Seven Words to the Church Today (Week 7), Mar. 20, 2022 - Andy Turner

Andy concludes our “Seven Words” series with a message about Jesus’s words to the lukewarm church of Laodicea and a challenge to all believers to truthfully answer, “What are your expectations …whenever you come to church? Or whenever you open up scripture? Do you expect to encounter Jesus? Do you expect to be convicted… or do you expect nothing?” “There is something so beautiful about the prayer, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ Even if you have a pantry full of food, you are still completely dependent upon Jesus. Even if you have all kinds of zero’s in your bank account, you are still dependent on Jesus. Whenever we miss that, it will lead us down a path to becoming lukewarm, useless Christians.” “’Give us this day our daily bread’ doesn’t mean that we’re worried about tomorrow’s bread today – tomorrow will enough worries for itself. Instead, we are solely and completely dependent for Jesus to provide for us to be able to make it through this day.” “Sometimes, there’s just nothing nice that can be said… and the most loving thing you can do is to tell the truth.” “The door that Jesus is knocking on… is the door to his own house. His church. And the church has pushed him out.” “Repentance isn’t something that you do just one time, whenever you come and accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. Repentance isn’t just this single moment in history, but repentance is constant. Repentance is the awareness of where you’ve gone astray, when you’ve gone astray, where you’ve compromised, and where you’ve put your desires, your agenda, and your wants before Jesus and his desires, agendas and wants for you. It’s when we stop repenting as Christians that our hearts begin to grow cold. It’s when we stop that we begin to become lukewarm. It’s when we stop that we begin to become useless Christians. Let me ask again… what are your expectations?” “If you’re always right… if you’re always defending, always blaming, always judging, always excusing yourself… if you’re always overlooking your own errors, your own faults and your own failures… if Jesus never disagrees with you… if you’re never challenged or convicted by scripture, then two things are true. Number one, you’re on the fast track to becoming lukewarm. And number two, you’re not even following Jesus. You’re following yourself and pretending that it’s Jesus to make yourself feel good. The way back is repentance. The way back is found in the cross of Jesus Christ.” “The Christian life is not solely about living a certain way. The Christian life is about encountering, meeting, and surrendering to Jesus, and allowing the way we live to flow through Him.”