“Was, Is, & Is To Come”

Revelation 1:4b-8

In the middle of the eighteenth century, a man named John Wesley began his ministry in England. We know John Wesley as one of the early pioneers in the Methodist church. England at this time was overwhelmed by social problems. The gin trade led to huge problems with alcohol. The industrial revolution drove people to the cities to find work. Children working in factories was as common then as children going to school today. Things were in chaos and seemed overwhelming.[1]

John Wesley and his brother Charles did not counter these social problems with sweeping reforms. They challenged the problems of their day through a renewal in the church. They drew people back to worship of God and lives that were committed to their faith. Sometime, look through our hymnbook at the number of revival hymns that were written by the Wesley brothers. No less than seventeen are in our hymnal.[2] The hymns we’re singing today are some of the more treasured Wesley works.

So what good is this information other than a nice Church history lesson? We aren’t Methodist, why should we want to know this? Well, social problems are not a thing of the past. Children in this country may not work in factories any more but they are abused in other ways. Families are still fractured by substance abuse. People are still stretched to the limit because they might be able to make a few more dollars at the next job. And from my perspective, this church, here in Orange Grove, is in need of revival. We don’t need more money, or a bigger sanctuary, or new sidewalks. We need people who are desperate for the Holy Spirit to come over us.

Charles Finney, the nineteenth century revival preacher[3] talked about the Holy Spirit coming over him. Listen to how he records this experience:

. . .the Holy Spirit descended on me in a manner that seemed to go right through my body and soul like a wave of electricity. Indeed, it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love, for I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can recall distinctly that it seemed to fan me like immense wings.[4]

Waves and waves of liquid love. Isn’t that something you want to experience from God? I know I do. Getting back to the Wesley brothers, as Charles and John Wesley were agents of renewal in England, one of the vehicles they used to turn people’s hearts toward God was the use of hymns. And that’s what we have in our passage of Scripture today – it’s a hymn that proclaims the victory of God in a world that seems overwhelming. The new church was clinging for its life in the clutches of the Roman Empire.[5] We might expect Revelation to begin in despair but it begins with shouts of praise.[6] The opening words of Revelation are a hymn to enjoy.

Rather than me reading this passage to you this morning, I want us to read it responsively because I believe we should do more than listen to these words, we should actively engage ourselves with it. So please join me in responsively reading our text.

(At this point, the congregation will responsively read the passage of Scripture.)

There’s a formula I want you to pay attention to in this passage. It occurs twice – in verse 4 and then finally in verse 8. It brackets our passage today. The formula is this: “who is and who was and who is to come.” If you remember your English from school days, you’ll recognize three tenses of time here: present, past, and future. John is telling us that Jesus is Lord in the present, was Lord in the past, and will be Lord in the future.

I want us to look at these three tenses of time only I’m going to mix up the order. If we want to know these waves and waves of liquid love that Charles Finney talks about, we need to first know who Jesus was in the past.

Knowing who Jesus was in the past essentially boils down to this question: Do you know the Jesus of the Gospels? It will be very hard for you to make sense of Jesus in the present and future if you do not know the Jesus of the past.[7] Do you know why we celebrate the Lord’s Supper? What does the bread mean? What does the cup mean? What kind of significance did the Passover carry for a first century Jew? These are questions of knowing the Jesus of Scripture.

Next week we go back further than Passion Week to Advent. It was when God began to shower humanity in a very personal way with these waves of liquid love Charles Finney spoke of. We’re going to sing a famous Wesley Advent hymn in a moment but before we do, let me ask you, do you know the Jesus of the past? If not, you need to go to the Scriptures.

(At this point, the congregation will sing the Wesley hymn: “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”)

As much as I’d like to think that it’s my preaching that moves hearts, the reality is singing is usually what moves us. You get a church full of people singing and filling a sanctuary with praise to God and most of us tingle. We gain confidence that God is doing something huge among us after we sing. A church that knows how to praise God is a church that’s often hitting on all cylinders.

The second part of the formula from this passage poses the question: Do we know God in the present? Who is Jesus for you today? Can you claim him as your Lord and Savior? If not, then what stands in the way? The second half of verse 5 says, “To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.” That’s the essence of the Gospel right there. You are loved by God. You have been freed from the penalty of your sins through what Jesus did on the cross. God wants to know what you’re going to do with that. If you have not come to a decision on what you’re going to do with this offer of salvation, then you need to address this in your life.

John also spells out something else for us about knowing Jesus in the present. Knowing Jesus in the present means that we are part of a priesthood. Look at verse 6. We have been made a kingdom of priests serving God. Jesus makes something out of us that we could never make ourselves.

Each week we greet one another in our worship service. It’s more than just shaking hands with neighbors. It’s a time when we function as the priesthood – ministering to one another. Let’s stand and minister to one another for a moment.

(At this point, the congregation will stand and greet one another. It’s our version of passing the peace.)

The last part of the formula proclaims that Jesus will come again in the future. Do you believe in his promise of return? Will you claim Jesus in your immediate future? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year? In Matthew’s Gospel, after Jesus had given the disciples the bread and the cup, he said to them: “I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”[8] This is a promise of a future. Do you claim a future with God?

The prophet Isaiah records some words for us that smack me between the eyes every time I read them. In Isaiah 7:9 he writes: “If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all.” When the odds are stacked against you, you still have Jesus. That’s a promise for the future.

Is, was, and is to come. Past, present, and future. Do you know the Jesus of the past in Scripture? Do you claim Jesus today with the way you live your life? Will you stand in faith in the future even when the odds might be stacked against you?

Our hymn of preparation for communion is a hymn of invitation as well. If you would like to make a profession of faith in the Jesus of the past, present, and future, join me as we sing. If you would like to join this priesthood of believers – join this church in membership, join me as we sing. If you have wobbly and weak knees and need strength to stand in faith in the future, join me at the front and we’ll pray for you.

Amen.

[1] This information on the beginning of Wesley’s ministry comes from William H. Willimon’s article, “Overwhelmed,” in Pulpit Resource, October-December 2000, p. 37.

[2] Tom Fettke (Senior Editor), The Hymnal for Worship & Celebration, (Waco, TX: Word Publishing, 1986).

[3] Charles Finney spent most of his preaching career in upstate New York from about 1821-1875. He also preached in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Michigan.

[4] V. Raymond Edman, Finney On Revival, (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 2000), p. 34.

[5] Revelation was written by John while he was on the island of Patmos. Scholars have dated this work during the days of Nero (AD 54-68) or the days of Domitian (AD 81-96). Most scholars opt for the Domitian dating. The seven churches John wrote to were near the west coast of what we now know as Turkey. The number “seven” does not necessarily intend to convey a specific number but probably the whole church in the area.

[7] One of the things that Charles Finney immersed himself in before his conversion was the Scriptures. V. Raymond Edman says in his work, Finney On Revival: “Finney, like the great apostle, was not at first entirely accepted among his own, and seems to have spent a year and a half to two years in a wilderness-like experience, and in weeks and months of stillness he learned the gospel from the Scriptures” (p. 29).