Welcome back to Christian leaders Institute. I'm John Kenny. And we are not just talking about revitalization. Today, we are digging into some scripture from Revelation 3 three, as we continue a study on Sardis. Now, in our last lecture, we started studying this letter that Jesus sent to the church. And it was written at the end of the first century, to a city in what is modern day Turkey, we quickly found out that this was not a very good letter, it was not a friendly letter. In fact, it was very direct in in it, and Jesus exposes the church as a fraud if we can use that word, which I think we can. It had the reputation of being alive. But it was dead, the church was a spiritual fraud in the church lacked the spiritual life zao That, that comes from Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit. So it's almost like the church was like a like a museum. If you go to a museum, and there's, you know, all the all the animals that have been shot and killed, and now stuffed, and the museum curators, they can, they can put them in, or the taxidermist, too, they can put them in very lifelike poses. And you know, the way the eyes look in the mirror, and, you know, all that looks like they're alive, but they're dead. There's nothing in there. And that's really kind of the image we get here with, with this church, and certainly very convicting for all of us who are in ministry, this idea of Christ really taking a hard look at what's going on beneath the surface. So I don't know about you. But as I was studying this passage on Sardis, I definitely felt a connection to it at some level. And even though it was written about 2000 years ago, just a little less than 2000 years ago. Boy, is it relevant as ever, and it really has something to say to all of us. So we're going to be in again, Revelation 3:1-6 is the letter but for for right now, I'm just gonna read the first three verses. And we'll focus in on on that. To the angel of the church in Sardis, write. These are the words of him who holds 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. And they're about halfway through verse three. And let's first pray that God would add his blessing to the reading of His Word. Lord, thank You for this lecture we have together and Lord, I pray there might be more than me just spitting out words. But Lord, you would use this for my ministry for everyone who's watching Lord, it would really challenge us and encourage us and create a way forward for us Lord to be more effective in ministry. We pray this in Your name, amen. Okay, so if you remember last time, we said that every are pretty much all the letters in Revelation kind of follow this threefold format, there's kind of what's going on good and bad, the diagnosing it, then it's here's what you need to do to go forward. And then three was the either your reward or your judgment or your punishment for either obeying or not obeying what Christ has told you to do. This last lecture, we did a lot about the diagnosing what was going on. Unfortunately, there wasn't any good it was just the bad that was mentioned. So in this lecture, we're going to cover what Jesus prescribes for the church to do in order to get better. So it's important to note though, that the church, even though it's dead, it is not. Apparently, I should say, it has not reached the point of no return. And isn't that the Lord's grace right there? Isn't that the story of resurrection that even though this church was dead, there was still hope for it. I'm reminded of a scene from a movie that came out many years ago called Princess Bride and the main character, Wesley, who's on the rescue mission is, goes through this torture device and the babies left for dead. And so his friends bring him to miracle Max, who's the magician to see if anything can be done to save Wesley. Miracle Max says there's a big difference between between being mostly dead, and all dead, mostly dead, is slightly alive. That seems to be a fitting description for where the church is at in Sardis, and perhaps for our churches as well. But we always want to keep in mind that we are people with the gospel, we are people of the resurrection, and that there is hope for a church, even a dead church, there's still hope for us. So what we have in front of us today are Jesus's instructions on how to wake up a dead church, how to wake up a soul that has grown cold, and how we move from the present state of death, to a wonderful and glorious future. Now, in our passage today, in the first three verses, in Revelation, chapter three, Jesus says instructions come to us in the form of five imperatives. And an imperative is a form of grammar. And an imperative is a command. So it'd be like a sergeant in the Army who goes, you know, do this or do that they're their imperatives, it's, you have to do it, because you've been told to do it. So in our couple verses, here, Jesus has five imperatives. And in the original Greek language, it's a lot easier to see it really kind of more pops and stands out than in our regular translations in front of us. But so this is one of those times where the original language really gives us a hand in seeing kind of a chain connecting all the links these five imperatives. So the first one, the first of the five imperatives of Jesus, was wake up. If you remember, last lecture, we talked about the city of the history, or the history of the city, I should say, and how the city had become over time, very comfort and complacent. And twice, their city had been overthrown by enemies. They, while they were sleeping, they woke up to find the Persians and then later the Greeks had overrun their city. And so what Jesus is calling for here is vigilance. Okay, a spiritual alertness that we need to be awakened to the reality. And I think what we need to be awakened to the reality is that we are under attack, Peter warned the church just a generation prior, that the church had enemies, who were seeking to destroy it. And in I Peter 5 we read, be self controlled and alert, your enemy, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Well, while this is going on, as the churches, you know, growing during the first century, Satan obviously has great interest and desire to destroy that which God is doing through his kingdom. And so the people were had been asleep to this and the city had been under attack. And we talked about the incomplete deeds, the lack of moral purity, like they were under attack, and they didn't realize that they thought, Oh, we're fine, nothing to worry about. But the very opposite was actually going on. And we should just also be mindful of all the times in the gospels where Jesus tells us to be watchful. How many parables did He say, you know, it's about the people who were not watchful or who weren't being vigilant, who ended up getting kind of shut out in the end. I don't want to draw too many conclusions about the you know, salvation and all that kind of stuff, in terms of Revelation 3, but just the idea that the vigilance and watchfulness is It's such an important part of this. And much like Jesus's disciples who fell asleep when they were supposed to be praying and being vigilant for him, the church had fallen into a very similar state and the church needs to wake up and realize what is going on. Okay. So that's the first imperative. The second one, Jesus says is to strengthen what remains. And the word strengthened means to stand something up on its feet, it's a great image, we think about like waking up, and then rise and kind of like, get out of bed and now like, get on your feet, and do something. Okay. So what's interesting, at least for me, you might find it interesting too, that the word strengthen used there is the exact same word used to describe Paul's ministry of revitalization in the book of Acts. If you remember from a number of lectures ago, we talked about this. This is from Acts 14:21, talking about Paul's missionary journeys, preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples, then they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. So Paul went to the cities to strengthen the people to get them to stand up on their feet again, and similar in Acts 15:41. He went through Syria, and Cilicia, strengthening the churches, getting the churches to stand up and be strong. Now, Paul uses this word, Jesus uses his word. And also, Peter uses it. So we've got Paul, Peter and Jesus all use it. And in I Peter 5:10. The same word strengthen is used to describe the Lord's renewing work in the church, it says in the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will restore himself to you, and make you strong, firm and steadfast. The word strong, there is the same thing. So what we see here, in the various uses of this Greek word, which is sterison is that the call to strengthen the church, it's one in which both people and Jesus are actively involved in. So we can't do this all on our own, we can't strengthen the church apart from Jesus Christ. Okay. But at the same point, what we read in Peter was, he will restore you and make you strong and firm and steadfast so that Christ will strengthen us, but then we will be deeply involved in it. So it's kind of almost like our own sanctification where Christ gives us the ability and the strength and the spirit to do it. But then we have to obey and cooperate with it. So it's kind of like that. This call to strengthen is Jesus is empowering the church to do it, but then he's asking the church, then to actually go ahead, and, and be a part of it. Okay, so Jesus are partners with us, He enables us, but He invites us to come along with him to get the church to stand up on its feet. So it's not something that we just do apart from Christ. Neither is it something that Christ does, apart from the participation of the local church, to get the church to stand up and be strong. It's something that we do as leaders with Christ together. Now strengthen what says, strengthen what remains. Now, isn't this wonderful? As bad as this church was Jesus has identified that there were some things upon which the church in Sardis could build upon. And even though there were only a few remaining things, it was still something. And this is interesting to me that Jesus gives it to strengthen what remains so that rather than trying to bring revitalization to the whole congregation, it almost seems as if Jesus is giving instructions to begin a movement with a few faithful individuals in the church, and kind of from this very humble start, the seed of revitalization would be planted and then it would grow. I hope that that is a really meaningful word of encouragement. If you're in a small church or you're a pastor and you feel like you can count on one hand, the number of faithful people you have falling with To or your whatever ministry context you're in. If a Church has anything pleasing to Christ, it can be used to rebuild the church. Remember, the parable of the tiny mustard seed that grew into a large plant is the smallest and the weakest of churches have the potential for greatness within them. Okay, so there is something there, even if it's just you and one other person, or if there's one ministry, or there's one passion, the if there's something there, you can build on it, Christ tells us strengthen what remains, whatever is there, get it to, you know, get it up on its own two feet. Okay. Well, the big question then is, how do you do it? How do I strengthen what remains? Well, the next two imperatives answer the question of how do you do it? So we're waking up were strengthening. And it's like, okay, how do I do that? Well, this might sound familiar to you, because we talked about this. Remember, we talked about this with, you know, we you start by going back and recalling what your history your past where God has showed up previously? All right. And I think again, even though we've talked about it, isn't it somewhat surprising. So the first thing the church needs to do is to remember verse, chapter three, verse three, Revelation, remember? Now remember, what? Remember, the gospel, and it says, Remember, therefore what you received and heard. And I'm not going to get into the kind of the down and dirty, but when the language received is used often in New Testament, it's in terms of the Gospel, the context is what you received. You know, you know, like, for example, Paul says, you know, what, you know, what I received from Christ I passed on to you. It's the idea that gospel, so remember what, remember the gospel that you heard, and that you received? So it's not remember the good old days, 25 years ago, in Sardis, when things were really firing on all cylinders? Remember, the Gospel. Now, why would Jesus say, remember the gospel, because apparently, the church had moved away from the centrality of the gospel message. Got that? The church had moved away from the centrality of the gospel message. And friends, if there is a recipe for death for a church. That is it. As soon as we move off the gospel, we are doomed. And that's what happened in Sardis. Apparently, over time, the church had forgotten this. And it was an absolutely fatal mistake. So what Jesus says in order to get the church, standing up and back on its feet, you, you start with remembering the relationships that you have with him, it's about going back to our first love in Jesus Christ. So we've talked a little bit about that. And that's also in Revelation 2, the letter that Jesus has to the church in Ephesus, and he says, in chapter two, verse one, I hold this against you, you have forsaken your first love, remember the height from which you have fallen, repent and do the things you did at first, very similar kind of language. So it wasn't just in Sardis, that they had kind of moved on from the gospel, forgotten about it. It was happening in Ephesus, also, which makes me think those aren't the only two churches that has ever happened. And so let's go back to that first love and let's remember that Jesus Christ, in His infinite glory and majesty became human, that he came to us by becoming one of us, then he lived a life of perfect obedience for us. Then he went to the cross and endured unspeakable pain, physically and spiritually as the wrath of an eternity of sin from the father was poured out on him, and he gave up his his very life for us. Let's not forget that. He rose up from the dead three days later and in doing so, opened up for all of us the gates of eternal life that we might dwell with Him forever and ever. And let's not forget the good news of the gospel that he will, he is with us, still, through the power of His Spirit that He loves us and walks with us and encourages us and binds the power of Satan about us. And let's not forget that yet in the future, there is one day the bodily resurrection of all the saints who have gone before in death. We think of that, this comprehensive understanding of the gospel. And as we do it, there's a renewal of love of Christ, this renewed love of Christ, and an appreciation of the gospel becomes the catalyst. You know, isn't it something that the gospel, the longer we are familiar with it, the less amazing it can become, like, we become used to it, shouldn't it be the opposite, like, the more that we have time with the Gospel, the more the more, we're amazed by it, we're just in awe of it. Because the gospel isn't just the beginning, our faith is the middle of the end, we never get past the gospel, we just tell you to keep sinking deeper and deeper into it. But as soon as we kind of unhook ourselves from that, and we start to become a church, that's more about other things, whether it's political issues, or social issues, or we become kind of a country club, or, or friendship or, you know, this is our little fellowship network, whenever it kind of unhooks itself, from the centrality of the gospel. It's doomed, it's absolutely doomed. And so Christ's words, remember what you received and what you heard. And as we do that, we recenter ourselves on our love for Christ, we begin to take the kind of the first steps of like, revitalization and renewal. Okay, next, the fourth one, Jesus says, Obey. So he says, Remember what you received, and heard, obey it. So obey the gospel. And like the other imperatives in here, the tense is continuous action. So it's not like, remember it once it's like, remember and keep on remembering, strengthen, as you continue to strengthen. Okay? So, the church, what he's saying is, you need to obey the gospel, which is, I mean, how would you describe it? How would you describe what does it mean, to obey the gospel? Well, firstly, certainly you need to understand what it means but to obey, isn't it just to obey Christ and to to follow him to then live as the gospel as the guiding principles of our life. So this isn't about making like a one time change. It's about this on going process of putting the gospel of the teachings and the person of Jesus Christ. First and foremost in our lives. These are not superficial things that we, you know, minor changes that we can make. So this isn't about, you know, I hope by this point, you get it like, it's not about I'm just going to add one thing to my life, or I'm going to, we're going to add a new program to the church. This is about deep change about putting Christ first picking up your cross and carrying him everything really being driven by a guiding principle, my life for Jesus Christ. When I was going through my doctoral program, I would have to go away for a few weeks at a time and do some studying. And with a ton of lectures with somebody would be teaching me and I'd be taking notes. And I remember one of the most interesting classes I had we, me and about 10 or 12 other doctoral students, we all sat down and, you know, we're getting ready to professor had a fabulous reputation, it was really useful to be really interesting and engaging and can really help you see things differently. And so I was really excited about the class. And so I went to the class and the first thing that our professor said is during all our time together, I'm not going to teach you anything. And so we were kind of like looking around like, well, what are we going to do? And he said, the last thing that you all need is more knowledge, or more information. And he said, The problem with our lives and the problem with our churches and our leadership is, you're not doing the things that you already know that you're supposed to be doing. So he said, you need if here's your knowledge, here's your obedience. Okay? We don't need to stack on more knowledge, or information. And now you'll think you're mature, and you're doing what you want to do. He said, what we need to do is help you become, have your obedience, match what you already know. And I think that that is just such an important thing for us to be reminded of as we go through revitalization. Hopefully, this isn't just all about, you know, 36 lectures and readings of information, that unless you do that obedience to follow in Christ is obedience to the gospel call. All we're doing is inflating more and more knowledge. But the reality is, if the obedience doesn't follow it, absolutely nothing is going to change. So I think we've got to be bear that in mind that obedience is going to equal change, it has to unless you're living the perfect life, obedience is going to equal change, in order for me to be more obedient to Christ tomorrow, than I am now. And for my whole church, we are going to have to change certain things about us that fall outside of obedience. Okay? And then our fifth imperative is repenting. Now, I'm gonna hold off on saying too much about this, because we've got a whole series of lectures on repentance, because it's such a significant piece of the revitalization process. But for right now, I want to just talk about the urgency that is given here, the, the language, the grammar here is this a different kind of imperative. And it's like a, it's a, it's a now it's like, repent, and, and right now, you know, Repent, turn around, turn from your sin and turn towards God. But there's such an urgency here, kind of the language here might make us think of an emergency room where a patient comes in and they're, you know, bleeding and broken bones, or maybe they've got like a finger have fallen off, and you gotta, you gotta act fast. You don't say, well come back in six weeks or six months, and we'll we'll figure out what's going on. It's, it's a calling for a decisive, decisive action to do it and, and do it now. And let's not let that message get lost on us. That this call to revitalization, renewal, repentance, obedience, all these things. It's a do it now. We can't kind of just, you know, dilly dally. Well, yeah, we you know, we'll get to it, you know? You know, Christ is he's, he's calling us. He's calling us back. Right now. And, and just, I just think that we have to be mindful that, you know, when we talk about revitalization, and we're talking about the gospel and obedience and repentance, we're really being challenged to address, like the deep, systemic issues that lie at the heart of the congregation, a struggling church, you cannot make these like, tiny, like, minor incremental changes, or, again, just simply add a new thing, or let's just try to make our church more attractive. So more people will come, hey, you know what more people are going to come but that zao that spiritual life is still missing. You might be able to draw a crowd, but you're not doing ministry, okay? And tell me one place in scripture where Jesus says, draw a crowd. He doesn't we're supposed to make disciples were supposed to follow him in obedience, okay. And so, at the end of the day, just like, as it was in Sardis, the changes that we're going to be looking at are going to be dramatic. And the result though is going to be a complete change in direction, in your life, and in the ministry of your church. So let me pray for you as we get ready to dive into the last section of this wonderful, wonderfully rich and deep letter to the church in Sardis. So let's pray. Father, thank you so much for my dear friends, my brothers and sisters in ministry. Lord who long to see your your spirit come alive in new and fresh ways. In their ministry, Lord, I pray that You would bless them and Lord, that You would strengthen them so that they may be able to strengthen others. Lord, we confess the times in the places of our, our lack of obedience. God, we pray that our eyes may have been closed to what's been going on around us in our churches. And yet, Lord, we know that you are a God of grace. So where would you bless us so that your kingdom might grow in and through us today, and always, we pray this in Your precious name Jesus, Amen. All right, well, that's it. We've got again, one more lecture on Sardis. And we're gonna see in that one, what happens to those who follow Christ's command to you know, these imperatives and what happens to those who ignore the imperatives So, can't wait to get you back here and finish this series out.

Остання зміна: понеділок 8 квітня 2024 10:10 AM