The Church of Sardis: Blood Washing
- Jake Chambers
- Nov 8, 2009
- Series: SDSU
Revelation 3:1-6, Blood washing
Jake Chambers
November 8, 2009
3:1a: Jesus Christ is fully God. He has the complete nature of God. The bible teaches that Jesus is God. He is not just a good teacher, prophet or moral leader, but God. Revelation is a book all about God and the name of this God is Jesus. The bible teaches that God is a community and Jesus Christ is the Son of God the Father, and a distinct member of the trinity. While the term trinity itself is not in the Bible, the revealing of God as three persons, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son is consistent through scripture.
Matthew 3:16-17 gives us one clear picture of the trinity together. God the Holy Spirit descends on Christ and God the Father speaks.
John 1:1-3: In the gospel of John we see that the Word (Jesus) is God. We see that Jesus is not part of creation, but the Creator. The only biblical answer to “Who Jesus is?” is that Jesus Christ is fully Creator God.
While the trinity is a mystery with inexhaustible wonder and discovery, we will not be doing that search today. I will say that one helpful picture is the picture of marriage and family. The husband and wife are one family, equal but with distinct roles and persons. The trinity models for us both family and community to perfection. I want us to again be reminded that Jesus is God and that Revelation is about Jesus.
While we see in this opening verse that Jesus is fully God, and we also see that he is fully in charge and over his church. Kaleo SDSU belongs to Jesus. Jesus is the lead pastor, the lead church planter and the head of the church. Not the elders, not me, not the members, but Jesus Christ. Be weary of a church that does not preach the Bible, preach about Jesus, and talk of Jesus being the head pastor. This is why at Kaleo we have prayer and planning meetings, preach through the Bible, and pray before making decisions. We have to constantly remind ourselves of who is in charge of this church and ask him what we should do as a church and ask him to lead it. If anyone asks you who the lead pastor at Kaleo is, it is Jesus. Who is the lead planter at Kaleo El Cajon or Kaleo SDSU? It’s Jesus. What is true for our church and community should be true for your life. If you are a Christian, Jesus owns you. The head of your life is Jesus. The head of your family is Jesus. The church has to be all about Jesus or it will die! Jesus is reminding the people of Sardis before he even gets into the letter that he has the authority to do whatever he wills with his church and that he is the one who needs to be obeyed.
3:1b: Some of you have forgotten that your life is all about Jesus. You may have a reputation of being alive, of being a Christian and believe that it is all about you. This is religion and it is dead. There are many religions in the world and everyone is religious. Religion says that my works and my reputation will keep me alive. Islam has a rigid set of rules that you are called to do so Allah will love you. Karma is about what we do, that our good deeds will come back to us and we will get what we deserve. Reincarnation believes the reputation of our works will follow us when we reincarnate. Religion says if I obey then God will love me. If I am good then I can reach heaven. But that always brings the question of how good is good enough? How many good deeds do I need to get me to heaven? What if I fall one deed short?
The church in Sardis is supposedly a Christian church. It pays its denominational fees and members of the church attend on Sundays and maybe put some money in the offering plate. They have a reputation of being alive. They usher, teach Sunday school and have lots of friends in the church and so they think that they have earned God’s favor.
They compare themselves to their coworkers who are committing adultery, living in drunkenness, or doing drugs and think to them selves, “I am better than they are so I am good.”
Sardis has religious people who compare themselves to others and then fill themselves with religious pride. “Well, sure I have committed some sins but my neighbor Frank doesn’t even go to church. I go to church therefore God loves me more than Frank.” Religion separates people into two groups. Good people and bad people. The bible separates them in two groups, too. Bad people and Jesus.
3:2: Jesus Christ is the only one whose works are complete in the sight of God. God requires perfection and our works will never be complete in his sight. Since our works are incomplete we fall into the group of bad people and not the group of Jesus. We are evil and selfish and worship others besides God. We commit sins of commission and omission. We sin when we do what we we’re commanded not to do and we sin when we don’t do what we were commanded to do, and we do this daily. We are that jacked up. Even our good works often come out of a selfish heart and we often do them so others will approve of us and not because Christ had. But our works will not be complete in the sight of Jesus. Religion says if I do this I will gain God’s love, favor, or eternal life. If I obey God will love me. But redemption says because God loves me. Religion is always thinking of what you have to do to gain God’s favor while redemption is focused on what we get to do because God has shown us his favor. Religion says I have to go to church, I have to be in missional community, I have to read my Bible, I have to pray, I have to give something to the church so that I will earn God’s love. This is works righteousness. My reputation and works will save me. Every religion in the world believes in some form of works righteousness besides Christianity. Christianity believes that Jesus gives us a new heart with new desires and it is no longer a “have to” but a “get to”. Christ has chosen to love me and give me favor therefore I get to gather as his church on Sundays to hear his word and sing to him. Christ welcomed me into his community so I get to live in community with his people and share who he is with everyone. I get to hear from God from the Bible because he chooses to speak to me. I get to give back to him with my time, treasure, and talent because he has given me his life and blessed me with skills, resources, and time to give to others. I get to worship and live for Jesus because of how loving Jesus is! Because of his works and his work in my life I am now free to obey! It is all about Jesus. Who he is and what he has done. This is the difference between true Christianity and religious Christianity. This is the difference between biblical Christianity and every other religion in the entire world. WAKE UP! I have given you gift righteousness, no other religion believes in gift righteousness and that is what makes the gospel such good news! Wake up and believe the gospel that you are saved by Jesus and not saved by you. The gospel is a gift that is not earned but given freely by the grace of God!
3:3: Sardis was a big city with huge walls and a lot of over confidence. They trusted their walls to protect them. They trusted their own past achievements to protect them. Once in 547 BC, Cyrus the second led a sneak attack and completely sacked the city and then again it happened in 214 BC by Atiochus the third. They took advantage of a city that decided having watchmen was not a priority. They became over confident, trusting that what they did in the past to save them. Jesus is warning them from this happening to their church. Jesus is telling this church that they need to keep watch and live a life of repentance. Some of you have great testimonies of what God did in your life in the past. Maybe you have great stories of obedience in which you went on a crazy mission trip, gave your whole paycheck to the church, or had a homeless person live in your house. Some of you are relying on your past obedience or past repentance as proof that you are alive. Jesus is saying do not be over confident. The fact that you have attended church for ten years means nothing. Your reputation means nothing. There are bad people and Jesus, but then Jesus will judge people another way too. There are sinners and repentant sinners. The call here is to be a repentant sinner. This moves us to the category of Jesus instead of bad people because we repent of relying on our own reputation, our own works, and being our own God and now rely on Christ’s reputation, Christ’s works, and Christ being our God. This is not a one-time event though. Jesus says keep watch. Believe the gospel daily. Check your heart constantly and live a life of repentance.
Some of you know a little reformation history and know of the great reformer Martin Luther. The church had gone away from trusting in Christ alone to save us and had given power to the pope, indulgences and other junk to save us. Luther wrote up his 95 theses and launched the protestant reformation. The very first call to reform on this list of 95 was the call to live a life of repentance.
A lifestyle of repentance requires us to be confessing sins, crushing idols and turning from worshipping created things to worshipping Creator God. Sardis was a church that had repented before but had ceased to make it a lifestyle. They are the church that tells their testimony and it is all about what God did to save them from some drastic event five, ten or twenty years ago but tells nothing about what God is doing now. We need to keep watch on our hearts that we are living a life of repentance and not let each other get comfortable with our past works. This is why we get to do missional community and get to live life with one another. We need to be a church that is keeping watch that we are believing the gospel and not something else and we do this as a church because individually we can be so easily fooled into relying on our past reputation to prove we are alive today. Keep watch of your hearts and others and make sure you rely on nothing less than the gospel to keep you alive. Anything less is dead.
Revelation 3:4: Jesus is not done bringing home the point of the ridiculousness of religion. Jesus Christ gives us white garments. He gives us his righteousness. The purest holiest gift in the world Jesus gives us. The majority of the church in Sardis and the majority of the church today soil their garments instead of keeping them white. And they foolishly boast in their soilings. What does this mean? It means God gives you his righteousness, gift righteousness. We can be forgiven and cleansed by his blood and we piss our pants. We pee all in our garments and we pee in it more and more and every time we pee in our garments we boast and feel a little more clean and righteous. We have urine stains all over our garments and we stink. Religious people stink. This is why we get labeled hypocrites and proud jerks. We walk around bragging about how clean and righteous we are when everyone can smell our filthiness from a mile away. Every time you rely on your own works to save you and make you just, you are like an ignorant child bragging that he just wet his bed. You stink. You are a disgusting sight to behold and Christ will look at your righteousness in utter disgust.
Revelation 7:13-14
We have all soiled our garments. But Jesus Christ did not leave us without hope of them being washed. True Christianity is not about us; it is all about Jesus Christ and what he did for us on the cross. He takes our urine-stained garments and he puts them on himself. All of the stink, the germs, the bacteria and the filth of hundreds of thousands of stained garments Jesus Christ puts on himself and he wears them on the cross and he cleanses them with his own blood. Then he gives them back to us. And now they are white and holy. We do not have the power to wash our own garments, only the power to stain them more. But the blood of Christ can wash our lives clean. What we need is to stop trading His blood washing with our urine washing. We need a blood washing! We need Jesus. Repent from your religion. Repent of hating confession and repentance and taking your sin lightly. Repent of thinking you are holier and more alive than those around you because of your works. Repent and trust Jesus Christ alone as your savior.
Revelation 3:5: If we trust in Jesus our names can never be blotted out of the book of life. But this is a life of endurance. You must conquer the desire to rely on your own works. Conquer the desire to think your church, job, or works save you. You must give up everything to rely on Jesus. Both Calvinist and Arminians agree on their fifth point, the perseverance of the saints. While there is disaccord on how that fifth point works itself out, they agree that a lifestyle of repentance is the fruit of salvation. Arminians will argue that you can lose your salvation for unrepentance and Calvinist will argue that you were never saved if you stop repenting, but both agree that true saints will persevere in repentance. Persevering in falling in love with Jesus because he first loved us.
Revelation 3:6: The hearing described here is a hearing that leads to obedience and repentance. God initiates with his word and we respond with repentance and obedience. “If you love me you will obey my commands.” Many people will hear these words week after week and gain some head knowledge but they will not respond with obedience. Many people will still put their jobs, school, girlfriend or boyfriend before God and repentance. Many will continue to believe their works save them. Many will run from community and the word of God. Many will pridefully never confess sins and many will confess but never repent. My prayer is that would not be the case of us here. My prayer is that we would repent and obey the Lord and come judgment day, Jesus would confess our names before the Father. We would be wearing his robe not because we continued to trust in our own abilities to save us but because we thankfully trusted in what Jesus has done for us.
I pray that we would hear this word and it would lead to obedience and repentance. It would lead to a lifestyle of blood washing, washing ourselves of finding our worth in anything or anyone other than Jesus Christ and what he has done for us on the cross. Amen.
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