If you will, let's take our Bibles and turn together to Revelation chapter 3. Revelation 3. This morning we are drawing our study in the seven letters of Christ. from the book of Revelation to a close. Some of you have asked what this means about Revelation 4 to the end, and the answer that I have for you is I don't know. Because if you have questions and confusions about what Revelation is talking about, guess what, so do I. And before I go into an extended attempt to explain what all is happening in Revelation, I think it would be wise for me to study it, but I also think it would be good for us to study that together in a context where we can have ongoing conversation. I'm perfectly fine with people talking back during the sermon, but it's a little bit unusual for us, and so we'll save that for a time where we're more accustomed to that as a congregation. So we're going to wrap up our study in these letters. We're going to conclude Revelation 3 today. That means that we're going to be doing something different in the coming weeks. I want to let you know so that you can be anticipating where we're headed. Next Sunday we'll bring a couple of special things. First, we're going to hear for a few minutes from the Gideons International. Rob Turner is going to share with us about their ministry during our morning service. And then we're going to take up what I anticipate, I hope, I can't make any promises because you know me well, I hope will be a brief set of reflections on how we can respond biblically to the election. The Lord has given me the privilege or the the opportunity to be a preacher during two very contentious presidential election cycles. And what my conviction is is that my responsibility as a pastor is to go ahead and prepare you to respond rightly, not to respond for you after the fact. Because we don't build a house and put up all the drywall and put all the furniture in and then go back and wire the house for electricity so that we can turn the lights on, do we? We go ahead and wire it before we finish it off so that everything is ready. I want to make sure that we are well wired to respond well to what happens next Tuesday so that when Wednesday morning comes we get up and we rejoice no matter the outcome because we realize Jesus is King. So that's what we're going to do next Sunday. And then for the better part with the exception of Harvest Sunday of November and December we're going to begin a study in the Gospel of Luke. So we'll walk through the first two chapters of Luke coming into the Christmas season and then we'll see where we are around the first of the year. So that's where we're going. We're going to finish Revelation 2 and 3 this morning. We're going to look at something related to the election next Sunday. We'll be in Exodus in particular. And then we're going to think for a while about the birth of Christ and all that that means for us from Luke 1 and 2. This morning we're in Revelation 3, verses 14 through 22. These are familiar verses for many of us. If we've read these letters before, we hear this language from this particular section of Revelation pretty regularly in the life of our churches. I assume that you have, I certainly have. So we're gonna read this passage together and we're gonna ask ourselves what Jesus is actually trying to teach us. So Revelation 3, beginning in verse 14. 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 were lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For if 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. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne. He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of our God stands forever. Yeah, good job. Sundays are an interesting day in my family. They're probably a little bit different for me compared to the rest of you, because when I go home, maybe you talk about the sermon, but you talk about what Brother Reeves said, or what he didn't say, or what you wish he would have said. When I get home, I get the most thorough review of whether my sermon was actually good or not. So, unfortunately for Elise, for years now, our Sunday process was for me to come home, normally we get kids settled eating lunch, and I say, what about today's sermon? And normally I get a few different responses. You always hope that the answer is, it was really good. And that's what you hope for. Most of the time, it's a mixed response, right? It's like, these things were really good. Overall, it was pretty good. I wish you would have said more about this or done this a little bit differently. But my favorite response ever is one time I asked Elisa about my sermon. I think it was here that I had preached one Sunday. I asked her about my sermon, and she looked at me, and she said, you know, I think it's really good for you to know that not every sermon you preach will be good. And in a moment it was funny, but it's true. It's good for me to know that I'm not always gonna hit a home run. Sometimes I'm just gonna straight up strike out, and that's okay. As long as I'm faithful to the text, as long as I'm striving to the best of my ability to honor Christ, I know that not every sermon's gonna be good. But the thing about those kinds of conversations is the reason I need Elise to tell me that is because most of the time when you're standing in the foyer after the service, you people are too nice to tell me the truth, right? You won't tell me if the sermon was bad. I mean, you'll find ways to not compliment the sermon, but you won't tell me if the sermon was bad. And I appreciate that because you love me. And because we don't have that kind of relationship. But if Elise tells me the honest to goodness truth, if she tells me bluntly what the sermon was actually like and how she feels like she can respond to it, does that mean that she loves me less than you when you don't tell me what you actually think? No. It means she loves me more than you. And that's perfectly appropriate given our relationship. Because when we love people, even when the truth is hard, we tell them the truth, don't we? That's what we do, we tell the truth because we understand that building relationships and building our lives on falsehood is incredibly dangerous, it's spiritually unhealthy, and we wanna be people that tell the truth because we understand that at the end of the day, by telling the truth, that will help us to become more like Jesus. I'm gonna become a better preacher because Elise tells me when my sermon was bad because I know what I need to work on in the following week and weeks and months and years. We all grow because we realize that we need to do better and because somebody loves us enough to tell the truth. Well that's how Jesus treats this church too. Jesus comes and he tells us the truth. I wonder how many churches meeting this morning are full of pastors and church leaders who are pasting smiles on their faces and telling everybody in the church that everything is okay when it's not. Because they're more concerned about giving the impression of affection and joy than they are actually leading their congregations into real affection and joy in the presence of Jesus. You see, Jesus speaks to churches where they are. We've seen that. We're on the seventh of seven letters. Jesus does not pull any punches. He praises churches where they're praiseworthy, but he challenges churches where they need to repent. When we come to the church at Laodicea, Jesus doesn't have anything particularly nice to say, but that does not mean that Jesus has stopped loving this church. It means that Jesus' purpose out of love for this church is to see them repent and to be zealous for the truth. In this passage itself, verse 19, Jesus says, those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. So be zealous and repent. So if Jesus comes to the church at Laodicea with challenging but happy truth that can help them to become more like him and fulfill their purpose as he's assigned it in the world, he comes to us with those same realities this morning. And the question is, how are we going to respond? When we're confronted with the truth from Jesus's mouth, how are we going to respond? I want to say on the front end, a lot of people see the church at Laodicea as the one that is most like American Christianity. Now, I think the church at Laodicea was a real church that had these real problems, but we can see ourselves in each of these churches, in the mirror that Jesus puts before them, we can see aspects of our own life. And I think it's true, as we begin to encounter them, we're going to see things that sound incredibly familiar for American Christianity. But what I want to avoid as we come into this passage is a disposition that says, that's what's true of American Christianity, as though we are the ones setting ourselves up as judges over the churches over which Christ is king, not us. The question that we need to ask is, are these things true of us? So, I want you to see three things in this text with me about how Jesus confronts the church at Laodicea. And let's ask ourselves sincerely and genuinely what Jesus would say to us. Number one, I want you to notice with me this morning, as we seek to respond faithfully to Jesus, that we need to be honest and welcome Christ's perspective. We need to be honest and welcome Christ's perspective. Verse 14, and to the angel of the church in Laodicea write the words of the amen. The words of the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. Right from the get-go, Jesus is letting the church at Laodicea, which as we'll see, suffers from self-deception, know that he is the one who knows the end from the beginning. He is the one who is the amen at the end of God's words. It says, let it be so. He is the faithful and true witness. He is the originator of the new creation through his resurrection from the dead. So what he says is true and trustworthy. If they want an accurate reflection of the life of their church, they're not going to get it by measuring themselves against the world and its standards or by measuring themselves against their own traditions or history. They're going to get it because they listen to Jesus. Jesus is the one who can speak authoritatively about where this church is. It's his perspective on their life that ultimately matters. And then in verse 15, he says, I know your works. You are neither hot nor cold. 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. These are compelling images, and perhaps you're familiar with them. Have you ever heard somebody talk about a lukewarm Christian before? Or have you ever heard the string of words that Jesus uses here, wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked? There was actually a rapper who got saved years ago who entitled an album or a mixtape, Wretched, Pitiable, Poor, Blind, and Naked. These images are provocative, and they're significant. But as we come to them, we need to recognize that these are things that would be especially poignant for the Christians in Laodicea. This last letter is written to perhaps the wealthiest of the cities to whom Jesus speaks. The Christians at Laodicea were self-deceived as Jesus began to speak to them because their circumstances were so good. Laodicea was remarkably wealthy as a city. When a massive earthquake struck the entire region in AD 60 one of the most noteworthy things about Laodicea is where every other city relied on Rome to rebuild Laodicea was so wealthy they didn't need the government's help. They could rebuild it all themselves through private and public money from their own citizenry. The reason they were so wealthy was that they were a center for trade. They were a center for banking. They were also a center for medicine. We've seen that before. They were especially good at ophthalmology. They were good at treating eye sicknesses. And as they produced a variety of pharmaceuticals, they produced a powder that people would rub into their eyes to deal with different eye issues. We'll see that again in a few moments. They were also really successful in the textile industry. Because of the fertility of the land, it was a great place to raise sheep, and they were famous for producing, in particular, black wool that they would use to develop clothes, to make clothes. This was a remarkably wealthy city. They had, by all human accounts, everything they could ever need or want, except for this one eccentricity. You think about the basic things that you need to live in community. Among the most basic things that you need is water. And the church at Laodicea, the community of Laodicea had everything else, but what they didn't have good access to was water. A couple of nearby cities had exceptional water. The Hierapolis that was a few miles away had hot springs that people often used as restorative, medicinal springs. They would go and they would bathe in them. The minerals would help them to recover from various sicknesses. And of course, when the water's hot, that reduces the likelihood of dealing with different kinds of diseases. bacteria and other life forms that would be dangerous to you. So the hot water was good and it was worth having, but it was several miles away. Another city close by, a city that's name you may recognize from the New Testament was Colossae. Colossae had excellent cold water that was fed from mountain streams that flowed down. It was clean and it was pure and it was worth drinking. It was safe. But Laodicea, for all its wealth, had only a very dirty river from which they could draw water. Reports from the time indicate that people would draw water from the river and it was filled with mud and dirt that was a white color. It was lukewarm as it moved and it was not fit for drinking. It would make people sick. Ancient historians talk about it being nauseating to experience drinking this particular water. And in order to feed themselves and to drink themselves, I guess, they had to bring a complex system of aqueducts that would move water from hot springs about five miles away into the city. By the time it got there, moving five miles, it wasn't hot anymore. It was lukewarm. And nobody wants to drink lukewarm water, at least in the ancient world. So Laodicea has everything, but they lack one of the most basic necessities of life. They lack water. And this is where Jesus steps in and he begins to draw attention to their need to repent. Verse 15, I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot so that because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Have you ever heard the interpretation of this verse that says, hey, Jesus is saying, I want you to be hot or I want you to be cold. I want you to be all in or I want you to be nothing. The worst place for you to be is to be kind of in the middle. Have you ever heard that interpretation before? That Jesus wants you to be all in or he wants you to be not in at all. The middle ground, the mushy middle is the worst place to be. That is not what Jesus is saying here. Let me be clear, Jesus wants everybody to be hot, if we're going to say it in those terms. Jesus doesn't want anybody to be lost. Jesus calls all sinners to repent, and he grieves when they don't. So Jesus does not want cold people in that sense of the analogy. That's not what Jesus is saying here. Given the circumstances in Laodicea, what Jesus is saying here is that Based on the way that they're living, the way that they're approaching the Christian life, the Christians at Laodicea look like they're water. They act like they're water. They're not safe or fit for drinking. They make him nauseous because they're so full of impurity and they're so full of sickness that he would have to vomit them out of his mouth if he were to drink them. Jesus is here saying, you are messed up and you need to repent. That's the message. Cold water is good. Hot water is good. Lukewarm water is bad. And Jesus is saying you're right there in the bad zone. So Jesus is confronting them and he's acknowledging that in the midst of their own pride and their their sense of self-worth they aren't all that they think that they are. He gets even more explicit in verse 17 and he explains what's happening. For you say I am rich I have prospered and I need nothing. not realizing that you were wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. This city has so much. And apparently, unlike other cities where Christians were ostracized and didn't have access to these cities' wealth, these Christians were quite comfortable. They were accepted to some degree or another in the commercial life of the city. They enjoyed the city's wealth. They enjoyed the city's opportunities. They could look at their situation and say, we need nothing. But in the process of thinking that they needed nothing, they lost the thing that they needed most, which was Jesus himself. You see, richness, riches, wealth in the context of a church is not based on measurables like our budget or our attendance or the square footage of our facilities. Health is measured, Jesus indicates, by dependence on him. A healthy church is a church that understands that it will not continue to exist and thrive apart from the presence and power and blessing of Jesus. The church at Laodicea thought they could. Jesus was just gravy on top of their church mashed potatoes. They were still good. If Jesus wanted to show up and bless what they were doing, that was great, but otherwise that was fine. And the question that I have for us this morning is how often is that true of our ministry? How often do we just keep pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing thinking that everything is going great everything is OK. And yet somewhere along the way we lost sight of Jesus. What's terrifying to me is that Jesus is saying to the church at Laodicea that this can really happen to a church. They can keep being successful from the world's point of view in terms of their influence, in terms of their wealth, in terms of their opportunity, in terms of their attendance. Everybody can think everything is awesome when in reality everything is terrible because they've lost track of Jesus. Is this us? I don't think it's always us, but it's worth asking. Do we? Do we find ourselves in these positions? If Jesus were to come to us and say, Mancy Baptist Church, you have two options. Number one, I can withdraw from you, but I promise that your budget will be awesome. Your church will grow exponentially. You'll have to build buildings right and left. You'll be sending people all over the place. Everything will look awesome from the world, except for I won't be with you. Or, you can suffer persecution, your attendance can decline, you can struggle to meet your needs in terms of your budget, but I promise to be with you wherever you go. I wonder how many of us would choose, at a knee-jerk level, the first one. I wonder how many churches, if they were confronted with that opportunity, would say, I would rather have the world's riches than Jesus. You know, this is the very same temptation that Satan brought to Jesus. You remember? Among the three temptations that Satan brought to Jesus in the wilderness after his baptism, the third, as it's recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, is that Satan took Jesus up to a high place, and he showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and he said, you can have all of this if you'll bow down and worship me. You can skip the cross, you can skip the suffering, if you'll just deny who you are, and you'll deny your father, and you'll worship me, you can have everything you could ever want in this world from me. And Jesus said, no. When Moses was waiting for God to lift his judgment from the people after they worshiped for the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai, one of the things God offered is, hey, I'll send you in, I'll give you the land, but I won't go with you. And Moses said, that's not gonna work. I'm not going, we're not going unless you go with us. The question that we have to ask ourselves is at the end of the day, are we in this for Jesus or are we in this for everything else? Because if we're reaching people, whatever that means, but we don't have Jesus, then we're not reaching people. Because people don't need Manti Baptist Church, people need Jesus. And we ought to be the stream through which the streams of living water flow to reach people so that they can taste the cold, pure, refreshing water that flows from the heavenly city. Jesus comes to us and he confronts the reality that is so often apparent in the lives of our churches. We look at our situations and we say everything is great. And Jesus says actually it's not. So the question we have to ask is what is Jesus' perspective on these things and are we willing to be honest about them among ourselves? Be honest. Brothers and sisters, we have to be honest and we have to welcome Christ's perspective. Number two, I want you to notice with me, we need to be humble and welcome Christ's provision. Be humble and welcome Christ's provision. Jesus has hard things to say to the church at Laodicea. And he challenges their self-perception because they are struggling with self-deception. But Jesus has wonderful things that he sets before them if they will be willing to humble themselves and recognize their need. Verse 18. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire. Center of banking buy gold 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. Those whom I love I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent." You see what Jesus is doing here? We've mentioned the sources of wealth for the city of Laodicea. What were their sources of wealth? Banking. Gold, right? Good gold. Banking. We talked about the textile industry and they produced black wool that was very valuable and it brought a lot of success to the city. We also mentioned that they were responsible for a lot of medical treatment and the production of medicine that particularly treated the eyes. And as Jesus is telling them the truth about themselves that they are wretched pitiable poor blind and naked. He comes to them in the midst of their own self-perceived wealth and success and tells them you don't actually have what you need. Having this world's treasures matters nothing in eternity. He says to them, if you want things that matter, you're not gonna get them by your economy in your own community. You're not gonna get them from the hand of any political leader. You're not gonna get them from the response of any cultural influencer. You're not gonna get them from anything in this world. What you really need is something that you can only get from me. And he says, come and take it. Now it's interesting that when Jesus does this he says, I counsel you to buy from me all these things. As I was studying this week I hit that and I thought, that's going to be hard to explain. Because don't we talk about all the things that Jesus gives being free? Right? Do we have to buy salvation from Jesus? No. So I was thinking this week, how am I going to explain this? And then I remembered as I was studying that our call to worship relates directly to this. So turn back with me to Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55. Keep your finger in Revelation 3. Turn back with me to Isaiah 55. And I want you to see I think Jesus is alluding to this directly. Isaiah 55 verses 1 and 2. Listen to what Jesus what God says concerning the work of the servant his compassion. This is what Jesus is picking up on. Isaiah 55. Come. Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. Now notice this, and he who has no money, you're broke, come buy and eat. How do you buy if you have no money? Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. You see what the Lord is saying to the Israelites, what he's saying to us, what Jesus is saying to us, is that the people who can buy what Jesus has to offer are the people who realize they don't have what they need. It doesn't cost anything. What Jesus is offering is stuff without price and he's inviting those to come to him who don't have money. But what does this mean for a church like the church at Laodicea? What does this mean for a church like ours where we have so much good stuff? It means that we have to recognize that for all the wonderful things that we've been given they aren't going to be what makes us fruitful or faithful or successful in the presence of Jesus. When Jesus comes back, we're not going to say, look what fine buildings we have. Look what a fruitful budget we have. Look how our giving has grown. Look at all the families we've added to our membership. Look how active our children's programs are as wonderful as all those things are. That's not where we're going to point at because what Jesus wants us to understand is that if we're going to have eternal life if we're going to have what we ultimately need it comes not from us heaping up all of our qualifications and accomplishments. It comes from us looking at him and realizing that all that we need is bound up in him. And so we look to him and we plead with him and Jesus out of his mercy and grace gives us exactly what we need and all of its glory. Listen when we come to Jesus we don't lose anything. We gain everything. All the treasures of this world will be destroyed. But Jesus and what he offers us will last forever. So we need to have a humble heart. The Laodiceans needed to have a humble heart that recognized that for all of the good things that they thought they were doing and for all of the wealth that they had accrued that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was having Jesus. and our disposition, our attitude needs to be one that says, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace, foul I to the fountain fly, wash me savior or I die. You don't have anything to contribute to Jesus's salvation because he really did pay it all. And what we rest on and what we acknowledge is that if we need anything, we don't get it by a fundraising campaign. We get it by going to Jesus and trusting his provision. Well, we welcome it. We need to be humble. Listen, we need to be a church that is dependent on Jesus. We're going to talk about this more in the coming Sunday nights as we wrap up our study in truth and love. I would encourage you if you've not come on Sunday night, jump in. I promise you can still benefit if you've not been at all. We're going to think about this a little bit in the next week or two. But we need to recognize that we need to be a people that are dependent on Jesus. Because the best place in the world to be is depending on him. You know who the happiest and healthiest Christians oftentimes in the world are? Persecuted Christians. Christians for whom everything seems to be going terribly. Why? Because they've learned what so many others in the New Testament tell us, that where they are weak, Christ is strong. We need to be humble and we need to welcome Christ's provision. Number three, be happy and welcome Christ's presence. Be happy and welcome Christ's presence. Ethan got on to me a couple of weeks ago because I used the word happy over and over and over again on Sunday night. And what he told me was that we use happy so flippantly that we need to use another word. And he recommended, as we often do, joy. But I'm on a mission to reclaim happy because I wanted to have three H's and three P's, okay? So we're going to use happy, but I don't think happiness is a bad word if we understand it biblically. Listen, Jesus confronts us with the reality of our sin, but do you notice that this passage, even as he calls the Laodiceans to be zealous and repent, is dripping with kindness? Verse 20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. They don't have what they need from Jesus, but Jesus says, I'm right here. I'm right here, I'm knocking, let me in. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne. I think sometimes what can happen to us as we look at our lives as individual Christians, or as we look at our church as a body of Christians, is we can think, I've gotten so messed up that Jesus won't want to forgive me. I had my one shot when I trusted Christ and my sins were washed away, but now I've blown it. But what Jesus wants you to understand is that he has not given up on you. He is faithful even when we are not. When Jesus uses this language of standing at the door and knocking, there are a number of possible allusions here, but one of the ones that I think is happening is Jesus is appealing to who he is as a heavenly bridegroom. Have you ever read Song of Solomon before? It's a doozy, okay? Song of Solomon is different, all right? But in Song of Solomon 5, as the bride, the she of the text, is going to bed, she hears a knock at her door. And when she goes to answer it, because she has to get dressed and prepare herself to meet her beloved, her beloved has gone off and then she wanders to the city and she can't find him. But she longs to be with her beloved. She longs to hear his his knock at the door. And what Jesus is telling us here is that even when we are unprepared even when we are unfaithful even when we wander from him he as a faithful bridegroom does not abandon us but he stands at the door and knocks. And if we would but open the door he will come into us. All of our sin will be forgiven and he will grant us all of the blessings of fellowship with him forever. Now, here's the thing that we need to think about. As we confront who we are, as we respond to who Jesus is, we need to recognize in all of this that the enemy, that Satan, wants to keep us from letting Jesus in. He has a lot of different things that he can use to make that happen, but one of his favorites is accusation. looking at you and telling you, your sin is too great. Jesus won't want to have anything to do with you. Jesus won't forgive you. He couldn't forgive you. You're too messed up. Even as professing Christians, we can hear those voices. And you know what happens when we begin to hear that accusation? We begin to think, well, if I'm so messed up as a sinner, why should I repent? Let me just go on sinning because the only thing that I have that can bring me any semblance of pleasure in this world is my sin. So what happens is as Satan begins to accuse our consciences, rather than being provoked to repent, we turn and we run the opposite direction even more deeply into the sin that characterizes our souls prior to Christ's work by His Spirit. And we continue to struggle. and we get sad and we get depressed and we get angry and we struggle to deal with Jesus as he comes to us. But what Jesus wants you to understand as he speaks to you, even in the midst of your sin, is that whatever accusation Satan is laying at your feet, Jesus can deal with it fully and completely through his death on the cross. When Paul writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. He was writing the word of Christ to you. When Jesus has died for your sin, God's legal verdict in heaven is not guilty. And Satan is a great prosecuting attorney, can throw up every charge he wants at your account. But what the judge discovers is that all of them have been applied to Jesus. And that he has borne the penalty in your place. And even in the midst of all of that, Jesus doesn't look at you and say, you caused me so much pain, how could you? Jesus says, you are my bride, I want you. And he invites you to open the door and to allow him to come in. Listen, we don't have to live under the constant burden of our sin anymore. That's why we sang the two songs we sang at the beginning. My soul found liberty, my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary. We didn't sing that because it was a good song. We sang that because it's a reminder to us that we have the right before God in Christ as we understand the gospel to be the happiest people on earth because we understand that the Savior of the universe loves us and wants us. And so our disposition needs to be one that says, come Jesus, I'll give up everything else that I might have you. Is that our attitude? Are we willing to set aside our pride, our presumption, our self-deception, our complacency, our spiritual coldness to Jesus and his word? Are we willing to welcome him in? Because what we need to understand is that when we open that door to Jesus, he doesn't sweep in as a master ready to beat us as his servants who have objected to him. He comes in as we open that door as a beloved husband to receive us as his spouse. Will you open the door to him this morning? Now, as I say that, I want you to understand, we often use this with respect to lost people, and that's true. If you're lost this morning, Jesus is eager to come to you. Open the door. Invite him in. Jesus wants you. He wants you. He's calling you by his spirit, through his word. Don't leave this place, hardened in your sin, and refuse to receive Christ's mercy and grace. Let him in. But Jesus is talking to professing Christians here, isn't he? He's talking to a church. These are the folks on the membership roll. These are the folks who are there all the time and who are bragging about how good everything is. And he has the same message for the rest of us. If we find ourselves in a position where we have wandered from Christ's gracious provision in the gospel, or we have shut Christ out in an attempt to establish our own goodness or strength or righteousness or wealth as the grounds through which we should be acceptable in the sight of God, we need to push that aside and we need to welcome Christ as our all in all. So we're gonna come to a time of response and we're gonna have an opportunity to do this together, okay? So if you're not trusting in Jesus, come talk to me. and acknowledge your need for Jesus to come and free you from your sin and grant to you the right to enjoy his blessings forever. But if you are a Christian if you're a member of Manti Baptist Church as we bring this entire series of studies in these letters to a close this is our opportunity to ask is this who we are? Are we who Christ intends for us to be? And if we're not, all Jesus is saying we need to do is let him in. Depend on him and trust that he will never let us down, but will deliver upon everything he has promised.