Entering His Gates with Thanksgiving and into His Courts with Praise!
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And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp.
Intro: Last week we started a study that we called the Tabernacle Pattern. In last weeks lesson, we laid out some of the historical and significant aspects of the Tabernacle and really was more of an overview into what the Tabernacle represented. We are not going to do review of last week, however, I want to start us off today, by reminding us of a truth from last Sunday. That the Tabernacle was the place that God gave for Himself to dwell on this earth, and for His people to meet with Him there.
As we consider Ex. 33:7, I want to just point out a few things concerning God’s commands concerning the Tabernacle. First off, God directs Moses as to the placement of it, we see that it is “afar off from the camp.” (Very simply to me, I see this as a reminder that I seek the Lord on His terms and not mine own.) God titled this meeting place as the Tabernacle of the congregation. (Again, very simply, this is the meeting place for God’s people with Him) and then lastly, “that every one which sought the LORD went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation”. (The reminder here is also simple, and that is, that although the meeting place is available to all the congregation, it is up to the individual, to seek the Lord there.
But let’s be honest for a moment about the Tabernacle in the Old Testament. We see it as a place that held a lot of ritual, and ceremony, and if I can just be honest a lot of burden concerning its care. There is a reason for this however, it is because it all pictures that absolutely beautiful relationship that Christ would ultimately have with His church. A relationship all possible through Him fulfilling all of those pictures through His life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and placement upon His eternal throne!
Through our study of the Tabernacle, I am seeing this thing that God has taken great care, detail, instruction and concern over. He carefully gave it to the people, He patterned it after the Tabernacle in heaven, and then He gave detailed instruction not only in the construction of each aspect, but also the role they would play in the peoples worship. The commands are given and followed all the way into the New Testament and they are commands that Christ Himself followed. Now does that mean that after Christ ascended back to heaven that the 1000’s of years of investment that God had made into this thing called the Tabernacle all of a sudden became naught? No, it can’t be…
For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
God continues to use these Tabernacle principles all the way through the Bible including our New Testament.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
What God is showing me, is that what He teaches us through His physical Tabernacle, as far as Him dwelling with His people, and His people communing with Him, He wants us to apply in our spiritual dwelling and communion with Him. The access in the Old Testament was through the gate, past the brazen altar, past the brazen laver, betwen the golden candlestick, and the table of shewbread, and then finally, you stood at the alter of incense which was before the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat.
Spiritually, we enter into the presence of God through the picture that is given to us in the alter of incense. It is by prayer… What I believe we see through studying the Tabernacle is actually a pattern for prayer, and the communion with God desires for us to have with Him!
So, no different than the physical Tabernacle, where we enter in through the gate, when we pray, we enter in through the gate...
I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
As we established last week the connection between Christ’s earthly body being His Tabernacle and this Tabernacle, we begin here.
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of a dry ground:
He hath no form nor comeliness;
And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
Here at the gate of the Tabernacle were four pillars, and they are represented in the introductory books of our Bible concerning Christ. We know them as the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is in these four gospels accounts that Christ is shown as the gate through His fourfold sonship. The Son of Abraham, the Son of David, the Son of man, and the Son of God. When you enter in, it is through the aspects that not only define who He is, but what He came to accomplish. It is here that we enter in, through the eyes of believing, and then like He said in John...
I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
When we have entered in through the gate of Christ then we find ourselves like the Psalmist did in Psalm 100:1-5. and we enter into His gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise!
I have been challenged by this. How many times to my prayers start with my needs, or wants? How many times, do they only consist of my needs or wants?
When we look at the Tabernacle, we see the the thing that takes up the most space, is the court. The application of this picture is that this should be an area that we spend the majority of our time at. Just praising God, because He is worthy, and because it is going to prepare my heart, to take the next steps in the Tabernacle prayer.
Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Do you know what we learn in Romans about the men and women that God gives over to a reprobate mine?
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Do you know what the Bible tells us Daniel did when he opened his window and prayed.
Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.
Even in the Lords model prayer from Matthew this is that beginning portion of that prayer.
After this manner therefore pray ye:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
It is the will of God that we thank Him, and that we praise Him!
Practically, in our prayer what does that look like?
We praise Him for His attributes, for salvation, for our family, or church, our friends, our job, His provision, in all of these things and more!
Listen, please hear me, this is not a legalistic trip. The last thing I want is for you to have your list, and your prayer time to become a checklist. Please understand that it isn’t as important as to how we do this, but that we do it...
Again for a moment, lets go back to the physical, because if you were to walk through the gate and into the court, you would hear the crackling of a burning fire, it wouldn’t be long, and you would feel the heat, and maybe the smoke would burn your eyes, and you most certainly would smell the smell of the burning sacrifice upon the brazen alter.
Physically, this is obviously the place of sacrifice, but in our prayer, this is the place of yielding...
Upon entering the presence of the Lord, we immediately are met with the very sacrifice that permitted access in the first place. And of course that wasn’t by the sacrifice of animals but the sacrifice of our Saviour on the cross. The greatest sacrifice ever offered in the history of this world. And when we are faced with this in our prayer we are brought to...
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
And we are reminded that we were once at enmity with God… But...
And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
And that by dying on the cross what He did for me is found in...
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
That list that hung over our head, that we were indebted to and by the way, was a list that we could never pay by our own merit. When we recieved Christ’s sacrifice for our own, he took out his paid in full stamp and He dipped it in the ink of His blood, and He applied it to every single line, that counted you and I as a sinner, and required us to die, the eternal death.
And what He did, when He saved us…
For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
It is because of Christ, and by Christ, that we have access. So when we come to God’s presence by prayer we come back to the cross, and those realities of the cross. We are reminded of why He died there, and we are reminded that it wasn’t just because the world is sinful, but because I am a sinner, and it was my sin that brought Him to that cross. That if no one else had ever sinned, but I was a sinner, that Christ would have died still.
It was my sin, that scourged His back with that whip...
It was my sin, that cut deep into His flesh by every passing blow...
It was my sin, that wound that thorny crown of thorns...
It was my sin that then drove it into his head...
It was my sin, that he bore upon His back as He made His way to Golgotha...
It was my sin, that took those nails and drove them into His hands and His feet...
It was my sin, that picked up that hammer...
It was my sin, that took those blows, which nailed the God of this universe, to that wooded cross.
It was my sin, that dug the hole, that His cross would be placed into...
It was my sin, that picked that cross off the ground with Christ hanging on it and dropped into into that hole...
It was my sin, that even while He hung on that cross, was those voices that ridiculed Him and mocked Him from the ground...
It was under the weight of my sin, that the Holy Lamb of God, could no longer lift Himself to take another breath.
It was my sin, that was the tip of the spear that pierced His heart and allowing those last drops of blood to drip from His body at the foot of the cross...
You see it was my sin, that took the life, of the Life Giver Himself...
And it is here at alter of sacrifice that we don’t just tip our hat, but we take personally responsibility that it was my sin that put Him there. And that if I was the only one that needed a saviour, He would have willingly died just for me… And now, in seeing just how personal His sacrifice on the cross was for me… And it is in absolute humility that I cry out to God, and say… “Oh God, that cross, is not the place that you ever deserved to be, but it is the place that I deserved and still deserve to be…
And, it is here that we are reminded that Christ’s sacrifice on that cross was through His obedience, and submission to the Father. We are reminded of the night in the garden that He sweat drops of blood, as He prayed, not my will, but thine...
And it is through the reality of His cross that I am brought to the book of Mark.
And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
I am brought back to this truth...
That Christ’s cross was the instrument of His death, that brought me life. And that spiritually it is here that He now intends for that same cross to be the instrument of my death, that gives Him life...
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
It gives a whole new context to...
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
This is done by...
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Practically, in prayer, what does this look like?
We remember the cross, and just how personal it really was… We see our necessity, and that in dying Christ gave us life, and so, we seek to do the same for Him! We yield our members…
Meaning we yield and present before the Lord in prayer, our hands and our feet, because they represent my walk with Him, and more than anything I want to go where He wants me to go… And I extent my hands and my feet to receive those nails because I know it isn’t about me working for Him, but Him working through me...
And as the process of my Crucifixion is now underway...
I bow my head to receive the crown of thorns and I present my head and neck to the Lord, as they represent my will. I yield my will to God, because He knows what is best, and because His way is perfect...
I present my lips and my ears, because they represent what I say and what I hear… I only want what God wants me to say, and I only want to hear, those things that He wants me to hear…
I yield and present my eyes, because they represent my desires…
And as those crown of thorns are pressed in, I present and yield my brain, because it represents my thinking, and in the overall sense, my way.... I want to think as God thinks, for Him to be pre-eminent in my mind.
And then lastly, as that spear pierces my heart, I present and yield my heart, because it represents my motive. And I don’t want take a step, if it isn’t with the right motive… Just as the Psalmist which said...
Search me, O God, and know my heart:
Try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.