The sermon focuses on the church in Sardis, which appears to be alive but is actually dead and dying. The speaker emphasizes the importance of obedience to the Word of God and warns against becoming complacent or focused on appearances. He calls for a spiritual awakening and repentance, urging listeners to examine themselves and strive for genuine faith. The sermon highlights the need for individuals and the church as a whole to prioritize knowing and obeying God rather than seeking worldly approval.

Good morning. If you would open with me this morning to Revelation chapter 3. We'll again look at verses 1 through 6, the church in Sardis. As we started in chapter 2 to look at these letters to the churches, a very quick summary, we see churches, though these were real churches in this time period and later in, oh kind of thank you, if it's a Is it the century of one or... Anyway, before 100 AD, these churches were in existence.

These were real churches, real letters written to these churches. In a sense, it's an examination or a looking at the state of these churches. From a state of a church that's glorifying God nearly completely, to the state where we are in Sardis here today, a church that appears, though the appearance looks well, they're actually dead and dying. First, we looked at one church that though they had very good doctrine, they didn't have love. We looked at another church though they did have love, they didn't have any doctrine.

We looked at a church that was allowing false teachers to creep in and allowing their young people to marry those outside of the faith. We looked at a church that was being influenced by the world so much so that they looked like the world. As we came to Sardis last week, We looked at a church that was being influenced by the world so much so that they looked like the world. As we came to Sardis last week, we looked at a church that their reputation was one of being alive, much like an average rural American church, they have the reputation of being alive, and yet are dead. I can't remember who the speaker was, but he said it well.

Because a church is dead, it doesn't mean that they aren't gathering anymore. It doesn't mean that there aren't people coming. There could be lots of people coming to a gathering on Sunday, and yet that church may be completely dead. As we look at this reputation, we understand it's a church that cares more about its image than it cares about actually knowing God and living for Him. And this morning I want to take just a little bit of a different angle at that.

Though this is true that there are many in our world today who would live rightly or live a good life as we would say or we would call them good old boys. They do the right thing. They go to church on Sunday. They would help their neighbor harvest their field if they got sick and went into the hospital. Their appearance is extremely well, and yet inside they don't know God at all.

They go to church, but they don't care about the things of God. They would say they would, and they would even maybe be able to discuss the things of God. But with inside of them isn't this drive to know God at all costs. And so this morning I want to look at a little bit different angle in this, or in a sense just continuing on in this text. But let's read verses 1 through 6.

Revelation 3, 1 through 6, it says, and to the angel of the church in Sardis write, the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember then what you have received and heard. Keep it and repent.

If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come against you. Yet you still have a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot His name out of the book of life. 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.

Father, thank you this morning again for your word. Father, thank you again this morning that you call us to walk by faith and not by sight. To walk by what is written and not what is felt. For Father, if we examined ourselves based off what we feel, we would quickly be deceived by reputation. And so Father, would you help us?

Would you help us to put reputation aside, both as a church and individually, would you help us examine ourselves in light of your word? And Father, if we find that we are lacking, If we find that we are putting on a show and yet are just as evil and corrupt as the lost neighbor that lives next to us, father would you awaken us? Father we know it's by your Spirit that we are awakened, and so Father, today we come to you and plead for your mercy and plead for your grace that we might see rightly, that we might understand correctly, and that we might be awakened and repent. Father, for Your glory, would You give us understanding? For Your glory, would you make Elveston be a church that glorifies you that isn't wavering father would you make me Live a life that's glorifying to you that isn't wavering.

Father, I need your help, and your mercy and your grace. Father, help us to see rightly, give us strength we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Well again, let's look at verse, start at verse one, just briefly.

It says, And to the angel of the church and Sardis write the words of him who have seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. We get this introduction about the one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars and essentially God is saying he has all of these churches in his hand. He knows them.

He is the one who possesses their messenger. He is the God, His Holy Spirit that's mentioned here. It's His Holy Spirit that is complete. We find that Sometimes this is referring to, or we can go back to Isaiah and we talk about seven different attributes of the Holy Spirit. But it's that God is complete in the Holy Spirit.

He holds his churches together. He has, as we've read of past, he has the laser eyes. He knows what's going on. He weaves in and amongst the churches and he inspects them and he knows them rightly. He says, I know your works.

You have the reputation of being alive, but you're dead. We see that there isn't an absence of works. God says He knows their works. The problem is their works are contrary to what God has called them to. As we go a little farther into this text, He says your works are lacking.

You're busy at work, but you're not doing the right things. You're doing the things that maybe the world would applaud of, and that's implied here. The world really, really likes your works. They're really happy with what you're doing. You're making the world happy, which is much of modern Christianity writing and authors.

In summary, here's how your church can make the world love you and show up on Sunday. God says, I know your works. This isn't what I called you to. I didn't call you to make the world happy. I called you to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

Are you so busy washing cars and harvesting fields and doing all the things the world wants you to do that you forget about sharing the gospel? You forget about doing that thing of which He has called you to do? Are your works wavering? Are you busy doing good things at the expense of great things? Because that in reality is true even in our regular lives.

We can become so busy doing good things. And listen, as I point my finger, this is a silly cliche and I don't like cliches, but I have three fingers pointing back at me. Are you so busy doing good things? And making people happy with you? That you are neglecting the great things?

That you are neglecting what you are called to do? That is such a temptation for elders and pastors. But it's also a temptation for every person in this room. Are you busy doing the good things that you like at the expense of the great things that God has called you to do? Do you have a reputation of being alive?

And yet inside, you're just doing what you like to do. You're doing what gets you applause. Matthew 23, 27, and 28, if you remember, and I'm becoming guilty of spending half my time recapping last week. I'm not going to do that. But look what it says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.

So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." Is that you? Is that you? Because though you can fool all of us with the outside, I believe if you're in Christ, you know exactly what's going on on the inside. When I bring before you the Word of God, and I say, well yes you agree with this, you agree with the things that we are saying, But do you know Him? Do you read His Word?

Are you drawing near? Is He drawing you close to Him? You know. You know if you pray. You know if you're reading the Word of God.

You know. Because you know, I ask you, are you a whitewashed tomb? Do you look good when you come here? But you know your heart is a hundred miles from God. You even, understand this, you even because if you're a whitewashed tomb even because of common grace you even like some of the things of God you don't want to steal from your neighbor you don't want your neighbor to steal from you.

Because of God's common grace, rule America, we still have a sense of morality within us. But is it a sense of morality because God has changed you and redeemed you, and He is now your Lord and your Savior. He has become all things to you or is it that you prefer these things because these are the things you grew up with and these are the things that you like. And if that is all, if that's all there is to it, understand the neighbor that you point at, the drug dealer neighbor that you point at, the guy that doesn't work and just takes a check from the government, He's going to the same place you are. You are just as evil as He is.

Your heart must be changed. Your heart must be changed. Your whitewashed tomb will deceive potentially everyone, but it won't deceive God. If you stay in the state, you will spend eternity being exposed for what you are, and that is an enemy of God. Are you dead?

Come to Christ. Really come to Him. Seek Him with all of your heart. There will be lots of people in this world whom you and I would look at with their earthly appearance and their earthly behavior. And we would say those are really good people.

And there will be many of them who will hear him say, depart from me, I never knew you. Their good appearance is nothing more than God's common grace of restraint upon a culture. And It has nothing to do with them knowing God. Brothers and sisters and friends, you can be in this state and you can convince yourself that all is well. But if you don't know Christ, If you don't love Him, you're not only deceiving us, you're deceiving yourself.

Your pride blinds you. Turn to Christ. Blinds you. Turn to Christ. I look continuing on Revelation 3 2.

Here's the result, or Here's what you should do. If you find yourself in the state, here's the command. He says, wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Wake up. And I know, And I warned you of this last week.

This probably is the most severe letter of all the churches. It's more severe than the church that had no theology, and they just let everything go amok and just loved each other blindly and just approved everything. Much of what we see in many American gatherings or potential churches. It's way worse than that. Now what has led to this?

Well to understand how they've got here, it helps to understand a little bit about the city of Sardis. The city of Sardis was a very thriving, a very prosperous city, and the city of Sardis had what seemed to be a natural barrier. It was surrounded by, it was placed in such a way that it was cliffs on three sides of it and there was only one way to get there militarily it seemed impossible to conquer and and I don't believe Greek Greek mythology but they were so rich in gold that it was actually, it was said that that is where Midas lived and took his baths and if you remember the Midas Touch, it seemed like gold was everywhere and they harvest this gold and they were very wealthy and they were very protected militarily. Now if you know some history on this, they were so protected militarily that they fell asleep. And I find this very much in the average American culture.

If you begin to talk about a world conflict and things like that, the average American would say, well, I don't need to worry about that. No one could ever defeat America. And if you believe that, you are wrong. It's the same thing Sardis thought. In fact, Sardis was so confident in its military advantage that it didn't even guard its three sides.

It left them open. And to its demise, the enemy somehow got through one of these sides and conquered them from within. Same things are going on within the church in Sardis. I believe the same things go on individually in your lives. Some of you can grow in such spiritual pride that you will begin to say and behave like nothing will ever cause me to fall Because I am so far down the road.

I am so good in this area. I'm so so I'm doing well I Theologically I've got most of the people in my church conquered I could beat any of them in a theological argument I am obviously doing well, and what does the Bible say take heed lest the fall I think that's what happened to Sardis. I think that's what happens in many of your lives. Friends, I have a flesh like you do. There are times, and there are times, to my shame, I've even audibly told my wife, I've read the Bible lots of times.

I don't need to read it every day. I know what it says. Now this should start to enrage you a little bit at your pastor. Because I had an old person one time tell me, I don't need to read the Bible. I already know.

I don't even have to hear you preach, you know, I don't hear very well. Don't worry about it, I already know what you're gonna say. Don't worry about the back flank, nobody can get that way. Don't worry about the cliffs on the sides. Well, I'm better than that.

We see other foolish people. And some of you know examples. Well, I'm a born again Christian. I can be alone with ladies in the church. I'm not going to fall in that area.

That's foolishness. As some of you, sometimes I visit ladies in the church and even this week, and not, not, I'm not at all condemning or anything like that. At one point they looked at me and said, well, I can't really talk to you about that because your son's here. Okay. Then maybe you would like to talk about that with an elder and myself.

It may feel clunky, it may feel like it inhibits, but it is good. It's not good for us to be alone. It's not good for pastors to be alone with other people's wives or young ladies or anything like that. And if we think that it's okay, we're becoming sardis. We think that we can't be broken.

We think that we can't be penetrated. So I'd ask you, and I went on a little rabbit trail there, are you diligent about reading the Word of God? Are you diligent about praying? Are you diligent? Or is your flank shored up?

You don't need that. Because when we start to think that way, it's the beginning of our demise. Just us Sardis. The church, we have read in just the previous chapter, we have read of churches that were so impovered, so impovered that they are starving. We don't read that of this church.

It's the silence of that implies that they had plenty of stuff, they had plenty of money. Just like the church in America. Today we gather, and I'm not saying it's not a good thing, today we gather in air conditioning. You are blessed, rich man and yet rich woman. Because your brothers and sisters across the world don't have the same.

You're blessed. There's nothing wrong with being blessed if you don't become Sardis. If your stuff doesn't begin to have you. We even see with Solomon that God was so pleased with Solomon that he gave him wisdom, but because he didn't ask for stuff, God gave him stuff too. He's like, here's wisdom and here's stuff.

But look at the end of Solomon, read Ecclesiastes, and you get an image of Solomon's heart, and what is the image of Solomon's heart? That those Solomon was probably the wisest man to ever walk on the earth. Now if you're the wisest man to ever walk on the earth, do you need to read Proverbs anymore? He probably didn't think so. Much of Proverbs is him.

His writing, what was his downfall? His stuff got him. His stuff got him because his defenses were down. He didn't need defenses. He was the wisest man in the world.

He doesn't need... We'll bring that into modern days. I don't need brothers to tell me to speak into my life. I'm the wisest man in the world. Solomon at least could stand on some biblical evidence that he's the wisest man in the world, but all of you men in this room, whether you would tell us out blank or not, your pride tries to convince you of that continuously.

It says you don't need your brother. You're smart. You're not like the other guys. You're not like the guys that don't know the Bible. You know way more than they do.

Sardis was wealthy. It was impenetrable. Now I want you to see what else is absent from this letter. And that's kind of where the main thrust of where I want to go today. What's absent?

It's not absent that they don't love. It's not absent that they have bad theology. God speaks nothing of their theology. And we think of a church or two back, or regularly, God is bringing up theology, your belief, your understanding. Why are you allowing these teachers to keep teaching?

Why aren't you examining them? And why aren't the question which would offend most Americans, why aren't you putting them out of your church? Why are you letting this continue? The accusation wasn't against them, it was against those that led the church. Why are you permitting this?

That's not here. What is here? I think we see another warping And what I mean by that is this. Now just to clarify things, I don't believe in space aliens. I believe in the demonic world.

I believe in things like that. I just don't I don't believe that. But have you ever seen a picture of one? And I say picture because they're fake pictures. What does man decide an alien looks like?

What does he look like? You guys all know you have it in your head right the great big head and the weird eyes and the little bitty body now it's silliness I think this is a picture of the church in Sardis. And what do I mean by that? There's the great big head full of theology. They know the teaching.

And as we go forward, what does it say? It doesn't say bring in some good teachers so that they can teach you what is right, so they can teach you what is good theology. It says remember what you are taught, because your head is full of theology. It's grown, it's swelling, It's huge, and you can conquer people on the internet with your arguments. But your body is shriveled up and small because it doesn't obey.

It doesn't do what you claim to believe. It doesn't apply what you want everyone else to do. How foolish. How foolish to drink deeply of the Word of God and to understand it deeply and yet not apply it! How do we get to a point where conquering arguments and knowing deep theology is the end of the means?

How do we sit in here and know soteriology, know the doctrine of salvation deeper than most people maybe in all of history. Most Christians of all of history didn't understand and have the knowledge and the food, the stuff, the writings, the puritans, the easeness of putting knowledge on your shelf and in your tablets, we have information galore. And how foolish are we to sit at the table and gorge ourselves and let us just sit there and get fat spiritually and not apply it. Sure, we'll apply the things we like, but as soon as it goes against something that we don't like or We dismiss it as not all that important, and other people should do that, but you know I'm a busy guy. How do we look into the world and understand salvation correctly?

And I was just complaining to somebody because I've explained salvation hundreds of times to different people. And I asked them, how does a Christian get saved? Or How do they become right with God? And they can't explain it. And it makes my eyes go crossed.

How could you not explain it? How do you not know? But friends, brothers, and sisters, you hear it from this pulpit week after week after week after week. You know biblical salvation. And do you know what else you know?

You know that your neighbor who may not have ever heard it or heard some warped Americanized version of it, You know that they're not saved. You know that they're going to spend an eternity in hell. And your body says, I'm too weak and too busy. I'm not going to go talk to those people. You know what the Bible says about how to disciple your children.

And you say, but I'm busy, but I have to work. Do you? Work is a good thing, But if your work supports an American lifestyle, you're too busy because you have to have what your neighbors have you're too busy because You you have to have more and more and more at the expense of discipling your children. You're dying You're dying You have a big head full of theology, but your body doesn't apply it. You don't obey.

And you can have all the excuses in the world, but you are just like those in Sardis. And God says, wake up! Wake up! Says, wake up! Wake up!

As I think in scripture of, we think of Christ in some of the discussion and objections, and even Paul as he wrestles with his brothers the Israelites. He says, and the thought process is if Christ came and if he saved Gentiles too, if he saved the entire world, where's the blood? Are the Israelites blessed at all? And what's Paul's response? Yes indeed in every way.

Why are they blessed? Because God chose to reveal his salvation to the Israelites. He chose to reveal himself to the Israelites and The entire world is blessed by them. And I tell you this morning, that though you are surrounded by a country and a world of people who profess Christianity, but they don't know what the Bible says. And today you are blessed among all people because not only do you have a Bible, but you have elders who are committed and dedicated to saying what the Word says.

But don't leave here and do nothing about it and say, well how am I blessed? Don't be the alien with a big head and little arms and little feet Because the Bible says if that's you, you're dead or you're dying. Now look at, this is really interesting, look at, when we think of, And so I went from our reputation to our lack of obedience, or sardis to their reputation, and then transitioning to their lack of obedience. Look what it says in Luke chapter 12, 35-48. Jesus tells a parable that addresses this very thing, or even this wording is similar.

It says, Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, And be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and He will come and serve them. If He comes in the second watch or in the third and finds them awake, blessed are those servants. But know this, if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into.

You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming in an hour you do not expect." So Peter said, Lord are you telling this parable for us or for all?" And the Lord said, Who then is the faithful and the wise manager, whom his master will set over his household to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom the master will find so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions." Now look at the transition and here as we come back to thinking of the church and Sardis says, but if the servant says to himself, my master is delayed in coming and begins to beat the male and female servants and to eat and drink and get drunk, The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, and an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful. And the servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will will receive a severe beating.

But the one who did not know and did what what is deserving of a beating will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required. And from him to whom they entrust much, they will demand the more." brothers and sisters, much is given to you. Much. We are blessed with the Word of God.

We are blessed with men who will come and fill this pulpit and not just give you a motivational speech at the discount of the Word of God, but will tell you what it says. But if you come here every week and you hear what the Word of God says, and you leave here making excuses as to why you can't obey it or why you won't obey it, Christ will come when you don't expect. What does it say in Revelation 3.3, continuing, Remember then what you received and heard. Keep it and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief.

And you will not know what hour I will come against you." See what happened to the unfaithful servant? He was blessed with too much time. He began to doubt when the Master would return. And when he started to begin to doubt when the Master would return, he started to disobey the Master. First, it was disobedience of just not doing the things the Master has called him to do.

But secondly, it turned into he became lax. He began it. So we see things that he was doing wrong, but this isn't even severely wrong. He just began to, Instead of doing what the Master said, he began to eat and drink. He began to kick his feet up, we could say.

He began to, instead of obeying God, he would sit in his recliner and kick his feet up and eat and drink and become drunk. He began to become consumed with everything else. Is that the path of your life? Are you falling away from God and starting to consume your life with other things? Do they have more control over you today than they did two years ago or three years ago or five years ago?

Do you not believe your master is coming? He's commanding you to wake up, repent, stop it. I can't remember who the great biblical counseling teacher was, But he said that, you know, I'm making this completely up. I'm going to keep the same point of it. Maybe a husband came to talk to him about his marriage, and he said, you know, I really want to do this, but I keep going to play golf and I really shouldn't, but you know it's just kind of hurting our marriage and my wife isn't happy about it.

She keeps complaining and grumbling, but I just really like to play golf and I just have a lot of that coming up. How do I fix this hurt between my wife and I? And the biblical counselor wisely looked at him and he said, stop it! Stop it! Right, and that's obviously, I really missed that I really miss that account.

Are you struggling with sin? Stop it. Are you being deceived into lullabying your life to sleep with all a hundred thousand other things that may even be good but aren't great because it's not what God has called you to do. Stop it! Because He reminds us in Revelation if we won't obey Him.

Now we come back to the beginning when it declares that they are dead. And this morning I want also to bring this to an individual level. If you're in Christ and you're not obeying what you hear, stop it. Repent. Obey the word of God.

Now if you're in Christ, you may be approaching death. And if you're in Christ, God will make you stop it. So as Paul Washer says, you can do this the easy way or the easy way for God. You can either stop it or He'll make you. But if you truly, if you truly come to the point where you're just dead, I would say you've never known Christ.

Because God wouldn't let you get here. And so today if you're just free-floating doing what you want to do and you you hear the Word of God and you say, yeah that is what the Word of God says, but so often I hear this, but I'm later in life, and what am I going to do about it now? And I can tell you what you should do about it now. Stop it! Repent now!

Yeah, there's been lots of pain and hardship and mistakes and all these things happen and they're all in your past and today stop it and start new. Turn to Christ. Obey Him Because He's coming. And He sees. His eyes see.

He weaves in and amongst the churches. He examines them. He sees. Now finally this morning continuing, Revelation 3, 4-6 says, Yet you have a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life I will confess his name before my father and before his angels He who has an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches now there's a as I study this and I heard another message on this, one thing that was brought out that I didn't see at first was this, is that though inside the church we can, we look at, we look at the churches in Scripture.

And even to come outside of this and look at the church in Corinth, read the letters of 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and look at the problems going on in the church. Now see, your pastor is a little bit foolish, because I can say, when is the church ever gonna get perfect? And I can agonize over it, and can I tell you when it's gonna get perfect? When Christ comes back. It's not.

And we look at the church in Corinth, and we see their major problems going on. And how does Paul address them? As saints. And we could get really deceived in our lives. Not that that isn't what we desire, and it's not what the elders and I spend hours discussing and praying about.

How can we make our church glorifying to God? And how can we conform His church into the image that He wants to see in her and these different things? But individually, if we become consumed with this, we are missing something that is brought out here. And this thing is that inside the church are those who genuinely know God. They are the remnant.

And this is, though we see in the Old Testament, this group mentality, the Israelites versus the other groups in the world, or Israelites versus the Gentiles, or these different groups. In God's kingdom, there are His people and there are everyone else. There are His people and there are His enemies. And inside the church there are the wheat and the tares. And look what this says here.

There were some insartis who were still living holy for Christ. They were still on fire for Him. They were still obedient to Him. And I would warn you that as you come to church, whether you're an elder or a member or a visitor, This is still individualistic. If you get caught consuming all of your time, worried about the church, you will lose yourself.

This morning as we come through, as we go through these churches, it's very tempting. And I understand, and I'm with you. It's very often, often tempting to hear the Word of God, to hear it expounded, to hear it explained, and to sit in your seat and think, boy I hope Johnny up here is hearing this. I'm glad he's here today. He really needs to hear this.

I know it goes on because I'm like you. And if this consumes you, even very much at all, you're missing what this is teaching. If you don't hear this word today, and something inside of you doesn't say, I need to repent, I see this, I don't want to be the dead I want to know Christ if something inside of you is an examine in yourself and maybe because you're asleep examining yourself. Maybe because you're asleep. Even when the church is falling apart, God has great things to say about the elect.

God has great things to say about those whom are the remnant. And I guarantee you that remnant. Now think of this, the church and Sardis, a majority are dead. They're playing the church game. They look good, but they're dead.

You know what dead people do? They make bad decisions. They say really silly theological things. To be honest, dead people can be quite annoying. And it's extremely convenient because God needs to teach us how to bear with people.

Dead people are good for you. And if you were one of these, you'd have lots to bear with. But do you know, what does it say about them in the end? In this town of textile dying wool, How easy is it for them to have white wool then? Not that easy.

Because you'll be clothed with white. Brothers and sisters, wherever you're at, Today if you examine yourself and you say you hear the word but you don't obey it, we could pick something really easy like evangelism. Where the, you know, I don't believe in all the polls and stuff, but it's usually a single-digit percentage of Christians, people that claim to be Christians, that regularly share their faith. That's the Church and Sardis. God says, go into the world and proclaim the gospel to all creation.

The church and Sardis says, yeah that's great theologically. All right, see you next Sunday. And the next Sunday they come, and how many people did you share your faith with this week after hearing Mark This text from the end of Mark So well, you know I said bless you and somebody sneezed. That's obedience? Brothers and sisters, is this you?

Do you hear but not obey? Can you explain election? But not, but you don't care to share the gospel? And what do I mean by that? In election, what do we believe?

Faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. A lot of times people have problems with election because they think, you know, man doesn't get any pride in this. He doesn't get to rest on a decision or rest on any of this, but if you really believed in election and you really believe that God will typically rescue someone whom you shared the Word of God with and you won't do it, Your problem with election is you. It's not God. Because he tells you how he operates and you won't do it.

When you come to know the word of God, will you teach it to your children, even if they won't like it? Are you more concerned if your children like you than the Word of God? Behan and I were discussing this week, This is what we see in the world, lots. That in our society today, children run the house because people want their children to like them. They want to have friends and they don't want to be parents, they want to be friends.

And when a parent won't be a parent because they want to be a friend, they want to give their child whatever they want, and they want to let them steer the ship, and they want to do all these things so that their children like them, it's because the parent doesn't love their children. They love themselves. They say, it's more important that my children love me than me to not spare the rod and let them be spoiled and dive into a world where they'll be corrupted and probably end up in hell. But at least they like me. You don't love your children.

Are you personally being sanctified? Now in conclusion, This morning my toes are bleeding. I'm like you. I spend much time being watchful. Part of my job is to be watchful for you.

But it's a bigger part of my job to be watchful for me. And that lacks because it's easier for me to be watchful for everyone else. It's easier for me to see the sin in Brody than it is in myself. My pride is a really good camouflage maker. Are you being watchful?

Are you guarding your weak areas? Are you shoring up your defenses by reading the Word of God and studying it and praying and repenting and conforming yourself and beating your flesh into subjection. And when something comes up and you say, the Word of God says this and your flesh begins to throw up in your face and different crazy things and tries to justify it and says, well, you know, everybody does this. Well, you know, that this person will thank a lot more of me if I will not pray today and go do this for them. Well, The preacher reads his Bible.

He'll tell me what I need to know. I will combat that for just a second. Will the preacher tell you what you need to know? In my experience, in two weeks, you might remember one thing I said about today. That's just just that's because I know me as well.

I was at a training this week, and I was actually came up and teaching people the training in firearms. And One of the things that we talked about is what will the people remember from this? And you know what people? Let's take it. Let's take it back to a church activity When I used to go to youth camps and be a counselor for for a group of ten youth All week at church camp lots of messages lots of discipling Do you know what they will remember a week from then when they go home?

They will remember the kid that was lighting his, let me think of a different, they will think of the kid that put soap in a sock and was beating other kids and that's what they'll tell their parents happened at camp and their parents are like We spent tons of money to send you, and all you learned was how to hit somebody with soap in your sock. You know why they remember that? Because they're just like you, and they're just like me. Where am I going with that? I know it's late.

For me to know the Word of God, I've got to read the Bible. Oh, if you get to about 750, 000 times you've read it all the way through, you're starting to get to know a chunk of it probably. When you've went through 750, 000 sermons, you're starting to get maybe a little. And guess what? You all don't have time for that, right?

You're not gonna live through 750, 000 sermons. It's only once on Sunday, right? Anybody think you're going to live that long? So guess what? Every morning or evening, you need to be in the Word of God.

You need to be reading it over and over and over and over. And if you won't do that, you're not guarding your sides. You're not guarding your back and the enemy will come and though you have much pride you will fall. And when an entire church does this, at the end of it, God says, though you come to church on Sunday, you are dead. Are you there?

Are you there? Are you obeying the word of God? Are you even reading it? Do you have lots of theology but you spend your time worried about everyone else. While the enemy is creeping up your walls.

Are you the alien, the big head, clubs people with his laser? All the while his arms are weak. How do you fix it? Remember. Remember then what you received and heard.

Keep it and repent. One of the most amazing things about God, one of the most amazing things that though you and I, our flesh constantly drags us to war back against Him, and to ignore Him, and to disobey Him, and to be His enemy. It's for these things that Christ laid down His life and took the punishment. The punishment for the sin that you deserve took it upon Himself. And though today you can't erase your sin, Christ can.

Though man can't erase it, Christ can. And today, if you find yourself to where you say, I don't obey the Word of God, I fail constantly, turn to Christ, for He has paid for this sin too. But I'd warn you, don't treat Christ as someone that you just take from, that you just use. So as we come back to the beginning, can a Christian become dead? No, because God will do what it takes to discipline them.

He'll make your life really hard, if He has to. If he has to. But today if you don't know Christ. So the difference is this, if you know Christ, He will discipline you. He adopts you as His Son, and He treats you like a son, though He doesn't...

In this discipline, it's not punishment. It's discipline. It's Him trying to get you to come to your senses. It's Him dragging you back to Him. It's Him holding you tighter in His hand.

But if you don't know Christ, you're left in your sin. And that really, again, That's the extreme danger of putting on the game face and yet not being changed. The Christian obeys because he knows God and begins to love His law. The non-Christian doesn't obey or doesn't obey because he doesn't love his law. Because he's not changed.

And though our flesh still causes us to struggle, you and I as believers in Christ, we desire to obey. And though our flesh tends to drag us off so often. Turn back to Christ. My goal today isn't for you to leave here with your head down. My goal today is to bring to your attention, are you hearing the Word of God and not obeying?

If you are, turn to Christ. Seek Him until He changes your heart, that you would desire to obey Him. And if you're not a Christian at all, turn to Christ or be held accountable for all of the sin, all of your warring. God is good. Look what he says.

It begins with talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is actually what is what it will be required to wake up Sardis. And today that's my prayer is that the Holy Spirit would waken us, that it would again fix our eyes upon ourselves, that we would begin to that we would begin to examine ourselves, all of us, and that we would wake up, we we would remember, we would keep it. Do you want to know what will be, how God, you know what would be an amazing thing for the church in Elveston? That its people not only knew the Word of God, but they kept it.

And not only would the world take note, but you would be blessed. And the world would take note, Because it's not what we normally see anymore. It's not normal. We think of and I hear of revivals and awakenings and I'm not necessarily Pentecostal or some of the things that seem to be attributed with that ideology, but I am for what it actually is, which is an awakening. An awakening to our sinfulness and awakening to our disobedience and aturning our repenting and serving God again with all that we have.

That's what Sardis needed. That's what we need. That's what we need. Brothers and sisters, some of you have big heads. That's not a bad thing.

I have a pretty big head too. But it's bad when our body doesn't match it. It's bad when our obedience doesn't match it. Amen. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you again for this day. Father, I pray. I pray first off from my heart that obedience would be just as important as understanding. That I wouldn't make assumptions. That I wouldn't assume that I don't need this as much as I used to, that Father my flesh would drag me from good thing to good thing, while it neglects the great things.

Father for this church, we go through these churches that you've put before us in your Word. We can see some of us in every church. Yeah, Father, in this church, Father, in this church, I see the weakness for the reformed. But not only earlier, that we wouldn't know correct doctrine and not love as we should, but that Father our obedience would even waver. So Father So Father, would you help us?

Father, we also see for the non-reformed, We see individually the problem of every man in this room, that our flesh and that pride that's attached to us is so deceiving. And we can cheer on the pastor and we can say good sermon and we can say thank you for preaching what's in the Word and not what lots of other people are hearing. Yeah Father if we won't obey it we are just as bad as they are. Father you give us your word that we might know you, but primarily Father, that your name might be glorified. So Father, would you help us to glorify you in your word?

Would you help us to obey? Would you draw us to our knees? Would we see prayer as being important again? Would you help us to see the Bible study, even though we may have read it lots of times, would you help us to see that it's important because it's your word? Father, would you guard us?

Would you do as your word says and hold us in your hand? Would you guard us from falling? Would you guard us from not shoring up our defenses? Father if there are any in here who don't know you, as they examine themselves, Father, would you draw them to you? Would you be glorified in the miracle of conversion?

Would you change their hearts to seek after you? Father, help us to have balance. Let us not neglect the Word of God because it's something that might be good, but not as good. For your glory we pray in Christ's name.