The Book of Revelation: Revelation 3:1-6

Speaker: Dustin Scott

Passage: Revelation 3:1-6

GOD’S OVERFLOWING, SELFLESS LOVE

We’re going to be in Revelation chapter three, and there’s a part of me that wants to say buckle your seat belts because this is one of the harshest addresses to the churches. But before we dive in, I just had a sense all morning long, since the beginning of the day, through the first gathering and until now, that there’s really only one problem in the church. Only one. It exists today, and it existed in the first century when Jesus was giving these addresses to these churches.

And it’s this: we so easily forget that we belong to Him.

That’s the one problem. And as I think about the goodness of the Gospel, as we were singing that song about His precious blood, I think we lose track of the incredible gift we’ve been given. You see, before time began, there was the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Paul will tell us in the Book of Acts, as he’s speaking to the Greek philosophers, that God doesn’t have any needs. God didn’t make the world because He was lonely. He didn’t make it because He was bored. He didn’t even make it because He needed people on earth to worship Him. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit could have existed for eternity in perfect love and bliss.

So why, then, did He create the world? Because of His overflowing love. And not only did He create the world because of His overflowing love, as Colossians says of Christ: everything was made through Him and for Him, He redeemed the world out of perfect love.

I don’t know if we always realize this at the front of our minds. But if you think about the Triune God and who the Father loves the most, you see He loves His only begotten Son the most; the Word, the second person of the Trinity. And who did He give up on the cross in order to save us? The Son.

And not only did His selfless love pour out in that way, but the Book of Revelation will tell us that after Jesus took upon Himself the fullness of human nature, He took on the form of a slave. This doesn’t just mean, in the words of Philippians, that He served. It says He took on the form of a slave. Roman citizens didn’t get crucified, only slaves did. 

Not only did God love us that much, but the book of Revelation will so clearly tell us that even now, in eternity, He’s still a human man. He still dwells in our nature to show His solidarity with us as our Great High Priest. He created us in selfless love, He redeemed us in selfless love, and He’s transforming us in selfless love. I think we so readily forget the Gospel and the good news of that truth.

That’s the backdrop of where we’re going this morning in the church of Sardis, because our Lord is going to issue an intense rebuke to this church.

CHIASTIC STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCHES

But before we do, I want to pause for just a quick second because it would be easy to overlook where we are within Jesus’s seven addresses to the churches. We’re exiting the center of His addresses, and, as English speakers, we could easily overlook that. So I made us a handy dandy chart. Well I didn’t make it, I just thought of it, and then our team created it.

You may remember in chapter one of the Book of Revelation, we talked about how the Book of Revelation is the most Hebrew book of the New Testament in both its theology and its structure. Within Hebrew theology, there are these important phrases called chiasms, and that’s going to be important for us today.

Now, chiasms exist in English. They’re kind of tacky and corny. One you’ve likely heard a country song is, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” A more pseudo-inspirational one you might see at the gym is, “Quitters never win, but winners never quit.” They’re mirrored statements, and within Hebrew, they’re incredibly important for communicating truth.

Jesus’s seven letters to the churches are a chiasm. If you look at one outer edge, you find two churches which are alike. You find Ephesus, who is doing so poorly in the eyes of the Lord because they’ve forgotten their first love, that He’s preparing to take their church away. Then you have Smyrna, who is enduring persecution with such faithfulness that the Lord has no rebuke. His only exhortation is to keep on keeping on in the faith. 

There is a mirrored grouping at the other side of the chiasm. You’ll find Philadelphia, who is enduring persecution like a good soldier and clinging to the faith. The Lord says He’ll spare them the persecution that is to come. And then, at the end, we find Laodicea, who is doing so badly that the Lord is threatening to puke them out of His mouth.

Now, some theologians have tried to turn this into a graph for history, but I think that’s missing the importance of what’s going on within the Hebrew context. In the center of the chiasm, we find three churches: Pergamum, Thyatira, and Sardis. They’re that central truth, the idea at the middle of the phrase, and where are they at? They’re mixed. They’re confused. They’re engaging in a lot of things which violate the heart of the Lord. They’re doing well in some areas, but they’re deeply in trouble.

Why do these churches sit at the center of the chiasm? Because they are where the majority of the church in our time, and in the first century, lives. We’re mixed, we’re muddle, we’re doing a couple things well, but in other areas we have to repent and turn back to His ways. And why is that important? Because when we go to the churches of Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, we find a cycle within the cycle.

In Pergamum, we find a church which tolerates sin. In Thyatira, we find a church that’s permissive towards its own sin–even accepting. And then, in Sardis, we find a church that’s dead. This is the cycle of spiritual decline within the church.

That’s incredibly important for us as we tackle the church of Sardis. This isn’t just a letter to them; it’s a letter to us. It’s our Lord’s way of issuing forth rebuke: stay out of this cycle and cling to My voice.

THE PROBLEM IN SARDIS

So as we go through the church of Sardis, I want to give us a couple of questions to keep us on track. What was going so wrong in Sardis? What was the problem?

Well, we’ll find that the church of Sardis had a renowned reputation, but they were inwardly dead. What caused this problem? These believers were informed by outward cultural markers of success rather than the Lord’s leading. What was the solution? How is Jesus going to draw them out of this mess? Well, the Sardinians, or as I like to call them, the Sardines, needed to repent and commit themselves to regularly hearing, receiving, and obeying God’s voice.

This is the most Israelite book of the New Testament. Remember the Shema, Hear, O Israel. What did this church stand to lose if they didn’t repent? Their present and their eternal lives would fall into jeopardy. What did they stand to gain if they did? If they repented, they would find transformation in Jesus and attain eternal life.

So as we explore this passage, as we put this against the backdrop of that cycle of spiritual decline, I would invite us to consider where we have allowed our outer life, our own permission we’ve given ourselves to sin, our outward reputation, to inform our self-perception rather than the regular hearing and obeying of His voice.

Would you guys stand with me? We’re going to read through the address to Sardis. I’ll be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, chapter three, verses one through six. I’ve shifted a couple of the words to mirror a little closer to what I think the Greek is saying.

“To the messenger of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of Him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: ‘I know your works; you have a name of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you have received and heard; obey it and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. Yet you still have a few names in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes; they will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. If you conquer, you will be clothed like them in white robes, and I will not erase your name from the Book of Life; I will instead confess your name before my Father and before His angels. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.'” 

Let’s pray.

Holy Spirit, You’re the guide, and You’re the teacher this morning. We don’t want to be believers who live in a reputation. We don’t want to play pretend; we want Your truth, Your way, and Your life, Lord. So, guide us into that this morning. Lord, I continually think about that warning at the end of the book of Revelation: to anyone who adds or to anyone who takes away. So Lord, do not allow us to add or take away from Your Word this morning. Instead, let Your truth be spoken to the churches. Give us ears to hear what Your Spirit is saying to the churches. We ask this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

JESUS’S INITIAL STATEMENTS TO THE CHURCH

Let’s go phrase by phrase and verse by verse here. It says, “These are the words of Him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.”

Why is Jesus introduced this way within the church of Sardis? Why is He introduced as the one who holds the seven spirits and the seven stars? I think it’s important that the first way Jesus is revealed within this passage is as the Spirit bearer. He is the one whose word is completely interlocked with the leading of the Holy Spirit. We find that that’s a seven-fold mission which comes from the book of Isaiah.

Why is that important? Because the Sardinian sin is this: they were resisting the voice of the Holy Spirit in their lives. They were not submitted to Him. They were resisting His authority within the scriptures. They were resisting His leading within prayer. They were resisting His gospel truth as testified to by the apostles.

And why is it important that Jesus is holding the seven stars? Well, we learned in chapter one that the stars represent the messengers and the leaders of the early church. This means that Jesus is holding the church, foremost its leaders and then its members, accountable for this sin. He is reminding the leadership and then the membership that they are not their own; they belong to Him, they are in His hands. These believers don’t possess ownership of their lives. He does. 

This church was grievously sinning against the Triune God through their regular resistance to the Holy Spirit. Why is that important? Because Jesus shows here that because they are not under His control, He is greatly displeased with this church. I think it’s important from the onset to address the fact that this message is given to a church. It’s given to believers, not to the world, not to those who have not heard the Gospel of Christ, but to the church.

This moves us to our second statement: I know your works.

Jesus observes, knows, and understands every detail of how they’re living. He sees the good, He sees the bad, and He sees the ugly. No aspect of who they were or what they were doing was hidden from His understanding or evaluation. He was, and He is, the judge.

Next statement: you have a name or reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

I think it’s important to notice that Jesus’s first exhortation to this church is not a call for radical action, but a call for radical honesty. Notice the dynamics of this rebuke: “You claim to be alive; you have an outward reputation of being alive. When the world sees you, they think that you’re alive, but I, as the Lord, say to you, you are dead.” The Sardinian self-perception was utterly flawed. To use a bit of a shameless pun, they were dead wrong about themselves. They were confident that they were great with God. They were confident that they were living the Christian life. They were confident that they were excelling in the Kingdom, and yet His judgment here declares, you’re estranged from Me and you’re spiritually dead.

How did these believers become so diluted? By shutting out the voice of God. Right now, I want to talk about the systematic process of how that happened. You see, the church of Sardis was living from a reputation. The word in Greek here is onoma, which can be translated “name” or “reputation”. These believers were using worldly metrics to gauge their spiritual health rather than His voice.

We’ll find that booming membership, temporal power, impressive legacy, and historic achievements – these were the things that were informing this church’s self-understanding. As a result they had become lifeless, loveless, and, most alarmingly, Jesus-less. Don’t believe me yet? Well, you know who’s on stage, so we’re going to dive into some historical minutiae.

THE CITY OF SARDIS

Let’s talk about the city of Sardis. It was the ancient capital of the Lydian empire. It was located on a prosperous east-west highway in Asia Minor. It had a history of being affluent and rich. It was also the many-time recipient of a certain award in the Roman era called the Niachorus award. This was an award that the emperor would dispense to cities that were exceptionally allegiant to his call, meaning they worshiped him all the time. And guess what? They got really great tax breaks for doing it. Seems right: politicians saying tax breaks for you, you worship me…anyways.

The city of Sardis possessed a reputation for boastfulness which led to recurrent tragedies throughout their history. We find that there was a Persian siege in 547 BC. We find that the Hellenistic ruler Antiochus Epiphanes overtook the city and destroyed it. Most recently, to Jesus’s address, there was an earthquake in 17 AD that leveled the city. But guess what? Sardis was a proud, self-reliant city so it bounced back from tragedy and became really arrogant. 

Why was Sardis so self-confident? The simple answer is geography, and what I don’t mean by that is they were really good at remembering names on maps. Their city was located atop a steep citadel which made it naturally impervious to invasion. In fact, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus will tell us that this city was so self-confident that when Cyrus the Great laid siege against the city, the Lydian military leadership on the inside didn’t even station properly armored soldiers upon the wall because the attitude was, they’re never going to get over here. Guess what? They did, and the city was destroyed.

THE CHURCH OF SARDIS

In Revelation 3, Jesus appears to be making a very intentional connection between the culture of the city and the culture of the church: you, as the church, have taken on the pagan, non-believing culture of your city. So, let’s talk about the church or assembly of Sardis. We’ll find that there’s a church father that gives us a little bit of insight into who they were; his name was Melito of Sardis. He was a God fearing man who gives us some hope that they figured it out after this address. But we can historically reconstruct the church of Sardis in several ways.

I believe that ethnic Jews likely constituted the majority membership of the church in Sardis. Why? Because Sardis was home to the largest Jewish synagogue ever recorded or discovered in ancient history. This synagogue’s assembly hall was so huge, it could comfortably fit a minimum of 1,000 worshippers. Josephus tells us that this community was so uniquely respected by the Romans, that they were actually awarded Imperial protection. The pagans could not interfere in the worship of these Jewish believers because they were prominent in the city.

So that’s speaking to the Jewish community. It doesn’t get us to the Christian church yet, but it leads us to two general theories regarding who the Christians were in the city.

The first one is that perhaps they separated from the Sardis synagogue, and they were shirking their Christian lifestyle due to a fear of persecution at the hands of non-believing Jews and pagans. I don’t think that’s a very good theory. Why? Because there’s no reference to persecution within this address. It’s not like Smyrna, it’s not like Philadelphia. This leads to the second general theory, which is this: that these believers were still members in the Sardis synagogue and they were benefiting from its wealth, its power, and its affluence. 

If we take these historical factors and probabilities together, we can conclude that the church of Sardis was likely mammoth in its size. It could have had 1,000 members. It was exceeding in its wealth and influence. Josephus would say it had so much power, it could finance projects both in Sardis and back at home in Jerusalem. And last but especially not least, this Christian community was exceptionally proud of its historic accomplishments. They had the same pompous, pious attitude as the surrounding pagan neighborhood. And this is how Sardis became so perilously diluted.

JESUS’S FURTHER STATEMENTS TO THE CHURCH

So let’s move to our next statement: wake up and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death.

The Greek imperative here for “strengthen” is contingent on the participle “waking up,” which means that these believers’ strength is going to be found through the act of waking up. These believers must wake up and become conscious of the Lord’s perspective towards them, towards their sin, towards their delusion, or else they are going to die spiritually. His truth is what is needed for the dismantlement of their self-delusion.

Now, what does this next statement, “what remains and is on the point of death,” mean?

Jesus warns the Sardinian church that they’re hanging on by a thread, that they’re nearing the point of no return. But the term loipos, which is where we get the word “remnant” or “remains,” is a bit more ambiguous. Does it mean of what little remains of these believers’ faith and trust in the Lord? Or does it speak to a few remaining faithful believers within this community? I don’t really know.

I think each application could speak to us. The first interpretation constitutes a personal warning to the Christian, that our history with God does not excuse our present deafness, faithlessness, or disobedience. The second application constitutes a corporate rebuke to the church: your legacy with God does not excuse your present lifelessness, your acceptance of sin, or your spiritual impotence.

Next statement: “I have not found your works completed in the sight of my God.”

This tells me that Jesus expects us as believers to finish what we started. Have you noticed that the promises to all of the seven churches are conditional? They’re conditional on if you conquer. Recall Paul’s own warning to the church of Corinth when he says, “I discipline my body and I enslave it so that after proclaiming the good news to others, I myself should not be disqualified.” Hey, if the Apostle Paul is worrying about being disqualified because he doesn’t finish his race of faith, why do we feel so secure?

Faith requires constancy, and it requires completion. We must see it through to the end. Unfinished races are defeats. The spiritual deadness of these believers was the result of their incomplete lifestyle. Somewhere along the way, they thought, I can check out of my faith. And because they weren’t living from the Holy Spirit’s direction, they possessed the name Christian, but their outer life didn’t reflect this professed identity.

Jesus expects us to complete our discipleship with constancy. It speaks to a constancy of time and to a constancy of devotion. So, if you’re here this morning and you’ve checked out of your Christianity – if you’ve checked out of your race, surrendering to the leisure of apathy or self-interest – you’re in a perilous predicament.

Youthful fervor, past obedience, historic endeavors and accomplishments – these things cannot substitute for present discipleship. Jesus wants us now. We are to follow Him now. We are to reflect His nature now. And we are to spread His Gospel until the end. That’s what it means to be named a Christian.

So if you’ve fallen out of the race, repent and rejoin it.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The next phrase is really the crux of Jesus’s address to Sardis: “Remember, then, what you have received and heard; obey it and repent.”

This verse is the bottom line, so let’s take it step by step. “What you have received and heard.” Jesus requires that we both hear and receive what He’s communicating. This speaks to the absolute necessity of spending regular daily time learning the scriptures, living from the scriptures, and hearing God’s voice in prayer. If we aren’t listening to Him speak, we can’t actually follow Him. He’s speaking to us, but are we listening?

Second, Jesus urges detailed remembrance of what He has revealed and commanded to us. Do you remember the words of the psalmist so often quoted, “I will remember the things the Lord has done, and I will remember the things that the Lord has said.” This speaks to our need to not only hear God, but to regularly return to what He’s spoken. The question is this: He is guiding us, but are we actually paying attention?

And then third, “obey it and repent.” This is where our Hellenistic mind leads us astray, because to a Jewish believer, they would understand this immediately. Jesus demands that we obey, not merely hear the truths He’s revealing to us. This speaks to our need to live in constant discipleship, where we’re repenting and turning away from any areas where we violated His commandments. He is leading us, but are we obeying and following Him?

WAKE UP AND REPENT

This takes us to the stark end of where we’re going today: “If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.”

Pastor Greg walked us through this principle in the church of Thyatira. Conviction is a clock. Jesus is warning the church of Sardis that they are rapidly running out of time.

The Triune God assigns to us seasons of mercy, and it’s easy in those seasons of mercy. I’ve been there when I’ve been neck deep in sin and say, Oh well, the Lord’s not disciplining me. He’s not causing my life circumstances to get difficult, which means He must be okay in gracing this moment. No, these seasons of mercy are intended unto the purpose of repentance, because the Lord’s intention in Scripture is clear that all would be saved.

We find in 2 Peter 3:9 that the Lord is not slow about His promise as some think of slowness, but He’s patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance. However, the sobering truth of Scripture is this: whether you’re looking at the history of Israel in the Old Testament, whether you’re looking at Jesus’s own teachings and parables, whether you’re looking at the life of the early church or the historical church, or whether you’re looking at what the Lord says about the end – seasons of mercy can be exhausted. You can run out of time.

The language of His rebuke, this thief coming in an unknown hour, is taken from all over the New Testament. But one pertinent example of this is Luke chapter 12. I want to read it for us, and I think it’s interesting that Peter starts this episode within the gospel with, Lord, is this parable about us all, or is it just about a few people? I would be asking that question, too, if I heard this.

“Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives.”

Hit pause here. There’s a lot of debate about eschatology in the church world. And it’s really interesting outside of what the Creed says, which is, “Our Lord will come again in glory to judge both the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.” This is really the only thing we need to know about eschatology, isn’t it? Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. That’s for free.

Verse 44: “Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all of his possessions. But if the slave says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming’, and he begins to beat the other slaves, men and women, and to drink and to eat and to get drunk, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know, and he will cut that slave into pieces and put him with the unfaithful. The slave who knew what his master wanted but did not prepare himself and do what was wanted will receive a severe beating.”

I want to ask us as a church, have we created excuses anywhere in our lives, which say things like, I’ve got all the time in the world. Hey, I’ll repent tomorrow, I’m living for today right now. Or perhaps this one, I’m still young. I can fix things with Jesus when I get a little bit older.

If any of those excuses are ringing true, wake up and stop taunting God’s mercy.

It is possible to exhaust the Lord’s patience and incur the totality of His judgment. He is speaking to believers here. This is New Testament theology. It’s not where the Lord wants us to land, so stop playing with fire. If the Lord is convicting you of departing from Him, repent and turn back before it’s too late.

THE LOGIC OF THE ENEMY VS REPENTANCE

Last question: Why was the church of Sardis dead? Why was this church dead? I think the answer is simple. They didn’t want His life, they wanted their own. They wanted to have the name “Christian,” affirming Him on the outside but not living for Him on the inside.

Revelation 1 tells us that when Jesus appears on the day of His return, the peoples of the earth will weep at the sight of Him. Much of this mourning will be rightful terror before God’s justice. Nonetheless, He is revealed in these images given in the book of Revelation as a slaughtered lamb, as a perfect sacrifice, as a warrior dressed in a robe that’s sprinkled with blood. But guess what? It’s not other people’s blood, it’s His own blood. It will be both the severity of His justice but also the gravity of His love which strikes grief into the hearts of humanity.

This is so intense, so I’m going to apologize ahead of time, but there is a great epic poet of the Puritan era. His name was John Milton, and he wrote a book by the name of Paradise Lost. If you look at the beginning of the story, this recounting of God’s creation of the world, when the enemy Satan falls from Heaven, the thing he screams back at God is, “I would rather rule in hell than serve You in Heaven.”

Where have we aligned with the logic of the enemy?

I believe much of the coming mourning will be rooted in heart cries like, if only I had listened to Him. If only I had given Him my attention and my affection. If only I had appreciated that He was the source and the aim of every kindness, every gift, every mercy. If only I had responded to His love, rather than staining it. If only I had known Him better. I didn’t love Him, and I didn’t listen to Him like I should have.

Church, He’s coming soon, and this is addressed to a church. With the wrath of impartial justice, and the immaculate standards of love, the beauty of this age is rapidly fading. The twilight of our world is at hand, so a decision lies before us all. We can come to Him now in repentance and, in the words of Scripture, be guaranteed a glad welcome, or He can soon come against us. We get to choose. The Spirit and the Bride say, Come.

I think it’s so interesting that when our Lord came to our world, there was a foreigner sent before him named John the Baptist. The Gospel of Luke will say of John that he had the spirit and power of Elijah. He brought a baptism and it was called the baptism of repentance. Isn’t it interesting that repentance is always the thing that comes before the arrival of our Lord.

If you’re hearing His voice today and He’s convicting you of sin, He’s waking you up from sleep and apathy, and He’s drawing you back to Himself, do not harden your heart in rebellion. Just repent and go before Him. Can I invite the Prayer Team to the front?

The Apostle Paul will say of the bread and cup that before we go to the elements, which represent His body and His blood, we’re to examine ourselves to see if we are going to receive the elements in a worthy manner. What does that mean? It means, am I surrendered to Him? Ask the Lord to search you: Lord, am I surrendered to You? Are there places where I’ve walked away? Places where I’ve gone astray? Where I need to be restored to You. The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. Let anyone who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

As I invite you guys to Bread and Cup, would you partake individually or with our Prayer Team members this morning and search out your heart to see if anything needs to be drawn back to Him? Let’s partake of Bread and Cup together.