I Know Your Hard Work

Sermon by John Turner
October 4, 2009
Based on Revelation 2:1-7

The Revelation to John Deserves Better Treatment

Over a seven week period beginning today, Judy and I will be preaching from the Revelation to John, Chapters 2 and 3. If a series of sermons based on the Revelation to John makes you shift a bit uneasily, if you have negative associations with self-appointed and self-advertised Revelation interpreters who use its imagery in a careless manner to support their personal end-times scenarios and their not very Christian-sounding political views, let me assure you that Judy and I share your concern. We are not going there. The book deserves better.

I want us to practice saying the name of the book. It is NOT “Revelations” or even “The Revelations of John,” which would imply that it is a series of separate bits of information about coming events that John revealed. Rather, the proper short version of the title is, “The Revelation to John.” Say it with me: “The Revelation to John.”

There is a longer title that consists of the first two verses of the book. Let me offer a very literal translation of it: “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his bond-servants what must happen soon. He communicated it by sending his angel to his bond-servant John, who then testified to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, to everything he saw.” You can see why we shorten that to “The Revelation to John” but note that it really starts out, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” It is of Jesus in two senses: it comes from Jesus, and it is about Jesus and his church.

Revelation and Time

Everything that John saw is designed to show that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords, Lord of history and Lord of his church, and that he will be ultimately victorious on behalf of his faithful servants. When the Bible says that an event is coming soon or suddenly, it means that it could come without further warning and that no time is eliminated as a moment in which the event might occur. While Jesus’ Lordship will have an ultimate culmination when he comes to bring all things to final judgment, no generation with the eyes to see is left without evidence that Jesus’ Lordship has been already been set in motion: Jesus reigns even now. As for when the final fulfillment of Jesus’ Lordship will come, it is as Peter wrote: “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” Peter does not give us the time of the end. Neither do Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Jude, nor the unnamed writer of Hebrews. And if we rip a bunch of passages out of context from the Old Testament to try to establish a date, we are probably going to “prove” whatever we set out to prove, and it will have nothing to do with the truth. As Jesus himself said, “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” So when a so-called expert claims to have found the secrets of the end-times, you need to ask, “Why do they think they can put together an end-times scenario that Jesus and the apostles couldn’t?” My conclusion is that these so-called experts are either ignorant or arrogant or both, and that we are better off not listening to them. Stick with Jesus and the apostles, and you will not be drawn off track.

The Message of the Revelation

The message from Jesus that John conveys is that Jesus is in charge of history and that he is working through his faithful church on earth to accomplish his purposes, even when that church is suffering persecution and martyrdom, even when it sometimes falls short of its calling. In the end, his faithful servants will be welcomed to sit down for the heavenly Messiah’s banquet and to enter the perfected new heaven and new earth. Jesus through John is encouraging us to live now with that awareness so that we will be faithful through tough times to testify boldly to his Lordship.

Jesus Knows His Churches

In the meantime, before the end comes, the Revelation shows Jesus standing among seven churches in Asia. Asia here is not the big continent dominated by China and India, but the small Roman province in what is now western Turkey. In Revelation, seven is a symbolic number for wholeness. These seven churches represent all the churches of Jesus Christ in all times and places. We are to read this book as telling us that Jesus knows all churches, including the church with which we are gathered to worship him this morning. Jesus knows First Christian Church of Berryville, Arkansas. He knows our strengths; he knows our weaknesses; he knows what we need to do to reach our potential in glorifying his name in Carroll County, Arkansas. He will not forget his faithful servants who gather here to worship and to serve him. He will not fail to hold us accountable for our privilege to represent him. Jesus knows what we are going through. He knows the trials and temptations that we are facing. He knows the spiritual conditions of our hearts. He knows when we are only giving lip service, and he knows when we are consecrating our lives to his service, living for the praise of his glory. He knows, and he cares.

Jesus’ Message to His Church in Ephesus

Let’s read and comment on Revelation 2, verses 1-7: “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands (In other words, Jesus knows his churches and is taking care of them). “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary (In other words, Jesus knows the good things we have done). But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches (In other words, Jesus knows our shortcomings, knows how they fit with our strengths, and insists that we must heed his warnings and repent of our shortcomings if we wish to maintain our status as his church). To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God (In other words, Jesus will reward his faithful servants with the blessings of a perfect eternal life).’

Jesus Knows Their Strengths

Jesus knows the hard work, the good deeds, the perseverance, the zeal for truth, that the Ephesian church members have displayed. He commends them for not giving in to the current cultural temptation, a movement of Nicolaitans who would have led them into some sort of spiritual error if the Ephesian Christians had not vigorously resisted the temptation. We will talk more about the Nicolaitans in Week Three of this series, but for now it is enough to say that Jesus’ praising of the Ephesians for resisting the Nicolaitans tells us that it is important to resist spiritual error.

Jesus Knows Their Weaknesses

The Ephesian zeal for good works and orthodox faith has not been without its costs. Jesus accuses them of having forsaken and fallen away from their first love. Whether their first love refers to their love of the Lord or their love for one another is not clear. It does not matter. For Jesus and John, loving God and loving humanity are inseparable because God is love. That is, God’s character is most fully expressed in the self-giving love he has displayed through Jesus Christ, and one cannot truly love God without taking on God’s love for others. Somehow the Ephesian church members have let their commitment for doing good and standing against error separate them from the heart of their faith, their love for a loving God and for God’s beloved children.

Jesus Instructs Them in How to Fix Things

John counsels the Ephesian Christians to do two things: (1) “Remember the height from which you have fallen.” He wants them to recall the love for God and for one another which once elevated their life together beyond the struggles of an institutional church striving to survive. He wants them to know that there is more to their life as a church than struggle. Indeed, the struggle is without point unless it is motivated by, expressed with, and directed toward love of God and neighbor. (2) “Repent, and do the things you did at first.” There is no problem with the Ephesians not being busy enough. The Lord knows that they work hard enough. But some works of love they used to do have been neglected, being replaced by works of institutional struggle. They need to return to works of love. Remember and return, he advises them. Their identity as church is not as an institution, but as a community in relational covenant with God and one another. That’s important. Let me repeat it: Their identity as church is not as an institution, but as a community in relational covenant with God and one another.

The Potential Consequences Depend on Their Response

If they do not heed this advice, their church will be taken from them. If they do heed this advice, they will eat from the tree of life in the paradise or garden of God.

Jesus Knows and Cares About First Christian Church of Berryville

What does this letter tell us about the relationship of the Lord to his church here in Berryville? We are reminded that Jesus knows what we are doing as his church, that he cares deeply, that he is involved, that he holds us accountable for the quality of our faith, love, and service, that he holds out warnings and promises for us according to how we carry out our callings.

Our Hard Work and Faith

Like the Ephesian Church, we at First Christian Church value hard work and faith. While hard work will not save us, we are reminded that the Lord does value our hard work. The work of serving Christ is an appropriate expression of our faith and love. Here at First Christian, we have a long history of working hard in acts of service. Jesus knows that and is glad to see that quality. Jesus is also glad to see our faith. We are saved by God’s grace, but we must receive the saving grace through our faith. It is essential. And we must preserve the purity of our faith. Our elders have been working on stating the basics of our common faith, and, by and by, probably sometime during this next year, you will see the results of their labors. They are not trying to write a complicated and detailed book of doctrine, but to state what is essential to keeping our church’s teaching pure and true. I believe that their efforts please Jesus.

Jesus Asks Us to Get a Regular Heart Check-Up

But somewhere along the way, the Ephesian church lost what Jesus values even more in his churches. Our faith is in the love that God has revealed for his lost children through Jesus Christ. Our hard work is to express that love. The love is the content of the truth, and the truth must be expressed in love or it is no longer the truth. There are times that our love must be tough love, but it must still be love. We need to make sure that the love for God and neighbor are there at all times.

The first thing that our heart check-up must determine is that we love God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We love God because God first loved us. The second thing that our heart check-up must determine is that, in loving God, we take on God’s love for humanity. Loving God with our total beings and above all else, we open ourselves to be expressions of God’s heart. If we have fallen from our first love for God and neighbor, Jesus commands us to remember, to repent, to turn again, to that first love.

Jesus’ Church Is an Expanding Network of Loving Relationships

In their book Total Church, co-authors Tim Chester and Steve Timmis say that people need to experience church neither as a building they enter nor as an event they attend, but as a network of relationships that touches every part of their lives and faith. This phrase also calls for repetition: People need to experience church neither as a building they enter nor as an event they attend, but as a network of loving relationships that touches every part of their lives and faith.

What Jesus wants us to know is that, when we say we are building a community of hope through Jesus Christ, he takes the “community” part very seriously. It is as we begin sharing our lives more deeply, constantly helping one another along in our journeys toward our future glory in Christ, that we become agents of real hope for the world. Our work, our faith, our love for God, and our love for neighbor begin to add up to hope for others when we are living them out in real daily relationships with other believers and with seekers.

I am not talking about making our lives busier and harder. I am talking about making our lives more fruitful, sometimes actually easier and more satisfying, by the ways we pray, study, work, care, and share together.

We live in a culture that seeks to make us isolated consumers, running on a hamster wheel of just keeping up. Jesus stands among us to challenge that pattern and to make us a real community of hope for more satisfying and productive living that points ahead to the blessings of the new heaven and new earth where his reigning love and power are total.

Let’s be a community of hope in Jesus’ present care for us and in the future realm that He has prepared for us.