Do you all have your tickets? Today we are heading to our first of 7 stops. We are going to a city that was the most important city in the region: the city of Ephesus. Ephesus was located in what is now the country of Turkey. It was a city renowned for architecture, political and economic power. Perhaps its greatest claim to fame was that it was the location of the great temple of Artemis. Ephesus was the city to be in.
Now on his 2nd missionary
journey the Apostle Paul entered this city and established the first church
Ephesus had ever seen. It became a
strong church, well established. It was
the leading church out of the 7 churches.
We can be sure of this for 2 reasons.
First, they are the first church Jesus addresses. In the Bible, whoever is listed first is
typically the first ranking. Second, according
to Acts 19 Paul came to Ephesus first, and then from Ephesus the word of God
spread to other areas. These other six
churches in Revelation were probably started because of Ephesus.
Let us stop off at this first exit
ramp which leads us to Ephesus and see now what our Lord wanted them know.
#1: Lampstands (v1)
Notice first that Jesus
identifies Himself in a special way in verse 1, “To the angel of the church in
Ephesus write: These are the words of
Him who holds the seven stars in His right hand and walks among the seven
golden lampstands.”
This is very fascinating
to read. Each church receives a message
from Jesus, and each message begins with Jesus identifying Himself in a
different way. Now if you look closely,
you will see that the way Jesus identifies Himself to these churches is the way
He appeared to John in chapter 1. John
saw Jesus walking among the 7 lampstands holding 7 stars in His right hand,
and, that is how Jesus identifies Himself to the Ephesians. Then, in chapter 1, Jesus said to John in
verse 17 and 18, “I am the First and the Last.
I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and
ever!” And that is how Jesus identifies
Himself to the next church, Smyrna in chapter 2 verse 8, “These are the words of Him who is
the First and the Last, who died and came to life again.” And the pattern goes on like that for all the
churches.
Why does Jesus begin this
way with each church? Because they need
to “see” Christ first, before they serve Him.
In other words, before your service has any meaning you must know the
One whom you are serving. This is the
pattern throughout Scripture. Before God
gives people any commands He shows them who He is first. Take the Ephesians for instance. You will remember that the book of Ephesians
is 6 chapters long. However, in the
first 3 chapters you will not find one
single command for Christian living.
Instead you will only find a magnificent description of who Christ is
and what He has done. It is only after
we understand who Christ is, that is we “see” Him in chapters 1-3, do we then
read in chapters 4-6 how we are supposed to live. It is in the last 3 chapters of the book that
we read many directives for God-honoring living. Here is the lesson: Our service to Christ must come from our
seeing Him. And it would be equally
important to say this: our service is
only worthy when we see Him for all He is worth. For, to serve Him without knowing Him is
nothing more than hollow religion and rules.
Service is always to a Person, not to an impersonal code of conduct.
But I want us to learn something about
the way Jesus identifies Himself to Ephesus, as the one who walks among the
lampstands and holding the 7 stars in His right hand.
First, Jesus is
there. Jesus is not absent. He is pictured here as in the midst of His
churches. The lampstands we learn in
chapter 1 refer to the churches. What we
see here is that Jesus is not ignorant of where His churches are and what they
are doing. He sees His Church, hears His
Church, and knows His Church. There this
omnipresence about Him here, like there is nowhere we can be without Him. The Psalmist said in Psalm 139:7-10, “Where
can I go from Your Spirit, where can I go from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if
I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the
sea, even there you hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” What do we see in Revelation but Jesus
holding in His hand the 7 stars of the 7 churches.
He said in Matthew 16:18, “I
will build my church”, and, therefore, He is attentive with all His
perception to the state of His church.
This picture of Jesus among the lampstands is a promise to us that He is
always near, always “at hand”. He is a
God whose pleasure is in being close by.
What was the very last sentence in the Gospel of Matthew? Jesus said, “And surely I am with you always,
to the very end of the age.” We
are never alone.
#2: Labor (v2, 3, 6)
Notice secondly the
Labor. The church of Ephesus was
commended for its labor. Lets look at
verses 2, 3, and 6 to see what their labor was exactly that Jesus Christ
praised them for. “I know your deeds, your hard work
and your perseverance. I know that you
cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles
but ar not, and have found them false.
You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not
grown weary. But you have this in your
favor: You hate the practices of the
Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”
Let us notice 3 types of
labor.
First, they seemed to be very active
in doing good deeds. The first
thing Jesus says in verse 2 is, “I know your deeds…” Good deeds are an essential part of the
Christian life. Good deeds can never
save anyone, they are for those who are already saved. As a matter of fact, 30 years earlier when
the Ephesian church received another letter, from the Apostle Paul, he told
them in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s workmanship created in
Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” In other words, good deeds do not result in
salvation, but, rather, salvation results in good deeds. Paul said in Titus 3:14, “Our
people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good.” Ephesus was a place where people were doing
just that.
The 2nd kind
of labor we can notice is their discernment. Notice what the end of verse 2 says, “I
know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim
to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.” Ephesus was a church that was 2nd
to none in matters of doctrine and discernment.
Do you know the difference between doctrine and discernment? Doctrine refers to the teachings of
Scripture, the teachings of spiritual truth.
Ephesus studied Scripture and they knew the Bible. They knew God’s truth. Discernment however refers to the use of
Biblical truths to test things and find out if they are true or false. Discernment is the use of Biblical truth that
you already know to prove whether or not what you’re hearing or reading is true
or false. Ephesus had people coming into
town claiming to be Apostles and claiming to speak the truth. As a matter of fact, 40 years earlier this
church was told by Paul to be discerning.
In Acts 20:28-31 listen to what he said to the leaders of the church
[read]. Did they do what Paul said to
do? Well, 40 years later when they
received a word from Jesus they were commended for doing exactly what Paul told
them to do.
Application: Choose your
teachers carefully. The Ephesians didn’t
listen to every bum who rolled into town claiming to be an apostle or teacher
from God. In verse 6 Jesus commends them
for rejecting the teachings of the Nicolaitans.
Only a couple verses later Jesus would rebuke the church of Pergamum for
listening to the teachings of Balaam and the Nicolaitans, and then rebukes the
church of Thyatira for listening to “that woman Jezebel”. This means choose the preachers you listen
to, the books you read, the blogs you read, carefully. Don’t just read something and put stock in it
because the book came from Family Christian Bookstore. Don’t believe it because the author says they
are a Christian. There are many
imposters out there. You must be a
Berean. What does that mean? The Bereans were the Christians from the city
of Berea in Acts 17:11. It says that
they tested what they heard the Apostle Paul say by comparing his sermons to
the Scriptures. They weren’t taking
Paul’s word for it just because he said he was an apostle. Neither did the Ephesians, and neither should
we. I love what one sister said to me
recently, “I’m sick of what other people say about the Bible, just give me the
word of God and only the word.”
The 3rd kind
of labor they had going for them was their disgust with the
Nicolaitans. Verse 6 Jesus tells them
they’re doing a good job by hating the practices of the Nicolaitans. Who are the Nicolaitans and what practices
were they promoting? We are not sure who
the Nicolaitans were, but, we may have an indication of what they taught in
verse 15. In verse 15 it starts out by
saying “Likewise…” In other
words, what is going to be said in verse 15 is similar to what was just said in
verse 14. There is a similarity between
verse 14 and 15. What did verse 14
say? Read it with me, “Nevertheless,
I have a few things against you: You
have people there who hold to the teachings of Balaam, who taught Balak to
entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by
committing sexual immorality.”
Then verse 15 says, “Likewise, you also have those who hold to
the teachings of the Nicolaitans.”
The word likewise indicates that the 2 sins mentioned in verse 14 were
likewise being taught by the Nicolaitans in verse 15. What were those 2 sins? Eating food sacrificed to idols and sexual
immorality. If these are the things that the Nicolaitans were teaching and
promoting, then notice that Jesus praises the Ephesian church for hating those
practices.
It brings out the
principal for us that as Christians, we are to love what God loves and hate
what God hates.
Application:
Christians are not supposed to tolerate everything. What does that mean? Does that mean that we are mean and nasty? No. It
means that we don’t allow certain things to be taught and we don’t allow certain
behaviors which are most certainly against the word of God. Notice what Jesus says there again in verse
2, “I
know that you cannot tolerate wicked men…” And Jesus is saying that is a good
thing. But notice what Jesus says then
in verse 6, “But you have this in your favor:
You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.” Then notice in verse 20, while speaking to
Thyatira, Jesus rebukes them and says, “Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel…” We don’t tolerate everything and we don’t
tolerate everyone.
In today’s world it seems that the
worst kind of person is a Christian who is intolerant of certain teachings and
behaviors because he is standing on God’s word.
Apparently to the world an intolerant Christian is some sort of
contradiction. The only real enemy today
is a Christian who won’t agree everything the world around says she should
agree with. People have this idea that
if a Christian is intolerant of something that they are acting contrary to what
a Christians is supposed to be like. It’s
like a Christian is supposed to be like whatever the world around thinks a
Christian should be like. But what we
are like is not chartered by the world but by the word of God. And as we read the Bible we see that we are
not to tolerate certain things. We love
what Jesus loves and hate what Jesus hates, and Jesus is saying here that it is
to their credit that the Ephesians hate what was going on with the
Nicolaitans. (We’ll get to them in a
moment).
Let us at EFC be commended by the Lord
for our good deeds, our discernment, and our disgust with sin.
#3: Love (v4, 5)
We have seen the the
Ephesian’s Lampstand, their Labor, and now we look at the Ephesian’s Love. Actually, we will have a hard time looking at
it because according to Jesus it is missing.
Notice what the Lord says in verse 4, “Yet this I hold against you: You have forsaken your first love.”
I actually don’t think
Jesus was saying they had lost all their love.
He wasn’t saying they had gone entirely cold, rigid and loveless. What He is saying here is that their love was
missing a certain quality about it that it once had. We might say that in some ways it had cooled
off. The love they had today was somehow
not the same as at first. And that is
what I think Jesus meant by first love – I think He meant the love they had at
first.
This is interesting when you go back
30 years and see that this church had a reputation for their love. In Ephesians 1:15 Paul said, “For
this reason ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord and your love for
all the saints I have not stopped giving thanks for you…” They were known all around for their great
love and Paul had heard about them while
travelling.
The love that was full of zealous
devotion to the LORD, the love that was pouring out all over the place in their
fellowship with each other. Something
had changed. It probably was not
something that happened over night, but, it was probably a slow and gradual
decline. It probably happened in slight
increments as they fell into a kind of routine of doing church with each
passing year. However it happened there
are 3 things I want us to realize here.
First, our Love is Most Important to
the LORD. When asked what
the greatest command was Jesus said, “To love the Lord your God with all your
heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind. And the second greatest command is to love
your neighbor as yourself.” Love is most
important. Paul told the Corinthians
that spiritual gifts take a back seat to love when he said in 1 Corinthians
13:1, “Now I will show you a more excellent way – the way of love”. In Romans 13 we are told that there is no
obligation we have except the obligation to love. Thirty years earlier the apostle Paul said to
the Ephesians, “Love is most important in the Christian life. Notice that Jesus doesn’t criticize them for
anything else. He criticizes their
love. He addresses their missing good
deeds, yes, but, He goes deeper than that.
He addresses what was missing in their hearts.
It’s like that old Righteous Brothers
song, “You’ve lost that loving feeling”. If you listen to the verses he talks about
how his woman doesn’t do things she used to do when she had that loving
feeling. She doesn’t close her eyes when
they kiss anymore, there is no tenderness in her fingertips, she doesn’t have a
welcome look in her eyes when he reaches for her, she criticizes all the little
things he does. In other words,
somehow her first love was gone and
little things she used to do she doesn’t do anymore. She probably still did lots of things for him
but a change was noticeable.
That’s how it was with the
Ephesians. That’s what Jesus is
saying. “You’ve let your heart lose hold
of that first love and now you don’t do things you used to do.” That’s what He says in verse 5 when He says
to them, “Repent and do the things you did at first”. When you compare the Ephesian church on this
point to the church of Thyatira in verse 19 Jesus says to them, “I
know that you are now doing more than you did at first.”
To Jesus the inner person was as
important if not more important than the outward person. Of course Jesus knows that if the person is
changed inwardly it will result in a change outwardly. The inner man will effect the outward
man. Which is why He goes to the heart
of the matter – their hearts. They had
forsaken their first love in their hearts.
Second, Love is a Decision. How do we see that here? Simple.
Jesus tells them to repent.
Notice verse 5, “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.It
is something that can only be activated by choice. When dealing with others, love is something
we must determine to give. Love is not a
feeling. Love is not something that
overwhelms you, it is what you choose to overwhelm someone else with. Biblical love is activated by a determination
we make to show someone else we love them – regardless of how we feel. We may be head over heels for this person or
we may be angry, frustrated or resentful of them. Regardless, showing the kind of love
Third, Love is expressed in Actions. He says in verse 5, “Repent
and do the things you did at first.”
Jesus wants them to change their hearts and show it by going back to
doing the things they used to do. But do
not mistake Him – He doesn’t want a change in behavior without a change in
heart. Jesus wanted their deeds to be driven by their
love. In 1 John 3:18 it says, “Dear
children let us not love with words or tongue but with action and truth.” Love is to be the driving force of deeds. This is where Christianity gets hard: it means giving serious attention to the
condition of our hearts. Jesus doesn’t
let us get lazy with the inner person.
To live the Christian life is to live it from the heart outward. Anything less is hollow outward religious activity. And believe me that does not please the
Lord.
Which is why He warns them that if
they don’t repent He will come and take their lampstand away. What does that mean? It means that He will be the one who comes
and snuffs out their light. In other
words, He will cause the doors of their church to close permanently. He wanted them to know that it is by His
power and authority that they would continue to be a church, and by His power
and authority He would remove there church.
That makes me think of 2
applications. First, Jesus does
not love me just as I am. We often say
that Jesus loves me just as I am. And in
a sense that is true, but, it implies that He loves me how I am and it isn’t
really a big deal if I grow. I can just
stay how I am and it doesn’t matter to Him one way or the other. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Therefore it is better to say that He loves
me despite what I am. It is better to
say “He loves me so much He won’t let me stay as I am.” I am a sinner who is still very far from the
holy perfection He desires for me.
That’s why He is very involved in my growth. In Revelation 3:19 Jesus says, “Those
whom I love I rebuke and discipline.”
The 2nd Application is this: Solutions should always
accompany criticism. Notice that Jesus
does not just rail against them for their faults. He brings it to their attention, but, He
gives them the solution: remember,
repent, and renew. How do we
criticize? Do we do it just to give vent
to our anger without any care for making a situation better? Is our goal just to release our displeasure
with something? Or, when we criticize do
we do it with love and a suggestion for how something might be improved in
someone’s life? It brings up our
responsibility to each other to be willing to confront someone and be willing
to respond when we are confronted. Remember
our message a couple months ago titled “How to Take a Punch”? It was a sermon that gave us some strategies for
listening to criticism so that we could benefit from those times when we are
criticized.
#4: Tree of Life (v7)
Let’s close with the
promise. We’ve seen the Lampstand, the
Labor, the Love, and now the Tree of Life.
Jesus promises that if anyone overcomes He will give them the right to
eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. The tree of life was in the Garden of
Eden. After Adam sinned God said in
Genesis chapter 3, He must not be allowed to eat from the tree of life and live
forever.” The tree of life has to do
with immortality. That is the promise of
God – eternal life.
Do you have eternal
life? The message of the Bible is that
eternal life is a reality and a possibility.
It is not possible through hard work, religion and being spiritual. It is only a possibility for those who come
to Jesus Christ. The same John who wrote
this book of Revelation wrote the most famous verse in the whole Bible, John
3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that
whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.” Jesus is the the One who gives eternal life
and you must come to Him. God gave Him
over to death so that He could pay for your sins on the cross. Believe in His Name and you will receive
forgiveness and everlasting life.
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