Ephesus - the Challenge of Love

Those of you with memories long enough to go all the way back to the Top 40 hits of the 1970’s will undoubtedly remember this classic by Paul Simon—one of the great sing along tunes of all time: 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.

Just slip out the back, Jack…

Make a new plan, Stan…

Don’t need to be coy, Roy…

Just listen to me.

Hop on the bus, Gus…

Don’t need to discuss much…

Just drop off the key, Lee…

And set yourself free.

If you went back over the past 25 years and did away with all of the pop, rock, and country songs that had anything to do with someone leaving their lover, you’d probably eliminate about half of all the music written during that period.

Judging by the music that our secular culture keeps churning out, you would have to conclude that we are facing a crisis of love. And this crisis seems to be twofold: first, nobody seems to know how to keep love alive. And second, everyone seems to be stepping out on their true love.

Well, in the passage that we’re going to look at today, we’re going to see that the church is facing a love crisis too. It’s very possible for a church to have a great ministry, a great program, a great reputation of service, and yet to lose that which is the very heart and soul of her spiritual life—love for Jesus Christ and love for one another.

Let’s turn to Revelation 2 and find out how this can happen, and what to do about it.

We’re going to look at the church in the city of Ephesus. Now let me tell you a little about Ephesus. What the city of Toronto is today to the province of Ontario, the city of Ephesus was to the Roman province of Asia. It was the leading city. It was the economic center. It was the cultural capital of the whole region. Ephesus boasted that it was “The first and greatest metropolis of Asia”. The Roman writers called it “Lumen Asia” - the Light of Asia.

Ephesus had a busy harbor at the mouth of the Cayster River. It was the western terminus of the great trade routes that came over toward Europe from the Middle East. So Ephesus was literally at the crossroads of two continents.

Like Toronto, Ephesus was a multicultural city; there were many ethnic groups. As well as the native Asians, there were substantial populations of Greeks, Romans, and Jews. As you might expect, Ephesus became a melting pot of ideas and cultures.

And that was certainly true of the religious scene. Ephesus was a great center of pagan religion and occult superstition. In fact, over in Acts 19:19, we read about how the people of Ephesus who had converted to Christianity brought their scrolls of sorcery and magic spells and burned them and their value was calculated to be about 50,000 days’ wages.

The greatest building in Ephesus was the Temple of the goddess Artemis (the Romans called her Diana). This was a gigantic edifice with 120 great stone columns, each sixty feet high. In the center of this temple sat a squat ugly black image of Artemis, the goddess of fertility. Some people think that it was carved out of a meteorite that had fallen from the sky.

The Temple of Artemis was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and people came from all over the world to see it and worship there. A large part of the economy of the city was focused around this religious tourist trade. Part of the worship of Artemis involved copulating with one of the hundreds of sacred prostitutes—for a fee of course. (The Roman historian Heraclitus tells us that the immorality of Ephesus was enough to make you weep.) And when it was time to go home, you could purchase a little silver model of the temple, made by local craftsmen, to take along with you as a souvenir.

(In fact, if you read Acts 19, you’ll read about a riot in Ephesus that was started by these same silversmiths who suspected that the growth of the Christian church in Ephesus was going to be bad for their business!)

So in light of all of this, Ephesus seems a most unlikely place for Christianity to have blossomed and flourished, but that is in fact what happened here. Ephesus, between the years 50–100 AD, became the leading city of Christendom. Paul spent more time here in Ephesus than in any other city on his missionary travels. He actually settled here for a period of about 3 years in the mid-50’s. His disciple Timothy became the first bishop of Ephesus. Leading figures such as Aquilla, Priscilla, and Apollos also were a part of the church here. And tradition says that the Apostle John settled here in his old age. There’s even an ancient legend that John brought Mary the mother of Jesus to Ephesus with him, and that Ephesus is where she is buried.

So this is the backdrop of the Christian church in Ephesus. It was a church that had grown up in a hostile environment. But, by the grace of God, it had become a great church, a very influential church, a church that had seen some of the greatest speakers and leaders in history grace its pulpit. It was a church that had sent missionaries out into the surrounding areas of Asia; it was a mother church that had given birth to many daughter churches.

And yet, by the end of the 1st century, there was something wrong with the church at Ephesus. Let’s look at the problem in Rev. 2.

Now in examining these seven letters to the churches, we’re going to see that they follow a similar format, and I’ve laid that format out for you in the sermon study notes in your bulletin.

1. A REMINDER of who Jesus is

2. A REVIEW of the church’s record - any positives are recognized and praised

3. A REBUKE of the church’s failings and faults (except: Smyrna, Philadelphia)

4. A REMEDY given for this failure

5. A REWARD promised for faithfulness

Revelation 2:1 “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:

Sound familiar? This hearkens back to chapter 1, where John saw a vision of the exalted Lord Jesus, standing among seven golden lampstands—which represented the seven local churches—and holding seven stars in his hand—the stars representing the angels, or “messengers” of each church.

Here in chapter 2, we’re reminded that Jesus holds each church in his right hand. The word “to hold” there means that he holds the whole of it, not just a part of it, and that his hold on the church is strong and controlling. Just as in John 10:28 Jesus says that no one can snatch a believer out of his hand, neither can the church ever fall out of Christ’s hand. No matter how bad a church’s problems may seem to be, the church is always in the right hand of Jesus.

And Jesus is walking among the lampstands. He is not just standing there, he is active and dynamic. And his activity is not restricted to just one of the churches—he is moving and active among them all.

Now in the next two verses, Jesus reviews the church at Ephesus.

Revelation 2:2-3 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 are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

The church at Ephesus was…

• a DOING church

• a DISCERNING church

• a DISCIPLINED church

Jesus says: I know your deeds; I know your hard work - and the language he uses there denotes labor to the point of weariness. This was a church where the people worked hard, where they gave themselves to the ministry to the point of exhaustion.

You know, there are a lot of churches today where this isn’t happening very much. People don’t want to commit, they don’t want to work hard. They don’t want to volunteer their time and effort to make things happen. They just want to come along for the ride.

In fact, they’re a lot like hitch-hikers that way. A hitch-hiker says “You buy the car, you pay for the repairs, you put the gas in, you pay the insurance, you do the driving, and if I like where you’re going, I’ll ride with you. But if you have an accident, you’re on your own, and I’ll probably sue you.”

Every church has some ecclesiastical hitchhikers in it - “You go to the meetings, you serve on the boards and committees, you grapple with the issues and do the work of the church and pay the bills, and I’ll come along for the ride. But if things do not suit me, I’ll criticize and complain and probably bail out - my thumb is always out for a better ride.”

But there weren’t any hitchikers in the church at Ephesus! They were hard workers.

And they were DISCERNING. They were doctrinally astute. (They certainly needed to be as they were surrounded by all sorts of counterfeit spiritual ideas.) They could not and would not tolerate wickedness and they tested those who claimed to be apostles but were not.

About forty years earlier, in Acts 20, the Apostle Paul had warned the Ephesian elders that after he left, savage wolves would come into the church and would not spare the flock. Even from their own number, men would arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So Paul told them to be on their guard, and it looks like they took his warning seriously. They were highly discerning. They tested the spirits. They evaluated a person’s teaching against the holy Scriptures, and they were diligent in hunting out heresy.

Down in verse 6, Jesus commends them for hating the practices of the Nicolaitans. This was a group which may have been associated with Nicolas of Antioch, one of the seven deacons mentioned in Acts 6. The Nicolaitans apparently taught that since Christianity is primarily concerned with our spiritual life, what we do with our physical bodies is of little importance. You can be physically immoral, but remain spiritually pure, since the flesh doesn’t have anything to do with the spirit.

This kind of thinking had its roots Greek philosophy, and its easy to see how, if you brought this into Christianity, it would make it easy for the Christians in Ephesus to go along with many of the immoral, but widely accepted practices of the culture.

But the church at Ephesus exposed these Nicolaitan ideas as wrong, as sinful, as heretical, and Jesus commended them for it. They were a DISCERNING church. They were right on doctrinally. They were solid in their preaching and teaching.

And they were a DISCIPLINED church.

Revelation 2:3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

They knew what it was to count the cost. They had suffered hardships and yet had persevered because they were not afraid to be identified with Jesus Christ. And all this is in their favor. But still, there was a problem; still Christ challenges them.

Revelation 2:4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.

The word “forsaken” means to leave, to abandon, to turn your back on someone or something. There was a love crisis in the church at Ephesus. For all the greatness of this church; for all the influence that it had had over the years; for all the things Jesus has just commended it for—still there was a cancer at the very core of the church. She had left her first love.

You ask, what is the love Jesus is talking about here? Is it love for Jesus himself, or is it love for one another? And I say that it is both. Because when you lose the first, you lose the second as well. When you stop loving Jesus, you stop loving people.

When the people of Ephesus had first heard the Gospel from Paul and others, they were on fire! Paul writes in Ephesians 1

Ephesians 1:15-16 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.

But now, forty years later, the fire seems to have gone out! The thrill is gone. The bloom is off the rose. The honeymoon is over. You can almost hear God saying to them what he said to the Israelites in

Jeremiah 2:2 “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem: ”’ I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown.

Maybe you’re sitting here today and you’re saying “The same thing has happened to me.” I was once on fire for Jesus, but now that fire is just some fading embers. My spiritual life is mediocre. It’s just ho-hum. There’s no excitement. I’m not thrilled with Jesus anymore, and because I’m not, I’m having more and more trouble getting along with people.

What does a church look like where the fire has grown cold? Well, I think I was in one not too long ago. Beautiful building. First-class facilities. Full schedule of activities and ministries and programs. But there was something missing. You could see it on the faces of the people. You could feel it in the atmosphere of the service. There was no excitement. There was a dullness. There was a sense of this being nothing more than a routine and we were all just going through the motions. I went into that church as a newcomer and very few people spoke to me. It was as though I didn’t exist. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone that I was even there.

My prayer is: God, don’t let that be Erindale. Don’t let our love grow cold.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

There is no greater burden for a church than to have had a great past. Because you tend to rest on your laurels. You tend to coast. And you lose your freshness. And it’s easy for a church to point to its fine doctrinal statement, or the healthiness of its financials, or the full slate of programs, and say “Gee… we must be doing a great job. The Lord must be really proud of us.”

Back in the fall, at the Vision Ministries Leadership conference, Kevin Dyer said to us that churches like ours would rather be right than be real.

People talk about there being two kinds of churches. Grace churches and truth churches. Grace churches emphasize love. Truth churches emphasize doctrine. I saw a little cartoon recently. A couple of guys are having coffee together. One of them says to the other “Our church’s distinctive is to be a church of grace. And if anyone can’t adhere to that, we simply ask them to leave.”

But we don’t have to choose between being a grace church and a truth church—because the Lord wants us to be both. When Jesus came, He came as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. In Jesus, you have this wonderful blending of the grace of God and the truth of God, and that’s what he wants us to be as a church. But when we leave our first love, we lose the grace part, and all we have left is the truth part. And truth without grace isn’t really truth at all—it’s legalism.

How do we get the grace back? How do we get our first love back? Jesus gives us the answer in

Revelation 2:5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

He tells us three things: Remember; Repent; and Repeat.

He says Remember (literally “keep on remembering”) the height from which you have fallen. We think that the older you get as a Christian, the higher you get as a Christian. Yet, here Jesus is saying that a hard-working, doctrinally-astute, disciplined Christian who has left his first love is a Christian who has fallen from a great height. If I’m a Christian like that, I’m in the pits. And I need to remember how it used to be.

Because memory is the first step on the way back.

Remember the Prodigal Son?

Luke 15:17ff “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’

William Cowper writes:

Where is the blessedness I knew

When I first saw the Lord?

Where is the soul-refreshing view

Of Jesus and His word?

A couple is having problems in their marriage. They fear that their love is growing cold. They go to see a marriage counselor. The counselor tells them to remember what it was that attracted them to each other in the first place. Remember the excitement. Remember the dates, the special times they spent together.

The first step to recovering your first love is to remember.

The second is to repent. The word repent has gotten a lot of bad press down through the years. But it is a simple little word. It simply means to turn around and go the other way. Repentance is when you finally decide to accept personal responsibility for being where you are and you decide to turn around and go the other way. It’s a change of mind that leads to a change in direction.

In the story of the prodigal son, we’re told that after he remembered how things were in his father’s house, he “got up and went back to his father.” That’s repentance.

And if you’re ever going to recover your first love, you’re going to have to come to the place where you are no longer satisfied to live the way you’re living. You’re no longer content to have a spiritual life that’s running on fumes. You’re going to get up and go back to your father.

Now Jesus warned the church at Ephesus that if they didn’t repent, he would come and remove their lampstand from its place. They would lose their witness. They would no longer be a lighthouse. The church would close. Because without love for Jesus and without love for one another, a church just isn’t a church.

The first step is to Remember. The second step is to Repent. The third step is to Repeat.

“Do the things you did at first”. One of the great principles of the Christian life is that motion creates emotion. Get moving for God, by faith, in the right direction and you will find that your heart will follow. Do the first works! Devote yourself to Christ. Pray as you used to pray. Read the Word as you used to read it - like a love letter from Jesus to you. And you will find that motion creates emotion.

One of the greatest things with God is that it’s never too late to start over. You say, “Oh, but I’ve wasted so many years. I’ve messed things up so badly that I can never come back to the place I was.” Listen, the Lord says that he will restore to us the years that the locusts have eaten. He will give us a crown of beauty instead of ashes; the oil of gladness instead of mourning; a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

A woman named Kathleen Wheeler, who I believe must have been a school teacher, wrote a poem to illustrate the grace of God:

He came to my desk with quivering lip - the lesson was done

“Dear teacher, I want a new page,” he said. “I have spoiled this one.”

I took the old page, stained and blotted, and gave him a new one all unspotted.

And into his sad eyes smiled, “Do better now my child.”

I went to the throne with a quivering soul - the old year was done.

“Dear Father, have you a new page for me? I have spoiled this one.”

He took the old page stained and blotted, and gave me a new one all unspotted.

And into my sad heart smiled, “Do better now my child.”

God never tires of our new beginnings. In His grace, He stands ready to pick us up when we fall.

Jesus promises a reward in…

Revelation 2:7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

Can you overcome losing your first love? Yes, with God’s help you can. But you’ve got to want to. Do you want to this morning?