I have a confession to make.  I’ve been at events like parties, proms, dances, even weddings, where I see a couple and think to myself, “what does he/she see in her/him?  How could they be together?” Yea, I know this is not the kind of question I should be asking (I said it’s a confession).  Questions like this are usually based on shallow perceptions and/or opinions that are ill-founded, judgmental and critical.   

     What if we asked that same question about Jesus and his bride, the church?  What does He see in her?  I am not talking about the individual believer when I ask this question.  Yes, Jesus loves the individual, and this love has nothing to do with me or you being worthy or deserving of this love.  Romans 5:8 makes this clear: God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

     Jesus loves the Church, his bride.  He also loves each faithful local church. He knows each church, with its flaws, weaknesses, and failures, and he loves, pursues, and shepherds it anyway. He sees his church with a timeless perspective that looks back into eternity before God spoke this universe into existence.  In Ephesians 1:4 we read, “….he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.  When Jesus looks at his church, he sees those who love has bought with a price so high, with blood so holy, with a redemptive purpose so amazing that the angels stand in awe and stare at it with wonder (I Pet 1:12).  He sees his church as a radiant bride standing before him cleansed, unblemished and faultless.  He sees individual forgiven sinners saved by sovereign grace adopted into his forever family as sons and daughters.  He sees redeemed individuals as essential interconnected parts placed together into his body.  He sees his Church (universal) and each local church, as the assembly of his saints, his holy nation, a people for his own possession (1 Pet 2:9). 

     This is why he guards us with a jealous passion. This is why he walks among his church protecting, encouraging, challenging, purging, and disciplining.  This is what we are seeing in chapters 2 and 3 in Revelation.  He is walking within his church to comfort us in our suffering and confront us in our sin.  He is eternally devoted to his church, his bride, and he demands our devotion as well.  His heart is not distracted – not divided in his affection toward us, and he will not abide our distracted and divided hearts.  He blazing eyes see it and he calls it out.  He calls out the church who has forsaken its first love (Ephesus).  He comforts his church who is facing ever increasing persecution (Smyrna).  He knows the church that has compromised herself (Pergamum).  He knows the church that is tolerating immorality and the one that is tempted in that direction (Thyateria).  He knows the one that looks alive from the outside but is really dead within (Sardis).  He knows the one that is weak, but still doing good (Philadelphia), and the one that thinks it’s doing well but is really lukewarm and in terrible condition (Laodicea). 

     Every one of these churches he jealously and passionately loves.  He loves them enough to call them to repentance, to call them back into a love relationship; to call them back home. 

     I am so thankful for the sovereign guidance of God that directs the ministry of the Word here at Westwood.  He has led us to exposit his Word book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse.  His timing is perfect in this.  We’ve seen this over and over through the years.   Five years ago we were working our way through Isaiah during a tumultuous political year.  Week after week, passage after passage the message to us was God alone is our source of strength, He alone is the One who says, “I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Is 41:10)   

     And now, five years later, we find ourselves once again in a tumultuous time, with a global pandemic and politics and other cultural issues calling for our attention, our energy, and our participation.  Now we find ourselves in the study of Revelation, and like those first recipients of this letter, we are surrounded by idols, icons and ideologies that distract us and tempt us to compromise.  They detract from the central mission and message our King gave to his church.  They distract us from our first love and seek to draw us into compromise and complacency.  Jesus sees this, he is calling it out and calling us to repentance. 

     Now, more than ever, most of the people in our country have little or no religious affiliation.   These “nones” who have no ‘religious’ involvement and no ‘religious’ friends, so they judge Christ and Christianity by what they see on TV and social media.  But what they hear and see is not the Jesus of the Bible, and not Biblical Christianity.  What they see is a watered down, polluted, politicized and compromised Christianity.  Jesus loves his church enough to encourage us in our faithfulness, call us out when we are unfaithful, confront us in our failures and call us back to repentance, to call us back into a love relationship; to call us back home.    I’m thankful we are in the book of Revelation, and I’m thankful we can count on Christ to lovingly and faithfully speak to us through it.  “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”   May He enable us to conquer and claim the prize.