CHURCH OF THE LIVING DEAD - REV 3:1-6
AMAZING STATISTIC: Imagine a company that has more than 500 employees and has the following record:
29 accused of spousal abuse, 7 arrested for fraud,
19 accused of writing bad checks, 117 directly or indirectly bankrupted, 3 done time for assault, 71 cannot get credit card due to credit, 14 arrested on drug related charges, 8 arrested for shoplifting
21 current defendants in lawsuits, 84 arrested for drunk driving in past year
WHAT BUSINESS? What organization? Who would hire such a group? US!
The 535 members of the United States Congress
Sometimes it should be obvious that something is wrong. To look at the Bible we hold and then the lives lived by most Christians it should become obvious that something is not as it should be.
This is the fourth church we will be studying in preparation for our revival. Each church has specific problems that lead into the problems of the next. Ephesus has lost it’s passion for Jesus. Pergamum begins to flirt with the world through compromise. Thyatira begins an adulterous relationship with the world. SARDIS is on life support, barely clinging to hope.
1) Maybe you would say this morning that you have lost your passion for Jesus, you have compromised with the world and in some ways have sold out your relationship with God and you wonder if there is any life left in you, any hope that any spark could return to your spiritual life.
Last week we saw how the loss of doctrine begins to destroy a church. DOCTRINE IS LIKE THE SKELETON OF A BODY. Without your skeleton for leverage your muscles would be of no use. You would just lay there and twitch. We have some churches meeting this morning across our nation that are just twitching for Jesus. Lots of activity but no real direction or purpose.
1) This morning there are also many churches just meeting. They are lifeless, just going through the motions, like a religious robots, it is all a sham because there is no real spiritual life in their hearts.
A DISCOURAGED PREACHER told his congregation one Sunday morning that the church was dead and that next week he was going to preach their funeral service. When people arrived the next week, the curtains were drawn, solemn music was playing, and a casket had been placed at the front of the church. The pastor preached his message and then said, ’Some of you may not agree with me that this church is dead. To convince you I am going to ask you to view its remains’. Each one came to the casket to see the dead body but when they looked in the found that a mirror had been placed there instead.
HEAR ABOUT THE CHURCH SO DEAD that when a member actually died in a service that the paramedics carried out 5 people before they got the right one.
Jesus spoke to Sardis and we find that He was not interested in labels but in life, not in reputation but in reality. ’Reputation is what people think you are but reality is what Jesus knows you are’.
1) Some of the saddest words in the Bible are spoken about a man with a great reputation, killed thousands of the enemy, impressive leader, famous in his time, SAMSON: ’he knew not that the Spirit had departed’.
1) IS A CHURCH DEAD? Where is the Holy Spirit right now?
Study with same outline: Patient - Physician - Positive - Problem - Prescription - Possibilities.
THE PATIENT - (1) To the angel of the church in Sardis write,..
1. THE PATIENT: SARDIS -
a. HISTORY - 500 years before John wrote this letter Sardis was one of the richest and most powerful cities in the world. Man named Croesus lived there and was consider the wealthiest man in the world. Coins were first minted in Sardis. It became the center for the carpet industry(Persian rug?) Two temples: Cybele(Diana of Ephesian) and her brother god Apollos, the sun god.
a. DECLINE - Defeated twice in its history, once by the Persians and again by the Greeks. Unusual since the city was virually unreachable. The city was built on a mountain spur about 1500 ft about the valley floor. You could only approach from the south side on a very steep and difficult path.
YOUTH TRIP: Visited the highest spot in state of Tennessee: 1/2 mile steep and winding path leading to the summit lookout. Two nuts in our group decided to try to run to the top. Neither Wendal or I made it but had to stop and walk. MCGEE says he visited Sardis, he and another preacher tried to make to the city but gave up before they reached the top.
Both times the city fell it fell the same way, not from the front but from the cliff side. They were so overconfident that they did not guard those three sides.
Persians under Cyrus: attacked the city for a year without success until the night a persian soldier on the backside saw a soldier from Sardis drop his helmet over the cliff. Thinking noone was watching the soldier made his way down the cliff to retrieve the helmet. The persian traced his path and then that night took a band of soldiers and entered uncontested by the sleeping city.
THE PHYSICIAN - He Who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, says this..
1. Jesus presents in two ways and these are two things that a dead church needs to be reminded of.
a. THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVES LIFE:
JN 6:63 It is the spirit Who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. ACTS 1:8 You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you and then you shall be my witnesses… ZECH 4:6 Not by might nor by power but by My Spirit says the Lord.
1) Sardis had a great past, wonderful history but it was fooling itself about it’s present state. How do you know that a body that once was full of life is now dying? Organs cease to function. Essential life giving needs begin to shut down: kidneys, lungs, heart. 1 thing after another just stops. Dying church is the same: praying stops, giving stops, God’s Word no longer relevant, no sharing of faith, attend when it is the only game in town. Church like that offers nothing to a lost world.
WATERS OF MARAH: After 3 days without water the children of Israel came to Marah. Thirsty, dying, hopeless but the waters were bitter.(Sardis church to a world that needs hope and help that only the life of Christ can bring). Grumbled at the leaders but the source of life was not Moses but God. Took a tree and tossed it into the water and it became sweet. Only the entrance of the Holy Spirit can bring life back into a dying church.
1) Jesus is the Head of the Church. He holds the seven stars(messengers) in His hand. A faithful messenger carries His Word and comes with His authority. Your beef is with Him. You won’t stand before me on that that but Him. The secret of finding leaders in the church is not those with the most worldly talents but those to whom God has their ears and hearts.
THE POSITIVE & THE PROBLEM I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive but you are dead.
1. Only church with no positive thing to point out. It had an appearance of being alive but was actually dead.
a. No mention in this letter of any attack either from within or without.
1) So sick and near death that they were no threat to Satan. No threat, no Jews attacking, Satan hadn’t sent false teachers to stir things. When you invade a city do you attack the intensive care ward in the hospital?
1) Pews were peaceful: like a cemetary. People just routinely showing up.
WEIRSBE: Sardis was not aggressive in its witness to the city. There was no persecution because there was no invasion of the enemies territory. The city saw the church as a respectable group of people who were neither dangerous nor desirable. They were decent people with a dying witness and a decaying ministry.
1. They were a church in name only:
COUNTY MARKET with 6 yr old Tim. Putting thing on belt while Tim just hanging around near register. ’DID YOU KNOW THAT MY DAD IS A PREACHER?’. Always find this kid in conversations with adults so I just kept working. ’IS THAT RIGHT, WHERE IS YOUR DAD A PREACHER AT?’ ’Uhhhhhhh AT OUR CHURCH’. WHAT CHURCH IS YOUR CHURCH? ’UHHhhhhhh THE HANNIBAL ONE’ Didn’t even know the name but the name is the least important thing anyhow but for some it is all they have.
a. We get our english word nominal from this Greek word for name. Some Christians are just nominal Christians, in a name only. Hollywood has a name for those types: ZOMBIES corpses that act alive, walk about as though they are living. A man named Calvin Miller uses a different term:
CHRISTOHOLICS: Not disciples at all. Disciples are cross bearers, they seek Christ while Christoholics seek happiness. Disciples dare to discipline themselves and to place demands on themselves while Christoholics seek escapes and shortcuts to heaven.
1) Name Sardis actually means ’ escaping ones, or those who came out’. Paul said it this way, ’they have a form of godliness but have denied the power thereof’.
a. Past week I listened to a the brother of my former pastor talk about the present church in America.
1) Average Sunday: 33% of church membership ever bother to show up for 1 hour a week commitment.
a) Imagine a Hannibal Football game with home seats 1/3 full, what would that say to the visiting team about how much we really care about our football team.
a) If everyone on our church role showed up this morning we would fill this auditorium 2 1/2 times and would fill up the shopping center parking as well as our own. Say, ’They might have something going..’ EVERY WEEK FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES?
a) On Sunday night only 12.3% of average church will show up to worship.
1) One of the most eye opening statistics I have shared is that if you put every member of a church on welfare and yet they tithe that the average church giving would more than double. HOW MUCH MORE THAN A NAME ARE WE FOLKS?
TONIGHT:
1. CPR for the church. Steps to bringing life back when at death’s door.
1. WARNINGS that a dead church needs to hear and REWARDS that Jesus promises for ’the few’ that are faithful.
IN YEARS PAST there was a dangerous place in the ocean for a ship to get caught in. Not a storm or even a hurricane, not surrounded by icebergs or pirates but a place called the DOLDRUMS: Area of water where everything just dies. No current, no wind…trapped for months w/o breeze to carry them. Come upon: Is there a ship there? Yes People? Going nowhere. Dead in the water. People in the doldrums spiritually have this motto when it comes to spiritual things: ’I DON"T CARE’. No threat to anybody.
1. At your workplace, at your school are you a force to be reckoned with? Or do you just carry the name Christian or church member. That is your name but what is your reputation. Does it ever occur to anyone there when they tell that joke or behave a certain way that they have to reckon with your principles. ARE YOU ALIVE OR ARE YOU DEAD?
