Indeed, what good news it is that our Redeemer lives. You may go ahead and please be seated. Once again, this is a Missions Sunday. The message isn't going to be on missions. The message actually is going to be on the Church of Laodicea. I have asked Rich, since again, he's much more of an expert on Turkey and on the seven churches than I am, and I'm doing something that most pastors wouldn't do, and that's to have a guest preacher and say, go ahead and pick up where I left off last week and preach. But again, Rich is fully qualified to do that, in fact, much better qualified than me. And so, again, he is from Turkish Connections International. He knows that region of the world quite well. He knows the things that are going on right now in western Turkey. There was a point where he couldn't visit Turkey for a while. I don't know, it was a couple years or so, because of how dangerous it was. And things have eased up a little bit there, but we're grateful to have Rich here to share God's word. And so, Rich, if you'd come up. Well, good morning, everyone. It is so nice to be with you this morning. Always an honor to be here. And as Wade so graciously mentioned a little bit about the work that we're doing in the country of Turkey, trying to help come alongside and help the small, very small Christian community there. Probably Turkey is if not the least reached country with the gospel on the planet, it's one of the least reached. And by God's grace and with your partnership, we are somewhere in the mid-60s in terms of the number of pastors that we partner with and help and encourage as they have established new churches. When you started as a partner with us, when you began supporting our work in Turkey, we were somewhere in the range of 12 to 15 churches in Turkey. It was in our early stages as a Christian organization. So thank you. We are so appreciative of your support these many years. God is doing a great work. And we are, as I say, so very, very grateful to each of you. Now, I want to say that pretty much every Sunday, well, the week after Sunday, I listen to your sermons, the sermons of your wonderful pastor. I've been following his study through the book of Revelation, his preaching on the seven churches within the book of Revelation. It is solid stuff. I'm taking notes and remembering some of these things for messages that I may be giving in that section of scripture in the years to come. And I do want to say this in light of the fact that, again, I'm very appreciative for your prayers for Turkey, but your heart for those places in the world where Christians are really under fire. I just wanna say that in light of what's going on in churches today, in the Islamic world, in the communist world, in some cases in the Buddhist world, in some cases in the Hindu world, that I just hope that as we read this section this morning, as we look at Revelation chapter 3 verses 14 through 22, that as we look at principles for our own life and our own walk, that we will also remember that these churches mentioned in chapters 2 and 3 are real churches that underwent real persecution in the first century. And in this part of the world, things haven't changed that much in the last 2,000 years. And these Christians wake up every day wondering what is going to happen next and what those in their community will be upset with next. and come after them. So I hope as we look at this that we will also be thinking, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ are going through hard, hard times. I do want to lift them up. I do want to pray for them. And I would just ask that you would join me in a very brief prayer that God would prepare our hearts to hear his word to us today in Revelation chapter 3, verses 14 through 22. as we look at the word to the church in Laodicea. Would you pray silently as I pray aloud? Gracious and loving Father, we do thank you so much today for the amazing privilege to worship you, to thank you, to praise you. for all that you do for us and have done for us through Jesus Christ. Today, we pray that you would bring your word alive to us, that you would help us to hear it clearly and loudly and to follow you more fully in response to your call. And for all of this, we thank you in Jesus' name, amen. In 1968, An airplane was coming in to New York City to land, and just as they were getting close to landing, the pilot realized that the landing gear wasn't going down. And everything he tried, it just did not unlock. So he called the tower and work things out with them, and the emergency vehicles were out, and the foam was put down. And he also let those passengers on the flight know what was happening and what they were doing to prepare for the landing. And as they got closer and closer, just before they were going to come in for a hard landing, and actually, thank God, it all worked fine. Everyone survived. He said something very, very interesting just before the landing. As they were coming down, he says, we are beginning our final descent. At this moment, in accordance with international aviation codes established at Geneva, it is my obligation to inform you that if you believe in God, you should commence prayer. Now I doubt that they would say that today in an emergency situation. Apparently there was some fine code, something buried in the code book somewhere that suggested they do that in a time of difficulty or challenge. In our day and age today, prayer is not the first response. For most of us, I don't need somebody in the cockpit telling me that I should pray. That's my normal response in joyful circumstances and challenging circumstances. But sadly, I think in our world today, prayer is more of a last response. Our relationship with God is more of a last response. Invitation to prayer is something we need to be reminded of in difficult circumstances. It isn't just our natural relationship calling out to God in whatever we may face. And certainly as we come to this last church mentioned in Revelation chapters two and three, the church here of Laodicea, we come to a church that is planted in a situation that is very secular, that is much like our modern day today, where maybe prayer would be the last response, that if there was a difficulty, somebody would have to remind them that, you know, you can pray, it is legal for you to pray in a circumstance like this. And yet, in the midst of this, this church, this group of Christians within this city, we find They were being influenced by the secular society around them. They were being shaped and almost seduced by the kinds of priorities that were going on around them in this city of Laodicea. I know that Pastor Wade has mentioned to you before the view that some Christians have that these seven churches mentioned in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 almost provide a glance of the last 2,000 years. In Revelation, excuse me, in chapter 2, verses 1 through 7, the letter to Ephesus, it kind of is a reminder of the early Christians and their faithfulness and you move along through the letters to where you get to the seventh church, this one in Laodicea, that is so secular and so mindful of the current modern church that we're in. I think there is a temptation to look at them over time. I do not believe that is the case. These are seven churches that existed in the first century with their own challenges and context in which they found themselves. But I think we can really relate, certainly, to the context of this church in Laodicea in light of what we face today. In Laodicea, it was a very wealthy community. In fact, there had been an earthquake in 17 AD And the city did not even ask for Rome's help in rebuilding the city. They had plenty of cash to rebuild the city after this earthquake. In the city of Laodicea, you had an industry of black wool. a large population of shepherds of sheep that produced a dark wool that was so popular that this industry made tons of money for the city. It was also a city in which there was a banking center that was very wealthy, brought in wealth from around the community. And there was also a medical center. And we'll be reminded of these things within the city of Laodicea. where primarily people with eye diseases or issues with their eyes would come to Laodicea and would find help with an eye lotion, an eye salve that was available within this medical center. But whatever the case is, the money just rolled in to Laodicea. and, you know, within the local church that impacted them. Sometimes Christians within Laodicea were thinking more about their 401k and their bank account. Of course, they didn't have 401ks back then. But they were thinking more about their wealth than they were about their spiritual wealth. Sometimes in America today, We get so caught up in the material things in our world, whereas when I'm in Turkey with Christians in Turkey, they don't have 401ks. If they have a bank account, there's almost nothing in it. They don't think in terms of material wealth, and so their focus is really on spiritual wealth, on a relationship with God and what that means to us in our relationship. So in light of that brief background, let's take a look at verse 14 of Revelation chapter three. And as your pastors brought out to you over the last few weeks, each of these seven letters begins with some of the characteristics of Jesus, the very characteristics that that church and that setting needed to hear. And so it begins in verse 14, and the angel to the church in Laodicea write, the amen. The faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, says this, the amen. Literally, the word that we use, amen, comes from the Hebrew, and it's a word that means something that is true, something that you can count on. Often when we say amen, we're saying, that's true, let it be, so be it. It's a word though that comes out of the root of truth. And so when Jesus is called the amen, he's called the true one, the one who is true. And even to build upon that, it goes on to refer to Jesus as the faithful and true witness. In a city where Christians were compromising, in a city where Christians were sort of half-hearted, in their witness. In fact, as we'll see in a few moments, we're literally lukewarm in their witness. they are reminded that their savior is true, that he is the faithful and true witness. No matter what he went through, he spoke the truth and stood for the truth, the kind of witness that each of us need to have in the world in which we find ourselves. And ultimately then he goes on to say, the beginning of the creation of God says this, here is our Lord Jesus Christ, who made everything, who created the world and everything that is in it. And yet sometimes we are inclined to worship the creation rather than the creator. We get so caught up and so interested in all the things that are out there rather than in the one who made everything and deserves our worship and attention in light of that. And so in a church that could be half-hearted, in a church that could have a lukewarm witness, the reminder is remember Jesus. who is the true and faithful, the living God, the creator that deserves our full attention and our full focus. Now, as we go on in this letter to the church, to the Christians in Laodicea, there's just two things that I want us to look at this morning. Now, that doesn't mean I'm not gonna go for a while on these two points, but there's only two points that I want us to see. In this section here, we see, first of all, what the church has become in verses 15 through 17, and then, in contrast to that, what God wants them to overcome, to change about themselves and to become. in a relationship in which they are more engaged with their loving Lord and Savior. And we see that second part in verses 18 through 22. First of all, what had this church become? Living in a very wealthy and abundant surrounding culture and economy, how would that change them? Look at with me, if you will, at verses 15 and 16. I know your deeds and that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot or cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. And then it goes on to say in verse 17, because you say, I am rich and I've become wealthy and I have need of nothing. And you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor. and blind and naked. Notice what he says to them in 17, being in a very wealthy community that has an amazing banking industry, he says at the end of verse 17, you're poor. Being in a community with a medical center that is healing eye issues, you're blind. and being in a place in which the most amazing wool is being produced anywhere that's producing amazing and expensive clothing, you're naked. Because you've put your focus on the physical aspects, the financial aspects, you've missed the spiritual dimensions of your life. Now, notice what he says here. in verses 15 and 16, I think the powerful illustration he gives them. You know, when I was young in my Christian life and back in the seventies, I would hear this passage preached many times. And what they would say is this, they would say, God wants you to be hot. He wants you to be on fire for him. He wants you to really generate the heat of the spirit. But if you're not gonna be hot, he'd rather you be cold. In other words, he'd rather that you'd be sort of far away from him and distant from him and cold towards God so that you would realize and not be able to deceive yourself that you're doing okay with God, that you'd be so far away from God that you'd realize I need God. rather than being lukewarm, where you're sort of in the middle and you don't realize your need for God because you're just sort of, you know, there's a little bit of warmth, but you're lukewarm. Again, the teaching was God wants you to be hot, but if you're not hot, he'd rather you be cold so that you know you're not close to him, but instead you're lukewarm. You're in the middle and you don't know where you are with him. You think you're okay with him, but you're not. But I don't think that is what the teaching of this passage is. When he says that I wish you were hot or cold, it isn't I wish you were really hot or way far away from me. he wishes that you really were hot or cold. Now, if you go to Turkey today in this region, if you visit Laodicea, which, by the way, is being remade even as we speak into an amazing place to visit, they are archaeologically digging and finding what first century Laodicea looked like. It's an amazing place, much further developed than what Wade and I went 25 years ago. But in this city, just north of Laodicea is Herapolis, where there are hot springs and healthy springs, warm water. Many people went from that first century world to Herapolis because of the healing powers of those hot springs. And just south and a little bit east of Laodicea is Colossae. In fact, Wade, when we went there, said he was going to buy the mound where Colossae, the ancient city of Colossae is, because it hadn't been developed yet. There had been no excavation done, and Wade was going to buy that mound and begin that excavation. That was 25 years ago. I'm not sure that's still on his bucket list, but you might want to ask him about that another time. But from Colossae up in the hills came the most beautiful, cold, and refreshing waters. And they both flowed from north and from south up to Laodicea. And by the time the waters got there, the cold from Colossae had become lukewarm and the warm had become lukewarm by the time it reached Laodicea. I think what God is trying to say to the Christians in Laodicea is, I wish you were warm and healing. and refreshing like the waters from Herapolis are, where people come to them in their illnesses to be healed by them. I wish your lives were such that when people were around you, they felt the warmth of God, they felt the healing touch of God upon them because you were committed to Him and walking with Him, and it just naturally flowed from you. Or, I wish you were like the cold and refreshing waters that come from Colossae, who encourage people, who refresh people, who renew people, who bring hope to people because of the coldness and refreshing nature of those waters. But instead, you're kind of like what the waters become when they end up in Laodicea. You're just lukewarm. You're neither hot with the healing and refreshing warmth of God, or you're not cold like the waters from Colossae. Instead, you're just lukewarm. And what God wants us today to be is not just lukewarm like our society is around us sometimes. I think Christians get an inoculation of Christianity and they think they're fine after that the rest of their life. Oh yeah, I made this decision way back when. No, our relationship with God should be something that is constantly being renewed, where the warmth of his spirit and the cool, refreshing nature of a spirit just flow out of us and people feel that touch and feel healed and helped and refreshed. I hope and pray that that is what God is doing in our lives, just as God was praying that that is what would happen within the lives of the Christians in Laodicea. That's what they had become, just lukewarm. instead of what he wanted them to be, cold or hot. But in the last part of this passage, in verses 18 through 22, he reminds them of what he wants them to be, what he wants them to do, which is to overcome that lukewarmness and to become the people within that affluent, very kind of appealing community to the world, to be able to stand up and say, hey, this is the real wealth. This is what God really offers you by a transformation of their hearts. The first is that he wants them in verse 18 to refocus their spiritual attention on him. Look at verse 18. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich, and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and eyesalve to anoint your eyes, that you may see." God says, what I want from you is to overcome, to become like me. by not thinking in terms of the banking industry and the wool industry and the medical industry, but thinking in terms of what I can do to transform your lives, that I can give you the pure gold, that I can give you the true vision to see life through my viewpoint, and that I can give you the true clothing which is the white clothing of forgiveness and purity of life that comes through relationship with Jesus Christ. What he wants is our attention, not on all of the physical, economic things, but on the spiritual transformational matters that God can bring in our lives. And I think for these people living in the first century, these Christians, some of that gold refined by fire is what we are reminded of in 1 Peter 1, verse 7, where he says, I want to refine you. I want to make you new. through the gold that comes about in your lives as you go through trials, as you go through difficulties, the transformation that happens in your lives, the spiritual richness that happens in your lives through the trials. And that is what he's offering them as well. As you stand firm for me, your life, your character will be transformed. through faith in Jesus Christ. And that is exactly what I see in the lives of Christians in Turkey and in other places today. They wake up every day under attack, under the anger of their neighbors, under the challenge of people around them that sometimes fire bullets into their churches, that sometimes just attack their church buildings, the little rented buildings where they live. Every day they have to wake up and say, I'm never gonna be wealthy, but I can have the true wealth, and I can have the true vision, and I can have the true spiritual clothing that comes in relationship with Jesus Christ. Secondly, in verse 19, we see the next transformation that he wants to make in the lives of his children, and that is spiritual discipline. This is a very familiar passage. We see it in other places in the New Testament. He says, verse 19, those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. Be zealous therefore and repent. God says, my way of dealing with my children is to renew them, to reform them, to change them. to discipline them through the hardships of life, rather than just giving in to the hardships in life and say, I'm not gonna do that anymore, I'm just gonna live like everybody else in the world does. As a Christian, our view is, God, here I am, change me, make me into your image, make me into the child you want me to be. And if that requires hardship, if that requires difficulty, if that requires people not always understanding me because I'm trying to live for you, so be it, whatever the hardships are. If that means in this world, my 401k doesn't look that great. If that means in this world that what I have isn't that much because it helps me to trust you more, I'm fine, Lord, shape me, make me. Lord, I do repent of the seductions that I've given into of this world. I want, as it says in verse 19, for you to reprove and discipline me in whatever way you want. And finally, then the third way that he says to them that they need to overcome, not just become like everybody else in the world, but to overcome this world is what he says in verse 20, a very familiar verse where he invites us to spiritual intimacy with him. Notice verse 20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I'll come into him. and we'll dine with him and he with me. Now, this is another one of those passages that I think sometimes we don't get the full impact of it because we've sometimes gotten it a little bit wrong. I know again, in my early years as a Christian, this verse was often used with unbelievers. that Jesus is knocking at the door of the unbeliever. In fact, you've seen those beautiful pictures of Christ at the garden door knocking. There's no handle on the outside. Jesus can't come in, he's knocking at the door, but it's up to the person on the inside. They're the only ones that can open that door and let Jesus come in, that it's a beautiful reminder that Jesus wants to come into our lives. He's knocking, but he won't force his way in. Now, you know, there may be some truths to that. There may be some things that we can draw from God's love and his reaching out to the unbeliever, but that's not what's being said here. What's being taught here is that Jesus sadly is on the outside of his own people. They've become so comfortable and accustomed to living in the world that he has to knock on their door and say, let me in. I want to have real intimacy with you. I want to experience a full and lasting relationship with you. I want us to grow together. I want us like the vine and the branches on the vine. I want us to be intricately connected. Isn't it sad that even to Christians, God had to say, let me in. Let me be all that I want to be in your lives. A former nurse who has become an author, in fact, a well-known author, would often have young children come to her clinic And one of the things she would do is put the stethoscope, I'm close, I think I'm pretty close this time, put that in their ears and she would put it up to their heart and she would say, what do you hear? She did a number of kids and one four-year-old boy, she put it up to his heart and he's listening to his heart. She says, what do you hear? And he says, is that Jesus knocking? Well, Jesus is knocking, but he's knocking in the lives of Christians. One of my seminary professors wrote a marvelous short booklet called My Heart Christ's Home, in which he uses the analogy of our home as a place where Jesus wants to settle in, and tells of the man who lives in his home, and he's rushing out to work, and as he rushes out, he sees Jesus in the study, sitting there, waiting for him to join him in prayer, but he's too busy. He's on his way to work, or he passes the talks in the booklet about being in the living room, and Jesus is sitting there wanting a conversation, but everybody's too busy watching television to even notice that Jesus is in the room with them, or Jesus is at the dinner table, and everybody's so busy eating, they forget to even acknowledge his presence there. He kind of talks about our relationship with Lord as the different rooms in our home, where Jesus wants to be a part of every aspect of our home and our lives. And eventually then, as he does in all of the letters to the church, as he concludes it in verses 21 and 22, he who overcomes, and really that is the mark of a Christian. We have our ups and downs, our good days and bad days, but the mark of a Christian is we stay with him. We remain with him. We overcome ultimately all that we face. He overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne. One of the marks of a Christian is one day, we don't know all the wonders and the fullness of this, but one day we are going to stand with our Lord in eternity and we are going to assist in the ruling of what is coming one day of the new world order. even speaks in first Corinthians of us having some sense of ruling over angels. Whatever it may be, we need to realize that as part of his family, it doesn't just end here. We have responsibilities in the world to come. Responsibilities of leadership in the world to come. Are we preparing ourselves now for that? Do we realize that it doesn't just end here, but I need to be ready for what's ahead. Part of overcoming is taking seriously what will one day come our way and to say, Lord, by your grace, as I enter into your presence one day, whenever that is, today, tomorrow, many years from now, I want to feel like I have been as prepared as I can be by your spirit, because I've walked with you faithfully and sought you in every aspect of my life. Let's pray together as we close this passage. Our gracious loving and Father, we thank you. Loving Lord and Father, we thank you. Thank you for the challenge of this passage. Lord, it is so easy to settle down and to be at home in this world rather than to allow you to settle down and fully be at home in our lives. Gracious Father, touch us, remind us, challenge us, help us to hear this message that is so resounding and so truthful in the world in which we find ourselves. May we not just become what the world wants us to be, but may we overcome and be what you want us to be. And for this, we thank you in your amazing and loving name, amen.