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

We Are God's Fruit Bearing Trees

In my last post I referred to a couple Bible verses that compare fruit bearing trees to God's reborn people in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. So we read in the very first Psalm that the man who meditates upon God's Holy Word continues to yield fruit in its season. I'd like to explore what it means for a Christian to yield fruit and to yield it "in its season." The stream, of course, is the Holy Spirit who continues to nourish and refresh through God's Word (Torah or instruction).

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. - Psa 1:3 ESV 

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul picks up the analogy as he speaks often about fruit and fruit bearing. 

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. . . . But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. - Rom 7:4, 6 ESV 

But 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. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. - Gal 5:23-25 ESV 

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness  that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. - Phil 1:9-11 ESV

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. - Col 1:9-10 ESV 

Paul teaches us several important lessons in these passages about fruit. 

1. When Jesus died upon the cross of Calvary, we died with him. In turn, when he rose from the dead on the eighth day, we rose with him. So that we may now correctly say, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). 
2. Further, the Holy Spirit teaches us in that Word He has given to us that we are free. We have been freed from the law that previously condemned and enslaved us. That freedom became ours when we died and rose again with Christ. Because of Christ we are now, in God's eyes, completely without sin. So Paul writes, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1). 
3. Released from the slavery of sin, the passions and drives of our sinful flesh, we are free to be fruit-bearing trees for God. This is a radically new way of living, sharply contrasted with the way of the flesh or the ways of this world of sinful men. Raised from the dead with Christ we have the life of Christ, the water of God, the Holy Spirit, ever bubbling up and flowing in our lives. 
4. In this new life, we delight to serve God. It is a joy and a pleasure. We are motivated, not by fear and anxiety, but rather by the love of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. No longer do we run from God to hide in hope that we will not be found out. Rather we run to God to ask, "How may I serve you, my Father?" So we are prepared to bear fruit, or to use Paul's other analogy, to walk by the Spirit. 
5. The power to bear fruit comes, of course, from the Spirit. As a tree withers and dies without water, so we die without the water of the Spirit. And that life-giving water flows in and from God's Word. The more we meditate upon God's Spirit-filled Word, the more we learn about God's love for us and His wondrous plan for our lives. Paul calls this knowledge of God's will spiritual wisdom, discernment and understanding. 
6. Such knowledge is never mere information and facts to be recited in order to pass some kind of examination or to impress people. It is so much more than that. Above all it is personal knowledge. Because of such knowledge I can now say, "Christ died for ME! I died and I rose with him! Christ lives within ME! I am a CHILD of the Heavenly Father. I know Him and He knows me. Now I can crawl right up on my Papa's lap to be held in His loving arms and ask whatever I want. He listens and always gives me what is best for me" (Luke 11:8-13; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). 
7. As this personal Spirit-given knowledge of my Papa's love for me grows within, so does my love for Him grow. And along with my growing love for Papa comes joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. As I learn to love Papa, I learn also to love those around me, all of whom He loves so very much. I become a fruit-bearing tree, bearing the fruit of a godly or God-like life. 

In blogs in July of this year I wrote about the special gifts given by the life-giving Spirit, the so-called charismatic or spiritual gifts. For now, let us simply rejoice in the life of the Holy Spirit, God's refreshing stream, so that we may all bear fruit in every good work and increase in our personal knowledge of God's love.