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Um, all right, so we are halfway through our series on the churches of revelation. Like I said, so far we’ve mainly been looking at the this is bad, don’t do this kind of a thing. So this week, rather than tell you what not to do, um, it’s always good to have some positive reinforcement. So we’re going to look at some of the positive things to do. So far though, we’ve looked at the churches in Ephesus and Sardis and how they had kind of become routine in church. And they had, uh, they had just been going through the motions and going to church because that’s what their parents did. And they were doing these things not out of a love for Christ, but out of an obligation. And that’s not what church is about. Church is about growing in that relationship with Christ and growing together with a group of believers in their relationship with Christ, um, individually and communally. And then we last week we looked at Pergamum and Thyatira and these were churches who had, uh, had lost sight of what what was truth. They had compromised in their beliefs. They had allowed false teachers to move into the church and teach doctrine that wasn’t sound, that wasn’t pure. And as a result, they slid far, a far cry away from where God wanted them to be. But this week, we’re going to look at a couple of churches that, like I said, are a little bit more encouraging.
They’re, uh, they’re two churches that are actually the only two of the seven that received no rebuke. They’re the only two that are commended on what they’ve been doing and encouraged to continue in that. So the churches that we’re going to look at today are Smyrna and Philadelphia, and they’re found in revelation two eight through 11 and then three, seven through 13. Revelation two eight through 11 says, and to the angel of the church in Smyrna write. The first and the last, who was dead and has come to life, says this I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested and you will have tribulation for ten days. 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. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death. And then if you flip a flip over to chapter three, and verse seven goes on to say to the angel of the church in Philadelphia, write, he who is holy, who is true, who is who has the key of David, who opens, and no one will shut, and who shuts, and no one opens, says this I know your deeds.
Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power, and have kept my word, and have not denied my name. Behold, I will cause those of the of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews, and are not, but lie. I will make them come and bow down at your feet and make them know that I loved you, because you have kept my word of my repentance. 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 on the earth. I am coming quickly. Hold fast what you have, so that no one will take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. And he will not go out from it anymore. And I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of my city, of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, my name. He who has an ear. Let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. So here, if you remember back to Ephesus in week one, we talked about Ephesus being a very prominent church. It was a large church financially, was very wealthy, influential, was very prominent. And these churches that we’re looking at today are kind of the antithesis of Ephesus.
I like that, so I thought I’d throw it in there. Um, but they. Ephesus, while Ephesus was large and prominent and a powerful church on the outside, these churches were very small, minimal numbers. They had minimal resources at their disposal, and they were relatively obscure. Not a whole lot of people really knew about them. But these churches, while they were small and from the outside you would say, boy, those poor churches are struggling. Look at Ephesus or look at Pergamum, Thyatira. These large churches that we look at, these two small churches and not a word of rebuke goes to them. We know that they’re small and they don’t have a lot, because it says of Smyrna, I know your of your poverty and of Philadelphia it says, you have a little power. So we know that these churches aren’t very significant physically. Just by looking at them, you wouldn’t think there was much there. But as you read, you realize that it’s not all about looks. And this is a common theme throughout the Bible. When when David was anointed king. Prophet comes to anoint him and he comes to the sons of Jesse and says, line up all your sons. I’m going to anoint one of your sons King. And he goes through the list and God’s like, no, not him, not him, not him, not him. And it’s like, well, that’s all of them. Who else is there? Jesse’s like, no, that’s all my kids.
Oh yeah. David. He’s in. He’s a shepherd that plays the harp. You don’t really want to talk to him. These are the good ones. And he’s like, no, that’s the one I want. And so God used a harp playing shepherd to kill a giant and to lead a nation. And that’s kind of a theme throughout the Bible. Jesus’s disciples were mostly uneducated fishermen, average everyday people. And that’s what these churches were physically. From the outside. You don’t think there’s much there, but they have Quite spiritual presence. And it says that they were both dealing with a common problem in that of the both. Both churches have a presence of the synagogue of Satan. What this is, is it’s a group of, of Christians who would call themselves Christians, but would claim and lay hold to the Old Testament laws and ordinances as a means of salvation. So they would say, yes, Jesus came and he was our Messiah, and he died for our sins. But now that you’ve accepted that part, now you have to do this, and then you have to do this. And if you don’t do this or that and this thing, then you’re not really saved. And they would try and enforce these laws on the believers. And it says of Smyrna and Philadelphia that they were able to resist these people who called themselves Christians, but really weren’t. And let me just clarify. If you call yourself a Christian and believe in a means of salvation other than Jesus Christ’s atoning work on the cross.
That’s not a Christian, you can call yourself that. But being a Christian means that you stand on grace alone, and grace is a stand alone thing. You can’t add anything to grace. Once you add something to grace. Once you add the need to earn it by following any laws or ordinances, it is no longer grace. You can call it grace, but that’s not what it is. It would be like if I grab this and I offered Chris some water and said, hey Chris, you want some water? Yeah, sure. But why does the water smell like coffee? Well, I mean, I took the water and I ran it through a percolator, through some coffee grounds and a filter. And then this is what came out. So I’m giving you water. That’s not really water. It’s coffee. Well, no, there’s water in it. There’s just some other stuff too. Okay. You can’t do that. Grace is grace. You can’t add anything to it, you can’t take anything away from it. And it’s that belief in God’s grace and atoning work on the cross that is all sufficient for all of our sins. That is salvation. Not adding any works, not adding any rituals or rites. That is grace. That is salvation, and that is the core belief of what makes a Christian. So the synagogue of Satan would say, yes, we believe in grace too, but we want you to follow this, to make that grace even better.
And it doesn’t work like that. And it says of both of these churches that they were in the presence of this, of these false teachers and these legalistic leaders, and yet they remained faithful to God. Both churches, unlike Pergamum and Thyatira, who heard similar false teaching and false doctrine, who gave in and compromised these churches, were rooted in God’s Word. And they knew that when they heard these things, they were false, and they stayed faithful through persecution. There is a difference between these two churches and this is the main thing I want to look at today. And I think in my life I know this week, studying this out and preparing this sermon has been really reflective for me. Kind of a gut check, one of those spiritual gut punches where you’re sitting there reading and all of a sudden you’re like, oh gosh, that was me. Um, but the two churches, Smyrna is told that they’re going to endure ten days of tribulation. So he says to Smyrna, get ready, brace yourselves. Some of you are going to be thrown into prison. There’s going to be ten days of tribulation and trial for you. Uh, some scholars think that this ten day stretch refers to a literal stretch of persecution that was about to come just ten days. Uh, others think that it refers to the ten imperial persecutions that happened under Roman rule. Regardless of what you hold to when it happened, the point is that it was imminent and it was going to happen.
And the command to the church was remain faithful, regardless of when you think it happened. Or and you can study it out and debate it. I’m fine with that. But as long as you get the main point that something bad was going to happen to the church and their command was to be faithful, and this, this persecution was going to be pretty intense because it says to remain faithful until death. So we know that this wasn’t just going to be somebody making fun of him or somebody throwing rocks at the church or something. This was going to be serious. Intense persecution. And the believers were some of the believers in the church were going to be required to lay down their life. That can be pretty scary and pretty intimidating when you think about it. Um, just so you know, about ten days you’re going to go through an intense time, some of you are going to be thrown in prison. Some of you are probably going to be killed, but be faithful. It’s kind of a stretch. But if you look at how Christ addresses the church and I’ll click back for you so you can see, uh, it says the first and the last who is dead and has come to life. Christ has been through death. He had already experienced that, and he overcame it. So now he’s saying, look, I’ve already overcome that.
It’s coming to you. Have faith in me. I’ve already overcome what’s coming your way. I’ve already overcome that. Whatever you’re going through in life, Christ has overcome the grave. Death could not stop him. He can handle your checkbook. He can handle stress at work. He can overcome whatever A trial comes at your way. And that’s what he’s reminding the church here in Smyrna. I have overcome. Have faith in me. And it’s it’s common for Christ. If you think about the Great Commission, he gives a command, but he always offers an encouragement with it. He tells the disciples to go and make disciples of all the nations, but he also tells them all authority is given to me in heaven and in earth. So it’s very common. When Christ tells you to do something hard, he gives you the encouragement and the resources necessary to do that. Um, but today, for us, it’s kind of hard sometimes to think about overcoming things. And we just had a whole series on it about finding victory in Christ and overcoming our past and overcoming, uh, broken relationships and things like that. But when you think about verses like First Corinthians 1554 and 57, it’s one of my favorite passages. It says, then will come about the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Death which, when we think in our finite little brains of the ultimate end, we think of death. And that’s that’s the it that’s finished. There’s nothing beyond that. There’s nothing worse than that. Death is the ultimate punishment. Christ has overcome that. The worst that someone can do to you is kill you. And Christ says, that’s fine. Don’t fear that because I have overcome that death, I have overcome that. Have faith, have courage, because I’ve been there and I’m with you now, and I’m pushing you on to the end. When you think about that verse of Christ overcoming death, and then you read verses like Philippians 320 that says that our citizenship is not here on earth, but our citizenship is in heaven. Reminds us that we’re not living for this world. And then you read James 414 where it says that life is just a vapor. It’s here and then gone. And you start to realize that maybe in the hard times, it’s easy to have faith because you know that this is temporary. And I don’t know what all of you are going through right now in your life, at home, at work, what, what conflict there is. But I know what’s been going on in my life, and it’s been kind of crazy this last month. And I know that I can have faith in Christ because if he’s able to overcome Death.
He’s able to overcome my crazy work schedule. He’s able to overcome a build out of a church. He’s able to overcome these things that are in our way. And this world is temporary. So if I’m stressed now and I’m going through a rough time right now, I know that I have all of eternity to be happy and to be praising Jesus Christ and to live in eternal heaven with him. And so the problems of this life don’t seem as big. And I’m not trying to downplay or make you feel like you’ve been complaining or upset or worried about something that doesn’t need to be worried about. But what I’m telling you is that when that worry creeps up and those problems arise, stop trying to rely on your limited abilities, your limited knowledge, and your limited wisdom, and rely on God who is all sufficient, who is all knowing, who is all powerful and has the ability to take care of that and to hold you and wrap you in his arms and get you through that storm that might come. And when we get this idea of Earth being temporary, just a rental. Um, it starts to make a little more sense. You know, I, me and Greg and living in an apartment now, and there’s a lot of stuff that I would like to do to the apartment to fix it up. Could use a new coat of paint. Some of the doors could use replace the walls could use some patching, the carpet stained in spots, and there’s a rip in it.
Um, you know, there’s a bunch of stuff that I would like to do, but it’s a rental. I’m not going to live there for the rest of my life, so I don’t want to take a lot of my time and resources and invest it in this apartment that in six months, I’m not going to be there anymore. And when you think about life in that term of this is a rental. Do I want to spend all of my resources and time to make sure that this rental is comfortable? Do I want it to take all my time and my resources and invest them in eternity that lasts forever? And that’s what the call to the church in Smyrna was. Look, you’ve been faithful to this point. It’s getting ready to get rough. Remain faithful. It’s normal with any church as it grows. Conflict will arise from within. From without. It happens historically. Um, it’s. It’s all over. Okay. I know churches back east that split because they redid the carpet and it was the wrong color. And half the congregation got mad at the other half. And they fight. And then they break. As a church, as a body. As we grow together, as we live together, as we as we grow in our relationship to Christ, conflict is going to arise. Remain faithful, remain focused on the end.
Forget about this temporary rental unit that we’re living in, and focus on the eternal glory of Christ and the fact that what we do here, we’re investing in eternity. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have any ambition in this world to to have a good life or to raise your family in a safe environment or anything like that. But when you look at those things and you look at the fact that this world is temporary. Maybe it is a better idea to invest in a permanent, eternal investment. That’s why I have Greg and handle all the finances in the house. I don’t like numbers. I’m not very good with them, and I’m very impulsive. So if I know I have this much in the bank account and I see something that I want, that’s this much, that’s fine. Let’s go get it. And then it’s cool for, you know, a couple hours and then I’m like, crap, I just spent that much money, and I don’t, you know, when you think about your life as an investment, why are you investing in something that’s going to temporarily be fun for a few years, even if it’s fun for the rest of your life? Congratulations. That was 40 years. Now you have eternity that you’re not invested in because you wasted that time and that money and remain faithful to Christ and the good times and the bad. When when you’re going through troubles, don’t worry about the investment in this world.
Worry about the investment in the future. So Smyrna is challenged to remain faithful and to hold strong because persecution is coming. And then you look at the contrast of Philadelphia and they’re actually spared from tribulation. It says that, uh, that they’re going to be spared from the judgment that is to come. And the reason why is it says that because you have kept the word of my perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing. So because Philadelphia had already remained faithful, God was sparing them from what was about to happen. Now, this doesn’t mean that if you are faithful to God and you love him and you do what he says, then you’re going to live a good life and your health will be fine and your finances will be in order, and you’ll be blessed. That’s not what this is saying. Um, this isn’t something that, uh, that we should live our life as a goal. To be blessed by God and to drive a Mercedes and to do all these things by being faithful to him. But what this teaches us is one more faithful to him. There will be results. We might not see the blessings and the peace in this world, but in eternity, when we remain faithful through those hard times, he will. He will spare us from judgment. He will spare us from from the trials. And Philadelphia was spared, but they were still given a command.
In verse 11 of chapter three it says, I am coming quickly. So hold fast what you what you have. So while Smyrna was given the command, times are going to be tough, but remain faithful as you have been. Philadelphia it says times are going to be easier. Remain faithful. Now, when I first started studying this, I was like, it kind of doesn’t make sense. What is he talking about? Why would he do that? But then I started to think about my own life. And I think one of the problems as an individual for me, but as a church in America, when things are going good, we tend to treat God like a spare tire and we just throw them in the trunk and we’re driving along and things are fine. And you know, he’s good back there. We’ll keep him in the trunk and not worry about it. But then something comes up and all of a sudden we got a flat and we got a blowout, and we got to pull over and we get got out of the trunk and put, put the spare tire on and we, we hold to that spare tire and all the spare tire is going to get us through, and we’re going to make it through. And then we get to the next exit, and we get down and we get to a service station, and they fix the tire. And then we put the spare tire back in the trunk, and we forget about God because things are going smooth again.
And then something happens and we pull them back out. And what he’s saying is when things are going good, remain faithful to me. Remember who I am. When things are going bad. Remain faithful to me. Remember who I am. If life is smooth sailing right now. Praise God I’m happy for you. That’s great. But remember who he is and remain faithful to him. Don’t forget and don’t put him in the trunk and just go about life as as is, like you don’t need God. When? When we’re going through a time of blessing and a time where life is going good, it’s easy to forget who God is and what he’s done. But we need to remember who God is and what he’s done in those times. Just like Philadelphia was called to remember their faith and hold fast even though they were being spared. Just like Smyrna was called to hold fast and to have faith in those trials. We as people today are called to hold fast and have faith in God, whether times are really bad Or whether times are really good or whether times are just kind of in the middle. Some days are good, some days are bad. Remain faithful to God. Keep sight of who God is and what he’s done, and hold to him and cling to him, and he will get you through whatever it is you’re going through. And as a church, as we grow, we need to keep that in mind.
We need to remember. That, yeah, things are probably going to get tough. Okay. Things are probably not going to be easy. If you think about where we are and what a Bible church is here, the fact that, um, Lehi, Saratoga Springs, American Fork, Highland make up about, um, I think it’s 150 to 200,000 people somewhere in there. And there’s never been a freestanding, Bible believing church in this community. What we’re trying to do as Alpine Bible Church. As we grow and we share God’s Word and His love for the people of this valley, people aren’t going to like it. And it’s not going to be easy. But it’s not all going to be bad either. And no matter what we’re going through right now, we’re going through a great time of blessing. We’ve expanded. We have a new kids facility. It’s completely painted. It’s ready to go. We’re almost completely done with this building. God is blessing us greatly. But don’t forget who God is. Don’t forget that it’s because of him that we were able to do these things. And when things start going rough and maybe attendance drops off, maybe somebody says something that was hurtful to you. Maybe, you know, I don’t know. Whatever. Remain faithful to God and keep sight of who he is because he can get you through that. He can get us as a church through that. But we need to remain faithful.
We need to remember who he is. He’s overcome death. He can overcome whatever trials might come our way as a group of believers or as individuals. Christ can overcome. Christ can carry you through. I said last week that this week would be a little bit more encouraging. I hope it was. Whenever I think about Christ and I look at passages like this that, um, he encourages believers that he has overcome. It’s encouraging to me. Um, it’s uplifting to know that no matter what life throws at me, I serve a God who is bigger and better than that, whatever it is. And this week, as we go home, I just want us to remember that God is God in all circumstances. God’s not just God. When times are bad and when times are good. He’s not there. God is God and we need to keep focused on him, whatever times might be. Whether God’s giving us times of blessing, whether it be times of persecution. We need to keep focused on him. So today, just keep in mind that this world is temporary. There is an end to this world, the trials of this world, the hardships of this world, the stresses of life. There is an end to that. It’s temporary. It’s not here forever, but God. Christ is eternal. Goes on forever. So rather than invest in this little finite space of time, let’s invest and keep focused on God so that we can have blessings throughout eternity.