Praise The Lamb

Worthy is the Lamb! Revelation 1:8; 17-20, 5:6-12

Introduction

Not long ago my family and I were on vacation at Disney World in Florida. Everything at Disney World is of course of a very inflated price and occasionally of an inflated value. One morning we were waiting for a transport shuttle to take us from our Disney resort where we were staying to one of the theme parks. While we were waiting for what was an unusually long time for the shuttle, my three year old son Sebastian made his way to a soda machine and was fiddling around poking a the buttons and examining all of the pictures of the different types of sodas. After a little while of playing at the soda machine he walked over to where I was seated and said, “Um Daddy…” (My wife and I know we are in trouble whenever Sebastian starts a sentence that way) “Um Daddy… I need a hundred dollars!” This was very much to the amusement of the man seated next to me who I had been talking to while as we waited for the park shuttle. Upon questioning my three year as to his need for one hundred dollars, he explained to me that he needed to purchase a soda from the soda machine! I explained to him that we had drinks with us and that if a soda from that machine were in fact priced at one hundred dollars it would not be getting any money from us!

Transition

A person would have to be a person of great wealth indeed to routinely consume sodas that cost $100.00 each! And a soda of that price would have to be a truly incredible drink to warrant such a pricey cost.

But wealth and worth and cost are different things. Yet most people think, that if a man is worth five hundred thousand dollars, he must be a man of worth, though he might have all that, and yet be worth less from great debt; or he may even be a man who though possessing great wealth and having no character, remain worthless.

Wealth and worth are different things. When Jesus sandaled feet tread upon the dusty trails of this earth; He was a man without great wealth. In Luke 9:58 Jesus says, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Jesus did not even have a house.

While Jesus was a man of no wealth, He was a man of unsurpassable, immense, irresistible worth paid the supreme cost of our sin at the Cross! The cost was much higher than we could ever pay. God’s holiness demanded perfection. God’s justice demanded satisfaction. God’s overwhelming, superabundant grace demanded that He provide for us the means of mercy in Jesus Christ!

What we could not do for ourselves and what divine perfection required, God Himself provided for us. Today, we follow a Lord, Jesus Christ, who is worthy to be praised, worthy of adoration, and was indeed worthy to pay the penalty for our sin. In Christ, we find true worth and genuine eternal wealth!

Exposition

Worthy of Praise: In the preceding section of today’s Scripture reading we see an Angel ask the question, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” [Of the Revelation] John the beloved, the aging disciple of Jesus who though he was the youngest of Jesus disciples is now the only one remaining, all of the Apostles having been martyred in various fashions for their proclamation of Christ.

Here, John is taken away in the spirit, the text says, and given this incredible vision of the impending return of Jesus Christ. The angel says “Who is worthy” and John wept and wept because it appeared that no one was found worthy to open the scroll of the revelation; no one was found worthy to proclaim God’s plan.

Then the angel tells John “Do not weep! The Lion of Judah has triumphed!” In an age when men’s hearts fail them for fear; in an age when truth seems as elusive as a distant mirage always just a little further ahead on the horizon; we must remember to place our trust not in the every changing ideas of man, but in the eternal Word of God!

The modern culture looks to science, political leaders, self help guides, weight loss programs, and a myriad of other humanly contrived ideas, philosophies, and cultural icons as saviors who will conquer our problems. One need only to read any billboard, magazine, or newspaper to see that the culture is seeking for something to save itself, though it knows not what.

The modern culture also, in its avoidance of all things spiritual, has not only asserted the supposed inherent value of the many distractions and trappings of man’s creation in this life, it is also asserts the supposed inherent worthlessness of the very one who came to offer the salvation for which it seeks.