A Lost Love: Ephesus and The Church Today Kelly Durant
Revelation 2
2:1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things said he that holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
2 I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted.
4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.
7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
2. How many of you have heard the words, “I don’t love you anymore”? Those words really hurt! These words create broken hearts, and broken relationships! I am very sorry if you have had to deal with another person who has said this to you before! I know after several years married many couples may doubt, and ask the question inside, do I really love like I did in the beginning? To speak this is damaging! Never forget that real love, God’s love is more than a feeling! God’s love keeps on loving no matter what! God’s love forgives, heals, and sacrifices!
The current lack of love in people is a sign of the times, Matt 24 “the love of many will wax cold”. Anti-Christ like people of the cruel world only live for their selfish up and down feelings in reference to love. This is why a dedicated Christian should never be unequally yoked with an unbeliever because over time the unbeliever will feel entitled to satisfy their desire for love (lust) by whatever means possible instead of trying to invest their energy into the one they married and swore a lifetime commitment to. The best way to live is to choose to live “in love” everyday! In love with Jesus and those He has put in your life! Pray for love to fill you and it will! Pray, Lord, make me live “in love” with my mate and all humanity! And to love the lost and needy as you did!
Today we will continue our study of the modern day church in reference to the sins exposed in the first 7 churches in Revelation. We covered the Church in Laodicea before, today we return to the first one mentioned in the context of the seven in Revelation, Ephesus. Sadly, isn’t it obvious compared to a generation ago, that the church of today has lost its passion to win souls to righteousness, lost its love for Jesus, and lost its mission? The church has allowed apathetic worldly people inside to subvert it with the corrupt culture of the current trends. It is urgent that each Christian must evaluate their own self and get back to their first love for God!
3. I love how Jesus is described with the seven spirits, the stars and the candlesticks. Jesus is ascribed to being the light which extends throughout the universe in the stars and also as the light in front of you as a candle in the room. Do you recall His words, Matthew 5:15 “Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house”. Jesus is our light! His light is life itself! Many candles make the church shine if they are lit!
Go to Verse 2, “I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:” Jesus is praising the true ones in Ephesus! They are working hard, have good works, and they have patience with others. We all fail and it is important to put up with each other with love and forgiveness, and here we learn that they are mature in several ways.
Jesus is also praising them for not tolerating in their fellowship those that are pretending to be apostles (which are ones who claim they follow Jesus) but instead they are false, hypocrites, and liars. This means they are praying, singing hymns, listening to the Word studied together but they are doing it with false pretenses having no intention of being a true Christ lover. Have we seen people like this in our churches? They seem to do what a Christian does, copying the actions, but when they are out in normal life, they are as crooked as a snake. Sadly, too many churches tolerate people who are false pretenders and hypocrites and these few bad apples causes others to get turned off and never what to come back! How damaging this is!
4. Vs3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted. Interesting, Jesus once again praises them a second time for working well serving in His name, for having patience, and he highlights they have not fainted or given up. This implies they have had problems and resistance. Have you ever felt like giving up? I have a few dozen times! But after I pray about it and give it to Jesus, Jesus seems to always encourage me somehow and I keep on going! Ask yourself, have I ever fainted? Do I labor as expected?
Jesus expresses Himself as any good teacher, He first praises the good, and then He comes down with the bad news. 4 “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love”.
What was I mentioning a few minutes ago about not being in love? A life without love hurts! The first love refers to how it is when you are first starting out enthusiastic, optimistic, and hopeful as a couple “in love”. You do anything and everything the other person wants because your happiness is their happiness! One who is full of love serves, respects, and has full focus on the needs and desires of the other. Is there evidence of you having a passionate love for Jesus?
When you lose your love for someone you do not care to make them happy anymore: in essence you pass from a selfless phase to a selfish phase! Losing love is tragic! The whole point of Jesus coming to earth was to teach us to love! A church or Corps should be the most loving place in the city! John 13:34-35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” So, a false follower does not love!
5. A Christian leader who has been around for a long time and loses their first love for Jesus also loses their love for their brothers and sisters in the church and for the lost outside the church. How is, or not, love? I Cor. 13: 3 “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” Do you know of Christians who serve the poor but with a bad attitude? They do it just because they are required to by their peer group or their job description but their heart is not really into it! They are not loving those a lot less fortunate than them! It is painful to put up with someone without love! It is also painful to observe many churches in America have lost their first love for Jesus!
You and I know people who probably started out loving Jesus but then they lost their first love so how do they act? The opposite of this: 4 “Love suffers long and is kind (they are impatient and mean to others); love does not envy (they are jealous of those who have a better situation than them); love does not parade itself, is not puffed up (they are arrogant and proud of their power position and accomplishments); 5 does not behave rudely (they are rude and humiliate you and others), does not seek its own (their self interests always come to light), is not provoked, thinks no evil (they get angry quickly and want to harm to those they don’t like); It is tragic how each of us suffer under those with no love!
Let’s continue to compare how people with love and those without love behave: 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth (they are happy when someone insulting and bad pulls a fast one); 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”(They are not tolerant of others claiming they are tolerant, they do not expect good outcomes and always bear bad news, they disillusion others and make them lose faith and hope, and they do not want to put up with anyone because only they know how to do everything) Sadly everyone else around them perceives them to be just ignorant, belligerent fools pretending to be good!
6. Vs.5 “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; (of doing things with a passionate love!) or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.” Jesus is stating He will allow their fellowship to be removed and disbanded if they do not repent and get back to having the passion and love they once had. Haven’t we already seen too many churches disbanded from a lack of love for God and others! The enemy today is attacking fiercely with apathy and dissention using divisive popularized controversial matters.
I can say in my lifetime I have seen several Christian ministries come and go! What happened? People may start off great, loving Jesus, and laboring for Him but then the light goes out if over time some problem gets in the way. It is usually these things that destroy Christian fellowships: false teachings, a lack of patient love replaced with a legalistic self-righteousness, or an apathetic laziness to keep up the good work loving and serving others. Also, the light goes out when a person or group of proud leaders in charge refuse to see their faults and their churches faults! The leader should be bringing everyone closer to God loving Jesus more!
Vs. 6 “But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.” Despite the warning, Jesus praises them again for rejecting a group of false infiltrators. Notice that Jesus says He hates these people, the Nicolaitians. So Jesus loves, but He also hates those who are hypocrites and false to profane the will and love of God! If one of these Nicolaitians were to repent, I am sure God would have received him, but the subversion of Jesus’ teachings is an abomination!
7. It is speculated by theologians that the Nicolaitians were a local gnostic group that rose to power and faded away after a few years. “Nike” (first part of word “Nic”), in Greek means to conquer, and “laitian” refers to people (as in the word laity), so their name has the connotation of meaning “those who conquer people”. So how did they conquer? By deceit, they were liars and false ones infiltrating the brethren to abandon absolute faith in Jesus.
From history we know that the early church had a battle with those who claimed there was no resurrection. What conquered thousands of early believers was the conviction with which the disciples retold the story of Jesus resurrection! For a person or group to counter that and say that it is a lie is a huge offense and insult to Jesus’ life, death, sacrifice, and resurrection! Any resurrection denier is in effect a liar deceived by Satan! Today there are too many loudmouthed disrespecters of Jesus! Jesus’ life and doctrine was pure love, so anything not of that is of Satan!
Possible other offenses were that these people being Greeks, thought that since in their worldview no God is pure and holy or capable of saving someone from Hades, (their Greek gods were definitely not divine in their behavior!) then they could justifiably live as hypocrites claiming one could be loyal to Jesus for certain moments, and then participate with the other Greek pagan gods as well. This false doctrine meant that they did not have to live a holy life, but rather they could participate in Greek orgies doing abominable things, thinking its fine to please your flesh in unholy ways since the other gods were of this nature. Do you know of any hypocrite person who partakes in all the things of the world during the week yet they go to a Sunday worship thinking its ok with God? Today we see many world pleasing hypocrites as were the Christians that were in Ephesus! The remedy is to repent, which means to leave it behind and never go back to it! It is all Jesus and nothing else! By observation we see that corruption and modern day Nicolaitian type behaviors have infiltrated every company, government, and church!
8. Vs. 7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. Basically Jesus is commanding us to be spiritually attentive! We must listen to what He says about the churches, and since He is alive in the Spirit, Jesus still speaks to those that listen concerning the state of affairs of the churches. Those who study understand and see clearly.
Where do we read about the tree of life? It is the tree that God prevented Adam and Eve from eating from so they would not live forever. Genesis 3:24 So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. But after we die and become spirit, we will be enjoying this tree again in heaven!
But we see a condition here to gaining this privilege, what is that? It is to overcome, “To him that overcometh”. In this case what is Jesus referring to? To overcome what? Within all the context it means to overcome the apathy and falseness He is exposing. What did they need to overcome? What do you need to overcome so God will be pleased with you?
9. The Christians in Ephesus, and all Christians today must overcome these obstacles:
A) To not lose one’s first love for Jesus
B) To not lose the ability to repent from their failures
C) To hate hypocrisy and evil workers as Jesus hates them.
Have you lost your first love? Some people come into our doors excited that they have discovered that Jesus is real, they have their eyes opened, and their hearts are on fire. But then due to their peers or family criticizing them, due to resistance from the world, they stop coming to worship and love Jesus, and they lose their “first love”. How tragic! Like the seed that was sewn and grew, but then died before it could flourish into a beautiful plant!
Jesus always offers us a chance to repent! Everyday, and not just on Sundays after the sermon, we should be examining our hearts to repent of any wrong behavior, of any behavior that was not done in love. It is a sin to live without a passionate love for God! Pray and love!
