David Burson - October 25, 2026
/Family Bible Hour featuring David Burson. A teaching from Revelation 1:9–11 on John as our brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation, kingdom, and perseverance in Jesus, his worship in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and Christ’s message to the seven churches.
Transcript
Good morning. You can turn, please, to Revelation chapter 1. Continuing this series again. Revelation chapter 1.
Excuse me. I think by way of review, we'll read the first eight verses for context, and then we'll be looking at verses 9 through 11 today. I'm reading from the NASB 1995 version, by the way. Revelation chapter 1.
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his bondservants the things which must soon take place, and he sent and communicated it by his angel to his bondservant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it, for the time is near. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood, and he has made us to be a kingdom, priests to his God and Father.
To him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. So it is to be.
Amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. And I was supposed to click these slides through there as I read this. But reading this Scripture is hard to remember to click on slides.
Sorry about that. But our passage for today begins in verse 9. I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. So why was John on Patmos?
Well, did he go as a missionary? There are some people who think that actually and defend that view, but I think that's not likely. The ancient church fathers wrote that John was exiled to Patmos from fairly shortly after the time that John wrote this. There's records of the ancient fathers saying that he was exiled.
Here in verse 9, John says he's a partaker in tribulation. And in verse 2, as well as here in verse 9, he's testifying to the testimony of Jesus. And it's common throughout this book that witnesses are suffering for their witness of Christ. So I think it's most likely that he was on Patmos as an exile when he received this revelation.
And as the Apostle Paul said, the Word of God is not chained. So let's consider how John presents himself. Excuse me. I, John.
Well, he's already identified himself in verse 1 and verse 4. And despite some objections from scholars, I'm confident that we're talking about John, the son of Zebedee, brother of James, apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the human author of the Gospel of John and the three epistles that bear his name. I discussed other views and defended that view in one of our earlier sessions. I think that was our first session on Revelation.
So if you want those notes, I'm happy to share them with you. By the way, in case you aren't aware, any sermon that's preached up here, we try to record, and it's available on LakeHowellBibleChapel. org. You can listen to it if you would like.
Okay, so two points of significance about how John introduces himself. First, he's obviously well known to his readers that he doesn't need to explain who he is. He is John. He does not assert his apostolic authority here.
He writes with authority, but the closest he gets to asserting a title is he is a bondservant of Jesus Christ in verse 1. He's just John. In this book, we don't see John exercising apostolic authority that God gave him to build up the churches, as we see in other epistles. In this book, we see what John sees with John, and that is the assertion of authority by God and by Jesus Christ as God and man.
He says, your brother, I, John, your brother. So, in this book, where the rule of Christ is central, John does not assert authority as an apostle, and he doesn't even say he is our servant for Christ's sake, like Paul did, remember, in 2 Corinthians 4-5, Paul said, for we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bondservants for Jesus' sake. John isn't emphasizing those aspects. He is emphasizing the relationships that bind us together in unity of love and hope.
Note in verse 5, he says, to him who loves us. He groups himself in with the people he's writing to. Now, the fact is, there will, in the kingdom of God, be some who are lesser and some who are greater among us. Remember this, that Jesus said.
He had, telling this parable, Jesus, we're jumping into the middle of it, but I think you are familiar with it. Master, your mina has made ten minas more. And he said to him, well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing. You are to be in authority over ten cities.
The second came, saying, your mina master has made five minas. And he said to him, and you are to be over five cities. But John isn't thinking in these terms of who's going to be over how many cities. He's writing as our brother.
Well, I think that's in striking contrast, if you can recall, to a few discussions the disciples had when Christ was still walking around on earth. Before his crucifixion, they were talking sometimes about who's going to be the greatest of us. And in particular, remember the mother of James and John, with their apparent consent, pushing James and John forward. Matthew 20, starting in verse 20 here.
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, bowing down and making a request of him. And he said to her, What do you wish? She said to him, Command that in your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right and one on your left. Well, it's clear the brothers were in agreement with this, since in the parallel account, Mark doesn't even include the mother at all.
That detail is left out, that the request was made through their mother. It says right here in Mark chapter 10, verses 35 to 37, James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus saying, Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. And he said to them, What do you want me to do for you? They said to him, Grant that we may sit, one on your right and one on your left, in your glory.
So James and John were not being shoved forward reluctantly by a scheming mother. No, they were very much, this is something they wanted. In fact, they may have been the one that said, Hey, Mom, can you see, you know, whatever, you know. But they were very much pushing for this.
So back to Matthew 20, this account. Jesus answered, You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink? They said to him, Yeah, sure, we're able.
Again, they didn't quite get the point that they don't know what they were asking, right? So Jesus said to them, My cup you shall drink, but to sit on my right and on my left, this is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father. Well, verse 24 here, on hearing this, the ten, that's the other disciples, became indignant with the two brothers. Well, you can appreciate that, I imagine, right?
Here, there's 12 of you. Jesus chose a special 12, and so you're one of those 12, and maybe you're feeling pretty good about that, and thinking, yeah, when the Lord's glory is manifested to the world, and we're going to be a part of this whole thing. I can remember, I have an old friend from high school that I haven't had contact with him since high school, well, maybe once, but he, after my last contact with him, he ended up being, I think, employee number 12 at a little company called Yahoo, and so that did pretty well for him, and so I have been able to, every once in a while, I see his name come up in the news, not so much for Yahoo anymore, because he left Yahoo, and he then ended up getting together with, I think, a Russian guy, and they started a little company called WhatsApp, which then eventually they sold to Facebook, and then he left after that, but any case, you can see, if you get in early on something big, you kind of expect to share in, like, the top glory of it. Well, which he did.
He's a billionaire, and, um, you know, somebody who was employed 10,000 isn't a billionaire, right? Well, so you've got the 12, and now you've got jockeying for position within the top 12, right? And so the others in the top 12 are thinking, are probably indignant, and probably thinking, I should have asked that, you know? There's a lot of It's very natural for all of us to want to push ourselves forward, right?
So, in any case, on hearing this, the 10 became indignant with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to himself and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. And that's still true today, isn't it? Right?
Another funny story I have to tell you. When my kids were fairly little, we would send them out to the mailbox to bring in the mail sometimes. And they came in one day, just falling over each other, laughing. They could hardly walk.
They thought it was so funny. And they brought to us what they got, and they saw this thing in the mail that they got. It was from the Seminole County tax collector. And I'm thinking, well, most people don't laugh when they get stuff from the tax collector, but they were thinking, they had only ever heard the term tax collector of people in Jesus' day.
And they were thinking, are these guys still around? What's going on? Are they still tax collectors from, like, in Jesus' time? Well, I told them, actually, it's been pretty popular through the ages.
That's one thing that's enduring, is paying taxes. But, any case. It's the same today here as well. Our rulers of the Gentiles, if you look around, think of anybody you know in government, or have heard of, they are naturally wanting to lord it over.
And great men exercise authority over. You know, that's their, that's a natural way that humans have always done. This way, among you, how revolutionary is that? That is, you know, you guys don't laugh when you get something from tax collectors in the mail, right?
It's normal. It's natural. This is the way life is. That's the way it has always been, and it's always going to be.
But not so. Not this way, among you. That is radical. That is a very different way of thinking.
But whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. And as we remember this morning, and to give his life a ransom for many. Wow.
What a lesson. What a lesson. Back in Revelation, which John probably wrote about six decades later or so, from when he received that lesson. We see that John is no longer trying to elevate himself.
He's not pushing himself forward in this letter. I think there's a real lesson for us here. May we learn this lesson. It's so radical.
The pressure of the world is so strong against that lesson constantly. We need to learn this lesson so well that to the very end of our life, it stays with us every day. Well, John next describes himself as our fellow partaker. We are in this together.
He is one of us. Now, have you ever really thought of yourself as a fellow partaker with the Apostle John? I mean, John may not be pushing himself forward, but frankly, I've got a lot of respect for the Apostle John, right? Some of his writings are some of my most favorite writings that have ever been written in human history, right?
All right. We are fellow partakers with John, just as the original readers of this epistle were. So, reading this verse, we are reminded of who we really are. This isn't something that we dream of and think and try to persuade ourselves of.
This is the reality. This is who we really are. We may not have it straight in our own minds, but we really are fellow partakers with the Apostle John. And as we grasp that, we can consequently share John's viewpoint, not only of ourselves, but of each other.
I'm looking at a whole bunch of fellow partakers with the Apostle John. Right? I'm reminded of my old job, writing software with an airline reservation. The airline reservation agents, they would book reservations for AirTran Airways.
At one point, there was a woman who was hired as a manager of these reservation agents. And I observed, being just in the computer department, my cubicle was just in the next room from the big reservation agency area. And so we would sometimes mingle a little bit. I noticed that this new boss was really pretty shunned by not only the reservation agents, but the other managers.
Nobody seemed to like her. And it got pretty embarrassing at times, as there were some pretty tense moments, where she was just trying to do what she could to ingratiate herself with the other employees there, that she was working with, and they weren't going along with it. They weren't wanting to eat lunch with her. When she came around, the normal chit-chat would turn very official and proper until she left.
It was pretty awkward. Well, that poor lady didn't last very long, and I don't even know the reasons why the rest of these folks, you know, I was in a different department, but for some reason, nobody liked her. Well, she eventually left the company. Well, the fact is, John is our fellow partaker in the items that he lists here.
We don't need to feel separate from him. He is not trying to make us feel different from him, and there's no ingratiating going on either. This is just a simple fact of what Christ himself has brought us into. It's not because we're great, or he's great, or we're all scum, or whatever.
It's not because of any of what we are. It's because of what Christ has brought us all into. And so, he is our fellow partaker. And if we don't feel that way, this passage, I think, is a wake-up call to start thinking accurately about ourselves and every other believer in Christ.
Clear thinking, unmuddied by the worries and pressures of the world, and I think as we grasp this, it brings us together in a real unity, a fellowship with each other in our shared suffering, our shared future, and a shared endurance now. All right, so what are we fellow partakers in? Well, tribulation. If I was looking for something to be a fellow partaker with somebody, tribulation would not be at the top of my list.
But again, we're not talking about wishful thinking here. We're talking about reality. What is the truth? What is really going on?
And the assumption is that we all suffer in this world that opposes Christ. We partake together of Christ's reproach. Hebrews 11, 24 to 26. By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.
Considering the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. Hebrews 13, 12 to 14. Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate. So let us go to him, go out to him, outside the camp, bearing his reproach.
For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come. Now, our suffering for Christ at this point may be minimal. Some of the original recipients of this book may not have suffered much for Christ. I really don't know.
Our outlook is to be shaped by Christ, though, not by whether we're suffering at the moment for him. And that outlook is one of solidarity with other believers, especially those who are suffering. Hebrews 13:3 Remember the prisoners as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body. And there's no shortage of persecution going on around the world in different countries.
We still are largely protected from that here, but we do well to remember these folks, to pray for them. Okay, we are also fellow partakers in the kingdom. Together, we are citizens of a kingdom that this world is hostile to. But this kingdom that we are citizens of will ultimately and permanently take over this world.
Now, Daniel 2. Remember Daniel interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel chapter 2. First, he told him the dream because Nebuchadnezzar had said, I believe all you crazy wise men. You're just trying to pull the wool over my eyes.
And so if I tell you the dream, sure, you can come up with something. How hard is that? I want to know, I want you to be able to tell me what I dreamed, and then I'll know, I'll be able to trust your interpretation. Well, that was a major setback, as you recall, for the wise men of the time, and they were about to all lose their heads, or whatever the favorite method of execution was for Nebuchadnezzar.
He had his choice, I guess. But God gave Daniel this revelation. And so Daniel, in verse 34 here, is telling Nebuchadnezzar his dream. You continued looking until a stone was cut without hands, and we're jumping in towards the end of it here.
And it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. Let's jump down to the interpretation in verse 44.
In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever. Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made it known to the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true, and its interpretation is trustworthy.
And we acknowledge the truth of that and trust in that interpretation still today. And that stone that was cut without hands, which I think is a reference to the virgin birth of Christ, he will come, and the kingdom is part of what we are fellow partakers in. Okay, back to the final item in the list here of what we are fellow partakers in. Perseverance.
Together we partake of endurance in Jesus. Back in Hebrews again. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, of which John and the original recipients of this letter are some, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. This perseverance, this endurance that we are fellow partakers in, we can encourage each other, yes, but the way which we encourage each other is by pointing out to each other, hey, focus on Christ. Christ is our example. Christ is the one who has done this.
He has endured such hostility, as we were remembering this morning again. Has anyone endured more hostility than what Christ endured in the cross? Endured hostility by sinners against himself. And he endured it, and he has sat down at the right hand of God, right?
And he gives us the strength, the power, to endure anything that he allows as well. So we do not need to grow weary. We do not need to lose heart. We can look at him, see what he endured, and where he is now, and what he has promised for the future.
And he is coming for us. And in that, we do not grow weary, then, or lose heart. And we can even be like, I remember the old story of John Wesley. I can't remember if it was John.
I always confuse John and Charles Wesley. But I think it was John Wesley, who was feeling a bit nervous because he hadn't felt any real persecution lately. And so he got off his horse and was by the side of the road and just praying to the Lord, Lord, please show me some sign that you are still pleased with me. Well, some guy passing by recognized him and, being a man of the world, was pretty hostile toward him and started cursing him and throwing rocks at him.
And John Wesley, was he weary and losing heart? No. He got up from that and said, thank you, Lord. That's exactly what I needed.
And so he went on. So even the persecution itself can be a source for us to recognize that we do not need to grow weary. We do not need to lose heart. So in all these points, tribulation, kingdom, and perseverance, we have fellowship with one another in Christ.
It's also significant that John selects points of connection that we share with those believers who believe during the tribulation time. Those who are in the future tribulation, as well as those in times of tribulation now, can be encouraged in the midst of hard times by the fellowship that they know that we have with others, past, present, and future, who share in the tribulation, the kingdom, the perseverance, which are in Jesus. 1 Peter 5, 8. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.
Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be dominion forever and ever.
Amen. Back in Revelation. Okay, so what happened on Patmos? The scene is set.
It was the Lord's Day. The Lord's Day. I think it's significant that John received this revelation on the Lord's Day, the first day of the week. The Lord's Day commemorates his resurrection, as we were thinking about this morning as well.
Paul told the Athenians, and I'm not sure if the group tonight will be getting this far, but he told the Athenians in Acts 17, verse 30, Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. In chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, Christ calls the churches to repent. In the rest of the book, chapter 4 and on, basically, for the most of the rest of it, we see his judgment on those who live on the earth, who dwell on the earth, who refuse to repent. That term, by the way, those who dwell on the earth, is a very significant term in the book of Revelation, speaking of those who refuse to repent during that time.
So, I think there's a triple significance to this revelation being given on the Lord's day. It points to the significance of his resurrection for our salvation. We are exhorted to heed this book. Today is the day of salvation.
Come to him for salvation. For we who are saved, it points to the significance of his resurrection for our life now. The risen Christ is our life. He is our King, our Lord, our Master, who will discipline and reward those he loves.
It also points to the significance of his resurrection for the ultimate judgment of the earth. And, of course, this book of Revelation unfolds much about that day of the Lord, that day of judgment. Now, this book should not be read as a threat from an angry God. That's not what it is.
But it should be read as a warning and an appeal from a loving, righteous, omnipotent God who will ultimately judge and rule in righteousness. The conclusion in verse 17 of chapter 22 is, The Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let the one who hears say, Come, and let the one who is thirsty, Come. Let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost. That's the heart of God behind this book.
So it was the Lord's Day on Patmos. What was John doing? I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. In the Spirit, an interesting phrase, and it can mean somewhat different things in different contexts.
In this context, I take it to mean that John was under the influence of the Holy Spirit, or in communion with God by the Holy Spirit, not in the sense that, you know, 24-7 we can be in communion or, you know, walking in the Spirit. I think it was a conscious act of worship, that his focus was on communion with God at this point in time. He was actively communing with God through the Holy Spirit. John recorded in his Gospel, when Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, remember?
He says, But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For such people the Father seeks to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. John 4, 23 and 24.
So I think it's encouraging and inspiring that John, in exile, with apparently no one else around to remember the Lord with on the Lord's day, yet was worshiping God in spirit and truth. His spirit was in step with the Holy Spirit, indwelling him, and through the Holy Spirit, he was fellowshipping with God. And suddenly, while he's in the middle of doing that, he experienced the awesome vision of the first and the last. The living one, who was dead and is now alive forevermore, who has the keys of death and of Hades.
Wow, that's the setting. He was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and he says, I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet. And throughout the book of Revelation, loud voices frequently speak with God's authority or proclaim something that's highly significant. And in this case, the loud trumpet-like voice seems to underscore the authority and the power of Christ.
So what did the voice say? If you have a King James Version or New King James Version, verse 11 includes the speaker identifying himself with the words, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. Now, Jesus takes these highly significant titles in other verses in this book, and we'll discuss them as we encounter them in those verses. The text that I'm following, the NASB 1995, has this for verse 11.
Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. We read in verse 4 that these seven churches are in Asia. Now, when we read about Asia in the New Testament, we're not talking about China, we're not talking about India. In the first century Roman world, Asia was a western province of today's country of Turkey.
You can see it labeled on our map in red. For context, you can see toward the southeast of the Roman Empire here, the regions of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. You can see where the city of Jerusalem is. Now, John is the one who wrote the book of Revelation, but we know more about Paul's travels, so as far as trying to help us have a geographical context of what he's talking about, I'll remind you of some of what Paul did in these areas.
So you can see, if you notice in that middle section of today's Turkey, just below the Black Sea, up in the northeast here of the map, you can see the regions of Galatia and Pamphylia. If you remember on his first missionary journey, Paul planted churches roughly between Galatia and Pamphylia on this map. And on his second missionary journey, the Spirit of God led Paul west from that region, right, and instead of going north and east, and the Spirit forbade him to speak the word of God in Asia, Acts 16. So zooming in a little bit here.
So Paul traveled west across the north of Asia, received the Macedonian vision in the coastal town of Troas, which you can see on this map, if your eyes are good enough, and took a ship across the Aegean Sea to modern-day Europe, where he planted churches in Macedonia and Achaia. Now, of course, Paul did eventually spend significant time in Ephesus, but the book of Revelation was written roughly a half a century after Paul was there. So you can see on this map the small island and harbor town of Patmos. It's in the south-central part of the map.
That's where John received this revelation. The seven churches that John addresses in this book are the red dots on the map in the Roman province of Asia. And just for this map, I made the red dots bigger, just so you can see them easier. It doesn't have anything to do with the size of the cities.
They were not necessarily bigger than other cities in Asia or anywhere else. Now, there were more than seven churches in Asia when John wrote. So the question to me is, why were these seven chosen? Why were others, like Colossae or Hierapolis, not chosen?
One point that seems obvious to me is that the way Christ discerned and dealt with the issues in each of these seven churches in chapters two and three has valuable application for us. And so that would be a reason to choose these seven churches for this letter. Well, that touches on our doctrine of inspiration. 2 Timothy 3:16.
All scripture is inspired by God, as Paul was mentioning during the announcements. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. So I think at the very least it seems safe to say that the value of Christ's communication to those local churches, those seven churches that he picked, extends beyond the immediate recipients to all believers from that time forward. Now, not every revelation or communication from God is recorded in Scripture.
For example, consider Revelation 10:4. In this very book, when the seven peals of thunder had spoken, I was about to write, and I heard a voice from heaven saying, seal up the things which the seven peals of thunder have spoken and do not write them. John heard what the seven thunders said, but he was prevented from recording them in Scripture. And certainly, we do not have recorded all the messages from God that the Old Testament prophets relayed from God to the people at that time.
Think of Elijah and Elisha, great prophets. We have very little of what they actually taught the people. We have some of their miracles and some of the things they said, but only a small portion of their messages from God that they spoke to the people. I think Balaam is an interesting case in this regard as well.
He's introduced to us in Numbers chapter 22 as a diviner whose fame has spread to many other countries besides his own, and Balak sent men to him to come curse Israel, and it's clear that Balaam had dealings with God before. Numbers 22, 18, Balaam replied to the servants of Balak, though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not do anything, either small or great, contrary to the command of the Lord my God. Over his whole career, none of Balaam's messages from God are recorded for us, except this bit in Numbers 22 to 24 given to Balak. You can even think of Christ himself in this regard.
We certainly don't have everything in Scripture that he said and did. John tells us in John 21, 25, there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written. What was actually written in Scripture are those things that God deemed profitable for all of us from that time going forward. In the case of the Gospel of John, we're specifically told what the purpose was, right?
John 20, 30 to 31, therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. Same heart behind that book as the book of Revelation. John's first epistle, similarly, we're told the purpose is to give believers assurance of their eternal life. This is the doctrine we call eternal security.
First John 5, 13, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. Do you believe in the name of the Son of God? A whole book's been written so that you can know that you have eternal life. That is Scripture profitable down through the ages.
So this alone may explain why Christ picked those seven churches. Now I expect Christ may have had other reasons as well and there's been certainly a number of very plausible reasons suggested. My impression is that those are at best sanctified speculation and so I'm not going to get into those. When we see the Lord we can ask him if at that point it's not already clear to us or it seems if it seems like it matters.
But for now I simply accept that Jesus had reasons unknown to me why he picked these seven churches but what he recorded and this is what's most important what he recorded is profitable for all of us. So to conclude today in Revelation 1 9 through 11 we see that John sets us an example an example to think of each other in a spirit of brotherly fellowship endurance and hope hope for the eternal future and of course all of this in Christ Jesus. When our focus and interest is on the awesomeness of Christ we are united in this fellowship and there's no asserting of ourselves above each other right because we're all asserting the greatness of Christ together and we rejoice to do that together so instead of pushing ourselves forward among each other we can have an outward focus as well what about unbelievers what about the rest of the world and our desire is for others who have not trusted Christ that they will thirst that they will come and that they will take the water of life freely it's a free gift of salvation that our Lord offers and how blessed we are to have received it and what a blessing to have the inspired word of God to guide our thinking and our attitudes and what a blessing that we like John can worship in spirit and truth and unlike John we can worship together we have a community here we're not in exile individually on some island that's a blessing that we can worship together here we can meet on the Lord's day with a significance again as we had talked about already this morning the Lord's day celebrating his resurrection thinking on his resurrection even as we remember his death for us great blessings and these blessings are only because our Lord Jesus Christ is great so we'll consider more of our Lord's greatness the next time we are together in the book of Revelation in the following verses let's close in prayer now our great God and Savior our Lord Jesus Christ we thank you so much for the revelation that you gave to your servant John for us and we thank you that we have your scriptures we thank you that you have given these things to us we thank you Lord for your greatness revealed in them we thank you for the hope that we have we thank you for the life that you are living in us even now and so Lord Jesus we pray and yearn and look for your coming amen
