Sermon - Your Cultural Caution - The Overcomers

Do you realize that you have a lot of preachers in your ear every week?

Like every morning you wake up, our culture is preaching something into your soul.

Your phones preach to you, advertisements preach to you, politicians preach to you, entertainment preaches to you, the algorithms on your computer preach to you.

And every sermon that is being preached wants you to believe what will make you valuable, what will satisfy you, what will fulfill your long deepest and uh darkest desires, and also what you should fear.

Believe it or not, our world is deciphering us.

We're trying to decipher us.

Welcome to the Church of the Lakes Weekly Sermon Podcast.

We're so glad you've joined us, and we're honored to be part of our spiritual journey.

This year, Church of the Lakes is focusing on having a kind of mindset in all that we do by living out of culturally to the world to become more like Jesus.

Today, Pastor Jared Priestette continues our sermon series called The Overcomers, which comes from the book of Revelation.

The title of today's message is Your Cultural Caution.

The world pressures us to bear its mark, but overcomers belong to the land.

And now, here's Pastor Jared.

Be blessed.

Well, church, one of the most powerful forces in your life is something that you probably don't ever even notice.

And it's this pressure to fit in.

It starts early, doesn't it?

The pressure to fit in.

Like when you're a children child at school, you want to wear what everybody else wears.

You like what everybody else likes.

You want to talk like everybody else talks.

You uh again like what everyone else likes.

I remember back in the late 80s when I was in school, uh, reebok pumps became a thing.

Who here had a pair of reebok pumps?

I didn't because my family couldn't afford reebok pumps, but I wanted to be like everybody else.

So what did my mom do?

It took me to pay less to get a pair of spalding pumps.

So it was the knockoff version, the best we could do.

But but again, it's this pressure to fit in.

Anyone who's raised a teenager, you know the famous comment they make.

But everybody's doing it.

And as parents, what do you say in response?

Well, if everybody's jumping off a cliff, would you jump off that cliff with them?

Okay, here's the problem.

We don't outgrow the pressure to want to fit in, do we?

As adults, we we still feel it.

Like we want to think like everybody else, spend our money like everyone else, want what everyone else wants, believe what everyone else believes.

In culture, man, it can change our how we feel towards X, Y, and Z very quickly without us even noticing.

And then we get on board and want to do whatever that X, Y, and Z is.

Let me give you an example.

A generation ago, we left work and we actually left work at the office, didn't we?

Now we're required to answer our phones even when we're off the clock to respond to whatever we need to respond to.

We used to compare ourselves only to people within our circle of influence.

Now we compare ourselves to everyone's highlight reel that is on our phone that's in our pocket.

Uh we used to buy things that we thought we needed.

Now we have algorithms on our computer that tell us what we need and want even before we know what we need or want.

In church, the danger isn't simply that culture changes sometimes without us even noticing.

The danger is that our culture can change us without us even noticing.

Eventually, if we're not careful, we become so shaped by our culture and world around us that we don't even realize we've been shaped by our culture and our world around us.

Okay, that's where Revelation 13 comes in.

Uh, last week, the Apostle John and the vision that the Holy Spirit gave him, uh, pulled back the curtain and he showed us the dragon.

The dragon is synonymous with the devil.

He's very plain about that in Revelation 12.

In Revelation 12, it is the birth narrative of the Christ child in Bethlehem.

And, you know, we gather here in December 24th and we sing silent night, holy night.

Everything's calm, everything's right.

No, we see a story in Revelation 12 where nothing was calm, nothing was right.

There was the devil, the dragon, standing over this woman in labor, giving birth, waiting to snatch the child as he came forth into our world.

And what we learned last week is actually there's a lot more going on than just at the surface.

There's battles you and I face that are beneath the battles that live on the surface.

But here's the thing, and we're moving into today the dragon doesn't always attack through obvious persecution.

Sometimes, most of the time, the devil works through pressure.

The pressure to conform, the pressure to compromise, the pressure to give our allegiance to someone or something other than Jesus Christ.

So, Revelation 13, where we're going today, uh it's this interlude within the windows that John is seeing through as to the vision that he's been given and revealed to him by Jesus.

And in this interlude, there is a lot of apocalyptic imagery, um, symbols, numbers.

I don't want us to get lost in all of that.

That we fail to see the deeper question that John is driving at in Revelation 13.

And here it's simply this who or what is forming you?

Who or what is forming you?

Because, church, every one of us bears a mark.

The question is, whose mark do we bear?

Who or what is forming you?

And remember, the revelation was given to us as the people of God not to elicit fear in our souls.

Again, the apocalyptic and prophetic imagery and symbolism can do that, but that's not the reason for it.

What John is doing in writing the revelation that he sees from Jesus is to help evoke courage in the people of God in the midst of what we're facing in the here now.

Pastor Matt Chandler says it great.

He says it's to put steel within our spines.

So again, today we're not gonna hunt through the conspiracy theories that have plagued the church over the past 2,000 years with Revelation 13.

We're simply gonna look at the deeper question that it asks.

Who or what is forming you?

Who or what has your allegiance?

Listen to God's word this morning.

Uh, this is uh chapter 13.

I'm gonna start in verse 11.

So you had the dragon, the devil in chapter 12.

The beginning of chapter 13, you have the first beast who's the beast of the sea, terrifying in image.

And now we have the second beast, the beast of the earth.

Not as terrifying, but one could argue more deceptive to the people of God and to the people of the earth.

Listen to God's word.

John says, under the inspiration of the Spirit, then I saw another beast that rose out of the earth.

Hear this.

It had two horns like a lamb, but when it spoke, it spoke like the dragon.

It exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and it makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound had been healed.

It also performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of all.

And by the signs that it allowed it is allowed to perform on behalf of the beast, hear this, it deceives the inhabitants of the earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet lived, and it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast could even speak, and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.

16.

Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or on the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark that is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

Talk about a pressure to conform.

Let me read it again.

He gave the mark on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark that is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

This calls for wisdom, church.

Let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person.

It is, and here's the infamous number of Revelation.

666.

This is the word of God for the people of God.

Friends, hear it, believe it, and live.

What's going on here?

Okay, John sees another beast.

Remember, he saw a dragon the devil in twelve?

Sees the beast of the sea in the beginning of thirteen, and now he sees the beast of land.

However, the first beast again was terrifying looking.

This beast, not so much.

Why?

Well, because it had two horns like the lamb.

But when it spoke, it spoke like the dragon.

Don't miss that.

Friends, evil doesn't always look like evil.

Sometimes deception looks almost like the real thing.

Remember last week we talked a lot about counterfeit?

And the issue with counterfeit is it's the fake thing, but it looks real because there's a little nugget of truth wrapped up with a whole lot of lie, and if we're not careful in knowing the truth and equipping ourselves with the knowledge to know the truth, then we might be hoodwinked into accepting the counterfeit as truth.

And so John says, since that is the propensity of humanity that the devil's trying to trick us to believe that he is the Lamb, the real Lamb, he says to us, he gives us start, he starts out with a warning.

He says this, be careful what is forming you.

Be careful what is forming you.

Why?

Again, because of the counterfeit.

He says the beast imitates, the beast deceives, the beast persuades.

And ultimately, what the beast is trying to do is get us to direct our worship away from the living God.

The beast is trying to disrupt the purposes of God and to destroy the ones that our the living God loves.

And so be careful what's forming you.

The counterfeit.

Think of counterfeit worship.

Counterfeit worship, the way counterfeit worship works is it takes something created and makes that created thing something ultimate.

So every culture does this.

Do you realize that you have a lot of preachers in your ear every week?

Like every morning you wake up, our culture is preaching something into your soul.

Your phones preach to you, advertisements preach to you, politicians preach to you, entertainment preaches to you, the algorithms on your computer preach to you.

And every sermon that is being preached wants you to believe what will make you valuable, what will satisfy you, what will fulfill your long, deepest and darkest desires, and also what you should fear.

Believe it or not, our world is discipling us or trying to disciple us.

So the question is not whether or not you're being formed, the question is by what or whom are you being formed?

Take this illustration.

If you're in an airport, you're running down these long corridors to try to get to your next uh the gate to make your connection.

And every now and then in those long corridors to give yourself a breath, they have those moving sidewalks.

Now I never use those because I like to burn calories when I'm in the airport.

So I run alongside it to see if I can actually beat the people to the end of the movable sidewalk.

But but if you go on one of those movable sidewalks, you stop, you don't move.

But in a sense, you're you're still moving.

Whether you want to or not.

Friends, that's culture.

Like you don't have to consciously decide as a person of God, you know what, today I'm going to move away from Jesus.

You just have to be passive.

You just have to stand there and not be intentional with the things that will develop and deepen your relationship with the Lord.

You just have to never question what you're consuming.

Never examine what uh has your affection.

Never challenge what everybody else around you calls normal.

And before long, if you're that passive, guess what?

You've moved.

There's I don't believe there's a Christian in our world that wakes up one morning and says to themselves, you know what, today's gonna be the day I abandoned Jesus.

They don't do that.

Usually it's one small compromise at a time.

It's one decision, one desire, one habit, until we call ourselves Christians, but think about money, sexuality, success, politics, power, even enemies, just like everybody else.

That's why the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 12, do not be conformed by the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

So maybe the question today isn't simply, is this allowed?

Do you know there's a lot of things in our culture that are allowed that make your soul rot?

The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians both chapter 6 and 10 talks about how there may be things that are permissible, but for the people of God are not beneficial.

Because they make our soul rot.

They draw us away from King Jesus.

I'm talking about maybe it's pornography, gambling, greed, gossip, you you name it.

These things are permissible within our culture, but they're not beneficial to the people of God.

So again, the question isn't, is this allowed?

Maybe the better question is, what is this forming me to love?

Is this forming me to love Christ Jesus more, or is this forming me to love something that has been created?

Because, friends, whatever forms your heart eventually shapes your allegiance, which brings us to the infamous number 666.

Again, because culture has a way to um get us to compromise and to pull us away from the things of God, John gives the warning.

Be careful what's forming you.

Here's the challenge.

Friends, stop chasing the seven stop chasing the almost seven.

Verse 16 says the people of earth receive the beast's mark on their forehead and on their hand.

You know, Christians throughout your generation have wondered, what in the world is this mark?

Is it a literal tattoo across your forehead that says 666?

Is it a barcode on your wrist?

Is it a microchip that gets injected into you through some vaccine?

That's not what John wants to deal with here.

He wants to take it much deeper than that.

But you got to go to that Deuteronomy, fifth book of the Bible, real quick.

Deuteronomy chapter 6.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

The people of God were told to bind the commandments of God to their hands and to their forehead.

Deuteronomy 6, you get what's called the Shema.

The Shema is this Jewish statement of faith.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Then you get the command, if you declare that you are that people of God, you get this command that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Then you are to keep these words that Moses, Godfrey Moses, is commanding to the people of God today in their heart.

You are to bind them on your hand and fix them as emblems on your forehead.

Why the forehead and hand?

Well, the forehead represents what shapes your thinking.

The hand represents how that allegiance actually shapes your living.

Therefore, John's question is not merely what might somebody put on my hand or my head.

No, no.

It's deeper.

Who owns my mind?

Who directs my life?

Who has my allegiance?

Then John gives the number 666.

Now, there are historical resource scholars who will tie that number to the Emperor Nero and to the Roman Imperial Guard 2,000 years ago.

However, I think if that's true, that's great, but I think it has powerful symbolism for us today.

All throughout scripture, numbers mean something.

If you jump into a number, it actually means something.

And some of the big numbers, the obvious ones, are the numbers that mean completion.

The number three is the number of completion.

Our God is a Trinitarian-natured God made up of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

He is complete in and of Himself.

Another number of completion is the number seven.

We see all throughout Revelation that number seven, seven churches, seven lampstands, seven seals, seven trumpets.

Soon we'll get into the seven bulls, so on and so forth.

So seven again is a number that means fullness in completion.

Six, however, now I'm no mathematician, but six I think fall short of seven.

It's like an almost seven.

Six, six, six, again and again, again.

Three sixes means uh completion, but six isn't a complete number, it's an almost seven number.

Here's what I want you to hear six, six, six.

Think of it this way it is the most completely incomplete thing in the world.

It's humanity trying to be God.

It's earthly worldly power pretending that it's ultimate.

It's created things promising what only God was equipped to give you.

Church, our world is full of almost sevens, isn't it?

It is.

Take this for an example.

Have you ever ordered something off that great website, Amazon, and you were convinced because the algorithms convinced you of it, that you needed it.

Like you tracked the reviews, you tracked the package, you got the notification, it is ten stops away, and you're following the blue truck going from one stop to the next until it reaches your door like it's Christmas Eve.

Then it arrives, and you open up the box, and for like twelve minutes, life is complete.

Right?

Then what happens?

Well, your algorithm mentions that you need something else.

And so you start chasing that thing.

It's an almost seven.

Maybe your almost seven is success.

You think to yourself, man, if I could just get that promotion.

But then you get the promotion, and almost immediately there's another person in front of you.

Right?

Another salary, another achievement, another person who has a job that you now want.

Friends, it's an almost seven.

Maybe it's approval.

Oh, if I could just get that one person to finally notice me, if I could just get enough likes on whatever I posted on my social media platforms, if if my parents would finally verbalize how much they love me and how proud they are of me, if if that person would finally affirm my gifts and abilities, and then you get it today, but you need it again tomorrow.

It's an almost seven.

Money can be an almost seven, sex can be an almost seven.

Um career, politics can be almost sevens.

Parenting, marriage can be almost sevens, even ministry can be an almost seven.

Friends, none of those things I mentioned in and of themselves are evil.

I mean, that they're morally neutral, right?

But when you take a created thing and give uh and seeking for it to give you what only your creator can give you, what it leaves you with is an is an almost seven.

It leaves you with a six.

That's the tragedy of idolatry.

Every idol is going to overpromise but underdeliver every single time.

I am confident in saying that.

But the idol's gonna keep asking you just a little more, just a little more, and you keep thinking maybe the next time it will finally.

Make a seven.

More money, more recognition, more pleasure, more influence, more success.

Friends, it's six, six, six.

It's the most complete, incomplete thing in our existences.

St.

Augustine said in the third century, God, our hearts are restless until they find the rest in you and you alone.

Why?

Because there is a God-shaped completeness that nothing created can provide.

Do you realize you and I were created for God?

To be in relationship with God.

And this is where the whole passage this morning turns.

So chapter 13 ends with that infamous number, 666.

Right?

Incomplete.

Counterfeit.

A beast demanding allegiance.

And then you flip the page to Revelation 14, and it begins with three beautiful words.

Then I looked.

There John goes looking again.

It's like all throughout Revelation, he's in this almost this moment of despair and despondency, and somebody taps him on the shoulder to tell him to look again.

Revelation 4.

He sees a throne in heaven and somebody sitting on that throne.

And in the hand of the one sitting on the throne is a scroll, and that scroll is bound with seven seals.

Now, what is the scroll?

It's God's purpose is finding their appointed completion, ending.

But it's wrapped with these seven seals, and John looks across heaven, earth, and under the earth, and there's nobody found worthy to open the seal, and he begins to weep, but one of the elders of heaven taps him on the shoulder and says, Look again.

And he sees the Lamb who is worthy to open the seal.

We get it again, he's at a moment of almost despondency with the marks of the beast, with the deception and the compromise and the counterfeit of the culture.

And it says, Then I looked.

And he looked, and like former times, it changes everything for John.

Listen, who is forming you?

Or be careful who is forming you.

Stop chasing almost sevens.

And here's the climax.

Remember whose name you actually bear, church.

Revelation 14 says, Then I looked, and there was a lamb standing on Mount Zion.

So chapter 13 ends with 666.

Chapter 14 begins with a lamb.

Chapter 13 ends with a beast demanding your allegiance.

Chapter 14 starts with Jesus standing victorious, surrounded by 144,000 people.

You think, what's that number?

It's another number in the Bibles that mean completion.

What is written on the 144,000's forehead?

The name of the Lamb and the name of the Father.

Do you see it?

The beast has a mark.

Jesus has a name.

The beast says, You belong to me.

Jesus says you belong to me.

Friends, that's the gospel turn in this passage.

Christianity is not primarily about everything we're against as the church.

No, no.

Christianity is ultimately about to whom we belong.

If you are in Christ today, hear me.

You were purchased by his blood, shed on a cross.

You were redeemed by his grace.

You were given a new name, a new citizenship, a new identity.

Like your failures don't define you, nor does your success.

Your political persuasion doesn't define you.

Doesn't get the power to name you.

Not even your past, as bad as it may be, doesn't get the power to name you.

Jesus names you and he calls you redeemed.

He calls you chosen.

He calls you forgiven.

He calls you his.

And then Revelation 14, 4 gives us one of the simplest definitions of discipleship in all of Scripture.

They follow the Lamb wherever He goes.

Friends, that's discipleship.

Six words.

Follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

Not Jesus bless me wherever I decide to go.

Not Jesus fit into my life that I have already ordained and designed for myself.

No, no.

Jesus, wherever you go, I will go.

Therefore, if the lamb leads towards forgiveness, I forgive.

If the lamb leads towards generosity, I give.

If the lamb leads towards purity, I obey.

If the lamb leads towards people who are hurting, I serve.

If the lamb leads across cultural boundaries, I cross them.

If the lamb leads towards sacrifice, I follow.

Even when culture is moving people in the opposite direction.

Friends, that's an overcomer.

So let me ask where are you feeling the pressure to compromise?

What has been forming you?

What almost seven are you continually trying to chase after?

Maybe today the Holy Spirit is showing you that this has been too much, that this thing, whatever this thing has, this almost seven, has too much of me.

Maybe your career has too much of you.

Your political ideology has too much of you.

Maybe your phone has too much of you.

Or the need for approval or the need for comfort or a relationship.

Maybe that has too much of you.

Friends, if that is you, hear the gospel, then I looked.

Friend, look again.

Look past the beast, look past the pressure, look past 6, 6, 6.

For there is a lamb and he is standing.

Jesus has not been defeated, church.

He has not lost control.

He is not nervously watching to see what culture is going to do next.

The Lamb stands victoriously.

Therefore, stop chasing the almost sevens.

Stop asking created things to complete for you what only Jesus can complete.

And remember, you belong to the Lamb.

If you're here today and you have spent your whole existence chasing almost sevens and you have found yourself exhausted, can I appeal today to you just to stop?

Friend, the almost seven doesn't bring fulfillment.

It never has and it never will.

Jesus came for you.

He died on a cross for you.

He shed his blood to redeem you.

And he walked out of a grave to give you a life that this world can never provide.

Stop chasing the almost sevens and come to Jesus.

Listen, tomorrow morning, I'm sure of it, our culture is gonna start preaching to you again.

Your phone's gonna preach, politicians are gonna preach, advertisements are gonna preach, your own sinful desires are gonna preach.

So before you listen to any of them, listen to the Lamb.

And then do what Revelation 14 says.

Follow him wherever he goes.

Because the world pressures us to bear its mark, but overcomers belong to the Lamb.

And it is only his name that is worth building a life upon.

Praise be to God.

Will you pray with me?

Lord Jesus, we have heard your word today.

Now we ask that your Holy Spirit search our hearts.

Because God, the tragedy of life is that so many of us have spent our days chasing almost sevens.

We've chased things that promise fulfillment but leave us empty.

Promise security but leave us anxious.

Promise satisfaction, but always leave us wanting a little more.

Lord, will you forgive us as individuals and as a collective whole?

Will you forgive us for asking created things to give us what only our Creator can provide?

Forgive us, God, for giving our hearts to things that were never meant to have our allegiance.

And now, Holy Spirit, would you reveal those things to us?

Will you speak to us in this moment and show us where we've been shaped more by the world than by your word?

Where we've compromised, where we've settled, where we've allowed something other than Jesus to form our identity and our desires and our decisions.

Lord, we don't simply want to become better versions of ourselves.

We want to become more like Jesus.

So form our minds and our hearts and our desires and our lives.

And Father, as we continue to worship you this morning, would you give us the courage to respond to what your spirit is doing inside of us?

For those who have spent their lives chasing things that will never satisfy.

God, would you draw them to your altar this morning to surrender their hearts to Jesus and to read receive salvation made possible only through his precious blood?

And God, for those who have already belonged to you, but have allowed the world to shape parts of their lives, would you give them the humility to come also to kneel?

To kneel your altar before you in repentance and surrender.

And God, for those who just need to renew their allegiance to you, would you stir within them the desire to come as well?

And to simply pray, Jesus, I don't want to be partially yours.

I want you to have all of me.

Lord, let this altar, this time of worship, become a place of surrender and repentance and healing and renewed devotion.

We want to leave here, Lord, not just simply informed about the dangers of our world.

We want to leave here transformed by your presence.

So, God, do your transforming work in us.

Have your way in us.

Break the power of every counterfeit promise.

Free us from every misplaced allegiance, and by your Holy Spirit, form us completely into the likeness of Jesus.

Because we belong to the Lamb.

And it is in His mighty and victorious name we pray all of these things.

And all God's people said, Amen.

Thank you for listening to the Church of the Lakes podcast with Pastor Jared Priestett.

If today's message encouraged you and helped you grow as a devoted follower of Christ, we invite you to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

You can also help others discover this podcast by leaving a five-star rating for review and sharing it with your friends, family, co-workers, and others in your circle of next month.

We're also very grateful for your generosity, which helps make messages like this available to more people.

If you feel ready to give, please check the link in the description.

And if you're in the Kent Ohio area, we'd love to invite you to join us in person on Sunday and worship together.

To learn more about Church of the Lakes, visit churchoftheikes.org or click the website link in the description.

Until next time, stay encouraged and keep walking in faith.