Pretty long post on the letter to the angel of the church in Sardis.

Believers, Christ says in Revelation 3:1–5 

“Write this letter to the angel of the church in Sardis. This is the message from the one who has the sevenfold Spirit of God and the seven stars:

“I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive—but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God. 3 Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again. If you don’t wake up, I will come to you suddenly, as unexpected as a thief.

4 “Yet there are some in the church in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes with evil. They will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 All who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine.”

No one better to interpret the Word than the Word Himself and by His Word. Five things to note here:

1. The church was a church of doers and had a reputation for being alive but it was dead. Christ counseled that they wake up and strengthen what little remains; even what is left is almost dead: This church is dead/dying

2. Christ said to them “I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God.”

3. Christ counseled that they go back to what they first believed: This church left the truth that it first believed

4. Christ counseled that they repent and turn to Him again: This church needed repentance.

5. There are some in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes with evil

So let’s look at these five issues:

1. The church was a church of doers and had a reputation for being alive but it was dead.

“I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive—but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead.”

This is a picture of people who profess Christ and are looked upon as “vibrant Christians” because of their many efforts at keeping the law and doing right. But all of their doing did not bring life. It brought death because they are works of the law. The result is death: the letter kills. How does this relate to the church today?

First understand that acts of sin is not what makes people sinners. People are made sinners because of Adam’s sin. See Romans 5:19 “By one Man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” Everyone descended from Adam is born with this sin/old nature. When the law is introduced as a means of attaining righteousness and thus obtaining eternal life, the sin nature is activated and sin proliferates. See Romans 7:5-

“When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death.”

The very act of trying to obey the law causes sin to multiply and results in death, hence the dead church. They were doers of the law.

This church (and others like it today) are those people who, after hearing the gospel of grace and became dead to the law and alive in Christ, returned to trying to obey the law in order to attain righteousness while still professing Christ as Saviour. Because the letter kills, death is the result.

See Paul’s words in Romans 7:9: “I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died;” Whenever we who are in Christ start to hinge our salvation on our ability to obey the commandment and not on the finished work of Christ, sin revives and the result is death. The letter kills. This church was trying to meet God’s requirements by their own human effort-driven actions and this takes us to the second point:

2. Christ says to this Church “I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God.”

The requirements of God are quite clear in the Law of Moses and the Prophets, including the Ten Commandments. There’s a snag for those who are trying to meet these requirements by themselves (whether fully, partially or just a tiny bit) and think that this is how to get to heaven, like the church in Sardis. We see this clause in Deuteronomy 28:15 -

“But it shall come about, if you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:” This is followed by a host of curses.

Did you notice the condition? You have to keep ALL of the law in order to avoid the curse. James 2:10 buttresses this point: “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.”

This means that for those who believe that their human effort at obeying the law is what will get them to heaven, the good man who does his best to obey the law but slipped up just one time is as guilty as the vilest offender in the universe. No difference.

Bear in mind that doing things like giving to the poor, adopting children and washing church toilets to get God to bless you in certain areas is law-keeping. In Christ, God gives us all things freely with Christ (Romans 8:32) and not because of our puny efforts at doing good things or doing what the law commands. Grace is unmerited favour.

Take God’s word for it “For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.” Romans 3:20.

Take God’s word for it: “But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under his curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law.” Galatians 3:10.

Note that Paul was not preaching to heathens! He was preaching to Galatian Christians who had been deceived into believing that obedience to the law of Moses was still crucial to their salvation as is being preached in many places of worship today. 

Romans 3:20 says "For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands..." but this church was trying to do so,  hence Christ's word to the church: “I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God.” All who try to obey the law in order to meet God’s requirements are under the curse.

3. Christ counseled that they go back to what they first believed: This church left the truth that it first believed. Christ counseled in Rev. 3:3- “Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again.”

But what did they first hear and believe? Paul addresses this in Galatians 1:6–7:

“I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.”

Here, we see that any message that is not the grace of Christ is not the gospel of Christ. The gospel is Grace- undeserved, unmerited, unearned favour. There is none other. This truth has been reversed in many places of worship. Many are teaching what they call a “balanced message” that incorporates human effort at obeying the law into the story of our salvation because, like the religious people of Paul’s day, they imagine that the gospel (none other than Grace) will cause people to go on sinning sprees-

“For the message of the cross is foolishness [absurd and illogical] to those who are perishing and spiritually dead [because they reject it], but to us who are being saved [by God’s grace] it is [the manifestation of] the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18.

Such teach that God’s acceptance of us is based on how obedient we are, even after we are saved. But see what Romans 3 says:

“27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.”

Grace, personified by our Saviour Jesus Christ, is our Teacher, not you or I. Grace does the transformation of hearts to right living. Grace stops sin. No human is that good a transformer. See the result in Titus 2-

“11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are His very own, eager to do what is good.

15 These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.”

See verse 15 For what teachers are to teach. Teach pure, unadulterated Grace - that in Christ we are righteous through and through, even when we sin, because we stand in Christ’s righteousness and not ours - and let Grace do the rest.

No matter how many times Noah fell in the ark, he never fell outside and into the flood. Today, we are in Christ, our own Ark and He will never cast us away, even when we fall. Rather, He saves us from our sins. In Christ, we do not continue to live in sin, not because of our measly efforts at obeying the Ten Commandments but because Christ saves us from our sins. See Matt. 1:21 - “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

It is Christ’s “Neither do I condemn you” that makes us “go and sin no more,” not more laws. The letter kills. People might try to despise you for it but keep on believing and preaching Grace and Grace will do the transformation in your life and in that of others who are hearing the truth by Grace.

Paul says of those who attempt to distort the gospel of Christ in Galatians 1: “8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!”

A double curse on those who try to distort the gospel of Christ. By grace, let’s not be found here.

4. Christ counseled that they repent and turn to Him again: This church needed repentance.

When many of us believers think of the word Repentance, we think "feeling really bad because we sinned," promising God that we will "stop sinning," and making the decision to "live a holy life from now on." But did you notice that there is no Saviour Jesus in this equation? It’s all human effort but the arm of flesh will fail.

Matthew 1:21 says: “And she will have a Son, and you are to name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” But Jesus does not do anything in this "stop sinning by yourself or burn" kind of repentance that we hear in many churches. This is a Judas kind of repentance - towards self and not towards God. This is repentance to death and not repentance to life. The Parable of the Lost Sheep shows us what true repentance is - a gift from God. The Good Shepherd sought and found the sheep, carried it home on His shoulders and celebrated a sheep that had gone astray. The sheep did nothing but go astray but we understand from the parable that the sheep repented. But how? By allowing himself to be carried by our Saviour. It is the goodness of God that leads to repentance, and not that breast- beating, restitution-driven repentance like that of Judas which relies on human effort at righting oneself before God.

5. There are some in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes with evil

Christ said to the church in Rev. 3: “4 You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. 5 He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”

1 John 5:4 tells us who “He who overcomes” are: “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”

“Born of God” loops in with Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3– born again; born of the Spirit. Our victory comes through faith, as it was with the centurion and the Canaanite woman who received from Jesus without baggage’s of fasts, laws kept and good deeds done. This is faith.

Our worthiness/righteousness is found in Christ. Remember “There is none righteous, no, not one” so these saints with unsoiled clothes are those who have Christ as their righteousness and not theirs which proceeds from obedience to the law. Isaiah calls this kind of righteousness that stems from human effort “ a menstrual rag” in Isaiah 64:6 - “We have all become like the unclean; all our righteous deeds are like a menstrual rag.”

When we go back to trying to obey the law in order to be righteous and “Rapture-worthy,” we reject the gift of righteousness that Christ died that we might have and thus reject Christ. No salvation here. Only death. Thus the dead/dying church in Sardis. Galatians 5:4 says-

“For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.”

Again this verse was not written to heathens but to believers.

Remember Romans 6:14– “For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under Law but under Grace.” Sin has dominion over those who try to keep the law in order to remain righteous and heaven-bound but many have this verse backwards, striving to keep the law and thus giving sin free rein. No faith here. The law is not of faith.

This is the ONLY way to escape the hell-bound group that begins with the fearful and the unbelieving in Revelation: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved…”Our own righteousnesses from obedience to the law can never take us there.

Even worse is having one leg on Mount Zion and the other on Mount Sinai, mixing law and Grace; professing Christ as Saviour yet trying to attain righteousness through the law: neither hot nor cold, like the church in Laodicea. We are saved by grace through faith and not by works, even salvation from acts of sin.

With Christ, we don’t HAVE TO live right; we GET TO live right; not by human effort so we can’t take credit for it, but because:

“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20.

How can we who no longer live do anything to obtain or maintain our salvation? Rest in Christ is not inactivity. Rest in Christ is Holy Spirit-directed activity. In Christ, we get to live and do right, yet not us but Christ in us. We get to produce “Isaac” works (born according to the Spirit) and not “Ishmael” works (born according to the flesh aka human effort) Isaac got the inheritance. Ishmael was cast out. See Galatians 4 for Paul’s analogy of Law and Grace as Hagar and Sarah. In Christ, Grace is our mother.

Believers, Christ has done it all. Let’s live life “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;” Philippians 1:6