The Test of Reality

The Test of REality

rEVELATION 3:1-6

Main Idea: Jesus brings dead things to life.  

I. Jesus Knows the Church (3:1)

Revelation 3:1: 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. 

  • Seven Spirits of God (Isaiah 11)

  • The Seven Stars (Revelation 1:20)

We must pray in the Spirit, preach in the Spirit, worship in the Spirit, live in the Spirit, and walk in the Spirit. A stale church can be refreshed by him, a sleepy church awakened, a weak church strengthened, and a dead church made alive.

~ John Stott, What Christ Thinks of the Church

 II. Jesus Evaluates the Church (3:1b)

Revelation 3:1:   I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross. ~ H. Richard Niebuhr

Matthew 23:27-28:  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.

What are the marks of a dead church?

  1. Pride

  2. Spiritually lethargic

  3. A loss of wonder over the gospel

  4. Lack of missional engagement

What are the marks of a healthy church?

  1. Humble before Christ

  2. Spiritually Awake

  3. Wonder over the gospel

  4. Faithful to bear witness.  

III. Jesus Challenges the Church (3:2-4)

Ephesus -  to love

Smyrna - to be faithful

Pergamum - to discern 

Thyatira - to think

Sardis - to wake up

Revelation 3:2-3:  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 received and heard. Keep it, and repent.

  1. Wake up

  2. Strengthen what remains

  3. Remember what you have heard 

  4. Keep it

  5. Repent 

Revelation 3:3:  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.

IV. Jesus Clothes, Comforts, and Calls the Church (3:5:6)

Revelation 3:4-6:  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.

Revelation 12:11:  And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

  1. Clothed in white (Isaiah 61:10)

  2. I will never blot out your name (Luke 10:20) 

  3. Confess our name before the Father (Matthew 10:32-33)

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