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Dover Assembly of God

10.10.2021 | Revelation - Week 8 - To The Church In Sardis - Part 1

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4790 Carlisle Rd, Dover, PA 17315, USA

Sunday 10:30 AM

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Sunday 10:30 AM

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Weekly Bulletin

October 10, 2021 Welcome to Dover Assembly! We are so glad you have chosen to attend Dover Assembly this morning. It is not by accident that you are here. We believe that God has allowed you to be here so that you might receive all that He has for you. We pray you are blessed as you allow the Lord to work in your life. THIS WEEK Sunday 9:00 am ~ Coffee & Donut Fellowship 9:30 am ~ Sunday School 10:30 am ~ Worship Service ~PASTOR APPRECIATION DAY 10:30 am ~ R.O.C.K. Children’s Ministry 1:00 pm ~ Spanish Service Monday 6:30 pm ~ Women’s Bible Study Wednesday 6:30 pm ~ FAMILY NIGHT Thursday 6:30 pm ~ Prayer Night Friday-Sunday Youth Convention Saturday 6:30 pm ~ Spanish Service UPCOMING EVENTS Women of Purpose Bible Study “Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World”, Mondays at 6:30 in the ROCK Room. Women's Encounter Night Has been rescheduled! Friday, October 22, 6:30 pm Please sign up in the upper foyer at the women's table if you can join us for our 'Encounter' night! Come and receive from the Lord! Worship! Prizes! Judy sharing the Word of God! Hope to see you there! New Wednesday Night Bible Study We have begun a new lesson during our mid-week bible study. We are teaching and discussing the book “Not Safe-Discovering God’s Dangerous Plan for Your Life” by Mark Batterson. Jesus didn’t die to make us safe, he died to make us dangerous. Be sure to join us starting this Wednesday at 6:30 pm. Veteran's Day Service We are in the process of scheduling a special speaker for the Sunday before Veteran’s day, Nov 7. Be in prayer for that day and start to invite any veterans or current military personnel that you may know. We want to make this a special day to honor their service and to share the gospel with them. BODY NEWS Shut Ins Continue to pray for those of our church family who are no longer able to join us for worship. ~ Marian T. ~ Olga K. ~ Rose K. ~ Cindy D. (Angel’s mom) ~ Betty N. ~ Beulah S. Meal Ministry Our Women of Purpose meal ministry is back up and running and it has been busy! Diane Crumrine is our Meal Ministry Coordinator. Please contact her if you can help in any of the following ways: make a meal; deliver a meal; donate to a meal; donate cash; provide a gift card to Bob Evans, Domino's Pizza, Giant, Weis as the main ones but others are welcome. If giving cash or check please place it in an envelope and mark it 'Meal Ministry.' Jesus said in His Word, 'And the King will say, I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it unto Me!' - Matthew 25:40 NLT Prayer Warriors! Prayer nights continue on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays at 6:30 pm. Join us as we seek the Lord for Dover Assembly and our own lives! In Sympathy To Diane and Mark Crumrine and Diane's mom, Joyce and family on the home-going of Joyce's daughter, Diane's sister, Lisa on Sun., Oct. 3, 2021. To Sherry and Ken Sheely and Kendra and Gene Knaub on the home-going of Sherry and Kendra's dad, Kendall on October 6, 2021. To Jamie and Dustin Wible at the home-going of her aunt Theresa on October 6, 2021

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Oct 10, 2021 - Week 8 - Rev. Jeff Bender

Before we start on our next church, I want to put some things into perspective.

These last several weeks seems to be weeks of God being hard on the church. How many get that feeling at times?

I remember when I was a kid and we would get whoppins. After we got the belt for misbehaving or whatever, we would be in bed and my dad would come up, usually wake us up and tell us he loved us and the reason for the whopping.

He didn’t want the whopping to be the end, but just a tool to help us become better adults. These letters to the churches are along the same line. These are corrections that Jesus sees the church needs to make.

Why? To become better churches. The reason for these letters was not so much just bringing the hammer down, but in His love for us, he wants us to be the best we can be.

His correction comes out of his love, not out of his enjoyment.

Ezekiel 33:11

Can you hear the pleading of God? How many parents have pleaded with their kids to not make bad choices?

Hebrews 12:5-11

If God didn’t care about us, he would just leave us to ourselves.

Another reason I tend to be so hard on knowing the Bible is because if we don’t know it, we will eventually get a warped or distorted view of God.

And if you don’t know it for yourself, you may be persuaded to think of God in a way that is totally wrong.

When we study these churches or any other topic in God’s word, we have to remember, God’s word is always meant to build us up, not tear us down.

We may not like what we hear at times or it may challenge what we have come to believe or think about a topic, but God’s desire is to allow us to be blessed and to become the best of what God wants us to be.

Turn with me to Revelation 3.

So far we have talked about 4 of the 7 churches.

Ephesus was the church that lost their first love

Smyrna was the church that was being persecuted from without and Christ commended them for enduring

Pergamum was the church that allowed outside worldly influences to creep into the church services and teachings.

Thyatira was the church that was being attacked from within thru a prominent lady in the church that was leading some of the believers astray with her teachings.

That brings us to Sardis.

Sardis was about 30 miles south of Thyatira. It was both a wealthy city as well as an important military city.

It was protected by huge walls that surrounded the entire place. It had withstood many attacks and was only defeated twice in its history.

Both defeats were not frontal assaults, but stealth attacks from unprotected areas in the city.

ASK Yourself: How does the enemy attack you? Full frontal temptations or stealth temptations from unprotected areas of your life?

We probably won’t be tempted to commit armed robbery or have an affair, but we might be tempted to be envious of someone, o to want revenge for something.

We have to watch out for the small unprotected areas of our lives.

The luxurious living of the Sardians had led it’s people to moral decadence. Sound familiar?

Once the city started to really prosper and accumulate wealth and possessions, they began to live like those towns around them.

Just like Old Testament Israel-when God blessed them, they forgot God.

The people in the city at this time were second generation wealthy. They had not worked for it, they inherited it.

William Barclay describes the city as “a city of peace, not peace won thru battles, but the peace of the man whose dreams are dead, minds are asleep, the peace of lethargy”.

They no longer had to struggle or claw for what they had, they simply enjoyed the benefits without appreciating how they were attained. A lot of folks enjoy the benefits of this country without having worked for it.

Generations are gone who have had to fight to ensure our freedom and have worked to build businesses that we all now enjoy.

I heard one commentator say it this way. Since our country is at peace with pretty much all the world (we’re not in a Vietnam or Korea or WW2) war is not on the forefront of every news cast.

Since we as a country don’t have a common enemy, we have turned on ourselves.

We become our own enemy.

Now we have a small understanding of what the city was like: (maybe like we are today?)

Revelation 3:1-6

What did we say this stood for when we began with Ephesus?

The stars represent the pastors, or leaders that God has given to each church. The preachers are responsible to the Lord, he placed them there.

He holds them in His hand. Symbolizing possession as well as control. He controls them or at least they should let him.

It also symbolizes His desire to help them.

God still cares for this church even though he starts to rebuke them. His desire is to bring back as many as possible.

You will see that there wasn’t too many that wanted to be brought back.

The seven spirits of God can also be stated the seven-fold spirit.

What are they? Well Isaiah gives us a little insight into that:

Isaiah 11:2

These are all traits that every church should possess.

The Holy Spirit should be present, the Holy Spirit should give the leaders and people, wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, knowledge and fear of the Lord.

He is saying that I hold the pastor’s hand and I also hold everything that makes you a true church as opposed to a rotary club.

If you don’t posses these things as a church, you might not be a church.

I control the power that every church needs to succeed.

For any church to be successful in God’s eyes, we need to have the

Spirit of Wisdom - Spirit of Understanding - Spirit of Counsel - Spirit of Power Spirit of Knowledge- Spirit of the Fear of the Lord (The Bible says it’s the beginning of what?? wisdom, so it goes full circle).

Revelation 3:1

God is able to see thru our exterior. He is able to see what’s in our hearts.

This church was at one time a very on-fire church. They had a reputation in the town. They had been a great work and move of God.

The problem was they were living on those past glories.

The exterior that was seen by outsiders was one of being a great work of God, it was still a large church, they had many activities and was seen by the community as being a great asset.

The problem was they no longer had a zeal for God.

The reputation around town was great, but their reputation with God was gone.

It’s easy to want to build a reputation with the community. In fact every church should try to do that.

But in the process of trying to be liked by everyone and well respected, it’s easy to try to become like them.

Our desire for a good reputation has to stop when it calls for us to compromise.

To stop being the church.

People in this town were remembering what the church had done in the past and the church people liked being a part of the “big church”.

The problem was they were not doing anything new for God. Their services were said to be alive. “A reputation of being alive”

Ever been to a service that was lively, lots of music, excitement, etc. but you just didn’t feel anything spiritual going on? They were singing the songs, but not worshipping. Do we find ourselves doing that?

Jesus said this church had that reputation, but in reality, it was spiritually dead.

It had become a social event, not a church. They were no longer having a positive spiritual influence in society. Not being salt & Light.

They wanted to be liked and admired and so they didn’t rock the boat with society.

“Go along to get along”.

According to a Pych magazine: Go Along To Get Along Leads to More of the Same. Caving in to social pressure — from something as simple as saying you love a movie because your friends do, to participating in criminal activity to cement membership in a gang — creates good feelings about being part of a group. This according to a new study that shows that this caving in also produces more of the same behavior.

The church was “caving in” in order to fit into society and that means they were doing and acting like society to fit in.

How many have heard the expression “peace at any cost”? Neville Chamberlin wanted peace so bad that he gave in to the enemy and the enemy betrayed him.

That is kind of what our government is trying to do now.

Peace at any cost is saying that we want peace with someone so bad, that we are willing to compromise anything and everything, just so we don’t make you mad.

We want to have a good reputation in town with our neighbors and officials, but we are not willing to sacrifice who we are to get it.

Luke 6:26

Galatians 5:11

The preaching of the truth of Christ sometimes will offend people.

Standing up for truth will offend people. If that is the case, we still stand up anyways.

It doesn’t say that we as people are offensive it says the preaching of the truth is offensive.

Revelation 3:2

This means “be watchful” or “be constantly alert”.

Anyone ever sleep in? Get nudged and whispered to get up, finally they just flip on the lights and say “WAKE UP”!

Obviously this church was not too far gone. They were in rough territory, but not totally gone.

If they didn’t wake up soon, they weren’t going to wake up.

We all know people who were in church for a while or maybe even still attend, but their walk is nowhere near where it used to be.

Don’t we just want to shake them and say “wake up”? You are not living like you know you should.

You’re going to miss it.

He’s telling them to snap out of it.

Have you found yourself going along in the world to get along with the world?

If you find yourself compromising in order to keep your reputation or standing with your friends and family, then maybe you need to wake up.

We’ll see later in this church that their compromise was endangering having their names removed from the book of Life.

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