Scripture reading today, what George will be preaching from, Revelation 2, starting in verse 19. I'm sorry, 18, if I can read. It'll be page 1029 in the pew Bible, so the seat chair Bible. If you don't have a Bible, free to take that home with you today, if it's a gift from us. Starting in verse 18. And to the angel of the church in Tyretare, write the words of the son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, 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 the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food and sacrifice to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works. And I will strike her children dead, and all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I'll give to each of you according to your works. But to the rest of you in Tyreteer 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 of other burden. Only hold fast that you, what you have come, until I come. The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations. And he will rule them with a rod of iron as when, as when earth and pots are broken in pieces. Even as I myself have received authority from my father, and I will give him in the morning star, he who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you today. We thank you, Father, for we know you are here. We thank you, Lord, for your doctrines of grace that we get to feast on, Father, your word. We pray, Lord, for our servant, or your servant, George. We thank you, Lord, for sending him here at this time. We pray, Father, that you will use him mightily in the preaching of your word. We pray, Lord, that our eyes will be open to your word, our hearts would be full of understanding of your word today, that you would change us and mold us and shape us into who you would have us to be, that we would be faithful, Lord, to your word, that your light would shine brightly on us. In Jesus' mighty name, amen. Amen. Thank you. Well, that's a cheery letter. What am I going to do with that? I've heard it said that the key virtue of our time and our culture at this time in 21st century America is tolerance. And you heard that word in our scripture today. And some 20 years ago almost, I heard a preacher on the radio, this was actually an important moment in my own spiritual journey toward the Lord, and I turned on the radio, it was around lunchtime, and the first sentence I heard him say was, truth, by definition, is intolerant. And I thought that was a very intolerant thing for John MacArthur to say. But it's true. We're gonna see a church that was very tolerant. Today we enter this portion of the book of Revelation that begins in chapter two. It's the letters to the seven churches. And so you heard in the call to worship that vision John got, part of it, where Jesus Christ is walking among the churches that are represented by lampstands. Christ, the head of the church, is coming to his churches. He's observing them. He has things to say to each of them. Now, you may wonder if we're starting in chapter 2, why are we starting in verse 18? Well, actually, back in July, I preached the first of these seven letters, the letter to Ephesus. And it was basically based on that sermon that I decided this would be the book that we'd be in in Revelation. So we've already looked at Ephesus, which was verses 1 to about 8. The next two churches we'll cover in future weeks. I wanted to go to Thyatira because Thyatira is the exact opposite of Ephesus. And so I know some of you re-watched that Ephesus sermon online or you listened to it because I was putting that out there on Facebook. And I will remind you about Ephesus so that we can look at Thyatira. In some sense, preaching the issues of Thyatira is like dangling red meat out there for a bunch of hungry lions. I know where I am. In the Bible Belt, in a very theologically conservative county, in a church that upholds the doctrines of grace, the solas of the Reformation. I mean, it's in our name, right? On this Reformation Sunday, Meadowview Reformed Presbyterian Church. We care about doctrine. And it would be very easy to look at a church like Thyatira and to be thinking in our minds of all the other churches that this is. Maybe churches you have in mind right now that are letting sin creep in the door and not really caring about it. But today, as we read this text, I don't want us to have that self-righteous spirit. I want us to think, how does this letter relate to us? Because we're not called to be self-righteous about other churches. to see what's going on in our own camp. Christ has a message for us today in this letter. What sin do we tolerate in our own lives? And how do we hold up our good works as justification for tolerating the bad works? Let's see what the root problem is in Thyatira in the hopes of seeing how this letter really does apply to us here at Meadowview. I changed the, points in the sermon from what's in your bulletin, and the title even. The title of the sermon is The Intolerant Truth, How Works Work. And the three points are a tale of two churches, deeds and their motives, and hope in the morning star. Next week, we'll look at a church that's full of compromise. Very similar problems there as to here, but some differences, so we'll handle the compromise issue next week. This week, tolerance. Ephesus was the largest church in this region. Thyatira was the smallest. And I think that's instructive to us because they have the exact opposite problems. Ephesus was the largest church. It was in a metropolis. It was probably a mega church. It had the best teachers that Christianity had ever had. The Apostle Paul, the Apostle John, Timothy. We know of many other Christians that were there that were heads of the church from the book of Acts. Thyatira, on the other hand, is the smallest. It's off the beaten path. Many commentators wonder why is Thyatira even one of these seven churches? Because Colossae was right around there, and we know more about Colossae than we know about Thyatira. And yet I think it's instructive to us that the Savior would come upon Thyatira, this church in a small town, because he cares about the least and the smallest, and very specific to them about every detail. There is no detail too small, no sin too small that the Savior's eyes of burning fire cannot see. and it all matters. That's instructive to us. What little things in our lives do you think that the Savior doesn't care about? If he'd go to this little church of Thyatira, does he not care about what's going on here and in our own lives? We remember that Ephesus was commended for not tolerating false teachers. They held up sound doctrine. Again, they had the best teachers Christianity ever had. But they were condemned or indicted because they lost their first love. They didn't have love. It's like Ephesus was the not church. Not tolerating, but not loving. Thyatira has the flip problem. And it's the reason I wanna focus on Ephesus because it would be so easy for us here in a church that holds up sound doctrine and scripture to think we can swing the pendulum to the other side. But we've got to remember, Ephesus had an indictment against them. Thyatira was very tolerant of sin and of false teachers, but Thyatira is commended for their great love. And so we have the opposite scenario going on in these two churches. And so to focus on Thyatira, which is what our text is on, what exactly was going on there? Well, we know that in this small town, they actually had a very large temple to their version of the Greek god Apollo. If you know anything about Greek mythology, Apollo is the son of Zeus, the most powerful, most high god of the Greek pantheon of gods. Apollo was also the sun god and the god of prophecy. And so I think it's the reason why the Savior self-identifies here, the only place in Revelation he does so, as the Son of God. In other words, you may worship the little g-god Apollo, the son of the Greek god Zeus, but I am Jesus Christ, the Son of the Most High God. They are actually bringing this worship into the church, and they are intermingling with the worship of the world. This woman Jezebel is called out. I don't believe this was actually a woman named Jezebel, but a woman that embodied the Jezebelian characteristics of the Old Testament. These letters of revelation do that. Next week, we'll look at a church that is indicted because they carry the spirit of Balaam, which is from the book of Numbers. So we see these heresies and these infections and diseases into the church. They continue and they repeat. And if you remember Jezebel in the Old Testament, she was a Canaanite princess. And the covenant community was not supposed to intermingle with the Canaanites. But the evil king Ahab, the king of Israel, marries this Canaanite princess, and sure enough, she brings in idol worship into the covenant community, the Old Testament church, who's supposed to have Yahweh as their God. They're worshiping Baal and Ashtoreth, the god and goddess of fertility. And you can imagine what kind of ritual practices go to the god and goddess of fertility. And those same immoral practices are actually happening in this very church. And there's a reason for this, and there's actually something called trade guilds, and we'll look at that again next week, because it's kind of too much to unpack this week, and how people's careers dictated how the gods worked in that world. But why is it that a Christian or a member of the covenant community, whether Old Testament or New Testament, would worship false gods and take part in idol worship, and at its core, some filthy things and immorality turn away from their God? Why would they bring that into the church? On the one hand, I think because it's easy. Again, like I said, we'll talk compromise next week. This church is seeing much growth. It says their works now are better than their works before. And this woman is obviously very popular, and I can't help but think if this church is not reaching the culture, and maybe they think it's just a part of the side effects of reaching the culture that they have to tolerate with cultural practices that go directly against what the Bible says. And they probably justify in their minds, look, we have a full church. and people are coming to faith. Let's not deal with these problems because of the growth we're seeing. We're seeing fruit. So it seems like God is blessing this ministry, and this ministry is marked by love and good deeds, and so they ignore, they tolerate. But you know what happens when you tolerate sin in the camp? You take part in sin in the camp. A few years ago, I was an administrator working in a ministry of one of the largest churches in the country down in South Florida. And this church was just marked by gospel preaching, grace, good deeds, people coming to faith all over. The main campus had over 10,000 people, and they had probably 10 other campuses with another 10,000 people, and their numbers were in the 20,000s. And everywhere, people knew this church. And people, by the hundreds, would come to faith in Christ. And right now, you're probably judging this church. Well, that's what megachurches do. But being that I worked there, I know that the much love that the people had. They had love for Christ. They had love for each other. They were seeing fruit. And yes, with that came sin. And one day, we were called into a meeting. The staff were And we were told that the senior pastor had to resign because he was involved in gross immorality. And when I say gross immorality, immorality like you wouldn't believe. And it rocked our worlds and then next week it would go out to the congregation and then be all over the news. And again, we're probably judging thinking those mega churches. But do you know it wasn't a year later that the same thing happened in the PCA church just a few miles up the road? And at that time, I wasn't at this church anymore, I was in the PCA and I had to deal with it all over again. It's not fun, folks. People are hurt. by our tolerance. People are hurt. Sin always seems fun, but it's not. And these ministries both were thriving, and they too would be marked by love and grace and evangelism and people coming to faith and spreading the gospel, yet tolerating gross sin in their midst. Again, it would be easy to point the finger, but I just want us to think of ourselves. What are we tolerating in our lives? Do we think our sins are so much lesser than theirs? Have we convinced ourselves, like maybe these churches did, that all the good they were doing overshadowed the bad? In other words, a works system. And maybe they thought like, man, doesn't God know how important I am or this church is to the gospel? And so he'll let these things slide. And again, we see from Thyatira, he doesn't. He says some very harsh things to Jezebel and her followers. That's what I take the children of her. In other words, if you follow somebody, you are a child of that teaching. Judgment. And so let's look at that idea, though, of works, good works overshadowing bad works. Is that possible? So deeds and their motives. Do our good works overshadow our bad? Can we out good our bad? This letter mentions the good works first. It's the first thing you kind of learn about the church. But yet the whole letter is then marked with sadness and judgment until the end. It's a reminder that if you want to rely on your deeds, your works, you will be found out. You will be found wanting. If you want to rely on the law, on your righteousness, on your own good works, you better be prepared for your bad works to be exposed. Works, why am I talking about works here? Because it kind of gets lost in the whole letter. Well, of these seven churches, works is very prominent in this letter. It's mentioned five times. Of these seven churches, some churches, most of them, don't even use the word works anywhere, and yet here five times. It seems like the Savior wants us to focus on the concept of works. And to add to that, this is the central letter of the seven letters. It's number four. There were three before it and three after it. I've said this before, but in Greek and Hebrew literature and writing, the center is the hinge, it's the crux, it's a focal point. And so in this focal point at this church, within the focal point is the idea of works. Verse 19 talks about your works and your works. I know your works and your works are increasing and they're works of love and faith and they're good. But then verse 22 talks about her works. They're not so good. But then verse 23 goes back to saying your works. I will give each according to your works. Now, it's so easy to read that and say, see, if you do good works, you get good, and if you do bad works, you get bad. That's not the context here, folks. When he says, I will give each according to their works, it's after two paragraphs of all the sin going on in the church. Basically, in other words, they're putting their good works up against her bad works, and he's attributing her bad works to them now. She's gonna get judgment, and if they don't repent, the works they're doing, which by the way, he calls Satan's works later in the letter, the deep things of Satan, do you want to get according to your works? Romans 6.23, part of it's up there, the wages of sin is death. In other words, if you want to get according to your works, and you have this great pile of good works, and you think that's gonna get me something, or that'll overshadow the tolerance of the bad works, we just have to remember Romans 6. What is due to sin? Death, that's the payment. It doesn't matter how much good you have, the wages of sin is death. Of course, Romans 3 says all have sinned, so that represents all of us. So the whole thing is if we want a works-based system, it doesn't matter how much good we do, even if it's for the kingdom. Remember what Jesus said in that day of judgment, Lord, Lord, but we knew you, look at all we did for you. He says, I never knew you. People could be being saved. But see, then there's another category because it goes from your works and your works and her works and back to your works. But then the verse 26, the one who conquers or overcomes and who keeps my works. In other words, the one who conquers, these are not two groups of people. This is how, again, Hebrew and Greek literature works. It's this explains it. The one who overcomes is the one who keeps Christ's works. And that word for keeps is actually the word for guards in the Gospels. It's actually used of a physical guard. The one who guards Christ's works, holds them dearly. Do we guard Christ's work on our behalf? On this Reformation Sunday, 502nd anniversary, if you don't remember about the Reformation, you should look it up, but the church had been so corrupted by a works-based system, the church prescribing good works to overcome bad works. And oh, by the way, they were charging for it. And so if you sinned, you were prescribed to do X amount of good works, and it was a weights and balances system. Then Martin Luther comes along, and Melanchthon, and John Calvin, and Beza, and all these great reformers that you might know about. But I think it's important and instructive for us to remember that there were Catholics, and these all started off as Catholics, but people that were trying to remain Catholic, who tried to reform the church from within, and they weren't aimed at the doctrines of the church. In other words, at this time, there was so much corruption, so much tolerance of sin among priests and bishops and what was happening that these people wanted to uphold the doctrine of the church, which I'll say was false, and just clean up the morality. But men like Martin Luther and John Calvin, two of the famous ones probably, could not just reform the morality. They had to go to the doctrine. They had to go to this issue of works. How are we made right with God? When we tolerate sin or when we do sin and we try to undo it by doing something good, does that make us right with God? That's when Martin Luther rediscovered. He didn't discover, I'm gonna read the early church fathers, he rediscovered the doctrine of justification by faith. We are justified by Christ's works, not our own. John chapter six, I love. I just love this. Whenever you think and you hear the word works, remember how Jesus Christ defines works. He says, do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. It's a gift. For on him, God the Father has set his seal. So they said to him, so here it is, what must we do to be doing the works of God? And literally, I mean, you have the word do and doing, so it's there, but really, literally, it's what must we do to be working the works of God? They wanna work. And we wanna work. We want something to do because then it's in our control. Jesus answered them, this is the work of God. Here it is, that you believe. Same word for faith. When you see belief and faith in the Bible, it's the same word. That you believe in him whom he has sent. Just believe. If you wanna be judged on your works, you will be judged on your works and the wages of sin is death. That's what you get. Or you could believe in Christ and his works are credited to you. We have multiple places where this says, it's Philippians 3, but whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Paul is, he had given his resume, look at how good I was. Whatever gain I had from that was loss because it was separating me from Christ. So I count it all for loss in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him. Verse 9, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law. So all my works from obeying the law, I don't want that righteousness because that earns me death. But that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. You place faith in Christ's work, you get His righteousness. A little more theology for you. Just like belief, or believe and faith are the same word in the Greek, it just depends on how it's used, verb, noun, and all that. Same thing with righteousness and justification, or just. That's why you'll often hear the righteous will live by faith, and some translations say the just will live by faith. We are justified by our faith. Here's some other verses. that you could go to to look at this great exchange, this imputation, Christ gets our sin, we get his righteousness. 2 Corinthians 21, for our sake he made him, being Christ, to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. How does that work? Why is that? Why do we not get what our works deserve? We get what Christ's works deserve. Because all the times that the scripture is telling us that we are in Christ Jesus. When we are represented by Christ, it is as if when God looks at us, he sees his son paid the price for us. We get his garments. We don't rest on our own works. That is what this letter is pointing toward. Verse 26 at the bottom of that slide, my works, those who keep, those who guard, those who treasure, those who view as precious my works on their behalf. So it is true, though it will be accounted to each for their works, do you want it to be accounted to you for your good works minus your bad works or vice versa? The payment is death. Or do you want to get Christ's works credited on your behalf? That's why Romans 6.23, the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Our works get us death, Christ's works get us life. So we are called to rest from our works. That's what this letter is calling these people, because all I can imagine is the reason why works runs throughout the whole thing is because Christ is making that transition from your works at the top, equating them with the sinful works of this woman, which he equates to Satan's works, then he says, rest on my works. In other words, in your toleration of sin, how do you think you get rid of it? And many people think I do more good than bad. And Christ is saying that, first of all, that's exhausting, by the way. How can you keep up with that kind of a system? Every thought, word, deed in your mind, and by the way, you know that if you say something hurtful to a loved one, just saying you're sorry to them or feeling sorry about it doesn't take it away. And we're called to forgive as Christians and we do, But it's still out there. And if you're like me, you feel really guilty about it. Even after you say, sorry, why did that come out of my mouth? Why was I harsh to my kid like that or my spouse? See, when we rest on Christ's works, that's actually what it is. It's resting on them. So Hebrews 4, and it looks like these slides are small. Okay, you could see it. Hebrews 4 says, so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest, get this, has also rested from his works. Now, look at what Hebrews says, and I'm going to connect it right back into our passage. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. So how do you enter into that rest? By resting from our works. We rest on Christ's works. If we keep striving in our works, that's what they call disobedience. For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the vision of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow. Now get this, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. and no creature is hidden from his sight. But all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. Why do I direct this to Hebrews? Because Revelation 2 to this letter to Thyatira is using a lot of the same imagery and analogy to this Hebrews passage. They both talk about works resting on Christ's works or your own. Here Jesus is the one with the all-seeing eyes, right? He has the eyes of flame of fire, and he says he gives to each according to their, searches their mind and their heart. And the Hebrews passage says the same thing. Jesus Christ is the one with the feet of burnished bronze. He brings judgment upon those resting on their own works. He's the one with the eyes that searches for the motives, and he sees all these good works, but he looks underneath, and he says, how are they using these good works? Are they using them to earn their place with me? Are they using them to try to overshadow the bad works? See, those are faulty works. Those are filthy rags. So he knows if you're ignoring sin in your life because you think you do good enough to outweigh it, just to get real personal. We all have sin in our life. We all make a decision. I mean, sure, those red letter sins we know to avoid, and if we do them, we just rack, but like these other little sins, the sins of pride, the sins of harsh words, the sins of maybe honesty, being dishonest. We think, eh, I'll work on those later. I don't have to. Look at all that I'm doing for the church. He knows that because He's the one that searches your motives and searches your hearts. We can't fool Him. We also can't outwork Him. Can't outwork Christ. He paid it all. And so what place do good works serve? Because we know we are called to do good, to walk in the newness of life, to put off the old man and put on the new man. These are all gospel concepts of a new obedience, but how does works work in this case? Well, I take you back to the Ephesus church for a minute because the cure for Ephesus said they had lost their first love. And then at the end it says, so do the works you did at first. And many people left thinking, well, that means I have to do works. But that's not what was said. It was, if they lost their first love, it was to return to their first love. See, love fuels our works. It's not a call to work harder, but to love more, to believe that you are loved, enabling your own love. The greatest commandment, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love neighbor as yourself. They're connected. Well, so too in this letter about tolerance to Thyatira, the call isn't to try harder and to resist the world. It says to repent. We've talked about repentance here quite a bit in past sermons. To repent and to rest more on Christ's work, to guard His work, to view his work as precious on your behalf. So how does that help you not tolerate sin? When you look at Christ's work and see what it took to forgive your sins, you realize that it's silly to think you can override your sins with your own works. You're not gonna just tolerate your sin and thinking, I'll out good my bad. It took the death of the Savior. And would you really want to tolerate sin in your life, in the church? The Savior was put to death because of those sins. When we look to his works, his perfect works, his active and passive obedience, as the reformers would talk about, actively obeying the law, positively obeying the law, fulfilling it perfectly, passively letting the world powers crucify him, submitting to the Father in that. He was put to death for us. How can we continue in our sins? This is what Romans 6 says. We who have died to sin, how can we continue to live in them? Don't you know that you have been buried with Christ? In him you have risen to new life. So walk in the newness of life. We don't want that. That ought to be motivating to us. It ought to be hopeful to us. Ephesians 2 is another great one to go to. For by grace you have been saved through faith and it is not your own doing, is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Can't forget verse 10. For we are his workmanship. We are God's work. That's what it says. We are God's work. We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So walking, this idea of walking, walking in newness of life. Dying with Christ, rising again, how could we tolerate sin? How could we continue in sin? We ought to view our Savior as precious as the vision John gets in Revelation 1. And that ought to give us hope that we don't tolerate sin in our lives. Yes, we will still sin. But why would we tolerate it? What is that hope? Well, the promise is we get the rewards that Christ gets. Why would we want to try to earn our own rewards when we get Christ's rewards? He's gonna rule with a rod of iron, and that comes from Psalm 2. What's interesting is our text today says the word for rule is the word for shepherd, and the word for rod is the word for staff. He's our shepherd, and we will somehow shepherd with him in truth and righteousness and justice. and good deeds. How that works out, I don't know. I don't know the future, but I know if it's Christ's reward and something that he earns and I get it, man, that's gotta be awesome. I get his inheritance. Again, hope, it should lead us hopeful. We're given the morning star. What is the morning star? Later in Revelation, Christ says he is the bright and morning star. So here in this letter, we're promised something that Christ tells us who he is at the end. So in other words, we get Christ, we get the morning star, we get that. What is the morning star though? Again, it goes back to that light thing I talked about in the past. I mean, we have flashlights and car lights and street lights and house lights and we could see in the dark. But back then when it was a dark night, what hope the morning star brought them In many cases, it was the planet Venus that would show up first thing in the morning before the day would dawn. It would signal that the day is coming, the light is coming, the darkness will pass away, and there is hope. That is what is promised to us. In 2 Peter, he says that the word of God does this in our hearts and when we get despair over our sin or over our circumstances, And we devolve into this despair that we have the word of God in our hearts as the morning star reminding us that we have a great hope. We are promised that while this world is dark and overcoming sin and temptation seems impossible, we have the word of God reigning in our hearts, giving us hope. It's a reminder that we will overcome. And the word is Christ. That word is Christ, the bright morning star. A new day is dawning. Let us stand fast, let us hold firm, and let us overcome by faith in Christ toward this new day. Medovi, let's put away all of our toleration of things that are just not Christ-like. Let us want what the Savior wants. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we hopefully are convicted by this passage. Lord, it's easy, as I said, to point the finger, but I hope we see we all so easily devolve into a works righteousness system, sinning somehow and thinking, but look at all the good that I do. Lord, let us rest on your son Christ's work. Jesus paid it all. We get his righteousness. Let us say with Paul that all our works are filthy rags and rubbish for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus. I pray, Father, that people here would come to knowledge of Christ through this sermon, through the preaching of your word and the hearing of your word, and that they would just rest. I pray that we all would rest, Lord, in the sufficient work of your Savior, Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray, amen.