Bill Johnson - Your Purpose as Part of God's Eternal Plan
A preacher stood in waste-deep water at a river baptism, talking to a group of people on the riverbank when a man, who was obviously drunk, wandered down into the crowd. The preacher spotted him, pointed him out, and said, «Sir, would you like to find Jesus?» The drunk shook his head yes and wandered down into the water. The preacher grabbed him, spun him around, put him under the water, and then pulled him up, grabbing the front of his coat as he yelled, «Did you find Jesus?» «No,» said the drunk. So the preacher repeated the baptism for an extended ten seconds. He held him under, pulled him up again, and asked, «Did you find Jesus?» «No,» cried the drunk.
So the process was repeated a third time, except the preacher held him under for 30 seconds. He then pulled him up, and the drunk said, «You almost drowned me.» The preacher replied, «Yes, but did you find Jesus?» The drunk wiped the water from his face and asked, «Are you sure this is the last place you saw him go under?» It’s pitiful, I know, but I do like it anyway. So deep! Is that what somebody said? So deep? Yeah, I know. It was deep. It’s third-grade humor, which is what I specialize in. So, all right. God created Adam and Eve. I just thought of a joke. I’m sorry. You ever had a car where the alignment was so off that if you ever let go of the steering wheel, it just went in one direction? That’s me; I go one direction. That’s just bad jokes. Adam was showing his sons the garden from a distance and he says, «Yeah, your mother ate us out of house and home.» But that’s… Sorry. Hang on to the wheel, Bill! Hang on to the wheel! Okay, I’ve got to stop now. Got to stop. Stop.
God extended himself to all of humanity, and there was rejection after rejection after rejection. We see the flood as a result of this rejection, God isolating one family with Noah and raising up a new kind of people—perhaps the kind of people that might come from a man who knew what faith was like. We see the Tower of Babel, where there was such unity in opposition to God that He brought confusion to languages and separated them that way. Yet God extended himself year after year, century after century, to all the peoples of the earth. Finally, there came a moment where the Lord decided to raise up one nation to illustrate to that nation what He intended for all nations. So, in Genesis 12, we have this call of God to Abram—or Abram at that time, before the breath of God was added to his name. It’s in verse one; if you have it open, if you don’t, go ahead and open quickly. Genesis should be easy to find unless you only have a New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs. Then you’ll have to take this one by faith.
Genesis 12:1: The Lord said to Abram, «Get out of your country, from your family, from your father’s house to the land I will show you, and I will make you a great nation. I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you.» How many of you sense a whole lot of blessing going on here in God’s design? He designed a nation to be blessed and to be a blessing. That was the nature of their purpose, their design. They were designed, if you can imagine any product with a specific design and specific role to play, Israel as a nation was designed to carry blessing and to distribute blessing. That was in their DNA.
So, verse two again: I will make you a great nation; I will bless you; I will make your name great. You shall be a blessing; I will bless those who bless you; I will curse those who curse you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And so we have this summons from God for Abram to leave his homeland and to follow Him. He didn’t know where he was going. Chris puts this really well: Abraham didn’t know where he was going; he just knew where he couldn’t stay. Sometimes that’s the place we’re in. We don’t know where we’re headed; we just know we can’t stay where we are any longer. God puts this holy dissatisfaction in us.
A lot of people wait for a complete roadmap so that they understand what He’s doing. It’s never about where you’re going; it’s about the journey. God values the journey above the destination because it’s in the journey where relationship is developed—the ability to hear the heart, to respond; all of that is shaped in the journey. And so Abram leaves, but he leaves with part of his family, which wasn’t part of his instruction. We see a time when Lot had to choose one direction while Abraham chose the other direction. It’s interesting to me that Peter, in the Bible, calls Abraham a man called righteous because of his faith in Romans chapter 4. So here’s Abraham, and his nephew Lot is also called a righteous man in Peter’s writing.
So here are two righteous men, and yet one suffered greatly while Abraham went into great blessing. Lot suffered greatly because the scripture says he was oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men. He allowed his surroundings to influence him instead of his faith affecting his surroundings. He became a victim of the setting he was in instead of being an influence in the setting he was in. Probably the best way to illustrate this is—one of the best ways would be in the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. A thermometer reads the temperature; a thermostat changes the temperature. There are many prophetic ministries that do well at reading the temperature, telling you the condition of the world, but do nothing to change the condition of the world.
So what the Lord is summoning us to do is to follow on a journey to make a difference in life, in this world. We have Abram and Lot and finally they part ways. When they do, Abram comes into his place of destiny. When he comes into his place of destiny, it has more to do with his family line than anything else. I don’t want to say God didn’t have a location in mind—because He obviously did—but He had promised Abraham a son, and his son would be called Isaac, which means laughter. Isaac is a tremendous illustration of the life of grace in God. The Bible says that those who are descendants of Abraham are not the children of promise, but the ones who are from Isaac. What’s the difference? Abraham refers to a season and period of time, whereas Isaac refers to the promise of God.
Everyone who by faith embraces the promise of salvation comes into permanent jubilee, which is laughter, joy, liberty, freedom. It’s a nature of life in the kingdom of God. So to live without joy is to actually live in opposition to your design. You can do it, but you have to work at it. You can succeed at being joyless, but you have to make deliberate steps because it’s not your nature. Your nature is actually one of joy because you’ve been freed. We’ve been freed from our past, and our nature has been changed. We’ve been summoned into a destiny that is beyond our comprehension, but it is one that actually shapes world history.
So we have God extending Himself to all the peoples of the world, all the nations of the world—and all reject Him. There’s not one that turned to Him. So He takes this one man named Abram and says, «Out of you, I’m going to raise up a nation unto Myself.» We know Israel had its issues too, but here He raises up one nation. Why? It wasn’t that Israel was different or more special or more gifted. In fact, the scripture says it was because they were the least. That’s not an indictment of the nation of Israel; that’s about all of us.
He chose us not because of our giftedness; He chose us because we were the least. And when He chooses the least, His greatness becomes very obvious. People will look at what happens in your life and in my life and say, «Well, it’s obvious that’s grace because they’re not that good.» And that’s really what we want. We want Him to go so far above and beyond anything we could work up on our own. So He extends Himself to the nations of the world; they reject Him. He takes one nation, raises them up so that He can illustrate something that will, by implication, invite all the other nations to the same covenant, and we see that through promise and time.
Then He comes to the nation of Israel, and in Exodus chapter 19, if you’ll turn there real quick, you’ve got to go fast because I’m going fast. So go fast. Exodus 19 should be easy to find because it’s right after Genesis. It’s all right; you can make me work. All right. In Exodus chapter 19, He says in verse four, «You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to Myself. Therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people, for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.» These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.
So what did God do? He extended His love to all the nations, but they rejected Him. So He raised up one to illustrate His love, summoning the rest to their purpose. He poured Himself into this entire nation of 12 tribes. They didn’t respond to the priestly call. How do we know that? In chapter 20, verse 18 says, «The people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes. The people saw it; they trembled, and stood at a distance. Moses said to them.» They said to Moses, «You speak to us, and we will hear. Don’t let God speak to us, lest we die.»
The most important virtue, trait, or calling of a priest of the Lord is to hear His voice. It’s not the raising of the hands—as vital as that is. It’s not the singing of songs—as important as that is. It’s not the dancing or kneeling or lying prostrate before the Lord. It’s none of those things; it’s the ability to have a relationship where He speaks, and we respond. So when Israel as a nation came to Moses, who in the previous chapter announced to them that they would be priests unto the Lord, they were called as all 12 tribes.
And the very next chapter, they see the thunderings and lightnings of God, and they say, «Moses, you talk to Him, and tell us what He said, and we’ll do whatever He says.» What happened there? It’s just my opinion, an idea. I think in that moment they actually chose law because law sets predefined boundaries. «Show me what I need to do to please Him.» They weren’t interested in the relationship where there was the voice and tender-hearted response.
So Israel as a nation, 12 tribes, rejected the opportunity for priestly ministry. What did God do? He raised up a tribe called Levi, raised them up to illustrate on the one tribe what He intended for all 12 tribes. Is anybody following me so far? All the nations, they reject. He raises up one to illustrate. It’s like a drawing board to illustrate something I want to show you about my heart for all people. Then He goes to that nation, Israel, to the 12 tribes. He throws out this prophetic word. They are summoned as a nation for priestly ministry.
Priestly ministry isn’t backwards callings; it’s not just sacrificing of animals. It’s entering by people into the manifest presence of God to minister to Him. John chapter 4 says that He looks for worshippers. He does not say He looks for worship. He does not need our encouragement; He’s not insecure. He’s not hoping that public relations is going well on planet Earth—he’s not little concerned. So He wants to get His ego built up. It’s not that; He’s looking for worshippers. Psalms 115 tells us why.
In Psalms 115 it says, «Those who make idols, who cannot see, become blind themselves. Those who make idols, who cannot hear, lose their own ability to hear because we always become like whatever we worship.» And since there is nothing greater that God could want for us than for us to be like Him, He longs for us to become worshippers. Because it’s in the manifest presence of His glory we actually experience the greatest transformation. A certain amount of change takes place just through the discipline and application of the Word, and I believe in that very strongly; it’s an important part of life.
But the greatest transformations I’ve watched through the years, and that you can witness in scripture, are the moments that somebody spends in the glory. You take Saul as an example, who became the Apostle Paul. He’s riding on his donkey, gets knocked off, and spends a certain amount of time—perhaps an hour or so—but in that glory! He was so radically changed from that moment of divine encounter that he became the most sacrificial apostolic leader probably in all of history, certainly in his time, but I think forever. He just became the sacrificial offering unto the Lord. What happened? He had an encounter in the glory, in the manifest presence of the Lord.
And so, in the worship experience that we have, it goes beyond… you know, it’s possible—let’s say that we just had this huge party and a very wealthy, benevolent, generous person here in Redding invited us all over. He’s got this huge home and a huge yard. There’s wonderful music playing, there’s the best food you’ve ever seen in the world, and we’ve got so many things going. All the people that you love the most are there, and we just go from one huddle to another huddle to another huddle. And here the host of this party is sitting over here, and every once in a while we catch his attention and wave or say thanks, but we continue with all the people.
That’s what we often do in worship: we love being at the party with the people of God but don’t often actually engage with the one who threw the party. Worship actually is the personal encounter. The word worship, actually in the New Testament, comes from the word «kiss.» It talks about a very personal encounter with the One, with the One. And I love the corporate expression because it’s so powerful, and there’s exponential increase every time we gather together, but it’s still about the One.
When you get thousands who care about the One, you have a release of glory that is just really tough to measure. I can only point to a few times in my life where it became so overwhelming that we just lost track of time. I remember one Sunday morning here, quite a number of years ago now, Brian, my son, was up here leading worship, and he hit one chord—literally one chord. I think he might have gone to the second chord, but he hit a chord, went to the second chord, and all of a sudden, this presence just came into the room, and we didn’t get to a song for 40 minutes! It was this overwhelming sense of presence. Why? The glory came into the room.
He had the intelligence to try to not make something happen; he was just moving with what he was doing. It was stunning. We all just stood here, absolutely rocked by the fact that God actually came. I mean, He’s here! You don’t even have to use faith to see it. It’s awesome! He just made Himself obvious. It just became one of those very, very profound encounter-type days.
But what happens in those moments? Things become transformed. So Israel was raised up as a model to illustrate God’s love for everyone. Here’s Israel. He raises up a tribe of Levi to illustrate on them what He intended for the entire nation. I want you to go to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2, in verse 7, He announces that the revelation of the exceeding greatness of God’s grace has started to be released.
There’s a theme here; let me just tell you in advance. There’s a theme in the book of Ephesians called the mystery of Christ. The mystery of Christ is something that Paul says has been hidden for ages past. No one has been allowed to see it. There’s an interesting phrase in scripture… Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot, I forgot the word, but it basically means you couldn’t find it if you looked for it. There are things about God’s nature that no matter how hard you look, you’ll never find them. They can’t be discovered; they can only be revealed. They can’t be discovered; they can only be revealed.
This basically takes the—it doesn’t remove the hunger, but it adds an element of humility: I’m not going to discover because of my study skills or whatever. I am hungry and desperate for God, knowing that what I want, I cannot get unless He gives it to me. I can’t read enough books, I can’t memorize enough scripture, I can’t do enough good works in the study of the things of the Lord to find what I want to see. It will only come if He speaks to my heart. And that is the nature of the priestly ministry. Remember that.
All right, so we have now in Ephesians chapter 2, in verse 12. In verse 11, he says, «We’re Gentiles in the flesh.» Verse 12: At that time, you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Jesus. Here’s what I want you to see: God extended Himself to all nations; they rejected Him.
So now He raises up Israel. This is a moment where God is saying, «All right, we’re going back to the all nations.» Now I don’t believe in replacement theology. Replacement theology is where you believe that the church has become Israel and God no longer cares about natural Israel. I think He can love both at the same time. So we’ll just go, «Yay God,» for however you choose to do this, but I’m happy for what He’s doing for us Gentiles. And for those of you that are Jews, thanks for welcoming us into your family.
All right, I got that out of the way. Now, verse 14, I just want you to understand this process; that’s all I want you to do tonight. Verse 14: He Himself is our peace. Boy, I like that. Peace is not an abstract presence; it’s not an atmosphere. It’s a person. In the world, peace is always the absence of something—its absence of noise, absence of conflict, absence of war. In the kingdom, peace is a person. It can exist in the middle of war, in the middle of conflict, in the middle of noise. His peace is not defined or dependent on its surroundings; instead, it becomes the thermostat that starts to define the surroundings. Remember the difference between Lot and Abraham? As Lot became impacted by his surroundings, Abraham changed his surroundings. He Himself is our peace.
He has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation. Okay, he’s talking about Israel and the Gentiles. The Lord, the scripture says, took the wall that separated the two—the chasm, the distance between Gentiles and Jews was farther than anyone could possibly imagine, and there was a wall that thick. Jesus put that wall in His own flesh, and He allowed that wall to be destroyed. Verse 15: He abolished in His flesh the enmity that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace.
What I want you to see… I don’t know that the lesson is going to change anybody’s life, but hopefully you will see the momentum that has gone on for centuries, all aiming for this particular day. It’s my personal belief that all the prophets looked into the hour that we lived in and spoke into this day. They all had a hunger and anticipation for what we get to experience, what we get to see, what we get to taste.
The scripture says that the kings of old and the prophets of old longed to look into the day that you and I get to live in. They longed—they saw at a distance but could not taste for themselves. Why do I mention that? Because the enemy works hard to distract us with problems from the divine moment we’re in. We begin to think in terms of the size of the challenge instead of the size of our destiny—the size of the problem instead of the size of God—the size of the impossibilities in front of us instead of the impossible working nature of God that flows through us to be the thermostat that alters the environment.
So, seeing momentum is to give us a sense of identity in history. None of us lives unto himself. Whenever I compromise, if I say no to His purposes in my life, not only does it affect me, it affects the generations after me because I am robbing them of what God planned to give them as a gift through my life. So if I say no to God, I am robbing future generations. And you can water it down and say God will touch them anyway. Yeah, not always. Not always. Some things are actually dependent on you.
Seeing our place in the scope of time is vital, especially when we’re facing one of two decisions and it’s a very difficult decision. When you realize centuries of momentum have been created so that I could make the courageous decision, and when you see that, you realize you’re not living unto yourself. You’re not living for immediate pleasure; you’re not living for your own definition of grace. You are actually involved in this movement that started centuries ago to impact the course of history.
So the verse I read this morning to open the service was that one day was coming when all the kings of the earth would rise to give Him thanks because they have heard the word that we have heard. Which means that word of the Lord that changed our life would be released into the nations of the earth, and kings would actually rise from their place, acknowledge Him, and give thanks—much like Nebuchadnezzar—before the return of the Lord. Anyone can do it after.
So we have in this passage—all I’m trying to show you is that Jesus had purposed in Himself. Okay, it’s called the mystery of Christ. You guys alive? Yeah, I realize it’s Sunday night. Yeah, never mind. So good!
In Christ, what’s happening here, as we go through the book of Ephesians, we find that one of the great mysteries that’s unveiled, unpacked in the book of Ephesians, is the unity of God Himself. So when we talk about the mystery of unity being hidden in God, it’s literally hidden in the person of God—Father, Son, Holy Spirit, absolute perfect unity. Hebrews 1 says that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father’s nature. These lights—there’s a light bulb, but light comes from the light. Jesus came from the Father, manifesting the Father—exactly. And then when Jesus left, He says, «I’m going to give you another Comforter.» And that word another actually means exactly the same.
So Jesus came from the Father exactly like the Father, in no way misrepresenting Him. And then Jesus released the Holy Spirit who exactly represented Him in no way. There was any slight misrepresentation. So in the person of God is this great mystery called unity. And that then becomes the model for what Jesus accomplished on Calvary in His blood, destroying every legal right to separation.
It’s why racism is such a nauseating thing in the earth because Jesus paid a price that there would be no separation between the races. There instead would be value and celebration for the uniqueness of every tribe of every nation. So racism is this actual war against the purposes of God that are being revealed through the person of Jesus who abolished all legal reason for separation, for division.
So in His own flesh he destroyed an illegal ground for division between Jew and Gentile, which was the greatest separation imaginable. All right! You guys with me still? All right, all right. So Jesus then destroys that in His flesh, and He makes it possible now for the two that were unjoinable to become perfectly one and united in the same way that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are united.
It’s why we have in John 17 the prayer that Jesus prayed that they may be one referring to you and me—that they may be one even as I am in you, Father, and you are in me, even as we are one. So Jesus prays this prayer: «God, I want them to be united, reflecting our nature into the earth.» Amen!
So, Jesus becomes the manifestation of perfect unity. Wow! Chapter 3 in verse, uh, of Ephesians says, in verse 5, says: «In other ages this mystery was not made known to the sons of men, but it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body, partakers of His promise.»
Verse 10, to the intent, you guys all right? Reading and doing study? I’m making you work tonight, but if I got to work, you got to work. That’s the way I look at it—trying to be funny. Verse 10: «To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places.» Okay Now stop right there. Let’s look at that verse again.
To the intent that—now this is, uh, I’m sorry—this is referring to the mystery of verse 10. What is the mystery? All things become one in Christ: Jew, Gentile, one in Christ in the same way the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one.
All right. So he’s referring to this mystery. He says, «Now to the intent that this manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.» Are you following? I know I’m making you work; I can feel the rusty gears.
So here He says we’ve got this mystery being unfolded. Ephesians chapters 1, 2, and 3 are all doctrine, chapters 4, 5, and 6 are all conduct. Good theology sets the stage for good conduct. If you know the why, you’ll pay the price. If you know the why, you’ll pay the price. You’ll live the way He says. Because He starts chapter 4 by saying, «I’m a prisoner of Christ; do everything you can to follow His example.»
And He lays out—so here we are in chapter 3. He says, «Now this manifold wisdom of God.» The word manifold there actually means multicolored. It speaks to me of Joseph’s coat. If you remember, Joseph was given a coat; he was one of a bunch of brothers, and his dad liked him best and gave him this beautiful coat with many colors. This coat was the symbol of the father’s delight and the favor that his dad had over his life—multicolored.
So now this multicolored coat of favor is actually seen in divine wisdom that when you and I operate in divine wisdom, we are operating in the coat of many colors selected by the Father to represent Him well in the earth. The manifold wisdom of God would be upon His people. Now, what is He describing here? In this context, He’s describing the context in which the people of God will do anything necessary to protect the unity.
There’s something about this unity that needs to be remembered. If we have an orchestra up here and I go over to a guitar and I start messing with all the strings, and I finally get all the strings in perfect unity together, then we tune every other instrument to that guitar; it would sound in unity and harmony to those that didn’t have what they call perfect pitch because the guitar could be completely out of tune. But as long as all the strings of the guitar are tuned together, none of them will stand out as offensive.
Then you tune all the other instruments—the violins and the cello and all these other instruments. You tune to that one standard; it would sound unified, but it would not be divine, if I can use that context. Instead, what you do is you take one perfect note, a tuning fork, and you ring that tuning fork, and the instruments now all begin to tune themselves to this one sound.
So unity then, in that context, is not just unity together; it is unified unto the same goal. Unity in Christ is not unity together. I see a lot of people who confess Christ that are in unity together, but they’re in opposition to the purposes of God. Wow! When they’re in the same room, there’s the same sound, but it’s a discord because it’s not playing what the song Jesus was singing—it’s not carrying the note He was carrying.
And so when we talk about unity, we’re not talking about not standing up for something. There are many who allow the greatest perversion and things to work into their life and into their family and into their group, and it’s all done in the name of unity. But what they’re doing is they’re playing the wrong song. They’ve tuned their hearts to the wrong note. Jesus rings a note that is very strong and very clear, and everyone says amen to the one sound.
As we walk in life, we constantly retune ourselves to this one note. As we do, we find ourselves in harmony and unity with other people of like heart and mind. The unity is not the striving to be together; it’s the striving to be connected to His heartbeat. In that process, we find those of like heart and like mind begin to be drawn together because we carry that same note, if you will.
All right, so this wisdom of God is to be seen. Now here’s an important part—it’s like the church is the movie screen that the spirit world is forced to watch. God says, «Here, I want to illustrate with you something that I want the entire spirit world—because they have no clue why I would allow my Son to die in place of rebellious humanity.»
And so the Son of God that the angels and all the creatures and beings that have existed for millennia have worshiped and exalted—this Jesus, as the Son of God, when He died, it was the greatest conflict, if you will, in the mind and the heart of the entire spirit world. Now, Jesus is being demonstrated through a body of people on the planet, and the Father is using the people of God to illustrate something to the entire spirit world.
This verse 10 says that now—not someday, now—the manifold, the multicolored, highly favored wisdom of God would be made known now through His church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places. So He’s letting them see His purpose, His plan, every time you yield yourself to embrace somebody that you never would have normally embraced.
It’s not just a human-level value that you have for that skill, or that talent, or the business they’re in, or whatever it might be, or that they’re neighbors. It’s the fact that you go out of your way. Love is measured in sacrifice, and you step out of convenience to demonstrate the love of God to somebody. Every time that’s done, that’s the manifold wisdom of God being prophesied into the airwaves.
And the entire spirit world—angels and demons alike—watch and observe to see that the purpose of plan of God is actually working. In fact, in verse 11, he calls it the eternal purpose of God, which tells us that what’s being worked on in us right now is going to find its maximum expression in eternity. Yes! Wow!
Eternity—heaven is an industrious place! It’s not a place where you sit on a cloud and play a harp. It’s a very industrious place! It’s a city that’s very productive. There’s government, there’s expansion, there’s growth, there’s development. The gifts that you and I carry here will be expressed there. It’s just who God made us to be! There’ll be something of the nature of what we do now that we will do in all of eternity.
The whole prayer life of the saint, where we learn to take authority and express the dominion of God on planet Earth, is actually school for eternity. It’s the training ground for what you and I will do throughout all of time, throughout all of eternity.
So good! Wow! So, God extended Himself to all the nations of the world; they rejected Him. So, He chose Israel and raised them up to illustrate what He wanted for everyone. And now we see Jesus has abolished in His flesh the separation between these two, and He destroyed the enmity, the hostility—all the logic, all the reason for conflict between the two groups.
He destroyed it in His own flesh. There is now no legal reason for strife between Gentile and Jew. You can have it, but you have to step outside of God’s purposes and outside of his reasoning because He destroyed that reasoning. So now He has one more thing to destroy, and that’s the separation that still exists in many hearts between those who are in full-time employment ministry and the believers.
I’m thankful—I don’t know anybody around here who believes that paid church people are supposed to do all the work and everyone else just pays their tithe so they can observe. But if you remember the passage I read you out of Exodus chapter—or, excuse me, Exodus chapter 19, He said, «You shall be a kingdom of priests.»
In Isaiah chapter 61, I think it’s verse 6, He did something very similar. He said, «You shall be.» In both occasions, He pointed to the future and declared that the people of God—all the people of God—would be priests unto the Lord. Now we come to 1 Peter chapter 2. If you turn there, it’s on page 1910.
Verse 9, 1 Peter 2:9: «But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.» New American Standard says, «That you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.»
Look at it again! Verse 9: «But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.» So what do we have in the Old Testament? We have them looking into the future saying, «You shall be.»
Peter comes and makes this incredibly bold announcement: It’s no longer «You shall be,» it’s «You are.» This is the moment of fulfillment of what has been building for centuries. Again, I remind you there is a divine momentum written into the history of humanity on planet Earth that unveils the purposes of God.
I liken momentum sometimes to a swinging of a tennis racket or a golf swing. The golf—I’m not a great golfer; I haven’t played in years. In my mind, boy, am I good! Yes, I am! I remember, this is a true story: I was playing in Weaverville once, and the golf pro was on the course and he was messing around with some equipment stuff. I took a practice swing, and he and I knew him. He said, «You’re going to slice it,» which means it’s going to go that way.
Then I took another swing. He said, «You’re going to hook it.» I took another practice swing. He said, «Oh, you’re going to hook it.» I took another practice swing, and he says, «I don’t know where you’re going to hit it.» Then I hit the ball, absolutely killed it right down the middle—just as far as you would ever want to hit it on that golf course. I turned—I… Sorry, what do you call it? Driving the…
No, it’s the fairway. Fairway! It was not a driving range; this is golf; I was playing! The green is right there and I killed it. And I turned to him and I said, «I do it all the time. That’s what I do! I do that all the time!»
All right. In a golf swing, if you can just picture this; you’ve got the ball. You can always tell where you’re going if you can find out where you’ve been. You’re not going to have a golf club go like this after it hits the ball because the momentum is created by its history, right? When your history has been redeemed and you’ve been brought into the purposes of God, you suddenly are brought into something that’s much bigger than you—much bigger than all of our achievements put together, bigger than our faith, bigger than everything.
It’s been written into centuries and centuries of divine momentum of the manifold wisdom of God—a multicolored, highly favored coat of divine favor resting upon a people who have chosen to tune their hearts with God and protect the relational unity that they have at all costs because there is a momentum of the revelation of God’s nature that’s being released over a planet. It’s being done through a people that realize God has actually made us a holy nation.
But not only did He make us a holy nation, now it’s no longer the summons of priestly ministry to 12 tribes or to one tribe, Levi. Now it’s to the entire nation. As Peter in this passage says, you are a holy nation. You are a royal priesthood. It’s no longer the special group. Everyone gets to play! As John Wimber would say, everyone gets to play. Everyone gets to do this, and the summons that you and I have on our lives is to protect what’s valuable to Him. It’s not complicated.
The moment you get complicated is the moment you are prone to make foolish decisions because you’ll disqualify yourself. «Well, I’m just not smart enough. I’m not whatever.» Keeping it simple: everything belongs to Jesus, and I protect my relationships here. I do everything for Him, and I do all to protect what God’s given me here. It’s just very simple.
It’s actually what He told us to do: Love the Lord God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strength. Love my neighbor as myself. It’s just simple. But tonight, what I wanted you to see is that hundreds of years ago, a golf swing started. Wow! And He’s right now making contact because He wants something of His nature revealed into the earth that’s never been seen before.
And you are the generation who gets to carry this. Let’s go ahead and stand now. «To Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to Him be the glory in the church.» To Him be glory in the church. Everything gives Him glory, but to Him be glory in the church—the church who modeled divine wisdom to all of creation so that they might learn something about the nature of God that they couldn’t learn in any other way except seeing the redeemed living as though they were redeemed, with the same values that the heavenly Father has, even among the Godhead, illustrated through people who love one another. To Him be glory in the church, by Christ Jesus, to all generations, forever and ever. Amen!
I am, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. That’s where it’s all heading—is that we walk worthy of the call, seeing the momentum and paying the price for the future. It’s what I’m willing to do because I’ve seen His divine purposes, His decree, His voice, His word that’s been confessed and proclaimed over us.
So we just say yes to all of that—whatever that means. Would you say yes? Yes? Yes! Yes! Why don’t you just quickly grab the hand of the person next to you and just pray that they would have a fresh baptism of fire?