Today I want to talk about complacency. Complacency is defined as a feeling of pleasure or security many times while being unaware of any danger. I'm going to use Jesus' letter to the church at Sardis today to help us to become vigilant against becoming complacent. Our focal passage of Scripture comes from Rev. 3:1-6.
For so many of us, childhood was a time of having to be reminded of things. It was so easy to be distracted by the playground or the TV and we would have to be reminded to do our homework, feed the cat, or take out the trash. Unfortunately, as adults, we can be just as easily distracted. We get distracted from what we should be doing, and then another distraction comes along and distracts us from the first distraction. Wouldn't it be good to have someone whispering in our ear constantly to remind us to stay focused?
There are a lot of things that deserve our focus: our family, jobs, health, and church activities. But even when we're focusing on these good things, we may still need someone whispering in our ear telling us to focus on God. Even in the good things we do, we can lose focus of the main thing. We can become complacent in our walk with God—that is, we can feel secure without being aware of any danger. The church in Sardis had become complacent. I think we can all benefit from the words of Jesus that were spoken to them to stay focused on what matters. Prayer.
First, a little bit about the city of Sardis. Sardis was located about 30 miles Southeast of Thyatira and 50 miles east of Ephesus. Being on a major trade route, the city prospered. Sardis had vertical rock walls on three sides and was considered to be very safe against any enemy attack.
With this, they became overconfident. At least twice in its history, Sardis was attacked and conquered. The city also was famous for having a large cemetery, about 7 miles from the city. By the late first century AD, while it was still prosperous, Sardis' greatest days were now passed. All they were doing was living on their reputation from earlier days. Revelation 3: 1-2 – ““Write to the angel of the church in Sardis: Thus says the one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: I know your works; you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead. 2 Be alert and strengthen what remains, which is about to die, for I have not found your works complete before my God.”
In this letter to the church at Sardis, Jesus didn't give any indication that there was false doctrine that was being taught in the church or any indication of troublemakers in the church. They may have looked problem-free, but they weren't. So, Jesus cuts straight to the core and He tells them that although they give the appearance of being alive, they were dead. It looked like the church had adopted the same attitude as the rest of the city and was relying on its past successes.
The church at Sardis was known for being active so people far and wide would have talked about them and their good works. So why would Christ tell them they were dead? Because he was able to look below the surface and he knew their works were ineffective. They were lifeless.
How many times have you heard of a description of a church in our city that resembles those same remarks? “That church is dead. There is nothing going on there. They don’t seem to WANT to grow in the Lord.”
In these verses, Jesus identifies Himself as the one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. Earlier in the Book of Revelation, John identifies the seven Stars as the angels of the seven churches. Again, that word Angel most likely referred to the pastor of the church. The seven spirits may refer to the Holy Spirit.
In his prophecy about the Messiah, Isaiah mentioned the Holy Spirit seven ways. In addition to being the spirit of the lord, he is a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. Isaiah 11:2. This image captures the Holy Spirit and his fullness, and the church at Sardis was in great need of the Spirit of God.
That is why we pray before every service and invite the Lord to be with us. Without God's Spirit with us, what can we accomplish? Nothing! It is of utter importance that God be with us in and through every service as we meet to praise and worship Him. Maybe that is why some Churches seem to be dead. They forgot to ask the Lord to join them.
So, Jesus issues a stern command to wake up and strengthen what remained, since even what remained was about to die. The city may have considered itself unconquerable, but in its complacency, it had allowed itself to be defeated. In the same way, the church had fallen asleep on their duty as a church. Their works for the kingdom were incomplete.
Even today it is so easy for a church to rest on its past. “This is the way we have always done it and we don't want to change,” they say. Satisfied with past successes, the church can become complacent and be a failure in completing the work that God has given them to do. We as a church have to maintain a bold witness for the Lord and not just rest on what has been done in the past. Our work is not complete until the day Christ calls his church home.
We could have easily given up when in March of 2020 when we had to shut the church down because of Covid. We kept recording and broadcasting the word from the first Sunday after we shut down. We tried to reopen in June of 2020 for about 3 weeks. But the infection numbers were so rampant that we closed down again. But we still did not give up. We still were sending out a sermon broadcast each week. Then at the end of August 2020, we reopened again and have remained open since. As I said, we could have just thrown our hands up and walked away until all of this virus situation settled down. But we stayed strong in the Lord and stay diligent in getting His Word out. And God has blessed us for it.
All of this causes me to think if there are any areas in our church where we have become complacent—where we are satisfied with what we have done and don't plan to change anything. I am so thankful for this church family and always presenting new ideas to move the church forward and continue to do God's work in our community.
Revelation 3:3 – “Remember, then, what you have received and heard; keep it, and repent. If you are not alert, I will come like a thief, and you have no idea at what hour I will come upon you.” So, Jesus admonished the believers at Sardis to remember what they had received and heard. They needed to remember what they had once cherished: the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ as it had been preached and taught to them.
The apostle Paul issued the same directive in his letter to the believers in Corinth: “Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preach to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preach to you… that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day. 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.
Apparently the Sardis Church had forgotten what the gospel message entailed. They had kind of fallen asleep and grown lax in their enthusiasm for and their commitment to the gospel. They needed a wake-up call. So, Jesus issues a command about His gospel that they had once embraced: keep it. The believers were to hold fast in the sense of living out the gospel. They were to guard the truth and be vigilant so as to not drift away from it. Apathy can render both individual believers and congregations powerless; the Sardis believers were to remain watchful.
Jesus calls the church to remember the things they received from Him, specifically the things they had learned and had been taught about Him. It would be valuable to remember where they were spiritually when He found them and the relationship that was started at that time.
You see, the Christian life moves through stages. Listen to this and decide what stage you might be in. The first stage is excitement. When someone first comes to Christ, this immense joy flows out of that person indicating that there's something that is certainly different in their life.
However, many believers progress to the silent stage when they're enthusiasm and love for Christ has diminished. Christ was calling the church to look back and remember what it was like in that first stage of excitement and joy. Jesus was not pleased with their complacency. Remembering the things they first learned in Christ would stir their hearts to remember and return to and maintain the joy and fulfillment they once had in Him.
Now I ask you, are you as excited about your relationship with Jesus today as you were on the day when you first accepted Him? I hope so. If not, I wonder what has caused you to drift away from that excitement. Beware of becoming stagnant. Stagnant individuals make a stagnant church.
A man talks about traveling to Zimbabwe with his brothers to raft the Zambezi River, starting at the base of the Victoria Falls. The falls are the largest in the world, more than a mile wide and three hundred feet high, and the water from the falls rushes down the gorge below, creating the world's largest rapids. In the United States, the highest-class rapid you are allowed to raft is a Class 5. The Zambezi's whitewater rapids can top 7 and 8...
The man and his brothers sat on the edge of an eight-person raft below those towering falls, their guide told them, WHEN the raft flips..." There was no "IF the raft flips" or "On the off chance we get flipped." The guide said, "WHEN the raft flips stay in the rough water. You will be tempted to swim toward the stagnant water at the edge of the banks. Don't do it. Because it is in the stagnant water that the crocs wait for you. They are large and hungry. So, WHEN the raft flips, stay in the rough water."
That's a good lesson for the church. Stagnancy will kill the church, so we must resist stagnancy. Christ, our Guide, needs us to stay in the rough waters, where it's just a little bit uncertain and unsafe, pouring our lives into people.
1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” You see, Jesus wanted the believers at Sardis to do more than just remember; he wanted them to repent. Without repentance, you can’t experience the true joy and fulfillment that can come only through an active, personal, growing relationship with Christ.
Again, repentance involves a 180° change in direction. Failing to repent and turn back to God means that Jesus was going to come like a thief in the night; the believers in Sardis would have no idea when he would come. We don't either. This was a warning to the church; they were to pursue Christ wholeheartedly.
This same image of a thief in the night is spoken of in the gospels as well. In Luke 12:39-40, Jesus told his disciples that his second coming would be like a thief in the night. Jesus’ return is something believers can joyfully anticipate, but Jesus wasn't referring to his second coming in Revelation 3. Jesus' words to the Sardis church carried a warning. Unless they repented, Jesus would visit their church for the purpose of discipline and chastisement.
Revelation 3:4 – “But you have a few people in Sardis who have not defiled their clothes, and they will walk with me in white, because they are worthy.” Jesus promised three things in verses 4-6 for those who remain faithful. First, he promised that those few would walk with Him in white (v.4). The Sardis church was not without hope. They could still repent. And a few of them had remained true to the faith. They hadn't given in to merely living on past hopes and successes. Nor had they stained their lives with sin or compromise. As Jesus said in v. 4, they had not defiled their clothes. Instead, they continued to seek Christ and live obediently for him.
During the reign of King Croesus in Sardis, no Temple worshiper was allowed to approach the Temple of the gods with soiled or unclean garments. Worshipers were required to wear clean, white robes to approach their gods. Their physical garments may have been white, but their lives were soiled with sin. Unfortunately, that was true in the Sardis church as well, with the exception of those who had remained faithful.
Jesus says in Revelation 3:5a – “In the same way, the one who conquers will be dressed in white clothes . . .” Jesus said they would be dressed in white. During the Roman rule in Sardis, dressing in white was significant. Wearing white would have reminded them of the Roman triumph when every true Roman citizen would have worn a white toga and joined the triumphant procession.
For followers of Christ though, we will one day wear white and walk in triumph with Christ, enjoying eternal fellowship with Him. We can do nothing to earn salvation or the right to wear these white garments. We are made spiritually right and pure by what Christ did for us on the cross.
Revelation 3:5b-6 – “and I will never erase his name from the book of life but will acknowledge his name before my Father and before his angels. 6 “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Jesus promised two more things to the church at Sardis. He promised the righteous saints in Sardis that their names would appear in the Lamb's Book of Life and that they would be acknowledged before the Father. He said I will never erase his name from the book of life.
And here is another doctrinal belief where we believe “once saved always saved.” Once your name is recorded in the Book of Life, it cannot be erased. It is a promise that the believer's names who are written in the Book of Life will spend all eternity with Christ. Salvation has come to a person whose name is written in the Book of Life and eternal life is promised with Christ. Those people never have to worry about their salvation.
But notice that Jesus also said he would acknowledge faithful believers before my father in (v. 5). Jesus openly acknowledges us as his children! When we stand for Him and we stand with Him, He does the same for us. Jesus said this once before in Matthew 10:32 – “Therefore, everyone who will acknowledge me before others, I will also acknowledge Him before my father in heaven.”
We can only hope that the church at Sardis heard these words and responded with repentance, but we should also consider our own response. We have to choose to live in such a way that our reputation and our works are a solid reflection of our life in Christ. We can’t take the chance of growing complacent and allow our work for the Lord to remain incomplete. As Jesus says, our garments must not be defiled. Jesus has given us a great worth in Him. Let's reflect the worth that he has given us.
I close with this story about avoiding becoming complacent:
There is a story told that describes how easy it is to slide into complacency. One Spring, a duck was flying north with a flock. In the countryside that particular duck spotted a barnyard where tame ducks lived. The duck dropped down and he discovered these ducks had wonderful corn to eat. So he stayed for an hour....then for the day....a week then went by and a month. And because the corn and the safe barnyard were so fine, the duck ended up staying the whole Summer at that farm.
Then one crisp fall day, some wild ducks flew overhead, quacking as they flew south. He looked up and heard them -- and he was stirred with a strange sense of joy and delight. And then, with all his might he began flapping his wings and rose into the air, planning to join his comrades for the trip south.
But all that corn had made the duck both soft and heavy -- and he couldn't manage to fly any higher than the barn roof. So, he dropped back to that barnyard and he said to himself, "Oh well, my life here is safe and the food is good!"
After that, in the Spring and in the Fall, that duck would hear wild ducks honking as they passed overhead -- and for a minute, his eyes would look and gleam -- he'd start flapping his wings almost without realizing it...but then a day came, when those others would pass overhead uttering their cry -- and the now tame duck would not pay the slightest attention.
The American Church has been attacked by the diseases of apathy and complacency. It seems, that like that barnyard duck -- American Christians have gotten tamed....and spoiled...in the process, we've often forgotten Whose we are and therefore Who and what we're to be about. Complacency is a disease that sneaks up on us.
It was Beth Moore who said “to follow Jesus closely is to fulfill your calling completely.” How complete are you in fulfilling God's call on your life?
If you have never accepted Christ as your personal Savior, we extend that invitation to you now as we respond to God's words.
