To the One Who Conquers (2:1–3:21)
Seven letters to seven churches, each meant for all of them, and for us. To congregations under pressure, from persecuted Smyrna to self-satisfied Laodicea, the living Jesus says three things. He knows us, even our little power. He calls us to repent of drifting, compromise, and comfort. And he makes us conquerors by his own victory: “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered.” He is knocking. Open the door.
Last Sunday we saw the living Jesus. The New Testament says over and over he ascended to the right hand of God from where he’s ruling the world. But where does Revelation particularly say he is? Present among his people by walking among his churches. He then told John to write. Revelation 2–3 is what Jesus said.
These are seven short sermons to seven ancient, real congregations. Straightforward, right? As Bassanio said in The Merchant of Venice,
In religion,
What damnèd error but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? (3.2)
It’s popular to read them as seven successive ages of church history, so that Laodicea, the lukewarm church, turns out to be the church just before the rapture in 4:1. There’s not a scintilla of evidence for this in the text![1] The letters describe conditions that surface in the church again and again, in every age, including ours.
The proof is that Jesus signs off seven times the same way: He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Not church. Churches. Each letter was to be read in all seven.[2] Children: it’s like when your mom writes a note to your brother about his room, and posts it on the fridge. Who’s it for? Everyone. We’ll take all seven tonight as Jesus meant them to be heard.
Theme
To a church under pressure, Jesus says three things. He knows us, he calls us, and he makes us conquerors. He can make that final promise because he’s already done it!
Transition: So, what did John hear? Look at the words he keeps repeating.
Jesus Knows Us
Seven times he says I know—oida (2:2, 9, 13, 19; 3:1, 8, 15). Once per church. How does Jesus know? He’s standing where we left off last week: in the midst of the lampstands (1:13; 2:1). He isn’t reading reports from a distance. He’s in the congregation. And look at what he knows.
He knows Smyrna’s bank balance: I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) (2:9). You couldn’t expand your business without attending trading guild dinners. Why? Dinner with the equivalent of the tech bros required offering incense and confessing Kaisar Kurios—Caesar is Lord. They wouldn’t. They couldn’t. They were poor, yet rich in Christ. How? “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).
He knows Pergamum’s address: I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is (2:13). This was the capital of the province of Asia Minor. The very incense and words Smyrna wouldn’t say were required. One man refused, and they killed him. Jesus knows his name: Antipas my faithful witness (2:13).
He knows Thyatira is growing: I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first (2:19). He notices that. Can he say it of us?
He knows Sardis’s press clippings: You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead (3:1).
He knows what Laodicea thinks of itself: You say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing—the complete opposite of Smyrna—but not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked (3:17).
Read all seven and you see a spectrum. In two, faith burns bright: Smyrna and Philadelphia. Three were dimming and flickering: Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira. In Sardis and Laodicea, the light has nearly gone out.[3] Jesus walks among our lampstand; he is the light who can keep us burning. Amen?
Beloved: There’s nothing about OURC Jesus doesn’t see; his eyes are like a flame of fire (2:18). To the smallest church on the list he says, I know that you have but little power (3:8). Small is not invisible.
His hand doesn’t hold only seven. These represent all. Christ is seated at God’s right hand and can hold more. He’s Head of his churches in Europe, in Africa, wherever they are. He walks among them all,[4] including a small congregation on the border of Carlsbad and Oceanside. He knows us, by name.
Transition: He knows. So, what does he say?
Jesus Calls Us to Repent
Four times he commands his churches: repent (2:5, 16; 3:3, 19; μετανόησον). After chapter 3, this verb is used four more times of the world that’s struck by God: yet they did not repent (9:20, 21; 16:9, 11). Four commands to the church; four refusals from the world. The difference between church and world isn’t that one sins and the other doesn’t. It’s that one knows they do and turns.
Beloved, we’re called to repent of drifting. Ephesus had every doctrine right but lost one thing: you have abandoned the love you had at first (2:4). They were orthodox, but tired of loving their neighbor as themself.
We’re called to repent of compromise. Listen to three churches slide in a single line: Ephesus hated the works of the Nicolaitans (2:6); Pergamum held to them (2:15); Thyatira tolerated Jezebel (2:20).[5] Hated, held, tolerated. If you’ve gone skiing, there’s the black diamond and then there’s the bunny hill. Falling back takes place on a bunny hill.
Ephesus and Pergamum are photographic negatives. Ephesus was disciplined on the inside but cold to the outside. In Pergamum, orthodoxy held its ground and martyrdom was endured outside, but spiritual purity was missing in the heart.[6] We live in a therapeutic age that wants neither discipline nor purity. The world wants an undisciplined church. Jesus doesn’t. He calls us to maintain our saltiness or else we’re good for nothing. It’s in our separation from the world that we are of use to the world.
We’re called to repent of comfort. You are neither cold nor hot (3:15). A cold man has never met the gospel; but with him you can do something. It’s the man who’s heard it his whole life, yet is unmoved, whom you can’t reach.[7]
Beloved, we can find OURC in all seven letters; but it’s Laodicea that pastors and elders fears most. Our pressure isn’t at the tip of a sword like Antipas faced. It’s the sand, the sun, and the surf. It’s not the pressure of persecution, but the pleasant pleasures at our fingertips 24/7/365. It’s viewing Jesus like an optional feature to your phone or car.
Note the kind of threat Jesus makes in these letters to unrepentant churches: I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place (2:5).
But hear the tense in 3:16. Jesus doesn’t say to Laodicea, “I have spit you out.” He says I will. He’s still standing here. He’s still waiting. And in the very next breath: Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline (3:19). You don’t have a Savior who’s looking for a reason to be rid of you. He calls you to remember…keep… repent, as with Sardis (3:3).
Transition: And to everyone who does, he makes a promise. Seven of them.
Jesus Makes Us Conquerors
All seven letters end the same way: to the one who conquers. Ho nikōn (Ὁ νικῶν; 2:11, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; or, To nikōnti, Τῷ νικῶντι in 2:7, 17). These aren’t different promises of salvation. They’re one salvation described multiple ways, like looking at light through a kaleidoscope. We’ll hear them expressed throughout the book: 1) the tree of life (2:7 cf. 22:2, 14), 2) the second death (2:11 cf. 20:14), 3) the new name (2:17 cf. 3:12, 14:1, 22:4), 4) authority over the nations (2:26 cf. 12:5, 20:4), 5) the morning star (2:28 cf. 22:16) the book of life (3:5 cf. 13:8, 17:8, 20:12, 15, 21:27), 7) the pillar in the temple (3:12 cf. 7:15, 21:22), and 8) to sit with Christ on his throne (3:21 cf. 20:4, 22:1, 3, 5).
But who can possibly conquer? Look at the last of the seven. It gives away the secret: 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 (3:21). Did you hear it? What’s the key to our conquering? As I also conquered. That’s past tense. In Jesus’ own words: “It is…finished!” Before Jesus ever asks you to overcome anything, he tells you “I already have!” In chapter 12 he tells us how his people conquer: they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony (12:11). Jesus has won. Already. Period. We conquer in him. By the blood of the Lamb. “But pastor, the church has been feminized and neutered. We’ve gotta get involved and do something!” By the word of their testimony. The only crusader sword the Christian has in this life is the sword of the Word of God on the lips.
Conquering isn’t worldly winning. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life… The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death (2:10–11). You live, you die, and that’s a win. Follow this to the end of the book: The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son (21:7).
Transition: Revelation ends on a throne. But the letters end at a door.
Conclusion: Open the Door
You are known. Jesus isn’t watching OURC from a distant throne. He’s in this room. He knows how little power you have, but he’s not written you off for it.
You are called not to try harder but to turn around. Repentance is remembering what you received, and going back to it.
You will conquer. Not because you’re strong, but because he already has, and he means to seat you where he sits.
To the most self-satisfied church in ancient Asia Minor, Jesus was standing outside their door: I stand at the door and knock (3:20). Locked out of his own church, yet still knocking. Open the door.
[1] William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation (1940, 1967; Baker Book House, seventh printing, 1990), 60. The contrary view is defended by the Scofield Reference Bible. ↩
[3] Abraham Kuyper, The Revelation of St. John, trans. John Hendrik de Vries (1935; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), 47. Hendriksen sorts them into four bands rather than three, giving Ephesus its own rung; Hendriksen, 26, 79. ↩
[5] Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, The Book of Revelation (Eerdmans, 1990), 49. Hendriksen judges it probable that the Nicolaitans, the followers of Balaam, and the followers of Jezebel represent the same school. Hendriksen, 62. ↩