Church of Laodicea - A Love Story
- Jake Chambers
- Nov 22, 2009
- Series: SDSU
Laodicea, A love story: Revelation 3:14-22
November 22, 2009
Jake Chambers
Revelation 3:14: We ended last week’s sermon by reflecting on God’s promises, the sweet and beautiful promises to which we hold dear. We listened to our Lord Jesus Christ as he encouraged us with his promises. In this opening verse to the letter of Laodicea we are reminded that Jesus Christ is the true fulfillment of these promises. He is the Amen and is the faithful and true witness. All of the promises of the gospel and the many facets of the gospel are answered, “yes” in Jesus Christ!
The letter to Laodicea is not a warm letter of encouragement but a stern rebuke. It is a warning to the cold and indifferent heart. The opening verse is reminding us that Jesus Christ is the one with the authority to give this rebuke and offer promises to those who heed his warning.
The “beginning of God’s creation” is a verse that many heretics including Jehovah’s Witnesses have used to proof text that Jesus Christ is a created being and not Creator God. This phrase is actually pointing to the fact that Jesus is Creator God and that all creation began with him creating it. Jesus is called the beginning and the end and this is a term used to express Jesus Christ’s eternity. We see this used in Revelation 21:6, and again Jesus is both the firstborn and the Creator of all things. We also find this in Colossians 1:15-20: Jesus Christ created all things, is Creator God and in him the fullness of God dwells. So this opening verse would have given the Laodiceans every reason to listen the words that followed. They would know that the one speaking them is the God of the universe and has all authority over all things. Today we should treat this letter with the same reverence and urgency that the early church did. This letter has not lost any of its relevance or potency because it is the eternal Christ’s words to us and all of his words command our full submission.
Revelation 3:15,16: Hot and cold are good, lukewarm is bad. This is what Jesus is saying. People love a cold glass of water after a long work out. We love to be refreshed by a fan that cools. When you hurt your ankle you ice it. Cold is good. It is a love that is refreshing to Jesus. A heart filled with loving prayers and affection for Jesus that is like fresh springs of water flowing through a desert. Hot is good too. We like things hot. We like hot soup, hot meals, a hot wife, or a soak in a hot tub. You put icy hot on your achy muscles or a heat pad to loosen up a tweaked neck. You roast marshmallows over a hot fire and make spaghetti every Tuesday for your MC with boiling hot water. Hot is good. A heart that is white-hot, on fire for Jesus Christ is good. A church that burns with a passionate love for Jesus Christ is a good and beautiful thing. A church who desires and longs to be with Jesus because their heart is aflame for him is good. A soul that burns for Jesus is the only soul that communes with him!
Lukewarm is bad. Toilet water is lukewarm. A full baby diaper is lukewarm. If any of you work in restaurants, café’s, or have ever had to get a food handler’s permit, then you know the danger of lukewarm food. If meat, pastas or other hearty food is left either un-refrigerated or is not served hot, it will eventually become a bacteria orgy. Lukewarm is the temperature of food poisoning. If food is left out in a lukewarm environment for over a half hour the FDA will tell you to toss it out!
Just think of when you get back from skiing or sledding or maybe surfing at the beach. After a long day of being outside in a chilly wind, you long to get warm to your core, to feel the marrow in your bones thaw in a bubbly hot tub only to find that it is lukewarm. At that moment you hate that hot tub. Or imagine a foamy, parched mouth that longs for an ice-cold glass of water only to drink a lukewarm, flat coke. There is nothing worse than waking up from a chilly night getting out of your toasty covers wandering into the bathroom to hop in the shower and realize it is lukewarm. Someone used all the hot water and now you have to soap up with lukewarm water that is making your whole body get the chills. At that moment nothing seems worse than that water and nothing seems more glorious than a piping hot shower. Christ desires piping hot hearts and is utterly disgusted at our lukewarm heart.
The imagery used for a lukewarm heart is that Jesus Christ will spit you out of his mouth. Like a baby burps up formula, Jesus spits up the lukewarm heart. This is how miserable Jesus Christ is saying your lukewarm heart is.
What do you do with a lukewarm heart? I will give you a hint. You flush toilet water, you dispose of dirty diapers, you drain your flat coke and recycle the can and you ditch your bacteria infested food or you eat it, get E. coli and puke it out all night. If your heart is lukewarm, then it is in grave danger. The lukewarm heart will not be with Christ for eternity.
The church in Laodicea is like a bad girlfriend or boyfriend. Nobody wants a lukewarm lover. Nobody wants a relationship with someone who doesn’t have time for them, doesn’t return phone calls, and doesn’t tell anyone they are in a relationship. Some of you are so ashamed of Christ, of his church and his gospel, you are like a cheating boyfriend who brings his girlfriend to a party but doesn’t introduce her to anyone. And when you do you say, “Oh, this is Katie.” You don’t say “This is Katie my girlfriend” because you are a loser boyfriend who doesn’t commit. Some of us are like this with Jesus. Nobody knows we are in a relationship with him because we aren’t. We might tell a few people who we know that know him, that we are friends, but anyone else we keep it to ourselves. This is lukewarm! This is lukewarm and like any girl with the right mind would drop this dirt bag boyfriend, Jesus is telling Laodicea that he is sick of carrying on a one-way relationship with a disinterested church.
The hot heart can not hold in how in love it is. The hot heart can’t wait to spend time with the other, pursues the other and always speaks of the other. Do you see how we are not taking part with Jesus Christ if we are not taking part in his mission? Do you see if we are not hearing from him or speaking to him then we do not know him? If our passionate love for him is not falling off of our lips all the time and everywhere, then maybe we do not have a heart for him at all.
Revelation 3:17: We see that the lukewarm heart of Laodicea does not know its predicament. Comfort can breed a lukewarm heart. We can comfort ourselves into believing we have no need for love. A comfort that does not need Jesus, that which we all need is a wretched thing indeed. Check your heart to see if you are looking for comfort from things besides Jesus.
Revelation 3:18: Jesus Christ is gospeling his church. He is the mighty counselor and he gospels the church. He counsels the people with the gospel. If you are getting any of your worth, significance, identity, love or value from anything other than the good news of Jesus Christ, then you are in a pitiable state. Quit looking to buy objects from the world to gain your richness and receive your richness from Christ. The grace of Christ and worth from Christ will survive the fire! This is a richness that can not be taken. Pray that you would be dressed in Christ’s righteousness and no longer would dress in nakedness. You think the next great pair of jeans will show you are rich and that is foolishness. Dress yourselves in Christ’s righteousness. We are spiritually blind. We are blind to the goodness of Christ because we are so indifferent. We have lukewarm hearts that do not care. But if we open our eyes we will see that Jesus Christ is at work. A heart in love with Jesus is always seeing what he is doing because it is in relationship with him. Fix your eyes on Jesus and the cross and you will see. Jesus gospels his church. Get your worth, value, significance in him and look to him!
Revelation 3:19: Some of you may be hearing these words and thinking they sound harsh. You maybe thinking, “Geez, Jesus, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” But Jesus Christ does not have to give us this warning today. He has done everything to call us into relationship with him and he would be just to leave us without a warning. But because of his great love he reproves and disciplines. Praise God that he would see our uninterested hearts and call us to wake up and fan the flame. Jesus loves us church. He gospels us, disciplines and reproves us because he loves us. It is because he loves us that we should repent and love him!
Revelation 3:19b: So be zealous. What is a hot or cold heart? What is a heart that is refreshing to the Lord? It is a zealous heart. Jesus Christ is looking for a passionate romance with his church. What is passion? Passion is willing to die for its love. We are drawn to Romeo and Juliet because of the passion of its romance, where lovers choose death before the loss of love.
What is passion? There was a king on a throne. He had everything in all creation at his feet but he did not have his true love. His true love had strayed. He had every right to find a new true love. He had every right to find or create pleasures in his kingdom but he left his throne out of passion. He did not leave his throne to be born in a new throne but instead came in a manger. He knew his lover was poor, wretched, pitiable and blind without him and so he made himself like his love and was born in a poor, wretched manger. The king of the universe was born in itchy hay. He was born in a smelly, cold barn. Why? To better know his love. To better pursue his love. While this king was still but a toddler he found his life in danger. At this point he could have called off the deal and returned to his throne but no he persevered for the sake of his love. He would not return without proving his love, even if that meant death. Temptation pursued our king as he prepared to reveal himself to his love. He was offered the world instead of a lover that was wholly uninterested in him. But this king was not easily persuaded and turned down everything to pursue his mission. As he continued on with a single-minded focus he was mocked, persecuted, bribed and threatened. He was told to hide his identity and then he could live. “As long as you don’t reveal yourself to your true love then you may live.” When faced with the threats of death he faithfully continued to tell the world who he was that his love might overhear. Finally the king came face to face with death. He refused to stop pursuing his love and giving all to pursue his bride he was beaten and given a humiliating death. As he was being humiliated he looked to see who was killing him, spitting on him and cursing him and it was his bride! She was dressed in filthy rags and cursing his love for her. Yet even then his heart burned for her and he asked that she would be forgiven. Then his heart was pierced and this king dies of a broken heart. All in the name of love this honorable, trustworthy and beautiful king was brutally murdered. This is where most great love tragedies end. Romeo and Juliet do not get out of the grave. But our King does not stay in the tomb. Death, wounds, a broken heart, a hundred pounds of linens, and Rome’s best soldiers could not keep the King away from his love. He breaks himself free from the grips of death and calls out to his love and how do we return this great effort? With a lukewarm disinterest? Jesus Christ does all of this and still has to knock on the door of the church. Don’t you see that no one will ever love you like Jesus does? No guy, no girl, no family member, no job, no amount of money, no one, nothing ever will love you like Jesus Christ loves you! Open the door and run to Jesus. Open the door of your heart to Jesus. This is written to us. What does passionate love look like? Look at Jesus Christ! Look at the cross! Christ is passionately, zealously in love with us.
Revelation 3:20-22: He is knocking on our door. Jesus is diligently pursuing his lover, his bride and he is at the door inviting you to be a part of the greatest love story ever told. He is preparing a place for his lover, he has died for his lover, he has woken himself from the grave for his lover and now he pursues his lover night and day. This is the passion of Jesus Christ. He is zealous for us church. He is zealous! Nothing will get in his way. He will pursue, woo, plead and call his bride and he will remain faithful and true to her for all eternity. Does this not warm your soul?
Jesus Christ is proposing to you. He is pleading with you to stop settling for other lovers. Will you open your ear and hear the call to be part of the greatest romance in the history of the world? You were created for this love! We were created to be the bride of Christ. May our hearts be zealous for Jesus Christ for all of eternity. Amen.
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