Preached by Barry Unwin, Benefice Service @ Strensham, 29 April 2018
To the angel of the church in Smyrna write:
These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again.9 I know your afflictions and your poverty – yet you are rich! I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.10 Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown.
11 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who is victorious will not be hurt at all by the second death. (Revelation 2:8-11)
About eighteen months ago, a US citizen called Andrew Brunson was arrested in Turkey. He was denied access to a lawyer and friend visits, and after two months in a jail cell with 21 other inmates He was finally charged with
membership in an armed terrorist organization”
That was linked with the attempted coup in Turkey in July 2016. His court case began just over a week ago. The only evidence against him came from two anonymous witnesses, who gave evidence with their faces and voices disguised on a pre-recorded video to ensure that they could not be cross-examined by Brunson’s lawyer.
Brunson is almost certainly not a terrorist. He’s a Christian missionary, who for the last twenty years has been leading a growing church in Izmir – which is the modern name for Smyrna. And just like those Christians living in ancient Smyrna, he’s facing terrible persecution and imprisonment because of slander and lies.
Thankfully that’s not a common part of Christian experience here in the UK – but all around the world Christians are being persecuted and imprisoned for their faith. Please be praying for them – there are some links to websites about the persecuted church on your noticesheet. Do take that away at the end of the service by the way, it’ll help you know what’s going on!
Anyway, just because we don’t face prison for being a Christian in the UK, doesn’t mean we don’t face opposition. Look at how our passage began,
These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again.” (Revelation 2:8)
To stand up in the public sphere today and declare the Jesus is the First and the Last – the Alpha and Omega – is to invite trouble. Trouble from the atheists who believe that science is the first and last word on everything. Trouble from people of other faiths, who believe their own god or gods to be the first and the last word on everything. And of course trouble from the secularists,who want to shut down all public discussion of religion so that they can enforce their values on everyone.
And that’s a problem because we only have to glance back a few weeks to Easter to remind ourselves that have good news that our world desperately needs to hear. As our passage put it, Jesus died and came alive again!
So here are two encouragements from our passage to help us keep going serving the risen Jesus in tough times.
And the first one is to
1)Keep counting your blessings
It’s very easy when times are tough to feel sorry for ourselves. To only look at the gloom and doom. That must have been a real temptation in Smyrna. Look at v9, Jesus is very honest about their circumstances,
I know your afflictions and your poverty…”
They’ve a lot to be down about. Thankfully they weren’t yet being beaten or killed – but just like Pastor Brunson in modern day Izmir, they are being slandered. The local synagogue was spreading lies and rumours about them, which was presumably making it difficult for Christians to earn a living in Smyrna. That’s why they’re poor. So they had reasons to be sad, but did you notice how Jesus responds to their afflictions and poverty? He says something really shocking: he says
Yet you are rich!”
What could he possibly mean?
He means that the best way to counter bad news is with good news – by counting our spiritual blessings. No matter how much we’re struggling: with our health, family or church. You know, all the usual grumbles:
- The parish share is up.
- The roof is down.
- The vicar’s always busy.
- I didn’t like that hymn.
- All my friends have moved away.
- It isn’t like it used to be.
No matter what we’re struggling with – Jesus says you are rich. You are rich because you have Him and you have each other. Think about that. We are known personally by the one who is First and Last, who died and came to life again. That’s the greatest treasure any of us can ever possess. So no matter the circumstances of our lives – we are rich!
But that’s not the end of it. Not only do we have Jesus but we have each other. He’s united us into a family. That’s what church is. A family. We’re meant to look after one another. We’re meant to bear one another’s burdens, Listen to one another’s problems, And bring casseroles round when someone’s ill. That’s what families do for one another. And that means we’re rich, even if sometimes we’d rather think we’re poor.
I’ve got a little challenge for you to do when you get home. Page 3 of the pewsheet the sermon notes page Do you see those five blanks on it? When you get home, write down five positive things about knowing Jesus and your church family. Five things that encourage you. Five things you can look back on and remind yourself of when you feel afflicted and troubled. Because in Jesus you are rich!
Here’s the second encouragement.
2) Look for the eleventh day
Let read on in v10,
Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days.”
So why do I say look for the eleventh day? Well to understand that we need to think a little bit more about how God uses hardship in the Bible.
You see a lot of people will tell you that when hard times come in life – illness – criticism – whatever – that it doesn’t mean anything. We live in a meaningless random universe with no one in charge and rubbish happens in it. But the Bible sees everything differently. Remember verse 8, the Bible is the words of the one who is first and last. He was there at the start, he’s there at the end, which means that unlike us he sees the big picture. And part of the big picture of hardship and suffering is that it’s the mechanism God has chosen to grow our character and our faith.
You know, one of my favourite ways the Bible describes people is as gold. That’s nice isn’t it? When God looks at you he sees gold. Not your teeth, not the rings on your fingers, but you. To him we are precious treasure.
But we aren’t pure gold. There are impurities in us which need to be refined, and the way you refine gold is with a furnace. You heat the gold up to an incredible temperature and you scrape off the impurities, and then you do it again and again and each time the gold becomes more and more precious and valuable and beautiful. Which all sounds lovely until you remember that we are the gold and that being in a furnace isn’t fun.
And the furnace God uses to refine us is the furnace of suffering and hardship. That’s how he melts and reshapes us into something more useful and beautiful and wonderful. Hardship and suffering are the mechanism God has chosen to grow our character and our faith. And that would be a lot easier to say if it didn’t hurt so much along the way.
Which brings me back to looking for the eleventh day. How does looking for the eleventh day help us deal with the pain along the way. Two ways.
(i)the eleventh day reminds us that hardship doesn’t go on forever.
In Smyrna it stopped on the tenth day. On the eleventh, things were better! There is a time when the hardship you are going through now will end. There is a time when this phase of God’s refining work in you will be done. Keep looking forward to that day! And the second reason to look for the eleventh day is that on that day:
(ii) you will not be the same person you are now.
You’ll be something better. Someone more useful to God. Someone with a deeper faith, a more mature attitude. There’s a lady I know in the schoolyard who a year ago set out to run a half-marathon. I don’t think she’d mind me saying that she wasn’t very fit at all at the start. And the year has been one of real hardship for her. Training. Training. Injuries. Acheing limbs. Real hardship. But at the end of March she did her half-marathon. 3 hours 16 minutes. That’s pretty amazing. And you know, she’s not the same person she was when she started out. And it’s the hope of being that new person that’s kept her going through the training.
And it’s just the same with us and hardship. One day we will not be the same person we are now. So keep looking for that eleventh day… And if we keep looking for that eleventh day, and if we keep counting our blessings, something wonderful happens. Do you see that in v10? Jesus gives us the victor’s crown.
Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown.”
When we stick with Jesus through hard times, there’s a prize waiting for us – the crown of eternal life, which will see us safely through the second death. That’s a bit of a curious phrase in v11 isn’t it? In case you’re wondering , the first death is when we physically die. That happens to all of us. The second death happens later, on judgement day. It’s that moment when Jesus sorts the sheep from the goats. The sheep are those who in this life accepted Jesus’ offer of rescue. And on judgement Day they get what they asked for – rescue. And the goats are those who in this life told Jesus they wanted nothing to do with him. And on Judgement Day they also get what they asked for, and are cut off from God forever.
So if we’ve accepted Jesus offer of rescue through the cross and continued to be faithful to him, then the crown of life is ours, and will see us safe through the second death, and into the new age, the new Heavens and the New Earth where God will
wipe away every tear from our eyes, where there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.” (Revelation 21:4)
And that’s our wonderful hope for the future. A hope to keep us serving Jesus through the most difficult of hardship.
I’m going to stop there, but if you’d like to talk more about any of the issues I’ve raised, do grab me afterwards. And if you’d like prayer for something, I’d be delighted to pray for you as well.
Let’s pray