Sardis: To People Whose Faith is Dying

It's probably appropriate this weekend that I start with a ghost story. And it's a true ghost story. It was near the end of World War II, and the Nazi generals were trying to figure out how they could salvage some sort of victory from the war. They knew what they had to do was to try to push back the advancing Allied forces that were just across the river border in France.

So they sent spy planes to try to seek out the opposition and see what the situation was. When their photographs were developed, their hearts sank as they saw the massive Allied army, the largest battalions they had ever seen. These are actual aerial photographs from that time showing the numerous American tanks that had taken over nearly every French farmhouse just over the border. Plus, there were hundreds of cannons and jeeps.

The Nazis could hear the sound of the growling tanks and the marching infantry, the radio chatter of soldiers preparing for battle. With this massive American force blocking their way, the Nazi generals virtually gave up on their idea of outflanking the Americans. And they lost the war.

What they didn't know was a secret that was kept classified for 50 years after the end of the war. A secret about these forces. What the Nazis didn't know was they could have defeated this entire battalion with a handful of darts. Because every last one of these tanks was an inflatable toy, like a Macy's parade balloon. And not just the tanks. Every cannon was an inflatable. Every airplane, every truck, all just hollow shells pumped full of air.

Those sounds of battle prep were sound effects records blasted through huge speakers. That radio chatter was just prepared scripts read by Broadway actors. They called themselves the Ghost Army. Probably a few men with balloons and a sound system. Yet they had a great reputation. So great that the Nazis feared them, but their reputation was all an illusion. If they had been attacked, they would have been completely defenseless.

Well, as we continue our series in the book of Revelation called The Seven, this morning we're going to meet a ghost church. Did you know that there are ghost churches? Churches with amazing reputations. They look so great and so huge from a distance. But up close? Turns out they're just a bunch of actors and hot air.

Grab your message notes that look like this or open up the TLC app on your phone or digital device. Open your Bible too to the book of Revelation chapter three. In this series, we've been looking at seven ancient letters from Jesus to seven ancient churches. This morning, Jesus' letter is to people whose faith is dying. To people whose faith is hollow, is empty.

Now, I don't know about you, but I really need to hear what he has to say here. Because there have been times in my spiritual life when I have felt like that ghost army when it comes to my faith. There have been times I looked fine on the outside. Great reputation. But inside the reality was I was hollow. Not feeling any joy, any passion. And if you can relate, the question is how do you get some substance back inside?

Well, in Revelation 3:1, Jesus tells you how if you have ears to hear. He says to the angel or messenger of the church in Sardis. Now hit pause because to understand the illusions, the metaphors in this letter, you really have to know a little bit more about Sardis. Sardis was one of the legendary cities in what is modern Turkey. Then it was called Asia Minor. Sardis has a fascinating story, and I want to kind of give you some of the details.

The people in Sardis actually called themselves Sardines. No, that's actually not true at all. I was just checking. Just checking to see if you were still listening. Okay, so here's what happened. We actually went to Sardis. We visited last fall, and I discovered something. Sardis looks a lot like Northern California. Its geography is so much like Northern California that it had a gold rush. Probably because of the gold in the Pactolus River that runs right past the city.

Sardis is the first place on earth that ever minted coins. The typical Sardis coin shows the Sardis city brand or logo, which is a ferocious lion often seen attacking another animal because the people of Sardis thought of themselves as the kings of the jungle. The ruler of Asia Minor. They were cocky. Why? Well, the city was blessed geographically. Right down the middle of town, there was a narrow ridge of a mountain that loomed 1500 feet above the lower city with almost vertical walls on three sides.

You can see by looking down from it here it was a great location. When under attack, the people of Sardis all scrambled up here into the fort that they built up here. If defenders were up in this fort, of which just a few ruins remain today, there was no way that an army could scramble up to conquer them. So they thought they were impregnable, were immune to invasion. Until an amazing but true story.

A man named King Croesus was the ruler of Sardis, and he was fabulously rich. He wanted to defeat the threatening Persian army of King Cyrus. So he attacked them. Chaos ensued. The Persian army chased the army of Sardis up to their mountain fortress where the people of Sardis felt totally safe. They knew that the enemy Persian forces in the valley below, looking up at the fort, had no hope of finding a way in. And they didn't.

However, true story. One night, a soldier from Sardis drops his helmet over the fortress wall. He scales down a hidden path in the rock that can't be seen from the valley below to get it. But the Persians see this, and that night they crawl up the mountain single file like cat burglars, like thieves in the night. They let themselves over the city walls prepared for a battle only to discover that all of the soldiers are asleep.

The king had told them all, "You don't have to be on guard. The Persians think you're up there on guard, but they'll never get up here anyway. You guys need your rest." Treated it more like a picnic than a war. The next morning, the people of Sardis woke up to find they were under new management. Without any blood being shed, the king of Persia had crushed their king under his boots.

Now that was 500 years before Christ. The city slowly rebuilt, but incredibly they were defeated the same exact way 200 years later. It happened to them twice. But again the city rebuilt because they were rich and they rebuilt in an amazing way. Here's the ruin of the city gymnasium that we visited last October. It's massive even by our own standards.

So in the time this letter was written, the city was rich and the city was beautiful again. Some other interesting details: the Jewish synagogue, which usually you find in these Roman cities way on the outskirts pushed into some kind of a ghetto, was right in the smack dab middle of the city. It was wealthy, beautiful mosaics. It was huge, which shows you that apparently the Jews there were not as ostracized as in so many other Roman cities.

The same thing was true of the Christians. Unlike most of these letters, we can actually go and see the ruins of the church at Sardis. Now these ruins are from a couple of centuries after the letter we look at today, but they were probably built on the very spot that the church in this town met. It was right next to the temple of Artemis. There is no record of any real persecution against this church.

This is where the church at Sardis met, to whom Jesus says these words. To the angel messenger 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're dead." So wake up, and the phrase translated there wake up could also be translated, "Be on guard, be watchful, strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God."

Now again, hit pause there for a second because I want to explain that. That sounds a little bit like your deeds aren't complete. What does that mean? Like you haven't done enough to earn your way to heaven? That would contradict the rest of the New Testament. What does that phrase mean? Well again, let me explain this. Sardis had a famous temple of Artemis. It was beautiful, but famously not quite finished.

When you look at it today, you notice some of the pillars are fluted. They have those grooves in them, right? But they didn't finish fluting all the pillars all the way to the top. You'll notice those pillars in the distance there, they're still flat. What happened was the builders opened this temple to the public, had their grand opening before they were finished with the columns. They said, "Oh, well, we'll get to that later." Question, anybody here ever done a remodel and said, "We'll paint that wall later," and it's still not done 20 years on, right?

Same thing happened here. The temple was incomplete and it became kind of a punchline in the ancient world. The incomplete temple, will it ever be finished? I believe what Jesus is doing here is he's using that. He's comparing the church spiritually to the unfinished pagan temple physically. "I have not found your deeds complete" doesn't mean work harder to get into heaven. What he's saying is, you look impressive on the outside, but it's just a facade. There's nothing in there. There's no love. There's no passion. There's no heart there.

So he says, "Remember therefore what you have received and heard. Obey it. Hold fast to 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." So again, you see how he's referring to the history of the city. Don't drop your guard like your city did. You're asleep, you're weak, you're vulnerable like your city was.

This is addressed, now you know, to Sardis and their situation 20 centuries ago. But let me ask you a question. Do churches today still need to hear this word from Jesus? Do churches today still need to be warned? Sometimes churches can die spiritually. Do you think churches still today need to hear this? Let me prove to you that they did and they still do.

Little word association game here. What words do you think come to most people's minds when they hear the word church? What words do you think come to your mind? Shout some out right now. Building. What else? Boring. What else? Irrelevant. What's that? Sanctuary. Somebody said asleep. All of these words, it's asleep, it's boring, it's dull. This is what people think of when they think of church today. They don't think of something alive. They don't think of something vibrant.

To prove it to you, we edited together some clips from some Hollywood movies and TV shows that show churches in action or inaction. Watch the screen. We are a small congregation this morning. Too many mornings. Something has gone terribly wrong. Where is faith? Where is celebration? Where is everyone? Before we get started, I want you all to do me a favor. I want everybody in the back there to come on forward and fill up these first three rows here. Shabbat shalom, everyone. Ma'am, you in the back. Yes, you, come on. Shabbat shalom. Thank you, Mom. Sir, you're leaving. Why are you... It's customary to sneak out after the communion. I'm going to leave you alone with your thoughts now. And when I come back, we'll talk about what we've just read. Silently and seriously. That's how I want you to think.

Everybody's falling asleep in every single one of those clips, right? Well, here are people who are talking to an entire church that's asleep. Every person in every pew. More than anyone else, Jesus doesn't like that image of church. He wants church to be alive and vital and full of passion and full of love.

Listen, let's just be really honest here. Some of you this morning are veteran Christians. Everybody who knows you thinks you've got it all together. But you can sense something is off. Your faith is a shell. Even today, so far, you heard everybody singing around you and you thought, "I really should be getting into this. Why can't I? What's wrong? I feel dead inside." You pick up the Bible to read, and you remember when the words just jumped right off the page, and now they just lay there flat, and you're wondering, "How can I get that old sense of joy back again?" Jesus cares about that. That's why he wrote this church.

I truly believe that God brought somebody here because you've been feeling dead inside and apathetic, and he wants to help you come back alive again. So how can I bring my faith back to life? That's page two of your notes. Three ways to bring my faith back to life again. And by the way, these are the same ways you bring anything back to life: your marriage, your relationship with your kids, your job, anything.

Now, I really want you to remember these, and I really wanted them to reflect accurately this letter. This, of all the letters, is the shortest, it's the punchiest, and the Greek in the original is very staccato. It's very like real short, short little sentences and phrases, little bursts of verbs. What I've done is my outline is the same way, just little two-word commands. But what I want you to do is not just write these down, I want you to say these out loud too. Jot these down. I want you to remember these. Number one is wake up. Say that with me. Wake up. In fact, would you turn to someone next to you who apparently needs to hear this? Poke them and say wake up right now. Wake up.

Now what does Jesus mean when he says this? Well, these days we'd say stop living in denial. You know, he's saying to this church and to you and to me, don't let your, listen, don't let your spiritual life become all about reputation management. Have you ever heard that phrase? Reputation management. That's one surefire way to stifle any joy in your life. When it becomes all about reputation management, keeping the facade going. It's horrible because it's a vicious cycle, and any healing, any hope never really happens because you think to yourself, "I can't let the facade down." But when you don't let the facade down, you never get any healing. You just get worse.

So the facade is more and more fake, but then you think, "I really can't let it down. If people saw how empty I really was," Jesus is saying, "Just drop the facade and be real." So you and I really need to be honest and ask, where has my faith become flabby? Where has my faith become flabby? Usually, we only associate flab with our physical selves, but your faith can become flabby too, can't it? Same two reasons: diet, bad diet and no exercise. That's why you get flabby, and that's why you get flabby spiritually, but we try to hide it and like people try to hide their physical flabbiness.

Have you ever, has anybody here ever heard of Spanx? Those undergarments, the Spanx, for those of you who don't know, they're undergarments like t-shirts and girdles, they used to call them, right? But they're made out of super elastic fabric so that people put on Spanx and it makes them look really trim, right? So that they don't have to work out, they can just put on Spanx. I'm actually wearing triple Spanx right now. Most people don't know this, I weigh 300 pounds and it's just Spanx. No.

But what Jesus is saying to this church is, you're wearing spiritual Spanx. That's what he's saying. You're dead, you're fat, you're flabby, but you've got this shell, and spiritual Spanx for a lot of people in church today can be regular church attendance, even service at things like Make a Difference Day. You always show up even to your home Bible study so it looks to everybody like you've got it going on, but inside you're dead, you're flabby.

You know something interesting about this church? Did you notice it doesn't have any of the other problems that the other churches did that we've seen so far? There's no record of any persecution. It doesn't have false teachers. It's not where Satan's throne is, and I think that maybe because everything was so easy, they had grown complacent, lazy, flabby because there was nothing to push against.

And if that's your life, what do you do about that? Well, that's the next point. Jot this down. Work out. Work out. Look at somebody, that same person, and tell them, "Work out. Work out right now. Go ahead, turn to somebody and say, 'Work out.'" You got to use those faith muscles again, right? Let me see a show of hands. Movie question. How many of you love Princess Bride? Anybody here love that movie, Princess Bride? Okay. Do you remember the scene where Billy Crystal plays that character Miracle Max? Anybody remember this scene? And he says something interesting about the hero. He said, "The good thing about your friend is he's not dead. He's only what?" Mostly dead. That's right. He says, "The good thing about being mostly dead is it means you're slightly alive." Well, the good news is it turns out the church at Sardis is only mostly dead. They're still slightly alive, and that you have to get that to understand this next phrase.

Jesus says, "So strengthen what remains and is about to die." Listen, this is so easy to gloss over and miss what a great instruction this is. If you want to wake up your spiritual life or if, listen, if you want to wake up a marriage, if you want to wake up any kind of a relationship, you strengthen what remains. You don't focus on what's dead. We always want to focus on what's dead. How come I don't feel the same doing that thing? That thing is dead to me. Don't focus on what's dead.

The smart thing to do is you find the one little sprout that's alive in the garden, and you water that, you take care of that, you spray that with Miracle-Gro every day, and you get that thing growing, and then life spreads. So, listen, ask this question, "What still brings me life that I can strengthen?" Do you get that? What still brings me life that I can strengthen? What do I mean by that? Excuse me.

Look at the box at the end of your notes on page three where it says, "Make it personal." I want to challenge you to do this self-evaluation this week. Ask, "What refreshes me spiritually and how can I strengthen this?" Just think about this for a second. That's going to be different for everybody in this room probably. You're at different stages, and it's going to be different for you at different times in your life.

Let me just talk about myself for a second. For me, right now, it's when I sing worship songs that I definitely feel myself becoming more spiritually vital. So, what I need to do is strengthen that. Like, for me, that means making more new playlists and downloading more. You know, I really love the super old songs, like two or three hundred years old, and the super new songs that are brand new to me. I love that combination. So, I need to make playlists that mix those two things up and actually play them in my car instead of just listening to sports all the time because I know that's going to refresh me spiritually. I need to strengthen what's giving me life.

Here's one more thing. When I find out that when I'm on vacation and I see the beauty all around me and I take pictures of it, it just revitalizes me spiritually. So, what I need to do is strengthen that. I need to make sure I have time every day, not just vacation days, just even a few minutes to stop and look at God's beauty. So, what is it for you? That's when I, like once every two months, when I take a hike and go on a walk in the forest, if you know that's going to bring you life, try to make time to do that, like every day.

Well, for me, it's getting a good Christian book. I love to read, and that just revitalizes me. Then work that into your life. Or maybe like a lot of people, you find, I have so many people tell me this, whenever I get a new Bible, like a brand new translation, my Bible excitement just shoots up because I want to look up all the old passages. Well, what you need to do is strengthen that. Budget, for example, to get a new Bible every year. Or if you think, "I love volunteering on Make a Difference Day, it made me feel alive," then find ways to do that regularly. Does that make sense? We always want to focus on what's dead. Strengthen what remains. Fan that tiny spark into flames.

So point one, you wake up, you stop the denial, you take off the Spanx. Point two, you work out and strengthen what remains. And number three, you get back. Get back. Turn to somebody, look at them in the eye and say, "Get back. Get back." Now, before you start singing the Beatles song, get back. Get back to what? This is so good. Jesus says, "Remember therefore what you have received and heard." What has every Christian received? Shout it out. The gospel. Every Christian has received the grace of God that's available through Jesus Christ. The gospel. That's what he's talking about here.

Listen, can I tell you about a revolution that occurred in my career as a pastor for me? Something that completely changed the way I pastored people who told me that they were feeling spiritually dead. Here's the way I used to answer people who came to me and said, "Pastor, I'm just feeling spiritually dead now." Oh, you feel spiritually dead? Pray more. Read the Bible more. Go to church more. Give more. Serve more. Go to more spiritual growth conferences. Go to more camps. I didn't ask what was giving them life, what remained. I just had a list of 15 things they had to do.

And then my advice changed. You want to know why? Because I got spiritually dead. I tried to pray more and read more and do more and volunteer more. I mean, I read extra chapters every day until I literally read through the entire Bible several times. I prayed until my knees were sore. I served until I was burned out. Nothing helped. Because there was always something inside me that told me it was not enough. I should be reading even more and praying even more and serving even more.

I felt like I never seemed to be able to do enough. But did you notice that is not the advice that Jesus gives here? How does Jesus advise a church that is spiritually dead? Did you notice? He does not tell them to do more. Does he? He does not tell them to try harder. He does not tell them to learn the latest spiritual secret at the latest hot Christian conference. This is so important to see because if you do not see this, then you'll read this letter entirely wrong. You will leave feeling so under, you know, some guilt manifestation. You'll feel like Jesus is never pleased with me. Oh, the weight of conviction fell on me again today. I'm not doing enough. That is not what he tells them.

What does he tell them? Really? He tells them the same thing he tells every single one of these seven churches if your eyes are open to it. He's saying you get back to your first love. You remember what you were first given. You remember what you first received and heard. And hold it fast. By the way, that's the latest version of the NIV, and that's such a better, more accurate translation from the original Greek than obey it, which is in some of your older versions. Hold it fast. That means let it work through you. Hang on to it. Never forget it. Meditate on it, on the gospel.

Here's just a possible summary of the gospel. This is in the book of Revelation back in 1:5–6. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve as God and Father. You ever get overwhelmed when you think about what Jesus did for you? I do. Let me just be very candid because sometimes I think of my sins. Sometimes I'm not even trying to, but it's in the middle of the night and I can't fall asleep or I'm driving around somewhere and I think of horrible things that I've done or things I've said or things I've thought about doing, and I literally see just a cringe coming across my face and I think God must find me so disgusting.

You probably have those things too, the things that make you wince when you think about them. Well, think of this. You take all those things that have ever been done by anybody who ever lived, and Jesus said, Jesus took all of that accumulated sin on himself and he paid for it. Why in the world would the God of all the heavens do that? What was his motive? What does it say here? Love. He loves you so much. He wanted to give you unrestricted access to his presence, and he took your sin on the cross. That's a lot of love.

What he did isn't just about subtraction of your sin and guilt and moving that away from you. It's also about addition. What does it say in this verse? He gave you a new identity. He chose you to be part of a kingdom. You're royalty. Other people might treat you like a loser. You might think you're disgusting, but not God. You are his royal child, and incredibly you're a priest. That word literally means a bridge builder. God gave you a purpose. Now you get to be a bridge builder. Wherever he puts you, a little bridge builder. That is awesome.

You see what makes our faith dead, what makes us feel hollow, what makes us feel passionless and directionless sometimes is we forget to stand in awe of what we have received and heard when we were just little kids. What makes us come alive is when we open ourselves up again to the stunning wonder of what Jesus did for us on the cross. I love, praise God, we call praise God. I love, there was a very famous brainiac, Swiss theologian named Karl Barth, and on the occasion of the release of his huge book, multi-volume dogmatic theology, a reporter asked him, after having done all this theological work, Dr. Barth, what is the richest, deepest theological truth that you feel most Christians are missing?

And famously, he paused for a moment and then said, "Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so." See that's what it gets back to. That's what Jesus is saying to this church that has this big puffed up reputation. He's saying remember what you received when you were five and hold it fast, hold it fast, hold it fast when your thoughts condemn you. Hold it fast, Jesus loves me. This I know, when your past sins haunt you, hold it fast. Jesus loves me and he's forgiven me. This I know, when people accuse you, when Satan accuses you, hold it fast. He has set me free from my sins. He loves you.

What you need to do is ask yourself, am I preaching the gospel to myself? You know, am I preaching the, are you preaching the gospel to yourself every day telling yourself this amazing story of what God has done for you? Now this applies to individuals, but you know this was originally written to a church, and that means if you're part of the fellowship here at Twin Lakes, we need to ask as a group. We just need to ask right now. Let me ask you, is it possible for our church to be full of good deeds and to have a great reputation, which I think we do right now, and yet be spiritually dead? Is that possible? Surely it's possible.

In fact, I'll be so bold as to say that unless churches continually rouse themselves, it's not only possible, it's inevitable. For a church to fall asleep, for a church to fall into a coma, unless it's continually coming back to the truths of the gospel. You know, God starts us out with movement. You know, it's a movement. Everybody's excited, and movements are thrilling because people are going in a direction, and they're kind of messy and they're crazy, but they're thrilling. But then movements have to get organized, and then organizations turn into institutions, and then if you're not careful, institutions turn into museums.

What God's really asking in these verses is, do I want to be part of a movement or a museum? Movements are messy. Museums are nice and orderly and clean. Jesus is saying, "What do you want to be a part of?" You know, we took a trip to Switzerland, many of you know, this summer, and it was beautiful. We were back in my family's hometown of St. Gallen and saw an amazing cathedral there, the Cathedral of St. Gallen. I mean, it's beautiful, but I always have mixed feelings when I go to these churches over there because they're stunning, they're jaw-dropping. But how many people do you see worshiping? They're not churches anymore, they're museums.

God's saying to the church at Sardis and to you and to me, "What do you want to be a part of?" And he gives them a warning. He says, "If you don't wake up, I'm going to come like a thief and you won't know at what time I will come to you." What is it he's warning this church about? You remember the story of the soldiers who crept in like thieves in the night, and the people woke up and found they were under new management? I think that's what he's referring to here. He's saying, "I'm going to put your church under new management. I'm going to remove these leaders." That's how much Jesus loves his churches. He says, "I'm going to have to come in and take names and shake things up unless you guys return to what it's all about."

But don't miss the promise. He says, "You have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They'll walk with me dressed in white for they're worthy. He who overcomes will like them be dressed in white." White means you're purified. It's a sign of being saved. "I will never blot his name out from the book of life." That word never, strongest negative in the Greek language. It could be translated, "I will never ever under any circumstances ever blot your name out from the book of life ever. But I will acknowledge his name before my father and his angels." Look, what this means is when we're in heaven and our lives are visible to everybody, nothing's hidden then, right?

You know, the life of a facade is so deadly because you start to fear, "If I let go of the phony spiritual person that I know is not reality, I'm scared to death of who I really will be, and God will probably hate the person I really am, so I've got to keep the facade up." But grace means he loves and saves the real you underneath the facade. Jesus is saying, "When you stand there with your entire record exposed for everybody to see, I will look at you and say, 'You are mine.' And I will acknowledge your name before the father and all his angels. I will say, 'This sinner, this defiled person, this unworthy character, I want the universe to know. The father and his angels, he is mine. She is mine. You can drop the facade because you know Jesus Christ, he writes these letters to you because he knows that your spiritual life right now is not satisfying to you. And so he wants to help you change, but he will not reject you, not ever, ever, ever."

Then Jesus wraps up this letter to the church at Sardis the way he always wraps up. He says, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." That just means, hey, this is in the Bible for you to apply to yourself. Remember, for us as a church to apply to ourselves. Where are you? Where am I? A ghost Christian? A shell full of air with nothing inside.

I'm going to give you a moment. I'm going to ask the musicians to come back on stage, and I just want to reprise one of the songs we sang earlier. I'm going to give you a moment during this song just to say, "God, I hate the fact that when people look at me, they think there's more inside than I know there is inside." So God, fill me up again. God, I want you to revitalize my spiritual life. You know, God will answer that prayer. Paul prays for the Ephesian church at the end of Ephesians 3, and he says, "I pray that you will be filled to the full measure of all the fullness of God, and that you will know this love that surpasses knowledge." And that's what this song is all about. It has the line, "God, I want more of you." What that means is, "God, fill me up to the full measure," as Paul says in Ephesians 3. Let me know this love that surpasses knowledge. Pray with me, God. I just pray, we just pray, that we would be able to just drop the facade and be people of integrity.

Some of you right now may want to pray, "Lord, I feel hollow and I don't like it. I don't like knowing that when people look at me, they see somebody of great reputation. But you and I know, God, how shallow I am inside. God, this is in your word, and that gives me encouragement because apparently this is a common way for Christian, veteran Christians to sometimes feel. So God, fill me up again. God, bring me back to life again. God, light a fire in my soul. Help me to wake up and not doze off like those sleeping guards. Thank you for your love for me. Thank you for never letting go of me. And I run back to you today. In Jesus' name, amen. Would you just stand with me?