This has the potential for being the shortest sermon I’ve ever done. At first glance, it seems all I need to do with this text is to praise the church for doing so well, declare myself to be against sin, and wrap it up. The shortest sermon I’ve ever done, and maybe the shortest on record! Anybody want to say amen?!
The church at Thyatira received fulsome praise. It was praised for being diligent in love, faith, service, and patience. Who has any quarrel with those things? And if the Lord then goes on to say that he does have something against the church at Thyatira, and that that one thing is that it tolerates sin, well, who can quarrel with that? Who doesn’t tolerate sin? Doesn’t everybody have blemishes? Doesn’t every church have sinners in it? Nothing new there. If you can find the perfect church, be sure not to join it, because once you do, it won’t be perfect any more! We know that sin exists; we know that it’s in us; we know that it’s in our church. So what? We’ve heard all that before. Can’t we just go home now?
You’ve heard the old story about Calvin Coolidge, who, before he became a high school, was a quiet-spoken president? He was known for the briefest of answers when questions were put. And so the story goes that Mr. Coolidge went to church one Sunday, and when he got home, his wife asked what the sermon was about. Coolidge replied in one word: "sin". His wife, not quite satisfied, asked what the preacher had to say about sin. And Coolidge’s reply has become a classic: "He was against it."
Well, of course. Aren’t we all? So shall we wrap up and go home, having heard the shortest sermon on record? The invitation hymn will be ...
Not on your life. Not a chance. The text in front of us does a great deal more with the theme of sin. It forces us to confront one overwhelming reality: that there is among us a deadly virus an insidious sickness. There is something which, if not understood, will ultimately destroy us. And not only will it destroy us as individuals; it will also destroy our church.
And so today the lord of the church at Thyatira will speak, in some detail, to the church at Takoma, and will say to us: understand this disease. Understand that if there is no integrity, there is ultimately no church. If the deadly virus is not attacked early and often, it will destroy everything else. Like those virus infections that some of us keep fighting, the symptoms of sin persist long after we think they have been treated. No, the sermon won’t be that short; in fact, it will be rather involved.
I
The first thing we have to understand is that sin is not excused by good works. Moral shortcomings are not just paid for by the good things we have done. Failure is not compensated for by accomplishments. You can’t just put the good stuff on one side of the scales and the bad stuff on the other side and weigh them out. It’s not that simple.
Listen to the praise the Lord offers the church at Thyatira, which He follows immediately with something else: "I know your works -- your love, faith, service, and patient endurance. I know that your last works are greater than the first. But I have this against you ... "
The oldest mistake in the world is the notion that we can earn our way into God’s favor. From the Jews of Jesus’ time, who thought that keeping the hundreds of requirements in the Sabbath law would make them right, to the modern Christian who supposes that going to church and staying out of trouble is going to buy him a one way ticket to heaven, lots of people have assumed that doing good pays the bill for doing bad. But it’s not that simple. It doesn’t work that way.
You remember the story about the old southern preacher who had to do the funeral for the town’s meanest man? For the guy who cheated, lied, stole, and embodied every vice known to man? The family hired the preacher, and whoever pays the piper calls the tune. So the preacher struggled and labored to find something good to say, and finally managed at least this: "Old John warn’t no saint; but he warn’t no Yankee neither."
We like to think that in the end everybody’s sort of OK, everybody’s all right. But no, listen again to the Lord of the church: "I know your works -- your love, faith, service, and patient endurance. I know that your last works are greater than the first. But I have this against you …"
Our God is calling us to completeness. He summons us to perfection. "Be therefore perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect." Our God does not say, "Hey, that’s good enough for government work". Our God says, "As good as you may be, you are incomplete, and that is not what I want."
Look at our church; look at all we’re doing. Thirty-one ministries and involvement groups either going or proposed. Good stuff. Impressive. And I hear the Lord’s praise for them all: "I know your works … I know that your last works are greater than the first."
But is there something we are ignoring? Are we ignoring a deadly virus that threatens us? What, exactly, would that be?
II
The deadly virus that will destroy us is unconfessed self-indulgence. Unrepentant selfishness.
"I have this against you: you tolerate" ... what? "You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practice fornication and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her fornication."
The issue, I say, is unconfessed self-indulgence, unrepentant selfishness.
Some of the language of this text should be very familiar to you if you were here last Sunday. The sins of Thyatira are very similar to the sins of Pergamum. The specifics labeled are fornication and eating food sacrificed to idols. I cannot go back over old ground to talk about the food sacrificed to idols; we did that last week.
But I can and must zero in on something else. And that is that everywhere you turn in the Bible, there is a strong link between idolatry, the worship of false gods; and adultery, the wrong use of sexuality. Idolatry and adultery; the words even sound the same. When we misuse God’s gift of sexuality, it means that we are breaking fellowship with the true and living God. Adultery and idolatry are very, very close.
Now please understand that I am not beating up on anybody. Please understand that I am not out to embarrass anyone. What I want to say comes out of compassion rather than some need to stomp on somebody. But I know that the Christian church must stand up and say a word for sexual purity. The Christian church must encourage everyone, without exception, to understand that marriage is the relationship within which God wants us to express our sexuality. And when we just turn our eyes and pretend not to see what is happening, then we are like the church at Thyatira, which is tolerating Jezebel, tolerating seduction among us.
Friends, the hard bottom line issue is that integrity in sexuality and integrity in spirituality go hand in hand. If you will break faith with the purity of marriage, then you will also break faith with your God. Or, if you like, turn that around: if you have a broken relationship with God, the chances are very good that you will fill that aching emptiness with sexual substitutes. There is a relationship void in every one of us that will be filled with something, sooner or later. If not God, then what else? Perhaps you know of the famous ancient African Christian Augustine who, before his conversion, was a notorious womanizer; Augustine’s word is right, "Restless are our souls, o God, until they find their rest in Thee." Adultery is restless sexuality; and idolatry is restless spirituality -- they are just two sides of the same coin.
Are you hearing me? Are you hearing the concern and the compassion that I feel? I have counseled many times with people whose pain over this deadly virus is deep and real. But in order to be faithful to what Christ calls His church to be, we at least have to name it. "I have this against you: you have tolerated Jezebel, beguiling my servants … I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent." Unconfessed sin, unrepentant self-indulgence, will destroy individual lives and will damage the church.
III
In fact, that is the next insight we can gain from the Lord of the church at Thyatira. The next thing to be discovered in this letter is that this deadly virus infects everyone around. It is not just that what we do we do alone; it is that everything we do has an effect on others, and especially on the church. If we think, "What I do is my own business. No one knows and therefore no one is getting hurt," we’re just fooling ourselves.
Says the Lord, "Beware, I am throwing her [that is, anyone who leads others to be morally careless] ... I am throwing her on a bed [literally, the word used there means a sickbed, like a hospital bed]. I am throwing her on a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I am throwing into great distress, unless they repent of their doings; and I will strike her children dead."
What each of does affects the rest of us. Even if no one is aware of that breach of integrity that you thought you had kept well hidden, I can assure you that it does have its affect. It is no accident that the Lord calls the church His body. Have you ever caught one of these viruses that lodges in one part of the body but makes you feel blah all over? You get a stomach virus, but it is not only that the tummy hurts, but also the legs get all rubbery. You get a virus infection in the throat, but the head hurts and the chest hurts, and you think you are going to die. In fact, you almost wish you would, just to get rid of the discomfort!
Well, just as a virus may attack one part of the body but leave you hurting all over, so also the determined, unrepentant, unconfessed sin of one of us will affect all of us. I have seen this happen. I could take you today to a church in this city where the last three pastors violated their marriage vows. Three of them! Over a period of about twenty years, what once was a strong and sensitive witness for Christ has become a contentious, fractious, sick place to be. To look at it from the outside, you might not think there are any problems. The church has plenty of money, a fine building, an enviable location, lots going for it. But it is a spiritual shell, because an evil tree does not bring forth good fruit; and because there is a sickness in its system. Those who tolerated it are, along with those former pastors, in great distress and spiritually dead.
Make no mistake about it. I am not just on a tear this morning to go after individuals and their indiscretions. I am trying to say, on the basis of the word of God, that what each of us does, behind closed doors though it may be, affects the rest of us. The deadly virus of sin is contagious.
IV
So what are we going to do about this? Aside from urging one another to live right, what are we to do to cure ourselves? Aside from trying to get help where there is a problem, is there any hope?
Part of the answer lies in our own decision-making. The Lord of the church says that His expectation for us is that we choose, and that He does not expect of us more than we can handle. God knows our failings and He knows our possibilities. He knows where we struggle, and He knows where we refuse to struggle. And so, He will not ask us to do more than it is possible for us to do. But He will certainly expect us to be honest and to be faithful where we can.
He puts it like this: "All the churches will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts ... and to those of you who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call ’the deep things of Satan’, to you I say, ’I do not lay on you any other burden; only hold fast to what you have until I come.’"
You see, a lot of us are trying very hard to get off the hook by pleading that we can’t help ourselves. We are very quick indeed to claim that we just lose control and that "things" take over.
Things take over? What things? Well, I’m under the influence of something else. Violence on television made me do it. Alcohol made me do it. Bad company and big-time friends made me do it. The times made me do it. Remember comedian Flip Wilson a few years ago? "The devil made me do it." Sounds suspiciously like what the Lord says to Thyatira, with a sarcastic bite in His language, that some have learned what they call ’the deep things of Satan.’
But the "churches will know that I am the one who searches mind and heart" Mind and heart. Whether you argue that the devil made me do it or my hormones made me do it or my feelings got away with me or my friends seduced me into it ... whatever excuses we make, in the end God has given us both minds to think and hearts to feel. He will not burden us with more responsibility than we can handle. "I do not lay on you any other burden; only hold fast to what you have until I come." It is our responsibility to choose God’s call for integrity; and we are equipped to choose. We may be beset with problems and we may be broken in many ways, and we will not always succeed, but God has given us discernment and power. Therefore hold fast. Hold fast to what is good, and there will be no greater burden laid on us than we can handle.
V
In fact, hold fast, be faithful, for something else is coming. Hold fast, be faithful, live in integrity, for Christ has a gift to give those who do. Hold fast, be faithful, do what you know to do, for when He comes, He comes to bring victory. When He comes, He comes to bring joy. And most of all, when He comes, He comes to bring the gift of Himself.
Oh, men and women, hear the Lord of the church at Thyatira, speaking to church at Takoma: "to everyone who conquers and continues to do my works to the end ... I will give authority over the nations ... and I will also give the morning star." Our Christ is saying that goodness is its own reward, and more; that ultimately what integrity brings is fellowship with Him in His blessed presence.
Oh, if only I could get this one point across: that what will finally make us happy is the blessed presence of Christ! Feel this down in your bones today. The pleasure of this moment evaporates, the satisfaction of sensuality disappears, the trappings of popularity tarnish. Only what you do for Christ ... with Christ ... will last.
"To everyone who conquers and continues to do my works to the end ... I will ... give the morning star."
Oh, I can’t talk to you about the golden streets of heaven; I haven’t been there. I can’t talk about pearly gates and long white robes and satin slippers. And even though the Lord says He’s going to prepare a mansion for me, I don’t know what it looks like -- hope it doesn’t need a new heating system. Surely hope it won’t need any sort of air conditioning, if you get my drift. I can’t tell you about the furniture of heaven. But I can tell you who will make it heaven. I can tell you who will make it all worthwhile.
For to the one who conquers there is the gift of Christ Himself. To the one who is faithful there is the presence that shines in radiance. To the one who chooses integrity, He bathes all things in His glow. To the one who is victorious there is the morning star; to the one stays the course, there is the risen and living Christ. To the one who lives in Him, He makes life worth living and death worth enduring. To the one who repents of his wrong and labors to live in the right, there is the wonder of His word, "Well done"
"It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and descendant of David, [I am) the bright and morning star." The Spirit says, "come"; and let everyone who hears say, "come" And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift." Come.
I know … be faithful ... come.
