SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible at the village chapel.
SPEAKER_00: And before we get started with today's study, a couple things I wanted to make you aware of.
SPEAKER_00: First, uh, in light of all that's happened in our country and culture with the inexcusable death and uh unjust killings of Ahmad Arbury, Brianna Taylor, George Floyd, and also St.
SPEAKER_00: Louis police officer David Dorn, uh, as well as others.
SPEAKER_00: We hope that some of you were able to join us uh for Thanksgiving Thursdays.
SPEAKER_00: We took some time as a church uh to do really five things, and those five things can be summarized in these words lament, repent, pray, love, and serve.
SPEAKER_00: And encourage you to go and watch all of that.
SPEAKER_00: We have been given by God the gift of lamenting.
SPEAKER_00: We're not just shouting and screaming at the night sky, an empty night sky, but we're going before God and we're just expressing how we are exhausted by our sadness and by uh the sense of of outrage and injustice in our world and and and and the darkness that encroaches even our own hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And so we repent properly and pray before God and pray that He will reshape us and redirect our affections so that we love God more and love our brothers and sisters more.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then that that would lead to real change, that we'd actually learn what it means to serve one another.
SPEAKER_00: I had the good pleasure this week to, in the middle of all of this, to be invited to be a part of a Zoom uh call with uh 54 other, or 53 other, excuse me, pastors from around the Nashville area, most of whom were um were people of color.
SPEAKER_00: And so there we are, and we're we're talking about uh what's gone on, we're talking about what might be able to be done, we're talking about the ways we're we're um praying about all of this and what might we do with our churches and how might we respond to all of these things.
SPEAKER_00: These folks knew each other pretty well.
SPEAKER_00: I I uh I listened to learn, and uh I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be a part of that and look forward to continuing to be in relationship uh with many of those folks and uh to see just how how God might start to knit our hearts together and bring us an opportunity for God's glory and in through all of this and for good healing and substantial um healing and something more than just single event kind of change, uh, but actually that it would be lasting change in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the other thing I wanted to tell you was that I wanted to give uh sort of a shout out to Matt Pearson for last week.
SPEAKER_00: He did such a great job um helping us study through the letter to the church at Sardis from Revelation chapter three.
SPEAKER_00: So thanks, Matt.
SPEAKER_00: Great job.
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate you, brother.
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh some of you will know Matt from uh the Village Chapel East Nashville campus, where he serves uh quite a bit.
SPEAKER_00: He and his wife Kristen are both on the servant leadership council, and Matt also serves as the director of our men's ministries.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Matt and Tommy Bailey, our director of worship here at the Village Chapel, both just recently finished up their seminary degrees.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm really excited for them.
SPEAKER_00: Congratulations to you both for that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and would have preferred to do this another way in person and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: But the church council and has voted unanimously to confer upon both of you, uh, in addition to your current titles, but to also give you the title associate pastor.
SPEAKER_00: So, congratulations, guys.
SPEAKER_00: And uh to my surprise, when the church council voted on that, uh, they also brought up the title that my wife currently has, Kim Thomas, curate at the village chapel.
SPEAKER_00: Curate is an Anglican title that we borrowed from the Anglican tradition.
SPEAKER_00: It means one who uh is charged with the care of souls, and Kim does that so beautifully.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but they also added to her title, uh, she is curate and co-founding pastor.
SPEAKER_00: So, congratulations to Kim and congratulations to Tommy and to Matt as well.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, looking forward to seeing what the Lord will continue to do through all three of you uh here at the village chapel in the coming days.
SPEAKER_00: So, as most of you know, we do study through books of the Bible, and we're here in a study of the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's the word revelation means unveiling, it's apocalypsis, it means unveiling.
SPEAKER_00: And uh the inference there is that God is taking the initiative to unveil or reveal something to us.
SPEAKER_00: What he's choosing to reveal to us is none other than Jesus Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_00: A clearer vision of who Jesus is is what we so desperately need, and what is on offer to us in the 66th book of the library we call the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we're in chapter three, so if you'll turn there with me in your Bibles or swipe there on your device, if you happen to have that, I'll throw the map up on the screen for you, remind you that there are seven letters that are being written to seven churches.
SPEAKER_00: And we're studying the sixth letter today.
SPEAKER_00: Uh about 25 miles southeast of Sardis, which you studied that letter last week with Matt, uh, you find Philadelphia on the map there, and you see it in yellow letters there on the uh section of the map called Asia, which is Asia Minor.
SPEAKER_00: And uh today in modern-day times we would call that Turkey or the western portion of the country of Turkey.
SPEAKER_00: Philadelphia sat along the Hermes River Valley and uh was probably established sometime in the second century BC.
SPEAKER_00: And then around A.D.
SPEAKER_00: 17, Philadelphia and Sardis, as well as 10 other cities in A.D.
SPEAKER_00: 17, sadly and tragically, were all just shaken by a severe earthquake that actually destroyed the 12 cities.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Tiberius Caesar then uh allowed them five years of uh freedom from any kind of taxation to the Roman Empire, and they were able to rebuild.
SPEAKER_00: So by the time uh the writing of the book of Revelation comes along, sometime likely in the 90s, mid-earlier to mid-90s uh AD, uh, the city's been rebuilt, and um, there's still, though, in that region, that part of the world, there are still tremors and earthquakes on record.
SPEAKER_00: And so the folks are uh struggling, all of everybody that lives in Philadelphia is struggling with that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, any kind of shaking at all makes you wonder is the whole place gone down?
SPEAKER_00: Because they all would have known the story of the great earthquake of AD 17, are wrestling with that, but they're also struggling with the fact that there's increasing persecution of Christians because of uh basically the imperial cult is demanding, that is, the Roman Empire is demanding uh that everyone uh worship Caesar, whoever the Caesar was in that particular sequence of Caesars.
SPEAKER_00: And so um, here is this uh pressure from the outside coming at them.
SPEAKER_00: Um at the same time, some of uh their uh fellow Jews by race evidently were working at odds with the Christians who used to be Jews, became Christians, and we'll read that in this letter as we did in one of the previous letters.
SPEAKER_00: But um, before I go uh too much longer with any kind of a uh introduction, let's get right into the text of the letter to the church at Philadelphia.
SPEAKER_00: That's uh Revelation 3, 7 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: It goes just like this to the angel of the church in Philadelphia, right?
SPEAKER_00: And remember, this is um God is giving this entire revelation to Jesus, who gives it to an angel, who then gives it to John the Apostle, and John the Apostle is going to convey it.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this chain of conveyance all the way to all of these different churches.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it becomes an encyclical, and here we are reading it so many years later ourselves and learning from it as well.
SPEAKER_00: So though these letters addressed to historic churches in real space-time history, all that, but still relevant to uh village chapel here so many years later.
SPEAKER_00: But to the angel of the church of Philadelphia, write this He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens, says this.
SPEAKER_00: I know your deeds.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I have put before you an open door, which no one can shut.
SPEAKER_00: Because you have a little power or you have little strength, some of your translations will say the implication is that they are in a weakened state.
SPEAKER_00: For all that's gone on in their world, you can imagine that.
SPEAKER_00: Because we can imagine it in our own world as time, in our own time as well.
SPEAKER_00: Exhaustion from in their time, persecution.
SPEAKER_00: Um when's the next earthquake coming?
SPEAKER_00: Um, when's it going to destroy our business?
SPEAKER_00: When's it gonna take our loved ones?
SPEAKER_00: Um, and when's our business going to be marginalized by the Romans because we don't worship Caesar?
SPEAKER_00: All of that kind of stuff going on.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Because you're weakened, even though you're weakened, um, I'm putting an open door in front of you, and no one can shut it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you've kept my word, verse 8 says, and you've not denied my name.
SPEAKER_00: And so closely connected are the name of God and God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Very connected, very closely connected.
SPEAKER_00: If I say I believe and trust in Jesus, then I take Jesus at his word.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if I say I believe in God, but I deny that he has the capacity or ability to say anything or speak or um articulate any kind of uh uh design or desires for the world that he created, um, then uh you have to wonder, are you really talking about the real God who's there or just sort of a God of your own imagination, a God of your own making?
SPEAKER_00: But he's connecting right here.
SPEAKER_00: You have uh uh yeah, I know your deeds, all right, and I've put before you, even though you're weak, I've you've kept my word, and you've not denied my name.
SPEAKER_00: They have persevered in the midst of all of their suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan, now that's a phrase he's used before, who say that they're Jews and are not, but they lie.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they wanted to claim sort of the historic rights that they thought came along with their bloodline.
SPEAKER_00: Um and yet, here Jesus says, but they're not truly God's people.
SPEAKER_00: Because they're just doing this in name only.
SPEAKER_00: And that they're add to that, they're actually working against God and God's purposes and the and against the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he calls them the synagogue of Satan.
SPEAKER_00: That's very strong language on the part of Jesus, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I'll make them to come and bow down at your feet and to know that I've loved you.
SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
SPEAKER_00: Wonder what that might have done for some of them.
SPEAKER_00: To humble themselves, like to or to be humble like that.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, um, being humble is plan A, being humiliated is plan B.
SPEAKER_00: Um, choose plan A.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so humble yourself uh before Almighty God.
SPEAKER_00: We we need to do that.
SPEAKER_00: We need to humble ourselves before God and before each other, um, and before uh before we have to be humiliated in some way.
SPEAKER_00: Humble uh yourself.
SPEAKER_00: They got Christ is saying, I will humble them and bow, they'll bow down at your feet, and then he's gonna make them know that I have loved you.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that to the church of Philadelphia, and that's pretty interesting.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if that also would have included look at the way God loves us.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder that realization, I wonder if there was a realization that came over any of them from the synagogue of Satan.
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if that was a turning point.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's that kind of pressure, that kind of humiliation that brings us to the place where we see God more clearly and understand the gospel because we can see it in the lives of people who, though weak, Christ has set his love on them.
SPEAKER_00: Though imperfect, Christ has set his love on them.
SPEAKER_00: Though inconsistent, Christ has set his love on them.
SPEAKER_00: This love of Christ must really be something.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like that.
SPEAKER_00: When you like that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, really powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And so, verse 10, because you've kept the word of my perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world to test those who dwell upon the earth.
SPEAKER_00: I'm coming quickly, hold fast what you have, in order that no one take your crown.
SPEAKER_00: He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will not go out from it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: So they were weak, but he can turn them into pillars.
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
SPEAKER_00: These images are amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And he will not go out from it anymore, and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, and the new of the new Jerusalem, which comes down from heaven, and my new name, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: So three things are going to be written on those who persevere, who keep his word, who remain faithful to him, God's name, God's the name of God's city, and and the name that this name, this new name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And then he closes with that familiar uh language, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray, oh, I pray that we're not just hearing, but that we're listening, we're hearing and heeding, and that's a great summons.
SPEAKER_00: What do we see in this letter?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me put up on the screen for you the common pattern.
SPEAKER_00: We see the city name of the church in each of these letters, the reference to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Usually it's a reference from chapter one, but in this case, not.
SPEAKER_00: In this case, it's Christ saying, I'm the one who's holy, I'm the one who's true, and how refreshing that is in a day and age like theirs and a day and age much like ours as well.
SPEAKER_00: When there was pluralism in their day and age, lots of different gods.
SPEAKER_00: You had uh uh sort of the sort of the uh remaining belief in all of the nature deities and the the of the Greek pantheon and the Roman pantheon.
SPEAKER_00: And here comes Christianity as along with Judaism, saying there's one God.
SPEAKER_00: And if the title God means anything, it means sovereign over all.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean subject to creation or isolated to just this one little job description.
SPEAKER_00: You're the God of the moon, you're the god of the rain, or the god of the harvest, or whatever it might be, or the god of the oceans or the seas.
SPEAKER_00: No, the idea in monotheism is that there's one God, and the title God means something, it means sovereign over all, creator of all.
SPEAKER_00: Everything belongs to God.
SPEAKER_00: And so here they come with that kind of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: And here Jesus says, I'm the holy one, I'm the true one.
SPEAKER_00: And do you understand, folks?
SPEAKER_00: The the claims of Christ that we read in the Bible, in the New Testament, both the Gospels and here in this book of Revelation as well, the claims of Christ, if false, would make him a megalomaniac of the worst kind, and we should burn all the books about him and never believe in him or trust in him.
SPEAKER_00: Or if false, if that's not true, it would make him a liar par excellence, the worst liar you've ever could imagine.
SPEAKER_00: But if true, if he really is the holy one, if he really is the true one, and the good shepherd, and the bread of life, and the door, and the way, the truth, and the life, as John wrote elsewhere, capturing those images that Jesus had used himself to describe himself, again, bold claims on the part of anyone to say, I'm the holy one, I'm the true one, and yet that's what Jesus is claiming now.
SPEAKER_00: How do you respond to him, Philadelphia?
SPEAKER_00: How do you respond to him, village chapel?
SPEAKER_00: How do you respond to those claims?
SPEAKER_00: Really powerful.
SPEAKER_00: So there's the reference to Christ, the commendation of the church is I know your deeds.
SPEAKER_00: We see that right here.
SPEAKER_00: The one who knows us the most thoroughly, loves us the most deeply.
SPEAKER_00: And about that about Christ to me is one of the most wonderful, freeing things.
SPEAKER_00: That he, folks, he already knows the darkness in your heart, the darkness in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: He already knows the fears in your heart and the fears in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: He already knows about the inconsistency in your following Jesus and the inconsistency in my following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The great scandal of the Christian faith is that the gospel of grace is an offer to the worst of sinners.
SPEAKER_00: And that includes me, and that includes you, and that includes every other villain who's ever lived, as well as every victim who's ever lived.
SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And the commendation of this church is that I know your deeds, you've been faithful.
SPEAKER_00: The accusation, which is also in a lot of the letters, happens to be missing from this letter and from the letter to Smyrna.
SPEAKER_00: There's no real accusation on the part of Jesus as he dictates these letters to John to give to these different churches in these different cities.
SPEAKER_00: And that's at least interesting.
SPEAKER_00: It at least shows us that Jesus knows each one of the churches individually, their strengths, their weaknesses.
SPEAKER_00: He understands what's going on in each of the churches.
SPEAKER_00: He knows the village chapel intimately.
SPEAKER_00: He knows each one of us who come to the village chapel intimately.
SPEAKER_00: And again, the great news is he knows me and he loves me.
SPEAKER_00: He knows me fully.
SPEAKER_00: I can't hide anything from him.
SPEAKER_00: I can't hide my the the worst part of my you know sinfulness.
SPEAKER_00: I can't hide it.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he still loves me.
SPEAKER_00: That's mind-blowing, that's heart thumping, it's eye-popping, mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's the kind of great news that causes me not to worry about the future, but to drop to my knees and wonder and worship.
SPEAKER_00: Just as John is on his knees right now before Jesus as we're still reading.
SPEAKER_00: That's the last we heard of John is that he's on his knees.
SPEAKER_00: He's at the feet of Jesus, which is where we all belong.
SPEAKER_00: The exhortation to the church is hold fast to what you have.
SPEAKER_00: The motivating promise here in verse 10, because you've kept the word of my perseverance, I also will keep from you, or keep you rather from the hour of testing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, is this a a reference to uh immunity within testing, or is it removal from testing?
SPEAKER_00: And some of this uh now is where we get into how we interpret the the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Do we think it's about future events, or do we think it's about current events, or do we think it's about things that have happened in the past?
SPEAKER_00: Uh is this a verse that some will use to sort of fortify their own schema, their own, their own structure for the end time sequence?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, some will do that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's clear uh about that aspect of it.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the commentaries that I read on this uh indicated that that probably isn't justifiable.
SPEAKER_00: What's true here is that Christ is going to preserve his people, whether it's in and through suffering or whether he comes, returns to earth, and sets up his new kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Um and how the end time sequence goes, uh, I do not pretend to be smart enough to know that.
SPEAKER_00: I stand right beside Jesus who said, No man knows the day or the hour, not the sun.
SPEAKER_00: It's this is for the Father to know.
SPEAKER_00: Um so all of the people that think of Revelation as a sort of a prophecy puzzle that they got to put together or a jigsaw puzzle or some kind of numerical code thing that they got to figure out.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what the book is about, folks.
SPEAKER_00: The book isn't about us predicting things.
SPEAKER_00: The book is about us coming to see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's revealing Jesus to us.
SPEAKER_00: And we get our eye off the ball all the time because we get distracted by these other things.
SPEAKER_00: But the motive and he promise is that Jesus will preserve us.
SPEAKER_00: So we look to Jesus, we stay focused on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's what I want to do, and that's what the rest all of us need to do, even as we go through these tumultuous times that we're going through right now.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's the summons to hear and to heed, of course.
SPEAKER_00: He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
SPEAKER_00: I'll remind you that Revelation is three different genres of literature, sometimes all at the same time, sometimes in different spots as we read through the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Our Bible is rich in genres of literature.
SPEAKER_00: I love that about the 66 book library, we call the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Um, here we have apocalyptic literature, uh, prophetic literature, epistolary literature.
SPEAKER_00: That is, it's a it's a letter or an Epistle.
SPEAKER_00: And you see that up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: Um, apocalyptic literature is divine in its origin and its source.
SPEAKER_00: That means it's something we couldn't have figured out on our own.
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's humbling to even admit that.
SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of us that think, oh no, we can figure everything out.
SPEAKER_00: We can discover God.
SPEAKER_00: What I believe about God is what matters.
SPEAKER_00: And we're kind of we're kind of sold that bill of goods in our culture in our day and time.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you believe is true, that's what's true for you.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever I believe is so there's this relativism mixed with this obsession uh uh with individualism, and it really has just led us to a spiritual narcissism when we think it's all about us and that the entire universe revolves around us so we can create God in our own image.
SPEAKER_00: And I've just come to the place where I've finally recognized that would be a God that would be too small, limited to my imagination, just happens to like everything I like, and just happens to not like everything I don't like.
SPEAKER_00: That's no real God.
SPEAKER_00: That's no real God if that's the way you think God is either.
SPEAKER_00: There's something about a real God that would stretch me, that would occasionally pull on the other end of the rope that I've got my hands on.
SPEAKER_00: And so this apocalyptic literature does that, shows us a God who is really there and who can take initiative and reveal himself to us.
SPEAKER_00: Prophecy, typically throughout the Bible, we have forthelling and foretelling.
SPEAKER_00: Forthelling is when the Old Testament prophet would say, Thus saith the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And he would speak on behalf of God, calling people to repent from their sin.
SPEAKER_00: Foretelling would be when they're foretelling the future events or the way God's going to respond if they don't repent from their sin or the thing that's gonna befall them if they continue on this path.
SPEAKER_00: We need both.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be hearing from God.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we need foretelling and foretelling.
SPEAKER_00: We need we need the Amiya, the the prophetess.
SPEAKER_00: We need the prophet and the prophetess to be speaking to us dynamically all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Um we need the evangelist, we need the pastor teachers, we need all of the gifts that God has given to us to be speaking to us, all tethered by the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And here it is in the book of Revelation, apocalyptic, prophetic, and this these amazing seven letters that we're learning from, even right now.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there are three metaphors that we see in this passage as well.
SPEAKER_00: I want to put these up on the screen for you: a key, a door, and a pillar.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't they amazing?
SPEAKER_00: That sounds like something you might read.
SPEAKER_00: Like if you were, you know, somebody that loved uh J.R.R.
SPEAKER_00: Tolkien, or or you you love C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis, and you see those kinds of images are used all a sword or a ring or whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_00: Those kinds of things are used all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And this is another bit of the brilliance of Revelation is we have all of these images, and it's the way God uses literature like this to speak to all kinds of different mindsets and hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, some of us are more philosophical and we like things just laid out in black and white, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us, you know, more poetic.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us need a story, so prose, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And so I love this about the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I love that all these genres of literature are there.
SPEAKER_00: And here in this passage with Philadelphia, which by the way, Philadelphia, the name of the city, it means brotherly love.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, my wife and I used to live in in Philadelphia here in uh in the United States, this Philly.
SPEAKER_00: And we love tasty cakes and cheesesteaks and all those things that are unique to Philadelphia.
SPEAKER_00: But here in the the ancient Philadelphia, um God speaking to that church there that's under all of that exterior pressure, that's under that pressure from the synagogue of Satan, and he's saying, Hey, there's a key, there's a door, and you are gonna be turned into pillars as weak as you feel.
SPEAKER_00: You're still gonna become pillars in the temple of my God.
SPEAKER_00: What is the image of the key?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it says there that Jesus has the key of David.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a reference to Isaiah 22, 22.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may or may not know that.
SPEAKER_00: But I'll put it up on the screen for you.
SPEAKER_00: I, God, will place on his Eliakim was the name of the steward in the palace in Jerusalem there.
SPEAKER_00: I'll place on his shoulder the key of the house of David.
SPEAKER_00: He shall open and none shall shut.
SPEAKER_00: He shall shut and none shall open.
SPEAKER_00: You see how close that is to what we just read?
SPEAKER_00: And so this reference to the fact that Jesus has the key of David, what that's saying is like, yeah, it's a great image.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great illustration.
SPEAKER_00: See, the one that has the master key has access to the entire palace, has authority in the palace, can open the doors or close the doors, can open any room or close off any room, can open every hallway, the treasury, the food supply, the water supply, every entry and access point to the palace is under the control of the key master.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus has the key of David, is what's being communicated here.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like say, hey, Philadelphia, as shaken as you may feel, church at Philadelphia, please understand Christ, your sovereign Lord and Savior, he holds the key.
SPEAKER_00: And as well, he's opened a door, and I love this phrase too.
SPEAKER_00: I love this uh this metaphor rather, in the time of increasing persecution, in the time where they're wondering when the next earthquake is going to hit and the natural disaster is just gonna wreak havoc on their city.
SPEAKER_00: And that's happened, listen, that kind of stuff has happened right here in Nashville.
SPEAKER_00: Natural disasters, political pressure and uh of a of uh, you know, election year, um, acrimony in our culture, marginalization of people who believe in God or who want to be uh church and who who believe in the Orthodox teachings of the Bible or the gospel itself, being marginalized.
SPEAKER_00: That's happening.
SPEAKER_00: Um in the world in which we live right now, there's never been a greater amount of persecution of particularly Christians, but really people of all religious beliefs are under great persecution around the world.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we're just removed from a lot of it.
SPEAKER_00: We have relative freedom here for now.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm uh I'm grateful to live here, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to be on the internet and to be to be able to worship, even though uh we have to be separated uh for a while.
SPEAKER_00: But Christ reminds Philadelphia and Christ reminds the village chapel, that Christ has the key.
SPEAKER_00: He can open things that everybody thought were going to be closed forever, he can shut things that everybody thought were gonna be open forever.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants us to make sure that we're not trusting in those things, but we're trusting in him, looking to him.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one with the keys, he's the one that not only can open and shut the doors, but makes the doors.
SPEAKER_00: And in John's gospel, he says, I am the door.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is an awesome thing about Christ and the way he uses all of these images.
SPEAKER_00: See, every darkness provides an opportunity for the light of the gospel to shine through God's people.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I want to tell you, folks, we have a moment right now.
SPEAKER_00: We have a moment, though the though the darkness seems so strong, I really believe this is a great gospel opportunity for us.
SPEAKER_00: Will we be the people of God in this moment?
SPEAKER_00: Will you, as an individual, be faithful to him, faithful to him, and and and faithful to love others as he would love others.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to take us even in our weakness, even in our brokenness, even in our inconsistency, just like in the weakness of Philadelphia.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to take them and he wanted to say to them, Look, you hold fast to my name and my word, walk in my ways.
SPEAKER_00: You will be a pillar in the temple of God.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the other image that I think is so powerful here.
SPEAKER_00: Um they had little strength, but God wanted to make them a pillar, which certainly is a symbol of strength.
SPEAKER_00: Look at this image of the existing ruins of the city, the ancient city of Philadelphia.
SPEAKER_00: And what's standing, what's left standing?
SPEAKER_00: The pillar.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's almost the case for almost any archaeological dig you go to, you'll see pillars standing.
SPEAKER_00: The roof is gone, the walls are gone, you know, a bunch of the stuff on the inside is gone.
SPEAKER_00: But man, those pillars, those pillars stand tall and tell the story, you see.
SPEAKER_00: And what the Lord wants to do with your weakness and with my weakness, with the weakness of the church at the village chapel, with the weakness of the church at Philadelphia, is to be able to pour his glory through our weakness so that he gets the glory and we get turned into pillars, and we tell the story of his glory.
SPEAKER_00: So, revelation indeed is the hope of glory, because he can turn those of us who are weak into pillars.
SPEAKER_00: We sang it just a few minutes ago, Rock of Ages.
SPEAKER_00: It was written by the 18th-century Anglican hymn writer, Augustus Toplady.
SPEAKER_00: And traditionally it tells that Toplady drew his inspiration for Rock of Ages from an experience he had when he was kind of walking home from a nearby village, and he was traveling along this gorge where all these rocky crags were, and this sudden storm came up, really violent storm.
SPEAKER_00: And he just found his way to sort of to find a little opening in the rock on the side of the hillside there, and it became for him a little cleft, a little hiding place, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what inspired him to write Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me.
SPEAKER_00: Let me hide myself in thee.
SPEAKER_00: See.
SPEAKER_00: And that was in the 18th century.
SPEAKER_00: In the 19th century, the Prince of Preachers, a guy named C.
SPEAKER_00: H.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Haddon Spurgeon, he's credited with this quote.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not 100% sure he said this, but it's a brilliant quote.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I've learned to kiss the wave that casts me up against the rock of ages.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you've got to see that because that's an action.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's a that's a very visual illustration.
SPEAKER_00: If you had a shipwreck out at sea and you, the waves were carrying you in, and the waves carried you and carried you carrying, and then threw you up on a rock, uh, those waves casting you on the rock of ages, Spurgeon says, even though it might hurt landing, even though it's scary getting there, even though you don't know if you're gonna make it, but the wave that carried him there, the shipwreck and the ensuing wave, all that, he kisses the wave because it brought him to the rock of ages.
SPEAKER_00: What is the wave for you?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: What is the wave for me?
SPEAKER_00: Would I would I recognize it if I could?
SPEAKER_00: Could we recognize it in our own times?
SPEAKER_00: Um, would we kiss the wave or do we fight against it and find ourselves going under at some point?
SPEAKER_00: Um, may the waves that we endure and suffer carry us to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He indeed is our rock of ages.
SPEAKER_00: Um he indeed is the the the shelter from the storm for each and every one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he holds the keys.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he is the door.
SPEAKER_00: And he can open the door, he can unlock any door, he can transform anything.
SPEAKER_00: Anything weak can become a pillar if it's surrendered to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You have these three rewards at the end of the chapter: the vindication before the foes of this church in Philadelphia.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 9, Christ says he will make them come and bow down before he will vindicate the church in front of their foes.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10, he will deliver the church in times of great testing.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11 and 12, he offers assurance of security in God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: How beautiful, my friends, how beautiful is that.
SPEAKER_00: And it holds a great message for us in our own day and time as well, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: If you're exhausted, if you're despairing, if you if you just can't believe all of the the trauma that you're having to endure in so many different categories, let me encourage you to turn to him, to trust in him.
SPEAKER_00: He can open the door, and he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: And he he wants to prove that he loves you, just like in this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to prove that uh he loved the church in Philadelphia to those who were from who the naysayers of his of their time.
SPEAKER_00: From Gently and Lowly, a book I'm reading right now, and I highly recommend it to you by a guy named Dane Ortland.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he's the son of a local pastor here named Ray Ortland, some of you will know, uh, who uh just respect both of these guys so much.
SPEAKER_00: Dane writes, What is the point of saying Christ saves to the uttermost?
SPEAKER_00: He says, We who know our hearts understand.
SPEAKER_00: We are to the uttermost sinners.
SPEAKER_00: We need a to the uttermost savior.
SPEAKER_00: And folks, that's exactly how I felt on that Zoom call the other day.
SPEAKER_00: That's how I feel in this day and age in which we live.
SPEAKER_00: I need a to the uttermost savior, and I have one in Jesus who has the keys, who can open the door, and it can turn my weakness into something strong for him, for his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Tim Keller in his commentary on the Gospel of Mark says, when Jesus comes back, and that's alluded to here surely in uh verse 10, um, however the eschatological sequence goes, the fact that he's coming uh is there.
SPEAKER_00: And when he comes back, everything will become everything sad will become untrue, borrowing here a little bit from Tolkien.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're looking forward to that day, aren't we?
SPEAKER_00: When all of the saints of God together from every tribe and tongue gather before the throne and shout out together, singing to him, singing his praises.
SPEAKER_00: Until then, along with J.I.
SPEAKER_00: Packer, I say the task of the church is to make the invisible kingdom visible through faithful Christian living and witness-bearing.
SPEAKER_00: So once again, Revelation offers us a clearer vision of who Jesus is, the Holy One, the true one with the keys, can open the doors, and wants to turn even our weakness into a strength for his glory and the the the hope of his glory to be realized as we come before his throne in worship.
SPEAKER_00: God bless you.