So let us hear then God's word, Revelation 3, beginning in verse 1. And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, these things says he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember, therefore, how you have received and heard. Hold fast and repent. Therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief. and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. You have a few names, even in Sardis, who have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The grass withers, the fire fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Amen. As we begin here today, I've mentioned on other occasions how I try to, as it were, break out of the bubble. It is easy for us as Christians, especially those of us who are always surrounded by Christians, to become rather insular. And if we live out in the middle of nowhere or our church is out in the middle of nowhere, this adds to some of the challenge. And so I do various things to try to help in that way, have various ways that I try to keep up with some of the church news, as it were, in our culture and in the PCA, as well as just news in general with what's going on in politics and around the world and sporting things and so forth, just to help me kind of get outside of being so closed in, so to speak. But when you do this, of course, you often run across people who claim to be believers. They say they believe in God or they have faith or there's commitment to some religion or whatever it is. And it's often the case you hear with sports stars or something, oh, I praise God, I got drafted number or whatever, you know. We've heard this in the last few weeks. And God is with me. Or you hear the politicians say this, of course, when they want your vote. And, you know, you're just like, okay, You claim there is some kind of life here, but is there life? Is there genuine life to your words? And, you know, sometimes you're like, well, I have my doubts, but of course we don't know the people. But for the people we do know, we sometimes ask the same kind of question. Well, as we started last time here with the message of Sardis, Jesus gives some very pointed and challenging words. He says that some people look alive. They have a name that they're a Christian, but they're actually dead. And so we start with this challenging message, this fifth message that Jesus gives here to the churches in Asia Minor. And remember that Sardis as a city, as a location, was once very wealthy and very significant and prosperous, but it had been defeated and lost its prestige. It had gone from this life to a kind of death. Jesus also makes reference to his character here, and here he highlights two things. He says about his close relationship with the Spirit and his close relationship with believers. And so our heavenly existence as believers and the Spirit working within us should result in not just an appearance of life, but genuine life, genuine faith, godly living. Unfortunately, these believers in Sardis were portraying themselves as alive, but were devoid of substance and genuine faith, at least a fair number of them, if not the vast majority. Now, as we observe some of the similarities and differences going through these different messages, as we compare this message to others, in particular, as we compare it to the message of Ephesus, as we did some last week. You'll notice now, as we make our way through these verses, that there's something missing here. We've talked about the seven C's, right? These words that begin with the letter C. And we started last time, we saw the commission to write, right? Jesus here is now commissioned to write to Sardis. We talked about the character of Christ and these two things that he mentions here about the spirit and about the stars, the believers. The next one in our list is commendation for obedience. But there isn't one here. Now, there are some hints. Here in verse two, it says about the things which remain. So there's something there. In verse three, it says about receiving and hearing. So they receive something. They have to have something to hold on to. So there's some hints of some commendation. In verse four, this is obviously the closest we get to it, where Jesus says that there are few who are faithful, dressed in white. But Jesus doesn't come right out and say, hey, you're doing a good job in this way. like we've seen with these other messages. And so notice this omission. Unfortunately, it's very striking, isn't it? It's very telling that there are people who can be professing Christians who can look like they're alive and not be. And Jesus is not happy about this. Now, the next C in our list is the condemnation for disobedience. And basically, we already talked about that last week. They're in verse one. And as I reviewed just now, they are dead, even though they appear to be alive. There's no fruit. And we use the image about a tree. The tree has leaves on it, but it's not bearing fruit. The trunk is going. It's not totally dead yet, but it's on its way kind of idea. But what is emphasized in this message is the next C, and that is the commands to change, the correction that Jesus gives to these professing believers. And he does so by giving five commands here. In verse two, we see, first of all, be watchful. Secondly, strengthen. And then in verse three, we have remember, hold fast, and repent. And so we have these five commands that Jesus is giving to these believers. And of course, we need to evaluate ourselves here as we hear this message. Now, Jesus also gives some threats. He gives the rebuke, especially at the end of verse three. And so this is our emphasis here in this message, okay? This command to change, okay? You appear to be alive, all right? You say you're a Christian, well, Here you go. You need to listen to these commands if this is actually true. Now you recall maybe from last week that I made some connections with the message to Ephesus and this one here and that the Ephesian church is starting to go bad. Hey, there's a tree, there's fruit, everything's great in certain ways, but the trunk is starting to hollow out. Once we get here to Sardis, There's very little fruit at all. That trunk is getting pretty bad. If you've been to our house, some of our peace trees are getting to this point. So let me try to take some of these initial thoughts that we talked about last week and as I've reviewed here now, and let's pause and reflect on this a moment before we look at these commands. Whether you see yourself as someone from Ephesus or someone who is Orthodox, someone who is zealous for the faith, or maybe someone from Sardis who has come to this place of cold-hearted, fruitless Christianity, Or maybe somewhere in between where in Thyatira and in Pergamos there's more faith but also compromise with the world and the sin. The question for us is where are we? Are we in Smyrna, faithful and persecuted for our faith? Obviously there's Philadelphia and Laodicea yet. But as we try to reflect on the fact of where we are as individuals, where we are as a church, Jesus here is calling us to repent and to turn to him. All of us, especially as we're considering here this message to Sardis, we all can grow, we all can bear more fruit. And notice how he repeats in these messages this command to repent. Back in chapter two, verse five, he says that to the Ephesian believers, remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works. in verse 16. He said, repent or else I will come to you quickly. Now, it's not quite as direct in verse 21, but you see this, I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality and she did not repent. And now here in chapter 3, verse 3, we see it again. So, there are, if you will, degrees of sin and degrees of ungodliness, but In every one of those, we need to repent and we need to turn to Christ. So let me present it this way by asking some questions. You know, Jesus says that we know a tree by its fruit. And this tree here in Sardis isn't bearing very much fruit. And so it says a lot. So the questions for us are something along these lines. Do you yearn to come to church Or do you yearn to worship God? You can yearn to come to church and not worship God. If you do worship God, then you will yearn to be in his house. Another question, do you have a zeal for Christian disciplines? Prayer and Bible reading, serving others, witnessing, and so forth? Or do you have a vital relationship with God? Again, you can do the first things and not really have a relationship with God. But if you do have a vital relationship with the Lord, you will do the other things. But here's our question. Do we just have a name of being a Christian or do we really have faith? Let me ask this question. Does it bother you when you miss church? Maybe you're sick or away. Does it bother you when you miss communion when we celebrate it? Does it bother you when you neglect your prayer and your scripture readings? Maybe you fall asleep and you wake up and, oh, I got to get to work or something. Does it bother you? And not because you're trying to be a legalistic person who keeps all these things, but because it's affecting your relationship with God. How hard are you resisting the temptations to compromise? Obviously, there are a lot of questions. How do we live in a sinful world? Let me ask this question. Do you come to church because your parents expect you to come or because you're trying to keep up appearances? Do you do Christian things because of what you receive? like praise for men in particular, or a feeling of, you know, feeling good about yourself? Or are you doing these things because God is worthy and you want to honor him and please him? Again, whether we are like someone in Ephesus who is still quite solid in many ways, or whether we're like someone here in Sardis, Jesus wants all of us in every way. Not just in name, not just in some things, but in everything. He does not want to be used by us to satisfy some selfish need. He wants all of us. He doesn't want half-hearted sanctification. He doesn't want Christians who are just that, just that name, and there's nothing more there. He doesn't want us to be content with ungodly living. He doesn't want us to be so worldly that we're not facing persecution and hardships. Maybe I'll end with this question here in this sense, in this part here. When people see us, do they know we're a Christian? Or do they question that? Jesus is pushing these ideas, right? And you might say, well, you know, we've heard all this before. Well, yeah, Jesus keeps bringing it up. We need to evaluate these things. Don't just say, all right, well, this is some church 2,000 years ago. No, we need to hear these words, right? Verse six, let's use our ears, let's hear, let's seek to apply these things. And don't just say, oh, that's somebody else. Well, with this in mind then, let's hear these commands from Christ. And the first one here in verse two is, be watchful. All right, now, first thing, let me just say this. For all five of these commands, they all are you singular. So he's speaking to each of us individually. Yes, collectively as a church, you could say, but especially each of us individually, heed these commands. So the first here is to be watchful. You could translate it to stay awake or to be alert. You can even say to be alive, which obviously would fit in light of verse one. It's actually a combination of two words in the Greek. And the first word, you can translate it as be, or you can translate it as become. Become watchful. Okay? Obviously the implication is the people weren't. And so you now need to become watchful. Don't be lazy. Don't be indifferent and apathetic, but become watchful. Or one commentator said, show yourself watchful. That's the emphasis. Now, because he begins with this command and in verse three, he returns to the same word, to watch. Let me read for us here some other verses in the New Testament. And I thought it'd be easier just to read them today instead of having us to turn to several places. So let's start with the Gospels. Matthew 24, verses 42 and 43. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming, but know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. And then in Matthew 25 verse 13, Watch therefore for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. And of course you remember in between you have the parable of the ten virgins and such. Now obviously here in Matthew 24 and 25 we're talking about the return of Christ, the final return. The message here in Sardis seems to be more limited, more immediate, if you will, but obviously it points us ultimately to Christ's final return, so we need to be watchful at all times, because we don't know when He's coming. In Mark 13, verses 33 to 37, Take heed, watch, and pray, for you do not know when the time is. It is like a man going to a far country who left his house and gave authority to his servants and to each his work and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. Watch, therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming, in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning. Lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all, watch." So then, in Mark chapter 14, verse 34, Jesus is now speaking to Peter, James, and John in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He says, He said to them, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch. And then a few verses later, then he came and found them sleeping and said to Peter, Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. We can see parallels in other places, such as Luke 12, verses 37 to 39. Hey, Luke 21 verse 36, some of the same ideas. Let's now from Acts 20 verse 31. This is when Paul is speaking to the Ephesian elders. He says, therefore watch and remember that for three years, I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. Hey, this isn't just, you know, sitting on your couch watching television. This is very active here. First Corinthians 16, verse 13, watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. In Ephesians 6, verse 18, here in the context of the spiritual weapons, Paul says, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, being watchful to this end, with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. First Thessalonians 5, verse 6, therefore let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober. And then speaking to Timothy, Paul says in 2 Timothy 4 verse 5, but you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. And then Peter, 1 Peter 4 verse 7, the end of all things is at hand, therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. He said that almost 2,000 years ago, even more significant for us now. And then in Revelation 16 verse 15, Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. As I said, because of the prominence of this command here, I wanted to read some of these extra passages just to reinforce this idea. Jesus is saying this repeatedly in the New Testament, either directly or through his apostles. And here he is saying it to the church and Sardis, and by extension to us. Notice how this is similar to the command to overcome. One we've seen here in every one of these letters, and again, in verse five for this one. Hey, we're to come, overcome, we're to persevere, we're to press on. We gotta be watchful as we do this. Don't be lazy, don't be half-hearted, don't be apathetic. Jesus says. If you want to be a Christian that is not just a Christian in name, but genuinely, ultimately, of course, we need to trust in Jesus, but anybody can say that. How are we living? Well, if we're living a watchful life, this is an obvious fruit. All right, well let's look at the second command here. He says, and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die. All right, you could translate this word to firmly establish the remaining things. Most likely, Jesus is actually making a historical reference here. You might remember me mentioning last week that there was an earthquake that destroyed Sardis in 17 AD. Well, by the end of the first century here, when John is writing, they still were not done rebuilding things, most notably the temple to Artemis. Remember I mentioned last week how prominent and big this temple was in Sardis to Artemis? Well, there were parts of it they hadn't finished even almost 80 years later. And so Jesus likely is referring to this. Basically, don't be like the pagans. who will do some work and then just leave the rest kind of idea, okay? Finish the remaining things, okay? And these things are about to die because you're not finishing them, right? They're drying up. Okay. Now, notice there is a glimmer of hope here. There is some life in the tree. There are leaves, not just a bunch of dead branches. Yes, there is a little bit of fruit, again, verse four. And so, if we continue this image, right? Spray for bugs. Give fertilizer. Water well. Prune off the dead parts. Care for the tree. Hey, strengthen what does remain, what is there. And so let's remove sin from our lives. Let's cease acting like the world. Let's pray and read scripture, but sincerely seeking to develop relationship, heart-deep relationship with God. This is where John 15 fits. You cannot bear fruit. You cannot be a tree that is alive unless you're abiding in Christ. Now there, of course, he uses the image of a vine. The focus is not bearing fruit. The focus is on abiding in Christ. And if you abide in Christ, you will bear fruit. And so strengthen what remains. You say you believe in Jesus. Well, strengthen that relationship and the fruit will come. And notice one of the key fruits that he talks about there in John 15 is the command to love, to love as Christ loves. He also goes on to say that if you actually do obey Christ and if you are abiding in the vine, you're going to be persecuted. As I mentioned last time, there is no evidence whatsoever in this message that any of the believers are being persecuted for their faith. All right. Notice this end of the verse here. For I have not found your works perfect before God. There are works, right? He mentions that in verse one. They're mostly outward Christian actions, though. And here now he says, I have found, right? Jesus is judge who sees everything, who knows everything. He says that your works are not yet perfected. Now, the New King James uses that word, which is fine. The word most naturally means to fill. And so using that image then, if we can switch from a tree to a cup here for a moment, the cup is near to empty in Sardis. There's a cup there, there's a little bit in there. There's some life, there's some profession, but it's near empty. The tree is drying up. And so Jesus here is saying, I'm finding that you are empty. Now this is not a command to fill, strictly speaking, but note the implication. Let's fill the cup. Let's get near the water source, right? Get the fertilizer. Let's come to Christ to develop this abiding. And then you'll be filled with the spirit and so forth. Remember the connection back to verse one with Jesus having the spirit. If we have the Spirit, then there is life. Again, are we a Christian in aim only or genuinely? That's our question here. Now, let me read a few verses here briefly. In Acts 13, verse 52, it says, the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit, and this is after they were persecuted for their faith. In Ephesians 5 verse 18, do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit. In Colossians 1 verse 9, for this reason we also, since the day we heard of it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding. So again, this isn't strictly a command, but the implication is, let's be filled with the spirit, let's be filled with the truth, Don't just say you're a Christian. There's gotta be life there. All right, well, let's look then at the third command, which is now in verse three. Remember, therefore, how you have received and heard. Now, this command specifically emphasizes an ongoing action. Certainly, it's true for the first two, but this one emphasizes let's continuously remember. Now, you might remember back in chapter 2, verse 5, right, that's exactly what Jesus said to the Ephesian believers, to remember. You can't watch or strengthen or fill or hold fast or repent, hey, unless you're remembering. And, of course, we need to remember Christ and what He has done, what God has done, who He is, and so forth. Now, of course, we just did some remembering here recently, didn't we? We had our Maundy Thursday service, and we remembered the Last Supper, the death of Christ. And then a few days later, we had our remembering, where we focused on the resurrection of Christ. Of course, we remember at Christmastime with our Christmas Eve service, and we remember monthly as we come to the Lord's table. And in each one of these settings, I pretty much say the same thing every time. It varies to some degree, but it's the same that we're supposed to remember. We're not really learning anything new, we're just remembering what we already know. That's the whole point. And so here Jesus is saying, let's remember. And when we do, we're gonna bear some fruit. And there are other ways we remember, but here are some of the main ones. So notice he says then, remember how you have received from God. And we certainly have received abundantly from God. We haven't received gold or security or prestige or something like that, these earthly things, but we received salvation and forgiveness and eternal life. But when earthly blessings take precedence over heavenly ones, then it leads to these problems. We'll talk about this point even more in Laodicea. Remember the amazing grace that God has shown to us in Christ. And then notice how he says, remember how you have heard the truth, the scriptures, the gospel message. Remember these things. Unfortunately, Joe's been talking about some of the cults in Sunday school here recently. There's a lot of remembering that is wrong in those settings. We went to a funeral this week and the person who was bringing the message was teaching us about soul sleep. He even mentioned it this morning in Sunday school. He said, well, this person has died and they're going to be in the grave until Jesus comes back. And I'm like, well, wait a minute. Our bodies are in the grave until Jesus returns, but our souls go immediately to be with the Lord. Joe, you mentioned a few references this morning. I was thinking of the thief on the cross. Today, you will be with me in paradise. Or when Jesus was speaking to the Sadducees about the question of the resurrection, he's like, God is the God of the living, not the dead. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive. We need to remember the right things. You need to remember what you've heard. What the apostles taught here is the point, right? And so we need to remember the truth, not wrong things, or it's not gonna lead to fruit. Now notice the word how in this. It says remember how you have received and heard. It doesn't say remember what you have received and heard. Now certainly we should remember what God has done and what he has said, but notice it says, how? How have we received this? Well, yeah, we can talk about people teaching us the truth. We can talk about maybe mothers teaching us the truth when we were children. Here you could talk about the apostles coming or John here bringing the truth to these believers. But ultimately, how have we received this? By God's grace, through Christ, through the spirit that Jesus has, this is how we have it, ultimately. God sent Jesus to secure our salvation. We don't contribute anything to it. And so all these commands to do are not leading to our justification, but are evidence of a genuine faith. And so you see how this idea fits then with verse one. Outward activity is not enough. It's not just what you know, it's not just what you do, but remembering how God came to us wretched, unrighteous people to give us salvation. And so give yourselves fully to Christ then because of it. Anybody can recite what God has done, but only true believers are the ones who bear the fruit. And so remembering these things motivates us to righteousness. Again, you see how personal Jesus is making this. All right, well then we have the next command, to hold fast. That's how the new King James says it. The word most naturally means to keep or to guard. Remember we've seen the word to hold fast, to seize, right? To hold tightly. This is a different word. But we are to hold on or guard or keep what we have been given here, which the word can be translated as obey. And so maybe you can put it this way, protect the things that God has given to you. Protect the truth that God has chosen you to receive this truth through Christ. Don't let that truth go. So let's come then to the fifth command. Obviously, we could always say much more here, but the fifth one then is repent, and I've made reference to this some already. And so here now, we're not merely to say, I'm sorry, but repentance has the idea of turning, of changing. And so turn away from apathetic, half-hearted sanctification. Turn away from the idea of just saying to everybody you're a Christian and it's not impacting your life. Turn away from social club Christianity or being a nice Christian. Give yourself completely, fully, with all of your strength to Christ. God wants all of us, not part of us. That includes not just what we're doing here, or not just what we do for a few moments in our devotions at home. God wants all of us, when you go to work, when you go to school, when you're watching a movie, or whatever it is, God wants all of us to repent of where you're not doing that. Obviously, all of us need to repent of that. And so again, our question may be, well, are we more like the Ephesian believer or more like the Sardis believer? But in either case, God wants us all. And so be watchful. Strengthen what remains. Remember, hold tightly to this, guard it, and repent where you fall short. Which brings us now to the end of verse three, and we have a rather severe warning given to us here. Therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. All right, now notice, obviously, he returns to the first command here with the idea of watching, and here now he uses the image of a thief. Now, we need to be careful here. Often here people say the image of the thief, either here in the Olivet discourse or something like that, is talking about the silence of the thief. And then when Jesus is going to come, he's going to come silently. And so he might talk about a silent or secret rapture or something like that. That's not what the image is communicating. Yes, thieves use stealth when they're not wanting to get caught, of course. But the emphasis here is not on their silence. It's on the suddenness of it, the unexpectedness of it. Think of those 10 virgins. They knew he was coming. And when the bridegroom came, there wasn't anything silent about it. But some just weren't ready. They were not prepared. That's the point here. You will not know the hour. In fact, that's very strenuously stated. You will never know is how you could translate that. And so be ready. Don't be caught unawares. And so don't be surprised like those five virgins. Now obviously Jesus is making a historical connection here. I mentioned last time about how Sardis was suddenly destroyed by soldiers who climbed up the rock face and came into the city there on the Acropolis. Cyrus did it with the Persians, but also a few hundred years later Antiochus III with a man named Lagerus and 15 men climbed up and they just walked right into the city, opened the front gate and the armies came in and defeated them. The city was overconfident. They weren't prepared. They weren't watching. Remember also that an earthquake leveled the city in 17 AD. And so Jesus is clearly making reference to some of these things, especially the former. And so be watchful. And if you're not, it's not good. There is judgment. If you're only a social Christian, at some point, Jesus will come and destroy you. Maybe through an accident, some disaster like a fire or something, or through death. Certainly at the second coming, Jesus is slow to anger. He is patient, but there is a limit. And so be ready, be watchful. Give yourself to him completely. If you don't, he will reject. He will judge. Let's turn here a moment to Matthew chapter seven. You may recall a few weeks ago, we looked at the last words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount about the wise and foolish builders. Look at those verses just prior to it. In Matthew seven, verse 21, In my view, these are some of the hardest words to digest in all the scriptures, if you really listen to what he's saying. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness." This is really the same message that Jesus is giving to these people in Sardis. Notice here, you might say they're closer to Ephesus. They say, Lord, Lord, there's a great sincerity in what they say. They repeat the word Lord. And then notice all that they're doing. Verse 22, right? We prophesied. And now for us, we might say, you know, I preached a sermon or I led Sunday school or I've done Bible school or I've taught my children. Okay. We've cast out demons in your name, done many wonders or miracles in your name. Now we might not have done those things, but there are a lot of other Christian things that we certainly could fill in here. You see the point. You have people who are claiming to be Christians. They have a name for being alive. And actually there's some fruit that seems to suggest that. And yet Jesus says, depart from me, I never knew you. These are just soul searching words. And that's what he wants us to do. Are you a Christian for real or a Christian in name only? That's the question. How you respond to words like these says a lot. We've seen Saul and David in the Old Testament. Saul clearly showed himself not to be a believer. David did. They both sinned. They both fell short and yet David's response clearly showed his faith. And so again, these messages are not just history lessons. They're designed for us to evaluate ourselves. And here we have this hard message. Use your ears. Listen. By the grace of God, let's pray together. Our Father in God, we thank you again for your word. And though your word sometimes is hard to swallow, we are thankful for it. But we are thankful, Lord, that you also grant us your spirit to help us to hear. And so we pray for that, Lord. We pray, Lord, that everyone here would be hearing these words and responding accordingly, according to your grace and according to your mercy. Help us all to watch and strengthen, and remember, and guard, and repent. Help us to be ready and not taken unawares. Fill us with your spirit, Lord, that we may not be just trees that look alive but are actually lifeless, but that we would be truly your children, every one of us, by your grace. And so, Lord, we pray for your work here in this way. And we thank you. And we pray all of this then in Jesus' name. Amen.