Called to Wake Up
“To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. 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 found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. 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.
Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
— Revelation 3:1-6
When my youngest son was six, we signed him up for Taekwondo. We dropped him off for his first lesson and went for a walk. When we came back, we stood in the back of the dojo and watched. Before long, he noticed us. He looked over his shoulder and waved. It was adorable. But you know who didn’t think it was adorable? His sensei. His sensei stepped forward, turned his head back around, and said, “Wake up!”
My son had taken his eyes off the master. Have we taken our eyes off the Master?
When we established our four Senior Objectives for our Disciple-Making Church initiative―Call to Follow, Partner in Mission, Unleash New Leaders, and Multiply New Disciples―we said that all of them begin with the first: Call to Follow. We start with the Word, and the rest flows from there. So we begin with a call to return to the Word.
It is interesting to me that “Call to Follow” was only a heartbeat away from being “Called to Repent.” Jesus said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matt 4:17). Martin Luther said in the first of his 95 Theses, “The entire life of the faithful is one of repentance.” Repent. Turn around. Wake up. We’ve all taken our eyes off the Master.
In 1944, Adolf Hitler had Europe firmly in his grasp. But on June 6, Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy. They knew they had one chance to liberate Europe. On the beaches of Normandy, the Allies won a costly victory, and from that moment forward, they were marching toward Berlin, toward the lion’s den. Historians point to D-Day as the battle that won the war in Europe, but the war was not over. The Germans would not surrender for another eleven months, and those months would be some of the bloodiest of World War II.
Two thousand years ago, Satan had humankind firmly in his grasp. But God launched an invasion Satan never saw coming. He sent his Son Jesus Christ, to take on flesh and bear the sins of the world. As Jesus hung on the cross, Satan imagined victory. But then three words were spoken: “It is finished.” The Bible tells us that Satan was defeated by the blood of the Lamb. At the Cross, God won the war, but the war is not over.
The Apostle John writes: “Rejoice, O heavens ... But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” (Rev 12:11, ESV) Our text is Revelation 3:1-6, and it is a call for the sleeping church in Sardis to wake up. Sardis was a heavily fortified city, and there is no record of it ever falling from a frontal assault. Yet it was conquered twice in a different way. Under the cover of darkness, soldiers scaled the walls and opened the gates from within. The people of Sardis failed to realize they were at war. The church in Sardis had the same problem.
Jesus says: “I know your deeds; you have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead… Wake up! Strengthen what remains…” (vv. 1-2). Sin in Sardis was not taken seriously. They had grown comfortable with it. They had taken their eyes off the Master.
How many of us have done the same? How many of us have made peace with sins we know are wrong? Jesus says, “Wake up.” At the cross, Jesus paid for the sins of the world. Yet after his resurrection, he was no less serious about sin. When we make peace with sin, it is like the walls of Sardis being scaled from the outside and the gates being opened from within. And, when the gates are opened, the enemy comes in.
The Apostle Paul tells us, “Do not give the devil a foothold” (Eph 4:27). The Apostle Peter says, “The devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8). Jesus tells us, “Wake up.” In Romans 6:2, Paul writes, “We… have died to sin.”
Martin Luther, in his commentary on Romans, writes, “We do not yield to our sinful passions.” We do not surrender. We do not make peace. But then Luther adds, “Hating the body of sin… is a difficult task.” In other words, it’s going to be hard. Jesus, the Apostle Paul, Martin Luther―not one of them taught an easy Christianity. What sin have you made peace with? Jesus says, “Wake up and strengthen what remains.”
A few years ago, on occasion, I’d meet a young man for coffee. He often confessed his struggle with pornography. One day he told me he was getting rid of his smartphone and replacing it with a flip phone. At first, I didn’t understand. His phone was the gate, the doorway through which pornography was entering. I laughed and said, “You’ll need to learn how to read a map.” He didn’t laugh. He looked at the phone on the table and said, “In my moments of weakness, I can’t be trusted. It’s not who I am, and it’s not who I’m going to be.” In that moment, the mentee became the mentor.
I had always focused on confession and forgiveness―and rightly so―but I had never said, “That’s not who you are.” Jesus doesn’t tell his followers just to feel bad about sin, he tells them to resist it. Let me be clear, the young man did not discard his smartphone to become righteous; he did it because he is righteous.
Do you see the difference? If he had discarded his phone to become righteous, it would not have worked, because the problem was never really the phone. The problem is the heart, and only Jesus can heal the heart. But if the young man discarded his phone because Christ lives in him, then the young man is righteous. The Apostle Paul writes, “Those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit” (Rom 8:5).
But it’s hard. It’s hard to set our minds on Jesus, and it will only get harder, because we are marching toward Berlin, towards the lion’s den. Satan knows his days are numbered.
Maybe you have opened the gate. Maybe you are at peace with your sin. Maybe you are dead. If so, there is a promise for you in our text. Jesus tells the church in Sardis that those who overcome will be clothed in white. You see, our God has made it his business to take things that are dead and to bring them back to life.
In Ezekiel 37, the prophet is placed in a valley full of dry bones, and God asks, “Can these bones live?” The prophet wisely answers, “O Sovereign Lord, only you know.” Then God commands the prophet to preach his Word. As the prophet proclaimed the Word, the dry bones came together, bone to bone, tendons and flesh, and then the breath of God entered them. What was once dead was now alive, and a vast army stood before the prophet.
If you are dead in your sin, only Jesus can bring you back. So hear the words of Jesus, the crucified One, the risen One, the One who will soon return to destroy the work of Satan forever: “Wake up.” That old Adam is not who you are, and he is not who you are going to be.
Let us not shrink back. Let us continue in good works. Let us love one another. Let us partner in mission, let us unleash new leaders, let us multiply new disciples. Let us live such good lives among those lost in darkness that they wonder where our hope comes from. Not to become righteous―not to be saved―but because we already are. And though the war is won, the war is not over.
Dr. Troy Tysdal is the President of Lutheran Brethren Seminary in Fergus Falls, MN.