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Sealed to Serve

            A month ago nobody questioned the Brewers appearing in the playoffs, but their recent slump threw a big curve ball at that assumption. We live in a world of uncertainty. Get elected to public office these days and before your victory confetti hits the floor, your campaign staff better be strategizing how to fight off a recall election. We live in a world of uncertainty. Construction continues on Tower One, a replacement of the World Trade Center, engineered with twice the normal rebar and concrete to withstand a hit by a fully fueled jet airliner—but can its ventilation system prevent the quick spread of a Contagion-like virus that kills just as many? We live in a world of uncertainty. And nobody likes uncertainty about where we stand with God. Is he angry with me right now? Can he forgive that? What’s his plan for my life? Today our Scripture lessons speak in terms of certainty as it relates to us and God. Believers know exactly where we stand with God, exactly why, and exactly what it means for our lives today and our destiny forever. Sealed to Serve, three subjects of John’s vision in Revelation 7 showcase that certainty. 

The angels

            First, the angels. John sees “four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth.” Angels, like gravity, are all around us and invisible, but they are real with a real impact. They are spirit beings whom God created as his helpers, “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14). Although there are bad angels called demons, whose leader is the baddest angel, the devil, there are many more good angels who are more powerful. They are sealed in their obedience to God as “elect angels” (1 Timothy 5:21) who “always see the face of [our] Father in heaven” (Matthew 18:10). So angels are Sealed to Serve God by serving us. And if that means exerting heavenly power over the forces of this earth, they can do that. Like when an angel shut the mouths of the hungry lions so that they couldn’t eat the prophet Daniel (Daniel 6:22) or when an angel rescued the apostle Peter from prison shackles (Acts 12:7). This is what John sees in Revelation: angels exerting their supernatural powers over the forces of this earth pictured as ferocious winds. The earth’s forces are held back by the angels “to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.” Angels serve God by protecting us from physical harm. “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways” (Psalm 91:11). The objective of it all, though, is spiritual: to keep believers safe so that 1) we may serve God while on earth, and 2) we may reach our final destiny of heaven. In John’s vision the angels respond to the command, “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” On Judgment Day this earth will be destroyed. The stars will fall from the sky. Mountains will fall into the sea. The entire planet will ignite into a big, blazing fireball. “But not yet!” God enlists his angel helpers. “Hold off the earth’s destructive forces until every last sinner who will repent is sealed by faith for serving me now and a secure eternity later.”

            That near miss at the busy intersection? Perhaps an angel stepped in, and if so, it was for your spiritual benefit as a believer. Has your faith followed through on that moment by thanking God, witnessing to others, or showing extra love to those you’d miss if you’d died? Think of all the unsupervised moments when children might easily bump, crash, disappear, or fall to their peril. Angels are all around for children’s spiritual benefit as believers. Are you following through by baptizing your baby sooner rather than later, enrolling your toddler in Sunday School, reading Bible stories as a family, and talking with your teen about godly decisions? Praise God for angels! And serve God on earth just as obediently as the angels in heaven serve him. 

The Lamb

            “Who will save us?” the world cries, looking for a hero. Will Prince Fielder take the Brewers to the promised land on what is likely his last year with the team? Not sure. Will Scott Walker face and survive a recall and will President Obama create jobs and rescue us from this recession? Not sure. Will Prof. Tiefel still be at Grace in 5 years? Fritz Horn in 7 years? Pastor Huebner in 10 years? Not sure. Then where is our sure hope? In whom is our certainty? How can we put our heads on the pillow at night and say “Amen” to God knowing, without a doubt, that everything is okay in our hearts, homes, church, nation, and world? There is only one answer. One hero. One Savior. The Lamb. He’s the star of John’s visions immediately before and after this vision in chapter 7. And if the fifth angel who appears in this vision doesn’t represent the Lamb, who is our Savior Jesus Christ, he sure looks a lot like him. The word describing this angel’s “coming up” is the same word the Bible uses for the ascension of Jesus Christ to his exalted position at the right hand of God. This angel already possesses “the seal of the living God,” and he takes command over the four angels.

            We clearly see the Lamb in the vision following this one receiving the worship of all the saints, who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 8:14). That same Lamb, in the vision preceding this one, is the only one in heaven and earth who can open the seals to the scroll. The scroll is an urgent message to sinners from God about where we stand with God, especially in the future. Each seal is a dramatic event that determines the fate of believers, and by his ability to open each seal Jesus, the Lamb of God, shows his authority over all evil, all good, hell, heaven, yesterday, today, tomorrow, and everything in between. His blood covers it all. His resurrection covers it all. His keeping of the law, his ascension to heaven, cover it all and save all of us from all our sins. These are the marks, the seals themselves, that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is worthy to save, Sealed to Serve. Pictured for us at the Grace Church altar whenever we worship, sitting with authority on the book-like scroll, the Lamb is our only Savior, who has sealed forever the payment for sin and the promise of forgiveness. Nobody else saves. Nobody else can fulfill his promises. Nobody else knows you like he does and still likes you—yes, loves you to death. And nobody else asks as much of you as he does, either. 

The Church

            There’s a part of you, like me, that resents the idea of being asked to do more than what is convenient or what is comfortably familiar. And then the same part of us claims that we’re good with God because of our behavior as church people, or our denominational brand that gets doctrine right. We’re good with God because we’ve suffered enough to deserve his everlasting pity, or performed enough to deserve his everlasting praise, or our Lutheran pedigree puts us at the front of the line. According to Jesus none of this saves us. Ask it to, and the winds of this world, when released by God’s angels, will sweep you away in their grasp of death to be separate from God forever. Your certainty for being right with God cannot come from anything man-made, or any person including Peter, any priest, the pope, a pastor, or a parent but according to Jesus in today’s gospel, comes “by my Father in heaven…on this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18). Peter had just confessed his faith in Jesus Christ. That’s the rock, the security, the seal. Jesus promises that the Church–all Christians everywhere–is his. We belong to him. Our sins belong to Jesus, and he has paid their curse. Our fears belong to Jesus, and he calms their storm. Our future belongs to Jesus, and he builds us mansions in heaven. That’s a rock solid promise to all believers. Sealed.

             In John’s day, cattle were branded to indicate ownership. More than that, slaves and soldiers were tattooed to be identified if they were stolen. So in John’s vision when a group of 144,000 receive a seal, that seal is a mark of ownership, “a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” We don’t literally tattoo our foreheads today, but our seal is real. God owns us. He claims us. He calls us to his service. The number 144,000 is the sum total of 12x12x10x10x10. Twelve is the number of the church, often pictured as the twelve tribes of Israel, which is symbolic representation of all believers of all nations and all times. Ten is the number of completeness. Therefore, 144,000 is a symbolic number representing the real total of all real believers who are completely saved and completely sealed. Your salvation is complete. No extra credit is needed.

            Last weekend almost 3,000 names were revealed, etched on the 9/11 memorial. Those who died, forever inscribed, never forgotten. There is another name etched forever. Sealed on us. Jesus, the living Lamb of God. His death for us will never be forgotten. And by his resurrection he lives, in us. Nothing is more certain. Amen.

 

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on September 18, 2011

Services

Sundays 7:45, 9:00 & 10:30 am

Mondays 6:30 pm

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1209 North Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 | (414) 271-3006

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