What The Spirit SaysPart 7 of 8
To the angel of the church in Philadelphia
Transcript
Skip the transcript0:02 good afternoon everyone. For many years if you were to ask people who were interested in sport to name the top five most impressive athletes, Lance Armstrong probably would be one of the names that would have featured on a majority of lists. Having started out as a decent athlete, but then being diagnosed with cancer, many people thought that his career was over. However, after fighting the cancer itself, he returned to the sport to fight his way up through the ranks and soar higher than he ever had before. He won seven consecutive Tour de France titles from 1999 through 2005, and for most who looked at him and followed his story, they saw an example of extraordinary human determination. But then the whole thing came crashing down around him. Years of dedicated journalism and a few key whistleblowers revealed A long-term pattern of cheating, which eventually led to all seven of those titles he had received from being stripped from him. With this example in mind, I want to introduce you to the Church of Philadelphia.
1:32 Why? Well, because here we have people who we have Jesus' own assessment of their lives for us to consider. An assessment of people whose endurance was genuine and verified to be so by their Lord. They are one of only two of these seven churches who receive no criticism. Instead, he writes to them telling them that they are a wonderful example of loyalty in a difficult world. And so they act for us all these years later as a group that we can admire. A group who Jesus has pre-verified as actually living out a life of faithful endurance in the same direction. And who, remarkably, he is confident will continue to do this even though part of his message to them is things are about to get even worse.
2:41 So let's read the first part of the letter together to hear what Jesus says. Revelation 3, verse 7. And to the angel of the Church of Philadelphia, write, These are the words of the Holy One, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. I know your works. Look, I have set before you an open door that no one is able to shut. I know you have but little power, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not but are lying, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you. Okay, so in order to help us frame the rest of our time together, I want us to consider a number of questions that are important when assessing an athlete's endurance and asking why it is so impressive.
3:58 Foundationally, there's two kind of questions that sit behind most sports analysts' halftime shows. And these are two of those questions. Some of them, other ones we'll bring up later. So the first question is, what is the condition of the competitor? And the second one, what is the size of the task set before them? Let's return quickly to Lance's example to show how this works itself out. So Lance's condition as a cancer survivor had caused many to write him off And to think that it was incredibly unlikely that he would ever compete again at the level he had before his illness. And in this condition, he had set his sights on a task nothing less than victory in the Tour de France.
4:51 Cycling for insanely long distances with extreme uphill sections, day after day of intense competition, and all the while against the best elite competitors there were in the world. And so all of this was what made it so impressive when he crossed the line in 1999. People had his condition and the size of the task in his mind as they wondered at what it seemingly was that he had accomplished. So let's ask these two questions then of the church in Philadelphia to help us to understand their condition and the task that Jesus had set before them. And let's ask Jesus to give us his analysis of these questions. Because as the holy one, as the true one, he is uniquely qualified to give a genuinely true answer about these people. So first, what is their condition? like Lance, they have come from a less than ideal starting position.
6:04 They have, Jesus says, little power. And this description tells us some things about this church. For example, we can assume that this is not a large church and that it doesn't include very many high-profile converts. The people who had come to recognize Jesus as Lord were not the kind of people that other people around them in their city particularly paid attention to or cared about what they thought. They had no social credit, no positions we can assume on the city council, no invites to the business guild's membership meetings. And so they had no way of influencing their society. And to make matters worse, the local Jewish community that many of them would have grown up as a part of had rejected their confession of Jesus as Lord and Messiah as blasphemous. In the Roman world, it was well known that Jewish communities were a kind of exception to the rule in religious matters.
7:17 When the Roman Empire spread, I'm sure some of this, the conquerors had a tactic of absorbing all of the local gods in the places that they went to into the Roman pantheon. And they basically said, well, you can worship whoever you want as long as you also then worship the Roman gods and the emperor. But it had become very clear as they spread that while most pagans were completely happy to do this, they would worship anybody you asked them to, the Jews would never worship anyone other than Yahweh. And there are even examples through history of them being willing to revolt, which forced this kind of compromise to come around. As a kind of unhappy exception to the rule, in many areas across the Roman Empire, it was agreed that the Jews could remain faithful to Yahweh alone and worship only him as long as they agreed to at least pray for the emperor and the empire's welfare. And so while it wasn't exactly the case that Jews had much power, We see that in many Jewish communities there was some power to influence in, and it seems like this was the case in Philadelphia, some power to influence society. But as time went on, these Jewish people in Philadelphia started to make it very clear that the Christians were not the same as them. They didn't want to be associated with them anymore.
8:56 Yes, many in these churches had indeed been born as Jews, and they still claimed loyalty to the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. And they still were neighbours of and friends of or even families with the people who were a part of the synagogue there. But these people had been distanced from them. They were saying things like, they are not like us. They do not worship our God. They do not deserve the same kind of exemption that we enjoy. As a result, the Christians in Philadelphia had found themselves in a position of little power, basically no power in order to influence the world around them. So that brings us then to the second question that we've set before us, the size of the task that they were facing.
9:56 And at first glance, you might think to yourself, this task is not comparable to the Tour de France in the slightest. Sure, all they were being asked to do was to follow Jesus' words and when asked who they were loyal to, say, Jesus, our Lord and Messiah. For us, this is quite easy. If I were to ask anyone here to turn and say it to the person beside them this morning, it would be quite easy for you to say, yes, Jesus is my Lord and my Messiah. Nobody would bat an eyelid. And if you went out and did it in this town or this city, well, you might get people shrug their shoulders and be like, what are you telling me that for? But it wouldn't be particularly difficult to do it. But for many in the church in Philadelphia, the task was very different from this.
10:44 And indeed, for many Christians across the world, it is similarly difficult. People who lived during this time were like all of us. In order to feed their families who they cared for just as much as we care for ours, they needed to try and make it in business. They needed to try to receive work in order to earn a wage. And As we've gone through in previous talks, we've noticed some of the things that made it very difficult for them to engage in this kind of a pagan society in order to receive wages and to feed their families. I'm not going to go through all of that again, except to note something that seems to have been particularly relevant in this church in Philadelphia. There was a specific flavor going on in this church where In these cities, it was very hard for Christians to engage with the pagan way of doing business. But in some cities, there was quite an established Jewish community, which kind of existed as an alternative to the way of doing business in a pagan sense.
11:57 And so in these communities that clustered around synagogues, there would have been a kind of ready-made support network of employers, of traders, And that existed related to, but again, separate from the pagan networks. So it kind of gave a little bit of power to people who didn't want to engage in the full pagan way of doing things. But now loyalty to Jesus' name was causing daily difficulties for this church in both of these domains of business. Their loyalty carried a real social cost because of the implications that came with declaring Jesus' name faithfully. To say Jesus is Lord was to say at the same time the emperor was not. And to say that Jesus was Lord was to give him a title that the Jews reserved for Yahweh. And so to keep on saying this was to lose opportunities for work or for acceptance or for belonging. Each day, each week, each month, each year brought another question that they needed to answer.
13:11 Who are you loyal to now? And each time this question then arose, there was the possibility that, well, this was the time that the person would change their answer, that they would finally compromise, finally fall into step with the ethics of the empire. and there was no way of escaping it for them except for compromising. They had been excluded from the exception that had been provided from their brothers and sisters by birth. And the task then was monumental for this small congregation. And to make it all worse, we found out from Jesus that their faithful endurance had not yet even been through its toughest stage. Let's read about this in Revelation 3, verse 10. It says, because you have kept my word of endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.
14:15 I am coming soon. Hold fast to what you have so that no one takes away your crown. So Jesus speaks to this already weak church. as they face an already difficult task and he tells them, you're going to go through something even more difficult. A stage like in one of the other churches, it was mentioned there would be increased violence, hardship, deception, intensified demands to give in to false worship. And you might think to yourself, well, looking at this verse behind me, hasn't Matthew misread this? Doesn't Jesus promise to keep them from this hour of trial? Doesn't that mean that they're not going to go through it?
15:05 They're not going to endure it? Well, it seems like that's not actually the force of the words, at least from the people that I've been consulting when I've been studying. The promise that he makes to this church seems to be the same one that he makes to his disciples in John 17, 15, where he prays again using this language of keeping through. There Jesus says, I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. And it's the same kind of language that we had in the Psalms, Psalms 91, that was read earlier on. Jesus promises that this church will endure this hour of trial that is coming, but that through it they will be kept. He promises that they will come out the other side victorious, certified faithful, and ready to wear the victor's crown. But how are they going to do this?
16:07 How is this small church with basically no power and no influence going to stand up to this massive task of remaining faithful in even more difficult contexts? that brings us then to the third question that we consider when asking why an athlete's endurance is so impressive. Knowing their condition and knowing the task, question 3 asks, what resources do they have to overcome this task? What legitimate resources? So let's return to Lance for a moment and ask about it in terms of his situation. Lance had impressive physical attributes. He had clearly extreme determination and an undefeated attitude, but unfortunately in his mind, he didn't think this was quite enough for him to meet the task. And so he made the decision to use illegitimate boosting and doping, which would allow him to make it to a position that he was not able to attain on his own.
17:13 The assistance he received corrupted the achievement that he had seemingly accomplished because he made use of resources that were not permitted. What resources then are permitted and legitimately provided to the Christians in Philadelphia to help them overcome and to make it to the end of the task set before them? as we consider Jesus' words to them, we see a blend of both natural effort and supernatural help given to this church to help them meet this task. While Jesus says that they have little power, he doesn't actually say they have no ability at all. Instead in verse 11 he tells them that they must have an active role to play in making it through the incoming trial. They are to hold on to what they have. Actively hold on. But what do they have?
18:22 Well that's where the outside help comes in. Because these believers are not equipped to overcome by holding on to things which they have created for themselves. It is not a case of simply white knuckling it through on their own strength. No, they have been given resources by Jesus their Lord which are custom designed to help them meet the specific task that they are facing. And there are, I think, 3 resources that Jesus offers each targeting a specific element of this task. So first, the task that they face is holding on to loyalty in a way that costs them belonging in their communities. And to this, Jesus says he has the exact tool that they need. He has the key of David.
19:17 And he has opened for them a door that will be vital for them to keep on walking through as they hold on through the trials ahead. But what is this key of David? And what does David have to do with anything in it? Well, this reference comes from a prophecy in Isaiah Isaiah chapter 22 verses 20 through 22. I would encourage you to go and look at this chapter afterwards because it's really interesting. And in this chapter we meet the character of Eliakim who was an early messianic figure. He was a key person associated with the royal line of David. And this key that he held controlled access to the king and to the kingdom.
20:11 That kingdom associated with David's reign. Quite literally, when he opened a door for someone into the king's chamber, no one could bar them access. And if he closed that door, nobody could let someone else in. Jesus then takes up this old story and he fills out its meaning for the people in Philadelphia. They have been symbolically banned from God's presence by their exclusion from the synagogue. That is what was being said to them. You are not Yahweh's people anymore. But Jesus stands before them in the role of Eliakim, holding the key of David, and he swings open the door for them into God's presence, saying, while this synagogue by their actions have shown that they are loyal to Satan by excluding you, I disagree with them.
21:09 I have not excluded you. I have loved you. As the video said earlier on, you are invited here. There is a place for you. Come on in. You are welcome here. So resource one for this church is belonging to God in the face of being told you do not belong. And before I move on from this resource, I want to share something with you that I learned this week.
21:42 So I'm pretty new to Glen Abbey and I didn't know that the open door had such big significance for this church. Chris sent me a couple of talks which explained how significant it has been. Over 30 years ago, the leaders of this church were inspired by this verse to seek to form a church where people from all stripes and all backgrounds were welcome in God's presence. And learning that was really interesting to me because while I was not here for those early days when the church was numerically small and had little power, And I wasn't here to see how the people were looking to try and forge a new community that had Jesus' name front and center and Jesus' words as precious to them. I wasn't here to see that. But I can tell you what it felt like to walk through the door almost 30 years later. I found this to be a place where I was welcomed, where I found belonging, where I was told without even knowing that this was such a foundational verse, Jesus has opened the door for you to be here. And we will certainly not close this door in your face.
22:58 The elders didn't ask me to say this. I just find this really interesting to know that this has become for so many, and I'm sure many of you here have experienced this as well, a place where at the beginning an open door was part of the vision, And for us who have arrived later, that is exactly what we experienced. Let's keep being that place then. Resource 2 then is targeted at any fear of apprehension that the church might have that the next stage of their race is going to be a stage too difficult for them to make it through. To this Jesus offers a promise in verse 10. I will keep you. Notice here how the two kinds of effort come together. Their effort and his effort.
23:54 Jesus has already praised them because they kept his word. And in response to this, he then promises, I will keep you. These 2 forms of keeping come together. They're inextricably linked because Jesus is not asking them to come from a position of little power and to generate up within themselves enough power to make it through. Rather, the kind of keeping he is asking them to do is the keeping which rests back into his keeping on their behalf, his activity, his sustaining of them. As another situation arises, where they're given the opportunity to give in and compromise this time, they hear him speak to them, I will keep you. As the cost of declaring Jesus is Lord through the next stage intensifies, I will keep you. As they even might be asked, as Antipas was, to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, they hear, I will keep you.
25:10 Christ's promise to keep them is the second resource they have to overcome the task. And finally then, there is a third resource. And it's this simple truth that has got many people past mile 18 in a marathon. The race It might not feel like it now, but it does have a finish line. While this church does not know exactly how long their race is, or how long this particularly difficult part will go on for, they can be sure that it will not go on forever. Jesus says to them 2,000 years ago, I am coming soon. As a promise to them, that there will be a finish line to the trial that they have. And this, sadly for them and sadly for us, is not a timeline then that we can calculate in order to figure out exactly how many days or months or weeks or years that we're going to have to face this trial that we have before us.
26:18 We might want that. We might want to know that it's just 31 more days until this part's over and then we're through that stage. No. Instead it's a promise that goes to all those who are his. Regardless of how long this goes on for, and even if it ends with death on this side of my coming back, there is an end to this trial. And the end of it is ultimately my return. As anyone who has ever crossed the finish line at the end of the race has experienced, What felt like an eternity as you just took one more step and one more step and one more step and it felt like they were never going to end. Minute by minute, hour by hour past, and it just felt like an eternity.
27:07 And then once you cross the finish line and you greet the people waiting for you there, suddenly that seemingly endless trial collapses into quite a simple memory. A memory labeled, that was extremely difficult. but I made it. That is what's being set before them. A promise that there is an end. These 3 resources are available to the church in Philadelphia as they face the task of endurance in increasing difficulty. But then there is one more thing that lies before them at the end of the task. One final question that every athlete asks when they think to themselves, is it worthy of me in this condition taking on this task?
27:58 What is promised for them at the end? What will I get if I do this? For the athlete, it might be a medal or fame or prestige or just the personal satisfaction of overcoming. What is it for the Philadelphians? Let's read together in verse 12. If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God. You will never go out of it. I will write on you the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven and my own name.
28:40 Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Having kept on going while everything felt unstable, Jesus rewards this weak church with a permanent place as a pillar in God's temple. Having kept on going when it meant they were excluded from places on earth, he welcomes them into his universal kingdom and says, all of this is mine and all of this is yours. Having kept on declaring Jesus is Lord, he rewards them by inscribing them with three permanent tattoos written on them forever. This person is claimed by God as mine. This person is a member of this place, the New Jerusalem. And this person kept my name and proudly wore it during their life. so I will give it to them permanently to wear for all eternity.
29:51 I am proud to be associated with this person. And so we see this church set before us as a model to follow in the task that Jesus has set for us. Just for a few minutes as we finish up this morning, I want to lead us in a time of prayer of response then. And as we do that, I want to return to work through these four questions that we've used throughout this talk, because I think that they will provide for us a helpful way of bringing this home to our own lives, to live out what we have learned from this church in Philadelphia. Most of us are not facing the same pressures as the Christians we're facing in this church. But we do know what it's like to have little power. We know what it is to find faithfulness difficult on a Monday morning and a Thursday afternoon. We know how tempting it can be to just make life that little bit easier by compromising on what Jesus has called us to do.
31:01 And so for the next few minutes I just want to invite you to bring into your mind a situation, maybe one that has already arisen as you've been listening this morning, And think about this trial, the task set before you, before God. And let's just ask first then, what is your condition as you face this task? Maybe you simply feel exhausted. Maybe you feel like you simply do not have enough influence or power to make it through another day. Or maybe actually you feel like you have plenty of power. Plenty of influence, but you just don't have a clue what it looks like to deploy this faithfully in a complicated world like we live in. Whatever you feel your condition is, just bring that before God for a few minutes or a few moments now. Father, while it sometimes terrifies us to know this, us through and through.
32:32 No part of us is hidden from you. know our strengths and our weaknesses. You know what we can do and the things that are simply beyond our ability. And you know this both because you made us and because you became one of us. Let us remember that Jesus has experienced the same difficulties that we have. And help us to see ourselves as you see us, as we seek to faithfully complete the task that you have set before us. Second then, let's think for a moment about how difficult the task is in your mind. I think sometimes that we can underestimate just how difficult faithful endurance is in the same direction in a context where we don't have outright persecution threatened for us.
33:24 Sometimes we can think that, well, maybe it should be a bit easier for us. But keeping Jesus' words and remaining loyal to his ethos often requires many small decisions day in and day out to just keep on going. I don't know what it is for you that you have in your mind. Maybe something as mundane as refusing to join in when the workplace that you're in has a culture of speaking about those people in that way. Or maybe it's refusing to withdraw actions of Jesus-centric love towards people who have been in prison or people who have been outcast by society. Or maybe for some of you who are younger, it's just to look out for that girl at the lunch table that everyone thinks is a bit weird. And for you to go and sit with her and hang out with her would make you one of those people as well. Just take a few moments to look at how hard that situation is in the condition that you are in.
34:30 Let him know what you think about that. Father, help us to recognize those places where the pressure to finally compromise, to finally give in, are greatest in our lives right now. Help us to see that you don't treat these challenges as small or unimportant to you. see them for what they are. You know what it takes for us to take up our crosses to follow you every day. Help us to look at Jesus in the garden before facing the cross as a genuine human expression of need as he faced the hardest challenge you had set before him. And help us to realize that while the task is now impossible, you have not left us on our own to try and make it through it in our own strength. Which then brings us to our third question.
35:48 What resources has Jesus given us to remain faithful. Think again about these resources available to the church in Philadelphia. Even when they were told they did not belong, he says they do belong in his presence. As they hold onto him, he holds onto them. And as they look into the future, they can be certain that although they cannot see around the corner to the end yet, there will be an end to their trial. He will come again. And then below all of these words is that lovely promise, I have loved you. Just think for a few moments about how those purposes and promises might relate to your own circumstances.
37:02 Father, when we are tempted to look for belonging and acceptance elsewhere, help us to remember that you have set before us an open door, that we are always welcome with you. When we are tempted to give in, help us to remember that you are committed to us in a much more serious way than we have ever been committed to you. When we feel as if the task will never end, Help us to remember that even if we do not yet have sight of the finish line, we are certain there will be one. Christ will come again. And help us to remember all of this was purchased at a cost of our Lord's life, generously and lovingly given to make weak humans his eternal friends. And that all then brings us to our final question. What awaits us when this task is complete? There is, for everyone here, a place of permanent belonging in God's direct presence.
38:11 There is the promise that we will go in, you will go in and never come out again. There is the wonderful reality that he is willing to give us his names, to put them directly on us and to say this one is mine. You are mine. I love you. I just want to finish by inviting you to spend a few moments as the band come back again in prayerful wonder. Look forward to this guaranteed future that he has set before us. A future where we will be eternally in his presence. and a future where the worst that faces us now is not trivialized, but will become a brief memory, labeled that was difficult, but he was with me and he kept me through it.
39:15 Thank you.
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About this talk
This talk explores the example of the Church of Philadelphia as described in Revelation 3, highlighting their faithful endurance despite facing significant challenges and little power. The speaker compares their situation to that of Lance Armstrong, emphasizing the genuine nature of their perseverance. The talk examines the church's condition, the magnitude of their task, and the divine resources provided to them, including belonging to God, the promise of protection, and the assurance of Christ's return. Finally, it discusses the eternal reward promised to those who conquer, encouraging listeners to reflect on their own faithfulness and reliance on God's support.
Bible passages
- Revelation 3:7–13 (main passage)
- Isaiah 22:20–22
- John 17:15
