Materials




A Spitting Image
Revelation 3:14-22
R. Todd Bouldin



Two weeks ago, we heard Jesus speak some piercing words to the church at Laodicea. Jesus told them that He appreciated all that they had done for Him lately, but that He was concerned that they had lost their first Love. Today we hear Jesus speak again to another church, to the church in Laodicea. “I know your works,” Jesus says, but “you are neither cold nor hot . . . because you are lukewarm, I am about to spit you out of My mouth.”

Prayer

Laodicea was the kind of city that Money magazine would have ranked as one of the best places to live in the Roman Empire. Housing prices were up, it was strategically situated along a prosperous trade route, and it was a center of banking and finance. A large textile industry that specialized in luxurious black wool was there, and they even had a medical school of sorts that corrected eye problems. The Roman historian Tacitus recalled that the city was industrious, entrepreneurial and self-reliant, refusing the help of Rome when an earthquake devastated the city in 60 AD.

The city was in great shape, except for one small problem. It did not have access to a fresh water source (sound familiar?). The town engineers thought that they had this problem solved by building aqueducts to hot water and cold water sources just outside the city. There was just one problem. The aqueducts developed cracks, and it took so long for the water to get to the city that the hot water was too cool by the time it arrived, and the cold water was too warm by the time it arrived. This meant that all of the drinking water in Laodicea was not refreshing but lukewarm. So every time you heard about that nice prosperous city, everyone would warn, “But don’t drink the water.” Sounds like Midland, Texas to me.

So when Jesus called the Laodiceans “lukewarm”, they knew exactly what he meant, and I’m sure they grimaced at the accusation. He hit them in their soft spot. They weren’t hot like the hot springs in Hierapolis, or cold like the water in the city a few miles to the south. They were just blah. And Jesus said He was ready to spit them out of His mouth.

That may seem a bit harsh at first glance, but you’ve been there too. There’s nothing worse than someone who is indifferent to you. If you are dating someone, a certain anger overcomes you once you realize that you are the only one calling, emailing or inviting. They might answer the phone, but there is no excitement or passion involved. They can’t live with you, and they can’t live without you. But there really isn’t any living at all. You’ve experienced it in marriages, in friendships and maybe even with God. There may not be a lot of disagreement but there isn’t any passion either. It’s like taking a big gulp of coffee that’s been sitting on the desk all day. You just want to spit it out of your mouth.

This past week my roommate, who is a film actor and producer, asked me to sit down with him and a group of guys to work on a movie script. Interestingly, the movie script was about people who have done everything they are supposed to do to be successful in life – these guys had gone to Stamford and have become successful movie actors and business consultants – but who are questioning whether “this” is all there is. They described the experience of much of corporate and work life as boring, dull and numbing. One of them, a very successful actor, said I feel “lost.” That was his word, not mine. It wasn’t that any work that these guys were doing in the corporate world or in entertainment was dreadful. It was just numbing and it left them feeling indifferent to work and even life itself. There is nothing worse than indifference.

Every semester I ask my students how I can best help them learn. By a clear majority, most of them write in response, “Be passionate about what you are teaching.” Most of us professors feel that we should present the material in an unbiased, indifferent way. But students find that distasteful and unhelpful. They would rather you feel passion, even if you’re wrong, than to not care. Jesus told the church at Laodicea that he felt the same way about them.

How do we find ourselves in place where we are like Laodicean drinking water? Like the hot and cold origination points of these streams, we don’t usually start out that way. Neither does our relationship with Christ. You may remember the time when you had hot faith, or when you were coldly opposed to faith. You may remember how you longed to make a difference, to stand for something, or to spend time in passionate prayer. But along the way things cooled down, and now your faith – well, it’s just – blah.

How did it happen? For the Laodiceans, their wealth, their commerce and medicine, their education and state of the art technology, and all of their hard work to build a good life for themselves had distracted them from the mission of God.

That is the great danger for the American church as well. It comes under several guises: “trying to make a living”, “family values” or “you only live once.” Most of us aren’t preoccupied with excessive wealth and extravagant lifestyles. But we are very passionate about having more, making more, and creating more opportunity for our children. In the midst of all of this, we are easily distracted from what is truly important in life from the things that really make a difference. I believe we are most distracted by our desire to make improvements. I should be more, have more and do more. The assumption behind all of this is that if we work hard enough on ourselves, our children and our careers, we will eventually get life right. Of course, what this means is that we are preoccupied with what is not yet right, and we spend most of our time analyzing what isn’t happening instead of what actually is.

My guess is that the water problem drove the Laodiceans crazy. They were just on the verge of being a great city, but their water was lukewarm. This city had an incredible opportunity to lead the empire in charity and compassion, but it was so obsessed with improvements and with their flaw that they could never get things just right. And so, despite all of their efforts and greatness, this city left no legacy. Outside of this condemnation in Revelation, who ever heard of Laodicea?

I want to think about our own situation in Camarillo with you for a few minutes, and I hope you won’t take offense. But one observation I have about this text is that the perception of the city affected how the church perceived itself, and the attitude of the church may have affected how the city perceived itself. This city is a great city. It is a beautiful paradise, the weather is nearly perfect, the crops and fruit trees grow in abundance, and it is situated near the ocean and on a major trade route, the 101, and near the second largest city in our country. Life is good in Camarillo. Most of us own homes well over a half million dollars in value, and housing prices have appreciated at astronomical values over the past five years.

Yet, when I speak with many people here about Camarillo, they almost apologize for it. Everyone thinks it’s a great place to live, but everyone also believes that it’s a pretty blah place. Some suggest that it lacks character, that it has no soul, that there is not much exciting to do, and that its only claim to fame is an outlet mall. To summarize, here is what I hear from many people who live here: It’s a nice place to live, but we are not Ventura or Santa Barbara. We’re just a little blah.

That is not said in criticism – but I want you to think this morning about the effect that this pervasive perception might have on our perception of us as a church. Do we believe that we could be a great church, but that we are just a little blah? Do we perceive of ourselves as having good people but maybe just a little less than whatever other church we might name? Do we tend to see our faith and our mission this way? “Well, it’s a good thing, but I’m sure it’s not really as exciting to most people as a good sports game or a significant cause.” We would be a fine church, if we just had some improvements, we reason. And so we focus more on what is wrong with us than on our blessings, more on what we don’t have than what we do. When you believe that about yourself, or if you feel blah about your church or about your faith, that’s the kind of church and the kind of faith you will have. It really comes down to a lack of gratitude, and that makes it impossible to make a difference if you really feel that there isn’t much happening that is significant here anyway.

Our “thorns in the flesh” can keep us from our passion. There is nothing more dangerous than our obsessive desire to get things just right. I often call it the sin of perfection. It is the failure to do anything good because of the desire to do everything perfectly.

We work so hard to pursue excellence in our jobs and our families, but we settle for a lukewarm relationship with God. How many of us would miss work just because we don’t feel like it, or we are too busy to go to work? Not many of us. Yet, how many days have you been too busy to read Scripture, to pray, or to minister in the name of Christ? How many times have you afflicted our church with your low expectations of what God can do through us? How many times have you focused more on what we don’t have than on what we do? It’s so easy to get distracted with all of the improvements that we do not bask in the blessings.

I want to propose this year that we adopt a church attitude of “good enough.” By this, I do not mean low expectations of what God will do with us, for that is to be neither hot nor cold. But what I mean is finding whatever we think makes our faith or our church “blah” and start acting on our resources and not our deficits. I also mean this in all aspects of our lives. Lay down the burden of trying to be the perfect city, the perfect parent, the perfect spouse, or the perfect body. There are going to be cracks in whatever you build, and life will always be less than what you hoped. You can either occupy the rest of your life trying to get it right, or you can give thanks to God right now who holds it all together. You might even discover that it is the cracks that let the light shine through. Gratitude is how you destroy indifference.

Every part of life is flawed. Let’s go ahead and admit it: the water is not hot enough, or is not cold enough. The job isn’t what you thought it would be. Marriage isn’t turning out to be pure bliss. The car broke down, the computer crashed and sometimes life is difficult. So life hasn’t turned out the way you thought it would be. The fact that life hasn’t’ measured up can become our sore point that keeps us from imagining and doing all that God wants from us. What is your soft point, the one thing that is keeping you from being all that God created you to be? It may just be the thing that is making you indifferent, and it’s time to accept it rather than regretting it. You can spend the rest of your life fixing things that don’t really matter, or you can give thanks that even the flaws have become channels for the light of Christ.

It’s very difficult to be grateful when you don’t feel any need for a Savior. The people of Laodicea were doing so well that they really had no need for anything else. “You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.” It is striking and ironic that Jesus told a rich city that they were poor, and a city known for its textiles that it was naked, and a city that specialized in treatments for the eyes that they were blind. Sometimes our strong points are actually our weakest points with God.

I imagine that the Laodiceans did not view themselves as rich. They just wanted a little more. We never see ourselves as rich. We just want to be comfortable. So we begin a life-long quest for just a little more. But no one is as poor as those who have wasted life pursuing just a little more, and no one is as blind as those who are not grateful for all that is already theirs.

You can define your life by what God has given you, or what He hasn’t. It’s your choice. You are never going to have enough: not enough health, not enough relationships, not enough money until you see that you already are holding more than you need. More importantly, and this is where you can find the passion again, there is a Savior who is holding on to you. When you can really grasp this, your heart will burst forth with gratitude, and only after you are grateful will you become hot again – aflame with the love of Jesus Christ whose love for you is not blah but biased, not indifferent but interested, not lukewarm but blazing and refreshing.

It makes you want to have a cooling drink.


January 22, 2006
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