Photo cred: Jametlene Reskp
Written by: David Hood
Easter is around the corner and Lent is quickly coming to a close. In the Christian calendar, Lent is a time for us to reflect, confess, and repent, as we get ready to contemplate the cross and celebrate the resurrection.
As a church, we just finished two series that essentially asked Where does the Church in North America need to repent and do better? Lent feels like an appropriate time to revisit some of our reflections. We need to repent of allowing so many things other than Jesus to be at the centre of our identity, worship, and mission, like wealth, the American dream, fame, celebrity, empire, politics, ideologies, power, culture wars, nationalism, and relevancy (a desire to be accepted by the culture). We need to repent for being zealous for truth at the expense of loving people well, and conversely, we need to repent for thinking that loving well means tolerating everything and endangering people spiritually. We need to repent of creating leadership structures and church cultures ripe for abuse. We need to repent of our love for comfort which often causes us to compromise. But I think more than anything, we need to repent of our spiritual apathy. Our indifference to our need for God.
In the first century, Jesus wrote a series of letters to seven churches in what is now modern-day Turkey. All of the letters are powerful and relevant, but the letter to Laodicea is probably the most relevant for North American Christianity. Jesus writes, I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of My mouth (vv 15-16).
These are some of the most famous phrases in the whole Bible and it is a powerful image, but what does it mean?
The one thing Laodicea did not have was good water. The main river, Lycus, would frequently dry up altogether in the summer. There were two other sources of water, but they were less than ideal, to say the least.
In his excellent, short commentary on Revelation, NT Wright states that To the north (of Laodicea), standing high on a dramatic cliff, is the city of Hierapolis. It boasts to this day a set of hot springs…the hot, chemically charged water comes bubbling out of the ground, and spills over the cliff…In the first century, they built aqueducts to bring this water across to Laodicea in the centre of the valley, four or five miles away…But by the time the water arrived in Laodicea, it was no longer hot. It was merely lukewarm (and the concentrated chemicals made it undrinkable). To the southeast of Laodicea was Colosse. It had ample water flowing down from high, snow-capped Mount Cadmus: fast-flowing, chilly streams of almost Alpine quality. But by the time the water reached Laodicea, 11 miles away, the normal Turkish heat meant that it, too, had become lukewarm.
Jesus utilizes this strange and unique feature of Laodicea to make His main rebuke of the Laodiceans: “you’re lukewarm. You’re like the waters of Hierapolis and Colosse. You’re undrinkable, unusable. I can’t do anything with you!” In other words, “you’re apathetic. You’re indifferent to your need for Me.”
Now, why were they apathetic? Jesus says, you say, ‘I’m rich; I have become wealthy and need nothing’ (v 17). The Laodicean Christians were wealthy, privileged, secure, and comfortable, and their abundance and ease made them self-sufficient. They didn’t really need God. In their estimation, they needed nothing. They had it all. And their self-sufficiency made them proud. They were responsible for their plenty. It was their ingenuity, stick-to-it-iveness, grit, determination, smarts, skill, and ambition, that had supplied everything they needed and then some. They were cultured, enlightened, educated, prosperous, progressive, developed, and successful. God was an afterthought.
Is this not the Western church in a nutshell?
For many churches and church leaders these days, there isn’t a felt need for the Holy Spirit. We have our skills, training, models, strategies, and techniques. We know how to get people in the door, keep them, get them involved, and motivate them. We know how to get things done. There is no desperate need for God to move. It is ironic that we build whole ministries around Jesus, but then we exclude Him. We sing that we need Him, preach that we need Him, counsel that we need Him, and reach out and tell others that they need Him, but then we do everything relying on our own wisdom and power. We push Jesus out, which renders all of our religious activity empty and meaningless, and ultimately powerless. The pandemic showed us this. A lot of leaders realized that their systems and processes never took their people deep enough, to the level of real heart change.
A lot of Christians, as soon as life was disrupted, drifted from community, drifted from Jesus, and many were caught up, in some cases almost instantly, into tribal echo chambers and Jesus was supplanted in their lives by ideologies of the left and right.
Many once-great churches are struggling. Pastors are quitting. Seminaries can’t recruit. Church planting is drying up. Volunteerism and giving are way down. And some churches are choosing to remain relevant by giving into the spirit of the age (both liberal and conservative!).
Jesus is right. You say, ‘I’m rich; I have become wealthy and need nothing,’ and you don’t know that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked (v 17).
Without Jesus, we are nothing, no matter how rich in resources we appear to be (but this means the opposite is also beautifully true. No matter how seemingly poor in resources you are, if you have Jesus you have everything!)
Too many of our Western churches have no need, in their minds, for the actual presence and power of Jesus, and religion without Jesus isn’t just empty, meaningless, and powerless. It’s dangerous. It is religion without Jesus, that becomes self-righteous, judgmental, exclusive, fearful, hateful, anxious, driven, competitive, power-hungry, oppressive, abusive, immoral, and violent.
Religion without Jesus is deadly.
Jesus exhorts them/us, As many as I love, I rebuke and discipline. be committed and repent. Listen! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and have dinner with him, and he with Me (vv 19-20).
This verse gets used a lot as an evangelistic verse, but that isn’t its meaning at all. Jesus is speaking to His church, His followers, His family, His bride. “I am outside of your gatherings. But I’m here. Repent. Let Me in.” And then He makes this beautiful promise, I will come in to him and have dinner with him, and he with Me. A meal with Jesus. This conjures images of the Lord’s Supper.
What is Jesus saying? If you let Me in, I’ll forgive you. I’ll cleanse you. I’ll fill you with My presence and power. I’ll give you new life. I’ll move.
God is up to something right now. I am seeing many leaders (myself included) humbled, broken, and desperate, and with that has come a renewed hunger for and dependency on God that has resulted in a fresh devotion to Jesus, holiness, worship, prayer, collaboration, and mission, and sense of hope for the future. For all the messy stuff I mentioned earlier, I think the future is bright. Many are waking up to our state. Many are repenting. Coming alive. God is not done! Let’s put down our self-sufficiency. Admit our nothingness. And let Jesus in.
What could the future look like? That is what I will take up in my next post. Stay tuned!
While you wait, check out my previous blog on Why Church?
This blog contains content from Part 8 in our sermon series, What’s Wrong With the Church?