Wake Up the Church

Wake Up the Church
Rev. 3:1-6

Jesus speaks to the church at Sardis

For the last 30 years the preaching across America has suggested that the current state of church in America is like the church at Laodicea. The church at Laodicea was a luke warm church. It was full of complacency and apathy. Is it possible that the current state of the church in America is no longer a luke warm church but a dead church? Acts chapter 2 describes an alive church as being one that is devoted to the teaching of the Apostles. It was a church with warm fellowship, active ministry, and dynamic preaching. It was a church where lost souls were being saved on a consistent basis. If the statistics circulating these days about church growth and in particular those that are growing evangelistically, then surely we would have to say if the church is not dead, her vital signs are so weak that we would have to use a heavily amplified stethoscope to get a heart beat.

The standard Jesus used for the church at Sardis is a great word for a dying church. Boiled down to a nutshell, Jesus used a negative tone of prophetic speaking and gave us three descriptions of an alive church.

He described its:
1. Vibrancy
2. Vision
3. Victory

1. Vibrancy. As Jesus speaks so sternly to this church, a local church, a local called assembly, He pronounces them dead on arrival. They have a name that says they are alive, but they are dead. Evidently they have a reputation of being an alive church, but in reality, they are dead. There must be activity for He says He knows their deeds. Truthfully they are a church that is alive to many things, they are just not alive to spiritual things and a church that is not alive to the things of God is a dead church.

Perhaps the church at Sardis was alive to the flesh rather than the Spirit. Romans 8:5-10 explains so very clearly that one alive to the flesh is dead to the spirit. Perhaps they were a church that was filled with unbelief and as Jesus did not do many miracles in Nazareth due to unbelief, neither did he do many in Sardis because they were filled with unbelief.

An alive church, on the other hand, is a church that is alive to the Spirit. It is a church that hungers and thirsts after righteousness. It is a church that Acts 2 describes as a people that are in awe of what God is doing. It is a church filled with belief that an all powerful, supernatural creator of the universe is personally intervening, as an answer to their prayers in the daily affairs of their lives. It is a church full of belief. It is a church that is filled with positives because the negative produced by unbelief is driven away. It is a church with a testimony of vibrancy because it is a church full of people with a vibrant walk with Jesus.

2. Vision. In verse 2 Jesus sends out the resounding call for the church to wake up. Some years ago I served on the local volunteer fire department. One day we were called to an accident where a man was seriously injured. As a matter of fact, by all appearance he was just a corpse. As the medical technicians arrived, they discovered some kind of faint pulse in the man's neck. They immediately moved to action sticking needles here and needles there. They put a contraption over his mouth and began to breath for him. After a period of time his limbs once again responded. The man was alive. In this verse we see the same picture. There is a little life with a great opportunity for resuscitation. But it is the vision that will allow and encourage a revival to their soul. Jesus says your works are not complete. They are not finished. They can look forward to more supernatural working in their presence because God is not yet finished if they will merely repent. We are reminded that according to the written Word of God when he begins a work He will finish the work.

3. Victory. An alive church is a victorious church. It is a church that understands that it does not work to victory but from victory. Jesus says that there are and will be those of this church that wear robes of white, whose names will not be blotted out of the book of life. The imagery included in these verses is of a kingdom that keeps records of all that are born. It is as if God has a huge book in which the names of every person who will ever live on earth were written down. Those people come and live on the earth. Some receive eternal life to live forever. Others refuse Jesus and have not eternal life. When a person passes from this life without Jesus, their names are blotted out of the book of life. But to those who have received Jesus Christ as personal savior, the blood of the lamb has caused those names to be written in such a way that they can never be blotted from the book of life.

The victorious church works from a position of victory. It is filled with people who have experienced victory and believe that God will bring victory to others. It is a church that understands the teaching of God’s Word that Jesus is sanctifying his Bride to receive her as a spotless Bride. It is a church that walks in confidence knowing that the devil is defeated and the Savior is exalted.

In order for the church to be unified in spirit, she must first be alive the Spirit. May God revive His church in America so that she is not dead but fully alive in the Spirit.