A Life God Respects

 August 21 2022

Revelation 3:1-6

         Well, it won’t be long until we at last have football to watch. The big news in the sports world right now is just how are the prospective players doing during summer camp. What every rookie, and let’s face it, every veteran player, is looking for right now is respect. There’s no player out there right now who wants to be humiliated whether it’s quarterbacks throwing interceptions or corners getting torched by a wide receiver because they all know somebody somewhere has a video of their blunder. So, it goes without saying that these players know that if they want respect they have to earn it, they have to do their job and live up to the hype that surrounds them. Even so, even the best of players go through times when nothing goes their way, when they find themselves hanging their heads as they leave the field, wanting to just head to the locker room out of the sight of all who just watched them crash and burn. They know that whatever respect they used to have has quickly faded and once again they find themselves having to go back out there and find a way and prove just what they can really do. They know that what is at stake is their name, their reputation, that is what is on the line.

         So, we understand what it means for an athlete to have a reputation, to have certain expectations that are tied to their name, but what does it mean for a church to have a reputation, a name that is associated with that church? This is what we are supposed to consider as we listen in on yet another address that the living Christ gives to one of the seven churches, this time the church at Sardis. He tells the church at Sardis that they are a church which has a reputation, a church that has made a name for itself. Now, this sounds like the living Christ is giving them a compliment, and we would expect that he would do so because this is how he begins the previous addresses to the other churches however as we stand back and look at what the living Christ is actually saying what we find is that there is no compliment for the church at Sardis, only condemnation. Sure they have a reputation, a reputation of being alive but as the living Christ points out that doesn’t count for much because in all actuality they are dead. Ouch! We have to pause right here and try and figure out just what we are being told. We have to ask ourselves just who is it that has given the church at Sardis this reputation for being alive in the first place? The only answer that fits is that it is the world, this is who the church at Sardis has impressed enough that they speak quite highly of them. Yet, what the world thought about who they were didn’t really matter much when the living Christ, who knew the church at Sardis intimately, showed up and said that far from being alive they were most assuredly the walking dead. As far as Jesus was concerned they might as well hang a sign on their church saying, “Welcome to the First Church of Zombieland”.

         You see, in a very subtle way, the living Christ has in his accusation against this church at Sardis, made a very important distinction which is that there is a big difference between what the world thinks of you and what the living Christ says you really are. The question is just which one is important to you? This is a crucial decision because it is the root of the problem that the living Christ states needs to be corrected which is that he has not found their works fully completed in the eyes of God. As we read this it is assumed that we know just what these works are that the church at Sardis was supposed to be doing, works apparently they didn’t get around to finishing. There is much speculation just what these works might be however when we find that the blessings found in the sixth chapter of Luke have helped explain what was happening in the previous churches it seems to make sense that those blessings will shed some light on what is being discussed here. In the sixth chapter of Luke, Jesus selects his disciples and the first instructions he gave them were this: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.” I think, in our modern understanding, that we tend to see these as perhaps some nice sayings of Jesus but I believe that these are actually his core teachings. As a disciple, a follower of Jesus, these four statements are the essence of what we are to do in order to be under the blessing of God, to know that as these are our life then we are most assuredly in the presence of God. When we know this about this teaching of Jesus, I think we must understand the tie in that John gives at the beginning of the book of Revelation, where he writes at the beginning of the first chapter, “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and keep what is written in it…” This is why I believe that what the living Christ is speaking about in his addresses to the seven churches are how two of these churches are blessed and how five of these churches, through their actions, have forfeited the life of blessing promised to them by Jesus.

         The church at Sardis then, has failed to complete these works, these actions which must be done in order to be under the blessing of God. This means that, yes, they have embraced the life of giving of their abundance to those in need, not seeking to store their treasures up on earth. The church at Sardis have fed the hungry and clothed the naked and shown mercy, in the here and now just as it will be at the return of Jesus. They had suffered with the suffering people showing mercy as God had shown them mercy. So far, they had received a passing grade. But there was this bit at the end, that part about people hating you, people excluding you, people reviling you, you know, that part, this is what the church at Sardis has just somehow never got around to doing, their work left uncompleted. This is most painfully obvious in what Jesus teaches about what the world will do with the name, the reputation of those found to be associated with him, the Son of Man. Jesus teaches that they will reject  this person’s name, cast it away as being evil, thought of as being nothing more than a curse. How very different than having a name or a reputation of being what life is all about as the church as Sardis had a reputation for being.  When we compare what Jesus taught in the sixth chapter of Luke with what the living Christ has to say to the church at Sardis it becomes very clear that the influence of the world had affected just how far the church at Sardis was willing to go in their association with the living Christ. I believe that this is also alluded to in the description of the one speaking to the church at Sardis, that this is the one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. These descriptions point us back to what was written in the first chapter where we are told that the seven spirits are before the throne of the one who is and who was and who is to come. The seven stars we are told are the angels of the seven churches. So, through these descriptions we get an image of being in the heavenly court, before the throne of Almighty God and his heavenly host. In the context of the rest of the letter, it seems that this description is pointing us to a teaching of Jesus found in the ninth chapter of Luke where he tells us, “For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” When I read this I can’t help but smile what pops up on social media from time to time, where there is a picture of Jesus and the words stating that the person who posted it is not ashamed of Jesus and that if the person who sees this posting is not ashamed of him they too should post this picture.  I smile because when Jesus teaches us to not be ashamed of him, he also says that we are to not be ashamed of what he teaches as well. In other words, we can post a million times that we are not ashamed of Jesus but what about living out what Jesus tells us to do? Will you be ashamed to live like Jesus, this is really what is at stake? You see, the context of this teaching of Jesus is his teaching that as his followers we are to deny ourselves, to say, “No”, to our needs, even our need to be respected by the world, and take up our cross daily and follow Jesus. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for the sake of Jesus will save it.” Is it becoming clearer why Jesus told the church at Sardis that instead of being alive as they had a reputation for being, they were in fact dead because what the world respects is self-preservation. Let’s face it, crosses are humiliating, opening yourself to hurt, pain and rejection in order to show mercy and love to people who quite rightly don’t deserve it, do you actually expect people to respect you when you do that? This then is what Jesus is getting at, this notion that we are willing to be humiliated and disrespected by the world if this is what is ours on account of making our life look like the life of Jesus.

         Yet, even if the world shows us no respect as those who are obedient to the words of Jesus, what we need to know is that there is one who is far greater than any in the world who does respect us when we follow Jesus. Listen to what Jesus tells us in the twelfth chapter of John where Jesus again tells us, “Whoever loves his life in this world will lose it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor, he will respect, my servant.”  So, what life comes down to is just whose respect is most important to you? This is so crucial to understand when we begin to experience being hated, and excluded and reviled because we have made a choice to hang out with Jesus.  This is made abundantly clear at the end of the twelfth chapter of John where we are told that many of the Jewish authorities believed in Jesus, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess their belief, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. You see, they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. This is the choice that is ever before us, whether the respect we are given by God is worth more to us than the respect we have in the eyes of the world. If we long for the respect of the world then no doubt we will end up unable to complete the works Jesus calls us to fulfill just as what happened at the church at Sardis. Ultimately, as we face the question of whose respect is worth more to us, the respect of God or the respect of the world, what is at stake is nothing less than our very lives. This is why the living Christ urgently tells the church at Sardis to, “Wake up!”. What he means by saying this is as Paul teaches us in the thirteenth chapter of Romans, we need to wake up because “the night is far gone and the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness…” In other words, the church at Sardis needed to stop acting as if the coming of Jesus, with his dying on the cross, his being raised from the dead and his ascension to the right hand of the Father had not brought about a new age that is not only coming but is very much already here. If this new age has arrived then now is the time to leave the old age, the night behind and begin to live in the dawn of the age to come. The living Christ urges the church to be steadfast in their resolve to live as people of the light in what remains of the old age otherwise all that will be theirs is death.

         When we understand the critical nature of the decision all of us must make, to seek the respect of the world or to find our satisfaction in the respect and honor of our Heavenly Father, then it becomes clear why the living Christ doesn’t just give a simple command for the church at Sardis to repent. No, the living Christ tells them to first remember what they had received, the gospel of Jesus Christ that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures and that in accordance with those same scriptures he was raised on the third day. This is how Jesus Christ has set us free from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom of priests to God. So, we are to remember not only what Christ has done for us but also we are to remember how what Christ has done has transformed our very nature so that no longer are we enslaved to sin but we are set free to be the royal intercessors of God. The church at Sardis had not only received the gospel but they heard the very word of God, the teachings of Jesus, the necessary training for those who now serve as priests to God. Now, in remembrance of what they had received and heard, now was the time for the church at Sardis to obey, to change their mind concerning their craving for the world’s respect and begin anew to seek the life of serving God, a life that God respects and honors. 

         What should make us stop for a moment is that unlike the calls for repentance in the other addresses to the previous churches, this time the call for repentance is followed up by a warning that if they did not wake up, Jesus promises the church at Sardis that he would come like a thief and they would not know the hour that the living Christ would come against them. Here we hear echos of a teaching of Jesus found in the twelfth chapter of Luke where Jesus told his disciples that they were to “stay dressed for action and to keep their lamps burning and be like men waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door for him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are the servants the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he  will dress himself for service and have them recline at table and he will come and serve them.But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.” Here Jesus makes it perfectly clear that we are to stay awake and be ready, to live knowing that the night is far gone and the day is at hand. To be awake is to live in this light of day, to no longer give heed to the opinions of a world which is passing away as we speak but to live life before the throne of God and the heavenly angels seeking his respect alone.

         Fortunately, there were a number of people at Sardis who in the words of Jesus had not soiled their garments, these are the ones who walk with Jesus in white garments for they are worthy. Here again, there is a lot of speculation about what is meant when we are told that some in the church at Sardis have muddied up their clothes. The best explanation is that their robes have gotten dirty because these are people who have not gathered their robes up and tucked them in their belt. They had not prepared themselves for work so that now their robes dragged along the ground getting dirty. You see, the point is that when they concerned themselves so much with how they might earn the respect of the world they lost their focus that what they were supposed to be doing is actively serving God. The word, “dressed” used here in this address to the church at Sardis means that their robes were pulled up, tucked in ready for them to get to work. The white robe mentioned here is the white robe worn by priests. As Jesus continues his teaching in the twelfth chapter of Luke,  the one who is the faithful and wise manager that the master will set over his household is the one who gives those in the house their portion of food. In other words, this is the one who the master who finds serving others when he arrives. This is the one who will be honored by the master.

         You see the world may very well hate us, exclude us and revile us on account that we serve the Son of Man. The world may even throw out our name as being evil but the name that the world disrespects is the same name that God most assuredly does respect. When we seek only the honor and respect of God then be assured that our name is written down in the book of life with permanent ink. We can know that our names will be talked about in the heavenly courts, before the angels and our Heavenly Father who loves us. May this knowledge bless our service of God! Amen!

A Hope Beyond Our Suffering

 August 14 2022

Revelation 2:18-29

         The past week I had a chance to spend some time with a good friend of mine. We talked about all that was going on in our lives and how we both are dealing with some difficulties in our personal situations. As we talked a bit more, my friend turned to me and said, “You know when you go through these hard things you begin to realize that everybody is dealing with something.” I thought to myself, how true that statement really is. There are a lot of things that make us different but what we can all say, with full honesty, is that we are all dealing with situations that are sometimes hard to figure out; we are scraping by instead of sitting on top of the world; we have more questions than answers to all of the stuff we find ourselves in the middle of.  So, while we don’t like having to find ourselves knee deep in the alligators, at least these times remind us that we are most definitely not alone in our struggles. We need to come to the conclusion that these times, then, are to temper us when we deal with the people that we come in contact with and before we want to fly off the handle we are to remember that they most likely are already in the middle of a whole host of issues that are weighing heavy on their hearts and minds.

         I have this idea that it is our hurting, our difficulties, this is what unites us, on my mind because of something Jesus said, that we are blessed when we weep in this age, yes, blessings are ours in our sorrow not in the good times when laughter comes easy. I wonder if the blessing that Jesus is speaking of is the blessing of knowing that weeping seems to be more universal in this age, that where our common ground is is that place that has been stomped down in our anger and made wet with our tears. What good news it is that Jesus is a man who knows our sorrows, a man acquainted with our grief for this tells us that not only does our hurt and pain unite us together but there in that place we find we are united with the God who saves us.

         As we come to what the living Christ has to tell us about the church at Thyatira, this theme of living together in a hurting world is there in the background of what is being said. As the living Christ has done in several of the previous churches, he here in addressing the church at Thyatira first complements them as being a church whose works, whose love, faith, service and patient endurance were all on his radar. Yet in spite of what seems to be going quite well in their fellowship, the living Christ informs them that all is not well. They have allowed a serious cancer to come and grow and fester right in their midst. As the living Christ puts it, “they tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess…” Here, the living Christ expects us to understand that this woman who has been allowed to spew forth her false teachings to the unwary souls of this church at Thyatira is comparable to the most evil queen in Israel’s history. We first learn of Jezebel in the sixteenth chapter of First Kings where we are told that Ahab, a king who did more evil in the sight of the Lord than any other ruler, continued in his rebellion by marrying the daughter of the king of the Sidonians. This was most likely a political move that insured that there would be peaceful relations between Israel and Sidon. The cost of that peace, though, was that Jezebel worshipped Baal and all of Israel followed her lead. We also know that she understood that the whole point of being royalty was that she had enough power to have whatever she wanted to be happy. When Jezebel heard that her husband Ahab wanted the neighbors vineyard for his garden, she was appalled when the neighbor refused to sell it to him. “Do you now govern Israel?” Jezebel asked him. She then told Ahab to go eat bread and be cheerful because she was Jezebel and she would make it happen. She set up the neighbor who had refused to sell to Ahab, telling the village elders that this neighbor had cursed God and he deserved to be stoned to death. And so the neighbor fell victim to trumped up charges and was put to death all so Ahab at last might have his garden. 

         So, when you hear the living Christ state that this prophetess in their midst might as well be Jezebel, this tells us we need to slow down and consider just what are we being told. We know that what must be implied is that what this prophetess was teaching had to concern the status of those within the church, that they must consider themselves to be empowered in some way, to have power that was theirs to get whatever they desired which would make them happy. What might help us understand what was going on in the church at Thyatira is something Paul writes about in First Corinthians where in the fifth chapter he sarcastically lays into his audience, saying to them, “Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you would reign, so that we might share the rule with you!”. What Paul was alluding to is that the people of this church at Corinth thought of themselves as having achieved a great status on account of believing in Jesus Christ. They knew the promises of their inheritance and decided that because they were going to be rich and powerful in the age to come then, hey, why not live as though they were rich and powerful now. We cannot be sure exactly what this so called Jezebel was teaching but we know that she started out as just another fine church going folk who loved the Lord. I mean, she would hardly be tolerated if she had set up an idol shrine in the middle of the sanctuary. No, she took right teaching and slightly twisted it so that it better suited just how she felt those who followed Jesus ought to live in the world. It is not hard to understand that like the church at Corinth, that she might come to the conclusion that if we have an inheritance waiting for us in the age to come why not get started today living the high life. Why not consider ourselves kings and queens today because hey, that’s what we are going to be in the age to come? If this is who we are going to be in that age then why shouldn’t we be justified in believing that we could begin with a little bit of heaven right here, right now? You see, it doesn’t take much to  convince people that heaven should be ours right now to people who are patiently enduring suffering on account of Christ. The only problem is that the promises of the next life are just that, something to be received as a gift not something to be demanded as if they were our right. When we somehow believe that we can demand God to give us today which he has said would be ours tomorrow we are on dangerous ground because when we demand anything of God we have lost our fear of God. Its sometimes hard for us to understand just what is meant when we are told that we are to have the fear of God but perhaps the best way to understand it is that our lives are dependent solely upon the mercy of God. Only as we know that we live only by and through the mercy of God can we expect to have a right relationship with God, one where we approach God with the reverence that is due him.

         This need to understand that we only live through the mercy of God, I believe, is the meaning behind being told that this address to the church at Thyatira is the “words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze.” This unusual description of the living Christ points us back to the tenth chapter of Daniel who had a vision as he stood along the banks of the river Tigris. There he saw a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold around his waist. His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished brass…” To say that this was a terrifying vision is an understatement! Daniel fell on his face and fainted only to be awakened by the sound of this otherworldly man speaking to him telling him to not be afraid. Good luck with that! This one like the Son of Man told Daniel that from the first day that Daniel had set his heart to understand and he humbled himself before God, his words had been heard by God and he, the Son of Man, had come because of the words of Daniel.” When we hear this, we then are left wondering just what words did Daniel speak that were words that could cause this one like the Son of Man, to come and seek him out? The answer is found in the ninth chapter where we get to listen in on Daniel who is fervently praying for the people of Israel.  As Daniel ends his prayer he pleads with God to incline his ear and hear. Daniel prays, “Open your eyes upon our desolations, and the city called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.” You see, Daniel did not demand that God fix the mess that the people of Israel had gotten themselves into; no, he presented his pleas only out of his knowing that God is merciful. This is why Daniels words were heard because when he relied upon the mercy of God then he proved that the fear of God was in his heart. 

         As we are told in this address to the church at Thyatira, our God is the God who searches us at the very center of our emotions and at the very seat of our will. This is a piece of scripture which points us back to the seventeenth chapter of Jeremiah. There we read, “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” You see, by teaching that as followers of Christ we are entitled to enjoy the pleasures of heaven now because we are promised that they will be ours later, this Jezebel was instilling in those captured by her nonsense that they no longer had to concern themselves with the hurting and suffering people in their lives. No, they had arrived and all they had to do is to wait around until the day came when they could go from pleasure and power in this world to even more pleasure and power in the next. Yet, what they had forgotten is that our God is the searcher of hearts, the one who tests our minds; there is no fooling God. The heart that seeks pleasure while the suffering world cry’s at their feet is a heart that is driven more by lusts and desires than love and mercy. The promise of God is that he will give to each person according to their ways, according to the fruits of their deeds. In other words, the question God expects us to ask is just what kind of ripple effect do our actions have? We are told that Jezebel’s actions brought her into the crosshairs of the living Christ. She refused to let her mind be transformed even after being confronted by the living Christ. When you twist the truth then it becomes hard to recognize the truth even when the truth is speaking directly to you. The answer to her blatant disregard to being confronted by Christ is that she would be thrown unto a sickbed and those who had united themselves with her were going to have to face great tribulation. Now, this sounds harsh, as if the living Christ is using some form of tough love but what Christ is actually doing is to bring Jezebel and her followers back to reality. Ours is a hurting world full of hurting people and its easy to forget this fact until you’re hurting yourself. Everyone gets sick and everyone faces trials of one sort or another and as followers of Christ we are not to think we are to be people of pleasure while the rest of the world is being swallowed up in suffering. No, we are to take our suffering and in it find ourselves as just part of the people of this hurting world we live in. This is exactly what Jesus has done for us. He left the pleasures and splendors of heaven to come and enter into our world of hurt and pain. Jesus came as one of us and lived among the sick, the hurting and dying and grieving people. He did not promise to take them out of their misery but instead told them that there in the very darkness of it all, there would be light, there would be hope. Jesus came so that those who suffered here might be in awe of the mercy of God which met them right in the midst of their pain and their struggles and gave them a promise to be with them in this life and offered them hope in the life to come. This life is the life of crosses, a life where the Judge of all took upon himself our judgment out of his great mercy for us so that we might never stand in judgment of others because as God has offered us mercy, we too are to offer others mercy. If we, like the children of Jezebel, refuse to repent of our doing works which do not offer mercy then we, like them, will face judgment instead of mercy.

         There was still hope for the rest of the church at Thyatira because not all of them learned what the living Christ calls, “the deep things of Satan.” The deep things of Satan might refer to many different things but perhaps this refers to the lie that we do not have to live by the fear of God. If we live with a healthy fear of God then no other instructions are really necessary. But if  we don’t have a healthy fear of God, we will refuse to listen to God, listening instead to the voices of our desires that call to us, longings that warp true beliefs into wrong mindsets. There were those at Thyatira who lived by that fear perhaps because in a time of sickness of distress they found that God, in his mercy, had given them a second chance or a way out of their dilemma. No one wants hardships but it is only then that we find ourselves longing for the mercy of God like no other time. As we experience mercy at just the time that it was so desperately needed, when that time has been seared into our memory, then God calls us to go and offer to someone else an act of mercy to someone who stands in need of it. This is the work that we are called to be about as citizens of the kingdom which is made up of priests.  As his priests God invites those who love him to work together with him in doing good, the good works which are the very light of the world. The living Christ tells those at Thyatira that to hold fast to what they have until he comes again. He further goes on to give them a promise which begins by saying that this promise is for “the one who conquers and the one who keeps his works to the end…” This is different from all of the addresses to the rest of the seven churches because here the promise is not only to those who conquers but further for those who keep on doing the works of the living Christ to the end. This seems to be addressing the faction of Jezebel who were sitting back enjoying every pleasure and sensual desire because surely that is what heavens like, right? The living Christ says, no, the pleasures of heaven are for those who keep on working with God, doing good, offering mercy to those who weep now because this is the way evil is overcome, this is the way we overcome the world.

         We are told that what the living Christ promises those who keep on, keeping on, doing his works, is that we will share his final authority. We are told that what will be given to the one who works right up to their end here on earth is that they will have authority over the nations even as the living Christ received authority from his Father. This is a quote from the second Psalm that was long used to describe the rule of the Messiah when he would at last come to rule.Yet, what we are told here is that the living Christ is now going to share that authority with us. So, yes, we are promised that we will rule and reign with Christ in the age to come but only if we continue in offering mercy to all just as Christ offered mercy to all upon the cross. This is a promise offered by our Heavenly Father to us by his mercy, not a position that we can demand be given to us as if we somehow deserved it. And there is more because the living Christ assures us that we will also be given the bright morning star. As we learn in the thirty-eighth chapter of Job, the morning stars sang at the beginning of creation. What this tells us is that we are going to be given a new creation, a new world where weeping will be no more and the mercy of God will have defeated evil forever. This is the hope which lies beyond these days of suffering. All praise to Jesus! Amen!

The World Changing Word

 August 7 2022

Revelation 2:12-17

The Russian invasion of Ukraine shocked the world mostly because we have not seen such open aggression of one country against another in quite a long time especially in and around Europe. We have been blessed with life in a world where wars and disputes had quieted down for a while and we were lulled into a false sense of security. What is forgotten by living in a country where a change of leadership happens rather peacefully is that throughout history a change in a countries rule has often happened through violence often involving military action. Either such eruptions of upheaval occur from within a countries political parties or, as in the case of the Ukraine, from outside powers seeking to dominate another country, forcing them to comply with a new form of government. Living in our world we know that such actions can be expected from time to time, the struggle for power can and does happen through violent and military means. Today’s weapons are tanks and drones but in the past such campaigns happened through hordes of riders yielding swords. Through the sharp blade of swords, governments were toppled and new regimes put in their place. This is the imagery that we must not let slip our minds when we are told in todays scripture from the book of Revelation that the message to Pergamum comes to them from the one who has the sharp two-edged sword. Thus the message is to be understood that it is coming to them from a warrior who is bringing about a change, a thorough upheaval of our world, a new king is coming to rule. Yet, this change is coming about in a totally new way because what we are told later in this message to the church at Pergamum is that the sword that is being yielded is the sword of his mouth. This is the weapon by which the war will be waged which we must admit, is almost beyond our imaginations.

This message to the church at Pergamum found here in the book of Revelation insists that we consider just what does it mean that words are the weapon through which a new king will come to power. Sure we like to quote the saying, “The pen is mightier than the sword”, but do we really believe that this is true? Can we truly hold on to this idea that the rule and reign of God becomes a reality through the words that are spoken by the one who is the very ruler of the kings of earth? This is what we are asked to consider as we listen in to what the risen Christ has to say to the church at Pergamum. 

As Christ speaks to each church he always begins by stating first what the church is doing well. To the church at Pergamum, he tells them that he knows where they dwell, and that place where they call home is located is the same place where, we are told, the very throne of Satan. Well, as they say, there goes the neighborhood. When we hear this said about Pergamum we are left wondering just what is the living Christ attempting to tell us by stating that here is where Satan rules? What isn’t hard to figure out is that there seems to be a connection between Christ being a sharp two edged sword and knowing that where you dwell is at the very heart of enemy territory. When we also understand that the sharp two edged sword yielded by the living Christ is the very word proceeding from his mouth and, as Jesus teaches us in the eighth chapter of the gospel of John, Satan lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies, we again find another connection, this time in words, words either speaking the truth or words which speak falsehoods. In both cases, what is known is that rule and reign happens through words, either through proclaiming the truth or through the speaking of lies.

Now, to better understand just what is the truth proclaimed by the living Christ we must go back to the origins of this saying that the words of his mouth are a two-edged sword. The place where this unusual saying is first heard is the forty-ninth chapter of the book of Isaiah. There the prophet Isaiah writes the words spoken by one called the Servant, who tells us that “Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away. He said to me,”My servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” Now, this does not tell us much except that this servant is one whose words will be like a sharp sword and through him the victory will be won and God will be glorified. To better understand what Isaiah has written, we need to go back to something that Isaiah had written previously in the eleventh chapter where Isaiah writes about the coming king out of the lineage of David, the one upon whom the Spirit of the Lord will dwell, the one whose delight is the fear of the Lord. This one, Isaiah states, this is the one who will not “judge by what his eyes see, nor will he decide disputes by what his ears hear but with righteousness he will judge the poor, and he will decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.” This coming king who is anointed by the Holy Spirit, he is the one, we are told by Isaiah, who will speak with righteousness on behalf of those who are poor. This coming ruler will bring those who are lowly, those who get trampled on by those in power, and bring them up to stand on equal footing with the rest of humanity. This new reality is one that he will bring about through what he speaks, the words that this anointed one of God will say are words which will shake the very foundations of the world. Through his words he will announce the end of the rule of those who refuse to let go of their evil ways. This then is the truth, and as the truth it then must be received with faith, trusting that this is the very reality that is being brought into existence by God’s anointed king.

Now, if we know this to be the truth then it just figures that the lies that Satan spews forth are going to be opposed to what Christ proclaims. This is exactly what we discover in the gospel accounts. Jesus in the first days of his earthly ministry was led by the Spirit out into the wilderness to be tested by Satan. As we read in the fourth chapter of Matthew, we read of how Satan took Jesus up to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. All this could be handed over to Jesus if he would just fall down and worship Satan. Jesus, of course refuted this lie by stating that it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.” We have to keep this exchange between Jesus and Satan in mind in order to understand what Jesus teaches us in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew where he tells his disciples, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeit their soul?Or what shall a person give in return for their soul?” This is the lie of Satan that we are able to pursue a life of gaining as much of the world for ourselves and believe that in doing so we will not have to pay with our very life. You see, the only way, to save our life is to give our life in the worship and service of God, for this is the way of the cross.

So, the truth that Jesus proclaims is that we are to worship and serve God with all that we have knowing that this means that we follow the way of poverty and meekness. Yet this is the way of life for we will not be forgotten by Jesus the righteous Judge. As we are told in the fifth chapter of the gospel of John, “the Father has given Jesus the authority to execute judgment because Jesus is the Son of Man. The hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” Those who have done good are those who have used all that God has given to them, their abundance, their will and their life to serve God as he overcomes the evil of this world, these are the ones who receive the resurrection of life. In this way Jesus overcomes the evil which controls our world through his word, his promise that he will be the faithful and righteous Judge who will give resurrection life to those who do good. This promise is true because Jesus himself is the first fruits of those who have been raised from the dead.

This truth of Jesus is what the church at Pergamum believed in for as we are told, they did not deny their faith in the risen Christ even as they watched one of their own be killed as he gave witness to his risen Lord. Yet, even though they understood themselves to be priests to God, bearing his name faithfully out into the world there was something amiss in their life as a church. What should shock us is that even though Pergamum is where Satan dwells, the risen Christ tells us that when he comes he will not be coming to war against Satan, no he will be coming to wage war against the church at Pergamum if they do not repent. This should make us wonder just what is it that has angered Christ to this degree? Well, as Christ told them, there were those in their fellowship who,  “held to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.” The risen Christ is here referring to a story that is recorded in the twenty-second through the twenty-fifth chapters of the book of Numbers. As the people of Israel traveled through the wilderness the people in the surrounding areas began to be afraid of them because of their victories over their enemies that they had won through the power of God. The king of Moab whose name was Balak, was filled with dread as he watched as the people of Israel were fast approaching his country so he sent for a man named Balaam, who was known for his ability to place curses on people. As Balaam set forth to go back with the people from Moab, God spoke to him and told him that he should not go with these people from Moab . Balaam was not to curse the people of Israel because they had been blessed by God. So, Balak sent more people and more riches to persuade Balaam to curse the Israelites but alas Balaam was constrained by God so that no matter what all Balaam could do is to bless God’s people. Three times Balak called Balaam to curse the people of Israel and three times all Balaam could do is to pronounce a blessing over them. So, what was Balak to do? Well, since he couldn’t curse them he would make the people of God forget the blessing of God that had been given to them. Balak used the daughters of Moab to intice the men of Israel to listen to the lust of their desires instead of listening to the voice of God. Then as they became ensnared by their desires they were invited to eat with the people of Moab as they ate the sacrifices to their gods. In this way, Israel yoked themselves to the god called Baal. In this way, Balak finally succeeded to bring a curse upon the people of Israel.

This story, the risen Christ tells us, is what was in effect happening within the church at Pergamum. To get a better understanding about how the story of Balaam connects here we also need to know that when Jesus walked with his disciples here on earth, he taught them that they would be blessed with the kingdom of God if they would seek a life of poverty, not wealth. Jesus went on to teach that the ones who were hungry now would be blessed because they would be satisfied and blessed would be those who weep now because they would laugh. This is the life that Jesus assures us is blessed by God just as the people of Israel led a life that was blessed by God. Yet within this congregation at Pergamum were those who leading people astray so that as Balaam did with the people of Israel, those from this church at Pergamum would no longer be under the blessing of God. The issue at hand was that as the living Christ tells us is the eating of the food sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality. When we hear this we are left wondering why would good followers of Jesus go searching for a place at an idol’s table? Well, we know from reading about this same issue in the writings of Paul, there was a temptation for the followers of Jesus to eat the excess of the meat sacrificed to idols because as they rationalized this decision these gods that had been sacrificed to weren’t really gods at all so why not eat the leftovers from what was to those who knew the one, true living God, nothing really at all to worry about? The problem is that those who were weak in the faith would find that when they visited these shrines of the idols they were drawn into the life and practices of those who worshipped those idols. In other words, they went for the food and stayed for the idol worship and immoral acts. 

Now, I think, once we know this, we have to ask just why are these good followers of Jesus even suggesting that people in their congregation do their shopping at the haunts of idols in the first place? I think that this question is the root of the problem that the living Christ is getting at. You see, I believe that what was happening at this church at Pergamum is that the poor who were a part of this congregation were the ones who were told that if they needed something to eat to go over to the idols shrines, there’s a lot of great food there at a great price. They were told to do this because the rest of the congregation knew that if the poor went and got their groceries at the shrines of idols then they wouldn’t have to share what they had with them. I believe this to be the case because the living Christ tells them that if they didn’t repent then he was going to come and war against them with the sword of his mouth. If this warring against them with the sword of his mouth means that he was going to come in righteousness and judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek and lowly then this can only mean that the poor and the meek are not being cared for by the followers of Christ. When they themselves did not care for the poor and the lowly, as they should have, then they allowed some of their members to be tempted by idolatry and immoral behavior. 

What the church at Pergamum did not understand is just what was at stake when they refused to share what they had with those in need within their congregation. You see, Christ defeated Satan upon the cross. The fear that drove people to try and gain the whole world to save their life was destroyed by the perfect love of Christ who offered himself up on the cross, the Judge who allowed himself to take on our judgment out of his great mercy for us. Christ did this for us so that we might never judge another unworthy to receive our mercy. The church at Pergamum which stood in the shadow of Satan’s domain was to demonstrate to all that the living Christ had defeated him because here were those who had been set free by the mercy of God so that they might show mercy to all. So, when they failed to care for the poor they called into question the very victory of the living Christ! No wonder he warned them that if they did not repent that he would come and war against them for if they refused the mercy of the Judge then all that would be left for them is for them to stand under his judgment. 

To this situation where the church was complicit in leading those in their midst to be tempted to worship idols, the risen Christ, proclaims, “Repent!”. They were to remember that to remain under the blessing of God then there’s must be a place where the hungry are satisfied. They were no longer to withhold what another had need of, offering mercy as their Judge had first offered them mercy when they were the poor and in need of God’s grace. In this way, they would declare that the word of the living Christ, his promise to judge with mercy for the poor has indeed defeated the rule and reign of Satan which still ensnares the souls of people. If the church at Pergamum and ourselves can show such mercy to the poor and hungry in our midst then we are told that we are truly conquerors, we have overcome the world. Ours will be the hidden manna, the Bread of life come down from heaven, given to us, the poor and meek, by the mercy of God, so that we might have everlasting life. On that day the living Christ will give us a new name because we have the certainty that we have born anew in him! Amen!

Contented With God’s Future

 July 31 2022

Revelation 2:8-11

One of the things I like about summer is that this is the season of fairs and festivals. Just the other week, Jennifer and I went to a festival put on by our local Catholic Church. While we really went for the food, an added bonus is that I got to see classmates that I had graduated from high school with. It was great to reminisce with them about stories we remembered. We had a good laugh about our graduation because our valedictorian entitled her speech, “I Stand Alone”, which just caused all of us immature boys to come up with all kinds of reasons of why she was standing alone. Needless to say, her address was the most memorable one out of all the valedictorian speeches I have heard. Nowadays if I do have a chance watch a graduation ceremony, instead of honing in on the valedictorian speech I tend to now focus on the prayer that is usually given by some wholesome young man or woman. I pay attention to prayers like these because I feel that there will come a time when such crossing of the lines between church and state will no longer be tolerated which is a sad state of affairs. Yet, even so, it is still great to listen to the prayers of those who have achieved a great milestone in their life and with grateful hearts give thanks to God.

I had all of these thoughts running through my head this week as I pondered on our scripture verse from Revelation for this week. I wondered what would happen if at some graduation ceremony if some young person approached the podium to give the opening prayer and as they spoke they, at some point, asked God that as they went forward in life they might have the privilege of suffering trials and tribulations on account of their being known as being in a relationship with him. They would continue, by asking God that as they went out in the world that they might embrace a life of poverty and that the insults against God might be theirs as well. In Jesus name, Amen. Can you imagine the awkward silence after the audience would have heard such a prayer to God? I am pretty positive that such a prayer will never be offered up at a graduation ceremony but you never know. I  thought up such a scenario simply because I believe it is easy for us to miss just how radical the life of those who lived in Smyrna really was. Theirs was a life that was truly counter-cultural by todays standards, something that we can’t get the full impact unless we allow such a life to be the godly pursuit of say, one graduating from high school. Only then does it become apparent that this life that was lived by the faithful of Smyrna is not a life that is easily embraced by those of us who have been separated from them by thousands of years. Yet even so, Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever and he is the one who promises the crown of life to those who embrace the difficulties that come when one follows him.

As I have stated before, the book of Revelation is a book John was ordered to write down by the living Christ who had interrupted his worship one Sunday morning.  John was to take all that was revealed to him and write it down and send it off to the churches at Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. These seven churches represent different mindsets which either needed to be repented of or they had a mindset which should serve a model for the rest of the churches. The number of the churches, seven, a number signifying wholeness or completeness, tells us that what is being revealed to these churches is being written for every church, every expression of the body of Christ.

The criteria that is used to determine the right mindset is that those who belong to the churches of Christ are to understand that Jesus loves us and by his blood he has set us free to be a kingdom of priests. As priests to God we bear God’s name out into the world and we take our part of the world, all that God has given to us and we offer it all back to God.

It is never more important to understand these basic foundations of this letter than when we come to what the risen and exalted Christ has to say about the church at Smyrna. What makes this report so unusual is that within it there is no call for a change to be made, no correction of an error or a need to repent. No, Smyrna is one of two churches out of the seven who simply need to keep on doing what they’re doing. This probably sounds like music to our ears because it can be kind of unsettling to hear Christ reprimand the churches as he does but as we hear what Christ has to tell the church at Smyrna we find that his words still unsettle us. He tells the church at Smyrna that he knows of their affliction, the tribulation that was the result of their poverty and their being blasphemed by those who said they were Jews but in all actuality, were not Jews. All Jesus tells them is to not fear. No, he is not going to do anything to make their situation better, in fact, their situation is about to get worse.  To this news, Christ simply adds, “Be faithful and they would win the crown of life”. In other words, what Christ is telling them is that they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, so do not let their fear derail them now, but instead they are to continue to be faithful to what they believe.

This message that the living Christ gave to the church at Smyrna then, is that our faith is a faith which understands that if we are experiencing the affliction of poverty and the slander of our good name on account of God, we are right where we need to be. That seems rather odd, doesn’t it? Yet, if we know the teachings of Jesus, what is happening at Smyrna is not strange at all, but rather what they are going through is exactly the life that Jesus taught to his disciples that they should live. Listen carefully to what is found in the sixth chapter of the gospel of Luke where we are told that Jesus looked at his disciples and said, “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so did their fathers do so to the prophets.” Do you see how this teaching parallels what we are told is happening at the church at Smyrna? They are those who have taken this core teaching of Jesus to heart, they have faith that what he teaches them is true and they are living it out in real time.

Now, in order for us to embrace this life that the living Christ is commending to us, I believe that we have to understand this teaching at a deeper level. You see, it is not enough just to be poor because as Paul writes in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, “If I give away all that I have and I have not love, I have gained nothing.”So, yes, love has to be part of the equation. Perhaps to better grasp what is meant by this promise of Jesus that those who are poor are those who will be blessed with the kingdom of God, we ought to read further in this teaching of Luke. There we find Jesus teaching his disciples, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you, when people speak well of you, for so did the fathers to the false prophets.” So, what becomes apparent is that Jesus has separated people into two categories, the poor and the rich. The poor are those willing to take what God has given to them and use that in the service of God because this is what it means to be priests, and when they are priests to God the kingdom of God is where they will be at. These are those who know that if they work with God they are assured that their reward is great in heaven. In other words, they are to be people who place their hopes in the future God is bringing forth, the future that is found in the promise of the kingdom of God. 

The rich on the other hand, are those who take what God has given to them and they use it to create their own version of heaven in the here and now. Theirs is a life which believes that we can determine our own future using what God has given to us which is quite a bit different from working with God, using what he has given to us to overcome evil by doing good. The prophets that Jesus speaks of in this teaching always spoke of the future that God is bringing about and the reason that they were persecuted is that this future was vastly different from the future that the people of God desired to create out of what God had given to them. You see, the anger, the hatred , the reviling that happens when people encounter those who believe in the great future God is bringing about, occurs because such a life means that God is not going to have anything to do with any plans or schemes of anyone no matter how great those plans or schemes might be. God simply will not be manipulated into being some sort of guarantee for anybody’s dreams or visions; it just does not work that way.

We see the certainty of this in the life of God’s own people, the Jews, which are mentioned in Christ’s report of the church at Smyrna. We are told that the people of the church at Smyrna were blasphemed by those who say they are Jews but are not because they are in reality a synagogue of Satan. Now, many commentators take exception to such a description of this Jewish congregation in Smyrna but Jesus himself says something very similar as is recorded in the eighth chapter of the gospel of John. There we find Jesus addressing a group of Pharisees who claimed that Abraham was their father. This was thought to be the mark of a person who was truly of the people of Israel, that they could call Abraham their ancestor. They were as was said to the church at Smyrna, those who considered themselves Jews but alas they were not because as Jesus told them that if they were Abraham’s children they would be doing the works that Abraham did. Instead, these who thought they were Jews, sought to kill Jesus who told them the truth that he had heard from God, his Father.” It is important to understand that what Abraham did, is as we are told in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, lived by faith in the land of promise, living in tents, because he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Abraham believed in the future that God was bringing to fruition. This is what the true children of Abraham are to believe but as Jesus discovered in this group of Pharisees, this belief was missing. Again from the eighth chapter of John, we hear Jesus tell them that their real father, far from being Abraham , or even God, was instead the devil himself. They were those who could not bear to hear the word that Jesus spoke therefore their true father, Jesus tells them, is the devil, and their will was to do their father’s desires. Jesus goes on to say that the devil was a murderer from the beginning, and he has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.” So, Jesus is here saying much the same as what he has said to the church at Smyrna, that these who called themselves Jews, children of Abraham, were in fact a synagogue of Satan. They were people caught up in the lie of Satan, that he first spoke in the garden to our fore parents which is that they should eat of the forbidden fruit and when they did their eyes would be opened, they would be like God and they would know good and evil.  The opening of their eyes was that they now were aware of not just the present but also the future. They became like God in that they became those who thought they could create a future, something once reserved for God, alone. The future they would create would end up being a future that separated them from being part of the future that God has for them so that in the end, they became a people without a future at all, a people who were without God, and a people who were, ultimately, without life.

The future that this synagogue in Smyrna desired is a future where one day the people of Israel would once again become the nation of Israel. They looked for the day when they would go to Jerusalem and fight against the Romans so that they might at last be free from the rule of the Gentiles. Surely their God would be with them in this fight, wouldn’t he? Imagine their surprise, maybe even their disgust, when along come those who claimed that the long awaited Messiah desired by the Jews had indeed come and that instead of winning a mighty battle to win back Jerusalem, he instead is killed upon a cross in that same city. All seemed to be in doubt about his claims to be the true Messiah until three days later this one walked out of the grave. These followers of this Messiah named Jesus believed that the true way of God is the way of the cross, the way where good triumphs over evil, this is the way of the future God has for us. It isn’t hard to see why we are told that these followers of Jesus were blasphemed because the God they believed in was a radically different God from those who believed that we can carve out for ourselves any future we want, by any means possible and God will surely bless our efforts. On discovery of this truth, people quite naturally get angry and since they can’t lash out at God they lash out at those who are united with him.

So, it is no surprise that the living Christ tells the church that they must suffer, that for some of them, there would be time in prison. The living Christ tells those at Smyrna that when some of them were thrown into prison it was so that they might be tested for ten days. Now, what might not be apparent is that this number of days points us back to the first chapter of the book of Daniel. There we find that Daniel had decided that he would not defile himself by eating the king’s food, or with the wine that the king drank. So, the king’s servants were worried that by refusing the king’s provisions, Daniel and his friends would end up looking different from all of the rest of the kings servants which would end up upsetting the king. Daniel then suggested that they do a trial where he and his friends would eat nothing but vegetables and water for ten days and at the end of that time the king’s servants could check and see how they looked. Well, God blessed Daniel and his friends and they did not suffer at all but were in better appearance than everyone else. Once we hear this story, then we have to ask ourselves just what is it that we are to take away from it? What helps us figure out the significance of this story of Daniel to the life of the church at Smyrna is knowing that the Jews at this time were protected from persecution through a decree of Caesar, the Roman king. The followers of Christ, though, because they were so radically different in the way they acted from the Jews did not receive this protection. So, what the living Christ is, in a way, saying is that these devoted followers of his, is that they were to be like Daniel and his friends and they should seek to not defile themselves by seeking a way out of their suffering through the provision of the king. They should in their suffering discover the power of the future that God was bringing about and know that the certainty of that future was already theirs in that prison. They should, in their time of testing, find that when they trust God to bring about the future then they can be assured that God is with them mightily in the present. Like Daniel, those in prison would find themselves stronger in their faith in the true king of all. This is why they could be assured that they should have no fear of the second death, the death for those have been judged and found to have no future in the future that will one day be the ever present eternal life with God. On that day, the one who is the first and the last, our risen Lord he will have the last word! To him be the glory! Amen!