The House of His Delight
Session 2: There Will be Joy in His House
I. Rightful Appropriation of Truth:
As we discussed in our first session we for sure want to fully embrace our calling and all that the Lord has promised to those who minister in the house of prayer but we must war against the pride and the sense of elitism because of these truths. Arrogance is wholly unhelpful and out of place, but so is a refusal to give these truths the powerful place that they are intended to have for us in the prayer movement. This is a far more elusive fight than perhaps we are thinking and just because we talk about it once or twice doesn’t mean that it’s gone from our lives. This is because of the extreme tensions on both ends of this struggle; the truths we are talking about have enormous and narrow focused implications so pride is right there knocking at the door. But to diminish these truths or try to make them universal is just as contrary to the Lord’s purposes.
A. The House of Prayer is His House:
The primary truth that I am thinking of pertaining to this series is the reality that the house of prayer is God’s house. This is a weighty reality to try and process, embrace and then stay humble about. The solution is that we trust that God is the one who has defined things this way His ideas about the parameters of the house of the prayer are right. He has assigned special blessings to rest on those who dwell in His house of prayer so our aim in this series is to know what those are and what we can expect as those who abide in His house and what is then expected from us as well. He calls the house of prayer His own house.
“Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored (Hg. 1:8).”
B. Not Elevating Ourselves Above Others:
These truths are so powerful and if we’re not careful we will elevate our importance over others instead of seeing our part as great but not complete. We don’t want to get into comparing our commission to the commissions of others whose assignment from God is also great. We have to get to the point where we’re able to be fueled with the truths that we see in the Bible pertaining to our calling without allowing those truths to cause us to become arrogant.
“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you (Ro. 12:3).”
C. Each Ministry is Given Selected Revelation:
There are a lot of truths in the scripture; and none of us will know all of them on this side of eternity. All of these truths are powerful to help the people of God be who God has called us collectively to be and they are intended to strengthen the people of God to do what He has called each group, ministry, stream or church to do. Here at the house of prayer we are supposed to focus on a handful of truths that are particular to us as a ministry and to our specific calling and purpose. If we give appropriate attention to these truths it will have powerful impact for us. We just need to make sure we don’t get into the line of thinking that says we’ve really got it and this other group over there really needs to get with it; they could say similar things about us if they wanted to.
D. We Need Eachother:
The Lord spread out His gifts among mankind on purpose, He releases only pieces of the whole to any one group in the Body of Christ because this keeps us in a place where we need eachother. This is how God orders His Kingdom; it is his intention that we need to receive from one another in order to get all that He has for us. Rather than seeing any one group as better than another we need to see the strengths of each group or ministry and recognize their redemptive purposes and the valuable part that they play in God’s strategies for the Church in any given region.
II. A House Filled with His Joy:
The first truth that we looked at in session 1 was that God has a house and that we have found ourselves ministering in it. Those that minister in that house have access to certain privileges in greater measure by divine purpose. One of those privileges is the focus of the next truth, which we are going to be looking at tonight. Namely, that is the intention of God’s heart for His joy to be poured out and experienced fully in His house of prayer. This follows a natural progression of the emotions of God related to His house. Out of the overflow of His great love and the availability of His affections that we discussed in the last session now we see that He has decreed that the house of prayer is to be a house filled with His joy.
“foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants…these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer…my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” The Sovereign Lord declares— he who gathers the exiles of Israel: “I will gather still others to them besides those already gathered (Is. 56:6-8).”
A. The House He Pours Out His Spirit On:
The house of prayer is the house of His great delight, so much so that He promises to pour out His joy on it and to fill those within it with His joy. This giving of joy is specifically assigned to those who are in the house. Here God is essentially calling the house of prayer the house of His joy, the house where His gladness will rest and the people who should expect to encounter it. This is a powerful reality for us to hear and grow in understanding about.
B. David’s House of Psalms:
As a helpful side note I want us to think about the record that we have given in the Book of Psalms. The theology of and reality of the house of prayer is perhaps documented best in the Book of Psalms because the Psalmists were daily living in the house of the Lord, they were singing and living out these Psalms they wrote. King David was one of those psalmists and he was made the forever-grand champion of the prayer movement because of the catalytic prayer reality that he established in his day. In David’s time he set up a night and day worship and prayer ministry in a tent set on Mount Zion (the Tabernacle of David). This new worship order would become a lasting ordinance in Israel (2Ch. 8:14, 29:25). David set up the night and day prayer reality of the house of prayer in Jerusalem and then wrote about and lived in these truths in the most profound way. The Psalms are the testimony of the daily life of those who lived in the courts of the Lord and ministered in the house of prayer.
C. His Presence is in the House of Prayer:
One such truth revealed throughout the Psalms is that the house of prayer is the place of His presence. The Psalmists spoke often of the presence of the Lord in very familiar terms; they were encountering the presence of the Lord on a daily basis in His house. This is more than just an invitation for people to encounter the presence of the Lord in the house of Lord it is describing the rightful way that things should look from God’s perspective; God’s presence dwelling with man without His Spirit striving against us and without us hindering His Spirit. The Psalmists daily lived in the reality and full expectation that they could go to the house of prayer and encounter God’s presence there.
“In the shelter of your presence you hide them from all human intrigues; you keep them safe in your dwelling from accusing tongues (Ps. 31:20).”
“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple (Ps. 27:4).”
D. Joy in His Presence:
God spoke through Isaiah that He will pour out joy in the house of prayer in the context of us experiencing His presence in that place in a unique way. The Isaiah 56 passage that we are looking at says that God will be the one to release His joy, it’s a gift that He says He wants to impart. He could do this anywhere and in anyway, but He ties this particular gift of joy to the house of prayer and to those that dwell there. Below are some of the examples we find in the Psalms describing the daily reality of the house of prayer related to this joy.
“You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand (Ps. 16:11).”
“Surely you have granted him unending blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence (Ps. 21:6).”
E. David Banked in on this Privilege:
David was so sure that God’s joy was accessible in the house of prayer that even after He blew it big time by committing adulatory with Bathsheba and then had her husband murdered he ran to the tent to encounter God. He prayed that the Lord would not ban him from the house of prayer but that instead God would impart to Him the joy that God had promised to those who dwell in the house of the Lord.
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence (in the tent) or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation (he came expecting joy) and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me (Ps. 51:10-12).”
III. God Makes His Invitation:
Let’s spend just a few minutes and put together the truths that we found in the Isaiah 62 passage we looked at in the first session along side what we just saw in Isaiah 56. Between these two passages it seems clear that God wants to give us a new paradigm for prayer.
A. God Gives a Universal Invitation:
God makes the invitation available even to the foreigners (non-Jews) and promises to meet them in His house with joy. He is painting a very different picture of ministry here making the priestly ministry available to all who would call on and bind themselves to Him.
“foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants (Is. 56:6)”
“You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest (Is. 62:6)”
B. He Makes an Invitation into Intimacy:
The invitation is to partner in prayer and to feel His affection is intended to beckon us into His house. He is extending the invitation to intimacy with Him and enjoyment of Him on a whole other level. God makes His affections clear and He wants very much for us as His people to know these affections and to embrace them. This invitation wasn’t just for those in David’s day however; the whole reason God kept a record of these songs, prayers and events was to enable future generations to enter into these same realities and embrace the intimacy that God is extending to those who dwell in His house. King David understood the intimacy dimension that God was offering to those who would abide in His house and so he, and others wrote songs about it.
“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High (the house of prayer) will rest in (encounter) the shadow of the Almighty (Ps. 91:1).”
“turn your ear to me and hear my prayer. Show me the wonders of your great love…Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings (in the house of prayer) (Ps. 17:6-8)”
C. The House of Prayer is an Invitation into Two Way Ministry:
Then the next invitation is a paradigm shift; God invites us into two-way ministry; not just that God will minister to us but that now we can minister to Him. Then God promises to respond back to us as we minister to Him in the house of prayer by pouring out His joy on us. In other words He will minister to us by enabling us to experience His joy in ways otherwise unavailable to the human experience. He wants us to minister to Him in His house and then He says He will respond in ministering back to us with joy in His presence.
“foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him (ministry to God), to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants…these I will…give…joy (God ministering back to us) in my house of prayer (Is. 56:6-7).”
D. He Invites Us to become Full Time Priests:
The Isaiah 62 passage amongst others is intended to call forth watchmen who will take their stand on the wall of intercession. God wants full time priests who will minister in His house. The revelation of His love related to night and day prayer sets the stage for a very different version of prayer meetings; one that operates out of the bridal paradigm and the revelation of God’s deep affections for us in the His house. While this calling to be a set one in the occupational sense is not intended for every believer, not even everyone who dwells in the house of the Lord, it certainly will apply to some. Moreover, it will apply to a larger percentage of people who find themselves at a house of prayer than it will people found at any other place.
“the Lord will take delight in you…I have posted watchmen on your walls…they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest (Is. 62:4-7).”
IV. The People God is Looking for in His House:
Let’s take a slightly different look at some of these same truths; this time let’s not think of them as an invitation let’s understand them as desires where God is actually expressing longings of His heart through these invitations. These passages we are focusing on this series are defining for us what God is looking for related to His houses of prayer in the Earth. We really want to get this; we need to begin to see ourselves in this storyline in a very real way and then to whatever degree we are able to we want to become the thing that the God is looking for. This series us about us embracing the glorious commission that God has given us here as a house of prayer.