Jesus' letter to the church in Sardis, Revelation 3:1-6,
Immanuel Sermon Audio
Seven - Sardis
If you have your Bible with you this morning, take it out and find the last book in the Bible, the book of Revelation, our series on Sunday mornings is called seven, and we are looking at the letters that Jesus wrote to seven churches in Asia Minor. Our question each week as we've approached one letter a week has been not what do we want from our church, but turning the lens around and asking the question, "What does Jesus want from His church?" Jesus died for the church, He purchased the church with His blood on the cross, it belongs to Him. This church is His church, He's the Lord of this church, we've sung about that this morning. What does Jesus want from our church? And as we've sort of looked in on somebody else's mail and we've read these letters that Jesus wrote to these ancient churches, real churches with real people with real issues, none of them were perfect churches, none of them had arrived, in fact they all had issues and problems and hang ups that sometimes we see in our own church, we've learned a couple of things about what Jesus wants from His church. When Jesus wrote to the Ephesians and we looked at that letter, we saw Jesus warn them of the danger of a diminishing love, in other words He wants a church that loves people. Second week we looked at Jesus' letter to the church in Smyrna, they were about to face persecution, they were a little bit apprehensive about that and so Jesus warned them not about the danger of persecution but about the danger of fearing persecution, in other words what Jesus wants is a church that is loyal even to the death. Week 3, Jesus wrote to the church in Pergamum, He warned that church about the danger of theological compromise, they were toying with false teaching, they were allowing false teaching in their church and Jesus warned them about the danger of that. The flip side is Jesus wants a church that will fight for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, He wants a church that loves the truth. Week 4, Jesus wrote to the church in Thyatira, He warned them about the danger of moral compromise, they were tolerating sin in the church, people knew what was going on, we talked about that last week and Jesus warned them that what He wants is a church that is holy, He warns them about moral compromise. This morning we're going to look at letter number 5, Jesus writes to the church in Sardis and He warns them about the danger of spiritual deadness, spiritual deadness. If that just doesn't do anything for you, you could call it spiritual apathy. You could just say Jesus warned them about just going through the motions of Christianity, just going through the motions of church life. He is warning them about spiritual deadness, what He wants is a church that is vibrant and that is alive spiritually, church that is not just going through the motions. The letter that Jesus wrote to this church begins in Revelation chapter 3 verse 1, it goes down to verse 6, we're going to read it, we're going to pray, and then we're going to jump in. Revelation 3 verse 1, Jesus says this, "And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, the words of Him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars." I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the side of my God, remember then what you received and heard, keep it and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. Yet you still have a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments and they will walk with me in white for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels, he who has a near, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. Let's pray. Lord, we're grateful for the gift of worship. For those who lead us each week, we're grateful for a Bible in a language that we understand, that we can read, that we can study, that we can submit our lives to. Father, our prayer is that as we read what Jesus had to say to this ancient church that we would hear your spirit speaking to our church today, give us ears to hear. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. November 23, '79 AD was a regular, normal day in the city of Pompeii. If you went to Pompeii today, that's about what's left of it. You can see the background there. It was a regular day. November 23, '79 AD, the children woke up. Parents got them ready, sent them off to school. The moms woke up and did what the moms in Pompeii did on a daily basis. The servants got up and started about their daily tasks. The politicians got up and the philosophers got up and did whatever philosophers do all day long. They just went about business as usual, November 23, '79 AD, just a regular, normal, typical day in the city of Pompeii. No one in town had any idea that the entire city was about to be destroyed. No one had a clue. For all they knew it was just a regular, normal day. You wake up, you go through the routine, you try to make it through the day in one piece and without losing your mind, you go to sleep at night, you wake up, you do it again the next day. This was a different day for the city of Pompeii. You can see in the background Mount Vesuvius, it's a volcano. And on November 23, '79 AD, Mount Vesuvius blew, and by blue I don't mean a little bit of pretty lava flowing down the side of the mountain and everybody sort of said, "Oh, we better get out of here. We better watch out." I mean it blew wide open. Scholars and archeologists, they go back and they study this thing. They say that rocks went flying out of Vesuvius 20 miles straight up into the air. Ash, burning ash, begin to rain down over the city of Pompeii. They estimate from the things that they found there. They estimate that the temperature and street level in Pompeii within minutes was 480 degrees. And in a matter of hours, just a moment of time really, the entire city had been buried in 20 feet of volcanic ash, completely buried, gone, covered, and forgotten about. About 100 years later, they start digging around and they start finding rocks and they start finding walls and they start moving all this ash out and they start digging up and they find this ancient city and one of the most remarkable things they found in Pompeii was people. They found the body cavities of people in the ash and they busted a couple of them, not knowing what it was. They just sort of digging around in the ash scoop and stuff out but then they realized we've got to be careful. This was a person and you can go to museums and you can see some of these people who were in Pompeii, November 23rd, 79 AD, going about life, business as usual, the volcano hits, there is literally no time to escape and these people are just caught, frozen as the ash falls, even found a dog out on the street. Here's the point. The morning of November 23rd, 79 AD, nobody knew they were going to turn into that. They just woke up, it was a regular day, Vesuvius was rumbling in the background but it always rumbled, nobody thought anything about that. Everybody woke up, it was a regular day, you went about your business, it was business as usual, just another plain old boring day in Pompeii and then all of a sudden life comes crashing to an end. That was the situation in Sardis. People looked around and they saw no signs of danger. In fact, as the people in Sardis, I don't know what you call the people in Sardis, I keep thinking in my head, "Sardines" and I don't want to say that but the Sardinjians or whatever they would be, they're here in this letter being read to them, right? And they listen to the letter to the church in Ephesus and they sort of give themselves a pat on the back and they say, "Well, there's no fighting here. We love each other. We don't have that problem here." And they go on and they listen to the letter that Jesus wrote to the church in Smyrna and they say, "Well, there's no persecution here, there's no danger of that here. We're not afraid of it. Should it come?" Okay? Two for two. And then they hear the third letter, Jesus writing to the church in Progamum and they say, "Look, we've got all of our doctrinal ducks lined up in a row here. We're good. We don't need to read that letter. Let's fast forward to the next one." Pat ourselves on the back for that and they hear Jesus' letter to the church in Thyatira and he talks about their sin issues and they say, "You know, we wouldn't put up with that stuff in a million years. I don't know about those crazy people in Thyatira, but that's not us at all. We don't have any of these problems." And they're sort of tracking along here thinking, "This is not us. What's Jesus going to say to us? He's going to have something really good to say to us. We're not fighting. We don't have false teachers. There's no rank immorality. We're not afraid of persecution. What's Jesus going to say to us?" And Jesus drops this letter on them and it's like a Vesuvius explosion blowing up their false sense of security. This church that had a reputation for having it all together. If you move to town and you said, "What's the most healthy church?" People would have said, "Well, this church, they just went through a split. These guys, they're always fighting about this. This church, they teach some really crazy things. But you know, the first church down in Sardis, it seems to be like they've got it together pretty good. And Jesus looks at this church and here's what He says, "I know you have a reputation for being alive, but you're dead. You're spiritually dead. You're waking up, going through the motions, like it's just a regular, normal day. You are spiritually apathetic. You are spiritually dead. What I want is a church that is alive. And the things that Jesus says in this letter are at times shocking. And so let's jump in and ask this question. Why do churches fall into spiritual apathy, good churches, "solid churches"? One reason they fall into spiritual apathy is they forget that Jesus is sovereign. They forget that He is in total and complete control of every detail of their lives. In the past, in the present, in the future, forever and for always, they forget that Jesus is sovereign. Verse 1, Jesus introduces Himself to the church in Sardis like this. The words of Him who has the seven spirits of God, that's the Holy Spirit, and the seven stars, and you may remember back from chapter 1, the seven stars are the churches. And Jesus is saying, "Look, I hold you in my hand. I'm sovereign. I hold the churches. I hold the stars. I hold the Holy Spirit. I am the one who is in complete and total control of everything. You have brought me down to your level, and you're going through the motions of church, and you have forgotten that I am totally and completely sovereign." It reminds me of the children's song. Maybe you remember singing it when you were young and you were in children's choir or Wednesday night or Sunday night. He's got the whole world in his hands. You remember that song? Do you want me to sing it for you? Not going to happen. I looked it up this week. There's about 2,000 verses to that song in case you didn't know. So I wrote down some of the best ones. He's got the whole world in his hands. He's got my brothers and my sisters in his hands. He's got the sun and the rain in his hands. He's got the moon and the stars in his hands. He's got the wind and the clouds in his hands, the rivers and the mountains, the oceans and the seas. He's got the little bitty babies in his hands. He's got you and me in his hands. He's got everybody here in his hands. He's got everybody there in his hands. He's got everybody everywhere in his hands. He's got the whole wide world in his hands. I think most of the time when we sing that, it gives us comfort. And there's a side of truth to that. You should take comfort in the fact that Jesus holds you in his hands. But as Jesus is right into the church in Sardis and he says, "I hold all things in his hands." It's not really comforting. It's unsettling and it's unnerving. And as they thought about the things that Jesus had to say to them, and as Jesus said, "I am holding you and all things in the palm of my hand," it should have been a little bit frightening for the church in Sardis. They forgot that Jesus was sovereign. So he reminded him, "Why did churches fall into spiritual apathy?" Number two, they forget that Jesus knows us. He knows us. Inside and out, backwards and frontwards, he knows us. Look what Jesus said in verse 1, "I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive. Your meeting budget and everyone in town knows it. Your programs are successful and you never lack for volunteers. Your facilities are nice and clean and tidy and appealing to outsiders. You have a reputation for being alive. What Jesus says, "You're dead." Jesus knows you. He knows this church in Sardis. He knows this church in a manual. He knows you as you sit in the chair this morning. There are things about you that no one knows. Things in your heart that you've never shared with anybody. Jesus knows it. He knows you. There's things you can hide from your friends, things you can hide from your spouse, things you can very easily hide from your pastor, Jesus knows. And He says to the church in Sardis, "I know you." Here's your reputation and here's the reality about who you are. I know you. Jesus knows this church. There's things about this church that maybe many people know. Everyone in town knows. Maybe there's things about this church that only a handful of people know. But Jesus knows it all. The good, the positive, the bad, the ugly, all of it. He knows it. And He says to the church in Sardis, who was guilty of just going through the motions of church, just doing everything the way they thought they were supposed to do it. He says, "You have a great reputation, but you're dead. You have forgotten that I know you." Why did churches fall into spiritual apathy? Number three, you should know this by now. They forget that Jesus expects what? 100 percent, 100 percent. Verse two, Jesus says, "Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die." Here it comes, "I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God." I know what your works are, and they're incomplete. I'm not asking for 75 percent. I'm not asking for 90 percent. I'm asking for 100 percent. Now just imagine that you're a member of the church in Sardis, and you get this letter from Jesus. And here's two of the first things that He says to you. Number one, you're dead. Number two, your works are incomplete. It's not really a pat on the back. You're dead, and your works are incomplete. Jesus had some hard things to say to the church in Ephesus, and the church in Thyatira, and the church in Pergamum, and all these that we've looked at. This may be the worst. You are dead, and your works are incomplete. Now it may be tempting for us to look back at Sardis and to sort of look down our nose on them and say, "Man, it stinks to get that letter." You guys, you understand that's what the Bible says about me and you, left to ourselves. That very same thing. Left to ourselves, you're dead, and your works are incomplete. Romans 3, 23 says what? All have sinned and fallen short. Your works are not good enough. Ephesians 2 says what? You all used to walk in trespasses and sins. Your works aren't good enough. Jesus in Revelation 3 says it plainly. Your works are incomplete. It's not good enough. And not only are you not good enough, but spiritually sin and your trespasses and your sins have brought death into your life. And so Romans 6, 23 says what? The wages for our sin is death. And Ephesians 2, 1 says you were all dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Jesus says to the church and the artist you are dead. You have a reputation for being alive, but the reality is you're dead and your works are incomplete. Here's the good news of the gospel. For Sardis and for me and for you and for Immanuel Baptist. The good news is that Romans 6, 23 goes on to say not only are the wages of your sin death, but the free gift of God is life, eternal life in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2, Paul says you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, but God made us alive together with Christ. You understand that Jesus did not come to this earth to make you a better person, although that's part of what happens when Jesus comes into your life. He came to give you life because you're dead. John 10, 10, Jesus said I have come that they may have life and have it to the full, to have it in abundance. You see how this blows up any ridiculous notion that you and I can be good enough to get ourselves into heaven? Left to yourself, your works are incomplete and you're spiritually dead. Jesus has come that you may have life and that you may have it to the full. What Jesus is saying is to the church and Sardis and to the church of Immanuel, because I humbled myself and took the form of a servant, because I walked on this earth and lived a life of perfect obedience, because I humbled myself to the point of death, even death on a cross, because of all that I'm giving you life and in exchange, what I'm asking for you from you is all of you. Jesus is not just a get out of hell free ticket, you get the life and I get you, right? You are a new creation. You no longer belong to yourself, but you've been purchased by Jesus Christ. Jesus demands, He deserves, He expects 100% of who you are. What is Jesus' demand from a church that struggles with spiritual apathy? If you as an individual or your Sunday school class or a church find ourselves struggling with spiritual apathy, spiritual deadness, Jesus demands repentance. Verse 3, remember then what you received and heard, keep it and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. Jesus demands repentance. Let me tell you a little bit about Sardis. I told you about Pompeii, that's a different city. This is Sardis and there's several different decent pictures online. This is maybe the best. The ruins of Sardis and all around ancient Sardis, there was sort of a geographic wall on the east and on the north and on the west. There was just sort of these rocky cliffs that jutted up and were sort of a natural physical protection of the city. In fact, part of the city actually sat up on one of these cliffs, up on a little plateau and the city was down in the valley and they had the cliffs on the east and on the north and on the west and they were sort of protected on three sides and in the south there was a little opening in these rocks. Some of these cliffs were fifteen or fifteen hundred feet high and there was a little opening to the south. So if you wanted to get in and out of the city, you went in and out the south gate because the rest of it was just too difficult. Now you think about an ancient city and you think about invading armies, this is a pretty good situation to be in. You've got a pretty good barrier here on the east, you've got a pretty good barrier over on your north, you've got a pretty good barrier on your west. Really, if you just pay attention to the south, you're good and that's what the people in Sardis did. They had a nice little wall on the south and they had a big gate there on the south and people found it very, very difficult to conquer the city of Sardis with ancient siege warfare. You couldn't come in from all these different directions, you could only come from the south and you just kind of had to funnel your army in there. It just didn't work very well, but the city was conquered more than once. You can read in history about the Persian Empire, 549 BC, Cyrus the Great, came marching against the city of Sardis, marched right up to the south gate and camped his army right there at the south gate. People in Sardis looked out and they said, "Well, he's not going to march that army over the cliffs. That would be suicide. Only an idiot would do that. He thinks he's going to come in the south gate. We've got all our forces right here. We're fortified and barricaded and here we are. We are safe and secure." In Cyrus, while he camped at the south gate, sent one soldier a long way around the city, climbed through the cliffs on the north side, snuck in through the town and at night opened the front gate and the Persian army came walking in and conquered the city. Now, I don't know about you, but somebody should have written that down. Somebody should have made a note of that and said, "Okay, the next time there's an army at the south gate, we need to pay attention on the north side of town. Somebody might come scaling in. Somebody might repel down the wall. We might need to watch our backside." Well, a couple hundred years later, 216 BC, an army from Crete, which is just a small island in the Mediterranean. An army from Crete came marching against Sardis and they'd done their homework. They knew exactly what to do. They marched right up to the south gate, camped out right there, acted like they were getting ready to lay siege to the city and one soldier, we know his name, his name was Lagorous or Lagorous, went around the backside, scaled down the cliffs on the north side of the city, went through town and the dead of night, opened the gate and marched to Crete. Happened twice in recent years before Jesus wrote this letter just a few hundred years earlier and what does Jesus say to this church, verse 3, "Remember what you've received and heard. Keep it in repent. If you will not wake up, pay attention. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I come against you." I think we all ought to be on the same page when we say, "You do not want Jesus to come against your church. You may like him to come to your church. You may like him to come for your church, but you do not want Jesus to come against your church." And he says to these people who were guilty of not paying attention in their borders, he says, "Wake up, pay attention. I want spiritual life. If you're not going to give it to me, I'll come against you like a thief." He's calling them to repent. What does he promise, a church with spiritual life, a church that refuses to just go through the motions? Number one, Jesus promises white garments. You can read about that in verse 4 and 5, white garments. Jesus is alluding to the Old Testament story in Zechariah chapter 3, where the prophet Zechariah had a vision and in the vision there was God there and Satan there and the high priest there. And Satan standing before God began to accuse the high priest and begin to say to God, "You know the high priest is guilty of this sin. You know he's guilty of this sin. You know he's guilty of this sin. Look at his clothes. He's filthy and he's dirty, his sin has ruined him and this is your high priest." And in the vision God tells Satan to zip it and he takes the dirty clothes off of the high priest and he clothes him in white clean garments. And it's a picture of what happens when you and I come to faith in Jesus Christ. We come dirty. We come to sinners. We come unable to do anything about the mess we've made of our lives. And God, the Father says, "Based on the finished work of my son, I'm going to take away your sin, your dirty garments and I'm going to clothe you with garments that are white. I'm going to clothe you with the righteousness of my son, Jesus Christ." And Jesus says, "If you will be a church that fights for spiritual life, that refuses to just go through the motions of church, I will give you white garments." Number two, what is Jesus' promise of church with spiritual life? He promises a place in the book of life. More specifically, he says, "Your name will not be blotted out of the book of life." Your name will not be blotted out. Interesting in ancient cities like Sardis, most of these ancient Roman towns kept a registry, a list of everyone who lived in the town. And so when a baby was born, you went down with your family and you had your child's name added to the registry. And if somebody died, you went down, you sent word, you said, "Hey, great grandma, she passed away, take her off the list." And if people moved to town, new folks, they would be added to the list. And did you know that criminals would have their names blotted off the list? Imagine a law like that in the United States, we convict you of this crime and you're no longer a citizen, we'll just ship you to Antarctica or something like that. We'll get rid of you, you're out, you're homeless, you have no home, you have no nation. That's what they did in most of these ancient cities like Sardis. You guilty of a crime, your name is blotted out. And what does Jesus promise this church? This church that he's calling to fight for spiritual life. Don't just go through the motions. And if you won't do that, if you'll repent of your spiritual deadness and apathy, your name will not be blotted out of the book of life. Number three, what does Jesus promise a church with spiritual life? He promises to confess their names before the Father. I will confess your name before my Father and before His angels. Reminds me of Matthew chapter seven, you don't have to turn there, but I will read it to you, Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven." In other words, I don't want you to just go through the motions. I'm not satisfied with spiritual apathy. I don't care what your reputation is in the community. Not everyone who says, 'Lord, Lord,' is going to make it into the kingdom, Jesus said. But the one who does the will of my Father, the one who conquers, the one who overcomes. Jesus says, "On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? Lord, don't we have a good reputation?' And Jesus will say to them, 'I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.' When you get a great promise from Jesus, there's also a serious threat from Jesus. And the promise is, if you will fight for spiritual life, your name will not be blotted out. I will clothe you in white garments, and I will confess your name before my Father. If you're not interested in doing those things, if you're not interested in repentance, I will deny you. What does He promise a church with spiritual life? White garments, a place in the book of life, and to confess our names before the Father. How do we do it? As a church, how do we avoid the mistakes of the church and Sardis? How do we fight for spiritual life? Three quick ideas and we'll be done. Number one, abide in Christ. Every moment, every day, every hour, every week, abide in Christ. John 15, 5, Jesus said, 'I'm the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.' Abide in Christ. Number two, make repentance a lifestyle. Make it a lifestyle. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm afraid that the 'r' word, repentance, is out of vogue in most churches today. It's out of style, it's not popular, it makes people uncomfortable and so we just sort of shy away from that kind of talk. Don't say the word repentance, it makes people feel guilty. When it is mentioned, I'm afraid that it's sort of a one-time thing you do when you invite Jesus into your heart, whatever that means. You need to repent of your sin and invite Jesus into your heart, then you're good forever. When the Bible talks about repentance, and when Jesus talks about repentance, it's more than something you should never talk about and it's more even than something you do one time at the beginning of your Christian life, it's something you do every single day of your life. You remember Martin Luther, the monk in Germany who sparked the Protestant Reformation when he went and nailed the 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg. Number one, up on his 95 objections to the church was this and I'm paraphrasing, Jesus said, "Repent and he meant that it needs to be your life, it needs to be your lifestyle, it needs to be a habit." If you and I are going to fight for spiritual life, repentance has to be part of our life and it has to be a regular part of our life that we're confessing sin and turning from it. How do we avoid spiritual apathy, read the Bible? And like I said a couple of weeks ago, let me explain what I mean by that, read the Bible, read it. We all have one in our hands this morning, either on your phone or one that looks something like this, you probably got a dozen or so on the shelf when you go to your house later this afternoon, they do you know good if you don't read them. Read God's Word, read God's Word, read God's Word. The book of Hebrews says that God's Word is living and it's active and it discerns the thoughts and the intentions of your heart. It will expose you in your spiritual apathy. I promise you if you sat down with the church in Sardis and you said to them, "How's your Bible reading?" Just as a congregation, let's take a poll, it wouldn't be good. God's Word is living and it's active and it will expose and discern the thoughts and the intentions of your heart. So this is what we do, abide in Christ, make repentance a lifestyle and read the Bible. You bow and let me pray for you. Father, we're grateful for the Bible. We believe it's true. We thank you for these letters that Jesus wrote to these churches. Father, as we look at Ephesus and Thyatira and Pergamum, as we look at Sardis, Father, we see us. We realize that these were real churches made up of real people with real issues just like us at a manual Baptist in Odessa. Father, we struggle with the things that these churches struggled with. Attempting it is as a church to just go through the motions and just to do what we've always done, to put no heart into it, to put no thought into it, to put no prayer into it, and just to be busy with activity and all the while to be spiritually dead. Father, we want to be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We want to have our names not blotted out of the book of life. Father, we want to be the kind of church that you would have us to be. We're going to take a moment, Lord, in the end of this service, and we want to sing. We want to confess sin. We want to repent. We want to lift up the name of Jesus. We want to think about who you are and the blessings that you poured into our lives as believers, as families, and as a church family. And Father, while we sing, we pray that you would receive our praise, that you would receive our worship. Father, if there are people who are here who need today to make a decision for you, who need to decide about their relationship with Jesus Christ, who need to be shaken and waked up from spiritual apathy and spiritual deadness, Father, we pray that that would happen today. We pray that your spirit would move among us, that you would draw us to yourself as we worship. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]