The following sermon was recorded during the Sunday morning gathering of Grace Community Church in Los Cruces, New Mexico. We are a group of Christians that exists to joyfully extol and magnify the true and living God, to faithfully proclaim the Christ-centered Word, to build each other up by speaking the truth in love, and to bring the good news of the gospel to our city and world so that the land was slain may receive the full reward for his sufferings. For more information about us, please visit GCCLosCruces.com. Brothers and sisters, if you would, turn with me to Revelation chapter three this morning. The book of Revelation in chapter three. In our study of the seven letters to the seven churches here in Asia Minor, we now come across this fourth church. I'm sorry, the fifth church. The church at Sardis. The church at Sardis. We have considered the church at Ephesus, we have considered the church in Smyrna, we considered Pergamum, and we considered last week the church at Thyatira. Local churches, real churches in that day, not symbolism for the age of the church, we're talking about actual churches with real people where there are real problems, but a real and mighty Christ watching over and guarding these churches. The church in Sardis. I have entitled this message today, The Church That Was Dead. The Church That Was Dead. Revelation chapter three, verses one to six. Hear the word of the living Christ. And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works. You have a reputation of being alive. but you were dead. 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. Remember then what you have received and heard. Keep it and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. 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 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. After the sun, the next star which is nearest to the earth goes by the name of Proxima Centauri. Proxima Centauri. It's approximately 4.22 light years away from us today as we speak. Because the universe is so breathtakingly vast and galactic, astronomers in the 1830s came up with a unit of measurement known as a light year. A light year is the distance that light travels in one year. Scientists have also concluded that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. 186,000 miles per second. So when you consider all of this together, the light proceeding from that star, the Proxima Centauri, takes a little over four years to reach the Earth, traveling at 186,000 miles per second. That's how far this star is from us. Now, we've considered a close star, let's consider a farther star. The leftmost star in what we know as the Big Dipper, do you know what the Big Dipper is? You children know what the Big Dipper is? Your parents showed you that? The leftmost star in the Big Dipper, what we might call the handle of the Big Dipper, astronomers refer to it as Alcade. Alcade, that's the name they've given to the star. They'll have to iron out with the Lord what he actually named the star. This star measures at 103 light years from Earth. 103 light years from Earth. I want you to use your imagination for a bit, your sanctified imagination. That imagination that's been renewed after the knowledge of Christ. Use that imagination for a bit. Imagine yourself on the Earth on the fourth day of creation when the stars were created by God. We're talking about the day the stars were born, day four. You're there on the earth looking up into the night sky and God calls Al-Qaeda into existence. This star at the very end of the Big Dipper. You're looking up with great anticipation. God's saying, I'm gonna just wait for it, wait for it. And you're looking up with anticipation. God calls it into existence. You're looking up, waiting to see this star light up. God calls it. He says, Al-Qaeda, come forth. And you're waiting, and you're looking at the Lord, and you're waiting for this star to appear. A day goes by. A week goes by. A month goes by, a year goes by, 75 years go by, and finally 103 years go by and finally the light from that star can be seen by our eyes because it took 103 years for that light to travel at 186,000 miles per second for that light to reach the earth. So finally on the 103rd year that light appears. That's how long it took to reach the earth. This means, if we go by this logic, this means that that star could have exploded out of existence a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, and we would never know it because its last moments of flickering light is still traveling to the Earth. And if we were 100 years after that thing died, wait about three more years, and then after that, the light from that star would be gone. And we'd never know it. So this means that there could be stars, there could be stars in the universe that have died and have ceased from existence years ago. But to us on Earth, we still think that they're there. Because their light is still there. It could be that they've died years ago, a hundred years ago even, according to this logic. Their light is still traveling, you see. It'll take years from our perspective before that star appears to go dark. Well, in a sobering way, friends, this morning I want you to realize that this church in Sardis was like these dead stars. There was still a light there. There was still an appearance of life there, but they were dead. They were dead. That's how it is with many churches today, and I say that fully aware that that could happen to this church. But that's how it was with the church in Sardis. It had a name and a reputation for being alive, but it was dead. It appeared to be alive, but it was lifeless. In the context of the book of Revelation, it was a lampstand to be sure but the light was gone. The light was gone. It had abandoned and it had lost the very purpose of its existence, which was to shine the light of Christ in its dark corner of the earth. Its members had ceased to bear witness to the soul-saving, life-giving truth of the gospel, and it was a dead church. It was a dead church. The church in Ephesus, you remember, had abandoned the love they had at first. The church in Smyrna was physically poor and spiritually rich as they persevered through persecution. The church in Pergamum held to false teaching. The church in Thyatira held to false teaching and the sin that was produced by that false teaching. However, the church in Sardis is just dead. It's just dead, that's the only thing he says about it. He doesn't mention any sin directly to be addressed, any false teaching to be corrected. He says, I know your works. You have a name that you're alive, but you're dead. The city of Sardis was, understand, no less pagan and no less idolatrous than Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, or Thyatira. I picture this city, this church, I should say, in this city, I picture this church in Sardis as a city that has its walls broken down so there's no longer a distinction from the church and the world. The walls are broken down. Church is ravaged by the unholy and profane and the unclean, and it's dead because the wages of sin is death. You see, at least the churches that have received rebuke so far, and there's been three of them, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, at least those churches that have received rebuke, at least they had something for which Jesus commended them. They had something for which he commended them. The church in Ephesus was doctrinally vigilant and full of endurance, and they didn't have any desire to slow down, and he commended them for it. The church in Pergamum was holding fast to the name of Christ and not denying the faith. The church at Thyatira, they were growing in love and they were growing in deeds of service, you remember. However, Jesus has no initial words of commendation for the church in Sardis. He'll say something later on in verse four about a few people in the church who have remained loyal and pure to Christ before Christ, but that's not mentioned in the initial evaluation. You see, when we consider Sardis, the church in Sardis, the world did not have to worry about persecuting and putting pressure upon this congregation because there was nothing offensive about this congregation. There was nothing offensive about it. Why persecute a people that doesn't talk about sin? Why persecute a congregation that doesn't seek to expose sin and bring in the light of the gospel and speak to cultural issues regarding the truth of Christ and what God thinks about the truth and what God has declared the truth to be? They didn't hold fast to the truth of the gospel. They didn't hold fast to the offensiveness of the gospel. You see, the offense of the cross about which Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians chapters one and two, the offense of the cross had ceased to exist. Godliness, which always and inevitably, inevitably of invites persecution had ceased to exist in this church. Paul told Timothy that if you want to aspire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, you will suffer persecution. So where there's no persecution, it's probably because there's no godliness. Sardis, unlike, or I should say Sardis, like the other cities in Asia Minor, they had their trade guilds and their respective pagan deities over each guild. But it appears that the professing believers here had no issues in tolerating the sexual immorality and idolatry that these guilds demanded in order to make a comfortable living. You know, it's ironic, and it's also insightful as I was studying this, that when Jesus mentions the few in the church in verse four that had not soiled their garments, The word that he uses for soiled is found two other times in the New Testament, and that's it. Two other times in the New Testament. In one place, it has to do with sexual immorality. Revelation 14, four. The other place, it has to do with idolatry. In Paul's letter to the Corinthians. Sexual immorality and idolatry. The two sins that keep reoccurring in the life of these churches in Asia Minor, right? Sexual immorality and idolatry. And Jesus is saying here, you have a few in the church who have not soiled, stained, defiled their garments. A word that's often associated with sexual immorality and idolatry. So he gives us an insight into what was happening in this church. Perhaps by and by, for the most part, the large portion of the church, the majority, had given in to tolerating sexual immorality and idolatry. And there were just a few who hadn't. So this church is the perfect model of an inoffensive Christianity. They're dead. They're just dead. They have nothing to offer the world. And so the Lord of the church steps in and he warns them that he will come against them. That's the word of judgment. At Ephesus, he told them that if they did not repent, he would come and remove their lampstand from its place. I heard recently that there was a popular place on one of the dangerous coasts where there were rocks and a lot of shipwrecks back in the day that a group of locals formed a little team to rescue ships that were out approaching the shore. rescue them and bring them in and show them hospitality and help them to recover the shipwreck. And after years of doing this and being known as the rescuers, they eventually had some new faces come in and eventually it turned into more of a popularity thing, a country club if you would, it turned into a club. And so they said, you know what, we've had this reputation of being the rescuers, why don't we just become more of a club that people can come and visit and see the artifacts of what we used to do and pictures and stories of what we used to do in rescuing ships. And then eventually it became to a place where they no longer went out rescuing people on these shores, they simply were known as a country club type of people. Eventually some people broke off from there and they went to another part of the coast where they continued their original work of rescuing people who had suffered shipwreck. But it wasn't long after that that that second team became a kind of a country club and they I think it happened one more time, there's three times, each and every time it turned into a rescue team to a comfortable country club type of a thing. And I think that's a perfect illustration of what's happened to this church and the danger that we're in when it comes to our life as a church. When we go, we assemble together and We are so terrified of the outside world that we insulate ourselves and we have no voices out in the world. We have no voices out in the workplace, no voices out in the school. We take commands like not being unequally yoked to unbelievers to the other extreme where we have no meaningful relationships with unbelievers. And the only people who know us are the people within these four walls. And the only people who hear us are the people within these four walls. And we have such mighty strong convictions about eternity and the future and sin and the powerful salvation that's in Christ Jesus, but the people of the world never hear about it. We have our blogs to blast this stuff forth. We have our Facebook pages to blast this stuff forth. But as far as us, we're not talking to any unbelievers in our workplace. We're not talking to the lost family members. We're not talking to anyone. we become a country club, we're no longer a rescue team. You see, we've been granted, given, I should say, a great commission from Christ to go into the world and to make disciples. That means as you go about in your daily life, you are to be making disciples, you are to be targeting people in love, the crosshairs of love, and you are to be targeting people to reach them for Christ, giving truth to them, showing love to them, being patient with them, enduring their attacks and their hostility for the purpose of winning them through the gospel. And when we cease to do that, we become like the church in Sardis. When we believe that there's nothing to be delivered from, no hell to be feared, no wrath to be avoided, we become a country club and we have sound teaching and correct teaching and our theology is nice and precise and neatly packaged and clean and sanitized and it can be published on the radio and friends, we are in a bad place if we become that. We come and we just fill our heads with this stuff but we have no idea how to talk to unbelievers about it. I mean, we can study biblical theology and study the story of redemption from beginning to the end, and we can study systematic theology and all the great major doctrines of the faith, and yet not know how to talk to unbelievers about any of this. That's a bad place to be. That's a dangerous place to be. That's a dangerous place to be. I realize that some of you are confined to 40 hours a week in the workplace and a large family, or a family, so to speak, and you're taking care of children and you're doing things, but others have more freedom to go about this work. Whereas those of you in the prior circumstance, your work is confined to your daily life of what God's apportioned to you, right? Your mission field is your workplace, it's your school, And as much as you can, you're family. But the point is, is that each and every one of us has this responsibility to be a disciple-making people. We can't transform hearts. We can bring them the truth that transforms and wait upon God to save and sanctify. But that's our calling. This church had abandoned that calling. They were dead. Sin had become the story there, and they became ineffectual, ineffective, and dead, lifeless. Friends, we don't want that to happen here. We don't want that to happen here. This is the worst thing that can be said of a church. That's a dead church. That's a dead church. And be careful when you say that, too. You see, Jesus is the one with eyes like a flame of fire that pronounces this church to be dead. Now, unless you have eyes like a flame of fire and can see through the life of a church, you shouldn't be so quick to go pronouncing churches down the road, dead, dead, dead, dead, because you really don't know. You don't know that there's a few people in that church that have still not stained and defiled their garments. You don't know what kind of movement of the spirit God is doing there. And so rather than picking apart every church saying dead, dead, dead, dead, Pray for these churches. Why? Because they bear the same name that we do. They bear the name of Jesus Christ. And if you as a Christian are jealous for the name of Jesus Christ, you should care about the life of that church. When you pray for revival, you should be content. You should be content and exuberant if God chooses to bring about revival in this church over here while things kind of wait for revival here. You should rejoice with others who are rejoicing. You should mourn with those who mourn. But regardless, Jesus is the one who pronounces this deadness here. So be very careful of going around pronouncing dead, dead, dead. So, like all these churches, there are four components. to the letters. There is, first of all, a relevant self-description. A relevant self-description. And here, he refers to himself as the one who has the seven spirits of God and who holds the seven stars. In verse one. The one who has the seven Spirits of God now, what does that mean the seven spirits of God? I thought there was only one Holy Spirit you read the Gospels and Jesus mentions one spirit Baptized them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit when he comes the spirit of truth He will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment he him singular emphasis throughout the entire scripture is one spirit, right? Well, a more helpful translation for these translators would have been sevenfold, the sevenfold spirit of God. This is interesting because in Isaiah 11, if you wanna turn there with me really quick, Isaiah chapter 11, Many commentators and translators have considered this to be the meaning of this phrase, the seven spirits or the seven fold spirit of God. Now, understand that in the book of Revelation, symbolism is just everywhere, right? We understand that this symbolism has to do with Numbers as well and so the number seven as you come across in the book of Revelation you come across it tons of times many times and Seven usually has the picture of completion completeness perfection The seven spirits of God, this is a sevenfold spirit of God. In verse two of Isaiah chapter 11, well, the whole chapter is based on Christ. In verse one it says, there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit, and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. Listen to these seven qualities. or aspects, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. So the spirit of the Lord, one, the spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, fear or worship shall be upon him. When Jesus was in his earthly ministry, he took this verse to himself and says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. He's anointed me to preach good news, and he quoted what seemed to come from this, right? So we're talking about the sevenfold Spirit of God. This is the fullness of the Spirit of God. Jesus is saying to this church, these are the words of the one who has, the one who possesses the sevenfold Spirit of Almighty God. You see, before the Spirit of God was poured out on the church, it was poured out on who? Jesus Christ. You read that in the book of Acts. He received the promise of the Father. He received the promise of the Holy Spirit. He is known as the Messiah, the Anointed One. Anointed with what? The question we should be asking is, anointed with who? You see, Scripture presents the Messiah as the one who is anointed with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's been poured out on him for the work of redemption from beginning to end. And so Jesus then pours out the Spirit upon his church. That's why we read about the Spirit of Jesus Christ. What this church was lacking was the fullness of the Spirit. Perhaps the Spirit had been grieved. The Spirit had been quenched. The Spirit had been grieved, like we read about in Ephesians chapter four, to the point where the Spirit's no longer working here. The Spirit's no longer in operation in this church. What an awesome but awful thing to be said about the church, that we could be destitute of the workings of the Holy Spirit, the operations of the Holy Spirit, that we could be strangers to the work of the Spirit of God. And that's what he says here. I'm the one who has, possesses the fullness of the Spirit, and I hold the seven stars. What are the seven stars? Remember Revelation 119, the stars are? the angels to these seven churches, these heavenly representatives of these earthly congregations. He is the sovereign one who possesses these angels, these messengers, whatever they are, whether they're pastors, which I don't agree with that interpretation, but I'm not gonna fight you on it. I will for a little bit, but I don't think that's the case here. I don't think, because I think New Testament teaches a plurality of elders, and so I don't think there's literally an elder, one pastor for every one of these congregations. I'm hard-pressed to land on that interpretation of the text, but regardless, these angels are owned by Christ, possessed by Christ, even as he has the Spirit of the Living God to give to his people, to revive his people. It's the Spirit that revives a community. It's the Spirit that brings life to a community. where there's death or dying, the Spirit is the one who can revive us. The Spirit bringing us to an awareness of who God is, of what the gospel is, of our need for the word of God, of our need for the gospel, of our need for God and Christ, and it's the Spirit who glorifies Christ in the midst of a church, and so we have to believe that this place here is destitute of the working of the Spirit of God. That's the self-description that he mentions here. The one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. And he goes on and he enters into the, what we might call the piercing or searching or penetrating evaluation. It goes beyond the surface and he says this. In the second half of verse one he says, I know your works. I know your works. And based on the rest of the passage, I don't think these are good works. I know your works. And he says next, but you have a reputation of being alive, but you're dead. I know your works, you have a reputation, a name of being alive, but you were dead. Apparently this congregation had a reputation about themselves. We're not told in the book of Acts what happened in Sardis regarding the church and how the church was planted, how it was started. I tend to be of the opinion that when the gospel was just trumpeting forth from Ephesus, when Paul was there for those two, three years teaching day and night, public, house to house, that it says there that the whole region, the whole earth, heard the word of the Lord as it proceeded from Ephesus there. All were affected, all the inhabitants of Asia, I should say, not the world, Asia, had been affected by the gospel. And so I have to believe that somewhere in that timeframe, the church at Sardis heard And perhaps a Christian was created by God, a community of Christians were created, brought into being by God, the living God. And perhaps there was a great working there. It brought them a reputation of life, being alive, the living ones. Now is this reputation? a reputation that they had with the world, or was it the reputation they had with the surrounding churches? It could be one or the other, it could be both. Maybe the churches of Thyatira and Pergamon and Ephesus knew that Sardis was a fruitful, life-giving, life-dripping church, or could it be the world saying, there's life there? Regardless of who they had the reputation with, they had the reputation, but the reality coming from the one who has eyes like a flame of fire is that you were dead. You see, they were hiding behind a reputation. They were hiding behind a name. That's so easy for us to do, isn't it? To hide behind a reputation, to hide behind a name. What's popular today is we hide behind the name of reformed theology. when there's really no life in some places where that name is heralded, where that name is held up as something to hide behind. I still agree with Paul Washer so wholeheartedly when he said, I'll take one Leonard Ravenhill over 20 dead Calvinists. Give me one man on fire who understands the nature of the new birth, who understands the glory of the gospel, and rather have that man laboring side by side with me than 20 dead Calvinists. It's so easy to hide behind a name. It's so easy to hide behind a reputation. It's so easy to hide behind the name of a church that is doing great things in the community, and yet, like those stars out in the universe, they appear to be full of light and life, and yet it could be that they have died 50 years ago, and the light has just not reached, the effect of that explosion has just not reached the earth in the 50 years we've been observing it. Friends, this is a real danger to us. Do you see, we can so easily hide behind a name or we can hide behind the name, Christ Jesus. We either hide behind our own name or hide behind Christ. You see, in that day of judgment, the name, the reputation that they had, they couldn't hide behind that. What you wanna hide behind on the day of judgment is the name of Christ. Because there's no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved but the name of Jesus Christ. So be very careful to call yourself and go by this and go by that and be a part of this denomination and that denomination. And I'm not saying these denominations are inherently sinful, but if you're hiding behind these things, if you're hiding behind men of the past, if you're hiding behind an identity of, an ism or what you think you are in terms of the theological field of understanding. To hide behind any kind of name and to lack life and vigor and zeal for Christ is a very, very nauseating thing. I was just telling someone this week, I think I mentioned it at the prayer meeting. A few were there. I mentioned that I don't want to be known. Personally, I don't want to be known as the guy who is just firmly planted and zealous for being a five-point Calvinist and that reformed creature on the north side of town. I don't want to be known for that. And I don't want this church to be known as, oh, that's one of the reformed churches in Las Cruces, the reformed Baptist churches. Those are one of the churches that believe in unconditional election and a definite atonement that Christ came for his bride. I don't wanna be known for, I wanna be known for being like Jesus Christ. That regardless of who I interact with in the workforce, whether they're Armenians or whether they're this, Whatever they think of me, let them think. I know that guy has some firm doctrinal convictions, but you know what? That brother loves people. That brother loves Christians. He loves unbelievers. That church is a zealous church. They love the gospel. They are reaching out with the gospel. They are loving one another and serving one another. And regardless of where you stand theologically, you go there, they will love you and serve you if you bear the name of Christ. They will show hospitality that is gospel-centered. That's what we want to be known as, as people of Christ, people who bear the name of Christ. Instead of hiding behind a reputation, hiding behind a name. You have a name, you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. You are dead. It's like the church in Smyrna, right? They had a reputation for being, what, poor, destitute, but Jesus says, but you were rich. You see, we need to see things as Christ sees them, and the only way to do that is to live in his word, to live in his word. If we wanna see reality as God defines reality, we need to live in the book, live in the word. He says, you are dead. That's the penetrating evaluation. Look at, as we go on to the end of verse two there, you are dead. Now we come to the corresponding exhortation. I mean, that's amazing. That's the only thing he says about them in their evaluation. You're dead. You're dead. The exhortation in verses two and three says this, wake up now. these two words would have proven to be a wake-up call in themselves because of their recent history. You see, prior to the coming of Christ, there had been war in Sardis. You see, Sardis, the city was located on these massive cliffs. You can actually Google the name Sardis, the ancient city of Sardis, and look at pictures, and they're really amazing pictures of where the city was located in terms of... of the landscape. It was located on this mountain, and on the sides there were these massive cliffs, and the name, the reputation that the city of Sardis had was Sardis the Impenetrable. You couldn't penetrate Sardis. You couldn't conquer it, because they were on this hill. But there was one place One area that, if the adversaries of Sardis discovered this place, they could potentially sneak up this ravine and travel into the city and overtake the city, and that's exactly what happened in history. Right before all this happened, a couple hundred years before all this happened, the city of Sardis, sleeping securely, safe, sound, was invaded by another army, and they came up that exact route, the one place they could enter, and they entered in, overtook the city, all because they were asleep. They were asleep, and the church had patterned after its local history. They were asleep, too. Jesus says, wake up. Wake up. Haven't you learned from history? Haven't you learned from your recent past? Wake up and strengthen. Notice the verbs here. Wake up, strengthen what remains and is about to die. For I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. What a strange way to put something, huh? I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Complete can be translated as fulfilled or filled. So we could say, I have not found your works. I found your works, but there's no substance. There's no filling to your works. It's all dead works. There's no weight to your works. It could be that that's what he's saying. Your works are not filled up. There's no substance to your works. It's all empty. It's all vanity. Or, Remember in our study of the letter to the Ephesians, God has, we are his workmanship, we are created in Christ Jesus for what? Good works that he prepared beforehand that we should walk in. So it could be that God had sovereignly planned and predestined this path of good works for them to follow. and they were not quite there yet. They had not completed their purpose. They had not completed the will of God in this respect. And it could be that this is what the Lord's using to bring them back to that path, because we know that what God ordains, he brings to pass. So it could be that Christ is just calling them to wake up, we know he's calling them to wake up, and to get back on that path of living for Him, living for the Father's glory and walking in the good works that were prepared beforehand that they should walk in. But regardless, he says, wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die. He's calling them to look for life within the church. And wherever there's life, rush to it and strengthen it. I mean, what he's calling them to do is look out on this barren garden and where you see any traces of life, rush to that plant, bring it water, bring it nutrients, tend it, trim it, whatever you need to do, strengthen what remains and is about to die. In their context, look for any traces of God's grace and tend to it, rush to it, make it your priority. Now, I have to believe that this has something to do with verse four, those few insardists that had not defiled or soiled their garments. So could it be that he is calling them, could it be, I'm not saying dogmatically here, but could it be that he is calling the church to huddle around these few insardists that had not defiled their garments? to look to them to hear the truth, to be pressed towards holiness, to be pressed towards the fear of the Lord. Could it be that he's calling them to rush to these few that were about to die because of their surrounding situation? Verse three, he says, as he carries on this exhortation, remember. So we have wake up, we have strengthen, and we have the third one here, remember. Remember then what you received and heard. Isn't this amazing that Christ, remember in the church at Ephesus, you've abandoned the love you had at first? Repent, remember, and repeat the first works. He calls them to remembrance. Remember here what you heard. What did they hear, friends? What did they hear when they became a church? The gospel, the gospel. Remember what you heard. Remember the glory of this holy God who had every reason to crush you and throw you into the darkest pit in hell under his wrath forever without rest, without break, without any interval. conscious, eternal punishment, and yet he looked on you in your sin and in your rebellion, and instead of giving you what you deserved, he gives you what you don't deserve. He gives you the very glory of heaven embodied in the person of his son, Jesus Christ. And for your sake, He who was infinitely rich became poor so that you, through his poverty, might become rich towards God. Remember that. Remember that message. Remember when you repented. Remember when you believed based on this message of life and salvation that you would die in your sin if you continued to dig out these broken cisterns that could hold no water. And he's inviting you. to come and drink from the fountain of living water. Life, life, eternal life. Remember that message? He says, remember it and keep it. Remember it, keep it. Remember then what you received and heard, keep it. That means treasure it, guard it in the Greek, preserve it. You see friends, he goes straight for the gospel. Isn't this amazing? What do you do when you have a dead church? Do you start up programs? Do you start up life groups? No pun intended there. Do you start up fellowship nights where there's death? No, you hammer home the gospel. You hold out the gospel. You preach and you thunder the gospel to such people. And you wait for God to bring life. because you were born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed through the living and abiding word of God. And that word, Peter says, is the gospel that was preached to you. So you were born again by the gospel. You know what preserves and sustains life? The gospel. The gospel, some of us were taught in our, for me, my early days of Christianity, that the gospel is just something that you step through the door with and then you move on to greater and deeper and more breathtaking truths. And the gospel just becomes the doorway, the doormat into Christianity. Once you're there, you study, you get into eschatology, and you get into all this stuff, right? And yet, oh, how bankrupt that leaves the people. How bankrupt that leaves the people when we abandon the gospel and treat it as just elementary and foundational versus everything to us. Everything to us. The gospel's the reason I have access to God today and tomorrow and in my future. God knows every stumbling and every fall that you will commit. And yet the reason you will be able to look up and find favor and grace in the eyes of a God who ought to crush you is because of the gospel, the good news of what he's accomplished through the life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, and return of Christ, the gospel. He says, remember what you heard. Remember. Keep it. Treasure it. guarded, that's the word in the Greek, and repent. Repent. Change your mind. Whatever you have to do to repent, repent. He doesn't say work your way up to repentance, start a few weeks of mourning, leading up to repentance. Friends, he just says repent. This is good news here. Bad news would be for the next month, flog yourselves. For the next month, walk up those cliffy, walk up those ravines on the side of your city there in Sardis on your knees and make a sacrifice to God and then repent. No, he says, remember it, keep it, hold to the gospel and repent. Turn from your ways. Whatever deeds, acts, attitudes you're tolerating that only produce death, turn away from them. You see, friends, we allow, I was reading an article by Tim Challies this week. If you're not subscribed to his daily emails, I would encourage you to do so. I don't have time to read every single one, but every once in a while, I'd say for me, personally, once a week, he sends a good nugget that's just as perfectly applicable for me that week. And I'll read it and it's good. But one of the articles he wrote recently was dealing with what Christians will allow for entertainment. and so much entertainment that's out there that we allow, it just deadens. It takes whatever life is flickering in our spiritual lives and it kills it. You know that to be true. I know that to be true. And if that's the case, he says here, repent. Whatever is contributing to the deadness of your church, he says, Sardis, repent, repent. That's what he would say to us today. He would call us to repentance. And I've mentioned it before that when God calls a person to repentance, he is calling them to their greatest, most exceedingly great joy. He is calling them to a life of joy when he commands you to repent. He's not saying repent and become a stoic, repent and become a lifeless stick in the mud. Repent because in repenting you gain God, you gain life, you gain joy. Repent, turn, abandon. Like the proverb says, whoever confesses and forsakes his sins obtains mercy. It's not just confessing, it's also forsaking your sin that brings you to know the mercy of God. Repent. He says, if you will not wake up, If you will not wake up. Now, when you tell someone to wake up, and they're not physically asleep, what are you actually calling them to do? Let's not even talk about a spiritual context here. When you say, wake up, what are you inferring? Focus, open your eyes, to what? The truth, the reality, right? When, let's say our workplace that we're letting all kinds of things fail and I go and tell the team, you guys, we need to wake up. What am I saying? I'm saying that we have forgotten priorities, we have forgotten what's most important, we've forgotten what we're here for. Wake up to reality. We're failing, we're not succeeding in the very thing for which we are purposed to succeed. So here, wake up, wake up. They had fallen asleep to reality. There are sinners about you that need life and you have the answer. Remember what you heard? Hold it, guard it, repent. That's the answer, the gospel is the answer. He says, if you will not wake up, from your sleep, from your slumber. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief. This is not referring to the rapture, okay? How do we know this? Because he says, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. That's the idea here. He's coming against you. You, church. This is not the rapture Him taking you home. This is Him coming in judgment against you. How will this look? How will this pan out? And so we come to this question, well, were these people genuine believers? Were they true Christians? Ephesus, they had abandoned the love they had at first. Were they genuine Christians? Smyrna, Thyatira, Pergamum, were they genuine believers? Well, we know here that they're called church. Church, but must we conclude as I, must we conclude that just because they're called a church that everyone in these churches is a believer? Absolutely not. We saw in Thyatira, to the angel of the church in Thyatira, but yet you tolerate that woman, Jezebel, who is teaching and seducing my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. Was that woman a believer? No. No. She was of the evil one. So just because a church is called a church doesn't mean that everyone within the church is going to respond appropriately in such situations like this. He says, you will not know at what hour I will come against you. Now, what's the judgment threatened here? You ever thought about that? What is the judgment being threatened here? All he says is that I will come against you. Is it death? Is it scattering? I mean, what would physically happen to this local church in Sardis if this were to happen, if he were to come against them? Or in the case of Ephesus, I will remove your lampstand from its place. I believe personally that that can mean two things. To have your lampstand removed is one, to continue going through the motions as a church, but as far as your light in the community, You have no influence whatsoever. You're just pure people hiding in the catacombs. You have no reason to hide. You're out hiding. You're building your little homeschool community that's only Christians, and you're only friends are Christians, and you're so separated from the world that you're ineffective. So it could mean that removing your lampstand from its place is that. You're going on in the motions of a local church, but you're not shining anymore. The Lord's not allowing you to have any kind of influence with the world anymore. That's a bad place to be. Or that could mean I'm just gonna scatter you as a local church and you will cease to be a local church. I will remove your light from the community, which tells us that he doesn't need us. Right? Jesus isn't begging the church here on his knees saying, church, I need you to be alive. I need representatives on the earth. I need ambassadors. I need people who are gonna tell them about me. No, he says, I'll come against you. Or I'll put out your lampstand. I'll remove it from its place. Which is an important lesson for us is that the Lord does not need grace community church. Grace community church exists. We exist to be a people who are proclaiming the gospel of God in this city through all means possible, tracks, media, internet, voices. We are a people who exist to glorify God by fulfilling the great commission. That's why we exist. But were we to ever come to the place where we say, well, God needs us here. Oh, friends, that's a dangerous place to be. He doesn't need us. He says, here, I'll come against you in judgment. I'll come against you. And the judgment will be so swift and so unexpected. I will come like a thief. When do thieves come? Do they knock on your door and say, hey, I'm a thief. I'm ready to start this whole thing of excavating your house, of removing everything from your house. They don't do that, they come when you least expect it. And what Jesus is saying to this church is if you do not wake up to reality and turn from your ways, I will come against you at an hour that you don't expect, and it will not be good. He doesn't tell us the outcome. We're left to scripture to try to help us understand what that judgment will look like, but either way, friends, it's not good. And Christ, let the lesson be learned quickly here, that Christ can come against us. He can come against the people. We know that for believers, he'll come against us with discipline. For those who are not believers, he'll come against you with actual judgment. Judgment, retribution, I was looking for that word, retribution, repayment. That can happen to a church. Friends, I was listening to some sermons the other day, and they were recounting all the major reformers and their churches nowadays. John Calvin's, where he preached, is now a museum. I think there is one evangelical congregation that meets there maybe once a week. But nothing major coming out of there. What struck me the most was hearing about the church at Northampton where Jonathan Edwards preached, the days of jaw-dropping revival and widespread mourning of sin and a treasuring of Christ, that church is now one of the most liberal churches in that area. In fact, I heard recently that they were having some monks coming in to teach the art of meditation in their church. Jonathan Edwards was there! That's where he preached sinners in the hands of an angry God and where God moved mightily in the past and now it's just gone. Liberal, no truth, no gospel. Amazing. I do not want to see that happen here. Not because I'm holding up myself or holding up this grace community thing that we call our church, but we are a people who have claimed to know and make known Jesus Christ. And because of that, this place deserves to be dripping with life because of who this church belongs to. Let us understand that he does not need us, but yet he is pleased. He is pleased to work through us. Now, notice as we come to an end, the motivating benediction in verses four through six, the motivating benediction, the motivating conclusion. He says, yet, that's a beautiful word in this dark. Picture here yet. You have still a few names in Sardis a few people in Sardis Isn't that amazing that the Lord knows their names? You have a few names. He knows who those names are. He knows his sheep. He's the Good Shepherd He knows his sheep by name what a comfort to know that in a dark black picture of sin and death the Lord knows the names of his true servants and It happens there. It was true there, and it's true everywhere. He knows where his people are. People who have not soiled their garments. They have not soiled their garments. They haven't given in to what the rest of the church has given in to. Again, my guess, based upon the one other use of this word in Revelation, being Revelation 14.4, is what he's saying is that we have a few names in Sardis who have not given in to sexual immorality and idolatry. They've not soiled their garments. You see, scripture, specifically the book of Revelation, portrays and paints the Christian believer, the Christian community, as a people walking in white, adorned in white, waiting for our bridegroom's return, right? That's how the church is portrayed in the book of Revelation, so for us, To live contrary to that is for us to go through this life as a bride, walking through the mud and seeing the filth of this world and just putting mud all over our white garments. And that's what we do when we sin. We defile ourselves. We stain ourselves. We soil ourselves, to use the ESV's translation. We soil our garments. What would you think if you saw a bride walking to the altar? She's just gone through the tunnel of lights and flowers and all that, and she's making her way down the aisle, and as she's looking her husband in the eye, she begins to... She begins to look at the mud and pick up the mud and smell the mud and smear it on herself, her perfectly white garment. You would think, what is wrong with this lady? What is wrong with this woman? And yet that, friends, is a picture of sin and us in our sin as believers. We are soiling our garments. These garments that have been washed white with the blood of Christ, we're going back and soiling them, staining them? Let it not be, friends, let it not be. You have a few names, not so their garments, and they will walk with me in white. Notice that. They're striving for white. They're striving for purity. They're gonna walk with me in white. You see, they had the expectation that they would see Christ. And so as John says, whoever has this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure. So friends, if your hope is to walk with Christ in white, you think you're gonna be wallowing around in mud? No. You're gonna live according to your hope. You're gonna live according to your expectation. If you expect to be walking with Christ in pure white, you're gonna strive to walk with Christ in white right now. Your hope always affects your lifestyle, and that's what these people had. They had a hope that they would walk with Christ in white, and so they did not soil their garments. And Christ promises that they will walk with me in white, for they deserve it. or they are worthy. You see, sometimes we are so scared to use that word, that phrase, huh? You deserve to walk with Christ. You deserve to walk in white. Why? Because we think that people are gonna say and think that, well, we're so self-righteous that we deserve that. No, what Jesus is saying is they deserve to walk with me in white because they have loved me, they have persevered, they have not compromised, they have loved what is good, and they have hated what is evil, and they deserve to walk with me in white. They've put up with a dead church. They deserve to walk with me in white. Friends, if you strive for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord, and I know you're not perfect, and I know that you're not ever gonna attain perfection in this life, if you strive to walk that way, Christ says you deserve to walk with him in white. If you walk according to the word of God and your life looks like the life of the psalmist in Psalm 119, who delights in the Lord's testimonies and hates every false way, the Lord says that you deserve to walk with him in white. If you can read Psalm 119 and that becomes the song of your life and that becomes the reality that proceeds from your life, you deserve to walk with Christ in white. Imagine, that's an amazing thing. They will walk with me in white. You remember what happened in the garden? They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. What are you gonna be doing in the new Jerusalem? What are you gonna be doing in this garden city with the tree of life and this river of clear water of life proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb? What are you gonna do in that city? You're gonna walk with Christ. The picture here is a fellowship. What do two, you know, in the book of Amos, can two walk together unless they are agreed? The idea of walking with someone in the Bible has to do with fellowship and intimacy and communion. When you see a couple walking at the end of the day, taking a walk, holding hands, what does that speak to you of? There's relationship there, there's intimacy there. Friends, is it not an incentive to you and me this morning that we will walk in the new Jerusalem with our Savior? That we will walk with him in white? bright white that's been cleansed by blood, walking with Christ, they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy, they deserve it. Verse five, the one who conquers will be clothed thus, or like this in white garments. The one who conquers, those in Sardis who recognize and wake up and repent, they will be clothed. They will be clothed. And they will walk with me, that's the idea. They will walk with me, I will allow them to walk with me. And I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will never blot out his name from the book of life. There are some people who have tried to teach that you can have your name blotted out of the book of life, and they'll refer to this verse, they'll say, see? It's possible to be a Christian, to be one of the elect, and for God to then have to erase your name, blot it out from the book of life. That's not what he's saying here, though. He says, I will never blot his name out of the book of life. So what does it mean then? If you go to the Old Testament and David is praying regarding his adversaries, Lord, blot them out from under heaven. Blot out the remembrance of them forever. And God blots them out. Well, that's the book of the living, you see. That's the book of those living on the earth. And they get blotted out by God putting them to death. But the book of the living is not the same as the book of life here. As we find in the book of Revelation, the book of life was written before the foundation of the world. We'll read later on in Revelation. It was written before the foundation of the world for those who would be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. It's the Lamb's Book of Life we'll read later on. So this Book of Life is everyone who's been written in the Book of Life before the foundation of the world. Everyone that's been chosen unconditionally by the grace and mercy of Almighty God. He puts them in there in this book and the sun descends from heaven for those in that book and he saves those in that book. And the spirit comes later on and revives and brings to life and regenerates those in that book. And all he's saying here is that if you wake up, you repent, you remember the gospel and you hold it fast, and you turn from your dead ways and Sardis, I will never blot out your name from the book of life. You will be there secure forever. Just because he says I will never do something doesn't actually mean that he's going to do the opposite, right? And that's where the conclusion of those who teach that you can lose your salvation, that's where they get that from. He says I will never blot his name out of the book of life. Notice the other motivating benediction here. I will, at the end of verse five, confess his name before my father and before his angels. Do you realize what's being held out to this church here? You're gonna walk with me in white if you repent. The new Jerusalem will be you, me, and all my people, and yet you're not gonna be a face in the crowd because he knows the names and sardis of those who have not soiled their garments. He's gonna know you by name in the new Jerusalem. You're gonna walk with him in white and he's gonna confess your name. Your name before his father in heaven. Father, this, this is Bob. I don't think the Lord will stutter. Father, this is Bob. You wrote him in your book. I purchased him with my blood and the spirit resurrected him and preserved him until the end and he's here. Father, this, this is Cassie. Sorry sister, she's shaking her head back there. This is Cassie, this is Milton, right? The Lord openly without embarrassment confessing your names before his father in heaven. I will openly confess you before my father and before his angels. Now, does the father know our name already? Of course. Do the angels know our names? Probably. I mean, poor creatures have to follow us around and I, you know, they're sent as spirits to help those who are inheriting salvation. That's us, Hebrews chapter one. But I just, I think of what these guys have to endure and sing in our lives sometimes. And just the confusion that we put them into. I'm not trying to be funny. I'm literally thinking through this. Can you imagine what they have to see us go through sometimes? Lord, you died for these people? You descended heaven for these people? Not that they question him, but again, sanctified imagination here, right? I wanna confess you before my angels. They know our names, I'm pretty sure. They're around us all the time. The Father knows our names. So it's not that Jesus is introducing us to the Father and that Jesus is introducing us to the angels. What he's saying here is that I'm gonna own you before my Father. I'm gonna confess your name as one of mine. Jesus is saying, I'm not gonna be ashamed of you in that day. I will not regret one single drop of blood that I spilled for you. I will own you, I will confess your name before my father and his angels. That's the promise. Jesus said in the gospels that whoever is ashamed of the son of man and this earth, in that day he will be ashamed of you before his father and his angels. but whoever's not ashamed of Christ in this life, the Lord Christ will not be ashamed of you in that day. He will own you, he will take full responsibility for you before his father, his omnipotent, omniscient father, and he will take ownership of you, claim ownership of you before all of his angels that have seen you blunder and fall so many times. He says, that's what's gonna happen. That is a great motivating benediction to this dead church. I can't think of any other, I mean, there's seven, right? There's seven letters, so there's seven motivations at each end of each letter. But this is glorious if you think about it. He who has an ear, verse six, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He said this to the, can you imagine the initial reading of this letter to this church in Sardis on the Lord's Day morning? Can you imagine their initial responses? You know what, we have, I mean, I'm hoping that they would have said something like we have been hiding behind this reputation of being alive, of being a people who've been made alive by the glory of Christ. We need to wake up. We don't know what happened to this church. I mean, ironically, there's nothing mentioned in the New Testament about either the church's prior experience to this or the experience after this. We don't have any trace of what they did, what they didn't do, but he's not just referring to that church. He says, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. This is for all churches in all places at all times. This is for us today, friends of Grace Community Church. Let us not abandon the very purpose of our existence, the very purpose that justifies our existence, which is to be a people living fearlessly, living zealously for the Great Commission. That's why we exist. If we lose that, this becomes a country club. This becomes a nice place where there's safe teaching and there's inspirational messages and there's this and that and there's a bunch of heads getting bigger while souls are shrinking and souls outside are perishing. So with what time you have, spend it and be spent for Christ. With what resources you have, spend them for Christ. That's one of the reasons I encourage you with all my heart today. Let's join in prayer as a church on Wednesday nights together, pleading with God that we not become Grace Community of Sardis, that we do not become that. that we are alive, that we are dripping with life, that we are an aroma, a fragrance of life to the dead world around us, and a fragrance of life to churches around us, that we can come along and encourage and serve alongside of. If you see any areas in your life where There was once life, but there's death. I ask you to remember the gospel this morning, the gospel by which you have been made perfect before God. Remember that gospel and keep it, guard it, hold it fast, treasure it, hold it near, hold it fast, and repent. Remember what's being held out to you today, church. Living and walking with the risen, Immaculately pure Christ walking with him in white and then him openly confessing and owning your name before his father and all the angels. Whatever repentance you need to do, repent and enter into the joy of Christ. Let's pray.