Revelation: Seeing the Invisible

Revelation: Seeing the Invisible – February 18, 2024

“A good look at heaven”

Revelation 21-22

What is heaven like? That’s actually a really important question.

Obviously it helps to know about heaven if we ever have to deal with end of life issues. But heaven is so much more than a topic for the end of life.

In my experience, our idea of heaven changes the way we live every day. And if you really know what heaven is like, you’ll feel the power of heaven even nowadays. You’ll be more stable, and more optimistic, and you’ll be more bold, and you’ll have a stronger sense of direction in life. But first we need to get our idea of heaven right.

So our big question today is, what is heaven like? And our big idea is that heaven is a perfect place with perfect relationships. Because it’s a perfect place, we can be excited to go there, and we can be excited to take people there. And because it has perfect relationships, we can experience the power of those relationships even today. My task today is to show you all these ideas from the Bible so that you can have a firm expectation based on God’s words.

Revelation: Seeing the Invisible – February 11, 2024

“Fire and Brimstone”

Revelation 18:1-5

The bible talks about a time when Jesus comes back and gets rid of evil forever. When the Bible talks about the final judgment it sounds pretty scary, and it should cause all of us to pause because all of us have done things that are wrong. There are no perfect people – including myself – nor perfect societies.

But, there is a just and righteous God who will one day overthrow everything that is evil and sinful, including us and whatever empires we have built without Him. The good news, however, is that the Bible tells us that God, out of His great love, has made a way for us to escape the judgment to come.

So, my big question today is: how can we be ready for God’s judgment?

We find our answer in our Bible passage this week. There are two keys for being ready for God’s judgement:

  1. Expect justice
  2. Escape early

Revelation: Seeing the Invisible – February 4, 2024

“To the Church in Pergamum”

Revelation 2:12-18

There’s a prevailing idea in our culture, that as long as there’s consent and as long as you’re not hurting anyone (DIRECTLY), you should do whatever makes you happy. This is the kind of freedom that we celebrate!

And it’s not that bad of a rule. At first glance, the only ones in danger of getting hurt are people who have agreed to it or yourself. And so this is like the main idea of our time. You do you. And everyone has to accept it. And it’s even become a trait of our churches. We turn a blind eye and let people do what they want as long as they’re not hurting anyone.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but today, I just want to make the case that there’s a point when tolerance and compromise becomes harmful. When it’s no longer loving, but just apathetic – “I don’t care what you do or what happens to you, just don’t involve me.” When it’s no longer freedom but it’s slavery – “I can’t NOT do this. I MUST live like this. My heart needs it.”

And so here’s our question today. For ourselves, for our friendships, and for the church…

WHEN MUST WE CONFRONT WHAT IS WRONG?

Our answer is:

1) When INTEGRITY demands it
2) When INFLUENCE demands it
3) When INHERITANCE demands it

We get this from our passage today as we continue our series in Revelations.

Revelation: Seeing the Invisible – January 28, 2024

“To the Church in Smyrna”

Revelation 2:8-11

I think all of us need assurance sometimes. Maybe not specifically a nightmare you had last night, but maybe you’re going through a breakup or maybe dealing with the loss of a loved one. And life feels like a nightmare right now.

Maybe it feels like we are being tested to our absolute limits and it feels like this season will never end. So, my question today is: What assurance do we have when everything goes wrong? 

Our big idea today is Jesus is with us through times of trouble. Today I want to talk about how great it is that we are not alone in the storms of life. Jesus never promises a problem-free life but he does promise to be with us in the trouble.

Revelation: Seeing the Invisible – January 21, 2024

“To the Church in Ephesus”

Revelation 2:1-7

Most of us want to live our best life. We want to thrive as human beings. But it’s totally normal to not thrive. It’s normal to feel stuck in life, or burned out or depressed, or weighed down by all kinds of baggage from our past.

Today we’re starting a new sermon series in the book of Revelation. Revelation is one of the strangest books in all the Bible. It’s full of images of strange creatures and epic battles and plagues and disasters. And it’s written that way, because it’s helping us to understand an invisible world.

See, the most important things in life are invisible. God is invisible. Love is invisible. The past and future are invisible. Heaven is invisible, and souls are invisible. So all these pictures in the book of Revelation help us to understand how all these invisible things work.

In our main Bible passage today, a church is like a lampstand, because it helps people to see the truth of God. And Jesus is walking among seven lampstands, because there are seven churches that originally received this book.

Our big question today is: How can we live our best life by God’s standards? When we unpack our passage we’ll find out two things:

  1. We need EFFORT
  2. We need LOVE