Seeing the Real Jesus (Not the One You Made) | Revelation 1:9-20

Morning. Happy Palm Sunday. We are in

the book of Revelation. If you're just

joining us, we have just started a fresh

series. And I don't know if I've ever

been more uh I don't know,

fear and trepidation heading into a

series. I I asked my daughter uh Cece,

my nine-year-old who's knows her stuff.

Asked her just like, "Hey, what's the

book of Revelation about?" Like, not

judgmentally. I'm not that kind of

pastor Dad. It wasn't like a pop quiz.

Uh, and she was just like,

"This is the kid that knows everything,

remembers all the details. I don't

know." Like, and she gave me some kind

of like Jesus answer. And

I've come to realize that this book is

the most misunderstood,

uh, heavy, confusing, and the entire

point of the book of Revelation is that

you would see Jesus more clearly.

Is it not odd that the one book that the

sole purpose is for you to see Jesus

more clearly is the most overwhelming

and most avoided book potentially in

church history?

And I think it is because that it in

these pages I don't do this often. I

don't I don't often say I I encourage

you I almost am begging you to make this

a mandate on your life as we go through

this together as a church. Make this a

part of your time with the Lord daily,

weekly.

Throw yourself into this book because I

I believe that the entire book ends of

the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It

starts with a garden in Eden. It ends in

a in a garden city, the new Jerusalem,

but the entire thing is about all all

this stuff leading up to Jesus.

The church is confused and we're still

in many ways confused. And the Apostle

John is saying, "This is how you see him

more clearly. your purpose more clearly,

life more clearly, circumstances more

clearly, everything gets put in its

proper place. If you understand this

book, the reason why the church has

confusion is because we still confuse

the absolute basis of our faith. And I

feel like this is going to be an anchor

that we go back to and that your life

will go back to. And and I just want to

invite us into one simple prayer. how

the world, the enemy, and even the

church has made this complicated, our

life complicated, our faith complicated,

the gospel complicated.

Would you just come in and bring

clarity? So, Holy Spirit, that's our

prayer this morning. Bring clarity in

Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Can we close

that door again? I know we're still

figuring out doors, but just so that

there's not that background no noise,

and I want the kids to be as loud as

they can without us thinking about them,

you know, for at least a few minutes.

So, uh, I also just want to take a

moment local church, you're all here

this morning. Many different reasons.

And and I just I just want to

acknowledge that what we're doing here

is is gathering on a Sunday morning is

is rather unusual. We come in, we sit

down, we listen and and sing songs that

you didn't pick. When was the last time

that you listened to a song that you

didn't pick other than at church?

And you might have liked it, you may not

have liked it, but there's there's that

like, you know, those hype moments you

got on the way to school where like your

song came on the radio and it was just

like this is going to be the best day of

my life. We don't get that anymore. It

pains me that my kids can just choose

that song and listen to it over and over

again. And there's ne there's never that

like Chyros moment on the radio.

For some of you, Kay Love still does

that. I guess

people listen to Cale Love still. That's

weird. That's so not because the music,

just like the radio. You You're weird if

you listen to the radio. That's what my

kids told me. God bless you if you do. I

think it's good for you. So, we come in,

we sit down, we put our phones away,

some of you, I mean, until we tell you

to tap them and do all these stupid

things with them. But, but the point is

is that you're supposed to do something

completely opposite than what you do.

You're not curating your entertainment.

You can to a sense because you can go

elsewhere. next Sunday. But we sit down,

we put our phones away, we didn't pick

the songs. Uh, and then you listen to a

message about a book you didn't write

from a speaker that you may not agree

with 100%.

Hopefully, if you do, great. You're not

supposed to agree 100% with me.

And yet, we're here together. And

there's something really good about

that. To stop once a week to be still,

to sit in a room full of people. Some of

you may know, but you may not. You be

you might be sitting next to someone. It

may be the only stranger you sit next to

all week.

And then you're reminded that life's not

about you. And what's what's interesting

is that we're starting to see on a on a

wider scale people rediscovering this.

Uh I've tried to bring these kind of

things. I'm seeing this in culture all

the time. There was a New York Times

article this week. New York Times

that was all about

uh a surge of people coming back to the

church and it focused on the Catholic

Church in particular especially through

younger adults. It's the highest number

in decades growing in rapid numbers.

Even the the arch dasis of Detroit,

Detroit's

lost a million people since our

grandparents lived there. lost a million

people. And they will receive, the arch

dasis of Detroit will receive this

Easter, 1428 new Catholics, the highest

number in 21 years. Amazing. And what

stood out when I read this article is

that that the leaders of the church

don't even know why.

You can read this article, I think I

think I'm referencing it behind me.

There's a New York Times article, guys.

There's a slide for that. But people are

tired of instability. They're tired of

isolation. They're tired of trying to

carry everything on their own. and

they're discovering something about

faith that that community actually

stabilizes you, that meaning anchors

you, and that hearing something like

your sins are forgiven.

We used to shy away from that. Like, we

didn't talk about sin for the last 20

years in the church, so it might offend

somebody.

They're desperate

to hear that your sins are forgiven. It

does something to the human soul. I'm

going to read an excerpt from it. This

young man, 23-year-old PhD student in

mathematics at Howard University in

Washington, started his freshman year of

college during the pandemic. And he

struggled with depression and finding

community like many other college

freshmen did. He grew up in a

non-religious and agnostic home like

many others. But friends introduced him

to non-denominational churches. Over

time, he began exploring the deeper

questions, he said, like what does it

mean to live a good life and to do good?

And what is faith? And is faith

reasonable?

Videos from from apologists, even

Catholic apologists like the Tommystic

Institute and Taylor Marshall uh what he

would watch. And then he moved to

Washington. He started attending a mass

St. Augustine. This is in the New York

Times.

And a congregation started this

congregation St. Augustine started by

emancipated black Catholics before the

Civil War.

It's pretty cool actually. Yeah. And

this is where he's going to be formally

received into the church. This

23-year-old at the Easter Vigil, he

particular is drawn to the church's

teaching on suffering,

which he said helps him get through the

difficult trials. And he appreciates

going to confession. 23-year-old,

no church upbringing appreciates going

to confession because he says this, "To

actually be able to audibly hear your

sins are forgiven."

>> It's very important.

We could end there.

How many of you just need to hear again?

Jesus sitting on the throne, past,

present, and future, looking at all of

human history, looking at you in the

eyes, saying, "Your sins are forgiven."

Because what we're doing here at

Gathering Church,

it's it's not just it's not just helpful

and interesting and therapeutic. It's

all those things, but we're placing

ourselves under something that we didn't

create.

We're placing ourselves under this what

we call the authority of scripture. This

ancient document that's eternal in

nature, that has the breath of God. And

we believe that it's the living word of

God. And it speaks to real life, real

suffering, real questions, and all

eternity. And it doesn't matter if you

grew up with it. It doesn't matter your

past

because all of your future and all of

eternity is inviting you into that

story.

And these same scriptures, these same

scriptures

that we're going to see, the Apostle

John,

his letter he wrote on an island in

exile when all his other friends had

died.

These same scriptures are telling us

something.

It's showing us what's really real and

how we can live faithfully right now.

The entire book of Revelation is

ultimately about what's really real and

how can we live faithfully right now.

And what's ironic about that is the book

that most that's all about, like I said

before, seeing Jesus clearly is the one

that most Christians avoid the most

because it's super strange. has all

these symbols and images and intensity

and it has a lot of fire and beasts and

imagery and eyeballs and weird things

that look like a nightmare.

And so what do we do? You can either

ignore it, numb it, or reduce it to

debates, which we evangelicals love to

do about timelines, prophecies, charts,

predictions, and when Kirk Cameron is

going to go off to heaven.

Those of you over 40 got that? Everyone

underneath that there's a little anyway

there's there was a a series that gave

us all nightmares called the left behind

series that's bad theology but it has

good intentions. Look it up. Okay. You

need to see Jesus clearly. So our big

idea today is this. Realize it's hard to

frame examples that we all know.

I I was like I'm never going to be that

guy that says examples that no one

understands if they're not unless

they're you know. and now I'm that old

guy. It's so annoying.

Here's our big idea today. Over time,

most of us have quietly reshaped Jesus.

We've shaped him into someone that we

can handle. We we understand him. That's

how we framed him. If we can understand

him, agree with him, and know what he's

going to say. He doesn't surprise us. He

never unsettles us. He never confronts

us. And he fits into my worldview, my

ideology, my politics. And that's

entirely the problem because Jesus when

he's manageable, he cannot do what the

real Jesus can only do. If you want a

manageable Jesus, you're never going to

get the reality of the real Jesus doing

what only he can do. Only the real Jesus

can take your suffering and can say your

sins are forgiven. If you've got a

manageable Jesus that you understand

everything, he fits everything perfectly

into your life. He makes you

comfortable,

you're probably not experiencing the

fullness of what Jesus is offering you.

And here's what Revelation is going to

do here. John is saying he's 80 years

old. Last week we looked at Revelation

the first few verses. We're going to

look at the rest of chapter 1. We're not

going to go chapter by chapter. We're

going to we're kind of going to go

through we're going to have about nine

or 10 messages over the course of the

spring and summer. We're going to come

in and out to the series with some

pauses. But I encourage you to look at

this and remember that Rome has stopped

martyring killing the Christians because

it's not working. It's increasing the

Christian faith and the momentum of the

gospel when they killed him. So the

reason why John is not martyed is

because they thought it was more

effective to send him out onto an island

and just to put him in exile. So he's on

that island. They take him out of every

place in relationship that made him

effective and they put him on a rock in

the Aian Sea and and they think he's

going to disappear quietly and and he's

not. Yes, he's in a sense he's suffering

and they think he's they think they put

him on the shelf, just archived him.

But it's in that place

where he's not in a manageable one.

He's encountering Jesus. It says he was

praying and worshiping on the Lord's day

and he has a vision.

It's not a comfortable one or a

manageable one. And it says, "The one

whose face is like the sun and whose

voice is like rushing waters."

The entire book flows out of this

encounter that John had with the risen

Jesus. So what's this? What's this

message going to do today? We're just

going to look at a few verses. The

temptation is when you open this book is

just to look at it again. Timelines,

information,

it's interesting. How's it going to make

me feel better about my week? But what

what I want you I don't care about you

getting better theology.

I'm going to give you perfect theology,

but I don't care about you getting

better theology, a clearer

interpretation, a better framework of

the book.

Use AI for that.

I want you to see it more clearly. I The

most formative thing that can happen to

you and I is not learning about Jesus,

not learning more about him.

is that we'd see him, that we'd

encounter him like John did. The entire

book is that I had an encounter at 80

years old, that built on what I already

knew to be true.

And the reason most of us are stuck in

life in our faith in many ways still,

those areas that were stuck, I don't

mean that you're like completely lost.

Some of you are still seeking in the

midst of your lossness or whatever else.

And you're welcome to the table here

like everybody else. But the reality is

most of us, they're stuck feeling in our

suffering, our fears, all of our

anxieties. It's it's not because we lack

information about Jesus.

It's it's the the Jesus that we're

actually trying to engage with. We

framed him far too small in who he

really is. He's not offering this small

little manageable piece of himself.

We've made him manageable, but we cannot

experience the fullness of him. If we

want an encounter, if we want a life

change, you cannot keep him in a place

that's safe

and comfortable. I'm speaking to myself

as much as anybody else in the room. If

you want a Jesus that's safe, this is

not what he's offering you.

So, here's the three main points today.

When John sees Jesus, he's going to

encounter something a small Jesus could

never do. He he one, he he reshapes how

he understands suffering, Jesus does in

one moment.

Second,

what he thinks is real gets completely

reframed. And third, what he does with

his anxiety and fear is shifted forever.

So our first point's all about

suffering. Our second one's about our

limited vision and seeing clearly. And

our third is all about anxiety. The real

Jesus converts your anxiety because the

manageable Jesus just manages it. We

want him to stay inside this kind of

frame that we can manage. And

ultimately, he's offering us something

that everything else is going to flow

out of this moment that John has in the

whole book. So I'm going to read this.

is a three paragraphs and then we're

going to get into the three points and

then we're going to respond.

Revelation 1 9-20

John says this. I John your brother and

partner in the tribulation and the

kingdom and the patient endurance that

are in Jesus was on the island called

Patmos on account of the word of the 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 that you see write what you

see in a book and send it to the seven

churches. Then he lists the seven

churches. Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum,

Thotyraus, Sardis, Philadelphia, and

Leysa. Verse 12. Then I turned to see

the voice that was speaking to me. And

on turning I saw seven golden

lampstands. And in the midst of the

lampstands, one like a son of man

clothed with a long robe with a golden

sash around his chest. We're going to go

through and see what these these images

are. There's no way each of us would

know what they were, but it's very clear

what he's talking about if you

understand what the images mean. There's

a sash around his chest. The hairs of

his head were white, like wool, like

snow. His eyes were like a flame of

fire. His feet were like burnished

bronze, refined in a furnace. And his

voice was like the roar of many waters.

In his right hand, he held seven stars.

From his mouth came a sharp two-edged

sword, and his face was like the sun

shining in full strength.

last few verses. And then John said,

"When I saw him, I fell at his feet as

though dead,

which is the only responsible way to

respond to the presence of Jesus, by the

way."

But he laid his right hand on me,

saying, "Fear not. I'm the first and the

last and the living one. I died and

behold, I am alive forever more. and I

have the keys of death and Hades.

Write therefore the things that you have

seen, those that are and those that are

to take place after this, as for the

mystery of the seven stars that you saw

in my right hand, and the seven golden

lampstands, the seven stars are the

angels of the seven of the seven

churches. And the seven lampstands

are the seven churches.

Point one, the real Jesus redeems your

suffering. So, we have a cultural

dynamic that I want to address first.

We've quietly built a version of

Christianity that works almost from an

entirely comfortbased reality. We can

attend, give, and serve, and maintain a

really decent life

without ever really developing

endurance.

And most of us, when things aren't

working out, we think that we're missing

God.

And all of scripture is pointing you to

the place that when you are in the

waiting,

that is where God is forming you and

using you. There's not a single time in

all of scripture where the waiting

is where God isn't active.

And I can't even tell you how many times

we as Christians, we get to our place of

waiting.

waiting for the spouse, waiting for the

job, waiting for the breakthrough,

waiting for the down payment, waiting

for the whatever. We're waiting all the

time. All of us are waiting on

something. And all of us have the

temptation to think that I'm missing

this and I'm still waiting because if

God is who he says he is, this this

generous, lavish, whatever God that

looks like the person on my left or

right that I'm comparing my life to

instead of embracing my own life,

we think we've done something wrong or

something off. And and in order to get

breakthrough, we love breakthrough. We

love a good breakthrough word, don't we?

And then we ask for prayer. Jesus, I

just pray breakthrough in this person

and we disagree with their we we agree

with the lies in their head. I do. I'm

guilty of this. Sometimes people come up

for prayer and it's like they want

breakthrough in this area. And I go, is

that the word of the Lord? We just

assume that breakthrough is the word of

the the breakthrough is maybe you

allowing him to use the circumstances

he's given you because he cares more

about what he's forming in you than what

happens around you.

>> Hallelujah. That's the breakthrough.

That'll solve all of our prayers for our

new homes right there.

Cuz there's always a home in Texas or

Asheville that's waiting for you.

Sorry, wasn't in my notes. Just can't

help myself sometimes. We've built a

version of Christianity

that really works from a place of

comfort.

None of our heroes are comfortable.

I don't tell my kids about the

comfortable moments of my background and

my history or my childhood.

None of us talk about like how, you

know, tell me more about your your

upbringing, your family, your this and

that. And you just talk, oh, it's just

so comfortable.

I'm so proud of how comfortable we hide

that part if it was true. And we we talk

about maybe the good things, the

victories, but we we actually are

embarrassed about our comforts while we

spend most of our life pursuing comfort.

It's insane.

So John John is coming in and he's he's

naming distortion and then he he's

giving a correction and he's essentially

saying I'm your brother in the silent

waiting.

He's saying that that manageable Jesus

functions like some sort of like

exemption policy and if I follow him

closely enough you know the pressure is

going to lift and if I stay faithful

enough the hard season should end. And

when it doesn't we conclude that we're

either failing or God's not here and

he's absent. And what John is saying is

he's calling himself an active

participant in the silent waiting.

That's what John is doing while an exile

with no hope of return.

It's all about endurance.

So he's participating. He's not as, you

know, he's not just observing something.

He's not advising them. He's saying,

"I've got the same suffering, the same

endurance, the same Jesus." And he puts

suffering endurance together

deliberately. And what he's saying is

this. Let endurance disciple your life.

Most of us resist the endurance.

And it's in that place that everything

that we really want him to do in us is

being shaped and formed. And we're

resisting the very thing,

the very thing that most of us have

asked him for.

And so there's this phrase patient

endurance in that first couple lines.

That that Greek word hoopon, no one

knows how to pronounce it, so you can

just say it however you want. When

people struggle with it, I just go like

just say it however you want. No one

knows a flip about how to pronounce

ancient Greek. So just say it however

you feel. Patient endurance. It's not

passive waiting. It's active intentional

endurance. Like a craftsman who

understands that difficulty is not in

the way of the work. It is the work.

That's what John is getting at.

Patient endurance, active, intentional.

The pressure, John is saying, is not the

problem. Your interpretation of the

pressure is the problem. My

interpretation of what's going on is the

problem.

The circumstances,

not problem.

That's hard for many of us because many

of us are facing some really difficult

things. I'm not minimizing the

difficulty.

What John is saying is just like, I've

got some real difficulty. I've got some

real pain. I've got some real questions.

Like, I've been faithful my whole life.

Why the flip am I sitting on this rock

80 years old? Valid, John. Valid. The

disciple who Jesus loved is sitting on a

rock alone dying.

It's a valid question.

So, I have no I have no authority

to tell you how to look at your

circumstances. I'm just I'm just telling

you what John is telling me. And maybe

you need to listen like I do.

Patient endurance. Pressure is not the

problem. My interpretation of the

pressure is the problem. Now, here's

where the gospel comes in. He's saying,

"I'm in it with you." And John's saying,

"I can encourage you by preaching like

just just endure. Just push through."

And we Christians are really good at

that, too. Push through.

You know what? You know what push

through does? When that's really what

you've surrendered to, pushing through.

That's what's called moralism.

When he's saying patient endurance, he's

not saying push through.

That's moralism. And that will always

develop some version of pride

because I pushed through for him.

And still trying to earn your way to

breakthrough.

Suffering feels like abandonment

for most of us.

But that's not a discipline problem.

This is what he's saying is this is a

vision problem and it's a Jesus-sized

problem because you don't see Jesus

clearly enough. And he's saying that the

suffering is ours in Jesus. What does he

mean by that? He's saying because Jesus

did not observe suffering from the

outside. He entered into it from the

inside. He didn't ask you to do anything

that he didn't do first. He laid down

his life. He's the only God that became

man and experienced every pain,

suffering, and debacle that you could

possibly put a human being through.

Jesus suffered and experienced that. So

he can look you in the eyes with eyes of

fire. And he can say this is the cross.

Your suffering is his. It's ours. This

way of life is ours. So this ancient

letter written on a rock in the Aian Sea

is still relevant to your suffering and

your circumstances today. And this man

is telling you your your suffering, your

burden,

your cry for breakthrough.

It's ours. It's his.

The cross is not about God watching your

pain. It's him experiencing it and

absorbing it.

Which means that the place in your life

that feels most like this island like

John was on, isolated, stripped of

everything, forgotten, whatever you're

feeling that resonates with that, it's

not the place that Jesus is absent from.

It's the place that he knows best and is

with you and is offering to be the

closest with you.

One of my favorite pastors who passed

away from cancer a couple years ago, Tim

Keller, he had a couple bouts with

cancer. During his second bout, he

talked about his first bout

and he talked about what he learned in

that first bout of cancer of of cancer

and it was his prayer life got so

intimately close with Jesus

that he said that that the prayers

became if I get healed of this cancer

which he did once and then it came back

but if I get healed of this cancer my

prayers becoming let the closeness that

I experience in this pain and suffering

never leave me because what became more

valuable was his closeness with Jes.

Jesus and that the suffering servant the

scriptures call Jesus was more close in

his pain in his sickness than in any

other time in his life. His prayer

started to become if I get healed let

that closeness never leave me because

that is the most valuable precious thing

I've ever experienced in my life. I'll

be real honest with you. I've never

prayed that prayer.

Most of us never prayed that prayer.

But those of us that have, those of us

that will will never be the same.

And I don't know if it's true that you

can only pray that prayer in the

circumstances and in the suffering like

that. But I know that I want that to be

my prayer.

And I know and I know that that is the

prayer on offer regardless of what kind

of circumstances come in my life.

That's the prayer that I stand on when I

get fearful of my circumstances. What's

coming?

When I get completely depleted and I

lack all self-confidence, that I can

continue to produce whatever I'm

producing. When I continue to feel like

my responsibilities outweigh my

abilities.

I know that this prayer is ready for me.

And this is what the scriptur is

inviting us into.

It's not the place Jesus is absent from

in your pain. It's the place he knows

best and that he's willing to know you

best if you'll meet him in those places.

So the contrast is simply that Jesus is

offering not to be managed. He's

offering presence and presence and

suffering is what actually forms you and

I.

We want resolutions.

What revelation says is in eternity

everything is going to be resolved.

Everything will be judged rightly.

But how you live in the present is all

about how you allow him to form you. And

so the questions become point one. Where

have you been interpreting silence as

his absence?

Where where it feels like God isn't

talking. It feels like God's not near

and you feel like in your waiting in

that silence God's not there. He doesn't

care. Where is that for you? Where have

you been waiting for pressure to lift

before you re-engage with your faith,

the circumstances to change, something

to shift, you to be more ready? And what

if what if that what if that

circumstance what if that pressure what

if that reality is exactly where he

wants to meet you? You're trying to

avoid it, get to another place, better

yourself, ask a different thing, pray a

different prayer, whatever it is. And

this simple invitation is what if the

pressure is exactly where he wants to

meet you?

This is what like little tiny small

Jesus can't do this for us. Manageable,

comfortable. He can't do that. This is

where you have to stop managing him and

you have to allow the real Jesus to

redeem your suffering. That's point one.

Point two is this. The real Jesus will

always expand reality. Meaning this,

if you want, if you want to see more

clearly,

let him show you what he's really like.

We have this um one of my favorite

things about Phil Chan is he comes into

uh staff meetings with all these

wonderful little professional um manager

type phrases from the real world. And I

must be honest, I know what most of them

are. I've I've I've worked in in uh real

world enough. But some of our team we

stop him once or twice every meeting to

explain, you know, oh Phil, what's ROI?

uh and and he's very patient. It's a

return on investment and uh

so we we joke about this and we're we're

constantly weighing up our staff team

about like how do we do things in

leadership? Well, ROI is a great

measurable for a lot of things even in

church. But we get to run with the

tension of we can't look at ROI

everywhere like a business does. And he

does that really well. Our I I believe

our team does that well. We we're trying

to form disciples that do that. Well,

the world is all about ROI. The return

on investment of what works, what

scales, and what produces results. Our

spirituality though can fit into this.

That's where our mindfulness seeps in

where where people are just like, hey,

if you can just like say these mantras,

do this therapy, wellness is so good and

wonderful. if that's Jesus for you or

Buddha for you or yoga for you. And then

the reality is is like get spiritual

fine ROI not bad. But here's the thing,

there's a system

and it helps us manage thoughts and

regulate emotions and often feel better

about our lives. But the thing is is if

you're resisting the deeper question,

that's the real issue. If you're not,

then Christians can thrive anywhere in

any system. But the deeper question is

always, what is actually real beyond

what I can see? What's real beyond what

I can see? If you could be honest with

what what your life really believes

about that, that will anchor you, steer

you, and expose you. What's real beyond

what I can see? And here's the

distortion that we probably need to

name. Many people

in this room, myself included, we

believe in God theologically. He's God.

But here's the function. We functionally

live if only the visible, tangible,

physical world is real. What do we mean

by that? So it means like, okay, today,

Sunday, the Lord's day, Sabbath.

Let's get spiritual.

Thank you, Pete, for leading that song

to make me spiritual today. That was

amazing. What an experience.

Monday, let's get practical.

because I have to go sit next to this

jerk who's going to be running his mouth

all day trying to out compete me for the

job I want or whatever it is. I've got

to produce. I've got to post. I've got a

whatever.

And we divide the spiritual and the

physical so often. We don't want to. But

the reality is Sunday spiritual and the

rest of life can kind of be spiritual or

we kind of sugarcoat it in spiritual

ease and it's just a joke. and and we

pray on Sunday, but when something

stressful hits us on Tuesday, what

happens? We process it completely

differently. The stuff that you're

processing here on your face, you

process differently than the stuff that

happens on Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m.

when you get that email that raises your

anxiety.

And you're right, because that person is

a

You say God's in control, but your

decisions are driven by what makes the

most sense. What makes the most sense

financially, socially, whatever. You

believe God speaks, but you rarely slow

down enough to just listen to him.

Really, you listen to him in your

crisis, but do you listen to him when

there is no crisis? The types of people

that he wants to send out there are the

kinds of people that will listen to him

when there is no crisis at hand. He will

prepare you for the crisis if you will

listen to him when there is no crisis.

It's not that you don't believe in God.

It's that your life is still being lived

inside some kind of just this frame

that's just invisible, hard to say. You

don't really know what it is. And

he wants to shape you and he wants to

interrupt you. And revelation is all

about that interruption. And so John

says he's in the spirit. He's not using

a technique. He's saying, "I was in the

spirit in the Lord's day." What he's

saying is he was available. The question

is, are you and I actually available to

listen and to hear and to encounter

Jesus. It was a posture. The unseen

realm became the visible realm for John

because he was available to be found.

What's the posture of your life? And are

you actually being available on his

terms, not your own? That's where I

struggle.

There's this situation with the prophet

Elijah. If you want to go back and read,

it's in 2 Kings. Elijah's this Old

Testament prophet. He has a servant. His

servant looks out and sees an army and

he's freaking out and he's panicking.

And Elijah simply prays,

"Lord, open this guy's eyes."

Nothing changed in the physical, but his

servant had his eyes opened to the

spiritual

and he sees God's arms.

And that's what's happening with John.

Nothing has yet changed in the physical,

but Jesus has anchored him in the

spiritual

that oversees everything that the

visible realm could ever be.

And so what to take a moment on this

imagery and then we're going to close.

John turns, he doesn't get an

explanation. He gets a vision of Jesus.

Every detail expands his reality. It's

blowing his mind. He sees Jesus with a

robe and a golden sash.

What that means is Jesus is king and

he's priest.

He's close enough to actually intercede

for you, but he's powerful enough to

rule and reign. That's what that means.

That's the image. Then he sees Jesus

with his hair like wool. This this

represents the ancient of days. Jesus is

not reacting to history. It means he's

standing over all of history.

And then he sees his eyes blazing like

fire. Meaning that he sees everything.

Nothing is hidden.

Nothing is overlooked.

Not your life and not human history. And

then he hears this voice like rushing

waters. Not one voice among many. The

final voice.

And then he sees stars in Jesus's hand.

Stars.

The ancient world. There was this belief

that stars determined their fate. That

was a belief called astral fatalism.

Again, that just means that like you you

actually believe that you could read the

star. There's still people to believe

this today that that doing astrology can

will determine your fate. It's already

been put in the stars. They feared the

stars. They lived under them. And what

John is seeing is Jesus holding them.

And you and I don't have to believe in

astrology, but you still believe

something has has power and

determination over your life. Every

single one of us believes something is

at work over our life. Our past haunts

us. Our own limitations haunt us. Our

identity haunts us. And we look at our

limits and our ceilings.

Everything John is saying that has power

over you is actually in Jesus's hand.

That's what he's saying. When was the

last time

you saw Jesus for who he was? He

actually surprised you, not comforted

you, but disrupted you. Because that's

what he's doing to John in this moment.

Not trying to comfort him. He's

disrupting every notion he's had. He's

expanding John's revelation of what he

understands of who he is.

And John is an apostle

that wrote books of the Bible.

And Jesus is still blowing his mind and

showing himself more clearly.

Here's our heart posture. Team, you can

start to come up. Help me. Help me close

this. When you see Jesus,

the instinct that you and I have is to

try to close that gap by trying harder,

by doing more, or fixing ourselves.

The last thing we're inviting you to do

today in your heart is to fix yourself,

try harder, or just to do more.

That is what creates pride. That's what

creates the manageable Jesus. And that

is create what creates ultimately the

thing that this entire book is meant to

disrupt because the early church was

still struggling with it. I still

struggle with it. And so do you. We want

we want to control.

And the issue is we don't fully trust

him. We trust him with eternity and our

salvation and theory. But the reality is

is we we struggle to trust him in our

suffering

and our circumstances and our fears.

And the gospel is moving and it's

inviting us to encounter him.

So here's the final point. I just want

us to see Aresh that Jesus wants to take

our fear, take our anxiety

and completely reframe it, obliterate

it, and put us on a completely new

course.

John is seeing him, and as he sees him,

he falls on his face like he's dead.

That's not a problem.

That's not some kind of dysfunction or

anxiety. That is a right kind of fear.

Scripture actually talks about fear. We

look at fear, I actually think there's a

lot of just numbness when we talk about

fear because fear is not meant to be a

bad word. Scripture actually talks about

the fear of God. And John here has fear

and it's healthy. Anxiety anchors us

more today because anxiety is the felt

kind of fear that all of us are

experiencing that is not from God. And

what anxiety ultimately is is is it's

detached from reality. And it's it's

essentially what is continuing

as a lifestyle. Anxiety is where fear

has gripped you and you're living into

it. You're believing something about it.

Fear is appropriate.

Fear fear is grounded in reality and and

it's what we should respond to Jesus

with. A holy kind of fear like John. But

anxiety is completely something else.

And that's what I want us to lean into

in worship this morning.

Anxiety is fear that's completely

detached from reality. And it's attached

itself to our imagination, to control,

to our past.

And John is saying anchor your fear in

Jesus. And most of our anxiety is

completely disconnected from Jesus.

John's fear is towards him. Our anxiety

always moves us away from him. Our

anxiety moves us towards more control,

more self-help, more more kinds of like

therapeutic mindsets that aren't Jesus

therapy. It's just striving.

The invitation is to stop managing your

anxieties.

Surrender to a fresh encounter to the

living king.

I want you to join me and stand. If you

will close your eyes. I'm just going to

I'm just going to pray some words over

us this morning, over our hearts,

Holy Spirit, would you come this

morning?

Take all the confusion of life, this

book, and all that's sitting before us

in our past, our present, and our

futures, and just sit and be present

with every single human being here. All

that they're feeling, all that they're

carrying.

And may there be a fresh encounter with

your gospel in your life this morning.

I'm going to give us several practices

to live into and then I'm just going to

call us into a place of worship to

respond as we close. Here's what I want

to invite us to do today.

What are you waiting to feel ready for?

John was told to write. Every encounter

in scripture, Moses was told to go. John

is told to write. Every single person

that has an encounter with God is then

given a place of action. Most of us put

encounter at the whole point. We go to a

conference, we go to a gathering, we

have this great experience and the whole

point was the encounter. The encounter

cannot be the high watermark of our life

and our experience. It has to be the

place that we're sent from. And this

morning, as we Sabbath, as we anchor

ourselves in this ancient way of weekly

and then daily and then sometimes hourly

coming back to trust and surrender,

we're saying that we receive all of you,

every experience and every encounter,

Lord Jesus.

But I'm not seeking an encounter.

I'm surrendering

to the same Christ that laid his life

down, that's risen and that's living,

that has a plan and a purpose and a life

for me. And I can't possibly be God of

that life. I can't possibly tell him

what to do with that life. And the

weight of being my own God is not

something that I any longer want to

carry on my own back. If that weight is

just something you carry and you may not

even be able to describe it, I just ask

you to put it before you.

Put it before you in some measure of a

prayer. Name that place of exile.

What is that place? Bring it into some

kind of a prayer. Not to try to fix it

or resolve it. Just to stop pretending

for a moment and be real with Jesus. No

one's going to ask you about this. It's

just between you and him. that patient

endurance, that moment where the

pressure lifts. Name that place of exile

that you're in and then be available.

Holy Spirit, we pray this week that we

become a people that are convicted with

our distraction and we become available

in a fresh way.

Whatever you have to do, get rid of your

distractions, your phones, your agendas,

the outcomes that you think you need to

produce. whatever you have to do to

simply sit with him and pray the prayer

of open my eyes to what's actually real

right now. We invite you into that. Holy

Spirit, we invite you into moments of

availability where we've been

distracted. We repent from our sin of

distraction and we receive your word

your words over our life to forgive our

sins and to put us back on a path. Some

of us our sins are not the horrific

things of adultery and lying and

stealing and murder. It's the sin of

actually not being present, of living

for ourselves, of worrying to the point

of death. And I repent from that myself

and receive your forgiveness today. And

I say that I will be a son that's

available to you in a fresh way.

Set us free.

Some of us need to hear like John. Just

a a simple word John had to hear, right?

He just needed to hear right now, John.

Write what you've seen.

Some of you,

what's the thing that Jesus has been

calling you to that you keep delaying?

Some of you, it's just a conversation

with someone that it's a year or 10

years overdue.

It might be just an act of obedience

that you know that you need to step

into.

Some it's it's a a simple word maybe

profound step of faith.

Step into it. Write it down. Tell one

person this week. Be accountable to

someone else. Maybe that's your

confession is what is the thing that you

know you've been putting off in your

life.

Make this the week that you trust him

with the thing you don't understand.

Holy Spirit, come now.

We respond in worship.

As we worship this lamb that was slain,

these images that we don't fully

understand, this faith that we don't

fully understand. We thank you that you

hold the world, the stars, the universe

in your hands. And if you do so, you can

simply hold my life and I can trust you

with it. We respond with all that we

have. We love you with all that we have.

And as we step into this ever so

imperfectly, thank you that you are

going before us. You are covering us.

And that you are patient with us to be a

people of patient endurance in a world

that is pulling us into chaos. May we be

the people

that become a non- anxious present to

the world around us in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Our prayer team is going to come

up to the front when you need