One of the neglected considerations of the Church
in our generation, but we have made faint
allusions to it as we have been proceeding,
is the pre-incarnate life of Christ before
he took upon himself humanity.
There's an immeasurable history of relationship with the
Father and the Son before the advent of
his coming into the earth that has been
virtually ignored, as if history begins with the
advent of Jesus in human form.
But it begins before that, and the failure
to consider that earlier history gives us an
inadequate knowledge and understanding of both the Father
and the Son.
We have to know the glory that the
Son forfeited in coming, and in coming voluntarily
and freely, and that the Father sent the
Son is the first instance of apostolic reality.
It's the first sending, and the first of
anything is always a prototype, the classic formulation
of every subsequent expression that contains the constituent
elements of any sending, which is to say,
of any apostolic act.
So the sending of the Son was the
first apostolic act.
And if you follow out the use of
the word sending and sent, it confirms it
in every place.
Jesus said, as the Father has sent me,
so send I you.
And the first apostolic sending in Acts chapter
13 from Antioch, when the Holy Ghost separated
unto me Saul, Paul, and Barnabas for their
work, unto whom I have called them, so
after they had fasted and prayed, they laid
hands upon them.
So they being sent by the Holy Ghost
went.
So there's a reiteration of the word sent.
There's a sending, and of course the Greek
word, as I've already mentioned, apostolos means sent
one.
God's lament about the false prophets is, I
did not send them, yet they ran.
And that's more a description today of what
takes place under the words apostolic and prophetic.
I did not send them, yet they ran.
So the issue of sending is critical, and
it goes back to the beginning in the
agreement between Father and Son to be sent,
and the Son, in his own freedom, voluntarily
agreeing.
So my new favorite author, P.T. Forsythe,
has a whole chapter on the pre-incarnate
life of Christ, and that Christ's earthly humiliation
had to have its foundations laid in heaven,
and needs to be reviewed as a renunciation
before the world was.
The cross took place before the cross.
The cross had its origins in eternity.
The agreement of the Father and the Son
to be sent, and the renunciation of the
relationship with the Father in the most pure
form in which the Son enjoyed it, was
already the expression of the cross.
Got that?
Well, failure to understand that, and to appreciate
that, and to factor that in, robs us
of a fuller appreciation of the whole mystery
of the faith.
And maybe this is the very thing that
cheats us from that final stage of love
and appreciation, which is called adoration.
And with adoration that I somehow suspect is
the whole key to power, and the ultimate
reality of expression and service in God, and
that the issue of the pre-incarnate relationship
between Father and Son is that missing factor
that brings the fuller revelation, and brings us
across that threshold of respect, admiration, appreciation, to
the place of adoration itself.
So, Forsythe is right that this earthly humiliation
had to have its foundation in heaven.
It was not initiated in earth, but in
heaven, in the agreement between the Father and
Son of what the sending would require before
the world was.
It was an eternal resolve between Father and
Son, an act within the Godhead.
Isn't that a remarkable phrase?
That nothing less will carry the fullness of
faith, this is my statement, and that the
adoration of Christ must go together with this
view of him, that his sacrifice began before
he came into the world, that there was
a Calvary above before there was one below.
So the issue of the cross, and renunciation,
denial, had its origin in heaven, though it
was acted out in earth.
But if you ignore the heavenly origin, you
miss something of the greater glory of God
and his character, because as she said, this
was an act within the Godhead itself.
This is very God, and we have lost
the consideration, both of the pre-incarnate Christ
and the post-resurrection Christ.
Isn't that interesting?
There's very little consideration of the ascension of
Christ.
We dote on his earthly history, and well
that we should, and then there's a resurrection,
and we consider that as well we should.
But the ascension of Christ and the enthronement
lies in the same kind of neglect as
does the pre-incarnate life, and yet one
is the other side of the same coin.
The coming down and the going up is
part of the total mystery of the great
redemptive work of God that needs to be
factored in and computed if we are to
give God the full appreciation and recognition and
devotion that he deserves.
That's why I'm sharing this before you have
your committees, that this will be taken into
your consideration.
Because Jesus said to Nicodemus, No man can
ascend who has not first descended.
Something must go down before it comes up.
Not only something, but I would almost say
everything has to come down before it can
go up, including and maybe especially our worship.
Can you put your piper away for the
moment unless you're looking for it?
I'm going to be talking in another minute
or two about worship, and the issue of
true worship has like the issue of anything
that is apostolic to come down before it
can go up.
Something has to be given from the throne
of heaven.
Every true act, every true work, reality itself,
has its nexus and its origin at the
throne of heaven.
So that's why Jesus said, No man can
ascend who has not first descended, even the
Son of Man who is in heaven.
Though his feet are in Jerusalem, his essential
being is from above.
So we've lost this consideration, and it needs
to be restored.
That true worship has to have its origin
first from the Father, from the throne, before
it can find its expression out from the
earth.
But if it begins from the earth, humanly,
however well-meaning the intention, and however aided
and abetted by instrumentation, it's lacking that heavenly
quality that is true, and becomes an issue
of musicality, or enjoyment for the congregation.
But it's not a worship unto the Most
High.
Did you ever hear me quote the brother
who spoke once in our morning prayer meeting
years ago and said, It takes God to
love God.
I thought that was the best thing that
I'd ever heard him say.
Maybe one of the best things I ever
heard anyone say.
It takes God to love God.
That only God can convey the love appropriate
to himself.
And by the same measure, only God can
convey the worship appropriate to himself.
That's why he's got to send.
Because anything that issues from us, however well
-meaning our intention, lacks the quality that only
God can imbue in those things which he
initiates and originates from the throne in sending.
So the genius of the word apostolic is
sent.
And the presumption of a religious generation is
to run though they were not sent.
God says, I never sent them.
He had to send his son.
And then his son sends his disciples.
And so the root of apostolic reality is
struck from the very inception of redemptive glory
in the sending of the son by the
father before the world was.
So that the issue of the cross is
already in the Godhead itself and finds its
expression in the sending of the son because
the separation and the coming into the earth
in that sending is sacrifice.
Loss of the pure intimacy that Jesus enjoyed
with the father in the eternal experience that
was his before his sending.
And then the humiliation that awaits is coming
into the earth.
The humiliation of just being a man, let
alone taking upon himself the form of a
man, becoming a servant and dying in the
cruelest form, even the death of the cross,
was all foreknown and necessary and known in
that sending.
That's why Paul, who has had a greater
sense of this in his apostolic knowledge, as
a sent one, says, who can separate us
from the love of God?
Can persecution or deprival or this or that
or sickness or any factor separate us from
the love of God?
What made his statement so sublime and so
sweeping?
Because he factors in the love of God
not just from the commencement of Jesus' earthly
ministry but from the commencement of his sending.
The pre-incarnate sending is already the expression
of the love of God that God sent
his son.
God so loved the world that he gave.
And so he has a sense of that
love that factors in much more than just
the conduct and acts of Jesus in his
earthly tenure but apprehends also the sending as
being the very act of love.
He goes to the origin.
And therefore he has a sweeping sense of
the love of God that finds its expression
in that remarkable statement in Corinthians.
Who shall separate us from the love of
God?
How does he know it that deeply?
Because he's apprehending and considering something that the
Church by and large has neglected.
Namely the pre-incarnate life of Christ as
well as the life that took place with
his becoming man.
And Forsyth says that in that sending he
consented not only to die but to be
born.
Isn't that remarkable?
He consented not only to die but to
be born.
That he would take upon himself the form
of a man and the humility of infancy
and dependency and all those things to which
he must come as very God.
Reggie's showing me a verse that ties in
perfectly in the Gospel of John.
And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with
Thine own self with the glory which I
had with Thee before the world was.
It would take a Holy Ghost inspired imagination
even to begin to sense what that glory
was as you're hinting at it.
And that that was left behind and forsaken
as part of a sacrifice of love in
the willing voluntary obedience of Jesus as a
son to the Father in Heaven to come
down and enter this earth and to suffer
birth and then subsequent death.
That's why Forsyth calls it an act within
the Godhead.
But it requires an act.
It's inherent in the Godhead, it's intrinsic in
the Godhead.
It's the nature of the Godhead but required
an act to explicate and bring that glory
down to earth which the son voluntarily agreed
to do in his own freedom and the
father in his freedom in sending the son.
They're explicating and showing forth in an act
what was already with them in their own
nature.
So when Jesus takes upon himself the form
of a servant he's not taking up a
pseudo identity he's revealing the truth of God.
God is servanthood.
This ought to begin to stir in us
some sense of what Heaven itself is and
the glory that I had with you.
What kind of an environment did the son
enjoy with the father?
Is that why it says that every good
and perfect thing comes down from above from
the father of lights and whom there is
no shadow no verbenas of turning.
Every good and perfect thing comes down from
the father of lights from Heaven which is
the nexus, the seat of glory of purity,
of righteousness, of holiness.
That's why everything must come down and must
be sent and anything that has its origin
out except from that place is dubious and
in question and even counterfeit if it dares
use the word apostolic because it is not
sent.
So the first act is the sending from
Heaven of that glory, out of that glory
by the will of the father of the
son is the root of what is itself
apostolic and every subsequent act has in some
way to have its character from that sending
and be of like kind.
You have a jealousy that you'll wait and
not initiate anything that is expedient or humanly
or religiously necessary if it is not given
from above because every good and perfect thing
comes down from above from the father of
lights.
This is a priestly jealousy and a priestly
insistence so that it's interesting that Jesus is
called in Hebrews 3.1 the high priest
and the apostle of our confession.
He could not be the apostle of our
confession if he had not the high priestly
regard for Heaven for the father, for the
glory, for what is with God and its
purity and then being sent down to communicate
something of that reality into the earth.
So we have it to the degree we
have a priestly appreciation which means to wait
from that which is given and not to
commandeer let alone to misrepresent or to humanly
affect something that only God can give.
That's why so much of our Christianity is
bogus that's why so much of our worship
is musicality but has not its origin from
above and I'm going to get into that
in just a few moments.
So the origin of every true act is
from God himself including this morning like I
had no intention that we should have a
class on Wednesday.
Wednesday is not a class day Wednesday was
given over to other purposes but something came
in waiting upon the Lord of what I'm
now attempting to express but it has to
come down from above merely for man to
insert something that he thinks is appropriate is
sound and fury signifying nothing.
So can we be sons without being priests?
Can there be a sonship of the kind
that Jesus set forth before us in his
own example by being both priest and apostle
if we ourselves have not the priestly disposition
to wait for what comes down from above
and not to initiate to check that human
impulse like the strange fire that was initiated
by two sons in their own impulse, not
waiting.
And in Isaiah chapter 6 in the vision
that Isaiah has he sees the Lord high
and lifted up the voice of the Father
says to the Son and whom shall we
send and who will go for us?
So wherever you look just take the Strong's
Concordance and check out the word send and
send and it's a remarkable catalog of the
acts of God that wait on the issue
of sending which is the root of the
word apostolos Who shall go for us?
Whom shall we send?
And what does Isaiah say?
Send me.
So it's presumptuous to think that true worship
or service can issue from ourselves independent of
that source and that the miracle of incarnation
is the miracle of ascending from heaven and
an ascension that what came down went up
in the receiving of the Son who was
obedient unto death and that this is the
master theme I don't know about musical terms
but we talked once about symphonies and a
great theme is sounded like Beethoven's fifth that
struck from the beginning and then the symphony
weaves in and out and intricately plays sub
themes and then the great crescendo comes again
at the climax and you come back again
so what I'm suggesting, though I don't have
any technical musical knowledge, but a love for
the symphonic form which I believe that God
imbued these great composers with is that this
is the great is the sending of the
Son into the earth this is the great
theme struck that has at its heart the
whole issue of what must come down from
above and sent from the Father is that
the whole nexus of reality and of the
Church and of what is apostolic and what
is prophetic is the issue struck first by
the act of the Father and the Son
that's the great theme.
Everything else is a plane on that theme
Jesus was crucified and church legend says that
Isaiah was sawed in half and he was
sent to do what?
To speak a word that would pronounce judgment
upon Israel in which they are fixed even
to this day if you read Isaiah 6
through.
Speak this so that the ears will be
closed, their hearts will be, that they cannot
hear they cannot believe, they cannot be saved
his word was a word of judgment and
Israel still languishes under that judgment spoken by
the man who was sent Jesus was sent
for the purpose of judgment also to bear
it himself so it's no light thing to
be a sent one maybe that's why we
prefer initiating our own activity because the consequence
for us in that would be less than
that borne by those who are sent if
you're going to be sent, brace yourself there's
going to be a weight and a responsibility
and a consequence that will not be pleasing
but it will be glorious think of the
sending of the child Samuel after three times
he's called by name thinking that it was
the old man bidding him and he ran
to him each time the two times and
said if you hear it again it's not
me it's God and so he heard Samuel
and he, yes, thy servant heareth and then
God gives him a statement of judgment that's
to come upon Israel, to come upon Eli
himself and his house and the old man
when he wakens and he knows that Samuel
has had a visitation, what did the Lord
tell you?
so the first expression of Samuel's prophetic call
is to speak the words of judgment and
it says because Samuel did not withhold the
words of the Lord, God did not allow
his words to fall and so a prophet
had come to Israel with the obedience of
speaking the sent thing though it was the
word of judgment so this sending is not
some little frothy like thing, it's costly it
requires God but it's at the heart of
reality itself of which Jesus is the first
expression well I have here my first message
on this subject, Eileen was there in Brooklyn
at a Hispanic church where they first expressed
these thoughts publicly about the issue of worship
contemporary worship, quoting from Oswald Chambers where he
said, those times the times of the felt
presence of God that is holy, holy, holy
and transcendent are the gift of God entirely
you cannot give them to yourself when you
choose you can't fabricate this, you can't create
humanly from below an atmosphere of that kind,
it's a gift that comes down from above
and the whole issue of the church and
it's priestly call is to recognize that every
good and perfect thing comes down from above
and the ability and patience to wait for
it and that when it is received, it
is received with gratitude as a gift and
even as a mercy because we're told that
our destiny toward the Israel and the Jew
is to extend mercy that they may obtain
mercy but unless we are daily and Sunday
by Sunday recognizing that what comes down to
us is from above as a gift and
as a mercy that evokes our gratitude, how
should we have a mercy to extend?
So every Sunday there's an issue being propounded
before the church either to grow in its
apostolic awareness and its reality, its gratitude for
the gift that has come down from the
throne even of the sense of God's presence
and the ability to worship for which there's
a thankfulness and a gratitude and a praise
and a recognition that everything that has come
down is purest mercy.
We even prayed this morning for grace, even
to share this morning grace Lord, you came
full of grace and truth so the whole
issue of the church, its reality its knowledge
of God is the recognition of what comes
down from the throne and what man cannot
order you cannot give it to yourself when
you choose.
When it comes it's a gift of God
from the throne for which we need to
express gratitude for the mercy of that gift.
So the very elements that are constituent in
the church that is the church is every
Sunday at issue over the question of worship
but if the worship that we perform has
its origin from below and just at the
command at a platform, then we cut off
the source of the renewal of that reality
that is at the heart of what is
apostolic.
And I'm speaking this into a church whose
pastor is called an apostle and the message
went over like I don't know what, like
lead I'm even looking at them squirming in
their seats while at the same time people
are standing up in different places of the
congregation spontaneously like wow, what are we hearing?
This is truth so while that was taking
place the pastor himself with his wife were
greatly uncomfortable because it was challenging the whole
structure of a church predicated on a kind
of worship that does not look to the
throne or wait for that which comes down
from above as sent but has its origin
from the platform itself by man and that
the church is under obligation to present a
certain environment conducive to the enjoyment of men
because they're filled up every Sunday with hundreds
of Hispanics who, as I said, their daily
life in that week is essentially God-less,
God-rejecting or indifferent.
So they come hungover dulled by a week
of indifference toward God, needing a fix of
an emotional or a soulish kind for which
men cannot afford to wait if it will
be given or given at all but they
fabricate from the platform something needed for that
emotional need to meet that emotional need and
cut off the prospect of God's sending when
he sees that he is being preempted and
that men themselves are taking the initiative who
do not believe that every good and perfect
thing must come down from above, he draws
back that dove retreats he will not compete
with men, he just recedes and lets men
do his thing.
And so every week something is going forth
from below rather than from above and we're
losing the vital connection and awareness that is
at the root of what is apostolic, even
while we're taking to ourselves the title what
is so tragic is that Paul tells us
in Romans 10 how shall they believe in
him of whom they've not heard, speaking about
the Jew and how shall they hear except
one preach and how shall one preach except
he be sent, for faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the word of God so
that what Israel is really waiting for, unbeknownst
to itself is a sent word because the
apostolic word is more than information the apostolic
word is an event the apostolic word creates
faith where it did not before exist because
it comes down from above so the church
that is forfeiting its apostolic reality and identity
by performing from below what must come down
from above, loses that possibility, though it's smack
dab in the midst of a Jewish Brooklyn
which is the largest residential area of Jews
in the world so there's a tragedy and
a failure to recognize the nexus and heart
of what is apostolic is the word sent
from above it's extremely rare, something transcendent and
that God himself is being honored and blessed,
it's not something predicated by men for men
and called worship in fact, worship has become
the name of the game and which church
is performing the best worship is where people
will go for their enjoyment, but the word
perform indicates where its origin is all of
this ill and loss of apostolic reality even
as the word apostolic is being commended and
men taking it to themselves is in proportion
to the loss of the sense of the
pre-incarnate life of Christ with the father
before his coming and that the issue of
his coming was the issue of sending and
the issue of sending is the issue of
apostolos sent one and that every good and
perfect thing comes down from above, so that
sending from above is at the heart of
our faith and that's what Jesus represented in
his coming as a sent one to fulfill
the tasks of messiahship for atonement but we
have lost the sense and we've cut off
the connection and when we initiate from below
God draws back I'm giving you the key
constituent elements of what is apostolic awaiting for
what originates from the throne as it is
sent and because it comes down from above
and it's pure and holy, there's a gratitude
for the gift of it, which is purest
mercy because we're totally undeserving so, and that
gift evokes worship that recognition is praise and
worship and we recognize it the gift is
a mercy so we are Sunday by Sunday,
as frequently as God is giving this and
we're waiting for it, and he waits to
see if he's being waited for we are
receiving mercy and as we receive mercy, we
can extend mercy if this is cut off
by religious activity by man we have no
mercy to extend and yet in the economy
of God the principle function of the church
in the last days is to extend mercy
that they may obtain mercy but if we're
not obtaining ourselves mercy Sunday by Sunday in
what issues from the throne as we wait
how shall we have a mercy to give
if we lose the apostolic connection of reality
what kind of word can we proclaim for
which they wait, because how shall he believe
except one preach, and how shall one preach
except he be sent we have cut off
the whole foundational premise of the faith and
the Jew therefore, suffers that deficit and his
restoration and the nation is set at abeyance
by all failure which is exactly where we
stand today so if Isaiah required an enablement
to be a sent one what do we
require in order to worship God in spirit
and in truth if he does not send
that ability, what is the character of our
worship it issues out of our own humanity
that is the issue of music so this
issue is every Sunday being affected that is
the whole issue of the church and the
church's destiny for that every good and perfect
thing must come down from above that God
needs our assistance that we have to pump
and that we have to fan is presumptuous
and puts an undue emphasis on man and
a disregard for God as God so what
kind of a church are we that has
merchandise in God and takes such liberties in
our attitude what are we conveying when we
convey but a cheapened and depreciated God whom
we have robbed of his autonomy as the
source of everything and think that we can
duplicate and act out of ourselves to create
something of a kind even acceptable to him
and our condition is so poor that is
acceptable to us in a high moment in
the recent trip to Africa where I was
assigned to be the speaker on the prayer
for Africa day in Cameroon that was supposed
to begin at 2 and didn't commence till
5 in the typical African fashion and they
had a bunch of ministers each coming up
on the platform having a shot at it
to knock the ball out of the park
no one succeeding and a musical group on
the platform that was deafening the loudspeakers were
overwhelming and the crowd was being whipped up
it was getting dark and I went up
to the leader of the prayer time I
said I want to withdraw myself as a
speaker I said the atmosphere that you have
created is not amenable to the prophetic word
that I have for the continent he said
well you have at least you've got to
come up to the platform I went up
to the platform I said I had a
word from the Lord for Africa on prayer
day but the atmosphere to which you have
given yourself is totally inhospitable to this prophetic
word I cannot speak it and I walked
off the platform so you know that happens
more often than we know that my greatest
discouragements and repression has come in conflict with
worship groups and worship leaders in my experience
in the church I have a word pulsating
waiting to be delivered but the atmosphere created
by the so called worship is inimical and
opposed to that word that I cannot bring
it I remember one particular instance the Lord
was quickening something on the millennial glory I
had never ever spoken on it and it
was so ethereal a kind of word that
you you have to have a setting that's
conducive but the time the guy finished I
could not speak it I had to bring
something other and less so the worship ironically
rather than inducing a word inhibits it and
there's even a kind of a rivalry of
who in fact is where the action really
is the bearer of the word or the
leader of the worship we have been reduced
to such a place so this priestly waiting
upon him is predicated on profound respect and
acknowledgement is at the heart and foundation of
the church and it's here that the whole
game is won or lost if we forfeit
this reality of what is sent and start
fabricating our own what shall we have to
give and this is every Sunday being affected
or denied we talk about what comes down
as gift but how does it come down
and what does the gift that comes down
from above reveal about him who is the
gift giver someone has talked about when Jesus
broke bread and dipped and gave a morsel
you not only receive from the hand of
Jesus but there's something in the operation of
the gift as it is being given that
enhances an appreciation for the one who is
breaking the bread so it's not just we
receive the gift we're so American we want
the benefit but what is revealed in what
God gives as a gift giver and the
manner in which he gives it how much
is that a revelation of something of the
character the personality of God himself that we
lose when we forfeit and will not wait
for the gift that comes from the giver
we lose both the gift and the nature
of the giver by which our knowledge of
God would grow week by week as we
wait in a priestly way for this remarkable
phenomenon because we're absolutely determined that every good
and perfect thing must come down from above
all the more when you think that heaven
is the headquarters of reality the throne is
not some governmental place though it is government
of creation but it's the issue of reality
itself it's God at his throne it's at
the heart of everything so what measure of
reality do we have if we forfeit that
there's so much more than I can begin
to touch and what is at issue in
our failure to wait and to receive from
the giver the gift because what it communicates
of God who is the nexus of reality
we come into the condition that we're in
where we duplicate our own which is unreality
so we're freaking out the want of reality
is the ground for every kind of psychic
disorder every kind of physical disorder so we
have congregations of the sick and the unhappy
and the broken marriages and everything that results
waiting then for some visiting speaker who's going
to bring a kind of a magic that
will alleviate our ill or heal us and
then there'll be another long line of people
in need of healing because the atmosphere itself
is not conducive to health it's not reality
it's a man created environment that has got
to breed the kinds of psychic, mental, physical
disorders social disorder that we see in the
church as every bit as in the world
God is health, God is sanity, God is
reality he's worth waiting for so our impatience
is a it's the antithesis of priestliness it's
because we're governed by our own need and
want to fill the silence or we've allowed
a people to live in a casual indifferent
attitude toward God through the week and coming
Sunday for their fix and if you don't
provide it, they'll go out and find it
in another place that will, and so you
lose their finance and their tithes and so
the whole economy of the church it's interesting
that in this church where I'm speaking this
for the first time and the poor pastor
is writhing in his seat that when I
finished, he made reference to their 7.5
million dollar building fund that they want to
put up some kind of a school and
this is what occupies him so that in
the deeps it's the issue of finance people
in their seats, giving and to please them
and satisfy them that they remain and that
they give, that the program will be fulfilled
the building will go up and on the
sign the name of the man as not
only pastor but as apostle while the whole
issue of what is apostolic is itself contradicted
and lost, that's the tragedy what does it
say even about the sending of Jesus that
when the fullness of the time had come
God sent his son, so even the father
waited for the appropriate moment in his own
wisdom for that sending so the father himself
in his nature is priestly, the son is
the high priest as well as the apostle
of our confession if God can wait, why
can we not wait and if we will
not wait, we're going to find ourselves being
visited by those who have sent themselves for
Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11 such
are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into
the apostles of Christ and it's no marvel
for Satan himself is transformed into an angel
of light, therefore it is no great thing
if his ministers also be transformed as the
ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according
to their works.
The last days is going to be a
harvest of false prophets and one of the
things that the Lord applauds in one of
the churches in Revelation is their ability to
see those men who say that they are
apostles and they are not so false apostles
and false prophets will characterize the last days
in an age of deception when people are
not schooled in a priestly disposition to wait
and to discern and that there are vacuums
to be filled in which men will rush
if they can create worship what else will
they not also establish out of their own
religiosity that is false the whole church then
fails to be what it must it's witness
to the Jew waits and it's a tragic
standoff for the want of priestly disposition so
just to repeat what Chambers said the times
are the gift of God you cannot give
them to yourself if you choose not only
that you cannot but that you should not
you should not choose to give them to
yourself when God gives it it is in
his time as was also the sending of
his son and his time is perfect and
we ought to desire to wait for it
and not choose to present our own alternative
we ought not to choose it let alone
to produce it or we'll get the false
thing the false the unreality that pervades the
church in the world today that there are
times when you command your soul to bless
the Lord oh my soul you don't wait
there's something that must come from our own
will but this is not in opposition to
the theme of God and the basic apostolic
nature of things that requires priestly waiting and
total dependence of what comes from above so
we need to discern when we should and
even in those things God gives us the
incentive to exert our will and praise this
is part of the tension of being a
saint one of the things that we see
reiterated in the Psalms over and over is
the Psalmist crying out how long Lord they're
crying for a deliverance that can only come
from God when God will but by every
reckoning it's a deliverance that should have taken
place long before because the Psalmist or the
nation is suffering judgment and ridicule of its
enemies and every kind of thing that contradicts
even the reputation of God to deliver his
own so when the Psalmist cries out how
long Lord he's not only crying out for
his own deliverance he's crying out for God
to honor his own name and to be
to his sons what he ought but how
often do we see that indicating that God
is not at our fingertips and to be
commandeered at our will because we see an
urgency that we think he needs to meet
now if he's not meeting it now we
should have the confidence in his great sovereignty
and majesty and love that their purpose is
being served that will defer his action and
we can afford to wait however painful that
waiting is in that condition God never intended
us to be isolates who are struggling this
out by ourselves in fact the issue of
one who will be sent to preach the
word in the hearing of which Israel will
be saved how shall they believe except one
preach and how shall one preacher be sent
is not just the issue of the individual
being sent but the individual being sent from
a sending body that's why that message was
to a church being called to apostolic reality
that they might be a sending body out
of which men can be sent to proclaim
the word which was exactly the first sending
in the history of the church out of
Antioch in Acts 13 Paul is addressing a
congregation and in Acts 13 we see how
diverse that congregation is, black and white, Jew
and Gentile Cyrene, Mediterranean, the whole motley mix
of all of the elements that compose that
piece of the ancient world but when they
were found worshiping together without an overhead projector
in their differences in the racial and ethnic
differences that in the world around them made
for conflict they were at a place where
they could worship God together and when the
Holy Ghost saw that he said separate unto
me and he named the two men who
will reflect this heavenly reality that has come
to the mix of the world and bring
it into the ancient world that men might
know that there's a way of peace that
these men will represent that reality that has
come to Antioch and is reflected in their
worship their worship was not a technique their
worship was not a methodology their worship was
the statement of a reality to which they
had come of a heavenly kind that mirrors
and reflects the reality of the Godhead himself
Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a cordial
and self-deferring love one with another had
come to men on earth in their racial
and ethnic differences and out of that body
can one be sent so that's the first
historic record of ascending by which the word
apostolic in fact Saul becomes Paul in that
being sent Saul becomes an apostle who is
a teacher until the sending the sending is
the whole coming forth now of a new
quality of reality but it had to come
out of a body that God can address
because when they had laid hands upon them
having prayed and fasted so then they were
sent forth by the here's the word send
again, by the Holy Ghost that God equates
the laying on of the hands of men
as the sending of the Holy Ghost and
what kind of power did they have in
authority?
these are they that turned the world upside
down there was something in that sending as
Reggie shared with us that in being sent
something of the sender is imparted as enablement
because the purpose for which you are sent
is beyond your human ability to perform whether
it's worship or apostolic service the sending itself
by God because it has its origin in
heaven the Holy Ghost said separate unto me
sets in motion a new quality of reality
called apostolicity that has a power to penetrate
and turn the world upside down because the
world in its present configuration is upside down
and needs to be rectified and set right
it needs to be brought into a heavenly
an awareness of a heavenly alternative to an
earthly hell by men who are sent who
bear that reality and have it in themselves
they not only bear the message they are
the thing in themselves and they have come
to it in the environment of an apostolic
kind that is priestly and that waits isn't
it interesting?
nothing is told us about the church at
Antioch only that out of Antioch, not out
of Jerusalem but out of Antioch comes the
first apostolic sending all the more because of
its diversity but when you dwell upon it
you can imagine the investment of God in
bringing them to the reality for which he
has waited and that same God is waiting
still and the pity is that the word
apostolic has now become popular and fraudulent men
who have no right to the claim and
have appointed themselves such transforming themselves into ministers
of light are now circulating and setting up
entire districts by which they establish other luminaries
to be the minister of this and minister
of that that the whole world is being
sliced up and partitioned by men who think
that they are apostles who are not sent
we are reaping a judgment for our failure
to jealously guard the great words and to
wait for that which can only come down
from above I know some of these men
personally I've been on the platform with them
personally I know what they are made of
and where they are coming from they are
not the real thing that where two or
three are gathered in my name there am
I in the midst so you start with
who you are and what you have at
hand the little nucleus, yourself and your wife
and the one guy who stuck it out
with you and then just trust as God,
as the church he added to the church
daily such as shall be saved let the
Lord find the nucleus of authenticity of priestly
waiting and let him add and don't be
numbers conscious it may well be that the
church of the last days will hardly be
anything more than little conglomerates of saints of
this kind that are waiting and obedient I
don't know how numerous the church at Antioch
was in fact we might well suspect that
where the churches are increased in numbers there
the reality is least to be found or
even to be expected because numbers themselves are
inimical to the reality that we are talking
about which requires intimacy, relationship honesty, speaking the
truth in love confronting one another, reproof, correction
how do you do that when you have
a congregation of hundreds or thousands who are
anonymous figures in a congregation and have no
personal identity or relationship with one another what
kind of communion are they taking when they
hold a little plastic cup waiting for the
command to drink together who are not together
communion means together but can you have it
when you are lost in a large crowd
and that people prefer that anonymity because Paul
says when you come together each one has
a tongue and interpretation a prophecy, a revelation,
a hymn so that Paul could leave the
congregations that were initiated through his evangelistic activity
and come back two years later and they
are still there not only are they there
but they are flourishing and they have grown
because each one has when they come together
there is an opportunity to interact and to
receive the benefit of the spirit of God
moving through the different ones and the gifts
that have been imparted and Paul only recognizes
upon whom the mantle of authority has fallen
and just sets him in before the congregation
in a way in which they have already
recognized that such one is called to be
an elder in the place of authority that
was the original pattern so we are so
removed from that and have to find our
way back so in the absence of any
existence of such reality you may yourself have
to be it and as I often encourage
people remain in the larger church but it's
not your church, it's your field of ministry
it's your mission field to be a witness
in that place but your church, the place
where you share the Lord's table and where
you receive counsel or reproof and intimate fellowship
however small is the church, you have to
distinguish between the church and the place of
ministry which is the mission field which is
the larger congregation itself so it's a lonely
call but this reality has got to be
found when it comes it's a gift when
it comes it's a mercy and maybe it
would come more often if we were not
ourselves pre-empting God by creating an equivalent
of our own and maybe when I was
emptied I found myself on my face I
don't know what time it was, maybe 3
in the morning but the sense of God
as I had never known it began to
flood my soul and all of a sudden
I was aware that I was a creature
and that I was prostrate before the creator
and I can't I don't have a word
for it, it devastated me it was like
an awesome foundational understanding of who I am
relative to who he is that if we
don't get that set in our spirits where
do we go from there?
Every reckoning will be askew if we have
not foundationally understood who we are relative to
who he is and it did not come
until much fasting, much prayer, much emptying and
prostration before God but once it comes, something
is set in that will affect all of
your subsequent days you will not presume upon
God so that may have been the worship
that is recorded in Acts 13 that when
he found them ministering unto the Lord together
the Holy Ghost said, when we read that
we think they must have been in the
midst of their choruses what if they were
in the midst of being on their faces
what if they were in the midst of
their priestly silence and a long period of
time and prostration before God, recognizing their finiteness
and their limitation and the magnificence of the
father who is the creator and from whom
every good and perfect thing must come didn't
they know there was a world dying about
them?
that they should rush out and minister?
didn't Elijah know that there was not another
soul left, that the priests were killed and
that he alone why didn't he go out
earlier?
because he waits, because he's priestly because he
trusts, and it doesn't allow himself to be
governed or motivated by need apparent need, but
only by the God who sends.
The last day's trap for the church will
be it's response to need it sees need
and will rush off to meet it and
be diverted from the thing that only God
can direct because he alone has the sublime
and perfect knowledge of the end from the
beginning.
But if we're governed by needs and in
fact a great taunt in the early history
of Ben Israel was what are you doing?
what are you performing?
what ministry are you performing?
what are you guys doing up there in
the boondocks?
and we had nothing to show and nothing
to say but it's very intimidating when active
churches ask you what are you doing and
you have nothing to answer or to show
we're waiting on that thing that comes down
from above there's no apostolicity without priestliness that's
the Logan that's short of it and the
son of God, Jesus, is the high priest
and the apostle of our confession his priestliness
had it's origin before his earthly career it
was already something that was the issue of
his identity with the father in his pre
-incarnate life his servanthood as priest was something
made manifest in the earth but the origin
of the reality was with him in his
eternal identity as the son with the father
before he came in and we need to
take this into our deepest consideration and recognize
what that sending represented it was the revelation
of God in his mercy and his love
at great cost to himself and to the
son but to our great benefit we can
spend time, and we should on identifying what
is the nub and essence of priestliness what
is the issue of waiting what is the
jealousy for God the father and his glory,
that we will not seek to displace by
anything that we initiate out of ourselves we
have so high a regard for the authenticity
of God and the good and perfect thing
that must come down from above, that we
will not seek to initiate out of ourselves
that every action, every thought, every conduct has
God as it's center this is the jealous
love of the son for the father this
is sonship this is the relationship between the
son and the father that is exhibited by
Jesus his every thought, his every consideration was
the father, how will this affect his purpose
his fulfillment, his honor, his glory and therefore
Jesus never initiated anything out of himself the
words that he spoke and the things that
he did all from the father so he
is the high priest in every sense of
that word and because he is the high
priest he is also the apostle for were
he not a priest, neither would he be
the apostle somebody gave me a little composition
entitled the mush god of today that says
the mush god has been known to appear
to millionaires on golf courses he appears to
politicians at ribbon cutting ceremonies and to clergymen
speaking the invocation on national TV at either
democratic or republican conventions the mush god's presence
is felt during brotherhood week and when Rotarians
come together he is the lifeless deity that
former president Carter was referring to when he
suggested peace might come to the middle east
because the Egyptian president and the Israeli prime
minister both worshipped the great mushy one the
mush god has no theology to speak of
he is a cream of wheat deity he
has no particular credo, no tenets of faith
nothing that would make it difficult for believers
and unbelievers alike to lower one's head when
the temporary chairman tells us the reverend rabbi
father mufti so and so will lead us
in an innocuous harmless prayer for this god
of public occasions is not a jealous god
you can even invoke him to start a
hooker convention and he or she won't be
offended he's the god of the rotary, god
of the optimist club protector of the bloody
system the mush god is the lord of
secular ritual of the necessary but hypocritical forms
and formalities that hush the divisive and the
derisive the mush god is a serviceable god
small g, whose laws are not chiseled on
tablets but written on sand open to amendment,
qualification and erasure this is a god, small
g that will compromise with you, make allowances
and declare all wars holy and all peace
hallowed that's the god that prevails today for
the want of the god who is god
for whom we've not sufficiently waited and trusted
and believed that every good and perfect thing
comes down from above and needs to be
sent so lord, gracious god on high there's
a cry in the earth for reality and
there's a world that's dying for the want
of it and the victims are everywhere broken
in mind and in body and in spirit
because they are inhabiting an unreality that is
not conducive to sanity or to health and
because the reality that is reality that is
heavenly must come down for those who wait
and lord, we as the church are the
greatest what's the word?
the greatest offenders in self-initiating activity that
we dare call worship that has not its
origin in you and far from blessing you
is a stink we're guilty of what Israel
was guilty of in which you said in
Isaiah your sacrifices are a stink in my
nostrils I don't care for your holy days
while at the same time you have no
knowledge of me so lord, we are guilty
of Israel's sin and we ask forgiveness lord
and mercy we ask for reality we ask
for true sendings we ask for expressions in
the earth my god of a priestly people
who wait and that you will bring us
my god the prostrations that are true prostrations
because you're pleased to give that sense of
yourself that you jealously guard and you don't
bandy about but that you'll bestow by those
who will not displace you in their own
activity come my god and restore the great
words apostolic and prophetic and save us from
the terrible indictment I did not send them
but they ran and may this morning not
be an example of something humanly initiated but
something divinely given and we bless you for
it lord let it find its place in
our consideration as we go now to consider
the questions you gave us two days ago
in view of what you spoke since that
time that this word and the whole issue
of incarnation man and the deity the remarkable
union that came in the sending of a
son that agreed to be born that he
might die would sink into our deeps lord
and rule us in our own conduct so
we bless you lord, precious god on her
we need mercy lord, we need mercy my
god we're dull, thick vain, selfish, impatient we're
human all too human lord we have not
the regard for heaven and the throne as
we ought so come my god and forgive
us for our impudence our failure to wait,
our lack of priestly disposition and grant us
by your grace those very qualities my god
that were incorporated in your son and intrinsic
to your own nature impart to us my
god what we cannot fabricate for ourselves and
we thank and give you praise for the
mercy of it that receiving that mercy we
may soon one day extend mercy and fulfill
even the destiny of the church toward Israel
in Jesus name we pray and god's people
said amen