Day 348: Revelation 3:1–6

Be alert and strengthen what remains, which is about to die, for I have not found your works complete before My God (v. 2).

If we studied the seven churches of Asia Minor and seven hundred more in our cities today, we would quickly discover a disturbing fact. The personalities and moral attitudes of any given city permeate its churches unless the church works to deliberately overcome. For instance, churches in wealthy areas with upper-crust attitudes will have to overcome misguided superiority to keep from portraying the same things. Why? Because the people who comprise churches are also products of their societies. Likewise, churches in cities of deeply ingrained prejudice will carry the same banner unless they deliberately risk being different. A church can be refreshingly dissimilar to its surrounding society only through deliberately renewing their minds.

We might accurately say that the city surrounding the church of Sardis had nearly killed it. Christ had little to say in favor of this ancient church. In fact, I can think of few indictments more serious to a group of believers than these three words: “You are dead” (Rev. 3:1). I believe dead churches are one of the most confounding mysteries to the hosts of heaven. The ministering spirits that invisibly flood the atmosphere must look on the church then back on the radiance of Jesus Christ and wonder how anything that carries His name can be dead. Above all things, Christ is life!

What invaded the church of Sardis with such deadness? The history of this ancient city suggests three permeating contributors:

1. The people of Sardis were fixated on death rather than life. Perhaps you’ll be as interested as I was to learn that Sardis was best known for a necropolis called the “cemetery of the thousand hills” about seven miles from town. Can you imagine a city known for its cemeteries? But where burial mounds become idols, thoughts of death overtake thoughts of life. I once received a letter from a sister in Christ who was alarmed that I mentioned visiting the graveside of a friend. She was not unkind. She was simply surprised that anyone who believed so strongly in heaven would esteem meaningless remains by visiting a grave. Though I didn’t agree with her philosophy, if I were more focused on my believing friend’s death than her life, my sister would have a point.

But we don’t have to idolize burial mounds like the Sardians to focus on death more than life. Worship in its simplest essence is attentiveness. One way we can focus on death more than life is to possess a life-inhibiting fear of it. I have known people who were so scared of death they could hardly live. You might say they were worshiping burial mounds much like the Sardians—whether or not they realized it. A chronic fear of death can inhibit a believer’s entire life and ministry.

2. The people of Sardis relied on their past achievements. Sardis was like a leading lady in a Greek tragedy who waltzed around town in riches turned to rags thinking everyone still saw her as she was thirty years ago. In essence, Christ wrote the church of Sardis to hand this self-deceived woman a mirror—just like He’s handed one to me a time or ten. Christ does not hand someone a mirror to destroy, however. He hands her the mirror to wake her up!

I was invited a few years ago to attend some special homecoming festivities at my college alma mater. I greatly enjoyed renewing friendships and acquaintances. But I was mystified and somewhat amused as I watched other people “time warp,” holding a death grip on the past. If time warping weren’t so pitiful, it would be hilarious. Sardis was warped by time. She lived off her past fame, and the results were tragic. Unfortunately, the church within its walls had followed suit.

3. The people of Sardis likely interpreted rejection as a deathblow. Though the city of Sardis housed an incomplete temple of Artemis, they lost their bid to build a temple to Caesar in ad 26. Smyrna won the bid instead. Though the church of Sardis had nothing but disdain for pagan practices and temples, my hypothesis is that the people of the church unknowingly wore the same cloak of dejected identity as their surroundings. After all, they too were pagans until the gospel reached their gates—most likely under the preaching of the apostle Paul. I’d like to further hypothesize that the people of Sardis knew they needed a fresh shot of life and vitality when they bid Rome for the new temple. When they were rejected in favor of a rival city, I wonder if they took on an attitude all too common after rejection: Who cares anymore? Unless good reason exists to respond otherwise, rejection can cause people to lose heart faster than almost anything else.

Perhaps the following commentary best sums up the deadness of Sardis at the time of John’s vision: “Sardis was a city of peace. Not the peace won through battle, but the peace of a man whose dreams are dead and whose mind is asleep. The peace of lethargy and evasion.”80 I find that statement stunning not because it speaks so perfectly to an ancient city’s decay but because it speaks to many of us today.