Sermon Devotional: Heaven's Promises to Overcomers

Scripture: Revelation 2:7, 3:21 (ESV)


“Let him hear what the Spirit says.” It is essential that God’s people hear what the Spirit says. Before we conquer, we must listen; before we open the door, we must hear him knock. We must hear the Shepherd’s voice: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (Jn 10:27). We are sheep—wayward and wandering—and we have all gone astray, carrying with us the curse of those first deaf ears, the ears of our father Adam. The call, “Whoever has an ear, let him hear,” echoes from John's vision in Revelation back to the first man in that first garden: “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (Gen 2:17). But Adam does not listen. His freshly formed ears do not hear. And when the serpent comes, he does not question the Creator's identity. He simply asks Adam and Eve: Did you hear – correctly? “Did God actually say…?” The serpent challenges whether the first man and woman were truly tuned to the Creator’s voice.

Adam and Eve doubt the Creator's voice and whether they truly know him. They eat of the tree, and we all fall with them. In Adam, we are cursed to toil, pain, and death. And death is not abstract, but concrete. The LORD God removes them from the garden because of the dangers that remain: “Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever” (Gen 3:22). Yet even outside the garden, in judgment, the Creator does not stop calling “Where are you?” ever inviting his people to “Come, follow me” (Jn 1:43). But how many times have we strayed? How many times have we, like Adam, shut our ears? “Let him hear what the Spirit says.” Hearing God the Spirit speak is made possible by the One who calls, “Come, follow me.” He is the One who said, “I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me” (Jn 8:28). Jesus’ ears are tuned perfectly to his Father’s voice. He is a new Adam. A new first man. His ears opened. He is the One who perfectly hears what the Spirit says.

“The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered” (Rev 5:5). The Lion conquers as the Lamb who was slain. It is not first our ears that hear, but his; not first our strength, but his. By union with him, our deaf ears are opened, and our wandering feet are able to follow. Believers conquer “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Rev 12:11).

Praise God that we are united to him. We have received “a Spirit of adoption,” and the Spirit himself testifies that “we are children of God, and if children, then heirs” (Ro 8:15–17). In Christ, we are “more than conquerors” (Ro 8:37), and we receive the promised reward. What Adam lost by listening to the serpent, Christ restores by listening to the Father. The gift the serpent offered as a lie is now given in truth by the One who has all authority: “I will grant him to sit with me on my throne” (Rev 3:21). We do not grasp at a prize we cannot obtain. We receive our reward as a gift from the Son, “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

Consider –
╬    We may assume that we have good hearing. But do you have ears to hear what God the Spirit says? When and how do you hear the Spirit speaking? When is your hearing most tuned to God the Spirit – through scripture, prayer, worship, the Church, creation, . . .?

╬    What voices compete for your attention and obedience? If you said yes to God’s work in opening your ears, what voices and distractions would need to become quieter?

╬    Lord, you tell us that “Whoever has an ear, let them hear.” I confess that my hearing is dull and too often, my heart doesn’t want to listen. Open the eyes and the ears of my heart and enable me to recognize the voice of my good Shepherd when you invite me to follow. I pray by grace, through faith in Jesus, the Son, who listens, conquers, and leads his church to glory. In his name we pray. Amen.