Sardis- The Church of the Dead
7 Churches of Revelation Series
CCCAG, September 15th, 2024
Scripture: Revelation 3:1-6
Introduction
I listen to a lot of podcasts- mostly relating to current events, and some with a few military guys.
If you don’t know what a podcast is- it’s show just like you’d see on TV, but it’s internet-based. The most famous podcast in the world right now is done by Joe Rogan, and he has an average audience of 200 Million people per month and has over 2 Billion downloads since he started.
The reach of these podcasts, if done well, far surpasses anything on TV as you can watch it whenever you want and they are available worldwide.
One of the podcasts I listen to is Megyn Kelly’s podcast on current events. Some of you might remember her from Fox News- she had a very popular show there for a while, and then a morning show on NBC that didn’t do that well, so she quit all of that and has a podcast that is very popular and reaches far more people than she ever had on TV.
Megyn has recently been very open about exploring her faith. She was raised Catholic and is recently returning to faith and trying to make sense of that religion. She was discussing this with another podcaster, a former Navy Seal named Sean Ryan, who has recently come to faith in Jesus and said this-
“I love rules, and want to follow the rules. I want to know exactly what to do, when to do it, because that makes me feel better.”
If I could talk to Megyn, I’d want to introduce her to what faith in Christ really means.
I think she is looking for a spiritual checklist to do to make herself feel fulfilled.
The reality is that Jesus has not only completed the checklist for us, HE IS the checklist.
Any other attempt at meeting your spiritual need leads you to a dead religion.
This morning we are going to explore that idea as we read about the Church in Sardis. Sardis is one of the 7 churches in Revelation.
It is known as the dead church, filled with people dead in their religion and sin.
Jesus had the Apostle John write a letter to this church, exposing some of these issues.
Jesus speaking-
Scripture
Rev 3:1-6 “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. (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. (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. (5) “In the same way, the one who conquers will be dressed in white clothes, 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.
Prayer
As I mentioned a moment ago, we are going to hit a few important points here in these verses.
The most important thing to understand is why people turn from a living savior to a dead religion. It’s because is they forget who Jesus is.
We are going to start by looking to see how Jesus is describing Himself as that description is essential to understanding what HE is trying to accomplish with this letter.
In the beginning of this letter to the church at Sardis HE is describing HIMself as one who has the 7 Spirits of God, and the Seven Stars.
In the bible, the number 7 is the number that refers to completeness or perfection.
(Examples- Calendar, prophecy, number of years in tribulation).
This number is applied to Jesus having the Seven Spirits of God
It is a reference to Isaiah’s description of the 7 ways that the Holy Spirit manifests HImself in Jesus
Isaiah 11:2-3
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him- Leadership
Spirit of Wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
Focus on verse 3 just for a moment.
The concept of “Fear of the LORD” means to have an awe, respect, and actual fear of God- to be a little afraid of HIM.
You have to respect God for being God- a being who could blink you out of existence at any point.
Jesus, even being God incarnate, existed in that dynamic- having an incredible awe and reverence for HIS Father—a good example for all of us- to delight in the fear of THE LORD.
In the OT, The seven fold Spirit of God was symbolized by the candlestick in the temple- the menorah.
When you consider that candlestick or menorah, you have a central candle, with three candles on each side of it.
That central candle that anchors the rest of the candle is the Fear of the LORD. Everything in our lives should come from that idea of holy reverence toward God the Father.
That is very important to understand that, and to live that so that we can avoid what is being talked about with the church of Sardis- and that is falling into dead religion.
Let’s look next at the phrase “Jesus (HE) who holds the 7 stars”
We see earlier in Revelation what the 7 stars represent
Rev 1:20 As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
I’ve gotten a few questions relating to the angels of the church- who and what are they?
The Greek word for “angel” is angelo and it means messenger. The vast majority of the time in the NT it means supernatural being that serves God. However, in several verses it is also used to describe a human who God is using to spread HIS WORD,
Most notably, John the Baptist is called Angelo. So this word can describe a human being as well as the supernatural being we are used to thinking about when we hear the word Angel.
That idea is supported by the fact that Jesus is telling John to write and send out physical letters.
It would make no sense to send a letter to a supernatural being. Does heaven have a post office? Is it a PO box assigned to this angel?
So it seems to indicate that these letters were meant to be sent to physical people in physical churches and in addition be part of the canon of scripture we hold in our hands today.
That’s why I believe it’s referring to a member of the leadership (ie five fold ministry) or the pastor of that church.
Jesus begins the letter by reminding the church of who HE is= the one endowed the fullness of the Holy Spirit seen in the sevenfold descriptions, and HE is holding the pastors or leadership of these church’s in his right hand.
That’s also important, as the right hand of a ruler is always the place of intimate trust and authority.
But this isn’t a message to point at the pastors as being more important than anyone else.
It’s to show us that Jesus holds the accountable for the spiritual health of the church.
Everyone wants to talk about the benefits of position, but those same people who throw titles around never want to talk about the accountability that goes with that.
This is why when we read these letters to the churches, they are a performance review of the pastor's ministry to that church.
Jesus has some issues with Sardis and what is happening there.
The chief problem is that they are doing work for the kingdom but forgot the king. They lost the fear and reverence of God in that they were doing spiritual-looking things for the sake of doing the thing and not as acts of worship to their KING.
I asked God to help me explain this and HE gave me a picture of a recently abandoned hydroelectric dam- if you look at it-
the water is still flowing,
the turbines are still turning-
but the wires have been disconnected
All of that water and all of these turbines running are producing no power and ultimately aren’t helping anyone.
That is the very definition of dead religion.
Going through the motions, but no power is being generated.
No worship of the KING being conducted
Doing things for the sake of doing things, with the only purpose being to make people feel good about doing something.
Remember in the beginning I was talking about a news reporter wanting rules and ceremony to fix her spiritual hunger.
Unfortunately she isn’t the only one.
There are a lot of people in our country are right now inside of dead religion
Do this, punch a spiritual timeclock, toss a few bucks in the offering, and you’ll be ok with God.
Looks great on the outside, but dead on the inside.
Jesus really hates this.
When he was on this earth- His strongest words were always directed toward those leading people into dead religion instead of a relationship with God.
This is seen in Matthew 21
Matthew 21.
Mat 21:18-19 Early in the morning, as Jesus was returning to the city, he was hungry. (19) Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, he went up to it and found nothing on it except leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” At once the fig tree withered.
I didn’t understand why Jesus did this until I came to understand the context behind it- the fact Jesus hates dead religion.
There is some context that will help us understand this seemingly extreme reaction from Jesus-
1. The fig tree in scripture is a representation of the promised land- a place of peace, prosperity, and covenant with God.
2. The scripture says that Jesus was coming back into the city in the early morning hours. The temple was coated with gold, so the early morning sun would have reflected off of that as they walked uphill toward Jeresalum.
3. The temple was supposed to represent the pure religion- the representation of a people whose hearts were pure before God.
4. A people who were fulfilling the Jewish statement of faith- To love the LORD your GOD with all of your heart, all of your soul, and with all of your strength.
5. Yet Jesus knew that was not the case, and having the sun reflected the light off of a structure that was filled with dead religion was making him angry.
6. Even more so, the temple was filled with men, pastors of the people, who claimed to know the secrets of God’s kingdom, and yet shut the door of actual relationship with God and barricaded that door with religion.
7. What did Jesus call those pastors? Whitewashed tombs. Sons of hell,
Dead men walking.
8. Then he sees the fig tree- a symbol of covenant promise that looks good and healthy, yet had no fruit on it- it was the illustration and representation of everything that the temple now stood for.
9. Jesus cursed that tree to show his disciples and to show us this morning what Jesus thinks of dead religion.
But before we think this is just something that happened in Jesus’ day,
Dead religion, particularly dead religion disguised as Christianity, is what is killing America today.
This has produced the kind of people described in the bible as those living in the last days-
2 Timothy 3:
But know this: Hard times will come in the last days. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, 4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people.
Jesus is warning us to avoid those who cling to a religion to make them feel good, but have no interest in actually living to please God.
The atheistic philosopher Frederick Neitche said that religion is the opiate of the masses, and he was right.
Religion tricks you into experiencing just enough spiritual sounding stuff and actions to dull the God longing that is part of our nature as HIS creations.
and it deadens the need to have an honest relationship with our creator.
So we have identified the problem- how do we escape dead religion?
I. Remember- your faith is in a Who, not a what.
If you are a Christian here- this is not a religion in the way our culture thinks of a religion.
Religion is a series of human-centered beliefs, generally revolving around ceremonies or acts that we do to earn the pleasure of God or have to be done to appease or please a deity.
That’s not what God wants.
God wants what HE created in Eden - to walk with humanity in an intimate relationship.
Say relationship.
It’s all about relationship.
Where does the church and scripture fit in?
The church and the bible are the guardrails that keep us on the right road in pursuing that relationship, but in the end, it’s all about Jesus and You.
Not a list of your accomplishments
Not a series of sacraments
Not a confirmation class, giving receipts, or church membership
It’s all about the living, dynamic, and personal relationship that you have with Jesus HIMSELF.
That relationship is what makes our spiritual robes spotless, white, and pure before God.
If your listening this morning and realizing you have been caught up in following a religion, there is still hope for you.
In another story about Jesus and a fig tree,
Luk 13:6-9 And he (Jesus) told this parable: “A man had a fig tree that was planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. (7) He told the vineyard worker, ‘Listen, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it even waste the soil?’ (8) “But the worker replied to him, ‘Sir, leave it this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. (9) Perhaps it will produce fruit next year, but if not, you can cut it down.’”
Verses 8 and 9 are prophetic statements for you and I today
When you read the book of Revelation, and other prophetic books in the bible, you see several times where there are pauses in the action.
These Pauses are placed there after a judgment to give the people a chance to come to repentance and stop the wrath and judgment of God from continuing.
We are in that pause right now. Jesus is calling everyone, particularly those in the church to repentance from dead religion or rebellion against HIM.
He is calling us back to the basics of our faith.
Joh 3:16-18 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. (17) For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (18) Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.
Altar Call/Worship
