Dear Laodicea | Dear Church | Trinity Sermons

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of

Trinity Sermons. If you're sick and you want

to take your temperature, you can use a thermometer.

But how do you take your spiritual temperature?

That's what Rob is going to unpack for us in

today's sermon. Today we're continuing our sermon

series, Dear Church, where we look at the letters

that open the book of Revelation. And we're looking

at the letter to the church in Laodicea. And

Jesus says that this church is lukewarm, neither

hot nor cold. And this is a problem. So join

in as Rob dives into why this is a problem and

what is the cure. Our readings today are from

the book of Revelation, beginning in chapter

one, verses four to five, and chapter three,

verses 14 to 22. John, to the seven churches

in the province of Asia, grace and peace to you

from him who is and who was and who is to come

and from the seven spirits before his throne

and from Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness

the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of

the kings of the earth. 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 am about to spit you

out of my mouth. 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. 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. Those whom I love I rebuke and

discipline. So be earnest and repent. 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.

To the one who is victorious, I will give the

right to sit with me on my throne, 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. The word of

the Lord. Whenever you go to the doctor's office

one of the first things they're gonna do is they

will check your temperature and that is because

they know that Your temperature can be a measure

of things that are more serious that are going

on inside of you They've got temperatures that

they you know the thermometers else stick in

your ear They've got the ones they shine on your

forehead the ones that goes in your mouth, of

course there's thermometers that go other places

too. I always just hope that the nurse is reaching

for the right one when the time comes. But the

point is you stick it in your mouth, you press

the little button. the beep beep beep beep beep

and you can you look and you see and you're gonna

get one of three readings either your temperature

is too high you've got a fever uh -oh it's too

hot or your temperature is too low i haven't

seen that very much but you know hypothermia

i guess you're you're you're like it's too cold

or you get it just right beep beep beep yes that

that 98 .6 degrees fahrenheit or whatever it

is that lets you know you're in that normal normal

range well today we are learning that uh actually

You have a spiritual temperature as well. I mean,

did you know that? And churches as well have

a spiritual temperature. The story is going to

be taken today from this letter that Jesus writes

to a church in Laodicea. It's in chapter three

of the book of Revelation. Ali just read it for

us. And what we're going to discover there is

Jesus does like a little spiritual checkup on

that church. And guess what? He does not like

what he sees. The temperature comes back and

the results are not great. We are in the nearing

the end of this teaching series. We've been at

all fall now. Oh, it's beeping. It's beeping.

All fall now where we've been looking at these

ancient letters that were written. to churches

in Asia Minor like 2000 years ago. And although

these letters were penned by the apostle John,

they were really written by by Jesus himself.

And today we come to a letter that is written

to a church in the city of Laodicea, which is

kind of right in the middle of what would be

present day Turkey today. And in this letter,

Jesus sits them down, if you will, for a doctor's

appointment. And like a lot of doctors business,

we don't really want to do it. It's kind of uncomfortable,

but It's really, really necessary. And so all

I want to do today is let us step into that exam

room with this church and see what we can learn.

And I really do mean that. I want you not to

think of this as an intellectual exercise as

in, oh, what was Jesus saying about this church

2 ,000 years ago? I want us to say, what does

this mean for me? And is the spiritual condition

that Jesus is about to diagnose true of me? Is

it true of our church? would say that of all

the letters we've gone through so far this week

when I was preparing this message I think this

is one of the most challenging and probably one

of the ones that we need to hear the very most

given who we are and where we are in time so

let's go into the let's go into the to the office

let's go into the checkup and I've even given

you some notes to follow along the doctor will

see you now and let's see what we can learn let's

begin with the patient Okay, when this church

Laodicea, you know goes into the office and the

thermometer is stuck in the reading comes back

The reading comes back saying they are neither

hot nor cold and now normally we would say oh

that sounds pretty good, right? No fever. No

hypothermia whatever but Spiritually, this is

where you do not want to be. This is the danger

zone Spiritually speaking, a church that is neither

hot nor cold is a lukewarm church that is filled

with half -hearted Christians. So the church

isn't up here where they're like red -hot passion.

They're also not down here where they're paralyzed

and frigid. They are somewhere in that mushy

middle area. The Bible actually throughout the

Bible describes what you could say are three

different temperatures that someone could have

spiritually speaking. The first is someone could

be very spiritually hot. You might remember the

story where some of Jesus's disciples were walking

along the road to Emmaus and Jesus, the risen

Jesus appeared and walked with them for a while

and he spoke with them and he opened the scriptures

to them and afterwards they said oh my gosh we're

not our hearts burning within us when he walked

with us and talked with us and opened the scriptures

to us that is a hot hot spirituality okay their

hearts were burning on the other hand Jesus said

that there will come a day and there may come

days when the love God the love of most will

grow cold a cold heart is a calloused heart It's

an unresponsive heart. It's a heart that says

I I don't care about God I don't care much really

about anything. I don't need God now thankfully

even a cold heart Jesus can thought out the coldest

heart. He does it all the time some of you know

that very well, but This is the danger zone.

The lukewarm heart. That is way, way harder.

Jesus says, I wish you were one or the other.

I wish you were either cold. I can deal with

that. Or, of course, I wish you were hot. But

this church, as Megan said, they were half in

and they were half out, right? They were still

singing all the songs, but the passion was gone.

They were still sitting there in the pews, but

the fire... had gone out. It's kind of like coffee.

I love really, really hot coffee. If you want

the hottest coffee in town, go down to Camaria

just down the street. They serve wicked hot coffee.

And I love iced coffee, cold, cold iced coffee.

The worst kind of coffee is like room temperature

coffee. Coffee that you like find in the microwave

that you're like, oh shoot I put that in there

three hours ago That is the worst kind of coffee.

It is not good spiritually speaking Jesus wants

us to be hot Now he doesn't say to Laodicea Laodicea.

I want you to be hot. No, he uses a different

word. He says I want you to be earnest now earnest

doesn't sound like a very hot word but actually

it really really is because the greek word for

earnestness is zealous right i want you to be

zealous and that's where we got our word jealous

as well what does it mean to be jealous to be

jealous means you have set your love so intensely

on on someone that you like overflow in energy

and you kind of explode toward that person when

we're like loving ourselves then jealousy is

a very toxic thing but but when we set our love

on God then jealousy and zeal means we will do

whatever we can whatever we're able to do to

to lift up his name and to praise him for who

he is and when people first meet Jesus so often,

that is exactly how they are. They are on fire,

they can't get enough of him. They talk about

him to whoever will listen, right? They carry

their Bibles with them wherever they go. They

may even pray before meals, in restaurants, when

people can see. They raise their hands in church

when they're singing songs, and that might make

you a little uncomfortable. But come on, guys.

Tonight, tonight the Roger Centre is going to

be filled with Blue Jay fanatics. All of Canada

has set their heart on this team. They're going

to jump, and they're going to scream, and they're

going to paint their faces blue, and they will

not care what anyone thinks. They're not worried

about being called a fanatic, but you bring that

kind of attitude into a church? They'll call

it a cult Now I am NOT suggesting that you come

to church like this, but God does want us to

be wholly devoted and single -hearted and joyfully

jealous of Him and maybe if you're honest you

say you know that once that did describe me once

But I don't really know what happened. I kind

of just cooled off. I'm not cold, but I've just

come to this place of kind of lukewarmness. It

is a serious condition. Very serious. And I'm

not joking around. Jesus isn't joking around.

Jesus doesn't just say, oh, I'm really angry

with you because you're lukewarm. No, he says,

you make me sick. He says, you make me nauseous.

I want to throw up when I think about you. I

want to... Curl right I am about to spit you

out of my mouth now gosh Why is he reacting so

strongly to a little lukewarmness? It's because

he knows the underlying pathology. He knows what's

going on beneath the temperature reading, right?

If you go to a doctor, they'll take your temperature,

but that just tells them something's wrong. Then

the doctor is going to go underneath and see

what the real disease is, what is causing it.

And yeah, Laodicea, beep, beep, beep, you've

got a temperature. But Jesus says, let me tell

you what the real problem is. You say, I'm rich,

I've acquired wealth, and I don't need a thing.

That, in a nutshell, is the problem with Laodicea.

That's the condition. What we have here is an

advanced case of affluence and chronic self -sufficiency.

Laodicea prided itself on three things. First,

their wealth. Laodicea was loaded. It was a very

wealthy banking city. It was so wealthy that

actually in the year AD 60, an earthquake flattened

the place. And Rome offered financial support,

disaster relief, to help them rebuild. And they

said, no, no, no, no, we got it. We got it. Thanks,

but no thanks. We can look after this ourselves.

They were rolling in it in Laodicea. Second,

Laodicea was very famous for fashion. A lot of

clothes and textiles were made in Laodicea with

this beautiful, really beautiful black wool.

I guess there were a lot of black sheep around

there. It was this beautiful like silky wool

that people really desired. They were really

well dressed. They were good looking people.

And thirdly, Laodicea was also a medical center.

One of the main products they exported around

the world was called Phrygian powder. And it

was a medicine used to heal all sorts of eye

ailments. You got this little pill, you crushed

it up, you put it in the water, you put it on

your eyes, and all around the world they shipped

this stuff, phrygian powder. But here is the

problem. When you've got everything, you don't

need God very much. They were so wealthy and

healthy. And we don't want to hear this, and

I don't want to hear this. I didn't want to hear

this this week, but I think Jesus is making a

direct link between being accomplished and smart

and successful and wealthy and being lukewarm

in your faith. You still believe in God, yeah.

You still come to church, but the heat is not

there. You see that song that we just sang, Rachel

sang this beautiful song, right? Did you hear

that line? You're never gonna let, you're never

gonna let me down, right? Now, if you don't have

much, when you sing those words, they mean something.

You're never gonna let me down, God. But they

sound a lot different, and we sing them a lot

differently when we're rich and when we're comfortable.

and when we're successful, because even if God

did let us down, we'd be all right. It's a good

song. Nothing against the song, but you can sing

it. You can sing any song in a lukewarm way,

especially when you're so self -sufficient. So

that is why I think this letter is so important

to us. We're living in Laodicea, North America.

The GTA for sure right and I'm not saying that

every single person here is rolling in at Lake

Laodicea But we've got enough health care to

make life comfortable. We've got RSPs to Keep

us secure. We've got enough clothes. We usually

look pretty good We've got enough Netflix to

keep us distracted Jesus is saying those comforts

are a curse when they cool down your spiritual

temperature, making you, spiritually speaking,

poor and blind and naked. These were rich people,

specialized in eye ointments and were well clothed.

You're poor, you're blind, and you're naked.

In 2019, a pastor and author by the name of Francis

Chan, maybe some of you have heard of him, I

know our youth group is using one of his resources

on Friday nights. He gave an interview and the

interview was titled, Why I Quit My Megachurch

and Started Again. He had built one of the largest

churches in California. He's a speaker, he's

an author, he's a pastor, but he began to feel

uneasy because it started out red hot. But then

it became lukewarm and he says at some point

it felt like they were just playing church And

so we left he decided to get away and he went

to Asia Where he met with persecuted Christians?

underground Christians who who risked imprisonment

For their faith in Jesus and they were red -hot

Spiritually speaking and in the interview he

says this he says one of the worst things that

can happen is for life to be easy and comfortable,

to where you don't give a thought for things

that really matter. And I believe it's Satan's

plan to keep us focused on the things of this

world and the things that you can see, whereas

scripture tells us to focus on the things that

are unseen. And I believe that if Christians

from other parts of the world were to come and

visit the North American church, I dare say maybe

even visit our church, they would be struck by

our lukewarmness. They would say, why don't you

guys pray more? Or why do you spend so much of

what you make on yourselves? Or why are you so

afraid to talk about Jesus outside of this place?

That's Laodicea. Friends, that's me. Maybe that's

you too. Our faith gets easy. Our faith gets

sleepy. So what do we do about that? Well, what

is Jesus, the great physician Jesus, going to

prescribe for this condition of self -sufficiency?

Well, that's where we're going to go next to

the prescription. And this is what Jesus says.

He looks at their condition. He actually goes

to the medicine cabinet and says, I have just

the thing. I have just the thing to cure you,

but you're going to have to get that cure from

me. You can't do this. You're going to have to

take it from me. And he says, I counsel you.

Now, notice everything he says has got to come

from him. I counsel you to buy from me gold,

white clothes from me to wear, and buy from me

a salve to put on your eyes. You cannot heal

yourself. It's not like the earthquake. You're

not going to be able to rebuild. You're not going

to be able to sort this out on your own. You

can't. even go to a pharmacy and buy this kind

of cure. You have to come to the end of your

own self -sufficiency and you've got to come

to me. That is what we call grace. This whole

prescription is about receiving and not achieving.

Man, we always want to achieve it. We always

want to earn and own the good things that happen

in our life and even the... Our own transformation,

we want to say that was me, that one's on me,

but receiving God's grace, not achieving worldly

success, is what Jesus is on about. He says,

doesn't say, Laodicea, pull yourselves together,

you can do it. He says, no, come to me. I am

the only one who can give you what you lack.

The first prescription, first prescription, is

buy from me gold, refined in the fire. I mean,

gosh, Laodicea's banks were full, but Jesus says,

Want you to invest in me many of us we've diversified

our investments followed good financial advice

throughout all our lives But Jesus has invest

in me Because every other currency a success

or comfort or applause or whatever it is. It

will eventually collapse Especially if it's crypto

But it's not just gold. It's gold refined in

a fire now throughout the Bible whenever it speaks

about being refined in a fire I hate to tell

you this but it usually means suffering right

glowing hot faith is often born out of trial

and Testing, you know, Tim Keller once said that

people who live incredibly charmed lives are

almost all lukewarm. Those are his words That's

Tough, but if that's true Then to get out of

lukewarmness into a real transformed life. You're

probably gonna have to go through some tough

times With Jesus walking along your side red

-hot spirituality is purified and suffering Those

are hard words Second prescription Jesus says

is buy from me white clothes to wear so that

you can cover your shameful nakedness Now remember

Leo to see how famous for its black textiles

black clothing Jesus says all those clothes they

may cover your body, but spiritually you're naked

and You need my clothes to cover you now if you

read a little further in the book of Revelation

You will see that these white garments represent

righteousness and represent a good life good

standing before God we we spend so much of our

time focusing on our outward image and appearance

and resume and reputation but the only outfit

that matters the only outfit of any significance

is the one that Jesus gives us Jesus I don't

care how good you look you need my clothes a

righteous life only comes from me, let me be

your garment, Jesus says. I don't know about

you, but I have a pretty hard time keeping my

clothes white, keeping my life holy, being righteous.

So Jesus says, that's okay, put my life on, my

righteousness. Let me cover your shame and your

guilt and your sin. The third prescription Jesus

offers is his own eyes salve to help them see.

you know Leo to see his medical products could

help everyone else's see but but they left the

church blind to what really mattered and I mean

we all are wearing some kind of cultural glasses

or cultural lenses through which we see oh this

is what success looks like or this is what prosperity

looks like or this is what you know the good

life looks like but Jesus offers eye medicine

That truly restores our vision, enabling us to

see what real riches are, and what real success

is, and where real healing comes from. Guys,

every one of these prescriptions that Jesus is

offering comes from him. Jesus says, come to

me. I'll give you what money can't buy, what

your success can't secure. But of course, every

good prescription only works if you trust the

physician. And if you let him do his work and

that's exactly where Jesus goes next He says

behold I stand at the door and knock it's so

weird Jesus has just delivered the hardest diagnosis

you make me sick and Yet here he is knocking

on the door saying let me in it's like on the

one hand you make me sick But then he says I

love you. I love you. That is the gospel people

The great physician, Jesus. He doesn't reject

his lukewarm church. He pursues it. He doesn't

abandon you or me, the patient. He makes a house

call. You don't want to come to my clinic? Fine.

I will come to you. And the scariest part about

this is, I think that, remember, this is written

to a church, right? And Jesus is on the outside

of the church. Right the person who should be

at the center of what is going on there is standing

on the doorstep that can happen To a church it

can happen to any church It can happen to our

church whenever we become too self -sufficient

and too confident in our own abilities if we

you know, we can sing all the songs and we can

read all the words and Forget his presence in

our midst Jesus the great physician is waiting

to be invited in and it's not just about a church

It's about YouTube if any one he says Here's

my voice. Are you one of those self -sufficient

people? Are you one of those people Jesus is

speaking to? If so, the cure is to open the door

and let Jesus back into your life and not just

for a quick house call. When it says, you know,

I want to come in, Jesus says, I want to come

into your house. I want to sit down and I want

to eat with you. In ancient times, all of those

things, sharing a meal, sharing your house were

very intimate things that you only did out of

out of a deep and ongoing friendship. So when

you let Jesus back into your life and into your

decisions and into your relationships and into

your schooling and into your work, then and then

only will your spiritual temperature begin to

rise again. And so then finally we come to the

prognosis. What is the prognosis? Is there any

hope for the patient? What is the prognosis for

those who willingly open the door to Jesus? Jesus

says, oh gosh, there's amazing prognosis to the

one who is victorious. I will give the right

to sit with me on my throne just as I was victorious

and I sat down on my father's throne. No doctor

in history has ever told a patient you're dying.

But when I'm done. You'll rule the world with

me. No doctor, no patient has ever gone from

being in the sick bed to being on the throne.

But only Jesus makes that kind of promise. Now

obviously, we would say, obviously, yeah, Jesus

reigns. Jesus died and he rose again on the third

day and he ascended into heaven. So obviously,

yes, every crown, every authority, every throne

belongs to Jesus. He deserves to sit there, but

here's the miracle. You know what he says to

this lukewarm church? You know what he says to

this half -hearted, self -satisfied church? He

looks at you and he looks at me and he says,

you know what though, if you open the door to

me, I will open heaven to you and you will reign

with me. That is one heck of a prognosis. The

prognosis is this, total recovery for the patient

and eternal reign with the Son of God. And you

didn't earn any of it. The only reason we can

wear white clothes is because he was stripped

naked on the cross And the only reason that we

can be rich is because he was made poor right

the only reason the patient lives is because

The physician died that is the gospel and Jesus

wrote that prescription in his own blood Our

love For him might be lukewarm, but obviously

his love for us is not he is jealous for you

He loves you. He's willing to die for you. He

has given himself so utterly to us So then how

can we not give ourselves? Completely back to

him. How can we be half -hearted? How can we

be lukewarm? So again, I'll end where I began.

What's your temperature this morning? What does

the thermometer say? Not the one in your mouth,

but the one in your heart. Are you hot? Are you

burning with love for Jesus? Are you cold? Are

you like distant and hard -hearted? Or are you

lukewarm? Just comfortable, you know, and a bit

distracted these days. The good news is... Whatever

your temperature, the great physician is here.

Even now he's here knocking at your door, calling

you and still offering that cure that all of

us need. So open the door and let him in. Thanks

be to God. Thanks for listening to this week's

episode of Trinity Sermons. This sermon was recorded

at Trinity Church Streetsville in Mississauga,

Ontario on October 19th, 2025.