Read Revelation 3:1-6.

Introduction⤒🔗

According to an article in the International Herald Tribune, at least 14 living men are among the 58,175 dead and missing whose names are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Apparently, the errors occurred when clerks typed the wrong numbers into a computer. Eugene J. Toni, one of the fourteen, said that seeing his name etched in the Memorial’s black granite was “kind of scary...like seeing your name on a gravestone.”¹

Such a mistake may be eerie, but it’s not serious. If the government declares that you are dead when, in fact, you are alive, that’s only a minor inconvenience. You can live with it.

In the letter addressed to the church in Sardis we have the opposite situation. The Lord Jesus declares that a great number of professing Christians in this church were in fact spiritually dead, even though they considered themselves to be alive and well. Now that is a serious problem.

We must be diligent to care for our spiritual life and not allow it to decline to the point of death. Because our spiritual life will suffer serious and even fatal consequences if it is not cared for, let us be sure to check our spiritual pulse.

Check Your Spiritual Pulse, so that You Do Not Die←⤒🔗

The other day I felt like such a dummy. Why? Because I spent five minutes talking to a dummy before I realized that I was talking to a dummy! Those department store manikins sure do look life-like!

In all seriousness, there have been times when I have had to look twice to discern whether I was encountering a live person or a plastic manikin standing in the aisle of a department store. Those manikins look very much alive, when in fact they have no life in them. They are all dressed up in the latest fashions, with beautiful faces cosmetically made up to perfection, featuring the most eloquent contemporary hairstyles, but they are not alive!

This is just what the Lord Jesus says about the church in Sardis: “You have a reputation that you are alive, but you are dead.” There was the outward appearance and the public reputation of life; but despite the public image, the Savior perceives that in reality this church was spiritually dead.

In 2 Timothy 3:5, the Apostle Paul speaks of those who have “a form of godliness, but are denying its power.” He is describing people who maintain the outward forms of godliness and religion: the formalities of worship, the name of Christian, but have denied the Holy Spirit. It may be a denial of the Holy Spirit by virtue of grieving Him as a result of harboring known sin, a very serious matter of which the Apostle Paul warns the church:

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹Get rid of all bitterness and rage and anger and clamor and slander, along with all malice. ³²Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God by Christ forgave you. Eph. 4:30-32)

Or, the denial of the Holy Spirit may occur by virtue of quenching His influence through unbelief. The Apostle Paul exhorts the Thessalonians, “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19). We quench the Spirit when we either ignore or resist His presence and active involvement in our lives.

Or, the denial of the Holy Spirit may occur simply by becoming pre-occupied with the world, such was the case with the church at Sardis.

It appears that the church in Sardis had become just like the city of Sardis. The city of Sardis was a very wealthy commercial center known for its woolen goods and wool-dying industry. But it was a city that was living off of its past; it had seen its heyday and was now in decline. Its abundant wealth appears to have been the very cause of its complacency and demise.

Although it was built upon the top of a cliff so steep that it appeared to be unconquerable, the city was captured not once, but twice, by enemy forces! On both occasions, the enemy troops scaled the walls of the city by night and discovered that the slothful citizens had posted no guards: they took confidence in their unassailable position and did not bother to defend it:

In 549 B.C., the Persian king Cyrus captured the city by deploying a climber to work his way up a crevice on one of the nearly perpendicular walls of the mountain fortress. Late in the third century B.C., (in 216 B.C.), the city was again captured in the same way. A Cretan named Lagoras discovered a vulnerable point and with band of fifteen men made a daring ascent, opened the gates from within, and allowed the armies of the Syrian king Antiochus the Great to overpower the city.²

It appears that the church in Sardis did not suffer any great persecution from without or any great heresy from within; its trouble stemmed from its position of prosperous ease. It was too dead to be attacked by the aggressive forces of evil. Here is a warning to which we must pay close attention: material prosperity and the riches of this world can become silent killers of the spiritual life; they can painlessly and imperceptibly, snuff out the spiritual life of the individual and of the church.

Let us check our spiritual pulse: let us be watchful over our spiritual life, so that it does not die. Our Lord Jesus Christ instructs us to “remember Lot’s wife” (Lk. 17:32). When Lot and his family were divinely-evacuated from the city of Sodom before its destruction, Lot’s wife turned back and became “a pillar of salt” (Gen. 19:26). The reason she turned back was because her heart was attached to that city and its lifestyle. She did not want to leave the city behind and live in the hills, (even though it was the command of the LORD), in order to be spared from the judgment that was about to descend upon that city for its hedonistic and materialistic lifestyle.

Check Your Spiritual Pulse, and Exercise Your Spiritual Life←⤒🔗

Our Lord’s command to the church in Sardis is, “Wake up!” or, “Be watchful!” As the N.T. commentator, Leon Morris, writes, “[this command] must have come home with peculiar force to the church in a city that had twice been captured owing to its failure to watch.”³ Here is an unmistakable warning that a lack of watchfulness can prove fatal to the individual believer’s spiritual life, or to the spiritual life of an entire congregation, just as such a failure had twice proven fatal to the city of Sardis’s well-being.

In light of our Lord’s opening words to the church in Sardis, “you have a reputation that you are alive, but you are dead” (vs. 1), the command, “Wake up,” may even bear the connotation, “Be alive!” (The Greek word, YρηYορεω, also contains the nuance, “to be alive.”⁴) The church is being commanded to rise up out of her spiritual coma. We may take note of a similar exhortation the Apostle Paul gives to the Ephesian church: “[the LORD] says, ‘Awake, O sleeper, even rise from the dead!’ and, ‘Christ will shine upon you’” (Eph. 5:14). The picture here is that of a man waking up to the morning light, with the brightness of Christ’s presence shining upon him.

In addressing the two churches of Revelation that have been suffocated by material prosperity, our Lord commands them to be revived, we might almost say, be “re-converted.” The words addressed to the church in Sardis, “Wake up!” (“Be alive!”), is language associated with conversion. Concerning their conversion to Christ, the Apostle Paul testifies to the Ephesians, “even when we were dead in transgressions he made us alive with Christ, by grace you have been saved” (Eph. 2:5). (However, we must point out that the word Paul uses is not the same as that which appears in Revelation 3:2.) The church in Laodicea is addressed by the Lord Jesus in these terms: “Behold! I am standing at the door, knocking. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him. I will dine with him, and he will dine with me” (Rev. 3:20). This is the language we would associate with the gospel invitation to the unconverted to receive Christ as their Savior. At the very least, the churches in Sardis and Laodicea needed to be spiritually resuscitated.

Our Lord further commands the church, “strength the things that remain and are about to die” (vs. 2). The command is to salvage and cultivate what spiritual life still exists: rather than allow it to die; “nurse” it back to health and vitality. The Lord Jesus does not simply allow His church to wither away and die. In His great love for the church, and in His desire for spiritual life to develop to maturity and Christian works inspired by faith to be brought to fulfillment, He issues His strong command: “Wake up! Strength the things that remain and are about to die.”

The Lord now states the reason for this command: “I have not found any of your works completed in the sight of my God” (vs. 2b). “Like the unfinished temple to Artemis, the works of this church constantly fell short of completion.”⁵ Just as their pagan neighbors lacked the zeal to complete the temple-building project they had begun, so the church of Christ in Sardis lacked the motivation and the spiritual focus to carry out to completion whatever works they had begun for Christ their Lord. This lack of commitment is especially provoking to our Lord Jesus who in His High Priestly Prayer testified to His Father: “I glorified you on the earth by accomplishing the work you gave me to do” (Jn. 17:4). Likewise, the Apostle Paul instructed the Colossian church to tell a young man named Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry that you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it” (Col. 4:17). Again, Paul will exhort Timothy, “fulfill your ministry” (2 Tim. 4:5).

A major cause of an unproductive (and unfruitful) spiritual life is the transfer of one’s focus and trust away from Christ to riches: first viewing riches as one’s “savior” from temporal cares, and then coming to view riches as the “source” of temporal happiness and fulfillment. Our Lord Jesus describes this process in His parable of the seed falling on the various types of soil, in particular, the "seed sown among the thorns:"

Still others are like seed sown among the thorns: these are people who have heard the word; ¹⁹but the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the intense desires for other things come in and choke the word, and so it becomes unfruitful. Mk. 4:18-19

In light of their present spiritual condition, the Lord Jesus commands the church in Sardis, “Remember how you received and heard” (vs. 3a). That is to say, remember how you received spiritual life. Remember that you received spiritual life from the Holy Spirit, as Paul reminds the Corinthians, “by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body...and we were all given the one Spirit to drink” (1 Cor. 12:13). Therefore, the church, and each individual believer, must look to the Holy Spirit for the revival of that spiritual life. A related question: How did you hear? How did you respond to the gospel? You received Christ with great joy, you recognized Him to be the Pearl of Great Price and you gave Him first priority in your life, just like the man in the parable: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. ⁴⁶When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it” (Matt. 13:45-46). Therefore, pray that the Lord would rekindle and restore your relationship with Him.

The Lord's further command is, “keep it,” or, “hold on to” Christ and the spiritual life that is found in Him alone (vs. 3b). Consider the admonition the writer to the Hebrews gives to his readers: “do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. ³⁶ You need to persevere, so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised” (Heb. 10:35-36).

The final part of our Lord's command is, “repent” (vs. 3c). Renounce the practice of giving first place in your heart and your life to the possessions of the world and the pursuit of the so-called “good life.” On the contrary, become pre-occupied with Christ and the pursuit of the Christian life. We must take to heart the words of our Lord Jesus concerning the potentiality of converting wealth into an idol that usurps the place of God in our lives:

²⁴No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money... ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.Matt. 6:24,33

Let us check our spiritual pulse. We must be watchful over our spiritual life, by developing that life. Let us ask ourselves such questions as these:

• Am I giving Christ first place in my life; if not, has the pursuit of material wealth and pleasure usurped the place that belongs to Christ the Lord?
   
• What am I doing for Christ? Am I steadfastly seeking to accomplish the work I have begun to undertake for Him? Am I being faithful to carry on to completion the ministry He has given me?
   
• Am I dedicating my everyday living and my talents to Him and to His service?
   
• Which question do I pose to myself: What does Christ want me to do with my life? or, What can I do that will bring me the biggest income and the most earthly success?

Check Your Spiritual Pulse, so that You will Not Lose the Lord’s Blessing←⤒🔗

Following His command, the Lord Jesus issues the warning: “If you do not wake up, [or, “if you do not watch”], I will come like a thief, and you will not know what time I will come to you” (vs. 3d). If the church does not obey the Lord’s counsel to deal with spiritual lethargy and deadness as they find such things present in their lives, the Lord will visit them in the role of the thief: the thief is the one who steals our treasured possessions. It is better to have Christ remove our present earthly prosperity, if it is a detriment to our spiritual life, than to lose out on the eternal blessing of the kingdom of God.

Remember how in His covenantal love and mercy, the Lord dealt with Lot. Lot foolishly chose the prosperity of the cities of the Plain, instead of maintaining his covenantal obligation to the LORD, which in his case meant remaining in the land of Canaan, and not forsaking it for “greener pastures” in time of famine:

Lot looked up and observed that all the Plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere, it was like the garden of the LORD, or like the land of Egypt as you go towards Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) ¹¹So Lot chose for himself all the Plain of the Jordan. Then Lot journeyed east. So they separated themselves from one another. ¹²Abram settled in the land of Canaan, but Lot settled in the cities of the Plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Gen. 13:10-12

Notice that the text says, “Lot chose for himself all the Plain of the Jordan;” meaning that his choice was self-motivated, without either deference to the LORD, (making his covenantal relationship with the LORD his priority), or consultation with the LORD, (seeking to know, so as to comply with, the will of the LORD his God).

As a thief in the night, (employing the warlord, Chedorlaomer and his confederates), the LORD plundered Lot’s prosperity, taking it all away from him so that he might not lose the blessing of the covenant:

¹At the time when Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim [were in power], ²they waged war against Bera the king of Sodom, Birsha the king of Gomorrah, Shinab the king of Admah, Shemeber the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, (which is also called Zoar)... ¹¹[Chedorlaomer and his allies] took all the wealth of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as all their food, then they went their way. Gen. 14:1-2,11

Eventually, the LORD removed Lot from the city that was destined for the final judgment of destruction:

As soon as it was morning, the angels hurried Lot out, saying, Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, so that you will not be consumed with the iniquity of the city. ¹⁶But [Lot] lingered; so the men took hold of his hand, and the hand of his wife, and the hand of his two daughters, the LORD being merciful to him, and dragged him away, setting him outside the city. Gen. 19:15-16

Our Lord makes the sure promise: “He who overcomes will be dressed in white garments; and I will by no means blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels” (vs. 5). That is to say, he who overcomes the allurements of this present world, responding to Christ’s call to discipleship and following Him, will be fitted to share in the life of the kingdom of heaven in fellowship with the Father and the Son. The hymn writer, Cecil Frances Alexander, expresses Christ’s call in these verses:

Jesus calls us o’er the tumult of our life’s wild, restless sea,
Day by day his sweet voice soundeth, saying, “Christian, follow me.”

Jesus calls us from the worship of the vain world’s golden
store, From each idol that would keep us, saying, “Christian, love me more.”

In our joys and in our sorrows, days of toil and hours of ease,
Still he calls, in cares and pleasures, “Christian, love me more than these.”

Jesus calls us. By Thy mercies, Savior, may we hear Thy call,
Give our hearts to Thine obedience, serve and love Thee best of all.

Let us check our spiritual pulse. We must be watchful over our spiritual life, so that we will not lose the Lord’s blessing.

Will you be like Demas? With reference to Demas, the Apostle Paul writes, “Demas, because he loved this world, has forsaken me and has gone to Thessalonica” (2 Tim. 4:10). In forsaking Paul, Demas was also forsaking Christ, as the phrase, “he loved this world,” indicates.

Will you be like the rich young ruler?

Looking at him, Jesus loved him and said to him, You lack one thing. Go; sell whatever you have and give [the proceeds] to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. ²²But when he heard [Jesus’] counsel, his face fell and he went away filled with sorrow, because he was a man who had great wealth. Mk. 10:21-22

Or, will you be like the disciples?

Peter began to say to him, We have left everything, and have followed you. Mk. 10:28

We may not be called to literally sell all we possess. We may not be called to leave everything in the literal sense of abandoning home and possessions. But we are called to give Christ first place and top priority in our lives, and allow all that He has given us to be at His disposal, holding nothing back.

Not every Christian is commanded to literally sell all his possession, as the rich young ruler was commanded to do (cf. Mk. 10:21). But every Christian is obligated to have the kind of heart that makes it possible for us, by the grace of God, to sell all that we possess; the kind of heart described in Luke 14:33, “Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” “To renounce” means to relinquish claim to, to give up the rights of possession. Every Christian is obligated to have a heart that is devoted to God, putting Him first, doing whatever He commands, and choosing Him above all others. Every Christian is obligated to have the kind of heart that causes us to hold our possessions in “the palm of an open hand,” ready to yield them to the LORD if He sees fit to reclaim them; rather than tightly clutching our possessions in “a clenched fist,” refusing to yield them up.

Conclusion←⤒🔗

If your name appeared on the Vietnam Memorial, declaring that you were deceased, when in fact you are alive, it would not be a serious matter: you could live with it.

But if your life fits the description of those in Sardis to whom the Lord Jesus declares, “You have a reputation that you are alive, but you are dead,” that is a serious matter. Such a situation demands immediate attention: Dial the heavenly “911” and solicit the aid of the great First Responder, the Holy Spirit.

How is your spiritual pulse? Are you being watchful over your spiritual life?

Discussion Questions←⤒🔗

1. What accusation does our Lord Jesus bring against the church in Sardis? See Rev. 3:1b. How can such a thing happen to a congregation, or to an individual Christian? Note 2 Tim. 3:1-2, 4-5. Who supplies, indeed, who is, the power that generates the Christian life? See Jn. 7:37-39a/2 Tim. 1:7. Are you relying on the Holy Spirit to live the Christian life, or are you denying Him?

And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: This is what the one who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars says: I know your works; you have a reputation that you are alive, but you are dead. Rev. 3:1

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: ²for men will lovers of themselves, lovers of money...⁴...lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God, ⁵holding a form of godliness, but denying its power. 2 Tim. 3:1-2, 4-5

Now on the last day, the great [day] of the Feast, Jesus stood and cried out, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. ³⁸Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, From within him shall flow rivers of living water. ³⁹Now he was referring to the [Holy] Spirit, whom they that believed in him were to receive...Jn. 7:37-39a

...God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control. 2 Tim. 1:7

2. What is one way in which a Christian may deny—or neglect or resist—the Holy Spirit? See Eph. 4:30-32. Are you grieving the Holy Spirit by harboring an unforgiving spirit? Do you realize how dangerous it is to withhold forgiveness from anyone? See Matt. 6:14-15,

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹Get rid of all bitterness and rage and anger and clamor and slander, along with all malice. ³²Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God by Christ forgave you. Eph. 4:30-32

...if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matt. 6:14­-15)

3. What is another way in which a Christian may deny the Holy Spirit? See 1 Thess. 5:19. How might we quench “the flaming vitality” of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives? Are you doing so by ignoring His guiding presence as He instructs you from the Word the God? Note Isa. 30:21. Are you doing so through timidity and unbelief? See Mk. 6:4-6a,

Do not quench the Spirit. 1 Thess. 5:19

And when you turn [aside] to the right or to the left, with your ears you will hear a voice behind you saying, This is the way, walk in it. Isa. 30:21

But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his own hometown, and among his own relatives, and in his own house. ⁵He could not do any mighty work there; although he did lay his hands upon a few sick people and healed them. ⁶He marveled at their unbelief. Mk. 6:4-6a

In absolute terms, the Lord’s power to work miracles is not dependent upon man’s faith; nevertheless, the Lord has ordained that He will withhold that divine display of power in the absence of faith.

4. What command does Christ issue to the church in Sardis? See Rev. 3:2. This church is being commanded to come out of her spiritual coma; do you personally need to heed this command? Are you losing interest in Christ; have the wealth and the pleasures of the world captured your attention; have they injected you with a “tranquilizer” that is threatening to induce a coma that will lead to spiritual death? What exhortation does the Apostle Paul give (cf. Eph. 5:14a) and what promise does he make (cf. Eph. 5:14b) to the Ephesian church? Is the Lord Jesus calling you to wake up to the light and glory and enjoyment of His divine presence? Should not the Psalmist’s prayer be our prayer and our desire? See Psl. 4:6b,

Wake up! Strength the things that remain and are about to die; for I have not found any of your works completed in the sight of my God. Rev. 3:2

By citing O.T. Scripture, the Apostle Paul exhorts the Ephesian church, “Awake, O sleeper, even rise from the dead!” and, “Christ will shine upon you.” (Eph. 5:14) The imagery is that of a man waking up to “the morning light” of the brightness of Christ’s presence.

LORD, lift up the light of your countenance upon us. Psl. 4:6b

5. What warning does the Lord Jesus give to this church? See Rev. 3:3b. What is the characteristic of a thief, what does he do? What might Christ have to take away from you if you do not heed His command to “Wake up!”? Do we not all need to join the psalmist in his prayer for the church, and for our own lives as well? See Psl. 80:18b-19,

Therefore, remember how you received and heard, and keep it, and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know what time I will come to you. Rev. 3:3

Revive us, and we will call upon your name. ¹⁹Restore us, O LORD, God of hosts; cause your face to shine, and we shall be saved. Psl. 80:18b-19