Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Letter to the Church in Laodicea

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

Every single thing Jesus has to say to the church of Laodicea is scathingly negative. The city of Laodicea was a medical center—there was a famous medical school there, and they produced a lot of medicines. Jesus essentially says the church in Laodicea is spiritually sick, and that he has the medicine for them. And whenever we see Scripture diagnosing a spiritual condition, we must always ask, “Is this true of me?” Let’s look at this spiritual condition under three headings: 1) the symptom, 2) the underlying disease, and 3) the medicines and remedies. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on August 17, 2008. Series: Revelation: Jesus’ Letters to the Church. Scripture: Revelation 3:14-22. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. What would it be like to hear Jesus speak directly to the church today? In the book of Revelation, we're given a rare glimpse of exactly that, Jesus addressing his followers with words of comfort, hope, and calling. Today, Tim Keller explores how these letters to ancient churches invite us to examine our own hearts and receive the healing and renewal Christ offers. Tonight's scripture comes from the Book of Revelation, chapter 3 verses 14. through 22. To the angel of the church in Laodicea, write, these are the words of the amen, the faithful

and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other. So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, I am rich. I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing, but you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire so you can become rich and white clothes to wear so you can cover your shameful nakedness and sav to put on your eyes so you can see. Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am. Here I. am. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him,

and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. This is God's word. Now, during the summer, you've been looking at the letters. of Jesus to the churches in Revelation, at least that's what I've been told. I hope that's true, because I'm going to finish the series, because the seventh of the letters of Jesus Christ to these churches through the Apostle John that we have in the book of Revelation is the letter to the church in Laodicea. Now, if you were here for any other messages, and if you remember any of the messages, you'll remember that in the first six letters,

Jesus was always speaking to churches, and he was saying always something good and bad. He was always affirming some things and criticizing some things. So on the one hand, he was saying, these are some things you're doing good in your church. And then on the other hand, he would say, and these are the things that you're not doing well that have to change. This is the first of the letters in which there's nothing good to be said.

there is nothing affirmed. At no point does Jesus say, you're doing well. Every single thing that Jesus has to say about this church is negative, and as we're going to see soon, scathingly so. Is there any hope for this church? The answer is yeah. However, the church is so sick that Jesus actually puts on a sort of doctor's hat, metaphorically speaking.

Because notice in the middle of the text, he says, you have to get for me, I salve. The city of Laida Cia was a medical center, and there were many doctors there. There was a famous medical school there, and they produced a lot of medicines, including medicines for their eye,

for eye ailments. And what Jesus is essentially doing here is he's saying, you are sick, but I got the medicine for you. So let's take a look and see what the spiritual condition is and what the remedies are that Jesus is prescribing, as it were.

And let's look at it under three headings. The symptom, the underlying disease, and the meds, the medicines, the remedies for the spiritual condition, the symptom, the underlying disease, and the meds. And whenever you look at a passage of scripture that is diagnosing a spiritual situation, a spiritual condition, we must always ask the question, is this true? me and to what degree is this true of me. Okay, first, we're going to move right through the text sort of, you know, consecutively. So the first question is, what is the symptom of this condition? And the symptom is in verse 15 and 16. I know your deeds that you are neither hot nor cold.

Now, that's always kind of inappropriate at the Westside evening service in the summertime because there's nobody here, nobody who's cold. But, you know, you're, you know, you're you're going to have to get beyond the literalness here and understand what he's saying. Lukewarmness, spiritually speaking, neither hot or cold, tepidness is what Jesus is talking about. Now, what is that? What is spiritual lukewarmness? It's contrasted down in verse 19 with a word that's one of the remedies. We'll get to that later. But the remedy that Jesus lays out here is earnestness. See, down in verse 19, he says, you lukewarm people, be earnest. Now, what is that? That's the opposite of lukewarm. And if we understand the word, we'll understand what means to be lukewarm.

What is earnestness? It's the Greek word zealous. Zellus. Our word zealous is the Greek word zealous that's used here, that's translated earnestness. Therefore, a lukewarm Christian is a Christian without zeal for God. So what is that? All right, well, let's think for a second. If you would, by the way, you can all do this now. When I'm so old that if you wanted to do a Greek word study of every place in the New Testament a Greek word was used,

you used to have to go to seminary and buy a book. But now, because of the wonders of the Internet, you too can go home and do this if you knew where to look. and if you would take this word, zealous, and look at every place in the New Testament that it's used, there's something very curious that you will find. That sometimes this Greek word is translated zealous, but most of the time this Greek word is translated jealous. Now, zealous is generally a positive thing because I'm zealous for something committed to it. But jealous is generally a negative thing.

It's envious. it's the green-eyed monster to be jealous, right? And actually, you'll very often find in the New Testament the word is being used negatively. So many places Paul says to the Christians in these various churches, stop being so filled with jealousy and strife and envy. And yet here Jesus Christ says we, this very word that Paul says is so,

negatively, Jesus Christ uses very positively. How can the same word, entail both jealousy, being jealous and being zealous. Here's how. They really are the same thing. Here's why. Think for a minute about what it means to be jealous. When you're jealous, you set your love intensely on someone. Now, if you set your love intensely on your own ego, on yourself, if supremely your glory and your reputation is what you love the most, then you're going to be be constantly jealous of people, you're going to be jealous of people who've got better gifts than you. You'll be jealous of people who are getting better attention, more attention than you.

So if you set your love intensely on yourself, you'll be jealous of people, and that's the bad one. That's the bad thing. That's the thing that Paul's always saying don't envy and strife. That's bad. But if you set your love intensely on someone else, then you become jealous. for that person. Do you understand that? You become jealous for their good, for their growth, for their happiness. What does it mean to be jealous? To be jealous means to set your love on someone with such intensity that there's an explosion of energy on behalf of that person. If you set your love egocentricly on yourself, then envy and jealousy is an explosion of resentment toward anybody who makes you look bad. But if you set your love on someone else intensely, then the jealousy for

that person is an explosion of service on that person's behalf. You do whatever it takes to make that person happy, whatever it takes to further the interest of that person. And here's what Jesus is saying. A lukewarm Christian is not a hypocritical person. Don't think he's talking about hypocrites here. A hypocrite is somebody who says, oh, I'm a Christian, and I'm a moral person, but over here you're cheating on your spouse and over here you're making money on a black market or something like that. No, no, no, we're not talking about that. These are people who believe everything that they should believe. They're doing everything they should do. They're not hypocrites. They're living the lives they ought to live. But the supreme passion of their heart, their love, their highest love, has been set on something. besides Jesus Christ. And as a result, there's no jealousy for God. There's no zeal for God. There's not intimacy and passion and joy and wonder in their faith and in their walk with Him. And that is what Jesus Christ says, two extremely serious negative things about. lukewarmness he says two things that are extremely negative about this condition which by the way of course

is a condition of the average person who says they're a Christian in the world lives in so what does he say about the first negative thing he says is actually so startling that the commentators all wrestle with it notice what he says he says i know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot i wish you were either one or the other so because you are lukewarm neither hot or cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth. He says, I would rather you would be cold or hot than lukewarm. Now, it makes sense if you, for Jesus to say, I'd rather you be hot, because that's zeal. So it makes sense to say, I would rather you would be passionate and hot in your spiritual fervor and keenness and ardor for me. But he actually says, I'd rather you were cold than you

were lukewarm. Now, what does that mean? What does that mean? Generally, to be spiritual cold, you know, means that not believe at all. And people really wrestle with this thing. Why would Jesus Christ say, it doesn't make any sense that he would actually say that it'd be better to be spiritually cold than to be lukewarm. But, you know, if you've been in ministry for a long time, as some of us have, you know exactly what he's talking about.

The commentators may not know, but I do, I think, and a lot of ministers do. I remember when Kathy and I first moved to Virginia, and we tried to start to reach out to the youth in the neighborhood. There were really two kinds of youth in our neighborhood in a little town in Virginia. The first were people, there were kids who just thought Christianity was stupid. They thought it wasn't true. They thought it was a crock. They were cold.

And then he had all kinds of kids, especially in a small town of Virginia, who had been raised in various churches all their lives. Now, who would you rather minister to? What kind of teenager would you rather reach out to if you're trying to bring people, bring teenagers into connection with Jesus Christ and who he is and what He'd done? I'll tell you, it's the ones who didn't believe at all. You could talk with them. You could level with them.

You could speak with them. And if they actually came to believe, there was zeal. There was intimacy. There was wonder. There was passion. And there was joy. But when you talk to the kids who were raised in the churches for so long, if you question their Christian beliefs, they would be very offended. If you question their behavior, they would be offended. They said, I'm following all the rules.

And yet in the Bible studies, rather than actually attending to what you were talking about, they would snigger and they would tell jokes and they would laugh, would take the whole thing lightly, and it was clear they were blind to the beauty and wonder of the gospel. What Jesus Christ is saying is that lukewarm people who are not electrified by the fact that Jesus Christ loves them. They're not changed by it. They believe it. They know it. But it's not the controlling principle of their lives. Leukwarm people are further from being hot and jealous for God than cold people. Cold people are one step closer because all they've got to do is understand it.

and they see the implications. But lukewarm people believe it and don't see the implications and are impervious to it and are offended if you talk to them about it. So the first thing Jesus Christ says, it's better to be cold than to be lukewarm, which is scary. But the other thing he says about it is the most negative thing he could possibly say. If Jesus Christ had said to this church, my wrath is upon you, I want you to know that would have been really bad. Whenever Jesus Christ says, my wrath is upon you, take it from me. it's bad. It's a bad thing. But Jesus actually doesn't say I'm angry. When he looks at unzealous Christians,

Christians without fervor, without ardor, without joy, without wonder in their walk, he doesn't say I'm angry at you. He says, you turn my stomach, you make me vomit, you gag me, you gnauziate me. You nauseate me. That is something. personal and visceral. And in a sense, because he's speaking to Christians, it's far more appropriate than to say, my wrath is upon you. You nauseate me. You turn my stomach, and that's what Jesus Christ is saying to Christians who are lukewarm. Why is he being so serious? What is so important about this? Well, let's move on then. That's the symptom, lukewarmness. But what is it a symptom of? What is the underlying disease. Well, we find that when we move on into verses 17 and 18. However, before we

understand the irony of what Jesus is saying there, we've got to have a little bit of background. Laidaeia. The city of Laidaeia, we know a lot about it, a whole lot. We know three things that are germane to us tonight. One is it was a textile center. Clothes were made there, black wool with terrific glossiness, by the way. It's a great. quite a fascinating. There were a lot of sheep in the vicinity that had black wool, and the weavers were able to take that and make it into some really terrific clothing. So it was a textile center, a clothing center. Secondly, it was a financial center. It was so wealthy that when it was devastated by an earthquake in 60 AD, it didn't need to ask Rome for any help, which was

unheard of. You see, all the wealth was in Rome, and so if there was an earthquake or a flood or any kind of disaster. You had to have Rome to come and save you, but not Laidaecia. They didn't need Rome's help. They said, we can save ourselves. We can rebuild our own town, and they did. So it was a textile center. It was a financial center, and of course, as we mentioned, it was a medical center, a place that produced medicines, especially for eye ailments. And that's the reason why, when you understand that, Jesus is being bitterly ironic, I must say, when he says, you think you're well-clothed, rich, and healthy that you can see, when actually you're naked, poor, and blind. Jonah is one of the most widely known stories in the Bible, but it's so much more than a simple

account of a prophet who runs from God and gets swallowed by a great fish. In his book Rediscovering Jonah, Tim Keller uncovers the deeper message of this familiar story, revealing how Jonah's resistance to God exposes our own reluctance to trust and obey him, and how Jonah's experience ultimately points us to Jesus and his saving work on the cross. During the month of May, we'll send you a copy of rediscovering Jonah as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life Life share the transforming love of Christ with more people. So request your copy today at gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. What does it mean in the Bible when it says you're spiritually naked?

Nakedness is a metaphor for guilt and shame. You're a sinner. That you have a record against you. You're liable to punishment. Okay. Spiritual nakedness. Secondly, what is it, what is spiritual poverty? It's impotence. You can't change your condition. You can't deal with your guilt. You can't change your life. You can't make yourself the better person you ought to be. And, of course, what is spiritual blindness. It means, apart from the Holy Spirit, you can't even know that you're guilty or insufficient. Jesus says, in spite of how well-clothed you are, in spite of how rich you are, in spite of how healthy you are, spiritually, before God, actually, you are absolutely naked, absolutely poor, absolutely blind, you need salvation by sheer grace, you know, you're a sinner

before the throne of God, and you need his sheer grace, and there's no other recourse for you. Now, if these are Christians, don't they know that? If you gave them a test on, are you saved by grace or by works, don't you think they give you the right answer? Yeah, because they're Christians. Well, what's he saying? Here's what he's saying. Now listen. He says there's a direct link to being wealthy, to being brilliant, to being accomplished, and to having high achievement. and spiritual lukewarmness. Why? Because when you are really brilliant and when you are accomplished and when you're making a lot of money and when you're at the top of the world, when you are in the world, very accomplished, you may say, I know I'm a sinner saved by grace, but existentially the reality

of it doesn't grip your heart. And as a result, the knowledge that Jesus loves you is not a miracle. It doesn't electrify. It doesn't move you to tears, even to think. about it. Because you say you believe you're a sinner, but you actually don't feel like it at all. And because you don't feel that you're a sinner, you don't actually feel that you're a miracle of grace. And that's the reason why there is an absolute link between being affluent, being accomplished, being brilliant, and being high achievers and spiritual lukewarmness. Now listen, everybody. It's very hard to, very hard, spiritually speaking, to overcome being smart. It's very hard, spiritually speaking, to overcome being well off, being accomplished, being brilliant, very hard.

Are you making any connections here? We are living in Laidaecia. Why? We're in North America. And worse than that, we're in New York City. Look at yourselves. I was talking to a man recently who was struggling with a woman. who was struggling with a place in the book of judges

where one of the great leaders of Israel, Jephthaw, one of the leaders, Judge. Though he was following the biblical God, at one point, he puts his daughter to death, he does a human sacrifice in order to make a vow to God. Now, you know, the cultures around all did believe in human sacrifice, all the pagan cultures around.

They did it all the time to try to get the gods to do things. But the book of Deuteronomy, the Bible says that God detests human sacrifice. And so you read that and you say, how in the world could this man who was a leader in Israel have been so influenced by the cultures around that he brought that thing into, you know, he accommodated the culture and he brought it into his faith? That's terrible. Yeah. When Christians come from the poor parts of the world where the gospel is growing

and the church is growing like wildfire. When they come from the poor parts of the world and they come into our American churches, they're usually too polite to say it, but if you oppress them, here's the things they're going to tell you. They're appalled. You know what? They're appalled by our lukewarmness.

And they know it's directly linked to how comfortable and safe and brilliant and affluent we are. And here's the things that appalled them. Number one, they're appalled by the fact that we hardly pray. We pray so little compared to them. Secondly, they're appalled by how much of the money that we make we spend on ourselves instead of giving away.

Thirdly, they're appalled by the fact that we're afraid to even let people at the office know that we're Christians while they're going to jail and being put to death by identifying with Jesus Christ. We are as accommodated to our culture as Jephthaw was to his. We are struggling with lukewarmness every bit as much as the Laeusians. Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter from Birmingham jail said this. There was a time when the church was very powerful. In the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days, the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion. It was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Small a number, they were big in commitment.

They were too God intoxicated to be intimidated, which is zeal. by their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and the gladiatorial contests things are different now the judgment of god however is upon the church as never before if today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church it will lose its authenticity forfeit the loyalty of millions and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century every day i meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust. Now here's where we are.

There's a lukewarmness about us, especially those of us in affluent societies, that's based on a pride and self-sufficiency that spills out from our accomplishments in the world into our spiritual lives and makes it impossible for us to actually be changed and transformed by the message of the gospel, and that is that the costly love of Jesus Christ is ours.

It's a miracle. It should be the controlling, factor in our life, but it's not. And as a result, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, we are not jealous for God, and to be jealous for someone is to set your love so intensely on him that there's an explosion of energy in his service. And so we don't sacrifice. And we're not changing the world. It's what he was right. So what are we going to do about it? At the end, Dr. Jesus says in verse 18, I counsel, which means I prescribe, and he gives us four things. Let's go through them rather quickly. They're important. The first medicine he prescribed is this. Grasp that salvation is by

grace. Gasp my gracious salvation. Because he says, get from me, from me, white robe, gold that does not fade, and spiritual sight. When he says, get from me, that word from me is very important. because remember when the earthquake, they didn't need anything from anybody else. See there? Jesus Christ says, no, no, no, no, no. From me, you have to get a white robe. What is a white robe in the book of Revelation? It's an acceptable life, cleansed of all sin because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross. It's forgiveness, it's pardon, what's gold, it's status before God. But this is, everybody is looking to clothe your nakedness. because everybody knows that we're not what we ought to be. So we're trying to accomplish things.

That's the reason why we work so hard. That's the reason why we worry about how we look. We worry about our resume. We worry about how much money we're making. And these things all become our garments and our gold. Jesus says, look away from those things. It's destroying you. Those are your real loves.

It's making you look warm. It's keeping you from experiencing my love or giving me yours. 20 years ago, and I don't want to pick on this guy because we all do this. I'm not trying to hold him up as a villain. 20 years ago, there was a major league baseball player, a pitcher, who on the last pitch, I think of the last game of the season, I think it was, gave up a home run, kept his team from getting into the World Series. And after that, his life spiraled down for a number of months, I think a couple of years,

into drugs and alcohol, so one day he killed himself and his wife. And when his friends talked to reporters, they said, well, you know, baseball was his meaning in life. And when he failed as a baseball player, he believed he failed as a person and he lost all his reason for living. And this is just what Jesus is talking about. Baseball was his garment. It was how he was covering his nakedness. it was his gold and Jesus says if accomplishment in sports or accomplishment on Wall Street or whatever if that's your real gold if that's your real garment you're this close from being naked this close

from being poorer anything can change the only garment that you can never lose the only gold that you can never lose is what I give you because it's by grace it's by grace it's by grace all the other garments are by works and you can lose them by works and one commentator said in other words on this verse if you want to do what jesus christ is saying he says get for me of the white robe get from me gold that will never fade you should pray a prayer like this lord my beliefs are incomplete my service is tainted with selfishness my affection for you

is cold my repentance is half-hearted my best deeds compared to your holy standards are unacceptable garments. But Jesus Christ died the death I owed. He lived the life I owed. Welcome me and love me and accept me for his sake. And that's grasping grace. Secondly, unfortunately, Jesus says the second way that you get out of lukewarmness into jealousy and for God and zeal and wonder and passion and joy is through suffering. Because if you look carefully, he says, the gold on I'm going to give you is gold refined by fire. And later on, he says, those who my love, I rebuke, I chasten, I discipline. Now, I wish I didn't have to tell you this. I wish it didn't keep coming up. But over and over again, Jesus says, if you want to get out of lukewarmness into a real love-transformed life,

you're probably going to have to walk through some very difficult times with me at your side. it's a simple fact that people I've seen who are Christians who have incredibly charmed lives are almost all lukewarm thirdly you have to be open to his love one of the most amazing things about this whole passage is that though in the beginning Jesus says you nauseate me you make me vomit you make me gag

when you get down a little further he says and those I love I rebuke I chase and therefore do this and do that What is he saying? You disgust me. You nauseate me. I look at your life and I see nothing good. But that does not change my loving purposes for you. You nauseate me, but I still love you.

You make me vomit. But I am absolutely committed to you. There's grace. And then he says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone will open to me, I will come in and I will eat with him and him with me. Now, you know, in ancient times, to come into someone's home and eat with them, to be invited in,

was to be invited into intimate fellowship and friendship. What is Jesus saying here? You know, evangelists use this all the time to say, bring Jesus' salvation into your life. And, you know, that's okay to use the metaphor that way, but that's not how it's used. This is written to Christians. What is he saying? It's an invitation to bring Jesus' fellowship into your life, and here's what this means. When you sit down to pray, are you seeking fellowship with Jesus?

Are you just trying to get work done? Are you just have things that you're worried about that you've got to tell them about? Things you're trying to get from him. Or do you sit down for half an hour, an hour, whatever, and say, I want to experience your love on my heart. I want it to be flooding the room and me. I want to sense you. I want to feel you. I want to know you.

I want to adore you. you. You know what he's saying here? He says, if you ever turn to me in order to pray like that, you don't have to worry about it happening or not because I'm already after that. I'm already at the door. Are you at the door? I'm already knocking. You don't have to come and knock on my door. Please have fellowship with me. I'm knocking on yours. Grasp his grace, endure difficulty with him at your side, open to his love, seek fellowship in prayer rather than just, you know, getting work done. But Lastly, the most amazing thing he says in all the seven books and all the seven letters, the last thing he says in the letter, I will give you the right to sit with me on my throne.

To sit with me on my throne. Why is Jesus ruling the world? He earned it. We do it in the Apostles' Creed. See? He was crucified, dead and buried. After the third day, he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven.

He sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. Why is he ruling the world? Because he earned it. Well, then why would we be invited to rule the world? Because he earned it. Every single thing that he did, he did for us. What he's saying is, I'm ruling the earth. I have glory.

I have bliss. I have honor. And I want you to have everything I achieved because I achieved it for you. I achieved it for us. Well, how did he do that? Here's how he did it. Do you know why you can get a white robe? Because he was stripped naked on the cross.

Do you know why you can have his spiritual wealth because he was absolutely impoverished? Do you know why you can have sight? Why, you know, you don't have to be blind because, oh, as they were crucifying him, they put a blindfold on him, and they pounded his face and they said, prophesy who hit you. He was stripped so you could be clothed. He was impoverished so you could be rich. He was blinded so you could see. he was jealous for you.

And because he was jealous for you, because he set his love on you intensely, it was an explosion of service on our behalf. But it was a cosmic service, a cosmic energy that changed the world. You know it says in Romans 12, make yourselves a whole living sacrifice to God, which is your reasonable service.

Do you know why it says that? How can you come to grips with someone who gave himself utterly for you without you giving yourself utterly to him. To only go halfway, a quarter way, two-thirds of the way, to not give him your all

is not just an offense to the moral sensibility. It's a crucifixion of the intelligence. It's as stupid as it is wicked. Give yourself holy to him. That's the only reasonable thing to do for someone who gave himself holy for you. Let us pray. Father for giving us this great promise, and we ask that you would help us as we consider what

this promise entails. You coming in, us knowing you, we pray, Father, that you would just help us take up these invitations and listen to these challenges. Help us with your Holy Spirit. We ask you in Jesus. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, you can help others discover this podcast. podcast by rating and reviewing it, and to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller anytime. Visit gospelinlife.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 2008. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017

while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.