Revelation 3:1-6

Well, good morning, everyone, and uh welcome again to our online broadcast uh with City Church Dublin.

Thank you so much for joining us, as Duncan mentioned from uh all around the world.

And indeed, if you're visiting, just checking us out, uh, thank you for joining this uh live stream.

We're continuing our series uh through the the seven letters that Jesus wrote in the book of Revelation, and we're coming to letter number five now, that is the letter to the church in uh in Sardis.

I'm gonna pray in just a second.

Uh thanks, uh Doreen, for your uh for your prayers.

Uh we are uh conscious of the uh the tragic and evolving situation in America, and so as we pray, let's pray for for pastors and churches uh in Minneapolis, uh particularly, and other places where there has been uh rioting and protests.

I pray that uh the pastors and leaders would be able to uh to speak truth and to speak of uh of God's justice and to speak of hope uh today.

So let's uh pray together.

Our Father, we do lift up to you uh the uh the pastors in Minneapolis who'll be preparing to meet uh this morning as uh in a city that is filled with uh tension and grief and uh resentment and questioning and doubting.

Uh Father, we uh we barely uh know how best to uh address uh all of the complexities of uh these questions.

And so we cry out to you.

We know, Father, that the the gospel ultimately is the answer of the Lord Jesus and his life and his death, and that in his death uh the uh the warring factions of humanity are broken down, and one new uh man is made in the image of our Creator.

And so we pray uh that they would hold out uh that truth uh this morning as they prepare uh to meet also in a few hours' time.

We pray for our time now as we uh come to your word.

Uh, we ask for the help of your spirit.

Give us uh those ears to hear uh what he is saying to us this morning.

We ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Uh how are you at uh at putting on a front?

How are you at uh faking out?

Some people are terrible at hiding what's really going on.

I'm pretty bad at uh at hiding when I'm in a bad mood.

You can uh ask my wife uh to verify that.

Uh people uh some of them are uh pretty awful at hiding their inner world, hiding their inner emotional life.

Those people would make terrible poker players.

Uh others, whatever's happening, it's pretty stoic on the surface.

Whatever's going on, uh it's the same demeanor, same expressions, same outward actions, right?

Where would you kind of fall in that?

Of course, all of us uh possess different personas, right?

There's the uh there's the public face that we put to the world, uh, and then there's the uh the private you that uh only those closest to you get to see.

But even that private you can differ, can't it, from uh from the internal you, the you that you're only aware of, the the you that well, only you have access to.

But what about persistently faking it?

A persistent disconnect from that internal or private you and the public you.

What about in your spiritual life?

Are you finding that in this season of lockdown your spiritual vitality is just a front?

Sure, we all have sin to deal with, uh, elements of shame.

We all have doubts, those are all normal.

That's not what I'm talking about.

They're all part of the normal Christian experience.

What I'm talking about is a life lived that goes around saying all of the right things and doing all of the right things, and still in your heart, in your internal life, you know that you're nowhere spiritually.

I'm sure that defines some of the people watching this.

To have a reputation of being a great Christian, and actually, you know that behind the scenes you're not just treading water, you're drowning.

I don't say any of that to shame or condemn you, and neither does Jesus in the letter to Sardis.

The passage this morning is not designed to shame, it's designed to arrest you, to get your attention, and to help you make today a defining moment, a turning point in your spiritual vitality, in your walk with Jesus.

I'm conscious that uh we've done a few letters now without having any sort of question and answer.

And so, my plan, my hope would be that if you do have questions by the end of this talk, or indeed of any of the letters that we've looked at up to now, uh that you can post those into the chat in the Facebook feed and we'll address those at the end.

But today, our hope is that for those of you who are spiritually flatlining, treading water, drowning, that today would be a decisive point.

Look at what Jesus says to the church in Sardis.

He says, I know your works, you have a reputation for being alive, but you're dead.

This letter has no commendation.

Remember the structure of the letters that we've been looking at?

The structure is uh Jesus introduces himself with a uh uh an image from chapter one.

He then gives a commendation and then a challenge, a criticism, and then there is a command to repent, to turn, do the works you did at first, that sort of thing, and then a promise.

But in the letter to Sardis, there's no commendation at the start.

He said, I know your works, you have a reputation for being alive, and you're dead.

You are dead, Jesus says.

You're dead.

What might give a church a reputation of being alive?

Well, I think probably it's emphasizing on the things that can be seen.

It's big.

The church is big, it must be alive, right?

The church is big, it's loads of people going along, then there must be loads of spiritual vitality.

We measure things by numbers.

Uh, we look at the success, we look at the the bottom line.

What's the internal giving like?

But being a big church does not necessarily mean that you are a living church.

Similarly, if a church has loads of programs, you know, there's uh there's something for the kids, there's something for the young adults, or something for the mums, or something for the dads.

We go axe throwing or whatever, there's something for uh the students, and something for the singles, and something for the young married couples, and something for this, and something for that.

Loads of programs, loads of ministries, teams of people administrating teams of people.

It must be alive, right?

Wrong.

Again, neither your size nor your ministries as a church, neither of those things are bad.

Don't hear me say that.

Neither of those things are wrong.

We want to grow as a church, we want to grow in our ministries, but it would be a mistake to fall back on those things and think, well, you know, because we have so many more people than we did this time last year, or because we have X, Y, and Z ministry, that we must be alive spiritually.

You can have those things as a church and still be dead.

The church in Sardis had a reputation.

People looked at the outside, people clicked on the website and saw that church is alive, and Jesus says, No, it's not, it's dead.

Sardis was a city that in its day it had already peaked.

It used to be powerful, it used to be famous, but that had long since faded.

But the people who lived in Sardis still regarded themselves as important, they still were living off the past fame, the past importance, and had grown complacent as a city.

And that complacency, that stupor, had gotten into the bloodstream of the church.

So there were Christians there who were simply going through the motions, who had no spiritual vitality, no spiritual life to speak of.

So, given that, what do we need to hear in order to guard ourselves from that?

Because we don't want to we don't want to go there, we don't want to go there spiritually, we don't want to receive that letter, do we?

Uh, how do we guard ourselves from that?

And if you are in a spiritual malaise, if you are in your heart of hearts spiritually complacent, flatlining, drowning, treading water, dead, what do you need to hear?

Presuming that you would like to change your circumstances, how do you buy how do you go about doing that?

Well, look at what Jesus says first.

Verse 2.

The first thing that Jesus says is, Wake up.

Wake up, Jesus says, Wake up and strengthen what remains, and is about to die.

For I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.

Verse 1, Jesus comes and says, You have a reputation for being alive, but you're dead.

But then he qualifies it in verse 2.

It's not a contradiction, it's a qualifier.

You're about to die, things are fading, things are about to go.

Verse one is getting their attention, and then verse two offers a way forward, offers a qualifier.

The first thing that you need to do if you want to move from being in this spiritually complacent place is to be willing to acknowledge that there is a problem, to be willing to wake up, as Jesus says.

See, because so often people don't want to see that there's problems.

People don't want to acknowledge that there are issues, not out loud anyway.

The first thing that you need to do is to confront the reality of where you're at.

People struggle with doing that because it seems overwhelming.

Confronting the reality of where you're at doesn't mean addressing it all overnight.

And how do you eat an elephant?

One slice at a time.

The first step is to acknowledge that there are things that need to be addressed.

And the reality is, if you feel that it would be overwhelming, the reality is things don't get smaller when they go unacknowledged, when they go unconfronted.

Jesus says that the spiritual daydream that you are in needs to stop, or it's going to be fatal for you.

Sardis, again, as a city, uh, thought that it was impregnable, that it was immune to attack.

Why did it think that well?

Uh it's surrounded by mountains on three sides.

So you've got a mountain here, a mountain at the back, and a mountain at the side, a whole ring of mountains, right?

And it's nestled in but in the middle, and so it's protected on three sides.

And so they were completely completely, they thought we will never be attacked, we are immune to being attacked, and yet, in dead of night, armies crossed over the mountains and absolutely sacked the city, not once, but twice.

The guards on the walls were asleep, and first of all, the army of Cyrus crossed over the mountains and took the city.

They didn't learn their lesson.

A few centuries later, again, a similar complacency arises up, and Antiochus III, again coming up over the mountains, a surprise attack in the dead of night ransacks the city while it slept.

Jesus says, Wake up, or that's going to happen again.

Strengthen what remains.

Now, why does he say strengthen what remains?

Well, follow the logic of the verse.

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

For, so that's the causal link.

For I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.

Why are they to wake up and strengthen what remains?

Because their works are incomplete.

Now, what are the works?

Well, it's not those reputational things that we've talked about.

It's not their size, their programs, whatever the reputational markers would have been in the ancient world.

It's not those things.

It has to be something deeper, it has to be something uh internal.

Something was lacking, not in the sight of men, in the sight of God, Jesus says.

I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God, do you see?

Hopefully, you have the passage open in front of you, uh, or you can flick it up in your phone again if your lock screen has come on.

It's good for you to follow the logic of the passage.

What I think this church was lacking, where its works were incomplete in the sight of God, was in its passion for spirit-filled witness to Jesus.

Jesus describes himself, we haven't looked at it yet.

Jesus describes himself in verse one of chapter three in this way: the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.

He describes himself in a familiar and a similar way to the letter to the church in Ephesus, as the one who holds the seven stars.

And in the church in Ephesus, there was a uh a lovelessness that was affecting their witness, a cold and defensive orthodoxy that uh that meant that they weren't reaching out to those in the in the city.

And Jesus comes in and says, You need to do the works you did at first, you need to recapture your first love, that the love that drove you out on mission to people.

And similarly, here in Sardis, their works are lacking.

There is no love for the lost, no passion for witness, no spirit-filled zeal for the fame of Christ in their city, just complacent, sluggish apathy.

Apathy is an example of self-love.

Just as pride and arrogance can be self-love, so too can apathy.

Because it is saying to the outsider, to the person outside of you, that is, I am unmoved by your need.

It's self-love.

They had lost sight of this spirit filled, which is why I think Jesus says describes himself as the one holding the seven spirits.

What are the seven spirits?

Sevenfold spirit of God.

It's it's a it's a way of describing the Holy Spirit in this particular type of literature.

Jesus saying, I have the Holy Spirit.

You've lost your spirit-filled witness, your spirit-filled zeal.

Do you remember when you were excited to share Jesus?

Zealous for him.

And maybe that has given way to a complacent, sluggish apathy.

Churches die because individuals lose sight of the call to make disciples.

Churches die spiritually because Christians die spiritually.

Do you need to wake up and strengthen what remains?

Do you need to complete the works that God has saved you for?

If that's you, what does Jesus say that we need to do?

We need to wake up, we need to do the works uh that are incomplete, but then he, after saying wake up, he says, verse three, again, look at it with me, verse three.

He says, Remember then what you received, keep it and repent.

We need to wake up, and now we need to remember and keep verse three.

Now remember and keep what we're told in the verse, remember and keep what you have received and heard.

What's that?

What is it that they received and heard?

Well, brothers, sisters, friends, it's the gospel, isn't it?

Wake up and remember the gospel and keep hold of the gospel.

The gospel is the way to get your spiritual vitality back.

If you're in a spiritual funk, if you're in a spiritual malaise, it's not going to come by the you know by your seven spiritual laws or or anything like that.

It's going to come by the gospel.

The gospel is how God made you alive in the first place, and that is how God will stoke the fly the flames of your spiritual vitality.

So, what is the gospel that you need to remember?

You need to remember that you are a sinner on whom Christ has had mercy.

That you have a great need, and that Jesus is a great savior.

You need to remember that He died for you.

That now he lives for you, and that he sends you into the world as his ambassador.

You need to remember what you have been set free from.

You've been set free from those besetting sins, those addictions, those idols, those things that you loved more than God, that promised life and delivered so much death, that you have been set free from those things, and yet others are still captive to them.

That now you have been given a hope that transcends what the world offers, that transcends the circumstances that you find yourself in, and that there are still people who are crippled by anxiety and despair.

Remember the gospel.

Remember what Jesus has done for you.

Remember who he is.

Remember who you are in him, adopted, loved, cleansed, justified, innocent.

Will be glorified in the future.

Remember the need that others have to hear this news that has come to you and changed your world?

Remember that gospel and keep it.

Turn back to that.

That's what repent means.

Jesus says you need to repent.

What that means is you need to turn back to the gospel.

You've abandoned the gospel, so you need to go back to it.

Why does Jesus say that we need to remember it?

Why remember?

We need to remember the gospel because we all forget it.

We all forget it.

We forget it individually.

I know I forget it.

I know in my head how often I believe the gospel in my head.

I'm able to articulate what it is.

I believe it in my head, and yet I live as though I'm not saved by the gospel, but saved by my works.

Not saved by grace, but saved by my performance.

And so I feel a sense of pride when I do good and a sense of anxiety and despair and fear when I mess up.

I forget the gospel by doing things of my own strength.

I spent the entire first two years of the life of City Church thinking that I had brought City Church into existence by my power and might until God woke me up.

And even then I still slip into those ways of thinking.

The rest of our life is based on performance.

The rest of your week is based on your performance.

How are you doing at your job?

Are you advancing in your career?

Have I passed?

Have I failed?

Will I succeed?

Will I not?

How am I doing?

How am I doing as a person?

How am I doing as a husband?

How am I doing as a father?

Everything is about performance and it makes us forget the gospel.

It creeps into our relationship with God and they think, How am I doing with God?

Not very well.

Well, he mustn't like me very much.

That's not how the gospel works.

Just as we were starting, making another cup of coffee and just thinking about this.

It's like thinking of the image of uh of Jesus as a shepherd and uh and and us as his as his sheep, as his flock.

Excuse me.

We you remember the story that Jesus told about you know this wandering lamb that goes off, and Jesus goes and uh and and finds the one and brings him back.

And I think, well, what happens afterwards?

Do they do all the sheep that are in Jesus fold?

Uh do all the sheep that are in the good shepherds fold, do they all just kind of uh you know follow flawlessly from that moment?

Well, they wouldn't be very sheep-like sheep if they did.

We're constantly wandering, isn't that what his mercy is more talks about?

We constantly roam and he's constantly calling us home.

We're always meh, you wayward sheep, shouldn't have done that's weird.

Uh wayward sheep, always walking, straying.

He lovingly brings us back, brings us back into line.

We can forget the gospel individually.

Churches can forget the gospel too.

Churches tend to forget the gospel either by straying into legalism or straying into license.

Stray into legalism and say, well, actually, the gospel's all about rule keeping, being good, abstaining from this thing or that thing.

Don't smoke, don't drink, don't go to cinema on the Sundays.

Or through license, through liberalism.

You're not a sinner.

You don't need repent.

You don't need to repent.

God's not a god of wrath, God's a god of love.

Both of those things just boil down to just be good.

Churches forget the gospel when they say, just be good.

So we need to remember, we need to be reminded of the gospel.

When we gather on here, we remember, and we remind one another of what the gospel is.

When we sing, we remind ourselves of gospel truths.

When we gather together corporately, or indeed, if you're singing in your living room, you're reminding the other people there about what the gospel is?

What things are you putting in place?

What things are you prioritizing?

What relationships are you cultivating, especially in this season of lockdown when we cannot meet together?

What rhythms, patterns, relationships are you cultivating to help you remember and to remind others of the gospel?

If you've got nothing, then you are going to spiritually begin to flatline.

Jesus says to wake up, to remember, and to keep the gospel.

How do we do that?

In what ways does Jesus help us to do those things?

That's a better question.

That's the third and final thing that we're going to look at.

What do we need from Jesus?

How does Jesus help us to remember and keep the gospel?

Well, the first thing that we need, the first thing that Jesus gives us is the help of the Holy Spirit.

This is why I think Jesus talked in this sort of way, describes himself in this sort of way in verse one, as the one who has the sevenfold spirit of God, that perfect Holy Spirit.

Jesus here is not just commanding the church to do something, he's also giving them the means to do it.

This is how God works.

As God calls, he equips.

If God calls you to something, he'll equip and enable you to do it.

Jesus is calling them to remember and to keep the gospel.

If that was all based on us, if that was all our own strength, we're back into legalism.

That's not the gospel.

Jesus says, remember and keep the gospel, and I'm going to empower you to do it by the Holy Spirit.

And so Jesus, instead in verse one, metaphorically speaking, stands ready to pour out his spirit.

He stands ready to pour out his spirit on the church in Sardis.

And brother, sister, he stands ready to pour out his spirit on you.

The spirit is the means by which we make much of Christ.

He is the one who reminds us of what Jesus has done.

That's what Jesus said the Spirit would do.

You read in John 14, 15, 16, the Spirit is always about making much of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is like a is like a divine floodlight.

How do we see Christ in Rio?

Because the spotlights illuminate him.

Help us to see him more clearly.

The spirit is a divine spotlight shining on Jesus, saying, look at him, remember him, hold fast to him.

He is the one who enlivens our spiritual life.

Jesus has the spirit.

We need the spirit.

And our glorious Lord Jesus is willing to give the spirit.

Praise God for that.

We have no ability to transform ourselves.

We have no ability to transform city church outside any working of God the Holy Spirit.

He is the wind that blows where it wills.

Oh risen Lord Jesus, would you send your spirit on us afresh?

Individually and as a church.

Amen.

So in order to hold fast to the gospel, in order to remain spiritually vital, spiritually alive, one of the things that needs to happen is we need to remember the future.

First, there's a warning, isn't there?

Verse uh three still.

Uh remember then what you've received and heard, keep it and repent.

And then here comes the warning.

If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.

Jesus here is is is drawing on what he said in the in the gospels about uh about the the end coming like a thief in the night, and but also drawing on what has happened to Sardis in its past.

You don't know when I'm gonna come, you don't know what hour I'm gonna come like a thief in the night, cross over the mountains to judge, to come suddenly to judge them.

And yet, coupled with the warning, coupled with the word of caution, there are also beautiful promises.

Verse 4 have a look at it with me.

Yet you have still 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 out his name.

No, sorry, 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 an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

These are beautiful promises.

Promises that we need to hear in order to recapture our spiritual vitality, to return again to gospel fervor.

What are they?

Well, that you be clothed in white.

To be clothed in white before Jesus is that uh is that symbol of innocence, that symbol of purity.

All of us bear the stain of sin.

Things that we have done in our past, things that have been done against us.

Jesus' promise to you is that he will clothe you in white, that he will make you innocent and pure.

Isn't that beautiful?

He also says that those who overcome will walk with Jesus.

You can just skim over that.

But it's worth considering.

To walk with Jesus, to walk with God is this as this old testament idea of friendship with God, of not just knowing God as uh as as Lord, of actually being with him as a friend.

Of enjoying him, of being enjoyed by him.

What a picture of friendship, of intimacy, of connection.

Imagine not many of us at various points over the last twelve weeks have felt very disconnected.

Yet there's a glorious future where Jesus offers intimate friendship, walking with him in eternity.

And then he says that he will never blot out our name.

Never blot out our name out of where?

Out of the book of life.

You'll live forever.

You're nearly dead now, but if you repent, if you persist, if you turn back, you will be forever alive.

Not just that, I will confess his name, her name before my father and before his angels.

Imagine it.

Imagine it on that last day that Jesus stands alongside you as a friend and looks at his father and says, Father, I want you to meet my friend.

Father, he's with me, Mark's with me, Duncan's with me, Sarah's with me, Cameron's with me, Dan's with me, Lauren's with me, Aaron is with me, Arena is with me.

I would go on, but there would be no time for questions.

But you get the point.

He's with me, she is mine.

Here's the amazing thing about this.

This is, on the face of it, the worst letter.

No commendation, you're dead, and I would argue some of the most beautiful premises.

And what that means is there's no such thing as too far gone.

There's no such thing as too far gone.

Regardless of where you are spiritually speaking, now that does not mean that God is done with you.

That does not mean that God will not welcome you back.

These promises are for spiritually flatlining people.

And so maybe you should honestly take your pulse.

Take your pulse spiritually speaking.

Are you flatlining?

Some people say that to believe in Jesus, that's a crutch.

Yeah, it's a spiritual crutch for emotionally weak people.

The gospel isn't a crutch.

The gospel's a defibrillator.

The gospel takes dead people and makes them alive.

Jesus will do that.

He'll do that by his Holy Spirit that he stands willing to give.

If you are barely alive, can I encourage you?

Not just to recognize it.

Maybe you are recognizing it.

Maybe the spirit is just impressing it upon you upon you now.

Can I encourage you the next thing that you do is that you talk to somebody about it?

You can talk to a friend, a spouse.

You can talk to a community group leader.

You can talk to me.

I'll talk to you.

You can talk to any of the leaders at church.

You can ping us a WhatsApp message, you can send us an email, say, Can I can I talk about the sermon on Sunday?

That would be okay.

And then we can begin to move forward.

What have you forgotten that you need to remember?

What have you forgotten about God?

What have you forgotten about yourself and you're standing before Him?

What have you forgotten that you need to recapture?

He who has ears to hear.

Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Let me pray and then I'll have a look and see if there are any questions and I'll field those for a couple of minutes, okay?

Let's pray together.

Father, we acknowledge that that is not by force of my words, but that comes from your spirit.

And so we pray that people would be attentive to that leading.

And that you would so pour out your spirit and enable them to repent and return to the gospel that today would prove to be a decisive turning point in our spiritual walk.

Father, we're so prone to forget each one of us.

Help us to remember and help us to cultivate those ways that we can remind one another and do good to one another.

We pray for your help now in the name of Jesus.

Amen.