Jesus & His Church

Service of Organization

Have you ever seen something so revolting, that the sight of it makes you sick to your stomach? The first few years of us having kids – I’m getting better – but for the first few years, Amy was out of necessity the designated vomit cleaner-upper – sorry to be gross – but I simply could not handle it without needing to run to the bathroom myself because the sight and smell of it made me want to vomit. I’m…

Let’s play, “what’s different?” with our passage for this morning. If you’ve been here for the other sermons in our series, try to think about something that has been at least present but generally somewhat prominent in the other Churches but is strikingly or suspiciously absent – not even mentioned  – in the letter to the church of Sardis. And that thing that’s absent, is opposition/persecution.  In all the other churches there’s been at least mention of those churches facing…

This is the longest letter; written to the Church in the smallest, least important city of all the 7 in these 2 chapters of Revelation. And, I think that’s important for us in particular to reflect upon and remember. Because Jesus doesn’t value things as the world does; and just because this church is in a small town doesn’t mean he is unconcerned with it or less concerned with it – he still knows what is going on in its…

Jesus is really among us; We need to strain to hear his voice and listen. Because Jesus is extraordinarily concerned about the state of his Church. We saw the birth and blueprint of the Church in the book of Acts, and the earliest life of the Church; but it doesn’t take long for the Church to get off track; and here in Revelation Jesus is confronting his Church – encouraging the good but rebuking the bad. And the Church needs…

In the middle of the second century there was a Church leader named Polycarp. He knew the apostle John personally, and was a leader at the church in Smyrna – the very church to which these words of Jesus were originally directed. Polycarp died a martyr’s death, for refusing to offer a sacrifice to Caesar or acknowledge Caesar as Lord. And according to the account of his death, when he is told to forsake Christ, he responded by saying this:…

This week we are looking to the first of Jesus’ seven addresses to 7 churches in Asia Minor, given as part of his Revelation to the apostle John. In our last series – we saw the birth of the NC Church – and sort of the blueprint of what the church is supposed to be and to do; and here in Revelation – we see Jesus visiting his Church – evaluating, inspecting, encouraging, commending, rebuking – to see in which…

The Vision of Jesus 2 Reactions: undue excitement; abject fear undue excitement: curiosities are peaked, as though the primary and sole purpose of Revelation is to satisfy our curiosities about the future; to enable us to be code-crackers about every current event; or to assure us and bolster our pride that our way of thinking is correct over and against what those other people think – whether they be liberals whose view of the bible is too sophisticated even for…