Life Beyond Death (7)

 

Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 26 - 28; 3:5, 12, 21; 21:7; Romans 8:31 – 39

 

When I was a boy there was a carousel in a park on the Virginia side of Great Falls, on the Potomac. My family only went there once, living in Maryland we usually went to idyllic Glen Echo Park, which also had a carousel. I don’t recall anything about our outing to the Virginia park except the carousel, for that carousel had something that the Glen Echo carousel didn’t – it had a ring dispenser.

 

The ring dispenser was in the form of a long arm, or sleeve, that was spring loaded with rings - most of the rings were steel, but every so often a ring would be brass. If you were on an outside horse you tried to grab a ring from the sleeve as you circled, hoping that your ring would be brass. If you grabbed the brass ring you got a prize, usually a free ride.

 

No long ago I was talking with a retired Coast Guard admiral and he said something like this, “For so long I was focused on grabbing the brass ring of becoming an admiral and I wasn’t focused on what is really important, I wasn’t focused on Jesus Christ.”  I knew what he meant when he used the term “brass ring” for I had my boyhood memory.

 

Of course, this isn’t to say that one can’t be an admiral and be focused on Jesus Christ, but it is to say that if being an admiral is our brass ring, or if being an admiral is the framework of life – rather than knowing, worshipping, and sharing Jesus Christ – then we’ve got the wrong framework. The Scriptures are clear that whatever we do, we are to do to the glory of God in the name of Jesus Christ (Colossians 3:17).

 

I imagine we’ve all had our own brass rings in life that are the equivalent of becoming an admiral – it may not be a position; it could be possessions, recognition…any number of things. I’m reminded of something Tom Brady said a few years ago, after he had won yet another Super Bowl, it went something like this, “I thought that winning a Super Bowl  would give me a sense of fulfillment, but it didn’t. Then I thought winning multiple Super Bowls would give me a sense of fulfillment, but when I had done that, I asked myself, Is this all there is?”

 

When our identity is in Jesus Christ, when we know He lives in us, when our relationship with the Trinity is “what’s is our wallets” – then we learn to not only look at life beyond death, we live in the light of eternity here and now – worshiping God, encouraging our brothers and sisters in Christ, and seeking to bring others to Him and to be a blessing to the world. Jesus Christ becomes our way of life.

 

Most of our readings for today are from Revelation. Revelation was not written to satisfy our curiosity about the future, it was written to show us Jesus Christ and to encourage us to live today in the fulness of His grace and power – no matter what. Revelation is about showing us Jesus, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Lamb of God (Rev. 5:1 – 6). It was written to teach us not to love our own lives – even if it means death – which it always does in one way or another (Rev. 12:11 – 12; Mark 8:34 – 38; Galatians 2:20).

 

The Overcomer Promises in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 are promises that we can begin to experience today, to one degree or another. Peter (2 Peter 1:2 – 4) tells us that God gives us promises so that as we believe them and drink them in, experiencing them, that we become partakers of the Divine Nature (ponder that one!). Knowing Christ and His Word is not about being able to play Bible Jeopardy, it is about relationship with the Trinity.

 

When you read the promises in Revelation are there any that especially strike you?

 

Our final reading today is from Romans 8. Please pay special attention to 8:37, Paul writes that we are not just overcomers, but that we are “super” overcomers (or however your translation makes the point). What is it that ensures that we are overcomers? It is Christ and His incredible love! Just look at the context of verse 37 – what a blessed assurance we have that Jesus Christ, the One who called us, will always be with us and that “nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

This is worth living and dying for – this is life beyond death!