Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Over the last several years, I’ve met many people, talked with a good number of folks, and heard about lots of people who think of themselves as Christians even though they don’t participate in the communion of saints.

Why do some people try to live a Christian life apart from the structured and meaningful relationships that can only be found among the local church?

Why do some of our friends and family members believe that they will most definitely participate in the communion of saints on the last day even as they neglect or even run from the communion of saints now?

I wonder if some of us here today think of the Christian life mostly in terms of personal fulfillment or in terms of our individual preferences.

Today, I’m going to do my best to blow up that sort of thinking.

Today, we’re continuing our study through the affirmations of the Apostles’ Creed, an ancient confession of Christian faith that dates back at least to the fourth century… and it’s likely that Christians were affirming these truths in some form or another during the time when Apostles were still walking around.

It’s important to remember that these affirmations aren’t true because they’re old… They’re true because the Bible teaches them.

But Christians, from the beginning, were summarizing the faith once for all delivered to the saints in short confessions which aimed to condense the substance of Christian belief.

We believe in the communion of saints because we believe that the Bible teaches us such a thing… for our comfort, for our courage, and for our contentment.

Let’s read a passage that speaks especially to the communion of saints, which is to come… and let’s consider what implications this affirmation and this passage has for our lives in the here and now.

Scripture Reading

Revelation 7:1–17 (ESV)

1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree.

2 Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, 3 saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”

4 And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel: 5 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed, 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 from the tribe of Gad, 6 12,000 from the tribe of Asher, 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh, 7 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12,000 from the tribe of Issachar, 8 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.

9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen!

Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!

Amen.”

13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?”

14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.”

And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.

16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.

17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Main Idea:

We believe all Christians are truly joined with Christ and one another, that this will be a visible reality in the end, and that this is a present reality among local churches now.

Sermon

1. Joined in Communion

We believe all Christians are truly joined with Christ and one another.

The passage we’ve just read alludes to this concept, but it is not explicit there.

In fact, the passage I just read likely raises more questions for some of us than provides answers, but I’m going to ask you to hang in there with me today and not get distracted.

There is much good we might do in exegeting and explaining this passage, but that’s not my aim today.

Instead, my aim is to grab a topic, which is found in the passage, and explain it by drawing upon the general teaching of Scripture, not focusing so much on a single text.

If you’re a guest here with us, and you came wanting to hear expositional preaching, then don’t despair… we’ll be back in Acts 20 next Sunday (Lord willing), and expositional preaching is our normal or main diet of preaching.

But today is a topical message on the concept of the communion of saints as one part of a very old and widespread Christian creed – the Apostles’ Creed.

And, as I said, Revelation 7 does allude to this concept… specifically to the union of or the joining together of Christ and His people – all Christians.

Let me point your attention to the notion of “sealing” in v3.

The picture we get in Revelation 6 is that the opening of the “scroll” with its “seven seals” (Rev.

5:1, 6:1) discloses or brings about God’s judgment upon the sinful world of humanity.

While Christians might disagree about the details, all Christians agree that the book of Revelation clearly teaches that the whole world is under God’s curse nowand that it will experience the full outpouring of God’s judgment in the end.

But those who are the “sealed… servants of God” will in some sense be spared from enduring the wrath of God (v3).

But why? Are they spared because they are better?

Because they are more noble or moral or rich or poor or smart or ignorant?

No! They are spared because the “God” of “salvation” graciously “washed” them clean of their sin by “the blood of the Lamb” (v10, 13-14).

Of course, this is all foreign Bible and church language, unless you’ve been in church long enough to have heard and understood it.

So, if you’re a non-Christian, or maybe you didn’t grow up in church, or maybe you’ve been in church a long time, but your church didn’t really explain churchy words like this, then listen carefully to what I’m about to say.

This is the red-hot core of Christianity.

God is holy and just, good and beautiful, powerful beyond measure and glorious beyond compare.

This infinitely wonderful God decided to make Himself known by creating.

And the pinnacle of His creation was humanity, made to know God and to make Him known.

Man (male and female) was made in the image of God, and all people everywhere were and are designed and intended to reflect God’s own character and nature in the world.

But, as you probably know, our first parents were not content to live within the boundaries of God’s good authority, and they sinned.

Because of Adam’s sin, God cursed all of creation, humanity became corrupted by sin in every way (in his body, mind, emotions, and his will or desires), and man was then doomed to suffer and die, and, finally, to suffer eternally under God’s judgment.

But even as God pronounced His curse, in Genesis 3, God also promised salvation… which He repeatedly said would come through the ministry of a Messiah or Christ.

Despite man’s sin, and despite the fact that God would have been perfectly just and right to condemn everyone, God showed His great love and mercy by sending His own Son to save sinners.

The Bible teaches us that Jesus was and is the Son of God and God the Son, the second person of the Trinity.

And He was also truly man, born of a woman, and under the legal obligations of God’s law.

Jesus lived a perfectly obedient life, but He died as a guilty sinner, not because He was guilty, but so that He would suffer God’s judgment in the place of all those He came to save.

That’s what it means to be “washed” by “the blood of the Lamb” (v14).

Jesus was God’s sacrificial “Lamb” who suffered and died, and thereby “washed” away the sin of all those sinners who look to Him in faith.

Friend, if you’ll admit your damnable sin, and confess your guilt to God, you can turn from your sin today and believe the promise of God’s word that you will be saved by the atoning work of Christ for you!

All Christians everywhere are those who have been joined together in Christ and with one another, all condemned as guilty upon the cross, and all raised to glorious life afterward.

This is what the Apostle Paul was saying when he wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal.

2:20).

And, brothers and sisters, this is not only true of you as an individual Christian… this is true of all Christians who repent and believe along with you.

All Christians share a unity, a communion, a bond of brotherhood that is unlike anything else in the world.

We know what it’s like to be loved despite all our inadequacies and wickedness, because Christ has loved us, and so we are glad to share that supernatural kind of love with others.

We know what it’s like to receive gracious grace, to receive a blessing when what we deserved was a curse, and so we are glad to be gracious toward others.

We know what it’s like to have a single reality supersede all others – we are Christ’s, and He is ours!

And so, we understand that we have more in common with our Christian brothers and sisters in Afghanistan and Russia and China and Malawi than we do with our non-Christian neighbors who vote like us and talk with the same accent as us and cheer for the same sports teams as us.

We are Christians more profoundly than we are anything else because we are joined in communion with Christ and with one another.

2. Destined for Communion

We believe the communion of saints – all Christians truly joined with Christ and with one another – will be a visible reality in the end, or in the world to come.

This really is the whole point of Revelation 7, I think.

It’s the repeated destination with each cycle of John’s visions throughout the entire book.

The seals, the trumpets, the bowls, and the allegorical depictions of human history all finally end with the same scene – the people of God in the presence of God singing a song of praise to God for the great salvation He has brought through the person and work of the Lamb!

In Revelation 7, the emphasis is on the size and diversity of the great gathering of the saints on that last day.

It is “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (v9).

Notice that this “multitude” or “group” is both united and varied… they are gathered together “before the throne and before the Lamb” (v9), but they are also variously distinguished by their “nation” or ethnicity, their “tribe” or family heritage, their “people” or nationality, and their “language” (v9).

Now, I don’t want to get too far into the weeds of interpreting this whole chapter, but it’s worth noting here the continuity and the discontinuity between the two halves of Revelation 7. The first half (v1-8) highlights the covenantal relationship between God and ancient Israel… God’s “servants” are numbered by the largest biblical quantity of perfection or completion, with an equal number being “sealed” from every “tribe of the sons of Israel” (v3-4).

And this is all according to what the Apostle John “heard” (v4).

But then, John “looked” and “saw” (v9) God’s “servants” (v15) in the second half of the chapter (v9-17), and they are obviously not physical descendants of Israel.

They are “from all tribes and peoples and languages,” and they are “from every ἐθνος” (v9).

This chapter, then, is showing us that one of the ways the New Covenant is better than the old is that it includes all kinds of people, not just those who are physical children of Israel.

See v13-14… the question is asked, “Who are these…?”

(v13).

And the answer is given: they are the ones who have been “washed… in the blood of the Lamb” (v14).

The New Covenant, then, is a promise of God’s blessing and favor, not on the basis of family or national or ethnic lineage, but on the basis of repentance and faith in Christ!

As the song (written in 1878) goes, “Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?

Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

…Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?

Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”

Friends, this song is a call to respond with repentance and faith… and the Bible teaches us that all repenting and believing sinners shall one day be gathered together in a grand communion of joy and celebration… “before the throne and before the Lamb” (v9).

Simon Goulart, a pastor in Geneva during the late 1500s and early 1600s, wrote a book for devotional use among Christians.

He concluded the first volume of the two-volume set with a great description, which I think fits very well here.

I’m going to read a lengthy chunk of it, but it’s so good…[1]