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And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars” (Revelation 3:1, ESV).
Sardis is the fifth of seven churches to receive a letter from the Apostle John in the Book of Revelation.
As noted on this map, the churches form a semi-circle, indicating they were all located on a well-defined Roman Road — like traveling east to west on I-70 — Wheeling, Cambridge, Zanesville, Columbus, Springfield (the best), Richmond, and Indianapolis!
As you read about Sardis in Revelation 3:1-6, note that John mentions no persecution, no false teachers, and no trials to overcome.
Many commentators describe Sardis as a parallel to churches in America — just existing but not excited about anything. They lived life, went to church, gossiped about the preacher’s sermon, cheered for the Buckeyes, worried about their children, and that’s about it, no passion, compassion, or aggressive action at all for the Kingdom.
John describes the church in Sardia as, “Being alive, but you are dead” (Revelation 3:1b).
The Sardis believers were so complacent that Satan didn’t seem to bother them. I believe there was a reason, as Sardis was the home of one of the largest Jewish populations in the Roman Empire, and they had built a synagogue in the city as large as a football field. The more pagan Romans in Sardis left the Jews alone, and the Christians found that if they didn’t preach too forcefully by proclaiming Jesus as the only way to salvation, they would be left alone.
However, Jesus says in the Letter to Sardis, “If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come against you.” The suddenness of the “thief” image would have been known to the believers in Sardis, as Paul wrote that Jesus would return like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:2). And Jesus taught a parable about the need for a house owner’s watchfulness toward thieves in the night (Matthew 24:43).
In Sardis, this watchfulness imagery would be especially poignant, with the city built on a high hill that seemed impossible to conquer, and yet it was — twice — by a few soldiers scaling the cliffs at night and finding no watchmen on the walls.
The city had been defeated twice through complacency.
What a warning to American Christians as our comfortable Christianity allows the enemy to enter our church, lives, and nation. An enemy not from without but within. Back in my Jesus Freak days, I remember reading Francis Schaeffer’s book The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century, and this quote…
The central problem of our age is … the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, individually and corporately, tending to do the Lord’s work in the power of the flesh rather than of the Spirit. The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them.
The Letter to Sardis ends with these words, “You have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy” (Revelation 3:4). Note that the “soiling” was not worshipping idols, impurity, or false doctrines, but complacency.
How about us — me and you? Come quickly, Lord Jesus.