Revelation 3: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”

 Recap: we are beginning to study the characteristics of a “healthy Church”, and after Harvest we will look at those eight signs of health: Empowering leadership, Gift- based ministry, Passionate spirituality, Effective structures, Inspiring worship, Holistic small groups, Need- oriented  mission, and Loving relationship.  We have learned that Jesus., the risen and victorious Lord, cares for his Church: the Church is nothing without him and he expresses his life through his Church.  We've l;earned about the importance of holiness, perseverance and love.   In chapter two the same themes keep coming up, but each of the three churches in chapter three is quite distinctive: the good , the  bad and the ugly.  I'll let you figure out which one was which.

Sardis was a city whose glory lay in the past: it had been the capital of Lydia and a centre of Persian government. Now it was a quiet backwater, but a nice backwater. It's people live in the relative luxury.  And the Church in Sardis seemed, outwardly, to be quite lively and active. It was known for its good works. Everyone said what a great lively church there was at Sardis. It was busy with the externals of religious activity.   But inside, the reality was, it was dead. There was no real spiritual life or power.  I was "not infused with the life-giving Holy Spirit" (G E Ladd)  Maybe the Church's glory, too, lay in the past.     So what does the church which is all image and no substance, which looks alive but is dead, need to do?

Firstly, wake up.  Douglas quoted Bob Dylan last week – “You gotta serve somebody.”  This week's Bob Dylan quote (from the same album) is “When you gonna wake up?” "Awake" means "be watching".   Sardis had never been taken in a frontal attack, but twice had been taken by stealth because its defenders were not vigilant.  Church, as we enter our “healthy Church” journey, we want to be paying attention, not to our own judgements or even the opinions of others.  We need to be hearing from Jesus.  “Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.”  

Remember and Repent, do the things yo did at first.   Jesus calls the church back to its earlies experience of love and devotion.  Churches, mission agencies, charities and even businesses and government agencies can go through  a recognised “Bell curve” – beginning with a God-given vision, a truth discovered, a great idea, slowly building momentum and strength, learning how to do things – developing and growing, until the growth slows, the movement plateaus out and eventually begins to decline, slowly first, then rapidly.  The way to halt decline is to rediscover the vision, the deposit of truth, the guiding principles (not the way of doing things – that will always be changing) that were present at the start of the movement.   We need to return to the original vision.

"I will come like a thief" the Lord will bring upon a lethargic church an unexpected experience which will mean a divine judgement.  He knows our names. He knows the names, the identities of those who have not become dirtied and dead.  So as individuals, we are the Church.  We can either be part of life or of death for our Church.  We can settle down to enjoy life in our nice backwater – but that's death. We can complacently tell ourselves that our Church is doing OK – but that's death.  We can do what needs to be done to make our church look okay – but that's death.   Or we can strengthen the life of the Spirit within us – through repentance, prayer and the word, and faith

Philadelphia was the youngest of the seven cities.  Problems included Jewish persecution and the pagan cult of Dionysius. The church was small and weak, with limited influence, But the Lord was pleased with its  good works.

Jesus is “Holy and true.  "True" in Greek designates reality , but in Hebrew designates trustworthiness. Jesus is the trustworthy steward who has the  key of David.  In Isaiah 22. 15-22. the guy in charge of “David's house” – that is, the royal palace – was a steward called Shebna,  but he was using the royal resources for himself (getting his own tomb cut in the royal garden!)  so the Lord says that another official called Eliakim will take over that responsibility and have the keys of David. And that is one of those double-meaning prophecies that looks forward to the messianic kingdom, and to Jesus.

And Jesus who has these keys says to the Church in Philadelphia, “I have set before you an open door that no man can shut.”  What does that mean?

The Jews (as in Smyrna Jews in race and name only, not in heart) claimed that only the Jews could enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  But Jesus is telling the Church that HE has these keys – the Messianic Kingdom comes though what Jesus. does. He uses them to open the door to the Kingdom, for believers.  

Jesus has the keys to the Kingdom – not just the keys to heaven but the keys to the “Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven”.  These keys are not just about who gets to seven.  They are about who experiences the power and authority of the reign of God in and through their own lives.  We have an open door into the kingdom, the rule of God. And as we go through that open door into the kingdom we go through open doors of opportunity.  People often jump to the conclusion that the “open door” is about opportunity for the Gospel (as in 1 Cor 16. 9, Col 4. 3)  But that door opens to us the door to the Kingdom opens to us.  When we begin to enter in and explore the authority and power of the Kingdom, we begin to discover our opportunities!  The Lord promised that the Jews (as in Smyrna Jews in race and name only, not in heart) will bow down in respect to the Church.   We have an open door to the Kingdom and thus an open door of opportunity among the hardest opposition to the Gospel.

Jesus has the keys of the Kingdom, and he gives them to his people.  I think, that sometimes, we are like people who have lost their keys!

Laodicea was a commercial center, famous for black woollen cloth, medical school, and eye salve.  It is likely that church members were full participants in this affluent society, and that their affluence had exercised a deadly influence on the spiritual life of the church.  As a result, there is nothing the Lord can commend in this church.  As  a community, and as individuals, they are “neither hot nor cold”: they were characterized neither by coldness to the Gospel or hostility to faith , nor by zeal or fervour. they were simply indifferent nominal complacent.

But despite that, they thought they were doing just fine.  "I am rich, I have prospered" literally "I am rich, I have gotten riches" so the church was not only boasting of her supposed spiritual well-being, but boasting that she had acquired wealth by her own efforts. 

How do we sort that out?   What does “repentance” look like of the Church in that state.  Jesus comes to his Church and says “Guys, I have a word of advice for you – you need  to start trading with me, with Jesus instead of trading with the world.”  (Verse  18).  The verse is almost a quote from Isaiah 55 v 1 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.  Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy?  Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.” We are wearing ourselves out, trying to be keep ourselves going, to pay our way and reach our community in our own strength.  We need t trade with Jesus – and he will give us what we need without money and without price: not for free but as we give our lives to him. 

Jesus says “I stand at the door and knock – who's going to let me in?”  The scary thing is that he isn't saying that to pagans, he's saying it to the Church. Like a heavenly door-to-door salesman, Jesus. is knocking our door.  HE has clothes for our nakedness, ointment for our blinded eyes, free of charge.  All he wants is his place at the table, as we share a meal as a symbol of affection,of confidence,and of intimacy.  Who will let him in?

© Gilmour Lilly September  2015

Revelation 2 -- Jesus has something to say to his Church!

 For each of the churches, one of the characteristics of the Living Lord Jesus is particularly applied... In Ephesus He is the one who walks among the candlestands and holds the seven stars (1. 12f, 16)  In  Smyrna he is “The First and the Last, who died and came to life again” (1. 17f). In Pergamum he “has the sharp, double-edged sword” (1. 16) and in Thyatira his “eyes are like blazing fire and feet are like burnished bronze.” (1. 14f) 

So in this “Healthy Church” journey, we want, first of all, to discover how the character of Jesus – the glory of who he is and what he has done, already revealed to us in the Word – applies to our own particular situation. This has to be a Biblical and Jesus-centered journey.

And Jesus has something to say to his Church!
“I know your deeds!” Jesus says to five out of the seven Churches. To one he says “I know your afflictions and your poverty”, and to one he says “I know where you live”.  The risen Lord Jesus knows all about us.  He knows about our challenges, our struggles and limited resources.  We don't need to tell him about that.  He knows about our context: “I know where you live”.  He knows Rosyth; he knows about the Dockyard, about Sky and Marine Harvest; about our schools about what mums talk about in the playground, about the pubs and clubs, about Foodbank, about poverty, about the people who have money to spend.

Christ knows our challenges and context, but he also knows our works. He knows about our conduct.  It is his finger we need on our pulse; and remember that for five out of the seven churches, (that's 71%) the issue was not their challenges or context but their works. So let's be prepared to hear what the living Lord Jesus Christ will say about our works, about our conduct. Let's not blame our challenges and our context, when he problem may be our conduct: what we do and how we do it.  As we take the “healthy Church” journey, we are doing so because we need to hear from someone who knows – we want to hear what Jesus thinks of us.  It is very easy to deceive ourselves, to be blind to our own weaknesses.  We need to hear from Jesus about how we are doing!   

And Jesus has something to say to his Church!
At the end of each message to each local Church, there is the same refrain: “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches!”  What that means is this: these messages which were addressed to these specific churches, are for all of us – the seven, remember, represent the whole church in the whole world for all time. So as Churches and as individuals in our churches (some of us are visitors) we need to hear what the Spirit is saying! 

Jesus has something to say to his Church today!
And in Revelation 2, the issue is how the churches deal with the challenges posed by the world they live in.  We will look in a bit more detail at each of the churches in a moment. But first, the teaching of the Nicolaitans, is mentioned twice.  What was that?  It was, like the “error of Balaam” and the teaching of the “woman Jezebel,” the idea that it was OK to join in fully in pagan society, no matter how idolatrous or debauched it might be.  After all, Paul had said that false gods are not gods at all.  But Paul was talking about buying “meat offered to idols” from the butcher's shop, and it seems that the Nicolaitans were saying it was OK to go the the pagan sacrifices. But it wasn't OK, because the gods of Greece and Rome were not gods but that didn’t' mean they were nothing – they were demons.

Ephesus was the biggest city in the area. It had its powerful temple of Artemis: remember from Acts 19 the slogan “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians”?  So things could be tough for Christians there.  The Church there was planted before Paul came, and had seen a revival when the work of God threatened to change the very structures of the local economy.  They knew from the start that God was bigger than any other “god.” They had seen Jesus triumph over idols and were kind of hard-wired to be against any compromise with paganism.  They had shown patient endurance, and perseverance under stress, and they hated the wrong teaching of the Nicolaitans.

But that had lost their first love for one another.  Their hatred of wrong teaching had very subtly morphed into a hatred of “wrong people” and a hardness towards one another.  And as a result, Ephesus gets the severest judgement of any of the seven churches: “unless you repent, I will come and take away your candlestick – your light will go out.”  Where the church loses its first love, and stops actively showing that love to one another, the lights go out: the church ceases to be a real church and eventually ceases to function at all.  As we struggle to get things right, in terms of how we live in our world, unless we love one another, we are nothing.

Smyrna  had been a pro-Roman city for two hundred years or more – so was fiercely loyal to the Emperor; and it had an large Jewish population. John speaks about “the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.”  He was referrign to the local Jews and, like Paul, understood that to be a true Jew was about having the heart to follow Jesus as Messiah.  As a result, there were reasons why Christians might be under threat there.  Looting by hostile mobs, and finding it difficult to get work because of anti-Christian discrimination, could well have caused poverty for the Christians in Smyrna.

Yet the Lord Jesus says, “know your afflictions and your poverty – yet you are rich!”  The Lord knows our circumstances, our challenges, the specific opposition the church faces in our time.  And he knows how “limited” our resources are.  Yet he says “you are rich”.  In the midst of the confrontations and complications of life in a wee church in a wee town in West Fife, and of witnessing for Jesus in secular Scotland, it's tempting to focus on the opposition and the poverty.  We need the Spirit of the Lord Jesus to show us the areas in which we are rich! 

Pergamum was not such an important trading city, but it was the capital of the Roman province of Asia.  As a result, it was a centre of emperor worship. Remember we learned last week about Domitian's claim to be “Lord and God”? Worshipping the emperor became a test of loyalty to Rome – so Christians were immediately at risk!  Teh could't call the emperor “lord and God”.  Pergamum also had a temple to Asclepius, the god of healing, and had a college for medical priests.  So the Lord says “I know where you live – where Satan (the spiritual force behind the Roman empire) has his throne!

The Pergamum Church was hanging in, faithful in trials; but there were some who followed wrong teaching.  The “teaching of Balaam” was the same as the teaching of the Nicolaitans, all about compromise – the idea that you could be a Christian yet go to the pagan temple and join the crowd for the sacrifices there.  How we interface with the secular world, is a big issue – maybe the main issue for lots of us as individuals.  When is it right to be part of a secular organisation, and when is it wrong.  Should I go to my mate's stag night?  Should I repost that thing on Facebook?  Should I watch that TV programme, or go and see that film?  Those who compromise the truth of God's word to fit in to our pagan society, will come under God's judgement.  God wants us to be there, in our world, in mission. But as we become embedded in our world, we need to eb different.

Thyatira was only a trading city – no government centre, no great temples. There, the Church was hard-working, persevering, and slowly improving.  But as a trading city there were a number of “trade guilds” – kind of like lodges, that you had to belong to to carry on your trade, and where pagan sacrifices, and long, drunken dinners were common.  All sorts of immorality could take place at these meals.  Now some in Thyatira were “tolerating the woman Jezebel” a false prophetess whose influence, like that of Jezebel of the Old Testament, was encouraging God's people to worship idols.  She was bringing these messages – supposedly from God – that suggested it was OK to go to these dinners and take part in the immoral behaviour.  She even had the cheek to say this was “Deep teaching” but the Lord says “it's deep teaching from Satan”.  She may even have become the leader of the church and possibly even exercised a wider ministrym, maybe becoming one of the “false apostles” in v. 2. 

A number of years ago Richard Foster wrote a book called “Money, Sex and Power.”  He identified  that these are major drivers in fallen human lives and it seems these were the things that drew Christians to take part in the trade guild feasts.  When someone claims to be bringing words from  God's spirit, but is encouraging God's people to indulge these three powerful drivers – someone claiming the Holy Spirit's anointing while encouraging people to dabble in false religion – you have the same evil spirit at work.  The Lord says he will judge the false prophets and their followers.

Jesus has something to say to his Church today!  
Within his revealed character there is something relevant to every church.  If we are to be a healthy Church we need to reflect his character – sacrificial commitment, holiness, courage and love.  He knows about our challenges, our context and our conduct.  We can kid ourselves about how we are doing – but he knows. Jesus has something to say! He who has an ear. Let him hear.

© Gilmour Lilly September  2015

Revelation 1. Healthy Church - understanding the Church

Introduction.

In the next hundred days I want us to look at what it means to be a healthy Church.  There is a shed load of international, evidence-based research out there, that has shown that a number of health  “Quality Characteristics” are there whenever a Church is healthy and growing.  Just as there are  indicators like blood-pressure, BMI, heart rate, appetite, bowel habit (am I allowed to talk about that in Church?), mood, sleep patterns, that can show how healthy our bodies are, so there are signs of a healthy church.  Now the Quality Characteristics involve an adjective as well as a noun. We all have blood pressure – but some of us have high, some of us have low, and some of us have blood pressure in the middle range. 

These eight QC's are
1. Empowering leadership
2. Gift-based ministry
3. Passionate Spirituality
4. Effective Structures
5. Inspiring worship
6. Holistic small-groups
7. Need-oriented mission
8. Loving relationships

Being a healthy Church is not about being Baptist or Pentecostal; it's not about having Reformed or Holiness theology; it's about the way in which our beliefs are worked out, rather than just about what we believe.  And that means that, in the end, it's about how you and I work out our belief, in the way we as individuals relate to our church. 

But that is just an introduction.  I want us to begin at the beginning, with Jesus, to answer some fundamental questions about Jesus and his church before looking at the vital signs in detail.  So for the next few weeks, we are going to look at the first three chapters of the book of Revelation, where the Lord Jesus has some important things to say to seven local churches.  As we look at these chapters, I hope you will begin to spot the QC's, the signs of health, coming up in the passage. 


Revelation 1

Fifty or sixty  years after Jesus' earthly life, the Church was under threat. From the earliest days, if there was a riot because of the Christian message, local governors and councils would round up believers even though they had not started the riot. Emperor Domitian had recently requested to be addressed as “Lord and God” demanding absolute allegiance.   John, possibly the last remaining of Jesus' Twelve, a leader in Ephesus who was looked to by churches in the Western part of what we now call Turkey, was shipped offshore to Patmos, a wee island in the Aegean.  Whether he is on his own, or whether one or two of the locals began to join him, John was worshipping in the power of the Holy Spirit one Sunday (v 9f), when he had this “Revelation” – this unveiling, this look behind the scenes...  It's a revelation from Jesus.  It starts with God, and with Jesus Christ who is God the Son.  And it is addressed to the people of God – to Church and Churches.  The “Seven Churches” are real churches in real places, but John loves “Sevens” and the “Seven” represent the bigger reality: the Church in every place and time.  They and every other local church – are representatives and expressions of that bigger spiritual reality. 

Theologian Emil Brunner famously said “The Church exists by mission as a fire

Photo by G Lilly

does by burning” And people concerned with mission love that quote. Was he right?   Our wee dog loves to chase shadows.  It can be very irritating.  We have never had a dog that even noticed shadows; but Islay sees them; she chases them; she barks at them.  Sometimes we tell her to shut up.  And sometimes we try to reason with her: to explain to her, “Look,they are only shadows; they don't really exist; they are your pointed ears or my fingers...”    Is the church just something like a  shadow, that only exists because people engage in certain activities? Is it simply a collective noun, the code for a bunch of Christians? Is it simply the word we use for the people or organisation tasked with telling other people about Jesus?  Do we “do Church” when we come together? Do we “form a Church” when we band together?

Or does the Church exist anyway, and extend itself around us?  Is there something called “The Church” that God has called into being, that exists with or without human co-operation?  Does the Church really exist? That's an important question and I believe the answer is “Yes!”

When God took a lump of clay and said “let us make man in our own image”, then made mankind, and went to walk in the garden with the people he had made, he has always had “his people”.  It was God's plan that all people should be “The people of God.”  Rebellion broke that relationship and the history of the human race has been the story of consequences and of redemption – God doing what needed to be done so that there would be “The people of God.”  At the beginning of time, right through beyond the end of time, there is “The people of God.”

John certainly believed in the existence of the Church – the people of God.  The Church flows from and are formed by the historic events of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.  (v. 5: To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father – to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.)  and the Church is important enough that each local expression has its personal angel (v 20)

So when we talk about Church Health, we are talking about something close to God's heart. We are talking about expressing in the local situation, the very life of god himself; we are not talking about a “Club” for people who are interested in religion or an organisation that is there to get a job done or to maintain its own existence.  We are  talking about something that is going to persist into eternity. 

God, who speaks to this Church and these Churches, is the “Alpha and Omega” (first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, A to Z) who was and is and is to come – the “Yahweh” of the old Testament who also says “I am who I am and will be who I will be”.  (v. 8; cf Ex 3. 15).

So John sees Jesus. And Jesus looks like like a son of man.  The expression comes from Daniel, and tells us that Jesus is a supernatural being, who looks like a man.  He is wearing a  robe reaching down to his feet and his belt is golden.  These are the garments of the high Priest.  The hair on his head is white like wool, as white as snow.  He looks like the “Ancient of Days (Daniel 7. 9). John recognises that he is one with the Father.   His eyes are like blazing fire: nothing escapes his notice, and when he sees evil he judges it.

His feet like bronze glowing in the furnace.  His voice is like the sound of many

Picture by John Walker. In Public Domain

waters rushing.   The African name for the largest waterfall in the world, Victoria falls is Mosi-oa-Tunya – the smoke that thunders – and even our little Scottish waterfalls like those that rush through the Hermitage at Dunkeld, make quite a racket.  John can tell by looking at him that when he  speaks his words are powerful and make a difference, so much that John can see that like a two edged sword coming from his mouth.  His face shines like the noonday sun.  None of the weakness that John had seen when Jesus befriended him and his brother, all these years ago.  He is dreadful and awesome and beautiful. 

No wonder John “fell at his feet as though dead.”   That is the response we should make, when we encounter the Living God.  There's a song that says, “Surrounded by your glory, what will I feel?  Will I dance for you Jesus,  or in awe of you be still?  Will I stand in your presence, or before your feet will I fall?  Will I sing “hallelujah”? Will I be able to speak at all?  I can only imagine.”  Our response as individuals, to the splendour of the King, will surely be one of awe, wonder and worship.

Jesus is alive – more fully and wonderfully alive than anyone else John has ever seen.  And he is alive despite having been dead.  He is the Victor.  He holds the key of death and the world of the dead (a Greek term) and therefore even death holds no terror for his people.  He says to John, “Don't be afraid.  Whatever our circumstances – even in difficult personal circumstances, and even when following Jesus and witnessing is costly, we can be unafraid! Because Jesus is the Victor.

And this Jesus is there, among the seven lampstands (v 13), holding the seven stars (Which represent the angels of the seven churches, v. 16).  He has the Church's world, the church's circumstances, and the church's very life in his hands.  He is present, he cares for it.  He has access to all the resources the Church needs.  His values and methods will show us the way forward; his message is our message, his Spirit is our power. 

You can't understand the Local Church or the universal Church apart from Jesus.  And you can't fully understand Jesus apart from the church – because what Jesus is doing today (in the days until he returns to bring the triumph of his Kingdom) he is doing through the Church, and through local churches.

So, when we think about “Healthy Church” we are not simply doing some sort of tick-box analysis to apply sound business principles to the local Church.  Rather we are seeking to be the best we can be, so that the life of this risen Jesus can be seen through the Local Church.  And we are seeking to put ourselves in the place where we can draw upon the resources and power and energy and authority of the Risen Christ, letting him move us by the power of his Spirit.  Think of a cart with square wheels.  It's hard work to push it even a few feet along the road, if it will move at all!  But imagine the saem card, with round wheels and a mast and a sail; a kind of land-yacht.  We need the wind of the Spirit to blow and fill our sails... without the wind of the spirit, the best we can hope for is to push the cart around.  But in order for the wind of the Spirit to move us effectively, we need to do something about those square wheels.  Healthy church is about dealing with the square wheels in our thinking and action, so that we can catch the wind of the Spirit and be the wonderful church Jesus wants us to be.

© Gilmour Lilly September  2015