The Dead Church
Revelation 3:1-6
June 26, 2016
One of my favorite passages in the Bible is found in Ephesians chapter 2.
This is a tremendous chapter because it so clearly explains to us
• The work that God has been doing in our lives
• Why God has done that work
• And what He expects in response.
The passage begins by revealing to us the former state of every believer
And subsequently the present state of every lost person.
And you can really sum that state up in one word: DEATH
Ephesians 2:1-3 “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
The life without Christ is saturated in Spiritual death.
That makes sense since John said about Jesus:
John 1:4 “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.”
If life is found in Jesus, then it only stands to reason that
Those without Jesus are those without life.
Of course you know we are not talking about physical life,
We are talking about spiritual life.
Thanks to our father Adam, we are conceived in iniquity (Romans 5)
And we enter this world spiritually dead.
What does that mean?
Dead means “doesn’t recognize or respond to stimulus”
A physically dead person no longer responds to physical things.
Things like noise, or cold, or pain, or heat, or smell no longer effect that person.
They are physically dead and they neither detect nor respond to physical things.
Paul says that is what we all were in a spiritual sense.
We neither detected nor responded to spiritual things.
• We didn’t comprehend God
• We didn’t comprehend God’s will
• We didn’t recognize Him at work
• We didn’t respond to what He was doing around us
We were spiritually dead.
And our spiritual death was MADE EVIDENT
Not only by the things we FAILED TO PERCEIVE,
But also by the things that we FAITHFULLY PURSUED.
Paul says that spiritually dead people do not respond to God.
• Instead we “walked according to the course of this world”
• He says “we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh”
• He says we were “indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind”
Spiritually dead people only live for physical gratification.
They certainly can’t live for spiritual gratification since they are dead spiritually,
So they spend their lives living for physical gratification.
That would be all well and good were it not for one problem.
Living your life for the gratification of the flesh
Will only cause you to earn the wrath of God.
That’s why Paul says that when we were living that way
We “were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
All we ever did was what the flesh wanted
And all that ever did was anger Holy God.
THAT IS WHERE WE WERE.
AND THAT IS WHEN GOD WENT TO WORK.
He pulled a Lazarus in our lives. He called us out of death.
Ephesians 2:4-7 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Despite our offense to God,
He took us when we were dead and made us alive.
We call that grace and mercy.
• Then He raised us up out of the sinful lifestyle that once defined us
• And ultimately made us people of favor who receive His kindness as
opposed to children of wrath who receive His judgment.
WE CALL THAT SALVATION.
Psalms 40:1-3 “I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD.”
Salvation is when we move literally
From spiritual death to spiritual life.
And that is really the clearest indicator of salvation that there is.
Are you dead or alive?
I always find it interesting when people tell me,
“I know I’m saved, but I don’t really know when it happened.”
Look, it’s not gradual, it doesn’t come in increments.
In an instant a person is saved, God’s Holy Spirit moves in
And that person moves from darkness to light, from death to life.
That is the miraculous work of God in a life.
But Paul also tells us WHAT GOD EXPECTS from us
Now that He has made us alive.
Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
We are not saved as a result of our works.
• That is to say that you can’t do enough to warrant salvation.
• We are saved as result of God’s amazing grace.
We aren’t saved by works but we are saved FOR works.
It’s part of that sanctification we talked about last week.
God graciously saves us and then expects that
Our lives will be characterized by the types of “works”
That are pleasing to Him.
This is salvation and it is the expectation of the church body.
Any church then (or follower) who does not have works that indicate spiritual life cannot actually be considered alive.
(If I asked you how you know you are alive, you wouldn’t show me your birth certificate, you’d let me feel your pulse, etc.)
A church without the evidences of life is dead.
I tell you that because THIS MORNING we see “THE DEAD CHURCH”
Because we just looked at Ephesians 2 you know what is meant when Jesus says someone is “dead”.
• It means they are lost
• It means they are not indwelt by God’s Holy Spirit
• It means they do not have spiritual life
And therefore it means that they are
Incapable of doing the things that please God.
• We are not talking about an old church
• We are not talking about a poor church
• We are not talking about a small church
• We are talking about a dead church
In reality, a dead church may be huge.
• It may be wealthy
• It may be state of the art
• It may be cutting edge
• It may be extremely active and busy
But that isn’t what makes a church alive by Jesus’ standard.
A church is only alive when
It is filled with people who have yielded their lives to Christ,
Been indwelt by the Holy Spirit,
And thus are able to do the deeds that are pleasing to God.
That is a living church.
That is not what Sardis was; let’s look at them this morning.
#1 THE CHURCH
Revelation 3:1a
“To the angel of the church in Sardis write:”
It has always been important to understand the city and the setting as we examine a church, and that is even more important as we examine the church at Sardis.
There is an amazing correlation
Between this town and the church that was there.
Sardis was a tourist city, and it was so because of its rich history.
• Sardis itself was thought to be impenetrable (3 sides of the city rested on a cliff, the only entrance was a narrow pass)
• Yet Cyrus of Persia conquered it by staging a mock attack in the front and scaling the walls in the back which were not even guarded.
Sardis would later be rebuilt, but would be a city that lived of its past reputation.
• Gold and silver coins were first minted in Sardis
• Sardis was the first to learn to dye wool
• They also had a temple to the same false god as Ephesus (The Ephesians called her Artemas, the people of Sardis called her Cybele)
• It was also a town that contained a system of natural hot springs which people believed the gods gave life to the dead
It was a town compared to a museum
They were no longer great but they managed to survive
By living off of the memory of their past greatness.
That is ironic since the church in Sardis was doing the exact same thing.
The Church
#2 THEIR LORD
Revelation 3:1b
“He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this,”
Again the specific way in which Jesus identifies Himself is so important.
We are familiar with what is meant by “the seven Spirits of God”,
For we encountered that analogy back in the first chapter of the book.
It is a reference to the Holy Spirit in His fullness.
Isaiah 11:2 “The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.”
We also learn in chapter 1 that “the seven stars” are the messengers to the churches.
So Jesus presents Himself to the church at Sardis as
The One who has the Holy Spirit and their messengers
Why is this significant?
Later in verse 3 of the rebuke Jesus will say, “So remember what you have received and heard…”
This is a reference to the Holy Spirit and the gospel.
(what they received and what they heard…what Christ has)
The greatest gifts Christ has ever given to His church are His Spirit and His Word (and the two work together)
John 16:7-15 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. “And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. “He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. “All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.”
There is no substitute in the church for God’s Spirit or God’s Word.
And these are linked since it is the Spirit
Who guides us into our understanding of God’s word.
This is where the church finds here very life and power and effectiveness.
John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”
In reality it is these realities that distinguish the church
From every other organization on the face of the earth.
• Any club or group may be organized,
• Any group may have bylaws
• Any group may engage in social work
• Any group may proclaim a message
• Any group may build a structure for meeting
But the church is absolutely exclusive in two areas.
We have the Spirit of God and we have the word of God.
These are what set us apart,
These are what give us life,
These are what make us effective for the kingdom.
If a church has everything but not those things,
It is in fact a dead church.
Jesus reminds the church of Sardis of this
In the way He introduces Himself to the church.
The Church, Their Lord
#3 THEIR EVALUATION
Revelation 3:1c
“I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.”
What a sobering evaluation from the Lord.
• There is nothing that the Lord brags about.
• There is nothing He congratulates them for.
• He goes straight to the critique and it is as harsh as it could be.
You think you are alive, but you are dead.
I remember a story of some men digging a ditch to work on a water main.
There in the ditch they found a snake, and one man quickly cut off its head.
Of course the snake continued to crawl and coil and even strike.
A debate arouse as to whether or not the snake was dead or alive.
Some insisted it was alive since it continued to move.
Others insisted it was dead since it had no head.
Finally one of the men came forward with the verdict.
He said, “That snake is dead, but he doesn’t know it”
That was the church at Sardis.
They were dead, but they didn’t know it.
They had “a name that [they were] alive”
What does that mean?
It means that externally they looked great.
• Their budget was sound
• Their attendance was good
• Their facilities were top notch
• Their workers were busy
If all you did was look at that church from the outside,
You’d think they were a good church. They looked alive.
But you know why that is a problem:
1 Samuel 16:7 “But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
God has never been one to look only at the external.
God always looks at the heart.
God has always been more inclined to check a person’s pulse
Than to just look at how they are dressed.
Jesus did the same, listen to Him explain to the Pharisees what their problem was:
Matthew 23:25-28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
God said of Israel:
Isaiah 29:13 “Then the Lord said, “Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,”
And Jesus said that is precisely what He saw when He came:
Matthew 15:3-9 “And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? “For God said, ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER,’ and, ‘HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH.’ “But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever I have that would help you has been given to God,” he is not to honor his father or his mother.’ And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. “You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. ‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.'”
Are you understanding what it means to be a dead church yet?
Many people think a dead church is an inactive church or a church filled with old people or a church that can barely pay the bills.
NOT SO!!!
A dead church is one that is merely going through the motions externally but one that has not spiritual life to back it up.
There was a Chinese missionary who came to the United States for education and training. Upon going home to China, the members of his church asked him what was the most impressive thing he saw regarding the American church?
His answer was: “All the many things they can accomplish without God.”
Friends even non-believers can organize and accomplish great things,
But they cannot accomplish spiritual things
Because there is no spiritual life within them.
That was Sardis
They were a church filled with the walking dead; spiritual zombies; busy Frankensteins.
Dead but they looked alive
John MacArthur wrote:
“What are the danger signs of a dying church? A church is in danger when it is content to rest on its past laurels, when it is more concerned with liturgical forms than spiritual reality, when it focuses on curing social ills rather than changing people’s hearts through preaching the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ, when it is more concerned with material than with spiritual things, when it is more concerned with what men think than what God said, when it is more enamored with doctrinal creeds and systems of theology than with the word of God Himself. No matter what its attendance, no matter how impressive its buildings, no matter what its status in the community, such a church, having denied the only source of spiritual life, is dead.”
(MacArthur, John; The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Revelation 1-11 [Moody Press, Chicago Ill. 1999] pg. 111-112)
That is what Jesus told Sardis.
• I know you meet, I know you’re busy,
• I know you have a state of the art facility,
• I know you have an orchestra a gym and a charter bus.
• I know you have all sorts of groups, committees, and ministries.
• I know you have 3 services a week,
• But I’m looking at your heart and you are dead.
Another telling indication about this church was the lack of Satanic attack.
2 Timothy 3:12 “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”
And we’ve seen it in the other churches so far.
• Ephesus had false teachers trying to infiltrate the church.
• Smyrna had a synagogue of Satan who blasphemed them.
• Pergamum suffered the death of Antipas in Satan’s home town.
• Thyatira was being attacked by the influence of Jezebel
But Sardis has no Satanic attack of record.
Why would Satan attack a dead church?
These were people content to go through the motions
Without actually having a relationship with Jesus.
Satan is fine with churches like that, he will leave them alone.
SARDIS WAS DEAD.
To make sure you understand exactly what that means.
THE CHURCH AT SARDIS WAS FILLED WITH LOST PEOPLE.
• Religious people to be certain,
• But people who did not have a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ
• And thus had never received the Holy Spirit who gives life.
And this is such a real and relevant problem.
• I was a member of a church for 11 years in that very condition.
• I was a counselor at a youth camp in that very condition.
• I went on mission trips in that very condition
It is easy in America to go through the motions of church activity
Without having a real relationship with Christ…people do it all the time.
The church at Sardis did.
The Church, Their Lord, Their Evaluation
#4 THEIR SOLUTION
Revelation 3:2-4
In these three verses we find that Jesus addresses two groups of people.
• In verses 2 & 3 He addresses the dead who are by far the majority.
• In verse 4 He addresses the living (who are a small remnant)
Look at what He says to the dead
(and incidentally only Jesus could ever speak to the dead)
(2-3) “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 do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.”
Jesus clearly seeks to shake them out of their spiritual lethargy.
“Wake up” Recognize your pitiful spiritual condition.
We have already learned that those who are dead
Do not recognize nor respond to the things of God.
But there are those moments when, by His grace,
God does enable the dead to hear His call.
(Lazarus was granted the ability to hear from inside the tomb)
This is how God calls the dead into life.
But at that moment, the dead must respond to the call.
It is what the writer of Hebrews said:
Hebrews 3:7-9 “Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME, AS IN THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS, WHERE YOUR FATHERS TRIED Me BY TESTING Me, AND SAW MY WORKS FOR FORTY YEARS.”
If God grants you the ability to hear His call, do not reject it!
Jesus tells Sardis to “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.”
What does that mean?
Are there a certain number of deeds a person has to do to be pleasing to God?
NO. Remember what we read earlier in Ephesians 2?
Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
God saves us “for good works” that He expects us to walk in.
It is the spiritual fruit that God is looking for.
Remember the famous passage about the vine and the branches?
John 15:1-2 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.”
Sardis was a fruitless branch.
• They had the structure in place
• They had the system in place
(and even those things were about to die)
But despite their structure and their system
They had still failed to produce fruit or the “deeds” that God expected.
They were void of the “deeds” that indicated life.
They needed to hear the gospel, trust in Christ, be filled with His Spirit,
And thus be able to do the “deeds” that God expected.
This problem is better illustrated in the Old Testament.
TURN TO: ISAIAH 5:1-7
• The vineyard had every opportunity
• The vineyard looked alive
• But the vineyard never produced fruit, it was dead
So it was with Sardis.
They had the structure (which was about to die,)
But they still had no fruit or deeds that God expected.
It was time to “Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain”
Jesus said, “So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it and repent.”
The Holy Spirit had been given,
The gospel had been proclaimed,
But Sardis had thus far failed to take advantage of either.
• It was time for them to listen to the call of the Spirit.
• It was time for them to respond to the gospel.
• It was time for them to repent of their sin
• It was time for them to trust in Christ and tap into the vine.
WHAT A TRUTH!
It is so easy to be involved in a church without truly knowing Jesus,
And yet that is so dangerous!
I can’t help but think of passages like this one:
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”
Those are the people who faithfully attended and were super involved,
But who did not have a relationship with Jesus.
Make no mistake: CHURCH INVOLVEMENT IS NOT THE ANSWER.
• You must hear the call of the Holy Spirit,
• You must respond to the truth of the gospel,
• You must repent of your sin,
• You must place your faith in Christ.
Anything else is just going through the motions and it will not work.
In fact Jesus said:
“Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.”
The implication there is judgment.
Jesus many times compares His coming to judge to that of a thief.
The idea being that He will come when you least expect it
And the repercussions will be severe.
RELIGION IS NOT ENOUGH – YOU MUST TRUST IN JESUS!
That is Jesus word to the dead.
Then comes HIS WORD TO THE LIVING:
(4) “But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; and they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.”
“garments” are always a representation of character in the Bible.
• There are some in Sardis (a small remnant) who are indeed righteous.
• They have been cleansed by Christ.
• They have been clothed in His righteousness.
They are not just religious, they actually know Jesus.
And Jesus says “they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.”
Not worthy because of what they have done,
But worthy because through their relationship with Christ,
He has made them worthy.
The people in this church needed Jesus!
We learn that regardless of what the sign says,
It is only the presence of Christ and His Holy Spirit
That makes a church spiritually alive and pleasing to God.
#5 THEIR EXAMPLE
Revelation 3:5-6
Again we are talking to those who can hear what God is saying.
It could be those who are alive, and it could be those who are dead, but who have graciously been granted the ability to hear for just a moment.
“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.”
Overcome what?
It is the willingness to be content in religion,
But to never pursue the relationship with Christ.
If you want me to cut it deep, it is PRIDE
• Pride will allow you to be very committed to religion, after all religion can give you a lot of accolades.
But it is impossible to come to Jesus in pride.
Jesus crushes pride. He emphasizes that there is nothing in a person worth saving and they must scrap it all and be born again.
The reason people will be religious, but will not come to Jesus
Is because they have too much pride.
They are not poor in spirit, they do not mourn over their sin,
They simply try to compensate for their sin with religious involvement,
If you will overcome pride
You “will thus be clothed in white garments”
That means you will be forgiven and you will be declared righteous
According to the righteousness of Christ.
And with that comes a great promise:
“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.”
It’s amazing the number of people who read that verse and ask, “So can a believer lose his salvation? Doesn’t it imply that Jesus might erase someone’s name?”
Read the verse!
He said if you repent and humble yourself and trust Him that “will not” do that.
This is a verse of security.
Why even say that?
Because religion may offer a lot,
But one thing religion has never been able to offer is security.
In legalistic religion security only lasts as long as faithfulness does.
You mess up one time and you’re out. There is no security in religion.
Jesus says, if you’ll get past religion and humble yourself and trust in Me,
• I will make you righteous, (“white garments”)
• I’ll also make you secure (“not erase your name”)
• And I’ll do something for you that religion never could.
I’ll introduce you to My Father.
“I will confess his name before my Father and before His angels”
I’ll take you behind the veil.
WHAT A BLESSED TRUTH!
• Dead people have no righteousness
• Dead people have no security
• Dead people have no access to the Father
Paul taught us that (Ephesians 2)
They chased the lust of the flesh and were children of wrath.
But Jesus takes all those who humble themselves and trust in Him
And makes them righteous, secure, and children of God.
Sardis needed to hear this!
(The American church needs to hear this!)
Do not fool yourself, religious involvement will not cut it.
You must be made alive by the work of Christ
And the regeneration of His Holy Spirit.
Jesus said:
John 11:25-26 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Jesus is referring to spiritual life, which even death cannot take away.
The question is: “Do you believe this?”
What will you do with Jesus?
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
