Just to worship You. You alone are worthy of our worship—You alone.
I thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord, that You are the lover of our souls, that You love us, and You love us to the uttermost. We thank You, Lord, that it is easy to love You because You are lovely.
What can we say? We love You, Lord. We are so grateful to be Your people. We are so grateful to be who You have made us to be. We are so grateful for how You have created us, for the kind intention of Your will toward us.
Lord, You had us in Your heart before the foundation of the world. Lord, You have such a high call, such a glorious destiny for us as Your people. But what can we say tonight? What can we say? We are just grateful.
We love You, Lord. We want to honor You tonight, even as we share around Your Word. Lord, we pray that You would gain us—not in part, but in whole—that You would have our whole hearts, that our hearts would be wholly Yours.
We ask, Lord, that You would speak to us tonight, that You would reveal Yourself to us tonight. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The children seven through twelve years old may be dismissed to their class.
Ephesians 3:8-11
To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ,
and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God, Who created all things;
so that the manifold wisdom of God may now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Verse 10 again:
So that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
And also, in Ephesians 1:9-10:
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.
We have been considering these verses this weekend. In this passage of Scripture in Ephesians 3, like Jeffrey was sharing about, you cannot help but read one of these verses and be struck by such a powerful expression of Christ: these unfathomable riches of Christ.
But what the Lord laid on my heart specifically was verse 10, and a specific part of it:
So that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
This verse just caught my attention. As I was meditating before the Lord, one thing that seemed to stick out was this matter of the manifold wisdom of God being made known through the church, but to the principalities and powers.
So I began to think about that a little bit. It is not that God wants to make His manifold wisdom known to the church, but through the church and to the principalities and powers. I could not help but ask the question: Why? What is God trying to make known to the principalities and powers? What is He making known through the church?
We have heard a bit, and we will hear more tomorrow morning. Our brothers will share on this verse concerning the manifold wisdom of God. But we know that it has a connection with the principalities and powers, because it is through the church that He wants to make that wisdom known to them.
As I considered this, I thought of Hebrews 2.
Hebrews 2:7
Thou madest Him for a little while lower than the angels;
Thou crownedst Him with glory and honor,
and didst set Him over the works of Thy hands.
This is speaking of the Lord Jesus, but it relates to us as men as well. You know, we were created like no one else—like no other created being—a tripartite being: spirit, soul, and body. Like we heard earlier today, we were created in the image of God.
What an amazing thing, that God created us in this way. He created us with the ability, with the spirit, to receive God, Who is Spirit; to receive of His life; to be joined with Him.
And yet man was created a little lower than the angels. Have you ever thought about that? Why is that? Why did God create man just a little lower than the angels? Perhaps not quite as powerful; perhaps with not as much wisdom; a vessel that is a bit weaker than the angels, than the principalities and powers.
I believe the reason for that is that the Lord wanted to teach a lesson. He wanted to educate the principalities and powers, the angels, of something. It is this:
It is not about the vessel, but about the One to Whom the vessel is joined.
As we continue in our time here this morning, we just want to consider these things. It is not about us. It is not about the vessel, but about the One to Whom the vessel is joined.
To fully understand this, I think we have to look back—back before the creation of man—to understand what happened and what it is that God is doing.
Let us turn to Ezekiel 28. If you read the first nine verses, the description seems to be a description of a man, and it is—it is about the king of Tyre. But when you begin to read from verses 11 through 19, you start to notice something. The description seems different. It is a description that no man fits.
Ezekiel 28:11-17
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God:
Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
Thou wast in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering: the ruby, the topaz, and the diamond,
the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper,
the lapis lazuli, the turquoise, and the emerald, and the gold.
The workmanship of thy settings and of thy sockets was in thee.
In the day that thou wast created they were prepared.
Thou wast the anointed cherub that covereth; and I set thee, so that thou wast upon the holy mountain of God;
thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till unrighteousness was found in thee.
By the abundance of thy traffic they filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned:
therefore have I cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God;
and I have destroyed thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness:
I have cast thee to the ground; I have laid thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
As we read through this description—“You were in the garden of Eden”—now, besides Adam, what other man was in the garden of Eden? “O covering cherub.” The description here seems to be, and most believe this is a dual prophecy not only to the king of Tyre but also to Satan.
Lucifer was an exalted angel. He was a covering cherub, perhaps one who covered the glory of the Lord. He was there in the garden of Eden. He had the seal of perfection. He was beautiful, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
At some point, though, he started to notice himself. He started to look upon himself, and he began to see his beauty. Somehow, when he looked at himself, he seemed to forget that his beauty was a reflection of the beauty of God—the glory of God.
You know, we use the term pride a lot. I am not sure we always know what it means—pride and humility. But pride is nothing more than self-focus. He was focused on himself.
When you get proud, you become blind. He did not see the Lord—the Lord of glory, the Lord of majesty. He just began to see himself, to such an extent that he began to exalt himself like the Most High.
Isaiah 14:12-14
How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morning!
How art thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the nations!
And thou saidst in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
and I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.
Satan, in his pride and self-focus, began to exalt himself. He began to see himself as equal with God. He grasped at equality with God. He stepped beyond his boundary.
He was created as a ministering spirit. He was the created one, created by God—beautiful, full of wisdom, with a seal of perfection, placed in the garden. But he grasped at being something more.
As a result, it says that he was cast down to the ground. He was cast down to earth.
Then we have to ask: When did this happen? When was Lucifer cast down? We know it must have been before the creation of man, because when we see the creation of man, he is already the enemy of God. He is there in the garden, but he is there as Satan, the enemy of God.
We know that he was created in Genesis 1:1:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
There is no way he was cast down to earth if it had not been created yet. So, when did this happen? When was it that Lucifer rebelled against God, declared his independence from God, and tried to usurp the position of the Lord Jesus?
Genesis 1:1-2
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The Spirit of God was moving, or hovering, over the surface of the waters. You see God there, hovering over the waters, and it seems like He is burdened. I do not want to use the term disturbed—I do not think He was disturbed—but He seemed burdened.
There was darkness there. Now, God is light. Why was there darkness? He had just created the heavens and the earth, but it was there in darkness. It was formless and void.
We know from Isaiah 45 that God did not create it a waste place.
Isaiah 45:18
For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens,
He is God;
that formed the earth and made it,
that established it and created it not a waste,
that formed it to be inhabited:
I am the Lord; and there is none else.
The word translated “created” in both instances is bara. It means created out of nothing. The earth was created out of nothing. God spoke, and it was.
As you go through the rest of the verses in Genesis, when the Lord is restoring the earth, there are different terms used—yatsar and asah. They mean formed or made. Made means made out of something, and formed is like a potter who forms a clay pot, similar to when God formed man from the dust.
He did not create our physical bodies out of nothing. He formed them from the dust. But here, it is the word bara: created out of nothing. That is the same word used in the second part of Isaiah 45:18 when it says that He “did not create it a waste place.”
Now, if He did not create it a waste place, why was it formless and void? Why was it waste? Why was it in darkness? Why was the Spirit of God hovering over it? Why is that verse there? Why does it not just move right into the creation?
We often make the assumption that Genesis 1:1 is followed immediately by Genesis 1:2. But perhaps not. Actually, the word translated “was” in “the earth was formless and void” is translated “became” in other places in Genesis. The earth became formless and void.
You may say, “I do not know about that. I do not know where you are going with this. That sounds kind of crazy.” But there is something else that is odd as you continue to search the Scriptures on this.
On the second day of creation, when God separates the waters from the waters—when He separates the ocean from the firmament, the atmosphere, the air—it is the only day in creation that He does not say, “It is good.”
All the other days of creation, when He is done, He says, “It is good,” except for the very last day, when He says, “It is very good.” But on the second day, He does not say that it is good.
God does not make mistakes. Do you think Moses just forgot to leave it out on day two? We know all Scripture is divinely inspired by God. It was not just left out. There is something about the waters, something about the air, that is not right.
We know from Ephesians 2:2 that Satan is described as the prince of the power of the air. The atmosphere is his dwelling place. There is a reason God does not say on the second day that it is good, because there is something there that is not good.
It seems, perhaps, this is the time period. We do not know how long that period was, but in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth became formless and void.
We know that Lucifer was in the garden of Eden. God had placed him there, so this was his domain. Lucifer had an exalted place, perhaps the one who was in the Lord’s presence and covered Him.
It seems that, if you look at Revelation, there is an indication that perhaps this was his domain. When he rebelled, when he was cast down to the earth as Isaiah says, there was destruction. Everything went into chaos, and darkness came in.
If God is light, why in His economy is there darkness? But there was darkness there. Something happened.
We know from 1 Corinthians 14:33 that God is not a God of disorder, but of order. Something was out of order. Something was out of place.
When God cast Lucifer down, He could have destroyed him, but He did not. He cast him down to earth, but He did not destroy him. He had a purpose. He had a plan.
He began to restore the earth. As you go through those days of creation, it does not use the word bara. It uses yatsar and asah. He formed it; He made it. He was restoring the earth. He was bringing it back.
We see those six days of creation where the Lord is restoring things. Then He places man in the garden and tells man, “Be fruitful and multiply. Take dominion over the earth. Subdue it.”
That was man’s work. He was to take dominion over the earth. As he multiplied, as there was increase, little by little he would begin to move even from the garden—or perhaps the garden would expand with him as he cultivated it. He would take dominion over the entire earth. He would bring things back under God’s dominion, back under God’s order.
But was he meant to do it alone? No.
In the garden was the tree of life. The tree of life speaks of the life of the Lord Jesus. Man was to take of that tree of life. He was to receive of the life of God.
I do not know why Adam did not do it. We know that after he fell, he was immediately moved out of the garden, lest he take of the tree of life and live eternally. He had that period of time, but he did not do it.
Because he did not do it, he was not able to guard the garden. He was not just to be fruitful and multiply; he was to cultivate it and guard it. But because he was not joined with the Lord, he was not able to do it.
What happened? Lucifer found his way in. He was there in the garden, and he tempted Eve.
How did he tempt her? “If you take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will be like God.” He was telling the truth. God knew good and evil. At that time, man did not know good and evil.
But man did not need to know good and evil, because he had God. God never intended for man to be separated from Him. God’s purpose—God’s plan—is for us to be joined with Him for all eternity.
It was never meant to be that we were separated from God. Therefore, we do not need to know good and evil. We can depend on God to let us know what is good and what is evil.
Unfortunately, Eve was deceived. Not just Eve, but Adam. Adam was not deceived; he made a choice. He reached out. He stepped beyond his boundary. Man is not meant to be God. He stepped out of that position and grasped at being like God. He declared his independence from God.
As a result, he handed the whole world over to the evil one. Man fell.
But God’s love is so great. God’s love for man—have you ever thought about those verses? I know you have: “For God so loved the world.”
It is not that He loves the world, or loves us as His people, in our fallen state. He loves who He created us to be. He loves who He destined us to be. He can see through it. He sees who man was purposed to be.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He so loved us that He was willing to give His own Son, the only begotten Son—to give Him up, to have Him come to this earth as a man. Can you imagine?
I do not think we can imagine, because we do not know what it is like to be God. But He came to this earth as a man, born as a babe, and He lived as a man.
It says in Philippians that He emptied Himself. He emptied Himself of all His glory. He was no longer omnipresent. He was not everywhere at the same time. He did not know all things. He said, “We do not know the day or the hour; only the Father does.”
He emptied Himself of all His glory. Isaiah says that He did not have such a form that we should take notice of Him. He did not come here muy guapo. They say that, right? Guapo. He did not come here with such a beautiful form that we should take notice of Him.
He came as a bondservant. He took the form of a bondservant. He emptied Himself.
For us, I do not know what we really have to empty ourselves of. I used to have a corporate job, and I was paid pretty well. I would go into work in business casual. I would go up to Jacksonville. Over time, I was with the company for twenty years.
I started as a guy cleaning boogers off mice, and little by little I grew in the company. When I left, I had a pretty good position. I was responsible for change management and process management through an organization of eighteen thousand people. It was a pretty big company. We probably had over five hundred people in our IT department, and anything related to that area came to me.
There is a certain feeling of importance, you know?
When I would go into Publix after work, I do not know if I really thought this, but you are wearing your business clothes and getting your apples and getting your food. You do not think about it, but in the back of your mind you can kind of elevate yourself based on where you are at—your status, your finances, or something like that.
But now I work in construction.
I went into Publix the other day, and I had paint on my hands. Listen, I do not take care of that. I got my monthly haircut just for the gathering—or my quarterly haircut, I should say. I was in there, and I was hurting. I had paint on my hands and dust in my hair. I was looking pretty rough, and I was looking at all these corporate guys around me.
I was humbled.
Man, can you imagine God? The glory of Who He is. For me, it was humbling, in a way, to leave my corporate job to do construction. “Oh, you are just the construction guy? Okay.”
But the God of the universe left His position and came down to earth to be a man. He did not think equality with God a thing to be grasped, because He was God.
He lived completely obedient to the Father.
John 5:19
Jesus therefore answered and said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you,
The Son can do nothing of Himself,
but what He seeth the Father doing:
for what things soever He doeth,
these the Son also doeth in like manner.
“The Son can do nothing of Himself.” That phrase, “of Himself,” means originating from Himself. He can do nothing that originates from Himself, but only that which He sees the Father doing.
This is the Son of God. He is perfect. Everything He does is perfect. But He did not come as the Son of God. He came as man, as a bondservant. As a bondservant, He could do nothing of Himself, but only that which He saw the Father doing. He did not do His own will; He did the will of God.
We see this displayed in such a wonderful way in Matthew 4.
Matthew 4:1-4
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He afterward hungered.
And the tempter came and said unto Him,
If Thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.
But He answered and said, It is written,
Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
This is how He lived: by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
I know some of you have heard this story, but sometime back, actually in Jacksonville, I went to an Italian restaurant called Maggiano’s. I was sitting there with my wife, Kristen, and I noticed over to the right—not a separate room, but a separate designated area—there was a large group of executives sitting around what seemed like a big table.
There was one executive at the head of the table, and they were all wearing black suits. One thing that really struck me was not the executives, but the waiter—the server.
I was a server for many years at Olive Garden. When I was a server at Olive Garden, I was always trying to move my tables. You are always going and asking people what they want. You want to get them in and get them out. I was not one who got twenty-percent tips. I got ten percent, but I did volume. I was trying to move people.
But this waiter was not that way. He stood at the doorway, and he just had his eyes fixed on the head of the table. He would not move unless the head of the table looked at him. He did not have to do much—just a simple look, a simple nod, a simple gesture with a finger—and that waiter would come right over to the head of the table and see what was needed.
This is the way the Lord Jesus lived. He did not do anything unless He saw the Father do it. Everything He did originated with the Father.
Now, I am not saying that as we live, we need to be all bound up: “Should I do this? Should I not? Should I do this? Should I not?” Right, Danny? We talk about that a lot.
But as bondservants, we do need to seek the Lord in everything we do. Everything we do should come from Him.
In Psalm 19, it talks about presumptuous sins—the sin of presumption. Did you know that? Did you know that to presume is a sin?
Brothers and sisters, I think there is a lot of presumption these days in our lives, even in the church. We look at the church these days, and I do not know what you think, but I think there is a lot of presumption.
There is a lot that has ended up in the house of God—at least in the kingdom of God. It has become like a large tree. From a mustard seed, it should be a bush, but it is a large tree, and the birds of the air take nests in it. The enemy has found his way in, and often he finds his way in because of our presumption.
Do we really seek the Lord? Do we hear the Lord in our individual lives and in our corporate life together? Everything we do—where did it originate? With us, or with Him?
He said, “My food is to do the will of the One Who sent Me.” Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
This might sound extreme to you, but this is eternity. Our brother described Revelation 21 and 22 earlier today. In the end, in that New Jerusalem, it is only Christ. There is none of you there—well, you are there. You do not lose your individuality, but all that is of yourself is gone.
How did that happen? Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The Lord Jesus did nothing of Himself, only what He saw the Father doing, and He was perfect. How much more should we only do what the Lord is leading us to do?
We do not need to be bound up, but we do need to seek the Lord. It is our birthright to know God’s will. We should be full of the Holy Spirit—Ephesians 5—and know the will of God.
It is not impossible to know His will. When you sin, you know His will. You get convicted, and you know, “I should not have done that.” It is the same thing with your intuition as you are before the Lord. He speaks to you. He leads you.
You have to quiet yourself. You have to want to hear Him. But God will speak. He is teaching us. He is not looking for us to get it perfect. What He is looking at is our hearts. Where are our hearts? Do we even come to Him? Do we depend on Him, or do we just do what we think is best?
I do not know if you noticed, but when you drove on my road in here, someone with great intentions tried to fix some potholes. They did it with a skid steer. They dropped down some asphalt tar, and they just destroyed the road. There are chunks this tall, and now it is bumpy every time you pull in.
Every time I see it, I tell my kids, “This is man’s great intention.” This guy intended well. He was trying to fix the road, and for years now it has been miserable to drive down the road.
This is what happens, even in the church. We have these great intentions, but because it did not come from the Lord, because it originated with us—man, the problems. Everyone else has to suffer as a result of it.
But it ought not to be this way. We are to be joined with the Lord.
I went to an FCA—Fellowship of Christian Athletes—fundraiser a couple of months back. One of the things they said was that FCA is so important because they get into the schools by way of the athletes. They have morning huddles and sometimes afternoon huddles where they pray or do devotions.
They said it is important because kids will not go to a church meeting on Sunday because of kids’ sports.
I do not know if you noticed, but when I was growing up, nothing was open on Sunday. Nothing was going on. Even on Saturday, everything closed at six o’clock. Maybe that shows you I am a little older than some in here. But really, six o’clock Saturday, everything was shut down. Maybe a gas station was open all day Sunday.
Little by little, things have changed. Nowadays, if you get out on a Sunday morning, you are like, “Whoa, everybody’s out.” One Sunday morning, when we had our meeting in the afternoon, it just kind of opened my eyes a little bit.
Kids’ sports have crept into Sundays. It used to be that kids’ sports were on Saturday, but now they are on Sundays. There are tournaments and all that stuff. A lot of people, especially unbelievers, will not come. But even amongst the people of God, what is keeping us from gathering?
If God leads you to miss a meeting, to miss a time of gathering with the saints in order to go to a sports event, you should go. But Hebrews 10 talks about forsaking the assembling with the saints, as has become the habit of some. This should not become a habit for us.
It is not just kids’ sports. There is a myriad of other things, and it is not just our Sunday meetings. What are the things that are keeping us from gathering with the Lord’s people throughout the week at other times?
Let us jump back to Matthew 4 for a moment.
In the second temptation, the Lord Jesus is tempted as the Son of Man to tempt the Lord His God. He is tempted as the Son of God. But in verse 8, this is the third temptation. Satan no longer tempts Him by saying, “If You are the Son of God.”
The first two temptations seek to get the Lord Jesus to take the position of the Son of God—to do legitimate things, like turning stones into bread. But He would only do it if the Father told Him to.
In the last temptation, the devil says:
Matthew 4:8-10
Again, the devil taketh Him unto an exceeding high mountain,
and showeth Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
and he said unto Him, All these things will I give Thee,
if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan:
for it is written,
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and Him only shalt thou serve.
This is really something interesting. Lucifer, Satan, who inherited the whole world as a result of man not taking dominion, but being tempted, is now willing to give it all up.
He does not say, “I will give You some of the kingdoms. I will split it fifty-fifty with You if You bow down and worship me.” No. He says, “All the kingdoms I will give You.” All of it. All the material, all the glory. He offered the Lord Jesus everything.
“I will give You this whole world for only this one thing: if You bow down and worship me.”
What was the Lord’s response? “Go, Satan, for it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him alone.’”
What does it mean to worship? Of course, to sing songs, really to commune with the Lord. We worship in spirit. But it is more than just singing songs. To worship is to give yourself.
Like in Romans, what is your spiritual service of worship, your intelligent worship? It is to offer yourselves as a living sacrifice. This is worship. You worship that thing to which you offer yourself.
What are we offering ourselves to? What are we giving ourselves to? Are we giving ourselves to kids’ sports, to our careers? Now, we should not neglect our children, and I am all about kids’ sports. I am all about spending time with the family.
But in what we are doing with our activities, are we just doing everything the world tells us to do? “Your kids have to do this, this, and this,” and therefore we are slaves to it. We have no time for the Lord because we just give ourselves to it.
Do we seek the Lord and say, “Lord, You know my kids could use some activity. What should I do?” If He speaks to us, we do it.
But there is a game on Sunday. Do we just go to the game? Maybe if God says, “Go to the game. I want you to go,” then we go. Absolutely. But if He says no, we do not.
As bondservants, we only do what we see the Father doing. We only do what God leads us into.
What about our careers? Is our job our life work? Are we just trying to build a big 401(k), racing to retirement? That is what the guys at work used to say: “It is just a race to retirement. I am going to get that 401(k) as fat as I can, then I can retire early, so I can try to enjoy this life.”
What is our life work? We heard it this week: it is to walk in the good works that were prepared beforehand. It is not to build some career or status.
Maybe it is not about status. Maybe it is just about money. But the Scripture says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.”
Do we want more than what God will add, or are we content with what God will add? Brothers and sisters, what are we worshiping?
Entertainment is the biggest of them all. We are an entertainment generation. When I was in my early twenties, all we had was a Palm Treo. You could not do anything on it. It was miserable.
Now we have these iPhones, joy devices. We can entertain ourselves day and night. They are pumping out stuff left and right. Social media—you could spend all day on Facebook or YouTube.
Who do you think is behind all this stuff? A brother read a little quote. He said, “These idols are dead, but the Satan behind the idols is living.”
Who do you think is behind all this stuff? The push for careers, the expectations with the kids, all these different things, the entertainment?
I had a vision the other day. I saw someone higher than a CEO sitting on a throne there, the one producing all this garbage—this Netflix stuff and all this garbage—pushing all these distractions.
Who do you think is behind it? All these activities on Sunday—who do you think is drumming that up? We know we do not war against flesh and blood. Who do you think is sitting there in the chair? I saw the man, and then I saw Satan. It is him.
He is working from all these angles. You know what he wants? He wants our worship.
Who are we worshiping? There is only One: the Lord God. Who are we giving ourselves to?
Friendship with the world is enmity toward God. I am afraid, brothers and sisters, that in this lukewarm time, we have been giving ourselves to things perhaps we should not. We are being duped—fools. This is not harmless.
When we give ourselves to these things—if the Lord leads you to do any of this stuff, watch a show, whatever, praise God. But if we are just living, doing our thing, distracted, we have our worship in the wrong place.
We thank God that the Lord Jesus is not that way, and that He overcame.
What is a bondservant? Let us look at Deuteronomy 15.
Deuteronomy 15:12-17
If thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee,
and serve thee six years;
then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.
And when thou lettest him go free from thee,
thou shalt not let him go empty:
thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock,
and out of thy threshing-floor, and out of thy winepress:
as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.
And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt,
and the Lord thy God redeemed thee:
therefore I command thee this thing today.
And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go out from thee;
because he loveth thee, and thy house,
because he is well with thee;
then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door,
and he shall be thy servant forever.
We see this description of the bondservant in Deuteronomy. He is in slavery, but he enters into the master’s household. He is not just a slave; he becomes a member of the household. He is there for six years.
During that time, as he is there with the master, he begins to fall in love with his master. This is our case. This is our story.
We are brought into the Master’s household as servants. That is our spot. But we are brought into His household. While we are there, as we interact with the Master, we begin to see His loveliness.
I was thinking the other day about just the simplicity of this: He never leaves us or forsakes us. What a wonderful thing.
Can you imagine that slave there? There must have been times when he was acting out, doing things he ought not to do. I do not think these slaves were perfect. This is a Hebrew slave, a fellow Hebrew.
But the master was merciful and patient. It describes the kind of master he was. He fared well there. He did well there. During that time, the bondservant fell in love with the master, and not just the master, but also his household.
As a result, he said, “You know what? I do not want to go free. I would rather live in the house of my God than be free out there in the tents of the wicked, because I love my master’s house.”
Exodus gives a slightly different description:
But if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free.
—Exodus 21:5
“I love my wife and my children, and I will not go out as a free man.” If he came in with a family, he would leave with it. But if he came in without a family and ended up getting married and having children while in the master’s house, then he would not be able to take them with him.
What does this speak of? It speaks of our life in the Lord.
When my daughter Anna was born—my firstborn child—the nurse said, “This one has fallen into a good nest.” Why did she say that? It was not because Kristen and I were so special. I think she knew the Lord. It was because we had the Lord.
I tell my kids all the time, “You know this we have here? This joy that we have, this love we have for one another? It is only because the Lord is in our life. Without Him, we would not have this.”
Our life—your life—would be troublesome, full of anguish, a disaster. That is how it is without the Lord, if He is not in the household. I tell my kids that all the time.
The bondservant loves his wife. He loves his master. He loves his children. It is not just that he loves them; he loves how his life is with the master. Our lives are good as believers because we are with the Lord. He brings good. There is only good in Him.
Because of that, the slave says, “I do not want to go free.” They take an awl and pierce his ear.
This is a bondservant. It is not just a servant. It is not that we are merely servants, but we are in the Lord’s house. It is a response of love.
In this position as a bondservant, He has your ear. They pierce the ear to the doorpost. What that means is that He has our ear. There is a certain dependency there.
We only do what the Master instructs us to do. If He has your ear, we only do what He tells us to do, not what others would tell us to do. In that place, it is a place of dependency, that we would depend on the Lord Jesus.
What is the result of dependency? The result is a relationship. When you involve the Lord in everything you do, the outcome is a relationship. You actually begin to know Him.
If we are just doing our own thing, and we are never talking to the Lord, and we never have to depend on Him, seek Him, or consult with Him, what type of relationship is that?
It is like old people who sit across from each other and do not say one word to each other. Maybe that is because they know each other so well. But that is how we are. We are in this relationship with the Lord; we are His companion. I have to think what the Lord must think: “Are we even in a relationship here? You never talk to Me.”
But when you start to depend on the Lord, when He has you, and you start to lean on Him for everything, you begin to have a relationship. You start to come to know Him. The more you come to know Him, the more you love Him.
We are not just to come to know Him in an individual way. The other way we come to know the Lord is through dependency on one another. The way the Lord will meet us, the way the Lord speaks to us, is through the Body.
It is not that we were merely brought into Christ; we together, by God’s doing, were placed in Christ. All of us together were joined with Christ. So we need to depend on one another.
We know in the Scriptures that the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you.” I cannot say to any of my brothers or sisters, “I have no need of you.” We need one another, and I think we need one another more than we realize.
Leading up to this conference, I am usually the one who does the administrative things. I organize. But this time, I do not know what it was—I just could not do it. The date was getting closer and closer, and I wanted to, but I could not seem to do it.
Without me saying anything, my wife just began to take things up. She started doing all the administrative work. I remember thinking, “I am glad she is doing it. It needs to get done.” If it was not for her, some of you would probably still be at the airport, and the rest of us might be sleeping in this tent. I do not know.
She just took it up. She began to bear the load. I did not ask her to; she just did it.
Brothers and sisters, there are times when we just cannot do it. The Lord will raise up brothers or sisters to come alongside and bear the load. We were not meant to do it on our own. We were meant to depend on the Lord through the Body, to depend on the Christ in the Body.
A brother or sister also invited us over for dinner. We went over there, and we were kind of discouraged. Actually, we wondered, “Are we going to get rebuked for something?” I do not know why we were thinking that. It shows you where we were at. We needed some encouragement.
We got there, had dinner, and somehow the Lord had put something in their hearts that was also very much on our hearts. The Lord used that to lift us, to encourage us. There was a lot of conflict over this gathering this year—lots of conflict. The Lord used it to lift our heads.
Then there was another time when I was preparing for the Word, and I felt totally paralyzed. I mean, I almost could not move. I called a brother, and we started to fellowship.
While we were sharing together, all of a sudden I started to be set free. I was so anxious. I could not think. I had the burden, but I was all confused. As we fellowshiped together, I was released. I was set free.
There are times when we are paralyzed, and we are not going to get free on our own. We need the Body. We need one another.
I thought of Paul on the road to Damascus. The Lord revealed Himself, and Paul was blinded. It was not Peter, John, or James who came to help him regain his sight. It was little old Ananias, just a little old brother.
He went in obedience to the Lord, and he prayed for Paul after Paul had been blind for three days. When he prayed for him, Paul regained his sight and was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Brothers and sisters, there are times when we are blind and we do not even know it. Without the Body, we cannot see. The Lord could have touched Paul’s eyes and caused him to see. The Lord was the One Who blinded him. The Lord was making a point.
We need one another. Paul was Paul—Paul the apostle. We know how the Lord used Paul in such an amazing way, but even Paul the apostle was not able to do it on his own.
We need to fight for one another. Adam was supposed to guard. Where was he? He was not guarding, and the enemy came in.
We have a responsibility to one another to guard and to fight. You see your brother or sister getting taken out, and we need to be like watchmen on the wall, ones who see it and pray and travail for them, that they come through. This is our work.
Our life is to come under His feet. But our work is to bring all things under His feet. That includes the brothers and sisters. We need one another.
We will not make it. We will not overcome unless we are joined with the Lord and joined with one another. It is the way by which we will overcome.
We even need the prickly saints. Now, we are all prickly. But do you know why we need them? Because they remind us that apart from Him, we can do nothing.
“Oh, you are spiritual, so you get a prickly saint.” Then you get pricked, and you realize, “I have like a half-shredded ounce of love, and I cannot do it.”
So we go to the Lord and say, “Lord, I know I need to love my brother. I need to love my sister, but I cannot do it.” We find that as we join ourselves with Him, we are able to love with agape love, with the love of Christ.
This is God’s design.
We are exhorted in Revelation to overcome. This is the call right now to us: “He who has an ear, let him hear. To him who overcomes.”
We can hear these things, but the Lord has called us not just to hear them, but somehow to receive them into our hearts—to turn away from everything else and to turn to Him.
Do you know what happens when you walk this way and have relationship with the Lord? You begin to meld into Him. Jeffrey spoke of this earlier out of Ephesians 3: that Christ would dwell in your hearts through faith.
Christ dwells in our spirit, but He is not supposed to just stay in our spirit. Praise God, He is there. But He is to permeate our whole being.
His mind would be our mind. His will would be our will. His emotion, His feeling, would be our feeling. He is to permeate us. In other words, we are to be summed up into Christ.
This is how it is done. It was through Adam’s independence that we were separated from God, but it is through our dependence that we are brought back into the will and work of God.
We are to depend on Him in all things. You cannot depend on Him enough. Lean on Him. Consult with Him. Bring things to Him.
This past year, my life has been horrible. It has been the hardest year of my life. When I switched to construction, it was so hard. I was up in the middle of the night, night after night after night. “What are we going to do?” Crisis after crisis after crisis.
You know what the Lord was showing me? “You know nothing about depending on Me. You know nothing.” Oh, the Lord has been teaching me this.
We have to go to Him with everything. We go to Him with our crises, with our problems, and He gave me enough problems to be with Him all the time. But He wants us to go to Him with everything.
We were never meant to be alone, separated. We were meant to be joined with Him. When we are joined with Him, we have all of heaven at our disposal. When we are joined with Him, we have all power, all might, all strength, all ability.
We who are a little lower than the angels are able to overcome, because it is not about the vessel. It is about the One to Whom the vessel is joined.
We are joined with the Lord Jesus. Can you imagine? He was the perfect expression of God and man joined together. What a beautiful thing. This is our destiny.
For God so loved the world. He died for us because He saw who we were destined to be. He came to this earth and took the form of a bondservant to show us who we are supposed to be.
Brothers and sisters, we are not God. John the Baptist said it so well: “I am not the Christ.”
We are not to live for ourselves and do our own thing. We are to come under our Head as bondservants—not because we have to, but because we want to. Because it is better in His house. We love our Master.
Because we love Him, we come and give ourselves to Him. We worship Him. We worshiped and sang some wonderful things, but there is a reality behind that: to lay our lives on the altar and worship Him.
He alone is worthy of it.
That the principalities and powers would know through the church the manifold wisdom of God—that they would see that it all has to do with Christ.
Let us bring this to the Lord in prayer.
Oh, we just want to thank You, Lord. We thank You for tonight, Lord, and even this moment right now. We thank You for this chance to bow down and worship You, because You are Lord.
Lord, we ask Your forgiveness where we have given ourselves over to other things.
Lord, we do not want to be Your enemy. We want to be Your companion. We want to be those who, Lord, come under You.
We thank You, Lord, that You have created us with such purpose, Lord, even to be Your bondservants, and to come in not just as servants, but as sons, and to share in all the glory, all of Your heart, all that You are.
We just thank You, Lord. Thank You for not giving up on us. Lord, thank You for not leaving us. Thank You for not judging us, but instead coming to be judged on our behalf.
Lord, we confess we deserve death. We thank You, Lord, that You died for us, that we might receive Your life, that we might be placed back in the garden.
We thank You, Lord, for bringing us back into the garden. Lord, we do not want to ignore the tree—the tree of life. We do not want to ignore what You have given us.
Lord, even tonight, we say, “Lord, we do not want to ignore You anymore. We want to come to You and take of Your life. We want to receive of You.”
Lord, that together as Your people, we might be summed up in You; and together as Your people, that we might bring all things under Your feet.
Lord, we see this world. It is in chaos. We acknowledge that Your kingdom must come and Your will must be done here on earth as it is in heaven.
Lord, we stand with You. Lord, tonight we align ourselves with You, that You would fill this whole earth.
We just worship You, Lord, in Jesus’ name. Amen.