Does Truth Matter?

All right, good morning, church.

Hey, y'all ready?

Man, I'm ready.

I'm my name is Russ.

If I have had the chance to meet you, it is great to have you with us this morning.

This might be the first time that you have been with us on a Sunday, and I want to say welcome to you.

If it's your first or second time here, we hope you were greeted warmly.

And I always say this more than anything.

I want you to experience the presence of Jesus.

Hopefully you already have, as you've been with us as we worship through song.

And then next the next gathering, which I always hate this because both gatherings don't always experience exactly the same.

But at the second service, second gathering, we're going to celebrate three baptisms.

Three, yes.

So y'all can at least be just know that God is at work.

And especially Jeff Hughes is the SCA staff guy.

He is a part of our church.

Jeff sings occasionally on Sundays.

And God is just using Jeff in an amazing way.

And our FCA staff and team.

And also NG3 Ministries is a campus ministry all over Walton County.

And God's using those people.

And so last week or the week before, I mean, we were at the end of the service, and I think it was two weeks ago, and two young men responded, and then and then and one guy just turned to ask Jeff before I even got to the invitation.

And he said, Man, how do I know this Jesus?

And then when I did the invitation, I said, hey, if you if you are ready to follow Jesus, raise your hand.

Two raises their hands.

And so God is working in an amazing way.

I got to hear some testimonies at their at their um their FCA event uh that they had over at LCA High School, uh LCA school, Loganville Christian Academy, and it was just amazing.

So um, if you got your Bibles, open them up to Revelation chapter two.

Revelation chapter two.

We're in our series called Seven, and we're looking in uh Revelation 2 and 3 at the seven letters that Jesus wrote to the seven different churches in Asia Minor, which is modern day uh Turkey.

And and so uh I showed a picture of all uh all those areas.

They're relatively close together in modern day Turkey.

If you wanted to, I showed a map of it last week.

I'll probably show it again continue as we go through the series.

Um uh but we're gonna be in the third uh letter um that that is written to the church at Pergamum.

Pergamum.

And so uh what you need to understand is that uh the the culture, culture, I want to try to explain culture a little bit.

Culture, uh let me explain this way.

You just imagine this is kind of a silly, silly story.

These two two young fish are swimming along and and and they're having a conversation.

And um an older fish swims up and he nods at them and he says, Morning, boys, how's the water?

And uh the two young fish swim for a bit, and then they one of them looks at the other and says, What is water?

What is water?

I thought it was a little funnier.

Thank you for thank you for the one laugh.

But but it wasn't meant to be funny, but it it's it's an idea, it gives us this picture of a fish doesn't know what water.

I mean, that that's all they know.

Culture is all we know.

Culture is is ingrained, and we're not sometimes we're not even really aware of culture.

Uh we can be, and hopefully, after a message, after being taught the message of Jesus Christ, the message of the gospel, the message of the Bible, you will understand that we are called to live in a different culture.

We're called to live in a different culture, and so uh so if you've ever been to a place different from where you were born, and I I've this is I've I've grew up in, I mean, I was born in at P at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta when there was just one Piedmont Hospital, and I was born at that one Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, and so I grew up in Atlanta.

I I've I I've lived in a couple different places in the South, but but this is this is what I pretty much all I know is the culture of the South, the culture of Georgia.

And so um uh several years ago I was part of a a cohort of pastors that were learning together.

There was about 12 or 15 of us, and we we met four different times over two years.

And so twice we were in the Dallas, Texas area.

Um one time we were in San Diego, which is which is quite a different culture, and then we we also were um in Eugene, Oregon.

So we I fly into Eugene, Oregon.

And we also at that time we we were helping plant a new church in Corvallis.

So the University of Oregon is in Eugene.

Oregon State is in Corvallis.

They're not that they're 45 minutes to an hour away from each other, but um, but man, Oregon is different.

Oregon is different.

A few of our guys went to a conference in the city of Portland.

Portland is even more different than Oregon.

Portland is in Oregon, but it it is like I went to, so I got there, and you always realize I've forgotten a few things that I need.

And so they did have a Walmart in Eugene.

I went to the Walmart and I and I went and picked up my stuff.

You know, you know, I had some toiletries and some snacks and different things.

And I checked out and I I looked for the bags to put my stuff in.

There weren't any bags.

I said, you don't you don't have any bags?

Oh we don't, you know, if you'll notice, the person, we don't have any, we don't have any bags.

I said, you don't have any bags?

It's like I can't I gathered my stuff and I carried it, I mean I carried it out like this.

I mean, there it there were so many differences.

I mean, you cannot find a straw, you cannot find a plastic bottle in in Oregon.

I mean, you the the there's just it's so different.

My wife and I got married in South Georgia.

She's from South Georgia, I'm from the Atlanta area, and so we spent the first night we spent our wedding night um um out in um close to where she was living at the time in an old place called um Sonia, Georgia, and then we flew to Boston and then we drove up the coast.

We ended up in Kennebuckport, stayed a couple nights in a bed and breakfast up there, but stayed in places along the way on the trip.

So we land in Boston and and we spent a day, day and a half there, and so um, so we when you ask somebody in Boston, hey, do y'all know?

And as soon as you say y'all, you've lost them.

And they just start laughing.

And they say, say it again.

And you know, in their in their Boston accent, they say it again.

So we we laugh, we start laughing at each other.

Culture.

Culture is just, those things are a part of culture.

Um uh you I mean, if you've ever traveled or been in different places, you see culture.

It's just it's it's it's it's just something that shapes us.

It shapes us.

And and it's not that they're uh it's not necessarily that the people in some of those areas are in in and of themselves bad or good, but their culture is culture, and and here's the point.

We as followers of Christ are meant to be of a particular culture.

We are meant to be called out of the culture that has pulled us in or shaped us in this world, and we are called to be of a different culture.

Imagine the idea of fish swimming in this direction, and if you've ever watched, if you've watched the are familiar with the chosen, the story, the story about Jesus, the series that they've had, their logo is of a fish.

It's a group of fish swimming in one direction, and then there is one fish swimming against the rest of the other fish.

And that is what we are called as Christ's followers to swim against the culture.

And so the difficult thing for followers of Jesus is that we are told that we are not citizens.

We are not citizens of this world, but we are citizens of heaven.

I'm I am, my passport says that the United States of America.

It says I'm a citizen of the United States of America, but there is another passport that I have, and let me, I would say it's the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the other passport.

And the Holy Spirit has Russ Butcher on it, and instead of the United States of America, it says a citizen of the kingdom of God.

And so it means it follows with Jesus.

We're not like everyone else.

We're not meant to be products of this world or the culture that we've grown up in.

We're not meant to live the same life as everyone around us.

We believe and we are to live differently than those around us.

But how?

How can Christians faithfully follow Jesus while we are immersed into the culture into which we were born and raised?

And the culture that we're born and raised in largely now rejects Jesus.

We're not living in the promised land anymore.

We're living in Babylon.

And if you know the Bible, if you know the Bible, that's the God's people were exiled to a foreign land.

And so we're not living in what is the same traditional South that many of your parents raised you in, or the way they or the culture they grew up in.

It is different.

That's what we're discussing this morning as we look at the letter to the city of Pergamon.

Would you stand with me?

I'm gonna raise this.

Take your Bible.

I don't I won't have this on the screen.

I'm trying to try to train you guys to bring a Bible.

If you have an electronic Bible, that's great.

But I'll I I'm I'm I'm going back to old school.

Um I think there's something about leather and paper.

Um, but but no judgment there.

Um verse 12, chapter 2 of Revelation, and to the angel of the church in Pergam right, the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword, I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is.

Yea, 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.

So also you have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitians.

Therefore, repent.

Would you say that with me?

Therefore, repent.

If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

To the one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.

Father, would you speak to us through the teaching of this word?

God, would you bring us to a place of repentance?

Lord, bring us to a place where we're willing to go against the flow of the culture that pulls us away from the way Jesus.

God, may we repent where we need to repent.

It's in Jesus' name we pray, and everybody sit together.

Amen.

Have a seat.

And so we are reading through these letters that the apostle John, the apostle John received from Jesus.

So these are the words of Jesus to these churches.

They're not the words of John.

John received them at a vision from Jesus Christ.

The Apostle John, and you've got to you've got to kind of think back to the story of the Gospels where John was a young man and he was called to follow Jesus as a young man.

And if you read the Gospel of John very closely, you will see where John himself believed that he was Jesus' favorite.

He was the beloved.

He actually was very close to Jesus.

He was probably one of the closest.

He and two others, Peter, James, and John, were the inner circle with Jesus.

And John says he is the beloved.

He was very close as a very young man.

But when we find John writing the letters and writing the whole vision of the book of Revelation, we find him on the island of Patmos.

Now, Domitian is the emperor of Rome at this time.

And he has, they have, they have actually tried to kill John through boiling him in a vat of hot boiling water.

Somehow, miraculously, he did not die.

And so they just literally put him out, exiled him to this island, this desolate place.

And he has a vision.

God is not finished with him.

He has a vision, and God speaks to him and gives him this vision.

Jesus is speaking.

This is the words of Jesus.

And as we have, as we have read a couple of times in the very first section of the letter of the book of Revelation, it talks about Jesus, the one who was and is and is to come.

He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

He is the one that is high and lifted up.

He is one that we should get excited about.

He is the one that is worthy of our worship, praise.

And so he writes, he writes to the letter, he writes to the church at Ephesus, and he says, he says, Jonah did a great job.

He says, He said, I love your works.

I love how you are serving, but you have left your first love.

And then last week we looked at the letter to the church at Smyrna, and he commends them.

It's one of the only two churches that doesn't receive some kind of correction.

He says, I see how you live in poverty, but I want you to know you are rich in Jesus Christ.

And so today we're looking at the church in Pergamum.

The city of Pergamum is built on a great mountain.

It is not connected to a body of water.

It's about a thousand feet up, very high for this region.

This city was not, wasn't located near a body of water, so it wasn't a port city.

It wasn't part of a major trade route, but it was still considered one of Asia Minor's greatest cities.

A Roman writer, Pliny, called it by far the most distinguished city of Asia.

It had the second largest library in the world at that time, outside of the city of Alexandria.

It had 200,000 handwritten volumes.

It is the place where they they invented or became, they developed writing scrolls on parchment because the Library of Alexandria forbid them to receive any more papyrus.

So they said, you're not getting any more of our papyrus.

You are going to have to figure out how to how to write scrolls and copy scrolls on your own.

And so they developed the practice of writing on animal skins to record words and to develop scrolls.

It was a center for culture and learning.

It was a defender of Greek culture.

Greek culture.

And we could probably say Greco-Roman culture because now it was part of the Empire of Rome.

It had major temples to Athena, Sklepios, Dionysius, and Zeus, and the city had become the center of emperor worship more than many probably any other city.

Let's read it.

Romans 2, verse 12.

Romans 2:12

We're going to read through it and teach.

Write this letter to the angel of the church in Pergamon.

This is the message from the one with the sharp two-edged sword.

So when we see that, it should immediately send us to Hebrews 4.12.

The sharp two-edged sword is the risen, glorified Lord Jesus, referring to what he says about the Word of God.

Hebrews 4.12, for the word of God is alive and powerful.

It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between the soul and spirit, and between joint and marrow.

And so this message is coming from Jesus.

Verse 13, I know that you live in a city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me.

So what he's, here's what he's saying.

He said, I know this is a very ungodly place.

But you as a church have reigned loyal to me.

Talking about Jesus.

This is a very ungodly place.

It is a very sinful place.

When you think of ungodly, sinful city, what city comes to mind first?

Vegas.

Is that what he said?

Vegas.

What's another city that comes to mind?

Almost any metropolitan city in in America, you could probably the city the city of Atlanta would fit.

Probably great.

As an ungodly metropolitan city.

Now, here's another city that's personal to me is where I went to seminary New Orleans.

I went to New Seminary in New Orleans.

And so my first trip to New Orleans.

So with my seminary friends, thank God I had accountability.

But I couldn't go without.

I said, guys, I have got to go at least a walk.

I've got to walk down to one of the corners just and get a I've got to get a picture of the French quarter.

And so I walked down and it was it was it was it was significant.

I mean there's a few things that I that I don't even want to mention, you know, that were seen.

It was, it, I mean, the epitome of darkness and sin.

And not just, not just the, I mean, the sexual sin, but the being in a city, and this not even in the French quarter, but but in Jackson Square, there literally are, you could walk out and there were people, there were voodoo priests sitting out reading palms and sharing visions with people that would stop and listen to them and give them a few dollars.

And so it's just that type, he said, he said, this is a place where Satan has his throne.

It is a pagan place.

Many believe that this reference to Satan's throne is referring to the temple or or the or the god of called Asclepios, who was the god of healing in Greek mythology.

Um here's uh just a picture that um from a statue from that city.

Uh people would come from all around the world to this temple in search of healing.

And and here it's shown.

Is the picture up there?

Uh that's that's the theater.

There's the picture.

This is the Asclepios, this is from the temple of Asclepi.

Asclepios, you say it.

Don't laugh.

And it's it's it you've seen a picture that has been now, it's become very common to represent healing and doctoring, the practice of medicine that has the snakes that are that are wrapped around a pole, so to speak, and that is where this comes from.

Um it was depicted as a snake, a non-poisonous, and here's what people would do.

They would come to the temple, and that there were non-poisonous snakes, and if they were sick, they would go lay inside the temple and allow those snakes to crawl all over them, and it would provide potential healing for them.

And you're like me, there is no way I will be sick and die.

This is it's just ungodly.

Pagan practices, the church lived in this culture, and they were faithful.

He says, You refuse to deny me, even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you in Satan's city.

And Antipas would have been most likely been a leader in the Pergamon church.

According to tradition, he was roasted to death inside a brass bull during the persecution instigated by the Emperor Domitian.

So we see that many in his church were faithful unto death in their worship of Jesus.

However, this church was not perfect.

Verse 14, but I have a few complaints against you.

You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, 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 Nicolaitians among you who follow the same teaching.

While most believers in Pergamum were faithful and loyal to the truth, some associated with the church came to believe false doctrine.

And he references Balaam and Balak, men from the Old Testament, in an obscure story found in Numbers 22, 25.

Balaam was an Old Testament prophet, false prophet, who encouraged false doctrine and sexual sin.

And this church had allowed false teaching from the Nicolaitians to enter into their fellowship.

They had tolerated and refused to confront the errors being proclaimed.

And so we live in a country, we live in a nation where there is a lot of false teaching.

Some of it should not be that hard to recognize.

But a lot of it's blended in with the gospel and it pulls people in.

I mean, just one area, one that I'll mention is just the false teaching of the prosperity gospel.

That says if you follow Jesus, if you love Jesus with all your heart, your life is going to be better.

You're going to have more money, and you're going to prosper in every way.

That's not true.

Some of us can follow Jesus and we can be obedient unto death, but we're going to be persecuted, or we're going to have difficulties, we're going to have sickness, we're going to have, we're going to deal with poverty, or we're going to struggle in some areas of life.

And so we're going to be faithful in the midst of this.

There were men in the church who were teaching you could be a believer in Jesus and attend pagan feasts that were full of debauchery and sexual immorality and still join the church and proclaim Jesus as Lord.

Simply put, believe in Jesus, but still live like the culture that you've grown up in.

This Greco-Roman sinful culture.

Charles Spurgeon says this.

He says, I believe that one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church.

Spurgeon would have written, this would have been in the 1800s.

It's not a new issue.

And so the followers of Jesus should look different.

We should look different.

James 4.4 says, don't you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God?

I say it again, if you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.

1 Peter 2.11 says, Dear friends, I warn you as temporary residents and foreigners to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.

So he's saying here clearly, listen, listen, hear what the Lord is saying.

The Lord's calling us to live holy lives.

Holy, different lives, set apart in every way.

The word consecration.

We're to be consecrated, it means to be set apart.

Easily to identify as being different.

And we easily become decisive.

We easily become decisive.

We're to be in the world.

But not of the world.

Tell you a story.

So Jill and I.

Jill and I, Jill, are married to a lady young lady named Jill, and she uh she'll be at the next service, so I can say anything I want to right now.

Um just kidding.

So Jill and I moved to this area in 2004.

We planted Church at the Grove in the fall of 2006.

And so we we we live in Ansley Lake neighborhood off of Clobborough Road, and we never, I think, I I think I don't think we ever dreamed that we would live in the same house for this long.

But it's given us a chance to really get to know a lot of people.

And people have come and people have gone in that neighborhood.

But but probably in 2006 or seven, um, we were reaching out to neighbors.

And and and there were some who were uh who were who were believers and we invited them to church.

They were new to the community, and then there were some who were not who were not believers.

And I mean, when I say not believers, I mean like they live, they they had they lived like they were not believers.

And so about this time of year, two of our new friends invited us to a Halloween party.

And so Jill and I have a con we're having a conversation.

Are we going to this party?

I don't know.

I I mean, and we, you know, it was like we we do you know what's gonna be going on at this party, don't you?

These are people not believers.

And she goes, yeah, I know what's going on.

I said, well, she said, what do you think?

I said, well, I said, let's do this.

Let's show up ten minutes early, and let's stay for 45 minutes to an hour, and then let's politely dismiss ourselves.

And so, why do you think that I said show up just a little bit early and stay for about 45 minutes to an hour and then politely dismiss ourselves?

Anyone have an idea?

Exactly before everybody gets drunk.

That's exactly, that's exactly why.

And people were, people were partaking, and listen, I, you know, I if you have a glass of wine or a beer, listen, you, if I walk into a restaurant and you're having a beer, you don't have to hide it from me like most Christians do when I walk in.

It's like it's on the table, and I watch you move it, you know, under the table.

I mean, listen, I'm not, I'm not a, you know, I'm uh Jill and I choose not to partake for several reasons, but uh, but but I it's it is a sin to get drunk.

And so I knew where this party was gonna go.

And so we left.

But you know, we got to meet a lot of people.

We got to, we, we, and, and, and um, you say, well, Russ, you know, first of all, you shouldn't have gone to a Halloween party.

I listen, I I understand that and I respect, I respect all that, but I'm gonna, if the Lord can use, I I will, I will go to a gathering.

If if God can use me to hand out candy to a child and get to know a family and have a conversation, I'll hand out candy.

Hand one out, eat one.

Hand one out, eat one.

I love Halloween for that, I mean, from that perspective.

And if you have different convictions, that's that's that's fine.

But this, I knew that party, but but we we developed some relationships.

Let me tell you, two of those couples that were at that party have been through those baptismal waters.

Two of those couples.

And they were sober when we baptized them.

But let me tell you, they told us later about what had happened at that party after we left, and it was a good plan.

It was a good plan because it was it was pretty wild and crazy.

And we listen, we can become desensitized, and so the teachings that we allow to creep into our lives or into the life of the church.

Sexuality that is outside of God's design, adultery, premarital sex, or sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, pornography, all listen, all of that.

And let me say this everybody's welcome at Church at the Grove.

Everybody's welcome, and we should be nice and we should be hospitable to everybody.

I don't care what their background or what their beliefs are, we're gonna treat people with love and compassion.

But we are going to teach the truth.

Teach the truth and to love people like Jesus.

Believing that as we teach the truth and we love people like Jesus, people eventually will meet Jesus, and then they'll, the Holy Spirit, with the teaching of the scriptures and the culture of the community, you will see lives begin to change.

But in the church, there was there was a spirit of consumerism, a spirit of half-hearted commitment.

You know, some of these weird practices with the with the snakes and so 1 Corinthians 5, 6, and 7, you're boasting about this is terrible.

Talking about living life, living lifestyles of sin, desensitized to sin.

Paul writes to the church at Corinth, 1 Corinthians 5, 6 and 7, you're boasting about this is terrible.

Don't you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?

And here's what Paul is saying.

He's saying, listen, listen, when you rationalize a little bit of sin, it's like what yeast does as it spreads through the whole loaf of bread or dough.

I mean, yeast, that in Jewish culture at the Passover, they, God told the people, you do not put yeast in your bread.

You eat unleavened bread because you've got to be ready to leave quickly.

And so they ate crackers.

Sometimes that's why I tell our staff and they laugh at me.

You know, and I and I'm I'm it's we don't have to be legalistic about it, but I prefer, I prefer unleavened bread for the Lord's Supper because it just reminds me of how just a little bit of yeast, it reminds me of my sin.

And and and and and that's what the God's people, I believe in the early church, they they often had the Lord's supper with unleavened bread.

I'm not legalistic about that.

So what's the response?

What's the response of the church?

What's the response of this church?

What's the response?

What does Jesus say?

To conclude, he says, verse 16, repent of your sin.

Or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

The only remedy for sinful behavior is to repent.

Don't make excuses, repent.

Don't explain it away, repent.

Repentance is when we change our mind, and as a result, we change our life.

We change our direction.

That's what repentance literally, the word literally means to do a U-turn.

And so when you first put your faith in Christ, you're going in one direction, and then Jesus grabs a hold of your heart, and all of a sudden, you get a picture that is accurate from the Holy Spirit of what Jesus did in living a holy life, surrendering his life to die on a cross, knowing that he was buried and then bodily resurrected to prove that he had power over sin and death in the grave.

Verse 17.

Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he's saying to the churches.

To everyone who is victorious, I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven.

And this is a picture of the bread that Jesus provided miraculously, that God provided miraculously for his people in the wilderness.

God is saying, if you walk with me, if you are faithful to me, I will take care of you and I will provide for your needs.

I will give you the bread of life.

As a matter of fact, Jesus says, I am the bread of life.

And he says, and I will give you each a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it.

And so there were a lot of different perspectives about this teaching.

The best interpretation is that the victors in athletic contest were given a white stone in this Roman culture.

And inscribed on the stone was the athlete's name who had won and was victorious in their competition.

And so Christ promises those of us who've overcome, who are victorious, who have eternal victory in Jesus, we get a stone with our name written on it.

Our name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

Warren Wearsby says this when the world can walk into the average church and not know that they have left the world, something's wrong.

So what's the response?

It's for us, it's to consecrate.

Consecrate ourselves.

AW Hoser says consecration is the sanctification of the secular.

We live in a secular culture.

And so the consecration is the sanctification of the secular, of a person who is lost, who has been influenced by the culture of the world, but it's the transformation of the commonplace, a revolution in the very center of the human being or human living.

And so what's our response?

Here's what Jesus says to the church at Pergamum.

He says, repent.

Repent.

Repent.

And so I want to, as our as our team comes and closes through a time of surrender, I just want to ask you, I want us to be a church that prays.

I want us to be a church that is constantly evaluating where we are.

I want us to be a church that repents.

I want us to be a church that pulls away from culture.

And I want us to be, I want us believers to be examples to possibly unbelievers that are here in the room.

And we all should be willing to sometimes physically, physically respond to the Lord in a way that is a posture of repentance.

That's why he says, guard your heart, for out of it flows the wellspring of life.

Guard your heart.

Sometimes we just need to say, you know what, I need to repent.

I need to repent.

Let's pray right now.

Let's pray this morning.

Father.

I just pray right now that you would work in us, bring us to a place of repentance.

God, we'd be a church that models repentance.

That we would be in the world, but not of the world.

We would be willing to engage with those that are unbelievers, but God, that we would be the ones that are influencing rather than the ones who are being influenced.

We want to be in the world, but not of the world.

We want to always be in the posture of repentance.

We need to come and be honest before the Lord.

God, I have I have had sin or I have had thoughts or I have to repent.

That's where we have to evaluate.

Evaluate.

Evaluate and then surrender.

Surrender.

Surrender sin, surrender our hearts, surrender our material possessions, surrender our bank accounts, surrender how we live, surrender our marriages, surrender.

Our children, surrender, our parenting, surrender all that we have, asking for the Lord to consecrate, to consecrate our hearts, that we would be set apart, that we would be different, that we would be a culture that stands apart, that is attractive, that draws people, that we would be a loving community.

God, I pray that you would call us to a place of genuine repentance.

It's in Jesus' name.

We pray.