Revelation 3:1-3
“To the angel (divine messenger) of the church in [a]Sardis write:
“These are the words of Him who has [b]the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: ‘I know your deeds; you have a name (reputation) that you are alive, but [in reality] you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen and reaffirm what remains [of your faithful commitment to Me], which is about to die; for I have not found [any of] your deeds completed in the sight of My God or meeting His requirements. 3 So remember and take to heart the lessons you have received and heard. Keep and obey them, and repent [change your sinful way of thinking, and demonstrate your repentance with new behavior that proves a conscious decision to turn away from sin]. So then, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.
Unlike with the previous churches where Jesus first commended the good they were doing before highlighting their shortfalls, with the church at Sadis He goes straight to their shortfall.
They had a reputation that they were alive but in reality they were dead. This statement resonates so well with what we see in the church of Jesus Christ in Kenya today. We claim to have 80% Christians in Kenya but you cannot see it on the ground. The problem is not with the teaching we receive but rather with implementing what we have been taught. Many of us have one note book after another filled with notes we take every Sunday and we are still filling in more notebooks but we never get to the place where we apply what we have been taught or when we do we are not consistent.
We need to wake up and reaffirm what remains of our faithful commitment to God because if we do not do so, even that will die. I am reminded of Paul saying that though some of us ought to be teachers we still crave for the milk of the word. We have refused to grow and mature in God and we remain as babes.
The call is for us to examine our ways and repent because Jesus will come back soon like a thief in the night. And when He does He wants to find us ready hence the warning.
At the same time there were those in the church of Sardis who had not soiled their clothes and were walking in their white robes before the Lord.
Can you locate yourself, have you put on a mask pretending to be alive and yet you are dead or are you really alive? May it never be said of us that we were holding on to an outward form of godliness while denying the very power of God.
Let him who has ears hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
