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Rev. 1:1-18
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Letters from Jesus: I am Coming Soon Revelation 1:1-18 40 Days of Purpose, or for my group, 56 Days of Purpose is completed. Last week Jeff gave a stirring message about small groups. We expect 100% compliance to the new small group rule by the way. Just kidding, but we hope you see the benefit of being in a small group. I heard a helpful quote years ago regarding small groups. Bill Hull, author of several books on discipleship said, “small groups are intended for your whole life long, but not necessarily for every year of your life”. That quote demonstrates the fundamental importance of gathering in groups for study, prayer, growth and service, but it leaves room for taking breaks during certain seasons of your life. What if we could look 30 or 40 years into the future to get a glimpse of what Grace Church might look like then. Will we still be meeting here at the Elementary School? Will we have a small building in the middle of our ten acres that is decaying from lack of use and attention? Regardless of our building, will we be a Christ-honoring, people-impacting kind of a church? What would Jesus think of our church in 30-40 years? If Jesus were to write a letter to Grace Church, what would he say to us? WWJS-What Would Jesus Say? That is kind of like asking the ubiquitous question, WWJD, What Would Jesus Do? It’s really the wrong question to ask, because rather than asking what would Jesus do, we should be studying what he already did. If we know what he did, we will naturally begin to practice what we should do. In a similar light, we already have letters from Jesus written to 40 year old congregations. These are the seven letters written to the seven churches in Revelation. These seven churches are actual, historical churches that were planted about 40 years before Jesus wrote these letters to them. We are going to be studying these seven churches and the seven letters over the next five weeks as a way of peering into the possibilities of our own future. The series outline is at the bottom of your bulletin outline. The letters to these churches can be so helpful to our church right now because we can learn the difference between a faithful church and a faithless church. Even more importantly, we can do things right now to make sure that we will be one of the faithful churches in the next 40 years. Out of seven churches, Jesus had only positive things to say about two of them. I’m sure they weren’t perfect, but Jesus commended them as faithful witnesses up until that point. Four out of the seven churches received a mixed report of good and bad comments. These four had been faithful in many ways, but also had some glaring weaknesses that Jesus addresses. One of the seven received only negative comments. This church was so bad that the letter from Jesus was their final warning to repent and make things right. I realize because we live in a microwave culture, it can be hard to picture Grace Church 40 years in the future. I won’t be here then and most of you probably won’t either. But even if we won’t be here 40 years from now, what you and I do in the next five years will help determine what we will look like 40 years form now. Which type of letter would you like to receive from Jesus—a solid commendation of faithfulness, a warning of partial faithfulness, or an extreme warning imminent doom? Smyrna & Philadelphia ONLY GOOD Ephesus, Pergamum, Thyatira & Sardis GOOD & BAD Laodicea ONLY BAD The Purpose of Prophecy (1-8) This first week I want to make sure we understand the context of the letters to these seven churches. Revelation is a book about the future, a prophetic book. There are two common errors when it comes to prophecy—one is to give too much emphasis to it. Such a person spends all of their Bible study time developing their prophecy charts and figuring out precisely when Jesus will return. This might be interesting, academic work, but it has little practical benefit. The opposite mistake, which most of us make, is to ignore prophecy altogether. The thought is that prophecy is too mysterious and difficult to understand, so why should I even try? The Bible says that Jesus will come like a thief in the night. Now who gets surprised by a thief in the night—the person who always leaves their doors unlocked and their valuables out in the open, or the person whose house is equipped with locks and alarms? The person with locks and alarms realizes the danger of a thief and prepares for his coming, but a careless person ignores warnings and is unprepared. The exact same is true of Jesus’ return. 1 Thess. 5:2 says, 2 for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. Jesus will come as a thief in the night only to those who are not prepared for his coming. But for Bible-believing, Christ-anticipating believers this is a different story. The very next verse says, 4But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. What a contrast! Here we have the purpose of prophecy: to announce Christ’s coming. But this announcement takes on two very different forms depending on the listener. To the unbeliever, prophecy is a dire warning of potential destruction—“Take heed or be destroyed”. But for the Christian prophecy is an encouragement to remain strong and faithful to the end. This aligns perfectly with the book of Revelation. Verses one and three read, The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place… 3 Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. In other words, Jesus is saying, “I am coming soon!” When I worked as a Medical Technologist, the hospital would always get a fair warning when OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was going to drop by for an inspection. If you do not pass the safety inspection, OSHA can hand out stiff fines or even shut down a facility if the warnings are not heeded. It would be foolish to not prepare for their inspection. Likewise, it is foolish to be unprepared for the final inspection, if you will, of Jesus Christ. What would a surprise inspection from Jesus look like? Would you pass inspection, be given dire warnings or would you fall somewhere in between? If we don’t bother with such thoughts, are we not then living like unbelievers? As we study Jesus letters in the coming weeks we will learn how we can be better prepared for that final inspection. The Primacy of the local church (9-11) If individuals should be prepared for that final inspection, then it is also true that churches should be prepared as well. As we read the New Testament and see Paul’s words of instruction, encouragement and warning, it is easy to forget that most of his letters were written to churches, not just individuals. That is because the local church is God’s ordained method for carrying out his work. Can there be such a thing as a Christian who is not fully engaged in a local church? Certainly we can all think of lone ranger Christians and we may have been one ourselves, but neither Jesus nor Paul could have ever conceived of such a person. The local church is not just a reactionary afterthought. This is the way you and I tend to think. When we have a problem we immediately try to develop a solution to that particular problem. When Peter preached to the crowd in Jerusalem and 5000 people became Christians, this was a great thing. But it was also a problem because what were they going to do with all of these people. Did they put on their thinking caps and come up with the solution to form these people into a local church? No, the plan from the very beginning was to preach the gospel and then put new believers into local churches. When the gospel spread throughout the Roman world in the first century, the only plan they had was to start new churches. It was not plan B or plan C—the local church was Plan A. This can be demonstrated by understanding how the seven churches of revelation got their start. As I said before, these seven churches are real, historical churches, not merely spiritualized conglomerations of other churches. If you look at this map, we can trace the formation of these seven churches. Of course we know that the church was born in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. For the first three years the church grew rapidly in the Jerusalem, but did not really spread beyond there. In Acts 8 we learn that a great persecution broke out in Jerusalem and caused almost all of the believers to leave Jerusalem, many of whom spread the gospel as they went. Even though Jerusalem was still the official center of Christianity, the northern city of Antioch would soon become the most influential Christian area. In Acts 13 Paul and Barnabus are commissioned and sent off on their first missionary journey. When they returned two years later did they go to Jerusalem? No, they settled back down in Antioch. Antioch had been their sending church and was becoming the new focus of all church planting efforts. On his second church planting journey, Paul went further west than he had been the first time. On his way home he did stop in Jerusalem for a brief visit, and then traveled back to his home church in Antioch. He left Antioch for his third church planting journey. He essentially retraced the steps of his second journey, but this third journey was unique. He spent almost three years in the city of Ephesus. Usually Paul only stayed a few months in one city. Previously he had spent 1 ½ years in Corinth, but this was the only time he stayed in the same city for three years. Why was Ephesus such an important city? Look at the map again. Ephesus is one of the seven churches in Revelation, but all of the seven churches are in this province of Asia Minor. Paul never went to any of the other six cities, but the church planting work in Ephesus became the launching point for starting new churches in these other cities. Just as Antioch became the launch pad for Paul’s church planting, Ephesus became a new launch pad for Asia minor. Now that you know some of the background of these seven churches, let’s lay out several principles. 1. God primarily used ordinary Christians to spread the gospel, to plant the Antioch church, to plant dozens of churches; and to become the leaders in all of these new churches. Do you think any of those people ever said, “I’m just a lay person—what can I really do for God?” Do me a favor—don’t ever say “I’m just a lay person”. Don’t ever sell yourself short. Had it not been for the average lay person, the church would never have spread beyond Jerusalem. 2. Paul’s clear goal was to plant new churches, not merely to make new converts. Evangelism without church planting is like buying a steering wheel to a car. Yes, you need the steering wheel to drive a car, but you’re not going to get very far with a steering wheel. We need evangelism, but the church will never grow without the planting of new churches. 3. God wants you involved in a local church. Local churches were the launching point for the spread of Christianity. It was not the denomination (Jerusalem church) that got the job done. It was the local church in Antioch, the local church in Ephesus, and the local churches in all of the other areas from which new churches were planted. Sometimes we are tempted to downplay the influence of the local church. We think that as long as we are trying to walk with the Lord, as long as we are part of the greater body of Christ, the Big Church, that it doesn’t matter how involved we are in our local church—or even if we have a church home. But that is a grievous distortion of the Biblical message and pattern. The word “church” is mentioned over 100 times in the New Testament, and the vast majority of those references were to the various local churches, not just the larger body of Christ. 4. Even quality churches need help. Paul was the single greatest church planter in the history of the world, but he still had a multitude of problems in the churches he started. Paul started the church in Philippi and ten years later he had to write them a letter to correct several problems and keep the believers encouraged. Paul started the church in Ephesus and wrote them a letter ten years later because they needed help. Paul spent 1 ½ years in Corinth getting that church off the ground and still he had to write four letters in the first five years of that church’s existence. Did you know Paul wrote four letters to the Corinthians? We have two of his letters, but he makes reference to two others that we do not have. Paul started the church in Thessalonica and he had to write two letters to that church in the first two years. Like the others, the local church in Thessalonica needed regular doses of correction and encouragement. 5. We could be an Antioch church. The FLD hopes to plant a new church in Eau Claire that would be a modern-day Antioch church. The purpose would be for Eau Claire to be, like Antioch was, a launching pad for the start of new churches. St. Croix county is among the 100 fastest growing counties in the U.S. and eventually the “Antioch” work in Eau Claire could spread to there. Likewise our church financially supports Adrian Rayo when he was in a church plant in Norwalk. Do you know what Adrian is doing now? He moved to Madison to start an Antioch church there—a Latino church that will become the launch pad for more Latino churches. Our church also supports the mission’s agency Gospel for Asia who support missionaries in India who are starting Antioch churches. Currently there is one missionary for every _____ people. Through our giving to this effort our little church is able to support two full-time church planting missionaries in India. Could we plant more churches in our local area? Ray Olson, the director of church planting for our district, has often joked that Rising Sun would be an ideal location for a church plant. Perhaps Viroqua will not be a major launch pad for new churches, but as we just learned, we are supporting other Maybe part of our goal is to help Grace Church continue to experience healthy growth so that we can increase our giving to Antioch churches throughout the state and the world. The Perfection of Christ (12-18) We can’t close this introduction to the seven churches in Revelation without directing our attention to the reason behind these seven churches and our local church. These seven letters are, after all, letters from Jesus. We are given this beautiful picture of Christ in vv. 12-18. 1. He walks among the churches (13) He is watching Grace Church and desired us to honor and obey his leading. 2. He blazes with perfection (14-15) Though John was his closest friend during his earthly life, it appears that John did not recognize Jesus because of the brilliance of his appearance. He is white with perfection. 3. He is sovereign over the churches (16) Jesus holds the churches in his right hand. They are his to do with as he pleases. 4. He is full of judgment (16) and mercy (17). He has a sword protruding from his mouth as a symbol of final judgment. But in the next verse, in a symbol of mercy, he reaches down and places his right hand on John who had fallen at his feet. 5. His message is for all of us (1:7) “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” As we study these churches in the next four weeks ask yourself, “Do I have ears to hear? Am I willing to listen and learn from the spiritual failures and successes of these 1st century churches?” We must—the future of Grace Church depends on it. Rich Maurer May 2, 2004 |