It's Worth It - Week 8 - Study Notes

English

It's Worth it

Revelation 3:7-13

During my recent trip to Asia, I met a number of Christian leaders who had been imprisoned because of their faith in Jesus. As they told their stories of incarceration, none of them complained at all about the experience. Instead, they all spoke of the time as a time of great opportunity for wetness and, just as much, as a time to spend in prayer. One man told me, "People don't usually realize that people in prison seem more open to knowing about Jesus. And I personally discovered that Jesus is there in prison. I miss my uninterrupted times with him there."
As I studied Revelation 3:7-13 and Jesus' letter to the church in Philadelphia this week, I was reminded that the pastors I met in Asia all told me they had been prepared for their times of imprisonment by God's Word, especially by 1 Peter and by the letters from Jesus to the churches in Revelation. I began to wonder how prepared I have helped you to become for times of trouble that almost certainly will come into your life.
Did you know that one of the main reasons the book of Revelation was written was so that Christians would be prepared to live faithfully for Jesus in the most challenging of times? Within a generation of when Jesus' sent these letters, some of the fiercest persecution of believers in history would come to the church right in Asia Minor where these seven churches of Revelation 2-3 were located. Jesus was calling the churches to be "overcomers", i.e., those who walked courageously through whatever anyone threw at them. And what he said to them took root. When the toughest times came, they were ready. Are you?
The text we come to today is one of the most important texts in the Bible for this purpose so I want you to listen carefully today – not only for what Jesus says about difficulties currently in your life but also to prepare you for whatever happens in your future. What I have done today is condense from Jesus' letter to Philadelphia just two perspectives on trouble – perspectives that change everything. We'll look at them and see how they might direct the way we live in this world.

Perspective 1: When we serve Jesus, we are constantly involved in a mission that matters. These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open... See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut (3:7-8).
Opportunity is a very important thing for us human beings, isn't it? Most of us are energized when we feel that the future holds potential – that our lives actually count and that what we do can make a difference in this world. Consider the following realities:
1) That's why the possibility of promotion is so important in the work place. Many, many people choose to move thousands of miles to take a job with growth potential rather than stay in what they consider to be a dead end job.
2) That's one of the reasons why unemployment is so devastating to a whole society. Those of you who have been out of work in our recent economic downturn have told me over and over that the problem you face is not just financial. What you've told me is that, when you're not working, you have felt you have nothing to do – that you have nothing to achieve. We who are human and made in God's image love opportunity.
3) That's what makes the early days of retirement so hard for many people. We ask, "Where is my life heading? In what way is it counting?"
4) And that's just one of the things that makes impending death so hard for people who are not Christians in this world. Everything they've lived for is shown to be temporary when the doctor says, "You only have a short time to live." The grave looks like the end of opportunity.
Intuitively, we know that we're made to be a part of something that makes a difference, that God placed us in this world for a reason. When we human beings quit reaching out, quit learning, quit taking risks and trying new things, we begin to stop living. We become more like creatures not made in God's image than those who are to reflect God's image. God created. Good works. God is productive. And, he's made us to find great joy when our lives count for something that matters. When we feel there is nothing more to do, no new ground to explore, no new truth to be learned – we find that life becomes intolerably boring.
But Jesus reminds us in this letter that a Christian becomes a part of something that really matters. In vv. 7-8, Jesus offers us opportunity: inalienable, unchangeable, invulnerable, eternal opportunity.
To me, the imagery of v.8 is so appealing. Ultimately, the things most people live for, once accomplished, prove unfulfilling. Often, the doors we try to go through are slammed in our faces or they lead nowhere. Jesus offers an open door to us, one that often lead us into some spiritual battles but one that has assurances. The Bible declares, "What he opens, no power in the universe is able to shut."
But what is this open door? It's clear to me that the Christians were to be encouraged by it -- that though they had few career opportunities in Philadelphia, they had an eternal call upon their lives. There was something they could be involved in that no one could take away. But what is it? What kind of opportunity is Jesus referring to?
#1: Churches closed down -- In many of these churches in Asia, people were being expelled from their meeting places. The doors to their church meetings were literally boarded up by the authorities. Of course, that has continued to happen in many places in our world as some in our own church have experienced in their countries of birth. Jesus would be saying here, "Governments may close building but they can never close the door to being in my presence. You are part of the family of God through Jesus, the key to God."

#2: Synagogues closed to Christians -- On other thing is certain, and is mentioned by Jesus in v. 9. Most of the believers in Philadelphia were Jewish believers who still loved to go and worship the Lord in the synagogues. But, their Jewish friends and family members members had closed the synagogue doors to them because of their faith in Jesus. Jesus had very hard words for those who claimed to be his people in v.9. You see, the Jews were to be the people who brought blessing to all people. God had said that to Abraham. And their synagogues and temple were to be a place where all people met God. Jesus is saying, "I am the one who came through your line to open the door to God's house for all people. And you are locking it! Satan locks the door. I open it!" To the Christians he is saying, "The door to God's presence through me can never be shut.

#3: Evangelistic opportunities hindered -- Most Christians throughout history have felt Jesus was speaking about opening doors for us to lead others through Jesus into God's family. If so, Jesus is declaring that whatever happens, wherever Christians find themselves (even if it's in prison) still offers us the opportunity to point people to Christ through our lives and words. No prison bars can exclude the presence of Jesus and the gospel message.

#4: Personal entrance to God's family blocked -- It's clear in v. 7 that a big part of Jesus' message is that he personally is the key who opens the door to the house of God to all who trust him. Hallelujah. In Rev. 4:1, John sees another open door, but this time the door into heaven. Jesus had earlier said, in words quoted also by John, "I am the door". There he was clearly speaking about the door to eternal life.

Let me tell you this: I think that Jesus is speaking about all these opportunities here that as Christians we are given an open door to prayer and fellowship with God, to evangelistic service that matters eternally, and to service in our neighborhood when others are experiencing closed doors of any kind. Why do I say that? Because in v.7, we find Jesus quoting Isaiah 22:22: God said, "I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.". In that chapter Isaiah refers to keys being given to a man named Eliakim that would enable him to go into the king's palace, into the house of David. And those keys enabled him to open that door for others as well and give them access to the king's dwelling place.
What light does that throw on our text? Surely it's this. Jesus is identifying Himself as the one who has the key to all that matters. It's his privilege to grant permission to the presence of the King over all kings. Beyond that, Jesus gives us the opportunity to use our witness and our resources so that others may know God and experience his love, his healing and his help.
I'm sure you can see how this applies to us. We should wake up each day knowing that wherever we go, we go as his representatives – yes, even into the prisons or into the unemployment line. We go with his message and we go in his power. The Jesus who is our Lord is the key that will open up a new life for anyone who trusts him – and we are witnesses to that. Everyone who crosses our path is a divine appointment. We believe that everyone who sits next to us at school or work is placed there by God. And, we know Jesus, the key for life to us and to them. This perspective energizes every day of our lives.
The Christians in Philadelphia had few resources but they had read Isaiah 58 and were ready to spend their resources in God's mission. In the next century, when people in their area were afflicted by the plague and were abandoned by their own people, these Christians in Asia went to take the sick out of the streets and nurse them to health. One emperor who hated Christians because they wouldn't worship him bitterly complained, "We can get rid of these godless Christians because they care for their own poor and ours as well!" These is why, when people who have been incarcerated come home and seek to find a place of re-entry, they should be able to count of those who love Jesus. We would never shut doors on people. We have the key. Jesus is the one who opens the door to all who trust in him. And we will do the same.
It's as if Jesus is saying in this letter, "A whole new eternal world of opportunity, a whole new reason for living, opens up to the one who believes in me. So let people around pursue temporary things; let them lock you out of possessing what they falsely think life is all about. They'll find out it's all a dead end. But trust Jesus and you get to be part of something that will last forever. Through you, others can find eternal life too. Through you, the world can be more of what it should be because you can become a part of my work." When you know Jesus, where others only can see a hopeless end, you can see endless hope."

II. We get to hold on to (held by) something that really lasts. 3:10
Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth (3:10).
This is a much-debated verse in the Bible. But, first, let's think about what it meant to these believers in Philadelphia. They were experiencing loss of all kinds. And loss is one of the hardest things for any human being to come to grips with. We get frustrated when we lose things like our car keys or homework! But, when we lose things like our jobs, a relationship through divorce or misunderstanding, and especially a loved one through death, the burden we feel can almost crush us.
And, these believers in the Revelation churches were losing many things – their ability to go to the good schools, their career opportunities, their opportunity to go to the synagogue with family, and some would soon lose their lives. Jesus is saying, "You will not lose everything. I will always keep you."
As some of you know, the Bible points out often that difficult times will come into the world. Therefore, we should not be surprised when human governments let us down or even turn against us. In both the OT and NT, we are told that the latter times of human history will be a time of great trouble. Jesus speaks in Revelation as well as in the Gospels of a time of distress that will come that is unparalleled in the history of the world. And much of this book of Revelation is taken up with symbolic descriptions of "great tribulation" as it is sometimes called.
I'm convinced that it's to this time, mentioned first in the OT book of Daniel centuries before Jesus lived, that Jesus is referring here. In one sense, I think Jesus' statement had something direct to say to the Christians in Philadelphia. Persecution stemming from Rome was beginning to spread to the whole known world. And Jesus was saying, that He would "keep them" when that happens. His promise: "Nothing in this world will ever bar your presence in God's family." In that sense, what Jesus says here is like the marvelous promise in Romans 8: "Nothing will be able to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus."
But the language goes beyond just that, doesn't it. Jesus is foretelling a far greater trial here that will come everywhere, greater than our world has yet to see. English speaking Christians have debated furiously over the last 200 years about whether Christians are being promised we will be taken out of this period of tribulation which the preposition, "ek" (meaning "out of"), seems to indicate or whether Jesus is promising simply to "keep" us in such a way that the tribulation will do us no real harm as the word "keep" would indicate – and as it meant to these Philadelphia believers.
Well, I'm not going to solve that in the few moments we have here because the point Jesus made is equally valid and powerful either way we take it. Jesus tells all Christians that, in a difficult world in which we sometimes feel we are losing everything, God will hold us. Either through miraculous escape (a rapture) or through providential protection, God promises to hold onto us in the worst times of tribulation. The message is that there is one Person who loves you, who will keep you, and who will not forsake you no matter what else happens in this world.
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For those who may not be Christians, don't you need something like that? When things get worse, without this faith in God you are left with, at best uncertainty and at worst, despair. How do you handle the loss of things you have invested your life in when they are taken away by job loss, bad health or old age? How do you handle untimely deaths is there is no resurrection to eternal life to give hope? You and I need an anchor in this trying world. For those of us who are Christians, this is one of the greatest blessings that comes from being joined to a Lord who defeated death by his resurrection.

All this ends with Jesus' triumphant proclamation in V.12: The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name.
I think the people of Philadelphia would have understood these words because of two reasons: 1) Their city, like our own, was built on a geological fault. As a result they were very prone to earthquakes. About 80 years before this letter was written, a massive earthquake destroyed the whole city.
We understand earthquakes here in Southern California. Those who own homes know that we have to sign release forms for insurance saying we know we live in a fault area. It doesn't make you very secure about keeping your home when you do it. I think that's why Jesus drives home his encouraging words to this church with the comforting promise of a secure residence. Christians have a place of belonging, an eternal household that no earthquake can ever take away. "You will become pillars in the dwelling place of God," Jesus says. No earthquake can do anything there.
And, beyond that, 2) the repetition of the "new name" Jesus talks about had special significance to them in Philadelphia. After that massive earthquake hit the city, the emperor rebuilt the city with the demand that the city be called "New Caesar". But, Jesus said that the names in that are to be placed on us are "the name of my God"; the "name of the city of my God"; "my new name." So, you and I know our identity and it is an identity that cannot be lost. We have a place of belonging as God's child that cannot be taken away. We have a home. It's a place God prepares for us. This is the place Jesus died to open up to us. "I must go through death to prepare a place for you," he said. But, in my Father's house, there is plenty of room for all his children." This world He promised, and we long for, is a divine gift for those who trust Christ. That place is the great expectation of every believer in Jesus.
And, we live in the midst of the challenges of this world always with the certainty that we belong to God. More than that, he opens up doors to us: doors of witness, doors of showing his love, doors that provide welcome for those who come into a community and wonder where they might belong. He opens the door of his house to us and then he gives us the key so that we might welcome the stranger, show love to those re-entering a community with some anxiety after years of incarceration... Indeed, Jesus is the key who opens the door to life to all who believe.

To His glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor