Sardis: A Wake Up Call

Amen. You guys can go and be seated. This time we'll go and dismiss our kids to little districts. And for the rest of us, if you got your Bibles, go ahead and grab those, open them up to Revelation chapter 3. Revelation chapter 3. Uh we are jumping back into our series right now called Letters to the Church in America.

And we're walking through the first three chapters of the book of Revelation. And so today again, we're jumping into chapter three. and uh and picking it up with the church, the letter to the church in Sardis. And I titled this message a wakeup call because that's exactly what this letter is uh to them. It is definitely a wake-up call. Most letters that you've seen kind of throughout our structure for each message.

Most letters have a commendation. They have a confrontation and then they have a call to action. uh when it comes to this church in Sardis, they do not get accommodation. They get confrontation and it's the largest confrontation of any of the letters that are written to the seven churches. And so, um again, it's a it's a wakeup call for them. And so, for us as a church, um maybe there is something that we also need to wake up in.

And so, we need to listen up. We need to buckle up. And we need to pray up that we as a church devote our lives to the purposes of God because that's why we're here. That's why we're here. We devote our lives to the purposes of God. What he has for us, what he wants from us, what he is commanding us to do.

That life is going to be a difficult life likely, but at the same time a life filled with joy because of it's a life walking with the Lord and not walking with the world. And so let's see what this wakeup call looks like as we look at the first six verses in Revelation chapter 3. Starts off in verse one. It says this to the angel of the church in Sardis right the words of him who has the seven spirits of God. Now I want to stop there for just a second and tell you that many theologians commentaries believe that that's kind of a combination of saying like sevenfold or seven being the idea of completeness. And so here he's talking about the completeness of the spirit of God is in possession of the Lord.

And so he has um the the the spirit of God and then also the seven stars, meaning the seven churches. In other words, it's it's his way of saying my words that I'm delivering to you right now have the power of the spirit of God in them and the church is my possession. And so I am preaching to you the power of the spirit of God. And because you are my possession, you are to listen up to what I have to say. I am commanding you in regards to that. When you think about Jesus on the mountain when he's giving his um great commission to the disciples, he starts off by telling them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."

And that's essentially what he's saying here. What I'm declaring to you is coming with all power from the spirit of God. And therefore, it has all authority. And because you are my possession, you are to do as I command. And again, that's not heavy-handed. It's heavy-hearted.

It's because he loves us. It's because he wants us to be his children. It's because he wants us to be his followers. He wants us to be filled with joy, not the lamentation or just the grievances of our world. And so this church is hearing this saying whatever it is. He is the spirit of God.

He is the one that has all power. And we need to listen into that. We need to listen into that. And so he starts off here by saying I know your works. Now I want to stop there again for a minute as well. Remember the apostle John is receiving this from the Lord as he's basically dictating it.

So the Lord's telling him, "Write this down." And as he is writing it down, this is going to be a book or a large letter that is then distributed to the seven churches. And so they're all going to get to read all of it. They're all going to get to be able to see, oh, what happened in um Philadelphia, what happened in um Leosa, what happened in Smyrna, what happened in in any of the other ones. And so literally they're able to walk through before they even get to their letter hearing things like by the time it gets to them they've read about the faithfulness and strength of Ephesus. They've read about the perseverance through suffering in Smyrna.

They've read about the fact that they were standing firm in Pergamum. They've read about the patient endurance in Thotyra. And so they've seen the structure themselves. Commenation, confrontation, call to action. And so when Jesus starts off saying, "I see it." Or, "I know your works," Sardis is excited.

Here's our commenation. Here's what we get to receive from the Lord that we've been doing well. He says, "You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead." Well, hold up a second. Where's our commenation? That doesn't sound very nice.

He's saying, "You have a reputation of being alive, but you're dead. You're pretending to be something that you're actually not. I used to watch this show called Parks and Wreck. If you've seen it, it's one of just one of those sitcoms maybe a decade ago that was kind of popular. Um, but there's this scene where one of the characters, Ron Swanson, walks into a grocery store and there's this clerk at a counter who is u basically distributing food samples and he says, "Would you like to try some vegan bacon?" And Ron Swanson takes the vegan bacon and then he just puts it in the trash can and he says, "I'll have another one."

And the clerk picks it up and hands it to him and he takes it and he just puts it in the trash can. And the clerk's like, "Is there a problem?" And he goes, "Yeah, I just want to make sure no one has to eat that because it wasn't real. It was fake bacon." Like, it misses the point. And and here's the thing is that our culture is all about that right now.

I mean, there's impossible everything. There's impossible hot dogs. There's impossible burgers. And what he's ultimately saying here is you're an impossible church. You're you're you're pretending to be the real thing, but you're an imitation of it. You're actually dead on the inside.

So, I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you're dead. Again, underneath it all, you're missing the one thing that makes the church alive. They're missing the spirit of God. And that's why he starts off with that by saying that I possess the spirit of God. I am the spirit of God.

I am what is ultimately you need and you are lacking it. You are lacking it. And so, here's what he says in verse two. Wake up. 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.

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. I mean, this church has got to be reading this thinking, whoa. Like, first of all, you didn't even like fluff this up. Like, you know, we we tell people all the time, if you're going to send a negative email, like, at least sandwich it.

Say something nice about the person, then the critique, and then finish it off with something nice. It's like here, he's like, "No, no, no, no. All critique, all criticism. You're dead. And if you don't wake up from it, I'm going to come like a thief in the night." There was this one time when when we hear the idea of wake up, like you maybe have had a friend sometime or a mentor or somebody eventually at one point tell you like, "Hey, whatever you're doing in your life right now, you you need to wake up."

Like you need a wakeup call. You need to stop doing it. You need to start doing the right thing. You need to start following Jesus. Stop following the world. Whatever it might look like, you we think we need a wakeup call.

The reality is is we view that like how I drove here this morning. So, I was we we were um doing a ministry team retreat over the weekend at a lake about an hour and a half south of the city. So, I left at 5:30 this morning to get back and and I'm on the motorcycle and so I have a helmet which is shaded for sun. I left at 5:30. It's dark out at the same time. The light's not that strong on the motorcycle and so I'm going through all the Brown County like, you know, roads and whatnot.

I can't see anything more than 20 feet in front of me. And so I'm coming up to like turns and I'm like just kind of barely going through the turn because I'm like if if anything jumps out, I get to see Jesus today and that's going to be pretty awesome. But that's kind of I mean I was like just barely seeing. And I think sometimes we look at it like that where we're like, "Oh, I just need to wake up. I'm still working through life. I'm still figuring it out.

I can just kind of barely see in front of me." That's not what he's talking about here. What he's talking about here is how I drove 15 years ago when I was driving late one night. It was around 11 or 12:00 and I was heading home from Nashville, Tennessee up to White House, Tennessee. And as I was driving, it was it was late. I was a little sleepy and um I literally So, if you know anything about Nashville, it's kind of like a bowl and then there's a ridge around it.

And so White House is up on the ridge. Nashville's down in the bowl. So to get to White House, you got to go up the ridge. Well, the ridge is like what you would think. I mean, there's like kind of mountainous rock areas and then there's valleys like like drop offs. And so as I'm coming up that bend to go up the ridge, I fall asleep.

I mean, just straight fall asleep. Now, by the grace of God, I didn't go off one of the valleys, but I did hit into one of the the ridges that was kind of cut out in the rock, and I just went off the road and just pingpong boulder to boulder to where the car literally just I mean, it was wedged in between boulders. I couldn't open up any of the doors. Had to kick out the window and then crawl my way back up to the road. Um, that's what he's talking about here. That's the kind of wakeup call we need.

You are literally totaling your life and it's going to lead to death and destruction and you got to wake up. It's not that you're kind of blurry seeing things and figuring life out yourself. No, you think you're alive. You're dead. You're actually dead. And so this wake up is exactly what that is.

Now, he says something unique here where he says, "Wake up. If you don't wake up, I'm going to come like a thief in the night." Now, for Sardis, if you know anything about the city of Sardis, that's going to be something that um hits home a little bit for them. Sardis was one of the great cities of Asia Minor. It was once the capital of Lydia and it sat high on this steep acropolis and from a distance, it looked untouchable because it was high and it had this incredible kind of wall fortress built around it. It looked untouchable.

It was safe, secure, it was unshakable. People associated Sardis with wealth, textiles, and strength. Like it was unpenetrable. But Sardis had a dark spot in its history. Twice the city was conquered in the most humiliating way possible. So in 546 BC during the the time of Cyrus the Great, Sardis thought that their cliffs couldn't be scaled.

So they left part of the wall unguarded. And one Persian soldier actually spotted. So, the Persians were the one trying to ransack Sardis, the the Lydian area. And one of the Persian soldiers saw a Lydian soldier actually drop his helmet off the wall, go down this little path, pick it up, go back the path, and back up into the city. The Persians are thinking, I mean, he just showed us a door. Like literally, he just showed us the exact way how to get in.

And and exactly that they followed that path and they ended up leading the army up the cliffs and the city fell while the watchmen were sleeping. While the watchmen were sleeping. Fast forward 300 years in 214 BC Antiocus III during his reign. Um history repeated itself. The enemy scaled the same cliffs, found no guards posted again, and Sardis fell a second time. So when Jesus shows up and says to this church there, "Hey, um, if you don't wake up, I'm going to come like a thief in the night," they're going to have memories of that like we have memories of 911.

They're going to have memories of these events, and they're going to be able to say, "Whoa, we know exactly what he's talking about. We know exactly what getting caught sleeping looks like." And so when Jesus says this, it's important for us to take notice of this because Jesus is not soft here. He doesn't say, "Look, you're struggling, but you'll get through it." He says, "You look alive, but you're dead. Your work is unfinished and you're sleepwalking spiritually.

You're sleepwalking spiritually." And so this was a church living off of reputation. Everybody thought that they were alive. Maybe there was, you know, maybe they had good services, good gatherings. But when Jesus looked under the hood, he said, "Look, I see the truth. The spirit of God is not present here.

The spirit of God's not present here." He's saying, "Y'all are running on autopilot. You've just got enough religion to look respectable, but not enough fire to actually live." And everyone else is thinking, or everybody else thinks you're alive, but I know the real story. wake up before you sleep your way into judgment. And just because a church has a lot of people and activity does not mean it has the spirit of God or is preaching the word of God in order to make new sons and daughters of God.

So don't just look at a lot of people and a lot of activity as having the spirit of God. That's also not necessarily the case. But ultimately he tells them, you need to stop sleeping on the job. You've got to wake up. And he gives them four steps in order to do this. Look at verses two through three.

The four steps that he gives here is wake up. So stop being dead and come back to life. Number two, strengthen what remains. So once you wake up, you got to work out basically. And number three, remember what you received. Go back to the basics.

And number four, once you get to the basics, keep it and repent. Which means do the basics over and over and over and over again. And so if the way you wake up and work out is by going back to the basics, remembering what you received in the first place, we need to know what that is. If it all hinges on that, we need to know what that is. And so what do we need to remember? I want you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians 2 1-5.

So we can look at this together. 1 Corinthians 2 1-5. If there was ever a church again that Paul constantly reminds what the basics are, it's the church in Corinth. I mean, he's just constantly telling them, "Go back to this, go back to this, go back to this, remember this, remember this." And so here's what he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2:es 1-5. He says, ' And I, when I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. and my speech, my message, they were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Now, remember, Jesus is writing this to the church in Sardis that's got some swagger, but they've got no spine. They have a reputation, but they have no revival. They look alive, but they're dead.

They're not sick. They're not struggling. They're dead. And here's the good news in regards to that. Dead things are the exact thing Jesus specializes in resurrecting. I'll say that again.

Dead things are the exact thing Jesus specializes in resurrecting. Weak churches, small churches, flatline churches, he breathes life into them. and brings them back to life. So, how do we get from dead to alive? We'll look at this in chapter 2 verses 1-5. Five things that we can draw from this that we are to remember.

Okay? So, number one, remember whose message you're proclaiming. Remember whose message you're proclaiming. He says, "I did not come with lofty speech or wisdom. I came with the testimony of God." Not his testimony, the testimony of God.

He's a mouthpiece. He's a messenger. He doesn't create the message. He just takes the message from the Lord and then delivers it to people. God testifies his own testimony about what he wants people to know about himself and about his purposes and his plans. And so Paul's telling them, "I did not come with lofty speech or wisdom.

I didn't come to give you a TED talk. I didn't come to impress people with how smart we are." He said, "We're carrying the testimony of God. We don't need to dress it up. The power is in the message, not the messenger." And so even when you share your testimony with friends, when you share your testimony with your one this year, is your testimony more about God or is it more about you?

It's got to be more about God. It's a testimony of God, not a testimony of you. Who's it about? So we need to remember whose message we're proclaiming. Number two, remember that the gospel is central. It's central.

The gospel is central. Look at verse two. He says, "I decided to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified." Paul's saying, "I'm not chasing trends. I'm not centering on politics or preferences or personalities. It's Jesus."

Only Jesus is what we preach. And the cross is not the intro to Christianity. It's the whole thing. It's the whole thing. I want to tell you about Jesus, his life, why he lived perfectly, and I also want to tell you about Jesus in his death, why he had to die because of our imperfection in our lives. So, we got to remember that the gospel is central.

Number three, we need to remember that weakness showcases Christ's strength. Weakness showcases Christ's strength. Look at verse three. He says, "I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling." Can all the introverts in the room underline that. I mean, embolden that, circle it, whatever you need to do to remember.

Even elsewhere in 2 Corinthians 10:10, listen to this. It says, "For they say," meaning of the Corinthians, "of Paul, his letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account." Basically, Paul's great at writing letters, but he ain't nothing to look at nor listen to. That's what they're saying. Even Paul had his anxieties about sharing the gospel in public spaces and settings with both friends and strangers. I mean, I think that's when you go back to Romans 1:16 and he says, "For we are not ashamed of the gospel, for it's the power of God."

I think he's preaching to himself before he preaches to the rest of the next 15 16 chapters. The power is in the message and the gospel, not in our delivery, not in our eloquency, not in how we look or how we dress. And that's a beautiful thing because that's counterultural to everything else, right? Like when we interview someone for a job, we don't pick the worst candidate. But for whatever reason, in the wonderful beauty and majesty of God's design, that's what he does. He looks down and he said, "If I'm picking a kickball team that's going to spread the gospel throughout the world, I'm looking at the ones who are picked last and I'm putting them on my team because through their weakness, I'm going to use and showcase my strength."

And that's awesome. That's encouraging news to us. That should again embolden you to say, "Hey, let me try sharing the gospel. I'm probably going to do it through weakness and fear and much trembling." But you know what? It's not dependent upon me.

It's dependent upon the message. It's dependent upon what Jesus has done and the power of his strength. And so remember that weakness showcases Christ's strength. And then look at number four. Remember whose power actually saves. It goes hand in hand with this one.

Verse four says, "Not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power." Listen, clever sermons don't save people. The Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit does. That's why we pray before we preach, before we witness, before we share. Salvation is not our job.

Faithfulness is our job. Faithfulness is our job. Power is his. It's his job. Charles Spurgeon emphasized that humanity is utterly dependent on the Holy Spirit for salvation and spiritual power, stating, and I quote, "Without the Spirit of God, we can do nothing." He described the spirit's role as irresistible, working through divine grace to bring a sinner to Christ to disarm their resistance and create a new spiritual life in them.

For believers, the spirit provides power for ministry, enables fervent prayer, and inspires a life of holiness and effective gospel preaching. It goes on to say and teaches that the unregenerate human, the will of that human is depraved and set on evil, making it necessary for the Holy Spirit to provide a powerful supernatural influence to turn a person toward God. The role of the Holy Spirit in salvation, we talk about it as irresistible grace in regeneration. The spirit's work is not merely an influence but a powerful mighty grace among us that enters the person, disarms resistance and makes them willing to to accept salvation. The spirit of God is doing this. The spirit makes a new creation, a new creature of the individual, transforming them into a spiritual being capable of responding to God when he calls us.

Even in our spiritual life, the Holy Spirit doesn't just stop when once he saves us, but he continues to work through us. Without the spirit, Christian ministers can achieve nothing as evidenced by the metaphor, we are as ships without wind or chariots without ste. We need the spirit of God. Empowering prayer and preaching. Believers are urged to be filled with the spirit to give their prayers and ministry the heavenly energy that they need and power needed to affect hearts and bring people to God. The spirit of God also enables our holiness.

Spurgeon taught that the spirit's presence is inseparable from life, comfort, light, purity, and power. He emphasized that he emphasized that genuine holiness is a result of the spirit's work in the believer's soul. Which basically means if you can't save yourself, you also can't set apart and sanctify yourself either. The same spirit that raised you from the dead in your sin is the same spirit that makes you in the image of Christ as you become what you already are in him. When it comes to applying God's word, the Holy Spirit ensures the truth conveyed in the Bible is powerful, plain but flaming, simple but consuming, and it's never a lifeless word. It's a living word because the spirit of God guides us in it and through it.

We have to remember whose power actually saves. And that's one of the reasons why Jesus begins this letter with I have the complete power. I have the total spirit of God because that's what you're going to need as a church to go from being dead back to being alive. Number five is remember who your faith is rooted in. Look at verse five. So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

If your faith is built on a pastor's charisma or a church's vibe, as the young kids say, or a movement's hype, it will die when those things fade. It just will. It will die when those things fade. But when your faith is rooted in the power of God, that never fades. That never fades. So here's the takeaway.

A dead church by the grace of God can come alive again. Can come alive again, but only if it remembers that Jesus is the message, the cross is the center, weakness is the stage, the spirit brings the power, and God is the foundation. Period. Like we have to know that. We have to get back to those basics. That's how churches are resurrected.

And then he gives them this promise when we go back to Revelation 3. Look at verse four. He's going to tell us here that the one who conquers will be clothed in white and he will never blot their name from the book of life. Look at verse four. Yet you still have a few names in Sardis. People who have not soiled their garments.

They will walk with me in white for they are worthy. 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. That's the invitation. That's the invitation for every single person in this room.

You You don't have to stay dead. Jesus is the one who brings resurrection life. He doesn't just scream, "Wake up." He breathes life into dry bones. You ever sleep through something important? How many of you are like when the alarm goes off, you get up immediately?

Show of hands. How many of you are snoozers? Yeah, that's right. Majority. Majority. It It's It's kind of crazy because I guarantee you do what I do.

you schedule it. So if you got to be up at, you know, 6:30, you're like, I'm I'm going to put it at 6:10 because then it's going to go off again at 6:19, then it's going to go off at 6:28 and I got up early, right? I think too often we keep hitting snooze on what God calls us to. again for Sardis. He says, "I'm going to come like a thief in the night." And he's telling them, "You got to stop hitting snooze.

You don't want to get ransacked the third time. You got to stop hitting snooze." This isn't a polite suggestion. It's a wakeup call from the King of Kings. And here's the good news. The same Jesus who says, "Wake up," is the same Jesus who can raise the dead.

But you've got to answer the alarm. Now, what's that saying about the names? He's saying there's still some names here in Sardis. And what's that thing about the book of life and what he's talking about here? He says, "You still have a few names there. People who have not soiled their garments, they will walk with me in white for they are worthy and I will never blot their name out of the book of life."

If you go over to Rome to Revelation chapter 20 towards the end of the the book, there's this judgment before the great white throne. This is that day when we're all before the Lord. Revelation 20 11-2 says this. Then I saw a great white throne in him who was seated on it. From his presence, earth and sky fled away and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne.

And look at this, books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And look at this. The dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. Here's what he's saying, church. There will be a day where we stand before God to give an account for the life that we lived.

The good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. And God's going to bring out the books on your life, every thought, every recorded thought, every recorded action, every deed that's been done. And he's going to judge you not based on whether or not there's more good than bad. He's going to judge you against his own holiness and perfection. That's why Matthew 5, Jesus tells us to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Because when he pulls those books out, if you're not perfect as he is perfect, then there's a place that you will go.

And he's going to ask the question as he's opening up your book and looking at every thought that you've ever done, every action that you've ever made. He's going to ask a question. Were you perfect? Were you perfect? And if that answer is no, here's what's true. God does not commune with Satan, sin, or sinners.

He does not commune with them. and therefore you will be judged by your unrighteousness and you will be deserving of hell. That's true. I don't care how culture wants to spin it or ignore it or sleepwalk their way through it. That's what's true. And God will be just because justice will actually be served in your eternal punishment for sinning against a good and holy God.

That's just true. But, and it's a big butt, not one that we can like and cannot lie. If you don't get that, I'm an 80s baby, but the '9s made me. There's another book, not plural books, singular book called the book of life. And it doesn't have a record of all your good and bad deeds and your good and bad actions, your good and bad thoughts. This book is simply a book that just has a list of names in it.

A list of names in it. A list of names that will be judged according not your deeds, but according to the deeds of Christ. according to the deeds of Christ. And if you believe in Jesus and become a follower of him, a disciple of Christ, what he does is he forgives your sins. He remembers them no more. He gives you the righteousness of Christ and he puts your name in the book of life.

In the book of life. And if your name is in it on judgment day, God will see your name and he will say to you, "Well done. Well done, good and faithful servant. Come into my presence. Your reward and your inheritance are waiting. Come and enjoy the remainder of your eternity.

That's the only thing that wakes us up. That's the only thing that wakes us up. The reality is is our entire world is sleepwalking through life awaiting judgment. And Jesus will come like a thief in the night. No one knows when that's going to happen. This wakeup call to Sardis is really just a gospel presentation to the entire world.

You need to see what the spirit of God is accomplishing for you. and the fact that the will of God when we sinned in that garden and that sin was passed down to every individual who's ever been born. So that when you're born, you have no chance of being quote unquote perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Even if even if you think, you know what, I'm going to just like all other world religions, I'm going to strive my way. I'm going to work my way. I'm gonna reach perfection.

And there's a day when you're 90 years old, bedridden, and even then you're still going to be sinning. But you think, I am not sinning anymore. You think you've reached perfection. There's a whole lineage of 90 years of imperfection that you still have to be accountable for. So even if you reach a day doesn't mean all of a sudden now I've saved myself. Our sin is in books that are written about us that we will be held accountable for unless while we're on this journey heading towards our death, we meet Jesus and the spirit of God because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus gives us life, puts our old self to death, resurrects oursel to a new self in his creation as a new creation, and we begin walking and following Jesus for the rest of our life.

He will look at you and say, "Your sins are forgiven. I remember them no more. Your name is secure in the book of life. Welcome home. Welcome home." That's it.

And that's the message. That's the love of God to us that he did not leave us having to just wait that impending judgment and having to be held accountable for all of our sins. But instead, in his loving mercy, he saw fit to send his son Jesus to be perfect as the father is perfect. He lived without ever sinning. And because we deserve death, as Romans 6:23 says, the wages of your sin is death. Because we deserve death, Jesus says, I'll take your place.

I'll take your punishment. And he goes to the cross for us. and he dies the death that we deserve. And because God's wrath towards your sin on Jesus was satisfied at the death on the cross, three days later, the spirit of God resurrects Jesus. He comes back to life in a new glorified state. And he now is applying that to all those who believe in him and follow him and say, "Jes Jesus is my Lord."

Which means I surrender my life to him. submit to him. Whatever he commands of me is what I'm going to follow in. I'm team Jesus. I'm on him. Whatever he wants of me is what I give my life to.

He wants me to go and preach the gospel in third world nations. That's what I'm going to do. He wants me to be a loving husband to my children or to my to my wife and and a loving father to my children. That's what I'm going to do. He wants me to build a successful career and leverage wealth in order to spread the gospel. That's what I'm going to do.

He wants me to stop sinning, repent from those things, and start following him and practice holiness and righteousness throughout the rest of my days. That's what I'm going to do. That's what I'm going to do. Because that's a life that is joyful versus a life that is always an eternal void that we're trying to fill with everything the world has to offer. And yet, we're never satisfied. Jesus is the only one.

He's the only one. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for this opportunity to open up your word and to receive this wakeup call. Jesus, just like the the church in Sardis, it's easy for us to sleepwalk through to not to not be able to see or even be aware of of the fact that we might think we're living the Christian life, but in fact, we're actually just dead. Might look like we're doing the right thing, but we're actually not trusting in the spirit of God.

And I thank you, Jesus, that you give us a wakeup call. You give us an opportunity to respond and remember what you first called us to. You called us to your son. You called us to your message. You called us to your spirit and to your purposes. And so God, we thank you for that.

Thank you for your grace and your mercy. Thank you for giving us what we don't deserve and also for removing what we do deserve. Thank you, Jesus. May we honor you. May we worship you. And if we don't know you, may we today come to you with our weary souls and say, "I believe in you.

I want to follow you. Will you please save me? Will you please forgive me of my sins? I trust you as my Lord and Savior." It's in Jesus name we pray.