Go Back to Go Forward
Revelation 2:1-7
The church at Ephesus had many commendable qualities. Yet almost without notice the church began to slip and lose ground. It was not what they were doing that was the core of their problem. If they were to go forward the church needed to return to where they once were. They needed to go back to go forward. As we consider the Ephesian church we need to look at where we are individually and as a church as we too may need to go back to go forward for Christ.
I. This church was doing the right things
A. They engaged in good works
1. Revelation 2:2 “I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience…”
2. Excessive toil, exhausting labor, and patient persevering endurance in the face of difficulties.
3. They were diligent in carrying out their duty to the Lord.
4. Romans 12:11 (HCSB) “Do not lack diligence; be fervent in spirit; serve the Lord.”
5. Diligence is accepting each task as a special assignment from the Lord and using all my energies to do it quickly and skillfully.
6. Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works…”
7. You either serve God wholly, or serve the evil one wholly. Elijah cried out, "If God be God, serve him; If Baal be God, serve him."
8. Colossians 3:23 “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,”
9. “I heard the story of a young man who told his pastor that the Lord had called him into the ministry. And for several months he was busy in the work of the Lord, serving in the pulpit, leading Bible studies, going to prayer meeting, and so on. But then all of a sudden, he stopped coming to church. The pastor called him and said, "What happened? You were so diligent in serving the Lord. Now all of a sudden you stopped coming. What happened?" The man replied, "The Lord told me to never mind." But God will never go back on his call to us. He will never change his mind.” – J B Taylor
B. They were doctrinally sound
1. Paul concerned about an influx of false teacher that would seek to come into the Ephesian church wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:3-4 “…I besought you to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that you might charge some that they teach no other doctrine, Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.”
2. 2 Timothy 4:3 “For the time will come when they will not ENDURE SOUND DOCTRINE; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears”
3. The word doctrine means simply religious beliefs held and taught. It is the solemn obligation of all Christians that what we believe, hear and teach correspond exactly to truth of the Word of God.
4. Revelation 2:2 “you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars.”
5. They earnestly contended for the faith as they rejected false teachers in the church
6. Understand that Doctrine Is the Foundation of the Christian Life.
7. Acts 2:42 “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”
8. A.W. Tozer said, “It would be impossible to overemphasize the importance of sound doctrine in the life of a Christian. Right thinking about all spiritual matters is imperative if we would have right living. As men do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles, so sound character does not grow out of unsound teaching.” – Tozer, Man, The Dwelling Place Of God
C. They believed Christians should live separated lives.
1. Revelation 2:2, 6 “you cannot bear those who are evil…But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”
2. Adam Clarke tells us that the Nicolaitans were as is commonly supposed, a sect of the Gnostics, who taught the most impure doctrines, and followed the most impure practices.
3. The Christians in the church of Ephesus hated the filthy and impure practices of some professed Christians.
4. They could not bear = tolerate, put up with.
5. The erroneous notion that tolerance is always a virtue and intolerance always a vice has corrupted virtually every corridor of our society and has infiltrated the church. Toleration of what evil is exalted and proudly defended, while all those who resist and condemn evil are slandered and demonized as hate mongers and bigots by the world and as being unloving and unkind by many within the ranks of professed Christianity. -
6. Ephesians 5:11 “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”
7. Romans 12:9 “"Hate that which is evil; cling to that which is good"
8. 2 Thessalonians 3:6 “But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which heg received from us
II. This church was doing the right things for the wrong reasons
A. They were spinning their wheels as a church. While they were busy laboring in the church and community, living morally clean lives, clinging to and defending sound doctrine, they forgot why they were doing what they were doing.
B. They lost their focus and failed to abide in Christ.
C. Christ said in John 15:4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”
D. Revelation 2:4 “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.”
E. They left their first love. It was not that they no longer loved Christ but that they lost or abandoned the fervent passionate devotion that they had at first. They were less glowing and ardent than when they began with Christ.
F. Jesus warned Christians in the end time, "Because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold" (Matthew 24:12). This is in stark contrast to the true love Christ said would characterize His Church: "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35).
G. Losing one’s first love, when the fire becomes merely an ember, is the first step in sliding into the lukewarmness of Laodicean church or the cold deadness of the church in Sardis.
H. The English Puritan theologian Thomas Manton said, "As when the root of a tree perishes, the leaves keep green for a while, but within a while they wither and fall off; so love is the root and heart of all other duties, and when that decays other things decay with it." - copied
I. When they left off loving Christ the result was a less-than-loving environment within the church.
J. Spiritual growth, personally and corporally, is tied to the love we have for Christ. If we properly love Christ, it will be made manifest in the manner in which we carry out the Lord’s work.
K. The evangelist W H Aitken gave several reasons why or how people lose their first love:
1. Many people "lose" it by earthly business. They lead bustling lives; they have so many cares pressing upon them, so much to think about, so much to be undertaken. It is even so with some of our Christian workers. Or, perhaps, in our worldly employment, we are bent upon certain objects which are out of harmony with the will of Christ. There is some dark form of worldly care, or it may be of religious activity — something or other has crept in between us and God, and the whole heaven is darkened, the light is eclipsed, and the blessedness is gone.
2. Or, again, there are many Christians who "lose their first love" by forming another love. Thou art forfeiting that blessed inner life of love, which can only be realized by those who understand the full force of the first great commandment, "Thou shalt have none other gods but Me."
3. Yet again, how many of us "lose our first love" by little acts of thoughtlessness. Love is a very jealous thing. - copied
L. Jude 1:21 “Keep yourselves in the love of God.”
M. If you want that splendid power in prayer, you must remain in loving, living, lasting, conscious, practical, abiding union with the Lord Jesus Christ. – Spurgeon
III. This church needed to go back before they could go forward
A. Revelation 2:5 “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works.”
B. Former Supreme Court Justice Phillip Mauro said, “Let us go back in our thoughts again and yet again to those days of heaven on earth when we first came to the knowledge of Christ, and of His redeeming love.”
C. Someone has said that “the greatest enemy of faith may be forgetfulness.”
D. It is not possible to recover the first love except by remembering, repenting, and resume doing the first works.
E. In regard to doing the first works Adam Clarke said what we need to do is “Resume your former zeal and diligence; watch, fast, pray, reprove sin, carefully attend all the ordinances of God, walk as in his sight, and rest not till you have recovered all your lost ground, and got back the evidence of your acceptance with your Maker.”
F. Psalm 51:10-12 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit.”
G. We may need to step back before we can go forward. We need to examine ourselves in the light of God’s Word and see if we have waned in our love for Christ.
H. God wants us to faithfully assemble together and consider "one another in order to STIR UP LOVE and good works." (Hebrews 10:24-25)
I. God longs for us, His prized possession, His blood bought children, to get back to the first love we had when we first came to Him. He wants our relationship with Him to be as passionate and exciting as the day we knelt and bowed in humble submission and adoration receiving His grace. He wants us to realize where we have fallen away from it and is waiting for us to repent and allow His grace to restore us into a right relationship with Him.
