2021-09-19 Overview on the Letters to the 7 Churches 10am Service

hello good morning to you a very special greetings to you on the lord's day i hope you are keeping well keeping strong and it has been such a long time since we met face to face and we pray and hope that it will be not too long in the near distant future we will see each other again here at church i have two announcements before i read you a passage of the bible the first one is i believe that uh if you are regular attendees at pathway you should have received this copy uh we are planning to pray together for 21 weeks and we just started this morning and for this entire week we're going to pray the first chapter five things to pray in a global crisis and the book here basically said the coronavirus pandemic has prompted many of us to pray more but he has also left many of us unsure about quite how to pray or what to pray for that's where this little book is designed to help it's filled with simple press suggestions drawn straight from the bible to help you to pray positively and powerfully during the kovic 19 pandemic it will equip you to pray for yourself your family your nations government and healthcare workers and your church and the kingdom of god so for the next 21 weeks there are 21 chapters there each week one chapter and this week we are praying for peace when i am anxious and it is going to be based on psalms 23 5 points there i hope you will join us uh pray through this week every day meditate on psalms 23 and pray together as a church and then we'll journey together for the next 21 weeks join us together as a church on sunday morning at nine o'clock via zoom and the link will be sent via announcement so hope to see you there the second announcement is after the service we will be having our virtual morning tea at um straight after service after five minutes break come together have a cup of coffee bring and have a cup time together basically we have a two sec two segment of 15 minutes uh and the first 15 minutes is randomly for and the second half the second part of the segment we will just put you into either first service or second service whoever is there just to catch up and see each other again i want to read psalms 1 4 5 psalms 145 it is a beautiful psalm it may be 21 verses there but it is so captivating and i hope you can turn with me to psalms 145 this is what i want to do because it's such a beautiful psalm what i would like to do is this was the last psalm written by king david it is full of praise and of great praise for the greatness of who god is and the greatness of what god does so what i'm going to do is i'll read the verse and then i'll say a line of prayer based on that verse and it will come to for certain part of it i'll read a few verses and then say a prayer so i'm going to mix this bible reading together with a time of prayer so psalms 1 4 5 a sum of praise of david david's final psalms verse 1 say i will exalt you my god the king i will praise your name forever and ever lord you are our eternal god and king your praise will go on forever verse two every day i will praise you and i will extol your name forever and ever lord i want to live each day of my life for you and i want to live for your glory and praising your name verse 3 great is the lord and most worthy of praise his greatness no one can fathom lord i will never grow tired of praising you your greatness knows no end and i pray that you would captivate my heart with who you are time and time again verse 4 one generation commands your works to another they tell of your mighty ex lord i pray that i would share your greatness with those around me i pray for my children and my children's children that they would know and tell of your awesome deeds verse five they speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty and i will meditate on your wonderful works lord as i meditate on you would you please help me to pause to slow down to think deeply about who you are fill my mind with thoughts of your splendor and majesty verse 6 the tell of the power of your awesome works and i will proclaim your great deeds lord i pray that we would speak tell and declare to the world that there is none like you there is no one who can compares to you o lord verse 7 they celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness lord there is no one famous like you the fame of your goodness is better than everything and everyone else verse 8 the lord is gracious the lord is compassionate he is slow to anger and he is rich in love dear lord i thank you for your grace and your mercy thank you for being patient with me and that you relented from pouring out your anger and wrath rather your anger was satisfied through the cross of christ at the cross your abounding love was on display like nothing else thank you lord verse 9 the lord is good to all he has compassion on all he has made all your works praise you lord your faithful people extolled you lord i pray that your goodness would extend to all and that we will see how your mercy covers the earth we see it in the rain lord you shower us with your goodness as you water the earth verse 11 they tell of the glory of your kingdom and they speak of your might so that all people may know of your mighty ex and the glorious splendor of your kingdom your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures through all generations the lord is trustworthy in all he promises and he is faithful in all he does oh lord would your glorious kingdom come and your will be done we pray that over melbourne in australia and the whole world verse 14 to 19 the lord upholds all who fall he lifts up all who are bowed down the eyes of all look to you and you give them their food at the proper time you open your hand you satisfy the desires of every living thing the lord is righteous in all his ways and he is faithful in all he does the lord is near to all who call on him to all who call on him in truth he fulfills the desires of those who fear him he hears their cry and he saves them oh lord we come to you on your terms not ours jesus is the truth who makes a way for us to have life in your name and i pray for those who are searching those who call upon to call upon your name lord verse 20 and 21 the lord watches over all who loved him but all the wicked he will destroy my mouth will speak in praise of the lord let every creature praise his holy name forever and ever dear lord you preserve those who love you because your love is a preserving resurrected love you tell us that those who come to you will never taste death even though we die in the body we will live forever with you but those who reject you will stand forever facing the reality of the wages of sin is death i pray that as pathway baptist church we will share you with those that we love our neighbors our colleagues our friends our families and i pray that they would in turn use their mouth to confess that you are lord and bless your most holy name forever and ever thank you lord for this beautiful psalm that we are able to read through and pray we bless you we want to praise you worship you lord every day of our lives because you are our god our creator and our god we thank you we bless you we worship you and we ask all this thing in jesus name amen we are going to sing a song before pastor caroline come and do a new series of sermons in revelation and the song that we're going to sing is you are my all in all i particularly love some of the words that say you are my strength when i'm weak you are the treasure that i seek when i fall down you pick me up when i'm dry you fill my cup lord jesus you are my all in all i invite you to sing this song together now [Music] so you are my strength when i am weak you are the treasure that i seek you are my seeking you as a precious jew lord to give up i'd be a fool you are my own jesus lamb of god [Laughter] name jesus lamb of god worthy [Music] [Music] fill [Music] jesus jesus you are my strength when i am [Music] seeing you as a precious [Music] is jesus [Music] worthy is your name [Music] oh well praise the lord what a lovely beautiful song now i'm going to pass the time to pastor caroline she's going to come and bring us god's word today well good morning everyone the book of genesis the very first book of the bible probably seems like an unlikely place for us to begin this series of messages which are predominantly going to be from the book of revelation which is of course the very last book of the bible but that is exactly where we're going today i've got a handwritten notation just above the title of the book of revelation in my bible and it reads like this to understand the end of all things one must understand the beginning of all things alpha and omega are linked with an unbroken chain now i wish i'd written down who that quote came from or where i got it from could have been a lecture could have been a sermon could have been a book that i was reading but i love that quote it reminds me that the bible comes to us as a collection of inspired writings that tell a collective story and whilst we can learn a great deal from studying in depth individual passages or even entire books of the bible there is this big picture that plays out across the entire bible and themes can be traced from beginning to end just like that unbroken chain that i just mentioned and it fascinates me that even while placing two untainted people in the pristine garden called eden god could see before him the great multitude who would gather before his throne and he could see that chain unbroken that would link them together many great biblical themes have their genesis in this first book of the bible and most of them find their fulfillment in christ and then reach a climax in revelation and in these weeks of the year that remain before we head towards christmas can you believe that we're heading that way already we're going to explore just one of those themes as it approaches its climax in revelation with the wedding feast of the lamb before we get there though before we jump straight to omega as it were i think we would do well to take a walk along that chain even if only briefly from alpha to omega from genesis following this imagery right through as it's developed in the old testament and then reimagined in the new testament with the coming of christ so to those of you who like to have your bibles open and work your way through the passage as we as we work our way through it uh here good luck with that this week because we're going to move pretty quickly and we're going to be jumping around quite a bit so you may have some trouble keeping up this morning the story i want to tell you today is a love story and it's not just any love story it's the greatest love story that has ever been told it is the story of a love that has endured against all odds and the creation scene is where god paints for us his view of human marriage he creates the woman from a bone taken from the man and the man describes her as bone of my bone flesh of my flesh and then in genesis 2 24 he makes this statement that is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh so in marriage the two are reunited into one flesh and that bond is exclusive and it is lifelong and what begins in genesis as purely a description of human marriage relationships becomes the basis for a metaphor which is at the heart of this love story portraying israel's relationship with god and it is a metaphor that will persist throughout the old testament initially this notion of god as the husband of his people is implied in the exclusive nature of the covenant that he enters into with them and then subsequently in descriptions of israel's harlotry and god's jealousy and that's carried through the pentateuch and then on into the historical books of the bible even as far back as exodus the people are warned of god's desire for exclusivity in his relationship with them exodus 34 14 do not worship any other god for the lord whose name is jealous is a jealous god and they're warned not to enter into any other relationship with people in the land that god would lead them to exodus 34 15 be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices and when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods they will lead your sons to do the same but then by the time we reach deuteronomy israel's abandonment of her rightful husband and her violation of the bomb that unites them is imminent and it will provoke her husband's jealousy deuteronomy 31 16 and the lord said to moses you are going to rest with your fathers and these people will soon prostitute themselves to foreign gods in the land that they are entering they will forsake me and break the covenant i have made with them and what is god's reaction to this deuteronomy 32 21 says they made me jealous by what is no god and they angered me with their worthless idols and so this relationship which is implied in the pentateuch and in the historical books of the bible further develops and becomes really explicit as we enter the prophets isaiah puts it simply like this isaiah 54 5 for your husband is your maker whose name is the lord of hosts and your redeemer is the holy one of israel who is called the god of all the earth but sadly by far the most pervasive image in all of the prophets concerning this relationship is that of israel's unfaithfulness in it in jeremiah the lord recalls his relationship with israel jeremiah 2 2 i remember the devotion of your youth how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert through a land not sown and then we compare these words with the words of the prophet isaiah see how the unfaith how the faithful city has become a harlot isaiah 1 21 and if that harlot metaphor wasn't graphic enough jeremiah teases out and exposes the depths of israel's unfaithfulness in her relationship with god by comparing her to a wild donkey that's on heat nose in the air sniffing the wind no one able to restrain her from her cravings jeremiah 2 23-24 and then in ezekiel chapter 23 there's a graphic description describing the deeds of two adulterous sisters and they represent the northern city of samaria and the southern city of jerusalem in both isiah and jeremiah a certificate of divorce is even mentioned and of course who could overlook the prophet hozier called not only to speak to the people about their unfaithfulness to god but to be for them a living symbol of god's love for adulterous israel by taking and loving as his own wife an adulterous woman ezekiel speaking among the exiles in babylon presents a very concise summary of their part in this relationship ezekiel 16 32-33 says you adulterous wife you prefer strangers to your own husband every prostitute receives a fee but you give gifts to all your lovers bribing them to come to you from everywhere for illicit favors very few earthly husbands could survive that type of betrayal but this is not just any love story and our god is not bound by human emotions and actions and so within the prophets we find not only these oracles of judgment but also promises of hope hosea speaks of god's efforts to win back israel's first love jose 214 therefore i am now going to allure her i will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her and then having won over her heart she will show signs of true repentance being restored to her husband and hosea 2 16 says in that day declares the lord you will call me husband you will no longer call me my master isaiah says as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride so will your god rejoice over you isaiah 62 5. jeremiah speaks of a new covenant not like the one israel broke although the lord was her husband but this is a covenant which i will make with the house of israel after those days declares the lord i will put my law within them and on their heart i will write it and i will be their god and they shall be my people and so from the depths of this picture of unrequited love the old testament anticipates for us the restoration of the marriage of god to his people and when the divine husband arrives for his people it is john the baptist who is first to recognize him he says this he who has the bride is the bridegroom the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's la voice therefore this joy of mine is now full he must increase and i must decrease that's john 3 29 to 30. and jesus confirms the witness of john when he responds to questions about why his own disciples did not fast by saying can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them and he goes on to indicate that while they celebrate now the wedding will be delayed when he's taken away from them he speaks to the people in parables and he tells them of israel's rejection of the wedding invitation and the extension of that invitation to all the nations and he warns them that even those who do accept the wedding invitation must wear the appropriate wedding garments and as we move through this series we will from time to time be drawing on some of these parables as we tease out the contents of these various letters to the seven churches so i'm not going to dwell on them now but suffice to say the bridegroom has come and the invitation has been extended and now we wait for his return and for the time when we will take our place in the holy city the new jerusalem made ready as a bride adorned for her husband in the hebrew culture of jesus's time marriage consisted of two parts there was the betrothal and the wedding itself much like we have an engagement and then usually sometime later a wedding however in the hebrew culture being betrothed to another did not simply mean that you intended at some later date further down the track to get married the betrothal was legally binding and you couldn't simply end that betrothal and move on the agreement could only be terminated with a divorce and that would generally only happen on the grounds of adultery or or something equally serious that betrothal process began with the selection of the bride and often but not always the groom's father would make the arrangements and once the agreement had been reached the future bride and groom would meet usually at the home of the bride and her parents and here the groom would bring along the pre-negotiated bride price the ketubah which was like a betrothal contract which detailed all the promises that the groom was making to his bride and the terms of their marriage and then after presenting his bride with a gift the betrothal would be sealed with the drinking of wine and the groom would then depart leaving the bride with her family while he returned to the home of his parents often for a year or more to make the necessary preparations and while the groom made ready their living quarters the bride prepared the household items that she would need to take with her she prepared her wedding garments and she prepared herself literally being ready looking her best keeping herself pure for at any moment the husband might return to take her back to the father's house she did not know the day of his return but she needed to ensure that whenever it was she would be ready for it believers are now in that period of waiting christ came from heaven to earth to the home of his bride and he has made his proposal he's returned to the father's house and so we wait we do not know the day of his return but we too must be ready for it so that we can take our place in that new jerusalem which is the bride of christ every believer will be part of the new jerusalem there we'll join with the saints of the old testament whom hebrews 11 tells us died without having seen the promises and who waited for the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is god we'll join the early church from whom jesus departed to prepare a place we'll join the believing jews mentioned in revelation 7 and the saints of tribulation mentioned in revelation chapter 6 and collectively we will be a sight to behold towards the end of the visions in the book of revelation one of the angels says to john come and i will show you the bride the wife of the lamb and john is carried away to a mountain where he's shown the holy city jerusalem coming down out of heaven and she is dazzling she's radiant with the glory of god and the description of her is mind-blowing you can have a look for yourself and read it in chapter 21 of revelation and that is what all believers have to look forward to but until then we must wait we wait we remain faithful we make our preparations and we keep watch now if you've ever been parted from a loved one from an extended period of time and i'm sure that with all that's taken place in the last couple of years many of you have been in that situation you'll know how treasured a letter or an email or a text message any form of communication is and as a child i was very close to my grandmother when we emigrated to australia i used to write her a letter once a week as a child and we would post it to her and i continued that tradition on into my adult life these were as my younger children call it back in the olden days the days before there were computers the days before there were mobile phones and text messages and the days even when making an international phone call from your landline at home was so astronomically expensive that it was reserved only for christmas day and birthdays writing to her each weekend was my practice and i can remember for many many years as i would drive to work each monday morning about halfway there there was a certain post box that i would stop at to post that letter and i can remember even after her death the first week after her death i automatically drove to that postbox i automatically stopped got out of the car and then realized i had no letter in my hand to post because she wasn't there anymore and even to this day i can't drive past that mailbox without thinking of her and after her death her sister in the uk contacted me and they'd been cleaning out the house her little flat for for sale and she'd found within the big old armchair that she used to spend her days sitting in looking out the window towards the sea pushed down between every cushion it was just stuffed with letters that i had posted to her that she would sit and read and reread and even read to whoever used to come to the house i know that there were many personal carers who i'm sure were bored to death listening to the mundane details of my young children's lives but that is what we do with the words of those that we love and from whom we are separated we treasure them we pour over them we read and re-read them seeking to glean anything that we can from them some of the most treasures treasured letters have been penned during various world wars penned in the trenches of the battlefields one such letter came from a soldier named albert to his wife edith many of these letters have been preserved and they're in museums all over the world albert penned his letter on a scrap piece of paper just before what he calls going over the top which i presume means out of the trenches and onto the battlefield in it he affirms his great love for edith and what he calls their chicks his six children at home with her he speaks to her about what lies ahead for her knowing that he's almost certainly going to die once he leaves the trenches he gives her some practical advice for the future and then he bids her a heartfelt farewell assuring her that his last thoughts will be of her and edith apparently treasured those last words from her husband re-reading them until the day she died just short of 40 years later and i'm sure that there will be many of you listening this morning who have a special greeting card or a letter tucked away somewhere from a loved one for from whom you are separated either by distance or by death and i have no doubt that you treasure those words of theirs the last words of jesus are recorded for us not in the gospels but in this very last book of the bible the book of revelation physically these words were recorded by john during his time in exile on the island of patmos for his faith in christ there he heard first a voice and then he saw a vision and the voice directed him to write on a scroll the visions that he was to see and to send it to the seven churches in asia minor those churches were ephesus smyrna pergamon thyatira sardis philadelphia and laodicea they weren't the only churches in asia minor at the time there were others but these seven it seems were located if you follow them in the order that they're presented in the book of revelation they're roughly circular it's sort of a flattened circular shape but they appeared to be located on a trade route that attracted people from all over the province so perhaps the seven served as a natural point of dissemination after the revelation had been received and digested by them ephesus was the most important city in the region but of the others many of them were not even amongst the best known churches in the region and yet they were chosen by the lord the number seven of course is very significant in the bible it symbolizes completeness so these seven churches also most likely have a symbolic purpose representing the church universal and therefore every church has something to glean from reading these letters to these seven churches and every church will see parts of themself within these letters and i have no doubt that we'll also encounter ourselves as we read through these letters together you might like to turn in your bibles now to revelation chapter 1 as we explore briefly this first vision of john which introduces these letters to the seven churches verse 12 john sees someone like a son of man among seven gold lamp stands and his description of this figure among the lamp stands is mind-blowing his long robe reaching down to his feet marks him out as a person of distinction perhaps a priest but maybe not necessarily so his gold belt his white hair his eyes like flames and his feet like glowing bronze they're all reminiscent of the visions of daniel and his voice like the sound of rushing water reminiscent of the voice of god in ezekiel 43. in his right hand he held seven stars and from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword a weapon of a fence which would be used as an instrument of judgment his face john tells us was shining like the sun in all its brightness and john is understandably overwhelmed he falls to the ground like he's like a dead man and then the one like the son of man speaks telling him not to be afraid and introducing himself like this i am the first and the last the living one who was dead but is alive forevermore who holds the keys to death and hades john is of course seeing none other than jesus christ himself and jesus then proceeds to explain the vision that john has just witnessed the seven golden lampstands that jesus stood among are the seven churches and the seven stars in his right hand are the angels of the seven churches and this is a vision of great intimacy the bridegroom having departed the earth yet still here he is right among the churches and in his right hand the hand that denotes favor and protection he holds what are called the angels of these churches and here we encounter our first significant problem of interpretation within this book of so many symbols who are these angels of the churches there has been no end of scholarly energy put into identifying who the angels of the churches are there remains no consensus some view them as kind of guardian angels of the churches the biggest problem with that view is that it's difficult to imagine the content of some of the letters which includes rebuke being directed towards angels the word angel literally means messenger so some see these angels as messengers who help the church to understand the heart of god still others have sought to apply this to those with responsibility in the church the leaders or the elders but this also is problematic since the content of the letters is clearly directed to the entire congregation still others see these as representatives of the churches again possibly the elders who are nominated to travel back and forth to john who was in exile on the island of patmos perhaps to take care of his needs perhaps to receive teaching from him and and to send news of the churches in asia minor still others see these angels as the spirit of the churches who stand for and symbolize the churches themselves there are difficulties with all of the views and the short answer is that we just don't know and i think perhaps we need to be okay with that for those who lived before the days of the messiah the various ceremonies of the law and the prophets the communications of the prophets gave them something of the concept of a son of atonement and of a savior but the full meaning and the full details would not be known precisely until the messiah himself came and perhaps so it is with parts of revelation for us what we do know without doubt is that the churches here are called the lamp stands now lamp stands bear the light they are not themselves the light that light is the truth of the gospel as it's revealed in christ that's the light that god wants the whole world to see from these lampstands and we know that the risen christ is pictured right there right in the midst of his congregations and we know that his favor and protection is extended towards them in the absence of the physical presence of the bridegroom they are far from abandoned and neither are we like them we wait for the bridegroom's return like them we must ready ourselves for it in their waiting he wrote to these seven churches and with the exception of a small section at the end of revelation in which he assures us that he is coming again soon these are the last recorded words that we have of jesus and so they are precious to us and we should treasure them some years ago i read a book which challenged me to see beyond just the rebuke that was contained in some of these letters and to see them in the context of this greater love story that we've walked right through the bible this morning the book is called seven love letters from jesus it's by rebecca hayford bauer and it is my prayer that as we move through this series together you will encounter the great love of jesus for his church within each of these seven letters and will be challenged to consider your own response to that love as we wait for the bridegroom to return let's pray together father thank you for pursuing your people throughout history even when they have at times rejected your love yours is a love that even this metaphor of human marriage can never fully explain we thank you that in our time of waiting for your return you have not abandoned us because john saw you right there among the lampstands we want to wait well teach us what it means to love the lord our god with all our heart with all our soul and with all our mind and with all of our strength as we wait for your return amen well may you love wholeheartedly may you live peacefully and may you be god's people in the world amen we're going to sing our closing song cornerstone together don't forget to grab something to eat or drink and log in to zoom as soon as you can after the end of the service for a chance to chat and to catch up with one another at our virtual morning team i'll see you there [Music] so [Applause] my hope is built on nothing less than jesus blood and righteousness i dare not trust the sweetest frame but holy trust in jesus my hope is built on nothingness than jesus bought [Music] i dare not trust the sweetest friend [Music] but holy trust in jesus [Music] through the storm he is lord lord of lords [Applause] when darkness seems to hide his face i rest on his [Applause] my anchor holds within my anchor holds within is is [Applause] we shall come with trumpet sound o may ivan in him be found dressed in his righteousness alone fall this stand before the throne [Music] he is lord is is [Music] you

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Length: 53min 23sec (3203 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021