Transcribed by Beluga AI.
Well, thank you for all the sharings. I think Matthew wants to come up one more time. Or does he want to preach? So, so great to hear everyone sharing.
Let me read the repeated phrase in these two chapters. And one example is in verse seven of chapter two: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’ (Revelation 2:7, ESV)
Okay, let’s pray.
Holy Spirit, we ask you to speak about us individually and us as Hill Community Church. Where, where have we fallen? Where do we fall short?
We pray that you would show it to us in this time and give us homework that we may pray to you and hear from you throughout this week. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
So John receives this revelation. It is written to the angel. And Jesus says He holds the seven stars, the angels or the messengers, in His right hand. We don’t know if they’re angelic creatures or if they are human messengers, prophets, pastors, but He has the leadership or the angelic envoy in His right hand. The seven lampstands are the seven churches.
Seven is a number of perfection. So He’s speaking to these specific seven churches, but He’s speaking universally to his church of all generations.
And so what I would like us to do, I’m not going to go in too much detail, but as you’re listening, give yourself a personal score. Like 0 being “I’m failing,” 10 being “I’m doing well.” Give yourself a personal score, and as you listen, also give Hill Community Church a score.
And last week we covered Psalm 139. God searches our hearts. He knows us. He tests us, He tries us. And we invite Him to see if there’s any grievous, offensive, sinful way in us.
And then we come to realize in Revelation 2:20-23 that Jesus is the one who is walking amongst His churches. He searches mind and heart. This is verse 23: “and I’ll give to each of you according to your works.”
23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. (Revelation 2:23, ESV)
And so if you prayed that prayer last Sunday, “search me and know me,” Jesus is saying, “Okay, I’m right here with you. Let me tell you what I see.” And we’re inviting Him into our lives personally and corporately to examine our spiritual condition.
The first commendation, actually three Cs that I see here: Commendations, Critiques, and Charge. And the commendation Matthew already mentioned, and others, that it’s a call to patient endurance. It’s spoken to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Philadelphia. All of them were commended for patient endurance. Only Sardis and Laodicea are not mentioned here.
So if you’re doing well and enduring, His encouragement is: don’t give up, keep going and just examine yourself. And let’s examine ourselves corporately. How easily do you give up? How easily do we give up? When there is a situation that is undesirable, do you want to flee the situation? If there is a person that is difficult to love, do you want to leave that person?
This is a very practical assessment that we can do in life when we face situations. How easily do you give up? How easily do you. You want to run? This is a commendation for people who stay in the fight, who keep fighting, who don’t give up easily. Even if the situation doesn’t change, even if I’m not changing, you are steadfast, you’re patiently enduring. And so that is what He commends—five out of seven churches.
The second commendation is in Revelation 3:4. It says,
4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. (Revelation 3:4, ESV)
And this is a commendation for people who’ve kept themselves holy.
And so the works is, as Matthew said, is not so much maybe outward ministry, but it’s works of just how do you live day in, day out in the mundane things? Is there holiness? Have you soiled yourself with the world as everyone else is living and going through a filthy world? The filth is coming upon their garments and it’s seeping into everything that they are. But for the true believer, we are keeping ourselves holy.
And so just evaluate yourself. Score of 0 to 10. How well are you doing in terms of keeping yourself holy? How well are we doing as a community keeping ourselves holy?
The third commendation, and this one is quite a big one in my estimation. Revelation 2:2, second half of verse 2.
2 “‘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. (Revelation 2:2, ESV)
That is, that’s one verse. And then also in verse six, that was also mentioned, the Nicolaitans, it says,
6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. (Revelation 2:6, ESV)
So it seems like it’s a big deal to discern false teachers. If you don’t do this well, then God is going to hold you-, have a commendation that He will withhold from you, and instead He will have a critique.
And this is not to go onto YouTube and to sound the alarm of every false teacher. Because if you do that, you will be on YouTube for the rest of your life because there is no shortage of false teachers in the world. But in the very specific people that you come across and churches that you’ve attended, we do need to call out false teachers that we have personally witnessed and seen.
Why is it such a big deal? Because this commendation, this third one, is related to a critique. The first critique in Revelation 2:14 to Pergamum, he says “They hold the teaching of Balaam.” And then verse 15, “They hold the teachings of the Nicolaitans.” And this teaching of the Nicolaitans was so pervasive that it’s mentioned in 2 Peter 2:15, Jude 1:11. And Balaam’s teaching, you can read about it. It’s in Numbers 22 and Numbers 31.
And it is very important to call out the false teachers that you know personally because while I was in that place, we have to recognize I was in darkness and I was deceived. It is humble pie we need to eat and say I am that susceptible to deception. Satan is that clever. He knows what buttons to push, he knows what levers to pull. He knows us so well. He can put the right false teacher, and we will fall for it every time if we don’t acknowledge that they were false and that what I thought was light was actually darkness.
The whole time I thought, “Okay, this is great, this is church. It’s fun, it’s growing.” But in the end, to assess it properly with the Spirit’s help and to say, “This was dark.” God expects us to call it out.
It is a critique, a tremendous critique, if you do not call it out. You might say, “Well, I’m not, I’m not a judge.” No, you’re supposed to judge, the person that you know that you fell for their teaching, and you were darkened by them, and so many countless people were destroyed spiritually by them. We do have to call it out. It is a job of a pastor, elder. You must have discernment. We are guarding the apostles’ teaching. We are guarding it.
And so when we see something that happens in current events and in churches, in our contemporary life, and we cannot locate a verse that justifies why they’re saying that, why they’re doing that, it’s a cause for pause and say, “Should I listen to this, should I keep going there? Because I don’t see it in Scripture, I don’t see it in church history. It’s only popped up in the last decade, two decades, three decades. It’s only something that’s so popular now. But nobody ever taught this in church history. Nobody—there’s no verse that says, ‘This is permissible, this is allowed.'” And so we must know the Scripture.
The reason why I fell into false teaching is because I did not know the Scripture. And now that I know Scripture better, had I known this, I never would have fallen for this teaching. I never would have fallen for this teacher. And it is the job of the preacher, the elders, the teachers of every church, to guard the apostles’ teaching, to guard the true, true Jesus.
And there are so many counterfeits, people calling themselves apostles when they are not apostles. They’re false. You know, even when we say Apostle Paul, I think actually it’s a mistake. He is an apostle, but he doesn’t go around flaunting the title of apostle. You read his letters, he does not call himself Apostle Paul. He is just an apostle, a messenger. And if people, if you press him, if you press Peter, who was an apostle, he says, “I’m just equal standing, don’t elevate me.”
But Apostle Paul, we give that title, we are elevating him. Anybody who says, “I am an apostle, call me apostle,” stay away from that person, please. They are not to be, they are not to be trusted.
The critique of Pergamum: they held the teaching of Balaam, which is to use your position for financial gain. It is to seduce the people through sexual immorality. And so what you will find, the Nicolaitans, which Stephanie already alluded to, it’s an abuse of grace. And where there’s false teaching, there is going to be tons of cover-up of sexual immorality, guaranteed. It just goes with the territory.
And so there is a lack of holiness. There is only a concern to keep the image. And “Let’s keep all the dirty laundry hush because we don’t want the offering to be affected.” It is people who do not have fear of the Lord, who do not live a holy life in private. They are charlatans. They are masquerading as an angel of light when they are an instrument of darkness.
And so we distance ourselves from people who are sexually immoral, who are hiding, covering up scandals in the church. We expose them. We call it out when we see it, if we know the person. The Nicolaitans who just abused grace, it was a license to sin. We say, “No, that’s not what I read.”
Jesus is examining the churches, and one day you will give an account. You think it’s okay to drink? You think it’s okay to be promiscuous? No. You think it’s okay to be addicted to pornography? No. There you will give an account.
Jesus expects us, with His help, to overcome all of these things so that how we are outwardly and how we are inwardly there is integrity. There’s honesty. You’re not putting on a show to fool people. That’s only what Satan does.
We are people of light. How we live publicly matches how we live privately. We are honest. We are transparent. We are not covering up things. We are vulnerable. We admit when we’re wrong. We say sorry when we sin. These are marks of a true Christian and a true Christian leader.
Not just Pergamum, but Thyatira also is critiqued in Revelation 2:20-23. Let me just look at that real quick.
20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. 22 Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, 23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. (Revelation 2:20-23, ESV)
Did you know that Jesus is the one who is causing someone in this life to feel the consequences of their sin, to hopefully bring them back to repentance? He’s not saying, “No. Jezebel, keep doing your thing. You’re fine. You’re the same. You’re a church. I’m a church. I’m not going to judge you.” No. Jesus is inflicting bodily pain and killing children so that these people repent. This is the work that Jesus is allowing for them to feel the consequences of their sin.
Paul does this in a Corinthian church. He says, “Throw that brother out. Hand him over to Satan so that he feels the full weight of the consequences of sin, so that somehow through mercy and grace that is available to them, they will repent and return to true salvation.”
So not calling out evil for being evil is a serious thing. If you are the leader and you are seducing people and you’re covering up sexual immorality, and you yourselves are participating in this, and you’re just lowering the standard of holiness… Jesus Himself is going to come against you, and you’re going to feel the consequence of your actions and hopefully repent. Hopefully repent.
Let me read Romans 1:28, and we’ll wrap up this point. Romans 1:28.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:28-32, ESV)
Did you catch that last verse?
If you don’t call out sin for being sin, you might commit the sin of participating in that very thing. The longer you stay under that person’s teaching or you stay friends with that person, you may fall into the same sins that you’re committing. But the other sin is by your silence, you are condoning sin, and you are committing the sin of approving another person’s sin. That is something the Lord will deal with, deal with you on. If they are your family member, if they are a friend, you cannot stay silent. You must speak. You must speak. Otherwise, by “loving them,” you are condoning their sin. And God says that too is a sin.
No, we draw the line. This one we cannot allow. If you don’t repent, I cannot fellowship. This is how we do not condone another person’s sin, especially a person who is in leadership at a church.
The second critique, besides tolerating false teachers, is Revelation 3 to Sardis. They are spiritually dead or asleep. And we just need to assess ourselves. Are we discerning false teachers? What is your score? What is our score? Are we spiritually dead? Are we spiritually asleep? Let’s give ourselves a score.
The third critique, Laodicea. They’re lukewarm, not hot, not cold, not passionate, just showing up, just present, not expecting much, just going through the motions. Lukewarm lip service. Is that us? Is that you? Let’s give yourself a score. Let’s give us a score. How passionate are we?
And related to that is first love. Do we love Jesus? It’s a serious thing. We may do everything well, 99%, everything is perfect. But this one thing you get wrong, you forfeit everything.
So passionately pursuing Christ, loving Christ. This has to be what drives us. We’re not doing church, we’re not doing community, we’re not doing friends, we’re not doing social work. We’re here to stir up and spur one another to love Jesus more. And if you love Him, you will discern false teachers. You will call it out. You will be spiritually alive instead of dead. You will be awakened in your spirit instead of asleep in your spirit.
You won’t condone sin. You just cannot be in love with Jesus and just approve sin in somebody else or in yourself. You will raise a standard of holiness personally and among the people that you’re around.
So those are the commendations, several of them, and several critiques. And the charge is for all seven churches. I just want to read these verses, and we’ll close. The charge to the church in Ephesus, Revelation 2:5-7, and just receive this as a charge to Hill Community Church. “But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up—”
Whoops, sorry. Wrong book. Revelation 2:5, 7.
5 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. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. (Revelation 2:5-7, ESV)
We receive this as Hill Community Church.
And in verses 10 and 11 to the church in Smyrna:
10 Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. 11 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.’ (Revelation 2:10-11, ESV)
We receive this as Hill Community Church.
To the church in Pergamum, Revelation 2:16-17. “Therefore repent…” Let me actually read Revelation 2:15.
15 So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. 17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’(Revelation 2:15-17, ESV)
We receive this as Hill Community Church.
In Thyatira, verse 25 and 26.
25 Only hold fast what you have until I come. 26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, 27 and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. 28 And I will give him the morning star.29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (Revelation 2:25-29, ESV)
And to the church in Sardis—we receive this as Hill Community Church, Revelation 3:3-5.
3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. 4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ (Revelation 3:3-6, ESV)
We receive this as Hill Community Church.
And to the church in Philadelphia, Revelation 3:11-12.
11 I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. 12 The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and 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 from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. 13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ (Revelation 3:11-13, ESV)
And lastly, Laodicea, we receive as Hill community church, Revelation 3:20-21.
20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. 21 The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ (Revelation 3:20-22, ESV)
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, as we listened to your word, as you were speaking it, Lord, we assessed ourselves. We assessed Hill Community church, and only you know exactly our spiritual score, our condition.
We pray that we would bring these verses to our prayer closet this week, and we would ask you to assess one by one: how are we condemned, how are we critiqued, and how well are we obeying your charge to finish our race well and to receive a crown?
We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are our model and example of the overcomer. Everything that you faced, you overcame. Even sin and death on a cross, you overcame. We celebrate. Every time we participate and partake in the Lord’s Supper, we’re pronouncing your victory over sin and death. And as those who eat of your Body and drink of your Blood, we are also saying that we too are overcomers in Christ.
May we overcome all sin, all deception, all trials. May we pass every test with flying colors. May we not give up before graduating, before being promoted. May we stay in the fight, even if it’s long and arduous and toilsome. Lord, we want to stay and endure because you endured for us. We want to stay in the fight.
Help us to grow our patient endurance so that we can face everything in this life and pass every test and become victors who receive a crown.
Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
And after you’ve done some prayer and examination of your heart, if the Lord allows you, the Lord’s Supper will be here waiting for you.