Amen. May we share in Christ's passion to extend His grace to the ends of the earth by being involved in that great work ourselves. Page 15 is the readings, Revelation 3, 14 through 22. And to the messenger of the church in Laodicea write, these things says the amen, the faithful and the true witness, the beginning of God's creation. I know your works that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then since you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth, because you say I am rich, even become wealthy and have need of nothing, and do not realize you are the most wretched, yes, the most pitiable and poor and blind and naked. I counsel you to buy gold from me, refined by fire, so that you may become rich, and white garments, so that you may be clothed, and your nakedness not be shamefully exposed, and anoint your eyes with eye salve, so that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Now then, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone should hear my voice and open the door, I really will come into him and eat with him and he with me. To the one who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne just as I overcame and sat down with my father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Amen. Father, we thank you for this, your word. Help us to live it out. to rejoice in it, to express it to others, to make it a part of our lives. Pray that your Holy Spirit would quicken the word to our hearts in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. Well this passage that we just read has some remarkable contrast between a Christianity that is produced by the Holy Spirit and a Christianity that is produced by our flesh. It contrasts the new creation that the Messiah is progressively advancing with what the old creation can easily produce, yes, even within the church of Jesus Christ. You see, the ministries that this church had engaged in were obviously so good in their eyes that they did not realize that they were completely devoid of Christ and devoid of the Holy Spirit. He has to point out to them in verse 20 that he's outside the church knocking on the church door. Now that means that their ministries are not being produced by Jesus Christ. As the Apostle Paul worded it, they had a form of godliness, but were denying the power thereof. They had a form of Christianity, but they were not really living a Christianity that was produced by Jesus Christ. And how do you know if you have this kind of Christianity? Well, if you're prayerless, you probably do have at least partially this kind of Christianity because Colossians says, if we're not seeking those things which are above, then we don't really have the new creation. We don't really have the kingdom in our lives. It's only as we seek it that we have it in our lives. And This passage shows man's dominion versus the second Adam's dominion. It contrasts healing by man's efforts versus the true ISAV that comes from Christ alone. It contrasts what a man values with what Jesus values. And because of these kinds of contrasts, John MacArthur believes that this church was a completely unregenerate church. He says there wasn't a single believer in that church. I don't agree with him at all. I think he's mistaken on that because even genuine believers can fail to seek those things which are above. Now, obviously, if the church ends up never repenting and Jesus does eventually spew them out of their mouth and we'd say, okay, I guess it was an unregenerate church. But until that happens, covenant theology would say we need to treat them as believers who need to be renewed in their repentance and renewed in faith. And that's exactly the way that Jesus treats this church right here. Let me give you some examples of why I do not agree with John MacArthur on this. Verse 19 shows that he, well this will start verse 18, it shows that there is a remedy for them. And then verse 19 shows that he does love them and will discipline them. Well that implies that they are sons. Because Hebrews 12 says it's only genuine sons who receive discipline, all of the other ones are illegitimate. Verse 20 shows that Jesus is still offering his supernatural presence to them. Verse 21 assumes that there are, or at least there will be, overcomers in that church. And verse 22 assumes that there are people with spiritual ears who can hear this rebuke that he is giving here. He who has an ear, let him hear. So those are all interpretive clues. This is not speaking about an unregenerate church. Rather, what I see this as happening is Jesus is giving these strong words to shake this church up to a realization that they are living far beneath the power and the expectations that Jesus has for them. And I think it's a fantastic message for us to really use as self-evaluation. To what degree is our Christianity a manifestation of the new creation? And to what degree is it going to be burned up as hay, wood and stubble on Judgment Day? And, you know, when I have evaluated my past life, there's a good part of my past life that I think is not from the new creation. It's going to be burned up as hay, wood and stubble. And I want my life to be more and more characterized by the new. Now you may wonder where in the world I get the idea of a new creation anyway in this passage. Well, I get it from the Old Testament passages that are being quoted in verse 14. What will be much more fully developed in the last three chapters of this book, and boy when we get there it's some really exciting stuff, is hinted at in verse 14. And you've got to remember that in our introductory sermons we pointed out that we must read Revelation in light of the Old Testament. And when the Old Testament is explicitly quoted, then the Apostle John wants us to have the whole context and meaning of that Old Testament passage in mind as we're reading that section of Revelation. Well, every one of the Old Testament passages being quoted in verse 14 is talking about a new creation that the Messiah would inaugurate. The first title is the Amen or the Amen, however you pronounce that. Beal's commentary says this, Isaiah 65 verse 16 and Revelation 3 verse 14 are the only two passages in the entire Bible where Amen is a name. So when Jesus calls himself the Amen, I think he's wanting to clue his readers and his hearers into the fact that they need to be thinking about that famous, famous prophecy in Isaiah chapter 65 that tells about the whole purpose of the coming Messiah is to make all things new until there is a new heavens and a new earth. His grace will go, as the hymn we just sang says, far as the curse is found. His kingdom will reverse the effects of the fall, all of the effects. of the fall. And I'm just going to very quickly anticipate that the coming of the new heavens and the new earth is progressive. It's not just a sudden thing that happens at the end of history. It has already started the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So when Christians are not on board with Isaiah 65's purpose for the Messiah, it makes Christ sick. He wants to spew us out of his mouth. We are standing against everything that Jesus stands for. So if we're in the new covenant, we are called to a life of constant change, pressing into our upward calling, constantly praying that God's kingdom would come more and more on earth, that His will would be done more and more on earth. Now, how perfectly is God's revealed will done in heaven? Perfectly. Absolutely. How perfectly is God's will being done on earth? Not perfectly, right? It is not being done very well at all and yet the only Old Testament passage where the name Amen is used points to all things being made new and eventually God's grace is going to extend man's lifespan and tame animals. and bring shalom to planet earth until finally the last enemy will be conquered at the second coming. That's going to be a death and it will usher in the final stage of the new heavens and of the new earth. But it's already begun. So the title Amen tells us what the Messiah is committed to. As soon as a first century Jew heard the title Amen used of Jesus, he would have thought of the new heavens and the new earth passage. So this name challenges the church as to what we must be committed to, and then the next two titles do the same thing. I wish I had time to do a detailed study of Isaiah 65. It is a fabulous prophecy. We'll get into it when we get to the last three chapters of Revelation. But here I'm just going to summarize. The title, The Faithful and True Witness, is used in Isaiah 65, but it's also used in Isaiah 42, 43, and 44. And each of those chapters speak of the Messiah being given a commission to advance his kingdom to the ends of the earth. And likewise, the title, The Beginning of God's Creation, that's another title of Jesus, The Beginning of God's Creation, is used to refer to Christ's resurrection, since the resurrection of Jesus is the first new heavens and new earth reality to come into being. His resurrection was the beginning of the process of making all things new. And we're going to look in depth at the progressive nature of that new heavens and new earth when we get closer to the end of the book. But Beal gives page after page of detailed exegesis comparing this verse with other verses to show that Jesus is clearly saying that the new heavens and new earth have been inaugurated in some way. Now I'm not going to get into all of his exegesis, but let me briefly quote his conclusion. He says, the promise of a new creation by the faithful God of Israel in Isaiah 65, verses 15 through 16, primarily stands behind the title, the Amen, the faithful and true, as well as behind the concluding, the beginning of the creation of God. These Old Testament allusions are used to indicate that Christ is the inaugurated fulfillment of the Isaianic new creation prophecies. The titles in chapter 3 verse 14 do not link Jesus to the original creation, but are an interpretation of Jesus' resurrection drawn from chapter 1 verse 5. His resurrection is viewed as the beginning of the new creation, which is parallel with Colossians 1 15b, 18b, compare firstborn of all creation, et cetera. And I won't have time to trace this all the way through the book, but I'll just give you one little example, very briefly. Chapter 21, verses five through six, uses two of these titles, actually it uses three, alludes to three of these titles, and it says this. Then he who sat on the throne said, take note, I am making, and this is an ongoing present tense in the first century. He says, I am making everything new. And he says to me, write, because these words are true and faithful. Then he said to me, I have become the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. In other words, the new creation starts with Jesus and it will be ended with Jesus. And He is progressively making all things new. And it's impossible for us to receive anything new, to continue in anything new, to be created new in any way apart from Jesus. Any supposed grace or ministry that we may have that does not flow from Jesus is automatically not part of the new creation. It's part of the old creation. It's not from Jesus. And because it may be confusing to you to say that the new heavens and new earth have already been inaugurated, And then to also say that there are aspects of it, like Rodney said earlier, that are still future, that are not finished, I want to spend just a little bit of time commenting on that. Both Isaiah 65 and Revelation, later on in the last three chapters, indicate that the beginning stages of the new heavens and the new earth Have babies being born. Well, that's not an eternity. That's in time. Have sinners. Have people dying. That's not an eternity. It's in time. And yet, as the chapter goes forward, you realize there's a time in the new heavens and the new earth when there is no more sin and there is no more death. That's the eternal side of the new heavens and the new earth. That's the same new heavens and new earth, okay? So there is an already and there is a not yet. We're already in the new heavens and the new earth in some sense. In fact, we saw in our introductory sermons that this has been progressively advancing in the first century. We saw that the heaven of God's abode and the angelic abode was completely made new. Jesus prepared that heaven and he cast Satan and all of the demons out of it, he cleansed it, he renewed it, and made it 100% a new heaven, but there is a progressive invasion of heaven to earth to renew individuals first, and then societies, and then finally the physical creation. Now when I preached on Revelation 1 verse 9, I gave you a detailed chart outlining the debates on the already not yet paradigm that you find in the Bible. And I'm not going to repeat what I said back then, but let me just point out, I think it would be helpful to realize there is no debate on the existence of the already not yet. Premillennialists and Amillennialists totally agree with us that in some sense the new creation started in Christ's resurrection And Satan was judged, and Satan was cast out of this world, legally at least, in the first century. Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out, okay? And both systems see a not yet about eschatology, that there are some things that are still future to us. But both of those systems have a very tough time wrapping their heads around What impact that should have upon us right now? In their systems, there is a huge tension between the already and the not yet. And in their writings, it doesn't seem like, you look at it, you say, okay, well, that's a cool theology, but how does it impact me? When I was a non-millennialist, I had a hard time giving an answer to that. What practical difference should it make to me? But post-millennialism evaporates the tension by inserting a progressive application between the legal already and the culminated not yet. The church is supposed to daily be claiming the not yet for now, okay? We're supposed to be praying, thy kingdom come every day. Now is it okay, just as one little example, is it okay to pray for healing? Many amillennialists say no, because Romans 8 says healing's going to occur at the resurrection. Well, in a sense they are correct. There's going to be the ultimate healing of bodies at the resurrection, but why does the Bible then, the New Testament, speak so much about healing in the New Covenant as characterized by Christ's kingdom? Well, the reason it speaks that way is Hebrew says that we have already, even in the first century, tasted of the powers of the age to come, right? Remember that phrase? And as history unfolds, the church will progressively be tasting more and more of those powers of the age to come. And so I think that's why Jesus is so upset with the church of Laodicea. They had no interest in that. We're supposed to be seeking God's kingdom and his righteousness so that there is less and less, not yet, on planet Earth, and more and more of the already that we are experiencing. Hopefully that makes sense, okay? Postmillennialism alone adequately bridges the gap between the already and the not yet. And it was precisely here that I think Laodicea failed her Lord. By being satisfied with the status quo, she was living in denial of the whole purpose of Christ's life, to press all of life forward to the not yet. So that, I think, is the first thing that verse 14 is setting before the church. And lest Laodicea think that this promise of a new creation given in Isaiah was simply theory and not reality, Jesus, in effect, gives three oaths of affirmation that He has begun the new creation. Several commentaries point out that the word Amen is an oath of agreement with God's covenant. and Beal and many other commentaries point out that the titles The Faithful and The True Witness are legal synonyms for that covenant oath. Amen. Douglas Kelly in his commentary words it this way. Christ says, I am the Amen. Second, the faithful witness, which is another way of saying Amen. And thirdly, and that's in the Hebrew, it would be. And then thirdly, the true witness, which is yet another way to say Amen. He effectively says, I am Amen. Yes, I am Amen. And yes, I am, amen. Christ is God's yes to all the promises of the Bible that apply to us. He establishes the reality of those promises. He puts wheels on it and gets the blessing right into our body and soul. Jesus is able to do that. He is the Amen. You do not sign the check in your own name and take it down to the bank because we are spiritually bankrupt. Instead, we go to Jesus who signs the check for heaven's bank, making over to the believer any promise that the Lord decides he needs for that day. Thus Christ is the amen, the yes to the promises of God. And specifically in context, he is the amen to the promised forward progress of the new creation that the church must be pressing towards as his representatives. And when we fail to seek the new covenant realities of Isaiah 65 and the other new creation passages, what we're doing basically is standing in denial of our union with Jesus. Okay, well that is a background. Do you see now why Jesus is so upset with the Laodicea in verses 15 through 17? The Laodicean Christians had no passion for what Jesus was passionate about. They were satisfied with what Jesus was not at all satisfied with. So let's quickly go through these verses. Verse 15 says, I know your works that you were neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. Now this is a metaphor that would have punched them between the eyes that they would have been very familiar with. Even though this was an incredibly wealthy city, as the city grew, they ran out of the good water that was available and they had to bring in water from outside. So they built this massive underground aqueduct. It was just huge, huge tubes underground from Hierapolis, which was a city that was about six miles away. And in Hierapolis, which was the nearest water supply, they had sulfuric hot springs that bubbled up out of the ground at 95 degrees Fahrenheit. And these springs were excellent for bathing in. In fact, they had, they thought, therapeutic benefits to people. They were certainly relaxing, whether it actually did bring healing or not. That was one of the reasons they went there. But the water was so filled with alum and sulfur and minerals and other chemicals that it smelled, and it didn't taste very good. In fact, if you weren't used to drinking it, it made you throw up. It was really, really thick. In fact, just to give you an idea of how thick the water was with minerals, archaeologists have dug up these massive underground aqueducts and they were absolutely stopped up with all of the mineral deposits that were in there. So it was pretty minerally water, not very pleasant to drink. So Colossae, about 11 miles away, had cold good water. Laodicea had hot water for bathing. So Colossae 11 miles away, Hierapolis was six miles away. So the hot water of Hierapolis was good for bathing, the cold water of Colossae was good for drinking, but the only water piped into Laodicea was lukewarm by the time it arrived. It was not good for either use. And I think that's just a beautiful, perfect symbol for Laodicea. Either hot or cold would be good, would be useful, but Laodicea was content with an apathetic, horrible-tasting lukewarmness. And in verse 16, Jesus says, so then, since you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth. Now, it's extremely hurtful when somebody says to you, you make me sick. And yet that's exactly what Jesus said to Laodicea right here. Because Laodicea was not going to the incredible bank account that Jesus had purchased for them at the expense of his own life, what Jesus did in his atonement was insulted. Because they were satisfied with their own state rather than pressing more and more into what Jesus had called them to, Jesus was insulted. His provisions were insulted and they were living way below the level that he wanted them to live. So verse 17 gives Christ's evaluation of their current state of affairs. Because you say, I am rich, even become wealthy and have need of nothing, and do not realize that you are the most wretched, yes, the most pitiable and poor and blind and naked. Were they needy? Yes, but they didn't recognize their need. And some of it may have come from the fact that they were incredibly wealthy in terms of material resources. All of the commentaries say that the whole city of Laodicea was fabulously wealthy. Just one story that illustrates that is that when an earthquake completely leveled the city of Laodicea, Rome felt sorry for them. offered to give them money, because they were a very devoted city, and to rebuild the city, and they refused at the risk of insulting Rome. They refused. They said, no, we got plenty of money. And they, on their own terms, built that up extremely, extremely fast. They did not want to be beholden to Rome. Now, not only were they already very wealthy, but they were becoming increasingly wealthy through trade, with Laodicea being a strategic trade juncture, north and south, as well as east and west. And not only did they have their own goods to trade, but they were wealthy enough to be the banking center of Asia. So they were a banking hub. They were also noted for, empire-wide really, for their glossy black wool that they had taken centuries to breed their sheep to be able to produce. And so their black wool industry was a booming business. So was their medical industry. Commentators say they had the most prestigious hospital in the entire ancient world. Not just the Roman world, anywhere. And they had quite a number, they didn't patent them, I guess, but they had quite a number of medicines that they exported from there, including an eye salve that was famous throughout the empire that was made from a secret recipe called Phrygian powder. and purportedly it was supposed to cure all kinds of eye diseases. Whether it did or not, I have no idea, but that's what the ancient history said. We'll have to ask Dr. Shepard if it worked or not. So on just about any level that you might look at their lives, you would say, these guys have it made. They really don't need anything. And they may have assumed, okay, all is well between me and God, and they didn't sense any inward spiritual need. Did they play at church? Yes, they did. Verse 20 says that they did, but Christ was not there. And the scariest part of it is they didn't recognize that Christ was not there. So they must have taken pride in needing nothing. But Jesus points out that they're failing to live in terms of heaven's resources. They were in a wretched spiritual condition. They were to be pitied. In fact, that phrase there, the most pitiable, would have been insulting to them because the histories we have indicate they didn't want Rome's pity. They didn't want help from anybody. There was a certain sense of self-sufficiency that made them pride. But the Christian life really is the opposite, isn't it? It recognizes we are bankrupt spiritually, and everything that we have is coming from somebody else's bank account, from Jesus's bank account. And so the Beatitudes do not say, blessed are those who don't sense their need of anything. No, it's blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven and it's not until we recognize we are poor. Every day we need things from Christ that we experience in our lives individually the kingdom of heaven being manifested. Sermon on the Mount goes on to say, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. So if you think you don't need much from the Lord, I would urge you to read the Sermon on the Mount once again. You cannot live the Christian life that Christ wants you to live in your own strength. Just as some examples, how do you respond kindly to your spouse when he or she is rude and disrespectful? How do you keep from getting bitter when you are treated poorly by your boss? How do you humble yourself before the brothers and sisters in the church like the New Testament calls us to do instead of hiding your problems and not wanting an accountability relationship? How do you passionately pray when you struggle even to pray a few sentences to the Lord? How do you gain compassion for the lost? I mean, these are just a few of hundreds of questions that have the same answer. And the answer is not you do it by doing it. No, the answer is you go to the Lord and you pray something like this. Lord, I am not up to this task, but I know you are. Please love this person through me. You have said that if we ask in faith, you'll grant whatever we ask for if it is according to will. And you've told me to love mine enemies, so I know it's according to your will to ask for supernatural love. You've told me to bless those who curse me, to be patient with my children, to never lose hope. And this day, I receive those resources from my bank account in Christ Jesus. May Jesus love them through me. May he give me his hope and faith. I commit myself to doing the impossible by your grace. That's what a person who's poor in spirit does every single day. He doesn't rely on his own strength. He seeks to do the impossible by grace. So using the imagery well known to Laodicea, Jesus gives them the remedy for each issue. Verse 18. I counsel you to buy gold from me, refined by fire, so that you may become rich. Now they thought of themselves as being rich, and Jesus said, no, you're not really, not spiritually. And just to give you a little bit of a picture of the material wealth that Laodiceans had, even the tiny minorities in Laodicea had, I'm gonna give you a little historical footnote that occurred four years before the book of Revelation was written. Flaccus was the governor of Asia, and he issued a decree four years earlier that it was illegal to send any gold or any silver out of the province. He was trying to stem the siphoning of gold out of the area. These businessmen, they were pretty shrewd, and they had partners all over the empire, and those partners preferred gold and silver to the inflated currency. that was there. Well, statist governments don't, they like to control economies, and that was certainly true of the governor Flaccus. He was trying to protect the inflated currency that he used, so he passed a draconian law that anybody caught exporting gold or silver out of the country, the gold and silver would be confiscated. And one of the rules of economics is that bad money drives out good money. Here's how Gresham Laws stated more fully. When a government overvalues one type of money and undervalues another, the undervalued money will leave the country or disappear from circulation into hordes, while the overvalued money will flood into circulation. So, for example, why is it you don't see very many copper pennies around anymore? That's because copper is worth more than the penny is worth. And so people tend to save the copper pennies and use at the store the less valuable pennies. Bad money, that would be the fake copper pennies. Forced on the public, drives out the good money, the real copper pennies. Well, that's just a simple illustration of what happens on a massive scale within a population. Back in that day, Foreign brokers preferred Asia's gold to their debased money. So they wanted payments in gold. Well, Flaccus, he's a tyrant. He doesn't like that. So he forbids the gold leaving Asia. Now the problem was the Jewish communities were not allowed to send their tithes and their money. And in this case, it was the temple tax in Roman money because that had blasphemous images on the money. So they sent it routinely in the form of gold. It was easier to transport anyway. And the Jewish community thought, hey, it's none of Flaccus's business on how we exchange our money anyway. So Other towns didn't get confiscated, but we have a historical footnote that they sent their money, and it was in 20 pounds of gold for the temple tax, and Flaccus found out about it. He confiscated that money. So they had their own version of our asset forfeiture laws that America has tyrannically imposed. By the way, don't just blame the police on that. All I see is police being blamed. It was Congress who passed that law. So start getting on Congress's case about it. Anyway, the point is the Laodiceans were buying up the good gold and hoarding it That's Gresham's law. And now Jesus commands them to do exactly the same thing with spiritual resources to buy the pure spiritual gold from him. The problem is they have nothing with which to buy that spiritual gold. Well, no problem, actually, because Isaiah 55 verse one tells us God's terms for buying spiritual resources from them. You buy it at Christ's expense without your own money. So there is a double blow to pride here. First, the command to get gold is an admission of spiritual need, that your life is not as put together as they thought it was. Second, the command to buy it on God's terms is an admission that they have to go to Christ even to have the finances, so to speak, to buy the spiritual resources. And Christ goes down through the list of other things. and white garments so that you may be clothed and your nakedness not be shamefully exposed. So they're spiritually naked. They needed to be clothed with clothes that they don't own. I want you to notice he says white garments. Some commentators say that this is a contrast with the black wool industry that Laodicea was famous for. But again, it's a double blow to pride. They first of all have to acknowledge that they're naked and then they need to buy clothing that they don't have and they can't get except for through Jesus. And of course, Christ even supplies the spiritual money with which to buy the clothing. And anoint your eyes with eye salve so that you may see. As I mentioned before, Laodicea was famous empire-wide for their eye salve that purportedly cured eye diseases, but Jesus wasn't interested in that. He was interested in them getting eye salve from his resources. After all, Jesus is in the business of bringing more and more of the new creation to planet Earth. But while they had plenty of zeal for fiddling with the old creation, they had no zeal for the new creation. So Jesus calls them in verse 19 to be zealous and repent. He wants them zealous for his kingdom and his priorities. And then the last problem is given in the first phrase of verse 20. Now that I stand at the door and knock. So that implies Jesus is outside the door. He's offering to come in and to fellowship with them, but at this point, he is so offended that he has not even graced their worship services with his presence. I mean, that would just be so humbling to have worship service after worship service, and then have Jesus come and say, by the way, I haven't been in your church for a long time, and I'm not planning to be there this Sunday if you guys do not wake up and repent. There should be nothing that would horrify us more than to hear words like that said to us. But I think it's worth asking if we're so united to Jesus that we have the aroma of the new, the new creation all about us. The threefold amen says he's begun the new creation. But what he has begun, he continues to achieve through his people when they are willing to live by faith. So are we that people, ever pressing into our upward calling, ever bringing more and more resources of heaven to earth? That's the question. Now I want you to turn with me to Colossians chapter three, and I want to show you what it means to seek those things which are above. So it's not just theoretical for you. And actually, we're going to begin reading at chapter 2, verse 20. Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations? do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, which all concern things which perish with the using according to the commandments and doctrines of men. These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. Notice the phrase self-imposed religion. The Christians at Colossae had the same problems as Laodicea did 11 miles away. They had a fake humility. They had rules for living, but these rules were man-made rules. They had fake ethics, okay? It was not from heaven. They sacrificed, they ministered. They ministered so sacrificially that it was damaging their bodies. And yet he says, despite all of these sacrifices, it was of no value, no value against the indulgence of the flesh. What that amounts to is Christians playing church without Christ's resources is the old creation fighting against certain aspects of the old creation. But it's not Jesus doing it, OK? It's not taking the kingdom of heaven and doing this ministry. Now, moving on to chapter three. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth. And I'll just stop there. But I do want you to notice that the Greek of the phrase in verse two, There's a phrase in there says things on the earth is identical to the Greek of the phrase in verse five, which are on the earth. And Paul is making a point. While we're not supposed to have our minds set on the things on the earth, we do not neglect the earth. In fact, we conquer the earth. Our minds are set upon heaven, not in order to escape from the earth, but to have the kingdom of heaven penetrate the earth, replacing what the old Adam produced and replacing it with what the new Adam can accomplish through us. And so in the rest of chapter three and chapter four, it deals with very, very down to earth issues such as attitudes towards each other in the church, verses 12 through 17. How to love our spouses, verses 18 through 19. Child-parent relations, verses 20 through 21. I mean, that's on planet Earth, right? Our work associates, verse 20 through chapter 4, verse 1. Witnessing to a secular world, chapter 4, verses 2 through 6. In other words, there's no escapism that he's advocating from the earth. He says, you can go out, you can make all the money you want to make, but you need to be doing it with new goals, new attitudes, new mindset, new power, new outcomes. You can be involved in politics, but you need to do it That politics with a new mindset, new goals, new attitudes, new power, and new outcomes. Do not imitate the Republicans in their strategies. Your politics needs to be characterized by the new creation. Everything in the old creation must become new. Sort of like that butterfly in your... It's not new in the sense that there's no connection with the old. Because, you know, you open up the caterpillar thing, it's still the old, but it's all mushy. I mean, it's completely changed, right, into something beautiful. That's what happens. God takes the old and he's got a metamorphosis into something new. And this is the goal of Christ in the book of Revelation. By the time we get to the end of the book, we will see that Jesus will accomplish that. It will be accomplished. And when we're not good with Christ's goals, Christ is not good with us. When we are not on board with Christ's kingdom purposes, He's not on board with us. Indeed, when we lose passion for the kingdom, Jesus doesn't just lose passion for us, He is sickened by us. He wants to vomit us out because we've got completely upside-down priorities, as He said to Laodicea. So then, since you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth." Now, I started the sermon by pointing out that I don't think that Jesus was treating these people as unregenerate. He wasn't saying you are unregenerate. He's saying you're acting as if you are unregenerate. Like Paul to the Colossians, he was saying, if you are who you say you are, why are you pursuing such shallow goals? Why are you not pursuing Christ's kingdom and His righteousness? If you really have been raised with Christ, then seek those things which are above. Well, the promises that Jesus ends with are that Laodicea will be a-okay if they will simply respond to His message with repentance and faith once again. It's not that Jesus doesn't love them, He does. So let's look at the promises. First one is in verse 19. As many as I love, I rebuke and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Now that's an encouraging word. His dire warnings are precisely because He loved them. He was sick of their works, but He loved them. And the rebuke and the discipline was a demonstration of that love. Now an almost identical verse in Hebrews was the verse that God regenerated me with when I was in 12th grade and turned my world upside down. And I'm going to read that for you in Hebrews 12. It says, My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him. For whom the Lord loves, He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. And I remember very vividly the night that I just lay awake pondering the fact that I do not remember being disciplined by God. in my life. I couldn't think of any examples of God's chastening me and God used that to completely change my heart and give me a hatred for my sin and give me a hungering and thirsting after righteousness and a passion for his kingdom and he so filled me with his love I thought I was going to die under the manifestation of his presence there. I couldn't sleep the remainder of the night All I could do was just praise Him and adore Him and express my love to Him. I had a whole new perspective on God, on this world, on myself. It's almost like everything had become made new. Now that didn't mean I still didn't have my old flesh and the old creation to contend with. I did. And fear was one of those old creation things that needed to be put off and replaced with a holy boldness from heaven. I had terrible fears and insecurities. Now, where did the church in Acts 4 get the boldness to preach like they did and witness to everybody they came into contact with despite persecution? Well, it tells us that they were filled with the Holy Spirit once again. Not just one time, but this was a second time that the Holy Spirit fell upon them and they spoke the Word of God with boldness. The old creation didn't produce that. This is something that came from heaven. So I still feared many things and witnessing was one of them. Well, that day, God gave me as clear a guidance as I have ever received that I needed to witness to a given person at at work. And that scared the daylights out of me, because back in those days I was so shy. I did not like to talk to people, certainly didn't want to witness to people. And I was very terrified. And so I told the Lord, no, Lord, I can't do that now. I. was instantly had paralysis on half of my body. Now God doesn't normally give disciplines like that, but I think God knew that I needed this so that I would have a sense of my sonship, that I truly was a son, an adopted son. I was a janitor, I happened to be cleaning a bathroom with a mop, I was mopping the floor, and I was right in front of a mirror when that happened, staring at the mirror, I could, it was all I could do to hold myself up with that mop and I'm staring in the mirror seeing my face all, and I can't lift my arm. And I remember very vividly saying, okay, Lord, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it. And immediately the paralysis left. And that was, that was the first time I ever remember being disciplined. by my Abba Father and it gave me such joy I just fairly skipped out of that bathroom and I later shared the gospel with that employee and I'll admit it was probably the worst gospel presentation ever given but through it all I had the undergirding knowledge and joy of knowing that I was loved by my father. So verse 19 says, as many as I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be zealous and repent. Now, because of my experience, I see that as a promise. It's a glorious promise. It's a wonderful promise. Verse 20. How now then I stand at the door and knock. If anyone should hear my voice and open the door, I really will come into him and eat with him and he with me. No matter what happens to the church as a whole, individuals who heard Christ's voice and opened the door were guaranteed to experience the intimacy of His presence with them in the Lord's table. Let me just make a side note here that there are only two conditions given in this passage for coming to the Lord's table. The first condition is the ability to hear His voice speaking through the scriptures. And the other condition is actively opening the door so that Christ will come in. That speaks of spiritual discernment and faith. Those are the same two conditions given in 1 Corinthians 11, discernment and faith. Now to the other churches, he said they needed to be overcomers before they came to the table. But remember from last time, it really amounts to the same thing. What is an overcomer? It's a person who lives by faith. He's taking on the new creation, he's putting off the old creation. So there's repentance and faith, two sides of one coin. But those are the only conditions we give for coming to the Lord's table. Discernment and faith. It's a biblical position. And lest anyone in Laodicea fear that Jesus would not be willing to fellowship with them after the way they had spurned him, he says, I really will come into him and eat with him and he with me. I really will. Then comes His promise in verse 21, to the one who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne. I mean, let that sink in. What an incredible promise. We can sit on Christ's throne. That's amazing. Now, that first of all implies, as other passages in Revelation make very, very clear, that Jesus is already sitting on His throne. Acts says that. And Ephesians says, we are seated together with Christ in the heavenlies. So that rule begins now, but it's only as we have an attitude of faith to overcome that we are granted the right to sit on that throne and to rule with Him. So we begin our rule right now. We're not just prophets and priests, we're kings right now. And a life of overcoming on earth will eventually lead to a life of overcoming in heaven. And you might say, what are you overcoming in heaven? We don't have any flesh to contend with. Yes, but heaven is still fighting against the earth. I mean, you look at Revelation chapter six and what are the saints in heaven doing? They're praying about the earth. They're upset about all of these tyrants that are living down here below. And so they're part of the advancement of the kingdom of heaven upon the earth. Now the point is not that there are two classes of Christians, carnal Christians and spiritual Christians or overcoming Christians. Rather, all Christians have a tendency to vacillate between those two positions and all Christians are called to be overcomers. When you face tough times like the first century church faced, it's very easy to go AWOL, absent without leave from Christ's army, and to embrace a defeatist theology. It's very, very easy for that to happen. I think that's why America's in the trouble that it is, is that the church has become defeatist. They've bought into defeatist theology. And this is one of the reasons why I'm convinced that Jesus will not, just like he did not allow that first century church of Laodicea to continue in their defeatist attitudes, he's not going to allow the modern church. He will bring discipline. Nothing less than overcoming or answering his call to victory with faith is worthy of his name. Rush Dooney's comments I think are worth noting. Let me read those to you. He said, the purpose of this vision is to give comfort and assurance of victory to the church, not to confirm their fears or the threats of the enemy. To read Revelation as other than the triumph of the kingdom of God in time and eternity is to deny the very essence of its meaning. David Chilton gives much the same message. He says, we have thus thus been faced again and again in these messages to the churches with the fundamental command of revelation, that which St. John admonishes us to keep, overcome, conquer. And he started that right off in chapter one, verse three, didn't he? Overcome, conquer. He goes on, he says, the New Testament writers constantly urge God's people to overcome in light of Christ's definitive victory. Having been recreated in His image and becoming more and more conformed to His image, Romans 8, 29-30, we are kings with Him now in this age. The Lord Jesus Christ shares His conquest and enthronement with His people. Because He overcame and sat down with the Father on His throne, He now summons us to enjoy regal dominion with Him, inheriting all things. Now the immediate response that some people have is, but that just can't be true. Look at the world around you. See, that's the problem. Where's your focus? It's on the world around you. They're looking at the old creation and what it can produce, rather than looking at the threefold Amen and what He can produce. When you read the newspaper, please don't read that and get discouraged and say, oh, things are so hopeless. Read the newspaper and say, oh, there's some more things that need to be made new, right? That I need to be praying heaven down to earth on. So don't let the newspaper kill your faith. Read it as a prayer material. Until the time of Christ, Ecclesiastes says there was nothing new upon the earth. But the major and the minor prophets predicted something brand new would happen when Jesus came. With the resurrection of Jesus, which is a new thing, we saw the beginning of the new creation of God and all things beginning to be made new. So the last admonition Jesus gives to this church is in verse 22, and it's really the same admonition he's given to all seven. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Don't get your theology from the newspaper. Get it from the Spirit-inspired scriptures. Don't get your ideas of what is possible from others. Get it from the Spirit-inspired scriptures. Don't limit your views of what is possible from what you see in the old creation. Realize that we are called to progressively advance the new creation. Don't limit your vision by what you have already accomplished. That was what Laodicea was doing. Be driven to see Christ's kingdom coming and His will being done on earth as it is in heaven. And I think there is such a tendency for Christians to discourage each other with the way that they talk and to pull each other's vision down to the level of the Laodicean syndrome. It's so easy, but we need to avoid and we need to resist that temptation. The Amen, the faithful, the true witness has begun the new creation of God. And He promised in Isaiah that He would never grow discouraged or disheartened until justice was established in the earth. Can we do any less? I think we honor His name when we refuse to get discouraged. And by faith, we enter into the advancement of the new creation that Jesus has started. Be overcomers. Be conquerors for His name's sake. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word and the challenges that it gives. And even when we've majorly messed up as Laodicea did, we thank you that you're faithful to rebuke us and to draw us right back. to where we should be. And I pray that we as a church would grow as a result of our studies of revelation, that our vision would keep growing, that our faith would keep growing, our hope would keep growing, and we would begin to see some of these powers of the age to come being lived out more and more in our lives individually, in our families, in our church. Father, be glorified by causing your kingdom to come into our midst. and your will to be done in our midst. We want to live to your glory. And so we pray for your supernatural, that we might be warriors in your kingdom. In Jesus' name, amen.