The Church at Sardis
Notes
Transcript
This is the first Sunday in November. Early this morning we all set our clocks back. We had our first true frost of the year this past week. Everything that was alive is dead.
Have you ever seen something that looks alive but it is completely dead on the inside. I have seen trees that on the outside look alive but if you were to cut them you would see a dead tree on the inside. Also as there is no chaos happening on the outside the tree will do fine, but as soon as a big storm comes that tree will blow over and fall to the ground. This is how Jesus describes the church at Sardis. The church we are talking about today. Look at what he says.
1 “To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.
3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.
4 Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.
5 The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.
6 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
William Ramsay, a writer from the 1800’s pointed out the two churches condemned most harshly belong to the only two cities of the seven that are completely uninhabited in modern times being Sardis and Laodicea. Sardis was a city that hosted many pagan cults. However, despite the city’s paganism, the Christian community there seems to have experienced no persecution and there was no spiritual life.
Jesus tells them, “you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” The church at Sardis was like the tree that I mentioned in the beginning. They looked alive on the outside but was as dead as could be on the inside.
This reminds me of something I talked about back in 2019. I wrote a sermon called Destroying the Spirit of Apathy. We live in a world where apathy has become the new norm. We see it every day. People are moving with tunnel vision. We can only see what’s in front of us. We become only concerned with what is next on our to do list. We have become apathetic with the rest of the world. And this spirit of apathy is starting to creep into the church.
In 2019, I shared with you 7 symptoms of spiritual apathy in the local church. I think is interesting how we are seeing these 7 symptoms in the church today. I also believe that this is what the church at Sardis was facing then. Apathy will kill your church. Here are the seven symptoms of spiritual apathy in the local church.
1. There is a decline in attendance.
1. There is a decline in attendance.
Gallup shows that from 2016 through 2019, before the pandemic, an average of 34% of U.S. adults said they had attended church, synagogue, mosque or temple in the past seven days. From 2020 to the present, the average has been 30%. So, the average church attendance is down from before the pandemic.
2. There is a lack of concern for souls.
2. There is a lack of concern for souls.
30 million people this year will perish without hearing the message of salvation.
3. There is lack of participation in congregational singing.
3. There is lack of participation in congregational singing.
Let me give you one reason to sing in church. God told you to.
1 Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
4. There is an indifference to the needs of others
4. There is an indifference to the needs of others
There is a big need in our world today. People in our country is in need. We all are in need. With all the prices of everything going up, we are all in need. It is important that we are concerned with the needs of other people.
I receive phone calls every week of people that are looking for assistance. Whatever they are looking for, I explain to them that all we have is a food pantry. And each of them no matter what they are calling about, they will take the food. That tells me that people are in need. In times past when people would call looking for something and i told them all we had was food pantry they would turn it down, but not any more. People are in need.
The church needs to be concern with the needs of others.
5. No Pastoral Encouragement.
5. No Pastoral Encouragement.
I pray that I never stop encouraging you. If for some reason I don’t encourage you. I’m sorry and I promise I will work at getting better at it.
We all need to be encouraged more.
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
6. There is a declining concern for missions.
6. There is a declining concern for missions.
As long as I am pastor of Cliff Terrace Church we are going to give to missions. We are going to make sure that our missionaries get the support they need and we are going to support BGMC and STL.
Missions is the heartbeat of God and we cannot forget about missions.
7. And there is a failure to invest in the next generation.
7. And there is a failure to invest in the next generation.
If we do not invest in the next generation, then the church as we know it will disappear. We need to be discipling our kids and our youth. We need to teach them about the things of God.
What we see happening in the church today is the same thing that was happening in the church at Sardis. They were spiritually dead and Jesus told them to wake up. And I believe that is what he is telling us today. Wake up to what is happening around you. The church is sleeping and all chaos is happening around us and if the church don’t wake up then it will die and that is the reality that we are faced with.
Also, did you notice that this letter is different from the first four letters. In the first four letters, Jesus always gave the commendation first. He commended them for what they were doing first and then He told them what they were doing wrong. But with the church at Sardis, Jesus jumps right in and tells them what they are doing wrong. It must be important and this church didn’t have much good going for them. The only good thing that Jesus has to say is in verse 4. He says...
4 Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.
The churches overall condition is utterly desperate in the eyes of the living Christ, although almost certainly not so in their own eyes or in the eyes of others. The amazing thing about their judgement is that there is nothing that has caused them to become this way. They have not suffered from the outside world. They have not suffered from any inside opposition. They have not had any inside moral decay. Their reputation is that of being a church that is alive, but Jesus tells them that in fact they are actually dead. And it is evidenced by the reality that none of their works has ever been brought to completion. And Jesus points this out.
2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.
So, this church has been living a lie. To the outside world this church looks alive. But Jesus issues them a wake up call, because on the inside there is no life at all, they are as good as dead.
Here is the sad reality. If you look at the imagery that John is using in his writing, it is not that of people who are sleeping, but it is of those who appear to be alert yet in fact are quite unaware of their desperate situation. They have no clue of their own condition. They don’t even realize that they are ineffective in Sardis. They have completely lost touch with reality. That is why Jesus is telling them to wake up.
And I am telling you today to heed Jesus’ warning and Wake Up!
Wake up to the world around you. Time is getting short.
Wake up to those that are crying out. Extend a hand and help them.
Wake up to those that are in desperate need. Reach out your hand and meet their need.
Wake up and lift up your voice in praise and worship. Give God first place.
Wake up and hear the sound of those that are lost and dying. Bring them the hope of salvation.
Wake up and surrender. Don’t be defeated, but walk in victory.
God is calling his church to wake up and don’t be silent. Because the end is coming near. Wake up church.
There were a few in Sardis, as Jesus put it...
4 Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.
When I first read this, I honestly thought that Jesus was saying they haven’t pooped their pants, but it doesn’t mean that at all. Soiled means they haven’t sinned by fornication or adultery. Again, it is a metaphor here. Jesus is referring to people that have not committed against God. Or they haven’t cheated on God.
There were a few here in Sardis that hadn’t done that. They were committed. Jesus says, “they will walk with me, dressed in White, for they are worthy.”
Jesus tells us in Matthew 10:33
33 But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.
Then Jesus continues in verse 5.
5 The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.
The plain meaning here is those who do not overcome or keep on winning victories for Christ will have their names blotted out of the Book of Life. There are some well-meaning Christians today who say this cannot be, because this would make the continuance of our salvation depend on works, a terrible denial of the grace of God. But we must recognize that our overcoming, and our winning of victories, is not a matter of our own works.
4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
The victory that overcomes the world, that is our faith. And we have our victory because God gives it to us through Christ. Christ went to the cross for our victory.
57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And we are saved by grace through faith.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
We continue by grace through faith, obedient faith.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
3 We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands.
4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.
5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him:
6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.
This is something that we must continue to do. It is a continuous action.
5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
The person that keeps on overcoming is the one who keeps on believing with active, trusting, obedient faith.
Just like Journey tells us Don’t stop Believing.
The more you continue in your faith then the more you will continue to overcome. You will continue to overcome and you will be victorious.
I know I have said this over and over in this series but you need to walk out of here each week with the victory and not like you lost. Because as long as you are in Christ you are victorious. You win. And in my book winning is always fun.
Keep on winning. Keep on being victorious. Keep moving forward in Christ Jesus.