I love coffee. That’s why I was so happy when I saw that there’s a medical study that confirms that coffee is a health drink. Now coffee is great either hot or cold. When it’s hot, I like to drink Café Americano. When it’s cold, I like to drink a Mocha Frap. But, imagine coffee when it’s lukewarm. Would you drink stale coffee? I won’t.
Now’s there’s a church that tastes like stale coffee. The Lord even threatened to vomit it. Let us open our Bible in Revelation 3:14-22.[1] Let us ask ourselves, “Is our church stale?” Let us pray…
Remember our main point last week? Worship is WORTH-SHIP. How we worship shows how much WORTH we give God. You may be asking, “We are studying the worth of worship. How come I don’t even see the word ‘worship’ here in our passage?” I was attracted to this passage because of verse 20: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” Here, we see the Lord outside the church. Remember that in Malachi 1:10, the Lord lamented, “‘Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,’ says the LORD Almighty, ‘and I will accept no offering from your hands.’” In Malachi, the Lord wants to keep them out of the temple. In Revelation, the Lord was actually kept outside the church. That’s the connection that I saw! Can you imagine being in a party where the birthday celebrant was absent or, worse, not invited? Can you imagine a worship service where the Lord is not present? This shows that this particular church had no intimate relationship with God. Their worship was worthless. What about our church? Where is the Lord now? Is He in our midst or outside?
Laodicea was a key city in Asia Minor at that time. Here in the context our passage the Lord spoke to seven cities in that region. Usually, He would give a revelation about Himself, a review of the state of the church with commendation and a condemnation and a recommendation with resulting reward or reprimand. Four of the churches have both commendation and condemnation. Two have commendation only and no condemnation. But Laodicea has condemnation only and no commendation at all!
The Lord started with this revelation about Himself in verse 14: “These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation.” The designation “Amen” means He is the truth. As such, He is “the faithful and true witness.” That means that His assessment of the state of the church in Laodicea “is perfectly trustworthy and faithful.”[2] As “the ruler of God’s creation,” that means that the church is fully and ultimately accountable to Him.
And here’s His assessment of the state of the church in verse 15: “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Note the adjectives “cold,” “hot” and “lukewarm.” When I was a young believer, I thought that “hot” was positive, as in, “hot” or “on fire” for the Lord, and “cold” was negative, as in, growing “cold” or “indifferent” of Him. But I wondered why Jesus said, “I wish you were either [hot] or [cold]!” Why would the Lord wish that we would be “cold” for Him? The Message version goes like this: “I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You’re not cold, you’re not hot—far better to be either cold or hot! You’re stale. You’re stagnant. You make me want to vomit.” It’s obvious in the text that He likes both. What he clearly dislikes was being “lukewarm” or “stale” and “stagnant.”
Here’s where a little background helps. According to the NIV Study Bible, Laodicea had no water supply of its own. Using aqueducts, it pipes “the hot, medicinal”[3] water from the springs of Hierapolis. It also pipes cold, refreshing water from the springs of Colossae. So, both the adjectives “hot” and “cold” are positive. However, due to the distance, the water ends up lukewarm. As one commentary says, “The church in Laodicea supplied neither healing for the spiritually sick nor refreshment for the spiritually weary.”[4]
Spiritually speaking, what made them “lukewarm?” Verse 17 gives the answer: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’” In a word, pride. The church there was declaring that they don’t need anyone or anything. Before John wrote the book of Revelation, an earthquake had hit Laodicea. But its arrogant citizens did not even accept any help from Rome in rebuilding the city. After all, it was in fact the wealthiest in that region. “It was widely known for its banking establishments, medical school and textile industry.”[5] Just as the city rejected any help from the empire, so also the church did not want to receive anything from God. They felt so self-sufficient. I could imagine that its members were rich, well-respected. But the Lord declared their true state in verse 17, “But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”
How does a church today become proud or self-sufficient? I would like to clarify that a wealthy church is not automatically a self-sufficient church. Having funds surely has its advantages. Of course, it is great to think of the projects we want to do for God without worrying about the funds for those projects. But it can also have disadvantages. We may tend to think that the funds will always be there. We might feel that we don’t need to trust God or depend on Him for our needs as individuals and as a church. The global financial crisis has underscored the fact that we are all vulnerable. We have no control over our future. What we have now may not be ours tomorrow.
One of the ways we can measure this attitude is in our worship. Worship is declaring God’s sufficiency and denouncing our self-sufficiency. Worship is recognizing our dependence on God and repenting of our independence from Him. Worship is seeing that He is everything and we are nothing. Do we really cry out, “You’re all I want”? “You’re all I ever needed”? Do we pray as if our very lives depend on it? Do we read and listen to His Word as if it is crucial for our survival? When we have an important decision to make, what was our first impulse? Was it to pray and to seek His will through His Word? Or, we only do so as a last-resort? As I have told you before, God should have the first word, the last word and every word in between.
As a church, we have our programs and activities. But let me remind all of us that these are not the end but the means to an end. We don’t have these things running just to make ourselves busy. We are not just playing church. It is not to prove that we are the best compared to other churches. We are not trying to prove anything to anyone. Remember that we are doing these programs and activities as our worship for God.
We can also see this arrogant attitude when we only think of ourselves, that we think we need no one in our spiritual walk with God. We merely attend worship service and that’s it! We don’t want to share our lives. We don’t join small groups because we are afraid of sharing. Of course, you only open up to the level or extent that you trust the group. You are not forced to open up. But we pray that each one of us would find people we can trust enough to share our struggles and our victories, our problems and our praises, our tears and our triumphs.
We are called to a community. We are not just called to believe. We are also called to belong. We are called not just to exercise faith. We are also called to enjoy fellowship with God and with each other. When we only attend worship services and not involve ourselves with each other, we are showing self-sufficiency. I am not talking about just being active in church programs. We think we have fellowship when we exchange greetings or handshakes when we gather together as a church. That could be an expression of fellowship. But that is not fellowship per se. Fellowship means sharing something or someone in common together. We are to share our lives together. Worship can happen not just in our worship services but also in our small groups. Our vision is that we would become a church of small groups, not just a church with small groups. We need to worship the Lord with each other.
What’s the Lord’s recommendation to the church in Laodicea? How do we recapture a sense of dependence to the Lord? Verse 18 and 19 tell us, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.” How ironic for a city that was so rich! Just imagine! The city is known for its quality wool. Yet, it is spiritually naked and in need of something to wear. It is also known for an eye ointment. But it is spiritually blind and needs its eyes opened. What the Lord was telling them was admit their dependence on the Lord and ask for forgiveness for their independence. James 4:6 and 10 tell us, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble… Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” Declare God’s sufficiency and denounce self-sufficiency. It was a loving rebuke and discipline from God.
Verse 20 is a very familiar passage. “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” It is usually quoted whenever a person is challenged to receive our Lord Jesus as Savior. I will not take issue with that. There may be a legitimate reason why. However, the immediate context shows that Christ was talking to a church. It could be that the church was actually composed of people who are religious but are not really believers. It could also be that our Lord was calling out to the believers who feel self-sufficient. He was reaching out to them, declaring that He want them to experience intimacy with Him. The Lord is extending the same hand towards us. Declare God’s sufficiency and denounce self-sufficiency.
Brothers and sisters, that’s the true meaning of worship, declaring God’s sufficiency and denouncing self-sufficiency. Let us pray…
[1]Unless otherwise noted, all Bible verses are from The Holy Bible: New International Version, electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996, c1984).
[2]NIV Study Bible.
[3]Ibid.
[4]Ibid.
[5]Ibid.
