How do y'all handle fears? Like is anybody here like really afraid of something? I'm really worried. Yeah, so I have a pretty infamous fear and I feel that I have to kind of tell people this every few months Because it's such a surprise that actually changes things a little bit sometimes I'm definitely afraid of fish.
Some of y'all know that. I see people look at me really funny right now That happens if you don't believe me and you know Ben Nicholson ask him he's seen it happen twice once when an Asian carpet jumped in a duck boat with us and I almost jumped out of the duck boat the first time in my life I ever held a fish was two years ago when my four-year-old niece made fun of me for being scared of fish and here's a picture I have gloves on Those are only what I would do it But so so we have silly fears, but also there's some times we have like legit like this is an a massive anxiety inducing fear in our lives and I can think of two times in my life that this has actually happened and One of them I'm gonna tell you about because it has something to do with what we're gonna talk about for next I seven weeks here at Foundry, but when I have like these legit adult like major moments of anxiety I found that I have to handle it two ways. I have to handle it really seriously and I have to handle it really silly It's the exact same time so I can make fun of it I can make fun of my fear then I also got try to alleviate the actual tension point that's going on And when I was in seminary I talked with a few weeks ago and I spent really the first several years thinking I was going to go on and teach the history of Christian worship at the graduate level and one summer a Special survey course of the book of Revelation came on the schedule and I need to gain three hours of biblical studies And I thought it's pretty funny that the call number for the class I remember when you were in school There's like an initial in the letters like the call number for the class was in t666 I was like well of course I'm gonna take that sounds awesome, right? So I took this revelation class It was wild because I coming up to it how many else all the video where I told you back going to go and have him underwear on Facebook this You can go back and watch if you didn't like I was like I'm gonna conquer this fear here Okay, so we go in so I take this class.
It's just completely different story It was a kind of re-wrapping of this of this like growing up in a Baptist church like the whole like 70s 80s 90s like 88 reasons the world's gonna end in 1988 kind of a thing it was a book I have like 15 copies of these people always give them to me and they hear the story But I took this class and it just it kind of really like reshapes and things So that was the summer of 2008 also what you need to know is I come from a long line of paranoid rednecks My grandfather buried water before Y2k So summer of 2008 what happens in the fall of 2008? You remember the massive financial crash and gasoline starts going we're in Kentucky the time gas got like 425 a gallon in preparing We're at neck. There's also like I kid you not a doomsday cult started up in the town where we lived in like not joking What's over at all and so Chad goes from this is funny to a paranoid redneck marith called me every time I go to Walmart I'd buy like a gallon jug of water and a box shotgun shells Because I was like I was like legit worried not finally after she found my stash of shotgun shells She's like we have to put a conversation about this and I realize like man I'm like this was actually kind of pitiful thing and so what I found myself doing was Okay, I'm gonna attack this like I've attacked other things in this manner And so I'm gonna go completely to the silly I started reviewing zombie movies online And I should kind of got a little bit of a following doing that for a while It was like a funny like stupid silly thing then also this book that I initially was interested in because The book of Revelation has so much of early Christian worship built into it I threw myself into the study what I found was instead of like in a silly way of trying to alleviate a weird fear of my life Finding this story that I had at that point in time. I was 28 years old I've been in ministry for almost six years by then and I was like how did I I never thought about this?
No, a lot of us we have either fears of revelation in conversation about the end time stuff or we're way too obsessed with it Like I've been sometimes But what I found out more often not in the church what we've done is we kind of don't want to tango with this book So we kind of pretend it's just not there and it's in the very back of the Bible so we can we can handle that emotionally We can kind of forget that it's there like every now and we'll pop into it We're really not gonna do anything with it and it's time for us to have this conversation because revelation is so important to us as a church It's the it's the end of the story, but it's also like the eternity of the story It's the it's the part of the story that finishes things all for us. It's the part of the story is that uh That gives us idea of what does it mean for us to be the church? But I also think that especially right now that that there is no greater book for the church to read Is it seeks to be engaged in the world than the book of Revelation? Because Revelation was written to a church that was asking questions What does it mean to be engaged in this world right now because everything's great great and would you all say things are normal right now?
This is the book that the church needs throughout all time Not functioning as though like there's this I think there's this weird tension if you grew up in church There's this whole thing always hey Jesus come back. Just come back, but not when I'm alive I kind of want to get to do things still Come on, you know you thought that before But this is a book for the church throughout and into and across all times I'm excited about these few weeks, but they're gonna be a little bit different than what you might think they might be But Revelation is a picture of eternity. It's about God with us Not us with God and so what we're gonna look is like what does it mean to live a life? Where God is completely and fully with us now and offers himself to all extremities and infinities and everything beyond in the future one of the things that we say is the church that we're storytellers We're not date setters So if you were hoping we play some Bible math over the next few days give you a calendar date to put nikal It's not gonna be that way, but we're gonna talk more about the story of Jesus and what's going on because here's the thing the way that we worship Is the church then forms our practice as Christians in the way that we practice our life as Christians It informs our worship in church and the way we worship in church and you see how this is a cycle that continually gets bigger and bigger and bigger So let's jump into the story today.
We'll begin in Revelation chapter 1 verse 4 So what scripture tells us this is a letter from John to the seven churches in the province of Asia Grace and peace to you from the one who is who always was and it's still to come from the sevenfolded spirit before his throne and From Jesus Christ He is the faithful witness to these things the first to rise in the dead and the ruler of all the kings of the world All glory to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us He's made us a kingdom of priests for goddess father and all glory and power to him forever and ever amen Look he comes with the clouds and everyone will see him even those who pierced him and all the nations of the world will mourn for him Yes, amen I'm alphanio mega the beginning of the end says the Lord God I am the one who is who always was and is still to come the Almighty one So this is the way that we're gonna kind of handle this over these next few weeks because revelation tends to be a little cryptic I mean, I understand this easily. Do you have this already? So we're gonna talk about first when it's in three acts We're gonna talk about what does this mean? We talk about why does this matter and then we're gonna talk about now.
What do we do? It's not a three-passing and takes this so what does this mean? Okay, let's get into some interesting stuff here the very first thing we read about is that this coming from John is a letter to the seven churches and it's a letter and God in the sevenfolded spirit is coming through about revelation is interesting because in the New Testament no book uses biblical Numbers like revelation does what else we find out is that revelation has more Old Testament illusions than any other book in the New Testament Almost more the entire New Testament combined John who wrote this book was very well steeped in Old Testament So it's really hard to read revelation without having read the Old Testament a bunch and in the Old Testament We find that seven is a number of wholeness. It's a number of completion.
It's a number of unity there's seven days to a week This is perfectly done We read this these seven churches are interesting as these seven churches that read about chapters two and three We're trying to talk about on Sundays But these are the seven known churches in this wide entire area So this letter John saying this this letter belongs to the whole church in its entirety The sevenfold spirits of God is the complete the whole spirit of God So we see this in this number seven the next thing we read is a phrase that repeats itself throughout the book of revelation We want who was who is and is to come we read in verse four and verse eight of what we read today But this is Jesus telling us that all of time is embraced in the presence of God God is before God is here now And God is after and that Jesus is the faithful witness to this presence of God throughout all time Verse eight also says I'm the alphan the omega the beginning and the in the alphan Omega are the first in the last letter the Greek alphabet The entire course of human history is wrapped up in who Jesus is there was in the time where Jesus wasn't and there won't be a time Where Jesus isn't that he is completely across all time and says he's all my we use that term I work for a million with that phrase what we really see here is that he is supreme Over all things in this verse these four four verses really talk about one thing today. We're talking about power That God in and who he is as father stone and holy spirit have taken themselves completely across the full range of human experiences They no matter what happens they have authority over them that they're in control and not and they're not controlling but they're in control But there's no way we can one up who God is we can't create something new that he hasn't seen that he hasn't dissipated He hasn't dealt with before He's the one who is who was an is to come we also find out and though It's that the first century especially the latter part of the first century that the Roman world was absolutely obsessed with power That they had just they thought that Caesar the Emperor arranged supremely that Caesar the Emperor was a deity that he was a God himself And so much of the language of Revelation is consistently just pushing against this idea is almost taken and not almost Taking language that was used and applied to the Emperor of Rome is using it instead for Jesus to completely get across this idea And this world's obsessed with power. They I did this idea that the peace of the land is attached to how well the citizens worshiped the Emperor If the citizens this is where actually like you want like why did persecution happen like persecution didn't happen because someone decided not like Christians They persecuted Christians because they would not worship the Emperor and they believed if not everyone was worshiping the Emperor That means the peace of the Empire would fall The Christian worship was seen as a subversive act against the Empire in a world completely obsessed With absolute power but think about that are we all that different? When you say that each one of us is obsessed with power in some way That each one of us wants to be in control of things The each one of us at times wants to experience the life where at the top of the food chain Each one of us wants people consistently must be honest ourselves here We want people to think about our needs first instead of us thinking about their needs Nothing in many ways We're still and we always will be obsessed with absolute power This part of the fall in nature of our human relationship at this moment revelation can instantly speak into every single point of human existence And of where we are because Jesus is the one who actually has the power so why does this matter to us?
What's the big deal? Why we need to pay attention to this? You know this this message is written to these churches, but this message is written to us as a church right now It's written for us to understand who's really in charge and what power looks like You know in scripture power and New Testament is a Greek word dynamist So we got our word dynamite from that power is the idea of what is a true show of strength? But not what do you say you can do what do you actually have the ability to do?
Now y'all I can watch as many YouTube videos as I want about how to try to fix something on my truck But I have little to no chance of actually doing that Hey, how many times have you tried something and you went into it guys? I'm talking to you because we're kind of bad about this you get yourself into a situation where you realize that you do not have the ability to Do what you said you were gonna do okay? washing machine college bummer's bummer's buddy 15 gallons of water all over the trailer floor. That's the first time I learned that lesson.
I'm still learning that lesson See true power is what do you have the actual ability to do? Not what do you think you can do not what you can convince somebody you can do but no what are you actually capable of doing? The ability to express strength in this first passage We read about Jesus and it gives us an idea of who he is sitting from Jesus Christ He is the faithful witness to these things the first to rise from the dead and the ruler of all the kings of the world But riders not telling us he's not projecting hope into who Jesus is he's like no no This is who he is now the best way I can try to explain this to us this like a medieval king or If you watch Game of Thrones the nearest Targaryen thing of her big huge name I have to slide up here try to read it The nearest storm would have house for a period first of her name Queen of the Andals and the Roanar the first men protector of the realm Khaleesi of the great grassy on burnt mother of dragons breaker of chains queen of marine that's her title What John is doing here? The very beginning of a revelation where he's instantly calling out the powers this world is he saying and from Jesus Christ The faithful witness to these things the first to rise from the dead and the ruler of all of the kings of the world These are the things that he has done Already not in the future not something that will happen not something that might happen not something that could happen But something that is true if you think about that Time is incomparable to anything else so from the who was who is who is to calm Jesus It spread out across all time and Jesus is the first one to rise from the dead The two things I absolutely have no control over are time and death Two things I have no power nobody in this room has power over our time and death We can try to organize our calendar as much as we can we can try to exercise as much as we can But we ultimately have no power over that Jesus has this absolute power over these things completely And it's not a new thing people been waiting for this since time began It's it's who he is the creation has been anticipating Jesus is coming Because he already has the power I told you earlier that there's more Old Testament illusions in Revelation than any other book in the testament There's two that are packed in here from the prophecy of Zechariah and the prophecy of Daniel and they make up verse 7 And it says he look he is coming with the clouds of heaven and everyone who see him even those who pierced him and all the nations The world will mourn for him.
Yes, amen But this is a story that Jesus has always had his coming to this earth his life his death his resurrection was not a Action because we did something wrong. It's just simply who he is He holds power over every single thing in creation So what do we do with this what do we do with the idea that Jesus has power of course? We're sitting okay, Jeff Jesus has power we get that we've always said that what's so different about this But think about you know so often when we look into the book of Revelation and what that means There's two emotions that are attached to it. So motion of rejoicing or it's an emotion of mourning We rejoice we see rejoicing in the book or we the idea like mourn like terrified morning morning As one of ways we kind of separate ourselves from this book But what do we as the church do when we begin living our life every day is oh, Jesus has this power?
That's the message John was giving these churches 2000 years ago as the message he's giving us today What happens if you live life as though you understand the true power of Jesus? There's two things I think we do that we hold on and that we hope on We hold on think about this what type of anxiety and worries and fears you think the early church suffered with There's a lot more things that they were fearful of than we are now And there's the same things that people in Christians across the world that are not living in the places we are where they are still Worried and scared of today. There's times in our life where we have to hold on The beautiful thing is Jesus does not have this like like list of who is dealing with the most suffering at the moment That what is the deepest and darkest for each of you is the deepest and darkest that you're experiencing It doesn't mean that Jesus does not care about us because we're a bunch of folks living in America and we're and we're somewhat affluent The other stuff's going on He honors us as individuals And that when we are in just tremendously stressful moments of life that he is there at our deepest with us That we hold on That can we trust in the power of Christ? The first to rise from the dead Now Jesus is big enough.
It isn't just about one big prayer But it's about this consistent belief and a consistent following of who he is and the boundaries of our vision of Jesus and how big he is They end it where our anxiety and our fear starts The founder of our core values we believe God's vision for this world is bigger than our vision for this world That does not happen instantly and that doesn't happen just once but that is a consistent slow forward motion of an experience with Jesus Revelation is an apocalypse. It means a revealing and the apocalyptic Apocalyptic literature was always written to communities that were inside of persecution. It was a popular literary form in the ancient world John wrote this book to people who were suffering persecution and were suffering fear and were suffering all sorts of things to Emperor at the time the mission was known as a horrible person He killed his father and his brother to take on the throne and then ultimately after 15 years even though like he completely like Took a budget of Rome from the red to the black and built tons of stuff and they were peaceful and they were safe He was such a horrible person his own advisers then had him killed Like all the things that you think would make a good emperor did not over weigh the fact that he was just known as mean and cruel So so rather to tell them to hold on But the good news is because of who Jesus is that when we're at our greatest moments of needing to hold on He offers himself completely and fully to us the second thing we do is that we hope on we live as though Jesus is in charge That's what we're saying Chad. I can't do that right now.
You know we can take a step closer in we can take one step closer in That's closer to where we were before we can seek a constant and a consistent growing experience with who Jesus is Of understanding his power his power in our lives and his power through our lives The last is that we call out systems of power that we know go against who Jesus is when we simply say this is not who Jesus is And this is not who us as the churches We hold on and we hope on we know that no matter what he's offering himself It is fullest level to each of us so Jesus we ask to understand You right where we need to right now that we don't need to wait to have experience with you That is big enough God, thank you for loving us and honoring us and and coming to us in the moments in the places where we live And so where we are we ask to simply see you and experience exactly what we need your power right now