MAY 12 2019 | Accelerate S1E7 | Worship: A Journey Into Reality – 2

Sea Change Church · Accelerate · "Worship: A Journey Into Reality - 2" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · May 12, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, church. My name is Kimberly Davis, and I am so honored to be a mom. I have four of my beautiful children here. Wave. Come on. There they are. I'm not proud at all. I have great kids. The scripture this morning is from Revelation 1, 4, 1 through 11. After I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven, and the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.

At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it, and the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby, a rainbow that shone like an emerald and circled the throne. Surrounding the throne were 24 other thrones, and seated on them were 24 elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumbling, and peals of thunder.

In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. Also in front of the throne, there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the center around the throne were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion. The second like an ox. The third had a face like a man. And the fourth was like a flying eagle.

Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under the wings. Day and night, they never stopped saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever.

They lay their crowns before the throne and say, You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and by your will, they were created and have their being. The word of the Lord. We're going to Israel two weeks from today, right? Yeah, stoked on that. So we got a little team going to Israel. Very excited. When I get back, you got two weeks of Pastor Harry in the pulpit.

I'm giving the young gun the pulpit. I said, don't break it. So he's, we still have middle school and all that going on. I'm excited about the series he has. When I get back, we're going to get back into the life of David. David, and I'm super stoked. I'm going to be actually writing this series while I'm in Israel, going through the different places. And the series is going to be called Son of Anarchy. It's about Absalom and basically a broken kingdom and a broken family.

And we're going to talk about family relationships and how things are difficult and look at the tie-ins there. We're going to talk about being a dad and the differences, you know, having a son and these different things. So I hope you're ready. There will be an invitation Sunday. And if you know people that are having challenges in family, then you do not want to miss. It's going to be a 68-week series. And it is going to be birthed in the Holy Land.

So I'm super stoked on that. And pray for revelation for me. And you don't want to miss Pastor Harry as well. Super excited about him. And, well, we are continuing to landing the plane now in a somewhat reoccurring series that is about basic Christ following. It's called Accelerate. And it's about getting out of the ruts that you can get into, especially in your faith. And I don't know about you, but I tend to have a spiritual gift at being able to turn like a three-week rut into something that will last like a year and a half, seven years, 40 years.

You know, you just get like in a rut. And one of the most difficult things is trying to be people that can get out of ruts and actually who want to get out of a rut. Because I believe that, you know, whether it's health, maybe it's not health-induced or something, but most ruts, we're there for a reason. They have a payoff. Ruts tend to have a payoff. And so we stay in bad relationships because we have a payoff or we continue to do certain things because there is a bit of a payoff.

With Christ, we often stay in ruts for a whole bunch of reasons because we have bad tapes in our head that, you know, tell us that God doesn't really love me because you had perhaps a bad family model. And you had a father who was abusive perhaps so you don't want anything to do with the father of God. Or perhaps there is an addiction issue or whatever it is. But we get in these ruts in our spiritual life. And oftentimes we can stay in ruts and really never move forward in our Christian life, in our spiritual life with Christ, where you're not taking any new territory.

One of the things we want to regularly do is take territory. We want to push out the boundaries of our spiritual life, especially with intimacy. So I tend to look at my spiritual life in terms of geography, where I'm trying to take more ground. And that geography hopefully matches the culture of that geography, hopefully matches the culture of heaven. Now we're going to see this in this scripture. We're going to look at the juxtaposition between the culture of heaven and the culture of seven churches.

But I want the culture of my heart, the culture of my home, even this week as we're moved into a new home, I'm trying to find out where I'm going to lay the word of God open so we have the word of God openly displayed in our home. I had a friend and they built a house. And before they put the drywall up, they went around and they wrote it. North Coast Calvary Chapel, they did this. They brought people in for a day and they just wrote verses in on all the beams, which is cool.

We want to do that. And then we want to expand the territory. And I want to expand, especially my emotional territory. I want to be more courageous. And I feel like in the last five to six years, I've definitely become more courageous. I want to expand intimacy with God. My ability to have an eye-to-eye conversation with somebody that's important to me and tell them what really matters as opposed to shunning away from that.

Be getting able to be more and more intimate and a healthy boundary. I want to continue to see gentleness pervade my life. Last week, as we look back at the scripture and in the scripture, you're going to see that there is a dimensional spatial difference between heaven and this place where John was taken to. Jesus comes to him. And he's taken up into heaven. But then there's a door that goes to the throne of God within heaven.

And I ask, what's the question? Why is there a door? And so we have earth and then we have levels of heaven. How do we know we have levels of heaven? Because Paul says that I know a man who went where? To the third heaven. Now, a lot of people want to spend a lot of time getting into it. Like, whoo, what's that all mean and everything? I'm really, because I really want to be the most practical church in the world. Like, I really have a goal.

Like, not the biggest. Not the coolest. Not whatever. But I want to be, I wouldn't mind being the most practical. And so the practicalities of me is not going to get into all the depth. And there's a lot of rich depth. And we have, I specifically surround myself with teachers like Pastor Jim, with teachers like Elliot on Sunday morning, who are really good at getting into those depths of those components. I'm more of a, I just want to put up the structure.

And I'll let everybody else do the intricacies of the wiring and all those things, if that makes any sense to you. And in a very practical way, I want to help people make changes in their life. And so we see that there's this door of heaven. And my question is, is how do we get the stuff that's on the other side of the door? That worship, that holiness, that power, these things that you're going to see. You're going to see all this archetypal power in this room in heaven.

It's pretty cool. I mean, you can actually look behind the door of heaven. And we talk about why, I asked last week, if you want to know why the door is there. I said, you know, why is there a door in heaven? It was really interesting. It doesn't really need a door. But it also talks about the scripture about having the kingdom of God on earth. The kingdom of God on earth means that you have tools at your access, and they're not rocket science, to be able to access the glory, the grandeur, the power, the esteem, the love, the joy, the mercy, the hope, all these things.

Access them, if you choose, and to harvest them, to implant them, and steep your life and the culture of your life in these things. And so, what are the basics? Accelerate this series, getting out of a rut. What are the basics to get you out of a rut? Let me show you what gets you out of ruts. One of them is reading the word of God on a regular basis. Another is prayer. Prayer will get you out of a rut. If you want to know how to get out of ruts, go back to the beginning of this series, minus the, although there are two good sermons, Palm Sunday and Easter, and you'll see how we get out of ruts.

One of the key ways to get out of a rut is worship. Now, worship, we talked about different, if you want, I can't re-preach the whole thing. There's lots of different ways to worship. But however you worship, worship puts us in touch and encountering true reality. We believe that heaven is more real than here. This will pass away. This pulpit, these chairs, all these things will pass away, but heaven is eternal. So heaven is more real.

And we want to live our lives, our temporal lives on earth from a basis of reality and of eternal reality. And so we see this happening in worship. And so when John is taken here in this passage to, through the door, and I encourage you to go to the door. And I said last week, go to the door. When John is taken there, he sees true reality. Now, last week, last week, when I went home, we, if you've seen the show Hoarders, I don't know if you've seen that show, but we, we downsized.

And two days before we downsized into a little smaller home here in the village, we went from like 2,100 feet, 2,200 square feet to like 1,300 with one bathroom and, and four people. And people were like, like, we didn't do that for thousands of years, right? There was not even a bathroom in the house. And I was like, how did you, you know? And I will say the door to heaven is open, but the door to our bathroom rarely is.

I'll just tell you that. Three females and me. I want to go get a Home Depot bucket, an orange one, just write emergency on it. You know what I mean? Set it outside in the mudroom. That's the thing I didn't say last service that I, I edited myself, but I thought second service, they're a lot more loose, you know? All the casual people show up second service. Got to be real careful in the first service because they tow the line, you know?

They show up at 845 ready for church. Bright eyed and bushy tailed. So there's this door. And on the other, you know, I, I said that I was, after the sermon, I came home and I was living like a hoarder. Because they told us two days before we moved in, they said, oh, by the way, um, we decided we want to do epoxy, which is amazing. It's beautiful. I'm so glad they did. We want to epoxy the garage floor. And so you can't use the garage for a week after you move in downsizing.

And so it's like, oh, okay. Now there's a lot of different options. Our option was everything in the house and in the backyard until it rained. That was our option. Okay. The option got upgraded three days later into a, um, a U-Haul for four days. But none of you don't need all the intricacies of that. I go home. And for me, I can't live like that. I just, I don't know about some of you. Some of you can live like this, this, this organized clutter.

You know, my wife has this beautifully intricate system on her desk of layers upon layers of things. And from 1927 and all this stuff. And, and I'm saying, can we, can we just get it down to three spaces that are like that? So just multiple spaces and it's all. And if I touch anything, she'll know it. It's not like she's just throwing that. She'll know it. And I'm just stressing because something, I don't know if you're like me, but if my life can be in complete chaos, and all I have to do to fix it is like go organize something.

It doesn't even matter if what I organize has nothing to do with the issues in my life. Okay. It could be having this issue and I go home and I'm like, you know what? I just need to clean out. I just need to clean out the filing cabinet or the garage. I'm still organized the garage and I get done organizing garage and nothing's changed in my life. But I'm like, yeah, feel way better. It just says organization. So some of you understand what I mean.

Just, just let me, or I'll come clean your house if I can. So I'm there and I thought to myself, now would be a great time to put into practice and try to go behind the door. And I got, I was like, Lord, I've been at church all day. I've been working. I just want to organize and clean. This is, ah. And, and the, the kids went surfing and my wife bounced. And so I thought, okay, you know, I'm going to do it. So it was really hard for me.

It was really difficult for me. I don't know if it's difficult for you, but I had something I wanted to do to sit down and chill. And I put worship on and literally within like the one that says the song that says the atmosphere is changing here. The atmosphere is changing here. Like as soon as I was three minutes in and I'm just, I'm crying like a baby. Like the complete atmosphere of my heart, my emotions, my mind.

I'm, I'm like gentleness, peace, joy, desire. And if you're like me, once I feel God's spirit, I'm, it's, I'm so likely to like check the box and I'm like, okay, I'm out tapped out. I got it done for the day and I'll just leave. Like, why do we leave the moment God's, why don't I just sit and rest in his spirit? Cause I don't always experience that. And so I just sat there and I started shooting texts to people to say, Hey, I appreciate you.

And, and my, my heart got super soft and then I had something I needed to talk to somebody about and I hadn't been wanting to and had been hanging. And I just felt like I just need to have that conversation. And I had the courage to have that conversation. And it was just all of a sudden it was like, whoa, like, so, I mean, I can't even tell you the amount of territory and areas that just opened up from a 45 minute time.

I mean, literally there was enough there that if I wouldn't have spent any more time with the Lord, the rest of the week, I literally had enough to go on from that 45 minute session. I'm not saying you do that and then you don't spend time with God, but I just felt like the Lord opened up a door. Matter of fact, he opened up some doors and I think I made a couple of changes that I think are going to have quantum effects for the next decades in my life.

Now I challenged you last week to go find the door. John goes to this door and he sees this power and he sees truth. He sees truth. He sees power. And we talked about that. But what he also sees is holiness. And I want to talk about holiness because I think it's somewhat underrated. Now I was raised partially. I was, Tony talked about and Andrea talked about how he was in foster homes and had gone from home to home. I was like a spiritual foster home kid.

And some of you have this experience. Grew up in the Catholic church. Parents got divorced. Mom went to Protestant church. Then it was like back and forth one weekend at the mission, one weekend at Skyline. And probably two of the most substantial churches in San Diego, the Mission de Alcalá, the Catholic church, and then Skyline Wesleyan church. And having this really interesting experience. And then I ended up, I was at the vineyard as a pastor for a while.

I got hired by a charismatic vineyard church. I didn't know what the vineyard was. I just took the job because they wanted to pay me. And I was like, sweet. Somebody really wants to pay me to be a youth pastor. And then I worked for Young Life for a while. Christian church. I'm like, I am like a spiritual foster home kid. Like I have been, I was in a Pentecostal church. And I worked at the Lutheran church as an RA in one of their dorms.

I've been everywhere. And the interesting thing is every time I got to one of those places, I'd be like, man, they've got this figured out. I'm going to put the uniform on. So I'd put the uniform on. Like I was super good Catholic guy, you know. And then I went to the holiness. And then I went to Young Life. Oh, it's all about evangelism. Pretty soon I just like, you know, is there a Jesus uniform I can wear? Because I'm going to wear that one.

And just chill. But I pretty much speak those different languages of the faith. And one of the things that I grew up in in the Nazarene church, because I went to Point Loma Nazarene, is they're from the holiness movement. And there was a huge revival of holiness, you know, in the 19th century. The church really got holy. And I'm not talking about pious holiness, where holiness comes with pride. I want to talk about holiness that comes with humility.

And that's a beautiful brand. By the way, that is a brand that no one can stop. That's your Mother Teresa brand. Like, you know, there's a lot of things that she believed that people would take umbrage with. And there's been a lot of hit pieces written on her after that. But there is, there is, this is an elixir for our culture. They don't need the gospel without holiness attached to it. That's called hypocrisy. And so when John, because the scripture is a star here, we want to focus on the scripture.

When John gets up into heaven, he's confronted with this radical holiness of God. And if you ever get a chance to get in touch with the holiness of God, and if you continue to explore worship, because it's a journey, it's like going on a vacation. If you're a traveler, maybe you're a traveler. I like to travel different places in the world and go different places. Going to Israel, like I said. Going to be in London in two weeks, hang out with my brother.

But I love going different places. It's the same is true for worship. The thing that's interesting about worship is that it's eternal. And you can go much further as a believer in worship than you can ever travel here. And so John gets in touch with this holiness. And the question today is, where are you in regard to holiness? Holiness is a really, really big deal. Holiness to God is a really, really big deal. The enemy's plan is to remove purity.

And worship takes us into purity. But the enemy's plan is to sell things that are unholy to the world and call them good. So the scripture says that they'll begin to see things that are evil and call them good. I feel like I see a lot of that. But then besides that, there's another layer. He wants to get into the church. And there's been a 2,000 year battle about things, especially in regard to sexuality. A 2,000 year battle in the church for holiness.

Now sexuality is just one component. But it is a pretty big component. Talk about that in a second. But as we look through, look at your notes. It says, worship puts us in touch with truth and reality. But how? How? Worship transports us dimensionally into a perfect and true reality. I said that. He saw the door standing open. And then also, worship puts us in touch with purity. Verse 2 and 4. At once, I was in the spirit.

And I love how the spirit was just like, boom, at once. And that's what I experienced last week. It's been a long time since I'd experienced that. It's been a long time since I'd tried. It says, at once I was in the spirit. And there before me was a throne in heaven with something sitting, someone sitting on it. You can imagine that's God the Father. And the one who sat there had an appearance of jasper and ruby. And I love this.

And a rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. I love this, that God's throne is surrounded by a rainbow. Like when you get to heaven, there's going to be a rainbow there. And he sits upon the rainbow. It's really interesting. And all the colors of the rainbow that are there. And he sits at that. And one of the things I'm trying to do is, we were in Scotland. And we stayed in this Airbnb on this point.

Our thing is like modern accommodation, if possible, at an Airbnb. Ocean view, if possible. And as far away from civilization as possible. Like that's our three things that we want. So we're way out there. I hope the internet doesn't work. You know, all that. So we just need to go and sit. And we had three double rainbows in front of us three times during the trip. Now I've never seen a double. But I'm talking, you could see the end to the end.

You know, double rainbows. And I was like, double rainbow. No way. All the way, double rainbow. Sorry, it's an old YouTube video. And one of the things that's interesting is that the rainbow here is really associated with the purity of God. And whenever I see rainbows, every time, well not every time, but I'm really trying to make it a habit to thank God for purity. Every time I see a rainbow, no matter where I see it, I just say, God, I praise you for your purity.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for, I don't see enough rainbows in the world. I want more. I want to see them everywhere. The more rainbows I see, the more purity I'm going to pray for. The more I want to get in touch with purity. And I love how close the rainbow is tied to purity and the symbol of purity and God's power. And God sits upon that. I don't know if you've thought about that. But I want to encourage you, when you see the rainbow, in whatever form, you might even see a picture of it.

Whatever form you see it. Just as a believer, just say, God, the throne of God sits upon a rainbow. May your purity and holiness just be manifested in this world. I love that. So we see a rainbow shunned like an emerald and circled the throne. Surrounding the throne were 24 other thrones. And seated on them were 24 elders. We can talk about that another day. And they were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.

Interesting. They were dressed in white. White. One of the things I think that was interesting is white, obviously, is a symbol of purity. We see white over and over again. Jesus was transformed on the Mount of Transfiguration. And it was just this incredible white. There's nothing that can keep us, or nothing that can besmirch the holiness of God. And one of the things you'll see there is holiness said three times. In the first service, I just wanted to use the British term thrice.

So whenever you see thrice words in the, I don't think I said that, but a word used thrice times, holy, holy, holy, it means something. The importance of God. I want to ask, you know, you have triple holiness here. How important is holiness to you? And is it something you're striving for? Or are you often get a thought, a conviction that you shouldn't do something, but then all of a sudden it's followed by a few addendums of why it's okay, so-and-so does it.

I think one thing I've learned about holiness, it never needs to be rationalized. Ever. Ever. I've never seen where holiness needs to be rationalized. Now, once again, it needs to come with humility. We're not here to put our holiness on somebody else. I have a friend who stopped drinking coffee. And to them, it was akin to world peace. And they, and now I can never go out with my friend anymore and have a coffee without them saying, you know, I quit drinking coffee.

I know you quit drinking coffee. I know. You know, it's really bad for you if you drink coffee. Yeah, I know. Well, I've stopped. Ever since I stopped, I don't, ah, I'm like, he's like, he has so much, you know, holiness when it comes to not drinking coffee. I'll just order four shots in front of him just to do it. Give me the Keith Richards. That's what I want right there. Yeah. An added shot. I want more than Keith.

Okay. So we joke about it all the time. Whenever we go, he just gets ready to talk. I'm like, no, no, I know. I know. You don't drink caffeine. You're, you're amazing. You're a nun. Um, tend to love it. So the, uh, the thing is, is we don't want to, when it comes to purity, whenever we get pure in an area or we try to get pure because we are pure in Christ and our sins, sins are covered. But besides our sins being covered to actually make decisions to not have to have a sin covered because you didn't partake in the sin is a kind of a cool thing.

I mean, we can live in the grace of Christ. Right. But there's another thing of like, Hey, I'm going to try not to sin. And by doing that, I don't have to be covered. I mean, I have to become always covered by the blood of Christ, but choosing not to sin. And we don't want to get to the place where all of a sudden we start judging everybody else. Whole part of holiness is humility. And if you're making decisions, you don't need to let everybody on Facebook know or judge everybody else.

This is one of the problems that church has. Church has a really hard time being holy and not letting everybody else know about it. What I think if holiness comes with humility, I think people are, it's super attractive, super attractive to the world, even in a world that I would say shuns holiness. And so here is John coming into encounter with his holiness here. It says, holy, holy, holy. And then out in your notes, I said purity is a despised commodity today.

And I do see people being mocked for decisions they make, especially, you know, believers, with decisions they make in regard to personal purity. And, you know, the question to you is how important is personal purity? I think that what's interesting here is if you go up to verse, let me see, four. And it says, go to the middle part. It says, and seated on them were 24 elders, and they were dressed in white. And then what did they have on their heads?

They had crowns. Which is interesting that the symbol of purity is accompanied by a crown. And crown is authority. It's actually an authority. And it also speaks of wealth. I mean, crowns, we know what crowns speak of. It has this, you know, this sense that there is a, there is a, there is something royal. Now, we are a royal priesthood, the scripture says, and the scripture tends to tie in really well together if you study it.

But holiness, I believe, will give you more authority to walk in. Holiness will allow you to walk in a, in a deeper level of authority. Now, I'm not saying that you're wearing a crown, although, because, because Paul talks about, you know, we don't want to be, he wants to, you know, press on to win the, I think it's win, win the prize. But the Bible speaks a lot about crowns, and you can look up about crowns. And I'm not saying that you're going to have, you know, this is the crown that we get through purity is the same one that the elders wear.

That's why there's 24 of them, and they wear it. I don't know, and I'm sure it has eternal meaning. But what I do see is a connection between authority upon blessing, upon royalty, upon spirituality, with holiness. And where, and are you pursuing holiness? Is it something that you hunger for? Do you hunger for? And, look, holiness is really interesting. Holiness is like starting a diet. Okay, so I just did, I just finished like 12 or 14 days of like keto.

Miserable. Horrible. You've done it, all right? Caveman diet, I guess, or whatever. Felt miserable. Grumpy. Miserable. But, nonetheless, what I found is the first five days, and it's like a shock to the system. When you decide, I'm no more carbs, no more sugar. And I was puritanical with it. I was really, you know, I would only eat like cheese wrapped in bacon. No, I ate a bunch of the veggies as well. I did it really healthy.

I was super healthy. But one of the things I found, it's like a shock to the system. So is repentance. When you first start, it's like a shock to the system. It's like, and I just wanted cupcakes. Like, all I could think about is we're going to extraordinary desserts right now. Everybody in the car. Like, it was like a fire drill. Like, I had to get everybody out of the house. We were going there. And I want triple cheesecake.

Whatever. And then I found, after like five days, all of a sudden, I started feeling pretty good. Blood sugar, normal's out. You start mellowing out. I won't go too much into the keto anymore. But on the seventh or tenth day of it, and I'm deep into keto now, and my wife, she went to Costa Rica. We had date night. I said, I don't want to be too over the top. I'm going to just go eat normal. And so we went to this restaurant, and they had a pastrami sandwich, and then they had a salad.

I thought, I'm going to get the pastrami sandwich and the fries. And I, like, didn't want it. That was the weirdest thing. I was like, I really want the salad, but I don't want to be an ideological purist. Like, have some fun. I literally had to force myself to eat the pastrami sandwich. It was good. And then the fries. And then afterwards, they had a cupcake. Did you want a cupcake? I don't know why I did it. I'm like, yeah, I'll have the cupcake.

But I didn't want it. I definitely did not want it. Ate the cupcake. All the reason I'm telling you this, it's a lot like sin. You know, it is so hard to repent. But when you do, and it's hard, and it's just like getting sober. There's a point where alcohol no longer, you don't think about it anymore. You know, I'm to the point now where I just, I don't think about alcohol. I remember the first two weeks or month or six months, whatever it was.

But there comes a point where you start wanting things that are good for you. I have to say, when you get into worship, and when you repent, and you go to the throne of God boldly, and all of a sudden you give up some of those things that you think you can never give up, all of a sudden you will not want those things anymore. All of a sudden you want more of God. And what I found last week when I went and I began to worship, and God showed up, and the atmosphere, as I told you, I was worshiping after, you know, when I went home and God showed up, that the rest of the week I just wanted more of God.

Worship was in my head the whole day. You know, it was just on my lips. Maybe you've experienced that. But it was opening the door to that purity. Final thing I want to say is as we go down, crowns are given to the ones that are pure. Or this vision of purity of God's throne comes directly after John is told about the seven churches. Go to the verse 1. After this, whenever you see any kind of conjunctive phrase, you want to know what's on the other side of it.

And we have the connection here between the seven churches, what's happening on earth, and then you have what's happening in the first or second heaven, wherever John is, and then behind the door, which is at the throne of heaven. And you can get into the depths of where those different places are. But the point is, is that after this means he had just been shown what was happening in this church, it says, question, and I want to put this as questions because this is a question.

Is this passage meant to juxtapose the absolute holiness of God's heavenly culture versus the tepid holiness of the early churches? And is there a consequence for those who live in Christ but continue to live according to the flesh? Now this is a question that the church has been wrestling with for 2,000 years. Is there a consequence for people who believe in Christ for the salvation of their sins but don't choose to live according to the law of the spirit?

They live according to the flesh. And is it possible to deny Christ to a point where you lose your salvation? Now, this is a question I'm not going to give you a definitive answer on. But what I will say is because it's been a conversation that there is enough scripture on both sides of this argument, discussion. It's been an argument for 2,000 years. Enough scripture to have the discussion for 2,000 years. Now, I believe that the answer to this is solved with one simple issue.

Live in holiness. The question is live in holiness. But what we see, if you read through these letters to the churches, you're going to keep seeing things like continue to persevere because you don't want to lose your crown. There's a lot of scripture here. Now, there's other scriptures that will say, hey, once you're in his hand, you can never be lost, the whole thing. So if this makes you feel guilty right now, please go to Romans 8 and then just like binge on Romans 8.

Like Netflix binge read Romans 8 and you'll be fine, okay? So we can take it because scripture is incredibly balanced. Where I have landed is I want to be counted among those that are faithful. And I want to read this here at the end of this passage on Revelations 3, 7 through 11. And if you go down to verse 8, he's speaking to a church now. Now, there's seven major churches in the area, early church days, and he's speaking to churches.

And I believe he speaks to churches today. And I believe that he has an account of every single individual community like ours. He has an account. And I've been asking the Lord, what do you have for us? And what do you have against us? I feel like God's beginning to speak to me about those things. It says, I know your deeds. And Christ knows our deeds. See, I have placed before you what he shuts. No one, what he opens, excuse me.

These are the words, sorry, verse 8. I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. So that shows you that, hey, things are solid. Things are open. Once it's open, it's always open. I know that you have a little strength, and yet you have kept my word and not denied my name. I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan who claim to be Jews, but they are not, but are liars. I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.

That's going to be an interesting moment when everyone has to bow down and say, yeah, Christians believe in Christ. He was right. And Christ, you are Lord. Since you have, now this is interesting. Since, you can circle the word since. It's an important word. Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from an hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world and test the inhabitants of the earth.

I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have so that no one will take your crown. Now, this seems to point, and many do believe this, and I'm not going to tell you if it's what I think about it, but I will tell you what the different arguments are so you can go study because we're learning as a congregation. That there is a church, this seems to point, that there is a church, a group, not a church, there is a group of believers within the greater church who are all saved, all under the grace, but are trying to walk closer to the narrow road.

And for those, there is a special blessing for those, and there is the ability also, if people would say, if there was, you know, rapture and they're looking at this, that this group of people will be removed and the other Christians will be left behind is what one of the teachings is. That there is this pure church within the church. Now, you got to be careful with this. Why? Because this is how you start a cult. Right?

Okay? This is how you start a cult. You just try to find people and say, you and I, we're part of the church. Now, that one over there? No. That one is goat, right? We're the sheep. This is how you, so you have to be very careful. And our job is not to figure out who the pure ones are and who they aren't. But here's what the scripture and what you need to take very seriously. Do you feel like you are doing everything you can to walk the narrow path?

Does holiness matter to you? And are you trying to walk in the light of the revelation that God has shown you? I think it's so important. And if you go through, when he speaks in Revelations chapter 3, I'm landing the plane now. In Revelations chapter 3, Jesus talks a lot, and I said this earlier, I said I'd come back to it, talks a lot about sexual purity. He talks a lot about sexuality. It's a big deal. And he actually says in chapter 3 to one of the churches, it says, I know your deeds, and you have, I believe it says you have accepted the teachings of the synagogue of Satan.

And some of those teachings are about sexual purity. And you've begun to accept things that are not acceptable to me. I had somebody recently, they were talking to me, they said, how can you be so sure that, you know, we shouldn't, you know, we shouldn't have sex before marriage? How can you be so, so how can you be so sure about that? Well, I can be sure for a few reasons. One, I personally believe, and I was raised in a conservative tradition, that the Bible is very clear.

And I think you have to do a little bit of gymnastics to get around that point. But besides that, even if I wasn't using the Bible, I've seen the wreckage in my own personal life. And the wreckage in many other people's life, when people choose to have a multiplicity of relationships, sexual relationships, before marriage. Or what happens when couples, you know, have sex before marriage. Let me just say it. I'm going to say it straight.

Okay? Sex before marriage is a sin. Okay? Straight up. I'm going to just tell you, you don't have to agree with me. I'm going to tell you what I'm going to preach from this pulpit. It is a sin. And to walk outside of sex before marriage, before a covenant relationship, because the whole thing is based upon our covenant with God. We're not breaking that. To walk outside of that and try to rationalize it for another reason is to try to find a way around what the scripture says.

God has called us into saying, and the church doesn't want this. And I want to say this. For this church, I don't want, when it says I know your deeds and I know what I have against you, I don't want, with me leading it, the Holy Spirit to say, you allowed your church to accept things that were contrary to the scripture. We have to have purity. We have to have purity. And that's just one thing. The question is, is how pure do you want to be?

And do you want the authority that comes with it? So this is a very serious question. I'm not here to be people's parent, to take them behind the shed and slap them, but to say in regard to purity, how pure do you want to be? And do you want the blessing that comes with that purity? Here is your prescription for the week. Explore purity. Try it. Explore purity. If you're in a sexual relationship with your partner and you're both Christians, say, hey, let's stop.

Let's see what God can do. If you have an issue with pornography, if you have accepted certain things that the Bible says are unacceptable, even though you're not doing them, say, you know what? God, I want to look into that more. I want to reject things. Step into that. Step into purity and try to step into holiness. And I want to encourage you this week. Last week was the door. Step through the door of worship. This week, increase the amount of holiness in your life with humility and you will find a powerful elixir for life.

Amen? Let's stand if you would. If you extend your hands, I'm going to release you. Chris is going to play. If you need prayer, you can come up after the service. I want to bless you today. Lord Jesus. God, I just give you this church. I give you this group of people, God. We want to walk as a body and holy. And I bless you now with the courage to repent. And the fruit of righteousness that comes from following the spirit because true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth.

God, if there has been deception, I pray that they would see the truth of God's word. That the Holy Spirit would lead them and they would know as you gently whisper, God. That where calluses have been built, God, that they'd be broken away. And God, that you would bring strength and power and purity, God, and show us what it means that we can walk with that crown. And that you would hold nothing against us as a church, God.

That we can walk in holiness and want it more, God. We need to take holiness seriously, Lord God. And we want to be part of a remnant, Lord Jesus, that walks in your power and in your truth. I send them out now, God, to be an army of God's consolation and love to change this world. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. We love you. If you need prayer, happy Mother's Day. Have a great time out.

And we love you. And we will see you next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.