"Strengthen the Things Which Remain" (Revelation 3:1-6)

"Strengthen the Things Which Remain" from Revelation 3:1-6 was preached by Dr. Mark McElreath at the City Baptist Church of Atlanta on July 13, 2025.

Find out more about the City Baptist Church of Atlanta at www.citybaptistchurch.com.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Bible messages from the pulpit ministry of the City Baptist Church in Atlanta.

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Let's take our Bibles and go to Revelation chapter 3. Revelation chapter 3. And we've been working our way through these seven letters to these seven churches. And in Revelation chapter 2, Revelation chapter 3, the Lord gives these seven letters. These are seven actual churches. These are literal bodies of believers that are meeting together. Each of them meeting in a specific place. They're meeting in a city, and he's calling them out. If you look with me at chapter 3, we see this fifth letter written to this church in Sardis. And let's begin reading in verse number one. And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write, These things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard and hold fast and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. 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. He 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 to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Which mark this phrase in verse two, and we'll take this for the theme of the Bible message this evening. Verse 2, strengthen the things which remain. Strengthen the things which remain. When we come to this letter in to the church at Sardis, Sardis is an old city, it's an old ancient city, it's a prominent city of Western, what we would say modern day Turkey today. And coins were first minted here in Sardis, which is quite interesting. And then this city also was the western terminus of the royal Persian road. So it's a place of trade, it's a place of luxury, it's a place of well-to-do. And yet, when the Lord Jesus Christ is writing these things here, he's writing to a dying church. You might look at this church and you may think everything looks great. Everything's wonderful, but when the Lord writes to it, this is this is a dying church. In fact, some statistics say as many as 80 to 85% of churches in the United States today are in decline. They're dying. So this is a very prescient letter for us today that we need to make note of. Would you make note of a few things? If you're taking notes, would you write them down? As we see this letter, there are some clear commands given to us of the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, write this down. Number one, stay awake. Stay awake. Now that's that's good for any church service you're in, right? To stay awake. But here we find that there is clear instruction given to this church of how they're supposed to live. Go back to verse number one. It says here, these things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know thy works. Now he says, I know thy works to each of these churches. He says, I know the work that you are doing. And then he says, This, that thou hast a name that thou livest. Now, what that means is you have a reputation. Maybe if you went into this church at Sardis, it could be that they had a they had a full social program. It could be that they were having four or five services on Sunday, maybe. It could be they had all kinds of things going on, all kinds of societies, maybe all kinds of different things you could be involved in. He says, Thou hast a name that thou livest. Maybe it was that this church at Sardis, there used to be a great pastor there. The people would like to come, they'd like to hear him preach. And they're still they're still kind of going off that name. He says, You have a name, you have a reputation that you are living. And yet, how does he end the verse? And yet you're what? You're dead. It almost makes me think it's like when people walk in, sometimes people go to a funeral and they look at the body that's there at the at the viewing and they say, Well, he just looks just like himself. Or he just looks so good. That's a dead body. There's no life there. It may look like, boy, they did a good job making him look nice. And when you look at the church in Sardis, you know what it is? You may say, boy, that that really that really looks like a good church. They've got a good reputation. You know, I think I think here what it may be is that there's a lot of momentum from the good old days. Sometimes there's churches today, and you find them, and they're still living off their name. They're not doing anything for the Lord, they're not advancing for Christ, they're not preaching the gospel, but there was a time in the past where things were going really, really well. In fact, things were going so well, they're still moving off that momentum, and maybe that's what's going on here at Sardis, because there is a title that does not match the truth. This is a living church, and yet when you go and you see and you look and you find, no, it's actually dead. This church has no spiritual life in it. Dead, you know, dead churches usually don't know they're dead. Uh sadly, dead Christians usually don't know that they're spiritually dead. Now hold your place here with me, and let's go back to the book of Numbers. Would you go back with me to the book of Numbers? Go with me to Numbers chapter 13. We come to Numbers chapter 13. We find a group of people. This is God's people, and God has brought his people, the Hebrews, out of Egypt. He's brought them parted the Red Sea, across the Red Sea. He's bringing them through the wilderness, and he's brought them to the very brink of the Jordan River, and he's going to say, Look, I'm going to bring you across the Jordan River, and I'm going to bring you into the promised land, the land that I promised to Abraham, that I've given to you, this Canaan land. And if you'll look with me at verse number three of Numbers chapter 13, it says, And Moses, by the commandment of the Lord, sent them from the wilderness of Paran. All those men were heads of the children of Israel. He's going to send twelve spies into the land, spy out the land, before they go in and take the land, right? And these are not just any men. These are, what did he say of the children of Israel? Heads of the children of Israel. These are leaders. These are people that were looked up to among the children of Israel. It gives all the names there. They're listed out for us. And if you're familiar with the Sunday school story, they go in and they find huge, you know, bountiful grapes and pomegranates, and it's a land flowing with milk and honey. It's a blessed land. And yet ten of those come back and they bring an evil report, and they say, look, we can't take it. We're too small. We don't have enough warriors. We don't have enough army. We're not big enough. There's giants there, right? Twelve of them went to spy on Canaan. What does the song say? Ten were bad and two were good, right? I think it's really ten did not have faith, and two did have faith, is really what it is. But what happens? They say, those ten say we can't go. They turn the whole tide of the people, their heart against God, not to be obedient, not to go in the promised land. They turn back. You do have a Joshua and Caleb that are saying, Let's go up and take it. But here's what happens. Go with me all the way toward the end of this account, to Numbers chapter 14, and look down with me, please, at verse number 36. It says, And the men which Moses sent to search out the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him by bringing up a slander upon the land. These are the ten leaders, leaders among the people that came back and said, We can't go in, we're not going to follow God, we can't do it. Here's what happened. It says in verse 37, even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land died by the plague before the Lord. There's a plague that breaks out among the people, and these ten leaders, sadly, they die. But I've written in my Bible next to this, they died before they died. You say, What do you mean, Pastor? I mean before their physical body perished. There is something within their spirit that faded away. There's something within their adventurous spirit that just died. You ever met someone? There was a time in their life where they were just on fire for the Lord, following God, ready to, at a moment's notice, they're ready to go. They're just the spiritual minute man, ready? And there comes a time where they just stop and they pull back and they hold up. And that happened in these men's lives, and really, for a little while there, they're a walking dead man. There's no spiritual vitality. There's nothing living in them. And we find here they really died before they died. And here we find this church, this church at Sardis, back in Revelation chapter 3. He's saying, You have a name that you live. You've got a good reputation. People know the church at Sardis, and they think, now that's a good church. And yet when you go there, there's no life. It's dead. It's corroding. You've died spiritually. Look what he says in verse 2. Well, what are you going to do about it? Remember, we said stay awake. What are the first two words of verse 2? Would you read them out loud? Be watchful. What is he saying? There's a spiritual awareness that is needed to watch out, to stay awake. There's a spiritual awareness about what is dead and what is alive. There's a spiritual awareness that's needed about what do we try to bring back to life. You know, there's some things I see that die sometimes, and I say, good, it should have died a long time ago. Now, sometimes there's things that churches do. There's things that I've heard that churches give the money and resources and time and effort to, and I think, why are they giving money and resources and time and effort to those things? And then when they finally die, or someone won't take it and they decide to close it, I think, praise the Lord, they shouldn't have been given all that effort to that. That needed to die. And yet often when there's money, time, effort, and resources given to unfruitful things, that means that there are fruitful things that aren't being tended to and aren't being given the money, time, effort, and resources that it should have. So sometimes there are things that need to die, but there are things left here that the Lord Jesus Christ is saying, be watchful, be awake. You need to know what's going on. Winston Churchill, who led England through World War II, held the country together at a dire, dire time. He says this. He says, I must drop one word of caution. Next to cowardness and treachery, overconfidence leading to neglect and slothfulness is the worst of wartime crimes. He says, overconfidence and which lead to neglect and slothfulness is the worst of wartime crimes. If anyone knows the state of Europe leading up to World War II, it was absolutely the neglect and slothfulness which led to tyrants being able to come into power. And we find here what has happened in Sardis. Sardis has fallen asleep. It's very interesting. Historically, the city of Sardis, if you were to go to Sardis, it sits on a high mountaintop, on a high plain, that's very well defended naturally. In fact, there's only one way to get up to it, and it so easily can be defended, you actually only need, in ancient times, it would only set one guard at the entrance because you could see far away, you could see the surrounding area. But twice the city of Sardis, as well defended as it was, twice the city of Sardis was overrun by enemy armies. In 549 B.C. by the Persians, and in 218 B.C. by the Syrians, the city was captured. On one account, the guard was had left his place, thinking we're too well defended. We don't have to watch out. And on a second account, the guard fell asleep. How fitting that the Lord Jesus Christ says to this city, remember how the city fell because the watchman fell asleep? Because the guard left his post? He says, Wake up because you're not too big to fail. You ever heard about that? Businesses or companies are they're too big to fail. Some churches think they're too big to fail. I could take you to a church, I could take you to the location in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where there was a great church once. Thousands of people coming to Sunday school, hundreds of writers coming in on the bus, a Bible college and a seminary, camps, radio stations, publication ministries. Too big to fail, many would have said. And yet, if I took you there today, literally the buildings are not even there anymore. That entity as a church and a college, none of it exists anymore. Why? Because there came a point where someone was not watchful, someone was not awake to what was going on. It looked as if it was living and yet it was dead. And what does he go on to say here? Look with me to the second thing. Not only wake up, stay awake. Would you write the second thing down? Sound the alarm. Sound the alarm. Look what he says at verse 2. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain. It takes spiritual awareness to know that something needs to be done. There are people, there are people that come along sometimes, and maybe they come into churches or they come along and they say, Look, we've got to watch out for this. This is going to be a problem. This is going to be an issue. God willing to, God gives the pastor understanding of we've got to be we've got to be aware of this. We can't allow this to slip. We can't allow this to begin to come apart. We can't allow this to become an issue in the church. And he says here, to strengthen the things which remain. He's saying, look, now you've died. This church is spiritually dead. But there's just a little handful there that is left. It remains. What is that? There's a little remnant that life is still there. There's a little beating heart there among a few of the people. You know, the amazing thing, he actually says, Would you look down with me? He says this in verse 4. He says, Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments. A few names. There's a few people there. Now you go back and look at some of these other letters to the churches, and there's a great church with many people following the Lord and a few people not following the Lord. But then when you come to Sardis, there's lots of people not following the Lord and a few people who are following the Lord. There's a little remnant. And he says here, then you strengthen those things. You know what he says? He actually says, there are things that are ready to die. U.S. News and World Reports has an article that says, yes, people can die from giving up on life. Sometimes you find people they just lost the will to live. And sometimes, sadly, there are people in churches and they're Christians, they're just ready to die. Not take their own life, not physically to take their life, but spiritually, they've just given up. You could go across this city and you can find buildings that house churches. But sadly, many of those churches, they're dying away. They're ready to give up the ghost. And here he says, you've got to strengthen the things which remain. There's something that needs life breathed into it once again. Sometimes churches, when they're in their death rows, they think, they think, we'll try something to bring people back. Sadly, there was a church in this building. It was long before us. It was here. And there were things that began to try to be done as the church was in its last days and they redid this platform. And I think they thought, this will breathe life back into a church again. Redoing and renovating a platform doesn't bring life back into a church. It was a band-aid. It was a dead corpse with a gaping wound that a little band-aid was put on it. That's not going to work. Life needed to be breathed back again. Hold your plates with me. Go to the book of Ecclesiastes, will you please? Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter 9. Solomon writing here, Ecclesiastes 9, he says this in verse 4, as we think about sound the alarm. We think about things that are ready to die. Look what he says in Ecclesiastes 9 and verse 4. He says, For him that is joined to all the living, there is, what's that next word? Hope. I hope you'll mark that word in verse 4. There is hope. For a living dog is better than a dead lion. It's an interesting picture that's given to us there in Ecclesiastes 9 and verse 4. A living dog is better than a dead lion. Now, if you put a dog and a lion in a fight one with the other, there's no doubt which one's going to win. The lion's going to come out on top every time. But here, Solomon is saying, a living dog, a dog where there is life, is better than a lion where there is death. He's saying, that dog's going to win. You know why? Because there's life. And will you write this down? Where there is life, there is hope. Where there is life, there is hope. You may be here today, and there may be some things in your life. They've just died. There's no life there anymore. It's just dissipated away. And you say, What am I going to do about it? How can I do it? Strengthen the things which remain. You know why? Because where there is life, there is hope. If you've got a living dog, and that dog, it may have three legs, and it may be hopping along, and it may be on its literal last leg. That's better than a dead lion. That's better than no life at all. That's better than something being dead. Here tonight in our church, you may say, Well, there's not many people here, Pastor. I'm for a living dog than a dead lion. You can go to places that have titles and have names and have reputation that are spiritually dead. I'll take a group, I'll take a remnant. I'll take a few names in Sardis that are on fire for the Lord, following God, want to please him, want to obey him. I'll take that all day long. Then a group of people that claim the name of Christ or claim some title, some religious title, where there is no spiritual vitality, no spiritual energy, nothing being done for God. There is life here. Look at this. Look in Ecclesiastes 4. Look at this in verse number 7. He says, Where there is life, there is hope. And then I love the verbs. Always look for the verbs in the word of God. Look what he says. Ecclesiastes 9. Look at verse 7. What's the first word of that verse? Go. Go thy way. Look at verse number 9. What's the first word there? Live. Look at verse 10. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. If you have life, then go, live, and do. God's given you something. He is not done with you. He is not finished. And in a church where there is a few names, there is some life, there is hope there. Something can be done there. Go back with me to our passage. Look at me. Revelation 3, verse 2. He says, Be watchful. Strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die. For I have not found thy works perfect before God. He's not saying here sinless perfection. He's saying you're incomplete. You're not whole. There is something missing here that we've got to add back in again. You're incomplete before the Lord. Are we alarmed at our spiritual coldness? If you would have walked in this church, it would have been in the death throes, I believe. But are we alarmed at that? Are we concerned at that in our own life? Do we see are we spiritually awake enough to see we're spiritually cold? We need a spiritual uh health checkup. Is there any effort to mitigate spiritual decline and complacency in our own lives? Have we begun to slip? You know, when people begin to have health issues, usually they say, Well, look, I don't I don't need to go to the doctor. I don't need to check up. And the health slowly begins to slip. And then maybe you haven't seen somebody for a while and they've gotten kind of sick and you see that maybe it's been a year or a couple years since you've seen them, and then you you see them, and there's a stark contrast in the way they look. Well, they maybe don't realize it because they live with themselves every day, right? And maybe if you were to Go in that church at Sardis, week after week, Sunday after Sunday. You don't notice the decline, but you come back a year later, or two years later, or three years later, and you walk in and you say, The smell of death is here. There is something that has been lost. So what do we do? We've got to stay awake. We've got to sound the alarm. Would you make note of a third thing? We've got to send for help. Something must be done. Maybe in your own life you say, There's a spiritual coldness that's come over my life. There's a loss of a spiritual energy that I have. What do we do? Send for help. He says here in verse number 3, what's the first word of Revelation 3 in verse 3? Remember. Remember what? Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard. He's saying, there's some things. Look, this was a good church. This was a church that had a name. At some point, something was going on there. And he says, Will you remember those things? Now, don't get stuck in the past. Don't get stuck in, well, do you remember the days when Pastor So-and-so was here? Those were the good days. We'll never see those days again. No, no, no, not that. But what was taught and what was emphasized, go back and remember those things. Paul said in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 14, but continue thou in the things which thou hast heard and hast been assured, things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them. Look what else he says. Look at verse 3. He says, Remember how thou hast received and heard. And then look at this, these two words, and hold fast. Hold fast was a command that was given to sailors when entering a storm. And it may be that the storm came on suddenly, it may be that they were coming into choppy waters. They would say, Hold fast. And they would hold on to anything that would keep them from being washed overboard into the ocean. And you know what happens when maybe there are things that are ready to die? There are storms, there's choppy waters. You better hold on to something that's going to keep you from being washed overboard. They would say, uh they would say, one hand for you and one hand for the crew. You know what that meant? Hold on to some ropes, hold on to some rigging, keep yourself on there, and then you've got one hand free to help other people that need help. One hand for you and one hand for the crew. And here we find in Psalmist he says, hold fast. Whatever is left, hold on to it and don't let it go. There may be things, there may be choppy waters you're going through in your own life. Then whatever is there, you say, well, I don't know, a lot of things have already washed overboard, Pastor. Then hold on to something that is there and reach out and help somebody else. Because look, if you wash overboard, well, you're no help whatsoever to the rest of the crew. In fact, they've got to spend time to go after you. So hold on and help somebody else. Look what he says. Hold fast and repent. You know what repent means? Turn from what you're doing wrong and turn to what you know is right. Remember what you learned. Hold fast to the good things and repent. Look what he says. He says, If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Would you mark that twice in this last part of the verse? He says, I will come and I will come. Let me ask you, do you dread the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, or do you desire the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? He's coming. The Bible teaches clearly the Lord Jesus Christ is returning. I think for this church at Sardis, sadly, there's probably many in the church, they were dreading his coming. You know, we'll dread his coming if we don't know him as our personal savior. If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, then the coming of Christ means the end of this life and stepping into eternity. And if you don't know Christ as your Savior, it's stepping into an eternity without him. It's stepping into an eternity that is leading not to heaven, but to an eternity in hell, eternal torment and separation from him. If you're not living for Christ, living the life you should live for Christ, then his coming, you're not looking forward to it because you know I haven't lived the way I should. I have nothing to show him. And he says, I'm going to come upon thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. You know what he's showing here? And I often mention this because I always want you to remember it. It's the imminence of the second coming of Christ. Imminence does not mean it's going to happen immediately. Imminence means it could happen at any moment. And when we think he could come at any moment, it gives a sense of urgency. It's like when mom and dad said, Look, we're going out for the afternoon. I want you to clean your room, put the dishes away, and pick your room up, and you need to do all that before I get back. Now, you don't know when they're going to come back, but you know they're coming. And so it gives a sense of urgency to pick up your room and put the dishes away and all the things you were given, right? And then you dread it when you hear the car pulling in the driveway and you hear the you hear the garage door beginning to come up and you know I didn't do everything I was supposed to be doing. That's when you dread the coming. But when you know I put everything in order, I obeyed, I listened, I did exactly what they said, then when you hear that car pull up in the driveway and that garage door start open, you say, I have nothing to fear. And if we're living the Christian life we're supposed to be living, and he says, I will come, we don't have to dread it. We desire it, we look forward to it. I'm looking forward to the coming of Christ. And here's what he says: I will come. You know what it means? Reviving is needed before his return. I think that's what we need in a lot of churches. There needs to be some spiritual life breathed back in again. Because he is coming. The time is short. He says here, again, as I mentioned earlier, he speaks of these, 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. Connect this color white here in verse 4. He says, They'll walk with me in white. He says in verse 5, he that overcometh the shame shall be clothed in white raiment. He's speaking of their purity before God Himself. They are walking purely, they're walking whole. He calls them them that overcometh. They're overcomers, they're overcoming all the influences in Sardis. They're coming, overcoming all the evil influences, I believe, in the church at Sardis. And here's what it says. Verse 5, I will not blot out his name out of the book of life. Now, that doesn't mean they're going to lose their salvation. But what he's saying is, I'm not going to forget about them. Look what he says. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. Now, I don't fully understand all that that means, but I think here's one thing it does mean. If we're not ashamed of him, then he's not ashamed of us. If we're not ashamed of Christ, he's not ashamed of us. Is Christ ashamed of us? Is he ashamed of me? Is he ashamed of the City Baptist Church? Or does he say, that's somebody I want to be connected with? That's somebody I want to confess before my Father, and that's someone I want to confess before the angels in heaven. And he he wraps it up here. He says, and he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Are we listening? It's a warning call. It's a warning call. If the church at Sardis can grow cold and spiritually dead, the City Baptist Church can grow cold and spiritually dead. If you name them, you name great names of the past, sadly, some of them did not end well. If that can happen to them, oh, it can surely happen to us. Look, we've got to stay awake. Are we aware of our own spiritual condition? I ask you, do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? Do you know that you've been born again, you're saved, and you're on your way to heaven when you die? I hope you do. If not, you need to be saved. But, Christian, are you aware of your own spiritual condition? Or are you dead? You know what Jesus said about the Pharisees? They were like whited sepulchres, full of dead men's bones. On the inside, it was nothing but decaying dead bodies, but on the outside, they tried to paint a few things up and make it look nice. We could do that here. We could try to fix everything up. We're working on trying to fix things up in this building, but fix nothing up on the inside. We've got to sound the alarm. Are we willing to strengthen things that are ready to die? There may be things here. There may be things here we put effort into and we're seeking to do, we're starting a Bible club in our local park tomorrow. We've got to strengthen it. You know what that means? We've got to put we've got to put effort behind it and force behind it and prayer behind it and work behind it. What are we trying to keep from dying? Anything that you want to keep living, you're trying to really keep it from dying. So you've got to give it everything it's supposed to get to not die. That's our spiritual life, that's our family, that's our children, that's our church. The same is true of your job, the same is true of any relationship you have. You're trying to keep it from dying. But we've got to have more spiritual fervor and effort going into the spiritual things than we would a job or interpersonal relationships. And look, if it is ready to die, we've got to send for help. We've got to hold fast to what we know is true. Hold fast to what we know is right. One hand for you and one hand for the crew. Hold on tight and let us keep things living and strengthen the things which remain and keep moving forward for the Lord.

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