September 24, 2017

Jericho Ridge

Revelation: Strength for Today, Hope for Tomorrow

Faith Under Pressure

Text: Revelation 2:8-17

Focus: Jesus calls us to be faithful under pressure.

Introduction

We continue in our series, “Revelation: Strength for Today, Hope for Tomorrow”

• And like Pastor Brad, who said that for a variety of reasons, there’s a certain level of intimidation to this book … I too have been feeling that leading up to today.
• I had all the familiar lines running through my mind:
  • Why bother with Revelation now? This is going to require effort/time in study, and fall is a busy time in life and church life … maybe we should postpone, or better yet, just wait until we’re in heaven to figure this book out!
  • What if we interpret Revelation incorrectly!
  • Does this really help the life of Jericho Ridge or will it just muddy/complicate the path we are on?

• And then Pastor Brad started getting all excited about the book of Revelation and I was reminded that God doesn’t give us a spirit of fear or intimidation, especially when it comes to his revelation to us of who he is!
• So why am I listening to these lies about this sermon series.
• In fact, the most common opening line that God has for his people when he reveals himself is, “Do not be afraid!” … he says it right to John in Rev. 1:17.
• And in Rev. 1:3, we are told that God blesses anyone who reads this prophecy to the church and anyone who listens and obeys what it says!

• “Don’t be afraid!” “I will bless you.”
• Are you kidding me … bring it on!

So what does God have in store for us? (Pray)

• Father in Heaven, you know all things! And in your Son, Jesus Christ, you have given us a revelation of who you are and what’s in store for us.
• Would you continue to pour out your Holy Spirit on us as Jericho Ridge and reveal to us what you have for us as we read, listen to, and obey the words of the prophecy to your Church in Revelation.
• Thank you that we are a part of this prophecy. Thank you that when you, Jesus, spoke these words, you not only had the first churches in mind, but you saw and were speaking to us today at Jericho Ridge.
• Jesus, build your church today for it’s in your name that we pray! Amen.

Last week Pastor Brad began in the portion of Revelation that we know as the Letters to the Churches.

• Seven letters to seven churches in Asia at the time that the Apostle John received the Revelation.
• Here’s a map to help us see where these churches were…
• John was exiled to prison on the Island of Patmos and circulated this letter to these churches as a prophetic critique of the Roman Empire and with the declaration that Jesus Christ is the world’s emperor (not Caesar).
• We also learnt last week that the 7 letters to the 7 churches represent wholeness/completion … meaning that these letters are for all churches in all times.
• Yes, they were addressing specific things for each church, but they also encompass encouragement and correction for any church in every generation, including Jericho Ridge.

Last week we read the letters to the churches in Ephesus and Sardis.

• And we could identify with our 1^st sisters & brothers.
• Jesus’ commended them for their good work, patient endurance, and their intolerance of evil people.
• He commended them for not quitting when things got difficult, and we as Jericho Ridge could relate, especially for those of you who have been with us for some years.

• But Jesus also identified a heart-shift in the church and complained that they had gotten so busy in doing “church” work that they had little time for intimacy with him.
• Again, many of us, busy as we are, can identify with our brothers and sisters in 1^st Century Ephesus and Sardis.
• And with them, we hear Jesus’ call to return to the practices and disciplines that were prevalent when we first fell in love with Jesus.

And it’s that command of returning and abiding in intimacy with Jesus, not as a romantic ideal of a past time, but as a place were our beliefs & activity as a church flow freely out of our relationship with Jesus, that is the connector to the next two letters to the churches in Smyrna and Pergamum and Jericho Ridge.

⁸ “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Smyrna. This is the message from the one who is the First and the Last, who was dead but is now alive: ⁹ “I know about your suffering and your poverty—but you are rich! I know the blasphemy of those opposing you. They say they are Jews, but they are not, because their synagogue belongs to Satan. ¹⁰ Don’t be afraid of what you are about to suffer. The devil will throw some of you into prison to test you. You will suffer for ten days. But if you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you the crown of life.  ¹¹ “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. Whoever is victorious will not be harmed by the second death.

¹² “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Pergamum. This is the message from the one with the sharp two-edged sword: ¹³ “I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me. You refused to deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you there in Satan’s city. ¹⁴ “But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. ¹⁵ In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. ¹⁶ Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.  ¹⁷ “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it.

Pressure is Building

Using the same letter format that we saw last Sunday: introduction / commendation / complaint / command … Jesus is speaking to his church as it undergoes very real pressures.

• Most often, when we think of pressure, we think of it in a negative connotation – “uh oh, something or someone is going to blow if we don’t relieve the pressure”.
• But as you know, not all pressure is blatantly bad.
• You can come under pressure in life when surrounding circumstances are seemingly good, even great.
• And that’s what we see in settings of Smyrna and Pergamum.
• We’ll go into more detail, but essentially the church in Smryna was facing pressure as a result of negative circumstances … they were being persecuted.
• While the church in Pergamum was seemingly in a rather “favorable” and tolerant environment.
• And in both settings, Jesus commands the church to remain faithful to himself. Why?

If there are two kinds of pressure in the world: when things are going well and when things are not going well…

• Then there are two correlating types of attack from Satan against the church/us:
  • Persecution - a full on frontal assault intended to take us out.
  • Seduction - the allure of something seemingly enticing, but ultimately destructive.

• John Stott says it a little differently, but equally as helpful (What Christ Thinks of the Church, p.13).
• He divides these two categories into three:
  • Physical – persecution / open hostility / violent powers intending to take you out.
  • Intellectual – error / false teaching / insidious theology / materialistic philosophy / deception / contamination.
  • Moral – sub-Christian ethical standards / tolerance / compromise / conformity to the world’s ways.

Can we relate today?

• In each of these circumstances, we/the church are called to be faithful to the Head of the Church, Jesus.
• The book of Revelation calls us: to endure tribulation / to hold fast to truth / to obey God’s commands in life.
• What does that look like as church?

Pressure in Smyrna

We look to our ecclesial predecessors, first in Smyrna:

⁸ “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Smyrna. This is the message from the one who is the First and the Last, who was dead but is now alive: ⁹ “I know about your suffering and your poverty—but you are rich! I know the blasphemy of those opposing you. They say they are Jews, but they are not, because their synagogue belongs to Satan. ¹⁰ Don’t be afraid of what you are about to suffer. The devil will throw some of you into prison to test you. You will suffer for ten days. But if you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you the crown of life.  ¹¹ “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. Whoever is victorious will not be harmed by the second death.

• Smyrna was a persecuted and suffering church.
• They loved Jesus so much that they willing counted it a privilege to suffer for Jesus.
• There’s a saying that says, “you’re only willing to suffer for the ones you love”.
• The church in Smyrna does not have the same problem as the Church in Ephesus, who had lost their first love for Jesus.
• In Smyrna, the church loves Jesus so much that it sees its suffering as a privilege.
• It was dangerous to be a Christian in Smyrna.
• The city was very patriotic to Rome and what we call the cult of the Empire & Emperor.
• The city of Smyrna took great pride in being the flagship for this in the Roman Empire.
  • They had the only temple honoring the Emperor Tiberius. They won that honor within the Empire.
• So for the average citizen of Smyrna, Rome/Caesar looked favorably on you and your city.

But for the Christians, Caesar wasn’t Lord; Jesus was Lord, which was extremely unpatriotic.

• So they came under severe persecution, including from the Jewish sector.
• The Jews had negotiated sacrificial Roman exemptions and they used their exempt status to attack the Christians who also refused to sacrifice to Caesar but didn’t have the legal exemption to do so.

• In all, Jesus mentions 4 types of persecution for the church:
  • Poverty9 – wealthy city, but Christians were honest and generous, which went against the materialistic grain of the city, and so, were taken advantage of.
  • Slander/blasphemy9 – Jews were spreading false rumors and the locals ate up the gossip.
  • Prison10 – this was coming (John already in prison)
  • Death10 – death/martyrdom also came.

Now, in Canada, we can’t say we know that level of pressure and persecution, but we are not exempt from suffering.

• In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus states that suffering is an indispensable mark of a Christian and that persecution and hardship is inevitable.
• And with any level of pressure and attack, comes the human inclination to compromise in order to avoid suffering.
• Let’s be honest, the truths of the Gospel:
  • sinful humanity
  • God’s wrath
  • the impossibility of self-salvation
  • the necessity of the cross
  • the dangers and glory of eternal life
• …these provoke opposition like nothing else in our society.
• To live out Christ’s moral standards and profess Christ’s monotheistic truisms … well that is very unpopular in our liberated age of diversity and tolerance.
• You are labelled a fundamentalist and told you are well past your “best-before” date, or you are attacked with the intention of silencing/removing you from the conversation.

Jesus says to his church (Smyrna / Jericho Ridge), be faithful.

• Don’t give up! Don’t be afraid!
• In this world you will have trouble, you will suffer, follow me to the cross and beyond.
• Your persecution is for a limited time and has limited affect.
• Because with the call to suffer, Jesus also declares the reward for the faithful, of the “crown of life”.
• That’s an eternal promise/outcome of grace and reward.
• Jesus as the Head of the Church in Smyrna/Jericho Ridge is:
  • Eternal,
  • Victorious,
  • All-knowing of our times,
  • Balanced/Holy metrics (poor but rich),
  • In control,
  • Purposeful,
  • Generous (crown of life)

If we follow Jesus, we will suffer!

• But church, be faithful, do not be afraid.
• Jesus, the First and the Last, who died and lives again, knows our trials, he controls our destiny, and he will give us the crown of life if we are faithful!
• So be faithful under pressure … notice, I didn’t say be self-reliant, or powerful, or successful.
• We are not called to be any of those things … we are called to be faithful.
• And Jesus promises that he “willbuild [his] church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it (Mt. 16:18) … not even in Pergamum, a city “where Satan has the throne”.

Pressure in Pergamum

Now, you’d think that if your city was known as the city where “Satan has his throne,” you’d be experiencing the blatant physical persecution that the Church in Smyrna was experiencing.

• But that wasn’t necessarily the norm in Pergamum.

¹² “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Pergamum. This is the message from the one with the sharp two-edged sword: ¹³ “I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me. You refused to deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you there in Satan’s city. ¹⁴ “But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. ¹⁵ In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. ¹⁶ Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.  ¹⁷ “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it.

Jesus begins by saying that he knows where you live … he knows where we live … He knew of Ephesus’ works … of Smyrna’s tribulation … he knows the standards & values of Langley.

• Jesus knows the setting his church lives in and the unique pressures it places on Christians in every generation.
• Pergamum was a strong centre of paganism (truth vs. error).
• It was full of temples and altars … it was a thriving hub of the Cult of Rome & Emperors.
• While Smyrna had the prized Temple of Tiberius, Pergamum had volume and breadth.
• It took pride in “many ways and many thoughts leading to truth.”
• The more around the table of wisdom, truth, and life the better.
• Their society, economy, lifestyle was flourishing under this philosophy.
• Does this in any way sound familiar with what our society is striving for today?

But the church in Pergamum sticks to its theological convictions even in the face of martyrdom.

• There is just one problem … our God is a jealous God who says that we are to worship him and him alone.
• Not Him along with…
• The Church in Pergamum allows some false prophets to be part of the church.
• Jesus says, “I have a few complaints…”

• The guarding of the gospel is a major concern for Jesus.
• For Ephesus it was a matter of love (loving Jesus), for Pergamum it’s a matter of truth (I am the way, the truth, and the life…).
• Yes, love Jesus first and foremost, be willing to suffer for him, and be vigilant in proclaiming/living the truth.
• Friends, we cannot love without truth, and truth cannot exist without love.
• If you love Jesus, and Jesus is the truth, then how can we be ignorant, indifferent, lackadaisical, regarding truth?

Go back to John Stott’s 2^nd and 3^rd tactics of Satan: intellectual attack and moral attack.

• These do not so much come under the category of physical suffering, but more so under the category of seduction.
• When physical attack is relatively absent, you can be sure that Satan is at work in our comfort zones, seducing us to contaminate our theology and compromise our practices.

• This is the pressure that the Pergamum church was facing.
• Do we remain true to the absolute Jesus as Savior and Lord?
• And how do we live that out?
• It’s one thing to believe it, another to say it, and another to live it.
• The holiness of Jesus displayed within the life of his church is also on trial here – righteous/holy living.
• We can’t just talk the talk, we have to walk the walk!
• Failure of either even minimally, makes me as a Christian a liar.
• For example,
  • The Nicolatians & Balaamites wanted Christians to believe that Christ has set us free from the law with his grace. And with such liberty we can do what we want.  And as we do what we want/sin, the grace that set us free abounds even more.
  • The church is seduced into altering the saving grace of God into a license to sin, which actually denies Christ and the work he did for us on the cross.
• Just a little theological shift… just a little immorality… we don’t have to go to extremes.
• The church in Ephesus hated this false teaching, while the church in Pergamum tolerated it.
• And it’s here, in this setting, we are told that Satan has his throne.

So, church, repent of your sin (v.16), be faithful in declaring and living out the truth … or Jesus will come and do it himself!

• And he will eradicate all untruth, all error, no matter how seemingly insignificant.
• You don’t want to be on the wrong side of that battle, because victory has already been declared.
• And for those who listen and are faithful, you are again promised reward:
  • Manna hidden away in heaven
  • A white stone engraved with a new name on it
• There is some debate as to what this reward is, but in keeping with the metanarrative of the Revelation…
• …I agree with those who interpret Christ to be the bread from heaven (John 6) that gives life to anyone who eats it
• … and I agree with those who interpret the white stone as having Christ’s name engraved on it, acting as our “ticket” to get into the heavenly banquet.
• If we are faithful under pressure … we will be rewarded to feast on Christ and to comprehend the fullness of his Name.
• We will receive such a manifestation of Christ that it will completely satisfy the longing of our heart and mind.
• The fullness of Christ, permeating into every longing of my heart and mind … wow!

Remain Faithful

Jericho Ridge, is that worth the pressures, the suffering that we face?

• And absolutely, I need to be reminded of these rewards every time I am faced with any persecution or any suffering, or any pressure to compromise my faith, or any temptation to give up my faith in Jesus Christ.
• He is my reward!

• Maybe today you are struggling to stay faithful to Jesus.
• Perhaps your pain is getting the better of you.
• Maybe you’ve been compromising in certain areas, hoping it will turn out, but really, Satan has been seducing you.
• Jesus says, come to me, repent, don’t give up … I have a reward, the crown of life, I want to give you.

As the worship team comes up, we will also have people of prayer at the sides for you.

• You are not called to be faithful alone … we are called to be faithful as the church.
• So let’s be the church … let’s remind each other of truth, let’s encourage/support each other in suffering/challenge, let’s walk together.

 Let’s pray…