Let's open the end of the Bible, Revelation chapter 2. As you're turning to Revelation 2, this is now the fourth church that we're looking at. It's the longest letter of all. It's the middle letter of all. In fact, if you have a Hebrew mindset, when people with a Hebrew mindset, in other words, Jewish people think, They think structurally. In fact, their poetry doesn't rhyme. It's structured as poetry. It's in the form of the writing. And that's how they communicate with structure. And so when you have a group of seven in the Hebrew mind, you think of the first and the seventh, you think of the second and the sixth, you think of the third and the fifth. But the very center one is the fourth one, because it's the middle of the set of seven. It's right in the middle, three and three, and it's right there. And what's interesting is this letter. It's the longest. It's the only church that Jesus says has love. He says he commends them for their love. It is a church that he emphasizes this whole idea of him with the piercing, flaming eyes examining the church. But most importantly, this church is where it's revealed more than any other church. The power of the gospel that can transform us to live Christ-like in any situation. You know, some people always say, I've even talked to someone today and they said, yeah, that's easy when everything's going good, but everything's horrible for me. That's when Christ shines through us. When our health is failing, when we're in the most severe temptation, when we're most buffeted in our flesh, that's when He shines most. So let's look at this as we look at this term, Thyatira. It's a little bit foreign to us. Verse 18 is where I'm going to start. outside this chapter and Chapter 1, Thyatira only occurs one other place, and that's in Acts 16, we'll see in a little while. But when we open to look at this Thyatira region, we're looking at a place most of us don't realize. This is the place that God focused so much of his church's epistles. We're opening to the geographic area that received more of the books or epistles of the New Testament than any other geographic area of the ancient world. Have you ever thought about where the letters of the New Testament you hold were first sent. In other words, where was the activity that the epistles were going from the apostles to local churches? Where was the concentration of the work of God in the first century? Well, the answer is right here. God sent more New Testament letters here than anywhere else. Now you want a little accounting of that. Here's the lineup. Number one, the first one was Revelation. It opens with Christ's epistles to the seven churches addressed to the people living on the west coast of this area called Roman Asia Minor, or the Roman province of Asia. So the west coast is where Revelation was sent. Peter's epistles, that's two more letters, 1 Peter, open with the words, to the saints, the elect scattered throughout, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. You know what that is? That's almost like, here is the west coast. The northern, eastern, and southern parts of that area is Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. So Revelation, the epistles of Peter, just kind of snugly fit around those. The next three, Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians, written by Paul. Galatia is in this fit around part right here, right next to it. It's about 100 miles from Thyatira. Colossi is a little south. Ephesus is right in the center. It's where Revelation was sent to also. Then you get to Paul's two epistles to Timothy. Those were sent to this area. So there's the 7th and 8th letters sent to this area. John wrote his three epistles, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John to this area. And most likely the 12th letter that came to this area was written by James because he wrote to the 12 tribes scattered abroad. And the concentration of believers in the first century after they were expelled from Jerusalem by the hostilities of the Jews, after they were expelled from Rome by Claudius because he didn't like the Jewish people, they were concentrated in this area. So this area, God sent more New Testament letters than anywhere else. Twelve of the books of the New Testament are specifically addressed to this little area. And it was just a huge congregation of believers. In fact, during the persecutions, In some towns, the Roman Empire would send their legionaries and they would make them either confess that the emperor was God or Christ, and if they wouldn't confess the emperor and did confess Christ, they would push them off the cliff. One town nearby Thyatira, they pushed 10,000 people, one after another, off the cliff, dashing to the rocks. I mean, can you imagine waiting for your turn, looking at all of your friends splattered below, and they just stood for Christ? So this was a An amazing place. In the time of the Apostle John, it was incredibly Roman. There were more temples for those pagan gods here than anywhere else in the world. More than in Greece, more than in Italy, more than in the lands that we would call the lands of the Bible, this area had more of these shrines to the pagan deities. Now, step back and think about what we said in the last few weeks about these these gods and how you worship them. Bacchus and Venus and all the Baal stuff we talked about. Here in this town where it was just filled with these temples, Jesus writes a letter and as we read it right now, it starts in verse 18, you notice all the things he says about them. The gospel was flourishing. But as we read the letter, Jesus never lowers the expectations. The gospel was flourishing in one of the most vile cities of the empire. So the Lord didn't say, well, you're living such around such evil. I'm going to lower a couple notches what I expect from you. Now, Thyatira puts the bar where it belongs and says, I expect you to live for me, Christ said, no matter where you live. No matter how many temptations you face, no matter how much evil you're immersed in, I expect you to live for me. Let's listen to his words, starting verse 18, down through 29. Let's stand together. We're going to hear about the serious infection that was permeating this little church and what Christ says that they should do. Verse 18, And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, These things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, his feet are like fine brass." Verse 19, I know your works, love, that's the only place it shows up in all the seven letters, service, faith, and your patience. And as for your works, the last are more than the first. Wow, they're actually, they're not decreasing, they're increasing, serving the Lord. Verse 20, Nevertheless, in other words, I haven't lowered the bar. I have a few things against you. You allow that woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality, to eat things sacrificed to idols. Verse 21, I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. Indeed, I will cast her into a sick bed and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation unless they repent of their deeds. Verse 23, I will kill her children with death and all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts and I will give to each one of you according to your works. Now to you, I say. And to the rest in Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put on you no other burden. Verse 25. But hold fast what you have till I come. And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessel, as I have also received from my father, and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. Let's bow together for a word of prayer. Father in heaven, I pray we would hear what your spirit is saying through your word to us, your church. And I pray that that this idea, this notion that your grace is so great that we can live as we please, that your grace overlooks the immorality that so pervades our generation. How I pray that we would see that you have not changed. Your expectations are the same no matter what era of history or what phase of life we're going through. Your eyes of fire still hold us into account for our works. And I pray that we would today repent of any filthiness of the flesh or the spirit that displeases you, and that we would hear what you're saying to us today. In Jesus' name, Amen. You may be seated as you're seated. This church, this group of people that all those nice things in verse 19 that had works love, service, faith, patience, and not just works, but works that were ascending. This church had been called from darkness to light at the instant of their salvation. They had been born again in the midst of some of the darkest periods of Roman culture. And they had been set free from the power of Satan to serve Christ. And they had had the work of sanctification Unleashed through the power of justification and the Holy Spirit arriving and sanctification commencing What the Lord said is they were tolerating sin and sinful teaching. And when Jesus returns from his inspection, see, John is on the island of Patmos. Jesus visits these seven churches, comes back and explains to John what he saw as he visited those churches. When Jesus comes back, he warns him that an infection has set in in this church. And that infection is, it started with them tolerating a false teacher. and then tolerating the false teacher to teach the entire church false teaching. And that had led to practices that displeased God. And He said, in spite of all of your works that are increasing, He says, I will not tolerate that infection, that sinful teaching and sinful response to that teaching in life to continue in the church. Jesus called them to do what He always calls us to do. Verse 21, I gave her time to repent. Verse 24, he says, and to the rest of Thyatira, I want you all, not just the ones involved in sin, I want all of you, I want you to repent. What is repentance? It's a change of mind that leads to a change of behavior. I want you to change your mind about that false teacher. I want you to change your mind about the false teaching they've given. And I want you to change your mind about your descending into sexual immorality. I want you to repent of all those things. This letter is a challenge from Christ for his children of faith to do what is needed on a daily basis. Repent of listening. Repent of following. Repent of no longer listening. Think about it to the majority of the New Testament letters that were written to their geographic area. See, what had happened is they had stopped listening to the word and they had started listening to false teaching. And instead of checking against the word, the false teaching and finding it false, they were just laying aside, listening to God. and starting to listen only and being wooed in by these false teachers. Now, that's a real problem nowadays. This is the most biblically illiterate generation ever in the history of Western civilization. We live in the middle of it. I think it's because we have so many resources, so many books, so many teachers, so many avenues that we have lessened our personal grasp of the word. And the Thyatirans, for whatever reason, have done the same. And so this is truly a message for all of us today. Basically, Jesus says you have a daily choice. Either you're going to serve me or not. Either you're going to listen to me or not. Either you're going to hear my voice or you're going to listen to false teachers. Either you're going to respond to my voice or you're going to follow these detestable practices that offend me. Thyatira was seduced by this false teacher Jezebel. And true believers in that church were called upon to resist. Just like Jesus called all the churches. In Ephesus they had to resist. Putting other things up in Ephesians, I mean, in Revelation 2, 1 through 7, Jesus says, I jealously love you. Lay hold of me as first in your life, first in your schedule, first in your attention, first in your priorities. In Smyrna, he says, just hold on. Trust Christ to the end through your sufferings. Remember, that's the shortest letter, that little letter, verses 8 through 11 of chapter 2. To Pergamos, he says, I don't want you wed to the world. It's like Romans 12.2 that says, I command you not to be conformed to this world, but I command you to be transformed by the Word. See, if we're not allowing the Word to transform us, that's our active pursuit, then passively we're getting squashed. into a different shape than pleases God. It's a choice. Every day, it's a daily choice. As it was in Thyatira, so it's in our life today. Daily we have an opportunity to either please the Lord or not, to either listen to His voice or not, to get squashed or transformed. Okay, verse 18. I want to just briefly show you this assembly. It says there, that little word Thyatira. The only thing we know about Thyatira, outside of this little reference right here, is that in Acts 16, on Paul's second missionary journey, Paul had gone through this area, but he had that vision, the Macedonian call. He was up trying to go into, deeper into Asia, and actually was going to go toward, kind of like India in that direction. The Holy Spirit said, no, go west. Don't go east with the gospel, go west. And so he went, and landed in Philippi and finds out the reason the Lord sent him there. It says in Acts 16 verse 14, a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of, and here's that word, Thyatira. The Lord redirected the Apostle Paul and sent him to Philippi. So, among other things, he would share the Gospel with this woman. And it says, she worshiped God, but the Lord opened her heart. to heed the things spoken. In other words, she was one of these lovers of, she knew that the Jewish writings were true, and she was one of these devoted people, but she'd never been born again. She was prepared, but not yet saved, and Paul led her to the Lord, and it says that she was a seller of purple, and she was from the city of Thyatira, and she and her household were baptized. They had come to faith in Christ and they were baptized and now we don't know. The Bible ends right there. They just had Paul over and learn more from him and it doesn't say any more about her. So either Lydia went back on her business travels and shared the gospel in Thyatira or they moved back there or they just, her whole household here, started sharing the gospel but somehow the Lord planted a group of believers in Thyatira. And that's where the scriptures tell us that the Lord began working in this place. And so that's the first mention of this. But this church is also a picture, this Thyatira letter, of the progression of church history. Now, I've already told you that, that the book of Ephesus is a picture not only of people who lived in Ephesus, but of the earliest age of the church, when the church was under the teaching of the apostles, and the Ephesian church was growing. Then Smyrna is when the church was persecuted for those 300 years. And then Pergamos is when the Christianity was legalized. And we saw last time where all the paganism came in. If Pergamos was living with the world, Thyatira had lived a long time with the world. And the world had begun to totally seep into the church. In fact, the church in Thyatira would mirror what we would call the dark ages of the church, when Rome was gilded and wearing purple and sumptuously fairing while everybody was living in squalor. And while the church was enmeshed in some of the worst of the false doctrine during those dark ages, that's kind of what Thyatira parallels. But look what Jesus says in verse 18. At the end, he introduces himself. And as Thyatira, so today, we need to follow Christ. And so he introduces himself as the Judge. He says in verse 18 that he is, first of all, the Son of God. Now, in each of these letters, Jesus says hello to the church and then he introduces himself. And in this letter, he introduces himself by three titles. The first being the Son of God, not Son of Man. Son of Man says, hey, I feel for you, I know where you are. Son of God says, I am the awesome, holy God in human flesh. I am holy. I expect you to be holy. The son of man says, I understand your struggles. The son of God says, I expect you to repent. So first, he says, I'm the son of God. Secondly, he says, look at this, the son of God in verse 18 at the end, who has eyes like flames of fire. He says, don't ever forget. I know what you're doing. I can see I have penetrating eyes. Jeremiah 1710 says it this way. I, the Lord, search your hearts. I test your minds." And that's exactly what it says here. know that I search your hearts and minds. See, Jesus is alluding to this Jeremiah 17 passage as he writes to them. And then in Hebrews 4, it says, there's no creature hidden from his sight. All things are laid open before the eyes of him with whom we must give an account. So he's holding him accountable. And then look at the end of the 18th verse, it says, His feet were burnished bronze. Bronze is always a picture of judgment. It was the bronze altar that the sin offerings were put on. It's out of the bronze mountains in the book of Zechariah that the chariots of wrath come out in judgment on the earth. Bronze speaks of judgment. Jesus said, I have those feet shot. I'm going to come and trample sin in this church. In John 5, Jesus said that he's the judge. You know, liberals like to portray Jesus as kind of this meek and mild, you know, would never hurt a fly. That's not how Jesus characterizes himself. It says in John 5.22, the Father judges no one. He's committed all judgment to the Son. Jesus said, I'm the judge. I'm the one, it says in John 5.28, everyone in the grave is going to hear my voice and they're going to come forth either to damnation or to everlasting righteousness and joy. But he says, I'm the judge. I determine your destiny. So the author of this letter is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God with searching eyes, who's going to judge and trample sin. So that's how he introduces himself. And the lesson from that is Jesus knows our hearts perfectly well today. He knows really what's going on. You might be at church, you might be smiling. He knows how long it's been since you heard his voice. He knows how long it's been since you responded. He knows every secret sin that we are hiding and secretly nurturing in our lives. He says, I know you. Now, what hope was there for this church. Well, look at verse 19 at this listing of all the positives. I know your works, so they were offering what was pleasing to God, your love, the only church that has love, your service, your faith, your patience. I mean, all of these words are colorful, beautiful words. The service is a word for deacon. They were ministering servants of the Lord. Love is agape, sacrificial love, on and on. What is the hope here? Well, that there was such a church in Thyatira. Why? Because the mindset of worldliness was experienced in Thyatira. What do I mean by that? What I mean is, everybody that lived in Thyatira, their mind was bombarded every day with the highest degree of world, sin, flesh, and devil stuff. Let me just give you a little history lesson. The saints in Thyatira were asked by Christ to stop being comfortable with the world. Remember when we looked at all seven, I said this church needed to unfriend worldliness? This is why. This church, more than any other, lived in the epicenter of the flesh. Here's what the first century Roman city was like. By the way, there was a man His name was Sir William Ramsey. He was a British guy, agnostic, grew up in the Church of England, didn't think the Bible was accurate. 19th century, he was an archaeologist. And he said, you know what? He was wealthy, too. He said, I'm going to go on a trip. I'm going to take my Bible from Sunday school, and I'm going to prove it's not true. So he sailed through the Mediterranean and said, I'm going to just take one of the recorded missionary journeys of Paul and show that there is no such place as the places mentioned in his missionary journey. Because up until the 19th century, they'd never found the places mentioned in the New Testament because of the destruction of the Romans of Jerusalem and then of the Muslims of Roman Asia Minor. None of these places were known. So he took his little Bible from Sunday school, parked in the port that he figured Paul would have landed in, opened to Acts 13 and started doing what it said. This is in Paul in Acts 13, walk three days. and stopped in Roman city called Pisidian Antioch. So William Ramsey walked for three days up this ancient Roman road. It's still there. And on the third day, interestingly enough, there was ruins. So he said, well, this is interesting. And he started excavating. And he found as he undid the engraved in the stone writing of the city gates, that the name of that city in Greek was Antioch of Pisidia. And he went, oh, wow, it's in the Bible. And he followed Paul's first missionary journey in every city that's mentioned in the Bible. By the way, he became a believer along the way, and he wrote many interesting books. Sir William Ramsey's Traveler, The Traveler Paul, he followed Paul everywhere. But when he excavated this city, I want to share with you what he found. He found out that Thyatira was a manufacturing and industrial city. Most of the workers in Thyatira were members of guilds. We would call them like trade unions. The guilds encouraged their members just like the unions do. They helped them set a price for their labor. You know, a lot of people say, oh, I'll just fix your car for nothing. And the guild says, no, no, you've got to charge for that. If you don't charge anything, it hurts all of us. Another, like the baker, would say, oh, you like my bread? You can have it. And they said, no, no, you've got to charge so much because we're all bakers. So they had the trade guilds that operated like unions. They set the prices for their labor. They set the prices for the goods. And that meant every trade in this area, Roman Asia, every trade had a guild. There were potters, dyers, tanners, bakers, metal workers, textile makers, bronze smiths, slave dealers, leather workers. Everyone had to be a part of these guilds. Now, what Ramsey found by the archives, as well as the extant literature, three things were true about Scyatira's guilds. Number one, they were compulsory. In other words, to be employed as a baker or as a leather worker, you only could work in Thyatira if you were a member of the guild. Compulsory, we call it closed shop. Even if you were the best mechanic, if you weren't in the union, you couldn't serve. Et cetera, et cetera, cross town. Secondly, the trade guilds of Thyatira were pagan. In other words, each of them was dedicated, devoted to a god or a goddess. And so what that meant is, when you came to the monthly gathering of your guild, the first order of business was that you had to rise and honor the pagan deity. You know, like the patron saint that the Roman Catholics had. They had patron deities, like Venus or whatever, of these guilds. And so you had to rise and give to the god or goddess whatever they expected. You know, money, food, flowers, whatever. offer incense, pray to them, whatever it was. So they were very pagan. And all meetings you were required to go to had an obligatory opening of reverencing a god or goddess. Thirdly, trade guilds were pleasure dominated. After you went through the business, if you remember the guild, you had to stay for the banquet. And the banquet was sumptuous. All the alcohol you could drink, all the food you could eat, and you were entertained by troops of unclothed slaves who danced between the tables just to make things lively. So what that means is sin was everywhere present and powerfully alluring. In fact, Ramsey wrote this in his journal after his excavations. He said revelry, license and intoxication marked the pagan trade guilds as they lounged on dining couches surrounded by troops of unclothed dancing and singing slaves. It was fatal to all self-restraint. That was his assessment of Thyatira. In short, the guild was no place for a Christian. Yet to quit the union meant economic suicide. In other words, you couldn't be a baker, you couldn't be a dyer, you couldn't be a tanner, you couldn't be a leather worker in Thyatira if you weren't a member of the guild. But to be a member of the guild, you had to go through all that paganism and immorality. Well, number one, their flesh was tempted at work. Believers found that their battle with the flesh raged every day in their daily work schedule. Can you imagine? working in a in a cubicle next to someone that the night before had been at one of these orgies and what they would be talking about across your cubicle to the next person. I mean just in there in there. I mean we think that there's bad talk now. Can you imagine if it was flagrant and open that type of a conduct at the guild meeting? Secondly their flesh was tempted not only at work but on their daily trips after work People back then did not have a nice bathtub and shower in their own home. They went to public baths. That was a part of the culture of the Greco-Roman Empire is they had public bathhouses. These things were huge. They could accommodate hundreds and thousands of people. And there were all of the different things that you would need for daily life in the bathhouse. but not only did you have your bath, prostitution was normal and most people considered you healthy only if you participated in that. If you didn't, they thought you were sick and something was wrong with you. And I don't know if you realize, but church history tells us that the reason that Christians were persecuted and martyred was they offended the Romans because they slowly dropped out of the trade guilds even though they were the best artisans. They said, no, we can't go to that pagan god ceremony and we certainly won't stay for the the dancing girl part, and they dropped out and they wouldn't be participating. And so they were called the first charge against Christians was haters of humanity. But they didn't go along with what everyone else did. Thirdly, their flesh was tempted at sports. You compound this picture of work and the bathhouse with the fact that any involvement in sports meant trips to athletic facilities called gymnasiums, where such an emphasis was placed on the human body that most sports were practiced and competed in total nudity. That's the first century. So if you were a participant, Or if you were a spectator, that's what you saw. Do you see why the Christians were called haters of humanity? They couldn't go to the trade guild. They couldn't go openly to the bathhouses as comfortably as everybody else went. And they couldn't even be involved in the sports because it offended their holy God. All of those forces meant that these saints were vexed with the flesh, with temptation, with sin. We could say that they were living in a cesspool. And what immense pressure the world placed on every marriage in the early church. As husbands and wives got saved, and the wife knew every month her husband was going to go off to a guild meeting, knowing he was going to be served all the alcohol he could ever drink, followed by a pornographic strip show every month. I mean, how long would Christian husbands and wives permit that to go along until the husband finally said, honey, we're going to have to get rid of this house. We can't afford it because I can't be a member anymore. My heart is grieved by what I see. What immense pressures there were on families. Godly parents knew that to allow participation in sports, their sons and daughters would be required to strip off their clothes, practice and compete with other young people, all in complete nudity. How many godly Christian parents would send their kids off and say, well, the Lord take care of you, you know, hope nothing happens, you know, while you're off there at sports camp all summer. Daily life was filled with temptations, allurements, and blatant sensuality. Well, Now, let's open to Galatians, because Galatians was a little epistle Paul wrote to a city not more than 130 miles from Thyatira. And this was perhaps Paul's second or third epistle. And so this one was around for at least 40 years. So the entire church. This was a letter they knew that was written as well as the other 11 that were from this area. This is a letter that was written not to a specific church. There wasn't a church called the city of Galatia. It was a whole province. So this was a widely circulated letter to a whole province that exactly abutted and touched along the lines of the province where Thyatira was. So of all the epistles This is the one that most likely had gotten there because, remember, Lydia knew Paul and all of that. And so she would have said, oh, wow, a letter from the man that led me to Christ. I want you to read it. This is a letter that would have been taught and probably memorized because, remember, the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. So this is what they knew. So look at Probably the most succinct call to holiness. And remember, Christ's call to holiness has never changed. And the most succinct statement of what Christ expected, living around that I just described. The work environment, the public bath environment, and the sports environment. This what's interesting is that the Lord didn't say, well, if you live in Jerusalem in the shadow of the temple, I expect you to live holy. But if you're in Thyatira with all those troops of dancers, you know, I don't expect as much from you. No, no. Christ's call to holiness. It's always the same. It doesn't matter whether it's C.T. Studd going to naked pygmies in Africa or working with the academic elites in Oxford. Christ's call to holiness is always the same. It's never changed. So Galatia was about as close to Thyatira as Chicago is to us. The road between those two urban areas was safe, clear, and heavily traveled. And so Paul taught This principle, this is why the church in in Romans, I mean, in Revelation 219 was so commended. The gospel works even in Thyatira. See, that's. I mean, the gospel works even in college dorms, even in in the flagrant society we live in, the college atmosphere that spilled over kind of the Southern California, do whatever you want that permeates our country. The gospel works. How does it work? Well, Paul taught the battle was already won. We don't have to win it. It's already been won. The world, the flesh and the devil, Galatians 2.20, were all defeated at the cross. Now, what I'd like to do is just run through how they applied that in their lives. And I just want to just explain to you what Paul was trying to teach them that they would have known and how they survived. Paul's words to believers, to marriages and families who had to live in this most intoxicating time of sin in all of history up until our day, Paul says, hey, I'm living in this world. Remember, Paul went to all these cities. Paul went to all those bathhouses. Paul knew this culture. And he says, let me give you my testimony. And here it is, Galatians 2.20. And I want to show you, as I read this verse, I call it a sandwich. What you find is the gospel is justification, justification. That's the outer kind of like the two pieces of bread and the filling is sanctification. And so you don't have the real thing unless you have the top, the bottom and the middle. And so that's what we see. Look at Galatians 2.20. I have been crucified with Christ. That's the past event of justification. Notice it's in the past. I have. Not I was. It was a past event that has a present impact on my life. Justification. Now look what happens. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives. That's the present tense. He lives in me. The present event is sanctification. The past event is justification. We are only justified once. And that was once and for all accomplished on the cross. And by faith, we are justified instantaneously. It's a past event accomplished by Christ. But look in the present. Christ lives in me. And keep going, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God. The Son of God, that's living, that's present tense, that's sanctification. But then look at the rest of the sandwich. Who loved me, past tense, and gave, past tense, himself for me. That's a past event, justification. It's a sandwich type of presentation. The past work of Christ, crucified, gave himself for me on the cross, secures my not only salvation, but my present sanctification. Now, how do you do that? Well, it means living in the present based on the past. How did I get saved? I trusted the past event. Jesus died on the cross. Did I see him personally? No. I see him by faith. I believe he died in my place. So apply that faith that you and I have in what Jesus did on the cross and saved us to everyday life. That's what Paul is teaching them. Just as much as you can believe that Jesus died for you on the cross 2000 years ago, believe that Jesus lives in you today. Flesh cannot defeat flesh. Resolves promises fighting and striving in our own power only leads to further defeats. It's only by believing that the same Christ who died to take away my sin on the cross once and for all lives to liberate me from the world, the flesh and the devil today. You see that it's all connected. The past event gives me the awareness of the present power. It's operative in my life. Basically this, even if you don't feel it, understand it, or even at times want it, we by faith believe that Jesus died for me and I'm saved. And the same is true in daily life. Even if I don't feel liberated from sin, even if I don't sometimes want to be liberated from sin because my sins and iniquities are always tugging and trying, my flesh is alluring me, I have to believe that the shackles of sin have been broken, the chains have dropped off, The prison door is open, and all I have to do is say, I believe you, Lord Jesus. I will walk out in newness of life. Here is another way to put it. Jesus lived. That's history. Jesus died. That's theology. Jesus died for me and took my sins on himself on the cross. That is salvation. But listen, Jesus died for me to live through him. That is sanctification. Now, if you if you meet a person who says they're justified and you look at the rest of their life and you don't see any sanctifying work, the whole book of Galatians and James is written to say you need to question whether they're justified because justification is the other side of the coin of sanctification. Those who are justified, he sanctifies. All who are sanctified are only on the basis of his justification. Christ's work on Calvary forever gave us the power and the authority to stop anything that enslaves us. That's the hope. Thyatira was a group of people living in a cesspool. I used to have a friend when I lived in Rhode Island that was a surgeon, and he told me about colon surgery. He said, do you want to understand colon surgery? He said, go gash your finger. And just cut it wide open until the red blood is squirting. And we had little kids then. He says, and go take the messiest diaper you know and jam your finger in there and use that as your bandage. And he says, and try and heal that. He said, that's colon surgery. And I thought, that's gross. Don't tell me that anymore. I don't want that metaphor. You know what I thought about immediately? I thought about Thyatira. Those people were saved. Their lives were cut open, but they were immersed back into the cesspool of Thyatira. And you know what? The power of the cross kept them from getting infected and from the cesspool permeating their lives as long as they were listening and heeding. That's why Jesus said, repent, go back to listening to me. You've listened to that false teacher that says, oh, the Lord's forgiven you of everything. You can go back to the temples and eat that stuff and lay on the couches. You can go back to the guild. You can just let those dancing girls go around. You can do anything you want because you're already forgiven. And that brought Christ's wrath. We were saved so Christ could sanctify us, and that's what he wants to do. Let's stand together. And as we stand and just before I pray, I want to remind you that the gospel is that Jesus Christ is here today, and he offers salvation to anyone who will call on him and reach out to him by faith. And if you have done that and have never been discipled, or if this morning you're reaching out to the Lord and you want to talk to someone, after I pray the elders are going to be here at the front. Also, if you have any need that you want to talk over and pray with them. Secondly, tonight What does God's Word say about Christians, alcohol, addictions, gray areas, sin and sanctification? What is our liberty and what is legalism? What a night. I don't want to miss it. I've studied all 256 verses that talk about alcohol in the Bible. It's going to be a fun time. But if you have a spiritual need right now at the end of service, the elders are here. If you're brand new with us, visit the receptions right across the hall in the fellowship center. I'd love to meet you. Let's bow for a word of prayer. Father in heaven, I thank you for the power of the cross, Lord Jesus, that once and for all, I have been crucified. My sins are gone. The record of them is removed. The penalty has been paid. And the power is broken in the present tense, right now. No sin. can overcome and defeat any of us who will believe that just as much as you saved us in the past, you are sanctifying us this moment. And I pray that Calvary Bible Church and the individual saints that make up this church will get into the habit of hearing your voice every day and allowing you to sanctify us more and more into your likeness so that we can bear fruit and please you in all we do. Bless us. Bring to yourself any who are struggling and have never met you today. And Lord, I pray we would be those who please you in all we do. In the precious name of Jesus, we ask it. And all of God's people said, Amen. God bless you as you go.