Sleeping Your Life Away

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Revelation 3:1-6

July 13, 2014 • Portage First UMC

One of the things I discovered during our vacation is how good sleep feels. There was only one or two days when we had to set an alarm, and while it took me a few days to adjust to a less programmed schedule, I got really used to it—so much so that it was hard start responding to an alarm again when we returned home! I hear people saying that vacations are often a time to “catch up” on their sleep, which recognizes what we’ve been told for many years now, that we simply don’t get enough sleep. The National Institutes of Health suggests that school-age children need at least 10 hours of sleep daily, teens need 9-10 hours, and adults need 7-8 hours. Yet, most adults report getting 6 or fewer hours of sleep each night. It’s become nearly epidemic, according to the Center for Disease Prevention and Control, so much so that sleep deprivation is often linked to motor vehicle crashes, industrial disasters, and medical and other occupational errors. The CDC says, “Persons experiencing sleep insufficiency are…more likely to suffer from chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, depression, and obesity, as well as from cancer, increased mortality, and reduced quality of life and productivity.” Sleep insufficiency has been called a “public health concern” because to be able to physically function properly, we need our sleep (http://www.cdc.gov/features/dssleep/). Sleep is good.

But there are other forms of sleep that can be dangerous, even deadly. Physical sleep is good, even healthy, but spiritual sleep is dangerous, and that’s what the church at Sardis found themselves experiencing, even though they weren’t aware of it. This morning, we’re continuing our journey through these churches in Asia Minor that Jesus sent letters to near the end of the first century. These seven churches were situated in cities that formed a semi-circle, a circuit of sorts, and they had been overseen, to an extent, by the Apostle John. John was currently exiled on the island of Patmos because of his faith in Jesus, and while he is on the island, Jesus came to him in a vision not just to tell him what was to come in the future, but mostly to encourage him and strengthen the churches, to call them back to faithfulness. In chapter two of the Revelation, we’ve looked at Jesus’ messages to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum and Thyatira. Now, as we begin chapter three, we turn to the church at Sardis.

Sardis was an important city for Greek culture and religion, located about thirty miles southeast of Thyatira. It was once a royal city, but by John’s time it was a part of the Roman Empire, having been willed to the Empire by the last king. Still, even though the days of royalty were past, Sardis was still a wealthy city, a place where luxury was the key word and morality was considered to be unimportant. It was a place of peace, but, as later historians record it, it was “the peace of the man whose dreams are dead and whose mind is asleep” (qtd. in Johnson, “Revelation,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 12, pg. 448). Because it had been a royal city, it was a place of polytheism, which means that many gods were worshipped here. Even though the primary “goddess” was Artemis, as it was at Ephesus, other gods were tolerated and people were encouraged to “just get along” with one another. Sardis boasted the largest ancient Jewish synagogue outside of Palestine, and yet it contained pagan symbols alongside the Star of David. The Empire pretty much said you could worship as you wanted as long as you didn’t consider your god to be any greater than any of the Roman gods. Sardis was a place of pluralism, a place of getting along.

Sardis also had a history of military strength. It was built on a hill and the fortifications towered above the valley below. The acropolis, or highest part of the city, was 800 feet above the main part of the city, and because of its setting, attackers usually found it difficult to fight against an army that was that far above them. However, there were two incidents in which Sardis was conquered. The first, in 549 BC, happened during the days of the famously wealthy King Croesus. The attacking army had surrounded the city but couldn’t find a way in until, one night, while most of the Sardians slept, one of the soldiers sworn to protect Sardis forgot a very important rule of combat: if you drop your helmet, don’t go after it. During the night, he dropped his helmet and, thinking no one was watching, he went down the winding path on the southern side of the city, though a secret door, retrieved his helmet, and then returned through the same secret door. A sharp Persian soldier saw him, and that night, while Sardis slept, the Persians followed the path up to the summit and captured the city while they slept (Johnson 447; Mulholland [a], Revelation, pg. 118). The second take-over happened in 218 BC, and on that occasion the attacking army noticed a group of vultures hovering over a particular part of the city. Upon investigating, they realized that was the place where the dead bodies were thrown over the wall, and that was a part of the city no one was protecting. That night, some of the brave soldiers scaled the wall under the cover of darkness and took the city—again, while most of the population was sleeping (Mulholland [b], “Revelation,” Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol. 18, pg. 446). The Sardians learned that things can change when you sleep! All of that is an important part of their history that is in their minds as they begin to hear this letter from Jesus.

Now, if you remember, in each of the letters so far, Jesus begins with compliments for the church he is writing to, but not with Sardis. He begins the same way he does with the other churches: “I know your deeds.” At this point, they are probably expecting a list of the good things they have done. Instead, this is what they hear: “You have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead” (3:1). They have a reputation for being awake, Jesus says, a reputation for being strong and unbeatable, but they are actually asleep. Their reputation was great, but Jesus could see beyond their “name.” He was looking at their true nature when he says, “You are dead.” You are asleep. The church in Sardis had not learned the lesson of their own history, so Jesus calls them to “wake up!” (3:2).

How does a church fall asleep? Is it because they’ve simply listened to too many sermons? How does a church get to the place where it is “about to die”? That’s the way Jesus describes Sardis: “about to die.” No one would have thought that of the church. They had a good, solid reputation. They were a pillar in the community, despite Christianity being an outlawed religion by this time. And yet, Jesus says, “I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God” (3:2). We don’t have a record of what they were doing, and it’s not that Jesus is saying they needed to do more. Rather, when you think about the culture, and the emphasis on “getting along” that surrounded them, it seems that Sardis was failing to do whatever they did with the purpose of bringing others to Jesus. Perhaps the message was watered down so they could “get along.” Perhaps they had forgotten that they served one who claimed to the way, the truth and the life (cf. John 14:6). This may be a reference to slack habits, to only doing “the minimum,” showing up for worship and living the rest of your week like Jesus didn’t exist. Like the person who says, “The boss is coming, look busy,” Sardis was trying to appear busy to impress the culture but they failed to meet Christ’s expectations. They heard, but they did not obey, and so they have become the center of nominal Christianity. What’s the least I have to believe and do in order to get into heaven? Sardis offers faith that is only a shell of its true self. It’s the kind of faith described in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, where one character says, “Don’t the Bible say we must love everybody?” The other person responds, “O, the Bible! To be sure, it says a great many things; but, then, nobody ever thinks of doing them” (qtd. in Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, pg. 160). The Sardians are asleep to Jesus. They are near death unless something happens to change them from the inside out.

It’s a bit like the work of Samuel Tewk with the mentally ill. In the nineteeth-century, it was customary for asylum workers to chain so-called “lunatics” to the walls and beat them. In fact, it was the prevailing medical belief that such a punishment would drive out the evil forces within the mentally ill patients. Tewk, mercifully, took a different approach. He would dress the patients the way everyone else dressed, and teach them how to behave at tea parties and in church. No one would be able to tell they were mentally ill. The only problem was Tewk’s treatment did nothing to address the actual illness. On the outside, they seemed fine; on the inside, they remained mentally ill (Yancey 208). Sardis looks good on the outside, but on the inside they were close to dying.

Bob Mulholland says they are many Sardis-type churches in the world today, and every church is always in danger of becoming like Sardis. Mulholland puts it this way: “They might be alive with ‘exciting’ worship that appeals to the tastes of the culture but dead to the genuine awe and humility of true worship. They might be alive with ‘entertaining’ programs for children, youth, and adults but dead to the transforming grace of God. They might be alive with ‘socially aware’ attitudes and activities but dead to the liberating power of God. They might be ‘alive’ with the world’s perspectives, values, and behaviors but ‘dead’ to those of the kingdom” ([b] 446-447). Aliveness or deadness is not about theological perspectives or dogmatic beliefs. It’s about being open and available and, yes, alive to the Spirit of God. It’s about being more than a chair-sitter. Is it enough to just come to church and then live faithlessly all week long? Or does Jesus call us to more, to living out that faith, to loving one another in spite of our differences, to loving the world that often rejects us? It is enough to “just look busy” while achieving little or nothing (Wright, Revelation for Everyone, pg. 30)? You have a reputation of being alive, Jesus tells Sardis, but you are dead. And unless something changes, you will remain dead.

I mentioned a few moments ago that Sardis boasted a temple to Artemis. Before Roman times, Artemis was known as Cybele, a goddess who had the power of life over death. So here’s this huge temple to Artemis or Cybele, who claims to have the power of life. And then there’s the church of Jesus, worshipping a Savior who conquered death. The question for the church was who would they turn to to find hope? Where would they find life? Churches today face that same dilemma, that same question. Are we going to invest our energy in finding life in Jesus or in something else—a program, a conference, a speaker, a bestselling book? I had a pastor friend many years ago who was always telling me about the latest program he had discovered, and every time it was, “This is the one, this is the program that is going to wake the church up and turn us around.” And pretty soon, it was off to the next program, the next idea. The challenge for us in our world today is the same as it was for the Sardians: “Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die” (3:2). The image there is of a house built on the shore near a body of water. Bit by bit, the shoreline is being eaten away by the water. If the person who owns the house doesn’t build a sea wall, they could soon find their house falling into the water. Strengthen what remains before it’s too late!

So how do they (and we) go about that? Jesus is basically telling the church they need to start from scratch, that they need to take what little is left of the faith they once had and build on that. The text literally says, “Remember how you received and heard,” so basically he means to go back to the beginning. Go back to the basics. Much like people who have serious health issues or replacement surgeries have to learn to walk or talk to do basic things all over again, Jesus tells the Sardians that’s the way they need to approach their faith. Start over by remembering what you learned at the very first. Then, he says, “hold it fast, and repent” (3:3). The text literally says, “keep it,” or “obey.” There is a connection between hearing and obeying, but they must come in that order. Listen to what Jesus is saying, remember the basics, then do those things. Live out what you know. Live what you say you believe. The reason they are “asleep” is because they are doing things without listening to Jesus first; they are paying more attention to the culture than to Christ. Remember what you heard, then do it.

Now, I want to be clear here. Jesus is not teaching that we or the Sardians will be saved or made righteous by our works. Like many today, they liked the idea that if they just did enough “good things,” they would be all right. Christians throughout history have struggled with this tension. John Wesley’s early writings are filled with the frustration that the works he was doing didn’t seem to help him “feel” the salvation of Christ. When he came as a missionary to Georgia, he wrote that he came to convert others, but he wondered who would save him (cf. Journal, Feb. 29, 1738). Martin Luther committed himself to a blameless life as a monk, and yet all of his good works could never give him peace. He would spend as much as six hours a day racking his brain, trying to remember sins he might have committed the day before (Yancey 207). Then Luther stumbled across passages in Paul’s writing that suggested another way: “For…the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). What became the Protestant Reformation began by believing that salvation is a free gift.

Then there’s the book of James. In fact, Luther wished that book were not in the Bible; he called it an “an epistle of straw.” You see, James tells us that “as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead” (James 2:26), and he says that, for people such as Abraham, “faith was made complete by what he did” (James 2:22). James challenges his church: “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds” (James 2:18). Later on in the book of Revelation, we’re told that at the final judgment, the dead will be “judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books” (20:12). If we believe, as we do, that we are not saved by our works, what do we do with those words?

Sometimes, we want to believe that we can “earn” God’s favor by doing things because that somehow seems easier than believing that salvation is a free gift given to anyone who asks. But it’s called “grace” for a reason. Salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ alone. So, then, where does Jesus get off judging Sardis by their works? Here’s the way it works: we are given a free gift of grace. We are offered a relationship with Jesus. Once we accept that free gift, it is our actions that demonstrate our acceptance of that gift. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak. The evidence is found in our deeds, which is why Jesus has told all of these churches, “I know your deeds.” They show me whether you love me or not. After all, when you love someone, you find yourself wanting to do things to express that love. When there is a storm or a crisis, the actions of persons and organizations show their level of concern for those less fortunate. Their deeds prove the truth of their words. Jesus gave Sardis the free gift of salvation, but by their actions they have shown that it was only accepted on the surface. “You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead…I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God” (3:1-2).

So Jesus challenges the Sardians to wake up and to look around at the few in the fellowship who have not “soiled their clothes” (3:4), for these are the ones who are doing the things Jesus commends the other churches for. In that world, people were identified by their clothing—or rather, at least their place in life was identified by their clothing. The most important people could wear purple, the next most important could wear red and so on. A person’s clothing told the world what that person was like (cf. Mulholland [b] 445). To stain your clothing was a disgrace. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m really good at managing to wear something white when I’m having Italian food, and I’m also good at managing to get just a little bit of sauce on that white shirt—almost every time! Cathy’s Grandpa had a whole closet full of ties with egg stains on them, because every Sunday, after church, he would go out to breakfast and manage to drop egg on his tie. Stains may not be a disgrace anymore, but they do tend to embarrass us. Yet that’s the image Jesus uses here: the unfaithful Sardians have “soiled” their clothes. They’ve brushed up against something that has made them less than pure. Most likely he’s referring to false religious systems all around them, the ones they were trying to “get along with” by not being offensive. And we know that white shows stains better than anything else. So while they may have been “asleep” and somewhat unaware, Jesus can clearly see the stain on their clothing, the ways they have failed to be faithful. So of those who haven’t stained their clothes, he says, “They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white” (3:4-5). In that ancient world, whenever a king or a military leader triumphed over an enemy, he would return to a huge parade, and he would wear white because he was the victorious one, the conqueror, the overcomer. And all of his followers would also wear white robes to celebrate the victory. Jesus promises that those who return to him, who repent, who live out their faith will be with him in the victory parade.

But then there’s this other matter in verse 5: “I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels” (3:5). This is a promise to the victorious, but I first want to consider what it means to those who have soiled their clothing, who are asleep. In the ancient world, cities maintained citizenship lists, but not everyone could be on that citizenship list. Only those who were born into particular families or who had paid a large sum of money were granted the right of citizenship (cf. Acts 22:28). To be a citizen, you had to look and act a certain way. You had to live and behave as a citizen. There was a custom, a grim custom, that said that anyone who was found guilty of a crime deserving death was first brought to the registrar to have their name blotted out of the book that contained the citizenship list. Only then would that person be put to death, but since they were no longer a citizen, it would not impact the city’s reputation. No citizens, in other words, were ever put to death because the condemned were removed, blotted out, first (Wright 31). In Revelation 20, we hear of the Book of Life, and we’re told that all whose names are not found there are thrown into the lake of fire (20:11-15). All who are not citizens of the kingdom. It’s another stark image from this final book of the Bible, and it’s an image that would remind the church at Sardis of those citizenship rosters. Their names could be removed. They could become a non-citizen, a non-person, in both Sardis and in the kingdom of God. But this verse is also a promise to the victorious, to the overcomer. It’s a promise of eternal citizenship. The names of the victorious will never be blotted out of the citizenship list of God’s kingdom because nothing will ever separate us from the love of Christ, not even death itself (cf. Rom. 8:38-39; Johnson 449). So by falling spiritually asleep, the Sardians are giving up their eternal citizenship; they are literally sleeping their life away!

But to those who have remained awake, who have kept their citizenship, Jesus says he will confess their names before the Father. Not only will their names be found on the citizenship list, but when their names are read, Jesus will say, “Yes, I know him! I know her! They are mine!” A similar promise is given in Matthew’s Gospel, as Jesus himself describes the last judgment: “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:32).

It’s the importance of the name that links these two promises. For the ancient Hebrews and the early Christians, names were vitally important. As I’ve shared before, names weren’t randomly selected from a book or because they sounded nice. Names were chosen to describe a person (Mulholland [a] 122). To know a person’s name was to know something about him or her, to know their nature. So Jacob in the Old Testament is named “Heel-Grabber.” Jesus’ name means, “God Saves.” We thought a lot about that when we named our children. Christopher means “Christ-bearer” and Rachel means “little lamb” or “lamb of God.” We want them to have pride in their names and to grow into them. And knowing someone’s name puts you in relationship with them. So more than anything else, we want Jesus to know their names and ours and yours. On that all-important final day, when the victorious present themselves before the throne of God, we want to hear Jesus say, “I know your name. I know what you’re like. You are my friend.”  Those who profess to knowing Jesus here are the victorious, and they will find him confessing their names before the Father.

The church in Sardis has become just like their city, relying on its past fame to carry it into the future. And more than that, they had adopted the same “go along to get along” mindset, failing to stand for Jesus in the midst of a pagan culture. Jesus’ letter reminds them (and us) that you can’t have a vital faith that rests only in the past or is just like everyone else; to be victorious means you are walking with Christ today and that you will walk with Christ tomorrow, and him alone.

A story is told of the donkey who carried Jesus into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday. As he woke up on Monday, he remembered the excitement of the day before. He decided to head back into town and soon found a group of people by the well. He showed himself to them, but they didn’t seem to notice or care. “Throw your garments down,” he said crossly. “Don’t you know who I am?” They just looked at him in amazement. “Miserable heathens!” he muttered to himself. “I’ll go to the market where the good people are.” But in the market the same thing happened. No one paid any attention to the donkey. “The palm branches! Where are the palm branches?” he shouted. “Yesterday, you threw palm branches!” Hurt and confused, he returned home to his mother. She looked at him, listened to his story, and then replied gently, “Foolish child. Don’t you realize that without him, you’re just an ordinary donkey?” (More Hot Illustrations, pg. 138).

And Jesus says to the church at Sardis, “Foolish church! Don’t you realize that without me, you’re just an ordinary group of people singing songs and reading words.” And so comes the challenge to wake up, to stop sleeping your life away! There are people today who are just like the Sardians: on the outside, they appear to be nice people, even perhaps Christian, but on the inside, nothing has really changed. As Pastor Scotty Smith writes, “We dare not equate being in the pews with being in Christ” (Unveiled Hope, pg. 54). We’re called to more. We’re called to live out our faith, to make a difference in this world by everything we do and say.

You know, it’s become fashionable today to blame God or even to blame the church when we’re confronted with poverty or illness or unexplainable suffering. Why doesn’t God do something, we rant and rave. And God gently whispers: “I did do something. I made you.” He sends us, his church, into the world to make a difference, to reach out to the least, the last and the lost. Those actions do not save us; they demonstrate our salvation. The great British legislator, William Wilberforce, came to know Christ and wondered if he should stay in politics. Due to the influence of both John Wesley and John Newton, he did, but when he was confronted with the evils of the slave trade, he knew his faith compelled him to do something about it. He literally gave his entire life to ending the slave trade in England. Now, you may not be called to do something on that level, though you might, but in what ways can you live out your faith here and now, in this place? You can take on poverty and hunger by donating to Feed by Lambs, or working at the Car Show, or going to the Food Bank and helping to stuff the boxes that are delivered. You can fight illiteracy by reading to a child. You can respond to people in your work or in your home or in your neighborhood with the love of Christ rather than the disdain of the world. You can share that love with another person, or with a child by volunteering to work at our Bible School next week. In every way, every day, you find ways both little and big to shine the light of Jesus and refuse to confine your faith to just sitting in these chairs here for an hour each week. Many of you may know I like to frequent Starbucks. It’s a place I can get away from the phones and enjoy a nice atmosphere for thinking and writing. And there’s a guy who is often there that, to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to have anything to do with. He’s got issues, and he doesn’t always smell all that good. Then, he found out I am a pastor, and I admit I found myself thinking, “Great, now I have to be nice to him!” But, do you know, we’ve had some interesting conversations across the months and years. We’ve talked about God and church and Jesus, and had I refused to live out my faith, I wouldn’t have had that opportunity and neither would he. I don’t know if I’m making a difference in his life or not, but I know it’s changed me and made me, hopefully, a better disciple of Jesus. After all, that’s what Jesus’ call here is all about: waking up and being better followers of him who loves us more than we can imagine. Don’t just sit. Don’t just come to church. Be a disciple. Be a follower. Be victorious. That’s Jesus’ call to us. “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (3:6). Amen.