171. The Seven Stars

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Christ is presenting himself as the Lord of this new cosmos, and he's holding his new covenant rulers in his hand who are shining through him to illuminate his gospel to a brand new creation.

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 171,

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The Seven Stars. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast.

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We are knee deep in our series on Revelation, and today we're continuing our deep dive into John's first vision, which is detailed for us in Revelation 1, 12 through 20.

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Now, in this vision, we see the stage is set for the rest of the book. All of the major plot lines are beginning here, and we've seen that Jesus is calling for the day of the

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Lord, the long prophesied eschatological day of fury and judgment and vengeance upon his enemies.

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That day foretold by both the major and the minor prophets is now, in the first century, coming to pass.

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The covenant curses are being poured out upon apostate Israel, the

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Jews who broke faith with Yahweh, who pierced his son, and who are now presented in this book as the enemies of God.

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Their temple, their sacrificial system, their priesthood, their feast, all of it would be taken away from them because of their rebellion and apostasy and would be given to the believing church of God.

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That church, the true Israel of God, as Paul calls her, is not gonna be cast out or cut off.

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She is gonna be protected, preserved, and purified, and made fruitful and multiplied by her

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. She's gonna flourish. And we know that this is

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Jesus's intention because of how he appears in the vision of Revelation. In the first vision of Revelation, which is chapter one, 12 through 20,

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Jesus, we see him walking among the lampstands like a priest inside of the holy place of the temple, tending the flames, trimming the candle wicks, ensuring that the fire never goes out.

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But the lampstands in this vision are no longer tucked away behind the veil or inside of a dusty temple, no.

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They're no longer confined to a hidden place that no one but a select few people can see.

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Now, in this vision, there's not just one golden lampstand that's hidden, there's seven golden lampstands spread across Asia Minor, and now all of them are shining publicly.

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The glory of the new and better temple is made manifest here in Revelation one that now the temple of God has exploded out of the sanctuary and into the world.

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And Jesus, the true and faithful high priest, is in the midst of these lampstands, serving and keeping and preserving them because under his ministry, his bride will never go dark.

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Now, today, we're gonna continue looking at this vision by turning to the third group of people that's introduced in this passage, which are the pastors.

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If you'll remember, the first group of people introduced in Revelation one are the apostate Jews. They're the ones who pierce the sun and they're the ones who are gonna wail whenever he comes and they're gonna scream and they're gonna weep and they're gonna gnash their teeth because of their apostasy.

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That's the first group, the Jews. The second group is the church, the new covenant lampstands who are being tended by and cared directly by Jesus.

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And then today, the third group, the pastors, are represented by seven stars in this very first vision.

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And they're people whom Jesus addresses directly and he holds personally accountable.

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So in this episode, we're gonna read Revelation one, 12 through 20, we're gonna unpack what it means for Jesus to hold these seven stars in his right hand and we're gonna explore why this matters for us today.

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So with that, let us turn to Revelation one, 12 through 20. Let's read it and then we're gonna dive right in.

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This is what the passage says. Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me and having turned,

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I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the middle of the lampstands, I saw one like the son of man clothed in a robe reaching to the feet and girded across his chest with a golden sash.

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His head and his hair were white like wool, like snow and his eyes were like a flame of fire.

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His feet were like burnished bronze when it had been made to glow in the furnace. And his voice was like the sound of many waters.

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In his right hand, he held seven stars and out of his mouth came a sharp two -edged sword.

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And his face was like the sun shining in its strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man and he placed his right hand on me saying, do not be afraid.

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I am the first and the last and the living one. And I was dead and behold, I am alive forevermore.

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And I have the keys of death and of Hades, therefore, write the things which you have seen and the things which are and the things which will take place after these things.

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As for 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 lampstands are the seven churches.

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Revelation 1, 12 through 20. And that brings us to part one. Who are the seven stars?

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In Revelation 1, 16, John describes the glorified Christ as holding seven stars in his right hand.

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And then in verse 20, Jesus explains what the stars represent. He says, as for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, the seven stars are the seven angels of the seven churches.

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Now, the interpretation of that statement could not be more important because the rest of the letter, especially chapters two and three, are addressed directly to the angels of these churches.

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And if we misidentify who these figures are, then we're gonna misread the entire structure of Jesus's address to his church.

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Now, the key to all of this lies in the Greek word that is translated in English as angel.

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The Greek word is angelos. In English, this word has taken on a kind of technical meaning which is like spirits, celestial spirits who are glowing and who have wings and who fly around with harps.

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And we've imported a lot of that meaning onto this Greek word angelos.

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But in the first century Greco -Roman world, especially in the Greek New Testament, the word doesn't mean winged angel.

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It could mean that, but it doesn't always mean that. What it actually means is messenger.

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That's what the word literally translates as. It means messenger. Now, in the

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Bible, a messenger can be a heavenly messenger or it can be a human messenger depending entirely upon the context.

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The word describes the function of the person or of the being that's delivering the message, not necessarily the being itself.

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In fact, throughout the New Testament, angelos regularly refers to human beings.

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When Jesus, for instance, described John the Baptist, he quoted the Old Testament and he said, behold,

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I send my angelos before you, Matthew 11 .10.

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Jesus is not saying that John the Baptist is an angel, that God sent

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John the Baptist. He was an angel in heaven and God sent him and he did his part. He was beheaded and he went back to heaven.

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That's not what Jesus is saying. He's saying that John was a man who was sent as a messenger by God.

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That's what the word angelos in this passage means. So when John the Baptist sent his own disciples, you'll remember in the gospels,

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John the Baptist has his own disciples. Jesus has his disciples, John has his. When John sent his disciples to question

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Jesus, Luke says that the angeloi, that's the plural form of angelos, when the angeloi of John had left,

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Luke 7 .24. Again, here we're not talking about John sending his angels to go question

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Jesus, we're talking about him sending his messengers. These men are not spirits, they're delivering a message.

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And the term in that sense is functional and not necessarily metaphysical.

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And with that in mind, when Revelation 2 -3 opens up with this letter that's addressed to the angelos of the churches of Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum and so on, the most natural reading is that these are human leaders called pastors, that these are men tasked with bearing

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God's word to the congregations. In fact, everything in the context of this passage confirms this.

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These angels, angelos, they're called to repent in chapters two and three.

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They're rebuked for their failures. They're praised for their faithfulness.

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They're warned of judgment. That would make no sense if these were heavenly beings.

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Angels are never told in the Bible to repent. There's a moment where angels fall away from grace, but they're never told to repent.

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They either remain in God's service or they fell. That's it. They don't get a chance to repent, angels don't.

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Nowhere in the Bible are angels rebuked. Nowhere else in the Bible are angels corrected, threatened, or called to reform their behavior.

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But pastors are. It's a very common theme that God shares to pastors to do to reform their behavior.

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So it seems very clear to me that this is talking about pastors. Here's another thing. Jesus doesn't write to the congregations directly.

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He writes to the men who are responsible for these congregations, and that makes perfect sense in the

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New Testament model of church governance. The overseers, the episkopoi, or the presbyteros.

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In English, you would look at that as bishop or elder. They're the ones who are charged with guarding the flock, teaching sound doctrine, and rebuking those who contradict it,

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Titus 1 .9 and many others. The author of Hebrews even tells us, tells believers to obey their leaders as those who will give an account,

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Hebrews 13 .17. That's exactly what's happening in Revelation 2 .3. Jesus is holding the pastors accountable.

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He's addressing the churches by addressing the one man who is most responsible for its condition, and that's the elder or the pastor of the church.

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Now, if Jesus meant to refer to literal angels, that would create enormous theological problems in this passage.

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For one, it would imply that angels can be pastors of churches, because Jesus is talking to the leader of that church.

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It would imply that angels are the ones who are governing local churches, that angels are the ones who are bearing moral guilt for human sin.

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It would mean that Jesus is issuing prophetic warnings to spirits through physical letters that were being sent to earthly churches.

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None of that makes sense. Letters don't get sent to angels, and angels don't get exiled in churches on earth.

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Parchment doesn't circulate in the heavenly courtroom, and it doesn't somehow leak down into Asia Minor.

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But these pastors absolutely would have received a handwritten letter from their brother

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John as a message from Jesus to them and their congregations.

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I mean, that's how biblical correspondence works. Paul sends a letter to the elders of Corinth who would read that and share that message with the

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Corinthians. Paul writes a letter to the elders at Galatia who would share that message with the Galatians.

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This is just how biblical correspondence works. And here, Christ is sending a word by the pen of John through his messengers to deliver it to his

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Asia Minor churches. That's not a stretch. That's not me infusing some kind of interpretive lens on this, that's just reading the only possible view that makes sense of the passage.

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And we have biblical warrant because more, so many passages that use the word angelos are talking about human messengers.

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We see it here in this passage that Christ is praising, he's rebuking, he's instructing, he's warning these men on how they serve in their congregation.

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And that entire framework depends upon the angel of the church being a man who leads and who shepherds and who cares for and who bears the responsibility for that church.

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That's what a pastor is, he's a messenger, he's a divinely appointed voice, he's called to deliver what

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Christ has spoken to the bride. He's not a creator of content, he's not an innovator of content, he's not flying around on a cloud with a harp, he's not a guru and he's not a, he's a herald.

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I mean, even the symbolism supports this interpretation. Stars have long been used in scripture to represent human leaders.

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For instance, Joseph saw the sun, the moon and the stars bowing down to him and in the passage, his father realized that he was talking about him, his wife and his children,

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Genesis 37, nine through 10. In that passage, the sun, the moon and the stars represents the family of Jacob.

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Daniel 12 speaks about the righteous shining like stars in the sky.

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The idea is that these heavenly lights and how they shine against the darkness of the sky is applied now to earthly servants, where they're gonna be shining in the midst of a darkened world.

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Philippians two talks about this in relation to us. The idea of heavenly light being applied to earthly servants is not novel in the

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Bible, it's not new and in Revelation, the imagery is clear. Jesus is standing in the midst of lampstands, which are representing churches, he's holding the stars, which are the pastors and he's speaking to both of them to shine your light boldly, faithfully and brightly in the midst of a darkened and crooked world.

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He's the one who governs the churches. He's the one who is governing them through these men that he's appointed to proclaim the word called pastors.

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He's the one who's walking among the lampstands. He's the one who's holding his pastors in the palm of his hand, making sure that they do the work that he's called them to do and it's not an accident that he holds them.

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I mean, that image conveys both authority and intimacy because why pastors are not free agents.

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They're not freelancers. They are his men and they're held accountable to him.

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If they don't speak his word faithfully, if they tolerate sin, if they abandon their calling, he's warning them that they will be removed, not just from the churches, but from his hand, which is a threatening, terrifying proposition.

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And this sets the tone for the entire book because before judgment falls on the apostate

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Jews, before Rome is gonna be brought to ruin in the 400s AD, before the beast is gonna be unmasked or the harlot falls,

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Jesus is speaking to his shepherds and he doesn't bypass them.

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He doesn't work around them. He doesn't give them a pass. He doesn't bury their faults in the sands so that no one sees them.

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He calls them to account. Judgment begins in the household of God. And he reminds them that he's the one who governs his kingdom through faithful messengers.

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He's the one who brings them to speak. He's the one who gives them authority so that they can serve in the strength of his power and of his grip.

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Brothers and sisters, these stars are not symbolic. Abstractions, they're not ethereal beings floating in the heavens.

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They are flesh and blood men in local churches who were being addressed by the risen

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Christ, charged to bear his word, and they were being held in the palm of his hand.

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Now, now that we know that, who they are, we're ready to ask the question what this image means.

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Why did Jesus use stars in order to communicate something about his pastors? What's the theological weight of this metaphor?

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What does it tell us about the office of pastor, the function of pastor, and the danger of pastor? And that's what we're gonna unpack in our next section, which is part two, why are there seven stars?

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Now that we've identified the stars in Christ's hands as human messengers, as pastors of local churches, the natural question follows, why are they represented as stars?

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Why does Jesus use specific images to describe these men? Well, the answer is not only theological, but cosmological, covenantal even, and deeply scriptural.

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You see, in the biblical world, stars aren't just pretty dots in the sky, they're rulers.

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The first time, in fact, that stars appear in scriptures, Genesis 1 .16, where God created the sun and the moon and the stars, and he created them to govern the day and the night.

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Their purpose wasn't just to shine, but it was to rule. They were given dominion over time and over seasons and over light, and that pattern never goes away in the

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Bible. Stars in the Bible are never just lights, they're authorities. They symbolize order, dominion, and they symbolize heaven's government.

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And that's exactly how Joseph understood his dream in Genesis 37. When he dreamed that the sun and the moon and the stars were gonna be bowing down to him, he was interpreting it to mean that his father and mother and brothers were going to be in service to him.

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And his father, like we said before, didn't miss the point. He said, shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you,

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Genesis 37 .10? I mean, in the dream, the stars are rulers, they're members of the covenant household and family who are exercising authority, and yet that authority is gonna eventually bow down to Joseph, who

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God's gonna elevate as the second in command in Egypt. So there you have it.

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Later, when God pronounces judgment on Judah, stars fall,

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Isaiah 34. He says that the host of heaven will wear away and the sky will be rolled up like a scroll and all of their host will also wither away.

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I mean, of course that's cosmic imagery, but it's also covenantal judgment. When the rulers of nations falls in the

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Bible, it's often described in the terms of stars falling from the sky.

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There's so many examples of this that we've covered in our Matthew 24 series, where stars fall out of the sky to demonstrate

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Babylon falls, Assyria falls, Edom falls, Judah falls.

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Every time a nation is being judged by God, God is signaling that judgment, not with literal astronomy, but with theological astronomy.

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To fall as a star is for a nation to lose dominion.

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To be a star is to rule in that sense.

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And this symbolic language is used everywhere in prophetic literature. In Daniel 8 .10, a little horn grows up and cast down some of the host of heaven and then tramples the stars.

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Again, this is not a horn running around in the Milky Way, jumping and trampling on top of stars.

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That's not what the meaning of the text is actually getting at. The context is human authorities, priests and rulers in Jerusalem are gonna be brought low by this figure that Daniel is talking about.

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The stars are the covenant leaders of the covenant nation who are about to fall and be trampled on.

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That's what the passage is talking about. And this is exactly the imagery that Jesus picks up in Matthew 24 when he warns of Jerusalem destruction.

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He says that the stars are gonna fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens are gonna be shaken,

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Matthew 24 .29. That happened in AD 70. It wasn't an astronomical catastrophe where stars are literally falling out of heaven.

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It's a covenantal curse. The lights of the old order were being extinguished.

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The rulers of the Jewish world were being replaced. The Pharisees, the scribes, the Sadducees, the priests, the

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Sanhedrin were being cast down. Their system was collapsing. Their lights are going out.

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So what is Jesus doing here in Revelation? He's introducing the fact that the old covenant world is failing.

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Their stars are falling out of the sky. Their priests are falling. Their leaders are falling.

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Their aristocracy, their Sanhedrin, their Pharisees, their Sadducees, all of them are falling.

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So that in Revelation, what Jesus is doing is he's introducing the fact that he's making a new cosmos.

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He's making a new creation. He's making a new heaven and earth. And at the center of Jesus's new heaven and earth are new stars.

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And who are these new stars? At the center of Jesus's universe is pastors.

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No longer Judah, no longer the Jewish elite, but the pastors of local churches now are at the center of Jesus's governmental hierarchy.

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In the biblical storyline, we can prove it over and over and over again, stars aren't just rulers.

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They are rulers of light. They govern by illumination. They don't invent the light, but they carry the light.

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And that's exactly what pastors are meant to be. They're not the source of the truth, but they're appointed to shine the truth.

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They don't author the scriptures, but they herald it. They don't own the church, but they oversee it under Christ.

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They are the stars only because they orbit the sun, literally. The moment that they stop reflecting his light, they stop being stars.

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And this also explains why there are seven of them in Jesus's new constellation.

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In Revelation, seven is not a random number. It's a theological symbol of fullness, of perfection, of covenant completeness.

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There are more than seven churches in Asia Minor at the time that this book was written.

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There's not just seven. There's churches in Asia Minor, maybe 10, 15, 20 churches in Asia Minor when this book is being written.

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But Jesus chose these seven as a representative of the whole, seven being God's perfect, complete number so that this constellation is not random.

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It's designed. Christ is presenting himself as the Lord of this new cosmos, and he's holding his new covenant rulers in his hand who are shining through him to illuminate his gospel to a brand new creation.

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They are the lights that are shining in this dark world. This is the new creation world that Jesus is bringing light out of darkness.

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They are, his pastors are, his rulers of light to a restored people who've been transferred out of darkness and into his shining light -filled kingdom.

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But the image is not just one of beauty. It's also one of gravity.

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Stars fall. Stars can be cast down. The very image that Jesus uses to dignify these men is also the image that warns them that if they're not careful and if they're not humble and if they don't do what

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Christ tells them to do, that they will be no different than the apostate Jews who are falling out of their place of rule.

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He's holding them in his hand because they're secure in his love.

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He's holding them in his hand because they're not self -sufficient in their service. They don't float.

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They don't hold themselves up. And if they, but if they abandon their post, if they lose their light, if they preach a different gospel, if they don't do what

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Jesus says, he can let them go. Just like the stars of the old covenant that have fallen.

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That's what revelation is about. The judgment of the old world and the establishment of a new world with new stars.

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And in that new world, the stars are Christ's faithful pastor.

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And when I say stars, I don't mean celebrity. That's stupid. I mean stars in the biblical sense.

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The ones who rule with light, the ones who shine the light of the gospel from the pulpit, the ones who herald the word of God, the ones who uphold the church through Jesus's own grip, who point to the shining glory of his majesty.

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That's what I mean by stars. The ones who shine light on the church, the light of the gospel of Jesus.

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That's what it means to be a star. Not to be famous, not to be followed, not to be an influencer, but to be faithful.

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To shine with borrowed light from the sun, to stand in the firm hand of Christ and to lead his people in the darkness with the truth.

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In the ancient world, even the constellations were really important for travel because at night it was very dark.

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So they would use the stars to know what direction that they're supposed to take. What else is, what better metaphor for what a pastor is than that?

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That when the people who live in darkness are looking to these shining examples of Christ to know where to go to find him, to know what direction

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Christ would lead us. Again, the pastors are not inventing the light, they're just shining the light of Christ.

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And now that we understand that, we understand who they are and why the term star is used.

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Now another crucial question remains, why are they in his hand? What does it mean for Jesus to hold them?

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And especially why is he holding them in his right hand? Why is he not holding them in his left hand? What does that mean?

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Is it just about protection? Is it ownership or is it something deeper that's going on? Maybe it could mean something like accountability.

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That's what we need to explore next in part three. Where are the seven stars?

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Now the text tells us not just who the stars are or what they symbolize, but it also tells us where they are.

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They're in his right hand, John says. And that is not an incidental detail in biblical literature.

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The right hand is never just an anatomical description of randomness.

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In biblical theology, the right hand is never just an anatomical description, it's a description of power.

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At the right hand is where the power is so that if a king places someone at his right hand, he's placing him in a position of authority and rule and power.

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This is why when Jesus ascends to heaven, he ascends to the right hand of God. This is why the prophets talk about the right arm of God being the arm of his power and his might.

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It's not just a random description. The right hand represents the power and the authority of a king's rule.

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In that sense, it represents a throne. It represents a courtroom. It represents authority. It represents all of these different pieces of supreme authority, which is why in Psalm 110, which is the most quoted

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Psalm in all of the New Testament, God says to the Messiah, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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That's not about seating preference. That's not about a seating chart. That's about ruling the universe.

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Jesus is not given the corner office in heaven. He's given the executive center of creation at the right hand of the

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Father Almighty, where he's gonna rule and where he's gonna reign, where he is gonna have dominion and responsibility.

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The right hand is the seat of power. So why does

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Jesus hold pastors, these stars, in his right hand? Well, first and foremost, it means that they belong to him.

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They don't rule independently. They're not authorities unto themselves. They don't get to make it up. They don't get to invent how they do ministry.

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They are owned by Christ. They are slaves of Christ. They are delegated by Christ.

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They don't derive their power from popularity or denomination or credentials. The power of a pastor is real, but it's only real in so much as it's tethered and connected to Christ.

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The image of the right hand is so important in the biblical literature.

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It's found earlier in Revelation 1 .16, where he says, in his right hand, he held seven stars.

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The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. That is reinforcing this idea that Christ wants you to see that pastors are in his grasp.

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They're not merely supervised by Christ. They are possessed by Christ. They are men appointed by Christ.

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They are men entrusted with the authority of Christ. They are men who are answerable to Christ.

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And that gives us at least three implications of what this right hand means.

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It means that pastors have a specific authority being in his right hand.

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They have a kind of intimacy with Christ being in his right hand, and they have an accountability unto

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Christ being in his right hand. Let's look at each of those three for a moment. Authority is number one. To be in Christ's right hand is to be invested with real authority,

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God -ordained authority that cuts across both this modern egalitarian, even jellyfish movement, and the kind of postmodern suspicion of leadership.

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Jesus gives these men real authority, real leadership, real gifts of service,

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Ephesians 4 .11, and he charges them to use those gifts to keep watch over the souls of men and those who, as those who are gonna give account,

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Hebrews 13 .17. This authority is not just decorations.

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It's not optional. It's a dominion of divine origin that God places on these men.

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It's not autonomous. Pastoral authority is not earned through creativity.

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It is not inherited through bloodline, and it is not invented by silly imaginations.

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It is assigned. It is supervised. These pastors don't float in churches any more than stars float in space.

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They are anchored by and gripped by the right hand of Christ.

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That means that no pastor can speak beyond the word of God because they're gripped by him, the living word.

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No preacher can rewrite the terms of the covenant because they're gripped by Jesus.

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No shepherd can rightly stray from Christ without forfeiting his right to lead.

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If a man tries to shine something other than Christ, apart from Christ, he's not a star.

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He's a spark on his way to oblivion. So in that sense, there's an authority that comes from Christ, tethered to Christ, and it must be obeyed and honored if that man would stay with Christ.

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Number two, there's an intimacy being in the right hand. The right hand is not just a symbol of rule.

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It's a symbol of nearness. Christ doesn't keep his pastors on a chain. He keeps them close to him, intimate to him.

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And this isn't a kind of coldness or a kind of control or a kind of micromanagement.

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This is Jesus covenantally caring for his pastors.

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The same hand that holds the stars in his hand is the same hand that was pierced on the cross.

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It's the same hand who governs the universe, who laid down his life for his sheep, who now is holding his undershepherds nearest to his heart.

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This changes how we think of pastoral ministry even, because Jesus isn't calling pastors to be distant, unloved

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CEO types who review a quarterly report. He walks among the lampstands,

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Revelation 2 .1. He's with pastors. He knows their toil.

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He knows their tears. He knows their trials. He knows the weight of the labor of ministry and the warfare that they're facing.

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And he knows the persecutions and the trials that they're going through. And he doesn't just support them from afar.

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He comes near to them. He grips them. He brings them into covenantal closeness. He walks with them.

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He upholds them. And when necessary, he even disciplines them with the same hand that he uses to comfort them because he loves them.

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So pastors, remember that Christ holds you. Remember that your ministry is not falling apart ultimately, but that Christ is holding you secure because he loves you.

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And yeah, he may discipline you. And yeah, he may squeeze sometimes the things out of you that needs to be squeezed out of you, but he loves you and he's holding you.

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Stay faithful to him, pastor. Number three, there's an accountability that comes with being in the right hand of Christ.

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To be in the right hand of Jesus is to be under the watchful eye of Jesus. You're not just held up by Jesus, you're held to an account by Jesus.

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And Revelation two through three makes this abundantly clear. Each of the seven letters to these specific seven churches are written with a personal evaluation from Christ on how that church is doing.

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He's giving a progress report to the pastor because he knows their deeds.

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He names their sin. He threatens the lampstand. This is not sentimental feathered hair

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Jesus who's everything you do is just so great and I'll put your artwork on my refrigerator,

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Jesus. This is the reigning Lord of glory calling his generals to stand at attention and he's assessing whether or not they've been faithful.

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Being in Christ's right hand means that you don't get to drift. You don't get to dim.

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You don't get to go off mission because the hand that holds you is the same hand that could cast you aside if you abandoned him.

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Revelation two five is Jesus speaking to the pastor at Ephesus. And he's saying, remember your first love and repent or else

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I'm coming to you and I will remove your lampstand from its place. He says something similar to the others that if they don't repent, they will be removed.

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That's not theoretical. That's covenantal, that's historical.

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Churches that forget the gospel are extinguished by Jesus. Maybe not today, maybe not even tomorrow.

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But the Christ who sees all will take the lampstand of those churches that abandoned him.

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You can mark it as an inevitable certainty. This is why pastoral ministry is the highest calling in the church but also the most terrifying calling because you're not working for a denomination.

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You're not representing yourself. You are held by Christ and you want to answer to Christ.

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If you grow lazy in your calling, if you preach lies to your congregation or if you abuse your authority, the grip will tighten around you and the judgment will fall upon you.

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But if you stay close to him, if you shine for him, if you lead with truth and love for him, then his grip will sustain you and empower you and keep you and hold you and hold you up as you serve and it will be a comfort to you if you're faithful.

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You're not a floating light in the middle of a stratosphere. You're not a self -standing, self -sustaining man.

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You're a slave of Christ and you're held in the sovereign hand of your master.

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And in the next section, we're gonna explore what this means not just for the pastor but for the church because we need to understand also what's the relationship between the star and the lampstand because Jesus is walking among the lampstands holding seven stars.

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So what's the relationship between the lampstand, the church and the stars, the pastors and how does this entire constellation fit together?

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As we close and we will look at that in part four. What are the seven stars for?

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Now that we've identified who the stars are, the pastors of the churches and where they are, they're being held in the right hand of Christ, well, we need to understand what they are for.

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What is their role? What is their purpose? What is their relationship to the churches and why does Jesus show this connection between the pastors and the lampstands in such a vivid and cosmic and visionary way?

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Well, Revelation 1 .20 gives us the framework. It says, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

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Now, this isn't just a helpful decoder key, this is a blueprint for what these two roles are gonna be, the church and the pastor.

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In this one verse, Jesus reveals how his kingdom is gonna be structured, how the new world that he's making in Revelation 1 is gonna be organized because pastors are the stars, the churches are the lampstands and Christ is the high priest celestial king who walks in their midst.

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So for a moment, I'm just gonna sketch out how all of this works so that we can see from last week what we learned, this week what we're learning and so that we can see how the church is supposed to function in the new world.

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In the Old Testament, in the tabernacle, the lampstand or the menorah stood in the holy place.

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It was the seven -branched gold -crafted tree of life that was supposed to burn continually before the

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Lord. It symbolized the light of God's presence among his people, but it didn't glow automatically. A priest had to come and intend it.

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He had to refill the oil, he had to trim the wicks, he had to make sure that it would continue burning as a perpetual burning offering into the

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Lord forever, Leviticus 24, one through four. If the lampstand went dark, it meant that something desperately wicked had gone wrong.

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Either sin had broken fellowship between God and his people or the priest had become lazy and they had neglected their duties.

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The light was not to go out and it was only extinguished by unfaithfulness.

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In Zechariah 4, the prophet sees a vision of the golden lampstand with seven lamps and two olive trees providing oil.

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And the meaning of this is, he says, not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the

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Lord, that the light of God's presence would return to his people. Not by their strength, but by his provision.

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And the vision in this is clear. If God's people are gonna shine as lights, it's gonna require both the work of his

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Holy Spirit and the proper function of his new temple. The vision that now explodes into the book of Revelation is that the lampstands are no longer physical objects in a physical tabernacle, but they are the church of the living

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God as lights who are supposed to shine in the world. They are congregations who are set up to shine in the darkness.

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And Jesus is walking among them as a priest inside of the sanctuary, examining their flame, correcting what is lacking, encouraging what is faithful, and threatening to remove any of them who refuse to repent and follow him.

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He's not a distant God, he is not dormant, he is active, he is watchful, and he's Lord over his church.

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But the lampstand is just a stand. It's not sufficient by itself.

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In the same way that a candle is not sufficient without a flame. In the same way that the

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Old Testament Nora required fire and oil in order for it to actually shine.

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In the New Testament, the lampstand requires something similar. And that's where the pastor comes in.

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Jesus doesn't send letters to the congregation, he sends them to the pastor. Seven church letters to seven pastors, to seven angels of seven churches.

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And the pastor is the one addressed because he's the one accountable for how brightly the church shines.

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He stands as a representative head under Christ for the local body. His task is not to simply manage

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Christian services and not to perform a liturgy. Those are important things, but that's not his only things.

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His task is to proclaim the truth of the gospel, to guard the doctrine of the church, to safeguard the sheep, and to steward the spiritual flame of the church so that the lampstand actually shines.

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The pastor is a kind of flame. James Jordan's observation is really helpful here.

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He points out in the biblical imagery that the star placed atop the lampstand was like a flame that was sitting on top of a wick.

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That's the picture that Revelation is painting. The lampstand is the church, the pastor's bringing the fire of the gospel so that now the lampstand has a flame and so that the flame is now shining forth and brightly.

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That's the picture that Revelation is painting. The pastor is sitting atop the church, not as a tyrant, not as a celebrity, but as a visible, spirit -empowered representative of the flame of Christ.

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He's not the source of light, Jesus is, but he is the steward of the flame. His words, his teaching, his example all have to be forged in the crucible of the fires of the gospel.

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He's the one who is helping the church shine brightly for Jesus in a darkened world.

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That's why the relationship between the pastor and the church is so serious. If the pastor goes dark, the church will grow dim.

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If the pastor compromises the truth, the people will drift into error. If the pastor neglects the sheep, then the wolves are gonna gain ground.

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In short, most churches do not fall because of sudden catastrophic events.

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They fall because the men who are charged with watching the flame let it go out slowly, week by week, little by little, without a fight.

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But when the pastor shines, when he preaches the fiery word of God boldly, and when he repents when he fails, and when he leads with love and truth, and when he brings the church of God to the light of the world,

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Jesus Christ, then the church flourishes. Then the lampstand burns brightly, and it's like a lighthouse on top of a rocky cliff shining out across the ocean, all of the ships that are coming into harbor.

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The presence of Christ is known when a pastor is flourishing. That's what we're meant to see here, that Christ is governing his church through order, through structure, through a relationship between a local body and a local pastor that he is holding in his right hand.

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This is covenantal headship on the local church level, not in the way that a culture fears it, not domination, but representation.

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Just as Adam represented humanity, just as Moses represented Israel, just as David represented his kingdom, so also the pastor is representing the church before Christ, not perfectly, not independently, but covenantally.

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And when Christ comes and evaluates a church, he begins with the pastor.

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This is why Revelation 2 -3 begins with the man. The letters to Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum, Matthiah, Tyre and Sardis and Philadelphia and Laodicea, all of them begin with to the angel, to the pastor, and the implication of that is unavoidable.

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If the lampstand is struggling, then Christ is holding the pastor responsible, at least first, and that is a burden, but it's not a burden that's designed to crush men, it's a call that's designed to humble them.

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The man who stands behind the pulpit must never forget where he stands in Christ's kingdom.

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He's not on his own, he's held, he's accountable, and if he remains faithful in his service, then his church will shine brightly for Christ.

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So in conclusion, what are the seven stars? They're the pastors. What are the lampstands?

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They are the churches. What is the combination of these two things together? If the pastor serves faithfully and shepherds the congregation in righteousness and points them to the truth of Christ, the church will shine brightly in a darkened world, and the darkness will not overcome her.

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The darkness will flee as the light of Christ radiates from a faithful church.

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That's what Revelation is saying, that Jesus reigns, that he's not absent from his people, that he holds his pastors in the palm of his hand, that he examines his churches with love, that he prunes them, that he trims them, that he cares for them, that he actually is trying to make their fire and their light burn all the brighter so that the congregation will glow with the warmth of heaven in a world that still smells like hell.

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And with that, that leads us to our conclusion. What we've seen today is that the seven stars are the pastors that Jesus is holding in his right hand.

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And I wanna speak directly right now to the pastors here in this conclusion. If you're a pastor and you're listening to this,

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I want you to take heart. I want you to lift up your head. I want you to stand your ground in a culture that hates

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Christ. I want you to work with vigor and with passion because you're not alone.

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You've not been abandoned. You're not spinning aimlessly somewhere in space, tossed by the winds of cultural compromise and ecclesiastical cowardice.

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You are held firmly, sovereignly, securely in the right hand of the reigning

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Christ. The same hand that upholds Jupiter and Saturn in the cosmos is upholding you.

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The same hand that crushed the serpent grips your ministry.

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The same hand that was pierced for your transgressions now is the one who is holding you.

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And he will keep you. And he will strengthen you. And he will purify you.

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And when the darkness is at its thickest, he will cause your light to shine all the brighter if you cling to him, brother.

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You're not called to be clever. You're not called to be cool or creative or culturally relevant.

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You're called to be faithful. You're a star, not in the spotlight as in Hollywood.

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You are a star that is meant to direct attention to the sun, to direct attention to the lamb who was slain, who in the midst of the lampstands serves his people.

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So brother, preach and pastor and shepherd and shine for Christ.

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Don't fear the wolves and don't compromise the truth. Don't abandon your post. Jesus Christ is the captain of all the hosts of heaven and you are one of his generals on earth.

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You're not expendable. You're essential to the mission. And to the

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Christians listening, I want to speak plainly. Take care of your pastor. Don't let the man who carries the flame in your local congregation grow cold and grow dim because you won't care for him and care for his burdens.

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Pray for him. Fight for your pastor. Defend him from gossip and slander.

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Encourage him when he's weary. Honor him for the labor that he's doing in the word and yes, pay your pastor and pay him well.

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Ministry is not a hobby. It is not a side hustle and it's not a pathway to wealth by no means.

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It is a holy calling that is gonna demand everything from that man.

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Where he is gonna be actually and spiritually and physically responsible unto

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Christ for the health of a congregation. So make sure that your pastor has what he needs in order to serve you with joy and not with groaning.

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I mean, for that, Hebrews tells us that it would be unprofitable for you. It's not a luxury.

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It's a covenantal necessity. When Christ wrote to the seven churches, he wrote first to the pastors.

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And when he evaluated the lampstands, he evaluated the flame and he wanted, when he wanted to change the world, he raised up men to preach the word and that's still his pattern today.

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That's still his plan. So care for the flame. Fan it, fuel it, guard it, because when that man, when that pastor burns brightly with the truth of Christ, your church is gonna glow with the glory of heaven.

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So brothers and sisters, let the stars burn bright. Let the lampstands shine.

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Let the voice of Christ thunder from every pulpit in every city across this land and let our churches and let our people and let our pastors and let our elders and let our deacons, let them all declare that Jesus Christ is king and let the darkness flee from our churches and let the men and women who live in the kingdom of darkness weep and gnash their teeth if they reject the gospel of this kingdom.

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Let the churches be bold again. Let their spines be strong again and let us, until next time, shine the light of Christ in a darkened world.

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Until next time, God richly bless you and we'll see you next time on the broadcast now.