Active But Not Alive
I. Glad To Be Here...
Praise the Lord!!!
How many in here this morning are glad to be in
the house of the Lord?
In Psa 122:1 David said... I was glad when they
said unto me, Let us go into the house of the
LORD.
I don’t know about you, but I’m glad to be here this
morning. Amen?
I didn’t come dragging my feet into the house of
God this morning!
I came leaping with joy. Amen?
I didn’t come here because I was obligated this
morning!
I come here because I wanted to. Amen?
I been waiting all night for this. Amen?
It’s a privledge to be in the house of the Lord.
Amen?
Sometimes we just don’t know how good we got it!
We take church for granted!
We come into the house of God dragging our feet!
Wishing it would all hurry up and be over with!
We want the preacher to give us three points and a
joke,
And a benediction so we can be the first ones to the
buffet line at Golden Corral!
Well I’m here to tell you if that’s the kind of
attitude you walked in here with this morning
something’s wrong!
Some changes need to take place in your life!
Amen?
It’s a blessing to come into God’s house without
fear of persecution,
It’s a blessing to have a place to come and hear the
word of God spoken with power and authority,
And it’s a blessing to have a place to go and
fellowship with other Christians who love the Lord!
I don’t know about you but I’m glad to be in church
today,
I could have been anywhere else in the world,
But I’m glad to be in church!
And not just any church, I’m glad to be in Church
Alive!
I could have gotten up and put on my suit and tie
this morning and grabbed my Bible and headed
over to Church dead,
But praise God I’m right here in Church Alive!
And I’m glad to be in a church that’s alive because
if this was a dead church then you probably
wouldn’t want to hear this message this morning!
Turn with me in your Bibles to Revelation chapter
3.
I want to preach on the dead church this morning.
And the title of this message is "Active, But Not
Alive!"
Rev 3:1 And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.
Rev 3:2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.
Rev 3:3 Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.
Rev 3:4 Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy.
Rev 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
Rev 3:6 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
II. The Dead Revived...
Each week in America, paramedics arrive on the
scene of an accident,
A scene where the victim has crossed the barrier
between life and death.
There is no heartbeat.
Breathing has stopped.
All the vital signs of life are absent.
They are clinically dead. Amen?
But the paramedics don’t accept this death as final.
They begin CPR, perhaps inject a drug that
stimulates the heart.
For a few frantic moments, nothing may seem to
happen.
But then all of a sudden, the victim begins to
cough, taking a few ragged breaths,
and the heart begins to beat, pulsing life through
the body.
In a few moments, the victim is stabilized.
And instead of sending a corpse to the morgue,
the ambulance takes a patient to the hospital.
If not for the expert care of those paramedics,
How many knows that the accident would have
been followed by a funeral.
Death had overcome these victims,
But there death wasn’t final.
It wasn’t permanent. Amen?
Because with the proper stimulus, they were
revived.
That is the way I picture the church at Sardis.
Jesus pro-nounces it dead, but there is hope that
spiritual CPR can revive it.
Jesus said in verse one thou "art dead",
But in verse five He turned around and said they
could overcome that death,
And have their name in the book of life.
But, there is a point at which this illustration
breaks down.
See the paramedics new that their victim was dead
because of the lack of activity going on.
Their heart was no longer active, so they had no
pulse,
Their lungs were no longer active,
Their limbs were no longer moving. Amen?
But the church at Sardis, though dead, was still full
of activity.
It was still active and we see that because Jesus
spoke of its works.
It was still functioning like a church.
It was still holding services, singing hymns,
offering prayers, delivering sermons, and doing
works of ministry.
Each week, a congregation still gathered there and
went through the motions of worship.
But for all its activity, Jesus said it definitely wasn’t
alive.
This morning I want us to discover what that
means.
We need to learn how to discern the difference
between a living and dead church.
I want us to figure out the difference between
church-dead down the road and Church Alive!
III. The Description of the Church
The first thing we need to do is look at Jesus’
description of the Church at Sardis.
a) Appearing to be alive...
He said in verse one that though it had a reputation
of being alive it was a dead church!
How many Knows that appearances can be
deceiving.
The church at Sardis enjoyed a good reputation
The community respected it and its members.
When men looked at it, they admired what they
thought was the spiritual life of the church.
But activity doesn’t equal life.
A church doesn’t live by programs
A church is not alive because it’s got a full calendar
A church doesn’t live by good works or things that
benefit the community.
Life in a church can only come from the Spirit of
God from whom all life flows.
b) Lacking in the Spirit department...
Rev 3:1 And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.
The problem at Sardis is that it was ministerially
active, but spiritually dead.
So Jesus told them that He was the one who has
the seven Spirits of God.
You say well why did He say that Pastor?
Well how many knows that there is only one Holy
Spirit?
There is only one Holy Spirit, but His ministry is
seven-fold.
That’s what Jesus was saying here.
He was saying you’re lacking in the Spirit
department.
Maybe the Spirits ministry is seven-fold but they
were only operating half throttle.
Maybe you’re bearing the fruit of the Spirit but God
says what about the Gifts. Amen?
What we have here is a direct reference to Isaiah
11:2 which lays out the seven-fold ministry of the
Holy Ghost.
Isa 11:2 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.
How many know’s that 7 is also God’s number of
completion or wholeness or fullness.
So God was reminding them that a Church Alive!
needs to operate in the fullness of His Spirit!
He was saying I possess the seven Spirits of God
which can be translated the fullness of the Holy
Ghost.
He was saying A Church Alive! is a spirit-filled
church! Amen?
Not lacking in the gifts department or the fruit
department or in any other area in which the Spirit
is concerned. Amen?
In a Church that’s Alive the com-pleteness and
fullness of His character can be seen.
The first reason the church at Sardis was declared
dead is that the Holy Spirit was not being allowed
to do His job.
This was a con-gregation that outwardly professed
to be Christians, but they pos-sessed no spiritual
life.
They would be offended if you suggested that they
weren’t Christians,
but the majority had actually never been born
again in the first place.
They were Christian in name only.
And those who were were content with just going
to church and going through the motions.
They weren’t seeking to be filled with the Holy
Ghost.
They were happy with what they had.
They didn’t care to be fully immersed in His power
and annointing,
Their motto where the Holy Ghost was concerned
was "a lil dad will do ya".
They didn’t desire the gifts of God,
They didn’t desire His Power for service.
They didn’t desire to walk in the fullness of the
Spirit,
But rather to replace the Holy Ghost with program
after program after program!
A church that is lacking in the Spirit department is
dying. Amen?
I don’t care if they’ve got the best rock band in the
city doing their praise and worship,
They’re still dying without the Holy Ghost! Amen?
c) Dead and yet dying...
Rev 3:2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.
The church at Sardis was a dying church.
You said well Pastor I thought you said that they
were a dead church?
Well the answer to that is yes and no.
Verse one says they are spiritually dead and
because of their lack of the Holy Ghost,
Verse 2 says they are ready to die or that they’re
about to die.
When a paramedic arrives on the scene and finds a
victim with no pulse or breathing, they have to
determine if there is any hope of reviving the
victim.
If there is, we can say that the victim is both dead
and dying.
If there’s no hope then they’re just dead!
The victim is dead in the sense that the breath of
life has gone.
He is ready to die in the sense that unless the
paramedics can get blood and oxygen to the vital
organs,
they will be permanently damaged and any hope of
revival will be lost.
It is the job of the emergency personnel to
strengthen the things
that remain to get blood and oxygen to the or-gans
before they are permanently damaged.
What remains in a dead church?
The forms of godliness.
The hymn books often preserve the great songs of
the faith.
Their services will revolve around prayer and the
Word of God.
Often, their confession of faith still preserves the
great doctrines of the Bible intact.
There will be sermons on the death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ.
The truth is there, but it has been lost in ceremony,
rituals, and formalism.
There is nothing wrong with the things that
remain.
They just need to be strengthened replenished with
the life that has been taken from them.
d) Defiled and unclean...
Rev 3:4 Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy.
There was good news in the fact that there were
some in Sardis who walked with Jesus.
They were born again genuine believers
They tried to live the way a Christian ought to live.
The bad news was that this represented the
minority in the church
The majority was spotted with the sins and
excesses of the world.
For the majority, their brush with the truth
through the forms and rituals made no difference
in their lives.
And their brush with the world left their garments
soiled and defiled before God.
So in the first four verses of Revelation 3 Christ has
described a church that, though it had a good
reputation,
Though it had an appearance of life, It was in fact
dead. Amen?
He said it wasn’t operating in the fullness of the
Spirit,
And because of that all hope was fading away.
And somewhere in the midst of all of that the
majority of it’s members had become defiled and
unclean.
IV. The Diagnosis for the Church
The outlook for the church didn’t look good, but
Jesus tells them what they can do to be revived.
Return to the Word of God.
Rev 3:3 Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent.
The words heard and received remind us that faith
comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
He was saying hold fast to every ounce faith that
you have left. Amen?
At some point in the history of the church at
Sardis, formalism and tradition had replaced faith,
and dead works had replaced the Spirit of God.
This also explains why Jesus presented Himself as
the one who held the seven stars in His hands.
The seven stars represented the seven angels or
pastors.
It is the responsibility of the pastor to be a man
filled with the Spirit of God and lead by the Son of
God when preaching the Word of God so that it
changes hearts and minds of the Children of God
with true repentance.
But there were three faults with the preaching at
Sardis.
There were three problems with the preaching and
teaching coming from the pulpit of the dead
church.
1. It didn’t produce saving faith.
Men and women were not being born again by the
Spirit of God,
They were continuing in dead works
Active in ministry, but not alive in Christ.
2. It didn’t equip people to live holy lives.
We can see from verse four that the majority was
still living in sin.
They were still walking around in soiled garments.
That’s because the word they were preaching was
not bringing about Godly conviction.
That’s probably because the Pastor was not
preaching under the anointing of the Holy Spirit
who the bible says Is the one who convicts us of sin
and righteousness.
3. It didn’t prepare people to meet the Lord.
It didn’t bring about the hope of a soon coming
savior.
And there fore the people became complacent in
religion because they had no promise of the rapture
or no promise of the resurrection to stand on.
V. The Blessed Hope...
I believe that there are alot of dying Christians in
the world today.
Some are dying because of there lack of spirituality.
Some are dying because they’ve fallen victim to
their own lusts.
But I think it all boils down to the fact that they’ve
lost hope.
We don’t for see a way out and there fore we lose
hope!
We need to recover the hope of the Lord’s return
today. Amen?
Don’t sit here and tell me that you never lost it,
Because if you had any hope in the fact that Christ
was coming soon,
Then you wouldn’t be living like you are.
You would be pursuing holiness and righteousness,
Even if it was only out of fear.
We need to recover the hope of the Lord’s return
because it not only gives us hope,
But it keeps us in check. Amen?
Rev 3:3 ...I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.
If that doesn’t put the fear of the Lord in you what
will. Amen?
The Second Coming of Christ is the blessed hope of
the church.
God doesn’t want to scare us He wants us to take
comfort and courage in the promise of His coming.
We are to live with the realization that at any
moment the Lord could return and we will be
caught up out of this world to meet Him in the air.
But for the unbeliever, Jesus will come as a thief.
He’ll come, take His saints, and be gone and those
who have never trusted Him as Savior will be left
behind.
Yet, there are churches full of people calling
themselves Christians, who never give one thought
to the coming of Christ.
After He comes, they’ll probably continue going to
church, going through the rituals,
not even knowing that He’s been and gone and they
were not taken because they never came to a saving
faith in Christ.
They have a name that they are alive, but they are
dead.
VI. Conclusion...
The basic need of the church in Sardis was a
genuine experience of salvation.
They needed to be clothed in the white raiment of
the righteousness of Christ.
They needed the assurance of eternal life, that their
names would never be blotted out of the Book of
Life.
And that is the assurance that God gives to those
who believe in Jesus Christ for salvation.
Their sins are forgiven.
A place is secured for them forever in heaven.
No believer will ever be denied before the Father in
heaven.
But there will be some to whom Jesus will say,
depart from me, I never knew you.
There are some who call themselves Christians and
will be left behind when He comes.
That is why it is important to make sure that you
have truly accepted Christ as your Savior and why
we cannot accept membership in a church as a
token of salvation.
