“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, 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.”’”

What does it mean to be alive? Medically, we can set the standard at things like a person having brain activity, respiration, or a pulse. Philosophically, you could make the case that to be truly “alive” someone must be able to live out their life, pursue their passions, impact and be impacted by the world around them. While either of these definitions have a certain logic to them, both miss the mark. One simply checks the biological boxes, it meets the definition on technicality alone, while the other only gives enough substance to meet the desires of the individual – neither describes what it actually means to be alive. Romans 6:20–23 tells us,

“For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And we read in Ephesians 2:1–2,

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world…”

To be in a state of separation from Christ is to be dead in the most complete and absolute way. Your pulse is irrelevant, the blood in your veins and the breath in your lungs are irrelevant, because in the absence of the redeeming blood of Christ, you are spiritually and most absolutely dead. It doesn’t matter what your dreams, goals, or aspirations are, your passions do not grant you life, but anchor you all the more deeply to your dead flesh. Jesus says in John 14:6

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Christ is the one, singular path from sin to righteousness, out of death into life.

One of my former bosses, and a great mentor of mine had a (not altogether unusual) tactic for addressing problems among the team. If one or two members weren’t doing their job properly, the issue was addressed with the group as a whole first. This wasn’t a public browbeating, no one was called out individually, but rather the failure was addressed as a broad issue, and everyone was collectively reminded of the standard. If the members who were falling short continued as they had, then they would be addressed individually. What this did was allow the offenders to correct course, but also kept other members who may have been performing adequately aspiring to the standard and avoiding complacency. It gave us all, both over and underachievers a chance to check in and take a look at how we were conducting ourselves. As we continue on in looking at the seven churches in Revelation, Scripture is affording us the same opportunity for self-reflection. Each church gives us a chance to learn – about the conditions, victories, and failures of our brothers and sisters who lived in the earliest days of the church we belong to today. It lets us learn more about Christ, His power and His nature as He guides, commends, and reproofs these churches in their varying conditions. And it allows us to learn about ourselves, to analyze where we are in our obedience and overall relationship with Truth, and Light, and Love. Much as 1 John gave this direct, measurable guide as to who we are and where we stand with Christ, the seven churches offer the same sort of comparable standard. They give us information that can and should remove any doubt in our own lives as to if we are truly alive in Jesus, or if we simply appear that way.

The Seven Churches – The Resurrection and the Life

1. The Death that is Found in False Appearances

“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.”

Seven has an overarching Biblical theme related to completion. This can be first observed in the seven days of creation, but is most heavily illustrated in Revelation. The seven lampstands which signify the seven churches – not all the churches in the world, but the seven who are used to represent the one, singular church that is the bride of Christ. There are seven stars, angels who deliver what is ultimately one, singular message to the churches, that being the message of Christ. There are seven seals on the scroll of the Lamb, seven thunders that make up the unrecorded message in Revelation 10. There are seven trumpets, seven angels with seven plagues, and seven bowls of God’s wrath, all of which add up to the complete wrath of God. And so bearing all this and more in mind, it’s important that we understand the seven spirits of God are a singular that’s expressed as a plural. There is One God, and the seven churches over which His Spirit presides reflect His unity, His singularity, and His completion. He is the One who holds the seven stars, resting in the power of His right hand – a different angel for each church, yet all serving the same message. These sevens speak to God’s completion, His perfection, and wholeness. It is He who is lacking in nothing, whose provision and power are full beyond the comprehension of the minds of men, who speaks now to the church at Sardis.

“I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.”

Of the seven churches that Jesus addresses in Revelation, two are commended without being reproached. Both Smyrna, who we’ve already looked at, struggling through severe persecution and physical poverty, and Philadelphia, who struggled at the margins of their community, and we will look at further next week. Each of these churches Jesus speaks of with encouragement, and there is nothing He states that is held against them. In Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, we see both – there are things each of these churches is doing right, but also areas where they are failing, and without changing course, what is causing them to stumble will ultimately bring them to nothing. There are two churches, however, about which essentially nothing good is said: Laodicea, the lukewarm church, who is the last listed of the seven, and Sardis, the dead church who we see today. Yes, we do see that there are “a few names” at Sardis who are genuinely obedient, but these appear to be in the vast minority, while the church as a whole is caught in the deep slumber of death. We have to stop and appreciate just how profoundly dangerous a church like Sardis is – it’s one thing to be obviously dead, and quite another to be dead but with the reputation of being alive. When Peter writes about false teachers, he says in 2 Peter 2:17–19,

“These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.”

There is some overlap here between a false teacher and a dead church, because both create a trap in appearing to be something that they’re not. What is a “waterless spring”? What are “mists driven by a storm”? They’re insubstantial, they’re nothing, but they don’t look like nothing. They impersonate the thing you hope for, what you need to survive. If you, thirsting and in desperate need of water, go to a wellspring, only to find that it holds no water, then what you’ve found is not something that offers life, but rather death. If you, with dry lands and parched crops, look with hope to the coming clouds, only to receive the foggy mists pushed along by the storm, then you are just as compromised as you were before, and worse off for the hope you poured into something that led to nowhere. This is the same kind of danger that is created by a dead church that appears to be alive. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:1–3,

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

If we lack love, then we have nothing, because God is Love. So if a church boasts a massive sanctuary on a sprawling campus, if their attendance is massive, and they’ve got satellite churches popping up everywhere, the pastor can’t seem to stop writing number one best sellers, and they have a strong presence in the community, and yet they fail to deliver the authentic gospel, if they distort Scripture and peddle a twisted, people pleasing, ear tickling message to sate their audience, then they are worse than useless – they are a dead thing that moves as if it were alive. In Mark 11:12–14, we see an interesting and often misunderstood passage, as the disciples observe Jesus interacting with a fig tree,

“On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard it.”

There are those who will use these verses to try to disparage the character of Jesus. They will paint Him as being petulant, childish, and unfair. They will point out that the passage clearly states that it wasn’t the season for figs, and that Jesus blaming the tree for not bearing fruit was unjust, as it was an unrealistic expectation. One problem with that interpretation (one of many), is that the tree is stated as being “in leaf.” For the tree to be producing leaves, it should have also borne fruit, as the development of the two would go hand in hand. Regardless of the season, the tree was giving the appearance that it held fruit, only to be found without, lacking substance. This can be seen as a symbol for the hypocrisy of the religious rulers among the Jews, those of whom Jesus says in Matthew 23:27–28,

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

To be dead is one thing, to be dead and appear alive is another. To be wicked is one thing, but to be wicked and appear righteous is a further transgression. Jesus does not contend with things that exist as a lie, that appear as what they are not. Mark 11:20–21, after we see Him cleanse the temple in the intervening verses, we return to the matter of the fig tree,

“As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.’”

This pretending fig tree, this imitator, with only leaves and no fruit was judged and destroyed – and the lifeless, pretending church of Sardis faces the same threat at the hands of the just God.

“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 received and heard. Keep it, and repent.”

As we were reminded by His introductory words, Jesus is full and perfectly complete – the One who has the seven spirits of God. This is the standard we are measured against – the righteous, holy, complete, and perfect God – and we are found lacking. Isaiah 64:6 tells us,

“We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

Jesus states in Matthew 5:48,

“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

And Peter, quoting Leviticus 11:44, writes in 1 Peter 1:14–16,

“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’”

It can be easy to sit back and judge the dead and sleeping church at Sardis, but we are all unworthy in our sin. It is only by the saving blood of Christ, by the redeeming and enlightening work of the Holy Spirit, that we are saved, made new, and brought to life. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:4–6,

“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

There is one gospel. If we remember then the Truth that we have received, if we have our roots firmly planted in the Word of the Living God, then we may count His works in us complete. But if we remain blind, complacent, sleeping in death, failing to abide in the spirit of the Word which we were given, only appearing to be alive, then we are traps and stumbling blocks for those who would seek the Truth, and we ourselves are destined for judgment and exile to the outer darkness.

2. The Death that is Found in Righteous Judgment

“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.”

Scripture is quite clear on the fact that we do not know when the return of Christ and the end of this world will occur. Jesus tells His disciples in Matthew 24:36–39,

“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”

We don’t know exactly when Jesus will return, and while Scripture gives us a measure of insight around what the final days will look like, there is no clear-cut time and date given – and that’s okay. In grabs for superiority and power, those claiming to prophesy the rapture have been blaspheming and giving a poor representation of Christians and the gospel for a long, long time, but the simple truth is that we’re not given a set date because we weren’t meant to have a set date. However it’s important to remember that this doesn’t mean that we’re entirely blind. Sardis paints a picture of a church that is dead, is comatose in their sleep. If they remain so, Jesus will come against them in judgment, much as He will one day come against the world, blindsiding them, and catching them completely unaware. The difference here, between someone who is willingly oblivious versus someone who simply lacks the specifics can be seen in a parable that Jesus gives in the same discourse with the disciples that we just read from. In Matthew 24:45–51 He says to them,

“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

There’s a vast difference between being found doing what you’re supposed to be doing, compared to being caught doing what you’re not supposed to do. To those who are dead in their sin, who are sleeping when they ought to be awake and attentive, who are at most, going through some of the general motions of Christianity, the return of Jesus is a terrifying mystery. It is something put off, seldom considered, or disregarded entirely. For the ones who indulge in their flesh and delight in that which is wicked, to have Jesus come against them is to see the pain and fear of divine judgment crash down upon them. But to those who are obedient, who abide in Christ and He in them, His return is new life. There is this calling for us all through the gospel, and specifically delivered to the church at Sardis by what Jesus says in today’s passage, to live and serve as those who are awake. Sardis wasn’t given an incomplete or false gospel – they were given the true and authentic good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins of those who believe – but they haven’t acted on it. Ephesus was a church that had been very much alive in the work of the gospel before abandoning their first love. Sardis shows a church that never had the first love, but stood on appearance alone, built up around their reputation. But if they will remember what they first heard, if they will see the truth around what they pretend and posture toward, they’ll no longer be dead, but will come alive. Paul writes in Ephesians 5:13–16,

“But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’ Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

We are dead in our sin, but there is great hope in the saving grace of God, as He calls us to Life and service in His name. To be asleep, to lie in death is to be useless and inert, but to live is to do the good work that we were made for as image bearers of God, and glorify our Creator. Before healing a man who was born blind, Jesus says in John 9:4–5,

“We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

In His bodily time on earth, Jesus stood as the Light of the world, the hope and good news brought to those in deep darkness. After His ascension and the arrival of the helper of the Holy Spirit that indwells the children of God, Jesus remains as the Light of the World through those who abide in Him and continue to share the good news of His gospel. Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3:17–19,

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”

For those who delight in the Light, the Light delights in them – but for those who have hated the Light and loved darkness, the judgment is brought upon themselves. This condemnation, the sentence that hangs over the head of all who have remained unrepentant, is waiting to be carried out. There will be a time when the Light of the world will be taken away from those pretenders who might have genuinely sought it, and their devotion to the darkness with be cemented for eternity. This day will come for them without warning, with Jesus coming in glory as righteous Judge. For them, this will be a calamity that comes out of nowhere, destruction that comes without warning. This doesn’t have to be though, we do not have to be found dead in our trespasses, but rather must now graciously answer the call to Life, to obedience in Christ, and the redemption and resurrection that exists in Him and Him alone.

3. The Life that is Found in the Confession of Christ

“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.”

Sardis as a whole is dead, and in desperate need of awakening and practicing the gospel they were given – but God does not condemn the individual who is faithful to Him for the sins of the many. When Abraham understands God’s intent to lay judgment upon Sodom, He appeals to the Lord on behalf of any righteous who may remain in the city. Genesis 18:23–26 says,

“Then Abraham drew near and said, ‘Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’ And the LORD said, ‘If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.’”

As they speak, Abraham lowers the hypothetical number of righteous people that God would spare the city for, until God agrees that for the sake of ten righteous ones found in Sodom, He will not destroy it. But there were not ten righteous people in all of Sodom, there was only one. In all of Sodom, there was only Lot, Abraham’s nephew who was counted as righteous. Peter writes of Lot, as well as others who God, in His justice, preserved in the face of judgment, saying in 2 Peter 2:4–10,

“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority…”

An image that we see repeated in Scripture is of God’s ability to distinguish, to separate, and judge rightly, as opposed to blanket judgments on a mass scale. John the Baptist speaks of the coming Christ, saying in Matthew 3:12,

“His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

In the parable of the wheat and the tares, Jesus teaches in Matthew 13:30,

“Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

In the parable of the net, He teaches in Matthew 13:47–50,

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

And in Matthew 25:31–33, Jesus teaches concerning the final judgment, saying,

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.”

God is not limited, He is not hampered, and there is nothing that goes unseen before Him. So despite the condition of the church at Sardis, the names of these who have not stained themselves with hypocrisy, who are alive, not just in reputation, but in Truth, are known to Him. Jesus says in John 10:27–30,

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

If the church at Sardis does not obey, if they do not heed the voice of Jesus and wake from their sleep, then they will be judged, but these few names who have held fast to Christ will not be among them. They are held fast in the hand of their Shepherd, made worthy by His righteousness.

“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.”

In Matthew 10:32–33 Jesus says,

“So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”

What we see is the promise to the few names at Sardis who have abided in Christ, it is the offer for all in this church who will wake up, repent, and earnestly follow the Lord, and it is the hope of all who have been born again through the blood of the Lamb of God. We read of the final judgment in Revelation 20:12,

“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”

I’ve heard many people say somewhat flippantly about their sin, “Well, I guess I’ll just have to answer for that when I get to heaven.” Frankly, it’s a profoundly stupid thing to say. It undermines the severity of sin, the righteousness of God, and the unendurable weight of His judgment. It’s especially troubling to hear professing Christians make this statement. Scripture supports the idea of a degree of hierarchy in heaven – not one lorded over one another, but a degree to which servants of God are honored for their obedience and sacrifice. We can see this in Jesus’ response to Peter in Matthew 19:28–30,

“Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

And we should also understand that we as Christians still hold a degree of accountability for ourselves in standing before God, as Jesus says in Matthew 12:36–37,

“I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

It is a mistake however to think that we as Christians will be judged in the same manner that non-believers will. 1 John 1:6–10 tells us,

“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

How then are we to be judged for that which we have been forgiven? Revelation 20 plainly says, “and the dead were judged,” however we who are alive in Christ, alive as those few names found at Sardis were, who are dressed in white and with names recorded in the book of life are not dead. Rather we are made alive forever as Christ is alive forever, delivered into victory through His victory over death. We are loved, and held, and claimed by His Word in the kingdom of heaven, before God the Father, before the angels. We may stand on the testimony – not of our works or appearances, not on the merit of our own righteousness, but rather through the life we are raised to by the eternal confession of Christ.

Pastor Chris’ sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmm2x81lywo