Revelation: The Church at Sardis
“Spirituality”

In the Gospel of Luke we read the words, “6 But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.” and we often see examples of this recorded in various places throughout the Gospels. Jesus goes off to be by himself to spend some time in prayer. We usually concentrate on the teachings of Jesus and the miracles of Jesus and the death and resurrection of Jesus, but we often gloss over the examples Jesus sets for us in the everyday practices of his life. This example of Jesus ‘going off to pray’ is an example of what we would call ‘spiritual practices’ - the exercise of the spiritual side our lives with God. This practice of ‘spirituality’ is what we learn about as we look at the church in Sardis.
Here we have another large city, known for its commerce especially in the area of textiles and wools and for its strategic location as a crossroads. It is a city that had throughout its history been an important city in the Roman empire in that it sat on the top of a hill surrounded by steep cliffs and from there was almost untouchable by approaching armies. Like the other 4 cities we have talked about before that had their pagan temples, but unlike the other cities who had a bunch of temples to a bunch of other gods, this city concentrated its temple worship on one god, the mother goddess Cybele. The worship of Cybele was quite a contrast in our mind of what worship is because to go to worship this goddess you had to wear a pristine, white robe, and if there was any soil on the robe you could not enter the temple for worship. Like the other pagan worships we have talked about, worship then on the inside consisted of food, drink and parties. Again, we have to remember that unlike us who have grown up in an atmosphere where extreme eating, drinking and participation in wild parties is considered not the way to live, people in the time and age in which the letter of Revelation was written think exactly the opposite - you are just strange in you don’t participate in this lifestyle.
So we need to keep in mind that the people who are in the church of Jesus Christ in this part of the world lived like this until they have become part of the church. So they participated in the pagan worship a much longer part of their life than they had living as a follower of Christ. And many of their family members and friends and co-workers are putting pressure on them to come back to the pagan temple. Their conviction had to be steadfast in order to be able to stick with their new way of life. Another pressure on these members of the church in Sardis lie in their Roman citizenship. In Sardis, your citizenship depended on your lifestyle. If you in any way acted outside the norms of society, the leadership of the city would strip you of your citizenship. The Christians then were in constant fear of the loss of their citizenship because of the choices they made that were clearly different than the ‘norm’ in the city. It was tough being a Christian.
The church at Sardis had been founded by the apostle John - the one who wrote the Gospel of John and the writer of Revelation. The church grew quickly and seemingly was very successful in spite of their location in this decadent environment. They quickly developed a sense of mission and had many missions and programs within their church. From all outward appearances, this was a successful church and Jesus compliments them on this work and mission. And as we have figured out by now, there is always a but…….. “But,” Jesus says, “This is your problem….” and Jesus says this problem is very serious and if they don’t correct it soon the church is going to fail. Which is pretty serious!
Their problem is in the area of spirituality; specifically their lack of spirituality. Which means we need to understand what spirituality is all about. And it is worth pointing out that this is the only church of the 7 where Jesus is addressing the individual members of the church. The other 6 churches Jesus is talking about the work and attitude of the church as a whole, but here he is talking to the individuals within the church. He says, “A few of you have it figured out. A few of you have your hearts in the right place. But the majority of you need to improve your spiritual life” ` or more accurately, they need to develop a spiritual life.
When ‘spirituality’ is addressed in the bible, there are 2 people lifted up for us. One is Jesus and the other is King David. So a quick overview of King David. David is anointed to be King over Israel by God when he is just a young boy. Saul is still the King when all this is going on and doesn’t know that God has appointed David the next king. So David actually goes to work for Saul as his court musician. Then David proves himself a warrior as he slays the giant Goliath - a story that we are all familiar with but what I want to emphasize today is that one very important element of that story is that David verbally professed great faith in God to King Saul as he approached the giant with only a sling shot and then David attributed his victory to the power of God. David took no credit for himself. David then becomes a leader in Saul’s armies, again always confessing God’s work in his victories. David becomes very popular with the people of Israel and Saul begins to become jealous of David’s popularity which results in several years of David having to live on the run while Saul tries to kill him. Several times David has the opportunity to kill Saul, but will not as he says that Saul was made king by the action of God and it was not up to him to intervene in God’s decisions. Eventually David takes the throne and in that position we see David have great successes - and we see David have great personal failure as he has an affair with Bathsheba and then organizes the death of her husband. So David is a portrayed as a man of great faith - and a man of many weaknesses. And through it all God himself says that David, of all the people in the Bible, is the ‘closest to his own heart’, or in other words - David is the most spiritual of all the people in the bible that are put before us as examples. Seems kinds of strange that God would hold up in front us an adulterer and a murderer as the example of who we are to look to as we understand what kind of relationship God desires from us. So don’t ever think that you have ever done something so bad that God will not love you - that is part of David’s message. But as we read through the Psalms David wrote and read the story of David’s life, what we see is that David is forever talking with God. The Psalms are actually David talking with God - about everything. About his failures, about his joy - every aspect of his life David talked with God about it. And every time David messed up, he immediately ran to God with - “Oh God, I failed again. Please forgive me.” And God tells us that what he admires about David is the sincerity of David’s pleas to God. Much like the Apostle Paul’s words “I don’t know why I do the things I am not suppose to do and don’t do the things I am suppose to.” But instead of David internalizing these things and saying “Oh woe is me. I am so bad.” and hanging his head and beating himself up, David takes it to God and says - “God, I am so very sorry.” When David has decisions to make, he first goes to God. When David has successes, he first goes to God. David and God are examples of a close, personal relationship and that is what God wants with us - and maintaining this relationship is what we label spirituality.
And it is not easy and we have to work at it and we have to make a concerted effort at it - but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. It is Paul’s challenge to us to ‘pray without ceasing’ - which doesn’t mean we stop and fold our hands and say, “Dear God, so and so and so. Amen.” It is a running conversation with God that goes on all the time with some times of quiet thrown in. And that is probably the hardest part - the just sitting quietly, knowing you are in the presence of God, and not talking. But that is essential in our spiritual relationship with God - and something David and Jesus did all the time.
Jesus went off for quiet time, we are told sometimes early in the morning and sometimes in the evening - whenever he could get the opportunity to ‘listen’ to God. That is necessary too - if we do all the talking then how can we ever hear God’s voice and God’s direction and God’s comfort and God’s forgiveness? So we have to work on both these elements - the running acknowledgement of God’s presence with us all the time - and those moments of quiet when we can listen for God to speak to us.
So what Jesus is pointing out to the congregation at Sardis is this - All the work you are doing is important. Jesus says to the church in Sardis - Mission is good, teaching is good, but it doesn’t mean a thing if your heart is not with God. While church and the things of the church are essential components of our life as the people of God, it is our personal relationship with God that is of the most importance.
This is something you have to do. I can’t tell you how to do it, I can’t tell you what you need to do to get yourself where you need to be in your relationship with God - all that I can tell you is that Jesus tells us that we have to develop a relationship. Not a knowledge of who he is or what he has done; not just a belief that he exists - but a personal relationship.
And we don’t even have to ‘do’ anything other than say that to God - in a moment of quiet in our mind, with all sincerity just say, “God, here I am.’

Amen.

REVELATION: THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA - “Beware False Teachers”

As we continue through our look at the 7 churches in the book of Revelation, we are getting bits and pieces of Jesus’ design for His church. Church is important to us. Some of you have been here in this church your whole life. You’ve put blood, sweat and tears into the work that is done here. Significant life events have happened here - baptisms, weddings, funerals… You have a sense of ownership for this place. So every now and then we need to stop and remind ourselves that this is Jesus’ church and we are simply a part of it. Place holders for future generations. We need to remind ourselves that Jesus has definite expectations of what he wants his church to be . Looking at these 7 churches it is like we are working a 500 piece puzzle and we are getting these different pieces of a puzzle each week and as we put the pieces together, the whole picture of Jesus’ ideal church begins to appear. Then, we are challenged to look at this picture and see where we measure up and we see where we need to make corrections. That ideal picture helps us to allow the Holy Spirit to aid us in moving closer and closer to Christ’s design for the church.
We have looked at the church of Ephesus where we hear about the importance of holding true to correct doctrine and of how important it is for us to love one another in this congregation - or as Jesus says - How can we teach love to our community if we can’t even love one another. Smyrna was the church that held true in the face of severe persecution as a witness to their faith - so we learn that as difficult as things may get for the church, if we rely on Jesus then we will hold together regardless of what problems we may encounter. Last week was Pergamum - the church that again was complimented for holding it together when some of the members had been martyred. But Jesus reminds them he requires the church to be holy - meaning ‘different’ than the unchurched community around them. Jesus tells them that the choices within the church must reflect Jesus’ teachings rather than what culture holds important.
We have learned to be loving, holding true to doctrine, relying on the Holy Spirit to hold us together in times of difficulty, staying apart from the culture - and now on to church #4 - the church at Thyatira. Unlike the here previous cities, Thyatira was a pretty nondescript sort of place. It was a lot smaller and a lot more insignificant than the other cities. It had no fantastic buildings, no huge temples and no real political status. All it really had in its favor was that it prospered as a trading center.
We have no idea how the church here came into being but as Jesus’ talks about this church in Revelation he does so with glowing terms. The section of Revelation directed to Thyatira is actually the longest of all the letters written to the churches. Jesus says, “I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance.” He goes on to say that the church is now doing more in the way of service and deeds than they have ever done before. The church of Thyatira was living as Christ wanted to his church to be - they cared for one another, they were active in mission in the community, they had a strong and hearty faith. The church is growing and they are able to do more and more mission. The church stood in the community as a witness to the faith, hope and love of Jesus. The church understood that the Christian life is a life of continual growth - not growth in the terms of numbers but growth in the knowledge and understanding of Christ’s teaching. It reflected the movement we in the church today call the principle of “Deep and Wide”. - you have to grow your church deep in its faith and knowledge of the things of God before you can really grow your church wide - in bringing in new members.
But this is the situation - Thyatira was known for its trade guilds. There were guilds for carpenters, dyers, sellers of goods, tanners, weavers, tent makers and such. These trade guilds were similar to what we know as trade unions. It was very difficult for the tradesmen to make a living unless they were a part of one of these guilds. All work was contracted through the guild so if you were not a member of it, you would get little if any work. Now these guilds were different from our unions is that they were linked with the worship of pagan gods. Each guild had its particular guardian god and as a member you would be expected to attend all its functions and participate in its activities which included worship of the pagan gods with offerings, feasts and immoral activities.
The guilds would hold common meals which were in the temple of ‘their god’. The meal would begin and end with a formal sacrifice to the god. The meat then served during the meal would be the meat that had just been sacrificed to the god. The members of the church in Thyatira were torn between making a living on the one hand, which meant having to be a part of the guilds and participate in their worship and on the other hand staying faithful to Christ and his standards.
Now there appears there was a leader in the church that Jesus labels “Jezebel” - not because their real name was ‘Jezebel’ but because this person was acting like the Old Testament character Jezebel. The Old Testament Jezebel was was a woman who was not a part of God’s people, but from the nation of Sidon and she was a pagan worshipper. King Ahab of Israel, who was a part of God’s people, married her for political reasons and brought her to live with him in the palace in Israel. Now in a perfect world, Ahab would have converted Jezebel to become a worshipper of the one true God - but instead he told her she could worship whomever she wanted which then caused her to convert Ahab to the worship of the pagan god Baal and then proceeded to convert the entire nation of Israel to Baal worship. Within a very short period of time because of the influence of Jezebel, God’s people had abandoned him for the fake god Baal. Jezebel was simply just an evil woman. We read the story of Naboth’s vineyard earlier in the service just to show what a self-serving, conniving woman she was. Jezebel represents someone who purposely deludes people into thinking they are right when they are clearly doing something wrong.
This is what this leader of the church at Thyatira was doing. This leader was encouraging the members of the church to continue in these trade guilds - even if it meant they participated in worship of the pagan gods and participated in the immoral acts associated with these gods. “It really doesn’t matter”, this Jezebel taught, “God is a God of grace and he will forgive whatever you do. It’s OK. Don’t worry. You can pretty well do whatever you want….” We have many examples of this in modern times inside the church universal especially here in the United States. Most are what are called tele-evangelists who promise that you can live how ever you like because God loves you and if you send in that offering God will multiply it for you. They promise a soft easy life. I could give you a list and I could preach lots of sermons about them but you know who most of them are. Just modern day Jezebels who sell you false promises. And we see in this letter Jesus says, “No!” This is not right and he tells the church that they are being led astray by this false teachers. He tells them they need to ‘repent’ quickly - to turn away from these trade guilds and their practices. In other words, Jesus was telling these members that they were going to have to take an economic risk to stand for what they believed in.
Fortunately we do have modern day examples of what Jesus is telling these church members to do -think about the businesses Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A who are willing to do without the the revenue they would generate on Sundays in order to honor the 4th Commandment - to keep the Sabbath Holy. And there are many other businesses who have made the same choice in order to follow the teachings of scripture.
So Jesus is fussing at Thyatira because they were not willing to take a stand, but are more than willing to allow this false teacher to lead them astray. It is certainly a deep challenge to us to consider if we have the confidence in what Jesus’ teaches to stand firm in our faith and not to compromise - even when it starts to cost us something.
And how do we get that confidence? By reading and studying and learning what scripture has to say. We have all the information we need if we will just use it. That was the same instructions given to the church in Pergamum - learn what scripture teaches then your decisions become easier to make.
Just like that passage from Matthew where Jesus tells us we can either build our house on rock or on sand. Rock meaning the word of God found in the Bible - sand being ‘what we think’ or ‘what we have heard someone else say’ or ‘what we have learned from popular TV preachers’ or wherever other than the Bible itself we have ‘heard’ that the Bible says this or that. Your conviction can stand firm on the rock, but the house on the sand will collapse quickly.
Jesus tells his church - know what I have really said so that you can stand firm in the face of false teachers.

Amen.

REVELATION: THE CHURCH OF PERGAMUM - “TEMPTATION”

There is a version of The Bible paraphrased by Presbyterian Minister Eugene Peterson. In this version, Rev. Peterson puts the Bible in more contemporary, common English designed to help us hear these ancient verses in more modern words. He does a particularly good job in his treatment of the book of Romans which is an important Biblical book for us to hear and learn, but can be very difficult to hear and learn because of the way the Apostle Paul writes. I have used Peterson’s version for years with youth who have a difficult time with vocabulary of the Bible. So today, I want you to hear these words from Romans 12 using Peterson’s “The Message” - So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
I especially like those words - “Do not conform to your culture” which is one of Jesus’ main theme’s throughout his ministry - it is also God’s theme throughout his work with his people. God’s desire for us - for his people - for his church - is that we are to be different than ‘the world’ around us. We are to be distinctive. We are to live differently and think differently and react differently than those people who are not part of Christ’s church. And Jesus says, - this is the best witness you can have to what it means to be part of the church. This is what God challenged the nation Israel to do in the Old Testament and what Jesus has challenges us to do today. Be a witness to ‘the world’ by the choices we make which should be different than the choices made by those who are not part of God’s church. This is the point of the passage from Romans. Live differently; live as God’s people; not only will you be a witness to God but you will also live a life of peace and joy.
That is the issue as we look at the church in Pergamum. As we work our way through the churches addressed in the book of Revelation we are hearing Jesus’ desires for his church. The church at Ephesus was reminded they needed to love each other as they worshipped and served God. The Church in Smyrna was commended for their willingness to stay true to Christ in the face of persecution and today we look at the church at Pergamum.
What we have heard consistently through the studies of these churches mentioned in Revelation is that they were all located in centers of pagan worship. There were temples to other gods and temples which worshipped the political leaders of this time and even temples where one could worship the city of Rome. Idol worship was so prevalent in Pergamum that John refers to Pergamum as the home of “Satan’s Throne”. Remember that while we don’t have temples today to stone idols, idol worship is rampant in the things that people make important in their lives.
As is his custom, Jesus always compliments these churches he is speaking to in something they are doing right and his compliment to the members of the Pergamum church is that they are remaining loyal to Jesus even though several of the members of their congregation have been martyred for their faith.
And then, as he always does, Jesus gets to the heart of the matter which is what Jesus feels the church needs to correct. Jesus always does the ‘You are doing this right but this is what you need to work on if you really want to be my church and be who I know you can be to truly be my witness in the world.” So Jesus points out the story of Balaam which is a story in Numbers. A couple of months ago I talked about Balaam but let’s review it again as Jesus used it though John to send a message to Pergamum and us. The way we Americans in particular at this time in history have regressed and have gone back to living is reflected in Balaam’s story as an example of someone who tried to have a foot in both worlds - one foot in God’s world but at the same time, the other foot in the human world of ‘I can do whatever I want’ attitude and God will love me anyway. I want my cake in my salvation in Jesus Christ and I want to eat it too as I live and do whatever I want to.’
God used Balaam as a prophet, he was a professional prophet, and so when people what a ‘word from the Lord’ they would go to Balaam This is what God had called him to do and gifted him to be able to do. So if you wanted to know something you would go to Balaam and say, “What does God tell me about…..” and Balaam would get a word from God to answer their question. Balaam also was called upon to bless God’s armies before they would go to battle or to curse the nation God’s people would be fighting against. But one day a leader from another nation, a leader who was not a follower of God, came to Balaam and wanted him to not only bless his army but to put a curse on God’s army whom they would be fighting against. Now, you and I reading this story think this is a no-brainer. Of course Balaam wouldn’t bless an opposing army and curse his own, but this foreign leader offered Balaam a lot of money to do this. God came to Balaam and told him not to do it, but you know that money looked awfully attractive……. and after struggling with it for a while Balaam decides to do it. He packs up his faithful donkey who has been with him for many, many years and heads off to the land of the opposing army to bless them and curse Israel’s army. As he is going down the road all of a sudden the donkey sees an angel wielding a large sword standing in the middle of the road and the donkey veers off the road into a field so the angel won’t kill Balaam. Balaam is furious and beats the poor donkey and makes it go back up on the road. They continue traveling down the road when the donkey sees the angel and his sword again. The donkey and Balaam are on this really tight path between a mountain wall and a stone wall on the other side and in order to get around the angel and not be killed by the sword the donkey has to squeeze up against the wall and in doing so he scrapes Balaam’s leg. Again, Balaam is furious and beats the poor donkey - who remember is just trying to save Balaam’s life because Balaam can’t see this angel. They continue down the road and again in a narrow passageway is the angel and his sword and there is no way around the angel, so the donkey just lays down. Balaam again begins to scream at the donkey and beat him when the donkey has had enough and turns his head to Balaam and says, “Hey! Stop that! Have I not been your loyal donkey for many, many years? Have I ever done anything like this before? Have I not always had your best interest at heart? So don’t you think that maybe there is something going on here?” And then Balaam looks up and sees the sword bearing angel and realizes that the donkey has just been trying to save his life and that God is putting these road blocks up to keep Balaam from doing the wrong thing.
Balaamism is actually a term used for those who compromise what the word of God teaches. Balaanism refers to trying to be part of the church of Jesus Christ and still try to live ‘out in the world’ just like everyone else. Balaam represents the idea that God loves us and showers us with his grace so it really doesn’t matter what we do or what we think. We can be just like everyone else and that’s OK.
Artists have depicted the description of Jesus as presented in the book of Revelation of having a sword coming out of his mouth. That sword, mentioned here in the criticism to the church at Pergamum, represents the word of God - the word that shows us and teaches us and tries to help us understand that God really does have expectations for us as his people. God really does expect us to live and act in a specific way and the only way to learn what that is - is to study God’s word. To be willing to study God’s word with a true desire to learn what it says, even when it means we need to change; even when it means we need to heed the angel in the road who tells us that we need to rethink our decisions and our practices and our way of life and our tendency to say “but I think’ instead of really listening to what God has to say to us……
Jesus ends this section of the letter to the church at Pergamum with the word “Repent!” which in the Greek is actually a word of urgency….. It actually means “Repent right now! Right away!”
All of these letters to these churches are a cry to us as individuals and as the church to stop for a minute, look at ourselves, and see how we might be compromising in our own life; how we might be trying to have it both ways; how we might be trying to be part of Christ’s church, but still live however we want to and do whatever we want to and be just like everyone else.
“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Amen!

Revelation: The Church of Smyrna - “Do Not Fear!”

We read earlier a portion of the first chapter of the book of Jeremiah. God can call you to do something in particular for him at any age. My wife was in her 40’s when God called her to quit her job and go to seminary. Jeremiah was an Old Testament prophet who was in his teens when God called him to deliver God’s message to the people. This is what God said to Jeremiah - “Jeremiah, I want you to be my prophet. However, I am going to give you a very hard message to tell my people. You are going to have to tell them that they need to clean up their act and start living as my people or else destruction will happen to them. I know that this is not a pleasant thing to have to do. I realize that it is not easy to deliver a harsh message to people and they are not going to take it well. You are going to be persecuted. You will be beaten and imprisoned and all manner of terrible things are going to happen to you. You will be alone most of your life and you will never have the opportunity to marry. But, Jeremiah, stand firm, Do not fear. I will be with you!” And what God said to Jeremiah was true. After Jeremiah agreed to do this for God Jeremiah suffered just as God said he would. Jeremiah was beaten and thrown in prison and persecuted in many different ways because he was willing to do what God asked him to regardless of the cost.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was martyred during WWII in Germany because he stood up against the state takeover of the church by Hitler wrote a book called “The Cost of Discipleship” that I truly believe should be mandatory for every Christian to read. In this book, Bonhoeffer states that if we as followers of Christ don’t experience some suffering in the name of Jesus, then we really aren’t following God as God has called us to follow. Bonhoeffer spent many years in prison in Germany for his stand for the church and was eventually hanged - all because he was willing to hold firm to his faith in Christ.
Pope Francis in a homily recently stated that there are as many Christians suffering for their faith today as there were in the days of the church during New Testament times. These are some of the incidents that have taken place in the last couple of years in other parts of the world:

1. Chinese Pastor Shaojie Zhang was sentenced to 12 years in prison for ‘fraud’ and ‘gathering a crowd to disturb public order’ because he refused to stop holding worship in his home.
2. Also in China, 160 Christian churches have received notice that their church - many of which are in private homes - will be demolished.
3. Burma has declared all citizens must convert to Buhhism. Currently in order to remain Christian the churches have to pay bribes to public officials to remain open. Even with the bribe the Christians are currently suffering physical and emotional persecution.
4. It is estimated that in West Africa Boko Horan has murdered over 2000 Christians.
5. In Iraq 11 churches have been burned to the ground and Iraqi leaders have declared their intention to totally eradicate Christianity from the country.
6. There have been similar incidents in Kenya, India, Columbia and The Sudan.