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)