Heaven's What's That? Rev, 4:5-11

Good morning. We're continuing on, resuming, if you will, this study of Revelation. We're in chapter 4, 5 through 11. And you might have noticed in the bullet, the title here is, Heavens, What Is It? And that's not accidental. What we see described here is some pretty startling stuff. But it all does make sense.

Let's first just kind of do a review of where we've been here. Last time we looked at the first four verses of Revelation chapter 4 in which we saw that John was told by Christ to come up to heaven into the throne room. He told him to see what would take place after these things. And remember, after these things is not an accidental phrase. It's not incidental.

It's something that's repeatedly used through scripture, and it's used purposely in the book of Revelation as a time sequencer. and as a sense of telling us this is historical in the sense that this is really taking place. Then John introduced the 24 elders on the 24 thrones, and these are representatives of the church, because after all, we have already positionally been placed there. These are those who are described as being there. Then we're going to proceed through verses 5 through 11 in Revelation this morning. And I want you to recall from a couple weeks ago, this is our homecoming. This is our coming home.

It's where we are seated now positionally as believers, as we're told in Ephesians 2.6. When we're raptured, our condition will be our position. Do you get that? Right now, Mike's begun this course on position and condition. Well, there will be no need for courses on that in heaven, because our position will be our condition. They will be one and the same. Now, we have placed our trust in Christ for salvation. We are called to live by faith that is now here on planet earth. These that we're seeing here are the heavenlies. By faith we now behold the Lord.

Then we shall see Him face to face. So welcome home. look into this scene a little more closely, not looking at it as, boy, this is some strange, far-off place. This is the place that you and I positionally live now, and it is describing in advance what you and I will be living. Okay? So, with that, let's take a look here.

First, you'll recall that a couple weeks ago, we know that everything in this heavenly scene centers around the throne. The throne shows up 16 times in Revelation. As a matter of fact, it shows up many more times in Revelation than in all the rest of the New Testament put together.

There is a throne. There is the One sitting on the throne. There are beings and effects around the throne. There are beings and effects before the throne. And there are things that originate from the throne. The throne, as we made note, the throne is the center of everything. everything that is going on in the heavenly places centers around the throne. The throne is not incidental, it's central to everything that's going on. The throne, by the way, is not something that just sprung up here in Revelation.

The Psalms, for example, are ancient songs, many of them 3,000 more or less years old, and those speak of the throne. They're inspired by God. Here's a for instance coming out of the book of Psalms. Psalm 9, 7-8 says, But the Lord abides forever. He has established His throne for judgment, and He will judge the world in righteousness, and He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity. That's what we're seeing now, aren't we, here in this text. Next, Psalm 11, 4-7. The Lord is in His holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven.

His eyes behold, his eyelids test the sons of men. The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence his soul hates. Upon the wicked he will rain snares. Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup. For the Lord is righteous, he loves righteousness.

The upright will behold his face." That out of the psalm, see? It's telling us in advance this kind of summary of what's to take place. It's that last phrase, though, that we take great joy in as believers, isn't it? The upright will behold His face. And we're upright not because of our righteousness, but because of His. Right?

2 Corinthians 3.18 says we are beholding His face by faith now. The time will come, and we'll be reading about it this morning, when we will behold Him not by face, but face to face. Okay, your mission impossible, I've done this for a few weeks, but your mission impossible, should you choose to accept it, is to read the Psalms listed on page 2 of your handout. The back side there, so you can take a look at those if you feel so motivated. Now, here's what verse 5 starts off with.

Out from the throne came flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. The lightning and sounds and peals of thunder come from the throne because of the power and the glory and the majesty of the one on the throne. He has power and authority because he is eternally the source of power and authority.

The Greek tense of come here, where it's come, is a continuous. It isn't like, boom, it flashed and that's it. The way he describes it and the sense that he uses here It's continuously coming out of the throne. This. Continuously coming out of the throne. It's ongoing and not just happening momentarily. It isn't just a flash, bang, and you're done. Instead, it's non-stop.

How about that? This is a continuous expression of God's power and authority. To understand the first part of this verse 5, we need to take a look back and then a look forward. Before I confuse you, we'll get to that. This might seem at first kind of strange and awesome, but let's take a look back and then I think it'll make more sense. If we look back at the time when the law of Moses was given on Mount Sinai, the Lord gave Moses the law. He gave the first installment of the law there first on Mount Sinai. The Israelites at that point in time were warned, don't touch the mountain. Don't do it. Don't approach it.

And we'll see some amazing parallels here in a minute. Now you have this in summary on your handout, page 1. And what we find that's amazing, a very similar description shows up not just once, but twice there in Exodus. Notice as we read through these passages that the Lord displayed virtually identical expressions of awesome and overwhelming power back there on Mount Sinai.

These expressions were directed towards whom? The Jews. They were directed towards the Jews, the people of Israel. The phrase, all the people, as we read in the context, speaks of Israel. This took place under the initiation and institution of the law which was directed exclusively at the Jews.

Then we come to Revelation, the passage we just read, and we also notice that this keeps coming up. Here's passages in Revelation 8-5, Revelation 11-19, and Revelation 16-18 that continue on with the same message. Now, why is that there? Good question. Let's answer it. You like answered questions, don't you? I thought so.

The description is first used with the Jews. Twice it's used, we saw there in Exodus. The Jews were warned beforehand not to come close to the mountain or touch it. The second, this description was never used with the church. You notice that? We have this description and it's very similar, almost cookie cutter rubber stamped.

With the Jews, it never occurs in the whole New Testament up until this point. It's never used in the context of the Church. And now all of a sudden, here it shows up again. Now that the Tribulation period is about to begin, the focus again is on Israel, and not the Church.

And so these images are appropriate. The heavenly beings seem in awe of the Lord, including His expressions of power, but they're not fearful for themselves. You notice that? They recognize that the Lord is the source of power, but they're not saying, oh no, I'm going to get that. There's no expression of that.

There's a recognition here, this is directed towards the Jews, it is a Jewish expression, and now that the focus is again on Israel, we'll see it again, and it'll show up again, and again, and again. It has to do with Israel, and it has to do with the judgment that's taking place on Israel, That's why that look back into Exodus and now this look forward as we go on to Revelation makes lots of sense. One of the other things we're going to notice, once we get past the tribulation, the expression disappears. It never shows up again. Why? Because judgment is over.

But for now, for this time, for what's being described. This is a continuing event, these flashes and lightning and thunder and sounds. What we see here in these passages is that the Lord, in the same way in which He initiated the law with the Israelites, is showing this similar display again. And it makes good sense. Now, the next verse.

And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. As we've talked about before, this is referring to the sevenfold ministry of the Holy Spirit. And this is the third of four instances, we're only going to see it once more, where this expression, talking about the seven Spirits of God or the sevenfold Holy Spirit, shows up in the book of Revelation. And if we look at it, here's the next account we're going to see in chapter 5, the next time we look at this.

This seven-fold ministry relates back to Isaiah 11.2. This is the seven-point ministry of the Holy Spirit through the Messiah. And that's why this shows up all of a sudden. It is about to take place. It is about to become reality. The lamps of fire here are something different, though, than what we've seen before. Similar, but there is a difference. The Holy Spirit is represented as fire in other places in Scripture aside from Revelation.

Example, Acts 2.3. That's the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit appeared as what? Tongues of fire. Right?

Now we have 1 Thessalonians 5.19.

It says in the NIV do not put out the Spirit's fire. Here we have that same picture coming forth, but there are some differences. Unlike the earthly fire in which something is consumed in the process of making a flame, there doesn't appear to be any consumption taking place there. You notice that? The fire just keeps burning. There isn't something consumed in the process. This is an indication that God is not dependent on something or somebody else for His power. You see that?

When we think of things here on planet Earth, we think of fire, we think of something is burned to make it, right? Whether it's wood, whether it's oil or something, something is burned to make the fire. God doesn't need that because He is the source of power. He's the source of all power. The other instances where we've seen the fire continually burning, remember there was the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night moving with the Israelites? It was continuous. It was the Lord's source. There was nothing consumed by it.

Now there's a difference here that we should note also with the earlier expressions of fire, like the lamps in Revelation 1 and 2. There's a difference here, and the difference is this. The lamps in Revelation 1 and 2 were small lamps that were steady. And they were small flames. This is a different Greek word. It's lampides. Sounds like lamp. We get a word lamp from that. I'm going to ask you to get a drink of water. They were typically used of outdoor torches and not these little small lamps.

The word implies not some little calmly burning flame. This is a raging flame. Have you ever seen a torch outside and the wind gets it and the fire is just raging and going on? That's the expression that's used here. It is a vigorous flame. It's a flame that is burning brightly and vigorously with energy and to the point where this thing is so bright and so vigorous it's grabbing your attention. There's a vast difference there from this little, calm, small flame that was described before. So a different word. Flames are usually used in two different contexts in scripture. with a pretty well-established pattern.

One is they're used for judgment. Example, Sodom and Gomorrah. The second is for purification and testing. And that's actually purification and testing for believers. There's a talk in the New Testament of a refiner's fire for believers. And even when believers go to stand before the Lord, our works will be tested with fire. And those that are unworthy burned away. Now, so given the context here, these lamps communicate judgment. These lamps are communicating judgment. They're burning vigorously. They're burning brightly. Now, the next verse, verse 6.

And before the throne there was something like a sea of glass, like crystal. In the New Testament times, Clear smooth glass like we use now, like we see now, like you can see the doors in the back and the windows to the outside, except for here. Clear glass like that was just simply not available. They just didn't have it. They hadn't gotten the process down. And so the best thing they had in the way of glass was the panes were small, they tended to be bubbly, the surface was wavy and the glass was milky. So they didn't have clear glass.

So when they talk about, here's John, writing at his time, what do I compare this with? How do I describe what I'm seeing here? This is an amazing thing in front of me. And so, as he frequently does, he comes up with something that people can understand, and he compares it, and he says, well, it's like crystal. Now, I don't mean like glass crystal, I mean it's like a clear rock crystal. That's the comparison that he has there. This is just kind of case in point.

There would be things like this that he would be able to see in areas. People would find these and say, boy, isn't this neat? Because this was the clearest, smoothest thing on the surfaces. It was the clearest, smoothest thing that he could think of.

How can I describe it so that people will understand? And so, the thing is now we look at that. We've had this description. What is this? Now, various people have said, well, that stands for peace, or it stands for God's awesome power. It stands for calmness. And you know what?

The Bible doesn't say it, so I'm not going to guess. I think we're far better off if the Bible doesn't explicitly tell us something, not to sit here and speculate and try to tell people that we're speculating what's true. We need to stand explicitly on what God's Word says. So I'm not going to try to tell you what I think it is, because it doesn't matter what I think it is. It matters what God thinks it is and what he says it is.

And so let's take John's description at face value to give you some sense of what he might be describing here. If you've ever been in maybe a large government or business, maybe even a court building where they use a lot of maybe a stone floor and it's highly polished, and you look at a large stone floor and the whole thing is real glassy looking, my guess is it's probably something like that, only he compares it to clear crystal.

Here's this floor that is glossy beyond belief, but it's clear. I mean, this must be amazing. He's seen little tiny examples of it, and now he's saying, I see a whole sea of it. A large, huge, massive amount of this clear, glassy floor. Phenomenal. I think that's what he's describing for us here, and without trying to guess it represents this or represents that, I think one thing that is clear from this, This is awesome. He's seeing the throne, he's seeing these beings, and everything that he sees is being reflected in this clear, glassy, glossy floor.

And everything is magnified in its intensity. You've seen that if you've seen a calm lake up in the mountains, and you'll see some majestic mountains coming up from it. The reflection is awesome, isn't it? Because you get almost a doubling effect from the lake. And this is like that, only more majestic, more immense, more of an expanse.

I think that's the description that he's laying out before us here. Then he says in the next part, verse 6, "...and in the center and around the throne, four living creatures, full of eyes, in front and behind." Now this is the part where you look at it and say, heavens, what is it? We're going to see about these creatures several things in the next few verses. And we're going to see them again in the remaining chapters of Revelation.

So they're not going to go away here. But for now, we should note some things. Some of your translations, instead of calling them living creatures, may call them beasts. And that's probably not, in our modern vernacular, the best way to communicate it.

The word beast is used elsewhere in Revelation. That's the Greek word therion. And that's actually a beast, and it conveys that. This is a different Greek word, zoon, and it really just means living creature, a living being. And that's, I think, what we need to think of. Now, there are some comparisons with animals.

But there's no sense of trying to make this thing beastly in a negative sense. John is not trying to convey that. Now, what you have on your handout is a chart that looks something like this. And the reason I put it on your handout is I do not expect you to read this. It might be a little tough except for some of those up in the front there. But just so you can identify it. What this chart does is it gives us comparisons.

Here we have these living beings in Revelation 4. There are some amazingly similar descriptions found for us in two chapters in Ezekiel, and also a brief somewhat similar description in Isaiah chapter 6. And just so we can make some comparisons between those two, I don't see any reason to think that those are different beings per se. but just slight variations in how they put it down and described it. I think they're likely describing the very same creature there.

Now, some folks will ask the question, what are these beings? Some folks will say things like, well, they represent the attributes of God. That's what these are. And so they'll say that lion means courage and majesty and strength and etc. And then some will say, no, it's actually the four gospels. But one of the reasons that I list several of these here, these are some of the different guesses as to which gospel matches which creature. You see the confusion? And then you'll say, no, it's not those, it's Israel because there's four groups of three tribes.

You know what I think it is? I don't think it's any of those. Because those are all things, even though it might seem like a good guess, it's tough to make a real good match and make it stand on scripture, isn't it? You know what I think he's describing? I think he's describing what he saw. Yeah, I think he's describing what he saw. And so I'm not going to try to take guesses as to which one of those it is, because scripture doesn't really say.

And I think the reason it doesn't say is because that's what they look like. He's just saying that's what they look like. That's all. And I don't think that they actually were a lion, and it actually was an ox or whatever. I think all he's saying is, what can I describe this as that people on planet Earth will understand what I'm talking about? And so he just put down that description. And I think that's all it is. I think just literally that's what they look like, as best he could find some earthly comparison. Just straightforward as that. Now, that doesn't mean, however, that we have to just throw up our hands and just say, oh well, I have no idea what these things are.

Because there are a number of things that Revelation makes very clear about these creatures. And we know specifically what they do and how they behave and what function they have. So let's take a look at those things. Here's some of the things that we have real clear. There's four of them, right? We know that. And it repeatedly says there's four. And it refers to them as the four living creatures, so there's no question about that. Their description is very similar to that of Ezekiel, and you have that in your handout. Therefore, their position and existence are not subject to change from one dispensation to another.

These 24 elders suddenly show up in Revelation, but we don't see them described elsewhere in heaven. These four living creatures, however, we know they're in the Old Testament, and now we see them showing up again. So, they seem to have a long-term position in the heavenly place, different from the 24 elders. And it makes sense, doesn't it? The 24 elders are not the same kind of creature, not the same being. Unlike the elders, their appearance in heaven doesn't seem to be related to the rapture of the church or earthly events. So that's another timing thing there.

They always seem to be close to the throne of God, both in the Old Testament and the New. They have a specific role that is not incidentally, okay, next to the throne once in a while. Every time we see them described, they're next to the throne. Every time. So their role is specific. The other thing, and we'll see this in the verses we get into shortly, they glorify God all the time. Always. 24-7. That's their role.

In the next, actually two chapters away, chapter 6, several times we'll see that they actually execute judgment from the area around the throne. But they're involved with the execution of judgment. And the last thing is they seem to initiate worship by the twenty-four elders. Isn't that interesting? They have a role of starting worship. Fascinating role.

Here they are around the throne, initiating worship, no matter what is taking place. Now, the next thing we notice here, at this point, the creatures say—and notice it doesn't say sing, it says say—but the creatures say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come. Now, why would it say holy, holy, holy? Some have guessed that maybe that's because of the Trinity. Could be. Might be. But another good guess is that they're just reinforcing the very character of God. It's not just one statement. They'll say it three times. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

Now, as it happens, there's a praise song that has just those words and I'd like us to sing it. What I'll do is I'll sing it once and then the next time I want you to stand and sing it with me. Okay? Let's try that. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come. Why don't you stand, okay? Holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty Who was and who is and who is to come. Good, thanks. Well, we sang it, but they said it, okay? Then an interesting turn of events, verse 9. Look at it with me.

And when the living creatures gave glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, and I'm going to stop. The reason I have to stop is there's so much in these verses, we've got to get to them before we get to the next part. Now, the living creatures, and notice the number and significance of them here, when these creatures are near and around the throne, they give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, God Himself.

What's the response of the elders? The elders fall down. The 24 elders respond, and it's interesting, there's no evidence that the elders are told, elders, you'd better bow down now. Boy, you'd better, I'll twist your arm, man, you'll be in trouble. No, there's none of that, is there? Voluntarily, the elders bow down.

As a matter of fact, The Greek tenses here are just awesome. Let me give you a translation that kind of expands on this and maybe gives you a little better sense of the tenses. And when the living creatures will be giving glory and honor and good gracing to the one sitting upon the throne and to the one who is continually living into the ages of the ages. That's a literal translation. And it doesn't say they do it, it says and when. There's no question of if. It's when. And it puts it in the future tense. It says, will be giving. It's the future tense.

They will be continuing into the eternal future, giving glory to God. They will be giving glory to Him and will do so forever. Do you get the picture? The one sitting upon the throne, God continuously occupies the throne. That's the sense of the Greek there. He is the one who has the authority. He is also the one continuously living. That's what the Greek is communicating. He always lives. Isn't that neat? You can go over and see over in Arabia, Muhammad died. Buddha died over in the Orient. All the different leaders died.

This one lives forever. This one lives forever. into the ages of the ages. See, we have it translated like forever and forever. An age is a long time, right? It's ages of ages. That's the meaning of it. Ages upon ages upon ages upon ages. Time and time and time again. Now, 410. This is the way the Greek comes across.

The 24 elders will throw themselves down before him who is sitting upon the throne." Nobody's saying, you're going to get down in front of you. They throw themselves down. It's their own doing, it's their own will doing that. They will prostrate themselves before the one who is living into the ages of the ages. And they will continually toss their crowns, these are the Stephanos, the victory crowns, before the throne saying, and that's where we stop, but they throw themselves down. They get so moved by the presence of God and the call of these four living creatures that they throw themselves down before the throne. They before-prostrate.

They get down and they worship the Lord before the throne. This Greek word is proskuo. and it's used to describe the Greek and Persian leaders who would throw themselves at the feet of the kings. Even if they were second in command, they would throw themselves at the feet of the king. They recognized his position of power and authority and awesome majesty.

This is neat stuff. They would toss their crowns. These crowns are not kingly crowns, These are victor's crowns. The Greek word is the word used for those who would win the athletic competitions, like Paul said that he would run the race. Those who would win the athletic competitions would get these stefanoi. That's the kind of crowns he's talking about here. They're victor's crowns.

And the Greek there implies a continually tossing down. It's like they would take it and throw it at his feet, and he'd pick it up and they'd put it at his feet again, and they'd pick it up, and they'd put it at his feet again. Do you see that? Do you get the sense? This is a continual laying of that crown down. If you are wondering what you're going to be doing in eternity, this is a good start. Continually. Now, why this casting the crown before the throne? Why would you do that? See, these are victor's crowns, They're given to those. We see five places where there are crowns. I believe you got that in your handout. Five places where there are crowns in the New Testament, given as rewards for various things. And what this is an acknowledgment of is everything that I have is His. If I am receiving honor, it's to give back to Him.

Several weeks back I said, What you do now determines the quality of your eternity. And let me clarify what that means. I'm not talking about I'm going to get some fancier house or I'm going to get some nicer robe or better clothes or something like that. When I'm talking quality of the eternity, I'm talking the ability to give God glory. If I have a crown, it won't be one that I go around and polish and say, hey man, look at that neat crown I've got. If I have a crown, I'm going to lay it at the Lord's feet, and I will continuously, on and on and on, lay it at His feet again, and say, Lord, you're the one who deserves the glory.

Now, something else, and this to me is amazing, you look at the sequence of what's taking place, you get no sense at all that these guys are getting bored. See, here on planet Earth, if after about six or eight hours of the message, you guys would say, hey, Vern, we need to, you know, bathroom break or lunch break or something, right? After a while, there'd be a sense that we need to do something else. You don't get that picture here.

What you get a sense of is, this Lord is so awesome, this Lord is so awesome, I am never going to tire of doing this. Can you imagine that? So totally absorbed with who He is, so full of the recognition of who He is, that it would be foolish, stupid, idiotic, if there was such a thing in heaven, to do anything but worship Him.

There's nobody debating whether this is a good thing to do. There's nobody questioning it. There isn't some 24 elders and one of them says, hey, what are we doing this for? None of that is there. It is obvious, it is very clear, this is absolutely the thing to do. And they didn't say, hey, time's up, let's go do something else, I'm ready for a taco.

Instead, continuously laying their victor's crowns at his feet. Isn't that neat? Now, something else to note as you look through that set of verses, there's actions and there's attributes. If you look at the attributes, the attributes keep focusing on who God is. You notice that? If you look through that passage, you see His glory and His honor. Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever. You see those attributes coming out. And you also see the actions. The actions are typically shown of the four living creatures, and especially of the 24 elders, continuously bowing down, continuously casting their crowns.

Now, let me just take a little bit of a rabbit trail for a minute. You might be wondering why we've moved some more of the songs and worship time after the message here at Holly Hills. You're thinking, OK, they're just playing games with the schedule.

No. These elders and the living creatures are worshipping in response to who God is, aren't they? They see who God is, there's absolutely no question about it. They see the power and majesty and awesome glory of this Lord, and they respond in worship based on who He is. Our hope here is that as we look at God's Word, we will see who the Lord is, and then we respond in worship.

And that's the reason for this. It's not arbitrary. We're looking at responding to who God is as it's being presented in His Word. And so that's our reason for making some of the changes here. Now, verse 11. Worthy are you, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created.

Now, this is one of four themes. that the elders have, as you look at the things that they say about the Lord through the book, they start off with what makes sense. What? Creation. That's the beginning, right? So they start off giving the Lord credit for all that is created. Makes perfect sense. That's where they would start. So they say, Lord, you created all things. You willed it into existence.

Something that I think just comes out of this is God is not going out by trial and error creating things, is he? That's one of the things that is being taught in a lot of the schoolrooms today and in the colleges, that things kind of come about through trial and error and there's a lot of things that fail and all that.

I went about two-thirds of the way through the geology program in college before I said, you know, I don't even believe this stuff that they're trying to teach me. I'd be out there collecting fossils and they wouldn't be telling people or me about the things that were right there. And finally I got to the point where I just didn't believe it anymore. I said, why am I studying this stuff? It's like studying Mother Goose or something. It didn't make sense.

Because I became increasingly convinced the more I studied it that, no, Like the Bible says, he's the one that created, he willed it into existence. And I haven't found a fact yet that goes the other way. And so all the elders are doing, they're just declaring it. God's the one who willed it. God's the one who brought it into existence. God is the one who said it, and it was. The Lord is worthy of glory.

And they're starting at the beginning at creation. And as we will see them giving glory through the book of Revelation, they'll move on to other things. And we'll see it even in the next chapter as we go into it. But I think it's just awesome here to pause and take a look and see this heavenly scene that we've been reading here, and we'll read more of. This, folks, is not just about waiting until we get there. There's an awful lot of songs and talk among Christians that just wait until we get there.

No, this is a matter of this is where I live now because I've been seated there. I live there by faith. And there will come a time when my condition and position will be the same, will be one. My condition will be my position. Up until that time, I live by faith. And I read this and I by faith learn about the very nature of the Lord and the nature of my walk with Him and the nature of my life with Him It is from this place that we look down and live our life here on planet Earth. Looking down from those places where we're seated. Let's pray.

Lord, what a marvelous thing you have done. But even more, how marvelous you are, Lord. And Lord, when we see you face to face, certainly there will be that intimacy, but there will also be that sense of awe that sense of continual recognition of Your worth and glory and honor, that You are due every praise, Lord, that we can utter. And Lord, we give You thanks for who You are, and we give You thanks for the incredible honor that You have given us. We do not deserve to be seated with You. It's not our own doing, but it's what You have done. And we look forward to that day. We'll no longer be by faith, but face to face. In Jesus' name,