Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our description of Jesus.
It goes to commendation if there is some, to accusation, to, you know, on down the gram. So we're just going to jump into it today. You've heard enough of these churches so far, and Sardis is a unique church, so I hope that you'll open your heart and mind today. And thank you for even acknowledging my birthday.
You know, when you're our age, who cares about birthdays, but thank you for making it special. Let's pray. Lord, we love you.
Pray that you'd bless. Lord, we're reading a letter that you wrote. You didn't just write it to this church.
Through the preservation of your Word, you have written it to us. So Lord, we are to take it serious. I don't know as a church, corporately, I hope we are. Lord, I'm doing what you've asked me to do. It certainly takes the church to accept it, receive it, take it serious. But Lord, you've asked us to deal with this at this time in these weeks at this stage of our church. So I pray you'd give us an open heart, open ears, but more importantly an open heart. We love you in Jesus' name.
Amen. Number one in Revelation chapter 3, as we begin in verse 1, we see as in every church a description, the description of Jesus. Now notice what it says here, and unto the angel which would be the pastor of the church in Sardis write, these things sayeth he that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
What are we talking about here? Well first he brings up the seven spirits of God. This is a description that Jesus gives of himself.
He said, I hold the seven spirits of God. Now there's three or four different options that different people over the years have written that they believe that this might be referring to. But the one that I believe, I just believe that it seems clearer that this is what he's talking about. Now I could be wrong.
Anything of what he's talking about is good stuff. But what I believe here comes from Isaiah chapter 11 verse 2. Now the seven spirits of God are mentioned in Revelation 1, 4, 3, 1, 4, 5, 5, 6. It's mentioned in all these verses. But what are the seven spirits of God?
Because apparently Jesus holds them all in his hand. In Isaiah chapter 11 verse 2, prophetically speaking of Jesus it says, and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. Him meaning Jesus.
Jesus was not born yet but he was going to be born. And it says this, that as the spirit of the Lord will rest upon him that there will be other spirits that will rest upon him. The spirit of the Lord, obviously the Holy Spirit, but notice this, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. Then he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears.
So the seven spirits of God are the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of might, the spirit of knowledge and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. Just in case you don't know that, it means this, that Jesus is wiser than you are. It means that Jesus understands a whole lot more than you and I do. It means that Jesus knows how to counsel better than any counselor you've ever been to. It means that Jesus has more might than any enemy you will ever face, and Jesus has more might than even you. It means that Jesus has all knowledge. It means that Jesus has it all here. He has seen it all. He knows it all, and you and I are very limited on our knowledge, and it means that he also has the spirit of the fear of the Lord. I don't know about you, but this is quite a description of Jesus Christ. He has it all in his hand. That's who we're dealing with here.
So in case you want to mess with him, I wouldn't advise it. Then he says this, I don't just hold all the seven spirits of God. He said, I also hold the seven stars.
He said, what are we talking about here? Well, we know this from Revelation chapter 2, verse 1. The seven stars were literally the angels of the seven churches, the pastors.
It means this, that Jesus is saying this. Listen, I hold all seven spirits of God. I hold all the seven churches in my hand. I even hold the pastors in my hand. It's all mine.
And dear friend, you and I need to remember something. Church does not belong to you, and church most definitely does not belong to me. Listen, I might not be the best pastor in the world, but I hope that you have seen over these years that I'm not a guy that just does everything that I want and gets my way about everything.
Let me tell you something. This church does not belong to me. It doesn't belong to you. It belongs to God.
It's his. Jesus holds us in his hand. That's why he said, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Listen, Jesus will protect his church.
Notice, secondly, we see here the accusation. Now, on other churches, it kind of went right to the commendation. It's like, hey, here's what you're doing well, but man, we just don't even have much of that. There's no time to be nice. There's no time to think of something. Maybe Jesus could have said, hey, you have nice restrooms.
I don't know. He could have said something nice about the church, but he doesn't even waste time. He goes right to the accusation of this church in the very first verse. He says, I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead. So we see first the reputation of this church, and we see second the reality of this church. He says, your reputation is that you are a church that's alive. And Jesus says, but remember, I hold the seven spirits in my hand. I see it all.
I know it all. Nothing gets by me. I look past the facade. I look past the reputation, and I get right to the reality. Remember, I own you.
You're mine. I hold the seven stars. I hold the seven spirits. And your reputation says, oh, that's a church that is alive. And He said, my problem with you is you're dead. Now I would say this as I look at this phrase.
It is what it is. It's pretty straightforward, but why would this church have had the reputation of being alive? It might probably be that at one time they were alive. At one time they were not just active. Now what does the verse say?
He says, I know thy works. Just because a church is busy doesn't mean a church is alive. There's a lot of places that are busy, but they're dead.
They're dead. Listen, Jesus doesn't judge churches like we do. We think if a church has a lot of facilities or if they have a lot of people, wow, they must be an alive church, not necessarily.
He says this that I know your works and you have a reputation of being alive. So maybe they had fooled everybody. Maybe they had even fooled themselves because we're busy, because we're doing a lot, that we must be an alive church, that we must be okay, that as long as we're doing a lot, then we'll be okay. And Kerwin Baptist Church, may I say something? You know, periodically we'll have people here that say, listen, I just haven't found anywhere that I can get involved.
And if so, God bless you. Listen, we would love to help you. We just have tons of areas.
And every year we add more. So I would say this, just hold on, I guess we'll add something that you can be involved in. But I'll be honest, I think if you really want to be involved, we've already got enough places that, and let me just say this, that sometimes a church that has a lot going on, we have a lot going on for our teenagers, we have a lot going on for our children, we just have a lot going on as the church. But may I say this, just because we have a lot going on doesn't mean we are what we need to be as a church. Just because we have works doesn't mean we're alive. You know, Kerwin Baptist Church has a reputation.
Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. When I first came here as pastor you couldn't ask for a better pastor of a church than Joe Myers. He had been here 50 years. So not just was he the best pastor in the world, he was faithful. I mean he took it like a man to do anything for 50 years.
I mean anything. That takes somebody that has some stick-to-it power. And even with that, I mean a church that started off with 13 people into the hundreds and then the school ministry and bus ministry and all those different things and still there are areas you could go in Kernersville and you could mention Kerwin Baptist Church and people will have a bad reputation in their mind. I mean sometimes you can do the best you can and do everything that God tries to tell you to do and you can still get people upset with you.
And you can still have people not think good about you. I've had people that are members of this church now that told me when they were visiting our church that they would be at work and tell somebody, they'd say, hey, are you visiting a church? Yeah, we've been visiting Kerwin Baptist Church. What? You're visiting that church? We had one that they literally told them, you're going to that church? They'll stop you at the door and if a woman has a pair of pants on, they'll make you put on a dress. What? Are you kidding me?
You'd be surprised how churches can get reputations. By the way, we don't do that. Come as you are.
We're glad you're here, okay? Now if a man comes in in tight leather pants, we might have him change that, but, oh Lord, I hope nobody has one on today. Oh, Lord. Bad thing is you'll hear him as he goes out, wah, wah, wah, wah.
That would be horrible. Okay. Sorry, my mind ran a little route there and I apologize. There's some people you'll, hey, where do you go to church? Go to Kerwin Baptist Church. Oh, I've heard that's a great church. Okay. As important as I think it is for your church to have a good reputation in the community, and Lord knows we're trying.
We're trying. What matters here in this passage, Jesus says you might have the reputation with people that you're alive, but Jesus says, but I know the reality. It means what is of utmost importance is what Jesus thinks of Kerwin Baptist Church. What a shame it would be for us to try to make a whole community happy and forget about the most important person. So at some point you've got to please God, and if that disappoints some in the community then you're just going to have to take it on the chin.
But I want, and I don't know where we are or where we stand, and maybe God only knows that, but I would like for God to be able to look down at Kerwin Baptist Church and Him see the reality that we are alive. The accusation. Notice number three, the recommendation. Look at verse two.
He says, be watchful. So apparently this happened because they relaxed. Apparently this happened because they quit paying attention to themselves. Apparently this happened because they just got caught up in the rigamarole and they got caught up in the roles that they had and it just became, you know, ho-hum and they're going through the motions and I don't know, but He said, listen, you're going to have to be watchful because this isn't like you think and it's not really like you have the opinion of yourself.
It's way different. You think you're alive and you think you're okay and you think as a church that we're doing great, but God says, but I'm telling you, you're not. So He gives a recommendation here.
Notice first He says recommit. Now look at verse two. Be watchful and strengthen the things that remain that are ready to die. For I have not found thy works. There's those works. He says I've not found thy works perfect before God. It means you've got works, but you don't have works for the right reasons. You don't have works for the right motives.
You don't even have works for the right person. You as a church are just going through your motions, but Jesus says, let me tell you something. You've got things that are about to die. You've got things that are just barely there, and while you're busy on all your works, you're letting the important things die. And I want to challenge you here this morning at Carleman Baptist Church.
I need you to recommit. Listen, and I don't look at anybody individually. I was thinking the other day, I don't think of one person ever when I preach, and I have preached some things that I get done later on, and I think about what I said, and I'm like, oh, Lord, I guarantee you so-and-so thought I was talking about them.
I wasn't even thinking about them. In fact, if I am thinking about a person, I'll avoid saying anything that they might think I'm talking about them. But when I preach, God brings things to my mind, and I'll say things, and all of a sudden later I'm like, oh, Lord, I guarantee you they think it was them. And I've had that happen just once or twice in the past when I said, listen, I think you were talking about me in the pulpit. I was like, no, I really wasn't, and I understand why you think that because I mentioned your name.
But other than that, no, I didn't do that. Then I might be talking about you. But, so I'm not thinking, I'm just, listen, I am saying this, that I'm asking you today, could it possibly be that there's some things inside of your walk with Christ, and even involving this church, that it used to be one way you were this, you were involved in that, you were faithful to this, and it's slipping, and it's dying, and it's decaying, and yet you've never been more busy in your life. And dear friend, I'm here to say that just because you think you have works that are important in life, God looks at things very differently. And I'm asking you, maybe you ought to be in this choir. And you say, preacher, why do you always bring up the choir? Because you just have no idea how important the choir is to this church. Choirs are not as important to every church as they are to Corona Baptist Church. But our choir literally many times dictates the trajectory of our services. And when you have, listen, if we had a hundred people up here, you know that's my goal. I want a hundred people in our choir, because I think we could have it. But if we had a hundred people that sang like this, that's not going to be a blessing. But you let our choir, themselves personally, get on fire with God, and they believe in what they're singing, and they want to just worship God and serve God, let me tell you something, it changes the service. And I'm just saying that maybe over time somebody said this, or somebody did this, or they didn't ask you to sing the solo in the song, or they didn't recognize you, or so-and-so got to sing everything and they didn't.
Whatever the case, I know a lot of things goes on. Man, I've been in church my whole life. If you think I've never had my feelings hurt, goodness gracious, I mean my own staff at times has said things to hurt my feelings. Even this week, I forget what David said. David said something that, I don't forget what it was, it was like, we were talking about I had preached on a passage and we were talking about somebody else and they preached and David said, that's the best sermon I've ever heard on that passage. I said, oh really, David, that's great, that's great, man, I appreciate that. We just had a conversation that I preached on it, you remember that, but this other person, and that's the greatest, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I said, you know, there's some great children's pastors around, too. Oh, Frank's greatest mentor is Pastor David Fulp. Hey, that's great to hear, wonderful. Was he here putting up with your junk in eighth and ninth and tenth grade?
In eleventh grade? I'm being mean to Frank today, I don't know what's going on. Listen, I know things can hurt your feelings and I know a lot, but here's what happens before long if we're not careful. Things are dying.
They're still there, but they're dying. And I'm wondering today if maybe, just maybe, the person in your seat needs to recommit, needs to strengthen those things that remain. I know a lot of water under the bridge and maybe church isn't to you what it used to be, but come on folks, let's be honest, sometimes we're the reason church isn't what it used to be. Anybody else want to admit that today?
I'm going to be honest, just about everything I've ever looked at, it really boiled down to me. My feeling, I didn't die to myself like God said, my feelings got hurt and my this and my that, and all I'm saying is this is what God says, not Daniel Hartree. Strengthen those things that remain that are ready to die. He says recommit. Notice secondly, he says remember, verse three. He says remember therefore how thou hast received and heard and hold fast. He says remember back when you first heard the gospel, remember back when you first got excited, remember back when you first realized that the creator of the universe died for you and loves you.
Do you remember back then how simple it was? He loves me, I love him, I'm going to serve him with my life, but then people get involved. And our feelings get involved and everything else gets involved and schedules and children and life and all those things. He says maybe perhaps you've, you've forgotten how you used to feel. Recommit, remember, but notice number three, this is only going to happen if you repent. He says remember therefore how thou hast received and heard and hold fast. Notice these two words, and repent. What does repent mean? There's a lot of definitions to repent, but if I can make it very clear, he's saying just admit it and change. Just admit, hey, I am where I am.
I'm not proud of it, and I might have my reasons that I'm at where I'm at, but it doesn't change the fact that this is where I'm at. Kerwin Baptist Church, do you hear me? Even if you've got good reason to have let some things die, in your mind, even if it's a good reason, the reality is you're at that point and God doesn't want us there. He said repent. Repent takes humility. Repent, it takes admitting.
Repent, it takes effort. It means there must be some changing. I want you to notice number four, he gives an evaluation. Look at verse three. He said if therefore thou shalt not watch, he says let me tell you what's going to happen. If you don't do this, if you don't, be careful, if you don't wake up, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. You see, the church at Sardis had assumed they've done enough, but no church can assume or get to the point that they think they've done enough or that they've done things long enough. Christians who slumber, the Bible says, slumber in complacency.
Churches that do that, God can't bless. Number five, I want you to see the commendation. Oh, there is something good here?
Yeah. You see, all was not lost in the church at Sardis. What does he say in verse four? He says thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white for they are worthy. In this verse, Jesus explains that a few faithful believers in Sardis had kept themselves clean. They had avoided the corruption that permeated the culture of this church, and unlike their slumbering, sleeping fellow church members, they had kept a watchful eye. They stayed in God's Word, and they watched what happened, and they were careful about who they let influence them, and they had stayed watchful. In fact, the Apostle Peter in chapter five of 1 Peter, he tells us to be watchful, to be sober-minded, to be watchful because our adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. God says, all right, you'll walk with me in white, a sign of purity, for they are worthy.
So what's our motivation as we hurry as we're done today? Look at verse five. He that overcometh the same shall be.
Overcometh, what do you mean? The person that wakes up, the person that remembers their first love as in the church of Ephesus, the person that doesn't just have works, they have love, that doesn't just have faith, but they love God, and they do it because they love the Lord, and they keep themselves right, not because they have to, but because they want to. Him that overcometh, that literally, listen, this world has a culture, folks, but as a church, we've got to overcome that.
God never said it was going to be easy. He says to them that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. Notice first, he promises white raiment. First, he says, I will grant these individuals that continue to love God, serve God, I will grant them white garments.
Now, Roman officials customarily wore white clothing at religious festivals as symbols of high honor. White clothing that is given to the faithful represents honor and purity and righteousness. In fact, Isaiah wrote this in chapter 6, well listen to me, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall exalt in my God, for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. Look at me, Jesus says this, that if you'll just stay faithful, when you get to Heaven, you will be clothed in white garment.
Means this, you aren't anything in and of yourselves. I don't have righteousness in my life, and I don't have patience in my life, and I don't have anything good and holy and pure that I have produced in my life. But God can produce that in your life, and Jesus can work on you. And He says if you're faithful, when you get to Heaven, it's not going to be about what you did or didn't do.
It's going to be about what I've done for you, and you will be clothed. You didn't get this, you didn't earn this, but Jesus gives us that white raiment. You and I are forgiven in the eyes of God because of the blood of Jesus Christ. Secondly, He says I will not blot out your name out of the Book of Life. Now, Jesus promises that those that remain faithful, He will not blot their name out of the Book of Life. Now, some, unfortunately, some individuals and even religions think that this statement implies that a believer can lose his salvation.
It simply means the overcomer, the conqueror, can be secure knowing their name will never be erased. Look at me. What we're saying is this, is the person halfway through their life says, you know what, I don't believe in God. I don't believe in all that. I renounce that, and I withdraw that.
Listen to me. That means that person never really, truly got saved. The greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know Him personally.
Would you take a moment to hear this today? Every man is born with a sin nature. Romans 3.23 says for all of sin and come short of the glory of God.
No matter how hard we try, we're not good enough to obtain God's glory or to get to heaven. Because of that, sin carries the penalty of death. Romans 6.23 says for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin or the payment of our sin only equals death and separation from God, but it's only through God's gift of salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept Him as our Savior.
Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt. The Bible says in Romans 5.8, but God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. All you have to do is receive Christ by faith as your Savior. Romans 10.9 says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Verse 13 continues, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner believing that Jesus is the only way and calling upon His name. The Bible says whosoever, that's anyone, can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior? There is no greater day than today to take care of this. Would you accept Christ as your Savior? If you have any questions, please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at curwinbaptistchurch.com or visit us at person at one of our three service times. We hope you have a great rest of your day. God bless you.
