The Revelation 2:2-3 | Episode #1013

August 27, 2025

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

The Revelation 2:2-3

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. 

If this podcast ministered to you, please subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Reviews help us reach more people and spread the wisdom of God. 

Please follow us:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopealivewithgod/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hopealiveministry/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LakeComChurch/ -Lake Community Church

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.

He says to them,

I know your works.

Okay? Now, this is not the word for labor,

okay?

This is the word for the deeds that are produced,

okay? And you go, I don't know. I don't know what you mean by that. Well,

I can produce something by. By my will through my actions.

I can produce something by my will by my actions that are by faith.

All right, this doesn't have to do with you trying to work and make things be good.

He's talking about your works of faith,

which are all that really matter.

Okay?

The book of Galatians. We'll get to that later on tonight. But the book of Galatians deals with that pretty heavily about not works of the law or works of the flesh,

but works of the Spirit,

Okay?

And he's saying, I know that you produce works that are lasting,

that last a long period of time.

So that's a positive statement. He says, I walk among you.

I have the power,

and I know you. I know your works, your labor, your. Your. Your patience,

okay? That you not only do those works, but you continue in them in your labor. You. Your will continues to move forward in these things. He says, I know that you.

You. You not only work, you not only continue in them, but when things don't go exactly the way you want them to be, you're patient.

You wait on God to move. You wait on God to do those things. There's so many Christians that can't be patient with God.

They can't be patient. So many Christians will tell you, don't pray for patience.

Well, I'm gonna tell you. God says he wants to mature you into his likeness. So if you don't have patience.

Are you following me? You need patience,

or else you don't have the character of God.

Okay?

God is longsuffering.

Okay? He is patient.

He is forbearing. We use these words all the time.

That is his nature. And by the way, you're very thankful for that, or you would be going to hell.

Okay.

If God was not patient, well,

he need to wait on me just a little bit,

okay?

He's got to.

He knows that. He knows if I'm not patient that I won't make it.

I won't learn to trust Him.

And so you got to understand, your works need to be works of faith. Your works need to be continual, and your works need to involve patience. And he says,

I know you guys. This is the first century church.

I know you,

and you're these things.

You do these things.

That's encouraging.

And he says, I know that you cannot bear those who are evil.

He says, and you have tested those who say they are apostles and not,

and have found them liars.

What he's saying is you figured out that, you know, there are those out there who teach false doctrine.

We find that in. I want to read to you Acts 20,

verse 25 through 31.

Acts 20, 25 through 31.

And I thought I had it written out, but he said, this is Paul.

When he writes to the Ephesus elders after he is. After he's planted this church,

he says, here. And indeed I know this is his last sermon to them.

He says, and indeed I know.

Indeed now I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, will see my face no more.

Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men.

For I have not shunned to declare,

or I have not been afraid to declare. I have not been hesitant to declare to you the whole counsel of God.

I told you everything God's laid on my heart.

He said, therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseer, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood.

For I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

Also, from among yourselves, men will rise up, speaking perverse things,

to draw away the disciples after themselves.

Therefore watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone,

night and day with tears.

So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace.

All right.

What he's saying is that this is the beginning.

This church has been faithful,

They've been patient. They've been doing what they're supposed to be doing.

But the beginning of the heresies are coming,

and they're already beginning to form in the church.

The first one is going to deal with Judaizer, the Judaizers, and the whole book of Ephesians written. To those who deal with that,

you're going to have the, you're going to have the,

you're going to have the book.

You're going to have the Gnostics who come in who try to make God spiritual and separate the spiritual from the physical. If they have. As if they have nothing to do with each other.

And then later on, you're going to begin to have more and more of these issues that arise in the church,

okay? Arguments over theology.

He says to them,

he says to them, listen to me, you've been patient and you've persevered, but there's going to be a time when they come in.

He says, and you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not and have found them to be liars.

Now, I want you to hear me. How did they test them to find out that they were apostles?

Okay, well, the way they tested them was, was they married it up.

They married those teachers up with what they understood to be the teaching of Jesus Christ from the apostles.

Are you following me now? We have, we have heavy, heavy.

The best way for me to describe this to you and explain it to you is, is that things that are written are obviously about Jesus, are going to be written after Jesus resurrection and after his ascension.

Are you following me?

And so many people will say, well,

these books, you don't know if they're real,

but the truth is that the Gospels and all the books of the New Testament were written within 70 or 80 years of Jesus ascension to the Father.

Okay,

I spent the afternoon doing feedex for work I've done for the state sitting there. And I had the opportunity to spend three hours with kings and generals and going through Alexander the Great's great conquest of the Persian Empire after he killed Darius or after Darius was killed.

Three hours is great.

It's fabulous. They went play by play, battle by battle, the whole nine yards. I mean in detail. I'm filling out FedEx, I'm putting it in the computer, I'm going through files and they're talking about him going into the Hindu Kush and doing all these battles.

And you know, as I get close to the end, I need to take a shower to get ready for church.

As I get close to the end,

God says, and you know all that stuff that they just told you.

They started writing the first biography of Alexander the Great 300 years after he's dead.

Those whole documentaries are based off of books that were written 3, 4, 500 years after Alexander died,

we literally have some of the first sayings of scripture,

first sayings about Jesus,

these sayings that they would come up with these understanding and ideas every time. When you're reading through these epistles, sometimes Paul will say something and it'll be kind of.

You'll see it. It's indented, and it's as if it's maybe a song or something like that.

These were ideas that they understood about Jesus. And they started.

They rhymed, and they made sense to them. And just like you would teach young people,

they. They. They taught them to each other,

those who couldn't read, so that you could say it and you would know it and understand it. We have. We have sayings from the church about Jesus and about who he was that date back within five to 10 years of his resurrection.

Five to 10 years of his resurrection.

Alexander the Great,

300 years.

And so understanding and knowing that. That they were teaching about the.

The sayings of Jesus, they were. The apostles were beginning to write their biographies of Jesus,

what we call the Gospels.

These letters were beginning to be written to churches all over that part of the world.

Letters sent out and explaining theology and explaining Jesus and explaining how things should be done.

And they understood the Gospel.

And when a church was started, the apostle didn't just start the church and leave. He stayed there and spent.

Well,

Paul spent three years in Ephesus teaching them, making sure they understood the life of Jesus Christ, who he was, how he lived.

It's very important.

It's very important that you understand that that's what was going on. And he says. He says, listen,

you've been doing the right things,

but. And I know that you're unwilling to hear those who are teaching false doctrine.

You're unwilling to hear it.

He says,

and you have persevered and have patience and had labored in my name for my name's sake and have not become weary,

meaning they're doing everything that they should.

If you read that, what he's saying is they're mature.

They have the character traits of God. That would indicate maturity.

Okay? They have the understanding of God. That would indicate maturity. You know, these things are important.

Are you with me?

If somebody's teaching you doctrine, if somebody's teaching you scripture and they don't give you the.

Well, the presence of maturity,

that's a problem.

Now, not everybody can be mature when they start.

But you're gonna place an emphasis on the mature ones.

The ones who, you know, are teaching you from what they know, not from what somebody has told them.

And there's a difference between those two things.

Now, you got to first teach from something somebody's told you.

But over time,

as you live it out,

you begin to teach from what you know,

from who you are,

from what God has grown inside of you. Now, that can happen at a very young age, though.

This. This man who's writing this book,

John, he was an apostle at 19.

Powerful,

powerful teacher,

powerful leader.

But now he walked with Jesus for three years.

He'd been around the teachings of Jesus Christ for a long enough time that he knew what Jesus taught. He knew who Jesus was,

He knew how these things worked.

But there are those who don't.

And I try to when I teach on Sunday morning. First, I want it to be relatable. I want it to be. I want it to be something that. That is personal, something that makes sure that meets you where you are.

But it's. First of all, it's got to come from God's word. Second of all, it's got to be led by the Holy Spirit.

Third of all,

it's got to come from me to you because God uses human beings to do that. It can't come from somebody else if it's going to be powerful. It's got to come from.

It's got to come from the Holy Spirit. It's got to come from God's word, but it's got to come from me.

And by the way, that's how he uses you.

It's got to be in line with His Word. It's got to be led by the Holy Spirit, but it's also got to be you. Those are the labors we're talking about, the labors of faith.

And I want you to not just know you know something about Jesus. I want you to understand what's going on here. I want you to. I want it. I want you to get it.

I want. I want it to be alive to you when you read it.

He said they've persevered and they're patient and they've labored for His Name's sake and not become weary.

This all good stuff.

Ephesus is good. Good.

Really good.

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.