Reverend Jonathan Waits
Practicing for the Real Thing (Revelation 4-7)
April 27, 2025
Do you remember having growing pains when you were a kid? Those were awful. I remember weeks when my legs would just hurt. I hadn’t done anything. There was nothing that I could do to stop it. It didn’t really keep me from doing anything. But they hurt. I’m not sure about a precise medical reason for growing pains, but I can offer a layman’s explanation that seems to make a lot of sense. When you are getting taller, everything has to stretch. Skin gets pulled tighter as it expands. Bones get longer. Blood vessels are lengthening to match. Lung capacity is expanding to push oxygen to all the new boundaries of your body. Everything is getting yanked and pulled and stretched out. I don’t know about you, but I feel that kind of discomfort when I try to touch my toes. Now, imagine a period of several months where your whole body is doing that whether you want it to or not. But instead of the stretch ending after a few seconds, it just keeps going.
Well, what’s true about our bodies can also be true about whole organizations. When an organization starts out, you can run things fairly simply and loosely. One or two people can usually do most of what needs to be done. But as it starts to grow, not only do you need more people to handle all the work of operating it, you can’t do things in the same way you did before. Yet while on the one hand this is perfectly understandable, natural, and even desirable, on the other hand, if you are used to things operating a certain way, it can be disorienting and more than a little frustrating when you suddenly find they aren’t…or even can’t keep happening the way you’re used to them going.
This is true about organizations generally. It’s true about churches specifically. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, but this church is growing. I don’t say that as a way to pat ourselves on the back or boast about how great we are. God is the one who has done the work that’s brought us to where we are right now. If there is anything good going on among us, it is His doing, not our own. But reasons for this aside, it’s pretty hard to miss the fact that there are more people around here than there were six months ago. There are more kids and youth around here than there were six months ago.
Go back a year, and the difference is even more pronounced. Go back five years, and the difference is almost hard to believe. I keep track of how many people are here on Sunday mornings. I’ve been doing that since I got here. I keep that and several other numbers in a spreadsheet that I update weekly. Our attendance dropped by about 40% during Covid. That put us somewhere near the front edge of the national average. Well, our average now is just almost back to where it was before the Covid reset. Here’s why I note this: that 40% we have regained mostly isn’t folks who returned. It’s new people. To put that another way that will perhaps better capture the point here, nearly 50% of the people in the room right now have been here five years or less.
As far as churches go, that’s really healthy. But it’s also a little hard. That kind of reality can create an uncomfortable dichotomy between old and new. Now, this church is really unique in that its core spirit is incredibly welcoming. And I know every church wants to say that, but it’s really, especially true here. I can attest to this personally. This church has a remarkable ability to embrace folks who are new and just enfold them into the family like they’ve always been here. For many of you who are in that five-years-or-less crowd, you likely connected here at least in part because of that welcoming spirit. That’s just who this church is. Still, to add that many new people to this size of a church in that short amount of time can bring some challenges.
This isn’t something new to the church at all. In Luke’s record of the explosive growth of the early church, first in Jerusalem, then in Judea and Samaria, and finally to what he understood to be the ends of the earth, he details a number of different growing pains the church had to navigate through in those early years. From summary statements in Acts 2 and 4, we know that the growth of the first church didn’t just come in bits and pieces. It came in great leaps and bounds, with thousands coming into the church in a period of only a few months. This brought challenges from the outside as the culture around them grappled with what to do with this rapidly expanding organization. It brought internal challenges as they struggled to stay on mission in the face of these external threats, and as they worked through the character expectations they were going to hold themselves to as they moved forward together. Finally, it brought internal organizational challenges as they worked through personal biases and preferences, leadership deficits, and how those kinds of things would be allowed to impact the way they ministered to each other and engaged with the culture around them.
Any one of these challenges posed an enormous threat to the church by itself. Together, they seemed poised to completely derail its forward progress. And yet they didn’t. They failed completely in this. The church continued to grow and expand and spread throughout the city, the region, and the world. And here we are today still pursuing the same basic ends as those very first believers: the advancement of God’s kingdom into the world around us by the proclamation and faithful application of the Gospel by means of the love of Christ.
So then, what was it that enabled them to together overcome their growing pains so they could continue pursuing the mission of God in the world around them? Well, a number of things, but an exhaustive exploration of this list is beyond the scope of what we have time to tackle right now. Instead, for the rest of this week and next, in a short series called, Growing Pains, I want to take a look with you at two things that can help us go a long way toward moving through any growing pains we might experience to see the obvious work of God in our midst continue to His glory, our joy, an the transformation of our community and beyond. These two things form a major part of the foundation on which any successful and growing church can stand securely.
The first of these things that I want to spend the rest of our time today reflecting on is worship. Worship lies at the very heart of what it is that makes a church a church in the first place. We’ve talked before about the fact that the church is the gathered people of God called out for the purpose of advancing His kingdom by the means of His command to love one another as He loved us in Christ. Prayer is the fuel that allows this great project to move forward, but worship is the engine that does the actual driving. When we worship we are doing three things, all of which are of vital importance if we are to be rightly known as a people called out by God’s name.
When we worship we are acknowledging, celebrating, and participating in God’s character. At least, that’s what true, biblical worship looks like. We acknowledge with honesty and humility who God is. We proclaim His character and His characteristics. We explore those together. We share those with others. We give our whole selves to the task of revealing to the world a true and accurate picture of the God we serve so that they can see it, experience it, and follow Him too. Having acknowledged who God is, then, we celebrate Him. This is only natural for God is worthy of being celebrated. He is the greatest being in existence. When we understand who He is, celebrating with joy and gladness will always be the natural result. We can’t stop with mere celebration, though. We are not just spectators to who He is, sitting on the sidelines and applauding uproariously as He does His great works. We are the ones through whom those works are accomplished. Remember: We are called out in His name. This means we need to participate in who He is. We reveal who He is by actively demonstrating what He looks like for the people around us. So again, when we worship, we are acknowledging, celebrating, and participating in His character. All three of these must be in place or we aren’t really worshiping at all. When we get it right, though, worship is how we participate in God’s kingdom.
Okay, but why is worship such a big deal? Well, because where God is, worship happens naturally. It is a symptom of His character, of His inherent glory and majesty. Let me connect those dots for you: If where God is, worship happens naturally, then when we worship rightly, God is among us, receiving our worship. God’s presence among us is why we are seeing the things we are seeing happen. If we want more of that—and, I don’t know about you, but I definitely want more of it—then worship is what we’ve got to be doing. And yet, how we worship matters—and I don’t just mean that we get the acknowledgement, celebration, and participation right. If we really want to understand the kind of worship that glorifies God and invites His presence into our midst, the Scriptures are where we are going to have to turn for guidance. And there are few places in the Scriptures that highlight worship as well as in the book of Revelation.
What draws us to Revelation this morning is the fact that after an introductory vision and a series of letters to churches with which John was familiar, the first image John presents to us is one of the worship always happening in the presence of God. If you have your copy of the Scriptures handy, join me in Revelation 4. True to form, there are some wild images here, and we aren’t going to do a whole lot with those this morning, but there are a few different things I want to be sure you see.
“After this I looked, and there in heaven was an open door. The first voice that I had heard speaking to me [which was Jesus’ voice] like a trumpet said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.’ Immediately I was in the Spirit, and there was a throne in heaven and someone was seated on it. The one seated there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian stone. A rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald surrounded the throne. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones sat twenty-four elders dressed in white clothes, with golden crowns on their heads. Flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder came from the throne. Seven fiery torches were burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. Something like a sea of glass, similar to crystal, was also before the throne. Four living creatures covered with eyes in front and in back were around the throne on each side. The first living creature was like a lion; the second living creature was like an ox; the third living creature had a face like a man; and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings; they were covered with eyes around and inside.”
So, we have this wild-sounding scene of God seated on His throne and His royal retinue surrounding Him. Again, don’t get hung up on the imagery right now. Pay attention to this next part. “Day and night they never stop, saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God, the Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come. Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to the one seated on the throne, the one who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before the one seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne and say, “Our Lord and God, you are worthy to receive glory and honor and power, because you have created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.”
Okay, so what do we see here? This is worship. Worship is how we participate in God’s kingdom. This is a grand and glorious time of worship around God’s throne. But rather than lasting some sort of a finite time like our worship services, this is happening all the time. The twenty-four elders sing their song of praise every time the four living creatures sing theirs, but the four living creatures never stop singing their song, so the twenty-four elders must never stop either. Constant worship. They are constantly acknowledging, celebrating, and participating in the character of God. They are laying their own crowns down before Him. They are acknowledging His sovereignty by taking up a posture of submission before Him. As I said before: this is happening in God’s presence in His holy, royal throne room all the time. The heavenly ensemble never stops.
In chapter 5, John details for us another time of worship. This time, instead of God the Father receiving the praise, God the Son is the beneficiary. Jesus, our glorified Savior, is worshiped because He is worthy to reveal God’s word to us. Look with me starting in Revelation 5:6: “Then I saw one like a slaughtered lamb standing in the midst of the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders.” That is Jesus standing right in the place of God, thus equating the two in an undeniable way—don’t miss that. “He had seven horns and seven eyes [perfect strength and perfect sight], which are the seven spirits of God sent into all the earth. He went and took the scroll out of the right hand of the one seated on the throne [Jesus retrieving God’s words to be able to share them with us].”
So again, you have the vision of Jesus, and now the worship that follows. “When he took the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and golden bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slaughtered, and you purchased people for God by your blood from every tribe and language and people and nation. You made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign on the earth.’ Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels around the throne, and also of the living creatures and of the elders. Their number was countless thousands, plus thousands of thousands. They said with a loud voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing!’ I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them [that is: all of creation] say, ‘Blessing and honor and glory and power be to the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb, forever and ever!’ The four living creatures said, ‘Amen,’ and the elders fell down and worshiped.” Indeed, worship is how we participate in God’s kingdom.
There’s so much here to talk about, and I wish we had time to get into all of it right now. But there’s just one more scene I want you to see with me because this one really has an impact on how we should be thinking about worship as a church if we are going to work through any growing pains we might encounter so that we can see God’s work among us continue without interruption. Jump forward with me to Revelation 7 now.
After that second period of worship, the various seals on the scroll are opened, and each of them brings some kind of a picture of judgment to bear. Just before the last seal is opened, God commands His angels who are executing the judgment to hold off until all of His people are clearly marked so that the righteous and the unrighteous are differentiated from one another. John hears the number of those sealed. This is where the 144,000 number you have perhaps heard in relation to Revelation comes from. This is not a literal counting of heads, though, but a symbol for God having marked the complete number of saints—and there are a lot of them.
Having heard the number, John turns to look at the multitude God has gathered. Listen to what he describes in Revelation 7:9: “After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ All the angels stood around the throne, and along with the elders and the four living creatures they fell facedown before the throne and worshiped God, saying, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen.’”
So, what do we have here? John sees an image of all of God’s people, joining their voices with the heavenly chorus giving praise and honor and glory—giving worship—to our God. Worship is how we participate in God’s kingdom. But did you notice how he described this vast, uncountable multitude? It was composed of people “from every nation, tribe, people, and language.” This was an incredibly diverse group, all worshiping together as one. There was perfect unity in their worship. Let me ask you something, though: Do you think that all of these people from all of these different places with all of these different cultures worshiped in the same way with their respective church bodies? Almost assuredly not, right? I mean, our worship service as a church doesn’t look exactly the same as the Methodist church across the street. New Life’s worship is different from ours. Elevation is an entirely different service feel. The Catholic church down the road is different still. And all five of those churches are from the same region with the same basic culture. If you were to branch out to the services of churches in various other countries, things would look even more different.
Worship is how we participate in God’s kingdom, but with perhaps a bare handful of exceptions, there’s not one, single “right” way to worship. Not everyone worships in the same way. Different people connect with different aspects of the service. Even in this room, we have all sorts of different preferences. Some of you are fully engaged in what we are doing right now—preaching and studying God’s word together—but during the music you kind of check out. For others, it is the exact opposite. Still others really light up when we have quiet times of reflection and prayer and wish we would do more of that. There are folks who feel their hearts stirring when we sing more traditional hymns when we worship with music. There are other folks who are so excited when Andrew or Scott lead us on guitar that they can hardly stand it. And there are some who look forward most to our excellent choir specials.
In a book written about a generation ago now called Sacred Pathways, author Gary Thomas identifies nine distinct and unique styles of worship that God gives His people. Why such variety? Because it reflects the variety of God’s character. Yes, this amount of variety in how people best connect to God brings with it the potential for tension and disunity when one person values their preferred style above all others or looks down on other style preferences as inferior or even incorrect. But when we get it right—and we will only get it right with God’s help as we all with a spirit of constant, fervent prayer lean into His Spirit’s wisdom and graciousness—it makes our worship all the richer and fuller and deeper. Sometimes in being presented with alternative approaches to worship than we usually experience we find new ways that we connect to God. Worship is how we participate in God’s kingdom, and with the great variety of His kingdom, there is great variety in how we can worship Him.
In spite of such diversity in ways we can worship the Lord, most of us nonetheless have our own personal preferences for how we actually do it. To a significant extent, this is why we have so many different denominations and even different churches within denominations. The truth is that we like to worship the way we like to worship. This, though, brings us to one of those potential growing pain points we talked about a little while ago. Worship is how we participate in God’s kingdom, but sometimes, if we’re being really honest with ourselves, we prefer a solo experience of God’s kingdom where we can have everything suited perfectly to our tastes rather than having to bear with someone else’s tastes that we don’t happen to share. If there are a bunch of people who happen to share our same worship tastes, we’re happy to have them join us in the exercise, but the idea that we might not have things tempered to our tastes all the time is not really one we want to consider.
Yet think again about that final worship scene John described to us. It was incredibly diverse. God’s kingdom will be incredibly diverse. It will be composed of folks from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue. If worship is how we participate in God’s kingdom, and if the worship in God’s kingdom is going to be characterized by this incredible unity amid great diversity, then wouldn’t it only make sense for us to make sure that our worship here and now reflects as much diversity as we can bring to it?
What if, instead of thinking of our worship as a time when we will always sing the songs we like in the style we prefer, we thought of worship as an act of ministry to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ? Worship styles are regional and cultural, of course, but they are also generational. To put that more plainly: older people and younger people tend to not prefer the same styles of music. What if instead of insisting on our own preferences (let alone grumbling or complaining when they aren’t satisfied), we saw our times of worship as an opportunity to meet newer or younger believers where they are to make sure we are actively creating a worship environment that intentionally encourages the next generation to connect with the church? What if instead of bemoaning certain musical styles as boring or irrelevant, we saw them as an opportunity to appreciate the deep faith and rich theology of our forebears in the faith and used our times of worship as discipleship opportunities rather than merely times of singing? Do you think this might display for the world a better picture of what the wonderfully diverse kingdom of God will look like? Think of how much damage the so-called “worship wars” of a generation or so ago did to the church, its witness to the world, and the experience of the believers in it. What if our worship intentionally displayed and celebrated the great and awesome unity of God’s kingdom? Worship is how we participate in God’s kingdom.
When our worship is stylistically diverse, but characterized by unity across the body, we give the world a real taste of the kingdom of God. This unity must be driven by humility and hospitality for one another, and especially those who aren’t as far along on their journey with Jesus toward God’s kingdom as we are. It must itself be characterized by generosity and graciousness and a desire to put others first. This, after all, is what Paul told the Philippian believers would help put them in the footsteps of Jesus. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” When we apply that same spirit to our worship, it will more fully reflect the worship always happening around God’s throne and the worship that will be the defining feature of God’s kingdom. Worship is how we participate in God’s kingdom. Let’s make sure everyone within our sphere of influence as a church can participate in God’s kingdom. That’s what the church is for. Let’s be the church together.