"Sardis: The Walking Dead" Revelation 3:1-6

1 "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. 2 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. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. 4 Yet you have a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 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. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'" (ESV)

If this is your first Sunday here at First EPC, we're about eight sermons in—I think today is number eight—a series of the Book of Revelation that should last about a year. I was thinking this morning, "How do I open up this letter to the church of Sardis?" And it reminded me first of all when I was kid. For better or worse, I was sort of a latchkey kid, which means I watched a lot of television, which doesn't mean a lot given the fact we only had three channels. But I remember when I was a kid, probably about 8 or 9, I would sometimes wait until my parents went to bed, and I would sneak up and watch TV. I would always like to sneak away on Saturday night and watch Creature Feature . I don't know if they had that here; they had it in Florida. In Creature Feature there was always some monster movie, which means I was afraid of the dark almost until I got into the Army, but that's another story. I remember when I was young, seeing the original Dracula and just being fascinated by vampires. And from the time I was 8 or 9 until adulthood, I made it my business to know everything I could about vampires until Twilight came along; that's another story too. But the interesting thing about vampires is that there are all these spiritual analogies, and if you remember, vampires are called sort of "the living dead;" they have volition. In other words, when you watch a vampire movie, a vampire can be the star of the movie because they're active, they do things, they think. Yeah okay, they're evil and they drink blood, but that's beside the point. They're volitional because, you see, what's interesting is there's a new trend of what's popular that I just don't get. Vampires are sort of yesterday's news. What's popular now are zombies. I keep up with the trends. I to be hip. I've got teenagers, so I tried to watch the show, Walking Dead. Have you seen that? Basically, this great pandemic has come and turned most of humanity into zombies, and the remaining survivors are trying to avoid the zombies. I watched one episode and never watched anymore – number one because it was pretty nasty; secondly, the problem with zombies is they don't do anything. Thus, the term "zombie" I guess. If vampires are the living dead, zombies are the walking dead. By definition, a zombie just goes through the motions; that's it. They just do what zombies do, and they don't think. They're not intentional. They're just looking for someone to eat.

Now, what's this got to do with the church in Sardis. We've been looking at the seven churches from Revelation recently. To all these churches in Revelation, usually Jesus gives encouragement, and then He gives them something they need to work on. The harshest letter of all the Book of Revelation is to the church in Sardis. We're going to look at it today. And the harshest rebuke is to the church that is basically full of the walking dead; it's full of people who just go through the motions. In other words, it should be pretty instructive that with all of the things that Jesus could be upset at, the church that He apparently is most grieved with is the church that is just going through the motions – the church that on the outside looks like everything is good, but on the inside is really dead. So we'll look at that this morning.

I would like to give you background since Revelation can be relatively confusing. So every week I try and give you a little bit of a refresher as to what's going on, or what's behind the way we're looking at it. And if you remember, of the seven churches, all of them have one problem in common: They all have specific problems, but the specific problems are how they're actually failing at their common problem. Remember what their common problem is? With all of the seven churches, either they had failed to do this, or they were in danger of failing to do this. Basically, they were all struggling with what it meant to be outwardly faced, or what it meant to be a witness to the world around them. The most obvious example was Ephesus. Remember, they had great doctrine and great programs, and everything was correct there, and yet they had forgotten their first love. They didn't do anything. They didn't witness to anyone outside, and the language I tend to use for that is "outwardly faced." You hear that from me a lot because the seven churches in Revelation struggled with what it meant to be outwardly faced, but every church I've ever been in my whole life, including ours, struggles with what it means to be outwardly faced. So I thought I'd take just a minute to talk about this a little bit. What does it mean to be outwardly faced? The biggest thing to get into your mind is that it's not something that you can do ; it's something that you can be. In other words, "what do I need to do?" people are constantly asking, and it's not an issue of what to do; it's an issue of what you are. In other words, it's a question of ethos. If you understand that being outwardly faced, or being a witness to the outside world is more of an issue of ethos than an issue of programs, or doing things, you'll start to understand. So what kind of things?

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Before I tell you what kind of things, I want to remind you of what I talked about on the very first Sunday here, and that's "The Burger King Principle." Remember - you can't say everything anytime you try to say something, otherwise you say nothing at all. So I'm going to give you a list of things here, but it's not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not even getting into foreign missions and things like that. It's just what does it mean for a congregation to be outwardly faced? First, a congregation that's outwardly faced is understandable for one. In other words, it doesn't mean a church that's outwardly faced doesn't have to compromise on its doctrine or its practice, but it needs to explain its doctrine and practice. It's funny, when I first started here, when Jeff became the clerk of our denomination, and I took over as pastor, I would do the call to worship, and I would say, "God always initiates with sinners; it's never the other way around." I say that every single Sunday. about a month of that, people started to come up to me and say, "Okay, you don't need to say that anymore; we've got it; I could say it myself." And I would always say to them, "You might get it, but what about the people that today is their first Sunday?" In other words, if you're outwardly faced, you're thinking, "Oh, I know why he's doing that; he does that every week because there are people here who don't understand what I understand." So, as much as we can, as we go through the service, we explain things – here's why we do the confession of sin. You don't back off what you believe; you just explain what you believe.

In fact, in 1 Corinthians 14 when Paul is talking about the issue of speaking in tongues or not speaking in tongues, remember his main concern there was that if someone comes in – "the barbarian" I think it says in King James, or the unbeliever—he needs to at least understand what's going on. That's what it means, in some sense, to be outwardly faced and understandable. A congregation that's outwardly faced doesn't assume. What don't they assume? They don't assume that people who come in understand what's going on. They don't assume that people understand the language and the lingo and all that kind of stuff.

I've told you my testimony before. By the time I was 17 years old, I had only been to church two times—maybe another time or two, but two times that I remember—so, when I went to camp at the age of 17, the very first night of camp, someone said, "Tommy, there is a God, and He punishes sin. Have a good night." And I walked out of that room, and I wept, because I didn't know there was anything else but that. And if people just assumed that, no one would have ever told me that, then I would have never known. You can't assume that people understand the gospel – that people understand what you're talking about. If you're outwardly faced, you don't assume those things. In fact, you almost assume the opposite; you assume that people don't understand everything that's going on, which is why you explain. A congregation that is outwardly faced is relational – that is, what's most important is relationships, not programs. I mean, it's been interesting to see; we opened up the MPR (multipurpose room) about a month ago to put tables out right by the coffee bar, and in a matter of about two weeks, the number of people who sit in the MPR, hanging out and drinking coffee is more than all of our adult Sunday schools combined. Do you think there's a need for people to be in relationship? You could say, "What a waste of time. Those people are just sitting in there hanging out getting to know one another. They need to be in a Sunday school where they're actually learning something." But if you're outwardly faced, you realize that people need time to interact. It's also an inviting place. And I've told you before, and I'm constantly haranguing you as a congregation about inviting, but it's not necessarily inviting people to church. Do you invite people to anything? What it means to be outwardly faced is you invite people into your world. Now, part of the problem with that is it becomes a little bit more complicated as soon as more people enter in. But are you inviting? Are we inviting? It's also genuine – a congregation that's outwardly faced. I use the word "genuine" instead of authentic, because authentic is sort of worn out as a word. But basically, do you believe what you say? When people come in, do they have the sense that the people actually believe what they're saying, or are they just going through the motions? There's a lot more you could add, but the final thing is that an outwardly faced congregation has fewer programs rather than more programs.

I read an article this week. I think it was written by a mom, and the title of it was something like this: "We'd Love to Come, But We Have Bible Study Every Night." The crux of the article was that one of her friends who was not a Christian invited them to dinner, and they, as Christians, had to turn down their friend, because they had Bible Study or some program at their church every night of the week. What it means to be outwardly faced is that you get rid of things like that which aren't essential so Christians are able to actually engage the world around them. If you're a human being and you're sitting in this room right now, and you have kids, teenagers, you know how hectic it is, and the more outwardly faced you are, the more hectic it will become. My wife has been out of town for about three days, and there are three girls and two dogs that can't wait until tomorrow. In a nutshell, what it means to be outwardly faced is that you think more about what's going on outside you than what's inside you. In other words, we're going to do the Profession of Faith at the end of the service today. Remember when someone asked Jesus, "What is the summary of the law?" And what the summary of the law is, Jesus says: "Be outwardly faced. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength outside of you, and love your neighbor as yourself." So all of the churches in Revelation and our church, and even me and you as individuals – we all struggle with what it means to love God, what it means to love our neighbor. So that's sort of the overarching theme that goes through all these letters.

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What do we know about this particular church that was in the city of Sardis? Sardis is an interesting place. In the sixth century, Sardis was the center of the kingdom of Lydia, and it was universally, or throughout Asia Minor at least, known as the most glorious city to ever have existed. It sat atop a 1500-foot pinnacle with three sides that you could not even penetrate, and it was huge. On top of that, it was the first to mint gold and silver coins in Asia Minor. Part of that was because they had a lot of gold there. Legend has it that King Midas actually was tired of having the golden touch, so he went to Pactolus and put his hands in the Springs of Pactolus and divested himself of the golden touch. And, of course, Sardis was the beneficiary of that, according to legend. They were also thought to be unconquerable because of the acropolis they sat on—that's going to become an important part of the letter to the church there—because they were surrounded on three sides by 1500-foot impenetrable walls. They thought they were so impenetrable, they didn't have watchmen on the walls. But they were actually conquered twice; once by King Cyrus of Persia who sent one man, a rock climber basically, up a crack in the wall. He climbed up and over, went in and opened the gates from the inside and let the Persians in, and the city of Sardis fell. That happened again with Antiochus, who did it with fifteen men, and after the second time they were conquered, they never reclaimed their glory. And what most commentators say was interesting about them is that they sort of lived in the past. In other words, they would constantly look back at their former glory and never really tried to recover their current glory; they never finished what they started. They started a temple to Artemis and didn't finish it. There was an earthquake there. They rebuilt after the earthquake, and they tried to petition Rome to build the temple to Caesar there, but they just never made it. They sort of lived in the past.

Remember, I've tried to give you some kind of analogy of what these churches would be like: The church in Ephesus would be maybe in Manhattan, very cosmopolitan. The church in Pergamum would be in D.C., sort of the center of political activity. Sardis might not be this bad, but, in some sense, it would be like Detroit, where people could look back in our country's history when Detroit, at one point, was maybe the third or fourth largest city, the third or fourth largest economic power, and now it's a shell of that. But it would be like if you lived in Detroit and saw squalor around you, and all you could talk about was, "Yeah, but back in the old days that's when it was good." That was sort of the mentality in Sardis. Now what about the church in Sardis? Usually I give you a list of things for the church in Sardis, but I don't need to, because remember I told you that this letter is a little bit harsher than the others. Jesus jumps right in and gives the description of the church in Sardis. That's where we'll go next. Before we do that, remember there's always an opening clue in the letters to these churches. At the beginning, in Revelation chapter 1, John has a vision of Jesus, and in this vision there are lots of different images from the Old Testament, and each of the letters opens up with a different one of those images. The image that you see is a clue, both to the church's problem and to the solution to that problem. So he says in the opening line:

1 "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.'

If you remember, seven is the number for completeness in the Bible, and what does it mean to say, "the one who has the seven spirits of God?" On one hand, you could say that is just another say Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is with all of the churches. And what does the Holy Spirit do? The Holy Spirit makes things alive. If the Holy Spirit does not operate, things don't come to life. That's one part of it. But if you remember also the seven spirits of God is symbolic of the light that burns in the lampstands in the temple, and that light was supposed to go out to the nations as a witness. In other words, this sounds an awful lot like Ephesus, if you remember, and the problem in Sardis was going to have to do particularly with their witness to the outside world. In other words, remember in Ephesus, he said, "You have this going for you, this going for you, and this going for you, but you've lost your first love." And a lot of the other churches He's basically giving them things that they need to do to improve their witness, but only when He says something like this has a church completely lost it's witness. So that's one of the things that's going on here. And the other is to the seven stars. Remember, the seven stars are the angels of the churches, so that either means that He is sovereign over the preachers, or He is sovereign over the supernatural beings that assist the churches. But either way, both things that are mentioned here have to do with God's power in the witness of the church to the outside world. So what's the problem? The problem is this - He says:

1b I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

Remember, we looked last week at Thyatira – that Jesus basically says, "I'm the one with eyes with flames of fire, and I know what the churches are doing." Jesus knows what the churches are doing, because He is there with them. You can't fool Jesus with lots of programs. You can't fool Jesus with lots and lots of activity, and in most churches, the way that you judge whether or not the church is successful and things are going well is by the number of programs it has. But according to the Bible, and according even to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church's Book of Order, there is a completely different way to judge a church's effectiveness. According to our own Book of Order, which is completely consistent with the Bible, it says, "The first duty of the church is the evangelization of the lost." To the extent you see people changed by the gospel and people coming to know Jesus as their Savior is the extent to which you're actually being successful in your ministry. And if that isn't happening, then you need to probably change something.

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So what do we know about the church there? That Sardis was easily the wealthiest church in Asia Minor; it's probably the biggest church in Asia Minor. In other words, when you see a church that is big, they have high attendance and lots of wealth, what do we tend to think? "Now that's a church we want to be like" unless you see it from the eyes of Jesus. Jesus says of Sardis, "You have every appearance of being alive, but you're dead; there's nothing happening there; it's all form and no substance." In other words—one of my favorite studies—the church in Sardis was sort of experiencing a corporate version of the Dr. Fox Effect. Are you familiar with the Dr. Fox Effect? It was in the Journal of Medical Education, Volume 48, July 1973, if you want to look it up and read it later. Basically, a bunch of social scientists got together in Southern California, and you know how scientists and social scientists, people who need to do graduate work and things, are constantly trying to think of ideas and hypotheses. And someone noticed the teachers that are more engaging and teachers that use humor and all of that kind of thing get higher marks from their students across the board. And they thought just because a guy can tell a good joke, that can't mean he's also a genius at Physics. So they did a study, and they repeated it three times. If you're a scientist, you don't want to just do a study; you want to see if it can be repeatable, and the results were identical every time. So in three studies, they had fifty-five different people participating. Let me start with Dr. Fox. Basically, Dr. Fox was an actor. His name was Michael Fox—not Michael J. Fox—but they hired an actor named Michael Fox, and they renamed him Dr. Myron L. Fox, and they told him, "Basically, we want you to give us a talk about mathematical game theories applied to physician education, and we want the whole talk to be nothing but doublespeak, non sequiturs and jokes. Then after, we're going to have people grade you on that talk." They had fifty-five people in three different studies made up of medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, graduate students, and a bunch of other people. Dr. Fox was all form and no substance, and what did doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, graduate students all say about his presentation? The response was overwhelmingly positive. And it wasn't just overwhelmingly positive about his presentation, they also had to grade him on content, and he also received extremely high grades on content, and the whole point of the study said there was no content there. That's why they did the study three times. Because the first time they did the study, it was so disturbing to the researchers, they repeated it two more times, and it was overwhelmingly positive. What's the point? The point is just this: They figured out this principle: if the presentation is good, people assume the content is there. It's as simple as that. If the presentation is good, the content must be good.

In the church in Sardis and the church all around the world, oftentimes we make the mistake of thinking if the presentation is good, the content must be there – that if you have the right programs, the right children's stuff, the right music, the right worship, all of these kinds of things, and enough money, then the content, of course, is there. We just assume that. But what Jesus says to Sardis is, "I know that you have a reputation for being alive, but you're not really; you're actually dead." And is there a solution to that? That's where He goes next. What’s the solution? Look at verses 2-3; Jesus says to them:

2 '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. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent.

The solution here is five different imperatives, which is a lot. Jesus doesn't usually give that many imperatives, certainly not in the same sentence. But to the church that is going through the motions, the church that has programs and thinks they're doing good because they're doing a lot of things, but really have no conversions, have no one really being changed, here's what Jesus says to them, number one: "Wake up." And that would be better translated as "be watchful, keep your eyes open." In other words, are you constantly being watchful for opportunities to be outwardly faced, watchful for opportunities to be missional, a word you hear sometimes. Jesus says, "Wake up. Be watchful." He also says, "Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God." What does He mean by that? I think He means don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The big mistake a lot of young pastors make—I've made a lot of mistakes; I haven't made this one I don't think—is they come into an older church and say, "Nothing is working here." And they just get rid of everything in trying to start over. Usually those guys go on to become church planners pretty quickly after that. This particular church has been around in some manner, shape or form since 1885, and everything that our church has done is not bad; in fact, it's done a lot of good. But Jesus' exhortation to Sardis here is to reemphasize what it is that they did that was good, to strengthen that what remains, strengthen that which is good. You don't throw out everything. What is it that your church is good at? What is it that you know how to do and do that. Get rid of everything else.

It's interesting because most commentators are pretty academic, and every now and then you hit a nerve, or you can tell that the passage must hit a nerve. And one commentator I was reading this week just out of nowhere said, "I think every five years churches ought to just cancel every program. Start over." I agree with that, by the way, but that’s beside the point. What's going on here is you have to evaluate what is doing well and what's not. Where He says, " for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God," that's probably better understood as, "I have not found your works fulfilling their purpose." In other words, one way to look at it is this: Ask yourself if you have a bunch of things you're doing in the church – works. You're doing this program, that program – all different kinds of programs, and if the purpose is to see people come to Christ, and no one is to coming to Christ, maybe the works you are doing are not fulfilling the purpose that you're set out

Sermon by Rev. Tommy Allen Page 4 March 18, 2012 to do; maybe you need to reevaluate. Next imperative: Jesus says, "Remember." What does He want them to remember? He says:

3 Remember, then, what you received and heard.

Whenever you read the New Testament and you hear the phrase "what you have received," it always has to do with the apostolic teaching of the gospel. In other words, He is saying, "If you want to be outwardly focused, you've got to wake up, you've got to be willing to evaluate what you're doing, but on top of that, you've got to remember what you've heard. You've got to be gospel driven. What have they received and heard? What is the message of the gospel? It is the message of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus on behalf of sinners – that Jesus lived the life you should have lived, He died the death you should have died, and He rose again on your behalf. He says, "Remember that" – because you can't be outwardly faced unless you know that. You can't witness to other people what you haven't understood yourself. And He says, maybe the first thing to do is to remind yourself of what it is that you believe, because to the extent to which you understand the gospel of Jesus is the extent to which you will be outwardly faced. Some people say, "What do I need to do to become outwardly faced?" A lot of times what I will tell them is, "You need to understand the gospel better. Maybe you need to be in a growth group. Maybe you need to read this or that book. Because to the extent to which the gospel has changed your heart is the extent to which you will look outside yourself. Jesus says next:

"Keep it."

Remember I told you that it either means to obey, or it means to hold fast to this. So on one hand, you've got to remind yourself of the gospel. On the other hand, you need to hold fast to this thing called the gospel but also when it comes to the obedience part of it. Oftentimes when you talk about being outwardly faced, or the church recovering its witness, or the church going outside of itself, I can't tell you how many times I've heard, "We need classes. We need to do evangelism classes around here" – not just in this church, which I have heard that here, but in other churches as well. It's interesting, when I came to the Pacific Northwest, I was installed as an evangelist, which is pretty uncommon in Presbyterian circles, and I never had a class in evangelism. What does it mean for you to be able to obey this thing? To share it with other people? Can you tell your own story of what Jesus has done for you? Has he done anything for you? In other words, if you're a Christian, there's an awful lot you can talk about without ever having a class. The final thing Jesus says here, and it would almost be incomplete if He didn't say it, because this is the point where He says, "You need to take action." In other words, He says, "Wake up, strengthen what remains, remember what you’ve received, keep it." Then finally He says: "Repent ," which means "take some action; you need to stop doing what you have been doing and start doing what you need to be doing."

Last week I did something impulsive which isn't going to surprise some of you. I signed up to run the Marine Corps Marathon, and I had fun for about the first week, because I would post on Facebook “pulled the marathon how-to book off of the shelf, taking baby steps.” Last Sunday, Judy got a picture of me - I actually fell asleep with this book across my face on Sunday afternoon. At some point one of my old Ranger buddies wrote me. He lives in D.C., and he basically said: A) "I'm going to be your road team when you come out." B) "I think it's time to leave the planning phase and start the execution phase."

Jesus says, "Wake up, be watchful, strengthen, remember, keep it, repent." But He also is saying, "You know, it's time to stop the planning phase and start the execution phase." And that's what He says in the last part of verse 3. Notice what He says:

3b 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.

What's His point here? To some of the churches of Revelation, He says, "If you don't get your act together, I'm coming – period." Why does He invoke this image of coming like a thief? Well for one, people in that city would have understood because that's how the Persians came. Remember the one man snuck through the crack like a thief and basically was able to take over their city. But there's something else that's going on here. Basically, what He's getting at here is the issue of urgency. You see, oftentimes we hear something, and we say, "Man, I need to get on that." Then by the time the afternoon comes, we've forgotten all about it. And Jesus says to them, "All of these things – the fact that you need to wake up, strengthen what remains, remember the gospel and to repent – need to happen like yesterday. It's urgent." There's an urgency to the gospel, there's an urgency to the church's message, and there's an urgency to the fact that Jesus is actually concerned about it. He tells them, "You need to make these changes because I will come at an hour that you don't know; it might be five minutes from now, it might be five hours, it might be five days, it might be five years, but it will be unexpected, which means, "You need to get on it right now. " So, the question is, Why is the church so non-urgent? Most churches are not particularly urgent when it comes to witnessing to the outside world. We're very urgent about taking care of what

Sermon by Rev. Tommy Allen Page 5 March 18, 2012 happens in here. One reason, I think, is just simple unbelief. Jesus says, "I will come like a thief in the night in an hour you do not know," so that at some point Jesus will come here, by the way. He's probably talking specifically to this church. But in the Book of Revelation, He also says that He will just come back period - at a time we don't know. Now ask yourself this: Are your neighbors ready for that? Are the people you work with ready for that? Are your family members ready for that? How urgent are you about making sure that at least they have been told about the gospel of Jesus; at least they've been exposed to the gospel of Jesus, because at any time there will be no more time. The issue is one of urgency, and the question is, Do you believe that or not? Most of our lack of urgency, I think, comes from the fact that we don't really believe it; also it comes from the fact that we tend to be pretty comfortable. I think most people, including me by the way, have a very intuitive sense that if I start telling people about Jesus or inviting people to my , and they start becoming Christians, then my life is going to become a lot more messy and a lot more complicated. And the easiest way to avoid mess and avoid complication, trust me, it's just to avoid people. I spent a good bit of my life doing that – just wanting to be left . Why? Because we want to be comfortable. A lot of times we want to be comfortable so we can get our Bible study done for all the Christians that are going to be sitting over here. A lot of the reason I don't think we take urgency seriously is because we're just comfortable.

Finally, one of the things I see over and over again is this issue of nostalgia. Remember the problem in Sardis as a city they lived in the past – it was just really easy to say, "back in the day – that's when things were good." And with regard to nostalgia, most of us look back at our childhood, look back twenty-five or thirty years, and we view that time as much better and much more positive than it actually was. I don't know if that's some kind of coping mechanism that God has given us, but if I am objective, I had a horrible childhood. Yet, most of my memories from childhood are relatively positive. I can look back to maybe the Army; I can't tell you how many times I look back and say, "Man, Ranger school, that was the day; that was when I was having all of the fun in my life." And when I really start to think about it, that's crazy – I wouldn't want to do that again. I'm glad I did it, but the point is when you look at the past, can you remember it and appreciate it for what it is but also be constantly moving forward? So much of what happens in a church – so much of what keeps us from being urgent is constantly saying, "But look at what we used to do." The reason we used to do things in this church is because the neighborhood was completely different. What should we be doing now? The reason things happened in the past was for one reason, but the things that happen in the future probably need to be quite different. You see, another way that the church is outwardly faced is to be change oriented, or at least to be willing to change. I mean, it's interesting, when I first got here, I had some people in their sixties or seventies say, "Tommy, you can change anything you want; just don't change anything until I'm gone." And I remember thinking to myself, "You might live for another twenty years or thirty years!" You know thirty years is basically a generation. There is urgency. Is there any encouragement in the church in Sardis? There is a little bit. In verse 4, Jesus says:

4 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 difference between this letter and the church in Pergamum, for example, is remember in some churches they have a few people who are doing things bad. In other words, you have a few there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, or a few there who hold to the teaching of Nicolaitans. You just need to deal with the bad eggs and you'll be okay. The problem with the church in Sardis is the majority of the people are like that, and the minority of the people are the ones who have not soiled their garments, if you will. That's probably a reference to participating in Pagan festivals. One of the things that we know about the church in Sardis, apparently, is that it had a very good reputation with the city. In other words, there wasn't a lot of persecution going on there. If you asked a pagan in Sardis, "What do you think about First Pres. Sardis?" They'd say, "Oh, that church is great. You can't tell any difference from them and us” – that's part of the problem. There were some, however, who didn't soil themselves. There were some who continued to witness. Most people think that's what this means. And Sardis was famous for fabric, so you could walk down the street in Sardis, apparently, during market time, and there would just be brilliant fabric all over the place. And if you wore white, you would stand out like a sore thumb. So some people think what Jesus is saying here is, "Some people – they stick out like a sore thumb, and that's a good thing. They don't just blend in. You can tell a difference, because they're actually walking with me." And He says, "They walk with me in white, for they are worthy."

Now there's a connection here between worthiness and actually bearing witness. What is the connection between worthiness and bearing witness? Is there a bridge there? There is – it's the fact that they walk with Jesus in white, not that they just walk with Him. In other words, He could have just said, "There are some who walk with me, and they are worthy." But He says, "These people walk with Me in white." Who are the people that walk in white? I'm not going to turn there – Revelation 7:14. There's a vision in 7:14, and one of the elders around the throne says, "Who are all these people in white?" And the angel answers, "The ones in white, those are the ones who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb." In other words, the ones wearing white are the ones who have been washed in the blood of Jesus. They've been forgiven of their sins, and they have been given new garments. A few weeks ago, we looked at the fact that you get a new name. Well, the beauty of the

Sermon by Rev. Tommy Allen Page 6 March 18, 2012 gospel is that you don't just get a new name; you get new clothing as well, and that clothing is not soiled, it's not besmirched; nothing is wrong with it. In fact, it's been washed in the blood of the Lamb, so when God sees you, He doesn't see your sin, He doesn't see your brokenness. What, in fact, He sees is these white garments, the righteousness of Jesus given to you. That is the place from which we get our worthiness, and they're attached here – all these promises - as well. In verse 5, He says:

5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, ( Remember what it means to conquer is to hold fast to Jesus. We learned that last week.) 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.

Usually, the second promise you hear positively, and the third promise you hear negatively from a secular perspective - I will never blot his name out of the book of life. In Asia Minor, in Rome, basically you could be part of a small city or even a big city, and if you did something wrong you might not go to prison, you might not get murdered, but you might get banished. And if you were banished from Sardis or Pergamum or any other place, guess what they would do to you? They erase your name – no longer a citizen of this place. And what Jesus is saying for the ones who walk with Him in white, that's never going to happen to you. Never. Those who have trusted Jesus, those whose robes have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, those who walk with him, and those who are worthy, they will never have their name blotted from the book of life. It just will not happen; it is an impossibility. So no matter how hard life gets, you can remember that my name will never be blotted out of this book. Then, the last thing He says is this: "I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels." Remember what He says in Matthew 10:33? He says, "The one who denies Me before men, I will deny before My Father." In other words, He says, "If you won't witness my name to men, then I'm not going to witness your name to the Father." The connection there is if you have been changed by Jesus, how could you not do those things? Yet, again He promises that not only will your name not get blotted out but that He Himself will confess your name, this new name to the Father. So where does that leave us?

A couple of years ago I wrote an article for Tabletalk magazine –actually wrote a few articles—and they would often call me when they wanted articles about Charles Spurgeon. One of them I wrote was about Spurgeon and evangelism, and it got a lot of response, I guess, because Spurgeon talks oftentimes about preachers, but I think it's true for Christians as well. When you ask a preacher oftentimes, "Are people being changed in your ministry? Are people being converted in your ministry?" And preachers will say, "No, but all I need to do is be faithful to the Word of God." You know what Spurgeon said? He said, "Ask a fisherman if he's ever caught any fish, and if the fisherman says, 'no, but I just need to be faithful,'" Spurgeon would say, "If you never caught a fish, I don't think you're a fisherman." You see, all of us – if you're a Christian, you've been called to be "fishers of men," you've been called to witness, you've been called to be outwardly faced. And the question is, If that is not happening, are we really fisherman if you've never caught a fish?" As a church are we catching more and more fish, if you will? We are slowly, little by little, but we've got a lot of work to do.

What's the last thing Jesus says to this church? He says:

6 ' He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'"

Think about that.

Let me pray for us. Father, I pray this morning that You would change us - not throw out everything, but to strengthen what remains what it is that we do good, what it is that we do well as a church, and not just us, but every church. Enable us to both see that, to focus on it, but also be driven by this thing called the gospel that we might not have the same rebuke that you gave to Sardis, that we would have a reputation for being alive, but that we would also actually be alive. Father, I beg You make this happen. In Christ's name we pray. Amen and amen.

Sermon by Rev. Tommy Allen Page 7 March 18, 2012