All Or Nothing | Seven Churches of Revelation| Week 7
Series: Seven Churches of Revelation | Week 7
Text: Revelation 3:14-22
A relationship with the Lord calls for total commitment.
Half-hearted religion nauseates the Lord; self-satisfied spirituality blinds us to our true poverty. Jesus counsels His people to seek refined gold, white garments, and healing sight from Him—and to respond urgently to His knock with real repentance. True fellowship with Christ requires total commitment, not lukewarm comfort, and it carries the staggering promise of sharing His throne. This is a summons to abandon polite complacency for wholehearted allegiance.
Here’s a thought: God is “all in” when He reaches out to us.
I had the opportunity to drive around Hollywood, California a number of years ago. I saw the big white letters with the city’s name boldly proclaimed from the hillside overlooking its residents. I did not see any streets paved with gold. I did not see the citizens of Hollywood skipping and dancing down the sidewalk with wide grins on their faces from the euphoria of living in paradise. Surely the Mecca of the entertainment industry would satisfy the human heart! If we watch “Entertainment Tonight” on television or read the stories of movie and television stars we learn that some of the most miserable people on earth are the celebrities that we look up to and emulate. Surely there is more to life than this!
The Island of Patmos is a beautiful Greek island to visit now, but 2,000 years ago it was very different. Hatred for followers of Jesus was growing. Eventually, the Apostle John was captured in a persecution campaign by the Roman Emperor Domitian. John was ultimately sentenced to Patmos (Revelation 1:9). Patmos was a small, rocky and barren area where many criminals of Rome were sent to serve out their prison terms in harsh conditions. There were mines on the island that the criminals were forced to work. John was sent to the island for the same reasons because the early Christians were considered a strange cult group who were known for causing trouble within the Empire (www.amazingbibletimeline.com/blog/john-exiled-to-patmos).
When all is stripped away, who or what captures our love and attention? Jesus calls out through John on the Island of Patmos in Revelation 3:14-22:
14 To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. 19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. 20 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. 21 To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame 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. NIV
God wants us to know:
He Hates Half-Heartedness (Revelation 3:14-17)
The most frustrating people to Jesus have always been the religious people. As I read the Gospels I see Him most angry not with the drunks, prostitutes or Roman leaders but with those who should have known better – those who knew the Word of God yet held back in their trust and devotion toward God.
Man-made religion is preoccupied with externals – behaviour and appearance. The Pharisees and Sadducees as described in the Four Gospels are prime examples of what can happen when we settle into half-heartedness and become satisfied with the preoccupation over looking good.
Have you played the game of Monopoly? I have played it since I was a boy and I have experienced the exhilaration of raking in the money and the pain of being wiped out. You can play it very conservatively and try not to lose or you can play it all out by buying just as much property as you possibly can.
Playing the game conservatively will more often than not mean that you are playing to lose.
Churches can be among the most conservative organizations in the world! Under the guise of protecting the unchangeable truths of God’s Word we can grow stagnant and half-hearted.
A church’s pastoral search committee concluded in their meeting, “In six years we’ve had six pastors who were really on fire. We’d like someone lukewarm for a while.”
Beware of growing comfortable and unchangeable! We might be avoiding or even resisting the work of the Holy Spirit among us.
Our confusing and strange double-mindedness sends a mixed message to the One for whom our soul longs. We invite Him close with one hand and hold him at bay with the other.
The Apostle Paul reflects on such a wrestling match in Romans 7:21-25a:
21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! NIV
There is a struggle within all of us that cannot be overcome by sheer will power. Many New Year’s resolutions are made with the best of intentions but most of these resolutions are broken and abandoned by the end of January. The struggle with half-heartedness leads us to one of two options: either we will try to bear down even harder to try to change ourselves or we will turn to the One who can change us. Victory is secured only through the One who has such power.
God is “all in” when He reaches out to us. Why do you suppose the Lord is so turned off by lukewarm half-heartedness? He is misrepresented when we claim to know Him but we are not really close to Him. He knows that people are looking for what He has to offer. Unfortunately, many have tried to portray Him as someone that He is not. As a result, the Lord is the most misunderstood person in the universe.
How have other people represented the Lord to you? How have you represented the Lord to other people?
God wants us to know:
He Hates Half-Heartedness
He Changes Open Hearts (Revelation 3:18-22)
An open heart is a sincere heart. Such sincerity is cultivated by being painfully honest with yourself. It is so easy to deceive ourselves into thinking that all is well and we are not really in need. Despite our whining and complaining, we Canadians enjoy some of the best standards of living in the world. Such prosperity is both a blessing and a curse. While the Lord intended our wealth to be invested in His work we have squandered it in selfish pursuits.
Jesus sees our deeds and He reminds the Laodicean church of this in His message to them. We are created to do good works but His concern goes much deeper than good works. Jesus is preoccupied with issues of the heart. The Lord is looking for hearts that are open and honest. We flippantly ask each other, “How are you doing?” and we instantly reply, “Fine.” How would you respond if the Lord asked you this question?
Here again is the word “repent”. The door to intimacy with Christ is marked “repent”. Drawing close to Him begins with recognizing how the Lord is so unlike us. The question is, “If He is so unlike us, how are we going to become like Him?” Through His loving discipline and refinement and our cooperation with Him the Lord has the opportunity to make us more like Him.
A man jumped up in the middle of the pastor’s message. "Preacher!" he shouted. "I have been a miserable, contemptible sinner for years, and never knew it before tonight!"
Before he could say any more, a deacon in the next pew announced, "Sit down, brother. The rest of us knew it all the time."
We often quote Revelation 3:20 as an evangelistic verse directed at non-Christians: “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.” Jesus did not direct this promise to non-Christians; He directed it to His people – the church in Laodicea.
Could He be saying this to you and me today? May our reply be Hebrews 10:19-22:
19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. NIV
Sincerity is acting or speaking without hypocrisy. One of the biggest turnoffs for people who do not participate in a church is the hypocrisy that they see among those who do. I have mixed feelings about this criticism: it is tragic that choices are made to avoid opportunities to develop a relationship with God because of our hypocrisy but I think the criticism has too often been a valid one. I know because of the hypocrisy I see in my own heart.
I completed a personality profile for a course I took and the professor explained that our scores were adjusted because of our tendency to lie to one another and to ourselves. We can go to great lengths to avoid taking honest looks at ourselves and how we are doing.
God begins to change us when we realize that He, not we, can do it.
I want to confess to you my own half-heartedness. I accept the responsibility for this and I want to turn up the spiritual thermostat in my circles of influence. I cannot expect this to happen unless the Lord first deals with me. I am asking Him to purify me, to rebuke and discipline me so I will be “hot” in my spiritual desire. I then hope this passion for God will rub off on those around me.
The Apostle John identified himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (in John 13:23 and several other places). I don’t think he was boasting about being the Lord’s favourite, but he said this to describe their close relationship. He would lean against Jesus when the disciples reclined for meals and he was one of the three closest to their Master. Jesus entrusted his mother, Mary, to John’s care as He was hanging on the cross (John 19:26-27). What a declaration of closeness and trust!
John was transformed by the love of Christ from a brash, ambitious, fiery-tempered fisherman into a gentle, humble man who became known as the apostle of love. This change did not come about by embracing a religion or philosophy, but by walking with a person. After Jesus gave His life so John (and the rest of us) could have eternal life, John lived out the rest of his days in devotion to his first love. The church in Laodicea was called to do the same.
We are called to do the same.
It is time to abandon distractions and fulfill the purpose for which we were created. I plan to pursue a closer relationship with God. Will you join me?
God wants us to know:
He Hates Half-Heartedness
He Changes Open Hearts
A relationship with the Lord calls for total commitment.