Christ Unleashed – You Have A New Song

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A sermon by Adam Barcott

May 05 2019

Glad you’re here. We’ll start with prayer, kind of anchor our hearts and our minds, and then we’ll go right after the prayer to page “d”. There’s a prayer of confession. Every time lately I’m like, oh, we don’t need to do that today. Then I think, why would we not do this? I’m really feeling it, so we’re going to keep doing it while I’m feeling it. That’s how, that’s how life works.

Let’s pray. Father, thanks for your faithfulness to us. Thank you for calling us your children. Thank you for your son, Jesus Christ, his death and his resurrection. Thank you for our church. We thank you for all these things, and we ask that you would align our hearts to fear, love and trust you. That our fear, love and trust is safe with you because you’re alive and living and loving, all powerful and all loving. And so we thank you. We turn our hearts and our minds to you and ask that you join us in our time of worship. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

We begin the service by acknowledging we’re not perfect. And in Christianity you don’t have to be. We get to be forgiven, so let’s pray the prayer of confession on page “d” together.

Most Merciful God. We confess that we have sinned against thee in thought word and deed by what we have done and by what we have left undone.

And then I will announce to you as the pastor, a minister of God’s word to you, All mighty God in His mercy has given his son to die for you and for his sake, for gives you all your sins. Your sins are forgiven.

We have a famous passage of Peter being restored by Jesus in his resurrected body. Jesus is resurrected and appears to him. Peter took a couple of other disciples and they said, “Well, this Jesus thing didn’t really work out like we thought it was. Jesus died and now his body is missing. So let’s go back to fishing.” And then Jesus shows up to where he’s fishing and does the exact same thing that he did when he first met Peter. Jesus said, “Cast your net on the other side,” and so Peter recognizes this after John says, “It’s the Lord!” He swims out to Jesus, and what follows is a beautiful passage of restoration where of all the disciples, Peter was the most scared.

I don’t know if you’ve ever betrayed somebody. I have, and the thing you don’t want to do is have a face to face confrontation with them. The last thing anybody really wants is to have a face to face with someone they’ve betrayed

There’s Peter. He runs to Jesus knowing he’d betrayed him just as bad as Judas. The only difference is Peter went because he believed that Jesus brought forgiveness and sure enough, Christ says, “Do you love me?”

Peter responds, “You know, I do.”

“Feed my sheep.”

You would think Peter had lost the opportunity to feed Christ’s sheep.

“Feed the sheep? I’m a sinner!”

Jesus says, “Right. That’s who I use. Contrite and broken heart is better than you being perfect. Feed my sheep.”

Peter gets a brand new song. He gets a brand new lease on life, and he’s prepared by the forgiveness of Jesus to go now and become the head of the brand new church. It’s amazing. We still remember Peter, but he was just like us, kind of weak but deeply loved.

That’s just our first passage. We are in the season of Easter. We’re looking at the resurrected Christ, and what the resurrected Christ does. He shows up in all of his glory to say, “Fear not. I’m the beginning and the end. I have the keys to help.”

We are going to continue our reading from last week from the book of Revelation. That’s where we’re going to read next and I did a little bit last week, but I’ll do it again because repitition aids learning. What does revelation mean? The word?

The actual book is called apocalypse. Apocalypse means revelation. Revelation means to reveal. It’s revealing something you previously didn’t know. We think of Revelation as the end times, because when Jesus Christ is revealed in all of his glory, we cry, “Oh, he’s back. Things are going to change. It’s the end of the world as we know it.”

The rest of the world has wonderful stories of the apocalypse. We’re obviously scared by it. That’s why all of our movies are about it, but the apocalypse without Christ is zombies. It’s some kind of radioactive thing going on in the world where you have to go underground and scavenge for food. That’s what happens at the end of a godless story, not the end of a story where Jesus Christ is king.

The book of Revelation is revealing things. It is a vision. It’s rooted in what happens to the prophets when they get a vision. Sometimes it’s a dream they have to have interpreted. Visions are pictures that represent the reality. It’s apocalyptic by revealing images of reality. It’s not intended to be followed in order. It’s not intended to be read literally. It’s apocalyptic. It’s a vision. Sometimes you get descriptions, explanations, interpretations of these images and sometimes you don’t. In the book of Revelation, we get some, but we don’t always. What we do get is comfort.

We’re not going to spend the whole year in the book of Revelation. I’m not going to teach you, I have so many things I want to teach you even about this passage we’re about to read, but I can’t. We don’t have time for that. That’s not what today’s about. Today’s about proclaiming God’s truth to you. But if you are interested in the book of Revelation, Matt and I recorded a podcast called Fed by Ravens where we went through every chapter. You can listen to it in your car and be a better person than you were, if you’re interested. There’s explanations for these visions, and we do the best we can, but even there, we’re just giving the narrative. I just want to assure you as we read these things, it’s not a book of confusion. It’s the opposite. It’s a book of comfort, because Christ has risen from the dead.

This is all about Christ in his glory. He shed his human nature. He still has his human nature, but he’s operating in his divine nature. There’s a difference on earth. He was in his human nature. You saw it poke through when he healed people, his divine nature. He was restraining himself, being a servant to us, to die for us. He died, he rose, and now he’s in all his glory. And the proper response should be fear. Just like Peter, I don’t know if I want to see the guy I betrayed. I don’t know if I want to see the Christ, the son of God that we killed, that might be scary. So the question is, “Who is this guy now in all his glory?” And that is what is answered.

Let’s get to it in Revelation chapter five, verse one through 14. You can just listen as I read, but I would ask that you have the scripture ready, because we’re going to look at it again. At the end, I want to say some things together with you from this.

Chapter five, verse one,

Revelation 5:1 – 14“Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.”

It’s the word of God. Thanks be to God.

What’s your favorite song of all time? Do you have a song that means a lot to you?

Songs have three basic basic functions. Think about a song you liked when you were in high school. When you sing that song now, what does that song do to you?

We all can admit songs have power, right? They have the power to connect us to the past. I think songs operate as a time machine, kind of like smells. You can hear a song and go, “Whoa, I remember where I was. I remember what I was doing.” I remember the first time I heard the Beatles’ Blackbird. It was a song they normally played on the radio, but I actually heard it on the TV show, The Gong Show. A guy was performing Blackbird by the Beatles, and I was like, “That’s a great song!” And then they gonged him. Jamie Farr gonged him. You have to look up these people. It’s pretty funny. “What is that song?” And then I found that song and I learned how to play it. It was one of the first things I learned how to play on the guitar. I can play it for you right now and take you there. Songs are a time capsule.

God created songs. The people of God create songs. This is why we have the whole book of Psalms. Did you know that when the Israelites would walk to all these festivals that happened in Jerusalem at the temple, they would sing songs, the Psalms of Ascent. As they’re ascending and walking up to Jerusalem, they’re singing songs that tell the story that remember what God has done. “Remember how he delivered us from Egypt. Remember when God fought for us.” They’re all singing these songs together, walking and remembering, so that their kids would grow up and hear this song at temple or hear this song sung out in the fields, they would remember, “We used to sing that on the way up to worship God.” And then they don’t even know what the songs were about until later. Which is also an experience I’ve had growing up in the 80s. I’d go back and listen to old songs and think, “Oh Lord, forgive me for listening to that content. It had a good beat.”

God uses songs of the past. He says, “Remember these big events and use songs because they’re powerful. They connect you to these events.”

In the book of Revelation, we have a glorious scene of the response to the glorified Jesus Christ. Let’s take a moment to explore this scene before we look at the response to the Lamb. The 24 elders, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples, the leaders, old and new, of the church are there. The four creatures are the four corners of the earth. They make up the living throne of God. In Ezekiel, God has a throne that is made up of living creatures. He doesn’t sit on a dead stone throne. His throne can move and go throughout all creation. The throne Ezekiel described is the same throne John describes in Revelation. It can see all of the earth and attend to you. That’s the vision and the image of our God. He’s living, breathing, watching, even His throne is looking out for you. That’s the four creatures. You have millions of angels of different ranks also surrounding the throne room. Then you have the martyrs and the saints before the throne of God. Those people who love Jesus. This is the scene of God’s throne room.

As John looks upon the throne room, he starts weeping, because there is a scroll that is unopened. Now there is a scroll that had been opened. That scroll was the scroll of cursing. The curse that has been read over the earth. The curse that has been read over humanity at the fall of Adam and Eve. Daniel talked about that cursed scroll, and now we’re looking at the scroll that unleashes blessing, that will cleanse the effects of the curse, but who can open it? Who could be strong enough to cancel the curse? John looks around and says, “No one’s ever going to open up the scroll of Blessing. Nothing’s ever going to change in this world, because we’re all so messed up. Who can open it? Who can change our lives? I can’t change my own life. I can’t change the lives of people I love. Who can do this?”

And the angel, a strong and mighty angel, says, “Don’t weep. There is one who has conquered and he appears like a slain lamb.” John, who when he saw Jesus during his earthly ministry said, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” now sees him in his glorified state. There he is by the living, breathing throne of God looking like a slain lamb.

What do you do when you see the resurrected Christ? Well, they all fell down. John’s weeping. What do we do? What do you do when you are way out of your league, and you know you don’t have the power, you don’t have the might, you don’t have the wisdom, the honor, the glory, or the blessing? You do what all the saints and all the elders and all the creatures on earth say to do. They say, “Now’s a good time to sing a song. Let’s sing.”

But that doesn’t seem right to us, because we are under the law. The law says, “Work harder!” When you’re under the gospel, the gospel says, “We have the one who’s conquered, come sing, sing a new song.” It starts with remembering, let’s sing the song. Remember the lamb who was slain? Remember Jesus Christ died for you. He did all the work. He rose from the dead for you. Remember that song.

Music also has a second function. It connects us to the past, but it also connects us to each other. Music has the power to connect people. I remember there was a Ted Talk about social interactions, and how long it takes people to become friends. How long does it take to get to a point where we could sit down alone and have a conversation that wasn’t causing us too much anxiety? When you work with someone, it might take six months to a year to kind of get to that place. But they did all these studies and you know what they found? That level of friendship can be accomplished by playing Rock Band for 10 minutes. That’s the power of music. When you’re playing Bon Jovi together, you’re working together and you’re connected. Music has this way of connecting us.

When you hear a sad song while you’re sad, you love it. Teenagers love angry music. “That guy really gets me, man, he’s angry.” That’s why everyone loves that song ‘Happy’, because every once in while you’re happy, and you say, “I know just the song!” Everyone loves that song. Why? Because every once in a while you’re happy and you want to connect to someone else who feels happy, because the people around you probably aren’t happy. We connect to each other through music.

Christ sets up a new song. And he says, “I’m getting every nation, every people, every tribe. I’m connecting you to this story of eternal life.” Not through the work of one nation or one group, but through Jesus, the lamb who was slain. He brings us all together and he says, “I’m creating a kingdom of priests.” That’s who we are. We’re the people who announce there’s peace between God and man. “Don’t weep world. Turn the lamb who was killed for you. He ransomed you. There was a price to open the scroll. There was a price to save you and he paid it, and now we’re connected.” That’s what we do when we read the Bible and take the Lord’s supper. We’re connecting to the present reality of Christ’s work here, and we sing a new song.

But there’s something even greater happening when we start to sing these new songs of praise to the one who is worthy. The curtain between heaven and earth is pulled back. When we sing these songs, we’re singing with the angels. We’re singing with the 24 elders. We’re singing with the four creatures that watch the whole earth, that make up the throne of God. We’re singing to Christ with the saints who have gone before us. Those who have already passed away, who are with Jesus. We’re singing with them. We’re connected.

I play music. I believe there’s power in music. You can have a concert with the most diverse crowd, and we’ll all sing a Foo Fighters song together. It breaks down all the differences. That’s the dream of every musician. We can bring world peace if we just sing the right song, because there’s a power in it. We believe that. It’s partly true, because God put it in us. He says, “There is a song, and I’m giving you a new song where Christ is resurrected, he’s for you, and he is worthy. He’s worthy of all of this.”

There is so much more to say about Revelation, but I hope you’re getting the picture. We’re part of something glorious and eternal, and He’s given you a new song.

I did read some articles from musicians and there’s a quote from a website called Musicians Unite. The end of the article was, “The world would be a very different place if we could get everyone singing the same song.” It’s kind of cool, but in our context it’s even more cool. Jesus is getting his people to sing the same song. We are going to sing the same song. The Church already is, and it does change the world. In fact, Christ in all of his resurrection, glory, and power is changing the world by leading us to sing the same song. And when we’re singing the same song all the differences go away. This is how we were created to live. It’s not just one night.

What I want us to do is corporately read these prayers starting in Revelation chapter five verse nine. As part of my morning routine, I have been reading these songs and prayers out loud, because I want to know how to sing these when I get to the new creation. When I go to Orlando soccer games, the supporter section sing songs the whole time, but you have to know the songs. They don’t give you a hymnal. How do they know those songs? They prepare beforehand and learn a simple song. Oh, that never occurred to me as a lifelong church member. There’s always a book or slides. The soccer fans motivated me to to start reading these songs daily.

I spent a lot of my life praying, but some days you wake up anxious, some days you wake up tired, some days you wake up guilty, some days you wake up feeling great and you feel like God’s there. When that happens, we want to capture that feeling and reproduce it, but we can’t always recreate that experience.

Start reading these prayers every day and announce, “God, I’m praying this. I’m going to sing this with your angels.” And you just read it. It doesn’t matter how you feel. You start to believe it, and it starts to do something to you. It starts to make your prayers different. It’s shifted my prayers from trying to control my life and get everyone feeling good to, “I’m going to worship you God, and you’re the God with all power over these things. You’re the God with all might.” There’s seven things the angels praise God for, seven perfect things. We all want wisdom and power and glory and honor and blessing. We all want those. But with the angels, I started confessing, “God, I give it to you.” And you know what God does? This is what he’ll do at a minimum when you read this, He says, “You give it to me and I just gave it back to you. I’m the only one here that can handle the weight of your life and give and give and give and give and give and I’ll just keep giving. I have all power to give. I have all honor to give. I have all blessing to give. I have all glory, wealth, and might.” I’m encouraging you to do it. Do it if you want to have fun. If you don’t want to have fun, don’t do it.

Let’s stand with the angels and the 24 elders and the creatures. We’ll read the prayers together. I’ll read the in between parts that set it up, but see yourself as part of something that’s past, present and future.

Revelation 5:9-14“And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.”

Let’s pray. “Father, we thank you. We worship you with the angels, with all the creatures. You are worthy. That means you’re worth the honor and the glory. You are alone are worthy. And we thank you that you’re worthy of this love and this praise. You’re worthy of us giving you our lives, because you have loved us so greatly by giving your son Jesus Christ to die for us. He has shed his blood and ransomed us. We recognize our own sin, and the condition we’re in, we’re beat up. We spoil all the opportunities to do the right thing. We don’t make good decisions. It’s our fault, Lord. But we also have this sickness. And when we hear of your grace, and we see the lamb that was slain for us and hear that you love us, you’re worth all the glory. You’re worth everything. And so we worship you. We praise you for every good gift we have. We thank you. And we pray with the angels that you receive blessing. For once, we pray that your plans would come to fruition. It’s not just about what we want. We want what you want, because you are good and mighty and holy and loving and kind. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above the heavenly host. Praise Son and Holy Ghost. Thank you Lord. Lead us into this kind of praise now and forever. Amen.”