(upbeat music) - Pastor John, today we have a question that we get via email quite often, and it's a simple question. What does it mean to be spiritually lukewarm? - If somebody asked me that, Tony, the first thing I would say is, do you mean you want me to say what your pastor meant last Sunday?

(laughs) Or what the Bible means, and I don't know what their pastor said last Sunday, so all I've got to go on here is the Bible. And the Bible only uses this word, I mean the whole Bible, Septuagint, Hebrew Old Testament, Greek New Testament, only uses this word one time.

And so I know what they're talking about. They're talking about Revelation 3, 15, and 16. So here's what it says. Jesus says to the Laodicean church, I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth.

And that is about as scary as it gets, right? If a Christian says I'm lukewarm, that means he might spit me out of his mouth. That means rejection. So I can see why the question comes up. Now, I'll give my take on this. Some people take cold and hot to refer to both good things.

Cold is good 'cause iced tea is great, and hot is good 'cause hot coffee is good. And so I would that you were cold or hot means I would that you were serviceable for refreshment as cold, or I would that you were warming as hot. I doubt, frankly, that's what it means.

There wouldn't be any theological error in that, I don't think, but I'm inclined to think that when he says cold, he doesn't mean something positive, but rather he means utter indifference to the gospel and to Christ outside the church, a person who's blatantly rejecting Christ and unbelieving. And hot are those who are utterly devoted to Christ, like Paul said in Romans 12, 11, boil.

The word is, he said, be fervent in spirit. The word is literally boil in spirit. So Paul wants us and Jesus wants us to be red hot for God. But of course, the person would ask me who has that other interpretation, well, why in the world would Jesus say, I would that you were cold?

I mean, why would he say that if you think cold is unbelieving? And my answer is, it's Jesus' way of saying, better to be totally outside the church and clearly, blatantly, unhypocritically unbelieving than to be a compromised believer who puts on all the pretenses of church membership and religiosity, but inside there is no true commitment to Christ and no sense of need for Jesus at all.

I have in my mind, 2 Peter 2, where it says, there are people who've escaped from the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord. Then they become entangled in them again and their last state is worse for them than the first. So that's what I think Jesus has in mind.

Better to be a person who's never tasted of the powers of the kingdom, then taste them and then play the game of churchiness and have no true zeal for Jesus because the last state of that person is gonna be worse than the first. Better not to have known. So if you ask me that, well, then what is lukewarm?

Jesus, I think in the text, points in the next verse to what it means. It says, you say, you lukewarm people say, I am rich, I have prospered, I need nothing, not realizing you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. So the picture of the lukewarm person is a person in church who is self-satisfied.

I'm rich, I've prospered, I need nothing, I've arrived and they're not desperate. They're not desperate. They don't have a true view of themselves. What are they missing? They're missing the last part of that verse, not realizing you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, naked. So this is a group of people whose spiritual condition is in terrible shape and they don't know it.

They think they're just fine. And that is what will be spit out of Jesus' mouth. They're hypocrites, they're not true Christians. And what they need to do, according to the next verse is, buy from me gold, refined by fire, so that you can be rich. Buy from me white garments so that you can be clothed and buy from me salve to anoint your eyes so that you can see.

And here's the paradox. He just said to them, they are poor. They can't buy anything. I remember preaching a sermon on this years and years ago. I think I entitled it, How to Buy Gold When You're Broke. And the answer is, faith. This is a picture of a wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, naked person waking up and saying, by God, I'm naked.

I'm blind, I don't know anything. I don't have anything. I'm utterly wretched. And then flying to Jesus, who has free gold and free garments and free salve for their eyes. And he'll give it to them and they go wake up. And the effect of that is that it produces warmth towards Jesus.

It produces the boiling of our spirit of gratitude and trust. So that's my take on what it means to be lukewarm. Lukewarm does not mean true Christians don't have seasons of languishing. Doesn't mean that. It means true saints don't settle in with mediocrity and say, I'm rich, I'm prospered.

I need nothing. I'll just do this religious thing and I'll just be just fine. No, no, no. A true Christian has an ongoing sense that in himself, wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, naked, and ever turning to Jesus for gold and for clothing and for salve for our eyes. - Thank you, Pastor John.

And thank you for listening to this podcast. At deservinggod.org, you'll find the sermon mentioned here. How to buy gold when you're broke, which was preached on January 2nd, 1983. And there you can find thousands of other free books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper's 32 plus years of ministry.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)