In the sermon titled 'The Walking Dead - Part 1,' Douglas Campbell delivers a message based on Revelation 3, focusing on the letter to the church in Sardis. The sermon warns that despite having a reputation for being alive, many in the church are spiritually dead. Campbell emphasizes the danger of 'checkbox Christianity,' where individuals engage in church activities without genuine spiritual life or transformation. He criticizes both rural and mega churches for having members who outwardly appear righteous but are inwardly dead. The sermon highlights the importance of knowing God personally, rather than merely performing religious duties. To address spiritual slumber, Campbell urges the congregation to remember, keep, and repent according to what they have received and heard from God’s word, stressing the necessity of a heartfelt relationship with Christ over mere ritualistic practices.

You would turn with me this morning to Revelation chapter 3. There's a lot of those grannies walking dead. Yes. We'll hear one of them this morning. And Revelation chapter 3 it's I was thinking when I first got here this morning I was I had recently read a little bit of a book by a pastor who had pastored for a number of years and kind of venting his frustrations with different things that can't be explained for other than they're just frustrating and one of the things that he said was this he's like why is it when I have I only have a friend come to church they always pick the day that everybody's on vacation.

So Max, I'm glad you're here brother. Thank you. Anyway, and your wife as well. Max is a friend of mine. I'm sure he'll be a friend of all of you as well.

So this morning, coming back to the book of Revelation, we took a short trip to look more in depth at some things that were going on in a previous church. We come to the letter to the church in Sardis beginning in chapter 3 verses 1 through 6. So let's read the word of God. 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 work 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 at what hour I will come against you.

Yet you still have a few names and 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 hasn't here, let him hear what the Spirit says for the churches. Let's pray.

Father, thank you This day for you again for your word. Thank you father again that that you don't leave us here to depend upon our minds to try to discern who made us and who is God, but Father, you have given us your word that we might come to know you, that we might come to worship you, that we might come to be like you and be transformed into the image of your son. Father, we know that your Holy Spirit does this through your word. And so as we come to your word today, Father, we thank you. As we come to your word, Father, we ask that you would give us light to give us understanding and as we come to your word today, Father, we pray that you would conform us to the image of your son.

Father, we can't do this without you. Without you, we have no hope. So we place ourselves into your mercy. We trust that by your grace, you would help us to know you and to be like you. Father, for your glory we ask these things, that your name might be glorified.

Would you draw us near, we pray in Christ's name, Amen. Amen. Well, this morning, let's just start in at verse one. It says, and to the angel of the church and Sardis, right, 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. This morning as we come to this text, so very often, and there's part, you know, much of American Christianity that when the pastor comes to the pulpit, what the world wants is a great uplifting sermon that will inspire them to be happy for another week and to come together and do that again. Yet that isn't what preaching is for. Sometimes it is to comfort, Sometimes it is to encourage. This morning, I pray that your ears would be open because this morning this should cause us great alarm.

Not just to the person sitting next to you, but to you as well. This should cause us great alarm because what it makes very clear is that there can be, and in this text, A majority of those that were in the church in Sardis were coming to church. And they were singing the songs and they were going through the motions. And they were doing all those things of which would seem like they're completely alive. And yet the word of God says they're dead.

I believe this is what plagues rural American Christianity. A Christianity that does the right thing, that checks the boxes, as I've said lots and lots of times. It checks the boxes. It shows up. It gives them the offering.

It volunteers when volunteering needs done, especially if it's non spiritual related And what do I mean by that? I? In my time in ministry, I've noticed certain things about volunteers One of those things that I'm not talking about outside volunteers, I'm talking about inside the church. One of those things that I've noticed is if I need help today, let's say that I've got 100, 000 grocery bags from Hy-Vee and for some specific reason we need to cut three holes in the grocery bag around the top. That way, let's just say some food fits in there better and will make the bags better so food will fit in there and we can give it to homeless people.

You know what I would expect? I would expect lots of people to volunteer because you would say well that sounds like a great cause we can do that we're alive we can help we can I can run a scissors kind of I still have all my fingers I'm fairly good at that and so we would do that? And then at the end of it, I would say, okay, thank you all for coming here today. It was amazing. We had 30 people show up to cut holes in these bags and now we've got them ready to deliver and next Saturday we're going to be here again at nine o'clock and we're going to take these bags to the homeless people and as you give these bags to the homeless people, I'd like you to give them a gospel track and just share your testimony with these people.

Do you know how many people I would expect to show up and rule American Christianity? Two. Why? We've transitioned from doing physical to spiritual, and the dead don't like spiritual. They like physical.

They like where there's no responsibility. They don't have to know the word of God. They can simply pick up a scissors and they can simply do something. And in doing that allows them to check the box and say, I did something good today. I should be proud of myself and my neighbors who all saw me doing this they will be proud of me as well I've done a good thing but when it switches to the spiritual they revert back to pre Reformation ideology and they say well that's what we hire the pastor for.

That's why we have elders. They can do those things. Friends, it's a religion without Christ. It's a religion that strokes your pride, yet it has no death. It's a religion that knows about God and portrays the image that you know God and shows the world that you take this seriously as every good rule a good hard-working person should do.

Why? Because that's what our parents did and if the world is going to see me as a good person, they have to see that I go to church and I do all the right things. You know when it switches to the spiritual, we're out. We have the reputation of being alive. But when it switches to actually knowing God and actually loving God.

Many are bankrupt. It's why many rural churches have have plummeted into liberal liberal Christianity. Liberal Christianity is is the exact answer they're looking for. Liberal Christianity says, well just go dig wells and just build houses. You don't need, just show them God's love by doing these things.

And the Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. And we travel across the ocean and we dig wells and we do nice things for people and They are hydrated well all the way to the point to where they die and they go to hell because we wouldn't open our mouth because it required us to do more than check boxes. This is what's going on in Sardis. Now I don't need to just pick on small rural churches this morning because in America we also have another phenomenon going on and it's the megachurch. And it's easy for us to point at the megachurch because we're not a megachurch and so we do what what a lot of those who are dead do they point the finger at someone else that way you don't see what's going on with them.

But the megachurches have these same issues. I've met lots of people that attend megachurches And one thing that I found in common with them is while they're excited about church They to a large part live just like the world And I'm shocked at the things that they are interested in and I'm shocked at the the way that they spend their time. I'm shocked at the carnality that comes with them. But friends, it's not just the mega churches. It's the small churches as well.

We hide it better because we're in rural America. We hide it better because our collapse into immorality, our collapse into this falling apart, our further continuing down the path of just as we saw on Noah's Day where every person eventually begins to thank evil at all times. They do nothing but think evil. The only advantage we have in rural America is that we're just a few steps behind. And we parade our righteousness because, hey, I'm not like those people in California.

My hair is a normal color. Hey, I'm not like those people in California because I'm not doing this or doing that, but friends, your children will be doing it. It's just a few steps behind. Now, I'm not saying this morning you're going to hear a different color. That was a bad example because that's not simple in and of itself.

Are you alive? What's further propagated this is we've beat on and beat on and beat on and primarily I beat on this because this is a major problem of American Christianity. But another primary driver is the idea that we can pray a prayer and everything is good between us and God. We can check a box and Now we're going to heaven one day. Doesn't matter if we're changed, it doesn't matter if we're born again, it doesn't matter if we know God at all, it doesn't matter if any of this, because the preacher said if I want to repeat this prayer, everything was good.

And therefore I can continue on, I can beat my wife, I can live just like the world I can cheat I can steal I can lie yeah might as well live it up one day I get to go to heaven anyway because I prayed a prayer. Interestingly enough the Bible doesn't say this anywhere in any text yet it's a foundational teaching of American Christianity. It's the ideology of those that are dead who want to play religion. Are you alive? I should this morning to look at to ask you are you alive?

Do you know God? Jesus tells us of this Even back when he addressed the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew 23, 27 through 28, he 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 this you? Do you put on your game face for church?

See, so often I hear, you know, people that are looking for an excuse to not go to church anymore, can easily find one, Because all they have to do is say, well, the church is full of hypocrites. But I don't go to church because I'm to you. And I don't go to church because of the hypocrites. I go to church because God told me to gather together with the saints. And we find through scripture that when the saints gather, there's going to be weed and there's going to be tears there's going to be those who are genuine push Christians and they're going to be those who are Christians at all and they're going to be those who pretend to be Christians they put their best clothes on and they wipe their face off And they they put on their best attitude and they go to church and they put on a smile for a hundred different reasons whether it be pride of what people think of them whether it be to to increase their sales numbers at work whether it be to to get help with something they need this or that and and lots of reasons for this.

But at the end of it, there's still tears at the end of it. They still go. They will still find themselves in hell. Why? Because they didn't know the God who would rescue them.

They didn't know the God who gave his son to lay down his life, to take the punishment for their crimes and to to gain a righteousness and a perfect righteousness and how he lived his life and to put it into your account. So when you stand before God one day, if you know Christ, if this transaction has happened, if he has made you born again, if he has changed your heart and you love him because that always comes along with it. If this has happened, You will stand before God one day with his righteousness placed into your account and your sin placed into his account that was punished for the cross. And it's only for that reason that you'll go to heaven. It's only because of Christ that you can go to heaven.

It's only for that reason. It's not because you come to church. It's not because you live righteously in the world's eyes. It's not because you're a rural conservative man who doesn't do what they do in the big cities this has nothing to do with it we can put all these things on and we can look really great to the world but inside we have the stench of rotting bodies and corpses examine yourself Are you the guy that everyone sees or when you examine yourself, do you really see who you are? Has god made you new?

He's pointing to the Pharisees and he says, you guys look great on the outside. But your devil is on the inside. You hide it well from everyone. You do great things, but you don't know me. You don't know God.

And without that, you are dead. Scott Brown, when he preached on this, he shared from a book by Michael Horton entitled Priceless Christianity. And in this book, a quote from this book, it says, what would things look like if Satan really took control of a city? I think, I'm sorry, this is Donald Barnhouse quoted this, but it was inside of this book. It says, over half a century ago, Presbyterian minister Donald Gray Barnhouse offered his own scenario in his weekly sermon on that.

That was also broadcast nationwide on CBS radio. Barnhouse speculated that if Satan took over Philadelphia, all of the bars would be closed. Pornography vanished. And pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing the children would say yes sir and no man and the churches would be full every Sunday where Christ was not preached you hear that Where Christ is not preached.

The devil isn't against you cleaning yourself up. The devil isn't against full churches. He's not against mega churches. He's not against small churches. He's not against rural churches.

If they will preach Christ. Why? Because everybody can be happy and cleaned up and they can all thank all as well and wake up one day and find themselves in hell for all of eternity. You feel the weight of this because when I prepared Because when I prepared for this message, this caused me much searching. And I did.

Do I just put on a show every Sunday morning? It's not a very good show, I'm not a very good preacher. I'm thankful you guys endured. Do I just put on a show? Do I just, those of you that know me well, do I take off my redneck clothes and put on my good clothes for a time?

And is it just that God blessed me with a mind that can remember well and now I can just deceive everyone into thinking that I study more than I do or that I know God better than I do or or Am I dead? Is this just a game? Is this just entertainment? Is this just something I like to do? I'm gonna ask you to search your hearts.

Is Christianity more than putting on your good clothes and saying hi to your friends on Sunday. Is it more than showing the community that you're a good person? Is it more than doing what your mom and dad taught you to do or your grandma and grandpa taught you to do? Do you know Christ? In John 17 3 Jesus says and this is eternal life that they know you the only true God and Jesus Christ who you have sent.

Notice what Jesus didn't say. He didn't say and this is the eternal life that they would repeat a prayer and check the box and move on but he said that they know you not know about you but they know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have said do you know God? Have you found him? Have you searched the scriptures until you knew him you knew that he had changed you you knew that you knew That you knew him that you desired him that you loved him and that you grew in love for him And you were drawn to the scriptures is that the God you know? Or is he the pill?

On the medicine shelf And every Sunday you pop a pill into your mouth and you go on about your way. Do you know him? Now, in the church, in this church in Sardis, we see that there are those who are dead. It seems like there are a majority who are dead, but it also speaks of there are some who are close. And Jesus gives a remedy for them.

He says in Revelation 3.2, He says, wake up and strengthen what remains it is about to die for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God now not to not to go down other theologies I do believe that if you are dead, you're dead. And if you find out you're dead at some point, you are always dead. It's that you are playing this game, and if you're playing the game eventually your typically your dentist is going to be revealed and usually that's Usually that's a slow slide I've been in ministry for enough years now to see the slide in people. I've had lots of conversations with both Vienna that I talk about. I'm concerned for so-and-so.

I shouldn't say worried. I do say worried a bunch. I'm noticing changes. And Scott talked about this in his message on this, that every pastor sees, every pastor typically, some find it really well, that every pastor typically sees, they see changes, All of a sudden, I see this in young people a lot. The preaching begins and all the young people are coming today so I can pick on.

I start to see that the bathroom looks more appealing than the sermon and you know every all of a sudden they must have drank all Kinds of sweet tea before they came to church because they've got to go to the bathroom every 10 minutes. I see this in adults too, but so much here. Any other reason to get up, go do something? I think preceding this is usually they begin to not read their Bibles. Or it begins to fade.

It becomes, instead of it being daily, it switches to a few times a week and then before long, it's a few times a month and then before long, it's gathering dust. And then they start having to go to the bathroom. And then they start having other things to do on Sundays once in a while. And then they start having other things to do lots. And don't get me wrong, I don't think, I don't want to take a crazy time today.

I don't think that if you miss church once in a while, that's terrible. I think you need to spend time with your family once in a while. If it begins to be like 50% of the time, I'm concerned, extremely concerned. And then it becomes, I might see them once a month, and eventually it's usually I don't see them anymore. And I'll go to ask them and they'll have some reason and I'm like you I will if this is you know that I'm thinking this in my head you worked pretty hard for that reason I see through it but I love you so much I'm not gonna blast you with it you know patiently endure I'm gonna patiently pray for you.

But ultimately it's revealing your state. It's either revealing that you are dying and that I need to call you to repentance of which that is one of my purposes to call you to repentance and to pray and if you were alive eventually you will repent eventually we will see you again somewhere eventually you will become you were going through a valley and and you will come out of it God will drag you out of it I I try not to go into too much supernatural, but there were times in my life where I was definitely fading. I was definitely going the wrong direction. And I don't want to tell you this. I'm going to tell you this and you can not like me if you want.

It seems like whenever I get down that road far enough, I start waking up to explosions. I don't know. I don't know how Maybe that's some medical thing. I don't know but I quickly remember that God is the one who keeps me and he's going to do what he needs to do so I asked myself how far do you want to go you want these to become real because God loves me enough to do that anyway I'm sorry for the trip. If God has you, he will keep you.

He'll do whatever it takes. But if he doesn't have you, if it was always a game, if it was always you're trying to conform yourself to look nice for everyone, you'll fall away, and you'll stay away. And somebody will do something in the church that will offend you and you'll stand the rest of your life on it and you'll say no I can't go back to church there's there's a bunch of hypocrites there and you know what there's restaurants I do it to you that I'm quite sure I wouldn't get along with anybody in there that's cooking. I still go there. You know, I didn't go there for those people.

But they're for the food. And that pulls apart a little bit inside the church because if you're genuinely in Christ, I do come here to be with you. Because you are what God uses to encourage me immensely. And if you're here, if you remember the church, I love you no matter what. And I'm praying for you and I don't.

But if you're here, if someone shows up to cause problems and to go crazy and to argue with everything and I dealt with somebody last week not in our church at all somewhere else that just wants to argue about everything. I don't want to be around you. And I could if I was weak in my faith or if I was not regenerate and there was someone inside the church like this, I could make a case that I'm not going there I don't want to see that person but in reality they need Christ too and that's their problem I need to love them anyway so anyway I've taken lots of rabbit trails here so let's get back around here and this is eternal life that they know you the only true god and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. What are you trusting in today? If you're trusting that being here will get you a better standing in your community, that will be worth nothing in 50 years.

You're better to throw away, You're better to go into the community and open air preach and make everybody all of your friends think that you're a fool. And have Christ that did not have him and have the respect of everyone. It's not even a comparable trait. What are you here? In the slow fade, what also goes on in the early parts?

What are you thinking about while you're here? When we're singing this song, what are you thinking about? Are you thinking about the song or are you thinking about something else? When the preaching is going on, and I've sat through lots and lots and lots of preaching and I understand there are times I have to force my head to do what it's supposed to do and not think about being a pot roast or what's going on after or the disc golf tournament next week, or I understand I'm a human just like you are. But the closer we are to Christ, the easier it is, the more we hang on to every word of a sermon, the more we desire to even listen to sermons throughout the week.

One of the reasons I know that I'm not a great preacher is because I've listened to a lot of great preachers. And I'm thankful that I'm a great preacher because my pride probably couldn't handle that. What are you thinking about right now? Is it the word of God? Is it the sermon or is it something else?

Revelation 3, 2, again it says wake up. Wake up. See it's a slumber that we fall into. When we fall into this checkbox system, it's actually a slumber that we're in. It's a slumber that goes closer and closer to death if we're not already there.

It's a slumber that lets us get into a weekly routine where we're humans, we like a routine, we like to wake up and we like to do this and do that and do that and and It contributes actually to time seeming like it goes very fast Every week we we go through these routines and we don't want them interrupted We have a way that we like to do things and if Christ isn't a part of that, it's detrimental. He says to wake up to this. Strengthen what remains and is about to die for I have not found your work complete in the sight of my God. He says to wake up and strengthen what remains. So the question is, well, how do we do that?

And the good thing is in the next verse, God tells us how. In 3.3 it says, 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 at what hour I will come against you. So how?

How do we get out of this sleep? How do we get out of this dying church? This reputation of being alive, of doing the right thing, but being asleep. How do we get out of it? Well it says to remember what you received and heard.

What does that mean? What does that mean, remember what you've received and heard? What have we received and heard? Remember Remember come back come back to this and if you don't know this to remember it dive into this With everything that you have know what God has said know what he says about himself And when you found that what he says is contrary to what you are living, it says to repent. Stop going your own way.

Stop doing what is right in your eyes. Just as we've looked at in the past few weeks. When every man is doing what's right in his own eyes, what happened in Israel, they fell apart and they they devolved into civil war. That's exactly what was on our country today. If you think that that pattern couldn't happen in America, I believe we're quite close.

When every man is doing what's right in his own eyes, destruction always comes and here's the correction don't do it right in your own eyes see what God has said remember it keep it do it and repent are you fading this morning or pet Are you putting on a show this morning and worrying about what everyone's going to think of you, whether that be positive or negative? Repent. Turn to Christ. Seek him until you find him. Seek him until you know him because eternal life is found nowhere else.

The older I get, the more I realize or see, there's a point you reach in your life and you wonder what is my future generation is gonna think of me? How we're reminded by Kenny Jr. I think the other day was telling us about the story. Now, my mind's gonna butcher it terribly, But in the Old Testament where this king was conquering and he's coming to this next city, but one of the ladies was prepared and she climbed up into the tower and got the top of a millstone and when they started to overtake the city, she takes the big rock she got hauled all the way up there and she throws it down and piss him in the head. And his reaction is this to His armor bearer, the guy that stands in front of him with his stuff, he tells his armor bearer, quick, take your sword and kill me, lest history records that a woman killed me.

That's some cute testimony. That's silliness. But isn't that worldly us? We're always worried about what people are going to think, what the future is going to think. But in reality, we should be worried about what does God think.

You can play this out, you can put on the Christian face, you can put on the good person face, and you can attend church for the rest of your life and you can do good things to people and help people that need help and all these things. But if you don't know Christ, It'll be but for nothing. You aren't going to be concerned 500, 000 years from now with the history books say about you while you're in hell. It'll be the least of your concerns. Do you know Christ?

As he made you new. Do you love him? Do you desire him? Would you give everything for him He gives us illustrations of even if you love your father and mother Or wife and children more than him Jesus says you're not worthy of him. He's obviously not telling us to not love our wives and our children.

But even more than them we should love him. Is that why you're here? Because a building filled or a gathering filled with those people who love Christ above all and will give up all for him, that is the true church. And The enemy wants to work it and turn it into something that looks really good, but is a thousand miles wide and a quarter of an inch thick. He wants to turn it even into a spectacle.

He wants to... One of the guys say in the... I shouldn't quote movies. He says the body part of chicken poop, the white speck on top is chicken poop too. It's all chicken poop.

We can make ourselves look permy. We can do the right things. We don't know Christ. We're dead. We're vile and it will be revealed one day.

Presence for penitence. I'm going to read you a little bit. Prevents. It's God's church. He knows if it's dead.

What do we read? A while back is is the god who sees everything. He knows your heart. He knows if you're in Christ, you can fool many people that you aren't fooling god. And this morning, if that's you, he offers you this morning salvation.

He offers you the real Christ. He offers you a real forgiveness. He offers you a real transformation in your heart. He would repent. Even in our folly and even in our rebellion, his kindness exuberates out.

His word says, if any come to him, He will in no way cast out. If any come to him in true faith He will in no way cast out. Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to confess your sins. Today is the day to know Christ.

Amen. Let's pray. I'm sorry. My father, thank you. Thank you this day that we can come together and We can love father because you've shown us how to love.

But father I pray that you would put within us the desire to examine ourselves. Put within us the desire at all costs that we might know you. I pray that we are playing church. If we're pretend Christians. The father you would make us deeply aware.

The Father, you would draw us. Father, I think as a church, if we would have received this letter, the sorrow and shame that would be felt, The shame of thinking we were getting away with something. We were going through the motions. We were doing what we thought we should be doing but we didn't love you. We didn't want to be asked of any more than we had to do.

So often is the cry of man, God, just show me how I can earn heaven so I can get to that line and get on with my life. You know, your word clearly says it is not a salvation our wicked hearts continually want to throw it back up and even to try to live it out hoping that somehow your word is wrong That you'll see us as not wretched people but somehow and even in our rebellion, we think that you'll see us as good people that don't need saved. Father, help us to think clearly. Help us to see our send. Help us to see our need for a savior, help us to cast all everything else off and chase after you with everything that we have, that we might know you, we might know your love and your kindness, your mercy and your grace.

Father, through your glory, would you change us? Through Your glory. Would you awaken us? Your glory. I hate you.

In Christ's name.