Well, good morning. If you care
to open your Bibles, the book of Revelation chapter 3. Revelation
3 is where our lesson will be from this morning. Before we
begin, let's bow in prayer. Our holy, sovereign, merciful,
heavenly Father, Lord, how we thank you that out of your goodness
to your people, you've given us one more opportunity to meet
together to worship you, to open your word, to read and study
your word, to come before you in prayer and offer our praises,
our petition and our thanksgiving. Father, how we beg of thee this
morning, a spirit of worship. Father, deliver us from plain
church, just going through the motions of religion. How we beg
of thee a heart that you would give us a heart that hungers
and thirsts after the Lord Jesus Christ. Give us a heart that
every day seeks the Lord, that every day looks to the Lord.
Give us a heart that on the days appointed where we meet together
to worship, give us a heart that comes as a sinner, desperately
seeking the Savior, in need of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father,
bless us with the preaching of Christ. How we pray that you'd
give us the message that you give us the message for your
people. We know the message is Christ. It's all in your son.
Father, bless your word as his priest we pray. To your glory,
to the hearts of your people who need you so much. This world is such a dry and
barren land. Father, refresh us with the preaching
of our Savior this morning. What we ask for ourselves, we
ask for the classes in the back, how we pray that you bless our
teachers, and teach our young people. Father, bless them in
a special way. Bless our children. Give them,
from an early age, we pray, a hearing ear and a believing heart that
we know they understand the things that are taught to them. Father,
give them heart faith. Cause their head knowledge to
become heart faith by your purpose and will and grace and mercy.
Father, we pray that you'd be at the sick and afflicted those
who need you especially. How we pray that you heal and
that you comfort their hearts with your presence till such
time as you provide a way out of this difficulty. All these
things we ask and we give thanks in that name which is above every
name for the glory of the name of our Savior we pray and give
thanks. All right, Revelation chapter
3. I've titled the lesson this morning,
on our laurels, resting on our laurels. It's a very, very serious
letter to the church at Sardis. Now the city of Sardis at one
time had been a very great city, but the time this letter was
written, the city had fallen into decline and to decay. And
sadly, the church at Sardis was suffering the very same fate.
At one time, the church at Sardis had been a great church, just
such a reputation that they had for preaching God's grace and
worshiping him. But now the church was in decline
and decay. And I'm not talking about the
numbers of people who were attending. The decline and the decay was
in the doctrine that was being preached and in the spirit and
attitude of worship in the church. That's a very serious letter.
So let's look at it beginning here in verse one. And under
the angel, the church of Sardis writes, These things saith he
that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know
thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest in our dead.
Now, just like all the other letters, the Lord writes this
letter and he dresses it to the pastor, the church of Sardis.
You remember the angel represents the pastor. And the Lord identifies
himself as the one who holds the stars, who holds the pastors
in his hand. Remember those stars are God's
angel or God's pastors too. Look back at chapter one, verse
20. The mystery of the seven stars, which thou sawest in my
right hand and the seven golden candlesticks, the seven stars
are the angels. The pastors are the seven churches
and the seven candlesticks, which thou sawest are the seven churches.
And the Lord says, now those pastors and churches are held
in my hand. They're held in his hand. They're
not upheld by their own wisdom and their own strength, their
own faithfulness. They're held in the hand of the Almighty. And while they're held in the
hand of the Almighty, like I said, this is a very sobering letter
to these people. Of all the letters that we've
studied so far, this is the first one where the Lord does not commend
them for something good going on there. He doesn't commend
them for something good because there isn't anything to commend
them for. That's very, very sobering. I
don't want to fall into that camp. And Lord tells them, I
know your works, but he's not telling them like he told the
other churches. I know your works that are good. He said, I know
your works and they're not good works. Look at the very end of
verse two. For I have not found thy works
perfect before God. They had works, but they weren't
good. The church of Sardis was still active. They were doing
all kinds of things, you know, that the church does. but none
of them were good. Now remember, a good work is
a work that's done for the glory of Christ, done upon the body
of Christ, and the body of Christ is his people. So a good work
is a work that's of graciousness and kindness and love that you
do for one of your brethren, and when you do it for the glory
of God, God says that's a good work. None of that was going
on in Sardis. The works that they were doing
were for their glory. for the glory of their reputation
and their name, not the name of the Savior, not for the good
and glory of the Savior, the good of his people. I can show
you that at the end of verse one, he says, I know thy works
that thou hast to name that thou livest and are dead. The Lord
says, you have a name that you live. You live this name. You
have a name that's important to you. It's your name. You're living on your past reputation. You're living upon your past
blessings, glorying in your past blessings. Now remember, this
church had been a great church at one time. The preaching there
was just outstanding. I mean, you couldn't find more
plain, clear preaching that glorified Christ. The worship and fellowship
was sweet and it was warm because the fellowship all centered around
Christ. People came together with a heartfelt
desire to worship Christ. In their daily walk, they sought
the Lord. They truly did desire the glory of God in their town,
and they sought it. They sought the Lord, they sought
His blessing, and the Lord blessed them mightily at that time. But
now, I don't know how long, but some time has passed. They probably
had a new pastor, But the congregation still assumed everything was
great, everything just like it always had been. They knew other
churches had gone by the wayside. They knew other churches had
departed from the gospel, but they said, this great church
at Sardis is not going to do that. That's what they thought.
They thought, I know that can happen to people, but that can't
happen to us. We're too well taught for that to happen. They
thought, we're God's special children. God blessed us above
everybody. And he's going to continue to
do it. They just assume that. They said this church at Sardis
has been the center of the grace movement in Asia. It always will
be. This is our reputation and that's
what they lived on. But you see the problem with
that thinking? They're living on their past blessings and they
weren't seeking Christ to be their blessing now. Lord told
Abram, I am thy exceeding great reward. And they weren't seeking
Christ to be their reward right now. They were relying and looking
on and glorying in what they've been given in the past. They
were glorying in, they were living upon their past faith, their
past faith. But that's not real faith. Faith
never looks back. Faith only looks one place. Faith
looks to Christ. Faith never looks back. is right
now, right now. Looking to our past faith is
like trying to eat day-old manna. It's full of worms. That's gross. Manna that's full of worms, eating
that is gross. Looking to our past faith and
glorying in it is just as gross, more gross. Now, they were still
holding services. They still met on Sundays and
Wednesdays, but there was no worship going on in those services.
The focus was on, look how blessed we are, instead of looking to
Christ the Savior. They were looking at the blessings
and worse yet, even their past blessings, instead of looking
to the blessor. They were relying on how God
had blessed them in the past instead of seeking Christ right
now. I need Christ right now. I need to seek him now. And sadly,
what had happened is they'd substituted something for Christ. They substituted
something about Christ. They substituted something about
God for Christ. They substituted religious ritual,
just the habit of meeting on Sundays and Wednesdays. They
substituted that for heart worship. They substituted religious creed,
five points of Calvinism. They substituted that for Christ. We need to remember this. Now
I want to have, we must have right doctrine, but it's not
five points of Calvinism to say. Christ who saves, that's who
we need to see. They substituted orthodox doctrine
for hard life. You can have the right doctrine
and be dead. They were more concerned about preserving their reputation
as this great church than they were about preserving the reputation
of Christ. They were still preaching. They're
still going through the motions of preaching and they're preaching
some true things. But the gospel was not being
sounded out clearly. You can say a whole string of
true things and never preach the gospel. You can say true
things and not preach the truth. That's what was happening in
Sardis. I know that so because they were at peace. They were
at peace with everybody. They were at peace with Jew and
Gentile alike. Whether you were religious, no matter what you
believed, or no matter what false religion you believed, or whether
you were just an utter heathen, they were at peace with those
people. The church of Sardis was at peace with those people.
There's only one way that can happen. They weren't preaching
Christ clearly enough to show the difference between the saved
and the lost, between the truth and error. That's why they were
at peace. And they probably thought Look
at this peace we're having. They probably thought because
of that peace, everything's fine. But their peace had deceived
them. Their peace was the peace of
a cemetery. Everything's peaceful cemetery.
It's always peaceful because everybody's dead. There's nobody
there to make a ruckus. They're all dead. And the Lord
says you're living on your past reputation. But now you're dead. Isn't that what a cemetery is? My parents used to love to go,
whenever we'd go someplace, if there was an old cemetery, they
liked to walk through it. I mean, I'd have rather stuck
a toothpick in my eye than do that. I just, oh, I hated that.
I mean, ugh. I'm sure as you walk through
those cemeteries and you see those old names, maybe there's
a name you can hardly read on the tombstone anymore. It's just
so worn off. It very likely, one day, They
buried a man there who was a respected man. His family wept and mourned
over their loss. This was a great man to them.
And instead, going to that cemetery
and peace at that cemetery and looking at those great names
or living upon the great names of the past. Who's leading the
family now? Huh? Who's being the example
now? Who's providing for them now?
Who's being the priest in the home now? Leading the people
and the family in worship now? Not just a great name on a tombstone.
He's dead. He's dead. And that is exactly
what happened to the church of Sardis. They had a lot of great
names of the past, but they're dead. There's no life in Christ
there. And I can tell you why the Lord
addresses this letter first to the pastor. Now, it's to the
whole church, but the letter's addressed first to the pastor.
Because this problem, when it happens, almost always begins
in the pulpit. Almost always. The responsibility
lies with the pastor. The pastor and the elders. This
problem begins when the message becomes more syrupy and less
doctrinal. That's a great concern of mine. We must comfort God's people. The Lord commanded us that. Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people. But don't go comforting them
with this syrupy message that says, well, just everything's
going to be all right. No, that's not how we comfort God's people.
We comfort God's people with the true teaching, the true doctrine,
who Christ is, what he did, why he did it, and where he is now.
We comfort the hearts of God's people with the sound teaching
of who Christ is. And the building will begin to
crumble when that rock solid foundational doctrinal truths
is not in every message. The problem begins in the pulpit.
This problem more likely began with slackness on the pastor's
part. He became slack in study. He
became slack in prayer. And he became slack in preaching. People can tell. You can just
tell when the pastor with a preacher, he's been slack in prayer, slack
in study, and he's slack in preaching. You can tell. And you know what
that'll lead to? Slackness on the part of the
congregation. If it's not important to the pastor, why is it important
to me, you know? I have a little frame hanging up in my study
with this quote from Spurgeon. Spurgeon says, the limping of
the leader is the lameness of the follower. problem began in
the poor and then just bled over to the congregation. Look at
first Timothy chapter four. I'm just confident the pastor
there, he, I'm sure he's read this, but he ignored the apostle
Paul's warning to young Timothy in first Timothy chapter four, verse 12. Let no man despise thy youth,
but be thou an example of the believer. in word, in conversation,
in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give
attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the
gift that's in thee. Don't get slack about this gift
that's in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying
on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things. Give
thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all.
Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them,
for in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that
hear thee. But when that becomes slack,
when there's slackness in those things, I can show you what happened.
Look over 2 Timothy chapter four. 2 Timothy four, verse one. I charge thee therefore before
God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and
the dead at his appearing in his kingdom. Now, this is serious
business. Suppose I charge you before God,
before Christ, the judge of all. Timothy, you preach the word.
Be instant in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort
with all longsuffering and doctrine. You got to do that with sound
doctrine, with the teaching of Christ. Here's why you do this. For the time will come and they'll
not endure sound doctrine. But after their own lust, shall
they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. And they
shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned
unto fables. But you watch, watch thou in
all things. Endure afflictions, do the work
of evangelists, make full proof of your ministry. Make full proof
of your ministry by never being slack in it. Give yourself wholly
to these things. And when the pastor's not, This
is what happens, just exactly what happens in Sardis. Now that's
a pretty depressing letter. That's a pretty depressing start
to the letter. You might wonder, isn't there any encouragement
to be found here? What can we do? What can happen
to keep us from falling into this very trap? Well, there is
encouragement in this letter. And the encouragement is found
in Christ our Savior. The first word of comfort is
this. There is a cure for this spiritual stupor. Look at verse
two back in our text. Be watchful and strengthen the
things which remain that are ready to die. For I have not
found thy works perfect before God. Now, this church could look
dead, but something was left hidden away deep in the hearts
of the believers there. You couldn't see it with the
eye of flesh, but something was hidden in the heart. There was
still life hidden in those The Lord said, strengthen those things
which are ready to die. They're not dead yet, they're
ready to die. They're not dead yet, so strengthen them. They
look dead, but they're not dead yet. You can strengthen them
still. You know, spiritual stupor, it looks a whole lot like death,
but it's not death. Solomon likened spiritual stupor
to flowers in the wintertime. Yeah, they do look dead now.
I mean, flower that really is dead looks just like this flower
that's not. How are you going to tell which one's alive? You
know, just wait until the spring showers come and the spring sun. That flower that's got life is
going to bloom forth again. It's strengthened by the sun
and the water. Job likened it to a tree stump.
There's a tree cut down. There's its stump. Can it live
again? Job said, well, it can if there's life in the root.
If there's life left in the root, let some water fall Let some
sunshine fall on it, it'll spring forth again. Well, that spiritual
super, it can be strengthened. How can we strengthen that which
remains? If there's a spark of life left in us that God put
in us, how can we strengthen that which remains? The answer is always by preaching
Christ. Look at verse three. Remember
therefore how thou hast received and heard and hold fast and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch,
I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what
hour I will come upon thee. And he says, you remember back
here, you're living upon your past reputation. You remember
back to when the Lord was blessed. Do you remember how you first
received spiritual life? How is it you first received
spiritual life? Was by preaching Christ, wasn't
it? It was through hearing of Christ.
That's the only way life is possible, is please God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. If we're going to have
life, we're going to have to hear the message of Christ who
is our life. That's how we first receive spiritual life. Well,
if I've fallen into spiritual stupor, how can I be revived
out of it? How can I strengthen that which
remains? The very same way you receive life in the first place.
It's through the preaching of Christ. That's what we need every
time. The same gospel that saves a
lost sinner will bless and strengthen and encourage and comfort the
oldest believers. It sure will. You remember, he
says here, now repent, repent. You remember when you repented
the first time? How is it that you repented the first time?
by hearing the preaching of Christ. When you heard the preaching
of Christ, you saw Christ is much better than this idol I've
been worshiping. I'm going to turn to Christ.
That's repentance. It's a turning. I turned to Christ when I heard
the preaching of Christ. He said, you need to repent again.
How am I going to do that? How am I going to turn to Christ
again? Through hearing the preaching of Christ. The same way you repented
the first time. You find somebody preaching Christ,
you'll turn to him. Christ and His name and His reputation
is a whole lot better than your name. If you hear His name preached,
you'll turn to Him and forget your name. See, here's the folly
of what was going on in Sardis. They were living on their name,
on their past reputation. Now, they did have a reputation. It well deserved. But how did
they come to have a reputation in the first place? They received
it. He didn't earn it, they received
it. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 4. That reputation that they
had was something that they received from God's grace that God blessed
there just because he would, not because they did anything
to deserve it. 1 Corinthians 4 verse 7. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now,
if thou didst receive it, Why do you glory as if you didn't
receive it? If you received it as a free
gift, why are you glorying as if you earned it? Paul says that's
not right. The Lord says the same thing
to the church at Sarnas. This is what you received, so
don't glory in it. Paul told the church at Galatia,
God forbid that I should glory, save in this, except in this,
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, what Christ has accomplished
for his people. Repent. Don't rely on your name
and your past blessings. Repent. Turn to Christ right
now. We need Him every minute. Then he says, think back. Think
back. Remember this reputation that
you have. Remember when the Lord was blessing you so miserably?
You remember at that time, oh, when you first heard the gospel.
Oh, it was good news. Wasn't it good news? Wasn't it
sweet? You held fast to that no matter what. You wouldn't
let it go no matter what. Yeah, but the gospel was such
good news. It was so sweet to you. At that
time, you remember, you couldn't let a day go by without, you
had to just take at least a few minutes to read God's word. You
had to. You were afraid to miss a service.
I remember times, I mean, I was afraid to miss a service. I mean, just afraid to. If I
miss, Henry's going to have a life-changing message. I'm going to miss it.
I'm just afraid to miss it. Oh, the gospel's so sweet. You
remember that? Remember when the gospel was that important
to you? Remember when you loved. You'd
just go through your day and you loved to think about the
Lord. You saw His handiwork everywhere. You couldn't drive down a road
without seeing that sunset. My God did that. You see the
trees blooming in the spring. You see the leaves start to turn
and fall off. My God, today you saw his beauty everywhere. You
remember that? You remember, you came to the
service in great need, great need. You already knew the Lord,
but you came in great need. There might be a Wednesday night,
you'd just drag your carcass in there, because more than anything,
You needed the Savior. You needed to hear of Him. You
remember that? You remember when you came to
the service, it wasn't out of habit. It was out of need. Oh, you were
hungry and thirsty. You want to be blessed that way
again? Do the same thing. Seek the Lord as a sinner who
needs the Savior. Do you remember when it was important
to you throughout your week to pray for your pastor? Remember
every time he comes to your mind, you pray for him. You pray, Lord,
right now, he's in his state. Would you give him a message
for me? Would you give him understanding of your word? Would you give
him wisdom and understanding? Would you give him the ability
to preach clearly and simply? And then you'd come to service
and you were just so surprised. It was like that message was
just for me. Oh, Lord, bless me. How about that? You begged
the Lord for a blessing, He gave it to you. Maybe He'll bless
you again if you do the same thing. Pray, ask the Lord for
a message. Ask the Lord, God, give your
pastor a message for you, a message that would glorify the Savior.
If it's not as sweet now as it was then, when we're living on
our past reputation, what's changed? Huh? What's changed? The gospel
hadn't changed. It's just sweet as ever. God
hadn't changed, He's immutable. The Savior hadn't changed. He's
just as glorious as He ever was. It's us who's changed. Now let's
hold Him fast. Let's seek Him. Don't let His
gospel go. Hang on to Christ for dear life. I thought of this illustration
to illustrate what I'm saying. The oldest believer has to hang
on to Christ just as dearly, just as that new babe in Christ. Think of a Navy ship that's been
sunk by the enemy. All the sailors have abandoned
ship, they're out there in the open sea. Somebody throws this
sailor, he's out there with nothing, he don't have a life preserver,
you know, and somebody throws him a life preserver. Everybody
else is hanging on little chunks of wood or, you know, something
that's trying to float. They throw this fella a nice
life preserver and he grabs hold of it. He hangs on to that thing
for all he's worth, because he's going to drown without it. Now
they've told him, five or six hours from now, there's one of
our sister ships is coming to rescue. Just hang on. They're
coming. That sailor's hanging on to that
life preserver for all he's worth. In a while, he thinks, you know,
I've been doing real good here for five hours. I think I'm going
to let this thing go. I'm fine. He's going to drown. He needs
that life preserver. five hours later, just as much
as he did the very first moment he hung on to it. If he lets
go, he's going to drown. That's how the believer needs
Christ. I need Christ just as much as the first moment I ever
believed on him. Matter of fact, the more we grow
in grace and the knowledge of Christ, the more we realize this.
I realize I need him now a whole lot better than I did in my first
belief. That's growing in grace. The Lord says, now, you seek
Christ that way. So the pastor, he says, you preach
Christ that. Don't be slack on this now. And if you don't, if
you just become slack in this, he says, I'm going to come as
a thief. I'm going to take away what you do have. I'm going to
take away what is left. Now you watch. You know, we always
have to watch, don't we? We have to watch ourselves. We
have to watch our preaching. We have to watch our doctrine.
Watch it yourself. Make your calling and election
sure. The thief can't come and take
away what we got when we're watching him. But if we're not watching
him, he can come in and take everything we got. Just sneak
in and take it all. And we could be in such a stupor,
we don't know it till he's long gone. So watch, watch. All right, here's the second
word. Despite all of our weakness and our stupor and our stumbling
and bumbling, the Lord knows his people and he will not let
them fall away from him. The Lord is the one who makes
his people holy and keeps them holy. He's the one who saves
them. He's the one who keeps them saved. Verse four. Thou
hast a few names, even in Sardis. Isn't that... Boy, if I lived
there, that would just pierce my heart. even in Sardis, you
know, like, it seems like it's impossible there being by has
a name left there. Thou hast a few names, even in
Sardis, which have not defiled their garments. And they shall
walk with me in white for they're worthy. He that overcometh, the
same should be clothed in white raiment. And I will not blot
out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his
name before my father and before his angels. There were a few
believers left in service. There were a few people who were
under the name of Christ, not their name, not the name of the
great church of the past. And the Lord knew exactly who
they were because he knows his sheep. He knows them by name.
The foundation of God stand assure having this seal, the Lord knoweth
them that are his. There were a few believers there
walking in white garments. They were walking with the Lord
and those white garments, you know what that means. It means
that they're holy. Well, who made them holy? How'd they get
those white garments? Christ made them holy. He gave
them those white garments. Where'd that righteousness come
from? It came from Christ, our righteousness, who cleansed us
from all of our sin. See, Christ is the one who makes
his people holy, and he's the one who keeps them holy. Someone will say, yeah, but our
text says they overcame, so they're clothed in white raiment. Well,
that's true, they overcame. But how did they overcome? I've
showed you this each of the past several weeks. From 1 John 5
verse 4, they overcame by faith, by faith in Christ. Well, who
gave them that faith? God did, it's a gift of God.
Who's that faith in? It's faith in Christ. So they
didn't overcome by themselves at all, did they? They overcame
in Christ through faith in Him. God kept them in His Son. And
they're worthy. They're worthy by God's grace.
See, every blessing we have, past, present, and future, every
one of those blessings is something we've received of God's grace.
They're all under God. And He gives them to us anyway
by His grace. The Father says, there's some believers left there,
and I know them. He knows them because He chose
them in divine election. He's the one who wrote their
name in the Lamb's Book of Life. He knows them. Christ came and
died for them. He died to put their sin away,
to blot their sin out. Well, now then there's no reason
for God to blot their name out of his book. Their sin's taken
away. He's not going to blot their
name out of his book. He promised to save his people and he will
keep them to the end. You know what that says to me?
That makes me want to be more faithful to him than ever. That makes me want to bow in
humility and worship Him more than ever. That doesn't make
me want to be lazy. That doesn't make me just want
to take it or leave it. That doesn't make me think, well,
it doesn't really matter what I do. It doesn't matter what
I say or how I live or what I do. God's going to keep me anyway.
No. That makes me want to be faithful
to Him. That makes me want to worship
Him more than ever. That makes me want to exalt and magnify
His name more than ever. Really and truly, I care more,
a whole lot more, that you know the name of Christ. That you
know my name or anybody else's name. We worship like that. We seek Christ like that. We'll
not fall into this trap. I pray that the Lord give us
a hearing ear and a watchful eye over ourselves and over our
doctrines so this doesn't happen to us. Verse 6. Be that half
an ear, let him hear. what the Spirit saith unto the
churches. See, this is a serious letter, isn't it? And if the
Lord gives us an ear, this is what we'll hear, this is what
we'll learn. We need Christ just as much today
as we ever did. It shows us how much we must
always look to Christ alone, depend on Christ alone, preach
His name alone. That's where our faith is. Isn't
our faith in His name? That we must look to Him and
Him alone. That's the lesson I hope we learn from this. letter
to the Church of Sardis.