First Love - Revelation 2:1-7
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Good morning Harmony!
I certainly hope you’ve all had a blessed week this week. I know for us we have a new permitted driver in the house, so pray for me as I let him drive us home every week.
Most of you get that, for those that might not - we live right next door in the parsonage, so there’s no car involved.
This past week I was able to go up to Kansas City and hear the 9 marks conference on conversion, and I really didn’t know what to expect, I’ve never been to a 9 marks conference before this, and I really didn’t even know that much about 9 marks. What 9 marks is, I’ve learned, is an organization that is there for Equipping church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources for building healthy churches. It was really an encouragement to be there.
It was a great conference, I took Nick up there with me so he could do some exploring of the seminary campus and so we could get to bond a bit as brothers in Christ, and it was just a really great conference that really ties in some to what we’re going through here in Revelation as we go through these letters to the churches. And so with that im mind let’s pray and get into today’s message.
What is it that happens between the wedding day, that joyous occasion, and the day the divorce papers are signed?
What happens between the day the child is born and the day the child is a “frustrating brat”?
What happens between the day a loved one is diagnosed with a terrible illness and the day that loved one becomes a “burden”?
In each case what we see here is a loss of first love. It’s not an overnight thing - we don’t just wake up one day and say nope, no more love. It’s a gradual, slow change from a love so great that nothing could take away to one where love is a chore - a burden.
And maybe that’s you. Maybe Christianity is just something that you have to do, it’s a chore, and you’re just trudging along, doing your duty.
We’ve just started in the past couple of weeks going through the book of Revelation. And I want to remind us all that the main point of the book of Revelation is not doom and destruction, the main point is to know God in His glorious justice and mercy and live worshipfully by faith.
And so what we are going to hopefully see in our time together today is God doesn’t want you seeing it as a chore, He doesn’t want you just fulfilling a duty, those are not what He has for you.
And today we are looking at Revelation chapter 2, verses 1 through 7, starting off the letters to the seven churches, the letter to Ephesus:
“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:
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.
I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name, and you have not grown weary.
But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first.
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.
Yet you do have this: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
“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.
And so what we are going to see today is that the Greatest commandment matters to God. Matthew 22:36-38 tells us what the greatest commandment is:
“Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”
He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and most important command.
And so we see the main point of the letter to the church at Ephesus is this:
MAIN POINT:
JESUS MERCIFULLY REVEALS HIS GLORY TO US TO SUMMON FORTH THE FIRST LOVE THAT HE REQUIRES.
And hopefully you remember that each of these letters are to all of the churches really and that any church or any one of us really could be who this letter is written to.
And so with all of that in mind, let’s begin to take a look at this letter. The first thing we see is
1. THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS. v. 1
It’s right there in verse 1, He’s holding those seven stars in His right hand -
“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:
And of course we saw those stars in the last verse of chapter 1 -
The mystery of the seven stars you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
And we’re going to see this throughout the letters to these seven churches as we go through them, each one of these letters are identifying back to an attribute of Jesus from chapter 1.
In this case, Jesus is reminding us that He holds all of the authority. Write to the angel, so He’s commanding the angel, thus says the one who holds - Jesus of course is that one.
Now Ephesus is a pretty well documented church in the New Testament. The church there was significant, it had importance to the Apostles. Paul wrote from Ephesus as well as wrote the letter to the Ephesians. Early church tradition actually has John ministering in Ephesus, and the island of Patmos, where John is now at, is only about 60 miles from Ephesus.
So Ephesus is a pretty important place, right? They’ve got it going on when it comes to the business of the church, right? Well let’s take a look at what Jesus says to them in
2. THE ADDRESS TO EPHESUS. v. 2-6
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.
I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name, and you have not grown weary.
I know that you are great workers for the kingdom. I know your labor for the kingdom. You turn away evil people. You can tell the difference between a lie and a truth. You have pressed through hard times and you have not grown tired.
These are good Christian folks. And I mean that, because the book of Revelation is written to Christians, to those that are in a relationship with Jesus. Every one of these letters are written to those that believe and this book is meant to be a blessing remember, not something to be viewed as shameful or bad.
And I say that because the very next verse could be taken out of context very quickly if we forget that - verse 4
But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first.
Jesus is simply calling out the sin of His people.
Now what’s the first thing that usually comes to mind when we read that verse?
Usually it’s something entertainment or material related, right? And sure, it could be one of those things, it could be football or a movie or the car or house, but I don’t think that was what Jesus had in mind here.
Now let’s all be really honest with ourselves here. What have you placed above your love for Jesus? Remember, the greatest commandment,
He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
So what have we placed above that love for Jesus?
Looking at verses 2 and 3, I think Jesus was addressing something that was going on in Ephesus because of their history.
I know your labor and endurance - sometimes we can place our ministry over God.
How does that work, how do I place my ministry or my works over God, isn’t it for God?
Are we doing it for God’s glory or ours? Take a moment here and just think about that for a second - first of all, is it my ministry, or is it God’s?
In the business sector we’re taught to help people take ownership of their part in the company - and so that’s what we do, we take ownership. But the company and the mission of that company don’t change to what I want, and they don’t stay what I want either. The company belongs to the boss, as does all of my work.
And God wants us to take ownership of His ministry, following His mission. We have an ownership piece, but it should always be His ministry, otherwise it becomes my ministry, and those are not the same thing. It’s not my ministry, it’s His ministry that He has entrusted to me, and in order to be effective at that ministry I must remain focused on my first love.
You don’t tolerate evil and you can see through the lies and see the truth - we can know the truth, and we can know how we’re supposed to act, and we can become self-righteous. We want all of the I’s dotted and all of the T’s crossed, and we can become legalistic or rigid, unwilling to follow the Spirit because we have forgotten our first love.
And we can do it all for the sake of Jesus name without keeping Him as our first love. And that can lead to some dangerous things I think.
It can lead to some dangerous theologies and doctrine that points in all sorts of wrong directions. We can become so in love with our ministry or our righteousness or our views that we forget to look to our first love and forget who we are in Christ.
We begin to see a perfect heaven as our goal instead of eternity with Jesus. Now hear me, Heaven is going to be perfect - it just may not be our version of perfect. But our first love should be Jesus, because a perfect heaven without Jesus becomes our version of Heaven rather than what Heaven will be. We’re looking forward to an eternity with Jesus, not an eternity that revolves around my wishes.
Verse 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.
Remember - verse 5 is a call to remember what it was like when you first met Jesus and the love that was there, how you desired to learn from Him and be led by Him. Go back to the basics.
Discipleship is an ongoing process, it doesn’t end just because you’ve gotten older or wiser, because often times wisdom can be that thing that we place above Jesus on the love scale. Thinking we have Biblical wisdom I think really leads to that position of self-righteousness because it leads to us thinking we have somehow arrived at spiritual maturity - remember those things you did at first and open your heart to your First Love again.
When you’re dating and you fall in love, you do all kinds of things to please the other person, right? You’d get up early, or stay up late, or study together -
Kristin and I we would talk on the phone for hours when we weren’t able to be together, and we were inseparable when we were together. And I’d love to tell you that it stayed that way throughout our marriage, but as many of us know, that is rarely how marriages work.
We’ve had period where one or both of us have placed something different as first place in our marriage and someone or something snagged our attention and reminded us of what our love for each other actually means in our marriage.
Jesus is saying remember and come back to doing those things that are important to our relationship. Come back and get recharged by the love I have for you.
And when we love someone, we do things for them - not things we want, things they want.
I’m not going to go out and buy my wife a new table saw because I want to use it. That’s both the wrong item and the wrong motive. I’m not even going to go buy my wife a new craft thing or help out with something she wants or needs because it will benefit me in some way. That’s possibly right thing, but still the wrong motive.
If I’m going to do something for my wife that shows her my love for her, it’s something she wants or needs because it’s something she wants or needs.
So what Jesus is saying here is remember what you used to do, and do that. Remember what Jesus did for you -
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
He came to serve, and He served in a way that should lead us back to Him every time. When we remember to love God with all of our heart and all of our mind and all of our mind we become more focused on His love for us, and that drives us to serve others in His love rather than in our own ways, because when we do that our service is to Him through them.
Matthew 23:11
The greatest among you will be your servant.
We follow Jesus’ example when we are aligned with Him and are focused on loving Him.
Then instead of being the most righteous, which we’re not, we become focused on out serving one another.
Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take the lead in honoring one another.
My ministry can never become our ministry and it will not become His ministry. My ministry is self-natured. Our ministry will be self-natured, and that can never be His ministry - it doesn’t work that way, we’re out of alignment. We need to be seeking to do His ministry, that becomes our ministry, and there really isn’t much room for my ministry anymore.
Think of it like when you’re trying to focus a camera on something. What we want to focus on becomes clear - and we need to be focused on Jesus. If He’s not clear in the picture, then we are focused on the wrong thing.
I will remove your lampstand from it’s place unless you repent - if you won’t focus on Me, Jesus says, then you will fail to be the church. He’s not saying we’ll lose our salvation, but rather that we will stop being the church - we won’t be reaching anyone, we won’t be serving anyone, we’ll just die off as a church, because we’ve lost focus.
Repent! Not because I’m going to destroy you, but because serving yourself or serving God in your own way doesn’t work and it leads to the wrong view of Jesus and the wrong view of Eternity with Jesus.
Verse 6 changes the tone again -
Yet you do have this: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
Now we really don’t know much about the Nicolaitans, and they’re only mentioned once more and that’s in verse 15:
In the same way, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.
Now verse 14 talks about food sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality, and perhaps this is what Jesus is alluding to here, but the real thing to see here in verse 6 is that the church at Ephesus hates what Jesus hates - and that is still important even with the forgot their first love part of the letter.
Jesus should be in our focus, and we should hate what Jesus hates. Jesus hates sin. Notice it doesn’t say Jesus hates the Nicolaitans, it says he hates the works or the practices of the Nicolaitans.
All of this comes down to when we really look at the church of Ephesus as described here in these verses, they’re doing 9 things right. They’re doing good works, they’re laboring for the kingdom, they’re enduring, they’re calling out sin, they’re testing themselves, they’re able to spot liars, they’re doing it all for His name’s sake and they’re not growing weary. They’ve just lost focus. They’re doing one thing wrong, and that one thing means that they aren’t doing any of it effectively, so their ministry isn’t growing.
And that leads us to
3. THE APPEAL TO LISTEN. v. 7
Jesus tells us all of these things, and then He says to listen. Verse 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.
First we see some familiarity in the way we are told to listen - let anyone who has ears listen. We see this throughout the Gospels when Jesus is speaking - Matthew 11:15
Let anyone who has ears listen.
Mark 4:9
Then he said, “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.”
Luke 8:8
Still other seed fell on good ground; when it grew up, it produced fruit: a hundred times what was sown.” As he said this, he called out, “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.”
It’s a trend that is continued here - If you can understand these words, listen to them or obey them.
Hear the words of the Spirit - the Holy Spirit - and then notice that it says to the churches. Listen to what the Spirit is telling the churches.
So not only is this a letter to the Ephesian church, not only is it a letter to the church that is like the Ephesian church today, not only is it to the believer that acts like those in the Ephesian church here, but this letter is to all of the churches. It’s a letter that is meant to encourage the other churches or the other believers to keep their focus on their love for Jesus.
Verse 7 concludes with a promise. To the one who conquers, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
Those of us who conquer, those of us in that relationship with Jesus, will be able to eat from the tree of life.
This isn’t a “do this or you’re not saved” thing - that’s not what this is saying. This is a those who are in a relationship with Jesus will conquer thing - look at Revelation 5:5 -
Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. Look, the Lion from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered so that he is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”
Jesus does the conquering, we are with Jesus in relationship status. Jesus conquers by being faithful to what He is called to do by the Father, and He was faithful unto death. His faithfulness allows us to conquer in the same way - Revelation 12:11 -
They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; for they did not love their lives to the point of death.
If we are in a relationship, we want to be faithful to that relationship. If we are in a relationship with Jesus, we desire to be faithful to that relationship. And it’s by the power of the blood that we can do that. It’s by Jesus’ power that we are able to conquer.
JESUS MERCIFULLY REVEALS HIS GLORY TO US TO SUMMON FORTH THE FIRST LOVE THAT HE REQUIRES.
So if you look at your frustrating spouse and see them as you did on the wedding day, you will remember the love you had for them at first. If you can look at your spoiled brats and see the newborn, you’ll remember the love you had for them at first. If you can look at your ill or afflicted loved one and see the one you loved, you’ll remember the love you had for them at first. If you look around and see the burden of working with those Christ suffered and died for, then look to Christ, and remember the first love you had with Him, put Him first, and do His ministry..
Look at Jesus, the one who died in your place, showing you steadfast mercy and everlasting loving-kindness. Remember the way you felt when you first loved the one who first loved us. Remember, repent, and do what you did at first.
John Newton, who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace, wrote this poem:
In evil long I took delight,
Unawed by shame or fear,
Till a new object struck my sight,
And stopped my wild career.
I saw One hanging on a tree,
In agony and blood,
Who fixed his languid eyes on me,
As near His cross I stood.
Sure, never to my latest breath,
Can I forget that look;
It seemed to change me with His death,
Though not a word He spoke.
My conscience felt and owned the guilt,
And plunged me in despair,
I was my sins His blood had spilt,
And helped to nail Him there.
A second look He gave, which said,
I freely all forgave;
This blood is for thy ransom paid;
I die that thou mayst live.
Thus while His death my sin displays
In all its blackest hue,
Such is the mystery of grace,
It seals my pardon too.
Prayer
As the music begins to play softly I’m going to ask you to stand, and today’s song is I surrender all, and here’s what I’m going to ask you to do - if you are feeling that weight of doing all of the right things or of this Christian life being a chore or a burden, reclaim the love you have for Jesus. Come up here, do it there, whatever and wherever God is calling you to, and just surrender whatever it is that has gotten in you way of remembering Jesus as your first love. Surrender it all at the feet of Jesus.