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Good morning, Rock Point. How are we doing? Man, wasn't that song that they wrote absolutely incredible? I was like, man. Oh, man. That thing was amazing. So hey. If I have not had the chance to meet you, my name is Daniel. I'm the teaching pastor here. And today, we're going to wrap up,
what I think has been one of the most throat punchy sermon series we've done in a while, looking at these seven letters that start the book of Revelation. Seven letters that were prophetically
given to the apostle John while he was banished to the island of Patmos where Jesus literally told him, write these seven letters to these seven churches that existed all around Asia Minor. But what we've been looking at is that these seven letters were also prophetically written for you and I living here today in the culture and the world that we live in. And so I just wanna give you a
full disclosure and disclaimer before we begin. The series has been tough. It doesn't get any easier this morning. This message we're going to look at is the only of the seven letters that has nothing positive said about the church. The whole thing is basically one big throat punch and it's also the longest of the seven letters. It's kind of the summation
of the whole series, but it also is what I would agree is the most important and pressing letter for you and I in the culture and the world that we live in. So if you brought a Bible, which I hope you did, open them up to Revelation chapter three, we'll be starting in verse 14.
If you want to leave and just come back next week when there's an encouraging Christmas message, you can do that while I pray. But once my eyes are open, you're stuck in here. So this is your opportunity. Let's pray. Father, God, we thank you so much for the opportunity
to gather here. Holy Spirit, we know you're here with us,
and we invite you in right now to speak to us where we go through the supernatural act where you will speak through the voice of one person, but in the power of the Holy Spirit, you'll speak individually and specifically to everybody in this room. Jesus, we ask for you to have your way this morning. It's in your name that all God's people said,
amen. I was thinking about it this week and my daughter was dying laughing when I was telling her about it because she doesn't remember it. She was a little baby and I had to learn some of those lessons of things you just can't do with a newborn, especially after they've eaten a little bit. So I had my daughter and she was a couple months old and I was playing with her after she got done eating and I was on the ground with her holding her up and she's just laughing and making faces at her. Then out of nowhere, she just spits up, right? And the problem was is the spit up, the only place that it went was in the direction
of my mouth. And so I literally got her spit up, a full mouthful of it, which was like the worst thing ever. And I know, so you're like, it's early in the morning, but
the the worst part about it is I wish that I could say that was the only time that my daughter ever spit up into my mouth, but it was not. Right? There was another time I was getting ready for bed and I had her like on my legs and I was gonna lift her up and put her onesie behind her and then put her down and kinda wrap her up with her onesie. And as I pull her up, I'm making the faces, doing the dad thing, making her laugh. And as she comes up, she just comes forward, projectile vomits into
my mouth. Like the worst thing ever. I'm like, how can this happen again? Because now you have like a mouthful of baby spit up and you can't just like throw the baby and go spit up yourself.
You've gotta kinda figure out what to do and it's horrendous. And I'm not gonna try to make an argument this morning that any throw up in somebody's mouth is better than another throw up. But I would argue that baby spit up in your mouth has to be one of the worst because all they really do is eat milk. So basically you're getting like regurgitated
spoiled milk into your mouth. Are you feeling sick yet? That's the goal. K? The reason that that I start there is as I was reading this letter and I was reading the indictment that Jesus has against the church in a city called Laodicea,
he talks about the one thing. This is the only time in scripture where Jesus uses the language that we see in Revelation three.
He talks about this thing that the church does. Again, these letters were not written to the world. They were written to the church. They were written to the people who were the faithful, the people who were inside of the building, not the people out there. And he's going to talk today about the one thing that makes Jesus
so sick to the point that it makes him want to throw up. This is literally the only time that the word in the Greek that he uses for spit up is used anywhere in scripture. This is without a doubt the strongest language we see of Jesus coming against his church.
And friends, the lesson that you and I have to lean into this morning and learn is what is the one thing that makes Jesus want to vomit? That makes him want to literally spit us out of his mouth. And the interesting part is it isn't what we often think that it would be.
We think the thing that God wants us to stop doing is all the big sins and the stuff that's happening in these issues in our lives. And those are things we have to wage war with, but the Bible doesn't talk about that being the thing that makes Jesus want to throw up. The thing that we're gonna see today
is this idea that you and I have been sold as American church people.
The idea that you can kind of just be half in the church and half in the world and have a little bit of Jesus so you can get to heaven one day, but not so much of him that you actually begin to change how you live and how you order your finances and how you raise your kids and how you build your business. You don't want so much of him that you become the weird guy. What we're going to learn today is this notion where we think we can just sit on the fence and kind of be half in and half out. It is an absolute lie from the pit of hell.
What I wanna try to convince you of over the next few moments that I think this letter, the warning to you and I is this simple big idea. In the eyes of Jesus, we have to know and learn that half in is all out.
If you are trying to ride the fence of this church thing and you're only half in, in the eyes of Jesus, friends, you are all out. And you and I have to make a decision. What we're going to see today is that God can work with hot or cold. It's the weird middle ground of just haphazardly being in
that doesn't make any sense. Martin Luther King Jr. Had a quote where he was talking about this, where he says, I can understand rejection. I can understand people going, no, I reject that. But what I struggle with is people who just kind of haphazardly
accept it. Look at what he said. He said, Lukewarm acceptance is more bewildering than outright rejection. He goes, I can understand if you read the Bible, you look at the person of Jesus and you go, no, I reject that. But what doesn't make sense to me intellectually, what I struggle with
is the just lukewarm acceptance where you go, yeah, I'm in. I come to church. I I fill the seats. I go through the motions. But the truth is I'm just haphazardly doing it. I only allow Jesus in the parts of my life and the parts of my heart that I'm comfortable with.
I arrive at my theological positions and my biblical worldview based mostly on how I feel and what I think. And when the Bible stands in contrast to what I feel, I choose my feelings over the word of God all day.
And friends, I'm telling you, again, if you look, theologians have argued that these seven letters to these seven churches, what they really represent are seven different periods in history, and they show the seven major issues that the church would face. And you and I live in the era of the church of Laodicea.
This is a warning that we must heed. This is a message to the church in America to go, you can't be half in because in the eyes of Jesus, if you're only half in, I'm telling you friends, you are all the way out. Here's where the story begins in verse 14.
The letter starts and says, write this letter to the angel of the church in Laodicea. Okay? He always starts with the name of the city that we're addressing. The church is in Laodicea.
This is the message from the one who is the Amen. If you have a Bible, I would encourage you highlight, underline, circle that word the Amen. He says it's the faithful and the true witness, the beginning of God's new creation.
It starts with a city. He addresses the city and then we see a unique description of the person of Jesus, the one who's orating this message to the apostle John. And in Revelation three in this letter, we see a description of Jesus that is incredibly important for us to understand.
When Jesus refers to himself as the Amen, he says the one who's writing this is the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's new creation. What he's doing is he's it's a callback to the book of Isaiah. He's using a word that any Jewish reader would have understood.
This guy is declaring emphatically that he is not created, he is creator. He's drawing a line in the sand and saying, this is me, the one who has always been, the one who is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. He's emphatically stating that he is not a created being. He is creator. He is omnipotent,
holy, set apart other than God. And sometimes when we look at other face and there's somebody that has a revelation that says that Jesus isn't created or he's not a creator, he's a created being, we have to realize that stands in contrast to what Jesus said about himself.
He can't both be created and creator. They both can't be true at the same time.
It's why the word of God is so important and true. We could spend three hours writing this reading this one verse, but Jesus is putting a line in the sand saying, guys, I'm a big deal. I'm not a path towards happiness. I'm not a path towards heaven. I'm not a road that gets you to salvation.
I'm the only road. I am it. I am creator. And so he starts with that description of himself and he continues in verse 15 and he says this. He says, I know all the things that you do.
And that's a terrifying verse because I think you and I often think we're pretty good at hiding some of the stuff that we do. But Jesus is like, no, I know all the things that you do. Here comes the indictment. You're neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other. But since you are lukewarm,
neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Revelation three sixteen should be one of the verses that we all herald as a society.
But I have never seen an athlete put Revelation three sixteen on their eye black before they go out on the football field. But you know what I've seen a lot? John three sixteen. Remember the verse that Tim Tebow wrote, right?
Come on, you gotta give me something. That was decent, all right?
John three sixteen is everywhere, right? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and whoever would believe in him will not perish and have eternal life. And it's amazing. And that is the gospel. And that is the message that we have been asked to steward. But I often wonder why
is Revelation three sixteen not as powerful and as quoted as John three sixteen? Because I think sometimes when we read a verse like this where Jesus says, because you're lukewarm and you're not hot or cold, I'm gonna spit you out of my mouth. We're like, wait, I don't like that version of Jesus.
Like, I like the hippie guy that's like, wait, love your neighbors and let's all give to the poor and support the widows and the orphans. And like, I like that version of Jesus. And that is who Jesus is. But you also have to remember that he's a God that cares immensely about holiness and righteousness matters.
God is completely set apart. He is other than. And the challenge is there's also a part of our faith that we have to realize that through the process of sanctification of being made into the image of God, if we're not waging war with the sin in our life, if we're not moving more towards being made into the image of God
and we just slowly start sliding into a faith where we're just going through the motions, it is detestable to a holy God. And friends, I'm telling you, here's the reason that God uses such strong language. The reason that Jesus looks at the church in Laodicea and says, what you're doing is disgusting.
What he's essentially saying is that it's worthless. I can work with hot, I can work with cold, right? Give me a hot coffee or some cold brew, but like the stuff that's been on the counter for four hours, I can't do anything with it. It's worthless. It's ineffective. It's gross.
And here's what you have to remember about Jesus. Part of why Jesus was such a brilliant communicator is he was the first person to try to men in religion, we've always taken theological issues. We try to make them very complex and make them these big weighty things. And what Jesus would do is the complete opposite.
Jesus would talk to a bunch of farmers and goes, guys, the kingdom of God,
it's like a guy that has a 100 sheep. Right? You guys have sheep. Imagine this guy has a 100 sheep and one sheep goes crazy and it runs away. And the farmer is willing to leave the 99 sheep that he still has to go after the one that's wayward. They're like, that's crazy because the sheep is their livelihood. He's speaking in a language that they understand.
Jesus would take these big abstract concepts and goes, that's what the kingdom of God is like. It's like a guy that would risk the 99 to go after the one. What he's doing to the church in Laodicea,
he's using a reference that makes complete sense to them. He's not just arbitrarily pulling out the illustration of hot and cold water. He's speaking to a city that is full of incredibly wealthy people. What we know for sure about the city in Laodicea
is they are without a doubt the wealthiest of all the seven cities in Asia Minor. It was an incredibly prosperous area. People would have loved to have been there. There was one point where a massive earthquake hit Laodicea and they had so much money that when the COVID relief funds were offered to them from
come on, man. You guys are next service, I'm telling you, they're gonna laugh. They're gonna be man, these jokes are hilarious. I'm like, yeah, the eight thirty didn't get it. They were still waking up.
When they were offered, Rome literally came in and said, hey, look, we'll pay to rebuild the city. They were so wealthy and had so much extra money. They're like, no, we're good. We'll rebuild it ourselves.
Like, it's a city that had all kinds of things going on. They had a medical center where they were developing all kinds of medical innovations. It's the place that you want it to be. But the one problem in the city of Laodicea
is they had no natural source of water. So when Jesus tells them you're not hot nor cold, they immediately
go to an illustration of what their whole life has been. Because the city of Laodicea, I wanna show you where it sits on a map for this to kind of make sense. Laodicea sits over here in Asia Minor. The only way that they got their water is most of their water would come from the North, from the city called Heropolis that had these natural hot springs and it would essentially come out of the ground boiling
and they would take that water as it's boiled. It has no bacteria, it's clean, it can be drinking. They would then pipe it down to Laodicea. But the problem was is what started boiling hot by the time it got to them would just be a mild temperature. It would be lukewarm and that water would become filled with bacteria.
Well, the other place that they got their water from was down south in Colosse. They had naturally cold water that did the same thing. It did a good job of keeping the bacteria away. So when they would pipe it into Laodicea,
it would do the opposite. What started as very cold by the time it would get to their city was lukewarm. They had these aquifers. I wanna show you this. This is a picture that they've actually uncovered in Laodicea
of the aquifers and aqueducts that they've built to pipe the water into their cities. And it's a pretty ingenious thing, but they didn't realize a couple of things with the water. They needed to maintain the temperature. They could keep it hot and it would keep the bacteria away. Sometimes the cold water worked as well. But when the water ran through these rocks, they didn't realize it was also picking up all kinds of minerals. So one of the biggest issues that plagued the city of Laodicea
was what to do with the water once it arrived in their city. Because if they didn't retreat it, it was something that would actually make them sick. What Jesus is saying is, look, friends, I can work with really hot. I can work with cold, But what I can't do anything with is this middle ground.
Boiling water, it's helpful, right? It has medicinal purposes. It keeps bacteria out of it. Cold water is refreshing in the middle of a hot day. And I don't know, again, I think this is the point if you're wondering like, how do I know if I've gotten old? If you drink a glass of warm milk before you go to bed, that's how you know you're old, right? Like my grandma used to every night drink a glass of warm milk because for her, like it calmed her down. It helped her go to sleep. There was benefit to it.
Cold milk with some Oreos, come on, man. That's like heaven in a box right there. Right? But milk that's just been sitting on the counter for four or five days, you can't do anything with it. What Jesus is saying is that friends, you and I as the church, we have a responsibility.
We've been given an assignment and it is our job to expand the kingdom of God, to go and reach more people with the message of John three sixteen that God sent his son to die so that you and I can truly live and have life. But what it requires for those of us who've accepted the invitation of faith is to make a decision
to be all in or just be all out. But the middle ground that we've settled into, bill of goods we've been sold as an American church, it's a lie that isn't helping anybody. It's not advancing the causes of Christ. It's not helping culture
get better. It's not making things different in our culture. If anything, all it's doing is continuing to further the divide. What I think the church in America is desperate for is for the people of God to make a decision. Are we going to be all in or are we going to be all out?
Are we gonna stop just going through the motions and being lukewarm or will we step in and do something about it? I believe that every single one of us in different areas of our life, maybe for you it's in your finances you've been lukewarm.
Maybe for you it's in how you pursue relationship with other people, you've been lukewarm. Maybe for you it comes to just how you serve or how you're raising your kids or the decisions that you're making. I think all of us have to understand that our natural propensity,
the natural gravitation of our heart will be towards lukewarmness. We will have to fight to have a faith that is on fire, that is continuing to grow. So here's the question is what do we begin to do?
People who also can struggle being lukewarm,
what do we do? How do we start to make sure we change something? I have three points that I'll give you and then I'll get you out of here. Here's what I believe is the cure for lukewarmness. Here's where the rest of this passage I think is incredibly applicable for us. The first thing we have to do is we have to acknowledge our condition.
And I'm just going to warn you because it's 08:30. It's going to be three points that all start with A. It's called alliteration. It's going to be awesome. It's going blow your mind. But the first one
is you just have to acknowledge it. We have to identify that there is a problem. Before you can fix a problem, you have to first acknowledge that there is a problem.
Before you can fix your marriage, you have to be willing to raise your hand and say, Hey, something here is broken. Something isn't working. But if you just continue to ignore it, it's not gonna get better. And I think what needs to happen inside of the church in America is an acknowledgement
that we have unintentionally created a bunch of lukewarm Christians. We have unintentionally created a culture of lukewarmness and you can be lukewarm and loving it. And I think that's incredibly dangerous.
Here's what's really interesting. You and I obviously it's 2023 about to be 2024. We are just a couple of years on the other side of this massive pandemic. And that pandemic was something that a lot of people in the church world were thinking was starting to spark some kind of spiritual awakening.
Because in the beginning of the pandemic, what often happens when something hard happens in our world is people run towards church. They run to God for answers. And that was happening. Online viewership of churches was bigger than it had ever been, but it was a very short movement. And what is happening now is the dust has kind of settled on all the COVID stuff. And we're able
to do a bit of a postmortem and to look at, okay, the dust has settled. Let's see where have people landed? Where has the church landed?
And I was reading a poll this week that was done by the Gallup poll and a university in Arizona did a massive two year long study to really see the effects of COVID in the church today. And I could go through all of the data, but the high levels of it is they said before COVID and today,
a million less people are engaged with their Bible than before COVID happened. They said that only fourteen percent of people who sit in the pews of a church would even identify with what we would describe as a biblical worldview.
If you take the six major tenants of the Christian faith, you go, look, we are born sinners. You don't have a choice in it. We're all flawed. The only path towards salvation and rectifying our broken hearts is through Jesus. Eternity is real. All of us are going to spend forever somewhere.
That Jesus is the only path to get there. If you look at just some of the basic tenants of the church, they say we've arrived at a place where close to 14% of people, not in the world, but in the church would say, I don't agree with some of those.
I don't agree with some of those. And what I'm telling you is you don't get to give your life to Jesus, claim Christianity, believe you're going to heaven one day, and also pick and choose the parts that you want to believe.
And I say this to tell you my greatest fear is that you get to the end of your life and what happens to you is what Jesus says will happen to so many people. You will get to me and go, awesome. Let's open the door. Let's get in. And he's gonna say, get away from me. I never knew you. Revelation
three sixteen says, because you're not hot or cold, I'm gonna spit you out of my mouth. What God doesn't need is perfection. What he needs is faithfulness
and willingness to go, you know what? I'm gonna wage war with the sin in my life. I'm gonna be willing to fight the battles that I'm struggling with. I'm gonna go to bat. And friends, my hope and my heart is that we would begin to develop a spiritual
revival where an awakening would happen where we go, we're not gonna settle into apathy. We know our natural propensity is towards it, but we're gonna fight against it with everything that we have. And it starts by just acknowledging that all of us have a proclivity towards lukewarmness.
Here's the second A for you. Okay? Here's the next thing that we do. We have to affirm the cause. And in fairness, affirm isn't the best word. I should have used identify, but it wouldn't have been an A. So we have affirm instead. We have to ask what's causing this.
In our culture, in our communities, in our homes, what's causing this? I think there's a few things, but what Jesus is about to address in the church of Laodicea is I think one of the biggest things for you and I as well. One of the biggest hindrances for us, one of the biggest things causing lukewarmness.
Look how Jesus continues here in verse 17. He says, Here's why you're lukewarm. You say that I'm rich. I have everything that I want. I don't need a thing. And you don't realize that you're wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. He says, sometimes the greatest obstacle between you and me is all your stuff,
is your self reliance, is your ability to provide for your family. You don't really need me to help provide for your family. And friends, we have to remember when the Bible talks about rich people, which it talks a lot about, Jesus talked about money more than almost anything else.
Not because he's after your money, but because he knows your heart will be after your money. And he says, it's really hard for rich people to get into heaven because you will think you're your own God. And what we often do when we hear that, we go, yeah, man, rich people, they're bad. That's gonna be really hard for them.
And we don't realize that he's not talking to the person in one economic class above you. He's talking to you. He's talking to me. You know, right now in today's world, about 900,000,000 people will live on less than $2 a day today.
I could take a $2 bill and wad it up and throw it at you and you would probably get out of the way and be annoyed that I like made a mess, right? You're like, it does nothing for us
Because we live in a country, and what I'm not saying is that all of us just have tons of money and it's just, it's it's boundless. But we have to acknowledge we live in a very prosperous country, the richest country in the history of the world. We happen to live in a very prosperous state in a very specific
subsect of that state that is an incredibly prosperous area. We're living in a country where the average car payment is $800 a month. For the first time in American history, check this out, American credit card debt just surpassed a trillion dollars. Collectively, we carry $1,000,000,000,000 in credit card debt.
It shows me something that we are what the Bible would say is rich and yet it's still not enough for us. Because we've become convinced that our value is in what we own. And what I think Jesus is trying to get us to see is maybe your value isn't so much in what you own, but your value is in what really owns you.
What owns you? If you're honest, what are the things that take up the majority of your heart that consume your prayer life? The things that you're constantly asking God for? Because friends, I'm telling you, we have to be very careful.
We are the rich people in the Bible. And Jesus says it's almost impossible for rich people to get into heaven.
You realize with finances, and this is the part where people don't like, the church just wants our money. The church doesn't need your money. God will figure it out. But one of the greatest ways that you wage war against your money and your bank account and your income becoming your God is you make sure to reprioritize
your life. And you go, God, I'm going to trust you in here. I'm going to trust you and I'm gonna give to you sacrificially,
not because I have to, but because this is how I wage war with this thing becoming a god and a thing in my life. God doesn't need our money. You realize that the only thing in scripture that God says to test me in this area,
the only time that he says test me here, you're gonna struggle to want to to not to want to obey me in a lot of areas. The only place that God says to test me in this one in particular is when it comes to trusting God with your money. He says, if you're not trusting me with your money, you're actually under a curse.
And we go, oh, this is just the church. Here they come again. They want our money. The church doesn't want your money. What God really wants is your heart.
And sometimes what you have to do is let go of holding onto your things so tightly. You have to let go of those things because if you're not careful, your self reliance
will be the obstacle between you and God. For some of you in this room, it is your money that is causing you to settle into a life of lukewarmness. You refuse to trust God with it. And because of that, you will unintentionally settle into just going through the motions. For others of us here,
think the cause of the lukewarmness, what's the root of it is potentially something different, but the end result is this lukewarmness. Here's what's amazing. In these seven letters that we've covered, it addresses I think the seven core issues that all of us struggle with that if we just settle into,
they will unintentionally over a period of time produce a lukewarm faith. So I just want to recap these real quickly. Okay? Real recap of where we've been. The In church in Ephesus, the very first week of the series, we looked at the church that had lost and forgotten their first love. They forgot that all of this started with God loving us in the middle of our mess. And if we forget that, we will unintentionally settle into a faith that is apathetic. We looked in the second week,
the church in Smyrna, the church that had been incredibly persecuted. I think for some of us, the reason that we've settled into a faith that just feels kind of dead. It feels like we're going through the motions because we've gone through a really hard season. We've walked through some really hard things.
And in the process of that hard season, we've taken our eyes off of Jesus and we've become consumed with our situation. And instead of allowing this circumstance to purify us, we've allowed it to distract us. Here's what we saw in week three in Pergamum, the worldly church.
The church that said, you know what? Inside the doors of the church, I'll be one way, but the moment I get out there, I'm gonna do my own thing. And if you live that way, you cannot have a faith that is on fire, friends. You can't be half in and half out. We looked at the church in Thyatira, the sexually immoral church.
The church that believed that their sexuality was the one thing that they got to control.
They got to go, Yeah, I believe God and all this other stuff, but the concept of waiting to have sex until you're married, I just don't agree with that. I think that's archaic. I'm gonna kind of do my own thing. Friends, And I'm telling you what that is, it's called sin. And sometimes you have to call a spade a spade. And what is impossible for us to do is to live with unrepentant sin and have a thriving relationship with God at the same time. We looked at the church in Sardis, the spiritually dead church. The church that had been doing a combination of these things for decades that had just become functionally alive, but spiritually they were dead. We looked at the church in Philadelphia,
the spiritually alive church. The church that was going after it, but had lost their encouragement and at some point had just settled into the motions. And then we're looking this week, obviously at the church in Laodicea.
The one that Jesus himself says is Luke warm. I would venture to guess that you will find yourself somewhere in this list. One of those things is potentially at the root of what is causing and producing in you what Jesus would say is a Luke warm faith.
Now here's the beautiful part about this whole thing is if we find ourselves there and we all will in different seasons of our life, the beautiful part is when we find ourselves there, we don't have to stay there. What is the solution? How do we begin to move past this stage of lukewarmness?
This is where I want you to write down the third A. Again, hopefully this is mind blowing. They're all A's, I know. Apply the cure. Okay? What is the solve? What is the solution? This is where Jesus starts to turn the corner and make this thing very practical. Here's how we apply it. Verse 18, he says, so I advise you to buy gold from me.
I remember when I first read that, I'm like, wait, so the rich people, the way that they're gonna solve their problem, you want them to buy your gold? Like, that sounds like a Ponzi scheme, bro. He's like, it's brilliant. Here, take your money, buy my gold and it's a perfect solution. You're like, I knew it. It was all just a Ponzi scheme. Right? But check this out. He says, it's gold that has been purified by fire.
Then you will be rich. Also buy white garments for me so that you will not be shamed by your nakedness and ointment for your eyes so that you will be able to see. Jesus tells him there's three things.
There's three things that you have to get from me and from me alone. He says it's gold has been purified by fire. If you look throughout scripture, it's all over. I could pull 12 different verses that talk about the purification
process that happens to us. When we go through hard things, when we go through suffering, when we go through difficulties, when we go through trials, the Bible tells us that those things are the refining fire where what gets removed from us is all the extra and all the stuff. And if you hold on in the middle of those seasons, what will be produced in you is a character that the Bible says is like gold. It is a treasure. It is something that is invaluable
that you can't buy on your own. Your riches can't produce it. And Isaiah says, for those of you who have no money, come and buy from me the gold and the milk that I can provide. It's a picture that your riches won't give you the thing that you really want.
To be able to lay your head down on the pillow at night and like who you are and have a soul that is at rest,
you can't do that on your own. It is something that only the Holy Spirit can produce in you. He says, buy that gold from me. Allow me to produce it in you. And then he talks about white linen. Again, he's talking to the church in Laodicea.
They were famous for all these black sheep that they had because the water that it came through the pipes would get all these minerals and they don't know why but the sheeps had this deep black cloth. And so all of their clothes were black and you had all these people that thought this was the height of luxury. People come in here and they try to buy these black clothes and it's amazing. We got all this Louis Vuitton stuff and Jesus is like, I'm telling you that isn't what you really want.
What only you can get from me is he talks about white clothes, which again throughout scriptures, this picture of holiness and sanctification and forgiveness and restoration
and walking with God in the cool of day. It's a picture of what Jesus affords to you and I when we invite him into our heart and the penalty of our sin is forgiven. We get to be seen before God as forgiven and restored and white and pure.
Again, again, something you and I can't buy on our own. It is something that we have to be given. And the very last thing is he says is you have to have this eye salve for me, buy it from me. In Laodicea, one of the biggest medical advancements that they had had was this stuff that basically cured blindness. They would put it on people's eyes and it would cure blindness and people would come from all over the world to come here for this. And Jesus is telling them that's awesome and physical blindness is great,
but what you can only get from me is curing your spiritual blindness. Allow me to help you see the world the way that I see it. Help me begin to give you my vision.
Let me teach you to show you how I see this world. And he says, as you get the character from me, you walk in holiness with me and you see this world through the lens of eternity, way that I see it all, I'm telling you friends, you will not have a faith that is lukewarm. And here's where kind of pastor Jesus and his heart comes out and he wraps up this whole collection of talks and he kind of bookends this whole thing. In verse 19,
remember, he says, I correct and I discipline everyone that I hate, that I'm mad at, that I'm trying to punish. He says, I discipline and correct the people that I love. I do this because I love you, Because what you and I will settle for is second best. He says, so be diligent and turn from your indifference. Look,
I stand at the door and I knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will share a meal together as friends. Those who are victorious will sit with me on my throne just as I was victorious and sat with my father on his throne.
Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. Jesus ends this whole thing, bookends this whole section of the seven letters. And he says, friends, I know that it's a tall order.
And I commend you for coming back week after week as we've punched you in the throat and given these hard truths. He says, but just remember, I do this because I love you. I remind you of the standard because I know the thing that you and I weren't meant to carry.
The shame, the guilt, the condemnation that comes with sin. It wasn't part of God's original plan. And he says, I know it's a tall order and I'm not asking you to do it alone.
I'm not asking you to white knuckle this and figure it out and go get yourself together and come back when you have a faith that's on fire and not lukewarm. He says, no, no, no. None of that is what I'm asking. I'm actually standing there and I'm knocking at the door. I'm knocking at the door of your heart.
And I'm asking, will you invite me in? Will you bring me into that place that you're ashamed for me to see? Will you bring me into the parts of your heart that you're afraid that people would know about? Because this is the loving heart of Jesus. He says, I'm not here to condemn you. I'm here to forgive you.
I'm here to restore you. And I love the picture. He says, if you'll let me in, what I wanna do with you is sit down and eat a meal together. I I think sometimes we forget
part of why we just end end up in this apathetic faith is is we think that God is just this big far away distant God that's given us this book of rules that we can never live up to. And so we walk around just going, I just always disappoint him and I can't figure this stuff out and I'm not gonna be good enough.
And we forget what Jesus said. He says, I didn't come to call you my servant. I've come so that you and I can be friends. So we can walk together. That the same holy set apart other than God made himself human, walked amongst us, felt our pain, felt our shame, felt our indifference,
and went to the cross so that we wouldn't have to live on our own. We wouldn't have to do this on our own. And the picture, he says, I just wanna have a meal with you.
You know one of the greatest indictments against Jesus, part of the reason the Pharisees hated him so much, is he was really comfortable being around bad people.
They would look at him and he'd hang out with the sinners and the tax collectors. And he's like, he enjoys being around them and they seem to enjoy being around him. And I don't get this because bad people and God aren't supposed to go together.
Jesus is like you're missing the whole point of it. This whole thing, this whole relationship with Jesus is summed up as just having a friendship with the Almighty God, walking with Him, learning to hear His voice, to be led by Him. And here's why all of you got one of these communion cups on your way in.
If you didn't get one, our ushers will pass them out right now. But the reason that we do this is because it's a symbolic representation of the friendship of God that he wants to have with us.
The length that Jesus would go to so that you and I could be friends with him. Because we had no way to come back to God. We had no way to fix our own issues. But Jesus,
who knew no sin, became sin so that you and I could be the righteousness of God so that we we can be friends with God. And on his last few hours, Jesus before he would go to the cross, he gathered his disciples, he took them up in a room and he said, guys, this will be the last meal that we have together.
This will be the moment. And he says, my body's about to be broken for you. This meal, the invitation to you getting to sit at the table with me, I know it didn't cost you anything, but it's gonna cost me everything. He says, I want you to do this when I'm gone.
I want you to gather and remember that we're friends and remember this meal and remember that the goal is still to sit and have a meal with me. I want you to together take the bread and eat it together remembering the body that was broken for you. And then he took a glass.
It was real wine and the Baptist freaked out and he said, hey. You have to explain that to other people after service. He said, want you to take this cup and remember that my blood is going to be poured out for you. That I'm going to be mocked, humiliated and beaten so that you don't have to.
So that you don't have to pay the penalty for your sin, I'll take it. And I want you to do this and gather as friends and take this wine and drink it together remembering, it's not real wine, sorry, said that it's grape juice. Take this and drink it remembering my blood that was poured out for you. So take and drink.
Friends, I have a real simple kind of bow to put on this whole series. I believe that all of us in this room, if we're honest, if we took our spiritual temperature, if you will, I bet you most of us would say there are areas that we've settled into being lukewarm.
And I think if we're gonna go, you know what? We don't wanna be the people that are half in. We understand that in the eyes of Jesus, that basically means you're you're all out. And we wanted people to go, you know what? In 2024, as we move into this new year,
we're gonna be the people that are all in. I wanna ask you this week to do two really simple things. The first one is to ask God. Pray and really seek him. Go, God, what's one thing that I can do to start to step into pursuing
the faith that is on fire? For some of you, it's gonna be trusting God with your finances. For others, it's gonna be getting into a home group and beginning to live life with other believers. For some of you, you need to start serving.
I want to also make this thing really practical. We've had over 6,000 people sign up to come to our Christmas services. And we've had about 300 people registered to serve with us.
One of the most practical ways that you can help us, how you can step into being a part of building his kingdom is to just come and attend one service and then serve one service. We need your help. We need people to pour the coffee, watch the kids open the doors. We won't be able to facilitate
the message of salvation without people being a part of it. So ask God, what is my one step of obedience that I can take? And then ask for the courage and the boldness and the willingness to go and do it. Amen. Father, I thank you, God, so much for everybody that's here today.
Lord, I know that in this room is people walking through all kinds of stuff, all kinds of life, hearts that are full of excitement, disappointment, frustration, anxiety. And God, I don't try to just throw easy answers at what I know are very complicated problems. But Jesus, you know what everybody's walking through here.
And Father, I pray in the power of the Holy Spirit that you would speak to every single person here, that you administer to their hearts this week and the seeds that were planted today,
that they would fall in good soil. And then Holy Spirit, you would come alongside and water those seeds to grow into us these fruits that come to fruition, these plants that come to fruition in our life. It is in the mighty name of Jesus, all God's people said, amen and amen. Hey, you guys are awesome.
Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.