Ephesus Series

The Lord does realise our strengths. He is not a hard task master just looking for results. Rather He looks at our heart. Hence the strong reproof. In Ephesians 5:1 we read:

"Be imitators of God therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."

b) Their Reproof (v4 and 5).

The Church had forsaken its first love.

There are three types of lobve in Greek

1. Agape

Christian love did not fit classical Greek thought about their "gods" and so we find Christians using the word Agape, which was a fairly undefined word in classical Greek to describe Christ’s love for mankind love that loves despite the response of the recipient of the love.

Agape is the love, in which in the words of Romans

5: 8 God demonstrated "while we were still sinners Christ died for us."

Romans 5:5 tells us that it is "God who has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us."

When we lose love we are rejecting God.

Love can also be hard against sin, but is always, like the Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32 willing to forgive.

Perhaps 1 Cor.13. 1 was especially written for charismatic Fellowships

"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."

I know, I often am a clanging gong and cymbal. But God’s way is different.

Christ came into the world and started a revolution. He revolutionised the world with unselfish love. The Greeks have far more descriptive words than we do. I was told that for love they had two common words:

2. Philea

This is friendship or brotherly love from which the name Philadelphia, the church to which the sixth letter is written comes. It is the love for Christ that Peter uses of himself in his realistic assesment of himnself in John 22:15-19

3. Eros

It is this word for love from which we get the word erotic, such as in erotic art.

The Ephesians in the beginning had a great love for Christ, for we read in Acts 19:18 and 19

"When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus they were all seized with fear and the Name of the lord Jesus was held in high honour. Many who believed now came and confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practised sorcery brought their scrolls together and burnt them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls the total came to 50,000 drachmas, 500 000 dollars."

There was real conversion there a sign of real love for the Lord. But now the church had lost this first love, the love that sought the Kingdom of God first and His Righteousness. Christ’s revolution had been quenched.

God in his mercy had not finished with them but was calling them back to repent. To turn around.

Repent and do the things you did at first.(v.5)

c) Their Hope (7)

The Lord encourages them. He wants them to repent and to have a hope. You will recall that in the Garden of Eden, after man ate of the tree of knowledge he was banned from the Garden and banned from eating from the Tree of Life, in other words sin led to death: