guys all right I was we did it was great thank you Kevin good job how many of you have seen the wicked movie called wicked the play okay a lot of you okay those of you didn’t I’m going to encourage you don’t be turned off by the title that has nothing to do with the the movie it’s actually a great movie it’s a prequel to The Wizard of Oz and so it’s kind of the Orin story of the characters in that movie but there’s a theme

running through that and the primary theme of that is you don’t judge people by their outward appearances all the way through because those people in the movie who had the highest character qualities were those that had perhaps the least attractive exteriors but there’s some music in there and it was a lot of fun and one of them that I really liked is called dancing through life it’s a parody and I’m not going to sing it I could and I’m not going to do the stomp dance

that was with it but I could but I am going to recite it there’s some neat things in here that’s fun so just relax and enjoy this the trouble with schools is they always try to teach the wrong lessons believe me I’ve been kicked out enough of them to know they want you to become less callow less shallow but I say why invite stress in stop studying strife and learn to live the unexamined life dancing through life skimming the surface gliding where Turf is smooth life’s

more painless for the brainless why think too hard when it’s so soothing dancing through life no need to tough it when you can Slough it off as I do nothing matters but knowing nothing matters it’s just life so keep dancing through dancing through life swaying and sweeping and always keeping cool life is fress when you’re thoughtless those who don’t try never look foolish dancing through life mindless and careless make sure you’re wear less trouble is Rife woses are fleeting blows are glancing when you’re dancing through

life now that song’s a parody about living an unexamined life not caring what you’re doing and so forth and what’s interesting about that is in the movie It’s intentional because the singer who sings it is actually very intelligent and he knows what he’s doing but he chooses to live this shallow callow life if you don’t try you won’t be hurt if you don’t look too close you won’t be embarrassed that sort of thing okay we’ve been walking through the Commandments of Jesus and today we’re going

to look at the first one that he is recorded of giving it’s not the first and the greatest we talked about that nor was it the second we talked about that this is the first one we have recorded and it’s found in Luke 4 and7 and it’s found in Matthew 4:12 where he where he’s simply repeating the message of John the Baptist and he says this or the Matthew says this now when Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody he withdrew into Galilee and

leaving Nazareth he came and settled in Capernaum which is by the sea in the region of zebulun and naal and they quote some verses there for prophetic purposes from that time Jesus began to preach and say repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand so Jesus’s First Command is to repent okay which means to turn and change and at hand means it’s right here it’s right near you it’s all around you not that it’s coming but that it is is already here and it is

close Okay so change your ways because God is near Kingdom of Heaven is near now I want to thank Ed he doesn’t know this is coming but Ed writes these doctrinal papers positional papers he must just be getting it out of his system because he’s got something to say and he says stuff very well and Ed gave me one of those on repentance and we discussed that after my sermon on salvation and where that repentance fits into that salvation Act of God and our receiving of

that so Ed I used a lot of your stuff here this morning so thank you very much he’s very helpful to me on that now we know what repentance means it’s an abandonment of the former things that we’re doing and an Embrace of what’s new and in the Salvation context it’s turning from a life unaware of God and embracing his new life where we regenerated and empowered by him a life in which he is Central okay now all of Jesus’s usage of the word repent that

we have recorded in the gospels is in this context the Contex context of initial salvation turning from not being God’s person to being a person regenerated by God as you know he said in Luke 5 that he did not come to call the righteous but Sinners to repentance and that was his purpose so every reference we have to the word repent in the gospels is him saying change your life God’s here now elsewhere in the New Testament we have the word repentance used a lot in

the Epistles and it’s primarily used in that exact same context in nearly all references there’s a couple in the Epistles where it’s referring to a Believer to turn from what whatever sin they’ fallen into back into obedience or turning from apostasy of no longer believing back to a life of belief in Christ there’s a couple of those okay and so repentance is is primarily in the scriptures that tone of Salvation And Turning from sin back to righteousness I’m going to quote Ed here because it’s good

stuff repentance and saving Faith are like two sides of a coin saving faith is impossible without also changing your mind about your sin and about who Jesus is and what he has done that change in a person’s core beliefs or perspective is repentance which will result in changed actions repentance accompanies God’s Gift of saving Faith repentance is not a work or prerequisite for God to save but rather a part of a person’s response to God’s gift of faith and perhaps a result of saving Faith so

when you come to Christ he changes you regenerates you and repentance from how we lived before to a new life centered around him is what we can expect of people whose salvation is real okay so here we are here you are a church full of people who have made that decision in your life already most of you have done that okay so that context for repentance if I were to preach that today would apply to very few of you likewise the idea of returning from whatever

sin we’re living in away from God’s guidance back to a life of obedience is probably not the most applicable to you here all either perhaps some but perhaps not most now like many of you I’ve sat through many a sermon on repentance where the preacher tried to force fit an application onto me or Us in the church about repentance with the idea that perhaps I’m not living the life I should be living I’m not as much of a Christian as I should be or I’m not

as fervent as I need to be and the idea is that they’re trying to get me to feel somewhat inadequate Retreats can do this sometimes and they want me to walk the aisle and pray some prayer of rededication or whatever and and maybe there’s value in that but that’s not what repent repentance is all about repentance is about making a U-turn in your life not about shifting gears from third to fourth or from second to third it’s a U-turn not a stepping on of the accelerator

to going from being a Believer to being a hey believer okay I wake you up anyway so sometimes I get annoyed at sermons on repentance I’m not going to be one of those annoying sermon givers this morning I want to find something that’s applicable to us in the idea of repentance so where do we go ah we go to Revelation because there are some usages of the word repentance in Revelation that’s applicable to churches and has some application for us Revelation chapters 2 and 3 and

while studying this something caught my attention that I want to share this morning now most of you have heard sermons on these passages and those I’ve heard try to do what I just talked about before that that try to get me to feel like I’m not living up to God’s standards and maybe my love is cooled off I’ve lost that first love or I’m lukewarm or something and and get me to repent from that there’s there’s legitimacy there but I noticed something that I want to

share with you cue the slide pull out your hand out you can’t read that can you that’s why you have a handout that’s for me to point to okay so what I’ve done as I’ve taken Revelation chapters 2 and three and I’ve outlined them there for you I want you to look at the columns the up and down lists there on the left hand column you’ll see the verses on the right next column over column number two you’ll see the churches to which those verses refer

and then you have two more columns at the top they are listed positive and negative because for each of these churches God says something for each of them he has a positive I know you that you’re doing this well and I approve every all seven of those churches and then there’s a negative column and for seven of those church or excuse me for five of those churches he goes but I have this against you and you list some things okay now for two of those churches

he doesn’t have negatives those are the ones that I’ve highlighted there in lowlighted in gray that you can see there so you can look through those and see and then on the right hand column is what he says to do to fix that or to keep doing what you’re doing so that’s Romans excuse me Revelation chapters 2 and three in a nutshell now I’m looking through those in preparation for this sermon and and some things stand out and that’s what I want you to note you

can group the negatives under two categories for one there’s a lost or Waning fervor interest or Focus okay Ephesus the first one and Le oia the first one and the last one a loss of fervor maybe there’s something significance in the first and the last I didn’t think about that that you can think about that the ones in the middle that aren’t gray out have a different problem for them they were tolerating or were drawn into falsehoods that led their Church into Disobedience and into division

okay two things they either there was a lost or a waning Faith or fervor or they were led into falsehood either following it themselves or tolerating those in the church that did but there’s the third that all five of them had and that was that they were blind to their condition they did not know they were doing something displeasing to God life’s more painless for the brainless why think too hard when it’s so soothing dancing through life mindless and careless just floating along so how does

a church or a Believer end up in those conditions that they’re unaware that they’re doing something that God perhaps is R disapproving of how do they end up there it’s not intentional but they end up in a spot where God is commanding them to make that uturn to repent how do you end up there my observation is that it’s not intentional none of us decides to say you know what I’m just going to Slough off now and if I fall in Disobedience then so be it

how many of you have made that decision intentionally none of you okay how many I saw one hand okay which is of course no laughing matter but nonetheless how many of you have found yourself in that situation let me see your hands see your hands dancing through life let me see your hands raise them up okay otherwise you’d be perfect right and how many of you are perfect I saw two hands all right life is more painless for the brainless okay we don’t end up there

by choice we end up there by drifting we drift we’re not paying attention and we end up there now often times we end up there we look around and go how in the world did I get here well we’re going to talk about how in the world you got there okay drifting I looked it up in the dictionary why do you do that just so I don’t screw up it’s to move slowly especially as a result of outside forces with no control over direction or it’s

a slow deviation from a course intended okay we can drift along without power or we can have power but be just slightly off course so I get the picture of the sailboat on the ocean and it’s driven by currents and it’s driven by winds and if the Sails are up and I am making use of the power that’s there I can set my course and so forth but if the Sails are furled or if my motor is turned off or I’ve let the fuel tank run

dry that I’m at the mercy of the Winds and the currents and they will take me where they will powerless now I equate that with Ephesus and leoa they were powerless they were just drifting they ended where they were because they weren’t tapping into the power that was available that they had or you are applying power but your compass is set wrongly now those of you know about triangles you can start out and have that compass be wrong just a little bit but after a while

your intended course may be this way but you’re winding up way over here and the longer the time that goes the further off course you are I was a a boy sprout in junior high I was in the sea Scouts and we had this 40 foot converted fireboat in Newport Bay and we would take that out on the ocean Southern California go to Catalina and have all kinds of fun stuff out there and and I would get sick as the dogs being seasick I didn’t like

that but I sure had fun going and being on that boat anyway so we have to stand watch once in a while and you’re there with the wheel and you’re piloting the ship and as a junior high school kid that’s pretty cool stuff so we were doing that so my shift was at like midnight to 3 or some ungodly hour and you can’t see much at night you can see stars and you can see what’s lit in the Wheelhouse that you’re sitting in and my task

was to sit there and look at the compass and keep the boat on course and my challenge was doing that without getting seasick so if you’re sitting there looking for at something really close and your body’s moving around you can’t see anything else that’s the perfect formula for getting seasick if you ever want to try that so I’m doing this and I thought I can’t do this so I thought I’ll set the course and then I’ll find a star okay I find a star it sounds

good right sounds wise to a fool it sounds wise but how many stars stay stable in the nighttime one the North Star everything else has the appearance of rotating around it so if you set your course by a star over course anyway that’s what happens if your course is off over the course of time you’re going to drift if your compass isn’t set properly okay and that’s how we drift off course both can be willful or they can be by ignorance intentional or unintentional if powerless

you’ve either turned your boat motor off or you have furled the sails now for Christians that’s probably intentional or unintentional but you’re not tapping into the power available spiritual power for us is like the wind in one sense not in another but it’s it’s not like the wind it’s like the air it’s like the the air you breathe it is all around you it is ever present so if your Sails are furled it’s your own fault that they’re furled because there’s always power available to you

all you have to do is tap into it if your motor’s turned off you’ve either neglected accidentally the keep the fuel flowing or you’ve switched it off intentionally for the churches in Revelation EV Ephesus and leoda had their sails furled or their motor was turned off pergamum thyra and Sardis their Compass was off or they were on autopilot and their Auto was piloting them poorly So today we’re going to focus on those vertical columns most times when I hear this passage preached they preach across the

RADS this church did this and this church did this but I want us just to look at the vertical the positives and the negatives on that Kevin you can kill it now you got it in your hands but more importantly whether they turned them off intentionally at the beginning or they turned them off or they were sales were furled in accidentally or or how have they ended up drifting these churches were unaware of their condition they were blind to their problem and they were blind to

the need to fix it in none of those churches do I see an open eyed intentional powerlessness or improper Compass set rather of blindness and unawareness how do they end up there how do you end up well for loss of ferver often times we can be numb from a constant flow of the same kind of activity in a church or in a Christian Life or we can grow fatigued a lot of us here have white hair some of us have no hair but all of that

is a sign is is a sign of of advanced age we’ve grown up a lot of us have grown up in the church and we’ve done these things how many of you have set through sermons how many of you sat through a lot and they can get tiresome can’t they say yes all right Daniel says no over and over and over again doing the same things the thing about us is that we do these things over and over and over again and we expect a different

result because that’s what God gives us but that would tend to dull one fatigue numbness we end up there primarily by not living at the bottom of the diagram that we’ve looked at before where we the bottom the base that supports our Christian Life is the time we spend with God that’s where our energy comes from that’s when we furl our sails by spending that time with him that’s when our boat motor is fully functional and fully hooked up to a very full fuel tank is

when you’re spending that time with him because that stuff is new Every Morning Lamentations 3:22 and 23 the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases his Mercy’s never come to an end I love this they are new every morning great is your faithfulness God’s empowering of us is available to us as soon as we wake up in the morning and touch base and plug into him now for being drawn into falsehoods how do they end up there well this is a biggie because since Adam and

Eve we’ve been surrounded by falsehoods to fall into I’ve been studying falsehoods recently and it’s amazing how historically the same pattern that the serpent used with Eve is applied to humans over the over the years wherever there is power or wealth to be taken from us there are those in the world who will apply us with falsehoods to get it open your eyes to this wherever there is a handhold for your personal downfall the enemy will ply us with falsehoods to hold it weaken it and

drag us down wherever there is a love lust of the flesh our own brains will massage falsehoods and our own minds to find a way to make those acceptable to us we are our own worst enemies in that scenario the World the Flesh our own mind and the devil they will find a way to take the falsehoods that are that are surrounding us every single day and find a way to make them acceptable to us and how does this work we become vulnerable to those falsehoods

whenever they align with personal desires that we have personal lusts of the flesh for example whenever they align with the desires of our sinful nature we become vulnerable to those falsehoods Paul writes in Paul doesn’t write John writes 1 John 2:15 to16 do not love the world nor the things in the world if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in him for all that’s in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of

life is not from the father but as from the world now these churches that you see that were compromised were following the nicians okay you’ll see that in the column there now those folks taught a doctrine of compromise God’s gracious and forgiveness of us was an excuse to be careless with our choices with our actions and so they lived with one foot in the world and one foot outside the world and for them it involved two things it involved meat sacrifice to idols and it involved

sexual immorality and those happen to be things that the culture in Rome was engaged in sexual immorality was tied to some religious services that they had and the meat that was there were also tied with sacrifices to their gods and their idols and so good things to eat and good things to experience and if they didn’t do things they’ be set apart and ostracized and the community recognized it’s different and so they would compromise and find a way those both of those things are pleasurable and

good so there must be a way and they found ways to rationalize that it was okay and they did it and some of the churches were in it hhog and some were there and God was judging him for two things number one you’re engaged in that no number two you tolerate those who are and that’s also a no okay those two things by the way happen to be those very things that the Council of Jerusalem in the middle of Acts said no don’t do those things

they were setting them apart in their culture situation but they found a way to rationalize it and these Church rationalized it and they drifted into this experience and God was judging them for it the challenge we have with these falsehoods that surround us is that they are cleverly disguised they’re deceitfully presented and they’re enticing wide openen eyes we should have to this cleverly disguised deceitfully presented and enti ing think of the serpent with Eve that’s what he did so very skillfully so if we feel drawn

recognize that our spiritual Spidey senses may be off okay if you feel that drawing know that perhaps our feet aren’t planted know that our sail may be not fully up the mass know that our boat motor may not be attached to the fuel line fairly effectively if you see someone or if you’re following someone or honoring someone whose life is characterized by their ego by their sexual behaviors or by their wealth know that they are compromised that was the problem with the church in leoa they

didn’t recognize the compromise they fell into it someone living by the flesh by their ego by their wealth okay holding those things up for honor God was judging them for tolerating that sort of stuff anyway it’s critical that we recognize our tendency to drift it’s critical that we recognize our mind’s own ability to rationalize it’s critical that we recognize our ability to be enticed by things cleverly enticed by things because we can easily end up in a condition like those five churches those three especially the

challenge is we oftentimes think we’re alive but we’re not we think we know something but we don’t look at your chart you’ll see those listed there you think you’re alive but you’re not you think you know these things but you really don’t God’s calling them account for things they believe that just ain’t so about themselves God’s command in Revelation is to wake up to remember to repent and return that’s the last the far right column is the remedy wake up remember repent and return now in

Ed’s paper another good one here he says both in Salvation and in our ongoing lives the need for repentance is a continual foundational part of living a transformed life I’m going to read that again both in Salvation and in our ongoing lives the need for repentance is a continual foundational part of a trans of living a transformed life so that need for repentance is a daily thing for us it’s not something to say it Happ happened at Salvation I’m not living in overt sin I don’t

need to repent but I don’t know about you but I wasn’t perfect yesterday and so there’s something for which I need to repent okay so that’s our Command and so I want us to think about repenting from perhaps that one Insidious thing that lands Us in these conditions that singular behavior that puts us at risk of continuing the the drift and that thing is living an unexamined life dancing through life skimming the surface gliding where Turf is smooth choosing the easy way we have to repent

from living an unexamined life and embrace the transformed life continually why because we are continually drawn down why because we’re continually surrounded by falsehoods why we’re continually surrounded by people the enemy and our own minds who are looking for ways to say this is okay now the idea of the unexamined life is most famously attributed to the philosopher socres he believed that a life without introspection self-reflection and critical thinking was not truly worth living now he happens to agree with God on this 2 Corinthians 13:5

where Paul writes examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith test yourselves do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you so we are regularly to assess our spiritual condition now what this regularly mean I would think Moment by moment would qualify that’s pretty regular I think that’s what we should be doing but let’s look at an unexamined life how do we know if we’re there or not this is what it looks like for someone living an unexamined life they’re living on autopilot

don’t trust your autopilot don’t follow your group’s Norms in thinking believing speaking or behaving without question without evaluation without prayer Romans 12:2 do not be conformed to this world but be transformed that’s the command so don’t live on autopilot an unexamined life is one that lacks selfawareness be fully aware of your motivations what is my brain leading me to today how many of you think like that what’s my brain doing what’s my brain telling me be aware this is called some it call some people call

this emot Intelligence being aware of what your brain and your body are leading you to do know the wise know the wherefores of that don’t be afraid of that Matthew 7 Jesus said why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye we should notice the logs in our own eye because we all have them okay find out what they are look at them look for them they’re not the floaters okay but they’re logs in

your own eyes look for those things an unexamined life has a fear of introspection a fear of looking for at themselves a fear of looking for those logs don’t avoid those deep thoughts that you have about yourself simply because that’s ugly and I don’t like it okay look at yourself all that you are don’t fear it Psalm 13923 many of you have this memorized search me oh God and know my heart try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any wicked way

in me and Lead Me in the way Everlasting that is the spirit we should have look at ourselves ask God to look at us and reveal to us Lord what what sin that positive column what’s in that negative column for me don’t be afraid of introspection an unexamined life is one that lives in a bubble what does it mean to live in a bubble oh boy living in a bubble is where we surround ourselves with people who think and say things just like we do always

exclusively in that bubble we’re afraid to step out of it because oh controversy or it violates what I think is true or right okay how many of you have ever grown a plant under a glass jar kind of fills the space and isn’t free to grow it’s stunted how many have grown a plant with inadequate light grows tall and spindly and is weak and falls over as soon as it’s loses whatever support it has in Proverbs 1815 the Discerning heart seeks knowledge but the mouth of

fools feeds on Folly 1 Thessalonians 5:21 test everything hold to the good test everything well the challenge with that is you have to be exposed to everything you expose yourself only to that which is comfortable routine support of me then you’re never going to grow outside of the jar you’re under outside of the bubble that you are in I spent a lot of time these past couple of weeks because it’s been some political turmoil out there and and I watch both MSNBC and Fox News okay

you want to see my scars it’s an interesting study it really is because both are on the the extremes imagine this our current Administration has put plate of something before us to eat MSNBC says that’s roadkill skunk full of worms and maggots Fox News say says that’s tenderloin and lobster okay and both of those news Services if that’s where you spend your time are going to keep you in those bubbles okay now just eight weeks ago those messages were reversed okay that needs to tell you

something exaggerations and falsehoods on both sides if I just stuck with the MSNBC side I’d be full of outrage and fear and frustration and if I was on the Fox News side right now I’d be full of mocking this is the words I’ve heard recently and celebration mocking of the other side in Celebration and I’d be living living in that now it’s okay to go there and visit those but if you live there you’re in a bubble and they are not serving you well there are

new sources in the middle that say oh let’s look what’s on the plate here are the actions proposed here are the laws being tested here’s the actions that could result factual laying out of what’s going on but if you live over here here they’re going to have tell you how to think and feel if you live over here they’re going to tell you how to live and think and feel I don’t want someone to tell me how I need to feel just give me the facts

thank you very much get me out of the bubble and let me test everything so I can hold what’s good give me the information to do it my mother lived in one of those bubbles last couple years of her life and I will will forever resent that news source that separated me from her because of that bubble because she would raise these unreasonable fears and I would say wait a minute here’s how our political system works does your information Source not teach you how the system

works that this person really can’t do what they’re saying it’s going to do do you not understand they’re making claims that are not true it was a constant source of tension between us until she died it’s frustrating to me because she was in those bubbles an unexamined life lives in a bubble for whatever reason what I’m saying to you is get out of those bubbles visit them once in a while go for facts you can test don’t let someone else tell you how to think ABC

remember what that stands for ABC already been chewed okay give me the material don’t chew it and deliver it to me don’t chew it and deliver it to me give me the material let me chew it for myself let me test it by the scriptures let me test it by conversation with my friends let me test with people who really think these things through rather than just embracing what someone tells me to think about them okay anyway bubbles Soap Box off Soap Box okay people who

live unexamined lives also focus on external validations oh boy discern in yourself whether you are unknowingly subconsciously if something’s triggering you in the back of your mind to seek happiness and fulfillment from external sources like social media material POS possessions the approval of other people because that is really Insidious I just retired my last working day was Friday yeah yeah and I used to be afraid of going to sleep at at night because I I just have to wake up and go do that again I

so if I can just stay up longer I can avoid and I kind of felt that on Saturday night last night and I thought I don’t have to feel that anymore it was good but the last week of my work couple weeks of my work I got a lot of comments we’re going to miss you what’s going to happen when you’re gone we really appreciate all these strokes and they feel so good they feel so good I’m reminded of a of an Old Timer when I

was first beginning my career and I was moving from one job to another place another job and I was getting some of that stuff and he said let me tell you how long it will be how long it will be that they will miss you and he took his coffee cup and he put his finger in it and he pulled it out and he said see that hole and I’ve always remembered that and I’ve watched people leave and truly that is how long they miss you

when you leave your job so it feels good to get validation from others but if you live for that if you want that if you seek that unconsciously and it is unconscious you’ll look for it you’ll want it it’s a trap Galatians 1:10 Paul writes am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God or am I trying to please people if I were still trying to please people I would not be a servant of Christ it’s okay to please people but

don’t make that your goal it’s okay to be accepted and to be honored and loved and wanted but that’s not your goal okay that should be a byproduct of you serving Christ and doing the things that he commands you to do that should always come automatically so but don’t ever seek it and don’t feel bad if it doesn’t come to you a person living an unexamined life is lacking in personal growth we should be intentionally and actively learning and growing from knowledge that we seek from

wisdom that we seek from experiences that we are thrust into and we should make changes and develop new skills in our life Peter wrote second Peter 1 15 and 7 now for this very reason also applying all diligence in your faith Supply moral excellence and your moral Excellence Supply knowledge in your knowledge self-control in your self-control perseverance in your perseverance godliness and in your godliness brotherly kindness in your brotherly kindness love growing through those stages in life and relationships growing personal growth so how do we

start what do we do from here I want you to embrace one simple application to live an examined life one and it’s easy and you all can do it and they know that you all have the time to do it because there is one time in the day that every single one of us have when we are alone with our thoughts it’s not the bathroom okay but there’s there’s one time of the day when we are alone with our thoughts and it’s quiet and it’s silent

and it’s dark it’s just before you go to sleep because you lay down you turn your light out put the book aside or whatever you’re doing you and it’s just you and sleep that’s coming and guess who else God is there we all have this time it may only be one minute it may only be 30 seconds but here’s what I want you to embrace examine your life that day there’s two columns there’s a positive and a negative Embrace those two columns and ask

Transcript machine-generated from the sermon audio, so it may contain errors. 6,478 words.