The Church of Spiritual Deadness - Lessons From Sardis: Part 1 - Revelation 3: 1-6

1:14What's that? Five zero minutes. Okay. Then up to Corsicana, if we took that stretch up to Corusicana, we'd be up in the neighborhood of Pergamum. Anybody here from Corsicana? Probably not up that way. Yeah, kind of, sort of. Okay, so I don't know how far that is, but it's two hours. Okay, so it's about two hours from here. Then, if we took, when we were up at Corsican, we drove over to Palestine, we would be somewhere in the area of Thyratira. And then, if we drove from Palestine down to Crockett, we would come to about the area of Sardis. So, that just gives you the geographical size of the area we're talking about. But here we are at Sardis. Now, Sardis, hey kids, listen, do you like stories? Do you like stories? I'll tell you, if you've been around here a little while and you know anything about me, you know I like stories. I like a good story. Well, Sardis is full of them. In fact, it is one of the most storied cities in history. There are so many stories that surround this ancient city of Sardis. I'll tell you a few this morning, just as a way to introduce you to the city. But some of them you may be familiar with, some of them you probably won't.

2:57But there in the area of Sardis, Artists, two significant geographic features, the Tumulus Mountains, or Tumulus Mountains, and the Pactylus River, Tumulus, Pactylus. I guess they were rhyme. First, I'm going to tell you about the river. I'm going to tell you about the river. Now, you may have heard of an ancient king named Midas. Anybody ever heard of Midas? Everything he touched would do what? Turn to gold. This is his hometown. This is his place. The city was founded around 1200 BC, and it was the capital of the Lydian kingdom, ancient. And it was a prosperous city. And a lot of it was, people believed, came from this river, that the wealth of this city and its prosperity was due to this river. And one of the kings, as I said, named Midas early on, is attributed, maybe his success or whatever, but ancient Greek folklore tells a story that attributes or tries to express where this wealth came from. Greek folklore. In fact, we would probably better Know it as Greek mythology. So, for a moment, I want to take you into the bizarre world of Greek folklore.

4:40There's one of the gods, Greek god, who loved to get drunk. He loved the, he was the Greek god of wine and party life. And he had a schoolmaster. And this schoolmaster, now you think about it, if it's the God who likes to get drunk and is the god of all drinking and that kind of thing, guess what his schoolmaster, the guy who teaches him, guess what he's going to be like? Well, he's going to be a drunk too. And so he, this schoolmaster, gets drunk one day. It's one of these nature spirit, weird nature spirits. Probably if you see some of the latest Disney stuff, you'll see some of these nature spirits. But anyway, he was one of these types, and he had a problem. He got drunk, wandered away, and he passed out in Midas' rose garden. This is the king of Sardis. So you've got the schoolmaster to one of the gods drunk in your garden. What are you going to do with that? Well, so Midas was nice, as the legend goes. He showed this drunk god. Schoolmaster, some hospitality. He was very polite to him. And he took the schoolmaster back to this God.

6:13And this was in this area. And the God was so appreciative to Midas, he said, Ask whatever you want, and I'll give it to you. Guess what Midas asked for? Midas said, I want everything I touch to turn to gold. Granted. And so, guess what Midas did? He went out and touched a branch. Boom, turned to gold. He went out and touched a stone. Boom, turned to gold. Now that's something, isn't it? So then he goes into the rose garden, starts touching the flowers. Boom, gold, boom, gold. He's all excited. And then he goes and sits down at the table to eat something. As he picks up his food, boom, turns to gold. See a problem? You can't really eat gold, can you? Midas then starts realizing that this gift, this pursuit of success, was a curse, and he cursed it. And then his daughter, as the story develops in centuries, his daughter comes bouncing in.

7:32Dad, the roses don't smell very nice anymore. And she was very upset. So, guess what Midas does? He reaches down to comfort his daughter. Guess what happens to the daughter? Turns to gold. Boom! And at this point, Midas hated the gift that he had asked for. And so he prayed that he could get rid of this power, that things could be turned back. And so, this God said, okay, go and wash in the river. And whatever you wash in the river, the Pactolus River, will be turned back.

8:29And then go and wash your hands in the river, and it will cleanse you of your curse. And so it's exactly what Midas did. He went and he washed in the river, and guess what happened to the river? It became full of gold. His power went into the river, and it became a golden. River. Now, we can learn a little bit from this lesson. Even pagan Greek mythology wants to drive a point home. Do not be all about riches and success. There are some things in life that are more important. Even lost pagan cultures understand that. Don't be all about your success.

9:31Don't be all about yourself. There are things, relationships, are far more important. By the way, food's more important too. But this is a legend, make-believe. But what it did is it explained the unusual wealth of this Lydian kingdom. It was wealthy. And archaeological evidence has demonstrated significant gold mining operations all along this Pactolus River. The jewelry found in the cemeteries, in the ancient cemeteries, indicate that this was a place of great prosperity in the ancient times. In fact, another thing claimed to fame of this city of Sardis was that it was the very first city to mint gold coins. The demonstration of this once golden city. The city became especially wealthy and was known during the time of King Crocius. And this is in the 6th century BC, around 546. King Croesus. Now, let me tell you another story. The story about King Crocius. Crocius, can you say that? Crocius.

11:07He is the king who made two mistakes. Two mistakes. Let me tell you about his first mistake. King Croesus' first mistake is that he listened to the wrong words. Now, this is no longer mythology. This is real history. This is history. He is no fiction. He was Midas. Mythology surrounded him. Real figure. But King Croesus, real history, made two really bad mistakes. First, he listened to the wrong words. He listened to the wrong words. It's a time when the Persian military had risen to dominance, unseated the Babylonians. Cyrus now was the superpower. And a threat. And so King Croesius thought he better go down and take care of this threat of Cyrus. And so he wants to know if he should go down and fight the Persian armies. And he goes down to this place called Delphi and he inquires of Apollo. He wants some guidance from the gods. So he's listening to the wrong words. He goes down to the temple of Apollo there, and it's a super center, epicenter of the Apollo worship. And he goes down there and he presents his big offering, and he wants to inquire, what's the question? With all that money, we'll come up with an answer. Keep the money coming, we'll keep coming up with answers. And so he asked, Should I go to war against King Cyrus of Persia? And so the way this worked, you pay your money, he takes the, they go in, send this person called the Pythoness or the Pythia Pythoness. And she would go into the inner chamber of Apollo's temple. She would suck in a whole bunch of gas, like ethylene, and then she would fall over into an ecstatic utterance. And words would just start falling out of her mouth. And there were these other priests that would write down. What she would say. And then there was another category of priests called the exegetes that would take what she said and then put it in a poem and give the answer. That was how you've got it. It's called the oracle, the oracle at Delphi. And it was true of Apollo's temples around the god of spiritual light. Well, guess what? The oracle came back and it said this: If Croesius passes beyond the river, he will destroy a great country.

14:02That can be interpreted two ways, right? So Croesus says, Great, I heard what I wanted to hear. He's listening to the wrong words. He says, What this means, if I cross the river, I will destroy the Persian country. So he crosses the river. Guess what happens? The Persians beat him up pretty bad. As my mom would say, beat the wham out of him. And he fled, fled back. He fled back to his city, his own country. It was his own country that was destroyed.

14:46He listened to the wrong words. That was his first mistake. But it's his second that is more renowned to Sardis. It's his second mistake. And that is. He did not keep watch over his city. Let me tell you a little bit about Sardis. You see the picture up here on the wall? It was in the time of fortified cities. Sardis was naturally fortified. It had these incredible fortifications, these mountains that rose up 1,500 feet, just almost out of, just straight. It was an impregnable city. In fact, it was believed that even a child could defend the city. It was, you just couldn't get into it. And so, Croesus, after getting beat up by the Persian army, flees back to this city, goes up there, gets inside the city, and guess what he did?

15:59He was so at ease that they went to sleep that night without even posting a guard. They were that at ease. Like, okay, think about it. You just angered the Persian military that brought down the Babylonians. And now you're just going to go to sleep? Ease. Ease. Well, Herodotus. Tells the story of how Cyrus' men scaled the wall during the night and captured the city. He tells the story of how one of Cyrus' military men was looking at the city and he saw a guy drop a helmet off the cliff. And then he saw the guy kind of scurry down the mountain and then scurry back up. And he's like, there's the way into the city.

17:04And so that night, the end of the great Lydian kingdom came because they didn't post even a single guard. They just didn't keep watch. And you know what? A few hundred years later, the very same thing happened again. This time, Antiochus Epiphanes came and conquered the city in the same way. No guard. They got so comfortable that their city could not be taken that they didn't post guards. And so history repeats itself. So a claim to shame for this city was that it was twice taken by stealth, like a thief in the night.

18:00Look at verse 2 of this message. Wake up and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die. Wake up. Wake up. Verse 3: Therefore, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I come to you. A thief. It's a little lesson we can take. Don't be lazy. The lazy man suffers loss. There's a real threat, a real threat. Just like Sardis was under threat by Cyrus and went to sleep. So the church has an enemy that roams around like a raging lion, seeking someone to devour. Be awake.

18:54You're in a military conflict, and your enemy wants to destroy you, and he is completely equipped to do so. Be awake. So it was a city so far of wealth and ease. But there's a third story I want to tell you about Sardis. It was the city with an unfinished temple, a city of an unfinished temple. Story number three. And this is history. So, in Croesus' time, he decided to build a great temple to Artemis, Artemis, and it was one of the most magnificent buildings of the ancient world. But then, in a revolt in 499, it was destroyed. And so, centuries later, in 300, or about 150 years later, Alexander the Great comes on the scene. And we have the first MAGA movement. The first MAGA movement, M-A-G-A movement. We have the very first MAGA movement. And you know what it was? Alexander the Great decided, let's make Artemis great again. Make Artemis great again. So there was this campaign to build and rebuild this temple.

20:31That started in 334. You know what? It was never finished. It was never finished. All the way until 17 AD, it was just, it got started and stopped. It was just a construction site. In fact, today, archaeologists love it because it shows all these different periods of construction methods, because it was Hundreds of years, hundreds of years like that. It was never a completed work for over 350 years until an earthquake destroyed what was there. But think about this situation. Look at verse 2: Wake up and strengthen the things that remain which are about to die, for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of my God.

21:32I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of my God. Now, culturally, they understood. It was the city. Another claim to shame was their inability to finish the temple to Artemis. They were the epitome of incomplete work. Lesson. Do the tasks that God has called you to do. Finish the tasks that God has called you to do. We can learn that. Even Greeks who do not know God can learn these lessons very easily. Do not be all about success. Stand guard, be vigilant about the things that are important, and complete the tasks that God calls you to do. We can see all these truths affirmed in Scripture, but certainly not. Anybody thinking can understand that. But that was the reputation. They had a reputation for not completing this project. Now, another thing about this church is that it was a city of the wool industry.

22:51Sardis had established its name. It had a great reputation for its clothes manufacturing industry. It invented wool dyeing, and it was known for luxury clothing. It understood the process of dying. It understood the process of processing wool, making them white, making wool white. They understood soiled. They understood the difference between dirty and clean, white and soiled. Now, think about that and read verse 4. But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments. You see how Christ understands the city, and he speaks to them in language and in customs and in manners which they would readily understand.

23:58But you know, as I. Read this. Perhaps I'll go ahead and read it now and then make a couple more observations. Beginning in verse 1. It's a short, one of the shortest, the shortest letter. To the angel of the church in Sardis, write: He who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars says this: I know your deeds, that you have a name, and that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die, for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of my God. So remember what you have received and heard, and keep it, and repent. Therefore, 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. But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before my God and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

25:18So you think about this. A couple more observations. What is not said is significant. What is not said by virtue of comparing it to what is said in the other churches. Nothing is said about compromise with pagan religions like Jezebel or the Nicolaitans, like the others. I'm sure there were. Nothing is said about heresies inside the church or false teachers inside the church, although you could probably assume there were, certainly at one time. No mention from persecution from outsiders, whether from the government, whether from Jews, whatever it may have been, there was no mention of it. And yet, this is almost certainly the worst off of the seven churches described in these chapters. Certainly one of the worst, perhaps the worst of the seven churches. You are dead.

26:26It's a church of spiritual deadness. If you remember, we looked at Pergamum. It was the church of endangered loyalty. Then we looked at Thyratira, the church of compromised loyalty. And then we come to the church of Sardis. It's the church of no loyalty. Dead. It's dead. So, what can we summarize so far? Well, by the time of John the Apostle, The Romans occupied Sardis. So put this in context. What was true about Sardis? It had a great name, but its great name, but its greatness was in its past. It was a city with a great name, with its greatness in the past.

27:21A city whose greatness was in the past. There were a few relics of its great past. You can go there today, the city of Sart, and you can still see the great mountains, the once fortified area. Well, that's all been abandoned and had been abandoned in Roman times. The city had left and had moved out to the surrounding areas. They had abandoned the Acropolis there, that fortified area. The old city was dead. Life was taking on living in other places.

27:58Relics of the past remained. But all that people could really talk about was what was, or the good old days, the golden days. They had a reputation for a great city, but it was in decline. And it's in this context that Jesus addresses a dead church. Just like the city, the church was dead. It had a name, but its greatness was in its past. Spiritually dead. And so, what I want to do is, I want us to understand the reality and remedy for spiritually dead churches so that we will know how to revive them.

28:53It's that simple. We need to understand the reality and remedy for spiritually dead churches because the answer is here. A lot has been studied on this topic, but in plain language, Christ sets before us the reality of spiritually dead churches and the remedy. We need to understand that. So, let's begin. First, I want you to see the reality of dead churches, the reality of dead churches. Look back at verse 1. To the angel of the church in Sardis, write, He who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars says this: I know your deeds, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead.

29:50So, are dead churches a real thing? Yes. Exclamation point: yes. How do I know that churches that appear to be alive and may even have quite a number of people and be involved in a lot of things? How do I know that they can be dead? Well, because Jesus says so right here. And notice. Notice who Jesus says he is. Jesus says so. The question is, well, who is Jesus? Well, in this context, he wants you to be thinking about who he is. And he tells you, he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars says this. He wants you to see him as the one who holds or is having, is holding, is possessing the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.

30:53He is describing himself as the one who directs the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the one who controls the leadership of the church. That's what he's using. That's what he is saying with these two depictions. First, we'll just look at the two quickly. Who are the seven spirits? We've already talked about this interpretive matter earlier. And in chapter 1, who are the seven spirits? And what does this expression depict? Well, it's difficult. It doesn't explain.

31:30Precisely. But you have two options, like way of quick review. It could be either seven angels or depicting the ministry of the Holy Spirit, even though seven could be one, one behind. And I would say that it's a depiction of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, even if there are seven manifestations of lamps burning. Let me explain in Revelation 1:4. You remember John to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before His throne. Well, clearly, the first is a reference to the Father. Clearly, the reference, the second is a reference to the Son, and it seems appropriate that in verse in chapter 1, that the seven spirits are somehow depicting the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

32:34Chapter 4 and verse 5, they are mentioned again. Out from the throne come flashes of lightning, and sounds, and peals of thunder, and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the Lord, which are the seven spirits of God. So, this before his throne, there is this image of seven lamps. In Revelation 5:6, we see them again, and I saw. Between the throne and with the four living creatures and the elders, a lamb standing as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. The eyes of the lamb, clearly a picture of Christ. So, this seven spirits, part of who he is.

33:24And so, searching capacity, lamps before the throne, eager to carry out the will of the illumination, the zealousness of the Spirit to accomplish God's will. So, all this, still, it's a little strange to think for us to put it in seven spirits, but this is what it is. And seven refers to or describes fullness. And so, this is, even if they are seven, even if you want to believe they're seven angels or seven distinct entities, fine, that's good. It may very well be that, but ultimately, behind all of that is one ministry of the Holy Spirit. And the way I understand this is that this seven spirit is a depiction of the full administration of the Holy Spirit's ministry. That's what's being described here. Sevenfold ministry, the administration before the throne, eager, zealous to carry. Out the will of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to illumine darkness. You see that in the lamps. You see they're standing before the throne, a zealous desire to accomplish God's will. You see the searching capacity, as we read earlier in Zechariah 4, that reigns throughout the eyes, that ranged throughout the earth. So illumination, zeal, and all of that. But in this context, what is clearly being emphasized is that is the Holy Spirit's life-giving ministry. This is in the context of Jesus saying, you're dead, and he is the one who directs the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself says, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

35:25And so, if you're going to have life, guess what? He's going to know about it. He's going to know about it. You're going to be in fellowship with Him. It is His Spirit sent out. So it's very clear in this context, even if you don't necessarily have the answer for what may be an interpretive issue, it's very clear what's being said. Jesus is saying, I am the one who directs the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and I say, You are dead.

35:56Second, he describes Himself in He. As holding the seven stars. Who are the seven stars? We went through this already, and I won't spend much time on this, but who are the stars? Either they're angels or they're humans to the angel. Well, John the Baptist was also used by the same term to describe himself as a messenger. So I think this is clearly speaking of human agency, though there are those who would say, no, I'm going to go with angels. That's fine. We don't, if you want to go there, it just seems odd to me that God would send, inspire John, the apostle, communicate to John so that angels in heaven can get a message. It just seems that would be very unusual. He inspired the text to speak to the church leaders, to get the message to the churches. It would be very unusual for God to speak to an angel. Oh, yeah, I've got to inspire John so that they can read this letter in heaven. That just seems to me to be a little strange. But again, that's not the emphasis. And if you go there, that's fine.

37:13I could be wrong. But clearly, the emphasis is upon Christ's control over the leadership of the church. The seven stars are the agency through whom the churches will hear Christ's message in these letters. And I think it's pretty clear that it could be pastors. John's over there on Patmos and giving the message, and it's going to be delivered and then dispensed to the church. Human agency. But regardless, the point that Jesus is making here is that he has control over the life-giving ministry of the Spirit. He has control over the pastorate, the leadership of the church itself. And when he says you're dead, guess what? He knows exactly what he's talking about. And so that's why he addresses them to the angel at Sardis. Write: He who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars says this.

38:13And this is what he says: I know your deeds, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead. So even though they look alive, they are dead. And notice there, he says, I know. He says, I'm intimately acquainted with. I know, I have perfect knowledge. I know your deeds. I know your deeds, and I know what they say about you. So he says three things. First of all, I know your deeds. You can see it in the text. I know your deeds. I'm intimately acquainted with all your workings and all the motivations and all the scaffolding. If I use the illustration from last week, all the thoughts and all the motifications.

39:02Motivations that go behind your deeds. I know them. I know your deeds. And I know what the world thinks of you. Look at what he says. I know your deeds, that you have a name, that you are alive. I know what the world thinks of you. You've got a name. You've got a reputation. You have established a name for yourself that you are alive, that you are a living church. Your deeds. You have a good reputation for your deeds.

39:38And then he says, I know that you are spiritually dead. I know your deeds. I know what the world thinks of you. But let me tell you what I think of you. You are dead. You are spiritually dead. And this leads us to a question. They're dead, the reality of spiritual deadness. How do I know it's a reality? Well, because Jesus said so. He's the one who directs the ministry of life itself. He's the one who directs the affairs of the church. He knows. He knows our deeds. And even if you have a great reputation, even though you may fool the world, you cannot fool him. He knows the spiritual condition. And the question becomes: what killed this church? What killed? It.

40:32Well, luxury and wealth may have characterized the church to a certain level. But if you look at the Church of Laodicea, the church at Laodicea in verse 317 is boasting about their riches. Sardis isn't making any kind of boast. There seems to be another emphasis. What killed them? I put it under two thoughts: reputation and ease. A love for reputation, a love for having a good name, and ease. In their love of reputation and ease, they became careless and indifferent to spiritual matters, and they gradually declined over the years.

41:29And so we've come to Sardis, a church whose greatness was in its past. Now, how does this relate to us? We really need to understand the reality and the remedy for spiritually dead churches so that we can not only revive other churches, but that we can make sure that we revive ourselves. ourselves or know how to be revived ourselves. We've got to know this. This is the question of our times. If we look around us, there are many churches and denominations whose greatness lies in the past.

42:22I think of the great Lutheran movement. Oh, I know there's still some great Lutheran churches in existence today, but the movement far over. That's an exception, Lutheranism itself, largely spiritually dead. I think about the great movement of Methodism, John Wesley, and the once zealous fervor that characterized the whole Methodist denomination is gone. Oh, there are a few good Methodist churches left. I'm not saying that that's not the case. I think about our own Baptist world. I think we can see this, a decline. A lot of the current denominations and major denominations, whether it's Presbyterian, Baptist life, Methodism, Lutheranism, their greatness. Lies in the past.

43:35I can see that in our own denomination, just with the way they're giving away some of the great conferences, centers that we once possessed as Baptists. I think Glorieta, New Mexico, would probably take you $150 million to rebuild today, and they gave it away for a dollar. The older generation could build it, our generation can't even maintain it. And you see this pattern throughout. Look at the cathedrals and throughout you. You see this pattern. And it seems to be the pattern in which the way God works among churches through the ages. First of all, he finds a man. He looks for a man. He looks, his eyes search, he finds someone whose heart is completely his, and then this man turns into a movement.

44:29And this movement takes hold. And then over time, the movement grows cold, grows rich, grows fat, and the movement becomes a monument. A man becomes a movement. The movement then turns into a monument. And guess what? God goes and begins to look for another person that he can use. Seems to be the pattern. Well, what characterizes A dead church. A void of spiritual vitality. It's that simple. Spiritual lethargy. What does spiritual deadness look like in an individual? The same thing that it looks like in a church. A void of spiritual vitality, spiritual lethargy.

45:28What's the remedy? That's where we need to come. We may be able to fool the world, but we can't fool Christ. His eyes search. What's the remedy? How does a spiritually dead church come back to life? That's an important question. What do we need to do in order to bring a dead church back to life from the dead? Very important question. Most important questions of our time. How does revival happen? What is God's recipe for revival? Is there one?

46:14And the answer is yes. Yes. Let's talk about us. That's the world. Let's talk about us. How do we continue to revive? How do we root out all deadness as a church from our corporate life? How do we root out all deadness from our life as individuals? How do we get there? A right answer is critical. And lots have been written, has been written on this subject. Where's the answer? It's right before our eyes in the next couple of verses.

46:56So I hope to see you next time. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you. We recognize the reality of spiritual deadness. We recognize our own spiritual lethargy in so many ways. And Father, we don't want to live like that. We want the work of your Holy Spirit to have its way in our lives. We want to be driven by your Spirit. We want to be people who are zealous for the things that you are zealous for and alert about the things that you are alert and paying attention to the things that you pay attention to to be pursuing that which is success in your eyes. Father, we come before you and we confess that without your spirit, we are dead. And so we call upon your name. Give us that resurrection. Life. Forgive us of our sins. Show us that we may walk in a way of flaming, blazing life for your great name. For we know that our deeds are not completed yet, but there are still things you have for us to do. Guide us in Christ's name. Amen.