Are You A Nominal Christian?

Hey guys, I'm going to say something. Y'all were real quiet during welcome. So, I'm going to ask you a favor. If you feel something while I'm preaching in a moment, feel free to say like, "Yo, yeah." That's what we used to do in the South. We used to say, just say, "Yeah." You want to practice?

Just say, "Yeah." That's. We're working today. We'll figure it out. If it's your first time, I'm so glad that you're here. Can we celebrate our first time guests again?

I recognize some people. That was, man, I feel like heaven was way louder than you just were when we're welcoming people into church for the first time. Can we try that one more time and actually celebrate? Hey, hey, I'm talking to them cuz they know better. The people clapping, they know better.

If it's your first time, we are so glad that you're here. The Bible says, that heaven rejoices when one sinner comes to repentance. And while I know you might not be someone coming to repentance, you did show up at church, which is part of that process. And I am ecstatic about it. If you have your Bibles, it's always good to have your Bibles at church.

We're going to be in Revelation chapter 3 today. I want to give a little bit of instruction for what's going to happen at the end of this service. If you came and you're in need of school supplies, or maybe some backpacks that have school supplies in them, you may have filled out a form, you may not have filled out a form. I think we've got enough. What happened is we had our serve week this last week, and they had a big project that they were going to be doing for backpack distribution.

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

So, we bought 300 backpacks worth of supplies and backpacks, and then they ended up having less signups, and they told us last Sunday. So, I was like, "How can the Lord flip this for his good?", and so we said, "Well, let's just give them away at church the next week." So, if you need one, go over here. The pipe and drape—this is what we call this stuff that is fake walls, you know—, the pipe and drape will open it up. You'll be able to walk back here, grab a backpack. We'll want to get a little bit of information just to make sure that we're distributing it properly to the right people.

And then you'll have school supplies. So, that's our heart. If we have any left over, they're going to be going to a couple of different organizations who also provide for people right at the front end of school. So, thank you guys for being here. We'd love to give you a backpack.

Thanks to those of you who give of your tithes and offerings. That's what paid for these backpacks. So, can we just celebrate those who are generous? And as I was preparing, I got to get rid of this phone. If y'all didn't know this, I'm ADHD.

That's why I call myself, at least. That's why I tell myself I am. If I have a phone in my back pocket and someone texts me in the middle of service, I'm going to lose my preaching point. And y'all don't want me to lose my preaching point. We've been in the series.

Anyone remember the title of the series? It's called Faith That— Sticks. We want sticky faith. We want faith that sticks around, doesn't flake. Doesn't only last for Sunday until about 2 p.m.

I want it to last throughout the rest of your week. And so our hope is to teach you a little bit of the Bible in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 so that maybe it would stick a little bit longer for you, and you would be encouraged and even convicted throughout the week. I think a faith that only works on Sunday is nominal faith at best. I want you to have a faith that enables you daily to revolve your life around Jesus. So, be you a first-time guest or someone who's been coming consistently, our heart as a church is not to just give you a message that you then take and do what you will with.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

It is to regularly preach the message of Jesus: that he died on the cross, rose from the grave, and then hope and pray and try to convince you that a life lived revolving everything around him is better than one revolved around ourselves and culture and whatever someone else would dictate over your life. God wants what's best for each of us. And the author of the book of Revelation, John the apostle—you know, the Gospel of John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, 1, 2, 3 John—that is the author of Revelation. He is writing to seven churches in, I don't even know what to call it these days, it's like ancient Anatolia, present day Turkey, Asia Minor, or the Asian province. It is located around there on the western side of Turkey.

And he is writing to them, the seven churches, in kind of a clockwise form. There's a mailing route that starts at Ephesus and ends at Ephesus. And we've been going the last couple of weeks in that clockwise route in Asia Minor at the time. And he started off with Ephesus. Then he moved to Smyrna.

Then he went to Pergamum. Last week, we talked about Thyatira. These are all churches who had stuff they needed to grow in, stuff that they were doing well in. And this week, we hit Sardis. And when I was reading this to prepare for it—again, I was prepping for this before we decided to do backpack distribution and invite a bunch of guests for the first time to our church on a Sunday morning—so, if you're a guest, I want you to know I didn't think about you, like in droves when I was prepping this message.

It was more, teach. Trying to teach our church. And, when I was going through it, I prepped for it, and then I thought about you guys, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, we're going to have a bunch of first-time guests here." And the message to those in Sardis is pretty intense. I'm going to read it in a moment. You're going to hear how intense it was.

But I want you to know this: that this is not meant to be discouraging or overtly condescending, or even, I'm not just trying to convict you—I would love the spirit to convict you, but I'm not trying to convict you. I'm trying to encourage you. And so the goal of this message is ultimately encouragement. I need you to know that because I'm going to go through a list of a couple things, and I'm going to read through this passage, and you're going to think, "Man, this pastor is going to go hard today." It might feel like it. I want you to know I'm only going hard in the paint today so that we can grow, be encouraged, and develop closer and closer to Jesus.

Y'all with me? You can thumbs up. Say amen. Say, "Yeah." Yeah. All right, let's go.

If you don't know this already, I'm from the South. So, if I sound like a hick, it's not intentional. It's something I'm trying to be redeemed of, in the name of Jesus, out here in Buckeye, Arizona. I feel like cowboy boots automatically pull it out of me. So, if you have cowboy boots on, it's your fault that I sound like I'm from Arkansas.

Today, we're going to be in Revelation chapter 3. It will be on the screens. I am in the New American Standard Version. We typically utilize the New International Version. But there's this thing—I'm not going to teach the whole thing, but there are things called thought-for-thought translations that make it easy for you to read.

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

We typically use that in the NIV. But today, I'm reading from the New American Standard, which is more of a word-for-word translation. I do that because it helps with complex passages. I want to give you the word of God, not just a summary of it. And so, we're in the NASB today.

It'll be on your screen, starting in verse one of chapter 3. "To the angel of the church in Sardis write: He who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars says this: 'I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you're dead.'" I told you. He says, "'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. So remember what you have received and heard, and keep it, and repent. Therefore, if you don't wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.

But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they're worthy. 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. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.'"

God's people said, "Yeah." Those with the ears said, "Amen."

I'm going to simplify this very heavily for you today because it is pretty simple. There are some complexities that I could give you, but when he's writing to the church at Sardis, there's not a lot of context we have on the church of Sardis. I'll give you a little bit of it later.

But for the most part, the message is pretty simple: you look like you're alive, but you're dead. That's what he says in the passage. I thought of various iterations of the sermon title today. I was like, "Look alive, don't be dead, don't act dead, like, be real." I was just coming through sermon titles. Sometimes they flow through me, sometimes they don't.

So, I'm going to be very simple today. My sermon title is "Wake Up." Look at your neighbor, tell them, "Wake up." Wake up. Hey, look at your other neighbor and tell them. Tell both your neighbors, tell everybody, and say it with like some unction in your voice. The old school preacher used to say "unction." I don't know what unction means, but that's what they would say when, like, the spirit's moving through you.

Pretend the Holy Spirit—or let the Holy Spirit actually move through you. Have some unction in your voice, and look at him again and say, "Wake up."

I'm trying today. I'm trying to wake you guys up. I think it's important for us to wake up in our faith. And that's what he's telling Sardis.

He's saying, "You have a reputation, a name. You look good, but on the other hand, you're actually dead." Let me give you a term. He's talking to them about name-only faith. I'm going to give you another term that you might have heard before: nominal Christianity. Nominal Christianity is one of the big problems that plagues, I think, the United States.

I don't go overseas all the time, so I can't speak for them, but I can speak for the majority of what I've experienced in the United States. I've been in the Midwest, I've been in the South, and now I've been in the Southwest. My brother lives in the Northwest. I've seen it everywhere: nominal Christianity. This is Christianity in name only.

And I don't think I have to convince you that being a Christian in name only is not the full extent of what God wants for our lives. Do I? That God wants us fully faithful. He wants us to live a life fully revolving everything around him, to the point where when we get to heaven one day, he looks at us and he's like, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." He wants us to live a life hardcore after him. I don't think that's really that big of an ask.

Well, it asks for our lives, but to be honest with you, I don't think it's that complex. All he wants is you, for the rest of your life, because he recognizes that a life after him is better than a life without him. He wants you not just nominally Christian, he wants you fully invested. And I'm not just talking finances, guys, don't hear me like that, preacher. He wants you fully invested.

So, before we dive into what I think is a solution that'll help us wake up in our faith, I'm going to give you 10 characteristics of nominal Christianity. You see why I was scared today? You see why I was scared today? Because I ain't trying to make you feel bad, I'm trying to encourage you and exhort you to faithfulness. I want to help you.

And all of this, in some level, applies to me and my wife, too. So, I'm not just talking to you, I'm talking to me. And I pray that the spirit of God would encourage you. Can I go through the 10? All right.

All right. Some of y'all trying to help me out. Thank you, Henry, I appreciate you. Except for that New York Yankees hat you're wearing—not a big fan of that. First off, these are the characteristics of a nominal Christian.

Number one: your culture is indistinguishable from the culture. This should be a good litmus test for you. In other words, if you're the exact same as the rest of the world, I wonder how potent your faith is in the world. I'm trying to help you out here. I want you to think about the way that you live your life.

Is it distinguishable from the way the rest of the people in your life live their lives? Is it distinguishable? I'm not saying you got to be weird, They all thought he was a robber or a thief or a heretic, and, the Romans thought he was a nobody. And then he was out of Judea, which wasn't a significant province back in the day. It was just an annoying province that always had insurrection.

So Rome didn't even think much of it 2,000 years ago. We're weird. Just, I want to let you know, just stepping into your faith, your message is weird, and that's okay. By nature of the message of Jesus, that he died on the cross and rose from the grave, you will look at the world differently just by nature of your faith. And so I want to encourage you, if there is zero difference or a very small difference between you and the rest of the people in this world, or your world, then we've got a problem in your faith.

Are — are you thinking about life the way that they think about life? Are — are you — are you processing through suffering in a different way? Man, what I love about seeing people who follow Jesus wholeheartedly is that when suffering comes their way, they don't respond like the rest of the world who has no hope. They respond with great levels of hope. It's inspiring to me to see someone who is faithful.

When you encounter a problem, how do you respond to it? Is it the same way that your auntie did, who doesn't go to church anymore because she got frustrated for being judged back in the day? I'm — I'm just making stuff up. Sorry, I don't want to judge anyone in this room. I'm — I'm saying, is your faith any different?

If your culture is indistinguishable from the culture, then we've got a problem. I'm not talking about the way that you vote — though that might be relevant depending on why you voted in a certain direction. I'm not talking about where you work. What I'm talking about is when you line the world's values up next to Christian values, which one do you land on? And if you land on the world's values, you might be — this is my Jeff Foxworthy moment — you might be a nominal Christian.

If that's the case, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm just trying to help you diagnose whether there's a spiritual issue. Number two: you do good things, but not God things. I think we've screwed up in the church when more people are telling me how good they've been rather than how much God — how much time they've spent with God. I — I need you to ask yourself this question internally: have I been more focused on being a good person, or have I been more focused on spending time with God?

My wife and I — I think we have a decent relationship, except for maybe earlier this week when I wasn't spending as much time with you as you would have preferred. And then you said, "Hey, I feel disconnected." And I get super frustrated. And then I'm like, "See what I did? I did the dishes here. I helped you with the laundry here.

I did this here. I did this here." And she's like, "Well, why are you listing all the things you did? All I want is you." And this is God — all He wants is time with you. All He wants is what's best for you. And what's best for you is engagement with Him, learning more and more about His character.

And all you want to give Him is, "But I did this, Lord. I did this, Lord." And you're doing good stuff, but you're not spending time with God. God looks at you. He doesn't talk mess about the good stuff you're doing. He loves that you do good things.

He loves you when you do bad things. It's not the things He's concerned about — it's the relationship He's concerned about. And if you live your life doing good stuff, but you spend limited, or little, very little amount of time with your creator, then I wonder if you're a nominal Christian. You're Christian in name only. There are scenes in Scripture where there are people who did good stuff, but that's not what got them with God in the long run.

In fact, what gets you with God is you choosing to be with God. The way that we get to heaven, the way that we get abundant life, the way that we have peace that surpasses all understanding, the way we get our hearts guarded, is by trusting in Jesus and spending daily time with our creator. You will not apprehend the peace you're looking for if all you do is good stuff for God. It's time to start doing stuff with God. Number three: you've got a label without the lifestyle.

I — I think — I think a lot of us like the label. I'm not talking mess about the merch you purchase either. There's nothing wrong with getting on Shein or on Temu and grabbing your — I think I got this — someone, they always ask me, "Where'd you get this shirt?" Shein or Temu? Somewhere from China. I don't know where I got it, but I like the shirt.

And a lot of us like the merch. We like to put on the hat. We like to do the stuff, but a lot of us don't like to live the lifestyle. A lot of us have the label, but we don't have the lifestyle. I told the first service — it was off the cuff, but I think it worked out, so I'm going to use it here.

How many of us wear Nike stuff? Nobody? Are y'all Adidas people in here? Gosh, all day I dream about sport. I don't know what Adidas stands for.

We're going to do Nike today. What is Nike's mantra? Okay, I've got like five people participating today. It's okay, y'all came later, y'all should have gotten some more sleep. Hey, Nike's motto is —

Just do it.

How many of you people wear Nike? You ain't doing nothing. Yeah, you sitting here stagnant wearing Nike. You're wearing the merch, but you're not doing the stuff you need to do. A lot of people wearing Nike ain't been to the gym in six months.

You get motivated by the commercial, but you're not doing anything with your life. I don't care about the gym — I care about the lifestyle following Christ Jesus, right? You might wear the merch, you might claim the name, you got the label, but your lifestyle has not attached itself to Jesus. You're still attaching yourself to the rest of the world. And I want your lifestyle to match that which you claim.

The most annoying and crazy thing to me — and again, I'm not like the best Christian in the world, I'm not the most holy person in the world, I'm simply someone who's covered by the blood of Jesus. I do dumb stuff, I do smart stuff, I do average stuff, but the blood covers me. So I'm good, right? I know that I'm good. But I do not understand it when the lifestyle doesn't match what you say.

I just don't understand it. Maybe it's because I was this weirdo in eighth grade who thought that what you did should match what you said. I don't know. But it doesn't make sense to me when your lifestyle doesn't match the name that you're lifting up daily. But that's the problem — I don't, I can't tell who's who by the label.

You got a bunch of people wearing, like, what is it, Fear of God stuff. I love that, that's some good stuff. I can't afford it, but I like it — that Fear of God stuff. But then I see him — I'm not at the club, but you know, you see him on the club, on TikTok, you see him, oh, hanging out, yeah, with the Fear of God stuff. And I'm like, I don't know — you're wearing the stuff, but you're not living the life.

Anyways, let's move on. The next one: you prefer Christ without His cross. A lot of us like Christ because He's nice, because He's moral. I'm a — I'm a communicator, I'm not the best one out there, but I like to study other communicators. I like to study comedians, and I like to study good Christian communicators.

And Jesus is like the best-ever Christian communicator. And I know you're like, "That's obvious, but you didn't study the stuff." Like, look at how He utilizes metaphors and parables, and how He communicates to people, and how He articulates to the disciples versus how He articulates to the crowds, and how He does things in order for a teaching illustration that no one even thought He would use as a teaching illustration. He's a great teacher. But if He is just a good teacher who says good stuff, and I don't listen to what He says about the cross and the suffering that I'm naturally going to encounter in my faith, then I'm missing a crucial component. And to a lot of us, we're nominal because we like the Christ, but we don't like the cross.

But He tells you from the get-go, life with Christ requires you to bear a cross. In fact, it's — it's so interesting, the more I follow Jesus — not nominally, but the more He, like, brings into me this new life of Christ — I start to actually, again, don't hit me the wrong way, I'm not just jumping at the bid for suffering. I'm not one of those weird ascetic guys who's going to take a whip and just start smacking himself — I ain't a weirdo like that. I'm weird in other ways, but I'm not a weirdo like that. I don't like suffering.

But I've learned that when God brings me through a season of suffering, I know I trust Him, and I trust Him enough to know that He utilizes suffering to produce — produce endurance and perseverance, and that produces character. This says — it says in James, he says, "Let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be complete, lacking in nothing." That endurance comes from the suffering and the trials that you encounter in life. So what does that mean? It means that He wants me to bear my own cross so that I know His character truly and that I live my life abundantly. But if we prefer Christ without the cross, then I wonder if you'll ever truly encounter His character.

Next: you can't seem to find a home church. Be careful with that. I don't — I — I'd love for you to come to our church and make it your church home. I don't necessarily care about which church you make home here in town, but there are a lot of people — you moved here five years ago, and your home church is still where you moved from. And I'm not saying you can't watch it online or support the people there.

I'm saying, just because your church has certain characteristics that you preferred compared to all the ones here in Buckeye or here in the valley, that doesn't mean you should stop. It means you should subordinate your preferences to God's greater purpose in your life and find yourself a home, local, at least semi-local, church. I — I — I'm telling you this because I think without God's people, you're limited in understanding who God is. God's people are put there intentionally. God's church was put there intentionally as a transformation vessel for your character and for your growth in Christ.

So if you don't have a home church and you're hopping from church to church to church, I wonder if that — if you're more nominal, name only, in your faith. I'm not trying to be harsh. Let's move to the next one, and I'm going to skip over that one really quickly. You might be a nominal Christian if K-LOVE is your primary source of encouragement during the week. I'm not — K-LOVE is, you know, what — what do they call it, the tagline?

Positive and encouraging. K-LOVE, it's so good. Most of y'all listen to it every month of the year except for that one month where they do the pledge drive that's incessant and annoying. I get you, I get it — it's encouraging, it's supposed to be encouraging. But if that's the best you get, then you're missing out on the nourishing that comes from God's word.

I got to move on, I got to move on. How about this: you only need God when you need something. Might make you a nominal Christian. And we all fall into this category at some level, because we all need God more when we need something big. Like, that's — that's known in all of humanity.

The harder it gets, the more you're going to naturally lean on something higher than yourself, because the more out of your control it is, the more you got to put the control somewhere. And so we lean on God when we need something big. But God wants you to live a life where you lean on Him regardless of what's happening in your life. And a life of a faithful follower of Jesus is one who gets up on a good day, worships and serves their creator, gets up on a bad day, worships and serves their creator. This is what God's called you to.

And if you want to live a life as a faithful follower of Jesus, not just a nominal Christian, it's time for you to recognize that by nature of your own struggle in humanity, you need God. You don't just need Him when you need the promotion — you need Him when you get the promotion. You don't just need Him when your kids are going haywire — you need Him when they're doing perfectly fine, or at least it looks like they're doing perfectly fine. You don't need Him when you're jobless only — you need Him when you have a job that's perfectly fine. You need Him in every circumstance.

You don't just need Him when you're alone with no friends in a new location — you need Him when you found the community of people and you feel like you're fulfilled. But if you don't have Jesus, you will never be fulfilled. That's what He says here in the text. He says, "Your works are lacking Complete, perfect, or finished. Right?

So what he's saying is, you are constantly incomplete if you are not fully following Jesus. So if you want completion, you need to go to Jesus. You might be a nominal Christian if "only God can judge" is your spiritual mantra. You might be a nominal Christian if, when it comes to your spiritual walk, you look backward more than you look forward. I grew up in the South, and in the South—how many of you grew up in the South?

All right, I'm talking to two people. If you didn't grow up in the South, I'm talking to you now. If you didn't grow up in the South, you probably know this about the South: that there's a bunch of churches. They call it the Bible Belt. They call it the Bible Belt because everyone in their mom is connected to a church in some form or fashion.

I don't know how I wasn't connected to a church until I was in eighth grade, because they were all around me. There's a church on every street corner in some of these towns. And what I would notice as I went into ministry and started to get older is that I would talk—even when I became a Christian, I'm in eighth grade, and I've got like 15 eighth grade guys in my group in youth ministry or whatever—and they would talk about these times when they were seven where God really spoke to them. And I remember thinking, like, "Yo, you had that kind of experience when you were seven? Why you dancing like that at homecoming now?" Like, it was just this weird thing.

I didn't understand it. And then, as I get older, I'll see people in their 20s and 30s look back on youth ministry, and they'll think, "Man, it was nice when God was doing that. It was so much easier." But guess what? I'll do the same thing. I'll look back on that time where I finished God's Word all the way through for the first time, what He was doing in my spirit, where I read Fox's Book of Martyrs, which is a book about people who died for their faith, and I'm like, "I want to be like that." I was reading those books back when I was a freshman in college.

I look backward when I had really strong faith and excitement about what God would do in the future. But how many of you know the best in Christ Jesus is not in the past—it's yet to come? Come on, somebody. God can do more ahead of you than He has done behind you. This is the message of the Old Testament.

This is the message of the New Testament: that the best is not behind you. But you might be a nominal Christian if the best is behind you. Many of us walk around in our faith like that girl who came to my college graduation ceremony, and she was working full-time in some business job, and she clearly had a couple to drink before she got up there to give her speech, and she said, "Guys, enjoy it. This is the best it's going to get." And I remember thinking, "What kind of loser lives in such a way that they look more into the past than they do into the future?" God can do abundantly more, exceedingly beyond what you can ask, think, or imagine. So let's move into faithfulness.

Well, we're not looking backward to see what God did—we're looking forward to see what He will do. I don't know, sometimes I feel like they clap 'cause they, they, they feel like it's time to clap 'cause I yelled loud enough. But I want you to know that regarding your spiritual walk, it's time for you to start looking forward, because you're not getting back to the past. But what you can do is comprehend Jesus right now. Repent, wake up, and move forward in faith.

And this is where the Scriptures get in. I still got six minutes left—I'm doing well today. This is where the Scripture ties in for us today. Y'all thought I forgot about it. I wanted to give you that because, in some semblance, this is what Sardis—the church in Sardis—is struggling with: that they have fully accommodated to the cares of the world and become Christian in name only.

But their faith is lacking. Their spiritual vitality is nowhere to be found. And here is the instruction that John gives the church at Sardis. He says, first—this is in verse three, or verse two—he says, "Wake up and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die, for I've not found your deeds completed in the sight of my God." First thing he says is, "Wake up." That was my sermon title—I already told you that. I think I've woken you up a little bit by talking about some of those nominal Christian attributes.

I want you to think a little bit more proactively on this. What does it look like to wake up in your faith? And I think this is a helpful question: how do you wake up in real life? Someone want to tell me? How do you wake up in real life?

It's so simple—you'll think it was too simple. Don't think overly about this. Open your eyes. You can open your eyes. Okay.

How about this? In order to get up at 3:45 in the morning, what do you got to do? You set an alarm. So I'm yelling today, not because I want to sound an alarm, but I'm just, you know, I'm trying to keep my voice—I'm projecting because I'm losing my voice. But hey, you can raise an alarm in your life.

You can look at your life right now. This is what John's trying to do for the church at Sardis. He's saying, "Hey, look at where you're at. Look at those who are kind of on the verge of dying spiritually. Look at how much you've accommodated." Take a good inventory of where you are right now, and allow that to be an alarm that sounds in the church that says, "Wake up."

Like, how do you wake up in the morning right now?

You wake up with an alarm, and how do you feel? Are you feeling discouraged? Are you feeling excited and anticipatory about the day? When you have interactions with people in your life, how does it feel? When you think about your job, how does that feel?

It might be a sound, an alarm that sounds in your life. If everything I just listed makes you feel anxious and depressed on the inside—because with Christ Jesus, you can have abundant joy—there's your alarm. There's your sign to start moving forward in faith, because faith is so much better than what the world has to offer you. And when I look around, what the world has to offer, it's, you know, it's really not that nice. I'll move on—I had an example come to my mind.

It's really not that good, what the world has to offer us. So it's time to sound the alarm and wake up. And he gives us a couple different ways—real specific, nuanced feedback—on how we can wake up. First off, in verse three, he says this: "So remember what you have received and heard, and keep it, and repent." There are three things he says right there, and those are my three next few points. First off, you need to remember.

You need to remember what you received. Now, I want to be clear with you: the Gospel that they received in Sardis was the Gospel that I try to preach to you guys every day. It's that Jesus came, He died on the cross when He didn't deserve it, and rose from the grave. His death offers us, as a sacrificial—, offers us life abundantly—when we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead. His resurrection validates everything He came to do.

What that means is the Gospel is this—the good news is this: you were separated from God because of your sin, and now, because of what Christ did on the cross, you can be raised to walk in new life. That's what we say every time we baptize someone. Every time they're baptized, we say symbolically that you're buried with Christ in baptism, and you're raised to walk in newness of life. It says this in Ephesians chapter 2, that it's by grace—God's grace, not your work—that you've been saved, so that no man. It's by grace you've been saved through faith, not that of your own, so that no man may boast.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

And I love this one, you all know it—John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

John 3:16

The Gospel is this: Jesus came, lived, died, and rose. And because of that, nothing is impossible with God, and you can have life eternally and life abundantly. That's the good news. And a lot of times we walk through life forgetting that. But my encouragement to you would be to wake up—and you wake up every single morning.

So when you wake up, remember the good news that if it's a bad day, Jesus still died and rose. If it's a good day, Jesus still died and rose. If you are covered by His blood, guess what? You're covered. You're sealed.

You're adopted. You're kept, regardless of what you do. If you're covered by His blood, the good news, the Gospel, is that you're saved and His grace is sufficient for you. He says, "Remember it. Remember it."

A lot of us need to do some remembering.

We keep thinking about what the enemy told us about how bad we are. You just need to stop that in its tracks and remember how good God is. Second thing he says: remember and keep it. A lot of us can remember it for a moment at church or at Bible study, or when we wake up in the morning, but then the first bad thing that happens, it completely derails our day. I want you to keep it.

The Bible says in Galatians chapter 5, he says, just, if you have learned from and heard from the Spirit, you should also keep in step with the Spirit. What does that mean? It means that this is not just a static process where you receive Jesus and go about your day—it is a dynamic process where you receive Jesus and the message of Jesus every single day, right? You received Him once for all. You spend eternity with God.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

But daily, for your own growth and sanctification, you have to keep it. You have to keep walking with God. You have to keep opening God's Word. Some of y'all need to spend a little bit more time with biblical community rather than the negative, dysfunctional, and frustrating community that you've been spending time with. You need to keep it.

Now, I want to be so clear—I'm talking about your growth in Christ, not your salvation. I'm saying daily you need to spend time with God, because that's what will give you the life that you've always wanted. Keep in step with God's Spirit. And this world is full of people who have received the Word, but they're not keeping in step with God's Spirit. No wonder they look dysfunctional.

And then the final thing he says to do—and this is what I want to encourage you with, and this is what I think Sardis did—he says, "Repent." Repent means you're facing one way, and you do an about-face, and you turn the other direction. This is what John wants Sardis to do. He says, "You're not living the way you're called, but you can." It reminds me of the book of Jonah, which we went through last April and May. He goes and he preaches a message of repentance, and all of them repent. Sardis—we don't know from the text, but I think in history, they actually repent.

What does it look like for you? Even if you're going in the wrong direction, even if you're living beneath your calling, what does it look like for you to just make the turn, make the shift, stop just wearing the merch, and start living the life? What does that look like for you? It's different for each one of us. But it all starts with a conversation with God, where we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead.

And I'll give you that opportunity in a moment. But I want to encourage you with this. I always look up and do a lot of research—I do a lot of research on the sermons that I do. I studied it years ago, spent a lot of time in school, but with these, I'm still studying a lot. And I was trying to find some information about Sardis.

Sardis is a city in the ancient world, and, you know, there are some levels where, people have written about it. You've got Strabo, who's written about it. You've got, several others who have written about it in history. Tacitus has something in his Annals about it. And they talk about the geography and the history of it—like, it was a rich city, and they became rich in the ancient world because of gold that they found in the rivers.

It was a city that, when they're hearing terms like "be alert, " it kind of made sense to them, because there were two times in the history of the city, over 500 years, where they were ransacked because there was a watchman at the top of the city who wasn't paying attention—maybe they were sleeping. And so I bet this message comes across really specifically when he says, "Be alert. Be watchful. Wake up."

But I was looking for something after this moment, and the only thing I could find—because there's nothing that exists, there's no writings that currently exist from the church at Sardis—I found in Eusebius's writings, he was a church historian, a light reference to a bishop of Sardis in about 170 AD, about 100. Years after this was probably written, give or take.

And it simply says this, that he wrote a commentary on Revelation. But you know what God spoke to me in that moment? This isn't what the Scripture says. This is what God spoke to me in that moment. I didn't have any information.

I didn't even have what his commentary was on Revelation. All I knew was that a hundred years later, in this church that was dead, there was still a bishop. And, for you, here's what I want to encourage you with. I don't know what you came from. I don't know what the past was like.

I don't know how dead, metaphorically, you are in your spiritual walk. I don't know what your family looks like. I don't know what your job looks like. I don't know the full extent of the needs that you have in your life that God has yet to fulfill. But what I do know is this: right now is an opportunity for each one of us to repent and turn toward God, such that five generations from now there's still a remnant of somebody who represented the faith that we had in this world.

I want my grandkids to look back at me and say, "That was a man of faith." I want your grandkids — that's grandparents — I want your grandkids to look at you and say, "This, this was the reason my family started to receive Jesus." It may not have been today, but over the next couple of weeks, you can repent of the way you've been going and move forward in your relationship with God. Start revolving everything around Him. And who knows the generational blessings that might come by your choice to move forward today. Amen, somebody. Let's make some choices to break the generational curses.

Let's make some choices to move forward in our faith. And everyone in this room, maybe you've trusted in Jesus, maybe you've yet to do that. Everyone in this room can repent of where they've been going and move toward God at a deeper level. So, if everybody would bow their heads and close their eyes, I want to give everyone an opportunity to wake up. So, y'all repeat after me as we pray this prayer.

Say, "God, I believe that Jesus is Your Son. I believe He died on the cross and rose from the grave. Father, forgive me of my sin. Make me new, and I will follow You for the rest of my life."

Now, for anyone in this room, if that was the first time you ever prayed that prayer, I want to know about it. So, if you would do me a favor and fill out a card to let us know that you prayed that for the first time, man, I just want to know so I can pray for you and help you take your next step toward God.

For those who have already had a relationship with Jesus, but you're kind of recommitting to a focus and a life after Jesus, I want to know about that, too. So, feel free to write that down. Come up to me, come to our prayer team, invite them to pray over you. Man, we want to move forward as a church so that the West Valley one day would look and say, "Hey, there was a time where faithfulness started to ensue in the West Valley." And I know there are other churches, but I want Orbit to be on the list of places where people started to confess their sin, repent of it, and move forward in their relationship with Jesus, stop looking like the world, and start trusting Him. God, we thank You for today.

We thank You for what You're doing in this place. We thank You for the opportunity to worship. And we pray that daily You would give us conviction. We pray these things in Jesus's name that we pray. God's people said, "You may stand." Let's worship God one last time.