Revelation: A Vision for Worship

So we are in our fourth week studying the book of Revelation.

Revelation is this letter that John wrote as he was exiled on an island in the G and C, and he wrote it to seven churches, these seven churches that he really loves.

And what we've said is the letter can sound kind of strange.

Maybe even this morning to you, it sounded strange.

It's because the letter has a lot of poetry in it, a lot of imagery.

There's symbolic language and there's literal language.

In Revelation 1, we saw John unveil to us, that's what Revelation means, to unveil.

Then he unveiled to us how supreme and caring Jesus is.

And we got this guiding image of Jesus holding seven stars, and that was representative language of Jesus holding these seven churches that John's writing to.

So in John's mind, he's communicating how much Jesus cares and holds these people and how much he cares and holds us.

We're in chapter four today.

And so we begin in a series of visions that John has that he writes down to encourage these seven churches, and we get to partake in it and listen in.

Today we have the first vision.

The first vision is God on his throne.

So we'll read our way through the chapter, we'll make a few points as we go.

Revelation 4, 1 through 3.

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, Come up here and I will show you what must take place after this.

At once I was in the spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven.

So here's the vision, with one seated on the throne.

And he who sat there had the appearance of Jasper and Cornelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.

So John uses jewelry language, jewel language to describe how beautiful God is.

Language just runs out sometimes.

It just runs out.

Sometimes we just have a hard time.

What kind of word do we put on something that we esteem so highly or that we love so much?

Now, this isn't my language, I'll be honest.

You know, thinking about it, this is not my language.

Maybe this is your language.

Maybe you love jewelry.

I care less about jewelry.

My wife can sadly testify how much I don't care about jewelry.

For me, verse 3 would read like this: Russ's version.

And you can write your own version because it's just language, this.

This is just metaphorical language to try to even begin to how beautiful, how beautiful God is.

For me, this is, and he who sat there had the appearance of a sunrise hitting the Teton Mountains and a sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

I could care less about jewelry.

I don't care about jewels.

That's not my thing.

Might be your thing.

You might have read that and you've been like, whoa, that's amazing.

He's that beautiful.

Maybe you're a foodie and you put in some foodie language there.

I don't know what you need to put in there.

But it's the most beautiful language you could possibly put together.

That's what John's doing.

He's running out of words.

He's just trying to search for some words that could even possibly begin to describe how beautiful.

Here's point number one.

Because God reigns, we do not have to walk in fear or defeat.

I love the song that we just sang.

I think one of the lines was something like, The joy that seeks me in pain.

God's probably not going to just all of a sudden, tomorrow morning, just relieve you of all of your pain.

It's probably going to be a process.

But what we do have is we have God's presence with us in the pain.

And the thing about us that I've discovered about myself is if all the pain is relieved and everything is easy, I all of a sudden don't really pay that much attention to God.

And the point is always God's presence.

And that's why we don't have to walk in fear of defeat, is because no matter what we're walking through, we can't have God with us.

Now, we don't think about thrones a lot in our culture, right?

There's not a lot of language and imagery in the United States of that.

But we see imagery of it, right?

The Queen of England, I grabbed a couple pictures this morning.

Queen of England sits on a throne.

Every once in a while we see this kind of imagery, right?

It's not imagery of our country, but it's around.

The king of Saudi Arabia, he sits in a pretty esteemed chair.

Now, I don't think either of these people are watching television at night in these chairs.

I don't think that's happening, right?

They're not.

They're in these chairs to signify something.

King LeBron, right?

Famous ad.

He added in lions.

Like real, like really, you know, like the throne, the chair wasn't enough.

Let's throw some lions in there.

Right?

Because thrones signify power.

Now, John's readers, they pick up on this right away.

They thought in terms of kings and thrones.

They lived under an emperor of the Roman Empire, Domitian, who demanded everyone to call him Lord and God.

And those who refused, like John, ended up on an island, or beaten or killed.

See, the Roman throne was a throne of fear.

But this imagery that John's giving out, and this is what these people were picked up on right away, this imagery, which is a really clever slight against the Romans, this imagery is saying, hey, that throne that you're under, that you may be afraid of of Domitian, that throne, okay, he may have some power in this world, but there's another throne.

There's a heavenly king that we serve.

And it is a throne of power, but it's also a throne of love.

And that would have just driven Domitian crazy.

Because he only ruled by power.

And here we have not just a worldly king, but the creator God.

And for us to understand him is for us to understand a throne, but it's not just a throne of power, it is a throne of power and love.

And we all have a domission.

We all have some throne of power over us that produces fear in us.

And you can fill in the blank of what your domission is.

Whatever it is, it's that person or that thing or that situation, that circumstance that creates fear in you.

And what John is saying is domission has a throne.

Like he does.

But God holds the ultimate throne.

And God's reign over us is power, but it's power and love.

Verse 4.

So here's the throne.

Around the throne were twenty-four thrones.

And seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments with golden crowns on their head.

From the throne came flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God.

And before the throne there was at it a sea of glass, like crystal.

And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind.

The first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight.

And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are all full of eyes, all around them and within, and day and night, they never cease to say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

Now here's point number two.

There's a whole bunch in there we're going to try to make sense of.

Here's point number two.

Because God reigns, we can have inner peace.

Because He reigns, we can have inner peace.

Verse 6 has beautiful imagery for us amidst all this kind of strangeness that's going on in this passage.

There's this imagery of water, a sea of glass like crystal.

Right?

No troubled waters.

I read this week that there's no panic in heaven.

Isn't that nice?

Because there's so much panic in us.

That God knows all about your heartache and your broken heart.

Even the parts you haven't told anybody about.

He knows all about it.

And there's no panic.

Not by him.

There's no anxiousness by him.

We want answers.

We want answers.

We want things to resolve right away, tomorrow, tonight, right now.

And we want control.

But we don't always get that.

And what our hearts actually need all the time is God's presence.

Which actually brings the peace that we really desire.

Now back to those numbers.

Three different numbers popped up.

Now, people who overread Revelation, we would say maybe they make too much of numbers in the book of Revelation.

So we're going to tread carefully, but there's something here, these numbers.

Repeating numbers are common in the Bible, so they mean something, but we don't have to build like an entire theology out of numbers and get real weird and sound like a cult or something.

We don't have to do that.

The numbers mean something.

And the numbers are actually a sign, meaning that the numbers send us somewhere else.

They help us understand one thing in order for us to keep moving to understand something else.

Here's a picture of our family last summer in front of the Yellowstone National Park sign.

It's a sign.

It's a great sign.

I love national park signs.

Like I am, you know, I'm a national park nerd, right?

All the national park signs kind of look the same, and the craftsmanship's so great.

I mean, I just love them, right?

I want to be a ranger when I grow up.

The sign welcomes us.

Everybody stops, right?

You stop, you've done this, you've maybe, maybe you've done it.

You stop at the National Park sign, and we all take pictures of each other.

You meet each other.

Where are you from?

How long are you here?

All right?

We do all that at the sign.

The sign welcomes us, but the sign sends us on.

Like we're not meant to stay at the sign.

And we went on that day to marvel at some of God's unbelievable creative works.

Like we hiked around geysers and we swam in Yellowstone Lake, right?

Now imagine if we had just stayed at the at the sign.

That would have been weird.

That's just weird, right?

Well, that would be crazy, right?

So see, these numbers, they they they tell us something, but they tell us in order for us to move on.

It's not for us to build out a whole weird spiritual religion out of the numbers.

The numbers tell us something, so we move on to something else.

So what do the numbers mean?

Well, we'll tread carefully, but let's just try to maybe propose upon this just a little bit.

It's not a math textbook.

I know they're numbers, but it's not like a math textbook.

This is still the poetry of John.

Like we have to put on a little poet hat here.

John is being poetic here.

24.

That's the first number that we see here.

24 elders, most likely angels.

And the number 24 is not very common in the Bible.

So you go, well, where in the world does he get 24 when he's sitting down and he's trying to be meaningful and write something meaningful?

Like, where is he getting this?

Well, we do have like 12 tribes of Israel, and we have 12 apostles, and 12 and 12.

24, right?

Okay, so maybe, maybe.

We also see that those two groups are brought together in Revelation 21.

So maybe all of that, maybe that's where John's mind is going because we see it in Revelation 21.

So all that to mean that it's possible that this 24 is representative of, it's symbolic of God's people.

Twelve tribes of Israel, 12 apostles, the people of God in the Old Testament, the people of God in the New Testament.

Now, the number seven is a very common number in the Bible.

We see the number seven kind of all over the place.

Even in this letter, it's seven churches.

Symbolically, the number of seven in the Bible is usually referencing something to do with completeness or wholeness.

So symbolically, looking at that idea of completeness and wholeness, and these seven churches here, that perhaps this means that this seven, this number of seven is speaking about God's church.

Then around the throne, there were four living creatures.

Funky, funky, amazing creatures, right?

Like Lord of the Rings stuff.

Like let's just get creative.

Like as creative as you can get, go and write it down.

And that's the kind of thing that we have here.

Now it's thought that maybe these connect with Revelation 7.1.

We have the number four again as the four winds.

So maybe John's mind, he's working these two things together, and the four creatures here represent the four winds, and these connect in some way, which would mean if that's true.

I don't know.

I don't know.

But it would mean, and I do love this, that they represent the four ends of the earth, that they represent nature itself.

That even the awesomeness of God's creation brings worship to the creator.

So if we put all that together, I didn't come up with this.

I read some commentaries on this, right?

Like I could created all that.

Put all that together.

Like a sign, remember we're not building a whole theology, it's just going to send us somewhere.

We have 24, so we have God's people from the Old Testament and the New Testament.

We have seven, the whole of God's church, and then four, we have the entirety of God's creation that worships him, and all that.

That's a sign.

It's a sign that sends us to the truth of our lives, which is we were created to worship.

Right?

Pretty simple, profound point with a whole bunch of imagery all around it in Revelation 4.

We were created to know him, to know him more, to know his love, and to know his peace.

Twenty years ago, when I was just dating Christy, I was at my granny's house.

I'd stopped by to check on her and I think to do a few chores.

And Christy and I've been dating for a little bit, I was getting serious, and Granny knew that.

And Granny said, Well, you know there's a ring.

You know there's a ring.

I'm like, I didn't have any money.

You know, so I'm like, what?

There's a what?

And she said, There's a ring.

Your great-grandmother had four rings.

I have one, your Aunt Linda wears one, your mom wears one, and there's a fourth one in a safety deposit box.

And then she says, and I don't even know what it is.

She said, It's been in that safety deposit box so long, I don't even remember what it is.

But I think it's a diamond ring.

So maybe it could work for you, but I don't even know.

But I'm still I'm all in.

You know, it's like free ring?

That's what we're talking about here.

Guys, you remembered, right?

I didn't have any money.

I didn't know how all this was gonna work out.

And I was just like, free ring.

I'm like, well, just let me know.

What do you need me to do?

You need me to drive up there.

You want me to drive you up there?

What do you need?

But she's like, Well, I'll go get it this week, come back next week.

So I come back the next week.

Can't wait to see this ring, right?

I mean, this could be it, this could be it.

And she hands over to me a dirty Ziploc bag, and she's like, here it is, you know.

And I open it up.

In there is a ring.

Something that you would walk by on the sidewalk in the gutter and just keep on walking.

It is corroded, it is nasty, it is dirty, the band is corroded.

There is a something that looks like maybe, maybe a diamond.

You're like, maybe, maybe that could be, don't know.

And she's like, This is this is the diamond ring.

And I'm like, thank you, you know, thank you.

It's amazing.

And I just tuck this ziplop bag straight in my pocket, you know, like maybe we'll see.

Maybe, maybe this could work out.

I do drive straight up to the jewelry store.

I'm gonna solve this, figure out this could be the real thing.

Drive up there and hand that over.

That's a moment.

Hand that dirty ziplop bag over to the guy, and he opens it up.

He's like, What?

What is this?

And tell the story.

He's like, Oh, okay, I get it.

So he goes and he cleans it, and he comes back, and then he says, The band's horrible.

It's corroded.

The band is nothing.

But he said, then he says, but he's like, that that's a nice diamond.

He says, a really nice diamond.

That's that's a hand cut, round, done, clarity, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, all that stuff that you you knew for like one month of your life when you're a guy.

You really knew it.

You knew those letters and numbers.

And then he told me the estimated worth of the diamond.

Everything changed.

Right?

It wasn't just like a casual ziplop bag in the pocket, like throw it in a glove box while you're running windy's, get a frosty.

That's not what happened the rest of the day.

It was straight to the bank for a safety deposit box.

Put it in the safety deposit box, in there, you know, you look in there, close it, look in again, look around, close it, lock it, unlock it, still there, okay.

Right?

Because what what I treated so casually changed when I understood its worth.

The song being sung in verse 8 is holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

Now I love that holy, holy, holy.

We sing that a lot.

This is one of the things where language can't handle it.

That word holy, because there's an otherness to that word.

A separateness, separate from us, like separate from little imperfect me.

It's like us singing like other, like just so just immaculate and godly and perfect and powerful and loving.

I mean, it's just other, other, other.

Verse 9.

And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders fall down before him.

So that's the entirety of God's people.

Fall down before him, who is seated on the throne and worship him, who lives forever and ever.

They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.

The elders representing God's people, there they are, and they're letting go of not just difficulties, but the goodness they have.

The imagery of the crowns is to be laying down the best that they have.

Point number three is this worship is our response of astonishment to the glorious God who loves us.

Worship is a response.

It's not a throne of fear and power, of just like coercion.

It's compelling you out of glory and love.

It's been about two months.

I figured we can talk about, I try to say very neutral as a pastor, but it's been two months.

That my school, the University of Georgia, won the national championship.

I'm not, if you remember, I've waited two months.

I didn't want to bring it up too early because some of you are at other schools.

I understand, I try to be respectful.

We're in our den.

Little ones asleep.

It's Christy and I, the two bigger girls.

Every play, our hands are up, we're out of our seats.

We've been just, we we've gotten so close so many times and we lose.

And y'all have won other, I know so many of y'all have won, right?

So many of y'all won.

We get so close we lose.

So close.

Like, and we're just, we're like, it's it's still not gonna happen.

Like it's not gonna happen.

But still, we're it's like every time something great happens, like we're up, out of our, and then we actually won.

Which some most of the time, Georgia fans, even now, we're like, did we win?

Like, like, I'm not sure.

I'll Google it.

I'm like, yeah.

Like it did happen.

End of the game, we're up, we're hugging, like arms are up, right?

Like it finally happened, right?

Worship's a response to that which you deem worthy.

And we don't all worship the same.

That'd be boring.

It'd be boring to me if everybody worships the same.

I just give you pastoral permission.

If you are a hands-up person, hands up, go for it.

Right?

I like, I'm just I like to be a little sway.

I'm a little sway.

You've you've seen me.

I know you peek over and look at me when I'm worshiping.

I know how it is.

I just sway just a little.

Some of you, you've you've never moved.

You barely got in the room, right?

You are stoic and you stand, you're contemplative, you sit.

Fantastic.

Doesn't matter how you worship, worship's a response of your heart.

You're so compelled by this throne of power and love.

This God who loves you, holds you.

There's a story in John 12 of a lady who comes to Jesus as he's eating.

She has this very expensive jar of perfume.

Remember the story?

She pours it on his feet.

John 12, 3, Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.

The house was filled with the fragrance of perfume.

Judas goes and gets onto her, and then Jesus gets on to Judas.

Judas is upset.

It costs so much, worth too much.

And Jesus said, you know, that she's done a beautiful thing.

She experienced the greatness and love of Jesus that Jesus had for her, and it was just like, whatever, everything I have.

I hand over.

It's extravagant worship, response.

This week, Revelation 4 has been that reminder for me.

I'm into 1 Peter 5, 7.

Cast all your anxieties on him who cares for you.

Like I'm in that because I have the anxieties.

So I'm good at that.

Like I can, I'm really good at casting anxieties.

But then we get this Revelation 4.

It's like, oh, not just our difficulties, not just our pain, not just our anxiety.

We get to do all that, cast it on him, but also all the shiny great parts of our lives.

Like the best parts.

Your giftedness, your resources, all the gifts, the crowns, your faithfulness.

Like even all of that, we don't have to hold on to it and tight grip it.

We get to cast it over.

John could have given us like three points on how to worship.

Instead, he gives us this an image.

An image to behold.

That worship is surrender.

Church, our crowns.

The best, the best of you, the best of you.

It's a grace.

It's a gift.

And we hold them with open hands and we surrender them back over to the one who holds us.

In Jesus' name.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you for your goodness to us.

That you are both powerful and loving.

This image of Revelation 4 is just the beginning of words to try to describe how beautiful and wonderful you are.

And thank you that it is you who holds us.

That you're not just a throne of power and glory that's far off, but you are incarnate in our lives.

And that you pursue us in our brokenness and our hurt and our heartache and our heartbreak.

How wonderfully holistic it is of our entire lives that we get to bring to you both our triumphs and all of our anxieties.

Help us to be people of worship, learning what it means to be more responsive as we gaze upon you and your greatness.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.