Christ's Message to His Church: Laodicea Revelation 3:14-22

Christ’s Evaluation of the Seven Churches in Revelation

Over the last seven weeks, we have been going through the first several chapters of Revelation. In chapters two and three of Revelation, Jesus addresses seven historical churches. Thus far, we have seen him address five of these churches.

In fact, actually, we have seen him address six of these churches. And in each, he gives his evaluation as to where the church is health-wise. The first church was Ephesus. What we saw with Ephesus is that this was a theologically sound church.

As they were sound theologically, they were able to detect false teaching. Jesus praised them for their strong doctrine and discernment. But he did have a very major concern. His major concern was that their love for him had waned.

And he told them to return to the love that they had at first. The next church we looked at was Smyrna. What was interesting about Jesus' address to this church is that he offered no correction. This was a largely healthy church that was especially faithful in enduring persecution.

And Jesus told them that more persecution was coming. And he encouraged them to be strong in faith to be able to endure the coming hostility. Then we looked at the third church that Jesus addressed, the church in Pergamum.

This church also withstood persecution from the surrounding culture. But they made the great error of allowing within their church false teaching and the false living that came from that false teaching.

Jesus rebuked them, calling them to repent. Then the fourth church that Jesus addressed was the church in Thyatira. This church had lots of good qualities that Jesus commended them for. They were full of love, full of faith, full of service, and also endured persecution.

But there was this cancer within that they did not deal with. There was a false prophetess resembling Jezebel from the Old Testament leading people down the wrong path, teaching the people to use the grace of God as a license to sin.

What this led to was immorality abounding among some within this fellowship. Jesus called this church to repentance much like the church in Pergamum. Then the church we looked at two weeks ago was the church in Sardis.

This church had the reputation of being alive, but in reality they were really dead. This church was judged by outward appearances which were deceptive and they were to conform to being truly alive like the few faithful there.

Then last week we saw Jesus address the sixth church, the church in Philadelphia. This church like Smyrna received no rebuke from Jesus. What Jesus told them is that they had faithfully endured persecution and he told them of the great blessing of his sweet eternal presence that awaited them.

Now this leads us to the final church in Jesus' address, to the seven churches of Revelation and that church is the church in Laodicea. Jesus gives his evaluation of this church in Revelation chapter three verses 14 through 22.

So at this time I encourage you to turn there with me. If you do not have a Bible, we do have those red Bibles. This sermon is titled Christ's Message to His Church and this edition is Laodicea. And I'm not gonna read the text because it is a little bit of a longer text.

So we're just gonna go through it verse by verse. But here's our big idea. What this sermon is calling you to do. Refuse to be a church that lives for the things of this world. Refuse to be a church that lives for the things of this world.

That's what he's telling us today. And we're gonna see one reason why as we go through this. Let's begin by looking at Jesus' introduction to this church in verse 14. These are the words of the Lord Jesus.

And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write, the words of the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. So Jesus once again starts off by addressing the angel of the church.

And once again, this is not a spirit being sent from heaven. The Greek word angel can be translated as messenger. So what Jesus is doing here is he's passing this message onto the pastor who will then pass this on to the church.

The church once again is Laodicea. Laodicea was located in the Lycus River Valley, which is located in modern day Turkey. In fact, all of the seven churches we have looked at are located in modern day Turkey.

And this city is located near what is today the city of Denizli, Turkey. So as Jesus is addressing these churches, these churches were close enough to know about each other. Every church has a reputation.

And every one of these churches would have known something about the other churches. And this ancient city, once known as Laodicea, is now in ruins and is quite a sight to behold. Tourists today see the city wall, two theaters, a large stadium and a water tower.

In ancient times, economically, no city in this region was as prosperous as Laodicea. The three commercial industries that made it successful were banking, the selling of wool and medicine. The city had an inadequate water supply, so they had to build their own underground water system to bring the flow of water to them.

This city was so wealthy and self-sufficient that when they had a major earthquake in 60 AD, they declined help from the emperor. This is in contrast to what we saw the last two weeks with Philadelphia and Sardis.

What we saw is that Philadelphia received the emperor's aid and in fact, temporarily they renamed their city Neo-Caesarea to honor the emperor. But Laodicea said, nope, we got it taken care of. We are self-sufficient.

And this self-sufficiency of this city will be relevant as we go through Jesus' address to this church. This city is mentioned in one other place in the New Testament, the book of Colossians. This city was located near Colossae, only nine miles away.

In Colossians 1 .7, the apostle Paul wrote that Epaphras brought the gospel to the church in Colossae and as the gospel was brought to Colossae, it was also brought to Laodicea. In fact, Paul told the church in Colossae to pass on the letter of Colossians to the church in Laodicea in Colossians 4 .16.

The apostle Paul, like the church in Rome, never visited this city, but he communicated with them from afar through his letters. Like other cities, there was false religion present and the false religion present in this city is similar to what we saw a week ago with Philadelphia.

Many in Laodicea worshiped Zeus and they even had a Jewish presence. Now as Jesus addresses this church in the introduction, he says something glorious concerning himself. We've seen that in every address.

He always says something glorious concerning himself. He says, the words of the amen. The word amen is a common word in the Bible. We use the word amen at the end of our prayers as we pray in Jesus' name.

When we say amen in Jesus' name at the end of our prayers, what we are saying is that Jesus, as our mediator, agrees with our prayers. And he takes our prayers to the Father. So there is a confidence with the word amen.

As one author says, it signifies certainty and veracity. Jesus is the amen in the sense that all of God's promises belong to us because of him. As 1 Corinthians 1 .20 says, all the promises of God find their yes in him.

One author has said that all the promises of God are blood-bought promises. That is, through Jesus' death and resurrection, by believing in him, we have guaranteed claim on God's promises. Then Jesus calls himself the faithful and true witness.

What this means is that when Jesus speaks, he speaks on behalf of God. In fact, he is God. Every word that he says is 100 accurate. When we think about how God has revealed himself to the world, he has revealed himself through creation, through the scriptures, and through a man, the God-man.

This is why Jesus is called the Word in John 1 .1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is God's biggest revelation to the world. When he speaks, God speaks.

Then at the end of verse 14, Jesus says concerning himself that he is the beginning of God's creation. Now, why would Jesus say this to Laodicea? He says this because in the city of Colossae, not too far from Laodicea, there was a heresy, and that heresy was that Jesus was the first created being.

In ancient times, this heresy became known as Arianism. In the present day, as I mentioned several weeks back, this is what Jehovah Witnesses believe. In Colossians 1, verses 15 through 16, the Apostle Paul corrected this false belief, where he wrote, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created.

What this means is that Jesus is not among the made things, seen and unseen in all of creation. He is, in fact, the person of the Trinity that created everything. God the Father is the planner, God the Son is the creator, and God the Holy Spirit was present during the creation, as Genesis 1 -2 says.

So indeed, as Jesus says concerning himself at the end of verse 14, he is the beginning, that is, he is the initiator of God's creation. He started it all. Then Jesus gets to the evaluation. Let's first look at verse 15, where Jesus says, I know your works.

You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot. What we see here, once again, is that when Jesus gets to the specific evaluation, he always says the words, I know. Seven times he said that, I know.

And once again, he says this because he knows everything. When he shows up to this church, he doesn't have to ask him, how are things going? I need some inside information. He already knows everything that is going on, so he is able to give a perfect evaluation.

And what we saw as I read this, and what we are about to see at a deeper level, is that as Jesus addresses them, he does not use the sandwich approach with this church. Sometimes he's so upset, he just cuts right to it.

He just goes out guns blazing. And sometimes you have to do that. Sometimes you're just like, this is wrong. Something needs to be said. So let's look carefully at the criticism that Jesus jumps right to.

He says, you are neither hot nor cold. You are neither hot nor cold. Cold nor hot, whatever you want to say. And then he says, I wish that you were one or the other. What does he mean by this? Well, he tells us in the first half of verse 16, he says, so because you are lukewarm.

Okay, they're not hot, they're not cold.

Well, what are they?

They're lukewarm. We know what this is all about from foods we eat and drinks we drink. When you eat pizza, most people want it hot. And there are a small minority of people who like pizza cold. But no one likes it lukewarm.

It is the same way with drinks. We like hot drinks and cold drinks. We enjoy hot drinks like coffee, hot chocolate, apple cider, and tea. We like cold drinks like cold water, soda, juice. But we aren't really drawn to drinks that are in between.

It's in between, no.

Don't want it.

There's a reason that Jesus uses this illustration to this church. When we think about cold drinks, they refresh us. Warm drinks warm us up when it's cold. He tells it to this church in Laodicea because they live near the Lycus River.

This river nearby was not one of those refreshing rivers. I remember when my family and I took a vacation to Alaska when I was in high school. The water was so pure that we didn't want anything else. It was so refreshing that any other drink we didn't care about.

I think it'll be like that in the New Jerusalem. The water's gonna be so good flowing through the New Jerusalem that we're just gonna wanna take it in and other drinks won't be as appealing. But this was not the case with the Lycus River.

It was muddy, polluted, and undrinkable. Earlier I mentioned the water system that the city had to build because of their lack of water supply. This water system came from the hot springs five miles away.

But by the time this water reached Laodicea, it was lukewarm. So the water was dirty and lukewarm. The city could not immediately use the water that arrived to them to drink it. Bathe in it and use it for other purposes.

They instead had to manipulate the waters to be clean and at the right temperature to be used by the population. So this water was not cold and it was not hot. It was lukewarm. And this was symbolic of this church.

Both cold water and hot water are positives, but Jesus cannot be positive about this church. When Jesus looks at this church, he tells them with frankness what he wants to do immediately in the second half of verse 16.

He says, I will spit you out of my mouth. He tells them. You are not hot nor cold, and because your works are not pleasant in my sight, I will spit you out. In the Greek, it's literally to vomit out.

Don't want it.

I want to spit you right out. You can imagine this church reading Jesus' previous evaluations, thinking, oh boy, he's going to come to us, he's going to say good things about us. We know about those churches over there, but once he gets to us, it's going to be good stuff.

And then he says,.

I'm not even going to use the sandwich approach. I'm so angry at you guys. You're lukewarm and I want to vomit you out. Jesus has no interest in being associated with this church. And this brings up an interesting thought that I was thinking about this week.

One question every church should ask is this, would Jesus want to attend here? It is like visiting an area that you are familiar with and Sunday rolls around and you are thinking, where am I and my family going to go to church?

You know about the churches and some of the churches you automatically rule out and you have legitimate reasons and there are one or two churches that you know are good and you want to attend. Imagine Jesus is in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey at this time in history.

Where is he going to go? We know by what he has said where he's not going to go. Well, he's not going to Ephesus. He's not going to Sardis. He's probably not going to go to Pergamum. They're okay, but why would he go there?

I want the best. Thyatira was better, but that's not his first choice. So where is he going? He's going to go to two churches where he said nothing negative. And they might have been the most unglamorous, smallest churches in the area.

He's going to Smyrna and Philadelphia. He's proud of these two churches. These churches were alive. They did not capitulate to the surrounding culture. They stood with him as they faced opposition. Smyrna and Philadelphia were not the flashy churches in this region, but they were the faithful ones and that's what Jesus cares about.

He cares about faithfulness. He cares about being sold out for him. He wants churches that have utter trust in him, in his promises, and that he will do great things in their midst to them and through them.

But the church in Laodicea is lukewarm, mediocre. They are a church full of worldly success. It's the kind of church, if you're a business person and you want to be well-connected, you go to this church.

It's a place to build, make connections and talk with wealthy people. But spiritually speaking, they are going through the motions much like the church in Sardis went through the motions. Remember what he said to Sardis?

You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. In the first half of verse 17, Jesus highlights their major problem. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing. There's a word that describes what this church is and that is self-sufficient.

Now you might think, isn't it good to be self-sufficient? Well, in some respects, yes. You don't want to live in your parents' basement forever. At some point, you need to provide for yourself. You need to be responsible.

Loving and wise parents raise their kids to send them off. In our day, people are content living off their parents or the government far too often. But scripture says it's not to be this way as 2 Thessalonians 3, 10 says, if anyone is not willing to work, don't let him eat.

God designed this world so that we earn our food and possessions through work. And if you don't work, you bear the consequences of poverty. I like what Mark Brooks says about this. Sometimes the government or someone else might give a little assistance and this is a hand up, not a handout.

So in these areas of life, self-sufficiency is a good thing according to scripture. But what is Jesus talking about in the first half of verse 17? Much like we have seen with the other churches, the surrounding culture has made its way in.

And the shepherds of every church, they need to guard the gate. We don't want the spirit of the age to make its way in because it so often does. But with this church, the culture spread through this church like wildfire, like a poison.

They resembled the surrounding culture around them and the church should never resemble the surrounding culture around them because the surrounding culture is lost and doesn't have the priorities of Jesus Christ in mind.

You don't take your cues from the surrounding culture. As we saw earlier, the city was wealthy and self-sufficient and even when an earthquake devastated their city, they would not receive outside help.

They're so prideful. We can take care of ourselves. We don't need help. The people who were a part of this church were this way also. They had deep pockets and lots of possessions. In the first half of verse 17, Jesus, who knows all things, tells them they're flawed thinking.

What they think is I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing. The church in Laodicea was wealthy and self-sufficient and Jesus tells them that their self-sufficiency is not a good thing at all.

When it comes to the life of faith, self-sufficiency is deadly. This kind of thinking goes like this.

God, I love you,.

But I've got this covered. I can take care of myself or churches. We can take care of ourselves. We got it covered. We got a lot of money in the bank. We have all these buildings. We have all these resources.

We got this covered. What we must understand is that God is the giver of physical and spiritual life. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 .11, Jesus says give us this day our daily bread. There Jesus tells us that we should pray for physical provisions.

God brings us into this world and as we live in this world, we should trust the Lord to provide the physical necessities of life. Secondly, it is the Lord who gives us spiritual life. As 1 Corinthians 4 .7 says, what do you have that you did not receive?

It all comes from Him. Spiritual life. That's the mission of our church, to grow in Christ together. How do we do that? The Spirit works through us. That's how it happens. You received from God salvation and any spiritual growth that you experience in your life is through the Spirit's work as you yield to His will.

The Apostle Paul tells us how we should live our lives in 1 Thessalonians 5, verses 16 through 18. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

God's will for you is that you rely on Him every moment of your life. There's an old song and a new song. There's a new song, though, written by Matt Mayer titled Lord, I Need You. And in that song, there's a line that says, Lord, I come, I confess, bowing here.

I find my rest. Without you, I fall apart. You're the one that guides my heart. Then the chorus is, Lord, I need you. Oh, I need you. Every hour, I need you. My one defense, my righteousness. Oh, God, how I need you.

This is true. We need Him every hour. We need Him every moment. But Laodicea made the grave sin of trusting in themselves. They had lots of wealth. And when you have lots of money and possessions, there is a great temptation that comes with that.

The temptation is to be self-sufficient, not to rely on God. The temptation is to think, I don't really need God. I've got a stockpile of money and possessions. The one who says this would not publicly say this, but this is how they live.

There's an old saying, right? Actions speak louder than words. And we see this so much in our day. Oh, yeah, I stand with Christ. I love the Bible. And then you see their actions like,.

Oh, no, you don't.

You're just saying that. You're paying lip service. We show how much we love the Word by how we live. James says that faith without deeds is dead. The church in Laodicea was thinking highly of themselves because of their earthly success.

And they were finding their joy and security in that success. They were doing the very thing Scripture tells you not to do. In 1 John 2, verses 15 and 16, do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.

And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. This Laodicean church was not doing the will of God. They were living for earthly things. That's where their mind was.

And sure, they gave God lip service.

So we're Christians.

We love the Lord.

They knew the lingo. They knew what to say, but it was fake. They really loved their stuff. They loved their money, their possessions, their status. Their heart's desire was not for Him. And Jesus knew this about them.

They may have been able to fool others, but they couldn't fool Him. He knew exactly what this church was all about. And how relevant the church in Laodicea is to the American church? Some theologians say that more than any of the seven churches, this one represents the modern church and especially the church in America.

Since World War II, America has been the wealthiest country in the world. Middle-class Americans have lived like the wealthiest used to live. King Solomon would be envious of us. You have air conditioning?

I mean, think about something like that. I mean, you have a washing machine? You have a dishwasher? I mean, all these modern conveniences that we have, he didn't have. Americans for decades have focused on the American dream and retirement.

Now, is it bad to want and experience prosperity? Is it bad to plan for retirement? Of course not. Wealth is not a bad thing. In fact, the book of Proverbs tells us that the wise worker will be prosperous.

The Lord loves to bless those who work diligently, who use his principles and work for his glory. There's not something inherently spiritual about being in poverty. In fact, sometimes poverty is because you're not actually working for the Lord.

However, financial success and lots of possessions leads to certain temptations that others with less may not have. People with lots of wealth and possessions can start to find their value in security and what they own.

This has happened in America. America through the decades has been full of mediocre Christians who are wealthy, not spiritually, but materially. Again, material wealth, when accumulated the right way, is the blessing of the Lord.

But he wants you to be good stewards with the wealth that he has given you. The last thing he wants is for you to find security in what you own. When this happens, you become spiritually poor. You stop trusting the Lord each day for his help.

You start thinking about future earthly plans and thoughts about eternity, and pleasing him are an afterthought. We should plan far more for eternity than for retirement. And you plan for eternity by relying on the Lord every day for both physical provision and spiritual help.

When it comes to physical provision, thank the Lord for providing those to you and ask him to continue to sustain you. And that you would be a good steward of what he has given you. Every day, tell the Lord that he is your hope, joy, and security.

And tell the Lord that you understand how fleeting this life is, and one day all you will have is him when your life here comes to an end. Not living this way is what got the church in Laodicea in trouble.

And also the church in America over the last 100 years. When the church becomes materially focused, it becomes spiritually mediocre. And Jesus hates mediocrity. He wants to spit the mediocre Christian and the mediocre church out of his mouth.

As Jesus spits them out, he tells them who they really are in the second half of verse 17. He says, you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. He gives them five descriptions and none of them are good.

To be called wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked is not what you want to hear in Jesus' evaluation of your church. But this is exactly what they heard. And all of these descriptions are what one would say to someone who lacks the important things of life.

But they thought they were good as they were well supplied in material possessions. But in the area that counted the most, their walk with the Lord, they were spiritually poor. They were the opposite of the church in Smyrna, whom Jesus told in chapter two, verse nine, that you are rich.

What he meant is that they were spiritually rich. They were rich in the ways that mattered the most. Like when someone says that to you, you are rich. Hopefully you're rich in your relationship with God.

You're rich in your relationship to other people. Not that you have the most money. That's not the most important thing. Now Jesus does not give them any compliment, much like Sardis, whom he called spiritually dead.

However, he does not leave them with no hope. This is what he says in verse 18. This mediocre church.

This is what he says.

I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen. And salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

Jesus first counsels them to buy from him gold refined by fire. Then he counsels them to buy white garments from him. Then he counsels them to anoint their eyes. What he is saying is that if they follow him closely, they will have true gold and be spiritually rich.

If they follow him closely, they will walk in holiness, having white garments, and they will no longer be spiritually naked. If they follow him closely, they will anoint their eyes so that they will not be spiritually blind.

All of these illustrations would have resonated with Laodicea because of their commercial life of banking and selling wool and the industry of medicine. All of these industries made them prosperous. What Jesus is telling them is to buy true and lasting gold, put on true and lasting clothes, and put medicine in your eyes so that you have spiritual sight.

Right now, they were lacking all of this. They were spiritually dead. They were relying on their stuff. They were disgusting to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's so interesting, by the way. There's all these conventions going on around the country, these national conventions.

The Southern Baptist Convention just had their convention. And as you watch this, you're thinking, Jesus wants to vomit these movements out. It's just so alarming, the things that you see, the things that they get away with, the things that they're doing.

This is why so many churches are leaving these denominations because there's so much corruption. They don't have the Lord's best interests in mind. They're focused on material focus. They're focused on profits.

They're focused on image. They're focused on prestige. All the things that Jesus hates for our focus to be. I could just see him saying, I want to spit you out. In fact, one guy went to one of these conventions.

He said, the Holy Spirit was not present. That's very blunt, but it's hard to disagree with him based on all the things that are happening in our country. And he is calling them not to be materially focused, which is where their ultimate focus was, but rather to be focused on him and his Father in heaven.

Then after saying this to them, he gives them a kind word in verse 19. He says, those whom I love I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. What we see here, it's interesting. This is Father's Day and a good father disciplines his children.

Discipline is a good thing. Parents, you experience this with your children. Loving and wise parents discipline their children so that they grow up to be mature adults. The author of Hebrews says this in Hebrews 12, verses 5 and 6.

My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. Jesus is disciplining them right here.

He's got nothing good to say about them, but he's offering correction. And he's telling them to repent. He's telling them to have zeal. True zeal. Romans 12, verse 11. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit.

That's what he's telling them. Then Jesus gives another exhortation in verse 20 to this church. He says in 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 eat with him and he with me.

It's interesting that of all the seven churches, you know which church is the worst? This one right here. This church is in the worst place. Remember one week ago when Jesus addressed a very good church, the church in Philadelphia, he said in chapter 3, verse 8, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut.

In other words, the door to him is always open. He's not going to shut you out of his presence. His presence is always available to you. His sweet fellowship is always available. What he's saying here, though, is that this is not the case with this church.

There the door was forever open because they had received Jesus as Lord, Savior, and Treasure, but not so with Laodicea. What is pictured here is Jesus knocking on the door of this church. This church professes his name, but largely speaking, they are not following him.

Here is a picture of Jesus, who is the founder and Lord of the church, knocking on the door of this local church, wondering if anyone is going to let him in. He wants to come in, but they've got to let him in.

He wants to. He wants to be able to praise this church, but he can't. Here is a picture of Jesus doing this. The way that this church lets him in is by sincerely believing in him. Imagine a business owner taking a long vacation and then coming back to his or her business and finding that the business has turned into a circus.

And the owner finds that the business is not doing well, and everything that the business was about, they're not doing. That's like this church. If this church will let Jesus in, what he says at the end of verse 20 is, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me.

When Jesus looks at this church, he doesn't recognize, this isn't what I designed a church to be. What's going on here? The instructions are right here. This isn't complicated. What's going on? And Jesus wants to share a meal with them.

He wants to be let in.

And by the way, in ancient times, to share a meal with someone was significant. It meant close, intimate fellowship with someone. He's saying, I want this with you. If you open the door to me, if you receive me, if you truly receive me as Lord, Savior and treasure, then we will have fellowship.

This is what Jesus wants with the people that he created. He wants a deep personal relationship. This comes through believing in his finished work at the cross and his glorious resurrection. When this happens, the Holy Spirit enters a person, and there is this eternal bond between Jesus and the one who follows him.

This deep friendship with Christ starts at conversion. And it is a lifelong journey, growing a deeper friendship with him. And growing in this sweet relationship with Jesus will go on forever and ever.

People wonder, will heaven ever get boring?

No. Why?

We're going to forever grow in our knowledge and our love for Jesus. And that's going to go on forever and ever and ever. The people who are truly bored in this world are the people who don't know Christ.

Because eventually, the cup runs dry. But with Christ, it never runs dry. Now Jesus closes this address by doing what he has done with the other six churches. By describing that those who follow him are conquerors.

He says in verse 21, The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne. It's amazing, right? Every address, you're conquerors.