The Dead Church ~ Sardis
Revelation 3:1-6
March 18, 2012
I want to warn you, for a moment I’m going to start out a little morbid. How do you know when a person is dead? This is not a trick question, it’s a serious question. We determine whether there is a heartbeat and whether there are brain waves. We can look at a person and determine if there is a pulse, we can even hold a mirror above their mouth to see if they are breathing. There are very specific medical means to determine this.
But, how do you determine when an organization is dead? That is a much more difficult and daunting challenge. Isn’t it? With regard to today’s passage, how do we specifically know when a church is dead, even though by all appearance it is seemingly alive and well.
The easiest answer would be that it is a church with a declining attendance. A church that is shrinking numerically, where the numbers shrink to the point that a for sale sign goes out in front of the church or the windows get boarded up.
But I think the deeper question goes to issues of spiritual vitality. Is a church that has been torn by controversy for years on end truly a living church? Or what about a church that is so comfortable in its current situation that there is no place for new people? What about a church that has completely lost its vision to reach people for Christ? If a church has no passion for those who don’t know Jesus, can it truly be called a “living” church of Jesus Christ?
Have you ever driven by a church and wondered, “I wonder if this church is alive or dead?” Have you ever wondered that about First Baptist Church? This is one of those questions which is much easier to ask than answer.
After all, if the church has a worship service (or two or three), a Sunday School, small groups, a choir or praise team, children’s and youth ministry — — does that mean it’s alive? Or can a seemingly alive church really be dead?
Again, it’s easier to ask than to answer. The only One who can really answer this one is Jesus.
This was the problem facing the church in Sardis. As we start to look at our fifth of 7 churches in Revelation, Jesus makes a very harsh diagnosis for this church ~ 1 You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
When you think about comments that Jesus may make about a church, this very well may the worse thing we could have said about us. We can assume from His comment “you have a reputation of being alive, that ~
. . . The church seemed alive and well.
. . . It had a good reputation in the community.
. . . It was evidently not on the brink of closing its doors.
. . . Others spoke well of the church.
Maybe they hosted a missions conference; and the pastor wrote books and traveled throughout Asia Minor, maybe they had the largest congregation, maybe they just bought a new building... All we know is that appearances can be deceiving.
Unlike the earlier letters we’ve looked at, Jesus doesn’t mention the fact ~
The church isn’t suffering from being persecution.
There isn’t a concern with false doctrine.
There is no idol worship going on.
There is no hint of sexual immorality in the church.
The church isn’t warned about losing its first love.
We really don’t know what was wrong in this church. All we know about Sardis is that things looked good on the outside, but they were dying on the inside.
Many years earlier, Sardis had been one of the most important cities of Asia Minor. When Persia controlled the region, Sardis was actually the capital city. But under the Romans it had faded into insignificance. It’s best days had come and gone. They were living off there reputation of past glory. Sardis was a town living in the past and on the past. It seems that the church of Sardis had taken on the character of the city itself.
One writer called the church at Sardis “the perfect model of inoffensive Christianity." Evidently the Jews and the Romans didn’t bother the church because the church didn’t bother them. It was left alone because it lacked the conviction to stir the waters and make any waves. Ouch!! That’s a serious slap in the face. Although apparently active on the outside, on the inside it had become a “spiritual graveyard.”
Jesus can make this diagnosis because he can read the hearts and minds of those who worship there. Maybe that is why He is called the one who “holds the seven spirits of God" (v. 1), a reference to the Holy Spirit who sees all things and who searches every heart. Nothing is hidden from Him.
Jesus spoke about this in Matthew 23, when He proclaimed, 27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
Do you hear what Jesus is saying? We like to cover up the dirt and make it look good on the outside. We like to dress well and smile, all the while on the inside our hearts are breaking.
How does a situation develop where a church with a good reputation turns out to be spiritually dead? We can list a few indicators:
When the past becomes more important than the present.
When keeping a good reputation matters more than a bold witness for Christ.
When religious ritual becomes an end in itself.
When talking about Christ matters more than knowing Christ.
When convenience trumps sacrifice.
When appearance matters more than reality.
When tradition stifles every attempt at innovation.
When personal comfort outweighs risky faith.
You see, all of these are a matter of the heart. Their doctrine is fine. Too many times a church that is dead will still seem like they are alive. So, how did this happen?
G. Campbell Morgan said, “The church had come to the place where it lived before men rather than before God, more anxious in all probability about their reputation in Sardis than their reputation in heaven.
<>
What, then, is the hope for a spiritually dead congregation? Jesus commands the church ~ 2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God.
Because Sardis was located on a plateau, it seemed secure from invasion. But twice in its history invading armies had scaled the heights during the night and captured the city. So Christ’s warning to “Wake up!” had special meaning to the church. Most likely the church had become lazy. If all’s going well, why bother to post a guard on the walls? In 1 Peter 5:8, Peter reminded the church to stay alert, because your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
We think we’re attacked at our point of weakness, but often times we are attacked where we think we are strong and impregnable. If the devil can’t make a frontal attack, he will send in wolves in sheep’s clothing; he will cause the sheep to begin biting each other. Or he will simply lull the flock to sleep and then he will pounce with deadly force.
Next, Jesus tells the church ~ 3 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.
This is the 4th time in the first 5 letters that Jesus is calling for the church to repent. Do you think we’re seeing a common theme? We’ve been over it, but remember, to repent literally means to change and turn away from what you were doing and do a 180o turn back to the Lord, doing it with your whole heart.
I would agree with some authors I’ve read, ‘nothing is more difficult than for a comfortable church to repent.’ Most of us don’t change unless real pain is involved. We don’t pray until we’re desperate, we don’t seek God’s face until we’re in trouble, and we don’t repent unless we’re caught or we think there’s no other hope.
Some people believe that repentance only occurs when you first believe in Jesus. But we need repentance on a daily basis. We think we’re fine, but we are worse off than we think we are. We need to come to God and thank Him for His grace and mercy. Remember grace is receiving something you don’t deserve, and mercy is not receiving what you deserve.
We will never get better and find healing unless we repent; and our churches will never have wholeness unless we repent.
You see, the Lord is also telling us there are consequences if we don’t turn wake up to His call to obey Him and repent. Again, the people of Sardis would have understood God’s point. Remember, they slept while their city was being overtaken. So, He will be like a thief in the night. There’s no worse feeling than to have someone break into your home and take your belongings. We’re angry, we’re helpless and like a thief in the night, Jesus tells the people to wake up and serve Him, otherwise, when they do wake up, it will be because they are face to face with the thief.
So, what can be done? We get some good news from the Lord ~ 4 Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes.
There were still people in Sardis who loved and served the Lord with a pure heart. They weren’t like those whitewashed tombs. They were pure on the inside, in their heart. So, God gives a three-fold promise to the overcomers at Sardis:
First, they will be dressed in the white robes of victory. 4 They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. 5 He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. The white robes are signs of purity and victory that comes when we hold onto Christ.
Second, they will have their names reserved in heaven. 5 I will never blot out his name from the book of life. This is a statement of absolute assurance of salvation. The Greek form here is a double negative which really means this ~
I will never, ever, under any circumstances blot their names from the book of life. Those whom God saves He saves forever.
Third, they will be personally recognized by our Lord. 5 I will ... acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. It’s a wonderful thing to be remembered by your friends. Isn’t it great when we see friends we haven’t seen in years. We hug them and hold them and sometimes we cry in joy at seeing an old friend. So it will be when we stand before the Lord.
No one will say, “That’s Michael Deutsch. I wonder why he’s here.” No, it’s not like that at all. Jesus himself will say, “Michael Deutsch! He’s my friend. Come on!” There’s no greater reward than to be personally known and recognized by our Lord.
As we come to the end of this message, we should ask once again, where did the church at Sardis go wrong? It was a church of the living dead. The church was a bastion of dead orthodoxy and a beehive of religious mediocrity, its spiritual condition made worse by the fact that it seemed on the surface to be spiritually alive. In that sense it was in much greater peril than the persecuted church of Smyrna or the morally compromised churches of Pergamum and Thyatira. It was even in worse condition than the loveless church at Ephesus.
Far worse than persecution from without is dry rot within.
The church was lethargic because the people were lethargic. That can happen to any of us at any time. And it can happen while we’re regularly attending church.
We are the church, all of us together, and each of us individually. Perhaps the Lord is speaking to you and to me, maybe this is a message for First Baptist Church and Jesus is commanding us ~
“Wake up!”
“Shape up!”
“Repent!”
The Sardis spirit overtakes us whenever we begin to take God’s gifts for granted. How quickly we can become the Church of the Living Dead and not even know it.
Some of us should ask ourselves, “Do I really know the Lord at all?" It would be better to be an out-and-out pagan than to go through life as a “cultural Christian” not really knowing the Lord. At least the pagan knows he is a pagan, but the cultural Christian thinks he is alive when in reality he is dead.
God still loved the church at Sardis. If Jesus didn’t care, He wouldn’t have written this letter. So wherever we are spiritually, we can say, “Lord, start with me. Do your work in me. Wake me up! Stir me up to love you and to serve you so that the world will know that I belong to you.” May God wake us up and deliver us from the Church of the Living Dead so that we become once again the Church of the Living Christ. Amen.
