How to End the Zombie Apocalypse

How to End the Zombie Apocalypse: Revelation 3:1-6

How to End the Zombie Apocalypse: Revelation 3:1-6 Sardis the Dead Church

I wanted to talk so badly about zombies; the living dead. You know what I’m talking about, those beings that look alive, they walk around and eat brains, yet they are really dead. I really wanted to use that but it just didn’t seem appropriate for a sermon; things looking alive but really being dead, or having some parts that are not quite dead yet but are dying and just hanging on. Not very sermon like is it? But that is exactly what we will be looking at this morning as we look at Revelation 3:1-6 the church at Sardis. So far we have looked at Ephesus the loveless church, Smyrna the persecuted church, Pergamos the compromising church, and Thyatira the corrupt church. Today we will look at Sardis known as the dead church. Just so you know I’m not going to go into any more details concerning zombies but as we go through this passage it would not hurt to keep the image of “looking alive but being dead” in the back of your mind. Let’s go ahead and pray then we will take a look at some background concerning the city of Sardis then we will look at the church at Sardis. Let’s pray.

Last week we looked at Thyatira and if you were to travel almost due south along the road you would come to the city of Sardis. The city was built in basically two parts. There was the lower city where the common people lived basically along the river that ran through it. The acropolis or the upper city was where the upper class lived, the wealthier and the leaders. There was a fortress there with high walls around it and in times of attack the people of the city would take refuge there. Sardis was to some degree considered impenetrable because the fortress was built on the top of the mountain and the way to the top was very steep and the path was somewhat hidden from down below. In fact the upper city itself was never defeated in battle. According to the Greeks capturing Sardis was equal to doing the impossible. But it was conquered at least twice and possibly three times but not in battle. The people of the city believed their own press releases, that the city was impenetrable so they were very lax in keeping watch. Twice the enemy scaled the heights at night catching the guards asleep instead of watching and they took the city basically without a battle. The city wasn’t conquered by superior forces but by not being intentional in doing the work that needed to be done. Sardis was destroyed in 17 AD by an earthquake but was rebuilt by Tiberius Caesar.

The city had temples to many of the pagan gods and one great one to Cybele who was basically the same goddess as Diana of Ephesus. There was also a very large gymnasium in the city located beside a very large Jewish synagogue indicating a strong and accepted Jewish community. All of these sights and more have been excavated and excavation is ongoing at this time because the city of Sardis, or all intents and purposes, ceased to exist. There is a small village at the base of the mountain today but unlike Ephesus, Pergamos and Thyatira there is no modern city built on top of it; Sardis is gone.

Sardis at one time had been the capitol city of the kingdom of Lydia and had many strong kings. This really has nothing to do with anything but it is interesting. The city was very wealthy due to the gold dust and electrum (a natural alloy of gold and silver) found in the river that ran through the city. There was such wealth that it is believed that the story of King Midas, the one with the golden touch, originated there.

That is the background of the city where the Church of Sardis was so now let’s read what Jesus has to say to the church. Revelation 3:1-6 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. 3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. 4 You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. 5 He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but 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.” ’[1] This letter continues with the same format as the other letters. Jesus names the recipients of the letter then gives a description of Himself that corresponds with the description John gave of His vision in chapter 1 verses 9-20. He is the One with the Seven Spirits and holds the seven stars. We talked about this before, there are not seven Holy Spirits nor are there seven separate spirits of God. Jesus is talking about the completeness of the Holy Spirit that is active in every church and every believer and He proceeds from the Son of God and from God the Father, which means He sent the Holy Spirit to the churches and the people of God. The seven stars are the messengers to the seven churches and He holds them in His care as representative of His church. Jesus holding the seven stars is representative of Him holding His church. Jesus’ description of Himself has a lot to do with His indictment of this church.

Just like the other letters Jesus reminds His church that He knows them and their works but to Sardis Jesus has no compliment at all only a complaint. “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. You have a name that you are alive but you are dead (you see why I got the idea of zombies). Everyone was showing up and promptly at 10:55 the piano and organ would start playing, then at 11:00 am promptly to keep on schedule the preacher or the minister of announcements would get up and make the announcements, then the prayer and a few songs out of the Baptist Hymnal. Then the excellent preacher would get up and expound from the Word of God, an invitation is held at 11:55 and then the preacher prays at 12:00 sharp and they all go home, except on the 5th Sunday then they would have communion and a potluck. In other words everything they were doing looked like they were ok and healthy, they were alive and kicking. But the problem was that there was no life. From what the community could see from the outside, they were alive. However there was no spiritual life and it is the Spirit that gives life, not our activities. That is why Jesus’ reminder that He is the One who has or sends the Holy Spirit to His church is so important. It does not appear from the passage that there were any attacks on the church in Sardis from false teachers, no Jezebels or Balaams, not synagogue of Satan and there does not appear to be any persecution. There appeared to be no spiritual adversaries except themselves.

Jesus goes on with a warning in verse 2-3: 2 Be watchful, or wake up and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. 3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. They may have been doing the “right things” but they were not at all intentional about them therefore they were not intentional about anything that the church of Jesus Christ should be doing. They had gone to sleep on guard duty and the enemy had taken them without even a battle. Historically speaking when the church has no adversaries, no persecution, no trials or tribulations it is very probably because it has no spirit, no desire to grow either spiritually or physically. That is what Jesus is calling His church to task for, He had blessed them and they turned that blessing into a curse so to speak. Now they are at the point that they need to nourish back to health the parts that are just hanging on. My mother had a green thumb. She could literally make a dead stick grow. When Raechel was a teacher she would get nice little plants as gifts from her students. My mother would take a look at it and say, “You need to give that to me because you are going to kill it.” Needless to say Raechel would decline. Though Raechel never intentionally tried to kill the plant she was not intentional in keeping it alive either. So after the plant had lost all its leaves and was barely alive she would give it to my mother and she would take that one little twig that was hanging on and would bring that plant back to life and when we would see it again it would be in full bloom and outgrowing everything in the flower bed. That is what Jesus is saying to his church. You have not been watchful, you have fallen asleep on the job and your works are not perfect (complete) so wake up and get busy nurturing those parts that are still alive so that your works will be complete. But if you don’t wake up, if you are not watchful I will come on you like a thief in the night and you will not even see me coming because you have refused to wake up. Jesus warned the church in Ephesus that He would remove their lampstand (basically ending the church). To Pergamos He said He would fight against them with the sword of His mouth and to the church at Thyatira He said He would throw them on the bed of tribulation and kill them with death. Here to the church in Sardis He is going to come against them in their comfort and security and shake them awake. Folks let me make sure we know what this means. Jesus is not above bringing tribulation upon His own bride for the purpose of bringing them to repentance. Understand me, when Jesus wakes His church up it will not be with just a simple nudge or soft music, it will be like a thief in the night. Poor Sardis. We will come back to verses 2-3 later.

Let’s look at Jesus encouragement to the church at Sardis in verses 4-6. 4 You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. 5 He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but 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.” ’ I cannot tell you why Jesus chose to say that there were a few “names” who have not defiled their garments instead of saying there are a few “people”. I can only speculate that because Jesus says there are only a few then He wants to draw attention to the fact that some people have kept His name in bond with their name. They were named with Him. But that is just my speculation. Either way we can see that it is only a minority of those who are in the congregation that are “alive” and have not soiled their garments in comfort and security, doing what the rest of Sardis did. Those people Jesus says (and I can’t express the importance of this too much) those people who are named by His name continue to walk with Him and have done nothing to forfeit their justification in Him, they are worthy not because they walk with Him but because of Who they walk with. As to the white garments again I can only speculate but white can mean purity, victory or festivity. Those who overcome will be pure because of the work of Christ, the One they walk with. Those who overcome by definition are victorious, more than conquerors through Christ who loves them. Those who overcome have a wedding feast to go to according to Revelation 19:7-9 7Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” 8And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. 9Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.” Those who overcome will be dressed in the white robes of purity, victory and festivity. And if that is not enough Jesus gives the firm assurance that their names are written in the book of life and that He will confess that they are His before His Father and His angels. If we confess Him by our lives and actions He will confess us before His Father. If you have an ear, if you are His, then hear what He says and respond in obedience. We will talk more about the book of life later on in the study of Revelation when we come to the Lamb’s book of life.

Let me go back and do a little doctrine for a moment. The fact that one overcomes does not get his name written in the book of life. Revelation 17:8 says clearly that the names written in the book of life were written there from the foundation of the world. Overcoming is evidence that their name is written in the book of life and they need not fear it ever being blotted out, there is overwhelming eternal security in Christ Jesus and His work on the cross and in the life of the overcomer.

I told you that we would come back to verses 2 and 3 again so here we are. I don’t always name my sermons but I did give this one a name: “How to End the Zombie Apocalypse”. In verses 2 and 3 Jesus gives His church, including you and me, five things that must be done in the event that we become as those who have a name that they are alive but are really dead. First: Wake up! Be watchful! The people of Sardis had fallen asleep and their city had been captured; now the church in Sardis has the opportunity not to let this happen to them in the spiritual sense. We who are believers today must also not get to comfortable. Sometimes I think the church in America is secure in being the church not in being followers of Christ. We must be watchful not to look alive yet lack life in following our Lord. We must be intentional as followers of Christ not passive. Second: Strengthen what is alive! The church in Sardis evidently was still doing the right things so there were yet some things that were living. Jesus told them to nurture those things so that they will remain alive and grow strong. Folks even if things are not perfect, even if we fail in some area and have even let things die we need to make certain that we nurture those things which are living in the church. We are not having a problem with heresy but neither are we offending Rome. Perhaps our formality of church as church has taken the place of the reality of living in the Spirit where life really is. We need to strengthen what is alive. Third: Remember or Bear in Mind! Keep it in your mind when you were alive, when you lived in the Spirit, not being secure in yourself or in the church but secure in the Spirit living in you, guiding you and convicting you. We as the church today need to bear in mind the gospel that we heard and how it changed our lives and the lives of people around us. We need to preach the gospel to one another but also to ourselves to bear in mind the work of God in redeeming us to Himself through His Son in whom we have our security. Fourth: Hold Fast or Obey! The Church at Sardis only had a few who had not defiled their garments. They allowed, as we said last week, Sardis to infiltrate the Church and they were complacent instead of impactful. Church we must be diligent; we must be intentional in being obedient to the gospel and the commands of our Lord to be witness in word and deed. To live lives that our Lord can say shows us worthy to walk with Him in white garments. Finally Fifth: Repent! We just can’t seem to get away from that word, and the reason is because that is what our Lord does, He calls His people to repentance. To put an end to complacency, to put an end to looking just like the world, to put an end to the zombie apocalypse of the church, the church of God must repent. When we find ourselves looking alive but living dead we must turn to our Lord and repent. We must repent and obey the command of Paul in Ephesians 5:18 to be “filled with the Spirit”.

So in short to put an end to the zombie apocalypse the church must wake up, strengthen what is weak, bear in mind what we have, obey the commands and when we fail, repent. Let’s pray.

Where the church has been established and is impactful the culture almost always prospers. But when the church gets comfortable and dies so does the culture or the city or the nation. That is the case with Sardis and I wonder if that is not the case with these United States.

[1] The New King James Version. (1982). (Re 3:1–6). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.