Kaleo San Diego Church

I once heard a quote that I believe speaks powerfully both to the situation at the church of Laodicea and our situation today.  The quote is: “Our greatest danger is not that we would fail, but that we would succeed at the wrong the thing.”  The reason that this quote is so applicable to this church is that they were a very successful church.  The city of Laodicea itself was a very successful city.  Three major industries gave the city its wealth.  It had a banking industry, a medical industry that focused primarily on the healing of the eyes, and a wool industry that focused on making amazing garments.  These three industries had brought the city much wealth and the church was full of successful, wealthy people in these industries.  The church was full of people that the world would regard as very successful.  That made the church very attractive to some.  They would say, look at that church, everyone there seems to be doing amazing in business, what a successful group of people; they must be doing something right.  The church of Laodicea was a group of very successful people and yet they measured success by the same exact standards as their culture.  You see their culture measured success by wealth and the church of Laodicea had taken the values of their culture and based on those values had become a very successful church.

It seems to me that many of us do the exact same thing.  We judge success according to the values of our culture.  So, our culture would say that a successful church is one with a nice building, a good entertaining service, lots of people, and lots of programs for the youth.  A successful man or woman is one with a good career that has plenty of opportunities for advancement, makes good money, and still has some free time to enjoy that money.  A good family is one where the kids get good grades in school, do well in sports, and stay out of trouble.  Unfortunately I believe that many of us would agree with our culture on most of these things.  There is a radical temptation in all our lives to judge success according to the standards of our culture.  It is a radical temptation because we live in the culture, we are surrounded by its voice, calling us to buy this and we will be happy, to give our kids this and they will love us, to accomplish this and we will be successful.  Some of us have even bought into the idea that Jesus wants us to be successful according to the values of this world.  We may think that being successful is the way we will be the best witnesses for him, that we have to show the world that you can be a Christian and still enjoy success.  You can be a Christian and still be a great businessman, a great athlete, a great politician etc.  Today’s message is for a successful church.   It is for a church who has given in to the values of their culture and they have succeeded in accomplishing them.  In this church we will see the great danger for all of us of succeeding at the wrong thing. 

Jesus comes to the church of Laodicea and he begins by saying, “The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness.”  Throughout Jesus’ life, when he had something very important to say he began by saying, “Truly, Truly I say unto you.”  That is the same word as “Amen.”  Jesus is saying I am the “Amen.”  I am the true one.  Amidst a culture that has been inundating you with lies, he speaks the truth.  He is the faithful and true witness.  He is saying that he speaks the truth and he continues to speak it even when it is hard.  Jesus is the true and faithful witness.  If you want to know the truth, it is found in him.  If you want to know what is truly valuable, what is truly worth giving up everything for, it is found in him.  He is the true witness of which every other faithful witness will bear testimony.  Now, what Jesus wants this church to see is that as the true one, the faithful witness, he lived a very different life than they.  The true one, the faithful witness, came unto his own but his own received him not.  The true and faithful witness came to the world that he made and the world he made did not recognize him.  They did not recognize him because his value system was so different.  Throughout the Gospels we see time and again the values of Jesus clashing with the values of his culture.  When offered worldly success Jesus refused, for he had very different understanding of success.

One of my favorite illustrations of this occurs in John 6:15 after he fed the 5,000.  The Bible says that they wanted to make Jesus king.  Listen to what Jesus does: “Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”  I love this.  They wanted to make him king by force, but they couldn’t.  What I really love is that Jesus proves his true power.  The thing about kings is that they are in control, right?  True kings do what they want.  Puppet kings give in to the will of the people.  True kings rule, they do what they want.  Here, the people try and make him king by force, but Jesus actually proves that he is the king because he doesn’t allow the people to force him to do anything.  In the beginning of the chapter you have 5,000 men not counting women and children loving Jesus and wanting to make him king and by the end of this chapter there are only 12 people left.  It says, “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.”  You see Jesus, the Amen, the faithful and true witness, was rejected because he was bearing witness to another world, to another way to live.  He was rejected because he did not share the same value systems as everyone else.  Anyone else in that crowed would have loved to be king but Jesus wasn’t like everyone else. 

Instead, he came to call a people around himself and this community was to be a radically counter cultural, different community.  They are to be poor in spirit in a world that values self-sufficiency.  They are to mourn in a world willing to give anything for happiness.  They are to be meek in a world where might equals right.  They are to hunger and thirst for righteousness in a world that hungers and thirsts for temporal pleasures.  They are to be merciful in a self-justifying world.  Jesus came as the faithful and true witness to bear witness to another way.  He came to begin to restore the world to the way that God had intended it to be.  He came to call a community around himself who would bear witness to him, a community that found him to be so beautiful, so magnificent, so attractive that they willingly give up everything to have him.  He came to call around himself a community willing to consider everything rubbish that they might gain him.  A community that bears witness to the new creation the new world that he came to usher in.  A community that understood that it does no good to gain this entire world which is passing away if it means forfeiting our souls.  Jesus comes as the true one and he shows us what it looks like to be a faithful witness to the kingdom of God.

Ultimately he shows us on the cross what it looks like to be a faithful witness.  A faithful witness is one who is faithful unto death.  A faithful witness is one who like Paul can say, I have been crucified to the world and the world has been crucified to me.  A true witness is one who has ceased to want anything from the world.  You can’t bear witness to Jesus and call the world to follow him as long as you are enslaved to the values of the world.  As long as you care what they think about you and adhere to their values, you will have no power to call them to anything else.  That is why a true and faithful witness to the world is one who has been crucified to the world and whom the world has been crucified to them.  They consider it all rubbish that they might gain Christ, and in gaining Christ they begin to genuinely love one another without using each other.  Through their love for one another they bear witness to the world that God intended and the world that he is restoring to himself.  However, like Antipas in Pergamum, we find that faithful witnesses suffer.  Of course this should come as no surprise, the world rejects people who do not share their values, it despises people who consider rubbish what they are giving their lives for, however, some find it strangely attractive.  Some who have found that the world has let them down will be looking for another way.  The church is called to embody that other way.  The church is called to bear faithful witness to Jesus, the true one, regardless of what it might cost in this life. 

Now, to simply call the church to be a faithful witness like Jesus and to imitate him in his death by considering everything this world offers as rubbish in and of itself would be foolish.  Given the option—earthly wealth and success or a life of witness to the crucified Messiah, living as a contrast community of light for this life only—simply given those options everyone, it seems would be wise to choose earthly wealth.  If this form of witness was for this life only then Paul says Christians are to be pitied above all people.  That is why it is so important that Jesus tell the church that he is the “beginning of God’s creation.”  He is not speaking about the original creation of the world here, for he was not the beginning of that creation.  John 1 tells us that he was the one who created all things.  But as the crucified and risen Messiah, Jesus is the beginning of God’s new creation.  He is, as Revelation 1 reminds us, the firstborn of the dead.

This is huge.  Jesus is the beginning of a new creation, even a new humanity, if you will.  He is the beginning of something absolutely different.  He is the firstborn from the dead; he died and has risen from the dead in a physical glorified body that will never face death again.  We saw him in Revelation chapter 1.  He was massive; his voice was like the sound of mighty waters, his face shown like the sun in all its brilliance.  He was amazing.  He is the beginning of God’s new creation, but he is not the end.  He is not the only one who will live forever in a glorified body.  He is not the only one, for he has come to gather for himself a people.  He has come to gather a bride who will live with him forever, feasting with him, celebrating with him, no longer bound by sin, and no longer experiencing suffering or loneliness.  His bride will have life as it was meant to be lived, in joyful dependence upon Jesus who will utterly fill all his people with more than they could ever ask or imagine.  That is the life that Jesus has come to give his bride.  That is what he intends to give all who will bear faithful witness to him on this earth.  That is what he is saying in vs. 21 when he says, “To 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 thrown.”  For all those who will follow him, who will live as faithful witnesses to him, who will take up their cross daily and conquer as he did; for all those Jesus will give an eternity of reigning with him on his throne.  Whatever the cost, this is worth it.

Now, with such amazing promises what is it that hinders us from living this sort of life?  Well, let’s listen to what the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of creation has to say to the church of Laodicea.  He says, “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.”  Jesus comes to this very successful church and he accuses them of being lukewarm.  Now, in the past many have taken this to mean that they are neither on fire for Jesus (hot) or totally rejecting him (cold) but instead they are playing this game of church and are living lukewarm lives.  Most scholars no longer take this to be the case.  If you study the historical background to Laodicea you find that the city just six miles north of them was known for their hot springs.  They had a healing effect and it developed a thriving medical center around its hot springs.  The city ten miles to the east, Colossae, was known for its cold, pure drinking water.  Laodicea, on the other hand, did not have any good water source.  It had been established on a major trade route but had always suffered from not having good water.  To get any water, they had to pipe water in from the hot springs in the north and this water did not have time to cool before it got to them.  So it would come to them lukewarm and it also contained minerals that made it disgusting to drink.  So, Laodicea was very familiar with lukewarm water.  That is why Jesus uses it here as an illustration.  Jesus is calling out to this church and saying, “I want you to be an alternative community to the world. I want you to be a healing community or a refreshing community.”  In Matthew Jesus calls his people to be salt and light.  He wants them to be a contrast community so that those who have searched for healing in the world and have not found it might run to them and find in them a faithful witness to him, the true healer.  He wants them to be a refreshing community so that those who are tired and heavy laden, those who have found that after feasting at the table of the world they are still thirsty might find in them a faithful witness to Jesus, the living water, the one who has come to satisfy the thirsty.  He wants them to be different from the world; to be a light in the darkness.  To offer healing and refreshment to the needy, he wants them to be a community that bears witness to him as the firstborn from the dead who is about the business of reconciling the world to himself.  That is what he wants from them.  He is not saying I wish you either really loved me or hated me.  There is no benefit to hating God.  There is no benefit to being cold in a spiritual sense.  There is only one place you want to be, and that is a part of God’s community, bearing witness to him amidst the different needs of this world.

But they are not; they are lukewarm.  What this means is that they do not offer anything to the world because they have become just like them.  Because they value the same things that the world values they offer nothing that the world doesn’t offer.  The world offers happiness through comfort, pleasure, and wealth, and as long as the church is only offering happiness through the same means, she will never have anything to set her apart.  Jesus is calling this community to offer the world healing and satisfaction through him.  Not through wealth, prosperity, or comfort, but through suffering, trials, and need.  It is the sick who need healing and the thirsty who need refreshing.  He is calling his church to be a sick and needy people who have cast their lot in with Jesus and thus can point to the healing and satisfaction that can be found in him alone.  That is what he is calling this church to be.  And he is very serious.  He tells her that if she does not repent he will spit her out of his mouth.  Basically he is coming to the church that sings songs to him and gathers on Sundays to worship him but still lives just like everyone else, and he is saying to them, “You make me sick.”

I found one other thing amazing about the metaphor that Jesus uses.  It was a gracious metaphor because Jesus is trying to get his church to see that even though they think they have everything, they actually don’t.  Despite this city’s wealth, they had disgusting water.  Sure they were rich and could buy tons of cool stuff, but despite all their wealth their water was gross.  It was probably a very sore spot for the city as a whole.  They probably hated thinking about it or talking about it because it demonstrated the fact that they were not in control.  Despite all their wealth there were things that money could not buy.  Money could not buy good water.  So Jesus brought it up to try and chip away at their self sufficiency.  After beginning by trying to chip away at their self sufficiency and then giving them a very stern warning, he continues on full force to describe their problem.

Here Jesus is going to explain what makes this church lukewarm.  This is huge because Jesus spits lukewarm churches out of his mouth.  Lukewarm churches make Jesus sick.  If we want to avoid being a church that Jesus spits out of his mouth, then we must understand what it is that makes a church lukewarm.  He says, “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.”  That is their problem.  The greatest problem in the church of Laodicea was their self sufficiency.  They had become rich and didn’t feel like they needed anything.  We have to hear this message.  Certainly one of the greatest dangers in the church in America is this same thing, our self sufficiency.  Jesus hates self-reliance.  You know a good way to judge whether we are a self-reliant people?  Do we ever get anxious?  Anxiety is the trait of a self-reliant people in times of trouble.  Comfort is the trait of self-reliant people who are not in trouble.  It seems to me that for many of us we go from comfort to anxiety with the goal being to get back to comfort.  Well, here is a church that is presently comfortable.  They feel like they have no need.  They feel like they have arrived.  They say, “I don’t need anything.” 

Now, you can see how lack of need will make for a lukewarm relationship with God.  Last week we argued that the promises of God are sweet to the needy.  They are sweet to those who realize just how much they desperately depend upon God.  We said that it is when we come to the end of ourselves and realize, “I got no one but you God, no one but you,” that God comes to us and says, “But you got me, you got me and I will be enough.”  He is the firstborn from the dead, he is the beginning of the new creation, he has bought you with his blood and you are his and no one will ever snatch you from his hand.  For the needy and desperate, these are sweet promises, and these sweet promises make for a people whose lives bear witness to the beauty of Jesus, to his power to heal, and to satisfy all who are sick and thirsty.  It is those who need Jesus who make the most faithful witnesses for him.  However, the self-sufficient will never be more than lukewarm. 

I want you to notice that the church of Laodicea is a church of witnesses, they just witness to the wrong thing.  All of us bear witness with our lives to what we treasure.  Look at Laodicea.  When you talk to them about their treasure what is it?  It is their wealth.  They say, “I am rich and my riches have given me comfort so that I don’t need anything.”  Look at what they are doing with their lives.  We always talk about mission and witness and how it seems like it is something that we have to work at and that it’s hard to do.  That’s not really true.  We all witness all the time to what we value.  It’s hard to value Jesus, that is true, but when he is valued, witness flows naturally.  Our lives and words naturally shout to the world what we value. 

It is hard to witness for Jesus when we really value other things.  To witness for Jesus when we really value our comfort  is hard because it’s uncomfortable to witness.  To witness for Jesus when we really value our reputation is hard because we might be looked down upon.  But to bear witness to Jesus when we really value Jesus, that comes naturally. 

So, what does Jesus call this self-sufficient church to do?  He begs them to wake up.  He says the truth is that we are not self-sufficient.  Listen to Jesus’ words to all of us who feel at times self sufficient.  These are his words to all who have ever felt comfortable in their own situation.  He says, “YOU are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.”  Listen to Jesus’ assessment of those who the world deems successful.  He says to his church that they have been successful at the wrong thing and their success has utterly blinded them to the truth.  Their self-sufficiency is a lie.  Hear the words of Jesus speaking to all of us who grow complacent in our success.  He is begging us to wake up to the reality of our desperate need of him.  He is saying, please admit your nakedness, admit your poverty, and admit your wretched sinfulness.  Please, admit it.  Stop hiding it.  Jesus sees it.  Your friends and your family might not see it, your coworkers, your children they might not see it, but one day you will stand before Jesus and he sees everyone who is not clinging to him as they truly are—wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

Yet, I have amazingly good news.  Jesus has come to satisfy our needs.  He has come for the poor, the blind and the naked.  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, and salve to anoint your eyes so you might see.”  Our savior has what we need.

Here is what blows me away.  Our savior knows us.  He knows that we are wretched, blind, pitiable, and naked.   And knowing this, he chose to leave heaven, his comforts, his Father, and take on flesh to come to earth and experience pain and suffering.  He was rejected and mocked by his own creation.  His own people, his own family rejected him.  He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  He came and lived a perfect life with no short cuts; he perfectly obeyed his father.  He called around himself a people, and they were pathetic.  They were failures.  They were blind and naked and pitiable.  They were without hope in this world and yet he called them and said he would buy them clothes, salve, and gold refined by fire, and he would buy them with his blood.  He who was rich gave up his wealth and came to earth in the form of a man so that he might have wealth to give to his people.  He who was clothed in perfect righteousness was hung on a cross naked and ashamed for the world to laugh at so that we can have his clothes.  He entered the dark tomb and experienced the blindness of death so that we might see and have eternal life.  Jesus came and he went to the cross to purchase all that we lacked.  On the cross he bore our wretchedness, our pitiableness, our nakedness, and our blindness and he paid the price for them so that he might give us of his wealth.  Notice the picture of Jesus we have in chapter one.  He has a golden sash so that he can give his people gold refined by fire.  He has a white robe so that he might have something with which to cloth his people. His eyes are like flaming fire so that he might give sight to his people.  His death purchased what his people need.  I just can’t get over the fact that our savior died for us when he knew just how wretched and pitiable we were.  I can’t believe he died for failures like us, sinners, and shamefully naked fools.

I want you to see how foolish we look when we rely on ourselves.  Our savior didn’t leave heaven and die on the cross because we could make it on our own; he died because we couldn’t and we make a mockery of his sacrifice when we try and look like we have it all together.  We are a poor, wretched, pitiable people who have been saved by a great, magnificent savior, and he calls us to repent of trying to solve our problems on our own and to cling to his death and resurrection as our only hope.  You notice how the three things Jesus offers the people of Laodicea are things they thought they could find in the world.  They were a city of bankers who thought they could make their own gold.  They were a city of wool who thought they could fashion their own garments.  They were a city who thought they had found the cure to blindness, and yet Jesus comes and says, “The world will always try and offer what you need, but it will always let you down.”  The world cannot cover your shameful nakedness, heal your blindness, and its wealth will one day all pass away.  Only through Jesus’ death and resurrection can we find hope.

Jesus promises to reprove and discipline those he loves, probably by opening their eyes to their true situation.  Often God must use trials and difficult circumstances to remind us that the world cannot keep its promises.  As painful as it is when the world lets you down it is the grace of God to be let down by the world.  Sickness, the death of a loved one, loss of job, disobedient children, and marital struggles all can be used by God to show us the lies of this world and to drive us to him if God is disciplining us.  If you are struggling with feeling let down by this world, if you are struggling with suffering, fear, anxiety, or loneliness, stop looking around for help, stop thinking that if you just do this or that you will finally find what you are longing for.  Instead buy from Jesus that which he purchased for you on the cross.  Isaiah speaks of buying from him without money that which alone can truly satisfy us.  So, come to him and find in him peace and joy even amidst the trials of this life.  Be zealous and repent.  Let go of your self-sufficiency and cling to him, for he is better.

Jesus goes on to explain his ultimate gift to his church.  The ultimate gift of Jesus to his people is himself.  To all who hear his voice, to all who come to him and buy from him that which he alone has, to all of them he will give himself.  He will come and dine with them.  Our savior is the friend of sinners.  He comes to dine with wretched, pitiable, poor, naked and blind people who have found in him all that they have ever longed for.  He has come to clothe them in his righteousness, to give them of his wealth, and to open their eyes to see him as altogether beautiful. 

Jesus offers himself.  He will satisfy all those who put their hope in him.  All those who repent and turn away from their self-sufficiency and rely on him will find that he gives more than they could ever imagine, for he gives himself.

Your savior has provided all that you need.  He is calling you to be a people who depend on him, who wait upon him, whose hope is in him alone.  He is calling you to be a people who need him, who bear witness to the world how amazing he is because you need him so desperately and yet he provides for you so abundantly.  This you will find is best shown through suffering.  The world considers the self-sufficient to be successful; they look down on the needy, the desperate, and the hungry.  They love those who value what they value and who are willing to give their lives to achieve it.  They cannot understand those who consider all that they value rubbish in order to gain a Christ that they cannot see.  They cannot understand them.  They will never accept them until they too have found how empty the values of this world are.  We are called to be a contrast community: a community of light in a world of darkness, a community of dependence in a world of self-sufficiency, a community of love and sacrifice for one another as a witness to our savior who has loved us and given his life for us in a world of selfishness.  We are called to be a community of forgiven sinners in a world of defensiveness and self justifiers.  We are called to be a community of healing in a wounded world.  We are called to be a community of refreshment in a world desperately thirsty for more.  We can only be this when we acknowledge that we are wretched, pitiable, poor, naked and blind men and women saved by our precious savior, washed with his blood, clothed in his righteousness, healed by his touch, and made rich through his grace.  When we realize this, Jesus becomes our greatest treasure.  When we realize that the world has nothing with which to clothe our nakedness, we can rightly consider all its filthy rags as rubbish, we can see all its wealth as passing pleasures while realizing that through gaining Christ we can become a part of a new humanity.  We are a new people, following our savior, witnessing to his death and resurrection, and awaiting the day that we will join him in resurrected bodies to sit on his throne with him.  That is better than whatever you came in here thinking you wanted.  It’s better than the Chargers winning, better than a job, better than a promotion, better than a wife, better than wealth, it is better.  I beg that we might learn from Moses and find that the reproach that comes from bearing witness to Christ is of greater wealth than the treasures of this world as we too look forward to our reward.  Hebrews 13:12-13 says, “So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.  Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.  For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.”

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