Revelation 3:1-6
"To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God.
Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.
Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.
He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
What is the overall point of this passage? How would you summarize it in a sentence or two?
How does Jesus describe himself?
For what does Jesus commend this church?
What does Jesus have against this church?
What promise does he provide?
How do you think this letter applies to our church?
About Me
- Allen
- Mitchell, Indiana, United States
- I love my family, and I enjoy what I do. I am in my 18th year with the Mitchell Church of Christ. I am an endurance athlete. The parallels between endurance athletics and ministry are remarkable. They are mutually beneficial.
The Holy Trinity
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9 comments:
How would you describe the church in Sardis?
COMPLACENT?
What does complacency look like to you?
If you didn't read last week's blog toward the end of the week, then you may want to go back and check out some of the posts. I put up quite a lot of material about homosexuality.
You can get to it by Clicking Here and then scrolling down the page.
I went back and read the blog on homosexuality from last week. I always hesitate pointing to specific sins as the way to identify people. (of course I realize you are in a different position - you're lecturing on the subject. I'm relating it to my day to day life.) I just have this disgust with the televangelists who scream from the rooftops condemning the queers (and whomever else!) and they go home and sit in front of the computer sucking up the porn. It drives me crazy because when they get caught in their "secret" sins and it becomes evident to everyone what a fraud they are it becomes so much harder to condemn the sins of others whose sins are right before us.
I'm sure a full 50% of the people I interact with are gay. It's just the nature of my business. These people are the kindest most big hearted people I have ever met. They are articulate and very well educated. They spend 1000's of dollars and hundreds of hours trying to improve the lives of the poor and underprivileged. They don't try to impress people with their humanitarian work, it is just simply an outgrowth of their core values. Therein lies the problem. How do I try to convince them of their need for Christ when they are living the principles that God would have us live? It is a very hard argument to win.
I also have to look at myself and wonder what obvious sins am I missing? I just go about my day clothed in ignorance of what is right in front of me and evident to everyone else!
And what is the practical application of true love? How do we live day to day embracing the sinner (one who is not in the church) and yet not embracing the obvious sin?
t
Very interesting and challenging, t.
I would love to see some others jump in with some thoughts.
Here is a portion of the Life Group Discussion Guide this evening:
This morning we talked about “soft” love and “lost” love and finally “true” love. How do we make sure our love is not too “soft,” i.e. too tolerant of sin? How do we make sure our love is not “lost,” i.e. where we have no compassion for those struggling with sin?
How do we make sure our love is true?
Talk some about this passage:
1 Corinthians 5:9-13
I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you.”
How does our love function differently inside and outside our church family?
Why do we hold ourselves to a different standard?
How can we best deal with those in the church family who are not living God-honoring lives?
Well, I turn 50 tomorrow. It's OK. I'm taking the day off mostly. I am going to go for a 50 minute run in the morning, go by to see a friend who has some apple wood for me (for smoking), and go to Bloomington with Kedra.
I think I am going to walk around Menards for a little while. After school Luke is going to bring Rebecca and Ben up, and Lester is coming down from Indy. We're all going to eat together somewhere; it'll probably be Texas Roadhouse. We have celebrated a lot of things there over the years; it's kinda "our place."
Sadly Maddie can't come with Lester. Someone has to work, and tomorrow it's Maddie.
It's been a great day!
I got up and ran my 50 minutes at the Park. It was pretty cool and windy, but that's ok.
After my run I tinkered around in the garage and made a birdfeeder that will go right outside our kitchen bay window. We'll be able to watch the birds eat while we do the same.
Speaking of birdfeeders: the other day I repaired the concrete base of one that I made for my dad back in September. I loaded it up in my truck and was going to drop it off as Kedra and I made our way north today. Well, as soon I started to drive the thing started rocking really bad; it was going to fall over. Kedra offered to get in the back and ride with it. Talk about a funny sight! Kedra sitting in the back of my truck holding this large birdfeeder, freezing while I sit comfortably in the cab. What a woman!
We stopped by and got a nice portion of apple wood. The provider even cut it up into the right sized portions for smoking purposes. Very nice! We had a nice visit with these folks.
On to Bloomington where Kedra, as usual, "mission-creeped" me. Can we stop at Target? Can we stop at Best Buy? It was ok. Menards was were I wanted to go, and we finally made it there. Armed with some birthday cash, I picked up a lot of odds and ends, all the way from Famous Dave's "Devil's Spit" barbecue sauce to duct tape. It was blissful.
Kedra complained that her feet hurt. She described it as the same kind of hurt my feet experience after about 15 minutes in the mall. Must be a mind thing?
The highlight of the day was sitting down with my original 4 children at Texas RH. We really missed Maddie but managed to eat anyway; we sent her a meal home with Lester. I had a rib-eye. The cholesteral lower journey will resume tomorrow.
Hopefully I'll have the time tomorrow to present some ideas about the questions that have been posed by t and me.
I would really love to hear what some of you have to say. Don't be shy!
There is a beautiful song, 'My Eyes Are Dry' that embodies the thought in this passage in Revelation to me. How easy it is to relax our stand, and float along until something hits us in the face and brings us back to where we should be. Overcoming the challenges has it's reward even though at the time it seems very trying. What did we learn from the trial, who was affected by our reaction, how was our witness to others. I must say I fail dreadfully alot of times. It does seem that each time something arises to test though that something from the last time helps to set the situation in perspective knowing God is at work and will give us strengh to overcome. Rewards may not reach us here on earth but our reward is in Heaven. I like the description of those in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes and the reference to white because they are worthy. Don't we all soil our clothes here, but God's grace when we turn it around is there to make them white again. Just some thoughts. Have a blessed Thanksgiving everyone, Love you all--Sherron
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