Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: Rev. 2:18-29

Theme: Even the smallest and most “insignificant” church can be a change agent in its community when it remains faithful to the Lord.

In his book, The Frog in the Kettle, George Barna warned the church almost twenty-five years ago about the danger of gradualism.

He opened the book with this illustration: If you drop a live frog into a kettle of boiling water it will quickly jump out.

Its senses tell it that the environment is dangerous.

But place that same frog in a kettle full of cool water and very slowly increase the temperature until the water is boiling, the frog will stay in the water until it boils to death.

The change is so gradual that the frog does not notice the danger it is in until it is too late.

This is an illustration of what has happened to American society and culture.

America has changed radically in the last fifty years.

All cultures change ... that’s a given.

But the rapidity of change in just the last ten years is staggering.

The process will not doubt continue.

Moral values, social behavior, cultural activities, family development, personal lifestyles, and even political decision-making all once revolved around our nation’s Judeo-Christian religious heritage, and cultural perspective.

No longer.

More recently these values have been undermined by the encroachment of secularism, hedonism, and materialism.

In my lifetime we have witnessed the wholesale secularization of American culture.

For the most part, these cultural and social changes happened subtly and imperceptibly.

America has been like a frog in a slowly boiling kettle of water.

The Church has not been unaffected by these cultural and social changes.

At the least, the church has tolerated these changes with hardly a challenge.

At the worst, the church has wholly embraced these changes.

Consequently, the Church finds itself in an environment that is wholly secular, and will continue in that direction unless God grants another great awakening in our land.

Functional paganism will be life-threatening to the church if we don’t stay aware of the changes and respond in an biblical way.

The most dangerous challenges to the Christian faith are the new philosophies and old heresies that compete for the minds of our members.

Many churches, built to convey to men and women the water of life, are now the providers of everything but the Gospel.

Their agendas have changed.

There's bingo, and there are dances, and there are clubs, and functions galore, but they no longer function as conveyers of the Gospel.

George Barna writes: Charged by Christ Himself to be agents to change the world rather than agents changed by the world, we have been mesmerized by the lures of modern culture.

This is not a new problem as we will see with the church at Thyatira.

I. THYATIRA WAS A SMALL CHURCH IN AN UNIMPORTANT TOWN ACCOMPLISHING BIG THINGS FOR CHRIST

1. all of us are aware of those people who suffer from low self-esteem

a. sometimes churches can suffer from low self-esteem as well

b.

there are tens-of-thousands of small, rural congregations scattered around our nation who are experiencing a "crisis in confidence"

1) they are Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran

b. they frequently cannot find pastors, and when they do they, do not have them for very long

c. they frequently do not have the physical or financial resources to provide the services to a self-indulgent and self-seeking society that demands the same amenities from their church as from a five-star hotel

ILLUS.

The list of activities an attendee can find can find at some of America’s mega-churches sounds like the offerings at a Club Med or a small liberal arts college: poetry workshops, creative writing, singles groups, job fairs, vocational training, musical lessons, and even auto repair clinics.

Brian Norkaitis, a mega-church pastor in Los Angeles say bluntly, "What people demand today is probably more than what a small church can offer."

d. because they do not have the resources, small congregations often find themselves unable to compete with the large mega-churches

ILLUS.

Let me give you some statistics.

According to the National Congregations Study, the median church in America runs 75 regular participants in worship on Sunday morning.

That means that half the churches in America run fewer than 75 regular attenders, and half the churches in America run more than 75 regular attenders.

The average church in America has 186 regular attenders in Sunday morning worship, but that figure is skewed by the very largest churches.

In America, there are about 7,300 congregations that average more than 1,000 worships per Sunday.

(Believe it or not, there are about 50 congregations in America that average 10,000 or more worships per Sunday).

The National Congregations Study estimates 50% of worshipers on any given Sunday morning attend the largest 10% and the nation’s congregations.

Randall Balmer, a professor of religion at Columbia University, compares some mega-churches with a giant chain store "that comes into a town and puts all the little stores out of business."

2. many of our smaller, rural churches are seriously handicapped because they have a strong sense of inadequacy

a. the result is a congregational low self-esteem which brings about the perception that "our church is insignificant and can't do much for the Lord"

ILLUS.

I felt the call to ministry when I was 18 years old.

I had only been a Christian for about six months.

At 19 I began pastoring my first church.

Every Sunday morning I would drive 25 miles past the soybean fields of northeast Missouri toward the corn fields of Iowa.

I would make a left at Lancaster onto Hwy.

202 and drive another eight miles to Coatsville: Population 38 — six houses (only four of them lived in), a Ma & Pa “quick shop”, a grain elevator and a one-room Baptist Church that could seat 75.

Another 500 feet north and you were in Iowa.

Paul Shively was the lone deacon.

He taught the men’s Sunday School class, led the worship music, and had charge of the preacher.

Most Sundays I’d go home with Paul and have lunch with his family.

But some Sundays I was ‘farmed out’ so I could get to know other church members.

One particular Sunday, I went home with what you’d call the Church Matriarch.

She was an elderly, widowed, white-headed lady through whom most church decisions had to pass muster if it ‘twere to be done.

As we sat there eating fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans, I asked her the question I had asked all of the families I’d had lunch with over my early months at the church: “What do you believe to be our church’s most important mission?”

This lady didn’t hesitate one moment.

She looked at me and smiled and said, “Oh honey, we believe that our mission is giving young preacher boys like you a chance to practice preach’n.”

b. in hindsight I understand that this lady was trying to give me a compliment

1) but as the years have gone by, I’ve had opportunity to mull over her statement

c. it’s a sad commentary on her biblical understanding of the mission and purpose of the Church

3. this lady saw her church's mission as being little more than a stepping stone in the shallow backwaters of the Southern Baptist Convention for young “preacher boys” to get a little experience and then move on to bigger-‘n-better churches

a. how sad, but how typical of too many small rural churches across America

4. the church at Thyatira may have been small, but our Lord is still aware of her situation

v. 18 "To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze."

a. Jesus is omniscient

b. nothing is hidden from his sight

c. he knows the smallest detail of the smallest church in His kingdom

A. THE LORD OF GLORY IS AWARE OF HIS SMALLEST CHURCH IN THE MOST OUT-OF-THE-WAY PLACE

1. Thyatira was the least important of the seven cities mentioned in the Book of Revelation

a. the city had no illustrious history and is scarcely mentioned by ancient writers

2. it was neither a political or religious center

a. it had no great temples and no important institutions of learning

b.

Thyatira was little more than a garrison town for Roman soldiers guarding the main highway which ran through the area

3. its only "claim to fame" were the numerous trade guilds which were head quartered in the town

a. the most important of these guilds dealt in the manufacture and sale of purple cloth

4. to this insignificant community came a significant message: "know [this] that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ."

[Gal.

2:16]

a. how did the message arrive?

b. through the efforts of a lady named Lydia

“From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia.

And we stayed there several days.

13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer.

We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there.

14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God.

The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.”

(Acts 16:12–14, NIV84)

c.