This was written to the church in Sardis in Rev 3:
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 not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God.
Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, 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.
The phrase ‘come like a thief’ is almost always used together with the second coming day of the Lord.
There is a concerned dissatisfaction in God’s heart about the church in Sardis.
They were sleepy, in fact, dead but pretended to be alive. Loud activities without an obedient lifestyle!
What they were holding onto was drowning, pulling them further down. A lot of hard work and burn out, yet little outcome.
Their deeds that looked complete to their own eyes actually
were incomplete in God’s eyes. Much of God was missing in their actions, in their lives.
If you read this Bible passage further, God was calling them to live set apart for him; to walk with him, spotless.
Therefore the Lord said to this particular church:
□ Wake up
□ Remember what you have received
□ Strengthen what remains
□ Obey, put into practice what you have heard
□ Repent
□ Be set apart, in this world but not of this world
How relevant is this for us today? Can I honestly check the boxes that God had told the Church in Sardis a long time ago?
