Revelation 3:19-22

December 1, 2019

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts at 18:10 in the audio file.

Or, On Not Making Jesus Nauseated

The church of God has often been found in bad shape, but not abandoned. She regularly deserves rebuke, but even the rebuke is a sign of God’s love for her. It’s one thing for a church to think that she doesn’t really need God, it is a much worse thing for God to let a church keep thinking that.

The Laodicean church is infamous for invoking Jesus’ gag-reflex. Their lukewarm, complacent attitude made Him wish that they were almost anything other than what they were. No one has higher standards for a church than Jesus, no one knows better how a church measures up to those standards, and no one offers better news to weaksauce churches than The Amen.

In the first part of Jesus’ message to the church in Laodicea Jesus called out their Middle-Meh and counseled them to buy all the things they thought they already had. They thought they were rich, Jesus said to buy from Him pure gold. They thought they had impressive taste in textiles, Jesus said to buy from Him white garments. They thought their optometry department gave them 20/20 vision, Jesus said to buy from Him eye-salve for the soul so that they could truly see.

In verses 19-22 Jesus explains more and gives quite a JustConquer promise.

Love’s Paideia (verse 19)

It’s about time that Jesus really lay into this church, isn’t it? The faithful and true Witness has to be tired of their half-hearted and basket-covered light. They are like an oral suppository, with a taste like sweaty socks in the compost pile. The Laodiceans didn’t even realize that the wealth they had was from Jesus and that He was offering them even greater wealth if they would just depend on Him.

So after the vomit comment we’re ready for the prophetic hammer: I reprove and discipline. The word reprove is confrontation, exposing the problem and bringing a person to see the wrong for himself (BAGD). To reprove a tumor you’d slice open some space to work. Disciplinemay have a punishing vibe, the kind of thing dad might say while he’s taking off his belt for a whooping.

But there are a few things that show this isn’t a humiliating punishment (in addition to the offers in verse 18). Jesus said, “I myself reprove and discipline as many of those whom I am loving.” The target of The Amen’s discipline are His loved ones. He loves the Laodiceans.

And He loves them like family. The verbs reprove and discipline in verse 19 are the same verbs used in the Greek translation of Proverbs 3 (also quoted in full in Hebrews 12:5-6).

My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline

Or be weary of his reproof,

for the LORD reproves him whom he loves,

As a father the son in whom he delights.

(Proverbs 3:11-12)

Jesus is not the Father, though He does refer to God as His Father in verse 21, the third time He’s referred to His Father to the churches (also 2:27, 3:5). He’s not the Father, but He is still family. When He said “those whom I love,” the Greek word is a form of phileo, usually a brotherly-love, a relational love (which is different from agapan in the LXX for Proverbs 3:12). It’s personal to Jesus.

And back to the word discipline, it is the word you’ve heard about, paideia. It is less like spanking and more like schooling. It is all of the educating, enculturating process to get a child (from  παιδίον) to grow into a responsible child-maker himself.

Following in His Father’s footsteps, Jesus personally and lovingly and purposefully doesn’t let the lukewarm be happy lying in the puddles of their lukewarmness. Tepidity isn’t terminal, not for those Jesus loves.

Therefore be zealous and repent. The repent part we’ve heard Him say before (to the Ephesians, the Pergammumites, the Thyatirans, and the S[...]