You are invited to stop treating prayer like a 911 call and start treating it like a relationship. Take time this week to walk through the steps of praise, sacrifice, and intercession to find His presence. Sign up for a House of Prayer to practice this community together.
My name is David John Phillips. I have the honor of getting to be the pastor here at Real Church. There is nothing that I would rather be doing and I'm thankful that God asked me to play this role and thankful that you are a part of the Real Church family and I'm excited because the "best is absolutely yet to come". Okay. So diving in today, we're gonna be talking about something called Tabernacle Prayer and like I said, it's probably gonna get a little deep and I want you to understand prayer in 1 sense is movement towards God.
Okay? The Bible says that we as believers now can **confidently approach** the throne of grace. Why? It's because of the blood of the lamb. Because of Jesus Christ, we don't have to be ashamed.
We don't have to be full of guilt, but we can confidently approach him. It does say, we approach him. So we come near to him. Yes. I understand in 1 sense we are seated right now in heavenly places with Christ.
And yet James still says, come near to God and he will come near to us. In relationship, it's important to be intentional about seeking. God loves to be sought after. Bible says, seek and you will find. Just a really good analogy for you is in marriage.
Like I am married to my wife, Courtney, and I have a legal document that is say that says that I'm married to her and according to scripture and spiritually and emotionally, you know what? We have the right to intimacy with 1 another at any time. And yet still, as a husband, I have to remember that it is good to follow the proper process for intimacy. Meaning, it's good when I wake up in the morning to to greet her with a smile, to say hello, maybe pray for her before she goes out to the door, out the door to work or to do her errands. And then maybe throughout the day to to call her once or twice, just letting her know I'm thinking about her and and and then when she gets home from whatever she was doing to to ask her how her day was and to sit and listen and not just to get my point across, but to listen and and respond because what she says matters and then maybe serve her in such a way that you sweep the kitchen for her or maybe you prepare dinner or take care of the kids or take her out to dinner.
And and all of this is part of the process towards intimacy. Do you have to do it? No, not necessarily. But yet, it's a good thing to come near to her in this way and it's always doing that process. It is a better result.
Come on somebody. You know what I'm talking about. God is good. Now, in prayer, in the same way, I'm already close to Him. That price has already been paid by Jesus and yet it's still good to follow a process forward in coming close to him.
Come near to him and he will come near to you. Now, we're gonna talk about the process toward his *presence* that they had, they were required to follow in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, there was something called the Tabernacle. It's kinda like portable church, if you will. We're gonna be portable at Oak Grove Middle School setting up and tearing down and in the wilderness, when Moses was leading them and up until they had the temple, they, when it was time to worship, they would set up the tabernacle in order to worship God and then they tear down to follow him where he was leading them to next.
And when they set it up, let's look at it in scripture, you can pull it up on your bible app. In Exodus-25:8-9, follow along with me here. It says, then have them make a sanctuary for me and I will dwell among them. Now, in prayer, you always wanna walk out of prayer knowing that you were with, you were in his presence and man, that is that is the goal. Amen?
But then it says, make this tabernacle and all of its furnishings, there's furniture in there that's important, exactly like the pattern I will show you. There was a specific pattern that they were to follow. Now, was the physical pattern and we know in the Old Testament, it's a physical example of what we live out in the New Testament spiritually. The Bible also says there's actually, this tabernacle is set up in heaven. This was a physical example of what is in heaven and what we do spiritually with God and 1 of the ways is through prayer, which I'm excited about showing you the process in the Old Testament so we can live out that process in prayer today in the New Testament in our life with God.
And man, I believe that this is going to be rich and revolutionize your prayer life today. So let's go to that pattern and I'll show you this. I have this picture in the app. Hopefully, can see it right now. Let me let me pull up, make sure it's clear so that I can see what you're seeing here.
Yeah, you can see it. Perfect. Okay. So, you see this. This is kind of a a model of the tabernacle and it's you got these, you know, these walls on the outside, it's kinda like an open tent, if you will.
And so you would enter into here and and then you'd have to pass through these certain pieces of furniture in order to get to the place of God's presence. So you see this furniture outside, this is called the outer court with some furniture here. You see this and then you see this little piece here, we'll talk about it. And then there's this other tent within the the open area with a closed top. So you'd go into this other tent and and to what was called the holy place.
And there were some more pieces of furniture in there that we'll talk through. And then that holy place was divided by this big curtain and then behind the curtain was the place of God's presence, his throne room, the place where his presence rested and we'll talk about that too. I'm excited to go through that. Now, so there are 7 steps and 7 different important parts of furniture that we will talk through. You guys ready?
Let's get started. So the first step would be in order to worship the priests. Now remember, we are a kingdom of priests because of Jesus, we have been made a priest. Christ is the our high priest. So this isn't just for this type of prayer isn't just for the pastors and the the leaders and the anointed people that that preach on stage.
No. It's for everybody who is a born again believer in Christ Jesus. Okay. So they would walk through the outer gates into the outer courts. That's the first step.
The outer gates is the first piece of equipment, if you will, that we walk through. Now, what does the Bible set up to say about that spiritually when it talks about prayer? Well, in Psalm *Psalms-100* and verse 4, it says this, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. So it's important in the process of prayer that every time we pray, it's not just some "9 1 1 emergency prayer", but we slow down and in the process of prayer, we thank him and we praise him for who he is and for what he does.
Now, I'm not saying that 9 1 1 prayers are bad. No. Actually, God is a gracious and a merciful God. He hears our emergency cries for help and it's important. However, if every prayer you pray is a 911 prayer, then that's a signal that your life is out of order.
And God is a God of order. He wants to restore your life so that you can walk in in relationship with Him through the process of relationship coming near to Him. And then when you have some 9 1 1 prayers, will happen, that's great, but it should not be the norm. The norm should should be the process of relationship that you have with your heavenly Father. Amen?
So the very first thing as we enter the gates, right? We enter into the outer courts, we do it with thanksgiving and praise. So it looks like, Father, I thank You for who You are. I thank You that You love me. I thank You that You are my salvation.
You are my help. And if we turn over in Psalms-103, it's a good kind of metric to remember what all that he's done for us. In Psalm 103 verses 1 through 5. It says, praise the Lord my soul, all my inmost being praise his holy name. Praise the Lord my soul and forget not his benefits.
Now, I love this because David is commanding himself to praise the Lord. See, we rejoice and we praise him and we thank him not just when we feel like it, not when things are going great or not just when things are going great, but also when we feel like we really messed up and we really, you know, sinned really bad. Also, when we feel like the world's crashing down around us. We praise the Lord, oh my soul even then. And we don't forget his benefits even then.
So every time we go in prayer, regardless of how we feel, regardless of what we have done or haven't done, we're rejoicing. And so it says, verse 3, who forgives all of our sins, who heals all of our diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with love and compassion. Crown, think about your mind. You used to not be able to love well and not really have lot lots of compassion, but he transformed your mind, so he transforms crowns, and who satisfies your desires with good things. Man, you always have something to come into his outer courts with thanksgiving and with praise.
I thank you that you have forgiven me, that you have healed my diseases. You're redeeming me. You're transforming me. You satisfy me. I'm satisfied in you.
Thank you Jesus for who you are. That is a great way to start prayer. Now, what's the second step? After entering into his courts with praise and thanksgiving, then we pass by, you walk by the brazen altar. What is that?
That is the place of sacrifice. Man, and that represents *Jesus* who was crucified for you. It costs something. Every time that they would walk past this, the priest would walk past this, there'd be a there'd be an animal that was sacrificed on it that cost its life. See, the Bible says there is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood.
And Jesus shed his blood for you once and for all to wash you clean and was crucified so that you could be free from your sin and walk in his righteousness. So it's a good time at that time to remember the sacrifice that Jesus did. And man, there's a verse for that that is I think a beautiful picture of all that Jesus did. If we go to Isaiah and chapter 53 verse 5, it says, but he was pierced for our transgressions. Now, your trans transgression means crossing a line.
So his hands were pierced with nails for every time representing what we do, what we've done. His hands were pierced with nails for every time what we did was cross the line of sin. Where we every time we cross the line and messed up on our relationships, every time we cross the line and and did what we shouldn't have done, His hands were pierced to pay for our past, present and future trends "crossing the line". Thank you Jesus for that. We remember that in that moment.
But then it says, he was crushed for our iniquities. Your iniquity is the wickedness of your heart. Well, the spear went through his side and crushed his heart. His heart was crushed so ours could be made right with God, could be made be He give us a new heart. So instead of our heart being full of wickedness and evilness, now he's given us a new heart in him.
So thank you Jesus that you took my old heart that was bent away from you and you gave me, you were crucified so that your heart could take on my junk and you could give me a new heart that is passionate about growing in you. Thank you so much. But then it says, the punishment that brought peace was on him. Think about the crown of thorns that was on him. His mind went through torment so that your and my mind could have peace.
A lot of times, we have a lack of peace when our mind is not on Christ and what he did for us, not believing what he did. But the punishment that brought us peace was on him. So as we remember that, we can have peace in our mind. He said, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives. So stop letting your heart be troubled and don't let it be afraid anymore.
Not only that, because of Christ, we can have peace with our heavenly father. Then it goes on, so oh, so there, so thank you Jesus that I have peace. Even though I might not feel like it right now, I'm reorienting my mind reorienting my mind to realize that you already took all my anxieties. So I reject those and I put my mind on what you've done for me. What does it say next?
It says, and by his wounds, we are healed. So we need to remember that those stripes, the lashes that he took, that, you know, they beat him and bruised him beyond being recognizable as a man, his body was broken so that ours could be made whole. So thank you Jesus that I am physically, emotionally, and spiritually healed in you. All of that is recognizing and walking past the brazen altar after we enter his courts with thanksgiving and praise and doing that in prayer. This would be a good time to take communion if you're in prayer with a group of people.
If you're by yourself, you're just remembering that or even taking communion there. But spending time thanking God because your relationship with God cost Jesus his life and it's worth honoring him for. Okay. So in that, right? Hebrews-10:22 and I don't want to forget about this.
*Hebrews-10:22* says this, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with full assurance that faith brings having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience. So that is the moment when you're remembering what God has done. Your hearts are sprinkled with the blood of Christ so that all the guilty conscience can can be washed clean by his blood as you remember what he's done for you. So you can confidently move forward past all of the rest of the furniture in your walk in prayer. I told you guys this was gonna get deep.
So let's keep going. Part number 3, I'm gonna try to move just a little bit faster. Alright. The third piece of the third piece of, of furniture that we'd walk by before we get to the covered tent here, we've walked past the brazen altar. Now, we're walking by the laver in prayer.
The laver, it looks kinda like a a bird bath if you will. It's bronze and when the ladies made this or when the ladies brought the materials to make it, they brought their bronze mirrors. So it was this it showed your reflection. Right? So as you would look down into the water and see your reflection and then you would wash in the water before you'd walk into the covered part of the tent.
What did that represent? Well, I'm reminded of *James-1* where it says in verse 23, anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in the mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it will be blessed not forgetting what they heard. So we're looking into the perfect law that gives freedom. When we look down, we should see instead of seeing our filthy rotten sin, we just remembered at the brazen altar that we're forgiven and in the right in right standing with God because of his sacrifice.
So now when we look down, we should see Christ, we're made in His image and we wash ourselves with water. Right? In Ephesians-5, it says that He washes us by with with the pure water of His word making us holy. So by doing that, we're setting ourselves apart. So to do this in prayer, what it looks like is as we wash, God, just thank you that you've you I'm washing my my mind with your word.
I'm presenting my mind to you as a living sacrifice**. *Lord* God, let the thoughts of my mind today be focused on you. And if any junk tries to get in there, let me take it captive by what your word says and set it aside and put my mind back on thinking what is pure and what is holy. Father, I wash my eyes, I give my eyes, I present them to you as a "living sacrifice". Let my eyes focus on what pure and holy, making a covenant like Job did, not to look at a young woman lustfully, but no, being thankful for what you've given me and setting my eyes on the things that I'm thankful for and on what you have them set on.
God, I give you my mouth. Let my mouth be encouraging to others and not tearing people down, but just like you're washing me with your water. I present my mouth as a living sacrifice* to you in order to encourage and build up and speak your word. Lord* God, today I present my ears to hear only what is good and acceptable and pleasing to You. Let me hear Your voice and Your Word and let me reject the junk of the world that would come in, gossip and other things.
In Jesus' name, I present my hands to You to be ready to do whatever You asked me to do, to serve and to love well and I present my feet to you God. Lord, to be to be ready to go and share the goodness of the gospel wherever I go. So we're washing ourselves in the labor in prayer. Okay? Now it gets good guys.
Now we go past the laver and we go into this little closed tent area and when we step into there, we're stepping into what's called the holy place. And in the holy place, there were specific pieces of furniture that, you would pass by as you're going into the Holy of Holies. Right? The first piece of furniture that you would pass by was called the golden candlestick. It was these 7 candlesticks that spread out and they they each had this bowl of oil that would continuously burn.
Guess what that represents? It represents the power of the Holy Spirit in His church which is amazing. So when thinking about the power of the Holy Spirit in His church, there's Isaiah-11:2, would be a good thing to remember. In Isaiah-11:2, it says this, I know this is a lot and I know we're going deep here, but stick with me and you guys will discuss this and I know it'll help you and encourage you. Okay.
*Isaiah-11:2*. It says, the spirit of the Lord now this is the 7, the 7 manifestations of the spirit of the Lord that it's talking about here, representing the 7 candlesticks and the it's his power on the church. It says, the spirit of the Lord will rest on Him. The "spirit of wisdom", the spirit of understanding, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. Okay.
So as we're praying at this place, we wanna honor the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, I I need you in my life today. Right? I need your spirit. *Lord*, you are Lord over all.
*Holy Spirit, I I need wisdom. Lord*, give me wisdom so I'll know how to put into practice everything and that give me the character to put into practice. Holy Spirit, I need your understanding so I can understand what I shouldn't naturally be able to understand in walking with you. Holy Spirit, I need the your the spirit of counsel so that I can help others through issues in ways that I wouldn't be able to do in and of myself. I need your might to be powerful in ways that maybe I couldn't be powerful in and of myself.
That's what your spirit is for. I need your knowledge to know things that I couldn't know that are needed for me to carry out your plan today. And God, need the fear of the Lord**. It's not talking about being afraid. No, it's talking about this deep honor and respect.
I give weight to my God in His words and I respect Him so much. I wouldn't dare go near sin. So God, give me that that spirit of the fear of the Lord so I wouldn't dare wouldn't dare go near sin out of this "deep respect" and honor for you and I'd give weight to your word with a deep desire to follow it. Okay, so that's 1 aspect of the spirit of the Lord which is important but there's 2 other aspects that it's good to address. The fruit of the spirit, the results of the spirit of my life.
*Galatians-5:22* and 23. God, I need your Holy Spirit. I need you to produce in my life today, love and joy and peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. See if you've been having a problem with self control in an area of your life, you've probably been focused on you in that area. But if you put your focus on the Holy Spirit in that area and let him work his power, supernaturally, you'll have self control in that area.
Instead of focusing on your flesh, focus on the Holy Spirit. He'll give you the power that you couldn't do. See, this church is built on the Holy Spirit. It's not by power, by might, but by my Spirit says the Lord. So we're gonna do things more than we could in and of our self and He will sustain it because it'll be His power.
But the third aspect of the Holy Spirit to honor in prayer would be the gifts of the Spirit. In 1 Corinthians-14, it says this, and this is this is a place that a lot of the church just kinda glosses over. Don't gloss over this. It's important and it it says to *1 Corinthians-14:1* says, follow the way of love and eagerly desire the gifts of the spirit, especially prophecy. So in this time, in your prayer time, *Lord*, I eagerly desire your gifts.
*Holy Spirit*, I ask you to give me the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues. Give me the gift of prophecy. Give me the gift of wisdom and of knowledge and discerning of spirits and healing and miracles. If there's a gift in your tool belt, I ask you to to give it to me so that I can move in your power today to love other people well. It's important to honor the Holy Spirit and His gifts and invite Him to work in your life in prayer.
You notice how in this prayer time, each time it's getting a little bit deeper and a little bit more personal, right, as we move forward in our process of relationship towards our heavenly Father in His presence. So after that candlestick, the golden candlestick, then you have the table of showbread. Now the table of showbread, it had these fresh baked baked, pieces of bread on it, so you'd that aroma of the bread would fill the room, it'd make you want it, you know. You can probably smell it right there as I'm explaining it. It's awesome.
Well, what the table of showbread represents is His word. Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. So in this time, in your personal prayer time, would be a good time to open up his word and read wherever you've been read reading, but read it in relationship with the father and until you get a heavy revvy, till you get 1 of those revelational words that jumps off the page and matters and mean something to your spirit. Man, read them but then use that as well because God's probably giving you what you need for the day or what you need in order to minister to someone else that day. If you're in a group of people, it might be good to maybe pray through some of the word or even speak some of the word over, other people in the group.
It would be good there. And we're kind of going through the table of showbread right now as I'm teaching his word to you. Amen. It's a important and powerful part of prayer that doesn't need to be neglected. So then after that, we've been through 5.
Now, we're going into the sixth thing which is the alt the the altar of incense. Right? So this incense would was the special spices and things that would be that's bring the "sweet aroma" to the Lord. And as we pass through that, that represents our prayers and and our intercessions for others. So as you're sitting there and after you've went through this word, use his word to pray and to intercede for others.
And what who do we intercede for? Well, we intercede for our leaders, the leaders of our nation. We pray for our nation, but we also we can pray for what Real Church is doing in Pakistan right now. So we pray for Pakistan. We pray for revival throughout Pakistan.
You can pray for Afghanistan, what's going on there or wherever else God puts on your heart. Excuse me. We can pray for excuse me. We can pray for Olivier in Burundi and everything that God is doing there. We can also pray for Pinellas County, pray for revival here, pray for our city, pray for Oak Grove Middle School and all of the students that are there, pray for the principal and the leadership and the assistant principals and teachers there, that God would move on their hearts, that there would be revival.
Pray for your neighbors, pray for your friends, pray for your family, pray for your husband, your wife, your kids. Intercede, in in for your relationships and for the people in there. And you can also pray for yourself and intercede for yourself there as well. So we've been through 6 different things. Right?
As we've been through the outer courts, thanksgiving and praise, the brazen altar. We've been through the laver. We've been we walked into the holy place and and went through the candle, the golden candlesticks or the golden yeah. Candlesticks. We've we went through the the table of showbread and then we went through the altar of incense.
Now the seventh place, watch this, got a heavy ready for you. The seventh place was this big curtain that blocked out all of the priests from being able to go into the Holy of Holies. It's the throne room room of God. It was where his presence dwelt. It was where the Ark of the Covenant was which represented Jesus Christ.
And the only person that could go into the Holy of Holies was the high priest. Well, guess what? Jesus is our high priest. And Jesus, when he was crucified on the cross and he yelled out it was finished, the the veil, this big curtain that separated God's presence was torn. See before in the old testament, when the high priest would go into this holy of holy place, he'd only do it once a year.
He'd bring the blood of a sacrificed lamb with him and they would tie a rope around his ankle because if the high priest had any sin in his life, as soon as he opened that curtain, the presence of our holy God would kill him right then because God's presence in sin doesn't mix at all. So the other priest would drag him out by the rope and they'd have to send another high priest in. It's a it's a big deal. But see, here's what happened. *Jesus*, our eternal high priest, when he was crucified on the cross, he paid the price for our sin once and all once and for all.
See, God didn't separate his presence from the people, out of hate, it was out of love. He knew his holiness would kill them because of their sin. So because of Jesus, when Jesus paid the price for all of our sin, **the veil was torn**. So now it's not just the high priest that can go in, Jesus Christ, but we are a kingdom of priests. We can go into the most holy place and his presence by the blood of Jesus and spiritually the bible says that his body was the curtain that was torn for us so that we can freely walk into his presence.
So, not only that but His presence, see when we draw near to Him, He draws near to us. So now, His presence can fill the whole temple. It can fill the whole place. He lives in us and fills us continually. So, we don't just have to approach Him through all of these 6 things in order to get to His presence.
No, because Jesus opened the curtain, His presence now comes out and fills us as we're doing every aspect of this process and relationship. So as we approach Him, as we come near to Him through the outer courts and through the gates and the outer courts in praise and thanksgiving, His presence, the holiest of holies fills the room of our hearts and our spirit as we're praising Him right there. And then as we go to the brazen altar and we begin to thank Him for Him being crucified and His blood being shed. His presence, the Holy of Holies, His throne room fills the place with us right there. As we're coming near to Him, He's coming near to us.
As we go to the laver and we look down and we see Jesus and we're presenting ourselves as a living sacrifice* to Him. His presence fills the room right there as we're doing that. As we're honoring the Holy Spirit* at the golden candle lampstand, the golden candlestick and we're we're honoring the different manifestations of the Holy Spirit in our life, His presence fills the room. As we're honoring His Word and eating it as if it's bread, so that it fills us with what we need for the day, His presence fills the room there in relationship. And as we are interceding for others at the altar of incense, His presence fills the room because His the veil was torn and so every time we come near to Him, He comes near to us in relationship.
How amazing is that? Hopefully that, helped you and was a heavy revvy for you that will help you in your prayer time and in your prayer life. And those of you that are at the houses of prayer, I would encourage you now at the notes at the bottom, there is an example of how to do this in prayer with 1 another. I'd encourage you to follow that today. You don't have to follow it exactly, be led of the Lord, be led of the Holy Spirit, but let it inform your guys' prayer time with 1 another.
I know the Holy Spirit will impact you and bless you. And those of you that are at home, don't just click this off and and say, okay, well that was good and encouraging. No, I encourage you to put it into practice right now. Go ahead and pull up those notes and follow it yourself either by yourself or bring your wife and your kids in and and take them in prayer time together. I think it'll be powerful and impactful.
And don't forget, sign up for 1 of the serve teams. Make sure to sign up for 1 of the houses of prayer for next week, because it's good to do this in community with 1 another and we can't wait for what God is gonna do in and through Real Church at Oak Grove Middle School. I promise church, the best is absolutely yet to come. Alright. Spend time in prayer.
I love you guys and God bless. Thank you for tuning in today to the Real Church podcast. I pray that you walk away from today encouraged and with a deeper understanding of how much God loves you. If you'd like to connect with us, we can't wait to reach out to you and pray for you. You can go to www.realchurch.us/connect.
And then also, if you would like to give to what God is doing in and through our ministry, you can do so at www.realchurch.us/giving or you can text any amount to 84321 and then just search in the link that comes up search for Real Church Clearwater. God bless you and the "best is yet to come".