A dead church that thought it was alive. A small church commended for its faithfulness. And a lukewarm church characterized by affluence and apathy. The Spirit’s words to Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea have relevance for churches now, three preachers said on the second day of the IBSA Pastors’ Conference in Springfield.
Jonathan Davis, pastor of Delta Church, opened day two with a message on the church at Sardis, which received a strong rebuke for being a church alive with activity but dead in spirit. Thankfully, Davis preached, the church wasn’t all the way gone yet.
“The church in Sardis is not beyond repair, which means the church you pastor that looks a little too much like Sardis is not beyond repair.”
The first call is to wake up, he said. Strengthen what remains, and remember the gospel you received and keep it, Davis preached. The passage does offer a glimmer of hope in the few people in Sardis described as worthy.
“Throughout God’s story of redemption,” Davis said, “God has always had a remnant to work with. And pastor, it just might be you.”
How to be faithful
“You don’t have to be big to be faithful,” preached Charlie Dates. “You can be small and still be strong.” The pastor of Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago encouraged IBSA leaders from the Spirit’s words to the church at Philadelphia. They were a small church, Dates said, but commended for a faithfulness not of their own making.
“You and I do not have to manufacture our own faithfulness,” Dates said. The words to the church at Philadelphia signal “it is the character of Christ that enables our faithfulness to his church.”
Dates encouraged pastors weary from the difficult pandemic season with a message focused on God’s own faithfulness, and the reward promised to those who run the race.
“You can be faithful. Yes, you can. You don’t have to give up though the road seems difficult. You don’t have to move though the road meanders with its twists and turns. But you can be faithful right where you are.”
A final, hopeful word
“Affluence and prosperity can make a church self-satisified, lukewarm,” said Tony Merida. That was true of the church at Laodicea, the final church to receive words from the Spirit in Revelation 3. The church that thought it had it all together actually made Jesus want to vomit, preached Merida, pastor of Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, N.C.
“They stopped singing ‘I Need Thee Every Hour,’” Merida said. “They stopped believing apart from Jesus we can do nothing.” God is not pleased with the fruits of pride and of a wealthy church no longer reliant on Jesus. The message is especially relevant for the Western church today, Merida said.
“But he hadn’t given up on them, and he hasn’t given up on us.”
The IBSA Annual Meeting follows the Pastors’ Conference. Watch online at https://ibsaannualmeeting.org/watch-live/.