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Throughout history and all across the world, the bride of Christ has found herself or finds herself in different circumstances and in different states of being. Some have been living under the cross, where persecution rages. Some have capitulated to false teaching. Others have compromised themselves with the spirit of the age. While others face a life or death choice – a crisis. There’s very little life left and there is a need for them to rekindle the means of grace – the Word, and sacraments, and the gathered assembly of the people of God – if they are going to survive. If not, Jesus will come like a thief and strip away what is left. Some churches are making the most of difficult circumstances, and those churches attract the cheerful compliments of their Divine Bridegroom.  

Philadelphia – the Biblical Philadelphia in Asia Minor – not this Philadelphia – Philadelphia was such a church. The congregation had little power it says in verse 8, but it had something far greater. It had Jesus. And our church has Jesus. And in this letter that Jesus writes to this church, he brings our attention, he focuses our attention back on him. All the distractions put to one side, all the preoccupations with what is or isn’t going on in our world today, put outside our minds and our minds now focused on Jesus. 

First of all on what Jesus is. On what Jesus is. One of the things that strikes you as you read these seven letters to the churches is the way in which these seven letters are constructed against the outline of corporate worship. In corporate worship there is usually at the very beginning of corporate worship a focusing on God. Some Scripture that we read that brings our minds away from everything else that’s been distracting us and absorbing us in the week and brings us back to the agenda. And the agenda is this vertical relationship we have with God. In corporate worship there is usually a confession of sin because you cannot be in the presence of God without finding out that you are a sinner and without needing to repent of your sins.  

And so within our worship service we, already in in our service this morning, have heard about God in the call to worship. We have been reminded of our sin and our confession of sin, and God willing, we were repentant as we made our confession of sin. And then in each one of these letters, there’s the element of our listening to Jesus, and our communion with Jesus as he exhorts us, as he encourages us, and as he promises things to us. And then at the end of it all, we are all left as individuals. Once that corporate part is over, as individuals we’re left then responding.  

“Let the one who hears, let she who hears, hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” 

Well, those aspects of worship are to be found in these letters, and this letter begins with the worship of God. Jesus reads out the call to worship as he refers us to himself, and he tells us three very simple things about himself that are not found, by the way, in chapter 1. Usually, in previous letters, he’s pulled out elements from chapter 1, and he’s used those elements, but here he doesn’t. Here he is much different. 

He tells us, first of all, that he is the holy one. John readers, John’s readers, then and now, were living in a world in which God’s name was not hallowed. We just prayed earlier in the service, “Hallowed be thy name.” God’s name is not held as holy, which is what the word “hallowed” means. And so Jesus draws our attention towards himself as the holy one.  

Now holy is a divine attribute in the book of Revelation. Holy is who God is, and what God is. Christ is the holy one. Now sometimes we human beings recoil from the idea of holiness, we think holiness to be very, very aloof, and severe and harsh. And yet in all of the Bible the most holy person is our Lord Jesus. And when we look at the Lord Jesus in his life, in his interactions with children, playing with them and defending them, as we see him interact with women, giving them respect and affection and love and his attention, as we see him interacting with those who are the off-scouring of society and his acceptance of them and welcome to them, as we see him in the way he lives his life from moment but to moment, and day to day, we see something attractive – we want to be like Jesus. And he is holy, harmless, and undefiled, separate from sinners. We recoil from the word “holiness” actually because we are unholy ourselves. Unholiness is the imperfection of every rational being. It’s what makes angels and humans both impure and imperfect. Because fallen angels and fallen humans are, even at their very best, not without sin. But God is holy. God is holy.  

Moses learned that, you remember, at the burning bush when God says to him, “Take your shoes from off your feet, for the ground on which you stand is holy ground.” Moses reminds Israel of this when he teaches him his great song of triumph that he writes, and he taught them to praise the “Holiest in the heights.” When he says this:  

“Who is like thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, majestic in holiness, terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders.”  

Exodus 15:11

In the book of Isaiah, Isaiah has an encounter with God in the temple, right at the very beginning of his book in chapter 6. Whether that’s the earthly temple, or whether that’s the universe, that is, the ultimate temple of God in which he is present, Isaiah sees the Lord filling the whole place. There’s room for nothing else, as it were. The glory of God fills the whole earth, fills the temple, and he hears the seraphim. They’re doing the background noises, if you will, and they’re singing  

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of your glory!”  

Isaiah 6:3

Holiness is what God is, and only God is holy. He is the “Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah uses that 20 times. And when Jesus comes on to the picture, what do we find out Mark’s gospel? The very first creatures publicly to acknowledge Jesus, apart from John the Baptist and the Father and the Holy Spirit’s presence at his baptism, are unclean spirits, evil spirits, and they call him the Holy One of God, and they tell him to leave them alone.  

In Revelation chapter 4, we have a picture of the heavenly worship service, and the liturgy. Very early on, the heavenly beings, the creaturely beings, the living creatures representing every kind of creature you can imagine – the stones on planet Mars, and the outermost reaches of space, and every star, and the amoeba, and the atom – everything is represented by these living creatures. The living creatures, all of creation, says “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” That’s the background for Jesus saying to us that he is the holy one. The holy one. He’s giving himself the title of God, who says,  

“To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him, says the Holy One.”  

Isaiah 40:25

Peter, who acknowledges,  

“We have believed and we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.”  

John 6:69

Jesus uses this title in the absolute sense. The triple holiness of the triune God is manifested, made seen, visible, in Jesus the holy. Not only is he holy as God, but his holy as man, as human. There’s no original sin in him. Throughout his life there is no sin in him. In his teaching and in his, in his life he is both pure and holy. Pure and holy is the mediator, that is, as God holy and as man holy, because he is the author of holiness. He is the cause of holiness in his people. We are holy in him, from him, by him. He is the holy one. He is the true one. Later on in chapter 19, he’s called  

“the faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.”  

Revelation 19;11

He is true absolutely. He is all that he claims to be. He fulfills all of his own ideals. He keeps to his promises. He delivers from the hope that he offers us. He is true. And this again is a title. It is a perfection of God. Yahweh is the true God, not only because he’s the only God that exists, but because his word is truth, and because his ways, his ways with you, his ways with the world, his ways are true. He’s true in terms of being genuine and faithful, trustworthy, utterly reliable. He is true. Jesus says,  

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  

John 14:6

John’s gospel. Truth is associated with the completion and the fulfillment of God’s purposes in Christ, who is full of grace and truth. Later the saints will worship in the heavenly worship, and they will say,  

“Great and wonderful are thy deeds and true.”  

Revelation 15:3

He is truth itself. The sum and substance of all the truths of the Gospel can be trusted in, for every prediction he makes, every promise he makes. There is no falsehood, no deception, no lying in him.  

“Let God be true, and every man a liar.”  

Romans 3:4

You can trust Jesus. God exists as truth, which means he’s the ground of all reality – what is true is what is real. What is real. He is the true and living God, in contrast to the fictitious deities who were gods only in name, and not by nature. To be true includes the truth and reality of all his perfections. He’s not only omnipotent, that is all powerful. He is not only omniscient, that is all seeing and knowing. He is not only omnipresent, which means everywhere present. He is not only eternal and immutable, unchanging,  

but he is truly all of these things. To be true can be predicated of the Holy Trinity, the Triune God absolutely. But to be true it can be predicated of the persons. The Father is called by Jesus the only true God. The spirit is called by Paul “the Spirit of truth.” The Son can be described as “the true and eternal life.”  

As the Truth, Christ cannot lie to you, be insincere with you, or dissemble with you. As the Truth, Jesus is both true and faithful. To be false or fallacious or insincere would be to act contrary to his nature. It would be to deny himself. All truth is original in him. He is the first cause of everything that’s true. All that is true is perfect in him, and what is true has been revealed by him in creation. What is true about God has been revealed in creation. It is known by everyone and everything. Though men and women suppress that truth in unrighteousness and are held guilty for the suppression of the truth, they know natural revelation. In God, in God all truth is eternal. What truth is today, it was yesterday, and will be tomorrow; it doesn’t change. And above all, the truth of God is found in Christ himself, who is the truth. Christ is the true one.  

And thirdly, Christ is the key one. He has the key of David,  

“who opens and no one can shut, who shuts and no one opens.”  

Revelation 3:7

Back in chapter 1, Jesus said,  

“I have the keys of Death and Hades.”  

Revelation 1:18

He had those keys, he tells us back in chapter 1, by virtue of the fact that he became dead and became alive again forevermore. But here you notice the key is linked to David. This is a Messianic link, of course, and the idea is that Jesus, of course, being descended from David, is the David that is predicted by some of the latter prophets of the Old Testament. They longed for the day when the David – David was a great king, but he was a moral failure – but a David, like David – but the ultimate David – would come. Jesus holds the key of David. 

The Old Testament background to this is that in Isaiah 22, when a man called Eliakim is mentioned,  

“In that day I will call my servant.” 

Isaiah 22:20

“My servant.” The language of servant usually applies to the Messiah.  

“I will call my servant Eliakim…and I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David. He shall open and none shall shut, he shall shut and none shall open.”  

Isaiah 22:20, 22

You see the connection of language. Eliakim himself mentioned there is a “ne’re do well” individual, but in spite of that God uses him as a type or a prototype of the one who would be faithful over God’s house. The one who would have the government on his shoulder. The one who would exercise all authority in heaven and on earth. The one who has supreme power in his hands.  

And as the holy one and the true one, he has the key – the one key that opens the doors to God’s house and God’s city. In other words, to Christ alone is the authority to grant admission to the New Jerusalem. He alone can open the door and let his people in. There’s no doubt here that there is a gesture towards that moment that is just coming around in chapter 4, in verse 1, where John looked and 

“Lo, in heaven an open door, and a voice saying to him come up here.”  

Revelation 4:1

Christ alone has the right to grant access to God. If there’s anyone here listening to me in this room or online, if you want access to God, if you want to know God, if you’ve been looking for him all of your life, and trying this, that, and the other thing in order to find him, here is your answer this morning. If you want to go to God, you must come to God through Jesus. That’s why when we pray, when we bring our moans to him, or our cries to him, or our joys to him or our burdens to him, we come to God, and we pray in Jesus’ name. Why do we do that? Because we know that that name is the one name under heaven given to us human beings by which we must be saved, and through which we must come into the presence of God. His name unlocks the gate. He only could unlock the gates of heaven and let us in. So what must you do if you want to come to God? You must come to God through him. For any sinner to come into God’s presence must come  

“by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he has opened for us through the curtain, that is, his flesh.” 

Hebrews 10:19-20

That’s what Jesus is. Holy, true, and he’s the key. 

Secondly, what Jesus says. Jesus says to this church,  

“I know your works… I know that you have but little power.”  

Revelation 3:8

It’s interesting that the churches Christ has nothing bad to say about, are those which are marked, the two are marked by poverty. They have few people; they have limited resources. Why should this be? Well, the powerful church has far too much to lose – people, money, reputation, resources. That’s why the powerful church will shy away from taking risks in order to be faithful to Jesus. We have seen in recent years the fall of mega churches in America, and in other parts of the world. We’ve seen the fall of wealthy parachurch ministries that have imploded, either because they’ve harbored false teaching or they have covered up for compromised leaders, while all the while maligning or marginalizing faithful people who’ve been courageous. While they spend massive amounts of money in cover-ups and in no disclosure agreements. It is hard to be a high-profile, successful church and holy at the same time. Not impossible, not impossible, I’m glad to say, but hard.  

Philadelphia was small and struggling, but Jesus commends them. “You’ve kept my word,” he says, “you’ve not denied my name.”  

They had pressure on them. We don’t know where it came from, we don’t know how hard it was. Was it soft persecution or hard persecution? We don’t know. But they’d held, they’d held fast. I want to say this to you: however weak you are, however poor you are, however much you are being opposed for being a Christian, you can be faithful just like this little church in Philadelphia that gets Jesus unqualified praise. You can keep hold of Christ’s truth and his name. You can hold fast to it and be unashamed of it. This is something even the weakest of us can do. Something that even the poorest of us can do. Sadly, it’s all too easy for a Christian and a church to quit believing the Bible, or to start following those who are deconstructing the Bible. But in the same way a church can deny the Lord Jesus. Jesus says, “You’ve kept my word, and I’ve set before you an open door.” 

We saw that this open door means the door to heaven, and into the presence of God and his angels, the spirits of just men and women made perfect. In Isaiah, the references to  

“the gates that are opened that the righteous nation which keeps faith may enter;”  

Isaiah 26:2

In Eliakim, the figure was himself fastened like a peg in a sure place. Thus the weak, the despised by the converted outsider, is given “in my house,” says the Lord, “and within my walls a monument and a name.” You think of that. You once were outsiders, you were once estranged from God, you were once distant from God, and yet no matter your background, no matter how far away you were as an outsider, you’re brought in. “I’ve set before you an open door right into the presence of God. Come to me and come right into the presence of God. Sit down in the presence of God. And all who despised you will bow down at your feet.” Isaiah said. 

These poor and despised Christians in this small church of Philadelphia had been opposed. The opposition came from the synagogue, and Jesus says to them,  

“Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews and are not, but lie.” 

Revelation 3:9

The incipient church had trouble from the synagogues. The synagogues barred them. They were, they were Jewish converts themselves. They felt connected to their Jewish brothers and sisters and family, they wanted to go to the synagogue, and the synagogues barred them. They were now excluded from the synagogue. Meanwhile, the people in the synagogue have rejected Jesus their Messiah. They forfeited the right to call themselves Jews, and by their slanderous accusations against Christians, they have constituted themselves Satan’s synagogue, but God hasn’t finished with the Jews yet. Christ who is God’s true holy one, and the church his holy beloved people; the church that is the heir to God’s promises to Israel, who says to him, to the church,  

“My dwelling shall be with them, I will be their God, they will be my people. Nations shall know that I, the Lord, make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is in her midst forever.” 

Ezekiel 37:27-28

Jesus says, “Some of these very people who’ve cast you out, made you an outsider from the synagogue, some of these very people will come,” as Isaiah puts it, “and they will bow down to you as suppliants saying, ‘God is with you and there is no other, no other God but he.’ Many will come and they will join you.” And Jesus says,  

“I will keep you from the hour of trial that’s coming on the whole world.” 

Revelation 3:10

We don’t know what this hour of trial was. Maybe it was the trial in the land of Israel, indeed during throughout the region around Jerusalem in the year A.D. 70, when Rome decided once and for all to get rid of Jews, and to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple, and get rid of this irritant that had been going on for such a long time. It was a horrific time for Christians as well as for Jews. This may be what’s in view here, or it may be something further into the future when the Greco-Roman world came under threat by the Goths, and the Vandals, and the Huns as they came screaming in with their paganism. Or maybe it’s a number of things that have happened again and again and again in history.  

“I will keep you. I am coming soon.”  

Revelation 3:11

Jesus says. “I’m coming soon.” Whether that’s a reference to the very end of the age when Jesus comes again in power and glory, or whether it’s one of those interim comings when Jesus comes by his Spirit to refresh, and bless, and revive, and quicken his church.  

“I’m coming soon. Meanwhile, hold fast, hold fast what you have.” 

Revelation 3:11

You see, these tribulations are a penal judgment on unbelievers. This is how we must understand the pandemic, isn’t it? It is a penal judgment on unbelievers. How do we know that? Because the wages of sin is death. The pandemics merely focus our attention on deaths from a virus, but death is with us all of the time. But these events happen in history of the world to remind the world, as we’ll see later in the book of Revelation, that the world is under judgment. Right now it’s under judgment. But these things also test the church. They test the church.  

“Hold fast what you have.”  

Revelation 3:11

They test the church’s resolve, the church’s endurance. Well, Jesus assures his church that even though adversaries may seek to exclude you, Christ has opened up the way into the presence of God for you. You’re an insider from God’s perspective.  

Well the last thing, the last and third, the third thing we see here: what Jesus is, what Jesus says, what Jesus does. He makes the conqueror  

“a pillar in the temple of my God.” 

Revelation 3:12

A pillar in the temple is using the physical image of a physical temple and of something that is substantial, something that is integral, something that is stable. And he’s saying, “That’s what you are. You’re not like a fly buzzing around in the temple of God. You are a pillar in the temple of God.” Something permanent in the temple of God; it has this view of stability, permanence, something that cannot be moved. And you will never leave it, you will never leave it, you’ll never be excluded from it, you remain there. Not only that, but he goes on to say that he will write on her  

“the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, new Jerusalem, which comes out of heaven from my God, and my new name.” 

Revelation 3:12

Jesus says four times, he uses the expression “my God.” Remember, he spoke this like this to Mary when Mary meets him in the garden, and Jesus has just risen, and this is the first conversation we have between the risen Jesus and anybody. And Mary is talking to him there, and she wants to respond to Jesus the way she had when he was still alive, she wants to give him a hug, and Jesus says, “Can’t do that. I’ve not been to my Father. I’m going to my Father and your Father, and to my God and to your God.” And it’s a reassuring thing, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus is our Father. That’s why he teaches us to pray as we prayed earlier, “Our Father.”  

We’re praying along with Jesus Jesus’ prayer, “Our Father.” Did you know that? You’re not just saying “our Father” in the sense of those of us are here in the room here, or those of us who are watching,  “Our Father”. No, our Father is Jesus and our Father, and Jesus and our God.  

“I will put on you the name of God.” 

Revelation 3:12

The priest in Israel would place the name of God upon the congregation as he blessed them and said the benediction over them. And that name is put on us by the Lord Jesus, our great High Priest. And it is put into us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God on our hearts. The name of God. The name of new Jerusalem; he’ll put the name of new Jerusalem on us. Look, like Christ himself who came down out of heaven, so this city comes down out of heaven from God. It’s not an earthly city but, or a creaturely, of something of creaturely origin. It is the city of God. Paul calls it, “Jerusalem above is free.” Hebrews calls it, “the city of the living God.” The heavenly Jerusalem.  

To have the name of new Jerusalem imprinted upon you means you are a citizen of new Jerusalem. You are a citizen of new Jerusalem. There’s your primary allegiance, primary citizenship. You belong to new Jerusalem. Our citizenship is in Heaven. To bear the name of that city is to know that you’re a citizen there. And then above all the name of Christ.  

“My own new name.”  

Revelation 3:12

The name of God, the name of new Jerusalem, the name of Christ imprinted on the believer. This new name is a symbol of fuller glories about Christ, of Christ that not even the Bible has even approached telling us. Greater wonders about our Savior than we’ve ever known. Fuller knowledge of our Savior than we have yet comprehended, that will be revealed when he comes again. You know, Paul writes to the Colossians, and he says,  

“When Christ who is our life appears, you will appear with him in glory.”  

Colossians 3:4

And perhaps one of my favorite Bible verses from when I was a boy, in First John chapter 3,  

“Beloved, we are God’s children now,” – right now, we are God’s children – “but it does not yet appear what we shall be.”  

1 John 3:2

What that means is anybody looking at you would not place you as being one of God’s children. They would just place you as an ordinary human being, with either better or less good taste than they have. 

“It does not yet appear what we shall be,” but John goes on to say, “we know that when he appears, we shall be like him,” – like him – “for we shall see him as he is.”  

Beloved, this is your destiny. Think of it think of the stars in the sky, the beauty of an evening out in the countryside away from the city and seeing the stars in the night sky, thinking, or going to this, to an astronomer and seeing through the great lens the planets as they circle around these stars. The beauty of night, the beauty of the day, the rippling brook, the lakes, the seas, the hills, the valleys, the trees, the birds, nature with all its beauty, other human beings. What’s so destructive about this period is we don’t get to see other human beings the way God has made them. That’s a big miss. It’s not a small thing. The beauty that we see in other people, and you take all that beauty, your destiny, your destiny is to enter into that beauty. Your destiny is to exceed that beauty. Your destiny is to exceed any work of human art no matter how wonderful and beautiful it is, to exceed any work of human ingenuity, to exceed, to eclipse the sun, moon, and stars. To become a creature, your destiny is to become a creature of such magnificent, and magnificence that were you to meet yourself as you shall be, today your instinctive reaction would be to think this is a God. This is a God. Because we shall be like him, when we see him as he is. You are destined to be a pillar in the temple of God that will never be removed, and to share in the beauty of Christ forever. 

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