I Know Your Works

Lord, allow these truths to lead me to a deeper worship of You.


"And to the angel of the church in Sardis write ... "I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead." (Revelation 3:1).


The church at Sardis was a popular church with a great reputation. Had it been our day, there would have been a lot of eloquence in the pulpit and elegance in the pews. What a fine name they had made for themselves! But sometimes names don't mean all that much. The tragedy was this church wasn't alive at all. The organism had become an organization, and the movement had become a monument, and they were dead.


When a person dies, the spirit departs. And that's exactly what had happened to this church. The life of any church is the Holy Spirit of God. And when the Spirit leaves, the life is gone.
Not only does the spirit depart at death, but the senses depart; the feeling goes. have you ever been in a church where all of feeling is gone? There's just a barren stillness, no warmth or sensitivity. And the people sitting there so stiffly don't seem to know the difference between dignity and rigor mortis. They think they're dignified, but they're dead!


Now, we shouldn't overemphasize feeling, but the Bible does say that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17). We don't have to fry in fanaticism or freeze in formalism. But we ought to have a passionate love for the Lord Jesus Christ that leads us to heartfelt worship. We should never settle for just going through the motions, like these people at Sardis. They only had the "appearance" of life when, in truth, their light had gone out.


Think of the stars - for instance, the North Star. In the northern hemisphere, we can see it shining brightly in the night sky. But did you know that star is 430 light years away? That means the light we see left 430 years ago. So the star could have burned out decades ago and we would still be seeing the light from that star. Sadly, some churches - and some Christians - are burned out. They're dead and living only in the light of the brilliant past.


~Adrian Rogers~