What's in the post?  The letter to the angel of the Church at Laodicea

Revelation 3:14-22

Easton Christian Family Centre,  23rd November, 1998

Resources: cup of tea, money, plate, OHPs

 

E-mail joke.  Arrived safely.  But honey, it's hot down here.

 

This message is something that might have made the church it was sent to faint - unlike the other seven churches, it doesn't contain any congratulations.  God was speaking harsh words to them.  And what is more, he makes it clear that what he has to say about them is the complete truth about who they are.  These are the "words of the Amen - the faithful and true witness".  It's as if God has got up in court and said "I now swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the Laodiceans."  This message is like the brown envelope which lands on my doormat with my exam result.  I may have been able to convince everyone else that I had been revising hard.  I may even have been able to bluff my way through when talking about my subject in public.  But once the results arrive there is no disputing the true level of my achievement, or of my failure.

 

I've been wondering how I would cope with that kind of truth-telling about myself, or how we could cope as a church with God giving a no-holds barred account of our life.  Why should he do that?  Because He tells the Laodiceans that he disciplines those he loves.  Even though his criticism of them is gut-wrenching, he still holds them in his hand.  They are still one of the seven stars held by Jesus at the beginning of the book.  Jesus still begins his message to all the seven churches with the words, "Do not be afraid."  This is not a final rejection.

 

Which is the worse parent - the one who lets a child do what she wants, or the one who guides and disciplines?  We may want a comfortable faith, one where we never get challenged by God, or hear Him disciplining us.  We would probably quite like it if all through our lives the message we got from God was "You're doing fine - relax!"  But would that be a deep relationship?  Would we grow and experience God more and more that way?  Wouldn't the worst thing God could do to us be to actually leave us alone?  Can we go through our lives and never expect God to challenge us on any level and still really love us?  Are we Christians who will search for God's truth about ourselves and expect his loving discipline, so that we can mature in our faith? (OHP - how do we respond to challenge?)

 

Let's explore what God had to say to these people he loved.  The idea of God wanting to spit them out of his mouth came from the Laodiceans' own experience.  The water that they drank had to be piped in to the city - they didn't have a natural water source.  Apparently, it was full of minerals, which would have made it smell, and by the time it got along the pipes to the city it had turned tepid.   It was probably a bit like the water you get in the Pump Room in Bath.  You have to hold your nose to drink it.  The Romans used to use this water at their banquets to make themselves vomit, so they would have room for more food.  In effect, God was saying to the Laodiceans, "You make me sick."

 

What on earth had they done?  What was the problem with the Laodiceans?  What were they doing that made them so lukewarm?   God said that their problem was basically this:  they were wrapped up in themselves and their own success, and not in his love.  "For you say, "I am rich.  I have prospered, and I need nothing."  You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked."  The Laodiceans were a proud people.  They had rebuilt their own city after an earthquake.  Tacitus, a Roman writer, said, "Laodicea arose from the ruins by the strength of her own resources, and with no help from us."  They raised up temples, gates, ampitheatres and city squares.   They governed themselves, they were a wealthy trading city, they produced fine clothes, and were renowned for their medical knowledge, especially for the treatment of physical blindness, for which they had developed a special powder.  To all intents and purposes, they were decent, hardworking people who said the right things, did the right things, came to church on Sundays, and probably looked like the genuine article.  But, though they didn't realize it, their decent life, and their respectable religion made them poor and pitiable in God's eyes.  They had failed to find their source of splendour wealth and vision in Jesus.

 

(Get cup of tea)  Here is a cup of tea.  It looks like a cup of tea, it smells like a cup of tea.  It has the ingredients of a cup of tea.  To an outsider it is a cup of tea.  But to anyone who tastes it it is disgusting.  Why?  Because it is an hour old.  It's lost its heat.  Tea can either be iced on a hot day, or it can be steaming hot on a cold day.  But if it's lukewarm it is just no tea at all.  Can we be like this cup of tea?  Or like the Laodiceans?  Can we do all the right things, and even appear enthusiastically Christian, but just not be effective as Christians because we lack any extreme of temperature in our lives.  We never feel the heat of passion in our relationship with God, nor the cold steel of determination in our discipleship.  (Put cup on table)

 

Imagine a marriage where the husband and wife appear like a couple in public, say all the right things in public, hold hands in public, have books on good relationships, lead marriage guidance courses, renew their vows publicly and wear wedding rings.  As far as they are concerned they are doing the right things, and as long as they continue to act out the marriage, that relationship will flourish.  But the marriage consists only in the trappings of their relationship.  Those things will only mean anything when they are founded on a passionate commitment to each other.  When they begin to share their deepest feelings, when they talk to each other, when they open up who they really are inside to each other.

 

You may not feel like the Laodiceans that you are so much brimming with self-confidence, that you don't think you need anyone, or anything, or God.  You may be painfully aware that you need God.  But, nevertheless, many of us will feel that in many ways our relationship with Jesus is good in public, but lukewarm in private.   We may be aware that we look like Christians, act like Christians, and call ourselves Christians, but that all our Christian living still remains lukewarm.  As someone has written, "Many Christians have enough religion to make themselves decent, but not enough to make them dynamic."  What does Jesus tell them and us to do about it?  How are we to move from being decent Christians to dynamic, from being lukewarm to being passionate and determined? 

 

The key, Jesus said to Laodicea was this:  "Don't try and be self-made Christians, or a self-made church.  But buy from me.  (Get money and OHP)  Don't rely on your own riches and gold, but buy the wealth of my love.  Don't put on clothes which only make you look good in front of others, but buy righteousness from me.  Buy things from me that will make your heart look good to God.  And don't seek after the reputation of being spiritually wise before other people, but buy wisdom from my lips.  The wisdom that will enable you to see things like I see them." 

 

And what could Jesus be asking us to buy from him?  Perhaps  he might be saying, "Do you feel nervous about the future of your church?  Then buy peace from me, as you realize that your church is mine.  Do you wonder how you are going to get on with a new vicar?  Buy my leadership, buy my vision for you.  Are you running out of energy and love?  Are you too busy doing things as a church?  Buy love and energy from me, from my death and resurrection."  Are you wanting to know why you were born?  Buy from me a life worth living, a path worth following."  (Put money on table)

 

We should not deceive ourselves.  When we don't put Jesus at the centre of our life and our life together, we are not just missing an opportunity, but we are living a life which is so stale and tepid it makes God feel sick.  It is not just for our advantage that Jesus calls us to buy from him, and we need to repent.  But we also need to remember that for every step God asks us to take towards him, he has already taken ninety-nine towards us.  If Jesus wants us to come and buy from him, he is not sitting back in his corner shop, waiting for our shopping day.  He is using every way he can to try and convince us we should come - direct selling, literature, advertising, junk mail, door-to-door.  He even gets our friends to invite us to shop.  Revelation 3 verse 20 is one of the most famous verses in the Bible.  "I am standing at the door and knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come into you and eat with you, and you with me."   Jesus stands and knocks, and he keeps on knocking.  If we are the disinterested bride, Jesus is the lover who won't give up, but stands all night at the door, hoping that it will open.  Song of Songs catches the mood of his passion for us.  "Listen, my beloved is knocking.  Open to me my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one; for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night."  Here is a lover who will knock whatever the circumstances, and however far off we seem to be.  If we open the door to him, he will come into us and eat with us.  It literally means he will have supper with us.  (Get plate, knife and fork and OHP)  Supper was the meal of the day - the one where you would take your time, share jokes, feelings, companionable silence.  Jesus says, "Let me in and eat with me.  Spend time with me, waste time with me, be yourself with me, relax with me."  The Laodiceans were used to Roman soldiers knocking on their doors and demanding food, abusing their hospitality.  But this guest never forces himself, and his presence is warm and gracious.  This is the call to us - to be deeply one with him.  (Put plate on the table)

 

Jesus says to us "Buy from me" and "Eat with me".  To each of us these calls may say different things to our hearts.  But perhaps we can think about what they could mean for our church at this time, and what the challenge is to us in our daily lives.  Many people believe that God is calling us to pray at Easton in perhaps a way that we have not learnt to do before.  We are a very busy church, and we are approaching a period of change.  There will be grieving at the thought of Will and Ruth going, but there will also be the anticipation of what a new phase might bring.  But if what we are is to be founded in Jesus, and if we are to know real heat and passion at the centre of our life, then God is calling us to put prayer at the top of our agenda in a new way.  He may even be saying, "Drop your other activities, so that you can buy from me, so that you can eat with me."  He wants us to pray, and he wants us to listen, so that the hope we pass on to others in our activity comes from him.  He longs for us to be effective, he longs for us to be on fire.  He longs for us together to seek him in prayer.  I don't often get prophecies, but on Monday evening when I was praying with others, I felt he was saying something like this:  "Pray with tears, pray with groans, pray with your hearts.  Pray together, pray alone.  Pray with fear, pray with expectation.  Pray with joy, pray with hope.  Pray when you feel like it, pray when you don't feel like it.  Pray with your whole selves."  CS Lewis wrote, "It is not so much of our time and attention that God demands; it is not even all of our time and attention; it is ourselves."

 

The core of Jesus' message to Laodicea and to us is this.  Everything you do, everything you are, every activity you are involved in, is lukewarm, stale, tasteless, even pointless unless it comes out of a passionate, warm, committed relationship with me.  Turn around then, from anything which is self-made, self-serving, and put my life and my love at the centre of it.  Then you will know what it is to win, to conquer, to know that your life is heading in the right direction.  And when you see me face to face, you will recognise me and I will honour you.  Whether we are Christians, or non-Christians, the challenge is the same.  We will only know passion, meaning, heat, direction in our lives, when we open the door to our lover who knocks and knocks, his heart pounding, and let him in.  Let's not settle for a sham marriage to Jesus.  Let's seek the heart of his love as we allow him to eat with us in prayer.  As we come to take his body and blood tonight, let's use the opportunity to examine ourselves, to test our temperature.  (Point to cup) Let's come and buy food and love which satisfies, (point to money) and let's sit down and eat long into the night with our lover (point to plate) , the one who is not lukewarm about us, but burns with passionate love and self-giving.

 

Prayer - Open to God p21 (OHP)

 

 Back to sermon index