The church at Ephesus: the loveless church

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Introduction

This past week I had the chance to interview Toby Dix, a pastor at TCC for one of my classes. if you know Toby, you know we had a good time. he told me alot about himself, where hes served, and as he did, he asked me about myself, if Id grown up in church. i told him i was a PK, and i told him where i grew up going to church, and then where i went from there, all the way to how i got plugged in with TCBR. and as i thought about it later that day, I kindof got to take a stroll down memory lane and think about all the different churches i’ve called home throughout my life. all of these churches were pretty different. they did various things well, and not so well in some areas. but man am i thankful for the chance to have gone to and grown in all of them. I learned different things from different churches, depending on what they were good at bad at. and i think thats what we have going on here in chapters 2 and 3. over the next seven weeks, were going to look at 7 very different churches. they were all called to do the same thing. persevere and endure in the world, faithfully do the work of ministry, remain pure from sin, worship Jesus and bear witness about him. they each do this with varying degrees of success or failure, and as a result, there is much that we can learn from them.

Big Idea: Jesus intimately loves his church and is calling his church to do the same. Obeying Jesus brings great reward while failing to heed his command will lead to dire consequences.

Context: 1 minute recap:

The christians in these communities were isolated from the world in a vast sea of cultural opposition and temptation. they would either experience persecution from the culture (battered by the waves) or the temptation to be like the culture (drink the poison of the water). however, God reveals that christ is with them, he knows their struggle, and admonishes them to endure until the end, where if they are faithful, they will inherit eternal life. with this in mind, lets read our text this morning.
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READ Passage

2 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

2 “ ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

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One of the tendencies we have when we read Revelation is to get lost in all of the symbols in a quest for what they mean. Its really easy to do, and that is true for the very first verse of our passage today. I was actually talking to a friend of mine this week about preaching this text, and he asked me “what do you think the lampstands represent? I’ve always connected them with God’s word because of the psalms and how the scripture is a light to our path.” so i responded to him, well thats an interesting idea, but I think Jesus actually interprets it for us in the chapter before, actually in the verse before.
quick rule of thumb: if youre studying the bible and you dont know what something means, see if anything in that section explains it. if you cant find anything around that section, look through the entire book and see how the author has talked about it in other places. and if you can’t find anything about it in the book, check the author’s other books. then see what the rest of the bible says about it. and if Jesus says, hey, this is what this means, always go with that. which is what he does in vs 20 of chapter one.
so according to Jesus, the stars in his hand are angels and the lampstands he is walking in are the churches. ok great, what does that tell us? two things.
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1. Christ is with his church, and he intimately cares for it (vs 1)

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

first, lets talk about the lampstands. in the previous chapter, we saw that Christ was simply in the midst of the lampstands. now he tells us that he walks among them. he is present with them. This means that Christ is with these seven churches in a special way. I’m reminded by the great commission Christ gives to the disciples in matthew 28. his very last statement is “behold, i am with you always, even to the end of the age. no matter what these churches were facing, and remember, they were facing some pretty tough stuff, Jesus was with them. and the same is true for our church today.
now lets get to the angels. who/ what are the angels to these churches? well, thats a great question. also, what does it mean that their in Jesus’ right hand? another great question.
i believe these are real angels, not like some people who would say that these are the human messengers that would carry John’s letter around to the churches and read it for them. the reason they say that is because thats what the word angel means, a messenger. but it also connotes a heavy spiritual understanding, and i think thats what Jesus is alluding to here. because of this. not only were these churches facing opposition from the world and the temptation to give into the culture, we find out in a couple of weeks that Satan is the one behind these attacks. its a spiritual war going on. But Jesus has us covered. hes sent spiritual powers to protect us. now dont go looking for angels under tables and in closets. just know, there is a spiritual reality going on, and we must be mindful of it. why has Jesus done this? because in this spiritual battle they’re in, they were outgunned. however, Jesus cares for his church, and has a whole host of spiritual beings, so he dispatches them to these churches to watch over them. so thats what i think is going on with the angel language. but what about the holding in his right hand phrase? well look at Isaiah 41:10 with me.

fear not, for I am with you;

be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand

Jesus is demonstrating his care and concern for us with this language just as God did back in the Old Testament. because of his love for us, he has us covered on the spiritual side of things with these angels that are under his power and dominion. therefore regardless of our circumstances, we do not need to fear. Christ is with us, he cares for us, and he is working to save us.
however, Christ’s message to this church and to every other church is more detailed than that. he has called us to live a certain way. lets turn back to our text and see what that is. ephesus was doing a really good job of that in some areas, a not so good job in another in particular. so first.
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2. Christ calls his church to purity, endurance, and faithful work in kingdom (vs 2-3, 6)

I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.

6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

Ephesus context: its a port city, so if someone was coming to this region of asia minor from Rome, they would land here, some argue thats why its first. Its the largest city to receive a letter to a church. estimates of about 200,000 people. its a really really religious place. theres a temple to the worship of the emperor there. but more than that, theres the temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the world. people came from all over to worship here. and so a lot of this persecution wasnt about religion, it was about business. we see that in Acts 19 with the riot of the silversmiths. we also see that the city had many in it that practiced magic arts, people who dabbled in the occult. also in acts 19, after Paul has the showdown with the sons of Sceva, many people come to faith and bring all their magic books, and burn them, and the amount of money worth of books they burn is like 50 thousand pieces of silver. so this city is dark, multi religions going on, very hostile to the gospel and to christians.
in spite of this, The church at Ephesus was doing some really good things. the fact that Jesus commends them in so many areas should not be lost on us. some of the other churches to receive Jesus’ scrutiny are not so lucky in the next few verses. we’re not going to spend a ton of time talking about what these churches do well because we’re going to see all of this come back up with other churches and how some of them did not do these things so well, where as Ephesus’ failing is pretty unique to them. so what was Ephesus doing well?
their works. what was that you ask? it doesnt say, but probably some of the things listed in Acts 2:42-46
devotion to teaching (we know this happens, because they’re examining the teaching of false teachers in the next section), praying, fellowship, breaking bread together, giving, ect. they were probably doing some of the stuff that Paul prescribes in Ephesians 4-6 as well. teaching and equipping, discipleship, leading families and households well. It seems like they’re crushing this stuff. and this isnt easy to do. most churches aren’t doing this, but this church is, even though its hard. Jesus calls it a toilsome labor.
This church also had some endurance: when the heat turned up and the members of the church were accused of identifying with Christ over Caesar, their allegiance never shifted. they patiently endured the hatred and persecution for the sake of the name of christ. remember where they are. one of the seven wonders of the world, the temple of Artemis, stands in this city. the temple devoted to worshipping the emperor was also a pretty big deal here. so Artemis and Caesar worship was everywhere. Donny Mathis did an excellent job this past Wednesday at our one off on Revelation describing the way the pressure was often felt by these early church christians. their jobs and trades and livelihoods were connected to larger groups called guilds, and this was almost like getting a business license for a certain skill in today’s time. to do any business, you had to belong to this guild. but the guild met in these pagan temples, they worshipped one of these false gods as their patron god or goddess. so these christians had to make a choice. give into this pressure so they could make a living, or refuse to acknowledge anyone else as Lord, only Christ. to separate themselves from the guild was to break away from society at large. it was career suicide in many places, yet these christians in Ephesus faithfully did so. they endured suffering for the sake of the name and Jesus commended them for it.
finally, purity of doctrine: this church called out false doctrines and teachings, even challenging the false teachings of certain leaders and naming them for liars. an example of this can be seen in verse 6.
Nicolaitans: group that believed in false doctrines. what did this group believe that was so bad? we dont know. but it was most likely a syncretization of christianity with the surrounding culture. they’re mentioned again in the section to Pergamum, and it seems their group is associated with another group that was encouraging some pagan practices among the believers in the church and made the church impure. the church at Ephesus stomped this out in their congregations.
two things i want to note here. in a healthy church, this should be happening every week in little moments. heres what i mean. when i was at forestville, daniel said this statement alot, he sounded like a broken record but it was true and looking back, Im glad he drove it into my head. he said, everyone has a view of God and their view is most likely incomplete or insufficient, or makes some wrong assumptions about who god is. thats why we read the bible, to correct our wrong view about God and align it with the only completely true view of who God is. This should be happening every week, every day even, as the members of our church strive to know God better. thats how we protect the purity of the church. we seek after the one pure source of truth.
the second thing i want to bring out is that we do this together. yes on sunday mornings like this, but also in your homes. husbands with your wives and vice versa. parents, with your children. with your cell group partner, with your missional community. i thought about all the different cell group partners I’ve had over the past 2 and half years, and its a list. ethan, richard, mike webster, randall, david russo, strib, hayden, trey, nic. I cant think back to a time where after i met with these different guys, i thought, well that was a dumb waste of time. every time was profitable. sometimes i poured into them, sometimes they poured into me, but i always grew. so if youre not in a cell group, get in one. its where discipleship happens.
so, Ephesus was doing all of this stuff well. lets look at the one thing they did not do well, and what the consequence would be if they did not change it.
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4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

Jesus critiques them for abandoning the love they had at first. but what does this mean? can i be honest with you? I’m really not a hundred percent sure. and anyone else who tells you they are sure, isnt really. There’s two main interpretations

Two views: 1. they lack a love for God or 2. they lack a love for people (in the church and outside of the church)

so let me do this for you. let me help you imagine how i think the church at Ephesus would look like today. they seem like they’d be a church thats really busy, really works hard, and looks good on the outside. they probably have a big budget, lots of ministries and events, and there sermons on sunday morning, wow, they drop the hammer. whats more, they’re faithful, the cultural pressure is turning up and they’re still here. they look like they’re crushing it.
and then this is where the two views come in. one says that the church is doing all of this, but they’re passionless towards God. its just this rote sense of “we’ve always done this” this is expected, kind of mentality. this view is what i call a worship issue. and this is how I grew understanding this church’s issue.
The other view says that the love they lacked was a love for people. that they did all this stuff, but there was bitterness and strife, gossip in the congregation. or that they were so inward focused that they forgot all about their mission, they were not motivated with compassion for love for the dying world and culture all around them, so they failed to go share the message. i’d identify this as a witness issue. this was what i was leaning towards as I started studying this passage. and I was excited because this was gonna preach . we’re one week out from our big evangelism push and honestly we dont have a ton of people signed up for the day of prayer or training, so i was going to beat the witness drum hard. and i still am, but not quite the same way.
as I studied, i kept trying to pick an interpretation, to pick a side. and I couldn’t. early in the week, Robert and I were talking and I told him, i cant pick a side, i think its both. and he said, what did Jesus say about it. and i thought huh, Jesus said it was both too. Daniel read that passage for us this morning in Matt 22:34-40

37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

the lawyer is trying to trap Jesus and Jesus doesnt let him. Jesus answers loving God, thats the most important, and before the lawyer can get a word in, Jesus keeps going and says, neighbor too. Love has both in view. a vertical orientation towards God, and a horizontal orientation towards others. which leads me to point three.

3. The church must be characterized by a love for God AND neighbor (vs 4)

now i dont know how this manifested itself within the church at Ephesus, and thats what these theologians are debating in their commentaries. in practice, did this church fail to have a proper passion for God that they once did? or did this church fight amongst itself and lack unity. or did this church fail to take the gospel message to the world because of a lack of compassion and love? I dont know. If you made me pick, I’d say its probably one of the last two, because thats what i see happening in a lot of churches today. they’re fighting, or they’re not sharing the gospel. but this idea of love, or lack of it, all goes together. its two sides of the same coin if you will. John’s message in first john 2 helps us here.

3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

a church will not be unified nor will it be evangelistic if its not grounded in a deep and passionate love for God. and the inverse is true, a church that is grounded in a deep and passionate love for God, can’t help but be unified and evangelistic. if the majority of the members at TCBR are passionately pursuing Jesus, then we’re going to get along. we’re going to share the gospel with others. and if we’re not getting along, and not sharing with others, it should quickly tell us where our hearts are towards God.
Three points of application on love:
Family meal: whats the purpose? come, eat food, talk about God, bible study, discussion, prayer, all that, right? well, sort of. come, eat food, have a good time, absolutely. but we want you to come spiritually full, not empty. not with lots of questions, but lots of statements about who God has shown himself to be through your study of the passage this week. wrestle through the hard stuff at cell group, but dont get bogged down in conversations about the Trinity. instead, come and express how much God has shown you this week.
evangelism. we dont have a ton of people signed up our day of prayer or for our saturday evangelism training. and we just talked about how we must love the lost and show that by taking the gospel to them. sign up. im am excited to watch what God is going to do in our community as we go and engage it regularly with the gospel. i hear yall, even right now, saying in your head. i dont know how. im going to show, train you, give you some really simple tools. but i cant talk to people, im going to show you how to do, ill hold your hand, walk you through it. we’ll practice. you can do it.
a final application that is specific to TCBR today is how we show our love for one another. as many of you already know, Levi Van Cleef and his family got some really hard new this week. many of you have met Levi, hes a four year old inquisitive, polite, little boy. this week, after some tests, he was diagnosed with Leukemia. And I’ve already been really encouraged as I’ve watched our missional community come around this family and be the church and show them love. but this is going to be a really difficult and long road for this family and our church has a lot of love left to show them. toward the end of our service pastor robert is going to come and lead us while we spend some time in prayer for levi and his family but I’m going to challenge you in the next weeks, months, and even years, shower this family with the love of Christ.
so I believe that is the meaning of the critique. so now lets look at Christ’s invitation and warning.

4. Because of Christ’s care for his church, he freely offers grace. Yet the churches who refuse to repent and love will cease to exist.

to the Ephesian church, and to every church who is struggling to love well, Christ offers this invitation. return to love. first John helps us again, this time in chapter 4

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

John lays out a three step process to get back to living out this love they once had.
-step one: remember. Remember all the love that God has shown to you. his mercy his grace. remember how you once reciprocated that, reflected it like a mirror, in gratitude back towards God and then then i grace towards others.
-Step two: Repent: be sorrowful over your sin. not loving God, or one other, or the world is a serious offense. God’s word makes that clear. the christian is to be characterized by love. for God, for one another, for our enemies, for the lost, for the church. if a christian has failed to do any of these things, sin has taken place and this should grieve us. bring it before the Father, and turn away from it.
-Step 3: start loving again. if you have successfully done the first two steps, there is nothing stoping you from entering back into the practice of loving God and neighbor. You’ve remembered God’s grace to you, his love, the sacrifice that Christ has made. he’s pardoned you of your sin, theres no obstacle there anymore. so start living it. its that simple. its not easy. but it is simply. just do it.
and church, there is always someone that we are not loving as well as we could. in your cell group this week, or your family meal tonight, i want you to think about it and talk with someone about that. in-laws, democrats, a certain student, co worker or neighbor. so think through that, pray through it, confess it, and then love them enough to share the gospel with them.
so what about the warning. well, if the church fails to do this, Jesus says he will come to them (not in a good way) and remove their lampstand. what does that mean? i feel like we’ve been asking that all morning. really quick, heres what i think it means. we already discussed that the lampstand represents the church. quite simply, to remove their lampstand from them, i think means that they will cease to be a church. 5, 10, 15 years down the road, if the church at Ephesus did not learn to love again, they would no longer be there. they would fold up and die.
and heres the sobering reality TCBR. I believe that promise, made to the church at ephesus, remains true for every church today. I see this happening around us in this area all the time, you do too if your honest. and we blame different things, couldnt make budget, theological issue, the pastor was crazy, didnt change, too traditional, but i think deep down, the issue at the root of it is a failure to love and repent from it. I think that TCBR is different, I wouldnt be here if i did, or I would preaching a much harsher message, but be wary. this is easy to fall into. if this church does not love God, each other, and the lost, we are simply wasting our time.
This is heavy stuff, but its necessary. heres the good news though. Christ extends a really good invitation in this last verse, which he extends to all of the churches.

5. Those who heed God’s warning and remain faithful will obtain eternal life in his presence (7)

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

so first off, i think its worth pointing out that Jesus extends this invite to every church, no matter how good or bad they are. he says it seven times. that makes it important. you see something seven times in revelation, just trust me, its important. so Jesus invites all these churches to do something. what?
conquer. i dont know about you but i hear that word and i think braveheart right. the big claymore, sword and shield, big armies. these churches, they hear that word, and they didnt think braveheart. i promise you that they all thought one thing, immediately. Rome. the empire that had had their boot on the throat of the entire know world for the past 250, 300 years. Rome conquers. not little bitty churches. the bible, and revelation specifically speaks of conquering a different way.
Revelation speaks of conquering as a lamb sitting on a throne with his throat slit. it speaks of two witnesses who testify and are brutally killed by the evil world powers of the earth. and then it says this in chapter 12.

9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death

see the way that we conquer through the biblical understanding is by trusting in the blood of Jesus and by remaining faithful to this message. by proclaiming it no matter what comes. when we do this, nothing can conquer us. in fact we become the ones who conquer. look at what Paul says in Romans 8:35-37

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us

and what do we get if we conquer? if we remain faithful?
the right to eat of the tree of life, which is the presence of God.
tree of life, wheres that from? Genesis 2. it was in the garden, and Adam and Eve could eat of it, until they sinned and were exiled. this is is the ideal we’ve been trying to get back to, for all of human history. This is where God has been moving us towards. We’re going back to the garden. why was the garden of Eden so good? because its where God dwelt. we are moving back to an intimate, life giving, fellowship with God that will never be marred by sin again. As i invite the band back up, listen to how the last chapter of the bible begins

Then he showed me the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the city’s main street. The tree of life was on each side of the river, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations, 3 and there will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 Night will be no more; people will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Thats where were going church. thats our future. if we can simply hold fast, remain faithful, and love the way in christ has loved us.
lets pray.
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