Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of
Trinity Sermons. If you're sick and you want
to take your temperature, you can use a thermometer.
But how do you take your spiritual temperature?
That's what Rob is going to unpack for us in
today's sermon. Today we're continuing our sermon
series, Dear Church, where we look at the letters
that open the book of Revelation. And we're looking
at the letter to the church in Laodicea. And
Jesus says that this church is lukewarm, neither
hot nor cold. And this is a problem. So join
in as Rob dives into why this is a problem and
what is the cure. Our readings today are from
the book of Revelation, beginning in chapter
one, verses four to five, and chapter three,
verses 14 to 22. John, to the seven churches
in the province of Asia, grace and peace to you
from him who is and who was and who is to come
and from the seven spirits before his throne
and from Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness
the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of
the kings of the earth. To the angel of the church
in Laodicea write these are the words of the
amen the faithful and true witness the ruler
of God's creation I know your deeds that you
are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either
one or the other. So because you are lukewarm,
neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you
out of my mouth. You say, I am rich. I have acquired
wealth and do not need a thing. But you do not
realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor,
blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me
gold refined in the fire so you can become rich
and white clothes to wear so you can cover your
shameful nakedness and salve to put on your eyes
so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and
discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I
am. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone
hears my voice and opens the door I will come
in and eat with that person, and they with me.
To the one who is victorious, I will give the
right to sit with me on my throne, just as I
was victorious and sat down with my father on
his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what
the Spirit says to the churches. The word of
the Lord. Whenever you go to the doctor's office
one of the first things they're gonna do is they
will check your temperature and that is because
they know that Your temperature can be a measure
of things that are more serious that are going
on inside of you They've got temperatures that
they you know the thermometers else stick in
your ear They've got the ones they shine on your
forehead the ones that goes in your mouth, of
course there's thermometers that go other places
too. I always just hope that the nurse is reaching
for the right one when the time comes. But the
point is you stick it in your mouth, you press
the little button. the beep beep beep beep beep
and you can you look and you see and you're gonna
get one of three readings either your temperature
is too high you've got a fever uh -oh it's too
hot or your temperature is too low i haven't
seen that very much but you know hypothermia
i guess you're you're you're like it's too cold
or you get it just right beep beep beep yes that
that 98 .6 degrees fahrenheit or whatever it
is that lets you know you're in that normal normal
range well today we are learning that uh actually
You have a spiritual temperature as well. I mean,
did you know that? And churches as well have
a spiritual temperature. The story is going to
be taken today from this letter that Jesus writes
to a church in Laodicea. It's in chapter three
of the book of Revelation. Ali just read it for
us. And what we're going to discover there is
Jesus does like a little spiritual checkup on
that church. And guess what? He does not like
what he sees. The temperature comes back and
the results are not great. We are in the nearing
the end of this teaching series. We've been at
all fall now. Oh, it's beeping. It's beeping.
All fall now where we've been looking at these
ancient letters that were written. to churches
in Asia Minor like 2000 years ago. And although
these letters were penned by the apostle John,
they were really written by by Jesus himself.
And today we come to a letter that is written
to a church in the city of Laodicea, which is
kind of right in the middle of what would be
present day Turkey today. And in this letter,
Jesus sits them down, if you will, for a doctor's
appointment. And like a lot of doctors business,
we don't really want to do it. It's kind of uncomfortable,
but It's really, really necessary. And so all
I want to do today is let us step into that exam
room with this church and see what we can learn.
And I really do mean that. I want you not to
think of this as an intellectual exercise as
in, oh, what was Jesus saying about this church
2 ,000 years ago? I want us to say, what does
this mean for me? And is the spiritual condition
that Jesus is about to diagnose true of me? Is
it true of our church? would say that of all
the letters we've gone through so far this week
when I was preparing this message I think this
is one of the most challenging and probably one
of the ones that we need to hear the very most
given who we are and where we are in time so
let's go into the let's go into the to the office
let's go into the checkup and I've even given
you some notes to follow along the doctor will
see you now and let's see what we can learn let's
begin with the patient Okay, when this church
Laodicea, you know goes into the office and the
thermometer is stuck in the reading comes back
The reading comes back saying they are neither
hot nor cold and now normally we would say oh
that sounds pretty good, right? No fever. No
hypothermia whatever but Spiritually, this is
where you do not want to be. This is the danger
zone Spiritually speaking, a church that is neither
hot nor cold is a lukewarm church that is filled
with half -hearted Christians. So the church
isn't up here where they're like red -hot passion.
They're also not down here where they're paralyzed
and frigid. They are somewhere in that mushy
middle area. The Bible actually throughout the
Bible describes what you could say are three
different temperatures that someone could have
spiritually speaking. The first is someone could
be very spiritually hot. You might remember the
story where some of Jesus's disciples were walking
along the road to Emmaus and Jesus, the risen
Jesus appeared and walked with them for a while
and he spoke with them and he opened the scriptures
to them and afterwards they said oh my gosh we're
not our hearts burning within us when he walked
with us and talked with us and opened the scriptures
to us that is a hot hot spirituality okay their
hearts were burning on the other hand Jesus said
that there will come a day and there may come
days when the love God the love of most will
grow cold a cold heart is a calloused heart It's
an unresponsive heart. It's a heart that says
I I don't care about God I don't care much really
about anything. I don't need God now thankfully
even a cold heart Jesus can thought out the coldest
heart. He does it all the time some of you know
that very well, but This is the danger zone.
The lukewarm heart. That is way, way harder.
Jesus says, I wish you were one or the other.
I wish you were either cold. I can deal with
that. Or, of course, I wish you were hot. But
this church, as Megan said, they were half in
and they were half out, right? They were still
singing all the songs, but the passion was gone.
They were still sitting there in the pews, but
the fire... had gone out. It's kind of like coffee.
I love really, really hot coffee. If you want
the hottest coffee in town, go down to Camaria
just down the street. They serve wicked hot coffee.
And I love iced coffee, cold, cold iced coffee.
The worst kind of coffee is like room temperature
coffee. Coffee that you like find in the microwave
that you're like, oh shoot I put that in there
three hours ago That is the worst kind of coffee.
It is not good spiritually speaking Jesus wants
us to be hot Now he doesn't say to Laodicea Laodicea.
I want you to be hot. No, he uses a different
word. He says I want you to be earnest now earnest
doesn't sound like a very hot word but actually
it really really is because the greek word for
earnestness is zealous right i want you to be
zealous and that's where we got our word jealous
as well what does it mean to be jealous to be
jealous means you have set your love so intensely
on on someone that you like overflow in energy
and you kind of explode toward that person when
we're like loving ourselves then jealousy is
a very toxic thing but but when we set our love
on God then jealousy and zeal means we will do
whatever we can whatever we're able to do to
to lift up his name and to praise him for who
he is and when people first meet Jesus so often,
that is exactly how they are. They are on fire,
they can't get enough of him. They talk about
him to whoever will listen, right? They carry
their Bibles with them wherever they go. They
may even pray before meals, in restaurants, when
people can see. They raise their hands in church
when they're singing songs, and that might make
you a little uncomfortable. But come on, guys.
Tonight, tonight the Roger Centre is going to
be filled with Blue Jay fanatics. All of Canada
has set their heart on this team. They're going
to jump, and they're going to scream, and they're
going to paint their faces blue, and they will
not care what anyone thinks. They're not worried
about being called a fanatic, but you bring that
kind of attitude into a church? They'll call
it a cult Now I am NOT suggesting that you come
to church like this, but God does want us to
be wholly devoted and single -hearted and joyfully
jealous of Him and maybe if you're honest you
say you know that once that did describe me once
But I don't really know what happened. I kind
of just cooled off. I'm not cold, but I've just
come to this place of kind of lukewarmness. It
is a serious condition. Very serious. And I'm
not joking around. Jesus isn't joking around.
Jesus doesn't just say, oh, I'm really angry
with you because you're lukewarm. No, he says,
you make me sick. He says, you make me nauseous.
I want to throw up when I think about you. I
want to... Curl right I am about to spit you
out of my mouth now gosh Why is he reacting so
strongly to a little lukewarmness? It's because
he knows the underlying pathology. He knows what's
going on beneath the temperature reading, right?
If you go to a doctor, they'll take your temperature,
but that just tells them something's wrong. Then
the doctor is going to go underneath and see
what the real disease is, what is causing it.
And yeah, Laodicea, beep, beep, beep, you've
got a temperature. But Jesus says, let me tell
you what the real problem is. You say, I'm rich,
I've acquired wealth, and I don't need a thing.
That, in a nutshell, is the problem with Laodicea.
That's the condition. What we have here is an
advanced case of affluence and chronic self -sufficiency.
Laodicea prided itself on three things. First,
their wealth. Laodicea was loaded. It was a very
wealthy banking city. It was so wealthy that
actually in the year AD 60, an earthquake flattened
the place. And Rome offered financial support,
disaster relief, to help them rebuild. And they
said, no, no, no, no, we got it. We got it. Thanks,
but no thanks. We can look after this ourselves.
They were rolling in it in Laodicea. Second,
Laodicea was very famous for fashion. A lot of
clothes and textiles were made in Laodicea with
this beautiful, really beautiful black wool.
I guess there were a lot of black sheep around
there. It was this beautiful like silky wool
that people really desired. They were really
well dressed. They were good looking people.
And thirdly, Laodicea was also a medical center.
One of the main products they exported around
the world was called Phrygian powder. And it
was a medicine used to heal all sorts of eye
ailments. You got this little pill, you crushed
it up, you put it in the water, you put it on
your eyes, and all around the world they shipped
this stuff, phrygian powder. But here is the
problem. When you've got everything, you don't
need God very much. They were so wealthy and
healthy. And we don't want to hear this, and
I don't want to hear this. I didn't want to hear
this this week, but I think Jesus is making a
direct link between being accomplished and smart
and successful and wealthy and being lukewarm
in your faith. You still believe in God, yeah.
You still come to church, but the heat is not
there. You see that song that we just sang, Rachel
sang this beautiful song, right? Did you hear
that line? You're never gonna let, you're never
gonna let me down, right? Now, if you don't have
much, when you sing those words, they mean something.
You're never gonna let me down, God. But they
sound a lot different, and we sing them a lot
differently when we're rich and when we're comfortable.
and when we're successful, because even if God
did let us down, we'd be all right. It's a good
song. Nothing against the song, but you can sing
it. You can sing any song in a lukewarm way,
especially when you're so self -sufficient. So
that is why I think this letter is so important
to us. We're living in Laodicea, North America.
The GTA for sure right and I'm not saying that
every single person here is rolling in at Lake
Laodicea But we've got enough health care to
make life comfortable. We've got RSPs to Keep
us secure. We've got enough clothes. We usually
look pretty good We've got enough Netflix to
keep us distracted Jesus is saying those comforts
are a curse when they cool down your spiritual
temperature, making you, spiritually speaking,
poor and blind and naked. These were rich people,
specialized in eye ointments and were well clothed.
You're poor, you're blind, and you're naked.
In 2019, a pastor and author by the name of Francis
Chan, maybe some of you have heard of him, I
know our youth group is using one of his resources
on Friday nights. He gave an interview and the
interview was titled, Why I Quit My Megachurch
and Started Again. He had built one of the largest
churches in California. He's a speaker, he's
an author, he's a pastor, but he began to feel
uneasy because it started out red hot. But then
it became lukewarm and he says at some point
it felt like they were just playing church And
so we left he decided to get away and he went
to Asia Where he met with persecuted Christians?
underground Christians who who risked imprisonment
For their faith in Jesus and they were red -hot
Spiritually speaking and in the interview he
says this he says one of the worst things that
can happen is for life to be easy and comfortable,
to where you don't give a thought for things
that really matter. And I believe it's Satan's
plan to keep us focused on the things of this
world and the things that you can see, whereas
scripture tells us to focus on the things that
are unseen. And I believe that if Christians
from other parts of the world were to come and
visit the North American church, I dare say maybe
even visit our church, they would be struck by
our lukewarmness. They would say, why don't you
guys pray more? Or why do you spend so much of
what you make on yourselves? Or why are you so
afraid to talk about Jesus outside of this place?
That's Laodicea. Friends, that's me. Maybe that's
you too. Our faith gets easy. Our faith gets
sleepy. So what do we do about that? Well, what
is Jesus, the great physician Jesus, going to
prescribe for this condition of self -sufficiency?
Well, that's where we're going to go next to
the prescription. And this is what Jesus says.
He looks at their condition. He actually goes
to the medicine cabinet and says, I have just
the thing. I have just the thing to cure you,
but you're going to have to get that cure from
me. You can't do this. You're going to have to
take it from me. And he says, I counsel you.
Now, notice everything he says has got to come
from him. I counsel you to buy from me gold,
white clothes from me to wear, and buy from me
a salve to put on your eyes. You cannot heal
yourself. It's not like the earthquake. You're
not going to be able to rebuild. You're not going
to be able to sort this out on your own. You
can't. even go to a pharmacy and buy this kind
of cure. You have to come to the end of your
own self -sufficiency and you've got to come
to me. That is what we call grace. This whole
prescription is about receiving and not achieving.
Man, we always want to achieve it. We always
want to earn and own the good things that happen
in our life and even the... Our own transformation,
we want to say that was me, that one's on me,
but receiving God's grace, not achieving worldly
success, is what Jesus is on about. He says,
doesn't say, Laodicea, pull yourselves together,
you can do it. He says, no, come to me. I am
the only one who can give you what you lack.
The first prescription, first prescription, is
buy from me gold, refined in the fire. I mean,
gosh, Laodicea's banks were full, but Jesus says,
Want you to invest in me many of us we've diversified
our investments followed good financial advice
throughout all our lives But Jesus has invest
in me Because every other currency a success
or comfort or applause or whatever it is. It
will eventually collapse Especially if it's crypto
But it's not just gold. It's gold refined in
a fire now throughout the Bible whenever it speaks
about being refined in a fire I hate to tell
you this but it usually means suffering right
glowing hot faith is often born out of trial
and Testing, you know, Tim Keller once said that
people who live incredibly charmed lives are
almost all lukewarm. Those are his words That's
Tough, but if that's true Then to get out of
lukewarmness into a real transformed life. You're
probably gonna have to go through some tough
times With Jesus walking along your side red
-hot spirituality is purified and suffering Those
are hard words Second prescription Jesus says
is buy from me white clothes to wear so that
you can cover your shameful nakedness Now remember
Leo to see how famous for its black textiles
black clothing Jesus says all those clothes they
may cover your body, but spiritually you're naked
and You need my clothes to cover you now if you
read a little further in the book of Revelation
You will see that these white garments represent
righteousness and represent a good life good
standing before God we we spend so much of our
time focusing on our outward image and appearance
and resume and reputation but the only outfit
that matters the only outfit of any significance
is the one that Jesus gives us Jesus I don't
care how good you look you need my clothes a
righteous life only comes from me, let me be
your garment, Jesus says. I don't know about
you, but I have a pretty hard time keeping my
clothes white, keeping my life holy, being righteous.
So Jesus says, that's okay, put my life on, my
righteousness. Let me cover your shame and your
guilt and your sin. The third prescription Jesus
offers is his own eyes salve to help them see.
you know Leo to see his medical products could
help everyone else's see but but they left the
church blind to what really mattered and I mean
we all are wearing some kind of cultural glasses
or cultural lenses through which we see oh this
is what success looks like or this is what prosperity
looks like or this is what you know the good
life looks like but Jesus offers eye medicine
That truly restores our vision, enabling us to
see what real riches are, and what real success
is, and where real healing comes from. Guys,
every one of these prescriptions that Jesus is
offering comes from him. Jesus says, come to
me. I'll give you what money can't buy, what
your success can't secure. But of course, every
good prescription only works if you trust the
physician. And if you let him do his work and
that's exactly where Jesus goes next He says
behold I stand at the door and knock it's so
weird Jesus has just delivered the hardest diagnosis
you make me sick and Yet here he is knocking
on the door saying let me in it's like on the
one hand you make me sick But then he says I
love you. I love you. That is the gospel people
The great physician, Jesus. He doesn't reject
his lukewarm church. He pursues it. He doesn't
abandon you or me, the patient. He makes a house
call. You don't want to come to my clinic? Fine.
I will come to you. And the scariest part about
this is, I think that, remember, this is written
to a church, right? And Jesus is on the outside
of the church. Right the person who should be
at the center of what is going on there is standing
on the doorstep that can happen To a church it
can happen to any church It can happen to our
church whenever we become too self -sufficient
and too confident in our own abilities if we
you know, we can sing all the songs and we can
read all the words and Forget his presence in
our midst Jesus the great physician is waiting
to be invited in and it's not just about a church
It's about YouTube if any one he says Here's
my voice. Are you one of those self -sufficient
people? Are you one of those people Jesus is
speaking to? If so, the cure is to open the door
and let Jesus back into your life and not just
for a quick house call. When it says, you know,
I want to come in, Jesus says, I want to come
into your house. I want to sit down and I want
to eat with you. In ancient times, all of those
things, sharing a meal, sharing your house were
very intimate things that you only did out of
out of a deep and ongoing friendship. So when
you let Jesus back into your life and into your
decisions and into your relationships and into
your schooling and into your work, then and then
only will your spiritual temperature begin to
rise again. And so then finally we come to the
prognosis. What is the prognosis? Is there any
hope for the patient? What is the prognosis for
those who willingly open the door to Jesus? Jesus
says, oh gosh, there's amazing prognosis to the
one who is victorious. I will give the right
to sit with me on my throne just as I was victorious
and I sat down on my father's throne. No doctor
in history has ever told a patient you're dying.
But when I'm done. You'll rule the world with
me. No doctor, no patient has ever gone from
being in the sick bed to being on the throne.
But only Jesus makes that kind of promise. Now
obviously, we would say, obviously, yeah, Jesus
reigns. Jesus died and he rose again on the third
day and he ascended into heaven. So obviously,
yes, every crown, every authority, every throne
belongs to Jesus. He deserves to sit there, but
here's the miracle. You know what he says to
this lukewarm church? You know what he says to
this half -hearted, self -satisfied church? He
looks at you and he looks at me and he says,
you know what though, if you open the door to
me, I will open heaven to you and you will reign
with me. That is one heck of a prognosis. The
prognosis is this, total recovery for the patient
and eternal reign with the Son of God. And you
didn't earn any of it. The only reason we can
wear white clothes is because he was stripped
naked on the cross And the only reason that we
can be rich is because he was made poor right
the only reason the patient lives is because
The physician died that is the gospel and Jesus
wrote that prescription in his own blood Our
love For him might be lukewarm, but obviously
his love for us is not he is jealous for you
He loves you. He's willing to die for you. He
has given himself so utterly to us So then how
can we not give ourselves? Completely back to
him. How can we be half -hearted? How can we
be lukewarm? So again, I'll end where I began.
What's your temperature this morning? What does
the thermometer say? Not the one in your mouth,
but the one in your heart. Are you hot? Are you
burning with love for Jesus? Are you cold? Are
you like distant and hard -hearted? Or are you
lukewarm? Just comfortable, you know, and a bit
distracted these days. The good news is... Whatever
your temperature, the great physician is here.
Even now he's here knocking at your door, calling
you and still offering that cure that all of
us need. So open the door and let him in. Thanks
be to God. Thanks for listening to this week's
episode of Trinity Sermons. This sermon was recorded
at Trinity Church Streetsville in Mississauga,
Ontario on October 19th, 2025.