Lukewarm Church

Revelation’s Letter to the Lukewarm Church

I want to invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Revelation. We're going to be today in Revelation chapter 3. We have been, as a church, studying a series entitled, Past Lessons for the Modern Church.

And we've looked at six of the seven churches from the book of Revelation, and we've learned lessons from each one. The first week we looked at the dying churches, Ephesus and Sardis. In the second week we looked at the defiled churches, Pergamum and Thyatira.

Two weeks ago we studied the dedicated churches, Smyrna and Philadelphia. Last week, of course, Walter was here, our missionary. And today, we are going to be looking at the last of the seven churches, the drifting church, the church at Laodicea.

So I want to invite you to stand as we read the Word of God together. And we will read verses 14 down to verse 22. 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.

I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot, so because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.

I counsel you to buy for 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.

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 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.

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. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Our Father and our God, we thank you for this opportunity again to hear from your Word. We pray, O Lord, that you would encourage us now to incline our ear to it. Lord God, I pray that you would, first and foremost, as always, keep me from error for the sake of your people and for the sake of my own conscience.

Lord, keep me on the Word and on track. And Father, I pray for the congregation that you would open up their hearts to understand it. And Lord God, that we would see in this text things that we might need to change as individuals and as a church.

Lord, help it be that we never are satisfied where we are, but are always striving towards a greater sanctification and a greater walk with you. We thank you and bless you for all this in Jesus' name.

Amen. So far in this series, we have examined six of the seven churches that Revelation was written to. And each one, so far, has received some praise from Christ. Even those which had the most difficulty received some praise.

Ephesus was praised for endurance and good doctrine. Smyrna was praised for being rich in spirit. Sardis was praised for having a few genuine believers standing firm in the midst of many false professors.

Pergamum was praised for holding fast Jesus' name in an area which it says that Satan dwells, a bad area. Thyatira was praised for their love and good works. And Philadelphia was praised for keeping the Word of God.

But now we come to the last of the seven. And for the first and most amazing thing that we should recognize is that when we look at the words written to the church of Laodicea, you will notice that there are absolutely no commendations from Christ.

He has not a good word to say to or about this church. Instead, he immediately begins his rebuke against her. And, beloved, it is quite an unpleasant rebuke. The Laodicean church is called out by Christ for one particular sin.

They are called out by Christ for spiritual neutrality. That's really what it is, spiritual neutrality. Jesus said that they were neither hot nor were they cold, but instead they were lukewarm. They were neither on fire for the gospel, neither were they absolutely opposed to it.

Instead, they were, in a sense, lackadaisical. They were drifting about. This is why I've entitled this the drifting church. Their attitude was simple callousness. And Jesus said this is actually worse than pure deadness.

He said I would rather you be cold to the gospel than lukewarm to the gospel. And in saying that, he was making a good point that we as Christians need to hear. You cannot be a halfway Christian. This is exactly the type of Christian that Jesus is here calling out.

Those who would call themselves Christians, yet be unconcerned about what that means. This is who Jesus is calling out. And his rebuke is legendary. Most of us are very familiar with that term. You're neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm.

And what is he saying to those who are lukewarm? He says, I will do what? I will spit you out of my mouth. Now, there are some linguistic arguments about what that word spit actually means. And in the Greek, it can actually mean a churning of the stomach.

And that is why some translations actually read he will vomit you out of his mouth. A much more graphic depiction of what Jesus is saying here. But in either term, the idea is the same. That because you are lukewarm, you will have no place with him.

What a frightening thought if you consider what that means. And remember, beloved, he is referencing a church. He is referencing what will happen to this church if they continue in the way that they are going, if they continue in this lukewarm state.

And he's basically telling them they will cease to be a church. They will cease to be a place where the Holy Spirit is moving and working. Their spiritual attitude of lethargy needs to be repented of, because if it is not repented of, Christ will spit them out of his mouth.

Now, let's take a step back for a moment. Let's actually kind of rewind the clock a little bit and ask ourselves the question, what caused Laodicea to be in this spiritually calloused state? What caused this somewhat of a spiritual neutrality?

What caused this sort of half-hearted heartness of the Laodicean people? Well, the text tells us the answer if you look at verse 17. It says in verse 17, For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, I need nothing.

Apparently, this church was a place where its members were, as it were, well off. A history of Laodicea makes this all the more plain. The city of Laodicea was a wealthy city, as it was strategically located at a point where three major roads intersected, and it made it a commercially powerful place.

It also had three major industries. In Laodicea, there was banking. In Laodicea, there was a black wool industry. And in Laodicea, there was a medical industry that was there. So not only was it a place where many roads intersected, so there was commerce and business, it was also a place where there were industries.

Thus, many people who lived in Laodicea were financially secure. It was, in many ways, the land of opportunity. It was a great place to live. The only bad thing, in fact, about Laodicea was the aqueduct system.

According to history, the aqueduct system that was there would often cause the water, which had to be brought in from other areas, because they didn't have natural springs there. They had to pipe the water in from other areas.

It wasn't like it is today, where we might get our water from miles away, and it would be nice and fresh and crisp. No, not there. The water in Laodicea was tepid. It was dirty. And this was likely the setup for Christ's analogy, when He said they were lukewarm, because their water was a lukewarm, tepid, undrinkable water.

So here He is using something that they would understand. And Jesus was good at that. He was good at taking something that was right in people's lives. Remember when He was speaking to people, He would always use the parables, and it was something, you know, a sower goes out to sow his seed.

It was always something that they would recognize mentally. Well, here He says, you're like this water. You know how this water turns your stomach and makes you sick? Well, that's the way you're doing with Me.

Your half-heartedness, your callousness, your unwillingness to really submit and be followers, you're like this water that turns your stomach. That's the way your spirituality is to Me. It turns My stomach.

It makes Me sick. It makes Me want to spit you out. Well, ultimately, because of its affluence and the attitude of its residents, Laodicea was able to say, I am rich. I have prospered. I need nothing.

And as I was reading that and considering that, I thought about this. You know, think about how much that really models the Church of America today. And I don't like to make undue application, but sometimes it stares us right in the face.

Sometimes the application is easy to see. Think about how the church in America operates today. A church that has so much prosperity among its members that no one is concerned about the things of God.

A church that is financially secure, but spiritually lethargic. A church that needs to get hot and needs to get away from being lukewarm. Doesn't that sound very familiar? In America, we have churches that reach to the heavens and spirituality that's shallow.

As it has been said about the Church of America, we are a mile wide, but only an inch deep. The church is drifting along in many areas. In some places, they have ceased to be churches. And I think again, what Jesus is saying to the Church of Laodicea very much applies to the Church of America today, because we see it.

Churches that have ceased to preach the gospel. They have ceased to participate in the ordinances of God. They have ceased to demand discipline within the church. They have ceased to demand that the Word be preached within the church.

And what has happened? They're no longer churches. They're civic centers. They're country clubs. They're social gathering places where somebody gets up for 15 minutes one day a week and gives them a pep talk.

But they're no longer a church. The heart of the problem for Laodicea is that they didn't care very much about what Jesus wanted for their lives. They were too concerned about the other things of life.

Too many things in the world have their attention, their focus, their allegiance. The church of Jesus Christ was just not their priority. And Jesus' answer was that the people of the church should reprioritize their lives and that they should turn back to Christ and repent of their lukewarm hearts.

Verse 18, Jesus 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.

Now, what is He referring to there? Well, remember how earlier I mentioned there were three major industries in Laodicea. There was banking. There was black wool. And there was medical. These were three industries in Laodicea.

Well, here Jesus is telling them to reprioritize. He's saying, get your gold from Me. A gold that will last. Now, of course, He's not talking about physical gold here. He's not talking about bricks of gold.

But He's saying, make that which is worth something in your life be that which comes from Me, the spiritual blessing, the spiritual gold. Rather than focusing on this earthly metal, get your garments from Me.

And what garment is He referring to? He's talking about that garment whereby we are wrapped and clothed and are whiter than snow. We know about that. When we come into Christ, the Bible says we are made whiter than snow.

We are clothed in righteousness, says the Scriptures. He says, get your eyes salve from Me and see clearly, referring to the medical salve that Laodicean people were known for, the salve that they would create.

Ultimately, Christ is saying in a very simple way, you are so committed to the things of the world and what you need to do is make Me and the gospel your priority rather than the worldly things that you are currently worshipping.

And until that happens, until Jesus Christ becomes the priority in any church, and specifically the Laodicean church, but in any church, that church will remain a lukewarm church and ultimately will be unacceptable to Him.

It should be the goal of every church in the world to keep from being a Laodicean church. It should be the goal of every church in the world to keep from being a lukewarm body. So this morning I want to examine three ways that we can keep from being a Laodicean church.

Three things that we see in the text, three important truths, things that we must do to keep from being a Laodicean church. So if you take any notes, this is the outline. Number one. We must avoid spiritual laziness.

We must avoid spiritual laziness. One of the easiest parts of life to become lazy about is our spiritual lives. School, work, friends, family, these all have a place in our lives and they often take priority because they are scheduled.

You know, we're scheduled. You have to get up and go to school every day. We're scheduled. You have to get up and go to work every day. Our family calls us. They schedule times for us to be together. Our friends want our time, so they take our time and be together and they're prioritized because they're part of the schedule.

We go to work and at certain times we go meet up with people. But spiritual Christians actually don't have a place on their schedule. Our spiritual disciplines rather often don't have a place on the schedule.

As a result, we say things like, well, I will pray when I get the time. Or I will have my time alone with God when I get the time. I will read my Bible when I get the time. And the problem is we never get the time and we become lazy in our spiritual disciplines.

Two areas of life must have a place that is prioritized properly. Number one is personal worship and number two is corporate worship. I'll start with number two and we'll go back to the first one. Corporate worship.

What is corporate worship? Corporate worship is what we're doing right now. It's when the body of believers that has committed together in covenant to be members together of the same body has come together for worship.

Is this a priority to us? Is being together as Christians and worshiping together and studying together and singing together and praising together and giving together and participating and communing together, is that a priority to us?

I hear people sometimes say, well, I don't have to go to church to be a Christian. The Bible knows nothing of the lone wolf believer. The Bible never encourages the lone wolf believer. The Bible encourages believers to be together in communion, to be accountable to one another, to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together so that we will have that accountability together and that we will be under the authority and leadership of godly men who are called to study the Scriptures and preach to us.

That is what the Bible calls us to do. We are not called to not be together. We are called to the exact opposite. And yet people lose this. Well, I'm busy. I work real hard. I don't like to call people's names in church.

I'm going to say something about somebody here and if he gets mad at me, he can get mad at me later. Aaron Bell works almost six days a week sometimes. And he works really hard. I've been to his job and he works every day all day.

And he's got a little boy at home and he loves spending time with that little boy. And I'm sure that on Sundays, he'd like to take his little boy fishing or take him to a race. But you know, he spends the vast majority of his Sundays here leading our worship.

And I commend him for that. Because I know a lot of people who don't. I know a lot of people who, you know, well, I only have Sundays off and I want to sleep in. Or I only have Sundays off and I want to go to a race.

Or I only have Sundays off and I want to go do this or that or the other. And I don't say that to lift him up. There's a lot of you I could say similar things about. It is a commitment to be together and it's something that people become spiritually lazy and they don't do.

But we're called to it, beloved. We're called not to be lukewarm. But it's not just in corporate worship. It's also in our personal worship. And this hits everybody. Because we can all do more. We can all do more.

And that's that personal time we spend with God. If either one of those is not put in its proper place, we will slowly drift away from our focus with Christ. If we miss out on our corporate worship, we start to drift away from that need for accountability.

And if we miss out on that individual personal time with God, we begin to slowly drift away from our personal accountability. And one of the things that I think John MacArthur said best, he said, the times when I'm most dealing with sin is the times when I'm furthest away from the Word.

When the Word is paramount in my life, I have less that I'm sinning, that I'm dealing with sinning. And it's the exact opposite. When the Word gets far away, sin gets here. It gets higher and higher. Only when we begin to see our spiritual lives as a priority will we break this Laodicean cycle and we get out of that spiritual laziness.

So number two, we've got to avoid spiritual laziness. That's number one. We also must avoid doctrinal laziness. As a church, we cannot be lazy in standing for the truth. So many churches today just lay down in spiritual matters because they don't feel like fighting the battles.

It's just too much work to seek and stand for the truth. It's even more work to actually live by it. Being a Christian is hard work, y 'all. It really is. And standing against error is a full-time job.

It's always coming in. And it's easy for us to just say, you know what? I don't want to deal with it anymore. I don't want to fight that battle anymore. I don't want to stand for that anymore. So we just sort of get steamrolled.

And doctrinal laziness has caused two major problems in the church. It's caused moral and ethical liberalism to sneak into the church. And it has caused easy believism to sneak into the church. And we see both paramount in the church of America today because we don't want to fight the doctrinal battles.

Because we've allowed ourselves to slip into doctrinal laziness, we no longer want to stand against sin because it's just too hard. It's too much of a fight. It's easier just to let it go. Sin has overtaken many churches, not because the people always agree with it, but because they're too lazy to fight it.

Thus, the people become very liberal, willing to accept anything in the church. And as a result, today we see churches being led by homosexuals, by racists, by pedophiles, by adulterers, and people are happy to have them.

Liberalism in a church is like a cancer, but yet it's not dealt with. It spreads because it's the nature of man to be tolerant, to just, well, you do your thing and I'll do mine, and not try to stand on the word.

That's hard to do. And a lot of people don't want to stand up and fight. Same way with easy believism. For those of you who don't know what easy believism is, I'll give it to you in a very short, succinct way.

Easy believism is any church that teaches people that belief in Christ, apart from a faith that changes your life, is what makes a believer. Maybe that was a little hard to understand. Let me get it back.

Let me say it again in maybe a different way. There are churches who will tell you that all you have to do is raise your hand, pray a prayer, maybe get wet in the baptistry, and you're good. Beloved, the Bible says that following Christ is a lifelong commitment.

It is not about a one-time walking forward down an aisle of a church. Now, I will tell you this, your works don't save you. However, if you are saved, your life will be changed and you will want to follow Christ.

And if you don't want to follow Christ, I don't care how many times you've raised your hand, I don't care how many times you've walked down the aisle or cried on an altar or been wet in the baptistry, you ain't saved.

Excuse the grammar there, but it's true. You're not in any way in Christ. Because in Christ, your life is changed. You're not perfect. You still battle sin, as we all do, but you will have, as one of my professors used to say in seminary, he was a Southern feller like me, so he said, you get a new one.

He said, because when I was not a believer, there was a lot of things I wanted to do, but now I want to follow Christ. And your wanna changes. And if you don't have a desire to follow after Christ, then it doesn't matter how many prayers you've prayed, because your heart hasn't been changed.

Lastly, we've seen we have to avoid spiritual laziness. We have to avoid doctrinal laziness. This last one might be a tough pill to swallow. We'll finish up here. We have to avoid contributional laziness.

That's a big one. Contributional laziness. Now, what is contributional laziness? It is laziness in our using our gifts that God has given us for the furtherance of His kingdom. It is simply the holding back of our contributions to God.

Now, I'm not talking about money only. Some people think you hear a pastor talk about contributions. It's all about what checks are being written and how many dollar bills are going into the offering plate.

No. That's not all. The Bible talks about three different areas that we give to the Lord, that we contribute to the kingdom. One is out of our treasure. But we also give of our time and of our talent.

And if you consider each for a moment our time, are we giving our time to God? Other than simply attending church every week, how often are we having fellow believers in our home? Are we meeting together to worship?

Are we simply calling others on the phone to encourage them and say, hey brother, I saw that you weren't there on Sunday or I noticed that you've been sick or you've been out. Are we contributing our time to the service of the Lord?

Are we using our talents? Maybe a better word would be gifts. Every one of us who is a believer has a spiritual gift. Something that God has gifted us to. And if you're not using it in the church, then the church is not operating at maximum efficiency.

All of us have been given a gift. But not all of us are making that gift known and used throughout the church. And yes, of course, treasure. Am I giving of what I have to the Lord and showing my trust in Him?

Not seeking to benefit from it. By the way, I will never preach a sermon where I tell you to give to the Lord so that you'll give a hundredfold back. There are times in Scripture where it does talk about the blessings of when we give that God will increase what we have because we have become good givers.

But that is not our motivation. We never are motivated to give simply because we want God to give us back more. That's a selfish, man-centered, earthly way of looking at giving. Where contributions go up and blessings come down.

No. That's man-centered. We give to the Lord because it's the right thing to do. We contribute to the kingdom because that's what God has commanded that we do. And God will bless it in His way, in His time, and for His purpose.

These questions are all so important. Are we giving of our time, our talent, and our treasure? And they often answer the question of whether or not we are being lukewarm in our faith. The great sin of Laodicea was the sin of spiritual lethargy, the sin of a lackadaisical attitude, the sin of laziness in spiritual things.

They were not hot. They were not cold. They were just there. And if I could point to one church out of the seven that really epitomizes the church of today in America, it would have to be the church of Laodicea.

This truly is the Laodicean time. And I don't ascribe to the view that each church represents a different time period in history. I know that there is a big teaching that each church represents a different historical time period.

And this is the Laodicean age. I don't necessarily agree with that because I think right now there are churches in other countries that are operating on fire for Christ. But I think generally and by and large in America because we have so much, we have attained so much, we've been given so much, we have become generally and by and large a lukewarm body.

Do you know there are missionaries in other countries sending missionaries to America? Did you know that? They send missionaries here. You never thought that was possible, did you? But there are places where they're so on fire for Christ and they see such a lack of spiritual depth in the United States that they send missionaries here to see churches, hear them, and actually repent.

We need to quit being spiritually, doctrinally, and contributionally lazy and we need to get on fire for Christ. Because Christ wants us to be on fire. The text expresses this. It says He stands at the door and knocks.

He engages us to get on fire. And by the way, that text, I don't have a lot of time to deal with this today, but when it says He stands at the door and knocks, that is not an individual call to repentance, as many have used it.

That is the call of the church to repent. It does say if any man opens the door, and that's talking about the door of the church. We have to remember, this is a church that has become spiritually lackadaisical.

They have become spiritually lazy. And Christ commends them, and He commands them to get on fire for Him. And if we get on fire for Him, He will come in and He will sup with us and be with us. But it takes a genuine commitment.

It takes genuine hearts, not half-hearted commitment. So the question I leave for you today to meditate upon as we close the sermon is to ask yourself very simply, where am I in my spiritual life? Do I simply show up at church on Sunday and go home and it has no effect on my life throughout the week and I come here simply to make myself known or to know others and to make friends and to have a community?

Or do I come here to worship Jesus Christ and to follow His Word and to seek that His Word changes my heart and that my life is lived for Him? Am I a Laodicean Christian? Or am I on fire for Christ?

I leave you with that this morning. Our Father and our God, we come to You in Jesus' name. We thank You and we praise You.

That You have allowed us to hear Your Word today and we pray, O Lord, that that Word has moved on our hearts. For the believers, Lord, I pray a renewed commitment and a renewed strength towards following after You that we would not drift along but that we would be on fire for Christ.

And Lord God, if there are those here who do not know Christ, I pray that they have heard about this commitment and that they would understand that what we call them to, what You call them to, is not a simple saying of I believe in Jesus, but You call them to a life lived for Christ.

We pray for them now. We pray for anyone here who knows not Christ, that they would hear the words repent and believe the Gospel.

And that You would use that to win souls for Your kingdom. And Father, all these things we praise You and thank You and we give You glory in Jesus' name, Amen. Stand with us now as we sing. And if you have a need, please come forward for prayer.