This week we are looking to the first of Jesus’ seven addresses to 7 churches in Asia Minor, given as part of his Revelation to the apostle John.
In our last series – we saw the birth of the NC Church – and sort of the blueprint of what the church is supposed to be and to do;
and here in Revelation – we see Jesus visiting his Church – evaluating, inspecting, encouraging, commending, rebuking – to see in which ways it has lived up to that calling and which ways it has fallen short –
and if they so soon after the establishment of the church needed inspection, evaluation, and course-correction; then how much more do we, now?
And, above all, we ought to care about what Jesus thinks of the Church – because it’s his Church.
And above all else we ought to care about what Jesus thinks of the church; more than what we think of the church, more than what churches think about other churches, more than what the world thinks of the church;
above all, we ought to care about and listen to what Jesus says to the church and seek to conform our church not to the standards of anyone else, but to the standard of Jesus.
And my goal in us looking at this section of scripture is two-fold:
- that we would grow in our belief and awareness that Jesus is among us.
v1 – these are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lamp stands –
Jesus is pictured here as walking in the midst of His church.
v2 – “I know your deeds…”
Jesus knows the state and situation of his church because even though he’s visiting his church in a special way here that doesn’t mean that he’s absent and uninvolved and unaware the rest of the time.
And when we gather as the church – we are not gathering like any other organization or group or meeting on the planet – we are gathering as the church of Jesus Christ, meeting with and having an encounter with the true and living God who is present in our midst.
We live like kids act when there’s a substitute, or a babysitter; like Jesus is absent and as if he’s not going to know what really happened while he was gone; how much different would the church be, would our lives be, if we lived as though Jesus was really among us.
Jesus is here; he knows what goes on here; he we answer to him because he has ultimately authority to speak to the church because
it is His church; the church is born & bought by his precious blood, it belongs to Jesus, it answers to Jesus;
and so if anyone has the right to confront, and demand, and judge the Church it’s the one who the Church belongs to;
- that we would grow in our belief and awareness that Jesus is in our midst.
- that we would strive and strain our ears to hear his voice and obey it.
And when Jesus visits those churches then, what we find then is what we find in the church through all of history:
an imperfect, struggling church; embattled & hard-pressed, facing pressure from the world around it and from within its own walls, inside the very hearts of those who compose it;
facing persecution from the world; compromise with the world; sin and error;
and what the church needs now is what the church needed then: they needed to hear Jesus’ voice – what the Spirit of Jesus says to the churches:
“His voice comforts our weak and wounded hearts; diagnoses our diseases; shatters our dreams of ease in the here and now; and calls us forward to his eternal reward.”
Because the church that we see here is a church that hasn’t arrived yet; and that needs to not be content with the good and commendable things which characterize it but to strive and strain to a deeper knowledge of Jesus, a more real faith in Jesus; a more full and heart-felt obedience and service of Jesus.
Too many of us, I fear, are sitting back rather than straining ahead. Too many of us, I fear, live as though if Jesus came to visit and inspect and evaluate our churches, our lives, he simply say, “You’re fine!”
But that’s a far cry from what we see here.
We’re complacent, unconcerned, unaware.
But Jesus is ultimately and abundantly & urgently concerned for the witness and faithfulness of His Church – and so, don’t you think we ought to be too?
When Jesus speaks to the Church in Ephesus, we see that there’s a lot of good things which Jesus commends:
3 categories:
- Hard-working – v2 – deeds & hard work
They are a busy, active church; they are a hard-working church; they serve, they get there early to set up chairs and stay late to clean up and volunteer for the nursery
And maybe these are things you feel wearied by, they feel like thankless unnoticed tasks, but remember this – these are things that Jesus commends.
2) Persevering – v3: perseverance & enduring hardships for Jesus’ name
They knew that the Christian life was not a cake-walk, but that it was taking up their cross;
and they did so, because they knew that faithfulness to Jesus was better than compromise with the world; they knew that dying to themselves for his glory was not their loss but their gain;
3) Discerning
Here they are praised by Jesus for things that most people I suspect, wouldn’t think Jesus would praise: intolerance, and hatred.
v2 – you cannot tolerate wicked people
v6 – this you have in your favor: you hate the practices of the Nicolatians, which I also hate.
Jesus wants his church to be intolerant of certain things, and to hate certain practices. Jesus doesn’t want his church to be tolerant of and accepting of and embracing of everything.
And a church that tolerates wickedness, sin, & error, isn’t embracing Jesus’ call to the church.
those wicked people that they can’t tolerate, v2 – false teachers – self-appointed apostles who aren’t apostles at all and aren’t faithful to the apostolic faith and who are deceivers of God’s people leading the sheep astray by their false teaching.
They are a discerning church, that isn’t fooled by the latest false-teaching that parades itself as orthodoxy; they’re able to recognize and willing to call out false false-teachers.
And in our culture, I wouldn’t say that discernment is a strength of the church or of christians.
But these Christians in Ephesus listened to the Apostle Paul’s warnings, and the apostle John’s warnings, and the warnings of Jesus himself – to be aware that false teachers would infiltrate the church – to be on guard against them, to be able to spot them, to not being naive about their intentions or the results of their false teaching upon the church, and to expose them and remove from their fellowship.
But for all the good, they were missing something – and not just anything – they were missing a crucial, essential, primary thing – the primary thing: the thing that when lacking, the church isn’t being the Church; and a Christian isn’t being a Christian.
v4: You have forsaken the love you had at first.
They lack Love. and a Loveless Christian, or a Loveless Church, is a contradiction in terms.
If you try to give me a cheesecake for my birthday – but there’s not cheese in it; then, I don’t know what it is but it isn’t a cheesecake because it’s lacking it’s definitive ingredient – it lacks the thing that makes it what it is – it’s in the name!
& If you try to show Jesus a christian church, or a christian life, but there’s no Christian love in it – well I don’t know hat it but it isn’t a Christian because it’s lacking it’s most definitive ingredient – the love of Christ present in it’s heart, and displayed in it’s life.
And Jesus considers it no small thing – v5 – consider how far you have fallen!
Even though there are many good and commendable things – for a church to lose its love is in Jesus’ view an incomparable plunge from the heights into the depths.
Because Love gets pride of place in the Christian life – because love is the reason and basis of the existence of the Christian as a Christian – the love of God is what started it all (John 3:16)
And love is the most central call of God upon the life of the Christian – the two great commands both are calls to love God and to love neighbor;
And love is the distinguishing mark of the Christian – Jesus told his disciples that of all things – the thing by which everyone would know that they are his disciples – the 1 thing that would be the thing by which people recognize and see Jesus in his people – Love.
In a world of sentimentalized love; in a world that prioritizes easy convenient self serving love which is no love at all but a cheap counterfeit – Christians ought to stand out as a breath of fresh air b/c biblical love is the thing that everyone wants even if they don’t know it
and he considers it so serious – that their very existence as a church is at stake – (v5) “If you do not repent I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from it’s place.”
This is not an empty threat – because the church in Ephesus did in fact cease to be a light for Jesus in the world – and this is a reminder that no church is secure, every church is on trial continually and can’t simply presume it is safe and secure and being faithful but rather is in need of continual self-examination and renewal and repentance in order to continue as a faithful witness for Jesus in the world.
“Many churches today – though their building stand, though their activities continue, though the ministers minister and congregations congregate; they have nevertheless ceased to exist. They have no light, because they have no love.”
A Church can’t be – isn’t – a Church, without love – no matter what other good and commendable things it has – in the words of the Apostle Paul, without love, we are nothing.
They were orthodox in their beliefs; they were discerning; but they lacked love.
“the one quality without which all others are worthless”
Later on we’ll see one of these churches who is loving, but not discerning.
And still today you have churches on either end of that spectrum – but if you have one without the other then you really have neither
Here we see a church that is discerning but not loving. And they need to be discerning – they live – as we saw in the founding of the church in Ephesus in Acts 19 they lived in a culture that was very hostile to their faith, which had values and aims and priorities that were at odds with theirs – and so they needed to be discerning;
their strength is their discernment – but you can imagine how that strength could turn into their weakness.
“Every virtue carries with it the seeds of its own destruction”
Just as the desire to love can erode the discernment necessary to uphold the truth of the gospel – and so you have churches that want to be so loving that they embrace and love everything and compromise on the truth;
In the same way the desire to uphold the truth too severely can lead to a loveless environment, where truth isn’t cared about for the sake of people but at the expense of people.
Purity of Doctrine is important. It’s impossible to read the bible and not conclude that doctrine is important – because, if you don’t believe the right things about Jesus then you don’t believe in the real Jesus;
But pure doctrine is no substitute for relationships of love.
And in their desire for sound teaching; in their vigilance against false teachers; you can imagine that leading to over-zealousness that lacks grace and builds an environment of suspicion, where everyone is on a witch-hunt looking for errors in everyone else
And what is important is being right; People are not treated as people but are reduced to their ideas. Self-righteousness comes from having the purest theology. Debate and arguing are prominent. There is no tolerance for those who differ in minor areas of doctrine, as minor areas are treated on par with major areas. It’s possible to love doctrine but not be a person of love.
And you see when you have doctrine without love you lose proper doctrine at the same time because right doctrine requires a life characterized above all else of love.
And this is a warning that we especially need to listen to – as a church that I think cares about understanding & knowing what the bible teaches; don’t be content with mere informational knowledge that doesn’t penetrate your heart and transform your life.
And Jesus gives them 3 things to do – to preserve their witness as his light bearers in the world – to make sure their light shining the love of Christ doesn’t disappear into the darkness.
- Remember;
- Repent;
- Reach
remember:
they have forgotten their first love – and the “first” here doesn’t mean first-place (as though love has just fallen from the first priority of their life, or they’ve forgotten the one they should love first of all), but it probably means “former” – because later he says to do the things you did at first – back then; and so the picture is that when they were new converts – the love of God was fresh in their minds and hearts and they were zealous to know it and to display it, but their love had cooled – they had forgotten the love they once knew; in the midst of their hardship they’ve become battle-hardened and distanced from the one source that can sustain them in the battle.
this is the reality that can happen in any relationship – in a marriage where 2 people were once head-over-heals for each other and couldn’t speak a harsh word if they tried; in the business of life and trials of a relationship begin to just sort of go through the motions and they tragically lose sight of the things that brought them together in the first place –
newly-weds – can be kind of annoying to be around; but they can also have this infectious affection that warms cooled hearts in those around them;
A new convert is so refreshing to a church, because they have the same infectious affection – that first love burning bright which can warm the hearts of those around.
This church forgot God’s love for them; and so their love for God had cooled; and so their love for one another was in danger of disappearing.
This was a recurring problem of the OT people of God: short-term memory. Where God is frequently calling them to remember, but they are repeatedly forgetting – forgetting his goodness, his faithfulness, forgetting how he had rescued them from their misery and delivered them into security and fulfilled his gracious promises to them; Forgetting his love;
we are sometimes no better. We forget God’s love; we want to go back to Egypt;
And so Jesus calls his church to remember:
reflecting on the the Gospel brings about renewed realization of how we’ve been loved and how we’re called to love;
Matthew 24:12- Jesus forewarned that in times of severe persecution, “the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm tot he end will be saved”.
Has your love grown cold?
if you’re love has cooled; remember; meditate; think about the love of God that we see in the cross
“the cross is the blazing fire at which the flame of our love is kindled, and we need to get close enough to the cross to let it’s sparks reignite the flame of love in your heart”.
1 John 4:10-11 “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
Remember;
Repent:
If you think you have nothing to repent of, to strive for, in the Christian life; you need ears to hear what the spirit says to the churches – you need just to hear one 1-word command: Love.
Because the call to love is not just a minor adjustment; it’s a total renovation of how our sinful hearts naturally operate; it’s a radical re-calibration and re-orientation to a new way – the way of the Spirit of Jesus – that refuses fights against our innate sinful aversion to love, that resists our innate sinful inclination to think about ourselves, love ourselves, prioritize ourselves, be patient with ourselves, give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, pursue our needs and desires at the expense of those around us; using others instead of giving of ourselves for others, doing what’s easiest and most convenient and comfortable instead of doing the hard thing when the hard thing is the necessary or good or right thing;
It’s not just a minor adjustment; it’s a radical redirection of an entire life. And it’s hard and costly and uncomfortable.
The problem is – we don’t repent when it comes to love – because we assume that love comes easily & naturally; and we assume that we are already loving people; and we assume that if there’s a love problem – then the real problem is with other people not being as loving as they should, rather than a problem with ourselves not being as loving as we should.
And so we think those other people – they need to repent; but we – we just need a minor adjustment, and so we don’t really change.
Jesus doesn’t say; find some minor tweaks; he says repent.
And if we strive instead of sit-back; Jesus calls the Church to repent – but that corporate call to repentance only happens as individual people take up that call and take it to heart.
Remember; Repent; Reach.
Reach back: do the things you did at first.
But maybe we need to reach in more directions than just back; certainly we need to do that; but maybe also we need to reach forward to new ways to love and reach out to new people to love;
Because God’s call to love is a call to stretch ourselves to new ways of living that will involve God stretching us in difficult and uncomfortable ways.
When I was younger, I didn’t realize it the time, but in retrospect, I guess I was made of rubber because I could bend in any old direction; but life brings about stiffening –
and what is easy and comfortable is doing what I always do; but what is painful and challenging is stretching to do something new and different – but that’s what God wants us to do.
This church wants to remain in their strength of discernment and orthodoxy and having the right beliefs; Jesus calls them to stretch into their weakness –
and it’s only when we do that that we depend upon his grace and power and strength – rather than our own strength
God calls us to do things we don’t want to do, to open up new worlds of joy and delight to us.
Elise – first swimming lesson. Terrified; “I’m sick”. My temptation was to not make her do it; but thankfully Amy was there too, and we helped her through it but we made her do it – and guess what?
She loved it. It was scary, it was hard, but it was a reminder to me that if we never made her do anything she didn’t want to do, we’d deprive her of new delights and joys in life.
God calls to love is a call stretch ourselves in uncomfortable unfamiliar ways; to reach; to do do things we may not want like or want to do; but when we take up God’s call it opens up new worlds of joy and delight. Don’t miss out.
Maybe that means:
serving (not assume others’ time is less valuable); giving time/money/resources (don’t assume other’s sacrifices necessary but not yours);
reach out to someone that is different from you rather than hanging out in comfort;
initiate kindness towards someone; or respond with grace to attempt of another to initiate kindness even if there’s deficiency in the kindness; say a kind encouraging word when its easier to criticize; or say a hard necessary word when it’s easier to appease or flatter; move towards forgiveness and reconciliation instead of being entrenched in bitterness and gravitating apart.
Let’s pray that we would be a church – and that we would be Christians – characterized most of all, by love.