Philadelphia: Small, but Steadfast [A]

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A month or so ago, I met one of the men from our church for breakfast, and we were just sitting around talking about ministry and different things, and we talked about some different churches. I want to say we talked about church, but I don’t want you to think we sat around and gossiped about our church. No, we gossiped about other churches.

We talked about church in general and churches and different things and came to the conclusion that I think we all would agree with that there’s no such thing as a perfect church. Unfortunately, we would all, I think, like to be the perfect church. We would all like to be part of the perfect church, but it just doesn’t exist, I hate to say.

We talked about, okay, if the perfect church existed, what would it look like? And I don’t mean the building, because we probably wouldn’t all agree on what style of building, what color of carpet, all those things. I mean, what would the perfect church look like?

What were some things that if we got to, And I know this would never happen. This isn’t how it works. But if God said you could put a group of people together to be a local church and you could get them to act just a certain way and you do things a certain way and everybody, what would we want it to look like?

What would the perfect church look like? And we talked about that for quite some time and realized that the only place a church like that could exist would be in heaven and we wouldn’t need it there to do those kinds of things anyway. We wouldn’t need it there for the kind of outreach and the kind of witness that we talked about.

But unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a perfect church. But there are good churches, and there are bad churches, and there are in-between churches, and we’ve seen some of that. I hope you’ve seen some of that as we’ve gone through this series on the seven churches of Revelation.

There have been churches that Jesus didn’t have anything good to say about. There have been other churches, like one we’re going to look at today, that He didn’t have anything bad to say about them. The church we’re going to look at today is the church at Philadelphia.

And I love this church. As a matter of fact, some of us that worked on the church plant, on the mission over in Norman, lobbied real hard to name the church plant, to name the mission Philadelphia Baptist Church because of the respect that we had for this church and because of what we were trying to, the vision we felt that God had given us for what this church was to become. And you may know that Philadelphia means brotherly love, and we thought that went along with what we were talking about.

and love this church, and somebody raised the objection, no, people are going to hear that and think of cream cheese, and I thought, you’ve got to be kidding. But I have tremendous admiration for the church at Philadelphia. And although I said there’s no such thing as a perfect church, I would have to say the church at Philadelphia comes pretty close, because we just don’t see anything bad that Jesus has to say to them.

That’s not to say that the people were sinless, that they were perfect in that regard, that they never did anything wrong, that the church didn’t have its own share of problems. But it was a faithful little church filled with faithful people who were consistently doing what they knew they needed to do, who were consistently trying to follow Jesus Christ. Again, not a perfect church, but very close, especially in contrast to some of the others, especially in contrast to the church that we’re going to look at next week. But the church at Philadelphia is a great little church. And it gives me hope, too, that he never says they’re a perfect church.

If he said, the church at Philadelphia is so great and it’s so wonderful because it was perfect, folks, we don’t have a whole lot of hope of being able to attain to that and say, oh, we at Eastside, you know, God expects us to be a perfect church. We at Eastside, as wonderful as we are, can’t live up to that. No, but he commends them anyway in spite of their flaws, in spite of the fact that they were made up of human beings, and that gives us hope that we too, I’m not saying that we’re not already, but there’s always room for improvement.

That gives me hope that we too can be a church that Jesus could pat on the back. We’ve been in this series talking about these churches. If Jesus came to church, what would He say?

If Jesus came and sat down and was with us not only through our services, but throughout the week as we go about our lives, how would He critique Eastside? And it’s not just a hypothetical question because He critiqued these churches. So let’s look this morning at what He said to the church at Philadelphia and see what we can glean from it for our own use.

Revelation 3, verse 7 says, And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth, and shutteth, and no man openeth. So he says to the messenger, the angel, that means a messenger, to the messenger of the church at Philadelphia, write. And he identifies himself.

As Jesus has done, there’s a pattern throughout these letters. He’ll identify himself, and then he’ll begin to critique the good and the bad, and he’ll give instructions, he’ll give compliments, he’ll give warning, and it all ends up with a promise. He identifies himself in a distinct way to each church, depending on what they needed to know and what they needed to hear about, about the aspects of his character.

And he identifies himself to the church at Philadelphia as the one who is holy, who is true, and we’ll move on from there. But he identifies himself as being holy, that Jesus Christ stands head and shoulders above every other assumed or presumed or imagined God that this world has to offer, in that he is the only one who is perfect, holy, without blemish. All of the other supposed messiahs, supposed deities, supposed religious leaders that the world looks up to are nothing but fallen men.

There’s been no shortage throughout history of people who claim to be gods or claim to have spoken for God and they all fell short of God’s standard of absolute perfect holiness with the exception of Jesus Christ. And he was able to do so because he was God in the flesh. And he identifies himself here as holy because he is perfect and without blemish and everything he does is right. And He identifies Himself as He that is true.

He that is true. He’s genuine. There’s no deception.

There’s no pretense. There’s no anything like that with Him. What we see is who He really is.

We don’t see Him as the gentle shepherd and the conquering king and the righteous teacher. We don’t see Him as those things while He’s got some kind of double life going on. What we see of Him is what He is.

What the Bible portrays Him to be is who He is. And he’s not simply just some human teacher that taught nice things and ran afoul of the authorities and got himself killed. Folks, he is what the Bible says he is.

He is who he claimed to be. And to the people who say that Jesus Christ never claimed any connection to God, never claimed to be God in the flesh, they’ve not read very closely what it says in the gospel accounts. Because when he was questioned about his nature, he even said, I am.

And that wasn’t just a simple affirmation like if somebody were to ask me, are you Jared Byrns? Yes, I am. Simple affirmation.

They would have understood that in their day and age, that he was identifying himself with the God of Moses who said, I am that I am. He is exactly who the Bible claims him to be. He that is holy, he that is true.

He that hath the key of David. This one puzzled me a little bit. He that hath the key of David.

We learn from other places in the scriptures and just from history itself that keys were symbols of authority, symbols of trust that someone had. I have a, several of you have them too. I have a key to the church.

Several others of you have keys to the church. You know what that key means? That key means that we, I mean, if it was obtained the right way, that we have the authority to be in this building.

Not just everybody that walks in off the street has a key. It’s a symbol of authority to be in the building. Unless it sounds like I think too highly of myself, I can’t go up to the bank, I can’t go up to Arvest after hours and just go right in.

I don’t have a key. I don’t have authority to be in the building. Those keys are a symbol of authority to be somewhere, to do something.

He’s got the key of David. It means he’s got the authority of David, and that doesn’t mean that Jesus is subservient to David. David actually referred to Jesus in the Psalms as my Lord.

It says he’s got the key of David. I believe it means that he is the authority, he is the one, he’s the sovereign king who sits on David’s throne and will reign forever. Essentially identifying him as the promised Messiah, the chosen one of God that had been prophesied, had been spoken of throughout the whole Old Testament.

He that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth. You may think if he’s talking about the throne of David, if he’s talking about David’s kingdom, why wouldn’t he say the one who sits on the throne of David? Because he’s about to talk about doors and doors being opened.

And unless you can throw it and get some good velocity going, you can’t really open a door with a throne. You need a key. He that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth.

Jesus Christ, as the sovereign king of the universe, has authority to do what no one else can do. And he has authority to do things that no man can undo. He can open doors that no man shutteth, and shutteth doors that no man openeth.

We’re going to talk about some of those open doors this morning. So he’s identified himself. He’s identified himself as someone who’s perfect.

I should say not just someone, but the one who’s perfect. He’s identified himself as the one who’s genuine. And he’s identified himself as the one who has the authority in spiritual matters.

The one who has authority over the whole world. And he tells the church at Philadelphia, I know thy works. If memory serves correctly, he has said this so far to every church.

And sometimes it’s a comforting thought, and sometimes it’s not so much a comforting thought. And it depends on the works that the church was known for. It depends on what they’ve been doing.

A question we might want to ask ourselves both as a church and as individuals comprising that church, if Jesus were to write us a letter today and say, I know thy works, would that be cause for celebration or cause for fear on our part? have we been doing works we want him to notice or have we been doing things we’d rather he not see the church at Philadelphia had been involved in faithful works that they would have been only too glad for Jesus to notice and that Jesus commends them for I know thy works behold I have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it I love that verse have any of you seen the movie Facing the Giants any of you? one or two?

it’s made by the same people who made Fireproof and Courageous and all those I love that movie and it may be sappy, but I tear up every time I watch that movie. Please don’t think any less of me as a man for telling you that. But there’s a scene where they come in and talk to.

. . The older man who comes in and prays every day for the students walks in with his Bible and tells the football coach, Revelation says that I serve a God who opens doors that no man can shut and shuts doors that no man can open.

And he said, I felt like God wanted me to tell you have an open door here. And he’s been working with these football players, and the man comes in and says, people are out on the football field coming to Christ. People are getting saved. Folks, that chokes me up every time.

If you’ve not seen the movie, go see it. I’ll lend it to you. I love that verse, but I never thought about what he was talking about, that he was talking about this church.

And to my great surprise, the movie didn’t take the verse out of context. They were talking about it in context of God opening opportunities for ministry. We could easily say, oh, God opens doors no man can shut.

That means I can move forward. I can, to borrow somebody else’s phrase, I can have my best life now and nobody can stop me and I can do all of these things. No, God opens these doors for a specific reason.

God opened for the church at Philadelphia doors for ministry. And as a result, things were happening that would not have otherwise happened. Things that the church at Philadelphia could not have done on their own.

I love that. We serve a God who opens doors that no man can shut. For thou hast a little strength and has kept my word and has not denied my name.

He identifies here the fact that he’s opened doors for them with their faithfulness. Now, an open door, an open door is so important, so important. None of you got the privilege of moving my deep freeze when you all came over to Oklahoma and helped us to move.

That’s because I foolishly thought I’ll move it on my own. And big deep freeze. I moved it on my own.

Of course, I was hurting later on. But I loaded it in the trailer myself and unloaded it here and moved it into the house, and I haven’t touched it since. It’s plugged in right where I left it.

Trying to get it out of our house over there in Oklahoma, we could not get it out of the back room for the door. The door wasn’t open quite far enough, and we had a wooden door and we had a storm door. And yes, there was an opening there, but the door wasn’t as open as it needed to be.

And I spent probably an hour trying to get that deep freeze out of the back door. And I tried everything, tried taking handles off of the deep freeze, tried taking off every part I could do without releasing refrigerant and making a big mess, and all these things, and I just, I could not get it through the door. And finally, after all that work and all that effort, we realized we were still about that far too shy of being able to clear through there, and we had to take both of the doors off the hinges.

You know, if I just started there, I would have made life so much more easy on myself, because once that door, once the thing that closed it was gone, once it was out of the way, and that door was wide open, I didn’t even have to push that hard. Just wheeled the thing right on out. And we might wonder sometimes why it seems so hard to do the things we do, and maybe they’re legitimate things that we think we’re doing for God, but they’re not the doors He’s opened for us.

They’re not the things He’s called us to do. They may be legitimate, but they may not be the things He’s called us to do. And wonder why we push and push and work and work, and nothing ever happens.

Maybe because that particular door is not open. But ladies and gentlemen, when God opens the door, no man can shut it. When God opens the door for His church to do what His church is supposed to do, no man can shut that door.

No man can block that door. God opened the door for the church at Philadelphia, and in spite of the things that should have limited them, they walked through the door, and they did ministry and they accomplished things that they could not have done in their own power. So how do you know they can’t do it under their own power?

He tells them, for thou hast a little strength. Thou hast a little strength. He’s not talking about their spiritual weaknesses, because as we read about the church at Philadelphia, we know that spiritually this was a very strong church.

The rest of this verse, the rest of verse 8, tells us that spiritually this was a very strong church. It’s not that they were lacking spiritual strength. It’s not that they were lacking the influence of the Holy Spirit.

It’s not that they were lacking any of these things. But in physical strength, they were a small church. I dare say they might have been like we are.

You know, this is the biggest church I’ve ever pastored. But in the grand scheme of things, we’re a small church. I heard somebody talking on the radio, a preacher talking on the radio yesterday about.

. . Some of these preachers that spend their whole lives at small churches.

He said, they may have a hundred people. And I thought, that’s a small church? A hundred people.

Well, that would be our best Sunday. I’d love to see a hundred people. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a small church.

The world may look at us and think we’re small potatoes. We don’t have a lot of people. We don’t have a lot of influence.

We don’t have a lot of money. We don’t have a lot of strength. But ladies and gentlemen, in spite of the little strength that we may have by the world’s standards, We serve a God who opens doors that no man can shut.

And what he told the church at Philadelphia was it didn’t matter that they were small. It didn’t matter that they were weak. It didn’t matter that they were lacking in influence.

That God had opened doors for them. And the reason he had opened their doors, the reason he had cleared the way for them to do ministry, is because they had been faithful in the things that he had already called them to do. Look at this.

For thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. I have talked to you several times over the last several months about faithfulness. The idea of faithfulness.

That if we could focus in on one thing during this season of time as Eastside Baptist Church. If during this period of time we could focus in on any one thing that we need to work on, it should be faithfulness. Folks, I think that’s something any church at any stage should focus on.

But we need to work on being faithful. Not that we’re not being faithful. But could we be more faithful than we are?

I’ve talked to you so much about this, and I realized this week studying that this may be a very abstract idea. I mean, we all know what faithfulness means, but what does faithfulness look like is a different story. There are some words that we as Christians use that we think we understand up here, but try to explain to somebody else how to do it or what it looks like, and we can’t quite grasp the words.

I remember once during a Bible study when the man leading the study asked us to explain glory or explain blessing, explain what it means to bless. And all of the words we were coming up with, all the definitions we were coming up with, he’d say, well, what about this? And there was a scripture there that, okay, in light of that scripture, what we’re saying doesn’t quite cover that.

And there are words that we use that we would be hard-pressed to define. Faithfulness, I think we all hear that and understand it means to be faithful. It means to do what you’re supposed to do.

But as far as what it looks like, we don’t know. And maybe we need to be a little more specific, stop being so general, So we really understand what it is that God wants from us. I thought this morning of Brother James.

He’s worked for the highway department. I won’t say how many years. I don’t remember, but I won’t tell him either.

He’s worked for the highway department for quite some time. Have they ever, Brother James, come to you and said, I want you to go build us a road, and that was it? Didn’t think so.

They’re going to tell you. From talking to you, I assume they’re going to tell you what kind of concrete it has to be. Or not concrete.

You don’t build roads out of concrete, do you? Sometimes? Okay.

See, I know nothing about it. Be glad you don’t have me on the highway department. Concrete and asphalt and all these things, and he’s told me it has to be in certain specifications, and I think it’s different for different kinds of road, and the road has to be at certain grades, and they’re actually going to tell you where the road needs to go, aren’t they?

Nobody’s going to tell Brother James, just go out and build us a road we don’t care where. No, they’re going to give specific instructions. Well, God, I don’t think, says, here, go do good things and figure it out for yourself.

He identifies for us what this concept of faithfulness meant the context of the church at Philadelphia. When the Bible talks about them being faithful, it tells what that means here in verse 8. For thou hast a little strength and has kept my word and has not denied my name.

As we’ve talked about faithfulness in the abstract, it may sound like something in really general terms, it may sound like that’s going to be hard to figure out. That’s going to be a lot of work to figure out what’s supposed to be faithful. Well, that means, and start thinking of all the things that we have to do.

Here he keeps it very simple. And folks, there’s a difference between simple and easy. Keeps it very simple here.

You’ve kept by word. In other words, the things that I’ve said that you know and that you understand, you’ve done them, and you’ve not denied my name. You’ve not denied my name.

Whether in the face of persecution, when people said, renounce Christ or die, they wouldn’t renounce Christ. In terms of their everyday lives, they didn’t deny Christ by their actions. And what we see here is a very simple, and again, I said there’s a difference between simple. A very simple, uncomplicated, two-part formula to how they were living.

What God identifies as faithfulness for them. That what they knew of what God had said they had lived by, and they had not denied the name of Jesus Christ. Folks, there may be more to it than that. But if we want to be faithful as a church, if we want to be faithful as individuals, let’s not worry about everything we’re going to have to learn and try to figure out exactly how to do it perfectly before we start.

and say, I’ve got to understand the whole Bible, I’ve got to understand everything He tells me to do, and then I’ll start obeying it. Let’s just start with the things we understand. Is that good enough?

When God tells us, don’t steal, when God tells us, don’t kill, when He tells us, don’t bear false witness against your neighbor, and all of those other things, we understand those. We may not understand, well, how do I discern God’s will for this situation? What does God want me to do here?

We may not know those answers yet, because we may not need them in our lives, but let’s start with the things we do understand. I used to be irritated and amused by professors in college. I think I’ve told you before, one of my classes was a philosophy of ethics class.

And the professor was a militant atheist. And philosophy of ethics was all about these different ethical systems and which makes the most sense and which we should live our lives by. Had different systems they’d talk about. Utilitarianism, whatever brings the most good for the most amount of people would be what’s ethical. Okay, how do you determine what’s the most good?

And try to make right and wrong into a mathematical formula. And one of the things that they talked about, several ethical theories like this, but what they did on the first day of class was to bring up what they called the divine command theory and to attack it. And the divine command theory basically says right and wrong is because God says so.

They said, well, that couldn’t possibly be. And I thought, what do you mean that couldn’t possibly be? You’re supposed to be an open-minded philosopher and you’re just rejecting it out of hand.

And they said it couldn’t be because that makes it completely arbitrary. And suppose God had said, it’s wrong not to murder. You should kill everyone you meet.

Suppose God had said that, would that make it right? And I didn’t have a good answer for that at the time. I wish I’d thought of this at the time.

But you know, we could spend all our lives in the philosopher’s playground of what if and trying to figure out things we don’t understand yet and what’s wrong with. . .

But the fact that men are willing to ignore what God has said and what God has been very clear about because they’re too worried about what He didn’t say or what He might have said or what He could have said says more about their character than it does about the character of God. And folks, we don’t have to understand, well, why did God tell us to do that or not to do that instead of this over here? The facts are plain, the truth is plain that God has spoken and can we not just start with obeying what we’ve heard and understood and worry about the things we don’t understand when we get to them.

Folks, what they understood of His Word, they had obeyed, they had kept, and they had not denied His name. We want to talk about faithfulness in concrete terms. In our daily lives, when God says to be truthful, we make the conscious decision to tell the truth. When God says, love your neighbor as yourself, we make the conscious decision to do that even when it’s hard.

When God says, have no other gods before me, sometimes that means we put down the TV remote, we put down the magazine or the newspaper, get up from the football game, whatever it is, and spend some time in God’s Word, spend some time on our knees, spend some time around God’s people, spend some time talking to people about the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that concrete enough? The things that we understand, let’s just start there with obeying. Are we going to be perfect at it?

No, we’re not going to be perfect, but we can start with the things we understand. Folks, that’s faithfulness. I don’t think the church at Philadelphia was any wiser than we are.

But what they knew, they obeyed, and they were called faithful as a result of it. I’m not getting through this very fast, am I? I may have to come back tonight and hear the rest of this.

He says in verse 9, Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. He talks about, as he did with the church at Ephesus, calls some of the Jews in the area the synagogue of Satan.

And folks, that’s not a racial or religious slur. It would be hard to see that coming from the God who chose the Jews. And yet he calls some of the people they dealt with the synagogue of Satan, Because you’re either serving God or you’re serving Satan.

Those are the two choices the world has. There are no free agents. And there were some that were persecuting the churches that claimed that they were Jews, but as we can learn from the book of Romans and the book of Galatians, especially Galatians chapters 3 and 4, that being born one is not enough to make one Jewish.

They were so concerned with their biological descent from Abraham that they had forgotten about what made Abraham righteous before God. It wasn’t his bloodline. It wasn’t his DNA.

It was his faith. And so when he says those who say they are Jews but are not, he’s talking about those who profess to be the descendants, to profess to be the heirs of Abraham, but they have no idea about the faith that Abraham possessed. They claim to be Jews on the basis of some outward biological lineage when they don’t have the faith of God in their hearts.

He says, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet and to know I have loved thee. That’s a troublesome verse for a lot of people too. He says he’ll have them to come and worship at their feet.

He does not say He will make them to come and worship them. That would be a mistake to assume that God all of a sudden got to the church at Philadelphia and said, you know all that stuff I said about idolatry? I’ll make an exception for you because I like you extra special. No, He says they’re going to come and bow at their feet and worship.

They would come before their feet. They would fall down at the feet of the church, I believe, and worship the one true God. Because through the witness, through the open door that God had given this church, they would see themselves for the sinful condition that they were under, and they would repent, and they would kneel before a holy God and worship.

It would just so happen that the church would be there because through their open door they had led these people to Christ. He doesn’t say that he would make them to worship the church. He just says the church would get to be there and see it happen when they finally knelt before God. Folks, we’re going to stop there for now.

Would you believe I didn’t even get to my notes yet? Come back tonight if you want to hear more about the church at Philadelphia. But this church at Philadelphia was so incredibly faithful to God that God gave them a great capacity for ministry.

God gave them a great capacity to accomplish things for Him. Better said, for Him to accomplish things through them and in them. And it gives me hope that our church, that our church, in spite of our small size, maybe what the world would see as our insignificance, our church can have an impact on the world.

Our church can reach people for Christ. Our church can find open doors in spite of our size because we serve a God who opens doors. And all we’ve got to do is be faithful to Him.