I Know Your Lukewarmness

Sermon from November 8, 2009

Based on Revelation 3:14-22

The Church in Laodicea

We are drawing near the conclusion of our tour through the seven churches of the Revelation, all located in what is now western Turkey. Judy and I want to end our tour with a positive example, and so we are delaying our trip to the sixth church on the list, Philadelphia, until next week. So this week, we will be visiting the seventh church on the list, the church that gets the most negative report from Jesus, Laodicea.

Laodicea was one of three cities clustered together in the Lycus River Valley, the other two being Hierapolis and Colossae. Laodicea was at the junction of three major trade routes and was a center of mercantile banking. Agriculturally, it was famous for its black sheep and for the fine textiles produced from their wool. Laodicea was also the home of a famous medical school and was famous for ear ointment and eye salve, the latter of which had been known to save people from blindness. Laodicea was prosperous enough that, when a devastating earthquake struck in 60 A.D., it proudly declined help from the empire and rebuilt itself.

Laodicea had one major natural limitation. Whereas Hierapolis had hot springs famous for healing qualities and Colossae had a cold, clear, dependable stream for excellent drinking water, Laodicea lacked dependably good water. In the summer, the Lycus River tended to dry up. Then Laodicea had to depend on an aqueduct transporting hot springs water from some miles away. The water entered the aqueduct hot and clean, but reached Laodicea lukewarm and impure, tasting of algae, think pond scum. One historian said it was fit only to be an emetic.

What Jesus Said to the Church in Laodicea

3:14 “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. 15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 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. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 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. 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. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

The risen Jesus has one major concern about the Laodicean church, so major that he finds nothing good to say about them except that they still have time and opportunity to repent. The Laodicean church, like the city water, was neither healingly hot nor refreshingly cold, but stagnantly, sickeningly lukewarm. “I will spit you out of my mouth,” is a very mild translation of what Jesus actually said. “I will throw you up from my mouth,” would better convey the sense of the Greek word.

What about the Laodicean church would reduce the loving Lord and Savior to such disgust? Of what did their lukewarmness consist? Recent commentators are almost unanimous. Hot springs water and cold springs water are each useful as beverages when they are fresh from their source, but algae-filled, second-hand, lukewarm aqueduct water with high mineral content is useless except for inducing vomiting. Hierapolis and Colossae had pure water, straight from the source, reliably present as a continual means of healing and refreshment. Laodicea did not. Its water was second-hand, impure, foul-tasting, unreliably present. Jesus is saying that the water offered a good picture of their spiritual life. Their spirituality was second-hand, impure, unreliably present, not practically useful. So the point Jesus is making is that we are to go directly to the source, to him. He will supply what we need.

Like the church at Sardis, Laodicea could at times put on a good front. Their prosperity allowed them to camouflage their desperate spiritual condition. They could even fool themselves; “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing,” they could say. Jesus had a jolting response, in effect saying: “You may be a mercantile banking center, but, in comparison to me and my plans for you, you are pitifully poor; you need to acquire gold refined in fire, pure and eternal wealth which you can acquire nowhere but through faith in my gospel. You may market medical knowledge and treatments for blindness, but in comparison to what I can show you about this world and the next, you are totally blind and need the Holy Spirit’s eyebalm which only I can give to you. You may sell the finest wool in the world, but in comparison to the righteousness in which I long to clothe you, you are stark naked, and you need to open yourselves to my offer to graciously clothe you.”

I Stand at the Door and Knock

Jesus renders a harsh analysis of the Laodicean church not to condemn them, but to awaken them to the fact that, while they appear religious, they lack firsthand relationship with Christ. He offers to transform that. “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

Do you hear what Jesus is saying? Christian life cannot be fourth hand or third hand or even second hand. Rather, Christian life happens when we individually respond to the gospel of a living Christ and invite him into our lives. We do not have to seek him out. He has already sought us. He has already found us. He has already paid for our redemption. He has already won the victory over every enemy who would hinder us, even the last enemy death. He already has prepared for us a spring of living water welling up to eternal life. Behold, he stands at the door and knocks. He is waiting for us to believe the good news, to repent of our wasted years without his living presence, to invite him into our lives to be our living Lord, and to let him supply us with the living water of the Holy Spirit.

How Our Adventure Begins

The adventure with Jesus starts when we hear his knock on the door and invite him in to sit and dine with us. Those who have hosted Jesus at the supper table in their hearts may expect to be hosted by Jesus at the victory dinner in the new heaven and new earth. And in anticipation of that great future, those who invite Jesus into their lives, receive even now the gift of a spring welling up within them to eternal life, a Spirit who enables them to say, “Come! Whoever is thirsty, let him or her come; and whoever wishes, let him or her take the free gift of the water of life.”

Most of us will happily drink iced tea or iced lemonade in the summer and hot tea or hot coffee in the winter. Not many of us would happily down room temperature pond scum water at any time of the year. If what we offer is not dead religion, but vibrant faith in a living Lord, there will be people who want that. If they see that we are open, honest, transparent, sincere, AND that we are guided and empowered by a living Lord—if they see our relationship with Jesus making us loving, compassionate, generous, merciful, and creative—they are likely to want some of what they see. Our job is not to give them a second hand drink, but to lead them to the source, to Jesus himself.

Focusing on Worship Style Preferences Gets Us Off Track

One of the things I discovered in the listening sessions for our mission, vision, and plan statements—and in follow-up conversations later--is how many of us spend time thinking about whether various components in the worship service are our style or not, or whether certain components disturb or inhibit our style. We also spend time worrying about whether something that may not be objectionable in itself may lead to something later that would be objectionable.

As I have listened to these conversations, I have become aware of several things: (1) how very wide the style preferences in this one small congregation range, and (2) how little sympathetic understanding we have for preferences other than our own, readily placing on other preferences the worst possible associations and having no idea of what they actually mean to the people who hold them.

I am not picking on anyone in particular with this comment. I am picking on all of us at once. A person who prefers a liturgical worship service is not necessarily a spiritually dead formalist, but more likely is concerned about ungrounded manipulative fads that distract our focus from worshiping God. On the other hand, a person who prefers an expressive worship service is not necessarily wanting to see people running down the aisles shouting in tongues, but may simply be concerned that we make authentic, transparent responses to God’s presence among us.

If the person with liturgical preferences wanted something that was spiritually dead, there are lots of places they could go to find that. If the person with expressive preferences wanted something that had no checks against fanaticism, there are lots of places they could go to find that. I have visited both kinds of churches within fairly easy driving range.

Let’s assume that people who come here to worship want some combination of balance, sanity, and vitality that would not be available if we were either dead formalists or crazy charismatics. Let’s notice that what holds the liturgical and expressive preferences together is that both want something authentic, God-focused, and Christ-centered. Then, let’s trust one another and make allowances for one another as we go for it.

Three Things to Keep in Mind

As we move ahead, it seems to me that three things are very important to keep in mind.

(1) We are grounded in the Campbell-Stone Restoration Movement that locates authority in the Scriptures, and the Scriptures contain adequate correctives against most extremes; we are not going anywhere contrary to the Scriptures. Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone had very different style preferences, but they figured out how to work together because they let Scripture govern.

(2) We owe it to one another to seek to understand each other’s spiritual needs with some sympathy. Sometime next year, I would like for us to study together Richard Foster’s Streams of Living Water which describes six great traditions of Christian spirituality, each of which can bring enrichment to our Christian experience. We do not have to give up our own preferences in order to learn to value other preferences.

(3) Presently, we are having to stretch ourselves in one service to meet a variety of spiritual needs. As we move ahead with our plan, we hope to implement a second worship service perhaps as soon as next autumn. This will allow us to have distinctive worship styles in two services, one a little more expressive than our current service and the other a little more traditional. We will not have to stretch ourselves quite so far because we will have choices. But, apart from style, the basic beliefs and values of this church will be expressed in each service.

It's All About Jesus

That’s enough about worship style. The key is not whether the service is hot or cold, not whether it is traditional or spontaneous, but whether it is filled with Jesus, whether it makes direct connection with the Source. It is not about worship style at all; it is about Jesus.

Our job in worship is to connect to Jesus ourselves and to help others connect to Jesus. Jesus promises that wherever two or three of us gather in his name--that is, in accord with his purposes--he will be in our midst ministering to those who call on him.

He stands at the door knocking. He is ready to come in and fellowship with us and to minister through us to the needs of real people. He can be a refreshing cold drink or a warming hot drink. The one thing he will not abide is second-hand stagnancy. That makes him want to throw up—his words, not mine. Let’s avoid stagnancy and go for the real thing: the refreshing, loving, life-giving presence of our living Lord.

(P.S. As the service drew to a close, our Music Director, David Bell, did a couple of things that unmistakably and admittedly came from a Baptist heritage. I commented, "I spoke in my sermon of our liturgical sub-culture and our expressive subculture, but I failed to mention our largest subculture." I did not have to say more as we laughed together at ourselves.)