Dead or Alive?

Christ has very little commendation for the church at Sardis, yet among men they had a good reputation as being 'alive.' The standards by which Christ judges the vitality of a church are often times entirely different than the standards of men. Here is a church that is dead, or very close to it, for very specific reasons -- they measured their success by the standards of men and had forgotten the sovereignty of God and the primacy of His word. The sovereignty of God in salvation and the sufficiency of Scripture as His tool are two doctrines that give a church life.