Reading: Revelation 3. 14-16, 22

Sadly there is no recording of this sermon available.

The Christian-o-Meter
Image courtesy of Growing Christians Ministries
What a week this has been. On Wednesday, Their Majesties the King and Queen visited Edinburgh to attend, what STV News described as, a ‘service of thanksgiving and dedication at St Giles’ Cathedral’.

St Giles’ Cathedral, contrary to what the name may imply, is part of the Church of Scotland, supposedly a joint inheritor with you and me of the spirit of the Reformation. As the nearest thing to the State Church, the Church of Scotland is often the centre of major civic and national events, and it was fitting that a service of thanksgiving and dedication should happen within one of Scotland’s foremost Kirks. Of course, some seventy years ago, it was our King’s late mother who stood at the communion table in St Giles’ Kirk to receive the Honours of Scotland, the oldest Crown Jewels in the British Isles.

History aside, there was one part of the service which raised a number of eyebrows, both on this week’s Vizion Church Holiday (which Jax and I were pleased to join), on various Internet forums, and in a couple of conversations I had with people.

The Issues

The issues were as follows. At one point in the service, the order of service read: “Blessings and Greetings from Representatives of Faith and Belief Communities”. There followed five blessings or greetings from different religious groups - Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and, amazingly, Humanism.

‘So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth.’ (Rev. 3. 16)

‘But what’s the problem?’, I can imagine many saying. Scotland is a multicultural, multi-religious nation. Surely it is wrong to exclude people? Isn’t it nice to include different groups?

None of this is me trying to be anything other than nice. Rather, it is an introduction to a much larger point which Scripture warns us about. God has no time for lukewarm Christians. Christianity is a binary faith - you are either fully Christian or not Christian. Just like a flick off and on lightswitch (we won’t talk about dimmer switches!), your light is either off or on. Or a car engine, which is either running or not running. You can’t be a bit Christian. You can’t be a bit saved.

So, I ask you a question. This service I’ve been describing, was it a Christian act of worship or wasn’t it?

While I could very much see the argument for the inclusion of a Rabbi and even an Imam in the proceedings, after all, both Judaism and Islam worship the One True Living God, it is just that in Christianity we have the full revelation of God through the Holy Trinity, and the prospect of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Christianity, Islam and Judaism look back to Abraham, to Noah, to Adam, and ultimately to the Lord God Almighty. But hearing prayers to ‘goddess Sri Lakshmi and god Sri Venkateswara’, and to ‘namo Buddha’ seems to me somewhat ridiculous for a Christian act of worship.

But let’s move away from talk of pomp and pageantry, and instead turn our eyes upon Jesus. For it is Jesus who is speaking in the short reading we heard from God’s Word. And I’m afraid, dear friends, that He may well be speaking to the Christian Church in this day too.

As part of his vision, John of Patmos recorded Jesus speaking to the church in Laodicea. The Laodicean Church was a Christian Church established in, yes you guessed it, Laodicea, and studies suggest it was established by Paul’s disciple Epaphras (see Colossians 4. 12-13) around 50 A.D., so quite early on in the Christian story.

Christ clearly has a problem with Christians who are lukewarm, instead He wishes that people were either cold or hot in their approach to Him.

Cold, lukwewarm, or hot - how’s your plumbing?

To really understand the reference to lukewarmedness, we have to understand the plumbing of the ancient world. Laodicea had an extensive textile industry and, like the two neighbouring cities of Colossae and Hierapolis, needed lots of water. The city of Laodicea pumped water some six miles from mountains to the south. After travelling for 6 miles in an aqueduct, the water arrived in the city lukewarm from its long journey, and full of grit and calcium carbonate. The city of Colossae sat at the foot of a mountain and enjoyed a plentiful supply of crystal clear, cold water, as it ran off the mountains. The city of Hierapolis sat over a huge thermal spring which ejected mineral rich hot water.

Hierapolis’ water was perfect for theraputic purposes - people would flock to the city to take the waters, to use the thermal baths for healing of various sorts. It was wonderful water for bathing in. Colossae’s water was perfect for drinking - its refreshing purity was much admired by all around. But Laodicea’s water was pretty useless - aside from washing the textiles in the mills, and flushing the drainage system, the water had no purpose. If you drank it you vomited, and if you washed in it you came up dirtier than you were to begin with! Laodicea, Colossae and Hierapolis - all three cities had supplies of water. The cold and the hot were very beneficial, but the dirty lukewarm water was no use at all.

Are you cold?

There are two approaches to coldness in this passage. The first is that people who don’t know Christ are cold towards Him. This is the ‘traditional’ approach to this Scripture - cold people hate Jesus, lukewarm people don’t care, hot people love Jesus. It is best to love Jesus and be hot, but if you’re going to take a stand against Him, at least put your heart into it and be cold - and there is some mileage in this way of thinking…

So, friends, are you cold in your approach to Christ? The fact that you are sitting here this morning would indicate to me that you aren’t cold. The people out there are cold, those people who don’t come to church, or who have rejected Jesus. They are cold. They must be, after all, for the flame of the Holy Spirit is not burning within their hearts. How can they be anything but cold?

But why would Christ wish that ‘thou wert cold’? What possible benefit could there be to people being cold in their faith, or lack of it?

I think I should clarify here that, even if we go with this interpretation, I don’t think Jesus wants people to hate Him. He isn’t some kind of masochist who gets a thrill when people hate or despise Him. It isn’t that He prefers folk to hate Him instead of being ambivalent. The point that this Scripture is making is that the folk out there, the cold ones who have no interest or connection to the Church, do no damage to the Church’s reputation. The world does not look at the unconverted, the ‘cold’ ones, and say, ‘Look at them, aren’t they bad Christians’, for the simple reason that they aren’t Christians. Yes it is very sad that they are not part of the Christian faith, and we must pray that more people will hear the saving call of the Gospel, but while they are out there, living their ‘best lives’, they do the Church no harm.

The Other Approach

The other approach, and one that sits best with me, is that, given what we know about the plumbing, sometimes fresh cold clear water is really beneficial. After all, there is nothing like a cold glass of water on a hot day. For men, splashing cold water on your face after a shave is a very refreshing thing to do. Cold water serves many purposes and sometimes God may be wanting us to be cold water in the world around us, serving those purposes for Him. With this in mind, being cold is no bad thing for a Christian. In fact, quite the opposite, Christ has important work for the cold among us.

Are you lukewarm?

Here is the rub. Are you lukewarm? Are you like a fire that hasn’t been fed or prodded for a long time, or a camp fire come the morning, or an abandoned pot of tea? Is there a residual heat, but has the flame long gone?

It is these sort of Christians that the Church in Laodicea had become. We don’t know exactly what they were doing, sadly, but we can easily imagine it because we see it in our own society, don’t we. We can even see it in the Church around about us.

All those Churches that are departing from Scriptural truths? Lukewarm. Those Churches that preach the Gospel of John Lennon (All you need is love)? Lukewarm. Those Churches that omit some of the more testing parts of Scripture, or try and present Jesus as this nice cuddly character who doesn’t ever want you to change? Lukewarm. Those Churches that portray God as some sort of sponge cake - soft, fluffy, full of sweet stuff, without ever accepting that He may well be cross with you for what you’ve done and that He does punish sins and wrongdoing? Lukewarm. Those Churches that don’t ever expect you to change because ‘Jesus loves you as you are’? Lukewarm. Those sermons and preachers who declare (as I’ve sadly heard on many occasions) that ‘all faiths lead to God’, or that ‘God loves us all so much that hell is an empty place’? Lukewarm. Encouraging prayers of other faiths in a Christian service to suggest to the world that the Church is a modern and laid back place? Lukewarm!

Do you think lukewarm Christianity is any use to people? Is there any point in only presenting half the Gospel to people? Does telling people that Christ died for the forgiveness of their sin have any impact if we don’t explain what sin is, and how cancerous it can be in our lives? If we speak about lovely Jesus welcoming children to Himself, but don’t explain how to carry our crosses, how can we disciple people? If we try and fit in with the world by promoting all sorts of newfangled philosophies, encouraging gay marriage, sex changes, abortions, etc etc, in an attempt to curry favour with the world around us, and in so doing lose sight of the call of Scripture, how are we helping anyone? We may be presenting part of the Gospel, but it has become gritty, covered in the calcium carbonate of the world, no good for anything except, perhaps, encouraging vomit.

If we are simply going through the motions, if our heart is not in it, if we are not living and working for Christ everyday of our lives, we are of no benefit to Him! I don’t know about you, but that thought scares me!

As James Parker writes: How does this condition of lukewarmness really make Jesus feel? Let’s look at the next verse in our text. “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” The church makes Jesus want to vomit! I wonder what Jesus would think of the church today? I wonder if He would be impressed by the great monuments built in His name, that house lukewarm congregations? I wonder if He would be pleased with churches that have hundreds of thousands of pounds in the bank, while people in the community are hungry and losing thier homes? I wonder if He would enjoy the singing of the well rehearsed professional sounding choirs in their fancy robes, while the congregation is entertained? I wonder whether He would enjoy being present for the congregational singing of His praises from lifeless lips? I wonder how He would be moved as the church joined in prayer while people in thier mind were planning the events of later today, or wondering what the football score is? I wonder if He would want to hear the sermons coming from the pulpit that tickle the ears of men, and make them feel good about themselves? Today’s Church would make Jesus vomit - of that I have no doubt.

Are you hot?

Or are you hot? Does the fire of the Gospel burn within your hearts? Do you desire to do the Lord’s will in all things? Sometimes hot water can be really pleasant, many people like a sit in a hot tub, or a hot cup of tea, but sometimes water can be a bit too hot. Growing up with back problems, I was often told to sit in a hot bath to relax my back muscles. I’m not a fan of hot baths so found the process deeply unpleasant - but friends, it worked. Similarly when I used to get frequent colds, I would be given a hot cup of Lemsip - I don’t like hot drinks, but again I can’t deny it worked.

Sometimes if we are the hot ones in the world, we can be a bit uncomfortable to be around. We can inadvertently rub people up the wrong way. We can say true, helpful things, that can leave a sting in their tail. We can sometimes make folk sweat as we are talking to them. Of course, this is no different to Jesus. Time and time again throughout the Gospels Christ challenged the people He spoke to. If He had been lukewarm, they wouldn’t have noticed, but the burning heat of the Spirit within Him couldn’t fail to be noticed.

Pastor David made a good point concerning this. If you wanted to boil a frog, as you do, you would not drop it in to a pan of boiling water, would you? No, because it would jump straight out. Instead you would put it in water at room temperature and slowly heat it up on the stove. Before you know it, the water would be boiling and you’d enjoy boiled frog (if that’s your thing…). But the frog wouldn’t have a clue. Lukewarm Christianity is an excellent way to hold on to something of a Christian faith without it being obvious to those around you. If you are ashamed of your faith, or don’t want anyone else to know, then by all means become lukewarm. But I’ll say this, friends - if you don’t want people around you to know that you know Jesus, don’t be surprised when He turns to you and says, ‘I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7. 23).

‘I would thou wert cold or hot’ (Rev. 3. 16)

The Choice

We have a choice here, friends. We can choose to be like the Laodicean Church, lukewarm, acceptable to the world, cuddly and comfortable on first glance but, on second thoughts, not much use at all. If we choose lukewarmedness, we can be accepted by people around us. We can be liked. We can be seen as progressive, or accepting, or liberal-minded. But we won’t be doing Jesus’ will.

Or we can be as Jesus wishes we were, ‘cold or hot’. If we are cold, we can be used by Christ to refresh the world, to cleanse those around us. If we are hot, the fire can burn within us, we can warm those we come into contact with, we can bring the Spirit to those to whom we are sent. Cold or hot, not one is better than the other. Jesus needs cold or hot people to serve His purposes. He just has no use for lukewarm folk.

So forgive me, but I’m not going to stand here and tell you that all faiths lead to Jesus. They don’t. I won’t tell you that hell is empty because God just sends everyone to heaven. He doesn’t. I won’t tell you to go along with the trends of the world. Scripture commands you not to. Whether I am cold or hot, I cannot say. But one thing I never intend to be is lukewarm. This morning you have a choice. What temperature will you be? Only you can decide.

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father, thank You that we have the opportunity to learn a spiritual lesson on how to live godly lives in Christ Jesus, through the failure of these people in Laodicea. We are sorry for any areas of our lives that we have allowed to become lukewarm to You and ask that we would live lives that are cold and refreshing as Christ, or on fire for Him. We pray that we would keep the door of our hearts ever open to You and that our communion with You would overflow into blessings for those we come into contact with. We pray that our lives may become a light in a darkened world and that our words may be witness to the goodness and grace of God to all we meet, for Your praise and glory. This we ask in Jesus’ name, AMEN

Source: Adapted from Knowing-Jesus.com