The Revelation 2:1 | Episode #1012

August 26, 2025

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

The Revelation 2:1 

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.

If you would like to revisit today’s Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. 

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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.

We are in chapter two now. Chapter two and chapter three are probably now. One of the verses in chapter three is quoted many, many times. If you've been in church any in your life,

you've heard a preacher say, yeah, I stand at the door and knock.

That is in the last church in the book of the Revelation. So that verse is known.

But this section of the book of the Revelation is not talked about a whole lot. And I wanna emphasize that for you so that when you're think the book of the Revelation,

you do not miss out on the second and third chapter. And the reason I want you to not miss out on it because I think it has great importance for a lot of reasons.

First of all, we've got a lot of epistles to the church,

meaning letters that are written by different apostles to the church. You've got letters written by Paul, you've got letters written by Peter, you've got letters written by John, you've got letter written by James.

Letters are to the church, they're epistles to the church.

But you don't have a teaching in the sense of a letter to the church by Jesus. You have a lot of teaching in the gospels about what the church is going to be like, but you don't have a lot of direct teaching about how the church should operate and how things should happen and some of the issues that the church might face.

Except that you find it in the book of the Revelation.

And this is Jesus message to the church, to the seven churches in Asia Minor.

The seven churches in a little small region in the southwest corner of Asia Minor.

And seven is the number of completion.

So in many ways this is a letter to.

This is a letter to the complete church.

All right? Now when we study these seven churches,

there's seven of them.

There is an outline for every church,

meaning there's a way God presents.

Jesus talks to every Church, he starts out and he introduces himself in a certain way.

Now, I think that's very important because when he introduces himself to these churches,

he is saying something about his character and nature that is going to relate to what he's going to say to them later.

So he introduces some aspect of his character and nature. Then after he introduces that, he has a word of encouragement for them. He says something that they're doing well,

if they're doing something well, okay? And there's one,

some might even say two that are not doing anything well, okay? And so they don't get any encouragement, okay? Then he has a word of God rebuke or instruction for every church.

Now, there's two churches where they. Where he doesn't have a whole lot of instruction for them. One of them he has almost no instruction for. And the reason for that, for that, he just tells them to hang on.

And that's one of the first two,

okay? And so then he has. If. Then he has a really. What he's telling them is you got to get this right. You got to get this handled. And if you don't, this is what's going to happen,

okay? So that word of instruction is a word to tell them that if you don't get this thing straightened out, this is gonna be the result.

Now, when you're reading the churches and you say, why are you spending all this time on this? Well, because if you don't understand what's going on, you just think this has to do with some churches that existed back, you know,

in the first century A.D. and it doesn't have anything to do with us. And that's just not true.

You can interpret this and relate it to separate church ages. You can actually go through time in history and say this was going on in the church.

And what Jesus says to that age is pretty solid throughout history.

The second way you can interpret it is you can interpret it as far as a local congregation,

because these letters were actually written to congregations that existed,

congregations that.

That had been planted by either John or Paul.

Maybe one of them was planted by Peter. But most of them either planted or discipled by John and Paul, Paul planting most of them. And John actually being the pastor of the church of Ephesus after he came off the Isle of Patmos from writing this book.

So he's gonna write this book, it's gonna have a letter to Ephesus, and then he's going to. When he gets released from Patmos, he's actually going to go back to Ephesus and Pastor that church.

So understanding that and knowing what's going on, that's important. So you could actually read,

you know, is this something that happens in our church or in my small group of friends,

is this speaking to the group of believers that I'm with?

And, you know, you ought to ask those questions when you're doing it. Now, finally, anytime God writes a letter to the church,

it's personal, too.

And so when you're reading these letters, you need to know that it's very, very personal,

okay? And you could be one of these churches, okay? And if you're one of these churches, you need to hear what God has to say positive and what God has to say as a word of instruction.

And then you need to make sure that whatever he says, the outcome needs to be that you work toward that outcome. How does that, how does that sound to you?

So when you're studying through this, you need to know those things because we're going to spend a few weeks on these churches, and then we're going to spend a few weeks on these churches because.

Well, I mean, it's Jesus actual instruction to the church of Jesus Christ.

I don't know if you know it or not, but his name's on the, on the, on the sign, right? If it's the church of Jesus Christ and he's writing it to them, then, you know, he's.

He's. It probably ought to be followed, right?

All right, now the final thing I want to say is, is that he's going to speak about this lampstand,

okay? And remember, a lampstand is a lamp,

which is not a candle, it's a lamp, which means the light comes from the inside and is shown outward by the way lamps or lamps burn what they burn oil, which is a picture of the Holy Spirit's power creating that light.

All right? It's on a stand, which means it's not just a lamp, it's on a stand.

And that stand is for the purpose of the. Illuminating the room, illuminating the areas.

So he says the reason for the church's existence,

if he's going to call them lampstands, if he's going to say that they have lampstands, is to.

Is to shed his light, to share his light to the world,

all right? And one of his warnings is, is if you don't do what I say about this, that I'm going to remove your lampstand,

all right? And if, if, if the whole purpose for your existence, for you to continue to exist,

is to shine the light of God to the world. And God says he removes your lampstand.

Well,

you don't have a whole lot of purpose anymore.

That's a dangerous place to be in, is a believer who has no purpose in the kingdom,

okay? Because if you got no purpose in the kingdom, you really have no reason to hang around, right?

You really don't. And so you might be in danger of getting a. A quick hook, you know, home.

So this is important understanding. When we read this,

he says to the angel, and remember that word angel we talked about is the word messenger, okay? And I believe that he gives seven angels or seven messages. And I believe this is the complete message of the church by Jesus.

So to the message or the messenger of the church in Ephesus, write these things.

Says he who holds the seven stars, okay? Now remember, he's got a message. The stars are the ones who shine that message.

It's the light of God being shown out. A lot of people say it's the pastors, but what I believe it is, is I believe it is the. It is the light of God, the intense light of a star being being given to the church, and then the church being that light to the world.

So you've got God in giving his light and that light to the world. He says to the angel of the church of Ephesus, write these things. Says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand,

who walks in the midst of the seven lampstands. All right? Now when you're thinking about that,

he's telling you some aspect of what he's doing or his character, all right? When he says he holds the seven stars or the message of God, that means he is the author.

He is the one who is giving you the understanding from God,

okay?

He is holding that in his hand.

He's got that power in his hand.

That means he holds the church in his hands. He is the message of God. Jesus is the full manifestation, the physical manifestation of God. He is the full revelation of God.

This is the completion of that revelation and understanding that what he's saying is, is what I say matters.

Jesus said in the book of John, and we're gonna get to it. He says the words I say to you are spirit and life.

And that means he does not use the general word that we like, Logos, which is the whole revelation of God. He literally uses the word for word, individual word. And he says the words I say to you are spirit and life.

What he's saying is what you read that I say is spirit and life. Now, if some of Y' all have got some of them fancy Bibles that's written in red.

Anybody any of y' all got those? What color is the section we're in?

Yes. Red. Okay, so if he says the words I say to you are spirit and light,

then that means this right here matters. He says, I hold the seven stars in my hands, meaning I'm the author of all things.

And he says, I walk among the lampstands,

which means he's telling you he's there.

He's in the midst of it. He's not an absentee Lord. He's in the midst of what's going on.

He is shepherding his church. He said, if I be lifted up, I draw all men unto me.

He says,

you don't build the church.

I build the church.

So when things are going on in the church, and you need to understand,

and this is very important,

that you're not dealing with some human being that's in charge of God's church. You're dealing with Jesus himself, who's in charge of his church.

He's in charge of his church, and he will be in charge of his church. And he knows his church intimately, and he walks among his church.

Okay? And what he's saying is, I am.

I am present.

I'm here.

I'm in this place now. He's telling them this for a reason.

He's telling them this for a reason. Because he wants them to know he's sovereignly in charge. I hold it.

I am present.

I'm here. I'm at work 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.