THE JOURNEY Jesus Letter to the Church in Sardis The Church in Ephesus You have abandoned the love you had at first Repent and do the work you did at first, if not, I will come to your and remove your lamp stand from its place, unless you repent. The Church in Smyrna Imitate Jesus faithfulness Jesus knows his sheep Jesus wants and reward his people The Church in Pergamum Hold fast Jesus name, and build up your faith in Him. Repent against the sins of the world. Be a conquer in Christ Jesus. The Church in Thyatira Jesus knows our works Do not tolerate sin Conquer in the name of Jesus The Church in Sardis The charges against Sardis were incomplete works of faith and spiritual laziness. To those who conquered Jesus promised to walk with them, not to blot out their names from the Book of Life and to confess their names before the Father. Scripture: Revelation 3:1-6 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 the reputation of being alive, but you are 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, Sardis 1
what you 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. John Wesley! Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on Earth (The Letters of John Wesley: http://wesley.nnu.edu). Introduction In this letter to the Church of Sardis, Jesus uses a, what I call, a Middle Eastern motivation style to wake up His Church. Now, motivation simply means the source that compels us to action. It s that one thing that drives us and pushes us to succeed and each society has their own ways of motivating people. In Jesus letter to the Church in Sardis, Jesus uses a, what I call, a if you do this, then this is what you deserve or Action vs Consequence style of motivation to move His Church into the actions of the Kingdom of God, deserving God given results. Historically, the residents of Sardis knew very well what had happen to their city six hundred years before the Christian gospel reached them. The city had been thought, for a long time, that they will never be capture by foreign powers. There was a strong sense of pride, in putting their trust in their surroundings, and were not willing to take council from others. In their minds their city was secured, sitting on top of its steep hill. Attackers might come and go, but the citizens were quite 2
content to see them do so. They had a false sense of security, in that they thought they could never be captured. Until one night, during the reign of the famous King Croesus, the invading Persian army found a way in. Someone, greatly daring, got up part of the sheer cliff and managed a surprise attack. Because nobody was expecting it, the result was all the more devastating. Cyrus the Persian, who features in various biblical stories as well, conquered Sardis in 546 BC: a never-to-be-forgotten moment in the history of the city of Sardis. Though Sardis remained an important city, the lesson had been learned and it was a humiliating lesson. Now the gospel has reached Sardis and there is a vibrant Christian community in Sardis, with the sense that they have forgotten this lesson. On the one hand, the Church have a reputation of being alive of being a vibrant going concern, a fellowship where things are happening. On the other hand, they have gone to sleep on that good reputation, and they need to wake up. Not all is bad news, but the warning signs are plinking already as Jesus dishes out His charges against His Church in Sardis. The Charges Against Sardis I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are 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 (Revelation 3:1-2). Charge 1: Incomplete Works Jesus charge agains Saris comes to us in twofolds. First, the Church in Sardis works have not been found to be complete. What did Jesus mean by Sardis incomplete works? Sardis incomplete works derive out of their faith in Christ. In another way, what Jesus is saying is that, Sardis faith in Christ is incomplete. The Christians in Sardis have their feet in the things of Christ, but at the same time, have the other feet in the things outside of Christ. What is complete Christian faith? Faith in the New Testament covers a wide area of human trust and trustworthiness, merging love on one hand, and loyalty in the other. Now, within the Jewish and Christian thinking, faith in God also includes belief. Belief in or accepting certain things as true about God, and what He has done in the world (e.g. creation, bringing Israel out of Egypt; raising Jesus from the dead, sending the Holy Spirit etc). For Jesus, faith often seems to mean recognizing that God is decisively at work bringing the kingdom through Jesus here on earth. For Paul, faith is both the specific belief that Jesus is Lord and that God raise Him from the dead (Rom. 10:9), and the response of grateful human love to sovereign divine love (Galatians 2:20). The incompleteness of Sardis work is that they were Christians who went about their works with a strong sense of doubt in their believe in Jesus, and therefore did not give their complete trust in their love and loyalty in Christ. You see faith in Christ really tells us that, its either all or nothing; either 3
Jesus really is the Lord, rightly asking for our absolute allegiance, or he is a sham and should be rejected outright. The Church in Sardis had to make a decision, either all for Christ, or nothing for Christ at all. One thing they cannot do is to waffle in the middle. If they continue waffling in the middle, or no man s land, no matter what they do for Christ will always be incomplete. Therefore, Jesus tells them; 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. 3 Remember, then, what you 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 (Revelation 3:2-3). Charge 2: Spiritual Laziness The second charge emerges in verses 4 & 5, where Jesus acknowledges that some of the Christians in Sardis haven t allowed their clothes to become dirty and polluted. Here Jesus uses a metaphor, of dirty and polluted clothes, to refer to the condition of the spiritual character of the Christians in Sardis. Specifically, Jesus points to their spiritual laziness. Like people who can t be bothered to wash their clothes regularly, they are falling into slack habits. Spiritual laziness is summoned up by John Wesley s mom, Susanna Wesley in a conversation she had with John, when John was a little boy. One day John asked his mom to defined sin; Son, she replied, [sin is] whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God or takes away your relish for spiritual things. In short, if anything exceeds the authority and power of the flesh over the spirit- that to you becomes sin. However good it is in itself (Letters of Susanna Wesley, June 8, 1725). John Wesley traveled 250,000 miles on horseback, preached 40,000 to 50,000 sermons, produced hundreds of pieces of literature, and at the age of 83 he was angry with his doctor because the doctor didn t let him preach more than 14 times per week. At the age of 86, he wrote these words in his journal, Laziness is slowly creeping in. There is an increasing tendency to stay in bed after 5:30 in the morning. When you stand in front of his statue at the Wesley home in London, there is one simple line printed there: Dear reader, if you feel constrained to praise the instrument, stop and give God the glory. Spiritual Laziness in God s kingdom is a sin. When one lives in doubt in their faith in Christ, they will always serve Him with this kind of, spiritual laziness behavior. There is no commitment to honoring Christ, to keep the unity of the Body and to serve Christ in His mission. For the Church in Sardis, If this kind of attitude continues, the church will suffer the same fate as the city had suffered six centuries earlier. Verse 3 states that; Jesus will come like a thief and they won t know what time the thief will attack. To The One Who Conquers But for the one who He has chosen, specifically, to reject all and only live to honor and love Christ and his mission, who have woken up, and conquered, Jesus promises the following to them; 4
Promise 1: Walk with Christ The first promised is that, they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy (Rev. 3:4). White robes symbolizes newly baptized people that have come out of the water anew in Christ. They would, in other words, share the victory of Jesus over all, including ultimately death itself, that drags human life down into the dirt. Promise 2: Your Name Will Never be Blot out of the Book of Life The second promised is that;... I will never blot his name out of the book of life (Revelation 3:5). This idea of Jesus never bolting out the faithful s names from the book of life, goes back to Exodus 32 when the Israelites sinned against God by worshiping the golden calf. Moses says to God But now, if you will not forgive their sin, please blot me out of your book that you have written. But the Lord said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book (Exodus 32:32-33). Now, in that context, all of the Israelites had deserved to be blotted out of God s book, and it was only God s fresh act of mercy that rescued the situation. Closer to the context of the Book of Revelation, many Greek cities had an official register of all citizens. Some places kept the grim custom that, when a citizen was to be condemned to death, his name would first be blotted our of the book, so that sentence could proceed without any stain on the city s reputation through one of its citizens facing the ultimate penalty. Now, Jesus letter is not advocating or advancing a theory of pre-destination. Jesus is simply reminding the Church of the norm of the early Christian warning, going back to those of John the Baptist, Paul and Jesus Himself. It s a warning against presuming that belonging to the community of the people of God, irrespective of behavior within it, is all that is required. For us, it would be the equivalent to, coming to faith in Christ, and then going back to the old life style of the flesh. Promise 3: I Will Confess Your Name before the Father The third promised is this Jesus says; I will confess his name before my Father and before His angels (Revelation 3:5a). In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus said to his disciples; And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God (Luke 12:8-9). To be acknowledged by Jesus Himself will be amazing. To have Him acknowledge us before His Father will be the moment of all moments. Let s wake up before it s too late. Conclusion So overall, Jesus points out the sin acts of the Church in Sardis. First incomplete works, which comes out of their incomplete faith. Second, their spiritual laziness, which led to their lack of serving Christ and His mission here on earth, in their community. They kept the faith to themselves, perhaps the great sin of the Church today. 5
The consequence of these sins within the Church in Sardis, is that Jesus will spit them out His mouth, and He will snuff out their lamp before the Father. However, there where the few that had complete faith in Christ, and were not laze spiritually before their Master. To these Jesus Promised that he will walk with them in righteousness, that their names will never be plot out to the book of life, and that He will confess their names before the Father. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches (Revelation 3:6). 6