By David Faust
A mom went to church with her young children, and as they took their seats, she told them, “Remember, we need to be quiet in church.” Her daughter whispered, “Yes, because people are sleeping!”
Did you ever doze off during a business meeting, a lecture in class, or a sermon at church? In Revelation chapter 3, Christ gave his followers in Sardis a spiritual wake-up call.
Sleepy Saints
The Lord began most of his seven letters by highlighting what the church was doing right, but the Christians in Sardis received few compliments—although apparently, they weren’t plagued by problems the other churches faced. The Lord didn’t mention any heresies, sexual immorality, threats of persecution and death, Nicolaitans or Jezebels like those he mentioned in the other letters to the churches.
Yet, these sleepy, sloppy saints at Sardis were on the verge of spiritual death. The Lord told them, “I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead” (Revelation 3:1, New International Version). They were snoozing when they should have been serving. They kept the wheels turning and the church’s programs going, but their devotion to Christ had waned. Satan didn’t need to level an all-out attack on the Christians at Sardis—just rock the cradle to keep them lazy and lethargic.
In a sleepwalking church, interpersonal relationships are surfacy and shallow. Morale is low. There’s no urgency about the present or vision for the future. Sermons are dull and uninspiring. Services are predictable and lack energy. Members go through the motions, but they don’t “make every effort” to grow in godliness (2 Peter 1:5, 10) and accomplish the mission of Christ. Like those mentioned in 2 Timothy 3:5, sleepwalking Christians “have a form of godliness, but deny its power.”
Satan has nothing to fear from bland, inoffensive, respectable people who keep their religious views to themselves. But Christ calls us to something better: to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a lighthouse for travelers lost and tossed at sea, an intensive care ward for the wounded and broken.
A Rousing Wake-up Call
The Lord told his slumbering saints in Sardis, “Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God” (v. 2).
Are our eyes open to the needs and opportunities around us? Today there’s a widespread lack of moral clarity, coupled with an epidemic of loneliness and isolation; and a healthy church can remedy both problems. God’s Word provides moral clarity, and God’s family provides a supportive relational network from the cradle to the grave. Many members of Gen Z are open to the gospel and looking for friends who demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control); but they have no interest in a drowsy, half-dead, sleepwalking church.
It’s time to wake up to what’s happening in our families. Parents, you are missionaries! The mission field is your kitchen, your car, your living room. You step onto the mission field when you tuck your kids into bed at night, answer their questions, and set an example with your lifestyle. Grandparents are missionaries, too—called to intentionally disciple the next generation.
The church at Sardis still had a pulse, but its vitality was almost gone. A remnant of believers there had “not soiled their clothes” (v. 4). The Lord said, “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” (v. 3).
“Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back . . . . If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. . . . I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’” (Mark 13:35-37).
This is the fifth in a series of weekly articles based on Christ’s letters to the seven churches in the book of Revelation. Next week: “Through the Open Door.”
David Faust serves as contributing editor of Christian Standard and senior associate minister with East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is the author of Married for Good.
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