Thank you Isaac. Thank you worship team. I’m going to begin our service this morning just by giving a prayer of thanksgiving. This is a National day of Prayer. I know a number of churches are dedicating some time to prayer today in gratitude for our country, and we’re going to spend more time on that on July 5th, on the 250th anniversary of our country. Though the whole service won’t be about that, but we’ll give more attention to that that day, mainly through the lens. And this is how I’m going to pray this morning of gratitude, that we live in a place where we are allowed to worship freely and openly. Not everybody in the world has that privilege or ability, and we may not always have that by the way, but we have had that. And of course, there are challenges with that. Familiarity breeds contempt. Sometimes persecution brings a greater depth of commitment to faith, and we don’t ask for that. We don’t want that. What we want is the commitment in the midst of the freedom of expression. I’m grateful that we live in a country that at least it’s not a perfect country. We have a lot of flaws for sure, but we have that. And so we’re going to pray and give thanks for that and pray that we would make the most of that freedom individually. We have that freedom. Let’s make sure everyone knows about it. Everyone around you don’t just keep it to yourself. And so let’s pray. Just a prayer of thanksgiving right now. On this day, especially on a week of and I’ll just say this on the front end before I pray, I said I’m going to pray about three times now. One more comment. There are elections this week. No matter how they turn out, our security is in Christ whether they go your way or not. I don’t even know what your way is. Our security is in Christ. Do not be anxious in anything, but in everything. Through prayer and thanksgiving with petition, supplication, make your requests made known to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Our hope is in him, not in the elections. Do your best. Vote your best, hope for the best. Pray for the best. Ultimately, no matter how it turns out, our hope is in him. That’s our joy and our hope and our peace. So I’m going to pray now, I promise. Lord, thank you for this morning that we can worship openly. We can even put it on the internet. We don’t have to worry that the Army or the military is going to come in and shut us down, or the police. God help us to walk in that freedom to not take it for granted every day, to walk in the joy of that, to tell others about you. While we can openly and help us this week to pray faithfully for wisdom, but also to walk in peace, our peace is in you. Our hope is in you. And so we are grateful. We love you. Amen. Well, today we start a new series looking at the seven churches of revelation in the Book of Revelation. I was reminded of an interaction I had with a friend of mine in Little Rock. We lived on a street where a number of them in there met for a Bible study. One of the guys there had started it, and one morning we were meeting and talking about some of the books we like to read. A number of us, and there were readers and one of the books was mentioned, a couple. The guy said, oh yeah, I love that book. That was a great book. And one guy said, oh no, I don’t. I hated that book, it was terrible. I said, really that why do you think that? He said, well, I didn’t read it. I said, okay, well why did you think it was terrible? He said, well, I did. I read the end, I read the ending and decided it wasn’t very good book. I didn’t want to read it. I said, why did you do that? He said, well, I do that with every book I decide I’m going to read. Before I read it, I read the ending first and decide if I like the ending. Then I’ll read the book. And I thought, that is the exact opposite of what every person I know does. Why would you do that? That’s the whole point. You read it so that you can be surprised by the ending and enjoy it. But for him, he didn’t want to risk investing all that energy, reading a book and getting to the end and hating the ending. It would have been the worst thing possible to happen to him. So that’s how he went about it. Now there is some wisdom to that. You’ve heard this in business settings. Begin with the end in mind. If you’re going to take on a new venture, if you’re going to approach anything, you begin. What’s the end goal? Where are you headed towards? What’s the outcome? Start there and work backwards. You want to make sure your life, your actions, your activity are moving you towards that goal. And when we think about the book of Revelation, which is what we’re opening today, that is the end of the story. It’s the end of the book. And we haven’t covered the whole book and our preaching, but we’re looking at the end of the book, because the way you view the end of the story shapes how you live the rest of the story. The way you think about the end of all things shapes how you live your life. And it should. And we’re not going to unpack the whole book of Revelation in the coming weeks. We’re just going to look at the first three chapters at those seven churches of Revelation, because I think we live in an age where there’s a lot of lessons that were given to those churches that are relevant for us today. And it does talk about how the fact and I think many would say it feels like we’re moving towards the end times. We don’t know for sure or not, but we want to follow messages given to churches in that situation and think about how that applies to us today. So we’re going to be in the book of Revelation. If you have a Bible turn there, it’s easy to find. It’s at the end, flip to the back depending on how many maps and concordances and what you have, it’ll be closer to the end than others. If you have a church Bible, it’s on page 976 and we’re just going to read the first few verses of chapter one, because we’re going to spend most of our time in chapters two and three over the upcoming seven weeks as we look at the seven churches. But chapter one helps set that up, helps give us our bearings, helps give our orientation for why we should even be looking at this. So Revelation chapter one, verse one, 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. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it. For the time is near. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come. And from the seven spirits who are before the throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of the kings on earth to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. So here we have these first six verses of chapter one, setting the stage for us to look at the churches. A couple of things to point out to get our bearings. Note that first of all, this is a message directly from Jesus to these churches. It says the revelation of Jesus Christ. This is a message from Jesus to the churches through an angel to John to the seven churches. And this is important because many people, when they think about the book of revelation, they think about weird things like dragons and horses and wrath pouring out and crazy stuff. And you go, I don’t know what to do with that. All this doesn’t make any sense, so I’m just going to stay away from it. But first and foremost, this is a message from Jesus to the church. And if Jesus writes a letter to the church, we can trust that there are things in there we can understand. We don’t have to just give up and think it’s too hard. We can’t understand it. Let’s stay away from it. I wrote in the midweek update this week about two mountain men who had heard that a little girl had been lost in the wilderness in Arkansas, and they go and look for her, and they went, even though they knew it would be hard because they knew it was important. We don’t avoid hard things just because they’re hard when they are important. And yeah, there are things that are going to be hard to understand in the book of Revelation. But it’s important, especially when we know this is how the story ends. It’s worth taking the time to look into it, and we can go into it with confidence. If Jesus writes a letter, there’s going to be things there for us that we can understand that he wants us to hear and know. Also note the word revelation that begins the whole book. It’s the title of the book because it’s the first word of the book. You see it here. The revelation of Jesus Christ. In the original language that word sounds like our word apocalypse. If you just sound it out as it looks in Greek, which, of course, when you think of the word apocalypse, you think of the end of all things, the destruction of the world. And that has certainly some overlap with the book of Revelation. That’s what our English word apocalypse means. But the word in Greek, it meant something more like things that have been hidden are now revealed. They are now disclosed. Things that were hard to understand are now made known, you can hear that it’s been revealed. You hear that word revelation in the word revealed. If you think about the history of Scripture, when Jesus showed up, Jesus revealed the Old Testament promise that was pointing towards him. Because people in Old Testament times knew there was a messiah who would come, and he would come in the form of David, fulfilling the prophecy that he would continue the line of David, the kingly throne. And they knew that there would be a messiah who comes and sets a new covenant, makes all things right, and the Holy Spirit will live within us and will give us a new heart of flesh. They didn’t know exactly what that would look like, but when Jesus came, it was revealed, this is the one you’ve been looking for. And so when we look at the book of Revelation, things that were previously hidden are now revealed. And when he comes again, it will be even more revealed. We will be able to look back and say, oh, this is that. When this happened, it was there. It was written. I see it now. He’s revealing to us his plan for the end of the age, and that will help shape how we live now. Now, I think in terms of why we should think about and care about what this book has to say today for our church today, because it seems too far off, too much, too obscure, too hard to understand. Why should we care about it? I think he gives three reasons why that we’re going to look at today here in chapter one. The first is he addresses our motivations. Our motivations. So what for? Why we should care about this. He gets right to the heart of the matter. Why should you care? What is your motivation? Look back at verse three and he says this. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy. And blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it. First he gives in these, I think, two motivations. The first is we see a conditional promise. Here’s a promise that if you take these words to heart, there is a blessing in store for you. And it’s important to note, by the way, he says, it’s not just those who hear, yes, there is a blessing to simply hearing the book of revelation, hearing the promise of God, hearing the Word of God, but also to those who keep it. And I think anyone who’s been a part of the Christian faith, any amount of time would know. It’s not just merely hearing God’s Word that matters, but it’s also doing it. You’re not saved by doing enough good works to please God, and somehow then he let you in. No, but we are not just hearers. But James talks about that we don’t just hear and turn away like none of it matters the rest of the week. We’re we’re doers too. You live it out. You show that it means something to you by the way you live your life. Some I think when they think about Christianity, think of it more like maybe the way you might add a feature to a new car. You know, I got this new car. It’s nice already. Hey, but now I’m going to upgrade, get that 4×4 package, or I’m gonna make it a little nicer with that leather, all leather interior or upgrade that sound system. So my life was pretty good already. But now I’m going to add on just a little more. I’m going to bring Jesus into it. And he’s going to take was okay, and make it even just a little bit better. And whenever I need it, I’ll lean on him. But otherwise he’s just kind of there, tacked on. But the committed Christian, the faithful Christian, the one who hears and does, looks at that, the completely opposite. He’s not just an added on feature, he’s the very core of everything in my life. Should be. He affects everything I do and think and say every minute of every day. He’s at the center of everything, not just tacked on as a maybe here and there. And that is a huge shift to make in your thinking when it comes to following Christ. Being dependent on him completely and entirely, and everything you do. See, he lives in you. When he came, he put His Spirit within you when you committed to following him. And the question is, will you experience the fullness of that on a day to day basis or not? There’s a conditional promise, but there’s also secondly, a motivation because there is a warning right? There is a blessing. But also he says in verse three, blessed are those who here who keep. But the warning is the time is near. This should also be part of our motivation. The time is near. Because there’s a temptation to think that it’s not near, that life’s just going to go on like it always has been. I mean, just this morning we were talking in our elder prayer time. One of the guys had a friend of a family member or an extended family member who was just riding down the road on their moped this week, the other side of Louisville, just another day. Just another day home from work and was hit and killed. You never know. The time is near. And do we know exactly when he will come? When things will end for this world? Or for me personally? No, but it is near. The time is near. It’s nearer than you think, no matter who you are. For some it’s a lot nearer than others. No matter who you are, it is near. Don’t take it for granted or take it for granted that you have another day to have another minute. That you have another hour. Live every moment with purpose. And so he addresses our motivations here right at the beginning. Here’s why you should care about this book. This tells you how things end and the time is near. Take it to heart. So first he tells us, addresses our motivation. Second, he talks about his operations, meaning his activities, what he does, what he has done on our behalf, and what he will do. So let’s look here back in verse four and five for this first aspect of his operations, John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come. And we, when we refer to Asia, refer more to like China, Japan, Korea. But this would have been like East of Middle East Asia at that time. And this area, Turkey would have been the area in particular, which was often referred to as Asia to the churches in Asia, modern day Turkey. The seven spirits who are before his throne. And then verse five, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood. And then verse eight, I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God. When we think about his operations, first we can look at who he is. And it’s listed here. As we looked at all these things said in verse five, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of the kings on earth, he loves us. He freed us from our sins by his blood. He is the Alpha and the Omega. Jesus is the one sovereign overall. That’s our starting point. That’s who he is. And we live in a world that not only does not acknowledge that, but vehemently denies that that could even be a possibility. All of the culture around you is completely opposed to this idea that Jesus is the founder of all creation. He is preeminent overall. There’s nothing more distasteful or disdained in this world than that idea. In your day to day life, more than likely, everyone around you is doing all they can to deny and oppose and avoid that idea, even if it’s not outwardly. They don’t want to hear it. But don’t forget it’s true. It’s absolute truth. It’s truer than anything else that you experience in this world. The world wants to tell you. Life is all about accomplishments and money and getting your name on a building and more possessions. And that’s everything around you. That’s what everybody is doing, and that’s what they’re all ate up with. But Jesus is the one who is King of kings, Lord of lords, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. That’s what he, that’s who he is. It’s what he has done. But then also what he has done in us. This is letter B, he comes having remade us. He remade us. In fact, look here at verse six, he made us a kingdom of priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. That phrase here in verse six, he made us a kingdom of priests. That’s an important phrase. It goes back to the book of Exodus, when God was giving the law to Moses. He told Moses, I’m going to make the nation a kingdom of priests, meaning everyone to have access to me equally. But the hard part of that is the people didn’t want that. If you look back, they said, Moses, why don’t you go on for us? You you go talk to him. Let’s keep a little distance between us and him. Why don’t you be our go between? And the tragedy of that is you can’t just keep God at a distance. I mean, you can try. It’s not like he goes, hey, fine. I’ll stop being God, since you don’t really want me very close. Now the challenge is he might back off his blessing and involvement in our lives when we say, hey, please just stay at a distance. I prefer a safe God personally, I don’t really want everything that seems dangerous and unknown about you. And I don’t want to have to walk by faith all the time. But you miss out on the fullness of his blessing. And when Jesus came, he restored that idea of a kingdom of priests. We don’t no longer have to go through someone else to go to him. You don’t have to come to church and talk to me. And then I go and talk to Jesus for you on your behalf or anyone else. He says in First Peter, I will remake you a kingdom of priests. I put my Holy Spirit within you. I make your heart new. He’s done that for everyone who knows Christ here. You walk in the joy of that. Now third, in terms of what he has done, what are his operations? Here’s the third one. Verse seven, behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. And all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. The third thing to realize about what he has done, what he will do, he will return. He will return. Just because he hasn’t doesn’t mean he won’t. There will be a day when he returns. And it says here in verse seven, he is coming. He is coming with the clouds. Every eye will see him. It’ll be visible, it’ll be obvious, it’ll be awesome. It’ll be amazing. And yet for some, it will lead to wailing. We talked a lot about this last week. I talked about how I often begin funerals with First Thessalonians four. We do not grieve as those without hope. If you know Christ, you don’t grieve the same as if you don’t. You know you will see them again. But another verse I often talk about is Ecclesiastes 7:2. Better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting. Because the living, this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. He will come back. There will be a day where we are called to account for our lives. The living will lay it to heart. When you’re at a funeral. That’s one of the rare moments in your normal life where you pause for just a minute and you think about your life, and you think about, how would I give an account for my life? I remember being at a funeral of a friend of a friend in high school. This was a guy he was he was popular across the city in high school. I mean, there were people there from dozens of high schools at his funeral. And he was also incredibly crazy. I mean, he was known for being a troublemaker and causing a lot of trouble and being crazy. And I remember sitting there at the funeral and they shared how he died. And some of my friends were like, I don’t even think that’s the whole story. He was into some bad stuff. I remember sitting there thinking, man, what is my legacy going to be like? What will people say about me? Here I am in college. That’s one of the powers of dwelling upon the end of all things. There will be an account for our lives. It’s easy to lull ourselves into thinking it won’t happen, that we can just keep going on as things are all the time. But there will be a time when he returns and that should shape the way you live now. So we have motivations, we have operations. And then here we get to these seven churches. These are the destinations. The destinations for these letters are these seven churches. And so look with me at verse. Let’s look at verse nine here where John begins to directly address them. I, John, verse nine, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus. I was on the island called Patmos on account of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, saying, write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches. And he lists them out here to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. So here he lists these seven churches that we’re going to address, one at a time over the next, next seven weeks. And that number seven is significant in Scripture. You often hear it mentioned. In fact, some will call it the number of completion or the number of perfection. It’s not always indicating that, but many times it does. You can think back to even creation or the six days of creation. On the seventh day, Jesus, God wrapped it up. Jesus was there too. It was wrapped up. It was finished. It was completed on the seventh day. You see that number repeated here? You see it repeated in the book of Revelation over and over again. Here we have the final book, and we see the number seven represented over and over again. You see the seven angels, you see the bowls of wrath. You see all kinds of the number seven represented over and over again the candlesticks, the seven stars, once again just emphasizing the end is coming. This is all pointing towards the end to the wrapping up of all things, the summation of all things. So the number seven is significant. But why these seven churches in particular? I want to give you just a little bit of bearing on that to set us up for the coming weeks. In fact, I’ve got a map to put on the screen of these seven churches in particular. This is western, western Turkey. You can see on the map that shows that they’re kind of in a circle and many if this were a more detailed map, you would see even on ancient routes, they were positioned along key ancient routes along the way. The main roads that many would have traveled, and the church of Ephesus in particular. I didn’t put this on the map, but the island of Patmos, where John was writing from, was kind of right off the coast from Ephesus. It would have been the closest one to Ephesus. It wasn’t very far the point of this being. And by the way, this region, Turkey itself, is probably about the size of Texas. This region is probably where these churches are, is maybe the size of Kentucky. So imagine if there were a circuit of seven significant churches in Kentucky that were well known as the most influential in their area, and they were all along the key stops on the interstate, you know, you go Louisville, then to Frankfort, then to Lexington, and maybe on around to Richmond and to Bowling Green and Paducah. You know, these are key significant locations. And part of the reason that is this links them together many believe. In fact, when I was preparing to to go through this study, I met with Larry Peercy– Larry leads our Senior Adults Life group, which is our largest life group here at the church, and he recently taught through the Book of Revelation. And I just actually I just had one question for him about Revelation. And so I called him up and said, Larry, I’ve got one question. I want to ask you to get your insight on this because I’m getting ready to set this up. I’m not teaching the whole book, so I don’t need everything from you. I just need this one question. And so I asked him the question, and then about 30 minutes later, I said, Larry, why don’t I come over for a little bit and let’s talk some more? Because he’s like, I can’t just only answer your one question. I’ve just spent a year walking or more walking through this book, and the class loved it and everybody was really into it. So I came over and, we sat down and he pulled out all his notes, two big binders full of notes, and he said, here you go. Just take these. He said, I don’t Larry is 90 years old. I don’t think I’m going to get to it again in my class at this point. I said thank you. So I took all the notes. One of the things he said to me was he said, I really think John after he left Patmos, and there’s different reasons why he might have been there. Some say he was exiled there because of his faith. I think that’s probably the main idea. There’s other competing ideas he may have gone there on, on purpose to take the gospel on, on his own. But Larry’s view was that once he left Patmos, he ended up at Ephesus as the pastor of that city. Ephesus would have been the most influential city in that region among all of those churches. And so imagine the weight that that church in particular would carry. That’s why it’ll be the first one we look at next week. I mean, think about if you’ve followed Tim Keller. I’ve quoted him just about every week I’ve been here. It seems like if you’ve not heard of him, you’ve not been listening, I’ve quoted him all the time. He’s been very influential for me. But he pastors a very influential church. Or did –he’s passed away –in New York City, and you can imagine the pressures they face there as a church to give up on the gospel, living in that city, the pressures they face to stop being so backwards. And your Christian, traditional Christian views, the pressures they endure to stand firm for the gospel, to stay faithful. I mean, that’s why this first message to them is so important as we look at it next week. But there’s a relationship between these influential churches, and it’s really important to remember those were real churches at a real time in history. And these messages were to address them specifically in real situations. Because the other thing Larry said that stuck with me, that I think it is important for us to land on in this message. And Larry said, John is not just that these were messages for them back then, back in that day, in those churches in ancient western Turkey. But there are messages for us here today, and not just for the church across a general area of the world, yes, for all churches, but also for Valley View and also for you specifically, as we look at these seven churches, there’s a message for each and every one of you in these look, each church, some are given compliments. Here’s what you’ve done great. Some are only given condemnation. Here’s what you’ve done poorly. I mean, they read like maybe a if you’ve ever had this job review where you go in with your boss and they go, hey, here’s how the last year has been, you did this great. Stop doing this. Great. Or start doing this thing you should have been doing. They read kind of like, here’s what hasn’t gone well. Here’s what has gone well. Some got some compliments, some got none. You’ve been in those meetings too. Those are hard. The living shall lay it to heart as we look at these messages over the coming weeks. Be praying, God, what do you have for me to hear? Because all a church is, is a collection of individuals you know, the atmosphere, the culture of the church is made up of each and every one of us in here. And how you follow Christ influences the culture and direction of this church. One other thing Larry shared with me and I’ll I’ll end with this really stuck with me. I knew the book of Revelation was important to him, and I knew the message that we’ll be unpacking in the coming weeks of faithfulness was important to him. If you want to remain faithful to the end, dwell on the ending. But Larry said this to me as well. And keep in mind, Larry is 90 years old. Larry said, every morning I review parts of the book of Revelation. That’s good. That’s impressive. I review the parts that I’ve memorized. He has taken time to memorize chapters two and three completely, and there are seven churches and there are seven days of the week. And by the way, I didn’t ask his permission to share this. Sorry, Larry. Not sorry actually, but every day of the week he reviews. It’s the first day of the week. The first church is Ephesus. I’m going to review what I’ve memorized. I’m going to keep it fresh. I’m going to keep it front and center. And he said, if you don’t use it, you lose it and it fades quicker every passing year. And I’m thinking, man, at 52, it fades quickly. How’s it going to be at 90? He fights for it every day. He fights every day to dwell on how is the end going to be? What’s the message for me in the book of Revelation? And I want to have that kind of fight for faithfulness. I mean, when I listen to him say that who’s we don’t know exactly nearer to the end than me, hopefully, maybe you understand what I’m saying. Faithfulness. He’s fighting for faithfulness. And in our coming weeks together, be praying. God, how are you calling me to fight for faithfulness in my life in the coming years? Thank you, Jesus for this word to us. Thank you that you have given a message both to the churches 2000 years ago, but that are relevant to us today. I pray these messages hit home with us. Each of us has an area where we need to grow in faithfulness. Each of us has an area where we haven’t been trusting you. Would you help us to have ears that are open to hear you say that over and over again in these two chapters, that the one who has ears to hear, hear, help us to have ears to hear each week as we come. Thank you, Jesus, for your word. Thank you for the many who are faithful who have gone before us. We love you, Jesus. Amen.