This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome back to our look at Revelation chapter 2 and daily drive-time devotions,
day 5. We're going to look at verses 18 to 29 today. We've been looking at what
Jesus has to say to the church, the church then and the church now.

We looked at Ephesus, what Jesus says to a busy church, "Keep first things
first, your first love. " We looked at Smyrna, what Jesus says to a suffering
church, "Look up and look ahead. " We looked at Pergamum, what Jesus says to a
confused church.

Remember that our doubts grow out of our relationships. And today we look at
Thyatira, what Jesus says to a tolerant church. Let me read for you verses 18 to
29.

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.
I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that
you are now doing more than you did at first. Nevertheless, I have this against
you.

You tolerate that woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her
teaching, she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food
sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she
is unwilling.

So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit
adultery with her suffer intensely until they repent of her ways. I will strike
her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am the one who
searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching
and who have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets, I will not impose any
other burdens on you. Only hold on to what you have until I come. To him who
overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations.

He will rule them with an iron scepter. He will dash them to pieces like
pottery. Just as I have received authority from my Father, I will also give him
the morning star.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. That's a
long section of Scripture. John is talking to this church, and he's talking to
them about success.

He's talking to them about the success syndrome. Success becomes the standard of
any society. It becomes the standard of our society.

And we become flooded with books about how to think, eat, talk, exercise, dress,
do things for success. And the definition of success might change, but it's all
about being successful in the world's eyes. Success becomes so important that we
begin sometimes to forget to ask the all-important question, "What's the price
that I'm paying for this success?

" The church at Thyatira, they face this success syndrome without asking,
"What's the price that I'm paying? " It's amazing to me how these churches of
2,000 years ago faced the identical problems that we face today. We've always
faced this syndrome.

Whether success is measured in how many camels I own or how many castles I own
or how many cars I own, we face the same thing. And Jesus has three distinct
messages to the church about success in these verses. First, he says to us that
the signs of success do not guarantee the presence of success.

Thyatira had all the signs. In verse 19, "I know your deeds, your love, your
faith, your service, your perseverance. " They had all the signs of success.

They just didn't have the reality. The signs don't guarantee the presence. A
billboard might loudly declare the best steak in town, but I got to go into the
restaurant and eat it before I really know.

The signs don't guarantee success for churches either. A lot of people, a lot of
activities, a lot of space, the budget, the baptisms, the buildings, that does
not guarantee that that church is fulfilling God's purposes. The signs don't
guarantee the success.

Signs don't guarantee success for individuals. A large salary, big car, a house
in the right neighborhood. They're often accompanied, as you know, by empty
hearts, failing relationships.

So the question is, how do I evaluate success? It is not wrong to be successful
to do things for God that make a difference in this world. It's wrong to be
successful just for popularity's sake.

How do I evaluate genuine success? Here's the question. Do I look just for the
external signs, or am I looking for the eternal and internal presence of God's
will and direction in my life?

People sometimes, they spend their lives chasing after some material good, and
they wonder why they don't feel successful when they reach it. They've been
chasing after the sign and not the real thing. That's the problem.

Are you chasing after the sign and not the real thing? Are you being satisfied
with merely the signs of success? If you are, you're settling for too little.

Whatever successes God wants to bring into your life, he wants to bring them out
of his relationship with you, not have you fake them without a deep relationship
with him. The signs of success do not guarantee the presence of success. The
second thing Jesus talks about to this church is the truth that success can
carry too great a price, too high a price.

The people of Thyatira, they'd forgotten this truth, and so they tolerated
somebody that Jesus calls here Jezebel. That might have been a real name. He
might be referring to the Jezebel, the queen in the Old Testament who was such
an evil woman.

Whatever, it was somebody who taught immorality, taught idolatry. How could this
happen? How could this church of such faith, Jesus says, "I know your faith.

" How could this church of such faith fall into that kind of a trap? I want to
know this because I don't want to fall into this kind of trap. And what history
tells us about Thyatira might give us the answer.

Thyatira was a commercial city with a lot of trade guilds. We're told of wool
workers and linen workers and makers of outer garments and dyers and leather
workers and tanners and potters and bakers and slave dealers and bronze smiths,
all kinds of workers in this city with trade guilds for each of these. Here was
the problem that the Thyatiran Christians faced.

To work successfully in this city, you had to participate in the trade guild.
And to participate meant eating in the guild celebrations held in idols'
temples, celebrations that were often followed by expressions of loose
immorality. They sometimes made immorality, sexual immorality, a part of their
worship practices.

Paul tells us elsewhere in the New Testament that there is nothing wrong with
the meat that is offered in the idols' temple. That's not what's being condemned
here. What's being condemned is what went along with it, the immorality.

And you can almost hear this woman, Jezebel, reasoning with the Thyatiran
Christians. God expects us to succeed. He gives honor to God when we succeed.

It shows God to be a good God when we're successful in our business. It's a
witness to His power. So He'll understand if you involve yourself in these
things in order to attain the success that He wants you to have.

And Jesus says, "I do not understand. The price is too high. " In our grasping
for success, we're all sometimes tempted to pay a price which leaves us with
failure.

Your family life is too high a price to pay for business success. Your honesty
and integrity is too high a price to pay for some financial success. The truth
is too high a price to pay for some church success.

It's not wrong to succeed in ways that honor God. It is wrong to pay too high a
price. Ted Ingstrom wrote a long time ago in the book The Pursuit of Excellence,
"We often sow our wild oats and pray for crop failure rather than seed quality
into our lives and work for a mature harvest.

" When you pay the wrong price, you're going to reap what you sow. But when you
pay the right price, then you have the genuine success that God wants to be
happening in your life. Jesus has a third thing to say here.

Here is Jesus' word to us when we're tempted to go after some fleeting success.
I've got to have it because she has it. I've got to have it because He has it.

I've got to have it because I want it. I know I maybe shouldn't have it. I'm
going to have to cut some corners to get there, but I've got to have it.

When that temptation comes into your life, here's Jesus' word. Hold fast to what
you have. Jesus says don't become so intent on what you don't have, on what some
other person has that you let go of what you do have.

People who have this great, wonderful family life, they let it all go because
they want to copy some person who's miserable in their family life but has
success in their business. Hold on to what you have. Don't buy into the
philosophy that you always need something else, something more to be truly
successful.

Enjoy the successes that God is working in your heart, in your life. Hold on to
what you have. How do you hold on?

I go back to verse 19, which shows what they had. He begins by telling them,
"Here's what you have. Hold on to that.

" That verse tells us how God's success can continue in our lives. Five things
He talked about in that verse, your deeds, your love, your faith, your servants,
your perseverance. Five principles for holding on to God's successes, God's
will, God's direction in our life.

Your deeds. That reminds us that success involves work. I'm not saved by my
works but I am saved to work, so hold on to the works that God wants me to do.

Your love, He says, the second thing. Success requires right relationships with
others, true success. Your faith is the third thing.

Success demands dependence upon God. If I'm getting there without depending on
God, there is no success in that because there's no honor to God in that. I've
got to admit, that one stings me because I've tried too often in my life to get
there without really praying about it, without really depending on God.

Oh, depending on God, it's in the back of my mind but it's not at the front. How
can I bring it to the front? My faith.

Your service. True success is not found in getting but in giving yourself to
others. Your deeds, your love, your faith, your service by being a servant, and
then He says your perseverance.

Success, God's kind of success, it takes time. If you've got to get there too
quickly, you're always going to cut corners. Return to those things, He says,
hold on to what you have and then you'll enjoy the kind of success that God
wants to be a part of your life.

Jesus Christ, as we talk to you today, we realize that you want to do things in
our lives. You want to bring certain successes into our lives. Some may be
noticed by others, others might not be noticed, but you want to cause us to bear
fruit for you, fruit that will last.

We know some of what that might be, we need direction in others of what it might
be, but whatever it is, God, we pray that you release us from this temptation of
chasing after the world's brand of success and help us to enjoy instead the kind
of success that you want to bring into our lives, success that lasts by our
deeds, our love, our faith, our service, our perseverance. Jesus, help us to be
satisfied deeply with the success that you bring into our lives. We ask this in
your name, Amen.

We'll see you back next week because we're going to finish our look together at
what Jesus has to say, the truth that Jesus has to give to these seven churches
and to you and me.