Sermon Tone Analysis

Revelation Part 7 - A Bumper Crop of the Compromised Believers

Introduction: Develop the need to confront compromises in the Body of the Messiah.

Proposition: We must confront everything and anything that compromises Yeshua kingship.

Analytical Question: After so much time has passed, can Yeshua really make a claim of kingship over our lives, our cities, our world?

With so much compromise in the church today, in messianic judaism, is it possible to still be a subversive movement.

Luckily, the answers to both questions are in our passage.

Confront Compromises to alternate Claims of Yeshua Kingship.

Explain: The cultural compromised Yeshua’s Kingship.

Illustrate: That lunch break guy I will not eat with but will talk to when the going gets tough.

Apply: How many believers say Yeshua is the King of their lives when really He not at all?

Confront Compromises to the Direction of Yeshua’s Kingdom.

Explain: You will reap what you sow, more than you sow, as much as He knows.

Illustrate: It has by the fall of 2018 become commonplace to describe the 499 known victims of Larry Nassar as “breaking their silence,” though in fact they were never, as a group, particularly silent.

Over the course of at least 20 years of consistent abuse, women and girls reported to every proximate authority.

They told their parents.

They told gymnastics coaches, running coaches, softball coaches.

They told Michigan State University police and Meridian Township police.

They told physicians and psychologists.

They told university administrators.

They told, repeatedly, USA Gymnastics.

They told one another.

Athletes were interviewed, reports were written up, charges recommended.

The story of Larry Nassar is not a story of silence.

The story of Larry Nassar is that of an institution, a group of people so resilient, so impermeable to common sense, that it believed it could avoid reaping what it sowed for years and decades of turning a blind eye to the abuse of one man and the allegations of so many women.

Apply: What sin are you sowing right now that you don’t think you will reap the consequences of?

Confront Compromises as Agents of the True King and His Coming Kingdom

Analytical Question: How?

Explain: A subversive movement will receive kingdom authority.

Praise Him as the Only King

Illustrate: East Tennessee Rebelling Against the Rebellion.

See Subversive Kingdom by Ed Stetzer

Yeshua alone purchased the Kingdom.

Put out of your life all rivals to his Kingship

Apply: Rebelling against the rebellious Kingdom.

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Revelation Part 7 - A Bumper Crop of the Compromised Believers

Today, there is a murderer sitting in this congregation today.…

Yes, I mean it.

Just yesterday she murdered someone.

She didn’t think it mattered.

She did not think that anyone saw her, but she was wrong.

The King has eyes everywhere, he saw the whole thing.

She did not think anyone cared if she comprised forgiveness for hatred.

Yet, I have a written statement from the King of Kings that says he will not tolerate this compromise,

Today, there is a murderer sitting in this congregation today.…

Yes, I mean it.

Just yesterday she murdered someone.

She didn’t think it mattered.

She did not think that anyone saw her, but she was wrong.

The King has eyes everywhere, he saw the whole thing.

She did not think anyone cared if she comprised forgiveness for hatred.

Yet, I have a written statement from the King of Kings that says he will not tolerate this compromise,

Video: Church Hunters Episode 2

The congregation was lively, worshippers were happy, and Glendale’s Church of Joy was the envy of its fellow southwestern churches.

Even while the church exhibited signs of success, senior pastor Walt Kallestad was having difficulty sleeping he knew he was making large compromises to create all this success.

We laugh at this video because while it is an over exaggeration in so many ways, we all know that what goes on today in the name of “meeting the expectations” of our current culture is often far removed from living under the rulership of Yeshua as our King.

The Phoenix metropolitan area displayed signs of trouble.

Rates of crime, alcoholism, divorce, and unwanted pregnancies were steadily climbing.

Yet attendees at the Community Church of Joy seemed oblivious to the city’s social problems, as if they were happily separate from the rest of the population.

Today, there is an adulterer sitting in this congregation.

Yes, I mean it he slipped out from under the canopy of his wife’s love and care and sought refuge in another lover.

She was not someone he was every planning to leave his wife for, don’t worry, he just wanted to imagine being with her.

He did not think anyone saw, but he was wrong.

The King has eyes everywhere, he saw the whole adulterous affair go down.

I have a written statement from the King

The real question, the dangerous question, that many, many leaders are asking is this, “Who really rules Messiah’s Body?

Is the consumer King or is Yeshua the King of His body?”

Recalling Yeshua’s summons to care for society’s most vulnerable, Kallestad asked himself disturbing questions such as, if our congregation disappeared, would the larger community even miss us or know we were gone?

He knew he had made compromises to get to this place.

He used to call them subtle but now he saw them for what they were.

He used to tell people to take up their cross but now he preaching best practices to be the best success.

He use to tell people that the mission of Messiah was a narrow road but now he was telling people the narrow road was much, much broader.

He used to tell people that sacrifice was inspirational but now prosperity was the new inspiration.

He used to end every message with a call to repentance and an invitation to receive Yeshua as Lord, now he ended with an encouragement to be the best, they could be.

I want you to hear me today, the problem is not mega-churches, the problem is not small congregations, the problem we face today is an age old problem it is the problem of compromising the Kingship of Yeshua to meet consumer expectations.

It is being inspirational about the benefits of faith but not about the sacrifices of the cross, it is about compromising discipleship for better programs, it is about compromising biblical ethics for the sake of being a better success in life.

He saw how his compromises showed up in the ethical decision making of his congregation.

Adultery, Abuse, and Alcoholism, you know AAA, were as rabid as mosquitos in Texas summer.

But they were able to keep it all very “hush-hush.”

Compromising Yeshua’s Kingship has massive consequences.

Today, there is a murderer sitting in this congregation today.…

Yes, I mean it.

Just yesterday he murdered someone.

He didn’t think it mattered.

He did not think that anyone saw him, but he was wrong.

I have a written statement from an eyewitness that I am going to read.

Here is what it says, “Everybody who hates his brother is a murderer.”

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It dawned on him, he said, “They didn’t really want to engage with God.

They wanted relief and inspiration.”

In his attempt to become a successful pastor he had become like the culture rather than changing the culture.

His church had become a formidable institution, a financial powerhouse, an influential machine that was no different than the culture it was a part of.

He had compromised the Gospel, He compromised Yeshua’s Kingship, His absolute rule over this local body.

After twenty years in ministry and a track record of celebrated accomplishments, Kallestad went before his gathered flock and tearfully repented.

On his watch, he said, the church had become a “dispenser of religious goods and services.”

From now on, for the sake of God, gospel integrity, and society, life inside his congregation would have to change in a big way.

Kallestad purged frills churchwide.

Gone were the talented professional musicians who had no personal passion for the faith.

Churchgoers bid adieu to group trips to favorite restaurants and in its place mission trips to the most destitute places in the world, square-dancing classes were replaced with Bible studies on family life and ethics, and social drinking gatherings that had nothing to do with the Messiah were stricken from the roster.

Rebellion quickly followed.

One out of every three members and about half the staff quit the church in protest.