Freed By His Blood: Revelation 1:4-8 | Grace, Peace, and the Reigning King
book is to consistently have in front of you that the point, the focus of the book is Jesus. That is what we're going to be focusing on as we go through this final book in Holy Scripture, and if we didn't get a sense of the supremacy of Jesus in those first three verses last week, we absolutely and most certainly see that idea in what we have read this morning. These five verses absolutely show us the supremacy of Jesus, they show us His authority, they show us the point here is that Jesus is Lord, that he has authority, that he is over all things and that he is at the center of the book of Revelation. The purpose of this book, as we talked about last week, is to bring comfort to the people of God. They are going to be facing persecution, and so John writes this letter to these seven churches in Asia, as we will see here in just a minute, to let them know what is coming. They should expect persecution, but he is speaking words of comfort and words of victory to these churches.
Triumph | Acts 1:1–11 | Christ Ascended and Reigning
It's good when we arrive at a destination, isn't it? It's good to finally get where we're going. We're glad that we end up safely where we intend to be. Now, we don't dwell on a safe arrival with every arrival that we do because it's not that often that we travel in significant ways. I don't rejoice every time I have a safe journey to the post office or the grocery store. I don't get out of the car and go, I'm safe. I don't call my mom and say, I made it. I don't do that when I walk the some 350 odd steps over here to work every day. It's not a big deal. But when it's a long journey, it's a different story. First, there is that sense that you are done with the trip. That's the part of the arrival that we perhaps like the most. No worrying about whether or not there's a stop to our spot to stop to get food or do other things that you have to do on a trip.