Bayside Baptist Church

James: Good morning, Bayside. How's everybody today?

Guest (Male): Great.

James: Happy Father's Day, dads. Yeah. All the father figures, y'all did exceeding exceedingly better than the early service. They were just not awake when we said Happy Father's Day uh to you all. I salute you men who will be grilling your own steak today cuz nobody can do it better than you.

Guest (Male): Cheeseburgers.

James: Oh, cheeseburgers. Okay, yeah. I salute you guys. If you have your copy of God's word, uh turn to Revelation chapter 2 will be in verses 12 through 17 in our series today. If I haven't met you, my name is James. I'm the discipleship pastor here at Bayside and uh it's a joy to be able to preach and to lead uh this morning. We're going to talk about the church at Pergamum today and um there's a little bit of history that we've got to unpack first as we dive into this text. So, there's some background that we need to glean and understand from and I believe that Christ is active among us observing our hearts and our responses.

That's a amen. All right. Okay, good. All right. All right, there we go. This is going to be like this all morning, okay? This is the drill. All right. There's a word from Christ for our faith family and just like Ephesus and Smyrna, the two previous churches that Jason had taught has taught and led through, there's good things, there's challenges, and definitely course corrections. I love that phrase, that course correction that we need uh to understand. This church um was very sophisticated and wealthy. They had over 200,000 volumes in their library. It was only second to the library in Alexandria, Egypt.

They were the center of Greek culture for the day. They had a lot of wealth and they had high walls. They were 1,000 ft above sea level, so they were not a uh seaport. Uh they were very protected with these high walls way up in the mountains. A lot of folks retired there from what I could understand as I read. But they had some problems. They had idol worship that was taking place and they worshipped Athena, Zeus, a bunch of other people I can't pronounce their names, and Roman emperor worship. The interesting thing about Pergamum, the proconsul of the governor had a very special, I guess maybe not special, but very rare thing that was granted to him.

It was called the right of the sword, the right of the sword. This means that he could perform executions whenever he wanted. Very very strange, very rare for that time period. So, as we read here in just a minute in verse 12 and then later on in verse 16 when Jesus says, him who has the sharp two-edged sword, and then again in verse 16, I will war against you with the sword of my my mouth, he was declaring ultimate authority. It wasn't the Roman Empire that had ultimate authority. It was Jesus. He had ultimate authority even over life and death.

That is ultimate authority, is it not? Yeah. So, let's take a look at verse 12 and 13 as we begin. Be right here on the screen or there in your copy of God's word. And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write, the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword. And then verse the next verse, there we go. I know where you dwell where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness who was killed among you where Satan dwells.

Sorry about that. Had a little issue in the first service too. That's some intense scripture, is it not? That is some very intense scripture. Pergamum was called the city where Satan's throne is. Idolatry was rampant in the city. It was surrounded by worship of idols, Roman emperor set up as God. However, the church at Pergamum refused to renounce its faith. The believers held fast to the name of Christ. Even one of its members was killed for not compromise being faithful to the witness of Jesus. Now, this guy Antipas, we don't we don't know anything else about him in scripture.

We know zero things about him except for this. These are the words of Christ through John, right? He's pinning them down through the power of the Holy Spirit. These are the words of Christ and this is what he says about Antipas. He was my faithful witness even until death. Now, if Jesus could say anything about you and your walk with Christ, what would it be? To this is what I would want. Right? This is what I would want. Faithful to the end. He was faithful to the end. So, what was Pergamum's issue? They did not stand firm in the face of adversity.

So, the question that I want to bring to us today is what does it take? What does it take for us to stand firm? What will it require from us? Couple of things. First here, standing firm requires an unshakable grip, an unshakable grip. This is what is said about Antipas that he he held fast. Now, that that word is very interesting. It means to not discard, to carefully keep holding on and to remain even in the face of death. Guys, this is not a Jack and Rose Titanic movie situation here where Rose let go of Jack and off into the abyss he went.

This is a hold on and not let go no matter what. An unshakable grip to Christ. An unshakable grip, a firm grip even until death. And that's why we have this story about Antipas cuz that's what happened. Some of us call this non call this maybe a non-negotiable. I'm not going to negotiate my grip on this. So, what things do you hold tightly? I know for me it's God's word. It's God's word. I have got to hold on to God's word. I need God's word every single day, every single day. For me, it's worship, a lifestyle of worship, not just on Sunday morning or anytime we gather to sing, right?

It's a lifestyle of worship. I hold tightly to that. What about serving the Lord, right? You're called to do things that I'm not called to do. There are things that you can do that I cannot do. And I need you. I need to be encouraged. I try my best to be an encourager. You know, James means helpful friend and encourager. So, I try to be that, right? But I need you. I need that encouragement. I need you to step into that space of service, of serving the Lord because we are weak without you. The church is weak when you don't step forward and hold tightly to that and say, hey, I this is what I'm going to do.

I'm I'm going to serve the Lord. We get things mixed up too and we hold things loosely. We hold a lot of things loosely sometimes and that's where compromise comes in. A recent Gallup and Pew Research poll reports this is actually a 20 25 poll that 20 only 20% of Americans attend church weekly. Only 20% attend church weekly. And to me, I I think about this and I go, wait a minute. That that's not every week. What? I I I need to be with you. Like I'm Have you Have you noticed I'm a people person?

I mean, that's why that I'm in the role that I am in. I asked Michael, when y'all hired me like like what was the main thing? Cuz you love people, James. It's not that I don't, but because you love people. I need people. This past year I I had the flu and at one point Karen just pointed at the door, my wife, she pointed the door, go find somebody. I don't care if you're sick, go talk to someone else. Like I need people. I absolutely need people. I need to be with the body of Christ.

I need to be with believers. And no matter how introverted you are, you need that too. Because this is where we get encouraged. This is where we get strengthened. This is where we're reminded of our hope. This is where we're reminded of who we are in Christ. So, I just want to encourage you with that this morning. An unshakable grip. Antipas had that. And you know, there's a difference between right, Antipas and then here this church called Pergamum. Antipas had an unshakable grip and the church began to drift away. Began to drift away. Pergamum failed to identify that Jesus was on the throne of their church.

I mean, how awful is this? Let's refer back to verse 13. I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. And this leads us to the second point. If we're going to stand firm in our faith, it's going to require a constant evaluation. And I call this like heart checks, constant heart checks. You know, Paul tells the Corinthian church in Corinthians chapter 11, 1 Corinthians 11, before taking the elements of the Lord's Supper, to examine your heart. And if you have sin against someone, to go and repent, to go take care of that with the individual and then come.

Right? We see this throughout scripture that we need to examine our heart and examine who we are as we stand before the Lord. And we can't stand firm if we allow things to seep into our life. So, have you evaluated your heart lately? You know, the reason why we I'm saying this term stand firm today is because it's repeated a lot a lot in scripture. This term stand firm or standing firm is repeated more than approximately 20 times throughout scripture. And it all has to do with your faith and standing firm in the gospel of Christ.

Here's just a couple. I've got four different verses that I want to share with you to help illustrate this. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. That's 1 Corinthians 15 58. Your work is not in vain. Here's what I want to bring out about this verse. Always give yourself fully. Always give your stand firm. Always There's some of us that are here, no doubt, that are not giving ourselves fully to the Lord.

You're holding back for what reason? I don't know. Maybe it's fear, maybe it 's anticipation. I I don't know if I'm ready yet. You're ready. It's time. Take a step of faith. Take a step and begin serving the Lord into a space that you know that God has called you again. I need you. Like we need you to step into spaces that I can't serve. Secondly, here's another verse uh that has this stand firm. Be on your guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. 1 Corinthians 16 13. Stand firm. Be on your guard.

Some of us can't stand firm because we've let our guard down. And the enemy is raking havoc in your life. You've let your guard down. Right? We're We're supposed to have spiritual gates and walls up, right? Force to make sure that we're walking with the Lord and doing the right things. And some of us have let our guard down and the enemy has seen that and said, okay, yeah, I 'm going to I'm going to play with your heart. I'm going to play with your mind. Here we go. And you're dealing with that. Repent and lay that down.

We'll get to that here in just a minute. The third verse that I have this morning, resist him standing firm in the faith. 1 Peter 5 9. Some of us have stopped resisting. We've stopped pushing back. We've just accepted, so to speak, the inevitable. Well, this is this is who I am, fine. I'll just live in sin. I 'll just be this person. And we've stopped resisting. We can't stand firm unless we're pushing back against the enemy. That's an amen moment. We've got to stand firm. This community needs to see us as believers stand firm.

Lastly, in this set of uh scripture, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery. Galatians 5 1. Again, the yoke of slavery. Some of you have been set free by the burden of sin or something in your life. You've been set free and you're bound again. You've decided to accept slavery over the freedom in Christ and you're struggling. If you would be honest with me today, you would say, yep, James, that's me. I am absolutely struggling today because I've allowed the enemy to put me in chains again.

Again. One step. It's just one step back to the Lord, folks. It's just one step. Lord, I'm sorry. I repent. I need your help. We have got to stand firm in our faith. It's going to require constant evaluation, standing firm. Have you given yourself fully to the work of the Lord? Are you on guard? Are you resisting the enemy? Have you given yourself over to the burden of the Lord? Are you still enslaved? Where is your heart today? Have you evaluated decisions that you're making? Maybe some choices of some online activity that you don't need to be in part a part of.

Maybe a relationship that you don't need to be a part of. Are you resisting the enemy? Which brings us to the next point. Stand firm requires no compromise. It requires no compromise. Now, there's two examples here in the text about no compromise. Verse 14 says this, but I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel so that they might eat food sacrificed to idol and practice idols and practice sexual immorality. Now, you can read about Balaam and Balak, the story in Numbers chapter 22 through 20 24.

It's fascinating. It's an awesome story. I mean, there's talking donkeys in the story. There's no Shrek though, okay? So, there's there's talking donkeys. There's angels with swords. I mean, it's it's awesome. It's awesome. And the ironic thing is not that he's talking to a donkey, but that he answers the donkey when the donkey talks back to him. Balaam, a prophet, was asked by Balak uh a Moabite king to curse the nation of Israel. Balaam could not curse Israel like Balak asked him to do. However, he did teach the Moabites to bring the men of Israel into idol worship and sexual immorality.

That's what was going on in this church. Are you kidding me? Compromise. So, okay, it's cool we have this faith over here, but you can do these things and it's just push it under the carpet and just kind of not not give attention to it. This is what was going on in this church. No wonder why it was categorized by this is where Satan's throne is. Oh my word. Whoa. You say, James, how does this happen? How does This is how this happens. It occurs when we want sin more than we want Jesus. That's how that happens.

When we elevate sin in our life and we say that's what I want more than what I want Jesus. Y'all, I don't I don't want that for us. I don't want that for my life. I don't want that for Bayside. I don't want that for James. I want my life to be like Antipas in this passage faithful to the end, faithful to the end. I want more of Christ and I need more of Christ every single day. There is something in God's word for me every single day, y'all. I don't want to live on yesterday's bread or on yesterday's truths, right?

I need it today. I've got to have it today. Because it's easy for me. I don't know about y'all, but it's easy for me, right, to get my focus off where I need to be. It's really easy. My heart, like the song that we sing, my heart prone to wander. It does. My ADHD brain ADHD brain See, I can't even say it. Off I go and I'm thinking about things and often I have to come to the Lord, right? When I when I sit down with my life journal and I open God's word, there are often times I I start doing my checklist of the things I need to do today.

And I have to fight I I have to war against that and say, no, I can't I can't live that way. Hold on, timeout. God, you've got something for me in the in your word and I need this in every single time that battle happens. Right? Every single time God's word just kind of jumps out at the screen and I'm like, oh, that's why I needed to read this today. There's a second thing. It's not just an illustration from times past, right? There was something going on in that church currently. Look at verse 17. So, also you have some who hold the teachings of the Nicolaitans.

So, who were they? Who are these guys? Jason alluded to them in the church in Ephesus in Romans uh sorry, Revelation chapter 2 verse 6. And these people they the Ephesians recognized the error of the Nicolaitans, but the believers in Pergamum were being deceived. They were false teachers leading them astray. We must be on our guard. You see, the Nicolaitans were Christians who had compromised their faith in order to enjoy the sinful pleasures of their society. They thought the best practice was to peacefully coexist and go along with what they could of the Roman society in order to be left alone.

Instead of stepping into that space to say, no, that's wrong, just leave me alone, let me do what I have to let me just do my thing over here. And there was compromise, compromise, compromise in the church. So, what's the call? The call is to repent. The call is to turn away from our sin and turn to God. And you see this thing about repentance, it's so important for us to grasp. Because what a lot of people believe about repentance is just turn just simply turn away from God. That's not the full definition. Because what happens if I just turn away from from oh sorry, turn away from sin and don't turn to God?

Right? Just turn away from sin, what happens to my life? I just slowly drift right back. Any of you have been in that space where you just like why does this keep happening? Why is this over and over again? Because we have to turn away from sin and we have to turn to God. We've got to replace that with what God wants in our life and for our life. We've got to saturate ourselves with Jesus. We've got to be like a sponge, everything everything that Jesus has to offer. Let me saturate myself with him. But this is what happens and what was happening in Pergamum.

We see therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. This verse right here tells us simply there's consequences for sin. And a lot of us need to get things right with the Lord. We need to come and say, God, please forgive me and get things right and evaluate. Here in verse 16, we see God's word pointing to repent. He ends the Pergamum address with a plea. Listen to what I'm saying, he says, which brings us to the last point about standing firm. When we stand firm, we'll get great rewards.

Get great rewards. For those who repent, rewards await. Look at verse 17. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give him some of the hidden manna. And I will give him a white stone with a name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it. So, to unpack this here, there's a couple of rewards that are listed. One is manna. The children of Israel as they wandered in the desert, the Lord provided for them this bread, right, that would come up daily called manna.

It's a picture of God's provision. When we stand firm in our faith, when we repent from the sin that so entangles us and make Jesus on the throne of our life, God provides for us. He is our provision. He provides for us every single day. Every single day he provides for us. And I have to remind myself about this. Like we take for granted so much, don't we? That safe travel to work. God, thank you. You provided. Little things, big things, little things. He provides for us. He gives us what we need for today. Secondly, the blessing of white stone.

Not I noticed till I was studying this this out. I didn't I didn't know this. There's three things symbolically that we can take a look at. White stone. I promise I won't throw it at you. Okay. One in the Roman culture athletics. Now, previously to the first century, you would get a white stone when you won. After the first century, Herod instituted the medals, right? You would get a medal. But previous to that, you would get a white stone with your name on it. Once you won, you were invited to a banquet. Your stone, that white stone was your ticket.

If you didn't have it with you, you were left at the gate. Right? That was your ticket. Thirdly, what the white stone is in the court system, when you were acquitted, right? When you when you are pronounced not guilty, you are given also given a white stone with your name on it. That says, hey, I am not guilty anymore. Now, let's think about Jesus. When you have a relationship with Jesus, right? A lot of times we read in scripture there's a new name that's given to us. We're invited when we've prayed to receive Christ as our Savior.

On the other side of this life, we're invited to a great banquet. I mean, I want to have a great meal with Jesus, don't you? But most importantly, our sins are forgiven. We're acquitted. We're counted as forgiven. And maybe that's you this morning and you would say, man, I I don't know this Jesus that you're talking about. I don't know this Jesus that you're referring to. I don't I don't know who he's but but man, I want that. I want more of that in my life. I need provision in my life. I need help in my life.

If that's you today in just a minute, we're going to pray. I would invite you to come. I would love our team would love to introduce you to Jesus Christ. But maybe you're fitting in a different category this morning and you would say, I yeah, there's some things in my life I need to repent to. There's some stuff that's happened. There's some stuff going on currently that I haven't asked the Lord to clean up, to shine his light in the dark spaces of my heart and my mind and I need to get right with God.

It's holding me back from taking the next step of faith and I need God to do a miraculous work in my life this morning. I want to beg with you and plead with you, please repent, come to the Lord. He'll wash you clean. Man, he'll set your feet firm. He'll give you a direction that you need to go. Your joy will be restored. Hope will be restored in your life. Y'all, I'm telling you that kind of life is the life I want to live every single day. Some of you might be bound by chains, you've again bound by slavery.

You're not resisting the enemy. You're not on guard. Come to Christ today. The call church is for us to walk this way. I don't want Bayside to be the throne where Satan lives. I want Bayside to be the throne where Jesus lives. And when every person walks through those doors, they are in the presence of almighty God and they know it when they leave here. That's what I want for us. So, the call today is to one, repent, leave your sin at the altar, lay it down. And secondly, if you don't know Jesus, man, come.

Come. Let us help you understand who he is and begin that next step of faith and walk with him. You know, at some point compromise ruled at Pergamum because they did not stand firm and that church ceased to exist. It does not exist anymore. Gone. I don't want that for us. I want Bayside to go for years and years and years and years to come. I want the influence in Chattanooga and beyond right that we have in this community to be the one that makes so much of Jesus. So, the call is, how about you?

Let's pray. Every head bowed, every eye closed.