Revelation 3:1-6 Check Your Pulse! 1. The danger of "flatline" 2. Power for resuscitation and restoration 7 Letters to the 7 Churches Sermon Series #5 January 9, 2010

To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (NIV)

If you watched the show ER (or probably any other TV medical drama), you know that at least once during every hour, someone pulled out those defibrillator paddles, placed them on someone’s chest, and cranked up the electricity. It’s not the sort of thing you normally do to someone, because it gives their body a tremendously powerful shock. But they say that desperate times call for desperate measures, and when someone is “flatlining” on the heart monitor, those are most assuredly desperate times. It is certainly not a time to worry about how the shock might cause someone to feel. In our text, Jesus pulls out the defibrillator paddles and places them on the chest of the church at Sardis. He says, “I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” They hardly sound like the words of the gentle, loving Savior that we know. But this was not a time for being gentle. This was a time for shocking. These were desperate times, times for doing anything possible to save the patient. This was a time to wake up the Christians at Sardis and make them see what grave danger they were in. The Lord's message to the church at Sardis, to Christians of every age, is this: Check your pulse!

1. The danger of flatline Jesus begins by saying, “I know your deeds.” He had said the same thing to the churches at Ephesus and Thyatira—and then followed it up with commendation for their deeds. But not this time. While Jesus says that they had “a reputation of being alive”, it was unearned and undeserved. It’s possible that that reputation had been earned in the past . Perhaps things had gotten done, things happened, the congregation grew. Maybe they were the first of the seven churches of Revelation to become self-supporting. Maybe they had a good presence in the community. Maybe they had dynamic preaching and teaching, good Bible class attendance at a variety of Bible classes throughout the week. But regardless of what had happened in the past, Jesus says that here, now, in the present, they were dead. I believe that Peace congregation has a reputation for being alive. Such life was seen a few Sundays ago, when six adults were received into membership through adult confirmation. Another sign of life is energy. When we enter the building on a Sunday morning, most of us feel an energy here--in the way we are greeted, in the smiles on people’s faces, in the activity of children. Another sign of life is actions. Among the congregations in our circuit, Peace has a reputation for being a place of action--good church attendance, solid Bible class attendance, healthy offerings, a building that was entirely paid for shortly after it was built. By and large, we are the sort of people who know how to get things done and accomplished in our daily lives, and we know how to do the same in our congregational life. Is there room for improvement? Always. But in any congregation where there is this much activity, there can hardly be a danger of the opposite extreme, of “flatline”, can there? Even as individuals, the fact is that people often say to us how much they respect us, how much they admire the fact that we live a moral life, the fact that many of us are committed to drive at least 30 miles round-trip to church each Sunday, the fact that we’re so involved in teaching Bible stories to our children. People at work say it, our neighbors say it. We have a reputation for being alive. And we have that reputation because people can see so many outward things that would seem to indicate fantastic spiritual health. In any individual in whom there is that much activity, who is so obviously different than others in their strength of moral conviction, there can hardly be a danger of flatline, can there? There can. There was for the congregation at Sardis. While outwardly the patient appeared to be healthy, in shape, and full of youth and energy, Jesus saw that inside there was a cancer that was spreading so rapidly that there was practically no life left in the congregation. In fact, he said, “You are dead.” It’s interesting, isn’t it? Of the five congregations we’ve looked at so far, the congregation at Sardis is the first that was apparently not struggling with persecution or false teachings. And yet it is the one that Jesus accuses of being dead. If there was a danger of “flatline”, of spiritual death--and know that spiritual death is exactly what it sounds like--the loss of life, the loss of faith and the loss of eternal life in Heaven with Jesus--if there was a danger of “flatline”, of spiritual death for the capable, comfortable congregation at Sardis, there is certainly the danger of “flatline” for the capable, comfortable congregation and the capable, comfortable individuals at Cottonwood. The People’s Bible on Revelation says, “Self-satisfaction usually accompanies spiritual deadness.” Perhaps somewhere along the way the congregation at Sardis had begun to focus on and revel in their own press clippings, while losing the focus that had led to them. The same thing could certainly happen to us. The Devil isn’t choosy. He isn’t wedded to one particular means of soul-destruction. He doesn’t necessarily need for us to plummet into vile, front-page worthy sins. He’s plenty happy to let us slowly sink into a self-satisfied spiritual stupor in which our seemingly unchanging outward appearance blinds us to the fact that inwardly, our spiritual organs are shutting down. What, then, can we do? What can Peace congregation do to avoid having the outward form of godliness, but an empty, inner shell devoid of faith? How can we personally avoid the fate that’s worse than death? By doing what Jesus encouraged the congregation at Sardis to do.

2. Power for resuscitation and restoration He says, “Wake up!” Wake up?!?! What sort of a command is that?!? I don’t recall Doctor Mark Greene on ER ever saying to a patient who had died, “Wake up!” For that matter, I don’t recall him ever saying it to someone who was flatlining. How can a dead person wake up? But when the Lord of the universe says, “Wake up!” things happen, don’t they? Just ask Jairus. (Luke 8:40-56.) Ask the widow of Nain. (Luke 7:11-15) Ask the family of Lazarus. (John 11:1-44) Ask all of them what happened to their dead loved ones when Jesus said, “Wake up!” So when Jesus says, “Wake up”, things happen. They happen because of the power of his Word. And that is the same thing Jesus uses to wake us up. He says, “Remember what you have received and heard; obey it and repent.” He says that it really doesn’t start with you and me. He says that it doesn’t come from navel-gazing--thinking about ourselves and our lives and our works—which are never complete in the sight of God. If the Devil leads us to think that our salvation is in some way based on those things, then he’s really won. Waking up does not mean “remembering the good things we have said and done” nor does it mean “getting busy saying and doing good things”, but rather, Jesus says that it first comes from “remembering what we have received and heard.” Paul put it a little differently when he wrote to Timothy. He said, “As for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of...and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scripture which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 3:14-15). “Waking up” then, is nothing more than tapping into the power of God’s Word. It’s nothing more than looking at Christ, who was revealed in that Word, remembering what we have heard about him, and then putting our trust in his perfect obedience to the law in our place, his innocent death to take away our sins, and his glorious resurrection to assure us that we need never die eternally. Remember those things, hear those things, give God’s Holy Spirit an opportunity to work, get those defib paddles of God’s Word and God’s promises, and boom!--that heartbeat of faith in Jesus will start pounding again. Dead men come to life when Jesus calls them. Hearts dead in sin and unbelief come to spiritual life when Jesus calls them through the power of the gospel. We repent--that is, we turn away from every evil work, and we turn away from self-righteous prideful attitudes about our good works, we turn away from pride in our reputation for “being alive”--and instead trust in the one who makes us truly alive--the Savior we find in the Bible. That sort of humble repentance and trusting faith are what make an individual, a congregation truly alive. Jesus then says, “He who overcomes will be dressed in white ... I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels." He encourages us to look to the day when we sit down at the heavenly feast, clothed in the garments of salvation and the robe of righteousness. He assures us that our names are on the guest list. He even promises to very publicly introduce us to the Father and the angels: "Yes, I know her. Yes, he belongs here. Yes, Father, they are all your children, bought and paid for by my blood. They are our guests forever." So it all comes down to one thing--the Word. Stay in that Word daily—even if you think you already know much of it. Jesus knew it—he had written it!—and yet he fought against the Devil’s temptations to spiritually flatline by regularly attending worship at the synagogue. Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for the church at Sardis. It’s gone. In fact, so is the city itself. The Turks destroyed it in the 14 th century. May its ruins serve as a warning. May our trust never shift from what our Savior has done for us to what we are doing. God help us to check our pulse daily by looking to the Word, to the cross of our crucified and risen Savior. Amen.

MAKE REFERENCE TO THE HOLY SPIRIT HAVING GIVEN US LIFE AT OUR BAPTISMS—NOW DON’T LOSE THAT LIFE BY FLATLINING

The danger of flatlining is always near and very real because the Devil is always very near and very real. And he never gives up. Working together with the world and our sinful flesh, he exposes us to virus after virus, looking for the one to which we have the least resistance. If he can’t get us with the abuse of alcohol, he’ll get us with the abuse of sex. If he can’t kill us with the cancer of gossip, he’ll try to infect us with the cancer of haughtiness. If he cannot get us one way, he will get us another way. While I preface this statement by saying that there are no sins at all against which we may let down our guard, the fact is that it doesn’t appear very likely that the Devil will get us by open sins of the flesh, by sexual immorality, theft, murder, etc. But then he will try to get us in more subtle ways.

Consider the case of Martin Luther. The Devil tried frantically to get Martin Luther to flatline spiritually—because he knew that Martin Luther was going to resurrect the one thing that the devil cannot stand--the one little word that can fell him--the good news of Jesus Christ and his free and full forgiveness. Now Satan had a pretty good idea that he wouldn’t kill Martin Luther through open sins of the flesh. Instead, the devil tried to get him to despair of his sins. He tried to make Martin Luther feel that he had an incurable disease, and that there was nothing left for him to do but wait to die and fall into the hands of an angry God. But God saved him by leading him to the gospel, to the knowledge that he did not have an angry God, but a loving God--a God so loving that he gave his only Son to die for him. But of course Satan didn’t quit. Then he tried to kill Luther by making him complacent, by making him sit back and look at his books, the brilliant confessions he had authored, the translation of the New Testament, and he tried to make him feel that he had surely done enough, that surely those things were proof enough that he was spiritually alive. He tried to kill Luther--and the church--with the acceptance of false teachings, knowing that where the clouds of false teachings are, the sun of the gospel inevitably does not shine in all its brilliance. He tried to distract Luther by tempting him to stick his nose into all sorts of government and social affairs, trying to keep him busy from noon until night, trying to ensnare him in the delusion that a busy person is by very definition then also a spiritually alive person. He tried to make him forget that the work of the church is to be busy, yes--but busy preaching God’s Word. Then finally he tried to kill him with pride, as people went on and on about the many good things that Luther had done, as people encouraged Luther to pat himself on the back, encouraged him to read his press clippings, bask in his reputation for being “alive” spiritually.

2. Power for resuscitation and restoration But Martin Luther knew better than to confuse books and eloquent preaching with actual spiritual life. He made sure to do what it took to avoid spiritual flatlining.