When you’re dead wrong, to whom can you go?
What’s in a name? Sometimes nothing. The church at Sardis had a name, a reputation. In the midst of a corrupt, hostile, and dying world, the church at Sardis was known as a church that was alive! People looked at the church and saw it as active, busy, vibrant—all very commendable. The only problem was, it was only a name. In reality the church was dead. Even though people all around deemed it to be alive, there was one Person who saw past the surface. And He sent them this loving and solemn letter of diagnosis: reports of their life had been greatly exaggerated.
The church at Sardis was not obviously dead. Observers saw what appeared to be signs of life: the right words were spoken and the proper actions performed. Their lifelessness was evident neither to themselves nor to others. To the eyes of men, the church was alive and well. All men but One—the only One whose opinion truly matters. But how could this be? Doesn’t activity indicate life?
The Lord Jesus discerned that all of the activity at Sardis was nothing more than the dead works of a dead church. There was service at Sardis, but only in the energy of the flesh. Such service can give the appearance of life to man, but the Lord sees only death, for death and the flesh are partners in Scripture, “For the mind set on the flesh is death…if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die” (Rom. 8:6, 13).
In opposition to death is life, and in opposition to the flesh is the Spirit. This was the missing ingredient at Sardis—the work of the Holy Spirit, that which transforms the actions of mere men into living service with the power, life, reality, and eternal fruit that can come from God alone. He is “the Spirit of life” (Rom. 8:2). But rather than their service being empowered by the Spirit, the believers at Sardis were serving in the deadness of the flesh.
The flesh can be quite industrious. Action, work, movement—the flesh is capable of all of these things. Every unbeliever demonstrates this on a daily basis. But none of it counts in the eyes of the Lord. Heaven only recognizes work carried out in faith by the power of the Holy Spirit. No flesh will ever boast in His sight. And so, at some point, the church at Sardis ceased to serve in the energy of heaven and reverted to the weakness of the flesh.
It is significant that at this point the Lord didn’t criticize what they were doing so much as how they were doing it. It would seem that He was pleased with much of what they were doing, since He went on to urge them to “strengthen the things which remain.” The lifelessness at Sardis didn’t mean that the church had no commendable features. Without some good qualities the church couldn’t possibly have a reputation for being alive. Certainly Sardis had its strengths. But those strengths were waning. The were “ready to die.” Without the divine sustenance of the Spirit, these traits could not long remain. In this we see the principle that the inner leads to the outer: death on the inside inevitably results in the destruction of all that is good in the service of an assembly.
Conversely, inner life leads inextricably to deeds of life, as is seen most clearly in the Lord Jesus. He had life “in Himself” (Jn. 5:26) and such inner life overflowed into deeds of life.
And so the problem is clear. The church at Sardis had abandoned dependence on the Spirit and slipped back into reliance on the flesh. But thankfully the Answer was equally clear! Before ever offering a word of criticism, the Lord Jesus presents Himself to the assembly as the one and only solution to their problem. Did they need a fresh working of the Holy Spirit among them? Then they were to come to the One who has “the seven Spirits of God.” That fascinating title appears four times in the Bible, all in Revelation (1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6). Obviously it is not suggesting that there are seven separate Holy Spirits, for the Bible clearly teaches that there is one Spirit (Eph. 4:4). Even in this letter to Sardis we are told (as in each of the letters) that the Spirit (not “Spirits”) is speaking to the churches. Rather this is speaking of the seven-fold nature of the Holy Spirit. Isaiah 11:2 describes Him as the Spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. Many features of the revelation of the Lord Jesus given in Revelation 1-3 are taken from the Old Testament. And this is no exception. Space forbids us from examining each of these seven aspects of the Holy Spirit and their necessity in the life of any assembly. But it will suffice to say that without these seven features, an assembly is dead indeed.
And yet, although the need at Sardis was for the work of the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus presents Himself, rather than the Spirit directly, as the solution. It is important to notice that Romans 8:2 doesn’t merely call Him “the Spirit of life” but rather as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” And in the revelation of the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 11, He is revealed not on His own, but as the One who rested on the Messiah. If we need the Holy Spirit, there is only one way we can find Him: Christ. “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (Jn. 7:37f).* The Spirit is co-equal with the Father and the Son, yet His role is always to focus our attention on Christ (see Jn. 15:26; 16:14). We are aware that Christ is our access to the Father (Jn. 14:6); but the fact is that He is our access to the Holy Spirit as well. Quite simply, He is our access to God “for there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).
The Lord presented Himself to Sardis as the answer to their need for life, for He is uniquely qualified to provide life. He is the source of physical life (Jn. 1:3), spiritual life (Jn. 3:3), eternal life (1 Jn. 1:1f; Jn. 17:3), abundant life (Jn. 10:10), inherent life (Jn. 5:26), indestructible life (Heb. 7:16), resurrection life (Jn. 11:23- 25), new life (Rom. 6:4), and true life (1 Tim. 6:19, NASB). No wonder He is called the Life (Jn. 14:6)!
Just as with the church at Sardis, every church today requires genuine spiritual life every moment of every day. How easy it is to begin to serve by rote; to gradually and inadvertently forget that apart from Him we can do nothing (Jn. 15:5) and to cease to be earnest in prayer that He will work through us.
There is a particular danger of this when things are going well—when we have a name that we are alive. In difficulties and struggles we may be more aware of our own powerlessness. But when service for the Lord prospers, we can practically forget that it was the Lord’s doing. At such moments of victory the Enemy subtly seeks to move us away from dependence on the Lord, and he finds a willing accomplice in the flesh.
It is sometimes mistakenly suggested that the flesh is inveterately lazy and opposed to religious service. But the flesh can be quite religious and hard-working— provided it gets the glory. Let us always be conscious of our need of the Lord’s power and wisdom every step of the way Home. No task should be undertaken for Him without sincere and humble prayer, acknowledging our impotence and looking to Him in simple trust that He will work through us. This should be our inviolate method of service—even if we have performed the task one hundred times before; especially if we have performed the task one hundred times before. If He doesn’t work through us, we are capable of nothing more than the dead works of the flesh.
The problem was severe at Sardis—what could be worse than death? But the Lord Jesus specializes in bringing life from death. He did it four times during His earthly ministry (the last resurrection being His own). And He has done it countless times since—by His power every believer has “passed out of death into life” (1 Jn. 3:14). Death at Sardis could be overcome by the Life, “our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10).
Before ending His message, the Lord had one last word of promise concerning life: “he that overcometh… I will not blot out his name out of the book of life” (v. 5). For the believer, the Lord Jesus has already blotted out our sins (Acts 3:19) and the handwriting of ordinances against us (Col. 2:14); one day He will blot out every tear from our eyes (Rev. 7:17; 21:4). But our names are indelibly printed in the book of life!
What’s in a name? Sometimes everything. There was a problem with the name of the church at Sardis. But the answer was found in another Name, the Name of its Lord, the One who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars.
* See also Jn. 20:22; Acts 2:33; Mt. 3:11.
Written by James Martin