Chameleon Christians

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. Good morning,

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Recast Church. Good morning. I'm Don Felsick, I'm the lead pastor here, and it's a good day to be gathered together with God's people.

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Glad that you've taken the time out of your week to gather together. That's something that's a beautiful and glorious thing that God gives us the privilege of having others in relationship to Him.

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And so hopefully there's encouraging conversations that happen throughout the morning, during the connection time and afterwards that help you to grow in faith, grow in community, grow in service as well.

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If this is your first time here with us, I'd ask you to please fill out a connection card and turn that in in the black box out there.

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And then also if this is your first time with us, then please see Haley, who's out there, and she has a free gift for you. So go and talk with her and she has something to give to you just for coming in and checking us out.

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So we know that it can be kind of intimidating at times to come together with a new congregation. And so I'm glad that you've done that.

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And if you do fill out that connection card, know that we will send you a weekly email if you share your email address with us.

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But you're in complete control of that as far as how long you get that. If you wanted to choose to unsubscribe from it, you could do that.

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But if you're here and you're not receiving that on a weekly basis, you can always sign up for that by filling out one of those connection cards as well.

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And then any offerings that anybody chooses to give, go in that same black box. An envelope's been provided for you. If you're not going to use that envelope this morning, then please do us a favor and just recycle that out there on that table.

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There's a place to recycle it so we can reuse those envelopes if there's nothing in them. And so take advantage of that.

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Any gifts that are given this morning that are marked expansion fund, whether that's on the memo line of the check or on the outside of that envelope, will go into a specific fund set aside for our goal of building a building eventually.

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And so take advantage of that if you would choose to give. I just want to be clear on that though. Some of you that maybe have been attending here for a while go, well, what's the difference?

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I would always encourage if you're not currently giving towards the general fund to just leave that memo line blank. And that goes into a fund that helps with all of our operating expenses, all the ministries that we take part in, supporting missionaries, all of that.

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And then what usually happens is at the end of the year, we still have a surplus because we budget, we kind of shoot a little bit high on our budget, usually spend less than what we shoot for.

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And then we also, year over year, we've assumed that we're going to take in a certain amount and we've taken in more than that.

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And so anything that's over and above is also being set aside towards that expansion fund too.

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And so just know that there's a couple of different ways to give and those are both available for you. If you have any questions, if any of that's confusing, sorry, and you can come and talk with me about that.

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This morning, we're going to continue on in our series in the book of Revelation. We come to the third of seven churches that Jesus is in the midst of auditing.

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So the sermon series is called the Lord of the Seven, that is specifically talking about Jesus Christ as the

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Lord of his church. And he audits and speaks to seven literal churches that were around during the time of the apostle

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John, who is the author of the book of Revelation. And so this is the third church that Jesus is auditing.

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And I think we're going to find that what Jesus has to say to the church at Pergamum is crazy close to what

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I think he might say to many churches in America today. If he were to show up in a whole host of churches here in America, what he says is pretty contemporary to us.

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It fits very well with where we live. If we're honest, we may even find that what he has to say to Pergamum is not far off from what he might actually say to recast church.

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So we ought to listen in. And certainly we need to listen into all of these churches. He says in each one of these specific addresses to or specific audits of the churches, he who has ears, listen to what the

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Spirit says to the churches, plural. In other words, he wants us to hear all of these audits.

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He wants us to take them all on and consider where we are in this whole hodgepodge of commendations, a hodgepodge of corrections, and a hodgepodge of rewards that he offers to the churches.

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And that is meant for all of us. All scripture is God -breathed and is profitable for us in correcting us, in training us, and helping us out in growth and righteousness.

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And so just like most of these churches, Pergamum was getting some things right.

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They were nailing some things. In the midst of an extremely hostile pagan city, the people of this church hung in to the end with Jesus.

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They didn't forsake his name, according to the text, as we're going to see here in a minute. And despite intense persecution, they never denied faith in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. They didn't deny him. But you can imagine if we were faced with significant persecution, would there be a pull for us to deny

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Jesus, to stop using his name, to stop talking about him? How many of you would admit that that might be a little bit of a pull to you if you were like being physically persecuted?

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If the threat was somebody who was going to come and drag you out of your workplace, if you were a Christian, some of us might say that that would be a legitimate temptation.

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But despite that intense persecution, they didn't forsake Christ. But what they did do is what many of us probably could find that we maybe have done to some degree in the face of persecution, and that is that they tried to blend in.

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Just like so many animals in the animal kingdom who are easily threatened by faster moving predators, these

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Christians tried to camouflage themselves into the culture around them. And Jesus isn't having any room for chameleon

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Christians. He has no room for chameleon Christians. Christians who just seek to blend in with the sin that is going on around us.

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To blend in. Let me be careful, and we're going to get there here in a minute. It's not talking about blending in with culture, because I mean, it's okay.

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We wear clothes, and we do things like the rest of the world does, and there's some things that are certainly appropriate, but blending in in regard to sin, that's pretty serious.

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And Jesus has no room for that. He approaches this church that is full of compromise with very strong language.

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Strong language that might jar us a bit, might shock us a bit. But then he eases up in the end with compassion, with hope, and a promise of reward for those who conquer the pressure to just blend in with the crowd in sin.

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So open your Bibles, please, to Revelation chapter 2. We'll be looking at 12 through 17.

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Again, the audit of the church of Pergamum. And this is what God wants us to hear this morning.

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If you don't have a Bible on your lap, I would like for you to just do me a favor, raise your hand just for the purpose of somebody bringing you a

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Bible. We want everybody to have a copy of God's word sitting on your lap so that you can see that the things that we're reading, see that the things that I'm saying are coming from God's word.

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And then you can feel free to take that Bible home with you. If you don't have a Bible in print, I think it's a good thing to have one around your house.

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Hopefully not just sitting around, but actually one that you might read. So follow along. Revelation 2, 12 to 17.

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And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write, the words of him who has the sharp two -edged sword.

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I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name and you did not deny my faith.

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Even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was killed among you where Satan dwells.

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But I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold the teachings of Balaam, who taught

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Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel so that they might eat food, sacrifice to idols, and practice sexual immorality.

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So also you have some who hold the teachings of the Nicolaitans. Therefore repent.

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If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.

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He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers,

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I will give some of the hidden manna and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that what no one knows except the one who receives it.

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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, I thank you for the opportunity that we have to gather again for another day of opportunity to worship you and to bring honor and glory to you for a day of rest that you grant us during this week.

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And Father, I know that for a variety of reasons, our mind might be everywhere else except on you. So Father, I pray that you would even take this time of singing in songs of praise to you to reorient our minds towards what you desire for us, whether that be conviction, whether that be encouragement, whether that be joy, whatever it might be that our hearts really need this very morning.

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Father, would you, would you prove yourself? And there may be some here who question you.

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There may be some here who are wondering and are just here checking things out or maybe they're here because of the faith of their parents and they're just sitting back and kind of taking this in and not quite sure about their commitment.

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Father, I pray that you would be working in the hearts of those who maybe are skeptical of you to draw them in to this great and glorious reality that you love us and love us most and most clearly through the cross of your

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Son, Jesus Christ. And on that basis of, may we experience joy and exuberance and even lose ourselves in worship this morning in recognition of how much you have loved us, how unworthy we are of that love and how awesome and glorious you are in Jesus' name, amen.

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But I want to start off with a question. Have you ever stood out like in a negative way, like in an embarrassing way?

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Have you ever been in a situation, a context, a culture, had something happen to you that made you stand out in a like, like think of your most embarrassing moment kind of thing?

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Something in your most embarrassing moment probably had something to do with standing out, being strange or something weird happening to you, right?

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Whether it was dropping your tray in the cafeteria lunchroom in middle school. How many of you know that that would be an embarrassment?

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Maybe some of you have had that happen, but you drop that tray. And what does everybody do? They either laugh or they stare or they clap or they applaud.

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But whatever they do, you're embarrassed and you're standing there, right? Maybe it's waking up with a massive mountain of a zit on your forehead the day of your big speech.

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Anybody ever have that happen? Why does that happen that often? If I'm going to break out, it's going to be on Sunday morning, okay?

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That's just going to be the way that it works, right? So now you're checking, yeah, get close, cover up, just kidding.

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Or maybe it's just saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and that made you stand out, right? And everybody stares at you because you did not just say that, right?

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I think we've all felt that rush of fear that is associated with standing out in a crowd in a bad way and everybody's attention is on you.

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And the church in Pergamum was in the middle of a culture that caused Christians to stand out.

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To be a Christian devoted in your lifestyle to Christ was going to mean that you would look strange in the city of Pergamum.

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Pergamum was predominantly a Gentile city. Gentile just being the opposite of Jew. So almost everybody there was pagan.

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There were very few Jews and very little understanding in that town of monotheism at all.

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The idea that there was only one God would be a big standout in that culture. It was the center for the worship of the

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Greek gods and goddesses. They boasted a huge temple to Zeus at the top of a large hill that extended up above and overlooked the city.

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They had a huge temple to the emperor there, the living emperor at the time. It was one of the first cities that was sanctioned a temple for a living person.

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So while the emperor is alive, they built a temple to him and it was sanctioned and allowed by the

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Roman, obviously not just allowed, but encouraged by the Roman emperor of the time. Hey, how many of you would like a temple built for you?

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I mean, obviously you don't really want that, but man, it would be pretty cool if my name was on a plaque somewhere or something. But he was actually worshipped in Pergamum and one of the very first temples, or the first temple rather, to a living emperor was built in Pergamum.

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Not to mention, so there's Zeus, there's the temple to the living emperor, and then there's smaller temples to dozens of other gods, little g gods, all throughout

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Pergamum. It was the capital city of the Roman province of Asia. A lot of high aristocrats lived in that city and in that town and it was a more wealthy area of the

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Roman empire at the time. And if there was a pagan celebration known in Roman days, that city would take part in it.

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And most months, most months of the year, incorporated some days, days, not day, days of wild festivals dedicated to the worship of the whole pantheon of Roman and Greek gods and goddesses.

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The expectation in this cultural setting was these festivals were by and large obligatory. They were a given in the culture.

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Why wouldn't you take part in this? And you would be looked down upon if you didn't take part in them.

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Especially think about this. Anything that had to do with the worship of the emperor was part of being a good citizen.

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It's important to note that we really have nothing similar to that in America. Thank God that we don't. But there's nothing that we can quite relate as a one -on -one correlation to what it would have meant to have emperor worship in the

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Greek, in the Greek and Roman times. And so because of that, it's very important for us to get our minds around that and maybe even to understand it a little better.

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When a person refused to offer sacrifices in the temple or take part in those celebrations of the emperor, they were not only going against the religion of their days, but they were going against their government.

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Not only did Christians in Pergamum look like they were backwards religiously, but they looked treasonous to their government because they would not take part in the things that were going on around them.

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I say all of this to set the stage for the intense pressure on this church, not to let them off the hook for their compromise, but just to identify for you and I how much pressure there was on them from the outside to compromise.

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Maybe we can relate to some degree what it means to have pressure. Maybe it's in your workplace. Maybe there is a everybody that you talk with at your employment is thinks a little bit different than you or has a different perspective on life than you and so there's a lot of pressure on you just like there was on the

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Christians in Pergamum. Can you imagine in this culture in Pergamum wanting to fit in?

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You imagine wanting to fit in? Can you imagine wanting to just blend in and kind of ride beneath the radar and not make yourself stand out?

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I think there'd be temptation. I can imagine wanting to just camouflage myself like a chameleon so that I didn't look strange or weird to the people around me.

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And so Jesus starts off in this audit of this church and reveals himself to the church in Pergamum as the one who has the two -edged sword.

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Now we know that that two -edged sword was actually shown to be coming out of his mouth in the first part of the book of Revelation back in chapter one and it's going to mention that again here by the end.

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And so the sword is coming out of his mouth and here Jesus reminds his church in Pergamum that this is how he wants them to think of him.

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How does he want the church in Pergamum to think of himself? As the one with the sword, double -edged sword.

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The sword in his mouth is indeed his right to judge and his judgment is sharp.

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His judgment cuts two ways and it proceeds from his mouth which I believe indicates the manner of his judgment being by the declarations of his mouth.

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How is Jesus gonna judge? With his words. We actually have that recorded for us in scripture where he is going to say to some, depart from me, say to some, depart from me,

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I never knew you. A judgment of words, not a judgment of a literal sword, not a judgment of slicing people down, a judgment, but how many of you know that words can slice, words can judge, words and certainly the words of Jesus are powerful to accomplish that which he sets out in.

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Either I knew you, welcome servant who served me well, enter into your rest, or depart from me,

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I never knew you. And so he reveals himself as the one who has the right to judge with the sword of his mouth, if you will.

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The right to slice down to the heart of the matter belongs to Jesus.

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And for this church, fortunately that I knew you or I did not know you, he does know them. He says,

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I know you, I know where you live. And he knows what they put up with. He knows that there is a lot of pressure on their church.

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He's not ignorant to the plight of his church in Pergamum. They are not facing issues in their culture that have taken

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Jesus by surprise. Man, I didn't know when we started this church here in Pergamum, I didn't know that it was gonna be that tough for you guys.

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Or man, why are you guys compromised? I don't even get it. I don't know why you would compromise. I mean, come on, give me a break.

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No, he says, I get it, I understand. I know the ins and outs of your culture. I know the ins and outs of your society to bring it to where we live.

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I know your neighborhood. I know your employer. I know the pressures that you face each and every day.

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How many of you find some kind of comfort at least in knowing that Jesus knows where you live? I find comfort in that.

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I'm grateful for that. I'm excited about that. So he sees, he knows. He even knows the pressure that they face.

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But interestingly, Jesus tells them some things about their location that they didn't even know.

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So Jesus knows more than you know about your circumstances. Jesus knows where your temptation is coming from.

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He sees it and he knows even more so than some of us might admit to being blinded to.

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Maybe if you're really humble, you might admit to being blinded to some of the pressures that come at you from your culture. We swim in American culture so much that like the fish can't identify the water.

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Sometimes we can't identify that we're being slow roasted and the temperature keeps going up and up and up and we don't even know what we're swimming in, right?

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Have you identified that? I mean, how many of you know that, have you ever had the thought commercials don't work for me? Have you ever thought that?

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I've thought that. I've been arrogant enough to go, right? Like I'm gonna have a Whopper because they showed me one and then

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I'm with a napkin, you know, getting the last remnants of the mayo off the corners of my mouth.

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I mean, do you know what I'm saying? I mean, it's like you think you're above that. You think that it's not working, but how many of you know billions of dollars say otherwise?

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It says otherwise. It says that we do. We are influenced by the things in our culture around us, but that's not it.

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He's not saying I just strictly know the advertising schemes. I know how the world is trapping you in commercialism.

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I know how it's getting you to consume and consume and think that that's the identity of your life. Here, specifically in Pergamum, he identifies something even more significant than that.

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He says, you live where Satan has set up his throne. Whoa, whoa.

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You live where Satan dwells later, he says, but Satan has set up his throne. Twice in verse 13,

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Jesus indicates that Pergamum had a specific place in the strategy of Satan and he chose, at least for a season, to dwell in this place.

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Now, the fact of the matter is, like it or not, I mean, it depends on, if you believe what Jesus bears testimony of in Scripture and you believe that this is revealed from God, then you have to deal with this character,

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Satan, who is a finite created being, an angel, who is indeed more powerful than you and I, but is in a location.

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You realize that? He's somewhere. He's not, I highly doubt he's here in this room, but he is somewhere on the planet.

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He has a plan. He has demons who are doing his work and he has, at times, set up his shop in different places and here he says,

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Jesus has set up a throne in your place, Pergamum, and that's pretty significant.

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Now, we might need to clarify a bit about this. I'm out on a limb a bit and I want to be careful and I like to tell you when

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I'm out on a limb, okay? I like to tell you when what I'm saying, it kind of disagrees with some of the scholarship that I read this week and sometimes

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I do. It's not very often. I mean, I'm not the most intelligent man on the planet and so I really do read what other scholars have to say about it and some people think that it's just a metaphor talking about Satan's throne, that they came up with this kind of notion that, and it could be true,

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I don't know, but they said that when you would enter the, when you'd be coming across the plains heading towards Pergamum, you would see the hilltop off in the distance with the flattened part of the

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Temple of Zeus near the pinnacle and it would look like a throne or something like that, so it's just kind of like, it's a metaphor, it's just kind of like, well, it looked kind of like a throne and so he's just identifying that about this city.

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Others believe that Jesus called this place Satan's throne because he was issuing a derogatory comment about the emperor worship that took place there.

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On the other hand, emperor worship took place all over the world, the known world at the time and so although it's a central place because it started there, it's a little bit confusing.

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But none of these scholars seem to even address what I think is obvious in the text and that is that Jesus routinely and regularly throughout the book of Revelation and throughout the gospels spoke of Satan as a real finite created angel who fell from heaven and now roams the earth seeking to kill, devour, and destroy.

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He's real. And although we may naturally assume that Satan would be hanging out in Rome during this time,

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Jesus says, nope, I want to clarify for you, Pergamum, Satan is hanging out in your hometown. He's there with you.

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That's comforting to some degree to have Jesus share with us that he understands, I know where you live, I know what's going on around you.

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How many of you think it might be discouraging to find out that your hometown is where Satan is giving his best shot, where he's setting up his throne and he's got his great effort?

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Now, the fact of the matter is, however, does Satan have impact in Matawan? Absolutely. Does Satan have impact wherever we go?

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He does and so in one sense, we can take comfort just in knowing that Jesus understands and knows the strategies of the evil one.

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So it is comforting to have Jesus share with us, I know where you live. And it's not a stretch to say that Jesus knows where you live, knows where you're at.

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He knows where you work. He knows where you go to school. And he is aware of Satan's strategies against the church.

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And further, he commends this church. He says, you're doing some good things. In the shadow of the throne of Satan, you are doing some good things.

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They are holding fast to the name of Jesus and they do not deny faith in him.

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Despite the cultural battles that were swirling around them, despite the cesspool of paganism that they were living every day, despite the real and obvious threats to their safety, they did not give up on Jesus.

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They didn't deny his name and they did not walk away from their faith. I'd suggest to you here in a moment, we're gonna find out they did everything but walk away from their faith.

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But they didn't. They didn't let go of that final strand of hope in Jesus Christ. Even though one of their own, now this would be really tough.

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I mean, I'm pouring it on thick and Jesus, because I think Jesus is pouring it on thick. I understand where you're coming from and in Pergamum, it was tough and it was a pagan culture.

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But further, this is just a crazy situation. This witness, Jesus calls him a faithful witness.

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By the way, that's a title given to Jesus earlier and so it's a pretty significant statement to call someone a faithful witness.

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And he says, you did not give up on me even though this guy named Antipas was set up as an example and martyred right in front of you.

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And the terminology and the words used is that it would be like somebody being ripped out of the middle of the church gathering and killed in the street outside.

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That's the kind of thing that this church had endured. Antipas, this faithful witness who had probably been sharing and proselytizing and trying to win over people who did not believe in Jesus, gave up his life and was murdered right in their midst and they still did not give up on him.

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Is that a pretty strong statement? To have people actually dying? You know somebody who died because they loved

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Jesus and wouldn't deny him. And even in that, they still believed in him. But believing in him didn't mean that they did everything right.

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Pergamum responded in an unhealthy way that came just short of denying Jesus. He says, the best

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I can say about you is you haven't denied me yet, but you're certainly on the way there.

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Teachers rose up within Pergamum probably in light of the sacrifice of Antipas, in light of, hey, how are we gonna have a church if we're all getting killed in the streets?

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So can you imagine how some teaching might arise as a point of convenience? How many of you know that a lot of false teaching comes out of convenience, out of a desire to be liked?

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So someone in our state would write a book saying there is no such thing as hell. How many of you know hell is an inconvenient doctrine?

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Is that inconvenient? Do you win souls with, hey, there's an eternal place of punishment where God is gonna judge those who are wicked?

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No, and so it's kind of an inconvenient, true doctrine. So out of a desire to appeal to more people, to broaden the reach of our message because we really love the culture out there, can you see how there might be some pressure to kind of get rid of hell?

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If we could talk hell out of the equation and God is just a God of love and we could get rid of judgment, then we could grow this church, right?

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There are some convenient false teachings out there. I would suggest to you that most false teaching comes in because of convenience.

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Hey, guys, if they're killing us, why don't we just kind of like them more? Why don't we fit in more?

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Why don't we embrace their lifestyles more? Why don't we just say the words that they want to hear from us so that they'll get off our backs and stop killing us so we can go about our merry way and...

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But if we get rid of some things, then we don't have a gospel to even share anymore. We don't think about that.

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Man, if we could just save our church, if we could just do this. So teachers rose up within Pergamum with a convenient teaching that you can have your cake and eat it too.

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You can have Christ and still fit in with your culture and society. Woo, all right. You can go to church on Sunday and still live however you want on Friday and Saturday.

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And how many of you know that when Jesus says, but I'm not finished, commended you, you haven't given up your faith, but I have a few things against you.

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How many of you know we ought to listen? When Jesus says, I got a few things to deal with.

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Any of you ever have your, one of your parents sit down with you with that kind of tone? Hey, hey, hold on a second.

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I got a few things to talk with you about when you get home from school tonight. Oh, oh man, where's this going, right?

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A few things. We can best bet that what comes next is not going to be comfortable.

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Jesus relates these false teachers who are later gonna be identified as equivalent to the

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Nicolaitans who we heard about in the indictment on Ephesus. But he relates them to an

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Old Testament story. He says the Nicolaitans are like this story. A pagan king, Balak, hired a pagan prophet named

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Balaam to curse the people of God. It's a beautiful story because he couldn't do it.

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It's pretty cool. Every time the prophet opens his mouth to curse the people of God, God fills

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Balaam's mouth with blessing towards his people. He's all geared up to curse and to bring down judgment on them.

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And as he opens his mouth, hey, their kids are gonna be awesome in school. Everything's gonna go great for them.

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They're gonna become the most wealthy people. And Balak's like, that's not what I paid you for. It's not what I brought you here. You're supposed to be cursing them.

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Hey, maybe you just had, you didn't understand the assignment. Let's go try this again.

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Three different times, he takes him to another vantage point to look over the encampment of the people of God. And three times,

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God, as Balaam is trying to curse the people, he blesses them instead.

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Awesome story. But it doesn't end awesome because in that context in the book of Numbers, there's some indication that Balaam had a role then.

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He says, I can't curse them. But there's some things that we could get accomplished. And it's not until several chapters later that you find out that Balaam had a role in it in encouraging the king to send

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Midianite women to entice the Israelite men and to elicit sexual relationships with them, to bring them down spiritually.

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And the men of Israel took the bait. So the people of Israel stumbled over this stumbling block placed in their way by Balaam through Balak.

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And they engaged in sexual immorality, which led them down the road of then, in turn, worshiping the idols that the women worshipped as Midianites.

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So here is the main point this morning. The church in Pergamum had teachers like Balaam, encouraging them to blend in with the culture around them.

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They had teachers who would say things like, and these aren't quotes. I don't have these from some historical document.

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They're just the types of things that I think were infused in this false teaching. It's the types of things.

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Because of the nature of the sin, and the sins are sexual immorality, and the sins are idolatry within the church.

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Now, can you picture that some false teaching has arisen that has resulted in the congregation being okay with sexual immorality?

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Some false teaching has risen in the church that has led them to feel it's okay to go to the temple and worship idols.

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Can you imagine what that false teaching might be? Here are some thoughts that I have that might lead a church down that road.

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God doesn't really care what you do in your own bedroom, right? As long as it's two consenting adults, it isn't hurting anyone.

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On the idolatry front, I can imagine further teachings like, these idols really are not gods at all, so who cares if you bow down to them?

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You can bow down to them and just pray to Jesus instead while you're bowing in the temple. Or when you offer that sacrifice in the pagan temple to the emperor, just pretend that you're offering to Jesus and you'll be okay.

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Can you imagine that kind of teaching? Can you imagine how that might just fit in for the cause of Christ?

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Or how about this terrible, terrible thing that can really easily get into the church? God can forgive you of any sin, so why not just bow down so you can live to see another day?

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He can forgive it, so go ahead and sin. Or if everyone hates us, then how will we be able to share the gospel, right?

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Good cause, good reason to blend in, good reason to go ahead and just join others in sin so that you can share the gospel.

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Share the gospel with them, really? How does that work? Or further yet, maybe a teaching that just says,

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I go to the temple festivals to share the gospel. That's why I go. I'm just there,

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I'm just there to share the gospel, which

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I'm not sure how often I've heard that, how many times it's true. How many times

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I've said it, that it's been true. Just like Balaam put the stumbling block before the ancient

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Israelites, the church in Pergamum also had those who were putting stumbling blocks before that church.

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In Ephesus, the Nicolaitans wouldn't, I mean, in Ephesus, the church wouldn't stand for the teaching of the

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Nicolaitans. It said that they hated the teaching. In Pergamum, they're embracing the teaching of the

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Nicolaitans, they're excited about it. Remember that Ephesus was a church that stood firm on the truth, but lacked love.

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But now here in Pergamum, they are a church without a strong stand on the truth.

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Where Ephesus was nailing this thing, Pergamum was failing this thing. And I want to draw out an interesting reality in the way that Jesus addresses

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Pergamum. I do not usually think of sexual immorality or idolatry as an issue of teaching, right?

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Do you think, oh, I believe something wrong and therefore, or I wasn't educated enough and so I did this thing?

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I think of it as an issue of practice, but Jesus says you have false teachers and therefore, you have false practice.

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False teachers and therefore, you have false practice. You have false teachers, therefore, you have sexual immorality.

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You have false teachers and therefore, you have idol worship in your church. This goes to show the way that Jesus believed that real life goes.

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How does transformation happen in a life? Right belief and right teaching come before right behavior.

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Wrong belief and wrong teaching leads to wrong behavior. What we believe is, in other words, what

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I see you do is an indication of what you really believe. You get it? The way we live our lives is an indication of what we really believe.

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We say we love Jesus and then we go out and we hate Jesus in our actions, in our behavior.

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What do we really, what do we really believe? The pendulum in the church, by the way, swings on a very wide arc.

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The church of my parents' generation was full of legalism, full of legalism rules and legislative morality.

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Anybody raised in that kind of church? A few of us? Okay, was that really representative of everybody?

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How many of you were raised in that kind of church that was a little bit more legalistic and kind of led in that direction?

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You know, it was the don't play cards, don't dance, don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew, don't go with girls who do.

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Nailed that one, mom. Thank you, Linda, for not chewing anymore. That was, sorry.

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She never did, that was a joke. That was just an upfront joke, you guys. That was, I'm just, sorry, I was just playing for laughter there.

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That's not appropriate. And so if we have a generation, if we have a church that's steeped in that kind of rules and legalism to a large degree above and beyond just dealing with what is sin and ultimately just legislating life down to the

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T and like crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's, then the pendulum swings to Pergamum.

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What's the opposite end of the spectrum? Pergamum, anything goes, anything goes.

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And I think we live in a Pergamum -flavored culture. I think evangelicalism is moving towards Pergamum.

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I truly believe that moderation is somewhere in the middle for us, it's not swing the pendulum, okay, we need to go back to the no cards and no dancing.

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That's not the answer. The answer is somewhere in the middle. But I'm not quick to give you,

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I say this all the time, I'm not quick to give you the approved movies list, okay? But I do think you should have some standards that you should allow

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Jesus into, allow the Holy Spirit to be involved in your entertainment choices. Many of us just allow our culture to be involved in our entertainment choices or our peer group to be involved in our entertainment choices.

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Where is Jesus in any of that? When it comes to how much we blend in with our culture, we need to be wise and careful and quick to consult the

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Lord, particularly in this area where I think one of the greatest idols of our culture is entertainment.

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I think entertainment supersedes the God of wealth to some degree. I've read articles about 20 -somethings and 30 -somethings who are literally cutting back their hours at work, which means less pay in order to spend more time, are you ready for it?

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To play video games. Cut back hours at work, why? Because they can afford to get by with fewer hours so that they can play more video games.

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Which is which, the worship of money or the worship of entertainment? And I would suggest to you the pendulum in our culture is swinging towards the worship of entertainment.

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Entertain me is the point. Man, that presidential debate the other night, that was about entertainment.

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Where is our culture going? It's entertain me, it's pretty big.

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That got close to being political there for just a second, wow. Consult the

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Lord. Talk to God about your entertainment choices. Talk to God about your technology.

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Anybody out there like some tech? Anybody out there already been on Apple just kind of checking out the new gadgets?

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Some of you are like, oh yeah, Apple fanboy, whatever. Come on, you've checked it out. Nobody, okay, sorry.

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That was just me. Yep, God convicts me too. Some of you like technology and that's true.

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I know, I talk with you. You're just kind of, you're trying to lay low. You're trying to blend in right now. Camouflage a little bit, a little bit of chameleon.

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But I know you, I know some of you like your technology like I do and God convicts me of that. I'm saying he has to convict you.

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Maybe you've got it all lined up. Maybe you've got it all in order. Maybe you're all like, you know, you don't ever find yourself on your phone, whatever digital device.

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You never find yourself sitting there when your family is over there and you're not even involved or engaged with them because you're checking

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Facebook or something or Instagram or whatever. And it's like, or you're just so like missing the moment with your family, missing the moment with your kids because you gotta get the right picture of this event so that you can post it to all of your friends and show them what a good time you might've had if you had put the device down for a minute.

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Whoa, that's me. It is, it is. And I mean, maybe that's why I can preach it with passion because it's what

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God has hit me with. Maybe some of you need to hear that too, I don't know. But that's one of the things he struck me is that the chord, one of the chords that my heart resonates with with this current culture is technology and it's something

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I've gotta guard my heart against and I've gotta invite Jesus into my decisions. But whether to upgrade to the next gadget or even to like have the gadget plugged in on my nightstand or out in the living room or what do you, you know, there's choices you have to make.

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And is Jesus a part of that? Some people say that they watch movies and certain

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TV shows just so that they can better fit in the conversation at work. I get that, I get that sentiment.

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And yet I wonder when it's all said and done, if those movies prove to be kind of more entertaining and fun or if they really are just the academic pursuit that we suggest that they are.

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Oh, this doesn't touch my heart, this doesn't really get to me, it's just so that I can have an in with my colleagues. Really?

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Search your heart on that one. And that's, again, conviction to me. I've actually said that kind of thing myself.

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Well, I just watch this show so that I can be more knowledgeable about my culture. Really? Don, is that really your motive?

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Is that really why you're watching it? Because you're kind of hooked on it now, aren't you? I recognize that I don't like to be left out of conversations.

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I like to know what's going on. I've had to sit out of a lot of discussions about the show Game of Thrones, for example, and I'm kind of a sci -fi fantasy geek.

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Anybody else? You're not going to admit. Oh, a couple of people admitted that. So, awesome, welcome.

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A sci -fi fantasy geek, and yet that show has all kinds of appeal to me in the sense of the theme.

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But the fact of the matter is, I read some articles about that show enough to before I ever turned on or tuned in and had to shut it off in the middle of an episode,

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I figured out what it was about and it wasn't going to work. I knew it wasn't going to work for me.

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So, the question, it's not to say, I didn't just say you can't watch

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Game of Thrones and be a Christian. I didn't say that. But I am asking you this question. Where is the world asking you to compromise?

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Is it entering into a discussion with gossip because that's what your friends are doing?

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So almost that's the point of temptation for us. That's the place where we enter into the culture in a sinful way. Is it a foul mouth around the shop with the guys?

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Because, man, that's what everybody does. How about maybe buying beyond your means because you need to change that color scheme in your living room to something that matches a little bit more with your rich friends.

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They're kind of, I mean, they're not going with pastels anymore. Sorry. Did I really just say that?

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Yeah. Whatever sin, though, whatever it is that might, that we might take part in, in order to fit in better with the world around us, that is a picture of what the

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Christians in Pergamum were accepting in their midst. That's what they were okay with. Whatever it takes to fit in.

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And now this is an important distinction because some of your minds are already starting to churn in this direction and you're starting to go, but what about, what about, what about?

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And let me tell you about the whatabouts. Whatever we might take part in in order to fit in with the world around us, if you're taking notes,

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I want you to write this down. Whatever we might take part in in order to fit in with the world around us, that is not sin.

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If it isn't sin, then it is wise. Let me read that again.

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Whatever we might take part in in order to fit in with the world around us, that is not sin.

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It is wise. Hear me? It is not our goal at Recast to look as weird as we can.

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That is not our goal. All right. Some of us, we're working at it.

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I'm working at it. Not as weird as I could be, which is scary, but it is our goal to avoid sin.

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It is our goal to avoid sin. Recast was founded partially on the concept that we can remain true to the

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Word of God. We can love Him and love others without getting so hung up on churchiness.

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Is it a sin to preach in shorts and a t -shirt? Nope. So I will.

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Is it a sin for me to have a beer with my pizza on Friday night? Nope. And so I'll make it a good one.

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Is it a sin for someone under 21 to have a beer with their pizza? Yep. So don't do it.

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And parents, don't do it for them. I am shocked at how many times I've heard of that happening. It's a pretty common theme.

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Don't buy it for them. My point is, though, that wasn't a side note. My point is that Christians down through the ages have drawn a line at some pretty strange and even dumb places.

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We should draw the line at sin. We should have a strong line at sin. We don't do that.

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And so that entails, what does that mean? How does a person, how does a person get to the place where Jesus creates wine at a wedding and then says, thou shalt not drink?

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How does a person get there? And I would suggest to you that more often than not, it comes from taking your experience.

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I knew an alcoholic. My uncle was an alcoholic. My grandfather was an alcoholic. My father, my mother, whatever was an alcoholic.

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So I'm going to take my experience over God's word. And so I'm going to make it a sin because I don't know

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God's word well. So what is required of us in order to be able to define carefully and clearly what is and isn't sin in our lives?

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Right here. We've got to be students of this book because our hearts will deceive us, by the way.

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Our hearts will tell us that things that are not, that are sin are not and that things that are not sin are.

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Have you ever seen that in your own life? And certainly with others, man, it's very easy for me to determine what is and isn't sin for others.

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That's, that's, that's, man, I got that locked down. So we've drawn some strange lines, but the line should be on sin.

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When scripture says that we are not to get drunk, we should have a pretty good definition of what that means for us.

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We should be students of that. But you go, that's a fuzzy line. Then don't get close to that line. If you know what that means, you do.

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I think you do. I think you know. Don't do it. When it says that we are not to look at the opposite sex lustfully, we should not put images, movies,

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TV shows that entice us to lust before our eyes. I hope this distinction is clear.

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We must not sin in order to look fun to the world. There's other things.

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Can we have fun? Does that mean we can't have fun? No, we can have fun. But Jesus has a very stern warning for a church that would tolerate this chameleon kind of Christianity that, that, that all of a sudden turns the color of sin when around sinners.

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He says in verse 16, repent. Strong word, repent. Turn away from your sinful ways and turn to me, says

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Jesus. If you don't turn, I will come and do it for you, says Jesus.

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Strong words, you better believe it. I will come in your midst as a warrior against those who would sin for my cause, who think that they're sinning in my will.

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Strong words. He threatens to come to war with specific members of the church of Pergamum. He threatens to cut them down with his swordy mouth.

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And I think it would be helpful for us to consider what this looks like in practice. So what does it mean? Is Jesus going to really physically show up?

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They don't repent. So what actually happens? Does he show up with a sword on Sunday morning in Pergamum?

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Is that what's going to happen? Is he physically going to manifest himself present with them with a sword? No. But often swords picture division.

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That's what a sword does. It divides. I think that's part of the image of what he says. I'm going to come and divide.

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And it's quite possible that this is the image of a church that has not dealt faithfully with false teachers.

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What usually happens when a church has false teachers that are left unchecked? Split. Division.

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They end up in horrible splits. Some of you have survived barely some terrible splits.

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Is it possible that many churches that go through splits are churches that didn't have the fortitude, didn't have the guts to identify false teaching and deal with it?

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Probably. I suggest that that's often a significant cause and that you could track it back to time when false teaching was allowed to run rampant and now it has given birth to division.

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Maybe a lot of church splits are actually Jesus coming in and saying, enough. Divide. To continue enduring false teaching is to invite

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Jesus to come war in our midst. The image of Jesus coming into our midst to deal with sin and false teaching that we won't address does not sound appealing to me.

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Not to this guy. Does it sound appealing to you? That does not sound good. This is a pretty intense picture of Jesus.

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He holds the purity of his church high. He will not stand for compromise with the world.

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He's gentle and patient with those who repent when confronted with sin. And he will prove himself to be gentle and patient with Pergamum if they'll repent and deal with their sin.

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But those who will not repent, those who refuse to turn away from their wickedness, prove themselves to be enemies of Christ.

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And this is a serious warning for each of us. The most significant sign of spiritual life within you is your answer to this question right now.

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Do I want to be righteous enough that it moves me to battle with my sin?

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Are you fighting any battles with sin? If not, one of two things is possible. Either you're perfect.

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No, that's not possible. So one thing is possible and that is that you've given up the fight.

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You're not repenting. What is Jesus' call to someone who is not fighting sin in their life?

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Repent. Turn to me. Turn away from your sin and turn to me. Some people think the right question to ask is this.

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Am I perfect? That's not it. But a sign that the

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Holy Spirit is in you is an aversion to your own sin and a hunger for righteousness, a desire to battle.

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In the end, Jesus offers a reminder that if you have ears, you should listen up. If anything that has been said from this text, if in reading it, maybe it hasn't even been words that I've said, but you at least heard the reading of it.

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By the way, I think that's one of the most powerful things that we do here at Recast. Is it my sermon? My explanation of this text?

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It's the reading of the text because that's where I believe that the Spirit has the power to convict and to change.

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And so if anything from this text has hit you, if you have ears to hear, in other words, if it's settled on you and you're listening up, by the way, it's if you have ears to hear, not if you live in Pergamum that you should listen, but if you have ears to hear, not if you're a false teacher then you should listen, but if you have ears, then this message is for you.

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The one who conquers, which looks like turning away from sin and turning to Jesus will receive two things.

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They will get to taste some of the manna that was hidden away in the Ark of the Covenant. I don't know if any of you realized that, but Moses was commanded to collect some of the manna, put it in a jar, and they carried that all around with them that was always in the

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Ark as a reminder of God's provision for them. And so the image of manna when it's mentioned in Scripture is most often the image of the lasting provision of God.

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And he took care of his people in the wilderness by providing manna and he will in the future take care and care for those who repent and turn to him.

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And lastly, he will give them this white stone with the secret name written on it. Anybody that can read that is like, what is that about?

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That's kind of curious, isn't it? It might be literal, it might be figurative. I don't, I have a hard time delineating that in this book and particularly on this point.

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I wouldn't be surprised if when I meet Jesus face to face he hands me a white stone with a new name and reassigns my name, gives me something new.

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I wouldn't be surprised by that. It could be literal, it could be, you know, give us a white stone. The image is a bit mixed but in the

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Roman Empire, however, when someone was invited to a festival or a special, was a special guest, they would receive a white stone as a ticket for entry.

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No scanning the iPhone or printing the tickets in advance and so this reward looks beautiful if you consider those in Pergamum who are in this text being called to stand outside of their community celebrations.

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If they received, if they were invited and they received the white ticket in their culture, they didn't get to come in.

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They didn't get to participate in that pagan revelry but they know that repentance looked like not going to take part in those pagan celebrations.

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So if scholars are right, then Jesus says in essence, I'll invite you to the real party and on this ticket

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I will assign you a new name to others. To some it might read something like faithful witness.

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To some their name might be fighter because they fought addiction. To others maybe something like solid or true teacher or patient mother or a whole host of things but he knows your life.

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It's a beautiful thought that Jesus who knows our life has a nickname for us and he doesn't just see the way we roll but he is going to share with us in the end the way that he saw us conquering, the way that he saw us overcoming.

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And nobody will be called on that day. Nobody's going to, you're thinking, am I going to get the, am I going to get the stone that says loser?

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Is my stone going to say slacker? How about super sinner? No. In his grace, he has a name for those who conquer and I love it because there's a theme throughout

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Scripture. Have you ever noticed there's a theme of changing names? It's a cool thing. Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Cephas uh no,

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Simon to Peter. All kinds of name changes. Saul to Paul. He has a name for you that fits with who you are.

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And we conquer. How do we conquer? His grace is there for those who conquer and we conquer through the blood of the lamb.

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It is not a battle we fight on our own. We don't repent and turn from sin in our own strength alone but in the strength that he supplies for us and the source of that strength is the cross of Jesus Christ.

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And as we turn our thoughts to communion this morning, take a moment to reflect on the way that the world has grabbed your heart.

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It's an assignment that each one of us can fill. How has the world grabbed your heart?

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Even now would be a great time to confess that to God, to turn from our sin and to turn to Jesus as you come to the table.

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If you're not in with Jesus, if you don't believe he died on the cross for your sins, or you haven't asked him to save you, then

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I'd ask that you please skip communion but feel free to come and talk with me about the way that you could start a relationship with Jesus even this morning.

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We have many ways that we compromise with the world. Let's take a moment to ask God where we need to repent before we come to the

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Lord's table today. Let's pray. Father, I thank you that even in your kindness you speak words that are direct.

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You don't beat around the bush with us but you get right down to the heart of the matter. And Father, right now your call to us is to look into our own hearts and see where we have compromised, where we have given too much of our hearts over to the world, where we have accepted sin in our lives in order to fit in better with the world around us.

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It seems like the lines of distinction are being drawn more and more every day between what people of faith and the rest of the world thinks.

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Father, I pray that you would help us to deal with these things now while we have the time and the ability to think through them rather than waiting for the moment to arise on Tuesday in a conversation.

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Whatever that might be. Father, would you give us the strength to walk with you, to turn from our sin and to push aside that which entices us to ultimately honor you and glorify you better.

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Father, I thank you for the cross of Jesus Christ that gives us the strength that we fight sin with. Father, that we recognize that we are indeed forgiven and loved, that we don't earn that by this battle but instead because you have loved us we can enter this battle with joy and delight.

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Knowing that the outcome doesn't rest on our shoulders but rests on your work at the cross. That our well -done, good and faithful servant on that day and our receiving of these things for the conquerors are because we conquer in your name through the blood of Jesus.

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And I thank you for that blood that we remember in the cup that we take and his body broken for us that we remember in the cracker that we eat.

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Father, would you help us to deal with our sin and repent and confess even now before we come to the table in Jesus' name.