Dear Church, Thyatira Bryan Dunagan, Sept. 29, 2019 Well, it is so great to be with you, and I'm so thankful for our music leaders and for Ashley Irons. She is such a gift to me, I know, and my family. Thank you. She's one of my pastors in addition to her giftedness in leading music. She is just a woman of great wisdom and who loves Jesus. So, we have been in a series looking at these seven letters to seven churches in the Book of Revelation. I have loved this series. I hope that it has been helpful and encouraging to you, but part of it is just spending time in the last book of the Bible. I had a grad school professor who wrote this about Revelation: "If it ever became illegal in my part of the world, as it actually is in other places this very moment, to own a complete copy of the Bible, and if the authorities as an act of mercy allowed me to possess just one book of the Bible, I would without hesitation keep the last." "I would keep the Book of Revelation because," and he would often say this, "no other book in the Bible presents the gospel as powerfully as the last book does." No other book, in the face of all that threatens to undo us, announces this hope that we have in Jesus the way Revelation does. No other book helps us to see Jesus as clearly as he is right now as the Book of Revelation. Even its title points to this, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which is really just the first few words of the book. Notice, by the way, it's Revelation singular, not Revelations, plural. Now, that word, revelation, it can also be translated to the word that we know of as apocalypse. Apocalypse, and I know for a lot of people that's a scary word, right? That's the smell of napalm in the morning. Something awful is about to happen. “Left Behind,” right? Kirk Cameron movie, something like that. Well, that's the farthest thing from what 1st century people would've thought of when they heard this hopeful word, apocalypse. The word simply meant unfailing. It was used the lifting of the cover off of a box or the pulling back of a curtain in a theater opening up or breaking through the unveiling of Jesus Christ. We could take it even further. The title is the “Revelation of Jesus Christ,” but that preposition can also mean by, and it can also mean about, so which is it? The unveiling of Jesus, the breaking through by Jesus, the pulling back of the curtain about Jesus? Which one is it? The answer is yes. The title of the book is the Revelation of Jesus by Jesus about Jesus. This is all about Jesus. So seven letters to seven churches near the beginning of this book were real historical congregations, gatherings of Christians in the late 1st century in an area of the world that we now call Turkey. This morning we come to the fourth of these seven letters, the middle letter. Now, I've been thinking about American cities that might correspond to the cities that we've looked at so far in these seven letters in the Book of Revelation. The first week we looked at Ephesus, for example, and that ancient city was actually a lot like Dallas, bold, confident and on the move. The sky was the limit in terms of opportunity. Then second, the city in Smyrna. It reminds me a lot right now actually of Charleston. Beautiful port city where people are experiencing some amount of suffering after Hurricane Dorian. Then last week we looked at Pergamum. Charlie Dunn preached a great message. Let's see if you can guess this one, a center of government known for its gleaming marble monuments. How about D.C., right? I was just there a couple weeks ago. Went on a run through the National Mall. There's not a city like it. Well, today we drop in on Cleveland. That's not supposed to be funny. I apologize in advance. We had some Clevelanders, I think you called them, in the first service, but this is a union town in the middle of the Midwest. My friend, Vic Pence, did a tour of modern day Turkey and they were looking at the seven cities. They were doing a tour of the seven cities and the seven churches. Actually, the tour guide, as they were making their way through the tour, didn't even want to take them on the detour to get to this city that we're going to look at today, Thyatira. He said it wouldn't be worth the trip which is kind of baffling if you've paid to see the seven cities in Revelation. But even in its heyday, Thyatira would not have made the list of best places to live, right? You get these texts from people who live in other cities sometimes and it's like, "best outdoor hubs," and it's always Boulder, Bozeman, and Portland, right? Well, Thyatira not so much. Thyatira existed primarily as a buffer in case of an attack on Pergamum. It was a blue-collar town with lots of soldiers and big trade unions. But one day some followers of Jesus made the journey to Thyatira and they planted a little outpost, a little gathering of Christians and it made a difference in that city. In fact, one of Paul's first disciples, Lydia, was originally from Thyatira. Let's look at this in Revelation Chapter 2. It's page 1312, if you want to use that Bible there in front of you. I would encourage you to open that up as we read this together. This is the longest of the seven letters, so it is only right that this should be the longest sermon. Just making sure you're paying attention. It's not going to be that much longer. If you're an outline kind of person, there's a formula or a pattern that Jesus follows for all seven of these letters. He begins with praise like what you're doing is great. Then he addresses the problem, and then he always ends with a promise. So praise, problem, promise, if you sort of follow a structure like that. Verse 18 is where we'll start. "And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: 'The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze, I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed your first.” So that's the praise. In fact, if you've been tracking with us for the last few weeks, in a sense, this is the greatest of the churches so far with all the virtues of the prior three churches combined. Thyatira has the city-serving mentality and heart of the church of Ephesus, plus the love that Ephesus was lacking. They have the patient endurance of the suffering church in Smyrna, and then the faith of those sound teachers in Pergamum. Then Jesus adds this exclamation point to all of this praise when he says, "Your latter works exceed the first." Remember back to Ephesus how they'd started out hot and they were doing great and just on fire for Jesus, but then they lost their first love. Well, to Thyatira, he says, "You love me more now than you did at first," and that is a strong word of praise. That's a great word of praise. A while back, Ali and I were on a trip together. We were talking about our marriage, our relationship, and at one point in our conversations she said to me, "Bryan, I love you more now. I love being married to you more now than I did when we first got married." That just made me feel so big! It's just the best to think that somehow it's growing and she still wants to be married to me and to hear that kind of praise from her. Then she said, "Can we go see the new Downton Abbey movie?" I said, "Don't press your luck here.” But that's like you love me now more than you did at first. That's a profound word of praise, and that's what Jesus says about Thyatira. Then Verse 20: "But I have this against you." Okay, here comes the problem. "That you tolerate that woman, Jezebel." Now, let's pause right there because first of all, any time you're talking about a person and it begins with a word "that," that's a problem. "You tolerate that woman, Jezebel." Now to be clear, the name of this woman was in all likelihood not Jezebel. Never in all of my years have I baptized a precious little Jezebel up here yet in the Sanctuary! This was a name, even back in the 1st century, is a name that was off limits because of, of course, the first Jezebel that we find in the Old Testament. Remember her story? She's married to King Ahab, and she brought with her into this marriage 850 prophets of the false God, Baal. This led to all kinds of trouble for God's people. Remember Elijah dancing before the prophets of Baal and making fun of the prophets? Well, this kind of made Jezebel mad, so things just kind of got out of hand.