November 23

Transcription

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.)

Surely the goodness and the love of the Lord will follow me all the days of my life, it says. The goodness and the love of the Lord in the Hebrew are the most beautiful words. It's the words cheset, and Canadians cannot say that because you do not have a ch.

Cheset. And the other one you can say is emet. No, I'm a Canadian too, but a South African Canadian.

Emet. Those are two most beautiful words. The word cheset is actually the word that says the covenant love of the Lord.

That goodness, the covenant love in which God covenants himself to me, saying, I make this in blood with you that I'll be your God. So then goodness just becomes far more than goodness. I covenant myself to you, I won't let you go.

I won't leave you. Emet is the everlasting love of God. Nothing that can take that away from us.

So when we sing of the goodness and the love of the Lord, it's far more than that. It's the cheset and the emet, that everlasting covenant love that nothing in this world, outside this world, anywhere in this world can ever take away from us. David understood that.

A challenge that came last week in the middle of the sermon when I said sometimes God just places an opportunity before us. And I asked you to go pray this week. And I said, well, you take the week to pray and ask the Lord, what opportunities is the Lord placing before us? Where God says, this is something that I can, I can put there for you that you, Saint Paul, can respond to.

So here's the second part of, of the challenge. I hope you've prayed and I hope you've heard. If you haven't, continue.

I would like you, if you've heard something from the Lord, where there's an opportunity to send me an email. It's easy. My email address is on the bulletin.

It's my name at cpcmail.ca. It's as easy as that. Send me what you've heard from the Lord, because I would like to take that and take it to the leadership, to our elders and say, so here's what we've got. What are we going to do, Saint Paul? And we'll pray and we'll find, and we'll come back and we're going to say, here's where we're going to go.

So it's practical. Following Christ is not just a head thing. It's a feet and hands and life and action.

So as you've prayed and as you continue to pray, please send it to me. We have session the first week of December. So hopefully by then I've got something from you.

Keep on praying and thank you for doing that. Father, thank you for preparing our hearts, our lives, our minds, our everything for these moments with you. As we end our series, walking from church to church in the cities in Asia Minor, thank you that we could stop there.

Thank you for the last stop. Give us ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church. In the name of the one that we love with everything that is in us, in the name of Jesus we pray.

Amen. So we're going to Laodicea today. Ted, you can put up that little slide of Laodicea.

Oh, there it is. I was saying I've got a blank screen. I can't see it.

So we started with Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia last week. Today we hit a pit stop and our last stop at a church called Laodicea. Let me give you the background because by now you know that to understand these messages you need to know the background to these churches.

So this is a big one. Laodicea was the wealthiest of all of the cities. The church in Laodicea, the wealthiest of all of the churches.

Laodicea was the judicial, banking, everything capital of Asia Minor. Commercial capital, everything ran through Laodicea. They were rich beyond rich.

I don't think there were any poor people in Laodicea. Had a huge textile business going there and they were well renowned for the beautiful black woollen clothes that they made, especially the black wool of Laodicea, well known throughout the world. The other thing that made them well known and lots of people coming there was the medical centre that they had there, especially the eye care centre.

People came from all over to buy what they would call Phrygian powder. It was a salt that was made for eyes, cured all kinds of eye diseases, eye problems that they had. People would come from all over to come buy this to use for their eyes.

They had everything, missed nothing. However, 60 AD there was a huge earthquake which destroyed most of Laodicea. They rebuilt it because they had all the money in the world that they needed.

The one thing they struggled with, it destroyed their water provision. They didn't have. So they had to find a way.

Again, money was no problem. So what did they do? They built aqueducts. Ted, I want to go back to this slide, but just go to the last one, not the one I sent you midnight last night.

That one, thank you. I actually did send you one last night, midnight. They built these aqueduct systems.

So on those aqueducts, they had these clay pipes. So if you go back to that first slide, thanks, Ted. Sorry for messing you around because I need to explain.

There. So eight kilometres north of Laodicea was the place called, and I always say it in the Greek way, Hierapolis or Hierapolis as you would say. Hiera means temple and polis by now you know city.

Acropolis, the city on the hill. Decapolis, ten cities. Hierapolis, temple city, so they would call it the holy city.

Was eight kilometres north of Laodicea. Ten kilometres south of Laodicea was a place that we know well because we read about it in the Bible, the letter to the Colossians. There was Colossae.

Here's the thing. They had no water, so they needed water. Hierapolis, and Ted, now we can do those two slides, was well known for its wonderful hot water springs.

It's, see the white there? There's Hierapolis from Laodicea, and this is the white that you saw. These wonderful hot water springs had medicinal properties. People came from all over.

It's said that Cleopatra bathed in those. I don't know if that's true. Forget about that.

Wonderful healing properties in the water. Colossae, and thanks Ted, now we're done with those slides except the 12 o'clock one. Colossae, on the other side, had wonderful ice cold water that ran down from the mountains when the snow melted came down, and they were, everyone wanted this.

So Laodicea, no water. So it had this aqueduct system that came in these clay pipes, the hot water from Hierapolis and the cold water from Colossae. Problem that they did not foresee.

By the time the hot water came eight kilometres, it wasn't hot anymore. When the cold water came 10 kilometres, it wasn't cold anymore. But that was only one of their problems.

They didn't think about the pipes, and they were made of clay. There were certain elements in the clay that when the water came through them, came into the water, and when you drank that water, it was putrid. It was horrendous.

So people would come, they would take a journey, and they'd come in and see, oh there's beautiful cold water, and they take it. Number one, it's not cold, and then number two, it is horrendous, and they would spit. There you have a little bit of background on this.

It was the largest city. Most cities had one arena or coliseum or amphitheatre, what you want to call it. They had two.

The largest one could seat 60,000 people. They did not do things small. They had four marketplaces, where most had one.

You know a marketplace? You know the Greek word by now. I taught you that. Can you remember? What is the fear of open spaces called? Agoraphobia.

A marketplace in Greek is called agora. They had four of those, where other places had one. They had 4,500 shops where people could go buy whatever their hearts desired, and that's where we find the church that needed nothing.

So let's jump into this. Gonna have a lot of fun this morning. One hour.

Get yourself ready. The saddest thing about the church in Laodicea that we're going to see today, it's the only one of the seven that only had a rebuke. There was no commendation.

All the others had some commendation that came their way. Laodicea only rebuke from the Lord. That is so, so sad, yet it ends in a beautiful way.

To the angel, the pastor, the minister, the leader of the church in Laodicea, write. These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. Can we go down word for word? I'm not going to go to that verse yet.

Thanks. These are the words of the Amen. You know what Amen means.

We use it at the end of all of our prayers to say, this is going to be true. This is the final Amen. Thank you.

This is the end. So Jesus starts off by saying, these are the words of him who has the final say, Laodicea. And then he says about himself, the faithful and the true witness, the ruler of God's creation, the word witness.

And Ted, now we're going to go to 12 o'clock slide. Is the word martus. And when you think of word martus and you think of martyr, that's where the word martyrs came from.

And they would have understood that really, really well. And your little Greek word is the one on my left side, martus, witness. And I put it up there in Greek for you so you can see I'm not pulling your leg.

Comes from martyreo, means to witness for God. But to be a witness would often imply, especially in those days, but even for us, I make the commitment to tell the truth, the whole truth, despite of the consequences that might come with that, that might cost me something. And they understood the word witness really, really well.

Because for them to say, I believe in Jesus Christ and I stand for Jesus would make them not just a martus witness, but also a martyr that would die for the witness of Jesus Christ. When they wanted to be faithful and true witnesses, they would often, for that witness, die on a cross or be eaten by a lion or be killed by a gladiator. I am the faithful and the true witness, says Jesus.

He walked this earth and he was faithful from day one. Whatever they threw at him, whatever they did to him, whatever they said to him, he never, ever walked this side of the line or that side of the line. He was on that line, faithful, never moved, whatever they said, even to that moment when they nailed him to the cross.

Even when he could have said, oh, oh, it's okay. I'm not the son of God. I'm not the Christ.

Just leave me go. And he could go. He said, you said it.

I am he. This is who I am because that is who Jesus Christ is. And when Jesus looks at the church, he says, you are my witness in the world.

And what does he ask of us? To be a faithful and a true witness. And I've often said that in my life, when young ministers, we were training and working with them, I always said to them as a Christian, but also as a person who was called to lead a congregation, you only have two things going for you, your integrity and your good name. If you lose that witness, you have lost it all.

And the church of Jesus Christ, that's what we have in the world. We do not have the money. We do not have the power.

We have the witness. And we are called to be faithful and true witnesses in all you do. I see that in my life often because I help folks with funerals.

I don't know people from Adam. And I'll walk in the street and someone will say, oh, hi, you're the pastor from Central because I saw you. And I think, oh, holy Moses, was I that witness that I should have been? These are the words of the witness who was faithful and true.

And then our translation says the ruler of God's creation. And that's why I put the Greek up there for you because it's a good translation, but it's a bad translation. It's the second one on the right hand side.

You'll see beginning. The word is arche. You know the word archaeology comes from arche, old, beginning stuff.

Archeic, arche. It is also the word that John loves very much. The book of Genesis, and Kevin, you asked me about Genesis.

That's where we start. The book of Genesis starts with, in the Hebrew, Bereshit, Bereshit para Elohim, in the beginning, God created. The book of John starts with, en arche ein hologos, kai hologos ein proston theon, and I can go on and do the rest for you.

En arche, in the beginning. Now look back at the translation. These are the words of the witness who was faithful and true.

The beginning of God's creation. The one who was there in the beginning, the one who is there right now, and the one who will be there when he comes back and makes a new heaven and a new earth. I am there over all of them.

He is also the arche of all of our lives. The beginning, the middle, and the end. These are the words of the one who has the final say.

Thanks, Ted, for accepting the 12 o'clock slide in the middle of the night. I know your deeds. For the others, I think the words came, I know your deeds, because most of them were doing good things.

These guys is, I know your deeds, that you are neither cold, freezing cold. Does this make sense now? Nor boiling hot. Oh, I wish, and you know what wish means? It's this hope of something that's going to happen, but the probability is it's not going to happen.

Oh, I wish that you were either one or the other. So here's where this is headed. Because you're lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth.

And they, my friends, would have understood that perfectly well because I explained it to you this morning. They were lukewarm. They were not the value that God valued and wanted from them.

They were neither this nor that. They were not that healing balm that people needed that came in into that church that would sit and receive the healing of Jesus Christ. They were neither that cold refreshment that sometimes people just need in the middle of life, where life is hard, and come into this church and receive that beautiful cold water of God's grace over them.

They came into a church that was just kind of hanging in there, and we're just part of what's going on. We have the lights, and we have the cameras, and we have the action, and we have the band, but we have nothing else for you. We're just lukewarm.

And God says, when you're lukewarm, I can't handle that. Harsh words. But thank you for saying that, Lord, because that asks us to look at ourselves, do that introspection, and say, what would God write to sinful? Are we cold? Cold in the good sense of people needing that place that we sang, you take me to the quiet waters, a spring or a well, a place of safety and sustenance, where people can say, I can just breathe in.

And when I've breathed in this wonderful cold water, I'm okay to go out into the week and face my boss and face the world and face the stuff that's coming at me, because I could drink on Sunday morning, being part of this church, or I can come to this church, and I just need that moment where I get into that hot tub, and I can just let go all of that and feel that warmth that just envelops me and makes me feel good again. That's our calling. Our calling is not to play church, not to be fancy.

Our calling is to be a place where people will come and say, I'm okay when I leave there, because I've received what God gives. And that's why I challenged you, too. What are we doing? What are the opportunities to be cold and to be hot in this church, in this community, for God's people and for people who are searching and who are in need that come into this place, and when they drink, they smile, because it is good, and it is cold, and it is refreshing, and it builds me.

Oh, I wish, says the Lord, do not be lukewarm. You miss your goal. Thank you, Central.

I've been here 23 going on 24 in January years with you, and I have seen people come and drink and receive cold water that they needed. I've seen people come and come bathe in the warmth and the love and the care and the compassion that comes. I've seen that.

May God help us to continue doing that. I need to stop, because I'm going to keep you here for an hour. So, here's the consequence.

You say, and I'll listen to the operative words here, you say, I am rich. I have acquired wealth, and there should be another I. I do not need a thing. Did you hear the I? That's their problem.

They had I trouble. Despite their medical centre, they had huge I trouble. It was all about the me.

I'm self-sufficient. I'm self-reliant. I can do whatever I want.

I am rich, and again, the interesting word, the Greek word for rich he uses here is a word that says not just I have enough. It says I have enormous wealth. That's what the church is.

Oh, we have so much wealth. So, what? I have acquired wealth. I've made myself rich.

Do you see what happened? They forgot who is the one who provides the richness, not in gold, not in stuff, but in the fullness of the Spirit, living in the Lord, walking in Christ Jesus, being a faithful witness in this world. That's the one who makes you rich, not me acquiring the wealth. I do not need a thing, and yes, they so didn't need a thing that they really didn't need God.

May God protect me from the day that I do not need God. The self-sufficiency of the church was their problem. Now, here's your but.

I mean the biblical but, not yours. Here's the biblical but. But here's God's idea of what they have.

They say, I'm rich. I'm wealthy. I don't need a thing.

God says, well, here's the thing when I look at you, but you do not realise. You have no idea. You're totally unaware that you are wretched.

Greek word says calloused. You know when we become callous. We don't feel a thing.

We don't care about a thing. We just don't. You're calloused, wretched, pitiful, poor.

Again, the Greek word for poor, he uses these different words. This one is the poorest of the poor, those who have, they're blind. Folks who had all the salt in the world that people came for are blind.

But here's the, again, I'm so sorry about all this, but you can't do revelation if you don't read the Greek. The word for blind is not someone who was born blind. It's the word for someone who was intentionally made blind.

So sticking a poker in their eye or something like that. They knew about that. They gouged their eyes out when they killed them.

That's the word that he uses. You're blind. Your eyes have been taken out of your head and you're naked.

These are folks who wore Louis Vuitton and Calvin Klein and all of these kinds of things. And God says, when I look at you, you're naked. How scary must that be, sinful? When God looks at you, we're saying, man, look at us, look at us.

And God says, yeah, I'm looking. You're wretched. You're pitiful.

You're the poorest of poor. And you're naked. No one wants to look at you when you're naked.

But God is always gracious. I counsel you. You know what a counsellor does? Advises you.

I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so all the junk is burned away. Not the gold of the world. All the junk.

So that you can become rich. Rich in what? Rich in Christ Jesus. Rich in your faith.

Rich in your witness in this world. And white clothes to wear. And by now, those who do the Bible study with me know that white always says about holiness, being in God's presence, showing God in this world.

Not your black wool that you are so proud of, Laodicea. Come buy from me white clothes that are washed in the blood of Jesus Christ and reflect the light of the sun into this world. So that you can cover your shameful nakedness.

And then the beautiful one. And solve the Phrygian powder. Come get mine to put on your eyes, so you can see.

Because maybe that's the most important thing for us to do, is to be able to see. When we put ourselves in the mirror, what do we see? Because all I want to see when I look in that mirror is the reflection of Jesus Christ, my Lord. Isn't that what we should be? When Christ looks at us, that he sees.

But when we look at ourselves, that we might see. And remember that when you look at yourself in the mirror, you're not just a somebody or a nobody. You're bought in the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

You're a child of God. And that's what he wants to see when he looks at you. And that's what he sees.

Because you know what God does when he looks at us? He puts on glasses. The glasses are called the blood of Jesus Christ. And when he puts on those glasses and he looks, you're washed all white, pure, wearing his white clothes.

So come by for me, he says. So you can see. And if there's stuff that you need to change, then you can see that.

And then you can change. Those whom I love, I rebuke. The word rebuke is a harsh word.

English is my, I always joke, my third language. Greek is my first, Afrikaans my second, and English my third language. English is my second language.

So when I read the word rebuke, I'm thinking, whoa, that's a scary word. Actually, it's not. You know what rebuke means? It's to identify the problem.

And when you've identified the problem, to convince someone to address the problem, so that they can change for the better. The word rebuke that's used here is the same word that John uses in the book of John when he says the Holy Spirit convicts us of who we are. It's not a rebuke.

Look at you, who you are. It is a conviction. Hey Chad, let's have a chat.

Let's talk about the things that you're struggling with. How do I help you with that so that you change that into the positive?