Jesus: Everlasting King

Revelation 1:4–8 NRSV

4 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, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 7 Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen. 8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

When God appeared to Moses on the Mountain of Sinai in a burning bush, Moses asked God who He was, what was His name? God responded that His name is “I am who I am.” Scholars believe that the name is pronounced Yahweh - but there is no certainty because God’s people held the name in such high regard that they never pronounced the name. Tell them “I am” has sent you God said to Moses. But what does it mean that god is “I am?” Here in our passage this morning from the Revelation, we see that He is the one who is, was, and is to come!

Leonard Sweet says: “One of the things that makes human beings unique is we can simultaneously live in three dimensions of time. Of course, don’t ask what “time” is. St. Augustine confessed about time that “I know well enough what it is, provided nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.” So don’t ask me what time is.

But let’s try to describe it from our text this morning. Raymond Tallis, in The Kingdom of Infinite Space: A Fantastical Journey around Your Head (Atlantic Books, 2008), puts it like this: “animals live their lives, humans lead theirs.” Only humans, he says, have an explicit concept or idea of the past, the present and the future: which is both a tremendous advantage and a terrible burden.

There is the Past: Because of language, song, and story, we can experience a far distant past. As we experience and study the history of all that has gone before us, we hear the voices and feel the spirits of men and women who lived hundreds, even thousands of years ago.

Then there is the Future: Because of creative human imagination and rational, scientific extrapolations, we can envision the future. Computers can digitally “age” a photo — showing us what a five year old will look like at twelve or twenty or fifty. Growth rates for trees, erosion rates for soil, models predicting temperatures, rainfall, droughts, and natural disasters, can give us a future glimpse of any earthly region. Of course, the view of the future is much more precarious than the view of the past. There are always surprises that come our way, both good and bad. One of the few things that we know for certain about the future is that in a hundred years, none of us will be here.

Then there is the Present: Because of our self-awareness we understand we live in a fleeting “present,” a present that is constantly becoming both our “past” and our “future.” The present is a connector of the past and the future. That’s it. The present is a micro-bridge that takes you from the past to the future.

This three-dimensional movement through time gives our lives direction and purpose, memories and hope.

For Christians the direction of our lives, the purpose of living our lives is based on our faith in a God who is eternally past, present and future. John begins the record of his great vision of God’s dream for a new creation by proclaiming God as the one “who is and who was, and who is to come.”

Isn’t that a powerful phrase? The order is interesting - we think chronologically, and see the past first, then the present, then the future, but John emphasizes the present, by putting it first. The God who is. The God who was. The God who is to come”

I. The God who is.

a. God is alive and well in 2021. As I look at our society today, and see all of the problems, and immorality that are with us, I wonder at times if we are a society that still believes that God does exist today, although I suppose that a society doesn’t believe - individuals do, though. Virtually every census or survey taken derives the conclusion that a large majority of Americans believe in the present existence of God. Of course there are vast differences in what people believe that means for their individual lives and for the lives of all of us. Although Americans have a tendency to believe in Him, that belief seems to make no difference in the life of many Americans.

b. If you have accepted Jesus into your life as your personal savior, you know that god is alive and well because you have experienced Him in your life. Through worship, whether it is personal or corporate, we may experience God. As we sing, and together present ourselves before God, He is present with us. Jesus tells us that “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” Look at the reaction that this thought brought to the mouth of John in verses 5 & 6 “To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to Him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.” The fact that God is active and alive ought to invoke the same kind of response from us. We worship Him because of who He is. We sing praises to His name, we honor Him with our lives and we live according to His desire for our lives! As we experience God, we know that He is alive and well.

c. Many have also experienced Him in heartache, disappointment, or sickness. When we are at our lowest, God makes Himself known, and we can look back at those experiences in life, and see that God is! And that looking back reminds us clearly of

II. The God who was.

a. He has existed in the past. God often referred to Himself in the Old Testament as the God of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob. He was establishing that He had a history with the Israelites. The Bible and the history of Christianity are full of stories that clearly tell us that He has existed in the past. As we read the scriptures, we read the history of God’s relationship with humanity as He has related in the past. The Bible is the clear story of God developing a relationship with people through His saving grace and mercy. Scripture is the history of God’s salvation!

b. But the fact that He was is an indication to us that He even pre-existed the past. Before there was anything in heaven or earth, there was God! Theories abound when it comes to the origin of the Universe. Science has been trying to answer this question of origin for years. What are some of the theories people have come up with?

i. Steady-state—Aristotle. The universe is ungenerated & indestructible – it always has been, and will always be. Science denounces this theory as impossible.

ii. Some have believed that the universe was formed out of a gaseous substance that condensed as it cooled, and formed the world as we know it. This doesn’t answer the question “where did the gas come from?”

iii. Planetesimal—particles broke off from the Sun, but where did the sun come from?

iv. Big bang theory—most scientists today believe in what they refer to as the Big Bang theory. I want you to hear what some atheistic scientists are saying about the origin of the universe as it relates to this idea of a big bang.

1. Dr. Paul Steinhardt of the University of Pennsylvania has said that the Universe was smaller than a baseball & had a temperature of 100 billion trillion times hotter than the inside of a thermonuclear reactor, and is now much bigger than we ever thought. He goes on to say “all of the matter & energy that we observe in the universe came from a near vacuum state that contained essentially no atoms or other particles of matter. The universe as we know it came from virtually nothing!”

2. Robert Jastrow, another atheist, in his book God & the atom wrote: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has sealed the mountain of ignorance, he is about to climb the highest peak, and as he climbs the last rock he meets a band of theologians who have been there for thousands of years.”

3. Christianity asserts, and science now agrees that the Universe was created out of nothing! Before there was anything in the Universe, God was! Once upon a time, an atheist was arguing with a Quaker about the existence of God. “Did you ever see God?” asked the atheist. “No,” said the Quaker. “Did you ever smell God?” asked the atheist again. “No,” said the Quaker. “Well, then,” said the atheist with a smirk on his face.” How can you be so sure that there is a God? “Friend, did thee ever see thy brains?” the Quaker asked the atheist. “No,” said the atheist. “And did thee ever smell thy brains?” the Quaker asked again. “NO,” answered the atheist. “Dost thou believe that thou hast any brains?” asked the Quaker once more.

4. We live in a society that often questions the very existence of God, and at times considers Christians to be somewhat naïve, but as we can see, the facts speak otherwise. Before anything existed, there was God!

III. The God who is to come.

a. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and Omega is the final letter of the Greek alphabet. When we say that we have everything covered from A to Z we mean that there is nothing more that needs to be added. God is the beginning, He is the fulfillment of all of life, and He is the end!

b. He will come again! Jesus says in John chapter 14:1-3 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” He has left, and is as I speak, preparing a place for His disciples! Someday “we shall wear a robe and crown” “When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be—when we all see Jesus, we’ll sing and shout the victory!”

c. Verse 7 ought to excite us, but it also ought to disturb us. “Look, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him.” The sad reality is that many will not be ready when He does return to take us home. Too many will be left to the eternal punishment that was prepared for Satan and his demons. Hell was never intended for human beings, it was designed as punishment for Satan, but the sad reality is that many humans will join Satan in the place created for God’s enemy. When Jesus returns, we who know Him as our personal savior will be thrilled to see Him and go to be with Him forever, but we will also mourn for those who do not know him, for there is a punishment for unforgiven sin.

d. God does not desire that anyone should be punished for their sin. He sent His son so that we would no longer have to face our punishment—he took our punishment for us, and we can rely on His grace.

Sing—#283; “What a Day That Will Be”