Playing the Part of Being Christian

Transcript

GR 1991
02/05/2017
Playing the Part of Being Christian
Revelation 3:1-6
Gil Rugh

I invite you to turn in your Bibles to the Book of Revelation chapter three. One thing nice about our Bible being broken down into chapters is that we can realize we are making progress because we have already covered two whole chapters in the Book of Revelation. We come to chapter three and we’re moving through the letters to the seven churches. I want to stress again with you the importance of the local church in the plan and program of God. Here God’s final word of revelation is given to seven specific local churches and as Christ is the One addressing these churches through His servant John, each church is dealt with individually and evaluated by Christ who is the Head and Lord of the church. These are to be His people, conformed to His will and so He is giving His evaluation.

We noted these were seven historic churches selected from a region known as Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. They have a message that is for all local churches right down to our day and we find maybe we don’t exactly fit each church but what is said to commend or to rebuke a church, we learn from that. We look to see what is pleasing to our Lord what is displeasing. We’re reminded that we are addressed together, the church is commended and rebuked as a church as well as individuals within the church. Generally, we have words of commendation and then words of condemnation addressed to each church. We’re probably most familiar with the first church and the last church of the seven. Maybe because the first one sticks in our mind, Ephesus the church that departed from its first love or Laodicea the church that literally made Christ sick, made Him want to vomit them out of his mouth. But the church we’re about to look at, the beginning of chapter three, stands out for its own reason.

Among commentators there is discussion and disagreement about which church is in the worst condition, the church at Laodicea or the church at Sardis, which is before us. I think sometimes we overlook Sardis but there is no word of commendation to the church at Sardis. It is a church living on its past reputation and is a very harsh stern letter. The city of Sardis was similar in that sense. It was a city whose days of glory were in the past. It had been a great city. It still had wealth and influence but it wasn’t like its former days. Sardis originally was built on a plateau like we see in western parts of our country, in western movies or something, those flat tablelands with steep walls. It was a large area, 1500 feet high, where they had built the city of Sardis on that plateau. They built it there because it was an easily defended city. In fact, there was really only one way in this tongue of land, which was narrow so the only way to get to the city was up there and it could be easily defended.

The city had fallen twice in its past history under Cyrus the Persian in 549 B.C. Now how did that happen? Here you have the mighty Persian armies, you have the city of Sardis, and they weren’t concerned at all. They figured they could outlast them. There was no way for them to get into the city because of the high walls and one access but something happened. The Persians in one account says they secured a mountain climber and he figured a route and lead some soldiers up. The city of Sardis did not have one person guarding that area because they thought nobody could get up there so they were caught off guard, not watching. Three hundred and fifty years later under Antiochus the Great, the same thing happened. They found a way to climb the wall and there was nobody there watching or guarding.

Now I mention that because with that background in history you can appreciate when Christ addresses the church He tells them that they need to wake up, be on guard, look out for what’s happening and it would have a connection to what had physically happened to this city.

We don’t know how the church was started in Sardis but we’ve talked before about these churches in Asia Minor. Paul had an extensive ministry at Ephesus. That would have been in the early fifties. John is writing about 95 A.D. We assume that probably much of the impact in this region of the world happened as a result of Paul’s ministry in Ephesus. Some of those who were ministering with Paul would travel out to the other regions. Perhaps people who were saved who were visiting Ephesus carried the gospel back but we assume that probably in that time-period. I mention that because it would mean that the church here at Sardis if it was started in the early to mid-fifties, it would be forty plus years old as it’s being addressed now. You get some idea what has happened here. Here is a church in those forty years who has moved from being a solid biblical church proclaiming the gospel to a church that will be primarily comprised of spiritually dead people. Now forty years is a long time but not so long. I’ve been pastoring here for more than forty years. Here’s a church that goes from a great start to now being a spiritual morgue and there is strong warning given.

So we pick up with verse one. It’s addressed as all the other letters are, “to the angel” . . . remember the Greek word for “angel” is the word for “messenger.” An angel is a messenger the spiritual angels, the spiritual messengers if you will, but it is also used of human beings who were messengers and here it seems as we’ve talked about since the first chapter that these are probably physical men who come representing the church that they’re from. “To the angel of the church in Sardis write:” so the letter is addressed to this messenger perhaps a prominent person or leader in this church and through this person the whole church is addressed. The person is included in that address.

As is customary in the letters, Christ identifies Himself in a specific way and usually these go back to chapter one where John described the resurrected glorified Christ and now some of this is picked up and pieces of this are the way Christ introduces Himself. He is the One who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars and He’s the One speaking. The seven Spirits of God. Come back to chapter one verse four. “John to the seven churches who are in Asia: Grace to you and peace” . . . now note this. This is one of those passages where all three Persons of the Triune God are brought together in one place, one God eternally existing in three Persons. So this is addressed to the seven churches and Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all involved. “Grace to you and peace, first from Him who is and who was, and who is to come” . . . that’s referring to God the Father as we saw in our study, secondly . . . “and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne.”

Now as the letter to Sardis opened up, it was from Him who has the seven Spirits. Here this letter comes from the seven Spirits who served before the throne of God and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and so on. So the three Persons that make up the One true and living God and work in complete harmony and as the Father has planned the salvation as we often say carried out and accomplished by the work of the Son on the cross and applied by the ongoing ministry of the Spirit of God. So it is by one Spirit we are baptized into one body, the body of Christ, the church. You are identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection so the letter to Sardis says He’s the One who has the seven Spirits of God.

Now as we’ve noted and we’ll go back to remind you because a couple of things are drawn from the Old Testament here. We can’t look at everything but come to the Book of Zechariah. The great prophet Zechariah chapter three and as we’ve noted there are hundreds of illusions and connections back to Old Testament passages in the Book of Revelation which makes it somewhat of a challenge for us because if we’re not thoroughly versed in the Old Testament, sometimes it seems strange what we have in the New Testament. We’re going to pick up something at the beginning of Zechariah 3 because it’s going to come up later in this letter to Sardis so we’ll pick it up now and just refer to it we won’t come back.

Note how the chapter opens up Zechariah 3. “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord”. . . and in the Old Testament the angel of the Lord, the messenger of the Lord, is the pre-incarnate Christ so here you have the pre-incarnate Christ . . . “and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.” So here, Joshua the high priest, the pre-incarnate Christ present and at the right hand of Joshua is Satan to accuse him. We’ll see this ministry or work of Satan when we get to Revelation chapter 12 where he is identified as the accuser of our brethren and here he is accusing Joshua before the throne of God.

The “Lord said to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?’ Now Joshua” . . . verse three . . . “was clothed with filthy garments standing before the angel.” Now those filthy garments, remember they’re going to come up in the letter to Sardis and see what happens. “He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, ‘Remove the filthy garments from him.’ Again, he said to him, ‘See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes. Put a clean turban on your head’” and so on. So you see that picture of the filthy garments. Satan is accusing him but God clothed him in the garments of the righteousness that He provides. We’ll get to that later.

Now come down in this chapter to verse nine. “For behold, the stone I have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes.” Now we know what the interpretation is, because if you come down to Zechariah 4 verse 10. “Who has despised the day of small things? But these seven” . . . then jump down to where you probably have a hyphen after Zerubbabel—“these are the eyes of the Lord which range to and fro throughout the earth.” You have a stone that has seven eyes and this is strange but we’re told these are the eyes of the Lord.

Now go back earlier in chapter four. He saw in the middle of verse two seven lamps with seven spouts and then come down to the end of verse six. “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord.’” In this context the seven spoken of here like the seven eyes, these are the eyes of the Lord and what is being emphasized is that everything that is accomplished is done by the power and work of God and it is particularly the ministry of God the Holy Spirit who is carrying this out in applying it. So you have God the Father at work and we started out in chapter three with God the Son before the throne of God the Father. Now we have brought in the ministry of the Holy Spirit so what has to be accomplished for Joshua, including the change from filthy to clean garments, will not be by man’s power but by God’s power and it won’t be by might nor by power of men but by My Spirit says the Lord.

We identify the eyes as the eyes of the Lord roaming to and fro throughout the earth, which goes back to the beginning of the Book of Genesis in creation. What? “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth . . . and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep.” So here you see the eyes of the Lord ranging to and fro throughout the earth so these somewhat mysterious symbols and representations to us bring before us the work of the various Persons of the Godhead.

Now come back to Revelation chapter three. Christ is the One who has the seven Spirits of God and the Spirit of God represented in His seven-fold ministry. We could go back to Isaiah 11 as well as we’ve already studied it in previous studies. He acts implementing and carrying out the work that Christ accomplished on the cross so Christ has the seven Spirits who will accomplish what only the Spirit of God can do. It can’t be done by might nor by power--and the seven stars so Christ has the Spirit and He has the seven stars. That goes back to chapter one where He had the seven stars which also represent the seven messengers. Back in chapter one verse 20. “The seven stars are the angels or messengers of the seven churches” so we don’t have to wonder what we have here. We have picked up what was in chapter one. The stars represent the messengers, the lampstands will represent the churches.

Chapter 3 verse one. Here’s Christ and He is in the position of sovereign authority and power. Now the Spirit acts at His bidding. The messengers of the churches are under His power and authority also the churches that these messengers represent which is fitting because as Ephesians 1 tells us, Christ has been appointed Head over the Church. It is His body, He is the Lord of the Church. He says this, “I know your deeds, your works.” Each of the letters begin, I know; I know. He doesn’t have to say I’m gathering information, I’ve heard this about you, there’s nothing He doesn’t know. He’s the One as chapter two verse 23 told us who “searches the minds and the hearts.” He knows everything from our innermost thoughts and motives to every deed or work we do.

I know your deeds, your works and then imagine this church is gathered they have heard of the postman coming, the messengers coming, the letters being delivered here; they are gathered to hear what Christ has for their church. “I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead!” Now if that’s not a blast at a church. They had a name, a reputation that this was a good biblical church, but it was only a name. They weren’t spiritually alive, they were spiritually dead. They hadn’t experienced the ministry of the Spirit that brings life to the dead. Remember Ephesians 2, we were all “dead in our trespasses and sins” but we were “made alive in Christ.”

The problem is, here we have a church and it has a reputation of being a church comprised of believers but that’s all it is, a reputation, there’s no reality to it. The One who has the Spirit, the One who has authority over the church and knows all says this is a dead church. Well, that doesn’t mean there’s not a believer in it but there are very few believers in this church; primarily it is a church comprised of professing believers. They have a name that they’re alive. If you would ask at the church at Thyatira or the church at Ephesus or one of the others they would have said, “Oh yeah that’s a good church. If you’re going to Sardis, you’ll want to visit that church.” They had a good reputation; the problem is that was a carryover from prior days; it wasn’t the present reality.

What strikes me here is a church that’s been in existence for somewhere around forty years that started well, that was known for being a place where the gospel was proclaimed, where people were saved, where people lived out their faith in Christ. Yet now the Lord of the church says by and large there aren’t many believers left in this church. They just have a name but it is a church comprised of the spiritually dead people. It’s a spiritual morgue! Again, there are some believers but note down in verse four you have a few people, so what He’s doing is looking at the church as a whole, they’re dead. Later He’ll say there are a few but this church is about to expire spiritually so that there’ll be no life left in it. It’s almost shocking! We get here to this stage in a church relatively quickly. Forty years you go from being a church that is known for the truth, for the gospel, for faithfulness, and by the time Christ addresses it when it’s been there for around forty years, there’s almost no life left. That’s the church at Sardis, no commendation to this church.

Even a church like Pergamum that had the Nicolaitans that were teaching the same thing that Balaam taught and getting involved in false worship and immorality, they were commended in verse 13 of chapter two. Even Thyatira that had tolerated a false prophetess that was of the same character as Jezebel in the Old Testament in verse 19, had things they were commended for; there’s nothing commended in this church. We cut right to the fact, “you are a spiritually dead church.” Now we’re talking here about a church, like we might look at our liberal churches today and say, “well no believers would think that they are a true church, a believer’s church, but this has a name that they are alive.” That would mean among other churches, they were thought to be primarily composed of believers.

This is a serious, serious situation but “you are dead.” The One who can look at the hearts, look at the true condition of the inner person, says they’re dead. What happened? I don’t know maybe that initial generation and group they were saved; then the kids grow up; forty years, they’re adults. Somehow, things got comfortable. Sometimes you can identify a church that’s a Bible believing church but it’s a comfortable church. You know we have a good doctrinal statement and we believe it, we don’t deny any of the doctrines, but there’s something wrong. You know how it is. Many of you have been raised in this church or another Bible believing church and you know all the answers. You know what you’re supposed to do, you know what’s expected of you. You know what Christians do and we just do it. And part of it is we go to church and maybe even we take responsibilities and we do but there’s something wrong if there’s no spiritual life and that’s what happened to this church somewhere along the line.

They don’t get condemned for anything. They don’t get condemned for promoting false doctrine. They don’t get condemned for a corrupted life style, these things that might have stood out. This is a quote “good church.” You can’t say, I mean if you looked at their doctrinal statement, it’s good. They evidently had quote, “biblical teaching,” but it can be superficial. We talk about the Bible, we bring the Bible into the messages but they’re practical, they’re life orientated. They’re geared to be practical and help us and pretty soon we just have a group of people who are quote “Christian” in the broad sense. I think it is important, you note, He says, “you have a reputation you’re alive.” We’re not just talking about the flat out liberals, we’re talking about those who still profess to be believers, still profess to be a biblical church, but they’re spiritually dead. There’s no doubt about it. I can’t see a heart, you can see a heart, but the One who says “this is the One who searches the minds and the hearts” according to chapter two verse 23. There is nothing hidden from the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. This is a dead church.

He’s going to give them a series of commands, five of them. I’ll mention them to you, then we’ll just walk through them briefly. The first command is “wake up” or literally become alert. The second command is “strengthen” and then the next three are in verse three, “remember, keep, and repent.” Here are five things that must be done. They’re given as commands, present tense commands. Here’s what you must do. First wake up or literally the verb there, become alert. Become alert, wake up! We talked about in the history of this city two times when it fell disastrously to the enemy. Why? They weren’t alert. Nobody was watching so here spiritually wake up, become alert. Here’s a church that’s going along and it seems like nobody is paying attention to the seriousness of the spiritual condition of the church.

I can understand. As things settle down and there are more and more unbelievers who fill in, we become more superficial and accepting and now you have a church that’s almost entirely composed of unbelievers. That’s going to be a job straightening this mess out but Christ’s command is, wake up, become alert. The first thing become aware of your true condition.

Second, “strengthen” the things that are about to die. Now you know God is so gracious in each of these. In all the churches He gives them opportunity and encouragement to respond to Him. You know we tend often to be less patient; often in the wrong things and we wonder why in the world doesn’t God just do something. Well, because He’s patient “not willing for any to perish but for all to come to a knowledge of the truth” as we’ve studied in Peter but you must strengthen the things and note what He says. “Wake up strengthen the things that are about to die, the things that remain which are about to die.” This is just on the verge. You know sometimes you watch a medical program and they’ll show a car accident or some kind of tragic event. They’re there with a person and they’re just hanging on to life this person and they’ll say, “stay with me, stay with me, don’t close your eyes, don’t quit talking, keep it going.” Why? Well you’re on the verge of cashing out, as we would say. Your life is on a shoestring. That’s what He says here.

You’ve got to strengthen the things that remain. Everything is not gone. You know this church has a reputation. There are remnants of the truth that are still here. A few people here do know the truth and this truth hasn’t been forgotten. A little while back, I shared the gospel with an elderly man. Really elderly, older than me and as I shared the gospel you know what he said to me, “that’s what my grandmother told me. My grandmother when I was a little kid took me to church. They were teaching that exact same thing at that church. Soon as I got to college age I left that church and never went back” but he could remember there were things and in this church, they have a reputation of being alive so there are some things that are left; strengthen them, they’re about to die. The few believers that are left, they might be the old timers, they’ll die out. The truth that they’ve held and been aware of soon is forgotten and ignored totally so you strengthen the things which remain which were about to die but He has intervened.

How gracious of Him and then He says, “For I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God” and here you see God the Son and God the Father working. I have not found your deeds completed, fulfilled. Now this doesn’t mean they’ve done some good deeds as some of the other churches have. Their deeds have been just superficial. They have not been fulfilled. They’ve not gone below the surface so they’re like somebody who’s been raised in a biblical church; there’s conformity. They know and they can tell you a lot about the Bible because that’s what they’ve been taught at home, at church, but there’s no heart behind that so the deeds they’re doing, they’re doing because that’s what you do when you’re raised in a Christian home for example or go to a Bible believing church. That’s what you do but He says “I haven’t found your deeds completed, fulfilled in the sight of My God.”

Remember the Triune God is involved in this as we saw in chapter one and now as God looks, there’s no depth. There’s no reality there. This is somewhat, can I say, a scary situation. You have a church that claims to be a biblical church that has a reputation from its past and nothing in its present conduct would stand out to make you question it. They don’t have any doctrines that are glaringly changed or wrong. They’re not involved following the teaching of the Jezebel like at Thyatira but there’s no life as God looks at it. It’s all superficial, it’s in name and reputation only.

How long would our church go just on its reputation? As long as we don’t change the doctrinal statement and start denying foundational things or encouraging conduct that is clearly and grossly out of line people say, “yeah, that’s a biblical church. It has been for years.” That’s the reputation of Sardis. Somewhere along the line, there have been adjustments, compromise and more and more the seats are filled with unbelievers. This is the good thing in division, conflict, and don’t go farther than I go. I can make my own trouble. Paul told the Corinthians, “there must be divisions among you so that those who have passed the test become evident.” Sometimes we want everything to go well; we want it to be a church where everybody gets along, where everybody’s comfortable. We have a comfortable church and we believe the Bible, we believe these truths. We don’t have to always be making issues and somewhere, somehow this church with such a wonderful reputation fails the test.

The Lord of the church, the God who examines hearts says, “you’re dead. Wake up, strengthen” and then that word, “remember.” This church has a history. Remember. Remember it doesn’t say go someplace else, do something else. This church has failed. Start another ministry. You know how many ministries get started because they say, “well the church fails.” The church is God’s plan, there is no Plan B. Get it right. Remember what you have received and heard. Here’s a church that is not without the truth. Sometimes that becomes the difficulty. Remember what you received. Remember what you heard. Basically, remember and “strengthen the things, which remain” at the beginning of verse two. There are remnants here, there’s not people--it’s been so long, yeah we remember, yeah, yeah here’s the things we believe, yeah we have that. Then believe them! Remember, salvation is by grace through faith. It’s not by being born and raised in a Christian home or attending a biblical church. Somewhere along the line, the truth gets so tamed down and settled that you can have a church full of unbelievers that are comfortable and still fit under the radar. They can look like believers but there’s not enough pressure from the ministry of the Spirit through the ministry of the word. We just end up with some washed out kind of shallow Christianity. Amazing!

Many years ago when I was in China, Aaron mentioned the song that had an impact in people going and bringing the gospel to China but I remember talking with a pastor there who had spent 20 years in prison for his faith. They don’t want the kind of Christianity there is in America. That was their concern. Here you’re going to prison, you need the kind of Christianity we have where you don’t have to get persecuted, head for the West. We don’t want that here. I thought, very perceptive. What kind of Christianity do we have? Well we have a comfortable Christianity. If we’re not careful that can happen to Bible believing churches. How many of them roll over? That’s just the drift, the way you go. It’s like getting in a fast flowing river, you go with the current and as soon as you stop swimming up against the current, you’re going down stream with the current. What happened to churches? Tired of the battles, tired of the conflicts we don’t have to be the fightin’ Fundies. We don’t want to be a dead church.

Filling the seats isn’t the goal, being faithful is the goal! Something’s happened. Remember what you have received and heard. I That goes together with, wake up. Become alert. Remember, think about what you were taught. Think about the ministry of the apostles, the truth that you heard, the letter that Paul wrote to Ephesus and Colossi. Those churches that are over here and we read those and we have elements of that and we made copies. You know what happens now we have our own copy? We sometimes carry it, then we take it home and put it down until next Sunday and bring it and pretty soon we decide we’re not in it that much at church anyway, we don’t need to take our bible or have a copy and somewhere along the line this is serious. How do you get to this in forty years? The last of the apostles was still alive. Jesus is rendering His evaluation. Don’t think we’re a long ways from that, it didn’t take long for this church to get there, spiritually dead.

Remember “keep” is the second command. Keep, you have to latch on to this, pay close attention to it. This is just not nostalgic, Oh yeah, I remember. Yeah I remember when we concentrated on Bible study and the teaching of the Word and those things and we were challenged to be in the Word. We challenged one another we prayed for the lost and we were praying for our unsaved friends. We talked to one another and we would ask one another in the halls at church, “when did you trust Christ?” Pretty soon, we don’t want to offend anybody, we’re not going to ask them when they trusted Christ, they might think that they’re not saved. Well, if you’re offended if someone asks you when did you trust Christ, if that offends you, you probably never did because if you really trusted Christ you appreciate that somebody cares for your soul. These people asked me when I trusted Christ, they’re concerned. Well I don’t know, I grew up in this church. Oh, okay, no it’s not okay, you fail, you know the buzzer, wrong answer. You grow up in this church, you can die and go to hell; so you say when did you trust Christ? Oh, I grew up in this church. I ought to say well this is someone I want to talk with; maybe they will explain it. You know I can’t say a specific time because my parents shared the gospel with me and my Sunday school teachers and they did in other classes and it’s hard for me to exactly specify. It was at that point in time but they ought to understand that there was a time. Can you look back and see a time when you didn’t know the Lord? Now maybe you trusted the Lord early. That’s great but we oughtn’t to have difficulty talking about it, reflecting on it, expressing it. We shouldn’t be afraid to challenge one another. We ought to be glad. A visitor is here, shake their hand, tell them we’re glad to have them here. Ask them, “have you ever-trusted Christ as your Savior?” “Oh, they might not come back.” Well maybe if you don’t ask them they won’t come back and nobody will get to ask them.

You know we’re here about God’s truth. This is wonderful. This is what it’s about. Keep it, pay close attention to it and repent. This is what we have to do, this is where it comes to repent. Repent because this all presses in. What’s the unbeliever going to have to do as the unbeliever thinks about it. Yeah my grandmother told me about that, my parents, my Sunday school teacher, whoever. I know what the truth of the gospel is. I know what God has done, what He requires. Lord you know in all of this I’ve just gone through the motions, I’ve never really trusted You. Lord, I acknowledge I am a sinner guilty. You know what happens? What are people going to think? They think I’m saved. Who cares what they think? You have a name that you’re a believer but God says you’re spiritually dead. Who cares what the person thinks who thinks you’re a believer? The One who is going to judge your soul is the One whose evaluation matters. Is it more important that people think well of me than God approves me as one of His?

Repent. That is a word that involves a change that begins in your mind. Literally the word to be of another mind but in the Scripture, it is an action that always results in a change. It does. Sometimes used in place of the word, “faith” because when a person truly believes in Christ they have repented. They have recognized their sin and guilt before God and in effect by the grace of God turned away from their sin to place their faith in Christ. Now their life will never be the same because they are made a new creation in Christ. Repent. Well gee, you’re going to have to have an evangelism service in this church. Hopefully this letter to the church at Sardis will be that. That the 98 percent of the people or whatever who are not saved in this church are going to be responding. What are they going to think I’ve been an elder, a deacon, a Sunday school teacher? Who cares what they think it doesn’t matter and you think that any true believers left in that church weren’t doing some rejoicing when people did trust Christ.

Repent, there’s no other choice. Oh, there’s another choice stay where you are. “Therefore, if you do not wake up” . . . what He told them to do in verse two . . . “I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.”

Consistent in these letters we are carried to the time when we will confront Christ so we are to live on the edge of expectation. Down later He’ll talk about walking in white, which will take place at the Second Coming. Well look, He didn’t come so I guess the church at Sardis got a pass; no! As I live, “every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” There’s coming a day each of us will give an account to God. “The Father has appointed the Son as Judge of all men” in John 5.

That’s why He always brings it to the attention as if we’re on the brink and it’s coming like a thief. It goes back to like Matthew 24 and is repeated in 1 Thessalonians 5. Peter in 2 Peter in his second letter repeated it. We’re to live in expectation so that if Christ would come in the next 10 minutes we wouldn’t say, “wow, I wasn’t expecting You.” We’d be saying, “Yes, I’ve been expecting You.” So what would you do a word of warning? If you don’t wake up, I’ll come to you unexpectedly and they will not be prepared. That’s what Paul told the Romans. Now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed. It’s not a time to be drowsy; it’s not a time to be asleep. I don’t know, He may be coming today. I know it’s closer than the first day I believed. It’s closer than the first day you believed. Well, but I don’t know. Well you had better live like it, that’s what the point of this is. You don’t know when that time will come. We will meet Him and we will be judged by Him. That’s a word of warning to the unbeliever.

Then that, what do I say, reminder not every single person in the church at Sardis is an unbeliever but you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy and having the soiled garments, remember back in Zechariah 3. Satan is accusing Joshua the high priest because he’s clothed in soiled garments but God plucks him out of the fire and clothes him in clean garments. That’s the contrast. There are a few who will be clothed in the righteousness of Christ and the righteousness that comes from the work of the Spirit in the life that moves us to the obedience so we get to this in Revelation 19 when we meet the saints clothed in fine linen white and clean which is the righteousness of the saints. They will walk with Me in white.

Then He elaborates on this. “He who overcomes.” We ought to take this; every church every one of these seven has the same promise. He who overcomes. Here at the church in Sardis it is blatantly clear. The majority of the church are not overcomers but every church gets that sorting out. “He who overcomes” not he who is a member of the church at Ephesus, he who is a member of the church at Thyatira. He who overcomes a reminder that not everyone in the church is an overcomer. We have a hard time with this. We have a hard time dealing with it. We don’t want to become accepting where we shouldn’t nor do we want to go the other way. There is a balance. He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments.

We’ve been back to 1 John 5 we won’t go back again. “Who is he who overcomes but he that believes that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God.” Your faith in Christ is what makes you an overcomer, a victor, and “he who overcomes will be clothed in white garments.” It can only be done by the power of the Spirit of God, you cannot clean up yourself. That’s the picture with Joshua the high priest in Zechariah 3. He’s clothed there in soiled garments, polluted. “All our righteous deeds are like polluted rags” Isaiah writes but Christ intervenes and by the power of the Spirit applying the work of Christ to us. We’ll be clothed in white and the promise is to the overcomer, he’s clothed in white and his name is never erased from the book.

We have more to say about this because this book in which the names are written becomes before us especially in chapter 13 and then in chapter 17 verse eight where they talk about the “names in the book from the foundation of the world” and the same in both 13 and 17. We’ll talk more about it. I take it this is a promise that there’s no danger to true believers here, the overcomers, those who have their faith in Christ. They will be clothed in white. This is not a threat to remove their name from the book of life. The promise is their names not written so there is no confusion here. Well maybe I’ll be removed from the book of life because I’m in a church here with these—no. Our names are in the book of life. The overcomer will be clothed in white. His name will never be removed. When we get to the great white throne in chapter 20, it is those whose names are in the book of life who will enter the kingdom, the rest are cast into the eternal hell. I will confess His name before My Father and before His angels. This is drawn from passages like Matthew 10 and Luke 12 where Christ said when He was on earth, he who confesses Me before men, I will confess before My Father, before the angels. He who denies Me before men, I’ll deny. Again, the security, the promise; how gracious He is.

He doesn’t say it’s too late for the rest of you. He calls them to repent before it is too late. He does this in each of these churches. There’s not a rush to judgment here but there is a warning about the surety of judgment. You know the church isn’t a place for everybody. The church is to be a place where God’s people gather to honor Him. Unbelievers are welcome to come in and hear but we never want to blur the line. Our goal is not to make unbelievers comfortable. We want them to come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit that will make them so uncomfortable they will turn from their sin and place their faith in Christ nor do we want to make Christians comfortable so we can go to heaven on flowery beds of ease as the hymn writer says. That’s not the goal.

The goal is to be faithful, to stand for the truth, to be committed unshakably to the truth. We are bound together in a local church as the church of Sardis was. We can’t escape responsibility, number one to Jesus Christ and then to one another. And as we are faithful to Christ and faithful to one another, then God works in accomplishing what He intends for His church. There’s no sure guarantee in any other way to keep this church from ending up where Sardis was or to have any of the other problems. How sad if the testimony of this church in twenty years would be, well they have a name but they’re dead. There was a time when but it’s not true now. That happened in forty years for Sardis. We want to be faithful. We want to be overcomers. We want to look forward to the reward He’s promised.

Let us pray together:
Thank You Lord for Your word for the power of Your word. Lord, you’ve entrusted this truth to Your churches. It’s easy for us to read these letters to historical churches at a point in time and think we’re not like them, well we wouldn’t do that and fail to take to heart the message that has been given to the churches. Lord we, if we are not careful, if we are not faithful, we’ll soon end up like the worst of these. May we be faithful, may we challenge one another to be faithful. May we not forget what has been entrusted to us? May we have lives firmly unshakably committed to the truth and to a church that faithfully proclaims the truth as we anticipate the coming of the One who is our Lord and Savior? We pray in His name. Amen






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