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A Meal With Jesus

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December 28, 2025
Revelation 3:14-22
Josh Bremerman
Pastor for Discipleship

Prayer

Joy in God

Worship

Transcript

0:18Would You pray with me? Look, and I pray that you would work in us by your spirit this morning so that we have ears to hear that we have hearts to receive this warning from you. But I pray more than fear from this warning. We're trembling from this morning. We would awaken by your power at work in us to the delight and joy and fullness of life that you offer to us in relationship with your son. So I pray that you would move on us so that we love him and that in and through that love we would be full of joy. So I pray that you would do that in Christ's name for his glory we pray. Amen. I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing.

1:10Those three statements in Revelation three 14 through 22 are sort of accurate summary of what our society is after today. Our society is a searching society and the message of our day is this, if we consume more, if we attain more, if we get more, then we will find satisfaction. I'm rich, I've prospered and I need nothing. So we're bombarded with messages that we are just one step away or one item away or one job change away or one move away from a life full of satisfaction. And this message speaks to us on innately, in innately human level. We want satisfaction, we want rest. We want to need nothing.

1:58So that's what our society's built on. If I optimize my time to perfection through calendar, blocking through the right books, if I join the right social groups that are built around my affinities or my hobbies, if I maintain my physical health and my mental health well into my nineties while also maximizing my 401k and my IRA by the time I hit 65, then then I will be satisfied. My restless heart can rest and I can enjoy the rest of life. I'm rich, I've prospered. I need nothing. So in our text this morning, revelation three 14 through 22, Jesus comes to the church in od Deia with a stern but gracious, gracious message, He is as verse 14, introduces him the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation.

2:52And we know this is Jesus because he's the sender of the other letters. In Revelation two and three, he's also introduced as the faithful and true in Revelation 19. And this self description of him is important. He's the amen, which means that he's the final yes to all of God's purposes and promises and plans. He's the faithful and true one. So he's trustworthy and he's not the first created being as a Jehovah's Witness might knock on your door and tell you, but he's instead the inauguration of the new creation, the firstborn from the dead so that we might also be new creations. And so this, Jesus has a trustworthy warning and word that's intended to bring newness of life to the church in od Deia.

3:42And this is the warning. They have sought satisfaction in all the wrong places, but he has a better way. They think that what they have right now is what they need. But Jesus is saying wake up. And so Jesus's solution to a world that's striving after satisfaction, the same world we live in today, 2000 years later, Jesus's solution is this, to reframe their hearts to value the supremely valuable. And that's my hope for us this morning is that our hearts as we look at this text, will be reframed to value the supremely valuable. So what we'll put an end to all of our striving put simply it's communion with Jesus, fellowship with Jesus, sitting and eating with Jesus.

4:37And so that's the message for the church in Laodicea. Open the door to Jesus and enjoy life with him both now and forever. And that's the message to us today. Bring Jesus in and everything on the outside will get put in the proper place. The message is lasting as verse 22 closes because it's he who has an ear. Let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. It's written to the church in Leo Deia and it's lasting for the churches in Ephesus and Smyrna and the north church in Mounds view Minnesota 2000 years later. So Revelation three 14 through 22 is meant to push back against the noise of our world At our house when our four children are moving around and they're doing all the things kids should, which are making noise, uh, opening presents, playing, laughing sometimes doing other things.

5:34Uh, we need to regain their attention. And we can't just do it by saying, okay, come over here, do this, do that. We have to get their focus. So the way do we do that in our house is we say, eyes on me. And the response should be eyes on you. I think other families have their own way of doing this. If the Pattersons are watching from Iowa, I believe they're familiar with the sound of a certain bell. And Revelation three is an eyes on me moment from Jesus. He wants to call us away from striving after satisfaction and he wants to call us into life with him. So we're gonna look at this verse, the these verses first by looking at Revelation three, verse 20, which is Jesus's invitation to fellowship.

6:20And then we're gonna circle back to verses 15 through 17 to consider obstacles to that fellowship Followed by verses 18 and 19 where Jesus' paving the way for fellowship with him. And then we'll close with verse 21, which is the final end or goal or tell us of fellowship with Christ. So we're gonna look at every verse just a little bit out of order so that we can really see and feel and appreciate Jesus's invitation to us in verse 20. So invitation in verse 20, obstacles in verses 15 through 17, paving the way for fellowship in verses 18 to 19 and then the final end for fellowship in verse 21.

7:01So let's begin by looking down at Revelation three, verse 20. Jesus says, behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with me. So this verse, it teaches us a profound truth about the life of prayer. A prayer is not as I sometimes think of it, calling up Jesus on the phone unexpectedly. Prayer is not interrupting the other things that he has going on during the day. Prayer is answering his knock at our door. He prompts us by his spirit. He initiates conversation to us through his word in the Bible and he wants us to respond to his gracious initiative.

7:57Every time we pray, we are entering into a conversation that's already happening. Prayer is picking up the phone, prayer is opening up the letter and responding back. Prayer is as our text says, answering the knock. And so in the midst of all this noise in our world, all these options we have for striving after satisfaction, for all the things we could write down as goals for 2026 and beyond, we have a reminder in this text that Jesus, the king sitting on the throne of the universe wants to eat with us. He wants to sit and linger after the meal's over. He wants to commune with us in rich fellowship.

8:45So fellowship with Jesus is not fundamentally something that we contrive or work up or make happen by our own strategies. Yes, there are all sorts of strategies and plans that we could put in place to help us in a life of prayer. But prayer is fundamentally fellowship with the Lord. Think of the feeling when a friend reaches out to catch up over lunch, right? Or think about when a spouse surprises the other spouse with surprise date plans. Think about the feeling when a beloved mentor suggests, let's catch up. Let's sit down over coffee. I want to hear about life's joys, life's sorrows. That is what Jesus is offering.

9:27Jesus wants us to enjoy him. Jesus wants us to find our satisfaction in and with him. Jesus wants us to see him and live to experience the fullness of life in him. That's what's on offer in Revelation three, verse 20, don't we want that? And to be clear, this letter's written to the church, the people of God in La De. So this text isn't fundamentally a conversion text. This text is about ongoing discipleship that after we come to the Lord Jesus in faith, we would grow in fellowship with him, that we would love him and enjoy him more and more. And yet, for those of us who are here and we don't know the Lord Jesus, the first step is responding to his initial call for salvation by faith.

10:24So when we Christians pray, we pray in Jesus's name. And that what that means is that we can approach the Father in heaven with boldness and confidence and assurance because when he looks at us, he sees his son by faith in his blood applied to us by substitutionary sacrifice on the cross, we can enter in and enjoy God. We come into the throne room of the heavens and God says, you're welcome here, I wanna be with you. And so that initial response of faith then leads us into this ever deepening relationship with God in Revelation three, verse 20. So communing with fellowship with Jesus is what we were made for in the Bible.

11:12It's not really shy about connecting our joy to prayer. So I wanna survey some of those verses for us. In John 16, verse 24, Jesus says this, ask and you will receive that your joy may be full. And Jesus is saying that it's not bad to seek out your own joy in prayer. In fact, our joy is one of the reasons we should be praying. Ask that your joy may be full. And Jesus has designed it this way because God knows that we are seeking after rest, we're seeking after joy. And because it accords with his ultimate designs for the universe. John 1413, Jesus explained earlier, whatever you ask in my name, this I will do that.

12:01The father may be glorified in the Son. And so I went to Bible college, which means I'm not a math major, but I want to do prayer, math. That's what I'm qualified for. So when we pray, we acknowledge our need for help, we add in God delivering in our time of need. And what we get on the other side of the equal sign is His glory and our joy. We pray God delivers his glory, our joy. That's prayer, math as Psalm 50 verse 15 says, call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you and you shall glorify me. So our joy is not at odds with the glory of God. And that is good news. God is most glorified in us when we seek our joy in him through prayer.

12:59Our father in heaven, as Matthew seven says, loves to give good gifts to his children. And it isn't just about the gift of the deliverance or the freedom from troubles, it's about enjoying God's goodness and grace and mercy and help in our time of need. It's about enjoying him as Luke 1113 clarifies, the Father loves to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him and ever deepening ever growing relationship with him. And so ask, open the door to Jesus and enjoy life with him in 2026. Let's make time for prayer. Let's pray on the morning. In in in our cars. Let's pray. When we have the radio off and the podcasts are put away and we say we don't need to hear any more voices, we need to be with our Lord Jesus.

13:54Tune out the noise and pray men, let's pray with our wives before we go to bed. Pray with our families at the dinner table with our children before they go to bed. Let's pray with roommates and small groups and Sunday school classes and pray, pray, pray. Jesus is at the door knocking. So why wait? Let's be a praying people who opens the door to Jesus and enjoys life with him. So that's the message of our text. But before we continue, I don't want to take this verse out of context before we just make Jesus sort of a buddy who's desperate to spend time with us. He's knocking on the door, he is like, please, please let me in.

14:35Prayer is still done on his terms. This is the same Jesus with flaming eyes in Revelation chapter one. This is the same Jesus with a sword of judgment in Revelation 19, which makes the truth of his offer of fellowship so much richer. I think we can be reminded of James four verse three which says, you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your own passions. So Jesus wants fellowship with us. In fact, he initiates the offer for fellowship with him, but our prayer is still to be done on his terms. I think Psalm 37 4 does a really good job of summarizing this. It says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

15:22And so those desires of our hearts that he wants to grant to us, they need to be shaped by our delighting in him. Our delighting shapes our desires. And then the Lord grants those desires because they are according to his will. We being sinful often don't desire communion with God for the right reasons, which is why Jesus is so helpfully confronting the people in Laodicea and us in verses 15 to 17. So let's read those verses. Let's go back up to verse 15 and read those verses. Jesus says, I know your works. You weren't neither hot or cold nor hot wood that you were either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth for you say, I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing.

16:19Not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. So I want us to follow Jesus' logic in this condemnation of the lay decedents. He starts out by saying that he knows their works. So he's looking at what they do and then he's making a value judgment. You are lukewarm. And that lukewarmness he says, is going to result in judgment, the spitting out of this church from his mouth. And so what, what exactly does it mean that they are lukewarm? He's judging their works and he's saying you are lukewarm. Some interpreters have understood this as a diagnosis of spiritual temperature.

17:01And so in that understanding, what would be better is to either love Jesus with passion or hate him that apathy is the worst option. But the thing is, Jesus is writing to the church in Leo Deia. And our God does not want believers in him to become haters of him. He doesn't want apathy, but he also doesn't want, Hey, it would be better if you hated me. And so I think he's probably not talking about spiritual temperature with this imagery. In fact, he's probably talking about a measure of usefulness. Uh, two towns nearby to Decia. One was Colossae which had cold water from its springs. Cold water would be useful for drinking for uh, sustaining of life.

17:50Opolis on the other side, the springs there would've had hot water, which is useful for medicine and bathing. And so what Jesus is saying is nobody has a use for lukewarm water. Nobody wants to take a bath in it, nobody wants to drink it. Nobody is using it for medicine. And so the church at La Desia has lost their usefulness in the world. And one of the reasons we think that is because he's judging their works as Christians, we are called to be salt of the earth, bringing the goodness and grace of God to a lost world. And what Jesus is saying is the church in La Deia has lost its saltiness. He's judging their actions and he's saying that they've lost their saltiness, their usefulness as his followers.

18:37And so Jesus is probably not talking about spiritual temperature with the image of lukewarm water, but if we keep reading, we see that spiritual temperature is at the root of that problem. They're no longer useful because they've become complacent, they've become indifferent, they've become apathetic. They are in their self-satisfaction living like the rest of the world and they don't even see it. And Jesus is coming in and saying, you are actually wretched and pitiable and you're blind to your own problems. So Jesus knows their works and their works reveal calloused hearts. So Jesus is picking up here on the prophetic call of the Old Testament, which stands against complacency.

19:27Asiah one 12 says, at that time, I will search Jerusalem with lamps and I will punish the men who are complacent. Those who say in their hearts, the Lord will not do good nor will he do ill. Or in Amos six verse one, woe to those who are at ease in Zion and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria. So Jesus is coming and he's saying, I know your works. Your works reveal a calloused heart and calloused hearts don't answer the knock at the door. So as I think about this imagery of the door and knocking, I can think of several real life door knocking moments in my own house that reveal at times the state of my own heart.

20:11So our house is pretty old, it doesn't have a doorbell. And so we decided, hey, we'll get one of these wireless doorbell things and that way we can know who's at the door. But then we realize we have sleeping children. So maybe we'll unplug the doorbell that we bought so that we can hear people at the door. And then you know how this works. Sometimes friends or delivery drivers, they'll ring the doorbell. We have no idea because of the happy noise that I mentioned earlier. We can't hear anyone at the door. We're too distracted. I think that reveals something about our hearts when we think about Jesus' knocking at the door, sometimes we are too distracted to answer.

20:52But I think, uh, of another situation, we have this, uh, neighbor boy who lives on one side of our house. He's about our kids' ages and he stops by often. We, we like to laugh that if we don't pull into the driveway quietly, he will beat us to the front door. And at one time, uh, Bailey and I had already made it very, very clear, Hey, the kids cannot play right now. They're not gonna come and play outside. They've gotta do quiet time. We're inside and we hear yet another knock at the door. And so we're sitting on the couch and we say, it's okay. We don't need to answer Like he'll, he'll go away.

21:27But then about three minutes later we hear this really soft knock at the door. I'm like, that doesn't sound like him. So we go and the little neighbor girl on the other side had baked us cookies and we were just leaving there, her there standing outside of our door. I think that reveals our hearts as we think about door knocking and Jesus, yes, sometimes it's that we're too distracted to answer, but sometimes it's too inconvenient or we're just too lazy to get up or we're tired from having answered all of the other door knocks and we decide maybe that door knock isn't worth it. And so North Church, Jesus stands at our door and knocks.

22:11But are we listening? I think this is a serious warning for us because we live in a more rich, prosperous need. Nothing time than at any other point in history. Thomas Jefferson, I love this story. When he was president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson's house was not warm enough to keep the ink from freezing as he was writing letters. And now we take for granted home insulation, central heating, and a warm home during the winter. How easy for us today to be satisfied with our riches? How easy for us today to be complacent in our prosperity, to be taken up by the responsibilities of life and to not hear or not care about the knock at the door?

23:03Which is why I'm really thankful for Jesus' wake up call in the next two verses, revelation three, 18 and 19, he's acknowledged these obstacles in our hearts towards fellowship with him. And he is going to pave a way for rich fellowship with him. If the obstacle is complacency, indifference, apathy, Jesus is going to come in and wake us up from these things. Listen to these verses. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen. And s to anoint your eyes so that you may see those whom I love, I reprove and discipline.

23:49So be zealous and repent. So the way to fellowship in these verses comes in two ways. First, there's a reproof and that reproof is to get better investments by the right things. Second, there's a correction by way of discipline. And the goal is that we would be, the laodecians would be zealous and repent. So first this reproof on our investments. Jesus tells the Ians, don't buy from the world, buy from me. And Jesus is using metaphorical language here. So when we think about this gold, it's probably as one Peter one, six and seven teaches a refined faith that is truly valuable and lasting. And we think about white garments.

24:37Revelation 19 refers to those as the righteousness that we can receive by faith through Christ. And then I Sav is probably referring to spiritual illumination that we might see our own spiritual state and value. These sup, these supremely valuable. So what Jesus is saying is come and buy those things from me. But he's being ironic. We can't buy a refined faith. We can't buy righteousness that covers our shame. We can't buy spiritual illumination. We can't earn these things. We can't put Jesus in a spot where he owes us these things. Instead, Jesus is picking up on the language from Isaiah 55 verses one and two, listen to these verses come everyone who thirsts come to the waters and he who has no money, come buy and eat.

25:33Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. Those words in Isaiah are a great summary of what Jesus is offering in Revelation three, delight and goodness. It's all there and it's all free. Come and buy it without any money. We can stop the striving, we can stop the chasing after perfection, satisfaction and rest is all there. Richness of life in faith. It's all there joy in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all there.

26:16Which is why this is such a wake up call for our complacent hearts. He's standing at the door and knocking. He's offering rich communion and fellowship And we fill our space with scrolling on our phones. It's all there. Jesus wants to sit with us and for us to enjoy life with him. And we choose Facebook marketplace. Jesus, the Lord of the universe is offering a meal in his presence. And I scroll through college sports highlights of teams I haven't heard of before this year.

27:02Are we too distracted or too complacent in the things we have going on to stop and answer the door. Jesus is saying, wake up, be zealous. Invest in these things. Hearing from me in the scriptures, responding to me in prayer, this isn't a fringe responsibility that we occasionally get around to once we have faith. This is the life of faith, enjoying Christ, seeing Christ and finding life, enjoying satisfaction in him, treasuring him in all of life as a foundation for the other things we have going on. Don't we want that? And so that's the first way that Jesus paves the way for rich fellowship with him.

27:46The second is through discipline. So let's consider that for a moment. The Lord disciplines the ones he loves. So Jesus is picking up here on the ideas from Proverbs three verses 11 and 12, which says, my son do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof. For the Lord reproves him whom he loves as a father, the son and whom he delights. And so Jesus is saying that he disciplines God's children because he loves them. And that's a good truth for us. Discipline, despite the message of our world, is not harmful for our development when it's done in the right ways. Discipline is an act of love.

28:29Discipline, whether through direct instruction from the Lord as he's doing in Revelation three or indirect through trials as we see in places like Romans five, discipline from God is for our good. Saint Augustine, he was a church minister when Rome fell to the goths and he wrote his magnum opus, the city of God in answer to people's questions about God's goodness in the face of suffering. Is God still good or were the Roman gods better? One of the things that Augustine says is that we need to point ourselves to the eternal purposes of God, that he's working all things together for good. Romans eight, Augustine wrote this when he afflicts me, God, when God afflicts me with adversity, he is either testing my merits or chastising my sins.

29:19And so according to Augustine, discipline comes primarily in those two forms. And I think we have really good examples in our world of these two types of discipline. The first example would be that discipline can be punitive, as he says, the chastising of sins. So a wrong is committed and then a consequence is meted out in line with the wrong to then correct the behavior. Punitive discipline is not retro. Uh, retributive like, uh, I'm punishing you to make myself feel good. No, God is punishing sin so that we might live in righteousness and joy. And so examples would be that sports players can receive fines when they behave in an unsportsmanlike fashion.

30:00Or we might think of college students who are penalized on their grades for turning in papers late. But discipline can also be formative, which is the testing of our merits. So physical trainers, they apply rigorous standards so that their clients can grow in strength or lose weight. Parents teach children to have a work ethic and live with responsibility through things like chores or through enforcing a strict bedtime or at least mostly consistent bedtime. And the Lord Jesus disciplines us in both of these ways. He disciplines us in convicting us of our sin often by allowing us to bear out the natural consequences of our behavior.

30:43He dis he disciplines us also informatively to develop in us through trial, through suffering things like hope and steadfastness and good character that will not put us to shame. And so what are we to do when the discipline of the Lord comes? We ask the Lord from Psalm one 20, uh, 1 39, 23 and 24 to search us and know our hearts and to find out if there be any grievous way in us. And if there is, we repent and we turn from that sin. And if we recognize that this is formative discipline, that this is the Lord's kind and mysterious hand working righteousness and goodness in us through hard things.

31:22We embrace the suffering and the hard path. As James says, with joy, we press into community and we fall on our faces together before our Lord God, asking for mercy and help in these things. Through these things, he is making a way for fellowship with him. The reproof of the Lord, the discipline of the Lord. All of these things are meant to fill us with the desire of Psalm 27. Verse four, one thing have I asked of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple that is the path to true satisfaction, to rest, to contentment, open the door to Jesus and enjoy life with him.

32:11And yes, there are all sorts of things. I'm sure they have popped up through this sermon. There's all sorts of things we need to tend to in life. There's raising children and doing dishes and showing up to work and the day to day mundane. I'm not talking about becoming a monk and living in the desert, but the question in our text this morning is that if we put two things on the scale, what is our danger today being too heavenly minded or being too focused on the things of the earth. The prayer in our text is that we would be so heavenly minded that everything else falls into the proper place, that we would truly live into the reality of Colossians chapter three, that we would set our minds on the things that are above where Christ is and that as we do so, we would put to death what is earthly in us.

33:04We would walk and put on holiness and love the life of satisfaction and rest in Christ brothers and sisters is through hearing from his word and join communion with him through a life of prayer and fellowship, that life becomes the fuel for a life well lived in the other areas and responsibilities that God has called us to. We are to open the door to Jesus and enjoy life with him and then live into everything we have on our plates. And this is, is isn't just a plan for right now. I wanna close with verse 21, which shows us that enjoying communion, enjoying fellowship, relationship with our Lord Jesus is what we were made to do forever.

33:47Listen to these words, the one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne. So conquering language, it shows up often through the Book of Revelation. And what conquering means in this context is persevering to the end in a life of faith and with obedience to the Lord Jesus. A couple of examples, revelation two, seven says to the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. Or consider Revelation 2 26, the one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end to him, I will give authority over the nations.

34:30And so there's this to the end, until the paradise of God that conquering entails it's persevering to the end in faith and in grace, empowered or grace fueled obedience to God. And so returning to Revelation 3 21, Jesus is promising the church in Laia that if they persevere, if they turn from apathy and complacency and indifference, if they instead embrace the rich enjoyment of fellowship with Christ and relationship with him, then they will sit on the th throne on his throne in the heavens. But I want us to notice the promise. We don't just get planets in the new heavens to rule and reign over.

35:11That wouldn't actually be that great. What we get is that we get to sit with him on his throne just as he sits with the Father, the rich fellowship of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for all eternity. Enjoyed and perfection, we get to enter into that forever. Communion with Jesus, fellowship with Jesus. It's not a fringe benefit that helps us get to the end of life. No. It's what we were made for. Jesus wants us to enjoy him, to enter into the fellowship that he has with the Father and the spirit, to find satisfaction and joy forevermore at his right hand, our pleasures. He wants us to enter into the fullness of life with him and he wants it for us now today, and he wants it for us forever.

36:02So we should open the door to Jesus and enjoy life with him, both now and forever more. So I wanna close by opening that door now and prayer together. So let's look to the Lord, father in heaven, would you come now by your spirit to work these truths into our hearts? Pray that you would help us. Would you help me to desire above all else, to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our lives, to gaze upon your beauty, to inquire a view in your temple? Would you clear out all of those obstacles, the things in our heart that are calloused or complacent or indifferent, the things that are all consuming of our time and attention.

36:44Would you clear those things out? Would you use reproof in this word or in other areas of your word? Would you discipline us through trials ultimately for our good? Would you work it all together so that we love you, that you would be the burning center of all of our affections so that we enjoy you? Pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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Sermon Text

Revelation 3:14-22

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