Mother's Day

I am about to say something that may sound a little crazy to many of you who are reading this entry...I can't stand Mother's Day Sunday's in church. Now give me a chance to explain before you tune me out, on days like Mother's Day, Christmas and Easter, you will have a lot of people show up at church only because Big Momma made them feel guilty enough to come with her, or they want to show off their new clothes or things like that. Now don't get me wrong, I want all of them in church, for the only way they will get a connection with Jesus Christ that will result in their salvation is to hear the Word of God preached, but those services have all kinds of distractions...people walking during preaching, cell phones going off, laughing with family members they haven't seen in a long time. All of this makes it kind of difficult to concentrate on the message. Then you have members who come regularly, they expect you to preach a canned, sweet adnd soupy message on mothers. When I am in a series, I do not break the series for a special service.

This caused me to have some level of trepidation while approaching the church for our 10 AM worship. But to my utter amazement, the Lord showed up in that place yesterday and allowed us to worship freely and to preach with power with no distractions or strange looks on faces. It made the day easier to deal with when you consider the meaning that the day has for me. We continued our look at the letters from Jesus to the 7 churches of Asia Minor in Revelation 2-3, with our look at the letter sent to the church in Thyatira.

This was a church that had tolerated all kinds of evil and wickedness to go on to the point where Jesus tells them that he will bring judgment on both the one who brought the evil into the house and also to the ones who allowed them to do it. He is looking for a church that is willing to stand up and not allow people with alterior motives to bring wickedness into his house. Here is the sermon outline:

Title: The Church Where Anything Goes

Text: Rev. 2:18-29

Thesis: God's church must decide to deny the tolerance of all manner of evil brought into the house of the Lord

I. The Lord Commends This Church - v. 18-19

a. Commends them for their faithfulness
1. requires faithfulness
2. rewards faithfulness

b. Commends them for their fruitfulness - v. 19
1. A Producing Church - "I know your works
a. people were unselfish
b. people were untiring
2. A Progressive Church - "your latter works exceed the first"

II. The Lord Criticizes This Church - v. 20-23

A. Infallible Wisdom - v. 20
1. Complacency of the Church
2. Caused problems for the church
a. teaching immorality
b. teaching idolatry
3. Compassion of the Christ - v. 21
B. Impartial Justice - v. 22

III. The Lord Challenges This Church - v. 24-29

A. Encouragement is Rendered - v. 24
B. Endurance is Required
1. no more dangers - v. 26
2. no more difficulties - v. 27
C. Endurance is Rewarded - v. 28