Lead Worship

The Church of Sardis

A brief history of Sardis
Sardis was once a vital and thriving town for the entire nation. It had 5 different roads (or interstates) that ran through the town so it was very important politically, militarily, and finacially. Because of the roads, most of the goods in the nation came through Sardis. Sardis was a great place to open your own business. Also, when nations would attack this west Asia nation, they would follow these roads. This meant that the nation had to keep Sardis well fortified.

But as time went on, the less important Sardis  became. Wealth remained but this once-important little town became very unimportant during the Roman empire. And this town and the church remained on their past glory. They were so proud of the past that they wanted to live in it. They never wanted to change.

“The problem with the Christians at Sardis was not one of false doctrine like the believers at Thyatira, or opposition and persecution like the believers at Smyrna. Instead, the Sardis church was living on its past reputation. There loyalty and service to Christ was all in the past. They were nothing more than a corpse that looked alive from the outside but within was filled with hypocracy and iniquity”

Vrs. 1 says “You have a reputation for being alive but you are dead.”

“You know how to impress others but not God.”

“You have a great Sunday Show, but what about My commission?”

“Your reputation is based on what you were in the past. But what are you right now?”

Its human nature to look back at the success that we have in the past. I have learned that if you repeat what was successful in the past, very rarely will it be successful again. Why? Because if we knew what to do that would make God bless what we are doing, then we wouldn’t need Him to tell us what to do. The past ended yesterday. What are we doing individually to make sure we have a great reputation in the future?