You can either follow along in your Bibles and notice the slight variations or on page 22 we have the majority text translation of Revelation 3, 1 through 6. Hear the Word of God. And to the messenger 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, yet you are dead. Wake up and strengthen the remaining things that you were about to throw away, for I have not found your works to be fulfilled before my God. So remember how you have received and heard, and hold fast and repent. Because if you do not watch, I will come upon you like a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. But you do have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments, and they will walk with Me in white because they are worthy. The one who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before my God and before his angels. He who has an ear to hear, excuse me, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Amen. Father we thank you for your word and I pray that you would enable me as I seek to mine for silver and for gold in the scriptures here to do so accurately and to bless this your people. We ask for your presence with us in Jesus name. Amen. May be seated. Well, the title of today's sermon may have raised a bit of a question mark in your minds because it says, when contentment is not a virtue. And the text of the introduction may seem even stranger. It says, without a holy discontentment, Christians will never have true contentment. You may wonder how discontentment can coexist with contentment in the same person, because discontentment is this deep desire, this longing for something that we do not have, and contentment is a total satisfaction with what we have. Those seem like totally opposite things and how can they coexist at the same time within the same person? But as I hope to show, they do and they absolutely must. But in any case, at first blush, that statement may seem to be in conflict with God's commandments to be content in every circumstance. Hebrews 13 verse 5 says, let your conduct be without covetousness, So covetousness is the opposite of contentment. Let it be without covetousness, be content with such things as you have. For he himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So it says, be content with such things as you have. Doesn't that rule out all discontentment? Philippians 4.11 says something similar. It says, Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. And I want you to notice that phrase, in whatever state I am to be content. Doesn't that just absolutely rule out all discontentment? Well let me assure you that rightly answering this question is the only thing that's going to avoid Christ's rebuke that he gives to the church of Sardis. The church of Sardis was content with having a reputation without the reality and Christ rebukes them for that contentment. Sardis was content to do works before men but not really doing them before the Father and they are rebuked for that contentment. Sardis was content with appearances. Sardis was content with what they had already received and Jesus admonishes them that they need to receive more from the throne of Christ. And actually the context of the two verses that I read earlier mandate discontentment and Paul in those passages certainly models that discontentment. with certain things anyway. So while Philippians 411 commands us to be content with certain things, there's other passages in Philippians say we must have a discontentment with other things and Paul had a passionate discontentment with the state of this world. He desired to see more of the church's growth. Well that implies he's not satisfied with the degree to which the church in Philippi had been growing to that point. The context says he longs for more sanctification. He longs to see more unity in that church. He longs to see every knee in this world bowing before King Jesus in Philippians 2 verse 10. To be seeking for something more than what you have is a holy discontentment and it is holy because God himself has commanded us to seek such things. Jesus commanded us to not be content with the state of the kingdom that we currently see in the world, to not be content with the state of righteousness. Instead, he has us pray. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He commands us to hunger and thirst after righteousness. He commands us, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of these things will be added to you. And he said, these are the things that the Gentiles seek. So we need to be content with those kinds of things. Any discontentment with those things that the Gentiles seek, he said, is an unholy discontentment. But Jesus wants us to be discontented with the ungodly state of the world. And the same was true of Paul. So in chapter three of Philippians, Paul counts the things that he used to long for as rubbish. And he makes it his aim to know more of Christ. He says that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. So at that point, he was not content with how much he knew Christ. He wanted to know Him more. He was not content with how much of Christ's resurrection power was at work in his life. He longed to see more. So what he's doing is he's trading in one set of things that he used to long for, that's the rubbish, for another set of things that he longs for much more. And those are kingdom realities. In Philippians 3, verses 13 and following, Paul indicated he was not satisfied with the state of his own Christianity. Why? Because he is still pressing. He said, I'm not arrived yet. I am still pressing into the upward goal that God has for me in Christ Jesus. And those are just a few examples from the life of Paul. There's many, many more where he absolutely was not satisfied with his current state of affairs in his life, in the church's life, and in the world. The world's not where God wants it to be? Well, then Paul cannot be content with where the world is at. And I looked up every Greek word that is the antonym, the opposite of contentment, and I found that those words can be used either to describe a sinful state if it's self-oriented or a godly state if it is Christ-oriented. For example, you might think that the word covet is only a sinful thing. That's the Greek word zelao. And in 1 Corinthians 13 verse 4 it does describe a sin. It says love does not covet. But just a few verses later it says that we are to pursue love and we are to desire, and it's the same word, to covet. In fact, the King James translates it that way, to covet spiritual gifts. So coveting by itself is not bad. Titus 2.14 says, yes, we should covet good works. Not to covet sin, but we're to covet good works. So discontentment is not bad. It depends on which direction it is oriented. Or you can think of the Greek word for deep longing, epithumia, and it can describe the discontented desires of the flesh, or it can describe the discontented desires of the spirit, which should be longing for more of God. And so using that word, Jesus said, with fervent desire, that's epithumia, with fervent desire, I've desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, Luke 22, verse 15. Same word describes Paul's longing for renewed fellowship with the Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 17, or a man's desire for the office of a bishop. He says that's a good thing to desire that, but it's using that deep longing, that epithumia. Or it can describe Luke's deep longing for the church's diligent pursuit of Christ Hebrews 6 verse 11 Galatians 5 16 to 17 uses that word to describe both the flesh's longing for sin and the Holy Spirit's longing for more righteousness within us likewise the Greek word Epipotheo can describe the ungodly longings of the flesh and or the godly longings that the Holy Spirit has for holiness, James 4, 5. Peter uses it to describe the deep longing for the spiritual milk of the Word that we need to be longing for just like a baby longs for its mother's milk. I think you get the point. I won't bore you with all of that. There's a ton more scriptures. that talk about this holy discontentment. But the key point is, the more we long for Christ's kingdom, His power, His glory, His provisions, the less the things of this world will have a grip upon our hearts. And the more we seek first Christ's kingdom and His righteousness, the more satisfied we'll be with the things He has promised to add unto us. You know, of the things that the Gentiles seek, the material things of this world. We'll be very satisfied with them. cars, houses, family, the things that God has entrusted us with. And I needed to give that as a background for you to understand the main problem with Sardis. Sardis seemed to lack passion and initiative to advance Christ's kingdom. What they needed was a holy discontentment with their current state of affairs. Instead, they were just quite okay with where their ministries were at, where their sanctification was at, the attendance they had, the knowledge they had, the successes that they had already achieved. There was no holy discontentment with the state of the individual, the church, or the world. And in this, I believe Sardis represents the Stoic concept of contentment much more than the biblical concept of contentment. See, the Stoics thought of contentment as not desiring anything. You just have to kill all desire. And really, it resembles more apathy, lack of vision, inertia, lack of initiative, and self-satisfaction. That is not biblical. A.W. Tozer pointed out that other than regeneration, this issue was the major difference between Jacob and Esau. The difference was not that one had sin and the other did not have sin. It was not that one of them was a Christian and the other was not a Christian. They both worshiped the same God, at least outwardly. We know from the scriptures later that he was not regenerate. But it was not that Jacob was free of covetousness and Esau was a covetous man. I mean, they both had the sin of covetousness. The main difference was that Jacob didn't like what he saw inside of himself while Esau was quite pleased with himself. A.W. Tozer said, Jacob had a great dissatisfaction and discontentment with himself and a longing after God deep within. Jacob was deep in sin, but not so deep that it followed him to the life of another world. Esau was not so deep in sin, but he was satisfied with what he had. The worst thing that could be said about Esau was that he was spiritually satisfied and that damned him. And I think the worst thing that could be said about Sardis was that it was spiritually satisfied and that was about to damn the church if they did not wake up and repent. It had a form of godliness, but it did not have the power and the life of the Spirit working in and through their ministries. So what is the solution when a church finds itself apathetic and unwilling to grow and self-satisfied and having inertia that pulls it down? Well, the first thing that should be done is to look to God, the life giver, and ask Him, beg Him to help. Help, Lord. I just feel like I'm represented by... I am a representative of Sardis. Help me, Lord, to get out of this state. See, Christianity is not about pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. It's about responding to God's grace, and that's where this letter starts. This letter is God's initiative to the troubles and the problems in Sardis. Sardis didn't even recognize they had a problem. They were self-satisfied, right? So this letter shows God's initiative. Verse 1, And to the messenger of the church in Sardis write, The Scriptures are a gift of grace. In fact, they are probably the chief means by which we grow. So when you find your Christianity becoming formal and lifeless, ask God to speak to you through the Scriptures. The whole next year, the elders plan to really focus on the various ways in which we can immerse ourselves in the life-giving scriptures. In the past, we focused on prayer as one of the means of grace. But during this next year, what we're wanting to do is show you the various methods and techniques of internalizing this life-giving Word. In fact, I think Gary is going to be starting off. Are you still planning to do that, Gary? starting off the new year with a message on exactly this theme, probably December 27, right? End of the year, beginning of the year, but anyway, we wanna give this vision for the future of how critically important it is to get the scriptures into our hearts. Paul, I mean, John begins, he ends this section with diving into the scriptures. The second thing that we can do is to recognize that elders are messengers, not the solution. They are the tools, not the life giver. Now in this case, the messenger himself, various commentaries say, was either unregenerate or he was so spiritually backslidden that he did not have the life of the Spirit working through him. He's using death as a shock metaphor. And I tend to side with the commentators who say that this is a shock metaphor. He really was regenerate. because he goes on and he talks about him having some things already that he's received by faith from God. So I think he was regenerate, but he's to a place where his ministry is not empowered at all by the Holy Spirit. And so he says, it's a dead ministry. But anyway, you don't have to decide on that. Commentators are divided on it. But either way, we cannot put messengers or pastors in the place of God. We elders are not your savior. Our job is to point you to the Savior. We elders are not able to counsel you perfectly, shepherd you perfectly, or change you. Our job as messengers is to give you the Word of God and pray to God that He will turn you inside out by the power of His Holy Spirit. And too many people, I think, come hoping that we will fix their marriage or fix their children or fix something or other. Well, brothers and sisters, we're not the fixers. We are the messengers of the great fixer. Your faith must be focused on him. And I think this is one of the issues that I have with some of the big celebrity pastors out there is there's this tendency for people to think these guys can make no mistakes and they're going to fix my problem somehow. So we're going to go attend their church. No, you cannot put your faith in man. You must put your faith in Jesus. Thirdly, we need to ask Jesus for the filling of the Holy Spirit. Verse one goes on to say, these things says he who has the seven spirits of God. You will never fix the Sardis syndrome with more programs, better music, more ministries, better preaching. Christ's solution for inward re-energizing is to give the church a refilling of the Holy Spirit. And he uses the metaphor of seven spirits to show that fullness. In John chapter one, verse four, John emphasized the oneness of the Holy Spirit by using a singular verb. The seven spirits is. And that's why you have to translate it, the sevenfold spirits. But here the emphasis is not on the oneness, that one person of the spirit, but it's on the fullness of the spirit. So he uses the seven. Seven is the symbolic number of fullness to indicate we must have the fullness of the Holy Spirit within us. And to do that, we have to come to Christ in faith. Just think in Acts chapter 4 of what happened when the church once again was filled with the Holy Spirit. Incredible things happened. Incredible ministries happened. It became a supernatural ministry instead of what they could just do in their own strength. And by the way, this is one of several verses that settles that ancient church controversy called the Filioqua Controversy. It's a Latin verb and the sun. And we agree it split the church in 1054 completely apart. We agree with the West when they said that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. That's filioque. And we disagree with the East when they said, oh no, the Spirit does not proceed from the Son. He only proceeds from the Father. Now I'm not going to get into all of the ramifications of that incredibly important doctrine. But I would encourage you to read Bojidar Marinov's article on that and how he shows incredible ramifications, including freedoms in the West, centralization of government in the East, centralization of a lot of things in the East. But there's a lot of practical ramifications on what you believe on the Trinity. But anyway, in the Gospels, Jesus was very clear. He said, I will give you the Holy Spirit. and I will send the Holy Spirit. And Rodney's been preaching on that. Now Jesus holds the seven stars in His hand. Chapter one said the seven stars are the seven human messengers. which I take to be the seven moderators of the seven city presbyteries. Some people take it to be the, you know, the senior main preacher of local assemblies, but because there's so many churches in each of these cities, I take it as the moderator, but it's a human messenger. I think that much is clear. Now here's the point. If they are in his hand, I think it indicates that this messenger's deadness was not total. In other words, that he was not unregenerate. After all, verses two through three indicate he had some spiritual life remaining and needed to hold fast to what he'd already received. So he was saved. At least that's my view. Commentators, again, are divided on that. But this means that Christ's statement, without me, you can do nothing, applies not just to apostles, it applies to all, it certainly applies to church leaders. When church boards try to figure out how to get out of the Sardis syndrome, how do we get this church lively again, what do they do? They go to these church growth seminars that teach techniques and programs and how to improve your EQ and leadership skills and how to make your building more attractive and how to have a more effective and welcoming nursery and all kinds of things that they're trying to use to stir up some life. That's all misguided. Jesus and John here wants us to look to Jesus and receive renewed grace from Him. Anything that does not flow from Christ is counterfeit. It's a fake life. And Sardis already had a fake liveliness. When you are feeling dry and dusty in your Christianity, I would encourage you to do just like David did in the Psalms, and we're gonna be singing one of those Psalms after the service, and cry out to Him to quench your thirst. Cry out to Him for power. Ask Him to send the Holy Spirit into your heart so that once again you can have that Abba Father relationship with God. God is the only answer to a lifeless church. Now John moves on to describe several things in our lives that either hinder us from walking in the power of the Spirit or that help us. And the first one that he mentions is a hindrance. He says, I know your works. They had ministries galore. Okay, in fact, it was probably the abundance of ministries that made this church content with itself and blind to its deadness. But God sees through appearances. Busyness can many times hide our emptiness. Chuck Swindoll once said, busyness substitutes shallow frenzy for deep friendship. Busyness feeds the ego, but starves the inner man. Busyness fills a calendar, but fractures a family. Busyness cultivates a program that plows under priorities. Many a church boasts about its active programs, something for every night of the week for everybody. What a shame. With good intentions, the local assembly can create the very atmosphere it was designed to curb. Many times, busyness is a cover-up when we are spiritually lifeless. And if you find it, your life, too busy to pray, it's probably an early warning sign that you need to take heed to. Second, when others think we are okay, it's easy for us to stop pressing into our upward call. Having a good reputation, in one sense, is a good thing. But in another sense, it can make us blind to our current need. And this is especially true if our conscience is trained to respond primarily to what other people think about us instead of responding to what God thinks about us. And if that's true of you, there was a sermon I preached some years ago that deals with how to train your conscience. I'm not gonna get into that this morning. But it is so critical that we not have a social conscience, that our conscience be sensitive to God. But in any case, a good reputation can make us relax, make us blind to our current need. Jesus points out that you have a name that you are alive. Eight of my translations translate it this way. You have a reputation that you are alive. That's what name means. They were satisfied with that reputation. And if man's praise is what you primarily crave, what you're mostly worried about, Then when you have man's praise, it's very easy to not feel the need to press deeper into God. Thirdly, ministry without Christ's strength is dead no matter how marvelous the ministry might appear to be. Jesus said they had a reputation of being alive, but the reality was, he said, you are dead. Yet you are dead. Now I don't think necessarily you have to believe it was an absolute deadness in terms of unregenerate tears, though that's possible. I take it in a different sense because the verse goes on to speak of strengthening what remains. That implies they already had something that truly was from God, and most commentators agree with that. Sardis' problem was that they were plodding on without the life of Christ, being lived through them with little evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit within. And let me tell you, without Christ and the Holy Spirit in our efforts, our efforts are dead. Do you really believe Christ's statement when he said, without me, you can do nothing? And he was speaking to believers there. Without me, you can do nothing. A lot of Christians, I don't think, really believe that statement to be true. But a sense of self-sufficiency will lead to the Sardis syndrome. ministry not empowered by the Spirit, prayers not empowered by the Spirit, counseling not empowered by the Spirit. Everything we're doing, we're doing in our own flesh. If you feel like your ministries are simply plodding on without any supernatural power, what I would encourage you to do, as a start anyway, is to pray one of the prayers for the infilling of the Holy Spirit that's in my Hour of Prayer booklet or in the Spiritual War Prayer booklet. I'll just give you just a tiny little snippet from one of those prayers that illustrates how much we need the Holy Spirit in everything. Father, your word has promised that if we ask for the Spirit, you will give of the Spirit far more readily than parents give the necessities of life to their children. I lay claim to the how much more of Luke 11, 13, and ask that you would give to me an extra portion of the Spirit's presence for today. I need the Spirit because you've commanded me to walk in the Spirit, Galatians 5, 16, and everything that I do. Help me to sing in the Spirit, 1 Corinthians 14, 15. To worship in the Spirit, Philippians 3, 3. To rejoice in the Spirit, 1 Thessalonians 1, 6. Please help me to pray in the Spirit, Jude 20. Since I do not know what I should pray for as I ought, Romans 8, 26. Help me to love in the Spirit, Colossians 1, 18. Be led by the Spirit, Matthew 4, 1. Galatians 5, 18, be moved by the Spirit. Luke 2, 27, to be compelled by the Spirit. Acts 20, verse 22, and to have my mind controlled by the Spirit. Romans 8, verse 6. I mean, when you begin to read through the Scriptures and you realize that there is nothing we do that is pleasing in God's sight unless it's done by the power of the Spirit, through Christ, and to God's glory. You begin to realize, Lord, is there anything I'm doing in my life that is worthwhile? Is there anything I'm doing in my life that is to your glory? On the other hand, everything we do, our carpentry, our vacuuming, giving a cup of cold water, if it is done, dependence upon the Spirit, through Christ, to the Father's glory, he says everything we do, even the most insignificant things we do, will by no means lose his reward. So here's my admonition, do not settle for a dry and dusty Christianity. Do not settle for a Christianity that any Pharisee could live. In fact, that's the whole point of the Sermon on the Mount, is to bust people out of this Sardis syndrome and to make them realize, where's the evidence of my Christianity? where have i ever done anything that a pharisee could not do where is the evidence that this is supernatural loving those who are unlovable and he goes through in the sermon on the mount telling us all kinds of impossible things that christians routinely do the next phrase in verse two says in our translation, wake up, but literally it's a call to be on guard. Be on guard against the inertia that the flesh, the world, and the devil bring. Inertia is a resistance to movement, resistance to change, and we can so easily be satisfied with wherever we're at, whatever we're at. But Paul had a hunger to grow his entire life. Even at the end of his life, he said he had not arrived. He was still pressing into his upward call. So be on guard against anything that presents that. Fifth, failure to strengthen what we've already achieved is a hindrance because there's no neutrality. In the Christian walk, we're either moving forward or we're moving backward. So verse two goes on to say, and strengthen the remaining things. Apparently this pastor and this church did have things that were very good, but they had failed to strengthen them or to build upon them. And you can see that each of these points that we've been going through is a call to be dissatisfied with our current state, to constantly be pressing into more of Christ. Look at verse two again. And strengthen the remaining things that you were about to throw away. When we get tired, it's very easy to stop doing certain things. And when we have grieved the Spirit, it is even easier to stop doing certain things. So I wanna ask you this morning, what are the things that you've either already thrown away or you're tempted to throw away? Is it devotions? Or Bible memorization? Or Bible reading? Or meditation? Is it ministering to your children or ministering to your spouse with the five languages of love, creatively ministering to them? Is it hospitality? You know what it is that the Spirit's been prompting you that you have not done. If there's anything in your life that you used to do when the fire of God's love was within your heart and you're not doing it anymore, you need to at least ask yourselves, are there legitimate reasons for not doing this? The seventh thing is failing to do ministry quorum Deo or before the face of God. Verse 2 goes on to say, for I have not found your works to be fulfilled before my God. Now they had works. They had ministries. Verse 1 says so. Plenty of ministries, but those ministries were not being done as unto the Father. They were not being done with a sense of His presence or unto His glory. And if you're anything like me, You're probably seeing these things describe, at least at some point in your life, describe you. They certainly describe me, off and on through my life. I've had a number of these things descriptive of me, and I've had to be warned by the Holy Spirit to go back to Christ and to keep pressing back into him. And I suspect that the Apostle Paul had this, just like David had it in the psalm that we're going to be singing later on. And that's one of the reasons why Paul said he had not arrived. He kept pressing toward the goal. And so the point is not to feel guilty, not to try harder. It's a focus issue. Where is your faith focused? Is it focused on trying harder? Well, then it's focused on yourself. Or is it focused on Christ? Point is to repent and to live by faith in Christ. In fact, the next phrase, so remember how you have received is a reference to how they began by faith. They received something from Christ. Many things in the past, it implies a liveliness of their faith in the past. But something had come in and had dampened that. That's the problem. And remembering what we used to have can sometimes stir up that desire within us once again. So remember and let that remembrance of the way things used to be stir up a holy dissatisfaction with your current state of affairs. See, if you're not totally happy with where you're at spiritually right now, that's a good sign. Yeah, you might be getting depressed and discouraged in this sermon saying, man, my life has a lot of Sardis. But if you're recognizing it, if you're dissatisfied with it, no, that's the greatest first step because then you go to the source and he, by your faith, you can receive from him what you need. Okay, the next phrase says, and hold fast. Greek word that means to hold something tightly in custody. It is so easy to relinquish the important for the trivial. We could be holding on to the important of what God has given to us, and we see a trinket on the ground, and we let that down so we can pick up the trinket, which will not last. Or we can give up our intimacy with Christ to meet the expectations of a busy schedule, the expectations of other people. But Satan is very, very creative. He's got any number of ways to keep us from holding fast to things that are really, really important. So here's another question. At the end of your life, when you're dying, what will you wish that you had held fast to? I think that's the question to be asking right now. And God's call, if we come up short, is repent. He doesn't make us pay penance and whip ourselves on the back and feel sorry, and He doesn't make us have stones and walk for a mile with stones in our shoes. No, He just calls us to repentance. Turn around. That's all that repentance means. And by the way, repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other. So repentance is turning around from the pursuit that really is an ungodly pursuit and faith is pursuing something else. It's pursuing Christ. So repentance is saying I'm no longer going to find my sense of contentment here. Faith says I'm going to find my sense of contentment in Christ. It's just two sides of the same coin. Now Jack Miller says repentance in his book, Repentance in the 20th Century Man, he points out that repentance biblically is a daily thing that we go through for the rest of our lives. If you think you've arrived automatically, you're probably in trouble. The rest of our lives we say, okay, I've blown it there, I'm turning around, I'm not gonna beat up on myself, I'm turning around, I'm gonna pursue Christ. Moment by moment we do that. Now the alternative is worth considering. Verse three goes on to say, because if you do not watch, I will come upon you like a thief and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. God loves us too much to leave us in our deadness. We are destined for life. Now in John 10, verse 10, Satan wants the opposite. Jesus said that Satan comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but then he goes on in the next verse and he says, I have come that you might have life and that you might have it More abundantly, right? He wants us to have life. That's what we're destined for. And God loves us too much to leave us in our dead state. So He's gonna do something about it. He's gonna rough things up. He's gonna, if we're like chicks in a nest, He's gonna do like the mother bird and flutter us out and get us flying. But He's gonna make sure that we don't stay in our deadness. But though we are to trust in God alone for grace, that was the first point, it's still appropriate to utilize the means to keep our faith alive. And one of those means is fellow believers. Hebrews tells us that the whole purpose of putting you into a church is for mutual accountability and so that we can stir and other up to love and to good works. We help each other to keep looking to Jesus. So the point is it's not just ministers who point you to Jesus. Every one of you are tools to point each other to Jesus as well. And it's like coals in a fire pit. If those coals stick together, they stay warm for a long, long time. Scattered, they lose their glow very, very quickly. So Hebrews 10, 24 through 25 says, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching. And then he goes on to say, if you don't do that, it will be so easy to apostatize. so easy to fall away. So let me spend some time looking at how the godly remnant in this church could be a good source of encouragement, could stir up these people to have the same passion for Christ if they would let them into their lives. First of all, here were people who had a holy discontentment with the status quo. Verses 4 through 5. But you do have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white because they are worthy. The one who overcomes will thus be clothed with white garments, and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before my father and before his angels." Now, we want to be in that company, don't we? We want to be amongst those that God is not embarrassed by. He's not ashamed of. And these were clearly people who were pressing into their holiness. Secondly, they were pressing into God's favor. They cared more about God's well done thou good and faithful servant than they did man's praise. He also characterizes them as overcomers. which to me implies they had the same temptations that the rest of the church had, same temptations to apathy and inertia and stopping the fight and losing ground. It's not that they weren't tempted, it's they were overcomers, they kept fighting the good fight. So here were people who had a holy discontentment with the way that their lives were. and the way the church was. And they had a holy discontentment with the way the world was. They wanted more of God's kingdom. They wanted more of His righteousness. And to that end, they're fighting. And God says that they were worthy. Now, how do you reconcile that statement that they were worthy with the statements by Paul and Jeremiah and Isaiah and so many other godly Christians that they had sin in their lives? Does worthiness mean that they did not have sin in their lives on a daily basis? And we would say, as good Reformed people know, they did have sin in their lives. So what does it mean to be worthy? It means they daily repented, daily put on the garments of Christ's righteousness, and daily depended upon Him. That's the only worthiness that counts, is the worthiness of Christ. And of course, the white clothing is symbolic of Christ's righteousness. But if the clothing represents Christ's righteousness, what does verse four mean when it says that there were only a few names in Sardis who would not defile their garments? How do you defile Christ's righteousness? Well, there's two ways you could go on this. If this is primarily talking about justification, which is God's legal declaration, you are perfectly righteous, I'm going to treat you as if you'd never sinned because of the imputed righteousness of Christ, then defiling Defiling that justification would be misusing the security we have in our justification to excuse our sinfulness and not care about our sinfulness. If it's dealing not just with justification which is the imputed righteousness but also sanctification which is Christ's imparted righteousness then it's likely pointing to our need for daily cleansing, and that's the way I take it, because the Greek word for defiled is moluno, which is defined in the dictionary as being in a state of being ritually impure. Now you gotta remember, the book of Revelation is just filled with metaphors from the temple. And so when a believer in the Old Testament was ritually impure, He couldn't come into the temple to make his requests before God, okay? It didn't mean that he had lost his salvation. He just was ritually impure. Well, people in the Old Testament would not have been satisfied with that. They would have gotten cleansed because they wanna go into the temple. They want to be able to pray to God. And in the same way, or in a similar way, I should say, in 1 Peter 3, verse 7, it tells husbands not to be sinning against their wives. He says, lest your prayers be hindered. So, conversion ushered people into the covenant, but ritual purity symbolized the need for daily cleansing. And that's what makes some commentators believe that the first set of Christians were antinomians. They didn't see the need for daily cleansing. Rodney preached on the washing of feet, Jesus washing his disciples' feet some months ago. And Peter initially didn't want Jesus to wash his feet. I think he must have been embarrassed by that, thought it was beneath Christ's dignity. And Jesus said, hey, if I don't wash you, you won't have any part in me. And then Peter says, okay, Lord, wash my whole body. And in effect, symbolically, that would be like saying, okay, I wanna get saved all over again, and that's impossible. So Jesus said this. He said, he was bathed. Well, that would be a conversion, right? Your entirety is completely cleansed. He was bathed, needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not all of you. So the washing of feet was symbolic of getting rid of the sin that happens every day. And if you don't do that, you're not acting like a true Christian. You may be fully dead or you just may be mostly dead as Sontoya, mostly. But Jesus says that without allowing him to wash your feet daily, you have no part in him. True Christians see their sins and they repent and let Jesus wash their feet. Now here's the application I would like to make to perseverance of the saints. Perseverance of the saints, just like faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin. Perseverance, our perseverance, and God's preservation of us are two sides of the same coin. And since the Bible says God will preserve all of the elect all the way to heaven, not a one of them will be lost, if we're not persevering, which is the flip side of that coin, that means we're not the elect. Can you see that? If preservation and perseverance go hand in hand together, if we're not persevering, then God's not preserving us, obviously, and the indication may be that we were never regenerated in the first place, okay? So I think that's the way to look at it. You cannot separate perseverance from preservation, and I think that helps to explain the next phrase, which, man, this has caused so much controversy in the Christian church, but I think it bears just a little bit of time on it. It says, I will not erase his name from the book of life. Now, many people claim that that phrase implies that sin can cause us to lose our salvation. And I won't take the time to answer every issue surrounding that subject, but I've put into your outline three faulty interpretations with my suggested solution. The first interpretation says that true believers can lose their salvation. And this group, wow, do they ever have a hard time? I've known quite a number of people in this group. They have a hard time with having assurance of their salvation. Because, you know, they commit a sin and they feel like they have to get saved all over again. And they just, there's no growth in their life. But there's also this struggle with, am I saved? Always it's, am I saved? They have no assurance. Now, the next two points are just two variations of the opposite viewpoint, the opposite extreme, the once saved, always saved position that believes that, you know, you make a profession of faith, that's your ticket to heaven, and even if you leave the Lord, it doesn't matter, you're gonna be saved. Even if you, you know, sin like the devil and don't care about it, you will be saved. And its advocates often have a false assurance of their salvation. My position and the position of most Reformed writers is that true assurance can only be had by continually pressing into Jesus, who is the author and the finisher of our faith. On the one hand, we do not believe true believers can ever lose their salvation. But on the other hand, we do not believe true believers can persevere in failing to press into Jesus. Okay, so let's take a look at these three views. First of all, there are five-point Arminians who say that this verse teaches that truly saved, truly regenerated, truly justified people can lose their salvation, and that loss of salvation is symbolized by God erasing their names out of the book of life in heaven. Now, my quick answer is to say that that verse doesn't say anything about truly saved people having their names blotted out of the book of life. On the contrary, He gives assurance to overcomers that their names will not be blotted out, and he simply doesn't give any assurance to those who are not overcomers. Here he's talking to the true believers, giving assurance of what won't happen. Now I've listed a bunch of scriptures that show how impossible it is for the elect to lose their salvation. While there are people who look very much like Christians who will end up in hell, John 3.16 says that if you truly put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will have everlasting life. That means it never ends. If you lose your salvation, everlasting life ended, right? It's not everlasting. But you have everlasting life. John 6, 39 to 40 says, this is the will of Him who sent me, that of all that He has given me, I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise Him up on the last day. So he's saying, Everybody who truly believed in history will be raised on the last day, and Jesus is not going to lose one single one of those people. John 10, 27-29, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand. And Armenians have responded to me, oh yeah, nobody can snatch them out of the father's hand, but they could jump out of the father's hand on their own and lose their salvation. But the earlier phrase says, they shall never perish. In any case, such an interpretation would completely break the golden chain of salvation that you find in Romans 8, 28 through 39 that says that every single one that was predestined is predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. And how does he do that? He does it first of all by calling them. And he says, all who are called will be justified and all who are justified will be glorified. All, all, all. And it's the same all in all of those cases. It's the same people who are predestined, who are called justified and glorified. That means it's impossible for any justified person not be glorified in heaven. Impossible. And it goes on to say that nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. And rather than answering that, they bring up another objection. Arminians respond, but doesn't Hebrews 6 say that it's impossible to renew people to repentance if they fall away? Say, yeah, it does. But it goes on to say that if people fall away, they were never saved in the first place. Okay, verse nine says, but beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you. Yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. In other words, if you're truly saved, you're not going to apostatize. And Arminians respond, yeah, yeah, but aren't apostates referred to as saints and as believers before they apostatized? And I say, yes. as a judgment of charity. As long as we are in the church, we must treat them as brethren. And if they're outside the church, even if God knows that they're regenerate, we have to treat them as heathen and publicans. We're not allowed to read hearts, and we don't need to. Let me give you one example. 1 John 2.19 describes apostates in these words, they went out from us but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that they might be made manifest that none of them were of us. Now they were previously of us in the sense that they were professing believers and the church included them in the number of the saints, but they're not of us when they apostatized. It doesn't say they lost their salvation. He said they never were truly of us. Never. Matthew 7, 21 through 23 does the same. It describes people who were once in the covenant and even had access to the covenant overflow of miracles and ministries, and yet Jesus is quite clear they were never elect, they were never saved. Here's Matthew 7, 21 through 23. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. So it's not a matter of pure profession, it's a matter of inward possession which automatically leads to obedience. He goes on, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. In that verse, we see, first of all, that people who profess to be Christians and who did Christian ministry will end up in hell. Second, lawlessness gives evidence that there is a lack of grace within professing believers. And then thirdly, Jesus didn't say, I once knew you, but you lost your relationship with me. He said, I never knew you, never. They were not true believers in the first place. Now Auburn Avenue or federal vision people give a twist to this. They love quoting John 15 where Jesus says, every branch in me that does not bear fruit is cut off and cast into the fire. They say these branches were savingly united to Jesus. They are in him. And they had every grace, not all the Auburn say this, but many of them say they had every grace that we have except for the grace of perseverance. And so they claim that true Christians can lose regeneration, lose justification, lose election. But that's not only contradicted by the verses that I've already read, it's contradicted by that passage itself. That passage says nothing about regeneration, justification, election. It just says in some sense, there's a branch in Christ. And historically, Reformed people have said they are covenantally in Christ, not inwardly, but covenantally in Christ. They were part of the us for a while that 1 John 2, 19 refers to until it became evident that they were never truly of us. You see, if you take one metaphor and you ignore the other metaphors, you're going to get yourself into trouble. All of the parables give a beautiful picture of Christ and the church, but if you isolate them, you're going to come up with an imbalanced and distorted message. The Vine and the Branches illustrates the point that false believers who produce no fruit can initially look identical to true believers, but eventually their fruitlessness makes it evident that they are not. By their fruits you will know them. The parable of the tares and wheat gives a similar message. And tares are a weed that looks very, very similar to wheat initially. But tares are always tares, and wheat is always wheat. It does not prove that wheat can become tares and lose their salvation. It simply proves that false believers and true believers can look identical for a time. And the way Peter words it is he says, you know, there are some of these people who were in the church, and they left, but they never had their nature changed. They're pigs who have been washed up, clothed, perfumed, they smell great in the church, but they go back to their mire. Why? Because they're still pigs, they're not sheep. They've never been changed. So outwardly, well anyway, I'll just say, I think that's enough to say the Arminian doctrine does not have exegetical basis and the Auburn Avenue interpretation does not have exegetical basis. But the other extreme that is held by the average evangelical Christian is the carnal Christian theory, a theory that says a simple profession of faith gives you a ticket to heaven. And even if a person abandons the Lord, he will still end up in heaven. Now, this heresy, and that is not too strong a word. And if you think it's not a heresy, I would encourage you to watch R.C. Sproul's Seniors. lecture on the heresy of the carnal Christian theory. It is a horrible, horrible heresy that has led many people to perdition. But anyway, this heresy treats repentance as optional, but not necessary to salvation. It is a heresy because even though we are justified by faith alone, All of the Reformers, without exception, said, it is not a faith that is alone. We're justified by faith alone, but it's not a faith that is alone. And if it is a faith that is alone, it's a counterfeit faith. Remember, we saw that repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin. If you don't have repentance, there is no genuine faith. It's a fake faith. And by the way, justification is always followed by sanctification. If those two are separated, it's faulty. But I won't get into all of that. I just want to very, very briefly deal with their objection here. Among carnal Christian theory advocates, I've seen two theories to explain away Revelation 3, verse 5. The first theory is to claim that every human on planet Earth had their name written in the Book of Life since God wants everybody to be saved. And on Judgment Day, God's sadly going to have to erase certain names because they have not yet, He'd been hoping they would believe, but they have not yet believed in Him. Okay, it's a very clever response to this verse, but it doesn't work with two other references in Revelation. If you turn to Revelation 13 and verse 8, It says, all who dwell on the earth will worship Him whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Their names never were in the book of life. I mean, that's a flat-out contradiction of this theory, and Revelation 17, 8 says exactly the same thing. Now, there's another group of the same kind of people, the carnal Christian theory, who claim that this verse says nothing at all about true believers having their names erased, and that's true. I will not erase his name does not logically imply that others will have their names erased. But while this verse alone cannot prove that anyone ever has his name erased from the book of life, I think there are other scriptures that do. And I want you to turn with me to Revelation 22, verse 19. This is a verse that clearly teaches that some will have their names erased from the book of life. Revelation 22, verse 19. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. Have there been professing believers who took away from the things of this book. Yes, the early church talked about people who deliberately edited out, cut out verses from the Bible. So at least those people had their names taken away from the book of life. But turn over to Exodus 32, verse 33. This is even clearer. God is about to wipe all of the Israelites off the face of the map and to make a new nation out of Moses. And Moses begs God not to blot his name out, but to spare the others. So he's gonna take the punishment for them. And God refuses. This is God's answer in verse 23. And the Lord said to Moses, whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book. I will blot him out of, this is not theory, okay? This was an actual erasure of names from a book in heaven, and God refused to blot Moses' name out of that book. So the question comes, if true believers can't be lost, can't lose their salvation, which means they can't have their names blotted out of the book of life, and if everyone's name's not written in the book of life, whose name does get erased? And my view is that God has a book of all who are outwardly in the covenant. So from the foundation of the world, all who would be outwardly in the covenant had their names placed in this book, which is a covenantal document. And I emphasize the point that the book of life is a covenant, covenantal document. It's a legal document, but as proper church discipline takes place, some names are erased, not just below, but above, And the final false believers will have their names erased on Judgment Day. So this is a simple explanation of the difference between the church visible and the church invisible. And I'm not going to look at it in depth, but let me just give you a couple of verses to back this up. In Matthew 18, Jesus tells the church to engage in church discipline. You're all familiar with that. The final step of church discipline is discussed in verse 17, which is excommunication. And it says, if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses even to hear the church, let him to be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. And the very next words out of Christ's mouth explain that excommunication by saying this. Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Where there is an excommunication that is legitimate, the name is not just removed from earthly church roles, it's also removed from the heavenly church roles. And from that point on, angels must treat that person as outside the protection of the covenant. Those angels can no longer protect that person. As Paul worded it in 1 Corinthians 5 verse 5, he is handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. So angels and others are bound from bringing the blessings of the covenant into this person's life. Now, if he's truly regenerate, he'll be brought to repentance, according to 1 Corinthians 5 verse 5, and his membership in the covenant will be restored. But binding a person on earth binds a person covenantally in heaven. So it's my tentative view that when people are no longer reckoned true believers on earth, their name is removed from the heavenly role as well. Now, whether my interpretation of the binding and the loosing on earth or in heaven is correct or not, I think you can see just from the text itself, it's a pretty serious thing to undergo church discipline. It's also a serious thing for Jesus to uproot the church, to declare it to be apostate, which really amounts to the same thing on a massive scale. Jesus saying, you're blotted out of the covenant. But this is the only interpretation that I have seen that fits all of the passages together without violence. Now, I'm not saying that church discipline is perfect or that there are no true elect out of the church. I believe the thief on the cross was outside the church, but he was clearly saved. Jesus said, this day you will be with me in paradise. I believe that 1 Corinthians passage that I mentioned earlier in chapter five, verse five, that that believer When he was excommunicated, Paul himself said he was going to be saved. I mean, he was outside the church. And in 2 Corinthians, Paul is saying, look, he's repented. Bring him back in. You're keeping him out too long. So there are at least two cases of people who are saved who are outside of the church. And so the Westminster Confessions correction of the ancient church is appropriate. Ancient church said outside the church, there is no salvation. And Westminster Confession of Faith says, outside the church there is ordinarily no salvation, but it's not absolute. So my theory is that the Book of Life is a covenant document that reflects the covenant membership rules on earth. When a person is rightly excommunicated, his name is immediately erased from the heavenly rule And though tares will continue to exist until the final day of judgment, the last tares will be removed from the heavenly roll at that point. And the church triumphant will be exactly the same as the church invisible. Now, if you've got a better theory, I'd love to hear it. But that's my take. It's the only one that I've been able to see that fits all of the different scriptures together. only those who are overcomers will have verse 5 true of them where he says and I will confess his name before my father and before his angels and in the gospels Jesus had said the opposite of some he said whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him the son of man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels well that brings us full circle to where we started You can have no assurance of your salvation as long as you manifest the same deadness of the moderator of Sardis or the majority of the church membership. Now, I'm sure some of those non-overcomers became overcomers and pursued hard after Christ as a result of that rebuke, but the actual assurance of not being erased from the book of life comes only to overcomers. Now, the rest of them, they may or they may not be genuine believers. Only God knows their hearts. But if they are genuine believers, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will eventually become overcomers. And the reason I say that is that 1 John 5 says everyone who is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. There's not a single regenerate person, according to that verse, that's not at some point in their lives overcomers. Okay? Faith is lively, it clings to Christ, it possesses its possessions, it keeps pressing toward the upward calling in Christ Jesus, it focuses upon Christ by listening to His word. So that faith can waver, it can become so dim as to almost become dead, but it will be stirred up because faith cannot remain in the Sardis Syndrome forever, it cannot. By definition, those who have faith will eventually be overcomers. Well, as he does in all seven letters, Jesus ends this letter by pointing regenerate ears to once again have their, retune their spiritual ears to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking through the scriptures. And may each one of us eagerly do so. And as we press into Jesus, may he give to us the full assurance of faith. Amen. Father, difficult passage and yet an important passage and I pray that our hearts would be stirred up to lay hold of you and of your grace and all of the resources that we have in Christ Jesus. Help us not to become apathetic. Help us not to be careless. Help us not to be uncaring when sin comes into our lives but to be grieved by it and to turn from it immediately and by faith to keep on keeping on. I pray that you would bless this, your people, with a balanced Christian walk. And as we sing this final psalm, may our hearts truly find refreshment as they thirst for you. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.