The Church of Laodicea

Tom Shrader exposes the spiritual danger of lukewarmness through Jesus' letter to the wealthy church at Laodicea. Though materially prosperous and self-sufficient, this church was spiritually poor, blind, and naked - making them nauseating to Christ. He calls believers to recognize their true spiritual condition and choose wholehearted commitment rather than comfortable compromise.

“Christianity is a fanatical religion, and every Christian should be a fanatic.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: What Christ Says to the Church (Revelations)

Recorded: 2010

Duration: 42 min

Themes: lukewarm, compromise, complacency, prosperity, self-sufficiency, commitment, repentance, wholehearted, comfortable believer, wealthy christian, spiritually complacent, self-satisfied, avoiding commitment, church member, middle-aged believer, established christian

Scripture: Revelation 3:14-22, Isaiah 65:16, Hebrews 1:1, Luke 14:25-33, Matthew 5:3

Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church health, spiritual blindness, self-deception, divine judgment, church discipline, spiritual poverty, sanctification

Full Transcript

Open your Bibles to the book of Revelation. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and the guys will bring you a copy. Raise your hand really high if you need a Bible. The last book is the book of Revelation, and we are going to be in the third chapter.

Let me take just a minute. I never know how much to talk about Susan and where we are in that. Literally dozens of people stop and ask me about Susan every day. So I talked to her yesterday and said I think it's time to maybe do a little bit of an update. We haven't done one in a while. She was diagnosed November 22nd, and it will be six years ago this November, believe it or not. So it's been a really hard road for her. I think she's been through four or five surgeries, and she's been in either radiation or chemo now for six years. About every three months they test, and the cycle is good results, better, less than good results, good results, less than good results.

Several tests ago, there had been a little spot on her liver. That's gone, but the new test showed some active cancer on her spine and her neck and then some lymph nodes. So whenever that happens, that requires a new strategy in terms of the chemo. What they always think is, whatever we're doing isn't working, we change. So that's where we are on this.

I told her the other day, and she goes, "Ah Tom, I don't know." The two of us are very uncomfortable, to be honest, talking about it. I'm not sure why - that could be sin, I don't know - but we're uncomfortable talking about it. I said, "Susan, for this reason alone, we need to tell people so they can pray." Her face just lit up, because one of the things we've learned over the last six years is just the power and the joy and the comfort of just hearing people are praying for you. So be praying for her.

Prayer and God's Work Through Difficulty

Normally chemo day is Thursday, and that's the one day of the week I have no flex. I am at PL at seven in the morning, PL at noon, and I can't be here. But she had chemo Friday, so I went with her. We were in the hospital for about five hours, five and a half hours, and then she'll go back again this week. We came home and got home about four, and she went to sleep about five and got up the next morning about eight, and then really just slept again.

I just got a text from her, and she said, "I'm feeling better today. I feel guilty that I'm at home." I said, "You know, I think people get it. You'll be fine." So be praying about that, and just know that's just a constant thing for us. God's done great things in our lives through it, but it hasn't been fun.

The Church of Laodicea

Revelation chapter three, verse 14. Let's read the passage, and then I'll come back. This is our last Sunday in this series. We'll start something new next week, anniversary Sunday, and then something we'll start that will get us through the end of the year, the beginning of the year - we'll start the book of James. Let's look at verse 14 in chapter three. Let me read it, make a couple of comments along the way, and then we'll unpack it. I'll try to pull this back together when we close today.

"To the angel of the church at Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of creation says this: I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, neither hot or cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Because you say I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing, and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from me gold refined by the fire, so that you could become rich, and white garments, so that you may clothe yourselves, that your shame of your nakedness will not be revealed, and an eye salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and to him, and dine with him, and he with me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit with me on my throne as I overcame, and sat down with my Father on His throne." And in the very familiar close that we have now: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

Seven Churches, Seven Types

It's appropriate as we close this to make sure we put a bow around it. I'll go back to that first week. I think we've had this every week, but let's make sure. We said that what Jesus is doing here in Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3 is speaking to seven actual churches, seven specific locations, and we've traced them. He's speaking to seven churches, and most scholars say they represent seven types of churches that we'll see in all time, seven characteristics.

So we may see all sorts of different characteristics in a body - we don't move monolithically - but there's one that seems to be the dominant trait. So we said it's helpful for two things to happen. One, for us, especially as leaders - you're helpful in that process as well - but us to examine and see which of these churches might serve as a direct warning to us. Certainly all of them are a call. Even as I look at a church that is compromised, a church that is teaching false doctrine, a church that is dead, I don't believe we're any of those, but it's a warning. It can happen anywhere.

Also churches are made up of people, so there's dominant characteristics that you might see in your own life. Although we evaluate these things corporately, it's helpful for you to take a look at these things individually and say, "Does that represent me? Am I like that church at Ephesus that's lost its first love? Or am I..."

The City of Laodicea

This church at Laodicea has imagery in this letter that is really rich. It's addressed in verse 14 to the angel, that means messenger, that's the one who would read the letter to the church. And this is the church that's at Laodicea.

I want to do with Laodicea what we've done with Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum and Thyatira and Sardis and Philadelphia. I want to talk about each of these cities, but especially obviously today Laodicea. Geographically, it is a hundred miles due east of Ephesus and 40 miles southeast of Philadelphia. It is either, depending on where you start, either at the beginning or the end of this magnificent highway that connects these seven cities.

The city was founded in 250 BC. It was an important city because of its strategic military location. So that is said frequently, that if attackers were coming ashore, this would be the first city they'd encounter if they came on the eastern side of this.

The Water Problem and Its Imagery

It had a problem. It had a water problem. It could not get fresh running water in the city, so they had to bring water in from two sources. One was a source that was a hot springs, hot water. The other from a very cold spring. Both they would construct an aqueduct system that would bring water to the city.

By the time the water got there, the hot water was tepid and the cold water was tepid, so the imagery is rich. When He says, you're lukewarm, they can kind of go, yeah, it's like that water we drink. We want to spit it out. We sense what He says.

It had a large Jewish population, about 7,500 males. It was a center, and this becomes really important in our understanding of the city. It was a center of banking and clothing and medicine. It was the wealthiest of the seven cities.

The Earthquake and Reconstruction

It was destroyed by an earthquake in 61 AD. It seems like we've heard that about each of these cities. The thing that makes Laodicea unique is that, and this is probably a good pattern, they took no stimulus money to rebuild. They said no to the government money. They said, we'll do this ourselves.

They refused the money from Rome, and with the banking industry there, again, they were very wealthy. They rebuilt the city. They had a clothing manufacturing base and then a commerce base attached to it. They raised there this black sheep and bred these black sheep to give this beautiful black wool that was renowned all through the area, and they would mass produce garments. They were elegant garments, well-made, durable, and provided great commerce for the city.

The Medical Center

And it was also a city of medicine. There was a medical school there, famous throughout the world for training and sending doctors and bringing people in to treat them, and famous for two treatments, an ointment salve for the ear that would help you hear, and an ointment salve for the eye that would help see. So you begin to see, as you read through that, the richness of this imagery. They got it.

So in our terms, they're like Wells Fargo, Nordstrom's, and the Mayo Clinic all rolled into one. So what I try to do in that is to step back and go, okay, think about it, because that sounds a lot like the place we live. So the issues that they dealt with are like the issues you would deal with.

They would have a time crunch. There'd be a demand crunch. There'd be shipments that needed to get out, commerce that needed to get done, books that needed to be balanced, great wealth. So there was the distraction of wealth, provided certain ease of comfort, but it could be a distraction as well. So that's the city. That's the backdrop of the city. That's a little bit, and you can begin to inject yourself into this. We're going to try to do that today.

Jesus Identifies Himself

Jesus identifies Himself. We said there's a general pattern in the letters, and one of them is Jesus will always speak autobiographically. You see there in the last part of verse 14, He says He is the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

He is the amen. Isaiah 65:16 says God is the God of the amen, meaning He is the definitive last word. Hebrews chapter 1, verse 1, in the past God spoke to our fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these days He's spoken to us by His Son. Jesus is the final word.

The Final Authority

I was talking to a gentleman the other day, and he's been very engaged in a piece of legislation that was passed by the state of Arizona, implemented, challenged by various groups, and on November 3rd, they have a hearing before the United States Supreme Court, so it's a very big deal. And he was explaining, and I said, you know, what's the procedure? How long before you get an opinion? He said, well, you know, that varies depending on their workload and where they prioritize this, but we'll probably hear something in March or April.

So I said, I caught myself at this point, because I almost, I was ready to say this to him. What if this doesn't go your way? What's the answer to that? You're done. There's no place else to go. Once you're done with the Supreme Court, that's it. That's the final authority.

We say this to you all the time. Everybody needs in their life some final authority. It may be their gut instinct. It could be Oprah. It could be Rush. It could be the Republicans or the Tea Party or the Democrats or the Independents. It could be something. For us, the final authority is this word. And that's what Jesus says. He says, I'm the amen. I'm the final authority.

The Faithful and True Witness

I'm the faithful and true witness. I speak the truth. I speak faithfully, genuinely. Those are the kind of words that I've written down. I tell the truth. I don't hide anything. It's plain. It's clear. I am truth, and I reveal that truth, and I'm the one who creates.

In the beginning, God created. God makes everything new. That's His ultimate plan. He will restore all things, and He begins with the process of restoring His people. Whenever we do baby dedications, and we did some this morning at 8:30, and then you saw Roger and his family here. Whenever we do these, there's always

kind of that moment, especially if you had—I mean, it was a baby this morning. It was a little girl, and she had on probably a christening dress that her great-grandmother had, and her grandmother had, and she had, and there's this angelic, literally this angelic little look. You look at that and you think, what a wonderful creature, and so cleverly, they mask what? Their sinfulness.

The miracle that God does, maybe the greatest miracle of all, is that He takes us who are sinners and dead, and separated from Him, and He allows us to come into right relationship with Him. We can be born again, a new creature, stuck in the same earth suit, but a new creature with a new heart, with new likes and dislikes, with a battle that wages within us over sin, but a new creature. If you experience that, because that is the supreme task that we have.

When you talk about East Valley Bible Church, what are we all about? It's about declaring to you the glory of God, and the promise that we have, that He'll redeem anyone that will come to Him in repentance and faith. The problem that we see with these people at Laodicea is, they wouldn't. They couldn't, and it really began with themselves—they didn't see themselves as they really were.

The Pattern of Christ's Letters

We said there's a general pattern in the letter. First He identifies the recipient, Jesus speaks about Himself, and then Jesus will identify a strength, and then a weakness, and then generally an action plan and a promise. This is the only of the seven cities that Jesus mentions no strength. To the loveless city, or even the dead city, at least He was able to find something, but to this lukewarm city, He mentions no strength, which causes one author to write, "lukewarm is the worst form of blasphemy."

Jesus Knows Everything About You

Look at this verse 15: "I know your works." We've made this point to you six times, let's make it one more. Jesus knows everything there is to know about you. You cannot hide anything from Him. He's not discovering new information about you.

This is so contrary to our experience. Every person in this room has had the experience, various degrees of intensity, of entering into a partnership, a marriage, a business arrangement, a friendship, with somebody where it didn't go well, and you found yourself coming close to, if not saying, if I'd have known that about you, I would have never got into this. I would have never married you, I would have never got into this business relationship, I would have never given you that other part of my best friend's forever necklace. I would have never done this if I'd have known that about you.

Maybe I overreact to this because it's so revolutionary for me, so I want it to be for you too. That was something that, as I thought about God, I never understood until I came into a right relationship with Him. That He knows everything there is to know about me, and loves me anyway. He's never going to say, "Tom, if I'd have known you were that, if I know you thought that way, or acted that way, or had that, if I know you ever did that, if I knew you I would have never let you in this relationship." That's never going to happen. Isn't that amazing?

To me, that takes all the pressure off in the relationship. Isn't that what makes dating hard? You want that other person to like you, and then maybe fall in love with you. So in order to have them love you, you decide to let them know, not let them know what you're really like until after you marry them, when they're stuck. But when you're dating, you go, "I'd never do that, oh, I'd never do that, I'd never act that way, I'd never say that," for fear you'd be rejected.

He knows everything there is to know about you. This to me is—and maybe it's why I say it almost every time I teach—I can't do anything to make God love me more, or cause God to love me less. That's incredible. There's nothing you can do. That terrible, wretched sin that you performed last night, or you're calculating for this week, when you do it, God will not love you less. That's not a license to sin, it's just a picture of His love. Because He comes back and He says in verse 19, "Those that I love, I discipline."

All of those efforts, if all you're trying to do is to just make God happy, get Him to love you, driven by performance, you don't need to do that—He loves you anyway. So the basis of our relationship is not driven by performance or fear, but driven by His love for us, which allows us to love Him. He knows your deeds. He knows everything there is to know about you.

The Lukewarm Church

Now here's what He says, here's what I know. He goes right into the weakness, no mention of strength. "You're not cold, you're not hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. But because you're not hot or warm, I'll spit you out, I'd vomit you."

The word for cold there, it means to the point of freezing; for hot, to the point of boiling. You're tepid. You're warm gazpacho and cold lasagna. That's what you are. You're just so unappealing to me.

Now when I think that through, that's a powerful statement He makes. He says, "I wish you were either alive or dead." He makes a really strong, polemic statement here. No compromise.

I was listening to an interview with a biographer and they were asking him if he'd ever started a biography to write and not finish it, and he said yes, and he mentioned it, and he said it's fine, I just didn't—I couldn't develop an emotion for the character. He said you can write great biography if you love someone or hate them, but if you're just neutral toward it, it produces a very ambivalent, lukewarm book.

No Spiritual Switzerland

There's no spiritual Switzerland, that's what He's saying. Jesus says it in such strong terms, "You're either for me or against me." No such thing in God's economy as agnostic. An agnostic is someone who lacks the courage to be an atheist. He's simply, "I don't know." Yes, you're—listen, this is really simple here, you're either for me or you're against

This idea of "mañana"—I'll get to it at another time, I want to avoid this subject, I don't want to deal with it—He's very strong against this attitude.

I'm in a group, and we meet for six consecutive Fridays about three times a year to study various things. Right now we're going through some selected parables, and the one we had for Friday morning was from Luke 14—the idea of counting the costs. Let me read you the words. We started in verse 28, but really you could begin this dialogue in verse 25.

From Luke chapter 14, verse 25: "Now large crowds were going along with Him, and He turned to them and He said, 'If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when you want to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if you have enough to complete it?'"

The Priority of Christ Above All Relationships

He speaks in these polemic terms. The idea of hate there is prioritized—it's love less. In other words, if you have any of these things, your own family—so you look at something like we saw with Raj and his kids and grandkids—what He's saying is, in my life, those kids, that wife, that spouse, they cannot be more important to me than Jesus.

Whenever I'm talking to somebody who's saying, "Boy, I'm single, I'd love to be married," here's what I tell them. If you're a gal, here's what you want: the best characteristic you can find in a guy is a guy who loves Jesus more than you. Guys, the best thing you can find is a lady who loves Jesus more than you, because now the relationship has a shot at working.

Let me finish this parable, because in the parable He says this: "So then, none of you can be My disciples who do not give up all of his possessions." That's very radical language. Very strong language. And that's what He's saying here. He's moving you. This idea of "eh, mañana, whatever"—that doesn't work when it comes to Christ.

The Necessity of Daily Recalibration

I get that there are moments when we get there. I'm speaking personally. I constantly have to recalibrate myself. At the end of the day, if I miss a day or two or three, I'm in real trouble. But if it goes very long, if I don't recalibrate and say, "Okay, what are priorities? How did that priority go? What are the things that are important to me?"

Life has this ebb and flow to it. If you're the grandparents who live by yourselves, one of the things that you learn quickly is how selfish you are. All of a sudden the kids come over and you say, "We're really glad you're here. What time do you think you'll be leaving? This is really nice. Whoops, don't touch that."

In the first hour, we had a husband and wife who were dedicating four children. The oldest is three and a half. Now if that's your life, free time? You don't even talk about using your free time. They don't even know what that is. But in this, wherever God has you, are you being the man or woman, student, that He's called you to be at that stage of life in that way?

Christ's Harsh Words to the Lukewarm

"You're not hot, you're not cold. I wish you were hot or cold, but you aren't. So you make, literally, you make Me vomit."

I tried to speculate what their church was like, and my speculation was it was very politically correct and very comfortable and very easy. Nobody was really driving anybody to make any sort of tough decisions. That's how they got to be lukewarm. He says, "I'd rather you never got started than you became lukewarm."

The Danger of Being Inoculated Against the Real Thing

The idea of being vaccinated. I got my flu shot. It's getting to be alarming now, because on every corner is a sign that says "flu shots today." I got my flu shot about a month ago. I say this every fall—I'm reminded I'm just very leery of having a medical procedure performed at Home Depot. That makes me very nervous.

I had a great gal, not last year but the year before. I got a flu shot at a Bashas', and this was a great gal. I came in and said, "How you doing?" She said, "You're the last one of the day. Do you think I can get one more vaccine out of this needle?" I said, "Hey, come on man, don't jack around with me like this."

But what they're doing is introducing and activating your immune system with just enough of the disease that you'll never catch the real thing. The old phrase is: some of us have been inoculated with enough church or Christianity that when the real thing comes along, we'll never catch it.

See, that's why He's saying, "I'd rather have you on a day like today home watching football than in here pretending you're okay." That's what He's saying to them. Now, I'd rather have you here than there. But He's saying, "Listen, you need to understand this. You're lukewarm."

Christianity Demands Fanatical Commitment

Christianity is a fanatical religion, and every Christian should be a fanatic, writes John Stott. What Jesus Christ desires and deserves is the reflection which leads to commitment and the commitment which is born of reflection. This is the meaning of the wholeheartedness of being on fire or aflame with God.

He said, "You've got a problem with this lukewarmness. You don't understand the gravity of this situation." See it in verse 17? There's a connection here. He's going to say, "Because you say and don't know."

Their Fatal Self-Deception

Here's what they said: "I'm rich. I've become wealthy. I have no need of nothing." And you don't know that you're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

Here you go—in our vernacular, they're fat, dumb, and happy. They're self-sufficient. They have everything they need. "You're rich. I'm fine. I've got a few little..."

things, but it's nothing big. I've got enough cash and enough stuff, and I'm not worried about the next meal, and I'm not feeling compelled in any certain way. I'm fine. I'm okay.

I talked to a friend of mine years ago about his father, and I said, is your father interested in the things of God? And he declared, he said he has no need. He has all the money he needs. He has his own plane, four or five places around. He's got all the stuff, healthy as can be. He has no need.

Now, as the years have passed on, he's seen that need, but there's something about the hardness of heart. Isn't it funny that even as people are sitting in a hospice or in a hospital bed or dying at home, that rather than, you would think at that moment, you go, gee, maybe I ought to think about this a little bit. They become even more callous. It all begins here.

The Lukewarm Church's Self-Deception

And again, it's all speculation. I speculated they're good citizens who probably say prayers before meals and go to church some and give out good candy on Halloween and do all sorts of different things. Periodically maybe read a Bible or pray or talk to somebody, maybe give a little cash toward some philanthropic or even religious effort. They're okay even by the world standards.

But the Amen, the faithful, genuine witness, the faithful, genuine creator who knows all things, looks at them and says, I've got a real problem with you. You're lukewarm. You're not hot. You're not cold.

You think you are rich. See the contrast here? You think you are rich, but you're really poor. He's not talking about how much money they have. He's talking about the condition of their soul. Blessed are the poor in spirit, Jesus says. It's the beginning of the beatitudes. It's where a relationship with Christ begins with an understanding of who I am: spiritually bankrupt.

True Spiritual Poverty

And the Greek word that's translated there, poor, there are different options in the Greek. It could speak of kind of working poor. This is the one that speaks of somebody who's utterly incapable of taking care of themselves.

You think you are rich and you have a bunch of stuff, but in reality you're poor. You're wretched. You're miserable. You're blind. And you're naked.

He goes right to those three areas of business that we saw. Remember? Banking and clothing and this medicine. He said, you think you can see, but you can't. You think you're clothed, but you aren't. You think you have wealth, but you're poor.

Christ's Solution for Spiritual Need

So He said, here's my advice to you. My advice to you is to buy from me gold that's refined by fire so that you may be rich. And garments that are white so you may clothe yourself. And that your shame of your nakedness will not be revealed. And an eye salve will anoint your eyes and allow you to see.

I'll give you 20-20 vision spiritually. I'll allow you through the Spirit of God to have your eyes open so you can see things as they really are. And you are poor, but I'm here to clothe you. I'm here to make you rich. I'm here to take your faith and to put it in the fire over and over again and refine it.

Divine Discipline as Evidence of Love

Verse 19, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten and therefore be zealous and repent. It's the training of a child.

We are, and I think I've shared this before, we have one game left, one t-ball game left. We will have completed, I believe it's a 12-game season. We have one game left. And I use the term coaching all the time. And the problem with the word coaching is it implies an imparting of information that is then taken, disseminated, and implemented in one's life. We don't do that. We try to get them back to where they were when the play started.

On this team are 12, I think, humans. There are two of them that I would love to shove their head in the toilet. There's two of them that are real problems. After every game, I tell Susan, somebody ought to call Sheriff Joe and just get the cell ready because those two right there are on their way. There's no question about it. And totally separate, Haley arrived at the conclusion, Susan arrived at the conclusion, and I arrived at the conclusion separately.

But there's really not much I can do about it because they aren't mine. The only two on the team that I have a disciplinary relationship with really are my own grandkids, Braden and Yale. And even there, I'm very careful to understand as their grandpa, I'm here to try to enforce behavioral standards that I think their parents have, not mine. But even then, I'm not going to spank them. I encourage their mom and dad to.

When I had kids, I had Sarah and Haley who I did, well, I spanked Sarah, I never spanked Haley, but kids who I was willing to discipline because they were my own. That's all Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying here, listen, if you're mine and I love you, I will discipline you to get a realistic view that there'll be the result of sin in my life.

Understanding Hardship vs. Discipline

Let me flip this around the other way. Don't fall into the trap of thinking because you know Christ and all of a sudden you're following Him and you're saying Jesus is Lord and your life really has been transformed. Don't think for a second that your life is going to be smooth and easy because there are going to be things that come into your life that are going to be like everyone else's.

So I was reading an article the other day on Joni Eareckson Tada. Some of you know her as the girl who as a teenager had a diving accident and had been a quadriplegic. Now she has cancer and she's going through this excruciating treatment. And that, I would not say, oh, that's a result of sin in their life. I'm trying to make two separate things.

If there's sin in your life, God tends to discipline it one way or the other. It may just be in your heart, it may be discomfort in you, it may be in something else. But don't think for a second that hardship means there's sin or that because you are a Christian you won't

We see that all around the world, the hardship that people endure because they're Christians. You and I have little to none of that. But here's what He says. He says, listen, here's what I want you to be. Be zealous, literally, get hot. And repent. It means to turn around.

My fear is that that's one of those words we use like get saved, repent, and we think, done once and for all. It's not a once and for all action. I come into the kingdom of God, once and for all it's done. But this repentance is constantly, it's constantly me going, God, I need to change there. You need to work on me there. That isn't right in my life.

Christ Stands at the Door

Here's the promise in verse 20: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I'll come in and dine with him and he with me." Now we generally in the body of Christ see that or hear that as an evangelistic verse. So I don't want to take away from it, there's the call to all people, if we want to use it that way, that Christ is calling to all people and saying, come to me if you will.

But in this context, this is written to the church. And He's saying, you know, here's the deal. It's pretty interesting that thing you got going at Laodicea. You got really cool rooms and great music. You got a killer bulletin. You got great video. The temperature's right. The music's good. So seats are relatively comfortable. You're singing. You're taking communion. But I'm not in it.

The Greeks would have eaten three meals in the course of their day. They would have a breakfast that would just be a piece of dry bread, dropped in wine. Lunch would be something they'd eat on the run. But dinner was the meal. Their workday went from sunup to sundown. No electricity. So once the sun was down, they were done. That dinner would be a meal where they would hang around. There was no Sunday night football. There were no dance lessons to get to. There was no football practice.

The Intimacy of Relationship

People would hang. The family would hang. People would engage with one another. They'd linger over their meals. They would talk. There were no distractions. The day's work was done.

Susan and I, we laugh all the time. We'll go over to Southern California on vacation and inevitably end up having dinner or coffee or extended periods of time with people who live in Phoenix, some who go to this church, who the only time we hang with them is when we're in San Diego. Isn't that silly? But we get over here and what happens? It's the busyness of life.

Here's what He's saying. He's saying, listen, if you open this door, I'll come in, not for breakfast or lunch, but I'll come in and sup with you, dine with you. I'll have relationship with you. I'll speak to you.

There is a uniqueness about biblical Christianity and it's this. We have a God who seeks after people. No other religion really has that. Most of religion is a God who's up there and He's angry about something. It's something you've done and you should assume that He's justifiably angry and you better figure out what you can do to make Him happy, to satisfy Him.

A God Who Pursues Us

We were in Bangkok. There were little on street corners. There would be little statues and little areas of worship where they would bring food to try to satisfy the gods. You go to church on first Fridays or you go every day or you give something up for Lent. You sing in the choir. You teach the youth. You're going to do something for God.

He says, no, no, no. Here's this relationship. I'm going to come in and I'm going to sup with you and dine with you and hang with you and we're going to have a relationship. Think of it in the context of a human relationship where you talk to one another, where you spend time together, where you talk at various levels of intimacy.

Well, this is the most intimate of relationship because the one side already knows everything there is to know about you. So what He's saying is, don't play any games. Just come and just talk to me. You don't need to come and pretend that everything's okay when it isn't because I know it isn't. You don't have to come and pretend that things are fine. They aren't or that your heart's right. The hound of heaven. That's what Jesus had described.

"He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit on the throne and he will be with me on the throne as I'm on the throne with my Father. He has ears to hear, let him hear."

Which Church Are You?

Let me put a bow on this. We said which one of these churches is East Valley Bible Church? Which one of these people are you? Maybe this is just a warning sign.

Maybe you're the church at Ephesus. Remember that church? It was hard working. Lots of Bible study and discernment and learning. The things that we go, boy, that makes for a good church. But they'd lost their first love. You know what I think that love was? They'd lost that love for one another and the care for one another.

The church at Smyrna, Jesus gives them nothing. He says, listen, I'm not going to add to your burden because you're under great persecution. Some of you come in today and you're afraid. Who knows why? It could be any number of circumstances that you faced last week or you will face this week. It's the certainty of things that you've done or the uncertainty of things that will come. And to you, He says, don't be afraid. It's not because those things won't necessarily happen. It's just that you don't have to face them alone.

The church at Pergamos was a compromise church. To you and to me who are on that, maybe you're on the beginning of that. It started to compartmentalize your life. That's what they've done. Boy, that's a great thing and I see how that works in a Christian context, but I live in the real world. So I take those things and I take those and I leave them for Sunday or church things, but no, not in the real world. And Pergamos led to Thyatira, which was the church that tolerated false teaching.

The Call to Every Church

Which led right to the church at Sardis, which was the dead church—zombies. Church of Philadelphia—these are the last two churches we looked at. Philadelphia that Tim talked about last week is the faithful church. There was no condemnation for them. To the church at Laodicea, there's no commendation.

So what does He say? He says, if you're in that church, that faithful church, if you're that faithful person, here's what He says: persevere, don't stop. Past results don't guarantee future results. If you're sitting there today and the lukewarmness really does describe you, here's what He says: get hot, repent, become zealous, trust in Me. I want to have that relationship with you.

A Time for Reflection

Some of you can do that, can't you? We have anniversary Sunday next week, and whenever there's an anniversary Sunday—I've done this for all, whatever it is, been 18 or 19 of them—I always find myself looking back. And I'm glad and thrilled to see what God has done. I just hope that He's not done. I'm thrilled to see what He's accomplished, but I don't sit and pine for the good old days.

Maybe that's in your life. Maybe you're sitting there right there today and say, "You know what, this is kind of an interesting day today, because I really—the church thing—this really does remind me, this is how it used to be in my life, but something's happened." The wear and tears of life, the circumstances, whatever they are, they've gotten in the way, and now I find myself really a long way away.

Well, here's what God's saying to you today. He's knocking and He's saying, "Let's have that relationship again." There's no reason to not have that vibrant relationship, except you don't want it.

A Time to Respond

We love to respond to the message. So if you're over in the conference center, Tim will be over in a bit and close that, or one of the guys will be over and close that, but here in the chapel, it's our time for communion. So Tim is going to come, lead us in communion, and then the band lead us in our time of worship.

Let's pray as they come. Father, we thank You for the amazing reality that You love us and You care for us. God, thank You that You have brought us to this point. Wherever we are in this, we may be in the midst of suffering or persecution. We may be in a state where we've lost our first love. God, it may be that we've started the process of compromising, maybe even starting to adhere to some false teaching, maybe even dead. In the midst of that, You still say, "Come, come to Me, open that door." God, let that call go out to Your people. We pray that in Christ's name, amen.