The True Vine Discipleship Program

Discipleship II Week Ten

 A Christian Response To The Luke Warm

I love to drink coffee! Hi, welcome to week Ten of Discipleship II, if you have made it this far congratulations, you more than likely are not one of those type that we will being learning to respond to this week, there are many who are though, so it is very important that we learn what to say to them if they should ask or if we find ourselves in the place to talk to them about God. You might be wondering about my random statement "I love to drink coffee!" This was not as random as you might think. I want you to think about this if you like to drink coffee or soda or milk, whatever your preference is, think a little about how you like it served, I'm talking about hot, or cold, or just plain luke warm. Have you thought about it? If your preference is not like warm, then tell the class why as you discuss this. After you have completed this let us take this to a spiritual level with God and see what He might have to say about the luke warm Christian.

Let us begin this week with prayer asking God to reveal Himself to us in our study.

Read Revelation chapters 2 & 3 What questions do you have after reading this?

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Answer the following questions:

How many churches was the writing of the Apostle John addressing?

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All seven churches were addressed about their spiritual state and how to improve. What was each church's position at this time?

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In your opinion which church(s) was healthy and which were not?

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What can we learn from these churches that will help us in our lives?

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I would like now to focus on one particular church and how they were addressed. The well known passage of scripture "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold or hot: I would that thou wast cold or hot. So then because thou art luke warm, and neither cold or hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth." this part of scripture is what we are talking about today, many in the world today believe that because they believe in Jesus they are ok! Do you think that these people at Laodicea believed in Jesus? Were they ok? Now, this is a very disheartening issue because this is describing 75% or more of all who say they believe in Jesus today. They are "luke warm"! I have spoken to many people who rarely have Bible Studies in their homes, who rarely pray as a family, who seldom if ever attend any church event more that once a week on Sunday's. How can we respond to this problem that is taking the very souls of those who say they believe and are ok? If you would take a few moments to read the following excerpts and talk about what they mean.

"Even the Devil believes and trembles!" James 2:19

"Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Philippians 2:12

"What shall we say then? Shall we continue to sin, that grace may abound?" Romans 6:1

"And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire!" Epistle of Jude verse 23

**Have an open discussion about which of these seven churches may have been doing these passages that are above and search your heart and the Bible together and find more that can help us not be Luke warm!** After you have fineshed discussing with others what these scriptures might mean to you then compare your thoughts with theirs. Now you are ready to read what Jesus tells us to do to avoid becoming "luke warm"

Read Hebrews 12:1-15 What questions do you have after reading this?

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Who gives us the best example of how to resist becoming "Luke Warm" in our spiritual walk?

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What if Jesus was "luke warm" about dying for our sins?

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Would Jesus be considered a fanatic today? or passionate about His love for us?

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Does Jesus ever try to end all suffering? Why does He allow chastening?

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Can we fail of the grace of God? What does this mean?

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One of the most cited reasons that people become "luke warm" is their inabilty to see what time it is. They do not realize that they don't have another day unless God gives it to them and so they don't make the most of the time that they have been given. There are no guarantees in life regarding how long we will live! Life is short!