Synopsis: In Revelation 3:1- 6, Christ rebukes the church in Sardis for having a reputation of spiritual life while being spiritually dead. Like the city that once fell through carelessness, the church had grown complacent and hypocritical, maintaining outward religious activity without a heart truly alive for God. Christ commands them to wake up, remember the Word they received, keep it, and repent. Genuine spiritual life comes through the power of both God’s Word and the Holy Spirit. Those who conquer will be clothed in white, their names secure in the Book of Life, and confessed by Christ before the Father.

Text: Revelation 3:1-6
Date: March 1, 2026

Introduction

Opening Illustration – Persian War: In the days of Christ, the ancient city of Sardis had become a become a bit of a proverb for carelessness. The city had been sacked twice, once in 549BC by Cyrus the Persian, and once in 218BC by Antiochus. Both times, the sacking of the city occurred in similar ways. Cyrus’ victory is recorded in Book 1 of the Persian War. The anciet citadel of Sardis was built upon what essentially a cliff. One entire face of the city was believed to be impregnable. On the other side of the city they built a great wall and stationed their military. King Cyrus could find no way to break through the defenses of the city. From the outside, the city looked perfectly defended. But one afternoon one of his men witnessed something. A soldier from within the city had dropped his helmet and the helmet had rolled down the hill. And that Sardian soldier proceeded to scale the wall, climb down the cliff, and retrieve his helmet. When Cyrus saw this he thought, if can do it, we can do it. And so that night, Cyrus led the way, and his men followed, as they climbed up the cliff where nobody was expecting them, and where they had let their guards down. And Sardis was taken that night.

Personal: It is when you let your guard down, and when you grow careless in your protection, that destruction comes upon you. When it comes to the Christian faith, it is no different. Our hearts are like citadels. They must be guarded. Theenemy is constantly looking for ways in, to destroy us if he can. We must not grow negligent in the great work of protecting the treasury of our heart, and the great treaure of the gospel of grace that has been planted by Christ inside.

Where have you grown careless in the defense of the citadel of your heart?

Where have allowed our religion, to become more about the externals, than we have about a heart enflamed for God?

Context: We continue in our series through the book of Revelation. And as we begin chapter 3, we are considering the fifth of seven letters that Christ wrote to seven early churches spread out across what is today modern-day Turkey. Today we have heard read to us the letter written to the Church in Sardis. The tone of this letter is a bit harsher than the other ones. The other ones he largely begins with praise and commendation. But to Sardis he simply jumps straight to their errors. And at the center of their error that must be corrected is a “careless faith” or perhaps stated a “dying faith.” Because they’ve let their guards down, and they rested easy, the flame of faith has dwindled down to bare embers.

Big Idea: Living faith prioritizes the internal affections of the heart, while dead faith settles for the externals

Meaning & Application

THE PROBLEM

Christ begins in verse 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. “ ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.”

The Charge – Hypocrisy: This Church, like the history of the city, believed that their outward appearance of success was reflective of the inward reality of their faith. Outwardly, they had the markings and reputation of a vibrant church. Their reputation was that they were “alive.” What were the outward markings? We’re not quite sure, but perhaps we can assume.

Doctrine: Perhaps, this is a reference to the fact that this church, unlike some of the other churches we have covered in Revelation, held onto good doctrine. There is no mention here of heresies or false teachers. So their reputation could be, “Man these guys know the Bible.”

Systems: Maybe they grown with huge numbers. And folks were joinig the church, and the place looked alive. It was the happening place.

Logo, Website: Maybe they had a great logo, and their website was state of the art.

Well Run Ministries: Maybe they had really well run ministries. They had a welcome team, and great kids ministry. Maybe the music on a Sunday morning was great. And maybe the preacher was compelling.

Illustration – Wizard of Oz: Perhaps you recall the old film the Wizard of Oz. When Dorothy finally makes it to the Wizard, when she first looks around, it all seems overwhelming and terrifying. There is a great loud voice, and flames, and a great hall, and the appearance on the outside of something altogether magical. But Toto, Dorothy’s dog, pulls back the curtain, and everyone realizes there was no wizard. He is nothing more than snake-oil salesman with some impressive props.

Christ Not Fooled: But Christ is not so easily fooled. Christ sees through the veneer and sees the hearts of the people, because Christ is after the heart—He wants your heart! Christ says “I see the veneer and it means nothing to me. What I want is the your heart, enflamed with love for God. And I see your heart, and the verdict is that your heart is either dying or dead. And if you don’t fix that now, there is a much bigger problem on the horizon.”

Hypocrisy: The Biblical term for what Christ is describing is hypocrisy, a theme that Christ preached on often during his earthly ministry. Remember Christ’s words in the Gospel of Matthew when he quoted from the prophet Isaiah. He said:

Matthew 15:8 “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;”

Two Corrections: Christ gives two initial commands.

Revelation 3:2 “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: “Wake up.” That word means, “Be vigalant. Have your eyes on the prowl.” They would have thought of their citadel and how the guards had been overly confident that their walls were unbreakable. Christ looks to them and says “you have fallen asleep, and the enemy is already scaling the wall. Wake up.”

Strengthen: Then the second command is to “strengthen what remains and is about to die.” That word means to “establish” or “set in place.” Again, the idea to fix yourself on the wall, so that you can properly defend against enemy attacks, and keep the city safe.

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.”

Mastering the Text: There is so much here for us Church. Whenever we study the Bible, there are two primary tasks we’re trying to accomplish. First, we want to master the text. This means that we want to fully understand what the author was saying, and what it meant to his original audience. We don’t want to apply our own meaning to the text that is somehow disconnected from what the text actually means. So first, we study the text and master the text. Second, we want to be mastered by the text. We want to submit ourselves underneath the authority of God and his word. And what we want to ask ourselves those hard questions of how this particular text brings conviction, or strength, or renewal, or insight, or all of the above.

Gospel Changes the Heart: I’d like to ask at this point whether there might be any truth in Christ’s words that are relevant for each of us individually today? How easy is it, to fall into the trap of prioritizing the externals of the Christian religion and forsaking what this is all about. The prophet Ezekiel looked forward to our day when prophesied of what the Christ would when he came.

Ezekiel 36:26–27 “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

To become a Christian is far more than to gain certain religious practices. It is true, Christianity does have many good and wonderful laws that God has given us to walk in, so that our external life would align with our new internal life. But at the center, is a living relationship with a living God, who has loved you so extravagently that he would die for you on the cross, in order to extend his love to you. Where there is very little internal affections of the heart, hunger to know God, and walk with God, and enjoy God, and be satisfied God, there is very little faith.

Illustration – Flowers: It like a man who comes from work with flowers in his hand for his wife. Outwardly he has performed the action that says “I was thinking of you and I love you.” And his wife says “Oh honey, whats the occasion?” And the man says, “I heard husbands were supposed to buy their wives flowers, so there you go.” The action, without the heart, doesn’t communicate love, in fact it communicates the opposite. Christ says, “I want the heart before I want the flowers.”

Big Idea: Living faith prioritizes the internal affectsions of the heart, while dead faith settles for the externals

THE SOLUTION (THE WORD & THE SPIRIT)

The solution. In verses 3-4, we have the solution.

Revelation 3:3–4 “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 at what hour I will come against you. Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.”

Soiled Their Garments (Baptism): In every age of Israel’s history, and in every generation of the Church, there is always a remnant that holds onto the true faith. So it was in Sardis. There were a few who were a part of that Church who had hearts right with God. The language of soiling their garments can mean a number of things. What could be the case is that it is a reference to the white gowns that may have been used at people’s baptism. The white gown worn at the baptism was a symbol of a person’s new purity of soul before God because of Christ’s death and resurrection for the forgiveness of their sins. Christ says, “Your lack of heart and affection for me now, is like a great stain on the baptismal gown.”

The Word & The Spirit: This passage lays out for us a clear and powerful vision for how we root out hypocrisy in our hearts, and how we make sure that our faith is built upon the living God, and not just a sham. To do that we will need the tools of both the Word and the Spirit.

The Word: First, the Word. Christ says.

Revelation 3:3 “Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent...”

Three separate commands are given.

Remember: First, “Remember what you have received and heard…” What have they received and heard? They have received and heard the word of God preached. This is a church that at some point one of the early apostles visited and preached and laid a foundation for faith. Through the preaching of God’s Word, the saints in Sardis had been trained, shaped, discipled, to know what their faith was about, and how they were to live.

Keep: Second, he says “Keep it.” That word means “guard it,” “protect it,” “observe it.” In other words practice what was preached. This means that we do not just read the Bible and move on with our day, or listen to the Word of God and preached and move on. No, we want to keep what we have heard. That requires to take some time when you get home to reflect on what God spoke to you this morning. Where is adjustment needed. Let his word have its effect on you.

Repent: Third, he says “repent.” An important word. It means, that Christ is not just looking for behavior change. We don’t just go home and say “Okay, I’ve got to do this different now.” That is to do the very thing Christ is condemning. When Christ reveals a gap between how things ought to go, and how they’re going, the main tool we have is repentance. In repentance we confess to God the shortcoming, and we lay ourself before God in a posture to receive his transforming grace.

How do we ensure that we do not slip into hypocrisy. Part of that answer is we tether ourselves to the Word of God. Gorge yourself on it. Never stop, learning, taking in truth, conforming to that truth. Let the Word of God be your standard.

The Spirit: Secondly, it’s not just the Word of God. We need the spirit

Illustration- Professor: I had a professor in college at Indiana University. I signed up one day for a Christian History course. And it became very apparent that the teacher knew far more about Christian history than I could every possibly know. It also became clear that this man was an enemy of God, who neither feared God nor loved Christ. We can know the Word inside and out, and yet still have no vibrancy in us.

Spirit Introduction: Which is why I believe that Christ introduces himself in this particular letter the way he does. Back in verse Christ said,

Revelation 3:1 “The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “

If you recall, in our study of Revelation chapter 1, we noted that this is a reference to the seven-fold Spirit of God that we read about in the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah described the Christ that would be born in his future this way.

Isaiah 11:2 “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”

There are seven different “spirits” that are described in that passage, and that came to be known as the seven-fold spirit. In other words, the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Why This Introduction: Why did Christ introduce himself this way, to this Church? It is because hypocrites know very little if anything about the power of the Holy Spirit, and the general way he works in a believer’s life to see that believer sanctified over time. What does the Holy Spirit do in our life. That is a whole class (which in time I will teach if you are joining for our Theology classes). But let me give you a taster.

New Birth: It is the Holy Spirit that gives us new birth, and causes us to believe in the first place.

Titus 3:5 “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but… by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,”

Assurance: It is the Holy Spirit that works in us to assure us in our hearts and minds that we are indeed saved by grace and in Christ.

Romans 8:16 “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,”

Sanctification: It is the Spirit that sanctifies us on this journey of faith and increases our holiness in practice and in worship over time.

1 Peter 1:2 “… in the sanctification of the Spirit…”

Produces Spiritual Fruit: It is the Holy Spirit in us that produces spiritual fruit

Galatians 5:22–23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

Fight Against Sin: It is in the Holy Spirit in us that helps us fight against sin and overcome sin.

Romans 8:13 “… if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

I could go on and on. The Holy Spirit illuminates the Scriptures so that we can understand and apply them. The Holy Spirit teaches us how to pray. The Holy Spirit gives us the desire to want to grow in prayer. The Holy Spirit leads us in good works. He convicts us of our sin. He seals us for our day of redemption, when we stand before a Holy God and give an account of our life, it will be the Holy Spirit that is the seal on our heart of right that Christ’s blood has been paid our debt in full.

Practical: When we speak of the Spirit of God, we are not talking about a feeling, or a mystical sense of God. The Holy Spirit is one of the three persons of the Godhead. And He always acts in accordance with God’s Word. In fact the two go together. If you want to grow in your sensitivity to the Spirit, then push into the Word, and pray for illumination.

Eastern Orthodox: This is one of the great mistakes of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Eastern Orthodox have viewed the Word and the Spirit as two different and separate paths to God. The Word, is the logical and rational approach to God, while the Spirit is mystical approach to God. And so within Eastern Orthodoxy you get all kinds of mystical hyper-spiritual practices that are nowhere discoverable in God’s Word.

Correction: No, if we want to experience the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life. First, we must truly be born again. The truth is that for many hypocrites, that simply has not happened yet. Then second, we must develop our relationship with God by hearing from Him in His Word, speaking with him through prayer, and applying his word in our life in obedience by the power of the Spirit.

Wrap Up: If we are at risk of hypocrisy in our own faith, or corporately in the life of our church. We need the anchoring of the Word, and the power of the Spirit.

THE PROMISE

Lastly, as with the other letters, a wonderful promise is provided. Verses 5-6 read:

Revelation 3:5–6 “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.’”

Conquers: Isn’t it interesting that he speaks to “the one who conquers.” Again, this is military language, hearkening back to the proverbial fall of the city of Sardis. Christ is saying, “If you wake up, and take your post, your city will not fall, and you will be victorious because the Spirit will guide you.”

Three Promises: And then three promises are given:

1 White Garments: Second, you will be clothed in “white garments.” Can you imagine what hope this must have filled this church in Sardis with. There were some there who had stained their white garments. They had made a confession of faith at one point in time, but since they had grown lazy and fallen asleep, and soiled their garments, making a mockery of their baptism and a mockery of Christ. But Christ says, “My mercy is new every morning. You may have backslid, and lost track of what this is all really about, but I see you, and I will wash you as white as snow.

2 Book of Life: Second, Christ will never blot your name out of the book of life. This language can be read deceptively, so let me clarify. Christ has a book, in which is written the name of every soul whom he has elected for salvation. If you’re a Christian, your name was in that book before you were born. Revelation 13:8 speaks of our names being written in this book from the foundations of the world.

Revelation 13:8 “everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.”

Christ is saying, that we might backslide in a hundred ways. The fire that was in our belly’s when we first believed might dwindle. But if we have been saved by Christ, then there is no chance that our name will be removed from that book. Our name is not written in lead or ink that fades, or etched in stone that disappears over time, but it is written in the eternal blood of the lamb that cannot fade or disappear. If you are in Christ, you are more secure than a newborn baby in her mother’s arm.

3 Confess His Name: Third and finally Christ promises to confess your name before God the Father and his holy angels. What a hope! Can you imagine the scene with me. You are standing before God the Father, with legions of angels on either side of Him. It is the most glorious sight you have ever seen. As you stand in the presence of God and the angels, you are overcome by two thoughts at the same time.

First, the glory of God, and that is this is what your heart was made for. It’s beating of your chest!

Second, the shallowness of all the times you went through the motions of Christianity down here with no heart an affection for God. For a brief moment you finally have an accurate picture of yourself in all your sin.

In that moment, it will not matter what your reputation was down here. In fact Jesus explicitly tells us that many who were last down here will be first up there.

And in that moment, you know there is no pleading your case. Your good works will not suffice, your church attendance will score you no points, your reputation for being alive has no weight. One thing, and only one thing matters. The confessione of one man, Christ Jesus. If you are born again, He will place his nail pierced hands on your shoulders, and he will look to God the Father, and in the presence of legions of angels he will say “This one is mine, purchased at the cross.” And heaven itself will roar at the victory of Christ.

Conclusion

O Church, may we not trifle with hypocrisy down here. We do not fool God, and so let us not waste our time. If you have repented of your sin, and received the free of gift of salvation in Jesus Christ, do not wait until Heaven to start that life. It’s here in the context of his church, where we have the greatest foretaste of heaven.

Big Idea: Living faith prioritizes the internal affections of the heart, while dead faith settles for the ext