Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Introduction
REV.1.
I would venture to guess that all of us in here have been going to the doctor our entire lives.
The general trend of our doctor visits are like an upside down bell curve.
At the front end, when we’re babies, it’s like we’re at the doctor’s office every few months.
We’ve got to get this shot and that shot.
They’ve got to check our weight, our hearing, our eyesight, and on and on it goes.
Then, when we get into our young adult years, we usually feel pretty good and often have to be reminded to go to the doctor for our annual physical.
But then, as we get older (the reality I’m beginning to live right now), and stuff starts to break down, it’s like we’re infants again!
Except, now that we’ve got jobs we don’t just see a family doctor.
We’ve gotta see the ophthalmologist, the cardiologist, the urologist, the podiatrist.
Every body part has got its own doctor who’s trying to keep us from falling apart.
I would venture to guess that all of us in here have been going to the doctor our entire lives.
The general trend of our doctor visits are like an upside down bell curve.
At the front end, when we’re babies, it’s like we’re at the doctor’s office every few months.
We’ve got to get this shot and that shot.
They’ve got to check our weight, our hearing, our eyesight, and on and on it goes.
Then, when we get into our young adult years, we usually feel pretty good and often have to be reminded to go to the doctor for our annual physical.
But then, as we get older (the reality I’m beginning to live right now), and stuff starts to break down, it’s like we’re infants again!
Except, now that we’ve got jobs we don’t just see a family doctor.
We’ve gotta see the ophthalmologist, the cardiologist, the urologist, the podiatrist.
Every body part has got it’s own doctor who’s trying to keep us from falling apart.
My point is that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a newborn baby, a young adult in good health, or if you’re among the “more mature” of us in here.
Everybody has got to keep going to the doctor.
As long as you’re alive, you’ll be in need of having your health diagnosed.
You’ll never get past your need for the doctor until…you don’t need a doctor anymore…
The same reality is true when it comes to the church and the Christian faith.
You see, we never arrive at perfection as individuals.
We always have to be made aware of our areas of unhealth—our sin—the ways in which our hearts are straying or have strayed from God.
The same is true of the church as a body.
The perfect church doesn’t exist.
In the first eight verses of Revelation, one of the things we find is that Jesus is the king of kings and Jesus is a great high priest.
He is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, the ruler of the kings on earth.
He is the ruler over all earthly rulers.
He is King.
And he is the one who loves us, who has freed us from our sins by his blood.
He is the Great High Priest who served as both the offeror and the offering.
He gave up his life, offering himself to God to make us free from the choke-hold that sin has on us.
And when we see Jesus in the verses that we’re looking at this morning, John isn’t offering us something new or different about Jesus, he’s expanding on what he’s already said.
“The Doctor Is In.” Jesus the Ruler and Great High Priest appears here as the one who is able diagnose our condition and provide his prescription.
We’ve gotta recognize that the Doctor is always in.
Jesus is always present, checking the pulse, diagnosing the health issues, and providing the prescription for renewed health and vitality.
So, we’re going to take our text in three paragraphs.
Vv. 9-11, we’re going to talk about The Condition of the Patient.
In vv.
12-16 we’re going to talk about The Credentials of the Doctor.
And in vv.
17-20 we’re going to talk about The Doctor’s Command.
The Condition of the Patient
John says to the churches in v. 9,
REV1.9
Do you know what it means to be a Christian?
You might say, “Yes.
To be a Christian means that I’ve repented of my sins and put my faith in Jesus Christ.”
And you’d be right.
You might say, “Yes.
I know what it means to be a Christian.
It means that Jesus is my Savior and my Redeemer.
He took the punishment for my sins in his sacrificial death on the cross.”
And you’d be right.
You might be someone who prefers to use the adoption metaphor, and say, “Yes.
To be a Christian means that I’ve been adopted into the family of God.”
And you’d be right too.
All of these and more are ways that the Bible describes what it means to be a Christian.
But do you know the most common way the New Testament describes Christians?
Over 150 times in the NT Christians are described as those who are “in Christ.”
In other words, our union with Jesus Christ is the heart of the gospel, the heart of the Christian life, and the heart of life together as God’s people.
Do you know what it means to be a Christian?
You might say, “Yes.
To be a Christian means that I’ve repented of my sins and put my faith in Jesus Christ.”
And you’d be right.
You might say, “Yes.
I know what it means to be a Christian.
It means that Jesus is my Savior and my Redeemer.
He took the punishment for my sins in his sacrificial death on the cross.”
And you’d be right.
You might be someone who prefers to use the adoption metaphor, and say, “Yes.
To be a Christian means that I’ve been adopted into the family of God.”
And you’d be right too.
All of these and more are ways that the Bible describes what it means to be a Christian.
But do you know the most common way the New Testament describes Christians?
Over 150 times in the NT Christians are described as those who are “in Christ.”
In other words, our union with Jesus Christ is, as HG says, the heart of the gospel, the heart of the Christian life, and the heart of life together as God’s people.
I bring this up because these are the patients I’m talking about when I say, “the condition of the patient.”
It’s those who are “in Jesus,” who are united to him by faith.
And there’s something about these patients’ condition that we need to realize from this text.
John says, I am your brother “in Jesus.”
I’m with you, we’re in this thing together united in Jesus.
But there’s a particular condition that those who are in Jesus experience.
He says, I am your brother and partner in the tribulation and kingdom and patient endurance that are in Jesus.
And this trifecta reality of the Christian life, tribulation, kingdom and patient endurance cannot be separated.
You may find yourself in here this morning as someone who’s not “in Jesus.”
Even if you’re not a Christian, there’s no better place for you to be this morning.
And I wouldn’t have you buy into a false narrative of what it means to follow Jesus.
It doesn’t mean that your problems go away and life is now all roses and sunshine.
We’re in Revelation, and when you come to the book of Revelation and Christians here the word “tribulation,” we usually think of some horrible and terrifying time that’s coming.
But John isn’t talking about some future disaster.
He’s talking about what life in Jesus looks like right now.
That tribulation is trouble and distress and suffering and persecution.
Here’s the deal.
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