Revelation 3:1-3 1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. 3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent.
The Church of Sardis was filled with Christians, who were doing good works, but only insofar as they did enough to consider themselves to bear Christ’s name and believe themselves to be alive in Him.
In this error, as we discovered in Part I of this article, they created their own grade book and grading system. They graded themselves as doing A+ work as Christian’s.
The only problem for them, is that the Lord Jesus Christ declared their works “not perfect“; which means their works were not overflowing and superabundant. In this we find God’s standard for works is Christ Himself, therefore try as we may, there will always be more work of His measureless overabundance of righteousness, to come forth.
(Please click here if you have not read Grade Book Religion… Part I )
Christians are not supposed to judge whether they have done enough to have earned a good grade, to take a break or have some energy left for our own pursuits. We are called to love the LORD our God with ALL of who were are (Matthews 22:37-38), at all times.
It is impossible to say we are ever approaching the definition of ALL, even though that is the life pursuit of the follower of Jesus. The life Christ calls us to we train our desire to bless Him at all times, not using works as a means of identifying with Him, or thinking we are alive in Him because of those works. We are simply alive in Him, by faith, because He is alive in us.
Many in Sardis, were not passing but failing and in danger of spiritual death. They proclaimed themselves to have His name and to be alive in Christ, when they were dead or dying in their faith, and like those who proclaim “Lord, Lord, have we not done…”, on the day of judgment (Matthew 7:21-23).
How do we avoid this terrible faith killing error? We do so by obeying Christ’s words, for how the church in Sardis, could save and strengthen those thing ready to die.
In the first place let us remember that works do not make us Christians. We do works and pursue holiness and righteousness because we ARE those saved by grace through faith.
Consider a fruit tree. It does not think about being a fruit tree, but simply produces fruit, because bearing fruit is what it was created to do. We do not praise a fruit tree because it produces fruit, or consider it extremely gifted because of this work.
Christians, do good works to glorify their Father in heaven, because it is what we were made to do as new creations in Christ (Matthew 5:13-16; II Corinthians 5:17). We ought to never seek recognition or expect blessing because of work we do for Christ. We ought to never allow ourselves to determine we’ve done enough for a spiritual vacation. Love for Christ, the leading of the Holy Spirit and our desire to bring praise to Christ, is our fuel what flows from the fulness of the Spirit of God.
Sardis, forgot this truth, so do we if we are not careful. Let us consider Jesus instructions to the church in Sardis, to avoid this awful rebuke.
Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. 3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent.
Obviously, there were some in Sardis that were faithful to Christ and others who although rotting with the spiritual disease of self-righteousness, had not been completely cut off from Christ. The Lord Jesus commands them to “hold fast and repent“.
This is reminiscent of the new testament call to “hold fast” our faith, that faith which is our well spring of grace at the beginning and throughout our life. Although there are several new testament passages, which bring this truth to light, I will cite only a two at this time.
Hebrews 3:66 but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.
Hebrews 3:12-142 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end,
Although the word “confidence” is not synonymous with the word for “faith” in the Greek of the new testament, in meaning they are closely related. I would like to draw your attention to the Hebrews 3:14 “if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end”.
As the author of Hebrews is calling brethren back to when they first placed their trust in Christ, so the Lord is calling the church in Sardis to remember this as well “Remember therefore how you have received and heard. With the word “received” we find something so foundational, that it is a fearful thing that we can so easily miss it.
REMEMBER HOW YOU RECIEIVED & REPENT (Turn back to how you received)
In Revelation 3 our Lord Jesus reveals to us how avoid or recover from grade book religion, which is the main cause of dead Christianity. He tells us to “remember” how we “received and heard“. The word “received” or lambanō, in the Greek language means to take hold of aggressively, like a man holding on to a life preserver in a stormy sea, with all of his strength.
The word “received” calls those in Sardis, as well as us, to remember what salvation means too the person and in the person who is redeemed by Christ. The word of God in John 1, concerning receiving Christ will aid us in grasping the way back from a dying faith.
John 1:10-13 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
In the first place, let us consider those who did not received Him, which are a majority of the Jews who lived at the time of Christ. When we read “His own did not receive Him” it is the word paralambanō (for received) in the Greek language. The word means to walk closely to someone in association.
Although both words lambanō from Revelation 3:3 and paralambanō from John 1:12 are words of relationship, they are different, as one means to associate loosely with a person and the other means to cling to that person as if they a your life preserver.
With paralambanō it is preceded with the word “not“, which implies that the bulk of the Jewish people did not desire to even be closely associated with their Messiah.
How does this relate to the Christian in Sardis? Remember the Lord Jesus Christ called them to “Remember how they had received and heard“. We can assume He meant how they did this at the beginning of their faith.
In the context of Revelation and John 1:12 “ But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God”, this meant aggressively holding on to Him with all their soul, mind and strength.
At the beginning our energy and strength to hold to Christo Christ, with aggressive force, is fueled by our love for God, as we know He first loved us through Christ’s bloody atoning death and His resurrection. In this we understand and rejoice in grace for the forgiveness of sins, Spirit of adoption with us making us children of Christ an the promises of eternity in God’s presence. This is how we receive.
Do we still hold tightly to Christ in that fashion, as if He is the life preserver keeping us from drowning, while we call others to trust Him the same–or do we have a loose affiliation with Him, like Sardis, where we have His name almost like being in a club yet have little to no living water flowing from our inner most being. All because we no longer hold tightly to HE who is the Living water?
If not careful, we can become enamored with the by-product blessings of the Christian life, rather than He is who is the Blessing (Consider Abram in Genesis 15:1-2).
This occurred in Ephesus, as they left their First Love, to pursue their new love of ministry and having a right church program; all the while believing, in error, they were loving God with their all.
This error is easy to fall into. Ephesus, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis and Laodicea all were in various stages of this error. How do we retreat from this peril, into safety in Christ?
Remember, we are saved by grace through faith and that our good works are not to stand as a testimony to how good we are, but to God’s great character and power, through weak and unworthy vessels.
Remember that we have been graded as those worthy of the second death, apart from Christ, but as we continue to walk in Christ, we receive His perfect righteousness in the sight of God.
Remember that as long as we live and no matter what we do, there is still more, much more we can do to glorify Him. Remember that He saved us to glorify God, not use God’s will and work to draw attention to ourselves.
What we declare concerning ourselves and our works for God, whether we pass or fail, matters not at all at the judgment seat of Christ. What He declares is all that matters, and did we know Him and do the will of His Father (Matthew 7:21-23).
