Seven letters and time for personal reflection, part 3

(Rewritten notes from a message given on Aug. 23, 2009, at Corona International Christian Fellowship.)

Next week (reading ahead is encouraged!):
Revelation 3:14-22, maybe into Revelation 4

2 Timothy 3:1-5

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God — having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

In other words, there are people within the body of believers in Christ who are not believers, but pretenders – and they, in these last days will (and do) live and teach such a life. We need to be watchful of them and HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM.

2 Corinthians 13:5

Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?

So we’re going to enter a period of self-examination, both as a church and as the people who make up the church, with the help of the Lord Himself through His holy Word.

In my limited study of revivals in the church, great movements of God among and in His children happened in times of repentance, in times of acknowledging their failings and crying out to the Lord for forgiveness.

As someone once said, if you want to start a revival in your church, go to a quiet room, draw a circle on the floor, get on your knees inside it and pray to the Lord to search your heart.

Continuing from last week’s reflection (just you, the Lord and His Word, one-on-one):

Two keywords:

Repent
Turn away from the things you are doing that are wrong, and turn back to your first love.

Overcome
That in Jesus, when we repent and turn back to him, we will have peace even in a troubled, fallen world. But if we are in Him, we have overcome all that with Him.

John 16:33

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

In today's study, Jesus teaches us more about repenting and overcoming …

Revelation 3:1-13

To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

4 Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. 5 He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

7To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:

These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 9 I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars — I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. 10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.

11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. 12 Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him 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 him my new name. 13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Teaching Point No. 1
Letter to the church of Sardis, Revelation 3:1-6

Wake up!
We might be going through the motions in “serving” the Lord, and it looks really good. But we may not be really serving the Lord.

This almost is an echo of the letter to the church in Ephesus, where Jesus said they did great deeds, rejected false teachers, but Jesus was not their motivation for the things they did.

In this letter, the Lord says that they look alive, but they in fact are dead. “I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God.” Their deeds are just lacking anything worthwhile in the site of God. They need to come to the realization of their real status – not in their own eyes, but in the eyes of the Lord. Theologian G. Campbell Morgan called it “reputation without reality.”

Warren Wiersbe says the message to Sardis is a warning to all “great churches” that are living on past glory. Or, on a personal examination level, maybe it’s also a warning for individual members of a church who tend to live on past glory while everyone else is moving on. Dr. Vance Havner has frequently reminded us that spiritual ministries often go through four stages: a man, a movement, a machine, and then a monument. Sardis was at the “monument” stage, but there was still hope!

Maybe we’re like that. Maybe we do things just because we’ve always done them, thinking, “That’s ministry. That’s what serving the church and God is because that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Or maybe we say, “Hey, let’s start this new program or do this event. It’ll be great, and it’ll bring in people” only to see the only people it serves is – us.

And we fool ourselves into believing that what we’re doing is real ministry when it’s not. It’s incomplete, it’s probably self-serving, it’s probably busy-work, things that keep us active, it’s probably a lot of things, but for sure it’s not of real substance nor is it Spirit-led effective because we’re in a spiritual rut … because the Lord is not in it at all.

And if we don’t wake up … well, the Lord warned the Ephesians that He would come and remove their lampstand, their witness, if they did not repent (Rev. 2:5). He warned the church at Pergamos that He would come and make war with the sword of the Spirit (Rev. 2:16). If the believers at Sardis did not follow His orders, He would come as a thief, when they least expected Him; and this would mean judgment (3:3).

So how do we break out of this spiritual rut and avoid judgment?

Application
Be watchful, and be honest about what we are doing – is it lacking, is the Lord directing it. Go back to God’s Word and repent of those things we’re doing wrong and seek His direction.

Wiersbe says this: Christ warns the saints to: (1) be watchful, be alert (wake up!); (2) strengthen the few things you do have (verse 2); (3) remember the Word you have received and heard; (4) hold fast and be ready when I come.

And to that I would add (5) obey God’s Word and (6) look to those who are truly walking with the Lord (verses 4-5).

What happens when we do “repent and obey?” In verses 4 and 5, the Lord says that those who repent and overcome and join with those who are truly walking in the Lord will “be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and the angels.”

For reflection (just you, the Lord and His Word, one-on-one):
Are you so active in ministry that you’re just doing things to do them, or because you need think being constantly busy is real ministry, or are you trying to duplicate past ministry experiences?

Teaching Point No. 2
Letter to the church in Philadelphia, Revelation 3:7-13

When it seems bleakest, when it seems as if the battle is being won by the enemy, when you feel as if you have no more strength to take another step, look to Jesus and endure patiently as you serve and obey and follow His calling.
Of the seven letters, only this and the letter to the church in Smyrna have not rebuke from Jesus. The Lord sees their humbleness, their weakness, their knowledge that they are so small and wonder how they could be used by God in such overwhelming opposition to the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And if there is a model I pray we would follow, whose attributes we strive toward with the help of the Lord to apply here, it is those for which the Lord commends the church in Philadelphia.

We pretty much know the word Philadelphia means “brotherly love.” And certainly the church must have lived that – as they loved the Lord with all their heart, mind, soul and strength, the loved each other, too … and not only that, they loved the lost, the outcasts, the sick, the broken, the hurting, the unlovable – the very people with whom Jesus spent much time.

Jesus, who holds the key of David, the royal line of Israel, has the power to open and shut doors … and what He opens, no one can shut, and what He has shut, no one can open.

We most often think of such doors as personal opportunity – a job or a relationship, for example. But while that may be true, that’s also kind of “me centered;” the bigger picture is that these are doors represent areas where the Lord wants us to serve as a church and as individuals who make up the church.

Quick thing about Philadelphia in its day … it was a city on a major route from Rome to the east, and was known as a gateway to the east. It was also called “little Athens” because of the many temples located there. And … it was a place prone to earthquakes.

Where we live, the Greater Los Angeles area, aren’t we a gateway to not just the east – the port of San Pedro is an entry point for a lot of goods that make their way east from here – but also to the rest of the world? Don’t we have a lot of temples – some religious, others secular, but temples nonetheless – just like Philadelphia? And aren’t we prone to earthquakes? Just something to consider there.

So the Philadelphia church lived and served in an area of opportunity to share the Gospel – just like us. And Jesus opened many doors of opportunity for them to do so.

The idea of a doors as an opportunity to serve the Lord to share His Gospel comes from these passages:

(After Paul and Barnabas returned from their first mission trip recorded in Acts 13 and 14)
Acts 14:27
On arriving there [Antioch in Syria], they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

(Paul talks about upcoming ministries to which the Lord is calling him)
1 Corinthians 16:9 (starting in verse 8)
But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.

(Paul talks about his ministry from the Lord)
2 Corinthians 2:12
Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me …

(Paul seeks prayer from the Colossian church regarding his calling; and each of our prayers for one another as well)
Colossians 4:3
And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.

And when you read about the ministry of Paul in Acts and in his letters, you come to know that he was not selective with whom he shared the Gospel. He didn’t go and do market research to find where the likeliest believers lived and plant a church there.

In Acts 20:21, he says that he has “declared to both Jews and Gentiles (meaning EVERYONE) that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.”

In 1 Corinthians 9:19-23

19Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

As those 10 ideas last week and this week to share the Gospel show us, we shouldn’t be picky, either …

In commending the Philadelphia church, the Lord notes verse 8 that it has “little strength.” Yet, despite that, and despite being in an area where the church was being attacked, looked down upon, outnumbered, Jesus said, “yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.”

And here are the great reward for following and obeying and standing firm in the truth despite all the opposition and despite their own weakness:

In verse 9, Jesus say that those who oppose His people, He will personally vanquish them and make them fall at our feet at MAKE THEM ACKNOWLEDGE THAT JESUS LOVES US …

in verse 10, Jesus tells them:
10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.

Interesting thing came up while we were patiently enduring for what seemed like hours late last night to catch the shuttle bus from the Anaheim Convention Center to the parking lot at Angels Stadium …

Is the rapture mentioned in Revelation? The answer, not specifically, but there is evidence sprinkled throughout … and this, verse 10 is the strongest among them that Jesus will not have His believers going through the great tribulation written about in Revelation. And if you are familiar with those passages, THAT is a huge blessing, and a HUGE reason to faithfully follow the Lord and patently endure whatever the world throws at us as we live and share the Gospel.

And not only that, believers – I pray that is all of us here, too – who patiently endure are honored by the Lord as pillars in His temple, and God will not leave them, and the name of God and Jesus “new name” will be written upon them as well.

Application
So in the face of all this opposition to share the Gospel, and to overcome our own weakness, Jesus says we should hold on to what we have – His Word – and go through those doors (maybe tear down a wall or two) to share His good news, not just in word, but by the very way we live our lives that reflects His great love.

Simple in word, but not in deed.

And that being the case, in remembering our weakness, we need to remember that God who called us will not abandon in the middle of the thing He has asked us to do to glorify Him.

Remember this verse, and remember it in the proper context. That as we are called to do His work, in the face of physical, emotional, spiritual, mental weakness:

Philippians 4:12-13

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

For reflection (just you, the Lord and His Word, one-on-one):
What doors is the Lord opening for you to serve and share His Gospel? Are you going through them, or are you paralyzed because of your own weaknesses?

Below, for the believers in Christ, something that reminds me both of what we do in this life, and what we'll do in the next ...

Thoughts, comments, additional insights, questions??? Feel free to leave them in the comments section below, after the video of Hillsong United's "The Stand."