This is the Church in Sardis as found in Revelation 3:1-6 NIV:
“To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.
Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
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This is one of the 7 letters to the churches in Revelation. It's quite sad because the church in Sardis is dead.
What's even worse is that those on the outside think, "Wow, that church is so alive!" But if only they knew on the inside that it was dead. A church that appears alive, but is dead.
Perhaps this group of believers at one point thought about many wonderful ideas for their congregation and didn't follow through with them or thought, "Well do this!' and instead did something different. It mentioned a lot of things were "unfinished". We may never know, but we get a feel for the types of things that may have been going on here and God sure did know their deeds.
It's sad to even think in a church where there should be a group full of believers devoted to Christ that there people that aren't. To them, it would probably be quite a surprise that not every one of them would be saved.
It mentions that not all believers at Sardis have "soiled their clothes," so it seems that there were definitely a lot of things going on in that church and some ended up in the church almost being completely dead. It instructs the believers to revive whatever is left or it will be gone.
Sardis was said to be a city that was full of wealth and sin and also the capital of the Lydian kingdom. A lot of garments were also dyed here and the geographical location was said to be great. King Croesus of Lydia eventually waged war on Cyrus, King of Persia, and lost. Cyrus continued to ensure the victory and the Persians had taken over Sardis. Many centuries years later, Antiochus the Great, had defeated Sardis. It was thought that the church at Sardis was planted during the 3 year time frame that Paul was in Ephesus. Sardis was also rich in pagan religions.
Questions for further study:
1. Has anyone here ever felt they were in a church that was totally dead? What were the characteristics of that church? How did we know it was dead?
2. If this was a dead/nearly dead church, what does it take to keep a church alive?
3. What could have been missing from Sardis? How could believers there have changed for the Lord?
4. If this was the church of Sardis, what was the city of Sardis really like?
