When you're dead but don't know it By David Calderwood


Let's turn to the word Revelation chapter 3 verses 1 to 6 and if that's not somber enough
let me put a somber question to you, a real somber question that comes straight from
this letter to the Church of Sardis, comes straight to us from Christ through John and this letter to the Church of Sardis.
And the question is this, is it possible for a church like ours to be dead but not know it?
Well the answer is clearly yes, it is possible because that's precisely what Jesus himself says about this church at Sardis.
And so this morning as we continue this series on letters to the churches, the seven churches,
we have a most frightening reality or a frightening possibility to contemplate.
But before we get to the details let's remind ourselves, it's been a couple of weeks, we had a break last week,
let's remind ourselves, or two weeks ago, let's remind ourselves of the context of this letter to the church at Sardis.
Revelation as I've been saying and as the word suggests is about God lifting the corner of the tarp
to let John see and the church then through John's eyes see the reality of what's happening in God's world from God's perspective.
And boy when John lifted the corner of that tarp did he see it quite different to what it now looks in the world.
It was a real eye-opener, a real revelation to John what he saw and the first thing, he saw lots of different things,
but the first thing that took his eye was to do with the state of Christ's church in the world
and that takes up the revelation from chapter 1 verse 9 through to the end of chapter 3.
And what does John see when he sees Christ's church from God's perspective?
Well, that which looks fairly pathetic, that which looks weak, that which looks as if it's on its dying breath now,
generally speaking and from God's perspective, is secure, is prosperous as in chapter 1 verses 9 to 20,
Christ is among his church, prospering it, protecting it, Christ is at ease in his church
because contrary to what it looks now it is the most sure thing in this whole world because Christ has made it sure.
And it was a real eye-opener for John that Jesus was determined that his saved people should be as passionate in the church
as what Jesus himself is passionate about the church and so he dictates these letters to the various churches
or a representative sample of churches in that day but representative also to us.
Jesus dictates these letters symbolizing dangers to the churches in any period of history
and therefore equally applicable as I say to us the Christian church in 2005.
And we've been working through these letters, seeing some of these dangers
and again as we come to Sardis this morning can I suggest to you as my standard foreman has been for the last few weeks
to say that local history and events in Sardis are written into the text and as a whole give the letter much more impact.
Couple of illustrations. Sardis was legendary in the ancient world because it had been the capital of a kingdom called Lydia
and a very famous king called Croesus. Now Croesus in ancient folklore was legendary for wealth
and just to mention Croesus was to speak of the good life, comfort and ease and leisure and pleasure
and all things good in life. And at the time this letter was written Sardis was still associated with the notion of wealth
and the good life. It's a bit like the goal coast is for us here in Australia.
But it was nothing like what it had actually been in the past. In fact the city was going backwards at a great rate of knots
both population wise and economically. It was being outstripped by neighbouring growth centres and in fact it was a bit of a joke
in the circles of the day because Sardis, the people of Sardis were still hanging on to their old reputation
for being the city of ease and wealth and the good life when plainly the place was falling apart.
And the biggest part of the joke was that the city of Sardis that they were so proud of wasn't even the original city.
It had sort of fallen into disrepair many a year earlier, hundreds of years earlier and the city they now sort of were boasting about
had actually been built up the road a bit. So it was all a bit of a joke that they should claim this connection with wealth and the good life
when in fact reality was quite different. But the people in Sardis were determined to enjoy the reputation of being that place of wealth
and the good life. But it was a masquerade, a masquerade, a delusion that didn't match the facts.
But there's another way in which Sardis was also legendary. It was actually known in ancient times as Sardis the impregnable.
Sardis geographically was, the old city of Sardis was built on a very peculiar topographical feature.
It had virtually sheer cliffs on three sides. The fourth side was a steep slope but that was the only way you could approach the city.
And it was thought in ancient history days that Sardis then was indestructible. It couldn't be taken by an enemy force
because it was so easily defended up this one side. But you see again the reputation was contrary to fact because in history
not once but twice Sardis had been conquered by enemies who had scaled the cliffs at night only to find the tops of the cliffs were unguarded.
Such was the arrogant confidence of the people of Sardis. They hadn't even posted a guard because they thought they were impregnable.
They thought they were indestructible. And twice at night time the city was captured and put to the sword.
And then the third fact that's interesting for our purposes here is in AD 17. This whole notion of Sardis the impregnable became again a bit of a joke in local circles
because there was a massive earthquake hit every center not far off the coast of Sardis from where Sardis was.
The place was destroyed and yet these people in Sardis still said Sardis the impregnable.
Friends with that sort of history written into the text it would appear that the church in Sardis like the city was living on past glory.
The facts for the church at Sardis obviously didn't line up with their thinking about themselves as the church in Sardis.
And that's what Christ is getting at in these words. It's a fairly ironic, it's a fairly merciless way of writing here as he picks up on the history of the city.
It was very much a has-been church living on the reputation of the good old days.
Now the thing to notice here is that Christ doesn't dispute the reality of the reputation.
He disputes the reality behind the reputation. So the reputation was real enough but it wasn't deserved.
It was all a masquerade or a fancy dress so that the church was looking like a healthy church while Jesus says it really is dead.
In verse 2 the idea there is of the death throes. Now this might sound a bit gory but if you've never killed a beast you may not know this.
I kill my steers every year and they'll go down, you'll slice its throat, it'll bleed out and it'll just lie there and maybe 2, 3, 5 minutes later it will start to thrash around.
And you think to yourself, jeepers it's still alive but in fact it's not. It's just the death throes.
That's what Jesus is describing the church of Sardis like.
It's the twitch, the involuntary twitches of death throes.
But all that while the church there seems to think that they're very much alive.
So this morning I want to explore what I'm calling the Sardis factor.
The factors that allow a church to die seemingly without the people in the church knowing that they're dying.
And actually happening while they still think they're very much alive.
And the first one I've got there is not measuring the right vital signs of life.
Before a doctor can pronounce somebody dead I believe they have to check pulse or heartbeat.
They have to check breathing and brain function.
Those are I think what are called the vital signs.
If you're a medic over here this morning that's not right.
Just don't correct me now, correct me afterwards.
But I believe those are the vital signs.
The question is then, what are the vital signs that we need to monitor when it comes to our church?
In other words, how do we measure the aliveness of our church?
Because if these people have been pronounced dead while thinking they're alive
then something about their assessment of themselves has to be wrong.
Well how do we measure our aliveness?
What are our vital signs?
Now what are the things that we commonly look to?
Well is it our heritage as a congregation?
Well the people of Sardis, the church of Sardis appeared to believe that.
They seemed to be living on past achievements, past glory.
The good old days perhaps they might have been saying,
well those days when the Sunday school was full and we could hardly fit people in and so on and so forth.
All true, no doubt.
Perhaps they said it was, look we've got six small groups meeting.
And we've got really good teaching each week where the Bible is opened
and the doctrines of grace are faithfully presented.
And we've got lots of evangelism happening.
We've got a more college mission going and we've got Christianity Explorer running.
And we've got all sorts of other programs that are getting people out there and getting the gospel out there.
And when it comes to our budget, well we're meeting our budget.
In fact we're perhaps doing slightly better than budget.
And look at that, we've got X number of people on staff and we're thinking of increasing the staff numbers.
Are those the sorts of things that measure the health of a congregation?
Now I know you're all saying, no way, no way.
But in fact the reality is that so often in practice those are the things that we think measure the health of a congregation,
measure the aliveness of it.
Well Sardis had a great reputation for all those things because as I say the reputation isn't challenged.
Jesus himself concedes you have a reputation for being alive.
This was a place that other churches around looked at and thought, wow, would I like to be a part of the church of Sardis?
But Christ says the church is sinking into spiritual oblivion.
And the activity, go back to verse 2 again, the activity of the church that people took as a measure of life,
the frenetic activity was, as I suggested a minute ago, just the death throes of the body and evidence of life.
Evidence of death, not evidence of life.
So they had measured the wrong things presumably. Now we don't know precisely what they had measured.
I'm just making some suggestions based on what the sort of things we would measure today.
But whatever they had measured, they had measured the wrong things.
Look at verse 3 where Jesus indirectly tells them what the right things, the right vital signs.
Remember or bear in mind is the word, bear in mind therefore what you have received in the past and heard.
Obey it in the present 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.
What's the vital signs of a church, the evidence of real life?
Well as we've seen in these other letters and in a sense Jesus only has one theme in these letters.
He's calling his people to a passionate whole of life response to Jesus.
As in this case he's saying, bear in mind, call to mind, remember how it was when you were first converted.
When you first realized just what the gospel was and how the gospel could take you from damnation
and deal with your sins and give you new life and new hope and new future.
That's the sort of passion, says Jesus, I want my people to have.
Live obediently in the light of that passion as those who knew they had escaped hell and damnation.
As those who delighted to come in service and allegiance to their new king,
whom they had spent a lifetime to that point ignoring and rejecting.
In other words, the vital signs are simply to get back to basics of turning away from sin,
trust and obedience in Christ and godly living.
That's what the vital signs of a church are.
And you'll see that common to all these letters, nothing particularly fancy.
It's what we'd call the basics of being Christians and being the church.
And my friends, this morning I need to say to you that each generation needs to do that.
Each generation of the church needs to do that for themselves.
So older people here, people who've been in this church for years,
you cannot live on past achievements and past glory no matter how good.
And there's been lots of great past achievements, but you cannot live on past achievements.
The health of the church is determined by your thinking now.
Not what happened last week or last month or last year or the last 20 years.
Younger people, the next generation of the church from the very young through to those who are even now
starting to shoulder the responsibility of the workload and the service ministry in the congregation.
You cannot live on what you inherit.
There are lots of great things about this congregation, this church family.
But what your parents have done in this church and what they have made this church as it is this morning
means nothing in the long term unless there's a reality for you as you take your place in the church.
A reality of trust in Christ, obedience, repentance and godly living.
The church has no future here at Ellimoorville apart from that and apart from you thinking that and acting in the line of that.
Secondly, the second part of the satisfactory I think for these people was that they aimed primarily for a comfortable quiet existence as a church.
Now you may dispute this and I hope you do as always. Just give me a day or two before you dispute it too severely.
But you see it would appear that like the city itself the church had settled into what they thought was the good life in spite of the reputation.
Now the history tells us that Sardis was not persecuted either by the Jews or by the Romans unlike their sister cities around the traps.
Now you ask the question why weren't they persecuted when the church up the road was severely persecuted?
Well the obvious answer is there were no threat.
Persecution only comes when there's a clash of world views, a clash of philosophy, a clash of allegiance and loyalty.
That's where persecution comes.
Could it be that the Sardis factor for this church was that life was too comfortable?
That they had settled into what they thought was the good life comfortably well off, quite happy no doubt as a little church,
very integrated, enjoying one another's company, loving to get together on a Sunday and sing and pray together and hear God's word together.
And Jesus screams at them to wake up.
Perhaps they were so comfortable in their little club that they called church that they had ceased to be passionate in proclaiming Christ.
Perhaps they had even ceased to be passionate about Christ.
I think if you're if you're passionate about Christ then you'll proclaim Christ so we we can assure assume those two go together.
Such that there were no threat to anybody.
I'll tell you my friends I think this is the greatest danger we face as a church.
See it doesn't work with anything terribly in your face because everybody here will say,
no we're really keen to be the church. The church is important.
We need to meet together. We like to meet together.
But you see we can say that but still sink to a comfortable level of existence as a church.
A quiet level of existence. That sort of level that well doesn't put too much demand on my time,
doesn't put too much demand on my energy,
doesn't put too much demand on my relationships with family or with workmates or anything else.
See we affirm the need to evangelize. I hear it from people all the time.
I know you affirm the need to evangelize. I know you affirm the need to be taught.
But so often I think the temptation is to want those things at a level that's comfortable for us.
We want to have be able to affirm this while doing that.
We want it at a level that doesn't hurt us. We want it at a level that doesn't put pressure on us.
We want it at a level that doesn't infringe upon the other aspects of the good life that we're so committed to.
And I tell you I include myself in this as I speak.
We say we want to see people converted. We say we want to see Christ honored.
We say we want the church to grow. Those things are common among us.
But could it be true that we say all those things and still be committed to and determined to have a comfortable, quiet existence?
As I say I think this is the greatest threat to us as a church or any church that's been going for 20 or 30 years.
It's called middle-edge death.
Why do we hear, if you think I'm being too harsh, why do we hear more and more people saying,
and I'm talking about this congregation now, I'm too tired to do this. I'm too busy to do that.
Or just when the rosters go out, we've got Christianity Explored, Call for Help there, More College Mission, something to do there.
Why is it that so many won't get around to doing anything?
I'm not saying that all have to have equal skills in every sphere.
But that's the reality I think, is it not my friends? Challenge me personally about it afterwards if you think I've got it wrong.
Why is it that the workload seems to fall on the same few energetic and determined people?
Is their lifestyle less busy than yours? Do they have somehow vastly superior quantities of energy to what you have?
We're increasingly protective of our homes and possessions, I think, as Christians.
For once, the mark of a Christian was open homes, open doors, and hospitality.
How does that figure? Could it be the satisfactory among us?
I am not saying that home, family, and relaxation are unimportant.
You know me well enough, if you're a regular, you know me well enough that I like all of those that I think are all important and have to be balanced.
I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is that if we are genuinely passionate about Christ and about our service of Christ,
then we cannot be in this world, in this environment, in this local community, and not clash with the world views that drive this local community.
It just cannot happen.
I'm not saying we seek to be abrasive. I'm not saying we go looking for a fight. I don't want a fight. I try not to be abrasive.
But we can't excuse one by fear of the other.
I think sometimes my friends, and again I include myself in this as I've prepared,
I think sometimes the analogy of scripture, where we're to be soldiers on the battlefield,
has been subtly replaced by us, where we're more like soldiers on R&R.
Phil Jensen said in an article, I may have used this a couple of weeks ago, I can't remember what I did a couple of weeks ago, but anyway,
I know I used it in some context. Phil Jensen said in an article in a magazine I read recently,
that he said the decision to grow as a church, and that's what I've heard us say, we want to grow as a church.
He said the decision to grow as a church is at the same time the decision to put ourselves under pressure and pain,
financially, emotionally, and physically.
But he says the irony of it all is that evangelicals say, yes, we want the church to grow, but they don't want the pain.
And Philip Jensen went on to say, those churches who do that, he said, are the churches who are dying, that are dying.
Simple equation.
Is it possible, my friends here in this local church, our church,
that we're enjoying the reputation of being alive while being committed to ease and acquired existence?
Is it possible that you're in this church just being carried along by the energies and passions of those around you?
The answer has to be yes, it is possible.
What you have to decide, is it reality?
It's certainly possible, Jesus himself says it here.
What you have to decide, is it a reality, either for us generally as a church, or for you particularly in this church?
Three, not recognizing the signs of imminent danger.
Even more awful than their slackness, I think, was their arrogance of thinking they were indestructible.
They thought their church was very much alive.
Other churches seemed to agree with their views.
Only Christ, it would appear, was able to see things as it really is, and expose them for what they were.
And Christ delivers a terrible warning to them in the light of that.
Their experience as a church will be similar to the experience of the city in history.
End of verse three.
But if you refuse to wake up, and that's a military term again,
the guards such as they are where they have been posted have gone to sleep.
Let alone dealing with areas where there hasn't even been a guard posted.
Wake up, because if you don't wake up, I will come like a thief, and you'll not know at what time I will come to you.
Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes.
And I won't go in for those who were upset by my analogy earlier on.
I won't tell you what the real word is for soiling their clothes there.
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.
What's the terrible threat, promise that Jesus delivers to this church?
They are going to be done for unless they get the guards back on duty.
Unless they get the troops roused out of their sleep, and get back to the battlefront.
How would judgment come? Verse three.
Well, like a thief in the night.
Now I thought a lot about that. How would that, how would that be like a thief in the night?
Well, can I suggest to you my friends, and this is arbitrary and you can dispute this,
but can I suggest to you that most probably God's judgment would come upon that church through continued slackness.
Thief in the night has the idea of something unknown, unexpected.
Something that they wouldn't be prepared for.
And I think perhaps, and consistent with other parts of scripture,
Christ's judgment on them for slackness and going to sleep would be more the same.
The very thing they aim for, a quiet comfortable existence, would be Christ's judgment on them.
They would have their quiet comfortable existence and they would just slip away into the coma and then oblivion.
Spiritual coma and then spiritual oblivion.
And it certainly would be consistent with the history of the church at Sardis.
It just quietly disintegrated. There was no big heresy. No big split in the church.
No big persecution. The church just disappeared.
Just slipped under like a small craft would slip under the water and not much more than a couple of bubbles.
Friends, could that ever be said of us as a church?
But hang on a minute. We're a reformed Baptist church for goodness sake.
We teach the doctrines of grace. We've stood on the reformation.
Surely we're indestructible when our history has been so glorious, so good, so true to scripture.
Friends, you can see how absurd and how arrogant and bizarre that statement would be.
We must never allow ourselves to think that we have a good thing going here that could never fall in a heap.
My theory of churches is that we don't have any comfort from the past.
The only comfort we have is on a week-to-week basis.
I think there's only four or five or six weeks potential difference between this church as we have it here this morning and been closed down.
It's that simple.
We must be alert and on our guard so that we don't die simply by degrees of slackness.
How many churches in history you think have died by degrees of slackness?
Now you see that's the subtlety of it because we're on our guard for anything that stands against the reformation.
We're on our guard for anything that's opposed to the doctrines of grace.
We're on our guard for abhorrent lifestyles.
But are we on guard against dying by degrees of slackness?
And you know you can die by degrees of slackness while enjoying wonderful fellowship together.
Lastly, not hungering for heaven is the last of the Sardis factor I think.
There's a bright spot on the horizon verses four, five and six.
Christ still has his people in Sardis.
People have not lost the plot and the promise is that both they and others who follow their lead will be welcomed and accepted into heaven by Christ.
But you see that very thing is part of the Sardis factor I think because one of the problems I think for the Christians in Sardis was that they must have lost sight of what being a Christian is really about.
You see being a Christian is not about having an enjoyable and pleasant existence in the here and now.
That's got no bearing on Christ's call to bow before his authority and lordship.
Being a Christian is about being made acceptable to God and equipped for heaven.
Being a Christian is about having your name put in the book of life and about loyalty and allegiance to Christ.
Being a Christian is about, it's only modern evangelicalism that says being a Christian is about being happy.
Being a Christian is about being middle class.
That's not from the Bible.
The problem for these Christians I think was that they weren't hungry enough for heaven.
They had lost sight of themselves as undeserving sinners.
They had lost sight of their indebtedness to God's grace that shows and seeing themselves as humble servants engaged in a life of service in response to God's gracious pardon of their sins.
They had lost sight of themselves as pilgrims and strangers in this world that not to be part of this world simply to be in it on our way to heaven.
I think they had lost sight of those things and started to see their Christianity and the gospel in terms of their lifestyle.
And isn't that a threat for us in 2005?
The word evangelicalism now has more to do with lifestyle I think than it has to do with a summary of doctrinal doctrine.
So let me conclude by urging you if you're a Christian to hunger for heaven, nothing will motivate you.
Nothing else will motivate you to live passionately and obediently for the Lord now than hungering for heaven.
The alternative you see is just to enjoy being part of a nice club and I think this is a nice club.
And by that I'm not being derogatory at that point. It's a nice fellowship to be part of.
But the danger is that enjoying being part of this now stops me from hungering from heaven which will motivate me to push on.
Secondly, let me urge you if you've been in this church a long time but are not sure if you're a Christian,
let me just tell you this morning again as you've been told dozens of times.
You will not get into heaven by association with Christians.
You will not get into heaven by association with a church no matter how good the church is.
You will not get into heaven on the reputation of a local congregation, this congregation.
It just will not happen and you should never think that by being part of this congregation for a long time that you're now equipped for heaven.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Only embracing Christ, repenting of your sin and living a life of godly discipline will see you equipped for heaven.
And let me urge you if you're not a Christian and you know you're not a Christian to see that Christ's judgment is imminent and absolute.
The only way you'll get your name into the book of life, Christ's book of life is by recognizing your inability to get it there by yourself
and to look into Jesus to do for you what you can't do for yourself. Deal with your sins and make you acceptable to God.
And the great encouragement as I finish then is that the same Christ who alone was able to expose the plight of these Christians at Sardis
is the one whom we're told at the beginning of the letter holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
That's a symbol of the one who controls the life and energy of the church.
And the great encouragement of that is if you're still dead in your sin then Jesus is the man to make you alive.
It's that simple and you can go to him.
And the encouragement for the rest of us, if we're to avoid being alive through reputation only then we need to draw an ear to Christ.
We need to be alert to his word. We need to be praying urgently for eyes to be alert to the danger signs.
We need to be stirring one another up to love and good deeds.
We need to be challenging one another in terms of slackness.
And we need to be working hard together to keep up our guard and keep up our passionate service of Christ.
And my friends you might think these have been harsh words this morning. I do as I've delivered them.
But I think they need to be said and I can promise you that I've tried to apply them to myself before I applied them to you. Let's pray.
Lord it's such a scary thought and yet one that we see reasonably frequently in scripture that we can appear to be one thing while being quite different in fact.
Lord it was your constant challenge of your people in the Old Testament that their sacrifices were there but their hearts were far from you.
Lord in a sense the challenge of Sardis is no different.
Lord help us to be a church with a real reputation for being alive. We want that Lord.
But Lord help us to be a church for whom that reputation is properly deserved. I mean.