Nauseating Complacency

A.M.

So this morning we're going to be looking at the church in Laodicea.

So this is the last of the churches that Jesus writes a letter to.

And we've kind of followed this boomerang of churches, right?

If you kind of look at the way that this letter might have traveled, it would have kind of gone up, peaked, and then come back down.

And Laodicea is directly due east of Ephesus, which is the first letter that we discovered and went through in this series.

So Laodicea, now, all of these letters, it's been important to try to understand context, historical background, culture, and so forth like this.

Laodicea, though, is probably the one that has the highest contextualization references in it.

So when you first read this letter, it can kind of seem like it's all over the place and the things that it's talking about, kind of jumping from thing to thing, and what does this mean and what significance does this have?

What we're gonna see is that this letter alone has an extreme amount of contextualization and cultural references and what Jesus is referring to as he's speaking directly to them.

So we've got a ton of stuff to work through.

We're gonna dive right in and look at this letter, this church that makes Jesus want to vomit, right?

That's what we're kind of talking about this morning.

So when we first open the text, just like with every other letter that Jesus has written through the Apostle John to his churches, he starts with going back to an aspect of his personhood, an aspect of who he is as God, Messiah, Christ, uh, that is in direct relationship to the church of which he's writing to.

And he says that he is the amen, the faithful and true witness.

Now, what we're gonna see about this is that Jesus is saying, I'm the one who actually knows the truth about you, and what I say about you is authoritative.

So if we're gonna summarize 14 through 17 is this first chunk of this letter, we see that what Jesus says about you is authoritative truth.

What Jesus says about you is authoritative truth.

In his final letter to his churches, Jesus establishes himself as the amen, the faithful and true witness.

Now, a lot of us use the word amen a lot, right?

Uh hopefully you pray daily and you probably close that prayer with amen.

Uh maybe some of you like the way I preach, and you might say amen to something I said as some kind of encouragement or rally cry coming from the congregation as I'm bringing the message home, right?

Uh something amen.

Uh see, we might be doing something like that.

I love that.

That thrives me in the way that I'm preaching and so forth.

But when we look at what does the word amen itself mean, it means so be it.

So be it.

It's this actual declaration of solidification.

Whatever Jesus would say, if he is the amen, then that what he says is true.

Let it be so, is the statement of which he's making.

So what I say, Jesus is saying, what I say is authoritative.

What I say is truth.

What I say is what it is.

What he says is actually truer than what we perceive or believe.

You see, many of us, we are blinded by our circumstances.

We have kind of narrow vision or short-sightedness in the way that we are actually able to see this world.

And often, a lot of times, the way we're actually able to see ourselves.

This is one of the beauty of community.

They help you see your blind spots, right?

Some of us in our arrogance, in our pride, in our uh false humility, or maybe in our selfishness, we don't often see those things in and of ourselves.

And community allows us to expose some of those blind spots in our life and help us in our process of sanctification as we try to be conformed to the image of Jesus.

But here, what Jesus is saying to this church is listen, I'm gonna tell you, you don't see yourself as you really are.

I do.

And so what I say as the amen, what I say as the faithful and true witness is accurate and real testimony to your state.

Jesus' words are not simply authoritative, but they are a true reality contrasted to their blindness.

What we see and call our reality is blinded by our inability to see all that truly is.

Jesus sees all, and in loving correction, he helps his church to see themselves as they truly are.

So this is how Jesus is establishing himself to the church at Laodicea.

Now, when we get to the really like thrust of this letter, right?

The one that everybody knows this letter because Jesus says he's gonna puke out this church, right?

This is the one that seems the harshest in language or in the uh kind of analogies that he's giving.

We really have to understand this cultural context of the church of Laodicea.

You see, the church in Laodicea was seated between two other major cities.

One was called Hieropolis, and the other one was called Colossae.

Uh, we have seen the uh letter of Colossians written by the Apostle Paul.

Um, and so Colossae is the city of which the church of Colossians uh resided within.

So uh we have Hieropolis uh here to the north, to the south, we have Colossae.

Now, Hieropolis was very well known for hot springs.

Their water source was uh uh this beautiful hot spring area where the temperatures of the water reached up to 95 degrees.

So this was something unique about them.

This was a resource that they obtained that uh made them stand out amongst the other cities around them.

And they had this hot spring, this resource that was beneficial to them.

It was beneficial in all different kinds of ways sanitation, uh, cooking, uh, different uh other areas of cultural life.

Now, Colossae, in contrast, was to the south.

They were downstream from Hieropolis, downstream from Laodicea, and they had very cold, pure water.

Water that they could just drink, that they could use in uh medicines, they could use in their own uh consumption and so forth like this.

Now, what did Laodicea have?

Nothing.

Literally nothing.

Now, they were smart though.

When it came to water, they had nothing.

They were really smart though.

So what they developed and engineered was this intricate system of aqueducts.

Many of these aqueducts ran underground.

They weren't even above ground.

So this is some of the first underground plumbing that was the goal was to get, because they had to rely so much on gravity, Hieropolis to the north was the primary source of their water.

Well, imagine if you take 95 degree water and you start bringing it down these uh pipes into your city at about a distance of six to seven miles.

What's gonna happen?

The water's gonna get lukewarm.

The water in Laodicea was lukewarm.

Now, it was typically lukewarm by the time it reached their city, and what that did is it made it unpleasant and useless.

That's really what this water did.

It didn't have a great purpose.

It wasn't hot water that they could use for all these great things.

If they wanted to use water for sanitation or other purposes, they were gonna have to take that lukewarm water and they're gonna have to heat it up.

And then if they wanted to use it for something more refreshing or something that they could consume, they'd have to uh purify it and then get it down into a colder temperature, something that was actually refreshing to themselves.

You see, this lukewarm water was pretty much just useless.

But also, archaeologists have studied the actual aqueduct system that comes into Laodicea and they found something there.

They found that it had a high level of calcium carbonate.

You know what happens when you drink too much of calcium carbonate when you ingest too much of it?

You puke.

Literally, their water supply caused them to be nauseous.

Not only was it lukewarm and useless, but the actual substance in it would cause them to be nauseous.

So Jesus is speaking directly to their context.

He's saying, look, I would rather you either be hot or cold, but because you're lukewarm, I'm going to spit you out of my mouth.

Now, when Jesus addresses the works of the Laodiceans, he references, like I said, a very contextual reality.

For them, he's saying to them, You know how useless your water is?

That's how useless you are to my kingdom.

And you make me want to vomit.

These references to hot and cold speak to usability and efficacy of the water and its state rather than pointing to one certain temperature as being better than the other.

You see, when we read this text, especially if you have any Pentecostal roots, brother, you don't want to be lukewarm.

You want to be hot.

That's what you want to be because lukewarmness is going to spit you out of your mouth.

But the you see, we always emphasize the hot as it's something about your zeal or the fervor that you have for serving the Lord.

That's not what he's doing when he's contrasting hot or cold, because he actually says, I would rather you either be cold or hot.

Do you think that Jesus is really looking at his church and saying, I would rather you be cold, if cold equated to, in our understanding and mind, a lifeless, loveless, disobedient, unregenerate person?

Jesus doesn't want that for his church.

So often we get into this thing where it's like, oh, hot's good and cold's bad.

That's not what Jesus is saying it is all.

Jesus is saying, I'd rather you be useful for my kingdom than useless in this lukewarm state.

Cold or hot, both useful and effective.

But lukewarm, it makes me sick.

You see, we tend to think of this hot as being the emphasized temperature.

He's not saying I'd rather you be cold.

If again we understand cold to be those who do not love, obey, or serve God, he's saying I'd rather you be useful and effective, beneficial to my kingdom, than the state that I actually find you in today.

You see, Jesus found the state and a church, uh, the church in a state of false perception.

What they thought about themselves was not true.

This is how he starts off this letter.

You think that you are rich, right?

You think that you are something, that you have obtained some status.

And he's saying, I'm telling you the truth.

The amen, the good and faithful witness, is about to testify to you who you really are.

You see, they held the belief that they were rich in need of nothing.

That was the precept of which they founded their lives upon.

In fact, Laodicea was so rich that they were one of the largest banking centers in this Asia Minor area.

So here's what happened.

In 60 AD, an earthquake hit that area and just destroyed Laodicea and other cities around them.

The Roman government came in and they started doing handouts.

They were saying, look, we're gonna come and help you rebuild your cities because it was beneficial to the Roman Empire for their certain uses that they had for larger conquests and the uh the reign that they had of power in that area.

And you know what Laodicea said to the Roman government?

We don't need your handout.

Literally, they were the only city according to history that did not take a Roman handout to rebuild their city.

They said, no, go ahead, you take it.

Think about that today.

We're seeing kind of bailout stimulus packages always presented to us, right?

Because the United States are collapsing in all these different areas.

So imagine one state so rich, so wealthy, that they said, you know what?

Keep your money.

We don't need it.

That's not happening.

That's probably not happening in yourself, right?

If the uh administration puts forward a stimulus package that says, we're gonna give you X amount of money just because we love you, you're like, cool, bring it.

Here's my routing number, here's my account number, make sure you get it to the right place, right?

But Laodicea said, you know what, Rome, we appreciate the generosity and offer, but we're good.

You see, that's what Jesus says.

When you think that you're rich and in need of nothing, though they perceived that their wealth had them in need of nothing, even in the face of great disaster, Jesus has a truer and more authoritative reality of who they are.

And these are the words that he quotes to them.

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

So, what does Jesus do for them?

He counsels them.

So the amen, the true and faithful witness, the beginning, is going to counsel his church to help them.

When we look at verses 18 through 19, we're gonna see that Jesus loves us too much to remain in our complacency.

Jesus loves us too much to remain in our complacency.

That amen, the faithful and true witness is providing counsel to his people.

He loves them.

He loves them, and so he disciplines them.

His rebuking counsel of truth is a loving act of kindness meant to help them see their reality and most importantly, their desperate need of him.

That's the goal of this letter.

I want you, church at Laodicea, I want you to see your reality.

You're walking around in blindness, you're walking around in a misconception of who you think you are.

You think you're this, in prosperous, rich, in need of nothing.

I'm telling you, you're this.

And because I love you, I'm now gonna counsel you in how you can see the need for me that you truly have.

And this letter, again, is so rich in contextual pictures and points.

We're gonna see this in three primary ways in the way that Jesus counsels his church.

Number one, he says that you should buy from me gold refined by fire.

So he says, Come to me and buy from me gold refined by fire.

Well, we already talked about that they were a major banking center in that area of Asia Minor.

Jesus is letting them know that the gold they possess will ultimately buy them nothing.

It is useless in the transaction of eternity.

When we think about what would make us happier, what would make us have more hope, what would provide for us safety, security, and assurance.

How many of us actually think it's more of Jesus?

Probably our first thought is that it would be more money in my bank account.

If I was gonna be assured of my future, if I was gonna have something I could put actual hope into, if it was gonna be something that I would say that my end is comfortable, is safe, is provided for, we would probably first and foremost go to the status of our bank account more than we would see it as desiring and needing more of Jesus.

So he says, Come to me and buy gold that's refined by fire.

Second, he says, Buy for me white garments so that you may clothe yourself.

An interesting thing about Laodicea is that they were an infamous textile area as well.

You see, they had actually bred their own livestock to be able to produce this deep black, shimmering material.

And it was prominent throughout the area, and they exported it out as well.

It was this beautiful garment of which they would adorn themselves in regularly.

Jesus is letting them know that their clothing covers nothing.

He says, You're naked.

It simply further exposes who you actually are.

They don't need the clothes of their culture, they need the white garments of purity that only Jesus can provide.

And we as a culture care so much about how we look and where that places us inside of our culture.

How many times when we're making judgment calls or pre-judgment calls on an individual, it begins with what are they wearing?

What do they look like?

It establishes us as in some place of society, the way that we dress.

We're either saying we belong to a certain cultural group, right?

I'm kind of uh in this group over here, or the way I dress puts me over here, and this group is an identity factor.

It's always funny to me looking back in like junior high and high school where like goth was on the rise, right?

And the whole thing of goth was like, I'm my own individual and no one can tell me who to be me.

But then they just all looked alike.

You just entered yourself into another subculture of people who look exactly like you.

Why?

Because what you wear facilitates the identification of the place that you fit into culture.

We spend so much time and energy about what we look like on the outside that we barely put any emphasis on how we adorn our souls.

When we're getting ready in the morning, what are we preparing for our day?

I can guarantee you that the majority of our emphasis is on how we will look to the outside public, not how we will adorn ourselves with the holiness and purity of Christ.

Thirdly, he says, Buy from me salve to anoint your eyes.

So Jesus has already hit their banking industry, Jesus has already hit their textile industry.

Well, guess what?

Laodicea was a medical center of Asia Minor in the province of which they resided.

And their specialty was optimology.

So again, Jesus is very much speaking to his church.

This speaks to the intimacy of which he understood and knew, knows his church.

You see, it was even believed that they had developed their own topical salve for vision issues.

It's another area where they perceived wealth and resources, and it had given them this false hope and assurance.

Jesus tells them that they are blind.

They can't see the actual condition of themselves.

They need the salve that Jesus offers to be able to have spiritual eyes to see things as they really are.

When we look to our state of life, when we look to the world that we surround ourselves in, how are we informing what we see?

How are we informing the way that we understand and know culture and what's going on inside of it?

Are we looking to the news first and foremost?

Are we understanding it through social media or other secular worldviews?

Or are we working to put on the lenses of the Word of God and what Jesus says about us to inform us?

In many ways, we're like the church in Laodicea.

We think that our prosperity gives us assurance.

We think that our clothing gives us status.

We think that our even health care is something that makes us so good, so prosperous.

But we like them are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

Jesus calls them to repent of their self-reliance and come near to him so that their true needs can be met.

He says, be zealous and repent.

This zealousness is actually describing how they should repent.

Be zealous and repent.

He's saying, don't wait.

Hurry and repent.

Hurry and see the world and your life the way I see them and declare them to be.

Remember, we have to understand repent means to fundamentally change the way that we think to line up with the way that God thinks.

That's what the foundation of repentance actually means.

And when Jesus, the Amen, the faithful and true witness, is declaring what you are, what you truly are.

We have to start aligning our minds and thoughts to be able to think the way that He does.

Hurry.

Don't wait.

Change the way that you think and see yourself.

See how much Jesus loves his church?

He loves them so much that he will discipline them for their ultimate good.

When we look at verses 20 through 22, we see that zealous repentance welcomes the presence and power of Jesus.

Zealous repentance welcomes the presence and power of Jesus.

Here again we see contextual language.

So this is a verse that you'll hear a lot in evangelism, right?

Or in circles where somebody might be witnessing to someone, they'll say, Behold, Jesus stands at the door and he knocks, and whoever, and all you got to do is just open the door of your heart and let Jesus come on in.

Come on, he's out there begging.

He's begging to come in and have supper with you.

Just let him in for the love of all that's holy.

That's not what Jesus is saying here.

You see, we have to look at the context once again.

Laodicea was so prosperous according to the world, and they were in the midst of this travel region for Roman military that they actually were forced by Roman rule.

They were one of the only cities forced by Roman rule that if a soldier knocks on your door and asks for hospitality, you had to house them and feed them according to your own resources.

You had to pay up to house this soldier.

They were a city required by Roman rule to do this.

At any moment, at their own expense, you see, some of their prosperity came at even a cultural cost.

Imagine living in a place where at any time a knock on the door could actually mean you're housing and providing for soldiers.

Like I said, this verse is often used in evangelistic efforts, but we have to, as with all of Scripture, look at the broader context to see it for its proper understanding.

First, we have to see that Jesus is speaking to a church.

He's speaking to his church, not the unbelieving culture that surrounded them.

He's not speaking to a church about letting him into the door of their heart.

He is speaking to a church that if they zealously repent of their self-reliant complacency, his presence and power will be with them.

The emphasis is on the repentance.

The emphasis is on seeing themselves for as they truly are, the way Jesus declares them to be, and the emphasis is on that he has in and of himself all that they could ever truly need.

So come and buy.

You see, he sees the true state of the church, he provides holy counsel, and he's calling them to make their move.

Repent, buy from me what you truly need.

But the beauty of the gospel, the beauty of Jesus, when we come to buy, he freely gives and welcomes his presence and power with his people.

So when we look at the fullness of the letter, what we're gonna see is that self-reliance creates a complacency that makes Jesus nauseous.

Self-reliance creates a complacency that makes Jesus nauseous.

As we've examined and reviewed the church at Laodicea, we can't help but to see that eerie similarity to the church in America.

There is no greater self-reliant culture in the world than America.

The church has fallen asleep and become complacent as it has sat under long enough and participated in such prosperity.

There's nothing we have to truly worry about.

All the fear-mongering happening in our political world right now, most of us understand that day in and day out, we don't worry.

We don't fear.

We don't really have much to be concerned over.

Nothing we have to beg God to give us.

Because after all, if we want it, we'll just go get it.

Or we'll work hard enough to obtain it.

This has created a complacent church that I would submit in general makes Jesus quite nauseous.

Let us look at some things about America and the church that actually resides here for a moment.

Not sacred mission necessarily because obviously we're not this.

But the church in America.

Let's talk about them for a second.

We're the most prosperous nation in the world, but we have the greatest numbers of psychologists and psychotherapists than any other nation by a landslide.

We're the most prosperous nation in the world, but we have a consumer debt of$4.1 trillion.

You can't fathom that amount of money.

We're the most prosperous nation in the world, but we have a divorce rate of 46%.

Do our resources and self-reliance have any true ability to provide for us what we really need or what we think we actually want?

What about the church?

75 to 150 churches close every week.

250 pastors quit every month.

Pew Research states that from 2007 to 2019, people who simply attend church once a month has dropped by 10%.

And the people who only go one or two times a year has increased by over 10%.

They also stated in the same time frame, Christianity as a whole has dropped in America by 8%.

You see, we claim we are the Christian nation.

We claim that we are the blessed church.

We thought we were heaven on earth.

The church in America has grown nauseatingly complacent as they lazily rest in their own self-reliance.

We need to be zealous to repent.

We need to be zealous to repent and see the church awaken.

You see, the church has always thrived in the midst of trials and tribulations, not in prosperity.

Look throughout the history of the Bible.

Anytime God's people found themselves in prosperous states, complacency crept in, and so did wickedness and evil with it.

It's the natural rhythm of the human life.

It's then that God has to come in and bring discipline to them, He has to shake them up.

The church has always thrived in the midst of trials and tribulations, not in prosperity that breeds self-reliance.

It's because those circumstances have awakened them to theirs and their neighbors' true need for Jesus and only what he can provide.

You see, I pray that there's a revival in America.

I pray that there's a great awakening from our complacency, but I want you to be aware of something very clearly.

I would submit that in order to have a true revival, in order to have a great awakening in our nation, Jesus is going to have to make it very clear that we need him alone.

And I believe that he will do whatever it takes to help us see that.

You see, for us, this is so difficult.

Because we equate prosperity to being favored or loved by God.

You see, some of us, we believe that our prosperity is actually indicative of God's love for us.

We believe that our prosperity is indicative of God's love for us.

We have bought into the notion that to be blessed by God is to have more of his stuff.

Even if it actually means having less of him.

We think that if God loves us, or honestly, worse yet, if he's pleased with our behavior, he will give us things.

He will give us stuff.

And there's often no room for discipline or rebuke in this worldview.

Because obviously, the more that I'm obtaining, the more God loves me.

How can you bring discipline or rebuke to someone who believes such an idea?

Because obviously, if I'm getting more stuff, this means God loves or is pleased with me.

And if I'm experiencing any lack, all I really need to do is have more faith or change my behavior.

Many of us don't live in any worldview where we could actually believe that having less stuff means God loves you more.

Especially if it equates to us having more of him in the process.

We fail to see that more and more of Jesus is actually the blessing and prosperity of God, not more of his stuff.

This often comes at a loss of stuff.

God's great, unmerited, and undeserving love for us is known fully in having him, not his stuff.

And if he really loves you, he will discipline you to the point that you realize that.

When we believe this lie, that our prosperity is indicative of his love for us, we really are saying two things.

Number one, we're saying my performance is the accomplisher of my blessing.

My performance is the accomplisher of my blessing instead of Jesus' performance, brings me all the blessing I could ever need.

And number two, we're saying that God's love is seen in how much we have possession of rather than in how much he has already given in Christ.

God's love is seen in how much we have possession of rather than in how much he has already given us in Christ.

But some of us, we also believe that our prosperity creates assured reliance.

We believe our prosperity creates assured reliance, something that we can depend on, something we can have full confidence of dependency on.

We put more trust in our stuff than we do in God.

We fret and worry about how much we have or how much we still yet need to gain.

Ultimately, we believe that the more we accumulate, the more safe, the more assured that our future actually is.

We become self-reliant on our work ethic, on our education, on our budgeting plan, or in our investment portfolio.

And so we stack up grain in silos, believing that the future harvest will actually supply all of our needs.

What does this do?

It causes us to really go to God for what we truly need.

Why is that?

You see, if we actually do go to Jesus, if we actually do go to God for what we need, it's often because we're at the end of our rope.

And we've come to this painful reality that we have actually no other options of securing for ourselves what we actually desire.

How many of us is that way?

You rely on your work ethic, your degree, your budgeting plan, your whatever.

And when you go to God, it's because you're at the end of your rope and you realize none of that is actually going to give you what you really need.

And so, in a last ditch effort, in some type of spiritual Hail Mary, you go to God begging, will you please just give me this?

I can't do it on my own.

He becomes a last-ditch effort to gain what we don't have because we believe that in the possession of it we'll have assured reliance.

Yet, we're actually a lot like the church in Laodicea.

We don't see ourselves as we really are, or even understand what we actually really need.

If we did, we would go to God constantly to provide it for us because we would know we have no intrinsic ability to obtain it for ourselves.

We would see our own wealth and resources as useless to purchase what we actually need.

Because our stuff holds no value in the transaction of eternity.

But the beauty of Christ that we have our hope in is that he is seated on the throne.

Seated on the throne, Jesus has possession of all we truly need.

At the end of this letter, that's what he states.

He says, Those who conquer, I will have them sit on a throne with me, as my Father has given me my throne.

Jesus is seated on the throne.

He has possession of all we need.

Why?

Because Christ is the true conqueror.

In his conquering, he has obtained possession of all we truly need.

And he joyously and freely gives it to us.

Through Jesus, we have access to everything we could ever need.

Though he calls us to come and buy from him, we are met with sacrificial generosity.

He looks at his church and he says, Your money is no good here.

What you truly need, and what I truly have possession of, because I'm the one who has overcome, because I'm the one who has conquered, because I am the one seated on the throne, your money is no good here.

We don't have the ability to buy from him.

And so Jesus, in his sacrificial generosity, turns and freely gives to us.

Ephesians 1.3 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with what?

Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

Where is that spiritual blessing?

It's in Christ seated on the throne.

And what do we have as his children?

We have been lavished upon us all of heaven's resources itself.

There is nothing, nothing that is withheld from his children.

In Christ we have all that we need, or better yet, imagine we had ever wanted.

We desire prosperity and we have been lavished with every spiritual blessing.

You see, the riches of this world just breed complacency, self-reliance.

But the riches of heaven set a fire to his people for his glory.

We fail to understand what we truly need.

And even if we did, we would fail to be able to obtain it.

So let's just imagine that we actually were able to see with clear eyes our state and condition.

We were to actually able to assess and identify what we really need in our lives.

The problem still remains.

We would have zero ability to be able to obtain it on our own.

Jesus steps in to show us what we truly need.

He is the amen, the faithful and true witness who gives his church counsel.

What do we need?

We need reconciled to God because of our sin.

And he provides the very means to obtain it through his death, burial, and resurrection.

Jesus proclaims to us what we truly need.

He pays the sacrificial price to obtain it on our behalf.

And then he turns and freely and joyfully gives it to his people.

This is the beauty of the gospel.

This is the beauty of what we are as inheritors of the riches of Christ.

What we need to do, what we need to do in this light of this reality is the first thing is that we need to assess where we're being self-reliant.

We need to assess in our lives where we're being self-reliant.

I think that if all of us go through this, we're going to be able to see a plethora of places where we're self-reliant.

If you're a parent, you might be really self-reliant on the education you're providing to your children so that their future hope is assured, right?

Maybe for some of us entering into our end-of-work, right, season in our life, you're working hard to make sure that that 401k and that retirement is locked and loaded so that you have an assured reliance upon something.

Maybe some of us in other situations find ourselves desperately self-reliant.

We have to assess, here's some questions to consider.

What areas of your life do you not even think about God to be actively a part of?

What areas of your life do you not even think about God to be actively a part of?

Here's another question.

What areas do you have little to no expectation for God to engage in?

What areas of your life do you have little to no expectation for God to engage in?

Thirdly, where in your life have you only gone to God when you were at the end of your rope?

Why?

When you had no other way to obtain what you truly wanted, when you were at the end of your rope and you saw no possibility to be able to accomplish this or possess this under your own strength, under your own power, and you went to God, why was that?

Fundamentally, you are being self-reliant.

Now the question is, why in that area do you not expect God to actively be engaged in?

Why do you expect that area of your life to not have to depend upon God upon until you have no other options left?

You see, God's not opposed to human effort fully, right?

If we see in the Bible, if we don't eat, if we don't work, we don't eat.

He's not opposed to human effort, but he is opposed to human effort without reliance upon himself to be the fruit bearer.

We see this in the way that he understands the kingdom of heaven.

Oh, some of you are gonna plow the field, right?

That's human effort.

Some of you are gonna sow the seed, that's human effort.

Some of you are gonna water the ground, that's human effort.

You know who's gonna bring the fruit?

You know who's gonna bring the harvest, you know what's gonna actually put benefit to your work ethic?

God.

That's the way he sees the kingdom.

So he's not against human effort, but he is against human effort without reliance upon him to be the fruit bearer.

God's not calling us to be lazy.

God's not calling us to just quit our jobs and rely completely upon him to put checks in our mailbox.

God's not calling us to apathy.

In fact, if anything, he's calling us out of it.

Active participation, benefiting his kingdom, realizing that we have to be completely self-or we have to be completely reliant upon him and him alone.

Number two, we have to evaluate the effects of complacency.

Evaluate the effects of complacency.

Look, church, the culture we find ourselves in, I'm gonna submit that a large part of that is because the church got complacent.

We lost the message of the gospel.

I'm not saying to the even let's even forget about the culture around us.

Let's just look at the church itself.

We've lost the message of the gospel, we've lost the call to holiness, we've lost the mandate to fight sin.

We've lost our ability to speak convictionally and authoritatively the word of God.

And we have made compromise after compromise after compromise, fundamentally because we didn't want to shake the boat.

We were complacent.

Because the whole purpose of complacency is just to maintain status quo.

So what will you do?

You compromise to maintain it, you become complacent.

We have to evaluate the effects of our complacency.

If we're mad at the state of the church, if we're Despair at the state of the church, we have to look at ourselves first and foremost.

Where have we lost the faithful, authoritative preaching of the Word of God?

Where have we stood up against what God calls sin and call it sin?

Where have we overextended grace just to say that you can live however you want because obviously God loves you just the way you are.

There's no expectation of change, of righteousness, of obedience, of faithful holy living.

No, grace is there.

What a weak, powerless, and pathetic message.

Grace is there so that we can no longer go on sinning.

Grace is there so that we can be conformed to the image of Christ.

Grace is there so that we actually have power to be saved.

Grace is there for conformity.

This happens all throughout our lives, even in the church, in our culture, in our homes.

There's negative effects of our complacency.

And we have to evaluate those things.

For some of us in our own homes, think about where you've been complacent.

Is your home, does it look the way that you envisioned that it would?

Does your home operate and function the way that you dream that it would?

Is Christ the center of your home in the way that you actually wish He was?

Is prayer, devotion, discipleship?

Is the honoring of God with your money, your stuff, your resources the way that you envisioned and dreamed that it would be?

If it's not, it's because somewhere we got complacent.

It's because somewhere we accepted that this was the status quo and to add something or change something was going to disrupt complacency.

You see, complacency has damaging negative effects for us to not be all that we know God has called us to be.

And what happens with complacency, one of the most detrimental things is it's not an overnight black and white, drastic change of events.

Complacency doesn't affect us like an earthquake would affect us, right?

Complacency doesn't affect us like some type of hurricane would affect a coastal state.

It's not an immediate native impact that we see.

The problem with complacency is that it's this slow, mild, unnoticed, unforeseen drifting away from what God has actually called us to be.

That's the problem with complacency.

And at some point in time, the foundation gives way and it all comes crashing down.

So we have to evaluate the effects of complacency in our life.

Thirdly, and lastly, we have to go to Jesus for all we truly need.

We have to go to Jesus for all that we truly need.

How much of our life is actually centered around a dependence on Him?

How many days do we go by not even acknowledging Him as Lord of our life, as Messiah, as Christ, as the one who gives us all that we truly need?

How many of us more so look at all the things that we rely on to give us what we need, right?

We rely on an alarm clock to get us up so that we can go to work, so that it can pay our bills.

We come home and we rely on the refrigerator being full because we went to the grocery store and we bought all that we needed for the week for our meals.

We rely on so many outside things and we rarely go to Jesus.

In fact, because we live in such a prosperous nation, we don't really ever feel a need to go for him until we're at the end of our rope, until we have one last-ditch effort to try and obtain it.

The problem of that, the reason we do that, is because we don't see what we really need.

We think that this stuff that we have is what we actually need, and we think that we have the means and resources to obtain it.

So why do we ever need to go to Jesus in the first place?

But if we actually saw what we truly needed, his righteousness, his purity, clothed in his garments of white, wealth of his gold that's been refined by fire, that's pure and holy, vision to be able to see past our circumstances and the culture that surrounds us, to see with spiritual eyes the reality of our own self, the reality of our church, the reality of the culture that we reside in.

If we understood that those were the things that we actually needed, we would constantly be going to Jesus because we would realize we had no ability in and of ourselves to obtain them.

So, Lord, I pray that we're awakened out of our complacency.

I pray that we refuse from here on out to be self reliant.

And that causes within us a desperation to daily come to Jesus for all we truly need.

Let's pray.