Dear Church Week 7: The Laodicean Lesson: From Spiritual Stagnation to Purposeful Living | Revelation 3:14-21

Hi, it's Pastor Jonathan and thanks for downloading the FBC Elderado Sermon Podcast.

We hope today's message will challenge and help you take the next step as you follow Jesus.

They say that confession is good for the soul.

So here we go.

Confession I haven't been to the gym in four months and I know that's really hard to believe considering my physique.

Even though I haven't been in four months, I still pay for a gym membership every single month.

Confession In 2020, I started running on like a regular schedule and I ran pretty regularly for about two years, but I haven't run on a set schedule in over a year, but I still found reason this summer to go buy a brand new pair of running shoes.

One more confession.

So when I was a teenager, I didn't have a gym membership and I didn't even consider going out for a run.

But my mom and dad did have a treadmill in our house.

They kept it in their bedroom.

I never used that treadmill.

In fact, I don't think anyone in my house ever used the treadmill that we had.

Instead, we just put our laundry basket on the track and then we hunk all of our laundry on its frame like draped it over as an extra place to dry things, an inactive gym membership and running shoes that rarely, if ever, leave the closet, and a treadmill that never gets powered on.

One word describes each of those things.

Here's the word Useless.

Useless, so the things in your life that are no longer fulfilling their intended purpose.

Maybe it's the appliance that's sitting on your kitchen counter.

It's broken, it's never going to be fixed, but you've left it there for like six months just to look at it over and over.

We actually have that appliance in our house right now.

That's our toaster.

Or the storm passes through and your lights go out and you reach into your bedside table drawer and you pull out your flashlight and you power it on, but no light comes on right, because a flashlight without batteries useless.

It's the toys that your children haven't played with in over a year.

It's the knife that's in the drawer that can't even cut a piece of bread.

It's so dull.

It's that iPhone, or, let's be honest, the stack of iPhones you have in that bin and none of them turn on, but you found a reason to keep each and every one of them.

Or it's that stack of newspapers that are months, if not years, old that just sit on your coffee table.

All of those things are useless, they no longer fulfill their intended purpose.

Maybe you can see some of the things that fill your closets that are useless, or fill your cupboards or fill your calendars, and you think to yourself it's Labor Day weekend, I don't have to go to work tomorrow.

I can clean out, I can clean up, I can clear it all out.

I can get rid of all these useless things and, in my estimation, with just a little effort, we can kind of look around our lives and it's easy to see what is useless.

But it's more difficult if, when our eyes scan our lives, we find ourselves looking at ourselves.

Yeah, it's much harder to admit if we have that feeling of being useless in our own life.

I didn't say you're worthless, listen.

No, you're not worthless.

Each and every one of us was created in the image of God.

You are of infinite worth.

Jesus died for you.

Worthless and useless are not synonymous terms.

Worthless says that something has no value.

You have value.

Each of us has value.

Every person who's ever lived on this planet has value.

God knit them together in their mother's womb, but that's not to say You've never experienced a season or maybe you're in the midst of a season when it certainly feels like your life is useless.

It's a season, maybe, when you're at work and you just shake your head and you can only have this single thought of does any of this even matter?

Like why am I even here in the first place?

Maybe you can identify with these words from the prophet Isaiah, isaiah 49.

He says but my work seems so useless, I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose.

Or maybe you're raising your kids in your home and well, you're just exhausted, you're drained, you're tired, and every day you just think I'm getting all of this wrong.

Like why am I even trying at this moment in time?

Or it's just a season in life where you are keenly aware of the fact that you are created for more than this.

You are created for more than the life that you're currently choosing to live.

We all have thoughts like that at one time or another, and when we have those thoughts, the reason they come into our mind is because at that moment we know we are not living for our intended purpose in the world.

But do we even know what that intended purpose is?

Do we even know where we can begin to find it?

Let me remind you of what Paul says in Ephesians, chapter one.

This is the paraphrase called the message.

Ephesians one, verse 11 says this it's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for.

I love that statement.

It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for.

You see, in Christ what was once useless becomes useful, because in Christ we find our intended purpose.

You find out who you are.

You find out what you're living for in the world.

I can't help but think of those words that Jesus said.

I can't help but think of those words that Jesus taught in Matthew, chapter five.

In that moment, in Matthew five, as part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says to his followers that their intended purpose in the world is to be what Be the salt of the earth.

That's one of the things he says You're to be the salt of the earth.

And, just like in the ancient world, they depended upon salt.

They depended upon it because it would preserve food.

They didn't have refrigeration and they depended upon salt because of its healing properties, that it could cleanse a wound.

So to the world depends on the disciples of Jesus, they depend upon the church, because, well, we preserve and we promote peace in the world.

As people who have the Holy Spirit living within us, we preserve and we promote wholeness and flourishing in health in our community.

And as Jesus' church, we have a message that offers the cleansing of sin, the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

And it's when we begin to connect this true, intended purpose that Christ has for his disciples and has for his church, when we connect that purpose to our homes, to our careers, to our relationships, that's when our life begins to finally feel useful.

Because in that moment we're living for something that is bigger than my own wishes, my own dreams, my own desires and my own satisfaction in the world.

In that moment I am beginning to do what I am beginning to live for Jesus, and that's when what's useless becomes useful.

No longer do you wonder why am I even here, why am I even doing this?

You understand with great clarity why you're here and why you're doing what you're doing, why you are living the life that you currently live, and it's all because of Jesus.

We found out who we are and why we are, what we are for and what we are to do in him.

But back to Matthew 5, because Jesus also reminds us in Matthew 5 that life happens to all of us, right.

And if we aren't careful, if we don't pay attention, we lose our saltiness, we forget, we drift away, we ignore the purpose we had previously found in Jesus.

We had previously found in Jesus Useless, useless.

All of these are useless.

That's what we realize when we drift from our intended purpose.

And maybe that's where you are today.

Are you tired of giving your strength to something that doesn't seem to matter in the grand scheme of things?

You're not sure why you do what you do and how it relates to what God's doing in the world.

Do you desire to give your energies to something better, someone that is truly fulfilling?

I mean, let's just cut to it.

Do you desire to live for Jesus?

Are you just content to live for yourself?

This morning?

I want you to understand that if you are living for yourself, that you want to live for Jesus, that change is possible.

I want you to understand that if you're living for yourself and you want to keep living for yourself, I want you to understand, like, how Jesus feels about that.

I want you to understand that change is possible, that you can go from this feeling of useless to useful and for the change to occur.

This morning, what we're going to do is we're going to listen carefully to one more letter from Jesus.

So today we're wrapping up the series we've been in for the six previous weeks, series called Dear Church.

We've read these seven letters to the churches of Asia Minor that Jesus himself wrote through a man named John, and today we're going to read Jesus' seventh and final letter, the letter to the church at Laodicea.

The church at Laodicea.

You'll quickly see as we read this letter.

They had lost their saltiness, they were no longer fulfilling their intended purpose and they had become useless To this church.

Jesus writes a letter that can only be described as tough love.

If Jesus's note to the church at Laodicea were a song, its melody would be something of correction and discipline, but then it would conclude with this great crescendo of grace, and you can summarize Jesus' message to the church at Laodicea with this statement.

This is what Jesus tells this church in one single statement.

He says this I am going to throw up, but I won't give up.

So whoever has ears and wants to talk about, throw up this morning and listen.

Listen to the letter to the church at Laodicea, because it's not just about something gross like throw up.

It's also about the fact that Jesus doesn't give up on us, doesn't give up on his church, and he's ready to offer and share his grace and forgiveness with all of us.

Revelation 3, starting with verse 14, says 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.

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.

I wish you were either one or the other.

So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth.

You say I am rich, I've acquired wealth and do not need a thing, but you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

I bet your mama taught you, like my mama taught me, that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Apparently, mary didn't teach that same lesson to Jesus, because in the letter to the church at Laodicea, jesus doesn't have anything good to say.

He just kind of cuts straight to the point of why he is sending the letter in the first place.

It's a serious situation in Laodicea.

Jesus kind of evaluates the church and he says that I see that your deeds are lacking.

He says they are neither hot nor cold, they are instead lukewarm.

And to understand Jesus' assessment of that situation, you need to understand a little bit about the geography and the background of the city of Laodicea.

Laodicea is this major city in the Lycus River Valley.

It's the central city in this area, this region, and it's known for being a center for banking.

It's known for its medical school.

It's known for the manufacturing, the textile industry that goes on in that city.

So lots of things, lots of great things, happen in this city.

But this city has one big problem they don't have easy access to drinking water.

They don't have their own most reliable source of drinking water close to the city.

Instead, they have to pipe in their drinking water from five miles south of the city, and so by the time it gets to the city it's lukewarm.

Now that stands in sharp contrast to a city named Heropilus that is just a few miles away.

Heropilus is known for its hot springs, these steaming pools of water that were believed to offer healing, and it also stands in contrast the lukewarm water of Laodicea does to the waters of another city that's just close by, the city of Colisei.

Colisei is known for its refreshing cold water that everyone wanted to drink.

So the hot waters of Heropilus and the cold water of Colosse each had an intended purpose, a very specific intended purpose.

One offered healing and the other offered refreshment.

But lukewarm water in the ancient world had absolutely zero purpose.

People didn't want it.

One historian named Herodotus tells us that people, when they would see a hot spring, they would immediately go and collect that hot water because they thought it would heal them, they would cleanse them.

But if that hot water came out of the hot spring and it didn't get collected and it just sat in a pool and then that hot water became lukewarm water, they would just leave it right where it was.

Another historian, xenophon, tells us that well, lukewarm water has no real purpose.

But if you have to use something with it, you can just give it to your slaves.

In the ancient world lukewarm water wasn't desirable.

It could neither heal nor could it refresh.

In their minds, lukewarm water was useless.

It had no intended purpose that it could fulfill.

So, jesus, he taste the lukewarm water of Laodicea and it makes them lose his lunch.

So most translations use the word spit.

That's like the mixed company translation of the Greek verb.

A more accurate and, let's be honest, graphic translation but it's still more accurate is vomit, throw up, hurl, ralph, you pick whatever your junior high boy likes to say when this occurs.

And think about that.

Jesus tastes the lukewarm water of Laodicea.

He says you're not fulfilling your intended purpose and that makes him want to throw up.

Think about his life.

So Jesus would go touch lepers and he never gagged.

He raised Lazarus from the dead and, you know, smelt him before he saw him.

And a bleeding woman one day came up and touched the hem of his robe.

He didn't get the least bit queasy.

But one thing makes Jesus lose his lunch the sight and the smell of a lukewarm disciple, the sight and the smell and the taste of a lukewarm church, and to that church and to that disciple that is no longer living for Jesus.

Jesus tastes it and he says I'm going to throw up, I'm going to throw up.

So one day I was in the lunchroom.

First grade bought my lunch.

This day I don't remember what they serve for lunch, except for one thing On that day they serve green English peas.

You know the smelly ones, the mushy ones, the slimy ones.

My parents had never served English peas, nor my grandparents cook like that, so I thought I'd give them a try.

I ate the entire serving.

I don't know what I was thinking.

It did not go well and I can still remember the thought in my mind of I'm going to and I'll just save you the rest, like I'll save you the details, because that's what happened.

And to this day, whenever I smell cafeteria style English peas, I gag.

In fact, earlier this week I was written this part of my sermon and thought through it and I started thinking about English peas as I was driving my car.

I started thinking about them and I could begin to smell them in the car and I began to choke and gag.

In that moment, jesus has the same strong, visceral, gut level reaction to a useless church, to a Christian who is no longer fulfilling his or her intended purpose.

And what makes Jesus' stomach really churn is the sight and sound of smug, self-sufficient Christians.

You say I am rich and do not need a thing.

Self-sufficiency, paul Tripp says Self-sufficiency tells me I have everything within myself to be what I'm supposed to be and to do what I am supposed to do.

You may think of yourself as self-sufficient.

It's actually a piece of the American dream right, I got this.

Jesus, don't worry about me.

Jesus, get out of my way, jesus, I don't need you.

Jesus.

Jesus, he looks at people who thinks that they're self-sufficient.

He says you're completely delusional.

He uses quite a laundry list of adjectives.

He says that you are wretched, pitiful and naked.

Those words are referring to the sin in their life.

He's like just look at the condition of your soul and do you not realize that you need a Savior?

Yeah, that means you're not self-sufficient.

He says are you not poor?

Yeah, you have money to buy groceries, but can that money, by the rain that comes from heaven, the rain that waters the ground, can that money provide the soil on the ground?

Can it create the oxygen that's in your lungs?

Can that money truly ever satisfy you?

The answer is no, no, no, it can't.

You're not self-sufficient.

Are you not blind?

Jesus asked Blindness was this symbol and image in the Bible of someone who lacks wisdom and discernment.

And Jesus' point is this yes, you have physical sight.

Yes, you can know when to cross the street.

Yes, you know where to find your home, but you can't make wise choices in the world.

You cannot discern right from wrong.

You are not self-sufficient.

You see, according to Jesus, a life of smug self-sufficiency that is a useless life.

It's a life that makes him want to throw up.

All because self-sufficiency says I am living for me and when you're living for yourself, you're not living for Jesus.

And eventually, one day you will think to yourself useless, useless.

All of this is useless.

But there's hope.

All because Jesus won't give up.

He won't give up.

Back to Revelation 3, verse 18.

Revelation 3:18

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 solve to put on your eyes, so you can see those whom I love.

I rebuke and discipline.

So be earnest and repent.

If you have found yourself living this life for yourself, you don't have to beat yourself up, you don't have to hang your head in shame.

You just have to hear the message of Jesus that he doesn't give up on us, he doesn't give up on his church.

There is hope for us.

So he offers us gold refined in fire, gold refined in fire.

So remember what I said about Laodicea.

It was a city known as a financial center.

That meant that their kind of financial institutions were loaded to the gills with gold.

Jesus says I've got a better, more pure gold to offer you.

In scripture that better, more pure gold it's a metaphor for forgiveness of sin.

Isaiah, chapter one, verse 25.

I will melt you down and skim off your slag.

I will remove all your impurities.

With that offer, jesus reminds us he still forgives smug, self-sufficient, self-righteous Christians.

Jesus says I've got some new clothes I want you to wear too.

So earlier I mentioned Laodicea is known for manufacturing, manufacturing of textiles.

Specifically, they were known for using black wool to make garments.

It's really interesting, then, that Jesus says I need you to make a wardrobe change out of the black wool garments into a white robe, white symbolizing purity.

Only moments earlier they made Jesus throw up, and now he is offering them grace and mercy that purifies them from sin, cause he won't give up on them.

He says I've got cream for your eyes.

This medical school in the city of Laodicea was especially known for the care they offered people's eyes.

There's this called Phrygian cream that they offered from a stone.

But Jesus says this I'm gonna open not the eyes on your face but the eyes of your heart, so you can see both your true state but also who I truly am, that you are a sinner in need of the grace that only I can offer, the forgiveness that only I can offer.

Yeah, jesus says.

You made me wanna throw up, and I did throw up.

I couldn't keep it down, but I'm not gonna give up on you.

And sometimes I think, when it comes to Jesus, guys, we just think that eventually we're gonna disappoint him enough and make him mad enough that he's just never gonna talk to us again, he's never gonna care about us again, he's never gonna hear our prayers again.

That's not who Jesus is.

He doesn't give up on his church, he doesn't give up on his children and he still wants to call you a friend.

He still wants to sit around a table with you.

Verse 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 that person and they with me.

In the ancient world, when you sat around a table with someone, it was a sign of intimate fellowship, of relationship.

Jesus stands at the door and it's he's just wanting to have a relationship with you.

And notice, jesus knocks at the door, but he doesn't break down the door.

He's just standing at the door waiting.

He wants you to open the door.

He wants you to invite him in.

He wants you to say here's the seat I have for you at my table.

Would you come and eat with me, child of God?

Jesus wants an intimate relationship with you.

He wants you to find your purpose in life in him.

But he's not gonna force it on you.

You have to answer the door, you have to open it and you have to welcome Jesus into every square inch of your life.

It's my guess that many times in our lives it feels a little useless, like we're caught up in this.

I don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing moment.

I don't know why I'm here Because we've told Jesus he needs to stay in just one room of our life.

Or if you've ever had young kids and you take them to a family member's house over the holidays and you try to tell that young two-year-old or three-year-old they have to stay in one room of the house.

It's like this, like you're just guarding, you're just sliding around, like stay in here, you can't go to the bathroom, you can't go to the bedrooms, you can't go outside, you have to stay in this little room in this little chair.

I think that's how some of us view Jesus like he's trying to get out and we're just like sliding around, keeping him from going anywhere else in our life except the room called religion.

And so, jesus, I'm gonna come see you when things go bad.

Jesus, I'll talk to you in the morning, when I wake up and maybe when I go to bed at night.

Jesus, I'll talk to you when someone in my family gets sick, or when I have a decision I need to make, or my kids are giving me just who knows what and I can't, don't know what to do with them.

I'll come see you then.

Just stay, though, in the room of religion.

You're like Jesus, I can handle it.

And to that person, jesus very politely just taps you on the shoulder and says can you show me to the bathroom?

I Gotta throw up.

Jesus won't ever be content to rule one area of your life.

He's the ruler of all of God's creation.

He'll only be content if he has access to every square inch of your life.

He'll only be content if you repent, and repentance really is the key that moves us from useless to useful, from lacking purpose to finding purpose.

Little word repentance Can first mean like a change of mind, and that change of mind begins with what.

Stop thinking.

It's your life to live and realize you are living for Jesus.

Your life is his.

It continues to a change of your heart.

It means that your dreams and your wishes and your desires are secondary To the wishes, dreams and desires of Jesus, and it leads to a change in direction of your life or, literally, you just start living a completely different life.

Your life looks different and if you repent Well, you offered Jesus a seat at your table he does something even greater.

You offered Jesus a seat at the table and he says I'm gonna offer you a seat on my throne.

That's what Jesus does, verse 21.

To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne.

I don't know how big the throne is, but it's big enough for at least a couple of people, millions of people.

It's huge, just as I was victorious and sat down with my father on his throne.

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

We share a seat on Christ's throne and it's just a reminder that we share in the victory of Jesus Christ, and that's ultimately why Jesus doesn't give up on us.

Jesus wants to spend a turn.

He wants to spend eternity with you and that's why he keeps coming after you.

That's why, no matter how many times you make him throw up, no matter how many times you serve him a lukewarm glass of water, no matter how many times and how often, how many seasons, you just begin to live for yourself and forget who he is and what he's done for you.

He keeps coming back Because he won't give up on you.

He wants to spend eternity with you.

Amazon's this wonderful thing where you can find all sorts of items.

A lot of useless items are actually on Amazon, if we can think.

Go to the next slide.

That is a bottle of perfume.

You may not be able to see, but the scent at the top is the scent called dirt.

Interesting, if you asked me, go to the next slide.

Everyone needs an extra pillow on their couch, and this pillow features the face of Nicholas Cage.

That's terrifying.

And then, finally, for the person who has it all hander pants, fingerless gloves that look like a pair of underwear for your hands Useless, useless, useless, useless.

I, in fact, I'm not sure how any of those things could ever be useful.

And that might be how you think of your own life.

It's useless, it lacks purpose and that's never, ever going to change.

But it can change.

We all can find purpose in Jesus Christ.

We find purpose when we live for Jesus, when we find out who we are and what we are to do in Him.

Child of God, jesus' letter to the church at Laodicea is a reminder and a call to us to repent, to repent of all of the ways that we try to live for ourselves so that we can live for Him.

Wanderer, skeptic, seeker, you also can live for Jesus and find your purpose in Him by first putting your faith in Him, trusting that Jesus is the Savior of the world, that he died for our sins on a cross.

He bore the punishment of our sins to pay that debt, so that we didn't have to be separated from God.

But Jesus isn't dead today, because on the third day he rose again.

He has forgiven our sins and now he offers us, through His resurrection, the hope of eternal life.

That's who Jesus is.

And if you've never responded to the gospel, he hasn't given up on you.

He still wants you to hear, he still wants you to put your faith in Him.

He still wants you to know the peace and purpose and joy and hope that is only found in Him.

Let's stand together and pray.

If you would bow your head and close your eyes this morning.

And, jesus, I pray to you now and we repent of all the moments in life, all the choices we make and the dreams and desires we have, lord, that don't align with yours, when we think we're living for ourselves and then, at the end of it, we're like none of this even mattered.

Why am I even doing this, jesus?

Bring us to the end of ourselves so that we can live for you, that we would follow you and honor you with our life.

I pray for anyone in this room who hasn't yet put their faith in you, king Jesus, holy Spirit, that you would draw them to Jesus.

You would reveal to them their need of Jesus.

Remind them that Jesus hasn't given up on them, that His grace is for them, that His mercy and forgiveness is for them, and they can receive that today by putting their faith in Him.

We pray these things in your name, jesus, amen.