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Elisa and I started dating about
four or five months after we met each other as college freshmen.
We met about this time 12 years ago as freshmen at Union University
in Jackson, Tennessee. It took us a while to kind of
figure out what our relationship was going to be, but we started
dating in January, and then after a couple of years, we realized
it was time to kind of push things into an even more official place.
So I began to collude with a few people to propose. I got the ring together with
the help of her mom and I planned everything out to be a big surprise
while I visited her for her birthday that summer before our senior
year and there I proposed. I asked her to marry me and everything
was awesome and she said yes. Actually her first response was
what are you doing and then the next response was yes. And then
from there we entered this place called engagement. And nobody
told me that the weirdest part of a relationship, if it ends
up in marriage, is the engagement. And here's why I'm convinced
it's the weirdest part. So, in one sense, we have way more commitment
than we've had before. I mean, literally, she's walking
around with a commitment on her ring finger on her left hand,
right? There's a commitment there. And there are real concrete plans
forming, not just for a wedding ceremony and all that's involved
there, but because we were college students, we were talking about
jobs, and where we were gonna live, and what I was gonna study
in seminary, and all these different things. Things were becoming
official, and we were beginning to talk about all this. But at
the same time, even though there felt like there was this higher
level of commitment, we were still kinda just dating. We just
had kind of an end point now that was official. And one of
the things that I thought about for that entire 11 months as
we dated and were engaged and anticipated our wedding ceremony
is like, what has actually changed? Has anything changed? Like, how
are we supposed to do this thing? What does it look like to have
a good and fruitful engagement between a proposal and a wedding
ceremony? Well, if we look at the story
of the Bible, as we come to the book of Revelation, a similar
question begins to emerge for the churches of Jesus Christ
throughout the history of the church. Christ has come. There has been an inauguration
of his kingdom. He has accomplished our redemption
through his death on the cross and his resurrection from the
grave. and yet we are still awaiting his second coming. We're living
between the proposal in a sense and the great marriage supper
of the lamb. And the question we have to ask
ourselves is how do we live in the in-between? As important
as it is to figure out how to live in between a proposal and
a wedding ceremony on earth, how much more should we be asking
how we should live between Christ's first and second comings? What
is it that Jesus wants us to do as a church And the wonderful
reality of Revelation is all of this book was given so that
Jesus could give us an answer to that question so that we would
know what it looks like to live for Jesus with Jesus as he is
in heaven and as we are on earth and as we are seeking to fulfill
his kingdom purpose. How should we live in relationship
to Jesus and the church and the world between his first and second
comings? I would suggest to you that among
a lot of Biblical answers, Revelation is one of the most important
that we can study. Not just in the first three chapters,
although that's where we're focusing now, but in all of its story
of what Jesus is doing. It gives us an answer about how
we live faithfully before Jesus as we await His final appearing
and the fulfillment of all His promises. Now, here's what we
need to say at the outset of this study. I know that like
this is my second Sunday officially as pastor. I know that Revelation
is one of those books that people debate and dispute and have all
kinds of questions about that it causes all kinds of confusion
and I'm not so dumb that I would plan to preach Revelation 1 through
22 as my very first sermon series as pastor of Mantee Baptist Church
because I don't think that would go very well because I don't
even know what to do with a lot of it. But the simple reality
is in the midst of all of the questions that we have about
what Revelation is actually saying, what the grand story of all that's
gonna happen in the future is, what we need to understand is
that Revelation isn't first and foremost a mysterious narrative
of future events that are only passingly relevant to us. It's
not just something that's gonna happen out here that only matters
a little bit to us just as we try to understand what's gonna
happen to a future generation of Christians. The book of Revelation
is a God breathed book just like any other book of the scriptures.
It is the word of God and it is the word of God to us. So while it does concern the
future and the future that it describes is really important
for us to understand we need to understand that Revelation
has relevance right now. Not just because of what's happening
on the news not just because of what we're trying to understand
about the world but because Revelation has always had relevance for
the church. And the reason that I want to
suggest that to you before we begin to work through the fullness
of the text that we have in front of us this morning is that Revelation
was written to real Christians and real history. I see no reason
to dispute the idea that Revelation was written to seven actual literal
historical churches that were dealing with real problems and
seeking to be faithful to a real Jesus in the real world. As Jesus
begins to unfold his purpose to these seven churches in Asia,
he's talking to real Christians just like you and me. And if
Romans is relevant to the church, if Ephesians is relevant to the
church, if 1 John is relevant to the church, if the Psalms
are relevant to the church, if Leviticus is relevant to the
church, then Revelation is relevant to the church. And so we need
to begin to work through all of the haze and the confusion
and even some of the mild disagreements that we might have among ourselves
about what this book means to begin to grasp its immediate
significance for us. But not only do I think that
there's really good reason to believe these are written to
real churches in history and so they have relevance for us
today, Jesus is very explicit as he leads John through this
series of visions and as he communicates his purpose for his church, that
the book of Revelation was about events not just way off in the
future, but about events that are happening for them in the
first century. You notice what he says as John's
writing here in the beginning verses. He says, So either John
was wrong and these things weren't soon to take place, or Jesus was wrong and these
things weren't soon to take place, or something about revelation
is relevant for all Christians in all times, in all places.
My goal this morning is not for us to get all of that in our
minds. My goal is simply for us to establish a baseline that
as we go through these letters, they matter for Mantee Baptist
Church in 2024. and they can teach us what Jesus
wants from us as a church. He continues later in verse three,
blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy
and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written
in it for the time is near. Listen, what I want to get at
in all of this is that the book of Revelation is Christ revealing
what he is up to right now and what he intends to do with us
as his people right now. This is Jesus's word to us. It's Jesus's book of church order
in many respects. For the church living between
his first and second comings and seeking to chart a path of
faithfulness to Jesus. Now, this morning, I just want
to look at some introductory issues here in these verses.
You trust me enough to see that these things are relevant for
us. These are real things for us right now as Manti Baptist
Church. But I want to look at two overarching ideas as we begin
to get into these first verses. I don't know if you're like me,
but sometimes when you come to read a new book of the Bible, and it's especially
like a letter, you kind of rush through the first few verses
because you're like, every time Paul writes a letter, he says
the same thing. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ. And you just kind of run on. And sometimes
he starts a letter and he starts talking about specific things
that are happening in specific churches and we go, I don't live
in Philippi. I don't know that this is particularly relevant
for me. And there are realities that we have to deal with on
that front. Again, if we believe the Bible was written to real
people in real history, then we need to get in our minds the
context in which people receive these different biblical truths.
But at the same time, oftentimes, just like in the things that
we say when we write or when we text or when we email or even
when we have a conversation, before we get into the meat of
the conversation, we give clues about what the whole thing is
about. Sometimes one of the most difficult things for me as a
pastor is when people don't give me clues about what they wanna
talk about. Just full disclosure, sometimes one of the things that
happens, and when you're a pastor, you know that this can go a lot
of different directions. Thankfully, Mantee is not this
way. But one of the scariest things in the world is when somebody
calls you or texts you and says, hey, can I talk to you soon?
And it's not because you don't want to talk to them, but you're
like, oh, that can go a lot of different directions. And you're
like, in the back of your mind, you're thinking, what have I done? Have I done
something wrong? Have I messed up? You know, you're wondering, what
is this all about? But oftentimes, many of you,
as we talk together, you say, hey, I would like to talk to
you about, and you tell me something specific. And what that begins
to do is it begins to let me see the purpose of your heart
and to prepare to respond rightly to the things that you have to
say to me. That is exactly what New Testament letters are often
doing. When we have these introductory verses, the writers of the New
Testament, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
are beginning to give us breadcrumbs that are going to help us to
see the grand vision that all that they're writing is actually
about. And that's exactly what happens here. We begin to see,
even in these opening verses, the purpose for the entire book
of Revelation, including the seven letters that we're going
to see together very, very soon. So I wanna look at two overarching
things here in these opening verses. Number one, I want to
think together about the source of revelation. The source of
revelation. As we come into this particular
book, before we begin to grasp the details of what Jesus says
to the churches, we need to understand who stands behind all that revelation
has to say. And the answer comes to us in
verse one. The revelation of Jesus Christ. which God gave him to show to
his servants the things that must soon take place. From the outset of Revelation,
the Apostle John is abundantly clear that though he is the one
who is writing the words, though he is the one who is receiving
the visions, he is not ultimately the author of the book of Revelation.
This is a word from Jesus to his church. The source of this
particular letter this particular extended vision is Jesus himself. Jesus has something that he wants
to say. Now as we acknowledge that this
letter is from Jesus revelation is from Jesus as the great author
of all that is contained here. We also have to confront another
thing. What is the letter ultimately about? And I want to suggest
to you that when we use the phrase, the revelation of Jesus Christ,
we're not just talking about the revelation from Jesus Christ,
we're talking about the revelation about Jesus. Revelation isn't
just from Jesus, but revelation is about Jesus. And I want to
show you why that's so important. As we begin to grasp the significance
of all of this sometimes what we can begin to treat Revelation
as is a sort of playbook for the end times. And so we can
begin to try to mine all of its details to understand times and
places and people and to kind of place ourselves in the overarching
story of what the last days are going to look like and what they
even look like now because the New Testament is clear that we
are living and have been living since Christ's ascension in the
last days. That's important in and of itself,
but it's not the main goal. What stands at the heart of Revelation
are not details and events about times and places, but what stands
at the heart of Revelation is Jesus himself. The reason that
Jesus gives us this book, I believe, at the heart of all that it is,
is because he wants us to see him. Do you ever wonder, what
is Jesus up to right now? Like, he was here, he did his
thing for 33 years, he spent a few days with his disciples
after his resurrection, he went up to heaven, he sent the Spirit,
and the Bible tells us that he's up there reigning at God's right
hand, but like, what is he actually doing? What can we think about our connection
to Jesus right now as we're living in this world and Jesus is in
heaven? Revelation is an answer to that because it's in Revelation
that we see that Jesus is the one who ascended into heaven.
And when from the throne the question was posed is there anyone
worthy to take the scroll that includes all of the events of
God's final purposes for his world and to unseal it and to
begin to let it unfold in human history. When the book of Revelation
asks for the lion of the tribe of Judah who's worthy to take
the scroll what do we see in Revelation 4 and 5? We see a
lamb slain from the foundation of the world and all of heaven
cries the lamb is worthy and we see the lamb ascend to the
throne and take the scroll and we realize that no matter what
is happening in the world Jesus is right now ruling as king and
he holds the course of human history in the palm of his hands. And he is orchestrating all things
according to his glorious purpose for the good of his people and
the glory of his name. And what we need to recognize
as Manti Baptist Church is that this Jesus is supposed to be
the focus of everything that we are and everything that we
do. We don't need to be so focused
on discerning specific details that we miss Jesus. To go back
to the wedding analogy, weddings are a big deal and people do
weddings in different ways. But a lot of us, when we get
married, there's a little bit of hoopla surrounding the wedding
ceremony, right? So there's the proposal, and then you spend
whatever time that happens between the proposal and the ceremony
planning. And there are all kinds of details to consider. There's
a dress for the bride, and there's who's gonna be in the bridal
party, who's gonna be in the groom's party. There's flowers to consider,
and music, and an officiant, and a venue, and whether you're
gonna have a meal for the reception, or you're just gonna have cake
and mints and nuts like a good Southern Baptist. You have all
these questions you have to answer. and all these things you've got
to discern. And in all of that that we're trying to do, all
that's important. But what ultimately makes for the wedding? The reception,
I'm sorry to some of you, reception's kind of irrelevant. You don't
have to have one to have a wedding. The dress, as wonderful as it
is, and I hope all of you ladies that are gonna be married get
a great one. I'm not saying anything about
that. But you can get married without a wedding dress. All
those things are wonderful and they're important, but what actually
matters at a wedding is one man and one woman joining together
in a covenant union that proclaims the glories of Christ and his
church before his people. That's what it's all about. And
what can often happen in a wedding or anything else in our lives
is we can get so obsessed with the details that surround the
big thing that we miss the big thing that stands at the heart
of it all. And that's exactly what we're at danger of doing
with Revelation. I don't want us, in thinking about the details
of life for us in the world between Christ's first and second coming,
to miss Jesus. Because if we can agree on anything
about the end of time if we can agree on anything about God's
purpose as he brings all things to their appointed conclusion
it's this that Jesus Christ is worthy of the worship of all
people in all places at all times. that we have an obligation to
make him known to the ends of the earth, so that his glory
fills the earth as the waters cover the seas, and so that we
will join the sacred throng of people worshiping around his
throne forever as the Lamb slain and conquering over all things. Revelation is about Jesus. So
my goal for us, as we begin to push into the details of these
letters, is that we would keep in the forefront of our minds
Jesus. and our desperate need to see
him for who he is. That's the source of revelation.
Then I want to think about the purpose of revelation. The purpose
of revelation. I'm going to move pretty quickly
here. Full disclosure, I say I'm going to move quickly all
the time. I don't know that that actually is the truth. I'm going to do
my best to move quickly here. That's my assurance. I'm going
to work hard. I'm going to try. I'm going to
try to move quickly here, but I want you to see three things
in these first verses about the purpose of Revelation. Why has
all of this been given to us? What is it that Jesus ultimately
is doing through this book as we see him in it? Three things
I want you to see here. Number one, revelation is for
our blessing. Revelation is for our blessing. As the book begins, we read the
revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants
the things that must soon take place. God gave this to Jesus
to show to us for a reason. He made it known by sending his
angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God
and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Then verse three, blessed is
the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and blessed
are those who hear and who keep what is written in it for the
time is near. Now, this may seem really weird,
because it's like, wait, to get the full blessing, does this
mean that every day I need to sit up and read aloud the book of Revelation
in order for me to get the full blessing? I understand the context
of this. Back in the ancient world, not everybody could read.
Not only that, they only had one copy. They didn't take the
copies of the letters that were written home with them to study.
In order to do that, somebody would have had to sit down and
write a handwritten copy of all 22 chapters of Revelation. And
that would take a while. And so the way that people receive
these New Testament books in their very first giving was somebody
would come to the church and they would all gather together
and somebody would read all of its contents at one time in one
setting to everybody that's there. And so this blessing is a blessing
to the one who is reading the scriptures in the presence of
God's people, and it's a blessing to those who are hearing it.
If we want to be blessed, in other words, in our time and
in our place, all that this text is saying here is we need to
pay attention to what's said. God is giving this to us as he
gives us all his word to show us what it looks like to live
a life that is pleasing to him and to ultimately experience
his blessing. Now even as I mentioned that
I want to make a couple of distinctions here. Number one every time the
book of Revelation says blessed are those who it's pretty much
talking about the future. And the reason that I want to
mention this, I don't think this is something that a lot of us
are being tempted by, but it's worth saying, sometimes people
will attempt to spin things like this as being about the here
and now. If you just pay attention to the book of Revelation, things
are going to go really well for your life right now. And in a
sense, they will. We'll get to that in just a moment.
But have you read Revelation before? People are suffering
a lot for loving Jesus. How can we say that they're blessed?
The answer is ultimately that the blessing that comes to us
is one that remains when we enter into the new heavens and the
new earth and experience the blessing that comes to us through
Jesus in that context. So our goal right now is not
to obtain as much worldly blessing as we can get. We're trying to
do what Jesus said. We're trying to store up for
ourselves treasures in heaven because that's where blessing
ultimately lies for us. But also I want you to see that
there is present blessing. And it comes into the form of
something that we see in a lot of the New Testament letters.
Verse 4, we read, John, to the seven churches that are in Asia,
grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is
to come. And from the seven spirits who are before his throne and
from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the
dad and the ruler of kings on earth. You see, what we see here
is the Apostle John speaking with the authority of God with
blessing for the people saying grace to you and peace. Grace
is this promise of God's continuing favor in their lives. Even if
they're suffering, God is with them and he's going to continue
to work out his purpose for their good. Peace is a recognition
that where there was once in between us and God through Jesus
Christ we have been brought back together so that we can live
in peace no matter what happens around us because we know that
the God of the universe is on our side and this grace and peace
are our present experience because the triune God the one who was
and is and is to come being the Father, the seven spirits being
the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and then obviously Jesus himself
is the eternal Son of God, the triune God in all of his splendor
and glory has conspired together for your grace and peace. And
that is a present reality for us when we begin to understand
the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know, we live between two
realities. We live between the promise of the future, but we
also live in light of what Jesus has actually done. We saw this
just last week, but it's my favorite verse in the Bible, so I'm gonna
say it again. If God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him
up for us all, how will He not also graciously with Him give
us all things? If you want to be assured of
blessing in the future, you look back to the blessing that Christ
has already accomplished in the cross, and the knowledge that
you now have that the God of the universe speaks to you with
grace and peace. Secondly, revelation is for our
worship. Revelation is given for our worship. This is what all of history is
leading toward. It's this glorious worship service.
And some of you are like, worship services can be a little boring
or worship services can be a little bit trite. I mean, there have
been a lot of worship services in my life, but I promise you, you're
not going to want to miss this one. All of our existence will
be built around the worship of the triune God who has accomplished
our salvation. And in that moment, the glorious
privilege that will be ours will be to stand in his presence and
to praise him forever in light of what he's done. It will be
the same glory that we experience when we get to enjoy fellowship
with a friend. But this is the best friend we'll
ever have. It's the same intimacy that we get to share with a beloved
spouse. Although Jesus is more faithful than any human spouse
this side of eternity. This is the glory of us getting
to enjoy all the blessed privileges of being God's people in God's
place under his blessing. And it's worship even begins
in verse five. To him who loves us, Jesus, present
tense, loves us. To him who loves us and has freed
us from our sins by his blood. He has liberated us from our
sin and its penalty through his death on the cross. And he has
made us a kingdom. Priest to his God and Father. We are his princes and princesses
ruling and reigning over the created order as he continues
to accomplish his purpose in his kingdom. And we live as priests
to him representing his glorious presence and power to the world
and representing the world as we lead them to Jesus to him.
To him be glory and dominion forever and ever, amen. Listen, the grand goal of human
history is worship. Have you ever been in a worship
service where you were just like, I don't know how to explain this,
I just don't wanna leave. Can we just keep this thing going
for a little while? You're disappointed when the last song ends and you
know it's not really appropriate in a worship service to be like,
encore? Like, can we keep it going? But you want to stay,
right? You want to keep lingering in
the presence of God and his people and you want to keep singing
his praise and you just say, I don't know anywhere else it's
better to be. Brothers and sisters, that is
a foretaste of what we get to experience forever. The joy of
the awareness of God's presence with us and the greatness of
his love for us. We're going to be shed of all
of the sin that continues to work in us and try to prevent
us from enjoying that. Satan and all of his demons are
going to be once and for all cast away and never to come again. We're going to get to enjoy this
forever. Revelation is given now though so that we can get
a taste of this in the present that we anticipate in the future.
Revelation is given for our worship. Last thing I want you to see
here is that revelation is for our preparedness. Revelation
is for our preparedness. Sometimes you write a sermon
and you make slides and you put a word like preparedness in it
and you go, preparation would have been better. So if preparedness
sounds like a little wordy for you, you can say revelation is
for our preparation. Revelation is for our preparedness. Revelation
is designed to lift our eyes above our present circumstances
and to give us an eternal perspective. Notice what we read in verse
7. Behold he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see
him. I want to stop here. because
we read this and a lot of us go great Jesus is coming and
that's what we should say even so come Lord Jesus even so come
and fulfill your promises and your purposes to us. But one
of the things that I have discovered in my reading of the scripture
all throughout my life is I've tried to understand God's purpose
for me and for our churches and what he's doing. is that there
are oftentimes one single event that God performs that elicit
two distinct reactions. When Jesus appears with the clouds
of heaven, yes, we who belong to him will rejoice, but that
won't be the only group of people that sees him. He is coming with
the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced
him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so, amen. This is important to understand.
The second coming of Jesus Christ is really good news for his church.
And we rejoice in the expectation of his coming. But for many,
many people, who continue to live their lives in the sinfulness
of their hearts and of their actions, who continue to resist
Jesus and his gospel, or maybe who are seated in churches all
around us, maybe even in our church building right now, living
a double life. The appearance of Jesus is not
good news. It is terrifying. I'm always
reminded in thinking about this of the lyrics of a song that
I've come to enjoy over the years. It's a singer-songwriter type
Christian song. It's based on the old hymn, Farther
Along. The last verse, the author says, Yes. Now the question is, when
the sky rolls back on you, will you rejoice or will you cuss? We have a choice to make this
morning. What are we going to do with Jesus? We're going to
sing a song of response in a few moments. And you're going to
have four verses to think about what Jesus has done before we
come to the last verse as Jacob leads us that says, I can't remember the words anymore.
All right, hold on. He shall return
in robes of white. The blazing sun shall pierce
the night, and I will rise among the saints, my gaze transfixed
on Jesus' face. Here's what I want to challenge
us to do as we prepare to respond. If you have never trusted Jesus
Christ, let today be the day where you do. Do not leave this
place without coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. But
I want to crank it up a little bit. If you call yourself a follower
of Jesus today, but you acknowledge, as we all do, that you are continuing
to struggle against sin, and you want to acknowledge that
you need to repent of particular sin, or sin in general, because
you are wandering from the way that Christ has set you on, this
is our opportunity to come and to throw ourselves at the feet
of Jesus. and to know that he loves us and will deliver us
from our sin by his blood and bring to us all the blessings
of his eternal kingdom. You come today and be reconciled
to God through faith in Jesus Christ. But for all of us, for
all of us, I've said this before, I hope that in the coming years
the best song of the entire Sunday will be the last one. because
we have heard God's word. He has spoken to us concerning
his son, and we're about to sing about him. And that's what we're
gonna get to do forever, so my hope and my prayer is that for
all of us, we would exult in the sufficiency of what Christ
has done, and in the glory of his coming kingdom, and we would
praise the name of the Lord our God, because we're gonna praise
him forevermore. And why not start today?
The Revelation of Jesus Christ
Series Faithful Witness (Revelation)
| Sermon ID | 91241727222609 |
| Duration | 30:45 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Revelation 1:1-8 |
| Language | English |
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