Choose Integrity Series

Revelation

Week 3

“Choose Integrity”

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We are in the third week of a series called REVELATION. We have been looking at Jesus’ final words to seven churches. He had a message for each of these churches & I really believe that there are some things He wants to say to our church. Things we can learn based on what He said to these seven churches That will help us navigate the world we are living in & the challenges we face.

If you have missed any of the messages you can go back & catch up via iTunes or on the churches Facebook page. But from the first two churches we learned we need to Choose Joy & we need to Choose Hope. Today we will see we have something else we need to choose too

CONNECT Back in College my JR year some guys I know had this grand idea that they wanted to put together a ministry team. We would go out from church to church & do special music & preach. I was reluctant, but these guys really wanted me to do this with them (I played guitar & could sing, neither of them played an instrument, so they needed “someone like me”)

Anyway, I agree to be apart of this, group & the lead guy book a bunch of service around Maine & NH during our spring semester. But all the while, I didn’t want to be there, these guys were friends, but not people I wanted to be in ministry with, we valued different things, one was very much a “used car salesman” if you know what I am saying. And I can remember after doing several of these weekends of ministry asking myself, “How did I get here, How did I let myself become apart of this?” And I did the hard thing, but what I knew was the right thing, and I told the guys I was out.

This went over like a fart in church. These guys went psycho billy ninja on me, how dare I, they had book a whole summers worth of service all over the east coast, now they wold have to cancel, they started bad mouthing me on campus & saying I had no integrity. They even called a meeting with the Dean of Men at our Bible School and I sat there as they blasted me & trashed me all because I decided this opportunity wasn’t for me. It made for a very painful & challenging season in my life. I was the subject of whispers & looks, because the rumor machine was in full swing. BUT I KNEW if I had stayed in that group & done that summer of ministry, I may have bailed out & never went back to Bible School. So I did the hard thing, the right thing, the painful thing & bowed out & took the hit.

They found a girl who played piano to replace me & they went did their ministry that summer. A funny thing happened. When they came toy home church in NY that summer, the guy who had trashed me the most called me & asked if he could talk to me, he apologized and said I did the right thing, that the summer was a disaster & the experience had been terrible & I was the wise one :)

I wanted to spike my soda & do a victor dance & rub it in, but I didn’t :)

But that experience taught me an important lesson, CHOOSE INTEGRITY, even when it’s hard, even when it will cost you. And Jesus will be your defense in the end. TENSION

I’m sure we have all had those experiences, where we find ourselves in compromising positions. Places, arrangements, relationships, where we are thinking, HOW DID I GET HERE?

Where we’ve gotten carried along and found ourselves faced challenging decisions. Do the right thing, the easy thing, the shady thing? And some times we don’t always get it right.

Can anyone related to what I’m talking about?

Which brings us to the 3rd church in Revelation 2-Pergamos

TRUTH

“I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me. You refused to deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you there in Satan’s city. “But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam…He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. Repent of your sin” Revelation 2:13-16

They live in a tough city, if “Satan’s Throne” is there! Some crazy stuff is going down, yet they remained loyal