“The Lamb is God’s answer to all our prayers.” But let’s be real – he’s not the instantaneous answer to all of our prayers. The Lamb isn’t a genie who instantly snaps his fingers and grants our wishes on the spot! For many of our prayers, we are still waiting for them to be answered. Waiting makes us wonder, “Have my prayers even been heard?” Waiting makes us worry, “What if my prayers don’t ever get answered?” Waiting makes me weary. How are we supposed to deal with waiting? What are we supposed to do? Revelation 5:9-14 has the answer we are looking for!

There have been other scrolls in the past that contain God’s word, during the times of prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, for example. But this scroll is THE scroll. This scroll is of such ultimate significance that a mighty angel asks with a thundering voice, “Who is worthy to open this scroll and break its seals?” If the scroll can’t be opened then everything God’s people have been hoping in and praying for for generations has all been for nothing. If that scroll remains closed it means God will not save his people. God will not bring justice upon the earth. Suffering and pain and sorrow will continue forever. God’s glory will not cover the earth as the waters cover the sea and we will not be with him forever. Our prayers will forever go unanswered and we are a people most to be pitied. Do you see why John wept and wept? Seeing that no one was able to open the scroll triggered an existential crisis in the poor apostle. Was everything he’d ever believed and hoped for just one big lie?  Join us as we look at Revelation 5:1-8 why John was told to "Weep no more!"

When everything in this life and in this world looks and feels like it’s coming apart at the seams, where do we look for encouragement and hope? Revelation chapter 4 contains the definitive answer! Listen to Pastor Jimmy Hoang explain as John is called up to the throne room of heaven and given a glimpse “behind the scenes” of history to see where our hope and help truly comes from.

On the surface, Laodicea was an extremely prosperous city that had a lot going for it. It was situated right on a main trade route. It was home to a number of lucrative industries. It boasted of technological advancements, advanced healthcare, and banking institutions. In other words, Laodicea was affluent and self-sufficient. In fact, when the city was hit with a massive earthquake in AD 60, they refused aid from Rome. The city pulled together and rebuilt on its own. In short: Laodiceans “needed nothing” from nobody! He calls this church “lukewarm” – neither hot nor cold – and tells them he is about to spit them out of his mouth. Hot water is useful; it cooks food, kills bacteria, warms us on a chilly fall day. Likewise, cold water is also useful; it cools and refreshes us after a hard day’s work. But room temperature water that is neither hot nor cold is effectively useless. And that’s Jesus’ message to these self-important Laodiceans. All of their wealth and status and plucky self-determination – the things that make them appear useful in their own eyes – are actually useless to Jesus. Those who are “useful” to Jesus are those who realize they need saving, those who see the truth that they are actually “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” before God. Hear what the Spirit says in Revelation 3:14–22.

I’ve always loved music and I wish I had more musical skill and ability than I have. But the truth is, I’m just a hack. And sometimes being a hack is good enough – it’s gotten me by! But where it didn’t get me by was when I tried out to play drums for my high school jazz band. I had never taken any drum lessons. I didn’t even own a real drum set. I just watched drummers in music videos and I sat on the edge of bed playing “air drums” to my favorite songs on the radio. That was the extent of my drumming experience and training. Which I assumed would translate to a real drum kit! Sitting down to audition for the jazz band was the first time I’d ever sat behind an actual drum kit. The instructor had given me a simple piece of music (which I couldn’t read) and asked me to play (which I couldn’t do). It was extremely embarrassing! The look on the instructors face and his tone said it all, “You do not belong here!” It was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had. I’d been caught. I was a fraud; nothing but a hack. Honestly, sometimes I have those same kinds of worries when it comes to being a Christian! I feel like a hack. Satan often whispers to me, “You do not belong here!” And I know I’m not the only one. When it comes to faithfulness, none of us are experts. We’re all hacks at this Jesus thing! And sometimes we come to a worship gathering like this and, like me in that jazz band audition, we think, “What am I doing? I don’t belong here.” I believe Jesus has a message we need to hear in Revelation 3:7–13. No matter what the enemy, or anyone else, says, “YOU BELONG HERE!” Let’s hear what the Spirit says to us this morning!

As the days keep getting shorter, I think we’re all finding it harder to wake up. It seems to stay dark forever. But no worries! We’ve only got a couple more weeks to go before Daylight Savings time ends and we gloriously “fall back” and get that precious extra hour of sleep. Then the sun will actually be up at a normal time again. This time of year can serve as a kind of an analogy for how we feel spiritually. As the days get shorter and darker, it can feel harder for us as followers of Jesus to wake up. The alarm is buzzing, but it’s still dark, so we may as well hit the snooze button and go back to bed. That’s a dangerous place for the church to be. Because for Jesus, a sleeping church is a dead church. But of course Jesus wants his church to be alive! Or as I’m going to argue in this message, Jesus wants his church to be “WOKE!” I realize that term carries a certain pejorative meaning in our cultural moment, but I’m not talking about that kind of woke. Join us as we look into Revelation 3:1-6 and let’s hear and heed what the Spirit says about being a  “woke” church.

No matter who we are, we generally feel the need for three things: sustenance, security, and significance. And there are endless options for how we might satisfy those needs that are not Jesus. Don’t take the bait! Jesus wants us to be uncompromising. In this message we'll drill down into that third need – the need for significance. What exactly does it mean to be truly significant in this world? Psalm 8 says, “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps. 8:1,3-4). We are barely noticeable on a cosmic scale. But then David says, “Yet you have made [us] a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned [us] with glory and honor. You have given [us] dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under [our] feet.” Small as we may be God crowns us with glory and honor. We are his representative image-bearers in this world. We were created to display his glory, exercising a kind of royal dominion over creation. That’s pretty significant – royally significant. So often we are pressured and tempted to settle for lesser significance. But our potential is greater than we can imagine. That’s not opinion. That’s what Jesus says to the church in Thyatira in Revelation 2:18-29. Let’s hear and heed what the Spirit says to us!

What are your needs?  I’m well aware that in a room like this there are many of needs – physical needs, financial needs, emotional needs, relational needs, and of course, spiritual needs. Many of you share your needs every week and we diligently pray for each one. Regardless of what you specifically need this morning, generally speaking, I’d would argue that every one of us, no matter who we are, feels the need for three things: sustenance, security, and significance. The trifecta of needs! And I’m 100% convinced, and I want you to be convinced, that Jesus satisfies our needs. We’re bombarded with plenty of alternative sources for sustenance, security, and significance. And when we start believing that Jesus isn’t enough, we start making compromises and adopting and adapting to those alternatives. Jesus want his church to be uncompromising! We don’t make deals. We don’t negotiate. We don’t sell out. No matter how enticing, or seemingly harmless, the alternatives might be, when it comes to compromise, Church…“DON’T TAKE THE BAIT!” Let’s discover what it means to uncompromising by looking at Revelation 2:12-17 together.

INTRODUCTIONAre you good with boundaries? Do you have the guts to draw hard and fast lines that you are unwilling to cross, or allow other people to cross in your life and relationships? Are you able to say to people, “Thus far and no further!” For example, are you firm with your employer about your availability outside of work hours? Or are you constantly at their beckon call 24/7? Are you clear with your family about when, and under what circumstances, they can stop by unannounced? Or do you just have an “open door” policy? If you’re in the dating game, do you have boundaries when it comes to physical contact that will keep you from going too far? Or do you just go where your heart tells you to go? Boundary setting is an important relational skill! You need good and firm boundaries in your relationships with others. However, there is onerelationship, and only one, where we need not, indeed we cannot, set any boundaries and that is in our relationship with Jesus Christ. Being a follower of Jesus is an “all in” relationship! Jesus deserves all of us, all of the time, no boundaries! And unlike other people who make similar demands of us, Jesus isn’t some needly narcissist who drains the life out of us that we need to protect ourselves from. He doesn’t need anything from anyone! From him, through him, and to him are all things! And he is the one who loves us and has freed us and pours life into us in abundance! This message is intended to break down whatever boundaries we’ve set up between ourselves and this life-giving Jesus, so that we can experience the fullness of a faithful life in Jesus, no matter what. So if you’re up for it, I invite you to turn to Revelation 2:8-11.

INTRODUCTIONSome say that today we’re witnessing the greatest religious shift in our nation’s history. Millions of Americans, close to 40 million in fact, have simply stopped going to church over the last 25 years. It’s a phenomena known as “The Great Dechurching.” It has led to much sober reflection, critical analysis, and even a bit of hand-wringing among Christians for quite some time. What is causing the mass exodus? What is the explanation? Is it a change in our cultural values? Is it the shallowness of the church’s doctrine? Was it Covid-19? Is it spiritual warfare? How do we fix this problem and stop the apparent bleeding? Frankly, it’s a complex problem with no simple answer. But it isn’t really the biggest problem, as far as I’m concerned. There’s another kind of “Great Dechurching” that should concern us even more. It’s the not the one being written about by the religion analysts and church gurus. It’s “The Great Dechurching” written about by John and warned about by Jesus in our text this morning! Two weeks ago, I said that the book of Revelation is all about Jesus. And last week we looked at John’s rather unsettling vision of Jesus as “the son of man” – Jesus in HD! Jesus presents himself to his church, represented by these seven churches in Asia Minor, which are patiently enduring tribulation, both as a terrifying judge and a liberating king. I don’t know what you thought about that picture, but it certainly isn’t the “gentle Jesus” hanging on the wall of your grandmother’s dining room! This is “high definition” Jesus who has a message for his church; a message we need to hear and heed today just as much as the church in John’s day. Therefore, let’s hear and heed the words of Jesus in Revelation 2:1-7.

Have you ever seen something so beautiful and awe-inspiring that you just have to take a picture of it? Perhaps you’ve been to Yellowstone National Park, for example, and stood on the platform just at the top of the Lower Falls, where the mighty Yellowstone River plunges into the gorgeous canyon below. You thought, “I need to share this beauty!” You took your expensive smartphone with all of its state-of-the-art cameras and snapped a picture. Then you texted the image to your sweet 90-year-old grandmother who still uses a flip-phone! A day or two went by and she finally responded with, “What is this?”  What’s the problem? Once the full-resolution image gets crunched down to something that can be easily transmitted through outer space the final resolution is terrible. The image on grandma’s flip-phone is grainy, unimpressive, and barely recognizable. The same thing can happen with Jesus. In our efforts to more easily share the beauty and glory of Jesus, we inadvertently compress him down. We flatten him to a one-dimensional “character.” And we end up with a “low resolution” version of Jesus – a version that is easy to transmit, but not very impressive, and ultimately nothing like the real Jesus of Scripture. The book of Revelation is the correction to this challenging problem. Therefore, join us as we look at Revelation 1:9-20. But we need to brace ourselves because the vision of Jesus we’re presented with in the book of Revelation is unsettling at times. It’s not the picture of Jesus hanging in your grandmother’s living room! For those who have perhaps found “low resolution” Jesus unimpressive, this correction may be exactly what you’ve been waiting to see: Jesus in full HD!

Pastor Jayson preaches a message from Revelation 1:1-8 in our Hear & Heed: The Revelation of Jesus Christ sermon series!INTRODUCTIONJust a few short days after Mount St. Helens unexpectedly erupted on Sunday, May 18th 1980, another significant, unexpected event rocked the nation. The Empire Strikes Back, the long-awaited sequel to Star Wars, opened in theatres. And a collective “gasp” reverberated around the globe as it was revealed that Darth Vader was in fact Luke Skywalker’s father. This surprise “twist” ending was one of the best-kept secrets in movie-making history! Needless to say, it was a shocking revelation that had Star Wars fans all over the world questioning everything they had ever believed.As we read through the New Testament, we read the four eyewitness accounts of Jesus, followed by the Acts of the Apostles and the founding of the church, then the pastoral letters, establishing doctrine and practice in the churches. Then, like a twist at the end of a movie, we encounter this surprising book filled with angels, scrolls, trumpets, earthquakes, a dragon, beasts, destruction and, of course, the end of the world. It’s kind of shocking! It makes us question everything we’ve ever believed. This morning we are beginning what I expect will be a significant journey in the life of Risen Hope. We are going to work our way through one of the most puzzling and wonderful books of the Bible, the book of Revelation. You might be wondering, “Why Revelation?” If you’re not a Christian you might even wonder why it’s even in the Bible? But why preach through it now? There are a lot of answers I could give, and I’ll be highlighting many of those reasons in the weeks to come. But for now, I think the best answer to “Why Revelation?” is the one that Revelation gives itself right at the start. So I invite you to turn to Revelation 1:1-8 as we begin this adventure together.