Rev 2:29, 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.' 
We continue, this morning, with our study of this Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. As I mentioned in our introductory remarks, we will count on the Lord to guide us, as His Church, into that which He chooses in our time together. One aspect of these opening chapters that is very apparent is that this Book was inspired by the Holy Spirit with the purpose of calling forth a warning to the Church. There are various cautionary admonitions given to the seven Churches in this writing, reproofs that are appropriate in every church today.
As one commentator puts it, this is a wake up call to the current Church. It is addressed especially to those who do not sense any danger, any imminent threat. We are being told to get with it, to focus and to obey. This is what we considered in our introductory remarks focusing on Rev 1:3, Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near. 
The time is very near for us as the Body of Christ. We need to heed the warning before us to focus our entire attention and being on the Lord Jesus Christ as our life, individually and corporately. 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.' This is a stern notice that demands utter and absolute obedience and commitment in the Church as it represents God and His interest in this present day world.
	Many commentaries have been written with regard to the individual messages given to each Church. They are worth reading for the sake of what was happening in the various churches and for what God says directly to them and to us. There is much that we could focus on in each specific church, but in all prayerfulness and seeking after His direction in our considerations, it would behoove us to start with a very basic aspect of the Church. It is a reality that affects how we honor and uphold and glorify the name of God and His plan and His purpose with regard to His Church. We have been praying for months over that which is His desire for this fellowship. What does He want for us, as members of His Church?
	In the course of this seeking after Him, it seems that there is a very specific area that requires more and more of our attention. It is the ministry or work of prayer; meaningful, effective, powerful, Spirit-filled, and Spirit-led prayer. This is at the core of everything the Church is and represents on this earth.
These Revelation chapters have their very basis of understanding set in the true prayer of the Church unto God. To be overcomers to the glory of God requires absolute understanding of what it means to be prayer warriors in this present age. Please realize, recognize, and understand that prayer is the key reason that God has His Church in place on this earth. It is the single, most important mission that the Church has from God. It is not the only reason, but without prayer, true, effective, and purposeful prayer, there would be no Church. It is not the messages. It is not the worship. It is not the Bible studies. All of these are very important and necessary, but it is not these elements that are the core of God’s work in His Church. It is the work of prayer after which God has centered His heart in His Church. 
It is in prayer that the messages are given and received. It is in prayer that we truly learn to worship and glorify Him. It is in prayer that we read and study and learn His Word. It is in prayer that we are the evangelistic force that victoriously declares the salvation of God in Jesus Christ. 
If there ceases to be a meaningful and committed core of prayer warriors within a local expression of God’s Church, that local group will cease to be an effective body of believers representing God on this earth. It will simply become a social gathering of those who call themselves Christians. It will merely become a group of people who gather together for an assortment of reasons, but having lost the blessing of God’s plan and purpose in their fellowship. 
	We need to heed, to wake up, and to hear what the Holy Spirit has to say to us about our prayer as His Church, and to obey. If we fail to seek Him to teach us to pray after His heart and after His will, if we do not give ourselves to our ministry of prayer, we will most assuredly lose our testimony of His light. We will wither and die away, one by one until there is no one left. 
We are faced with that prospect, much like the church at Sardis, Rev 3:2+3. 'Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God. 'Remember therefore what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. If therefore you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you. 
	The question before us is what does it mean to pray effectively as God’s Church? Before we can answer this question, we need to understand what the purpose of the Church is on this earth. This is at the core of the why and how of prayer. When we look at prayer, we need to see it, not in terms of what we think, but of what God wills in each and every situation. For that to be the understanding and desire of our hearts, we need to comprehend, in reality, the person of Jesus Christ and our union with Him. Let us consider some of the statements of our Lord, Himself, with regard to our identification in Him. That, after all, is the key aspect of this reality of being in Him.
	John 12:44+45, … "He who believes in Me does not believe in Me, but in Him who sent Me. "And he who beholds Me beholds the One who sent Me. First, in our understanding, is the fact that we must know the Father. It is unto Him, after all, that we are instructed to pray. We need to see that Jesus Christ brought forth, in His life and teaching, the truth of Our Father Who is in Heaven. If we are in Christ, we are given the perfect revelation of the Father, by the Son. In that revelation, in that union with Christ, we find that we are more and more desirous of that which pleases the Father. We must subject all that we want and think and desire unto the Father for His plan and His purpose. 
The supreme example of this submission is that of Christ, Himself, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He was praying unto the Father. Luke 22:42 "Father, if Thou art willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Thine be done." 
	There is a great aspect of our life that is inherent in this submission to the will of God, in our union with Christ. What we often fail to submit to is the fact that we are not united with Christ in order for us to become better people. This is often the focal point of our prayers, Lord make me a better person, make me more patient, make me more spiritual, make me, make me, make me! Our union with Christ is not for me, but for Him! He needs to be more and more seen in and through our lives. We must never think of our improvement or our increase in ability. It has to be a matter of Christ, Himself, being more and more clearly manifested in these lives that we live. He is to shine forth from us, with the focal point of our hearts being set on ever more of Him and less and less of me. 
This is the heart of the Lord’s words in John 14:20, "In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. As Christ lives His life in us, so do we know what it means to live our lives in Him. There is a union of heart and being which precludes any separation of will and purpose. We are unable to do anything, or to ask anything after what we want, but we are more and more centered on what He wants. Our hearts must become subordinate in their own interests and focused exclusively on His interests. It is a true matter of the utter and absolute reality of the passage that we so often quote, yet seem to set aside in matters of self-interest. Gal 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me. 
	Only then can we come to the realization that our union with Christ fully includes our inability to do anything of our own initiative, power, understanding, skill, or aptitude. Anything that we are to do can only be done by Christ in us. Every prayer that we utter can only be from Him and unto Him and in absolute line with that which is His heart. John 5:19+20, …"Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. "For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and greater works than these will He show Him, that you may marvel. 
This is not an easy thing to accept in our innermost beings. We do not like the idea of being utterly powerless to do anything. We like to be able to proclaim that we did this or that for the Lord. We like to think that we know how to pray after God’s will and purpose. We love to have our area of expertise and spiritual standing in the heart of God’s Kingdom. We like to think that what we say and do counts for something glorious, making us an indispensible cog in the wheel of spiritual attunement and enlightenment. 
Then we come face-to-face and heart-to-heart with John 15:5, "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. … apart from Me you can do nothing. This leaves no area for any grandiose idea of our worthiness to do anything. It is only as we are in Christ, that our witness of Him is at all an effective manifestation of the Love of the Father to this world. 
That is what it all comes down to in the testimony of our being saved by His grace, His love shown to the world. He is the One Who needs to be seen. He is the One Who works effectively to reveal Himself through His Church. His glory is evident through those people Whom He called unto Himself and Whom He indwells with His Holy Spirit. It is in Christ that we have any life. It is in Christ that we, individually and corporately, find our voice to call upon the Father, utterly and absolutely in line with His will. 
	That is when the glory of God is manifested on this earth. As was so true of Christ, so is it true of the Church in its revelation of God to His own glory. John 13:31+32, … "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately. God’s glory is no small thing. It is everything! All that we do, all that we say, all that we think, all that we pray is to be in line with that which will bring Him glory and honor and praise. To live for anything else in this realm is to live a life that seeks only personal gain and satisfaction. To focus any of our attention elsewhere sets aside the meaningfulness of the life that we have been given in Christ Jesus. 
Any glory that is ours is that which we receive by virtue of being in Christ. It is His glory, as He receives it from the Father. In the heart of that giving, we find our purpose in life, to give Him all the glory that this creation can offer in selfless love and worship. That is the end result of our prayer life, His glory. We cannot pray effectively or powerfully unless every prayer, every motive in every prayer, every consideration in every prayer is that His will be done on this earth as it is in heaven, to His glory Alone!
	We conclude this morning with a portion of that great prayer of Christ that was in place from eternity and unto eternity, what we call His High Priestly Prayer. John 17:20-23 "I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me. "And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me. 
	This is Jesus’ prayer for you and for me unto His Father. It is absolutely in line with that which is the heart of God from eternity. It is the prayer of our oneness in Christ, our being united into all that is part of the Body of Christ. We must consider ourselves in the light of that oneness of purpose and being. We are not separated from the whole, but incorporated into the very essence of the Body, with Christ as our head. What He does, we do, not because we are capable of anything, but because we are given functioning by Him, through Him, because of Him, and in Him. In that united expression of Him, not of us, but of Him, God’s glory is revealed. 
As Christ represented God and His interests in His so great love, so is the Church the current and effective means that God uses to show forth His heart of Love into this world. Because He lives, we live. Because we live, so do others come to know life eternally in Him. That is to be our purpose and function on this earth as His Body of Believers. That is the reason for the Church. The prayer of the Church is that He more and more perfectly and fully is expressed to His glory in our representation of Jesus Christ. We stand in this world against everything that is opposed to His life being instilled into others! We declare in life the glory of the victory of the risen Lord Jesus Christ! So be it! 
'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.' Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Rev 2:7 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.' Amen.