THE BOOK OF REVELATION: REVELATION 1: 4-8

Speaker: Greg Sanders

Passage: Revelation 1:4-8

The Fear Of The Lord

We’re going to read through a few verses in Revelation, and then we’re going to see what kind of tracks we can make. 

Revelation 1:4 says, “This letter is from John to the seven churches in the province of Asia, grace and peace from the one who is who always was, who was still to come from the sevenfold Spirit before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness to these things, the first to rise from the dead, and the commander of all the rulers of the world. All praise to Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding His blood for us. He has made us His kingdom and His priests who serve His God and Father. So give Him everlasting glory. He rules forever and ever. Amen.” 

Holy Spirit, as we set our eyes towards the text, would You lead us and guide us and teach us? I know that there’s a plethora of things that we could focus on, but we ask for this time, right now, that You’d set our attention to the things that are in Your heart for this house. We love You. We honor You. We love the scriptures. We love what they do in our lives. We love the change they bring in us. We bless you in Jesus’ name, Amen. 

I love the first portion, where John talks about the commander of all the rulers of the world. Jesus is the one. You’ve found your source, and you’ve found where to align your life. I think so often in our culture, it seems like there are competing voices that will invite us to follow them and invite us to align under them. For just as the people of God, it was a verse we started with today that we’re the family of God and the temple of God. 

If we take all of that and apply to it this idea of the fear of the Lord–it’s been so stirred up in this house for the last few weeks–I feel the Lord is challenging His people to step into a greater fear or reverence of Him. It comes down to one simple solution: I’ve decided He is it, and I’m not going to deviate from that. I’m going to apply Him to my life in fullness and allow nothing else. I look at the end of the game and realize, at some point in the future, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, and everybody will align under Him and say, “You’re not an idea, You’re God.” 

I don’t know about you. But how many want to be on the ground floor of things? I want to stand there that day and say, “You all thought it was a joke.” We knew it was right. Paul goes on, and I love his ability to directly hit stuff. He’s like, look, here’s how it goes. If He’s not God, we’re idiots. We’re cursed above all men because we’re following this incredibly elaborate lie. He’s not God. 

What am I supposed to do? Decide He’s God. That’s what John says. I think John is having a moment in this vision. I think he’s probably riddled with the same kind of self-doubt that we are at times. I think he sees this vision and he sees this myriad of people and he sees this King on the throne and he sees them all bowing and worshipping and he’s freaking out. He’s almost saying, “Wow, look, He is the one! We’re not wrong. We’re not following this guy that was my buddy and then He died and I think He’s God.”

He sees it for the first time, and he’s trying to pull all of his readers with him and say, wow, do not doubt what I just saw. It should cause this formational truth in us. It says, you know what? I don’t have to wonder anymore. I’m going to align with Him, period. It should cause this simple realization that He’s smarter than me. 

How many would tell me they understand the theory of relativity at the same level Albert Einstein did? How many have decided or said early on in your academic career, “Einstein is smarter than me? I’m going to go with what he said.” Most of us probably don’t even know what the theory of relativity is.

Freed By His Blood

How much more do we align with Jesus and say, “I assume You’re so much greater than I am. You know so much more than I do. I’ll do what You said because You’re the one.” Then John goes on and says, “All praise to Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding His blood for us.” 

I want to focus on this first phrase, “All praise to Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins.” “To Him who loves us,” is the word agaponti. The root of it is agape. In this particular portion of the text, this word is in a present active voice, which means He is currently loving me. He is currently cherishing me. I think that it flies in the face of our sense of an austere God who’s irritated with us or disconnected. It’s this active thing that currently, right now, you can say this: God is loving me. Not “He loves me.” Not that “He loved me.” He’s loving me. He’s actively loving on me, actively cherishing me. 

How many would be honest enough to say I don’t often feel cherished by God? You look in the mirror, and you’re like, “Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know if You would love that.” But this word here, John’s not saying to his reader, “You know, He loved you. He loved you at the cross,” which is so often how we view it. 

How many have ever heard somebody say, “You know, He did enough. We don’t have to do anything else?” Well, that’s awesome to say. I think it’s healthy to say, but the truth is, you’re not God, so you don’t get to dictate what He does. His statement is that He is actively, aggressively loving and cherishing you. 

There’s this next phrase, “He has freed us from our sins.” I want to look at the word “freed.” The word is lusanti. In Greek, the word luo, its root word, means to untie or unbind. The way this verb comes up is in what’s called an aorist. The action that’s referred to is completed and done. It’s historic. 

John’s translation of this for us to understand is this: to Him who loves us and has untied us from our sins by His blood. How do we apply that? Well, consider a person untying a knotted rope. Can you imagine being a prisoner who has been held captive, arms behind your back? A rope tied tight enough that you can’t undo it. You’re left in the cold, you’re left to the wilds of the wild, and somebody comes along and physically unties the rope so you’re no longer stuck where you were. That’s the picture. 

It’s a picture of untying an animal that’s stuck in a trap. Freedom is the direct evidence of being unfettered or loosed. There are a couple of key grammatical things I want us to catch. This participle for love is present tense. It’s constant. Untied, meaning “it’s done,” He says, but it’s done through His blood by shedding His blood for us. 

When I was studying this, what came to mind instantly for me was the graphic nature of the cross. It’s so easy for us — specifically in Western culture — to anesthetize it and say things like, yeah, He died for us. We don’t consider the fact that His back was laid open and flayed, turned into hamburger on our behalf. He took real, physical punishment and pain when He was stabbed. He took a knife or spear into His side. There was this very visceral moment where the physicality of what it meant, and this is what John’s talking about, that He shed his blood for us so that our sinful brokenness was redeemed when He bled out. 

It’s an oddly graphic thing to consider. But our sin required justice. We know that. What Jesus does is place Himself by the Father’s bidding in a place to suffer abuse for the wrong that we did. I’m aware that this becomes an idea that we’re well acquainted with. I want to apply it for a second. I want you to go into your memory bank. I want you to go into that place of your most embarrassing, most horrific sin moment, the one where you’re saying, “That’s the one that makes me just feel sad about my history.” It’s the one that comes to mind when somebody talks about your brokenness. 

Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe you’ve lived so well, you’ve only made one. Or maybe you’re like me, and you’re there’s a laundry list. I want you to consider the shame that comes with that. Do you remember the moment you stepped into an egregious sin and you wanted absolution? That sense of being overwhelmed with guilt where you thought, “I’ve got to get free from this.” Does anybody else remember that?

I want you to stare at those places where you knew you were dead wrong. Those are the moments Jesus left with the soldiers for. When He allowed Himself to be dragged out and whipped, while they’re turning His back into hamburger, what’s going on in His mind is the moment where He knows that you are trapped in shame and you are trapped in brokenness. What’s going on in His mind is, I can endure this so they can go free. That’s what John’s talking about. 

If we go back to the syntax of the language, there’s this incredible truth that comes out of us. His loving of us is communicated as an active and continuous reality. His untying us from sin is a done task. What does that mean? His love is available now. There’s an ever-increasing order of love that’s been released to us. You’re never going to find a spot where God doesn’t love you and isn’t actively loving you. Anytime you have a feeling or a belief that He doesn’t love you or He couldn’t love you, you must identify that as rooted in hell, because it’s a lie. That is counter to what the scriptures say, that every one of those moments should begin with the prayer that goes like this: I know You love me, and I know You’re in love with me. Can we work on this thing? 

Instead of that thing the enemy loves, which is, “He doesn’t want to talk to you. You disgust Him. He’s embarrassed by who you are. Just fight it out on your own, figure it out, and then go talk to Him.” 

Why would the enemy whisper things like that? We all act out from those places. The great cover-up where we pretend we’re not as dysfunctional and broken as we are. Why? Because if anybody knew, what would they think? What they would think is that you’re a broken human being loved by God. Welcome to the club. He whispers those things because He understands it is the love of the Father poured out on us that cleanses us. 

I always go back to this passage in Isaiah one. Come here. Let’s reason together. Though your sins be like scarlet, they could be white as wool. Though they be as red as crimson. I can make you white as snow. 

We Are Cleansed By Encounter

How? God says, get over here. I want to talk to you. Why? Because every time I talk to you, My love pours out on you. My love cleanses you and it brings faith out of you. All of a sudden, you leave that encounter better than you started. But I can’t do that for you if you don’t come talk to Me. 

Why do you think your life gets so busy? You can’t get alone with the Lord. Is it possible that there’s an agenda towards that? Is it possible that our enemy understands busyness is the enemy of intimacy? When we’re not intimate with Him, we don’t get washed by Him. We don’t get cleansed by Him. We don’t get loved by Him. We stay in the dysfunctional funk that we’re in instead of evolving into people who can stand up, understanding we are dearly loved. I am blessed, and I reflect on my King. The investment in the secret place isn’t about being a good believer. It’s a survival mechanism. 

Whether we like it or not, we all know we need showers in the morning, and if you didn’t know that, you do. Why would you not assume you need a spiritual shower the same way? I’ve got to have Your love wash over me. I’ve got to have Your love cast aside and reveal all the places where my brokenness and my dysfunction are rising up. So, Lord, I’m going to be here with You because I need You. This isn’t about a religious exercise that makes you a good Christian. This is about a survival mechanism that fixes Your broken humanity.

His atoning act and His liberating us from sin are completed and done. Church, there is nothing that can be added to His finished work of freeing us from sin. That’s what John is teaching. He untied you. Because of that, any partnership you have with sin is now your choice.

When you consider that for a second, when he shed His blood, He untied you from sin and freed you, you were no longer bound. But you have an enemy that loves to whisper, you’re stuck in that. You’ve got to get clean. You got clean the moment He died. You can choose to not partner with sin. 

If you’re wondering how to do that, it starts with the mental understanding that you’re not trapped. If anyone says to you, “You’ve trapped yourself in addiction.” No, you haven’t. You may have built a mechanism in your body that craves something. But according to this passage, the moment He died on the cross, you were freed from the power of death, and you can say no. How? It starts with saying, “no.” 

Are there things that we’re going to have to go through to deprogram that? Sure, 100%. You might have to go through addiction counseling or therapy to unwind the habits you built. But what I promise you is as a child of God, you possess the ability to walk clean. Your partnership with sin is your choice. It’s not a victimized thing. You’re not stuck in sin. 

Let’s go one step further. The unsaved are freed from sin. All they have to do is choose him. He already paved the way for them. He broke sin for everyone. He untied everyone from sin. It wasn’t a casual untying. It was an untangling and a burning of the rope. That means that if you want to go back and sin, you’re going to grab a rope, and you’re going to tie yourself back to that thing because He already freed you. 

The problem is that because He’s that powerful, that rope will still dissolve. Because the answer still is, I once and for all time took sin upon my body, you don’t have it. It can’t control you. It will never control you. The fact that you even feel controlled by it is a construct of hell, and it’s a lie. All you have to do is choose Me.

When you say, “I’m just a sinner, I can’t help myself,” you’re lying. What you should say is, “You know what, I chose sin. It’s my fault.” This is why repentance is so awesome. “I chose to sin. It’s my fault. You know what, that’s dumb. No way. I’m going back in the other direction.”

I would much rather find a church full of people that found themselves in a mistake, hit pause, and went the other direction than a bunch of people who keep going out of their pride because they can’t admit they screwed up and they need to change directions. The truth is, we’re free. 

According to Galatians, it was for freedom that Christ set us free. He didn’t set us free so that we could stay stuck in sin. Can you imagine, as a parent, your son or your daughter is in a financial crisis, and you hand them a check to get them out of the problem, and they’re too lazy to go to the bank? They end up going into bankruptcy, and they end up going into foreclosure, and they end up ruining their credit, and they end up in jail because of it. But they held a single check that would have wiped away everything the entire time but weren’t willing to cash it. 

As a parent, you understand it’s a weird helicopter mechanism if you go cash the check for them. Because, at some point, we have to let natural consequences happen. But we have a King who is so loving and so gracious and so committed to our success that His statement was, I’m going to break the power of sin so it can’t hold you. All you have to do is choose freedom. 

You can be free now because you’re free. I love that verse. “It was for freedom that Christ set us free.” What it says is the freedom He called us to walk in, He gave us to choose. But we are free. His blood was shed because of His love. I think sometimes we treat it as if He did it because the Father told Him to. I do think there was express obedience in it, but based on what John teaches here, He didn’t just do it because He was told to. He did it because He loves you. He loves me. He loves the world. We are to follow His lead and become a people who love lavishly, who forgive lavishly, who grace lavishly because we’ve been loved, we’ve been forgiven, we’ve been graced. 

Four simple things I want to leave us with. We love because we were loved. We prefer because we were preferred. We serve because we were served. We free those who’ve wronged us because we’ve been freed. 

John’s point creates this incredible picture of this king who freed us so we can live out of the place of knowing our King is the King. He’s invited us into something different than this world. He’s made us a Kingdom and His priests who serve before God, His Father. He made us to reveal Him. 

If you’re still hung up in any way, shape, or form with His love for you, my hope is just hearing this, you’re like, well, biblically, it’s impossible. If you’re still hung up with feeling like you’re stuck in addiction, sin, or bad habits, I hope that you hear this and go, “Biblically, that’s not possible. It means I’ve made some choices, and I have the freedom to say ‘no.'” 

It doesn’t matter what it is. The power of God that freed you is the power of God that freed you, period. It’s not like there’s an index of sin, and His answer is, I don’t know if my blood was good enough for that one. 

There’s not a level. His blood unilaterally eliminated sin’s power. Now we have to decide if His blood is going to eliminate our ability to choose sin.

Lord, we stand before you today. All week long, I have been so gripped that our partnership is seen as our choice because You gave us the freedom to no longer be in that place. Thank You for that. Thank You for that feeling. Jesus, it’s incredible that we’ve been free for a long time and that You took punishment and pain in Your body so that You could stand and look at us and go, hey, come on, I set you free, be free. 

Would You lead us and guide us in this, Lord, and all the places this week where we have willfully aligned with sin? Would you begin to break those in the name of Jesus? Begin to reveal those places where the constructs of our minds or behaviors or attitudes have gotten in the way. Holy Spirit, would You whisper into those, yell into those, scream if You need to? We love You. We honor You. In Jesus’ name, amen.