Laodicea: The Dangers of Having it All • Beyond The Sermon

Well, hello and welcome to beyond the Sermon, a Bethany podcast, where we have the privilege of digging deeper into our Sunday messages. I'm Tammy Delau, and today I'm joined with Pastor David Baxley and Pastor Steve Musto. So we are finishing up Revelation. It has been 18 weeks, or it will be 18 weeks this Sunday. I've got a lot I want us to do.

I want us to talk about the main what we've taken away from this. I want to talk about specifically the Church of Laodicea. I want to talk about what you talked about last week. So are you guys game for all of this? We've got, like, three directions.

We're going to go in. Well, we have no choice.

I'm glad you guys finally realized that, like. So, yes, we are ready for this. I am. I am driving the bus. Okay, Well, I am ready to jump in because I feel like we have a lot to cover.

Okay. Okay. All right. Sound good? Now I'm nervous.

No, Are you?

All right, let's jump in. Here we go.

So the first thing I want to do is just revisit last week. I know that you were talking specifically to a church that felt powerless. That was the church that Christ was addressing. And I know every week there are people that are like, oh, my goodness, I am the Ephesus guy. I had a precious person from our congregation come up to me on Sunday who, if you know anything of their story, they are feeling powerless on so many fronts.

And so with tears, said I needed to hear that sermon. And even though I am out of control in all of these areas and really out of control control, I serve a God who holds the keys. And so that was so good. I just wanted to encourage you that someone. So that was really good.

Yeah. Power of God's word. It really is encouraging when you realize what the church was going through and how little they had, that they could be such light in a dark place. And we look around the world, we see churches like this Philadelphia type churches all over the world in Congo and other places that really are being humiliated and put down and killed in many, many cases, and yet love Jesus and serve him. So as much as I was encouraged by that, and I was, and hope it encourages you guys for what God is having you do, I felt some deep sadness on Sunday.

And so I'm probably not going to quote you correctly, but you had shared that you had been with 25 pastors recently. I know you were both at a conference with pastors and that many because of the political CL that we're in right now, maybe feel more fear and trepidation about stepping on those landmines than even handling the Word of God. And I know how important handling the Word of God correctly is to the two of you. So to hear that there is that kind of pressure breaks my heart. And so I'd love to hear you guys speak to that a little bit.

Yeah, I think the notion is that God, Jesus will forgive me. I don't know that the people in my church will.

I mean, really. And I'm privileged to be able to serve at Bethany, and I'm grateful for our church that I don't feel the degree of that pressure. I have felt that pressure in other places that I've served. But there are pastors there who feel this sense of if I don't say the right thing, or if I say this without saying it this way, or if I use this word and don't use this word, you know, all those things, I am going to ignite a firestorm that is going to probably end my ministry here. And there's such a fear of that.

And there's more fear of that than there is fear of mishandling God's Word and offending God. And I think there's a piece of this in Revelation, right? This is what we've been talking about where we're more concerned about what Babylon is doing than we are about what Christ's kingdom is doing. And we can't be good leaders if we're going to have that fear. I'm actually grateful.

I mean, having said that, I'm grateful to believing Revelation because it is so politically charged. Week after week after week, it's all about Rome, and Rome is all about Babylon, and Babylon is all about the world we live in. And so going to something that's a little lighter or a little less week to week in your face on this stuff feels a relief to me. And I'm glad I've shared before that it just is taking so much more time to put these messages together, I think for a lot of these reasons. And I'm glad to not have that for a little while.

When you get into a book like Revelation 2, you don't as individuals, until you all of a sudden have to preach this idea. You don't realize how much culture has defined so many things where the Bible does speak to them, but we don't read it through the lens of the Bible and we don't know that. We don't know how much culture's influence and power and that is Hard thing about sitting in Revelation, but I felt the challenge of that in my own life to say, do I think this way because of culture, because of Jesus? Is Jesus the one that told me that's right, is culture told me that's right. And, you know, even out, I think that's that thing you're talking about.

Where is. We have defined so much by the narratives around us. And then we go to the Bible and we sit those on top of the Bible instead of saying the Bible on top of those, to say, you have the first authority and we don't. That's always painful. It's never not painful when we finally see that.

And book like Revelation has a lot more pain points over and over again than other books might have. Right. One of the guys last week said, I think in general, we're seeing things. We're seeing the Bible through the lens of our politics. We're not seeing our politics through the lens of the Bible.

Amen. Yeah. And we've gotten it backwards. So we're reading the Bible according to our own narrative and saying, well, this is why we have to do this, this, and this, because of what this belief system, this ideology tells me it's completely backwards. So how do we not do that?

I mean, I feel sad that you guys feel that way, but if I'm sitting in the congregation, it breaks my heart that you could be more afraid I'm going to react to a political narrative than I am going to react Jesus being represented. Well, shame on me if I'm, you know, if I, if I'm that person. So how do I. But you don't know. Yeah, I mean, my, as much as we feel that weight, I, I, I, I don't.

It, there's not anger in that. There's, it's a sad realization. And that, that. And we don't know where that is happening and if anything. And I think our church has navigated this well with revelation.

You know, we've talked about this already. If it starts the conversations, if I'm willing to be in a community or grow group talking about it, where I've got different ideologies and different viewpoints, but I respect and love that person. I'm willing to let them challenge whether mine's biblical or not. And they're allowing me to say, but is that Jesus or is that how you grew up? You know, whatever the narrative is, I think that's how it happens.

Like, it just, I think it's rarely. Steven, I'm sure you can affirm this. Rarely is a Mind ever changed because of a sermon? Minds get changed in the context of relationships and conversations. The sermon starts it, and hopefully we keep working through that with the Holy Spirit meeting us in those communities.

Yeah. Ironically, I almost pulled that from the message Sunday morning, so I thought I'd bring it up today. Yeah, thanks for highlighting it. Yes. But I almost pulled it and I realized what irony there would be because I said, do I really want to.

I really want to have to defend this? Do I want to spend the time to have to defend this and explain it and meet with people about it and answer emails about it or whatever it is? And yeah, some of that is happening. It is. Okay.

But ultimately there's a. And the answer is, yes, I do want to do that. Okay. I do want to do that because that is part of preaching the Word. And so I don't ever want to say anything that I can't defend.

And that's totally defensible. Well, thank you for being brave and saying it. So I was definitely saddened and challenged. I want to know if I am reacting in outrage anywhere. I want it to be about God's word not being handled correctly, not that my ways are not being applauded, whatever those ways are.

So it was good. So train next. Ready for the next bus stop. Guys, we have been doing this for 18 weeks, and I know we've all learned a ton. So first of all, were you excited about doing revelation?

Were you scared when we jumped into it? Where were you guys? Yes, I think I was really excited from a scholarship point of view. Okay. And I knew that it had power if we didn't mess it up.

I knew it could have impact on our church if we didn't mess it up. But, oh, yeah, I was scared. I mean, I really went into it with God. You've got to. You've got to lead this.

If we start doing stuff with it and pushing an agenda or pushing something, it's going to get out of control real, real quick. So, yeah, there was a lot of fear, but I'm so glad we did it. It was so, so wonderful for me and for my relationship with Christ, but also for our church. Yeah, I've said it before, but I just think summary is something that I have because of the triggers that often come out of it would have avoided. And I think one of the reasons we were excited because, I don't know, we felt empowered with the way we have been able, with the education we got around this.

That helped us. I think part of the excitement was we want them to just to see what we've been able to see. And there's freedom. I feel like just there's a freedom in revelation, whereas often people feel captive to avoiding this book or in the middle of the book. I feel like there's.

There's been a freedom brought that hopefully brings new life to the whole Word of God for people. In that same way, I think we also got a chance to wrestle through disagreeing with each other. Yeah. And that it's okay that not everybody agrees with me. My mom listens to all my sermons.

She doesn't agree with me on some of this stuff. And she just says, this is very different than what I learned. And I don't think I buy it. So, okay, that's fine. And we need to be okay.

Being able to say we can be of two different minds on many different topics and love each other and be in community together and all those things that we talk about. There are very few topics that we absolutely have to be toe the line on this about in order for us to be in community together. But Jesus return and pre Trib, post Trib, all that stuff is not one of those issues. I think I was really challenged when I think you said something along the lines of, a lot of ink has been written about something that doesn't have very much ink, God's word. And it's like, wow, have we wasted time trying to figure out those things?

You know, so that was really challenging. I know for me, I've been around the block enough times that I was a little bit afraid just knowing that this book seems to evoke fear or, you know, kind of want to put your head in the sand. And so I am loving the verse from Revelation 1, that verse 3, Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed is the one who hears the words of this prophecy. I feel blessed this time. And I don't know that I would have used that verb before.

I think just wanted to get through it. It just felt. It just felt beautiful. And so because I have friends that have been around for years, it's been really fun to connect and say, wow, it doesn't feel as scary and to rethink some of those things. And so, yeah, it's been really good for me.

So thank you guys for doing the hard work. I know I've seen you both in your offices. Study has been intense and I appreciate that. So I think people should not be afraid of Revelation. In fact, it should be, obviously, we should be blessed.

And so if we're not being blessed. We need to figure out why. I hope we revisit it, too. I mean, I hope people go back and read it without any fear. All right, so you are going to be in the seventh letter.

Okay, seventh one. Seventh letter. And so I'm going to go ahead and read that, if that's okay with you guys. It's Laodicea. And that's Revelations 3, 14:22.

Write the angel of the church and Laodicea. Thus says the Amen. The faithful and true witness, the originator of God's creation. I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot.

So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I'm going to vomit you out of my mouth. For you say I'm rich, I've become wealthy and need nothing. And you don't realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined in the fire so that you may be rich. White clothes so that you may be dressed and your shameful nakedness not be exposed.

And ointment to spread on your eyes so that you may see as many as I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be zealous and repent. See, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me. To the one who conquers, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.

Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches so we get to see Jesus being the Amen and the faithful and true and the originator of God's creation. I remember the first time I. I realized Jesus was the originator of God's creation. That was interesting to me. I don't know who. I wonder.

Don't know what I thought so, but didn't think it was Jesus. What does that mean? Talk to me. About what? That just knowing that we have the Trinity and even though it's one God in three persons, that the person of the Trinity being the Son, was the.

The orchestrator, the. The one doing the work. Kind of. I don't. I guess I. I don't know what I thought.

So I'm right theologically, right, Guys, like I'm saying that. Or am I not? Yeah. No, I'm asking because a lot of people have read this verse and have believed that what John is trying to say Here is that Jesus was the first creation of God. Oh, which is not true.

Not what I was thinking. Jesus is not a created being. Ok. Jesus is God in human flesh. And that's the point that he's making. That he was.

And you know, John says as much in John chapter one. He was in the beginning. And he was in the beginning that he was with the Father. Jesus was not a later addition to Team Trinity. All things were made by him and through him.

Yes. Without him, nothing has been made. That's been made. That's right. Which.

That is encouraging because if you've got the person who was the designer of whatever it is, if then you feel safe. And so that is encouraging. So when you're looking at this church, everything looks like they're doing great, yet they don't even get an affirmation. So that's kind of a problem. Yeah.

And then they get a rebuke and they're told that they really are poor. So if we are trying to apply this to us, what are some signs that a church is successful outwardly because that's what they're looking like, but inwardly they're really unhealthy, they're really dysfunctional. So what does that look like for us today? Yeah, that's an important one because we so judge on the outward appearance. And of course, God is not about that at all and judges only on what is going on inside.

And so here we have this church that is wealthy. I mean, they are literally wealthy. They are in many ways the opposite of Philadelphia. So what is it that they're doing? We don't have any indication that they're doing good works.

We don't have any. Which is Philadelphia is doing. We don't have any indication that they're holding on to the truth, which is what Philadelphia is doing. We have an indication that they have a lot of money, that they have enough to meet their own needs, but that's all they have. And they have lost touch with Jesus.

And so in some ways, very similar to the Ephesian church and what happened with them. But I think anytime you see a church, we've been around long enough to see churches who are extremely successful outwardly, who they never stop growing, they never stop building. Everybody. Have you heard so and so preach? Oh, it's amazing.

But. But okay, but what's really happening? What's the fruit from that? Is it just people being attracted to a thing, to a show, to whatever it is? Or are you.

One indication would be, are you doing good things in your community? So if you're doing things in your community and are you changing community, it's the old question. If your church disappeared tomorrow, would anybody in your community feel it? Would they care about, would missionaries around the world care? Would they go, what are we going to do?

Bethany's gone. That's a test for me. And that would be one indication, another indication. Are they preaching God's word? Are we seeing the fullness of God's word preached?

Or is it the same note being plucked every single week on the same thing? It's like, well, he's doing that again and talking about this again and every time I come and he talk about the same thing. Those are kind of indications that there's something happening that is more about a show than it is about the inside. But there are, there are others. Yeah, I think as you, you know, I like this interesting of inside to outside because I think you can again look good on the outside by actually doing community things.

Oh sure, yeah, you can look really good. That's good. And like you have a social justice, you know, narrative. And so people like, look how they help the poor, look how they do things. But, but internally inside the church or strife internally inside the church, people aren't growing their knowledge of God, they're growing in their time spent, you know, at a food pantry and, or in their self righteousness.

Yes, that's. Yeah, that's exactly. Because I look at all these things I'm doing, look at all these things, you know, and I almost think of the words that, you know, the, the heart behind. But do I love God? Do, like, do I, do I, do I love who he is and is he allowed to change my life?

And so that's the transformation, I guess is a word I think of with that. But I think that' you know, you look at someone's been at that church, you know, 20 years. That's one things I would look at. How are they different than they were 20 years ago? You know, like, do you see the same, same 20 people getting baptized every three years?

Or like, are those people part of new people getting baptized because their lives are changing and then now these new lives are learning and growing and changing. So I don't know, like, it just, I both are there and I think that's the hard part because I, it's easy to do one of the things really well and then, and then think I must be alive. Yeah. And I ignore the other things and I must be doing well, you know, like, because I could ignore the other ones and, and if there's anything that these letters, I think, have shown us is that it's easy to be deceived by one thing, looking really good and. And ignore the things that we know maybe aren't as good, but we just cling to this.

And then Jesus says, I get it. But I think that's. All of us are wrestling with that, I think, in our own Christian lives. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. You know, it's hard to run the organizational side of a church. It's very difficult. And at some point, you have to put structure in place. We have to have structure.

We have to follow the laws of this land and where we are and the laws of Wisconsin. We have to do all those things and a human right, rights and civil rights and all those things we have to follow. We have to document things and do all kinds of paperwork. And there's an organizational side to church. I think there are churches that lean so heavily into that you can't tell the difference between them being a corporation or a ministry.

As we talk about this, I wonder if one of the indicators that it's healthier is the fact we're willing to talk about what's not healthy. We're willing to say, hey, God's doing this over here, and this is really good. This is where we're still not doing well, though, you know, like, we know God's challenging us here. We're weak here. We're struggling here.

And I just wonder if you can talk about those both with a vulnerability, if that's a sign that there might be something healthy going, because we're willing to. To hold the good and the bad at the exact same time and let God show us that. That stuff that's. There's a sweetness in that boy. How do you get one of those churches where nobody disagrees with you?

You're saying those are out there.

Sounds pretty good. Sometimes I'm sitting here listening to you guys, and I'm going, I feel more confused than when we started. I still am not 100% sure, because the truth of the matter is we don't know anyone's heart. There is a reliance on the Lord to show us what's really going on, too. So there is.

There's an importance of walking in the spirit in this, I think, and just asking questions. I just think all we do that our group, we ask each other of each other's lives. How are we doing if we're in a community of people together and we never are able to say, hey, is that okay? Something tells me maybe that might Be off. It goes all the way up the whole church, if you can do that one and the next and the next.

I think safety to have those conversations is one of the marks that I think will show us our own health. Yeah. In the case of Laodicea, I think the easiest example is this. If you have $100,000 in a bank account and your $5,000 furnace goes out, how likely are you to drop on your knees and seek God and say, God, this is a big expense. I don't know how we're going to come up with this.

But we depend on you for everything. We depend on you for this furnace. So we submit this to you. We pray, we ask you to meet our needs. No, you write a check.

That's all you do. You don't even think about it. When you lose that part of your life, that part of dependence on God, when we're not asking God what's next. Yeah, you lose so much. And they've lost.

That's what they've lost. Because they are physically wealthy, they don't have to ask anymore, God, what do we do, what direction we go? They just write a check and they may happen. That is a huge, huge loss. So it's easy to see financially, but they're doing that in every aspect.

And when you start doing it with money, you start doing it everywhere. So I'm hanging up on verse 18. I advise you to buy from me gold refined in the fire and close. And so that verse right there, it looks, if I just read it without thinking and knowing what Scripture says, it looks like there's somehow there's something that they can do that they're buying that they can purchase. Is that the obedience thing, what is being said in that verse?

Yeah. Does Jesus sell clothes? No. Does Jesus sell gold? No.

No. Does Jesus sell eye salve and ointments? No. So he's using a metaphor to say, instead of getting what you are getting from the world, get it from me. So they're buying those things from me.

Yeah, they're just buying security for themselves instead of. So those things represent security. Yeah. Instead of buying, instead of investing in heavenly things. Yeah, I like that word, Steve.

As you said, if I can pay $5,000 for a furnace without thinking, there's so many other things I can just do for me, and I can still do this thing over here for the kingdom. And it's more coming back how much of what you really are about is me. Yeah. Versus just showing up on that service and writing that check to get that done. Yeah.

As we invest, the more and more of who we are, then we'd receive. He's saying, then you receive this, like things you really want, the things you really need, the things that really bring you comfort, you will actually receive from me, not just now, but for eternity. And so there's this like long term shift of focus, of investing time, money, resources, whatever it is. Well, as we know, it's not about money, it's about what money can do. And sometimes money changes us.

You know, the reality is that we have folks in our world who are. Come from every different side of money. Some have lot, some have very little. Within Bethany, you're saying. Oh, within Bethany.

But just in our neighborhoods, in our lives and our families and you know, and those who know Christ and follow Christ. What you need to see is faithfulness across the board.

I think it's harder to be faithful to Jesus Christ and have a lot of resources. And I know enough people who have a lot of resources that it is a challenge to stay connected to Jesus and to be constantly submitting what that is and what that does to your heart, to the Lord and to his work. Okay. And I agree with you. So I want to, I think something though, just to put this out there, because I think this is important.

There's something else that's been happening in our culture, I think though, that instead of relying on God when we don't have, there's a cultural narrative of blaming people that have and I. And our hearts aren't being turned to God. Yeah. Our hearts are being turned to blaming others. Look at all the.

And I come back to the powerless narrative is, look, I am powerless. And then we attack those who we think have power instead of sitting with the one who has the keys. And in the absence of that, and I think those two opposing those two, it's not the poor. It's easy to find Jesus. As much as we see sometimes that narrative in the Old Testament.

I think the culture has created such a war in this that both are struggling to see Jesus as that hope. And so there's different trip ups at each end, whether there's poverty or there's wealth. Yeah, but it comes from the same place. That's right. Yeah.

I'm just not content with what I have. That's right. And if God says, I want you to have less than this person, that makes us mad. I don't want that. So I'm mad at that person for getting something different than what I got.

But we don't. It's not just money. We do this with everything. We do this with children. We do this with relationships.

Relationships. And somebody's married and we want to be. We do this with where someone lives in the country or the house they live in. Their job's fun. Their marriages.

You know, your marriage isn't like my marriage. You know, all of those things. We do this with and we play this game, and instead of looking to Christ. Well, I think, guys, I'm sad to close the chapter of this. This, but it is.

It is time. So. It is time. Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Thank you, guys, and thank you for joining us. Have a great week. Bye. Bye.