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The sixth sermon in a series on The Seven Churches preached on 07-29-10 by Craig Tackett at Rhythm. Rhythm is the collegiate/young adult worship experience in the Roanoke Valley.
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Glad to be back together, we dove into the letter to the Church at Sardis last night. The church is also known as the dead church because of a reference to having a living name with no life. Seems to be a growing trend today and instead of becoming aware of the situation as Christians, we grow secure in the numbers of dead churches or Christians and since there’s a lot of people doing it, it no longer seems to be an issue.
You see God on many occasions designates Himself as the One who operates the church through its leaders by the power of the Holy Spirit. What we find with the Church at Sardis is that they were moving because God acknowledges their actions, but they were doing so without the Holy Spirit. The once powerful and flourishing church had grown secure and began to allow sin to infiltrate the church first by tolerating it and eventually by embracing it. An interesting correlation between the city of Sardis and the church is that twice the city was conquered and both times because the people had become so secure that they left the town unguarded forsaking the possibility of an enemy attack.
As a group of believers today, we have grown into a comfortability of our religious routines and our weekly meetings and forget that the enemy continues to seek to destroy us. So the call to the church is this…
•Be watchful
•Strengthen the things that are left.
•Remember the salvation given to us.
•Hold fast to sound doctrine
•Repent
We all fall and we all struggle with things but God says that those who “have not defiled their garments” will “walk with [Him] in white; for they are worthy”. As long as we fervently pray and seek God’s righteousness acknowledging our shortcomings, then God will continue to bless His people. My prayer for us this week is that as a diverse group of collegiates from different backgrounds, we would unite around the truth and salvation that comes in Jesus Christ alone, that it might overwhelm us into action for the glory of the only One worthy.
Blessings,
Brandon
Due to VBS at Lakeside Baptist, Rhythm will not be meeting on 7/22/10. Instead we have once again rented out Lee Hi Lanes and will be hanging out from 9pm-12pm. The cost will be $5 and will include unlimited bowling and shoe rental.
Directions from Lakeside
•Exit left out of the Lakeside parking lot and go to the light.
•Take a left onto 419
•Continue to the intersection of 419 and Apperson Dr. and take a left.
•Lee Hi Lanes will be on your right just past the Salem Valley 8 across from Thunder Valley.
Hope to see you there!
Rhythm is the Roanoke Valley’s gathering of collegiates and young adults. We meet at Lakeside Baptist Church in Salem, VA every Thursday at 8pm. Come and join us! :)
A standalone sermon preached on 07-15-10 by Tom Maxwell at Rhythm. Rhythm is the collegiate/young adult worship experience in the Roanoke Valley.
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Freedom. We’ve craved it since elementary school, always wanting to make that next step into the next phase of our lives so that we can have more freedom. And when we get to that next phase, it’s never all we thought it would be, so we start craving the next phase and hope that more freedom comes with each new phase of our lives. We could go from elementary school all the way into being married with children in the blink of an eye in our search for more freedom, but for some reason, we can’t find the freedom we seek in the phases of our lives.
This week at Rhythm, Tom Maxwell brought a super strong message about our freedom in Christ and how “not all free acts lead to freedom”. Jesus is quoted in John 8:31-32, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” So for Jesus, truth leads to freedom. Not that awesome car, or what we think will come in the next phase of our lives. Truth. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. So because A=B and B=C then A=C (or some other math problem – sorry, I was an English major for a reason) Jesus is freedom!
Unfortunately, we tend to try to walk in this strange middle ground where we can have one foot on the narrow way with Jesus and one on the wide road so that we can follow the world and Jesus at the same time. But those two roads are going in different directions and if we continue to try to keep one foot on each road, we’ll split in two (and that’s just not a pretty sight)! Tom encouraged us to stop trying to be a friend of the world and a friend of God.
True freedom comes from God alone and He deserves our complete focus. Sure, there are times when sin is just plain fun, but what benefit has it ever brought that lasted for more than a little while? Sure, it may seem like a good idea at the time, but what’s the benefit? Obedience isn’t always a word we like because it seems that to be obedient to God means that we do not have the control and when we don’t have control, we feel like we have no freedom. But if we are to be free from the slavery of sin and become slaves to righteousness, obedience to God is pretty much the only way to achieve freedom. It’s not easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it. But the rewards are heavenly and eternal!
Someone I was talking to today has the joy of the Lord literally shining out of her face. She said that she feels like such a dork because she’s smiling all the time. I encouraged her to go with it! Be the dork! Go ahead and grin like an idiot because you have found a freedom in Christ that many people have been searching for their whole lives! Are you grinning today? Have you obeyed and found freedom in Christ? Are you being the dork?
Rock on,
Shanna
A standalone sermon preached on 07-08-10 by Sam Spangler at Rhythm. Rhythm is the collegiate/young adult worship experience in the Roanoke Valley.
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Last night Rhythm was blessed to have the talented Sam Spangler to deliver a message he appropriately entitled “Scandalous”, based on the book of Matthew’s telling of his own calling to discipleship (chapter 9, verses 9-13). Sam noted that Matthew is the only disciple to have his story told in three of the gospels (Matt, Mark & Luke)… which means it must be pretty significant.
Jesus did a few things here that the Pharisees would have considered absolutely unacceptable – and we often miss the importance of. First off, in verse 9, Jesus sees Matthew, a tax-collector (certainly no one anyone wanted to be associated with in those days). How often do we simply overlook those around us who we deem unworthy of our time? How often do we miss opportunities to share God’s love because we fail to take the time to look? Jesus recognized an opportunity for ministry. Secondly, Jesus spoke to Matthew. He acted. Acknowledging an opportunity isn’t enough. If we’re following in Jesus’ footsteps, we have to act.
In verse 10, Matthew invites Jesus and his disciples to a feast… along with many notorious “disreputable sinners” (NLT). And Jesus went. He wasn’t intimidated; He didn’t care what everyone else would think or say. More importantly, He wasn’t intimidating; Matthew and the other people at the feast were eager to talk to Him and learn from Him. (Can you imagine a Pharisee sitting in Jesus’ place at that party? Doubt that would have went over well!)
Jesus caused people to question his motives. Why? He wasn’t focusing on people who thought they could handle life themselves. He was interested in helping those who needed help (and those who didn’t think they had the right to be helped). These people still exist today – we are these people – broken, lonely, empty people in desperate need of a loving God. Are we, the church, like the Pharisees, treating people as if they aren’t worth our time and effort… or are we like Jesus, seeking and talking to and spending time with anyone and everyone to show God’s love (letting Him speak through our actions)? Sometimes being effective requires breaking the rules of tradition and expectations. After all, we can’t be scandalous like Jesus if we just sit back and let things happen – our motivation has to be love; love for Jesus & love for each other.
Love,
PJ
P.S. – Special thanks to Stephanie Painter who led us in worship!
As we progress further along into John’s letters to the seven churches, it’s interesting to notice a pattern developing. Jesus is quick to praise each church for the good they are doing, then letting loose on the things they need to change. It seems that churches haven’t really changed that much… we all only want to focus on what we’re doing right and sweep our failures and mistakes under the rug. If we’re as right with Jesus as we often lead others to believe, we should be willing to listen to His corrections in our lives. We, just like the church at Thyatira (Acts 2:18-29), are full of Christian arrogance.
Yes, God gives “authority over all nations” to those who hold tight and obey ‘til Jesus returns, but we tend to overlook those verses that chastise us. The Thyatirans showed great love, faith, service, and patience – all awesome characteristics – but also embraced the current culture of their day, which happened to be filled with idol worship and extensive sexual immorality. Sound familiar? It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the things in our surroundings that appear trivial… but as much as we justify our actions, these seemingly harmless things inevitably lead to actions that aren’t so trivial. Here, we see Jesus blatantly calling people (and us) out.
One of the greatest things to notice here is that though He calls us out, He does it with immense and incomprehensible love and mercy. Verse 21 even goes to tell how He gave the not-so-lovingly-called Jezebel of the city (who claimed to be a prophetess and was openly trying to entice people to join her in her “embrace” of the culture, all in the name of God) plenty of time and opportunities to turn from her immorality. If Jesus punishes her only after she completely refuses to accept His offer for forgiveness, how much more grace will He offer us who admit that we’re not always going to make the right choices, yet accept His offer of forgiveness?
Temptation is called temptation for a reason… none of us are immune; we all fall short and make mistakes. The question is, do we love God enough to call sin, sin?
Grace and peace, friends!
PJ
The fifth sermon in a series on The Seven Churches preached on 07-01-10 by Craig Tackett at Rhythm. Rhythm is the collegiate/young adult worship experience in the Roanoke Valley.
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Rhythm meets Thursday nights at 8 PM at Lakeside Baptist Church. Get Directions.
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