Church, Wake Up | Revelation 3:1-6

INTRODUCTION

Revelation 3:1–6 is Christ’s message to the church in Sardis. These letters are challenging because Jesus loves His church too deeply to leave her unchanged. His messages are a wake up call intended for the church to hear, to lead to holy living and call to repentance.

Today we will see a sobering truth: A church & its believers can have a reputation for life while being spiritually near death, and yet Christ still speaks, because renewal is possible.

Revelation 3:1-6

“To the angel of the church in Sardis write:

¹These 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. ²Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. ³Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, 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.

⁴Yet 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. ⁵The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels. ⁶Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

The Diagnosis: You are dead; v1-2; your deeds are unfinished.

The Remedy: Wake up, Remember, Repent; v2-3

The Warning; v3b

The Contrast: The Faithful remanent; v4

The Reward for them who heed His message; v5

• With Jesus now & through eternity
• Name in the book of life
• Jesus will acknowledge them before the Father

7 spirits of God: The one who holds the seven spirits of God. This is a description of Jesus from chapter one. We shouldn’t think in terms of seven separate spirits, 7 spirits of God talks but the fullness of God’s Spirit, seven being the number of perfection and completion. The 7 stars are the angels of the 7 churches, we learn from Chapter 1.

I. The Diagnosis

Revelation 3:1b

I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

They have a reputation of being spiritually alive. Presumably this was well earned perhaps when the church was initially formed and it was known for its fervency, prayer, lively worship, their engagement with the neighbours around the city of Sardis in proclaiming the good news of Jesus. They were known for this. They were known for their orthodoxy.

But Jesus says I know your works. The heart of those in Sardis (the majority of its members) was numb. The witness had gone from a lion’s roar to a little whisper. Probably there was still church attendance, probably there was still giving, and there was likely much activity going on in the church in Sardis. But their vital signs had been slipping and this has been happening for some time now. There was likely less or little prayer, little joy, little gratitude and little zeal. And though others had not come to notice these things, their reputation was not tarnished or diminished, the exalted Christ who has eyes like a flame of fire, he could see straight through to their soul into the reality of their hearts. He gives them this verdict v1. “you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.”

Likely the world and its ways have begun to seep into their hearts in such a way that they are compromised with the culture and they are beginning to strangle the very life out of them.

ILLUSTRATION

You remember the story that Jesus told about the parable of the sower? He talked about the seed that was sown that was scattered in different places. Some fell amount the thorns.

Mark 4:18-20

¹⁸Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; ¹⁹but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

Our spiritual life can be choked by the world, its ways, and its lusts. These are thorns that cut off the airway of our spiritual life and vitality that render our breathing laboured. You are dead Jesus says to the church in Sardis.

APPLICATION

Maybe someone you here this morning feel that Jesus is saying this to you. Jesus has not written you off. I would encourage you to recognize that if you are here this morning and your soul is barren and dry and you are just going through the motions, that Jesus is still speaking to you. Think of Jesus’ words to Sardis as a spiritual CPR to a response less body that needs to be somehow resuscitated back to life. He stands ready to receive you.

This is the diagnosis, now Jesus prescribes the cure:

II. The Remedy

Revelation 3:2-3

²Wake up! (be Watchful, be alert) Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.

a. Be Watchful

We are to be in a constant state of alertness, readiness, watchfulness. The opposite of sleep.

Context: Sardis was a secure city. This city was built on a high mountain. It had a reputation of being impregnable. Yet this city was captured twice due to failure to keep watch, which fits Jesus’ warning.

ILLUSTRATION

If you are sleeping at home and you get to know that there is an intruder in the house, we would get up very quickly because we are under threat.

Jesus knows that we are under threat all the time. We are living in the middle of a conflict. There are forces out there that are most often not seen, but are there encountering our life day in and day out and we desperately need to be alert, ready and watchful in our life.

Jesus says, “Be watchful.” That is first remedy.

Our watchfulness diminishes as our worldliness increases. As the ways of the world creep into our souls, as we make compromises with the culture. We give ourselves little permissions. We give ourselves small open door, a little bit of greed here, gluttony there, a lustful glance there. We would not go out and commit those big sins but you know a little one here and there. As we take these little steps the Holy Spirit of God who dwells in us is grieved and quenched and our hearts can begin to be callus and our spiritual sense begins to be dulled, our receptors no longer work the way they were supposed to, our consciences begin to be seared. And before we realize it, we can find ourselves in a state of spiritual slumber. Then that slumber can become a lifestyle. Then our compromises get normalized, we get acclimated to them. And then we begin to defend them through our theology, our sense of inevitability, that we need to live in the world.

But the slumber is like a terminal disease which slowly but surely takes away our very life. We need to be alert or watchful.

ILLUSTRATION

When someone is learning how to drive, we always tell them, “Pay attention and keep your eyes on the road. Look in all directions.” They need to be alert because there could be things that can happen. Once while I was driving, I just took my eyes off the road to look at the display screen and in a second I am almost bumping to the vehicle in front of me. Glory said stop. Thank God for the reflex, I could apply the brake on time.

Lack of watchfulness in the physical world is problematic. Lack of watchfulness in the spiritual world is equally as dangerous and deadly.

Jesus actually brings the spiritual and the physical together in that moment when he in at the Garden of Gethsemane. He calls Peter, James and John to come with him and asks them to pray. He asks them to watch and pray. Keep alert Peter, James and John. The powers of evil are on the move. His soul is deeply troubled as He asks them to stay there and watch with him. He goes away and he prays that He might be alert and he comes back and he finds them asleep.

Mark 14:37-38

³⁷Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? ³⁸Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Watch and Pray

A quick note on prayer. Prayer is actually related to the idea of being watchful in other places in the NT such as Mk. 14. Prayerfulness is a key to watchfulness. Because most of us struggle with prayer, it is probably right to say that most of us struggle with being watchful.

Colossians 4:2

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

When we are alert our watchfulness increases.

In Ephesians 6, Paul after telling them to put on the whole armour of God, he says you can stand in the evil day.

Ephesians 6:18

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

Paul says that in spiritual warfare, being prayerful is actually keeping alert. It is through prayer that we can win over the attacks of the enemy.

First, Jesus urges them to become watchful.

Revelation 3:2

²Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die,

Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die. It is kind of a torniquet that has been wrapped around the upper part of their leg or arm that is cutting off, somehow keeping from their body lifegiving oxygen that it needs to live. Being watchful and waking up means releasing that torniquet and sending the lifegiving nutrients to the rest of the parts that brings strength and life. He wants strengthen what remains suffocated by their slumber.

Then he gives the reason for the remedy:

Revelation 3:2

²Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.

Jesus says I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. Jesus is not just looking for faith, Jesus is looking at the fruit of the faith, faith with deeds. See how he begins the letter, “I know your deeds..”

Note: Deeds does not lead to salvation. Salvation, faith in Jesus will lead to good deeds. Here he tells them that their works have not been found complete, they are unfinished deeds, incomplete because they have fallen asleep.

In the teaching of Jesus, Paul, James etc, there is a connection between claiming to have faith and then living a life that shows that faith in its works.

James 2:18

……I will show you my faith by my deeds.

To claim to have faith without any works in one’s life is to be a hypocrite as Jesus would say.

• It is the lack of works that goats are judged in Matthew 25.
• It is the lack of works here in the church in Sardis that leads for Jesus’ call for them to be watchful.

I wonder how would Jesus assess the works of our lives today?

Do they reveal the genuineness of faith within that we are watchful and alert or do they reveal that our spiritual eyelids are heavy with slumber and sleep?

Transition: Jesus gives ways to help the church in Sardis come alive again, be alert again:

Revelation 3:3

Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard;

b. Remember the Gospel

Remember what you have received. That is the gospel. It is good news that God’s love blocks out our sins. Our new identity as his children and a new sense of direction and purpose for our life here. It is a glorious call. The salvation is a pearl of great price that we have been given by the grace of God. Jesus says as part of the remedy, “Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard…”

Perhaps you have forgotten the glorious riches of the Gospel of Jesus in your life. Perhaps that feels like a far or distant memory, something this is inaccessible to your present trial and pain or challenge. But it is not. The gospel is the centre of our life every day, every hour, every breath. We are to remember.

We are told not only to remember, but he says hold fast to it.

Revelation 3:3

³Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent.

Hold it fast, keep the gospel

Paul in Rom. 2:13 and 2 Th. 1:8 talks about obeying the law or the gospel. Jesus is Lord and we are to keep these things and stay under his Lordship, to come under Jesus and to repent and believe and then by the power of the Holy Spirit to live out the new way of life in Jesus to which we have been called. Be conformed to him and his image and resist our conformity to the world.

c. Repent

Revelation 3:3

³Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent.

Repent: Turn away from your slumber. Turn away from your compromise. Repent from the lack of watchfulness. Repent of these sins and come back, Jesus is saying.

The Warning

Then there is a warning in the second half of v3:

Revelation 3:3

³Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, 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.

This coming here of Jesus is like thief at night. Jesus will come to his church to awaken them out of their complacency.

The NT also talks about Jesus’ end-time coming as thief at night in Matthew 24. We are to be watchful. Be in a state of constant readiness or watchfulness because you do not know at what hour Jesus will come. We want to be found when he comes doing his will, alert and awake to the Kingdom? Jesus warns the church here.

But Sardis is not only a warning, but there is also a remnant and a promise:

III. The Contrast

V4 – Contrast of the Faithful remnant

Revelation 3:4

⁴Yet 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.

To soil one’s clothes certainly indicates a life of accommodation or compromise with the world. Many in Sardis have not been holding fast to Jesus but have been lured to sleep by the accepted idolatry of the lifestyles around them. Yet there are a few Jesus says in Sardis who have not done so. Notice what Jesus says about them: They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy, v4.

White garments are associated with purity throughout the book of Revelation and the Bible. White garments are also associated with the age to come. Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration, his garments are dazzling white. In Revelation 6 after the 5^th seal is broken, the martyrs are said to be given a white robe. In Revelation 7, the multitude that is gathered around the throne singing praises from every, tribe and tongue and nation, that multinational multitude they have robes that are white because they have been made white in the blood of the Lamb.

V4c for they are worthy. (Not merit or work based salvation).

It is fitting for them to share these white garments with Jesus because they have not soiled their garments in the ways of the world. They are remaining steadfast and faithful, so they are enjoying walking with him now and in the eternity to come.

IV. The Reward

Revelation 3:5

The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.

Out of that lifestyle of slumber, sleeping and worldliness, the one who conquers have 3 rewards:

a. Clothed in white garments

This is a reward in some way being experienced even now by the saints and also the reward of the new age or the age to come. In the message to the church at Laodicea Jesus tells them to buy from him white clothes to wear to cover their nakedness. So there is a sense in which we will wear them now but we will wear in full in that day.

b. Name in the book of life.

I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life.

We see this book of life in Revelation 20 at that great day of Judgement. There are books that are open and that have on them the deeds that we have all done. It says we are judged according to our deeds but then there is also the book of life. The book of life that is open and those pass through the judgement whose names are written in the book of life. Jesus is assuring those here that his grip upon them is to be certain and sure. It is to be an encouragement. What an assurance he gives to those who walk with Him that, “I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life.”

John 10:28-29

²⁸I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.

There are a few in Sardis, their names will be permanently in the book of life.

c. Jesus will acknowledge them before His Father and his angels.

Because they have been faithful to Jesus and witness of Jesus to the end, because they have persevered and not given up, because they did not love their loves even unto death. Jesus says, “I will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.”

What a great comfort. Your name on the lips of Jesus before His Father and the angels of His Father saying, “This one is one of my faithful servants. I own him/her” How glorious is that reality.

Matthew 10:32-33

³²“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. ³³But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

Mark 8:38

If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

In other words, confess the name of Jesus in this present day. Be a fool for Christ in this present day. Bear faithful witness to him through your words and your deeds and our communal lives in this present day whatever the cost maybe, and when it comes on that day, Jesus will be faithful to you, he will own you, he will confess your name before the Father. We must not be ashamed of Him.

“Who would not fight for our Lord who would give such large honours to the very least of his faithful servants? Who would not be clothed in a fool’s coat for Christ’s same, seeing he will robe us with glory?” – Faith’s Checkbook, July 25, Charles Spurgeon

CONCLUSION

Sardis is Christ’s mercy to sleepy hearts: Wake up, strengthen what remains, remember the gospel, hold it fast, and repent. Reputation cannot replace life. The comfort is this: Christ still speaks, and He still restores. The question is simple—will we wake up?

Friends, we are in a battle and we need to be alert and ready. We cannot be alert and watchful by merely compartmentalizing our Christian faith into a Sunday morning. It is a full life. The battle is every day and we are called to be watchful in the everyday.

Are we asleep in the light? Will we wake up from our spiritual slumber?

Shall we bear faithful witness to Jesus as Lord, not by compromising to the culture around us but by confirming to the Kingdom of God. That means dying to ourselves and living for God, taking up the cross. It means dethroning self, comfort and ease for God and others and confess Jesus whatever that may cost. Or will we fail to confess him, defiling our garments, failing to be watchful, keeping Jesus in the small fragments of our life.

Will we lose our watchfulness?

These words come from the heart of the Lord for us. Note Christ’s grace in speaking to the church in Sardis and us in this way. It comes from his deep heart for us that we might come to life in him, that we might know what it is to feed upon the bread of life and to drink from the living water.

So, what does it mean to overcome, then, to the church at Sardis?

Be alert.

Refuse to compromise.

Maintain their faithful witness.

Live consistently with their reputation and their claims of being alive, especially in the midst of this hostile environment.