Clean Clothes or a Rotten Core? 10-05-08
A couple of years ago at my parents’ house a tree fell against the deck, narrowly missing the garage and thankfully causing minor damage and hurting no one. It had been a particularly strong windstorm that caused the incident; the tree had been one of the tallest near their house. In fact, only the top half of the tree fell, with the remaining half still towering up with the taller trees. When we had looked at the tree before it had seemed healthy and strong; afterwards, it was easy to see the evidence of damage and rot that the core had suffered. After years of decay, the structure was compromised and the tree lost its ability to remain whole. And my parents’ deck needed a new railing.
Isn’t it amazing that appearances can truly be deceiving? What seems to be strong and healthy can actually be weak and dying. Every year hundreds of hikers fall to their deaths because the glacial surface of ice and snow they were traversing hid a crevasse hundreds of feet deep with a thin cover. What is on the surface is not necessarily a good indicator of what lies beneath. In fact, isn’t this the reason we developed x-ray machines and MRI’s? How many people have looked to be the picture of health only to find out that beneath their healthy appearance lurked the ravaging scourge of cancer?
God’s word and spirit is received and grows within us as we mature in a healthy way. But when we lose sight of God’s will and his commands, when we stop hearing his call and following his ways, we grow coldly apathetic and spiritually lethargic. This doesn’t always manifest itself in an outward manner, but can remain unseen for quite some time. Jesus warned the church at Sardis of just this sort of problem:
To the angel of the church in Sardis write: these are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (Revelation 3:1-6 NIV)
The Christians in Sardis didn’t suffer under persecution like those at Pergamum, or have to fight great heresies like those at Smyrna. No, the Christians in Sardis were being afflicted by apathy! They were becoming more and more indifferent, so much so that they were dying spiritually. Though they were known as a church that was alive and growing, they were in fact dying in unseen ways. They were falling asleep and were in danger of being cut off from the root that supported them (and which they had earlier received – that being Christ and his gospel message). Just as with that tree in my parents’ yard, the Christians in Sardis were rotting away in their core.
Jesus gave them the warning to wake up and not to let the spirit within them die; he also gave them encouragement. The Christians in Sardis were falling asleep spiritually and were thus soiling their clothes with the mud and filth of the world. To the ones who were not, who were mindful of God’s laws and Christ’s teachings, Jesus promised clothes of white and to never blot their names out of the book of life (implying the danger the others faced), but promising instead to make them known to God!
We have to be ever vigilant against the insidious rot of apathy towards Christ and his great commission. We must renew with vigor our love and devotion to him and not neglect his work in the harvest. Remember that he who comes like a thief in the night will be checking to see if you kept yourself pure, or if you got soiled with the concerns of this world.