Jesus' letter to the church in Philadelphia, Revelation 3:7-13
Immanuel Sermon Audio
Seven - Philadelphia
If you have your Bible with you this morning, take it out and find the book of Revelation. Chapter 3, Revelation chapter 3, beginning in verse 7 this morning, and while you find that passage, I will let you know that today is a milestone in 2014, it's an important milestone. In 2014, as of today, we are less than 200 days away from Christmas today. 199 days until Christmas today. That means if you haven't started thinking yet about what you want from that special someone in December, you need to get with the program because the clock is ticking, Walmart is going to have Christmas decorations up in about a week, and so you need to get with the program. What do you want for Christmas? You need to answer that question, but this morning in this sermon series, like we've done every week so far, we're asking a radically different question. Instead of what do we want from our church, we're trying to ask the very simple question, what does Jesus want from His church? Jesus purchased this church and every church, all believers with His blood on the cross, we ought to at least take time to ask ourselves what is it that He wants from us? We belong to Him, what would He have from our church? And we spent several weeks in this series, we're calling it seven, it's based on the seven letters that Jesus wrote to the seven churches of Asia Minor, and He wrote them through the Apostle John, and so we have a map, put the map up on the screen, you can see Greece over there on the left, and what we call Turkey, what used to be called Asia Minor, right there in the middle, the Apostle John was on the island of Patmos, he was imprisoned there, exiled there for his faith and for his refusal to be quiet about Jesus, and Jesus came and he appeared to John on the island of Patmos, told John many, many important things about heaven and about the end, but also gave John seven letters to sin to seven real churches, and you can just see sort of moving in a clockwise fashion, the first letter was Ephesus, Smyrna, Pragamum, Thyatira, Sardis, this morning Philadelphia, and then Laodicea, and we've seen several things over the last couple of weeks as Jesus has spoken to these real churches with real people, with real issues, and I hope that your experience over the last couple of weeks has been as each of these letters ends that the Spirit would speak to our church, and so we looked at the letter to the church in Ephesus, it was a warning about the danger of a diminishing love, meaning Jesus wants a church that loves people, that was week one, week two was Jesus's letter to the church in Smyrna, he warned about the danger of fearing persecution and what Jesus wants from that church and from every church is loyalty even to death, so that was week two, week three was Jesus's letter to the church in Pragamum, he warned them of the danger of theological doctrinal compromise, he wants a church that is passionate about the truth and that will defend the faith once for all delivered to the saints, the very next week was Jesus's letter to the church in Thyatira, it wasn't theological compromise, but it was moral compromise, and what Jesus wanted from that church and every church is that we would be holy, that we would be holy, a week after that, after Thyatira was the church in Sardis and they were warned about the danger of spiritual deadness, no real problems in that church, no fighting, no blatant open flagrant sin, just a church that got caught going through the motions and Jesus said to that church, you need to wake up, I don't want you to just go through the motions, I want you to be spiritually alive and so that was last week to the church in Sardis this morning, Jesus led her to the church in Philadelphia and the big idea is this, Jesus warns the church in Philadelphia about the danger of giving up, the danger of giving up, what Jesus wants is a church that will endure, a church that will hold fast, a church that will stick with it, and at first glance that sounds awful similar to what we talked about a couple of weeks ago when we looked at Jesus' letter to the church in Smyrna, you remember Smyrna was about to face persecution and Jesus basically said hang in there, don't quit, don't give up, don't be discouraged, just keep doing exactly what you're doing and Jesus says something very similar to the church in Philadelphia, he says just hang in there, don't quit, keep doing exactly what you're doing, don't give up, there's a slight difference, in Smyrna Jesus wanted them to endure in the face of persecution, in the face of suffering, he said to them, some of you are going to be thrown into prison and then you're going to die, I want you to be faithful even to death, to the church in Philadelphia Jesus is not saying that they're about to suffer, no one's going to jail, no one's head's going to be on the chopping block, what Jesus is saying is I want you to hang in there in the midst of the daily grind, I just want you to keep plugging away when life is just sort of business as usual and you get used to this routine of what you call everyday life, you need to keep going, don't give up, endure, hold fast to what you have and he says to the church in Philadelphia, we'll see in a second, he says I know you're small, I know you don't have much power, I'm aware of all of that but I just want you to keep doing exactly what you're doing, if you have your Bible look at Revelation chapter 3 beginning in verse 7 and we will read what Jesus had to say to the church in Philadelphia and hopefully we will hear what the Spirit of God has to say to us at a manual. So this is the word of God Jesus speaking through John, Revelation chapter 3 verse 7, to the angel of the church in Philadelphia, right, 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, behold I have set before you an open door which no one is able to shut, I know that you have but little power and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name, behold I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews and are not but lie, behold I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you because you have kept my word about patient endurance. I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth, I'm coming soon, hold fast what you have so that no one may seize your crown, the one who conquers I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God never shall he go out of it and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God the new Jerusalem which comes down from my God out of heaven in my own new name. He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, let's pray. Father we are grateful for the opportunity we have had to sing. And Father in a minute we are going to sing and worship and lift up praise to Jesus Christ again but right now we want to hear from you. We want your spirit to speak to our church. Father we pray for minds to understand the truths in this passage. We pray for hearts to receive them and Father we pray that you would find what you want to find at a manual Baptist church. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. We're going to jump into this letter in just a minute before we do that let me just remind you of something that I hope you know. I hope this doesn't come as any surprise to you but I'm going to let you in on something very important for your life and my life and that is this simple idea. Someday you're going to die, I don't want to be morbid, I don't want to be pessimistic but I know that as well as you know that someday you are going to die. Typically when that happens your family and your friends gather together and we have a memorial service or a celebration of life or a funeral if you want to use the old fashioned term but we get together and we sing some songs and we read some scriptures and part of those services we're going to talk about you. How many of you should you kill over tomorrow? How many of you would like us to stand up me or someone else? Would like us to stand up and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth when we talk about you. Any volunteers? I don't know. Most of us would be a little hesitant and say well there's some things you could forget about me that would be alright if you just let those things go and I think what most of us want for ourselves and what most of us want when we're at the funeral of a loved one is we want a eulogy literally that word means a good word, a good word. We'd like somebody to stand up and like them to say something good about our life and you've been to funerals and you know people as well as I do sometimes that's an easy thing to do, sometimes that's a challenging thing to do but that's what we try to do at a funeral service. We try to stand up and we try to speak a good word about somebody's life. And I just state the obvious as you think about these letters in Revelation 2 and 3 they're not eulogies and that a eulogy tends to ignore some of the negative characteristics of your life and focus on some of the more positive characteristics of your life. Can we all agree that if you've been here the last couple of weeks Jesus does not ignore problems in these churches? He doesn't just try to sweep them under the rug. He doesn't just try to pretend like everything's okay when it's not okay. In fact Jesus sort of just calls a spade a spade a lot of the times doesn't he? And he says listen here's some good things about you. He tries to find something positive to say about all of these churches but then he turns around and he says just very bluntly and directly I got some stuff against you. There's some problems here. There's some things in your church that are not okay. He's brutally honest with these churches. He's not holding anything back. And when you think about that and you read the letter we just read isn't it remarkable that Jesus had no negative things to say about the church in Philadelphia? Nothing. In all of these letters Jesus at one point or another says I want you to repent. There's sin that you need to turn away from. To Philadelphia what does he say? You just keep on going. You just keep on doing exactly what you're doing. Hold fast, endure. Don't give up. Don't quit. Keep doing exactly what you've been doing as individuals and as a church family. This is a unique letter. You look at this letter and you have the opportunity when you read between the lines and you think about some of the ways Jesus describes himself and some of the things he says to this church. You have an opportunity to say what do we need to do as a church in order that if Jesus were to write us a letter all he would have to say is keep doing exactly what you're doing. What were they doing in Philadelphia? What truths and doctrines and ideas were they holding on to? We're going to talk about that this morning. If we want to endure what truths do we need to hold on to? Number one, hold on to the truth that Jesus is the king, capital K, king. He is the king who will rule all kings. The Bible says this in Revelation 3, verse 7, Jesus describes himself as the holy one, the true one who has the key of David. He opens and no one will shut, he shuts and no one opens. You can find like most of the book of Revelation, you can find all kinds of speculation about what does it mean that Jesus has the key of David? What exactly is he getting at when he talks about that? As we've talked about the last couple of weeks it's always good to let scripture interpret scripture and the Old Testament before Jesus was born actually talks about this idea of the key of David and the story goes something like this. God's people as a nation had fallen into sin. God had promised them that when that happened he would send them out of the promised land into exile in a foreign country and it all happened exactly like God said it would happen. The people fell into sin, they turned away from God, God sent foreign armies to conquer Israel and then later to conquer Judah and to send his people into exile. While they were in exile there was no true king in Jerusalem. What they had was a steward and one of the stewards name was Shebna, S-H-E-B-N-A, Shebna. Shebna was the steward and his job was really simple. You just hold down the fort until the king gets back. You're not the king, don't get on the throne, don't play with the crown. Don't mess around, you just keep an eye on things until the king gets back. And Shebna did that for a while and he did a pretty decent job of it for a while. But as the days wore on Shebna started to think this steward gig is okay but king would be a little bit better. And so Shebna hired a crew of men and they went out of Jerusalem outside the gates and they went to the royal cemetery where the kings of Judah were buried. Not the stewards, the kings. And Shebna said, "Guys, this is where I want you to dig right here and when I die they're going to bury me right here." Not with the stewards but with the kings. When you look in the book of Isaiah about chapter 22 and I'm paraphrasing at this point, God gave a message to Isaiah and He said, "Listen I'm not amused at the grave that you've hued out for yourself. I don't think it's cute, I don't think it's funny, I don't think it's appropriate, you're not the king." And what God said through Isaiah is, "Somebody else is coming, I'm going to get rid of you, the steward Shebna, and when the son of David returns, his name is Elias Kim, I will give him, are you ready for it? I will give him the key of the house of David because he's the king and you're not the king." And Jesus is writing to the church in Philadelphia, a church that He just wants to endure. Keep doing exactly what you're doing and He says, "Don't forget that I'm the king." Not the little K king, not the guy who holds the spot for the king. I am the king who will rule over all kings. I have the key of the house of David. I lock it and no one opens it. I open it and no one closes it. I am the king. Do you understand that if you and I want to endure as followers of Jesus Christ, this has got to be in your bones. When you look around and you watch the news and you see what's happening in the world, and you look at the things that our culture and our society is embracing, and you look at the drift that's taking place in this country, that has got to be in your bones. If it's not, you will not endure. You will not hold fast to anything. You will be a warrior or you'll be a capitulator. And Jesus says to the church in Philadelphia, and He says to the church at a manual, "Don't forget, hold fast to this idea that I am the king." If we want to endure, what truths must we hold on to? Number two, the idea that our eternity is secure. If you want to endure, hold fast to this idea. Our eternity is secure. Jesus says in verse eight that He has opened a door before these believers, and no one is able to shut it. He says, "I know that you have but little power, but I have opened a door before you that no one will shut." Again, you can find all sorts of speculation about what is this door and what is Jesus talking about. And I've heard a really good sermon about this is a door for ministry. It's an opportunity for you to walk through a quote unquote door and to take advantage of a ministry opportunity that Jesus has given you. That's a nice idea, but I don't think it's what Jesus is talking about. Because if you look at Revelation chapter four, verse one, just a few verses later, Jesus says to John, "Look, there is a door open in heaven." And John comes up through this door and he sees the very throne room of heaven. And I think what Jesus is saying to the church in Philadelphia is this, "Listen, I have opened a door for you in heaven. When the time comes, you will walk through that door and you will be with me. No one will shut that door." He says, "Well, that's good news. Jesus is saying to us that our eternity is secure." It is good news, and it was especially good news for the church in Philadelphia. Because just a few years earlier, all of these Jewish Christians who all of their life had been meeting in Jewish synagogues and now said, "Jesus is our Jewish Messiah and we accept that and we still meet in the synagogue." They all got kicked out. The rabbis had a council and the council of jamia, they voted and they said, "Christians, Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah can no longer take place in synagogue activities. You guys are out. The door has been closed on your face." And you say, "Well, what's the big deal? We just, you know, we're in the 21st century. We just moved down the street, throw up a building and we open another church." That's not exactly how it worked for these Jewish believers in the first century. Because what their religious leaders were saying to them is, "We are cutting you off from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We are closing the door of heaven in your face and you are excommunicated." And Jesus comes along to these believers who just heard that news and he says to them, "What?" "I don't care how weak you may be. I don't care how little power or influence you have. None of that matters. Listen, I have opened a door for you in heaven. There's no question about your eternal security. The door that I have opened will not be shut and your eternity is secure. If you want to endure as a follower of Jesus Christ, that's got to be in your bones. You've got to believe that in the depth of who you are, that Jesus has died your death on the cross. He's lived a life of perfect righteousness in your place so that in Jesus sinners like us can be made righteous. The Bible says that Jesus who knew no sin became sin for us so that in Him we could become the righteousness of God. The door has been opened and Jesus is saying to his people, "Hold fast. Don't worry about the nonsense and the chaos all around you. Your eternity is secure." It doesn't matter what the economy does tomorrow. The door is open. It doesn't matter what the diagnosis comes back as. The door is open. It doesn't matter all of the chaos around you in your life because I have opened a door for you in heaven and Jesus says no one will be able to shut that door. We're going to endure. What do we hold on to? Number three, hold on to the idea that there will be a reckoning. There will be a reckoning. Jesus talks about that in verse nine where he specifically says, "I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews but are not the ones who lie. Hold," Jesus says, "I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you." How many of you have seen the movie Tombstone? Tombstone is one of my favorite movies. My dad's here this morning. I bet my dad and I together have watched the movie Tombstone a hundred times. We had it on VHS and about the only break we took was when you hit the rewind button and you get back to the beginning of the movie. You watch this movie over and over and we know all the one liners and it's a great Western movie and there's an interesting scene towards the end of the movie. If you haven't seen Tombstone, you've had 20 years to see it. I'm about to ruin it for you. Sorry. Still worth watching. You can pick up some good one liners if you hadn't seen the movie but in the movie it's the Earp Brothers in Doc Holiday and that's Holiday on the left and Virgil, the tallest one and then Wyatt played by Kurt Russell and then younger baby brother Morgan over on the right. So in the movie they're fighting the cowboys and the cowboys are the bad guys and the cowboys kill Morgan. They shoot him and they kill him and they shoot Virgil and he loses the use of one of his arms and he has to leave Tombstone and Wyatt says this is not acceptable and Wyatt gets a posse together and he gets his gang together and they make this promise. I'm not going to repeat it this morning. Those of you who are just waiting for me to say it, I'm not going to say it. He says I'm going to get you. We're coming after you and so the posse, the Wyatt Earp, posse and Doc Holiday, they're chasing him down and late in the movie there's a scene where they're at a creek and there's a shoot out. There's a gunfight and they kill one of the leaders of the cowboys. They kill Curly Bill Brocious and they gun him down and he's dead and it's an amazing a dramatic scene and how it all happens and later Wyatt is down by the creek and he's sort of just thinking, reflecting, whatever and Doc and some of the other guys are together and they're sort of talking about the gunfight and everything that happens and one of the McMaster's brothers says as they're there talking about Wyatt killing Curly Bill. He says if they were my brothers and he's talking about Morgan and Virgil, if they were my brothers, I'd want revenge too. And Doc Holiday is over there off to the side and he hears that comment and here's what he says, he says make no mistake about it. It's not revenge he's after, it's reckoning. And I remember hearing that as a teenager thinking that's a really dumb line. So many good lines in this movie. What's the difference? Revenge, reckoning, it really doesn't matter because they're going to kill these guys and as a teenager you think that's the greatest thing ever, they're getting the bad guys. There is a difference between revenge and reckoning. Revenge says I'm going to get even with you to satisfy my own anger and my own hurt. And the McMaster's brother said well I don't blame him for wanting revenge and Doc Holiday pops up and he says not revenge, it's reckoning. Everything is about the idea that you address a wrong to bring justice to a situation. It's not about your hurt but it's about what's right being done in a wrong situation. And Doc Holiday's point is why it is more righteous than to just seek revenge. It's not just about he's angry and he wants to get even, he wants to just make things right. The truth be told if you've read your history and you've seen the movie, Doc is wrong. It's probably about both for Wyatt Earp. It was about the reckoning and justice being done but it's also about revenge and getting even for what had happened to his family. Listen, when Jesus says this very interesting statement to the church in Philadelphia, I'm going to make your enemies come and bow at your feet. It's not revenge. It's not about these believers in Philadelphia sort of saying yeah you had that coming. When you kicked us out of your synagogue you shouldn't have done that and now we're even. But what Jesus is saying is understand that I will make in the end, I will make every wrong situation right. There will be justice and every wrong that goes unnoticed now will be noticed in the end. And all of the sorrow that seems to have no happiness or no end to the rainbow to bring joy at the end of sorrow, it's all going to be addressed. And all of the evils that seem to go unpunished, it's someday there will be a reckoning Jesus says. Do you understand how this frees you and I up to endure as followers of Jesus Christ and obedience? Those will happen to you in this life. If you live long enough you know that, you've experienced it. And Jesus is saying you don't have to worry about setting it right. You don't have to worry about getting revenge, you don't have to worry about satisfying your sinful wicked anger. Listen, at the end I promise I will make all of it right. Those who have mistreated you now will get what is just. Those who have excommunicated you out of their fellowships will be brought and will bow at your feet. There will be a reckoning, Jesus promises that. Number four, what do we hold on to if we want to endure? The idea that Jesus will keep His people. Jesus will keep His people. Verse 10, "Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth." In the book of Revelation that phrase, "those who dwell on the earth always refers to non-believers, always. Those who dwell on the earth equal sign unbelievers." And Jesus says, "Look, are you going to suffer?" You might, church in pergamum suffered, one of their own died, Antipas. My faithful witness died. In the church in Smyrna, they're about to suffer. Some of them are going to jail, some of them are going to die. There will be suffering in your life. And are you going to die someday? Absolutely. We've already established that this morning. You're probably going to have suffering, and at some point you will die, but Jesus says through all of it, "I will keep you." Don't read this as Jesus saying, "Everything is going to be rosy in your life. Everything is going to be always happy and pleasant in your life." He's not making that promise. What he's saying is that through any of the circumstances you face in life, I will keep you. And I'll make a distinction in the end between you and those who dwell on the earth. God's done that before in the Bible, right? You can think back to the Exodus when God was bringing his people out of Egypt. There was darkness over the land of Egypt, but what about God's people? They had light. And there were some of the plagues that afflicted the people of Egypt that did not afflict God's people. And in the end it was the firstborn of Egypt who died, and it was the firstborn of Israel who lived. God made a distinction, and he kept his people through it. Were they immune from all of the plagues? No. Some of them they faced just like the Egyptians. But through it all, God made a distinction, and he kept his people secure. If we want to endure what truths do we hold on to? Number five, the idea, the truth, the certainty, the hope that Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming. Verse 11, Jesus says, "I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have so that no one may seize your crown. I am coming soon." The reality is, and I know this and you know this, that this world is broken, and that while we may be able to go to Africa and build some homes, and we may be able to go around Odessa on a workday, and we may be able to do nice things for our neighbor, we are not going to fix the brokenness of this world. It will not be fixed until Jesus comes back. And if you're going to endure, you've got to have this in your arsenal. You've got to have the hope that it won't always be this way. When you work and you work and you work to try to make a situation better, and it just seems like you're throwing ice cubes at a blazing fire, you've got to have this in the back of your mind saying, "Jesus is going to come back someday. He is coming soon, and when He does, He will set all of these things wrong." Right, Jesus promised the church in Philadelphia that He was coming soon. What does Jesus promise a church that endures? What does He promise Philadelphia? What does He promise us today? Two simple ideas. Number one, Jesus promises that we will be with Him forever. We've talked about this in this series, but that is the point of heaven, not the reunion with your sweet aunt Martha or your great grandma, not the fact that you won't have allergies or you won't get sick or there won't be any funerals, but the fact that we will be with Jesus. And look what Jesus says in verse 12, "To the one who conquers, to the one who overcomes, I will make Him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall He go out of it, I will make Him a pillar." Now, God has a history of making people literal pillars, but I don't think that's what He's talking about here. You can look later this afternoon at Revelation chapter 21, verse 22, it says this, "There is no temple in the city. There's not a temple in heaven, in the new creation, in the new heavens, the new earth. There won't be a temple." Why? Jesus is there. He's with you. You don't need a temple because you have Jesus. So when Jesus says, "I'm going to make you a pillar in my temple," He's not saying, "Well, you're going to be made out of marble and you're going to be made out of sandstone." He's saying, "Look, you're going to be with me. We're going to be together. You will be in my presence forever." Jesus promises that we'll be with Him forever. If we endure second promise, Jesus promises that we will belong to Him. I don't know if you notice verse 12, it's an interesting statement right after He says He's going to make us a pillar. He says, "You're not going to go out of the temple and then I will write on you the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from God out of heaven and I will write on you my own new name." I don't think you need to be looking for Jesus at the pearly gates with a sharpie. I don't think you need to be waiting for Jesus with a tattoo gun to greet you at the gates of heaven and say, "All right, I'm going to put Jesus right across your forehead. Here we go." What Jesus is saying is, "You're going to belong to me. My name will be put on you. The name of my city will be put on you. The name of my God will be put on you. This is sort of like your mama sending you off to children's camp and she writes your name in your underwear. Those underwear belong to you, not to the guy sleeping next to you. You're yours, it's ownership, and Jesus says, "In a much better way than writing in underwear, you belong to me and I'm going to put my name on you because you are mine." Now really and honestly, isn't that what you want us to say at your funeral? Forget the good word. If you die and we have your funeral, we'll say something nice. But I know the truth about me and you know the truth about you and the honest reality is there's not a whole lot of good to say about any of us. Forget the preacher standing up and saying something about, "Well, when they were six, they walked the aisle and when they were twelve, they went to VBS and they went to Africa on Michigan," forget all that, it doesn't matter. What you want to hear at the end is, "You belong to me. Your mind, I purchased you. I died for you. I spilled my blood so that I could be doubly your owner. Once I owned you in creation and doubly I owned you in salvation, you are mine and I've opened a door in heaven for you. No one's going to close it. No one will undo the work that I have done on your behalf. You belong to me. Walk through the door and enjoy my presence forever. This morning, if you do not belong to Jesus Christ, that needs to change. What Jesus would call you to do is to confess your sin, to admit openly that there is not one good thing in you that deserves Him or heaven, and to simply say, "I believe that you died on the cross to purchase me. I believe that you have opened a door for me in heaven and I embrace that and I accept it and as a sinner, I humbly walk through that door of salvation." If you have done that, the most fitting response is worship, to endure and to ascribe worth to God and we're going to do that this morning. So you bow and let's pray. Father you're a good God. We're grateful that you are a God who speaks to your people. You have not left us to grope in darkness, wondering about who you are, wondering about who we are, wondering about what you want from us as your people and as your church. Father, you have spoken plainly to us. For that we're grateful. Father, we pray that your Spirit continue to speak to our hearts through these letters that Jesus wrote to these churches. Father, we pray that we would be the kind of church that you would have us to be. Father, we pray for those who are here who have never turned from their sin and trusted in Jesus Christ. Father, our desire is that all who are here belong to Jesus, that they have the hope of an open door in heaven, that they have the hope of belonging to you in the new heavens and the new earth. Father, those of us who have been purchased by Jesus and who have a relationship with Jesus, we want to respond to you this morning through song. We want to sing about who you are, we want to sing about your promises, we want to sing about the hope that we have in your Son. Father, be honored as we worship together. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.