Stop Being So Dead

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Don Filcek; Revelation 3:1-6 Stop Being So Dead

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Good morning. Welcome, Recast Church.
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Glad that you've taken the time out of your week to gather together as God's people. It is a spiritual discipline and a spiritual practice that I hope you find to be beneficial to your walk with Jesus Christ this morning and throughout your week.
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Be sure to fill out the connection card that you received when you walked in. And if you haven't filled one of those out before, we ask that you also please talk with Haley out there at the table, and she's got a gift for you out there.
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But if you fill that connection card out, then we do send out a weekly email called the eCast, and that's got everything in it that we want you to know about what's going on here at church.
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We do have that worship folder that you received. That's got just a smattering of things, but it doesn't have all the connections and links that would connect you well to the church, and so take advantage of that.
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And then you've been provided with an offering envelope. Any offerings you would choose to give go in that black box out there, the same black box on the table where you turn in that connection card.
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And if you're not going to use that envelope this week, as I know not everybody uses it every week, so you can recycle that, and we can reuse those, and that just helps us save on paper and printing costs and things like that.
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So take advantage of that. And then remember that anything that is marked expansion fund goes towards our goal of eventually building a building so that we're not meeting in a cafeteria, although we are extremely grateful to have a cafeteria to meet in for now anyways.
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And so rejoicing that we've got a space that the school is providing for us, and at the same time looking forward to what
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God is going to do for us in the future through breaking ground and building a building. So an update on a couple of things that have been in the works.
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Two weeks ago, the congregation affirmed Steve Isham for the office of elders, so just welcome him as you get an opportunity to interact with Steve.
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Steve's right back here, so if you just want to raise your hand there. So just congratulate Steve in that movement of God among us to affirm that he is indeed our next elder, and he's going to be joining the board for our next meeting in October, but he is already in that position of elder at this point.
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And that means that we currently have a board of five qualified elders, and I'm very grateful for them sharing the responsibilities of leadership here at Recast Church.
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Also, just so you know, we are currently still in the process of looking for one more staff member to round out the team here we're looking for and seeking for a youth ministry intern who could help us to run our 180 ministry.
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Recast 180 is our middle school ministry, and then also Gravity is our high school ministry, and so we're looking for somebody who could come in and help us do that on a part -time basis, and so if you know somebody, if you have any suggestions or any leads on an individual who might be looking for an entry -level ministry position, please let us know that.
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That would be great to know. Again, it's an intern position that could end up leading to eventually more time and more involvement, but at this point, we're looking for an intern who we can kind of get to know and they can get to know us and see how that fit works on down the road.
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So if you know somebody or know a lead or know a place that we should be looking for, we're looking for resumes at this point, so let us know.
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Also, I'm just grateful for Zach Lloyd filling in for me last week and talking about Thyatira as we're walking through these seven churches in the book of Revelation, and so far in the book of Revelation, we've seen
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Jesus audit four of the seven churches, and he identified Ephesus as a loveless church.
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Each one of these churches is somewhat of a category of a type of church, although they're not necessarily just merely representative.
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They were real churches where real people met in congregation, met in fellowship together, studied the word together, were in relationship and community together in real cities, in ancient times, but they still stand to us now as somewhat of symbols of certain types of churches.
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So he identified Ephesus as a loveless church. He identified Smyrna as a suffering church.
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He mentioned Pergamum as a compromised church, and Thyatira as what
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I would call a polluted church. But this morning, we're going to come to the audit of the church of Sardis, and it receives, in my opinion, the worst audit of any of the churches.
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How many of you would love that to be your MO? You get reviewed by your boss, and you get the worst audit of all, or a company comes in to audit your company, and you get the worst audit of all.
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Anybody signing up for that? No, none of us would, right? We don't want that, and yet, that's the place of unfortunate
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Sardis in this situation. Because Jesus, although he identifies other churches as loveless, while they can grow in their love, a polluted church could get cleaned up, a compromised church could begin to take things more seriously, but how do you remedy a dead church?
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How do you fix something that is dead? And that is what Jesus says about Sardis. You are dead.
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How many of you would love that to be your audit at your workplace, right? You'd love to receive those words at your job performance review.
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You are dead to this company. How many of you know that that's not going to end well, okay? That's not going to go well if your boss says those words to you.
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You are dead to this company. He sits down, I've been watching your work, I've seen how you work, and you have a great reputation for doing stuff around here, but really, you're dead.
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That's going to be a big uh -oh. So, as we dive into the text this morning, I'm confident of better things for Recast Church.
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I do not believe that we are a dead church. I believe that we are really alive. As a matter of fact,
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I took encouragement from this text this week as I was looking at the things that Jesus has to say to Sardis, but let me remind us that we ought not to skip a section of scripture that we don't think applies to us.
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Although I believe that we are a church that is alive, we can easily slide into the same type of apathy that caught
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Sardis by surprise here in this text. And certainly, we also ought to be thinking about this text from the perspective of us as individuals.
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I think we ought to listen up and consider our own spiritual walk in light of what Jesus has to say about spiritual alertness and ultimately about spiritual sleep and his injunction to wake up.
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So, some of us may be very close to being in a spiritual coma here this morning. There might be some reality to that, and I hope my preaching doesn't put you in a spiritual coma, but my hope is that the words of Jesus serve us all this morning as a spiritual wake -up call to really take assessment of our own spiritual vitality, our own spiritual life, and think that through.
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So, let's open our Bibles to Revelation chapter 3, the first six verses of that chapter.
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And if you don't have a Bible on your lap, if you could do me a favor and just raise your hand, Mike could bring you a
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Bible, and we want everybody to have a copy of God's word on their lap to be able to kind of follow along and see that the things that I'm saying are coming from God's word.
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But recast, this is what God desires for you and I to hear from him this morning, so let's dig in.
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Revelation 3, 1 -6, and to the angel of the church of Sardis write, the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars,
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I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
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Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my
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God. Remember then what you received and heard. Keep it and repent. If you will not wake up,
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I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I come against you. Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.
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The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life.
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I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the
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Spirit says to the seven churches. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning.
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Father, as we have an opportunity to hear from your word, we recognize that in it is the power of life.
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In it is the power of transformation. Within your word is found the very things that we need for our souls to come alive.
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Father, I thank you that you are a God of resurrections. You are a God of new life. You are a God who brings about transformation in our hearts and in our lives.
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Even this week, I recognize that we come from a variety of different issues and things that we have faced, many of them problems that we have caused for ourselves.
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But Father, I thank you that no one in this room is beyond the reach of your grace. So Father, in that grace, may we sing.
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I pray that you would receive our worship and our songs before you as worship to you.
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Father, that you would turn our hearts to you and your great glorious grace through your son Jesus. And it's in his name that I pray, amen.
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Be sure you have your Bibles open to Revelation chapter 3 verses 1 to 6 as we're going to dive into this text and see what
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God has for us this morning. And remember, make yourself as comfortable as possible. If you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts or whatever during the message, that would be great.
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And then, you know, I know that that might be just how you're hearing that announcement could be a bit distracting, but just lift them up in prayer as you get a chance.
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And so even throughout the message, if you find that on your mind, then just lift up Mark and Jackie to you and her dad at this point.
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We're going to jump in and talk about Sardis this morning. Sardis was a city that had seen better days.
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Okay, maybe it's kind of like a Detroit. Anybody been to Detroit? Has Detroit seen better days?
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Yeah, it has. And so many during Roman times referred to it as a city that hearkened back to even more barbaric times.
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It was in its architecture, in the way that it was designed, in the way that it was laid out. The Romans thought it was kind of a backwards kind of city.
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Had more features for protection, more like a fortress than it was an accessible city for modern life in that time, modern life.
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And so people and writers that would talk about, historians that would talk about Sardis would talk about how backwards of a architecture it was, what it felt like to be there, was more like a military outpost than a city with a lot of amenities.
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But looks can be deceiving, and that's going to be a theme of the audit of the church of Sardis, that looks can be deceiving.
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What we see on the outside is not always what's going on on the inside. And I love it, Dave and I didn't coordinate that, but he chose the song
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Inside Out, which is exactly what this message is about. It's about God transforming us.
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What's going on on the inside matters a lot. We can fake the Christian life. Did you guys know that? You could be a fake
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Christian. You could have on the outside the externals that make others go, man, you're super awesome. Man, you're a super awesome church person who is really good and all of this stuff, and not have it going on on the inside of you.
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And that direction matters. We are asking God to transform our hearts that our behavior might reflect that.
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And so the city was different in reality than what it looked like on the outside.
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And once you got to know the city that was past its prime, you would find under the surface that Sardis was an extremely wealthy city.
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The architecture wouldn't look like that, but there was a lot of money flowing in Sardis. They found gold in the river that ran through that ancient city, and it was the very first city to actually use gold for its coins.
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The very first city in the ancient world that minted coins out of gold. They didn't know what to do with their gold, and they actually utilized it for, rather than making jewelry, because everybody had all the jewelry they wanted, and so they actually began to mint it as a barter and exchange process, and that's how wealthy the city was.
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It was rumored to be the very first city that ever dyed wool in any kind of modern process. And Sardis had a very large
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Jewish population, and had one of the largest synagogues that was unearthed by archaeologists, over a football field in length for Jews to gather together on the
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Sabbath to read and to take part in classes and that kind of stuff that would have happened in that ancient synagogue.
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It's well attested by historians that Sardis had an amazing level of peace that was brought about by abundance.
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They had abundance. The Jews there had everything that they wanted, and they were pretty quiet, even though they were a large contingent, and Jews could sometimes stir things up for Christians.
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They were pretty quiet. The pagan worshipers had all that they wanted, and they were satisfied and fine. And the
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Christians of Sardis faced little persecution. And it ought not to surprise us, and I think it does to some degree, but that the city that faced the least amount of persecution gets the worst indictment from Jesus.
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It's kind of like, oh, that's a little close to home, right? And so Jesus, once again, commands
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John, opening to this little mini -letter in the midst of the larger letter of Revelation, he commands
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John to write to the church of Sardis. And he always introduces himself first. Jesus introduces himself to each one of these seven churches in a specific way, and he says,
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I am the one who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I have the seven spirits of God in my hand.
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I have the seven stars. I am in authority over them. I have control over them, which to our ears might sound like a strange introduction, but Jesus is metaphorically explaining to this church,
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I have at my disposal the power over all churches, and I have in my hand the leaders of all churches.
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We talked about those stars, those angels being the leaders of those churches.
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And I mentioned a few weeks ago that the seven spirits of God that he says he has in his hand could be translated as the seven -fold spirit of God, singular, but it's got seven facets or seven faces to it, if you will.
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And that goes back to a prophecy in the book of Zechariah, who spoke and utilized the menorah, one source of oil going out into seven stems with seven lamps on the front of it, and that picture,
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Zechariah says, is like a picture of the spirit of God, if you will. He says those seven lights on the top of the menorah are like seven eyes of the
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Lord, or like the seven spirits of the Lord, going throughout the world with power and with authority.
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And in that context, Zechariah says this, God declares his work in the world will not be accomplished by human might, it will not be accomplished by human power, but by his spirit, indicating that as much as we want to change, as much as we want a church that's going to grow, that's going to repent, that's going to turn towards God and do the right things, ultimately, it's not in our strength that we depend to walk with him today, this week, this month, this year, how many of you want to be walking with God a year from now?
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He says, trust my spirit. My spirit is the one who's going to accomplish that in you. And how's that going to happen?
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Through understanding his word, through digging in it, but it's not going to be through our power, it's not going to be us pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps and saying, my goodness,
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I'm going to put a plan in place by which I'm just going to be awesome next year, right? But it's going to be by his spirit working in us and through us and through his word and through prayer and through the things that look more humble than look like power, right?
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How many of you know that the most powerful things that you do each day don't look very powerful to the world? Did you know that?
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Like, for example, praying, for example, reading the word and obeying it. How many of you have found that significant decisions were made in very small things that you chose not to do?
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You just chose not to do that and you found that your life took a different twist or a different turn because you didn't make that poor choice whenever it might have been?
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And you recognize, man, if I had done that, who knows where I'd be today? So a lot of times it's the small things.
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It's not by human power, not by might, but by his spirit. So to bring this up in this context is to remind this church in Sardis that the real power is found in the spirit of God and not in the efforts and hearts of mankind.
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You see, Jesus knows, he sees, and he has the power of the spirit accessible to him.
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And nobody is going to slip one past Jesus. There's a reason he wants to say that to Sardis.
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Because they had in their mind the notion that they were slipping a fast one on Jesus.
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The outside was enough and that by looking a certain way that Jesus would overlook the corruption in their own hearts and would be like, oh,
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I'm okay because you do a lot of good stuff. You do a lot of good stuff. And you can't slip one past Jesus.
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He knows the works of the church of Sardis. He says it outright in the text. He says, I know your works. I know what you're doing.
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And that's a common theme for us in the book of Revelation that Jesus knows what is going on down here.
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He has intimate knowledge of our works, of our behaviors. I mention a lot of times he knows the way we roll day in and day out and he observes those things.
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And let me suggest that for those who are outside the grace of God that might have some fuzzy notion that there's a
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God who sees everything, that knows everything, but they're not in with Jesus and they kind of have spirituality.
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How many of you know that spirituality is in in America today? It's actually in. It's on the rise. It's the idea.
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But not Christianity. Spirituality. The notion that there is indeed some higher power or some higher authority or someone who's watching over us.
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But with that understanding, it probably should result in fear if we think that there's an all -knowing being who's watching us.
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And if we're not in with grace in Christ, we don't have some reasonable understanding of why he is good to us or gracious toward us, that might be scary, right?
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Probably should be scary if we're logical. Problem is we're not all logical, right? I mean our culture isn't extremely logical on that one.
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But Jesus knows everything I do. He knows everything I do. I mean did you hear me? He knows everything you do.
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Anybody feel like blushing just a smidge? Okay, for real? Like I mean when you really think about that, when you really put that in your mind, he knows every thought that crosses your mind and so, you know, some of us it makes us want to run and hide, right?
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You're like, ah, he knows everything? Everything? Not everything. No, everything. But any attempt to run and hide from the one who possesses the power of the sevenfold spirit of God is futile.
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It's actually kind of silly. But just like what did Adam and Eve do when they were caught out in sin?
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Run and hide, really? From the creator God? Does that sound silly to anybody?
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Sound a little bit goofy? And yet we do it all the time, right? I mean we replicate that same notion over and over again, well we'll get away with it.
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We think we can pull one over on him. We think we'll just kind of hide out here and judgment will never come for us.
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And that's futile. But I want to clarify, for those of us who truly have come to recognize
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Jesus as our only hope, we run to Jesus in our shame. In our shame we run to him and he clothes us and that's going to come later at the very end of the text.
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Him clothing, exchanging our filthy, soiled garments for white purity, a glorious reality that is available for those who would come to him rather than run from him.
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And that's really what I think makes the distinction in life. I think there's two types of people. Those who are constantly in their life running from God and those who constantly in their life when troubles come, when difficulties come, when they come face to face with their own sin, they run to God.
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That's the difference in a nutshell. That's the difference of eternal life. Running to God for mercy versus running from him trying to accomplish it on our own.
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And that's the gist. So back to Sardis. I think that the people of Sardis, the people in Sardis thought that they were doing pretty good with God.
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And he says he sees their works and I think they were ready, probably in the public reading of this when he says,
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I see your works, I think they were ready to bask in the glow of his commendation. They're ready, chests out ready to receive the pin, the
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Marksman Award. We're nailing it. We've got it. Look at us as a church. We have a great reputation in our culture for doing really good things.
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They love us. The world around us sees us as alive and vibrant. Chest out ready for the commendation.
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They've already read the first four and they're like, we're certainly not suffering like Smyrna. We have some sense of love.
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Look at how much we love our community by the deeds and the acts and the service that we render to them. We love, we're not like Ephesus.
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I think there was probably an attitude of a bit of arrogance on the part of Sardis. Now obviously I'm reading into it.
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It doesn't say in the text they were arrogant, but it says they had a reputation in their culture, in their community.
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And I really do believe that this church was ready for their commendation, ready. Jesus is going to certainly recognize that we've got a reputation in our community.
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Certainly Jesus recognizes how good we're doing because everybody else around us does. And if he would just consult with our neighbors, they would, they would tell
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Jesus the right answer. We're doing great. Wrong. Jesus does know about their reputation.
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He knows how people view them and he's attentive not just to them, but to the culture around them and how they're being responded to.
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They've made a name for themselves in Sardis and that name is, in the text, alive.
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That's their reputation. That's the name that they've made for themselves. You are alive. A reputation for being a vibrant, active part of the community.
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The church was spoken of well by the pagans, spoken well of by the Jews. And that's really a rarity on the world scene.
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Look at these other churches. You know, Smyrna is getting killed for their faith. Ephesus is withstanding persecution.
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Pergamum had one of their very own killed in their midst among them. And Sardis has a glowing report from the neighborhood.
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Glowing report from their city. Everybody's like, man, that church, that church has it going on. That's the rock star church of our community, of our culture, says
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Sardis. Maybe Sardis isn't as far off from where we live as we might initially think.
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For many of us, if we're honest, we might have set about looking for a church with an excellent reputation in the community.
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We might find that we value that high. But let me suggest that having an excellent reputation in the community is not a sin.
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It's not a sin for a church to have an excellent reputation in the community. That's not what Jesus isn't getting back, getting, say, hey, you should have a terrible reputation in your community if you're going to be in my church.
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No. But hear me carefully. If a church has a reputation of being alive in their community while sacrificing inward spiritual vitality and a deep love for Jesus, then that is a dying or already dead church.
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There are churches with thousands of members that Jesus would indict as dead.
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So you just, you, you, you, you're going through the motions. You've got the externals all down. You do the right things, but you don't have the heart.
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You are not changed from the inside out. You are a social club, a civic organization. You are doing really great things for the community.
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And man, you're supporting so many kids through Compassion International. You're doing fabulous things. You're drilling wells in Africa.
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You're doing this. You're doing that. But where's your heart? Jesus isn't mentioned in your midst anymore.
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The gospel isn't lifted high. And you are transforming people by your might and by your strength and not by my spirit.
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You're doing this on the outside. So it's not that we're driving for a bad, a bad reputation.
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We're driving for the right motivation. Jesus says to Sardis, your neighbors love you.
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Your city is glad you're here. And they would all say you're alive, but looks can be deceiving.
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And Jesus, who knows the heart, says, you are dead.
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Boom. I'd imagine that that was pretty tough. And only a few in the room,
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I imagine, there were only a few in the room at the reading of this letter to the church in Sardis who were not surprised by this indictment.
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Because they had some sense of understanding of what true spiritual vibrancy were. There were a few,
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Jesus says, who were alive in the room. That is not a commendation, by the way, of any church to say, well, fortunately, we've gathered together.
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We're about 150, 100 to 150 in the room right now, but a few of you are alive. What do you think?
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That would be like, what? Would you like? This is the reading of this letter to a real church.
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Few of you got it. What? And those few probably had some indication that, like, we've been trying to get to the heart of this.
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We've been trying. And I think there's some commendation for those who, you know, sometimes we can find that people will stay in a church that is dying, and they want to bring some spiritual vitality.
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Isn't there something noble about that? I think there's something good about that, where there are some who would remain there for the purpose of trying to shore things up and trying to encourage and trying to bring about strength there.
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And I think you had a few people like that in Sardis. But only a few of them, a few identified in verse four, have not rolled around in the mud of their culture, and they had an understanding of how dead their church really was.
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But this is an important reality that we must face. Jesus says that we could be a church full of people who have a reputation for being spiritually alive, while the truth is that we're spiritually dead.
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In other words, the Christian life is not completely summarized by how we come across to the world around us.
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It's not completely summarized by the deeds that we do. Point for emphasis, right? Just going to drive that one home.
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Yeah, the Christian life is not completely summarized by how we look to the world around us or by the deeds that we do, the actions that we do.
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Are the deeds that we do important, by the way? Absolutely. Jesus isn't going against the things that we do every day, saying, okay, just sit back on your sofa because you don't want to be guilty of doing good things.
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No, not at all. But it's about where those good things come from. It's about the motivation.
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It's about what the heart behind them. Are you doing so because you love Jesus and Jesus has loved you and that transformation has happened in your heart?
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It's important. And the solution that is given, by the way, in verses two and three, help us to better diagnose the problem.
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Sometimes the medicine being given helps to explain what the problem is. So I've got a stuffy nose this morning. I don't know if you noticed that.
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I woke up this morning, pretty raging head cold. Yeah, you can keep your distance. I've been using the hand sanitizer pretty liberally this morning, but still, you know, go ahead and use it yourself now that you know that.
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And I'm not going to be standing at the door shaking hands on the way out. But sometimes, if I go to the doctor now and he prescribes to me amoxicillin, what would you assume is wrong with me?
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I've got some kind of a bacterial infection, right? You could tell by the medicine that's prescribed to some degree what's wrong going on here.
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You'd be like, well, it's not a virus. It's a bacteria because he prescribed an antibiotic. So you kind of can see that.
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And the church was in need of a pill from Miracle Max. Does anybody know who Miracle Max is?
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Yeah, a couple of people got really excited about that. Princess Bride, right? Billy Crystal, am
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I right? Billy Crystal, yeah. And the church in Sardis was, are you ready for it?
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Yeah, somebody got it. Mostly dead. Okay, they were mostly dead. So Jesus begins to make this miracle pill for them.
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You know the one that kind of looks like he's coating it with chocolate? You remember that one? Some of you have seen the movie. If you haven't seen it, you should go check it out.
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But the Princess Bride, because it's really, it's got just tons of quotes and you're going to begin to recognize that everybody around you has been quoting that movie for a long time and you just didn't know it.
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So go check it out. But mostly dead. And so he's making a pill and the center point of that pill, the main ingredient is called wake up, okay?
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That's the goal of this pill. The goal of this pill is to wake up, just like Wesley needed to be woken up, okay?
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So it's wake up and it's coated by a couple of layers of the gospel, remember the gospel, keep the gospel, and repent.
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That's the remedy that is given by Jesus to a dead church. He says, you need to wake up, okay?
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You're dead. You're on the cold stone slab and you're not going anywhere unless you wake up. And here's how you wake up.
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Number one, remember the gospel, number two, keep the gospel, number three, repent, turn.
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So those are the steps to Sardis' recovery, if you will.
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Jesus says that their works have not been complete. It's like they fell into a coma or they fell asleep in the middle of a work project.
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I saw some videos one time that were just flat out hilarious, a dog with narcolepsy that just falls asleep,
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I mean, running, chasing a Frisbee and fell asleep. Head over heels. Okay, so, I mean, I should have showed it. But you know, it's like you're in the middle of a project and you, just like,
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I mean, right now you're thinking about it, but hang in there with me. But you know,
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I mean, it's a far stretch, but that's what Jesus says, you didn't finish what you started. And part of what's finishing isn't that they didn't carry them to completion.
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Well, you said you were going to build wells in Africa and then you didn't pay for it. Okay, when it came pay time, you didn't cover the cost, no, it's about motivation.
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What is lacking from their works? The right heart. The right heart.
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It's not that they didn't completely finish the project, they just, part of completing a genuinely good work is the heart given over to God in it.
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I think all of us in the room can recognize that there have been times where we've served begrudgingly without a heart given to God and he's saying that's not a completed work, that's not finished.
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Finishing the work is giving that back to God and recognizing that what has been done has been to his honor, to his glory.
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Is that making sense? So he's saying these haven't been completed, these works are not done yet.
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They haven't carried forward any spiritual motivation. And what's implied here in verse two is that the church in Sardis lacked that proper motivation to begin with.
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It's implied that they did their good works to build a reputation for themselves rather than do what they did from a heart motivated by being saved by the
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. A few among them have that true motivation, but there are a few, he says.
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And Jesus says strengthen that little that remains by remembering what they received and heard.
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Any church, any church begins, ultimately, it has to begin with a reception of the gospel.
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That's where the church began was a receiving of the good news that Jesus Christ died and rose again.
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That's the gospel in a nutshell. He died for your sins and rose again. That by faith you can be made whole and forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ and he will walk with you through your life.
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That's the gospel in a nutshell. And Jesus says remember the reason you exist, church. Remember the reason you're here, church.
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Why are you sitting in these chairs? There might be all different kinds of motivations, but man, I hope that some of us or eventually all of us will recognize that the reason we're here is the gospel of Jesus Christ and a constant renewal and reminder of that.
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That's one of the reasons we take communion every week. We take communion. Now, I don't fear that it's going to become routine because I'm forgetful, so if all of you are like, oh man,
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I'm super awesome and I don't really need that reminder on a regular basis because I just remember the cross all the time.
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I don't need this every week, then by all means, I mean, it makes you more spiritually strong than I am, but I forget.
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I'm forgetful. Anybody relate to me on that? Misery loves company, but I can be forgetful and I want to come back to the point every week and it's not that it becomes routine or rote or, if it becomes that for you, then it's about your heart.
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It's not about the problem that we're doing this every week, but it's ultimately about your heart and saying, I need that reminder.
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I need to constantly be refreshed and renewed and recognize that it is the blood of Jesus and his body broken for me that gives me any hope.
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It humbles me to start the week with that reminder. It humbles me and it's powerful to remember that.
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So where was I? Jesus says, remember the reason that you exist. Remember the reason that the church exists.
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Recast Church is not primarily here to make us all comfortable, as evidenced by the folding chairs.
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It's not primarily here to give us some friends. Great byproduct of gathering together with God's people is that we would gain some spiritually motivated friends and some accountability, but that's not the primary reason.
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It's not here for a good show or for rockin' worship, even though Dave brought it this morning. I mean, God threw
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Dave, brought it this morning, but that's not what it's about. It's not here, even primarily, to do good to our community.
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Should we do good for our community? Should Matawan be blessed because Recast Church exists here? Absolutely, but is that our primary motivation?
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No. Recast exists, as our mission statement says, Recast exists to worship
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God by finding more worshipers for his name. Recast Church exists to worship him by finding more worshipers for his name because he is worthy.
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He is worthy. And the biggest problem amongst humans is that there's not enough worship of God, and that's what we need.
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And that's what we need in Matawan, that's what we need in Michigan, that's what we need in the United States, that's what we need globally, is more worship of Jesus Christ.
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More glory to him. And so that's what we exist to do, is to point constantly, incessantly, like a banging gong in our culture,
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Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Well, it'd be too annoying, but, because I mean, some of your coworkers are like, whenever I'm around you, it's just Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, left, right, left.
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I mean, let them breathe, but don't change that message. Don't alter that.
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There's only one thing that we have to bring to this world, and it's not, you know, rock and worship.
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It's not comfortable chairs. It's certainly not AC, you know, in the summertime and things like that, but what do we have to bring?
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Jesus. The message that there is a Savior who loves you and died for you.
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That's what we have to bring. So, we are not here to serve the reputation of Rikesh Church.
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We are here to serve the reputation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Sardis, I think, had lost that.
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I think Sardis was a lot about their church. They were a lot about how awesome their church was, and about bringing people to their church who did a bunch of good things, but had lost the core of their message.
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Forgetting Jesus. So step one in the recovery process, if you find yourself dead this morning, how do you recover from death?
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It's to remember the good news of Jesus. How does a dead person wake up?
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According to this text, it's through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the second step is then to keep that good news.
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Remember the gospel. That's how we come alive. But the second step is to keep that good news.
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Keeping it is like treasuring it and living by it. Keeping the gospel looks like a life of humility because the gospel is the thing that most defines my own self -worth.
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It should be the thing that most defines your self -worth. Where do you find your value? Where do you find what gives you purpose and hope to keep waking up in the morning and keep stepping forward and to keep going about your day and to keep impacting others?
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And it is the cross. At the cross, Jesus pointed out the darkness and depravity and shame of my own sin.
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The Son of God himself suffered because of my sin. How could I possibly be arrogant when
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I look at the cross? How is it possible to arrive at a haughty spirit where everybody owes me and everybody ought to get out of my way on the highway because I've got places to be,
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I'm important, and I've got things to do? It is impossible for me to drive like that if I'm really thinking about the cross.
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If I'm really understanding my sin and my depravity and my brokenness in the light of a Savior who died for me.
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So where does arrogance come from? I think arrogance often comes from forgetfulness. Forgetting the cross.
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Forgetting where our self -worth comes from. That leads me to a life of humility if I'm thinking about the cross.
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But also, at the cross, Jesus shows his immense love for me. It's not all negative.
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It's not all bad. It's not all how bad we are because there are churches who will just leave it there and it's just like, oh, you're terrible, you're rotten, you're a sinner, you're evil, you did all this bad stuff.
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And now Jesus, look, even Jesus had to go to the cross for you, you're so bad, and just leave it there.
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No, but he loves you. But he loves you so much. Where does your value come from? It's a humble recognition that the
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Son of God had to die for me, but equally at the cross, I recognize I am loved beyond measure by my heavenly
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Father. So much that he sacrificed his own Son on my behalf that I can be made whole and forgiven and have a promise of eternal life together with him.
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There at that place, he loved me enough to stand in the way of the wrath of God toward me. And that leads to a life of bold obedience and love for him.
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I don't fear him. Think about that in your own heart. That's an important question to ask. Do you fear Jesus? Do you fear his return?
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Do you fear his gaze and his eyes on your life? I don't fear him, but I rejoice in his presence because he loves me.
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How do I know he loves me? The cross. And without thinking about the cross, we begin to fear again.
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We begin to run and hide. We begin to go back to those old patterns of terror and fear in his presence because we're like,
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I sinned. How many of you sinned today? You already got it? You already got that? We've already sinned.
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And so we have that constantly clinging to us. And if we don't come back to the cross and recognize forgiven, empowered to go out and live our lives, we will approach him with fear and fear will indeed be a primary motivation for us.
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That's my place there for just a second. Yeah, a life of humility, but also equally a life of bold obedience and love to him without fear.
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And that's really the sweet spot of the spiritual life of the Christian life. When a heart is truly set free by the gospel, it is a beautiful grace -filled and spirit -filled life that recognizes in both humility he had to die for me, but also in great value he chose to because of his love.
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So Jesus commands this dying church, Sardis, remember the gospel, keep the gospel, and lastly, repent.
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Repent. I don't know if you noticed, there's a theme throughout these letters to these churches. Repent, repent, repent. Always telling them to repent and repent, again, as a reminder, is a word that means to turn away from something to something.
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And for the one who remembers the gospel and keeps the gospel and recognizes what caused Jesus to die for us, it's clear that what we must turn from is sin.
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What do we repent from? We repent from sin and we turn to Christ as our hope of salvation, as the one who forgives us.
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A church like Sardis, by the way, that refuses the remedy, will remain mostly dead.
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And if they refuse to take this pill to wake up, Prince Humperdinck will end up marrying
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Princess Buttercup and the story's going to end dramatically wrong. So that's not the way it's supposed to end, so he needs to take the pill.
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I'm sorry, no, really, seriously though, that's not a joking matter, because the ramifications are very poor for a church that will refuse to repent, will refuse to remember the gospel, will refuse to keep the gospel.
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It is a terrifying notion. In verse three, the results of remaining spiritually dead is the church finding itself on the wrong side of Jesus at the judgment.
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He will return and they will not be ready. And they will find that despite their great reputation in their community, they will have no standing with Jesus at all.
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The picture of Sardis, by the way, I want to clarify this, this is very important. The picture of Sardis is a church full of unbelievers, a church full of unbelievers.
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Many there have bought into the church, they have a strong desire to lift up the church in their community, they have a strong desire to serve, to open food banks and soup kitchens and to serve, but they have no real relationship with Jesus Christ.
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And for many of us, this may seem like a stretch, really, whole churches that are full of unbelievers, is that even possible?
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Why would they even bother to get up? And I kind of wonder that sometimes too, why the bothering to even get up on Sunday morning and go?
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But there are whole denominations in America that have all but removed the gospel in order to make them more likable to the culture around them.
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God forbid that Recast would ever find itself in those shoes, that the gospel in the name of Jesus would be sidelined for the cause of church growth or something like that.
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The remedy for the individual and the remedy for the church in spiritual death is the same.
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Remember the gospel, keep the gospel, and repent of sins.
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According to verse 4, a few people in Sardis were in with Jesus, and that's not a commendation, you know, like to say, hey, at least a few of you believe.
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That's not a good thing. In other words, there's, from Sardis, lacking any commendation whatsoever.
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It's not to their credit that a few of them believe. And this statement about soiled garments in verse 4 shows that at least one of the reasons the church was liked in the culture is that they would sin like the pagans sinned.
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Some rejected sin and repented from sinful practices, and they are called worthy by Jesus.
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How many of you think that sounds like a really cool title? Worthy by your Lord and Savior. They hadn't soiled themselves and rolled around in the mud of their culture, and they're worthy.
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The church that is doing the worst, by the way, has the most to gain. Sardis has the most extensive reward list of all of the seven churches, so they get the worst rebuke and the greatest rewards held out to them.
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Why? Because they have so much to gain, like, for example, spiritual life. Salvation is in the balance for this church and for the people that are there.
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So, anyone at Sardis who would wake up and come alive in Christ will exchange their soiled and muddy garments for a white robe given to them by Jesus Christ Himself.
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They will walk with Jesus in white. Purity and holiness will be granted to them, and He will fellowship with them.
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Those who are in with Jesus will have an eternal name in the book of life, which will never be blotted out, according to verse 5, and Jesus will advocate for that person by name before God Himself.
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Does that sound cool? You step before God as an imperfect being, and Jesus, His Son, says, and this one's mine, bought by my blood,
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Father. Let him in. That's pretty powerful. So, a lot of promises given here for the one who would remember the gospel, keep the gospel, and repent of sin, battling and warring with sin during your life.
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Verse 5, let's look at that together real quick, if you've got your Bible there. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life.
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I think that could be really confusing to people, and if we miss this context, we may begin to think as Christians that there's something we must do to keep
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Jesus from blotting out our name. Anybody, when you read something like that, it's kind of like, ah, the name,
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I hope it's permanent, hope it was a sharpie, and not that white erase one, right? How many of you would like your name written in a sharpie in the book of life?
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Okay, you're kind of thinking that that would be more comforting. Remember that this phrase comes in the context of what is
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John, what is Jesus giving out here? Rewards, not warnings.
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The context of this is a reward to those who would remember the gospel and would come to him by the gospel.
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And it's only a reward in that it's what's already given to the people, the children of God, and he's offering it to those who are on the outside.
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So he's speaking to outsiders, saying, if you come in, you'll be just like my people. Your name will be in the book of life written permanently.
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Come on in. So Jesus is promising to those on the outside what is already true of those of us who are on the inside.
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Come in. You can have security. The text concludes with the same phrase issued to each of the churches, he who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches, the seven churches.
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And this is a phrase I've kind of made light of to kind of jokingly say, if you have ears, then this is for you. But it actually means something a little bit more significant than that.
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The phrase is a bit more nuanced. If my talking about spiritual death has sparked something in you, if there's a sense of discomfort about this, then it sounds to me like maybe you've had ears to hear.
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Maybe you've had ears to hear. Maybe the spirit has pricked something in you that's kind of like a bit of a concern.
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You find welling up in you like some, as we talk about spiritual life and spiritual death and you're kind of like, I think,
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I think a lot of this in my life is external. I don't really think a lot of the good that I do is flowing from a heart that's been changed.
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It's possible that you're sitting here and that's the reality for you. That's the sense that you're getting.
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If this message has caught your attention, it is for a reason. Listen and heed the words of the spirit.
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If this is grabbing your attention, don't let it go. Don't dismiss it. Come and talk with me, particularly if the notion of being spiritually dead while having a good reputation for spiritual life is at war in you right now.
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And especially if you're concerned that you might not have true spiritual life. Please come and speak with me after this message and don't delay.
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Don't put this off until another week or another day. Jesus will indeed come against those who are spiritually dead and he says that in this text.
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You won't know when. But let me wrap up with some cautions for us as a church.
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Let's take a moment to consider the ways that a church becomes spiritually dead while having a good reputation. How would it be possible for Matawan to like us?
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For our community to like us and us be dead on the inside? How could that be? Does anybody kind of like, uh, that sounds like a stretch.
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Why would you have a good reputation in your community? Well, I think the first is through compromise. Can you imagine how compromise might make the world like us more but slide us down towards spiritual death?
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In our culture, there's a strong pull to fit in. Anybody besides me ever feel that? Little bit of a pull to try to fit in.
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We want conformity. We have a hunger for approval. How many of you have ever checked to see if somebody liked your comment on Facebook?
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Anybody? How many of you have ever noticed, you just happened to notice that somebody hearted a picture on Instagram that you posted?
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Anybody? Anybody ever, you kind of noticed that on, you know, or somebody retweeted your, your tweet?
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And do you ever know, you probably, you guys don't even notice when that happens, right? There's not, not a concern for you like it is for me.
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But, um, this goes for individuals but at a larger scale, many churches who follow church growth models will do whatever it takes to fill seats.
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I had a lot of church planning advice when we first started Recast six years ago and I had no lack of people who were willing to come and tell me how to plan a church or what we ought to do.
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And, um, a lot of people, in all honesty, I was, I was shocked by the sheer number of people who would come to me and say,
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Don, it's all about numbers. On your launch Sunday, it is about getting as many butts in seats as you can.
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They would actually say these kinds of things and I thought, you're at least supposed to be more subtle than that, right? Like you're not, you're supposed to act like you're not talking about numbers.
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That's the Christian thing, right? Act like you're not talking about numbers while you're talking about numbers. And the reality is, I mean, numbers, numbers matter because we're talking about not numbers but whenever you're talking about numbers of people, you're talking about souls, real people.
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So that, that matters to me. I, if, if we, if we lose some of you, I'm concerned for that.
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Like that, that bothers me. That's, that's because you're people, right? So you're never just a number. But at the same time,
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I mean, we, we look at this and go, Is it really? Is that really it? Just get as many butts in seats as you can? Is that the goal of the church?
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Is that, is that what I'm in this for? Is that why to plant a church? No. And I believe that numbers do matter, but if numbers are all that it's about, then we could jettison some of our biblical convictions and get the numbers cranking, right?
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We could jettison some, some of the things that we hold dear and really just kind of become whatever our culture wants.
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So maintaining correct perspective as a church and individuals will help us. God wants us to be centered on the gospel first.
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Remember the gospel. Keep the gospel. That is the pathway to spiritual life.
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And then we can celebrate growth and numbers while we remain true in keeping the gospel, keeping
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Christ central. Second, I think the church moves towards death as they grow forgetful.
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And I mentioned forgetfulness earlier on is a, it's a problem that I think all of us have. We have this spiritual forgetfulness where we can walk away from this message and it's not, not even that I'm offended that you're going to forget this an hour from now, but it's that we walk away and we don't think about Jesus on Monday morning through Saturday again.
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And we can go to our workplace and forget that Jesus is with us. Forget that we need to be working in the power of his spirit.
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Forget that we need to, that we have salvation in him and our, we need to be humble because of the cross, but also we have great worth because of the cross.
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And so we can grow forgetful. And how does a church, I mean a church that forgets Jesus is not a church anymore.
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It's not. If we, if we forget to sing about Jesus, we forget to talk about Jesus, we forget to talk about the gospel, we forget that that's the point and the reason why we do what we do, then we can't rightly call ourselves a church.
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Certainly can't call us, ourselves a church of Jesus, maybe a church of humanism, a church of our value, a church of our ability to help.
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That's more like a civic organization. God's remedy is
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Jesus and he is our only hope for eternity. And lastly, I want to zero in on the reality that Sardis had a good reputation in their community.
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It's pretty, it's pretty blatant in the text. They had a reputation, the world out there thought really highly of them.
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A church with a good connection with their community sounds great, but it's possible for us to do right things with wrong motives.
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We can serve our community, we can feed the poor, we can get involved in civic help organizations, we can drill, as I mentioned, wells in Africa or support kids, you know, dozens of kids with Compassion International, and we could be on the outside of spiritual life.
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We could be spiritually dead and do all those great things. So the answer to this is not to throw out good behavior.
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The answer is not that we should figure out how to get the worst reputation possible in Matawan, right?
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But the answer is, remembering that the gospel must be the engine that drives our outreach.
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It must be the engine that drives us Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and even on Sunday.
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Lost people doing nice things for lost people would never make a very good tagline for a church, right?
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We should be the redeemed people serving lost people in hopes that they will be found.
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Redeemed people, found people, finding lost people that they might be found as well.
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So as we come to the table this morning, take an honest assessment of your own spiritual life.
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Fundamental question, are you alive? Are you alive?
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Are you motivated by the gospel? Are you keeping it? Are you remembering it? Are you treasuring it?
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Are you sharing it? Are you repenting of your sins? Or have you made like kind of agreements with your sin?
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Have you kind of just said, you know, well, just on Thursdays, whatever, I mean, obviously not quite probably that specific, but you know what
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I'm saying, I mean, you're just kind of like, you know, I've just made peace with my sin, and I'm okay with just, I'm going to, just sinner's going to sin.
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We never have the freedom to do that as Christians, repent, turn from it. If you have a sin that's owning you right now,
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I would love it and be honored if you would come and share that with me, that I could pray with you. I'm not going to judge you, that's not my job, but what
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I am going to do is I'm going to say, man, let's get some help. If you come to me, that's the first step of repentance, that's the first sign to me that you want freedom from this, that's a glorious and a beautiful thing.
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It's not going to turn you away if you come to me and say, Don, I need help, I need accountability, I need some structures in my life to repent and turn from sin.
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Please do so. And if it's not me, maybe you don't, maybe you're like, man, he's the pastor, I don't, whatever it is, find someone who you can share that with, that you trust to spiritually guide you and direct you.
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But if you're keeping the gospel, treasuring it, repenting of your sins, then come to the table to remember the blood of Jesus that was shed for you, the body of Jesus that was broken for you.
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But if you're convicted that maybe Jesus was talking to you, maybe he was saying to you, you have a reputation for being alive, but you're dead, then go in and skip communion this morning and come and speak with me at the end of the service.
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I'm going to be hanging around up here at the end of the service instead of at the door so you can catch me up here and we can talk about spiritual life and a spiritual start with Jesus Christ this morning.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the promise of life.
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I thank you for the promise, the glorious promise that our names will be written in the book of life if we come to you by the gospel and come to you through the avenue that has been provided for us in Jesus Christ.
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And that not only that, but you promise so many glorious and beautiful things that you will utter our name before your
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Father as one of yours, that you will grant us white robes of purity in exchange for the filth and the mud and the corruption of our lives.
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Father, what a glorious thing to be clothed by you in righteousness. So Father, I pray that if there are any here who need to come alive, need to wake up and shore up that which remains in them,
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Father, there may be some who need to come to you by the gospel for the first time. Father, would you make this a very day of boldness, a day of willingness in their hearts to bow before you and recognize you.
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And then Father, for those who are here and they're in with you, Father, I pray that you would help us to be motivated by your cross, motivated tomorrow.
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And to not be forgetful, Father. We need a work of your spirit, not by our might, not by our power, but by your spirit.
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And so would you bring Christ to mind, bring the cross to mind for us throughout this week in Jesus' name.