The Revelation 1:6 | Episode #1007

August 19, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

The Revelation 1:6

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years.

I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life.

I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day,

especially today.

In Jesus name,

it says,

and has made us kings and priests to his God and father.

All right,

now this can be translated two different ways. And let me tell you the right translation of it. Both.

Okay? I like both of them. All right,

this is used three times here.

Okay. And you need to hear it because he is. He is. He is. He is making an understanding for you.

The phrase is this. He has made us,

meaning we weren't, and now we are.

He has made us a kingdom of priests,

or kings and priests.

All right,

now, there's a great pastor back about 20, 25 years ago that preached a sermon called there's a king in you.

It's a great sermon.

Understanding that you are a royal priesthood is a very important principle that he is starting this book out with. He said, allah, he loves you. He says he's done all these things for you,

but he does not say who will make you a kingdom of priests. It says, who has past tense,

made you a king and a priest,

which means his sovereign royalty in heaven is yours also.

You are a royal line.

You are a part of the family of God, and I want you to hear me. The demons know it.

The fallen angels know it.

The angels of heaven know it.

Usually the only people who don't know it is us.

And we keep acting like we're paupers and we're slaves,

and we do.

We're slaves to sin.

We have nothing.

We're wanderers and have no hope.

Well,

that's not true.

You are a royal king.

He has made us kings or a kingdom of priests. Well, what does that mean?

Well, a priest has access to God.

So what he's saying is, I have made you royal,

and I've made it such that you have access to my throne room.

You have access to me.

You have the ability to walk boldly before my throne and to know me.

So when you're thinking about this book of the revelation.

It's not like he's just spreading it out there to everybody. He's spreading it out there to his people, who he says have the ability to receive it and to know it.

Why? Because you have access to him. Because you're a priest and you have the right and the royal line to receive it. Because you are a king.

Now, how many of you have thought of yourself as king? And women are in the room, go, well, I don't think of myself as a king.

Well, I don't think of myself as a bride. So if I've got to be a bride, you're a king, okay? And that's just the way it goes.

Are you following me? I'm a bride, you're a king. It's going to be okay, all right? There's nothing funny about it. It's just the way it is.

And when you understand what. What that means,

that I'm a bride of Christ, which means I'm an intimate one with him.

I'm a royal priesthood or I'm a king.

I have a right to know all the knowledge, to have all the secrets of the universe given to me.

Nothing's hidden from me.

Why?

Because I'm a prince.

I deserve to know why.

Because of what Christ has done for me.

And you need to hear that. I didn't make it myself,

but I am. And because I am, I should.

He says he's made him a royal priest to his God and Father, meaning he's made it possible that you would have access to the Father himself.

Okay? To his Father and to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

What he's saying is let him be in charge forever and ever.

The next week,

we're going to get to meet Jesus,

not on the earth, but Jesus as he is in heaven.

Okay?

He's going to describe his first vision of Jesus when he sees him in heaven. Powerful.

Powerful. Then we're going to go into the seven churches. Okay. All right. I may move through them a little quicker than normal,

but we're going to go through those seven churches.

Those seven churches are important. And I'm giving you this kind of in the background so I don't have to do it every week when we come here. The seven churches represent three things.

You can always apply them to three things. Okay? They represent an actual church age in church history.

Okay. All right. So we can kind of spell out, okay, yeah, this is what happened during this time period.

And then you get to this church, you go, oh, yeah. I mean, from you know, 400 to 4, 680. This is what was going on in the church all around the world.

So you got those.

You've got. It can literally, when you're reading through these churches, you can think of churches that you went to.

Okay. I mean, you can literally, like, oh, yeah, that is Sardis. I remember Sardis. I've been to Sardis before.

There's some. There's a church named Sardis just down the road. Okay.

Why would you name your church Sardis? I have no idea. You know what it says about them?

It says they have a reputation of being alive, but they're dead.

There is a graveyard right there.

Why would you name your church the church that has a reputation for being alive but is dead?

I don't.

That's just bad picking. You know what I'm talking about?

But we're going to go through those churches and finally, I want you to hear me. Finally.

Each one of these churches can represent individual believers.

Okay? There's a lot of believers that fit in these categories. And I want you to always, when we're reading through it, I want you to go, you're going to think, well,

I may give you the church age and tell you kind of what's going on, a little bit of that. But mainly you're going to think about. That really makes sense.

I've been in that church. Okay.

But the main thing, I want you to get out of it, because it's about the church age.

I want you to get out of it. God's saying, you know, this is how church people are.

Okay? Which means this might be how you are.

Okay.

This might be how you are.

And it's really good to reflect upon the church ages. And we're going to go through it because the whole point of the book of the Revelation is to culminate the final age of God's creation like it is right now.

The church age through Jesus Christ.

It says in verse five,

he was the firstborn of the dead. Yes. Talk about the resurrection. Yes.

As you go today, I pray that.

The Lord will bless you and keep you,

that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.