Jesus Still Speaks!

We start a brand new series today called The Future is Ancient, Wisdom from the Seven Churches of Revelation. Now, this is a book that I have not done a series on in my 13 years. I've done a lot of verse pulling different parts of it out, and we're not going necessarily through the whole book today or the next couple of weeks. We're actually gonna look at the seven churches Jesus had a message for in Revelation, and it's the last book of the Bible. So if you got your Bibles, go ahead and hold it up. Just let me see it, like, wave it in the air like you just don't care, okay? I wanna start a movement. I'm gonna re-up my commitment. Get yourself a paper Bible and bring it to church on Sunday. All right? Now, I'm not just saying electronic is great, and I'm grateful. How many have electronic versions? Just wave them in the air. I know you got the Bible, too, so no shame. But there is something about lingering, observing, praying, with the Bible open, and just meditating on the Word. And listen, there's no notifications coming off of it. There's no distractions. It's just you and the Word, and I believe that God wants to speak to us through the Word, but we gotta read it.

This week, I was so proud of the young adults. On Tuesday night, Evangelist John O'Gates came in, and he preached, but they were all outside, and I saw pictures of hundreds of people, and they had their Bibles out, and the next generation is going ancient. What if we went ancient as a church, right? And our future really is ancient. We need to think about what the Word has to say, and in particular, the words in Revelation cover the past, the present, and the future, and there's references to what Jesus has already done, and there's instructions that He left, that are left for our ancestors in the church that can apply to our life in our church, and also, specifically, He talks about the future, and there are a lot of questions about the future going on in our world around what's AI gonna do, and what's gonna happen with world events, and there's plenty of conspiracies. If you don't have one, just open your phone up, and you can be introduced to a new conspiracy on TikTok, or on any kind of platform, and they'll let you know, or you could go back and see what God has said all along that keeps coming true, and you can trust the wisdom that God has for us in 2026. So the title of today's message, as we get in, I'm gonna work our way towards the first church, but I'm gonna lay some groundwork for all of them here this morning.

The title is Jesus Still Speaks. Turn to the person next to you, whisper in their ear, Jesus still speaks. Here we go. You're like, that's weird, Pastor Nate. Yeah, well, that's just the way it is. All right, go with me to Revelation chapter one. Revelation chapter one, and we're gonna work our way through all of chapter one and the beginning of chapter two here this morning. This is the revelation from who? Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the events that must soon take place, which is an allusion to, or a forecasting to, future times, end times, things that we think about, as well as Jesus' return, okay? He sent an angel to present this revelation to his servant John, who faithfully reported everything he saw. This is his report of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. God blesses the one who reads the words of this prophecy to the church, and he blesses all who listen to its message and obey what it says, for the time is near. Now, I want you to see here, first of all, this is kind of like an editor's note at the beginning about John, which we're gonna hear from in a moment, who receives a message first through Jesus. But it's saying these things are happening,

and there is a blessing not on those who understand it, but those who read it and listen to it. So even if you don't understand everything in it, there is a blessing. How many wanna be blessed today? Well, then you wanna keep reading, all right? Verse number four, it says this letter is from John to the seven churches in the province of Asia. Grace and peace to you. from the one who is and who always was and who is still to come from the sevenfold spirit before his throne and from Jesus Christ. He is the faithful witness to these things, the first to rise from the dead and the ruler of all the kings of the world. Now, let's keep going. I just noticed here, first of all, the churches in the province of Asia is actually modern day Turkey. It's seven churches. So he's talking to seven churches, but they're all gonna hear all of the church's messages. So you're gonna hear other people's stuff. And it's like reading somebody else's book report. You're gonna see other people's work and it's gonna be for them. And it talks about the sevenfold spirit. The sevenfold spirit, by the way, there's one Holy Spirit, but there's seven churches.

So he works in those seven places before his throne and Jesus Christ, the faithful witness to these things, the first to rise from the dead and the ruler of all the kings of the world. Okay, let's go on. All glory to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. He has made us a kingdom of priests for God his father. All glory and power to him forever, amen. Now, this could be like a preamble of a song, if you will, kind of bringing us in. This is Jesus. He's the one that's overcome. He's the one that his blood was shed for us and made us a kingdom of priests before the father and all the glory goes to him. So it's really focused. We're gonna be talking about Jesus in this. And then it says, verse number seven, look, he comes with the clouds of heaven and everyone will see him, even those who pierced him and all the nations of the world will mourn for him. Yes, amen. Yes, amen. Now, I think there is something happening in this space as the oracle is told and the church is hearing this. Imagine yourself being in the church, hearing this read to you, okay? And it's talking about Jesus. Now, one of the things about Jesus

is this is about 50 plus years after his death and resurrection. We're somewhere in 90 AD. And so it's been a long time since they had heard from him. You awake now? And so they haven't heard anything. The church is now spread into the known world and it's moved out of Israel. It's now in countries that aren't Jewish-based. Now, it's everywhere and the church, people have come to faith, they've gone through, they're going through persecution, we'll find about in a minute. But as they're going along, they haven't heard from Jesus for a long time. They might've got a letter from Paul, they might've heard something from Peter, but they haven't heard from Jesus. So this is a set up to go, okay, listen, you are going to hear from Jesus. This is a big deal. He says, I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord God. I am the one who is and always was and who is still to come, the almighty one. All right? So you're gonna hear this repeated over and over and over again in Revelation. The God who was, the God who is,

and the God who is to come. That means God's voice has relevance, not only in the past, but also right now, and you can bank on it. He's gonna help you moving into the future. When it says the alpha and the omega, alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and omega is the end, the last one. From soup to nuts, everything that goes on in your life, from here into eternity, Jesus is Lord. He is the Lord. Now, I think this is important. I'm not gonna preach now. I think this is important for us to recognize in church in 2026. Why do you think this is important? There's a lot of reasons it's important, but primary, we now live in a generation that has people come from all over the world and thank God for America that we've welcomed people from every nation and we're a house of prayer for all nations at our church. We're grateful, but as people have come in and societies have developed, now all of a sudden the people that have come in have come in with their own religion. their own belief systems. And in our culture, we want to accommodate everybody else. And we've got something called Minnesota nice, which really means I'll give you directions

to any place but my house. That's what Minnesota nice means sometimes. We're not super nice, but we don't want to say anything mean to anybody. Right? So what happens is over time, it's like the old analogy of a pot of water boiling in the frog and it doesn't even notice that it's getting hot and it's about to die. There are things happening in our culture about religion and scrolling through TikTok that question the validity of Jesus as Lord and Savior. We are in danger of being in that boiling pot of water and not realizing that it actually is diminishing our value. There is only one Savior. There is only one way to the Father. It's through Jesus. There's only one person that can forgive you of your sins. It's Jesus. This is why it's important to start off before you listen to what he's about to say. Recognize this isn't just good advice that you're scrolling through and that you can dismiss. No, this is Jesus, the one who died on the cross for your sins. This is Jesus. I'll try to finish. I, John, verse 9, now we shift to the one that is penning this out.

I, John, am your brother and your partner in suffering in God's kingdom and in the patient endurance to which Jesus calls us. I was exiled to the land island of Patmos for preaching the word of God and for my testimony about Jesus. What is he saying here? He's identifying with his audience. These seven churches are going through great persecution for their faith. And as he writes, he's letting them know, I'm going through persecution too. I preached the gospel. They exiled me to an island. This was not a vacation, you guys. This wasn't like, hey, you get to go and hang out on an island. No, this is persecution. He's been isolated, separated from the people he loves, disconnected from his circle of friends and his family. So he's letting the audience know, I get you. And I am in this thing with you, okay? And so it says, it was the Lord's day and I was worshiping in the spirit. Suddenly I heard behind me a voice like a trumpet blast. I'll get to that voice in a moment. It's on the Lord's day, it says there. The Lord's day became Sunday for new believers as the church developed. Of course, prior they would worship on the Sabbath

on Saturday, but now the believers would gather together on Sunday. Why Sunday? Because Jesus rose from the dead. He owns that day, right? So it's the Lord's day. He owns it. I mean, no, he owns today. This is Sunday right now. I don't want any... Listen, our president doesn't own this day. Our governor doesn't own this day. Sometimes professional sports owns it. Sometimes youth sports owns it. Sela, I'll let you... It's the Lord's day. And it says that he's worshiping. Now, when he's worshiping, he's worshiping God on the island of Patmos. There's no worship team around him. John Carlos doesn't have a guitar. There's nobody going, ♪ Jesus be the name that gets all the glory. ♪ You know, none of that's going on. I mean, sometimes you gotta learn to worship all by yourself. He's worshiping, and while he's worshiping, he's expecting everything to go vertical, but I know that God still wants to come down this way too. And he wants to speak into our ears.

And now all of a sudden, while he's worshiping, something beautiful happens. He hears a loud voice like a trumpet blast behind him. In verse 11, it says, it said, write in a book everything you see and send it to the seven churches in the cities of Ephesus, Myrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Now it gives the specific names. Actually, we're going to go through each of the specific messages that Jesus gives to these churches in these cities in this series. Today, I'm going to be dealing with Ephesus in a few moments, but. We're gonna go through all of those. I also want you to notice how many in your Bibles you see that those words are all red. When it's red in your Bible, that means it's Jesus talking, okay? So, write in a book, Jesus is talking to them. He's gotta write something down and send it to them. Verse 12, it says, when I turned to see who was speaking to me, I saw seven gold lampstands, and standing in the middle of the lampstands was someone like the Son of Man. He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow,

and his eyes were like flames of fire. His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice thundered like mighty ocean waves. He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came from his mouth, and his face was like the sun in all its brilliance. Now, this is Jesus, you guys, so we're going into full-on Hollywood in this moment, and you're gonna see sights and sounds and symbols throughout all of Revelation, because it is so fantastic and so amazing and so compelling that John has to write it as he sees it. And here he describes a few things. He sees a man, and he sees that there are seven golden lampstands, or lampstands actually have light on them. A church is a lampstand. So what he's referencing is those seven churches, the seven lampstands. How many know that Jesus has set us up as a city set on a hill? We're to be light in the middle of darkness. This is Jesus' whole plan for us, to be light in the middle of the darkness of our age and stages of where we are, in the twin cities. And as he's describing it, he talks about somebody in the middle of the lampstands who is the Son of Man, capital S, Son of Man. It's a title here.

Now, we know it's Jesus, but he actually begins to describe him with fantastic descriptions that are almost identical to the descriptions to a vision that Daniel saw in the book of Daniel. So if you're reading this, it's a good thing to also study Daniel and go back and see previous descriptions. The coolest thing is, you'll discover, is that Jesus isn't only in the New Testament. Jesus is in the Old Testament too. He always was, always is, and always will be. And see, Jesus was showing up to people long before the time of his birth because he was the first and the last. And it says there that he has a sword coming out of his mouth. What is that imagery? Double-edged sword. It's the word of God. One of Jesus' descriptions in this right away, in the book of John, it talks about him being the living word, that he is the one that is the word of God. And Jesus is not tame. When you see a double-edged sword, that's not like a letter opener sword. We're talking about something that fights battles. Jesus is not a wimpy little teddy bear. And John is describing Jesus in real time,

after his resurrection, he's not playing games. He's the living word of God. Says, when I saw him, verse 17, I fell at his feet as if I were dead, but he laid his right hand on me and said, don't be afraid, I am the first and the last. Where have we seen that already? Okay, don't be afraid, I'm the first and the last. Verse 18, I am the living one. I died, but look, I am alive forever and ever. And I hold the keys of death and the grave. How many know the gospel story? Yeah. Jesus lived a literal life, died on a literal cross, came back from the dead, and not only did he come back from the dead, he brought the keys with him. If you're gonna make it into eternity, you need Jesus opening the door, and he has the keys. If you're gonna make it into the future, you might as well trust the one that comes back from the dead and has all authority right now. Don't be wasting your time on somebody that's got a good philosophy but can't change you. What's your hope and faith in Jesus? So good. Just reading the word. makes me come alive, you guys. Verse 19, write down what you have seen,

both the things that are now happening, everybody said now happening, and the things that will happen. This is the meaning of the mystery of the seven stars you saw in my right hand and the seven gold lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. Let me just pause here. That word angels is the word messengers. For the purpose of what is being talked about right now, he's referencing what would be best known in our day and age as the pastor of the church. So Jesus is speaking and he's talking about the seven angels, an angel for each of the church, or that angel's actually the pastor, the one that gets up and communicates or reads those words of what will happen. All right. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. So you got lampstands that are the church, the angels that are the ones that are responsible for the churches. All right, we're gonna go into chapter two here in a sec. Before I do though, I want you to kind of look this way for a sec. When Jesus is about to talk, we set all this up as validation or reason that we should listen. But if we were one of these churches that was living at that time and we received it,

the purpose of this letter would be to encourage us. It's not to discourage, it's not to wipe us out. The rest of the book is not to discourage us. And the revelation is not about, I wanna really cause you to be discouraged and to quit. No, it's the opposite of that. Actually, what we're about to read is meant to encourage us to keep going. That you can go that Jesus is with you. You know, all these 50 plus years later, you're in the story, Jesus is going, hey, I'm still in the game with you. I'm not just waiting for just the apostles to speak, but I'm gonna speak directly to you. And I want you to hear me today because I know that under the sound of my voice in our church, that we've got a lot of people that are going through a lot of different challenges in life. Things that are different today than they were 15 years ago for you. It used to seem so easy, but it's become so hard. And you might be beginning to wonder, does God even really notice me? Am I, what's going on? And I just want you to know, Jesus would send these words to you to encourage you that you can make it. And that we can continue. And even though we've gone through a lot in the Twin Cities since 2020,

in six years, our city, our state has gone through a whole lot. More than the rest of the country, I think, in some ways. But don't be discouraged because Jesus is still speaking in this moment to this church. Come on, somebody. He ain't giving up on us. And so, as we get into Ephesus, I want you to go with me to chapter two. Chapter two, write this letter to the angel of the church in Ephesus. This is the message from the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven gold lampstands. I'm gonna read this in a moment, but I want you to catch Ephesus, the church in Ephesus. I have a map, if we've got that picture, we could put up. I have a map of that area of the world where we're talking about. This is Turkey. You see all those seven churches that are up there, and you can look at them closer online and stuff later on. But Ephesus is probably the premier city out of all those cities. It'd be the city everybody thinks of first. It's the city that, socioeconomic-wise, was the biggest city, hundreds of thousands of people. It had all kinds of commerce going on. It was a port city, and so people were coming from all over the world to trade their goods.

They had all kinds of religions in that city. There was ancient religion. and Temple of the Diana and some specific things that you would have seen in the Book of Acts when Paul was speaking there. But now we're a couple decades later, that's still in play. And even the Roman Caesar at the time, the emperor, had his own cult religion where he wanted people to worship him. And the Caesar of that era, that emperor, was different than the emperor when Jesus was on the earth. So it's a new guy and he's expecting people to worship him. And the reason I'm bringing this up is this is a really crazy, not Christian city that the church has been raised up in and they have been working hard. They love Jesus, they're giving their best, but it's not an easy situation. But they are kind of in the predominant position amongst all the other churches. And so they've given money to support other churches. They kind of have the leaders there. You have to have a savviness to work in a multicultural and multi-socioeconomic society with governing from the Roman Empire in as well as the local stuff. And it's a lot like the Twin Cities, actually. And so as you're gonna hear this, this church has been faithful for a long time. They've continued to do the right things.

And I want you to just read what Jesus now says to them. He says, I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don't tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You've discovered they are liars. You have patiently suffered for me without quitting. I want you to notice in here that Jesus is saying, I notice, I see you. You're not overlooked. I see what you're doing. You're actually doing things, commendable things. And so he starts pointing these things out. And as he points them out, I'm thinking about in my own journey, bosses, leaders, people that come along and they notice what I've been doing. What do they notice? Parents, when you see your kids, what do you notice that they're doing? You notice certain things about them, right? You notice whether or not they're doing the right thing or the wrong thing. And Jesus will address something that they need to change in here, but don't miss the fact that he still notices what you're doing right. I know some people that in their family of origin, all they ever heard was they're doing wrong. And if somebody, they get into a job or they get a coach on a sports team

and something happens and somebody wants to give a positive, helpful criticism, they shut down because of the narrative of the past that you're just saying, I'm a loser. You think I can't do this. That's not the voice that we're talking about here. Jesus' voice is one that believes in you. He cares about you and he hangs in there. How many wanna gain Jesus' voice when it comes to parenting or friendship or management, right? That's Jesus' voice. Okay, let's keep going here. It says, but, everybody said but, here we go. But I have this complaint against you. You don't love me or each other as you did at first. Look how far you have fallen. Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don't repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. But this is in your favor. You hate the evil deeds of the Nicolaitans just as I do. Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious, I will give fruit from the tree of life in the paradise of God. Well, this is what I want you to catch here. And I'm doing it a little bit different than I did in first service, so you didn't get all the scriptures up there, I apologize. But I want you to see here that when Jesus begins to talk,

he addresses the heart. He addresses what's going on in them. He addresses a complaint, but not a complaint like you failed, more of a, if you change, this won't be on the list anymore. If you address this, good things will happen if you listen. He says, but I have this complaint against you. You don't love me. for each other as you did at first. You've lost or left your first love. You've set it aside, you've neglected it. A marriage equivalent to this would be to not renew your vows to keep your love strong. You said your vows years ago, but then there was no attention paid to the relationship. And you know what, if you don't pay attention to love, it will grow cold, you'll lose it. Now, I like the language, it didn't necessarily just lose it like I lost my phone somewhere, but they left it. In other words, they had it, but they walked away from it. And Jesus is saying, hey, listen, I know that you've gone through persecution and there's false teachers and you're battle weary. And I know all that's going on, but somehow along the way, you lost your love for me and for the people in your life. This is a kind of a check-in for us even now. If the shoe fits for you and for me, have you lost that love that you have?

Have you somehow neglected it? Stop paying attention to the, do you find yourself not loving your friends or your family? Do you find yourself not having that love flowing? It's just drudgery, it's just doing it because you have to. Listen, the lowest level of commitment in a relationship is doing it because you have to. No, when there's true love, it's beneficial both ways. God is interested in the heart and that's where his love flows from. Proverbs 4.23, guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life. So he's talking about the heart dimensions. Hear the voice of Jesus is saying, I wanna go underneath the surface. I know you go to church all the time. I know that maybe you're given the offering. I know that you sacrificed and served at different points, but talk about your heart. Where's your heart? And Jesus gives his diagnosis, but then he doesn't leave us there. He tells us what to do about it. He gives us three commands, three commands that Jesus gives us no matter how far we've fallen, wherever we are. And this will work for you in your relationships as well. It works in your relationship with God or the people that you love around you. I'm gonna read from the English Standard Version,

the ESV, verse five. It says it this way. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen. Repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. What Jesus is saying is these real simple things, three things to do. One is remember. Everybody say remember. Remember. It says remember the works you did at first. Remember what it was like when you first gave your life to Jesus. You were so grateful that he had grace and mercy upon you. Do you remember what it was like when you first began to worship? You lifted your hands just a little bit for the first time and you began to open up yourself to God and then you didn't care what anybody thought about you and you had tears running down your face and the Spirit of God was moving in your. Do you remember what it was like when you didn't care or you had to sacrifice to serve somebody else? You were owned by your things. You gave away freely. Do you remember those things? Remembering is going back and retracing the steps. Jesus says, remember those things.

And then he says, repent. So remember, then repent. Repenting is just simply turn back. I'm going back. Repentance isn't, I'm sorry. Repent is turning and saying, I'm going in a different direction. It's not just saying, I recognize I did something wrong. It's saying, I gotta go back. I go back and then Jesus says, do the work you did at first. That's the word repeat. So it's remember, repent, repeat. All of us can have a vow renewal today with the Lord. We can remember what he's done and how far he's brought us. We can repent and turn around and go back. And then we can repeat and go back and sing it again. The power of something like, Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. You remember those simple things, just remembering the building blocks of our faith, and when it wasn't an outward show, it was just what was in the heart. Jesus says it in verse seven, anyone who ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious, I will give fruit from the tree of life in the paradise of God.

If we will listen to the Spirit, this is not just today, but throughout this series, listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to other churches and what is fitting with us, we have a choice of what we'll do when we listen. I believe that Jesus is still speaking through his Spirit to the church, and if we persevere, he says, that's victory. We don't have to have a free life and everything is awesome, but if we keep going and we don't quit, then there's a prize waiting at the end. How many don't want to quit? You want to keep going? Then hear the voice of Jesus today saying, remember, repent, and then repeat. Would you stand with me today? Hallelujah. The, the responsibility of believers is to listen for the voice of Jesus, to lean in and say, God, would you speak to me? I want you to know today, some of you have been fighting the hardest fight of your life. Jesus sees you. He notices what you're resisting and evil in your life. He notices that you came back to church again today. He notices that you're doing your best that you can at this moment, but he also may say, I want to take a look in your heart,

and I think all of us could go back to that place where we just say simply, Lord, here I am again. I want to sing that song like I used to sing that song. I want to be close to you like I used to. I want to love the people in my life like I used to. I want to remember, repent, and repeat it. Father, we thank you today, Lord, that you are in the house, that you're with your people, and that, Lord, you're not done with us. Today, we ask that you'd speak to us, that the living word of God would go in, as Hebrew says, between the joints and the marrow, that you'd go between the soul and the spirit, that you'd go in, and that, Lord, you'd do surgery where there needs to be surgery. You would heal that which needs to be healed, but most of all, would you restore our love, our love for you and our love for people? I pray, O God, that, Lord, in the heart dimension, God, that you'd get the selfishness out and the pursuit of other things, even the distractions out, and enable us to love people and to love you greatly. Lord, we're turning, and we're coming back to you. We ask, God, that as we do, Lord, that you'd meet with us. We look forward to the prize.

We look forward to the return of Jesus. We look forward to when you're coming back, but between now and then, Lord, we ask that you would join our story and that you would be with us. We thank you for it. In Jesus' name, amen, amen, amen, amen.