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What The Spirit SaysPart 1 of 8

'A Vision of Jesus' (Revelation 1)

Chris Cooke
Revelation 1
6 September 2026
38 min

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0:01 Let me read from Revelation 1. The Revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw. That is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy. That's lovely for me to hear. And blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it. Not just hear it, but take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

0:37 Remember those words, soon, and the time is near, the urgency of these words. John then introduces himself. as the messenger of Christ. To the seven churches in the province of Asia, grace and peace to you from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and has freed us from our sins by His blood and has made us to be a kingdom and priest to serve His God and Father. To Him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. Look, He is coming with the clouds and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him and all peoples on earth will mourn because of Him.

1:30 So shall it be. Amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega says the Lord God who is and who was and who is to come the Almighty I John your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Christ was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus we know John had been exiled because of his witness to Christ on the Lord's day I was in the spirit And I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet which said, write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. And I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And among the lampstands was someone like a son of man.

2:26 dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. Let these words fire your imagination. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars. And coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. And when I saw him,

3:06 I fell at his feet as though dead. This is what this vision did to John. But then he placed his right hand on me and said, do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am the living one. I was dead, and now look, I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades. Write therefore what you've seen. What is now?

3:36 And that's what we're going to be looking at over these next eight weeks. What is now? and what will take place later. That's the rest of the book of Revelation. The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. An incredible way to start a year or a new season together. And just before we get into looking at this passage this morning, I want to just acknowledge the fact that I'm back from a three-month sabbatical, and I do want to say thank you again to those people who missed it at the start.

4:19 Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for your prayers. I want to especially thank the rest of the team of elders who sent me away with such support and kindness And I also want to thank all of those involved in our teaching team across the summer. Whenever I was away at different churches and talking to different people and was telling them, well, actually, I didn't even need to ask any visitor from outside to come in at all. Every single person that spoke the whole time I was away was a member of Glen Abbey. They were blown away by that. And I don't think I am enough at times by that. We are so blessed.

4:55 And as I've made my re-entry, if you like, into the Glen Abbey atmosphere, I have been getting asked lots of questions. And the sort of central one is, Chris, what's God been doing in your life? What's God been doing in your heart in the last three months? Has he been at work? And the answer is yes. Of course he has. He's always at work. But yes, he has been at work in a very significant way.

5:19 And now's not the time to go into all the detail of that. But let me just say, if I was trying to sum it up in a couple of sentences. What he has done, what he has worked in me is this, just a deepening, right in the gut, I suppose, of gratitude and thankfulness for Jesus, for the gospel, for his Holy Spirit, for his word, for this church, for you, for the people that I get to lead and serve with for my family and just the love and support that I receive from them. And also a deep gratitude for the fearful responsibility that I along with those seven other guys have been given to shepherd you as his church, the one who walks among his lampstands. So that's one side, that's one hand, if you like, of what the Lord has been doing in me. But on the other side, It's as well been slightly different. While he has renewed joy and excitement in a fresh way, he's also been at work in stirring a much greater sense of what I suppose I hope I'm discerning correctly as a sort of holy discontentment.

6:47 That While He's been simultaneously filling my heart with this joy and gratitude, He's also been at the same time burdening my heart with this soon, with this the time is near, with this come Lord Jesus, with this urgency of the mission that He has given us as His church. And that we as Glen Abbey might not be slow, might not be distracted, but might step into so much more of what He has for us. so much more of what he has for us to do and be as his lampstand in this place. And of course, you would expect, as I've been studying Revelation of the Summer White, I've been away, that imagery of lampstands, all the imagery of Revelation actually would be fresh in my mind, but especially pertinent is this image of the lampstand in Glen Abbey as a lampstand. And again, as I've been away and talking to different people and being in different churches, the reality is that I've come face to face again just with how much The Lord has blessed us as a church, the riches that He has given us in terms of people, in terms of spiritual gifts, in terms of resources, in terms of finance. The Lord has given us so much. And then so the question comes automatically, what are we doing with what He has given us?

8:09 What am I doing with what he's given me? And I'll be honest, I'm not satisfied with myself. And I say this in the greatest love, I'm not satisfied with us either. And I don't think we're meant to be. I don't think I'm meant to be, I don't think you are meant to be. And so I have been, if I'm being honest with you, restlessly praying, crying out to God that the Holy Spirit would, as I've used those words from 1 Thessalonians 1, that He would move in power in this church in a way that the lumens of the Glen Abbey lamp stand, right, the light, the amount of visible light that we are emitting as a single source made-up by each of us as little LEDs within that single source, if you like. that he would move in such a way that we would be and burn and shine in a new, purified, vital way than we currently are.

9:10 But I know, as I've spent time in these three chapters, that that is a dangerous prayer to pray. Because when we seek together, when we pray for together, when we cry out for that sort of renewal, we are not asking, Lord, to help us with shuffling the chairs around. We're not asking him to help us work out this new program or some new evangelistic technique. If you look at what Jesus says to these seven churches, He's not interested in whether they have this program for youth or whether they use Alpha or Christianity Explored or whatever it is. That's not what he's concerned with. He's concerned with their hearts. He's concerned with their loyalty. He's saying things like, you've forsaken the love that you had at first.

10:01 You're caught up in deep sin and idolatry. You tolerate a false teaching, you have a reputation for being alive, but underneath the surface you're actually dead. You're lukewarm. And so if we join together in praying that the lampstand of Glen Abbey might burn more brightly, we are inviting the Lord Jesus by His Spirit to refine us by fire. That's what we're asking for. We're asking Him to purify our vision. We're asking Him to put salve on our eyes so that we can see clearly. We're asking Him to rebuke us, to discipline us as those He loves, to wake us out of our comfortable slumber, to call us to deep examination, self-examination, and confession and repentance.

10:58 If we pray this prayer together, we are inviting, let me be clear about this potentially painful work as the Lord deals with all the stuff we hide on the surface so well, the pride, the idols that have captured our heart, the compromise that is diminishing our light, as he corrects and refines and purifies so that he might bring about deeper obedience and courage and loyalty and purity. We think light sometimes is about just how fervent we are for evangelism, and there's a sense that is true, but actually it's so much more about obedience and purity and loyalty and lack of compromise. And all of that, all of that starts with vision.

11:57 And that's why Revelation 1 is here. Revelation does not start with to the angel of the church in Ephesus, right? It doesn't start there. No, we get these 600 words of this chapter before we get introduced to the seven letters, because there is so much that we have to see before we go there. There's so much that those churches had to see before they heard those specific words to themselves. And what I'm going to do this morning is I'm going to take us through some of what we need to see. Justice can't be done to this whole chapter. It's far too long in the time that we have.

12:35 But rest assured, in the seven weeks that we've got in the letters, we'll be coming back to Revelation 1 again and again, and we'll have time to cover different bits that we don't get to today. So things start with vision. And connected with vision, let me tell you a little story about what happened to me on Tuesday evening. I have recently, I think I've played four times now, I've been introduced to the newest middle-aged sport there is, the sport of paddle. I have never seen so many knee straps, ankle straps, elbow straps, wrist strap, all concentrated in one small space. And I was playing with a group of guys on Tuesday evening. I was partnering Andy Harris. And I made my, we're in the middle of a rally, I made my way to the net because I was told that's the way you win most of the points.

13:25 That's the way I thought it works. And somebody on the other side, the Glen Abba person will remain nameless. thundered A forehand in my direction, and as it came across the net, the ball clipped the top of the net, which changed its trajectory suddenly, and despite my cat-like reflexes, the ball thundered at pace directly into my right eye. Now, after insincere apologies had been made, After the inevitable tears had flowed, you know what it's like when you get whacked in the eye, I realized that actually one of my contact lenses had been knocked out. And so as I made my way to the back of the court to receive the next serve, I realized I had one eye that could see sharply, and I had one that was completely blurry. And if you know anything about that, you'll know your distance perception is all over the place. You cannot judge where something's coming from, and so I swung and missed, And I swung, I missed. This is so embarrassing, because nobody knows.

14:30 They think you'll still be able to see. And then, apologies to the squeamish among you, I then realized after a couple of points that the contact lens hadn't been knocked out. It had been knocked around the back of my eye, and I was able to scoop that out and put it back in, and I was able to go on to lose without any excuses whatsoever. Now, more serious than that. There are all sorts of things in our lives that skew our vision, that compromise our perspective. There are all sorts of things that can be that metaphorical tennis ball, paddle ball, thumping into our eye and meaning that we do not see things straight.

15:20 that pride, that bitterness, that hardheartedness, that envy, the influence of the voices of the world, the little insidious lies that the father of lies places in our minds like burrowing in. All sorts of things. can compromise and make us short-sighted and blind. And the Lord Jesus' answer to this, his salve to put on our eyes, a metaphor that's used later on in one of the letters, is to show us himself and is to invite us to gaze upon him. And as we do, as we see him, our perspective on him and on his kingdom and on ourselves and on this world then is renewed and clarified. And that's what so much of Revelation one is concerned with. Jesus showing us Jesus. It's not about time frames and working out what X or Y is and all that.

16:23 It's at a very basic level, Jesus showing us Jesus. That's what this whole book is about, but especially this chapter, this book where John is in exile on the island of Patmos, he's given this to write down on a scroll for the sake of Jesus' servants in these seven churches in Asia. Servants, by the way, under significant pressure and persecution under the power of the Roman Empire and the Emperor Domitian at the time in the late AD 90. Servants who need to know from the vantage point of heaven, from the eyes of Jesus, what is happening right now and what is going to happen in the future. This whole book is Jesus unveiling himself. And that's definitely the case in this opening chapter. So in the time we're going to have, the short time we're going to have before communion, let me just focus in on what we see. of Jesus, what we're presented with of Jesus in this chapter.

17:26 First of all, there are statements here in verses 48. What do we see in those statements and why do we see those things in particular? Why were these churches given these statements in particular for what they were going through and how might they be pertinent to us? How might one of these maybe in particular be very specific to you right now in your circumstances? And what's going on in your heart, in your relationship with the Lord Jesus, in your life? What one, or maybe all of them, but what one in particular might the Holy Spirit be impressing in your heart and opening up for you to see more clearly today? Because

18:12 here's the thing. We need to see Jesus clearly. before we're going to be able to take anything on that is said in the letters to come. His correction, his assessment, his judgment, we're going to need to see him clearly. So let's look through what we're shown. So perhaps you sitting here this morning might specifically need the Holy Spirit to impress on your vision as the church in Laodicea did that Jesus is the faithful witness. Not a faithful witness among lots of faithful witnesses, but the only, the one and only person who can be trusted. Not just simply the one who speaks the truth, but the one who is truth in person himself.

19:05 I am the way, the truth, and the life. Perhaps you're sitting here this morning and you know that you are surrounded by voices. Voices of friends, but maybe even further, voices of media and social media and all the stuff you spend time in and you're deeply aware that it's some of those voices rather than his voice that you are listening to most. It's those voices that are deeply determining most what you think about yourself and your worth and your identity and your purpose and your vision for life. They're most deeply determining what you think about this world, what this life is all about. And perhaps, yes, Jesus' voice does get some sort of look in, but if you are being honest with yourself, you know it's just one piece of a jigsaw. And it's certainly not the central one.

20:11 And if you totted up how much you listen to those other voices in a week, compared to how much you listen to the voice of the faithful witness Jesus in a week, what would the comparison be? And what impact does that have on your mind and on your heart? He is the faithful witness. He is the truth in person. And if that's the case, his voice is the only one that truly matters. What he says to you and about you and about himself and about his church and about the world and about who is in control of history, that is the only testimony that matters. That's the only testimony that needs listened to.

20:56 The testimony of the faithful witness. So if Jesus says, This is truth, and the Word says, No, that's a lie, who are you gonna listen to? Or if Jesus says, No, that's a lie from the Father of lies in the world, he goes, No, that's a truth, this is something that's good for you, who are you going to listen to? Remember his words, My sheep, listen to my voice. So perhaps some of us need to hear that, that he is the faithful witness. Perhaps some of us need to hear what we've already talked about, that he is the firstborn from the dead. Church of Smyrna needed to know that they were facing persecution even to the point of death. This truth about Jesus would have been so crucial and so important for them to hold on to.

21:48 We're not in the same context or same circumstances as Smyrna, but there are people in this room this morning who are wrestling with the soonness, the closeness, the time is nearness of their own mortality. And they're questioning, in this season of life, how am I meant to be one of these lights in this lampstand or is it just really, am I just sort of coasting in? Need to hear. with reassuring clarity. See, sorry, with reassuring clarity that Jesus is the firstborn from the dead, the one who has conquered and abolished death for all those who are in Him, the one who holds those keys of death and Hades, and actually to see this about Him and what it means for you with clarity, what it actually means about where you actually are in your eternal life in Him. And how that changes. how you see where you are right now and the impact that has on you being a light in the overall lampstand. It may be that at this stage of your life you're actually going to burn brighter than ever before because you see this more clearly and more urgently.

23:10 Perhaps others of us need to have our vision renewed with the truth that Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth. I have no doubt that many of us are sitting here this morning and at times we are overwhelmed. At times we are so anxious with when we look at the news and we see the precariousness of just the geopolitics of the world. wars and rumours of wars and extreme weather events and global supply chain issues and all of the above. I was reading, I'm sure many of you were, just the other day about the Secretary for the Environment who's saying that we now need to stock up on essentials because of the El Nino weather thing that is coming in. And I'm going, there's so many things being talked about that have not been talked about in my lifetime. the waves of uncertainty of geopolitics are lapping at our feet in a way that I have not known. And so that raises the question for us, and we're asking, is there anybody in control?

24:18 And as we ask that question, Jesus tells us and shows us, and he says this, I am the ruler. of the Kings of the Earth. There is another realm that you cannot see from your vantage point. There is another kingdom, a higher one that you cannot see from where you are. This ultimate reality that is different from what you can see, there is far more going on. And in spite of the way it may look to you, trust me, history is in my hands. And not only is history in my hands, you are in my hands as well.

24:55 I am in control. I will bring about my plans and purposes for you, and I will bring about my plans and purposes for the world. I am the ruler of the kings of the earth. So we're reminded that he's a faithful witness. We're reminded that he's firstborn from the dead, that he is the ruler of the kings of the earth. But then John changes tack and he tells us something which we could almost miss, but it's just so important, to Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood. And again, as we come to these letters, and we hear Jesus say, But I have this against you, we need to hear this first. We need to know at the deepest level if we're going to be able to listen to and accept His assessment and His discipline.

25:47 and actually move towards him when we hear those words, rather than cowering away from him that he loves us. There have been many times over the 26 years of my marriage that my wife has had to, let's say, offer constructive criticism to me. about something I've done or something I've said or a behavior pattern in my life or something like that. And of course, every time, initially, the heckles go up, the excuses flow out. But as those calm, as those dissipate, I am able to, in time, sometimes longer than others, accept what she has to say, even welcome at times what she has to say because I know that actually she loves me. And what she is saying to me is out of her love for me and for my good. As

26:48 she points out, a blind spot in a way I think or something I do or some of the way I act. How much more then from the King of Kings, whose words and judgment are perfect and right and true, knowing that he loved me enough to shed his blood for me. knowing that my salvation is secure. Nothing's going to change that. Knowing that He continues to love me. He has died so that you and I might be free. And His correction for us that's going to come, we can know as we see this, He loves us and He's freed us. We know that His correction is going to always be to do with that freedom.

27:29 bringing us into that place of freedom, freedom from sin reigning in our lives, freedom from idols dulling our light, freedom from guilt paralyzing us, and freedom for what he's made us for, to be a kingdom and priest, to serve his God and Father, to carry out the eternal roles of worshiping him and serving him and governing for him. And John then proclaims, as he proclaims all these truths, he is overcome and just moved to worship to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. Which of those do you need to hear this morning before the Lord comes with, yes, his commendation, but also his? discipline. There's far more to come. I'm running out of time.

28:26 We're going to look at the vision just briefly. I'll talk you through a couple of aspects of that, but let me say this as we do it. I can't do this justice. You've got to spend time in this for yourself. Can I encourage you to do that over the week ahead, to actually just spend time, maybe just even each day, spend a few minutes with one of the statements the firstborn from the dead, for example, spend some time with one of the images that we're going to see in this vision. The one whose voice sounds like rushing waters, the son of man among his lampstands, whatever it is. But let's have a little look at this. Now, the temptation with the imagery in this vision that is given to John to write down on a scroll for the seven churches is that we might copy and paste the text into ChatGPT, wonder if somebody's done this already, and ask it to give you an illustration of it.

29:27 But that would be the wrong thing to do, because this is not literally what the Lord Jesus ascended in heaven looks like. This is symbolism, mainly taken from the Old Testament, to evoke truth about who he is through the images that we see. Places like Daniel 7, his vision of a son of man and Daniel 10 and Zechariah 4 and Isaiah 49. And it's all very purposefully chosen for these churches for the messages that they're just about to receive. This is what they need to see. And this is what we need to see. Although intriguingly, John starts with what he hears. I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me.

30:15 This voice like rushing waters, a voice that thunders like being under a waterfall. A voice that you're never going to be ambivalent about because it's just too terrifying. When you hear this voice, you listen. And then he turns and he sees the lampstands. And we'll talk so much more about them in weeks to come. I've already done that this morning. And then he sees the son of man, this one like a son of man among the lampstand. And the description immediately transports us to Daniel's vision from centuries earlier of the son of man to whom God hands over authority as the judge.

30:59 So that's what we see here. We see Jesus as a judge. And the book of Revelation will go on to tell us how he will exercise his perfect judgment of the world. But in the now, that's the leader, in the now, he will exercise his judgment, not in a final way, but in a correction of his churches to try and to get them back on the right path, to show them their blind spots and to show them where they need his correction. And that's, I pray, what he's going to do with us over the next seven weeks. But as we are faced with the symbolism of him as judge, the Son of Man, we're also told of what he is wearing. And that's interesting. It's a robe and a golden sash.

31:45 He's a judge, but actually the robe and golden sash are the dress of a high priest. So you combine those two together and you get You get the one who judges with the one who intercedes all at the same time. The one who corrects us is also the one who represents us before the throne, who empathizes with us in our weaknesses according to Hebrews 4. What a comforting thing to know that the one who's going to bring his judgment to us is also the one who intercedes for us before the Father so that we can come to his throne in confidence. And we're shown as well what sort of judge and high priest he is, one of uncorrupted and uncompromised purity. That's symbolized by the hair, his hair white like wool, the one who is without sin so he can judge perfectly. He's the one whose eyes are like blazing fire. His gaze is penetrating.

32:51 There's nothing that we can hide from him. It's an absolutely pointless exercise to try. So we should open ourselves up to Him fully, remembering He loves us, and everything He's going to say to us is for our good. He sees us exactly as we are, and he has these feet like bronze glowing in a furnace, this unbreakable, again, purity. This is such an important part of who Jesus is, this purity, and it's the purity that is the strength. The strength of one who cannot be toppled, and you compare that with Daniel 2, when you see the Roman Empire represented by iron, yes, the strength, but mixed with clay. The Lord Jesus' kingdom is totally different than that. He holds the seven stars in his hands.

33:50 We'll come back to that one next week. And coming out of his mouth is a sharp, double-edged sword, symbolizing the power his word has to again, in the words of Hebrews 4, Remember this from our other series, penetrate even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, judging the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart. His are words that are able to cut like the scalpel of a skilled and caring surgeon. For the purpose of bringing healing and restoration and renewal and life, and I know that I need those cuts in me. And we'll need to remember, because we're going to feel the pain of that, it is that picture of this caring and careful and loving surgeon dealing with what needs to be dealt with in our life. And his face is like the sun shining in all its brilliance, such holiness, such glory, that John was so overwhelmed that he fell at his feet as though dead. That

35:08 As John saw this vision, was his automatic response. What is ours when we are faced with his description of this vision? And yet, I think we're meant to be deeply overwhelmed. But then we're meant to hear Jesus himself come and place his hand on us and say, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. As I finish then, I have run out of time, and as hopefully the band might emerge from behind me, I do recognize that I've just run through an awful lot. of showing you Jesus, of what Revelation 1 does of showing you Jesus. I understand that it's almost too much in the time we have.

36:05 And like I said, I want you to go back. The only way for this to truly penetrate our hearts is for us to spend that prayerful time and ask the Holy Spirit, use the images, use the symbolism, use the statements, and show me what I need to see. And as a church, show us what we need to see. Because we need to see that, as I said. We need to see Jesus in a fresh way, if we're going to be prepared for it, if we're going to be ready for it. Opening ourselves up to his gaze. Listening to what the Spirit says to this church,

37:04 and inviting the Holy Spirit to work in us, to bring about transformation, to bring about breakthrough in sin and idolatry, so that the lampstand of Glenabbey might burn, might shine with a Different purity and vitality than it currently does.

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About this talk

This talk explores Revelation chapter 1, focusing on the vision of Jesus Christ given to John while exiled on Patmos. The speaker reflects on personal spiritual renewal and the call for the church to be purified and obedient. The vision of Jesus is described with symbolic imagery emphasizing His roles as the faithful witness, firstborn from the dead, ruler of the kings of the earth, judge, and high priest. The talk encourages listeners to see Jesus clearly, understand His authority and love, and prepare for His coming with renewed faithfulness and commitment.

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