Participants:
Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190004A
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00:01 Have you ever noticed that we live in a world that's afraid?
00:04 Everywhere you go, people are fearful? 00:07 And you know, it was Jesus who said, "Don't be afraid." 00:11 Why? 00:12 Because He's the Alpha and the Omega. 00:38 In the book of Revelation we're given this 00:40 stunning picture of Jesus. 00:41 In fact, the title of the book itself is, 00:44 A Revelation of Jesus Christ. 00:47 He reveals Himself in a way that we have never seen Him 00:51 in the gospels, except perhaps at the Mount of Transfiguration. 00:55 In the book of Revelation we see Him as this glorious 00:58 being sitting, standing if you please, 01:02 at the right hand of God. 01:04 So we want to take a look at Jesus today as the 01:06 Alpha and the Omega, and we want to take a look at 01:10 some of His own statements about Himself. 01:13 So we're going to the book of Revelation chapter 1, 01:16 and we're going to look at verses 8 and 11. 01:23 This is Jesus speaking, "I am the Alpha and the Omega..." 01:28 What does that mean? 01:29 It's like saying, "I am the A and the Z. 01:33 I include the entire alphabet. 01:37 I'm the total sum of the alphabet." 01:40 And Jesus is the total sum. 01:43 Alpha and omega were the Greek A and Z, if you please. 01:46 They weren't the actual Z, omega is a different letter. 01:50 But when Jesus says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega," 01:53 He wants to instill in us assurance. 01:57 He wants us not to be afraid. 02:00 Fear is the enemy of faith. 02:03 And yet, everywhere we turn it seems like 02:05 fear drives the world. 02:09 Fear drives the stock market. 02:12 It drives people's choices, it drives what people do. 02:15 Many times all day long. 02:17 Fear. 02:18 I'm looking forward to a world where there is no more fear. 02:22 Won't you be glad for that world? 02:23 But let's go on to what Jesus has to say, 02:26 the Alpha and the Omega here, the Beginning and the End. 02:30 Let's listen to what He says. 02:32 He says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, 02:35 the Beginning and the End..." 02:37 "I've got it all covered, everything in between. 02:40 Your whole life I've got covered. 02:42 The start of your life to the finish of your life. 02:45 I've got the whole world covered, 02:47 from the start of Genesis to the close of Revelation. 02:51 I am the Beginning and the End," He says. 02:55 And then He goes on in verse 8 and He says, 02:58 "...who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." 03:06 Now that's quite a marvelous statement. 03:08 You know, there's some people today that 03:10 try to make Jesus as kind of a secondary God, 03:13 or something like that. 03:15 But here He declares that He is the Almighty. 03:20 He is the Creator of the universe. 03:22 And that's a big thing through the book of Revelation. 03:26 So He and the Father both are Almighty. 03:28 The Holy Spirit is Almighty. 03:30 But Jesus claims as the Alpha and the Omega. 03:33 He says, "I am the Almighty." 03:37 And He claims once again to be the Alpha and the Omega. 03:41 When you get to the end of the book of Revelation 03:44 He says again that He's the Alpha and the Omega, 03:48 the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. 03:51 So in other words, Jesus is the sum of everything. 03:55 Now Paul puts it this way. 03:57 Some people have misunderstood it. 03:59 Paul says Jesus is the end of the law. 04:02 But really the word, "end," there means the goal of the law. 04:05 He's the summation of the law. 04:07 And that's what Jesus is saying here. 04:09 "I'm the summation of the universe." 04:11 And He can say that because He created it. 04:15 He made it. 04:17 I mean, when you look at human beings and you look at the DNA 04:20 that makes us who we are, it is an amazing incredible thing. 04:23 Yet, Jesus made all of it. 04:27 He's the Beginning and the End. 04:29 Listen to the apostle Paul in the book of Colossians, 04:31 it's a very powerful statement. 04:33 One of my favorite chapters in the New Testament. 04:36 Colossians 1:15-18 04:39 He's talking about this incomparable Jesus. 04:42 He's saying there's nobody like Him. 04:43 Now just a few versus earlier than that 04:47 he tells people that he's praying that they will be 04:49 mighty Christians. 04:51 I mean, have you ever seen anybody be baptized 04:54 and get up and say, "Well, I'm baptized now. 04:58 I just want to be a weak Christian." 05:00 No. 05:01 People want to be strong Christians, 05:03 strengthened with the might of the Lord Jesus, 05:07 as the apostle Paul says. 05:08 What kind of might is that? 05:10 What kind of might is it? 05:12 Well the apostle Paul describes this might, this mighty Jesus, 05:17 this incomparable Jesus, 05:20 this matchless Jesus. 05:22 Paul says, "He is the image of the invisible God..." 05:27 What do we mean by the image of the invisible God? 05:30 You know, we have people come up and say, 05:31 "Oh, you know, why do you worship this invisible God? 05:34 Nobody has ever seen God." 05:35 No, no, no, that's not true. 05:38 The apostle Paul says, and the disciples also declare, 05:41 that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. 05:46 The world has seen God. They've seen Him in the flesh. 05:49 This Jesus who walked Palestine's dusty trails, 05:54 this Jesus who was hung on Calvary's cross 05:56 and was resurrected, this Jesus who touched the eyes 05:59 of the blind and opened them, 06:02 this Jesus who spoke words of hope and courage, 06:05 this Jesus who took on Himself the burdens of the world, 06:09 this marvelous, incomparable Jesus, 06:13 He is God. 06:15 If you have seen Jesus, you have seen God. 06:20 And you see Him in the Scriptures. 06:23 And we have the testimonies of the apostles and many others. 06:27 In fact, I think it's the apostle John who says, 06:29 "We touched Him." 06:33 He's not abstract. 06:35 It's true we cannot see God the Father, 06:38 but we have seen God the Son. 06:41 And so the apostle Paul goes on to say, 06:44 "He is the image of the invisible God, 06:47 the firstborn over all creation." 06:49 The firstborn of the dead. 06:51 He's resurrected, He's the preeminent one. 06:54 Without His resurrection, nobody's resurrection 06:58 is going to count. 06:59 Everybody's resurrection is not going to happen. 07:02 Or those that have been resurrected, the few that had, 07:05 they would probably have to go back to the grave. 07:07 But Jesus is the firstborn. 07:10 In His resurrection we all have the hope 07:14 of the resurrection. 07:16 Paul goes on to say, "For by Him all things were created..." 07:20 Well, if all things were created by Him, then He's not created. 07:25 He's the Creator. 07:27 Because all things were created by Him. 07:31 "...that were created in heaven," or the universe, 07:34 "and that are on earth, visible and invisible..." 07:38 There are many things that you cannot see. 07:40 I remember going home to my dad one time and saying, 07:44 "Dad, did you know that this desk," or wood, or whatever 07:47 we were looking at, I said, 07:49 "Dad, that's made out of atoms that move." 07:52 Now dad hadn't had the opportunity to study 07:54 a little bit of this that I had. 07:55 And he was a wonderful dad. 07:57 I'm blessed to have had two great wonderful parents. 08:02 But dad looked at me, and I said, "They're all moving, 08:04 dad, really fast around." 08:06 "Naw," he said, "that's not true." 08:09 Because dad couldn't see it. 08:12 It was invisible. 08:15 The apostle Paul, they didn't have microscopes 08:17 in that day either, but he said it under inspiration. 08:22 That Jesus is the invisible, that He made things 08:26 out of the invisible. 08:29 He made things out of the invisible that are now visible. 08:33 Let me go on. 08:35 In heaven and on earth, the universe, 08:37 and things we see on earth, "visible and invisible..." 08:40 So He made the atoms, He made the electrons, 08:43 He made the molecules. 08:46 He made everything that we see. 08:49 And then he goes on, "...whether thrones or dominions 08:51 or principalities or powers. 08:53 All things," it says it again, 08:56 "All things were created through Him and for Him." 09:00 You know, love doesn't like to be alone. 09:03 The reason Jesus created the universe is because 09:05 He loves to share. 09:07 You know, if you're an unselfish person 09:08 you take delight in sharing. 09:10 I mean, to give, the Bible teaches us, 09:13 is better than receiving. 09:15 To be able to share, to do something for somebody else 09:18 is better than being given something yourself. 09:22 And God is love. 09:24 That's why He made the universe. 09:25 And that's why He wants to share it. 09:28 That's why He's the Creator of all things. 09:30 He not only made it to share it, but because He really loves us 09:35 and He cares for us. 09:36 Well the apostle Paul goes on and says, 09:39 "And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist." 09:43 These are powerful statements. 09:45 In other words, this is a statement we cannot grasp. 09:49 In fact, Solomon the great king said, "The world, the universe, 09:54 basically cannot contain You, cannot be contained, 09:59 cannot contain You because you're bigger than all of it." 10:02 Scientists today, when they talk about origins... 10:06 And we're going to talk, by the way, about evolution 10:08 one of these times. 10:09 They are mystified, "Where did all of this come from?" 10:14 It's because this God that we serve is bigger 10:18 than the entire creation, if you please. 10:20 He's greater than the creation. 10:23 He goes on to say, "And He is before all things, 10:27 and in Him all things consist. 10:28 He is the head of the body, the church..." 10:32 I want to ask a question. 10:34 Is the church important? 10:37 Of course the church is important. 10:39 I know people say, "Well yeah, but look at all of the..." 10:42 Yes, you can find poor human beings 10:44 who have made a mess of things. 10:45 You can find poor ministers like myself. 10:49 You can find other church leaders. 10:51 You can find people who have made lots 10:53 of problems and failures. 10:56 But Jesus still loves His church. 10:59 Because ultimately it's not man that's in charge of His church, 11:03 it's Jesus that's in charge of His church. 11:06 And then the apostle John in the book of Revelation, 11:10 he gives us this other, another view of Jesus 11:13 and continues this view in Revelation chapter 1. 11:16 It's very powerful. 11:18 It's the introduction to all of the book of Revelation. 11:20 And John says, "Then I turned to see 11:23 a voice that spoke to me." 11:24 Hears a voice speaking to him. 11:26 And he turned, as we would, to see who it is. 11:29 Who is this voice? 11:31 And he saw in the midst of the seven candlesticks... 11:35 Now I want to say that there is a heavenly sanctuary. 11:39 That's the real sanctuary. 11:41 We'll talk a little bit more about that as time goes along. 11:43 Because you can't talk about the revelation of Jesus 11:45 without actually seeing Him move through the heavenly sanctuary. 11:50 So Jesus is standing here in the midst of these candlesticks 11:54 and He's dressed as a priest, if you please. 11:57 And this is what John goes on to say. 12:01 "...One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment 12:03 down to His feet, girded about with a golden band." 12:06 He appears as a priest. 12:08 He is a priest. 12:10 He is the only real priest we have. 12:13 "His head and His hair were white like wool, 12:18 white as snow, His eyes were like a flame of fire, 12:22 His feet like fine brass, refined in a furnace... 12:28 He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth 12:31 went a sharp sword, and His countenance was like the sun 12:36 shining in its strength." 12:37 Ever try to look at the sun at noonday? 12:39 That's like the face of Jesus, as it were. 12:42 "And when I saw Him," John says, 12:44 "when I saw this glorious picture," 12:47 he says, "I fell at His feet like I was dead." 12:53 In other words, all the strength had left John. 12:56 John just felt like He was dead. 12:59 He was still alive, but he had fallen before this 13:03 glorious Jesus, this wonderful Jesus. 13:06 He had fallen before Him. 13:08 And now we hear Jesus respond to the apostle John. 13:14 "But He laid His right hand on me and said, 13:19 'Do not be afraid. 13:23 Don't be afraid. 13:26 I am the First and the Last. 13:29 I'm the strong One. 13:31 I'm the Alpha and the Omega. 13:34 No matter what you're going through, 13:36 I'm in control. 13:38 I am the One who's in charge. 13:42 Don't be afraid.'" 13:43 Listen, Jesus loves you. 13:46 And if we trust Him, there's no reason 13:50 why we should be afraid. |
Revised 2019-06-25