In his sermon titled 'Are You Dead, Dying, or Alive?', Scott Brown explores Revelation 3:1-6, focusing on the letter to the church in Sardis. This church, though appearing alive, is spiritually dead. Brown emphasizes the importance of self-examination and repentance, urging individuals and the church to awaken from their spiritual slumber. He outlines the three types of people in the church: the dead, those who can be revived, and those who are alive, and provides five imperatives for revival: wake up, strengthen what remains, remember and hold fast to what they have heard, and repent. Brown stresses the role of the Holy Spirit in bringing life to the dead and reviving the dying, noting that churches and individuals can recover through the Spirit's power. The sermon serves as a call to action for spiritual renewal, warning against complacency and urging a return to authentic faith.

Please open to Revelation chapter 3 and I'll be reading from verses 1 through 6. Revelation chapter 3, 1 through 6. This is the inerrant, sufficient, holy, life-giving word of truth for this church today. Verse 1, And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, these things says, he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works, that you have a name, that you are alive, But you are dead.

Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die. For I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard hold fast and repent Therefore if you will not watch I will come upon you as a thief and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. 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.

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. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Let's pray. Lord, you've laid a very sobering set of words before our eyes to bring us to self-examination as individuals and as a church. Oh Lord we pray that this moment would have its perfect work in our hearts and in this church that you would move us that you would equip us that you would make us like Jesus that you would raise the dead and that you would revive the ones who are dying here today in this church Lord we pray amen please be seated Amen.

Please be seated. Preachers don't always have the option to bring an affirming, uplifting, positive message to the church. They have a job to do and that job has to do with delivering a message from God, from His Word. You might want to bring an affirming message, but when you encounter a passage like this, you recognize that you don't always have that opportunity. Everyone knows the joy of someone who caught cancer early.

When you catch cancer early you rejoice because then you can get a handle on it and I pray that they will have this effect with us today. So as we continue this expositional study in the book of Revelation we're here at the the letter to the fifth church of Jesus Christ, the church of Sardis. This is a church on her deathbed and frankly you know the greatest danger to our church or to any church is Not the loss of religious freedom. It's not more Lockdown orders. It's not the Equality Act.

It's nothing like that The greatest danger is having a name that you're alive, but you're dead. And it's a danger to our church, and it's a danger to us individually as well. One commentator, Dennis Johnson, called this letter a somber letter for a slumbering church. He called the church spiritually unconscious in comatose comfort. Thomas Watson characterized this church as pretenders to sainthood.

He said they were deceiving their own souls. John MacArthur's commentary says that what you have here are unredeemed people playing church. This is also a case I think where the contentment in a church is no virtue at all. It's actually a damning quality. This church was content with themselves.

It's sobering, I know, for all of us because we've experienced a church full of peace for a very long season. And this was a church at peace. We appreciate times at peace. But what kind of peace was this? It was the peace of a cemetery.

Now as we read this we need to always remember the purpose of the book of Revelation and the purpose of the book of Revelation is to reveal the wisdom and the majesty and the glory of Jesus Christ in his treatment of the church and of the devil And we see here an unveiling of his beauty and his superior wisdom for the church. As we read this we should just recognize how kind and wise Jesus is toward his church and these words come out of this wellspring of his glory in his dealing with his church. Jesus is a wonderful Savior and he always speaks the truth in love and in this in this letter the Lord Jesus is displaying his zeal to bring the dead to life and to bring the dying back from their trajectory and literally to revive an entire church. And so this was a church in decline. One thing that this teaches us is that any church can be in decline and not know it.

But the words of the Lord Jesus Christ come to shake that church out of her slumber. And what's so amazing about this passage is that Jesus actually gives very specific instructions about how she can recover and that there's hope for the dreariest soul, there's hope for the dead, and there's hope for the dying. And that's really the the blessed part of this whole letter here. Now I want to give you kind of a global picture of this letter. I think there are three kinds of people that are being addressed in this letter.

And the first are the dead. They have a name that they're alive, but they're just dead. You know, like they say in Texas, they're all hat and no cattle. There's nothing there. And the second kind are those who can be revived.

And you find these in verse 2, and they're very specific instructions for how to bring them back to life. They're on a downward trajectory. Things aren't like they used to be and they are dying and he speaks of how that they might come out of it. And then the third are those who are alive that's in verse 4 you have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments So there are some who are alive there. So there are these different categories of people.

You always have these three categories of people in a church. And so the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to this kind of church. If you have an outline in front of you, you'll see in verse 1, Jesus is addressing a dying endangered church, and secondly, he addresses what to do about it in verses 2 and 3. And then in verse 4, there's a description of the faithful in that church and then fourth there are the blessings of escaping from this deadness in verse 5 there are four blessings that are promised. We'll go through them one by one.

And then the final appeal. I hope you follow the words in your Bible. I plan to keep very tight to the text here. So we first encounter this endangered church, this dead church, to the angel of the church in Sardis right. And we notice that this letter is very much like the letter to the church in Ephesus.

There's some real similarities. This city was about 30 miles south of Slyatire. As you know, these seven churches are on a male route, start in the south, moving up to the north, and then headed back southeast again. And this is probably the city of Aesop. He was probably from Sardis.

The complacent city, it was a complacent city. And historians say that their complacency was shaped by their history by being caught off guard in two attacks. Most commentators mention this history. It may be true that we should correlate this with this church, but I'm not sure about that. These things happened hundreds of years before the writing of this letter.

But what most commentators say is that this overconfident populace were in a city high on a mountain that was impregnable but not completely impregnable and they were attacked a couple of times they were overconfident in 1820 visitors visited the city there were no churches there at that time. I think the most accurate picture of what was really going wrong in this church is declared in verses 2 & 3 where you find Jesus Christ's remedy. We'll get to that in a minute. I think that we shouldn't necessarily rely on the historical backdrops of it, but exactly what Jesus says is the repair. The repair points to the problem.

So I think we should recognize that. And we have the messenger, these things says he who has the seven spirits of God and The seven stars and so the Lord Jesus Christ is bringing a word from the spirit seven is the number representing completeness and therefore the Lord Jesus is coming to be the representative of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. His words are perfectly from the Holy Spirit and Jesus is just underlining that he is the voice of the Spirit. To a church that was devoid of the Spirit did not have life even though they thought and others thought they had life. And the church had not been animated by the spirit and here the spirit of the Lord Jesus is telling this church to disregard their opinions about themselves and I'm here to ask you to do the same thing and to disregard what other people say and I'm here to ask us to do the same thing forget what anyone says forget what your reputation is forget what you've done forget what people think forget what your flattering spirit says about yourself.

Forget that and listen to the voice of the spirit. That's what we're here to do today. Now you you can't bring a dead church to life or a dead person to life except by the Spirit. You can tell them to change their behaviors, but unless the Spirit changes them, nothing has really happened. It only takes place by the word of God, the word of the Spirit.

So, you know, the prayers this morning have just directed us in this way that the word of the Holy Spirit would be the word that we would hear today. And I think we just need to recognize in this something that we learned a long time ago in the life of David when David was being selected as king. That the Lord Does not see as man sees for man's looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks to the heart That's the position that we're in today The searcher of hearts is searching the scanner of souls is scanning so but what's so beautiful about this is that Jesus is not willing to leave his church dead. Jesus is not willing to leave the dying to die. So with his eyes like a flame of fire, his x-ray eyes, he's looking into the souls of every person who's hearing these words today.

So it really is a very sobering time here today. The spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ is like a surgeon. The word of God pierces deeply within the soul. It separates what's true and what's false. I pray that that happens.

The Holy Spirit is like a wind. Jesus said it blows wherever he wishes. I've been praying that the Spirit, that the wind would blow in my heart, and your heart, and all of our hearts together. So he says that they are dead, they are dead. But it's the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits in nothing.

Jesus said the words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life, but they are dead. So that's what is most needful. He says in verse 1, I know your works that you have a name that you are alive but you are dead. And later on he says that there's a manifestation of this. He says, for I have not found your works to be perfect before God." And the word that he uses perfect means fullness.

In other words, they're empty. He says, I know, I know your works. Outward appearances can be misleading, but Christ always knows. He always sees beyond the appearance. And their outward appearance did not match their inward condition So that's very very clear Thomas Watson in his book the godly man's picture speaks about this church.

He says this, their beauty is all paint. They're like a whitewashed tomb. They're like a swan. White feathers, black skin. They're like a lily, white, but they smell bad.

That's Thomas Watson. Jude calls people like this in a church clouds without water in Jude 12. These people exist in churches. We should always ask is that me? Is that me?

You know David said, Lord keep me from presumptuous sins. In other words keep me from presuming on things that aren't true. This is a church that was dead and dying, dying and dead. You kind of read both of these things. I read one time that eight to ten thousand churches close every year in America and 1,000 are planted.

Churches die all the time. But sometimes churches don't close, but they're dead. And that's really, I think, the issue here. Now each of these letters to the churches place demands on us and they all ask us questions and we've been encountering these these various questions but I think there are two questions that this letter asks of us. The first question has to do with our corporate life together.

The heart of it, our practices, our theology, the sociology of the church, the behavior of who we are. And so this question is for us corporately as a church, are we deceiving ourselves? Does the Lord see us slipping back? But we don't. Are we engaged in lifeless activity?

But what we'll know, we know for sure is whatever our opinion is, the Lord knows. But He wants us to know what He knows. He wants us to be brought along to think like He thinks. To think like he thinks. And there are dead who can come to life and there are dying whose life can be fan to flame.

And the Lord can make a dead church alive. Praise the Lord for that. The second question this letter asks is not of the corporate condition of the church, but a very personal one. And the question is, are any of us as individuals dead? You know when you when you are preaching you're always assaulted first And so this is a question I've had asked my own self and I ask you to ask it of yourself.

Are you dead? Or are you cooling off? Are you getting weaker? Or are you getting stronger? Because I think this addresses all those conditions that existed in this church.

But what we find here is that the deadest can be brought to life and the coldest can be warmed up. Praise the Lord for that. The weakest can be strengthened. And the dullest flame can be fanned to a fire again. And he's telling you that you can climb back.

So this is such a wonderfully, wonderfully balanced message here. But these people had a form of godliness but denied its power. That's in 2nd Timothy 3.5. When Paul spoke to that church, he said, If you have those who have a form of godliness but deny its power, he says, stay away from people like that. So Jesus is addressing this church that looks good on the outside but it's dead on the inside.

It happens in a lot of different ways. You know, you can trust in your old glory days. You know, Robert Murray McShane preached on this text in his church and during his ministry he went to he made a trip with another man to the Holy Land and he visited these churches if they existed and there was a man Robert Burns who stayed behind and he was preaching while McShane was gone in his trip to the Holy Land a revival broke out I mean it was a massive revival and it kept rolling on McShane came back and he continued to preach and the church became known as a as a revival center People came from all over the country to come and see it and be revived and be affected by that church. And we don't know, I heard somebody speaking of this, We don't know when McShane stood up and preached this message, but when he did, he said, this letter has more applicability to this church than any of the other letters. It's possible he said that because they had experienced revival and they were resting on their old glory days.

But churches can get distracted in a lot of ways. They can get distracted by form and forgetting the reality of what they're doing. They can focus on social ills rather than actual change lives by the power of the gospel. They can focus on material things and they can get really concerned about what men think. What other people think about them.

That's how churches begin to die. So, but there's a way of escape. Look at verses two and three. There's a way of escape. And he tells them how to change.

He tells them how to wake up, how to go forward. And there are five imperatives, five commands that he issues here for the church. If you think you fall into any of these categories, do these. Okay. These are imperatives for the Church of Jesus Christ.

They're corrective actions and they really show us what was wrong with the church and I'm gonna say they were they were gonna go through these sequentially but it was a sleepy church. He tells them to wake up. Secondly, it was a weakening church. He tells them to strengthen what remains. Third, it was an inattentive church, and he's telling them to remember how they used to hear and fourth it was a casual church he tells them stop being casual hold fast then fifthly it was a proud church and he tells them to repent so let's take these one by one first wake up this is the first imperative it was a sleepy church wake up anybody need to be woke up be watchful you know it's it's the It's the call to the David has searched me.

Oh God and know my heart Try me and know my ways See if there be any wicked way within me." They'd become lethargic. They've not watched what's happening to them. The slide has been taking place but they haven't noticed the slide. Watch, watch what is about to die. Watch what is lacking.

Watch your appetite. Have you lost your appetite for the word of God? And what we find here is that Jesus is the one who wakes up the dead. In John 5, 24, the Lord Jesus Christ says, he who hears these words of mine and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment but has passed from death into life. You can come to life.

This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then in the next verse, he tells them how he'll wake them up. In verse 25 in John 5, the hour is coming when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. When you hear and really hear you'll live. You know you can exist a long time in a church and not really hear and then all of a sudden you hear.

All of a sudden the preacher gets really good You start hearing like you've never heard before it's great. I Remember those days So the first Imperative is wake up sleepy Church Wake up sleepy person in the church. Anything you need to wake up? Is there anything in your life that just needs to be shaken back awake? You know sometimes it takes some time.

There was somebody in my house the other day that had gone to sleep in a chair with his head way far back and I went over and said hey it's time to go to bed. No response. I said hey it's time to go to bed. No response. Then I touched him on the shoulder.

Nothing. I thought, he's died. And then finally, I had to shake him. And he woke up and he went, oh. It was very funny.

Well, that's Wake up. You know, sometimes it takes a big shake to wake. And maybe you need that. Maybe a little gentle breeze is all you need, but maybe you need somebody to just shake you up. And then the second imperative is to strengthen the things which remain.

Strengthen the things which remain. Renew your strength. It was a weakening church. You know, in our lives, you know, we go through ups and downs. Maybe you're on the down slide.

Maybe you're weak. Maybe you are weakened and you need to strengthen the things that have become weak. Sharpen up, tighten up, do the things that make you strong. That's the idea. What are the things that remain?

Well, at minimum, at minimum, what remains and what is always available are the ordinary means of grace in the Church of Jesus Christ. Strengthen the things which remain. The ordinary means of grace in a church are really the things that we do when we gather on the Lord's day. We bring the Word of God, we sing, we pray, we have fellowship, we exhort one another, we love one another. We have compassion on one another.

We evangelize. We baptize. We do things like that. We take the Lord's Supper. These are the things that are meant to revive us.

Strengthen the things that remain. Have those things become sort of blase? They can and you can just kind of on autopilot cruise through them. Are you on autopilot in any part of the ordinary means of grace. The apostle spoke to the Colossian church like this in Colossians two, six, and seven.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. In other words abounding in Thanksgiving for what you've been taught so take inventory How are you with the ordinary means of grace? Are you distracted? What are you thinking about right now? Are you somewhere else?

The third imperative is consider consider how you are hearing verse 3 remember therefore how how you have received and Heard Now this was an inattentive church. This is a church that wasn't hearing. They were not hearing. They were thinking about other things. They were talking.

They were doing. They were in another place. They were not hearing. And so this is a call to slow down and meditate on how you have heard and to understand how you have received and heard. How you hear makes all the difference in the world.

Jesus says be careful how you hear because how you hear determines whether you are converted or not. That's what Jesus is saying. Bang.