A Challenge Toward Authenticity, Part 1

Just cuz you have in church don't mean Jesus is in the sanctuary. Dr. Tony Evans says the Lord knows when we're not being authentic no matter how together we appear on the outside. You got the look but you don't have the reality.

And the worst part about it is you don't even know it. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. It's pretty easy to spot a Christian who looks the part, but not as easy to spot one who lives the part, a believer who is authentic through and through.

You'll discover how to become that kind of disciple today as Dr. Evans takes us to Revelation 3.14 for today's lesson. I am sure many of you, like myself, have been to Universal Studios, either in Los Angeles or in Orlando, Florida. When the kids were small, that was one of the places we went on vacation. And we got on the People Mover, and there was a tour guide, and the tour guide took us down streets and towns where movies were made at Universal Studios.

Some of the towns were responsible for some of the famous movies, and they told us what movie was filmed there. They then went on to explain to us, as we were going down the People Mover, don't let these buildings fool you. If you look behind them, there is nothing. You're looking at a facade. You're looking at a construction to make you think you're in a city when you're not really in a city, because if you were to open the doors, there's nothing there. Because we know how to build things to give you the impression that there's something real going on here. Like a hamburger that looks well done on the outside, but when you bite it, it's raw on the inside.

It's easy to create a camouflage, to look like something is more real than it ought to be. Our final church to the final body of saints is Laodicea Bible Fellowship. Laodicea was a wealthy city known for three things. Some 45 miles southeast of Philadelphia, our last city and last church, Laodicea was known for its finance industry, its banking industry.

It would be akin to our common-day Wall Street. It was a very wealthy place to live, work, and raise a family. It was also known for its fashion industry. In New York, you would call it the fashion district, where they made fancy clothes that would go out to the retailers to sell to the general public. Not only was it a financial district and a fashion district, but the city of Laodicea was a pharmaceutical district. It was known for its medical industry, particularly when it came to eye diseases.

It was specializing in the salve for the eyes to improve the sight of those struggling with seeing. That is why you will see three areas—finance, fashion, and pharmaceuticals—referred to in Revelation chapter 3, verses 14 to the end of the chapter. Jesus, as He does in each one of these churches, introduces Himself, as He wants you to see Him now, the ruling King and head of the church. And He says in verse 14, to the angel of the church at Laodicea write, the Amen, the faithful and the true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, says this.

So before He gets into what He wants to say, He wants you to know who's doing the talking. He says to the church at Laodicea and our church today, I am the Amen. Amen means so be it. It is so.

That's the way it is. Can't you hear? Amen means the final word on the subject. So when Jesus says, Listen, because the Amen is talking, He's basically saying, I don't care what anybody else said to you. I don't care what other folk told you.

I don't even care what you're telling yourself. I am the Amen. I'm the final word on the subject. I am the faithful and true witness. So I'm gonna give you the testimony.

A witness is a testimony, and whatever I tell you is gonna be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. And you'll see in a moment why he defines himself this way. He says, I am the beginning of the creation of God. Now if you're the beginning of the creation, that means you existed before the creation that you began. So Jesus Christ declares Himself to be the pre-creation, existing prior to creation. That is because He has always existed as the second member of the triune Godhead and the one who's responsible for how history operates. So what He's saying, before He ever gets into what He is saying, is pay close attention, because I know what I'm talking about. I am the Amen.

I am the final testimony and witness, and I am the one who existed prior to you even being here. Having established Himself to the church at Laodicea, He now makes His complaint, His condemnation. He says in verse 15, I know your deeds, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were hot or cold. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. He addresses the problem at Laodicea Bible Fellowship of lukewarmness.

You are lukewarm. Now to understand why He is saying this, you have to understand Laodicea's unique location. On one side of Laodicea, the city, was Aeropolis, which was akin to Hot Springs, Arkansas.

If you've ever been to Hot Springs, Arkansas, you know the heated water that comes up from the earth, the steam that shows up because of the heat, and that water is used for healing and refreshing. Aeropolis was the Hot Springs, Arkansas of the day, and that hot water flowed down to Laodicea. But on the other side of Laodicea was the city of Colossae, where we get the book Colossians, and the cold water came down from the mountains into Laodicea. When the hot water came down from Aeropolis and the cold water came down from Colossae, they met at Laodicea. And when the hot and cold water met, the water now became lukewarm when it reached Laodicea.

So Jesus Christ uses this geographical reality to express a spiritual reality operating at Laodicea Bible Fellowship. He says you are neither hot nor cold. We can appreciate that, because on a hot summer day, you want a cold glass of water. On a hot summer day, you want a cold glass of lemonade. On a hot summer day, you want a cold glass of tea—sweet tea—because you want to be refreshed on a hot summer day. But on a cold summer day, you want a cup of hot chocolate. On a cold summer day, that hot cup of coffee or tea—it warms you up.

In other words, hot and cold are designed to meet a need, to address a situation depending upon the weather. I'm sure you don't go to a restaurant and they ask you, do you want a warm cup of coffee? Do you want a warm glass of tea? You want it hot or cold, because you want it to be refreshing.

Jesus writes this church through its pastor, and he says, you tell them, I know about them. They are neither hot nor hot coffee here. They're not cold. There's no ice in that glass here. They are lukewarm. In other words, they are unacceptable.

I want ice in this glass or heat in this coffee. What I don't want is lukewarmness. He says their lukewarmness—that is, their stagnant spiritual state, their in-between Christian commitment, their mixture that has made them unusable, unspiritual, is unacceptable. How unacceptable is it, Jesus? I want to spew them out of my mouth.

The phrase to spew out of the mouth means to vomit. Jesus says of Laodicea Bible Fellowship, y'all make me sick. And Jesus says, this is the amen talking. This is the one who's not gonna tell you what you want to hear. I'm gonna tell you like it really is.

This is the one with the final witness making the declaration. Because you're neither hot nor cold, I can't do anything with you. Your spiritual condition reflects your geographical location. It is lukewarmness, it is stagnant, and I can't do anything with you. So it's possible to be a church that makes Jesus sick.

So what causes an ineffective, lukewarm church? Dr. Evans will have the answer for us when he returns in just a moment. Stay with us. Despite the continued struggles we've all faced this year, one thing that remains unchanged, and that's God's faithfulness to bring us through any circumstance. To help you remember that faithfulness as you step into the new year, we want to send you the best of Tony Evans 2021, featuring his 20 most popular messages from this past year.

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Let's join him. Here's what Jesus says was the problem. Verse 17, because you say, I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing.

He says, I have a problem with how you view yourself. You say, I am rich, I am self-sufficient, I got it going on, got my job, got my money, got my car, got my house, got my clothes, so my going to church is part of my style. I go to Laodicea Bible Fellowship because that's what all Christians do, but I don't go there because I need Jesus.

I go there to fulfill my religious obligation. You become so successful in your financial district, your fashion district, your pharmaceutical district, that you don't really need me, you just placating me. You don't need me, you just using me.

You don't need me, you just acting and giving the impression that you are close to me, and y'all make me sick. He says to the Laodicea Bible Fellowship that you have allowed—watch this now—the definition of success in the world, to give you the definition of success in the church. You think cuz you got money in your wallet, you think because you buy the nicer clothes, drive the nicer cars, have the nicer job, that somehow God has blessed you. You've been falling into this false theology that if I got stuff, I must be blessed when actually you and your stuff have made me sick, and you make me want to throw up and spew you out of my mouth because you have brought the world into the church instead of letting the church define who you are and how you function in the world. That is the problem with prosperity theology, because what it says is if you got all this stuff, God must be blessing you. If I got a new job, I must be blessed. If I have more money, I must be blessed. If I have a nicer house, I must be blessed.

If I'm driving a nicer car, I must be blessed. When Jesus is saying, it's the very thing that you're calling a blessing that's making me sick because it's made you think you're more than you really are. It's made you think you're all that and a bag of chips. It's made you think because you've got stuff from the world—and what he's saying is you've allowed the world to tell you whether you're successful. You've allowed society to tell you whether you're successful. You've allowed degrees on the wall to tell you if you're successful.

Promotion in the marketplace to tell you whether you're successful. But I'm the amen, and I'm gonna tell you like it is and like it is. You make me wanna throw up. Don't get mad at the preacher. I'm just quoting the verse.

Jesus says, you make me want to spit you out of my mouth. They were measuring the spiritual by the physical. Let me say that again. They were measuring the spiritual by how things look in the physical. I am wealthy. I got this going on, so I must be blessed. The fact is the physical and the more of it you have camouflages the spiritual so that you think the spiritual must be okay, because we got this coating in the physical. And because the coating looks good, the inside must be okay, because if I wasn't close to God, why would I be blessed like this? If I wasn't close to God, why would I have what I have, be where I am, have the education that I have? Why would all this stuff be okay if I wasn't close to God? He says all that stuff is is painting a false portrait.

And we live in a world that knows how to make paint. Boy, it knows how to make the camouflage to make you think you're more than you really are, because if you can hang out with those people, go to those places, buy those things, live in that location, drive this car, I must be a success. And Jesus says to the church, you are an abysmal failure. Second half of verse 17, you do not know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

Not only are you wretched, but I don't care what your bank account looks like, you're poor. He says, I don't care where you buy your couture clothes, you're naked. So you see, He's quoting the district, finance, fashion, pharmaceuticals, because what you think you can see, what your expensive glasses on, you're blind.

Jesus says none of what you think about you is real. You're living in a dream world, because I see what's really going on, and what's really going on is you don't know how messed up you are. See, it's bad to be blind. It's worse to be blind and not know you blind. It's bad to be naked, but it's worse to be naked and not know you undressed.

It's bad to be poor, but He says you don't know how poor you are. It's bad to be messed up and you don't know how messed up you are. That's how messed up you are. You're so messed up you don't know how messed up you are. And what's got you messed up is that you've allowed the physical to erase the spiritual.

And so because you don't see things from my perspective, you don't see things correctly. And you didn't let what other folk telling you, oh you something, oh you're successful, oh you accomplished, oh you, and you believe in them and they are not the amen. They are not the faithful witness, and them folk lying to you. The worst thing in the world is to believe folk in your ears who are lying to you and not telling you the truth. God says, I don't play those games.

I'm gonna tell you what I see, and what I see is not good. I see you playing church as lukewarm Christians. Oh, you come in the church, you're part of Leo DeSile Bible Fellowship, but you're playing games. You're not committed to me. You're not dedicated to me. What you're doing is coming to Showtime at the church. You come for the performance of the choir, the performance of the preacher, you come for the environment, but when it comes to your commitment, you're trying to satisfy the public.

You're trying to satisfy the success of Wall Street and every place out there, cuz you got it going on in Leo DeSile. But I'm gonna give you the amen, the so be it, the final word, the conclusion, and what I say is the bottom line. He says, you don't see. You're like a beautiful car on the showroom floor of an automobile dealership with no engine. You got the look, but you don't have the reality.

And the worst part about it is, you don't even know it. Dr. Tony Evans, with some important biblical teaching on being authentic. He'll have more on this topic for us tomorrow as he shows what we can do to rise to that challenge. In the meantime, let me remind you to take advantage of our special year-end package, The Best of Tony Evans 2021, 20 of Tony's most popular messages on CD or digital download, plus your choice of one of three popular and powerful books and devotionals. You can get the details and select your favorite bonus resource at tonyevans.org. This special package is yours as our thank-you gift when you support Tony's work here on radio and television, as well as with pastors, their families, and churches around the world.

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That's 1-800-800-3222. A lot of us go to great lengths to give the impression that everything is okay and we've got it all together. But Dr. Evans says time spent trying to fake it to make it is meaningless when there's no connection with God and eternity. Be sure to join him again tomorrow as he continues our look at a challenge toward authenticity. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative, and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.