Welcome, friends! Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Revelation 7:9-17 is a vision of the end and a glimpse of the enduring and unending love which will be in place forever. Until that time, however, we need God’s present love to help us endure and persevere to the end. Click the videos below and be encouraged with the ways we can spiritually thrive and flourish till the end…
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying:
“Amen!
Praise and glory
and wisdom and thanks and honor
and power and strength
be to our God for ever and ever.
Amen!”
Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”
I answered, “Sir, you know.”
And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore,
“they are before the throne of God
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne
will shelter them with his presence.
‘Never again will they hunger;
never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat down on them,’
nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne
will be their shepherd;
‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’
‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’” (New International Version)
A simple observation of today’s text: There can only be a great multitude of people if there are a great multitude of mothers. The great multitude in the Apostle John’s vision of the end of time, had just come out of the great tribulation. And God does for them what any good mother would do: Never lets any of their children go hungry or thirsty; gets them out of harm’s way and protects them; and bends down to wipe their tears away and let them know that everything is going to be okay.
There is a day coming when followers of Jesus will see him face to face. Believers will serve the Lord continually. God’s very presence will be their permanent shelter. It will be a glorious time of unending peace, harmony, and rest.
There shall be no more worrying about how to make ends meet, no more wondering where we are going to get our needs met, and no more anxiety about the future. Injustice will be a thing of the past. Unending love and light will replace it.
First, however, before this permanent Sabbath, there will be trouble, hardship, trial, and even martyrdom. There is presently pain and suffering. Like a woman in labor, this must take place before there is the glory of new life.
Sometimes the difficult circumstances of life seem to have no end. Yet, they will eventually pass, and we must continually keep this in mind. Christians have the hope of God’s pastoral presence forever guarding and keeping our lives if we endure to the end.
Perseverance, endurance, and pushing through hard situations are necessary to realize new and eternal life. We are not meant to just sit here on earth in some sort of holding pattern, waiting for the end to occur. Just as a pregnant woman changes her lifestyle to carry the child within, so we as Christians need to carry our souls, utilizing all kinds of spiritual practices that will help us do that well, until Jesus returns.
The Apostle John’s vision was given to believers in hardship who needed to persevere when things were tough. Giving them a glimpse of the glorious ending was one way of helping them in the present to live for Jesus Christ, despite the pain.
There’s nothing quite like a mother’s love. With the security of that love, we can live in healthy ways, enduring and persevering through difficulty and adversity. God’s love enables us to live securely in five ways:
That’s because, for the believer, we know the ending. We may, at times, feel like colossal failures, yet because the Lord is with us, we have nothing to fear. Being secure in our identity as God’s people enables us to step out and engage the world.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt
When I am afraid,
I put my trust in you.
I trust God, so I am not afraid of what people can do to me!
I praise God for his promise to me. (Psalm 56:3-4, ERV)
2. Taking small steps of faith.
We can incrementally improve ourselves daily through our growth in grace. We don’t need to always do big things for God. We can do small acts of kindness with big love. That is likely what your own mother modeled for you. All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. As that decision is repeated, over and over, a habit sprouts and grows stronger.
Continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, now and forever! Amen. (2 Peter 3:18, GNT)
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. ’The second most important command is this: ‘Love your neighbor the same as you love yourself.’ These two commands are the most important. (Mark 12:30-31, ERV)
3. Being able to identify resistance.
With an awareness of God with us, we are able to name the obstacles, impediments, and challenges to perseverance. Acknowledging what hinders us, gives us the power to choose how to handle it. Our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.
We should remove from our lives anything that would slow us down and the sin that so often makes us fall. We must never stop looking to Jesus. He is the leader of our faith, and he is the one who makes our faith complete. (Hebrews 12:1-2, ERV)
4. Practicing good self-care.
The body, mind, emotions, and spirit are our vehicles to doing the will of God. So, it is imperative we steward these precious gifts of humanity with care. The only way we will make it over the long haul of our lives is through paying attention to how we carry stress in our bodies, learn to listen to it’s message, and following what we hear. Nearly everything works again if we unplug it for a few minutes… including us!
God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us new people so that we would spend our lives doing the good things he had already planned for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10, ERV)
Surely you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you! (1 Corinthians 3:16, GNT)
5. Connecting with why you are persevering.
Losing connection with why we do what we do leads to dropping out and giving up. Yet, when we can remain vigilant to what is most important to us, it helps us push through all the sticky points of our lives. We all get stuck. And love is always the answer to getting unstuck. People don’t care what we believe; they care about why we believe it.
So, if you eat, or if you drink, or if you do anything, do it for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31, ERV)
Whatever you do, whether in speech or action, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus and give thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:17, CEB)
Persevering and enduring throughout our lives can only be done with a great deal of encouragement – which means generous rhythms of giving love and receiving love. It’s what God does. It’s what our mothers taught and modeled for us. It’s enduring love.
Patient God, you tediously work until your plans and purposes are accomplished. As you are slowly bringing your kingdom to the world, strengthen me so that I do not give up. Help me to persevere, living and loving like Jesus, to his glory. Amen.
One day Jesus was standing beside Lake Gennesaret when the crowd pressed in around him to hear God’s word. Jesus saw two boats sitting by the lake. The fishermen had gone ashore and were washing their nets. Jesus boarded one of the boats, the one that belonged to Simon, then asked him to row out a little distance from the shore. Jesus sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he finished speaking to the crowds, he said to Simon, “Row out farther, into the deep water, and drop your nets for a catch.”
Simon replied, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and caught nothing. But because you say so, I’ll drop the nets.”
So, they dropped the nets, and their catch was so huge that their nets were splitting. They signaled for their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They filled both boats so full that they were about to sink. When Simon Peter saw the catch, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Leave me, Lord, for I’m a sinner!” Peter and those with him were overcome with amazement because of the number of fish they caught. James and John, Zebedee’s sons, were Simon’s partners and they were amazed too.
Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid. From now on, you will be fishing for people.” As soon as they brought the boats to the shore, they left everything and followed Jesus. (Common English Bible)
One of the most fundamental characteristics of God is generosity. God’s benevolent nature defines the divine stance toward humanity. This may not seem overly remarkable. Yet, when the infinite holiness of God intersects with the prideful arrogance of sinful people, gracious generosity is the unpredictable and amazing result.
Many people on planet earth have been raised with a god who is aloof and something of an old cranky curmudgeon. Such a god gets easily angry and zaps people with lightning or some natural disaster. It is no wonder so many persons have fled from belief in God.
Can we, however, entertain the notion that the Creator God of the universe is quite the opposite of the perpetually upset deity?
In Jesus, we have displayed for us what the basic disposition of the Divine truly is.
On one occasion, Peter (a guy who could raise the ire of most gods) was going about his business, fishing in the Sea of Galilee. Having not yet encountered Jesus, yet stopping to listen to his words, Peter ended up having this uninvited stranger literally get in the boat with him.
There was something remarkably different and compelling about Jesus since Peter did not immediately toss him out. Such a calm, confident, and gracious nature – nothing like Peter had expected. So, here is this ordinary fisherman face-to-face with the Christ of God.
Jesus told Peter to put the boat out and cast the nets. Peter, an experienced fisherman and knowledgeable about the water, knew for certain that he would not catch anything. But, out of deference to Jesus, he did so, anyway. The result was such a large catch of fish that the nets nearly broke from the weight.
Peter’s response is instructive. He fell at the feet of Jesus in a profound sense of his own smallness and sinfulness. Next to Jesus. Peter saw how little faith he really had. He rightly discerned that he did not deserve such generosity from Jesus, an overflowing abundance given to him despite his unbelief.
In the face of such grace, in the vortex of an incredible mercy, having seen the generosity of God directed squarely at him, Peter left it all behind to follow Jesus.
So, here we have the nature and character of God before us. No perturbed deity. No exasperated god ready to raise a storm and toss the boat over with Peter in it. No, Jesus, the Son of God, does not operate that way. There is no strong-arming people into faith. God’s tactics steer clear of base manipulation through guilt, or mind-twisting others through shaming them.
Instead, God is beautifully and simply present with people – showing grace and generosity in places where one would least expect to find it.
If confronted with such love, what would you do?
Early in my life, I viewed God as some eternally bored deity who would occasionally get out his divine BB gun and shoot people in the rear, just for something to do. God, in my understanding, cared nothing for the real lived experiences of people on earth.
But much like Peter of old, Jesus showed up unannounced in my life. And what I found was like Peter – a kind, benevolent Being who showered such generous love on me that my heart was immediately captured. I have never looked back since.
We intuitively know, down deep in our gut, in the very marrow of our bones, when genuine Love is among us. Generously true Love immediately connects with the deepest needs of our lives. No evangelist must convince us with offering free gold crosses or promised blessings. None of that matters when Love incarnate is present, when the great God of all is among us.
Peace, hope, and faith are the results of the divine loving presence. They cannot be conjured or ginned up through excessive asceticism or extreme discipline. Love is a gift. Love is a person. And it is given generously and graciously from the One whose very nature is charitable and hospitable.
Praise be to God!
Gracious God, you sent your Son to me even though I was neither looking for him nor expecting anything from him. Thank you for breaking-in to my life so that I could break-out for you with glory, honor, and praise. Amen
Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.”
So, Paul motioned with his hand and began his defense: “King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate to stand before you today as I make my defense against all the accusations of the Jews, and especially so because you are well acquainted with all the Jewish customs and controversies. Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently.
“The Jewish people all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem. They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that I conformed to the strictest sect of our religion, living as a Pharisee. And now it is because of my hope in what God has promised our ancestors that I am on trial today. This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. King Agrippa, it is because of this hope that these Jews are accusing me. Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?
“I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests, I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.
“On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
“Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’
“ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied.‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ (New International Version)
Paul was a zealous missionary to Gentiles, indefatigable, and an intense type-A kind of dude. But it wasn’t those characteristics Paul was looking for others to see in him. Paul simply wanted others to see Christ in him. Having been arrested for preaching the gospel, Paul found himself before King Agrippa making a strong apologetic for Christian faith.
The great apostle simply told his own personal story of faith in Christ. Never underestimate how powerful our stories can be.
My favorite football player of all time is the hall of fame quarterback Kurt Warner. There is much in his story of faith that I relate to. Like me, he grew up in Iowa. And he played football at Northern Iowa, which is also my alma mater. Here is what Kurt Warner has to say about his life in a nutshell:
“I was raised in the church, so faith and God were part of my life, but for me it was just kind of there only on Sundays. I always had God as a background, but I never truly accepted Jesus until I was about 25 years old. My arena league teammates (before being in the NFL), a pastor friend and my future wife were constantly asking questions about my beliefs, and I began to question where I was and whether I had really put my complete faith in God.
Their questions led me to the Truth – that faith is about a relationship, and it’s about Jesus. Up to that point, I had never really considered that. I struggled for so long and so many things went against me. I was swimming upstream.
When I finally gave my life over to God, it was then the joy and happiness came into my life. I realized my role here on Earth was not to throw touchdown passes and win football games, although that is the position and the platform I was given. I realize my goal is to win as many people to Jesus as possible. I have an open-door policy, where I’m able to talk about what is most important to me, and, for me, God is #1.”
Like Kurt Warner, I grew up with God only in the background of my life. I remember going to church as a kid and being bored out of my skull. When I became a teenager, I dropped out of church – and faith – because I did not see any relevance for my life. My family and my school can give testimony that I was a weird, stubborn kid who did what he wanted to do. And it put me into a slimy pit, lost and far from God.
In all my years of attending church as a kid, I never read my Bible. God, however, was gracious to me. I remembered all those sermons about Jesus, and I gained a newfound awareness of myself. I began to have a deep desire to read and know Holy Scripture.
In short, God saved me from myself. My circumstances did not change much, but I did. My loneliness turned to joy; my aimlessness turned into purpose; and my selfishness became a deep concern for others. My heart had been black, and what God did to change it was nothing less than miraculous.
Our faith is not only personal. We also have a responsibility to bless others with our story of what God has done in our lives. The telling of stories – declaring what God has done – is a necessary part of building up the Body of Christ and helping others move forward.
Let’s not shelve the idea of giving testimony to others as if it were only for pastors, missionaries, or other very religious people.
When a person decides to play hockey in twenty-degree below-zero weather, we might think that person is a little crazy; but if they love hockey that much, more power to them. We must not think about Christianity in the same way, that if a person is passionate about Jesus and desires to tell others about what God has done for them, more power to them; just don’t expect me to go out in the cold and do that because it isn’t my thing.
Take this to heart: Christianity is neither a sport nor a hobby; it isn’t a means to looking respectable; it cannot be reduced to church attendance and putting money in an offering plate. Christianity is a life, a relationship with God through Jesus. Try looking at marriage as simply showing up for supper and paying the bills and see how far that gets you!
New life comes not from a change of circumstances, but a change of heart. With a firm reliance upon and glad obedience to God, along with a readiness to give testimony to God’s actions, we are then living into God’s continuing narrative of changed lives.
Every Christian is a teacher of the faith because Christians represent Christ to the world through our words and actions. What we say and do testifies to our faith and beliefs. So, let us represent Jesus well, and with great compassion, to a lost and lonely world.
Merciful God, our witness is only as good as the love it conveys. Help us, your people, to share our stories of faith – and to find small ways to witness to your unfailing love in the midst of our uncertainty. Grant us the vision to see you at work in our world, healing our brokenness, and making us new. Give us wisdom to hear your voice through the noise that surrounds us. And grant us the courage to bring to fruition the world you are creating, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Rev. Tim Ehrhardt 