Shane Willard An Introduction to Revelation Part 1 Sardis

there are fully devoted followers of jesus who are our brothers and who are our sisters who read the book of revelation as almost extensively about the future right and so they spend a lot of time trying to figure out who antichrist is although by the way the word antichrist is never used in revelation um they're trying to figure out what the mark of the beast is they're trying to and they're actually sincere and they're authentic and there are brothers and there are sisters and i preach for you and i love you and and we would never ever ever divide over a difference of opinion about something that obviously there's room for debate in the world needs to see the christ that holds us all together be glorified more than we need to be right about something like this right right that's first second there's a group of people who are fully devoted followers of jesus who read the book of revelation a hundred percent as a history book okay like something about back then all right now and if that's you i love you you're my brother you're my sister i preach for you right and the world never needs to see us divide over a difference of opinion about something like that right the world needs to see the christ that holds us all together be glorified more than we need to be right about something like that then there's a third group of people who see it as a hybrid that it's obviously a history book with historical elements but it might have future implications and these are fully devoted followers of jesus right now the problem is is that for most christians we grow up in one of those sort of events and then we think the whole world thought that the whole time and see western people approach scripture with the idea of i don't want to be wrong so western people approach scripture with tell me the one right interpretation about this right right and and my my south african brothers and sisters you you're really famous for that right so give me the like yeah i think i think this i think the afrikaans would be muni publius right right it's that it's it's listen it's it's it's give me the one give me the one right interpretation right of course of course a jew a jew never approaches scripture with give me the one right interpretation a jew approaches the scripture of i don't want to miss out so western people approach the bible with i don't want to be wrong jewish people approach the bible with i don't want to miss out like it's alive it's multifaceted and if you have a different way of reading it that i haven't considered it i'm not going to judge that i want to add that to my diamond of truth if you're going to make the scripture bigger for me i welcome that right and so it's in that spirit that i want to give i want to read revelation in a way maybe you've considered it maybe this is the way you've considered it maybe you've never considered it this way i have no interest in being right look the the somewhere walking the earth right now is the rightest person about god like somebody somebody is like the righteous like like god is looking down from heaven going i'm almost impressed with you it's that i don't know who they are i know they're not here right and whoever that person is might have scratched one one thousandth of one percent of what god is maybe on their best day right and so we're all and this is why the world is sick of the dogma it's not the discussion it's the dogma it's when we think our way is the only way of looking at something this is like on our best day we're being dogmatic about less than one one thousandth of one percent of what we think we know oh now it's in that humble sort of spirit that i want to open this incredible deep beautiful thing because when revelation was added to the scripture it was added 40 years after the original bible was put together it was sort of an addendum it was like this is this is supposed to be the early church in constantinople that fought for the revelation to be put in the bible they said look if you're going to study revelation it's got to be three things it's got to be a call of worship it's got to be a challenge to not be corrupted by the economic system of the world where you oppress people intentionally and it needs to be a conviction that your life tells the narrative of jesus being lord not caesar it's those three things and so we're going to look at it from that perspective and i owe a lot to nt right to eugene peterson and to david da silva for their academic and scholarly work around this thing all right and this is just my attempt to communicate um in an interesting way trust me if you journey with us for the week you won't be bored because if i'm anything it's not boring all right so so we're gonna look at this this is a revelation chapter one surrounded by fpos which is good all right there you go that's so brilliant the revelation of jesus christ which god gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place he made it known by sending his angel to his servant john who bore witness to the word of god and to the testimony of jesus christ even to all that he saw is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy which we're going to do quite a bit right and blessed are those who hear it and who keep what's written in it for the time is near so i want to introduce this thought and then i want to look at one of the churches from the letters to the set of churches to illustrate how this works a couple of thoughts on this one the revelation is composed of 404 verses the audience is the first century christian spread among seven specifically named churches this book was designed for people to read it in that day john is writing a letter to seven specific places never thinking it would get past that he lived with the conviction jesus was returning in his lifetime and he was wrong about that okay the folklore on this is that caesar tried to boil john in oil and he lived through it and the idea was was that he didn't want to do it again because if you survive a government-run execution twice people might think that your god is stronger than caesar and that would be bad so the what you do with people like that is you banish them to an island where people will never hear of it again and what what he did was is he decided to write seven letters so this was sent out in seven copies to seven different churches about living with hope in the middle of incredible oppression so if you read it as solely about the future you think well there's come in a day where there's one world government with one currency and there's going to be a thing and you have to buy and sell their way and it's going to bring great persecution yeah that was the roman empire the roman empire was a one world government who made everybody buy and sell their way and if you refuse to buy and sell their way they put you under great persecution this book is talking about then okay so this was meant to be read by people in the first century in asia minor that are in specific places all right number three approximately forty percent of the revelation is referencing hebrew scriptures without being specific this is called a remez but then the original audience would have picked that up at this point caesar worship was being enforced as international law one sect of christianity was advocating for compromise in order to relieve some of the economic oppression so there was one sect of christianity called the nicoletans who said you know what maybe it's okay to pronounce caesar's lord and to buy and sell their way if it can help us survive the economic oppression that's coming you're going to see that when we look later in the week at the book there are lots of historical references that are about real places at real times things like the mark of the beast mark of the beast actually happened from 78 to 92 a.d okay that was an actual thing that actually happened it wasn't something about the future now might it happen again maybe but it was when john wrote it the mark of the beast was something that had actually happened and was currently going on uh the seat of satan that was something that was an actual place nero was an actual person domitian was an actual person jupiter was a roman god that they said they were full of roman roma was a roman goddess that they said they were full of these were real people at real places at real times discussing real oppression issues this makes the revelation even more relevant today if it is challenging how we live in our world then it's infinitely applicable let's say this way there are three different genres present in the same book making it complex to interpret there's a prophetic genre an apocalyptic genre and a letter written to seven specific places so anybody says oh the bible's very clear and then they quote revelation what are you talking about it is anything but clear which is why we need to lose the dogma and open more discussions about god not less discussions we need to open more conversations instead of closing them down somebody might have thought of something we haven't thought of yet and if we just humble ourselves and hear them out if we understand one one thousandth of one percent of what god is and they understand one one thousandth of one percent of what god is and it just so happens to be a different one one thousandth of one percent of what god is if instead of shutting them out if we hear them out we might actually leave with two one thousandths of one percent of what god is and that's how growth works the revelation seems to be a chiastic structured letter that culminates in chapter 12. this is why the charts that describe it linearly you struggle in your mind to make that make any sense why because this is written by a hebrew person in a circular chiastic structure that's culminating in the middle not a linear line right so if you've ever struggled with that doesn't make any sense linearly good that's a great thing because it wasn't written linearly now i want to give you an example of how this book works by looking at just one of the letters to the seven churches tonight we'll start back in chapter one and go forward but i'm gonna look at one of the letters to seven churches to illustrate how this book works to make jesus bigger the cross work better the resurrection be central and scripture be bigger not smaller that's our goal anytime we open the bible when i open the bible i take it very seriously we want to ask at least two questions one what happened and two and more importantly what's happening in me right now because of what happened not it doesn't do us any good to understand what happened if we're not going to do anything about what the holy spirit's doing in our heart because of what happened right so with that in mind here we go this is revelation chapter 3. to the angel of the church in sardis write this these are the words of him who hold the seven spirits of god and the seven stars so much going on in that sentence let me give you a a a brief or not so brief history lesson to try to open the scripture up about what john is actually talking about here when a jewish person said the seven spirits of god he's re he's referencing the seven spirits of god that was on the menorah that identified them it'd just be like saying he's the messiah sometimes they made that broad about seven messengers or seven spirits but it's about the seven lights the seven lampstands but then he throws something else in he says oh and by the way he doesn't just hold the seven spirits of god he holds the seven stars now that was an in-your-face confrontation to a caesar named domitian now at this time the romans were ruling the whole world under one world government is this sounding familiar the one world government was not something necessarily that will happen in the future although it might it was something that was happening in their present one guy who said he was god was ruling the entire known world he was a megliomaniac he was a narcissist he thought he was the fullness of god and flesh the roman poet virgil said that in caesar was the fullness of god incarnate and no other name on earth by which men can be saved other than the name of caesar domitian happened to be the caesar at the time now how do you get word from spain to india that you are god in flesh and here are your powers here's what they would do no printing press no electricity town criers are highly unreliable here's what would happen you would know that it was an official message from the government if it was on money right because back then there was tension between what was real news from the government and what was fake news that doesn't apply today at all but back then they struggled with when we hear something is that something that's real or is that something that's fake and one of the ways the government said you'll know it's from us if it was on legal money why because money made its way across the empire fairly quickly and your job in the community was when you got a coin was to read the coin to the community because that was the message of caesar to the to the world and so if you ever want to know about roman history check the money check the coin it's always in the coin and so domitian said he was god and flesh and that he was the reason the world was being held in place because he was sitting on top of the world you might think i live in a palace in rome but actually at night i sit on top of the world and i hold the seven stars in place so that the world can stay moving and he put this on money let me show it to you here is the domitian star coin there he is that's domitian presumably as the gerber baby sitting on top of the world juggling and you can count the stars juggling the seven stars around the outside of the coin it is in latin but you could probably tell what it says it says domitian god saves domitian our god saved so this is john writing to these oppressed people in asia minor going wait a minute wait a minute the guy that says he's holding the seven stars in place he says he's gotten flesh but he's doing nothing but raping and pillaging and oppressing and and holding you down he's not the guy holding the seven stars in place our guy is holding the seven stars in place you would be killed for owning a copy of this this was the death penalty sort of stuff this is why we never had a bible to the mid 300s why because constantine had to make the whole thing legal before you could start printing this stuff because you would die it was held in underground things this is john going hey our guy is holding the seven stars in place now domitian was a particular narcissist he says he's sitting on top of the world holding the seven stars in place and he says that he was the fullness of god incarnate now if you say you're the fullness of god incarnate the question is what which god and he said glad i am glad you asked he said i'm actually full of the spirit of two gods the first one was the god jupiter the god of war valor and victory and as long as i am in charge of rome rome will never lose a battle because i am full of the god of war valor and victory the god jupiter and of course how do you get that message around the empire you put it on money here it is this was the domitian jupiter coin on the left you have domitian there you can sort of read that around that's the head of domitian on the tail side of the coin was the god jupiter reminding people that he was full of the god jupiter but you can't just be full of war valor and courage and victory that makes you sound terrifying you also have to be full of a god of virtue and humility and justice and that god goddess was roma so he said i'm a fully balanced person not only am i full of the male god jupiter war valor victory and courage i'm also full of the female goddess roma the goddess of justice and virtue and purity here is the roma coin here she is there's roma she's always depicted in coins coming in on horseback to rome rome was called the city of seven hills that's her holding the scales of justice coming in on horseback to the city of seven hills can you see now why john said something like this and i saw a great descending on a horse to the city of seven hills this is in your face stuff this is not this this is this is john going hey the goddess you think is a goddess of virtue not only is she not virtuous she's the opposite of virtuous she's a this is like in your face stuff do you see where this makes infinite more sense than trying to figure out if it's literal about the future you imagine waiting for a horde to come down from the sky on a horse i hope to god that's a metaphor right because let's just all be honest there's nothing scarier than a on a horse like right this is obviously something else this is john going wait a minute the roman goddess you think is the goddess of virtue not only is she not virtuous she's a she's the worst in afrikaans i think it's a up appeared right it's just i did that right it's that it's it's the idea that wait a minute this guy is saying he's full of the goddess of virtue purity look at how he lives she must be a like this is in your can you see where the first century people reading this in asia minor under that level of oppression they would have been like oh yeah now this gets better anybody bored yet okay good all right so here's this gets better so domitian's advisor said hey man there's a place in ephesus called the agora it's where we get the word agoraphobia from agora was the central marketplace it was the wall street of the day it's it's it was on the porch so you if you came from china india places like that in the east you could come there you came from the west you'd come there and you'd buy and sell and trade and then you'd go back and sell the stuff as a at a profit so so the domitian's advisors they were like hey here's what you should do you should put a tax a sales tax on everything in the agora and enrich yourself he said no i won't do that because that'll make me unpopular here's how narcissistic he was he said you know what i'll do i won't raise taxes i'll make a law that you have to give an offering to me just for the divine privilege of having a god rule you and you can't buy and sell until you give this offering so here's what he did he built four ekklesias churches to his honor around the agora to poke fun at the jews he had his ten mightiest deeds inscribed on two stone tablets in other words your ten i got mine he put that up to prove he was god outside of the agora was this huge pantheon of the gods it was open aired here's what he did he put a ceiling on top of the pantheon of the gods and on top of that ceiling he built a 28-foot tall statue of himself and he said see not only am i the king of kings i'm also the lord of lords and if i wasn't the god of gods those gods would have stopped me but since they didn't stop me even the gods bow to god almighty caesar domitian so the jews came up with a nickname for him they called him the beast who comes from land and sea why because no matter whether you come by land or coming by sea the first thing you saw was that 28 foot statue of domitian and he was the beast who comes from land and sea and here was the rule before you could buy and sell in the agora you had to first give an offering just for the divine privilege of having domitian rule you the problem is is how do you police that so here's what he did he built four churches to his honor around the agora and he put two witnesses in each church they were called the acolytes the witnesses and their job was to watch you give your offering before you could buy and sell in the agora and when the two witnesses gave you get gate witnessed you giving the offering they would give you a mark in your forehand or in your forehead and this told the managers of the agora that you had paid your homage to domitian and you can now buy and sell this happened from 78 a.d to 92 a.d so from 78 a.d to 92 a.d in order to buy and sell in the roman empire you first had to take the mark of the yes so you had to do this now domitian that nobody's bored yet okay good all right so here's what would happen right so domitian and tell me where you've heard this before this should really really ring a bell domeship said wait a minute all the gods have olympic games to their honor and i don't so i'm going to start that jupiter has it roma has it they they the mithra has it they all have these olympic games here's what he did he started an olympic style games to his honor it was held biannually in the roman coliseum and he he creatively called it the domitian games tell me where you've heard this before here's what he did to show his dominance over the roman empire he divided the roman empire into 12 districts and required each of the 12 districts to give up two delegates to travel to the roman coliseum to participate in the domitian games which was a multi-event fight to the death amongst all of this stuff the only district absolved from having to give up two delegates was the capital city is this sounding familiar the capital city did not have to do because it was for their entertainment and the capital city citizens were given honorary roman citizenship and by the way this is true guaranteed a living wage off of the excessive taxation of everybody else in the empire and that living wage was called and this is true the dole now so they they were given a living wage based on the excessive taxation of everybody else just for living in the roman capital city you would get to the domitian games at the domitian games you were given two things you were given white robes and gold crowns why because domitian wanted to create the greatest choir ever created to sing his praises the domitian game started with a hymn of praise being sung to domitian the son of god it sounded something like this we praise you o domitian o son of god for you alone are worthy of all honor and glory and power and blessing we praise you o domitian o son of god for you alone are worthy of all honor glory power and blessing and then they would cast down their crowns that they were given at his feet can is this starting to make sense and i saw that we were that we were wearing white robes and gold crowns and we were casting down our golden crowns around the glassy sea but we were singing a new song in other words i've seen how this ends and domitian doesn't get the last word jesus does by the way domitian paid 24 people in three eight hour shifts to follow him around and tell him how great he was and i saw the 4 and 20 elders sitting around the throne oh by the way the domitian games ended with a final four it started with 24 people it ends with a final four because 20 of them are already dead the final four was a final event a four horse horse race a chariot race a four chariot of a different color and it was like ben hur you'd go around until somebody was dead once someone was and i saw the four horse it yeah and and when the when the first one the last person was alive they were declared the domitian games champion and they were given honorary roman citizenship into the roman capital city where they were guaranteed a living wage called the dole at that point if you're paying attention there are 23 dead bodies all over the colosseum floor the last scene of the domitian games was two characters one called death and one called hell and they would come in on horseback and clean up the dead bodies and i saw death in hell descending on horseback to the city of seven hills is this ringing a bell to anybody this is a guy who's fed up he's like you've already bowled me in oil and i survived you can't do more to me than that i'm now writing a letter to eat your lunch it is that i'm going to call your gods i'm going to call your leaders imposters and i am going to declare that there's a new narrative that people can live by that's better than the one you're purporting this went on for 14 years in 94 a.d a young lady from district 12 took on the capital city with a bow and arrow and that's how it i'm i'm joking about that you're like really no no that that's from the hunger games it was all nothing so um anyway but same basic narrative all right now with that as my best effort explaining what happened let's look at see if it makes the scripture make any sense this is about sardis so a quick history of sardis so sardis was an important part of the lydian empire in persia it was on the main road from ephesus where the agora is to the main parts of asia minor it was built as a lower city and an upper city 1500 meters separating the the two it hit it hit its stride under the rule of a guy named crisis if you watch the news it's still a metaphor today rich's creases if someone's really rich they're rich as creases crisis is in the discussion for being perhaps the richest guy who's ever lived it was the first place to master in the world to master the art of spinning wool before crisis people would wear whole animals then chris has got this idea he's like wait a minute if we shear the sheep spin it into wool the sheep will grow more wool next year and and then we'll have we'll have renewable energy and and they're like that's amazing the kiwis are like we figured that out a long time ago but this was creases his creases his idea it was the first place to make coin in such a way that standardized the gold in each coin like before crisis you had to do all these tests and now chris is like now i can figure this out we'll standardize the coins then then you have to worry about being ripped off so much it's so then it it it gets better he he standardized the minting of coin and then he found the largest deposit of gold ever found in the history of the world up to that time under his feet right this guy lands on his feet they discovered the largest deposit of gold ever in the history of the world under the upper city so crisis builds a huge army to protect the resources and what he did is he built a 40-foot high wall around the 1500 meter rock face to make it impenetrable because think about it if your city is sitting 1500 meters high on a rock face and you build a 40 40 foot high wall on top of that no one any famously declared sardis as an impenetrable city here's the problem it kept being attacked here's what happened in 546 bc cyrus the persian attacked and plundered the city with a surprise attack here's what he did he sent spies to find a way into sardis they couldn't find a way here's what happened a guy in charge of watching the wall boringest job ever fell asleep on top of the wall and his helmet fell on the outside of the wall and went down to the valley instead of going back to the army barracks and admitting he fell asleep and and getting a new helmet because that could have been punished he snuck down through a secret tunnel that was dug from the middle of the city down through the mountain for the military to avoid times like this he goes down gets his helmet comes back up through the secret passageway which revealed to the spies which revealed to the spies the way into the city to planet and here's what they did in the middle of the night while everyone was sleeping they used that secret secret passageway with a small special forces platoon they went up through that secret passageway and they didn't kill anybody they just robbed them blind in the middle of the night while everyone was asleep that happened at 546 bc in 398 bc antiochus the great did it again so once everyone was dead that forgot about that it happened again in 334 bc alexander the great did it uh again so this was a city that was known for falling asleep and getting complacent and getting everything taken from them in their complacency let's stop and ask a question about this is australia that much different than sardis sardis was the most affluent place in the world beckton australia is in the top ten we wake up this morning with motor cars paved roads stores that pre-packaged food for us clean water in our tap machines that do washing other machines that do drying world-class healthcare right down the road and it's largely free we are we are sardis we are the people who have so much money we don't know what to do with it our 19 year old children can consider taking a year off call it a gap year walk around europe look at old buildings and drink 10 coffee how on earth did we ever get to that that is called blessed that is called beyond that is called beyond rich that is called you might live with the notion that we don't need god at all look at our security look at our money look at everything we have i think we might find ourselves in sardis a bit um the religious rule sardis was ruled and dominated by the religious rule of a goddess named qibla she was the daughter of zeus and twin of apollo she was also known as artemis or diana depending on other places i'd like in the center of sardis right down the road there was a temple there was a temple to qibla and then right down the road was the main temple of qibla let me show you a picture of qibla i found a picture of her she's something else let me show you let me this is kibala there she is isn't she something she was the goddess of fertility because i don't want to be rude but she's got a lot of nourishment there right um she uh because let's be honest even even when they're 3 500 years old and made of stone a 20 breasted woman is just awesome it's just awesome she was the goddess of fertility she was also she was also the goddess of the hunt so here's what you'd do before you'd go hunting for food because even if you had money there's no grocery stores you had to go hunt for food so so you you would go and you would give an offering to qibla and ask for her favor uh to bring to to bring animals into your sight so you could hunt the problem was she was also the goddess in charge of protecting small animals so there was a conflict of interest there's this um there's this one story from sardis about a famine like the richest place in the roman empire and they couldn't get food they couldn't find food now think about this if you're that rich and you can't find food who have you offended qibla so here's what they did they came and brought more offerings to qibla didn't work more offerings didn't work more offerings didn't work they were at the end of the road people were starving in the richest place in the roman empire how is this happening so here's what they did a group of men in a religious frenzy went to the temple of qibla and to show their devotion to qibla how does a group of men show a woman that they're dedicated to her what's what's our most prized possession our testicles so here's what they did it's true here's what they did they in a religious frenzy they self-castrated and they allowed their testicles to be burned on the altar of qibla and they asked qibla to please see this as our loyalty and bring us food to eat so by the way if you think the world's getting worse please consider again they they oh by the way in 1908 archaeologists found the temple of qibla and they restored it and it's now they found this altar and it's now a tourist attraction so if you're ever in turkey and you go by the temple of qibla and you find the altar don't sit on it it's got history okay so right right can you see a couple thoughts about this right a couple thoughts right can you see where when paul said in christianity i do not permit a woman to have authority over a man that it might be relevant that she was the goddess controlling the whole thing this might have been an in-your-face confrontation to qibla not a blanket statement about all women everywhere good lord man that's one can you also see where the the work of the spirit of god in the world has made the world so much better like this is where i get i get disheartened with christians who their their view of god must be this big you know like i was in melbourne when when the whole election happened with scott morrison right and and remember he was nine points behind the night before right and then he won right and look i'm glad he won that's not my problem my disheartening was the level of panic amongst christians if he wasn't going to win people like oh this is real oh god shane shane oh god if he loses they're going to take the lord's prayer plaque out of part what listen i don't mean to be johnny raincloud here but if the lord's prayer is not active in someone's heart having it on plaque isn't doing anything right and and the god we serve overcame the primordial watery chaos to create creation he overcame the flood he overcame the babylonian empire he overcame he overcame the assyrian empire he overcame tiglath polizer he overcame antiochus epiphanes spreading pig's blood throughout the holy of holies he overcame pompe magnus walking in there removing the furniture and not dying in 63 bc he overcame the roman empire he overcame domitian he overcame qibla he overcame the dark ages i think he can handle donald trump right like come on like like how small do we think this is like with jesus what are we gonna do if if if labor gets in what jesus like what labor i overcame that are you kidding me right now this was first century sardis she received worship by the way through open-aired orgies so if you if you ever thought if you ever thought oh the man this generation is just out of control is so debaucherous what are you talking about this was the world that jesus and paul and james and john came in and changed forever now that is my best effort explaining what happened let's see if this scripture opens up to us a bit i know your deeds you have a reputation for being alive but you're actually dead wake up strengthen what remains and is about to die for i have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my god remember therefore what you have received and heard hold it fast and repent but if you do not wake up i will come like a thief and you will not know what time i'll come this is a city that had a history of falling asleep in their complacency and getting robbed blind this is absolutely john knowing his history and recording this with jesus watch this yet you have a few people in sardis who have not sold their clothes that's an odd transition wake up or i'll rob you uh yet you have a few people this artist that have not sold their clothes they will walk with me dressed in white for their worthy the one who is victorious will like them be dressed in white i will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life but will acknowledge that name before my father and his angels whoever has ears let him hear what the spirit says to the churches so may we this morning be blessed by reading that prophecy out loud but we also are blessed by hearing and keeping what it says so to the angel the church at sardis what if we said to the angel at the church in the gold coast i don't think we're much different than sardis minus the open-air orgies minus the testicular castrations minus some of the crazy stuff i think in terms of security and safety and money and affluence and importance i think we run the same risk and i think the spirit of god would say these five things to us wake up what are you doing you can't rest on what you did yesterday nor can you think too much about tomorrow you wake up today with infinite possibilities to do everything god has called us to do in this world here now today that christianity is not an exercise and going somewhere else after death rather it's an exercise of waking up every day saying yes to the infinite possibilities that christ has for us to bring heaven to every place we see hell here and it's time for us to wake up i get it we have more money than any generation ever before us ever have we have more privilege we have more things at our disposal but we have less needs than ever before what's interesting is we have more depression which is weird so there is not a correlation between more stuff and actually more happiness that's a whole nother sermon for a whole nother day but what we can do is get complacent and forget that actually there are infinite things that we can participate in in in bringing heaven to every place we see hell here with the rise of christ so i i would say he would say wake up number two your deeds are not yet finished god's not done with you like i realize that medicine is keeping us alive longer than ever before we're living in our 80s now so middle age has went up and up and up retirement that one of the issues about about medicine keeping us alive more is we'll need more money for longer and and i get that and you know what you know we're going to figure that out but the truth of it is is the temptation is is once we hit a certain point we think oh i'm done i've done my part and i think i i think i think the spirit of god would say the same thing to us to wake up that our deeds are not yet finished god is not done number three to remember and hold it fast to remember remember the the option remember the umpf you had when you first came to god you had all these possibilities in your head and then the white noise of the world gets in there and it diminishes the voices of the infinite possibilities that god has for us and and i think i think the spirit of god would call us back to hold that fast to keep that vision in front of us this is an ancient reference to an ancient rabbi's teaching that says this a fleeting imagination will not hurt you nor help you a fleeting imagination will not harm you nor will it help you but a disciplined imagination where you can discipline your imagination to see it and hold it and see it and hold it that your reality ultimately flows to the disciplined imagination i think the spirit of god would say wake up your deeds aren't finished go back and hold fast the vision god gave to you number four repent just simply that just simply means to return to your dream to turn around and think about things differently if if the book of revelation is anything it's a call to think differently about how the world works caesar is not lord jesus is and how does that change how we interact with one another how's that change how we live in our world somewhere we've believed the wrong narrative we're going to talk about more about that this week but the call would be to repent to turn around to come back number five to be encouraged by each other he he does this weird segue he says wake up your deeds are not finished repent hold it fast return to your dream he does all this and then right in in a really sort of awkward transition he says oh and remember there's a lot of people in sardis that haven't sold their clothes that's weird that was that's a weird thing until you think of the history could you imagine trying to live for christ in sardis like if you thought the gold coast was hard what are you talking about sardis first of all if you got caught living for christ and proclaiming him you died that first second could you imagine trying to explain christ's way of taking care of the poor and the marginalized in the richest place in rome could you imagine trying to explain moral purity in sardis where qibla is in the open air this wasn't that big of a place either it wasn't like you could hide you walked out of your front door and they could be worshipping qibla right there and it was legal could you imagine you you could start believing that you were the only one in the world and nothing skews our view of reality like loneliness when we think we're alone it skews everything and jesus reminds the people of sardis he says hey i know you can't announce it from the rooftops you'll die but if you look around and pay attention there's a lot of people in sardis that have not soiled their clothes there's a lot you think you're alone and i realize that you can't meet together it's not like you can it's not like you could call a church service it's not even like you can announce it see christianity in the first century was all about how you lived and nothing about what you said you believed which was fundamentally better like the world is sick of all this is what we believe so what so what if you believe all the correct things if it doesn't affect how you're living in your world in the first century you had to go backwards you had to figure out what they believed by how they lived that you you'd watch your neighbor for weeks i wonder if he's one of us because if you said it and he wasn't right so you'd watch him for weeks how's he treat his wife how's she treat her husband hey did they sue somebody because that's that's look are they kind to the poor and the afflicted you know i saw them three weeks in a row walked to the lower city to take care of people who didn't they might be they might be one of us but then you'd walk out you'd see the orgies you'd see all the nastiness you'd see the craziness you'd see all this and you'd start thinking i might be all by myself and it's interesting to me that in the letter to sardis the last thing he leaves them with is look around you're not by yourself be encouraged by each other you're not by yourself because here's the problem with a meeting like this the problem with the meeting like this is you can come in and you can have a meaningful experience with god but leave lonelier than ever before and then the whole thing loses its oomph that that part of what you guys build around here is that time afterwards so that you could you could walk up and give someone i'll i'll use this word loosely although i really mean this a prophetic word but in general a prophetic word is just an encouragement like it's just saying hey you're a good mom you're a good dad hey i can't do anything to fix the tumor in your ear but you won't be alone through that right like i can't fix it but you're not alone right hey that thing that's going on with your adult child i'm so sorry i can't do anything to fix it but you will not walk through it it's it's that kind of thing this is how jesus said and i think it's interesting um a guy struggled with this in the old testament as well and i get my elijahs and elijah's mixed up but i'm thinking this is the jeff but he and he replied i've been very zealous for the lord god almighty the israelites have rejected your covenant torn down your altars and put your prophets to death with the sword i'm the only one left i am the only one left i'm the only one and now they're trying to kill me too that's called despair that's horrible that's like suicidal that's that is bad that is a bad place to be in your emotions watch what god says to him yet i reserve seven thousand in israel all whose knees have not bowed down to baal in his mouth let you think you by yourself the 7 000 of you get your head out of the ground and look up and look around and realize that you are not alone so my brothers and sisters of the gold coast may we not simply dismiss revelation as something that might happen someday but let us examine it for what it does to us here now today living in our world may we wake up realize our deeds are not finished may we be inspired to say yes to the infinite possibilities may we remember and hold it fast return to that dream get that off and that fire back and look around and before you leave here today give a word of encouragement to somebody and realize you are not alone i can't wait to journey through this book with you we'll see you guys tonight at five grace and peace everybody god bless

Channel: David Cooper NZ

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Id: 3bpFPx_tMJA

Length: 44min 3sec (2643 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 14 2020