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
They didn’t deny Jesus even after their pastor Antipus was murdered
BUT, there are some issues….
They TOLERATED (tolerance-PC; don’t want to offend anyone; “why can’t we all just get along”) two destructive groups
Those who embrace Balaam’s teaching
Those who embrace Nicolaitian teaching
Both groups believed & taught it was no big deal to do the exact opposite of what the Apostles, the guys who walked with Jesus taught in Acts 15:28-29
“For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements: You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this, you will do well” Acts 15:28-29
When Christianity spread to the Gentiles (Non-Jewish people) there were some who wanted the gentiles to follow all the Jewish cultural & ceremonial rules too. But the Apostles (The dudes that lived with Jesus & were His disciples & friends) agreed that wasn’t right, it was an unfair burden to place on them, but THREE things were a must for gentile believers, these were carry overs from the Jewish faith:
1-don’t eat food sacrificed to idols
2-no drinking blood/eating meat from strangled animals
3-no sexual immorality (no sexual activity outside the bounds of marriage)
All of these practices were parts of pagan worship, so the apostles wanted to draw a distraction between the TRUE worship of the ONE TRUE GOD and pagan idol worship.
Now these two groups (The Balaam guys & Nicolaitians) embraced & kicked these rules to the curb. They said “these rules are foolish, eat whatever you want to eat, who cares if it was offered as a sacrifice to some other god or how it was prepared. And these antiquated views of sex are silly. None of this stuff is a big deal, relax, who cares”
These groups weren’t asking the believers in Pergamon to abandon their faith in Jesus, they were just coloring it, compromising it, adding to it, relax the standards.
Hey with as hard as things were in their city maybe the church figured they needed to be more inclusive if they wanted to grow. Or maybe they were tired of fighting people outside the church & didn’t have it in them to fight the good fight in the church.
**Jesus says you “tolerate” these people, you have let them infiltrate & have a say in how things are done. You are compromising the TRUTH.
When people in a boat are rowing in different directions it goes no where.
By tolerating/embracing these groups the church was undermining there own ability to impact their city for Jesus. They were killing their ability to be a LIGHT in this very dark place.
And after all that these believers had been through, after all they had endured, all they had lost, it wasn’t an overt attack that took them out of the game, but a subtle infiltration.
When we compromise our principles we erode our integrity! We kill our credibility. We loose our reputation, our power, our ability to make an impact.
“the little foxes…spoil the vineyards” Song of Solomon 2:15
Rarely is it a ONE BIG THING that ruins us, but several little compromises along the way. Where we once stood on solid ground, gradually we find ourselves standing on shifting sand.
***Have you ever been standing on the beach, watching the waves come in & out, you are standing there enjoying the sea air, taking it all in, and before you realize it the sand you are standing on starts to give out and you begin to sink. As each little bit of water rolled over your feet it took a little bit of your footing with it until you were on sinking sand.
It’s subtle, it happens slowly, and before we realize it, we have DRIFTED, compromised, and we wonder “HOW DID I GET HERE?”
Integrity is kind of a foreign concept to a lot of people. Politicians will use the word to describe themselves and you know they are shady so by association the word looses it’s power.
But INTEGRITY is all about the courage of convictions, it’s about having principles, having nothing to hide. Jesus lived a life of INTEGRITY.
He walked in the light, His life was an open book, there we no skeletons in His closet.
As followers of Jesus we should live lives of INTEGRITY, our past is our past. 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 “The old is gone, the new has come”
Because of that we should be able to live lives of integrity, NOT PERFECTION-when we drop the ball or fail we own it, confess it and grow.
Integrity isn’t about perfection, it’s about maturity & principles. Having the courage of our convictions.
Paul said…“so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Hold firmly to the word of life” Philippians 2:15-16
We are told “Live clean, innocent lives” when we do this we can “Shine as a light” we become a beacon in the darkness that points the way to life. And we can only do this if we HOLD FIRMLY to the Word of God!
We can only live with integrity (principled lives) when we know the principles to live by contained in God’s Word.
But this is always easier said than done, right? Life is hard, life is complicated, and in a culture where the lines of right & wrong seems so fluid, where the boundaries keep moving, its hard to find a firm footing when everyone seems to play by their own rules.
It’s like trying to play Monopoly and everyone is playing by different rules that conflict with each other. How do you play? How do you win? You don’t you get frustrated, overwhelmed, and you throw your hands up & quit.
Right?
APPLICATION
I think that is what happened to the believer in Pergamous
They had been attacked by the city, infiltrated by other groups that had hijacked their church, and they let it happen. Challenges outside, difficulties inside. They were OVERWHELMED!
Do you know what that feels like? I don’t know about you, but when I am overwhelmed, I SHUT DOWN! When too much is going on around me, to many voices, too many attacks, too much stress, I SHUT DOWN! I can’t think straight, and I just want the madness to stop!
When we get to that place, we look to escape the pain. We don’t make decisions that are RIGHT, we make decisions that are EASY. We don’t do what NEEDS TYO BE DONE, we DO WHAT IS EASY to do to survive.
Our motivation shifts, we stop making decisions based on principle & start making decision based on other factors:
1-FEAR
Of Rejection
Of Ridicule
Of Retaliation
Fear leads us to #2
2-DOUBT
Ourselves, what we are capable of “I can’t do it, I can’t make it”
Our Beliefs, maybe this Bible stuff isn’t true or right
Our God, maybe God doesn’t really love me or care about me
And Fear & Doubt lead us to pride
3-PRIDE
I need to help myself, since God isn’t helping
I need to look out for myself, since God isn’t looking out for me
I need to defend myself, since no one else will defend me
Hey I get it, when you’re in the whirlwind, you feel naked, defenseless, unprotected, you find yourself wondering WHERE ARE YOU GOD?
FEAR-> DOUBT -> PRIDE once we get on that merry-go-round it can be hard to get off of it.
And we do what we need to do to survive, at least that’s what we tell ourselves, that’s how we justify our choices, that’s the excuse we give.
But there is a better way!!!!!
Jesus told them “Repent of your sin” Revelation 2:16
REPENT-we talked about this before. Repentance is about -Alignment
Getting our MINDS in line with God’s Word. If we can THINK RIGHT, we will ACT RIGHT.
So if you are struggling today, if you have been compromising your principles, making bad choices, feeling overwhelmed, doing what is easy rather than what is right. REPENT!
Get your mind & heart back in alignment. Jesus has given us everything we need for life & godly living. We just need to lean on Him, trust Him, rely on Him. I know it’s hard when we FEEL alone, overwhelmed, but HE IS FAITHFUL!!!
It’s a CHOICE!!! So CHOOSE INTEGRITY!!! Every day make the choice!
Stay TRUE to the principles He has given us to live by, don’t let anyone push you to do what violates your conscience, to compromise your character, STAND FIRM, STAND TRUE CHOOSE INTEGRITY!
Doing the right thing can be scary, doing the right thing can seem hard, but Jesus is our help, our hope, our defender so CHOOSE INTEGRITY!
We are not ALONE, we don’t walk through this life alone, Jesus is there to watch out for us, to stand beside us to defend us! We have noting to fear!
Choose Integrity!
DEFENDER (BAND)
LANDING:
He is our defense, He will protect us, He will guard us
Choose Integrity, Choose to do the RIGHT THINGS, let the chips fall & KNOW that JESUS has got your back
