Revelation 2: Smyrna - The Suffering Church

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, good morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: First free, my name is Tex.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am your senior high pastor.

[SPEAKER_00]: That means I get the privilege of working with your high school students each and every single week.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you've got a high school student, we'd love to have them join us at Summit tonight at 6 PM.

[SPEAKER_00]: That being said, I want to start today's message.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I kind of rewinding the clock a little bit in my own life.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are a few key moments in our life.

[SPEAKER_00]: We remember really, really clearly, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: For each of us, there are many of those days.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of those, like for me, were times I met our daughter, but another one of those times was the day I got married.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was a pretty amazing day.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know I didn't have a beard.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter goes, that's not my daddy, which that's weird.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, but when we, I love that day, it was special.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I can clearly remember so many key pivotal moments.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I remember our vows.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember the whole spiel.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember being like, hey, from, you know, in sickness and in health till death do us part, I remember just being blown away at how beautiful Kelsey was.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was an amazing, amazing day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Little did, did we know just a few hours later we would be putting some of those vows to the test, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And you think I'm joking, but I'm not like it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Six hours later, I woke up in the middle of the night and I thought Kelsey stabbed me in the back.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really did.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was having my first kidney stone for everyone in the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, why would he accuse me?

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Great way to start your marriage if you don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I, I literally, I'm like, something's wrong, you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's to am, I don't want to pay for the ER.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going back to bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, nope, we're going to the ER now.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we go, they're like, you're a whos, here's some medications, go have a good day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I wish the story would end there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's embarrassing enough, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: But we literally continue that I'm on medication.

[SPEAKER_00]: We go on our honeymoon, and with the next morning, I wake up, and I don't know where I am.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not only do I not know where I am, I don't know who's in bed next to me, and I'm just, whoah, like, who are you?

[SPEAKER_00]: And she's like, I'm your wife, I'm like my wife, as the people in our Airbnb or cooking breakfast right outside our doors.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, is everything okay in there?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, sorry, I had a kidney stone yesterday.

[SPEAKER_00]: y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all

[SPEAKER_00]: And I can clearly remember Kelsey's saying something that would stay with me, which was, hey, this is, this is what we signed up for, like sickness and health, right, till death do us part.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now neither of us necessarily signed up saying kidney stones were in mind within six hours, but that's something really deep that we realized.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've made this covenant, this understanding that there's this commitment that would cost us something.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something deeply within us.

[SPEAKER_00]: These vows weren't just for easy days.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those vows were preparing us for difficult ones to come that the commitment we made long before hardships ever arrived.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, we counted the cost.

[SPEAKER_00]: We knew what we had signed up for.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I want us to have in mind today as we start the letter to the church in Smyrna.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, in Revelation two, eight, it begins with this statement.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says this right to this letter to the angel of the church in Smyrna.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to understand this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a high school pastor, so I'm going to ask you, if you would, can you pretend for a minute, if you could remember yourself back in high school or in college maybe when you maybe had a little bit more hair, or you were a little bit taller, you had really cool fashion since some of you in the room, like, think back to that, but think of it as what it was like for a teenager, or a college student growing up in Schmerna.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, because for you as a child, you hear people talk about your city with pride.

[SPEAKER_00]: They would talk about Smirna's beauty, and they would point visitors towards these magnificent buildings and huge temples to the emperor and luxuries, homes that are all along the slopes of Mount Pages.

[SPEAKER_00]: They would speak of these famous streets that connect them.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it actually looks like a laurel crown of victory over the city.

[SPEAKER_00]: And see, everywhere you look, there's reminders and words of people would say that your city isn't just beautiful, it's the greatest, the most beautiful city in Asia, even more important than your sister city ethicists, and in fact it's so beautiful, many of the ancient writers of its time actually called it the crown of Asia.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so when you would stand at the city and you would look at Mount Pages, you could understand why.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so as you, as you would grow up, and as you would even get older, you'd realize so much of your city's influence and success is connected to one thing, Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, your parents would talk about Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your teachers probably talked around Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of your engagement in the world was talking about Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was civic celebrations for Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was public life that you would have to do and there would be incense burning to the emperor.

[SPEAKER_00]: You would even know the stories people would talk about.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were long before you were born, but you would hear about the temple that was built to the imperial cult.

[SPEAKER_00]: before you were born right several cities competed for the privilege of building a temple dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius.

[SPEAKER_00]: Winning would mean prestige and wealth and finances and show of glory for it from Rome and people would pilgrimage here to pay homage to the Emperor and Schmerner won.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was, that celebration was enormous.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a huge honor.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so growing up in Schmerner, you would understand that Rome's worship, though, did also far exceeded just the temples.

[SPEAKER_00]: It came into government and to business.

[SPEAKER_00]: People burned incense and unearned the emperor.

[SPEAKER_00]: They made public declarations annually that Caesar is Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the most people in Schmerner, it doesn't seem strange at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's simply how the world works.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if Rome is brought prosperity and security and opportunity, then the honoring Rome seems like a really small price to pay.

[SPEAKER_00]: After all, what could be possibly more alive and beautiful than Smyrna?

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, I think for many of us, every person will eventually decide what is worthy of their loyalty, of their devotion and their sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_00]: because this is what's smearing us signed up for.

[SPEAKER_00]: They signed up for Loyalty to Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the time that revelation was written, most of the people in Smurna would have looked at the beautiful city and their thriving economy and their position within the empire.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they would have said, hey, this partnership, this allegiance that we've given to Rome, it's well worth it.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what we signed up for.

[SPEAKER_00]: and then the church moves in to Smurna.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're not 100% sure when the first church was exactly planted, but we do have a lot of evidence as to where it came from.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, during Paul's third missionary journey, he spent multiple years in Ephesus where he would send out multiple pastors and church planners throughout the region.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, in Acts 19, we read about that, and if it's your first time being with me, I'm a little different, and you'll see some words bolded and underlined.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to ask you to read that out loud with me like some gusto, like you are those teenagers back in Schmernav with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in Acts 19, 10, it says this, that this went on for the next two years so that people what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Throughout the Providence of Asia, both Jews and Greeks heard the word of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Other translations actually even say the word all of Asia, meaning the major cities and places of Asia of influence heard the gospel of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Many of the scholars believe that while Paul remains centered in Ephesus, there were so many unnamed church planters that would go out throughout.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, they believe that all of the lamps they in churches come out of the church of Ephesus that they were planted from there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so the arrival of Christianity in Smyrna would have been like a huge disruption.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, the gospel was entering a city in which their loyalties had been long-established, whose citizens already believed that security and prosperity and hope were found in Rome in the Emperor.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, and now we have a church that's proclaiming that Jesus deserved this same level of allegiance that surpasses really anything else in their life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rome was saying, Caesar is Lord, and now Christians were coming in and saying, Jesus alone is Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, and if every human is shaped by the object of their loyalty, Schmerna was fiercely powerfully shaped by Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: But for Christians, we should be shaped

[SPEAKER_00]: the person and object of our loyalty.

[SPEAKER_00]: And see here in Schmerner, these two loyalties would collide.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, the issue was that Rome demanded worship for the emperor.

[SPEAKER_00]: And once a year, citizens had to burn incense and declare that Caesar is Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for most people, that was a small act.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was not a big deal.

[SPEAKER_00]: But for the new Christians in the city, this was impossible.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because the moment Jesus becomes Lord, nobody else can have that throne.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what Schmerna signed up for, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Loyalty to Rome, but this is what Christians signed up for.

[SPEAKER_00]: Loyalty to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, if we keep reading and revelation to aid, it says this, it says, write this letter to the angel in the church of Schmerna.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the message from the one who is the first and the last, who was what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Dead and is now what?

[SPEAKER_00]: A life.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, see, to Schmerna, Rome looked unstoppable.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rome controlled armies, they controlled commerce, they controlled the roads, they controlled politics, and Schmerna Rome seemed to control life and death itself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And she just begins his letter by reminding the church that neither Schmerna nor Rome occupies the center of the story.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus introduces Himself with language that Rome only wishes that they could claim, that I am the first and the last, that Rome has a beginning, that Rome will have an ending.

[SPEAKER_00]: Schmerna has, guess what, a beginning and Schmerna will have an ending.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every empire would rise and every empire will fall except one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, who is there before the first stones of Rome were ever laid and Jesus will reign long after Rome is but a chapter in the history books we would read.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, Jesus says that He possesses something that neither could ever hope to claim, that He conquered death, that He has the keys of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, many scholars also see this as a way in which He was intentionally not only reminding them of who has full authority, but what was to come, as a way of preparing them for their own suffering and possible martyrdom that the church in Schmerna would face.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's why he adds this second description after the first.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says that he is the one who has from the dead and is now alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that phrase would have landed a little different in Schmerna than then we do today in the West.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think we hear that because we've had thousands of centuries or thousands of years and centuries of Christian teaching.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like we've heard this story so many times we can forget that this was a pretty shocking statement.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the church in Smyrna, they were preparing to face real suffering.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so Jesus, who is going to talk about their persecution and imprisonment and opposition and faithfulness, even in the face of death, he reminds them before he even talks about that, he reminds them that the one who is speaking to them, walked through the worst thing that the world could do and killing him on a cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows what it means to be rejected.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows what it means to be falsely accused.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows what it means to suffer persecution from righteousness.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as he knows what it means to suffer injustice, and he knows what it means to be abandoned.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he knows what it means to face death itself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think one of the most comforting realities for the church and for you and I is at the savior of the world that Jesus himself never asked his travel or road, he's not done himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: that He is not calling His people to be remained faithful and suffering when He Himself has not yet done it in spades, that He has caused us to trust in God through hardship as someone who has trusted the Father and the midst of some incredible hardships.

[SPEAKER_00]: And He caused us not to fear death because He is the one who has already passed through and has become emerge victorious on the other side of death.

[SPEAKER_00]: See for us, the resurrection is not just proof that Jesus incredibly powerful and that authority is His.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's proof for you and I that our suffering doesn't have the final word.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is for you and I, the resurrection announces that the worst that the world could ever do is not the last thing that God can do.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, the confidence for the church and the church in Smyrna that Jesus is telling them is that it's not rested in favorable circumstances.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was never supposed to rest in political protection and economic stability or anything of that nature.

[SPEAKER_00]: The confidence that the church should rest then and now is solely in the character and person of Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: That He is the first and the last.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the one who was dead and is alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: That He is who conquered the greatest enemy or we could ever face in this world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's only after establishing this foundation that Jesus starts to talk about their circumstances.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what he does next, he starts to reveal his evaluation of their circumstance and how the world perceives it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because when you keep reading and revelation, two-nine, it says, this, I know about your what, your suffering and your what, your poverty, and I know that you are rich.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is profound, because when we think about Schmerner, it's one of the few two churches that doesn't actually

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you to ask the, the average citizen is going to identify success in its city, they would have probably pointed to people with influence and wealth and connection and beauty.

[SPEAKER_00]: The church in Smurna just didn't appear successful by those standards.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, following Jesus in Smyrna, myth that it wasn't gonna be easier.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, life was gonna be more complicated.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those business opportunities that might have been available to others were now becoming difficult and almost impossible for you to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then Jesus says this, he says, I know.

[SPEAKER_00]: What comforting words?

[SPEAKER_00]: He says it twice in this letter.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I know.

[SPEAKER_00]: in that should carry tremendous weight for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because none of the pain of the reality of what they were facing escaped the attention of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord of all, he saw everything they faced, the pain that they were in.

[SPEAKER_00]: He reassured them that they're suffering was not invisible.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe that the church and smear and needed to hear that Jesus saw them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for those of you today who've walked in with some stuff in your life, with some things that have been going on, some things that you're not proud of and some suffering that's been happening or some terrible things, Jesus says, I know, I see you, I'm with you, I know your situation, and I am here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's after saying that that Jesus follows it by acknowledging, not just poverty, in fact, the Greek word is, is extreme poverty, destitution, desperation.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he doesn't stop there.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says not only are they extremely poor, but they are actually rich.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't deny his a poverty.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't just say have a good attitude.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't minimize it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He actually says that there are two realities that co-exist in this moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: that I know about your suffering and your poverty and yet you are rich.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, and I think it almost like emulates what we see in Matthew, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: You go back and you think of the Beatitudes where paraphrase and but he says, blessed are the poor who are need of him, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Cause there's just a kingdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he even goes at the end of those and he says, blessed are those who are persecuted for my name's sake.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's this reminder for you and I that, for in the midst of all of these things, that the church and the midst of this, it's not about just having this easier life, is that we are actually gonna face some challenges along the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can see poverty was teaching them, the church that there is something that many of us can struggle to have that when we're comfortable, we don't always get this.

[SPEAKER_00]: The comfort isn't a great teacher.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, they learn the difference between gifts and treasure, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Rome could provide some great gifts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rome could provide opportunities like business relationships or the trade guilds and all these celebrations, but that could be taken away.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, their relationship with Jesus couldn't.

[SPEAKER_00]: Their adoption into God's family could not be revoked.

[SPEAKER_00]: Their forgiveness of their sins could not be canceled out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the assurance of the resurrection that is to come one day could not be threatened.

[SPEAKER_00]: Their place with Jesus was secured.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's for one of those things that they learned in the midst of their poverty by having nothing they'd learned what there was truly the thing that they could treasure was Jesus himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's interesting that what the world says as we can sad and defeated Jesus says is victorious.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, the issue wasn't as well bad, as security bad, as opportunity or even acceptance, like do those things matter.

[SPEAKER_00]: The issue was whether those things matter more than Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, Jesus, one of the church in Smyrna, understands something essential that the presence of their poverty and their hardship wasn't evidence that Jesus had abandoned them, but rather that it was in their suffering, their true wealth was being revealed and found in Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we keep reading in the letter in Revelation 2, in the back half of nine through the first part of 10, it says this, I know the blasphemy of those opposing you.

[SPEAKER_00]: They say that they are Jews, but they are not, because their synagogue belongs to Satan.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't be afraid of what you are about to what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Suffer.

[SPEAKER_00]: The devil will throw some of you into prison to test you,

[SPEAKER_00]: You see something we should make sure we understand is in the early church, Christians were still considered a part of Judaism.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, scholars tell us that Judaism at this time was a recognized legal religion within Rome that meant it had some given exemptions and protected statuses in the Roman Empire that would exempt them from some of the worship elements like burning incense and declaring that Caesar is Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so here in in Schmerna, we have these these religious leaders, these Jewish leaders that are making efforts and this is starting to spread throughout the area that jute Christians and Jews are not the same, that they are actually two separate communities that distinct of each other, which would remove that diplomatic protections and exemptions that the Jews were lean fortunate to have in their life.

[SPEAKER_00]: That meant Christians, if they did not offer incense and declare that Caesar is Lord, could be subject to criminal offenses, arrests, and even worse death.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so in the midst of that, right, Jesus calls us to understand that we are not to be afraid of what we are about to suffer.

[SPEAKER_00]: The yes, the pressure they currently have been facing is real but that there is even more pressure to come.

[SPEAKER_00]: that for following Jesus at times, it doesn't just get better, it actually gets harder.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he says that not just might come, it will come.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wants the church to be prepared that there is a season of increased suffering to come.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so for the Christians living in Rome, prison wasn't even the final punishment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Prison was really the holding place before we would have trial and judgment and eventually either their release,

[SPEAKER_00]: or their execution, and he sees Jesus' warning is even more sobering in that mind of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't tell them that what's going to happen to every believer.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, he says, some might be released, some might not.

[SPEAKER_00]: He makes it unmistakably clear, though, that for the believers, their faithfulness will be tested.

[SPEAKER_00]: It actually says that there's these 10 days and there's scholars who've caused a lot of discussion back and forth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of ass is to say, a literal 10 days that they'll be in jail and then in 10 days are gonna get released or others see it as a symbolic thing that it's there is a season of suffering and that there is a set time and suffering would eventually end.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are those that say, hey, actually what we're not looking at it as they're even being released.

[SPEAKER_00]: It could actually be that at the end of this time, their end of it is actually through their death and martyrdom for their faith in Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what we should note today, what we are certain of is that for this, no matter how this is interpreted, is that our suffering, whether we are released or whether we die in this world, that that is has an ending date.

[SPEAKER_00]: That suffering does have a limit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our testing does have a limit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that should be hopeful for us, because it's not Rome who controls that timeline.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually not the devil that's in control of it, but God's saying himself that he remains sovereign, even in the midst of the suffering of his followers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is uncomfortable at times.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because if I'm honest in the room today, like there are times in which I just want the kind of promise I says, that hardship's gonna end, and it's gonna be better one day.

[SPEAKER_00]: That sounds great.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have those kind of hard days and the people are like, it's gonna get better.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what Jesus says.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, what Jesus over and over again reassures is not that.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says not to be afraid because the worst thing that could happen, the worst thing has happened to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And more than that, it's not the end of our story.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, Rome can take business off for tunities.

[SPEAKER_00]: It could take financial security.

[SPEAKER_00]: It could take freedom.

[SPEAKER_00]: It could even take our life.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Rome could not take away Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: That it for us, it could never take away the most valuable thing that the believers possess, then, and ever.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, I think the letter's been moving towards the question is what happens when following Jesus costs more than we may be expected?

[SPEAKER_00]: What happens when the price of faithfulness continues to rise?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think Jesus' answer is simple when we keep reading Revelation 2, the last half of 10 and 11.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says this, but if you remain what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Faithful, even when facing what?

[SPEAKER_00]: death.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will give you the crown of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyone with ears to hear must listen to what the spirit and the understanding that he is saying to the churches, whoever is victorious will not be harmed by the second death.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus answer a simple, remain faithful.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting because, when he talks about this language, he talks about this crown of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Smurna would have immediately understood that language, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: They were called the crown of Asia.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, their top of their city looks like a laurel, a wreath crown over them.

[SPEAKER_00]: All these kind of things, but yet this was a reminder of this physical, earthly crown they would have, no matter how impressive it was.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was all temporary.

[SPEAKER_00]: But yet Jesus is saying, you would receive a crown of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: that they would see beyond the temporary and see that there were words and there attention should be put on something that would last beyond it.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is consistent theme that we see throughout the scriptures, that God is calling us to evaluate through a different timeline.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not one presently saying what is going on right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: What do I get right now in the midst of this?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is telling us to ask what is eternal?

[SPEAKER_00]: What a last forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, the promise of the crown of life is not a promise of reward.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a promise that those who remain loyal to Jesus, we discover that He is better than everything they surrendered in following Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, the believers in the meaner were being forced to decide which crown actually mattered most.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rome or Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, every act of faithfulness was ultimately an answer to that question.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every time a believer refused to compromise, they were choosing a crown.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every time they declined and offered a burn incense to Caesar, they were choosing a crown.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every time they endured the ridicule, the exclusion, the persecution for the sake of Jesus, they were choosing a crown.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, they knew what they had signed up for, long before it came, and Jesus wanted them to see the cost

[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe this letter ends with confidence.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what's amazing for you and I, as we think about this letter, we think about it, and we go back to where I talked about it, to envision being a teenager in that room.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want us to understand that that wasn't just imagery.

[SPEAKER_00]: There wasn't something we imagined.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, there was a teenager, a very specific in the story we need to hear about today.

[SPEAKER_00]: His name was Pauli Karp.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you heard it right, Polycarp.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to understand, because you've borne and raised in Schmerna around 70 AD.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if what scholars believe is that revelation was written in the 90s, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: That means you would have been a young high school age college age student.

[SPEAKER_00]: When the first letter was received in Schmerna and read aloud to the churches and age a minor.

[SPEAKER_00]: That means scholars knew that Polycarp grew up and probably the very church receiving this letter.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he would have heard the author, John, saying that we would be faithful unto death.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he took that seriously.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, Polycar gave his life to Jesus, and later became a disciple of that same author, the Apostle, John, himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was John who recorded that letter.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so for you and I to think about this, that there is this teenager who heard the message and grew up in the church, hearing being faithful to death, would then grew up be disciples and then come back to Smyrna and become the pastor of that church for decades to come.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love that even last week when Adam was talking about what kind of lambstand church do we want to be?

[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about being this church of truth and love and for me, I want that for our students.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to see students that are like Polycarp who grow up in the church and hear it and live it out.

[SPEAKER_00]: So much so that they don't just become leaders of the church but they would end and be faithful to the end like Polycarp will be.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, decades will go by, and things continued.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's the living embodiment of what we heard in war warned about in Revelation two, because things didn't get easier.

[SPEAKER_00]: They got harder.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, that it became a law that not only did they have to burn incense to Rome and declare Caesar his Lord, they had to get a document that proved that they had done so.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Polycarp and his old age eventually was arrested for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, in and he was brought before trial and was threatened to be burned at the stake, it says that even on the Sabbath that those Jewish leaders opposing him ran to pick up the wood that they would burn on the Sabbath for polycard.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, and here in the moment of that, they say, hey, here's the thing you can do.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have respect for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want you to have your life, but here's what you have to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you know the story of Polycarp, this man who, in the midst of this, he reveals not only that he's willing to go to death to the very end, but his decision what he signed up for, the cost he knew was made long before the moment came.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's martyred and burned alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: He proves it wasn't just words on a page.

[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't suddenly become faithful at 86 years old.

[SPEAKER_00]: He'd been faithful decades before living out what it meant to be a believer that he lived out so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had accusations to be made against him.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, in his letter to the church in Philippi and chapter eight, Apolycarp says this, let us continually persevere in our hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: and the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ who bore our sins in His own body on the tree.

[SPEAKER_00]: But for our sakes that we might live in Him, He endured all things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then let us be imitators of His patience.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we suffer for His name's sake, let us glorify Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: somewhere between Revelation 2 and here in the second century, we see this young man who would stand up and grow up in the church and become this leader and yet would lead others to say we will be faithful unto death.

[SPEAKER_00]: Polycarp reminds you and I that a faithful follower doesn't just show up in crisis.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's something that we've been practicing every single day that there should be evidence of that life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Cause he knew what he signed up for.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knew the cost of following Jesus and he was willing to own it even to death.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, it's smearing us signed up for loyalty to Rome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christian's signed up for loyalty to Jesus even to the end.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we kind of close in this letter, it's this challenge and these questions, we have to be confronted with.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, do we know the cost to follow Jesus?

[SPEAKER_00]: And is he worth it?

[SPEAKER_00]: See, over and over again, Jesus invites us to understand that following Him is not easy.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's challenging, and it's difficult, and guess what?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's probably going to get harder, and that's one of those things for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we have to ask this question, like, have we counted the cost of following Jesus, or if we simply counted the benefits of following Him?

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's something that we have to wrestle with.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, I've come to believe that the church shines bright as when it refuses to compromise.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we remain faithful to what we signed up for.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we talk today, like we've been talking about persecution and that's, let me be honest, here, here on the west, it can be really hard to understand that in the same extent that's Schmerna and other churches around the world do.

[SPEAKER_00]: because there are churches around the world that are facing such incredibly depth of this kind of extreme persecution.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, reach global, recently shared a video, reach global is the mission's part of the EFCA or denomination.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they shared this video of one of our partners that is out in Kiev right now, and what's going on there in the last, literally in the last month.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we wanna share this video so you can see for yourself.

[SPEAKER_01]: Today's second of June, it's very special day for a new life church.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a very big damage.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was a gift, almost to our facility.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is a part of reality in which she cringey and church is living.

[SPEAKER_02]: In ever building is no room with the window, and there is no room with the doors.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have no rooms for Sunday's call.

[SPEAKER_02]: Our gathering place is not functioning.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have problems with electricity with the screen with everything, and we have a lot of distractions.

[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, Gat is a very merciful because no one have died here on our territory.

[SPEAKER_02]: Gat is good because this has happened not in winter, but in summer.

[SPEAKER_02]: be a working together as a body of Christ, cleaning, taking off the out from here all garbage.

[SPEAKER_02]: church is not about stage, a church is not about light, church about gathering.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know that nothing can destroy church, not a war, not a tax, not missiles, nothing can not destroy the church that was planted by God.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure that people continue to do what we are doing, building

[SPEAKER_02]: his kingdom and I invite you to join in what we are doing and being together with us with the Ukrainian church.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I love just getting to hear even the story in this, hey, like we're grateful this was in the summer, not in the winter, and that the church cannot be stopped.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a great reminder for us, because we can come and we can have these days and the hardest, most persecuting thing of my days at Starbucks didn't have cold brew left, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of these beautiful reminders that even we, we don't see any kind of persecution and suffering like our brothers and sisters and kids, but there's something for us, even in the midst of this letter today that Jesus is calling us to understand.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think there are three profoundly things that we should walk away with today.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the first of them is this and I hope you've heard it a few times, but it's that we would count the cost.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, do not assume that Christianity is simply adding Jesus to our life, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that He's an accessory to our plans, but Jesus actually calls us to take up our cross surrender our lives, die to it, and follow Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: It means that following Jesus will cost us something, and it should show up in the way in which we live, that people should see it, and experience it, there should be evidence of His Lordship in our life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the Christians, the Smyrner, they couldn't hide it, and they couldn't get behind any of those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had this pressure that shows which of their allegiance was there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I hope that you and I can would live in a way in which the question in our life is that there is enough evidence that we've counted the cost.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know what we signed up for and we're willing to go all in even if it means going to the very end through death.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second thing is this is that church, I would say please remember the persecuted church.

[SPEAKER_00]: remember it because we can we can hear about it and we can read about it and we watch videos like this and I want you to see we're not just like watching strangers.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're seeing our brothers and sisters in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: We see people who who like Schmerner to under severe pressure and persecution and suffering.

[SPEAKER_00]: The challenge for us is not to just go in and admire their faithfulness from a distance.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I would challenge us that we'd learn from it.

[SPEAKER_00]: That we'd be convicted by it, that we would pray for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'd find ways to support them and let their example confront the ways in which we allow comfortableness to make us complacent in our own walk and our faith in the way in which we live.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, if you, if there's a way in which you want to partner, I know that QR code was a little quick there.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you wanted to partner with, with reach global are incredible global outreach for an interstep and a humor has put together some action packs that partner with, um, reach global out in the outreach hallway that you can go see after church today.

[SPEAKER_00]: But would we pray and partner and support the persecuted church at large?

[SPEAKER_00]: And then thirdly, would we truly carry the gospel everywhere to the very end?

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about it, someone unnamed some random person brought the gospel to Schmerna.

[SPEAKER_00]: That church that was faithful with truth and love, they curase up another generation, telling them the gospel of Jesus, including a young man named Polycarp.

[SPEAKER_00]: Polycarp carried that forward and taught that message, not just with words but with his own life that we would be faithful even to death.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so for us, would we be a place that we would embody it in everything that we would be addicted and passionate about raising up the generations that would come after us to know the gospel that it would live and breathe out for us because the gospel is so worth suffering for ladies and gentlemen because there are people that are worth reaching with the gospel of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what I want to close for us, because I understand we are here in our part of the world and the West and America.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we have it pretty nice to be compared to most of the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet there should be a conviction for us that if we are people who are following Jesus, that we counted the cost, that we know what we've signed up for, our lives should reflect it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to close us with just a question.

[SPEAKER_00]: A question that should challenge and convict us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because while Christianity is not illegal, illegal here, the question we have to ask is this, is if Christianity became illegal tomorrow, would there be enough evidence to convict us?

[SPEAKER_00]: Would you pray with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Father, thank you for what your son did.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for the cross and all that you did.

[SPEAKER_00]: That you went to death and back,

[SPEAKER_00]: that you brought hope and light in the misdarkness, or it and thank you that you remind us of that, that you are the first and the last, that are hope and our light, and everything about us is found in you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Would we be people who count the cost?

[SPEAKER_00]: Would we be people who are fully sold out, devoted solely to you in your mission?

[SPEAKER_00]: Would we never forsake that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Would we never forget that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Would we carry that mission forward?

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, we would be people who could see what you are, that you are worth far more than anything we'd ever lose in this life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Would we be so satisfied in you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing else in this world would ever tempt us to be satisfied in anything less.

[SPEAKER_00]: Convict us and challenge us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We pray that in the name of your son Jesus, amen.