the church of Christ
Romans16:16 "Greet one another with a holy kiss.  All the churches of Christ send greetings."

Lukewarm

It’s Sunday morning. Worship service is minutes away from beginning. Suddenly, without warning, there is a resounding knock at the front door. Why would anyone be knocking? They knock again and it’s a solid powerful knock "Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Someone opens the door and when they do a completely blinding light floods the auditorium. It is so bright that you cannot see your hand right in front of your face.

The knocker stays outside. Then you hear a strong voice that is also the most loving voice you’ve ever heard say, "I’m JESUS CHRIST. I’ve come to take all that are prepared home with me today. Those that are not prepared have 7 minutes to clear the building by going out the back door and I will come for them at a later date. All of those who are prepared MUST go with ME now! If you are prepared and choose to leave out the back door you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven. By the same token if you are not prepared and you stay you will perish immediately and you will also never enter the kingdom of Heaven. Your seven minutes begins now."

What would you do???! Would you run immediately … with no hesitation out the back door?. Would you gladly sit and wait for the 7 minutes to pass. OR would you freeze and be terrified because you don’t know if you are prepared. There was something in the way the voice said "prepared" that made you doubt that you would be accepted into Heaven. What was it that made you feel that way?

That’s what the voice’s "prepared" told you! LUKEWARM?! This was written and directed to a church. That means it was written to those who were saved and are professed believers!! These saved souls, being neither cold nor hot, were going to be spit out of the LORD’s mouth!

This is the single greatest threat to the Christian… being lukewarm. An attitude worse than death because it leads to the permanent death without GOD. How does a Christian become lukewarm?

Well that’s what this book addresses. How we become lukewarm. What are the common symptoms of being lukewarm and how we can become hot or on fire for the LORD!

First lets address the knock at the church door! To put it bluntly, " It ain’t gonna happen that way!" You nor I nor anyone else is going to have 1 second let alone 7 minutes to decide whether we are ready or not! We also are not going to have a second chance if we aren’t prepared to leave and go get prepared!

We have our one and only chance NOW! Sounds frightening doesn’t it?! Good! You better be scared to death! Why? Because then and only will you have a chance

to take advantage of the one and only chance that God gave you! FEAR - Psalms 111:10

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom!" Without fear you cannot begin to understand. Without fear you cannot begin to humble and submit your self as you need to the LORD!

Now let’s consider how we become lukewarm.

1. Pew sitting? What is "pew sitting" We attend all services … every time the doors are open. We aren’t late or maybe we are sometime. In fact it’s sooo important that we will speed to get to service and we think we’ve done something good maybe even great because we fought so hard to come to worship and …PEW SIT! We sing every word of every song. We bow our head at every prayer. We take and participate in the Lord’s supper. Some of us even serve on the Lord’s table or lead singing or a prayer. We also make it to every class and we participate in the discussion. We give financiallyand we make sure it’s ten percent or more!

BUT THAT’S IT. When there are fellowships to attend we don’t. (your physical family fellowships don’t count!) We don’t offer to have fellowships at our home either. When new people come we let someone else be responsible for making them feel welcome. In fact most of us think that this is the preacher’s job. WRONG AGAIN! Love is missing from our attitude, deeds, words, and face.

2. Arrogance – arrogance is the single largest contributor to being lukewarm and pew sitting. An arrogant person is basically a person who believes he / she knows all he needs to know but he doesn’t! As a result, in most cases, he’s also better than everyone else. In my opinion it had to be this type of person or persons who started the ludicrous statement " the church of Christ is the only ones going to Heaven"! A true statement but this statement was stated to describe the people who attend service at a building that has "church of Christ" on the outside. It was not meant as an overall statement referring to the body of Christ!

4. It becomes "our church" and strangers aren’t welcome! Well maybe they are if they are the type of "christian" that we approve of. You know the type. Solemn, wears a suit or long loose dress, doesn’t rock the boat, gives and gives and gives financially and "NEVER" asks where is this money going and why. Serves wherever and whenever they are asked. Most importantly they never , never say anything more than "Hello, how are you? It’s good to see you." They never have problems and if they do they don’t expect the congregation or it’s leaders to help.

There is a lot more to the pew sitter syndrome. Why did this develop? Comfort Zones!

We all have our Comfort Zones and we want our comfort Zones to be left alone! Everything else is work. I mean after all we work at pre-school and we graduate from it to kindergarten, We work at kindergarten and we graduate to Elementary. We work and graduate from elementary to junior high. We work and graduate from junior high to high school. We work and graduate from high school to college. We work and graduate from college. I mean we study and we study the bible … surely I’ve done enough now?! Surely, I’ve graduated and I don’t have to do any more work?! Or, if I do, it’s only to put money into the offering plate … you know the money I earn at my real job! We are so programmed to learning and graduating that we subconsciously believe that we should or have graduated and there is nothing left for us to learn! I now it all my diploma says so!