30th March 2014

Jesus and the prophets. Today’s reading Revelation3: 1-6.

The Spirit of Jesus brings a message to the church at Sardis.

Before going out of the church building in groups to pray for the people of our community and our outreach we looked at God’s Word together. We remembered that just as Jesus moved around the cities that surrounded the churches so Jesus is walking our streets and workplaces. It seems the church at Sardis has taken on the complacency of the wealthy City of Sardis and Jesus says that the church has the reputation of being alive but really it’s dead. Situated at the junction of 5 roads & therefore successful in trade it is apparently impregnable to enemies. Nevertheless they failed to post guards and twice the city was captured: by Cyrus the Persian in 549BC and by Antiochus in 218BC. Jesus tells the church that they need to become watchful or he himself will creep up on them like a thief. He says that there are some in the church who have not soiled their white robes and they will walk with him.  An amazing privilege of friendship with God. Jesus calls the others to recall what they learnt before and change their ways and he promises that if they do they also will wear white robes and not forfeit their names being in the Book of Life. We explored the symbolism of these white robes and what it means to be “justified” and walk with Jesus now. Then we walked out of the building to pray for our community.
 

Notes will usually be available on the downloads section of the  website .