Grace Community Church, Arlington, TX

Jesus is coming back for a Bride that has made herself ready.

God the Father would not insult His Son by presenting Him a Bride that is apathetic, impure, divided, defeated, and dead in affection and passion for His Son.

Those with spiritual leadership gifts in the church are supposed to be preparing the church, the Bride, to meet Christ.

The verse 11 ministries must function “until” three things takes place. There is a time dimension given here. These five spiritual gifts must function until three things happen.

1. Unity – “until we all attain to the unity of the faith.”
2. Intimacy – “until we all attain to the experiential knowledge of the Son of God”
3. Maturity – “until we all attain to the measure of the stature that belongs to the fullness of Christ”
That is what the bride that Jesus is coming back for will look like.

(Let’s talk some about Intimacy…) The word here is Experiential knowledge, or intimacy with Jesus Christ. The church is to be like a Bride that is passionately in love with the Bridegroom. Jesus prayed in John 17 to His Father in heaven,

Will God the Father answer His Son’s prayer? Will there be a people that will love Jesus likes the Father loves Jesus? Yes, there will! There will be a bride that is passionately in love with
Jesus. So, where are you right now in your passion and affection for the Son of God?

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for the choice that they had made.

The life that Jesus is talking about is not something you just get after you die. It’s something you enter into now. And that life is abundant life and a changed life. And the way that you get that life is by coming to Jesus. The Scriptures are so important, but there is a person on the other side of these scriptures, and we must come to Him.
Knowing about Jesus is not enough, we must know Him—have an intimate relationship with Him.

As we draw close to Him and worship Him and commune with Him; we are transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

(The first and most basic level we see of following Jesus is the level of the crowd.)
1. The Crowd (Lk 5:1; 6:17-19)

Those in the crowd can come to know about Jesus, but they can never come to really know Jesus personally as long as they remain in the crowd. Most of those in the crowd are unwilling to step out of status quo and draw near to Jesus. They keep their distance. Positive about Jesus, perhaps, but distant.

(How do you break out of the crowd and draw near to Jesus?)

Stepping out of the crowd of status quo takes self-denial. Drawing close to Jesus will take self- denial.

(The crowd is the first level of followers of Jesus. But some decided to step out of the crowd. And that leads us to the second level of followers of Jesus. The Seventy.)
2. The Seventy (Luke 10:1-20; Luke 9:57-62)

The 70 were willing to step out of the crowd, deny themselves and draw closer to Jesus. And the result of drawing closer to Jesus was they participated in ministry.

The 70 had a very different experience than the crowd. They stepped out and drew close to Jesus, and the result was that they got to participate in powerful ministry. And they got to see and hear things that the crowd never got to see and do.

(The third level of following Jesus is the twelve.)
3. The Twelve (Mk 3:14-15)

He appointed the twelve ...
--That they might be with Him
--That He might send them out to preach
--And to have authority to cast out demons.

Twelve are different than the seventy in that they stayed with Jesus all the time. They had a 24/7 relationship with Jesus. And they had a 24/7 ministry for Jesus. There is a higher level of self-denial to be with Him all the time. The result of that greater communion is also greater ministry.

(There is a closer level than the level of the twelve.)

4. The Three– Peter, James, and John (Lk 8:51; Matt 17:1-9; Matt 26:36-41)
How do we know that these three walked even closer to Jesus than the others that were a part of the twelve?

It was only Peter, James and John that got to see certain miracles. Like the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead.

It was only Peter, James and John that got to see the transfiguration, when Moses and Elijah came back from glory to speak to Christ about the things that were coming. And they came back in glory and the glory of God covered the mountain top.

It was only Peter, James and John that Jesus asked to go further into the Garden of Gethsemane. There He asked them to pray and help share His burden.

They got to see miracles that the other disciples didn’t get to see. They got to see revelations that the other disciples didn’t get to see. And They were entrusted with the burdens of the Lord so they could pray. There was a deeper friendship with these three. Not only did they trust Jesus, but Jesus trusted them. He entrusted His heaviest burden with them. He entrusted greater revelation to them. He entrusted greater power to them.

What was the difference between the three and the other disciples? They were His friends, not just His disciples. They spent the time to develop a closer friendship with Jesus than the others.
The things that mattered to the Lord mattered to them. And because of that closer friendship, Jesus trusted them with His deepest burdens.

He entrusted greater revelation to Him. He entrusted greater power to them. There are different levels of participation and revelation in ministry with Jesus based on the level of friendship one has with Him.

(Out of the three, there was one that was even closer to Jesus, his name was John.)
5. The One– John (John 21:20-25; 18:15-17; 19:26-27)
John is the “disciple whom Jesus loved” the Bible says.
It was John who sat at Jesus’ right hand at the Last Supper. It was John who laid his head on Jesus’ breast at the Passover (Jn 21:20). And it was John whom Jesus entrusted the care of His mother at the cross. (Jn 19:26-27)

John was closest to Jesus, and as a result of that closeness, Jesus trusted the care of His mother to John. But Jesus also trusted John with the greatest revelation. No one wrote more of the scriptures in the NT than John. (John, 1,2,3 John, and Revelation)

John was the closest to Jesus because He chose to be the closest. John received so much ministry and revelation because He loved Jesus so much, and unabashedly drew near to Him.

These five levels existed when Jesus walked the earth, but they also exist today. Everyone in this room is walking at one of these levels today. And every one of us is at the level we have chosen to be at.

Some of you are in the level of the crowd today. But those in the crowd don’t step out and deny themselves and draw close to Jesus.

Some of you are in the level of the seventy. You are willing to step out and draw close to Jesus and serve Jesus from time to time, but it has to fit your schedule and your other obligations.

Some of you are in the level of the twelve. You have made the choice to be in relationship with Jesus 24/7. You have made the choice to do His bidding 24/7, not just when you are asked to. A relationship with Jesus is more than church to you and more than volunteering for church work.
You walk with Him every day and look for ways to do His will.

Perhaps some of you are in the level of the three. You have developed a special friendship with Jesus. You are not just His disciple and His servant, you are His friend. A friendship by which He shows you things that He is not showing other disciples. He also trusts you with burdens that he doesn’t trust other disciples with. He trusts you to help carry the burden through prayer. This is a prophetic level of relationship with Jesus. Jesus shares revelation and burdens with His friends so they can know what is happening and so they can pray.

And maybe a few of you are at the level of the one, John. You have developed such an intimate relationship with Jesus that you receive more revelation than others. And Jesus trusts you with the things that are most precious to Him.

I don’t know what level you are at today. But I do know this. You are on the level that you choose to be. You will never be as close to Jesus as you wish to be, or want to be, only as closed to Jesus as you choose to be. How close will you choose to be?