Turning Up The Heat

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Don Filcek; Revelation 2:8-11 Turning Up The Heat

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. I'm the lead pastor here and grateful that you're here, gathered together to worship our great
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God this morning. So thank you for coming in. And there's something that's awesome about Sunday mornings, just gathering together.
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We could do a lot of the things that we do here on our own at home, right? How many of you could sing a couple songs on your own at home?
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You could read the Bible. You could pray. You could do a lot of those things. But there's something about gathering together that God tells us to gather together with God's people.
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And so glad that you've taken that extra step of coming in together this morning. Be sure to fill out the connection card that you received when you walked in.
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And again, just our way of saying we recognize that it's, when you check out a church for the first time, it can be kind of intimidating.
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And so just glad that you kind of jumped over that hurdle and came in to check things out here at recast this morning.
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And then any offerings that anybody chooses to give go in that black box. We don't pass an offering plate. We want your giving to be between you and God, recognizing that he has blessed you.
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So we want that to be between you and God. And anything that's marked expansion fund, whether that's on the memo line of the check or actually on the envelope goes towards a special fund dedicated towards our goal of building a building.
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Obviously we're meeting in an elementary school right now, but our goal is to build a building on the property that we own out on East McGillan.
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And so looking into that and thinking through that, don't forget that ballots for the vote on Steve Isham for eldership are due next
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Sunday. So please fill those out. And specifically, if you're a member, be sure to fill one of those out and turn it in.
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You can turn those in after the service to Leah Klein, who's out there at the welcome table, or just set it on there upside down if you'd choose to.
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You can turn those in at the office, check the posted office hours in the worship folder that you have there. And you can turn those in at any time during the posted office hours.
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Or if you're like most of us and you like to cut things close to the deadline, you can just turn it in next
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Sunday morning. And that'll be the last time that we'll be collecting those is next Sunday morning.
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So, but again, you can, through that e -cast, you can actually get a bio of Steve Isham and kind of see who he is and vote accordingly.
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And also, as we've been working to add to our administrative staff, I'm very pleased to announce this morning that we have hired
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Jackie Klein as our new director of Recast Kids. So just excited about bringing her on staff.
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And I'm grateful for the Lord's leading in our church to provide somebody from within to help take on that significant role.
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She's gonna be taking obviously a month or two to get up to speed. And so obviously she's gonna end up being the go -to person for that role.
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And if you have questions about our kids' ministry or what's going on or different activities and things regarding that, that's gonna be through her.
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But obviously give her a little bit of time to get up to speed on that. It's a pretty massive ministry.
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And everybody is making sure that Jared doesn't fall off the ladder up here. Thanks. Everybody give
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Jared a hand there. That's a lot of pressure up front in the church. You know, that's quite a bit. So thanks for taking care of that.
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So just grateful for the way that God has led though to increase our staff and the help that's necessary.
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Our kids' program is pretty large. I don't know if you ever walked down that hallway and then upstairs, but there's a lot of kids here at this church.
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And so just very grateful for having somebody to take that on. This morning we're gonna be continuing on in our series
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The Lord of the Seven walking through the book of Revelation. And last week we saw
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Jesus in a sit -down review, kind of a sit -down audit, if you will, of the church of Ephesus.
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And he commended that church for having a tenacious faith. He said, you stand faithful on the truth.
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You even to the degree that you would look at false teachers and remove them from your midst.
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They hated sin. And he says, that's a good thing. It's a good thing to hate sin. But Jesus rebuked that very conservative church in Ephesus for their lack of love.
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He said, you stand really strong on being hard on sin. But you don't love.
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And without love, you should not be allowed to be called a church. And if you don't go ahead and turn around and begin to love others, then you are going to, he says,
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I'm gonna come to you and I'm gonna remove your lampstand. I'm gonna basically remove your status as a church. Now, what he didn't say to them last week is, okay, so you're really solid on the truth.
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You need to take a chill pill on the truth. You need to water that down a little bit and then add some love into the mix.
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He says, I commend you for being true. I commend you for this. But I want you to be loving too.
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So it's, I mean, I think in our culture, people might hear me. I don't want you to hear me say, well, you need to dumb down the truth in order to be more loving.
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You need to be both extremely solid on the truth with strong conviction towards the truth, but equally add to that acts and deeds of love towards others.
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So that's where we were last week. And this morning, Jesus is now gonna turn to another church, a real church that existed during the time of John, the author of the book of Revelation, the church of Smyrna.
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And there are only two churches out of the seven churches in the book of Revelation, there are only two that Jesus offers no rebuke to.
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He doesn't criticize them. He doesn't say anything that they need to improve on. Those two churches are
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Philadelphia and Smyrna, the one that we are looking at today. And so how many of you, if Jesus was auditing your church, would love it if Jesus had nothing to correct?
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He was like, everything is going great. How many of you would like that, okay? You would think that would be pretty cool, right?
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And yet I would say that by the end of this message, if we're honest, we might be glad we're not part of the church of Smyrna.
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We might be glad that we're not sitting in that audience listening to that message to us specifically because Philadelphia and Smyrna are both the two churches that are not rebuked and equally are the two most beset by persecution.
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And I don't think it's by chance that the two that are the most persecuted are the most pure in their faith.
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The two that are most persecuted are most pure in our faith. And by the way, when I say we might be glad we're not sitting in Smyrna, we don't know if we're sitting in Smyrna.
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We don't really know. Jesus is here declaring these words to the church. He's recorded them for us.
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And we get to sit in and hear these audits of these ancient churches. And they are models for us.
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They are examples of the way that churches roll and the way that they function. And we may well be in the position of Smyrna this morning.
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We wouldn't know it if we were. And yet we need to take these words as from God to us in an understanding of what we need to do with our lives moving forward, even for this week, for the next month, for the next few years as a church.
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And in my study each week, as I'm studying this, and I'm trying to work through these texts, I first try to figure out how this message would have struck the first readers.
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When they were sitting there in the church, in Smyrna, and this letter came into town and a professional reader got up and read it, how would it have struck them?
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But then I also try to figure out, so what does it have to do with us in 2015? What does it have to do with us where we live here in Matawan, Michigan?
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How do we apply it? And I wanna suggest to you that we should never walk away from any reading of the word of God, whether that's personally in our quiet time in the mornings during the week, or anytime that we hear the word of God read or are together on Sunday morning, we should not walk away from that with a history lesson.
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Now, I love the history. I love to dig in and to kind of pull out the different nuances of what was going on in Roman culture during that time, or to describe for you what
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Smyrna was like, or describe for you last week what Ephesus is like, but we should always come away from encountering
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God's word with a better understanding of who God is, a better understanding of ourselves, and a better understanding of what
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God desires of us. And so let's dig in to find out this morning who
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God is, who we are, and what he wants of us this week.
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So open your Bibles, if you're not already there, to Revelation 2, verses 8 through 11. If you have a
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Bible with you or some device to navigate to a Bible, Revelation 2, 8 through 11.
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If you don't have a Bible on your lap, I just ask for you, there's a guy back here with some Bibles, and if you just raise your hand, he'll bring you one.
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We want everybody to have a copy of the word of God on their lap so that you can read this and follow along and see, because that's gonna be the order, that's gonna be really the outline for the morning.
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So if you don't have a Bible, or you can just get up on your own if that's embarrassing to you, you can get up and grab one off the table here at the connection time so that you have a
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Bible with you. And you can take that with you, by the way. We want everybody to have a copy of God's word, even at their home, and so you can take one of those paper
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Bibles with you if you'd like. But follow along, Revelation 2, Revelation 2, 8 through 11.
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And this is God's word to us this morning, Recast Church. And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write,
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The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.
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I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the slander of those who say that they are
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Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer.
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Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for 10 days you will have tribulation.
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Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.
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The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in music and worship this morning. Father, I rejoice in your grace toward us, most clearly shown to us in the cross of our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He suffered. He was smitten, afflicted, abused, crushed for us in the place where we deserved punishment for our sins, in the place where our blood deserved to be shed, in the place where we deserved to be crushed.
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He took that for us. And so, Father, I pray that from that place of joy and forgiveness, from that place of recognizing how deeply we are loved by you, that our voices would cry out in praise to you this morning,
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Father, that as a people redeemed by you, as a people bought back by you, as a people rescued by you, that our worship this morning and our praise and our songs would rise up to you as thanks and gratitude for the salvation we have in the name of Jesus.
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Father, be present in our worship and receive it as an offering to you this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. Keep your
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Bibles, though, open to Revelation 2, 8 through 11 and get comfortable. I wanna start off by asking you a question this morning and just thinking about this in terms of reality, your real life, like when you woke up this morning.
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How often do you consider yourself as being involved in a cosmic battle?
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Does that happen routinely in the morning? You wake up and that's the feeling and the sense of what's gonna go on throughout your day is a big cosmic battle over souls and over people and over your behavior in your life.
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Is that the way that you wake up? And I would suggest that probably for the most of us, it isn't and likely it should be more the case as we think about it.
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Did you wake up this morning and consider that this very day there would be a battle waging in your soul and waging all around you?
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Well, the fact of the matter is this battle is unseen. It rarely delivers physical wounds.
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It does sometimes, but rarely. It makes little noise, but it is indeed a real battle.
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Satan and his legion of demons have a genuine desire to bring down his church and the church is made up of what?
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People. We are the church. So he has every interest and every desire in attacking us and bringing us down and certainly the way that he can get to us corporately is through us as individuals and so he has this plan for us.
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I want to point out though and be careful as we are going to see Satan, him mentioned in our text twice,
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Satan and the devil both. He is not all -knowing. He is not present everywhere.
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He is not all -powerful, but he is indeed a formidable opponent for us as humans.
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Smyrna, the church that we're looking at here in this text this morning was caught in the crosshairs of the enemy of God, of Satan himself.
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And despite the suffering that they had already endured for Jesus, here he comes to them in and tells them that they haven't reached the peak of the fury of the enemy yet.
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They've already endured suffering. They've already endured tribulation and he says it's not over. And he comes to them in compassion and says,
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I want to encourage you to hang in there because the attacks of the enemy are about to reach their max here in the next 10 days or so.
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And just like all of these reviews, Jesus commands John at the very beginning of our text this morning to write to the leader of the church, to the angel of the church of Smyrna, write to the leader of the church of Smyrna, write.
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And to this church that's in this beautiful port city, Jesus reveals himself to them as the one who is over all events over all time.
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Just as Dave mentioned to us as he was starting off the worship set, that he is indeed the first and the last.
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And to the angel of the church of Smyrna, write these are or the words of the first and the last who died and came to life.
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He is revealing himself to them as the first and the last. Now, this is the third time since the very beginning of Revelation that Jesus has revealed himself in that way.
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He called himself the Alpha and Omega. He's called himself the first and the last twice. It's a significant title. If Jesus, the
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Lord over all is identifying himself by a title and he does so three times in two chapters, we might want to take note of that and say this is something he wants you and I to know about him.
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Remember this book is called what? What's the title of the book that we're studying right now? Revelation. Who is it revealing?
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What is it revealing? It's revealing Jesus Christ, right? That's what it's all about. And it's telling us something about him and he is the first and the last.
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The significance of the statement really ought to give us great comfort. Jesus is the one who started it and he is the one who will end it.
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And according to many New Testament passages, creation itself was mediated through Jesus Christ.
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And in the end, creation will be restored to its original order by Jesus Christ.
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For the people of Jesus, this ought to give us hope and joy in all circumstances. How many of you had circumstances this week that were difficult?
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Some of us. How many of you had circumstances this week that were good, that were encouraging, some positive things happened?
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How many of you had kind of a mix of those two this week? It was like, yeah, good and bad happened. I'd suggest that probably the average week for all of us is kind of somewhere in the middle of that, right?
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Sometimes you have these really high points, sometimes you have these really low points, but the average week is just in the middle.
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But we have all of these circumstances that rage around us. And for the person who understands that Jesus is the first and the last, we can say, come what may this week, in the end,
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Jesus. If all the forces of evil are arrayed against us, in the end,
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Jesus. Should we lose our jobs? Should we be thrown in prison?
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If we have our rights walked on, or even lose our very lives for the cause of Christ, in the end,
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Jesus. In the end, Jesus. He is the alpha and omega.
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No matter what the doctor's verdict, that's not the right word, diagnosis, prognosis, whatever, whatever.
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No matter what your boss has to say to you, in critique this week. No matter how difficult your kids are being because school just started, in the end,
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Jesus, the first and the last. Not only that, but Jesus also reveals himself, not merely, not just strictly as the first and last,
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I can't really say merely to that because that's a really big deal, but he reveals himself as the one who died and has now come back to life.
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Not, this is not, again, resuscitation, this is resurrection, there's a big difference.
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There are people who've been resuscitated, but Jesus has been resurrected. He is alive forevermore.
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Many historians have pointed out that the city of Smyrna had a history that relates to the way that Jesus reveals himself.
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Each one of these seven has something unique about it and it's history that he's keying in on. He's actually using their history to communicate to them in a way.
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This city, Smyrna, had been sacked and burned and destroyed and was left without rebuilding for decades until Alexander the
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Great commissioned the rebuilding of this specific city, Smyrna, rebuilt by Alexander the
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Great. This city, this was a city that had a reputation for resurrection and the myth of the phoenix was often a symbol for this specific city.
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The story of the phoenix that is engulfed in flame and dies and then from its ashes springs a new bird and that's the ancient myth that was a symbol for this specific city.
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So the theme of life out of death was a theme of the very city that he's writing to here and Jesus reveals himself to the city as the one who, in the
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Greek, it reads like this. I think it's interesting and unique in the way that he says it. I am the one who became dead and have now been made alive.
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Became dead as if it's like that's, how many of you think of it that way? I became dead once, like that's weird.
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It's a weird terminology but he says it because it's almost like it's an afterthought, like kind of a side note. Oh, I became dead but I'm here.
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Here I am, alive, healthy, well, forever and ever. The very name
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Smyrna, by the way, these names always mean something or have some kind of a notion behind them but the word
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Smyrna is just a common, everyday Greek word that the city was named after. It simply means myrrh.
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Now you're like, we don't use that word very often but we do around Christmas time because we talk about gold, frankincense and myrrh, right?
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That sweet -smelling, kind of strong -flavored perfume that was used primarily for the preparation of bodies for burial during this era in this time.
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It's likely that it was one of the primary exports of Smyrna during this time. This would be like naming a town formaldehyde, okay?
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How'd you like to live in formaldehyde, okay? The notion of death is always about this word
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Smyrna. The idea in that ancient culture was that this is the notion of death. This is the notion of formaldehyde, of preservation but of death.
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And so the name itself was always a reminder of death. But Jesus again reminds this church that's living there, if you will, in the shadows of death, that he is the one who has the power over death.
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He's been there. He's done that. He's beat it. And he now lives forevermore.
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That encouraging words to a church as it contemplates and considers going through suffering, going through persecution, maybe some within 10 days of the writing of this, some will be in the grave.
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He declares that. He says, you're gonna have to be faithful unto death here in just a moment. He says, this persecution is gonna be massive for this church.
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But the city was notorious. The city of Smyrna was notorious for a large and hostile and vocal Jewish settlement.
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Secular historians record that the Jews of Smyrna had to be often placated by the Romans. They were such a force and such a large population of them that even the
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Romans sometimes kind of backed off a bit and was careful with Smyrna.
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That's historical, non -biblical documents that talk about that as being a unique feature of this town.
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And the Christians of Smyrna were likely caught between the persecution of the Jews and the persecution of the
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Romans. The Romans didn't like them. The Jews didn't like them. And so this is a hostile, difficult place to start a church.
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Smyrna is not an easy going place to be a Christian. And Jesus saw this persecution.
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In verse nine, he says, I see your tribulation. I'm aware of it. I know you're going through hard times.
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I know what you're going through. And further, he says, I see your poverty. And the way that the two words tribulation and poverty in verse nine relate in the
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Greek structure is that the poverty is caused by the tribulation or as a result of or is tied to that tribulation.
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In other words, it's not that they were just poor and never worked and didn't have any means to themselves, but it's that through tribulation, they have been made poor.
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And we're talking about real monetary poverty here. That just indicates what we know to be true is that when a culture wants to turn up persecution, wants to turn up the heat against a group of people, wants to turn up the heat against the church, financial persecution is often the first form that that takes.
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Whether that's the loss of a job, loss of employment, discrimination of trade, signs and plaques, we don't serve
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Christians here, that kind of stuff. And historians say that's likely the case that a Jewish shop owner would not sell to a
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Christian in the town of Smyrna, that the Romans wouldn't do business with you. And so it would be a tough place to find employment, a tough place to make ends meet.
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And that's what was going on in Smyrna at this time. And if you think, by the way, we might be going, okay, persecution,
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I've done a message about persecution here. Like in America, I mean, come on, could we skip this one? Couldn't we skip this church and go on to the next?
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It seems like a foreign concept until you consider this reality.
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And whether you agree with her position or not, I'd love to talk with you about that. If you agree with her position or not, there's a woman in Kentucky, I don't know if any of you saw this in the news, but there's a woman in Kentucky who spent much of last week in jail because of her religious convictions.
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Does anybody know if she's out yet? She is out now? Okay. And so she spent time in jail for her religious convictions.
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And again, whether you agree with her stance or not is another issue altogether. But she is likely going to lose her job that pays about $80 ,000 a year because of her convictions.
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Further, I've heard many Christians say, well, she should just quit then. She should just quit. Which if you think about it carefully is ultimately to say that there are offices in this nation now that a
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Christian with certain convictions can no longer hold or should no longer hold.
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That's what you're saying if you think she should just quit. Christians shouldn't be allowed to do that. Christians shouldn't be allowed to be a county clerk if they hold to certain convictions.
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Does that concern anybody? That's America. That's not
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Smyrna. That's the society and the fabric of life that we're living in.
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It's crazy how contemporary this text really is to our life and where we work.
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It's not merely an ancient issue that there could be economic ramifications coming down the pipeline for you and me if we are going to stand strong on our convictions.
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Jesus sees their tribulation. He sees the financial poverty. But he also sees, he says,
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I see your poverty, but I know you're rich. I see your riches. Well, what's he getting on about there?
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If he's talking about seeing their, he says, I see that you're poor, but then I also know that you're rich.
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Despite their sacrifice of financial loss for their faith, Jesus correctly identifies this church as rich in the things that matter most.
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He says, you're rich in the things that matter. He's commending them for standing firm on a very strong conviction.
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I mean, standing strong in very strong persecution and abject poverty.
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That's what their lot is right now. But Jesus also sees the slander that they're enduring at the hands of those who identify themselves as Jews.
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There's a group of people there that are saying we're Jews, but they're slandering the church. They're lying about them.
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Slander, by the way, is a very specific word that has an untruth in the midst of it. Gossip is a different thing altogether.
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Gossip can be true. Slander is false. They're lying about the church.
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But Jesus says bluntly, they really are not good Jews at all. And he's the right one to be able to see what's going on in their hearts.
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But they are, he declares, in what appears to us like, whoa, Jesus, chill for a second.
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He calls them a synagogue of Satan. How many of you think that's pretty harsh criticism to a people group, okay?
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I am not recommending that you borrow that from Christ in this text as a really good epithet, you know, a good come back to somebody who doesn't agree with you or something like that.
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Well, you're just a synagogue of Satan. Be careful with that. But let me explain that because I think that Jesus is actually using something technical that we can just be like, oh, he flew off the handle.
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He lost it on him there for just a second. No, he didn't. He's being quite technical and he's being extremely accurate in what he says about them.
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There is a theme all throughout the Old Testament of there being a group called ethnic Israel and a group called the true
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Israel. The line gets confusing when you consider that the word
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Jew means two different things in the English language, okay? It is an ethnic group and it is a religion.
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Have you ever thought about that? The word Jew is a group of people that are ethnically connected and then there is another word, or the same word, but it also means the religion of the people.
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And most people in, I mean, the reality is most people in history who belong to that ethnic group also identified themselves with that religion.
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The religion that worshiped the one true and living God. And they were often the object of God's harshest criticism.
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Those people who were born into that group but did not honor God. They were often, throughout the
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Old Testament prophets, they were criticized harshly. Even Jesus, even Jesus called a group of Jews who were being wicked and evil to others and hateful to people a brood of vipers and whitewashed tombs.
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So it shouldn't surprise us that Jesus here identifies Jews who slander and persecute Christians as being tools of Satan.
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They are not really Jews at all, he says, but are following their father, the devil, who is the father of lies and slander is indeed a form of lying.
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Jesus is not tiptoeing through the tulips. He's not trying to be politically correct with his words, but equally he's not trying to give us free reign to throw out pejorative terms to people, groups, and individuals.
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What Jesus says is shocking. It's intended to be shocking, but accurate and technically true.
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These Jews who are opposing the church in Smyrna are ultimately a gathering for the cause of Satan.
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I don't imagine that they had pentagrams on the floor and goat's heads around and dark druidic capes with upside down crosses in their worship.
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No. But this ought to give us pause to consider that often those who serve the purposes and causes of Satan appear to be religious, appear to be quite religious.
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Satan is often subtle in his attacks. And Jesus identifies that the specific Jews in the specific ancient town are being used to do
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Satan's work. So far, Jesus has identified that the church in Smyrna was under siege.
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They've already endured severe tribulation. They've endured poverty. They've endured slander. And so if I was sitting in the church of Smyrna listening to this letter read out loud for the first time and the reader came to verse 10 and started out with, do not fear.
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Now they've already gone through a bunch. So when I hear do not fear, I might immediately think to myself, yes, relief is coming.
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It's on the way. This is the part where we get the good news, right? This is the part where he tells us he's gonna come in and sweep in and win the day for us.
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We have nothing more to fear, he says. So I assume peace is on the way. But then the hammer drops as the sentence is finished.
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The words of Jesus. Do not fear what you are about to suffer.
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What? More? Are you serious? More suffering?
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I mean, if I was living in Smyrna, I'd be like, are you serious? And the next sentence of Jesus begins with the exclamation, behold.
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Check this out. Pay attention to this. The devil is about to throw some of you into prison to test you.
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It's gonna, the temperature is gonna get turned up on you. A couple of comments to clarify what he says in verse 10.
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The devil is about to throw some of you into prison. This was kind of a new concept to me.
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The concept that the devil throws some people into jail. I mean, is the devil a judge who tries cases?
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Like, where's his court? Where does that happen? Does the devil sentence people? I thought he was an invisible angel.
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So how does that work? But what is clearly stated by Jesus here is that the devil has his people.
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He has his gatherings. He stands behind persecution. And he can somehow influence even the outcome of human judgments.
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That is truly an interesting point considering current events in America. It feels like there is a growing and swirling spirit of bizarre, illogical, detrimental, and downright false thinking in the fabric of our society.
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But in the face of people losing jobs for their faith or losing their businesses for applying their biblical convictions or even being jailed for their faith,
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Jesus says this to the people of Smyrna. Do not fear.
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Do not fear. How can he say that? Well, he can say it because he's the first and the last. And he's been where they're going.
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He's been there. He's done that. And that's where we can take comfort, right? That's where we can take solace in the words of the one who tells us, do not fear.
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Recast, do not fear. He's the first and the last.
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He's been dead. And he's alive now forevermore. He has the right to tell us how it's going to go.
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And he has the right to tell us, be strong and be brave. He who went to the cross, he says, do not fear.
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And in the end, there is one little easily overlooked sentence that puts into perspective how the devil could possibly be allowed to bring about such suffering to the
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Church of Christ in Smyrna. How could he bring them to poverty? How could he bring them to tribulation? How could he take them to jail?
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How could he take them even to death itself? And Jesus says this, this is all coming down the pipe, that you may be tested.
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The Christian recognizes that every opportunity of tribulation is a chance to show
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Christ glorious. Every opportunity we have to suffer, is an opportunity to show
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Christ to be enough, to show him to be sufficient for us.
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But in this specific instance, God sees fit to warn the Christians of Smyrna that the persecution is going to be severe, but only for a short while.
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He says, it's going to last 10 days. It's going to be tough 10 days, guys. It's going to be tough, but it's coming.
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At the end is insight. And if Jesus knows this persecution is coming, then why doesn't he rescue them?
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Anybody kind of got that in the back of your mind? If he knows this is coming, and he's standing by, and he's even warning them it's coming, does he not have the power to stop this thing?
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Can't he get in the way? The reason he doesn't rescue Smyrna is stated in the text.
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It is to test them. It's a test. But there may be many other answers that lie within the mysterious will of God that we don't necessarily understand.
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There might be a multitude of different reasons why he would allow us to suffer, but at least we're given one in the text to test his people.
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We know that sometimes God chooses to heal people, right? Sometimes he chooses to let us die.
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Sometimes we forget the car keys and are running late only to find that we would have been in that huge pileup and maybe even died on I -94, right?
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But have you ever noticed how that story ends for the others that were in the accident? Have you ever thought that through for a minute?
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Oh, the good things always happen to... No, they don't. For as many people as get up in the morning and read their
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Bible and pray, bad things happen to them. Bad things happen to us.
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Some of us just raised our hand earlier in the service and said, it's been a tough week. We've had some bad things happen. Why do some win the lottery on the same day that others lose their jobs?
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The prosperity gospel says that God wants every one of his children to only ever have good.
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Have you ever heard that message before? God only wants you to have good, but Satan gets in the way of that would be their thought.
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But that somehow implies that God is unable to save his children from the power of Satan, and I don't buy that.
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I don't believe that for a second that Satan has any power over our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Instead, I would suggest to you that at least a part of the reason why bad things happen to God's people is a testing.
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Like Abraham climbing Mount Moriah to offer his only son, life is full of tests of our loyalty to our
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God. Some of us, by the end of verse 10, would be considering a move to Ephesus, right?
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He lived in Smyrna, like, that's not that far. I can walk, leave my stuff behind, I'm out. I mean, if we're honest, that would be our thoughts, right?
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It's only 15 miles down the road. Come on, start a new life, kids. Off we go. The way that one passes this test in Smyrna, what conquering, what victory looks like is being faithful even unto death,
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Jesus declares. Those who are faithful unto death receive the glorious crown that is life.
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This is not a literal crown. This is the victory of life. This is not a royal crown, but a victor's crown.
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There's different words in Greek for different kinds of crowns. And it ties into the final concept of the one who conquers in verse 11.
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The one who conquers, the one who overcomes will get the victor's crown of life. Life being the main point there.
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Even though you die, you will gain life. What does this crown mean?
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When a victorious military leader came back in a parade through his city, he was granted by the king a crown of laurels.
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Or even in the games in the Olympics, the victor would be granted a crown of laurels, the same word used.
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It's a Stephanos, a type of crown, a victor's crown. And at the end of verse 10, those who are faithful until they die, never giving up on Jesus as their hope will be given life.
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And in verse 11, they will not in any way be hurt by the second death. In other words, they will live like Jesus lives now, forever and ever.
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He who has ears, Jesus says, he who has ears. Raise your hand if you have ears.
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I think that pretty much covers all of us. Some of you aren't raising your hand. I can see your ears.
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I know you have ears. It's a funny game. If you have ears to hear, then listen to what the
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Spirit is saying to you. If you have ears to hear, listen to the Spirit. I'm gonna share with you three things that the
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Spirit told me through this text this week. But he may say something different to you.
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You need to have your ears on as you listen to what the Spirit has said to me as I've studied this.
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I want you to think, and it might go beyond what he has said to me. It might be different than what he has said to me.
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It might be the same thing that he said to me. I want you to have ears to hear and listen to what the
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Spirit would have to say to you through this. The first thing that I identified that really the Spirit was pressing on my heart as I read this, is that Jesus is with those who are suffering.
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Jesus is with those who are suffering. Jesus says in our text to Smyrna, I've been where you are, and I've been where you are going.
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This life is not all there is. I am the first and the last. Stick with me, says
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Jesus. If you give up on him, you're giving up on the one who is going to wrap it all up in the end.
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Stick to Jesus. He will be with you in your suffering. That Jesus is with us and understands our tribulation does not necessarily mean he's going to stop it.
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Did you hear that carefully? He's with us, but it doesn't mean he's going to stop it. More often than not,
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God doesn't stop his people from being thrown into lion's dens. But when he chooses to show his glory, sometimes he just decides to calm the cats down.
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He doesn't keep his people from being thrown into fiery furnaces, but instead comes and stands with them in it, present there, protecting them from the heat, still facing the tribulation, still facing the persecution.
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He calls us up to the mountain of sacrifice and then provides a substitute at the last second.
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He knows what that substitute is. He knows why there might be a need for a substitute, because he stood as a substitute for you and I.
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He gets that. The second thing that God pressed on my spirit was that we love our lives too much.
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Anybody relate to that statement? Anybody like me? This is confession time for just a second.
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I love my life. I like my house. I like my wife. I like my kids. I like my car.
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I like a lot of things. Anybody like some stuff a little bit caught up in?
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I mean, it's very easy to get caught up in the stuff of this world and even good things.
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I go, well, at least I started with my family, right? Like I started there. I mean, I got to my car eventually, but I mean,
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I started with my family. That's a good thing, but we do. Throughout history, the church has most often served as a magnet for the wrath of Satan.
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Do we realize what a privileged generation we are? What a privileged country we are?
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What a privileged corner of the world we are? And I'm not trying to beat you over the head with this. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty for where you were born as if you had something to do with it.
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Did you have any control over that? Everybody wants to make, the world wants to make you feel guilty for being an American. I'm sorry,
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I can't feel guilty for that because God has somehow put me here, but now what do I do with it is the question.
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And am I caught up in, you know, do I happen to be American or am I an American? You know what
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I mean? I mean, am I living this life? I mean, everything is materialism. Everything is commercialism. Everything is shopping.
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Everything is amazon .com. I can buy it, be here two days, right? I mean, is that what you're living for?
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What do you love? And when I ask you if you love life, do you love the opportunity to influence others for the cause of Christ?
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Does that factor into your love of your life? Or is it primarily the stuff?
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We love our lives too much. It's only been for a brief blip of human history in our unique corner of the globe that the church has been granted peace and success in the culture at large.
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Primary history of the church, the bulk, like 99 % of the history of the church in the world has been persecution and suffering and tribulation and poverty and rejection by the culture at large.
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I think we're facing rapid change in our culture. Not a profit, but I can see it's becoming less and less awkward.
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I can say this from the fact of my position and my standing. It's becoming less and less awkward for me as a preacher to suggest to you that you should fear not, but expect to be tested.
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The idea of these passages on persecution 20 years ago were harder to preach than they are today.
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So it makes a little bit more sense in the culture that we live in now. That 20 years from now, 10 years from now, maybe even sooner, that these passages will preach directly to where we sit.
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They will be personal. It's quite possible. Would you agree with me? So we need to take these messages on and we need to take on the message that he is the first and the last.
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He's been there. He's been through the persecution. He's been through the tribulation. And his call to us is fear not.
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We love our lives too much. And I would encourage you to think about what your life really is.
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Think about what your life really is. We are temporary and finite servants of God and others.
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That's what defines us. Temporary, finite servants of God and others.
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If we think of ourselves as little kings and little queens over our own glorious self -made kingdoms, then we have a lot to lose.
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We have a whole lot to lose. But if we think correctly that this is a life meant to be sown for the glory of Jesus Christ and that winning in life looks like faithfulness to Jesus to the death, then we will live a different life, a different kind of life defined by what
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I would call fatal faithfulness. A fatal faithfulness. A faithfulness to our death.
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What kind of convictions do we hold that Jesus Christ is king? I hope that at the bare minimum that that is a conviction that would be fatal in your life.
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If it becomes illegal to shout, Jesus is Lord, then I hope I die. I hope that that's a conviction that you hold that you would take to the grave and meet your
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Lord and Savior face to face, faithful unto death.
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Now, not every nuance and not every point and not every disagreement that our culture has with us is a battle we ought to take up.
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Hear me carefully, recast. We've been idiots. Christians have taken up all kinds of causes that are just silly and goofy and are wasted.
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And if you've got a question, if you're like, Don, what did you mean when you said that we're idiots because you're kind of like offended right now? If you have questions about that, come and talk with me and I can share with you some of the things.
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And if you have a question, if you're like, Is this in my workplace worth addressing? I'd love to interact with you about that.
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I'm not the standard, but we can look to scripture and say, How strong should you hold a conviction on this or that?
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Notice I'm not spelling out for you a bunch of details. Oh man, that TV show you shouldn't watch.
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And if you hear somebody at the water cooler talking about that TV show, man, you ought to let them have it.
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No, no, no, no. I'm not going to give you lists like that. I'd be willing to sit down and talk with you about those things because how many of you have those awkward conversations where you're like,
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I don't know how far to press my convictions. I don't know how far to press this conversation. Sometimes I don't even know how to turn the conversation towards good, wholesome things.
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So I just walk away or I don't know what to do or I just try to fit in and blend in and nod and smile or whatever you do.
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And that can be confusing, but at least, at least to say
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Christ is Lord. That's one thing that I'll stand strong on. We love our lives too much.
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Consider what that means for your convictions, your interactions with the world around you, with your neighbors, with your co -workers.
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And that faith, that faithful, fatal faithfulness is really the last thing that the Spirit impressed on me.
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In a world of tribulation, what God desires of us is clear in this text. Faithfulness to Jesus Christ.
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This looks like walking as he walked, loving like he loved, obeying like he obeyed, serving like he served, and shining out his hope to a world that is often set against him.
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And the final call for all of us is the hardest call of all. Take up your cross and follow.
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It seems like a long shot that anyone in this room would be called to literally give their life for the cause of Christ, at least where we stand right now.
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Doesn't that, am I, seems like a, seems like a far shot. Could happen.
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But the faithfulness being asked of Smyrna and each of us this morning is a faithfulness in all of life, even to our last breath.
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It's not saying go out and get martyred for Jesus. It's saying live a faithful life in the day to day unto death.
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Remain faithful. A dude named Polycarp. How'd you like, that's not a name that's really on the rise.
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I'm not sure if anybody's been named that in the last, say, couple centuries or whatever. But Polycarp, or as Dave called him this week,
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Multibass, or what were some of the other ones, Dave? Multibass, Polycarp, different, different fish you could throw in there.
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Funny name, serious guy. He was the pastor of the church of, are you ready for it? Smyrna.
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We have writings from this dude. He was the pastor of this very church going through this persecution.
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And on the day, are you ready for it? On the day he was burned at the stake in Smyrna, this is what he said.
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Eighty and six years I have served Jesus and he has done me no wrong.
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Then can I blaspheme my king and savior? You threaten me with a fire that burns for a season and after a little while is quenched, but you are ignorant of the fires of everlasting punishment that is prepared for the wicked.
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And as they lit the fires beneath him, he is reported to have said, I bless you father for judging me worthy of this hour so that in the company of the martyrs,
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I may share the cup. May we remain faithful to Christ in a culture that is increasingly turning up the heat.
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We take communion to remember that Jesus shed his blood for us. He allowed his body to be broken for our sins.
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If you're here and you've asked Jesus to save you, then please come to one of the tables during the next song.
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I reflect deeply on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that has granted all of us victory over the second death.
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Father, this has not been a super uplifting sermon in the sense that it's heavy.
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There's a lot of weight to suffering and to tribulation. Father, I pray that you would press down into our hearts to reveal with your light and the search and the gaze of your spirit to show us those areas where we have loved our lives too much, where the words of polycarp seem far removed from us in the sense of what we might say in that moment, because we have many things we would miss about this life.
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So father, maybe a good place to start is thanking you for the many blessings you have given to us, for the privilege you have given us of being born and raised in this culture and in this place where we have so much available to us.
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Help us to make hay while the sun is shining, father, while still time, while the culture is still fairly open to us.
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Father, I pray that you would help us to be bold witnesses of your glory and your grace. And as we come to this communion time to remember the blood of Christ shed for us and his body broken for us, may we rejoice greatly.
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May this not be like a funeral service, but like an exultant celebration because he is alive now forevermore.
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He is first and last and became dead, but has now been made alive. And he loves us.
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And he's with us, whatever we face. I pray against fear in my congregation.
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Father, I pray against the work of the evil one who would seek to come in and destroy and to kill and to burn and to destroy.
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And father, were you to let us be tested, I pray that you would help us to shine strong and to fear not.