Scripture: Revelation 3:1-6
It’s easy to criticize. It’s harder to encourage. Criticism tends to tear down morale. Encouragement builds up morale and is more motivational. But sometimes, the hard truth must be acknowledged. Sometimes, the truth hurts. When the hearer doesn’t appreciate the criticism and refuses to believe that the speaker got it right, things can get ugly. So, when John wrote the book of Revelation, that started out with Jesus evaluating the spiritual health of seven churches in the area known as Turkey today, and included some harsh criticisms, he had to be very careful to make sure the readers and hearers in those churches knew that Jesus was the source.
“These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.” John wasn’t holding the seven spirits and he never once touched a star. Jesus is talking. John just wrote it down.
“I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” Ouch! I wouldn’t want to be a member of the church that Jesus said that to, would you? What went wrong in Sardis? What could make a dead church think it’s still alive? I think the answer would have to be, a lot of activity, a lot of peace and happiness among the members, but no growth. Living things grow. Dead things don’t.
Interestingly, in Sardis’ job review, there is no mention of persecution, even though the city was full of sophisticated paganism just as much as in the other cities, if not more! Significantly, Sardis’ Jews enjoyed one of the largest Jewish synagogues in antiquity. It was built right next to the Greek gymnasium. They were good neighbors! It seems that in the busy city of Sardis, the Christians were also just fitting right in. Jesus' followers seem to have coexisted peacefully with the city establishment. Lacking the world’s opposition, they may have grown comfortable in their relationship with the world. Or, else they dodged the world’s opposition by quieting their message, basically, by giving up on the mission.
Living in such comfort and peace, the church may have thought it was really doing well, really alive! The good times were just rolling along. But Jesus said they were actually dead. This church got a very poor performance review. “You are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.”
And remember, the other six churches got to see what Jesus said about Sardis. I wonder if that embarrassed Sardis. Jesus’ oracle to Ephesus challenged a loveless church to remember their first love. His oracle to Smyrna encouraged a persecuted church. His oracle to Pergamum addressed both persecution and compromise. His oracle to Thyatira challenged compromise. But Jesus’ words to Sardis summoned a sleeping church to wake up!
The spiritual state of the believers in the city was hindering them from enjoying Jesus’ resurrection power. They were asleep on the battlefield and being trampled by the enemy without even realizing it. And Jesus said that because they were asleep, when he came, he would come like a thief. It would take them by surprise. That might have reminded them of what Jesus had said to his disciples about his second coming. It would also have been significant because the city of Sardis was a strong fortress that had never been overtaken by conventional war. However, twice in their history they had been caught unawares for not keeping watch carefully enough. They were conquered when guards were asleep on duty! That adds to the significance of Jesus telling them to wake up.
So, in Sardis we may be safe to assume that there was no evangelism. They weren’t making much of an impact on that community so there was probably little effort toward justice and compassion in any transformative way. Nobody noticed them. All they had was some faithful believers, like a remnant, hanging on to the true faith, holding services among themselves, but not reaching out with any significant message or ministry. So, he said of them, “You have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.”
The gospel is the good news that God loves us sinners, as shown by what Christ has done for us in his incarnation, death on the cross, and resurrection. Our natural response to the gospel, when we really believe that, is to begin to follow Jesus and learn how to be submissive, obedient disciples, learning to act and preach like Jesus. That life must start with a faith decision. But that decision represents new birth in the faith. It’s only the beginning. Life in Christ has been called “a long obedience in the same direction.
To be alive in Christ has much more to do with how we live after the decision to believe in Jesus, than to do with just remembering that we once made that decision. You know, as we read each church’s job review in the Book of Revelation, a helpful task is to wonder how Jesus would review our church. Many pastors have used these descriptions of the churches in Turkey as a diagnostic tool, a symptom checker.
But the believers in a congregation have some responsibility too. We don’t want to be the church like Sardis. But what if we are? Would we know it? It takes an intervention. Jesus had to tell them, “You think your alive, but you’re really dead.” What would Jesus say to us?
What if we decided that we are a sleeping church? If a church is respected in a town and in a culture that is moving farther and farther away from Biblical values, does that mean that that church is too quiet about the dangers, not sounding the alarm, not preaching the gospel to those who are in danger, but only quietly holding forth among those who are already saved? What would Jesus say about our own church and its prospects for a bright future? If we are at all asleep or even just drowsy, and not fully alive to the mission Jesus has for us, there is only one cure. Walk with Jesus!
This congregation had its hay day of great success in ministry, just a few decades ago. Are those days gone forever? Culture is against us! People have changed. What are we going to do? Is decline inevitable? Do we just accept it as a fact that God will just allow this congregation to fade away because our ministry is coming to an end and there is nothing left for us to do? If the world has changed, doesn’t that mean that we have to change to meet the new challenges? If we want to wake up, how do we do that!? What can the church at Sardis teach us about our situation? Can we find any hope here?
We are going to have to cling to God for dear life and trust him, looking to him for guidance and deliverance. We will have to honestly repent of our own faults and foibles, see the things that we think we have right but actually have wrong, and be willing to change so that our clothes are unsoiled, both by preserving what faith we have and by repenting of what sins we have fallen into.
Now if we ask, “What will God do?” we can be confident that he will do something. If we are willing to face the harsh realities and accept God’s tough love, we will not be cast away. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Why bother to speak to a church like Sardis if there were really no hope of recovery? Jesus called the church to repentance and he has the power of resurrection! He is eager to share it with us if we are willing. We will be toughened up too and renewed and prepared for a better, more fruitful ministry.
And what will we do to show that we are really alive? Well, we have already begun. You have commissioned the Vision Team, and they have begun discerning ways to carry out our mission so that Lake City is blessed by having people like us in her midst. People who are fully alive in Christ, people who are fully awake to the mission that God has for us to carry on for him today. The kind of people we have to be is people who care about the suffering and the lost. This is why the vision team has identified several avenues of practical ministry that you can get involved in. This is something that we all have to take on as a shared responsibility.
We have been sharing these surveys that give you an opportunity to see ways that you can participate in ministries you could get excited about. It’s not about adding burdens and responsibilities to your already busy life. But it might be about changing priorities where that’s possible so that you get a chance to have a meaningful ministry if you don’t already. We’ve been working several weeks on this now and you may have noticed Mike being quite direct today in asking people to be sure they fill out a survey. The lack of response so far has led us to be concerned that there may be some here who only want to come for an hour on Sunday, and do the religious thing, as if that’s is all that God expects from us.
It’s interesting to me, that the message to the Church at Sardis just happens to fall on the same day that we will install this year’s officers in the church and hear again the vows and commitments that all of us ought to take seriously as members of God’s Holy Kingdom.
And not only that, but today we will observe the Lord’s Supper and partake of the Bread of Life. I didn’t orchestrate that. But the Holy Spirit knew. We call it the Lord’s Supper. But since they say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, maybe we should call Communion the Lord’s breakfast! It’s always a wake-up call, as if it’s time for breakfast! It is a life-giving meal. It is the most important meal in your life right now.
That should be encouraging. The mission is still real. The Church of God, the Body of Christ is still living and active in the world today. Jesus is calling us to continue to be a part of that, face the new challenges of the day and have confidence in his guiding blessings. We can be fully awake and fully alive as Christians. We can reach the lost. We can look forward to seeing new souls come to faith. We can expect growth, if we stay awake and press on. Amen.
It’s easy to criticize. It’s harder to encourage. Criticism tends to tear down morale. Encouragement builds up morale and is more motivational. But sometimes, the hard truth must be acknowledged. Sometimes, the truth hurts. When the hearer doesn’t appreciate the criticism and refuses to believe that the speaker got it right, things can get ugly. So, when John wrote the book of Revelation, that started out with Jesus evaluating the spiritual health of seven churches in the area known as Turkey today, and included some harsh criticisms, he had to be very careful to make sure the readers and hearers in those churches knew that Jesus was the source.
“These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.” John wasn’t holding the seven spirits and he never once touched a star. Jesus is talking. John just wrote it down.
“I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” Ouch! I wouldn’t want to be a member of the church that Jesus said that to, would you? What went wrong in Sardis? What could make a dead church think it’s still alive? I think the answer would have to be, a lot of activity, a lot of peace and happiness among the members, but no growth. Living things grow. Dead things don’t.
Interestingly, in Sardis’ job review, there is no mention of persecution, even though the city was full of sophisticated paganism just as much as in the other cities, if not more! Significantly, Sardis’ Jews enjoyed one of the largest Jewish synagogues in antiquity. It was built right next to the Greek gymnasium. They were good neighbors! It seems that in the busy city of Sardis, the Christians were also just fitting right in. Jesus' followers seem to have coexisted peacefully with the city establishment. Lacking the world’s opposition, they may have grown comfortable in their relationship with the world. Or, else they dodged the world’s opposition by quieting their message, basically, by giving up on the mission.
Living in such comfort and peace, the church may have thought it was really doing well, really alive! The good times were just rolling along. But Jesus said they were actually dead. This church got a very poor performance review. “You are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.”
And remember, the other six churches got to see what Jesus said about Sardis. I wonder if that embarrassed Sardis. Jesus’ oracle to Ephesus challenged a loveless church to remember their first love. His oracle to Smyrna encouraged a persecuted church. His oracle to Pergamum addressed both persecution and compromise. His oracle to Thyatira challenged compromise. But Jesus’ words to Sardis summoned a sleeping church to wake up!
The spiritual state of the believers in the city was hindering them from enjoying Jesus’ resurrection power. They were asleep on the battlefield and being trampled by the enemy without even realizing it. And Jesus said that because they were asleep, when he came, he would come like a thief. It would take them by surprise. That might have reminded them of what Jesus had said to his disciples about his second coming. It would also have been significant because the city of Sardis was a strong fortress that had never been overtaken by conventional war. However, twice in their history they had been caught unawares for not keeping watch carefully enough. They were conquered when guards were asleep on duty! That adds to the significance of Jesus telling them to wake up.
So, in Sardis we may be safe to assume that there was no evangelism. They weren’t making much of an impact on that community so there was probably little effort toward justice and compassion in any transformative way. Nobody noticed them. All they had was some faithful believers, like a remnant, hanging on to the true faith, holding services among themselves, but not reaching out with any significant message or ministry. So, he said of them, “You have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.”
The gospel is the good news that God loves us sinners, as shown by what Christ has done for us in his incarnation, death on the cross, and resurrection. Our natural response to the gospel, when we really believe that, is to begin to follow Jesus and learn how to be submissive, obedient disciples, learning to act and preach like Jesus. That life must start with a faith decision. But that decision represents new birth in the faith. It’s only the beginning. Life in Christ has been called “a long obedience in the same direction.
To be alive in Christ has much more to do with how we live after the decision to believe in Jesus, than to do with just remembering that we once made that decision. You know, as we read each church’s job review in the Book of Revelation, a helpful task is to wonder how Jesus would review our church. Many pastors have used these descriptions of the churches in Turkey as a diagnostic tool, a symptom checker.
But the believers in a congregation have some responsibility too. We don’t want to be the church like Sardis. But what if we are? Would we know it? It takes an intervention. Jesus had to tell them, “You think your alive, but you’re really dead.” What would Jesus say to us?
What if we decided that we are a sleeping church? If a church is respected in a town and in a culture that is moving farther and farther away from Biblical values, does that mean that that church is too quiet about the dangers, not sounding the alarm, not preaching the gospel to those who are in danger, but only quietly holding forth among those who are already saved? What would Jesus say about our own church and its prospects for a bright future? If we are at all asleep or even just drowsy, and not fully alive to the mission Jesus has for us, there is only one cure. Walk with Jesus!
This congregation had its hay day of great success in ministry, just a few decades ago. Are those days gone forever? Culture is against us! People have changed. What are we going to do? Is decline inevitable? Do we just accept it as a fact that God will just allow this congregation to fade away because our ministry is coming to an end and there is nothing left for us to do? If the world has changed, doesn’t that mean that we have to change to meet the new challenges? If we want to wake up, how do we do that!? What can the church at Sardis teach us about our situation? Can we find any hope here?
We are going to have to cling to God for dear life and trust him, looking to him for guidance and deliverance. We will have to honestly repent of our own faults and foibles, see the things that we think we have right but actually have wrong, and be willing to change so that our clothes are unsoiled, both by preserving what faith we have and by repenting of what sins we have fallen into.
Now if we ask, “What will God do?” we can be confident that he will do something. If we are willing to face the harsh realities and accept God’s tough love, we will not be cast away. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Why bother to speak to a church like Sardis if there were really no hope of recovery? Jesus called the church to repentance and he has the power of resurrection! He is eager to share it with us if we are willing. We will be toughened up too and renewed and prepared for a better, more fruitful ministry.
And what will we do to show that we are really alive? Well, we have already begun. You have commissioned the Vision Team, and they have begun discerning ways to carry out our mission so that Lake City is blessed by having people like us in her midst. People who are fully alive in Christ, people who are fully awake to the mission that God has for us to carry on for him today. The kind of people we have to be is people who care about the suffering and the lost. This is why the vision team has identified several avenues of practical ministry that you can get involved in. This is something that we all have to take on as a shared responsibility.
We have been sharing these surveys that give you an opportunity to see ways that you can participate in ministries you could get excited about. It’s not about adding burdens and responsibilities to your already busy life. But it might be about changing priorities where that’s possible so that you get a chance to have a meaningful ministry if you don’t already. We’ve been working several weeks on this now and you may have noticed Mike being quite direct today in asking people to be sure they fill out a survey. The lack of response so far has led us to be concerned that there may be some here who only want to come for an hour on Sunday, and do the religious thing, as if that’s is all that God expects from us.
It’s interesting to me, that the message to the Church at Sardis just happens to fall on the same day that we will install this year’s officers in the church and hear again the vows and commitments that all of us ought to take seriously as members of God’s Holy Kingdom.
And not only that, but today we will observe the Lord’s Supper and partake of the Bread of Life. I didn’t orchestrate that. But the Holy Spirit knew. We call it the Lord’s Supper. But since they say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, maybe we should call Communion the Lord’s breakfast! It’s always a wake-up call, as if it’s time for breakfast! It is a life-giving meal. It is the most important meal in your life right now.
That should be encouraging. The mission is still real. The Church of God, the Body of Christ is still living and active in the world today. Jesus is calling us to continue to be a part of that, face the new challenges of the day and have confidence in his guiding blessings. We can be fully awake and fully alive as Christians. We can reach the lost. We can look forward to seeing new souls come to faith. We can expect growth, if we stay awake and press on. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment