Ephesus: Rekindling Your First Love
7 Church’s In Revelation Series
CCCAG 8-4-24
-Scripture- Rev 2:1-7
Overview-
We just completed a series that discussed the 7 blessings found in the book of Revelation.
Now we are going to stay in Revelation for the next several weeks and look at the 7 Churches mentioned by Jesus at the beginning of this book.
Let me give some background and show you where these 7 churches were located in the ancient world.
Location of 7 church’s
? Slide 1- overview of where they existed
? Slide 2- Zoom in to modern Turkey
? - created a natural trade route. Ships could land in Smyrna or Ephesus, and traders would make an approx. 700 mile circle to the other cities in this picture, and leave from the other port and vice versa. Just for some perspective- Imagine if you created a circle route around the borders of Wisconsin from Eau Claire to the Illinois border, and between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi and that is the land area we are talking about.
So that’s the location of these church’s.
Now….how should we interpret this part of scripture?
Over the last 2000 years, commentators and theologians have assigned quite a few interpretations and written a lot of opinions about these churches. There are three major opinions that explain what these church’s mean to us today in 2024:
The first one is that
1. They are representations of ages- time periods in which the church worldwide has gone through and is going through right now. It’s sometimes cross-referenced with Romans 1:18-32 or 2 Tim 3 which
describes how cultures/nations and people will go through a moral and spiritual slide away from God and into destruction.
In this view, these churches in Revelation 2 & 3 represent various periods in church history that will occur spanning the time from Acts chapter 2 until the rapture. In fact, many today say we are either in the age of the church of Philadelphia or Laodicea.
I’m maybe 20% in this camp….I think it has some bearing, but most of how I believe these should be seen is in the next point.
2. These represent church’s in the first century that the Apostle John was pastoring and giving apostolic oversight to. They are included in Revelation to show the church the different problems and pitfalls that church’s will face in history, and are meant to serve as both a warning and an encouragement to future generations of Christians.
That’s pretty much my view of them.
The 3rd major interpretation of Chapter 2-3 in Revelation is
3. These refer only to the church’s mentioned, and has nothing to do with today. I reject that-
I don’t see The Holy Spirit would not have moved John to include this narrative in this book so that we in 2024 if it’s truths were not timeless to all Christians.
Revelation as a book is too important to us as Christians to waste time on a dead history lesson at it’s beginning.
In fact, Revelation is unique in the bible is that it has a warning written in it’s last chapter that says don’t deviate, add, or subtract from the words of the prophecy of this book. No other book in the bible says this about itself.
Not Genesis
Not the Gospels
Not Paul’s letters
Not even the OT prophets
Only Revelation has this warning. Every word of it is meant to bring us instruction, counsel, warning, and blessing.
That’s why we are going through both of these series.
Barring any major occurrence, The next 7 Sundays that I’m speaking will be spent here.
So let’s start off with the first church mentioned- Ephesus.
As you saw on the map, Ephesus was one of the cities that Paul visited during his 2nd Missionary Journey. He founded a church there, pastored it, and gave apostolic oversight to it, even writing a letter to it helping to give it foundation and address some of the issues there.
That letter of course is the book of Ephesians.
Ephesus was one of the busiest commercial cities in the world of it’s time. It was the location of one of the seven wonders of the world- the Temple of Artemis known for its incredible size, beauty, and sculptures representing the Greek pantheon of gods. Artemis, was the Greek god of the hunt, who was synonymous with Diana in the Roman pantheon,
Ephesus was a very rich city, and even by our standards today a very liberal one in its social circles. Many of the moral problems that are coming into existence in our culture today existed then.
Yes, they were actually worse than what we are today. That’s why when so many people say how modern and how enlightened we’ve become because we allow so much liberty to people to express “who they really are”- these people are deluded, have no knowledge of history, and refuse to accept truth.
Humanity has had dozens of examples of this so called liberty of expression that some call being woke, and it’s killed every single nation and culture that it’s infected-
Every. Single. Time.
None of this is new. It’s old demons rebranding themselves.
Ephesus did have one more thing that we as a nation are kind of flirting with. In Ephesus, their political leadership, the Roman Emperor, was worshiped as a gods.
All of the upper class social circles were involved in political leader worship.
So if you were not at least participating in that cult, you were an outsider.
Does that sound a little familiar with how the nation is treating these last few major elections?
In addition to the worship of the Roman emperor and the Temple to the Artemis, but the city was also filled with dozens of temples to the other gods worshipped at that time.
That’s all background to show you the city that this church lived in.
The Ephesian church had a lot of challenges to face, and Jesus has a message for them that also rings true to us living in the world as it is today.
Let’s read it-
Scripture-
Rev 2:1-7 CSB “Write to the angel of the church in Ephesus: Thus says the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand and who walks among the seven golden lampstands:
(2) I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars. (3) I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name, and you have not grown weary. (4) But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. (5) Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. (6) Yet you do have this: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. (7) “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
Prayer
As I mentioned a few moments ago, these letter to these church’s apply just as much to us today as they did the first century churches.
The lessons these church’s can teach us will affect us both at a corporate level as a church, and as individuals within this church.
But it’s not all bad-Jesus starts off with quite a few praises
They had good works
1. The labored hard for the Kingdom
2. They were enduring in their faith in a culture that was very difficult to maintain any level of Christian spirituality. (sounds like today!)
3. Would not tolerate evil people
4. Hated the sexual perversion of the Nicolaitans
5. Persevering and enduring hardship for HIS name.
When I stand before Jesus, if HE reads this off as the summary of my life, I’d be very joyful. If the author of perfection is saying this about me, I’m thinking I’m standing very good in the judgment.
But then Jesus says something that shatters this list of accomplishments-
“I have this against you, you have forgotten your first love”
Talking about popping your balloon.
Verses like this really trip people up. The people that get tripped up are the really religious people.
It’s because people love religion. Religion just focuses on the external actions of a person. Do this, not that, perform this ritual, pray this prayer, give this much. It creates a spiritual sounding checklist to accomplish but does not thing to change who you those people are on the inside.
Whether they know it or not, these are modern day Pharisees- the religious leaders that looked so holy on the outside, but then conspired against Jesus to help in HIS murder.
That’s not what God wants. HE wants relationship with you.
Relationship is really hard
Especially today with this click based, performance for reward only, superficial lie that many have bought into as the definition of healthy relationships.
It’s infected even many in the church- if we can work for the Kingdom and maybe feel good about ourselves, we feel fulfilled and HAVE to be in God’s good graces.
That’s how the Ephesians were living their Christian lives- doing the work of the Savior but forgetting HIM in the Work.
That’s what Jesus is addressing here to the Ephesian church, and to us this morning.
God gave me some insight on this several years ago
Let me put Jesus’ rebuke to them in another way.
At some point, everyone here has been at least in one romantic relationship. At the beginning of that relationship
? You can’t get enough of the other person
? You want to spend all of your time with them
? They are all you can think about
? You plan everything around their schedule
? They have your heart, your mind, and your soul.
Then you get married, have the honey moon time, and as time and life passes, that flame that burned really really hot begins to dwindle.
Education and Careers take up a lot of time, emotional energy,
Kids come, your thoughts are with them and their futures and everything that goes into raising and training children. Bills, responsibilities, and just life happens and you’ll find your passion for each other sucked away.
5 years, 7 years, 10 years down the line and suddenly this couple who was on fire for each other are now room mates.
Statistics show that most are only having marital intimacy a few times a month…or even year.
If that couple does not make any effort toward that marriage relationship, those times of intimacy even disappear.
Church- what does the bible compare the church’s relationship with Jesus to?
Marriage.
We are the bride of Christ.
Jesus did not call us to an occasionally romantic relationship. Jesus did not call us to be his mistress or friend with benefits. Jesus doesn’t want a friendly room mate.
Jesus called us to be HIS bride.
He loves us with such passion that He suffered and died to give us an abundant life. The bible says that HE is the lover of our soul, and He calls us into a passionate relationship with HIMSELF.
That’s the passion that Jesus is referring to when He tells the Ephesians that they have lost that first love.
The Ephesians are still going through the motions. From the outside, the church of Ephesus was a model church-
If they had a “Christianity Today” in the first century- the Ephesian church would be on the cover. The pastor would be a celebrity writing best selling books. They’d be renting a stadium to hold their church services. They’d look like the pinnacle of Christian success.
But- it was dying inside. They did ministry for the sake of doing ministry, and not out of a love for Jesus.
And that’s the lesson today- guard our passion for Jesus Christ.
How do we do that?
We return to our first love. We deliberately set our hearts to pursue Jesus.
I. Time
In order to have a meaningful and blessed marriage relationship, you need to carve out time for you and the person you love. You need to be deliberate and disciplined with it understanding that laziness is the thief of true happiness and joy.
The same is true of our relationship with Jesus.
The bible has a great illustration of this-
If you remember the Gospel account of Mary and Martha- the sisters of Lazarus that held a dinner party for Jesus and the disciples.
Martha is running around making preparations, directing servants, making sure everything is perfect for the party. She’s tired, she’s sweaty, and she is serving with all of her strength, while Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus, soaking in HIS presence, and listening to HIM speak.
As Martha is serving, she is getting angrier and angrier watching Mary not helping, not contributing, and in her eyes, just getting out of doing the work that was expected of her as the co hostess of this gathering.
Finally, that boils over, and Martha interrupts Jesus and calls him out for allowing Mary to get out of doing what had to be done in order for dinner to be served.
Now, Martha is not very politically correct.
Imagine- a woman yelling that another woman needs to get in the kitchen and serve the men.
But notices how Jesus responds to Martha-
Luk 10:41-42 The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, (42) but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Jesus is emphatically telling Martha that it is better to sit at HIS feet and hear his voice than it is to do HIS work without HIM being the center of it.
Time alone with Jesus is more important to HIM because the more time you spend with HIM, the more you will be like HIM in your Spirit and in your thoughts.
THEN the work you do will reflect HIM, and not just a checkmark on a to do list so you feel busy for HIM.
The second point we see from his rebuke to the Ephesians church is
II. The work that is done for Christ is to be for Christ and not us.
It’s a subtle trap that many fall into today- churches offering all kinds of ministry that has nothing to do with developing or strengthening our relationship with Jesus.
I did a quick internet search of some of the largest churches in America. I’m not going to identify them, but these “ministries” were seen on their websites.
Yoga for health
Book club
Pickleball
Theology on tap- drink beer and discuss the bible
Can we just be honest for a moment?
These are meant to draw a crowd for the sake of a crowd.
Things like this, or at least their first century versions, are what the Ephesian church was known for.
I don’t know about you, but for anything church related, I want it to count in eternity. Not just for a selfish motive so I’ll be rewarded here on earth.
Otherwise it won’t have eternal significance for others.
This is the trap the Ephesian church fell into- being busy for Christ, but forgetting Christ in it’s busy-ness
Let’s not be like them- let’s put Christ first in everything, so that everything that comes out of us rings into eternity.
Altar call/prayer Reject religion, having hearts for Christ
