Upset the Church: Counterfeit Christianity
Tim Rivers | July 17, 2022
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Transcription
Tim Rivers: All right. We've been in the series we have named, Upset the Church. We've named it Upset the Church because we're going through the seven letters that are written to the seven churches in Asia. We've been parked in Revelation 2 & 3. Now, I want to address some of you scholars and theologians out there who have been wondering why we're not doing an expository study going word for word, line by line. That's because I want to give you a little bit of context of Revelation. Oftentimes, when we read the Bible, especially the New Testament, we assume that it was written in the same period of time.
From Matthew to Revelation, and we think it's these different writers writing their books at the same period. Revelation is written in AD 96. This is 63 years after the inception of the church in Acts 2. When John is writing to the church, he's not writing to a amateur, brand new church. He's writing to a church that had been in existence for decades. Now, what happens when you've been in church for a while? You have the temptation to become complacent with your faith.
That's why as we're looking at these different letters, we're really evaluating the principle that Jesus is addressing, a condition that Jesus is addressing, and each one of these churches, and they're experiencing these conditions because they've allowed their faith to just become complacent. As we dig into this word, God is going to speak to us through His Word. Let's go to Revelation 2. Are you ready?
Congregation: Yes.
Tim: Are you ready?
Congregation: Yes.
Tim: Revelation 2:12. It says, "And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write, the words of Him who has the sharp two-edged sword; I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is." That's intense. God, we know, is omnipresent. He's everywhere at all times. Satan is not. He does not have the power to be everywhere at all times. When people are like, "Man, I fought Satan today," it's like, "No, you probably fought one of his demons." Apparently, Pergamum was so wicked and so vile that Satan had his throne room there.
"Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness who was killed among you where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols, and practice sexual immorality." Now, if you've been rolling with us, you know the first week we talked about the church of Ephesus. We named that message, Side Chick Jesus, and how the church is moving away from Christ and Christ has called them back.
The second week, we called it, Why in Hell Would You Stop? We talked about the church of Smyrna, who was to pursue Christ even in the midst of persecution. Today, we're going to combine and we're going to look at two different churches, the church at Pergamum and then the church of Thyatira. Go with me to verse 18. "To the angel of the church in Thyatira write, the words of the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze; I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.
But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and eat food sacrificed to idols." These two churches, Pergamum and Thyatira are two very different churches, but they're two sides of the same coin. See, Pergamum was a place that was heavily idolatrous. It was the epicenter of pagan worship. There were temples built to Zeus and Athena, and various gods. The church at Pergamum was dealing with a lot of outside pressure to conform to the ways of the world.
What was happening is some people within the church of Pergamum were claiming to be Christians, but they also wanted to participate in pagan practice. They were blurring the lines of what it meant to be an authentic Christian. As a result, they ended up in eating food offered to idols, and sexual immorality. On the other hand, you have the church at Thyatira that didn't have as much pagan worship around them, but they were dealing with pressure to compromise from within the church. Let me just stop and say this pressure to compromise doesn't always come from without.
In fact, Peter said there are false teachers among you. That could be on your row right now. Don't look at nobody though. The church of Thyatira, they were claiming to be Christians, claiming to be disciples of Christ, but they were also listening to false doctrine and heresy within the church. They ended up in the same result, eating food offered to idols, and sexual immorality. What Jesus is doing, He's writing to the church of Pergamum and Thyatira through the penmanship of John. He says, "Listen, y'all, I know that you claim to be one thing, but you act in a different way.
I need y'all to stop because I ain't having none of it." For the next few moments, I want to preach on this thought, counterfeit Christianity. Counterfeit Christianity. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your goodness and mercy. I pray that in the next few moments, as we dive into your word, you would give us revelations of your word. Give us eyes to see, a mind to understand, and a heart to receive your word. Change us from the inside out. We give your name all the praise, glory, and honor in Jesus' name. Everybody say Amen.
Congregation: Amen.
Tim: In the society that we're living in right now, in the culture that we live in right now, if you're a millennial or Gen Z'er, this particularly is true to you. There is this buzzword that's going on, and it's called deconstruction. In fact, there's a lot of people right now that are claiming and professing themselves to be deconstructionists. Now, let me define what deconstruction is. Deconstruction essentially is when you take something and you break it down to its constituent parts for reinterpretation. It is taking your faith and breaking down what it means to have faith. Deconstruction generally happens because our faith is challenged. By the way, a faith that is not tested is the faith that cannot be trusted.
Congregation: Amen.
Tim: When you deconstruct, you begin to pull apart your faith, because generally it happens because your faith has been bumped. There's a prayer that wasn't answered. There's a job you applied for that you didn't get. There's a person sick that hasn't got healed yet. There is a pastor that you put a lot of trust in that betrayed that trust. When all this stuff is happening, we generally begin to deconstruct our faith to see if it's valid or not. Let me say this, deconstruction inherently is not a bad thing. In fact, if you go into the 16th century, there was a man by the name of Martin Luther, who was also a deconstructionist.
He was looking at the church and what it professed to be, and he noticed that what the church was supposed to be, and what it looked like, were two different things. He began to deconstruct, and when he deconstruct, he wrote a thing called The Ninety-five Theses. There's basically two principles within it. That is, number one, that the word of God, sola scriptura, is the only authority for religion. Number two, we are saved by grace through faith, no deed, nothing that you can do will save you. We're simply saved by grace and by faith in Jesus Christ.
It was that belief that Martin Luther then became what is known to be the father of the Reformation. If you look throughout history, every great revival, every great awakening, every great reformation that ever took place took place because of deconstruction. If you're in this place, and you're deconstructing, let me give you a word of advice. Deconstruction without plans for reconstruction only ends up in destruction. When you begin to pull apart your faith, make sure you have plans to put it back together the right way. If not, you will end up lost in your own thoughts.
As I begin to just look at the scriptures, and I'm trying to dissect what God is trying to speak to us. One thing that is great about deconstruction, the greatest thing about deconstruction is that it reveals what is real and what is fake. It reveals what is authentic and what is counterfeit. It reveals what is faith and what is not faith. As I begin to pray into this sermon, I say, "God give me an example." God led me to the story in Acts 19. You may have heard the story, you may not have, but it's a great example. Let's go to Acts 19:11.
It says, "And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick and their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them." Think about how crazy that is. God was moving in such a way that people were like, "I ain't even going to roll up to Paul. Hey, bro, you going that way? Here's my handkerchief. Go get me a miracle back," and it was actually working.
"Then some of the itinerary Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, 'I adjure you by the Jesus who Paul proclaims.' Now seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this, but the evil spirit answered them," I love this, "'Jesus, I know, and Paul I recognize, but who you is?'"
[laughter]
"The man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded." How embarrassing. This is such a wild story. I'm going to give you a little bit of context because Paul was formally known as Saul. Saul has this phenomenal conversion experience. You can read about it in Acts 9. He's about his business, he's persecuting the church. Acts 9 he's on the road to Damascus. Then Jesus appears to him. A bright light shines on him, he loses his sight and then he begins to be evangelized. He becomes a disciple.
Next thing you know, he begins to do the work with the apostles and then on his own. God begins to do phenomenal things through Paul so that blinded eyes were being open and lame legs were beginning to walk, and the deaf are beginning to hear, and the dead were being raised. God was doing phenomenal things through Paul and the rest of the apostles. As they were doing that, in fact, the scripture says that God was doing such great things through the apostle Paul that all of Asia heard the gospel in the space of two years.
While all these miracles are taking place, let me just tell you this, it's not just the saints that notice when God is doing something phenomenal in your life, evil spirits take notice as well. Paul is doing the great work. While he's doing that, evil spirits are starting to recognize that Paul and this Jesus are encroaching on their territory. The scripture says at this time in Acts, pagan worship and idolatry, and magic was really prevalent at that time. You had this group of people that were called exorcists, or they're basically vagabonds, group of gypsy magicians.
They would go from town to town. They would do these magic tricks and incantations, and spells, and do exorcisms, and all this. They were making guap, they were making a lot of money doing this. People were just dishing out money for miracles. You got to imagine you're one of these seven sons of Sceva, and your customer base is starting to thin out a little bit. You're like, "Yo, Jim always comes on Thursday to get his potion, but we hadn't seen him in three weeks. Anybody know where Jim's been?" Somebody's like, "You haven't heard? There's a new sheriff in town. There's a man by the name of Paul, he's been doing these miracles. Guess what? It's free."
[laughter]
Anybody like free things?
Congregation: Yes.
Tim: It's free. Guess what? When they get a hold, when Paul gets to hold 'em, they ain't even coming back for more. They began to watch Paul as Paul was maneuvering around and he was working these miracles. They were so extraordinary that people were like, "You know what? Let me just touch this to your skin and instantly getting healed." That is phenomenal. These seven sons of Sceva are like, "You know what? We got to get in on the action because maybe this is an upgrade to what we know." The seven sons of Sceva begin to trail Paul to see how he was doing these miracles.
They're like, "Man, we noticed that, the way he carries his body and the way he's used his hand, he don't even use a wand, he just straight up uses his hand." Miracles were happening, signs and wonders. One thing that they realized was happening, the common denominator in all of Paul's miracles is that he used the name of Jesus. These seven sons of Sceva were like, we're convinced that the magic, the power is in the name of Jesus. They got brave and they decided, "Hey, let's get together and let's find us a demon-possessed person, and let's try this out."
These seven sons of Sceva got together, and you know you got to pick somebody to do it, right? No one's just going to volunteer. I bet it was the youngest son. I'm the youngest, I know what that's like. They gather around, they're like, "Hey, listen, who's going to go? You are going to go, little guy." Bubba goes, and he finds himself a demon-possessed person. He rolls up to him, kind of timed. He's like, "Check this out, evil spirit. We adjure you, we cast you out in the name of Jesus. Just in case you don't know what Jesus we talking about, it's the Jesus whom Paul preaches."
[laughter]
They nervous. They're scared, but they're ready to see this miracle, but nothing happens. It is at this point that the seven sons of Sceva are nervous. They're backing up, because the man in whom the evil spirit was stopped whatever he was doing. You ever watch those scary movies? I just imagine this guy's frothing at the mouth, long fingernails, crawling somewhere. He just stops. He looks at them. He goes, "Now, wait a minute. I know what y'all trying to do. Jesus, we know him. We already know, He led captivity captive. He had power. He has power over death, hell, and the grave.
We tried to kill Him. He got up out of the grave three days later. In fact, He went down into hell, came up with the keys. We ain't messing with Jesus. In fact, He's so powerful, He sent some of us run into some pigs into the ocean. We ain't messing with Jesus. We know Jesus. Paul, I'm glad you clarified because we ain't messing with Paul either. Over the last few years, Paul's been running, he's been wreaking havoc on our kingdom. He's been going around doing some stuff that we ain't pleased with. We're having to run away from him because the power of God is moving so mightily through him. We know Paul and we know Jesus, but question, who are y'all?"
[laughter]
The scripture says that the demon-possessed person was like, "I ain't taking this." He jumps on all seven of them, overpowers them, starts beating them up, sends them down the street, butt-naked. It's one thing getting beat up. It's another thing getting beat up butt-naked. You know what I'm saying? They run off. Here's what happened though, the seven sons of Sceva were trying to experience the real thing without knowing the real thing.
[applause]
The seven sons of Sceva were trying to experience the power without having the power. They were trying to experience the miracle without knowing the miracle worker. Here's the thing about counterfeits. Counterfeits look real until they're next to the real thing. Woo. Counterfeits can get away with being a counterfeit until you measure them next to the real thing because, here's the thing, demons even know what's counterfeit. The seven sons of Sceva trying this, but here's the problem, here's the dilemma, because even today we're dealing with the same thing.
There's a lot of counterfeit Christianity that's happening even among us. A lot of people that are like, "I'm a Christian," but their life doesn't reflect what they profess. Backing it up in the club on Friday but want to sing in the choir on Sunday. Don't shoot the messengers, I'm in the word. Having affairs on Thursday but preaching on Sunday. [chuckles] Counterfeit Christianity. Most of the time we know that the real thing requires some expenses. The real thing is expensive.
Oftentimes we think because the real thing costs too much and it requires a sacrifice, and it requires for us to say no to some thing so we can say yes to some thing, we will settle for a cheap, fake imitation of the real thing. Y'all, don't get what I'm saying. Let me break it down for you. I really wanted to go out and buy an expensive piece of clothing, a Gucci shirt just to show you how nice it is, and all the authenticity in it, but I ain't got that kind of guap to just roll out and get me a Gucci shirt for a sermon prop. I went to Walmart.
[laughter]
I bought me a $5 white shirt. Then I went to the office supplies and I bought me some transfer paper. I went home and got on my Inkjet printer, and I made my own Gucci shirt.
[laughter] [applause]
Here's the problem with my Gucci. It sound like Gucci, it got the same font like Gucci, it's the same colors as Gucci, but this ain't Gucci. Here's the problem, I didn't want to pay the price to get the real thing. I didn't want to make the sacrifice to get the real thing, so I settled for a cheap imitation of the real thing. I'm about to preach now, because here's the thing. Here's the thing about counterfeit and imitation. It looks nice, and I can tell you all day long I got Gucci, but when you see it and you do some investigation, you realize something different about this shirt.
Why is there an H in there where there's supposed to be a C? If you really want to know if it's fake, you got to look on the inside. Because when you look at the label, the label will tell you where this originated. The label will tell you where it was manufactured. The label will tell you what the value is. Because when you look at the label, this shirt says, "George."
[laughter]
This is my $5.25 Gucci shirt. Here's the thing, I knew some of y'all were judging me looking at this little thing. "Wait, how can he afford Gucci?" It's a different type of Gucci. Here's the reality. Let me break it down for you. Too many of us are walking around going, "Hey, it's all Gucci. I'm a Christian." God's like, "Wait a minute. What's the label say? Because that looks like a counterfeit there. This is shiny. It ain't supposed to be shiny." Somebody said, "I thought Gucci was doing something new." It is. Here's the thing, if you're in this place, I want to help you identify counterfeits.
Because when Jesus is writing to the church at Pergamum and Thyatira, He's like, "Listen, I love the fact that you claim to be Christian. I love the fact that you are participating in worship, but I need this to go beyond just worship because external pressure and internal pressure is coming for us to compromise on what is the truth. We're surrounded by counterfeit Christians, so it is important for us to look and be able to identify what a counterfeit is." Number one, the number one way that you can find out if something's a counterfeit, is that they are fruitless.
This is what Jesus said about fruit trees. If a tree doesn't bear fruit, it is to be cut down, thrown into the fire, and disposed of. He went on further and said, "You will know them by their fruits." Bad fruits, bad roots. No fruits, bad roots. If they're claiming to be a Christian, authentic believer, but all they produce is bitterness, strife, envy, complaining, dissension. Counterfeit. Because when you get a real authentic relationship with Jesus, and the Holy Spirit starts working in your life, you will produce fruits of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, kindness.
You can tell a counterfeit by the fruits that they produce. Here's the second way that you can tell a counterfeit, is they are rebellious. "We don't like that word in the church. Nowadays it's churchy. Too churchy for us, too Christianese." Rebellion is the act of resisting authority or the right thing. When they know what is right but move away from it. The only way that God deals with rebellion is He chases it. See, Adam and Eve. Some people they're just super rebellious and they're like, "Why is all this stuff happen in my life?" Because you resisted to the truth. We told you not to go there. We told you not to be with him.
[laughter]
Some of y'all need to text a friend right now and tell him to tune in. Adam and Eve were given one instruction. One thing not to do. Don't eat of that fruit. You can have everything in the garden. Just don't go to this one tree. What'd they do? They went to that one tree. As a result of their rebellion, guess what happened? They were kicked out of the place that God had placed them in the first place. God wanted them to have all this stuff, but because of rebellion, God had to chase them, and what? Move 'em away from the garden.
The third way that you can tell if somebody is a counterfeit Christian is that they're arrogant. The scripture says that God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. Have you ever met that person that's arrogant and prideful for no reason? You've seen people that are prideful and you're like, "Man, I get it." You know what I'm saying? "It ain't right, but I get it." There are some people that are arrogant and pride, and you're like this, "Why for? What are you proud of? You're just proud of being proud." There's a guy that I knew from back in the day. This guy was financially irresponsible at that time.
I'm talking about the type of financial irresponsibly, like you need $3 worth of gas, he would go to the gas station, get him $1.50 worth of soda. Then, "Hey, put the rest in the gas." You know what I'm saying? That type of irresponsibility. I remember one time we were done with church, this is when we had Sunday morning, Sunday night service. After Sunday morning service, we would just go out to eat and stuff like that. He was like, "Hey, yo, bro, you want to go to Starbucks?" I'm like, "For sure, let's go, bro." We go to Starbucks and I go and order my drink, and I back up, and then he's just standing there.
I go, "Hey, man, are you going to order your drink?" He goes, "No, I don't have any money." I'm like this, "Weren't you the one that invited me? This was your idea. Now I feel pressured to buy you a drink, even though I don't roll like that either." I said, "All right, man, I'll get you something." We go up to the counter, and I'm expecting him to order a black coffee.
[laughter]
You know what I'm saying? Ask them if they got day old, you know what I mean? Just the tall, don't even go past the tall. We roll up to the counter and he's like, "I will take a triple-shot venti Frappuccino, extra caramel chocolate chips." I'm like, "What are you doing, bro?" A couple of months later, this same guy, we go to Starbucks. I should have known better, because of my first experience. Learn from the lessons that God's trying to teach you. We go to Starbucks and I had forgot my wallet. We roll up to the counter and he orders his drink, his, whatever, triple-shot Mocha Frappuccino.
I'm just sitting back because I forgot my wallet. He's slurping on his thing, and he's like, "You ain't getting something?" I'm like, "No, dude, I forgot my wallet." He's like, "Man, sucks to be you." He keeps slurping his-- I'm like, counterfeit Christianity. Since then he's repented. He's made it right. Come on, give God some praise over that. Thank God we serve a merciful God.
Here's number four, is they are counterfeit if they are constantly unthankful. I could give you all the reasons to be thankful, but I want to give you a couple of points for how you can spot a person that's just straight up unthankful. Number one, they complain about everything. You ever met this person, they complain about the cat, the dog, the hamster, the neighbor's dog, their husband, their wife, their children, their parents, their grandparents, their job. You could literally give them a free car and they would complain about the type of car it is.
You ever met this person? Unthankful. They keep a record of wrong. An unthankful person, they have a note section on their iPhone. "Felicia did me wrong back in 1975 and I ain't going to let it go. She may get away with all kinds of stuff, but she ain't going to get away with me." They keep a record of wrong. The other thing that unthankful people do is they keep their cup half empty. No matter how much you pour into their cup, it's always half empty. It never gets full. They also avoid people. Can I tell you, if you want to be thankful, get into a party, get around some people, because when you're around people, it will give you perspective on what you're going through.
It's hard to be unthankful when you're talking to somebody and you realize what you going through, ain't nothing. It'll give you perspective. Another thing that unthankful people do is they will ignore all that God has done for them. If you want to be unthankful, just ignore the fact that God spared your life in that car accident. Ignore the good doctor's report that you received even though the doctor said you weren't going to make it. Ignore the fact that when you didn't have the money, God provided in a supernatural way.
If you want to remain unthankful, don't think of anything that God has done. As for me and my house, we choose to be thankful for everything that God has done in my life. No matter what I go through, I'll thank God. Here is the fifth way that you can tell a counterfeit, is they're deceptive. We're dealing with a lot of that right now in our culture. Paul said, "If we or any other angel come preaching any other gospel, let them be accursed." In other words, if you hear preaching that doesn't align with this Bible, counterfeit. If they say that the Bible is optional and not relevant to us today, counterfeit.
Let me tell you. We, as pastors and preachers have an obligation to stay in the book. I have no authority. I have no ownership within the church. I only have stewardship that is given to me by the scriptures. I can only exegete the scriptures. Exegete means to pull out meaning from the scriptures. I can't eisegete. I can't put meaning into the scripture and tell you, "The Bible says this, but I really think it means that, and it benefits me." No, no, no. That is a counterfeit Christian. Get in the word.
[applause]
If they preaching something, ask 'em for a scripture. People say, "The Bible is so gray." No, fam, it is black and white. We're gray. We become gray in our interpretation of the scripture, but the scripture says what the scripture says. If you've been paying attention, you'll realize that people that are counterfeit, that are fruitless, rebellious, arrogant, unthankful, and deceptive, it spells one word. Fraud. That hit me different than it hit y'all just a minute ago. The reality is counterfeit Christians are frauds.
As we begin to look at the scriptures, and we look at what Jesus was writing through the church of Pergamum and Thyatira, He would say, "Listen, I applaud you for what you're doing. I applaud you for what you're experiencing. I applaud you for running this race. One thing I've got to tell you, church, is do not be so influenced by the world that you begin to blur the lines between what is the truth and what is false.
Don't get so caught up in your deconstruction and your evaluation of its constituent parts that you walk off and the foundation is no longer solid. You've got to be an authentic, real, Spirit-filled Christian to make this life." Here's the thing about the church at Pergamum and the church of Thyatira. They were compromising so much that the world around them couldn't tell whether they were Christian or not. Let me ask you this. When you go to work, do they know that there's something different about you? Because in Acts, the scripture says the apostles were walking, and people looked at them and said, "Something's different about them."
The scripture says, "Without even talking to them, they knew they had been with Jesus." When you have a real, authentic relationship with Christ, you look different. You talk different, you act different. There is a distinct difference about you. Remember Peter? Peter had been rolling with Jesus for three years, and he gets ready for the crucifixion to happen. Jesus already told Peter, "Hey, before the rooster crows, you will have denied me three times." Peter finds himself warm in his hands by the fire among all those that are all about persecuting Jesus.
He's trying to blend in and look normal. They're like, "Wait a minute. Listen, fam, ain't something ain't right about you, dawg. It sound like Gucci, but something is off." He says, "No, it ain't me." He denies Jesus. Not just once, but three times. When you've been with Jesus, you're marked, you're different. You're changed. Your demeanor changes. How you handle things, what you do, it changes. When Jesus is writing to church of Pergamum and Thyatira, it's very much relevant to us today, because we have tremendous opportunities to compromise what we believe.
What God is looking for is the church that will stand up and say, "You know what? I'm not going to compromise. I'm not going to give in. I'm not going to look like the world. I'm not going to act like the world. If I'm different and you think I'm different, that's a good thing. I want a real, honest, open, authentic, transparent relationship with Jesus Christ." Anybody here really want an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ? I am done with fake Christianity. I don't want counterfeit Christianity. Give me the real deal. I want prayers to change the world.
I want my walk to affect people. I want my witness to draw people to Jesus. I want a real relationship. I don't know what you that are here or watching online may be dealing with, what kind of pressure you may be feeling. Maybe it's from family members, or it's friends, or church folk trying to get you to compromise, trying to get you to blur the lines of what's right and wrong. Let's hear the words of Jesus when He says, "Hey, that ain't the way. I ain't going to have it. I want a real, authentic relationship with you." Most of the times why we will settle for counterfeits and fakes is because we feel like the price to pay for real is too expensive.
If I got good news for you, Jesus already paid the price. He already sacrificed His life. He already bought you the real thing. You ain't got to go to Walmart and get you a Gucci. God's got you the real thing. Only thing that God is requiring of us is the commitment. I love Pastor Tim, he always uses this. "We got to be hot. Honest, open, and transparent."
When you do that, the fruits that you will bear are unbelievable. People will know you're different, and that's okay. I don't want to be the same, because Jesus has changed my life. I don't want to go back to what God has delivered me from. I don't want to turn back to the ways that God has brought me out of. I don't want to to go back to Egypt. I want to make it to the promised land. Anybody else?
Congregation: Yes.
Tim: If you would close your eyes. Bow your heads. In this moment, I feel the question is, is your faith genuine? Do you have a real, authentic relationship with Jesus? Because Jesus said that the day will come when many will come and say, "Lord, Lord, have we not done all of this in your name? Have we not cast out devils and worked miracles in your name?" I believe this is probably going to be one of the saddest moments in history when Jesus looks at them and says, "Depart from me, you that work iniquity. I never knew you.
You have the form of godliness, but you denied the power thereof. You wanted the miracle, but you didn't want the miracle worker. You wanted the blessing, but you didn't want the blesser." Right now I believe that God is calling us to lean into an authentic relationship with him. If you would, as you have your heads bowed, your eyes closed, even if you're watching online, I would just want you to open up your hands to receive. I want to pray over you right now. Father, we're standing here with hands open, honest, open, transparent, saying Lord, we may be facing some pressure from outside or from within, pressure to compromise.
Pressure to back off from what we know is real and authentic. Rationalizing sin, but your word is speaking to us right now. We accept that word to lean into the real, into the authentic. Right now, I pray that you would give my brothers and sisters all over the world literally, the power and the grace to live authentically for you. That no matter what comes their way, they wouldn't give up, they wouldn't compromise, they wouldn't give up, but they'll lean into you. Right now we just thank you for what you've done in our lives and in our midst. We give your name all the praise and glory, in Jesus' name. Somebody shout amen.
Congregation: Amen.
Tim: God bless you.
