Attendance at the First Church of the Spitwad

Revelation 3:14-20 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 now 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.

In this church and in your church, there are plenty of those who have not crossed the line of faith. They hang around the services, soaking in the music, the fellowship, and the teaching.  They may be involved in leadership or teaching, serving and leading.  Yet, it has little or no effect on their lives.  They’re living a charade of epic proportions.  They're the Milli Vanilli of evangelical America.  The Lord chooses to define these folks as lukewarm, something that is not energetic or lethargic, not enthusiastic or critical, it’s someone who wants to be around the people of God, but deep inside, wants nothing to do with God Himself.  And as this verse says, after a while the Lord wants nothing to do with them later.  They became spit in his mouth, ready to be ejected as worthless and worthy of dirt.

In this church, in the life of the rich young ruler, and in our churches, often times the reason, is not just the acquisition of wealth, but the attitude that comes with it.  You see, the rich have funding, but they are scared.  The more one possesses, the more one worries about what could become of it.  They say they “need nothing,” but in actuality, they are scared and have little peace about the future. However, they never show fear in public.  They're as cool as a Lake Michigan summer.  You see, the maintenance of a portfolio and a public profile is far more important than a relationship with the Lord.  It's the greatest miscalculation that has ever occurred.  It's like trading a dinner at Morton's for three crispy tacos at a drive-through.

It’s so sad.  As one preacher put it, “The greatest mission field in America is not in the ghetto, but in the pew.”  I would like to modernize that slightly by saying this.  "I'm not sure where the greatest mission field is, but take your pick of any church in your community, and you might not be too far off.  It's not a conservative or liberal problem.  We're all equally greedy.

The Lord’s advice is to shed your desire for wealth accumulation.  Acquire gold from His Word, then you will be rich and whiter than snow.  For these folks, they simply need to trust Jesus Christ with their lives.

In our churches, judge for yourself.  Since we're obsessed with wealth accumulation and retirement security and will justify it to anyone who will listen, what does that tell you about the heart of our churches today?  Many folks, if honest, would rather hear what Dave Ramsey has to say than the words of the Lord Himself. 

Maybe put it this way.  Over the next week, record how many times you check your portfolio versus how deeply you dig into the word of God.  I think you may already know the answer.

You see much of the church today is like an eighty four year old country club golfer. We're inflexible, stubborn, and writing down fives when we really made sevens.

Commit today that your church, beginning with you, will seek the gold of the Lord Jesus Christ.