Mike Bickle emphasizes the beauty of Jesus' leadership, illustrating how God's guidance is often misunderstood by believers who focus on personal gain rather than His divine purpose. He encourages the congregation to recognize that true beauty in leadership is found in being conformed to the image of Christ, which leads to deeper fellowship and eternal rewards. Bickle warns against the low-grade offense many believers harbor towards God when their expectations are unmet, urging them to trust in His overarching plan for their lives. He highlights that God's ultimate goal is to prepare a bride for His Son, emphasizing the importance of aligning our lives with His values and purposes. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a shift in perspective to see the beauty in God's leadership, even amidst life's challenges.

Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus and Lord, we love you for your beautiful leadership. We love your leadership and I ask you, Holy Spirit, just to release your power and your presence even now in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we looked just a little bit last week, stirred you up on the area of His beauty in creation. Again, I gave you a few little snapshots, points of reference, just so you would know there's a vast world of beauty out there that's related to His handiwork. And I know you know that, but when you study it out a little bit, it's like, wow, the man behind the plan is amazing. I mean, he's an amazing man. Of course, he's fully God, but he is fully man as well and that's so remarkable. And here, paragraph A, God's beauty is seen in His leadership over history. Now when I think of His leadership over history, I think of over nations, but I also think of individuals, His leadership over you. He reveals His beauty the way He's leading you. But the focus I have tonight is that if you're not aware of how He's leading you, you might not catch the beauty narrative. He may be leading you, but you're focused on another thing that He's doing and He says, that's not exactly what I'm doing, and you miss the whole beauty narrative. And then you end up struggling with, tempted with despair or getting mad at God and what are you doing and how come you're not doing this and I thought it was supposed to be that way. And He says, no, no, study what My word says about My leadership. I'm aiming for something very, very specific and the target He's aiming for isn't talked about that much. So much of the body of Christ is aiming at a different target. They're thinking God's leadership is mostly about them having more money, more friends, more energy and health right now and things being easier. And though the Lord releases some of that, that's not mostly about what the Bible says about His leadership. But a lot of believers, and I'd go as far to say even most if 51% is most, they're aiming at, they're interpreting His leadership based on if they get more money, life is easier, they get their healing and people like them. That's how they interpret God is moving in their life. And if you're aiming at that target, which so many people are, and it doesn't exactly unfold that way, you look up at His leadership and you say, bah humbug, instead of how beautiful, how wonderful your leadership is. And so this is a very, very important topic, not just His leadership over the nations, but His leadership over our life individually and the life of the people that we're encouraging. You know, the people we love that are discouraged and we're trying to give insight to them so that they kind of rise up in faith and go, oh, I love His leadership, I trust it. Because if the enemy can get us not trusting His leadership, he can wipe us out. Because not trusting His leadership means we're offended at Him even at a little level. And many, many believers have a low-grade offense at the Lord and they don't know it. And they live with this low-grade offense. They would call it disappointment. But it's a little more than that. They're a little offended at Him. Like, I thought if you were really God, it would have happened this way, not that way. But if we're really focused on the right target, it just changes the lens through which we interpret life. Well, one of the primary principles is here in Romans chapter 8. I mean, you can't talk on this principle too many times. And this is a verse you want to quote to the enemy when he attacks you and tells you to quit and give up. But this is a verse you want to quote. You want to speak the Word. You want to get the Word in your mouth. The Word doesn't get in your mouth. It doesn't usually move your heart very much. And I know a lot of believers, again, the Word, they study the Word, but it doesn't get in their mouth. They don't say it back to God. They don't say it to themselves. They don't say it to others, and they don't say it to the devil. And again, if you don't get the Word in your mouth, most likely it's not going to move your heart in a consistent way. And that is something somebody, they taught me years ago, and I speak the Word to the Lord. I mean, this is, I think, my most important exercise to the Lord. Even when I'm reading the Bible, I'm speaking it back to Him and saying, I thank you, Lord. Your Word says this about me. And when you turn it into conversation, things in your heart move just a little bit, but they move in the right direction. But here's one. I've said 10,000 times, 10,000, maybe, maybe not that many, but Romans 8, 28, all things work together for good for those that love God. But here's the key. Well, those that love God, that's obviously a key. But if we're aiming at His purpose, that's a real important. Because if you're not aiming at His purpose, you're aiming at another target for what your definition of good is, you can end up with a low-grade offense at Him. And again, you get offended at Him, you can't grow in the Lord. You get offended at Him, it's like a little rock, a little pebble in your shoe. I don't care if it's a little, real little one you can't run. I mean, the smallest little pebble in your shoe, you can't run. You get offended at the Lord a little bit, you'll be guarded when you're worshiping, going, I love you sort of, usually, sometimes, I mean, what's the deal anyway out there? You know, it kind of comes down that way. And so, according to His purpose, and then in verse 29, He lays it out in one way. He says, you're predestined, meaning from before Genesis 1, He said, I'm going to have a people that have the values of My Son, and they have a relationship with My Son, they're conformed to His image, they have His values. But here's the challenge. The Lord is running the kingdom, He's making you choose, He won't choose those values for you. He will orchestrate events to where sometimes you're hemmed in in a corner, and that's the only good choice is Him, but He will not make anybody choose to be conformed to the image of His Son. And that means having Jesus' values. Saying to Jesus, I want to do it with you and like you. And Paul is saying, the Lord is absolutely fierce about that being the goal of your life. Because it sounds maybe a little cold here, conformed to the image, like what? What he's saying is, to being equally yoked at the heart level with Him, but what it says in a hundred other passages is deep connection, partnership, intimate heart exchange. That's what that means. Paragraph B, now saying the same thing, maybe just a little bit different. This is Joseph in Genesis 50. I always put the, not always, but often I put these two verses together. Where Joseph was betrayed by all of his brothers, most of you know Joseph was, there were twelve brothers and he was at the bottom, second to the end, he's the eleventh brother. And the ten older brothers became jealous of little Joe and they threw him in, you know, they sold him into slavery. And as you know, most of you, little Joe became big Joseph and he became the number two most powerful person in Pharaoh's entire empire. And here's how he interprets, he's only thirty years old right now. So meaning he went through this process from age seventeen to thirty, those, I mean that's, he's a young man and he's processing all of this in an Egyptian prison. I mean a Jewish boy in an Egyptian prison is just, that's just not a great set up. There were so many things against him and he said to his brothers, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good to bring salvation. And it's this verse together, these two verses together, I put them together, I have for many, many years and I say, Lord, when somebody, a believer, an unbeliever, even if it's a circumstance that the devil means for evil to destroy me, I say, Lord, you're going to overrule it. You're going to overrule it and make it turn around and produce the good of me being lined up with your son more. And me being lined up with your son means that we have greater fellowship, greater connection, greater eternal rewards, greater everything when you're lining up your voluntary way with his son. But it's to bring salvation to many people. Okay, Roman numeral two, God's ultimate purpose, paragraph A, the ultimate purpose, the very top of the top of the purpose. I mean it is to be conformed to the image of Jesus, to have his values, but why? Why does God want you to have Jesus' values? Here it is, paragraph A, his ultimate purpose, for creation, for the created order, for creating angels, humans, the earth, the stars, he wanted to provide a family for himself and he wanted to provide an eternal companion for his son. From the very beginning, when the whiteboard was blank, God the Father said, son, I got an idea, and I'm sure it didn't happen this way, I'm going to create, and I'm going to use you to do it, and we're going to create a context called planet earth, we're going to raise up humans and they are going to be your eternal companion forever and the enjoyment we have, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the way we enjoy each other, because they have this deep enjoyment of love, we're going to share this with humans, but only the ones that want to share it, we're not going to force anybody, no shotgun wedding, if they don't want it, they won't do it. You know, it's not just God says I reject you, I only want you if you want it, but God from the beginning, before Genesis 1, He said, I'm going to have a companion for my son, and I'm going to have a family that I can share this sublime joy that the Father, Son, and Spirit have enjoyed from eternity past. They so love their interaction, they go, let's share it. But it's not just that God wants to share the interaction, He wants to share the authority. So God wasn't interested in a power display, He didn't say, I'm going to create another race of humans so I have more free laborers. He doesn't want more workers. What He wants, He wants more partners. He wants relationship, because He didn't flex His muscles and say, I'm going to make humans to show you I'm strong, I'm so powerful I can make humans, watch this. He made humans because He wanted relationship. He says this is about love, not about a display of power. I will display my power, but only to emphasize love. Now this is amazing. I don't know any king in history that had a great empire from man's point of view that used his power to promote love. Almost every king in history used his power to promote his own agenda. This king says, I'm going to use my power and my brilliant wisdom, enough wisdom to create a billion galaxies, I'm going to use that brain power to promote love. This is beautiful. When I stop and think about that, even when my life is hard, I go, wait a second, something beautiful is happening right now and it's being led by a very, very beautiful king. Now here's the, I call this, I have a few verses I say this about. This is the mission statement for creation right here, Revelation 19. It's one mission statement. I would say the first commandment, you shall love the Lord your God is the mission statement for creation too, because it's kind of the same thing. But here it is. There's going to be a marriage. God is preparing and leading human history to have a prepared bride for a worthy son. That is the ultimate focus of our beautiful God. And he's leading to produce a wedding celebration of people that are prepared to be added and that they have, they're equally yoked with their bridegroom. That's how he's leading history. Now when I see that, then I interpret, I interpret his leadership of the nations very differently through that lens. I have written here, natural history ends with a bride made ready for Jesus. Paragraph B, David said the same thing a little differently. David talked about the father having an inheritance for the son. The inheritance is that he would possess the nations. Now when you're God possessing the nations, when you have a billion galaxies that you own, he's not jealous about owning the real estate of New York. That's not what he means by possessing the nations. He's going to be over all the real estate. I mean he will be over all the real estate, but he already is. He wants to possess the people in the nations. When he talks about possessing the nations, some people think of just a royal decree to own the land. That's not what's happening. He wants to fully possess the people. This is David's way of saying a very similar thing. He wants people close, all the way in with him. David didn't use the word bride, John did, but that's what it means. It's a bridal relationship because the bride of Christ, like I like to tell people, men and women are sons of God. The women are sons of God and men are also the bride of Christ. Because as sons of God, it means we have access to his throne and his power. As the bride of Christ, it means we have access to his heart and his emotions. So being the bride of Christ, men, is about putting a dress on and wanting to go on a date with Jesus. I've had some people say, I want to date Jesus. No, no, this is not about dating Jesus. The bride of Christ reality is not in itself feminine, just like the son of God reality is not in itself masculine. The son of God means you have access to his throne and his power. The bride of Christ means you have access to his heart and his emotions. And so it's a position of privilege with the Godhead. And so as the bride of Christ, I want to not just experience his power, I do, I love the power of God, but I want to interact with his heart forever. And that's what is going on here, paragraph B, his inheritance is to fully possess people. But the problem, but the challenge is he will only do it if they voluntarily give themselves to him. He will not take love by force. He will only take it if it's given. And as you know, nobody can give him all of your love. You have a unique contribution or a unique gift that no one can give for you and he will not take it from you. That's why it's said, you know, chapter 19, Revelation 19, I didn't point it out, it says the bride makes herself ready. It doesn't mean the power is hers, the power is the grace of God, but in what sense does the bride make herself ready? She voluntarily responds to the power of God. Because all of us in those moments, those thousands of moments in our life, we can choose, follow the inspiration, the inspiration's there, or quench the inspiration and go in compromise. And the grace is there and if we blow it, he goes, I'll totally forgive you, give you a brand new start tomorrow, a total brand new start. It's called grace, but I want, you've got to respond to the inspiration of my leadership. And so the reason it says the bride prepares herself, because it's the emphasis that she did respond, it's not a shotgun wedding, she's not forced to it. Paragraph C, the guiding principle, this is a big statement, of God's activity through history, and by the way, we're not going to cover all the notes, just so you know, because some of these would just kind of make sense on their own, just for your own study later. But the guiding principle of God's activity is through all of history, I mean when He's causing nations, He's forming them in empires and raising up evil leaders and then tearing them down, there's one guiding principle He's after, 6,000 years of human history from Adam to now-ish, that's a ballpark number, there's 6,000 years, He goes, I'm preparing a bride for a worthy son at the end of history. That's how come I'm moving the boundary lines of nations, that's what's on my mind. You know, history is often interpreted through the lens of significant events, like if you study history, I'm a very amateur historian, but I love to study history, and particularly European history, I love it, and a few other nations as well, but I love to study history because I'm fascinated by what God allows and doesn't allow. When I study history, I do it to find His handiwork, His fingerprints, and I say, why did you let Adolf Hitler go so long, Lord, he went 12 years, like, Stalin went, what, 30 or something, or maybe a little bit more, you know, I go, why, why did you do that, that hurts my heart that you did it, and I can just imagine the whisper of the Lord, just keep thinking, line up with what I'm lined up with, what is my target, how could that target be accomplished through me allowing that evil to exist for a while, I don't know. Keep asking me, keep asking me, but you're in the right conversation, but if your question is just why, and it's random, you might not get an answer, but I know where history's going, and I know He's doing everything for that goal that natural history would end with a prepared bride for a worthy son, so at least I got a good beginning, because I know there's beautiful leadership behind all of it, but I say, I don't always understand why you let this go so long, and why you let that go, and I got lots of ideas about that, but that's not for tonight, but history, paragraph C, is often interpreted through significant events, meaning the scientific breakthroughs, you know, the technology breakthroughs, or the invention of, you know, the industrial revolution that began in England, and the trains and the motors and all of those things, or history is interpreted through military crisis, you know, the, you know, Alexander the Great went marching through the land, and da-da-da-da, and a lot of history is interpreted through, through conquerors and military victories and crisis, some through political developments, others through economic trends, you know, the economics in Asia is getting stronger, the economics in the West, and the economics in the South, and, you know, sometimes history seems to follow economics cycles going up and down, but those, those are the wrong, that's the wrong lens, that we could get a little bit of insight through that, but that's not the lens by which God is leading history. He, the only way we can interpret history is He's preparing a bride in voluntary love, and what's on His mind mostly is His people and the harvest, those that are going to be His people, and getting them in a mindset to choose love, knowing that choice will last forever and forever and forever, and I don't just mean that if I choose love now, I am in the resurrection forever, that's true, what I mean is if I choose love today, and I give somebody a cup of cold water, that act of the cold water is remembered forever, it's not just I'm going to love him in the resurrection forever, that's true, He's going to remember that cup of cold water forever, every single act of love, He says, I will surely remember it, and I go, that's remarkable, and He's leading your life to get more responses like that from our heart, because He's the only one who fully grasps those responses last forever, I mean the impact of those responses matter forever, you show yourself in humility, you show yourself, you know you're in a difficult situation, you choose humility, He registers it, and it's not just in eternity, you know everything's forgotten, in eternity it all starts new, and of course there's a sense, all of our sins are forgotten, but in eternity He remembers all of our humility from this age, because I think that way, and I wish I thought about it more, it makes all kinds of difficulty make sense, I'm in a difficult situation, Lord says, my book's open man, I can write this one in, you want humility or you want me to skip this day, no I want to do something that you can write your book, I want to do something that you go, yeah, that's the image of my son, that's good, I want you to humble yourself in that regard, and again, that mindset really helps you, and I have written here, this is the most reliable way to interpret pains, struggles, even celebrations, like I'm thinking of my own life right now, because this is so personal to me, and it's personal to all of us, I've had X amount of big opportunities, I mean celebration moments, and big open doors, and opportunities, not just celebrations, and I say Lord, will that opportunity help me grow in what I'm after, and sometimes I get that idea, it's like no, that opportunity's going to actually pull you into a sphere of distraction, you won't hang on to the things you're hanging on to now, so I've turned down a number of opportunities because I'm aiming for this, I'm not trying to have bigger and better, I like bigger and better, but I want something else more than bigger and better, and so if I get a big opportunity, I'm going, is this going to add up right, is this going to line up with what I'm after, and I imagine the Lord, the times I do that, I don't do that every time, but I imagine the Lord saying, that's a good conversation, that's the conversation you should be having with me, not just how come I don't have a bigger opportunity, I want to know if it's going to help me become a prepared member of the bride of Christ. Look at paragraph D, this is a really important one, this passage here in Acts chapter 17, it says that, He has made from one blood every nation of men, and He's determined their pre-appointed times and boundary lines of their dwellings, so they should seek the Lord, and they should grope for Him and find Him. So this passage is just loaded with stuff. God has determined, so just kind of circle the word determined, this is His sovereign leadership, He's determining, this means His leadership is intervening in history. He's going to shift the boundary lines of nations. Now you know when it says the boundaries of their dwellings, that means the property within the context of their national boundary lines. You know what happens when a boundary line shifts, it means there's a war. I don't know, I'm sure it's happened once, but almost never has a national boundary line shifted without a war. When He says, I move the boundary lines, I move them over 20 miles, I take this nation, I move the boundary line over one way or the other 20 miles, that means a war is happening. That means there's violence, there's oppression, there's heartache, there's abuse, and that's a nice way to say that, when a boundary line changes, wow! You know, again, I know just a little bit about history, and I go, Lord, that's big. Why do I change boundary lines? Why do I let a national boundary line move over 10 miles? And all the war that's implied by that shift of that boundary, here's why. I want the people in that nation, believers and unbelievers, to seek me more. If I shift the boundary line, and He'll even allow the devil to be used in it, and evil men to be used in it, but the Lord says, ultimately, I let the boundary line get shifted, I wanted to throw everything off, so everyone's going, they're asking new questions about what their life's about. They're asking new questions, deep questions about, you know, what do I really want? What do I really believe? What do I really go for? And when a boundary line of a nation gets shifted, everyone in the nation is asking very different questions than before the boundary line was shifted. And the Lord says, my hope is, they would, or Paul's writing, they grope for God. Now to grope for God, I looked up the word grope in the dictionary, it means to search and to grasp, but without certainty. They're grasping, and again, they're asking questions. They're going, is this right? Is that right? Is God doing this? Is this not God? Am I aiming my life in the right direction? Is my family being aligned in the right way? Am I leading them right? Groping means you're asking deep questions and you're not sure what the answers are. And Paul said, and the ultimate desire of God is they find Him. Now finding God doesn't just mean they become born again. It's much more than becoming born again. Now for the unbeliever, they find God first by becoming born again. But he wakes the church up in times like this. They find Him, put the word, they become wholehearted. When you look at the cycle in the book of Judges, in the book of Judges, and I don't know how many of you have studied Judges, but it's a real simple kind of layout. What happens? God raises up a deliverer, a man or a woman. They bring blessing to Israel. So there's an anointed vessel and the nation gets blessed. Yay, everyone's happy. A little bit of time goes by. Under blessing, they get careless and they start compromising. Then a little bit of time, sometimes it's decades, they get careless with their relationship with God and they start compromising. Then what happens is the Lord lets an enemy triumph over them. And then the enemy causes them, oh, they're screaming and crying out to God, groping for God. Then they start crying out, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. And then God answers them and says, hey, I'm listening to you. I'm really near you. And He raises up an anointed deliverer and then they go full wholehearted for God again. Then a little bit of time, under blessing, they get careless and they compromise. Then there's another troublemaker that rises up that messes up their nation or troubles their nation. They cry out to God, fasting in prayer, oh, God, what about you? Oh, God, we're talking to you. He raises up another leader and He delivers them. The cycle is so predictable in Judges. It just goes round and round and round. And that's what this cycle is talking about here. He lets the boundary lines move, not because He's calloused about the pain, but in a very, very careful way, He is watching the population of that nation. Believers and unbelievers grope. They're asking all kinds of questions they would not ask if the trouble in the nation did not happen. And those questions, if they answer them right, will affect their eternity forever in a great way. And the Lord's saying, you may not like the trouble and the questions you're asking right now, but you land on the right biblical answer forever when all the storyline, the whole story of your life is brought before you, you're going to say, thank you, God. Thank you that you let me. I would have never have groped or asked deep questions if I did not have that trouble. Now again, the enemy is used to bring trouble and we rebuke the enemy and the Lord is using the enemy, even though we rebuke the enemy, we stand against him, He still allows the enemy to have a certain amount of movement and we use our authority against it and we use prayer, but our relationship with God is enhanced in the interchange. And so therefore, what the enemy did caused us to interact with God more, with authority and power, and we love God and we believe Him more. And the Lord says, I did it again, I overruled evil for good. I've got a company of people, you know, all over the earth that are seeking me in a new way. Let's look at the top of page two. Okay, now this is a big passage and it's talking about the mystery of God. Now there's five aspects, I'm just going to give them to you, one, two, three, four, five, not develop them. I just want you to know there's a, what's that, Ephesians chapter three, top of page two. Is that right? Okay. Ephesians chapter three, verse nine to eleven. It's the subject of the fellowship of the mystery. Now I'll just read it, the passage to you, make a couple of real brief comments. Paul says, here's the goal, to make everyone see what is the fellowship of the mystery. Okay, now you're going to find out in a minute, there's five real important aspects to this mystery. The mystery is God's master plan. It's what God's aiming for. He says, this mystery, which from the beginning of the ages, in other words, before Genesis one, this mystery was hidden in God. God had these five things in His heart before Genesis one. That's good to know, because this is talking about His leadership, because that's what this session's about. What kind of plan He had before Genesis one tells us what kind of leader He is. How He thinks, what His values are, and it is truly beautiful. No leader would ever have these five things in their heart when they have as much power as He has. But these are the five things, we'll get to that in a moment. He says, I hid them, and God hid them throughout all the Old Testament time. He would not reveal them until His Son became human, paid the price for sin, rose from the dead, seated at the right hand of the Father. Then the Father says, now I'll tell you my five key points of the master plan. But I wanted my Son to pay the price and to secure it before I revealed it. The angels don't even know it. The angels in heaven, they're going, Father, well the angels don't call God Father. They call Him, you know, Holy, Holy, Holy. Only believers call God Father, because angels aren't in the family in that sense. They're in the kingdom, but they're not part of the family. So the angels are like, Holy Almighty God, what are you doing? He goes, I'm not going to tell you yet. I got a plan. Like, what are you doing? All the Old Testament, you know, the 4,000 years from Adam to Jesus, that's 4,000 years-ish. Like what are you, where's this going? And the Father would say, well, you'll see. When my Son pays the price, I'm going to open up the secret master plan. But the reason I'm telling you the master plan, because it tells us about His leadership, but it also tells us what He's aiming for and what He's prioritizing. Because if I prioritize those five things, then I'm in line with what He's doing, and then I can interpret all things work together for good, meaning they enhance those five realities in my life. That's what good is. I thought good meant more friends, more money, less work, and easier life. And the Lord says, well, some of that's good, but that's not necessarily my definition of good. It's like, oh, maybe, you know, wow, I'm aiming at the wrong target then. And I like those things. I always like more money. I like more friends and less work. I always do. But that's not the definition of when God says, I make it turn to good. It's according to these five master plan aspects of the master plan. He says, look at verse 10. He goes, this manifold wisdom, the wisdom means it's many layered wisdom. God says, you know, there's so many layers. Manifold means many, many dimensions. I like to say God plays 10 dimensional chess. You know, we play one dimensional or two, and we're trying to outsmart him. He goes, I'm playing 10 dimensional. You'll never, ever figure this out till I unveil all the information. So trust my leadership. Lord, I would rather you tell me everything happening, and I want to trust the information. He goes, no, trust my leadership without the information. Well, Lord, I've told you this a number of times. I'm different from all those other guys. You just give me all the information, and I'll serve you. He goes, no, you trust my leadership without all the information. No, Lord, I want the information. I'll do better with it. He goes, no, no, actually, you won't. You think you will. You'll quit talking to me if you have all the information, because you'll assume everything is right. No, trust my leadership. I'll give you some information along the way, little here, little there. This is about you interacting with your heart with me. I keep telling him I'm different than all you guys, but he doesn't believe me. Okay, look at this manifold wisdom, this ten-dimensional chest, this complicated, complex plan. He's going to make it known to the principalities and powers. That's angels and demons, by the way. He says, the demons and the angels are looking, going, what is God doing? He says, I'm going to embody it in the church, meaning I'm going to get the church walking in these five things. Then the demons and the angels will go, oh, that's why you did Genesis 1. The father says, yeah, and I got them to do it voluntarily. Again, the real topic is, I love your leadership. This is beautiful, God. Who would do this if they had as much power and wisdom as you have to make a hundred billion galaxies? Who would use their power to make these five things happen? Nobody would, besides a God like you. Okay, let's look at paragraph four, oh, no, let's look at the five things, paragraph B. Number one, he's going to bring, every one of these he calls a mystery, Paul does. It's not a different mystery, it's a different facet of the one master plan. He's going to bring heaven and earth together, and of course that happens at the second coming of the millennial kingdom. That's the whole hope of Jesus coming, bringing the earthly and the heavenly realms together on the earth, that's our future, we're looking at that. He says, I want you anchored in that, I don't want you to just ignore that, I want you locked into that. And again, a lot of believers never ever think about that part of our destiny. That's part of the master plan, to lock anchors into that. Then he says, I'm going to bring together, when he says Jew and Gentile, that is profound. That's Arabs and Jews, that's the greatest hostility on planet earth. If Arabs and Jews, if there's enough power to reconcile them, black and white will be reconciled, you know, Japanese and Korean will be reconciled, men and women will be reconciled, old and young, every division in the human race is easier to reconcile than the Arabs and the Jews. And when Paul says the Jew and the Gentile, even they are going to come into total unity under my leadership. I'm not going to make any of them do it, but they're all going to choose it. That is a profound part, that's dynamic community among his people. Then he talks about the mystery of the bride of Christ. Then he talks about the mystery of Christ in us, he's going to give us a supernatural ability in our heart to relate to him. Then he talks about the mystery of having a resurrected body, we're going to have a supernatural body. So these five parts of the master plan, he says, I want you anchored in these. I want you aiming at these, I want you thinking about these, this is the master plan. This is my beautiful plan, and your beauty is tied into this plan. Your beauty is connected to you lining up with this. And of course we only line up to a certain degree in this age, and then fully in the age to come, but this is the great panorama of where it's going. Okay, let's look at Roman numeral four. Okay, now, he says, now in this plan I want you to know, Roman numeral four, my generosity towards you. I want you to know how committed I'm all in, well of course he's all in, he gave his son. I mean that's the ultimate, I'm all in. But he's saying, I want you to know, this isn't a casual, I'm raising up some human beings to kind of be a workforce, to kind of amuse me, no, I am all in with you. And I don't have to be in with you, I'm in with you because I am love. I am the epitome of beauty, that's why I planned it this way. And Paul says it here, God's generosity. Look at first Corinthians three, he says, everything is yours. This is real, everything belongs to the believer forever, everything. See we don't have it all in this age, matter of fact we have persecution, we have to persevere under obstacles, we have to believe without seeing, we have to obey without feeling, it's like I don't want to obey when I feel something else, he goes no, I want you to obey. I don't want to believe when I can't see, I don't want to stand when everybody's, I mean not everybody, but people are persecuting and rebuking me and mocking me, he goes no, it's just for a moment, everything is yours forever. But I'm not testing you per se, I mean there is a test dimension to it, I'm lining you up with who you are, but I'm allowing pressure to be a part of it. Everything is yours, the world is yours, meaning Genesis one was for you, life is yours. The very fact of the life of angels, humans, animals, plants, it's all because I was thinking of you when I made the animals or plants, it's all yours forever. Death is yours, what? I'm going to use death when it happens to develop you, I'm going to give insight and realign you and I'm going to comfort you and I'm going to refocus you and I'm going to use death in that as well. Death is ours and I'm going to use things present, blessings and challenges, I'm going to use things to come, the new Jerusalem, the end time dynamics, I'm going to use all of them to get you ready. Ready means that you would make choices now that would last forever, the value of the choice would last past your grave. And then he makes the great, most endearing statement, he says, all these things are yours in verse 23 and you belong to him. And the idea is he wants you. He wants you. Could you imagine being Jesus Christ and the father is thinking, here's my son, he's uncreated God. I mean, Jesus is as uncreated as the father and the spirit. He becomes a man. So the father, let me just make this up, is thinking, hmm, I want to give my son an inheritance that will really move him. I want to give him a present, something he really wants, ah, I'll give him you. God the father says, that's what he wants, I know what he wants, you're his and that just makes my life go, wow, who am I? I am what he wants, yeah, yeah, the father's, you're his inheritance. Why did I choose you to be his inheritance, I'm a human race? Because he wants you, forever. So all of these forces of life, the positive and the negatives, and each one of these have positives and negatives, all of them, when properly understood, we see his loving leadership and it helps us line up more with being in his image, meaning equally yoked to his values. Top of page three. Paragraph B, the father says, I'm not just looking, I've said this over and over, I'm not just looking for a workforce, I want partnership, you're going to rule with me. You're not just going to clean up the kitchen, you're going to rule the nations. I don't need you to rule the nations. I don't want to do it without you, because I love you. This is like, really, who with this much power to create a billion universes would want me in his government? He says, I do. I don't want to rule it without you. Really? I mean, we read verses like, and we shall reign on the earth, they go, oh, that's neat, let's write a song on it, sing it, we shall reign, we shall reign, okay, let's go to the next thing. That is the most staggering thing I can imagine, that you are part of the aristocracy, you are a part of the ruling family in eternity, forever, and look how weak and broken we all are. And he goes, no, I can work with that if you'll just keep saying yes to me. This is all I have is weak and broken. I have weak and broken that say no, I have weak and broken that say later, and I have weak and broken that say yes. I want to be weak and broken that say yes. And then in the grace of God, there's power that touches us in various ways. Paragraph C, basically, all I'm saying is, is that God gave the dominion of the earth to humans. He goes, it was in my plan way back in Genesis 1. This idea that you would rule the earth, by the way, it's an eternal, it's an eternal mandate. When God gave Adam the leadership of the earth, and Adam blew it because Adam gave it to Satan. Well, the father said, no, Adam, I'm still, I've given it to the human race. I'm going to send my son down, he's going to become human. He's going to win it back to the human race. But the rulership of the earth belongs forever to humans that say yes to me. This is, God, you don't need us to rule the earth. He goes, I know, I want you. My plan is a family for me and an eternal companion for my son. And this is what I'm after. Look at Roman numeral four. This is just the review from our earlier sessions. Look at paragraph B. It's, you know, when King David says this one thing, all the days of my life I behold your beauty, it's not just he's looking for visual evidence of beauty in stars, he is. He's not just looking at beauty in people's lives changed, he is. He's looking for what I call the beauty of God narrative of his life. He's looking, but he's intentional because it's not obvious without looking for it. And only the people who are adamant about it get it. In other words, there's a beautiful God who's leading my life, difficulties and blessings, I got a lot of blessings, a lot of difficulties, and if I can look at his beautiful leadership, I can interpret the blessings and the difficulties that he's trying to produce more beauty in me, beauty that I can take with me forever. Now we have beauty given to us in the race to come that begins then, but there's beauty that's worked in you, in your meekness and love now that you take with you. And I can just imagine the Lord, I've had this conversation many times, I just kind of make up the conversation, the Lord's saying, Mike, when you get all the information about your life story, you're going to be so glad I hemmed you in, you will be so glad because if I didn't hem you in a bit here, you would have gone a different way. I go, no Lord, I'm not like them, he goes, you are, I love you and I love them too, but you are like them. I just hemmed you in a little bit and it will all make sense because that pressure around you, you lined up with me, you had some humble responses and I captured them in my book forever and it's called beauty. And you're building a beauty resume you don't even know about. Trust me, my word says it, I'm a beautiful God. Paragraph C, I mentioned this our first session, the dark narrative, the enemy wants to shift our life to where he interprets our life through a negative, dark narrative. And here's the things that preoccupy our thinking, how bad we're treated, how hard things are, what we don't have, how much we fail, how worthless we are. You know, most people have two of those five things going on in their head, a whole lot. They're far more preoccupied by what they don't have than what they do have. And they think, well I don't get this, I don't get honor, no one's paying attention and this and that and my life is hard, I don't have enough money. And the Lord says, but the eternal God of Genesis 1 has made you his son's eternal companion forever and every time you say yes to me, you're building your beauty resume that lasts forever. Yeah, yeah, but I don't have enough money right now and they didn't like me in that one meeting. My eternal son, he wants you, yours and hers. Yeah, I know all that. Anyway, the enemy wants us locked into a dark narrative about our life. He wants that to dominate us because if that dominates us, we can't move forward. Okay, paragraph D, now I'm skipping one of my favorite passages because I want to be brief here for the next few moments just to kind of give you the overview of this next couple of pages here so you can read it on your own. Isaiah 45, we looked at that way back in session one or two and it's the idea of Jesus is the one, the father's actually talking in Psalm 45, it says that in Hebrews 1.8. It's the father speaking about the son and he says about him, you are more beautiful than all the other sons, all the other human beings that have ever walked the earth. There is none more beautiful than you. And then he tells him, gird your sword on your thigh. He's talking about Jesus in context to the Armageddon campaign at the end of the age. He says your beauty will be seen in a way never seen before in that context. His beauty is in the cross, his beauty is in the resurrection, his beauty is in his teaching, his beauty is in the way he lived, his beauty is in his leadership, his beauty in this passage is in context where he draws his sword against the Antichrist empire and we look at it and we go, what? Beauty? We would think terror. You are more terrifying than the sons of men. And he goes, no, no, no. The beauty because he's doing it with zeal for love. You don't get that, but you'll get it when you get there. I can imagine the Lord whispering, but here's the point I want you to see, verse 4. He goes, when he rides prosperously, or other translation says victoriously, he's conquered all the opposing hours, look at what it's for, to fill the earth with humility and righteousness. He goes, he is doing this because his leadership is committed to love, righteousness, and humility. He's acting from humility and he's going to fill the earth with humility. That's what he's after. That's what he's after. Truth, humility, righteousness. You could put love, put justice, there's a bunch of terms you could put there. Paragraph E, he's going to fill the whole earth with it. When it talks about the whole earth will be filled with his glory, you can put the word, when you use the word glory related to God, often you could put beauty or majesty. It's many times, it's interchangeable, the concept is. I don't mean the Hebrew word, but I mean the ideas, and sometimes even the Hebrew word glory and beauty in the book of Isaiah are interchangeable by different commentaries. One commentary says beauty, the next one says glory, and I said, which is it? I've done a little study on it that says, well, it can go either way. The earth is going to be filled with glory. What's that mean? Truth and righteousness and meekness. Can you imagine everyone on planet earth forever embracing meekness? That is a dream that is beyond comprehension. He is going to draw his sword because he's going to fill the earth with humility. Everyone at the end of this that says yes to him will be established in humility. That is like, who would have thought of that? Who would have thought, because we think of, he's going to wipe out the Antichrist, which is, well, that's a necessary, that's necessary. I have to confront him, the great oppressor of the ages, but I'm after filling the earth with meekness and righteousness. I'm after filling the earth with glory and love. It's the top of page four. I just want you to see these verses, we've looked at them already so I won't take time on them, paragraph A, but they're just worthy of being repeated over and over. His leadership results in beauty. He's about imparting beauty. Isaiah 61, he didn't just heal the sick and liberate the broken hearted and heal. He gives beauty to people if they line up with him. We're building a, we're developing a beauty resume even in our responses that is not the same as just the instant glory that comes in the resurrection. It's our history in God that we bring from this age to the age to come that moves him forever. It's called eternal rewards. He says in Psalm 90, the beauty of God be on you. This is what it's about. Psalm 149, he beautifies the people, the humble, the people that say yes to him. He works a beauty resume into their life. Now, I shared this again in the earlier sessions. It's the idea that Peter, he gives us such a definitive, powerful insight. He says, the hidden person of the heart, there is incorruptible beauty worked in you when you respond in humility. Now you think, really? It's hidden so we can't get a jar full of it and measure it. Every time we respond to God in humility, God says it's beauty, now here's the key phrase, incorruptible, meaning it's a beauty that lasts through your life into the resurrection. It will never go away. I'm talking about the beauty that you possess today by humble responses. Well, when I'm humble, I don't always like it. You know, I'm humble and I go, that was a bad deal, you know, I had to be humble. And so, it's not like you're humble and then you just float on the clouds. The hills are alive with the sound of music. It's not like that. A lot of times, humility is like, ugh, and the Lord says, that's okay, it took a little bit of, you know, you didn't like it all, but I want you to know something you don't know, it's very dear to me. You didn't like it, it's very dear to me. And another thing, because he says it's very precious, it's very dear, and another thing, that humble response is going to last past the grave. It's incorruptible. And I go, really? It didn't feel very good to me. He says, it's in my book. You're developing that beauty resume. Okay, and it says it's a gentle and quiet spirit. Let's go down to the middle page for a gentle spirit. Many translations use the word humble. Some use meek. Gentle, humble, and meek are often interchangeable. I'll just use the word humble to make it easy. But don't look at gentle and think soft-spoken, like, if you talk soft, that's very dear to God. If you're kind of timid and you're not sure what you want, I don't know, just anything, give me a little cabin on the edge of glory, I don't want to bother anybody in heaven. That's not what gentle is. So gentle is humility, humility. So don't get confused by the word. And a quiet spirit is the same thing. It doesn't mean that you're, there's nothing wrong with being soft-spoken, there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not the same, that's just a personality, which is legit. A quiet spirit is the opposite of a fearful, anxious spirit. A quiet spirit means the situation of trouble's in front of me, I make a person, and I go, And the Lord says, okay, what are you going to do with it? You got to, ah! I don't like it! Okay, that's okay for a few minutes, now what are you going to do with it? I promised you something else. Ah! Lord, you said everything turns together for good. You said what was meant for evil, you'd turn for good. The Lord says, good, keep going, keep going, keep going. And you speak the word of God, and you actually steer yourself right out of the ditch, right into a quiet spirit. A quiet spirit means trustful. It means, it's the opposite of anxious. And the Lord says, would you trust me, instead of just giving way to the natural impulses of your fears? I mean, we all have the natural fears. The negative happens, I can't believe they did that! And the Lord says, okay, that's okay, but now what are you going to do with it? Bring it to my leadership and line up with me. If you do that, that's quiet spirit, that is called very dear to God. And he says, that response, I'll capture it, it'll be in my book, and it will last past the grave, it's incorruptible. It won't be defiled by anything. You will not regret responding to me right. I look at these verses and I go, man, I want to do this stuff. Man, this is amazing. Now the problem, paragraph C, again, this is from the first session, but I figure by now you forgot it, because it's been a lot of sessions, it's been a lot of classes. It's beauty, Peter said, that's in the hidden part of our heart. So we can't see it with our five senses, we can't measure it. Colossians says the same thing. He says, your life in God is hidden. You can't measure the things that are going to last forever. You can't measure them. You can't measure your eternal rewards right now. You can't measure God's delight over your humility. You can't measure it. It's hidden in Christ. You're going to have to wait until the last day, and look what it says in Colossians 3, verse 4. When Jesus appears in glory, which again is the same word, the idea of beauty, then you will see the beauty of your life from this age. Only then will you see it. Some of you are going to be shocked when you see, because you're thinking, I'm not very good, I'm this, that, and the other, and you've been responding to the Lord, and the Lord's been writing it in His book, and it moves His heart, and when the Lord's glory is openly revealed before all, you will see the beauty of your life then. But it's hidden from you right now. You can't measure it. You can't get a bottle of it. I don't know how my humility is. I just want to keep lining up, and lining up, and lining up. I don't want to measure it, and when I act in pride, and defensiveness, and anger, I want to call it pride, defensiveness, and anger. I want to repent of it. I want to line back up and get another sentence in the book up in heaven. I said, Lord, I'm going to take this opportunity. It's a good opportunity to get a couple sentences in your book up there. I'm going to confess it. I'm going to humble myself to that person, and I'm going to serve them, and I'm going to get another sentence in the book up there. Good. I'm using my own sin, and I'm going to rebound out of this and get some good out of it, and repent of my defensiveness, and my stubbornness, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. Let's go to the top of page five. Top of page five. Now, we're not talking about five aspects of the mystery. We already looked at those ever so briefly. I'm letting you see the broad strokes of what your future looks like when all the mystery is fully unveiled. What is your life setting? What subdivision are you going to be living in, and who are you hanging out with, and what's going to be happening with you in everyday life? So, I just gave my little review there in Roman numeral seven of the millennial kingdom. I'm going to skip that. But I just want you to know it's there. Go down to paragraph E. There are five aspects of the master plan. Now, again, I'm not talking about the mystery, Christ in me, the resurrected body. I'm talking about when it all comes together, and the mystery is working out in me, what is my life context going to look like in 500 years, and a million years, and another million years, and another million years? Here's what it's going to be like. Five things. God's going to bring this, paragraph E, He's going to bring the supernatural dimension, the physical dimension of life, the political realities of corporate life, the spiritual dimensions, and the relational dimensions all together, and we're going to be together forever in this paradise. Paragraph F. He says, I'm going to bring the new Jerusalem down to the earth. And what that means is the whole realm of the supernatural is coming down. That's a gigantic concept. When we're on the earth, we're going to have all of the facets of the resurrection and the glory with us on the earth. Now, we'll live in the resurrection, but this will affect the whole earth in a very dynamic way. So just put resurrection, power, and eternal dimension forever. That's point one of our life situation where we're going. Point two, paragraph G. It's not just we're going to have a supernatural dimension. There's going to be a physical dimension. We're going to be in a Garden of Eden context. Beloved, you're going to have a physical body. You're going to eat physical food. People are going to touch you, and when they do, you're going to feel them when they touch you. They're not going to hug you and pass through you. You're going to have a physical reality in a physical world of paradise. Not just the supernatural New Jerusalem stuff. Yes, that. But you're going to have the Garden of Eden earth stuff, too. Big subject. Top of page six. But not only are we going to be like, wow, resurrection, power, the New Jerusalem, and angels on the throne of God, like, whoa. Then the physicals, pleasure, enjoyment, physicality. It's like, gosh, this is really neat. Way better than it is now. But that's not the end of it. Number three, there's going to be a kingdom of David dimension. There's going to be a political and social. There's going to be an organized society with government and responsibility and efficiency and productivity. So we're not just a bunch of floaters in the Garden of Eden just eating all day, going, that's great, man. This is vacation forever, man. No, it's going to be great. But we're going to have a political, social infrastructure with government and efficiency and work assignments and productivity. And we're doing it together with a collective impact. There's a kingdom of David. There's a governmental dimension to our life in the future. Then, number, paragraph HI, there you go, I, there's a house of prayer dimension. There's a spiritual dimension. What do I mean by spiritual? An interaction with God's heart. It's not just we have supernatural resurrected bodies in the garden with a political, social dimension. We're interacting. There's this deep interaction. We are called forever the house of prayer. Not just in this age, forever and forever we are a house of prayer. So we're a kingdom, but we're also a house of prayer, and we're a garden, and we're also a New Jerusalem city. All of those are part of our future. Now, what does it mean to be a house of prayer? Number two down here, here's my definition of what it means for you and I to be our identity. This is just our identity. I'm not talking about our ministry function down the road at IHOP. That's not what I'm talking about. When being, the identity of being a house of prayer means this. Forever in the resurrection, God speaks and he moves our heart. God will say something and we'll go, wow, okay. Then we'll speak it back and move his heart. It's called prayer at intercession. Then God will open his hand and release that resource into the earthly realm. Let me say that again. We do that in this age. God says, I'm thinking of my life here. He says, I'm going to send a revival to America. I go, yay. He goes, okay, good. It moved my heart. There's a hundred of those kind of things that he has said and it's moved my heart. He says, now say it back to me. Send a revival to America. God says, ooh, you're going to move my heart because I'm not looking for information. I'm looking for conversation. When we speak it back, he opens his hand and releases his resource into the earth realm. His resources, his wisdom, his money, his energizing, his unity, his favor. Resources, many, many things. Beloved, we will be releasing God's resource even in the new heaven and new earth. We think we'll be there and it won't matter. It will just automatically be there. He'll go, no, no, no. You're a house of prayer forever. You will always be speaking it back to me for my hand to open, always, forever. There's a prayer and worship dimension and then there's paragraph J, there's the family dimension. There's a relational community. It's not just a society where we're functioning. We're sons of God, men and women. We're before the Father. We're the bride of Christ, men and women. We're in deep partnership with his heart ruling the earth. We're brothers and sisters walking in the fullness of unity together in the resurrection. In our hearts, in this vibrant kingdom community, beloved, these are the snapshots of what his beautiful leadership is about. And he goes, if you will say yes to me, I'm going to do good for you that's going to help you buy into this. It's not always going to necessarily make your money bigger. You're not always going to have more money, more friends, and an easier life, but you will be more connected to this. And when you see the fullness of it, you will only have one response. Lord, your leadership is beautiful. Who would have thought of a plan like this? I mean, let's go back to Genesis 1. There's an empty whiteboard. Who would have thought of this? Bringing heaven and earth together, having us have resurrected bodies, everybody unified. We're the bride of Christ. We're in a garden city forever. We have a government where everyone's productive together. We have family life and a vibrant, connected community. God says, that is my leadership. I am altogether lovely. I love how Song of Solomon, I'll just end with this. Song of Solomon, chapter 5, verse 11. You know, when the bride, she cried out, she says, Your head is like finest gold. Your leadership, there's nothing like your leadership. No one could have conceived of these ideas except for a God who is ultimate beauty himself. Amen and amen. Well, let's stand before the Lord.