Each of the seven churches in Revelation have a compelling and important message. Here in chap two, we'll focus on the church in Ephesus. Christ commended the church at Ephesus for hard work, patient endurance, intolerance of evil people, examining the claims of false apostles, and how they patiently suffered. All of these characteristics show a church busy with good works and suffering willingly for the cause of Christ. The Ephesian believers knew evil when they saw it and did not tolerate it. False teachers had been a problem in the Ephesian church, just as the apostle Paul had anticipated (Acts 20:29-30). The message to the church in Ephesus shows that false teachers had indeed come in among the believers, but Christ commended them for discovering and weeding out the liars.Despite the commendations, Christ had something against this church—they did not love Christ or each other as much as they had at first. The Ephesians, though commended for their zeal in protecting the faith, had fallen into caring more about orthodoxy than love.
Every church should have pure faith and root out heresy. But these good efforts should spring from their love for Jesus Christ and for other believers. Both Jesus and John stressed love for one another as an authentic proof of the gospel (John 13:34; 1 John 3:18-19). In the battle to maintain sound teaching and moral and doctrinal purity, it is possible to lose a charitable spirit.
Paul had once commended the church at Ephesus for its love for God and for others. But the church had fallen away from that first love. Jesus called this church back to love. They needed to turn back to Christ and work as they did at first—love as they had originally loved, with enthusiasm and devotion.
If they refused to repent, however, Christ said that he would come and remove the church’s lampstand from its place, meaning the church would cease to be a church. Just as the seven-branched candlestick in the Temple gave light for the priests to see, the churches were to give light to their surrounding communities. But Jesus warned them that their lights could go out. In fact, Jesus himself would extinguish any light that did not fulfill its purpose. The church had to repent of its sins.
Christ added a further commendation to this church in Ephesus—he credited them for hating the deeds of the immoral Nicolaitans, which Christ also hated. The Nicolaitans were believers who had compromised their faith in order to enjoy some of the sinful practices of Ephesian society, including idolatry and sexual immorality. The Nicolaitans had amalgamated some Greek, some Christian, and some Jewish practices to form a sort of civil religion. It may have been that they were willing to worship in the imperial cult, worshiping the emperor, justifying it as a civil duty. They were probably advocates of freedom and compromise, but the Ephesian church had taken a strong stand against these heretics.
Each of the seven letters ends with the exhortation, Anyone who is willing to hear should listen to the Spirit and understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches. The words of the Spirit are the words of Christ. Note that all the letters were to be read to all the churches. Those who “hear” what is read should then “listen to the Spirit” in order to understand what the Spirit is saying and to know what should be done. Those who listen and do what the Spirit leads them to do will be victorious. These who are victorious will remain faithful to Christ no matter what the cost.
SO WHAT? (what will I do with what I have read today?)
We’ve got to start somewhere. There comes a time in our walk with Christ where we have to say - “Jesus is my first love.” Notice what is communicated in 2:4 “But I have this against you that you have left your first love.” I get a chill when I read that verse. It scares me, because that could be me.
C. S. Lewis said, “Every Christian would agree that a man’s spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God.” If you lose your first love for Jesus no amount of service you do will save your spiritual health.
Notice the word order in the original Greek. It’s very emphatic. The emphasis is on what is said first. Literally, what Jesus is communicating is, you have neglected your first love. That’s the order of the words in the passage which puts the emphasis on “your first love”.
It’s also interesting to know that the word for “neglect” literally means “to leave behind, to depart from something or someone”. That’s what we’ve neglected. We’ve left it behind for something else. We’ve either completely left it behind or we’ve replaced it. Your first love, that’s the most important thing. Look what’s happened he says. You’ve neglected it.
How? The decisions that we make every single day either reinforce or erode our love for Christ. By replacing activity for an intimate daily nurturing relationship with Jesus we run the risk of losing our first love. Think about it. Thirty years have gone by since Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus. That’s just enough time for this church to pass the baton from one generation to the next generation. And if they don’t pass the right baton and with the right values and priorities the church is sunk. That’s what Jesus was saying. So get it right. Get it restored now before it’s too late. That’s what Jesus is communicating.
I believe the closest parallel to this picture of neglecting your first love is marriage itself. I remember this counselor was speaking to a group of people at a marriage seminar and talking about a friend of his who said he was going to file for divorce. He said he no longer loved his wife. The counselor said, “Did you fall in love with your wife the moment you saw her?” He said, “No. We dated for a period of time. It took a period of time to fall in love with my wife.” He said, “You grew in love over a period of time. Isn’t it interesting, too, that it wasn’t just one moment that you grew out of love. It was over a period of time, as a result of neglecting and replacing things and as other priorities came in, that you grew out of that love relationship with your wife. As you grew into love, you grew out of love.”
The same is true with our relationship with the Lord. We’ve got to identify – our first love has to be Jesus. Are we creating time and places and experiences with Jesus? We’ve got to be doing that every day.
Acts 3:19 says, “Therefore repent and return so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” There is no refreshing of our soul with out repententing. There is no new experience. There is no first love. Why? Because sin has robbed that from you. There is no longer a fresh connection with God. Why? Because sin has got its roots in your life. Without repentance you will never experience a freshness in your relationship with God.
Psalm 38 is a clear picture of David who wanted to go through the steps of repentance. There are four steps in Psalm 38.
#1. You’ve got to see your sin for what it is. The Psalmist tells us it’s the arrow that goes deep. The fact that there’s no health left in my bones. I'm completely weak. It means I have wounds that are foul. You’ve got to see sin for what it is.
#2. You’ve got to feel the weight of sin in your life. What it’s done for you. It’s a weight of condemnation on us. It’s a sobering thing. We sob, we sigh, we throb, we find friends and loved ones are aloof. We stand completely alone. We sense loneliness as a result of this sin. Oftentimes the power in sin is secrecy and we stay there and we can’t get out because we don’t sense the full weight of it. See it for what it is. Feel the weight of your sin. Understand where you’re at.
#3. Confess your sin to Christ and others. 1 John 1:9 tells us that He is faithful to forgive us and to cleanse us from our sins. James 5:16 tells us we need to confess our sins one to another. That’s literally saying, I need help. I can’t get out of this myself. I don’t have that fresh love relationship with Christ because sin has overwhelmed me and I’ve got to reach out and say help me. I can’t do it on my own. If you don’t do that, you will stay in the pattern. And you’ll never get out and you’ll never experience what I'm talking about.
Yet God wants us to and He’s given us the steps to get out. We’ve got to confess it. We’ve got to bring it in the open. That’s why James says find someone, someone you can trust, go to them and make it happen! We’ve got prayer people here. We’ve got other pastors that you can come to. You know people in this church. Find someone. Take that first step. If it’s grabbed hold of you and you can’t get out of it and it’s a pattern, you’re never going to experience the freshness of your relationship with God. You’ll never get there. You’ll never know what I'm talking about. Take that step.
You not only see it, you not only feel it, you not only confess it, but…
#4. You abandon it. That means literally you decide to make daily changes, choices. Every choice you make in disobedience leads you further into sin and holds you there captive. But every choice you make for obedience leads you out the other direction.
See it, feel it, confess it, and decide to abandon it.
Then Jesus says not only remember, not only repent, but repeat what kept you from falling. A group of faithful Christian men and women in their 70s and 80s were asked to share their secrets to staying in love with Jesus in the long haul to a group of seminary students. Each one of these men and women shared the very same thing. They never stopped doing the basics. There’s nothing new. I don’t have any hidden knowledge. I don’t have any secret truth. It’s the basics that kept them on track. You’ve just got to continue on.
That’s what Jesus is saying. Repeat the things you did at first. Go back to that place. That’s how you keep your relationship with Him sharp by going back to the resources and going back to the word of God and going back to prayer and going back to spending time with other people in fellowship. Those things will keep you sharp with Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment