Priests and Kings: Living in Holy Tension

``The word church in Greek is ecclesia and ecclesia doesn't mean a building, Corey's electrical warehouse turned into a church, doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean a service at 10AM or a nine or an eleven. It doesn't even mean a life group or a house bible study, whatever. Like, church ecclesia means a people called out. You are the people called out from among the world and called together. So you're called out and you're called together. [01:22:44] (36 seconds)  #CalledOutPeople

A people with who have formed clean hands and pure hearts, that's that's the cry that comes out and it's about abiding in holiness before hosting his glory. It's about his presence being our priority, right, which it is, even before those expressions of his power. It's the priesthood before the kingship and I think that's this moment that we're standing in, the tension of being prepared for that and it may feel like confusion, it may feel like delay but it's preparation that gives way to our inheritance, the inheritance that he's stored up for us. [01:15:38] (41 seconds)  #HolinessBeforeGlory

it's not a passive thing. It's like a fully participatory thing. It's it's like it's relational and it's accountable and it's it's people formed together. He's calling us to be formed together and then to be sent together and I think it becomes clearer because of the language of priests and kings throughout the bible. [01:23:30] (25 seconds)  #FormedAndSent

He's calling all of us. So so participation has to replace spectatorship and formation has to replace attendance and and slowly, something of God's faithfulness is quietly limit limited or eroded away if we don't all participate, we don't all step in to what he wants to do with us, both individually and communally. [01:29:19] (31 seconds)  #ParticipationOverSpectatorship

It struck a nerve with me because over time, the church, the ecclesia, the people often stopped functioning as an ecclesia. Right? They expected one environment to do everything for them. You do the formation for me, you do the healing, you you know, I'm gonna come and receive, you do the work of power, you do the sending and of permission, everything all in one package, right? But the scripture never never really puts weight on one gathering. It says, when when we lose the ecclesia way of life, when we stop participating at tables, when we stop sharing truth, the the light that we carry from scripture, when when we stop having a shared responsibility, then somehow we unintentionally limit what God is releasing and what he wants to release through us. He needs us all. [01:28:22] (57 seconds)  #RestoreEcclesia

and I I just wanna declare this morning that that's not confusion. That's not confusion. You've discerned something and you're picking up on what god's placing down. You're picking up on the tension of being in between seasons. You're sensing something, you're perceiving something in your spirit and you're ensuring the the dynamics that's going on. [01:21:02] (23 seconds)  #DiscernTheTension

Before us being commissioned becomes a surrender of our hearts And so we're fasting not to make God move or to earn power, but we're fasting to clear space to hear from him. Yeah. To realign ourselves with what God with god with him, realign ourselves with him and with how he's already moving because he's already moving. [01:34:27] (24 seconds)  #FastToHear

We are all in seasons with God, and he speaks to us where we're at. That is where God has you right now. It is how he's wanting to relate to you. How is he wanting to relate to you? Who is he wanting to be for you right now in this season? If for you, if your if your obedience to him looks like staying and and just healing or being formed, then that that's not delay, that's just faithfulness. Right? For others, the spirit might be stirring movement and again, that's that's just faithfulness. [01:37:19] (37 seconds)  #ObedienceInSeason

and we're entirely dependent on him for his timing and I think actually that part of that is he's protecting us from becoming powerful without being healthy or from becoming safe without being sent or whatever way you want to phrase it, it's like both and and it's a protection thing because we have a hybrid calling. He's called us to be priests and he's called us to be kings. [01:32:04] (24 seconds)  #PriestAndKingCalling

And so I really believe over the last two years that God has been establishing something really deeply within us through our prayer times, through our the this pursuit of the secret place is that that sense of our first and primary calling is to priesthood, is to be to that priestly ministry, to be priests before the Lord. Us returning to the fear of the Lord and purifying our motives and removing the mixture that's in us and teaching us not to touch his glory with our with our fleshly hands but to be really dependent on him because you know, like not offering human solutions for for spiritual requirements [01:14:14] (40 seconds)  #PriesthoodFirst

And then we briefly looked towards Antioch chapter 13 where which was a training and equipping hub whose primary impetus was like to send people out, to send individuals out, to send teams out and to send them out on mission and it became such an apostolic movement that flowed out of that and we talked about understanding the fact that these two can coexist at the same time. So it's the idea of recovering what the bible actually means by church. [01:21:55] (34 seconds)  #SentFromAntioch

Okay? And then we have the the Antioch Ecclesia. Right? They function like a kingship. They lived as kings. The kings live on behalf of God. They they govern territory. They take responsibility. They are sent out. Yes, they spend time worshiping and fasting together to discern what but it's it's about it's about what's the next assignment God? That's what they're trying to discern together. They're they're discerning how are you gonna be activated in faith. They're they're like praying so that they wouldn't they they wouldn't miss his voice and go, okay, what's the next thing God that you're calling us to be obedient to? And then they're commissioned into the mission together and they they are they are responsive to to to being sent out by Jesus. Right? [01:26:23] (55 seconds)  #DiscernAndDeploy

Right? They they they dwelt in his presence. They ministered to the Lord. They they guarded intimacy. They went after healing. They did the repentance thing. They they were pursuing wholeness. Right? This is Jerusalem. It looked like homes. It looked like meal tables together. It looked like intercessory prayer, it looked like repentance and confession and inner healing and it's this journey towards wholeness, this shared responsibility and and just the consistency of being with Jesus like they were with him, man. [01:24:59] (30 seconds)  #JerusalemCommunity

And in many ways, I feel like God has been protecting his movement not not by accelerating it yet or but by purifying it, you know. And so here's this this I was sitting with this Psalm 24 and I felt like the sense that he was moving us into the second part of that Psalm. [01:14:55] (21 seconds)  #PurifyBeforePromote

And so what I here's the question that I I get left with myself when when there's something that God's wanting to do with us and there's something prophetically that like, you know, enter a period of rest like what are what are these nails on the map here, Lord? What's going on? What are you calling us into? When when there's a prophetic vision that's cast from him, there's this question that I'm left with. I don't often say it out loud but I'm left with this feeling deeply of just like, where do I fit? Where do I fit God? Like what's what part in it do you have for me to play if any? [01:20:02] (36 seconds)  #FindYourPlace

And so the thing is though that many of us are already sensing, they're feeling attention even if you don't have language for it yet. Some feel, you know, like there's this comfort in just being family together, some people feel they're feeling this pull in terms of mission like I I gotta get out there, I wanna do something. There's this sense of being stretched or the sense of some anticipation or the sense of God calling us deeper and and further. Some of us are just actually caught in the tension between those two directions going, man, this is confusing. What's going on? [01:16:37] (41 seconds)  #FaithfulInYourSeason

last week, we said something important. We said something to the effect of harmony was standing between two chapters, between Acts two and Acts 13 and that represented standing between Jerusalem and Antioch and today I don't really want to rush us forward much past that. I think it's really important for us and helpful to understand what it means to live in that tension because we're living in a tension. [01:11:18] (25 seconds)  #BetweenJerusalemAndAntioch

And I I just want to speak out this morning that the tension is not uncertainty. I think often people have looked at us or visited for a season and thought, what's going on? There seems to be multiple directions here. It's it's it's not as functional. It's not that we're trying to do everything at once. It's it's actually it's a calling on the house. [01:17:19] (25 seconds)  #TensionIsCalling

and so I felt I I just wanted to put that out there that if you're sensing attention like stretching resistance or some sort of complexity there, it's not it's not that something's broken maybe it's a sign that something is gonna happen. It's something significant. And it is it's evidence of God moving us into another territory but it's already occupied. Like, throughout scripture, he moves the people of God into already occupied territory. [01:19:20] (34 seconds)  #EnteringOccupiedTerritory

And so there's this deep work of formation and healing in the early church that happened where people felt known. Like, they weren't anonymous. They felt known and God wants you to feel known this morning and you might have walked in here anonymous but he's calling you out. He's saying, well, I'm calling you to my family, to my ecclesia to be a part of my Jerusalem church where you will feel known. [01:25:53] (24 seconds)  #YouAreKnownHere