Jesus’ Letter To The Church In Sardis: Wake Up!

Revelation 3:1-6

Revelation 3:1–6 ESV

“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. 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. 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. 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. 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. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

Introduction:

In 2014 Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, wrote a highly acclaimed book titled Autopsy of a Deceased Church.

Its genesis was a popular blog article with the same title.

In this book Rainer identifies several fatal causes that put once-alive and vibrant churches in the grave.

These include:

• Treating the pastor as the hero;

Refusing to adapt to the needs of the present community;

Moving the focus of the budget inward;

Allowing the Great Commission to become the Great Omission;

• Letting the church become preference-driven out of selfishness and personal agendas;

Seeing the tenure of the pastors decreasing;

Failing to have regular, corporate prayer;

Having no clear purpose or vision;

And obsessing over the facilities.

The commentator build on Rainer’s excellent points with a simple observation.

Many a church begins with a man, reaches out with a mission, becomes a movement, but ends up a monument or in the mortuary.

This is a polite way of saying many a church begins with life but ends in death.

It has a glorious past, but a glorious past is all it has.

It is now a zombie church, a church of the living dead.

There are live bodies walking around with dead souls on the inside.

Amazingly, astonishingly, sometimes only God notices.

Spiritually there is no pulse, no heartbeat.

Spiritually they are flat-lined, a dead church.

Another complement to Rainer’s precise analysis might be an article titled “When Does My Church Need Revival?”

in which Stevan Manley highlights six tell-tale signs of a church standing at death’s door:

1. The church is plagued with disagreements.

2. The preaching is ineffective.

3. Few can remember when a person was last saved.

4. God’s supernatural power is never seen.

5. God is not praised regularly.

6. No one is being called into God’s work

Autopsy studies of modern churches is popular, even helpful.

However, it is not new as Revelation 3:1-6 makes clear.

Main Idea: The Lord attends the church in Sardis and warns them that their spiritual condition will lead to judgment if they do not repent.

The death was spreading and endangered the whole body, but the situation was not past salvaging if they would listen to the Lord’s diagnosis and remedies for healing.

Hope was fading and time was running out, but it was not yet beyond a cure.

Christ is exactly who they need and his prescription for a possible recovery is what they definitely must hear

Look at V.1

Revelation 3:1 ““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.”

Sardis was approximately 30 miles southeast of Thyatira and one of the oldest cities in the province of Asia, having been founded around 1200 BC.

It was virtually destroyed by an earthquake in AD 17 but was rebuilt and given new life with the aid of Emperor Tiberius (AD 14–37)

The city had fame and wealth

and it took pride in its temple to Cybele

The church in Sardis had acquired a reputation in Asia Minor as a superlative congregation.

To all external appearances, as far as what could be seen and heard, Sardis was a progressive church

first among its sister congregations to initiate a new program, full of vitality, overflowing with zeal, no doubt quite large

As in every letter, an element of the vision of Christ from chapter 1 is applied to the church.

Here Jesus is described as the one who has the “seven spirits of God and the seven stars.”

The “seven spirits of God” refers to the Holy Spirit

look at Revelation 1:4 “John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,”

and signifies his perfection

This is the complete or perfect Holy Spirit; the Spirit in all His fullness

Look at Isaiah 11:2-5 “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.”

It emphasizes His omnipresence (cf. Rev. 5:6), wisdom and life giving power

Why does Jesus emphasize here that he has the Spirit?

It is because of the deadness of the church in Sardis.

We expect a commendation, given the pattern of the earlier letters (2:2, 19; cf. 2:9, 13).

But here there is a sudden change:

Jesus knows their works, and those works are completely inadequate

The American Evangelical church = Sardis = nominal Christianity

Comfortable - little suffering - little persecution - little conviction -

Yet everybody loves Jesus and Jesus love me

Sometimes we have no idea of our true spiritual condition

His perfect Spirit sees everything

He sees, He knows, He cares.

Through His life- giving Spirit He has the power to breathe new life, resurrection life, into this church.

Church revitalization will always begin in heaven with the glorified Christ who longs to raise to new life a church where “rigor mortis [has] set in.” (Swindoll, 64)

The Lord’s Criticism v.1b

Revelation 3:1 “ ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.”

The Sardis church is a spiritual graveyard

The church in Sardis receives no compliment from Christ, only criticism.

The only other church similarly faulted is the seventh church, Laodicea

From the outside they look fine, they have all the appearance of life

but on the inside there is no life at all, they are as good as dead

All of their efforts were characterized by half-heartedness, lack of zeal, by beginnings that rarely or ever came to anything of lasting worth.

They were the works of a church that had become the addicted to mediocrity.

They were, in a word, wishy-washy!

Sardis may well be the first church in history to have been filled with what we call today nominal Christians

Nominal Christianity is a hypocritical Christianity it is a type of spiritual death that God does not accept (His acceptance is the issue)

The yeast of worldliness had permeated the church

They were Christians in name only

Turn to Isaiah 29:13 “And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,”

2 Timothy 3:5 “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.”

Thus far we have noted the marks of the church of which Jesus approves:

doctrinal orthodoxy, suffering for Christ’s name sake, love, growth,

and now at Sardis we learn of the importance of reality, genuineness, authenticity, a life-style that matches profession

Like the prodigal son of whom the father said, “This son of mine was dead” (Luke 15:24),

only by repentance and return could life be restored

Turn to Eph 5:14 “for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.””

Though not blatant like Jezebel, Jesus had seen the secret sins beneath the shroud of piety.

Their visibly religious life was a facade

Look at James 1:27 “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

What was the cause of the churches death?

Though we cannot be sure it may be they had compromised their public witness to Jesus to avoid opposition and persecution

They were trying to blend in with the culture and go along to get along

It is a sad thing when the only accomplishment (“deed”) of a church is what it names itself, especially if the reality shows that name to be a lie, as here.

Their past deeds gave them a reputation among other churches for being alive for Christ

but their present deeds show a quite different picture (in accordance with their city’s history).…

Just outside their city was a famous necropolis, or cemetery, with the graves of long-dead kings.

The assembly at Sardis represented that cemetery more than a living church.

The Lord’s Counsel vv.2-3

Revelation 3:2-3 “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. 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.”

The way the Lord loves His church is simply amazing!

Not only has He redeemed her

He again and again goes out to rescue her from self-inflicted wounds

The Lord is continually active in bringing dead sinners to life

Look at Eph 2:1-7 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

As our Lord looks over Sardis, which is His body

He sees a weak beat of the heart, a faint pulse

Because this church is His church, there is yet hope of recovery, restoration, and revitalization

The condition is critical but not yet terminal, not as long as the Lord is present

The Lord addresses the church at Sardis with five imperatives and steps that must be taken if she is to once again be the church, the body of Christ, that Jesus saved her to be.

There is hope, but she must act quickly

He who has an ear let him hear

Wake Up!

The first of five imperatives in vv. 2 and 3 is joined to a participle and should be translated “be watchful” rather than “wake up”

The exhortations to watchfulness would carry special weight in Sardis

Historically the city of Sardis had fallen twice due to military slothfulness.

Jesus urges them not to suffer the same fate

They should learn form their history and past mistakes

“Be alert” is an imperative with a directive force.

Stay alert! Stay awake!

It was not too late to awaken from spiritual idleness

I doubt a more needful word could be uttered for and to the twenty-first-century church in the Western world

A lack of faithful attentiveness is a certain recipe for disaster

Strengthen what remains

Strengthen What = Our faith

They had grown content with a mediocre, halfway, comfortable, and convenient Christianity

Their faith was not radical; it was almost invisible

Strengthen what remains! - make it more strong - determination and resolve

The Holy Spirit was still there and working, but the time is short…

Strengthen = nurture or support

nurture believers to maturity

Turn to Romans 1:11 “For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—”

If you not actively involved in a healthy, hospitable community you have fallen asleep and forgotten you are here to help others grow in Christ

Here is the duty of the church within the church - Fan the embers into a flame!

Turn to 2 Timothy 1:6 “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands,”

Remember what you received and heard

revelation 3:3 “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.”

Like the church at Ephesus (2:5), our Lord calls those at Sardis to “remember.”

The idea is that they will continually call something to remembrance.

And what are they to remember? The gospel!

They need to continually recall the truth of the gospel they had “received and heard.”

Remember we do not owe the world anything

They seemed to forgotten 1 John 2:15 which says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

Remember transformation begins with a renewed mind, set on God’s word

Turn to Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Remember the greatest gift we ever receive is the gift of God himself

The Spirit goes to work from within to see our actual lives conformed or transformed into the likeness of Christ.

The reason some are dead is because the Spirit of life is not inwardly working

How do I know if He’s working?

How are you responding when the truth is given.

Does it move you towards obedience or indifference?

Today there is no temple that reflects our God; we do!

Listen to 2 Cor 3:18 “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.”

Notice in v.1 what Christ is holding as he commands - the seven Spirit of God

The Spirit is the only one who can breathe life into our lives and worship.

Only He can rescue the dying church.

The church doesn't need a superstar preacher, it must fall on its face and plead to be filled with Spirit!

Keep my Word

With the command to “keep it,” Jesus encourages the church to hold on, to guard what they received and heard

The truth of the gospel and the truths that flow from it are easily lost.

It is a precious treasure that should never be taken for granted

Gal 5: 16-18 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”

Repent and live

I fear many Christians have an inadequate understanding of biblical repentance.

They know they repented from their sin when they were converted

but they fail to understand its ongoing place in a healthy Christian life.

Repentance, a change of mind resulting in a change in attitude and action concerning sin

We never grow out of it or mature beyond it.

It appears the church at Sardis had forgotten the grace of repentance.

As a result, they were in danger of receiving an unexpected visit from Christ

This imagery of Jesus coming like a thief is found several times in Revelation (3:3; 16:15) and other places in the Bible (Matt 24:42–44; Luke 12:35–40; 1 Thess 5:2; 2 Pet 3:10)

Here it is referring not to His second coming for all but rather a coming in judgment against His church

This is a striking image and a powerful yet grace-filled warning.

Jesus is instructing them, “Repent now!

There is no promise that you will have time later.

My surprise coming in judgment may catch you unprepared.”

The Lord’s Commendation v.4

Revelation 3:4 “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.”

Christ does not ask these faithful few to leave the nominal majority

but to maintain their presence as a witness.

They may have a difficult time doing so, but Christ commends them as worthy of special praise.

Their righteousness was based on Christ’s death for them, which resulted in righteous living

The doctrine of the remnant is throughout all Scripture

The Flood - Sodom & Gomorrah - Elijah in the days of Jezebel & Ahab

Look at Luke 12:32 ““Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

The metaphor changes from death to sleep (From v.1 to v.2)

You don't appeal to dead people to wake up but to the sleeping

The remnant is called to awaken themselves

The Lord doesn’t need a church of 2,000 people to change Dallas, NC

He needs a remnant unwilling to compromise

and willing to love each other

and this world in truth and authenticity

The doctrine of the remnant will stand, will we WG?

The Lord’s Promise and Reward vv.5-6

Revelation 3:5-6 “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. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

3-fold promise for their loyalty to Christ

They will be clothed in His perfect righteousness

This is their justification accomplished, their sanctification in progress, and their glorification that is soon to come

The significance of “white garments” is clarified and tied to the call to “conquer.”

Here those who overcome and conquer are promised white garments.

As we saw in the previous verse, white garments are given to those who are righteous, who enjoy fellowship with Jesus Christ

The faithful at Sardis walk with Christ, dressed in white, “for they are worthy.”

This is another way of saying that the one who conquers will be granted eternal life

He promises never to erase our name from the book of life

Thus, in the OT, the book of life was a register of all those who held citizenship in the theocratic community of Israel

The idea was common in the secular world as well

“When a criminal’s name was removed from the civic register of an Asiatic town, he lost his citizenship.”

It would be troubling to interpret the concept of being blotted out of the book of life as indicating the possibility of people losing their salvation

there is no explicit statement that anybody will, in fact, have his name blotted out

or the book of life lists the entire human race and individuals who do not accept Christ are blotted out

It is hermeneutically unsound to base theological doctrine solely on either parables or apocalyptic imagery.

Better to allow the text, even when theologically awkward, to present its own picture.

Christ will acknowledge these who are clothed in His righteousness before God and His angels

Jesus promises to confess these who are clothed in His righteousness before the Father and His angels.

He will acknowledge their name as evidence that He knows them and claims them as His own.

They were not ashamed of Him and He is not ashamed of them

Am I part of the unashamed minority?

Romans 1:16-17 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.””

So What?

Am I settling for a safe faith or a radical faith?

Biblical faith or a secularized faith

It easy and safe to say you're a Christian when it works for you

and yet functionally denies him with your life.

It demands nothing, costs nothing, and produces nothing but a hard heart and a fruitless life.

In reality, it is not safe to deny Christ with our mouths or our lives.

God will not be mocked!

Radical faith is an authentic faith

This is not a call to sinless perfection but a call authenticity.

Be honest about where you are?

It's ok to have questions.

It's ok to not know?

It's ok to not be ok?

It’s ok to have endured trauma and not know how to connect with people.

It’s not ok to act as if your ok when you're falling apart.

Christianity does not say we have it all together so follow us.

Christianity says none of us have it all together so let's follow Christ.

We do not need to struggle alone or put on a facade like were not struggling.

Am I willing to ask the Lord to fill WG with His Spirit

The greatest message = Be filled with the Spirit

Eph 5:18-21 “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”