Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Good morning, well here we are, this is were our time with you began, on the first Sunday in October 17 years ago.

What has happened in the last 17 years?

Well to begin with we have gotten a little older, our children are not children any more and are grown up.

We have endured some hardship and some battles along the way but physically and spiritually.

And we have seen over and over again that the Lord is faithful.

The Lord our God is sovereign, trustworthy, faithful, majestic and absolutely wonderful, with an abundance of love and mercy.

How do I know this… look around, we are the sheep of his pastor.

He has saved us, blessed us and calls us everyday to join Him.

He is good.

I even remember the first sermon I preached here 17 years ago on my first Sunday morning as your new pastor, “Get out of the boat” The joy of that message was Peter walking on the water… and you have to get out of the security of the boat if you are going to walk on water.”

But we are not going to revisit that text today… Today we are going to visit the text of Revelation chapters 1 and 2 over the next couple of weeks as we consider all that John witnessed as God called him to take a message to those 7 churches in Asia minor.

Now here is a great question, did you bring your Bibles with you today?

I hope so , you need the word in your life every day, especially this day.

I want to encourage you to tell your kids, take your Bibles to school, take there everywhere they go… it it be their search engine for life’s questions, let it be their guide for the tough questions of life.

And it be the rule and guide of their life and faith in all that they do or hope to do...

Here is the idea… it it did all of this… we would see lives lived remarkable different, we would see less marital problems, we would see less fractured lives, we would see healthier families and a love that the whole world would be chasing after.

Now get you some of that....

We need less of the Kardashians and more of Jesus, We need less of 50 shades of grey and more of By His Stripes we have been healed… I could go on.. but you get the picture.

Lord God of the heavens, give us more and more of Jesus, that we might know Him in the power of the resurrection and yes even in the fellowship of His sufferings.

this morning and lets look at verses 8-16

So as we walk through this text there are a few things I want us to recognize and point about the the message the Lord is giving John to share with the 7 churches but us as well, the body of Christ.

Now remember John is imprisoned on the isle called Patmos on account of the word of God.

Literally Paul has been imprisoned for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The world ( and its leader, the devil) as always tried to stop the word, but it cannot not..

The word of God will always be preached and spread until He comes again.

Now John is sharing the Revelation of Jesus Christ, revelation meaning it was something that was previously hidden but not has been revealed for our good, for our edification.

Verse 1 makes it clear, this was the message God was sending, not John’s.

and with the opening verses those who read it, the servants of Jesus are given a promise, the first of 7 beatitudes… maybe I will walk you through all of them in the next couple of weeks, but the first of them in found in verse 3.

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And we know also where John is as the Lord speaks these words to him, he is on Patmos, a small island in the Mediterranean sea, a place where those enemies of Rome were sent to hard labor, until death or the emperor who sent them there died, in which case they could be freed.

We know that John is freed while greatly advanced in years, and we know through the testimony of our early church fathers that he returns to Ephesus to live and teach until the Lord calls him home.

But for now, he is on the island and the Lord is speaking to Him, in fact it is the first day of the week and in the Spirit, he hears from the Lord.

And I want to share a few things with you...

So the first thing I would like for us to consider is His identity.

His Identity

There is a wonderful joy in knowing the Lord and understanding just who He is and what is identity means to us today.

The Lord himself makes it perfectly clear there is no misunderstanding, He wants John and those who will hear this message to know it is Him, the Son of the living God who is speaking.

So lets look back at the text and see what is being said...

Right at the very beginning of our text, Jesus says ...... “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

verse 8

This my friends is a unchanging declaration of who He is… for Jesus to say I am the Alpha is to remind all humanity that prior to creation, He was there.

He has always been.... in fact in the latter part of who verse * Jesus says ...“Who is”… most literally the one who as always been …

It reminds me of that Moses was told there in the wilderness, on the back side of the dessert as he tended the flocks of his father in law, Jethro.

Moses asked God, who should I say has sent me....

God gave Moses His personal name YHWH, which is a verb ...”To Be...”

He has always existed, before the creation of the heavens and the earth and all who are in it..

He was there and remains unto this day.

And He says Omega, the end, the last… He has no end.

The declaration that while this world will come and go, governments, peoples, and yes tings, He will remain the same.

He continually exists, no beginning or ending, He has always been there and will remain… man, that is a concept that is difficult for us, for God has created us in a linear time line.... we have a start and a finish physically… But he doesn’t not.

Listen to

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And finally here in this statement, Jesus rounds out the whole statement in the truth that He is the Almighty.

What does that mean, for Jesus to say that He is the Almighty?

In contrast the temporary rulers of this world, He is supreme, Sovereign, all powerful and over all things…

Think about this… everything has its beginning and ending in the one who does not, who is the sovereign creator of the entire universe, who sustains us, has loves us with an everlasting love… and prepared a place for us to be with Him.

That’s great my friends,

Now, besides this great truth… being the almighty… look at his work., lets look back two verses, verses 5-7 here in ...

Considering His identity more fully, know that we are told 5 more points of detail..

A. He is a faithful witness… Being the second person of the Trinity, and the Incarnate Christ He has bore witness to work of God in this world.

Jesus came and told us of God’s great love, revealed it to humanity in both word and deed.

Listen to what John tells us in verses 4-5

B. He is the firstborn from the dead… Jesus is the first person to experience the resurrection of His own body.

He lived, died on a cross, was buried in a borrowed tomb and one the third day rose from the dead never to experience death again.

In His death did he not only reveal his love for us, but revealed his place as the Lamb of God, the one who is worthy to be praised.

Because He lives we too shall live.

C.

He Ransomed Us from Sin… He became a living sacrifice, He offered up His own live as the ransom, the Redeemer of all mankind.

He loves us, saved us and freed us from the penalty of sin.

No longer am I guilty before God, think of that my friends, before Christ came into our lives, we stood condemned, guilty, but Jesus paid our debt with his own blood satisfying the righteous requirements of the law.

and thus we have been set free.

He took my place…

D. He made us a Kingdom and Priests....

He has made us to be conformed into His image, co heirs of the wonderful things of God, .

We are a kingdom, a family together ministering, reigning with Him in His future Kingdom.

Listen to Revelation 5:10...

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E. He is coming Again… Do you remember the promise of the angels in … as the disciples watched Jesus as he was taken up into the clouds, they said..

Wow… He is coming again and His return will be missed by no one… John declares that every eye will see Him.

The whole earth will know of his coming, and not everyone will be happy to see him, even the dead, those who pierced him, those who have been long dead, they will know of His coming and understand the immense loss they are enduring because of their sin.

But we will rejoice at His appearance, for we will see Jesus!

Hallelujah what a Savior, Redeemer and yes Friend!

My friends His identity is wonderful and we have our identity because of Him.

We have been made whole because of who Jesus is and we have our very life in Him.

Give thanks to Him today as you pray and worship the Lord.

And as we move through this text today, understand we are told of His Appearance...

2. His Appearance...

As John is in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, He has this wonderful opportunity to see our Lord, in His majesty and glory.

In a way that perhaps He has never seen Him before...

His appearance is not perhaps as we expect here, but reveals much to us… lets look back at our text again...

Verses 12-16

Rev 1:12-16

As we look at the text, John turns to see who is speaking to Him. and right off the bat I just want you to take notice of the truth that he is allowed to see Him.

He is not kept from seeing or knowing Christ there in his midst.

Now as John turns and two things are presented to him.

7 golden lampstands.

and in the midst of the lampstands was one like a Son of Man.

Now lets stop right there and just unpack what John has encountered here.

Lets begin with the 7 Lampstands - The 7 lampstands are literally 7 menorah’s.

The 7 lampstands are literally 7 menorah’s.

In the temple, there was no light apart form the sunlight that made its way into the inner chambers, but in the main sanctuary there was a giant menorah that cast off light for the priests.