The Incomplete Works Of The Dead

The letters we are studying are written to the seven churches of Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. They are messages for all churches of all places and times as well. As before, John emphasizes that these are the words of the risen LORD Jesus Christ. He "has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars" (Rev. 3:1). These messengers are His. They speak His words. They are His servants and speak with His authority. In the same manner the seven churches are His. He has created them, called them to faith in Him, given them His mercy and forgiveness and with that eternal life.

Now comes the message from this LORD to the church in Sardis:

"'I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 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. 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. 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. 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. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.' - Rev 3:1-6 ESV

 Temple of Artemis in Sardis

The LORD acknowledges that Sardis had a reputation or name of being alive. The same thing is said about certain churches in our day. We admire them for their size, for the crowds that populate their worship services and their many activities. We envy their buildings, their large number of staff, the eloquence of their pastor and the influence they seem to have upon their community—yes, even beyond, throughout the nation. Something like that was true of the church in Sardis. 

But . . . here is a wake up call. What some call being alive is really death! Those works do not proceed from the Spirit of God. They do not grow out of the life of the Spirit of Christ. They are not the fruit of the Spirit. They are the opposite. So taught all the Apostles. 

... the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. - Gal 5:22-24 ESV

The works of the sinful flesh are quite opposite.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. - Gal 5:19-21 ESV 

 Perhaps none of this kind of behavior was going on among the Christians of Sardis. Perhaps they were known for their generosity, their piety and prayer, the beauty of their worship songs, the excitement everyone felt when they gathered. Perhaps the other churches knew them as people who worked hard to sponsor new missions in other cities. We are not told how they had built their reputation. What we do know is that the LORD declared them dead !! They were not preaching the Gospel of pure grace and mercy. They had reverted to another gospel, as the Apostle Paul said about Christians in Galatia, the Roman province adjoining Asia where these churches were.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. - Gal 1:6-9 ESV

Yet there were a few true believers in Sardis, even as there always are in churches that have forsaken or twisted the Gospel of grace in Christ for what the Apostle called a different gospel, one that distorts the pure and undeserved mercy offered to all men in Christ and because of His sacrificial death for the entire world (John 3:16-18; 12:47-48; Isa. 53:10-12). These true believers had not soiled their garments by putting their confidence in their own good works, in their glorious reputation. No indeed. They looked in faith to Christ and to His shed blood to wash their robes and make them white (Rev. 7:14). Clothed in these white garments they could be confident that their names were written in the Book of Life (Rev. 13:8) and that the LORD Jesus would witness to them being His children when they were judged before the throne of His Father (Mal. 3:17; Matt 10:32; Luke 12:8).

The letter concludes with a strong word of warning and encouragement to us all, a refrain used again and again in the letters to the churches (Rev. 2:7,11,17,29; 3:13,22).

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. - Rev 3:6 ESV

We all do well to perk up the ears of our hearts and pay strict attention to what the Spirit says here and in other passages of God's Word.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. - Mat 7:21 ESV