Video Transcript: Lesson 10 Diagnosing the Condition

Hello, and welcome again to Christian leaders Institute. I'm John Kenny. And we are, at this point, we are neck deep in this conversation about church revitalization. And I know I've given you kind of a lot to think about and a lot of ideas. And we've seems like in some ways, we hardly even scratched the surface. But we are really already doing some really good work. If you're following along, if you're figuring out what's going on in your church, and you're diagnosing, and you're getting a sense of the history and all those kinds of things that we've been talking about, you are well on your way to taking the next steps forward in your ministry. For these next three lectures, we're going to continue kind of along the similar path of understanding what, what went wrong with a church and how do you fix it and all that kind of stuff, of what we're going to be looking very particularly at one church. It's one of the letters of the churches that Jesus writes, In the Book of Revelations. So we're gonna hop into that in a moment. But let's pray first, and ask the Lord to bless our time together. Lord Jesus, we love you. And we thank You for Your goodness and Your mercy and your kindness. We thank You, Lord, that You love the church. Thank you, Lord, that You give us all that we stand in need of, to see the church grow and thrive and to mature and be faithful to the Lord. We pray for that our churches might all be faithful representation of the kingdom of God in our time. And in our place. We pray this in Your name, amen. So imagine, you go to your mailbox one day, and there is a letter, and the letter is from God. And for whatever reason you happen to know for a fact that it is from God, it isn't just some kind of weird, fake thing. How would you feel if you knew that that letter was going to be a God's word to you about the state of your ministry, almost like God was sending you a report card, about how things are going and how you're doing as a leader? How would you? How would you feel I imagined like my my hands would be trembling, opening up this envelope, maybe it'd be excited to hear words of praise or might be very nervous or anxious about what we might read. Well, something like that actually kind of happened. There are seven churches in the first century that received letters from Jesus, about the state of their ministry, and these letters came to the churches through this wonderful vision that John, the apostle John has, and then they get distributed out to the churches. Now, in these letters, these seven letters, they follow a fairly similar format. Jesus describes what the condition of the churches in areas where they need to improve, he presents a path forward. And then three, depending on what they do, he says, either a judgment will come upon the church or a reward will will come to them. And just kind of again, the same format that the seven letters follow. And we're going to use those three aspects of each letter as kind of our roadmap for the next three lectures. So today, we're going to talk about one of these seven churches, and what was going on there. And we're really going to kind of dig in deep on that. In our next lecture, we're going to discuss what did Jesus say this church needed to do to get to where it needed to be. And then in the third lecture, we'll look at the promises of judgment and reward that Jesus gives. So we're going to use what you see on your screen, that's going to really be our roadmap for the next few lectures. The letter that we're going to study in particular, is the letter that was given to the church in Sardis. And this was a church that was in desperate need of renewal and it's a great place for us to kind of camp out for a while and to study. So I'm going to read to you Jesus's letter to the church in Sardis, which is in Revelation 3:1-6. These are the words of life and instruction for us. To the angel of that church in Sardis, write, These are the words of him who hold the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds, you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead, wake up, strengthen what remains and is about to die for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard, obey it and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what time I will come to you. Yet, you have a few people in Sardis, who have not soiled their clothes, they will walk with me dressed in white for they are worthy. He who overcomes will like them be dressed in white, I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before My Father and His angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. All right, so let's just jump right in on this text and see where we're at. So the letter is addressed to the angel of the church in Sardis. The identity of that name, that title angel is a bit unclear. Some scholars think that it refers to a supernatural being. Some think it refers to a human being, we don't really need to get hung up on that. Right now, we don't need to get hung up on that. Really, all we need to know is that this letter is sent to a representative of the church, in its contents are directed to the whole church. So it's really directed towards a leader of the church. And what it says is for everybody, not just the leaders but for everybody. So in this letter to the church, Jesus identifies himself as him who holds the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars. That's quite a title. And let's just spend a minute talking about what that means because it has actual significant implication for us. The seven spirits of God are a direct reference to the Holy Spirit. And I'll in revealing that Jesus holds the seven spirits, Jesus is making it known in a way that they would understand that he has received the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And he exercises authority over the spirit. And if you want to kind of cross reference, you can look at John 15:26, or Acts 2:33. This idea that Jesus exercises authority over the work of the Holy Spirit. So he has the seven Spirits. And he also says that he holds the seven stars. Now this phrase is, we just turned back a couple pages in our Bible, it's in Revelation 1:20, where its meaning is explained. And it says, the seven stars are the seven angels of the seven churches. And again, we could spend a lot of time trying to figure out the very particulars of that. But what we want to gain from this text is that the emphasis here is on Christ's immediate presence, through the Spirit, to the church in Sardis to seven stars, seven spirits, all talking about the presence of Christ, the authority he has over the spirit, and just the immediacy of that within Sardis. Okay, so just in this little brief intro, there's, there's some things that we need to understand that apply immediately to revitalization. Now, the first one is that Jesus as He introduces himself is, he is the all powerful and undisputed universal head of the church. Paul says something similar in Colossians 1:17- 18. Jesus, he says is before all things. and in Him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, and so that in everything, he might have the supremacy so Jesus, the way he describes himself here is all powerful over everything in the church in Sardis, but kind of everywhere. And let's just pause here for a moment and think about that. Because what he's saying is, to pastors and to congregations is that we must always be aware that the church is never ours. And we like to speak of the church as ours, this is the church I pastor, or this is the church, this has been my church for 30 or 40 years, or whatever it is. And I mean, I think we kind of have an idea, what it's saying is, this is a group that I belong to, or this is the flock that I leave, lead, but at the same time, there, there is a sense that we are owners that the church is, belongs to us. And that really gives us license then to allow the ministry of the church to be driven by human agendas and personal preferences, some of the things we've talked about in previous lectures. Instead of that, there needs to be this really important shift that the church that the congregation together, must always function as a servant, that is accountable to Jesus Christ. We're always accountable to Jesus. So it's not, I want to make sure this person is happy, or I want to make sure this group of leaders or the denomination or whatever is happy. It's always at the end of the day, we serve Christ. And I think this is just a humbling reality that a lot of churches need to come to that we have kind of stolen the church a little bit from Jesus, and that we've kind of made it like we belong to it. But of course, you know, we own it, we were over it. And the truth is, we're not really in any way we're stewards of it. But we don't own it. And the second thing we want to get out of here is that the church is radically dependent on the Spirit of Christ for its health, in growth. If a church is going to be strong, it's because Christ has sent His Spirit to work in and through the congregation. And if a church is weak or dying, it is because Christ for whatever reason, has withheld that spirit in some kind of judgments. So revitalization must ultimately be evaluated, we'll push into this a little more, in a few minutes. But revolt, revitalization must ultimately be evaluated in terms of the Spirit's presence, and activity within the congregation. I'm gonna say that again, because that's super important. And I'm hoping somewhere, you might be writing that down or typing that in that revitalization must be ultimately evaluated in terms of the spirits, presence, and activity within the congregation. So if there isn't a whole lot of presence of the Holy Spirit, and there isn't a whole lot of spirit, lead or spirit, infused activity, although we really can't talk a whole lot about revitalization. On the flip side, if there is a sense of the Lord's spirit, and he's doing work through the Holy Spirit, then then we can talk about some legitimate work of revitalization. So anyway, that's just the introduction. Now, let's talk a little bit about Sardis. And why why this what was going on there. And what Jesus had to say about it. The church in Sardis, by the time this letter is written is probably about 30 to 40 years old. This was not a church that was planted by Paul, it was a little bit of ways, I think, maybe about 50 miles or so away from Ephesus, which where Paul had been so most likely. This was a group of people who had heard or known of Paul or the ministry of the churches that were being planted. And those people just ended up bringing it back to Sardis. So again, the church is about 30 to 40 years old, so maybe one and a half, maybe two generations. The church had a great reputation. It was respected. It was admired it had a really solid reputation. Now, we're not told why. We can only assume though, that when Christianity first came to Sardis, it did so in a very strong, a very powerful, transforming kind of way. It seems very much at least from the outside, that this is a church that has their act together, the people are coming, there may be lots of busyness and activity going on. It seems like a really vibrant place. Jesus himself says you have the reputation of being alive. So if you and I are in the first century, the end of the first century, and we're talking about revitalization, and we want to go to a conference on revitalization, who's the church that's doing it right, we would probably say, well, let's go to Sardis. Because they have a reputation of being alive. And it seems like a lot of really good things are going on there. However, the the problem that was going on there, which was the problem, the huge problem was the reputation that they have, as being a vibrant, alive church did not match the reality. Jesus says, you have a reputation of being alive. But you are dead. When I thought of this reminded me of a movie from a long time ago, and it's not at all worth seeing. But the illustration kind of makes the point is movie called Weekend at Bernie's. And it's not worth describing a whole lot about the movie, but there's a guy Bernie, who is dead. And these two guys try to give the illusion that he's alive. So they kind of move his arms around, and, you know, make it look like he's, he's alive throughout this weekend, when there's a big party at his house. And that's kind of like, what the church in Sardis is like, they're, they're dead, it looks like they're alive on the outside, but inside, there's nothing going on. And the word, you have the reputation of being alive, it's a really interesting word that we should talk about. Not getting too much into the Greek, but the word is zao. And zao is the spirit life, the spiritual life that proceeds from Jesus. So when Jesus talks about eternal life in abundant life, he's talking about this vow in so what Jesus says to the church is, on the outside, it looks good, but you have no zao, you have no real spiritual life going on inside of you that actually, you are dead. Now, as we can see, in this letter that everyone was fooled, or at least it seems like pretty much everyone is fooled by the appearance of the life in this church, except Jesus. Except, now, isn't it interesting how we judge things so differently than Jesus. Remember the story of David when Samuel comes to anoint, and he, they don't even bother bringing David in to see who will be the next king. And there's a great teaching in there that God is not judged by the outside God looks inward at the heart. Well, God doesn't just do that with people he does have apparently with churches, as well. And on the and I think, we make the same mistakes of Samuel did and David's family is we like to just judge by how things look on the outside, and we'll look at attendance, and budget, in worship style. In programs, we'll just come up with a whole laundry list of things. And what does Jesus use to measure a church vow, the spiritual life that the proceeds from it again, remember I said, churches must ultimately be evaluated in terms of the spirits, the spirits presence and activity within the church. So it's just interesting that we, we might look at a church and say, Wow, that church is going gangbusters. And it's fantastic. And Jesus might say, I don't see it, there's nothing alive. And I wonder how much it happens, though there might be a church and we might not think it's very flashy or a whole lot is happening, and yet the Spirit of God is yet thriving there. Well, Jesus reveals two things about the church that he sees certain he sees that there's a lack of the spirit life, but he also sees two things else that are deficient, one, that their deeds are incomplete. He has a very watchful eye on the church, which is his bride, and he says I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. So there's really a sense of like judgment here like a courtroom scene. And all of the things that the church has done is kind of like stacked up in evidence. And after being judged, it is found wanting it is found insufficient, it is found incomplete. Now, a strike that a Sardis really has against it, of all the seven letters, this is the only one that's not given any praise. If we look through this letter, there isn't any point, any point or any part where Jesus says, well, you're doing this good. And the other letters he has a so Sardis, as as good as the reputation is, he has nothing to commend this church for. So let's talk about their deeds. Now, it probably would have sounded strange to them that their deeds were incomplete, because again, they have this great reputation. They were probably very busy, it probably looked like a lot was going on. But Jesus says, the deeds are incomplete. Now, when we look at the other letters, the other six letters, and we say, well, what does Jesus mean by deeds? He talks about things like love, and faithfulness, and perseverance. So they're more like inner character kind of things. It's not how we would necessarily think of deeds. But it would be deeds that arise out of things like love and perseverance. And those kinds of things, the kinds of things that Jesus was looking for, were incomplete. So kind of make a long story short here, the church was not doing what the church was supposed to be doing. It was incomplete. And certainly, you know, this is a scary thought, for us, who are leading churches and ministries seeking revitalization to think that, you know, we we're incomplete, we're not measuring up that we are found wanting, you know, the scales of heaven are not tipping in our favor when it comes to what our churches and ministries are supposed to be like. Okay, there was a second problem, though mentioned in this letter, that there was a lack of moral purity. Jesus talks here, about their clothes being soiled, which is really this kind of disgusting image like they had gone to the bathroom on on themselves. It's really a gross image, it really is. And what that's a reference to is the kind of moral pollution that had come into the church, the church had become corrupted in its behavior and in its conduct. And what we might say today was, there was cultural assimilation, that the church had begun to, instead of being a different kind of life from the world, it has become to look very much like the world, and that pagan practices had become a part of the church. So as a result, the people who were part of the church in Sardis, were now indistinguishable from the pagans who also lived in that city, their lifestyle did not stand out in any way. They kind of blended right in, if you were walking down the street of Sardis, or if you lived there for a couple months, you would not be able to tell who were the Christians and who were not. Now obviously, we can see how this would impact the decline of the church. So the the incomplete deeds, lack of moral purity. You know, Jesus is not pulling any punches. He's basically like, I've seen what you're doing, and I see what you're not doing. And he just calls it like it is he doesn't sugarcoat it, he doesn't make it sound better than it is. He just lays it out there. They do not have any spiritual life, their deeds are not complete, and they become morally impure. So let's talk about this. What what would cause a church to become incomplete in its deeds, and to become morally impure? What would cause the church to do that? Well, let's just take a step back here. Here's a really interesting story about the history of Sardis. And I think we'll this will help explain a little bit and why Jesus chose to use the word wake up when he addresses the church. Now, Sardis was actually two different cities. Sardis is a plural name. So the old city was high on top of like this cliff and had like 1500 foot like vertical wall cliffs. And there was just this one little narrow path that you could go up to it and Sardis this upper part was considered like the ultimate defensive position of that you could have because this one narrow path that led into the city, it was really easy to defend because it was like a bottleneck or like a choke point in any attacking army, they can only send in one and two at a time, and they would be easily defended. And then there was this lower area, as the city expanded, then they kind of lived down more towards the bottom of the cliffs. And that's kind of where more of the business and people lived after some time. Well, anyway, this, this city, which was thought of to be like impenetrable, this upper city, in the sixth century, BC, Cyrus, who we also read about in the Bible, Cyrus, his army, the Persians attack, and they're and they're victorious. And the question is, how could they be victorious against this impenetrable city? Well, what had happened was that people have become very lax, and very comfortable. And so they only ever guarded this one little pathway, they didn't worry about anything else. And one day, the Persians were watching up on the, they were kind of spying and they were watching the, you know, what was going on on that top level. And they saw that a soldier had up on top, he had lost his helmet and had fallen down. And they watched him walk down this secret pathway, and kind of retrieve his helmet and walk back up. And unless you've seen somebody do it, you could have never known that it was there, or you could get up that way. And so the person soldier who waited until night, and the whole city was asleep. And in the morning, they woke up to find that the entire upper city was completely taken over by the Persian soldiers, because in the middle of the night, you guessed it, they walked up that same path that they had saw. And so it was quite a surprise this, how this impenetrable city was defeated just so easily. The Persians didn't even need to draw a sword, they just won. And so what's what's kind of crazy about the story is the exact same thing happened 300 years later, and this time, it was the Greeks who are attacking, led by Antiochus. And once again, the church had forgotten the lesson from before the church or the city had become complacent. And sure enough, in the middle of the night, the Greeks went up the path, they surrounded the people, and the city was lost. Now, what a great way to kind of historical background, when Jesus is talking about the parallel between what happened to the city, this once great city, that by the end of the first century, by the way, it was like it had just fallen to such a level. And actually, in the ancient world, there isn't a story of a city that went from being so prominent to being so kind of like obsolete and useless and overlooked as Sardis. So we have this one strange city that because of comfort, because of not being very watchful and attentive, it had gone from being powerful city, down to nothing. And Jesus here is obviously making great parallels to the people who are living in Sardis at the end of the first century, and kind of thing, remember, remember your history because what had killed the church or that what had killed the city? Previously, this becoming comfortable and not being watchful was the exact same thing that had happened in the church? So the problem with the church was it had become very comfortable with itself. It did become a church that was self satisfied and enjoyed its reputation. Even though the works were incomplete, they were okay with that. We see this happen in churches all the time. Yes, churches where, well, we don't want to push too hard or we don't want to challenge people. We don't want to upset the applecart. Let's just kind of keep the peace and everybody seems to be relatively happy and We just kind of slide into this idolatry of comfort, we do what makes us happy. All the while the enemies, you know, knocking at the gate, we're gonna talk more about that in our next lecture. But the church also had become very comfortable with the world, the church, it posed no threat to the world, there was no challenge that it was presenting to the world. It had become just like them. Just over time, instead of being this band of just, you know, fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, who are going to turn the world upside down. Over time, they'd been very comfortable with their pagan surroundings, and just became like the rest of the world. And I think that's something we need to be really careful when we're thinking about how did our churches get to be where they are. Now, sometimes the church, we talked about traditionalism, it can be so stuck in the past, that becomes irrelevant. But with the church can also try so hard to be like the world, that it becomes completely irrelevant. When the church begins to adopt all the morals and the values of the world. The church has nothing left to say. It offers no alternative to life in a broken world. That's exactly what had happened in Sardis. And it becomes so comfortable with the world, that it wasn't really the church wasn't a light on the Hill anymore. It had been covered up with a bucket, and it had no value anymore. So is there any good news here as we get started? Well, yes, there is hope for the dead church. Because after Jesus tells the church exactly what's going on, the letter doesn't end, it keeps going on. And he talks about what you can do. So there's good news. There's more that there is. We'll talk again that more about that in the next lecture. But there was more that needed to be done. And also we need to remember that God is the God of the resurrection. And even though this church was dead, there is a sense that the Lord could and wanted to and desire to bring it back to life. He wants to bring the zao into the life of a congregation. And that's where we'll end. It's just this invitation that Jesus Christ has for us no matter where we're at, in church or in ministry, an invitation to full, full light with grace and love and renewal. Let's not remember the call of Christ. It is not to dour, lifeless existence, but rich and joyful and overflowing. In wherever you are in the world. You can read this along with me, I have come that they may have life and have it to the fullest. So let's pray. Father in heaven we give you thanks for your words to us, to the church in Sardis. And where we pray for ourselves. Lord, we pray that your life dissolve, Lord, it might be revealed and made known and come alive within us, Lord, that your spirit would do a work in us first and foremost, Lord, because we confess that if we are not changed, Lord, we will not have anything to offer anyone else? And so Lord, would you please begin the work of revitalization in us first and foremost. And then second word, we pray for our churches. We pray for our ministries, that Lord through your sovereign hand and your love for your bride, that you would do something great, you would do something miraculous, like a resurrection, in restore, Lord, that which is dead back to life. Lord, we pray all these things in your name. All right. Well, thanks for hanging in for this lecture. Again. We've got a couple more to go on Sardis. And I think you're gonna see what Christ has in store for us is very practical, and very relevant to our ministry today. So until then, God bless