Sermon: Rev 2:8-11 Smyrna (Jesus Among The Churches)

 

Today we’re continuing our series on Jesus Among The Churches, looking what Jesus said to the churches at the beginning of the book of Revelation. And you might be wondering “Why is Ben on the ceiling? Why is the video upside down?” You might have even paused the video to see if you can figure out what the problem is. Maybe you tried turning your device over to make things the right way up. Or maybe you’re thinking, “Ha ha, Ben made a mistake in filming his sermon.” Because you know that videos are supposed to go up a certain way, so if a video is upside down then something has gone wrong with it.

But this isn’t a mistake. I’ve done this on purpose to make a point. When things aren’t the way they normally should be, we notice. We recognise it. And not only do we recognise it, but we think of it as wrong. There is an order to the world, a way things should be and should work, and when things don’t follow that order, we notice it, we feel it, and often it’s not a good feeling. If I left the video upside down for the whole sermon, you may refuse to watch to the end, because it’s just too weird. It’s uncomfortable. So let me fix it.

There. But my point still stands: when things in our world are flipped upside down, we notice. We notice, and sometimes we react badly to it because it makes us uncomfortable. Well, in his little letter to the church at Smyrna (only 4 verses), the big lesson that we learn is that Jesus flips the world upside down: often, the way things are valued in this world is upside down to the way things are valued in eternity; often, the actions we take in this world are upside down to their consequences in eternity; and often, the truth of this upside down reality makes people so uncomfortable that they become threatened, angry, even violent.

Smyrna was a wealthy city on the coast of Asia Minor – in modern day Turkey it’s now called Izmir. At the time, Smyrna described itself as the “first city of Asia in size and beauty”, and an ancient visitor to the city said that the people of Smyrna “had the most beautiful of cities under the sun … a friendly sea at their doors, which held the springs of the zephyr” and that the city was crowned “with porticoes and pictures” and they had “gold in excess of what they needed”. It sounds a bit like Sydney! Big, beautiful, wealthy, coastal breezes – everything you could possibly want in a city, right?

But there was a group in Smyrna that wasn’t enjoying the good life. According to Jesus’ letter, the church in Smyrna was suffering. But it wasn’t suffering a series of unfortunate events – droughts, illnesses, earthquakes or some other tragedy. It was suffering at the hands of the people around them. The church in Smyrna was afflicted – literally “pressured” – they were slandered, they were persecuted. And despite the famous wealth of the city, the church in Smyrna was poor.

Now it’s not clear whether the church in Smyrna was in poverty simply because it was made up mostly of poor believers – after all, we know from early church history the gospel spread most rapidly among the empire’s most needy and forgotten peoples – or whether there were some wealthier benefactors in the church who had their property confiscated because of their beliefs – that did happen at the time. The simple fact is that they were poor, which means they lacked power and influence. And it is much easier to persecute people when they are poor, and it is much harder to defend yourself from persecution when you are poor.

But this is the first area where Jesus flips the world upside down in his letter to the church at Smyrna. Jesus says to them in verse 9, “I know your afflictions and your poverty – yet you are rich!” Because even if the church is the poorest group in all of Smyrna, they have something that their richest neighbours are missing – a personal relationship with the First and the Last, who died and came to life again: the Lord Jesus Christ. No-one else in that city of gold and sea breezes and harbour views can boast that; yet Jesus can say that the poor, downtrodden church in Smyrna is rich because they have a relationship with the most high God – something that money can’t buy.

This is just the first upside down flip that Jesus highlights in his letter to the church at Smyrna, and yet it is huge! Jesus said it – not just here; not just to the church at Smyrna. He said it to his disciples: “You cannot serve both God and money.” He said at the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” He said to the crowds: “the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.” He said it to the Pharisees: “What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.” He said it to the back of the rich young ruler: “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Just think of all the things in our society that we value according to their wealth or monetary worth. Imagine if the most valued classes at school weren’t those that got you into the highest paying jobs, but were what equipped you best for growing your relationship with Jesus!

That might sound unbelievable. Some might even think it’s fanciful. “That’s not how the world works,” some might say. But I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it first hand. I’ve seen a situation where 39% of the population can’t get work, where the poor fish for food in the garbage of the rich and live in whole townships of tiny shacks made of whatever detritus they can cobble together. When there simply are no jobs – not even for the university educated, let alone for the unschooled – learning how to sing songs of worship to God in the choir is much more valuable than learning calculus.

As upside down as it might seem, when you factor in eternity, the way that life really works is that while being poor doesn’t necessarily bring you closer to God, being rich is one of the deadliest distractions from God there is.

And that’s only the start of Jesus’ upside-down message. Remember, the church at Smyrna is not only poor, it is afflicted – it is under pressure, it is being persecuted. It seems that there are two elements to the persecution that the church at Smyrna is facing. People who were describing themselves as Jews were speaking against the church, and because of that slander Christians were facing prison and death at the hands of the Roman Empire. And we might think of persecution coming from similar quarters: there are those who seek to attack the church because they want to undermine its message; and there are those in power who feel threatened by the claim that it is God who is in charge, that Christians will not bow down to any authority that tries to supplant the rightful authority of God, that real riches aren’t measured in money and power.

But Jesus gives us another perspective: he tells the church at Smyrna that it’s the devil who puts some of them in prison to test them, and that those who are slandering them – who call themselves Jews, but are not – are doing the devil’s work in their slander: they’re nothing more than a Synagogue of Satan. Jesus makes it clear that persecution is primarily not a physical problem but a spiritual one. Paul says in Ephesians that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil”. And as such, its solution is also not physical but spiritual.

And here’s the next big flip upside down that comes from Jesus: he claims that if they remain faithful throughout their persecution, then even if they are killed, he will give them life; not only life, but the life he gives them will be a victor’s crown (which is like an Olympic gold medal) – it will be proof of their victory, of their success. It will be proof that by being persecuted they won at life!

And again, this is not just the message Jesus has for the church at Smyrna. He said it at the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” He said it to the disciples: “You will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me… but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” He said it to Peter: “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: … —along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.” He said it in his final words: “I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”

And what’s even crazier still is that the early church believed Jesus! Paul said to the Thessalonians: “you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering.” James, Jesus’ brother said it too: “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life.” Paul said it to the Philippian church: “you will be saved—and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him”. After Peter and John were flogged by the Sanhedrin for preaching the gospel, we’re told “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.” And Peter in his first epistle said these amazing, shocking words: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.”

Two things about persecution that I think we need to be clear on. First of all, it’s not persecution if people just don’t want to listen to you, or if restrictions include restrictions on the church. Your workplace does not need to give you an opportunity to preach to your co-workers in the lunch room. The government is not persecuting churches by requiring they stay closed during a pandemic. Not everything is persecution; some things just cause suffering, and some things just make us complain like the Israelites in the desert because we don’t get what we want.

Secondly, Christians do a lot to try and alleviate suffering in the world, to fight injustice, to value life, to protect the weak. We do that because we know that’s what God wants for everyone – that’s the picture of heaven that Jesus himself brought with him to earth when he healed the sick and ate with the sinner and fed the poor and showed love to the lost and marginalised. But we can sometimes forget that Jesus also died, and he died willingly. Even though no-one could have stopped him if he said no, Jesus said yes to the cross, because he knew that no matter how worthwhile his life was – and it was: just think about how much we get from studying Christ’s teachings and his actions in the world – but no matter how worthwhile his life was, Jesus knew that our eternity with God in the forever kingdom was worth dying for.

And so Jesus writes his letter to the church at Smyrna and identifies himself as “him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again”. And he can say to them “I know your afflictions and your poverty” – he knows them because they are his afflictions! He can say to them, “And yet you are rich” because they are being given the opportunity to gain true riches by being counted worthy of suffering for his Name – as Paul puts it in that amazing verse in Romans 8, we “share in his sufferings in order that [we] may also share in his glory.”

Again, this might sound fanciful. It may sound unreal. But I have seen it. I used to work for a ministry called Barnabas Fund, a charity that supports Christians living in contexts of persecution. Back in 2004 I went to a conference in the middle east for Christian leaders from persecuted churches. We talked about things like how to design churches to prevent bombing attacks; how to comfort Christians forced to flee their homes. Topics that have probably never come up for our church’s ministry think tank. But all of these leaders, whether Coptic or Orthodox or Catholic or Protestant or Pentecostal, all of them wanted to focus not on how to help their congregations escape persecution and flee to safety, but on how to encourage them to remain faithful to Christ even when facing death. These are not people with a death wish! They don’t want to be persecuted! But they see that faithfulness to God in the midst of their own people was more important even than life itself. They want to win at life. They want their crown, and they rejoice at the opportunity to get it.

The church at Smyrna faced slander, imprisonment, the confiscation of their belongings, and they even faced death, all for simply witnessing to the glory of God in Jesus Christ. Jesus has no warnings for the church at Smyrna. He has no rebuke or correction. Jesus’ message to them was simply this: I know your afflictions; Don’t be afraid; Be faithful; Hear what I say. Let’s work backwards through those and see what’s in there for us.

We need to hear what Jesus said to the churches, and we need to accept it as true, despite it turning our world upside down. He says “The one who is victorious will not be hurt at all by the second death.” The second death is explained later in Revelation as being one of two results of the final judgment: when the end time comes, the dead will be judged, and those who have faith in Christ will go on to be with God for all eternity in a new heaven and a new earth; those who do not have faith in Christ will be thrown into the lake of fire – this is the second death. Our eternal destination should be our primary concern, both for ourselves and for all other people. Jesus has made it clear that true riches are only found in a relationship with God, and true victory in life is being faithful to God till the end. We need to listen to Jesus, and let those truths turn our world upside down.

With that in mind, Jesus tells us to be faithful. Our lives need to be a living witness to Christ and his message. Our lives need to speak to the truth of Jesus’ words – that the most important thing in the world isn’t money or power or prestige, but it is knowing God personally. Our lives should show people that we are rich because we know him personally. Our lives should bear witness to that truth, so that when we talk, that’s what people hear; and when we walk, that’s what people see; and when we invite people to come along on the journey with us, that’s what people experience. Being faithful to Jesus means making that truth the defining feature of our lives every day. We should be known for living out what Jesus is known for.

Not only is that truth going to mean putting our life with Jesus ahead of our ability to earn money, but it means when we talking about the truth and live it out and invite others to join us in it we need to expect that people out there will want to stifle or silence that truth, because it turns their world upside down and makes them uncomfortable. People are going to slander us, try to make us seem stupid and wrong and not worth listening to. If we speak up for the marginalised and seek justice for the oppressed and try to alleviate the suffering of the poor, the powerful are going to get upset because we are turning their worlds upside down, and some of us will be put in prison. If we are prepared to send our sons and our daughters out into this world so that others can hear about Jesus, some of them will be killed. This won’t happen because we are amazing superhero Christians, but because Jesus says this is what being faithful looks like in a world where persecution happens; it is how we can share in his sufferings, so that we might also share in his glory.

By being faithful, we’ll attract the devil’s attention, and there will be tests. And that’s why Jesus says Don’t Be Afraid. In the upside down world of Jesus, he tells us that poverty can bring us closer to God, and that persecution allows us to share in his glory. But the thought of facing poverty, slander, prison and death in order to be faithful to Jesus is still a scary thought. So when I imagine Jesus saying this, I don’t hear it as a command: Do not pass Go, Do not collect $200, Do not be afraid. I hear it like what we would say to a child in a thunderstorm or when it’s dark: it’s okay, don’t be afraid. Yes, it’s scary, but you don’t have to be afraid of what you’re about to suffer.

And the reason I hear it like that is because of the first thing that Jesus says to the church in this letter: I know. I know your afflictions and your poverty. Jesus knows that being faithful in the face of persecution is hard. When he was in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus knew that the Jews were coming to hand him over to the Romans, who would mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him, and he was afraid. He sweat blood. He begged God to take that cup from him. He remained faithful, but it wasn’t easy even for the Son of God! So when he says I know, he knows! And we can find comfort in that, in knowing that Jesus knows what he’s asking of us.

I know your afflictions. Don’t be afraid. Be faithful. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.