Jesus Revealed

As I mentioned earlier, my name is René, I'm one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. Super glad that you're here. Like a lot of you, I was really hit with this virus that's been going around, so I was laid up for a couple of days at home this week. And did a little bit of work and then I thought, you know, I need some recreational reading. And I pulled off of a shelf a biography of Paul McCartney that I read years and years ago. It was fascinating for a lot of reasons, but I read a story at the end of this that I'd never heard before.

He was out horseback riding with his young children and the girl that's there in the front with the brunette, that's his second daughter, she was out horseback riding with him and suddenly she got this really thoughtful look on her face. And she said, "Dad, I have to ask you something." And he said, "Well, what is it?" And she said, "Let me get this straight. Are you telling me you're the Beatle Paul McCartney?" And it dawned on her for the first time who her dad was. I love that story. Suddenly seeing her father in a brand new light.

I love it because it reminds me of a similar and also true story that Diane Disney told Life magazine. When she was very young, she learned from friends at school who her father was. And when she learned about this and left school, she came home and that night she stood in front of her father as he read the newspaper and he slowly lowered it as he felt her stare. And she said with her hands on hips, "You never told me you were that Walt Disney." I love this picture because you can just see this look on her face like, "Whoa, my dad, my dad is Walt Disney." These wonderful moments that we all can have when you see somebody that you thought you knew pretty well and then suddenly you see them in a brand new light.

Does that ever happen to you? It actually happened to me just a couple of weeks ago with my wife, Lori. There she is in the front row checking her scores on her iPhone. I got you. I caught you there. But Lori is a great teacher, but I rarely see her in that role. She teaches seminary over in Sacramento and Santa Clara. So I don't get to see her in that context. Well, a couple of weeks ago she was teaching up at Mount Herman and she had the auditorium and I decided I'm gonna go up there to just kind of support her and sit in the back of the room.

And I got there and I was like, "Wow, this is really filling up." The auditorium was really filling with like, I don't know, a couple of hundred people. And I hear people whispering as they come in, "I never miss her whenever she teaches." And I'm kind of starting to puff up with some pride, you know? And then she started teaching and I'm telling you she was killing it. And I start telling the person I'm sitting next to, "You know, that's my wife. I'm her husband." Oh yeah. So then I start taking pictures and I start posting them on Instagram and Facebook, "My wife is killing it right now." I was just bursting with pride.

That whole weekend I'm like bringing her coffee and snacks, "You're awesome. I'm such a big fan of yours. I just fell in love with her all over again because I got to see her in this new role that I rarely get to see her in as a teacher who is just like killing it with her amazing teacher skills." I met with my son a couple of weeks ago too. He was in the play The Little Mermaid over here at Crocker Theatre. And at home he's a self-admitted introvert. And then onstage he was dancing and singing and I just felt like standing up in the theater and shouting out, "That's my boy!" like all the other parents there, right?

Well, something very much like that is about to happen to you with someone else that you already love. You are probably here today because you love Jesus. Or at least you're drawn to Jesus. That's part of why you're here at church today. But if we're honest, there are times as churchgoers that the image we have of Jesus Christ gets a little familiar, right? We know him. We love him. He's our Lord and Savior. But if I dare say it, sometimes that picture almost gets a little bit boring. Kind of gentle Jesus, meek and mild. We've heard all the stories before. We've heard the Gospels. We've heard the epistles. We've heard he died on the cross for our sins.

Well, get ready. Because in Revelation 19, there's a radical shift in the way you and I perceive Jesus Christ. And the Apostle John writes about somebody that he knew and knew well. He had traveled with Jesus for three years. He knew Jesus as the carpenter's son who grew up to die on the cross for our sins and was risen from the dead. But suddenly in this vision in Revelation 19, he sees three brand new pictures of Jesus. He sees Jesus in dimensions that even he had never seen him before. I call this part of the Bible Jesus Revealed. And it's intended to give a burst of inspiration to the early Christians and it can do the same for you too if your faith needs new life.

If your endurance going through tough times needs a boost, there is nothing you can do to get that boost more than falling in love all over again with Jesus Christ. And that is what's going to happen to you in Revelation 19. Now let me give you a little bit of background on this in case you're joining us maybe for the first time today or you need a refresher. The book of Revelation is the final book of the Bible. And it was written by a man named John who was in exile on the prison island of Patmos. That's an island that still exists on the GNC. And you can see the ruins of the Roman fortifications there where they used to keep prisoners like John.

Tradition has it that he wrote the book of Revelation in a cave. That was his prison cell at the time. And he writes Revelation as encouragement to the first century Christians back on the mainland who are being persecuted and tortured and captured. And it seems like their hope could be ebbing. And so he writes them this letter from prison to encourage them to keep going on. Now because they're under Roman persecution, that's likely why John has to write the book of Revelation in what to us sounds very unusual ways. He uses a lot of dreamlike imagery and symbolism as he talks about the Roman Empire as dragons and beasts and as a great prostitute even. Just some really gnarly imagery.

But I think he almost has to relate his message in code because the Christians are under such active persecution from the Roman government. And so for much of Revelation, what he does is he tells these people, you know what, actually it's gonna get more intense for some of you. The beast is going to emerge out of the sea and he's going to devour some of you. He's going to capture some of you. He's going to try to lead and deceive the entire world. And so that middle and late middle part of the book of Revelation can seem so intense. Paul Spurlock talked about it a couple of weeks ago here. He has a class digging deeper on Revelation. You can check out on Wednesday nights for even more details.

And so there's this part of Revelation that's very intense that sounds almost depressing where it seems like the evil forces are marshaling their strength and the world's just getting uglier and uglier. And we can feel like that too when we look at headlines today. And then Revelation 19 breaks. And at the beginning of Revelation 19, the crowd in heaven sings hallelujah four times because at last the ugliness is past. And you see three pictures of Jesus for your soul to love. And I wanted to give you the context because these are set off against all the gnarliness that came before in the book of Revelation. And if you see these three new dimensions of who Jesus Christ is, it is just going to inspire your faith so much no matter what you are going through today.

So let's dive right in. Grab your message notes that look like this so you can follow along with these three beautiful pictures of Jesus Christ. And the first one is so stunning and so breathtaking that I really want to spend most of our time on this first point this morning. That's this: we see Jesus as bridegroom. Jesus as bridegroom. Jesus as a brand new husband excited on his wedding day. At the beginning of Revelation 19, as I mentioned, you hear hallelujah four times. That's the only time in the New Testament that word ever occurs. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah because finally, hallelujah, God is showing that he is victorious over all this evil and sin that we've seen in the book of Revelation.

All of this persecution against God's people and in Revelation 19:7, the crowd in heaven sings, "Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory for the what? The wedding of the Lamb has come and his bride, that's you and me, has made herself ready." And then in verse 9 it says this, and let's read this verse out loud together, let me hear you: "Then the angel said to me, 'Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.' And he added, 'These are the true words of God.'" I think when John heard this in his vision, it probably reminded him of how Jesus said in Matthew 22, "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who gave a what? A wedding feast for his son."

Now I hope this breaks through because do you get how amazing it is that God describes his love for you in such an intimate, such a personal, such a romantic way? One of the oldest and most beautiful pictures of this in all scripture is in Isaiah where it says in Isaiah 54, "This is God talking to his people: Your maker is your husband and the Lord of hosts is his name, for the Lord has called you like a wife." Man, just let that sink in for just a minute. Great quote from John Ortberg: "The highest delight that the most passionate groom feels for the most beloved bride on this earth is just a dim reflection of what it is that God feels for you."

Now maybe for you this whole idea of Jesus as husband, as bridegroom, is frankly not very appealing and we just have to acknowledge that maybe because of your personal history, your own experience with marriage or with love, with husbands or with fathers has not been great. And so you hear about God as creator, you're fine with it. You hear about God even as Lord, that's good. You hear about Jesus as shepherd, that's beautiful. But they talk about him as husband, that's actually like repellent to you. Let me just address that.

Two weeks ago, on of all places, American Idol, there was a very powerful moment. Kelly Clarkson sang a song that she actually wrote and let me give you the backstory to this. As a six-year-old girl, Kelly was abandoned by her father who left her mother and her younger sister alone and she admits she has had very serious issues after that with fatherhood, with marriage, with the whole idea of married love. But now she says her husband, with whom she's expecting their second child, is changing all of that and she co-wrote a beautiful song that tells her story. Now it's a long song, so I'm just gonna show you a clip of it, but I want you to watch this and listen to her tell her own story.

"I'm walking towards the airport, leaving a song on your past. I traveled 1500 miles to see you. I begged you to want me, but you didn't want to. But piece by piece, he collected me up off the ground where you abandoned things. Piece by piece, he filled the holes that you burned in me. Six years old, and you know he never walks away. He never asked for money. He takes care of me 'cause he loves me. Piece by piece, he restored my faith that a man can be kind and a father could