Being All In

Revelation 3 and verse 14. I'm going to give a different take on Laodicea today. No, it's not that different. I've heard it before, but we're not going to talk about what we normally do when we go through Laodicea. We're going to talk about something different today. Based on something Jesus said to the Laodiceans, that at first look isn't logical, doesn't make sense. Let's go through it. Revelation 3 and verse 14.

And to the angel of the church of Laodicea write, These things say the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of creation of God. I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish that you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold or hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth, because you say, I am rich, I've become wealthy, and I am in need of nothing.

He's talking spiritually, not physically. Abraham was very wealthy physically, but he did not have the Laodicean attitude. He was not lukewarm. This is a spiritual condition. If we as Christians think that we are in need of nothing, then we do nothing. And we are not serving God or studying our Bibles daily. And we are not praying fervently for the intervention and God's guidance in our lives.

And we become stagnant, and we don't serve others. We work only to fulfill our own desires. But we have a form of Christianity. Oh, we come to church. We appear to be servants of Jesus Christ, but it's all pretend.

At some point, when we stagnate, it just becomes pretend, and that just annoys God. In Jeremiah 3, verse 10, when God was rebuking the nation of Judah, He told them not to be pretenders. Jeremiah 3, verse 10, He says, And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, says the Lord. Oh, we make it look good, but it's not from within. And continuing on now in Revelation chapter 3, and we were reading verse 17.

We'll pick it up halfway through the verse. And do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. So here we are, bopping along, thinking we're great Christians, and Jesus Christ says, You have nothing. You're poor, you're wretched, you're miserable, you're blind, you don't have clothes, representing Godly character, which means you're not really a Christian.

It's a really dangerous state of being, being lukewarm. We don't have any self-examination, so we don't have any way to see the state we really are. That's the danger of being a Laodicean. The danger of being a Laodicean is you can't see it because you don't look, because you have it all. It's really dangerous for a Christian to sink into the lukewarm state of being. They don't look at themselves, and when they think they're doing fine, they're nearly lost. And then he says something that logically doesn't make sense based on what he just told us.

Jesus Christ then says in verse 18, and this is what I want to focus on today, I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire that you may be rich in white garments, that you may be clothed, the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and anoint your eyes that you may have sad, that you may see.

And he goes on with the rest of the warning. Now gold represents godly character also. God's loving nature, and he wants us to buy pure gold. God's pure love and character. So we have a logic problem. How if we're poor, blind, miserable, and we don't even have clothes, we're naked. We don't have anything to buy gold with. So he just told us to buy gold, go out and buy it.

And we don't have anything to buy it with. So all of us are now thinking, well, yeah, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ buys it for us. Okay, hold it. Hit the brakes. Laodiceans are already baptized. Laodiceans have already accepted the grace of God. They're already in the church. They're into the kingdom of God, and they're risking losing it. They've already accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And here, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master, is telling Laodicea, buy gold, and you have nothing to buy it with.

So my question today is, why do you say that? What do we have to pay for the gold with? What do we have to pay for the gold with? We've already accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We're already in the church, and we're in this state of being, if we are, where we're poor. And now we're instructed to go buy something. What do you have when you have nothing?

How do you buy gold? We're not talking about redemption here. We've already been redeemed, and that's impossible. You can't buy salvation. So buying gold, he didn't mean buy your salvation. He meant go acquire the character of God. But he told you to buy it. What is your currency? What do you use if you find yourself, and we're going to look at how to find out if we're there?

Because we all, this is a warning to all people at all times, we all tend to fall this way. What currency are we supposed to use to buy this gold with? And here's the beauty of the statement that Jesus Christ made.

The currency that we use to buy the gold with is the only thing we have left ourselves. That's it. It's the only thing we have. The only thing I can use to give is me. And the only thing you have to give is you. A wholehearted 100% jump into the deep end with both feet commitment. If we're blind and wretched and poor and we're even naked, we couldn't even give him the shirt off of our back. The only thing we have left is me.

That's it. God is looking for a wholehearted commitment, not a halfhearted commitment, which is the problem of the Laodicean attitude. Isn't that brilliant? What our Savior said there? Isn't he amazing? No wonder he outsmarted those Pharisees every time they tried to confront him. He's brilliant in his analogies, and they always work. The Church of Laodicea, there was no growth, no character development. They thought they were good enough, and yet Jesus Christ thought they were wretched.

He tells them to go and buy gold. When you have nothing left, all you have to give is yourself. That is the point that he's making in chapter 3 to the Laodiceans. You have to be all in. That's what we're going to talk about today. It's a wholehearted commitment to God and His way of life, all in, both feet.

It's an easy condition to fall into. How do you know if you, or even we collectively, have fallen into Laodicea? We hear this a lot, and we see the pointing of the fingers. We have the different churches that have come out of our former association. There is a lot of talk, a lot of talk of how the other guys are Laodicea. We're faithful. Just before in Revelation 3, it talks about the faithful church, the Philadelphia church, that church that will be with Jesus Christ at His return. Then there's Laodicea. Jesus Christ is about to vomit them out of their mouth.

I read articles online from different groups, and I see how they compare, and they say, I don't know if this prophecy is just for the Philadelphia group, or if it's for everybody at the end time. Sort of drawing a comparison between the two. That is so dangerous! That is so close to being comfortable with where we're at.

And when you get comfortable with yourself and where you're at, you stop self-examination. You stop looking at where you need to go, who you need to be. You stop being wholehearted, and you fall into this lukewarm state of being, this Laodicean state of being. I believe that the Church of God is experiencing a Laodicean era, I do. But I do not believe that it belongs in any corporate group at all.

I believe it is a spiritual condition prophesied to exist at the time of the end, and I'm giving this sermon to you today so that you can look in the mirror, and I can look in the mirror, and we can be wholeheartedly faithful to God. How do you know if you have a lukewarm attitude? Because the problem and the reason it's so dangerous is it's almost impossible to see. Almost.

But there is a way. There is a way to diagnose whether or not you have the Laodicean bug. By goal, to commit yourself completely. This idea comes from the Old Testament. Every law in the Old Testament pointed to the salvation that Jesus Christ was to deliver to us in the future. When someone was poor in the Old Testament, and they didn't have anything, and they had to pay back a debt, the way they paid back the debt was they would sell themselves into slavery. They would be wholly committed to paying back that debt. Everything they did was to pay back the debt.

Nothing that they did was to build up their own wealth. They were all in. Interesting analogy. Exodus 21, verse 2. Notice, Exodus 21, verse 2, if you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years, and the seventh year shall go out free and pay nothing. His debt is paid.

You can only have this debt for a small period of time, which is very encouraging. Luke, warm condition will not last. It will go one way or the other. Let's make sure it goes the right way, but it will not last. Then notice in Leviticus chapter 25, verses 38 through 40, Leviticus 25, verse 38, I am the Lord your God. That's the word Yahweh, meaning eternal one or self-existent one. I am the self-existent God, he says, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God. And if one of your brethren who dwells among you becomes poor and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a slave.

As a hired servant and a sojourner, he shall be with you, and he shall serve until the year of Jubilee. So if a Jubilee year comes up, you have to let him go and let the debt go. And what that shows is that God is on our side 100%. Jesus Christ tells us to buy gold. We've accepted his sacrifice. We know we can't earn salvation. That's not the point here. The point is we're not doing the job we promised to do after we were baptized. And we fall into this lukewarm, I'm okay, everybody else has a problem, kind of an attitude. And when we think I'm okay and everybody else has a problem, we're not looking at ourselves, and we don't go anywhere. So God says you have to be all in, but there's a release at the end. There is a Jubilee at the end when everything will be paid.

Don't worry, you're going to make it through. That's the whole point. Even in the law, when God is handing down the law, he's telling you you're going to make it. God's purpose for the statement of buy gold is not to say that you will have a hard life after you accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Like a slave, he's saying to be totally wholehearted and committed on our part, and that's what's required to make it to the final destination. That's what's required on our part to make it to the final destination. Jesus Christ is giving us a stern warning in Revelation chapter 3 about the Laodicean attitude, but he's also offering hope at the same time. He gives us a bit of a chewing out, but he shows us kindness as well. So it's not more than we can bear. It's just something we have to do. Take a farmer, for example. If a farmer goes out, plows half a field, does nothing else but plow half of a field, is he going to grow any crops? No, obviously not.

He has to plow the entire field and get it smooth. Then he has to actually plant seeds and then pray for rain, and then something will grow. But the Laodicean plows half a field, and then pulls out a lazy chair and soaks up some sun, drinks some sweet tea, and thinks he's going to harvest something at the end of his life. He quits working right in the middle of the day, and that's the problem. He's not wholehearted. He doesn't go all the way. He doesn't jump in with both feet. When we're a Christian, we have to plow the entire field, plant the seed, and trust God to give us the rain. But we have a part to play. God is looking for wholehearted commitment, which is buying gold with ourselves so we can grow. Luke 9, verse 57. Luke 9, verse 57. Interesting parable. Let's go through this. About commitment.

A lot of people misread this parable. This parable is about being wholehearted. Now, it happened, Luke 9, verse 57. Now, it happened as they journeyed on the road that someone said to him, Lord, I will follow you wherever you go. When we're baptized, that is exactly what we say.

When you're counseled for baptism, you're told that you are giving your life to God.

Lord, I will follow you wherever you go. So we get baptized.

Right? And Jesus said, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Jesus isn't saying it's going to be easy to follow him. So why do Christians forget that? You get baptized, you hit a few trials, you pull out the easy chair, and you sip some sweet tea. It's not an easy journey to be a Christian. God's going to get us through it, but it's not a cakewalk. Verse 59. Then he said to another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, let me first go bury my father. And Jesus said to him, Let the dead bury their own dead.

But you go and preach the kingdom of God. The man was saying, Oh, you know what, Jesus, give me a few years and I'll make a commitment to you. That's no commitment at all. That's half-hearted. That's Laodicea. The commitment must be wholehearted. Otherwise, we're Luke 1.

And verse 61. And another also said, Lord, I will follow you. But let me first go and bid farewell to them who are in my house. But Jesus said, No one having put his hand to the plow, and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. You have to plow the entire field, plant the seed, and trust God to give you the water. God is looking for the wholehearted Christian. It doesn't mean you can't have family. It doesn't mean you can't go to your father's funeral. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about commitment and not making excuses for why we don't follow him.

If you don't plow the entire field, then nothing is planted. Nothing grows.

So it's difficult to tell if we're in this condition. How do we tell?

How do we know that we've broken our commitment to God, that we're just kind of coasting?

If we're blind, how can we see the fact that we've drifted into that lukewarm attitude?

When God shows people that they broke their commitments, He often shows them their disobedience to His Word, especially when it comes to how they treat others.

So how we treat other people is a great measuring stick of how wholeheartedly committed we are to God. How we treat others is a great measuring stick that we can use to see if we're Laodicean.

There's a specific thing that God's looked for in our behavior towards other people. Jeremiah 34, Jeremiah 34, starting in verse 13.

Thus says the Lord, God of Israel, I made a covenant with your fathers the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt. Now this is at the end of Judah's life. The country of Judah is about to be wiped out by the Babylonians, and God's being stern with them here.

I made a covenant with your fathers in the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying, At the end of seven years let every man be set free, his Hebrew brother, we just read that in Exodus, who has been sold to him, and when he has served for him six years, you shall let him go free. But your fathers did not obey me, nor incline their ears." It didn't even listen. Verse 15, Then you recently turned and did what was right in my sight.

You had mercy on other people. You forgave their debts, and you let them go free.

Every man proclaiming liberty to his neighbor. Liberty is forgiveness.

And you made a covenant before me in the house in which is called by my name.

The history of Judea was spotted with a few good kings, and every once in a while they would turn back to God. They would let the slaves go free, and they would stop being pagan. We're going to get to another indicator in just a moment, which ties into what Sam said in the sermonette.

Right now we're on forgiveness, or mercy, or kindness. How you treat other people is an indicator of whether or not you've fallen into a Laodicean attitude. It's a good measuring stick to use when you're blind. You can't see yourself. This is a place to start. Verse 16, You turned around and profaned my name. And every one of you brought back his male and female slaves, whom you had set at liberty and their pleasure, and brought them back into subjection to be your male and female slaves. Yeah, you forgave, right? So you get baptized, you start behaving well, and all of a sudden you stop. You stop forgiving people. You start holding grudges. You start being paranoid. What do they mean by that? What do they mean when they said that? I think they meant that against me.

And we get in this attitude where we're against other people, and we slide right back into the carnal nature that we began with before we were baptized.

That's not wholehearted commitment. That's a Laodicean attitude. And there's all kinds of problems that come with Laodicean attitude. This is just a measuring stick we can use to see if we have it, if we've been bitten by the bug, if we're satisfied with where we are, and we don't really need to grow anymore. In Jesus Christ, his stomach is getting upset, and he's about to vomit us out of his mouth. And we don't want that. We want to succeed. We want to go all the way to the end. We don't believe in once saved, always saved. We believe that we have a job to do, a duty to fulfill that we are not to be lukewarm. But when you're lukewarm, you're blind. So you need a measuring stick to tell. Am I Laodicean? How are you treating other people? Do you forgive and forget? Do you let things go? Bad things. Can you let them go? Or do you bring them back and harbor them? Forgiveness. Without it, we're lukewarm. If we're unable to forgive, we are not committed to God wholeheartedly. Tell-Tell Sign of Being a Laodicean. It's a man or woman who cannot forgive. Matthew 18. Peter had a problem with it. If Peter has a struggle with it, don't feel bad. We do too. Then Peter came to him and asked Matthew 18, verse 21. Peter came and asked, Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me seven times? Not seven times, Jesus replied, but 70 times seven. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his account up to date with his servants who borrowed money from him. And I won't read the entire parable, but it talks about the servants who would not forgive and will not be in God's kingdom. It is that serious, and therefore, that good of an indicator. That good of an indicator that you can use privately in your own time, in your own thoughts. Ask yourself, who's bothering me? What's on my mind lately?

Is it other people and what they do to me? And if that is your focus, guess what your focus is not?

If your focus is what everybody else has done to you, and you can't forgive those people, then your focus is not on yourself and where you need to go and how much you need to grow.

It's that simple. When Jesus Christ said, buy gold and you have nothing, He met with yourself.

He meant He expects you and I to be all in. Wasn't He all in? Didn't Jesus Christ go all in when He laid down His life? When He could have called angels to scorch the earth from anybody who would have done harm to Him. Instead, laid down His life He was all in. And that's what He expects His followers to be. And if we can't forgive, which is really not a big thing, we're not all in. We're sitting down in an easy chair sipping on sweet tea. We're not being a Christian. Let's go to Hosea. Hosea is right after the book of Daniel. It's right in the middle of your Bible. Hosea. And this puts together two really good indicators of whether or not we're Laodicean. The first one is if we show mercy to people, if we're kind to people, if we can let things go, if we're not paranoid that everything was meant against us, and even if it was meant against us, which a lot of times it is, we let it go anyway and love people anyway. That's the first indicator. The other indicator is what Sam talked about in the sermonette. And in Hosea, it brings those two concepts together. Hosea 6 and verse 4. Hosea 6 and verse 4.

This was written right around the time of Isaiah. There are still two nations, ancient Israel to the north, Judea to the south. And in Hosea 6 and verse 4, O Ephraim. Now, Ephraim is the name for the northern kingdom. Remember when Jacob crossed his hands and gave the bigger blessing to the younger son, and he put his name, the name of Israel, on the head of the son Ephraim. So when prophecy, when they mention Ephraim, not all the time, sometimes it's just the tribe of Ephraim, but most of the time Ephraim refers to the entire nation of Israel. Okay? O Ephraim, you're supposed to know when you read O Ephraim that Israel put his name on Ephraim. So when they say Ephraim, you're supposed to translate that back to Israel.

Okay? So he's talking about the people of God, all of them. O Ephraim, what shall I do to you?

O Judah, the other half, what shall I do to you? For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud. You're not all in. You're in and then you're out. Then you're in and then you're out.

Like the early dew that goes away, faithfulness or treating others with good nature, they lacked a wholehearted commitment, and it showed itself by how they treated others. And God condemned them for it. In verse 5, therefore I have hewn them by the prophets. I have slain them by the words of my mouth. Your judgments are like the light that goes forth. And this is what God desires.

For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

And those are the two big indicators that we are not wholehearted. We don't have mercy, and we don't love the Word of God. When we study the Word of God, brethren, do you study the Word of God? If you don't, you don't just have a red flag. It's waving.

And written on that flag is Laodicea. Because you don't need it, do you? Why study something you don't need? And that's the Laodicean attitude. But if you do study it, but you only study it out of obligation, well, this is what I'm supposed to do, so this is what I will do. And it's just academic. And it's just academic. In fact, sometimes you read the Bible and you don't even get it. I understand that. The Bible was translated from Hebrew into Greek into Latin into German into English and or into Spanish. And it doesn't always make sense. So it's good to have multiple translations. I do get that. Now, sometimes people have difficulty with reading. We have readers and we have listeners. You know, 20 years ago, it was kind of expensive to get an audio version of the Bible, to actually have the Bible read to you. Nowadays, it's free to have the Bible read to you.

If you have one of these, a smartphone, and most of us do, you can download an app that will actually read the Bible for you. And I love it. I have one. I have multiple Bible programs on this little computer that sits in my pocket. And I recommend that you do the same. One of them, I can look up any definition of the word. So if somebody is giving a sermon or sermonette and I'm sitting in the audience to say, well, this word in Greek means this. I just tap that little word and I see, well, does it mean that? And I can tell right there. I love to have that. You should do that. It's a great tool to have in your hand. But what if you're driving? I drive a lot. A lot. And I can get through an entire epistle of Paul in one drive, just by having a guy read it to me. It's coming out of the speakers in my car. Great. It's free. It can't be academic. The study of the word of God cannot be just, well, I have to do it, so I'll do it. You don't really think you need it. If that's what you're doing, you're not all in. When you study the word of God, if it comes alive to you, if you start relating to it, if you start as you're reading it or listening to it, and it starts making sense to your life, you apply it to how I treat other people or, you know, what I need to do. Oh, I need to fix that. Now you're into the word of God. And as you're reading the word of God, if that's not happening, a little red flag is going up in your mind, and it should have the word written on it, Laodicea. I'm starting to slack off. I'm starting to cool off. I'm starting to get in that lukewarm, gelatinous goo. I'm not a Christian right now, and I need to jump in the deep end with both feet and swim. It's time to go. It's time to be wholehearted. It's time to be a Christian. I love this story. I'll give this story many, many times in sermons. It's the story of Ruth. I love this story because there's so many lessons we can pull from it. Loyalty, love, romance, and commitment. Commitment. Let's go to Ruth, Chapter 1.

Commitment is huge to God. If you're all in, He can work with you. He can fix anything. With God, all things are possible. All things are possible. He wants your cooperation. He requires our cooperation. We have to be all in. That's our job. Be all in, wholehearted.

Ruth, Chapter 1, Verse 8. Famine is hit. Husbands have died. Naomi tells her two foreign daughter-in-laws that she can give them nothing else. Go back to your own families, to your own countries, where there's wealth and live. In Verse 8, Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, go, return each to her own mother's house, and the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. She praised her daughters-in-law. She loved them. She went on what was best for them. She set them free. The Lord grants you, and they find rest, each in the house of her husband. So she kissed them, hoping that they would get married again.

And they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, Surely we will return with you and your people. But Naomi said, Turn back my daughters. Why would you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? Turn back my daughters and go. For I am too old to have a husband, and if I should say I have hope, if I should have a husband tonight, would I also bear sons? Would you wait for them till they were grown? Would you restrain yourselves from having husbands? No, my daughters. For it grieves me very much for your sakes, that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. Then they lifted their voices and wept. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. Then she said, Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people, and to her gods, and return after your sister-in-law. But Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave you, or turn back from following after you. For wherever you go, I will go. This is the commitment that God and Jesus Christ expect from us. Wherever you go, I will go. Whatever you tell me to do, I will do. You have to be wholehearted to say that.

So we know the rest of the story. Ruth goes back. They have a really hard time. Even finding food, Ruth goes to a kensmen's field, starts gathering food. She's a gorgeous woman.

And the guy who owns the field is an old guy. He doesn't, and he hasn't been married. He doesn't think he's ever going to get a wife at this point in his life. And it works out where he's the one, and she's the one for him. They get married and have kids, and King David is a grandson, or great-grandson. I didn't check. He's one of those.

And then Jesus Christ is a later descendant. And through that wholehearted commitment, the entire earth, you and I are blessed. Because that woman said, no, I will go with you, and your God will be my God. And with that one wholehearted commitment, the whole earth is blessed. Wow! What can God do through you and me?

With a wholehearted commitment. The word all is a big, big word.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart.

And Jesus Christ said in Luke chapter 14 and verse 33, so likewise, whoever does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.

The word all is a big word. You can't get around it. It means everything. You have to be all in, wholehearted and committed. That's what God's looking for, from the faithful, who will be on the earth when Jesus Christ returns. And I'm giving this message today so that we will be those faithful. Are we being a loving people? Are we being merciful? That's a measuring stick.

Do we still blame everybody else for everything? Little red flag is waving.

Do we love the word of God? Or is it simply academic? Or do we even read it at all?

A little red flag is waving. King David had many, many faults, made huge mistakes in his life.

You can make huge mistakes, and God will still fix it. King David made some enormous mistakes.

We may not even have fellowshiped with him, had we known his mistakes.

Because I know how we've treated people who've made mistakes in this very congregation.

And then I think about King David. I wonder if he would even be welcome here. He better have been.

Because he repented. King David was called a man after God's own heart. Why?

He messed up so many times. Why was he a man after God's own heart? Because he was all in. Man, that guy was all in. When he did something, he did it all the way. When he made a mistake, he made a big one. When he loved God, he loved him all the way. When he obeyed God, he obeyed him all the way. When he repented, he repented all the way. David was all in.

He must have got that from his great-grandmother, Ruth.

He also got it from God. Psalm chapter 15, I think it's very poignant.

Psalm 15. You know how we read in Hosea those two indicators of not being committed to God, not being all in? I thought that was really interesting that Hosea brought that out.

But I find it just as interesting that King David brings the same two points out. The same two indicators of not being all in. Not having mercy to other people and not loving truth.

Loving the Word of God. That's not everything we need to do as a Christian. Those are just measuring sticks of whether or not we're wholehearted or lukewarm. Psalm chapter 15 and verse 1.

Really interesting that David brings these two out also. Psalm chapter 15 and verse 1. Lord, who may abide in your tabernacle? Who's going to be in the kingdom of God?

David asked the question. Who will dwell on your holy hill? He who walks uprightly, and works of righteousness, and speaks the truth in his heart. He loves the Word of God. It's not academic to him. He speaks it from the heart.

Continuing on. He who does not backbite with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor.

He's merciful. He's loving and kind. He loves truth, and he treats other people well.

And if we don't treat other people well, or if we don't love the Word of God, there's a little red flag that should be waving when we look in the mirror.

Because it's really hard to see if you're Laodicean. It's nearly impossible to see.

My father always told me, never tell a self-righteous man he's self-righteous, because he'll know you're wrong. It's so hard to see when you're blind.

So these are two indicators that you can open your eyes to and see.

Wow, I really chewed that guy out. What am I doing? Where is my heart?

Am I wholeheartedly committed to God? Or am I drifting? Am I sitting back in the easy chair, sipping on sweet tea? And I haven't plowed my field, and I haven't planted the seeds, and I'm not trusting God for the rain. I'm just letting it all happen, letting life just run right by me. Verse 4, nor does he take, cutting in the middle of it, nor does he take up a reproach against his friend. He forgives, he forgives, in whose eyes a vile person is despised, for he honors and fears the Lord. You know, times are going to get to the point where that Supreme Court decision that was made, just the end of June, changed America drastically. I mean, that was like on the level of Roe versus Wade. That's how huge that Supreme Court decision was, because it opened a floodgate of all kinds of things now. That evil will be called good, and dark will be called light, and you will be brought under scrutiny, and you will be tempted and pushed and prodded to become Laodicean. Laodicea doesn't happen in a vacuum. Oftentimes, it happens when it becomes difficult to be a Christian.

Hey, we're called for that purpose. We're called to stand up and be lights in a dark world.

We are all in, or we're not in at all, ironic. There are certain indicators that start to happen when you're all in. Almost done. We'll end it here.

Life becomes more interesting. You stop seeing the problems in the world and in the church only. You start seeing that life actually is good, that you have hope when you're all in. When you're all in, you start seeing potential in other people. Life becomes worthwhile again.

Not everything is gloomy. You live for other people, not just yourself. When you're all in and wholeheartedly committed to God, you start feeling motivated. Life matters again.

You rekindle hope that no matter how bad the world gets, a better world is coming.

Other things start to happen. Notice King David was all in. He was all in.

Notice what King David wrote. Psalm 9, verse 1. I'm just going to go through them quickly.

To the chief musician, the tune of the death of the Son, a Psalm of David, I will praise you, O Lord, with my whole heart. I will tell of your marvelous works. When you're all in, you're not afraid to talk about God. Even when the world becomes increasingly hostile to religion, you don't care. You're all in. Psalm 119, verse 2. Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart. Bible study becomes real again.

You start to relate to the Word of God and the Bible. It's not just academic anymore.

It's not just because you have to read the Bible. You start to want to read the Bible, and you start to understand it. Let's face it, it's not always understandable.

Psalm 119, verse 10. With my whole heart I have sought you, O let me not wander from your commandments. When you're all in, you keep a guard on your life. Your guard is up, because you know you're vulnerable, and your eyes are open, and you see your vulnerabilities. You're not blind to yourself, and you tend to forgive other people more quickly because of that. Psalm 119, verse 34.

119 and verse 34. Give me understanding, and I shall keep your law. Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart.

When you are all in, brethren, you will be unafraid to ask God for understanding. You will go to Him boldly and ask Him for things, trusting Him that He will give them to you, because you're all in, and you know He's all in also. He's right there with you, and you will be confident when you pray to Him.

Psalm 119, 145. Psalm 119, verse 145. I will cry out with my whole heart, hear me, O Lord, and I will keep your statutes. You will be unafraid to ask God for help. You will be absolutely unafraid. You will know you're vulnerable. You will know where your weaknesses are, and you will say, God, please help me. And you're all in. You know He will help you, and that gives you even more confidence to go to Him and ask Him. You will feel alive. You will feel motivated. You will feel like your life matters again. When you are wholehearted, you please God, because He can work with you now.

You know, we're not called for only our own salvation, but like Ruth, God will be able to bless other people through the work He does in you. In Revelation chapter 3, Jesus Christ wrote to the church in Laodicea. They were a lukewarm group, and He was about... They made Him sick.

Their attitude just made Him sick. They thought they had it all, and they were just sitting in their chairs, sipping on sweet tea, coasting into the kingdom. And He was about to expel them away from Himself. That means out of the kingdom of God. But He gave them a stern warning, with a brilliant solution. He told them, you're not rich, you're poor.

You have nothing. You don't even have clothes on your back. So go buy gold. How do you buy gold when you have nothing? It's the only thing you have left. If you want to be a Christian, brethren, if you want to be on fire, and that faithful person, when Jesus Christ returns, what do you have to be? You have to be wholehearted. You have to be a Christian who's all in.