I want to tell you about a friend of mine today. We'll call him Gary. About six years ago, Gary was a new golfer. About six years ago, Gary was a 22 handicap, but he really dove into the game. He understood the rules of the game, he knew the physics of the game, he read all the books, he learned how to diagnose his own swing, he studied golf's rich history, and he made a pilgrimage to all of our local golf courses. He became a golf encyclopedia. Now, six years later, he's just as enthusiastic about the game as he was six years ago. Can you guess his handicap today? I'll tell you what it is in just a bit and how he got there. But have you ever been on the golf course on a hot, sweltering day where you're thirsty and dehydrated halfway through and you stop at the water fountain, anticipating for that clean, crisp, cold replenishment of water, and you take a big swig and the water is warm. Not hot, not cold, just there. The worst possible temperature. Not comforting, not refreshing, just kind of aggressively mediocre. And without even thinking about it, you spit it out. Now imagine Jesus using that same image to describe a church. Not a pagan temple, not a den of obvious sin, a church full of people who would absolutely call themselves believers. And Jesus says to them, I'd rather you were cold. At least cold is honest. We find this letter in Revelation chapter 3, where Jesus is talking to the seven churches in Revelation. And we're going to look at it alongside one of the most relatable figures in all of golf. You may know him, you might be him, heck, even I've been him. But before we get to the letter, we need to understand who Laodicea was, because this isn't some struggling little outpost church meeting in somebody's barn. This is a prosperous, confident, well-resourced church, and a church that reflected all of that. Laodicea was one of the wealthiest cities in the Roman Empire. They were a huge banking center, they were famous for their black wool, whatever that is. There are scientists there who had even created an eye ointment that people bought from all over the world to help with eye problems. And they were on the map. They were an accomplished people with real civic pride. There's also an interesting geographical detail that the original audience would have caught immediately. Laodicea had no reliable water source of its own. Nearby Hieropolis was famous for its hot springs that Roman soldiers would stop and soak themselves in. Colossae on the other side of them had cool, clean mountain water, refreshing, pure, life-giving. So Laodicea had to pipe water in from Hieropolis through several miles of an aqueduct. And by the time it arrived, it was lukewarm. Through its travels it collected minerals. And the ancient writers described it as so unpleasant that people gagged on it. When Jesus writes this letter, he says, You are neither hot nor cold. The people reading it didn't need a commentary. They felt it in their stomachs. That's our water. That's us, he's talking about. In John's Revelation in chapter 3, starting in verse 14, he says, I know your deeds, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were either one. So because you were lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. These are Jesus' words, so let that land on you. I am about to spit you out of my mouth. This is not soft language, this is visceral, and it's directed at people still showing up, still doing church, still using Jesus' name. And the letter continues, You say, I am rich, I have acquired wealth, and I do not need anything, 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 become rich, and white clothes to wear so you can cover your shameless nakedness, and medicine to put in your eyes so you can see. Notice what Jesus does here. He takes every single thing Laodicea was proud of and flips it. You think you're rich in banking? You're spiritually bankrupt. You're famous for black wool, you're spiritually naked. Your eye ointment that heals people, you can't even see your own condition. It's a surgical diagnosis, not flattery, not softening, just a mirror held up to a community that had mistaken comfort for health. Now, back to Gary. He'll tell you about golf. He watches every major, he's got opinions on shaft flex and course management, the short game philosophies of different tour coaches. He owns three putting mats, one in his living room, one in his office, and one in the garage that he never used. And he's watched so many YouTube instructions that he could teach a clinic. Six years ago, Gary's handicap was a 22. Today, six years later, it's a 22. Gary does not practice. He plays 18 holes on the weekends, and that's it. No range sessions, no short game work. He buys new equipment with the sincerity of a man who believes the clubs are the problem. And somehow, despite doing everything around improvement, he never does the thing that actually produces it. And here's what makes Gary fascinating and a little convicting. He's not in denial. Ask Gary what's wrong with his game and he'll tell you in detail. He knows his iron play is inconsistent. He knows he chips like a man trying to swat a fly with a spatula. He has the vocabulary, he has the self-awareness, he just has no actual commitment to change. There's a phrase we use for what Gary's doing. He's playing at golf rather than playing golf. He has the full costume, the clubs, the shoes, the hat with the tour logo on it, the vocabulary, but none of the discipline that the game actually requires. And the game doesn't change him because he hasn't submitted himself to it. And that's Laodicea. That is the lukewarm church. They haven't rejected Jesus. They're still meeting, still singing, still using his name. They just have no heat, no urgency, no willingness to do the thing that actually costs them something. They want all the identity of being a follower without any of the transformation that following requires. Jesus says something that stops a lot of people cold, pun intended. He says, he wishes that you were either hot or cold. Why would he prefer cold people? Because a person who knows they're cold knows something is wrong. There's still an honest reckoning happening. They haven't settled into the false piece. The lukewarm person has the most dangerous condition of all. They think they're fine. They have just enough religion to feel okay about themselves, and not quite enough to be actually transformed by it. They're inoculated against the real thing. Think about what Laodicea's core problem actually was. It wasn't immorality, it was self-sufficiency. They had wealth, prestige, systems. Jesus was, at best, an add-on, a spiritual garnish on the already full plate. The city that needed nothing from anyone had to let that posture seep into its faith. And our friend Gary is the same. He's comfortable enough with being a 22 that he'll never do anything about it. He's not desperate enough for change to actually submit to the process of change. If Gary was hitting it out of bounds on every hole, and three putting from six feet on every green, if he was genuinely miserable, he'd go get a lesson. The problem is he's comfortable. And comfortable is where improvement goes to die. So here are a few honest questions, and I say this with full awareness that they apply to me as much as anyone. Number one, are there things in your life that you know you need to change, that you have known for a long time, that you can articulate clearly and nothing has moved? That's Gary at the driving range, he never visits. Knowledge without motion is lukewarm. Number two, is your faith primarily about identity or about transformation? Do you think of yourself as a Christian and the way Gary thinks of himself as a golfer? It's the thing you are, the tribe you belong to, or is it something actively reshaping how you live and what you want? And the last one, and maybe the hardest one, do you feel the need for Jesus, or do you feel like you've got things sorted out? Because Laodicea wasn't a church of bad people, it was a church of comfortable people who had quietly stopped being desperate. Here's what the letter does something unexpected, and this is the part I don't want you to miss. After all that, after all the spit you out language, Jesus says in verse 20, Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. This isn't a threat letter that ends in condemnation. It ends in invitation. He's still standing at the door, he's still knocking, not walking away. Gary can call a teaching pro today. He can show up at the range Tuesday morning with a bucket of balls and a genuine intention to change. The handicap won't drop overnight, but the posture has changed, and the posture is everything. So let me leave you with this. The most frightening spiritual condition isn't doubt, it isn't struggle, it isn't even failure, it's comfort. It's the slow drift towards a faith that costs you nothing, asks nothing, and therefore changes nothing. Gary's handicap is exactly what his practice schedule deserves, and our spiritual lives tend to look a lot like whatever we're actually willing to submit to. The door is still there, he is still knocking. The question is whether we're comfortable enough to ignore it.