Wake up!
Revelation 3:1-6
INTRODUCTION: Today our study brings us to the church of Sardis. A church that has no commendation from the Lord, and from the very onset of the passage, you can here the dire situation this church faces. Yet there is a rich amount of practical material for our own walk with Christ in these verses!
The church here in Sardis seems, by all accounts to have escaped any persecution. Perhaps this is due to the seemingly close association between the church and the idolatry that was so much a part of the city. Archeological discoveries, have unearthed the church of Sardis right next to the temple of Artemis – a female deity, reported to be the “mother of all living”. Some have noted that the two cities receiving the harshest condemnation, today remain uninhabited.
Sardis had no growth, because it had no persecution, nothing to propel it forward!
Arnold Palmer once said, “It’s not how you drive. It’s how you arrive.” What he meant was that the finish is more important than the beginning when one is playing a game of golf. What ultimately counts is not the beauty of the shot, but the strokes it took you to get to the hole.
I LIVING UP TO OUR POTENTIAL
The church of Sardis was being challenged by the Lord to do just that – to focus on the end game, and to do what was necessary to accomplish that type of focus.
The fact that they were “dead” evidenced the fact that they were not living up to their potential, and that their reputation at best was just a shell to the other churches.
We fail to live up to our reputation when we:
A. IGNORE THE POWER BEHIND WHAT WE ARE DOING
2 Tim. 3:5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. “Have a form” means to have an “outward shape”
1. Like the hollow Easter Bunnies – nothing inside
2. Church was doing all the right things, yet denying that God had ANY real power.
WHEN WE GET TO THE POINT THAT WE ARE JUST GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS, THROW THE DIRT ON US NOW – IT’S JUST A MATTER OF TIME!
B. HAVING A GREATER FOCUS ON WHAT WE DO RATHER THAN WHO WE ARE
1 Samuel 15:22 But Samuel replied:
"Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
Coming to church makes us a Christian about as much as going to McDonalds makes us a hamburger!
C. FAIL TO REALIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR MESSAGE
2 Kings 6:24-7:9
2 Kings 6:24-30 Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. 25There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels. 26As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, "Help me, my lord the king!" 27The king replied, "If the LORD does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?" 28Then he asked her, "What’s the matter?"She answered, "This woman said to me, ’Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ 29So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ’Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him." 30When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and there, underneath, he had sackcloth on his body.
2 Kings 7:3-4 Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, "Why stay here until we die? 4If we say, ’We’ll go into the city’--the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die."
2 Kings 7:8-9 The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also. 9Then they said to each other, "We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace."
-- We have a city under siege – not unlike the church today, we are always under siege of the devil
-- We have a city dying
-- We have a bunch of lepers – the most repulsive of people
-- We have the power of god at work – what god did would provide salvation to the city of Samaria
-- The lepers understood and acted on the importance of their message – The message they had was a life or death message for Samaria.
WHEN WE MISS THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MESSAGE WE MISS THE REASON FOR OUR EXISTENCE!
II. FINISH WHAT WE START
A. In order to finish we must “wake up”
1. From the Greek Word “Ginomai” – meaning to become
2. We must become what we are not. We were not watchful or wakeful
3. An activity we are always to do
a Word is imperative
b Word is present tense
Church should be more than just a RELIGIOUS SECURITY BLANKET!
B. Worship is not a minimalist event
1. Not our job to get away with doing as little as possible
2. Day to explore and experience God
3. Opportunities to be with God’s people are not opportunities to avoid, but opportunities to embrace
C. God calls us to work with what we have, not with what we lost
1. If you only make it every other Sunday Morning – You can’t make the ones you missed, BUT you can make the ones yet to come.
2. If you don’t make Sunday School – You can’t make the ones you missed, BUT you can make the ones yet to come.
3. If you only make the Evening Service on special events, you can’t make the ones you missed, BUT you can make the ones yet to come.
4. If you never made Prayer Meeting, you can’t make the ones you missed, BUT you can make the ones yet to come.
Church – we have not done well in this area
We can see our weakness throughout the week. Each opportunity appeals to fewer and fewer people.
We snooze and we lose!
SO WHAT IS THE POSITIVE PRINCIPLE CHRIST WANTS US TO HAVE?
III. GET THE SPIRIT
A. Jesus calls Himself the one who holds the “seven spirits”
B. An allusion to the seven-fold ministry of the Holy Spirit
1. Isaiah spoke about it in His book
Isaiah 11:2
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him--
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD—
a The Spirit of the Lord
b The Spirit of wisdom
c The Spirit of understanding
d The Spirit of counsel
e The Spirit of might
f The Spirit of knowledge
g The Spirit of fear
2. Jesus spoke about it in the Upper Room – John 14
a He is the Comforter, the other Helper (John 14:16).
b He is the Spirit of truth (John 14:17).
c He is the personal presence of Christ (John 14:18-20).
d He is the very special manifestation of Christ within the believer (John 14:21-22).
e He is the abiding presence of the Trinity (John 14:23-24).
f He is the teacher (John 14:25-26).
g He is the peace of Christ (John 14:27).
C. The number seven is also carries with it the meaning of fullness or completeness
THE CHURCH NEEDS A GOOD DOSE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
-- He is here for the asking -- Luke 11:13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
-- He is here for the empowering -- Romans 8:11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
-- He is here for the convicting -- John 16:7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
-- He is here for the fruit -- Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
-- He is here for the guiding -- John 16:13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
-- He is here for the reviving -- Acts 4:31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
-- He is here for the Witnessing -- Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
Only you and Jesus know how alive or dead you really are inside. A good measure is where you are when you should be with God’s people.
As we approach communion, perhaps there is a little soul searching that needs to go on right now.
Don’t just ask God’s forgiveness, without also asking God’s assistance.
Ask God to forgive you for being asleep at the wheel of your spiritual life.
Ask God for the assistance in waking up to the things of the Lord.
Determine now to do something different.
Commit to be at a service you don’t normally attend
Commit to help in any area of the church
Commit to seek the Spirit of God in your life
The only way we will ever live up to our potential is to live up to God’s desire for us!
EMAIL FOR POWER POINT
