The Centrality of Christ

Revelation 1:9 I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, 11 saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last," and, "What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea." 12 Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. 14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; 15 His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters; 16 He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. 17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, "Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. 18 I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. 19 Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this. 20 The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.

This letter to the churches from Jesus, the Founder of the Church, as transcribed by John, is an amazing anticipation of the development and the suffering the church will endure down through the ages. It is also an amazing anticipation of the excesses and gross departures the church will take with the essentials of the faith.

If this passage reminds us of nothing else, it should be this: Jesus must be at the VERY CENTER of the church.

What does it mean that Jesus must be at the center of the church? What happens when He is not?

Having Jesus at the center of the church means seeing Him (and desiring to see Him,) as He truly is rather than imagining a version of Christ for yourself.

Here, we have an eyewitness account of Jesus in Heaven, as He presently is. Is this how you imagined Him? Does what you imagine have any bearing at all upon reality? Should you adjust your imagining based upon the freshly-presented reality?

Now imagine the danger of moving Jesus away from the center of the church, where no attempt is legitimately made to see Jesus as He is, to a place where an imaginary Jesus is all anybody has.

This has indeed been the position of the church down through the centuries, and only the church which presents Jesus as He is and holds to His Word as it is escapes His rebuke. Where does Jesus stand in your church?

-Pastor Bill