Revelation | Light of the World

Hello, and thank you for joining us on the Sierra Bible Church Sermon of the Week.

We hope you enjoy this message by Pastor Nate Leverett.

Welcome.

Uh, excited to go.

Again, if you have a Bible, uh, we're gonna kind of jump right in this morning.

Revelation chapter one.

This is the revelation of Jesus Christ.

We are going to, God willing, spend the fall uh walking through this book, kind of chunk by chunk.

Some of you will be like, man, there's some lean-in moments.

I'd like to know a little bit more about this or a lot more.

We'd encourage you.

Uh, there are a group of us will be teaching uh through it at four o'clock over in room one, which is the first room over here in the youth building, as we'll be kind of diving in in some new ways.

This book titles itself at the beginning.

This is The Revelation of Jesus, Christ.

It is a picture uh of what, or recording, if you will, of what John sees as he meets Jesus, and Jesus kind of pulls back the curtain.

You can imagine yourself right here between heaven and earth with some things that Jesus wants them to see.

We're summarizing these in two ways, two sort of massive categories.

One is to see Jesus, that's the point.

We're meant to see Jesus.

The image of Jesus that we'll look at this morning might might be very different than the one that we oftentimes see when we picture Jesus maybe in our mind or we're we're reading him from the gospels.

The second one is that you would be encouraged.

As we read this, as we study it, that there would be this sort of inner courage, there would be a strengthening of your kind of will to align your mind and your heart to the revealed truth that Jesus invites us into.

To be kind of infused with courage to live out your very real life in the midst of this sometimes very challenging world.

So our hope is that we'd see Jesus and be encouraged.

I'd encourage you to bring your Bible on Sundays if you have one.

We have some for sale out in the Welcome Center.

We're gonna be reading some sections together.

We'll dive right in, starting uh with John's words in verse nine of chapter one.

Then we'll do kind of the last part of what we're gonna do today, kind of by overview, but this first section we're going to read together.

First, we're gonna start in verse nine.

Excuse me.

I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are our kind of our reality, our lives in Jesus.

If you're a note taker, I just encourage you to circle those two words in Jesus.

And Brian prayed in response to Jesus' completed work as his people.

He goes on.

He says, I was on the island of Patmos.

This is as we talked a bit about last week, 35 miles off the shore of the sort of western shore of Turkey.

It's a prison.

He is there, as we will read now, in exile, because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

Verse 10, on the Lord's day, he says, I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.

I'm not exactly sure how that sounds, which said these words, write on a scroll what you see, and send it to the seven churches.

This word, seven, is he's going to use multiple times throughout this book as a word, it's a biblical kind of word or picture of completeness or wholeness.

So while he's going to write seven specific churches, he's going to address the fullness of God's church, part of which we are.

He's going to write these seven to the church in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

Part of why he writes this is that we would be encouraged.

Have you noticed that there's a couple at least different kinds of encouragement?

Some that are a little more encouraging, some that are maybe a little less encouraging, if we're honest.

It was some of you know my personal story this last winter.

Get prostate cancer again, kind of figuring out what kind I have.

Will it be a less aggressive form?

Will it be the form of prostate cancer that my dad died of just a couple years before?

So we're in this hole.

If you've ever been in the cancer journey, figuring out, doing the tests.

Okay, where is mine gonna land?

Severely different.

I'm at the poor.

Somebody from the community knew that I uh had gotten cancer again.

And he came up to me while I'm trying to eat my tacos and just kind of starts blowing us away with encouragement.

He said this, it's all gonna be fine.

Nobody ever dies anymore from prostate cancer.

Think happy thoughts.

And I thought, I'm not thinking any happy thoughts right now.

This is like a least encouraging ready over and over.

Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts.

Getting cancer, if you don't know, is a little bit like sort of in some ways being pregnant where you get to hear everybody's pregnant story, women?

Like, I think I've heard enough of these, right?

And that was supposed to be encourag.

Last night I spoke at a little function, and there was a gentleman in the crowd, and he came up to me, and he also had prostate cancer.

And he said this, he said, Can I share my story with you?

I said, sure.

And he says, Doesn't this suck?

But isn't it so different to know the Lord and walk through this?

And I thought about that, there's different ways we kind of get in encouraged.

What we're invited into by John and by the Lord Jesus as he starts this book is the latter.

What does he say?

He says, I was en patmos.

The Greek word is en it's en I was en patmo.

In patmo, it's this picture of suffering, it's this picture of being in the dirt, it's this picture of being on earth.

But what does he say right after that?

And in the Greek, these two words are connected.

He says, I'm in Patmo, I'm on this rock called Patmos, but I'm in pneumate.

I'm in what?

The Spirit.

That I'm not just stuck on this rock, on the Lord's day, knowing him, more is actually going on than the reality of this rock.

Here we we begin to already get this sense of hope as Jesus is going to encourage the church as they're walking through some brutal days, or will walk through some brutal days.

Revelation 12, we um pick up the story a bit more.

He says, This, I turned around, hearing this voice, it sounds like a trumpet.

I turn around and I see this voice that's speaking to me.

When I turned, I saw, here's the word seven again, right?

Seven golden lampstands.

And among the seven lampstands was someone, try and picture this, like the Son of Man.

What we are invited to consider in this seven lampstands is a powerful image.

It's actually meant to draw us back to this time when Moses was on Mount Sinai after, in our biblical history, he he leads the people by God's direction out of Egypt and slavery and into eventually the desert, right?

And then into the promised land.

Part of what God does on Mount Sinai is download the law.

In the law, it's instructions about how God's people are meant to orient themselves around his presence.

So one of the things God says to Moses, he says, Hey, I want you to build a tabernacle that will eventually become a temple.

In that temple, I want you to put a golden lampstand.

Here's a picture of what was described in the law.

Some of you kind of know this.

It's a menorah.

I think it's up there, right?

So it's a lampstand that holds seven candles.

So when he says, I saw the Son of Man kind of meandering, if you will, around seven individual lampstands, what we're going to see is this next picture.

There, Ephesus has a lampstand, Smyrna has a lampstand, Pergamum, these various churches have a lampstand.

Something has changed, changed around Jesus.

What was true in the temple, that this light was meant to represent God's presence and his guidance for the nation of Israel, has now been moved out into this thing that Jesus calls the church.

The church is the place.

What was once Israel, what was once the temple, this coming together of heaven and earth is now the help me out, church.

This is what God's doing.

This is the imagery here where he says, hey, this was this menorah, this was the temple, this is the only light it meant to represent and remind my people that I'm here with them.

I know them, I know their stories.

We'll see that as we dive into the text.

I'm with you, and I'm in front of you.

I'm a God that doesn't just know what's happened and wants to meet you in it.

I'm a God that will guide you, that will walk with you, that will step into the midst of it.

We will fix in some ways this together.

And so what we see then is that we then become one of these churches.

It's another way, this is how we're invited.

That, you know, these are just some of the churches in our area, certainly not all of them that we live in really, I'd say, strict agreement with, but we are one of these churches.

And so as we read John's words, really Jesus' words, to the church, we can then ask ourselves the question: what is it that he's inviting us into?

What is it that he's calling out of us?

And there's this corporate us picture, but as we know, right, do you remember when Paul leans in, he says, Don't you remember?

Because of the work of Jesus, because of the filling of the Spirit, your body is the temple.

Your body is and so, in some ways, we have a light.

And so as Jesus invites us to consider these words, really, some of them of challenge, they are for us.

We hear then these words.

So now for this next section, it's not gonna be on the screen.

Of course, it's in your Bible, but what I want to encourage you to do, and this could be really weird and awkward, but I'm okay suggesting it.

If you don't do it, I will not call you out.

But maybe close your eyes.

What he's gonna do, he says, I hear this voice.

I turned around and I saw someone, right, wandering through these seven lampstands, someone like the Son of God.

Now he's going to describe him.

So if I just asked you for a moment, close your eyes and envision what Jesus looks like.

Here's what John saw.

Dressed in a robe, reaching down to his feet, and with a golden sash around his chest.

The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire, his feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the voice of rushing or thundering water.

In his right hand, he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword.

His face was like the sun shining in all of its brilliance.

And then we see the conclusion of this in verse 17.

When I saw him, John says, I fell at his feet as though dead.

Then he placed his right hand on me and said, Do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid.

This revelation of who Jesus is is not meant to cause fear.

It's cause, it's meant to cause you to step into the truth of who he is and to know that even though what he may be asking you to do, places he may be asking you to surrender, to go, to live, to give, you can trust him.

So he puts his arm on John, he says, do not be afraid.

Jesus is not, as we see here, this sort of far-off reality.

He's not meant to sort of be this kind of you know Middle Eastern fantasy.

He is close, he knows our story.

He's come to bring us life, to draw us to himself.

In some ways, what Jesus will say is he reads the sort of mail to the church, if you will, is I'm here with you.

It's broken, but let's fix it together.

What do those pictures mean that we read?

They'll be up here on the screen.

Uh, you know, he kind of walks through these things, right?

He says, What I saw was one that has a white robe with a golden sash.

And it's this picture of royalty.

It's this picture of I am, I am the king.

I don't know.

Oh, we're over here now.

That was interesting.

Um, I'm gonna stay with you.

Uh just trying to keep us awake.

White robe with a golden sash, right?

We picture Jesus white hair.

I mean, that's kind of a bummer.

I was hoping for bald, but we're going with white hair, I guess, for Jesus.

But again, what's this picture of white hair?

It's one that's wise.

He's gonna say some things.

He's gonna go on inside here in a minute.

But understand that he's revealing himself as one who is wise.

Eyes like blazing fire.

We kind of get this one, right?

Especially some of us dads.

Right?

We've looked at our son with some eyes with some blazing fire before, right?

If you've ever okay, maybe just me.

Maybe we had a coach that, man, they had a way of having eyes that looked like blazing fire.

It's this picture of divine judgment or warning.

This feet of bronze, it's not a word we use, but for them it represented strength and power, and again, judgment.

His voice is one of authority, it thunders.

His hand, again, his right hand is holding what?

Help me out, what?

Seven stars.

Okay, seven, this word of completion.

And in some ways, what he's saying here is I am the creator of heaven and earth and everything under it.

I hold it in my right hand.

This is his uh sovereignty and his power.

He has coming out of his mouth what?

A double-edged sword.

This this is a picture of that his words as we hear them are meant to, in some ways, expose things that we might not see had he not spoken in.

They're meant to expose us, to cut open, to let us see things that we wouldn't see on our own.

But Jesus speaks life in.

And then lastly, he says that seeing the face of this one is a little bit like not today, but walking outside and looking at the S-U-N with your eyes.

There's a sense of just that brilliance and it shining like, oh, I can only look for a second.

This is what John sees as a word of encouragement that we can trust him.

And Jesus puts his hand on his shoulder and says, Do not fear.

Okay, so John is in this place, he sees this incredible vision.

Jesus shows up in like all his glory.

What this next part was interesting to me.

What I would think is that Jesus pulls back this curtain, if you will, between heaven and earth.

He's got John with the scroll ready to take notes.

What am I, if I'm Jesus, gonna show him?

Like he could show him anything.

He could show them this beast with four heads, right?

He could show them like what heaven's gonna be like in these sort of like streets of gold and what this is gonna be like.

He could show them that that eventually this beast and there's this mother and this all this crazy imagery, and here's what's gonna happen.

He can raise his sort of like life up out of patmos, out of the dirt, out of the earth.

But that's not how revelation works, and that is not what Jesus shows him.

Rather, then this door that shows him these sort of mysteries of heaven.

It's as if Jesus in this next couple of chapters holds up a mirror and he says to the church through John, before we go there, before I reveal these things, I want to show you what's going on inside of you.

This is where I want to do my work.

And in some ways, he draws back to this imagery that Jesus picks up in the Sermon on the Mount when he says this.

He says, No one lights a candle just to cover it with a bowl.

Candles are lit, churches are formed by the work of my spirit, so that they can display that light.

And it's gonna get crazy over the next year story.

But pay attention to that light, and that's what these next couple of chapters are about, that we would walk with him and he would help us in that.

What I want to do then for this next section, because there's seven churches as we've alluded to, and they're all very specific churches.

Some of you probably studied these in depth, others, maybe this will be the first time we've even heard some of these words.

We're gonna look at the church in Ephesus uh most specifically.

This is probably the church that John the author uh was the pastor of, or the bishop they may have called him in that day of.

Uh, and so we're gonna look at this one in length, and then we'll look at the others uh just in part and try and draw some applications out for our day.

So we're in chapter two, verse one, to the angel of the church of Ephesus, right?

So Jesus through John is going to address these seven churches.

What he does as he addresses these seven is a bit of a pattern.

Jesus is gonna draw back on that vision that he gave him, that he gives John of who he is, the sword and the stars and specifically pull a picture of who Jesus is for their specific story and their struggle, if you will.

And then he's gonna compliment them on things they're doing well.

And then he's gonna step in and say, hey, here's the things, the places you're missing it.

And he's gonna offer a warning and a promise.

And you'll see this in Ephesus.

It's kind of repeated that same rhythm or pattern in all of these churches for the most part.

These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.

This person is Jesus.

I know your deeds.

Again, he's introducing himself to them using this bit of this vision.

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance.

Well done.

I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you've tested those who claim to be apostles, but are not.

Some would come into their community, they would test them by the truth of the word of God, and you have found them false.

Verse 3 you have persevered and had endured hardship in my name and have not grown weary.

Man, all good things.

We would say, This is this church is rocking.

You know, let's close in prayer.

Verse 4, yet I hold this against you.

And on the screen, what I wanted to try and picture and sort of leave out is what Jesus holds against him.

Now, some of us know, but listen to the judgment that comes with this.

Jesus, man, you're doing a great bunch of great things.

You guys have kicked out some false teachers, you guys are working really hard.

You persevered through some hard seasons.

He said, Yet this I hold against you, and listen to the weight that Jesus puts on this one thing.

If you do not repent, which means turn, which means turn away from whatever it is that you found yourself in and chase after right things.

He says, I will come to you in what?

Remove your lampstand.

Good news, bad news?

Like that's about as bad as it gets, okay?

So if if you come into a church and the lampstand's not here, like it ain't a church, okay?

A church is a place where the presence of God is.

A church is a place that's leaning on him and listening to him and trying to be guided by him.

Now it's not always felt and those kinds of things.

So there's a process here, but what what's fascinating to me is this.

Look at what he says.

Some of you know this.

He says, Yet I hold this against you.

You've forsaken the love you had at first.

Man, you got your doctrine dialed.

In fact, you booted out people from the church that were trying to convince people of other things that adding to Jesus.

Well done.

You forsake your love.

You dropped it.

He says, Repent.

Go back to the things you did at first.

Remember the vitality that you had, the love that you had, the way you experienced that and displayed that.

He says, If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

But you have this in your favor.

You hate the practices of the Nicolas.

Which I also hate.

He goes on.

He says, Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

One of the things that I've tried to allude to is this reality that God knows their story.

He knows our story.

He knows your story.

Each of these churches, uh, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, were churches.

They had stories.

They lived, they were part of cities, right?

That had stories.

And part of the way that Jesus writes to them, I find this fascinating in some ways, uh, is specific to their particular story.

We might miss this if we just read it in face value, but if we knew about Ephesus, that Ephesus in this area of seven churches, kind of in Western Turkey, uh, is sort of the New York City of cities.

It's probably maybe with Laodicea, but probably the richest of cities.

Uh, it had a lot of stuff going on.

It had all kinds of um academia, it had all kinds of um of like a just a really vibrant marketplace.

This is Ephesus.

What also you would know if you kind of walk the streets of Ephesus is that it all centered around the temple of Artemis.

Here's a picture of that temple.

It's four times the size as they've found it of the Roman pantheon.

This temple is built around a brilliant garden, a paradise garden, it was called, that had, wait for it, a place of worship around a holy tree.

Okay?

So think beautiful garden, unbelievable place of worship to this God.

The entire flow of this place of worship revolved around a tree.

This tree was the center of their sort of judicial um work.

And and how how the historians tell us that if you were a convicted um criminal and you came in with a with the to a certain proximity of this particular tree, you were declared free.

You were you were let go.

And so when Jesus writes to this church and he says, right the wrongs, and if you do, or if and when you do, what verse does he give us?

He gives us John chapter two, I think it's verse seven.

It's coming up shortly.

He says, To the one who is victorious, I will give the what?

The right to eat from the from the what?

From the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

So God starts with this image that he holds these seven stars.

I am the one who's created heaven and earth.

And if you repent and come back, you guys have a tree.

And you're temporarily set free.

I have a tree too, he says.

This is my promise.

The second city, we don't have time to walk through all of these, but the second city I want uh us to think for a moment about is the city of Sardis.

The city of Sardis, some of you may know the history on the city because uh, if you studied as a historian, they were um sort of publicly proud people.

And they were publicly proud because they would taunt the people around them as if they could never be sacked as a city.

Why?

Because they had a fortress built on this extremely steep um mountainside.

In fact, I was talking with one of our young people, Joseph, who spent some time in Israel, and he's like, it was so cool to walk around Sardis and to see that temple and to read the words that Jesus gives them.

What happened in Sardis is that they just would taunt other people, like you cannot take us because when you come, we're gonna climb up into our safety, and we've got this.

About 600 AD, the city was sacked because the Persians came in, and you may know the story, they you know mounted a bit of a reverse attack, snuck their way in and sacked the city.

A group of people overconfident, a group of people asleep, we're told by historians, when the Persians worked their way in and took the city.

So listen now, as someone in Sardis, with that kind of a story, to what Jesus has to say to the church.

Jesus says this wake up.

Wake up.

You are overconfident.

You think, oh, we got this.

Wake up, strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.

We're Sardis.

Jesus saved us for crying out loud.

He has to forget what whatever the story is, right?

He says, Man, you got some unfinished stuff.

You got some unfinished stuff God's given you to do.

Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard, hold it fast and repent.

But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief.

What's their story?

Yeah, I'll come like a thief, Jesus says.

And you will not know what time I will come to you.

He knows them.

He knows us.

He's in our story.

Lastly, the church in Laodicea.

Now, this is uh a church that many of us are at least somewhat familiar with because of the way Jesus calls them out.

Um, you know, this is the church that gets spit out of Jesus' mouth as he says it.

But what's fascinating about Laodicea, if you know or visit Laodicea even now, is that you will find rocks lined like that.

Anybody know what that is?

What?

Yeah, it's an aqueduct.

Okay, so what's interesting in some ways about Laodicea, while they were a place where you would go to get the richest of clothes, you could go to school and learn how to use uh this sort of medical salve that was actually a healing ointment for people's eyes.

Wow, because it laid at these Roman crossroads, it was an incredibly rich city.

It did not have its own source of water.

Now, if you look across the hillside, you'd see another city called Hieropolis.

Hieropolis was known for its water, not necessarily its drinking water, but it's water.

It was hot.

Hot springs were there, and they had famously healing abilities.

So you got Hieropolis over here, right around the corner, another city, also known for its water.

Its name was Colossae.

Colossae is known because it had these ice cold springs.

So you looked at Hieropolis and you thought, man, I can go there and enjoy the hot springs and be a recipient of this physical healing.

I can go around the corner and up the way a bit and experience this cold, refreshing, beautiful water that comes out of the ground in Colossae.

But right now I'm in Laodicea and there's nothing good to drink.

We had to pipe in our own waters.

Fascinating, of course, how they did that.

But listen to what Jesus has to say to the church.

He says, I know your deeds.

You're neither what?

Cold nor hot.

I know your deeds.

I wish you were either one or the other.

But because you're lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth.

You say, I'm rich.

The city was rich.

You've acquired great wealth and do not need a thing.

But you do not realize, and here Jesus is going to call them out, that you're wretched, pitiful.

You're not rich or poor.

Yeah, you got a place that's learning how to do eye solve, but you're actually blind.

And yeah, you're a place where people go to get incredible garments.

You are actually naked.

He calls them out.

He sees for them what they cannot see on their own.

What I want to do then in the last couple of minutes is to kind of walk through these seven churches and sort of just pull out, because we're not going to have time to kind of dive into all of them, although they're fascinating, I think, like these other three, when you study the history and how Jesus kind of enters into their story.

But just pull out a little bit that might be applicable to us.

And maybe there's one of these that's going to kind of stir in you of like, yeah, that's man, if he looked at me as a part of his church, a spirit filled with a light of life in me, here's what he would be maybe calling me out or challenging me or inviting me to trust him in.

So let's walk through these seven.

To the church in Ephesus, Jesus says, This, I commend your zeal.

Man, you guys, you get after it.

If you were to look on our website and you were just to look at some of the programs that are happening around here, you would say, I mean, I commend the fact this church is like going to Jamestown.

This church started a biblical, you know, counseling center.

This church has incredible youth stuff.

You'll hear some of that later.

This church has got a food pantry.

This church is, I mean, we got programs, we got all kinds of stuff happening.

I commend your zeal.

Jesus says, You ought to be an active church.

Look and dream.

Get on pace with what I'm doing in the world.

Let's let's change this in some ways together.

But then he says this, but where is your love?

You're zealous about doctrine, you're zealous about your programs.

Remember what Paul said in Ephesians?

He said, Man, you can do the greatest programs, you can go, you know, prophesy in my name, but if you don't have what?

Jesus says, Church, if you don't have love, pause the programs, friends.

Come back to me.

I don't, I don't need you doing all that.

Find the love.

Live in that.

That's the light that gives life to the world.

His love through us.

Smyrna.

Smyrna's a great story.

I invite you to read it.

It's a second of these seven churches.

He he dives into Smyrna.

He says this.

He says, hey, guess what?

For 10 days, very specific to Smyrna, unlike maybe some of the other churches.

He says, for 10 days, you're going to be imprisoned by Satan.

I'm not exactly sure what that meant.

I don't think Satan showed up and threw him in prison, but they're going to prison for 10 days.

That's not great news, right?

But it is also great news.

Why?

What?

It's limited.

Yeah, you cheated.

You read my notes.

Good, good answer.

He says this to the church, your suffering is certain, but it's also limited.

It's also limited.

I don't know your story.

I was walking around the men's breakfast yesterday, and first gentleman I kind of bumped into and just gave a big hug.

My heart just goes out to him.

He lost his wife, and they were that couple.

You never mentioned them apart, kind of couple.

Second guy bumped into, just got back from a day in Stanford as it looks like his cancer is coming back.

Next guy bumped into tells me how he's got a tumor on his brainstem, and they drilled his nose and are doing some work on it.

Like, like, friends, our suffering is certain.

But there's good news.

And this news that's given to Smyrna is maybe the news for some of us.

I don't know if it's emotional, I don't know if it's physical, I don't know if it's relational, but our suffering is limited.

My brother-in-law and my sister and their family lived on Coronado for a number of years, and he helped kind of organize some SEAL missions.

And um, so one time we were hanging out at this barbecue, and we're hanging out with these guys that did SEAL training, and I think this is kind of fascinating.

So I'm having a conversation with these guys.

I said, Tell me about Hell Week.

And you know, I've read a couple of documentaries and or read watch these things.

I said, Tell me what I wouldn't know.

He said something that's fascinating that I think applies.

He said, you know, what's what you might not know is that Wednesday at lunch is the turn.

And I'm like, what are you talking about?

And he said, for the first between, you know, Sunday night when you stop sleeping and start torture and train to be a Navy SEAL, we want to convince everyone there that the suffering they're going through will never end.

The only way out of that suffering is to give up.

To go put your helmet and give up.

He said, but Wednesday at lunch, from the instructor's perspective, everything tips.

He said, we go from trying to convince you your suffering will never end.

It's endless.

This is the way it will be for the rest of your life, unless you give up, to trying to convince them that they can survive because Friday is what they've been waiting for.

And I think sometimes, at least for me, as I'm walking through, I get this overwhelming sense that it might always be like this.

And what Jesus says to the church in Smyrna is such encouragement.

He says, Friday's coming.

There's an 11th day.

So persevere, hang in there, see what God might have for you.

Yeah, it's tough, but it is limited.

The next couple of churches, Pergamum and Thyatira, they have kind of a similar uh challenge.

This is a church that Jesus introduces himself with these words.

I am the one who has the double-edged sword coming out of my mouth.

I am the one who has the eyes of red.

And so what we see as we enter into these two churches is this is going to be some pretty strict judgment and harsh judgment for these churches.

What is their issue in some ways?

Well, for both of these churches, they had allowed a sort of cultural and religious sort of slide, if you will.

They allowed all kinds of sin that was common in the world to begin to be common and even taught within their churches.

And so the challenge is that we must confront cultural and religious compromise.

Now, again, fascinating in some ways, Pergamum was a church that endured incredible suffering.

Any of you ever gone like long-term suffering and you're like, fine, I give up.

Now I'm just gonna go get a drink, or I'm gonna go do something stupid, or I'm gonna go get online and like just release this pressure I've been under.

Yeah, we compromise in ways that Thyatira's the other church.

Thyatira is a church that Jesus comes to, he's like, Man, you guys are crushing it.

You got the love thing dialed, you got the, I mean, he's just like, you got good works, you love each other, you love me, you're an awesome church.

And and Thyatira's experience an incredible blessing.

But what do they do?

Not under pressure, but because they're looking around the blessing of God.

Well, they take their foot off and they begin to compromise in ways that Jesus calls them out.

And so he challenges us to confront cultural and religious compromise.

And this can be anything from how we orient our churches, how we spend our monies, how monies, how we raise our children.

And so we ought to take a quick look and allow this one who has a sharp two-edged sword and eyes of flaming fire to challenge us.

The next church we look at is this church in Sardis.

This is a church right that was up on the hilltop.

It was a church that kind of lived casual, man.

They were like, Yeah, God's got this, you know, I'm saved.

He's gotta forgive me.

We're good.

Let's just kind of, you know, not engage in this sort of spiritual battle that is happening around us.

Let's just hit cruise control, let's ride this thing off into the sunset.

And here's what Jesus challenges.

He says, You got a good great reputation.

But what he says, this is like, you guys think you're alive, you're actually dead.

And here's the deal I think if that's me, if that's a part of me, I know it.

I don't always want to deal with it, I don't always want to bring it up, expose it, but I think I know it.

A good reputation is not the same as a godly heart.

And Jesus invites them back to his heart.

Philadelphia is the sixth of the seventh churches.

Uh, we're gonna call it Philly.

Um, and Philadelphia is the only church that doesn't have a harsh kind of challenge in it.

That that Jesus comes to them and he says, Hey, you guys are a little church.

Hang in there.

I, because I'm God, can do amazing things through little.

And I think what an encouragement for some of us, right?

I mean, we might feel like we're kicked around, we might not feel like we have a lot of time, we don't have a lot of energy, we don't have a lot of money, we don't have a lot of vision.

We don't like, how can you do anything with my little faith?

It's shaky, it's inconsistent, it's distractable, it's it's maybe like Philly.

And Jesus says, Don't underestimate what I can do with what is little.

Offer it up to me.

Because though you are little, I'm gonna do great things through you, Philadelphia.

Lastly, is the story of Laodicea, and we dove into this one a bit already.

Jesus invites this church that's claiming to be rich, to humbly seek true riches in Christ.

He comes to them in a kind of famous closing in Revelation chapter 3 with these words.

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

He says, Those whom I love, I rebuke and I discipline.

So be earnest, repent.

Then Jesus is like, here I am.

I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person and they with me.

We know and we'll be led into the reality of this incredible wedding feast when we meet Jesus face to face.

The picture of walking with Jesus, the picture of being sort of in Patmos on the rock, and yet in the spirit is this picture.

That we would sort of open the door of our heart, that we would experience a kind of union with Jesus as he meets with us, a court of foretaste to the day that we will one day experience in heaven.

And so I just want to invite you to consider that this one that shows up with a dress on, with a golden sash, bronze footwear, a tongue, a sword, eyes written in, so as that we might understand that we can trust him, that we might listen, that we might hear, that we might in ways that Jesus invites us be earnest, repent, that we might be individuals and certainly corporately a church, in which the flame that Jesus has named, Sierra Bible Church, would be like a light on a city on top of a hill that gives light to everyone around.

God, we come before you.

I pray that we would hear it.

I pray that we would be encouraged, pray that we'd be reminded that you are a God that that knows our story, that enters into our story, that desires to be present right with us in our story, and then to guide us in the midst of it.

God, if there's anybody in this room this morning that while you wrote to a church, we're not sure we're part of a church, we kind of wandered in here.

God, may we also meet the risen Jesus.

May we find ourselves as John was before you, laying our lives down, confessing our sin before you, and experiencing you, the God who gave your life for us, clothing us with your righteousness.

May we step into the life you have for us as a part of your church.

God help us to shine.

As Peter says, as as stars in the sky, gives life and life to the community and the world that you placed us in.

Thank you, God, in so many ways for the way you're doing that in this place.

We love you.

We pray these things in your amazing name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for joining us, church.

We hope that you enjoyed this message.

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