The Revelation 3:17-22 | Episode # 1026

September 15, 2025

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

The Revelation 3:17-22

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.

Because you say, I am rich,

have become wealthy, and have need nothing,

and have need of nothing and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. What he's saying is, when you live lukewarm,

you're pitiful,

you have a form of godliness, you deny its power.

You live by law, but not fully by law. And you're a hypocrite. And everybody sees it.

And listen to me, if you're going to live by the law, you got to live by the law.

You following me?

You can't be drunk at night,

you can't. You, you, you, you. You can't be cussing,

you can't be cheating in line,

you can't do any of it.

You got to be wholly,

completely by the law.

If you've tried that for a long period of time, my question to you is, how's it working?

Cuz it's hard.

And by the way, if you live that way and then you forced it upon others,

don't be surprised when they call out your well, when you ain't doing it.

He says, you're wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire.

What he's saying is, I counsel you to find,

to. To buy from me royal things.

And that royal things is made where in the fire of the Holy Spirit,

that you may be rich, a white garment, that you may be clothed. Notice that is purity and holiness that the law is. But it's something that I get from God, I don't get from my works,

that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed.

What he's saying is you're not going to be ashamed. And I'm going to tell you, if you live by the spirit. That is one of the cool things about living by the spirit.

You don't have to have this.

This Facade of holiness.

You have the Holy Spirit that's working in other people's lives,

that's working holiness out around you.

And you don't have a facade of holiness.

In fact, you can be quite clearly not totally fixed all the time.

And yet people still see the holiness and the power of God.

And I will tell you this. If you live by the law, it is hard to get anybody to hear you.

But it is super easy when you have the clear power of the Holy Spirit at work around you.

When you go up to talk to somebody about a problem they've got, they have an open door to you.

Because there's not a facade that's. That's fake.

It's real.

That the shame of your nakedness name may not be revealed and anoint your eyes with eyesalve that you may see. What he's saying is, if you'll. If you'll do these things, I'm going to let you see how things really are.

Okay? I'm going to tell you something really weird. Okay,

but it ain't weird.

Yesterday we were driving back from Montgomery where Kathleen had a medical procedure.

I was instructed to speak of this procedure not in its name.

Okay?

It's a common medical procedure for old people over 50. Okay.

I'm only six months older than her. I've had it two times. I need the third one myself.

You're nine months older than me. That's right.

And I was. I was riding and I was looking.

And for some reason, it was one of those times where, you know that we had some storms coming in. There was that color that's kind of a golden color.

And I was riding by, I was looking. I say, man, this is beautiful, Lord.

And I just had this strong sensation. He said, yeah, but what if I just unzipped it and showed you what's spiritual going on behind it?

I thought,

well, you took this a weird place, Lord.

And so for the next 20 minutes, I was riding along thinking, well, I wonder what it would look like if you took. Took. If you kind of unzipped it and just kind of showed me what was spiritual going on behind it.

Probably we'll have to deal with that later. Okay? But I think it's so strange here.

And it is weird that he says, here, I'll give you eyes to see. Well, we think we see, but we really don't.

That's that whole glass darkly thing we talked about,

you know? Now I see in a glass darkly. Those. Y'. All. Y' all know what those glass dark leaves were? If You. If you watch a real movie about the.

About the ancient times or even really on. Up until about two centuries ago,

mirrors were not real mirrors. People really didn't know what they looked like.

The refining of the glass making process such that they could actually make pure glass with no Mars in it and then put something behind it to make it into a mirror, that's something that's not been around for a long.

For very long,

okay? And so when they looked, if they had something that was pretty pure and was big enough,

you could look at it and see your reflection and actually kind of see what you kind of look like, but you don't really. It's not really a pure look.

Okay? And that's what Paul was talking about. He's talking about these glass darklies or these old mirrors, which really aren't mirrors as the way we see them today.

And so he's saying, here,

I'm going to give you salve where you can see things as they really are.

And that's what the Holy Spirit's doing when he's revealing things to you.

He says, I counsel you to buy for me gold refined in fire and that you may be rich and white garments that you may clothe,

be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and anoint your eyes with salve that you may see.

As many as I love,

I rebuke and chasten or chastise.

What he's saying is, I love you.

And if you're getting rebuked or chastised,

which is physical punishment,

okay?

If you're getting physical correction or verbal rebuke,

you just need to know it's because I love you.

And by the way, that's a New Testament teaching also about fathers.

Those whom the father loves, he doth chastise.

By the way, when you read that,

it's in red.

Okay?

All right.

And so that's not just Paul talking. That's Jesus talking.

He says. He says, if you don't get chastised,

then you're a legitimate child, illegitimate child.

He says, as many as I love, I rebuke verbal correction, chastise physical correction. Therefore, be zealous and repent.

Repent to what?

Well, preferably the Holy Spirit.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and sup with him or dine with him and he with me.

That means I'll have perfect fellowship with you.

And that is talking about the fellowship that comes with the indwelling and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now that's a pretty famous passage. And that's what that is talking about. That's talking about complete relationship,

complete fellowship,

unity of Christ with his church.

He says to him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne.

H.

Which means you get some of the being in charge too,

as I also overcome and sat down with my Father on his throne.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

And so that is the message of Jesus to the seven churches of the book of the Revelation, which is really a mini epistle to the church.

A lot of things to learn from that. A lot of things to take from that. I would say to you, even though I'm moving somewhat quickly through these things,

I would say to you, spend some time thinking about this stuff.

Okay? Spend some time on each one of those churches,

considering them,

considering what I've talked about, considering what the Holy Spirit said to you.

Spend some time doing that. Because if you don't do that,

you're kind of missing out. And this is Jesus's epistle to the church.

Okay?

And so it's a powerful epistle right here at the start.

Now next week we get to see Jesus on the throne and God on his throne. Okay,

so we're fit. Next week we're moving in some.

Well, it's going to be some. I mean, we've. We spent about three or four months on some really cool stuff. Okay. I mean, I'm talking about some really good stuff.

Okay. And you're going to see. We're going to see Jesus as he is fulfilling all the roles in scripture. We're going to see God and how he. How he is in heaven.

And I mean, we're going to see the church age and all the church there. It's going.

Just trust me.

My favorite chapters are like four through seven.

Okay. They're just.

Just really good stuff. I mean, just some so such encouraging,

powerful stuff.

And I think about John writing it and I think, man, that's for. For a teenage boy that was walking with Jesus to see this as an old man, that had to be so cool for him,

you know, that had to be really cool for him.

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.