Faithful Unto Death

So this morning we're looking at the second letter of the chur of the that Jesus has John write to for the church in Smyrna.

So last week was Ephesus.

This week we're looking at Smyrna.

And one thing that we have to understand about Smyrna is that Ephesus and Smyrna were kind of in a competition of which one would be the more glorious city, both being port cities or coast cities.

They had a lot of wealth and prosperity, a lot of trade and market happening there.

And so actually Smyrna was known as the more beautiful city, the more glorious city of Ephesus.

Even though maybe Ephesus might have had more power or cultural influence, Smyrna itself was very beautiful.

And they competed for what they would have worship of idols and temples be planted and built in those cities.

And so imagine if you would, we were bidding for uh which uh sports team we would have in Ohio.

Would they go to Cleveland?

Would they go to Columbus?

Would they come to Cincinnati?

And we were trying to bid for that, right?

And we won.

We got the new sports team, whatever, you know, we need an NBA team.

Let's just say that it's that.

So we got the new NBA team, and they're in Cincinnati.

You know, Cleveland, Columbus, you guys are sorry, you know, you can't, you couldn't do it.

Smyrna, Ephesus, and other cities in that area were kind of the same way, but it wasn't over sports teams.

It was actually over temples.

And who would be the one to res uh to erect the temple to this deity, which would typically be an emperor because they believed in the deification or that emperors would become gods, and so they would worship them in those areas.

And so Smyrna was a part of that culture, right?

And what we see here is that the uh the Lord is telling John to write this letter to understand that there's persecution coming, there's tribulation and persecution coming to you, and you need to be aware of this.

And Jesus is going to try and encourage them in their faith, try to warn them of what's about to come, but give them hope as well on the other side of it.

And so before we start in this, we have to look at one simple phrase that sticks out inside of this passage.

And he says this in verse 10 Do not fear what you are about to suffer.

Behold, the devil's about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for 10 days you will have tribulation.

And this is the phrase Be faithful unto death.

Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

You see, this letter was written by the Apostle John.

And it was believed that it traveled throughout the cities of Asia Minor, the seven cities of the churches that Jesus is having John write to, and even went beyond that.

But if we want to, we want to introduce ourselves to a man named Polycarp.

As we start to understand the story of the Church of Smyrna, we have to understand this man named Polycarp.

He was actually the bishop of Smyrna.

And he was the bishop around 150 AD in that kind of time range.

Now, Polycarp was actually a disciple of John.

John, the beloved, who wrote this passage, uh, who wrote this letter, pinned it, and then saw it go through those churches, actually discipled Polycarp himself.

And so we can imagine a young Polycarp receiving this letter, being in the church of Smyrna, when this letter is actually presented and written and read to them.

And he would hear these words be faithful unto death.

That's exactly what Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, would experience.

You see, in around February 2nd, 156 AD, Polycarp was tracked down to his hiding place.

And by encouragement of his congregation, he had gone into hiding because he was facing such persecution from Rome.

He was tracked down to his hiding place, and as his captors entered into the place of where he was, he actually offered them food and drink, asked them if they would like something to eat, and then he requested if he could just have a moment to go away and pray.

And so Polycarp actually, for two hours went away and prayed while his captors ate and drank at his residence.

He came out, surrendered himself, and they were begging him on the road.

All you have to do is denounce your faith.

All you have to do is say that you will worship the emperor, the true God, the one who you should be worshiping because you are a citizen of Rome.

You see, he was commanded to denounce his faith and make sacrifice and worship to the emperor.

And his response to them was this eighty-six years have I served him, and he has done me no wrong.

How can I blaspheme my king and my savior?

As he was brought before the rulers, they threatened him with wild beasts, and Polycarp's simple refrain was, Let them come.

Seeing that he wasn't afraid of the wild beast, they said, Well, then we will light you on fire.

We're gonna burn you in the fire.

And so he agreed.

He actually requested that he would not be tied to a stake, but he would have the freedom to stand there of his own strength and power.

Angry Jews and Gentiles gathered the wood for his fire.

But the day was too windy for a sufficient fire.

He was standing there burning, but suffering, but not dying.

So a nearby soldier took his sword and ended his suffering.

Polycarp heard the words, Be faithful unto death.

Polycarp lived the reality of that statement, of that call that Jesus made to him and the people of Smyrna specifically.

If we look at martyrdom today, right, for us in the United States, this can be a very distant or separate kind of issue.

We can't really relate to this in real ways because we live in a country where, up until kind of this point, we haven't faced much persecution for being Christians.

In fact, it's often celebrated as a cultural normative for us in America.

But let's look at a report about the world that we live in.

Open Doors USA, which follows Christian persecution throughout the world, and their 2019 reports stated this statistic.

2,983 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons in 2019.

2,983 Christians.

And in 2019 alone, eight Christians were martyred every day.

Think about that.

When we think about our problems, when we think about the major issues in our culture, Christian persecution seems to be nowhere on the radar.

But that's a staggering number that daily, eight of our brothers and sisters around the world are being put to death because of their faith.

They've heard the call made to the Church of Smyrna, be faithful unto death, and gloriously they've obeyed.

You see, being faithful unto death is not just a call made to a church almost 2,000 years ago.

Being faithful unto death is a call made to us today.

So if we start to work through this text, we see in the very beginning of verse 8, Jesus has conquered death and hell.

This is how we would summarize that first statement.

Jesus has conquered death and hell.

Now, at the beginning of each of these letters, Jesus actually kind of reframes an aspect of who he is or what he's accomplished that John wrote as a descriptor of him in chapter one.

And typically, whatever he's communicating about himself is meant to parallel or support what he's writing to that church, the message that he actually has for that church.

And so Jesus says that he has conquered death and hell, that he is the first and the last who died and came to life.

Jesus is reaffirming an aspect of his personhood to lay a foundation for the words that he's giving to the church of Smyrna.

So if he's going to call them to be faithful unto death, his encouragement to them, his affirmation that this call is actually sufficient and is one that can be followed through with is that he alone was dead, but yet now is alive.

Jesus is the uncreated one, fully God, who is eternal.

So Jesus is communicating his supremacy in all of creation, and he's showing us that all of our worldly fears are eternally lesser ones.

You see, because Jesus is fully God, because he is the first and the last, because he is supreme over all of creation, anything that we would fear in this world, any tribulation, any persecution, any loss that we might fear, Jesus is showing us that they are eternally lesser fears.

Why?

Because he is the first and the last.

He said that he died and came to life.

Jesus has conquered death and hell.

Jesus is communicating his supremacy even in death.

There is no fear of death for those who are his, because death has proven to be a lesser foe to King Jesus.

You see, why would we fear enemies if we truly stand behind a king who has conquered them?

There is no fear in all of this life, no fear of loss, even loss of our own lives that should entangle us, that should trap us, because we stand behind a king who has conquered every foe that would stand in our way.

Even death itself.

We can be called to die because there is no true death for Jesus' people.

You see, this victory, this conquering king was prophesied about Jesus.

If we look in Isaiah 25, 7 through 8, we see this.

And he will swallow up who he?

Jesus.

He will swallow up on this mountain, the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.

He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

So Isaiah prophesied, and other prophecies in the Old Testament showed that Jesus would be the conquering king even over death itself.

But it wasn't just prophesied about Jesus, it was accomplished by Jesus.

In 1 Corinthians 15, 54 through 57, we see this.

Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Whereow death is your victory?

Whereow death is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So you see, it wasn't just prophesied about Jesus that he would overcome and conquer death itself.

It was accomplished by Jesus that he would overcome and conquer death itself.

And so when he's writing to the church of Smyrna and he's declaring to them, Be faithful unto death, he's only able to make such a statement, such a call, because he himself has conquered death indefinitely.

You see, through the prophecy about him and the fulfillment of it by him, Jesus has established that the call that he will make to the church in Smyrna is not in vain, but backed by an eternal guarantee of the fulfillment of his promises.

Then if we look at verses 9 through 10, we see that we are called to lose our lives so that we might gain them.

We are called to lose our lives so that we might gain them.

Jesus again begins his correspondence with the church of Smyrna here with the I know.

So at each letter, Jesus shows his intimacy with the churches of which he's writing.

And here with Smyrna, as he did with Ephesus, he said, in Ephesus, I know your toil, your work, your deeds.

In Smyrna, he's saying, I know your tribulation and your poverty.

You see, this is comfort.

This is assuring to the people of who he's writing to.

That their work, their sacrifice, the tribulation that they face does not go unknown.

And in this letter specifically, as he calls out their tribulation and poverty, we have to understand that this might be intimately linked to one another.

Their tribulation and poverty might be tethered or tied to one another.

They might be poor because of the tribulation that they were experiencing.

Being Christians who were servants of Jesus and unwilling to sacrifice in idol worship to the emperor, they might have faced great persecution.

And that might have been what caused their poverty.

But perhaps they were poor because they counted their stuff as nothing and sought to live out the commands of Jesus to be benevolent to the poor.

Either way, Jesus assures them that by way of kingdom paradox, that they are truly rich.

If even by the world standards, they are poor.

You see, the kingdom's full of these paradox, this statements of that seem in opposition to one another.

If you are poor, you are rich.

If you want to gain your life, you must lose it.

If you want to be the greatest, you must become the least.

If you want to gain your life, you have to lose it.

You see these paradoxical statements, these things that seem contradictive to one another.

It flips our understanding of what is good or what is best upside down.

But what Jesus is trying to help them understand is that our spiritual reality is actually more true and greater than our physical one.

Our spiritual reality is more true and greater than our physical one.

You see, they were poor by world standards, by the standards of their culture, they were poor.

They didn't have much.

But Jesus affirms to them, but you are rich.

You see, you don't understand.

It's not the physical things that you're experiencing that actually create your reality.

Your reality is not dictated by the physical, tangible things that we have in this world.

Our reality is actually dictated by the spiritual truth, which is actually more true than what we can interact with in this physical world.

You see, we often have our worldview shaped by what we can tangibly interact with here in this life.

If we have bank accounts full of money, if we have a nice home and a nice property, if we have health, if we have whatever we can put in front of us as tangible things, we count that as our reality.

But there's a spiritual reality that's actually greater than the physical one and more true than the physical one.

But too often we allow the tangible physical world to define our reality rather than the spiritual world define it.

You see, if we lose our lives, we gain it.

If we become poor for Christ's sake, we actually are rich.

If we want to become the greatest, we have to become the least.

None of those things match with what the world helps us to understand, is the right way to live.

To become rich, we have to work harder and make more money.

To become the greatest, we have to put under put others under our feet.

We have to scrape and claw in effort and toil to try and gain what we desire.

That's what the world would have us say.

But those realities, even though they are tangible and we can experience them in this physical world, are actually less true than the spiritual ones of which Jesus gives to us.

Now, there's this kind of interesting part in this letter.

And Jesus writes specifically about these Jews who are slandering the Christians.

And so if we have to have some backstory of what's happening here and what Jesus is actually referring to as he's having John write this letter, you see, the Jews were exempt from idol worship.

That was something that they had established with the Roman authorities that they didn't have to participate in.

They were exempt from having to participate in any sort of idol worship, even sacrifices to the emperor himself.

And what had happened previously, because the Roman invasion and conquering of the Jewish people predated the birth of Jesus, all of a sudden there were these Jewish people who were becoming Christians.

They were becoming Christians and they were believing in Jesus, and they were putting their faith in the Messiah and his finished work of the cross and resurrection.

And there was this reality where they were grafted under that same umbrella.

Of course, they were Jews before.

They were exempt from having to do idol worship.

But now there was something different.

They were believers in Jesus, followers of him.

And so it's believed that what the Jews were starting to do was to out the Christians as not real Christian, not real Jews.

These aren't real Jews, they're Christians.

They serve Jesus, a blasphemer, a false Messiah, who we killed.

And so what would that do to these Christians?

Well, they would now be forced to actually participate in idol worship.

Hence Polycarp.

Hence his martyrdom.

And so when Jesus is actually referring to these Jews, or what he calls not real Jews, actually, more than likely he's referring to the slandering part that the Jews were outing Christians as not real Jews themselves.

Thus, they would not be exempt from idol worship any longer.

They'd have to participate it or else face persecution.

And so, due to early onset animosity with Christians and the tensions of who were truly God's chosen people, it's believed that the Jews were outing Christians, bringing about Roman persecution if they did not participate in emperor deity worship.

And so Jesus calls them not real Jews, and he calls them a synagogue of Satan.

You see, this is the only time Jesus has allied the Jewish people with the devil.

If we look at John 8 44, Jesus declared this in his ministry, speaking to Jewish leaders, you are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is the liar and the father of lies.

Now Jesus doesn't just hold this language and posture to the Jewish people, but to all who oppose him and his people.

See, we have to understand what Jesus isn't trying to produce here is some type of anti-Semitic rhetoric, right?

We're not supposed to walk out of here and think that Jews are all of the devil in a posture of where we would maybe have hatred or animosity toward them.

That's not what Jesus is working on here.

So don't twist what you're hearing.

Jesus had this posture against anybody who was against him or his people.

In Matthew 12, 30, he says this whoever is not with me is against me.

And whoever does not gather with me scatters.

You see, there's a reality that Jesus took really seriously that he was the only way, truth, and life, that he was the only begotten Son of the Father, that he was the only Messiah, Christ, who could save his people.

Jesus took that very seriously, to such a measure that anyone who tried to come to the Father around him, bypassing Jesus, was an enemy.

Not just an enemy to the glory of him, the Son of God, but an enemy to his people of whom he came to purchase with his own blood.

Jesus does not take lightly our human efforts to gain right relationships.

With God the Father when it works to bypass him.

But also, what we have to understand is that the true Jewish people, Israel, God's chosen people, are those who have been reconciled to the Father by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus.

Romans 11, 25 through 26 says this, lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers.

A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

And in this way, how?

The fullness of the Gentiles coming in, all Israel will be saved.

As it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion.

He will banish ungodliness from Jacob.

This is declaring that true Israel, the true Jews, the true chosen people of God are those who are saved and redeemed by Jesus.

And so when Jesus himself is saying that these are not real Jews, but yet they are a synagogue of Satan, what he's referring to is that you can only truly be God's chosen people if you are reconciled to him through my finished work.

There is no DNA, there's no bloodline, there's no law or work that can gain you right standing with God the Father.

It is only through the finished work of Jesus the Son that offers us this relationship.

Now, because of the slander of these so-called Jewish people, the church in Smyrna was going to face severe persecution.

And there's three things that we have to understand about the persecution that they were going to face.

Number one is that Jesus knew about the suffering that was coming.

Isn't that comforting?

Jesus warned them, this suffering is going to come.

It didn't catch Jesus off guard.

He wasn't waiting to see what would happen.

I read this week in an article about the coming election.

And it said that Jesus wouldn't be staying up until midnight on November 3rd.

He knows.

He knows the outcome.

He knows what's going to happen.

He knows what we're going to face in this world.

And Jesus makes the Church of Smyrna aware.

You are going to face persecution.

That should bring us comfort.

He knows us.

He sees us.

He's aware of what we're going through.

Number two, the devil was the true agent of their suffering.

Isn't this a reality that we miss a lot?

We do not fight against flesh and blood.

We fight against principalities and powers of the air.

Now they could have started to hate the Jews for the slander that was being abroad about them.

They could have had animosity and bitterness about those who were creating these circumstances of persecution for them.

But Jesus makes them aware it's not the Jews who are going to do this to you.

It's the devil himself who is going to throw you into prison.

Why?

Because we don't fight flesh and blood.

We fight against principalities and powers of the air.

But Jesus has conquered even them.

And number three thing we have to understand about their suffering and persecution is that the purpose of their suffering was to test their faith.

Why were they going to be thrown into prison?

Why would Jesus allow this to happen?

You see, he's omniscient.

He knows that it's going to happen before it even does.

He's omnipresent.

He's actually there with them even in their imprisonment.

And he's omnipotent.

He's so all-powerful that he could have stopped it if he so desired.

So why didn't he?

Jesus allowed the devil himself to even bring persecution to the church of Smyrna so that their faith might be tested.

Now we walk through this a lot in 1 Peter.

The reason we face suffering and persecution is so that our faith might be tested, refined in the fire, that we might come out of more pure gold, a more pure faith.

And it's no coincidence that he couples that statement.

Why are you being persecuted?

So that your faith might be tested.

And then his call to his people.

So, church, Smyrna, who you will be persecuted, be faithful unto death.

Don't give up.

No matter what you face, no matter what you go through, no matter what the devil throws at you, don't give up.

Why?

Because I'm the first and the last.

Because I was dead and I live again.

I will never call you into anything that I wouldn't be faithful to see you through.

That on the other side of the persecution that the devil's going to bring about you is a true and greater reality, a life that you don't even realize you have yet.

Be willing to sacrifice and give up all of this earthly good to gain what?

To gain me.

He says, be faithful unto death.

This call is suspended in and validated by the person of Jesus who was dead but now lives.

Jesus calls them to endure a physical death for his sake because a true greater life awaits them.

This life is not the one we are supposed to cling on to, but we're supposed to desire and long for the life that awaits us.

Man, when you sing those hymns, in eternity, when the trumpet sounds, when Christ returns, if your blood doesn't start pumping harder through your veins and the excitement about what that day would look like doesn't just rouse you up to worship recklessly before your Maker, you might want to wonder about the authenticity of your relationship.

You might want to wonder about which life you're actually clinging on to.

The faithful of Jesus will receive the crown of life.

That's his promise to them.

If you're faithful, if you're faithful unto death, I will give you the crown of life.

You see, Jesus' ultimate call to the saints of Smyrna is to die so that you might live.

In verse 11, we see that there's a greater death to fear.

There's a greater death to fear.

You see, it's interesting to try and understand conquering through death.

He says that to the one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.

How do these people conquer?

They conquer by dying, by being faithful unto death.

You see, it's not the death that was to be focused on completely, it's the being faithful unto part that should be the center of our focus.

Be faithful unto Jesus in the face of any consequence, even if it is death.

And all who remain faithful will not be hurt by the second death.

What is the second death that Jesus talks about?

In Revelation 21, we see exactly what he means.

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

You see, that's the death we should fear.

Not this life, not this world.

It's that one.

How do we bypass that death?

How do we escape the pangs of that fate?

We be faithful unto Jesus.

Faithful even unto death.

Our main idea this morning is that Jesus calls his disciples to lose their lives.

Jesus calls his disciples to lose their lives.

This isn't new.

This shouldn't be the first time Smyrna has heard such a call.

But this is reiterated because of the persecution of which they're getting ready to face.

There's an urgent message that's being communicated here.

However, the general call to lose our lives as disciples of Jesus is one that's been made throughout his ministry.

We see in Matthew 16, 24 through 25.

Then Jesus told his disciples, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

There is a call to all disciples to lose our lives.

This is a kingdom paradox that Jesus makes for anyone who would be his disciple.

We can only truly be a follower of Jesus if we count this world as nothing to gain, but see true and greater life as something to gain beyond it.

To be faithful as a follower of Jesus, it will demand that we are unfaithful to this world.

To be faithful as a follower of Jesus, it will demand that we are unfaithful to this world.

In the pursuit of following Jesus, we're called to lose our lives, deny the pleasures of this world in our pursuits, our accomplishments, what we cherish, what we preserve, even if it means our very lives themselves.

Think about the effort that you make to preserve your life.

Think about it.

Think about how much time and energy you spend in preserving this life.

And now weigh that against how much time and energy you spend building into the life that's to come.

My guess is that our scales are way out of balance.

That we spend astronomical portions of our time and resources building into this life.

And what we actually use and leverage to build into the life that is to come is so small in comparison.

We have to deny the pleasures of this world.

What are our pursuits?

What are your pursuits?

To climb the corporate ladder?

Are your pursuits to have recognition among your co-workers and peers?

Is your pursuit to have more likes, praise, glory in a social media world of people who don't even know who you really are?

What do you cherish?

What do you work to preserve?

What things, if really were attested to be taken from you, would you fight in white knuckle to keep?

You see, some of us we love this world and we work to preserve it.

We love this world and we work to preserve it.

We see this life, this tangible reality that's in front of us as all that there actually is, and we fight to preserve it.

If we're honest with ourselves, when pressed, do you believe that after this life is one better to come?

Do you really believe that after this, and your stuff perishes with you, that there is greater reward, glory, peace, joy, presence to come?

Do you really believe that?

Or do you actually believe that this is the best it's going to get?

Man, that sounds nice.

If that were true, that would be great, but I can't live my life as if it's actually true because I have no real confidence or assurance or faith that it is.

And so I only have what's in front of me.

I have only got this tangible physical world in front of me, so I've got to deal with that.

You see, we don't take the call to lose ourselves literally or seriously because we risk losing all that we actually believe we'll ever have.

We have no real assurance of faith that there's something better ahead of us.

We lack the faith that there's any genuine gain on the other side of our loss.

You see, to be faithful unto death is not a call we would ever answer, because each stance and position of faithfulness jeopardizes our ability to retain what we actually cherish.

Let me say that in another way.

As we find ourselves in a growing post-Christian culture, persecution is going to come.

The call to be faithful is going to be felt and realized.

And there are many, even in this room, who with each call to be faithful, with each measure of persecution, with each posture of trial and tribulation that we face, we will compromise.

We won't be faithful unto death.

We'll take step backward.

We'll compromise with every posture.

Why?

Because we don't believe that on the other side of it is anything to gain.

We believe that every moment of persecution jeopardizes our ability to retain what we actually cherish.

This life.

Our comfort, our security.

So what do we do?

We become unfaithful people to gain what we actually believe we will only ever truly have.

But others of us, we fear this world and work to preserve self.

We don't necessarily love this world and work to preserve it.

We fear this world and work to preserve self.

We don't engage this world with the gospel because we fear the consequences of it.

This world threatens to stain us or harm us.

And so what do we do?

We retreat from it.

We have a diminished faith in the power of Jesus to save and sustain that very salvation in us.

So what do we do?

We remove ourselves from the world to preserve our identity, our morality, and status with God.

This leaves us in a state where the world is not engaged with the saving hope of the gospel or impacted by a people living under submission to that same gospel.

Our pursuit to preserve self causes little to no impact on the world we fear or on the people who inhabit it.

And many of Christians can be that way.

We retreat from the world, we pull back because we fear what the world would actually do to us.

And we create these subcultures that become extremely homogenous in their very nature.

And so we can't do what the world does.

We can't go to the places that the world does.

We can't engage in those things because the world is going to stain us, it's going to jeopardize us, it's going to diminish or uh potentially jeopardize our relationship with God Himself.

And so we retreat.

What fearful, unfaithful Christians we become.

The Bible never calls us to retreat from this world.

The Bible calls us to engage the world through the power of Jesus Christ with the gospel that has the hope of salvation for them.

You see, we're called to be with the world, but not of the world.

There's a differentiating factor that has to be in place.

The difference isn't that we are not found among them.

The difference is that when we are found, we don't act and look like them.

But we are to engage the world with the gospel of Jesus.

Potentially, church, I would submit this.

We find ourselves in the place that we are today in our culture because we have allowed persecution to advance us backwards because we feared the repercussions of it.

I can't speak up at my job because I'll lose it.

I can't speak up here because it'll cause us to be uh uh casted off or ostracized from the society we so desire to be a part of.

I can't speak up here because I'll make people mad or I'll face consequences or so forth.

Potentially, we have operated in such unfaithfulness for such a long period of time that each moment of persecution has just caused us to back up and back up and back up, and then we wonder what's going on.

The loudest voices in our culture are full of iniquity and immorality, and the quietest voices are unfortunately the ones who have the hope of the gospel of Jesus in them.

That's sad.

What do we do?

We become unfaithful people to preserve self rather than to lose self for the sake of others in the glory of Jesus.

I'm not talking about making America great again.

I'm not talking about becoming a Christian culture in America that you are saved because you were born in the United States of America.

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the Church of God rising up, preaching the gospel, proclaiming the glories of the Son of God, bringing hope to a dying world.

And when persecution comes, not backing up, but being faithful even unto death.

Our hope this morning is in this that Jesus was faithful unto death and rose again so that death may have no hold on us.

Christian, do you believe that?

Do you believe that Jesus was faithful unto death, even when we have failed to be?

Even when, even in the dying to the little things of this world, we're not talking about burned at a stake.

We're not talking about facing the guillotine or being cast out to wild beasts.

We're talking about dying to your comfort, dying to your sense of security, dying just to yourself on a daily basis of places that we cherish and prize and fight to preserve.

Do we take this seriously?

That even in our failures, Jesus was faithful.

Faithful unto what?

Unto death.

But he rose again so that death may not have any hold on us.

We should have zero fear of death because we stand behind the king who conquered it.

Why would we ever be afraid to engage in any warfare or battle when we know that the victory in front of us has already been accomplished?

We should only be fearful when we don't know the outcome.

When we don't believe that we have the resources to actually accomplish what we set forth to do.

And God himself will be with them as their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

Jesus calls us to be faithful unto death.

That's a terrifying call if Jesus was still in the grave.

That's a hopeless call if our king was still buried.

You see, that's the difference between us and other people.

Their leaders, if you look at any power that moves forward, you kill the leader, the power is done, the movement ends, the hope is gone.

That's not our story.

Our movement can't be stopped because our king conquered death.

Death shall be no more.

And so for us, when we hear the call to be faithful unto death, we can have confidence and assurance of our ability to fulfill it in joy, because truly death has no power over us.

And so, what do we do if we wanted to live this out in our own lives?

The first thing I think is that we would die daily.

Practice dying.

And if the call to die to the fullness of state of losing your own life ever comes, it won't be as hard because you've been rehearsing for so long.

Think about every day.

What do I need to put to death by the power of the Spirit?

Think about every day.

How do I need to die to myself that I might live more to Jesus?

What is it about my day that I might be tempted to preserve, to cherish, to work for in my own pleasure because I'm actually believing that this world in front of me, this tangible reality, is all that I'll ever have.

And so then what would it look like then to wake up and die daily?

Jesus, when you wake up in the morning, pray, Jesus, show me in my life what I'm clinging on to, what I'm holding on to as in this life, and then show me and equip me by the power of the Holy Spirit that fills me to die to it, to lay it at the cross of Christ and to pick it up no more.

You see, our funeral should be rehearsed on a daily basis.

Because we're not trying to live this life as if it's the only one we'll ever have.

This is just a pilgrimage, this is just a sojourning on to a better, truer, greater life that awaits those who are faithful unto Jesus.

We also need to encourage one another to be faithful.

This is why community is so important.

How are you encouraging one another to be faithful?

When they're facing maybe persecution in relationships with friends or family and they're afraid to speak up.

When they're facing situations at their job and they say, look, if I don't be faithful, I could actually actually lose my job.

Or if they find themselves in other situations where the persecution, the trials, the suffering that might be in front of them is causing them to start stepping backwards.

How do we come alongside and lock arms with them, encourage them to be faithful?

That means that we need to have an intimate awareness of one another's lives.

We need to know what's going on and what we're going through.

We can't just do community on a surface level.

We have to be intimately engaged with one another so that we can encourage them in their weaknesses, where they're being tested in their faith.

What's the purpose?

What's the outcome of that testing?

To prove the validity of the faith of which you confess to have.

If on the other side of that test you're found to be unfaithful, then what good was that faith?

But if on the other side of it you persevered and that faith is now stronger than it was before the trial that you faced, oh, what riches you've gained, what confidence you've secured.

You see, we need to encourage one another to be faithful because the world around us is trying to push the line back as far as they can.

And we're watching in our culture Christians, churches, leaders bow the knee to culture.

It's a terrible, hopeless think about the synagogue of Satan that's being erected in our culture because we have a message that you can get right, you can have peace, you can have liberation apart from Jesus.

We truly are erecting a synagogue of Satan in our own cities.

So, what do we need to do?

We need to bring life to a dying world.

We need to bring life to a dying world.

Look, these Christians, they face the reality of their life being taken from them on a daily basis.

What did that make them do?

Did that make them run and hide?

Did that make them cower?

Did that make them not uh be paralyzed in fear?

No.

It made them proclaim the gospel even more.

In fact, what we see throughout history is that the more a church is persecuted, the greater expansion of the kingdom of God that we see.

Well, you want to see where the church is on fire right now in the world?

Look at the most persecuted places in the world.

Because the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

It is by their sacrifice and their testimony that we see the kingdom of God advance.

The gospel produces the fruit it was intended to produce when believers are faithful to proclaim it.

We have to bring life to a dying world.

We have to be people who no longer back up in the face of persecution.

We have to be a people who are faithful unto death.

And this boils down to do you love them?

That was the call to Ephesus.

You have lost your first love.

How could we ever be faithful unto death if we didn't love Jesus and we didn't love the people he died for?

Think about the martyrs throughout the Bible that you read, where Stephen himself would be praying for those who are casting stones at him.

That wasn't an uncommon reality where they would sing hymns of joy, where they would pray for the ones who are persecuted them, where Polycarp himself dined with them and invited them in for food and drink.

If we don't love the people who hate us for our faith, we won't have the ability to be faithful unto death.

Imagine the people who surrounded those martyrs that left loving Jesus.

Imagine Saul of Tarsus himself, who would later become Paul, who would stand there watching people die for the gospel, persecuting the Church of God because of the gospel, and then later becomes martyred himself because of the gospel.

It is only the faithful who can bring about such radical change.

And so we have to bring life to a dying world.

Let's pray.