Sermon Tone Analysis

February 17,2012

By John Barnett

Read, print, and listen to this resource on our website www.DiscoverTheBook.org

Life for us as followers of Christ is all about Listening to Jesus.

Jesus said that as His sheep we need to hear Him and follow Him.

*Listening to Jesus*

Jesus came on an unannounced visit to a church in central Asia Minor, two thousand years ago, and then wrote back a startling letter to them about their deteriorating spiritual health.

They really should have listened to Him.

In that letter Jesus Christ starts with His credentials.

The opening words introducing Christ in Revelation 3:14 are like getting an official, hand-delivered letter: with medical diagnosis from the leading doctors of the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, or another a world-renowned group doctors.

The medical advice of someone at work or school is nice and possibly helpful.

The medical advice of a trusted family member is nicer and even more helpful.

But the medical advice, diagnosis, and prognosis from a trained, skilled, qualified, and almost universally trusted medical expert, renowned in their field: is almost beyond foolishness to resist, and dismiss lightly.

The diagnosis and treatment regimen from the highest authority on spiritual wellness in the Universe, is what is contained in Revelation 3 today.

Jesus Christ introduces Himself as the One who can be supremely trusted.

He is truth incarnate, the Amen.

Then He goes on to say that He has a perspective no one else can have: the is a witness, He alone has seen all, knows all, and can testify by personal experience a reliable report.

Finally, He speaks as the One who:

as Creator, designed us;

as Redeemer, bought and owns us; and

as Judge has the final say over what goes on in our lives.

Jesus Christ

These three titles are a unique combination and all stand together to declare that what Jesus says will happen.

Jesus is introducing Himself as:

*The God We Can Trust*

He can be trusted, He is reliable, and there is no one else like Him.

Jesus is the Amen of God, the One who is in perfect agreement and able to make His promises come true.

First Jesus calls Himself the Amen, then the Faithful and True Witness, and finally the Beginning of the creation of God.

Each of these titles are unique, each are powerful, and all reflect the truth that Jesus is the One to listen to.

What He says will happen, and when He speaks it is Ultimate Truth.

Please listen as we hear the letter to them, that is lso applied by Jesus to each of us.

We really need to hear and respond to Christ’s words today.

Revelation 3:14-22 (NKJV)/ “And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, ‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God:/

[v.15-19 lists their seven habits.]

20 "/Behold, I at the door and knock.

If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.

21 To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.

22 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’”/

*Listen to Jesus Christ: The Amen*

Amen means: Jesus is the yes to all of God’s promises.

This title is only used of Christ here, in the whole Bible.

In the Old Testament it is a name for God, so Christ is here taking the title of God from the Old Testament.

Note these words with me in Isaiah 65:16.

Here Jesus is claiming to be the truth, the affirmation, the firm, fixed certainty of God.

Isaiah 65:16 (NKJV) "/So that he who blesses himself in the earth, shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he who swears in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hidden from my eyes./"

The Hebrew word Truth is AMEN in Hebrew, that is how it sounds, exactly the same.

It is transliterated from Hebrew into English.

So if you heard Isaiah quote this aloud as he wrote it down, you would hear Amen.

Jesus Amen’s the promises of God.

He is the declaration that all that God has promised will happen.

Next, we see Paul saying the same thing, but not applying this tile to Christ.

2 Corinthians 1:20 (NKJV) "/For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us."/

All of God’s promises are attached to and come through Jesus Christ.

Like the Amen at the end of a prayer hits the “send”key, so Jesus is the connection to all that God has promised.

*Listen to Jesus Christ: The Faith & True Witness*

Faithful and True Witness means that all Jesus says is true, perfectly accurate, completely trustworthy, and his testimony is reliable.

There is so much we have to take on faith, so Jesus says, what you have not yet seen, I have.

I verify it, you can trust Me.

I am the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness to all that God has said.

*Listen to Jesus Christ: The Beginning*

Beginning of the Creation of God is not the first creation of God.

The word is arche, it means the Beginning: Jesus is the origin and source of all creation.

He is the Creator.

John 1:3 (NKJV) /"All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made"/

Hebrews 1:3 (NKJV) /"who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,"/

Turn back to Colossians 1:15-17:

Colossians 1:15-17 (NKJV) "/He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.

All things were created through Him and for Him.

17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist."/

When Paul calls Christ the prototokos in Colossians 1:15-17, he is not saying Jesus was the first born, but is the First or Supreme One over all creation as the Creator.

So the Verifier, the Witness, and the Beginning speaks.

What He says is truth, what no one else can know He verifies, and as Creator, Beginner, He is Ruler.

Jesus Christ asked them through His Word the same thing He asks us through His Word: Listen to Me!

*Listen to the Diagnosis Christ Gave Them*

Jesus was speaking to the wealthiest church of this whole region.

There was not a more financially prosperous group of people in all of Asia Minor than Laodicea; and there was not a more spiritually defective group of saints than those in the church at Laodicea.

Jesus said it all in Revelation 3:17 (NKJV):

/"Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—"/

By all appearnances, it was their wealth that was holding them back from pleasing God.

Sanctification means that God is leading and controlling our lives.

Often, the more financial resources we have, the harder it is to surrender control of our lives to God.

So in their state of being rich, wealthy, and having everything: Jesus diagnosed the church at Laodicea as having all but stopped living in the power and sanctifying effects of the Cross.

They had slowly drifted away from Christ’s control over their lives.

They had cultivated some very bad habits.

Habits that made them unacceptable to Christ, and even worse, sickening to Him.

In these verses Jesus writes a letter that asks them, and us today, to repent as often as needed until we are personally pursuing:

*Listen to the Seven Habits Christ Desires*

Habit One: Jesus wants us to

Repent of any Spiritual Neutrality

v. 15 “I know your works that you are neither cold nor hot.

I could wish you were cold or hot.

16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.

• Spiritual Neutrality is when we stop agressively resisting sin in our lives.

• Spiritual Neutrality is when we say that it no longer matters that every part of our life come under Christ’s control.

Remember I Corinthians 6:19-20:

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NKJV)/" Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s."/

• Spiritual Neutrality or failing to glorify God for Who He is: is sickening to Christ.

So Jesus Christ calls each of us to repent today of any Spiritual Neutrality.

• Jesus died to pay the penalty for all my sins, taking my place He suffered for me, erased the record of my sin and now offers me to live each day in His sanctifying power.