07-29-12 ARROGANCE

Rev. 3:14-22

"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this:

' I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'"

There are many students of the Bible

who believe this church at Laodicea

pictures the general condition of the organized church world

just prior to the return of Christ.

The one-word title we are going to give

to this church at Laodicea

is the word Arrogance.

Both the condition of this religious organization

and the comments the Lord makes to it

are bleak.

The church was located

just 40 miles southeast of Philadelphia,

the church we looked at last week.

Though it was physically close to Philadelphia

it could not have been farther away spiritually.

If you were with us last week

you remember the tremendous words

of affirmation and encouragement

the Lord offered to the church at Philadelphia...

Rev. 3:8-9 ' I know your deeds. Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name. Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie I will make them come and bow down at your feet, and make them know that I have loved you.

...I will make them know that I have loved you...

Could there be any greater promise from the King?

But that was 40 miles to the north,

that was Philadelphia.

This is Laodicea.

This is a church

that was desperately sick

and didn’t even know it.

The Lord begins without a single word of affirmation.

Rev. 3:15-17 'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I would that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,...

I think one of the first things

that hits anyone who reads this passage

is the powerful reaction Christ has

to the condition of being lukewarm.

Christ actually says

He would rather have them be spiritually cold - dead

than to have them be lukewarm.

He traces their lukewarm condition

to their success in achieving

a level of affluent security

that allowed them to believe

they had truly arrived -

they had need of nothing else.

This was a church made up of good people

living the good life.

They weren’t into the deep things of Satan.

They weren’t running wild in the sins of the flesh.

They weren’t denying the crucial doctrines of the faith.

They were simply good people

living the good life

and feeling very, very good about the whole thing.

I want to make a statement right now

that is the heart of everything

I want us to learn from this church at Laodicea.

It is a statement that runs the risk

of being misunderstood,

but it’s worth the risk.

And here’s the statement:

The only truly healthy Christian life is the one lived on the perpetual edge of desperate urgency.

Huh?

I believe the Lord reacted so strongly

to this church at Laodicea

because they had created a religious form

that denied the most fundamental truth in all of life -

everyone of us have a desperate daily need for the love,

and leadership,

and life of our Creator within us.

And before we go any farther

in the Lord’s comments to this church

I want to prepare you for something

that will be a part of every one of you who develop a healthy, productive,

growing relationship with Christ.

I know that it is often our desperate need

for solutions,

for answers,

for healing,

for deliverance from our pain

or our problems,

or our bondage that brings us to our King.

I know, too, that our God does heal,

and deliver,

and release.

It’s some of the things He does best.

But there is a tragic, wide-spread deception throughout much of the Christian world

that suggests that the ultimate goal

is to achieve complete healing

and freedom

and deliverance

from all those things that plague our lives.

We cling to the belief that

the goal of God’s involvement in our lives

is to make us all pain-free,

debt-free,

and worry-free for as long as we live.

And if we can just get over these first initial hurtles,

these nasty little problems

that are currently plaguing our lives,

we will ultimately arrive at that goal.

And it is a lie.

The truth is

when God is truly freed to work in our lives

He will work to create within us

a daily desperate urgency for Him.

Maybe I can state it best by contrast.

Man-made Christianity,

the kind of Christianity that existed in the church at Laodicea,

boldly proclaims that God’s goal,

and His highest good for each of us

is to provide us with an inalienable right to

life,

liberty,

and the successful pursuit of happiness.

True Christianity, on the other hand,

tells us that the ultimate goal we are called to pursue is that ...

we may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that we may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

To know Him,

and the fellowship of His sufferings...

Let me put it another way.

Man-made Christianity

leads men and women to believe that we can use Christ

to bring us closer to the good life.

True Christianity tells us that God will use real life

to bring us closer to Christ.

I told you a few minutes ago that

the only truly healthy Christian life is the one lived on the perpetual edge of desperate urgency.

Let me explain what I meant by that.

I believe that

when we are living as God wants us to live

there is a conscious,

daily realization of our desperate need for God

and the knowledge that if He took His hand off of us for an hour

we would crash and burn.

That is healthy Christian living.

That is why He has chosen not to remove

that tender spot in your life -

that weakness,

or that fear,

or that health problem,

or that vulnerability to that one particular attack or temptation.

That is His great ally

in helping you to maintain

that perpetual edge of desperate urgency.

And this, of course,

is where the church at Laodicea

had gone so desperately wrong.

They weren’t trying to build a false image

like the church at Sardis,

they were simply trying to build

a Christian life that did not demand

a desperate dependance upon Christ.

But that’s what the true Christian life is -

it is a life that openly acknowledges

our daily, desperate dependance upon Christ.

The contrast Christ sets up for us in verse 17 could not be more dramatic.

... you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,

One of the many remarkable things

about these seven messages

in Revelation 2 and 3

is the powerful redemptive emphasis

in everything Christ says.

These words of Christ to Laodicea

are not words of condemnation,

they are words of truth

designed to jar this church out of its self-denial.

Do you remember that fairy tale about the Emperor’s new clothes?

Do you remember how he was tricked into believing

he was wearing a beautiful outfit

that only truly wise people could see?

Well, this church is The Emperor’s New Clothes in real life.

The church, like the Emperor,

had wanted to be deceived.

The Emperor wanted to believe he was wise,

and this church wanted to believe

affluence was a proof

of God’s blessing and approval.

It was an act of kindness

to tell the Emperor he was standing naked before his people,

and it was an act of kindness

for Christ to tell His church

they were standing naked in spirit

before the world.

He then offers them

a prescription for healing.

Rev. 3:18 I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich, and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.

The gold, the garments, and the ointment, of course, are figurative.

Peter talks about the gold in I Peter 1:6-7.

In that passage he is talking about

... an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for God’s people.

Then he goes on to say,

1 Pet. 1:6 In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials,

1 Pet. 1:7 so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

The gold refined by fire

is that faith in our Lord

that can only come from not running away from issues He has placed before us,

but rather walking with Him

through the fire

and coming out the other side

having found Him faithful

each step of the way.

The white garments

that Christ calls them to put on

are the covering from our shame

that only He can give us.

Rev. 7:13 Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?"

Rev. 7:14 I said to him, "My lord, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Every one of us

comes trotting into God’s family

very much like a seven year old boy

who has been out playing in the mud.

We are caked and splattered

from head to foot with dirt and grime.

God takes each of us,

much as a parent would take that dirty child,

and He begins to clean us up.

He washes

and scrubs

and pats

and dries

and hugs us throughout the process.

With every one of us, though,

there comes a time

when we suddenly look at what we’ve been wearing

and cringe in shame

at the filth we had wrapped around us.

With each of us

there will very likely be at least one stain on those clothes

that, to us, seems far worse than the rest.

When we first see that spot,

our response is nearly always

to attempt to cover it up.

We want to hide it so that He can’t see it.

We anticipate condemnation,

and fear what He’ll say.

It will help us to remember that,

no matter how carefully we think we have hidden it from view,

our Lord has already seen that spot long ago.

He knew it was there

the first day He brought

His muddy little child into His family.

To God, that stain is no different in nature

from all the rest of the filth

we brought with us.

He knows just exactly what to do.

First He cleanses our hearts,

placing within us a love for Him

and a longing to follow His lead.

Then He takes all those old clothes of ours,

and wads them up and throws them away,

and then He takes a brand new white robe,

one just our size,

woven from His own righteousness,

a robe He wraps around us Himself,

and ties with His love,

a robe with which He removes our shame forever.

The greatest tragedy

with this church at Laodicea

is found in verse 20

where Christ says,

Rev. 3:20 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

Here is Christ

standing on the outside of what was once His church

knocking and asking for permission

to be allowed to enter.

This is the end result

of the gradual transformation

of true Christianity into the counterfeit Christian religion.

This is Christianity as a business,

affluent,

socially prominent and secure,

a Christianity that uses the name of Christ freely,

and teaches the doctrines of Christ effectively,

and speaks the Name of Christ with reverence,

but a Christianity that has no place

for the Person of Christ in its business as usual.

This is the Christianity

that dominates our society today.

It is a Christianity

that proclaims with boldness,

"I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,"

And the only thing it lacks

is its Savior.

There is a strong implication in Revelation

that this is the Christianity

that will dominate the world

just prior to the return of Christ.

But even here Christ makes it clear

that, for those who have grown weary

of a Christianity without Christ

... if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

And what will change if we do, in fact, invite Him in?

The first huge change

concerns what happens between us and Him.

The words that our Lord uses

to describe what He’s offering

are words filled with deep, rich, intimate friendship.

I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me...

He doesn’t just say, “I will come in...”,

He says, I will come in to him.

He comes in for the friendship,

He comes in because He wants to be with the one who invites Him in.

...and I will dine with him, and he with Me...

It’s the picture of you and your Creator

eating together,

laughing together,

and listening to one another,

and then, as the meal progresses,

each of you sharing your hearts with one another.

You talking with Him about the places where you hurt,

and where you fear,

and where you’re confused,

and Him letting you look into His heart - the heart of God.

And, wonder of wonders,

what you see when He lets you in is yourself - you are in His heart,

and in His mind,

surrounded in His love.

And all that affluence you longed for,

and all that success you thought you needed,

and all that stuff you were clinging to

can’t even begin to compare to the wealth you discover in Him.

He is what you’ve been longing for from the very beginning.

And the second thing that changes

when you let Him in as your Lord and your friend

is how His presence affects your perspective on life.

You begin to see with His eyes,

and feel with His heart,

and when that happens

both pain and redemption become the cornerstones of your life.

The pain you see in the lives of others

causes you to reach out to help...to heal,

and as you share that pain with your Lord

you will see what few in this world ever have eyes to see -

you will see, at times,

the redemption of God being lived out

both in your own life

and in the lives of the ones He has entrusted into your care,

the ones you love.

But the clear message the King wants to offer to this church,

and to all others who are like this one

is that when the religious system reaches this state of disintegration

His invitation for healing

will be extended to only one person at a time

and only those with ears to hear and hearts to respond

will discover the reality of God in their lives.

Rev. 3:22 ' He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'"