True spirituality or just a glossy disguise? (Rev 3:14-22)

We’re going to spend some time in Revelation chapter 3. We’ve been looking at meals with Jesus, thinking about meals particularly that are talked about from John’s writings. We’ve looked at the ones that are in the Gospel of John, and we’re going to spend two weeks thinking about two meals that are referred to in the book of Revelation. We’ll spend a bit of time in that. A little bit of a different tweak on the meals with Jesus that comes at the end of this passage. We’ll spend some time there. You might want to keep your app ready for Revelation chapter 3.

Let me start with a story. Many of you know my parents live west of Cairns up on the tablelands. They live on a property in the Millaa Millaa area. Dad has been building a house. It was started with a shed and they added extensions. It actually started with a shipping container. That’s their bedroom. And then they added extensions to that. He’s quite a handy guy. It looks like a house. It’s actually hard to find the shipping container in the construction these days.

One of the things they wanted was a timber feature wall in the middle of the house. Dad went and built this timber feature wall. I was there with my brother one day and my brother was looking at this timber feature wall and just said to my dad, “How did you get that rippled effect under the varnish across this?” And as he touched the wall, it crumbled. It turned out some termites had moved in. The only thing that was holding the feature wall up was the varnish that they had decided that wasn’t the edible bit. They had eaten out everything behind the varnish. They live on a property with termite mounds this high outside, so it’s probably not that big a surprise what happened. What happened was the decoration, the varnish, the glossy exterior had hidden the destruction that was going on behind.

As we come to the letter in Revelation, we find a similar message that sometimes the decoration that’s on the outside hides the destruction of what’s going on just behind the surface. In fact, what we read was Revelation chapter 3. It’s the last of seven messages to seven different churches. John has a prophecy, a vision, and that’s what the book of Revelation is. In this particular part of the vision, he sees Jesus surrounded by, we’re told, the picture is seven lampstands, which are the seven churches. Jesus is there and he’s giving a message to these lampstands. It’s quite a warning he gives them. In particular to Ephesus, he spells out that warning that says if things don’t change, your lampstand will be taken out of your church, which may not sound that serious to you. I would say you clearly haven’t worked in an old traditional building and tried to move furniture before. Moving a lampstand in a building in a church can actually be an incredibly serious thing. But more importantly, the message here is that the light would be taken from the church and that in fact the church would be lifeless without that light. That’s the danger.

There’s this message that goes out to seven churches from Jesus. What we’re going to do is we’re just going to look at the seventh one which gives us a bit of a picture of some of the others. But that seventh one flows us right into the message that comes after those seven messages, which is the invitation to the meal. Here’s where we’re going. We’re going to look at: receive the report, receive the riches, and receive the king, which probably should have been like receive the redeemer or something like that, but I’m a rebel like that. We’re going to go with receive the king. That’s where we’re headed. We’ll follow through and we’ll look at this passage.

Receive the Report

Here’s the first thing. There is a report from Jesus and the call for us is to receive that report. It’s a desired report. You understand there’s some reports you dread are coming because there might be bad news. There’s some reports you find are not that useful. And there’s some reports you need to see no matter how horrible they are. In fact, some reports you have to desire them because they might be damning reports.

Some of you remember our own journey with termites on this property when we had termites in our lower hall there. The journey of that was pretty similar. Touched the paint and some crumbled away. We had to get an assessment of what was going on there. We ended up stripping all the lining out internally so that we could look at what was going on and make a proper assessment, and that was incredibly important. We have our kids’ program running down there and we needed to look at the situation and assess it properly and get a proper report on what was happening. It wasn’t going to work for us to say, “I think it’s going to be bad news. Let’s just not look. Let’s just pretend.” Sometimes we really need the report. In fact, if it’s bad news, we need it even more. That’s what’s going on here.

A Desired and Reliable Report

It’s a report that we should desire, and it’s a report that is reliable. It’s written to the church. Although it’s written in the English translation, verse 14, “write this letter to the angel of the church of Laodicea.” The word angel there literally translates as messenger. Sometimes we translate it as messenger and sometimes we translate it as angel. The difficulty here is this is a spiritual vision of John’s, so it’s hard to know which he means. Does he mean a spiritual being, angel, or does he mean messenger? Most commentators will agree angel there just means the communicator of the church. It’s the pastor. I am the angel. That’s the story there. Write this letter to the angel. It’s most likely to the messenger. That’s who the message is to. It’s to the church is what is the point. It’s to the church.

But what makes it a reliable message is who it is from. We’re told it comes from Jesus. But this is the message. The way it’s written, it says this is the message from the one who is the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s new creation. It says it’s the message from the one who is the Amen. Now you know what amen means, right? It means thank goodness that long prayer is over, we can now eat the meal or something like that. That’s what amen means. Amen just means truly or true. It’s used sometimes we have it translated in our Bible and sometimes we just say it as the Greek word amen. That’s the word. The word is amen. Jesus says it a number of times when he says, “amen truly truly I say to you.” He says amen, we translate it true or very true, but then the other time when it’s at the end of a prayer, we see it as a statement: this is true, this is the truth. When you say amen at the end of something, you’re saying, “I agree, I say this is true.” That’s what’s happening.

When we’re told that this message comes from the Amen, it’s not so much the true one as it is the one who is the affirmation, the amen at the end, the agreement. He’s the one. It comes from the Amen, but it also, we’re told, comes from the one who is the beginning of God’s new creation. He’s not just the last affirmation. He’s the first affirmation. He’s the architect. He’s the designer. He’s the originator. He’s the one at the beginning and he’s the one at the end. The picture is this is a report we should desire because it’s reliable because it comes from the one who put it all in place in the first place and who affirms it at the end. If we think of the image, the illustration of a building, it’s the designer architect and engineer at the beginning is the same one who signs off on it at the end that says what was put in plan has come about. This is the one who is giving the inspection report. It’s a report we should desire. It’s a reliable report.

A Damning Report

But it is, we’re told, quite a damning report. Of all the letters, messages to the seven churches, all the churches have something positive said. Only one of the churches doesn’t have anything negative said. Only one of the churches doesn’t have anything positive said, and that’s this one. All the others have something positive said. To this church, the seventh church, is quite a damning report. This is what it said, verse 15.

“I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!”Revelation 3:15-16

We understand the illustration, right? You’ve experienced this with tea or coffee. You have a hot coffee, a hot tea, it’s enjoyable. There comes a phase in the middle where if your tea goes cold, it’s not enjoyable. But on the other end of the spectrum, we will drink iced coffee and iced tea. But there’s something that happens that if you make a coffee and it becomes iced coffee, not so good. I’ve actually figured out for myself that if I change my brain, if the coffee goes cold, if I just go, “Oh, it’s an iced coffee now,” that’s lukewarm. It’s okay. I could handle it. There’s a change there. But there is something about that. We will take hot coffee, hot tea, iced coffee, iced tea. But something in the middle is not a desirable thing. That’s the illustration we get here.

Now, it seems like we would understand this to be that one end of that spectrum is a good thing and the other end isn’t. Hot, you’re a church that’s on fire for Jesus. Cold is someone who has cold hearts and is against Jesus. If that’s true, if that’s the picture, then why is this lukewarm thing so undesirable in this illustration? Why would Jesus say, “I spit that out?” Surely we would say, “Well, lukewarm is better than cold.” Surely it’s not hot, but it’s better than cold. But there’s a problem going on here. The problem is that the lukewarm is disguising the destruction. The glossy ritual for the church is hiding the rot that is happening underneath. What happens is it actually becomes more problematic that they’re lukewarm because we can no longer see the problem and then the problem is ignored.

It’s spelled out for us in this message. This is what it said in verse 17. It says, “You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing.’” That’s the glossy exterior. But then Jesus says, “And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” We understand that illustration too, don’t we? The idea that sometimes wealth covers up maybe problems that are happening behind the scenes. We have that moment where we see someone who seems to have it all and they have enough money to do and live whatever life they want. There’s a danger that we don’t notice that actually they’re lonely or actually they have real problems going on or actually there’s real corruption in their life. We fall into that danger, don’t we? We see someone who has wealth and think they must be doing okay. But we understand that illustration that just because someone has all those things doesn’t mean they’re going okay. In fact, in many ways, you can be worse off with more than you can be with less.

The same thing is true here with this picture of the church. There is a danger that the glossy exterior might hide what is going on underneath. That this religious prosperity, this richness of ritual might hide a rotting of spirit that is happening behind. That’s the danger. That’s why lukewarm is a problem. It’s something we see directly in Jesus’ own ministry. There are three groups of people we see in Jesus’ ministry. If we describe his disciples, his followers, as those that are on fire for Jesus, they’re in the hot category. We certainly come across those that seem far from God. We talk about the tax collectors and the prostitutes and people that he comes across that seem far from God. There’s a group in the middle that look like they’re close to God. Yet it feels like, and if you read through the gospels, you see they’re the people that Jesus clashes with the most. In fact, it seems like those that appear far from God, it’s much easier for Jesus to draw a line in the sand and for them to understand what is going on there. But those that appear close to God, but really we can see their hearts are far from him, don’t see it, don’t see what’s going on. In fact, Jesus uses the very same illustration when he calls them whitewashed tombs. That is, they’re a graveyard that’s been painted white. It looks clean and new, but actually what’s inside is death. That’s what Jesus says about the religious leaders in his day. That’s the same message that’s going on here to this church in Laodicea.

It’s quite a damning report. Why should we desire such a damning report? Because we need to desire a damning report even more than we desire praise. If it’s true, there is a real challenge for churches, and this is a great message for churches to wrestle with. There’s a real challenge for those that are gathering all the time together, that are doing the religious things, that are doing many practices that we do that help point us to God. There’s a real challenge that when we come to rely on the things we’re doing and we think that because we’re going through these rituals, we’re suddenly right with God and actually miss the whole point of relationship with Jesus. That the glossy ritual might hide the rot that’s underneath.

I find this often as someone who works for a church in ministry. The conversations happen with people, and so certain people when they find out my role or when Susie and I are talking to people, there’s an overcompensating at times for their religious connections. You say, “I work for a church.” “Oh, I was baptized. I was christened in this church or I go to this church or this is my church.” People make those connections. A classic one that happens surprisingly often is someone will say, “Oh yeah, I don’t really go to church, but I read my Bible and pray every day.” It’s a surprising thing for someone to say, and maybe it is true. My skepticism partially comes from the fact that I don’t read my Bible and pray every day. I seek to be a follower of Jesus. I seek to do lots of things. But I recognize that a daily quiet time is a challenge in my life. For someone who appears like they have no connections with Jesus, I raise a skepticism to that kind of idea. It feels like they’re overcompensating. What’s strange about it is that idea that they’re trying to justify their connection to God and say that’s it. Because I do this thing, I’m okay because I’m connected to God. The message here is it’s not these rituals we do that make us right with God. The glossy rituals can hide the rot that is underneath. We need to receive this report.

Receive the Riches

But Jesus doesn’t leave us there. He wants us to receive the riches of the kingdom. The report says, let’s put this up on the screen again, verse 17, we read, “you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” So the next verse, verse 18, “So I advise you to buy gold from me, gold that has been purified by fire. Then you will be rich.” He says, you see what he said there? He said, “You are poor.” And the very next verse he says, “But I won’t leave you poor. What I’m going to do is you can buy gold from me.” Does that make sense? It doesn’t make sense, right? You don’t say to someone, “I see you have nothing. I have something you could buy off me.” That’s not the answer. But what’s happening here is a description of what the economy of the kingdom looks like. Because the economy of the kingdom is grace. The economy of the kingdom is a free gift. The message, “you’re poor, you can buy gold off me,” is that this is a free gift of gold.

That language is used other places in the Bible. For example, Isaiah 55 says this. It says, “Come all who are thirsty, come to the waters. You who have no money.” It says, “Come by and eat. You have no money, but come by and eat.” Why would we use that kind of language? We could just say it’s free. Sometimes the Bible does use that language, but there’s something else going on here because it’s not truly free. There actually is a cost to it. The cost just isn’t paid for by us. You think of the illustration of playing shop with little kids. It’s a classic game for kids. You want an adult to engage with them and buy ice cream off them and you pretend to give them money and then they pretend to make you an ice cream, give you a bit of attitude like a real shopkeeper, that sort of thing. You have that little playoff.

Sometimes we’ve played that game and used real food. So the kids, over lunch or something, you say, “We’ll buy some food. Here’s your food.” Even these days we do it with our kids. We call it Wormsley Cafe. They love Wormsley Cafe. They come and take our orders and they go off and make us drinks. We love Wormsley Cafe. They love Wormsley Cafe because they get to have nicer drinks than usual. They get to go to the Wormsley Cafe drinks and pick some of the nicer drinks. They like it and they come and make us a drink and it’s this little play cafe. As if the food is all free, but it’s not free, is it? It was bought by someone. It’s in the cupboard because it was bought by someone. It was bought by us. We have paid for that food.

There’s a similar picture here. There is a price that’s been paid, but the price is Jesus. The economy of grace is a free gift. The currency of the kingdom is our own need. That’s how we pay for the gift. We have to receive the report, recognize the problem, recognize you are bankrupt, and it’s only in recognizing your bankruptcy that you can buy the gold. That’s what’s happening here. We are invited not to stay in the place of the damning report, but to receive the riches of the kingdom. There’s a completeness to the provision that’s provided there. Look what it said. Verse 17 said, “You are poor, you are naked, you are blind.” Verse 18 says, “Buy gold. Buy clothes. There’s ointment for your eyes.” Poor, naked, and blind. Gold, clothes, and ointment. And the last one he said, “You are wretched. You are miserable.” So we come to the last thing we are to receive. We are to receive the riches. And with the riches we receive the king.

Receive the King

The receiving of the king in this passage comes in two parts. It comes first with the reminder that there’s a rebuke and then it comes with Jesus at the door.

A Loving Rebuke

Look what it says. Verse 19. “I correct and discipline everyone I love. So be diligent and turn from your indifference.” This is the love of Jesus in his message that he’s willing to give us a loving and true report about where we stand for our own sakes that we might know. But that report always comes in two parts. It comes with the report, but it also comes with the solution. You think of the illustration of a surgeon who tells you that there’s a growth, a tumor or something like that and with that message says, “And good news, I’m able to operate on it and we can deal with it.” That’s the message that’s happening here. Jesus isn’t just giving us bad news. The bad news is on its way to the good news.

That’s what we see in Jesus’ ministry all the time. As we look at Jesus’ teaching, there’s arguably no one in the Bible that speaks more about judgment than Jesus does. Definitely the topic of eternal judgment. No one speaks about that more than Jesus, by far in scripture, by far in the New Testament. He speaks more about judgment because first of all, he’s the one that has enough ultimate authority to have that conversation and make that teaching, but also he’s the one, the only one that can offer a solution to that. The rebuke comes with this offer.

An Intimate Invitation

Verse 20. “Look, I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will share a meal together as friends.” This is the meal we come to as we think about meals with Jesus. In many ways, it’s no different than the meals we see in the life of Jesus when he goes to the house of Matthew, when he has a meal with Zacchaeus. In some ways, it’s no different in the sense that in those places he is having a meal of relationship. Although in one sense, this is even more because this is a spiritual relationship. This is an eternal relationship. This is the anchoring point that happened as far as we can tell in those stories as well, but is clearly happening here. Let me observe three things about this scene.

• It is a persistent knocking. The message here isn’t, “Hey, heads up. I knocked and you didn’t answer.” That’s not the message. It’s not, “Behold, I gave you a chance. I was knocking.” No, the message, the language here is here I stand at the door and am knocking. I stand at the door and knock. It’s a present persistent message.
• There is a promise of an answer. It’s not I’m knocking and I’m not going to come in. It says if you open that door, I will come in. So there’s a persistent knocking. There’s a promise of an answer.
• There is a meal that is provided. It says, “Share a meal together as friends.” This is what comes at the end of this damning report. It’s an invitation to an intimate relationship.

We need to have that assessment for ourselves. We are in danger of letting glossy ritual hide the fact that our hearts are far from God. We need to be true and open with ourselves and with the Holy Spirit as we wrestle with that in ourselves. Or maybe we’re in a space where we’ve never been in relationship with Jesus and we’ve been trusting in rituals, trusting in the things we’re doing and never truly opening that door to have that meal with Jesus. That’s the invitation for us. Not that we missed the opportunity and he knocked and left, but he is there knocking and the invitation is relationship.

Let me finish with this story. Growing up I had some rebellious moments. I know I seem perfect, but I had some rebellious moments. My mom likes to tell my children of me and my three siblings, I was the most difficult, mildly difficult. I had some clashes particularly with my mother and at one point we were in Papua New Guinea. They were missionaries there. I had such a fight with my mom I decided to run away. I packed a book to read. That’s forward thinking. A sandwich. Extra forward thinking. I took off out the door and I walked just around the corner. New Guinea is not particularly—there’s a lot of security issues and lack of safety there. There was a heightened anxiety I think for my parents. When my dad came home and they went out looking for me, I was close enough to see them leave. So I circled back around and went back home. They went out looking. When they came home, I was quite petrified of the situation that I had created. So I went out into the backyard and just waited there. I knew my sister knew where I was, so my parents were going to be sent that way. I remember fearing what my father would do and say when he found me. I remember that all I saw on his face was relief when he found me. He was heartbroken. At the end of the day, the consequences and the rebuke that comes from my disobedience is paired with the acceptance and the invitation into that relationship. It’s a core memory for me because of that. It’s a memory I can’t erase from my mind because of the way my parents responded in that moment.

That is the picture we get from Revelation chapter 3, that we are in a place of rebellion and have moved far from God and that every human being is in that place. At some point we need to recognize the currency of the kingdom is to see our need, that we need Jesus. We can’t do it on our own and the invitation is to receive. That rebuke comes with that promise. It’s a promise that he is there. He is knocking. He will come in and he will eat with us if we open that door.

Let me pray. Lord God, we thank you for the promise. We thank you for the damning report that allows us to check our own hearts, check ourselves, ensure that we are truly united in our hearts to you and that the invitation that you are there waiting for us to open that door if we haven’t, that you desire relationship with us. Lord, we pray that your Spirit might be working in us, drawing us closer to you, helping us grow in that meal together with you. In your name, amen.