Crazy Love Chapter 5: Serving Leftovers to a Holy God

Chapter 5: Serving Leftovers to a Holy God

Chan follows up the last chapter of giving the profile of the lukewarm Christian by describing ways we try to make ourselves feel good and about ourselves and make excuses for why we give to God what we do. He starts the chapter by saying it was the hardest one to write and for me probably one of the harder ones to stomach, but one that contains so much good information that needed to be heard. Chan argues that the term "Lukewarm Christian" is an oxymoron. That it has no meaning behind it because if you are lukewarm, you are not a Christian. In Revelation 3, Jesus is talking to the church in Laodicea and he says "because you are lukewarm...I am going to spit you out of my mouth." Those are definitely some strong words, and it is quite obvious that Jesus does not want us to be living a life in which we are not all in for him.

Going into a little more depth with this passage, a colleague of mine shed some light on a possible interpretation of what it may mean. He took a trip to Turkey this past summer and was able to see the area of where the church was in which Jesus was talking about in the Revelation passage. Here is the whole passage before I go into detail:

"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 our 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 cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see." (Revelation 3:15-18)

Once again, these are some pretty strong words! My colleague who went there, said the verses had new meaning when he went and saw where the city was and the area around it. He said there are 3 towns very close to each other, all within sight of one another if you looked to the right direction. The towns back then were able to get water from a source and for some reason one of the towns had water that was hot, one town had water that was cold and Laodicea had water that was lukewarm.  They have found records of the "hot" and "cold" towns being strong in their faith and their church was thriving, but the same could not be said for Laodicea. They wanted to trust in their own knowledge and possessions and do things their own way. So Jesus was using an object lesson like he has so many times throughout the gospels to get through to the people by describing circumstances that everyone in the area would understand. So if you have struggled with that passage before, maybe this sheds some light on it.

Christians can be good at toeing the line and seeing how far they can go by asking questions to see if their actions will affect their salvation and we make excuses for doing or not doing something. We may wonder how to obey some of the laws set in place today or ones that Jesus commanded us from the Bible. A verse that I have said many times in my life because of participating in Cadets now has a new meaning, looking back to it. John 14:15 says "If you love me, you will keep my commands." We must first love God and then obey, not the other way around. We cannot obey his commands thinking we will be able to go to heaven just by following his rules. We need to love God and develop a relationship with him.

Obviously this is a statement easier said then done. And although the term "lukewarm Christian" probably is an oxymoron, we are not perfect and will always have some characteristics of being lukewarm and not all in for Jesus all the time. So what are some things that can be done? While reading this book, the church I have been attending is going through the Beatitudes from the book of Matthew chapter 5. Right after I read this chapter, the pastor preached on the verse "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will inherit the kingdom of heaven." I don't think I ever totally understood that verse fully until only recently. The poor in spirit are ones who empty themselves of all the stuff we fill our lives with. Think of having all the objects and material possessions we like to surround ourselves with in a box. If we start taking all of those things out, the box is then empty and able to hold something else. The same goes for us, only when we get rid of or not let these possessions make up who we are are we able to have ourselves be empty and able to be filled with the Spirit. But before we are able to be filled we must also be able to admit that we mess up. We should not be boasting about characteristics we have or trying to make ourselves look good. Admitting we have done wrong by filling our lives with worthless things and recognizing we are nothing without Jesus will provide the room for him to come in and begin the relationship we so desperately need. The poor in Spirit know they are not able to do anything on their own. In the book, Chan quotes Tim Kizzar who stated "Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter." That statement forces you to evaluate how you are filling up your time and energy and what things should be taken out in order to empty yourself and become poor in spirit.

In summary, the cure to being lukewarm is not to just go and start trying harder, it is about letting Jesus into our lives. When we try to do more, we may fall into the trap of trying to earn our salvation by doing good works, and that is obviously not the way we earn our salvation. If you read further in Revelation 3, Jesus says that he is "standing at the door and knocking." Jesus wants to begin a relationship with you to help start making changes. You just need to open the door and and begin forming that relationship.


The following video is part of one of Chan's sermons about the topic of this post.
Francis Chan: Lukewarm and Loving It