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This letter gives us another secret to growth and change to those of us who are feeling a little bit complacent. Maybe we feel a little more bored than blessed when we connect with church … Perhaps we feel a lot more attached to this world than we’d like - (who doesn’t struggle with that?) and looking us straight in the eye Jesus says - “I want you to see your need as you never have before. Then I’d be able to meet your need as I never have before.” John writes this way to the church in Laodicea - “To the angel of the church of Laodicea write, ‘These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds that you’re neither cold nor hot … I wish that you were one or the other … But you don’t realise you’re wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you get from me gold refined in the fire so you can become rich and white clothes to wear so you can cover your shameful nakedness salve to put on your eyes so you can see.” (Revelation 3:14 ff) Not easy words from Jesus but they end with his remarkable promise - “Look! I am standing at the door and I'm constantly knocking. If anyone opens the door I will come in and I’ll fellowship with him; I’ll relate to him, I’ll dine with him and he’ll fellowship with me.” (Revelation 3:20 – Message)
Episodes
Monday Sep 21, 2020
Monday Sep 21, 2020
Philadelphia was a growing church. They were doing some things OK. The city was founded about 150 years before Jesus and was named Philadelphia because an early prominent leader had been so loyal to his brother that people had nicknamed him - “brother lover”. So the Greek name combining the two ideas of ‘brother’ and ‘love’ came together to give us the name … Philadelphia.
The city was poised right at the crossroads of different cultures. It was built to influence travellers and those who would come through that crossroads in Greek ideas and Greek thought. This church also faced open hostility from a ‘sect’ of people who considered themselves to be a higher “level” of Christian.
Jesus message to the Philadelphians, and to us, is that regardless of the culture, regardless of the increasing secularisation of the society, regardless of increasing anti-Christian sentiment, regardless of the opposition, regardless of the odds, God can do things through us, and through us as a church that are unstoppable.
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