Grantsdale Community Church
2026-09-27-Laodicea: Neither Hot nor Cold
  • › INTRODUCTION
    Last week I told you that Laodicea was guilty of something a little funnier than Sardis and far more terrifying: It never noticed anything was wrong. Sardis at least had a reputation to protect.
    Laodicea had a bank, a medical school, and a thriving clothing industry. They looked over the whole portfolio, and told the risen Christ, “We’re fine.”
    As I was preparing this message I realized something a little bit terrifying. Almost every cup of coffee I’ve ever been handed at a church potluck has been the exact temperature of this letter.
    Not hot. Not iced cold. Somewhere in that tragic middle where you take one sip, glance around the room, and quietly calculate whether it would be rude to water the Fig tree with it.
    That’s very nearly what Jesus says to Laodicea, and it’s one of the most misread passage in all of Scripture. You’ve likely heard it explained this way: hot means on fire for God, cold means far from God, and lukewarm means a halfway Christian.
    Jesus would rather have you openly cold than quietly lukewarm. It preaches well. It just isn’t quite what the text says. So this morning we’ll do what I always do: let the passage interpret itself, with help from the rest of the Bible.
    Laodicea is the seventh and final letter, the last stop on Jesus’s circuit through Asia Minor, and it carries a distinction none of the others do. Smyrna and Philadelphia received no rebuke.
    Laodicea is the only church of the seven that receives no commendation at all. Jesus goes looking for something kind to say and comes back empty-handed. And you’ll notice Jesus doesn’t follow the “If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all” philosophy.

    THE AMEN WHO SEES THE TRUTH

    The letter opens the way each one does, with Jesus introducing Himself, and He picks the title that fits this church best.
    Revelation 3:14–15 CSB
    14 “Write to the angel of the church in Laodicea: Thus says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the originator of God’s creation: 15 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot.
    The Hebrew word “amen” comes from the Hebrew root verb “aman.” Amen is the word we say when we mean “so be it,” “truly,” or “it is true.” The Hebrew verb for truth “emet” shares the same root.
    The roughly 25 times Jesus uses the phrase “Truly, truly, I say to you,” the word translated truly is amen. Amen is an interjection associated with the words for truth and dependability.
    This is the only place in the NT where it becomes someone’s title. In 2 Corinthians 1:20, Paul says every promise of God finds its “Yes” in Christ, which is why we say “Amen” through Him.
    Jesus is the final word on what is true, and here He speaks as a faithful and true witness, the One who never inflates the numbers. And that matters, because Laodicea’s self-report and Jesus’ report are about to disagree completely.
    Sardis had a reputation. Laodicea had a self-image. Jesus has the facts.
    Notice, too, that He calls Himself the originator of God’s creation. That echoes the letter Paul wrote to Colossae, a town farther up the valley. In Colossians 4:16, Paul told the Colossians to pass it along to the church in Laodicea.
    In Colossians 1:18, Paul says of Christ,
    Colossians 1:18 CSB
    18 He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.
    Laodicea had been handed the memo. They just filed it under “we’re already good,” because the church had quietly given first place to itself.

    THE WATER PROBLEM

    Now verse 16, the one that launched thousands of sermons and one very famous coffee-cup analogy.
    Revelation 3:16 CSB
    16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth.
    To hear this the way Laodicea heard it, you need their geography. Just across the valley was Hierapolis, famous for hot springs where people traveled to soak away their ailments.
    Farther up the valley was Colossae, known for cold, fresh water. Laodicea had no good water of its own. It piped water in through an aqueduct, and many scholars believe that by the time it arrived, it was lukewarm and heavy with minerals.
    Archaeologists have found the stone pipes still caked with the mineral deposits.
    And here is what that does to the usual interpretation. Hot water was medicine. Cold water was refreshment. Both were useful. Lukewarm water was the kind that made you gag.
    So Jesus isn’t ranking their emotional intensity, hot good, cold bad, lukewarm worst. He’s asking whether their lives do anything for anyone. Nobody has ever walked in from a July hayfield and said, “What I need right now is a lukewarm glass of mineral water.”
    A church that neither heals the hurting nor refreshes the weary is a church that nobody can swallow, including its Lord.
    Look at how He starts: “I wish that you were cold or hot.” That isn’t someone hunting for an excuse to be done. That’s longing.
    Jesus would rather work with a church that is honestly healing or honestly refreshing than watch it settle into a temperature where nothing happens.Lukewarmness, at its root, is the sin of never deciding.
    We have a country full of Laodicea churches who drift with whatever is popular in society and doing nothing to heal or refresh their congregation’s souls.
    Elijah stood in front of Israel on Mount Carmel and put it this way:
    1 Kings 18:21 CSB
    21 “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, follow him.” But the people didn’t answer him a word.
    Not a word. They weren’t hot for Baal or cold toward the LORD. They were the room-temperature crowd, and the silence was the sin. That’s why lukewarmness belongs in a series about staying awake.
    It’s what sleep feels like from the inside: comfortable, warm enough, and never quite alert. Nobody dozes off in boiling water, and nobody dozes off in an ice cold bath.
    Lukewarm is the temperature at which people fall asleep in the tub.

    RICH, BLIND, AND NAKED

    If lukewarmness is the symptom, the cause is in the next verse, and it’s the most dangerous sentence a church can say.
    Revelation 3:17–18 CSB
    17 For you say, ‘I’m rich; I have become wealthy and need nothing,’ and you don’t realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I advise you to buy from me gold refined in the fire so that you may be rich, white clothes so that you may be dressed and your shameful nakedness not be exposed, and ointment to spread on your eyes so that you may see.
    I want you to be aware of what Jesus does here. He walks through the three things Laodicea was famous for and turns each one into an X-ray.
    It was a banking center, so He calls them poor.
    It was known for its glossy black wool, so He calls them naked.
    It had a medical school renowned and celebrated for its eye ointment, so He calls them blind. That is a triple-threat roast, delivered to a bank, a clothing store, and an eye clinic in a single paragraph.
    This was a city with pride. When an earthquake flattened it around AD 60, the Roman historian Tacitus reports that Laodicea recovered from its own resources without help from Rome.
    Picture it: the only city in history to tell the Roman Empire, “Keep your money, we’re good.” And the church absorbed the same attitude.
    “I need nothing” is the one sentence that makes prayer pointless. Why ask for anything if you need nothing?
    Amos aimed at exactly this posture.
    Amos 6:1 CSB
    1 Woe to those who are at ease in Zion and to those who feel secure on the hill of Samaria
    You may remember Amos from June. Comfortable, secure, and asleep.
    But the scariest part is the grammar: “you don’t realize.” Laodicea wasn’t lying to Jesus. They sincerely believed what they were saying.
    Proverbs describes how that works.
    Proverbs 14:12 CSB
    12 There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death.
    If Laodicea had a review page, it would have given itself five stars and been the only one surprised by the comments. Yet there is mercy tucked inside the roast.
    Jesus doesn’t say, “you’re finished.” He says, “Buy from Me.” The banking city is told to shop in a marketplace that runs on a different currency, and Isaiah announced that economy centuries earlier.
    Isaiah 55:1 CSB
    1 “Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the water; and you without silver, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without silver and without cost!
    Same lesson as the oil back in August. You can’t borrow it and you can’t earn it, but you can buy it from the only One who accepts empty pockets.
    Gold refined by fire is faith that has been tested. In 1 Peter 1:7, Peter says that kind of faith is worth more than gold.
    The white clothes are what the faithful few wore in Sardis (Revelation 3:4–5), which is the righteousness that only Christ supplies.
    And the eye salve is the ability to see yourself the way He sees you, the one medicine no Laodicean physician had in stock.

    LOVE THAT RAISES ITS VOICE

    Then comes the verse we tend to skip, because it interrupts the rebuke.
    Revelation 3:19 CSB
    19 As many as I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be zealous and repent.
    This is the same Jesus who just threatened to spit them out, and He says “I love.” Discipline isn’t the opposite of love. It’s evidence of it.
    Solomon told his son the same thing.
    Proverbs 3:11–12 CSB
    11 Do not despise the Lord’s instruction, my son, and do not loathe his discipline; 12 for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.
    Nobody corrects a stranger’s kid in the grocery store out of love. The people who tell you there’s spinach in your teeth are the ones who want you walking into the meeting looking good.
    Jesus’ sharpest words in this letter are aimed at the people He plans to have dinner with.
    Notice the cure: “be zealous.” The Greek word for “hot” in verse 15 comes from a root meaning to boil, and Paul uses that same root when he writes to the Romans.
    Romans 12:11 CSB
    11 Do not lack diligence in zeal; be fervent in the Spirit; serve the Lord.
    “Fervent” is literally “boiling.” The cure for lukewarm isn’t a personality transplant or a louder worship band. It’s repentance, turning back toward Him and letting the Spirit turn up the heat.

    THE KNOCK ON THE CHURCH DOOR

    Now the verse most of us learned as an invitation to unbelievers.
    Revelation 3:20 CSB
    20 See! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
    There’s a famous nineteenth-century painting of this verse, Christ holding a lantern at an overgrown door with no handle on the outside. It has pointed a lot of people to Christ, and I’m grateful for it.
    But look at who the letter is addressed to. This is a church. Jesus is standing outside His own church, knocking on the door.
    Just picture the scene “Christ is outside banging on the door. And someone’s up front saying, please remain seated for the announcements.”
    We’ve heard this knock before. In Luke 12, Jesus describes servants waiting up, and the whole point is the door.
    Luke 12:36 CSB
    36 You are to be like people waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet so that when he comes and knocks, they can open the door for him at once.
    You may remember that from the Faithful Servant sermon. But, the astonishing part comes next in Luke 12:37:
    Luke 12:37 CSB
    37 Blessed will be those servants the master finds alert when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will get ready, have them recline at the table, then come and serve them.
    You see, the servants who are awake get served by the Master Himself, who dresses for service, seats them at the table, and waits on them. Same door, same knock, same dinner.
    The Song of Songs adds a sadder note.
    Song of Solomon 5:2 CSB
    2 I was sleeping, but my heart was awake. A sound! My love was knocking! Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my perfect one.
    A sleeper with an awake heart is the knock doing its work. But she hesitates.
    Song of Solomon 5:3–4 CSB
    3 I have taken off my clothing. How can I put it back on? I have washed my feet. How can I get them dirty? 4 My love thrust his hand through the opening, and my feelings were stirred for him.
    Song of Solomon 5:5–6 CSB
    5 I rose to open for my love. My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh on the handles of the bolt. 6 I opened to my love, but my love had turned and gone away. My heart sank because he had left. I sought him, but did not find him. I called him, but he did not answer.
    She’s already settled in for the night, and by the time she opens the door, her beloved has gone. Read next to Revelation 3, it’s a warning about treating a knock as optional.
    We’ve watched a door shut this year, on five virgins with empty flasks.
    But in this letter, the door is still open and the knock is still sounding. And I want you to recognize what He is knocking for? It’s not a résumé. It’s to have dinner. “I will come in to him and eat with him.”
    A church called wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked receives an invitation to supper. That’s the whole gospel in one paragraph.

    A THRONE FOR THE ONE WHO CONQUERS

    I also want you to notice, He says, “if anyone.” He addresses a whole church, but answers to each individual person, one door at a time.
    Revelation 3:21–22 CSB
    21 “To the one who conquers I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.”
    Laodicea thought it already sat on a throne of its own making: rich, secure, and in need of nothing. Jesus offers something better, a seat on His throne. And He conquered by way of the cross, not comfort.
    Paul says the same to Timothy.
    2 Timothy 2:12 CSB
    12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us;
    This is the highest promise in all seven letters, and it goes to the church with the worst report card.
    That’s grace.
    Jesus doesn’t save His best offers for the Philadelphias of the world. He makes them to Laodiceas, as well.
    › CONCLUSION
    So what are we supposed to do with a letter like this? Sardis asked whether there was a pulse. Laodicea asks something harder:
    Would we even know if there was a pulse?
    First, ask for His diagnosis instead of our own. Our self-assessments are the least reliable instruments in the building.
    David prayed what Laodicea never did.
    Psalm 139:23–24 CSB
    23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.
    We must be comfortable praying like David, and doing so often.
    Second, buy from Him, and do it daily. The gold, the garments, and the eye salve aren’t one-time purchases.
    The poorest buyer in the room is welcome at that counter as long as he keeps coming.
    Third, open the door. Not someday, not after things calm down, not after the holidays.
    Whatever He’s knocking about, whether it’s a habit, a grudge, a prayer life gone cold, or a calling we keep sleeping through.
    Get up and open the door immediately. The hardest sin to repent of is the one we don’t know we have, and the most loving thing Jesus can do is tell us.
    That’s what this whole letter is: an attempt to keep Laodicea, not to be rid of them. He told them the worst truth of their lives and then pulled up a chair at the dinner table.
    Next week we trade Jesus’s letters for an alarm clock. Paul’s cosmic wake-up call in Ephesians 5:14 and Romans 13:11–14. It’s titled “Wake Up, O Sleeper,” and after two weeks of diagnosis, we’ll hear the apostle’s voice shout the cure.
    Until then, let’s check our temperature. Not the one in our church directory or on our résumé, but the one only Jesus reads. And if we hear a knock, get up and open the door. Because, dinner is waiting.

      • Revelation 3:14–15ESV

      • Colossians 1:18ESV

      • Revelation 3:16ESV

      • 1 Kings 18:21ESV

      • Revelation 3:17–18ESV

      • Amos 6:1ESV

      • Proverbs 14:12ESV

      • Isaiah 55:1ESV

      • Revelation 3:19ESV

      • Proverbs 3:11–12ESV

      • Romans 12:11ESV

      • Revelation 3:20ESV

      • Luke 12:36ESV

      • Luke 12:37ESV

      • Song of Solomon 5:2ESV

      • Song of Solomon 5:3–4ESV

      • Song of Solomon 5:5–6ESV

      • Revelation 3:21–22ESV

      • 2 Timothy 2:12ESV

      • Psalm 139:23–24ESV

Grantsdale Community Church
bklapwyk@grantsdaleccmt.org
4063666883
https://grantsdaleccmt.org/
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