Hot, Cold, or Lukewarm

Tom Shrader opens in John 11, tracing the Sanhedrin's plot to kill Jesus following the resurrection of Lazarus, and uses Caiaphas's unwitting prophecy to reaffirm that Christ's death was a deliberate, specific atonement for His people. He then turns to Revelation 3:14-21 and the church at Laodicea, the only one of the seven churches Jesus addresses without naming a strength, using it to confront the danger of a comfortable, routine faith that is neither cold nor hot. The message closes with a pastoral appeal for both unbelievers to come to Christ in repentance and faith, and for believers to open the door to genuine, daily fellowship with Him.

“Jesus' death on the cross didn't make salvation possible. It made it real.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Standalone Teachings

Recorded: 2005 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 50 min

Themes: lukewarm faith, repentance, atonement, fellowship with god, spiritual complacency, unbelief, resurrection, coming to christ, feeling spiritually dry, going through the motions, comfortable in sin, unbeliever seeking truth, backsliding believer, new believer, long-time churchgoer, struggling with doubt

Scripture: John 11:45-57, John 10:24-29, Isaiah 53:8, Matthew 1:21, Matthew 20:28, John 10:11, Ephesians 5:25, Titus 2:14, Hebrews 2:17, Romans 6:23, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 1:1-2, 1 Kings 18:20-21, Colossians 4:16, Revelation 2:1-7, Revelation 2:8-11, Revelation 2:12-17, Revelation 2:18-29, Revelation 3:1-6, Revelation 3:7-13, Revelation 3:14-21

Theological Themes: definite atonement, limited atonement, propitiation, christology, the seven churches of revelation, regeneration, election, sanctification

Full Transcript

The Sanhedrin's Response to the Resurrection of Lazarus

Turn in your Bibles, please, to John chapter 11, the gospel of John, the eleventh chapter. Last Sunday we took a little break from our study in the life of Christ to celebrate our fifteenth anniversary. To be technically accurate, what we celebrated last week was our fourteenth anniversary and the beginning of what will be a year-long celebration commemorating what God has done. We are grateful and thankful for that, but at the same time filled with anticipation and rejoicing for what God may do in the future. I would love to believe that the mightiest ways God is going to use this church are yet in our future, and I look forward to what He is doing.

We had spent a couple of weeks in the eleventh chapter of the gospel of John prior to that break. If you have a headline in your Bible, it would say something like "The Death and Resurrection of Lazarus." That is what we have looked at — the event itself and then the people's response to it. There was a man named Lazarus whom Jesus befriended. He got sick and then died. Jesus went to the home of his sisters, Mary and Martha, asked where Lazarus had been buried, went to the tomb, and said, "Lazarus, come forth" — and Lazarus came out of the tomb. This is a marvelous moment and the final of the seven miracles recorded in John's gospel.

You would think it would generate a response, and indeed it did — though not the one you might expect. Verse 45: "Many, therefore, of the Jews who had come to Mary and beheld what He, Jesus, had done, believed in Him." That would be the response I would expect. It seems to me that if a man is dead and Jesus says come forth and he comes to life, you would believe in Him. I don't know what more evidence you would need. But that was not universally the case.

Verse 46: "But some of those" — some of those very people who saw the same thing, the same miracle, the same background, all that went with it — "went away to the Pharisees and told them the things that Jesus had done." Not only did they not believe, they went to the Pharisees, knowing the Pharisees would respond somehow. We spent our last time together asking: how could these people not get it? How could you go through all of this and not see it?

Why Some Did Not Believe

We had studied this before. Look at John chapter 10, verse 24. The Jews said to Jesus, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you're the Messiah, tell us plainly." And He says, "I told you." Then verse 26: "But you don't believe because you are not My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand." Why did some in that group not believe? Because they were not His sheep. It is a magnificent truth for us to understand — and that is the doctrine we now begin to apply to life.

I received an email last Sunday afternoon. I will read it to you with the names removed. The writer's father had suggested he listen to the October message on grace — that John 10 passage we just looked at — after the son asked him, "How could people who actually stood two feet away from Jesus and watched Him not believe?" The father said, "Listen to that message." And the son wrote back saying only sheep hear His voice, and that the idea of predestination had now been proven to him. Of course, it was not a matter of proving so much as a matter of study and work, and God opened his eyes to see that truth.

What the Pharisees Did Next

What I want to do today is look at verse 46 — they went away, they went to the Pharisees. I want to look at the Pharisees' response. All of this discussion, for whatever reason, launches me into yet another passage of Scripture that I want to apply to our lives. There is a group of people who have not responded to Christ, and we want to speak directly to you and pray that God opens your eyes and ears and hearts to hear this truth. But there are also some of us who have responded and yet perhaps find ourselves at a point where things are dry, where the depth and vibrancy of that relationship is not what it once was. How do we respond?

Look at what happens. They go to the Pharisees, verse 47 of John chapter 11, and the Pharisees convene an emergency session of the Sanhedrin. The Pharisees were the legalists — the fundamentalists of their day, holding to the letter of the law. The Sadducees were far more political, almost irreligious, and did not believe in anything supernatural. Together they made up the Sanhedrin. They convened a council and asked a great question: "What are we doing?" You sense frustration and concern on their part. "What are we doing, for this man is performing many signs."

It is a fascinating thing to meditate on that the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, and the Sadducees did not in any way dispute what had happened. They did not say the miracles did not happen. They did not say the teaching did not take place. What they were saying was: forget the miracles, forget the teaching, forget His character, forget the truth, forget all of that — none of that matters. There is something far more important than any of that. "If we let him go on like this," verse 48, "all will believe in him." And that was the problem for them, because —

The Sanhedrin's Real Concern

We are the spiritual leaders. They are going to walk away from us, our religion, our faith, our truth. They are going to believe in Him, and ultimately the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. The Sanhedrin governed under the authority of the Romans. The Romans were the ones who allowed this to continue, and the Sanhedrin served at the pleasure of the Romans.

They said, listen, we have some problems here. Truth is not the issue. Right or wrong is not the issue. Miracles are not the issue. He did the miracles. He has done all of this — that is a given. The bigger problem is: what about us? What about me? What about my jurisdiction? What about my life? This is going to upset everything if He continues like this.

Caiaphas Speaks

Out of the group, verse 49, the high priest speaks. There is always a man like this in a group. "You know nothing at all." Josephus the historian writes about the Sadducees, of which Caiaphas was one, and says the manner of the Sadducees is rougher than the Pharisees, both to each other and to their equals, whom they treated as strangers. In other words, they just spoke. We would say they tell it like it is — but they do not do it with any grace, any mercy, any tact, or any diplomacy. There is no filter between every thought they have ever had and the compulsion to say it.

Then Caiaphas becomes a prophet. That is an unlikely source, granted, but God has used unlikely sources before. The Scottish theologian McLaren writes:

> "Did not the Spirit of God breathe through Balaam of old? Is there anything incredible in a man's prophesying unconsciously? Did not Pilate do so when he nailed over the cross, 'This is the King of the Jews,' and wrote it in Hebrew and Greek and Latin, conceiving himself to be perpetuating a rude jest, while in fact he was proclaiming everlasting truth? When the Pharisees spoke at the foot of the cross and taunted Jesus, they said, 'He saved others, and Himself He cannot save.' Had they not, too, spoken deeper things than they knew? And were not the lips of this unworthy, selfish, unspiritual, unscrupulous, cruel priest so also used unconsciously, so that his words lent themselves to the proclamation of the glorious central truth of Christianity — that Christ died for the nation that killed Him and rejected Him, and not for them alone, but for the world?"

The Prophecy and Its Deeper Meaning

Here is what Caiaphas says. Look at verse 50: "You do not know anything, nor did you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish." John adds editorially, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: "Now this he did not say on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but that He might also gather together into one the children of God who were scattered abroad."

What Caiaphas has in mind is simple and brutal: let us kill Him, and that will save everybody. Look at verse 53 — so from that day on, they planned together to kill Him. He is saying, let this one man die to save the whole nation. He saw no need to plan carefully, to pray, or even to deliberate. What he missed, however, was a far greater truth: that Jesus would indeed die for many, but not in the way Caiaphas intended.

Jesus dies on the cross for His people. This truth is repetitive — as I was putting these words together earlier in the week, I said to myself, this is really repetitive. But then I understood why it is repetitive. It is the central truth of the Christian faith. This is why we return to it again and again. Though I am very familiar with these truths, I love to go back to them because they are rich to me. They are the core, the heart, central to the gospel message and to Christianity itself.

Why Did Jesus Have to Die?

There are many opinions about why Jesus died. Some say He died because He is a loving God who showed us a beautiful example — that you look at the cross and see someone selfless, and it is a magnificent illustration. Others say God is a God of love, so why is there all this blood and sacrifice? Still others ask: if God is a God of justice and is all-powerful, why did He not simply forgive?

I was in a small group once that actually broke up over this issue. One group of people said, listen, God is all-powerful, He can do whatever He wants. Couldn't He just forgive? Sure, they said — He is God, just forgive. Then there was another opinion in the group — my opinion, the correct one — that said no. There is no other way. Is that not what Jesus Himself prayed the night before He died? Is that not what He said — if there is any other way, let us do it? But there is no other way.

Why did He have to die? This is critically important, perhaps especially in a time and culture where we use words but have lost the definitions behind them. When we talk about sin, we tend to think of it as boys being boys, those little things everybody does. And that part is exactly what the Bible says: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Everybody has sinned. What we forget, however, is the consequence of the sin.

The Condition of Man

Romans chapter 6, verse 23: "The wage of sin is death." That is the condition of man. We have all sinned. We are all in need of a Savior. We are all separated from God by our sin. We are dead — not physically, at least not yet, but spiritually. We are separated from God by our sin, and we need a Savior. There is nothing we can do.

Everything in us, our reflex, is to be religious. Our reflex is to do something. That is why we ask the question we see all through Scripture: "What must I do to be saved?" That is what we see over and over again.

The Religious Reflex

So we respond in a variety of ways. In our culture, the thought process goes something like this: I will go to church — that is what godly people do. I will get involved. They need help on Thanksgiving, so I will work in the parking lot. I will be a greeter. I will go to some classes. I will give some money — and not just change, but real money, significant giving — because that is going to please God.

And honestly, forget the Scripture for a second — I would encourage you not to take that particular quote away from this morning's message, but for the sake of this point, set Scripture aside. Humanly speaking, that makes all the sense in the world. You have a problem, so you do something about it.

But God comes along and says: yes, you have identified that you have a problem. Yes, you feel guilty because you are guilty. And yes, even as you begin trying to do all these good things, there is still an emptiness, still something that is not right. What you have misdiagnosed is the solution — because the solution is not religion. The solution is Jesus.

The Only Perfect Sacrifice

Jesus died on the cross. He had to die on the cross, because when we sin, we separate ourselves from God. There is punishment associated with that sin, and it required a perfect sacrifice. The only possible perfect sacrifice was God Himself. Every human being comes into the world a sinner, so God had to become man.

He became man and dwelt among us. He had to be born of a virgin — because through that birth, there was no sin nature passed down. This sinless man was born into the world, lived a sinless and perfect life, and when He hung on that cross, He was killed for our sin. Jesus paid the price. He was treated by God as though He were guilty of that sin.

Salvation Made Real, Not Merely Possible

This is really important — you have to get this. He was killed for the sin of every person who would ever believe in Him. Jesus' death on the cross did not make salvation possible. It made it real. His death was not something abstract. It was not theory. And it was not random.

It was not Jesus saying, "I will die on the cross and we will see if anybody ever believes — let's see what happens." No. When He died on the cross, He died deliberately, intentionally, for a specific group of people — represented by everyone who would ever believe in Him. Is that you?

Seven Passages of Scripture

Consider seven passages of Scripture that speak directly to this truth. Speaking of the Messiah who would come, Isaiah writes in Isaiah 53:8, "For the transgressions of My people He was stricken." Matthew 1:21: "You will call Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sin." Matthew 20:28: "The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, to give His life a ransom for many." John 10:11: "The Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep."

Ephesians 5:25: "Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it." Titus 2:14: "Jesus gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to Himself a particular people." And Hebrews 2:17 states that Jesus died "to make propitiation for the sin of His people."

If you want to delve deeper into this, I would encourage you to go to the messages section of the website, search by message title, and pull up "God's Plan for Salvation." You will find seven or eight messages that explore the importance of all of this.

He Died for His People

What we are talking about here is how God saves man. Caiaphas actually says it exactly right — one person dies for many. Jesus dies for many of the Jews, and He dies for many outside the boundaries of the nation of Israel. Jesus died for His people.

I want to say it again, because I cannot possibly overemphasize this: His death did not make salvation theoretical. It did not speak to potential. It spoke to reality. He really died, and when He died, He really paid the price for a specific group of people. When He said, "It is finished," that is exactly what He meant. He came to save His people from their sin, and when He died on the cross, He accomplished that purpose. Mission accomplished. They are saved.

He Had You in Mind

That meant the Son of God being treated as though He were a sinner. That is what Paul writes to the church at Corinth: God made Him — Jesus, who knew no sin — to become sin. Did He sin? No. But He was treated as though He were guilty of your sin. Literally, He died for you.

There is a sense in which, when Jesus died on the cross, He had you in mind. He saw you — you, in your sin, lost, hating Him at that moment. And yet when He was beaten, bloody, and crucified, He was thinking of you. Someone told me once, not long after I had become a Christian, one of those bumper-sticker things: "If you were the only person in the world, Jesus would have come and died for you." I do not know if that is true or not, but I do know this — think about it, and let it sink in.

The Weight of the Cross

If I was the only person on Earth and Jesus was dying for me, then I would have had to pound the nails into His hands, into His feet, and shove that spear into His side. Let that sink in. That is Him dying for you. So when you are saying on Thanksgiving Day, "I am thankful for my house, I am thankful for my clothes," we will get to that in a minute — but be thankful that He died so you would have eternal life, because if He did not, you would remain in your sin forever. That is a huge truth.

That is exactly what Caiaphas is talking about. From this moment on, they decide they are going to kill Him. In John's Gospel, this leads us right into the final week of the life of Christ. For whatever reason, as I was reading through this, Jesus no longer walks publicly, and they seek Him. Verse 57: "The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, they should report it, that they might seize him."

A Word to Those Who Don't Yet Know Christ

We have spent so much time over the last year or four — appropriately so — talking to those of you who are not followers of Christ. Now I want to come back to the type of people that I meet all the time, and I have a very specific thing in mind.

God is good. You don't need to write that down. God's good. I got in this morning around 5 o'clock — I was up at 3, but got here about 5. I turned on the copier because I was going to put the finishing touches on this message, and I noticed something had been left there. It said, "Fresh preaching thoughts from the training center, year two." My suspicion — though I have no idea if this is accurate — is that Chris Mueller had asked the guys in the training center for some thoughts on preaching: what are you trying to accomplish, what are you trying to do? He accumulated them and was distributing them, and there were 28 of them.

Many of them were what you would expect: to feed people, to clarify doctrine, that God might speak through us, to be true to the Word, to communicate clearly, to motivate, to encourage, that souls might be saved. But a couple of them were exactly what I have in mind today. To eliminate indifference. To make a personal time of confrontation. To create a crisis moment for the listener. To encourage the listener. To preach doctrine and application. That people's lives might be changed.

So if you are here and you don't know Christ — you just sat through communion and did not participate, and you would say, "Not me" — I want you to understand that all the other stuff you are wrestling with does not matter. None of it makes any difference. Your fundamental problem, and you have articulated it well, is that you don't know Christ.

When I gave communion instruction this morning in the conference center, I said: there are some of you here who are not Christians, so we don't want you to take communion. Here is why — because taking communion is declaring that Jesus is your Lord, your Savior, that He died for you and came for you. If you are not in that place, you need to come to Christ in repentance and faith. You don't need a debate on election or predestination or end times or anything else. You need a Savior. You can die contemplating the doctrine of election and have all eternity in hell to think about it. You need to come to the cross in repentance and faith.

Your problem is not that you drink too much, or that you are messing around, or that you are into drugs, or that you have cheated in business. Those are symptoms of a fundamental problem, and that problem is this: you are a sinner, you don't have a Redeemer, and you need to be redeemed. The manifestation of that sin, that sin nature, and that separation from God is all the things you do. So the message to you is clear — come to Christ in repentance and faith. Believe that Jesus is who He said He was.

What Jesus Says to His Church

But what about those of us who are walking with Him? What about those of us who call Him Lord and Savior? Five or six years ago, I did a series that came out of me thinking on summer vacation: what if Jesus were here today — what would He say to the church? The more I thought about it, I realized I didn't need to wonder, because He has already done that.

Turn with me to the book of Revelation — which should excite some of you, though not for the reasons we are going to look at today. In Revelation chapters 2 and 3, Jesus speaks to seven churches. These were actual churches. They actually existed. They were just like East Valley Bible Church. They each had different sets of problems and different structures, and He speaks to each one.

You see them beginning in chapter 2, verse 1: to the church at Ephesus. Verse 8: to the church at Smyrna. Verse 12, still in chapter 2: to the church at Pergamum. Verse 18: to the church at Thyatira. Chapter 3, verse 1: to the church at Sardis. Chapter 3, verse 7: to the church at Philadelphia. And then the church we are going to look at — chapter 3, verse 14: to the church at Laodicea.

If you were to take the time to study all of these — and as I said, we did this about five or six years ago — as I was going back through this material over the weekend, I thought it may be good to revisit, because I remember it as being really good.

Introduction: The Pattern of the Seven Churches

I remember this as a really good exercise. We took each of these seven churches with the idea that Jesus was speaking to these actual churches that had a set of issues or problems. As you study each church, there's a pattern. There is one exception — we'll look at that in a minute. But basically, what He did is identify something in each one of those churches.

Look at chapter 2, the church at Ephesus. In verse 1, He identifies who receives the letter. In verses 2 and 3, He identifies their strength: "I know your deeds. You toil. You persevere. You have perseverance." And then their weakness appears in verse 4: "But you've lost your first love. You have become loveless." Then in verse 7, there's a promise. So there's a pattern: a recipient is identified, then a strength, then a weakness, then a promise.

The composite view of these churches could speak to any one church, or really to any one individual, because at times we probably struggle in some, if not all, of these areas. You have a church that has lost its love, a church that has compromised, one that is corrupt, one that is dead, and one that is faithful — there are very positive things said about the church in Philadelphia.

And then there is the church at Laodicea. It follows this pattern with one exception. Jesus identifies the recipient, identifies a weakness, and identifies a promise — but He does not mention a strength. It is the only one of the seven churches where He does not mention a strength they have.

Why the Lukewarm Christian?

As I thought about our response — why aren't unbelievers responding to the message? We see they are not as sheep. But what about those of us who are as sheep? We did take communion. We do declare Jesus as Lord. Yet not every one of us is having this mountaintop Christian experience. And for whatever reason, I ended up in Revelation 3, verse 14. So let's spend some time looking at this.

"The angel of the church of the Laodiceans writes: These things say the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation." Verse 15: "I know your works. You are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will vomit 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, miserable, poor, blind, and naked."

Look at verse 17 and see the contrast. Here is what they think they are: rich, self-sufficient, having everything, needing nothing. And He says they are so self-deceived that they do not even realize they are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

"I counsel you to buy gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich, and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and anoint your eyes with salve, that you may see." Verse 19: "As many as I love, I rebuke and I chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent." Verse 20: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me." Verse 21: "To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne."

The City of Laodicea

So Jesus writes to a group of people — maybe it is you, maybe it is not. He says, I want to identify something: you are in church, you think you are okay, you think you have it all figured out. In fact, He uses the term here that they think they are rich. Let me give you a little background on these seven churches.

Of all seven cities, Laodicea would by far be the wealthiest. It was founded in 250 B.C. and had a fairly large male Jewish population — about 7,500 Jewish men resided in that area. It was an important military installation, had some challenges getting water, and steps were taken to address that. When Rome came in, the Pax Romana — the peace provided by the Roman government — allowed this city to thrive.

The city of Laodicea was known for three things. First, banking. It was a banking center, which speaks to some of its wealth. Second, it was known for clothing manufacturing and sales. There was a rare breed of black sheep raised in that area that produced a glossy black wool, which made special garments — particularly outer garments — and allowed them to be produced fairly inexpensively. The outer garment, the garment for protection and warmth, was something most people in that culture would own only one of, since they were so expensive relative to income. Third, there was a very famous medical school for its time in Laodicea, known throughout the world for training, sending out, teaching, and testing. Two products came out of it: an eye salve to help people see and a salve for the ears to help people hear.

So if you roll it all into one, Laodicea is Bank of America, Nordstrom's, and the Mayo Clinic all in one place. That is Laodicea. This would be an upper-middle-class to wealthy area — probably much like this community. So that is the background, and it is really important. God speaks to this church in verse 14.

The One Who Speaks

He is the beginning and the end. He is the absolute. All that He says is beyond any doubt — He is the faithful and true witness. The author of Hebrews says this in chapter 1, verses 1 and 2: "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through prophets at many times and in many various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son." This is Jesus still speaking. He is the truth. He is the faithful one. He is the creator — the one who spoke this world into existence.

Dwell on that for just a moment. The creator God who spoke all this into existence, the one who holds not just the planet we are on, not just our solar system, but the whole universe in place — this one God, this powerful and all-knowing God, desires to have a relationship with you individually. This God speaks to this church, perhaps to you, perhaps to us.

The Worst of the Churches

As noted before, He mentions no strengths for this church. Some authors suggest it is the worst of the seven churches, though there are churches among them that are loveless, compromised, and even dead. What He identifies here is lukewarmness. One author went so far as to say that lukewarmness is the worst form of blasphemy.

"I know your works. You are not hot. You are not cold. I wish you were hot or cold, but you are lukewarm." You are not freezing cold. You are not boiling hot. You are tepid.

If food is supposed to be cold, you want it cold. If it is supposed to be hot, you want it hot. Earlier this week, dining at one of my favorite restaurants, a server came by and asked how the food was — the way they do, where you sense they may not even be listening for the answer. I told her it was not very good. She apologized and asked why. I said, it is not hot. It needs to be hot. It was not cold enough to say it was cold — it was just tepid. Just lukewarm.

That is exactly what Jesus is saying. He is looking at this church. But do not leave it at a distance, as though He is looking at everyone but you. He looks at people like you. He looks at you and says, "Here is the problem I have with you. I wish you were truly cold and gone, or truly hot and on fire — but you are not. You are just lukewarm." And these are not my words. These are Jesus' words when He looks at some of you: you make Him want to throw up.

How Long Will You Vacillate?

The same idea appears in 1 Kings 18, in the story of Elijah. King Ahab is there, Elijah has predicted a drought, it has not rained, and God is about to bring rain again. In what I believe is 1 Kings 18, verses 20 and 21, Elijah says to the people: "How long are you going to vacillate between these two positions? If the Lord is God, then serve Him. If Baal is, serve him."

Then Elijah proposes a test to determine who the real God is. Two oxen are brought, the prophets of Baal choose the one they want, they lay wood and stone around their sacrifice, and they call on Baal — who is supposedly a god of lightning and thunder — to bring down fire and light it. They call and call and call for hours. After a while, Elijah gets the needle out: call a little louder. Maybe he is asleep. Maybe he is on a journey. Perhaps — and that word could also be translated this way — perhaps he is in the toilet. So they dance and dance and nothing happens.

Then Elijah rebuilds the altar with twelve stones, lays his sacrifice on it, and has water drenched over it three times so no one can suspect trickery. And God brings fire that consumes everything.

In many ways, that is the Old Testament equivalent of what Jesus is saying here. How long are you going to sit there? How long are you going to come to church and say Jesus is Lord, take communion, call Him your Savior and your Master — and then walk out of here and have none of it reflected in your life? That is the church at Laodicea: a lukewarm, politically correct, make-everyone-comfortable church. And we could easily fall into that.

Introduction: A Poem for Laodicea

My old mentor Larry Wright wrote poems, and I always understood his. Here is one of his. It speaks to the church at Laodicea:

*A comfortable home, a comfortable wife.*
*Comfortable children, a comfortable life.*
*A comfortable church with comfortable pews.*
*A comfortable pastor with comfortable views.*
*A comfortable soul in comfort to dwell.*
*A comfortable road to uncomfortable hell.*

I get that. I understand it. I do not need a book explaining the poem to me. But that could be the church at Laodicea.

The Danger of Inoculation

My goal was to get a flu shot. When you get a flu shot, you know what they are doing — they are inoculating you with just a little bit of the virus so that you do not think you have the flu, but you do not really have the flu. That is what hanging around church can do. It inoculates you with just enough to where you are walking to the car saying, "I am not a bad guy. I just gave them an hour and a half of my time, and I am coming back. I am a pretty good guy." That is not the transformed life. That is not what Jesus has called you to.

Paul's Warning to the Laodiceans

As Paul writes to the church in Colossians chapter 4, verse 16 — you do not need to turn there — he says something really interesting. He said, "Now, this epistle is to be read among you, but see to it that it is also read to the church of the Laodiceans." Then he says, "Take heed of the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it."

I go back to this. "So then, because you are neither lukewarm, you are not hot, you are not cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth." Revelation 3:16. He has warned these people. Paul, thirty years prior to this, had this message sent: watch out, fulfill your ministry.

This is our moment to hear that clarion call yet again. Watch out. You have said He is Lord. You have said He is Master. You have said He is Savior. Now live like it. It ought to make a difference each and every day.

Wholeheartedness Is Not Fanaticism

Am I asking you to be a fanatic? John Stott writes this: "The idea of being on fire for Christ will strike some people as dangerous emotionalism. Surely they will say we are not to go to extremes. You are not asking us to become hot gospel fanatics. Well, of course, that depends on what you mean. If by fanaticism you mean wholeheartedness, then Christianity is a fanatical religion and every Christian should be a fanatic. But wholeheartedness is not the same as fanaticism. Fanaticism is an unreasoning, unintelligent wholeheartedness. It is the running away of the heart from the head."

That is the big discussion — not just in this church, but all across the country. What is worship? What is the right style of worship? The answer is there is not one right style. Some will look at hymns and say, "Those are dead, dry hymns — look at the people, there is no life there." Others will look the other direction and say, "Look at them jumping around — that cannot be real."

But here is the truth: you can stand with your hands waving all around and be faking it. You can stand singing about your Ebenezer rising and be faking it. You can be faking it anywhere. This is not about us figuring you out — that is between you and God, and it will have different expression. But there is a wholeheartedness to it, and that is what He is calling for. It is not a disconnect between the head and the heart.

As Jonathan Edwards wrote in *Religious Affections*: when my head understands God and who He is, my heart is moved. My emotion is moved. One thing I know I am not — I am not lukewarm.

The Laodiceans' False Confidence

Verse 17 — here is what they say: "I am rich. Wealthy. I do not need anything. I have it all." But Jesus says, "No, no — you are wretched. You are miserable. You are poor. You are blind." You think you are rich, but you are spiritually bankrupt.

He says, "I will give you gold." You have your banking gold that you trade in this magnificent city — I will give you gold refined by fire. You have these clothes that you produce — I will give you white garments that will clothe your nakedness. You have this eye salve that you use in this city — I will produce an eye salve that will open your eyes to really see.

Do you see what He is saying? Your material things — the things you say you are trusting in, your banking, your clothing, your medical schools — throw it all away, and I will give you these real things. That is what He is saying.

Rebuked Because He Loves

Verse 19: "As many as I love, I rebuke." He chases. That is what we said in the beginning — He pursues those He loves. Some people came to one of my priority living studies and told me about a man who had moved in next door. They were reaching out to him and trying to be kind, and he seemed open to spiritual things. They thought bringing him to a study might be a little too much, so they gave him a couple of CDs from the studies. The next time they saw him, he seemed a little aloof. They asked, "Hey, did you listen to those?" He said, "Yeah." They said, "Did you like them?" He said, "I hated them." They asked why, and here was his answer — they forced

A Mirror Held Up

This is a mirror. I hold it up and think, I am a lot more like Laodicea than I would like to be. Or perhaps you look at it and say, "You know what? I am not like Laodicea at all. God, You are doing something great in my life."

A Seeking God

Here is what separates Christianity from every other religion. It is verse 20. Of this concept, William Barclay writes: "The unique new fact that Christianity brought into the world is that God is seeking men. No other religion has a vision of a seeking God." Every other religion is about us seeking God. That is what religion is — I will do this, I will do that. But Christianity is about God seeking us.

Here is what He says: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and be with him." You may have heard that verse many times used in an evangelistic sense, and in a sense, out of context. He is writing here to a church.

Here is the imagery. The doors are closed. The cameras are on. The worship is going. The preaching is starting. The singing is taking place. You have church — but He is at the door. He is not in. It is that image of Him standing right outside saying, "I am sure that is a wonderful service, but it would be better if you had Me involved in it." If the Holy Spirit were here — that is the picture: I stand at the door and knock. I want to come in and dine with you.

The Meaning of the Evening Meal

In that culture, they ate three meals a day. Breakfast was usually a piece of dry bread dipped in wine. Lunch would be a snack — the men would not come home for it; they would eat out. But dinner was when family, friends, and extended family would come together for an extended time of eating, drinking, and conversing. That is what He is saying.

I was watching an interview last week with the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin — a three-hour interview. She had just finished a book on Lincoln, around 900 pages, which took her ten years to write. She described her daily rhythm: she and her husband, who also writes, would get up in the morning and split the newspaper — she takes the sports page, he takes the main section, then they trade. They have a little breakfast, then go to work, have lunch, do some chores, work again, and then have dinner. She said that every night they go out for dinner to the same restaurant, and there is a group of about thirty people, with around twenty of them there on most nights. Every night they have community.

That is exactly what Jesus is describing here. He says, "Listen, I am standing at the door and knocking. It is not that I want to be distant and removed from you. I want to be an integral part of your life. I want to come in and eat with you. I want to spend casual time with you. I want to hang with you. I want to dine with you, sup with you, talk with you." But you have Him on the outside. And what makes this most tragic is not that He is speaking to unbelievers — He is speaking to a church.

The Call to Respond

As we close, I ask: which group are you in? Are you in the group that says you do not care — and you need Jesus? Or perhaps you are at a point in life where faith is just a little dry, a little routine, a little dreary — where it has almost become like a job, almost a punch list: check, check, check, check, done. And yet there is not that joy and that love. That is not God's fault. That is your fault.

The remedy, as we said, is found in verse 19. Once you know His love, you chase Him. So what do you do? You repent. You come to Him. Repentance and faith.

Let us pray. Father, would You take this message and apply it to our lives right where we are right now? Pray for those who are here who do not know Your Son Jesus, that they would respond. And for those of us who have, may today be a day where we fall in love with You — maybe all over again. You warn us, God. Let us respond. We pray that You would use us in a dramatic way as we leave this place, individually and corporately. We pray that in Jesus' name, amen.