Sermon Tone Analysis

Good Morning Harmony!

Today, as most of you know, is Palm Sunday.

It’s the day celebrates Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and it’s a day that begins an important week in the Gospel.

A lot can happen in seven days.

A triumphant entry.

An arrest.

A crucifixion.

But most important of all that happens that week is the resurrection that we will celebrate more next week.

As we are going through Revelation, as we go through this apocalyptic prophecy, we need to remember that there is another triumphant entry coming, and it’s going to be so much bigger than Palm Sunday.

Jesus is coming back for His bride, and as we look forward today at Revelation, we look back at that first Palm Sunday and the week following to see our hope and our faith lie in Jesus alone.

So today as we get started, let’s just thank Him for that hope and promise that He gives -

prayer

Today we are going to look at the church in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love.

The city was the youngest of the seven cities.

It was established by one of the kings of Pergamum in 150 B.C. by Attalus Philadelphos, who was known for his love and devotion to his brother, Eumenes, thus the name of the city.

The city was relatively small in comparison to the others, and it’s greatest feature was that it was strategically placed on the road that ran from Rome to Troy, Pergamum, Sardis, and Philadelphia.

Philadelphia was ultimately called the “gateway to the east” as it was originally intended by Attalus to serve as a distribution point for Greek language and culture to spread eastward.

The church in Philadelphia was therefore in a strategic location to spread the Gospel.

Compared to the church in Sardis, this was a small and financially poor church, but as we will see, size and finances don’t equal what matters in the end.

Let’s look at our Scripture for today, starting in Revelation 3:7 -

Charles Simeon was the pastor of Trinity Church in Cambridge England for 54 years.

He preached his first sermon in November 1782.

Now understand, this wasn’t a Baptist church.

The congregation didn’t choose him as a pastor, he was placed there.

That said, he could have quit and walked away at any time.

The congregation did not want him - in fact, they refused to allow him to teach on Sunday afternoons for five years, instead having the assistant pastor that the church wanted the governing body of the church to appoint as pastor give these lectures.

So Simeon starts a Sunday evening service, and people began to come.

The church officials then decide to lock the doors.

Simeon has a locksmith open the doors, and the officials locked them again, and Simeon dropped the evening Service - but he didn’t give up.

Eventually after 12 years the church allows him to be the teacher on Sunday afternoons.

His troubles weren’t only tied to Sunday afternoons either.

Sunday mornings were a problem too - pews could have locks back then, and pew holders as they were called would lock their pews so that no visitors could sit in them.

Simeon personally funded and set up additional seating, only for church officials to remove them.

Simeon would attempt to visit church members, but most wouldn’t even open the door to him.

This continued for 10 years.

Now we all know it doesn’t work this way in a Baptist church, because in a Baptist Church we are congregationally led, But for Simeon, he had a rough pastorate for a significant amount of his time as pastor there.

What gave Simeon that faithfulness to stay in the midst of all of that opposition?

John Piper writes of Simeon that “Simeon exerted his influence through sustained biblical preaching year after year.”

In other words, Simeon leaned and stood on the Word of God despite his opposition - he was so convinced by the Word of God and by his faith that he had to do what God had given him to do.

And that is where we see our need - we need to be so rooted and so grounded in the Word of God that when opposition comes and rejection and persecution come we can stand on the truth and the promises of God.

And so today’s main point is that we need to stand righteous, and to do so we must keep the Gospel of Jesus as our focus.

MAIN POINT:

TO STAND RIGHTEOUS WE MUST KEEP THE GOSPEL OF JESUS AS OUR FOCUS.

And that is what we are going to see as we get into breaking down the text today, beginning with

1. JESUS HAS THE KEY OF DAVID.

v. 7

Faith is not a feeling.

Faith is an active confidence that what we cannot see in the present is still a reality.

Our faith does not increase simply because we think about faith, rather our faith increases because we are made more confident in Jesus.

That is the purpose to the introduction of every letter, to build upon our confidence in Him - verse 7

Jesus announces Himself as holy and true- He’s holy, so He’s completely set apart by God and He will not lead us to sin, and He’s true, He’s trustworthy - we can be sure that He is able.

He is able to cleanse us from our sin, He is reliable in that He will do it for those that have called out to Him.

This statement reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ statement on Christ as Lord:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.

That is the one thing we must not say.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

You must make your choice.

Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.

You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher.

He has not left that open to us.

He did not intend to. . . .

Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”

Jesus is holy and true!

Those of us that hear Jesus say these things at the beginning of each letter should be having our confidence in Him strengthened because we can trust His words!

And it’s not just words - it’s active, practical and specific.

The next words, who has the key of David - it goes back to Isaiah 22 -

Isaiah wrote these words to Shebna about being replaced by Eliakim taking his place as the Palace prefect, but the statement is used by Jesus first in Matthew 16 -

and then here in our text in Revelation, where the point of all of this imagery is that Jesus is unstoppable, He is holy, and He is true - He won’t lead us to moral or intellectual error.

He opens and no one can shut, He closes and no one can open.

He will not fail.

Eliakim was given free access to King Hezekiah’s palace, and Christ has free access to the palace of Heaven.

Only He can take us to that palace, the Father’s house.

Access to the Kingdom is through Jesus Christ alone.

Jesus is telling us that He is trustworthy.

Do you trust Him?

Maybe there’s someone here today who has chosen not to trust Jesus.

If that’s you I need to ask you some questions.

Is what you trust holy?

Are you sure?

Is what you trust true?

Are you sure?

Will what you trust in prevail?

Are you sure?

If you don’t trust in Jesus, are you confident enough in what you do trust in to bank your soul on it?

Would you bet your life on it?

Money can’t save you.

Personal strength or power won’t save you.

Whatever you’re chasing in this world won’t save you.

Only Jesus saves.

Only Jesus is holy and trustworthy.

If you’ll truly give your life into His hands I promise you that He is faithful to do what He says He’ll do.

Next we see

2. AN OPEN DOOR AND ENEMIES.

vv.

8-9

We see what happens when we keep Jesus’ Word, we see an open door for us and the outcome for our enemies.

Revelation 3: 8 starts out with I know your works -

I know your works, and because of your faithful works I give you an open door - an open door to what?

If we look at other places in the New Testament where this phrase is used, it leads us to believe that this open door is an open door to the ministry.

It’s a successful ministry - Acts 14:27 is a prime example of this -