As depressing as it might be the opening passage of this letter sounds more like an obituary. The body of believers in Sardis is dead….well almost. Only faint life signs of a faithful remnant remain. For the majority there it was too late, their faith had already flat lined. What begins as a deathbed scene takes a sudden turn to become an emergency room drama. Rather than officiating over the funeral Christ makes a last ditch effort to revive the hearts of those in Sardis. Sardis was located about 30 miles south of Thyatira. Its location commanded the trade of the Aegean Islands, and the military road through the important Hermus River Valley. Sardis enjoyed the prominence as a commercially prosperous, and military strategic city throughout its history. The luxurious living of the Sardinians led to their rapid moral decline. This is one of the two most adverse reports sent by Jesus, the other being sent to Laodicea. Unlike the other letters we have looked at so far Jesus passes over any estimate of their deeds, and their reputation to give the bottom line: “You are dead!” As we read the words of this letter lets discover the lessons we can learn from the church at Sardis.
I. Putting the condition of the church at Sardis in perspective.
A. Persians, Greeks and Romans; Sardis had many conquerors, but none so devastating as the earthquake of the year 17 that literally leveled the city.
1. To help rebuild the city the Roman Emperor Tiberius remitted all taxes for 5 years and donated the equivalent of 2 million dollars in today’s money.
2. Sardis once again flourished as gold and silver coins once again changed hands in the marketplace.
3. The Greek Historian Herodotus tells us that the inhabitants of Sardis earned a reputation for lacking legal or moral restraints; especially: disregarding sexual restraints.
4. Economically the city of Sardis was rich but spiritually the city was bankrupt.
B. The church in Sardis sadly had nothing to offer the needy culture around them prompting Jesus to confront them.
1. To the Sardinians, Christ reveals himself as the one who controls the seven spirits of God.
2. Knowing this church’s deeds, Christ had nothing good to say.
3. The believers may have thought that they were a living, thriving and active congregation but they were dead.
4. Like the city itself, perhaps the church was trying to live on its reputation of past glory.
5. What Jesus leaves out in His introductory words to the church at Sardis is as telling as what He includes.
C. The church at Sardis had become so lazy and halfhearted that it was hard to find any signs of life in the church.
1. Although the congregation is not what the world would consider to be a dead church, Jesus pronounces this body of believers as being effectively dead.
2. The church at Sardis probably could be likened to the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.
3. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. (Matthew 23:27—NIV 2011)
4. Did they offer prayers at Sardis? Yes. Did they sing songs of worship? Yes. Did they receive offerings and do good works? Yes and yes. Did they truly love Jesus? No.
5. Sardis’ reputation impressed only other people, not Jesus who saw beyond their religiosity to the heart which had stopped beating for Him.
II. Jesus issues some commands that lead to correction.
A. The command "Wake up!" is in the present tense and be better translated "Be constantly alert."
1. This is a call to reverse their attitudes radically.
2. The congregation must be alerted to the seriousness of the situation. Their complacency led them to give up their identification with Christ and their mission for him.
3. He wanted them to stop living on past experiences and to begin once again nurturing a growing relationship with Christ.
4. A growing relationship with Christ would help them guard against false teaching and compromise.
5. 13 Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. 14 And do everything with love. (1 Corinthians 16:13-14—NLT)
B. Strengthen the remnant that still remains.
1. Jesus immediately turns His attention to that small flicker of life that still remains.
2. Keep what little you have left alive.
3. Nourish and imitate that faithful few so the church can become a healthy body once again.
C. The church needed to remember their purpose.
1. The Greek term used here literally means to keep remembering.
2. Like those in Ephesus, the Sardinians must remember what they "have received and heard." What they "received" was the apostolic tradition of the gospel; what they "heard" probably were the teachings of the apostles and prophets who brought the gospel to them.
3. The Sardinians were not holding to the word of Christ. For them repentance was the only way out of certain and final death.
D. Christ now orders a life saving application of practical faith.
1. They needed to keep on applying the truth that they heard to their daily lives.
2. 22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. 23 For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 25 But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. (James 1:22-25—NLT)
3. When we constantly store up knowledge without using it our faith weakens and our resistance lowers to compromise.
E. The final command is to repent. Change your direction.
1. No more flirting with commitment; repent, change your direction. Do it now!
2. They were to repent by restoring the gospel and the apostolic doctrine to its authority over their lives.
3. This would mean they would once more start obeying (tereo, "keep," "watch") the truth of Christ's word.
4. Today's church needs to hear this challenge to take the word of Christ seriously.
III. Before the letter closes Jesus addresses that faithful few that still remain.
A. You will walk with me dressed in white.
1. This means to be cleansed from sin to be made spiritually and morally pure.
2. Those that have been washed in the blood of the lamb and remained faithful would be justified before God.
B. I will never blot out his name from the book of life.
1. The promise of a place in Heaven.
2. A person entered in the book of life remains in it by faithfulness and can be erased only by disloyalty.
3. Jesus will fulfill His promise that nothing can separate His faithful from the Father.
C. I will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.
1. It is Christ's confession of our name before the Father and his angels (implying our fellowship with him) that assures our heavenly citizenship.
2. What ultimately counts, then, is not our acceptance by this world's societies but that our relationship to Christ is genuine and hence will merit his praise in the coming kingdom.
IV. Some difficult application for us today.
A. When it comes to outward appearances, we are just as easily fooled by whitewashed religion as those Christians in the first century.
1. Only Christ can see beyond the façade to the heart.
2. Often we are not as blind as we may think, maybe just inattentive.
3. The signs are usually there but we just miss them.
B. Consider these signs of a dying church.
1. Worship of the past: The focus is on what God has done rather than what He is doing today.
2. More love for tradition than love for Christ: More concern for keeping man-made rules and traditions than having a heart for Christ.
3. Greater concern with form than with life: Unwillingness to adapt, to find new ways to express Biblical truth.
4. Inflexibility and resistance to change: Things being a certain way, time or place rather than letting the Spirit lead.
5. Loss of evangelistic and missionary outlook: Concerned with maintaining what we have rather than a concern for the lost and unchurched.
C. If you find yourself experiencing some of the signs of dying faith, realize that you do not have to stay that way.
1. We need to recommit ourselves to radical thinking—to biblical thinking—and a willingness to change.
2. The truth is it doesn’t matter how soiled or unhealthy you have become the Holy Spirit is willing to bring life where there was only death before.
Closing:
There was a small community of people that lived along the Atlantic coast. The weather was particularly turbulent in this area, and there was a reef that ran just a few miles off shore. Over the years, many ships had struck the reef in bad weather, and the community decided that it was necessary to form a search and rescue brigade. So they purchased some land and built an emergency shelter. They brought in specialists to train them in how to safely conduct rescue missions. They purchased the highest quality equipment. It was a significant investment of time and resources, but the community was finally able to serve in an emergency, and over the years the rescue brigade saved dozens of lives.
As time passed, however, and nautical technologies improved, there were fewer ships going down on the reef, and the rescue brigade became less active. The weekly meetings to train and drill turned into social gatherings. The emergency shelter became a community hall of sorts, the rescue equipment stored away to make room for a shuffleboard and pool table. The former search and rescue volunteers would gather and reminisce about successful missions of days gone by, while the new volunteers would listen in awe.
This carried on from week to week, until one night during a particularly rough storm, an alarm came in that a ship had gone down with a large crew on board. Time was of the essence –lives were being lost – but there was little that could be done. The men were not well enough prepared; those who had received the training were too long inactive to be of use, and the others were not adequately trained so as to be safe. What’s more, they couldn’t get at the rescue equipment, and even if they could, it had not been properly taken care of. That night, they were caught off guard, and it cost them greatly.
An important point should be made here: up until that night, they still called themselves the search and rescue brigade. They still gathered at the rescue hall, still talked about search and rescue work, and for all intents and purposes, they still appeared to be a search and rescue brigade. But there was one element that was no longer present, a vital element – they weren’t doing the work of a search and rescue brigade.
