Last Sunday, Pastor Ken preached from Daniel 7:1-12, where we saw our hope in the promise that God will judge the kingdoms of this world, bring them to an end, and replace them with his everlasting kingdom that he will give to his people.

Read: Daniel 7

This Sunday, Ken will finish Daniel 7 with a sermon from verses 13-28. Continuing with the hope of God’s judgment of the kingdoms of this world and replacement of them with his everlasting Kingdom, we will see this hope further defined in the promise that the Son of Man, Jesus, will rule God’s everlasting Kingdom with his saints. As you prepare your heart for our corporate gathering, let this devotional from John Piper bolster your understanding and hope in the fact that we, the saints of God, will one day rule all things with Jesus.

Reflect: “We Will Rule All Things”

“The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.” (Revelation 3:21)

What does Jesus mean when he says this to the church in Laodicea?

Sit with Jesus on his throne? Really?

This is a promise to everyone who conquers, that is, who presses on in faith to the end (1 John 5:4), in spite of every threatening pain and luring, sinful pleasure. So if you are a true believer in Jesus, you will sit on the throne of the Son of God who sits on the throne of God the Father.

I take “throne of God” to signify the right and authority to rule the universe. That’s where Jesus sits. “He must reign,” Paul said, “until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25). So when Jesus says, “I will grant him to sit with me on my throne,” he promises us a share in the rule of all things.

Is this what Paul has in mind in Ephesians 1:22–23? “He put all things under [Christ’s] feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

We, the church, are “the fullness of him who fills all.” What does that mean? I take it to mean that the universe will be filled with the glory of the Lord (Numbers 14:21). And one dimension of that glory will be the complete and unopposed extension of his rule everywhere.

Therefore, Ephesians 1:23 would mean: Jesus fills the universe with his own glorious rule through us. Sharing in his rule, we are the fullness of his rule. We rule on his behalf, by his power, under his authority. In that sense, we sit with him on his throne.

None of us feels this as we should. It is too much — too good, too amazing. That’s why Paul prays for God’s help that “the eyes of your hearts [would be] enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you” (Ephesians 1:18).

Without omnipotent help now, we cannot feel the wonder of what we are destined to become. But if we are granted to feel it, as it really is, all our emotional reactions to this world will change. The strange and radical commands of the New Testament will not be as strange as they once seemed.

Devotional by John Piper, excerpted from “Perhaps the Most Staggering Promises in the Bible.“

Sing: Song List for Sunday

1. “The Passion,” by Hillsong Worship
2. “Another in the Fire,” by Hillsong Worship
3. “You Never Change,” by Austin Stone Worship
4. “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name,” by Shane & Shane
5. “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” by Shane & Shane