(Breath of Life Theme Music)
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Sermon #B671 -
Sardis: The Dead Church
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Dr. Byrd: I want to get
right into the word of God.
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As we continue our
series on the seven
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churches of Revelation. So I
invite you to take you Bibles
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and turn with me to the book
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of Revelation, Revelation.
And we're going to Revelation
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Chapter three, Revelation
Chapter three today. Revelation
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Chapter three and we're going
to read the first six verses.
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Revelation chapter 3 verse one,
two, three, four, five and six
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Dr. Byrd: I am going to read
today from the King James
Version of the bible.
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You may have another
version, that is fine,
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but I am going to read from the
King James Version of Revelation
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chapter three, verses one
through six. The word of God
says, Jesus himself speaking,
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"And unto the angel of the
the church in Sardis write;
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These things saith he that hath
the seven Spirits of God, and
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the seven stars; I know thy
works, that thou hast a name
that thou livest, and art dead.
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Be watchful, and strengthen the
things which remain, that are
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ready to die: for I have not
found thy works perfect before
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God. Verse three, "Remember
therefore how thou hast received
and heard, and hold fast,
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and repent. If
therefore thou shalt not watch,
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I will come on thee as a thief,
and thou shalt not know what
hour I will come upon thee.
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" Verse four, "Thou hast a few
names even in Sardis which have
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not defiled their garments; and
they shall walk with me in
white: for they are worthy.
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He that overcometh, the
same shall be clothed in white
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raiment; and I will not blot
out his name out of the book of
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life, but I will confess
his name before my Father, and
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before his angels. He that hath
an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith unto the churches."
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Dr. Byrd: Today, we challenge
you with the subject Sardis, the
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Dead Church. God, right now,
bless us. Speak to your people
today over the airwaves,
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television waves. Go where we
cannot go by the power of your
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Holy Ghost. Lord, as we preach
this word, I pray that we would
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become convicted and changed by
this word, that we would desire
to become better men, women,
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boys, and girls for
thee. Forgive me of my sins,
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hide me behind your cross at
the appeal like you always do.
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God, speak and move, and may
your people respond to your
voice and may they move.
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We give you all the praise. We
give you all the honor and the
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glory. I will bless the Lord at
all times and his praise shall
continually be in my mouth.
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My soul shall make her boast in
the Lord: the humble shall hear
thereof, and be glad.
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O magnify the Lord with me, and
let us exalt his name together.
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God, that is what we want
to do, exalt your name today.
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We pray this prayer, begging for
forgiveness of sin in the name
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of Jesus. Let
everyone say today amen. Amen.
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Sardis, the Dead Church. We have
now come to the fifth church of
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Revelation, the church at
Sardis. You will remember that
Jesus' letter to Ephesus.
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The first church was a
challenge to a loveless church.
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Jesus' letter to Smyrna, the
second church, was an
encouragement to a faithful
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church. Jesus' letter to
Pergamos, the third church, was
a reprimand to a compromise
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church. Jesus' letter to
Thyatira, the fourth church, was
a rebute to an adulterous
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church. Jesus' letter to Sardis,
the fifth church, is a wake-up
call to a dead church.
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Now, before we talk
about the church at Sardis,
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let us first talk
about the city of Sardis.
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Sardis was one of the
most powerful, greatest,
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and wealthiest
cities in the ancient world.
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In fact, at the time of
John's vision in Revelation,
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Sardis was one of the wealthiest
Roman cities despite having had
to have been rebuilt
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multiple times after
devastating earthquakes.
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It was said that Sardis
was rich in gold and silver
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and was the first city to
mine gold coins for money.
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Sardis was also rich in the
textile industry and was the
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center for wool and dyeing
fabric. Sardis was located about
35 miles southeast of Thyatira
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and was built on a mountainside
about 1,500 feet up in the air
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above the valley floor
surrounded by steep cliffs with
only one narrow way of approach.
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Because of this topography,
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it was virtually regarded as
impenetrable to military assault
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because of its physical
arrangement for defense,
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yet history says Sardis had been
attacked and conquered twice
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because of its arrogance
manifested in its lack of
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watchfulness. Now, from a
religious perspective, the city
of Sardis, not the church at
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Sardis, but the city of Sardis
was devoted to the worship of
the mother goddess Cybele
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and no temple worshiper was
allowed to approach the temple
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of the Gods whose was
soiled or unlcean clothes
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Not only that, the worship in
the city of Sardis was full of
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sexual immorality and
sins of the darkest impurities.
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Because the city of Sardis was
small and consequently its
church membership very small,
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it is no wonder that the few
members in the Sardis church
were not drawn away altogether
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and swallowed up in the
city's sins and foolishness.
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Now, Jesus begins to write the
letter to the church at Sardis.
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He cuts right through to the
chase and says to the Sardis
church in Revelation three,
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one, "You have the reputation of
being alive, but you are dead."
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Even though the Sardis
church was not a large church
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and there were only a
faithful few in the church,
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most people in this
small number were dead.
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Now, notice in the text that
Jesus does not mention
persecution against the Sardis
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church although there might have
been some. Jesus does not
mention bad theology.
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Jesus does not mention
compromise with the world.
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He does not
mention any false teachers.
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He does not mention any sin,
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but yet the church must have
been full of all these things
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because the
bible says it was dead.
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Now, when we say something is
dead, we are talking about the
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absence of life. We
are saying no longer alive.
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When we say somebody is
dead and no longer alive,
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we are talking about the body
returning to dust, the spirits
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returning to God, and
the soul ceasing to exist.
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When somebody is dead, they do
not know what their loved ones
on Earth are doing.
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When somebody is dead, they are
not in heaven looking down on
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us. When somebody is dead, the
bible says they cannot think,
they cannot remember,
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they cannot give thanks, they
cannot praise the Lord because
dead people are dead.
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They are no longer alive. Jesus
says the Sardis church is dead,
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no longer alive, but he is not
talking about being physically
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dead. He is talking
about being spiritually dead.
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How was Sardis dead spiritually?
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That question is answered
in Jesus' opening statement.
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He said, "These things saith
he that hath the seven Spirits
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and the seven stars of God."
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The seven spirits are a
symbol to the Holy Spirit in its
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fullness and the seven-fold
ministry of the Holy Spirit.
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What the Sardis church
desperately needed was the Holy
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Spirit because without the Holy
Spirit, you are dead. You are
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without life. Part of the
problem of the Sardis Church was
that they were grieving away the
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Holy Spirit. Jesus says
to the church at Sardis,
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just like he said to the other
churches, "I know thy works."
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Let me remind you what man
cannot see, the Lord does see.
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That which is invisible to
men is visible to the Lord,
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and the Lord is in the business
of revealing our true condition
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regardless of how spiritual
we think we are. Jesus sees and
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Jesus knows but Jesus does
not stop there in the text. He
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continues. His next words are,
and he gives a rude awakening
and a striking reality.
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He says, "Thou hast a name that
thou livest, but you are dead."
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In other words, you have a name
and you have a reputation but
you are a dead church.
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Your nominal Christians,
Christians in name only. You
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have a reputation. You are known
far and wide. You have a storied
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history. You were great back in
the day but you do not realize
that we are now living in a
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different day. Your
past is not your present.
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What made you great then
is not making you great now.
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You are just going
through the motions.
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You are full of the same
activities, same actions, same
programs, but you are dead.
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You do not have the Holy Spirit.
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You are going through the
motions of practicing your faith
without feeding your spirits.
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You are preaching
revelation without relevance.
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You are practicing
religion without relationship.
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You are preserving centralized
structures instead of performing
Christ-centered service,
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and people are tired of plastic,
fake, phony, flat, lifeless,
dead, comatose ministry.
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People are tired of coming
to church getting beat up in the
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pulpit, to get beat up about
what they have on and what they
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do not have on, to get beat
up about what they are doing.
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People are tired of seeing the
emphasis of policy placed over
the needs of people.
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People are tired of judgmental,
legalistic, finger-faulting,
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finger-pointing, fault-finding,
holier-than-thou attitudes.
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Jesus here is speaking to
the people who are spiritually
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carnal and working from the
energy of their own resources
rather than his word
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and the Holy Ghost. Jesus says,
"You are dead." God cannot use
anything that is dead.
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The bible says he says, "Present
your bodies a living sacrifice,
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holy and acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable
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service." A whole lot of folk
are in the church but they are
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dead. A whole lot of folk have
their names on the church roll
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but they are dead. In the number
but dead. No zeal, no energy, no
life, no enthusiasm, no Holy
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Ghost, no Pentecostal fire for
the Lord; just dead, sitting in
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a sea of shouting, bathing
in an ocean of the Holy Ghost,
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but they sit as stiff as a
corpse and as cold as a cadaver.
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The frozen chosen. But God
doesn't want anything dead. God
doesn't want a dead church
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and that's not just the absence
of verbal amens and hallelujah.
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but I'm talking about dead in
the spririt. Dead in the word,
dead in meaninful ministry,
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dead in sincere service
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A church with a congregation
full of spiritually dead people
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who say they are believers, that
is the most difficult church to
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lead because they have little
care about anything that is
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spiritual. A church is in danger
of death when it is silent on
the issues of the coronavirus
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pandemic and the effects it is
having on people were silent on
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the reckless racism that exists
in our world, in our country,
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and in our church where a
man can be killed while jogging,
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a woman can be shot
eight times while sleeping,
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a man's life can be
put in danger simply
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because he is bird-watching
and requiring accountability to
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law-keeping, or man can lose his
life because of a knee to his
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neck. As a corporate-world
church, we're slient,
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react as if it does not
exist or it does not affect us.
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This is dangerous because people
look at our absence from the
front lines of real-life
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issues across the world
and question our adherence to a
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Jesus who said, "Inasmuch as ye
have done it unto the least of
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these my brethren, ye
have done it unto me."
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A church is in danger of death
if it continues to practice the
modality that silence
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is always golden, but
silence is not always golden.
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It was Dr. Martin
Luther King who said,
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"In the end, we will not
remember the words of our
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enemies, but the silence of
our friends." More than that,
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if we really follow the
modality of Jesus' ministry,
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we will be on the front lines of
the social, economic, physical,
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and racist battlefields of life.
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Dr. Byrd: Let me tell you
something in the name of Jesus.
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The Jesus I serve was
not a complicit Jesus.
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In fact, sometimes, he
had to be a militant Jesus,
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In Matthew twenty-one, he had to
throw money changers out of the
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temple. In
Revelation chapter eighteen,
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the word of God is clear that
Babylon is going to get hers,
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that you reap what you sow, that
God is going to get Babylon back
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for all the mess, all the
stress, all the lies, all the
heresy, all the destruction
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Babylon has called. If God's
church today remain silent, it
will be interpreted as being
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complicit. I need somebody to
know today that wherever there
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is injustice, God is on
the side of the oppressed.
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A church is in danger of death
when it does not join God on the
side of the oppressed.
00:15:39.70\00:15:46.88
Just wanting to go along, to get
along. Sardis, you are dead.
Sardis, you have no life.
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Jesus gives five commands
for the Sardis church for it to
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become alive. First, he says,
"Be watchful." We could
translate this as, "Wake up."
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This was the need of the church
in Sardis. Wake up, face your
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failure, feel the dullness of
your services, smell the
deadness of your life,
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ask yourself what has gone
wrong, why are our services so
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dead and dreary, why are they so
dull and unattractive, why do
people not want to come?
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A church in this state needs to
ask itself the honest question,
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ask yourself some very serious
and sobering questions. Jesus
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says, "Wake up! Be watchful."
From children's ministries to
what is preached from this
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pulpit, it must be in
harmony with God's word.
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Falling away from doctrines
results in spiritual death.
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God has given this church a
distinct message and we still
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got to preach it. It may be
doctrinal but people can still
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get delivered. Preaching on
relationships is good but I also
need to preach on the state of
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the dead. Preaching on blessings
is good but I also need to
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preach on baptism. Preaching on
community service is good but I
also need to preach on the
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Sabbath. Preaching on
spiritual disciplines is good
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but I also need to preach
on the second coming of Jesus.
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Be watchful he says and wake up.
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Dr. Byrd: Number two, he says,
in verse number two, "Strengthen
the things which remain,
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that are ready to die."
Stop. That is the first part.
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That is the A portion of verse
two. In other words, he says,
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"Stop trying to
hold on to dead things,
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but focus on discipling
those who are still here and
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faithful." The first thing that
must happen in a church for
revitalization to take place is
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that the ministry of the
word of God must be restored,
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strengthen the spiritual
light that is still here.
00:17:57.94\00:18:00.74
Jesus continues in
verse number two, the B part,
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"For I have not found thy
works perfect before God."
00:18:03.55\00:18:06.31
Sardis, its actions were right
but the motives were wrong.
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They were not doing the
things for the right reasons.
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Sardis was a church busy doing
things but doing them to impress
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people. They were concerned with
whether people around them would
00:18:25.20\00:18:27.54
see and know what they were
doing. Even though they were
00:18:27.57\00:18:30.81
performing deeds and some of the
deeds were actually good deeds,
00:18:30.84\00:18:33.14
Jesus says even those good deeds
were about to die, so he says
00:18:33.17\00:18:39.08
strengthen those. How do
I strengthen them? Make your
00:18:39.11\00:18:41.62
motives right. All throughout
the scriptures, we are told that
God judges not the things we do
00:18:41.65\00:18:46.72
but the reasons we do them. I
wish I had a witness in this
place. God reads our hearts.
00:18:46.76\00:18:50.79
He is judging whether our
work is done out of love for him
00:18:50.83\00:18:54.10
and gratitude for what he
has done for us and not caring
00:18:54.13\00:18:57.70
whether or not people see us or
not, whether we are praised for
00:18:57.73\00:19:01.34
them or not. They are done
because we want to please him.
00:19:01.37\00:19:03.34
Our main desire in doing what we
do should be hearing Jesus say
in the great gettin'
00:19:03.37\00:19:07.71
up morning, "Well done."
00:19:07.74\00:19:10.51
Number three, Jesus says,
"Remember what you have received
and what you have heard."
00:19:10.55\00:19:17.49
I like that word "remember".
That is the same thing Jesus
said about the Sabbath.
00:19:17.52\00:19:20.59
Remember, this is the gospel
message and the work of
salvation through Jesus Christ.
00:19:20.62\00:19:25.73
The word "remember" here
for those Greek enthusiasts,
00:19:25.76\00:19:28.83
the word "remember" here
is used in the present tense,
00:19:28.86\00:19:32.13
which means that it is something
that we are to do and keep on
00:19:32.17\00:19:36.81
doing. I wish I had a
witness in this place.
00:19:36.84\00:19:39.01
The gospel is to be at the
forefront of our minds always.
00:19:39.04\00:19:43.65
The gospel is why the church
exists. We must remember that
00:19:43.68\00:19:51.02
gospel, and pursue the gospel,
and keep pursuing the gospel.
00:19:51.05\00:19:55.82
Number four, Jesus says, "Hold
fast." Once you have the word,
once you have the gospel,
00:19:55.86\00:20:04.60
you cannot go back.
You got to hold fast.
00:20:04.63\00:20:07.20
Remember, it was Jesus who
said in Luke chapter nine, verse
00:20:07.24\00:20:09.60
sixty-two, "No one puts his hand
to the plow, and looks back, is
fit for the kingdom of God,"
00:20:09.64\00:20:15.38
but you got to keep your
hand on the plow and hold on.
00:20:15.41\00:20:20.02
Do not come down from the
wall, but you got to hold on.
00:20:20.05\00:20:24.05
Hold fast. We
cannot turn back now.
00:20:24.09\00:20:28.02
Then, number five,
Jesus says, "Repent."
00:20:28.06\00:20:34.13
Now, remember, Jesus also used
this word and said this word to
the other churches.
00:20:34.20\00:20:40.14
Now, he says it to the
church at Sardis. Repent.
00:20:40.17\00:20:45.27
How do you bring the Holy
Spirit's life back into a church
which has the gospel?
00:20:45.31\00:20:52.21
Scripture says
it is only one way.
00:20:52.25\00:20:54.75
It is a simple way but it is
a one way, and that is repent.
00:20:54.78\00:20:59.72
You have to feel sorry
for or express sincere regret
00:20:59.75\