Revelation 3:6
Listen to the Spirit

This verse is from the book of Revelation, which the disciple/apostle John wrote during his exile on the isle of Patmos. In his visions, God showed John many things that will happen in the future. But God also revealed how 7 churches in Asia were evaluated. These evaluations are gems because they reveal what God cares about with regards to our churches, and they show that there will be consequences for how well churches stick to God’s agenda. 

Revelation 3:1-6 provides the evaluation of the church in Sardis. Jesus gives the evaluation of the church (see Rev 1:12-2:1, also 3:5), but verse 6 indicates that it is the Spirit who speaks to the churches. The Father, Son, and Spirit are one. The imperative this week is that we listen to Him.

What is evaluated about this church? Its works. The church had a reputation for being alive, but Jesus tells them they are dead. He says that their works have not been found perfect before God. He mentions that there are a few people in the church who are worthy and who have not been defiled. Their names will not be blotted out of the Book of Life. People whose names are not found in the Book of Life will be thrown in the lake of fire, see Revelation 20:15.

This is rather significant. Some people believe you can lose your salvation and our verse today could support such a view. But there other verses that support the view that you cannot lose your salvation (1 John 5:10-13, Eph 1:13, 4:30, Rom 8:38-39). Blotted out could mean crossed-out. In that case, you would still be written in the Book of Life but given that there no worthy works, the books of works (Revelation 20:12) would not have much positive to say about you.

So what are these works that churches are supposed to do? And is there a difference between the works of the church as a group, and the works of the individuals that make up the church? It is interesting to note that the evaluations starts at church level, but ends at the individual. It is also clear from the rest of the book of Revelation that God will judge us as individuals. And if all the individuals in a church do good works, its pretty clear that the church as a whole will do well as well. A final noteworthy observation is that the individuals who are worthy have ‘not defiled their garments’, which means that they kept themselves pure from the world around them, they did not conform to the world but made conscious successful efforts to remove sin from their lives.

The question remains what these works are. There are about 613 commands in the New Testament, and if you manage to keep them all, you probably have a lot of good works to show for. Jesus summed them all up by saying that you should first love God with all that you’ve got, and second to love others as you love yourself. There is a useful sermon on these good works here: http://www.truthbase.net/sermons/title/good-works-good-lord-good-glory/ and it has a good definition: Good works are purposeful Christlike actions, prompted and enabled by the Holy Spirit of grace, which eternally benefit others (through having real needs met), God (by making Him look good in the eyes of others) and ourselves (through growth and reward). Jesus gave a very helpful overview as well, in His sermon on the mount. See especially Matthew 5:21-48, which has a list of specific things we have to do. He ends that overview with command for us to be perfect, similar to how the works of the church of Sardis should have been perfect before God.

So our job is to figure out the good works God wants us to do, and then do them wholeheartedly, knowing that they will be written down in the books of works, and that our name will not be blotted out of the book of life. Listen to what the Spirit says.

Godspeed!