The Revelation of Jesus Christ
“The Mediocre Church”
I. Prologue 1:1-20
The Prologue in chapter one records what John the aging Apostle saw (and heard) including a manifestation of Jesus far different that what John had known previously. The theme of the book describes the time of Jesus’ coming and the events leading up to it. The first chapter also introduces the glorified Christ in contrast to the Christ of the gospels.
Many of those characterizations appear again in His letters to the churches and throughout the book.
II. Jesus’ Messages to the Seven churches 2-3 (Things with are)
A. To the church in Ephesus – the passionless church 2:1-7
B. To the church in Smyrna – the suffering church 2:8-11
C. To the church in Pergamum & Thyatira – the compromising church 2:12-17
D. To the church in Sardis - the dying church 3:1-6
E. To the church in Laodicea -- the lukewarm church 3:14-22
Historical background to Laodicea
This was a very wealthy city. With a considerable Jewish community of 7500 men. It stood at the intersection of a 2 major trade routes on a good highway system. It was famous for their glossy black wool, banking, a school of medicine and resource for an effective eye salve and powder.
The Church
Most likely founded by Epaphrus mentioned four times in Paul’s letter to the Colossians.
Paul wanted to visit them. Epaphrus deeply loved them. Paul sent greetings to them.
Paul instructed the letter to the Colossians to be read to them.
1. Characteristic of Jesus 3:14
"To the angel (pastor) of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this:
Jesus is the Amen!
The word Amen means true, certain, faithful; and, as used here, it means that he to whom it is applied is eminently true and faithful. What he affirms is true; what he promises or threatens is certain. (Barnes Notes)
He intensifies and strengthens that perception with further words indicating the authority and certainty of what He is about to say to them. Jesus is the faithful and true witness of the ultimate reality. He is the faithful witness ready to issue commendation, rebuke and advice in the present and revelation of the future event. He doesn’t sugarcoat it. He doesn’t go around it. He exposes what is and holds it up to the truth of God. The Faithful and true witness designation does not come from the vision of John chapter 1 but from the introduction to the whole book. In chapter 19 He is also called faithful and true mounted on the white horse.
Jesus refers to Himself as "the beginning of the creation of God". This does not mean that Jesus was a created being. It is clear from other passages of Scripture that Jesus is the Creator of all things. Paul addressed that heresy running rampant in Colossae and probably Laodicea as well. Jesus claimed to be the one who created all things. Another possible interpretation is that He is the preeminent one, the supreme creator. In a society ruled by rampant materialism, Jesus wanted them to know that he was the ultimate author and owner of all things. Things should never become more important than Jesus.
2. Commendation 3:4
This is the only church that received no commendation. Jesus could find nothing commendable about the church at Laodicea. There is something about materialism and self-sufficiency that twists everything. Even with some of the churches where Jesus exposed some of their severe deficiencies, he at least found something to commend that they were doing right. Not Laodicea!
3. Correction 3:15
’I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.
Jesus immediately launched into His rebuke. Jesus compared their deeds or activities with the despicable city water supply in Laodicea. Water was sparse, so they built an aqueduct to carry water into the city from a source almost 6 miles away. They had one source for cold refreshing spring water and another source of steaming hot water drawn from a hot springs. By the time the water traveled the six mile distance into the city through a dirty stone aqueduct, the cold was lukewarm and bitter and the hot had become lukewarm and useless. Coldwater is useful and refreshing. Hot water is useful. The only use for lukewarm water is to induce vomiting.
We need not try to attribute some meaning to the hot or cold analogy. His point is, the deeds of the Laodiceans were as useless as lukewarm water. One’s deeds or life activity is a significant measure of one’s devotion either to self or Christ. Both cold and hot are useful but lukewarm water is not. Not only were their deeds useless, but they actually nauseated Him.
“I am about to or ready to vomit.” “I have it in my mind to vomit.”
Like their wealthy neighbors around them, the people who made up the Laodicean church had embraced materialism resulting in a false sense of self-satisfaction. Like their neighbors, they had become wealthy and began to equate wealth with health. How interesting that we live in a culture today that actually preaches wealth and health as an indication of spirituality.
One prominent television preacher said this, “Who would want to get in on something where you’re miserable, poor, broke and ugly and you just have to muddle through until you get to heaven? I believe God want to give us nice things.”
Books on the internet abound that claim to reveal the secrets to getting rich.
Here is a book we should all get – “Pray and Be Rich.” “God’s got it, I can have it, and by faith I’m going to get it” “How to Write Your Own Ticket with God.”
This kind of Americanized gospel doesn’t play well in Uganda or the third world countries.
It is a middle-class perversion of the gospel. It is a man-centered teaching. It focuses on man’s desires and not God’s. It focuses on man’s comfort not God’s purpose.
Jesus entered and left this world with nothing. He had plenty to say concerning the deceitfulness of riches and the consequences of a desire to get rich.
"Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, According to the faithful mercies shown to David. Isaiah 55:1-3
Jesus confronted the Laodicians concerning their lifestyle. Their deeds for the sake of the Gospel were useless in his eyes and nauseating. He called them to be as refreshing as a well springing up to refresh others but they had become a stagnant dirty pool of lukewarm water use to induce vomiting. He called them to be thirst-inducing salt but they had diluted to a useless substance. Jesus amplified the basic problem in the verses that followed.
The need for change and action had to do with a faulty belief system and a twisted heart.
You are nauseating because you say (belief system) I have become wealthy (perfect tense verb). You believe that material riches and wealth and self-sufficiency indicate spiritual blessing. Such a belief demonstrates a complete ignorance of the true condition of your heart.
You expose your self-centered focus by thinking you have need of nothing. Just like the contemporaries around them who proudly refused imperial help after a devastating earthquake, this group of Christ followers felt no sense of their daily need for God based on an inadequate view of their true condition. They confused their material state with their spiritual state.
Jesus told the suffering church at Smyrna that they were spiritually rich in spite of their material abject poverty. The Laodicean’s pathetic deeds were based on the ignorance of their spiritual condition.
You say “we have become enriched and therefore have need of nothing. The reality was that they had nothing and were in need of the basic necessities. Poor eyesight. No resources.
Not clothes to wear. They achieved a feeling of satisfaction with a cheap counterfeit of the real thing. Self-satisfaction closes the door to Christ satisfaction.
Jesus described their true condition as wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. “wretched” pathetic, unfortunate, feeling of absolute misery and helplessness. Paul used the term to describe his struggle to live above his flesh in Rom 7. He pictured his dilemma as having a decaying dead body strapped to his back.
Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Romans 7:24
“miserable” pitiable, miserable, in a horrible condition, one eliciting pity due to their miserable circumstance or state of being.
He further describes their general “out to lunch” condition with three more terms associated with their current culture.
“poor” without spiritual resources in spite of material riches
“blind” without sight or spiritual enlightenment in spite of physical ointments and eye salve
“naked” without spiritual covering or clothes in spite of beautiful black woolen clothing.
(Paul told the Colossians (3:12ff) to clothe themselves with compassion, kindness, humility etc.
Materially, the members of this church appeared healthy and effective and blessed by God.
However, they were only concerned about the satisfaction of their needs; their little church.
They had become selfishly ingrown. Sometimes I think that removal of the Holy Spirit from a church would not change what we do much at all. It would be business as usual because we have become more dependent on marketing than Jesus. As long as they felt satisfied they were content with their little group, they felt OK. Spiritually, Jesus exposed a completely different picture. Anytime we focus on our little world and not the greater picture of God’s kingdom, we lose the sense of our daily need for Christ’s resources in our life. When we focus only on the satisfaction or our needs we lose any sense of a greater mission requiring supernatural resources. Eventually we lapse into a lukewarm devotion that stops at our front door and makes Jesus sick and bars Him from entrance. He is no longer welcome in our midst.
With a vision greater than our front door we need supernatural resources.
4. Action 3:17-20
’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 fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. ’Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.
Jesus’ advice to the Laodicians is clear. Reconnect with me. Realize your need for my supernatural resources.
• Focus on Jesus
Only Jesus can provide what we need to carry out our mission in this community and world.
Not money, not skills, not strategy, not programs, not self effort. We need Him to do in us what we can’t do so that we can be what we can’t be through our own efforts. Acquire from Jesus the things necessary to live pleasing to Him and effective in the world.
Spiritual resources; finest gold that you may become spiritual rich.
Spiritual covering; ultimate wardrobe clothed with white garments of righteousness.
Spiritual enlightenment perfect sight that they might actually see
In this list, Jesus highlights what is important to Him and what pleases Him.
A life of sacrifice for the kingdom using spiritual resources of the Holy Spirit
A life of purity and the character of Jesus
A life filled with the knowledge of His will to please Him in all respects.
The riches of Christ so we may touch those He calls us to touch
The Righteousness of Christ so that we may live pleasing to Him and impact our world
The mind of Christ so that we may see and know Him and know the truth that sets free
• Be zealous
excitement of mind, ardor, fervor of spirit. Zeal, ardor in embracing, pursuing, defending anything. Eagerness
Jesus advises them to get hot again. Become useful. Get off the sidelines and back in the game. We are focused more on our comfort than His commission. We are more interested in what please us that what please God. We are more interested in our agenda than His agenda.
We are more interested in doing what easier than what better.
• Repent
Change your thinking. Renew you mind. Realize you true condition and do something about it.
Turn around and go in the right direction.
• Open the door to Jesus
Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.
Jesus stands outside the church knocking; awaiting and invitation. Perfect tense verb indicates came to our door at a point of time and is still there knocking. He is not just knocking but calling. We must open the door to Him. Those living in self-sufficiency have shut Jesus out of their fellowship. They maintain a form of godliness but have lost its power.
What does Jesus want? Why is His knocking and calling? He wants intimate fellowship.
Dining in the eastern culture had to do with intimate relationship. Jesus wants to dine with us.
He wants to enter into daily connection. He offers us His supernatural resources, His covering that identifies us with His character and His enlightenment and truth.
An interesting thought.
This is an intimate meal with Christ as our guest and we’re the host. One day it will be an intimate meal where we are the guest and Christ is the host.
What happens if we don’t do these things?
5. Consequence 3:16,19
Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.
He will refuse to use us any longer. He addressed a group of self-sufficient believers. This does not have to do with eternal salvation but with temporal service. Failure to open the door and heed his call and invite Him back in the center of the church will result in a disqualification for service and effectiveness in significant kingdom work.
It will also result in His loving but uncomfortable reproof and discipline.
Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline.
Those I love (have a warm fondness and desire to be friends and partners), I reprove.
He tells us the truth in love.
6. Promise to overcomers 3:21
He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
John’s definition of an overcomer drawn from his first letter, is the one who believes or puts their faith in Jesus. It is our faith that overcomes. All who put their faith in Jesus are an overcomer.
Here, Jesus promises His followers a position of authority; a partnership in both the Millennium period and the renewed heaven and renewed earth for eternity. He pictures us sitting on His throne with Him. How much and to what extent we rule depends on our faithful use of the gifts He has granted and the faithful execution of the tasks He assigns.
7. Call to pay attention 3:22
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
CONCLUSION
The natural tendency that requires no action. Without energy and attention hot stuffs falls to room temperature and cold stuff warms to room temperature. We live in a materialistic society. In fact, the whole world revolves around materialism. In the end days God will bring an end to the whole system in the ultimate fall and destruction of Babylon noted for its godless materialism. Materialism makes one lazy and self-satisfied even though the flesh is never really satisfied. We must not let our culture dictate how we live and how we do church.
It takes continually attention and expenditure of energy to remain useful in a godless culture.
Chico must not get satisfied just because we have some people coming and the doors are open and the budget is mostly met and the lawn is mowed. Many of those things could be done apart from any supernatural resources. We could employ better marketing principles and get more people. We could employ techniques from fund raising organizations and meet and exceed budget.
Are we satisfied with where we are?
Are we functioning only by our own resources?
Are we living a modified more manageable form of true Christianity?
Are we living with ever increasing true spiritual enlightenment?
What are we doing that requires more than our limited resources?
What dream do we have for our little church in west Bremerton that will require the supernatural resources of Jesus?
First we need to determine our level of fervor for kingdom impact.
We need to determine whether we are so inward focused that we are satisfied with the way things are currently. Are we content to maintain rather than grow? Does our concern for our little group diminish our concern for the lost? The tendency of a church that has been established over for a long time is to get comfortable with the way things are and have been.
It loses its fervor and forgets its main mission. It avoids things that challenge and stretch and require more than what we think we can do. It gets to the point where it no longer requires sacrifice on the members and the members become lukewarm, disinterested and bored.
Everything becomes easily manageable. This dilemma becomes even more difficult when the same leadership has been in place over a long period. Some have said it is impossible to revive a church under these conditions without some sort of radical change.
Second, we need to evaluate our church through the eyes of Jesus.
Are we really satisfied with where we are? Do we feel rich and wealthy and in need of nothing?
Third we need to determine whether Jesus is inside moving in our midst or outside knocking at our door.
Fourth, we need to take the advice of Jesus seriously.
• Focus on Jesus
Acquire from Jesus the things necessary to live pleasing to Him and effective in the world.
Spiritual resources; gold refined by fire (true riches) that you may become spiritual rich.
Spiritual covering; clothed with white (not black) garments of righteousness.
Spiritual enlightenment in spite that they might actually see
• Be zealous
Get with it!
• Repent
Change our thinking. Turn around and go in the right direction.
• Open the door to Jesus
He began this walk through the churches of His day with a serious rebuke for losing our first love. He ends with an passionate plea for the restoration of intimate fellowship with Him; a return to our first love.
Let Him in. He earnestly wants to have intimate connection with us. Sometimes Jesus is a stranger in His own church. Let’s open the door this morning!
Let Him who has ears, let them hear what Jesus has to say to the churches.
The Amen, the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the architect of all creation wants to eat with us!
