We are the champions, we are the champions
We are the champions
There are a bunch of different ideas about the book of Revelation among Christians and so I'm going to teach you as best I can what I believe to be true.
I'm thankful that it's been a long time since Donna and I have had to go church shopping. Actually it's been 23 years.
23 years ago pastor Ken contacted me and asked if we would pray about coming to the church at Argyle as the worship leader and the youth pastor.
At that time the church voted on new staff and the way it went a search committee would interview prospective new staff and then if they passed that interview then the church, the whole church would interview the prospective new staff
and then if that went well then the whole church would vote and so we decided that before all that took place that we would come check you out first
and so Donna and I and the kids visited one Sunday and this was a long time ago, the church was quite different then and let's just say that it was quite interesting
but things worked out and so here we are 23 years later but looking for a new church is hard work. In fact some of you may even be here today checking us out.
God bless you because it's so difficult to know.
A church can have beautiful buildings and a lot of smiling faces but it's possible for those beautiful buildings and smiling faces to be hiding a bunch of serious problems that are on the inside
and then the other side of that is that a church can have below average facilities but on the inside can have a very godly loving fellowship going on.
If only we had X-ray vision but sometimes that's not even good enough. I've been having some knee pain and so I went to see Dr. Heakin and he took an X-ray and that wasn't good enough
so he sent me to get an MRI and that was an experience. The MRI shows everything.
What if it was possible for us to take an MRI of the church that we were checking out? Well in a way it is. Jesus takes an MRI of the church.
He can correctly inspect a church because he can see what's going on on the inside. He knows the motives and he knows the intent. He knows why we really do what we do
and that's what Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3 are really all about.
God gave seven messages to John to the seven churches in Asia Minor and as we discussed last week these seven messages were not just for these seven churches but were meant for all churches
even the church at Argyle. God is also speaking to us as individual believers in these seven messages because churches are not just buildings, churches are people.
Church isn't just a place we go. Church is something that we do. Church is not a what. Church is a who. Church is not a noun. It's a verb.
It's the people who determine the spiritual life of this gathering of believers that we call the local church.
So we must apply all of the teaching personally. It's up to us to all examine our own heart.
So as we read the seven letters to the seven churches that are also written to every church that are also written to every believer
there are some things that we need to remember that will help us to understand and better apply this teaching.
These letters were written and delivered to seven actual churches. The letter addressed actual problems that were going on in these churches
but also these letters addressed issues, good and bad, behaviors, good and bad that are happening in all churches, every church.
You see local churches have their own personality and as you get to know a local church you will see in these churches in their nature
characteristics and elements that are in all seven of these churches that we'll be looking at.
Another way to see these seven letters to these churches is that these letters are prophetic.
That the church as a whole goes through periods and phases. The age of the church begins with Ephesus and it goes through the church at Laodicea.
So today we're beginning in chapter two. We'll be in Revelation chapter two and verse one.
To the angel of the church in Ephesus, right. And I was kidding with you last week about the pastor being the angel of the church
but I think that actually is the best interpretation of this scripture. I think I just struggle with seeing myself that way as an angel, a devil maybe.
But the angel, I don't know, so pray for me. Ephesus was a port city. It was very rich and it had a lot of sin, kind of like a mixture of New York City and Las Vegas.
And even though it was several miles from the sea, it had river access and so it was the greatest harbor in Asia Minor.
It became known as the gateway to Asia. It was a center of worship for the Greek God Artemis and the Roman God Diana, whose temple was there.
There were some well-known famous people who were in leadership at different times in the church at Ephesus.
Paul served there. John served there. Timothy served there.
Verse one, these are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand.
We saw last week that the seven stars are the seven angels and the seven angels are the seven pastors of these seven churches.
These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand.
So that means that God has the pastors in his right hand.
I've read this a bunch of times and I don't know, just never really saw that.
And I saw that this week and just some comfort came from that, knowing that God has us in his right hand.
I believe that God has the church in his right hand.
I believe that God has every believer in his right hand too.
Verse two, chapter two.
I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance.
Isn't it great to be encouraged by someone?
Don't you love hearing from your boss? Great job.
Well, how about hearing that from God? Does it get any better than that?
This was a serving church and that's wonderful.
They were doing good things. They were making a difference in their community. That's awesome.
The church at Ephesus have been faithful for over 40 years,
even in the middle of a difficult pagan culture.
Verse two, I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people,
that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them false.
See, the wicked people mentioned here are not murderers and robbers and adulterers and prostitutes.
These wicked people here in Revelation are church people.
They're church people with an evil agenda.
See, our calling at the church at Argyle is to be a church for people who don't like church.
For people who have been hurt by church somewhere in their past.
For people who have a negative stereotype of church and they've just decided they're not coming.
We're trying to be a church for those people.
But we are not a church for people who want to hurt the church.
There's a difference. In Acts 20, Paul warned the church at Ephesus
that there would be false teachers that would come from without the church.
That there would be false teachers that would come from within the church that want to hurt the church.
Satan can use people to cause division and hurt the church and that is not to be tolerated.
God was commending the church at Ephesus for identifying these wicked people and removing them from the church.
Let's skip down to verse 6.
But you have this in your favor.
You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
Now, hate is a strong word. It's a word that we try not to use.
But when God uses it, we need to take notice.
God hates sin, but he doesn't hate the sinner.
Here, God hates the practices of this group of people called the Nicolaitans.
So who are the Nicolaitans?
The word Nicolaitan means to conquer the people.
This group of people were teaching in the church that there needed to be a division between the regular, common, lowly believers
and the high and all mighty religious leaders who have special rights and privileges.
And I don't know how far to go with this, but I mean, it's always kind of annoyed me a little bit,
you know, the reserve parking spaces and the throne up on the platform and all that mess.
They taught that if you wanted to get to God, that you had to go through them.
And that's just complete false teaching.
The scriptures teach that all of God's people, that all believers are priests
and that we all have equal access to God the Father through the blood of Jesus Christ,
that we can all come boldly to the throne of God.
You don't need to go through anyone else.
Back to verse three.
You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name and have not grown weary.
Man, what a commendation.
So the church at Ephesus is a serving church.
It's an enduring church.
It's a patient church.
It's a faithful church.
It's a church that values the truth.
Man, I wouldn't mind that being said about my church.
That's a pretty good description.
But there was a problem.
Verse four,
Yet I hold this against you, you have forsaken the love you had at first doing all of the right stuff.
It looked real good on the outside, but not on the inside.
They had a problem and it was a heart problem.
The good things that they were doing was not motivated by the love for Jesus.
What we do for God is important, but even more important is why we do it.
What does it mean by the love you had at first?
And it's sad and it's a shame, but usually it's best understood and explained
by looking at the spirit and the actions of a brand new Christian,
a brand new believer because they have passion and excitement
and they can't keep it in and they got to tell somebody about it.
It's like the honeymoon love of a newly married couple.
Just like a healthy marriage will grow and become more deep and more rich in time,
a healthy relationship with Jesus will continue to grow deeper and richer also.
But as soon as we begin to take our relationship with God for granted,
as soon as you fall into the everyday routine
and you begin to just go through the motions of coming to church,
you have forsaken the love you had at first.
You can keep serving, but that doesn't mean you're worshiping.
You can keep doing the right thing, but that doesn't mean you're doing it in love.
So what can we do about it?
Verse 5, consider how far you have fallen, repent and do the things you did at first.
To consider how far you have fallen means to look back and remember and to continue remembering.
Remember what it was like when Jesus first found you
and you experienced His forgiveness and His grace and His mercy and the joy that filled your soul.
And then you need to repent, and to repent means to do a 180, to completely turn around and go the other way.
And then do the things that you did at first.
In other words, get back to the basics, make it a priority to spend time in the Bible and to pray every day.
Serve others and give generously.
That gets the eyes off of yourself.
Serve others, give generously with the right heart.
Ask God to help you live a holy life. You can't live a holy life in your own power.
Ask God to help you do that.
And then invest and invite, invest in other people and invite them to come with you on Sunday.
And that can rekindle the love that you had at first.
Verse 5, consider how far you've fallen, repent and do the things you did at first.
If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
We saw that the lampstand is symbolic of the church.
When a church loses its love, it won't be long before it also loses its light.
Ephesus was rich. Ephesus was powerful.
The church was busy and it was doing all kinds of awesome stuff.
But the lampstand was removed today.
Ephesus is a power of ruin and there is no light shining at all.
When we were building this church building, building about 20 years ago,
and we went around town looking at other buildings to get ideas of the design,
and there was one that we went to, and I don't want to be judgmental,
but it just felt weird when we went there.
I don't know, it just seemed like they were cocky, I think of another word.
Anyway, we didn't build the church like that one.
I drove by that church the other day and there was a Big 4 Cell sign out front.
They were in the news a while back and it was the bad kind of news.
Apparently they had forsaken the love that they had at first,
and God removed the lampstand.
Verse 7, whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life,
which is in the paradise of God.
The good thing here in verse 7, that even though a church may fall,
individual believers can remain faithful to God no matter what everyone else does.
You see, the church at Ephesus let their busyness distract them from the main thing.
And the crazy thing is, the busy stuff that they were doing was all good stuff,
but the busy stuff got them off of their mission.
The mission for the church at Argyle is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ,
and we can never allow anything to get us off mission.
The next church we'll look at is the letter to the church at Smyrna.
Verse 8, to the angel of the church in Smyrna, right,
these are the words of him who is the first and the last, who died and came to life again.
This was the description of Jesus that we saw in chapter 1,
that he is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
The word Smyrna means myrrh.
Myrrh was the perfume they used to anoint and embalm dead bodies.
So how would you like to live in a city called Formalahide?
The city of Smyrna was called the Crown of Asia.
It was the center of science and medicine.
Smyrna was very loyal to Rome,
and so many of the people actually worshiped the emperor as a god.
Verse 9, I know your afflictions and your poverty, yet you are rich.
The church at Smyrna was being persecuted because they refused to worship the emperor as god.
And because of their faith, because they stood for what they believed in,
it was impossible for them to get work.
They were excluded from getting the jobs.
So in physical things, they were poor.
The word here for poor actually means not just poor, it means they had nothing.
But in their faith, they were rich.
Verse 9, I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not,
but are a synagogue of Satan, even though they were Jewish spiritually.
They were not true Jews, but spiritual pagans.
The Romans did not allow observance of other religions, but they made an exemption for the Jewish people.
And so it was the Romans and the Jewish people against the Christians.
It was very difficult for the church at Smyrna.
Verse 10, do not be afraid of what you're about to suffer.
I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you,
and you will suffer persecution for 10 days.
God was encouraging them that he knew the devil's plan and what he was up to,
and that it would not last for very long.
Verse 10, be faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor's crown.
Our musicians sang about this this morning.
The victor's crown is the crown that's awarded at the athletic contest that was so big in this day that Smyrna was involved in.
But this crown referred to a much more valuable crown, the crown of life.
Verse 11, whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
The one who is victorious will not be heard at all by the second death.
Because they put their complete faith and trust in God, they had nothing to fear.
Even if they were martyred, heaven was their home.
They had the crown of life and no fear of the second death.
The first death is the physical death. The second death is the eternal death,
which they would not experience because they had eternal life in Jesus.
You know, most of us, in one way or another, expect to get rich in some way
when we choose to follow Jesus, that in some way we will be blessed.
The church in Smyrna found that they were already rich.
Even if following Jesus cost them everything.
How's that for the prosperity gospel?
Next, the letter to the church at Pergamus.
Pergamus was called the greatest city in Asia Minor, verse 12.
To the angel of the church in Pergamus, right?
These are the words of him who has the sharp double-edged sword.
In other words, the word of God.
Verse 13, I know where you live, where Satan has his throne.
How would you like to live there?
Pergamus was the headquarters of satanic opposition and false religions.
There was a huge throne-shaped altar there to the God Zeus.
Sounds like a great place to plant a church.
Verse 13, yet you remain true to my name.
You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas.
My faithful witness who has put the death in your city where Satan lives.
Antipas was probably the pastor of the church in Smyrna.
He refused to compromise and was martyred.
But others in the church compromised and gave in and sinned.
Verse 14, nevertheless, I have few things against you.
There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam.
Who taught Balaam to entice the Israelites to sin.
So that they ate food, sacrificed the idols, and committed sexual immorality.
You can read the story of Balaam in the Old Testament in Numbers 22 through 25.
It was an awful, sinful scheme.
And some in this church were seduced by it.
Verse 15, likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching
of the Nicoladans.
So here they are again, doing the same junk they were doing in Ephesus.
Verse 16, repent therefore, otherwise I will soon come to you
and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
Antipas, the pastor, had experienced the sword of the Romans and was put to death.
But the church at Pergamus would fill the sword of Christ if they did not repent and change.
Verse 17, whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna.
I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it known only to the one who receives it.
Just as God fed Israel with the manna, God has promised to feed the believers with the spiritual bread.
When an athlete won in the games, he was presented a white stone that gave him admittance to the victory celebration.
The white stone here could be symbolic of being admitted to the celebration in heaven.
The new name written on the stone could be so special that only the one receiving it knows what it is.
Even though some in the church of Pergamus stood strong, many compromised their faith.
The church or an individual who compromises their faith for their own benefit or to avoid suffering
has committed spiritual adultery and is unfaithful to God.
God calls on us to repent before it's too late.
The last church we look at today is Thyatira.
It's located halfway between Pergamus and Sardis.
It's a military town.
It has a lot of commerce, but it's known for its idolatry.
It's known for its immorality.
Verse 18, to the angel of the church in Thyatira write,
These are the words of the Son of God whose eyes are like blazing fire, whose feet are like burnished bronze.
I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and your perseverance,
and that you are now doing more than you did at first.
This church is serving, it's loving, it's hanging in there, and that's all good stuff.
Verse 20, nevertheless, I have this against you.
You tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophet.
By her teaching, she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.
Verse 21, I have given her time to repent of her immorality and she is unwilling.
The church was allowing a woman who called herself a prophet to influence them to compromise.
She was a type of Jezebel, and if you're familiar with the story of the Old Testament, Jezebel was a very wicked queen.
God had given her many chances to repent and she refused.
And now she would be punished along with those who chose to follow her.
Verse 22, so I will cast her on a bed of suffering.
I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely unless they repent of her ways.
Verse 23, I will strike her children dead.
This is speaking of those who choose to follow her.
Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
But thank God everyone in this church had not been unfaithful.
God had a special word for these faithful people in verse 24.
Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets.
I will not impose any other burden on you except to hold on to what you have until I come.
Until I come refers to the time when Jesus will come to take his church.
This is the first mention of what we refer to as the rapture.
Of these four churches, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, Thyatira, we probably would not have chosen Smyrna as the spiritual one of these churches.
But God did, and that's usually what he does, the exact opposite of what we would do.
As we've listened to these four letters, has any of this challenged you in your walk with God?
It's challenged me.
You see, God sees the heart. Why we do is important as what we do.
That we should not forsake the love that we had at first, and that is so easy to do.
That we need to remain faithful even when it means suffering.
That we should put our complete faith and trust in God and in God alone and nothing else.
And then let's hold on to what we have until he comes.
You see, Jesus is coming back, and nobody knows when.
And so what we need to do is be ready.
That means we need to have a relationship with God by accepting His Son into our life and repenting of our sin.
That means as a Christian, we need to be right with God and right with Him right now.
And we can do that by repenting of our sin and turning to Him.
And don't put that off.
I pray you'll choose that today.
