“REVEALING THE REVELATION”
“The Church of Sardis”
September 28, 2009
"To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God.
Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, 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.
Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.
He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Revelation 3:1-6
Sardis was located in what we know as modern Turkey. It was located about 50 miles from Thyatira. The city of Sardis had once been one of the richest and most powerful cities in the known world. 700 years before this letter was written Sardis was unsurpassed as a commercial and cultural center. It was situated at the junction of five main trading routes and was a major commercial center overlooking the Hermus Valley. It was a rich city that really hadn’t had to do much to achieve its prosperity.
It was this sense of ease and apathy that eventually led to the downfall of Sardis. The city was located on the top of a hill that was so steep that it’s defenses seemed impregnable - but twice, once in 549 b.c. and again 300 years later, enemies scaled the steep cliffs to discover that the Sardians were so confident they hadn’t even posted a guard.
It’s interested how the first conqueror, Cyrus of Persia, told that there would probably be rebellion or uprising in the city, made sure no one in the Sardis was allowed to possess a weapon. Talk about anti-gun laws! He stopped the people from even wearing sandals -instead they had to wear the soft slipper type footwear favored by actors and dancers. And then he ordered that the boys of Sardis (potential warriors) to be instructed in music, song and dance. He feminized them. The result was that the city lost its spirit.
The city was known primarily for two things. First, we are told that it was in Sardis that the process for dyeing wool was first discovered, and secondly Sardis was known for its worship of the goddess Artemis. You will remember that the worship of this Greek deity was usually accompanied by immorality. There is no indication that there was any persecution of the church from this group.
You may be thinking, “Why not?” Well, by the time John wrote this letter the city was wealthy, but soft and degenerate. It would appear the church was much the same. There is no evidence to suspect that there was persecution in this congregation. There was no threat from inside or outside the church. One commentator remarked that the reason the church in Sardis was left alone was because of its lack of aggressive and positive Christianity. “They that live godly WILL suffer persecution.” (2 Timothy 3:12)
Content with mediocrity and lacking the depth of conviction which provokes intolerance, it was too passive to be worthy of persecution. They weren’t a threat. They weren’t offensive. Everyone just got along and didn’t make waves.
And so, sheltered and unthreatened, the Sardis church gradually wilted -until there was no substance to it. And Jesus said,
“I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.”
OUCH! That had to hurt! Notice that the Great “I AM” said, “I know you.” “I know your deeds”. In Matthew 25:31-46 Christ tells of the Shepherd, on the great Judgment Day, who separates the goats from the sheep. What was the criteria used for the division? Let’s look at it.
Matthew 25:35-36: “For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.
In verses 42 and 43 the same speech is repeated - but this time with no food, no drinks, no visits and no hospitality. Both groups addressed Christ as Lord. There were equal expectations. And I’m sure that one of the condemned probably stood up and said “Excuse me, what about, ah, Ephesians 2:8-9 where it says God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
But what they failed to realize is that the change that Christ makes in our hearts will manifest itself, ultimately, in an expression of love - most often identified with good works. Now these good works will not save you, you will never be good enough, do enough or give enough - to get you into heaven. But, the things which do save you, namely grace and faith, will ultimately produce the things that won’t save you – which are works and service. Therefore on the basis of that one statement, which proceeds each of the seven letters “I know what you do” we need to ask ourselves as a church, what is it we do? Are we allowing Christ to use our hearts and hands and voices to accomplish His good works?
Could we, as a Christian Church, a Church of Christ, a body of believers, be judged on the merits of our works -if we had to be? Have we given food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked? Have we sheltered the homeless and visited those who were sick and in prison? Can we do better?
“I know you”, Jesus said. We can fool people. People don’t know what is really going on inside our heads and hearts. They don’t know what we do when the lights are out and we are all alone. But Jesus does. And rather than seeing an angry God peeking at us- spying on us in anger; I think it is a compassionate and hurting Father that grieves for us. He feels for us.
When I was a young military policeman in Korea, way back in 1968, I was not only far away from home – but I was far away from God. I remember coming to the base in the wee hours of the morning after partying all night, and this incident is in burned into my brain. I remember as if it happened yesterday. I was on my way from the barracks to the latrine when I heard a voice so filled with love and compassion say, with so much sorrow and pain, my name - “Andy”.
God wasn’t angry with me for drinking and sinning and doing the things I did. He was hurting for me! His love for me caused Him so much pain. I never want to hurt my Heavenly Father like that again.
So when you read what Jesus says to this church you can put righteous anger and holy condemnation in it; You can hear the anger in Jesus’ voiced. Or you can hear Him say this in love and grief. I think it is the latter. Like David grieved for his son Absalom, God grieves for us when we blow it.
And this church was blowing it. These people were blowing it. No one knew it. They appeared to be alive. They are like many churches today who may be large and entertaining and have a ton of programs and fantastic music; may appear to be alive and thriving and growing. But in reality they are dead.
The church in Sardis had had an excellent name at one time. A name for being alive but Jesus says “I know better, I know that you are dead.” Not sick, not injured, not crippled, not faint, not weak but dead, and dead is dead. But what is dead? When we talk about a dead church what do we mean?
“Well, you know Pastor, dead. The music is slow and dreary, the preacher is boring and the entire worship service is slow and dreary. You know dead.”
And then perhaps you would say “you know, like such and such a church.” But that type of definition of dead is personal and subjective. What’s dead to you - may or may not be dead to me. And while we may define such and such a church as dead and slow and dreary, there might be some people who would look at it think it was alive and vibrant and relevant. So this isn’t the measure that Jesus uses. The dictionary defines dead as 1) No longer living. 2) Without life 3) death like 4) Lacking vitality, interest, warmth etc. 5) Without feeling, motion or power 6) extinguished or extinct.
So what makes a church dead. Here are three characteristics, that in my mind, signify that a person is dead -and if these characteristics are present in a person or a church it probably indicates death.
1) If You’re Dead You Lack Compassion. There are no feelings in a dead person, no joy or sorrow, no happiness or anger, nothing. We could say that a dead person is apathetic. Sometimes we feel blue and depressed and say “I don’t care about anything.” The reality is that we probably care too much about everything. The dead person on the other hand just plain doesn’t care. And the dead church doesn’t care.
They don’t care about a persons physically wellness, there is no compassion in the church. It goes back to what Christ said about being hungry, thirsty, naked and sick -and nobody cared. That is indicative of death. Jesus’ brother, James, talked about the same thing in his book, in James 2:15-17.
“Suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, and you say, “Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?
So you see, it isn’t enough just to have faith. Faith that doesn’t show itself by good deeds is no faith at all—it is dead and useless.”
A church that is dead doesn’t care. It doesn’t care about people’s physical needs and it doesn’t care about people’s spiritual needs. When a church is dead -there is no interest in outreach or evangelism. There are all kinds of reasons why not- but bottom line is they don’t care.
2) If You’re Dead, You Lack Warmth. Now I don’t mean you are just a little cool. Julie’s body temperature normally runs almost a full degree below what is considered normal. So if you were to take her temperature and it’s normal -then it’s not. But she’s not dead -just cool. However if instead of her temperature being 97.6 degrees it was 87.6 degrees - we would definitely have a problem. Working with cops I am constantly learning their language. Instead of saying, “They are dead.” They say, “They have assumed room temperature.”
In the same way a church might be a little cool and that is just the personality of the church. Not every church is into hugging and gushing. But when there is no warmth or love at all- then the church is dead. When people visit our church- do they find it a warm and welcoming place? I don’t’ mean temperature wise. Do we make people feel welcome and cared for? I have visited churches where no one, not one person has spoken to me -and I felt like an intruder. That isn’t being a little cool that is being cold.
3) If You’re Dead You Lack Movement. You ever notice that dead people don’t’ move. Sometimes when you are at visiting hours at the funeral home you hear someone say “They look so life like.” No they don’t -cause they aren’t moving. Dead people do not move and dead churches do not move. Oh, they offer up a lot of excuses about why they don’t move “We’ve never done it that way before.” “We are a traditional church” “We tried it once and it didn’t work” “Why bother changing.” “The last pastor didn’t do it that way.”
The truth of the matter is that if you aren’t moving ahead and growing -then something is wrong, somewhere. What worked 100 years ago, or 20 years ago or 10 years ago or even last year won’t necessarily work this year. Businesses that refuse to change, update and modernize -eventually fail. And churches that refuse to change, update and modernize -eventually die.
Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t mean we change the message. The message, the word of God, is timeless -and applies just as much today as it did when it was written. But the way we deliver it, needs to change, if we are to reach today’s generation. Don’t water it down – but speak it in today’s words.
The Church of the Nazarene was formed primarily from Bible study groups out of many other denominations – Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, etc.. The one thing these people had in common was that they believed that the Bible taught ‘Scriptural holiness’. In other words, they believed that we ought to pursue holiness of heart and life. Many of the churches didn’t teach that. Some taught once you are saved you don’t have to change a thing. No repentance. No spiritual growth. No good works. We don’t agree with that. Our motto is “Holiness unto the Lord”. Our Scripture is “Be ye holy”. (1 Peter 1:16). Our reason for existing is to “propagate scriptural holiness” – or “Make Christlike disciples of the nations.” Some churches literally teach disobedience. Jesus said “Make disciples and teach them to obey…” (Matthew 28:19-20)
We don’t believe you have to willfully sin every day. We believe, with the help of the Holy Spirit, you can live a holy life. We don’t teach you can live a perfect life- because we can’t in this flesh - but you can have a pure heart. It’s an old message that ought not to change – but we need to keep it fresh and relevant for today.
There are a lot of good churches in this town. Some appear to be really alive and well. But only one other church shares our doctrine of holiness. There is a reason God has us here. That is to get the holiness message out. I pray you will share our passion for holiness
When people are dead, I mean, really dead, they usually stay that way. And Unfortunately, it is the same for churches. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Jesus tells the church in Sardis to do three things.
1) Wake Up! One of the first things that Christ was telling the church was to look around at where they were. In the 12 step programs that exist today the first step is always the same, wake up and admit you have a problem. The first step for the dying church is to wake up and admit that things need to change. I’m pretty sure that up to this point most people in the Sardis Church would have thought that everything was going just fine, after all there was no persecution happening and no heresies. Jesus is saying wake up, look around see how far you’ve fallen.
2) Strengthen What Little Remains! Obviously the church wasn’t a complete loss. We don’t know what remained- but Jesus was basically telling them to build on their strengths. There may not have been much, but there was obviously something worth hanging on to. Jesus wasn’t telling them everything had to go. We have some good things going for us – and we need to strengthen and do even better in those areas.
3) Go Back To What You Heard And Believed At First. Jesus is saying; go back to where you started. He told the church in Ephesus to return to their first love. Remember when things were new and fresh and exciting? How your faith was when you first became a Christian? How exciting things were when the church was still young? We say you can’t go back, but sometimes you have to -before you can go ahead. Our church has to go back to our holiness roots. We need to read and study our history. We need to remember what we are all about. We need to be alive and on fire for holiness. Most of you probably have never read a book on holiness. You probably aren’t aware of our doctrine. But you need to be. I have a library filled with good holiness books that I would love to share with you. Learn about this fantastic thing God has called us to do.
And seek to live a holy life personally – after all, the church is made up of individuals. If we are to be a holy church – we need to have holy people. God says,
“As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." (1 Peter 1:14-16
Jesus concludes His letter with a promise. He says:
“He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.”
What does it mean to overcome? It means to overcome sin and the devil and temptation. Jesus sees what you are going through –and He feels for you. But the command is to overcome. The command is to be holy. “IF” you do – you will be dress is white. The white robe was the party robe. Ever see the togas and the white robes the old Romans wore? Jesus will dress the holy is party clothes – for all eternity. He won’t blot our names out of the book. Some people who have their name written in the book of life will have it scratched out – but the overcomers will be honored by Jesus before the Father and the angels in heaven. What a glorious thought! It will be worth it. You have been called to overcome. You have been called to holiness. How will you respond?
SONG: “Called unto holiness”
