A Letter from Jesus

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI and edited by Sjannette Hagoort

If you have your Bible with you, we’re turning through to the Book of Revelation. Chapter one, and our text is primarily verse 19 and 20. We may delve a little bit into chapter two and three as we sort of begin considering how we understand the letters to the church.

“Then I, John, turned to see the voice that was speaking to me. And on turning, I saw 7 golden lampstands. And in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white 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 7 stars. From his mouth came a sharp 2-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, ‘Fear not. I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore. 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 7 stars that you saw in my right hand and the 7 golden lampstands, the 7 stars are the angels of the 7 churches, and the 7 lampstands are the 7 churches.”

Well, children, I want you to imagine for a second that there’s 4 blind men, all right? 4 blind men, children. They’re led into a room, and they’re told there is something inside. All right? There is 4 blind men, they’re told there’s something in a room, and their job is to go and figure out what it is. All they know is, it’s something. And all they’ve got is what? Their hands, right? So if you’re a blind person and you want to know what something is, you have to go and touch it. And so, one man walks in, and he goes to the front of the object and he grabs it, and he says, “Oh, it’s a snake! It’s a long snake.” And someone comes in the back, and he goes, “No, it’s a little thin whip that you can use.” And another man comes in the side, and he grabs it, and he says, “No, no, no. It’s a tree. I’ve got a trunk in front of me. It’s like a big tree.” And the 4th man comes to the side and he goes, “No, no, no, no. It’s a sheet, that someone’s hung up on a washing line.” And you’ve gotta imagine there must be a bit of confusement in the room, right? Everyone’s a bit confused. “Huh, what is this thing? It’s a sheet, it’s a tree, it’s a snake, it’s a whip.” But to the man who sees and opened the door and let him in there, he knows it’s an elephant. You see? And the man at the front who found the snake, it was a trunk. And the man at the back had been grabbing the tail, and the man at the side had a trunk which was a leg, and the other man was holding it’s ear thinking it was a sheet. You see, perspective makes a big difference, doesn’t it? If you don’t know what you’re dealing with, you can very quickly get confused.

And the same is true for us as we approach the word of God. We can come into the word of God, and rush into passages, and think we know what we’re doing with them—but very quickly find ourselves in hot water. And as we approach Revelation 2 and 3, this is true. It would be tempting for us to just jump into the church at Ephesus. But the problem is if we do that, we might be misreading it. We need to understand why these are here, and in order to do that, we need to stand back a little bit and have a look at verses 19 and 20, and we need to see 3 things.

Firstly, we need to see that these letters come from Jesus Himself. These letters come from Jesus Himself, our prophet, priest, and king. We know that back in verse 11, Jesus had already said to John, “Write what you see in a book.” And we’ve been told again in verse 19 that John has been commanded, “Write what you see.” Now, the reason he gets the command twice should be reasonably obvious to us. He was given the first command, remember? He hears the trumpet sound behind him, and then he turns around and he’s caught off guard. He sees Jesus and His glory, and what happens to John? He falls down like a dead man, so you can’t really blame him for potentially forgetting what he was about to do. But Jesus, having brought him comfort and assurance and hope, he gives him the charge again, “Take up the pen, John, and write. Write that which you have seen, write those that are, and write those that are to take place.”

Now, we could spend the next 3 hours unpacking exactly what is meant by that verse. To help you understand how much debate there is over this, over it, one of my commentaries spent 200 pages on just that verse. Because it’s this big key that unpacks how you understand the whole book, and there’s a whole lot of argument, which is not very helpful. But the simplest way of understanding this is that when Jesus says to him, “Write what’s happened, write what’s happening, write what will happen,” He’s encapsulating not history, not church history, not world history, but the vision. It’s like saying, “Write all the stuff that you saw already, write what’s about to happen with the letters, and then write all the rest of the visions that take place as well, record them all really well so that you can send them all to the church.” And so Jesus Himself tells John, “Take up these words and write it.”

It’s important for us to know that this is from Jesus, because we’re reminded in verse one that it’s both about Jesus and it’s from Jesus. So in verse one, it says, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” This is understood 2 ways. It comes from Him, it’s His, He owns it, it’s His vision, but it’s also of Jesus because it’s about Him. Everything we’re going to read in this book is communicating to us our Savior, our King, our Prophet, our Priest. It’s important for us to remember this because it’s also written to us as a blessing. Do you remember those words we looked at in verse 3? That there’s a blessing attached to this book. So many of us want to run away from it because it’s scary and we don’t know what to do with it. But Jesus Himself says, we’re told through John, “There is a blessing to anyone who reads the words of this prophecy aloud, and anyone who hears it.” So these letters that are gonna come to us, the letters that went to Ephesus and Pergamum and Thyatira and all the different churches, they weren’t condemnary actions. They weren’t Jesus just being a bully. They were Jesus blessing his people. The same is true for you and I. His words come to us to bless us and strengthen us in our faith.

But we also remember, don’t we, who they come from? We often are tempted to only think about Jesus meek and mild, like a child. He’s lowly, he’s soft, and he hap—happily just welcomes anyone, and all of those things are true. But that’s not the whole Christ, is it? Because as we saw in verse 12 through 16, he is glorious in majesty. He is all powerful, he has all authority, and he reigns supremely above all of creation and all of the universe. There is not, as it’s commonly said, not a metric molecule anywhere in the universe that Christ does not say, “Mine,” over. And this letter comes from him, and there’s a few important things to remember, things like his wisdom. Remember, we talked about the wool, the white hair. He has all wisdom and knows perfectly, so he’s not guessing when he writes to the churches, because he says throughout the letters, “I know.” “I know,” “I know your ways,” “I know where you dwell.” He has eyes that see. Nothing can evade his gaze. He has feet that travel everywhere. He has a sword to destroy, and a tongue to deliver the word of God. And so it comes from this one, which reminds us that this one who writes to us, he writes to us, if you can remember when we talked about the one in the midst of the lampstands, he is in our midst as a king, as a ruler, as a judge. And so he comes in order to test, to see if things are the way they’re meant to be. He rules and he judges over his church. He sets the standard for us, and he holds up the standard so that he might help us in his love for us.

And you’ll notice, if you just flick through very quickly, in chapter two and three, every letter begins with a call to look at him, and so we’re told in the letter to Ephesus, “The words of him who holds the 7 stars in his right hand, who walks among the 7 lampstands.” In verse 8, “The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.” Verse 12, “The words of him who has the sharp 2-edged sword.” Verse 18, “The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze.” Chapter 3:1, “The words of him who has the 7 spirits of God and the 7 stars.” Verse 7, “The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.” And verse 14, “The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.”

Now, the reason this is important is because what it’s reminding us is that the ultimate solution to all of our problems is not trying harder, but looking at our Savior. It is when we come face to face with Christ, it’s like Isaiah in the throne room of God. As we come face to face with Christ in his person and work, we truly see, we truly understand, and we’re truly able to reform our lives, our hearts, and our churches. And so we’re called, as we come to these letters, to a peculiar focus upon Christ.

See, one of the dangers when we come to letters is to spend all of our time in these letters thinking about ourselves. Well, how are we doing? What are we doing? Where are we going? What’s wrong with us? What’s not wrong with us? Are we winning? Are we losing? And there is time for self-reflection, but what Jesus is doing is calling the early church back to himself. Not to an arbitrary law, but to himself. And the wonderful thing is, do you notice how he points them all to a different aspect of himself? Because it’s the particular medicine that they need. You hope that if you ever need to go to the doctor for something, that he doesn’t just randomly start pulling things out of the medicine cabinet and throwing it at you. “Well, we’ll just try this one and see if it works. I don’t know what it does, but you never know. Just take it and see what happens.” No. What does he do? He hears your conditions and he researches. And he looks, he thinks, and he considers. and after doing research and weighing things up, he tries to find a particular medicine or treatment that solves the problem. And so it is with our Savior. And so we must approach these letters as a special revelation of Jesus Christ directly to his church, but also directly for our benefit. Don’t think this is just about 7 random churches that don’t exist anymore. This is written for us, so that we would benefit from it too.

And so we see that this, these letters to come are from Jesus, but we also recognize they are from Jesus to the church, and to the church as defined by him. And so, verse 20 tells us that the church is 7 lampstands and that the church has 7 stars, which are angels, over the 7 churches. You see, since verse one, Jesus has been speaking to his church and defining what we are to focus upon. And in verse 20, we begin to unpack something of the nature of the church as Jesus sees it, and where all of the problems that we’re gonna consider in chapter two and three ultimately come from and are related to.

We see that Jesus Christ defines the church as lampstands. And you might ask yourself the question, “Well, why lampstands? Why not a temple? Why not a building? Why not a family?” It could’ve been many different things. There’s lots of different imagery in the Old Testament, he could’ve picked a plethora of different things. But Jesus himself chooses lampstands as he reveals this vision to John. Well, to understand why, you have to sort of work your way through the whole Bible, so I hope you’ve got a spare couple of days. But to give you a very quick overview, in the very beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and what was over the water? Darkness. And it was not habitable. And so God brought light, and he caused light to rule over creation, to make it habitable, to make it a place where people could flourish in the light. But the people rebelled, and they were cast out of the place of blessing into the wilderness, into metaphorical darkness, away from the face of God. And then, as God begins to bring a nation together, he picks one man. Do you remember? He picks Abraham. And as he picks Abraham, do you remember how he appears to him? As the covenant is made with him, God appears in deep darkness as a burning torch of light, and it’s showing Abraham that there is light in a dark world that comes only from one source. There is only one place of light, hope that comes, and it’s God.

And then as this covenant works its way out through the people of God, we find Israel in Egypt being delivered by God through darkness as he brings darkness upon Egypt, and then finally death, and leads the people of God out. And what does he lead them in? During the day when it’s light, he’s a cloud, but at night, he is a burning light in their midst. In the middle of the dark wilderness, light goes before them. And when they finally arrive in the promised land and they’ve established everything, and there is the temple, made by Solomon in its beauty and splendor, and they dedicate it to the Lord, God shows up in a flame of fire and fills the temple with glory and no one can stand because of the glory of God in their midst. And then as the prophets begin to unpack these things in Isaiah 49 and, and in other chapters, Isaiah says, “You,” speaking of the servant of God, “You are a light to the nations.” And this was always Israel’s purpose. Israel was to be a light to the surrounding nations, that as they lived out in holiness, they would draw the nations to Yahweh. Yet they failed. They rejected the light and exchanged it for darkness.

And so it should be no surprise to us that when Jesus Christ came upon the Earth, Nicodemus comes to him at nighttime and says to him, “We know you’re a good teacher.” And then he leaves into the nighttime, and then Jesus stands up and declares in the temple, what? “I am the light of the world.” And yet the light would be rejected. Though the darkness, John 1, could not overcome it, yet he would enter the darkness of Gethsemane and lay down his life and die in order to establish the light, because the darkness cannot overcome the light. And so he is risen from the dead, triumphant on Sunday when he is raised up, and the light can never be extinguished. And so Jesus says to his disciples, in his earthly ministry, you are what? “You are lights.” Matthew 5. “You are salt and you are light.” No one hides a lamp under a basket. That would be insane. So don’t hide your lights, the little children song. Hide it under a bushel? No. I’m gonna let it shine. Let it shine till Jesus comes. I’m gonna let it shine.

I hope you’re beginning to see what’s happening here, because the people of God are called to walk what? In the light, and not in the darkness, and they’re called to be a light in a dark world. Why? Because they’re to shine forth the light of Christ everywhere they go. And what Jesus is defining here is the mission of the Church of Jesus Christ. And notice they’re lampstands. They’re not suns. You know why? Because a sun generates its own light, but a lampstand doesn’t. A lampstand cannot create its own light. Someone else must put wax or oil and light it. And so what Jesus is communicating to the church is that, “You are the Church. You are the light in a dark world, and I have given you light. And I have set you ablaze, and the light that is shining in you is me.” This is exactly the picture that we will see when we turn to Zechariah. In Zechariah, we see a lampstand and beside it, 2 olive trees that feed it perpetual oil so that it would always burn brightly. This is what our Savior does to us by the Holy Spirit so that the Church of Christ would burn brightly in its mission, so that as a church is planted in Karaka, a light would be set ablaze so that people in the darkness would be drawn to it like moths to a flame.

It’s an incredible thing, isn’t it, when you leave a light on with a window open? Well, at least if you live in the country like I do. We recently we did this. We left our bathroom light on, window open, and the door open, and I was sitting on the opposite side of the lounge, and all of a sudden I noticed about 5 bugs flying around my head. And I was like, “Why are there 5 bugs flying around my head? This is a bit odd. We never have bugs inside at this time of night.” And I’m swatting them away and swatting them away, and then I stand up and I walk into the bathroom, and I tell you what, it was like walking into a bug museum. There were bugs everywhere. All over the mirror, all over the floor, all over the ceiling. It was infested. Shut the window, spray it out. Why? Because they’re attracted to the light. So, that’s what we’re here for, to attract the nations, to attract the world.

And, you know, we don’t attract the world by becoming a little bit more like the night. You know people say this sometimes? They’ll say, “Well, if we do things that the world finds comfortable, then they’ll want to be part of us.” That’s the opposite of Jesus’ intention. He said, “No, be opposite to the world.” you walk against the flow. And I know teenagers and young people, this view can be very difficult because you want to be liked. You don’t want people to treat you as funny, but that’s exactly what you’re called to do, you’re called to be different, to be a light in the middle of darkness, not to be gray in the middle of darkness. A torch running out of battery is no good to anyone, but a fire lit with a good supply of wood is good for everyone.

And so we’re called on mission to burn our lights brightly, but we’re also told about the authority of the church, and so we get this very kind of helpful explanation. We’re told in verse 20 that the 7 stars are the angels of the 7 churches. I wonder if that clarifies it for you. In case you were wondering what the stars are, they’re angels. What does that mean? Sort of like the explanation that needs explaining. What are the 7 angels? Are they angels’ angels? I mean, the Book of Revelation, outside of chapter two, three, and one, every time an angel is mentioned it’s an actual angel. So, is Jesus saying that there’s some angel that’s in charge of Reformation Bible Church, you know, like there’s the RBC angel, and if Jesus has a message he’s gonna communicate that to the angel? it could be taken that way, and many authors take it that way. One of the difficulties with that is that all of the angels that are addressed, they’re gonna be told off, well, 5 out of 7, for sin. Now angels don’t sin. Fallen angels sin, but God’s angels don’t sin, so that makes it difficult to take that view.

The other alternative, which a lot of the older writers, especially the Puritans, they took that this was the minister. It’s heavenly language for the minister who stands over the flock. Why? Because he’s the one that declares the Word of God, and so the message comes to the minister who would then portray that to the congregation. I personally find that a very helpful way of understanding it. But whether you take angel or minister, what’s Christ’s point? “I am writing to those or he that is in charge of the church.” Why? Because Christ has bestowed authority structures in the church. He has appointed heads over countries, heads over families, and he has appointed heads over churches. And so, Christ, as with all authority structures, holds the head particularly accountable and responsible for everything, even if he’s not the one doing it.

You know, it’s striking that when you get to the Church of Thyatira, you find a church with a wicked prophetess called Jezebel practicing sexual immorality in the church. I mean, this church is bonkers, right? And yet Jesus doesn’t address Jezebel directly. He writes to the head. Why? Because it’s his responsibility to sort it out. And I think this is just a wonderful reminder for us to be very prayerful for anyone that sits in a position of authority over anything, but especially the Church of Jesus Christ, because they will be held accountable for what they do, for their failures and for their successes. So be prayerful for them.

And so we see here Christ defining his church by his standard as both missional and with authority structures in order to carry out that mission. Now, the reason that’s important as we think about Christ addressing his church is that when we rightly understand that Christ is addressing his church, which is defined missionally and with authority in this section of text, it helps us understand the purpose of these letters. And so we see it’s from Christ to his church, as it’s defined by him with a specific purpose, and that is, simply put, to address its failure or to encourage its faithfulness as it carries out its mission and its authority.

And as we work our way through the letters, we’re gonna see that that’s what it’s all about. You see, because the Church of Asia was struggling under a couple of big things, and one of them was a temptation to give up the word of their testimony on the account of persecution. And we’re gonna have the opportunity of hearing more about persecution later. But it’s always tempting, isn’t it, when you’re under pressure to, to just not so much give up our testimony, but just quietly ignore it for a little while until we’re somewhere where people want to hear it. Whether that’s work or friendship or family. And so this isn’t going to be an encouragement to us, like the Church Church of old and the Church today, to carry out our mission with faithfulness. It’s also going to be there to challenge leaders of every type to faithfulness. And we will see what happens when authority structures get turned on their head. We’ll see what takes place when leaders fail their duty, because the sad part is leaders fail, but it’s, it’s the body that suffers, right?

And this purpose, this specific purpose is written to particular churches. These letters were actual letters that went to 7 particular churches. Some people attempted to understand this, and I’ve seen this a lot in New Zealand. These 7 churches represent the 7 ages of the church, and so the first 300 years is the first church, and then the next 200 years is the next church, and so this, it’s like prophetic. “We’re going to have this and then this and then this and then this.” That’s not what it is. However, they weren’t only written for 7 churches, and we know that because the, the person that carried this took it to Ephesus, and then he took it to all 7 of these churches, and all 7 of these churches heard all 7 of these letters. And there were churches in between those 7 churches on the route that it came to, too. And if you went to Ephesus, it spread out to other places, too. It spread out to Colossi and other little churches. Everywhere where there was a church in that area, they received this, and it comes to us, because unless we’ve become perfect in the last week, there are things we need to repent of which the Word of God will highlight. There are things we need to repent of, and there are things that we are doing very well that the Lord will commend us for. And so as we work our way through these letters, we look for things that we repent and change, and we look for things to fan into flame for the glory of God.

You see, much like the whole book of Revelation, these next 2 chapters are written for us to find comfort and encouragement and hope in the midst of a very dark world, because our Savior knows what we need. And sometimes, brothers and sisters, we just need a little bit more light. Now, one of the things we talk about in counseling, are the difficulty of counseling long-term people. When you get people who have problems that you know are going to take a year, 2, 3, 5 to walk through. And when we counsel people like that, one of the things we will talk about is that your goal every meeting is just to enable the person to see a little bit more light than they had when they came in. You’re not trying to fix them in one fell swoop, just a little bit of hope. They come out of the dark, beaten down and struggling, and they leave with a little bit of hope and light in their life to go on for another week, and they come back and they find a little bit more light and hope. And this is what Christ will do for us as we soldier on in this life. It will bring us just a little bit more light and hope, and, and so may it be our prayer—that God, as He speaks to us through His Son in the Book of Revelation, would enable us, as it says at the end of the letters, to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

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