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.
There was a day when to be an atheist was a neutral position. Contained in the word itself is the idea that the position is defined by negation; that is it is a definition about what someone is not rather than what someone is. While a theist – a person who believes in a deity, in God – asserts the logically positive position of belief, the term atheist asserts nothing other than a lack of belief. It is in essence an empty definition which holds no inherent meaning.
And for mainstream atheists that is all that the term meant historically. Most folks who lacked a sense of the divine presence of God in the universe or found the tenants of faith too incredible to embrace simply did not attend worship services.
In recent days, the church, people of faith, and the very name of Jesus Christ have come more aggressively under assail. The intrinsic worth of Christ is not only questioned; it is outwardly mocked and ridiculed by the secular culture and much more concerning that even that, to me, as a Bible teacher and Pastor, is what I believe that has done to the view of Christ of so many of us – within the Church.
Illustration
A Frenchman who came to the U.S. from Paris met with a very sad mishap. He brought with him to this country 10,000 francs, which was all his fortune. He met a seemingly friendly Spaniard at his boarding-house, and the Frenchman trusted the Spaniard enough to loan him his money. The Frenchman accepted from the Spaniard five gold bricks as collateral for the loan, but when the Spaniard went away, and the Frenchman took his bricks to a jeweler to assess their monetary value, he was sadly informed that they were composed of copper, tin, and zinc, without one particle of gold. The despair of the poor Frenchman when he discovered that he had been swindled out of all his little fortune was very sad to behold. But how many are deceived in a similar manner. Men and women invest all their time and talent in glittering and delusive treasures which promise happiness and peace, but one needs to realize that they are only a base alloy. Many who are deceived in this fashion are crying out that life is not worth the living, and we see stories in the news media every day of those who have wickedly put an end to their lives because they had not the courage to rise out of their defeats. But those who live genuine lives, doing the will of God with honest hearts, and seeking always to please him, do not find life a cheat. These people find life worth the living, and have heaven added as a crown of glory which never fades away.
A great many people have fell victim to the blatant attacks of the secular culture against the value of Christ. Perhaps as many have been slain by the slicings of ambitious half-truth laden preachers whose primary motivation is to plant warm bottoms in pews rather than to place the seed of the Word of Truth into human hearts and to fill the streets of heaven with ransomed souls!
Dear Saints of God, hear the Word of Truth this morning; hear the Word of God as it declares that He who was slain and has been raised by the power of God is indeed worthy! Christ is of unsurpassable worth!
Worthy to be praised: I Peter 1:18-21 says, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.” (NIV)
Man’s chief aim in this life is bring glory to God by scribing the intrinsic value present in His Son! It was not by silver or gold that we were saved but something of immensely greater value. Our salvation comes at the cost of the blood of Jesus Christ; the blood of the lamb without blemishes or defect.
It is not through religion that men and women are saved from the consequences and the grip of sin. It is not through church membership or even through strict adherence to right doctrine that men are saved. Salvation comes from one source; faith in the Son according to the gift of grace made manifest in Christ.
Religion is only as good as it is honoring to God. So much of what passes for genuine Christianity today is little more than the garnering of pleasing music and oration as we look to the edifices of religion, the trappings of our buildings and grounds, as though they be monuments built to the glory of God and ourselves.
If strict adherence to moral codes and right doctrine were enough to please God then Jesus would not have chastised the Pharisees the way that He did during His earthly ministry. The Pharisees doctrine was pretty good! They worshiped the One True God of Israel, Yahweh of the Old Testament. They kept all of the laws which God had commanded.
True religion, spirituality which is pleasing to God, however, is a life yielded to the will of God; a life spent satisfied not in self-righteous pride of having fulfilled the law or even the honest pursuit of right living. The chief aim of God in this universe is to bring glory to Himself and the chief aim of man in this life is to participate in His glory.
He is worthy to be praised! Unlike the many trappings of religion and the worldly affairs of this life, the Lamb of God is worthy to be praised, worthy of high standing in our lives, worthy of our trust, worthy of our hope, and glory be unto God; the Lamb is worthy to be praised!
Conclusion
What do software mogul Bill Gates and banking investor Warren Buffett have in common with wanted Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera? They are all featured in Forbes magazine’s world’s billionaires report as “self-made” billionaires. Earlier I said to you that there is a difference between wealth and worth; cost and value.
The accumulation of worldly wealth does not make a man worthy in the eyes of God, though it may make him wealthy in the eyes of the world. What is wise to this world is foolishness to the Cross and all the while the fool mocks the inherent value and worthiness of Jesus Christ!
The Christian life is that of a sojourner, following after the Master of Mercy, sandaled feet trotting along the dusty trails of this life, waling stick in hand, eyes fixed on the Lamb. Though I seek to understand, there are a lot of things in this life that I do not know but there is the one thing of which I am sure; the lamb who was slain and now lives is worthy!
Amen.
