Saturday, April 1, 2017

Church of the Living Dead


I hate rats ... there are good reasons for this, but I haven't got time to tell you why.
I hate rats ... I know I shouldn't; I know that for some reason God made rats ... but I cling to the truth that God has given us dominion over creation, and I choose, quite incorrectly, to believe that because I hate rats, I can kill them.


So ... we used to live in a home that was next to a pine forest and linked to the harvesting of the trees one season we had an infestation of rats. We put down Rattex and started to deal with the problem. One day I opened the linen cupboard and there, on top of the white sheets, was a rat ... but it wasn't dead, it was sleeping. I screamed and did what any full blooded South African man would do ... I called Chris. "There's a rat sleeping in the linen cupboard!" It was in such a deep sleep it didn't move. When Chris had recovered from the shock that I had actually gone into the linen cupboard ... she came down. I in the meantime had run into the lounge.

"There's a rat sleeping in the linen cupboard!" ... I shouted again ... "Do something!"
"It's not sleeping Dear ... it's dead."
"No, ... it's sleeping ... I saw it breathing."
She walked past the lounge door with the rat on the sheets ... "it's not sleeping Dear, it's dead!"

These rats had such a reputation for being alive ... I couldn't believe they could die. Worse ... I couldn't tell a dead rat from a living one. This all came to mind this week as I pondered whether we know the difference between a dead church and a living church.

To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 

The church at Sardis, between 40 and 50 years old (but we can't be sure) was, in the words of Jesus, dead. A dead church ... and obviously Jesus is speaking of the spiritual, because they are still breathing, they are "alive" ... but spiritually they are dead. They were once alive ... we know that from chapter one of Revelation: this church had an angel and a lampstand; and again there isn't time to go into that, but this church was once very alive. We know from the first church we looked at a few weeks ago, the church at Ephesus in Rev 2, that the Lord can and does take His lampstand away from a church … that’s when a church is really dead. This doesn’t happen overnight; the Lord is very gracious … He always warns and tells a church what to do in order to avert dying … and gives them time to change. Always they are called to “Repent” as a church … not as individuals, that is something else … churches are called to repent. I remember the first time I taught this truth in a previous church and suggested we, as the Elders and leaders confess our sin as a church before God … one elder in particular was deeply offended and said “How dare you?” I was quite taken aback and asked if he believed the church was perfect, to which he replied “Of course not!”
“Well,” I said, “then we obviously have things to repent of.”

Five of the seven churches are called to repent. We don’t know how they responded to these messages, but one would hope that they, as a church, humbled themselves before the Lord with prayer and fasting, examined themselves, confessed their sins and then repented. Scripture is abundantly clear that individuals need to repent, churches need to repent and nations need to repent; and the degree to which they repent is directly linked to the degree that God can impart blessing.

So the church at Sardis is dead … and as with the other churches in Revelation, Jesus bases His judgement on … their deeds. Once again, in 5 of the 7 churches, Jesus says: “I know your deeds” and then goes on to judge them, naming their particular deeds, good and bad. But in Sardis He names nothing. None of the other churches are dead at the time of writing, so if we look at them we can see what can be going on in churches which are alive: in Ephesus they have lost their first love, but that doesn’t make them dead … in others there is some false teaching, there is tolerating what they should hate, there is suffering, there is poverty, there’s persecution, weakness, there’s wealth. But in Sardis, Jesus finds nothing to mention. We don’t know what they do, we don’t know what they don’t do, we don’t know what they hate … what we do know is that there is a good outer reputation but inner decay. They don’t know they are dead … the process of decline had been so subtle that it was actually unnoticed. Without a doubt they were doing church stuff … meeting regularly, praising God, studying the Scriptures. In fact, they are probably a good example of what Jesus had in mind when He said in Mt 7:21-23

 ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, … Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?” 
 Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

This church would be praising God, perhaps have what some would call wonderful praise and worship … there might be lots of effective prophesy in Jesus name … driving out demons and lots of miracles … such a church would “have a reputation” … but these things, contrary to what the world might think, say absolutely nothing about the aliveness of the church … they say something about Jesus. A church can do all these things … and be dead … please note, according to Jesus.

So, how do we tell the difference between a church that’s alive and one that’s dead? Remember, the dead church of Sardis does have some saints in its midst … it has some very deep and committed Christians:

Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.

So, the presence of good, solid, pure Christians in a church doesn’t mean the church is alive. Sardis was a church with Christians, but not a Christian church in the eyes of Jesus. God will use even a dead church to convert people if He wants to … it is God who converts … friends, our faith must be in our message and not the messenger; our faith must be in our message and not in how we package it. Paul grasped this truth and passed it on to us in Phil 1:15-18
It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.  The latter do so out of love, …. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely,. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.

No one doubts that the gospel was preached at Sardis … the gospel can be preached in a dead church by a dead preacher. I have known some dead churches and dead preachers … the church which developed the theology which formed the basis of apartheid became a dead church … Jesus eventually removed His lampstand from the Dutch Reformed Church of SA ... it is well recorded… and the gospel was preached even amid the false teaching of racial segregation that was presented as God’s will for the land.

So … how are we to tell a dead or dying church from one that is alive? You know the answer … it’s what the Elders decided should be preached on for the first three months of this year. The answer is evangelism and discipleship.

2000 years of church history shows that a church committed to evangelism and discipleship cannot die. It might be persecuted out of existence … but it will not be said that it died. Jesus will never remove His lampstand from a church committed to evangelising its neighbourhood and discipling its converts.
We can be sure that Sardis was not committed to evangelism and discipleship … and so eventually, Jesus proclaims them dead.

BUT … the Lord Jesus Christ is an interesting person to have around in the presence of death and more especially when He says as He does in vs 2: “Wake up!”

This is pure grace, isn’t it? They have nothing to commend them, but He proclaims a resurrection command over them: “Wake up!” and in His ministry has shown what happens when He gives a resurrection command:

 ‘Young man, I say to you, get up!’ …. ‘Little girl, I say to you, get up!’ … ‘Lazarus, come out!’ … and in each instance, dead people come to life.

Now, as I said earlier, we don’t know how the church at Sardis responded. Did they recognize that they were dead, repent and receive the word; or did they think: “How dare John speak to us like this?” and carry on as before?

Chris carried the rat outside and I buried it because I care about the birds and animals that might have died if they’d eaten the poisoned rat … I care more about you. Where do you need to hear a resurrection command to “Wake up!” in your life this morning?

To some:
Perhaps you need to wake up to the reality that Jesus, who died for us, is alive and wants you to be alive … really alive, whatever is going on in your life. Alive with the abundant life that comes through faith in His life, death and resurrection. In a few moments we’ll sing a song that celebrates that He is alive … we can sing it just as words, or we can sing it as good news that we believe … and I invite you to sing it by faith.

To others:
Perhaps you’re falling asleep in your faith … and as I said that you knew exactly where it is that God is saying “Wake up!”

To us as a church:
Meadow Way Chapel is not dead … MWC is not dying … but, like every other church on the planet, we must hear at least some of Jesus’ words to the church in Sardis in vs 2:

Wake up! Strengthen what remains … for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.


Our deeds, our work is in no way finished … and this is true of every church until Christ returns. So as we sing the second song … let’s sing it in faith and as a call to press on.