Why Churches Die

Revelation chapter three, as we continue looking at Jesus' letters to the seven churches.

And all these are super fun, right?

All these letters make us feel real good about ourselves.

You can see that the issues they were dealing with back then are still many of the issues

that we deal with today.

And as you come to Sardis, you come to a really sad church because Jesus is going to say that they're dead.

They are a dead church.

And it really causes us to consider how churches die in the first place.

And as I was thinking about this and their situation, it became apparent that Sardis,

if you were to talk with anyone in the church, they wouldn't have thought they were dead.

It's one of the saddest parts, you know?

They thought that they were a living and active church.

And Jesus surprises them with this message.

It reminded me, I'm kind of a sucker for pretty much any Gordon Ramsay show.

It doesn't matter what he does.

I don't know what it is about that man.

But like any show that he does, I'm a sucker for those.

And he has one called Kitchen Nightmares, right?

Where he'll go into these restaurants that are failing and he tries to revive them and keep them from shutting down.

And there was one episode in particular that stuck out to me.

It was a restaurant called Penta Leones and it was known for their pizza.

And they advertise paper that I framed on the wall and it said,

Penta Leones named best pizza in Denver.

Which one do you prefer?

They picked the frozen pizza.

And so here was this restaurant, Sardis.

No one in Sardis realized they had a dead church.

Question I think that we need to consider is what causes churches to die?

Die. Look at the very beginning there.

Verse one, Jesus says,

into the angel they were full of life and vigor.

And now they were living in that reputation.

Here's what we earned in the past.

And no matter how much time has gone by, we're still worthy of it now.

They said. They convinced themselves of that.

I mean, you look at this church and they were still gathering, right?

They still had their programs.

They were still doing stuff.

They were moving.

But just as a body can still move after death,

so too the movements and activity in Sardis.

Because the people themselves were very religious,

but they were hypocrites.

The dead churches are filled with religious hypocrites.

And you remember in Jesus's day,

there were a bunch of religious people who had the reputation of being alive,

but they were actually dead, right?

You remember these people, the Pharisees?

They were all sorts of religious.

Were they not?

They were going to the temple.

They were doing all of their religious duties.

They were making their offerings and they were praying in public places

and they were fasting and twisting their faith.

They were doing everything you can do.

You looked and the people said,

Oh, the Pharisees, they're great.

They're a picture of holiness and what we should be.

They're alive and Jesus said, you're right.

They are beautiful on the outside.

But what was the problem?

Dead on the inside.

Remember what Jesus compared them to?

They were like a what?

A white wash tomb.

You're beautiful on the outside.

It's gorgeous.

It looks perfect.

Exactly how it should be.

But on the inside, full of dead people's lives.

And I think it's incredibly easy for individuals today and for churches today

to become like that white wash tomb.

How about you?

It's real easy for churches to look the part today.

Is it not?

They know what to say.

The pastor has come up with a few taglines that he knows will get an amen

and he can get the people going that way.

They've got the music down to a T.

You go and they've got that.

I mean, they just are there.

The picture.

They are beautiful on the outside.

But what's their substance?

Is there substance?

Are they just going with the routine of it?

Are they just going through the motions of it all?

Or are they actually alive?

Because it's possible to have all these things going on and still be a dead church.

That's exactly what you see in Sardis.

I mean, you see it right there.

They were moving.

They were active.

They were doing all sorts of things.

They had works because Jesus said, I know your works.

And yet he says, you got all this stuff going on.

But you're dead.

How does the church get to this point?

Well, let me ask you a question.

Why do you think it is that the Pharisees did not realize that they were like white wash tombs?

Anybody have any idea?

Why didn't the Pharisees realize they were like white wash tombs?

It's probably because if you think you're good with God, you're never going to have any time to self-reflect, right?

Make some assessments.

If your whole thing is, I'm doing all the things that I think I should be doing,

I'm going to do all the things that I think I should be doing.

And all the things I think God wants me to do.

And if I've convinced myself I'm good with God, I'm not going to question it.

I'm never going to self-reflect at all.

And so you begin not to worry about certain things.

And I want you to notice what Jesus says to this church here.

He says, you have the reputation of being alive, but you're dead.

And then I want you to skip to verse three.

Look at verse three.

He says, remember them 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.

Now this is really interesting, okay?

Jesus says if they're not going to change their ways, he's going to come like a thief.

And they're not going to know when, but he's going to come against you.

And they're not going to know when, but he's going to come against them.

And this would have really gotten under the skin of the church in Sardis

because of the history of the city of Sardis.

You see, I wish I had my whiteboard, but I was playing music with Rylan.

If you picture the city of Sardis, picture a city literally built into a mountain, okay?

Giant mountains all around.

They put their city backed up into a mountain, so it was wide open to the front,

but to the back they just had these huge mountains behind them.

And so the city of Sardis was said to be impenetrable.

It was unable to be conquered.

And the city, like the Pharisees thought, we're good.

What is there to worry about?

No one can conquer us.

No one can penetrate our walls because we've got these huge mountains

and we can see everything coming at us.

And so you know what the city did?

They became so comfortable that they took all of their guards off the walls

that they had built into the mountains and they put them all in the front of the city.

They said, is that wise? Should we do that?

Because what endo, like, what?

Are they going to climb the mountains and conquer us?

It would never happen. It could never happen.

So they put all the guards in the front.

And then Cyrus, when he was wanting to overtake this city,

said, hey, they don't really have any guards on their walls back there.

What's stopping us from climbing the mountain and attacking them from behind?

And that's exactly what he did.

And he conquered the city of Sardis in that same way.

He went over the walls exactly the way they said could not happen,

and he conquered the city.

And from that point on, Sardis was humiliated and they became known for their overconfidence.

People looked at them and they said, well, what did you expect?

You took all your guards off the wall.

You got too comfortable thinking you were good.

And that's embarrassing, is it not?

When you make a mistake like that and it's exploited,

they would never, ever make the same mistake twice.

Right?

Right.

I mean, if that's part of your history and everybody makes fun of you for doing that,

that really dumb decision, you wouldn't make that mistake again, right?

Well, three centuries later, when they were free again,

they said, you know what?

I don't think it could be done again.

I don't think anyone's going to climb those mountains and overtake our city.

And so they once again took all the guards off the wall.

They put all the guards in the front, and then King Antiochus came around

and he said, there's no one on those walls.

What if we climbed them like Cyrus did?

So he and his men climbed the walls, came through from the mountains,

and took the city of Sardis over.

And they literally became conquered the same way twice

because of their own dumb decisions that they did,

because of their overconfidence.

They were just like the Pharisees where they said,

we're good, what is there to worry about?

And that's why Jesus says, if you don't change, I'm going to come against you.

And you're not going to know when, you're feeling pretty good about yourself now,

but it's going to be like a thief.

And you're beginning to see a picture of what causes churches to die.

What word would you put to that?

That whole situation that we just described.

There's a word that I'm looking for here that is a key to dying churches.

Comfort, yeah, that's a good word, similar.

Wait, who said it?

Complacency, that's right.

That's exactly what it is, complacency.

That is the key to churches dying.

That's exactly what led the Pharisees to not realize that they were a bunch of whitewashed tombs.

That's what led the city of Sardis to falling twice in the exact same way,

and that is what is contributing to the death of the church in Sardis.

They had become complacent.

And so here's what I want to tell you.

We must not be complacent but vigilant in our faith because complacency kills churches.

Few things will kill a church quicker than complacency.

So here's my question then.

Is there any hope for dead and dying churches?

What can a church do to be revived and considered worthy in the eyes of the Lord?

Well, I want you to see what Jesus says to this church.

Notice what he says in verse 2.

He says, wake up!

Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die,

for I have not found your works complete in my sight.

Now here's what I want you to notice here.

You can circle this word, do whatever you want, but that phrase, wake up,

is not the typical word used to mean to wake from sleep.

It's not what it means.

It's actually a word that means to be watchful and vigilant.

So there's a difference here.

He's not saying, oh, you fall asleep, you need to wake up.

He's saying, you're complacent.

You're not paying attention to what you're doing.

You're not being watchful.

You're not being vigilant here and you need to get with it.

Otherwise, the rest of the parts of the church that I haven't died yet,

it's going to die.

I don't want to go off on a rant about this,

but I think this is one of the main things that kills churches today,

where churches are content to just go through the motions,

do things the way they've always been done.

They just sit back and they think that we're just doing the routine

and they never think about how we can actually be watchful and vigilant,

how we can be active, how we can be our keyword here at this church, effective.

They never think about this.

And these churches die.

And they watch themselves die.

There's a real danger here.

You see, with the city of Sardis,

they thought they had a strength.

They're mountains.

The mountains protect us.

But they left it unguarded, right?

I like the way my former seminary professor, Dr. Herschel York, said,

he said, an unguarded strength is twice a weakness.

And I just want you to consider for a moment,

what is it in your life that you would consider a strength

and so you've left it unguarded?

Because that's where you're vulnerable.

That's where you can be attacked.

That's where your overconfidence and your complacency will ruin you.

For many people, it's their marriage, right?

I've got a strong marriage.

Me and my wife, we're good.

So I don't have to worry about dating her or pursuing her

or making her feel special or reminding her of how much I love her.

We're good.

Why would I need to go and do this?

I don't even have to worry about it.

Ladies, do you have anything to say about that?

Yeah, right.

A lot of people get very complacent in their marriage.

And what do you start to do?

You say, well, my marriage is a strength,

so I don't really need to do anything about it.

You leave it unprotected, you leave it unguarded.

You don't try to pay attention to it.

You're not vigilant with it.

That's what leads many people to having marriages that fall apart.

Spouses growing apart.

Infidelity happening.

Because you thought it was a strength,

so you left it unprotected, you grew complacent,

and now look at the state of your marriage today.

I'm going to be honest,

and this might not hit as hard for as many people here tonight,

but there are a lot of people in a lot of churches today

who have gotten very complacent with their children.

A kid makes a profession of faith early on.

Seven or eight years old, five or six.

They make a profession of faith.

They get baptized.

The parent says, my kid's going to heaven.

It's a strength.

So what do you do?

Leave them unguarded.

They don't have to worry about them.

They're going to heaven.

They never come to church anymore.

They don't read the Bible.

Haven't really seen any sanctification happen lately.

There's no commitment to the Lord and His purpose and His mission.

There's no holiness that's happening here.

But I don't need to worry about it

because they made that profession of faith,

and kids would never lie.

They were baptized, so they're good.

And we won't so desperately to believe

that this is a security and a strength in our lives

that we leave it unguarded.

And how many kids today have deceived their parents and themselves

into thinking that they are in a right relationship with God

and the parents have not done anything to nurture that relationship.

They've just left it unguarded

and sent their kids out into the world to be schooled

by the education system that we have today,

by the culture that we have today,

by social media that they are exposed to all the time.

And then we wonder why Johnny's not in church anymore.

It's because the parents said he's good.

I don't need to worry about him.

For many people, it's stuff that goes on in the church all the time.

Well, I don't need to volunteer for that thing, right?

I don't need to volunteer because someone will.

Yeah, we want to have a VBS this year.

I don't need to volunteer. Someone's going to.

I know that we need stuff done around the church,

but I don't need to worry about it.

Tommy Burdine's going to do it.

Tommy Burdine, ladies and gentlemen.

I don't need to try to help out with music or sound or anything else

because we've got people for that.

I don't need to get involved in gospel groups

because I'm sure someone will.

How easy it is for us to grow complacent in the church,

especially when we do see that other people are doing it.

It's great that we've got ourselves a Tommy Burdine

and a Gene McKinney and a Michael Stevenson.

That's fantastic.

They are strengths in our church.

But you still have to protect those strengths, don't you?

Because I know that these guys would never get burned out, ever.

It sure would be nice if we could have someone to go alongside them,

boost them up, help them out, not leave that strength unguarded.

I mean, you look around our church today

and it seems like everybody is content to just let everyone else do the work.

The spirit of complacency that killed Sardis

is killing churches all across America today.

I don't need to worry about it.

We're good. We've got people doing it.

It's not going to be like that forever.

I've got more to say on that in upcoming sermons,

so I'm not going to preach it tonight.

But just stay tuned for that.

I just want you to understand that complacency kills churches.

I want you to notice the second thing Jesus says.

So not only does He say,

you've got to wake up and strengthen what remains.

He says in verse 3, notice what He says there.

Remember then what you received and heard and keep it.

He says, remember and keep it.

And they were doing a great deal of remembering here,

but what were they remembering?

The old times, that's right.

Jesus is wanting them to remember the gospel

and the mission of the church.

How often we forget the mission of the church?

We think church is just something we go to.

How often we forget that we have a mission as a church.

Jesus wants them to remember that,

but as Michael said, they're getting hung up on the good old days.

Oh man.

Like Jesus, we are remembering.

Best pizza in Denver, right?

We're the best church there is.

We're Sardis.

We wake up on the good old days, the glory days,

and they can't move by it.

You know, Tom Rainer, some of you know the name,

he's one of the leading church experts in the world today.

He's researched more churches than I think any other person alive has.

And he studied a lot of dying churches and dead churches.

And he said the number one most common thing

that they all had in common was that they were clinging to the past.

That's interesting, isn't it?

They had thousands upon thousands of dead churches and dying churches.

And every single one of them had a same problem,

had a lot of different problems in many ways,

but they all shared one problem at least.

They were clinging to the past.

They only wanted the worship music of the past.

They wanted to use evangelism strategies of the past.

They wanted no screens in the church building.

Couldn't have any screens.

They wanted the same number of services

at the same times that they'd always had.

They wanted the men to wear suits and ties

and the women to wear dresses.

They wanted the church to do everything it had done

during America's spiritual glory days.

And listen, we should be thankful for those days, right?

Praise God that we had them here in America.

But listen to me, those days are gone.

Those days are gone.

And I want to just remind you of this, you already know this.

We could do absolutely everything we used to do back then.

And there is no guarantee it would be as successful today.

You could play the same music, you could dress the same way,

you could do the same strategies, same evangelism,

all that kind of stuff, and there is no guarantee

that you'd have the same results today.

In fact, I think you'd probably have the opposite results today.

Those days are gone.

Appreciate them, but you have to move forward.

You have to be willing to make changes.

You have to be willing to adapt.

We aren't to obsess over the past and memorialize the past

or try to recreate the past.

God has placed us in the 21st century for a reason.

If he wanted us to be born or exist at another time,

do you think our sovereign Lord, who's powerful in all ways,

could have done that?

Yeah, absolutely.

But in the infinite wisdom of God,

he said, I want these people to be born and live at this time.

And be part of this church and do ministry in this culture,

which means we have to adapt.

We have to be willing to change.

Listen to me, I'm adamant on this.

The message does not change.

You ever heard me change the gospel?

No.

At that point, let me be anathema, as Paul says.

If I or an angel or anyone else comes to you

and preach a different gospel than the one you first heard,

let them be anathema.

The message does not change, but the way we share it can change.

You go knock door to door today trying to share the gospel,

people greet you with a gun.

Are there other ways to share the gospel?

Effective ways.

Worship does not change, but the style can.

Nothing heretical about that.

The gathering of the church doesn't change, but the frequency

of which it meets can change.

The times in which they meet can change

to adapt to fit their people better.

None of that is against the Bible.

It's recognizing the times in which you live

and the culture in which you live

and say we want to be effective in this time.

Here's how we do it.

The church is not primarily to be a testament to the glory of its past,

but a testament to the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Who cares if they know our history?

Doesn't it matter more that they know Jesus?

Who cares if they knew that this place used to only be standing room only?

Praise God for that.

Isn't it more important that they know that Jesus is still doing a good work

in us right now?

Let's focus on the stuff that actually matters.

You got to get out of the past and get with the present,

and Jesus tells them lastly in verse 3 to repent.

You got to wake up, you got to strengthen,

you got to remember, you got to keep, and you've got to repent.

What do you repent of church?

A repent of your complacency, right?

Your apathy.

A repent of your misplaced focus.

It means to change direction, right?

You're changing direction away from all these things

and you're turning to Jesus.

And Jesus says if they don't repent,

He's going to come against them when they least expect it.

Jesus wants this church to turn from danger and turn to Him,

because Jesus himself is the hope of dying churches.

A church can have programs.

It's not going to stop it from dying.

A church can have a very popular preacher who's charismatic and a great communicator,

not going to stop it from dying.

A church can have the best music in the entire upstate, not going to stop it from dying.

Jesus is the only hope of dying churches.

He's the only hope there is, period.

And He does see signs of life in Sardis.

Notice what He says in verse 4.

He says,

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.

As many have gone astray, but not everybody has.

Some of them have remained faithful to Jesus

and He promises this great reward.

And you notice in verse 5,

the one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments.

And I'll never blot His name out of the book of life.

I will confess His name before my Father and before His angels.

And He's saying here, the clothes are going to be white because they've been what?

They've been washed in the blood of the Lamb.

It says,

The people who remain faithful to me, the ones who conquer,

the ones who persevere to the end,

they will be cleansed, they will be washed white as snow,

they will be with Jesus forever, and He will never deny them.

In fact, He says,

Your name ends up in the book of life.

And He writes those names with a pen, doesn't He, church?

There is no eraser.

Your name is in the book of life.

It is there for good.

And praise God for that. Anyone else thankful for that?

Once your name is there, it's there.

He says, that's what's promised.

If you will remain faithful to me.

These are the steps He gives this church to be revived again

and considered worthy in His sight.

And I want to just remind you of something here.

It's easy to look to when you're having a dying church.

You just start strategizing, right?

What can we do?

Human effort can only get you so far, right?

Because I want to just take you back very quickly.

Look back to verse 1. Notice how He started the letter.

This is what He thought as He addressed Sardis.

This is what He thought they needed to hear more than anything.

To the angel of the church in Sardis, right?

The words of Him who has the seven spirits of God

and the seven stars.

What are the seven spirits of God? Do we remember?

Anybody remember seven spirits of God?

Oh, it's not okay.

Yeah.

Remember seven is the number of perfection.

Did someone have it? David, were you saying it?

Yeah, seven is the perfect number

in reference to the seven spirits.

It's saying it's the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

It's a reference to the Holy Spirit.

It's the fullness of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Do you remember the seven stars?

Seven stars are the seven angels.

Angels being of the churches. We said messengers of the churches.

And so Jesus is saying He is the one who is sovereign over the Holy Spirit

and the ones who are bringing the messages to the churches.

Most of all, what He's promising here in saying is that dying churches

need the Holy Spirit more than anything.

Without the Spirit of God, you have no hope as a church.

It's actually, there's an interesting Old Testament background to this

because you remember when the people of Israel were returning to Jerusalem

and the temple was in ruins, right?

Do you remember? Just a bunch of stone.

And they're walking up to this place where the temple once stood

and they see a bunch of stone and God told them to rebuild it.

And they're like, how?

How could we possibly do this?

It's too much for us. We don't have the people.

We don't have the resources. We don't have the knowledge to do this.

This is beyond our ability.

What hope for us is there to make this a place of worship again,

to have your glory fill this place again?

What hope is there?

And in Zechariah, chapter 4 and verse 6,

Zechariah 4 · chapter mention

God is addressing this same issue and He says,

Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, declares the Lord.

They're scratching their heads.

What are we going to do?

We don't know what we're doing.

We don't have the people. We don't have the resources.

And God says, it's not by might.

It's not by power, but by my spirit.

Will this place be rebuilt and filled again?

And that's the promise that He is making here for the church.

There is no church apart from the Spirit of God.

There is no life apart from the Spirit of God,

not by might of men, nor the strategies of men,

nor well-meaning programs.

None of these things can save a dying church

or in life in a dead church.

Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord.

Folks, what we need more than anything

is the Holy Spirit to be active in our midst.

If the Spirit's not here and He's not convicting,

there is no salvation.

There is no repentance. There is no new life.

We need the Holy Spirit.

And so we need to do what Jesus says here.

We need to wake up because complacency kills churches.

It's time to wake up, church.

It's time to wake up and strengthen what remains

before those things die as well.

It's time to remember the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ

and be willing to adapt to the time in which He has placed us.

It's time to repent of our complacency and our sin

and keep our hearts and our eyes focused on Jesus.

To understand that He is sovereign over the church

and the church's messengers,

and He alone can send the Holy Spirit to be among us.

And so that's what we need to pray.

We need to ask the Holy Spirit to come as the giver of life,

as the light of illumination, as the teacher of the church,

as the sanctifier of the saints,

as the manifestation of love, as the helper of God's people.

We need to ask Him to come and breathe life

into these dead, dry bones so that we might live.

This is the only hope for dying churches.

And as Jesus says, He who has ears to hear,

let Him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Mr. McKinney, you get the word of wisdom tonight.