Series: Revelation: The Best is Yet to Come

Title:  “Why do we worship God?”

Scripture: Revelation 4:1-11

Main commentary help: 

• Exalting Jesus in Revelation by Daniel Akin

• Revelation by Jim Hamilton

• The Seven Churches by Mike Breen

• Breaking the Code by Bruce Metzger

Be Confident About Your Future

What does the future hold in store for you?

 

Bible in One Year 2021 With Nicky Gumbel: Day 71 • Devotional

 

Futurologists predict what will happen in the future. For example, it has been predicted that some babies born today will live to the age of 150. Some of their predictions may come true. Others may not.

 

• In 1962 Decca Recording Company rejected the Beatles. They said, ‘We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.’

• In 1977 Ken Olson, Chairman of Digital Equipment Co., said, ‘There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.’

 

There are certain things about the future that we don’t know and that we are not supposed to know. However, there are other things that you can know about the future and that makes a real difference to your life now. Today we see why the echo the world needs to hear is from God through his people. That is worship.

Bottom line: Be the echo the world needs to hear from God through his people.

Illustration: This is not unlike the moon reflecting the light of the sun so that we can see the sunlight at night.

There are 2 parts to this:

 

1. Seeing and hearing God so that I am changed.

2. Echoing/reflecting what I see and hear into a world that needs to see/hear God and be changed as well.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Need:

We need to see God as he is so that we’ll be able to overcome (be victorious) over the challenges and temptations in life that we experience and that are described in Rev. 2-3.

 

“Our need for this text is much the same as the need for the seven churches to which John sent this letter. We know from what Jesus said to them in the seven letters that 

1. they had lost their first love in Ephesus;

2. they were about to be killed for the faith in Smyrna—husbands, wives, so`ns, daughters facing death;

3. they were tempted by false teaching in Pergamum;

4. they were tolerating a false prophetess in Thyatira, and she had led some into sexual and morality and idolatry;

5. the church was dead in Sardis,

6. persecuted in Philadelphia, and

7. Lukewarm in Laodicea.” -J Hamilton

 

“The whole point of this text is to show us that right now God is on his throne being worshiped and praised as he rightly deserves.” -JH

 

Context:

 

3 purposes:

 

I. To give believers a renewed vision of the risen, ascended and ruling Lord Jesus (1); 

II. To call for repentance and renewal (2-3), and 

III. To reveal God’s future plans for his church (4-22)

 

We are entering the third purpose and section. 

Outline:

 

I. The One seated on the throne. (4:1-6a)

1. Jesus invites John in through his open door (contrast with Laodicea not opening their door to Jesus) (Trinity: Son of God)

2. Description of the throne room and the one seated in it.

3. “In the Spirit” is how John describes whatever it is he experienced in receiving this revelation.

4. A throne with God sitting in it. (Trinity: God the Father)

5. He had the appearance of jasper and ruby gems. (Reddish-brown colors) These gems represent the radiance or echo of the glory of God in these places (High priests breastplate (Exod 19), Rebuilding of New Jerusalem (Isaiah 54), Description of bride of Christ as New Jerusalem (Rev 21))

6. Rainbow reminds us of the covenant that God made with Noah to never judge the earth by flood again. Adds green to the mix. This covenant of patient mercy. So when we see this bow added we see justice and mercy perfectly balance reflect God’s glory.

7. 24 elders - 12 tribes + 12 apostles; either humans or angelic beings

8. Dressed in white representing our justification, sanctification and glorification (righteousness)

9. Gold crowns—when they worship, they are giving all that they have (voices, presence, time, energy and crowns). While these are tokens of worship to God, they are valuable to us expressing our value of him.

10. Thunder and lightning remind us of God descending on Mount Sinai and giving of the law by which they’d be judged. Justice from the throne surrounded by patient mercy of a bow.

11. 7 lamps = 7 spirits of God or Holy Spirit in full. (Trinity = Holy Spirit or Spirit of God)

12. Sea of glass—clear as crystal; hard as diamonds (floor); add to this

II. The Worship of the One seated on the throne. (4:6b-11)

1. Four angelic creatures around the throne reflecting or echoing God’s glory through their attributes.

2. Their words give us reason to worship him:

   1. Holy, holy, holy (number for God)

   2. Eternal/timeless one

   3. Creator

3. Elders fall down in worship because that is the only appropriate posture of worship in front of someone as great as the Lord God Almighty.

 

Applications:

Echo God’s glory where we live, work, learn and play:

1. With our lips (Heb 13:15)

2. With our lives (Heb 13:16)

But notice that the emphasis here is on the former and that our tendency is to see this as non-productive, wasteful. (See John 12:-18 narrative about how Mary “wastes” her nard)