Revelation 3:14-22

Thank you, Sartak, for reading.

Thank you, Nicole, for your prayers.

Good morning, everybody, and uh welcome.

Thank you for logging on again on this uh Sunday morning as we conclude our series looking at uh the seven letters to the churches in the book of Revelation.

And uh from now on, just by uh way of information, from next week we'll get into our uh Psalms in the Summer series, and so we'll be continuing through to the end of August and looking at uh at Psalms from Psalm 44 and moving consecutively to around about Psalm 54, and that will take us up to the uh to the start of the new academic year.

So it's exciting to be in the uh in the old testament uh for a while, looking at the psalms, which really are the uh the lyrics of our of our faith and our emotional expression as Christians.

Good to have a a song book there in the Bible to know that that God values not just uh our head knowledge, but also the uh the stirring of our affections and the expressions of our hearts.

And so we're going to be uh doing that for uh the summer period.

And then, Lord willing, uh we will spend about a year in the Gospel of John.

It's gonna be a uh a great series and a great opportunity uh for uh for inviting along or inviting to watch, depending on how restrictions go, uh, your your non-Christian friends as we consider the person of Jesus and his uh and his claims.

And so that's where we'll be be going.

But for now, uh we conclude with the church in Laodicea.

So why don't I pray and then we'll we'll dive right in.

Father, we do thank you for uh these last weeks.

We thank you for how you have uh impressed the truths of uh the scriptures on our hearts, for how you have encouraged and convicted, how you have uh built up and stirred, and we pray that you would continue to do that, that you would do that uh today, that we would make much of Jesus, not just in these moments uh but in our lives.

And we pray these things in his name, amen.

Amen.

One of the things that the scriptures does is it uh it exposes our uh our idols, those things that we uh replace God with.

And this week the church in the laodice has been doing that for me, because I think one of the idols that has its roots deepest into my heart is the idol of self-reliance, of self-sufficiency, on relying on my own wisdom, my own strength, my own talents, my own skill, my own reasoning.

I don't like to be one who is seen as being in need.

I don't tend to reach out for help.

I don't like it when I have to accept assistance.

I suspect that rather than this just being a confession session from the pastor, that I'm not actually alone in that.

We grew up in a world, don't we, that tells us to make your own way.

March to the beat of your own drum, or you can be whatever you want to be.

I call self-reliance or self-sufficiency an idol because it is something that replaces God in our lives.

It's saying to God that we don't need his help, that we don't need to listen to his wisdom.

Sometimes we say that explicitly, but often simply by our actions, we realize that we're saying that implicitly.

We're implicitly shutting him out.

We would rather that he didn't see our need, and that he didn't come to help.

The problem with this, like every idol, is that it promises you freedom, promises you life and joy, and delivers so much captivity, so much death.

Every person who is given to self-reliance, who's given to self-sufficiency, will be attacked at one time or another by one of the following things.

Every person who is self-reliant knows what it is to be deeply exhausted, or told to make your own way, that you can be whatever you set your mind to, and those are great sound bites, but they can be crippling mantras to live by.

You can find yourself utterly wearied by them, and by the constant striving that you feel that you have to do, rather by the either by the pressure that you implicitly put upon yourself or the expectations of others, you can become exhausted by relying on your own strength.

Some lucky people are self-reliant and never feel tired.

Those people are attacked rather by pride, they thrive off hard work, it becomes a kind of a badge of honor.

They are always busy.

How you doing?

Just so busy, just so busy at the minute.

They love how it makes them feel, and they just quietly in their own minds look down on those a little bit, on those who they deem to be lazy.

Many people who are self-reliant face anxiety.

The self-reliant person will often be given to anxiety because the whole weight of their life, of their future, or the future of their family rests ultimately on their shoulders.

Their successes depend solely on them.

And so when things feel uncertain, when things feel out of control, anxiety sets in.

You feel like you cannot cope because of your self-reliance.

Twinned with anxiety is fear.

Self-reliant, self-sufficient people face fear all the time.

Fear that you won't achieve.

That people will see your limitations.

Fear that you will fail.

Laodicea was a self-reliant city.

They believed that they didn't need any help.

They'd believed that they didn't need any aid.

In AD 60, an earthquake struck the region.

Uh, you get uh kind of hints of it in the letter to Philadelphia when God talks about making the Christians into a pillar, right?

Because it can't be moved, it can't be shaken, because Philadelphia was devastated by the very same earthquake.

Philadelphia, because it was a poor city, had to reach out to the uh to the empire.

They had to send to Rome for financial aid, they had to do a fundraising campaign.

Laodicea was uh similarly badly damaged.

And yet, because they're a wealthy city, they actually shunned any outside help.

They said, we do not need the financial aid of Rome.

They had become self-sufficient, self-reliant because of their extraordinary wealth.

And the church in Laodicea had imbibed that culture.

The church in Laodicea had imbibed that self-reliance, they didn't need any help, they were they were self-sufficient and they didn't need Jesus anymore.

And he comes to them and points out that their self-reliance is crippling.

He exposes for them reality for how it truly is.

They think they're rich, but they're actually poor, all of which we'll look at in just a moment.

But before we get into the detail of Jesus' diagnosis and his solution to their self-sufficiency, let's think more about how self-sufficiency, self-reliance, how they will expose themselves in your life.

How do you know that you're given to self-reliance?

What are some of the symptoms?

First, you might be self-reliant if you find yourself prayerless.

Praying is at its heart an admission of need, it is a recognition of your dependence on your creator.

It's a recognition of your creaturliness, that you're not the master of your own fate, that you're not the uh the sole initiator of your own destiny.

And so to not pray is to live as though those things aren't true, to live as though you are the captain of your own soul, it is to live as though you do not need God or his help or his provision or his wisdom.

If your prayer life is called, it might be because it might be because you are self-reliant.

The second symptom is that the self-reliant person will work in a way that neglects their key relationships.

It works in a way that neglects the most important relationships around them.

Perhaps those are the relationships that you know you should value, relationships with your with your spouse, with your boyfriend or girlfriend or your fiance, relationships with your children.

You know you should prioritize those, and yet you are diverted because of your need, your drive to achieve.

But it may also be that it completely blinds you all together to the importance of relationships that you should deem to be important.

You find yourself not at all bothered by your church family, there is no yearning to be part of a body, there is no prioritization of time together, especially when you're busy because everything else is far more important.

People often kind of turn around and say things like oh I'm just I'm just too busy to I'm too busy to pray, I'm too busy to read, I'm too busy to be uh in community, I'm too busy to be at the community group or at the prayer meeting.

Could I suggest that we all have the same amount of time?

It is not the case that you are too busy to read your Bible.

It is perhaps that it is not a priority for you.

It is worth reflecting on why that is.

Perhaps it is because you are becoming self-reliant.

In that case, our values, those things that we prioritize, need to be redeemed.

They need to be reorientated along biblical lines.

Lines that are more life-giving for you ultimately.

Because do you remember the exhaustion and the anxiety and the fear?

A self-reliant person, thirdly, does not have good rhythms of work and rest.

You cannot switch off.

You cannot take a full day off to be away from work, to be with those you love, to spend time communing with the Lord.

You do not have good rhythms of work and rest.

Why?

Because rest, the cessation of work is ultimately an act of dependence.

It's saying to God, you are the one who is ultimately sovereign over these situations, you're the one who is ultimately lord over these emails, and so I can step back and I can come back in 24 hours refreshed and tackle them again.

Another symptom is that people end up becoming resources to be used.

People become useful rather than people to be loved simply for the sake of who they are.

You look at people and regard them as valuable if they can help you succeed.

A fifth and final symptom would be that the self-reliant person doesn't let anyone enter into their struggles.

You don't let anybody walk with you.

You don't come to not even community, even just another individual believer and say, I'm struggling with this, I need help with this.

You don't invite people to pray with you or for you.

Because to invite people in is to expose the fact that you are in fact limited.

Feeling convicted yet?

I am.

I have been this week.

I am given in various seasons to species of all of these symptoms of prayerlessness, of neglect of relationship, of shutting myself off, of not having good rhythms, of viewing people wrongly.

If you are like me, then you need to hear the warnings of Jesus, and you need to trust the instruction that he gives and take it to heart.

So, what are the warnings that he gives?

And then how does he help us to combat our self-reliance?

He gives us warnings in that he shows us the consequences of persistent self-reliance, and he does so by a number of images.

If you have your Bible or you uh or it's on your phone, now is the time to uh to pull it up and to have it in front of you.

Because you see, the first consequence of persistent self-reliance is that you become spiritually useless.

You become spiritually useless.

Look at verse 15.

I know your works, you are neither cold nor hot.

Would that you were either cold or hot.

So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

Laodicea was about ten kilometers uh south of a place called Herapolis.

And Herapolis was a place where there were hot springs.

Don't know if you've ever uh had the pleasure of going to somewhere like uh like Turkey or uh or southern Spain where there are those hot springs, those baths, but Herapolis was a place like that, and the Laodiceans had built uh uh an aqueduct to funnel the hot spring water uh down into the city, but obviously, over the course of 10 kilometers, as it traveled down those channels, it lost its heat, and by the time it arrived, it had become useless because lukewarm water uh is useless, it's not hot enough to soothe your body.

You think of slipping into a to a hot bath to to soothe those aches and pains, and it wasn't cold enough to be refreshing either, like a uh like a cold, icy drink of water on a hot summer's day.

Jesus would rather that they were hot or cold.

Some people have taken this to mean that you know I'd rather you were really on fire for me uh or uh or completely hated me.

No, that's that's not what Jesus is saying here.

I would rather you were of some use, hot enough to soothe, cold enough to refresh, but you're in that middle place.

A hot cup of coffee is perfect first thing in the morning, or an iced frappuccino can be refreshing when you want that caffeine hit in a hot day, but no one wants a lukewarm cup.

The Christians had become good for nothing.

They were neither hot nor cold, spiritually useless.

They become just like the world around them.

The chief way of becoming spiritually useless as a church, city church, let's become just like Dublin.

Let's become just like the city around us.

There will be no evangelistic edge, no evangelistic incentive for people to join us.

Spiritually useless.

And self reliance is a way of becoming spiritually useless because, well, just two things off the bat.

One, to rely on others, to ask others for help is a blessing to.

To them because they get to serve you.

Relying on Christ is precisely how we experience his power in us.

They become spiritually useless.

Their self-reliance has a second consequence.

Their self-reliance had also left them impoverished.

Look at verse 17, would you?

For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, I need nothing.

Not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

They thought they were rich because of their wealth as a city.

And Jesus looks at them and says, No, you are desperately poor.

They had valued the wrong things.

They had valued economic success, economic advancement instead of spiritual vitality.

This happens all the time.

All the time people take decisions, not considering the spiritual ramifications of them, but simply the economic benefit to them.

So often people think about moving to a different city, to a different part of the country, because of how it will help their career.

Not considering whether or not there is a community of faith where they can serve and be refreshed and sustained in their Christian life.

This is always a bad idea.

This is always a loss of perspective in terms of what is truly eternally valuable.

Now, don't mishear me.

I'm not saying that you cannot excel in your career.

I've never said anything like that.

I'm not saying that you cannot work hard.

I'm not saying that you cannot seek advancement.

But when you do so as an as an idol of success, as an as an idol of self-reliance, and one of the ways that you know that it's an idol is because you give no consideration to your spiritual health, then it's always a bad idea.

Read the opening chapter to the book of Ruth.

Ruth opens with a family.

And the father's name is Elimelech.

And he takes his wife Naomi and his two sons, and he leaves the people of God.

He leaves Israel and goes to Moab, a country where the children of God were told not to go.

He goes there for economic reasons.

And what happens?

He dies, his sons die, and his wife is left destitute.

This is a powerful reminder of the need to have the kinds of values that Jesus has as we seek wisdom for the decisions in our life.

Not only did it leave them impoverished, verse 17, but it also left them naked.

It didn't cover their shame.

Laodicea was a place that was renowned for its textiles, particularly its black wool.

And so Jesus is drawing on this image.

That actually, while they gloried in their textile industry, while they gloried in their finery, in their robes.

And yet Jesus says they are naked.

So often self-reliant people work to prove themselves, to work to prove that they are someone.

Lots of people in my profession, even a sin that I am given to from time to time, is that we use our ministries as a way of displaying our righteousness before God, that our ministry achievements become the basis upon our relationship with God.

Jesus is saying that doesn't work.

It doesn't work to rely on yourself to make God love you more, to prove that you are someone in the world.

In that way, you will still find yourself spiritually exposed, spiritually naked before his divine and holy sight.

Not only does it leave you useless, impoverished, naked, but it makes you blind.

It makes you blind to what's really going on in the world.

Again, that's in verse 17.

You become blinded to what's really going on.

You can become blinded to the people around you who need you.

You can become blinded to the people around you who want to love you, who want to enter into relationship with you, who want to walk alongside you, who are concerned for your spiritual well-being.

You become blinded to that need, you become blinded to them, you can become blinded to the spiritual realities.

You fool yourself into thinking that everything is fine and that everything is under control, and yet it is all just blindness.

As we think about and as we prepare to come out of lockdown more and more, and as we, Lord willing, in the next month, six weeks, however long it takes us to uh to do so in a safe way, as we prepare to meet together again and resume some sort of normality.

Could I plead with you to learn the lessons of this season?

Learn the lessons of COVID-19, self-reliance and control of your destiny is a myth.

They always were.

Come out of lockdown with your spiritual eyes wide open, seeing the world for how it truly is?

This will lead you into greater flourishing as a human being and as a disciple of Jesus.

So if those are the consequences, how does Jesus instruct this church?

How does Jesus counsel this church to overcome its self-reliance?

Four things.

He reminds them, first of all, of who he is.

Again, remember we've said it every week.

Jesus is drawing on, or John rather, in each of the letters, is drawing on an image of Jesus from chapter one.

Uh, and so looking at it uh here in verse 14 to the angels of the church and laodice, write the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation.

He reminds them, Jesus reminds this church that he is the Amen.

What does Amen mean?

The Amen is yes, or let it be so.

Jesus is the Amen of all of God's promises.

That's what Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians.

That is, that all of the promises of God, that he would be our God and we would be his people, of a new heart within us, of a new relationship with him, that all of those promises laid down in the Old Testament find their climax in the person and work of Jesus.

He is the focal point of God's working in the universe, he is the beginning of God's creation, not that he's the first created thing, as our as our Muslim friends mistakenly claim, but that he is the majestic one who is the agent of creation.

He is the word that was spoken when God said, Let there be light.

He is the one, therefore, who has all of the resources of the Creator at his disposal.

The universe revolves around a human being and it's not me.

The universe revolves around a human being and it's not you, and that's good news.

Jesus is the locus, the focal point, the climax of all of God's working in the world.

So he is the one that we need.

So he is the one who we must come and depend upon.

Again, Laodicea was rich, but Jesus says that they're poor.

So how does he counsel them?

He counsels them in verse 18.

Again, look at it with me.

I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so that you may be rich.

They are in their spiritual poverty counseled to come and buy gold from Jesus.

There are echoes here of Isaiah, of Isaiah chapter 55, where the prophet, God speaking through the prophet, counsels the people to to come and to buy bread, to come and to buy uh milk and and wine, to come and buy without price, to buy without money.

Isaiah 55 · chapter mention

It's that sort of idea.

It's not that we purchase our salvation.

It's an expression of coming to God in faith.

Come and buy from me.

To buy gold from Jesus is a is a beckoning from him to have him change our values, to have him change what we value and prioritize.

To buy gold from Jesus is to now value him, to value time with him.

It's to value community, the community of faith, the community of faith that we interact with in an open and vulnerable way.

It values openness and accountability, knowing that He is He is sufficient to cover our sin.

And so we need fear, no recrimination.

It is to value him as the one that we rest upon, because he is the Amen.

He is the firstborn of all creation.

He is the one, as Peter said at the start, who is the image of the invisible God.

All things were created through him and for him.

It is to value him as supremely lovely, as the one on whom we've set our affections.

It is to value those in the community of faith who love you and who are desiring to walk alongside you and pour into you.

Won't you open yourself to them?

Won't you be spiritually rich?

Not only were they impoverished, but they were naked.

And so Jesus says, continuing to read in verse 18 uh so you to buy gold, refine the fire so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe you yourself, and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen.

They gloried in their uh in their heavily sought-after uh textiles and their black wool, and Jesus says that they're naked, that their shame needs to be covered, because it's open for all to see.

It is only in coming to him, in taking on the white garments of faith.

White garments, white, that symbol of purity, that symbol of innocence, that symbol of having your shame covered, that can only be given by Jesus.

They covered themselves in black wool as earthly people, but as spiritual people, Jesus says, No, come and clothe yourself in in white, in the white robes of righteousness that you cannot earn yourself, but in the robes that I will give you.

Our self-reliance causes us to walk into the presence of God in tattered clothing, to say, look, not realizing how naked and exposed we are.

But Jesus offers that we might come into the presence of God, not robed in those tinted garments, but robed in the pure righteousness of another, in the pure and holy righteousness of Jesus.

That's what he offers you by faith.

Won't you come to him?

Self-reliance is utterly deadly, not because of the effects that it has in this life, though it does and it will strain and cripple the relationships that you find yourself in, but it has more eternally damning effects because your self-reliance will keep you from Jesus.

If you never see your need of him, if you never understand your sin need, your shame and your nakedness.

If you think I am fine, if watching this, you think I don't need any of that, you will never come to him.

It is only those who understand that they need a savior.

That's why in the gospels it's the sinners and the tax collectors, it is the uh the people of ill repute who who come and they flock to Jesus and they love to be with him, they can't bear to be parted from him.

And the religious leaders who think that they're fine with God, they look with disdain upon it.

They think, why would he be with people like that?

And what does Jesus say?

What does he turn around and answer the religious leaders with?

He says that it is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick.

He's saying that you will come to Jesus if you recognize your need of him.

Think also of Jesus' parable of in Luke 18, of the Pharisee and the and the tax collector.

The Pharisee draws close to to pray to God.

He's close to the uh to the to the temple, close to the altar, and and he prays.

And thank you, God, that I am I'm not like this this tax collector, this sinner.

And what are we told?

The tax collector standing far off.

He can't bear to come near.

The tax collector standing far off.

He simply says, Have mercy on me, God, a sinner.

And Jesus' question to the religious leaders is, which one went away justified?

Which one went away clothed in those innocent robes?

It was the one who recognized his need.

Your self-reliance will keep you from that.

That's why you must repent of it.

Self-reliance blinds us.

And so Jesus says final phrase, final clause in verse 18, he counsels them to buy gold, to buy garments, and now to buy salv, that is, balm, to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

It wasn't just rich, it didn't just have uh money from textiles, it was also the place that you went instead of spec savers in the ancient world.

It was a place of uh that made uh ointment for your eyes if you had uh uh sight conditions.

They made balm.

And yet Jesus says they're blind, and so he says, Come to me and by self to anoint your eyes.

Jesus encourages them to come to him in order to see what's really going on, to see how spiritually dry and dead they had become, how their spiritual self-reliance was affecting them and those around them.

Can I counsel you that perhaps after you watch this, one of the things that you need to do is you need to go to Jesus and ask him to see your life, to see the world as he sees it?

Perhaps also you need to go to a loved one, a spouse, a close friend, and say, Am I seeing things clearly?

Am I seeing my life, the world around me, our relationship the way it truly is?

Or is my self-reliance blinding me to other realities?

Jesus finishes as he does each of these letters with a final encouragement, with final promises.

Verse 19 Those whom I love I reprove and discipline.

Be zealous and repent.

Let's just think about that for a second.

It's been lots of hard words to hear this morning.

I understand that, I appreciate that.

But look at what Jesus is saying.

Those whom I love, I discipline in the same way that a good parent disciplines his or her children.

It is a more loving thing for them to be stopped in their foolishness that will harm them than to allow them to persist into harm.

If my child is running towards the road, and I know that there are cars coming up and down that road, the loving thing is to stop them in their tracks, to grab them by the collar and to pull them back.

The hard things that you're

Hearing the conviction that perhaps you're feeling does not come from a place of malevolence or recrimination, or I told you so.

It comes from a place of love.

Jesus loves this church here in La Seattle.

And he loves you.

All the things that we saw last week are true.

All the things that we saw in the church to Sardis are true.

The church of Sardis, the letter Church and Sardis that is dead.

Yeah, Jesus makes such exquisite promises to it.

Jesus loves and disciplines.

But then he says, verse 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down on my father's uh sorry, with my father on his throne.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

The first thing to note from these promises is that Jesus is not far off.

Jesus has not removed himself from self-reliant people, for which I am extraordinarily glad.

Jesus is not far off, the one who has all of the resources of the universe at his disposal, all of the resources of eternity at his disposal.

He says that he's standing at the door and knocking.

Now, some people think of this verse in terms of that it's evangelistic.

They say, Jesus is at the door of your heart.

And if you would only open it up to him, that he would come in and uh and make you a Christian.

That may well that may well be true.

Uh Jesus uh may well be wooing some of you, drawing them to himself, drawing you to himself.

Sometimes the Lord Jesus, like in the case of Paul, uh, doesn't stand at the door and knock, rather, he kicks it in.

And so that's not quite what he means.

He's saying, rather, to this self-sufficient, self-reliant church, he's saying, I'm right here.

Won't you ask for help?

Won't you reach out in independence and faith and find that you are rich?

Find that I clothe you, find that I make you see again.

You can work yourself to death, you can work and do it all under your own strength, you can continue to ignore your need of Jesus, or you can turn to him.

That's what repentance is.

It's turning to him and find that you have a deeper, sweeter, more intimate communion with him than ever before.

That's what that's what eating means.

I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna eat with you.

It's fellowship with, it's akin to what he says to the church in Sargash, you'll walk with me.

Friendship, intimacy.

That's what he offers you, self-reliant Christian.

Won't you take hold of that by faith?

And then in the end, in the end, you will share in his rule, you will share in the victory and in the rule of Christ.

You will sit down with him on his throne.

You will reach that throne, and Christ will share it with you in the end.

In the end, there are really only two choices.

Will we share the eternal honor of Christ on his throne with his father?

Or will we share the eternal dishonor that our self-reliance will ultimately lead us to?

Will you share in Christ's rule?

Or will you find yourself cast away?

Hell is full of deeply self-reliant people.

That's why C.S.

Lewis says that the door to hell is locked on the inside.

Because it's full of people who don't want or need God.

And so what steps will you take today?

Who will you speak to in order to ask for help?

Who will you speak to in order to ask for clarity?

Will you pray and seek the face of Jesus in your need?

Will you open yourself both to him and to the community of faith as they seek to walk with you, as they seek to walk together to know Jesus more and to make him known.

Let's pray together.

Our Father, we confess we confess that we go our own way.

We confess that we have not loved you as we ought.

That we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves, that we have been given to self-love, self-reliance.

By your Holy Spirit, impress our need of Jesus on us now.

Help us to turn to him in repentance of faith, knowing that he stands with open arms, ready to receive, ready to come in and eat with us, ready to draw us back into relationship with him.

May we know the sweetness of reliance upon him, the eternal and glorious one.

And may we may our whole life be marked by a continual turning and depending upon him for all of the unknowns and uncertainties of our lives, until we see him face to face.

Amen.

Amen.