Guest Speaker Adrian Lane taught about the incredible gift that it is to have our lives turned around by the gracious love of Jesus, and how we can share that wonderful news with those around us. Jesus never intended us to just be 'caught', but to also go and 'fish for others' with the gospel that saved us.

John is single-minded in how he deals with the theme of 'love' in this pastoral letter. For John, it's quite simple: love one another. Christians ought to prioritise loving each other first and foremost because of the love that we have received from God. If God is love, then his children should inherit that character trait, too, especially, John says, towards other Christians.

What do you mean when you talk about 'life'? Is life a pulse? Is it the ability to survive and thrive? Perhaps it's the ability to contribute to your society? John (and Jesus) think it's more than that... much more! In this four letter word, John and Jesus invite the Christian to rethink everything, and to consider what it might mean to take hold of 'life to to the full' today.

It was God's plan to fill the world with light in Genesis 1. It was God's plan to send Jesus as the light of the world in John 8. And in 1 John 1, John reminds Christians that it is God's plan for Christians to live and walk in that light through the death and resurrection of Jesus. The good news isn't that we should be in the light, but that we can be, that Jesus gives us a way of escaping sin and darkness.

Jesus saves his harshest rebuke for the last church, the church in Laodicea. There is much to learn from this church but perhaps the most striking is that they were oblivious to the critiques of the Jesus they claimed to worship and represent. And yet, even to the Laodiceans, Jesus graciously gave them time to repent and return to him, to still claim the victory.

There is a problem in Philadelphia - but not with the church.
The problem in the city of brotherly love was an argument about who the real children of God were, who were legitimate, who was in line for an inheritance, and who wasn't. The family drama was messy, but Jesus speaks truth into that messy situation with decisive clarity.

Unlike in the previous four cities, the Christians in Sardis have it pretty good! Almost no persecution to speak of by the Romans or Jews, so you would hope their church is thriving. Alas, it's the complete opposite. Listen to the sermon by Dave from Southern Beaches about what it might mean that the church looked alive but was actually dead, and the warnings contained therein for the modern church.

The church in Thyatira had a different problem to the previous three: despite operating in a pagan culture, they were growing! But Jesus, with eyes like blazing fire, can see a deceptive problem under the surface that many in the church may have been blinded to. Jesus warns them that unless they deal with this problem, they will endure suffering, not from the the Romans, but from his righteous judgement.

How do we respond when there is outside pressure to compromise our faith? How can we love Jesus, even in a culture that demands we worship other gods? These are the questions asked by Christians in Pergamum, an extremely pagan city. Without a doubt, we too should know how to answer these questions, even if the risk for us is mild compared to the Christians of first century Pergamum.

Smyrna was a highly pagan city where Rome could do no wrong and Caesar was god. The Jews in Smyrna also were hostile towards Christians and their worship of a man from Nazareth. So the church in Smyrna is not only struggling to worship publicly, but are struggling to live! And it's into this context that Jesus writes to them and lifts their eyes to 'The First and the Last'.