Revelation 3:7-13

Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you for uh tuning in, for joining us for our thirteenth.

I can't quite believe that thirteenth uh time uh live streaming our service uh together.

Uh it's uh a joy to be with you uh to open up the scriptures.

As we've been saying uh before, uh we might be uh locked down or bound, but the word of uh God is not, and so we trust him that he's going to continue to do his work through the word as we look at it together.

Uh please keep that passage open uh in front of you that uh the rosy red.

Thank you uh for that, and and Jenny for your your prayers.

Uh so that we're looking at the letter to the church in Philadelphia together.

Uh it's the penultimate letter.

We'll be concluding our series uh next week.

And then after we look at the letter to the church in Laodicea, we'll uh spend the summer in the book of Psalms.

That's our normal practice.

This will be our fourth time as a church uh doing psalms in the summer.

We started at number one, and we just are going uh uh concurrently through them, or consecutively through them, I should say.

And uh so we are in Psalm 44 from two weeks' time, and Ben will be taking us through that.

Why don't I pray as we come to God's word together?

Our Father, we do uh thank you uh that your word is still active, that it's still going out into all of the world, that it's bearing fruit and growing.

And uh, what an amazing testimony uh to that, that the word right now is going all over the world as people uh tune in from uh from America, even South Korea, uh to watch along uh with us.

And so we pray that you would uh do your work by your Holy Spirit.

Would we see Jesus more clearly and see the love that he has for us?

And we pray all of these things in his name.

Amen.

Uh over the course of this series, uh we've been getting glimpses into uh the the nature of the church.

I think it would be a mistake to kind of look at them all and think, oh well, which you know, which one does that church correspond to, which one's city church?

Now at any one time there'll be uh there'll be things that we more uh maybe more naturally gravitate towards in these letters, but I think it's a a glimpse as the the church of the church as a whole throughout the ages, but we've also uh glimpsed and kind of gathered a view of Jesus Himself.

Uh Jesus Himself is this uh resplendent, majestic uh Lord, this divine and holy one.

That's the the image that John has the vision of him in uh in Revelation chapter one.

Uh all these images of uh eyes of flames of fire and feet of burnished bronze, and his voice is like the sound of many waters, and there's a sword coming out of his mouth.

And each of those images is as we've been noting all the way throughout, picked up in uh at the start of each of the letters.

It can be hard, can't it, to grasp that sort of Jesus, that view of him.

Perhaps even it can be difficult to square that vision of Jesus uh with the depictions of him in the Gospels, in his earthly life, in his earthly ministry.

But it would be a mistake to think that these two images of Jesus are in conflict with one another, that they are disconnected.

No, what we are seeing is one whole rounded, fully orbed view of who Jesus is.

It'd be a mistake to think that simply in the Gospels, what we see is a soft, gentle Jesus.

And in Revelation, what we have is a Jesus who is much more severe.

That is not what is going on here.

We get one consistent view throughout the whole New Testament.

You see, even as Jesus comes to the church in Sardis, we looked at last week, church that has nothing to commend it, like there's there's there's no good commendation that Jesus gives.

Jesus comes to them and says, You think you're alive, but you're dead, even then they are not written off by Jesus.

He goes on to encourage them to turn back to him.

He is patient with them.

Not just that, not just that, but he he gives them exquisite promises, promises of walking with him, friendship with God, of purity being robed in white, of security, of having their name in the book of life forever.

You see, the challenging rebuking part of Jesus is not in conflict with his gentleness, it's not in conflict with his love.

It is precisely, in fact, because he does love that he comes to people and he warns them.

It's precisely because he does love, and that he is gentle, that he shows patience and grace to those who are far off.

Uh, this week I started a new book that I've been reading just a little bit every day, and I really, really recommend it to you.

Uh, it's a book called Gentle and Lowly.

Uh, the author is a guy called Dane, Dane Ortland, D-A-N-E Ortland.

Uh U-N-D.

He wrote a book called Gentle and Lowly, uh, Christ's Heart for Sinners and Sufferers.

And the premise of the book is this that when Jesus wants to tell you what his heart is like, and the heart in the Bible is this uh driving, motivating core.

So when Jesus wants to describe the motivational core of who he is, he does so in this way.

He does so in Matthew 11, uh, verses uh uh 28 and 30, when he says, Come to me, all who labor and are and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

When Jesus, the same Jesus as the book of Revelation, when Jesus wants to tell you about his heart, the core motivating principle of who he is, how does he describe it?

He's gentle, he's lowly.

Gentle is the same word as make, right?

He's not harsh or vindictive, he's not trigger-happy, he doesn't fly off the handle, he doesn't spin off into a rage.

And he's lowly.

Lowly simply means accessible, and so bring that mentally, is if you would, bring that thinking in line with how he is described here in the book of Revelation, because they do not contradict one another, they're hard to comprehend for sure, but they do not contradict one another.

They make the descriptions of Jesus in the book of Revelation all the more amazing.

What it means is that for all of his resplendent holiness, for all of Jesus' supreme uniqueness and majesty, no one in human history has been more accessible than Jesus Christ.

Do you believe that?

Here's why this matters.

This matters because for many of us we default to thinking of Jesus as the Jesus of Sardis, right?

The Jesus who we think this is a misunderstanding of Sardis, right?

But we think this is Jesus coming to us uh harshly, finger wagging.

That can be the view we have of Jesus, and this is how the world works, right?

If you're rich, you tend to look down a little bit on the poor.

If you're beautiful, you can be repulsed by those who are ugly.

And so, what about Jesus?

What about Jesus who is holy and perfect?

You might even think, well, yes, of course, Jesus, Jesus comes close to me, but he holds his nose.

Do you think that about Jesus?

As you know your own sin and brokenness?

Do you think, yeah, okay, like he he draws near, but he takes a deep breath before he does it.

Ordland in his book says that the high and holy Christ does not cringe at reaching out and touching sinners and sufferers.

Such embrace is precisely what he loves to do.

He cannot bear to hold back.

Many of you, I know, from talking to you this week, felt the conviction of the letter to Sardis, Christ by His Holy Spirit, just brought to the surface the issue of your own spiritual dryness.

This week, as we consider the letter to Philadelphia, you need to know that the exact same Jesus who shows you your need of him now stands not with pointed finger, but with open arms and a willing embrace.

The church in Philadelphia was not big, it was not impressive, it was not all that important, it was not powerful, it didn't have great influence.

They were harassed and harangued, marginalized and weak.

They were small and lowly.

And look at what Jesus says to them.

Look at what Jesus says to them at the end of verse 9.

Perhaps you cast your eye on down to it.

At the very end of that verse, when he talks about their enemies coming to recognize who Jesus is, he says, Behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you.

They will learn that I have loved you.

If you are spiritually dry, you don't just need more time in the word, though you do need that.

You don't just need more willpower or more study materials.

You need to know the embrace of the gentle and lowly Jesus.

If you are suffering, facing grief and despair, the deepest balm for your wounds is the love that Jesus has for you.

If you are doubting and wrestling in your faith, no philosophical or theological answer will satisfy your heart as much as the love of Jesus for you.

So let us look more closely at this letter and reflect on the love that Jesus has for his people.

The first thing that we see in this letter is that Jesus loves you and invites you into his presence.

Jesus loves you and invites you into his presence.

Verses seven and eight.

To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write 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 will open.

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 little power, and yet you have kept my word and not denied my name.

The church in Pergamum had faced much rejection in the city, particularly rejection at the hands of the local Jewish community in the city.

You see, the Jews in the Roman Empire had a special status.

They had a special status uh in that they didn't have to uh give worship, offer sacrifices to any of the Roman pagan gods or to the emperor.

They were one of the, I think, the only community in the Roman Empire that was given this special dispensation dates back to another emperor who was uh intrigued and attracted to uh Judaism and its and its fervent monotheism, that is the worship of one God.

And so this dispensation, this uh uh this special status was granted to them.

They didn't have to offer pagan sacrifices.

Now, it doesn't take you too long to it to realize that actually Christians share that that same worship of one god conviction, that same monotheistic conviction.

And so what had happened in order to uh to escape some of the persecution, what they were attempting to do was to show that they were aligned in that sense with Judaism, try to associate themselves with the Jewish community, not not assimilate into it, not go back to uh Jewish roots, uh, as you've seen, as you'd see in other New Testament letters like Galatians, that's not what's going on here, but simply pointing out actually, we're very similar to them in terms of our our monotheism.

And yet, in their attempts to associate with the Jewish community in order to gain relief from persecution, what did they find?

They had found the door shut in their faces.

This is why Jesus begins talking about keys and open doors.

The reference to the key of David comes from the book of Isaiah, and it's a fairly easy reference to remember, it's Isaiah 22, 22.

Essentially, in that chapter, in that verse, God is promising that David's descendants, David's lineage, will always have access into the presence of God.

That they'll always have access into the sanctuary, that is the temple where God was said to dwell.

Access into the presence of God.

And Jesus, being great David's greater son, holds those keys.

He is the one who grants access into the presence of God.

But the question is, who is it who are welcomed?

Who is it who are welcomed into the presence of God?

The Jews assumed that it was by their ethnicity, by their very fact of being Jewish, that they were the chosen people of God, who would always be granted access into the presence of God.

But Jesus, like in the letter to Smyrna, calls them a synagogue of Satan.

That is, that they were a community opposed to God.

This is not at all to condone any sort of anti-Semitism.

Again, I explained that in the letter to Smyrna.

You can look through the at the video feed uh on our Facebook page and watch that and see that explanation.

Now, Satan is somebody who is opposed to God, and in their opposition to the Christians, the Jews were showing that they were opposed to Jesus.

Jesus says that the church, those who believe and follow him, will find an open door into his presence.

That access into that presence is not based on lineage, your descent who you're descended from, or ethnicity, but on faith in Jesus.

What a potent reminder in our day that God is opposed to any form of ethnic superiority.

Thinking yourself more loved by God because of your ethnicity.

That is anti-Christian, that is anti-God, that is satanic.

Jesus grants access into the presence of God not based on who we are, but on who he is.

He is the one who is holy and true, as described in verse seven.

And we trust his righteousness, we trust his truthfulness as the basis of our standing before God, not on our performance, not on our success, certainly not on our ethnic background.

For many of us, we have found ourselves shut out with doors in our faces, relationships shut down because we trust in Jesus.

Opportunities closed off to us because we are followers of Christ.

That leaves us feeling weak, doesn't it?

With little power.

Come into my father's house.

His power on your behalf.

Jesus loves you and invites you into his presence.

Second, Jesus loves you and will vindicate you.

Look at verse nine.

Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews but are not, but lie.

Behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved ye.

It's hard to face false accusation, isn't it?

It's hard to be maligned, thought poorly of by people, especially people who you loved, respected.

To have them change their opinion of you and have little way, little opportunity to defend yourself.

The Christians in Philadelphia find themselves on the margins of society.

They were regarded as the scum of the earth.

People would sneer and gloat over them.

That is, if they notice them at all.

In the midst of that suffering, Jesus speaks and says that those who look down on you will one day bow down before you.

She sings those sorts of words: the humble, lifted, high.

That doesn't mean that if you are poor, that you are automatically loved by God, it's possible to have very little money and still be a jerk, as well as rich and be a jerk, right?

Rather, it is saying that you don't have to have any status or success in the world's eyes in order to be loved by Jesus.

It says if you are lowly, marginalized, thought badly of, do not despair, come to Christ, embrace him by faith, and he will raise you up.

What this means, what this means is if you are trusting Jesus, if you are clinging on to him by faith, you can face the injustices of the world with hope.

It doesn't mean that you don't feel the pain, it doesn't mean that you don't get angry, but it does mean that you don't despair, it does mean that you don't act in a way that is vengeful, because Jesus will vindicate you in the end.

Jesus, the one who will make all things new, will show where wrongs have been done, and there will be seen for all the world to behold.

But look more closely at verse 9 to that final phrase that I've been drawing your attention to.

They will bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you.

It's not just that in the end Jesus will come as judge to make all things right, though he will, and we can be sure and certain of that promise.

His vindication of them is a display of his love for them.

They will know that I have loved you.

Because in the end, if you're suffering right now, what you can feel is that you've the love of God has somehow abandoned you.

People can question where is this God that you trust, that you call upon?

Doesn't he love you?

In the end, they will see that he always has.

In the end, the whole world will know that you, sufferer, griever, doubter, struggler, they will know that you were loved by the God of the universe.

Though he felt far off, it was not he that moved.

Though the world said that he had deserted you, it will be on display for all to see that he loved you from first to last.

In the end, you will look back on your suffering and you will see the perfect love of God that persisted and endured even as you felt it far off.

How he walked with you each step of the way, the world will know that I have loved you, Jesus says.

And so will you now trust that future promise?

Will you now let that future promise inform and give power to your endurance and your perseverance in the faith?

We may not always feel his love for us in the moment now, but in the end, we will see and savor the overwhelming love of Jesus for us.

So persist now, endure now.

Put one foot in front of yourself, spiritually speaking.

You might not think, or you might think to yourself, I cannot make it to the end.

That's the wrong time frame.

If you're struggling, if you're suffering, don't think, can I make it to the end?

Or no, I can't.

Think can I make it through today?

Can I make it through today?

And another day, and another day, and another day.

People who are fighting sin and temptation so often think, oh well, I'm going to I'm going to abstain from this sin, or I'm going to, you know, battle this.

For a month.

For a month, I won't be given to lust or to gluttony or uh or whatever.

Or six months, or I'll never do it again.

It's the wrong time frame thing.

I'm not going to do it today.

I'm going to endure today.

And then in the end, when all of those today's mount up, you will see, and you will know, along with the whole world, that he loved you every step in every one of those today.

Thirdly, Jesus loves you and will keep you to the end.

Jesus loves you and invites you into his presence.

Jesus loves you and will vindicate you.

Now Jesus loves you and will keep you to the end.

Read with me from verse 10.

Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming in the whole world to try those who dwell in the earth.

I am coming soon.

Hold fast to what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.

The one who conquers, I will make them 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 heaven, or sorry, from my God out of heaven, and my own name, my own new name.

He who is in here, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Those who come to Jesus by faith, Jesus will keep to the end, no matter what sufferings or trials they face.

This phrase at the start of verse 10, because you have kept my word about patient endurance, it's another way of talking about the gospel.

Because you've believed in the gospel, uh, because it's keeping the word about patient endurance, it's not their patient endurance, it's Jesus' patient endurance.

You think, well, what patient endurance did Jesus face?

Well, it's his earthly ministry, it's his faithfulness.

Where it's picking up language is uh from Revelation chapter one, where Jesus is described as the faithful witness, the one who was in his life enduringly faithful to who God was, to obedience to him, even to death on a cross, as Paul says.

And they kept that, they have kept the faith, they have endured, they are clinging on to Christ by faith.

And so, what does Jesus to say to those who have placed their faith in him?

He says, I will keep you, he will hold me fast, he will hold me fast, for my Savior loves me so, he will hold me fast.

When I fear my faith will fail, he will hold me fast.

When the tempter would prevail, he will hold me fast.

All those who come to Jesus by faith are kept by him.

Now Jesus talks particularly about a trial.

I'll keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth.

We don't know exactly what that is.

Uh, it could have been a trial that has already happened, it could be a trial that is yet to happen for the people of God.

It it scarcely matters for our for our purposes.

For our purposes, we need to focus in on Jesus' words from the trial.

He says, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming.

We can think that that means it somehow we'll be uh uh you know just airlifted out of suffering, that that trial won't uh won't take place uh in a way that we are affected by it.

It might imply that we won't face any suffering in the Christian life, but I think that that would be wrong.

You see, the same language, and it's the same author, right?

So John wrote the book of Revelation in John's gospel, in John 17, when Jesus prays for his people, he prays that God would keep them from the evil one.

He would keep them from the evil one, from the from the devil.

Now, what he does not mean there is that disciples of Jesus will never be assailed by the enemy.

In fact, we've seen and we see in the Bible instances when disciples of Jesus are assailed by the enemy.

No, what is being communicated here is though we face trial and tribulation, Jesus will keep us through those trials, that we are brought safely home in the end.

This is immensely important because it reframes and reshapes the suffering that you are going through now or will go through in the future.

Because what it says is that the suffering that you face is not an indication that Christ has lost his grip on you, nor is it an indication that he is displeased with you, that he is punishing you if you are a believer in Jesus.

Now there is a uh there is a sense in this world that sin has consequences, but if you are a believer in Jesus, trusting in him, the sufferings that you go through are not punishment for sin because he is already born it.

It is how we learn of our deep need for his care and his sustaining.

When all earthly props give way, it is when we find that he is our strength.

It also means that suffering is so often the crucible in which we experience the sweetness of the gentle and lowly heart of Jesus.

How often have people, when they have gone through seasons of suffering, cancer diagnoses that they have found that their faith in Jesus has been deepened, that they know something more of the sweetness of communion with him.

That is how God, that is how Jesus saves us through suffering, through trial.

And he will keep us to the end.

What is it?

Verse 12 says, To the one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God.

Never shall he go out of it.

Remember the Christians, remember the Christians marginalized on the dregs of society on the fringes of the city, being shut out of the social and religious life.

Christ will make them a pillar in the temple of God.

The city of Philadelphia was often ravaged by earthquakes, and so you can scarcely not think of anything stronger than a pillar in the ancient world.

And Jesus says that they will never go out of it, and that Jesus will claim that pillar by inscribing the name of his God upon it.

He will dedicate you to God, never to be shut out of his presence again, never to falter and to fall by the earthquakes.

When trials and injustices shake us on earth, though that be the case, we will never be shaken in the new Jerusalem.

We will never be shaken in this new city that Jesus is preparing for us.

God takes weak Christians, faltering faith Christians, doubting Christians, clinging on by the fingernail Christians, and he makes pillars out of them.

He makes pillars out of them.

Do you believe that?

Will you endure?

We keep on day by day clinging on to him.

Can I encourage you as we close to fill your mind with thoughts of the love of Jesus for you?

So often we see him in our mind's eye coming to us with wagging finger.

And he shouldn't have done that.

We go to him in prayer and think, why would he want to receive me back?

I've done it again, the same sin.

The same fault.

And yeah, he forgives me because that's his job, but he doesn't really love me.

That is wrong.

A silly example.

But one that I think we can probably all relate to.

Do you ever fall asleep praying?

You ever fall asleep?

You're in bed, it's late.

You think I should pray.

And rather than getting out and doing the kind of Christmas postcard thing of you know, you light your candle and you lean down or you kneel down beside your bed, you just pray while you're lying there.

And before you know it, your alarm's going off, and it's the next morning, and you think, oh you feel ashamed that you can't even stay awake to pray.

That two-minute prayer.

And you feel bad when a child lays his head in your lap and falls asleep while he or she is talking to you.

How do you treat that child when they wake up?

Do you look at that child and go, huh?

Well, now you're awake.

Get up! Can't believe you fell asleep again.

No.

You love that that child fell asleep in your embrace.

That's not to say that we shouldn't be slightly more disciplined in terms of our prayer life.

Maybe pray before getting into bed, before the obligatory 15 minutes of scrolling through Facebook.

Maybe that's the time to pray.

But my point is in how you view God.

View God as a chastising father who is just exasperated by you when actually he loves that you fall asleep on his lap.

Jesus' love should give us joy in believing.

Jesus' love should give us the strength and the conviction to fight sin.

If you think, well, Jesus loves me, I can do whatever I like.

You have not understood the love of Jesus.

You have not been overwhelmed by the love of Jesus.

You do not understand what it means to love him.

And so do not think that this message is some wishy-washy sickly sweet.

Oh well, you know, God is love.

You can go and do what you like.

That's not what this is.

No, this love is not sentimental.

This love is earth-moving.

This love can keep sinful people to the end and make pillars out of them.

This love helps you to fight sin.

This love helps you to live for him through all of those today.

To think how it is that you would find ways this week, this afternoon.

Tomorrow to savor Jesus to reflect upon his love for you.

You might order the book and the same book that I'm reading, Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortland.

It really is wonderful.

You might take a moment to reflect upon those things that you can be thankful for.

Those things that either you have or been given or have been preserved through, or thankful for who God is.

You might sing and worship.

Just this morning I had the City Church playlist uh on.

I feel like it's been updated by Ben.

And so there's just some great tracks on there.

You might pull that up on Spotify.

Perhaps you might talk with someone and share testimonies.

Testimony doesn't just have to be your whole story of faith, though it could be that, but just here's how God has preserved me in the last 12 weeks.

Here's what God has taught me.

Here's how I've seen the love of God for me.

And share those stories with one another.

Or if you don't want to share those stories with one another, to write them down, to journal them, find a notebook and write in them the things that God has done for you.

How are you going to savor the love of Jesus for you this week?

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for your great love for this church in Philadelphia, that though they were weak, marginalized, that you drew close to them and spoke words of comfort that helped them to endure.

Help us now by your spirit to see and to savor, to experience and to revel in the love of the love that you have for us.

Thank you for who you are, for your gentility, your compassion, your meekness.

And thank you that that even in your resplendent holiness that you invite us to draw near.

How amazing.

How wonderful.

Thank you, Lord Jesus.

Amen.