who have been adulterous toward God, who have left God and said, “We found someone more beautiful, and we like them better. Our love for You has grown cold.”
It is about God going out to bring them back to Himself. It is a wonderful picture.
In Hosea 2, He is talking about Israel. He says, “I am going to allure her to Myself. I have got to allure her back to Me.”
Then in Hosea 2:15, as He talks about taking care of her sins and bringing her back to Himself, He says:
I will give her the Valley of Achor as a door of hope.
That is a picture of a door, right? What is the Valley of Achor?
When the children of Israel came into the Promised Land, they came into Jericho and had a great victory. Then they went against the city of Ai, and they were defeated. They wondered, “What is the matter?”
They found out that someone had taken something that they were not supposed to take, something that was under the ban. It was a man named Achan. When they found out it was Achan, Achan had to be judged for his sin. They took him out and stoned him and his family.
There they left a pillar of rocks in the Valley of Achor. What is this a picture of?
In Joshua, it is a picture that, once Achan had that sin judged, the people could go on with God’s blessing again. What is it a picture of for us? It is a picture that our sins have been judged.
We come through that door, which is Christ. Our sins are judged. We are forgiven because they are judged. We are not forgiven for any other reason.
Yes, we say it is the work of Christ, but what was happening in the work of Christ? When Jesus was on the cross, God was judging the sins of the world. His wrath was being poured out in judgment on Christ.
That is why the death of Christ is so powerful to us: our sins have been judged. They are beneath that pile of rocks, and that pile of rocks shows us that the judgment has already occurred. We are free from judgment.
That is what this door is for us. It opens up the way of forgiveness. It is a wonderful picture, like the prodigal son.
But the judgment of Achan—the judgment of our sins—is more than a door. It is also an anchor bolt.
This work of Christ, this forgiveness, ties us forever to Christ in His redemptive work. It anchors us to Him always, because there is only one way through the door: Christ and His sacrifice.
It anchors us forever to this. We can never get away from it. This is not kindergarten. This is vital.
It is like vital signs. What do they look for? They check your pulse, right? If you do not have a pulse, you are dead. Well, if we do not have forgiveness through Jesus Christ, we are still in our sins, and we are spiritually dead. It is the same thing.
But now we have this as an anchor. This is what holds us onto the foundation. We come through this door, and it holds us here.
No matter what may happen to us, no matter what things make us look bad, make us judge ourselves, or get us under condemnation, we are anchored to the sacrifice of Christ. We are anchored to Christ forever.
This is a wonderful thing, and it is something we need to understand and bank on. We need to count on this always, no matter what you have done—even as a Christian.
You are anchored to Christ, and you can have forgiveness of sins just by confessing your sins and coming to Him—not by trying to do this or that, but by coming and pleading that blood, the blood that covers us all.
The judgment has passed. Then go on in faith, saying, “I believe this. Therefore I can go on in faith,” even though you do not feel like you are clean. It is by faith that you enter in through this door.
That is one drawing point, brothers and sisters. What draws us into the house? That open door—the door of forgiveness. Who does not want to be forgiven?
When you have messed up with a friend, your parents, or your spouse, and you have messed up badly, do you not want to be forgiven and have that relationship restored? Definitely.
What a draw forgiveness is. The Lord offers it to us at His cost—at great cost it is offered to us—but it is still offered.
Secondly, let us go up the ladder. Next is our daily bread:
Give us this day our daily bread.
When we look at daily bread, we all have needs, right? Oliver Twist—if you have not read Oliver Twist, you need to read it.
We all have needs, and this speaks of God’s provision for those within the house.
Where does this fit, and why am I putting it down toward the bottom? It is the mudsill of the house.
Before you put the frame up, you put the mudsill down. The mudsill is treated wood, so it will not rot and get all this crud all over it. Then you put the frame on top of that, and it protects the frame.
Notice I said it protects the frame. The mudsill is attached to the foundation.
Remember Israel when they came out of Egypt. They were delivered from Egypt and brought into the wilderness. God did not bring them by the direct route into the Promised Land. He could have gone right up the coast, and they would have had a beach journey the whole time. But He took them a different way.
Why did He take them on the scenic route? What did He want them to see? Desert? Because that is what they saw.
When they needed bread, they called out to God for bread. What happened? Manna from heaven. When they needed water in the middle of a desert, water came from a rock. When they needed protection from the Amalekites, the Lord protected them.
What was God trying to show them? He was trying to show them, “You can trust Me. I am not just about your souls going to heaven. I am about all of you—your whole life, everything about you.”
Israel was in the place of children. Children have to know that they are provided for. If they do not know they are provided for, they are always afraid, are they not? They do not know where things are coming from. They do not know how to act, because there is nobody to protect or provide for them.
Israel was in the place of children, just like every one of us who becomes born again comes into the place of children.
Remember when you were first born again? Remember how you took every little need to the Lord? “Oh, Lord, my car needs a tire. I do not know where I am going to get it. I do not have the money. Lord, how am I going to get this?”
You would pray to the Lord, and somehow a man down the road would say, “Hey, I am getting rid of these. I have spare tires here. I do not know what to do with them.”
Remember the joy you would be filled with? “Lord, You heard my prayer. You care about me.” In such a simple way, did that not strengthen your faith? Did you not continue to pray?
What happened? I guess we grew up, huh? But that childlike faith that God will provide is so important.
There is one person I know who does this all the time: John Ecklin. You go to John Ecklin in Concord, and he prays at the drop of a hat for practical things—things that we would think, “Well, my job will take care of that.”
No, he goes right to the Lord. He says, “Hey, let’s just pray about this right now.” He prays because he is still dependent on the Lord in that way.
I was shamed by being with him for a week once; in another way, I was very encouraged. It was so simple to get back to God in that way.
We find out that Scripture is true by doing those very things. In 1 Peter 5:7, it says:
Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
That is a verse we should probably memorize: “Casting all your cares on Him, because He cares for you.” Many of us have lost that little truth—that He cares for me.
Or in Matthew 6:25–33, Jesus was talking about loving mammon and things. He said, “If you look at the birds, do you see them going out for job interviews, dressing up? ‘I have an interview today. I know I am going to get there, and they will tell me the job, but I am going to say, “It’s cheap.”’”
That is a bird, you know. Aren’t too sharp today, are you? Okay, we will work on it.
But consider the birds of the air. They do not have jobs, yet your heavenly Father provides for them. Consider the lilies of the field. They do not toil or spin, yet Solomon was not arrayed like one of these.
It is the whole idea that God provides for you. How we get away from that.
This is the mudsill. The reason I say it is the mudsill is because it really is at the bottom of things. Before we can build anything else, this has to be there.
As a teacher, we have to learn about Maslow’s ideas: in order to think critically, if people’s basic needs are not met, they cannot think about algebra. They cannot think about history and all the wonderful things I teach, because they are thinking, “I sure am hungry. I am cold today. I wish I had a jacket.”
They cannot get beyond that. But when those needs are met, they do not have to worry about them anymore. Their mind is free, and they can go on to other things. They can think about other things.
It is the same with us. Even Jacob, when he was shown the house of God, what was his first reaction?
“Okay, God, I will tell You what: if You give me bread to eat, clothes on my back, and protect me until I get back here, then You will be my God.”
He made a vow. Notice what he was asking: “God, show me that You will provide for me. If You show me that You will provide for me, You will be my God.”
How did God answer him? “How dare you?” No. God said, “Go for it, Jacob. You go your way. I am going to show you that I will provide for you in every way.”
What a great rest that is for us, if we could rest from those things and know that God will provide for us. I know people are out of jobs, and I have been in that place myself.
Even David said that he had never seen the righteous begging bread. God provides. He may provide through a neighbor. Sometimes we have to ask for things. Sometimes we have to let others know what state we are in, so that God can provide for us through people. Things like that happen.
We come to God’s house and have this rest. What is the lure into the house? “I will provide for you.” I am not saying, “I am going to give you a Lamborghini,” and things like that. But if you are hungry, I will give you food. If you need clothes, I will clothe you. I am not talking only spiritually.
The church does these things. The house of God does these things.
When I experience God as my Provider and am at rest, now I am free to start thinking like David: “Lord, I have all these things now. What do You want?”
We are not even free to think about what He wants until our things are taken care of, but God knows that. That is why it is the mudsill. Before He even starts the structure, He wants you to know, “I am there. I care for you.”
Now that you have gotten to that point, you are free to say, “God, Lord, You are so good to me. What can I do for You?”
God continues to show us what we can do for Him. The next part is:
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Last time we saw the ladder, and on the ladder we saw angels—messengers—carrying out the will of God. “Your will be done.”
When we think about Jacob, he was dealt with in two ways through Genesis. In one way, he was dealt with in his flesh. That is all the way through chapter 35 and beyond, but especially between Genesis 28 and Genesis 35, we see God dealing with his flesh.
He went to Laban and worked for Laban for twenty years. In those years and beyond, we see the next phase, where he had his four wives and thirteen children. God was dealing with his flesh.
God got to him. God got him to the place where he walked with a limp. He dealt with that flesh.
But in another way, God was always dealing with Jacob’s will. We see this in two particular places. One major incident was in Genesis 35, when God told Jacob to get back to Bethel. “You are not in the right place, Jacob. Get back to Bethel.”
Jacob had to say, “Shechem is not the place for me. I have to go back to Bethel.”
The other place where he was really dealt with in his will was Genesis 43. His sons wanted to go back to Egypt to get more bread. They had told Joseph that Benjamin was at home, and Joseph said, “Bring Benjamin if you want food again.”
Jacob did not want to let Benjamin go. Finally, in Genesis 43, Jacob got to the place where he could let Benjamin go for the good of the others. That is another story, but it shows the idea of the will being dealt with.
In other words, it is not my will; it is not what I want. What does God want?
It is not enough to know what the will of God is. Just knowing the will of God is not enough. What good is it to know your boss’s will and then be reprimanded because you did not do what he wanted you to do? But you knew his will.
It is not good enough. You have to do something. It is not enough to know the will; you have to do the will.
Doing the will shows the strength of God’s house because it is the frame of the house. You have the joists, headers, studs, and all the things that go into it.
Doing the will of God is the structure. The structure gives strength and form to the house. It gives an outward reality—not an outward facade, but an outward reality—because doing the will of God makes it real.
A lot of times, that is what is missing in what we see of the house of God today. The outward reality is missing because something inward is not there either.
Doing the will of God takes the house out of the blueprint stage and puts it into the structural stage. You can see its form.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It is the same with the house. The house has to become flesh. It cannot just be theory. It cannot just be theology. It has to be action. They go hand in hand. They cannot be separated.
Doing the will of God is not only the strength of the house; it also gives vitality to the house, which reinforces its strength.
In John 4:32 and John 4:34, Jesus is speaking after His encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. The disciples had gone to get food, and they came back with it. He was not eating, and they wondered what was wrong.
Jesus said:
I have food to eat of which you do not know.
Then He said:
My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.
When we find ourselves doing His will—not merely doing the Word in a legal sense, but seeing what the Lord wants us to do and doing it—we find ourselves strengthened by doing it. It is like feeding us.
We find the Lord coming in behind and doing something, and our spirit is fed by that.
What else do we learn when we begin to do the will of God? In Romans 12:1, we are told to present ourselves as a living sacrifice. But we should always couple it with Romans 12:2.
Otherwise, if all we say is, “Be a living sacrifice, be a living sacrifice, be a living sacrifice,” without seeing what we receive by being a living sacrifice, who wants to be one?
Romans 12:2 says that by being a living sacrifice, this is what you will prove:
You will prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
You will find that it is not just good for God, but good for you; not just acceptable for God, but acceptable to you also; not just perfect for God, but perfect for you as well.
You will find that in doing the will of God, and it will astonish you.
It is amazing that those of us who have found some way to follow the will of God, and have done something He asked us to do, and received blessing from it, do not do it more.
But thank the Lord that He always puts those opportunities before us so that we can have that experience again. Hopefully, that experience will finally rest us from ourselves and bring us to say, “I just want to do the will of God. I want to do the will of God in my generation.”
I am not just talking about the will of God for me. I am talking about the will of God. A lot of times, we want to say, “What is the will of God for me?” Well, if you do the will of God, you will find the will of God for you. Do the will of God.
Then you have the inside of the house: “Hallowed be Your name.” The interior of the house is where we get the inward reality of knowing God.
Have you ever been invited to somebody’s house for dinner and they kept you out on the porch? I am not saying that I have, so do not look hurt. You probably could say, “I could do that to you, Jim.”
Why do people invite you inside? Because they want you in the house. They invited you to be in the house because they are sharing themselves with you.
When you come inside the house, you find out who the people really are. That is why we clean so hard before we have guests, isn’t it?
You know who gives some of the best hospitality? I am not talking about specific people. Poor people. They have nothing to hide. It is easy for them: “Come in and share all that I have, all that I am.”
Some of us who are richer are kind of like, “Do not go up there. That is just for me.”
But the Lord invites us into His house. He does not just invite us through the door and say, “Hey, hang out in the doorway.” He does not invite us only into the kitchen to feed us a meal. He does not invite us in merely so we can be His servants and workers.
He invites us inside. Just like the temple had the outer court and the inner court, He does not want us only in the outer court. He wants us in the inner court. That is why the veil was rent: “Come inside. Come in closer.”
The inside is where you really get to know the Lord. “Hallowed be Your name.” What does that mean? Revered. But “revered” does not mean much to us because we think of the guy who rode the horse and said, “The British are coming.”
Revered means respected. We honor Him. How do you honor someone? I am not talking about putting on the Ritz for them. How do you honor someone? You give them their place.
That is what God does. God invites us into His house, and He wants His place. “Hallowed be Your name.”
Respect and honor come from knowing Him, knowing who He is.
We can say that we get to know God from our experiences and from what He reveals personally about Himself. In our experiences, we often see the power of God. We have experiences in which we see His power to do something, and we are awed by it. That is wonderful.
But how many saw the works of Christ and their hearts were not touched? How many saw the works of Christ and were still saying, “Give us Barabbas”?
Just seeing the power of God does not necessarily mean we are going to be changed. I remember going to Kathryn Kuhlman meetings for healings, just to go and see. We wanted to see people get healed. You should have seen the crowds that went there—many nonbelievers because they wanted to see things happen.
They went out the same as they came in. I count myself among them.
But what God reveals to you in a personal way is more about His nature, about who He is. There is no flash here. It is as though He is stripping off the sod and letting you see something. Like Moses: “Let me see Your glory.”
God is holy, right? Holy means He is separate. It does not mean He is standing off in a corner away from everybody. It means He is different. Yes, He is different from us, but it also means He is other. I think Sparks always used the word other. He is just not like us.
Remember when Matthew followed the call of Christ? He had a big feast in his house, and there were all these sinners there. How can you have a holy God going in there with all these sinners? That is what the Pharisees said: “What is wrong with You? Do You not know who these people are? What are You doing in here?”
Do you remember what the Lord said to them? He said it twice:
I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.
Why? The Pharisees had missed the nature and character of God.
Coming into the inner room and having fellowship with God is where we find much of this. God shows us things in His Word about Himself. Things we have touched in the world, something in the Scripture comes in and He says, “This is the way I am.”
I cause My rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous.
What are you going to do about that? That is who He is.
When we begin to see who He really is, that is what changes us.
Look at the parable Jesus gave about the man who had a great debt forgiven. Then he went out and throttled a man for five bucks. Remember that? He never saw the master who forgave him. He just kept seeing his debt and what he had to do.
But when we get a glimpse of who He is, we change. That is where we are really transformed.
I will go back again to the book Les Misérables. You read that book, and you get to the place where Jean Valjean comes to the bishop who forgives him.
That troubles him the rest of his life, until he finally gets to the place of saying, “I cannot continue being who I am,” because he was struck by such mercy. He could not understand why the bishop would show mercy to him.
That changed him because he found out that God was not just some judge up there doing this and that and making his life miserable. He found out that God was mercy, and it changed his whole life. It transformed him tremendously.
That is the redemptive power of that book. I am not talking about going to see the movie. Read the book—but get the abridged version, because, like I said, it will be twenty pages on a bureau.
Incidentally, God does not reveal Himself only in His Word. Many times it is through other saints. Many times we see the nature of God through other saints, through their helping us, admonishing us, building us up, whatever.
“Lord, show me—that is You. It is You in this person doing this.”
Finally, we get to the pinnacle of the house. We are through with the prayer, and we come back to this:
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
What does God get out of this? Satisfaction.
He draws us into this house. He strengthens us. He shows us Himself. He transforms us. Those are all drawing points. You get to see who He really is.
What does He get? Satisfaction. He is satisfied. He says, “This is what I created man for. This is what it is all about.”
Brothers and sisters, we can dwell in one part of the house, but we are meant to dwell in the whole thing. Some of us just want to sit on the mudsill. We just want the blessing.
But we are meant to serve, and we are meant to know Him, as well as to know the forgiveness of our sins. We are meant to know all of these things. That is God’s will for us in His house, and that is His drawing.
Next time, when I speak about these things, we will get a little more practical. But this is just an idea, to give you an idea of what it is that God really wants.
If you notice, we ended with the idea that God wants you to be inside the house, where you are getting to know Him. Is that not what was opened up in the opening this morning?
Why did God save you? So that you could know Him, and that He could know you intimately. That is what His house is all about.
His house is so that we can know Him and do His will. Praise be to Him.
Lord, we do want to thank You this morning that You have a desire on Your heart, and You are well able to meet it. We want to thank You for all the provision that is there.
We want to thank You that You are trying to draw us into it, because there is great blessing for us ahead, even though we may have to go through some trials in getting there.
We want to thank You, Lord, that this is Your desire for us: that You do not want us merely to be outside in the outer court, but You want us to be fully in the house.
Lord, we want to know what it means to be fully in the house, but You will have to draw us in. So, Lord, we pray that You would open our eyes to see the things that You want.
Draw us in by Your grace and by Your love and mercy. In the circumstances of our lives that hold us away from You, Lord, be Lord of those things and draw us into Your house, where we are meant to be.
Lord, we ask this in Jesus’ name.