Sardis And Philadelphia

Tom Shrader briefly touches on the dead church at Sardis before focusing on Philadelphia, the church with no recorded weakness. He emphasizes Christ's identification as the holy and true one who holds the key of David, and celebrates how this faithful church received an open door of opportunity despite their little power. The teaching encourages perseverance through life's small, recurring challenges rather than just the big crises.

“Failure is never fatal. There's always another game, there's always another deal, there's always another day, there's always another opportunity.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: The 7 Churches (2010)

Recorded: 2010 at Cannon Beach Conference Center

Duration: 47 min

Themes: faithfulness, perseverance, opportunity, weakness, power, holiness, truth, endurance, feeling powerless, facing daily struggles, pastor, church leader, spiritually discouraged, new believer, experiencing spiritual dryness, seeking direction

Scripture: Revelation 3:1, Revelation 3:7-13, John 10, Matthew 7:13, 1 Corinthians 16, 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 2 Timothy 4:7

Theological Themes: revelation, christology, ecclesiology, church health, spiritual death, divine sovereignty, biblical authority, eschatology

Full Transcript

Guys, thank you very much. Milo, you couldn't see it, but when you said is there anybody who's never heard these songs before, Esther raised her hand. We found that a little alarming, but it worked out alright.

It's funny you start mentioning those towns. Muscatine, Iowa has the greatest cantaloupe in the absolute world. I'm from Davenport. Muscatine is about 20 miles south of us on the river. So you had Muscatine and Burlington and all those little river towns and up into Dubuque, and it's a great area. You and I must have driven a lot of the same streets because I'd be driving down the street and people raise a finger at me too. I don't know what that must have been - maybe it was one finger that seen a lot of the same people. I don't know, maybe it was, and I didn't know they were saying hello. Now all these years I've been angry and bitter, and I shouldn't have been at all. I mean, they were just saying hello to me, so that made me feel really good now.

I don't need to do my lesson tomorrow because Janet just did that with Laodicea. So we'll do this and take the rest of the day off. We're in a little bit of a jam when we told you at the beginning that we have seven churches and only six sessions. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to make a passing reference to the church at Sardis, and then we're going to look tonight at the church at Philadelphia. Then tomorrow we'll close by an examination of probably the most familiar - I guess Ephesus would be the most familiar church, but probably the message to Laodicea would be the most familiar of the messages. The idea of you're lukewarm - you're not hot, you're not cold, you're lukewarm. And then, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." So we'll look at those tomorrow.

The Progression of Spiritual Decline

We said that there's a progression in this. We get to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum. We get to Pergamum and Thyatira. We see that there is this compromise that's taking place. Pergamum is the compromised church. Thyatira we saw today is the corrupt church.

Look with me, and again we'll just do it briefly. Chapter 3, verse 1: "To the angel of the church at Sardis write: He who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars says this: I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but here's this - you are dead."

So there's a progression there, and we can even see it in our own lives. It doesn't necessarily mean that one will necessarily lead to another to another, but often there is that process from a compromise. We talked about it last night. I probably have more interesting conversations with people about the compromise part and how that starts. And then the compromise oftentimes moves to corruption, and the result of that is that you're dead.

So that's that church, and His charge to it is real simple: Wake up. Strengthen the things that remain. Get yourself on life support system. "I found no deeds that are complete in the sight of my God. Remember what you've received."

The Power of Memory

By the way, that idea of remembering is a reoccurring theme. Sometimes you look back - it's really interesting, the power of the memory can be the power of an aroma or of a smell or the power of a word. When Milo said "Muscatine, Iowa," I had an immediate response to that. I have so many memories of Muscatine.

The hardest I've ever been hit was in a football game in Muscatine, Iowa. I was hit so hard - I honestly, I mean, it's one of those where my helmet was around here and I was looking out the ear hole. It's the hardest - our first team quarterback got hurt. They put me in the game, and I came up, and these are big boys. These are big boys down in Muscatine. When you get to Muscatine, you move to Ottumwa, these are big boys.

I came up to the line, and there were two linebackers there, and the one said to the other, "We've got a new quarterback," and the other said - and I've got to take some words out, but the essence was - "We're gonna kill him." And so I said, "Well, time out. We need to talk this over because we had a bootleg play called." I said, "This doesn't seem like the right time to be running that play. That doesn't sound right." And I got hit so hard in that game. But I remember Muscatine. I played a Little League All-Star game in Muscatine, played a Pony League game in Muscatine. It's funny the memories that have that.

The power of remember is really important. And I think God uses that to orient us and a lot of time to have us recalibrate. As I said, one of the sessions they already run together for me - I assume they do for you - is the idea of the Lord's Supper: "Remember, do this in remembrance of me." Constantly to the nation of Israel, He was saying, "Remember."

Personal Reflections on Place and Memory

Susan and I were here six years ago on a Labor Day weekend, and it was the day after, so that's Monday. Tomorrow's kind of like a zoo - tomorrow's gonna be a cool day. I didn't know this till three weeks ago, but my brother, who lives in Davenport, is coming through here tomorrow. He didn't know I was gonna be here. I didn't know he was gonna be here. What are the chances of that? We're gonna have lunch at the lumber yard tomorrow, and then we're gonna stay a couple of extra days.

Well, six years ago, on the Tuesday after Labor Day, Susan and I were here, and everybody's gone. I mean, the beach is full tomorrow, and then there is no one there on Tuesday. And we walked down to Haystack Rock, and we're walking back. I don't know if it's about you, but Susan and I talk about it all the time. Every place we go, we go, "Could we live here? What about this? And what about that?"

A couple of years ago, I was saying, "Susan, I don't need anything fancy. I'd just love to have almost like just a little beach house, just even a little shack, even if it was one room down on the beach." And we were driving, and Susan - remember, we were driving, and we pulled around...

And there it was. There was this one-room shack on the beach with a sign that said for sale. So I went up and got the paper. It was 700 square feet. It wasn't one room, it was two. There was a bedroom and then a big room and a kitchen, and it looked like it needed repair, but it was available for only $700,000. So I said, well, maybe we couldn't live on the beach, but we could live here.

We were walking back, and we were doing the inventory of our life, and I was saying, "You know, Suze, we've been, for 32 years, we've been really diligent with our economics. We got crushed a little bit on 9-11, like a lot of you, and we've raised our kids." I said, "Sweetie, we are at a wonderful time, and barring a natural disaster, which is going to wipe us out no matter what, we're in a great spot. The only thing that could really screw us up is if one of us were to get sick."

Then it was that November that she was diagnosed with a real aggressive form of cancer, and our prayer was just let us see Brayden, just let her see Brayden be born. Now we've seen Brayden, and Gracie, and Yale, and Reagan, and Brooklyn. I haven't driven to Cannon Beach since that I haven't thought about it. It was right out there in front of that, right where the old natatorium used to be, right out in front of the grounds there. It started a whole different chapter in our life.

She's handled it like a champ. She's amazing. I don't know how she perseveres. I say this, and these are always awkward times because there's no way to teach and to have you learn and benefit from it than to talk about it, and yet I'm not trying to hold us up as something special at all. She's probably done way better than I have with it. But I remember, and it's funny, that remembering makes it easier as we encounter the reality of this day after day.

The Power of Remembering

So He says this idea of remember to them in Sardis. Remember this stuff. Look back. You heard it, you saw it, you screwed it up, but you know what? This is huge to me. Failure is never fatal. There's always another game, there's always another deal, there's always another day, there's always another opportunity. So you blew it. Confess it. Let's go on. Let's see what God's going to do with that.

The Church at Philadelphia

Well then He gets to the church at Philadelphia. Let's read this, and it's a little bit complicated, but let's pull out the big picture, just kind of like we've done. We by now learned this. We have learned that the way that Christ kind of pictures Himself typically correlates with the lesson that He's trying to teach, or the weakness, or the challenge, or certainly the imagery that He wants to give the church.

"And to the angel or messenger in the church of Philadelphia, write this: He who is holy"—okay I start to see the progression now—"He was holy and He was true, and who has the key of David, opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one will open, says this: I know your deeds and 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 things in the synagogue of Satan"—we've seen that term now, synagogue of Satan, two or three times. And it's the idea of these people again who are racially Jews, but in fact they are going to oppose aggressively the church here—"and are not but lie. I will make them come and bow down at your feet and make them know that I have loved you because you have kept my word and my perseverance. I will also keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come to the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth. And I'm 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. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down out of the heavens from my God and my new name and he who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

Now when we started the first night, I gave you the general pattern of these letters: recipient, strength, weakness, action, promise, and I said there's always an exception. That's not true. There's often an exception, and there's an exception here. We're going to love it when we get here.

The City of Philadelphia

Let's look at the city. It's the city of Philadelphia. It's the youngest of these seven cities. It was founded in 150 BC by the king of Pergamos who was a lover of his brother, great fondness for his brother, thus the name Philadelphia. It was an area that was filled with earthquakes and the soil very rich, so they grew grapes there. It was renamed unsuccessfully two different times. People came in and tried to change the name, but Philadelphia is what lasted.

It was strategic for some purposes, but especially the idea was this: it would be a missionary of the Greek culture, that as people came through Philadelphia, they would be exposed to the arts and the philosophy and all that went with it. The city was destroyed by a great earthquake in 17 AD.

Life's Great and Small Earthquakes

I want to read to you what they talk about the earthquake, and I'm going to pull something out of it, and I hope it's right, it's right in my mind, and see if it lines up with your experience, because I think it's like a great picture of how life is.

It often happens when the great earthquakes come, people meet it with courage and self-possession, but every reoccurring minor shock drives them into sure panic. That's what happened in Philadelphia. There were shocks every day as reoccurrence. Gaping cracks appeared in the walls of the houses, and now one part of the city was in ruins, and then another, and most of the population lived outside the city in huts and feared to even go to the streets that they could be killed by falling masonry. Those who still dared to live in the city were reckoned to be mad. They spent their time shoring up. Remember

What Jeff was talking about this morning - this building was built, when it was originally built, these beams weren't in here. They were added later to shore up this room, and they think it to be generally safe now. I just added that. I love it. I think he nails it.

Along comes, forget earthquakes in Philadelphia, in our own life, along come these big events, and somehow we just muster up the courage for them. The earthquake comes, and we get blankets, and we get water and food. The difficulty comes into our life, like the big things. You know, the big things aren't to me the things that I stumble on. It's the recurring little things.

And now you have an enemy, Satan, and the demons, and the world's system in your flesh, and he comes at you, and he comes at you, and he comes again, and again, and again, and again. That's James 1. And he'll tempt you, and he'll entice you, and if that doesn't work, he'll come again, and again.

The Reality of Ongoing Struggles

Again, I'm being autobiographical. It's as honest as I can be. In this whole process, and the stuff with Susan, Susan's been through, I don't know, four surgeries, and she's been on chemo, or in therapy, or radiation for six years. She'll be on it, I mean, as we're sitting now, probably the rest of her life.

And in dealing with that, I have to tell you, the initial part, and really for three or four years for me, I thought I did pretty well. And then I had a little, probably a year and a half ago, maybe two and a half years ago, I had a section of about six, or eight, or ten months, where it was like the kids this morning, I was saying, well, kind of what about me? It's as honest as I can be. And I pulled it together about a year and a half ago, and I pray every day.

There's two things that I prayed every day for the last three months. One is, God, let me be what Susan needs. I don't know what that is. I'm not prone toward that. You would not want me for a caregiver. I interviewed the governor last year, and I was touting her on a new piece of legislation, medical marijuana for primary caregivers. Not for the patients, but for the caregivers. So, she said she didn't think she could get that bill through the legislature, and I said, try, we can do this.

But I pray for that, and then I pray, we have a granddaughter who's been diagnosed as autistic, and I prayed for the last three months, God, I want a special relationship with her. And it's really hard, because I've never been around that, and there's this, she's nonverbal, and she's going to be four in December, and there's been like a little crack in the last week or two.

The Danger of the Aftershocks

But it's amazing, the big things, and then the little things, and then you stop, and if you don't grab it right there, you just sink further, and further, and further. It's like me on a diet, you know, I'm always going to fight weight. I don't know that I have a weight problem as much as a height problem. I think I'm the right weight, I'm just a foot short.

But here's what happens to me on a diet, I don't know if this happens to you, and I have no idea what this has to do with the city of Philadelphia, but what happens to me is, I'll do real well, and then I'll blow it, I'll have a couple of cheeseburgers and some fries, but rather than stop and regroup, I'll go, gosh, I've screwed it up, and then all of a sudden I'm gone for a month. And that's this idea, remember, that's that idea, those earthquakes. It's not the big disaster, it's not the news, it's not the initial news, it's the aftershocks, so often of things in our life, isn't it?

How Jesus Identifies Himself to Philadelphia

It's a great city, Philadelphia. Here's how Jesus identifies Himself, it's the second part of verse 7, He said, He is the one who's holy, now Jesus speaking of Himself, and true, He has the keys of David, and He opens and no one shuts and shuts and no one's open.

He is holy, that is an awkward word to define. It's a very difficult word for us to get our arms around, because it means literally, other than. He's separate from us, whatever we are, He isn't. He's separated from sin, He's pure, there's no moral containment or defilement in Him. He's without flaw or blemish. What's scary is that Peter tells us that He who is called holy, calls you to be holy too. And there comes all this, again that idea of separate, and how do I keep myself pure, and yet come in contact with the world?

And He's true. There's two ideas here, we can take them and melt them together and get this idea of true. One means a true statement versus the false statement, one who speaks the truth. The other is the real genuine versus a fake or a knockoff.

There was a guy, it was mentioned on Antique Roadshow, there's a guy that came in there, it was great, they were in Springfield, Illinois, and this guy came in and he had this document, signed by A. Lincoln. And so he's in, and of course, and I love these guys, what do you think that's worth? Oh, I don't know. Well in their mind, they got a number, and you can tell. I didn't like this guy when he came on the screen, to be honest with you. He had a little attitude, probably like looking in a mirror for me, but he said, the guy said, what do you think it's worth? Oh, I don't know. Abraham Lincoln.

And Abraham Lincoln's there in Davenport, Iowa. Davenport, Iowa, the first bridge that ever crossed the Mississippi's in Davenport, Iowa. And there was a lawsuit between the river guys and the farm guys, and Abraham Lincoln represented the railroad. Well, they're all done, and this guy, the expert goes, well, what do you think it's worth? He said, oh, I really don't know. And he said, well, let me tell you, this is like Atlas Lincoln. This isn't Abraham Lincoln. It's worth like a buck ninety. It was perfect. I loved it. I mean, those are the best part of that show.

Well, it looked real, but it wasn't. It's genuine versus fake. So here's what He's saying. He is the, you see it again in verse 7, He is the true one. That is, He is the true

The Authority of Christ

He is the real thing. He is the key of David. It speaks to Him being the Messiah. It speaks of His control and His authority. It speaks to what He declares and what He does cannot be undone. And it speaks that He is the one who opens and nobody can shut, and He's the one who shuts and no one can open. It's His sovereign power.

These are similar themes we've encountered before. When you do these lessons once a week, it's very different than doing them twice a day, because there's some similarities. Then when you do them once a week, you kind of go from week to week and summarize. You forget a little bit of what you heard. These start to run together a bit. We've heard this before. He talks about His authority. He governs human events. History is His story. If He wants it done, it will be done.

Here's what He says: You take this message to the messenger at Philadelphia, that I'm the true one, the holy one, the one that's set apart. I make statements and they're irreversible. I shut, you can't open. I open, you can't shut. I have authority.

A Church Without Weakness

At this point, we've seen in our typical pattern, there would be a mention of a weakness. In the city of Philadelphia, there's no mention of weakness. My assumption is it's not that they're perfect, but you get the sense that there's been some sort of struggle here. I've seen your struggle. I understand your struggle. He mentions no weakness.

He does go, in verse 8, right to their strength. "I know your deeds. I have set before you an open door and no one can shut it. For you have a little strength and you've kept my word. You haven't denied my name."

The Open Door

There's all sorts of possibilities here, but just let your mind go. I've set before you this open door, open to salvation to you, but open to service, open to ministries. Jesus says in John 10, "I am the door, I am the way."

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus pleads with us this way: "Enter by the narrow gate," Matthew 7:13. "For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there's many who go by it. But narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life, and there are few that find it."

Two Ways of Life

We can get a whole lot out of this. Jesus says, listen, in this life there's two ways. There is a broad way as contrasted with a narrow way, and that broad way is an easy way as contrasted with a difficult way. And this broad easy way is heavily traveled, and this narrow hard way has few on it.

It's not for us to be proud and elitist, but the reality is there just aren't many Christians in the world. If you come and you just take normal data, about 94% of the people in this country believe in God. Numbers vary, 50 to 60 percent identify themselves as born-again Christians. But when Barna applies basic principles like, do you believe in the infallibility of Scripture, do you believe in the virgin birth, and he has like six or seven fundamental things—they're not really things we'd argue about—when he says, do you believe in these, the population of the United States that would be what we would call born-again evangelical Christians, it would say yes to that, is seven percent of the population.

And there's this easy way. Here's what I used to think in my mind. I don't know how you are, but I like word pictures. So I would close my eyes and get my mind, here's these two gates, and this one is marked heaven, and this one's marked hell. But the reality is what? Both gates are marked heaven. There aren't a whole bunch of people walking around that you go, "You're going to hell," and they go, "Yeah, I know, no big deal." They go, "No, no, no, I'm fine, I'm okay."

Open Doors for Ministry

He says, "I've opened this door." It's an open door to Christ Himself. It's an open door to missions and opportunities. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 16, he said, "For a great and effective door is open to me."

There's a door open to this church at Philadelphia, an opportunity for evangelism. That's what He says. He said, "I'm going to take these people, those around, and they're going to come and they are going to bow down at your feet." It's not that they're going to worship you, but there's going to be some who are hostile to you, who hate you, who can't stand you. And I'm going to change their hearts.

A Story of Transformation

I used to work for this guy. He was my manager and he hated Jesus. He wasn't neutral. And again, as Janet set up for tomorrow, I don't like neutral. I like hostile, or I like, "No, I don't care." Well, this guy was hostile. This guy hated Christ. He was a rugby player, he was a drummer, he was a runner, he was just a tough guy. He hated Jesus.

So one morning, I'm in my cubicle and I hear him say, "Schrader, get in here." I go in, I said, "Yeah." He goes, "Where was Jesus during the Holocaust? That was on TV last night. Where was Jesus during the Holocaust? Why did Jesus allow these 7, 8, 10 million Jews to come? Why did Jesus allow this to happen? Where was your God then?"

I don't have any answer. I don't know. I said, "I don't know. Maybe so we'd have this conversation. I don't know." And he would mock Christ. And he would mock us.

One day, he said to me, "Schrader, get in here." I come in and I figure, you know, it's something I can't explain, the existence of evil in the universe or something. And he said, "You know what happened last night?" I said, "No." And he said, "I got saved." I said, "Really? What happened?" And he just started to tell the story.

Don't Be Afraid of Hostile People

I've discovered in my life, and that was probably some of the most unlikely aggressive people. Oftentimes, they're just reaching out, waiting for you to share. Don't be afraid of those people. They're not going to hit you. They're going to want to argue. But so often, it's like that person that exerts themselves so forcefully, so often, they're just covering up for the little boy that's inside.

I know they go home and have nightmares. They think they're tough guys, but I know when they get home, they go, "I can't believe that. I'm scared." There's all this hostility.

He gives, I love this, the open door. Paul says it in 2 Corinthians as well: "Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach the gospel, the door was opened to me by the Lord." Well, here's what He's saying to the church at Philadelphia, maybe to you, maybe to me. I'll give you these little opportunities as well. Oh, you of little power.

God's Grace Through Our Weakness

And He's not saying that at all in a pejorative way. He's not saying you're puny. He's just saying, that's all the power you've got. That's the size. It's not a size status issue. He's saying, "Listen, you're just not a whole lot." That's what makes grace so amazing.

It's amazing that God has given us—remember what we looked at yesterday?—this treasure, the gospel, in earthen vessels, and He's given it to you. He's entrusted it to you. God has on rare occasions spoken through bushes and donkeys and angels and all sorts of supernatural things. But by and large, God has decided to communicate this message of salvation through you and through me.

Let me say it again. If all He wanted to do was get you to heaven, He would have taken you there the minute you believed. But He left you here for a reason, for a purpose. I hate to use that word because every time I use it, I feel like I owe Rick Warren ten bucks. It's like he coined the term. But He left you here for a purpose. He left you here for a reason.

Your Purpose in God's Plan

I'm okay if you think it's to make money or win games or do whatever. But it's something deeper than that. All of those are nothing more than a method or a procedure, pattern, path for you to be used for what God's called you to do. He's brought these things into your life. I don't know what they are. Some of you are gifted in a certain way.

In my mind, this is just me, and not to put pressure on Mila, but Mila has a huge responsibility to steward the gift that God's given him. I told Susan when we were up there today, I said, "I don't know if it's me, or if I'm melancholic, or I'm about to go to work, or I don't know what it is. But it's like every time they're singing the band, and every time he's singing the special music that he's written, it's like it just slices right through to me." Well, he has to steward that.

Now, most of you can say in your mind, "Amen" to that, right? But God's given you something that corresponds to that. It may not be as visible. I don't know. He's put you in a little area. Maybe what God's entrusted to you are twelve first graders. Maybe you're a stay-at-home mom. I think that's the most difficult job. The only thing more difficult than a stay-at-home mom is a single mom who has those small kids.

The Challenge of Faithful Service

You're a stay-at-home mom. What a tough job. My girls, and I'll be happy to show you, they emailed me a picture from yesterday with the kids all in their Iowa stuff for the game, and there was a safety yesterday, and my two-year-old granddaughter standing there showing us that it's a safety. But Sarah has daughters. Again, the oldest one who has the autism she deals with, and then a two-year-old, and then a six-month-old. And then Haley has a four-year-old and a two-year-old boy. And there are some days when just life is just brutal.

Because our girls were like nineteen months apart, and Susan would spend all day with them. She was just the super mom. Again, I'm holding Susan up on some sort of platform like she's a super person and saint, and the reality is she is. I mean, everybody says she's not, but she is. There just aren't many like her. Is she perfect? No. But she's pretty amazing. And she just dumped her life into these kids.

But there were days, and we go through it all. I'd come home, and when I'd come home, the girls would be sitting out waiting for me to come home. And then when I'd come home, it was, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." And she would look at it, and sometimes she would have had it, and she goes, "That just drives me nuts. I spend all day saying no, no, no, no, and you come home and it's Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." And she'd say, "I'm sick of it. I've been saying no all day and talking to a kid. I need an adult to talk to. Talk to me. Talk to me." And I would say, "What's for dinner?" She didn't say, "I don't know." I'm not looking to split the atom here. I want to eat. I've been working all day.

What God Requires

He's given you this. He's opened this door. Look what He talks about. Oh, you of little power. And then He talks about your obedience, and your faithfulness, and your steadfastness. That's what He's looking for. What does God want from you? This is not hard. Obedience.

The promise is kind of in verses 9, 10, 11. It gets all muddled, and we can kind of pick it out. He said, "Indeed, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews, they're not, but lie. Indeed, I will make them come and worship before your feet." Not worship you, but I will do great things. Is this a universal promise? No.

The Promise to the Faithful

"Because you have kept My command to persevere." This is big now in verse 10. "Because you have kept My commandment to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which is about to come on the whole world and to those who dwell in it." Now, we don't know what the specifics of those are, but He seems to be saying it's like this. You're in a class, and you've aced everything along the way. You don't have to take the final. There's a test coming, and we don't know what this is. But it's coming, and you're going to be exempt from it.

Verse 11: "Behold, I am coming quickly. Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, and the new Jerusalem which comes down from heaven, and I will write it on"

The Promise of Christ's Return

First of all, He makes the comment here that also He makes at the end of the book of Revelation, "Behold, I am coming quickly." The idea there is not to scare you. The idea there is to provide you some assurance.

Let me read you from 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 13. It's a familiar passage. Paul's writing to the church at Thessalonica, and they have a screwed up view of the resurrection. They're kind of trying to figure this out: we're going to rise again, not rise again, what's going on? So Paul writes this: "We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as the rest who have no hope." He said, "We are going to talk to you about those who have died, because we don't want you to be like the rest of the world."

I'm not particularly big on doing weddings. I do some. I'm going to do one in November. I don't do many weddings, but I do a lot of funerals. I love to do funerals because that's such an important time.

The Difference Hope Makes

There's a distinct difference when you are doing a funeral for someone who knows Christ, and their family knows Christ. There is a sadness, but there is a joy. There is a sadness that you're going to miss this person, but the reality is they're in a better place than you.

We say that all the time. Somebody dies, and it's like a reflex to say, "He's in a better place." Well, wait a minute, this guy doesn't know Christ. We use that term all the time. But when we're dealing with Christians, they are. When you think about somebody who's died, though you may want them to come back, I really doubt that they want to. The saddest thing is for me to do a funeral for somebody where clearly they don't know Christ. That's what He's talking about: those who grieve are those who have no hope.

"For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and if that's true, God will bring Him with those who have fallen asleep. For we say this to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, and then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, so we shall always be with the Lord."

You know the next verse? Because so often when we read it, we stop reading right there. Here's the next verse: "Therefore comfort one another with those words." What is it in this life that ultimately produces in us comfort? It's the reality that Christ will come again.

The Reality That Changes Everything

That's what He's speaking about at the end of this. As He gets to the end of His letter to the church in Philadelphia: "I'm going to come quickly, hold fast, no one will take your crown. He who overcomes, I'll make a pillar." Here's the reality: Jesus is coming again. Here's this quest to get that eternal perspective. To be able to see things as God sees them and to see them in that equation.

To understand those things that we've talked about: no matter how bad it gets, it can only last a lifetime. What I know trumps what I feel. He's coming again. That's the reality.

We talked about it this morning and I was thinking about it this afternoon. When Mila sang "Light of the World," I really love that song. The lame walk, the blind see, the dead rise again, but that's only temporarily. Then they die again. They die this time to rise forever. That's what He's talking about. You'll be a pillar. You'll be a new creation. You'll be with Him forever. Heaven is your home, not this earth.

Do you understand the reality of that? It changes everything. It doesn't mean that we don't cry and we don't grieve and it doesn't mean that we don't have pain. It just means that we have perspective, Paul's words. We don't grieve as those who have no hope.

Paul's Assessment of His Own Life

Let me read it to you again. Paul's getting ready to say goodbye and he said, "I'm already being poured out as a drink offering. The time for my departure has come. I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I kept the faith." Let me hang on this a minute and then we'll kind of wind up.

I'll talk to people all the time and here's what they'll say: "I want to get to that point where I hear, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.'" Here's what's amazing about 2 Timothy 4, verse 7: this is not Jesus' assessment of Paul's life. It's not Timothy's assessment of Paul's life. It's Paul's assessment of his life.

Do you ever think of it that way? Can you imagine getting to the end of your life and being able to say, "I fought the good fight"? If you were to go to sleep tonight and not wake up, could you say I fought the good fight? Could you say I finished the course? Could you say I kept the faith?

Living with Eternal Purpose

I don't believe Paul just woke up at the end of his life and said, "Wow, I'll be dipped. I fought the good fight. I didn't think that was going to happen. I finished the race. That's amazing, isn't it? I kept the faith. Wow." I think this was ever present in his mind and in his life. Is it in yours? Because this doesn't just happen.

Paul says, "I toil, I labor, I work." Literally to the point of exhaustion. Do you? What do you want Him to say at your funeral? What do you want Him to be able to say and not have to lie? What do you want Him to say? Here's my question: are they able to say that right now? If not now, why do you think it's going to change in the next 5, 10, 15, 20, whatever years you have left?

Paul says, "I fought the good fight. There's a crown laid up for me." Jesus says to the church at Philadelphia, and some of you need to hear it, "My assumption tonight: you know what? Everything's okay. You've hung in there. He'll protect you." You might even be wondering, "Is He? Is it real?"

The True and Holy One

That's what He says. I'm the true one. I'm the real one. I'm the holy one. This is true.

In my life, here's how this went. I look back on it. Ever since I was a little boy, I thought about spiritual things. When I was 12, the Pope wrote an encyclical on the earth and the body of Christ. I remember spending the summer studying that. I am not an academic. I shared that with you this morning. There were little moments all along where I thought about these things.

Susan and I lived for a short period of time in Colorado. I remember going to the bookstore there and buying some books by Edgar Cayce and some of these guys who were talking to the dead and all this kind of stuff. Here's what I came to understand. I was going to die. I was going to die. If there was a heaven to be gained, then I wanted to know how to get there.

For me, the faith was not necessarily so much in Jesus to begin with as faith that this Bible was the word of God and could be trusted. This is a powerful book. Unlike any that you find.

The Uniqueness of Scripture

Amazon in June sold more electronic books than hard and soft-covered books. They say they have 630,000 titles. Well, let me tell you, there's only one of them in there that is without error. It's not that the Bible is free from error. This is very important. Not free from error, it's infallible, which means it cannot even err. This is the truth.

That's what He says. The truth is before you. I mean this in the best sense of the word. Life is an open book test. Here it is, study it, learn it, grow in it. What does He say? He says to you and me, this is true. I am the holy one. I'm the true one. It's real, it's genuine.

The Promise for Overcomers

You know what? If you overcome the promises, you'll be with Him forever. You know that reality? I love that. At that point, what is there to fear? I don't fear death. The process of dying I look at, and I have certain things that maybe scare me more than others.

I talk about this all the time. I honestly believe this. If a guy popped in that door right now and said, "Listen, you deny Christ or we'll kill you," I think I would say, "You know, I think I'd say, hey, you're going to kill me. Okay." But if I could pick it, I think I would say, if he said, "I'm going to blow your brains out," I think I'd say, "Blow my brains out." I'm not afraid. I'm totally convinced, not based on me, but based on the word of God, that when I'm absent from this body, I will be present with my Lord.

The Meaning This Brings to Life

Well, then all of a sudden, forget the sweet by and by. I love that. I love all that. But all of a sudden, that makes here rich and have meaning. That makes changing that diaper have meaning. That makes changing that truth and telling that truth and speaking the word have meaning. Do you know that reality?

That's the church at Philadelphia. No weakness, not perfect. But He said, "You know what? I know your deeds, man, and I know you persevered. I'm going to tell you what. I'm going to save you from a lot of this final testing, and you're my kid."

Looking Ahead to Laodicea

Now, there's one church left. It's the church that may be the one that is the most difficult to really penetrate. You know it. It's that church at Laodicea. Janet mentioned it, too. There's this rich imagery when we study Laodicea tomorrow. You'll be moved by that.

Here's what we're going to do. We're going to pray, and then you get your kids. It's 8:15, and then at 8:30, you come back in here for an extended time of worship. Be a rich time. I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait to see what you have.

Let's pray. Father, thank you that we look at each of these churches. I might look at that one and go, "No, that's not me." But God, You speak to us. You remind us that how we live really matters. Father, You're the true and the holy one. You're the one who saved us and redeemed us and brought us to this point in our life. God, thank You for that. I pray now that we would have a time tonight that would be a rich and fun time. We can have the kids in here, and it would be a time of worship and joy. That You would use this time in our life, God. We pray it to You in Christ's name. Amen.