Life's Greatest Need

Together in the first century.

All of them have a great need for Christ.

And all of them have a great Christ for their need.

It doesn't matter the need that you have in your life today.

We all have a need.

We're all broken people, broken in different ways.

It's not the need that really matters.

It's to whom we turn that dictates our life.

And the passage this morning is going to instruct us to turn to Christ.

Revelation chapter 3 and verse 14.

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

Unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.

I would that thou wert cold nor hot.

But then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will sue thee out of my mouth.

Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.

And knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

I counsel thee to buy of me gold dried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear.

And anoint thine eyes with eyes have that thou mayest see.

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore, and repent.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If any man hear my voice, then open the door.

I will come into him, sup with him, and he with me.

To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am sat down with my father in his throne.

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

I speak on this subject this morning, your greatest need.

Father, I pray that you'll help us as we exalt Christ this morning that you might do a work in our hearts, and we praise you for it.

We ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for standing.

You can be seated together.

No man there we go.

No man is more blind than a man who has eyes and cannot see.

No person is more deaf than he that has ears and cannot hear.

This church at Laodicea had a great need.

Now, once you get this line, their greatest need was to see their need.

Helen Keller is pictured, of course, on the screen this morning.

A little girl one day stood at an old water pump and unable to see the sunlight shining above her and unable to hear the water splashing beneath her hands.

When Helen was 19 months old, sickness swept through her body, stealing her sight and her hearing.

Overnight, her world became dark and silent.

No longer to see her mother's face, no longer to hear her father's voice.

She lived trapped inside a world that she didn't understand.

As the years went by, as we might imagine, frustration began to consume her.

Imagine wanting to communicate, but having no words, wanting to understand, but having no connection to the world around you.

She later described those years as though she were, quote, at sea in a dense fog.

Then one day, a young teacher, her name was Ann Sullivan, became her tutor.

Sullivan understood hardship, nearly blind for much of her own childhood.

She patiently entered Helen's darkened and silent world.

Day by day, and letter by letter, she began to press letters into Helen's hand, trying to teach her concepts that had names and words that had meaning.

But at first, Helen Keller didn't understand.

She began to mimic the motion.

She would repeat the hand signals, yet the meaning of the signals escaped her because words conveyed concepts, and concepts had meanings, and meaning had a way of communicating.

So one day, Anne led Helen outside to that old water pump, and as cold water rushed over one hand, Anne slowly spelled into the other W-A-T-E-R.

Again, she spelled W-A-T-E-R, and suddenly something awakened inside Helen Keller.

A connection was made, and for the first time she realized that the motions in her hand represented something actually real.

A world that had been closed to her began to open.

And Helen Keller later said, That living word awakened my soul, giving it light and hope and joy, setting it free.

The word, the living word, awakened her soul.

And ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know this morning that we are preaching the living word so that the word himself might awaken something in all of our hearts and lives today.

A girl who could not physically see suddenly began to see the world most clearly.

A girl who could not physically hear suddenly began to hear even the voice of God.

She said at one point, I knew there was a God, I just didn't know his name.

Not with natural senses, but with understanding.

And isn't that the condition of all of us at some point in our lives?

There are people with healthy eyes who never truly see themselves for what they are, people with perfect hearing who never hear the voice of God, people who can see success and money and pleasure and opportunity yet remain blind to the impacts of eternity.

Jesus even warned that those having eyes see not and having ears hear not.

The greatest tragedy is not physical blindness.

The greatest tragedy is spiritual blindness and not to see God.

Helen Keller once noted that the only thing worse than being blind is having sight, but no vision.

This church this morning reminds us that our greatest need is to see our need.

There's a statement that is found in this passage.

I read it a moment ago.

It's found in verse number 17.

Notice it with your own eyes and observe it with your heart.

Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods.

And there's the phrase.

Do you have your eyes on that?

Can you say that with me?

Ready?

And have need of nothing.

Can we say that together?

And have need of nothing.

Now they had what they wanted, but they missed what they needed.

These people had financial wealth.

They said of themselves, we read it in verse 17, they said that they were rich and increased with goods.

They were living in a commercial city, a trading post, a place, a financial hub in the ancient world.

They had all that money could buy.

They said, We don't need anything.

Not only that, they they had clothing.

He says to them in verse 18 that they were to buy white raiment.

This one of the exports of this city was the development of a black wool.

We might call this the black sheep.

They created this black wool that enriched them, and because of the financial gain made from this export, they surmised that they had need of nothing.

And then they had a famous eye doctor, an ophthalmologist, whose name was Demosthenes that lived in this town who created a lot of scientific study of the eye, and he had made an eye salve that was exported all around the world, and people coming in and out of the city of Laodicea to receive a relief to their vision issues.

And the statement that John makes is maybe true of our society today.

Now, we may not find it true in the third world or the developing world or other countries who recognize their great needs, but we in America have a very difficult time recognizing that we need anything.

It might be that we could even echo the sentiments of this church in verse 17.

We say we are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, buying ourselves a little patch of ground, maybe a place in which we can retire and close out society and cease to live our lives for the glory of God.

And they surmised, as we often surmise, that we have everything that money can buy, and there's nothing that we need that we do not have.

This passage distinguishes this morning what they thought they owned with what they actually needed.

It distinguishes who they thought they were, who Christ knew them to be.

I say again, their greatest need was to see their need.

How do you awaken this sleeping church, this sleeping culture?

In this passage, I think there's three takeaways that we can notice of their absolute need.

I want you to write these down.

Number one, John says their greatest need was to have a burning passion for God.

Can we all say that together?

Your greatest need is a burning passion for God.

Notice what he says in verse number 15.

He says, I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot.

I would that you were cold or hot.

So then, because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.

Now I put in the bulletin a little map I think might be instructive for you about exactly what John is talking about here.

There are three cities that line what they call the Lycus River.

There was the city of Laodicea, and to one side was the town of Hierapolis, and to the other side was a town called Colossae.

In Hieropolis, there was a mountainous region of hot springs, as people, even in the world today, visit many of those hot springs to find maybe medical relief.

And those warm aquifers of water began to spring up in the mountains of Hieropolis.

And as people would go, maybe to a resort or to find healing in those particular waters.

Hieropolis was to that side.

To the other side was the city of Colossae.

Colossae was a city known for having cool springs.

If you've ever been to some of the cool water springs here in the great state of Florida, you'll kind of understand how refreshing those bodies of water were.

And it's been indicated that the city of Laodicea lay between the boiling hot springs of Hierapolis and the cold water springs of Colossae.

We know the Romans had a lot of technical, technological advancement and had pipes and aquifers that they would take water from a great distance and they would pipe it into certain cities.

But there was a problem in the location of Laodicea.

And when John wrote this to this church, they knew exactly what he was talking about.

You couldn't take the piping hot water of Hierapolis and pipe it to the city and it would become warm as it got to the city.

And you couldn't take the ice cold waters of Colossae and pipe them into the city of Laodicea and they would be cool when they arrived.

What would occur is if you took this extreme burning passion and this ice-cold water and you put it into the city of Colossae, you'd have water that was lukewarm.

The issue was that which used to be medicinal lost its power.

That which used to be refreshing had lost its refreshment when it got down to the city.

And God says this water is a picture of the spiritual condition of the people.

They were neither hot, they were neither cold.

Can I use the word?

They were just indifferent.

They were apathetic.

I read this quote earlier in the week.

Someone said, half-hearted Christians are the most miserable people of all.

They know enough about God to feel guilty, but they haven't gotten far enough with Christ to be happy.

Now, let me just say, God is not saying to you, it's great to be either hot or it's also allowable to be cold because God wants our passion to be burning hot for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Can I ask you a question today?

Do you have a burning passion in your heart for the Lord Jesus Christ at this very moment?

And I want to say to you, it's wonderful when the musicians are singing and the instrumentalists are playing and we're worshiping God, and we need that because you know what Sunday worship is?

It's the weekly pep rally of the Christian life.

I mean, how many of you got beaten up by the world a little bit this week when you raise your hand?

How many of you had to fight the devil a little bit this week, right?

How many of you had to fight yourself a few times this week, right?

And after a fight with the world and the flesh and the devil, it just seems like all the gusto and all of the all of the vim and vigor and zeal has been beaten out of us.

But isn't it wonderful to come into the Calvary Baptist Church and to hear about a song of worshiping Jesus Christ and seeing people happy in Jesus Christ?

That's wonderful.

God designed that for us.

And can I just say to you today, we were just practicing for heaven this morning.

How many of you like practicing for heaven?

Because heaven is going to be just one eternal day of worship and praise and adoration of the wonderful Lamb of God who shed his blood to forgive our sins.

But the fact of the matter is, our zeal is not just measured by our worship on Sunday.

Our zeal is measured by our heart for God on all the other days of the week.

A burning passion for God.

One man said, if a man could take or leave sin, he'd take it every time.

Our devotional life, our time alone with God.

Are we developing a burning passion and hunger for God?

Years ago we used to use the word backsliding.

How many of you have heard the word backsliding before?

You know what backsliding looks like?

Backsliding looks like if there were if there was any moment in our lives that we were ever closer to Christ than we are at this moment, we've declined in our zeal and passion for God.

I've told you the story so many times when I became a Christian.

I was going to teen camp.

That's why teen camp means so much to me.

I was 14 years old.

I had I'd grown up in church and struggled with the issue of my eternal security, my salvation in Christ.

And finally, I don't know what happened, but it just clicked.

June 14th, 1995, I became a Christian.

As Newton would say in the fullest sense of the word, I came to the assurance of my salvation.

There's only one thing better than being a Christian, and that's knowing that you're a Christian.

I entered into the joy of the assurance of my salvation, not of works lest any man should boast.

All of grace is my story.

God gave that to me as his gift of grace.

And I remember it so poignant in my mind, our youth group had gone to a McDonald's after the meal that night.

And many of you have heard me tell this story.

We walked into McDonald's, and this woman was eating there as well, and she she pulled me off to the side and she said, Young man, young man, can I ask you a question?

I said, Sure.

She said, Did you accept Christ tonight?

I said, I did.

How did you know?

She said, I can see it all over your face.

I gotta be honest.

Some days when I get up and look in the mirror, I don't see it all over my face.

Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.

Here's my heart.

Oh, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.

Our great need is to have a burning passion for God.

The Bible says, in the last days they will be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God from such turn away.

If anything in our mind is fighting for our affection and is winning over our affection for God, we are not in the place as a Christian that we ought to be.

It's the church father who said, You fight affection with affection.

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

Can I tell you how to beat an evil affection in your life, to beat an evil addiction in your life, it's to love Jesus more than you love the thing that has taken his place in your life.

Set your mind on Christ.

Set your mindset on Christ.

Think of Jesus and think of him only.

I would he said you were cold or hot, but you're in this lukewarm place of nothingness.

And he says, your greatest need is a burning passion for God.

Matt Saint number two, our second great need is purity before God.

Because thou sayest, verse 18, 17, I am rich and increased with goods, and I don't need anything.

Little girl was asked to stand up in Sunday school one day and recite Psalm 23.

Do you guys know Psalm 23?

By the way, we ought to read it more than just at funerals and weddings.

They're just good words to live by.

And she stood up in the class and she said, I can recite Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd, and I don't need anything.

That's not what they meant by what they said.

And he begins to charge them on what they needed.

Verse 18.

I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with Isav that thou thou mayest see.

There's really three things he's charging them with by means of living a pure life.

I was we we always play music in the house on Sunday mornings.

Songs about the Lord Jesus.

Encourage us.

By the way, can I just encourage you to get your heart ready for worship by worshiping Christ before you come to church?

I think if there's one day we ought not to fill our minds with secular things, it ought to be on the day we come to worship a holy God.

And the song was being played holy forever in the house this morning.

And the angels cried, Holy, holy.

I like that.

But you know what the Holy Spirit said to me today?

There's so much music today that emphasizes the holiness of God.

And we ought to.

But you know what Jesus said?

Be holy.

For I am holy.

It's the holiness of God that ought to motivate us to live a separated life unto Christ.

He says, Buy of me gold tried in the fire.

He charges them to have a pure faith, of a purified faith.

And many times God purifies our faith through afflictions, through trials in our lives.

It is trouble that is born in the Spirit of Christ that produces greatness in the life of a Christian.

Did it ever occur to you that God puts us through trials in our lives to make us more?

Like Jesus Christ, to burn out all the dross and all the impurity of our lives that we can look like Jesus.

That's our need.

Number two, he speaks of a purity of life, these woolen garments of black that made this town famous.

He says, you ought to rather buy, verse 18, some white raiment, and white is that color of purity.

I want to illustrate something here.

Living a pure life is not just saying that we don't want to be like the world, that we ought not to be like the world.

But the test of our purity is not how far away we are from the world.

The test of our purity is how close we are to Jesus.

Purity is not just defined by what we do and don't do, say and don't say, go and don't go, drink and don't drink.

Our purity is defined by how close we are to Jesus.

And can I just say to you this morning, if we would get close to Jesus, we would find ourselves far away from sin?

Someone said, sin will keep you from the Bible, and the Bible will keep us from sin.

It is Christ that swells in our lives.

And as Jesus gets bigger in our lives, he crowds out unnecessary things in our lives.

If you'll start reading your Bible and taking God seriously, you know what you'll discover?

You'll discover that those things that you've struggled with for years in your life, Jesus begins to crowd out of your life.

That's our need.

Number three, notice he says that they need to buy this eye salve that they may see.

I was blind, Newton said.

Now I I see, I see clearly.

It's a famous songwriter's name, was Ron Hamilton.

Ron Hamilton had a tumor in his eye.

Was going to have surgery and was told by the doctor he would either wake up with an eye, was treated, or he would lose his eye.

They found cancer, they removed his eye, they put a patch on his eye.

He was a music director at a church.

He came to church, had a patch on his eye.

He was walking down the center aisle, a little boy, similar to one of these young men that was singing for us this morning, walks up to him and he says, Hey, you're Patch the Pirate.

Began to write Christian songs, songs for children.

I don't know if the one we sang this morning was a Ron Hamilton song or not.

Songs like that.

He wrote a song called Rejoice in the Lord.

And here's the last verse.

He says, Now I can see.

Testing comes from above.

God strengthens his children and purges in love.

Now I can see.

I was blind, but now I see.

Oh, may God open our eyes that we can see.

May God open your eyes today for your great need of Christ.

Our greatest need is purity before God.

Our greatest need is to have a compassion or the passion, burning passion for God.

Notice the third need.

It's found in verse number 20.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

And if any man open the door and hear my voice, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me.

There was an artist that drew a famous portrait of this particular verse.

And when the artist showed the portrait to a friend, the friend criticized the picture for not having a door handle on the outside of the door upon which Christ was knocking.

He thought it was a mistake.

And the artist said, no, no, no, there's no mistake.

There is no handle on the outside of the door.

There's only a handle on the inside of the door.

It is Christ that knocks and speaks and patiently waits for us to open the door of our hearts.

That still small voice that speaks to you in the night, that troubles you about your sin, that reminds you of your need.

It's not the universe.

It's the Lord Jesus Christ.

Knocking on the door of our heart.

Well, you first of all notice he knocks upon the door and doesn't come in a force.

He doesn't charge his way into the door.

I was reading on this passage, and there was a practice in the Roman world called Angaria.

Angaria was a governmental term in which any Roman official or a Roman soldier or an imperial messenger could legally require civilians to transport their goods.

They could force them to labor, they could force their way into the home to lodge there, they could force their way into your home to be fed.

It was essentially a form of forced assistance for the needs of the state.

At any moment in Laodicea, a Roman official could knock on your door and force his way in and require any number of sacrifices from you.

Remember when Jesus said, if you're asked to go a mile, go two miles, twain.

That's what he's talking about here.

Jesus humbly, patiently.

Hello.

Hello.

Can I come in?

No, Lord, I have need of nothing.

Have a nice house, I've worked a job, finished my career with dignity, have a nice place on the beach, have everything I need.

There's nothing I need that money can't buy.

I'm rich and increased with goods, and I have need of nothing.

Oh, it's not a force.

Number two, it's not just not a force, but it's it's for fellowship.

We read it again.

If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and sup with him.

And he with me.

Little things in the Bible intrigue me.

Are you intrigued by little things?

I noticed the word sup.

That's a greeting in the world today.

Some of you will get that at lunch today.

What's up?

I'll come in and sup.

Now, I don't know what you call it.

Some of you call this dinner.

How many of you call this dinner?

Will you raise your hand?

You have dinner.

I'm so sorry, guys, that you've been missing out all of these years for supper.

Where am I?

Supper people.

Okay.

Those people know what's up.

There's three meals that these Laodiceans have every day.

Similar to what we do.

They have breakfast, they have lunch, and they have sup.

Breakfast is quick, it's hard-hitting, it's fast, it might be on the go.

Lunch is something maybe eaten at work or taken to work.

It doesn't occupy a lot of time.

But supper's significant.

Supper lasts for hours.

Supper's the kind of thing that if you're invited to sup, it means that you're a friend.

It means that we're getting closer to each other.

It means that there's a welcome, there is a validation, there is an encouragement, there's a relationship that's being formed at the table.

There's a lot of people I know that don't mind having breakfast with Jesus.

And they don't mind splitting some lunch with Jesus and just a transactional hi-bye, see you later, see you next Sunday.

But our Lord Jesus Christ knocks on the heart's door because he recognizes that our greatest need is not just to have a transactional hi-bye, see you next Sunday relationship with God.

This is that which he desires for us.

He wants to come into our life.

He wants to become intimate with us.

He wants to reveal himself to us.

And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I'm his own.

He wants to have a deep and abiding relationship with us.

And we can have that if we will open the door to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I found that this word is found four times in the New Testament.

It's found in Luke chapter 17, verse 8.

Luke 17:8

And I will not rather say unto him, make ready wherewith I may sup.

It's the word of the upper room when Jesus in Luke 22, verse 20, likewise also he took the cup, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you.

Luke 22:20

This is what he had with the disciples in the upper room before he died for their sin.

When he took the bread and he took the wine and he said, This bread is my body, and this cup is the wine.

And if you eat of this bread and drink of this cup, you'll show forth my death until I come.

It's a deep and abiding relationship that we can have with the person of Jesus Christ.

It's not just a table, it's a it signifies he wants to restore fellowship with us.

Life happens, right?

And there was a situation that occurred in my life, and I felt like I'd been wronged by someone.

Maybe he felt like I'd wronged him too.

Marie and I came into a room where there was a great banquet, and we could choose where we were going to sit.

Except we did not get to choose where we sat.

Our seat was chosen for us.

And the usher said, You and Mrs.

Cox, please sit here.

And a few minutes later, I saw that man walk in, and I said, Oh Lord Jesus, please don't let them put him right there.

And it's like the Holy Spirit said, No, this is what's up.

He's gonna sit right there.

And there was a sense of closure.

And everything said at that mill that bound up a wound.

I didn't want that.

But God knew I needed it.

Some of you are out of fellowship with God.

And if you knew he was sitting at the table, you'd probably sit somewhere else.

Because there's going to be some things, things that you're going to need to talk about.

He wants to sup with you.

You know what's interesting?

The Bible says that the whole age ends, Revelation 19, 9.

He saith unto me, right, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage.

There's that word again.

Supper of the Lamb.

In other words, the Bible begins with lost fellowship in the Garden of Eden.

And ends with redeemed fellowship at the table of the Lamb.

It's like the whole Bible is saying to us, man fell out of fellowship with God, but Christ will come and bear the brunt of broken fellowship.

He will suffer the penalty of broken fellowship, and he will invite all to have supper with him in the end of the age.

So I ask you a question.

Isn't it time that you recognized your needs and turned to the only one who can meet them?

And his name is Jesus.

Let's all bow our heads and pray.