Revelation
The Church Jesus is Against

In chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, John writes letters to seven different churches. He affirms them for what they are doing right and corrects them for what they are doing wrong. It’s like a teacher giving feedback to help them become all they were designed to be.

For example, the church in Ephesus is commended for avoiding false teachings and enduring hardships, but they are told they have forgotten to love God and others. The church in Pergamum is praised for being courageous, but they are criticized for tolerating wrong behavior. And so on for the other churches.

The main point for us today is that Jesus wants us to be a people of love who avoid false teachings and endure hardships. We need to love God and others, and not be swayed by wrong beliefs. It can be tough, but Jesus promises us a reward if we stay faithful.

You can take interactive notes here. At the end of the message, you can email the notes to yourself.

 Here’s another key idea for us. As we’re really diving into Revelation, there are at least four camps of interpretation.

This is like nerd time again, okay? There’s four camps of interpretation for the whole book of Revelation. I wanna be clear before I mention all four, that I think there’s pastors and theologians that I really admire, but I disagree with on these different approaches, and so I think it’s okay if you were here this morning and you have, okay, that’s my view.

I’m gonna kind of spoiler alert, share mine. I think it’s okay for us to have different perspectives. Let me give you the four. The first group is called   the preterists, what they believe when they read this.  Letter, this book, they think that Revelation is just written to the first century church about first century problems.

So unlike a lot of us today, they don’t look forward. They use this book to look backward. Maybe some of you never even heard that before, right? It’s not very common, but it was common at a different time, at a different era, just not the one we’re in right now. Let me give you an example though, where sometimes it seems they’re right.

This camp isn’t worried about like 6 66. Have you guys heard of that before? 6 66. I remember one time I was at Walmart and I bought stuff and it wound up to 6 66 and I bought an extra pack of gum. I just like, I just don’t want that on me. Let’s keep moving on. Okay, so that’s what, and it went to seven.

Seven. No, it didn’t. How, what a cool story. Wouldn’t that have been amazing? And now praise God, you know. So anyways, 6 66, uh, a lot of speculation happens today because we’re trying to figure out, oh, nos, the barcode, this, that, and the other. We will dive into that in a future week, but a really good, uh, Really good argument is 6 66 was pointing to Niro.

When you spell out his name, Niro, Caesar, in the Hebrew you, they, every letter represented a number, and so when you add those values together, it equaled 6, 6, 6. And so when you read 6 66, the s go. Yeah, it’s just talking about Niro and how he was, you know, really hurting the church and persecuting the church.

Okay? So that’s one example. We’re not gonna be using that perspective today. Uh, but that is a perspective that I honor. The second thing is a  Historicist view. And this is a sketch of the history of the church from the first century up until the end of the world.  This is very common. I’m gonna give you an example.

Uh uh, the way people interpret Revelation two through three with that framework I’m about to share with you, but self-explanatory, right? It’s just this progression. They really see it chronologically with us. This is how we are headed.  The third view interpretation is futurists. And so this is the idea that everything totally or entirely or nearly entirely, is about the future.

 And so it’s really, this idea is when you read Revelation and people freak out because they think none of revelation has happened yet, but then the moment something does, and everyone’s searching for that, Then they think everything will just happen in our lifetime. Right? And so this is a very common view of revelation that I think maybe you are most familiar with, if you grew up around church or anything, religion.

The fourth one is one that maybe, uh, you know, I think I kind of lean towards more and more as I continue to study is the idealist, the I, because I who I like to be called  an idealist, right? Don’t you? Okay. But an idealist has timeless, uh, images and truths about God. The church Babylon,  which we’ll talk about that represents not just actual Babylon, but any empire that is egotistical, arrogant, despises the poor.

It’s a lot. I think we’re gonna touch that next week and God’s saving plan for this world. And so this book was entirely applicable for the first century and entirely applicable for the seventh century and the 21st and beyond, right? And so this view does believe there will be an actual end. But the majority of this book, you can apply and set these, these principles and ideas into every generation and you can point to how part of that at least is being fulfilled.

So again, I tend to, and I will be preaching this series unless I am confronted otherwise. And so far, I think we’re gonna be typically using an idealistic approach, which I think is good because it applies to discipleship every single generation. I wanna preach this in such a way that even if Christ doesn’t come back in our generation, we’re still applying Revelation.

Most of us think, well, let’s, we’re not even touch it until we know it’s really happening in our lifetime. Are you good? You with me? Okay. So for example, today chapters two and three are seven letters to seven churches. And let me trace for you the historicist view of these seven letters, or some people call this view as well, the dispensational view.

They believe each church represents a different era of the church, and it’s in chronological. Order. So you will see here in chapter two verse one, the letter starts to Ephesus and then so on. So they will say, Ephesus is a letter that Jesus is saying he’s pro. John is writing it, but Jesus is saying it. So if you have a red letter Bible, all of this is unread in chapters two and three that Jesus is talking to the church in Ephesus represents the early church, the apostolic church, which is from the birth like the uh, holy, the Pentecost and Acts two all the way up to a hundred or 150 ad okay?

So this is what a lot of us say is the golden era of the church, right? They were distributing to the poor, they were dying for the faith. And so Ephesus is a wonderful church and, and you will look at that a little bit. Then the letter goes to Smyrna and the argument is now it directs to the church that was between 103 12 ad, which is what we would call the persecuted church.

So it is an encouragement to keep persevering. Despite all the affliction, pergamum, transitions to the compromised church. This is from three 12 when Constantine begins to rule all the way up to 6 0 6. And so it kind of makes sense, right? You see some of the warnings in Pergamum. You look at the issues in the 400 s and you’re like maybe there is something there.

Then you have thyroid, Tyra, which they believe is the medieval church, which is 6 0 6 to 1517, and then Sardis is the Reformation Church 1517, which started when Martin Luther nailed his 95 feces all the way up to 1750. Then you have Philadelphia, which represents the true church, which is 1750 to the Earlie 20th century, which is kind of a bummer.

So that’s not us. We’re not true. And then the last one is Leia, which represents the lukewarm church, which people believe started in 1900 and we’re here today up until the Tribulation. We are a lukewarm church now. There’s a few problems with this approach. The writer doesn’t tip us off to say these are errors.

So there’s nothing in here that makes us go, okay, this is written for the first a hundred years and then the next 300, there’s nothing in the text. Another thing is it has a very western view of history, right? And so it’s very, very Western doesn’t acknowledge the things happening in Asia, right? And so that’s a big problem.

And also it paints history with a very broad brush to claim, right? That from three 12 to 6 0 6, the whole church was com compromised. I don’t know if that’s very helpful to claim that, you know, we only became the true church after the reformation. I don’t know, right? And so we use these broad brushes and, and you can take that and think, man, the church just was bad for so long, but now we’re the true church or whatever.

So I’m here to say, that’s not how I’m teaching that today, but I found it fascinating. So I wanted to share it with you now. Don’t believe everything I just told you. Sound good? Jonah is with me. Now, that view tends to focus more on Decipherment than discipleship, and it tends to be more chronological than Christological, and we don’t wanna do that.

So instead we’re going to take the following view. Write this down.  Revelation is written to the first century, and it is for every century  we, we’ll always read Revelation with that in mind. And when you do that, revelation two and three specifically are a gold mine for discipleship. Christ uses this discipleship pattern that every mentor should use.

We’re gonna look at all seven churches. He uses these three ways to encourage the church. First, he affirms them what they’re doing right? What a beautiful thing. If the Lord gives us a message and tells us what Passion Creek Church is doing well, that’d be wonderful. The second thing he does is he then opposes He, he corrects what the church is doing wrong.

And so for us to be a true church, we have to admit and see our flaws and repent. And the third thing Jesus does, he affirms them. Then he corrects them, and then he motivates them to keep going to press on and do what’s right because your reward is going to be in full and it’ll be in the kingdom of heaven.

Okay, so let’s look at all three. We’re about to read a lot of the Bible. Are you okay with that? You better be. Now let’s look at the affirmations. Revelation two, two through three, verse two. This is gonna get good guys. I promise. Now I know your works, your labor and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people.

You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars. I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name. And you have not grown weary. This is a pretty incredible church. This is the church in Ephesus. The big things, they avoided heresy.

They were, they knew their theology and they endured hardship. No matter what came their way, they kept pressing on. Now, let’s look at Smyrna in verses nine through 10. I know you’re affliction and poverty, but you are rich. I know the slander of those who say they’re Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

Don’t be afraid of what you’re about to suffer. Look, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison to test you, and you will experience affliction for 10 days. Be faithful to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. What is the affirmation in Smyrna? They’re being brave in, they’re suffering.

They’re gonna continue to endure. Let’s jump down to verse 13. What is the affirmation to Pergamum? I know where you live, where Satan throne is, yet you are holding onto my name, uh, yet you are holding onto my name and did not deny your faith in me. Even in the days of Anus, my faithful witness who was put to death among you.

Where Satan lives, right? So there’s a church member who was killed for their faith and they’re still following the Lord, so they’re courageous in their witness. Now let’s look at Thra Tyra, verse 19 of chapter two. I know your works, your love, faithfulness service, and endurance, and I know that your last works are greater than the first.

What is he noting? There is a growing sense of discipleship, right? I love these stories that we share. We are getting more and more like Christ, and he acknowledges that here. Now that’s Thro Tyra. You’ll notice the next letter is written to Sardis. He has nothing to affirm. So let’s go to Philadelphia, verse eight, and this is our church.

No, I’m just kidding. Okay, so verse eight, I know your works. Look, I have placed before you an open door that no one can close because you have but little power, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. Wonderful. They’re brave and they’re steadfast. Notice there are two churches that don’t get affirmed.

Sardis, which we just skipped over. And then there’s one more church after, after Philadelphia, which isia, there’s nothing that Jesus affirms in those churches. Lord, let let that not be our church. Right? But it can be right if we are not vigilant. So two, don’t get affirmed, but five do. But Jesus also, and this is hard for us, cuz many of us don’t have this image in our mind.

There is a reality where Jesus is against you, where Jesus is against the church. Let’s look at them briefly, chapter two, verse four. But I have this against you. You have abandoned the love. You had it first. They no longer loved Jesus. And that leads to all sorts of problems. Pergamum in verse 14, but I have a few things against you.

You have some, uh, there who hold to the teaching of bayam, who taught Baylock, uh, to place a stumbling block in front of the Israelites to eat meat sacrifice to idols, and to commit sexual immorality in the same way. You also have those who hold onto the teaching of the manipulations. I’m excited to teach this in the fall.

There’s a lot there, but their per, their primary problem was they were indifferent to heresy and they engaged in sexual immorality. Now, chapter two verse 20 is Thro Tyra. This is what Jesus supposes in this church, but I have this against you. You tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophets and teaches and deceives my servants to commit sexual morality.

That’s that one again. And de sacrifice, uh, meet sacrifice to idols. I gave her time to repent, but as she’s, she does not want to repent of her sexual immorality. We’re almost there. Chapter three, verse one. You have Sardis right to the angel of the church and Sardis thus says, the one who has the seven spirits of God and seven stars.

I know your works. You have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead. This is very common in the church. You’re gonna look like everything’s hopping, everything’s great, things are growing, and yet the staff knows that this thing’s corrupt. The people who are beginning to serve know that everybody takes advantage of everybody.

There’s nothing good here, right? This is a huge temptation, I think, for the American church to be like Sardis. The last one, 15, uh, chapter three. . This is what Jesus has against them. I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot, and I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you were Luke warm and neither hot nor cold, I’m going to vomit you.

Out of my mouth. Cause you think this is widely misinterpreted. Let me just give you again, a quick understanding and we’re gonna really dive into something else here. But what he was saying is they’re totally ineffective to be hot, would to be, um, or to be cold. He’s saying you can either be refreshing to the weary or healing to the sick, but you’re not even healing or refreshing.

There’s nothing you’re doing that is effective because you’re lukewarm. You’re not really pursuing the kingdom of God. Now, notice again, two churches don’t get rebuked. Let’s be like those churches, right? You have Smyrna and you have Philadelphia, which side note, Fila means brother Philadelphia means love.

That’s why Philadelphia is the city of Brotherly Love. Anybody remember that show? Brotherly Love with the Lawrence Brothers? They have a podcast now I’m all about it. All right, so. Again, I have a problem now. What does this mean for us today? This is when I begin to preach now. Okay, that was the, that was the nerd teaching seminary professor.

We had to get there. Now at future sermon series. We’re gonna go one by one, but for now, there is a general takeaway that I think is so helpful for you and so helpful for me. Write this down. This is the key idea. Christ affirms the church when we become a people of love who avoid heresy and endure hardship.

A word on each Christ affirms when we become a people of love. If someone were to ask me, what is the end goal for your church, I would be comfortable with the answer of saying, our end goal is to become a people of love. The very first week here in this middle school cafeteria, we try to not, we try to make you forget.

It’s a cafeteria. So forget I said that in this middle school, we do a good job of Megan and I look like it, right? We said the key line for the whole Sabbath series was if we are not a people at rest, Then we cannot become a people of love, right? So we didn’t wanna rest just for rests sake. We wanted to learn how to rest because we wanted to learn how to love.

I know for me, in my practice of Sabbath, that is continuing, and I hope it’s continuing for you as well. It’s not to prove that we’re better than other people. It’s not to say we’re more religious and follow God’s rules better. That’s not it at all. But what Sabbath does for me is it trains my heart to see God for who he is.

Once a week, I stop everything, and I just thank God for his goodness. I recount his faithfulness. I fall in love with him as I recognize how much he loves me. The other thing that Sabbath does is it helps me love my neighbor. It trains me to be present and to actually listen When people are sharing stories, right, it trains me to care for the least of these.

So in many ways, even this scripture series we talk about we wanna become a people of truth. Why? So that we become a people of love. Right. Love is the goal. John, in another letter, he says, God is love Saint John of the cross. In the 16th century, he has this beautiful line. He says, God refuses to be known except by love.

Meaning you cannot know God from a distance. It requires our affections. And here in the church in Ephesus, in chapter two verse four, the correction is, Hey, you forgot to love you. Ever meet those people? They know their Bible front and back. They love theology. They read a lot, and yet they are not loving.

They have zero empathy, right? They don’t know their neighbor, let alone love their neighbor. And so we need to become a people of love. This is really hard for me personally. I’ve kind of grown up and I’m still trying to figure out with counseling and everything else, why all my relationships, I’d kind of treat them as performance based.

And so my spiritual director kind of started to pick that up after a couple years of us chatting. And so in my scripture reading, if I were to share my story today, the biggest change for me, cuz I would always read every day, but he told me, okay, spend the first at least five minutes in silence before you read and just imagine God loving you.

That’s really hard. It’s like, how can God love me? Right? But that’s the truth of the gospel. And so I’d have to just sit there. It felt really weird at the beginning. It still feels weird today, but it helps calibrate this whole thing is to be loved by God and to love God and to love. Others. One thing that’s helped me a lot is this line from David Benner.

It’s a bit of a big quote, but let me share it with you. He says,  meditating on God’s love has done more to increase my love than decades of effort to try to be more loving, allowing myself to deeply experience his love. Taking time to soak in it and allowing it to infuse me has begun to affect changes that I had given up hope of ever experiencing.

 Coming back to God and my failures at love. This is key. Throwing myself into his arms and asking him to remind me of how much he loves me. As I am here, I begin to experience new levels of love to give to others,  but again, I must come to love through the cross, come to love, through sin and failure rather than success and self-improvement.

 How often do we try to come to God by showing him our success and our self-improvement? No. No, no. No. The way you encounter the love of God is to bring him your sin and to bring him your failures. That’s the biggest game changer I can probably share today. Now, what’s the key line again? 

 Christ affirms the church when we become a people of love who avoid heresy.

Pergamum, for example, was someone who was indifferent to heresy and it wound up really spoiling the church Heresy quickly is anything in opposition to the gospel of Jesus?

There’s a lot of heresy today, like more and more social media like I have, and I love you guys. You send me like, Hey, is this true? It’s like TOS and Instagram reels. 98% of the time I’m gonna reply. No. Like there’s just some weird stuff going out there and it gains traction cuz you never heard it before and that’s probably because it’s not a truth.

And so it just sounds cool, but it’s not real. Anyways, I love that you send that to me instead of just believing it. So keep sending ’em to me and I’ll keep being disgusted. Now there’s a lot of heresy. But hear me, and this is where I need your grace. This is where this can get really heavy and I didn’t wanna do it, but the text, I feel like I have to do it.

So let me explain heresy and call out one that we have today. Oh, pray for. Pray for your boy. Number one though here, here’s why. Heresy goes unnoticed. There’s two reasons. Number one, false religions don’t always sound religious. So there is a reality where pergamum, everything was religious and so they just, they, they knew everything was religious.

Today we think nothing’s religious except maybe just the church. And that is one of the greatest lies and deceptions of the enemy. Everything has a worldview, everything has morals. Everything has an understanding of what a sin and what is not. If there’s a creator, what an afterlife is. And it infuses everything School.

What they’re learning at school there is, there is a religion embedded in it. There has to be how you watch the news, what they share, what they don’t share. Everything has this perspective and so hear me, there is nothing neutral. Everything is forming you either to become more like Christ or more like sin Satan and death.

That was a game changer in my discipleship. There’s nothing I do that is neutral. Okay, so that’s number one. A lot of us, we take in a lot of stuff and because they say, oh no, we’re not religious. Oh, this isn’t, we’re not a religion at all. We just receive it. Don’t do that. No, everything has a religion.

Number two, heresy is typically masked with sincerity today, we typically don’t judge truth based off a reality. We based off it was that person really nice when they shared it right? There is a group of people in our area that we believe are heretical, but they’re so stink and nice. I love them so much and they love me.

It’s amazing. But we still have to call balls. Balls and strikes, strikes. Right is I can be so nice and be so convinced that stepping off of a skyscraper is not gonna kill me now. And everybody else could be nice about it too. But what will happen if I step off a skyscraper? Splat, right? Because gravity doesn’t care about how nice you were.

And so that’s just reality. So we have to, the Christian message, we believe is the most realistic, most. It’s it’s reality. It’s it’s the truth. Now, some of the Hear me, this is where you need to pray for me. Some of the nicest people you meet believe in toxic ideologies and relations. But they’re nice and I get it.

And I like to be nice, and some Christians aren’t nice enough. Amen. Right? So there’s a lot here. But one ideology that I believe has gripped the hearts of so many people because it’s packaged in a nice way and it doesn’t sound religious. Breathe and breathe out. Ready? One ideology, and we have so much grace and mercy, so please hear me, the fool, whatever, however long this takes is l g b, lgbtq.

I bring this up especially, it’s the month of June. It’s everywhere. It’s in the news a lot. I I, I’m not the pastor who like wants to f that’s like my pet thing and I want talk about it at all moments, right? But this is where we’re at today, and I think it’s in this text as well. Now, allow me to mention to you a few key differences between lgbtq, which we love, which we will love and serve and I will care and protect, right?

Versus the gospel LGBTQ q q prizes, self-expression, while the gospel, you, em embraces self denial. You begin by actually saying no to the self. LGBTQ Q says, I was born this way while the gospel says you must be born again. Right? And so I don’t actually find the born this way argument. I don’t. I’m like, I, I say, okay, but we must be born again.

Another thing, L G B T Q wants the freedom to do whatever we want. But the gospel is actually the freedom from doing whatever we want. We’ve come to realize our desires don’t always lead to the best outcomes. So sometimes we’re wrong and we need to submit ourselves to the authority of scripture. Also, and this one really troubles me, l g Bt Q says, your orientation is your identity.

And the gospel says Your adoption in Christ is your identity. This is who you are first and foremost as a child of God when you receive him. So we have to know that LGBTQ is its own gospel, promising freedom and new life. It has rituals to follow and it is commanding its followers to spread this gospel to the ends of the earth.

But it’s not in religious language. And so we don’t pick up on it. Now, I don’t want us ever at pastorate creatures. I think we do such a good job on this topic, but I still think it’s helpful to talk about and to help us. We should not be on our high horse when addressing this topic. And I think the church has dropped the ball in so many ways in every side.

So let me mention two sides that I think we’ve been bad at, and I don’t know if it’s been us. Although I don’t know what you do on Tuesdays, so, or whatever, but I think when talking, I think we have the right loving approach. But on one side, our aggressive and hateful approach towards L G BT Q doesn’t represent the grace of Christ, right?

We forget passages like Titus three three that says We too, were one sinners lost and gone astray slaves to various passions and desires. We need to remember before we’re on our high horse, like, look at you. Well, that was us. Another thing is we forget how patient God’s been with us. Romans two, four says, his patience leads to our, our repentance that God was so patient with us.

We need to be patient with others. We need to be so loving and be there for ’em and answer questions as they have them along the way. This is the biggest one that bothers me, that I think, man, I would love for our church to lead the way in doing better at this is we’ve created an environment where heterosexual Christians give themselves permission to say, yeah, I’ve been tempted.

I’m tempted towards lust. I’m tempted with that girl or that guy, or whatever. And it because it’s heterosexual. We don’t feel bad about it. We just say it’s a temptation, which is true. We don’t think temptation is sin. Acting on. It is sin. Amen. Where we’ve really gone bad as a church is we have created no room for a homosexual person who, who has those temptations of homosexual temptations.

Right. We don’t give them the space to say, I have those temptations. We say, oh, that’s terrible. Get outta here. Right? We need to say no. This is a place of confession where none of us are perfect, and we’re always admitting where we’re tempted and we’re trying. Freedom is found when we confess and we’re not in our shame anymore, and we have created an environment where they have that shame and they know if they admit this problem, they’re gonna get shunned and so they never admit it.

They want to change, but you can’t change without confession and it’s a terrible, terrible cycle that we need to stop. One book, I brought it up here, still, time to Care by Greg Johnson.   Such a helpful book, and I think addressing that topic, come look at it after the service. 

 Now on the other side.

We over accommodate. Some people have a over accommodating approach to the lie of L Bt Q and it doesn’t represent the truth of Christ, right? We hide the truth in the name of love. Uh, a lot of us maybe are ashamed of different passages in the Bible that sound really offensive, and so we kind of apologize for it.

We admit that it’s archaic, but we have to remember it’s the truth alone that sets us free. Are you guys still with me? Right. This is a, a key example of why this is hard to apply. It’s, it’s easy to fall into heresy. Why are more and more Christians falling into the sin of accommodation? I think it’s because we embrace heresy, because we want, don’t want to endure hardship.

Let me remind you the main idea again for these, all of these passages.  Christ affirms the church when we become a people of love who avoid heresy and endure hardship.  Smyrna and Pergamum, for example, were very brave in their suffering. The highest form of hardship is being killed. But there’s other forms of hardship as well that you and I are experiencing maybe and maybe certainly will in the future.

I think the two ones are economic and social. I know some of you who have lost jobs because of your beliefs on certain things, right? And that’s just become more and more of reality, especially for my children, I think, right? We can’t just, like, it’s hard to figure out what to do, but we can’t get, we need to be righteous in how we do it.

Maybe lament, but we’re not, we’re not fighting. We’re not like war against those who disagree with us. The way of Jesus is the way of the lamb. And we’ll look at that in the coming weeks. And also social, right? There is a social currency for approving certain things and saying you agree with this certain worldview.

And so more and more likely we’re gonna be losing jobs, losing social credibility because of our stances on things like sexuality, right? This is really tough. It’s very tough and it’s why we need revelation. We need this book to remind us it’s worth the sacrifice. It’s worth being misunderstood. And we need to keep loving even when they don’t want to love us back.

It requires the grace of Jesus, right? Jesus knows this is hard and this is why he doesn’t leave us alone. He gives us his power, he gives us his grace. We are not called to just do this the right way cuz it’s, it’s really hard for me.

It’s either like an all truth or no grace or all grace and no truth. And only the Holy Spirit is enables me to do both at the same time. And so because of that, because this is weighty, he ends his all of his letters in these two ways. Number one, he motivates them and number two, he warns them. Jesus motivates them.

In each ending, he gives a illustration of what’s to come when you’re faithful. In Ence. He says, you’ll have, you’ll be in the tree of life. Smyrna, the crown of life. Pergamum a white stone, thra the morning star, Sardis, white garments, Philadelphia. A pillar in the temple. Lay  eating and ruling with Christ.

What does all of this mean? Jesus is saying, I see your perseverance. I know this is hard. Stay the core. Stay together and you will be rewarded in the kingdom to come. That’s wonderful motivation. We need to stay faithful cuz this life is really short. Paternity is very, very long. Fight the good fight in a loving, humble way and there will be a reward.

But also Jesus warns them and this one, uh, can get kind of terrifying. He has this phrase in every single letter. He says, let anyone who has has ears to hear. I was reading a commentary on this Eugene Peterson he was talking about. It’s pretty fascinating. Humans don’t have ear lids, right? We have eyelids so we can just not look at something, but we can never just like not hear.

But he says, what we’ve done is we found other ways to shut our ears. He goes on to say, quote, we are conveniently deaf. All, all the wives are like, yes, I know men are amazing at this. Right?  We are conveniently deaf to sounds that challenge our pride or command our o obedience or interrupt our fantasies, or call attention to our lapses heavy ears.

Make it possible to pursue wrongful pleasures, indulge empty dreams, and escape honors tasks with only minimal discomfort of conscience.”

The big warning in this text, Is Jesus has told us the truth. He’s told us what we need to do. People of love who avoid a heresy and endure hardship, but just because we know it doesn’t mean we’ve heard it.

See the difference. Let me illustrate for you, last week, I’m so sorry I left like before the service even ended cuz we’re on our way to Mexico to celebrate 10 years and, and we did it 10 years in a row. It was pretty cool. Now we went to Mexico to Cabo and the whole deal was this timeshare, right? So the whole thing, all inclusive, $199, couldn’t believe it.

Glory to God. Okay? So we went, but the big key was we had to sit through a timeshare presentation and it had to be 90 minutes. So we got there that night, we were in the jacuzzi, prepping, getting ready for Monday mornings fight, I mean, you know, presentation. And everyone in the jacuzzi was like, here’s what you need to do.

This guy’s like I, they had me there for six hours. Another guy said there’s a lien on my house because I gave him my credit card. Like we were like, no, this is a war. Like this is terrifying. So we took all these lists of what we should do, what we shouldn’t do, and we were there, right? The time came and they really got us because they drove us to another resort.

So we couldn’t run away. It was terrifying. And so Jordan was like, Hey, I got this. The moment when she gets there, she doesn’t say a word I gotta take over. All right? So whatever. Now we get there and I do everything that they tell me to do. I said, I said, when does the 90 minutes start? Okay, right now. Boom.

And I set the timer. I said, okay, you got, you got 87 minutes left. You know, I was a jerk. You would’ve hated me. You would’ve left my art church. I’m so sorry. Kept my sunglasses on the whole time cuz I was playing poker, you know what I’m saying? Never done that day in my life, but I was that day. Right? Amen.

And. Man, they put us through the ringer. We met five different people. We think we were done. Okay, we’re gonna help you find your taxi. Another salesman, another salesman, another salesman. They worked on us for three hours, but to the glory of God, we won. Now my mentality, yeah, thanks. My mentality was this.

I’m here just to take your stuff. I’m here for the free vk. I will never say yes to anything yet. Like I don’t know what you’re saying, but I already know it’s a no. Right? And so you saw these other couples, they were starting to say yes. They were like, you could tell they were bickering with each other.

Then they got the pin. I’m like, fool, fool. You know? Like I was just like, babe, stay strong, stay strong. Keep your sunglasses on. Stay strong, right? She was terrified. Talked to her later about it. It was amazing. But we got to the finish line and they asked one last question, and their last question is, did you learn anything new about timeshares that changed your perspective?

And I realized I sat through three hours. Of them educating me on what a timeshare is. And I, to this day, have no idea what it is. I don’t know the benefit. I don’t know if there is one. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know nothing. Now, did they tell me all of it? I think so, but I, my glasses, I was, my eyes were shut, you know, I was doing all sorts of games and then someone at the hotel asked me, okay, I know this was crazy, but like, what was your best offer?

I literally couldn’t even tell them like how much any of it cost. I was like, I don’t know. I was out for three hours. I was just a jerk. The worst part was when they asked me what I did for a living. It’s like, oh no, you know, I hope, oh no, you know, Lord, forgive me. No, that’s a great practice for times, sheriff, um, presentations, but I wonder how many of us approach the kingdom that way.

I’m here to get your free stuff, your forgiveness. I’m here for the re for Paradise, but you’re not gonna ask anything for me. And Jesus, man, he calls that out. I don’t want you to think he’s a timeshare presentist. Okay? This is where the illustration really starts to fall, but hear me. Do we have ears to really hear what Jesus is affirming and what he’s correcting?

Maybe the heresy that you struggle with is not L G B T Q, all it is, and you haven’t been listening to me since the moment I mentioned that phrase, but will we have ears to hear? Because freedom, life and life abundance, the kingdom comes when we’re willing to listen. So as the music comes up, I just want us to close our eyes and pray to the Father and just have simply this, present this to God.

Holy Spirit, am I listening?