GYC SE 2013: Called Apart

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GYC Southeast

GYC SE 2013 Plenary Sessions

Kameron DeVasher

The Ministry of Angels

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you so much for even creating us in the first place.

Then when we fell and came short of your glory, You sent your Son, your only Son, to redeem us and to buy us back.

Help us to never forget that we are not our own, but that we are yours.

And as we go through our study this week and weekend, Lord, let our time be fruitful.

And Lord, help us to learn not only how to be more faithful to you, but Lord, how to be more useful for your cause.

Teach us how to proclaim your marvelous light, for we pray it in Jesus' name, amen.

If you would, please turn to the book of Luke.

Luke chapter 11, setting the stage for our study, and I'm gonna give you an outline as you look up Luke chapter 11 of all that we're going to be covering this weekend.

My goal is to be not so much a preacher as a teacher, even though I love preaching and I hope to be engaging, I hope you're interested in the topic, but most significantly, I want you to be grounded in the Word of God and see something clear, something perhaps new, but not seeking to be original, but seeking to be forceful.

And more than information, hopefully the Lord through His Holy Spirit will give us a transformation of mind so that we can have the right vision for what the Lord is calling us to do.

I believe very sincerely that when Jesus prayed this model prayer that's found in Luke chapter 11, that he wasn't being poetic, that he wasn't being just using grand oratory.

Of course, it's a beautiful prayer, we all know it, but I want to look at the specifics of it, 1 particular aspect of it that's going to set this course for the whole weekend.

Luke chapter 11, now it came to pass, verse 1, now it came to pass, As he was praying in a certain place, when he had ceased, that 1 of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.

So he said to them, verse 2, When you pray, say, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, how?

That's the entirety of the prayer we're going to read for right now.

In fact, that's all we're going to read the whole weekend.

Okay, the model prayer, the structure, as you approach your heavenly Father, this should be the focus of your mind.

And, of course, name is synonymous throughout the Scripture as his character, his very being, who he is.

And he says, your kingdom come, and notice he says, Your will, what you want accomplished, the tasks you have set before us, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And I don't believe again that he's being just merely poetic or using rhetoric or oratory.

He's saying, Lord, we want to see your kingdom here.

So we ask that your will would be done here the same way that it's done there.

Okay, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So if we're going to honor and fulfill the prayer of Jesus on this earth, do His work, His way, the Lord's bidding, apparently it's incumbent upon us to understand how His work is done where?

Apparently, heaven is the model of ministry for the accomplishment of God's will here on earth, that Your will may be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So tonight I want to begin with a study of heaven, a study of heaven, a message entitled The Ministry of Angels.

If it's supposed to be our model of how work is done here, we need to understand how it is done there.

So that will be the goal of our study tonight is to study how the Lord's will is done in heaven so we can apply it to this earth.

So turn with me, if you would, to Revelation chapter 4.

Now, there are many pictures of heaven in Scripture, but perhaps none suits our purpose, as does Revelation chapters 4 and 5.

And we don't have time to do a complete study of this exhaustive exegesis, but I want to give you the picture of what's happening.

We're going to start with verse 1 of Revelation chapter 4.

After this things I looked, this is the Apostle John writing from Patmos, and behold a door standing open, where?

And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this.

So notice that he's In vision, a door is open in heaven and a voice says, come up here, I will show you things.

Which common sense says, if the Lord ever opens a door to heaven and says, come here, go.

And immediately, verse 2, I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne set in heaven, and 1 sat on the throne.

He who was set there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne in appearance like an emerald.

Verse 4, around the throne were 24 thrones, and around the thrones I saw 24 elders sitting clothed in white robes, and they had crowns of gold on their heads.

And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices.

7 lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the 7 spirits of God." And just a little aside, you won't find the term Holy Spirit in the book of Revelation, but you do find 7 spirits.

This is a picture of the Holy Spirit in this language of apocrypha, but it goes on in verse 6, before the throne was like a sea of glass, like crystal, and in the midst of the throne and around the throne were 4 living creatures full of eyes in front and in back." And he goes on to describe them, and notice what they sing in verse 8, they do not rest day or night saying, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

You have the throne of God, Around it there are 24 other thrones.

Surrounding the throne there are the 4 living creatures, and all of them are giving praise to God.

So you have God the Father, you have the Holy Spirit, you have the 24 elders, you have the 4 living creatures, and in Revelation 5, Jesus Christ enters the room as the Lamb who was slain, victorious over Satan.

And of course, that turns the entire courts of heaven surrounding him, and we go down to chapter 5, and let's go to verse 8.

Now when he had taken the scroll, the 4 living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

And they sang a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and You have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation and made a priest, a king and priest to our God and we shall reign on the earth.

And oftentimes when we do a study of Revelation chapter 4 and Revelation chapter 5, we focus on the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the Godhead.

We focus on the 24 elders and have good discussions about their identity.

And we kind of assume, well, that's the main point.

But I'd like us to continue now to verse 11.

There's another group represented that far outnumbers every other being that's been mentioned.

Then I looked, verse 11, and I heard the voice of many, what?

Around the throne, the living creatures and the elders.

So, of course, there's the throne, the 4 living creatures, the 24 elders, but out there beyond, apparently there are many angels.

And it doesn't leave us to guess, oh, does that mean several or a dozen or, no, no, no.

And the number of them was 10, 000 times 10, 000.

I hope finals are coming up just around the corner.

And thousands of thousands, 10000 times 10000, and thousands and thousands out there beyond the central figures of the Godhead and the living creatures and the elders, there's this great sea, nearly a countless number of angels.

So as we look at heaven, we realize, yes, there is a central throne room, and of course, God the Father and The Son and the Holy Spirit operate from this command center of the universe.

And they're the 4 living creatures, these angelic beings.

And then there's the 24 elders, and each have their role, each have their place, and they're central to heaven, but beyond them, The vast majority of heaven's inhabitants are not the Godhead, are not the 4 living creatures, are not the 24 elders.

They're these literally millions of angels.

Let's go to the book of Hebrews, just to the left just a bit, Hebrews chapter 1.

When it describes the ministry of Jesus, the author of Hebrew, I believe the apostle Paul, compares Christ's ministry as being to the angels and its superiority to the angels.

Chapter 1, now notice verse 7 makes some interesting statements.

Heaven On Earth

If you were with us last evening, this is what I'm gonna say for the next about 2 minutes is gonna be a review.

For those of you who are new this evening, it's gonna be brand new and you're gonna have to absorb it very quickly because we're gonna build on top of it, okay?

In Luke chapter 11, Jesus gives his disciples a model of how to pray.

In fact, they ask for it, they request it.

And he says, when you pray, and he gives them what we now know as the Lord's Prayer.

Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Thy kingdom come, and this is what we focused on, Thy will be done on earth in what manner?

So basically the Lord Jesus said to the Father, Lord, my desire, the prayer of my heart, is that your work would be done here the same way that it's done there.

Now, the burden now shifts to understanding how it's done there so we can operate here correctly.

And that's what we spent last night looking at.

How Heaven is just chock full of angels now There are members of the Godhead and you have the 4 living creatures the 24 elders we're gonna get back again to that tonight, but the vast majority the inhabitants of heaven are the angels and They are the ones according to mrs.

White that do all of the ministering for the sick and afflicted and the hurting people, Christ does through the ministry of angels.

And my basic premise last night was that God wants to work that same way on earth as it is in heaven, that he wants to use us as his foot soldiers in winning people to him.

So it's a call to stand apart to individual labor that we may proclaim that you, as the Bible says, may proclaim the praises of him who brought you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

So building on that, that's how heaven operates.

This whole weekend we're going to do a very logical sequence.

We're gonna have a curriculum, a structure.

We're gonna go from Heaven, which we covered last night.

Now we're gonna go to the Old Testament and see how that picture of Heaven played out.

Then we're gonna go forward into the life and ministry of Jesus, then to the early church, and by the weekend we're going to land at the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and we're going to make an appeal.

And I'm going to tell you what the appeal is now, just like I told you last night.

You as an individual, not Southern, not salt, not your church, you will win someone through the power of God to his truth, to his church.

I want you to be thinking about the appeal so that you can commit to it intellectually.

I don't want to just have a weepy song and some sort of story that's going to make you cry.

I don't want you to be like, oh, that's so cool.

I want a deep-seated, understanding, intellectual commitment that says, Lord, I get it and I'm gonna do it through your power.

Before we start tonight's message, however, let's begin with a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, I ask that you would be here tonight.

I would ask that you would bring your word to life tonight.

Lord, we ask that the same Holy Spirit who inspired his writing will now inspire our understanding, sharpen our minds, and Lord, where it's necessary, soften our hearts to understand and apply your truth in these last days of earth's history.

If we had time, we would cover the history of the church in the Old Testament, the church in the wilderness, the children of Israel, and fascinating history.

I mean, there's an entire message I love to do about how God used Egypt as an incubator for his people.

If you ask people, how long were the children of Israel enslaved in Egypt?

Well, some of you are like, well, it's typical.

Or 430, depending on which calculation you go by.

You know the call of Abraham to the law given to Sinai, 430 years.

But the vast majority of that time was not in Egypt.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph finally goes down into Egypt.

And yes, he had a stint as a slave, but he got out and got a pretty good position out of it, right?

And he had the best of the, and when his family came down, in fact, you can read all this in Exodus.

In fact, let's just very quickly do that.

I love speaking to young or youngish people, right?

If I speak fast, you're okay with it, yes?

All right, sometimes when I speak in a message with older people there, they like to, Exodus chapter 1.

They're very appreciative of the message, all that they heard of it.

These are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt.

Each man in his household came with Jacob.

And it lists off the names of the family there.

And notice this says here, verse 4, I mean verse 5, all those who were descendants of Jacob were how many?

They're halfway there, and they've reached a big number of 70.

Of course, the next 250 years when they come out with the mixed multitude included, they're pushing 2 million.

So they go from 70 to a crowd of 2 million in 215 years.

The next million plus, another 250 years.

And by the way, it wasn't as soon as Joseph died, then things got bad.

And Joseph died, all his brothers and all that generation, a whole segment of the population dies.

But the children of Israel, and watch how they use language.

How can we say that they really, really, really, really grew?

But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied, grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them.

They're like, here's the thing, they started off as 70, they got to Egypt, and my word, things took off.

And you can see how the Lord was leading.

He basically used the land of Egypt as an incubator.

And it wasn't as though they were harsh and oppressed the whole time.

The Model Ministry

If you would, please take your Bibles out to Luke chapter 11.

We're going to begin there and I'm going to set a little context for our message tonight.

A little context for our message tonight will begin in Luke chapter 11, but what we've basically done is studied how the Lord works in heaven with a message entitled The Ministry of Angels.

Then last evening we looked at how the Lord wanted to reflect that model of ministry on the earth and he established Israel, not only the sanctuary, but also the entire camp as a reflection of the working order of heaven.

And I believe this is so important to the Lord because we see in Luke chapter 11, Jesus gives this model prayer, and I've been basing each message, tonight's included and tomorrow as well, on this very, very small but I think powerful model prayer.

Where it says in verse 2 of Luke chapter 11, so he said to them, when you pray, say, our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, and notice this now, your will be done where?

So it's incumbent upon us to understand how the Lord works in heaven if we're ever going to do his work correctly on the earth.

And we saw that in heaven the Lord uses not just the Godhead and not just the 4 living creatures, not just the 24 elders, those central figures, those leaders in the courts of heaven, but out in the camp there are literally hundreds of millions of angels and all through scripture the angels are the ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation.

We saw last night of course that that exact same model of organization was in the Old Testament church and tonight is simply the logical extension as we move forward in time to the New Testament church, of course its founder Jesus Christ and the apostles who ministered in his wake after he ascended into heaven.

So that's the basic structure of our series and now as we dive into a specific study of the word let us begin with a word of prayer.

Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for these precious hours of Sabbath rest.

Thank you for this fellowship that provides.

Thank you that we can come apart in this safe and beautiful environment.

And now, Lord, commune with you through your word.

I ask a special blessing that you not only pour out your Holy Spirit in some sort of general atmospheric way, but Lord, that you would send your Holy Spirit to each individual heart.

Convict us of our need of you and our shortcomings and Lord, teach us to be ministers for you as you would have us do it.

So now we're going to turn our attention to the New Testament, and of course as soon as you're introduced to the New Testament, you're introduced to the central figure of all scripture, which is Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ begins his ministry, and I want to set the premise tonight that Jesus Christ was a walking, living, breathing, training center for Christian workers.

He was much more of a teacher than he was a preacher, and he was a trainer and equipper of other people.

Basically taking that model of heaven, that Old Testament model, and bringing it to life in his very person.

He was a training center for Christian workers.

Matthew chapter 4, let's illustrate this point and develop it through a Bible study tonight.

Matthew chapter 4, We're going to start with verse 18.

Jesus starts collecting his first disciples, some of his earliest recorded activities.

In the same chapter, it records the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness shortly after he's baptized.

Then he goes back and announces his ministry publicly in Nazareth, and then it says in verse 18, and Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw 2 brothers.

Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

And verse 19 records, then he said to them, follow me and I will do what?

Notice he says, if you follow me, I'm gonna turn you into something.

He said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

Of course, using the analogy of what they're already doing, there you think fishing for fish is a great way to eat fish for men.

I'm gonna turn you into that, if you follow me.

Following Jesus is training to do ministry.

And of course, they wasn't those were the only ones he picked up, verse 21.

Going on from there, he saw 2 other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets.

He called them and immediately left their boat and their father and followed him.

And likely, Jesus used the same line of introduction.

Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

From the very opening of Jesus' ministry, he's making people into fishers of men.

This becomes a theme throughout the rest of the gospel record.

Right from the start, Jesus starts employing his disciples as his ministering spirits to those who will inherit salvation.

Just as He had commanded the angel host in heaven, now he comes to earth and does the exact same thing.

John chapter 3, after the encounter with Nicodemus, we read in verse 22.

After these things, Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea.

And there he remained with them and baptized." Now keep that in the back of your mind.

Jesus and his disciples came there and baptized.

Now verse 23, John also was baptizing Anon near Salem because there was much water there and they came and were baptized.

So for a very brief amount of time, the baptism ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ overlapped.

And they were relatively near each other and it was almost not a competition in their minds of course, it was complimentary, but other people saw it as competitive.

Verse 25, then there arose a dispute between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purification.

And they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he who is with you beyond the Jordan to whom you have testified, behold, he is baptizing and all are coming to him." Basically the complaint is he has set up shop just down the street and you're losing business.

They're all going to him." And of course John the Baptist gives a beautiful answer and we're not going to study that now, but basically he says, I must decrease and he must increase.

He saw this as the natural transition like a Venn diagram overlapping, it's time to move on and pass the baton to the 1 who is to come after me.

And of course shortly thereafter, John, as it mentions, alludes to in verse 24 there, for John had not yet been thrown into prison.

Basically John, who Jesus calls the greatest of the prophets in all of scripture, had 1 purpose, to point out, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, start a movement that would prepare people for his coming, and as soon as he was done with that, to move out of the way.

That was his entire ministry, was to lead people to Jesus and move out of the way.

Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, now carefully look at verse 2.

Parenthetical statement, but it's important to our theme.

The ones he was gonna make into fishers of men.

Basically, Jesus would go set up shop, if you will, to use no better term, but he would do his ministry, but he would always consistently over and over use his disciples, his followers, as the active agents of the message, of the ministry.

Now we're gonna dive into this a little bit deeper.

We often think that Jesus sent out his disciples, who then were apostles, after he left, but that's not true.

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