You're Worthy of It All!

As the PRESS Movement Podcast nears the completion of studying every prayer in the Bible, this episode takes us to one of the most awe-inspiring scenes in all of Scripture—Revelation 4. Rather than a prayer of request, this is a prayer of worship. Standing before the throne of God, the twenty-four elders cast their crowns before Him and proclaim, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power." 

Ethan Porter walks through the breathtaking imagery of heaven and explains what it truly means for God to be worthy. Worthiness isn't simply admiration—it's recognizing God's unmatched value and responding with complete surrender. Every accomplishment, every victory, every crown ultimately belongs at His feet.

The conversation challenges listeners to consider whether worship is merely something they do or the posture of their lives. Titles, accomplishments, and recognition should never replace humility before God. The elders remind us that the higher we are lifted, the lower we should bow before the One who created all things for His pleasure.

This episode isn't just about what happens in heaven—it invites us to begin living that reality today. Heaven's worship starts here. Every prayer, every act of obedience, and every moment of surrender prepares us to join the eternal chorus declaring:

"Thou art worthy, O Lord."

Follow us on Facebook or Instagram or enjoy our blogs and even more episodes at www.presstopray.com!

Transcript

PRESS means to apply force. When God said PRESS, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.

And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Welcome back to the PRESS Movement Podcast. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. As we are t minus three episodes away from completing the study of every prayer in the Bible, not just the Old Testament, not just the New Testament, but we're talking about every prayer in the Bible.

And today's prayer is special because we are in the book of Revelation. And it is a different kind of prayer because it's not a prayer necessarily about requests, but I'm not going to dive into that part too hard. I'm going to let our guest host do that.

He is no novice to the PRESS Movement Podcast, and he is one of my favorite children. I do not have a favorite child, but if I did, if I did, he would be on that list of my favorite three children. And I do have three children, everybody.

So one of my favorite three children, Ethan Porter is back with us today. And so Ethan, take us through the book of Revelation. Absolutely.

I'm glad to make the rankings of one of your favorite three children. I know Reagan has done a couple of these, but hopefully this takes me up in the rankings, but you said the book of Revelation. Okay.

So Revelation chapter four, verse 11 will be the scripture that I focus on. It says, thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for thou hast created all things. And for thy pleasure, they are and were created.

And so for context's sake, the book of Revelation is the revelation of John, the apostle John, but it also is the revelation, the revealing of Jesus Christ. That's Revelation chapter one. And so when we get all the way down to chapter four, let's get context of the scene that's happening.

John talks about how in verse one, that there was a door that opened up into heaven. And so this image is that he's in the spirit and he sees a throne. And so he looks around, he sees that there is verse two says one sat on the throne.

It paints a picture like how there was stone set around it. It says Jasper and a sardine stone. It says that there was a rainbow about the throne and it says in sight like an emerald.

It talks about how that there were beasts and elders around the throne. It says, even in verse five, it says, and out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God.

It says in verse six, and before the throne, there was a sea of glass like unto crystal. This image is just mind-blowing. And so where we get this prayer from is was said by the four and twenty elders.

So that makes 24, that fell down before him that sat on the throne. Verse 10 says, and worshiped him that liveth forever and ever. If you read the book of Revelation at the start, a lot of times you'll see red letters talk about certain things.

For example, the one that liveth forever and ever, or the Lord God Almighty. And you'll see this in instances like Revelation 1.18, where it's said in red, but in other instances it's said in black, because the one that sat on the throne is not different. It is Jesus Christ.

There's one that sat on the throne, but it talks about how these four and twenty elders, these 24 elders cast their crown before the throne. And what they said was, thou art worthy. And so what I want to do is I just want to break down each word in this prayer, because what I notice is this is a way to enhance our prayers in just the recognition of who are we talking to? We're talking to a great, amazing, phenomenal God that deserves it.

And another way to say deserves it is worthy. Thou art worthy. And looking up the definition of worthy, it means weighty.

W-E-I-G-H-T-Y spelling is so difficult in a fast sense, but weighty. That reminds me of the time that the Bible was written in. It was written in the time of the Roman Empire.

And so their money wasn't necessarily just in quantity, but it was in weight. So we look at it as, oh, I have a hundred dollar bill. That's a lot of money.

However, the money that the Romans used had to match the weight that they were saying that it had. And so when you say that something is weighty, that means it matches the value of the thing that it says that it is and of the thing that I'm trying to get. Okay? And so when it says that God is worthy, that means that He is one.

It says that He deserves it, that He is valuable, that He is what He says that He is. You can believe the height with God. It says, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power.

One of my mentors taught me that in 1 Corinthians 15, the Bible says that thanks be to God, which gives us the victory. But it's impossible really to have glory in a sense without a battle or doing something spectacular. And so God gives us the victory, but in response, we give Him the credit.

We give Him the spotlight. We give Him the hero's welcome. We give Him the glory.

So the onus, the shining light is on who? And that's Jesus Christ, the honor. We give Him the respect that He's due. It's not a light thing when we praise God.

We give Him something that's valuable and the power. God has all the power, but what we do is now we tell Him, God, you're worthy. God, you deserve it.

God, you created all these things. And so the one thing that God gave us is a choice. God gave us the ability now to praise Him.

He gave us the ability to praise Him or to follow Him or to even disobey Him. But when we say, God, you have all the power, even in my life, God, you decide what I do. You get the direction.

You, I'll cast my crown before you. Even a symbol of God, whatever I've achieved, whatever I've got, whatever in this life says that I'm, that I've done, I'm going to lay it down at your feet because my best accomplishment is not even able to stand up with you. It reminds me.

And for those of you who don't know, I used to be an NBA fanatic. I used to watch like six games a night. I knew all the stats, all of that.

So when I see the playoffs, finals game, and it's a championship game and they crown the MVP, essentially what they're doing is saying to one, although we're all on this stage, we're here because of the work you did for the whole. Now, in this sense, I know that everybody put in a little work, but it is an acknowledgement that the work was not equal. And therefore they want to spotlight the one that made the biggest difference.

So they'll give them an MVP trophy and they'll give them glory for that time. You'll even hear like other players chime in and say, he carried us on his back or when we were down, they wouldn't let us quit over there and he wouldn't let us quit. And, you know, he came through on this play or he made that shot and it hyped up the whole team.

Again, that's just one man, but is the concept of glory. It is the concept of putting the focus on the one you couldn't do it without and saying at the end of the battle, at the end of the competition, at the end of the war, you were the MVP. You're the one we couldn't win without.

And that's what God gets when he allows us to go through something. We turn around, we come out victorious and we say, and he's the MVP. You know, and that's the amazing thing about God is that he's the only one that can sit on the throne and still fight in the battle with us.

Ain't that the truth? And so one of the things that come to my mind towards the end and to wrap this up, it says that, and for thy pleasure, they are and were created. And so when it says in like Psalms 148, when it says, it says, praise ye him and his angels, praise ye him, all his hosts, praise ye him. And it starts naming these things like the sun, moon and stars of light and heavens of heavens and waters above the heavens.

It's all these things that God created for his pleasure that are praising him. But then if you keep reading the Psalms, it talks about how, let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. And he created us for a purpose.

I think that that's so amazing when he created us and he had it with something in mind. And that was just, that was for his pleasure that God doesn't have ill intent with our lives. And so knowing that this God created me had a plan, but not a plan just to be malicious or evil or make our lives difficult, but for a good thing that we were created.

We're able to give him our absolute best through obedience, through following him to, like you mentioned, giving him the credit. My mind goes to Acts chapter 17, one of my favorite scriptures, and this would be my last point, Acts chapter 17, when Paul is on Mars Hill. In verse 25, it says, neither is worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things.

God's not worshipped just with our stuff that we do or maybe just monetarily or our accomplishments or these other things. But he ends up talking about how that they should seek after the Lord if happily they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us. It says in verse 28, for in him we live and move and have our being.

And it says, for we are also his offspring. And then to end it off, my final point would be that the four thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. One thing that I'd say in coming into prayer, and just as a prayer tip, would be that God wants a relationship.

He didn't make something just to throw it away. For example, I was talking to a young man, and I was telling him, like, what's the last thing you cooked? And he told me chicken. He went basic, but then he said that he put all this stuff within it, and he made it just the way that he wanted it and was ready to eat it.

I said, why didn't you throw it away? He said, because I made it. And we can get this sense when it comes to food or maybe with stuff that we buy or purchase. But when it comes to God, we can say, oh, we made that one mistake, or maybe God forgot about us and think that God has a shorter span or attention span than we do.

That if he was so willing, this young man in the sense to want to enjoy the thing that he made, how much more can we say God made us? And God wants a relationship with us. God wants to hear us, that our lives are more valuable than that piece of chicken that I just mentioned. And so he spent time with us.

He wants to know us. He wants to draw us. He made us for his good pleasure.

God, I want to please you. I want to glorify you. And that's what I was made to do.

One song says, I was made to praise you. And so the prayer of these 24 elders, it's amazing to me that this prayer is being prayed in heaven already. You know, I don't believe we're going to get to heaven and forget what we practice living down here.

You get to practice down here what you're going to get to dwell in up there. And so they're not now looking for their own way. That's what Satan did, right? That's how he got kicked out.

He wanted his own thing. But when we practice eternally bowing to him, when we practice eternally honoring him, when we practice eternally being what he purposed for us to be, what he saw from way back when, when we get to heaven, we'll be able to join in with this type of praise. Thou art worthy, O Lord.

You can tell him to take pleasure in you. Why? Because that's what you've been practicing. And I think that's part of the reason that John got this sneak peek, if you would, into what's going on in heaven, you know, and why we have to understand what he was seeing.

That there are worshipers already, but there's space for you. And if we'll walk this thing out, right, we can also join in with this type of praise, this type of prayer, maybe not verbatim, maybe not going to replace a 24 elders or anything like that. But what we can take from them is the script for our lives, that he's worthy, that he deserves honor, that he has power, and that we're for his pleasure.

So what do you think to close it out? I mean, am I wrong? Does that build upon what you're saying, E? I think that that absolutely builds upon what was said. A wise person always says in our youth groups that nothing replaces your voice in God's ears. And so I like the context of just understanding who was praying.

You mentioned elders, and elders in the Bible are people that are high ranking. 1 Peter 5 pretty much calls them overseers. Those are high ranking people, but they bow when they cast their crowns to worship him.

And so like you mentioned, nothing can replace me in terms of worshiping God, but understanding that these high ranking figures in a biblical sense do this. Like just me, this one guy, one person, I have to humble myself as well before Almighty God. Those people that you mentioned that are already in heaven, already made it, are still bowing.

And so you'll never match God. But what you can do is you can try to pay off your debt, I like to think, that when I praise him, I'm paying off a debt that he died on the cross for me, and I owe him forever. So every praise, every hand lift, every offbeat shout is me trying to pay off my debt for something that God did thousands of years ago that's still lasting today.

And even as you're talking about that, I think one thing that's standing out to me is you never outgrow bowing. You know, some people get titles and they get accomplishments, or they want to be known in the world or in the church. And either one can make you stop doing what you met him doing.

You know, when you meet Jesus Christ, and I mean, really meet him, I'm not talking about like, just come to church. I'm talking about when you have an experience with Jesus, when you get the Holy Ghost, you don't get that quiet, you don't get that dignified. That thing comes and it's so overwhelmingly powerful that it sits upon you.

And some people cry, some people scream, some people roll, all those speaking tongues when they get the Holy Ghost. But there is a reaction to it. And as you see, like I said, whether because of stature in the world or church, sometimes people who have stature have a hard time getting out of the character of that stature or what they think the role is.

And so I've grown up in church, so I'm not talking necessarily about any current church, but I'll just say you might see a pulpit full of people who don't clap their hands and they don't shout or dance before the Lord anymore. They don't cry. They may just kind of stand or sit.

And that's not true of all pulpits, but there are some. And they have all the titles and they have this list of accomplishments, but they don't seem to have the worship, or at least they won't demonstrate it. What I see here is a script that says, no, the higher I go, the lower I go before Him, that I never outgrow bowing.

And in fact, as I said before, it's a preview for us. It's something we're getting a sneak peek into heaven. For me then, I take away from this, don't ever think worship stops.

Don't ever forget how high He is. Don't ever forget who's in charge. And it's not an obligation and it's not a threat.

It is an honor to be in the presence of God. You don't want to forget. You don't want to let go.

You don't want to devalue. Why? Because you know Him and the more you're in His presence, even as they are at this moment, the more you don't want to let that change. It's a place you want to live.

You know? No, absolutely. It's my mission not to have more praise services recorded than that I participated in. I think to add to it, since we're bouncing back and forth, think about Jacob, who's a figure who, I mean, wrestled with an angel, had a direct contact with God, even having his name changed.

But one of the notable things that it says is that by faith, Jacob talks about how he worshiped leaning on his staff. One of the most notable faith things that he did was worship. And that's in his old, old, old, old age.

But that's one of the notable things that he does. I wanted to, when I'm old and I look back and God's reading my life to me, that by faith I worshiped Him, no matter how much He gave me, no matter how much He allowed me to do, no matter how much I've seen Him do. It's that all of the things that I just named I, I've seen Him do, He gave.

Every time I said I, I have to remember that it was He, that He gave it to me, that He did it, that He does all these things. And that causes me to worship Him. And so what you're just naming is something that I can't attest to what David said, that when he said, I am young, but now I was young, but now I'm old, and I've never seen the righteous forsaken.

I can't say that scripture completely. I can say I am young and still a little young and haven't seen the righteous forsaken, nor has He begged for bread. But you've just given now a goal, not just to me, but to every person listening to this podcast, that if you're young, your goal should be worship forever.

That if you're old and you haven't been worshiping, it's not too late to bow. That you want to get that testimony that David mentions from start to finish, that because I followed God my whole life, I've never seen Him abandon me or forsake me. That it should be a push that whether you're, I mean, 15 or 51 listening to this, that you come to God because He deserves all the glory, all the honor, all the power.

He wants a relationship with me that He made me for a purpose. And now I have to bow before Him, give Him my best, and communicate with Him. And that's through prayer.

And yes, whether you're 15 or I'm going to say 81, because 51 is not old. What in the world? Today is a good day to start bowing. Today is a good day to stop worship and remember He is worthy.

He is honorable, and He is powerful. Today is a good day, no matter your stature, to say, God, have your way in me. Take pleasure in me.

And the best way to submit to God is obedience to His word and learning Him in prayer. Because prayer reaches every single situation. Be blessed.

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Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook. Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears? I know some of us have prayed and we're wondering, how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice. It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have.

You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you. It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer. It's designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith.

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