Sardis - Week 5

7 Churches of Revelation

Church at Sardis

Revelation 3:1-6

Promo Slide.

Good morning and welcome to worship today.  I know a lot of you have asked about our vacation… We had a great trip… It was fun to see Dennis grow as a SCUBA Diver and enjoy the beauty of God’s Underwater World!  And you know, sometimes God works in mysterious ways. When God wants you to stop and rest, God will make you stop and rest. On Wednesday, I had a sick day, I didn’t leave the bed hardly at all… so I did get rested up.  Up to that point, Renee had never been diving without me, but on that day, Renee went on the afternoon dive without me… And Dennis went morning and afternoon without me.  It is great to see others' confidence build as they improve and learn new skills.

Now, I’m getting better, but I haven’t fully recovered from whatever virus or cold or whatever it was that I had, so if I start sneezing or coughing uncontrollably… just be patient with me.

I can’t wait for this afternoon and the Trunk or Treat.  We are trying something a little different to give the families of the community some options.  You know, 2 other churches are having Trunk or Treats this afternoon, so we are trying to stagger the times so the families can be a part of each of these different events in the community.  Now, the great thing about something like this is… if we don’t like the new time, then we can go back to the old time next year.  I hope you will be here… bring your kiddoes and grand kiddoes out for a great time.

Let me ask you something though… why do we do Trunk or Treat?  Better yet… why do we have the Bazaar… Why do we have Slip and Slide Sunday… why do we have Thursday Morning Bible Study… Why do we have Wednesday Night Supper?  Why do we do anything that we do here as First Methodist Church?  What is the scriptural purpose… better yet, is there a spiritual purpose for what we do here at First Methodist?

And I ask you that because the church at Sardis was dealing with that same question. 

And with that, let us pause for prayer.

<PRAYER>

Series Slide

We are in week 5 of our series on the 7 Churches of Revelation.  Are these messages to these churches prophetic, about the “End Times”?  Are they messages meant for the churches in John’s time, when this was written?  Are these messages meant for the church at all times?  My answer is, Yes.  So, yes, we want to look at what these messages were saying to the churches in Asia Minor in the first century, but we also want to see how those messages relate to who and what we do as a church today.

We looked at Ephesus, the church that had lost its first love.  We looked at Smyrna, who was faithful even in persecution.  We looked at Pergamum, where the Seat of Satan was present. And last week, you looked at Thyatira, a church full of good works, but one that tolerated the pagan Jezebel in their church, preaching falsehoods and leading people into sexual immorality.

Sermon Slide - Sardis

Today, we look at the 5thCity in the circuit, We look at Sardis.  No, we aren’t talking about the community outside of Waxahachie… Today, we are looking at the city about 20 miles south of Thyatira in Asia Minor.

The City of Sardis was a wealthy city, known for its wool trade. In fact, you owe your blue jeans and any other colored wool or cotton article of clothing you have because they invented the idea of dying wool and natural fabrics… at least that’s what they claim.  They were also known for the rich minerals in the mountains, with gold and silver.  The mountain was the perfect elevation and soil for growing grapes for wine making.  They were prosperous, and they were safe… so they thought.

Sardis was a city on a hill… well, actually a city on a spur of a ridge.  If you don’t know what a spur is, let me give you a quick Land Navigation lesson… In the Army, we had to learn land navigation, and they used our hands to do it…. Make a fist.  Now look at your knuckles; each knuckle is a hilltop, or a peak.  The knuckles together form a ridge.  The area between the peaks are called… not valleys – a valley is what is at the bottom of the ridge.  The areas between the peaks are called saddles.  Now, turn your fist around.  The lines between your fingers are called draws; they are the deeper areas where water or snow melt would run off the ridge down to the valley. The draws come off the saddle.  These areas that come off the hilltops and rise up between the draws are your spurs.  A spur is technically defined as “a lateral ridge or tongue of land descending from a hill, mountain or main crest of a ridge.”

Why is this lesson in topography important?  Imagine with me, if you wanted to build a nearly impregnable fortress… with only one gate or wall having to be defended.  A fortress that you and your people could make it through a gate safely, but the other walls of the city would be nearly impossible to climb or overcome.  Well, I present to you a spur.  The City of Sardis was just such a City. The city was located on a spur of Mount Tmolus.  It was once the capital city of Lydia, one of the great empires of the Ancient East.  It was the Empire of the great King Croesus who was even able to stand against Cyrus the Great because of their impregnable capital city.  That was until one soldier made a mistake.  One day, a Persian soldier named Hyeroedeswas on watch and saw a Lydian soldier drop his helmet.  A short time later, he saw the soldier appear on the spur below the fortress and retrieve his helmet, then disappear back up the mountain, and reappear on his watch.

Hyeroedes knew that there had to be a chink in the armor, an opening in the wall that a small, agile force could climb and make an entrance into the city.  So, under the cover of night, he and several other soldiers climbed the hill and found the crack in the rocks that led into the city.  The people of Sardis were so complacent, so certain that their fortress was impregnable, they had no one on watch… there were no guards, and with that, the small force of Persians was able to take the city and open the gates for the rest of the Persian army to enter.  You would think they learned their lesson, but 200 years later history repeated itself when the Greek Empire split and Antiochus conquered the city when a soldier named Lagoras repeated the work of Hyeroedes and opened the city gates, allowing Antiochus’ entire army into the city.

With this history, you can understand how these words rang in the ears of the church at Sardis…

Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. 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. (Rev. 3:2-3)

By the time John is penning Jesus’ words to this church, Sardis is no longer an important city in the region, yet it is a thriving city.  Pergamum, Ephesus, and Smyrna had taken much more prominent roles in the empire, but Sardis was still a large city at a crossroads.  Their wine, wool, and gold made them wealthy.  Their lascivious pagan worship made them a mecca for those who wished to come join in the revelry.

The other churches were praised for how they stood against these pagan practices.  They were warned not to let the false prophets lead them astray… but here, Sardis received none of that praise.  Why? they were tolerant.  They didn’t live in opposition to the pagan world around them; they lived in and with that pagan world.  Not only did they tolerate the pagan practices, the pagans of the area tolerated them. The church at Sardis was no threat to the pagan world around them… Remember me asking a few weeks back, “Does your life threaten the powers of darkness?” I guess today I could as, does our church threaten the power of Satan in our midst?

Anyway, the church of Sardis was once known as a place of worship.  In the city was a great Synagogue that had become a place of Christian worship.  Crosses and other Christian icons were etched into the stone of the once Jewish Synagogue.  They had become a place of worship, a place for Christians in the region to gather.  The wealth of the region and the tolerance of Christians allowed the church to thrive.  They had become the largest and wealthiest church in the region.  In today’s world, you might consider them a Mega church.  Thinking in today’s terms, they would have had the Fall ball leagues and the Spring Community events at the church.  They would have had conferences at their church… they would have been able to bring in the best speakers for a weekend retreat.  They would have had big events and meals at the church… and events tailored just for the Kids… or the men… or the women… they were an active church… they were a busy church… But, Jesus says,

I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. (Rev. 3:2)

For all their business, they forgot why they do what they do.  Like Ephesus, they had forgotten their first love.

But can’t that happen to us? 

Can’t we get so caught up in the doing that we forget that the life of following Christ is more about being than doing? 

Can’t we become so focused on the fact that we are growing… increasing in attendance… having more people at our events… that that becomes the focus rather than why we started doing all that we do?

Can’t we get caught up in the fact that “We’ve always done that.” And forget why we did it in the first place?

We know that we can.  The reality is that when we lose focus on the why, we forget the who that we are doing it for. 

And pretty soon, the who, the what, and the why are irrelevant, and all we are left with is the emotion-draining activity that must get done.

Here is something to think about… when we get complacent about today, we rely on our experience of God in the past, but our God is always a God of today.  We can’t live off the power of God from yesterday… or yesteryear… We need the power of God, the Spirit of God, living in and through us today!

I think the church at Sardis had done what so many churches do today… they were focused on the activity… they were focused on the deeds… they were focused on the ritual…

Not the relationship!

Being a follower of Christ isn’t about all the stuff you do… it is about the fact that you are in relationship with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.  The “stuff we do” should be an outflowing of that relationship.

Because, when we become complacent… when we misplace our focus… when we forget the who and why of what we do, we begin to lose the life-giving power of the one we do these things through and for…

When we push the spirit of God out of all that we are doing, simply put, we begin to die.

That is what happened to the Church at Sardis.  They had pushed the Spirit, the Ruach… the very breath and life of God out of their midst.  They were known for being alive, but they were really dead.

And, without going into a 2-hour lecture on Christian History, it has happened over and over again.   

The Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church was really a revival and a return to who God had called the church to be…  They had lost the power of God and sought to be revived.

John Wesley sought to reform the Anglican Church, and it led to not only the Methodist Movement, but to the denominations that grew from the Methodist movement.

The First and Second Great Awakenings were a return to a focus on Jesus and the word of God… and to being the people God called them to be.

In the 20th Century, you had the Pentecostal Revivals… and the Billy Graham Revivals… and the Jesus People Movement…

Reformation is not a word to run away from… It is good that we reform… it is good that we are revived…

Jesus wasn’t telling the church at Sardis that they were dead and gone… Jesus’ warning was a call to action… a call to revival.

Because Jesus doesn’t bury dead churches; he revives them!

So, friends, I don’t want us to think that we are the Church at Sardis… I don’t think we are dead with the appearance of life because we are busy…

but complacency is a dangerous place to be.  The church has never been able to impact the world when it was complacent… or content.

My prayer for you, for me… for this church is that we are not content.  That we are not settled with where we are, because God has called us for so much more.  Remember the statistics I shared last year… 75%... or about 15-20,000 of our community do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ.  15-20,000 people that we drive by on our way to church are in danger of an eternity separated from the goodness of God. 

And you and I have the same power living in us that raised Jesus from the dead… you and I have what those 15-20,000 people need!

Knowing that, how can we be complacent?!

As we prepare for our final hymn, I want to leave you with one more quote from a previous sermon.  It is something that Renee wrote on a card and has on the refrigerator door at the house…

I believe it is the antidote to the dead life Jesus warned the church of Sardis about…

“Let the reality that Jesus lived, died, and rose again make a difference in your life… and how you live it!”

Amen.