THIS MORNING:
Looked at Sardis, a church in name only but without any spiritual life.
A city with a rich history trying to live on a past reputation
Had a name but had no substance to it: Wax fruit or artificial flowers
CAUGHT UP IN SURVIVOR: Didn’t watch a show last time. Early show spent a half hour attempting to do one thing. This thing meant the difference between making it or not. Until they accomplished this they could not move on to anything else. GET A FIRE STARTED. No warmth, no light, no ability to cook to feed ourselves. Sardis was a church without a fire. After the fire was started it is essential that it is never allowed to go out.
Why would anybody darkened a church door? Three possible motivations: Maturity is at level #3
1) Reward & Punishment: I fear the consequences of not. Might not get a ticket into heaven. Their body is in the church but their heart is still with the world.
1) Example: My reputation is at stake, I care what others think of me so I go or I give or I serve somewhere.
1) Matter of Principle: Whether there is a reward of a cost to me, whether I am seen or unseen, if I lose my job, is I miss my program, it is a matter of what God’s has asked of my life.
(Each level moves you to a more isolated position: Most people operate at level #1. #1 & #2 are religion while #3 is a relationship)
Sardis was like a chocolate bunny I saw this weak. They make me angry cause I have had them before. They look huge but actually they are hollow.
1) Jesus told the Pharisees: outside they looked lovely, newly whitewashed tombs, but on the inside they were full of dead men’s bones.
THE PRESCRIPTION - (2) Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God. (3) So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent.
1. WHAT DOES A DEAD CHURCH NEED? Steps to Recovery
a. IT NEEDS TO WAKE UP
1) I shared this morning how Sardis had been defeated twice because of being careless in areas that really mattered.
1) Wake Up is not a calm word but a strong one. It is not to gently try to wake someone but grab a spotlight and scream WAKE UP!!!!! SHILOH & NERF BALL. Tone matters
a) Sounds cruel but to do the opposite is worse:
It is said of the CAPTAIN OF THE TITANIC that after the ship had struck the iceberg and within hours of sinking that he went through the restraunt assuring everybody that everything was OK and even said that ’drinks are on the house’.
1) Literally means a mindfulness of threatening dangers which with an alert mind keeps one from all drowsiness and all slackening of energy in both faith and conduct.
1) Step one in recovery is to become aware that something is wrong. Honestly face failure, feel the dullness, smell the death.
STEDMAN: Said he went to Europe to meet with pastors and found many churches there dead, cold, and empty in what might be called a post-christian era. Many churches are state churches where the pastor is a hired civil servant given a certain geographic region of 10’s of thousands of people. It is his job to baptize(infant spinkling), marry, and bury people.(Hatch, match & dispatch). Pastor came in tears
Saying, ’Oh I will I could preach the Word like you do in America, but I have no time. I must baptize all the babies, marry everyone, and bury everyone who dies in the parish and there is simply no time to study’.
a. A DEAD CHURCH NEEDS TO STRENGTHEN WHAT IS RIGHT Strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die.
1) Dead church with dying truths: Lit. ’stop the fall…turn resolutely in a certain direction and stabilize what is unstable’
1) John saying ’GET A GRIP’ Move furniture and say ’Wait, my grip is not adequate, I am going to drop it, let me get a strong grip on this because if I drop this there will be consequences, heads will roll’.
HISTORICALLY: The Sardis time in church history began in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed on Chapel door in Wittenberg, Germany his 95 Thesis. It started what is called the REFORMATION. One particular doctrine that had all but died in the Roman church Luther sought to rescue: JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.
1) I have not found your works perfect/complete before God. Liberal church today exists for social needs and false assurance: Some of these denominations have a wonderful past filled with men and women used greatly by God but today they rarely speak of what really matters: Men like Wesley. Luther, Calvin, John Knox, Zwingli who would roll over in their graves if they knew what these churches now believed and taught.
a. A DEAD CHURCH NEEDS TO REMEMBER WHAT MATTERS & REPENT OF WHAT DOESN’T MATTER
1) REMEMBER: Rehearse practice: Listen to Oldies music and can still sing word for word songs I first heard in the 1960’s
a) Interesting: How you have received. How did I receive life? Faith. Dead church does a lot of deeds(I know your deeds) but faith leads to life.
1) REPENT: A change of mind with a resultant change of direction in life
TOM ELLIFF: If you broke these things down into four steps that lost people can and do do the first three but always leave off the last as a sign of their lostness.
1. Wake up: see their life is not right an seek to find right answers
1. Strengthen what remains: seek to return to the church to find answers and reestablish truths they learned in childhood.
1. Remember: Sift through the truths of the Bible and consider them, learn them
1. BUT THEY DON’T REPENT: The evidence of a changed life never happens of is short lived. Dog returns to vomit or pig to the mud. Matter of time they go where they belong, back to the world or they endure they church but their affections are for the world. They are not NEW CREATURES in Christ
THE POSSIBILITIES - Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. (4) But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; and they will walk with Me in white for they are worthy. (5) He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.
1. WHAT IF I DON’T If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.
a. Caught in the Judgment. How tragic to spend your life in the church and find out you are a tare instead of a wheat.
1 Thes 5:2-4 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord comes as a THIEF IN THE NIGHT. For when THEY say ’peace and safety’ then sudden destruction comes upon THEM, as labor pains upon a woman. And they shall not escape. But YOU, BRETHREN, are not in darkness, so that this day should overtake you as a thief.
1) Dead sleeping church will be caught off guard and unaware. True believer will be living a life always ready for that day. Just because you don’t know the time or hour you still won’t be caught off guard if you are living each day for Christ.
MY FATHER woke up one day to go get in his van and found an empty space in the parking lot. Van was found on dirt road outside of town stripped. Different story if we would have known they were coming and lived in preparation. COPS: Rigged cars where thieves get in go one block and doors and windows lock, engine dies. BUSTED.
1. WHAT IF I DO He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.
a. Clothed in White Garments: you have a few, even in Sardis, who have not defiled their garments.
James 1:26 This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God, to visit widows and orphans in their distress and to keep oneself UNSTAINED by the world.
1) Symbol of Redemption: Strong word for white dazzeling. Not even oxydol. Mt of Transfiguration white. Shield eyes We have been given the RIGHTEOUSNESS Of CHRIST. 2 Cor 5:21 He made Him Who knew no sin become sin for us that we might become the RIGHTESNESS OF GOD in Him.
a) Bible says in ISA 64:6 that the righteousness of man is as filthy rags. The best man can do.
PHIL 3:9 That I may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which comes from God on the basis of faith. ROM 10:3-4 For not knowing about God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
1) AFRICAN CUSTOM: Burn old clothes after baptism and then put on a new white robe to show our new position in Christ.
a. Names in the Book of Life I will not blot out his name from the book of life.
1) Not is the strongest negative in the Greek language. I will not ever, never, never, ever under any circumstances.
1) POINT: Is not that some people are blotted out by God but to assure these few of their security in God.
KINGS in this time would have a registry of their city or domain. If a citizen died or was convicted of a crime their name was blotted out(no erasers yet) of the Register. God is not like men, even kings. REV 20:15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
MARTIN LUTHER: Oct. 21, 1517 Excomunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. Name BLOTTED out and soul consigned to hell. Jesus reminds these faithful few that man cannot do that to you but only He holds the keys of heaven and hell and he will never cast us out.
a. Name Confessed before the Father but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.
1) LISTEN TO THIS: Not only is my name on His list but it will come from His lips. Can you imagine the moment you hear Jesus speak your name to the Father!
MT 10:32 Everyone therefore who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in heaven.(so many who sit in churches who are unwilling to walk an aisle, pray a prayer, go through baptism, share a testimony to lift up the Name of the One who hung on a cross for them)
COMPARE: Two Women
1. Stephie Graff: Asked to have her name removed from the roll of her church so that church taxes might not be taken from money she earns which is customary in Germany.
2. Young armenian lady who showed up at a relief camp. Tremendous pain racked her body. HAVE YOU BEEN HURT? I AM BEARING THE CROSS. I BEAR IN MY BODY THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST AND NOW I KNOW HOW HE SUFFERED. They did not understand until a nurse assisted her in the medical tent in removing her dress to see that a cross had been branded with hot irons into her shoulder. The wound was swollen and burning with infection. EVERY DAY THEY WOULD SAY TO ME, ’MOHAMMED OR CHRIST?’ WHEN I SAID CHRIST ON THE LAST DAY THEY BRANDED MY SHOULDER WITH THIS CROSS. NOW AS LONG AS I LIVE I WILL BEAR THIS CROSS, AND SOMEDAY WHEN I SEE JESUS I WILL BE GLAD.
MY PRAYER: Day I see Jesus I will be glad. The letter to Sardis warns us that some won’t be glad on that day.
