Homileticians have reinforced for us the tri-part approach to “supporting material.” Every sermon addresses explanation, application and illustration. Explanation attempts to tell us what the text said. Application helps us comprehend what it says. Illustration allows us to see what it looks like.
Sometimes dashed lines separate those three categories. Explanation sometimes comes in the form of an illustration. Application occurs in the simple explanation. Illustration is often application disguised or explanation made interesting.
Given this introduction, the following examples are attempts to “explain/apply/illustrate” what I’m driving at.
Revelation 1:4-6 shows us how attention to background information and context can create an image to carry the sermon. The simplified version: John is exiled on the island of Patmos; the church has lost her preacher and the preacher has lost his church. Random reports of scattered persecution are circulating. Reports are that there has actually been martyrdom. On the other hand, churches are facing the challenge of compromise with the culture. It’s a recipe for discouragement and despair. Yet John breaks into doxology. Instead of being discouraged, he responds with an outburst of praise. How does despair become doxology? How does self-pity become sacrificial praise?
Here context provides not only the answer, but the imagery to carry the answer. First, the answer. Revelation begins as any epistle does, admittedly with some additional flair, yet horizontal in nature: “John to the seven churches in Asia, grace and peace . . . ” It’s nothing we haven’t read before in the letters of the New Testament, but something happens.
As John describes the Trinitarian author (some of the flair) he highlights the concerns faced by the church. He describes God as eternal (“who was and is and is to come”) and the Spirit as omnipresent (“seven spirits before His throne” paralleling “seven churches”). Then He turns to Jesus. Jesus is the “faithful witness,” in contrast to those who have fled the faith in the face of opposition. He is the “firstborn from among the dead,” giving hope to those who have lost loved ones to the persecution. He is the “ruler of the kings of the earth,” contrary to the Romans and their egotistical emperors.
Having so clearly identified the author of the message, suddenly John turns his attention vertical. His words are no longer aimed at his readers, but instead, pointed toward heaven. He reaches upward with a powerfully Christological doxology, “to Him who . . . ” Something has turned his attention from his circumstances and their power to degenerate into despair, to heaven and its power to elate and encourage. He’s seen a fresh vision of Jesus.