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By Jim Stern
Church.
Meh, church is just…church.
Maybe you have been going your whole life – what’s the big deal? I mean, my church is nice, or it is even really good, but church is just church.
Maybe you just started going and are still trying to get comfortable with the reality that you are going to a church and it didn’t burn down when you walked in!
Maybe you are scared to go because that’s the last place you would ever want to be.
Church.
But what is God’s intent for the church? What does He want to happen when His people gather, filled in the Spirit, to learn how to follow Jesus? What does He want for broken people, battling people, skeptical people?
The structure of Revelation gives some answers to God’s intent. Before all the apocalyptic, end-of-world content of chapters 4-21, Jesus gives seven letters to seven churches in Revelation 2-3. The structure speaks to the significant role of church in our Father’s plan for creation.
Remember, the Kingdom of God is like a country that is expanding against the Kingdom of Satan. Churches and ministries are like cities, towns and villages. They are fortifications against the enemy and sources of love, life and family for converts.
Church is also supposed to be the primary place of God’s revelation to the world. The apocalyptic truth of Revelation is given to the church!
When you go to church you should expect to receive revelation, insight, into the supernatural kingdom of God and what it means to live a supernatural LIFE! In our Overflow Conversations that Joel and I continue to have, we are exploring what it means to be a part of a healthy church. I think one element in a healthy church is experiencing revelation. When you go to church, you should leave knowing that you have just been in His presence and heard His word for your life.
Divine encounter should be a regular occurrence!
And so the Overflow podcast is moving through Jesus’s words to these seven churches. Thyatira, the fourth of seven churches, is Jesus’s target today.
Revelation 2:18, “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze, says this:…”
Like all seven Revelation churches, Thyatira is in modern day Turkey. Unlike Pergamum from last week, Thyatira is a blue-collar town known for commercial guilds and fabric dying as well as a robust bronze industry.
Notice the description of Jesus – He is described differently to each of the seven churches! Here He has eyes like fire and feet like burnished bronze. The depiction is intense. The words about to be spoken are not warm fuzzies or wise suggestions. These are the Words of the Son of God. And the fire in His eyes does not seem to indicate that He is pleased with this church.
Further, Jesus’s feet may be described as burnished bronze because bronze was such an important part of the local economy. That which is most valuable in culture is as the feet of the Son of God. You can imagine Jesus’s feet being a Mercedes Benz! A Mercedes is a rich cultural sign of success and significance…meh, just the feet of Jesus.
There is real danger in our lives when we lock into one facet of Jesus to the neglect of all the others. We miss out on richness in our relationship and can be left wanting in our daily lives. So, if Jesus is only the Lamb who forgives your sins but is not also your Lord or King or Vine or fire eyes and bronze feet, then you will suffer the appropriate degree of wanting in your soul for something/one more.
The best way I know to balance my relationship with all the facets of Jesus, is to read Scripture regularly. Not devotional books about Scripture but Scripture itself – one verse, one chapter, one book at a time. Jesus is presented in many ways throughout the text. Almost daily I read about Him in some different way so that my understanding of ALL that He wants to be in my life can develop and stay fresh.
So, let’s see how Jesus with fire in His eyes evaluates the Thyatiran Church.
Revelation 2:19, “I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first.”
As Jesus’s pattern goes, He first gives the good stuff. And this church is doing some good stuff. Love, faith, service, and perseverance are all abundant, healthy, and growing!
That’s a great list to evaluate the healthiness of a church! How would you like to be a part of something that is experiencing growth in each of these? How would you score your church in those four areas? How can success in those areas be celebrated? How can your gifts be used in those areas to make them healthier and more fruit-bearing in your church?
Being on a winning team is awesome – being a contributing part of a winning team is much, much MORE awesome!
Those that call the church at Thyatira home seem to be doing well, so why the fire eyes?
Revelation 2:20-21, “But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. 22 Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. 23 And I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.”
Tolerating Jezebel is bad! And here is another church tolerating bad teaching in the body. Pergamum tolerated the teaching of Balaam and Nicolaitan. Thyatira is allowing the teaching of a woman named Jezebel, a prophetess promoting sexual immorality and idolatry to spread unchecked. She claims you can be Team Jesus and still engage in these lifestyles and no one in the church is stopping her!
Hence, Jesus has FIRE in His eyes!
Ironically, the Balaam teaching in Pergamum also promotes sexual immorality and idolatry. Fascinating that the same outcomes go by different names. And, equally interesting, that sexual immorality is often coupled with idolatry.
In 1 Kings 11, Scripture records Solomon getting involved with many women from different foreign lands (sexual immorality). He then builds altars to their gods in Israel! (Idolatry).
Even worse, Jesus says that this Thyatiran Jezebel refuses to repent! It appears that while the church has confronted her, she will not stop. But it also seems that the church has not kicked her out of the fellowship.
Removing one from the fellowship of God’s people must be an option flexed to maintain the truth, love, and unity of God’s people.
Jesus gives His escalating consequences of church discipline in Matthew 19. The final consequence is removing the person(s) from fellowship praying that the weight of their separation will bring them to repentance and restoration.
Healthy church discipline is a sign of a healthy church. Bad teaching and bad teachers cannot be tolerated. Matthew 19 lays out a series of opportunities for an individual to repent, the last one is removal from fellowship.
When a church is serious about our Father’s Kingdom they will be serious about disciplining bad teaching and teachers. While removing someone from fellowship is never fun and is not something we aggressively do, it will be necessary. And people in the church will experience how serious Kingdom matters are. The church, and members of the church, are constantly under attack, not only from without but also from within.
Jesus goes on in Revelation 2:24-25, 24 But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them—I place no other burden on you. 25 Nevertheless what you have, hold fast until I come.
There are, “deep things of Satan”? Wow. Four of the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 are contending with demonic issues. Demon spirits seeking to lure church members away from intimacy with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Convincing God’s children that a better life can be had elsewhere. And demonic ways have depth.
But Jesus acknowledges that some in the church have been faithful to stay away from these dark things. He exhorts them to continue to hold fast to solid, sound truth that promotes intimacy and holiness.
He concludes His words to Thyatira in Revelation 2:26-29, “26 He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations; 27 and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also 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.”
Ah, Jesus’s reward will go to those who overcome until the end! As Jesus is described differently in each of the seven letters, so too His description of the overcomer’s reward is different.
Here the faithful will receive Jesus’s authority to reign and rule. They will join Him over all those who have rejected His love and have not repented. They will receive His “morning star,” which in this context represents the first, and brightest, of all. Revelation 22:16 Jesus calls Himself “the bright morning star.” He is the first and the fullest of life and light. Those who overcome will experience an eternity of unchallengeable, full LIFE.
Rejecting Jezebel’s teaching, moving against her in the body, and holding fast to Jesus are easily worth the real trouble when weighed against the glory that could be!
Running God’s race in the overflow of His love happens in healthy communities, healthy churches, that, in love, do not tolerate bad and false teaching or bad and false teachers. May we have the courage to allow others to hold us accountable AND may we have the courage to hold others accountable as well.
