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Sunday 9/13/26
Title: Wake up Sardis, remember & repen1 – Part 2
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Wake up Sardis, remember & repent Part 2
Sardis
This week we are finishing up the letter to the church of Sardis.
As an interpretive lens for this letter, we took all of last week diving into the history and culture of Sardis as a city as well as a mid-level dive into Jesus’ self-description which we’ve noticed He uses regularly with these churches in a “what hat I am wearing in addressing you” sort of way.
To Sardis Jesus was the One Who has authority over the angelic messengers to the churches, and Who also possesses the 7 influential endowments of the Holy Spirit Who is before God’s throne.
We identified these spirits from Isaiah 11 as those which came upon Jesus in the River Jordan in the person of the Holy Spirit which empowered Him for Ministry.
Since He is identifying the possession of these same attributes and empowerments as something He still possesses as the God-Man and King over the Kingdom of God, we also concluded that all He is saying and doing with these 7 churches, is in His God-man capacity as the eternal intermediary between God and man.
In the middle of that reality alone is a whole teaching worth exploring.
The “7 spirits” or 7 attributes were represented in Isaiah in a very unique revelation. There was one spirit which was set forth as dominant and that was “the Spirit of the Lord”. It was under this that Isaiah listed three sets of complimentary attributes of the Holy Spirit:
- The Spirit of wisdom and understanding
- The Spirit of counsel and might
- The Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD
It’s worthy of noting here that the phrase the spirit of the Lord appears that 28 times throughout the Bible most of them in the Old Testament and a great portion of those in the Book of Judges. But most note will be is the fact that Jesus himself claimed that Spirit upon himself as recorded in Luke 4:18,
“the spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to Proclaim Liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at Liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Now rather than going back over their definitions now, I will bring them up as they become more obviously relevant in the contents of the letter.
The final observation was the history and culture of the city itself which can be quickly summarized as indulgent, decadent, lascivious, wealthy, idolatrous, lazy and over confident.
This is significant since it seems these attributes are, to a lesser degree, identified as the very problems of this church. Not by name so much as by results. Jesus Himself employs language which implies that such a comparison exists in reality.
Let’s read the letter – Revelation 3:1-6,
“(1) And to the angel of the church in Sardis write:
‘The words of Him Who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
“‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
(2) Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of My God.
(3) Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent.
If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.
(4) Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.
(5) The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.
(6) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
As always Jesus addresses their works before Him. This is such an interesting and striking contrast to the focus of the modern church. Phrases like “well God knows my heart” and “God does not look on the outward appearance” are misquoted and misapplied to shield us against the copious amount of New Covenant warnings there are regarding failing to produce fruits from our union with Christ. Or said another way, failure to walk in the works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in. Fruits or works which both Paul and James in one voice identify as begging produced from a place of righteousness obtained by faith in response to God’s grace.
“I know you works” is also Jesus’ preamble to every judgement of each of the seven churches as well as that which Paul guarantees will be the focus of our future judgement as God’s children.
1 Corinthians 3 does not say that all our faith will pass before us, nor all our good intentions or even what God knew about our hearts – but rather our works. It’s audacious how the modern church avoids this truth.
He then says, “You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.”
Reputation –
There’s what people see and then there’s what is really true.
If you remember from last week this is the first of the three sets of two attributes of the Holy Spirit which were conferred upon Jesus in His humanity which enabled Him to rightly judge what was really true and how He knew decisively how to act in regard to it from a position of practical wisdom.
It is why Isaiah 11 follows this list with the statement that when Messiah comes,
“(3)…He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, (4) but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;…” – Isaiah 11:3-4
This would be the result of the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding
The Wisdom spoken of was practical, skilled wisdom that produces right outcomes through skilled discernment of reality.
Understanding is from a root which means to discern, distinguish, perceive clearly. It is the capacity to see between what is presented as real and what really is real.
The marriage of the two produces a Jesus Who rules with a clear and firm grasp of what is truly real and knows exactly what to do with that perception.
What was the reputation or rather the misrepresentation? That they were alive when they were in fact dying.
The word dead is stated literally, but is clearly a statement which best represents the whole, then is 100% literal or the next statement would not be to “wake up and keep alive what is not yet dead”.
Alive was the reputation. From the outside, things often appear different than they truly are whether through deliberate misrepresentation or purely mis-defining what one sees.
For example:
The Pharisees were generally held up as Israel’s religious elite, but Jesus operating under the influence of the spirit of wisdom and understanding called them out as white washed tombs. They looked clean and as well representing the standards of holiness and righteousness of the scriptures when in reality they were internally filled with death.
It is of course tempting to point out the obvious in our 1st world culture of the mega-churches who have so much social activity, such gargantuan ministerial reach and such widely accepted and looked up to voices in terms of preaching and praise since these are the very attributes people today often point to as evidence of their being a church which is alive. When in fact many, though not all, of such churches are doctrinally as worldly as the world itself. But that is too easy and obvious of a comparison, especially for a home church like us.
More to the heart of Jesus’ statement was not the size of their assembly, which was almost certainly small, nor the production quality of their worship which was probably near non-existent, nor the charisma of their pastoral teaching which may or may not have been true.
No Jesus was calling them out for two things in particular which we will confirm in a moment, but they were their conformity to the culture and their overconfidence.
To this Jesus commands them to,
“Wake up”
This word simply means to watch. Which confirms they were NOT watching – thus the claim that they were overconfident.
Taken further this word generally is a call to give strict attention to, be cautious and active. To take heed lest through remission and lazy failure to act, some destructive calamity suddenly overtake you.
This same warning is given in other places for differing reasons but they offer you a flavor for the term.
- 1 Cor. 16:13, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”
- 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
- Rev. 16:15, “Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”
And perhaps the best comparison with the contents of this letter to Sardis is the use of this word to the faithful saints in Thessalonica –
“(1) Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you.
(2) For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
(3) While people are saying,
“There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
(4) But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. (5) For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. (6) So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. (7) For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night.
(8) But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
(9) For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, (10) Who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with Him.
(11) Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” – 1 Thess. 5:1-11
Then Jesus said,
“strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of My God.” –
The idea of “strengthen” is pretty much what you’d expect. It means to make steadfast in mind, to confirm, to fortify.
“Works” here, for all intents and purposes would be better represented by Jesus’s analogous metaphor of fruit both in John 15 and in the parable of “The heart Soils”.
Specifically this word arrangement for “works” usually denotes comprehensively what a man is and how he acts.
According to the Hebrew/Greek Word Study this word works in this passage and others like it mean-
“Good works acceptable unto God are only possible through God’s grace active in one’s heart (Matthew 5:16; John 6:28; 14:12).
They are always the result of salvation and not the means of salvation.
The person who has no faith demonstrates by his evil works his separation from God (John 3:19; Eph. 5:11; Col. 1:21; 2 Peter 2:8).
Good works are the evidence of living faith.
So this is addressing the ongoing genuineness of their relational trust in Christ which they, at one time possessed.
The idea of these words being “complete” is where we get our connection to the fruitfulness of a branch connected to their Vine Jesus as well as the 4 heart soils in Jesus’ parable. The words “not complete” offer strong support for this position.
Only the last heart in that parable produced fruit, the others brought nothing to fruition or completeness. This would solidly place the majority of the believers in Sardis as among the first three hearts, though I would conclude they were almost certainly the third. I say this because it seems as if it was their surrounding culture which influenced them towards laziness in “works” and fruitfulness as well as feeling both comfortable and confident in that condition.
Next Jesus shows the Spirit of counsel & might by instructing them to,
“(3) Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent.”
This list is what offers a near side-by-side comparison with the final heart in Jesus’ parable of the heart soils which we will touch on in a moment.
Without doing a thorough breakdown of each word I will tell you the meaning of this statement, but first I want to define the Spirit of counsel and might.
It is that influence over Jesus the Messianic ruler of the Kingdom which endows Him with strategic wisdom and executive force. They are unified in Him — His purposes cannot be frustrated because He possess both the mind to plan and the strength to act.
The best and most faithful renderings of this passage has Jesus telling them to “Remember HOW you received” is important – it means, “in what way and how (indicative) they initially received the truth”.
Notice that the beginnings of these churches all seem rather good. That is likely due to the apostles who first conveyed the Gospel to them and lived it before them.
But nothing in this letter tells us, the 2,000 year removed reader, how these people received the message initially.
So naturally, I set out to discover all I could about this.
In a study which admittedly was not thoroughly exhaustive, but was definitely exhausting I attempted to tack down under what circumstances the Church of Sardis received the gospel since that is what Jesus is specifically pointing out that they needed to remember.
However I could not come to anything conclusive. We’re not even certain who it was who first evangelized Sardis so as to establish the church there.
That having been said, from before BC became AD there had been a strong and noteworthy Jewish presence in Sardis.
Most people believe that the church of Sardis was a mixed congregation of both Jewish and Gentile believers, but the fact that there was a large Jewish community in Sardis that had been there long before Christ was even born, would indicate that whatever the ethnic or demographic makeup of the original Church of Sardis was – it almost certainly had decent Jewish presence.
The reason this is important is because it has a bearing on how they had to receive the Gospel initially.
First, and most obvious is that the establishment of this church was no doubt in the presence of much religious opposition from other Jews.
But additionally, those who turned to Christ in this city, had to have done so with a Moses heart.
What I mean by that is like Moses’ who according to the testimony about him recorded in Hebrews 11:24-26.
“…when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, (25) choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. (26) He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.”
In like manner, the early converts to Christ in Sardis probably did not receive much opposition from the general culture as did so many of the other churches we’ve read about. Theirs was a different kind of opposition – an internal one.
These precious people had to take hold of Christ very deliberately and it would have required them to do so by simultaneously turning their back on materialism as well, as to some lesser degree perhaps sexual immorality associated with the pagan deity predominately worshiped in Sardis.
What this tells us about the “how they received the message” is that they saw more value in Jesus and in eternal life and eternity with God, than they did in the external trappings of decadence and opulence that largely defined their city.
Again this is important because these people therefore must have received the gospel with a devotion that may have dwarfed that of many other startup churches in the early world.
Pagan religions abounded and switching between one faith or another would not have necessarily risen many eyebrows in the general culture, but to turn to a belief system that so ardently preaches a pushback from all the defined most citizens of Sardis would have required them finding and seeing great and transcendent value in Jesus as well as a determination to forsake everything to follow Him.
So as best as I can tell that is how they received the gospel.
So Jesus tells them the familiar counsel to “recall their roots in Christ” to “call to mind the early days of their conversion” and then do something with that memory!
“(3) Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent.”
“Received and heard”
Then, “Keep it and repent”.
- Received (lambánō) means to receive instruction, to learn.
- Heard (akoúō) to understand and comprehend
- Keep it (tēréō) to watch, observe attentively, keep the eyes fixed upon and obey with diligent vigilance.
- Repent (metanoéō) used in the absolute sense and means to turn in reverent sorrow for unbelief and sin and towards God and the gospel of Christ.
See the comparison to Mark 4:20 and Luke 8:15…
“But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear (akoúō) the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” – Mark 4:20
“As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.” – Luke 8:15
Now at this point we have covered all Jesus said in warning and command to the wayward in this church. The rest is pretty easy reading but still very important.
“If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.”
You remember the earlier reference in Revelation 16 and 1 Thessalonians 5 which connect Jesus’ command to wake up to His coming like a thief? Here is the intersection point in our letter to Sardis.
“(4) Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.”
Quick references to these symbolisms:
- Rev. 19:7-8, “(7) Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His Bride has made herself ready; (8) it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, white, radiant bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.”
- Eph. 5:25-27, “(25) Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, (26) that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, (27) so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
- 2 Peter 3:13-15, “(13) But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (14) Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish, and at peace. (15) And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,”
Notice that Jesus is said in Ephesians 5 to sanctify and cleanse the church so as to present her to Himself spotless and without blemish, but here in Revelation that is said to be the product of her repentance and good works.
Which is it? BOTH!
The passage in Ephesians only says that Jesus gave Himself up for the bride so that she could be washed and cleansed and presented – in no way did it indicate this was devoid of her willing and faith filled participation! She is enabled to do what she alone cannot do, by what Jesus did for us and will do in us if we believe!
Which is another strong case for our series which is a life lived from faith to faith. Faith does not end at initial salvation, but carries us on into maturity into Christ’s likeness and works which God prepared beforehand for us to walk in!
“(5) The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”
This is the expression of the spirits of “Knowledge” and the “Fear of the LORD”. This pairing of attributes is pointing to Jesus as the Ruler Who knows God (YHWH) relationally (IN HIM WAS LIFE AND THAT LIGHT WAS THE LIGHT OF MEN) and from the inside, and Whose entire character is shaped by a deep and penetratingly accurate perception of Who YHWH is — and furthermore that this is as natural and effortless to Him as breathing.
It is from this position on knowing and revering The Father that Jesus utters these words.
In the same way that the Father honors the Son by only revealing Him to those who love and show respect to Him, so the Son will only confess before the Father those who are devoted to Him in faithfulness and loyal love.
This only further confirms the former statement.
Conquering and overcoming are tethered to our faith, but not just our faith for initial salvation, but our ongoing faith in Christ to work His righteousness through us and conform us to His likeness!
Book of Life – there are 7 direct references and 1 less direct.
Philippians 4:3, “Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.”
This indicates that those whose names are in the book of life are those who know God. Thus, the word “life” as descriptive of what book we are talking about.
First off is our testimony from last Wednesday night – that of Moses himself, who said to God in
- Exodus 32:32, “Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” – To which God replied, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.”
- Rev. 13:7 & 8, “The beast was permitted to go to war against the saints and conquer them. He was given ruling authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.”
- Rev. 17:8, “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.”
- Rev. 20:12, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”
- Rev. 20:15, “And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
- Rev. 21:27, “But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
So we learn here that not every person’s name is written in the Book of Life, but only those who in their lives came to know Him. This is God’s “foreknowledge” or “foreknowing”, but it does NOT preclude the idea that these names are permanent. Evidently, they can be blotted out and according to all that is said about it, this is contingent upon their “works” produced by faith.
Jesus also ties the names in this book with those who confess Him before men. Not superficially, but those whose actions give testimony to their confession that Jesus is Lord. This is why Titus says that it is possible to deny Jesus by our works.
Titus 1:15-16,
“(15) To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. (16) They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.”
The fact that Jesus uses this precise language with these saints addresses the concept of eternal security with complete finality!
Then Jesus closes this letter as He does all of them…
“(6) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
The same Spirit Who fell upon Jesus in the river Jordan and who was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 11, is still speaking.
So “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your heart” as the writer of Hebrews warns.
Did Sardis make it… did they heed Jesus’ words?
Well we don’t know for 100% certain, but the existence of a future pastor by the name of Melito gives us great hope.
Melito is described by Polycrates of Ephesus and Eusebius as a man who “lived and walked entirely in the Holy Spirit“.
However, their testimony is not known for certain to be above reproach, but if this testimony is true, then we can rest assured that this church did repent and exist at least another 100 years to be pastored by a man who served God in spirit and not just in letter only.
