The Revelation 3:2-6 | Episode # 1022

September 9, 2025

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

The Revelation 3:2-6

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.

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.

He said,

be watchful and strengthen that which remain. What he's saying is there are some that remain. There's always a remnant. You need to hear that. There's always a remnant. That is a principle of scripture.

There's always a remnant that hears God, chases after God,

tries to find God, even in the worst or most terrible political situation,

economic situation,

spiritual, religious situations. There's always a remnant that's seeking after God. He says to that remnant, and be watchful and strengthen that which is that which remains that are ready to what?

Die? What he's saying is there's. There's a little bit left in there that's alive and it seems to be about to die.

Huh?

For I have not found your works perfect before God.

What he's saying is you are not operating in the faith that God considers the faith that perfects.

Does that make sense?

All right, which means it's not a real faith,

all right? Because your faith,

remember God's involved. God. God is,

is the one who decides who, who, who determines the results of your faith.

Faith. All it, all it is. Faith means to trust God,

okay? To faith, hope, trust, believe God. If I trust God in a situation,

then I have perfect or perfected faith, okay?

If I'm doing something that has the appearance of faith but is not true trust in God,

then that's not faith at all,

okay?

And Paul warns against that.

He warns against that heavily. He says, he says to them,

he says to the church that they. That there are those who. Who would have a form of godliness but deny its power.

Okay? Now don't you hear me? Which means they would have a bit a look to be what we call Christian,

but they deny its power.

All right, well, I want to ask you, when I say power to you,

what's the first thing you think of when in the Christian religion regard?

Yeah.

So who is he identifying Remember, the Holy Spirit is the power of God. The Holy Spirit is the eternal presence of God, okay? And so if. If I don't. If I have a form of godliness, meaning I look godly, but I don't have any of the power.

In fact, I don't not only have any of the power, what do I. What I do?

I deny the power.

Well, there's a chance I'm dead.

Okay,

sir.

Yes.

Yeah. Living dead zombie. Like,

I love one of the songs that Third Day. Third Day was a big group when I first started being a youth pastor. I love a lot of their songs. Love a lot of their songs.

One of their songs starts out, you know, I was born dead,

okay? And what he's talking about is, I was born flesh, I was born soul, but I didn't have a spirit. I was born dead.

Well, anybody who's not born again is dead walking around,

okay? They are.

They're dead walking,

all right? And so there's no way to get. There's no way to.

The only thing that can fix that is what Jesus told Nicodemus in John, chapter three.

You must be born again. And Nicodemus says, well, how can I do that? And he said, I gotta go in my mother's womb. And Jesus said to him what?

He said, flesh gives birth to flesh. That's right. And spirit gives birth to spirit. I say to you, you must be born again,

meaning you must be born of spirit.

All right, well, if the Holy Spirit births me, gives me a new human spirit, conceives in me a new human spirit, if that's the case,

then does he just abandon that new human spirit? No, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit indwells you,

communes with you. What's he communing with your flesh?

No,

he's communion with your spirit, your new spirit. That's perfect. And your soul, which is being. Which is being redeemed or being saved,

okay? Which is the process of sozo, the process of sanctification, which we call salvation.

All right? So he says to them, you have. You have a few names, even in Sardis, who have not defiled their garments. Remember, that is they've not defiled the covering of their sin.

Clothes are covering for sin. They've not defiled their garments. They're. They're still holy. They shall walk with me in white,

for they are worthy.

What makes me worthy? What makes me holy?

Faith.

Faith. What makes me holy?

God makes it possible for me to be holy. But what makes me holy in my soul is to trust God.

That's what makes me holy.

And that's the only thing that makes me holy.

He says, he who overcomes shall be clothed with white garments.

And I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life.

Now, what is he saying? He's saying if you're born again, you're not getting blotted out.

By the way, you need to get this. The Book of Life is way better than. And I'm married to an accountant, and I know there's several other accountants in here.

It's not a ledger.

The Book of Life is not a ledger. It's not a list. Now, I've got a lot of good jokes that deal with St. Peter in the list, okay? They're excellent jokes, but when we get to heaven, they're not going to make any sense because St.

Peter ain't going to be out there with the ledger.

Are you following me? He's not.

The Book of Life is the book that tells the story of God's work in his church.

Well, what does that mean?

Well, that means that everything that is done by God in his church and through his church in the world is written in the book of life.

Which means if you're born again,

you're in there.

Even if you're maybe have the name Crispy Critter like we talked about last week, right?

You still have your name in it because what do you trusted? God.

You. You named Jesus as your redeemer and you died and got in as by fire. But you're going to be in the book.

You're going to be in the book.

You're just not going to have,

well, any kind of major role.

You know, you're just going to be passively mentioned. But now I will say this.

How many of y' all would like to be passively mentioned in the Bible? You know, like Paul says, say hello to Chad. I'd like to be in it, Wouldn't you?

Sure.

But, you know, I'm not. I wasn't around back then, but. But you are in the Book of Life. And he says.

He says, if you walk by faith,

if you have the robes of redemption on the rows that cover your sin, if you have that. I'm not blotting your name out of the book of life. You're not dead.

He who has an ear and notice, he says, I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.

Now, you know, I thought I was making. I'm gonna try to make it tonight. Okay? All right.

This is important.

All right, here. He says, I'm Gonna confess you before my Father and his angels.

Are you with me?

Elsewhere in the Bible, he says, if you're ashamed of me,

I'll be ashamed of you before my Father and his angels.

Okay? Now this is an important principle. A lot of people think that means you're going to heaven or hell.

Okay? That is not what that means.

What that means is you need to understand what Jesus's role is right now. And he plays an important role. He is the great high priest. He is your advocate before the Father.

All right, so when he's advocating before before the Father as a priesthood before God on your behalf, if he's doing that,

then what is the Father doing to handle the things he's advocating for you?

Well, it's mentioned in both passages. If you're ashamed of me, I'll be ashamed of you before my Father and his angels.

Here he says, I'll confess you before my Father and his angels. What he's saying is the angels who are ministering, spirits sent to minister unto the saints of God will be sent to minister to you.

They'll be sent to handle your situation.

So he says, if you walk by faith, you get the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the work of the angelic host,

which takes you all the way back to. Angels are what kind of beings?

Spiritual beings. It's amazing. We talked about that this morning, by the way, in Bible study,

the understanding that what came first, the chicken or the egg? Well,

Genesis wise, it was the chicken.

What came first,

the physical or the spiritual?

Well, the spiritual came first because God is spirit. Everything that comes from that comes from God comes from the spiritual. And so the physical is the manifestation of the work of the spiritual.

So those who don't want to operate in the spiritual, that don't want to have anything to do with the spiritual, that try to make this world that we live in,

all that we study or all that we work with,

they are missing out on where the world came from.

And therefore, they're missing out on everything.

You're missing it all.

It doesn't matter if you know it all, if you have all the knowledge of the natural world or the philosophy of the natural world, which is.

No, there is a philosophy of the natural world. What is. Y' all know what the name of it is. The modern name of it is science.

Science was originally called the philosophy of the natural world.

All right. Why was it called the philosophy of the natural world? Well, they had a philosophy and they realized that there was a natural world. And they realized that God made the natural world.

And so we ought to study the natural world to figure out things about God,

right?

And so if you say that you are more into science but you're not into God or spiritual things, I would say to you, well, you're not really into science because science began as a philosophy of studying the natural things so that you might understand God.

So can you really be a scientist and not believe in the one that was the author and beginner of the science?

Can you really be a Christian?

Can you really have any revelation having not heard anything from the Holy Spirit?

That's a painful question.

It's a struggle.

He says, I'm the one who holds the sevenfold spirits and.

And the seven stars of the complete message of.

Of. Of the good News or the Gospel.

I'm the one who holds these things.

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.

He'll.

And that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.