The 7 Churches of Revelation: Sardis

Sunday Morning | June 21, 2026 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

In his sermon on the church at Sardis from Revelation 3:1-6, Pastor John challenged believers to look beyond outward appearances and examine their true spiritual condition. While Sardis had a reputation for being alive, Jesus declared it was mostly dead, reminding us that in God's eyes appearances mean very little, as seen in examples such as David, the widow's offering, and John the Baptist. Pastor John highlighted five ways to breathe life back into a dying church and stagnant faith: wake up from spiritual complacency, strengthen the remaining embers of faith, hold firmly to God's Word as the primary means of spiritual transformation, repent and turn back to God with a sincere heart, and find your true identity and reputation in Christ rather than human approval. Just as Sardis was thought to be impenetrable yet fell because its people failed to remain vigilant, believers today must stay spiritually alert. The sermon concluded with the promise that those who remain faithful will be clothed in white garments, symbolizing victory, purity, and the honor of walking with Christ.

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Good morning, Valley View. Happy Father's Day to you. It's good to gather, and I think a great way to start today is a little history lesson on Father's Day. Fathers love a good history book. Love war history especially. This isn't war history, but we have a fondness for history as dads. And since we have the kids in the room with us this Sunday, I'm going to ask the kids to tell me if you can just shout it out. Just the kids, okay? I know you think if you already know it, you want to shout it out dads, but let's let the kids try. First, who was the president in 1981? Come on, Ronald Reagan. Not even a hesitation. Love it. Ronald Reagan right. So March of 1981. And this is all going to lead us somewhere. Don't worry. By the way, we're talking about the seven churches of Revelation. Revelation chapter two and three, we’re walking through those. And the church today relates to something that happened to Ronald Reagan in March of 1981. John Hinckley shot at him and the Secret Service that was with him. They were able to push him into the car and what they thought was to keep him safe from being shot, to keep him from assassination. But they fell so hard on top of him, he thought, man, I have broken a rib or something. I can't even breathe. And so they're checking his body to see were you shot? Can we see a visible broken rib or not? They're rushing him to the hospital along the way, and they get there and they've looked him over and they see it doesn't appear you're hurt, but let's go in. And he said, and I'm going to walk in. I want any American who's here, whether it's the press or just people in general. I want them to see me going in in strength, not in weakness. So he steps out of the car, buttons his coat, walks in, and as soon as he gets through the doors, he collapses. Everything appeared okay, but it wasn't. And so they're immediately searching over his body. And finally they find that a bullet had hit the door and flattened like a penny and had just gone in right under his armpit. They couldn't even see the incision until much later. So they got to have emergency surgery. It had lodged near his heart, and as they're going into surgery, he looks up at all the doctors and surgeons and nurses and he said, please tell me that you are all Republicans, right? And even though they all weren't, they were like, yes, let's go. Here's the point of that story that relates to the church we're going to look at today. On the outside, the appearance was that everything was fine, that Ronald Reagan was healthy, that everything was great. But on the inside he was almost dead. And there's a lot of times things can appear great. You can appear to have it all together and be dying inside. And that's what the church was facing that we're going to look at today. It's the church in Sardis, and we're going to be in the book of Revelation. So if you have a Bible, turn to Revelation, it's at the end of the Bible. If you don't have a Bible, we've got copies out in the lobby that you can have. Those are for you. You can keep and the screen numbers, the page numbers on screen will match that Bible. We're going to be on page 966 and I'm going to turn there. And if you would stand as I read that section, just as a sign of respect and reverence for God's Word, as I read through verses one through six in Revelation chapter three. Revelation three one through six. And to the angel of the church in Sardis write the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember then what you received and heard. Keep it and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. Yet you still have a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments. And I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. You can be seated. So last week we looked at Thyatira and we looked at the challenges that church was facing, the internal challenges, the church before that Pergamum was the challenges from without. Thyatira was the Thyatira was the enemy within. And last week I said that one of the things that we saw in that passage was Jesus had difficult things to address in that church, but he started with a positive. And so when you can start with a positive, you've got something hard to face. If you've got some correction to do with a child or a spouse, or with an employee or a coworker or a student, start with a positive. Here's things I see that are going great. Let me address this and you should try to do that when you can. But that isn't always a possibility. I mean, if your kid is running towards the street, you don't say, hey little Timmy, you know, love that form. You clearly have the form of a runner. And by the way, the enthusiasm. I love it. However, can I just make a suggestion? No, no, you don't worry about all that. You yell as the out as you can. Stop because you're running towards danger. We don't have time for all the niceties we got to address, and sometimes that's where you face yourselves. And right here in Sardis, Jesus cuts through all the niceties right off the bat, and he goes right to the heart of the issue. And for whatever reason, this was an urgent matter for the church. And he said halfway through verse one, I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive. You have the appearance of being alive. You have the the word there is actually the same word translated later as the name, the name of being alive. But you are dead. For whatever reason. We have as a culture a fascination with appearances. Appearances matter so much more in our culture than than character, than kindness, appearances, reputation, charm. You know, Proverbs speaks to this charm as deceitful. Beauty is vain, but yet we're so easily enamored with just appearances, a reputation or name or money, someone with a lot of money we automatically respect, or an actor. They must be important. We automatically respect and give them more weight, or more credence or more value as a culture, which is interesting because that's actually the opposite of what the Bible does. You know, the Bible in Scripture, apparently appearances have almost no weight. I mean, they really mean almost nothing. They mean so little. And I could walk through example after example of this. We could just look, I've listed some in your notes. John the Baptist, he was smelly and homeless and he ate bugs for fun. You know, we either put those people on reality shows or we ignore them. And Jesus said of him. Among those born of women, which, by the way, is everyone. There is no one greater, though the appearances where this is the guy we need to put in the margins, there's no one greater according to Jesus. Or we could look at the widow's offering, the widow's mite. She puts in two pennies in the offering, and the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who are all about appearances. Watch how much I'm dropping in. Make sure everybody sees, hears, knows how important I am. Both by the way I dress, by the way I act. And Jesus says, no, no, no. She is the one most valuable, the one that everybody else is ignoring that when everybody else thinks is meaningless. She is the one that is great in the kingdom of heaven. Or probably the verse most specific to this idea is when David is being compared to his brothers, but ultimately to Saul who went before him. Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. He didn't. It is almost irrelevant. The appearances, the reputation in Scripture. How do we make sure that as a church, that as an individual, we're not enamored with reputation and appearances? How do we make sure we don't end up like those in Second Timothy three five? I've listed that verse in your notes. They had a a form of godliness. They had the appearance of godliness, but they denied its power. We want the opposite of that. Who cares about the form and the appearance? We want the power. How do we make sure we're not so easily enamored by appearances, by reputation, by name only? Well, we're going to look at five ways in this passage. I think that we can make sure that a mostly dead church is resurrected. All right. Let's look at these. Let's first one here is in verse two. So he says, I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. What should we do? By the way, this is going to be very action heavy. Verse two. Wake up. This is the first thing he says to them. Wake up. If you have been lulled to sleep, there comes a moment where you need to wake up and take stock of where you are. If a church has been enamored with appearances with outward reputation, we need to wake up to that reality. If we put more stock on appearances and reputation than on the power of God, that's a that's a problem. There's got to be a moment where we wake up to that reality. Jon Holland, one of our elders, shared with us recently that he had shared a study or had read a study on how most people don't really make big life changes unless there's some big crisis in their life. I mean, you tend to kind of get into the routine of how you approach life with everything you do. And unless something big happens to shake that up because change is hard. It takes a lot of extra energy, and every passing year it gets harder to find that extra energy. And it's a lot easier to just keep kind of letting everything stay the way it is. But something happens sometimes and wakes us up to the reality that things are not right. I'm trying to convince myself they're okay and they're not. I heard two examples of this recently, both in the same situation of people seeing themselves anew in a wedding photo. My neighbor shared this with me. He had been in a wedding, one of his children were married, and he got the pictures back and he saw himself and he said, okay, I can't deny it any longer. I am 100 pounds overweight and for whatever reason. I mean, he looked in the mirror every day for whatever reason. That photo said wake up! That was his wake up moment, and a year later he had. That was his sole focus for that year. And a year later, he had gotten rid of that weight. The wake up moment, I thought everything was fine. I tried to pretend that everything was okay. And even though appearances weren't even right. Something has to happen to wake us up, to wake up the church. And this would have been. I've talked about how each of these letters have something specific to the city that they're being written to. Sardis. This would have been especially meaningful to them because Sardis was known as a church. That was in fact the word I've put in your notes, or you can write in your notes as impenetrable, right. They were built kind of on a mountaintop, and all around the edge of the city were mountains, and they had their own fortress, and they were known throughout all the ancient world. It's that's a place you can't break into. In fact, you could even just say if you wanted to say something was impossible, you would say, that's like trying to break into Sardis. We would say the same. That's like trying to break into Fort Knox, right? You're like, there's no way that could happen. It's unfathomable. It could never happen. Well, sometimes pride goes before the fall. And this city, in fact, one king, they were in battle. I mean, he went out from the city. They went out into the plains to fight the battle. And in the midst of the battle, they realized we're losing. Let's retreat to the city because we'll be safe there. They retreat to the city. He even sends home extra troops. Y'all go home. We don't need you here. We're good. Nobody is breaking into here. We have the reputation of being impenetrable. Nobody can get in here. It's impossible. And of course, all the armies are arrayed outside their walls, watching, looking. How can we get in? There's got to be a way into this city. And one of the guards. And they had very few, but they had a few. One of the guards let down their guard, kind of lulling asleep on top of the wall. Helmet falls off down to the bottom of the wall. And they're just observing this. And one guy notices all of a sudden there's a guy down there picking up his helmet out of nowhere. Where did he come from? And that was the clue they needed. There is some way in and out of here. There's a secret passage somewhere. We can find it, and they find it. They come in, they destroy the city, they rout it, and their reputation becomes from impenetrable to pride goes before the fall. You thought no one could conquer you. And you let down your guard. In fact, it became a warning to all of ancient Greece if Sardis could fall. What about us? I mean, we better watch out, too. You might remember if you were alive during 911 having that feeling, man, if we can be attacked in this way, what does that mean? It really set so many people off balance. Sardis, we have a reputation. We have a name. No one can attack us. Watch out, watch out! Don't just assume everything is as it has always been. Watch out. And I think this is wise for us as a church, because I think Valley View has a rich history, reputation, name. But that doesn't mean anything really, if we are not every day walking in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaning on Christ and trusting him for what he's going to do today. Not what he did back in 1981, 85, 75, whatever. That's great, by the way, I love that. I love reading our church history. We we took a whole week to celebrate our 85th anniversary. We've got a whole thing of our history up on the website, I love that. Watch out. A second way that we can be sure not to just lean on reputation. How do we breathe life into a somewhat mostly dead church? Look at the second way here. Look at verse two. He says, wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die for I have not found your works complete yet in the sight of my God. And here's the phrase I want to use with us this morning urgently fan the ember that is there. You know when you have a fire that has died out, maybe you had a campfire the night before. You can come out, you can spread out, find a hot coal and you can fan that coal into flame. You can breathe life into it. I keep using that phrase mostly dead. And if you've said seen Princess Bride, you're probably chuckling a little bit to yourself because he calls Wesley. You know, he's mostly dead in there. Like, what does that mean? That's a problem, right? He's like, well, yeah, but he's only mostly dead, which means he's partly alive. And we want to fan that flame, that ember into flame. We want to breathe life into it. And when I came to Valley View, it'll be in November. It'll be five years ago now. Already, it's hard to believe the first quarter of my 20 year plan is already almost behind us. It's come so quick. When I came, I knew Valley View had faced some challenges. I knew that some recent, some not as recent, but I also knew, I mean, I grew up here, I knew many of the people I knew. There is a faithful ember that was longing to be blown into a flame. In fact, this week I was meeting with some of the pastoral staff, and we were talking about the church and setting plans for the coming year. And and I was talking about my burden for prayer. And how do we fan the flame into prayer in our church. And one of them said, you know, John, you'd want to know when I've seen our church most committed to prayer, it was for you when we were praying for a pastor every Sunday, people were coming down front and just begging, God, would you move? Would you come? Would you show up? Would you breathe life into our church? You know, Bob Russell when he's here? He said that. He said, John, I'm seeing in your church life I'm seeing God at work. I'm seeing excitement. I'm seeing joy. I mean, that breathed life into me and fanned the flame. How do we do that? I think the next, [verse] three, shows us. How do you go about fanning the flame, breathing life into the church? Look back at verse three again. Wake up, strengthen what remains, and is verse two and about to die. For I have not found your work complete in the sight of my God. First make note of this. He says to them, and I think the message is to us, I'm not done with you yet. I said, you're dead. I met almost dead, and I'm not done with you yet. There is hope. If I'm going to breathe life into the church, there will be a reaction. We can trust that he's going to stir. But then look at verse three. Here's how we do that. Remember then, what you received and heard. Keep it and repent. And so here's the phrase we're going to use today to summarize some of that up. Hold fast to God's Word. How do you fan the flame in the church? How do you fan the ember? Breathe life into the ember so that it grows as a church? Hold fast to God's Word. God's word is where you're going to find that life if the church is dying and dead. And by the way, there's plenty around us. I mean, I pass a church every day that was sold. Someone owns it as a home now. And there's others that are on the edge of dying. And some of you who have come here from other churches that had to fold and close their doors. And of course, the church building isn't the church, the people are the church. But where did the people go? Here's how churches die, by the way. It's not usually like just some tragic moment that does happen, but usually it just starts with a drift, with some kind of small compromise around God's Word. I know God's Word says this, but really, really, we this this would be better. Yeah, it's pretty clear. But this would be better. That's always where it starts. And as we looked at the quote from Francis Schaeffer last week, maybe everything is fine for a while. Maybe everything is fine in this generation, by the way. Maybe all of us have enough of warm feelings about Jesus that we can keep coming. But what are you going to hand on to the next generation? God's word is our foundation. You've got to be in God's Word. I love this David Jeremiah quote. It's in your notes. We'll put it on the screen as well. It says this when the church abandons the Bible, it removes the Holy Spirit's chief means of transforming believers into the image of Christ. We've got to be rooted in God's Word. That's why you've got to be rooted in God's Word every day. I love that you come here to hear the Bible taught. We read it out. I try to read directly from the Bible. I try to get you reading from a copy of the Bible. I try to get you to take that home and follow our church Bible reading plan. Back in March, I asked everyone to commit every day in March to be in God's Word, and we can't. That's probably the thing we emphasize more than anything else. There should never be a day where you're not in God's Word, I'll tell you. Here's the day that you can skip reading God's Word as often as you skip eating. Go ahead and skip reading God's Word. We make eating a priority, don't we? Hey, and I love eating. We have great potlucks. I love our potlucks. But some of us at breakfast, we're already praying out lunch and dinner. Combine both and dessert with that. I'm thinking ahead. I'm making sure I am not going to miss a meal. How can we not have that same kind of priority around God's Word? What if you have that same sense of urgency every day? I'd rather miss a meal than miss God's Word. And it's not a legalistic thing, I get it. Okay, look, no one's going to be perfect, but you can see the flip that should happen in our minds and our hearts. If we want to fight for faithfulness in our church, it's got to be rooted in God's Word. There can be no greater priority to fan the flame, to fan the ember into a flame. Remember, he says, remember and then keep it. Hold on to it. Grasp on to it like your life depends on it. Now look at what else he says. Remember what you received, what you heard. Keep it. Then he says this repent. Keep it. Pursue God's word. Hang on to it. But also in your tool belt. Have repentance at hand. In fact, the phrase spark change through the power of repentance. Have repentance at the forefront of how you live as a Christian. Long quote from Tim Keller. But I read this in his book on prayer. It's in your notes or it's on the screen. Repentance is the way we make progress in the Christian life. It's the key to growing deeply and steadily into the character of Jesus, repenting of our sins. Changing the word repent just means turn around, turn away from sin. Turn towards Christ. Just as real repentance begins, only where blame shifting ends. And by the way, you know what I'm talking about. Well, John, let me tell you why I didn't get to read my Bible. Well, let me tell you why this sin keeps coming up over and over again. And let me tell you, it's it's because of all these other pressures around me. It's because these other people keep pushing it on me. That's blame shifting. All the other reasons out there, all the other problems out there. That's blame shifting. We all do it, I do it, do. It happens. Repentance begins when blame shifting ends. It also begins when self-pity ends and we start to turn from our sin. And here's why. This isn't about I'm just going to be better and stronger myself. I'm going to turn from my sin out of a love for God rather than just self-interest. You see the power of that quote. You see the power of repentance in change and blowing life into the ember. Repentance is a powerful step towards that end. I love how many of our men have said, I want to change, and I know I can't do it alone. We've got a group of men, and how fitting is the the term when we're talking about blowing a flame into an ember. They're called fire teams, and they meet once a week and they get together. But here's what I love that they do every day. Whenever one of the men in their small group, 6 or 8 guys, whenever they get in the word, they just text to each other. I'm in. I mean, imagine getting that 6 or 8 times and you haven't gotten around to reading the Bible yet. I'm in. Before long, you're going to silence your phone. Leave me alone or you're going to get in the word. I'm in, I'm in, I'm in. Get in the word. The power of repentance says, yes, I messed up. I'm in. Now there is a warning here attached with this. Notice he says, if you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. This also would have been very meaningful to Sardis because Sardis, impenetrable, destroyed. In fact, they were destroyed again. And Sardis, by the way, was a city that was known not only for their power but also for their wealth. This would have been maybe, like modern day Switzerland, hard to penetrate, hard to conquer, very wealthy. The legend goes that King Midas, you remember the Midas touch. Have you heard of that? That whole myth, Greek myth of Midas. He. He asked for the gods to give him the power to turn anything to gold by touching it. But then once he touched the daughter whom he loved so much and she turned to gold, he no longer wanted that gift. He realized that gift had become a curse. And they said, go and wash in this river, and it'll take that away. And so the legend of the city of Sardis was that he washed in the river that flowed down to their city, and of course, that river was full of gold dust. They became one of the first cities to mint gold coins in ancient history. Very wealthy city, a city of wealth, prominence, strength. But they were destroyed. Then they encountered an earthquake. Most of the city slid off the hillside in the midst of this devastating earthquake, and they also didn't learn their lesson not to stand on reputation. They rebuilt. It wasn't as strong as before, but they started to get powerful again. They started to think, we're pretty good. We've had a great name in the past. We had a great reputation. And 300 years later in comes in another army and conquers them again because they let down their guard. The appearance of strength. And Jesus says to them, and it's the same thing we hear in a number of his parables. By the way, he said it in the parable of the Ten Virgins. Five had enough oil, five didn't, and they weren't ready when the groom came. And it said in that passage the same phrase, you do not know the hour I will come. Be ready, be watchful, be alert, be on guard, be looking. Lastly, look here at number five. How do we make sure that we keep fanning the flame, breathing life into a mostly dead, somewhat dead church? How do we do it? Number five find your reputation. Not in your name. In his name. Find your reputation in his name. Look back at verse four and five and again, remember the word name is the same word as reputation. In here it's translated as reputation in verse one, but it's the same word as the word name that we're going to see here in verse four. Yet you still have a few names in Sardis, you still have a few people. There are still people who have not soiled their garments. They will walk with me in white or in purity, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments. And I will never blot out his name of the book of life. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. What this is speaking to here. You may have heard us speak the phrase or talk about the concept of eternal security. If you are his, you can't not be his. You are his forever. You will walk with him. You will be clothed in him. How many here have in high school gone through ROTC? Anybody done that? I see not many hands, not many other brave hands. I did that my freshman year at Male, and I was going through ROTC, mainly to get out of the geography class. That was my main motivation, but it was really interesting. Our commanding officer was a retired colonel, very interesting guy. He would smoke his no filter Camels right there in class, you know, different age, different day a few years ago. And I think I really do think he liked me a lot because of how much attention he paid me. Mainly in the form of push ups, though. Was weird. I don't know, maybe he wanted to see me get in shape. He had this thing called the rock. You're supposed to put your feet up on it and do push ups. I got to do. I spent a lot of time around the rock, but I'll tell you what was interesting about him was I really did kind of like the military ethos. Before ROTC, my dad had been National Guard. He retired Major Majors. In fact, I often would come to church, church to school wearing the field coat, his old field coat. And I loved it. I loved the look of it, the feel of it, and I love that it had his name on it. Majors. And then it had his rank on the soldier on the shoulders. Major Majors, last name is Majors. He retired Major. I'm serious. That really did happen. Major Majors. And I loved that. I loved wearing that coat. I loved what it represented about his accomplishment and who he was. And so I'm wearing this to ROTC, and one day the colonel notices and he says, what are you wearing? Because obviously you can get rank. And I was not a major. I was a lowly private. What are you wearing? And I said, it's a field coat. He said, you do not wear that in here again with that rank on there. You take that off. And I thought, no way, I'm not changing this coat. And so I left. I thought, I'll ignore that guy came back again. He said, if I see you wear that again here with that rank on it, I'll rip it off myself. And I said to him, listen, let me tell you why I'm wearing this. I don't think I have that rank. I'm not wearing it because of me. I'm wearing it because it's my father's coat. I'm wearing it because I know that's his rank, not mine. And I love the name that he's passed on to me. Don't you see? I'm cloaking myself in who he is. Not so that I can try to pretend to be someone I'm not. But because of how deeply I appreciate his name that he gave to me. And the reputation that we want is not our name. We want the cloak around us. The white cloak. It's his cloak. He's wrapping us in his name. In fact, what that white garment refers to is the victory march. In ancient times, when the Romans would come in conquering a city, the leaders would come in in their white togas. Victory march! We're coming in the name of Jesus. Find your reputation in him, not in yourself. Wrap yourself in his name and watch him work. And here's what I want to do today. Because, as I shared earlier, I have such a deep burden for us around prayer. I think that's going to be the key to seeing the ember fanned into flame at our church. And so I’ve asked Isaac and the band to come up, and they're going to lead us in a song. And if you are in a place where you feel like, man, that ember, it is barely there. It is just a spark and maybe it's not you. Okay. Maybe it's someone in your family, maybe it's a loved one that you care for deeply. And you've seen that they've known Christ and they seem to be sliding away. There seems to be a darkening, a distancing. Or maybe it's just the church in general. Maybe you want to see God breathe life in a fresh way, Isaac’s going to lead us through this song. And all throughout this song, I just want you to pray. And if you feel led, come down front and pray. Be down here just praying over your issue, praying for the church. Drag someone else to pray up with you. But pray that we would see life in this church like never before. Life in yourself a hunger for God's Word like never before. Let's all stand and Isaac, would you lead us? And I'll make room for you. To do whatever you want to; do whatever you want to. And I will make room for you; Do. Do whatever you want to. Do everything you want to. And I will make room for you. Do whatever you want to, whatever you want to. I will make room for you. Do whatever you want to, do whatever you want to. Oh shake up the ground, shake up the ground of all my traditions; and all my religion, your way is better; your way is better. And shake up the ground of all my traditions Break down the walls of all my religion. Your way is better; Your way is better. Shake up the ground. Shake up the ground of all my traditions, break down the walls of all my religion, Your way is better; Your way is better. Shake up the ground of all my traditions; break up the walls of all my religion. Your way is better. Your way is better. All my religion. I will make room I will make room for you. To do whatever you want to; do whatever you want to. I will make room for you. Do whatever you want to; to do whatever you want to. All to Jesus I surrender. All to Him I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence freely live. I surrender all. I surrender all.(All to thee) All to thee my blessed savior, I surrender all.(All to Jesus) All to Jesus I surrender. Make me, Savior, wholly Thine; Let Thy Holy Spirit fill me, Till I know that thou art mine. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to thee my blessed savior I surrender all. You're down front praying you can just continue to pray. I'm going to pray over our church. God help us to be the people who surrender all. May we walk in a state of dependence on you, of surrender. I think there's so much in this world that is calling us to worry about appearances. Make sure we appear to have it all together, even if we don't. God help us to wake up to who you are in all things every day, to submit our lives to you, to lean on one another, to walk in repentance, to find great joy in following your plan, not our own. Give us the courage to follow your word. I thank you for so many here who have walked faithfully with you. Just as in the church in Sardis, there are many among you. There are many names among you. I thank you. Even last week where we saw the Peercy 70 years married. Come down front. Thank you for the faithfulness of so many. Help us to continue to fight for faithfulness. Jesus, we love you. Amen.