07-09-17 Let Them Hear: Thyatira

We’re in the home stretch of preparing for our annual Vacation Bible School here at First Covenant!  Due to last-minute health and family issues, several of our key leadership positions have just suddenly switched around, so please be praying for leaders who are now suddenly preparing for completely different duties than they’d originally planned to be in charge of.  On the plus side, everyone’s going to come at things from a decidedly fresh perspective...

Please also be in prayer for the rest of our workers -- pray that everyone works well together, that they keep in the forefront of their minds that every job next week is a crucial ministry to the children and their families, and that we can all come together to make a genuine difference in the lives of those around us.  We’re not just babysitting, or trying to provide kids a fun week with games and stories -- we’re sharing Jesus Christ with them through our words, our actions, our attitudes, and our service.  Please give us your prayer support for next week.

You could also be praying for our FCCers.  Donna League came through hip replacement surgery well, and she’s already been moved to the Lutheran Home for a couple of weeks of rehab, so praise God!  You could also praise God for Kim Wainwright’s successful triple-bypass surgery last week, and thank Him that she’s already been released to go back home as well.  And please be praying for Scott Christianson’s family -- his father passed away last week, and they’ve been traveling back and forth to Minnesota to support his extended family.

In our message this week, we continued looking at Christ’s mini-letters to seven churches in the Revelation, this time focusing on the church in Thyatira.  Jesus affirmed the church’s good work, and their love, and their continued faith in the face of persecution.  Like the church in Smyrna, they seemed pretty solid. 

And yet, in a city obsessed with their careers, the church tolerated the teaching of a woman who claimed to be a prophetess, who apparently taught them to compartmentalize their lives, to compromise at least a little bit with their culture.  Yes, be a good Christian and love the Lord on your own time... but don’t let that faith intrude into your everyday life.  I mean, if you have to do some things that Jesus wouldn’t approve of because that’s what your job requires, then just do what you’ve gotta do to get the job done -- eat at the pagan feast (the first-century equivalent of a martini lunch needed to charm your clients), wink at the sexual immorality of the local cults (hey, don’t offend the customer base), reflect and emulate the culture that you’re trying to reach (because they won’t listen to you if you aren’t already them).

Tell me that none of that is relevant to what we deal with today...

Jesus warned those who stand with her that His judgment is coming, and encouraged the rest of the church to hold their ground against her teaching.  And that’s an encouragement that we as Christians need to embrace today -- to take our stand against the tiny landslide of daily compromise, and to see our role in the marketplace as Christ’s ambassadors even more with every passing year.  We are not from this place -- we are citizens of a Kingdom that will never pass away, and that never compromises wisdom and truth.  Let’s live today with the same heart that we hope to live through eternity.

The world tries to chip away at our integrity every day -- but instead, let’s see what our integrity can chip away from the world every day...