Alpha And Omega Moments With King Jesus

Scripture: Revelation 1:4-8; John 18:33-37; Daniel 7:9-14

Subject: Alpha and Omega Moments with our LORD

Proposition: Christ is the Alpha and the Omega. We are called to have alpha and omega moment(s) with Christ. We are called to have an authentic spiritual beginning. live out a true alpha life and be ready for our physical omega moment.

INTRO:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ.

Here in the United States we are just a few days away from celebrating our annual Thanksgiving Holiday. All across our land in churches large and small the central focus will be on thanksgiving and praise. In some places this Sunday will been called Thanksgiving Sunday.

However, in the global church it is more than Thanksgiving Sunday. Traditionally, today is the Sunday the Church calls Christ the King Sunday. It is the final Sunday of a year long journey that began back in late 2014 with Advent. That journey continued through the seasons of Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and Kingdom Time. Today is the Sunday that we acknowledge the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Sunday that we acknowledge Jesus Christ as King of the Universe and King of our lives.

Those two emphasis, thanksgiving and praise and Christ as King are not in opposition. They are actually complementary. The more we acknowledge the Kingship of Christ the more we experience a heart and life of authentic thanksgiving and gratitude.

And we have a lot to be thankful for this morning. All of us can point to friends and family, to mentors and teachers and others that have made a major impact in our lives. We could point to salvation and redemption. We could point to our baptism in water and in Spirit. We could spend hours this morning sharing all the wonderful things that we are thankful for this day.

Personally, one of the things that I am thankful for was a man I never even had an opportunity to meet. He died eight years before I was born. But as a teen ager growing up in Eastern Kentucky he had a major impact on my spiritual journey. It occurred through his writings. He wrote three novels that captured my heart and my life. His name is Lloyd C. Douglas and the three books that he wrote that captured my heart were The Robe, The Big Fisherman and the Magnificent Obsession. If you have not had an opportunity to read any of them it would do your heart and spiritual journey some good to get acquainted with them. You will be changed just by reading them.

There is an interesting story that Pastor Max Lucado shares about Lloyd C. Douglas. While he was a student at then Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, Douglas lived in a boarding house. One of his downstairs neighbors was an retired music teacher. Douglas and this man over time developed a morning ritual. Before leaving the boarding house each morning, Douglas would stop by the man's room and ask him a simple question - "Well, what is the good news?"

The old man would pick up his tuning fork, tap it on the side of the wheelchair and say, “That’s middle C! It was middle C yesterday; it will be middle C tomorrow; it will be middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat. The piano across the hall is out of tune, but, my friend, that is middle C.” (Max Lucado, GRACE for the Moment, Volume II, 114).

That old teacher wanted Lloyd C. Douglas to know that when life chaotic, unsettling and unnerving to always remember that some things were always a constant. For that teacher one of those things was middle C. You can always count on middle C. It is always 261.625565 hertz.

For all of us gathered here this morning, we know the power and presence of the ultimate constant in life. The ultimate constant in our world and especially in our lives is Jesus Christ. John testifies of this reality in Revelation 1:4-8. This morning, I would like for us to lift up one phrase in that passage. It is the phrase that we read in verse eight where we are reminded that our Savior Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega. That same statement is also made also in Revelation 1:17; 21:6 and 22:13.

Let us say it together - JESUS CHRIST IS THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA. JESUS CHRIST IS THE BEGINNING AND THE END.

This morning, Jesus being the Alpha and the Omega is something we can count on. This morning that is something that we can build on. This morning that is something that can be our foundation. Jesus Christ is both the Beginning and End and all things in between.