CPAC sermon, 1st Nov 2009 Our Divine Brief and Strategy
Last week I talked about the life of Elijah and the way he was able to access the continuous power of God through simple and radical obedience to God.
2 Kings 2:11 describes how Elijah did not die as we would expect but was taken up to heaven in his natural bodily state:
11 As Elijah and Elisha were walking along and talking, suddenly a chariot of fire appeared, drawn by horses of fire. It drove between the two men, separating them, and Elijah was carried by a whirlwind into heaven.
Elijah lived a naturally supernatural life yet he was supernaturally natural!
Jacob’s dream at Bethel is another example of the natural realm being connected to the supernatural realm through Jacob’s ladder.
Genesis 28:10-15 says,
Jacob’s Dream at Bethel
10 Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba and travelled toward Haran. 11 At sundown he arrived at a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head against and lay down to sleep. 12 As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway.
13 At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants. 14 Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth! They will spread out in all directions—to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. 15 What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.”
This supernatural connection to heaven means that the two realms are not two separate entities.
With that understanding, this week I want to emphasise our divine brief from God and the strategy that God is using to help us fulfil that divine brief.
It is very simple:
Our divine brief is to ensure God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
Our strategy for making this happen is, the church.
Jacob’s image of the stairway (ladder) highlights the church’s supernatural connection to heaven.
There is unceasing and continuous activity going on between heaven and earth in a supernatural sense.
So let me take some specific verses now from Genesis 28 to highlight the important role of the church as it is connected to its supernatural source, and what that means for us as believers.
Jacob says in verse 17,
“What an awesome place this is! It is none other than the house of God, the very gateway to heaven!”
We, the church, are the portal between heaven to earth,
through which God works out His purposes so that His will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
This kind of church behaves in naturally supernatural and supernaturally natural ways, 24/7.
In verses 13-15, God lays upon Jacob the same prophetic words that he laid upon Jacob’s grand father Abraham:
13 At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants. 14 Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth! They will spread out in all directions—to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. 15 What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.”
Jacob and Abraham received the same prophetic word about their descendents.
Those prophetic words are for us as well.
We, the church, are called to be a prophetic people.
God says in verse 15
“What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.”
The church is not a place for arbitrary religious activity.
It is a place of dynamic Kingdom purpose.
Verse 16,
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the
Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!” 17
The church is a place where God is dynamically present. We are here with a primary focus on pleasing God, not ourselves.
Verse 17, “What an awesome place this is!” says Jacob
The church is a place that is awesome.
Verse 18, 22:
18 The next morning Jacob got up very early. He took the stone he had rested his head against, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then he poured olive oil over it. 19 He named that place Bethel (which means “house of God”)
Verse 22 Jacob says,
“…this memorial pillar I have set up will become a place for worshiping God...”
The church is a place that must be a pillar of strength.
It must be an example of stability and confidence, a place of hope and purpose in a restless and confused world.
Note that I may be referring to the church as a “place” but always remember that the church is not a building, it is people.
The church is YOU!
This means that
YOU are a portal between heaven and earth!
YOU are a person who is called to be prophetic!
YOU are a person in whom God has placed a dynamic Kingdom purpose!
YOU are a person in whom God is dynamically present!
YOU are a person who is awesome!
YOU are called to be a pillar of strength and an example to the confused society you live in!
When we understand the significance of who God has created us to be and how He wants us to be an example to the world around us,
then there is no stopping what God can do in our lives!
Living a naturally supernatural life
and being supernaturally natural in everything we do
will become second nature to us!
And when God’s church is in tune this way,
with Him and with one another
it will be an incredibly dynamic force.
God is forming the church today into one nation that will be an example to all the other nations of the world.
Isaiah prophesies this in 2:2, 3 when he says:
2 In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house (God’s church, US)
will be the highest of all— the most important place on earth.
It will be raised above the other hills,
and people from all over the world will stream there to worship.
3 People from many nations will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of Jacob’s God.
There he will teach us his ways,
and we will walk in his paths.”
That is why Jesus could say to His disciples,
“You will do even greater works than I”.
Jesus was referring to the scope of the work that would follow Him.
Remember that Jesus told the non-Jewish Syro-Phoencian woman who went to Jesus for healing for her daughter that He had come only for the house of Israel?
That was true.
After He left the earth, Jesus gave new revelation and instructions to the apostle Paul and extended the divine brief to now include Gentiles as well as the Jews.
Why?
Because it hadn’t worked for the nation of Israel in the very first instance.
They hadn’t recognised the Messiah when He came!....
That’s why you and I are so vital now in the part we must play in God’s divine brief and strategy!
YOU and I are a portal between heaven and earth!
We are called to be prophetic!
God has placed a dynamic Kingdom purpose in us!
God is dynamically present in us!
We are awesome in His sight!
And we are called to be pillars of strength and an example to the world we live in!
Our divine brief is to ensure God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
Our strategy for making this happen is, the church.
[Acknowledgement of source of material:
BSM Church Development notes “Principles for the House of God”]
