Inland Empire: Riverside
Eye See You - Audio
Good morning, everybody. Please turn to your Bibles to John chapter 1. John chapter 1. The title of my lesson today is I see you. I see you. Is it there yet? Not yet. Okay. You know, I thought about the I see you. This happens to be my daughter's favorite little phrase now. She's saying it. Anyway, so I thought about, you know, I point to my I, and I say I see you, you know, and she repeats it back, and that's our little bonding thing. But, you know, some say that our eyes are like a window to our soul. There it is. I see you. Aren't those beautiful eyes up there? And you know, I also think about the movie Avatar. Has anybody seen that raise your hand if you've seen it, right? Avatar, you know, the Na'vi, they look at one another into their soul and they say I see you, right? And that's kind of their way of greeting one another, saying, "Hey, I'm with you. I understand your spirit." So if there's anything that I say today that makes you happy, that makes you feel like, "Hey, man, that's good." You can go ahead and say, "Come on, Nick, I see you." All right. You're already happy, good. You know, but again, the idea of, you know, through our eyes, sometimes you can really tell where somebody's at, right? My wife, she, you know, she wears her heart on her eyes, you know, she'll say, "I'm fine." You know, and I, sure you're fine, you know, let's talk, right? You know, I appreciate that. I appreciate the way that she's real and that you can see her, right? You know, but I think on the other hand, some of us, we disguise ourselves, maybe we, we've calloused your heart in such a way that, you know, that maybe you want to appear like you're fine, but deep within, you're not. And that's kind of a sad and a scary spot when we get so dark inside of our hearts that on the outside, we wear this disguise like, "Really, I'm fine. Don't bug me. Don't ask me any deep questions." It's kind of like what Rob was talking about, but on the inside, we're hurting. You know, I can recall a time about two years ago, and I wasn't doing so well. I felt like I was on that path to kind of like, again, what Rob was talking about, on the path back to alienation from my relationship with God. And I knew where I was going, just in my heart, I was not in a good spot at all. And I recall that night, I remember looking at myself in the mirror, and I looked deep into my pupils. Have you ever done that? I looked deep into my pupils, and I had this talk with my soul. I said, "Soul, remember who you are. Soul I see you." And I remember looking at my eyes, too, and they looked dark. They looked sad, they looked full of shame, and, you know, but this time in my life was totally a transformative time for my eyes. You know, I think about, even again, that picture of my daughter, that, you know, later on that night, after I had that talk with my soul, I get home, and my wife gave me a gift. I found out I was having a child. That was exciting, right? These eyes were coming into the world. And what these eyes see, I began to think about that, and how important that was going to be. Because what she sees in me is going to shape the way that she sees the world around her. What she sees in me is going to shape the way that she sees God. Terence was talking about it on Tuesday, what she sees, what our kids see, often they imitate, right? And so often, that's what they become, and that's scary. Makes me think of the children's song, you know, "Oh, Be Careful Little Lies, What You Know?" Right? Gotta be careful. You know, our eyes are so important, as Steve mentioned last week, you know, I mentioned a Matthew 5 in the sermon. I hope you guys, it's stuck in your hearts, but Matthew 5 says, "If your eye causes you to send, get rid of it." Whatever's checking up your vision, your sight, get rid of it, or you're going to go blind. Right? Matthew 6, 22, says, "You know, the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light." And that's what Jesus is all about, right? On the other hand, he says, "But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness." If in the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? How important today are your eyes? Is your sight? Let's go to God and pray that our hearts will be open to His Word right now. Father in heaven, we come before you right now with bowled heads, God, but truly the eyes of our hearts are looking up to you. Father, we want to get in touch with your vision for our life. Father, help us to see you first and understand you, Father, so that we can look back down and get a proper perspective and get a vision for ourselves and the people around us in Jesus' name. Amen. But there in John chapter 1, I hope you guys are ready for some eyes to read today, all right? We're going to get some better perspective. John chapter 1 and verse 35, "I appreciate Michael Wood working on this PowerPoint here. He put all the cool stuff out there. I just told him what we're going to be looking at." But John chapter 1, "We're going to gain some perspective. We're going to improve our vision. Amen? If you're blind, hopefully you'll be on the way to being able to see after you leave here." Amen. Verse 35, we'll start right there, verse 35 through 42. This is the account of John the Apostle, just to give you an idea. A lot of us, we know of maybe Mark chapter 1 where he saw these fishermen and said, "Come follow me. I'll make you fishers of men. They left their old life, the nets, and everything behind them, and they came and followed Jesus." But that was Mark's account, right? But John actually picks up a little bit before Mark picked up, and the first time that they actually met, this is really awesome. Verse 35 says, "The next day, John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God." When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus, kind of creepy, right? They start following behind him, and then turning around, he saw them following, and he asked, "What do you want?" They said, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" It's kind of funny, maybe they didn't think of anything better to ask. So, where do you live? I don't know how you would feel, you know, like you see them, some guys following you, right? Now they want to know where you live, and I don't know. Anyway, so Jesus says, "Come, you're applied, and you will see." So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon. Andrew's son, Peter's brother, was one of the two, had heard what John had said, who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was find his brother, Simon, and tell him, "We have found the Messiah, that is the Christ, or the Savior of the world," and he brought him to Jesus. And we're going to stop right there. Verse 37 asks, "What do you want? What do you want?" I believe that, you know, like that last song, it reminds me, "Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. I want to see you." I think that there's many of you here, that that is your heart, that you truly are here. You're a disciple of Jesus Christ, you're following him as best you can, and you're saying, "Lord, I just want my eyes to be open right here, and I want to see you." Others, maybe you're beginning to study the Scriptures, and you're pursuing a relationship with God, and out of the sincerity of your heart, you're singing to God, "God, I want to see you." Maybe you're going through a really difficult time right now, and that's your heart though, but God, I want to see you, I want to see you, I want to see how you see this situation so that you can see me through it. On the other hand, I believe that there are some of us that are singing with our mouths open the eyes of my heart, Lord, but your actions as you leave here are saying something completely different. They're saying, "You know what, I'd rather be blind." You know, and let me tell you, the world, they see that, and they see, "You know what, that is hypocrisy, this person that talks about their church, and they go and sing, "Lord, I want to see you open up the eyes of my heart," but yet your example is giving people an excuse of why they don't want to follow Jesus. They say, "If that's a Christian, a true follower of Christ, I don't want to be one." You know, I've heard it say, "People will not always believe what you say. They'll always believe, though, what you do," right? I was watching a, I like watching ESPN, and Andrew Luck is like the Heisman favorite, right, Stanford quarterback, and they were asking him just about his leadership and just a motto that he holds soon. I thought it was really cool. I said, "I'm going to use that in my sermon." And so, Andrew Luck is this awesome quarterback, great character. He says, "You know what?" He says, "I really believe that people, what they do speaks so loudly that you can't even hear what they say." Let me ask you about your life. What is your life speaking right now so loudly? Let's think about that. Or maybe, you know, others of us, maybe you're here and you're not really sure if you want to follow Jesus or not. But you're there, you know, "Oh, open the eyes of my heart, Lord. I want to see, if you're there, I want to see you," right? And then once God says, "Okay, I'm going to answer this prayer." The Word of God is opened up, and you see what Jesus has to say, and Jesus says, "Here I am. Here's my will for your life." And then you turn away and you'd rather go blind. I don't want to see that, I don't want to see that because that might contradict, you know, some of the things in my lifestyle that I don't think I really want to change, and I don't really trust you with this kind of stuff, so this is mine, that's yours, I'll be blind. See you later. I don't really want to see you. Scary, right? You know, what do you want? I believe that most of us, you're here, you genuinely, you want to see, you want to change, and you want to do God's will for your life, otherwise you wouldn't be here. You know, John chapter 9, you don't have to turn over there, I just want you to think about this. I want you to read it on your own. Just write in your notes there, John chapter 9, or if you don't have anything to write with, take a mental note, read it later. Jesus did something, I love the way that he interacted with blind people, right? John chapter 9, there's this blind guy, and he wants to see, you know, it's funny, so he wants to see, right, he's blind, and so what Jesus did was, this was kind of gross, right? We know that Jesus could have just healed him, which he did with some of the other blind guys, and another blind guy just says, "Hey, what do you want?" He's actually screaming, "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me," and Jesus said, "What do you want?" And you know, it's not like he's going to ask for directions or something, but sometimes he just wants us to voice, "What do we really want, I want to see," right? But in John chapter 9, this blind guy, he's there with Jesus, Jesus spit on the ground, right? He spits on the ground, he didn't have to do that, and then he makes some mud with the spit, and then he puts it on the guy's face, right, puts it on his eyes, and that's not the way that most of us think this thing should be done, you know, that's a little, and then not only that, but he puts it on his face, and then he says, "All right, now go wash, go jump on the pool, go wash on the pool of Salom, and you'll be able to see." And that's amazing because I think about even Jesus in verse 37, "What do you want?" And then, you know, and then he says, "Come," and you'll see. We need to be willing to come, right? Verse 41, you know, again, we see Andrew and Peter, and, you know, Andrew brought his brother to Jesus. Are we humble and willing enough to be brought? Are you humble enough to allow somebody to spit on you, get you muddy and dirty, and God forbid even baptism, go to the pool and wash your sins away, amen? Let's think about that. You know, so if you really want to see, raise your hand if you feel like you really do genuinely want to see. That looks awesome. It's like the wave at the game, you know? And that's good. So, if you really want to see, here's the key. The first question is, you've got to ask yourself, "What do you want?" Secondly, realize this. It starts with, "He sees you. He sees you." Do you really believe that God is consciously aware of you and paying attention to you at all times, you believe that he has that capability? You know, by our actions sometimes, it says otherwise, right? You know, but the first step to changing the way that we see is really being convinced that he sees. It's funny how we act different based on who's watching, right? Who's watching us? I think about Charles Newman, he's not in here, he's an administrator in my school district, and he has to go and evaluate teachers, right, and how they're doing in the classroom. And you can bet, those teachers, like they pull out everything, "Oh my gosh, Mr. Newman's coming," and they get on their best teaching behavior, and, you know, I knew, I'm one of them, right? But it's just funny how we act based on who's watching. By the way, Charles wouldn't mention this to you guys, but he was the administrator of the year in his school district last year. He's that. Awesome. I mean, the other teachers, I'm not going to say it because he's not here, but I'll ask the other teachers. I said, "So what do you think about that Charles Newman guy? They have no idea that I know him from here or anything else, that the principal, most of the time teachers are like, "He's a jerk." You know, not about Charles, but about the administrator, right? But I talk to teachers at his school and they say, "He is awesome." We love Charles. He is so cool. He's so down to earth, but yet he is legit. He's real. And I thought, "Wow, makes me proud to be his brother, amen?" You can tell him I said that. Anyway, do you believe that God sees, you know, one of my daughter's favorite phrases now is she says, "Daddy, I see you," right? You didn't hear it, but that's my daughter with a really muddy face. You can try it one more time. "Oh, you're here." Isn't that cute? Thanks, guys. So I took that video of her yesterday. She had just got down eating all these black beans, and so they were all over her face. And anyway, she's so sweet. But again, just like she said, you know, God sees us, right? I think about her. We have this baby monitor. It looks like a secret camera that we put in her room, and it keeps an eye on her at all times. We can really see her 24/7. We really do. And so, you know, she doesn't realize it, but we're watching her, right? It even has night vision. It's so cool. You know, sometimes my wife will wake up in the middle of the bed, and my daughter's like walking around her crib, you know, or looking into the camera like, "I see you." And you know, in verse 37, let's go on back there, verse 37, you know, it says that Jesus saw them following, right? It's kind of cool. He's got eyes in the back of his head, and he sees everything anyway, right? So he sees them following, and you know that Jesus really sees people that really want to follow them. People believe that. God knows your heart. He sees the people that really want to follow them. There's the monitor. That's funny. That's not my daughter. But second chronicles, 16-9, says, "For the eyes of the Lord," God's got eyes. That's cool. He made us in his own image. He gave us eyes too. He says, "The eyes of the Lord reigns throughout the earth," right? They reigns throughout the earth to strengthen those hearts that are fully committed to him. That's cool. That tells me, you know, as long as I want to be fully committed to God, he's going to give me strength. I'm going to get through this. He's going to give me strength to finish in the end. That's pretty cool, isn't it? You say, "I see you, Nick. I see you." Good. Anyway, verse 46, you know, this is kind of interesting. They, you know, when Nathaniel says, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth, right? Can anything good really come from there?" Some of you guys might ask, "Can anything good come out of this situation?" I don't see how any good can come out of, of this. You know, where's God right now, huh? You know, I, I know that some of us, yeah, again, maybe you're going through a tough time. I know, you know, my friend George back there, he just lost his wife. I can't imagine. But, you know what, I believe that God sees. God sees the pain that he's going through. God sees. God's got a big overall plan for George's life, for, for his kid's lives. You know, maybe even some of you, maybe you've lost a loved one recently. Or maybe something terrible has happened to you. Do you believe that God sees? Maybe, you know, I, I know that, you know, I appreciate that we have disciples in their 60s, 70s, 80s, you know, and maybe even dealing with some chronic health issues like never before. Do you believe that God sees you through your challenges? He does. You know, maybe it's just your job situation. You've been fighting so hard to, to just get a job. You've done everything. Do you believe that God sees you and he's with you? Or maybe just your job situation, your boss is a pain in the neck, tyrant, right? Crazy. God sees. He says, I'll be with you, remember, I'm your boss. I'm the big boss, man. You know, maybe it's even, we think about our marriages. You know, maybe husbands, you're just seeing, and my wife is just getting on me about everything. And, you know, but, but, but maybe you're not seeing so much more that this is just a, this is your helper that God's given you to help you get to heaven. She just happens to have needs. And she needs you to validate them and to consider her lover. Wives. You just, you know, maybe you think about your husband, oh, he doesn't do this and you've got to, the list of things that he doesn't measure up, you know, change your perspective. Man's, you know, hopefully he's really trying to do his best. And if he hasn't, maybe after this, he'll really try to start doing his best, you know. And, you know, but he just, he just wants to be respected and let me tell you, if you build him up, you encourage him, he'll live up to you. Just give him a new name. Just call him awesome and he'll start being awesome. Man, I don't know what you've been through. Maybe even, you know, we think about our, our times growing up. Maybe your formative years, perhaps you're abused. I've been running into you and I, I work with the sexual integrity ministry in our church. I love it. I love, I love helping people. I love setting prisoners free. Ultimately, it's Jesus that does it, right? But, but people have been prisoners to their hurts and maybe things that happen at a young age shape the way they think, they turn to even, you know, some, a lot of us have turned to just ways of coping with our pain and whatever your addiction might be gambling or drug or alcohol or sexual addiction or even addiction to lust perversion, whether it's lusting after the offset sex or even the same sex. Things shaped and perverted our minds and messed us up and messed up the way we see. The awesome thing is, Jesus, he helps the blind to see new, right? And Revelation, he says, I make all things new, do you believe that? I hope you do. You know, I think about verse 42, you know, Jesus knows so much about us. Verse 42, he says, your Simon, son of John, not only does he, maybe, you know, before they had even met. I mean, this first time to meet, already he knows his name and his dad's name, right? That's kind of cool. Verse 48, later on, Nathaniel asks, you know, how do you know me? Jesus answered, I saw you while you were under the fig tree, before Philip called you. And then the thing declared, Rabbi, you are the son of God, you're the king of Israel. You must be God in the flesh. I'm not sure what it was, but Nathaniel knew, only God could have seen that. And Jesus is omnipresent. He's, you know, there's no hiding from him, right? He's everywhere. You know what, he's here and he's there at the same time. You know, he's omniscient, he's all knowing. Psalm 139 verse one, if we can get over there, Psalm 139 verse one, it says, oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me, says, you know, when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar, you discern my going out, my lying down, you are familiar with all of my ways. We really believe that, that God is familiar. He knows you, he knows what you've been through, what you're going through now, he knows your weaknesses and the things that you're most ashamed of. Hebrews chapter four, let's turn over to verse 13, it's right there, it says, nothing in all creation, nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Do you believe the Scriptures? You know, we need to be consciously aware of God's presence, amen? All the time, not just sometimes, not just when we're at church, Jesus is here, no, no beyond that, no, God is here, God sees. Lord, you just saw the way that I just treated my wife with disrespect and I'm really sorry. Whatever it is, let's acknowledge it before God instead of worrying about being caught by somebody else. You know, but I want you to realize this too, it says, you know, back there in verse 13, it says that we're going to have to give account, you're accountable for everything because Jesus sees every word. He actually says that, and Matthew says, middle have to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. So not only does he see you, he hears you. Jesus sees the past, the present and the future, right? You know, you think about Peter, I think about Peter and you know, he says, you know, I'm going to call you Peter, right? Which Peter's Greek or Cephas, which was Aramaic, both mean you're the rock, right? And so Jesus calls him the rock, but Peter must have, you know, been thinking, oh man, you must not know who I am, you know. I'm the guy that, you know, I'm bipolar before there's medication for it, you know? And, you know, but Peter not only saw even the mess that he was, I mean, Jesus not only saw the mess that Peter was in the moment, but he even knew he sees the future, right? He sees the future, he knows, Luke 22, he knows that he's going to have to look straight up Peter when he denied him for the third time before they crucified him. Jesus even still saw that, and yet he says, you're the rock. And the same way with us, in spite of all of our junk, he believes in you, you've got to believe that he sees you, and he sees you at your best, and he proves it, he gives you a new name. That's my third point here is, again, what do you want? Do you really want to change? Okay, first, again, if you want to change, you've got to believe that he sees you, but beyond that, he wants to give you a new identity or a new name. This is really cool. I love this. It's 42 through 51, we'll actually read this together here one more time. Actually 42, the end of 42, it says, Jesus looked at him and he says, "Your Simon, son of John, you'll be called Cephas," which one translated as Peter. The next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee, finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me." Philip, like Andrew, was from the town of Boseida. Philip found Nathaniel and told him we have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and about whom the prophets also wrote, "Jesus Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Nazareth, can anything good come from there? I didn't read this earlier, did I? Oh, man, bummer, sorry, guys. Anyway, it says, "Can anything good come from there? Come and see," said Philip. When Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching, he said of him, he said of him, "Here's a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false." You know, maybe even a more accurate translation now is in whom there's no deceit. It's interesting. It says, "How do you know me?" Nathaniel asked, "Jesus answered, I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you." Then Nathaniel declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel." Jesus said, "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree, you will see even greater things than these." It says, he then added, "Very truly I tell you, you will see you have an open up in the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." Jesus gives us a new name. You know, it didn't exactly, this new name didn't exactly define their behavior, but rather he envisioned them becoming, right? It's interesting. I did this actually with my daughter, you know, you come up with, "This is my daughter right there out of me." Right? Her name is out of me. My wife and I, as we were coming up with that, we were first thinking about like, you know, what should we call this girl and we thought about people that we like and also names that we thought are pretty cool and so we thought of the teen out of me and where she at? There you are. She's right over there. Anyway, so we thought, wow, she's got a great spirit about her too and she loves Jesus, right? So, but we said, you know, before we give her that name, we need to make sure it means, it doesn't mean like, I don't mean it means like nag or something, you know? And so we said, "What does your name mean?" And she says, "It means little heaven." We're like, "Yeah, that's it right there." And you know, because our vision for our daughters, we just want her to go to heaven. We just want this to be a little piece of what's to come. You know, in the same way, I wanted a dog and so I got this dog, right? And we named him Bolt and the picture speaks for itself. He's as fast as lightning. That's like a tattoo on his side right there. It's really cool. Anyway, back to our text, John chapter one, John chapter one. You know, it's pretty cool, huh? Yeah, let's first consider the author of the book of John. Well, obviously it's John, right? It's this apostle who, if you were to read in Mark chapter three, it believes in verse 17, Jesus tells him and his brother, he says, "You know what, guys, I'm going to give you a new name, James and John. You're now, you are now the sons of thunder." Right? That's pretty cool. And so Jesus called them, called everybody, the opposite of what they actually kind of worded, actually, and so maybe they weren't all that powerful of guys, right? But he's like, "You guys are now." You know, later on, actually John renames himself in the book of John. You guys know what he calls himself? The one Jesus loved, right? And so he actually, five different times in the book of John, he just refers to himself as the one Jesus loved. That's awesome. I think, you know, we should think of ourselves that way, you know? Jesus loves me. You just sing it all the time, you know? My mom, she's sitting over there, hi mom. Anyway, so my mom got this bunny rabbit from my daughter, and it sings, "Jesus loves me, this I know." And I thought, "Wow, how cool. I want her to hear that all the time. Jesus loves me. Jesus loves me." You know, so that she can go through life believing that and have that kind of vision. You know, verse 42, he says, "You'll be called Cephas," which again, like I told you earlier, Peter, means the rock, right? Peter, anything but stable is called the rock. You know? Nathaniel, this is kind of interesting, he says, "You're a true Israelite," this relies for the people of God, right? So you're a true man of God, in whom there is nothing false. No deceit. Why did Jesus say that in light of the fact I saw you under the fig tree? Here's what I envision. I don't know. It doesn't, the Bible doesn't say exactly, but I imply that something was happening under that fig tree that had to do with some deceit. I don't know if he was like lying to somebody to try to get something or lying to cover up what he did, or maybe he's just there under the fig tree saying, "God, look in our own, make sure nobody sees, only you see me right now, I pray that you would help me to overcome my deceit." Just be an honest man, a true Israelite, in whom there's nothing false. And so Jesus comes and he says, "You know what, that's who you are. That's how I see you. That's what you're going to be defined as, and I'll live up to it." Do we believe that for ourselves? You know Jesus sees your glaring weakness yet calls you to be opposite, right? Looks like I have time. Good. I'm going to give you guys one more insight. Revelation chapter 3, this is a golden nugget. You see it? You see me? Good. Good. Revelation chapter 2, this is so cool. I got to get, you guys have to read this on your own. I'm not going to be able to read through every account, right? But Jesus, this is after he's resurrected, John is stranded there in the island of Patmos. Jesus comes to an division and he says, "I've got a message for the churches. I've got a message for the disciples, my people in these different cities." And good, don't put it up there yet. Anyway, so he says, "Before we get to verse 17, I want to give you an idea of chapter 2 and 3, there's a common theme that he says to each one of them. Read them on your own." At first he says, "All right, so to the church and whatever city, I'm talking to you. I know your deeds." You can read all of them. "I know your deeds. I know what you've been through." He says, "Yet I hold this against you." With each one of them, he says that there's this one glaring issue that was going to make them spiritually blind. And then he tells them, "Listen, you can repent, but you need to repent." The first church, he says, "You've got to repent and remember your first love." As you go on down to Pergamum, the third one, we'll read in just verse 12, it says, "To the angel in the church from Pergamum, these are the words of him who has a sharp double edged sword." He says, "I know where you live, where Satan has his throne. The world that we live in, let me tell you guys, it's really appearing that Satan's throne is becoming stronger and stronger and stronger in this world." He says, "Yet you remain true to my name. You've not renounced your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness who has put to death in your city where Satan lives." Jesus is just saying it, "Satan's here. You don't believe in Satan? You don't believe in Jesus because Jesus is saying that Satan is real and exists." He says, "Nevertheless, I have a few things against you. I see the good, but I've got a few things against you." He says, "You have people there who hold to the teaching of a balam who taught balak to entice the Israelites, to sin, by eating food, sacrifice to idols, and by committing sexual immorality. Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the nickeladins." We'll stop right there, so basically he's saying that there's some problems here. You guys are really starting to buy into this idolatry stuff, but I think we don't think that we have idols, right, so much in the States. But our idols are ourselves, self-consumed lives, money is an idol, as Rocky was talking about earlier. Maybe for me, sports, entertainment, leisure, that can all be an idol. Your kids can be an idol, right? Even it says sexual immorality, big-time idol. It's just destroying marriages, destroying people's hearts. People are stuck in living and sin. Not only that, but we're holding to other weird teachings. We start to believe other stuff that contradicts Jesus Christ. And so he tells them, he says, "Listen, repent, therefore, otherwise I will soon come to you and fight against them with the sword of my mouth." But he says, in all the other churches there too, he says, "You've got to repent, or I'm going to remove your lampstand." Listen, you can see, but your light is starting to become down. And unless you repent, you're going to go back to complete darkness. Church, I think that we need to hear this, and we need to have a healthy fear of God. That God is no fool. He's no punk that we can just treat like he's not looking. I think some of us, we say, "I see you in the moment," but you know what? I think then we just callus our hearts, we turn our backs, and you start, you know, husbands start being a jerk to your wife, you know, maybe it's whatever it is, you start just, whoever, we get in junk, wives, you start guarding and protecting, and I don't trust anymore. God, I'm going to do it my way. You know, other teens, campus, single people, you know what, God, I tried it your way, I'm going to go, I'm going to look to the world for a partner here, you know, or I'm going to look to pornography to get some kind of connection with, you know, and we're going to an empty well. You know, so Jesus says, right here in verse 17, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to the church in the Inland Empire, to him who overcomes, verse 17, "To him who overcomes, I will give some a hidden manna, I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it." You guys excited about that, we're going to get this white stone in heaven, I mean among other things. Number one, Jesus said over and over to all of them, "Listen, if you overcome, good things are coming, heaven is there." But not only that, but I'm going to give you some really awesome gifts that are only between me and you. What's your new white stone going to say? I don't know about you guys, but I want to overcome, I want to make it to the end so I can just see like what it says, you know, and I'm sure it will say something completely opposite of who I am in my sinful nature, just in my character that's not like him. But it's just going to say, "Son, daughter, I love you, I believe in you, this is who I've always wanted you to be, I'm just so glad that you overcame and made it to the end." Here's your name. That's awesome. I want my stone. How about you? You see me? Amen. So, again, in light of this, guys, how do you see yourself? With a new name, a new identity, or you define yourself by your weaknesses, or what Revelations 12 would say that Satan is the accuser of our brothers. Do you define yourself as what you are accused by? And sometimes, again, what he accuses us of, a lot of those things are really true. We've really blown it. We've messed up. But Jesus says, "Hey, listen, don't live in that shame anymore." It's not who you are. That's not who you're going to be. Stop living like that. Do you see yourself now as a son of thunder? Powerful. As a man of truth, no deceit. As a rock, he can make you stable. It's the one who loves Jesus. Maybe it's visionary because you're a man or woman of the light now, and you see clearly. Maybe it's purity, because maybe you were enslaved at one time, and you kept going through this same cycle, and looking to the same thing to cope with your pain, but now he's broken you free, and now you're a man, and woman dressed in white. Absolutely pure. We need to transform the way we see. Do we want to see today? A couple of things. Really decide what do you want? If this is really what you want, you've really got to decide what do you want, but not only that, you need to voice it to somebody. "Hey, listen, this is what I want. I want to be able to see." You spit on me. You can throw mud in my face. If I need to get baptized, that's what I'll do, but I want to see. Secondly, you've got to really believe that he sees you. You need to live. If you want to really have eyes that see, you need to live in the conscious awareness that God is present. Then finally, you've got to believe and live up to the fact that you're given a new name. He sees your weakness, yet he calls you to overcome and take hold of this new name that you're going to get on a white stone. So to the church of Christ in the Inland Empire, Jesus Christ says, "I see you." [applause] [applause] [BLANK_AUDIO]
Sunday Lesson by Nick Anderson