The Letter To The Church At Sardis: Appearing Alive, But Actually Dead Series

"In an address I lately heard, the speaker said that the blessings of the higher Christian life were often like the objects exposed in a shop window, one could see them clearly and yet could not reach them. If told to stretch out his hand and take, a man would answer, I cannot; there is a thick pane of glass between them and me. And even so Christians may see clearly the blessed promises of perfect peace and rest, of overflowing love and joy, of abiding communion and fruitfulness, and yet feel that there was something between hindering the true possession, And what might that be? Nothing but pride." -Andrew Murray, Humility, p. 53

"No wonder you can’t believe! For you gladly honor each other, but you don’t care about the honor that comes from the one who alone is God." -John 5:44

Sardis was a large and beautiful city in it’s time, with powerful defenses that made the residents over-confident in their ability to defend themselves from invading armies. Sardis was known for worship to the Greek god Artemis as well as roman emperor worship, but the city also had the largest Jewish synagogue in the ancient world apart from those in Israel itself. So there was a strong Jewish presence in this city as well.

Cyrus the greater conqueror had at one time attempted to conquer Sardis, but the fortifications on the great hills behind the city were too difficult to overcome. One night, a soldier on the battlements accidentally dropped his helmet over the side of the walls. So he snuck down and opened a secret passage to grab his helmet and come back. Unfortunately for him, this was noticed by Cyrus and his troops. They later attacked the other side of the city, and sent a group of soldiers to quietly break into the hidden doorway on the other side, and this helped them capture the city at last.

Coined money was apparently first developed in Sardis long long ago, when it was controlled by the Lydian empire. And the Lydian empire was known for being very wealthy. So we had a wealthy city, with powerful defenses, so this led to arrogance, overconfidence, and laziness. The city was captured by Cyrus, then later by the Roman empire, who controlled it during the time of the early church.

The church in this city apparently had a reputation of being a very active and spirit filled church. I’m sure in the past they had won many to Christ, and helped many people, and were growing and discipling, and spreading the word, and sending out missionaries. It was great. But, apparently this reputation over time, began to be something of the past, not the present.

They had been an active Spirit-filled church, but over the years, something had changed. Perhaps they had become lazy, complacent, and eventually, they were simply dead inside.

And I wonder if that’s true of some of us today, we used to be super active, we used to pray a lot, and read the Bible, but we’ve kind of settled back into complacency, kind of settled in and think well I’ll just show up to church and that’ll be enough.

But Jesus Christ our messiah, he sees the heart. And sitting back and going along to get along won’t be enough. It wasn’t enough for this church. Let’s look at what Jesus tells them.

He says in Revelation 3:1, “He who has [a]the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, and yet you are dead.”

Jesus says I have the seven spirits of God, and I have the seven stars. We know the seven stars are the seven churches of Revelation. Good. But, what are the seven spirits of God?

I’ve often wondered that myself. What does Revelation mean by the 7 spirits of God? And it’s in the word. It’s actually apparently from a prophecy about the messiah in Isaiah chapter 11 verse two. It says this:

“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:

And [1] the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, [2] the spirit of wisdom and [3] understanding, [4] the spirit of counsel and [5] might, [6] the spirit of knowledge and of [7] the fear of the Lord;”

It’s been there all the time. All we had to do was look for it. And on a side note, I believe we as Christians can also have all of these seven spirits of God. Wisdom, understanding, counsel of God, the might of God, the knowledge of God, and the fear of the Lord. They are the hallmarks of a follower of Jesus.