Well, this morning, I invite you to open your Bible again to Revelation chapter 3. And we're going to be looking at verses 14 through 17. I may even get into the first part of verse 18, at least as an introduction. But today is our introduction to the whole church at Laodicea. We've been visiting churches while attending Providence. And we've visited churches, some of them good churches, some of them mixed, and some of them downright bad. This is perhaps the most infamous of the seven churches, and I think mainly it's because of the graphic language that Jesus used to illustrate his sickness over their esteem for themselves and their relative disregard for him. What causes lukewarmness? I want you to think about that idea because that prepares us for what we're going to see. What causes lukewarmness in the heart of a professing Christian or a church? It's a good question. We have to ask the question, I think, frankly, because it's one of the deadliest spiritual cancers in the church of our day. Lukewarmness, I'll just give you a working definition. Lukewarmness could be defined as a deadening of the affections toward God and the things he loves. Things like his word, his church, his people. It's not a deadening of the affections in general, though, and that's a necessary distinction, because while I may find myself lukewarm toward God and the things of God, at that exact moment, my affections for other things may be soaring to new heights. I may be in love with all kinds of other things, where my affections are just powerful and strong, but not for God. And therein lies the problem and the subtlety because we are driven by so many desires. Therefore, we must remember as believers that our key desire must always be back on Christ, focused on Christ, and that takes deliberate effort as a believer. And so this is the way we are. It's the way He's made us. Now this is a critical message for us to consider as we come to Laodicea. Jesus is warning His people about a sin which, if left unaddressed, will open the door for every other kind of sin in your life. And there are all kinds of other issues mixed into our looking at Laodicea. They were so much like us in many ways. They had great advantages, great resources. They were materially well-off, we would say. But we're going to look at the church at Laodicea because what was wrong with this church, this seventh church, led to a problem that Jesus said frankly made him want to vomit. Now if you have your Bible, I want you to look at Revelation chapter 3. I'm going to read verses 14 through 18. The exposition will mainly cover through verse 17, Lord willing. But again, I might get to touch on the introduction to that 18th verse. But now, in honor of God and His Word, I invite you to stand with me for the reading of these verses as our official reading. And to the angel of the church in Laodicea, write, The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation, I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing. not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments, so that you may clothe yourself, and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see." Father, I pray that you will open our eyes to this text. and that you will help us to look into the mirror of your word, which rightly discerns and judges all things according to the will that you have established for that word. And I pray that if there is a lesson for us to learn here, individually or corporately, we would take it to heart. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. Now there were obviously major problems in this church at Laodicea. You can just hear it in the text. You can hear that they had some misconceptions, they had some wrong ideas about who they were, wrong ideas about who Jesus was. We're going to consider what these problems were, and in so doing, we're going to also, I think, be strategizing, at least in our own hearts, about how to avoid falling into some of these same errors ourselves, not just as a church, but also personally and individually. After all, as I alluded to in the introduction, we have many of the same advantages, I think, that they had, if not more so. We also have many of the same thoughts and feelings as a culture that they had, if not more so. For these reasons and others, we better understand what it is that Jesus says makes him sick. so that we won't fall into this great error, subtle though it may be. The first problem is the one Jesus addressed in verse 14, and it had to do with their culture, I think. A lot of the things going on in their culture and the way they treated the truth, not only outside the church, but the way they were treating the truth inside the church, naming the name of Christ. Here's the point. Christians who twist the truth will be straightened out by the author of truth. Now, I get this idea from verse 14, and I want to show you how I got that idea. Because you might look at verse 14 and think, that sounds like a stretch. That's your point? Where did you get that from? From those words in verse 14. So, I want to show you where I got that. Now, assuming that these Laodiceans are Christians, because the church is, if nothing else, it is the in-gathering of God's redeemed people. That's what the church has always been. That doesn't mean that there aren't unbelievers mixed into the body, but that's not the design of the church. That's an exception. And so we don't say that that is the foundational premise, that it was designed to be a mixed body, though that is a necessary consequence of living in a fallen world. Sometimes even the best of churches are mixed with believers as well as unbelievers. But fundamentally, the church is the in-gathering of God's redeemed people, people who believe in Jesus, people who love the Lord, whose lives have been transformed by His truth. Now, some commentators have argued, some whom I respect, frankly, even argue that the church at Laodicea was all unredeemed, that there were no believers here, that they were entirely backslidden, or that they never had faith to begin with. I think that goes too far, and I think that that goes beyond what we can warrant from the text, but I will certainly grant that there are unbelievers in the church, and I think we will see that as a necessary deduction from the text. But here, among the Laodiceans, Jesus addresses himself using titles that emphasize his position as truth itself. He calls himself, you'll notice, the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the beginning of God's creation. You know, there's usually a backstory that explains these titles, and this is no exception. But apparently the Laodiceans were known as a creative bunch when it came to the truth. They had all kinds of creative ways of getting around the actual hard facts of the reality of a situation. They were very pragmatic, we might say, in their worldview. And by that, I mean they operated under the premise that whatever works for me, including lying, is good. Because I consider myself a good person in general. And since I'm a good person, if I do it, it's really not that bad, because in the whole scheme of things, it works out for the general good, because it works for me. And so that's sort of the way they interpreted things by themselves. If you see yourself as basically good, then even if you do something that others would frown upon, you're a good person, so you get a pass. It's good for you. So ultimately, you think it works for others. They say, if something gets me ahead in life, it's good, even if it's not right or true. Now folks, that's the pragmatic lie. That's the lie that just because it works in an immediate, short-term way, that therefore makes it right. They had become morally shallow. They had become spiritually apathetic, especially toward the things of God. And so if they twist the truth to get the upper hand in a business deal, say, to make more money, for example, that wouldn't be lying. To them, that would just be being shrewd. It was pragmatic. The pragmatist has to have two sets of books in life. There's the book he personally uses, that he applies to himself, and it's loose, it's easy, it's free, it's kind of open, you know, it's a sliding scale based on the situation. But then there's the book the pragmatist uses for everybody else, and it's a tight, stringent, very well-defined way that everyone else is supposed to behave, and by that standard they are judged. Now, according to this rule of thumb, if his competitor in Laodicea lies to make a deal, well, his competitor wouldn't be shrewd. He'd just be a liar. And so Jesus introduces himself in this setting as the Amen, the faithful and true witness. Now, in both the Hebrew and the Greek, the word Amen means truly, or it is so. Some of you familiar with the old King James translation, the word amen is often translated as verily in the King James. You remember hearing that? Jesus so often said verily, verily. Literally, he said, amen, amen. And those are the words that are translated truly, truly, I say to you. It's the word amen. It has to do with truth and trueness from the Latin veritas for truth. That's where we got verily from. Amen, the word amen, has been called the best known word in human speech. That's because in almost every language on the face of the earth, with few exceptions, it means the same thing, and it sounds very similar in every tongue. There are very few exceptions in this, and I haven't done an exhaustive study, but I know from men who are brighter than I am, who have studied this, they say that word, you can identify it in every tongue, no matter what the language is. It sounds very much like amen. And so as the Amen, Jesus distinguishes himself from the Laodiceans in their view of truth. They bend the truth while he's the standard of truth. Not only is he the Amen, he's also the faithful and true witness. Faithful witness means he's consistent in his witness to truth. He's faithful to the truth. He's always faithful. He never wavers. He never varies. He's consistent. And that he is the true witness. That word for witness is where we get the word martyr. The word martyr is also the word that is translated witness. And that's the underlying word behind witness. He says, I am the true witness. He's witnessing to the truth. Now, in this introduction, Jesus is immediately touching on a sore spot in their relationship with Him. He's going right to the heart of a problem where the Laodiceans had, so to speak, shaken hands with the devil and made peace with dishonesty in their daily practices. And as a result, some of them have become very wealthy, as we will see in a moment. Now, there's certainly nothing wrong with wealth. or material possessions per se. I always feel like I need to say that, lest someone think that I'm saying that all possessions are wrong. That's not even a Christian idea. The problem, however, is that there is something very wrong with dishonesty in the acquisition of wealth. And there is something very wrong in idolizing money or any material possession itself. And there's something wrong, the New Testament says, with making money our goal, just as an end in itself. I want to have more money. Because what tends to happen subtly, though not always, but subtly what might happen is that those who get more material resources look to their resources instead of looking to God when they have a need. That's just a subtle temptation that doesn't have to happen, but so often it does. What is money? We've said this before when we studied the book of James. Money is basically a tool. It's neither good nor bad in and of itself, but money is a tool for God's people to use in building His kingdom and in meeting the needs of others. It can be used for good and it can also be used for evil. It can build up and it can tear down. Randy Alcorn says, when God increases your income, it's not to raise your standard of living, it's to raise your standard of giving. And so regardless of how much you or I have, we are stewards. God has made us stewards, managers. Some have great resources. Some have medium resources. Others have comparatively few resources. But all people in his kingdom are stewards. We all have something over which to be a steward. And when Jesus refers to himself as the beginning of the creation of God, he's emphasizing here that he is the origin of all creation. That's what it means, including money. He's the origin of all creation. He is the source of everything. This does not mean that He was created. Some of the cults have interpreted that phrase to mean, see, this is saying that Jesus was the first thing God created, therefore He's a created being. Not so. He is not created. This verse is not saying that He was created. It is saying that He is the beginning of everything that God did create. And this is consistent with the rest of the New Testament. In fact, just earlier I flipped open to John chapter 1, right in the prologue, in the first four verses. John chapter 1, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Note that co-eternality with the Father. And verse 3, all things were created through Him. And apart from Him, not one thing was created that has been created. And so all three members of the Godhead are co-eternal, co-equal. There is no disunity there of will or purpose or desire. And yet God is one, known and revealed in three different persons. This is an amazing mystery, but don't miss the point. Jesus was not a created being. Now this phrase, the beginning of the creation of God, is namely to establish Jesus' warrant to pass judgment over all creation. He's saying because He's the beginning of the creation of God, because He made everything, He has the right to declare what the truth is, and He has the right to use or dispose of all things in the way that pleases Him. Every way that accords with His will, He has the right, the divine right, to do with it as He pleases. People who are in love with their wealth or in love with the world need to be warned. And so Jesus is warning them and us. Jesus is going to deal severely with untruth in every form. And so note what he says next. Look at verses 15 and 16. He says, I know your works, you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." Now point two clarifies what this means. Christians who are spiritually apathetic are useless in his service which makes Jesus sick. I know I need to explain that too. Where did I get useless from in a verse where that word does not appear? You might not even see the concept of it. But let me explain. Verses 15 and 16 are strong, what I said in the introduction, graphic, visceral descriptions. Some of the strongest in the New Testament. Now the interpretive question you may be asking is, where did I get useless from a verse about being either hot or cold instead of lukewarm? You know, for years I have heard many preachers say that Jesus wants us to stop being spiritually cold and to be on fire and zealous. And there is a truth in that. That's the way we typically use the metaphor of hot or cold. We use it in terms of a spiritual analogy. Like when you're hot, that means you're on fire. That means you're zealous and you're full of life. And when you're cold, you're dead, you're apathetic, you're not engaged with the things of God. But that's not what Jesus is saying. And the text wouldn't make sense if we used it in our way of thinking of the hot and cold metaphor in a spiritual sense. Jesus says he wishes they were either hot or cold. And so why would he wish that they were either on fire for him or totally dead to him, spiritually, and that his strongest rebuke is for the people who are in the middle? That just wouldn't make sense as an interpretation. So what we need to understand in the passage is what it meant to them. What did hot and cold mean to the Laodiceans? And that's going to help us understand how to make it mean what it means for us today. We need to understand that hot is one kind of good and cold is another kind of good. Hot is one kind of good. Cold is another kind of good because he distinguishes it with a bad thing called lukewarmness. And so now we have to ask ourselves another question. I feel like a detective who's interviewing the text. I need to ask a question. What do hot water and cold water have in common that lukewarm water doesn't have? And the answer is usefulness. Usefulness. You see, in the first century especially, the way the water was used had a lot to do with its temperature. We, and they, use hot water to bathe. It's very soothing and relaxing when you have a nice hot bath. or to cook, or to brew drinks. They brewed what we would consider tea or coffee even back then, though it's not the same type that we have today. But it warms us up when we drink these hot liquids, and we can use cold water to quench our thirst when it's really hot. And you can do all kinds of special things with hot, cold particulars that you can't do with lukewarm. Lukewarm water is good for none of these. In fact, if you drink it, it'll make you feel queasy or even nauseous, especially if it's the impure kind of water that they had in Laodicea in the first century. Lukewarm water is useless, especially for drinking. Now, every Laodicean knew what this meant. You see, Laodicea had a water problem. This is well known in Asia Minor. In fact, if you visit this area, if you go to Laodicea right now in modern Turkey, they'll explain it to you. The guides will talk about the situation in the first century water system that made it a problem for Laodicea with the hot and cold water. Dr. Tom Constable of Dallas Seminary, one of my former professors, writes, the Laodiceans knew how the Lord felt. because their city drinking water came from a spring six miles to the south over an aqueduct and it arrived disgustingly lukewarm. Colossi, another city that was near, had refreshing cold water and Hierapolis had hot spring water. They were very blessed to have naturally cold water and naturally hot water in these two neighboring cities. But by the time these same resources were piped through an aqueduct into Laodicea, both were lukewarm, both were filled with residue from the aqueduct. They drank it, it made them sick. And so they had to treat all of their water. They had to process everything before they could use it, unlike their neighbors in these other cities. Now, without going into graphic details, the Lord spitting them out is the word for vomit. That's the pure and simple meaning of that word. And again, I have to say something that I repeat often in going through these letters to the churches. This image does not mean that genuine Christians can lose their salvation. I always want to head someone off from reading that into the text. It doesn't mean that. That's not the way the metaphor is being used here. But what it does mean is that a Christian's self-sufficiency resulting in spiritual uselessness makes Jesus sick. That's what it means. And so that's what we need to understand in the passage going into it. We can't do any application until we understand what a text means. If we don't understand what a verse or a passage means, we will only misapply it to ourselves or others. Let me say, in way of application, if you're a Christian this morning, Jesus cares intensely how you live. Alright? Is that a fair statement? Does Jesus care how His people live? He bought you with His blood? Of course He does. He loves you. He wants you to do what is right and that is His will for you. He cares about your priorities in life because your priorities reflect the values of your heart. It reflects what is in your heart for real and what's important to you. You know, when a parent neglects the things of God for something else, that shift in priority, be it ever so subtle, sends a louder message to their children than all the devotionals and all the Bible readings all the rest of the year. It sends a message when we suggest that the things of God are somehow negotiable. But if we're apathetic towards spiritual truth, or apathetic about the church and God's Word, apathetic about God's work in our lives, then we need to know that our lukewarm indifference makes our Lord sick. That's what Jesus is saying here to Laodicea. Now our Lord had strong affections for his people and he has strong affections for his people now. He loves his people. He died to redeem us. He wants us to hear this word. He wants all people to know this truth. People outside the church need to know this truth. They need to know that Jesus is a redeemer, that he is a savior, that they should come to him for salvation. The invitation needs to go out to everyone. They need to hear the word. And when his people, in the church especially, have low affections for him, and think meagerly about him, and just kind of yawn about the things of God, and it's a kind of a take it or leave it thing on Sunday morning, whether we're going to even go to church or not, you know, if I have anything better to do. When that is the experience of a believer, and they put his church and his kingdom aside by preferring and valuing lesser things above him and his interests, it does make our Lord sick. And it is a matter of priority. This is for us, especially in America. We need to hear this. You show what you really think of Jesus by what you pursue and value first above other things in life. It shows in your priorities. Dr. John R. W. Stott sees a direct correlation between Laodicea and the church of today. Now keep in mind, the quote I'm going to read is over 20 years old, but it's still relevant. In his book, What Christ Thinks of the Church, John Stott writes, perhaps none of the seven letters is more appropriate to the modern church. It describes vividly the respectable, sentimental, nominal, skin-deep religiosity which is so widespread among us today. Our Christianity, he says, is flabby and anemic. We appear to have taken a lukewarm bath of religion." Laodicea was a wealthy city. I told you I was going to explain how their wealth played into this. And the people in the church were also wealthy. Now that's a change. Usually we have Christians living in a wealthy area and they're poor in the church because they've been ostracized and kicked out of their businesses, lost their jobs, blackballed by society because no one wants to do business with a Christian. If it's against the government to be a Christian, they don't want to be hurt by the government themselves. And so it kind of tends in that direction. But here it's different. You have a wealthy city, and you have a wealthy church. Believers in the church, or people in the church, whether they were believers or not, had wealth. And if they had a problem, basically, they figured they could throw money at the problem until it goes away. Sound familiar? For example, I'll give you an illustration from history. When there was an earthquake that destroyed the city of Laodicea in A.D. 60, keep in mind that's about 35 years before this was written. About A.D. 60, the wealthy Christians turned down financial aid from Rome. Can you believe that? Can you believe a modern city in America who is devastated by some natural disaster? Think of the horrible storms that we've had already this year. Can you imagine them saying, we don't need any government aid. We got it. We'll cover it. We're going to do it with our own money. That's what Laodicea did. When there was an earthquake that devastated the town, they turned down governmental aid from Rome, they dipped into their own bank accounts, and they promptly rebuilt it. And here's the little clinch. When they rebuilt all of their buildings, they put their own inscription on it. And they marked in stone on all of these rebuilt structures the Greek words, ek-ton-idion, literally, out of our own resources. It's like saying, we did it ourselves. Like someone who is very wealthy, that I can think of, who puts his name on all of his buildings. They were like that. And can you imagine a church just filled with people who had that same type of ego? They wanted to say, we did it. They were self-congratulatory people. They loved to pat themselves on the back because they had money to afford it. Laodicea and the entire area was filled with prosperous industries, and that plays into their wealth. They had great industry. In fact, they specialized in banking. That's a no-brainer. Wherever you have a lot of money, you're going to have a proliferation of banks. And they made black woolen cloth. They even had a well-known healthcare industry that was famous for its eye medicine that improved vision. In fact, they even claimed to have a cure for congenital blindness. That was unprecedented. It was bogus, but it was unprecedented in the day because they were claiming all of these great medical advances. They were numb with self-sufficiency. And while rolling in their money, they were numb to their own bankruptcy in another realm. And so Jesus addresses this numbness and this unawareness in verse 17. He quotes them. He's quoting their heart in verse 17. He says, for you say, I am rich. I have prospered and I need nothing. And then he says, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. And so our third observation about Laodicea is this. Christians who are self-sufficient fail to realize their total inadequacy before Christ. Like city, like church. Sadly, the same thoughts and the same mindset that dominated the city of Laodicea outside the church was just the same inside the church. It was like all of that same worldly, polluted, ego-driven, materialistic idea that was outside the church had seeped long ago into the church. And they felt the same way. You're a Laodicean outside, you're a Laodicean inside. And so there's really no difference when you went to the Laodicean church between being out in the street just talking to any other pagan from Rome. It was all the same mindset. The church was entrenched in the culture and the culture began to dominate the church. Pastor Kent Hughes wrote regarding another passage that I think really applies here. He said, if we do not invite the biblical text to define church order, our intrusive culture will. Then he said, the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, is a tyrant to be resisted, not embraced. You know what he's saying? He's saying the world is constantly trying to influence the church. And the church is always flirting with the influence of the world. That's the tendency of the church. That's why we have to be very careful to not look to the world for how we're going to run the church. Nor do we ask, how are other churches in our area running their church to know what is right? We have another source that's higher than both of those. We have to go back to the Word. We go to the Bible to find out how does Jesus and how do his apostles say the church ought to be run. That's where we go for our design for the church. It is the Lord who is building the church. We're not building the church. I'm not building the church. Jesus said he's going to build the church and the gates of Hades would not prevail against it. You know, that's the church that we need to be a part of. We need to be a part of the church that Jesus is building. And how does He do it? He builds it through the preaching of His Word. The free dispense of the Gospel to all creatures. It goes forth and it never returns void. That's why we preach. Laodicea wasn't getting that. They weren't hearing the Word of Christ. They weren't believing the apostolic message. They shared the world's view of itself. They believed, if I have enough money, I don't really need God. I can write a check. If I have a prayer request, I'll just get out my checkbook and write a check. I can cover it. They were thinking only in terms of material needs. They had no awareness of their greatest problem. According to verse 17, they were saying, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing. Can you imagine a Christian saying that to Jesus? I don't need anything from you. I've got it covered. No, that's blasphemy. These Laodiceans were so proud of their independence and in rebuking them I realized there is at least an indirect rebuke of myself and of the culture in which I live. Many of my friends, many of the people I know and love have these same attitudes about Jesus. That it's sort of a take-it-or-leave-it, nonchalant, easy-going attitude about the things of God. That we apply the truth of God when it's convenient and when it fits in with our culture and what we really want to do. But when it really cuts into us, we so often want to jettison it. You know, chuck it aside. and go back to doing things the way we want to do them. This is where Christianity's rubber meets the road of truth. They were independent from Roman subsidies and they thought they were independent from God. Something happens when people have material resources and they imagine that those resources can buy whatever they may need. And instead of producing real satisfaction and sufficiency, it can, not necessarily, but it can mutate into the smug novelty that I can handle things on my own. And we start printing, if only in our hearts, ectone idione on all of our stuff. We start thinking, I did this all myself. I built this. I made this. I'm a self-made man. That's a popular mantra in our day. We're self-made men and women. We put our name on everything. And then we start to think, I'm not like those poor wretches who constantly need God's help for everything. And I think I know something about you, too. Some of you have talked to me and you do need God's help and we are in the same boat We need him for everything. He is our life He said man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God As we need more than food to stay alive. We need the Word of God Listen, the truth is this people who don't think they need God's help Don't know what they need most May I say that again? People who don't think they need God's help don't know what they need most. Dr. Howard Hendricks, another one of my professors at Dallas Seminary, used to say, the reason Americans think they're doing fine all the time is because they don't know what they're doing. That's why we think we're doing fine all the time. We're comparing ourselves with ourselves. The Laodiceans were really in the same predicament. They had invested all of their strength and assurance into temporal resources. They were ignoring the true treasure. They were about to be impoverished at death, because as soon as they died, they would lose all of the things that they had written their names on. They would lose all of their money and be worthless in heaven. Worthless after death, anyway. The Laodiceans were ignorant. And Jesus corrects their misconceptions in the second part of verse 17, where he says, "...not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked." Now that is the exact opposite of what they thought, right? They didn't think that about themselves. Instead of wretched, they saw themselves as better than others. Instead of miserable, they saw themselves as benefactors to the church. We are helping the church. We are supporting the church. The church needs us. Not we need the church. Not we need the Lord Jesus. But He needs us. And instead of poor, they saw themselves as well-healed financially. Instead of blind, they saw themselves as having a monopoly on ISAV that can cure blindness and make the blind to see. And instead of naked, they thought they were leading the industry in woolen garments to clothe the rest of these pathetic wretches in Asia Minor. We're not like them. We're the place where you get the stuff. All of their estimations were wrong, dead wrong. After death, their earthly treasures would be less than worthless." I can say to you, folks, after death, your resources materially are worthless, absolutely worthless. What matters is how we use those to spread the gospel of Christ now. That's why He's given us the stuff. All the stuff is for the glory of God. We are stewards, brothers and sisters. After death, it means nothing. That is, those treasures to us mean nothing. Here's what Jesus advises them and all people to do. I want to just read verse 18 and close with this. He says, I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. See, that's just the opposite of everything they thought. And I want to unpack what that verse means. And in the related verses, and Lord willing, I'm going to pick it up here next Sunday. But Jesus is here warning the Laodiceans and all of us to turn from our self-sufficiency and look to Him as our greatest gain in this life. The true faith is able to say, He is my treasure. He is the source of everything I need. He is the repository of my resources. I go to Him when I have a need. I don't go to my bank account. I don't just reach into my pockets. I don't go to my Rolodex of contacts. I go to Him. It's not that those things aren't blessings. They are. And we do use those in the will of God. But He is our first recourse. It's a matter of priority. It's a matter of value that He is first among all things. He is the healing that we need. If you want to have something of lasting value, if you don't want to waste your life, and I don't believe you do, then Jesus advises us to turn from all of our trivial pursuits and to find in Him our ultimate treasure and pleasure and lasting satisfaction. This is my prayer for us as a church. I know that this is a hard sell because it's the opposite of what we hear on television and in the movies and in the magazines that so many read. It's going to take a miracle of His grace for this to be believed and acted upon, but this change will require a transfer of allegiance from earthly values to heavenly values, and He can do that. He can work in your heart through this word, and I believe that, and I prayed that that would be the case of this message, that this change will produce noticeable differences in our lives and in our hearts, in our priorities, in our values, and that it will bring great glory to Jesus in the coming weeks and months and years, for only He can enable that to happen. May that work begin today through His word. Let's close in prayer. O Father, You are sovereign. Expose our need and compel each of us to seek You as our highest treasure in life above all things. as the covering that we need, as the healing we require. Be glorified in our priorities for those actions and activities that point others to you as our highest value. May your word go forth. May your gospel be believed as we present it to our neighbors and friends in this community and through our missionaries around the world. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.