Revelation 2:12-29: A Tale of Two Kingdoms (Week 3)

Well, good morning, everyone.

Welcome to CVC.

If you're new, well goodness, welcome.

My name's Joe.

I'm one of the pastors here.

And uh as James mentioned, we're in a series in the book of Revelation.

So if you have a Bible, you can turn with me to Revelation chapter two.

If you don't have a Bible, we'd love for you to leave with one.

So please talk to one of our staff members on the way out.

They'd be glad to give you a free Bible.

You don't have to sign up for anything or give us any information.

Just say, hey, I'd love a Bible, and we'll give you one.

And if you're going to jump online to use a digital Bible, we preach out of the ESV, the English Standard Version.

Well, I grew up here.

I'm a lifetime Northeast Ohio guy.

Both of my parents, uh, it was a blessing.

Both of my parents loved Jesus and wanted to serve him and and and raise me and my brother in a home uh that loved and served him.

And so my my dad actually worked in Christian camping.

He was an executive uh director at a Christian camp out in Ashtabula County.

Um I got to go, uh, my parents both kind of worked little odd jobs as well, so that I could go to a Christian school in my elementary years.

Um growing up at a Christian camp was a lot of fun.

Like, you know, all my friends would come over and be like, oh, you have all this stuff.

Like, you have a blob.

Yeah, we do.

You have a gymnasium.

Kind of cool.

Um and and then I had a healthy church.

So, like, all of these things you'd feel like like I was really set up to succeed as a Christian young man.

But then one of the things that started to happen, despite all of the good things that my parents had did in the way this that God had blessed me, um, I began to believe a lie, namely that I could dabble in things that were ungodly and immoral, and that they wouldn't be that big of a deal and wouldn't have that big of an impact on my life.

That I could go to, in my middle school and high school years, I went to public school, and so that environment was a little bit different.

And so I started to think, well, I can maintain my faith and still follow Jesus and have a couple drinks at a party, that I could date a girl that was not a follower of Jesus because she wouldn't pull me down, I would start bringing to her, her, her to church, that I could listen to Tupac and Dr.

Dre, and that the topics that they were singing about would not affect my life or my mindset, that I could fall in line with the jokes or the topics that the guys were talking about in the football locker room, and that it wouldn't be a problem.

That Jesus could just forgive me later while I had fun right now.

You see, this is kind of one of the oldest tricks in the book that if Satan can't get you with the normal kind of temptations or frontal assault, that he'll begin to come in and tempt you in different ways, namely ways that just slowly compromise you until you don't recognize really who you are or what you're doing.

And that's exactly what is happening in the two letters to the two churches that we will look at today as we walk through this book of Revelation.

Uh, the beginning of it outlines letters to seven churches that were in Asia Minor.

And each of these churches has different things that are really going well and things that need some correction.

And there are letters to seven churches because they're not only real churches in real time, but seven is symbolic.

And so we're gonna look at the letter to the church in Pergamum and the church in Siatira today, but these are symbolic.

The seven means completeness or wholeness in the Bible.

And so we're to see these not only as churches or as letters to churches in the first century, but as letters to us as well, both collectively and individually.

And so we have much to learn from the letters to Pergamum and Thyatira because we need to be reminded and warned of the tactics of the evil one.

See, sometimes we know very clearly how Satan is trying to attack us and trying to compromise us.

Other times, he's so sneaky and he's so patient that often we don't see the ways that he has influenced our lives and caused us to begin compromising our morals and our godliness.

We have blind spots, and that's exactly what Jesus is calling out today the blind spots in these churches and the blind spots in our own lives.

And so we're gonna look at two tactics that Satan uses to destroy us from the inside.

The first one is peer pressure, peer pressure, Revelation chapter 2, beginning in verse 12.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

To the angel of the church in Pergamum write, the words of him who has the sharp, two-edged sword.

See, in the introduction, the way that Jesus introduces him to him himself to each church has bearing on the problems that are in the church, and it actually pulls from how he describes himself in chapter one.

In chapter one, Jesus describes himself as the one who has the sharp, two-edged sword coming out of his mouth.

And again, that's illustrative.

He doesn't literally have a sword coming out of his mouth, but it means that there's power in his word.

And this sword is two-edged.

It has the power to wound and the power to heal, the power to judge and the power to restore.

We see those things true in God's word, that it both corrects us and it protects us.

And so he's saying to the church in Pergamum that this is who is talking to you, the one whose word is final in all matters.

He goes on in verse 13 to say, I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is.

That's a pretty significant statement.

If if you got a letter from Jesus that said, hey, you're living in the town where Satan's throne is, you might put your house on the market rather quickly.

We're not sure exactly why he describes Pergamum this way.

There are a couple of reasons.

There was a there was a temple to the Roman Emperor there.

There was there was another temple to Asclepius, who was uh uh a god who was um uh his symbol was a snake.

And so, you know, as as a Christian, you know, snakes and Christians don't go well together.

So perhaps that's why there was there was also some martyrdom that had happened.

People had had died for the cause of Christ.

It says, You hold fast my name and did not deny my faith, even in the days when Antipas, my faithful witness, was killed among you where Satan dwells.

So there are a lot of good things that are happening in Pergamum.

Well, there are a lot of bad things that are happening, but there are a lot of good things as well.

They are not denying the faith, they are holding fast to Jesus' name even in the midst of pain and difficulty and the emperor cult and even Christians being killed.

They're continuing to hold fast.

So these are good things.

All of the all of the ways that Satan is trying to aim a frontal assault in the church and Pergamum, they are bearing up.

They're holding the line.

And so Satan decides to use some more crafty tactics, some more crafty approaches.

He tries peer pressure.

Verse 14.

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 Nicolaitans.

So there are two issues of compromise that are happening in the church in Pergamum.

One is some people are holding to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.

Now, scholars have done their best to try and figure out who exactly the Nicolaitans were and what exactly they taught, we don't know precisely, but back in the letter to Ephesus, we know that Jesus hates the teachings of the Nicolaitans.

So there's some sort of uh false doctrine that is in conflict with Christianity there.

And some in this church are trying to merge to syncretize the teaching of the Nicolaitans with Christianity.

The second is he talks about some are holding to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel.

Now, this is one of two allusions that we will find in these two letters today.

Not illusion with an I, but an allusion, which is kind of a reference to a person, a place, or a thing that is intended as shorthand to kind of fill in the gaps.

Um perhaps you have heard the phrase or the name Benedict Arnold.

Now there's a whole hit history and story behind Benedict Arnold's as a general in the United States and him becoming a traitor, switching sides to uh uh Great Britain.

But when we say that, when you use that phrase, when you call someone a Benedict Arnold, you don't have to tell the whole story.

We just understand that as someone being a traitor.

That's an illusion.

So the people in the first century knew their Old Testament pretty well, and they would have immediately understood intuitively what this whole conversation about Balaam and Baloch was about.

I'm gonna fill in the gaps just in case you don't know that story from the book of Numbers.

This is a reference to these two guys in the Old Testament.

You see, when the people of Israel were freed from slavery in Egypt, God was bringing them to the promised land, and because God's hand of blessing was upon them, no one was able to stand in their way.

And so Balak, the king of Midian, sees this and he wants to avoid conflict.

So he goes to this guy named Balaam and says, Hey, you're a prophet of God.

I need you to help me here.

I need you to put a curse on these people so that they can't come and run roughshod over my country.

Well, Balaam says, I'm a prophet of God.

I can't really do that.

I speak for him.

I can't perform a curse over his own people.

And he goes, I'll pay you really well.

He goes, All right, I'll give it a try.

So he tries several times, and every time he goes to speak a curse, blessings come out of his mouth.

God will not allow him to pronounce a curse over the people of Israel.

And so every time Balach goes, What are you doing, man?

This is not what I'm paying you for.

And so Balaam says, Look, you actually don't need me to curse these people.

Here's all you need to do.

You just need to introduce some really pretty ladies, and the guys of Israel will find them enticing, they'll intermarry, they'll bring their pagan practices into syncretism, compromise with the people of God, and you'll get them that way.

So that's the reference to Balaam.

It says some are holding to the teachings of Balaam.

It means Pergamum, some of the people in your church are beginning to believe that they can mix worldly actions, media choices, sexual practices, conversations in the office.

If you fill in the blank, there are people in Pergamum who are beginning to think I can mix my Christianity with the actions of the world, and that it won't be a problem.

Just like teenage Jovi Valenti.

And so Jesus, in his kindness and his love towards them, warns them.

You cannot make friends with the world.

There are a lot of ways that we do this, and I just mentioned some of them.

Our sexual standards, either with somebody that we date or what we view on television or online.

The things that we consume via music or books or television, the way we speak and compromise our speech or our joking to fit in maybe with those in our neighborhood or those in our office.

We get sucked into the American dream, and so the way that we spend our money sometimes looks a lot more like the world than it does trust that Jesus will provide and investing in his kingdom.

We allow peer pressure from parents and coaches and teachers to dictate the morals and the expectations and the way that we lead and love our children and guide our families.

Our approach to politics sometimes can can overshadow our Christian morals, and what comes out is far more venom than grace.

See, nobody in Pergamum woke up one morning and decided, you know what, this is it.

I'm gonna start to compromise.

The devil just starts to kind of sneak in the back door and drop in a little bit here and there.

And as I mentioned earlier, he is extraordinarily patient.

Compromise just takes time.

And there are many of us, myself included, who know this story.

One day you wake up and you don't know which way is up.

Because you have spent so much time trying to combine the ways of the world with the ways of Jesus, thinking it's not gonna get me until it does.

And so a question for you to consider is where might there be a blind spot of compromise in our lives that necessitate repentance?

This is what Jesus calls us to, verse 16, therefore repent.

Turn around, go a different way.

Say, I'm sorry, Lord, and I don't want to live this way anymore.

He says, if not, I will come to you and war against them with the sword of my mouth.

He will come and bring a word of judgment.

Now the language is interesting.

Look again at 16.

He says, Therefore, repent.

If not, I will come to you and war against them.

There's a you and a them in this sentence.

And I think the way that the syntax lays out is there is the is the you is everybody.

Therefore, repent, all of you.

If not, I will come to you soon, all of you, and war against them.

Well, who's who's the you and who's the them?

Here's what I think is happening here.

The you is the whole church in Pergamum.

The them is the people who are holding to the Nicolaitans and the teachings of Balaam.

The them are those who are attempting to combine, to compromise with the ways of the world.

So why then would he call everyone to repentance if it's just them over there that are compromising and not we over here?

See, sometimes maybe that's the way that we would choose to function in church.

Like, I don't know, Janice over there and Bob over there, like they're I don't know if they're real Christians.

We might want to sit on the other side of the auditorium from them so that their sin doesn't rub off.

But there's an ask for repentance here from everyone.

Why?

Because compromise has an author and compromise has an audience.

You see, this is a call to repentance, not only for the people in our church or any given church that are compromising sexually or compromising morally, but it's also for those who are standing around watching without ever bringing a loving correction or rebuke.

This is for the elder who notices and doesn't say anything.

This is for a friend who saw what was happening in that person's life and just decided, that's not really my business.

This is for the life group member who watched compromise take root in a family or a couple or an individual and just decided, man, this is really gonna make a mess in my life group if I start to call this out.

And so I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna let it go.

This is for all of us, because, as I have said multiple times over the last several months, who you are will determine who we are.

And so there's not really an us and a them.

That's what Jesus is saying.

There's not an us and a them.

There's a there's a us.

And we are all responsible for guarding against compromise in our midst.

He who has an ear to hear, verse 17, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Pay attention.

To the one who conquers, to the one basically, when when Jesus uses that word conquers throughout these letters, he means to the one who listens.

To the one who listens to my correction and responds in repentance to overcome, to conquer that sin, to conquer that blind spot.

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.

Now, these two uh benefits of conquering have received quite a bit of scholarly debate because it's not exactly clear.

Mana is clearly a reference to the to the Exodus generation, God providing manna from heaven, but there was also uh Moses was commanded to keep some manna near the altar in the tabernacle as a constant reminder of God's provision.

So there's this idea of some of God's hidden provision and the giving of a white stone with a new name written on the stone.

In the ancient times, uh a jury would give a vote with a black stone or a white stone.

A black stone was guilty and a white stone was acquittal.

And so I think what's happening here is Jesus is saying, to the one who conquers, I will provide for them, and I will save, redeem, rescue, acquit you of your sins if you repent.

But notice both of these things are hidden.

Hidden manna, private provision.

And on this stone, no one knows except the one who receives it.

See, Jesus is pushing back against our desire to be publicly noticed and to fit in.

See, that's the that's how peer pressure works.

I want to fit in with the friends at school, with the people in the office, with the neighbors that live down the street, and so what we do is in an effort to fit in, I will compromise so that publicly everybody I engage likes me and feels comfortable around me.

But Jesus is saying, no, public recognition is not nearly as important as my private provision and my rescuing of you with the white stone.

Peer pressure's currency is public, and Jesus' reward is private.

So what in what areas might peer pressure be a problem for you?

Where might there be a blind spot where Jesus is calling us today, individually and collectively, to repentance?

The second tactic that Satan uses to destroy from the inside is platform pressure.

So peer pressure.

Secondly, platform pressure.

Let's look to the church in Thyatira.

To the angel of the church in Thyatira, right?

The words of the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze.

So the eyes like a flame of fire just describe Jesus who sees everything.

He sees not only our actions like everyone else can, but he actually sees what we think, and he sees the heart posture behind.

And his feet like bronze, he is solid, he's steady, he is immovable.

What he says goes.

He says, I know your works, your love, your faith and service, your patience.

Endurance and that your latter works exceed the first.

Man, I would love to get a letter to CVC from Jesus that says that.

Wow.

I know your works, the things you're doing in ministry, the way you're sharing my love and your message.

I know your love.

So over against Ephesus, where their hearts are gone, they genuinely love Jesus.

Their faith is increasing, their service is increasing, patient endurance, so there's some sort of conflict or persecution coming up against them, and they're enduring, and that your latter works exceed the first.

You're doing better, you're growing more spiritually today than you were five years ago.

To this I go thumbs up Thyatira.

I would love this letter.

And then out of his grace and his kindness towards them, like a parent bringing correction, helping them to see a blind spot, he says, 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 to eat food sacrificed to idols.

I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.

Now, throughout this section, both to Pergamum and to Thyatira, and throughout the Bible, we will see that sexual immorality is not only the actual act of being sexual, sexually immoral, but that that God uses that phrase or that term to describe a cheating on him, essentially.

Idolatry, sinful living.

So it could be literally sexual immorality, or it could be any other way that we compromise and go against God's instructions for our lives.

And so what is happening is there is somebody in the church in Thyatira who's a leader, she's calling herself a prophetess, and she's basically teaching people that you can compromise what God says.

It's honestly the way that Satan spoke in the garden.

Did God really say that?

Now, some people really grasp onto like the fact that this is a woman.

Well, the real problem is that they've got a woman who's leading in the church.

That's not the aim here.

And her name probably isn't Jezebel.

This is another allusion to the Old Testament.

King Ahab was one of the worst kings that Israel ever saw.

He was weak, he was whiny, and it says that he did more to kindle the anger of God than all of the other kings before him.

One of the things he does is he marries a pagan woman named Jezebel who begins to bring idolatry and compromise into Israel.

What's worse is that he's kind of weak and whiny, and she's tough and cunning and smart.

There's a story where Ahab wanted this vineyard.

A man named Naboth owned this vineyard, and so he goes to Naboth and he said, I would like your vineyard because I want to plant my own garden there.

And Naboth basically says, Hey king, go pound salt.

Well, the king goes back and he he kind of pouts in his bedroom.

It says he turned towards the wall and he's whining and crying.

And she walks in, Jezebel walks in and goes, What are you crying about?

And he goes, Naboth won't give me his vineyard.

And she's like, Oh my goodness.

Are you the king or not?

So she she takes the pen and she and she writes out some letters, puts his seal on it, sends it to these guys to basically say, kill Naboth.

Deal with the problem.

They do.

She goes, Here, I got you your vineyard.

Now get up and start acting like a king.

This is kind of who she is.

And so this allusion back to Jezebel is intended to show us that this is not peer pressure coming in from the outside.

This is this is sort of peer pressure that has found its way on to the inside.

Platform pressure, leadership pressure.

When the snake is inside the church.

Somebody who has some sort of self-designated leadership.

She calls herself a prophetess.

Now, maybe we don't have that exact problem in this church necessarily, but I'll tell you one of the primary ways that this type of thing sneaks into the American church is through YouTube and through Instagram and through TikTok and through Facebook and through the internet.

One of the things that Pastor Rick, who's our founding pastor, said to me one time is he said, one of the things you've got to realize, Joe, is that in this internet age, you are not the functional pastor for many, many people in Cuyahoga Valley Church.

Somebody on the internet is their functional pastor.

They will come into church and they might sing the songs and they might listen to you preach, but they're always testing you against somebody that's on the internet that they might prefer a little bit more.

And this is what here's here's what happens is the Bible tells us that people will amass for themselves in these latter days, people will amass for themselves people who would tell them what their itching ears want to hear.

So people will come on the internet or people will step into pulpits and say, yeah, you can be a Christian and live however you want.

That there there that there are no expectations or moral guidelines, that there's no correction, that there's no judgment, that you can have your cake and eat it too.

This is what is happening in the church in Thyatira, and Jesus says you had better watch out.

See, sometimes what happens is we start when we we sang that song earlier.

I will take you at your word.

And so often what happens is we find a teacher online that we really like and they sound really smart, and things they're saying are really appealing, and man, they don't sound as maybe as cut and dry, or their expectations on my life aren't as difficult as that pastor over there at CVC, and so I might prefer them.

And we elevate, we take people on the internet at their word instead of God at his word.

And you will wake up one day and realize perhaps that you have drifted so far from Christian Orthodoxy that you don't know which way is up.

We mistake talent for godliness.

We mistake a skill with speech or with music for godliness.

We mistake the amount of followers or their skill with putting together a fancy video with biblical fidelity.

We excuse leadership that lives in habitual sin because that might make a really big mess in our church.

And I'll just say I have some elders in the room and I have all of you in the room.

If I'm ever compromising on the word of God, or if we're ever compromising on the word of God, on the word of God, I would rather we make a really big mess on this side of heaven than we stand before the throne of God.

That's going to be a bigger mess.

And this is what's happening in the church in Thyatira, and here's the consequences.

Verse 22, I will throw her onto a sick bed.

All of these are illustrations.

I'll throw her onto a sick bed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead, and all of the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.

See, in verse 21, we see she's already been given an opportunity to repent.

So this isn't God flying off the handle.

This is a good father, a godly parent who sees to the heart of every issue, saying, I'm telling you, if you do not repent and turn away, judgment is imminent.

See, here's the problem, I think, in many American churches, and I'm sure this is a problem in our church to some degree.

We begin to think, because I said a prayer of faith at some point in the past, maybe when you were young, maybe five years ago, we think, we get we get confused.

We believe, okay, Jesus forgave me, so now I can live however I want because I've punched my ticket to heaven.

And Jesus is telling us throughout these letters to the churches that the best evidence, you you want assurance of your salvation, the best evidence is that you are obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ right now.

That's that's that's how we gauge in any given moment.

If Jesus calls me to repentance, if he shows, Jovi Lenti, here's here's here's a blind spot, here's an area where you've drifted, here's an area where you're disobeying me, where you're not living in accordance with my word.

This is an area of blind spot.

If I say no thank you to your repentance, I'd like to live how I want to live, thank you very much.

Jesus is saying, Joe, the only hope that you have then in the future is judgment.

Because how you live today in response to the Lord Jesus is the evidence that your faith is legitimate from the beginning.

All the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart.

And I just tell you, you're never gonna get to the throne of God and be able to pull the wool over his eyes.

But to the rest of you in Thyatira, verse 24, who do not hold to this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I don't lay any other burden on you, only hold fast to what you have until I come.

It seems that there's conflict in the church in Thyatira.

See, in Pergamum, everybody's kind of going along to get along.

I know they're living like that over here, not my business.

Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no, it is your business.

In Thyatira, it seems like there is conflict.

There's a group of people who are like, hey, the things that this lady is teaching, the direction that she's pulling our church, I'm not okay with.

And Jesus says, hold fast what you have until I come.

So the answer isn't leave the church and find another one.

The answer is no, fight.

Stay in the church and fight for what is right.

Prayerfully and diligently, guide that church back towards a place of biblical fidelity and repentance and Christ likeness.

Hold fast what you have until I come.

To the one who conquers and keeps my works, I will give him authority over the nations.

He will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.

This isn't some sort of dictatorship that we're invited into.

This is a reference to Psalm 2, and it's a reference that we will have the opportunity to rule and reign with Jesus in the new creation.

And so this woman and those who are following her, the people on the internet, the guy on Instagram, the person who is calling themselves a pastor on TikTok but is not following the word of God, fake temporary authority.

Influence that will shrivel up.

Influence people that will have to stand before the throne of God and give an answer for their actions and for their words.

Jesus is promising us real authority, real opportunity.

He says, I will give them the morning star.

That's how he describes himself later.

I will give to you this, this is the benefit for those who bear up, who hold fast.

We receive Jesus himself.

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

You know, I, as I mentioned earlier, I was had the blessing of having good and godly parents.

One of the things that they did as good and godly parents is they were constant, especially as I grew older.

I'm learning this now that I have a son in in college.

You know?

I can't I can't ground him.

So what do I constantly do?

I warn him.

I warn him constantly against compromise.

It's one of the things I did for years as a youth pastor here.

I would say to the kids, don't look at my story and go, well, Pastor Joe was able to be a bonehead in middle school and high school, and he ended up okay, so maybe I can do that same thing.

Do not follow my path.

Heed my warnings, I would say.

Why?

Because a loving pastor or a loving parent warns.

And when necessary, they give consequences.

And this is how we ought to see these letters from Jesus as loving warnings and gracious calls to repentance.

And we would do well to heed them.

One of the things I wish I could do is go back and talk to 15-year-old Joe Valenti, an 18-year-old Joe Valenti, and 22-year-old Joe Valenti.

See, hindsight's 20-20.

I hurt so many people and I broke so many things.

And God in his kindness rescued me, but it wasn't void of pain and hurt and misery at some points.

And so the way that we ought to respond to Jesus' correction here, to our penchant, our habit to compromise, is just ask him to search our heart.

To pause today to slow down and say, Jesus, is there any area in my life where there's a blind spot?

Where there's compromise?

Where I'm trying to mix the ways of the world with the instructions from your word?

Is there any way that I'm overestimating my spiritual strength?

To say I can dabble in that, I can try that.

A little bit of this isn't going to hurt because I'm spiritually strong.

Man, that is a scheme of the devil.

And Jesus today is calling us to self-examination and to repentance.

Because, like he says here, the consequences are far more dire than a grounding from mom or dad taking away your cell phone for a couple weeks.

The consequences here, if we will not repent, are eternal consequences.

So these are the words of a loving father, calling each of us back from our compromise.

So my hope and my heart for you and for us is that perhaps the Holy Spirit, even as I've talked this morning, has put something in your heart, put something in your mind, that you go, Yeah, there is compromise in my life.

There is friendship with the world.

I'm succumbing to peer pressure or to platform pressure.

I have allowed voices into my life that I know are not Christian.

Because when I test them against this book, they don't hold water.

But I really like what they have to say.

So might we respond to the loving correction of our Father this morning?

I would encourage you, whatever that thing is, whatever the Lord is revealing to you today, whatever that blind spot might be, tell somebody else about it.

Bring it out into the light.

In the book of 1 John, or sorry, in the book of no, no, no, no, it is 1 John.

In 1 John, he says that if that if we say that we have no sin, we're lying.

So the issue is not pretending that we have no sin, the issue is bringing it out to the light.

Bring it out to the light.

So there's accountability in our lives.

So perhaps over breakfast this morning, over a conversation, just turn the browns off.

It's so bad.

It's so bad.

Just just talk about Jesus instead.

I didn't mean to blow this whole thing up, but like just talk about Jesus instead.

That's a way better use of your Sunday afternoon.

Repentance and confession and accountability.

Bring it out.

Bring it out to the light, or perhaps in your life group this week.

Don't just talk, like we can get so caught in like, well, let's really figure out what the hidden manna is.

No, no, no, no.

Let's talk about accountability.

Let's bring out to the light so that we might be restored, that we might be the ones who conquer and receive the hidden manna, whatever it is I want it.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Jesus, you are the one who searches hearts and who searches minds, and none can escape you.

And so you already know.

There is no hiding from the one whose eyes are like a flame of fire.

You already know, and just like this woman in Thyatira, you extend your grace to us, you give us opportunity for repentance.

And so might we be so courageous and so humble to take you up on your offer that we might be the ones who conquer and receive that white stone with a new name.

Would you do this work in us individually, in our families, in our marriages, and in our church for your glory and our good?

We ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.