Letters From The King

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write, The words of amen, the words of the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. I know your works. You are neither hot nor cold. Would that you either be cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, in white garments so that you may clothe yourselves. and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen. And salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those who I love, I reprove and discipline. So be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. This is the word of God. Thank you, Kellen. Welcome to Thrive. It's good to have you here today. We're in our second week of this series called Hope That Outlasts Empires. This is, actually, if you look at the Bible from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation and we're in the book of Revelation where you see our huge empires actually Babylon Persia Greece Egypt Rome huge empires where we would say that's where history is happening that's where things are really making a difference that's what's going on huge empires that way and yet The whole Bible is written by a puny little place called Israel. There's a little patch of ground the size of Vermont in comparison to the rest of the world. And it's a minority within that minority. The prophets, the majority, ninety percent of Israel, ninety percent of the time were worshiping idols. And it's only about ten percent of this minority in the vast majority of empires that rise and fall that the Bible's about. But it's speaking to the whole thing, the whole world, everything. So we are now going to be kind of covering, I know, 'cause there's no way we're gonna do a whole series on the entire book of Revelation, there's just too much in it. But we're going to be covering chapters two and three, which are the letters to these seven churches in Asia Minor, these small Christian outposts of 40, 50, maybe the size of our congregation here, in the midst of a city of 100,000 or more. So just imagine, Southwest Florida right now, here in Estero, believe it or not, there's only, what, 38,000 people that live here full-time, full-time. Of course, we're getting 29,000 more homes out of Corkscrew Road in the next few years, and that's going to be another 100,000, and then all the people who come here just for part-time. But consider the whole area right now that we live in, and that we would be the only Christian Fellowship in that entire area. 'Cause that's what these seven churches were like. They're the only Christian fellowship in a town of 100,000 people or more. How would you feel? And how would you, in a sense, rate or measure, quote, your success, your value, what you're about, who you are. Just imagine also then being in the time of that first century. where you have, boasting right now as the world power, Rome, self-aggrandizing, expanding, conquering people, enslaving millions. Everything is wrapped up in this one empire that thinks it is the ultimate empire, the only empire, and it is there by divine mandate of the gods. Okay? Their whole pantheon of gods, the whole reason they worshiped, the whole reason they did anything in terms of worship was for the sake of the state, for the sake of the nation. And so you are this little minority that says, yeah, no, those gods aren't even gods. You are this little minority that says, no, it's not about power, it's about love. You're this minority that says, no, it's not about the beast of the military, it's about the lamb. who self-sacrifices and gives himself for others, and that's what we're going to be like. Can you imagine what that's like? It's hard for us to imagine because there are over two billion Christians around the world right now. We know we're a small fellowship, but a small fish in a big pond, in a sense. But can you imagine? That's what we have to deal with when we are dealing with the historical cultural background of this letter and these small churches. statistically insignificant, you know, a thousand to one or even smaller. Rate yourselves. How would you understand your value, your worth? What standards would you be using to look at this Christian fellowship in Laodicea or in Smyrna or in Pergamum or all these little, how would you look at yourself? And what do you think ...