(Note: This message is based on and edited from a sermon preached at First Baptist Church, Chamois, MO, on 1-1-2023; but is not an exact transcription.)
Introduction: This morning we celebrate the start of a brand new year. It’s really kind of difficult to zero in on something that hasn’t been said thousands of times before, but still, it’s important for us to realize we have the gift of a brand new year beginning today! I hope we’ll make the best of it, every day.
This year I felt led to use the message from the Lord to the church at Ephesus. There’s always something for us in this passage, so let’s take a look and see what the Lord has for us:
Text: Revelation 2:1-7, NASB: 1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: 2 ‘I know your deeds and your labor and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people, and you have put those who call themselves apostles to the test, and they are not, and you found them to be false; 3 and you have perseverance and have endured on account of My name, and have not become weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 Therefore, remember from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and I will remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. 6 But you have this, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will grant to eat from the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.’
A word about Ephesus to start out with. Acts 19 has the story how Paul came there, preached, won souls and made disciples. Some good things happened and some other things happened as well. Paul stayed there for two years and even though we don’t have all the facts, we can be sure that church was one of the best grounded, best prepared of all the churches established by Paul. Certainly we can’t forget the importance of the Holy Spirit but God uses people to accomplish His plans.
Some years after this, Paul wrote the letter, from prison, to these believers plus others, possibly. He gave a good bit of information about doctrine, and a great deal about practical living. Nothing was said about any doctrinal errors, nor anyone living in open sin, Compare that with 1 Corinthians 5, and there’s no comparison. In a word, Ephesus was going on the right track, and on the fast track, to right teaching and right living.
But about 30 years or one generation later, things had changed. And not for the better, either. The Lord is not pleased, not as much as He had been, and He’s going to tell them about it.
The first thing He says is for these believers to remember—to remember “from where you have fallen”. Memory—memories—can be used for good, or for bad, and in this case, the Lord wanted these believers to remember just how far they had fallen. Dr. A. T. Robertson in his “Word Pictures” gives the example of looking up at a cliff from down on the valley floor. All this began when the Ephesians left their first love.
Just how that happened, we may never know, but take a look at some of the challenges they faced, maybe constantly. Ephesus was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire at the time and it seems all kinds, sorts, grades and shades of religion. The Ephesians persevered, refused to tolerate evil people (and there were plenty in Ephesus, just read Acts 19). They also put so-called “apostles” to the test—and it was a good thing they did, because think how much evil crept into the Church because churches did not test them. I mean, the standards for being an apostle were listed right there in Acts 1. Only two people met those standards, and only one of them was chosen to replace Judas as an apostle (Paul, of course, was chosen later).
Let me take just a minute to say thanks for good pulpit or pastor search committees. These folks have a tremendous responsibility to evaluate prospective preachers. They may well have a hard time separating the wheat from the chaff, or the wheat from the tares, or even the wolves from the sheep as a re’sume’ can look mighty good—but the candidate may not be the best fit for the church by any stretch of the imagination. Ephesus took pains to question these so-called apostles and, again, rejected them. Praise God for the wisdom and courage these believers used.
To go one step further, one of the men at a church I had pastored previously told me about how careful they had to be when seeking a new pastor. He told me of one such candidate who was a good speaker, related well to the members, and seemed to have all the “right stuff”. Until, that is, during one his messages when he said something along the lines of “. . . when God created Jesus . . .”. Asked to clarify his remarks, he said he stood by them and the member told this prospective pastor, “Thank you, we won’t be needing you anymore.” Again, how careful every church member needs to be when considering a new pastor.
Maybe some of the believers in Ephesus were survivors, veterans, of those early days and did remember how it used to be. They may have been dismayed or even upset about the direction the church overall had taken, how “this” was not “that”. Definitely the Lord was not pleased at how things had become and He gave that three-part warning, reminding them to remember where they had been before.
Even so, remembering wasn’t going to be enough. The Lord told them to repent. Now, this word, repent, or repentance, may be one of the most misunderstood words in the Bible. Oddly enough, it doesn’t mean to simply be sorry, as in being sorry you were caught doing something. And it doesn’t mean to perform any number of deeds or acts in order to “prove” you were serious about it. No, the word really means “to change your mind”. Suppose I thought something, anything, was right but I found out it really wasn’t. I would need to change my mind about it, and, as a result, change what I was doing.
This was the most significant problem facing Ephesus—these folks had, before, allowed themselves to get so busy in defending against false prophets, false apostles, and similar fakes. This had gone on for a long time and they had changed their minds in a way to fight against this. Now the Lord tells them to change their mind, again; to repent and get their spiritual minds back in the way that pleased the Lord.
Even after this, a change of mind, the Lord wanted these Ephesian believers to re-do the things they had done at first. Note how Jesus doesn’t tell them to begin doing something new, and He doesn’t tell them to stop doing something they’re doing already. No, He simply tells them to re-do the things at first. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong, on the surface, but the problem was the attitudes.
So then, just what did they do “at the first”? Acts 19 has the story, how Paul came, preached, and saw some amazing things happen! But after these initial incidents, and the Letter to the Ephesians by Paul explains this, the pattern was to learn from the Lord and live for the Lord. All they needed was right there in the Scriptures.
All right, we’ve seen what the problem was at Ephesus: they had started off very well but something, maybe a lot of somethings, had taken place and they had left their first love. Is that true of us? Have we left the love we had at first, for the Lord and for each other? The message to us is the same as to the Ephesian believers. We can remember, repent, and re-do, or we can just keep on doing the same thing.
On this New Year's Day, we have plenty to look forward to, including, as of noon today, 364 and a half days, or nearly 8800 hours, or we could say 500,000 minutes, maybe even a smidge over 3 million seconds, should the Lord allow us to live until New Year’s Day 2024. I hope each one of us, including me, will do the right thing, whatever it is our Lord wants us to do.
Happy New Year, everybody! I hope it’s the best one ever for you!
Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV).
