THE DANGER OF RESTING IN OUR REPUTATION

 Revelation 3:1-6 NIV 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. (2) Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. (3) Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, 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. (4) 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. (5) He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. (6) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

(This was the passage of Scripture I shared in one of our Congregational Prayer gatherings a few months ago.)

Why do we need to continually pray for our church, for our leaders, ministers, workers and members? We pray because we may have a reputation of being alive, but we may be dead. That's the deception of having a "reputation", either in our own eyes or through the eyes of others. Do we feel that we are doing alright in our church? Are we judging our church according to the "success" of our ministries, our church building, our the system that is running smoothly in our church?

Or, are we continually opening our hearts to our God, allowing Him to judge our life, our hearts?

The figurative meaning of Jesus holding the seven spirits of God refers to the perfect, omnipresent Holy Spirit who knows everything and sees everything. Our Lord sees everything that is happening in the church. He sees every member. He sees our hearts. Do we have a reputation of being alive, and yet to Him we may be lacking?

The seven stars are the seven "messengers". The Greek word is "angelus", which refers either to a spirit or human messenger. These "stars" in Jesus' hand are the human messengers whom God uses in the church. Do we heed His word that is brought to us through His messengers? Are we present in our Sunday worship, but absent in our hearts? Do we take to heart what we hear, learn, in our discipleship groups?

(3) Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, 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. (4) 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 Holy Spirit works in the church, through His messengers, so that we may be a people whose clothes are not soiled, walking with Christ dressed in white.

Everyday we need to open our hearts and life to our Lord, remember what we have received and heard from Him, obey it and repent. We need to be a people who are constantly awake, aware of the work of the Holy Spirit in His church, whose very purpose is that we be a people prepared to walk in white with Him in eternity.

This is why we continually pray for our church.