Sardis: The Sordid Church

The Church at Sardis: Revelation 3:1-6

Introduction

How can a church be sordid? Isn't that the ultimate oxymoron? And yet of the Seven Churches of Asia, two were very bad--so bad that Christ had almost nothing good to say to them. Unlike His uniform greeting, "I know your works," in which He first commends what He finds worthy in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, and even Thyatira, He greets Sardis with a definitive thud: "I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead" (Revelation 3:1). How long can a church live on the fumes of its reputation before that reputation becomes a stench in the nostrils of God? And yet Sardis not only epitomizes the Church of the Last Days; it pictures the church of this present darkness.

An Undeserved Name

Sardis was a place of literal fumes generated from its once-prosperous dyeing industry. Turning wool red, for example, required an intense and extremely messy process that involved the crushing of millions of worms. At what price beauty? Sardis became so wealthy that luxury was woven into the psyche of the church. Not only was opulence the norm; the decadence that followed literally put Sardis watchmen to sleep--such that the city was captured twice for its somnambulance--once by Cyrus and then by Antiochus--because overconfident guards dozed off on their reputedly impregnable cliffs. Christ saw the carnage and not the clothing--not because a city has no right to an honest industry, but because the manufacture of textiles bled its way into the manipulation of the Sardis church's identity as a cloak that could cover death.

Death? What causes death? The Apostle Paul makes crystal clear that sin causes death (Romans 6:23; 8:6). If a church is dead, there is no mystery in the autopsy: sin has thrived behind the curtains of secrecy or sensationalism--and often, both. The law of distraction rivals the law of attraction in inventing an illusion of spiritual power that is clinically lifeless. "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away" (2 Timothy 3:5).

In the Sardis church, we see the mania of our times to justify the means to produce the end: so many celebrities raking in the millions, if not billions, praised as doing the work of the Lord--but a crimson trail traces back to the source: worms. What has been slain in the profit? Grammys won and paraded among near-naked recipients as Christian song artists smugly defend taking the "gospel" into the "dark spaces," as if they had any light to shed in the first place. And when those song artists cozy up to those who make a loud profession with no reality, we are left with appearances only--bloody graveclothes hiding a corpse.

When I was in middle school, my father pastored a church in Durand, Michigan, in the heart of farm country. Durand was also a railroad town and was notorious for its stalled trains. The mother of one of my school acquaintances and neighbors was even killed by a train when she tried to maneuver around the signal arms and stalled on the tracks. But what put this town on the map was its Scene Drive-in Theater--which my mother dubbed "Obscene Theater." When we found out that this pornographic open-air theater piped its filthy lucre into a large portion of the town cashflow, my mother volunteered to hold a special prayer meeting to put this hellhole out of business.

To my parents' utter amazement, the church treasurer--who also held a respected position at a local bank--doggedly disagreed, saying, "That's just the way they make their money." This otherwise dignified and godly appearing lady died soon thereafter, and the Lord thankfully led us away from this town of sordid repute. Time has borne out that this theater's influence spread its decay to becoming a global chain of adult entertainment clubs.

But watch how these Christian celebrities today mask their sins by calling everything an evangelistic tool. Associations that have no place in the life of the Christian--whether with singers in unrepentant open marriages or those who pander to alternate lifestyles--there seems to be no standard in the church today. But what does Jesus say to this "pew-trid" church? Perhaps we would push back against an inference between luxury and decadence, but Christ Himself tells us that we cannot serve God and mammon--for the precise reason that serving mammon usually, if not always, demands that we let our scruples float off like scarves to the wind.

An Undefiled Name

Offstage of the pageant, Christ finds a remnant: "Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy" (Revelation 3:4). How is this even possible? Mrs. Charles Cowman, in her devotional classic, Springs in the Valley, tells of the lovely ermine who would rather be captured by its pursuers than to enter its tar-bedaubed den as an escape. Prizing its purity "even in Sardis," the brilliantly white little carnivore proves that it is indeed possible to resist "the garment spotted by the flesh" (Jude 23).

But Christ is no elitist. He clearly commands His lost and befouled church to repent, being not only watchful against the sloth that lured them astray in the first place but mindful of "the things which remain, that are ready to die" (Revelation 3:2). And unlike so many either-or obsessively analytical theologians today, He does not tell Sardis that--if they are "lost" now--they were never saved. To do so would be to create such profound confusion no one would ever know if they were really saved--if they found themselves capable of falling away. On the contrary, Christ commands, "Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent" (Revelation 3:3). A wise pastor once said that the place of repentance is the place where you last obeyed. You will find Christ exactly where you left Him.

Christ knows no lost causes, only lost sheep. We must not forget that He calls the lost "sheep" and not "goats." Didn't every soul first belong to Christ? We must also remember that "even in Sardis," it is possible to live a holy life. And even these sordid, lost "sheep" can repent and overcome: "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment" (Revelation 3:5). This high-stakes invitation proves two things: that those who have not defiled their garments must yet remain watchful against their peers' fate and that those already soiled may be dyed with Christ's righteousness. His crimson death dyes our garments white.

An Undying Name

The choices Christ gives are clear: those who do not repent and watch against further sloth and sordor will be overtaken by Christ Himself: "If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee" (Revelation 3:3). Neither Cyrus nor Antiochus can invoke the terror of the Day of the Lord against His sleeping church.

But those who do stay awake, vigilant not only against sin itself but against the "very appearance of evil," will not only avoid the stigma of an undeserved name or enjoy the stamina of an undefiled name; they will earn an undying name: "And I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels" (Revelation 3:5). Imagine being found worthy to walk with Christ in white with a name deserved--a name that shall not be blotted out of the book of life but that shines as the stars forever and ever. This name is not only documented; it is declared by Christ Himself and undimmed by time itself.

My father told a story of the Queen of England, who received the whitest paper she had ever seen. It had come from a mill that refurbished the filthiest rags of London. "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Isaiah 1:18). Jesus knows our works, and He alone can make us white.