Reflection from my message today at NRN

Today at NRN I launched a new teaching series:

 

The first 3 chapters are about things that happened in and around the first century. The rest of the book, chapters 4-22, I believe are primarily future events.  So in our time together, in this series, we are going to look at the messages to the 7 churches, because even thought they were written to these churches in the first century, their messages are valuable for us today. Valuable for NRN!

 

 Sometimes people only want to look at the book of Revelation for end-times events and get into all of the imagery, and skip right over the early chapters.

 The key to understanding Revelation, the key to understanding the Bible, is to understand that it is all about Jesus.

 

Matthew He is our Messiah
Mark our Miracle worker
Luke the Perfect Son of Man
John the Perfect Son of God
Acts He is the Ascended Lord
Romans He is our Righteousness

1 Corinthians He is our Resurrection
2 Corinthians Our Comforter
Galatians the One Who sets us free
Ephesians the Head of the Church

Philippians the God Who meets Every Need
Colossians the Fullness of the Godhead
1, 2 Thessalonians our soon coming King
1,2 Timothy He is the Mediator between God and man
Titus our blessed hope
Philemon our friend who is closer than a brother
Hebrews the blood that washes away my sins
James the Great Physician
1, 2 our Chief Shepherd
1 John the Way
2 John the Truth
3 John the Life
Jude He is Our Security
Revelation the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Lamb of God,
the Bright and Morning Star, the King of Kings and Lord of
Lords.

 So, as you are studying and reading Revelation, keep asking the question, “Who is Jesus?” “What does this teach me about Jesus?” “Where is Jesus in this book?”

 Our conviction is that the whole Bible is about Jesus . . . that every book ultimately points to Jesus, because it’s all the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And by revelation it means something that was unknown and is now made known. It’s God revealing himself to us. Its God working through the Bible writers . . . it’s God working through history . . . working with people like John.

 In fact if you want to know the difference between Christianity and other religions, here’s a big one. We believe that everything that needs to be known about God has been made known in Jesus. We don’t believe that we can know God apart from Jesus, but in Jesus we know everything that we need to know about God.