Strengthen what remains

Text Revelation 3:1-6 Time 25/07/10 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church
We are looking at the seven letters to the seven churches found in Revelation 2 and 3. We have looked so far at the first four letters – those to the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum and then this morning at Thyatira. That leaves Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. We've done ESP-T but now it's SP-L. We've looked at Mixed, Praised, Mixed and Mixed. That leaves Mixed more Blame, Mixed more Praise and Blamed. Mixed more blamed is Sardis the church I want us to look at this evening. For Sardis it is mostly blame, though there is one note of encouragement unlike Laodicea, for whom Christ has nothing good to say. Once again we will look at the description of the church and consider ourselves as a church and as individuals in the light of it.
To the angel of the church in Sardis write: So Sardis - Sardis is 30 miles south east of Thyatira and 50 miles due east of Smyrna. At the foot of a mountain and in a fertile valley a number of roads converged on Sardis making it a busy centre for traffic and trade.
It had a distinguished history in that it was the capital of the old kingdom of Lydia and the home of the famous King Croesus renowned for his wealth. (You sometimes hear the phrase as rich as Croesus). This was until his defeat by Cyrus and the Persians around 547 BC. It was later conquered again by Alexander the Great and then fell on hard times reaching rock bottom in AD 17 when a terrible earthquake destroyed much of it. It was under the Romans by this point and the Emperor Tiberius exempted them from taxes for five years which helped towards recovery. We do not know how the church there was founded. One old writer says “Like the city itself, the church had belied its early promise. Its religious history, like its civil, belonged to the past.”

1. Consider the character of Christ and the fact he has at is command the Spirit and the minister in every church
As usual we begin with the phrase These are the words of and picking up from something mentioned back in Chapter 1. This time it is These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
1. The seven spirits of God or possibly the sevenfold Spirit of God refers to the Holy Spirit. See 1:4, 5a John, To the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne,and from Jesus Christ. Another old writer (Trench) explains the term seven this way - “he is regarded here not so much in his personal unity as in his manifold energies”. Seven, of course, is a number of completeness and no doubt ties in with there being seven churches too. He is active in them all. The message this sleepy and practically dead church needed to hear was about the life-giving Spirit who Jesus pours out on believers. As a modern writer puts it, he can refresh a stale church, he can a waken a sleepy church, he can strengthen a weak church, he can make a dead church come to life!
2. The seven stars. This is explained in 1:20 The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. The stars are the ministers of the churches, who are, as it were, in Christ's other hand. Both the ministers and the Spirit himself are in Christ's hands. The great need is for the ministers to be filled with the Spirit. That was the great need certainly in Sardis. Whether things here are as bad as there or not, it is still the great need.
2. Consider his words of condemnation for a church that was fast asleep
1. Beware of having only a reputation for being alive
Jesus says again I know your and again it is I know your deeds; exactly the phrase he used about Thyatira which was so good. The context, though, shows that things were in a far less healthy state in Sardis than what they were in Thyatira. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. If you asked people about the church in Sardis most people would tell you what a good church it was. People were happy with it. If you went there on a Sunday you would not immediately think, Oh dear what a terrible church, how hopeless. No, you would think it was a good church, a sound church, perhaps even a loving and faithful church, one that had not lost its first love. However, that would be a mistake. And this is quite a disturbing thought. Some of us pride ourselves in knowing what a good church is. We have some experience and so even in just one service we feel we could gain a pretty good idea of whether a church was on the right track or not. In fact, you can be wrong.
It is like anything else, even the experts can get it wrong. You hear of these cases from time to time, sometimes quite tragically, where experts can make big mistakes because of unknown circumstances. Well, sometimes people who think they know what a good church is will tell you this is a good church and it will turn out not to be. There are churches that have a reputation for being alive – large congregations, big budget, lots of activity – but in fact are dead.
It is important that we as a church do not think our reputation with men is what matters – no what does Christ say? If he says we are dead then dead we are. To simply live for reputation si to be a hypocrite.
2. Be alert and strengthen what still remains and is incomplete
And so this church is told (2) Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. This church is half dead. It has fallen asleep. Its deeds are not complete in the sight of my God says Christ. We hear these days of failing schools and failing hospitals, well this was a failing church. In all the important areas it was falling below standard. As sleepiness, a deadness had descended and they were not doing anywhere near enough.
That can be the position of a church, of an individual. What about us? Are we falling asleep? Are we only half alive? Are we failing to live as Christians as we should? What a danger! Watch out!
If we are like that we need to wake up, we need to strengthen the little that remains and is about to die.  It is like the embers of a fire – they need to be fanned into flame again. We need to get going again.
3. Give yourselves to obedience and repentance
What should an individual or a church finding itself in that position do? The instructions are quite clear (3).
1 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard. The people in Sardis were forgetting the message they had received. They had moved on to other things. Other matters were taking up their time and energy. They needed to remember where they had come from, their roots. It is a little like the church in Ephesus that had forsaken its first love. We must not be backward looking people but at times it is good to ask ourselves the connection between where we are now and where we first started. It is so easy to veer off at a tangent. You only have to go slightly wrong at a certain point and within a while you can be way off target. We must not forget what is in the Bible – the basics there. Perhaps we can go further and say that what the people received was the Spirit and they needed to remember that - as we do – and live as temples of the Holy Spirit.
2 Obey it, and repent. They needed to begin to obey again – obey the Word, obey the Spirit who speaks in the Word. They need to turn round from the direction they were headed in and to get back to God and to doing his will. Back to basics – that was the need. They needed to stop living as they were and get back to how it had been in the past.
3. Consider the warning to this church of what will happen if they fail to wake up
But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. If they fail to do this then Christ is going to come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. This is ultimately a reference to Christ's Second Coming but Christ can come in the sense of coming in judgement before then. He can judge at any time and we need to keep that in mind. It is vital that the church wakes up.  Do you get the picture? Here is a man who has fallen asleep in the doorway of his home with the door wide open. At some point a thief is going to come and take from him all he owns. He needs to wake up! He dare not lay asleep any longer – or he will lose everything. Wake up! Get ready! That is the message, perhaps, that some of us need to hear more than any other.
4. Consider the brief word of commendation and promise that is given
Thankfully, things at Sardis are not utterly bleak, as Christ is able to add a commendation (4) Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. While everyone else was soiling their clothes rolling in the mud of sin and grubbying themselves in the dirt of the world, some were remaining pure and clean. Such people are given a promise, They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. The promise appears to be for the world to come in particular.
If we are not prepared for heaven we will not enter heaven. Without holiness no-one will see the Lord. But if we keep ourselves pure then we will walk with the Lord in holiness and joy.
5. Consider the promises here for those who overcome and the call to hear the Spirit
Finally, again, following the previous pattern we have promises for the overcomer and a call to hear the Spirit.
1. The promises.
1 He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. Again the focus is on the purity and the glory and joy of heaven. This is what awaits those who go on in the Lord.
2 I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. It was the practice of the Jewish cities to keep a list of every citizen’s name in a book. When that person died his name would be blotted out. Here Jesus speaks of The Book of life, mentioned several times in Revelation. The idea of blotting out a name is found more than once in the Old Testament. Overcomers live forever and so their names will never be blotted from that book. Rather, Jesus will acknowledge their names in heaven – before his Father and all the holy angels. Their names will be called. They will not be forgotten. They will be counted worthy through Christ.
When the roll is called up yonder will you be there?
2. The command
Finally in verse 6 there is that repeated command He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
You have heard. What are you going to do about it? Hypocrisy is a great sin. It is (literally) play acting. Christ knows the reality. Where we see any in ourselves our response must be to wake up, to strengthen what remains, to recall how we began and to begin to obey again wholeheartedly, to repent. What we all need to do if we seek to walk in white with Christ in the world to come.
It is a little depressing to think that a church can go so far wrong and not realise but the hope here is that all who sincerely repent and begin again to obey have hope.