Jesus is the Temple
Builder, Jesus is the Branch
Eph 2:6
And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
When we were born
again we were made all things in Christ positional, that means on the
inside by faith we have the ability to walk in it, but most do not walk in
it and many Christians do not know how to sit with Him. By
“positional” we mean that, what we are IN CHRIST is a spiritual
reality – a spiritual fact that though it is more real than anything you
can touch, it requires you to appropriate it in your walk. It is through
faith that we take these spiritual facts and make them a natural reality.
Messages like this one, by His grace will produce the hope to walk in
these things; it will give you revelation knowledge of your inheritance in
Christ Jesus until they are manifested in your life. Because you walk in
faith. Some ministers will now jump in and start talking about the riches
of this world, but I am referring to eternal ones like Paul had. We should
hope for the manifestation of the maturity and rewards that Paul had and
let me say there is not one reader of this message that God is not
offering that to you and more. Our very motives must reflect the intents
of Jesus. We are not a kingdom that charts its own course, but Jesus
charts our course and the thing we can really count on is that the
destination of our ship that He charts will end up in the Holy of Holies,
in a mature body, a fully built temple - branches that bear fruit.
And all of this to
culminate at the end of the last generation. But knowing that the price to
pay is great, it is nothing less then a giving of ALL in absolute
abandonment and expecting to be pressed down even to the point of physical
death as a martyr for Jesus, yes even in America. For we are as grapes
pressed so that the life of the vine can spill out onto the earth, even as
the wine of our physical blood. This is quite evident of the saints
described in the Book of Revelation, who are the saints of the last
generation.
Ø
Bend your every effort
around knowing Him and being transformed into His likeness and you will be
in the Temple Builder Who is Christ.
Zech
6:12
And speak unto him, saying, Thus
speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH;
and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of
the LORD:
Ø
Jesus
is the BRANCH and He is the
Temple Builder. We are temple builders only when we are ministering in
Christ.
Zech
6:13,15
Even he shall build the temple of
the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his
throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace
shall be between them both. And they that are far off shall come and
build in the temple of the LORD, and ye shall know that the LORD of
hosts hath sent me unto you. And this shall come to pass, if ye will
diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God.
Ø
We who were far off, but
now brought nigh by the blood of Jesus - now build and edify the temple of
God.
Who
We Are
1
Pet 2:5
you also, as living stones, are
being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (NAS)
We are living stones.
In this building project we find our lives in God's quarry. Just as in the
construction of Solomon's Temple, we can observe God's constructive
purposes in our lives. The workers first made the PERFECT STONE – Jesus
is this stone. The purpose of this stone was to be used as a model or
pattern for all the stones that would be formed afterward. Revelation
tells us who these stones are.
Rev
14:4-5
These are they which were not
defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the
Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the
firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no
guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.
They are the 144,000
and they are a body of people that are patterned stones that are cut to
the correct size and placed into the Temple of God.
1
Cor 15:23
But every man in his own order:
Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.
In the feast of Israel
in the book of Leviticus, we see at the feast of Pentecost, the Sheaf of
the Firstfruits being presented as a wave offering. Firstfruits are always
the foremost, choicest, first and the best of that which was to follow.
This wave offering was a picture of Jesus as the fruit of Perfect Love
that was offered for us in Perfect Sacrifice. Jesus the Sheaf represents a
Fruit Harvest that will culminate at the end of the last generation. This
is a "1 Corinthians chapter 13" harvest that represents a
harvest of RIPE FRUIT.
Rom
8:29
For whom he did foreknow, he also
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be
the firstborn among many brethren.
We are “predestined
to be conformed”, and God gives many different ways of teaching us this
principle. We see Jesus as the “Firstborn”, Jesus as the
“Firstfruit” and Jesus as the “Pattern Stone”. Right now we are in
His quarry being shaped, chiseled, hewn, polished, and being measured and
prepared to fit together on the ultimate day of the completion of His
building. Now is the time to get ready for this GATHERING TOGETHER of
stones, for there will be no unhewn, unsquared, and unpolished stones in
His House. Accept His grace, which is sufficient for you today. It is by
His grace that we can bear up under this chiseling. The grace of God is
God's divine influence and ability upon your heart to do His will and it
is by His grace that we stand. It is by His grace that we are saved and
are being continually delivered from the sinfulness of our flesh. It is by
His grace as we accept it through faith.
Jesus had the grace of
God upon Him. Stephen was full of grace and it was by that grace which
made him able to be a great testimony, even in his martyrdom. To carry out
this plan we need to surrender to His grace. It is by grace that we can
accomplish the building project. It is by grace in each one of our lives.
Paul said it was by his grace that he was what he was, and we need to
follow Paul's example. Romans 6:1 says that continuing in sin will STOP
grace. It is our will to decide whether we will stand in His abundant
grace and be dead to sin and its wages.
Zech
4:7
shall bring forth the headstone
thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.
Ø
The headstone is the
firstfruits and it will be set on the temple of living stones by the grace
of God. Jesus is that Headstone!
After the stones were
formed, they were placed in the temple. The wall was then overlaid with
silver so that the stones are perfectly joined together as ONE. You could
not see the joints for it resembled one complete stone. Silver represents
redemption and as we saw earlier it is the redeemed from among men - the
144,000, a number that represents the great elect of God, that are the
firstfruits. This is written about us, this is written about you! Some
think that this passage in Revelation is written about someone else, but
God's word is designed for you and His plan and His purpose is for YOU.
God is after your heart and He gave His Son to reach it.
The stone is covered
by silver and made as one stone and then we see cedar wood fastened to the
walls. Cedar wood is incorruptible and able to resist decay and rot. Our
life today is a result of a series of decisions we have made in the past.
Decisions to seek Him, decisions to serve Him, decisions to obey Him,
decisions to receive grace. The Perfect stone Who is the Hope of Glory is
living on the inside of us, and it is the struggle of our natural man, the
soulish man, whether we choose God or not. Deliverance of demons will free
a man's will, but only temporarily till he makes his own decisions to stay
free. We made our first choice for God when we received Him as our eternal
Savior, but we must habitually walk with Him after that, knowing Him in
all the wonders of His Person. Cedar wood is simply a life that chooses
Jesus with every thought and every breath. Cedar wood resists decay and
our lives resist the decay that sin can cause when we yield to that sin.
The
Glorious Stone
Lastly the stone is
overlaid in Gold. The stone is seen no more, all that is seen is God's
glory and nature represented by Gold. It is a stone that has been dealt
with. In Romans chapter 7 we see Paul's struggle before he gained
victory and then in chapter 8 we see Paul's victory. Chapter 7 and
preceding chapters’ deals with the sin of our flesh and the struggle all
of us go through daily in doing the word. Even though we desire to do His
will, we fail to do it. The answer is, a life that operates in faith and
it is counted to us as righteousness, a life that habitually walks in the
Spirit, and therefore does not do the impulses of the flesh. Sometimes we
feel so far from the reality of this Christian lifestyle. We say, “I am
not going to gossip anymore” or “I am going to read the scriptures
more” and yet we fail ourselves and the Lord. We fall into condemnation
that we impose on ourselves and our situation seems a million miles away
from deliverance and obedience. A seared conscience deals with this
condemnation by pressing it under the guise of grace resulting in
licentiousness. However our conscience is different, we simply seem
to have a loss of energy, a loss of motivation to propel us forward. We
condemn ourselves and ask forgiveness in hope of doing better next time.
Paul taught that there is a place in God where there is no condemnation.
It is a place in Christ where we can abide in Him, and we know “WE ARE
COMPLETELY SET FREE” by the law of the Spirit of Life in Jesus.
It is a place where we are walk and set our mind in the Spirit. Why
do I struggle? Because I fail to see the solution to sin
that has place in me. As we taught in the “test of responses” chapter
– it is all about seeing and hearing. What is it I must see? We must see
the finished work of Jesus on the cross. We must see that every sin and
disobedience in us right now – was defeated there. It lost its power and
we gained the grace of God in exchange. We gained the ability of God in us
to overcome ANYTHING that has a disobedient place in us.
The overlaying of gold
upon your stone is important. SEE that disobedience as a thing without
life – it is a dead thing. It was a weed plucked from the roots and has
not life in itself – EXCEPT WHAT YOU GIVE IT. God will not resurrect it,
and the devil has no power to resurrect it, but you have the authority
through unbelief and blindness to empower it. When you die to self, you
are dying to the “exercising of your authority” - to empower
disobedience in your life. The grace has been given, we must now simply
SEE IT.
Ø
When the silver has wood
applied and is overlaid with Gold we see a picture of the three part man.
1Thes
5:23-24
And the very God of peace sanctify
you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be
preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is
he that calleth you, who also will do it.
God
sees our Savior when He sees us. The silver, as seen in Christ’s
redemption; the wood, as seen in Christ’s incorruptibility; and
the Gold, as seen in Christ’s Divine nature - cover up all that we are
by nature. As we pray in faith, the Father sees the Son. As we minister to
the brokenhearted, the Holy Spirit sees Jesus and the Spirit of God will
anoint you to heal and set free others. You will be full of grace, full of
the Holy Spirit, full of wisdom, full of power, full of joy, full of
faith, full of good fruits, and full of glory as was described of the
early church.
Ø
And the glory at the
culmination of the temple shall exceed that early one.
When we talk about the
glorious church we are like Joshua and Caleb that have went to the land
and witnesses the land that flows with milk and honey. The devil has
giants in the land to prevent our entrance but Caleb said, “do not
fear the people of the land, for they shall be our prey. Their
protection has been removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not
fear them.” We enter in with the marks that show the sentence of
death within ourselves. We enter with bearing the sufferings of our Lord
and loving not our lives unto death. BUT WE ENTER IN! Our enemies become
our prey at the end of the book – Revelation 19:18-21. Their protection
has been removed and Jesus has become our protection. Are the giants big
and naturally unconquerable? Sure but we serve an awesome God that is the
Victor. As for us, we pay the price and receive the light affliction to
enter in.
2
Cor 4:17-18
For our light affliction, which
is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at
the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are
temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
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