Am I Lukewarm?
Chapters
0:00:9 What Does It Mean To Be Spiritually Lukewarm
5:22 Buy from Me Gold Refined by Fire
5:50 How To Buy Gold When You'Re Broke
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Pastor John, today we have a question
00:00:06.480 | that we get via email quite often,
00:00:08.480 | and it's a simple question.
00:00:09.940 | What does it mean to be spiritually lukewarm?
00:00:13.480 | - If somebody asked me that, Tony,
00:00:17.200 | the first thing I would say is,
00:00:18.240 | do you mean you want me to say
00:00:20.560 | what your pastor meant last Sunday?
00:00:22.400 | (laughs)
00:00:23.640 | Or what the Bible means,
00:00:25.520 | and I don't know what their pastor said last Sunday,
00:00:27.880 | so all I've got to go on here is the Bible.
00:00:31.280 | And the Bible only uses this word,
00:00:34.240 | I mean the whole Bible,
00:00:35.720 | Septuagint, Hebrew Old Testament,
00:00:38.600 | Greek New Testament, only uses this word one time.
00:00:41.880 | And so I know what they're talking about.
00:00:44.280 | They're talking about Revelation 3, 15, and 16.
00:00:46.520 | So here's what it says.
00:00:48.960 | Jesus says to the Laodicean church,
00:00:51.600 | I know your works.
00:00:53.120 | You are neither cold nor hot.
00:00:56.180 | Would that you were either cold or hot.
00:01:00.200 | So because you are lukewarm,
00:01:03.880 | neither cold nor hot,
00:01:05.360 | I will spit you out of my mouth.
00:01:07.920 | And that is about as scary as it gets, right?
00:01:10.160 | If a Christian says I'm lukewarm,
00:01:13.040 | that means he might spit me out of his mouth.
00:01:15.840 | That means rejection.
00:01:16.800 | So I can see why the question comes up.
00:01:19.980 | Now, I'll give my take on this.
00:01:23.120 | Some people take cold and hot
00:01:28.120 | to refer to both good things.
00:01:32.000 | Cold is good 'cause iced tea is great,
00:01:34.060 | and hot is good 'cause hot coffee is good.
00:01:36.460 | And so I would that you were cold or hot means
00:01:39.580 | I would that you were serviceable for refreshment as cold,
00:01:44.580 | or I would that you were warming as hot.
00:01:47.820 | I doubt, frankly, that's what it means.
00:01:51.640 | There wouldn't be any theological error in that,
00:01:53.820 | I don't think, but I'm inclined to think
00:01:57.220 | that when he says cold, he doesn't mean something positive,
00:02:02.220 | but rather he means utter indifference to the gospel
00:02:07.340 | and to Christ outside the church,
00:02:09.300 | a person who's blatantly rejecting Christ and unbelieving.
00:02:14.300 | And hot are those who are utterly devoted to Christ,
00:02:18.280 | like Paul said in Romans 12, 11, boil.
00:02:20.940 | The word is, he said, be fervent in spirit.
00:02:23.420 | The word is literally boil in spirit.
00:02:26.040 | So Paul wants us and Jesus wants us
00:02:28.860 | to be red hot for God.
00:02:32.640 | But of course, the person would ask me
00:02:34.820 | who has that other interpretation,
00:02:36.820 | well, why in the world would Jesus say,
00:02:39.260 | I would that you were cold?
00:02:41.260 | I mean, why would he say that
00:02:44.740 | if you think cold is unbelieving?
00:02:47.020 | And my answer is, it's Jesus' way of saying,
00:02:51.460 | better to be totally outside the church
00:02:56.220 | and clearly, blatantly, unhypocritically unbelieving
00:03:01.220 | than to be a compromised believer
00:03:06.420 | who puts on all the pretenses of church membership
00:03:10.100 | and religiosity, but inside there is no true commitment
00:03:16.180 | to Christ and no sense of need for Jesus at all.
00:03:20.820 | I have in my mind, 2 Peter 2, where it says,
00:03:26.140 | there are people who've escaped
00:03:28.180 | from the defilements of the world
00:03:29.820 | through the knowledge of the Lord.
00:03:31.860 | Then they become entangled in them again
00:03:34.520 | and their last state is worse for them than the first.
00:03:38.500 | So that's what I think Jesus has in mind.
00:03:40.940 | Better to be a person who's never tasted
00:03:44.780 | of the powers of the kingdom,
00:03:47.140 | then taste them and then play the game of churchiness
00:03:52.140 | and have no true zeal for Jesus
00:03:55.500 | because the last state of that person
00:03:57.700 | is gonna be worse than the first.
00:03:59.180 | Better not to have known.
00:04:01.860 | So if you ask me that, well, then what is lukewarm?
00:04:06.860 | Jesus, I think in the text,
00:04:10.140 | points in the next verse to what it means.
00:04:13.340 | It says, you say, you lukewarm people say,
00:04:17.660 | I am rich, I have prospered, I need nothing,
00:04:22.000 | not realizing you are wretched, pitiable, poor,
00:04:27.940 | blind and naked.
00:04:29.860 | So the picture of the lukewarm person
00:04:32.060 | is a person in church who is self-satisfied.
00:04:36.180 | I'm rich, I've prospered, I need nothing,
00:04:40.740 | I've arrived and they're not desperate.
00:04:43.740 | They're not desperate.
00:04:45.540 | They don't have a true view of themselves.
00:04:49.540 | What are they missing?
00:04:51.340 | They're missing the last part of that verse,
00:04:53.700 | not realizing you are wretched, pitiable, poor,
00:04:58.700 | blind, naked.
00:05:00.580 | So this is a group of people whose spiritual condition
00:05:04.340 | is in terrible shape and they don't know it.
00:05:08.220 | They think they're just fine.
00:05:11.220 | And that is what will be spit out of Jesus' mouth.
00:05:14.780 | They're hypocrites, they're not true Christians.
00:05:18.580 | And what they need to do, according to the next verse is,
00:05:23.220 | buy from me gold, refined by fire,
00:05:27.180 | so that you can be rich.
00:05:29.660 | Buy from me white garments so that you can be clothed
00:05:34.140 | and buy from me salve to anoint your eyes
00:05:38.220 | so that you can see.
00:05:39.340 | And here's the paradox.
00:05:41.100 | He just said to them, they are poor.
00:05:43.300 | They can't buy anything.
00:05:45.260 | I remember preaching a sermon on this years and years ago.
00:05:49.820 | I think I entitled it, How to Buy Gold When You're Broke.
00:05:52.380 | And the answer is, faith.
00:05:54.780 | This is a picture of a wretched, pitiable, poor,
00:06:01.220 | blind, naked person waking up and saying,
00:06:05.580 | by God, I'm naked.
00:06:08.620 | I'm blind, I don't know anything.
00:06:10.860 | I don't have anything.
00:06:12.180 | I'm utterly wretched.
00:06:14.620 | And then flying to Jesus, who has free gold
00:06:18.940 | and free garments and free salve for their eyes.
00:06:22.620 | And he'll give it to them and they go wake up.
00:06:24.820 | And the effect of that is that it produces warmth
00:06:29.420 | towards Jesus.
00:06:30.340 | It produces the boiling of our spirit of gratitude
00:06:34.500 | and trust.
00:06:36.900 | So that's my take on what it means to be lukewarm.
00:06:40.260 | Lukewarm does not mean true Christians
00:06:44.820 | don't have seasons of languishing.
00:06:48.140 | Doesn't mean that.
00:06:49.540 | It means true saints don't settle in with mediocrity
00:06:54.540 | and say, I'm rich, I'm prospered.
00:06:59.500 | I need nothing.
00:07:01.260 | I'll just do this religious thing
00:07:03.100 | and I'll just be just fine.
00:07:04.500 | No, no, no.
00:07:05.340 | A true Christian has an ongoing sense that in himself,
00:07:09.380 | wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, naked,
00:07:11.660 | and ever turning to Jesus for gold
00:07:15.660 | and for clothing and for salve for our eyes.
00:07:21.500 | - Thank you, Pastor John.
00:07:24.140 | And thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:07:26.340 | At deservinggod.org, you'll find the sermon mentioned here.
00:07:29.380 | How to buy gold when you're broke,
00:07:31.580 | which was preached on January 2nd, 1983.
00:07:34.700 | And there you can find thousands of other free books,
00:07:36.940 | articles, sermons, and other resources
00:07:38.340 | from John Piper's 32 plus years of ministry.
00:07:41.540 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:07:42.420 | Thanks for listening.
00:07:43.460 | (upbeat music)
00:07:46.060 | (upbeat music)
00:07:48.660 | [BLANK_AUDIO]