By Russ Johnson
My first sermon was Revelation 3.
I was twenty-one.
Terrified.
And absolutely certain
I had the passage
everyone needed to hear.
That the Jesus —
who ate with sinners
and told stories about fathers
who throw parties for wayward kids —
is also the one who looked at people’s effort
and found it insufficient
and said so.
"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." (Rev 3:15-16)
I preached that passage as a warning.
And I watched people
leave that service
more afraid than when they arrived.
Which I took as a sign
the message had landed.
It took me years to realize
I had the whole thing wrong.
Laodicea was a city
Jesus knew well.
And one thing everyone in that city knew
was their water supply.
An aqueduct ran five miles south
from hot mineral springs.
By the time the water reached the city
it was neither hot nor cold.
It was tepid.
Lukewarm.
That's the image Jesus reached for.
Water you spit out
not because it isn’t desired
but because it’s become lifeless.
Which changes the whole reading
of what Jesus says next.
"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.”
(vs 17-18)
That's not a description
of people who stopped trying hard enough.
That's a description of people
who tried to be self-sufficient.
And rather than dismissing them
Jesus offers three things
drawn from the city they lived in.
The gold refined in fire —
Laodicea was a wealthy banking center.
Famous for its financial strength.
Jesus looks at their source of pride
and says:
the wealth you've been trusting
was never real.
What I offer isn't added to what you have.
It burns away what was never true
to reveal what actually holds.
The white clothes —
Laodicea was famous
for its black wool textile industry.
Their garments were known
throughout the region.
Jesus looks at what they were producing
and says:
you've been covering yourself
with what you manufacture.
What I offer addresses the nakedness
underneath everything
you've been wearing.
The salve —
Laodicea was famous
for the eye medicine they made
for everyone else.
Jesus looks at them and says:
you can't see yourselves clearly.
Only I can give you that.
What they were trusting
was the problem.
What Jesus offers
replaces the source.
Not just the symptom.
They had become the Pharisee
in the temple thanking God
he wasn't like other people. (Luke 18)
This is the sin disease
underneath the behavior.
Not laziness.
Not insufficient zeal.
Self-sufficiency.
And the Laodiceans had believed it.
Not dramatically.
Not all at once.
Slowly.
The way stagnant water
doesn't announce itself.
Which explains why Jesus said, "Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline." (vs 19)
The word discipline —Paideuō
means correction.
Not punishment.
It’s the loving correction of a parent
toward a child who has wandered
into a way of living
that was slowly killing them.
"Be earnest and repent,” Jesus says.
Which is not pursue better behavior
with more intensity.
Repent means: change your mind
about what you’re trusting.
Here's where the fear usually arrives.
If lukewarm gets you rejected,
then what happens to the people
who don't get cold or hot enough?
Self-sufficiency is its own hell.
We've all felt it.
That version of yourself
you're trying hard to achieve,
that forever demands and never delivers.
Convinced you have enough.
Working hard to protect it.
Not because you're broken.
Because you're striving to get life
from something that has nothing to give.
That's the hell blindness creates.
When Jesus spoke about hell
he used the word Gehenna.
Not a theological construct.
Not a cosmic torture chamber.
A literal garbage dump outside Jerusalem.
Smoking constantly.
And when you let Scripture mean
what it actually says
something unexpected emerges.
The fire isn't a threat
from an eager arsonist.
It's a picture of what happens
when love that won't quit
meets a life still clinging
to what was never real.
1 John 4:16 says “God is love.”
1 John 4:18 says:
“perfect love drives out fear,
because fear
has to do with punishment.”
Seeing this,
we finally see why Malachi says:
God is "like a refiner's fire." (Mal 3:2)
Not because he's dangerous.
Because his love purifies.
Burns away what's false
to reveal what actually holds.
(Deut 4:24; Zech 13:9)
Which is what Jesus was revealing when he said some enter "eternal punishment," others "eternal life." (Matt 25:46)
The word eternal
refers to a kind of life with God.
Jesus was constantly pulling
that understanding into the present —
the hear and now.
The word punishment.
Jesus had a word for destruction: timōria.
It means retribution.
Punishment as an end in itself.
But he didn't use it.
He used kolasis.
The word a gardener uses
when he's cutting something back
so it can grow.
Which means Matthew 25 is saying
some enter a time of correction.
Not condemnation.
That's a different God
than most of us were handed.
His justice isn't payback.
It's restoration.
Not settling scores.
Light meeting darkness.
The wounded meeting the Healer.
(Romans 2:4; John 3:19-21)
God has already reconciled "the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them." (2 Cor 5:19)
So what's left to judge isn't people.
It's the lies that keep people from reality.
Jesus said it plainly.
"God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already." (John 3:17-18)
Already.
Not condemned by God.
Condemned by the darkness
they were already living in
because of their unwillingness
to trust God.
Think of it this way.
Someone is trapped in a cave.
No light.
No way out.
A rescuer arrives with a torch.
The torch doesn't create the darkness.
It reveals it.
If the person trusts the rescuer
and follows him out —
they experience freedom.
If they refuse —
the rescuer didn't condemn them.
They simply remain
where they already were.
The light came.
What you do with it
is what it reveals about
the voices you are trusting
over Jesus’ voice.
Which is what James meant
when he said “faith without deeds is dead.” (James 2:26)
The Greek doesn't mean false.
It means without expression.
He’s pointing to a faith that has forgotten
what it’s free to do.
That’s the whole meaning
of James’ words in verse 24:
“A person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone."
James isn’t contradicting Jesus.
The word considered he used
is the same word as justified.
And justified carries a dual meaning —
before God and before others.
James is focused on the latter.
Your neighbor who is hungry
isn't interested in your theology.
They're interested in food.
The Laodiceans had the theology.
They just stopped letting it move
through them
into the world around them.
That's a stagnation problem.
The water stopped moving
and became what standing water
always becomes.
Which is exactly
what Jesus was pointing at.
"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." (Rev 3:20)
He knocks not to gain permission
but to wake us up.
And through the crack in the door,
you can almost hear him smile:
Open up.
I'm not here to save you from me.
I'm here to save you from the lies
that are keeping you
form the life I gave you.
So lose the door.
I brought food.