SEVEN LETTERS | Week 3 | Sermon

in 2010, there was an oil rig in the Gulf Of Mexico that had just finished up an exploratory well. And that's when things took a turn for the worst. They experienced what is called a blowout. And all the systems that were supposed to prevent this from being anything other than

something that just kinda happened sometimes, they all failed and ended up being one of the worst oil spills in history. 11 men lost their lives. All the rest of the crew on the rig had to be evac ed by helicopter out. And it was the largest oil spill to date in history.

And this this incident has become known as the Deepwater Horizon incident. They made a movie about it. It's incredible.

Check it out. But I was reading about this story, and, there was a massive investigation that went into what was the reason this happened. It is by far the worst oil spill in history. It has affected the marine life and the ecosystem in that area. Since it happened in 2010, they are still finding

that there are effects and aftermath that is happening and being affected in the waters there and in the environment there. And one of the things the report came out and said was that the well had an improper design and construction. The concrete used was a weaker set of concrete.

There were some corners cut in the kind of concrete they were using to seal the well. There was misinterpreting of the readings on equipment on the rig. So employees weren't trained to know what was happening and what the readings were coming off on the equipment. There were decisions made by the company responsible,

BP, British Petroleum, to focus on production rather than safety. They decided to neglect maintenance on key safety equipment, one of which being the blowout prevention system, which would have severed the well from the rig. And we would have just had a horrible oil spill, not

men losing their lives and not going home to their families. Now I read in one article, they summed it up in this. British Petroleum was guilty of gross negligence. They decided to put production over safety. They decided to not routine maintenance certain safety equipment,

which otherwise, if they would have done it, probably would not have happened. Now, most situations like this, you can read the whole story and you can look at the investigations and go, man, this could have been prevented. And this is one of those incidents that could have been prevented.

Now contrast with this with another story. There's a company called Alcoa. It's an aluminum production company.

It peaked in the industrial age. And in the industrial age, these companies had a certain amount of danger that was acceptable. There was a certain amount of risk that was acceptable within the production of aluminum. Now in 1987, Paul O'Neill became the CEO of Alcoa.

And his job was to turn the company around because it was plummeting financially and it was on track to become added to the list of companies that are no longer companies anymore. And he was supposed to turn it around.

And he gets in front of all the investors and all of Wall Street and he says, here's how I'm going to do it. We are going to focus on worker safety.

All the business investors and all the people from Wall Street are kind of mind blown. They think this guy lost his mind. The people who put him as CEO are thinking, what is going on?

But he said, I will focus on worker safety. And he doubled down. And over his thirteen year reign, he doubled down and kept saying, worker safety, worker safety, worker safety. We are gonna be a zero instant company. We will not accept the status quo that people just get hurt working in this industry.

And he slowly and steadily worked his way into, after the thirteen years, Alcoa became the safest company to work for, and they went from having a $3,000,000,000 market cap to a $27,000,000,000 market cap within

the industry. Not only did he turn around the company in terms of safety, he turned it around financially, but he only focused on worker safety. Now why do these two stories matter to you and me? Because in one story, we see an incredible tragedy that happened incrementally over time. It did not happen overnight.

The well did not explode and people lose their lives and an estimated 200,000,000 gallons of oil and gas get released into the Gulf Of Mexico on accident overnight. It happened incrementally over time. Alcoa did not become the safest organization to work for in this industry overnight. It happened incrementally.

In one story, it seems like utter defeat. For British Petroleum, what happened on Deepwater Horizon was a tragedy. What happened with Alcoa seems like a victory. Now for you and for me,

victory and defeat happen in steady increments, not dramatic leaps. In our faith journey, our walk with Christ grows or falls in steady increments, not dramatic leaps. My big idea for us is that victory and defeat happen in steady increments, not dramatic leaps.

We have to look at our innermost selves and who we are as followers of Jesus and as a community of followers of Jesus and recognize that our walk with Christ, we find victory in it through steady increments or the enemy takes home and defeats us in steady increments, not dramatic leaps.

I would love to pray for us, and we will dive into our scripture teaching text for tonight. Let's pray. Dear Jesus, thank you so much for who you are. Thank you that we get to be here. We get to hear your word. I pray for everybody in this room that you will prepare our hearts, prepare our ears for what you have to say through your word. We love you, and you're amazing. In your heavenly name,

amen. So we're in this series called seven letters.

Seven letters where we're looking at the seven churches that Jesus addresses in the book of Revelation. If you don't know where the book of Revelation is, you're gonna wanna turn there. It's at the very end of your bible. That's where we will be this evening. So get your bible out. Get your bible app out. I want the word of God in front of you. There is something powerful

about it. I will give you time to get there. Revelation chapter two. So we've been in this series and it's seven churches. You would think we would do a seven week series on this. If you were thinking that, you'd be wrong. We decided let's do six weeks, which means someone

lucked out with two churches, if you're doing the math. Guess who that was? Yours truly. So congratulations. We are going to go after two churches in the book of Revelation, the church of Pergamum and the church of Thyatira. Now these two churches actually have quite a bit of similarities. There are obviously differences,

but we are going to spend the bulk of our time looking at the church of Pergamum and taking a few glances over at the church of Thyatira for the sake of time. Because even though we have two churches, we don't have double the time. So I encourage you to read the letter to Thyatira

as we spend the bulk of our time in Pergamum. Revelation chapter two. Revelation chapter two. Again, I want to give you a chance to get there. There is nothing more wonderful than having the word of God in front of you, having the word of God speak to you and just

have it. So download the app, get the Bible app. We'll give you a Bible, whatever you need. We will make it happen. That is how adamant I am about having the word of God in front of you. Revelation chapter two.

As we get into the church of Pergamum, it's gonna follow the same theme that they've all followed. Daniel introduced it a few weeks ago. This is kind of the structure

of these letters to the churches. It starts with a greeting for the church, a title for the risen Christ, a praise for the church, a criticism of the church, a warning for the church, and a promise for the church. And we are gonna work our way through each one of those. Revelation chapter two starting in verse 12.

Revelation chapter two starting in verse 12. This is the letter to the church of Pergamum. Write this letter to the angel of the church in Pergamum. This is the message from the one with the sharp two edged sword. This is the beginning. This is the greeting and the title.

This is the title of the risen Christ. He uses this language, this descriptor of a two edged sword. Every church got a special title for Christ because it was going to do something in their mind and remind them of something.

And this particular church was under the rule and reign of the Roman pro council. These were the people who were persecuting them, who were killing them for their beliefs, who were not allowing them jobs or any kind of social status because they were Christians. They were under the oppressive hand of the Roman Empire.

And the Roman pro council, their insignia was a sword. And so what Jesus is saying is, I am the sword that is stronger and better, and I will wield it with more power and more authority than the sword of the Roman Empire. His encouragement starts with his title. He says, I am.

I'm more powerful and I will take care of you. You do not have to fear the Roman empire because I am the double edged sword. And I will I will come to you and I will work in you and I will do give you life and life to the full. And so that is kind of their title they get. They get this special announcement of Christ.

And in verse 13, it goes on. It says, this is the encouragement. This is the praise to the church. He says, 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. This is his encouragement. This is his praise of the church. He sees the church. He sees the persecution

that they are under. Something really interesting about Revelation. It's considered apocalyptic literature, so it's got like an eminence to it and an intensity to it. And Jesus does not shy away from that. He says, I see you living in Satan's city. That's intense language.

He says you are living in a city that is just pure evil. Everything around you is evil. Everything you are exposed to, the pressures of the culture is coming down on you, church, and I see it. And I'm proud of you for remaining loyal and faithful. Let that be an encouragement to you and to me when you feel like culture

and everything around you is just trying to push you away from following Jesus. Jesus praises and lifts up and honors those who remain loyal and faithful. The intensity continues and he goes on to say that there was this guy named Antipas and he

was martyred. But why was this guy mentioned? He was a hero of the faith. These people, the church of Pergamum looked up to this guy as someone who's like, man, this guy is following Jesus, and he's doing it really well, and I wanna do it like him. But he was murdered. He was murdered for his faith by the Roman empire.

You would think that would have been such a victory for the Roman empire to go. We got one of the guys that the church is just so impressed with. The hero of this church here on earth, we got him. But it only fueled the church.

It only gave them what they needed to continue to press on and to follow the ways of Jesus, and Jesus is praising them for it. That there are people in this church that amidst all of it have remained loyal and faithful. And then comes the complaint.

The complaint is where things take a turn, they change a little, and Jesus is about to show this church, here's where you're off. Here's where things have taken a turn within your church.

He says this. He says, but I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam and who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. 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 or I will come to you suddenly and fight against you fight against them with the sword of my mouth. This is the complaint against the church. The praise of the church is there's people in the church who have remained loyal. The complaint is that there are people

in the church, and the people who have remained loyal have begun to tolerate the people in the church who have brought in a false teaching. If you were to read the church of Thyatira, they have gone full blown to the other side.

The complaint against them is that the whole church is just believing the false teaching. We have this really cool moment where Jesus is with the church and he's like, Hey, I see the loyalty, but I see the disloyalty. And there's a tolerance that is happening that is wreaking havoc on his church. And so he's here

to make it right. And that was his complaint. And here's the difficulty with the Church of Pergamum. One commenter wrote that basically the Church of Pergamum had a number of people in it who basically believed, I can live in sin but profess the name of Christ. What a word for you and me today.

That there were people who believe they can live in sin but profess the name of Christ. That some things had been totally tricked up and some mental gymnastics had been done in order to get a type of belief system.

That there are people in the church of Pergamom who no longer believed that this was a sin, what they were doing, the sexual sin, the eating of the food that was dedicated to the Roman idols, all of this, they started to believe, Hey, God got this wrong, so we're okay and we can still profess the name of Jesus.

So I want to bring clarity. The complaint is not, oh, these people were tripping up and and sinning and they were like feeling bad about it. These were people in the church, influential people, leaders, teachers who were teaching a new way to follow Jesus.

And what we know from history is that there is no new way to follow Jesus. There is one way, and it is the way he says in his gospels to follow him. These were people who believed, had no longer have gotten to the point where they no longer believed it was sin. There was no remorse. There was no repentant spirit.

I bring that clarity so that we don't leave this room and go, man, I I still sin and I still mess up and I still get things wrong. The church of Pergamom,

they still got stuff wrong. The loyal ones, they got stuff wrong. Last week, Bill talked about Smyrna and they didn't even have a complaint, but it didn't mean they didn't sin. But when they did, they repented. Jesus is going after teaching in the church that is counter his way

that people were taking and saying it is his way. This is a dangerous place to be and it's a dangerous place because it starts to convince you and me that we can live certain ways in line with culture and with Jesus even when they conflict.

Because there are ways you can live in today's world and succeed by all measures of fame, money, wealth, whatever it is, but all at the cost of your witness and your testimony as a follower of Jesus. And this was the complaint with Pergamom. I wanna read you a quote from the book by CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.

If you've ever read this book, it's really interesting book. It's this weird take where there's this senior demon who is training a younger demon on the art of pulling people away from Christ and pushing them towards a life of sin.

And it's this real he CS Lewis is a wonderful theologian and honestly, just a really awesome guy to read what his writings are and understanding the church, but this quote is fascinating.

It says this. This is the senior demon talking. He says, you will say that these are very small sins and doubtless. Like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember,

the only thing that matters is the extent in which you separate the man from the enemy. In this context, the enemy being God. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the light and out into the nothing.

Murder is no better than cards if cards do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one. The gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turning, without milestones, without signposts. Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one. The safest road to being defeated

by the enemy and walking with Christ is the gradual one. Victory and defeat happen in steady increments, not dramatic leaps. Go all the way back to the book of Revelation, and we see that it was a gradual thinking that the serpent used to get Eve to think, maybe God didn't really mean what he said he said.

Maybe he didn't really mean if I eat this, I'll die. Maybe I won't actually die. It was steadily, incrementally a train of thought that took us to where we are today.

Now this is the church of Pergamon. What about you and me today? I do not think we can take a step back and say, oh, well, that was them. We're not like that now. The difficulty is there are still people who believe that you can live a life of sin and life with Jesus at the same time.

And what begins to happen is the church of Pergamom was saying, you know what? I can I can eat the food? God was wrong. That was old testament stuff. I can eat the food and be in the culture. I can go to the Roman guild so that I can still have a job. I can still,

you know, go do those things, but I can still come to church and it's all fine. And they just kept walking down that path.

And they kept going. They're like, you know what? It's fine. We can engage in the sexual sin because that's what culture is doing and I don't wanna lose my job. And if I lose my job, I can't be a witness to the people I work with. So I just I gotta do this so that I can keep going.

And we start making all the justifications. And the the church of Pergamum started justifying it all and they just kept going. They're like, you know what? It's fine. We can we can do the things the Roman culture's doing. We can go to the parties. We can drink the drinks. We can praise and hail Caesar.

But then on Sunday when we go to church, we'll praise and hail Jesus. And they just keep going. Okay.

Alright.

And before long, the church becomes split. The people in the church, their inner being of who they are, they keep trying to praise Jesus,

but they keep trying to hail Caesar and the Roman Empire to save their lives. But what they began to do is erode at their very ability to witness the gospel of Jesus Christ to the city that was dominated, to the city in Jesus' language that had Satan on the throne. And so what did Jesus say?

His first line in the next verse is to repent. And to repent means to turn around, to work your way back. And so what he's calling the church of Pergamom to do, the ones who have believed this new teaching and to the ones who have tolerated this new teaching, to repent and work their way

out of this life of sin and trying to profess Christ into life with Christ and Christ alone. Safer, more stable, more wonderful, less scary for me. This was what Jesus is calling the church of Pergamom to and this is what I believe we are called to today. Now the here's the thing. When it comes to

sexual sin, things like that, sin in general,

the spiritual fathers over the last couple millennium have coined a couple terms. The first term being sins of commission. This is sins just putting language to different kind of sin and how we can talk about it as followers of Jesus. This is kinda like active sinning. This is like, I know I'm doing something wrong.

This is I know God tells me to do this, but I'm doing this. Then there are sins of omission. This is more passive sin. This is more along along the lines of, you know, God might be calling me to go do something.

Maybe God's calling me to change jobs. Or maybe God's calling me to stop changing jobs because I change jobs every two weeks and I can never plant any roots. Or you've been somewhere so long that it's time for you to exit and go on to something else and you're like, no. I'm not gonna do it.

I like changing jobs because then I never actually get known. Or I like changing schools because then nobody ever gets to figure out my difficulties and my struggles. It's those kinds of things where you're like, okay, I know God's telling me to do something, but I'm not doing it.

And the sins of commission, those are the ones that are more obvious. These are the ones where a follower of Jesus and you're dating someone and you guys are like in love and you know you're getting married but you're sleeping together. You know you're doing it wrong.

You know that's not what the Bible has called you to do. You know that's not what the word of God points you to.

Sins of omission start to come in when you're like, man, I know that I'm supposed to love people, care for people, honor them the way Jesus does. But yet there's that one person that in the back of your mind, you just and man, you hate them. You don't like them.

And you're like, it's fine because they're kind of like a Christian too, but they're not acting like a Christian. So you justify everything in your head. You're like, I can do that because they do that. I can do that because they're out there leading people away from Jesus so I can hate them.

It's that kind of stuff that can begin to seep into the church. And if we're not careful, it will erode at our ability to witness as a collective whole.

The church in acts months ago, we were in a church in a series about acts and Bill was talking about how the church grew. The church grew in acts because of the way they lived. The way they acted. It was not necessarily the way their preachers preached on Sunday.

It was the way they lived. It was the way the community came together and helped each other and loved each other and welcomed people in and encouraged them to become more holy, to step into the way Jesus has called them to do. There are entire churches that have gone through the mental gymnastics

of combing through the pages of scripture and trying to justify that there is a a kind of sexuality that is fluid and that can go either way. And I bring that up now because I just want to lay it out there for us. The bible has been clear from the very beginning

that there is man and there is woman and that in the covenant of marriage, they are to be one. And that is where sexual intimacy can be enjoyed. I bring that up particularly because I believe it is one of the primary teachings within the church that is starting to get blurred.

Now let me clarify, I am not here to say that if there is anybody in this room who is struggling and wrestling through their own sexuality that this is not a place where you can try to figure that out because there are wonderful people here who will love you and care for you dearly and walk you through that journey and that process.

But what I do know is that my hope and prayer is that we would be a church that never wavers from this.

In verse 17, right after verse 16 where he says, repent of your sin or I will I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth. He says, anyone with ears to hear must listen to the spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches.

To everyone who is victorious, I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven, and I will give to each one a white stone. And on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it. This is the promise.

This is the promise for the church. This is the promise for you and for me that should we remain faithful. Should we look at one another and look at the church as a whole and this community, Rock Point Church, and say, is anything getting in here that shouldn't be?

God, will you use your word to expose where we might be letting things in, both as individuals,

but also corporately. In our home groups, will we be ready to go after that this would not be a group of gossip in the name of venting, but it would be a a group that is designed to push and encourage us to become more like Christ.

I love that we offer home groups here, and I think every single one of us should be a part of it because I believe that it is in the context of community that the Holy Spirit uses one another to shape us and form us. And the reality is every single one of us is being shaped and formed into something by something.

In the language of the New Testament, we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind to become like Christ. And if we are not sharpening one another, we are not encouraging one another, we are not calling out one another in love and grace and truth, then what we're actually doing

is allowing the enemy to slowly erode incrementally our variability to witness the gospel of Jesus as a church, as a body, as individuals.

This stuff hits kinda home for me because when I was in high school, in my later years, I went to a Christian high school. And in my later years, I started I grew up going to church, loved going to church.

I went to Christian middle school, then I went to a Christian high school. So like the the Christian, everything was just ingrained in me. My dad was a pastor. We were always at church.

Funny stories I'd know, I never wanted to be a pastor. I told my parents I wouldn't do that. I'd go be an engineer and make money and not live poor. So going strong.

But when I was a junior, I had my license. I had freedom. My parents trusted me.

And I started to get involved with the group of people that I really wanted to be friends with. The problem was this group of people, they drank, they smoked, they went to parties, they did things that were obviously not in the name of Jesus and the way we should be living our lives as followers of Jesus. But I was a high school knucklehead

and that is what I began to do. And so my life began to look like this.

At first, it was like easy. I was like, man, I can lie to my parents. I can lie to my other friends and I can do that and it's totally fine. And I can go to church on Sunday. I can go to chapel at church and but I can go to the party and I can drink. And I started to justify certain things in my head.

I started to go, you know what? This isn't so bad because you know what I don't do? I don't drink and drive. Simple justification. Oh, I'm fine. As long as I never get behind the wheel of a car, I can drink. It's okay. It's not a sin because I'm not putting other people in danger. It's okay.

And so I just started taking those steps. I was like, you know what? It's fine. As long as I only like make out with people and never do anything else, it's fine. Because you know people kiss all the time. It's totally fine.

And so I just kept working my way into my college years. One of the primary influences of my decision to go to the University of Arizona, which they destroyed ASU today. Sorry.

I I I graduated from ASU. It's fine. But I went to U of A. And one of my driving influences was I was just far enough away to be away from everything that was happening here up in the valley where I grew up. And I could go and be involved in one of the more well known party schools in Arizona.

And so I started getting engaged in that. But I became a part of a Christian community as well. And I wanted to be a part of a fraternity. And what I began to feel is this. Oh, gosh. The

very inner being of who I was became uneasy. And I started to wrestle with these thoughts of, man, I gotta pick. And this is what the enemy does, steadily increments us away from Jesus.

Okay.

That's a scary place to be. And by the grace of God, I decided, you know what? I'm gonna go all in on my faith. But I had to repent. I had to confess. I had to tell my parents about all the years of lying to them. I had to seek forgiveness from my friends who I had neglected and put off to the side for the sake

of other things. And eventually make my way over to, you know what, I am not going to engage in a life that is not honoring to God. And slowly but steady with some, you know, slips along the way, I've watched my life change. And that is what Jesus wants to do in you and me, but he's calling us to repent.

And here's the beauty of the scriptures. Between community and the holy word,

he will show you where you're off as an individual, as a community who's dedicated to following the pages of scripture of what Jesus has for you and for me because his promise is at Whitestone, oftentimes in that culture, this would signify an invitation, something for you to receive and then be welcomed in.

And it has your name on it that only you and the giver knows. Jesus himself, he says I wanna give you life. In the language of John, life and life abundantly. That's his offer. Should we choose to repent and turn back to him? Let's bow our heads and pray. Dear Jesus, thank you so much for this church.

Jesus, I I I just I pray so desperately that we would be a church

that is so focused on your word and what you have for us that we read your your word, the holy scriptures in such a way that we allow it to pierce our souls, to show us where we might be off in our thinking and our beliefs so that we do not lead anybody else. Jesus,

I don't know if there's any false teaching in this church. There might be. And I pray that you get rid of it. I pray that you get rid of it in our hearts and our souls that we will choose holiness and a following of you. You have called us to take up our cross and follow you.

You never said it would be easy, but you said it'd be worth it. So I pray for this this room. Do a mighty work. Thank you for this church. In your heavenly name, amen. Amen. You guys are wonderful.

Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.