Revelation 3:1-6
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
If you have your Bibles let me invite you to open with me to the book of Revelation chapter 3.
As you turn there, I want you to imagine living in a city in ancient Rome that is both wealthy and seemingly unconquerable.
A city that sits high on a hill surrounded by cliffs, and mountains, and difficult terrain that safe guards the city from enemy attack.
That was very much the story of the city of Sardis…
a city proper that lay 1500 feet above the plain
I have a few photos here taken of where Sardis would have been located, now modern day Turkey.
Sardis was famous for being seemingly unconquerable, except for the time they were conquered.
the cliffs were so steep on one side of the city that they left that side virtually unguarded.
And under the cover of night, the persian king cyrus captured it by scaling the walls under the cover of night, entering the city secretly, and conquering it from within.
The city had a reputation of being unconquerable, but in reality, they were conquered in secret from the inside out.
That is the history of the city of Sardis…,
but its history serves as an illustration…
For as the city was physically…, so was the church spiritually.
The resurrected Jesus now sends a letter to the church in Sardis, the fifth church in the list of seven…,
and its the only letter of the seven where Jesus does not commend them for anything.
No word of encouragement.
No acknowledgment of the good or the faithful.
Only a stinging rebuke,
and a loud wake up call from the resurrected Jesus.
They thought they were safe and secure,
they had a remarkable reputation,
but something was killing them from the inside out
And since no watchman on the wall was raising the warning…
Jesus himself raises the warning to them…
and to every church like them who has the blessed opportunity of reading this letter.
so lets read.
1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “ ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.
3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.
4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.
5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
Lets Pray
How does a church die?
We live in a country where churches are dying all the time?
Bridgedale Baptist Church in Metarie was on the brink of death.
No pastor, only a handful of members left, no children, no youth group, no future. They were even considering what it would look like to give their building to the salvation army.
First Baptist Church of Saint Rose in 2015 closed their doors.
No more attenders, no more worshippers, no more gospel presence in this community.
I could list many more that are heading that direction if not already there.
Sardis was on there way
but the thing about Sardis that is even scarier is that no one kknew they were a dying church, not even the church members themselves.
The most frightening thing about Sardis is that they had a reputation for being alive, but in reality they were dead.
How does a church in the first century gain a reputation for being alive?
I’m guessing that some of the measurements for assessment would be similar to ours today.
Perhaps they were growing in the number of people attending their weekly gathering.
Perhaps they were leading the way on meaningful benevolence ministry and care for the poor and good works.
Perhaps they had a dynamic pastor or a group of pastors that were good orators, skilled in rhetoric, and entertaining in speech.
Whatever the case may be, the other churches that received the letters would have assumed from what they were seeing and hearing that this church of all the churches was a living, active, and growing church…
But Jesus doesn’t see things the way the other churches see things.
He doesn’t see things the way we do.
Jesus reminds them of what he has reminded all the churches..,
he knows.
1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “ ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
Jesus introduces himself as the one who knows.
He knows what no one else knows.
He knows even when everyone else is fooled.
He knows not just the works…,
but he knows the spiritual condition of every individual.
In each letter, Jesus introduces himself in a way that is relevant for the reader…,
and in this case, he introduces himself as the one who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars.
The seven stars being the messengers or the angels who fight for the churches
And the seven spirits being the fullness of the Holy Spirit of God.
Remember that the number Seven is symbolic throughout Revelation for the fullness of and the completeness of something.
Jesus has the fullness and the completeness of the Spirit of God…,
Jesus reminds the reader that he is the one who pours the Spirit of God out on those who believe.
Peter says this in his first sermon on the day the Spirit of God was poured out upon thousands.
33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.
Jesus is the one who sends the Spirit of God into the hearts of people.
He is the one who not only knows the spiritual condition of the church…,
He alone is the one who has the power to change the spiritual condition of the church…
He alone gives spiritual life.
He alone bring spiritual awakening.
He alone can start a revival in the hearts of the spiritual dead.
And Jesus knows that this church is spiritually dying.
The question we want to ask, is why are they dying?
What causes a church to die and how can the dying be resuscitated?
I think from Jesus’ correction here, we can discern five things that lead to a church’s death.
#1 They Normalize Christianity in Name Only
#1 They Normalize Christianity in Name Only
1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “ ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
The word translated reputation here in the original language is literally “the name”
You have a name for being alive, but you are dead.
This is the kind of Christianity that is Christian only on the surface.
It is Christian in name, but lacking real substance.
It is Christian on the exterior, but anything but Christian on interior.
Its the kind of religion that Jesus heavily warns against.
Some of Jesus’ strongest rebukes in his ministry are for those who have a reputation for being alive, but are not.
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous,
This is the kind of Christianity that cleans up nice,
that does the religious things,
and even exudes an outward kind of morality.
These people are fine citizens.
They have decent jobs.
They are even church goers, and they can hold their own in churchy conversations…
But for all of their religion,
and all of their going through the motions of Christiany things.… Jesus finds their works incomplete.
As far as Jesus is concerned… they are sleep walking…
doing religious things but as a dead men walking
without the Spirit that gives life.
They are lacking something…,
something that only the Spirit of God can accomplish.
And that is the inward change the Spirit does in the person who depends on God in faith,
The gospel is the good news that we are forgiven, but also that the the Spirit of God changes us from the inside so that our faith is real, our love is real, our relationship with God is real.
Religious deeds don’t produce Spiritual life…,
only faith in Jesus who sends forth his Spirit brings spiritual life, and all of that leads to life change.
How does a church die?
They begin to normalize a Christianity which focuses only on the outward good doing…
a Christianity that can have a reputation for being Christian,
yet lacks any real substance,
any real heart change,
any real spiritual life.
There is a reason that Jesus’ exhortation in verse 2 is to “WAKE UP”
They have fallen into a spiritual slumber…
a sleepiness…,
bored with the things of God,
lazy in their aspirations and ambitions for the glory of God, sluggishly meandering through their spiritual life.
Beware of a church which normalizes church members who can kind of attend, occasionally do some good things,
but who don’t have an active spiritually rich loving and passionate relationship with Jesus their Lord and Savior.
As soon as we settle for the outward stuff,
without the longing for the inward reality of relationship with Jesus himself, we are in trouble as individuals and as a church family.
Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die.
There apparently still some within the church who are spiritually alive.., and Jesus calls for them to awaken to the need and to get to work strengthening what remains in the church that is living and breathing and seeking God.
In other words, don’t normalize spiritual deadness with a good reputation as if thats enough.
How does a church die?
#1 They Normalize Christianity in Name Only
#2 They Forget the Word They Received
#2 They Forget the Word They Received
3 Remember, then, what you received and heard.
There is a reason that Jesus gave the church the Lord’s Supper and said, “Do this in remembrance of me”
When the church partakes in the Lord’s Supper they remind themselves of what the central message really is.
They remind themselves of what they are quick to forget.
They remind themselves of the gospel - the good news message of what Jesus has done for them.
A church is in decline when the congregation as whole begins to lose sight of what they had received
and what they had heard when they first believed….
They forget where they came from - that they are sinners in desperate need of a Savior.
They forget that Jesus came to take their place,
to live a righteous life,
and to die a sinner’s death as a sacrificial lamb for theirs sins.
They forget that salvation is by God’s grace through faith.
Its not earned or achieved.
Its a gift to be received.
Remember, then what you received and heard.
Christian, do not let your walk with God become performance based.
My relationship with my son is not performance based, its love based.
My relationship with my wife is not performance based its based on a promise.
But much more so my relationship with God.
I cannot impress him.
I cannot supply him with something he lacks.
I cannot be as holy or righteous as him.
I have failed him so many times.
Yet my relationship with him is secure by virtue of his grace toward me through Jesus.
And what I have to do every day,
is to fight to remember what I received, when I put my trust in my savior.
I have to fight to remember the gospel that was handed down to me.
One of the strongest rebukes to a church is found in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, when the people started adding to what they had received. They started teaching that salvation was only achieved by works of the law.
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—
7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.
This is why we take very seriously the preaching of the inspired Scriptures here at this church.
Any religion or denomination that adds to or contradicts what was given to us by the apostles, is accursed.
We are meant to fight to remember what is primary…, the gospel message of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for sinners like us.
Churches begin their decline when they forget the primary message they received.
But remembering is half the battle.
3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent.
In other words live out the implications of the truth you have remembered.
If the gospel of Jesus Christ is true,
than the message itself leads to a change in our lives.
If God is real and is word is true and he loves us…, than we should obey his word.
This is a message that leads us to repent…. that is to change course
to make different choices
to walk a different walk
to talk a different talk
to think different thoughts.
A dying church
normalizes Christianity in name only
forgets the Word they received
and
#3 They Stop Repenting
#3 They Stop Repenting
Repentance is what we do in the moment of our salvation.
We believe on the Lord Jesus to save us…,
and as we turn to the Lord in faith,
we are also turning away from a life of sin,
a life we used to live when we didn’t believe Jesus was Lord.
Repentance is the other side of the coin of saving faith.
They always go together.
If you believe Jesus is worth following,
than you believe your old life is worth leaving.
But just as we continue to believe in your Christian life…,
we are also continue to repent in our Christian life….,
The wild thing about this ride we call Christianity is that we are always learning more of the glory and the goodness of Jesus….,
AND we are also always learning more of the depths of our own sinfulness than we once were not even aware of.
The worst alcoholic may repent of his drinking problem and turn to Jesus…,
but as he pursues Jesus, he finds that there is a selfishness problem, a pride problem, a laziness problem …, and so he begins to repent as best he can and as he does he pulls back layers of sinfulness he didn’t previously know were there….
That is what the Christian life is….
we are a people always repenting…
always asking God to search our hearts and expose areas where we don’t reflect him…,
Jesus is working in us to make us more and more like him every day and that means we are repenting a little more every day of the sins God reveals to us.
One sure sign of a churches decline is that the members begin to look at the outside world believing that they have a lot to repent of…, but we don’t…
a church that doesn’t repent and never talks about repenting is a church on their way to death.
the decline of your spiritual vitality comes when you stop thinking that you have any growing to do.
that you have anything to learn
anything to change
anything to confess
anything to repent of.
Perfection is not ours to have on this side of heaven…,
One day it will be ours…,
but until then we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another.
This is the Christian life.
18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
a dying church stops seeing themselves as a church in progress.
a church in need of repenting.
They either redefine themselves as no longer being sinful…
OR
They redefine Jesus all together.
look with me at verse 3 again.
3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.
#4 They Re-define Jesus as Gentle, but not Judge
#4 They Re-define Jesus as Gentle, but not Judge
Jesus reminds the church of Sardis that he will come in judgment.
he does not want the church of Sardis to be like the city of Sardis who were surprise by their invaders.
One of the ways that a church heads down a trajectory of spiritual death… is by redefining Jesus in terms that are different than the way Jesus describes himself.
Sardis thought they dwelt in safety.
And they needed reminding that Jesus is going to come again into the world as a judge.
Jesus is using the same language here that he used in his own teaching minsitry in Matthew.
Consider Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 24.
43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.
44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time?
46 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.
47 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.
48 But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’
49 and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards,
50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know
51 and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Jesus said those words.
He is the rightful judge of the world.
and he is coming to set all things right.
His faithful servants will rejoice at his coming.
But those who are Christian in name only will face his wrath.
a church is on the path toward death as soon as they lose sight of the majesty of the King of the Universe who is both a gracious savior…, AND a righteous judge who will return.
He is coming back.
Jesus wants Sardis to Wake up to this reality.
What difference would it make in your week this week if somehow you new the day and the hour Jesus was to return?
Some of you should tremble at that thought…,
because you have not yet repented and placed your faith in Jesus.
Some may hesitate at the thought, because you know there are many that God has brought into your life, whom you have not shared Jesus with yet.
Many of you should primarily rejoice at the thought…,
because you know what good news that would be for you.
Thats where Jesus ends his letter…
Not everyone in Sardis is spiritually dead…, thats why the church isn’t considered completely dead yet.
There are some genuine believers still their in the midst of the church, whom Jesus wants to wake up and be strengthened.
4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.
5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
In these final verses, Jesus is giving the church in Sardis what every church needs to be a living and thriving church.
Jesus is giving them hope.
fifth and final way that a church begins to die.
#5 They Lose Hope
#5 They Lose Hope
Hope is essential to Christian perseverance.
And in these verses, Jesus is really giving two kinds of hope for the church at Sardis.
The first kind of hope is more for the immediate.
4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.
This reminds me of the prophet Elijah’s conversation with God in 1 Kings 19.
Elijah is lamenting in a kind of hopeless despair.
14 He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”
God corrects Elijah.
18 Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
Elijah cries out that he is the only one left, and God says there are seven thousand who have remained faithful.
There is subtle encouragement here for the faithful reader in Sardis.
There is a remnant of faithful followers who have not soiled their garments with the ways of the world .
God is always working in ways we don’t even see. He is preserving his own, spreading his kingdom, accomplishing his purposes.
and one day there will be a great revealing of the spiritually alive.
He will dress us in robes of his righteousness.
He will read our names from the book of life
He will confess our names before the Father in heaven.
This paragraph is not a threat that you can somehow have your name blotted out….
This is a promise that the one with his name written in the book of life doesn’t have to worry that it will ever be blotted out.
Jesus is the one who dresses you in righteousness, secures your name in heaven, and confesses your name before the Father.
When you stand before God,
you won’t read out your laundry list of good deeds to somehow prove your worthiness…,
Jesus will say…, he’s with me or she’s with me.
her name is written right there.
that glorious future and eternal perspective keep a church faithful, undistracted, and joyful until Jesus’ returns.
Five ways a church dies in this text
#1 They normalize Christianity in name only
#2 They forget what they received
#3 They stop repenting
#4 They redefine Jesus as gentle, but not judge
#5 They lose hope.
So lets
#1 Reject a Christianity that is in name only
#2 Lets remember what we have received in the gospel
#3 Lets keep on repenting and finding not only forgiveness, but the power to change and grow.
#4 Lets worship Jesus as both gentle Savior, and mighty judge
#5 Lets abound in hope that Jesus is working both now and forever to dress his people in robes of eternal righteousness.
