Seven | Sardis - Revelation 3:1-6 | September 13

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So we have been looking at these letters to the church,

the seven churches in Revelation, as we've been kind of not concluding our time

together, but moving towards this pause in October and really being challenged,

by the fact that this is Jesus's words,

not just to seven churches in what's modern day Turkey.

This is also his words to all of those churches.

So Revelation is essentially one long letter from Jesus to his church and to individual churches.

And it's also a letter to us as well as we read it and are impacted by it.

Again, it's the only book of the Bible, until somebody tells me otherwise,

that pronounces a blessing on those who would read it, who would hear it,

and who would do what it says.

And so that's what we're going to continue to practice this morning as we look

at the letter to the church in Sardis in Revelation chapter 3.

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

We've got two more left after this.

But why don't y'all go ahead and stand with me as I read this letter.

To the angel of the church in Sardis write, These are the words of him who holds

the seven spirits of God in the seven stars.

I know your deeds. You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

Wake up. Strengthen what remains and is about to die.

For I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.

Remember therefore what you have received and heard. Hold it fast and repent.

But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at

what time I will come to you.

Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not spoiled their clothes.

They will walk with me dressed in white for they are worthy.

The one who is victorious will like them be dressed in white.

I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life,

but will acknowledge that name before my father and his angels.

Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.

This is the word of the Lord for the people of God and all the people said.

All right, go ahead and take a seat.

I think for me, the words that strike out most true in this letter to us are,

those two words, wake up, the ones with the exclamation point.

And I think as a generation, as a church, us individually, I think there is

this idea, there is this reality where we are asleep in so many ways.

We are asleep to the presence of God.

We are asleep to sin in this world. We are asleep to our own comfort and desires for it.

We are asleep in so many ways. And in Jesus's words to this church and to us

as well, is this idea of wake up that would shake us to our core and rouse us from sleep.

And as I was thinking about that this week, last week, as I was thinking about

this church and this idea that they have the reputation of being alive,

but are dead. And that's what they need to wake up from.

I remember seeing a, we were watching a British panel show and there's a prize

task where they bring in a prize and they're judged for it arbitrarily.

It's a funny thing. They're all comedians.

But one of the guys brings in this droopy plant as his prize.

And of course they to make fun of it. Also, it didn't even look that bad.

So it was kind of just halfway between, is it just that it needs a little water?

Could you water it and it spruce back up?

But that got me thinking along those lines of in so many ways,

especially as we look at things like trees and plants, things can have the appearance of life.

Trees can have the appearance of life. They can have branches full of leaves.

They can grow tall. They can continue to grow.

All the while internally, there's something decaying inside.

There's something losing its vitality and its life.

So this plant reminded me of this church that by appearances,

external appearances, has a reputation for life.

But according to Jesus and his observations was dead and dying.

And I'm going to forego our normal way of kind of approaching this letter in

the formula that it has, where Jesus shares a bit about his characteristics

and then goes into praise and then challenge.

And I want to save his characteristics towards the end.

There is no praise for this church.

This is one of the two churches that doesn't receive any commendations from

Jesus. He just launches into the, I know that you have a reputation for being alive, but you're dead.

And typically we'll see, I know come with, I know that you are struggling or

that you have this from outside, or I know that this thing is happening among

you, or I know that you think you're poor, but you're rich.

But this one, he just launches into, I know you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead.

And it's always important for us to remember as we think about these letters,

as we think about this letter, as we think about all that we have come thus far.

I'll remind you of something we started at the beginning is that Jesus sees what is true about us.

We are so easily misled. We are so easily confused and deluded in our own hearts

and our own minds that we can convince ourselves of almost anything.

But Jesus sees what is true. So if we look back at the second letter that we

read to Smyrna, he says that you are poor or you think you are poor,

but in fact, you're rich. And so Jesus is saying, look, you're facing hard times.

You're really struggling. And you think as a result of that,

that you are lacking in something. But I tell you that you are abundantly blessed.

And so now we get to this letter and a similar thing happens where they have

this perception of themselves and perhaps even externally people have this perception

of them that they are a thriving, living church.

But Jesus comes in with his harsh rebuke and says.

That you are in fact dead. And so whatever, no matter what everybody else sees,

no matter what we've convinced ourselves of, Jesus sees the truth and he is

here to either comfort us in when we are misled and what we see,

about ourselves, about the church, about others, where he's here to challenge

our perceptions and our ideas of what we think is true.

And here he challenges them in some ways, in a way that is so much more severe than any other church.

Usually he comes in with the, I know your love. I know your faith.

I know your perseverance. But again, there's no praise. Just I know your deeds.

I know that you are dead. I know that your deeds are left unfinished.

You have not run the race as we say.

They have works. Jesus writes that for them to strengthen what remains before

they die. So there's something going on there, but he says, I found your deeds unfinished.

So I'm not really sure what's going on in this church or what Jesus' encouragement is here specifically.

Perhaps they, as when he was in bodily form, shared with some would-be disciples

that they should not turn back after they put their hand to the plow or that

they should press on and follow Jesus, that they should seek the kingdom first.

Perhaps they set off on what was good at the beginning, and then along the way

lost that vitality, lost that life, but they were still keeping up appearances.

Perhaps they were convinced that what they were doing was what they were supposed to be doing.

Perhaps they were aware, and they were just unengaged, uninterested,

not moving, not growing, not reproducing, inactive and insensitive to the world around them.

Which I think gives us great opportunity and pause to reflect on what is it,

that constitutes death, in this case, spiritual death. What does spiritual death look like?

That way we might be able to perceive it a little bit more in ourselves,

that we might be able to confront it when we see the symptoms of it.

Spiritual death can look like lots of things. Going through the motions.

It can look like consuming, consuming, consuming.

That we would be constant intakers, even of sermons, of podcasts,

of reading the word of God, that we would just intake and intake, but never produce.

That we would know, but not do, that we would hear, but not obey.

That we would come and gather, but not engage with each other,

with the word of God, with praise.

And I think I've shared this before, but I think a lot of discipleship in this

regard that it is like breathing.

We have to be filled to be able to then produce and exhale and speak the gospel into others.

So we have to inhale, if you will. We have to consume. We have to intake.

We have to be filled with God and his word, his spirit.

But if we only inhale and we never exhale, we're going to die.

Equally so, if we never inhale and only exhale, we're going to die.

So discipleship, the mission of God has to be this inward outward flow.

So maybe it's that they stopped exhaling, so to speak.

Maybe it's that they weren't actually doing anything that took the notice of

those around them. If we look at all the other letters just about,

they're all facing something.

Thyatira, we talked about last week, was facing these false teaching,

this Jezebel prophetess that she called herself.

If we look at Smyrna, if we look at Pergamum, they were facing tribulation.

And Pergamum was said to be at the place where Satan set up his throne.

They were experiencing these external pressures and these internal pressures.

It seems like for Sardis, that everything was kind of just fine.

They weren't under persecution. They weren't under tribulation.

They weren't facing false teachings and false crises.

And maybe that's part of the problem for them, is that they had become so comfortable,

in where they were that they stopped really being a threat to the kingdom of Satan.

They stopped being a threat to the world. They stopped pushing back.

They stopped being on mission for God. And they just continued to exist,

even though it says they're dead. right? They just.

Subsided, subsisted, that's the word I was looking for.

They just were, which in some regards, I guess sounds okay.

I think we're all glad that we are, but it's not the best indication or description

of who we want to be. It's not a very exciting existence.

So maybe it's that everything was fine and that they were inactive and they weren't,

pushing against false teaching, and they weren't pushing against the culture,

and so the culture didn't bother them.

Interestingly enough, as we think about this idea of what does it look like

to be spiritually dead, this idea that we can exist, we can subsist,

I know that word now, in such a way that we have the appearance of life.

And I think it's important for us to know we can even fool ourselves to believing that we have life.

There is a culture in Indonesia that I saw very recently that part of its tradition

is instead of burying their relatives immediately, they keep them around.

They keep them in their house. They keep them at their dinner tables.

Every year they cover them in these cloths, It's basically strips of cloth painted with formaldehyde.

So they're actively mummifying their loved ones over years.

They'll talk to them. They'll present them with cigarettes, which I'm not sure

is a good idea around formaldehyde.

But they'll offer them food. They'll go around believing as though their relative

is still alive. and if someone asks them, how is grandma, their typical response

is, oh, you know, she's a bit sick.

She's a bit ill. She's under the weather.

When in fact, grandma's been dead for 10 years.

So we can persist as corpses spiritually, so to speak, believing that everything is fine.

Asleep to all of these things. And I think as we look at the scriptures

with Jesus' challenge for us to wake up, it's also easily notable that whenever

people are talked about falling asleep in the Bible, it also is referring to death.

So he is directly confronting that death idea. But if we take that idea of sleep, what are we asleep to?

And yes, this church, yes, the church, yes, our culture, the North American

Christian, yes, all of those things, but specifically each of us individually,

because there are people in Sardis who are not dead, who are not asleep,

though it seems like it is the majority of the church that is.

So what are we asleep to? Are we asleep to sin?

That what used to bother us doesn't really bother us anymore.

That what used to convict us has lost its conviction.

That perhaps maybe we've compromised a bit too much over the years.

We've justified, well, this isn't actually that bad.

And so we tiptoed farther and farther away. We stopped paying attention.

We've become accustomed to things. We stopped listening to the voice of God in us.

Or we've argued with ourselves so much that it's our conscience and not God's

conviction that we've been able to ignore it.

Or perhaps we've ignored it for so long that now it's just disappeared altogether.

Have we become asleep to sin? Asleep to our own sin, asleep to sin in the world.

Or are we awake? Are we paying attention to what's happening in us?

Are we keeping our conscience clear? It's interesting that Paul,

when he writes about his own life and ministry, he writes these things in Acts,

Acts 23 · chapter mention

chapter 23, he says, my brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God and all good conscience to this day.

Those in Sardis, Jesus' accusation is that they need to wake up and strengthen

what still remains because their deeds are unfinished.

And Paul, when he writes about his life and what he wants his life to be,

he looks back and says that I have fully accomplished in all good conscience, what I have set out to.

In 24, he says, I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man

that he, even though he looks back and thinks he

has done and satisfied what he set out to do, that he looks forward and says,

I continue to strive to keep that conscience clear?

Are we asleep to sin? Are we asleep to the activities of God?

Are we asleep to God's presence?

We can become so accustomed to the culture, that our worldview,

that we are satisfied with just living in it.

We know the songs to sing. we know the lingo, we can relate to one another,

we found our people, we know what church is.

But are we aware of God's presence? And I don't mean, do we cultivate some experience to experience God?

I mean, are you aware right now that the spirit of the living God is not only

in you, but around us and with us in this moment?

Even when we don't feel it and we're not aware of it, that God's presence is here.

I remember, this was years ago, but I remember sitting in the parking lot at

work one morning when I got there early, I probably dropped the kids off and

I'm usually the first one there.

And it was a light snowfall. It was really, it wasn't really snowing.

What it was is it was breezy and not windy. It was like a beautiful breeze and

it was blowing these crystals of ice in the air.

And wherever the wind, the breeze moved, it swirled and it fell and it rose,

these particles, these snow, I guess, particles of ice sounds,

I don't know what that is.

They floated and moved with the wind. And I just remember thinking to myself,

like, how much like the presence of God is that?

Or how much should we seek to be like those.

Snowflakes. There we go. I don't know what they were.

How much should we be like that

where God's spirit blows and we might not know where it's coming from.

We might not know where it's going. We might not know exactly what's happening

because we might rise and we might fall and we might twist and we might twirl,

but that we would be such aware of his presence and we wouldn't be asleep to it.

Because I think we can tie His presence so strongly to an event,

to an experience, to an action.

Like, oh, I only experienced God's spirit when I spend five minutes in silence

and then 10 minutes reminding myself of His greatness.

Those are great things, but we can tie His presence so strongly to things,

and to events, and to songs that we we almost forget that it's always there.

So are we aware? Are we awake to God's presence? Are we paying attention to God's presence?

Are we actually aware of it?

Are we asleep to what God is doing? What God is doing in us,

what God is doing around us, that God could be moving and we don't even notice.

We're looking so intently for a thing, an answer that we miss the way he's actually moving.

That we can still get tied up in desiring a movement of his presence,

a revival at App State, a revival in our careers that we are oblivious to the

things he's actually doing,

to the doors he's already opening, to what he's already working in someone,

to what he's already working in us.

It's so easy for us to not see the ways that we have changed,

that we are unaware of God working in us in some ways.

That we can look back over the last 10 years and think, I'm the same person

that I was. No, you're not. Or at least you shouldn't be.

We get so comfortable. We see it happens so slowly that it goes unnoticed.

Are we aware of what he's actually doing.

Are we asleep to God's mission?

To seek and save the lost, to bring his lost sheep home, that his children whom

he created and whom he loves would find their place in his family.

That he's calling all people to himself.

I've done the math previously, but I'll do it again. If we imagine,

we don't have to imagine, this is true, but Watauga County has,

I think it's around 50,000 now. We've lost a few thousand over the years.

50,000 to 55,000 people in Watauga, not counting college students.

As a safe estimate, now who would actually call themselves Christian is probably

a little higher than this, but a safe estimate is that 55% of those people are

actually Christians, potentially. Could be less, could be more.

So we're talking about 20,000 to 30,000 people who don't know Jesus in this

county alone. This is not a big place.

You had the college students on top of that. You're talking at least 30,

if not more thousand people in our neighborhoods, in our schools,

in our community that don't know Jesus.

Are we aware of that? Are we asleep to it? Do we care?

Have we become so comfortable with the condition of our life that we don't want

anything to disrupt or interrupt that?

Do we, or are we willing to risk how it might change a relationship to have

that conversation with someone?

To even just pray for them or to tell them that God loves them,

to take a simple step towards that.

What would it take for us to care? What would it take for us to risk a relationship?

Are we asleep or have we woken up to the realization that these 30,000 people,

are going to be lost without hope, eternally separated from God?

And it's not that it is up to you, but it is that God has called us to be a part of that.

Like your job is not the A to Z of somebody's salvation. Don't put that on yourself.

But also like, are you even aware that's part of your mission in this life?

What would it take for us to take that step, to share the gospel,

to take that step, to invite somebody, to talk to and serve somebody?

What would it take for us to actually see this community the way that God sees it?

To care and love enough Thank you.

So Jesus comes into this church that is asleep and dead in so many ways.

And he tells them to wake up and to strengthen what is about to die.

That something still remains, but something has to change or else it's going to die.

He tells them lots of things that we've talked about over the weeks.

So I don't want to spend too much time on them.

We talked about in Ephesus, how he told them to remember and to do the things

they did at first, to go back to the beginning, to care the way you cared,

to remember what you received and what you heard. Remember the gospel.

We talked about last week that that was essentially part of Jesus's admonition

to Thyatira is forget about these false gospels and return to what is true.

So we spent time talking about the gospel last week. Remember the mission, remember the kingdom.

Him. He tells them to hold fast, to not let go, to not drift, to not forget.

And of course, to repent, which as you've heard over the years,

yes, means to turn around, but it also means to think better,

to think higher, to think transcendently, to think God's thoughts instead of our thoughts, right?

Which then overflows into that U-turn action that we associate with.

That we would wake up and that we would sink God's thoughts and we would care

about people the way God cares about people.

Wake up and strengthen what remains.

Now to Sardis and specifically to Jesus's character in this letter.

Sardis was a city on a hill. It was a stronghold, a citadel. It was impregnable.

It had the reputation as a city of being in.

A very difficult place to conquer. And so the people there became comfortable.

They, they didn't continue to keep watch.

They weren't vigilant and taking care of themselves.

And so even though it was known to be somewhere that no one could invade and

no one could conquer, in fact, in history, it was conquered at least twice.

And we think those things can't be true, that it is, one, a place that is known

to not be able to be conquered, but then it also was conquered.

Those two things can't be true.

So what happened, at least one of those times, is as the guards became lazy,

as they stopped watching, as they stopped paying attention.

I think the story goes, the history goes, that a guard went down outside of

the wall to probably relieve himself,

and then went back in and the invading armies noticed, hmm, there's a door,

there's a way in that is not as barricaded and as strong as the ways that we might take.

And so they were able to sneak in unnoticed and capture the city.

And to this city, to this church in the city, Jesus warns them with these words

and then tells them to wake up, to keep watch, to climb up the watchtower, to be vigilant.

In the Bible, one of the charges against Israel time and time again is that

they don't pay attention, that they are, in many ways, we could borrow this

language, asleep to God's presence and His will for their lives.

They don't pay attention. They aren't invested in His Word and they don't let it affect their lives.

So this is what Jesus says to this church. Don't assume you're safe because everything looks okay.

Don't assume you're safe and that you're alive because Satan's not knocking

at the door. Don't assume life and vitality because you're not experiencing

this internal or external strife.

Don't assume you're alive because you think you're alive.

Don't assume that you're spiritually healthy because nothing is currently wrong,

or at least you've grown comfortable in this season, whatever it may be and

whatever you're facing.

Tells us to wake up, to strengthen that which is still there, which is still alive.

I just want to read Ezekiel 37, at least part of it.

And for many of you, this will be familiar. This is his vision of the valley of dry bones.

And Ezekiel, he's given this picture, this image of a valley full of bones.

They were very dry. And his response to this vision is he turns to God,

he turns to Jesus and he says, can these bones live?

He doesn't make the assumption that they can.

I think probably from his perspective, there's no hope for them.

He says, sovereign Lord, you alone know, can these bones live?

I suppose he's asked that question. And then his response is not to manufacture

or answer, but to say, from my perspective, perhaps not, but you,

Lord, hold the truth. Sovereign Lord, you alone know.

And this is what the sovereign Lord says. Prophesy to these bones and say to

them, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.

This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones. I will make breath enter

you and you will come to life.

I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with

skin. I will put breath in you and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

God gives life. He breathes life, has put his spirit in us that we might come

to life. This is why he identifies himself at the beginning of the letter as

him who holds the seven spirits of God.

We know that there is the Holy Spirit. There's not seven spirits as far as we are aware.

So what Jesus is communicating here in the way that he so often does by pouring in Old,

Testament scripture with new meaning is he's bringing up these pictures of the

spirit of God, places like Isaiah 11,

where it says, this is the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom,

the spirit of understanding, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of knowledge,

the spirit of might, the spirit of the Lord, the spirit,

of the fear of the Lord,

that these are the sevenfold characteristics of the one the Holy Spirit.

This is the fullness he's saying to those in Sardis to wake up to the presence

of the Spirit of God amongst you.

This is what you need.

You need this resurrection power of the Spirit. As Ephesians 1 says, has.

Incomparably great power for us who believe. The power is the same power,

the same might, the same strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the

dead and seated Him at the right hand of the heavenly realms.

As it says in Romans 8, And the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you.

He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies

because of His Spirit who lives in you.

Just as the Spirit of God breathed on those dry bones, and Jesus says,

and Paul says, and Jesus here in Sardis says that that spirit,

same spirit, can come and bring you to life, that there is hope.

Jesus starts this by saying that they have the reputation of being alive,

but they're in fact dead.

We miss this, unless you're reading King James, which I know some people like, but...

Literally says, I know your name, not reputation. It's this word that gets repeated at the end.

Your name, you have a name for being alive, but you're dead.

And so to conclude the letters, he acknowledges that same thing,

that those who are alive and that those who return, who are filled with the

spirit and are brought to life, that he will acknowledge their name.

The one who is victorious will like them be dressed in white.

I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of light,

but will acknowledge that name before my father and his angels.

So Sardis had this name. They thought they had a name for being alive,

but they were dead. But Jesus knew their name.

And for all who come to him, for all who return, for all who press in are victorious,

he has their name written down. He has their name forever held.

So it's not important what you think about yourself and who you are and whether you are alive or not.

It's not important whether other people see you as alive. It's not important

what you or anyone else says. What matters is what Jesus says and what matters

is that Jesus knows our name. And there's hope.

I love how Jesus, when the disciples went out to preach the kingdom and to heal

demons, They came back to heal the sick and to cast out demons.

They came back rejoicing that even the demons listened to them.

And Jesus said, don't celebrate that.

Celebrate that I know your name, that your name is written in the Lamb's book

of life. Celebrate the fact and rejoice in the fact that your name is written

and known and recorded in heaven.

So here's our thoughts, your assessment and your questions. Where have I become comfortable?

Where have I stopped caring? Where have I stopped listening?

Have I stopped obeying? Where have I stopped moving? Where am I asleep?

Where have I settled for having at least a reputation of being alive,

but not so much to follow through?

One of my favorite verses in the Bible, Ecclesiastes, I think it's 9.4,

it says that it's better to be a live dog than a dead lion.

And then it explains it, but I just like the novelty of that verse.

The truth of it is, is that if you are alive, there's still hope.

There's still hope for Sardis. That's why Jesus wrote the letter.

Even though he said that they're dead, there's still hope that he could resurrect those dry bones.

If you are still here, no matter what has happened in the past,

there's still hope for life.

If you are here, no matter what is currently happening, what you've currently

given yourself to, or you're currently ignoring, or you're currently experiencing,

there is hope because you are alive.

There is hope and there is victory at the end of that endurance.

I don't want to live my life in such a way, asleep to God's presence,

only to wake up one day and realize that I only thought I was alive.

I'd convinced myself because of busyness and activity that I had convinced myself

because of, of difficulty or hardship, or because I had convinced myself of

the, because of this or that,

that I was living and alive in the season that I was in when all the while I was at den.

I want to be awake. I want to be alive. I want to, to walk in Jesus's presence,

to live before God. I want to be sensitive to the Spirit.

I want to see what God's doing. I want to care about the people around me,

not just know that I should or say that I am, but actually demonstrate it.

I want to be like Paul and be able to say that in all good conscience,

I have accomplished and fulfilled what God has placed in my life.

I want to finish what God has given me to do. So whoever has ears to hear,

we must hear, we must listen, we must obey.

We must wake up. God, wake us up.

Shake us from this sleep, this stupor.

Maybe be aware and acknowledge your presence right here, right now.

And as we go off to our homes or to lunch, to wherever it is that the next hour or two will take us.

Your presence is there.

As we encounter people in the grocery store.

As we invite and eat with people, as we visit, as we work, your presence is

there, which doesn't mean that we're awake to it.

The reality of your presence is a constant, but our perception of it,

that are being in tune with it.

So many ways we are asleep. Pray that you would wake us up God,

to what's really important, what's truly important.