CaryCOG | Cary Church of God
Pastor Jensen brings us part II of: "A Church Moving Towards Fire"
Revelation 3:18-22 NKJV
I. A Church Moving Towards Fire is Clothed in Holiness (3:18)
a. We find our Lord beseeching the Laodicean church to purchase white robes, doubtless a sign of holiness.
b. Without holiness, we are exposed by the nakedness of shame. Thus, I would like to spend this occasion for us to see the immense gravity of shame and the association of holiness as a remedy to its far reaching grasp.
c. Our awareness of our own nakedness is a constant reminder of our shame. Shame can only be clothed by the holiness imparted by our Lord. We must acknowledge that we are naked, come to Christ who can clothe us and once clothes refuse to shake off the garment of holiness that is the remedy for our shame.
d. For Beloved, if Christ can scorn and overcome shame vis-a-vis the shame of the cross, then we too can overcome the rages of shame by dying with Him and thus being raised with Him.
II. A Church Moving Towards Fire can See Human Depravity (3:18)
a. Second, we find yet another antidote for the lukewarm soul – a healing of vision.
b. Beloved, open your eyes! See your own pain! See the abject poverty without Christ. Know that you are depraved and lost without Him so that you be found when trusting Him. Look at the pain all around you and join this pain through Christian community, and allow the Holy Spirit to open our collective eyes to see where we are, how we got here and where we are going.
c. When we can see ourselves as Paul noted, as having filthy rags, then we can see the glory of Christ as replacing those rags with His garments!
III. A Church Moving Towards Fire Repents and Overcomes (3:19-22)
a. Now we come to the final movement of the Lord’s mincing, but healing words - His rationale for chastening. The motive for His rebuke Beloved, is love. He loves you so much that he correct the course. Know that this warning is a love letter designed to awaken the soul to the love of our Lord! Indeed, the warning today should be one that causes us pure joy if not in the immediate affections in the eventual affections as Job remarks:
b. Second, notice the appropriate response to this correction – repentance. Indeed, one can only repent in the context of new found zeal. It is His word that engenders the zeal and the sorrow over sin that moves us collectively towards repentance.
c. Third, the result of repentance is an open door! Before repentance, we are a distasteful beverage ready to be spewed from the mouth of our Lord. After repentance, He dines with us! So dine Beloved through repentance. Open the door of his endless knock and invite Him to the table!
d. Finally, we have the call to overcome! Overcome the pride, overcome the self-delusion that we in need of nothing, overcome the situating of false wealth for true heavenly wealth, overcome the shame of nakedness and the blindness that the enemy pursues in his attempts to darken our souls. It is imperative that we overcome this Beloved for the benefit of true freedom now and more particularly in the ages to come.
Quote:
It would seem as if her very unworthiness drew out His tenderest compassion and challenged the most magnificent inducements which He could offer her to turn away from her folly and her sin. Instead of denouncing, condemning and commanding, He falls upon His knees at her very door, He knocks at her closed gates, He beseeches her let Him in. He cries with locks wet with the dew of the morning: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.
A. B. Simpson
Hymn Lyrics:
Behold, a stranger’s at the door;
He gently knocks as knocked before.
Has waited long is waiting still:
You treat no other friend so ill.
But will he prove a friend indeed?
He will the very friend you need;
The Man of Nazereth tis He, with garments dyed at Calvary.
O lovey attitude!
He stands with melting heart and laden hands;
O matchless kindness!
And He shows this matchless kindness to His foes.
Rise, touched with gratitude Divine;
Turn out His enemy and thine,
That soul-destroying monster, sin, and let the heavenly Stranger in.
Admit Him 'ere His anger burn;
His feet, departed, ne’er return;
Admit Him, or the hour’s at hand
When at His door denied you’ll stand.
J. Grigg (1765)