We thank you that there’s no burden we can bear. There’s no trial we could face. There’s no struggle to which we can’t come to you and find help, find relief, find life, find even growth through the many adversities, the many sin struggles we have. Jesus, you’re the only one for us. Our heart cries out. We just thank you, Jesus, that you abide and you keep us.
Thank you that you draw not the well, but the sick. You draw not the righteous, but sinners. Lord, thank you that you open your arms and you welcome us
by your own blood and by your own sacrifice. Lord, you’ve made a way. So, Father, we pray that your Spirit would teach us more about Jesus and let us grow up to maturity in Him.
Pray for those who are sick this evening with us. Pray for renewal, for rest.
We pray you would bless our tithe, our offering. Lord, anoint our finances. May we give freely and generously. We’re trusting your provision for our own families, for our church. Lord, we thank you for your perfect care and your perfect fatherly love. And these things we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, good evening. It finally feels like winter outside, doesn’t it? Pretty cold.
We’re going to be again in Revelation chapter 3 this evening. I was going to mention to you as well, which I thought I brought one up here, but I didn’t. If you got one of those handouts for the kids,
yeah, one of these if you didn’t see it, Mom and Dad, it’s got questions about, hey, what did we sing? What did we read? What did we pray in worship time? And then on the back, what did I learn? What did I learn? Scriptures. And then on the inside for children who can’t quite pay attention yet, there’s a coloring. So it’s just a tool for you as a parent to help kind of keep your child engaged during worship. So maybe you’ll find that useful as an adult to keep you engaged too. But you can’t color if you’re an adult. No coloring. So that would be different. Revelation chapter 3, finally out of chapter 2. And we have just three churches left to consider here. Let’s start here. Starting in verse 1, Jesus says, 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. 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 have received. Keep it and repent. If not, if you will not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know what hour I come against you. Yet you still have a few names in Sardis. People have not sold 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. 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. You can always kind of tell the difference between a good actor and a bad actor, can’t you? Unfortunately, a lot of times it’s Christian movies in which you discover the bad actors. The difference between a good actor and a not so good actor is believability. When you see a good actor, they so sell themselves into that part.
You’re convinced that they are the person they’re pretending to be, right? And I think it’s passion. It’s being able to really throw yourself into something and to believe somebody else believes it. Really believe that somebody else believes the thing they’re saying you’re doing. And passion, I think, is something you can’t… You can’t really fake. Maybe you can fake it for a minute. But at the end of it, passion comes out in life. Passion is that thing that you’re really about. And Jesus is talking to the church in Sardis. And they seem outwardly to have it together. They seem outwardly that they’re really about Jesus. But deep down, Jesus can see through it. And he sees this great lack of passion. For him. A great lack of passion for his kingdom. So I think Jesus is talking about kingdom passion to us this evening. Do we have kingdom passion?
Sardis is really a has-been city. Of all these cities and their different characteristics. It’s a city that was once great. It was great back in the 500s BC. It was a… It was a military power. But one thing led to another. And Sardis fell to Persia. And it, you know, was handed off down the line to the Romans. Like so many other, you know, little, you know, nation state, tribal kingdoms. And you know, it never should have… It never should have happened to Sardis. Sardis has on three sides of it, except for the south. A natural barrier. It has a 1,500 foot natural rock wall going all the way around it. So it was a naturally fortified city. Yet twice, it’s recorded, that due to just negligence, they were overthrown. Twice, spies were able to get into this city that never should have been penetrated.
One dictionary says, They retained the name of greatness, but decayed from their former estate. So they’re a has-been city. You know, still living off the successes of yesterday as a city. And that’s so telling. It’s interesting how all these details always play right into the church we’re considering. Who is talking to Sardis? Well, it’s always Jesus, right? It’s always Jesus. But Jesus always pulls this description of Himself from that first chapter. And the description that Jesus gives of Himself to this church is the one who has the seven stars and the seven spirits. Remember, the seven stars represents the angel of the church. So that’s some kind of heavenly representation of the church. Whether that’s a literal angel who’s responsible for, you know, communicating to the Lord about what’s going on with that church. Or if it’s just to say the personification, the culture of that church, the angel of the church. In one way or the other, it’s Jesus’ knowledge, His perfect, you know, insight into every church. But also, Jesus references here and says He also has the seven spirits. Now, we saw that phrase back in chapter 1. And what we concluded there is it’s most likely a reference to the Spirit. Remember, seven is a number of perfection and wholeness. So when the book opens, in Revelation, it’s from the One who is and is and is to come. It’s from Jesus. And it’s from the seven spirits that give the greeting. So it’s likely then a way of saying the Spirit of God, and we would find this confirmed everywhere else in Scripture, the Spirit of God is at work sent from the Father and the Son to provide for, protect, do what needs to be done for the church and for the kingdom of Jesus to thrive and to succeed.
The problem is Jesus is auditing the church at Sardis, and He doesn’t like what He’s finding. You know, the word audit makes you automatically think it’s the IRS, doesn’t it? Everyone, you know, you’re equally grossed out, and you know, you get kind of a sweaty spine when you think about the IRS. But you know, if you don’t do anything wrong, you really shouldn’t have anything to worry about. It’s only when you do funny business that you’ve got to worry about being audited. But Jesus, who has perfect knowledge, control, managerial experience over churches here, at the top, He sees what’s wrong, He sees what’s going on and doesn’t like it. Just like the city of Sardis, the church at Sardis has been careless.
It’s happy to be a has-been church.
It’s happy to be a church whose best days are behind it.
It’s a church that was once oriented around this Jesus and His gospel. It’s a church that once, when there was a prayer meeting, everybody was there.
Once, when there were needs among the saints, they were met generously. Once, everyone flocked to the gatherings and wouldn’t miss them. Once, it was a church where evangelism was a passion, and everyone went out of their way to share Christ, regardless of the cost. Once, they were eager to learn and grow. Once, they were thinking heavenward. Once, willing to sacrifice. Once, loved holiness and pursued it like we talked about last week. But now, they’re the church of the has-been. That’s what they resided to be. And this is, I think at its finest, what you could call Christianomics. Nominalism. Maybe you’ve heard that phrase before or not. Nominalism just kind of means, it means the bare minimum. You know, the lowest grade and value to just barely be considered that thing. They’re happy to be Christian in name, do the bare minimum just to get by. And you’ve got to say, well, what happened?
And for any church, we always have to say when we’re lulling in our Christian faith, and we look like this, like, what’s happened?
And it’s this. They just got over it. They got over Jesus. And they got over the gospel. And they got over the cross. And they got over what it means to be called out and to be separate. Jesus and Christianity and church, it became just another part of life. And it’s a devilish lie that you and I are tempted always to believe. And the lie is this. There really are things in life that are just as important. Or more important than Jesus and his church. There really are. And when we believe that lie, friends, our passion is divided between life’s demands and life’s attractions.
You think about the prodigal son.
Fooey on dad.
Man, there’s a life to be lived out there. There’s all kinds of stuff I want to do. There’s things I want to own. And he gave him. He gave himself to many things in this life. And he’s described while he’s away from his father as dead, isn’t he?
Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt. Been to church. All that good stuff. And we find it trivial. Find it trivial. But it would be nothing but the sheer grace of God to do in you and I when we get in these spiritual lulls. The same thing that Jesus is doing for the church. And here’s what it is. It’s to help us see, like the prodigal son, I’m staring into a trough of slop when I could be with my father. I’ve thought that there’s a life. I thought that there’s something good. I thought that there’s something better besides dad. When he comes to a realization that great stupor. And I got to go back there. And it’s like, well, Chad, are you saying? I should just quit my whole life and become a missionary? You could. People do it all the time at all ages. You could. If the Lord’s calling you to that, you could. I’m not saying that life isn’t hard and there aren’t seasons that are challenging. And God’s not insensitive to that. I think when we’re trying to figure out new seasons of life. I am struggling to know what it looks like to have four children and a wife and be a pastor and work at a pregnancy center. And feel like I’m remotely doing well. And you probably have similar stresses in your life or in different periods in your life. And I don’t think God’s in heaven with his arms crossed. Where’s your passion at, man? I think the Lord’s sensitive. So that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the overall tone of your life. The overall tone of your life. We’re not talking about one season. Don’t judge your Christian life on one season. Judge it on its tone. So if someone said, hey, you know that guy. Chase, you know that guy, Jordan. What do they like? The thing they say is the passion of their life. That’s what we’re talking about here. They’re overall fighting and sacrificing to remain passionate for Jesus and his cause and his church. So what really you’ve got to do, what we’ve got to do is daily write a eulogy for ourselves. Because Jesus says you have to die daily. So if Jesus says I have to die. That must mean there’s a daily eulogy. I should be able to lay my head down at night every night and say, here lies Chad Cronin. He died today, having given all for the cause of Christ. I should be able to do that tomorrow night and the next night and the next night.
It can’t be helped. Your passions come out. You can fool others for a time. But friends, the one. With the seven spirits and the seven angels, the seven stars. He sees what we’re really about.
And friends, it’s not to say the things of life are bad. And this isn’t a call to put on some like, you know, brown sack and go live in a cave and be like a monk. The things of life, you know, aren’t bad. We could have a whole sermon on how God’s creation is good. But the problem comes when I believe. My interests, my goals, my pleasures, all the things in life that I could touch and feel, they become more important than Christ and His church. And I’m not willing to sacrifice any of them for the cause of Christ and His church. That’s the problem. Sardis has just kind of melted into the culture. The church just, I’m happy to look like everybody else and we’ll just carry the name, the label, Jesus.
But friends, perhaps tonight, you know, you need to join me. We need to weep and we need to mourn and we need to make changes because Jesus is not on the throne of your heart.
So Jesus, Jesus, then what he just did there, he describes the problem. But Jesus is kind as he always is. And he gives us a solution to this problem, this lull. And his solution is five imperatives, five imperatives. I want to walk. Walk through those imperatives with you. If we are to recover kingdom passion, the first thing Jesus says we must do is be watchful. If you look at verse two, he says, 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. So that’s not the best translation. Wake up. The best translation would really be be watchful or be alert. Because that’s really what it what it means. I don’t know about you, but just because I’m awake, it doesn’t mean nothing. I’m awake for a solid 30 minutes from worth anything. I’m not happy. I’m awake about 30 minutes. And, you know, I got to drink coffee and I’m just, you know, I’m groggy. Otherwise, I’m not keen to what’s going on around me. I’m going to stump my toe. You know, I just don’t know what’s up. And that’s that’s the kind of awakeness, that grogginess, really, that Sardis was in when they twice fell to their enemy. But the Christian life, friend, can’t be lived half awake. Jesus is saying not just be awake. He’s saying be alert. He’s saying be acutely aware of everything happening around you and in you. So there’s grace for the past where you have messed up. Nobody’s promising you tomorrow. So what are you left with then? Today. Today. Today. Today, Jesus says, watch out today. Be alert. Deuteronomy chapter four. The Lord says to the people, you, therefore, today.
Today. No, therefore, today and lay it to your heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath. There is no other. So the Lord called the Israelites live in a consciousness daily. About what it means to know me, what it means to live for me. That’s the privilege and the responsibility of passionately pursuing Jesus.
And it’s not without reason, I think, that Jesus slips that daily into there. Take up your cross daily, because if there wasn’t a daily in there, like he probably meant every other. You know, he did. He probably meant monthly, you know, what he probably meant when life’s not so. Tough, he probably meant when I can get around to it, but friends, it’s not the case, is it? So he also says in Matthew 24, 42, therefore, stay awake. Why? Because you don’t know when I’m coming back. So the grand auditor of the soul says you need to be awake daily because it’s the day in which you live for which you’re responsible. And it might be on that day that I come back and find you doing what you ought not be doing. Are you? Are you alert to the kingdom? Are you alert and passionate for the cause of Christ now? In that day, you think about that? What will I be doing if Jesus comes back in my lifetime? What could he catch me doing? You know, I hope he doesn’t catch me doing a lot of things. I hope it wasn’t that morning. I hit the snooze button when I knew I should have got up and prayed. I hope it wasn’t that day when I was at the grocery store and the spirit told me to share the gospel with a guy. And I said. Nah, he’s busy. I hope it’s not that day of disobedience. I hope Jesus finds me passionately loving others, passionately loving his word, passionately loving his church, passionately, fiercely resisting sin, passionately engaged in spiritual warfare, not half awake. Because you can’t do anything well half awake. Friends, we’re in that groggy spiritual lull that Jesus is warning. He’s warning us about in Sardis. We’re right to be overthrown by the evil one. We’re ready to hear Satan’s lullaby of you just going back to sleep and have a good time. You don’t worry too much about the kingdom. And that’s a that’s a sub reality, isn’t it? In which we think we’re happy. We think all is well, but it’s so temporal and it bears no real fruit. It bears no fruit. It bears no fruit. It bears no fruit. Peter tells us the end of all things is at hand. The end of all things is at hand. The whole era of humanity and human history and life is so brief, isn’t it? The ages just roll on. Your life just rolls on. It just it’s weird, especially if you have children. Like, how do I have children and how are they getting older? How am I getting older? And like life just moves. It’s so quick, friends. And we will all be faced with the auditor someday. Are you awake? Are you awake? Are you are you passionately awake? Keeping alert.
Wake up.
There’s a supplemental thing Jesus has to do if you’re awake, and it’s strengthen. It’s strengthen. It means to like establish something, you know, so it can endure and last.
Well, now, when I was younger, I used to never eat breakfast. I can’t do that anymore. If I don’t eat something when I wake up and drink, like, wait, maybe you’re that way. I wait till lunch to eat. Some people do that. I cannot do that anymore. I’m lightheaded. I get a headache. I have to eat something when I wake up. And I think the older I get, I realize, oh, I’m not a Superman. Like, I can’t I can’t run on six hours of sleep anymore like I used to be able to do. I can’t do that. Like, I have bandwidth and I need nourishment. And there’s a study that came out just this past week. And the kind of the title of it was lack of muscle mass is the new smoking. And kind of the argument they’re making is the longer you live with, you know, very little muscle mass on your body, the more likely you’re going to be the study found to die early, have all kinds of diseases and sickness when you get older. So, friends, there are things that we do. There are things that we do physically to strengthen ourself. It’s not any less true in a spiritual sense. And so what what we need is that humility to recognize, like, I can’t just keep putting out for Jesus. Like, I’m not just going to magically show up to church, like engaged in worship. I’m not going to come home, you know, to my family just in the right mood. I’m not just going to, you know, always resist sin without having to, like, struggle. And like, I’m not I’m not Jesus. I have Jesus. I know Jesus. But Jesus is telling me to do something in my relationship with him spiritually. And that’s to be established and strengthened on an ongoing basis. And there’s really a lot of humility to recognize that. And if I’m not and you’re not being strengthened and established in the Lord on a regular basis, you will get knocked over. You will get knocked. It’s not like you might get knocked over. You will get knocked over. And I think you have to ask, like, a really big question then. OK, how do I if I’m in this groggy spiritual thing, how do I how do I wake up and then how do I strengthen myself? How do I endure so that I keep going on for the Lord? Well, really, the scriptures tell us two things. And this Greek word is sterizo. OK, and so I looked at all the instances where this word is used. And it’s interesting, really. It gives us two main things in which we are to do in relationship to this word.
So I’m just going to run through a few verses here. In 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 3, it says,
So it’s established there. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. 1 Peter 5, 10. And after you’ve suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm and strengthen and establish you. Romans 16, 25. Not to him who is able to strengthen you. According to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages. So one of the big things, if we look at that word about how do I go on fortified? It’s through continually coming to Jesus as my feast. It’s continually coming to Christ. So it does push us to those things that we talk about a lot. But I think to a very serious level, to a very serious level, like I can’t. You can’t just come to the word of God and just like. Like read a little passage and like check your box off. And like I prayed for three seconds. Lord, help me today. And I’m like, I’m out the door. What God’s calling you to is to really wade in the scriptures. Really, really wade in prayer. Really just sit there with Jesus. And I think I think really the word to use is meditate, meditate. I don’t mean like weird Eastern meditation, like light some incense and like get real like spacey and euphoric or whatever. That’s not biblical meditation. Biblical. Biblical meditation is saying, Jesus, you are the most important thing in all of life. I cannot step out my front door without a very real helping of your spirit, of who you are. And I’m going to sit here and give you the time you deserve so I can really sense you in my bones. I want you to say something to me in your word that arrests my spirit. I want you to really expose a sin to me. I want to really sit here and learn from you, Jesus. And I want to pray and I want to labor in prayer. And I just want to. I want to think. I want to think on your person and who you are. Are you doing that? That is what God calls us to do. That’s how he’s calling you to be strengthened. And again, I’m not like, well, we’re not all preachers and you can do that easy. That’s not easy for me. And as I said, because I get older and life changes, it’s it’s not easy. I sat down with my, you know, bosses at the pregnancy center this week and I had to say, look, I can’t be here this much anymore. I’m drowning. I’ve got. I’ve got more kids now and I just feel like I’m not doing well in other areas. And if I have to be here this much, I can’t do it. It’s not sustainable. That was me after many seasons of pride of thinking I’m invincible and I can put out as much as needs to be put out church and the pregnancy center and home. And I’ve hit a wall and the wall says you have to sit with Jesus or you can’t do nothing. Chad, you’re not a superhero. Sit with Jesus. It’s the only way you can do anything good. It’s the only way you can be established.
So everything in life is stewardship. You know, everything in life is stewardship. And the auditor, again, just to run with that illustration, will take account someday of all that he’s given you and how well you steward your time, your energy, all that. And it’s got to start with him being Lord and King. It all goes amok quickly, doesn’t it? Here’s the second thing I want you to see about Storizo, that Greek word. Luke chapter 22.
Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, here it is. Strengthen your brothers. Acts 18, 23. After spending some time there, this is talking about Paul. He departed and went from one place to the next through the regions of Galatia and Phrygia. Strengthening all the disciples. 1 Thessalonians 3.1 Therefore, when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind in Athens alone. And we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s co-worker in the gospel of Christ, to establish them. What is God saying multiple times in the passages about how you and I remain strengthened and established? It’s a relationship with Jesus. Yes, but this is amazing. He says one of the ways in which you’re not going to be this like dried up weed, like barely make it along in the Christian life. It’s having very real relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ. That’s an amazing thing that God would say, you need me. Which is true and makes sense because he’s God. So, of course, everyone needs God. But then it’s amazing. He would say, but you’re going to survive. It’s not enough. You need. One another. I think that’s a really powerful thing to consider the text saying you cannot be the Lone Ranger Christian you want to be. That is assuredly a failed project, according to the text. And so I just want to beat this drum till it till it breaks. Friends, I love this thing. You know, you sit out there. I sit up here. I say a bunch of things and I get amens. Hopefully. And you’re encouraged. Hopefully that helps your life. But it’s not enough. The text teaches us we must be walking in intimate fellowship, discipling one another. So, again, I say to you, I just want to I just want to keep beating this in about, you know, charging you to walk in community and fellowship with one another. And I think I’ve said it, but I’ll keep saying it. Chris and Chase and myself would love nothing more than to connect you. So, you know, to those of you that are older in the faith, please do not deprive those among us who are younger. Walk up to someone. Pray about who you could approach and see who you could begin meeting with. And you think, well, me, I don’t have anything to offer. You have so much to offer. You have so much to offer because you’ve been walking with Jesus. And so other people need to see that in your life. So don’t neglect, please, the communion of the saints. It’s in every way a blessing to God that you and I need to be doing real life. Life with one another in confession of sin and encouragement and teaching and in admonishment and rebuke. We need one another.
Friends, if you’re going to be passionate about the kingdom of God, you’ve got to wake up. You’ve got to wake up from the lull and you’ve got to strengthen it. We can’t just use our words and say we’re Christians. Knowing the Lord, knowing His saints, abiding with them. This is how we stay awake. This is how we stay strong. So don’t neglect these gifts. Don’t neglect these gifts and these helps to you.
The next imperatives, though, if you’re going to recover a lost kingdom passion,
Jesus says, remember, keep and repent. Remember, keep and repent.
So looking there at verse three, verse three, 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. So passion inwardly, if I have that passion inwardly, it’s going to come out side. It’s going to be known. I can’t hide that. So when Jesus says you need to remember, he’s not talking. He’s not talking about like reminisce like how you may be running to an old friend or maybe you catch yourself daydreaming about your childhood or you’re daydreaming about some vacation or beach you wish you were on. It’s not that kind of remembering. It means remember something to the point it affects changing your life now. So this would be good advice. Perhaps the people who are struggling in their marriage, right? You need to remember the covenant you made so that you let it speak into your current situation to be faithful. That’s what he’s talking about here. Jesus uses this word when he when he says to he says, remember when he says, don’t you remember Lot’s wife?
So he’s speaking to them about not being prepared for his return. He doesn’t want them to. Yeah, thanks for sharing. That story, Jesus. We remember Lot’s wife. He turned into salt. He’s not saying it to give him a good story. He’s saying you don’t be like Lot’s wife. He’s saying remember so that it’s instructive. So Jesus thinks whatever he’s telling the church at Sardis in us to remember should have enough power in this remembrance of this thing that it’s going to stir up and awaken passion now.
Well, what is it? Remember what?
What’s him? That’s it. It’s Jesus. Jesus is saying what you’ve received.
Jesus is saying, remember me. Remember the gospel. Remember the son of God who was the majesty of heaven. Remember Jesus who left heaven and Jesus who, as we’ll celebrate in a month or so, who became but a babe in a manger. Remember? Remember this Jesus who lived in humility. This Jesus who loved sinners. This Jesus who washed feet. This Jesus who was humiliated in mockery and suffering and being nailed to a tree. And he was resurrected not for the good, but for the bad. For you. For me. Remember this Jesus. Remember his gospel. And I think there’s power in that because if we can talk about Jesus and his gospel, and that doesn’t awaken passion in us, maybe it’s because there’s none there.
Maybe if we can hear the gospel, and we can shrug our shoulders, maybe it’s an indicator Jesus is saying, is it there?
Friends, the gospel of all things should be that thing that resonates in Jesus’ people and the Spirit. To go, oh yeah, that’s Jesus. That’s what my life’s all about. He has given me a new identity. He has given me purpose. He walks with me and talks with me and doesn’t forsake me. He dusts me off and cleans me when I go astray. Jesus. Jesus calls out to his own, knowing his own will respond to his call. Remember what Jesus said? My sheep know my voice. Jesus ain’t talking to the other sheep. That’s not his concern. Jesus is saying, and I know when I speak, my voice will resonate in the ears and the hearts of my people because I’ve put my Spirit there. There’s a treasure I put there, and they will treasure it.
So what else can you and I do but repent then if we truly have this treasure within us? And I’m certainly not saying that true Christians don’t get off track, that true Christians don’t get in lulls. They do. But this is as much true. True Christians don’t stay in the rut. It’s like, man, you’ve been a three-year-old Christian life. All you’ve got memorized is John 3.16. You’ve got the same sin struggles. You’re still as nasty as you’ve ever been. We need to reevaluate what passion means to you.
Friends, Christians keep going because they’ve been given something that they couldn’t possibly have apprehended on their own, and it’s a treasure to them.
So repent. When you think Jesus and the Gospel and church and evangelism and prayer and all that is a small thing, can we repent when we think there are more important affairs? Can we repent when we let sin linger in our hearts? Can we repent when we have a lack of sacrifice and passion? When the cross of Christ, Jesus bloodied hanging on it, is not the center point of our life?
If not, Jesus says, I’m going to come like a thief. Now, the thief motif in Scripture is often positive because Jesus says that, usually talk about, it’s going to be like a thief in the night. I’m going to come take you away. You know, it’s this idea of salvation. But here it’s not nice. Jesus is saying, if you’re not going to repent and you’re not going to turn, you’re not going to change, I’m going to come at you like a thief in the night. You’re not going to see it coming, and it’s going to be for judgment. It’s very different, isn’t it? And what it should indicate to you and I is, it is not a small or an inconsequential thing to carry the name of Jesus and have a lack of passion for that name underneath. It’s not a small or safe thing to do in the eyes of Christ. Jesus will not be mocked. You think about Ananias and Sapphira. Oh yes, we brought all of our money to you. Oh, how passionate are Ananias and Sapphira. And what? What did God do? He struck them dead. What about the folks showing up, taking communion together, getting drunk? Nope, struck them dead. How does Jude describe the false teachers who say they’re Christian teachers, but they’re not? He says the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever for them. Friends, it is not a small thing to call yourself a Christian and not mean it.
Let us be, let us be, let us be aware then of this Jesus who takes serious His own name, His own kingdom, and He calls those who truly belong to Him to repent and to keep it and to keep going.
If you don’t actively, consciously live the Christian life, without question, you’re going to drift, you’re going to forget. Jesus demands you and I do something. He demands we walk in the Spirit, we walk in the truth, we walk in the knowledge of what we’ve been given. And I talked about this last week for a little bit, Higher Life Theology. There’s a good little book, it’s called No Quick Fix by Andy Nacella, and he goes into it quite a bit more, but he really rails against this business of passivity in the Christian life. Jesus saves me, and Jesus sanctifies me, and so I’m just going to go on and it will happen to me. And it’s unbiblical. Jesus has saved you. He saved you, but in saving you, He’s sanctifying you. He’s sanctifying you through struggling and running and giving and sacrificing and dying to the old man. Matthew Henry said, the old man, he has been killed, but he has not yet expired. He lay in the grave, but he has not yet expired. In other words, you and I have experienced victory over the sinful man, Christ Jesus, but while we’re still in this life, man, he’s grabbing at your ankles from the grave, and you have got to resist him. You have got to resist him. We have to live in the fullness of the victory of what we’ve been given. So the next time you struggle with sin, don’t say, I wish I could have the power, I wish I could have the victory. You have it. Friends, you need to just keep struggling and struggling and struggling. Jesus will. Jesus will, because you’re His and you have His Spirit.
And repentance is a lifestyle, and that’s one of those things we need to hear and hear again. I think when you find yourself in the rut, repent, and don’t shame yourself, like how could I have done this again? Because you’re a sinner. That’s how you could do it again. Just keep repenting, and keep repenting, and keep turning, and keep turning, and keep growing, and keep going, because if Jesus gave you everything you need to thrive for Him, you will thrive, and you will make it home. Does Jesus start a work He doesn’t complete? No. Jesus says that which He has began to author, He will bring to completion. Jesus says, those whom the Father has given to Me, I will not lose. So there’s enough courage, that’s courage inducing, that there’s a promise there for me to really hold on and believe through everything. I truly can repent, I can turn, and Jesus will do a great work in me and through me.
Verse 4 here. He says, Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not sold 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. I want to close here, just kind of leaving with you the idea of remnant. The idea of remnant. And remnant is really a big Old Testament kind of theme. When we look at Romans 11, Paul references the story of Elijah. It says, God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah? How he appeals to God against Israel? And this was what Elijah said, Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have demolished Your altars, and I am alone left, and they seek My life. But what was God’s reply to him? I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed their knee to Baal. Paul says, so too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. A remnant. A remnant simply means the few, not the many. That’s what the remnant means. And that runs all throughout Old Testament theology and it runs throughout New Testament theology. In short, friend, don’t look to your right and don’t look to your left and don’t look behind you to see who’s going with you because there’s not going to be many people. If you want to live a passionate life for Jesus, keep your eyes on Jesus because He’s the author and He’s the perfecter of your faith. And praise God for those few saints He does give to us to lock arms with. But at the end of it all, Christ is calling you out. He’s chosen you. He’s called you. You walk in what God has given you. You are the remnant. You are the remnant.
Don’t look at the world and say, how can I look like them? Look at Jesus and see how He’s made you to look like Him.
Jesus says here, most people will soil their garments. Most people will get in bed with the world. Most people will get in bed with the world. Most people will compromise their Christian faith. And you see that happening in the world around you today. And so Sardis did it. The church of Sardis in their time. It’s most people.
But He says the one that doesn’t, the one that doesn’t will walk with me in white. Now white in the book of Revelation, and we’ll see this as we go on, white represents two things.
Purity, chastity, cleanliness. And also the one who conquers.
The white clothes are for the one who conquers. White clothes are for the one who remains pure and passionate and devoted. All the things we’ve been talking about so far. Suffering, all these things. That’s who those clothes are for. And Jesus says that name, it’s in the book, and it’s not coming out of the book. The name’s there.
And you say, well, who is that pure? Who is that pure? Who is that clean? And who is that victorious? And who can really conquer like that? And there’s really only one answer in the whole book of Revelation and in the whole Bible. We see at the beginning when we’re looking for the person who’s worthy to open the scrolls, and all the way at the end, the one who defeats Satan once. We’re like, who is that pure and clean and powerful? And it’s just Jesus. It’s just Jesus.
Jesus is doing nothing other than calling you to walk in what He has already won in His life, in His death, and in His resurrection. Church, we are the remnant.
Let us walk in this gracious, gifted life that Christ has called us to. Don’t look to the right, and don’t look to the left, and don’t look behind you. Look at the cross of Christ. Go on home. Go on home.
It’s kingdom passion. And it’s the grace of God for sinners seen in the cross of Jesus Christ. Let’s pray.
Let’s pray. You are You are You are You are
Father, You are the one who stands over human history and You stand over
the movements and the moments of culture and governments and people. Lord, You are aware of my yesterday, my today, and my tomorrow.
Lord, there’s none who is in control beside You. There’s none who is in control beside You. There’s none who has defeated the enemy, and there’s none who has already done what needs to be done to once and for all when that day comes or throw the enemy into the lake of fire, into judgment forevermore. You’ve already shown us the victor that You are. You’ve already shown us
what Jesus is. Jesus has won. You’ve already shown us what we will inherit. And it’s nothing that we deserve. It’s nothing that You owe us, but it’s by Your grace which You’ve given us.
Father, I just ask that You in every heart and every mind just awaken in us just that passion that we had at the first for Jesus. We pray that passion would go on like a fire constantly fed. Let Your Spirit and let Your Word and let the communion of saints just encourage us and establish us all the more in Christ Jesus. We pray all the world would fade away and our eyes would be fixed heavenward. Our eyes would be fixed on what’s to come. Our hands would be loose from all the things that we could attempt to find happiness in now. Lord, we would just be ready to live and to give all for Your name’s sake. And that, oh God, Your joy would be our strength.
Father, that’s our prayer. It’s not a thing that we can do, but it’s a thing we ask of You and know that You will do in us. So it’s our prayer. And we pray it in Christ’s name. Amen.