Revelation 3:14-22 October 5, 2003
Heating Us Up
Last week I compared the Church of Smyrna with the Church of Laodicea. After the service I was reminded that this passage has been read over our church prophetically in the past. I also think that this message over all the seven comes closest to speaking to the church in North America – we are relatively rich as compared with the rest of the world, and yet we are spiritually poor as compared with the church in the Third World. This message also speaks to me personally – I feel that I am often lukewarm in my own faith when I should be on fire – particularly in the last while I have been tired and have had trouble re-igniting my passion for faith. You might be in the same place. Regardless of where you are personally, just by being part of this lukewarm culture of ours, we are all less passionate about God and the Kingdom than we should be. So today we are going to return to the Church of Laodicea
To the Church in Laodicea
14"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 15I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17You say, ’I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18I 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. 19Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. 20Here 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. 21To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
How to “Turn Up The Heat”
Buy True Gold
As I said last week, the city of Laodicea was so wealthy that they were completely self-sufficient. Even when the city was destroyed by an earthquake in AD 60, the citizens themselves rebuilt it completely, rejecting any help from Rome.
When we feel like we can get by just fine on our own, whether spiritually, physically, or emotionally, we become lukewarm to God. WE believe that all that we have comes from God – he is our provider for physical needs, the giver of our spiritual gifts and the one who gives us strength. When we start to rely on the gift rather than the giver, we can easily ignore the giver and care little for his presence. We are like people who tell a visitor to leave their gift at the door and get lost.
On the other hand, when we think that we must get by on our own, that God will not provide, we can become tepid.
Matthew 13
The Parable of the Sower
1That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3Then he told them many things in parables, saying: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop--a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9He who has ears, let him hear."
18"Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. 22The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. 23But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."
When our eyes are taken off what God gives us and we get caught up in the worries of life, or the ambition to get more and more, we become lukewarm in our relationship with God. I our world it is easy to trade our passions for God for a passion for a big house, an SUV and a Porche.
Jesus says in Matthew 6: 19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
We can spend ourselves on the things that have temporal pleasure and worth, like bigger houses, nicer cars… or we can invest ourselves in things that have eternal value.
We must ask the question “what difference does my life does my life have in the kingdom of God?”
Is the fruit of my life the things that fit in my garage? Or is the fruit of my life the fruit of the Spirit? love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Is it more money in the RRSP? Or is it more souls in heaven, more poor fed, more sick healed or comforted?
To turn up the heat we need to get our hearts off the riches of the world that surround us and place them on Christ.
Receive White Clothes
Laodicea was a center for the garment industry, raising black sheep for naturally black clothes – the people of Laodicea were dressed beautifully, but Jesus says “that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”
The masks we put forward – Adam & Eve’s fig-leaf,
When Adam and Eve turn from God and eat the forbidden fruit in the garden, this first thing that they do is to hid themselves and their nakedness – they are ashamed of what they have done and who they are, and so they cover up. We have been creating elaborate fig-leaves for ourselves ever since. We might feel totally incompetent, we might have secret sins, we might have secret pain, but we create this other persona and clothe ourselves with it – a personal that is competent, and righteous, and healthy. It is like every day is dress-up day. We wake up in the morning and put on this costume of what we think we should look like, of who we want to be. And we go out to greet the world terrified that people will see past the things we have clothed ourselves with and see the true me.
Jesus says if you want to receive the true pure white clothes from me, you have to remove the costume – you have to admit to who you really are, you have to confess, and then I will clothe you in me
Galatians 3 26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Paul’s fig leaf –
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the outward mask, Paul say he has more: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.” Philippians 3:4-9
Paul says, all the things I had going for me – things others were impressed with, I had to give up and come to Christ with absolutely nothing so that I could have the true righteousness.
The way that we remove the mask is to confess our sins shortcomings and fears to God and to another Christian. The reason I say another Christian is that when we only confess our sins to God in the silence of our prayers the power of confession is significantly lessened. We might as well confess to ceiling – there is very little reality to it.
Confession is not easy – none of us much like our naked bodies, but it is even more painful to bare our souls to another – but it is key if we are to turn up the spiritual heat in our lives.
Confess to a peer who you can trust, who is able to proclaim God’s forgiveness over you, someone who will not be damaged by your confession, but will hold you accountable and support you in your desire to be clothed in the clothes Christ alone gives.
I have a small group of leaders that I meet with every two weeks. We support each other, and pray for one another, and part of what we do is to confess our sins to each other. It is frightening and blessed all at once. I would say that we are not serious about our faith at all until we begin to confess to another Christian – you cannot bare your soul to the scrutiny of a friend and remain lukewarm to God.
Ephesians 4: 22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Lazarus – take of the grave clothes
Receive Eye Ointment
Laodicea was also a centre for an ointment for eyes that would improve sight. Jesus says that he is the only one who can cure blindness. To turn the heat up we need to come to him to open our eyes.
We sing the song “open the eyes of my heart” and that is what we need, we need to see with true sight as God sees – both our own lives and the world around us.
In 2 Kings 6, the King of Aram was at war with Israel. But every time Aram set up camp to ambush Israel, God would tell the prophet Elisha, and Elisha would go and tell the king of Israel, so Israel would avoid going into a battle they would lose. You could imagine that this would tick the Arameans off! So the Arameans send an army to go and kill Elisha and shut him up. That morning, Gehazi, Elisha’s servant comes out that morning to wash his face and start preparing breakfast – He is a little bleary-eyed and as he splashes water on his face he hears the snort of a horse. He looks up and, “ahh!” he sees the Aramean army surrounding their little hovel. He runs back in and screams at Elisha “get up, the Arameans are surrounding us and their going to kill you!” Elisha says “don’t worry, there’s more of us than there are of them.” Then he prays and asks God to open Gehazi’s eyes – Gehazi looks up and surrounding the Aramean army is an huge army of angels blazing in the sun.
We need to have God open our eyes to the way that he sees – the way that he sees the world, the battle, our lives
Graham Cooke tells of how when he first started running schools of the prophetic, there were a couple of men who were very opposed to the prophetic, so the followed him around and stood outside the meetings handing out literature claiming that Graham was of the devil, new age and anything else they could think of, and then they would come into the meeting, sit in the very front row and take copious notes on what he was saying in order to use anything they could to oppose him. It caused Graham a great deal of grief, and it made him search the scriptures even more to make sure that he had his stuff right. You can understand that seeing these guys at every meeting could get a guy down, and it would be easy to see them as the tool of the devil.
God gave Graham a vision where he was in the throne room sitting with God, God asked him “do you want to see what I’m working on?” Graham said, “oh yeah!” and god brought out this huge block of marble. Graham thought it was beautiful, God showed him that this chuck of marble was being chiseled into Graham himself – Graham again thought it was just amazing. God was shaping Graham into the man he wanted him to be. God ask if he’d like to see who was doing the chiseling Graham again said, “yes!” God opened his eyes to see that the ones who were doing the chiseling were those two men! They were not tools of the devil, God was using them to shape Graham.
When God open’s our eyes to see the world around us, ourselves and others through his eyes, we are unable to remain lukewarm in our faith.
Open The Door
It is not that Jesus want to only have us make eternal investments, be clothed in his righteousness and see the world, others and ourselves through his eyes, he wants to be in deep relationship with him.
He is standing at the door of the Church of Laodicea knocking to come in so that he can come in and eat with them – eating together was a sign of acceptance and deep friendship in the ancient middle east. Jesus wants deep relationship with us. To come out of our tepid state, we need to spend time with him through personal and corporate prayer, worship, listening to him and being aware of his presence in every area of our life.
This is what God desires of our lives – That we would spend ourselves on the things that have eternal life, that we would be live transparent lives before him and our brothers and sisters, he wants to open our eyes to his vision and he wants us to live in his presence all the days of our lives.
