A Trinitarian Blessing

We’re going to be opening up to the Book of Revelation again. Revelation 1. Picking up where we left off this morning, with verse, uh, just half verse five and verse 6. Revelation 1, picking up at verse 5. However, we’ll read from verse 4, just to put it a little bit into its context. This is John’s greeting.

“John, To the 7 churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the 7 spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

Well, before we consider His Word, let’s pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your faithfulness to us. We thank you that you spoke through the prophets, you spoke through the patriarchs, you spoke through your Son, and you spoke through your apostles. And we have a living and active word in our hands, that we do not have a dead book, but we have your word which speaks to us today. So God, in the preaching of Your Word, please grant us to hear the voice of our shepherd, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Well, when I started writing, uh, emails, I had to very quickly learn how to communicate like a Kiwi. See, you may not be aware of this, but I grew up basically a Dutch person, though born in New Zealand. I was surrounded by Dutch people, I communicated like a Dutch person, I wrote emails like a Dutch person, I rang people like a Dutch person. Now you might not know what this means, but when you call someone up, what’s the very first thing you probably say? “Hi, how are you? How are you doing? What’s going on?” Well, when I ring someone up, my default thing is to say, “Hi, I’m calling because X.” I mean, why waste time asking how people are when it’s—You don’t really mean it, you’re just saying it because it’s the official thing you say before you get to the stuff you really want to talk about. Emails are the same. When you write an email, you write, “Dear So-and-so, I hope you’re doing well. How are you?” There are can—maybe work is a bit different, but even in work people do this as well. It’s this default thing you do. And I sent emails to people when I first started, especially in the ministry, you know, and I’d just be like, “Dear So-and-so, I need you to do A, B, C and D,” and people were upset with me. “So don’t you—Why are you so gruff all the time?” I’m like, “What do you mean? I’m not gruff. I’m just write—I needed you to do something, so I asked you to do something.” And I very quickly had to learn to write like a Kiwi person. And so I try very hard to write, “Dear So-and-so, how are you? I well.” And then I say what I actually want to say. I do care. So if you get enough of me, I do actually care how you are, so don’t mistake me in this.

But we can sometimes be a little bit like a Dutch person writing an email when we get to the epistles. Just like, “Well, we don’t need all the faff in the beginning. Just jump over it and get to the meat.” And, and this morning we saw, didn’t we, that actually there’s lots in these greetings. We, we considered the first half of the greeting, and we talked about the fact that, that this greeting comes from our wonderful God, our triune God, and that, that God in His goodness to us is giving us grace and peace that we might steadfastly hold forth the word of our testimony. In the midst of challenges, we have hope. Not, not because of who we are, not because we’re strong or courageous, but because of who God is. But because we have a God who is in control of the world. And, and the second half of this blessing, we sort of see the, the “who” that greets us, the wonder of this God. The second half is what this God’s done for us. What this God’s done for us.

We’re gonna see 3 wonderful blessings that come to us from our Trinitarian God. But before we do that, we need to think about who it is that John tells us is giving this to us. John says, “To him who loves us.” Well, who is this “him”? Is he referring to the triune God that was referenced in the previous verse? Or is he speaking about one individual? Of course, God being 3 in one means you could use the plural or you could use the singular and you’ll probably be safe either way. But notice who he is writing about. He says, “To him who loved us, freed us, made us a kingdom, priests to “Who?” His God and Father.” He’s talking about Jesus Christ here. It’s an, it’s an interesting shift, isn’t it? He, he goes, “I’m greeting you from God the Father, the Spirit, and the Son, in whom you get grace and peace.” And then he immediately turns to doxology, to glory, to praise. And he says, “To Jesus, be glory and dominion forever.” And you might ask yourself the question, why does John shift from talking about the 3 persons of the Trinity to all of a sudden be talking about Jesus? Is it because it’s only really Jesus that loves us? And it’s only really Jesus that freed us? And it’s only really Jesus that made us something? Because some people sort of talk like this, right? “God wanted to punish you, but Jesus kind of strong-armed Him into being nice.” Well, no. We rightly understand that the Triune God is involved fully in every aspect of salvation and His work. When God works, God works. Not just a part of God works, but all of God works.

So, why does he shift to Jesus? Well, I think the reason John shifts to Jesus, very fittingly, is because Jesus is rightly declared the author of our salvation. He is the manifestation of God. So another way of putting it is this. Without Jesus Christ incarnate, we would not know what God is like. would have a limited understanding, even more so than we already had, of God. So Jesus is the manifestation, the revelation of God, so that we might understand who God is. And, Jesus is the direct object of our praise and glory rendered to the 3 persons of the Trinity. So he acts sort of like a—To, to make it simplistic, he acts a little bit like a channel. So there’s us on one side, there’s the Trinity on the other side, and the incarnated Son of God is like the channel or the means that enables us to know God, and also us to commune with God, to communicate to God, to praise God. And so it’s very fitting that John is directing his praise and doxology to Jesus Christ, and also highlighting the work of Jesus Christ, even though it’s the work of the triune God.

So what does, what does God do for us? What does Jesus Christ bless us with? Well firstly, we’re told He loves us. He loves us. Now that’s an easy thing to say because we understand love, don’t—More willing. We’ve had parents or husbands and wives or siblings or friends who love us and who we love, and so we very quickly say, “Oh, well, that’s what love is.” I know love because my parents treated me this way or because someone who I love treated me this way. But that’s not what John is saying. John’s talking very particularly, and so you have to ask the question, well, how has He loved us? In what way has He loved us? And to answer that question, you’ve got to go back to the very beginning. Back to what in theology we call the covenant of redemption, or you might just call it the plan. When God made the plan. God, we’re told in Ephesians, elected a people in love. David says that “Before I was even in my mother’s womb, You knew me. You loved me.” loved me from the very beginning, and he made a plan, a plan to save a people of His own choosing. And he laid His electing love. It’s not just He decided to have a feeling, an emotion of love towards us. but rather, his love was manifested in this way, that he looked at you and he chose you before the foundation of the world. Now that’s a stunning thought because before the foundation of the world, you didn’t exist, did you? The world didn’t exist, sin didn’t exist. Nothing existed except for the mind of God to elect a people of his own. And so he chose you to be one of his people, he elected you in love. The overflow of his love which is manifested within the God here, which is striking, because God’s not lacking anything, right? He’s, he’s in love with his son and the spirit and the 3 of them dwell together in perfect love, having all love and giving all love necessary. And yet, they still chose, God still chose to love you. If that doesn’t leave you feeling privileged and honored, I don’t understand what would. I mean, everyone loves to be loved, right? It’s a wonderful feeling when you realize someone loves you. I was dumbfounded the day I discovered Josella actually loves me. I wanted her to for a long time, and I disc— someone, hey someone, actually loves me. God, the infinite God in whom there is nothing lacking or needed, loved you for no other reason than because he decided to love you, and so he chose you to be one of his people.

And yet it wasn’t going to be easy to make you one of his people, was it? Because he had planned for sin to enter the world, and he had planned for the rebellion of Adam and Eve, and he knew and he planned that the only way to love you was to pay the price of that love. Why? Budy, Jesus, we’re told, said in John chapter 15, “No, no love is greater than,” what? Hmm. “Someone that lays down his life for his friends.” The greatest manifestation of love is giving up oneself as a sacrifice for someone else, right? I mean, there’s, there’s nothing higher you could do for someone than to die for them. And so the manifestation of God’s love calls Jesus to come and be incarnate and lay his life upon a cross. This is why John 3 verse 16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.” It’s not he loved so much like he had a great, big amount of love so he gave his son, as much as this is the intense manifestation of the love of God. It’s the cross. Do you want to know what God’s love is really like? And sometimes people say, “I wish I, I experienced more of God’s love.” Do you want to know the depths of the love of God? Go to Calvary. Because there is no greater manifestation of love than your Savior hanging, bleeding, upon a tree, cursed by his father because his father loves you. Such was his love for you that he willingly, willingly carried a cross, willingly was nailed to a cross. He could have ended it at any point. Remember he says to Pilate, “You’ve got no authority over me.” And he’s right. Jesus could have said at any moment, and what? A myriad of angels would have come to him. I mean, do you think the angels enjoyed watching their king crucified? The one who they had worshiped and adored for all of the Old Testament and before? Do you think they enjoyed that, watching their savior stricken, smitten, and afflicted? And yet love constrained them. Love stopped the angels from coming down and saving their king. If it was not for love, the angels would have crossed the threshold immediately to save the object of their love, the same way you would if you could save one who you love. But they didn’t because that’s how much your Savior loved you.

You know, lo- love’s not just a feeling as much as the song says so. Love’s not even just a statement, right? I mean, it’s nice when people tell us they love us, but if you tell someone you love them and you never show it, the person won’t feel loved, will they? But, but doesn’t, doesn’t a wife’s heart erupt when her husband sacrifices himself for him, gives up for her, lays down her life for her? No greater love has a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. And do you know why this is really important? Because deep down in the heart of every single one of us is a deep burning, yearning desire to be loved, right? I mean, you can’t turn it off. Every one of us longs to be loved. That’s true horizontally in human relationship, but that’s a shadow of the reality of our vertical relationship with God, right? And, and the problem is that that yearning desire, so often we are tempted to satiate, to satisfy on the filth of this world. This, this is why Jeremiah writes to Israel and he says, “You gave up living springs for cracked systems that do not satisfy.” Isn’t this true of us? The, the, the one who fulfills the longings of our hearts is right there. The love we so crave is right there, and what do we do? We turn to the lusts of our flesh, the desires of our hearts, and we seek to find our love fulfilled in them. But what happens? It never works, does it? Leaves us hollow and empty and not satisfied. And this is a wonderful reminder for us that the only thing that will ever satisfy the burning desire in your heart to be loved is the face of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is only the sacrifice of Christ that will satisfy the desire in your heart. You might have the best husband or wife in the world, that person will never fully fulfill the longing in your heart to be loved. Only God that. So don’t try and fulfill your heart in any created thing. Go to Christ and be satisfied in Him. And I tell you, when you do, every other created love becomes infinitely richer because you no longer look to it to provide something it can’t. And so you go to your husband or wife or friend or brother or sister for a love that it can provide because you’ve received the love it can’t provide from Christ. And when you do that, you are set free to both love and be loved by the people around you without expecting them to give you something they just cannot give.

So He loved us. He loves us, I should say. He also has freed us. We’re told by John, “He has freed us from our sins by His blood.” See, l- love is not contented to just express its love to someone, right? If you have a husband that says, “I love you. Let me show you my love self-sacrificially, but let me do nothing to improve your life,” you would begin to question, right? “There’s something not right here.” But love doesn’t do that. A person that truly loves another person doesn’t just lay down their life for them, but then seeks their embetterment. And we were unloved, but we were also trapped in bondage. Romans 5 and 6 talks about the bondage of sin, the bondage of death. We were bound up, as Wesley talks in that- in his hymn, And Can It Be? remember? “Long lay my prison in shackles. I was imprisoned in shackles.” But what happened? “The rain of His light appeared, and I was set free.” You see, our problem was not just that we were unloving, unlovable. Our problem also was that we were bound up in our sins. We were under the authority of the devil and our sin and this world. And yet, we’ve been freed. We’ve been ransomed by the blood of Christ. And what John’s talking about is the redemptive payment made in the likes of a slave market. You- we can picture it. Of course, we can’t experience it. Praise the Lord for that. But you can picture a slave market, right? You walk in the door, and there’s- there’s a big stage just like this. And up on the stage are slaves. There’s- there’s smart slaves and there’s poor slaves. There’s big burly slaves, and there’s slaves who will be good for cooking, and there’s slaves that will dig your garden, and there’s slaves that will help you with your exams, and there’s slaves that will do your money for you. All sorts of different slaves. And up at the front is the auctioneer. And he has his gavel and he’s calling out, “Slave number 437 for sale. Bring him up.” And up walks this big burly man. He’s a fine specimen. He’s going for $1,000. And the bids begin, right? And the numbers come up and the price goes up until someone pays to purchase the slave. That’s the context you have in mind.

But what you see is a very different context. All of humanity is on the stage. Men, women, children. All of them, lock and key, chained in misery and sin and death. And taskmaster is the devil. And he cracks his whip and he drives them further into misery, further into sin, further into abominations. But then in walks a man with blood from his hands, blood from his side, blood upon his brow, disfigured, torn, despised. he walks in. He says, “That one there, number 437, I’ve paid for his freedom.” And the devil says, “What right do you have? What have you paid for him? What right do you have?” And he says, “I’ve paid by my own precious blood.” As Peter puts it in first Peter 1, “We have been ransomed not by gold or silver but by the precious blood of Christ.” He doesn’t pay for you with any human means. He pays by His love through His blood. And who can oppose Him? I mean, what claim does the devil have? He says, “Ah, he’s mine. It’s too late. I’ve paid the price. I’ve already purchased him. You can’t have him back. He’s mine.” You see, Christ doesn’t just love us, but He does everything necessary to set us free from the world, free from the devil, free from the lusts of our flesh. He freed us by His own blood. It’s as though we were bound up with ropes and His blood just dissolved the ropes and we walked out free. It’s magnificent. Totally free.

Makes me think of—I don’t know if you’ve heard of Adoniram Judson, the missionary Burma. And- and he was in prison, and it wasn’t a particularly nice imprisonment. They were hung upside down by their feet, day in and day out. And his wife, Ann, with a brand new little baby would walk an extremely long distance, I can’t remember exactly how long, a long distance carrying a brand new child through the heat of the sun to feed him. Because they wouldn’t feed him. and then she returned home. And she’d come back the next day. Day in and day out, risking her own life, risking the life of her child. She would go and she would speak to the gov, the, the people in charge, and plead for her husband to be set free over and over and over again. And when they moved him, she would follow. And she would follow as they dragged him about, and she would feed him and tenderly minister to him. And eventually, he was set free, and the people in charge had to acknowledge that one of the greatest reasons why is because of the love of his wife. She was not contented just to love her husband. She would do anything to see him set free. we see the same thing in John Bunyan. John Bunyan locked up in prison for year after year, 12 years. And his wife comes and comes and comes to the judges and says, “Set my husband free. He doesn’t deserve to be in here. Set him free.” And she pleaded over and over again because she longed for the object of her love’s freedom. And so it is with Christ.

And this is important for us, brothers and sisters, because so often as the Proverb says, like a dog, we can return to our own. Can’t we? I mean, what would you say if Bunyan, after 12 years of imprisonment, he finally gets out, he comes home, and his wife says to him, “Oh, praise the Lord, Johnny. You’re home. You’re finally home.” And he says, “Oh, it’s lovely, but I’ve decided to go back to the prison tomorrow. You know, th- the food wasn’t great, and it was pretty cold, but, you know, I don’t mind it there.” She says, “But John, I’ve worked so hard. I’ve prayed so much. The whole church would love for you to be set free. And you’re finally set free.” He said, “Yeah, I know. I can be set free again. I’ll just go for a while.” Yet, don’t we do this? been set free from the world, the flesh, and the devil, and yet we wake up and we go, “Oh, just this once, Lord. I, I know, Jesus. I know you paid by your precious blood, but I, I can come back. And you can cleanse me again. I’m just going for a quick flingback into the lusts of my heart.” Brothers and sisters, put it to death. You’ve been freed from an old life. Live in freedom, for in Christ, you are free indeed, and you’ve been set free, ransomed by the blood of Christ. Live in that freedom.

And so He loves us and He frees us, but He doesn’t free us for ourselves, I hope you know. He doesn’t free you to live your best life now. But He, He carries on the work of freedom to its logical consequence. And so we’re told that He made us something. Have a look at verse 6. “He made us a kingdom, priests to our, to His God and Father.” He made us a kingdom. That’s a weird thing to say, right? I mean, if He made a kingdom and made us citizens of it, that would make a lot more sense. Or if He made us kings, you know, like little capital, little K kings under Christ. It’s like that—What does it mean for us to be made a kingdom? And when you think kingdom, what do you think of? Do you think military kingdom? You know, are we going to war? Because there’s a place for that biblically, for military-type language. But notice what he puts together. He says, “He made us a kingdom, priests to His God.” This is a combined idea that the priests to his god helps explain what he means by a kingdom. wonder if you remember back in 1 Peter that we read earlier, that he’s made us what? A royal people. A royal what? Priesthood. holy nation. This combining together of holy priesthood, like setting aside, and kingdom nation, one people. What’s being communicated here is not so much you’re a military kingdom, but a little bit like what happens when the king—Now I’ve forgotten his name now. Starts with a J. It’ll come back to me very shortly. When the king sends forth his army and puts priests in the front row. Do you remember that moment? The king goes forth and God says to him, “Go forth and conquer, for I am with you.” And so what does he do? He sends his priests at the front of the army, singing songs of praise. “His steadfast love endures forever.” Why? Because he doesn’t need soldiers, because the victory is secure. So why priests?

Why are we made priests? Well, to understand that, you have to think about the function of a priest in the Old Testament. What does a priest do? One of the major things a priest does, he makes sacrifices for people’s sin, he offers thanksgiving offerings of praise, and he declares God’s law, or word, on subjects at hand. And a lot of stuff falls under that, like checking for lepers and all that sort of stuff. But those are sort of the 3 major things they do, right? Deal with sin, offer praise, deal with God’s word. So why would we be made priests, a kingdom? Because we have been loved and freed for the purpose of rendering praise to God, and thanksgiving of declaring, not s- making sacrifices for people to save them, but proclaiming what? The sacrifice of Christ. And, and this is really strong in 1 Peter. If you flick back just a few pages, that, that section that we read earlier. So Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.” Why? “That you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out darkness into His marvelous light.” Why do you exist? So that you might proclaim the excellencies, give praise and honor and glory to God, but also what? proclaim the saving work of Christ into the nations. You have been f- loved and freed so that you might go into your workplaces as a priest of God, declaring the all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ. As a mother, you are a priest in your household. To hold up the sacrifice of Christ before your children. As a friend, you are a priest to your friends, that they might know that there’s a sufficient sacrifice. Every one of us, yes, we have ministers who take up specific roles, but every one of us is a priest to God, to proclaim His majesty, to proclaim the sacrificial work. And to bring out His word, for ourselves and for those around us. Oh, how we need the priesthood of all believers to function, brothers and sisters. If you rely upon me to do everything, we are gonna fail horribly, because I can’t be in your home, and I can’t be among your friends, and I can’t be in your workplace, and I can’t be in your marriage. Christ has called you as a lowercase P-priest to be that in every sphere of your life. Whether you’re the prime minister of a country or whether you’re just a child makes no difference. Every person that has been loved and freed hasis being made a priest. Has been made, and continues to be made, a priest for Christ, to bring Christ’s purposes into this world. And so I guess the great exultation on that point is what? Do it. Don’t wait for someone else to do it. Be a kingdom of priests wherever you find your feet standing.

There’s a real temptation at this point, isn’t there? Because we see, we see the immensity of the love-that Christ displays for us. And, and we, and we learn of His blood and what He gave up to free us, and we look at the incredible thing that He’s making us, and we can be tempted to think to ourselves, “It’s all about me.” Right? Th- Amazing how m- how well God treated me. It’s amazing how much He loved me. It’s amazing that He freed me. It’s e- an- and you start beginning to think that, that all of this blessing and privilege is about me. But you’ve missed the whole point of this whole section. Notice how he introduces it. In, in the Greek it’s just one word, and it’s a little bit hard to capture, but in the, in the English you just have “To him.” And he’s not actually talking to you. He’s telling you about something Christ has done, but he’s not actually talking to you. He is talking to you, but you know what I mean. He’s talking about Christ and to Christ. And so he says, “To him, to him who did these things, amazing things, to him”—And then he picks up after he’s described it. He picks back up again, and he says, “To him,” again, “be glory and dominion forever and ever. Why did he do this? For the sake of his name. Do you remember that moment in Israel’s history when, when they’re heading towards the promised land a- and God says to the people of God, “Just, just be careful. Be careful. When you go into the promised land and, and you get vineyards that you didn’t plant, and you get honey that you didn’t labor for, and you get fields, and houses, and trees that you did nothing to get, don’t begin to think to yourself, ‘It’s by my hand I did this,’ or, ‘It’s because of my righteousness that this happened to me. It’s because of me that this happened.’” I mean, God says, “Instead, remember it was because of the wickedness of the Amorites and for my namesake that I have done this. You didn’t deserve any of it. The only reason this is happening for you is because my glory is displayed in that.” And this is such a glorifyingly humbling reality. When you realize that God did all of this for me, for no reason other than His glory, for His praise, for His honor. And all of a sudden it’s down with Logan and up with Christ. So that the, the deeper you press into the reality of all that Christ has done for you, the lower you sink. And the lower you sink, the more you lift up and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the purpose of all of it. That’s why He’s done it. Not so that you would pat yourself on the back and say, “Oh, I must be pretty special,” but so that you would fall down at the feet of God like those 12 elders.

Isn’t it a wonderful picture? I love Revelation 4 and 5. I read it every Sunday morning. Every Sunday morning I read Revelation 4 and 5 as a reminder reality of what we enter into. And I love, in Revelation 4, the cherubim, those 4 angelic creatures. They cry out, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.” And every time they sing, what do the, what do the elders do? They take off their crowns and they throw them down, and they cry out in praise. And then I’m assuming at that point, what do they do? They pick their crowns back up because the song goes on over and over again. So they go and collect their crowns, and they stick them back on their heads, and they sit back down on their thrones again, and then the cherubim say, “Holy, holy, holy.” And the elders go, “Oh, yes,” and they, “I’m not even fitting to wear a crown. Why have I even got a crown on my head in the presence of God?” And they take their crown off and they cast it down, and they fall upon their face before God, for we are unworthy. on and on and on it goes in symphony. Brothers and sisters, that should be us. We look at what we’ve ach- what we’ve received, and we sit upon the throne with a crown upon our head and we go, “Wow, look at all I’ve received.” And then we look at the holiness of God and we cast it all we fall down and praise Him. Ah, brothers and sisters, we’ve received a rich inheritance, but not for our sake. Things. So render Him all honor and praise. Amen. Amen.

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