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Wednesday, November 26, 2025
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!
The Sermons to the Seven Churches: The Church of Deadly Complacency (2)
Psalm 139:1-4 Revelation 3:1-6 Luke 10:23-37
The Sermons to the Seven Churches: The Church of Deadly Complacency (2)
Living in the New Testament era has its distinct advantages, don’t you think? Although the revelation of God was never really obscure, it did reach its climax in the advent of Jesus. Like an acorn that is genetically encoded with everything it will ever become, the Scriptures grew until the entire majestic oak could be seen and fully appreciated. Blessed are our eyes and ears then for we have seen and heard things that prophets and kings longed to see and hear but did not. Which means that there is absolutely no excuse why any New Testament community should ever be classified as dead.
Jesus not only addressed the church as the one who gives and sustains true life, but also as the one who is Lord over the leaders of the church. As the Holy Spirit only speaks what he hears from Jesus, so too should church leaders only teach what they read in the Holy Scriptures. We are not free to speak on our own behalf. We are ambassadors of the Kingdom and are therefore bound by the words of the King. It is therefore important for the preachers and teachers to know his Word well as they are to represent him, not themselves, regardless of how intelligent they may believe themselves to be.
The Holy Spirit only speaks what has been revealed to him…we would do well to do the same.
Once more, Jesus indicated that he knew everything about the church. As we read in Psalm 139:1-4: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.” There is nothing in the whole of creation that is hidden from our God. He knew us from before the foundation of the world. He knew us before we were conceived. He knows our names, he know our thoughts, he knows our paths in life. He not only knows about us…he knows us.
As I’ve said before, while this is very comforting, it can also be rather disconcerting. It is relatively easy to fool ourselves and others into thinking that all is well, but we can never fool God. He not only sees our works, but he also sees our hearts and weighs them in the balance of his Word…and his Word reveals and discloses everything.
Now, as we saw last week, the church in Sardis seemed to be at peace. All appeared to be well. There was no persecution and apparently no heretical teaching either, but as you have probably already noticed, there is also no word of praise in this letter. It seems everything about this church was a façade. On the outside she appeared to be thriving, but on the inside, she was dead…the external part of the cup and dish was squeaky clean, but the inside part desperately needed a good scrub. Like a sugar-coated pill, the shallow Christian veneer disguised the inner bitter reality.
This raises the question as to what constitutes biblical faith. Is it good enough to just say that you believe in Jesus? Is a one-time prayer all it takes to translate a person from the kingdom of darkness into his glorious light? How many have not taken advantage of an emotional moment to get someone down on their knees to say a prayer they might not fully understand? How many have not said the prayer and later walked away?
None of the biblical characters seemed to make choices lightly. Gor instance, Joshua urged the Israelites to think on it long and hard before making any decision. In Joshua 24:19 he said: “You are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins.”
And Jesus also never sweet-talked people into the kingdom either. He obscured his message by speaking in parables, so that only those who had ears to hear might respond. It is tragic to see how many believers simply haven’t the faintest idea of why they believe, or in whom they believe, or what that belief means in terms of their behaviour. When confronted with the demands of the Gospel, they either change it or they leave it because their initial introduction to Christianity was so watered-down that when they were served real meat, they couldn’t swallow it.
So, lesson learned. Don’t smooth-talk people into making a decision for Jesus by not telling them the whole truth…faith in Jesus is a lifechanging commitment. So, have them turn away before rather than after…
The believers in Sardis appear to have made a superficial profession of faith – a profession that had not had any impact on their lives – there was no reality to their claim. They had a reputation of being alive, but Jesus said they were dead. Perhaps it would be good for us all to examine our own lives in the light of God’s Word from time to time to make sure we are not in the same boat.
And yet, even though there was no commendation, there was a concession. “You have still a few names in Sardis,” Jesus said, “people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.” There seems to have been a small group of believers in Sardis who had not succumbed to complacency. Evidently, not all was lost. There was still a faint ember that could be fanned back into flame before it died completely. So, even though the threat of judgement was very real, there was a glimmer of hope, and the leaders of the church were admonished to strengthen the vestiges of remaining life.
Eternal life is not like a ticket to a show which can be bought or sold. The life which Jesus gives to us is something we both have and press on toward. Although salvation can never be earned, it is something that demands perseverance and endurance. It is a race that must be run to the finish if the runner is to obtain the imperishable crown. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:26-27: “I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”
Those who are disqualified are those who never intended to run the race to the end…perhaps they never understood that faith requires a lifelong and lifechanging commitment. As John reminds us in 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”
Our salvation demands obedience and is to be worked out with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). Perseverance presupposes perpetual preparedness. A watching and a guarding…like the five wise virgins who were prepared to wait for the coming of the bridegroom…or the watchman who anticipated the arrival of a thief. And therefore we must always ask God to give us grace to turn away from the works of darkness and to clothe ourselves with the armour of his light, so that when he comes to take us to himself, we are not found wanting.
The works of the believers in Sardis were not found complete in the sight of God. They were lifeless as, it appears, they were Christless. Our works, as believers, find their genesis in our submission to his lordship. Ultimately, Christianity is a relationship with God that has been made possible by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, as well as his constant present intercession for his own. Life comes from the heavenly throne of Jesus because he is the one who has the Spirit of life. But the evidence of that life is a changed life…a life that is governed by the will of God as revealed in and through the Holy Scriptures.
And so, Jesus issued a sombre warning to the church in Sardis. “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.” Interestingly, as I didn’t plan it this way, this is the theme for the first Sunday in Advent: a call for the Church to awaken, watch, and expect God’s salvation.
The instruction to remember what was received and heard is a directive to look back and to remember the grace by which they had been saved. This was not a trip down memory lane or an exercise in nostalgia. They were to remember so that they might keep what they had first received and heard and repent of having lost it.
This is an exercise we ought to repeat frequently if we are to avoid being complacent in our faith. If we are not willing to suffer the momentary discomfort of the process of repentance, then we, like the church in Sardis, will suffer the definite discomfort of judgement…and, like an absent or sleeping guard, we may be unprepared for the day of his visitation. Jesus said that he would come like a thief…silently and unexpectantly…and therefore we must be vigilant in our faith because time can make sluggards of us all.
Now, it is encouraging to note that the few in Sardis who had not defiled their garments were known to Jesus by name. As God said in Isaiah 43:1: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
Jesus said that his sheep hear his voice as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out (John 10:3). He calls his sheep and he knows each one by name. He lays down his life for his sheep and has engraved each name on the palms of his hands (Isaiah 49:16). He gives his sheep eternal life, each one by name. He keeps each sheep firmly in his hands. Jesus’ death was not some impersonal cosmic transaction…he died for each one by name.
And it was these sheep that had not defiled their garments…that had not been tainted by the society in which they lived…and Jesus promised that they would all walk with him dressed in white garments. Now, these white garments were ancient symbols of purity. Priests in the ancient world wore white garments (Exodus 28:4; Leviticus 16:4; Josephus, Antiquities 11.327, 331; 20.216-218). Roman political candidates used chalk to make the toga appear dazzling white to signify the purity of their motives (Persius, Satires 5.177; Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, XIX, 24.6). Heavenly messengers were clothed in white garments (Matthew 28:3; John 20:12; Acts 1:10). And in Revelation 7:14 we read that the martyrs had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. In Revelation 19, John described Jesus, clothed in a robe dipped in blood, coming on a white horse followed by the armies of heaven who were arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, all seated on white horses.
But once again, note that the emphasis here is on endurance…on persevering…on overcoming. “The one who conquers,” Jesus said, “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.” Although we receive salvation through the finished work of Jesus, we are called to work out that salvation in daily obedience…to put off the old and put on the new…to press onward toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. We are to persevere to the end and to overcome the world with the word of our testimony and the blood of the Lamb.
Now, this book of life is not a New Testament concept. It is first mentioned in Exodus 32:31-33 where Moses interceded for the Israelites: “But now, if you will forgive their sin – but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.” But the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.” (See also, Psalm 69:28; Daniel 12:1; Malachi 3:16; Philippians 4:3; Revelation 13:8; 17:8; 20:12; 20:15; 21:27; 22:19)
Now the first thing to note is that this book has been written by God. No human being is the shaper of their own destiny…so Moses could not ask to be included or excluded from this book. It is God’s decision as to whose name is recorded in his book…and as he is holy and just and altogether righteous, his decision is never arbitrary.
The second thing to notice are the words “I will never blot out”. The question we must ask at this point is simply this: Is it possible that the Lord who chose us and who wrote our names in the Lamb’s book of life from before the foundation of the world (cf. Revelation 13:8; 17:8), who engraved our names on the palms of his hands, who calls us and redeems us by name, who knows each sheep individually by name…is it possible that he would have mistakenly written a name in his book of life? A name that would later need to be erased.
Do these words suggest that those once included may be excluded? No, this is not possible because the Scriptures teach us that the nature of salvation in Jesus is eternal because our justification before God is not based on our performance or upon our decisions, but upon Jesus’ atoning and propitiatory sacrifice. Nor can this mean that all names were recorded in the book of life and only erased once they made an accountable decision against Jesus. Again, the Scriptures teach us that all have sinned, and all fall short of the glory of God. All are dead in trespasses and sins. So, for all to be included in the book of life when we are all in reality dead is a contradiction in terms.
So what do these words means? “I will never blot out.” There have been many explanations but, in my humble opinion, none of them fully satisfy the biblical criteria. If you’re in, you are in and you cannot be erased. If you are out, you are out and you cannot be included. So how can we explain this apparent threat of erasure. Well, in the ancient world, a promise phrased negatively, in this case “I will not blot out”, was a figure of speech intensifying security. For example, when Jesus said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” the use of multiple negatives emphasized certainty, not the likelihood of abandonment. Or when he said, “…and no one will snatch them out of my hand,” the force of the promise is not that snatching might happen, but precisely the opposite: absolute impossibility.
So when Jesus said that he would not blot out the name from the book of life of the one who overcomes, he was saying that the one who overcomes is the one whose name is already written in the book of life and therefore that name will never be erased. In other words, the phrase reassures the faithful, not threatens them.
The idea is that all who confess the name of Jesus before the world, and continue to do so to the end, are the ones whom Jesus confesses before the Father (Luke 12:8-9). Yet, at this juncture it would be wise to remember that we persevere because the Lord is able to keep us from stumbling and he is able to present us blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy (Jude 24). He is both the author and the finisher of our faith. Not one of the sheep given to him by the Father will ever be lost, because he will raise them up on the last day.
It is Jesus who gives us life through his death. It is Jesus who gives us the Holy Spirit who seals us in this life. It is Jesus who holds us in the palm of his hands and who is with us even till the end of the age.
The city of Sardis looked to the emperor as the life giver…they looked to gods for healing and for resurrection…and they looked to their location and their fortifications for security. But history revealed their vulnerabilities.
In his sermon to the church in Sardis, Jesus told them to remember the Gospel they had once embraced…to remember that without faith in the finished work of Jesus, they were still dead in their sins. As he said in John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” So he called them to evaluation and to repentance.
Now, the season of Advent is a time in which we are called to reevaluate our lives in the light of the gift of life given to us through the incarnation of Jesus. Do we need to wake up from our spiritual slumber and to remember what we have received and heard? Do we need to strengthen a feeble faith or do we need to rekindle the smouldering wick of our life’s candle? May I challenge you all to use these four weeks before Christmas to ask the Holy Spirit to search your hearts to see if there any unguarded parts of your lives that speak of complacency rather than of faith?
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2025
Thursday, November 20, 2025
The Sermons to the Seven Churches: The Church of Deadly Complacency (1)
Ephesians 2:4-6 Zechariah 4:1-7 2 Timothy 3:10-17 Revelation 3:1-6
The Sermons to the Seven Churches: The Church of Deadly Complacency (1)
On the morning of 11 August 1974, the streets of Lower Manhattan were still shaking off the dawn when a young Frenchman stepped out into the sky. Philippe Petit, after more than six years of meticulous planning, stepped onto a steel cable stretched between the two towers of the World Trade Centre, a wire suspended about 410 metres above the ground.
Everything about the event had been carefully planned: the hidden preparations, the clandestine entry into the towers, the precision engineering of the cable, the tensioning, the rehearsals. Petit was not a daredevil improviser; he was an artist of discipline and intense concentration.
But about five months later, on 7 January 1975, Petit experienced a very different moment. On the very day he was to premiere with the Ringling Brothers Circus, during a routine practice session, he slipped from the wire and fell. This time there was no glorious skyline, no cheering crowds, just the rehearsal hall floor, only about 13–14 metres below him. He survived, though badly bruised and with broken ribs.
What struck observers most was not his injuries but his reaction. He was furious, allegedly shouting, “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it! I don’t ever fall!”
That cry captures the heart of what we call complacency. Not laziness, not apathy, but a misplaced confidence…an assumption that because we have succeeded before, we will succeed again without vigilance.
It is the subtle relaxation of watchfulness.
The ancient city of Sardis, capital of the Lydian kingdom, sat atop a rugged acropolis, with sheer cliff faces on three sides, rising approximately 450 metres above the surrounding plain. From a distance, it appeared utterly unconquerable, a city rendered impregnable by nature itself. Even if part of the city on the plain was taken, the citadel on the hill was easily defended. Location, location, location…but history proved otherwise.
In 547 BC, during the reign of King Croesus of Lydia, Sardis faced the armies of Cyrus the Great of Persia. Croesus, trusting the city’s natural defences, left sections of the cliffs unguarded. After a long siege, a Persian soldier noticed a Lydian guard accidentally drop his helmet over a cliff and then climb down a hidden crevice to retrieve it. That night Persian troops scaled that same unguarded route and opened the gates from within. Sardis fell because the king and his subjects assumed that no one would ever be able to penetrate their defences.
But then, centuries later, between the years 215–213 BC, Antiochus III (the Great), captured Sardis because of a remarkable episode of betrayal. After the Battle of Raphia, the Egyptian minister Sosibius sought to rescue Achaeus, a Seleucid nobleman and rebel governor who had taken refuge in the citadel of Sardis. Sosibius hired a Cretan operative named Bolis, who claimed to know a secret path down the dangerous cliffs and promised to lead Achaeus safely out under cover of night.
But Bolis had other plans. He secretly joined forces with Cambylus, an officer in the army of Antiochus the Great, and with one of his own lieutenants. Together they decided to keep Sosibius’ money, betray the mission, and hand Achaeus over to Antiochus for an even greater reward.
Their scheme worked. Achaeus was lured out, captured, and executed and soon after, the citadel of Sardis surrendered, bringing the supposedly impregnable city down once again, this time through deceit rather than assault.
Nevertheless the complacency of Achaeus and those defending the citadel in the face of the supposed security lay behind the second fall of Sardis.
And so, across the ancient Mediterranean world, the story of Sardis became a warning about pride, false security, and spiritual sleep. A city thought to be unsinkable sank twice.
Now, in AD 17, Sardis was shattered by a violent earthquake that levelled much of the city. Its restoration, funded lavishly by Tiberius Caesar, was hailed as nothing less than a rebirth. Not surprisingly, as the city rose again from its ruins, devotion to the imperial cult blossomed. Sardians spoke of Tiberius as their benefactor and their saviour; they owed their “resurrection” to him, and their renewed loyalty followed.
Alongside the honours paid to Rome and its Emperor, the other major cults of Sardis revolved around the gods of healing and of renewed life. The worship of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing whose emblem was the serpent, promised restoration to the sick…while the venerable local devotion to Cybele, the Great Mother goddess, long associated with death and revival, or winter and spring, infused the city with the hope of revived life. These deities together cultivated an atmosphere where healing, renewal, and life-from-the-dead were woven into the city’s spiritual imagination.
In many ways, Sardis lived and boasted on the myth of its own resurrection. Having been “raised” by the grace of Caesar, the populace grew complacent, convinced their city was secure. They did not even bother to post night guards on their walls, despite having twice fallen to enemies in their history due to this very negligence. It was as though the lessons of the past could no longer reach them through the haze of presumed safety.
Now, tragically, it seems the church in Sardis mirrored the character of the slack and presumptuous society around it. Instead of remaining vigilant against the stealthy onslaught of the evil one, they absorbed the attitude of the city: confident in their reputation, careless in their watchfulness, and blind to the danger creeping up the proverbial slopes once again.
When Jesus addressed the church in Sardis in Revelation 3, the geography and particularly the history might have formed the backdrop for what he had to say. The Christians in Sardis lived in a city famous for its self-assured confidence and its devastating collapses.
The title Jesus used in this sermon centred on his sovereignty as the Lord of the Church and as the only true giver of life. As we have seen, all authority in both heaven and earth had been given to Jesus and his goal as the reigning monarch of the universe is to bring all his enemies under his divine rule. His prayer for the nations as his inheritance (Psalm 2) reflects his command for us to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20).
In this sermon, Jesus presented himself as the one “who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.” The seven spirits is an image of the Holy Spirit taken from Zechariah 4 as we already saw in the opening chapter of the Revelation. This is a case of the biblical numeric system, 7 being the number of the Divine.
But what I want us to focus on today is the fact that Jesus said that he “has the seven spirits of God”. Jesus has the Holy Spirit. Now what exactly does that mean theologically speaking?
Well, first, it means that in some way, Jesus is the giver of the Holy Spirit. In John 15:26, Jesus said, “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” Then later in John 16:7 he said, “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” In Acts 2:33 Peter said, “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and, having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.”
So, having the Spirit is somehow linked to giving or sending or pouring out the Spirit. As Jesus has the Spirit he is able to give the Spirit to us.
Knowing that Jesus has the Holy Spirit and that he sends or pours out the Holy Spirit helps us avoid several extreme views on the work of the Holy Spirit. The first is Amyraldism, named after the 17th-century French theologian Moses Amyraut (1596-1664), which teaches that salvation provided through Jesus’ sacrificial death was a universal provision for all people, while the Holy Spirit applied that salvation only to the elect. This makes grace universal in its offer but particular in its effect. Yet this view creates a tension Scripture does not allow, because it separates the saving intention of the Son from the saving application of the Spirit. In the New Testament, Father, Son, and Spirit work in perfect harmony: Jesus died for those the Father gives him (John 6:37–40), and the Spirit applies precisely what Jesus has obtained (Rom 8:9–11; Titus 3:5–6). If Jesus has supposedly purchased salvation for all, can the Spirit, whom Jesus himself gives and pours out, apply that salvation only to a few? Scripture never divides the Trinity in this way; the same people for whom Jesus died are the same people to whom the Spirit gives life (John 14:16–17; 16:7–15). Those whom the Son has set free, are free indeed (John 8:36).
The second is a form of neo-Pentecostal revisionism that crops up in liberal theology which sometimes teaches that the Holy Spirit continues to reveal new truths that may go beyond, or even contradict, the Scriptures. Yet this stands against the biblical testimony that Jesus himself is the Father’s final revelation (Heb. 1:1–2) and that the Spirit’s ministry is never independent from Jesus. Indeed, Jesus taught that the Spirit’s role is to bring to remembrance all that he taught his disciples (John 14:26), to glorify Jesus by taking what is his and declaring it to believers (John 16:14), and to speak nothing on his own authority but only what he hears from the Son (John 16:13). Any claim of new revelation that does not flow from, point to, and remain consistent with the words of Jesus contradicts the very nature of the Spirit’s work. Scripture shows Father, Son, and Spirit acting as a perfect unity; therefore, the Spirit will never disclose a “truth” that differs from the final and complete revelation God has given us in his Son.
Jesus has the Spirit and therefore they cannot operate independently. As the Holy Spirit is given or poured out by Jesus, he brings to mind the words Jesus has spoken, and he glorifies Jesus by revealing the truth to us.
Now, to the church in Sardis, this fact was extremely important. As Jesus is the one who has the Spirit, whom the Creed calls “the Lord and giver of life”, it stands to reason that Jesus is also the one who imparts life through the Holy Spirit. It is Jesus who sets us free through the agency of the Holy Spirit sent to us by both the Father and the Son. It is Jesus who brings to life those who were once dead in trespasses and sins.
So note that Jesus not only has the “seven spirits of God” or, in other words, the Holy Spirit, but he also has the seven stars. Again, this is an image we have encountered before that represents the leaders or pastors of the seven churches in Asia. Now, in one sense this is very comforting. Jesus has all pastors which means he is with all pastors.
But just as Jesus has the Holy Spirit and gives him or pours him out on those who are being saved, so too he has us and gives us to those who are being saved. In this sense the task of the Holy Spirit and the task of the pastor is similar…not that pastors can convict or change hearts or impart life to sinners…of course no human being can do that…but in the task we have been given as pastors, we, like the Holy Spirit, cannot operate independently of Jesus. In other words, every pastor is subject to and answerable to and accountable to Jesus.
Jesus alone is the head of the Body, the Church (Ephesians 1:22-23; 5:23; Colossians 1:18). Lose sight of this and we lose our identity. I am not the ultimate authority of my life nor am I the ultimate authority of the lives of others. We are all subject to the Lord Jesus, and he alone reigns over us and exercises authority over us. Every spiritual leader in the Church is subject to his direction through the guidance of the Holy Spirit through his Word.
No one may speak on their own authority…just like the Holy Spirit only speaks what he hears so too must we preach only what we read in Holy Scripture. We do not represent the Lord of heaven when we spout our own opinions or the opinions of others or the traditions of others…when we do so, the church begins to die.
Now, in many ways, Sardis would appear to have been an ideal church. There was no persecution, no heretical teaching, and no opposition from within or from without. All seemed to be at peace.
And yet, Jesus said to them: “I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” Oops. It seems that the church was so complacent that their fundamental worldview was no different from the surrounding culture.
It is important to note that to be called “dead” by Jesus did not mean that the church lacked the appearance of being alive. To be declared “dead” by Jesus means that you have become separated from the very source of all life.
In Ephesians 2:4-6, Paul said, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…” In other words, the word “dead” indicates a lack of spiritual life. The church in Sardis claimed the name of the one who is life, but in reality, they did not have him at all…they were dead. They had the “appearance of godliness”, but they had denied its power (2 Timothy 3:5). Faith without the works that reveal it's reality, is lifeless and ineffective (James 2:17).
It does not help to call ourselves by the name of Jesus and then to live lives as if we belong only to ourselves. If we belong to Jesus…if we truly love him…we must obey him (John 14:15, 21). It isn’t always easy to observe spiritual decay, but the absence of persecution in this church may indicate that something was not quite right. If you can co-exist with the world and the world with you, then perhaps you may have the same problem as this church. As Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:12, “…all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…” The world doesn’t like people who take the Gospel seriously.
So, like the complacent kings, guards, and the general population of Sardis, the church in Sardis needed to wake up, and to strengthen what remained and was about to die, for Jesus had not found their works complete in the sight of God. They had claimed a name of vitality but had nothing to defend such a claim. They were asleep on the job, perhaps assuming that past strength guaranteed present faithfulness.
To them their spiritual cliffs seemed high and secure and yet the enemy had already found cracks and so Jesus called them to vigilance and watchfulness…the exact opposites of complacency. They were to strengthen what remained, the opposite of drifting.
Perhaps Jesus’ warning that he would come “like a thief” was a deliberate echo of Sardis’s military history, when invaders climbed the cliffs at night while the guards slept. But the message is unmistakable: What looks unassailable from the outside may already be rotting from within if watchfulness is lost.
Like Petit and many others throughout history, we too may walk confidently through life, mastering our routines, experienced in ministry, disciplined in our roles, and yet it is often in the “small rehearsals,” the places where no one is watching, that spiritual complacency takes its toll. Like Sardis, we may take refuge in our traditions, our history, our previous faithfulness, our reputation as a “strong church,” or our spiritual achievements of long ago.
But Jesus does not evaluate reputations, he weighs realities. He does not ask, “how high are your cliffs?” but “are you awake?” Complacency is often the quiet decay beneath a polished surface. It is the unguarded cliff. It is the 14-metre practice fall rather than the 410-metre triumph. And so Jesus says to his church and to each believer:
Wake up. Strengthen what remains. Remember what you received. Hold fast. Repent. This is not a rebuke meant to shame, but a summons meant to restore. It is the call of a Lord who desires to make his church truly alive, not merely apparently alive.
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2025
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
JUST A REMINDER!!!!
JUST A REMINDER!
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Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Why Ephesus and Laodicea Still Speak to Us in the Netherlands
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