Revelation 3:7-13
Imagine if you will, what it would be like to be shunned by your family, or by your church family. What if we decided that you had made a bad choice and we felt the right thing to do would be to take you by the sleeves and lead you to the door, push you out and shut the door in your face as you turned around to plead with us for mercy? Where would you go next?
Ahh, but what if you had already made some new friends and they had told you about a wonderful person who was really good to know. What if the person you were turning to was the reason your old family and friends were shunning you? What if you also believed that this new person had the truth about eternal life and you longed to share that great news with the people who kicked you out of their lives?
You are beginning to feel like a former Jew in Philadelphia who has come to new life through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the genuine Messiah. You are also beginning to feel what I felt like at least with regard to my immediate family when I began to tell my four brothers about the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. And have I ever mentioned before the angry lady at one of the factories where I used to work who came up to me at lunch and told me I had better stop talking to her Catholic friend?
I knew that I had found life, a glorious eternal life with forgiveness of sins through the grace of God. It is such good news! But my brothers, who were not very religious at all, and other people, who were very religious in their own way, didn’t care one bit. They didn’t want any religion telling them how to run their lives, and they certainly wouldn’t put up with me getting all religious around them. Funny thing is, I wasn’t trying to tell them they were sinners, or tell them what I thought was wrong with them. I was just trying to tell them the good news about Jesus.
However, the good news about Jesus is really only good news to those who know they are sinners in need of mercy. It is only good news to those who are ready to admit that the life style they have chosen is not only unhealthy, but also disapproved of by the creator God who cares very much about the good health of his people. Self-righteous people who think they are doing ok with God, don’t think they need this good news. That is because they don’t want to admit their need of a Savior, and that is especially true of the religious people, the ones who already have behaviors and rituals in place that make them feel like they are approved of by God.
That is one big reason why the Jews rejected Jesus. They did not want a Messiah to save them from their sins. Their sins weren’t their biggest problem. They thought they already had ways to deal with sin. They had their prayers and their sacrifices. What they couldn’t deal with was the Romans. That’s what they thought Messiah was supposed to take care of.
So when certain Jews came around these cities in Asia, as in Philadelphia, talking about Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior from sin, there was a lot of push back for the same reasons that the Jews in Jerusalem crucified Jesus. Now these new believers were being kicked out of the synagogues for talking about Jesus like that. In addition, it was politically dangerous to say, “Jesus is Lord.” The Romans demanded allegiance to their government for the sake of peace and unity. The only politically correct thing to say was, “Caesar is Lord.” And back in those days there were no free speech amendments, just a sword to enforce the emperor’s will.
In the usual way we think about such things, it was much harder for them to be Christians than for us. They faced rejection and job loss and even physical harm for openly declaring faith in Jesus Christ. It is much easier for us to be Christians. Nobody cares what faith we have as long as we leave them alone. But we are not supposed to leave them alone! God wants them to know Him and he has assigned us the task of getting that message across to them somehow.
In another way of thinking about such things. It is actually much more difficult to be a genuine, committed, Spirit filled, on fire for the Lord believer in Jesus these days. Our culture just doesn’t care what we have to say about Jesus. Back in the days of Philadelphia, anyone who dared to say “Jesus is Lord” knew they were putting their lives on the line. It’s just that simple and easy. Once you dared to say it, once you were publically baptized, you knew for sure that you are a committed Christian.
These days, in our culture, we know the phrase and we can say it sure enough, but a lot of us aren’t even certain for ourselves that we mean it enough to die for it. And for a lot of people who call themselves Christians, it IS the culture they grew up in. No opposition, no testing, no challenges to make sure. Often such a person will love Jesus the same way he loves the house he grew up in, fond memories, important personal events, but not worth dying for. For him, it would be a sad day to see that old house torn down and he would even believe it shouldn’t be done, but probably wouldn’t start a petition or go to court about it, just be sad to see it go.
That kind of believer in Jesus is also usually okay with leaving other people alone. Evangelism just is not their cup of tea. On the other hand, a lot of modern American Christians have the wrong idea about just what evangelism is and I bet a lot of Christians who think evangelism is not their cup of tea are actually doing biblical evangelism and just don’t recognize it as evangelism because they’re not knocking on people’s doors and directly talking to them about Jesus to see if they want to get saved.
Nevertheless, every Christian is called to do the work of an evangelist in some form or another, no matter how hard it is, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel to mention Jesus somewhere in your conversation. We have to let the Spirit of God take us where he will. We have to learn or practice how to be bold and fearless so that Jesus would give us a performance review like the church in Philadelphia.
This is the church we want to be most like! This is the real deal. Jesus had nothing bad to say about them. They got the best performance review out of the seven. And the key is that they are completely dependent upon God and his power for strength and for success. That’s what we want to be. And we can draw strength and courage from what Jesus said about the Church in Philadelphia. For example, when Jesus said, “I know you have little strength,” I thought that we could probably relate to that. I think a lot of us are realistically assessing the size of our congregation, our age too, and our finances and thinking, we have little strength left. We look at our weakness and it’s easy to be discouraged.
But Jesus counters that with his message to Philadelphia because his mention of their weakness was not a criticism. That the Christians have little power and they are realistic about that, actually counts in their favor with God. The other churches thought they were strong but were actually weak; thought they were rich but were poor; thought they were alive but were dead. Philadelphia suffers no such delusions. They know they have little strength, and yet God says they were strong…in Christ! There is wisdom in realistic humility. God does not help those who help themselves, he strengthens the powerless! The Christians in Philadelphia were being persecuted. But they stood strong and endured it. They were being helped by God and they knew it.
Apparently one source of the persecution was from those who are of the synagogue of satan. They were also a problem in the church at Smyrna. And Smyrna seems to have been responding in pretty much the same way. The cultural Jews were giving these Christians some trouble, perhaps kicking the Jewish Christians out of the synagogue the way the Jerusalem elders had ejected the blind man Jesus healed some years before. So as another form of encouragement, Jesus introduced himself as the keeper of the door, holding the key of David. It is as if he is saying to them, “Maybe the synagogue rulers have slammed the door in your face, but I hold the key of David and if I open the door no one can shut it!” Though the Jewish authorities believe they have excluded the believers from God’s people, Jesus is the one who truly provides access to the New Jerusalem. Believers are God’s people, no matter what the rabbis say.
Not only that, but Jesus says he will one day make the unbelieving Jews come and bow down to them. The biblical prophets had promised that the Gentiles would one day bow before the Jews. But here unbelieving Jews join in. The believers are most highly honored, for their steadfast faith in the Lord. One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Believers do so willingly, gratefully and joyfully. Unbelievers must recognize God and his chosen people and that Jesus loves the believers.
In spite of this high praise and strong encouragement Jesus also said, “Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.” In other words, you’re doing great, but it’s not over ‘til it’s over. The words, “I will keep you from the hour of trial” do not mean they will not suffer, but that they will be kept by God to safely make it through.
Jesus said “The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name.”
There is so much symbolism and meaning here! True believers are not only welcomed into God’s holy temple, they actually become a part of it! We are already familiar with calling the honorable, dedicated, productive and significant members of a congregation “pillars of the church.” I haven’t been able to research it but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that this is where that comes from. Would that all God’s people would be pillars of the church. Let us worship in a colonnade!
Also, the hope of the New Jerusalem stands in high contrast to the shattered hopes of the Old Jerusalem that was destroyed by Rome shortly before the writing of this letter. And again Jesus is speaking against the synagogue of satan when he speaks of the New Jerusalem and the New Temple in which true believers will worship and false Jews will be excluded because they rejected Jesus Christ’s authority and grace.
And we also can take much hope from these high promises because, like the church in Philadelphia, if we are spiritually healthy through our dependence upon Jesus, keeping his word at the center of our life and mission, so that our lives are transformed as we walk with Jesus, we will enjoy heartfelt worship, and compelling Christian community. We will learn to be more intentional in our evangelism, more sacrificial and generous in our living and giving. We will shape and enlarge a global perspective, strengthen our organizational structures to become more and more fruitful so that we are equipped and enabled to engage our culture to transform our community through active Compassion, mercy and justice ministries.
In short, as we cling to Jesus and depend upon the Holy Spirit, no matter how small in number or apparently weak in stature, nothing can stop us from growing in the ten healthy missional markers we will be focusing in our navigate process. Those things don’t take any money, just your heart and commitment to the cause of Christ. The result will be a more fruitful ministry and glory and honor to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
The reason we do our best to exalt the name of Jesus is because we know he is the world’s only hope of salvation. Only the power of the Holy Spirit can really overcome the barriers to faith that exist in our time and place. We offer hope and forgiveness to people lost in sin. We offer wisdom and guidance to people trapped in circumstances beyond their control. We offer recovery and freedom to people destroyed by sins and addictions. We offer real faith in a personal God who loves us and accepts us as we are, to people who are unsure of their salvation even as they desperately and religiously try to do what is good and right as they seek to be acceptable to God and don’t realize that they don’t have to earn that.
We offer a plan for living that involves a call to discipleship too. It teaches us a life that is meaningful and worthwhile and leads to being a blessing to other people around us for their own sake and according to their needs. Most of all, we offer Jesus! Jesus loves you! Jesus wants to talk to you and bless you with true freedom, genuine forgiveness of sin and a new life that will last forever in glory. Let us pray!
Imagine if you will, what it would be like to be shunned by your family, or by your church family. What if we decided that you had made a bad choice and we felt the right thing to do would be to take you by the sleeves and lead you to the door, push you out and shut the door in your face as you turned around to plead with us for mercy? Where would you go next?
Ahh, but what if you had already made some new friends and they had told you about a wonderful person who was really good to know. What if the person you were turning to was the reason your old family and friends were shunning you? What if you also believed that this new person had the truth about eternal life and you longed to share that great news with the people who kicked you out of their lives?
You are beginning to feel like a former Jew in Philadelphia who has come to new life through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the genuine Messiah. You are also beginning to feel what I felt like at least with regard to my immediate family when I began to tell my four brothers about the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. And have I ever mentioned before the angry lady at one of the factories where I used to work who came up to me at lunch and told me I had better stop talking to her Catholic friend?
I knew that I had found life, a glorious eternal life with forgiveness of sins through the grace of God. It is such good news! But my brothers, who were not very religious at all, and other people, who were very religious in their own way, didn’t care one bit. They didn’t want any religion telling them how to run their lives, and they certainly wouldn’t put up with me getting all religious around them. Funny thing is, I wasn’t trying to tell them they were sinners, or tell them what I thought was wrong with them. I was just trying to tell them the good news about Jesus.
However, the good news about Jesus is really only good news to those who know they are sinners in need of mercy. It is only good news to those who are ready to admit that the life style they have chosen is not only unhealthy, but also disapproved of by the creator God who cares very much about the good health of his people. Self-righteous people who think they are doing ok with God, don’t think they need this good news. That is because they don’t want to admit their need of a Savior, and that is especially true of the religious people, the ones who already have behaviors and rituals in place that make them feel like they are approved of by God.
That is one big reason why the Jews rejected Jesus. They did not want a Messiah to save them from their sins. Their sins weren’t their biggest problem. They thought they already had ways to deal with sin. They had their prayers and their sacrifices. What they couldn’t deal with was the Romans. That’s what they thought Messiah was supposed to take care of.
So when certain Jews came around these cities in Asia, as in Philadelphia, talking about Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior from sin, there was a lot of push back for the same reasons that the Jews in Jerusalem crucified Jesus. Now these new believers were being kicked out of the synagogues for talking about Jesus like that. In addition, it was politically dangerous to say, “Jesus is Lord.” The Romans demanded allegiance to their government for the sake of peace and unity. The only politically correct thing to say was, “Caesar is Lord.” And back in those days there were no free speech amendments, just a sword to enforce the emperor’s will.
In the usual way we think about such things, it was much harder for them to be Christians than for us. They faced rejection and job loss and even physical harm for openly declaring faith in Jesus Christ. It is much easier for us to be Christians. Nobody cares what faith we have as long as we leave them alone. But we are not supposed to leave them alone! God wants them to know Him and he has assigned us the task of getting that message across to them somehow.
In another way of thinking about such things. It is actually much more difficult to be a genuine, committed, Spirit filled, on fire for the Lord believer in Jesus these days. Our culture just doesn’t care what we have to say about Jesus. Back in the days of Philadelphia, anyone who dared to say “Jesus is Lord” knew they were putting their lives on the line. It’s just that simple and easy. Once you dared to say it, once you were publically baptized, you knew for sure that you are a committed Christian.
These days, in our culture, we know the phrase and we can say it sure enough, but a lot of us aren’t even certain for ourselves that we mean it enough to die for it. And for a lot of people who call themselves Christians, it IS the culture they grew up in. No opposition, no testing, no challenges to make sure. Often such a person will love Jesus the same way he loves the house he grew up in, fond memories, important personal events, but not worth dying for. For him, it would be a sad day to see that old house torn down and he would even believe it shouldn’t be done, but probably wouldn’t start a petition or go to court about it, just be sad to see it go.
That kind of believer in Jesus is also usually okay with leaving other people alone. Evangelism just is not their cup of tea. On the other hand, a lot of modern American Christians have the wrong idea about just what evangelism is and I bet a lot of Christians who think evangelism is not their cup of tea are actually doing biblical evangelism and just don’t recognize it as evangelism because they’re not knocking on people’s doors and directly talking to them about Jesus to see if they want to get saved.
Nevertheless, every Christian is called to do the work of an evangelist in some form or another, no matter how hard it is, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel to mention Jesus somewhere in your conversation. We have to let the Spirit of God take us where he will. We have to learn or practice how to be bold and fearless so that Jesus would give us a performance review like the church in Philadelphia.
This is the church we want to be most like! This is the real deal. Jesus had nothing bad to say about them. They got the best performance review out of the seven. And the key is that they are completely dependent upon God and his power for strength and for success. That’s what we want to be. And we can draw strength and courage from what Jesus said about the Church in Philadelphia. For example, when Jesus said, “I know you have little strength,” I thought that we could probably relate to that. I think a lot of us are realistically assessing the size of our congregation, our age too, and our finances and thinking, we have little strength left. We look at our weakness and it’s easy to be discouraged.
But Jesus counters that with his message to Philadelphia because his mention of their weakness was not a criticism. That the Christians have little power and they are realistic about that, actually counts in their favor with God. The other churches thought they were strong but were actually weak; thought they were rich but were poor; thought they were alive but were dead. Philadelphia suffers no such delusions. They know they have little strength, and yet God says they were strong…in Christ! There is wisdom in realistic humility. God does not help those who help themselves, he strengthens the powerless! The Christians in Philadelphia were being persecuted. But they stood strong and endured it. They were being helped by God and they knew it.
Apparently one source of the persecution was from those who are of the synagogue of satan. They were also a problem in the church at Smyrna. And Smyrna seems to have been responding in pretty much the same way. The cultural Jews were giving these Christians some trouble, perhaps kicking the Jewish Christians out of the synagogue the way the Jerusalem elders had ejected the blind man Jesus healed some years before. So as another form of encouragement, Jesus introduced himself as the keeper of the door, holding the key of David. It is as if he is saying to them, “Maybe the synagogue rulers have slammed the door in your face, but I hold the key of David and if I open the door no one can shut it!” Though the Jewish authorities believe they have excluded the believers from God’s people, Jesus is the one who truly provides access to the New Jerusalem. Believers are God’s people, no matter what the rabbis say.
Not only that, but Jesus says he will one day make the unbelieving Jews come and bow down to them. The biblical prophets had promised that the Gentiles would one day bow before the Jews. But here unbelieving Jews join in. The believers are most highly honored, for their steadfast faith in the Lord. One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Believers do so willingly, gratefully and joyfully. Unbelievers must recognize God and his chosen people and that Jesus loves the believers.
In spite of this high praise and strong encouragement Jesus also said, “Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.” In other words, you’re doing great, but it’s not over ‘til it’s over. The words, “I will keep you from the hour of trial” do not mean they will not suffer, but that they will be kept by God to safely make it through.
Jesus said “The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name.”
There is so much symbolism and meaning here! True believers are not only welcomed into God’s holy temple, they actually become a part of it! We are already familiar with calling the honorable, dedicated, productive and significant members of a congregation “pillars of the church.” I haven’t been able to research it but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that this is where that comes from. Would that all God’s people would be pillars of the church. Let us worship in a colonnade!
Also, the hope of the New Jerusalem stands in high contrast to the shattered hopes of the Old Jerusalem that was destroyed by Rome shortly before the writing of this letter. And again Jesus is speaking against the synagogue of satan when he speaks of the New Jerusalem and the New Temple in which true believers will worship and false Jews will be excluded because they rejected Jesus Christ’s authority and grace.
And we also can take much hope from these high promises because, like the church in Philadelphia, if we are spiritually healthy through our dependence upon Jesus, keeping his word at the center of our life and mission, so that our lives are transformed as we walk with Jesus, we will enjoy heartfelt worship, and compelling Christian community. We will learn to be more intentional in our evangelism, more sacrificial and generous in our living and giving. We will shape and enlarge a global perspective, strengthen our organizational structures to become more and more fruitful so that we are equipped and enabled to engage our culture to transform our community through active Compassion, mercy and justice ministries.
In short, as we cling to Jesus and depend upon the Holy Spirit, no matter how small in number or apparently weak in stature, nothing can stop us from growing in the ten healthy missional markers we will be focusing in our navigate process. Those things don’t take any money, just your heart and commitment to the cause of Christ. The result will be a more fruitful ministry and glory and honor to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
The reason we do our best to exalt the name of Jesus is because we know he is the world’s only hope of salvation. Only the power of the Holy Spirit can really overcome the barriers to faith that exist in our time and place. We offer hope and forgiveness to people lost in sin. We offer wisdom and guidance to people trapped in circumstances beyond their control. We offer recovery and freedom to people destroyed by sins and addictions. We offer real faith in a personal God who loves us and accepts us as we are, to people who are unsure of their salvation even as they desperately and religiously try to do what is good and right as they seek to be acceptable to God and don’t realize that they don’t have to earn that.
We offer a plan for living that involves a call to discipleship too. It teaches us a life that is meaningful and worthwhile and leads to being a blessing to other people around us for their own sake and according to their needs. Most of all, we offer Jesus! Jesus loves you! Jesus wants to talk to you and bless you with true freedom, genuine forgiveness of sin and a new life that will last forever in glory. Let us pray!
Comments
Post a Comment