Revelation 2:1-7 To the Church in Ephesus

 

This summer we’re taking a look at Jesus’ letters to seven of the churches in the area around the Mediterranean. These are all churches that were planted and started by Paul and others who travelled through the area bringing the good news of Jesus Christ. The churches grew and multiplied quickly, so quickly that religious, cultural, and government leaders felt threatened by this new faith in Jesus; a man crucified as a rebel and traitor to Rome and his own Jewish faith, who was buried, and then raised from the dead according to his followers, a man who claims to be God and is coming back again to claim this world and the entire universe for his kingdom. This often led to persecution and the rise of false teachers who mixed the teachings of Jesus with the practices and teachings of other faiths, often eastern mystical faiths.

Jesus, through a vision to John who’s exiled to the island of Patmos because he refuses to give up his loyalty to Jesus, writes a number of letters to encourage and challenge these seven churches. Jesus reveals himself through images from the prophet Daniel, dressed in radiant robes, head and hair white as snow, eyes like blazing fire, holding seven stars in his hand while a sword comes out of his mouth, his face shining like the sun. This is an image of power and holiness. Jesus is walking among seven lampstands which represent the seven churches; showing he’s close to his people, among his people. This is a vision of hope.

Jesus addresses the church in Ephesus first. He begins with praising the church in Ephesus. They’ve done a lot of good; Paul refers to what this church is like in his letter to them, Ephesians 1:15, “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people,” and Ephesians 2, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” This is a church that knows and engages in doing good works, knowing that they’re God’s good work designed to do good works.

In Acts 19, we discover that Paul spends two years in Ephesus. Many accept Jesus as their Lord and saviour, but Paul also runs up against all kinds of opposition, from both Jews in the synagogue and from the Gentiles who lived there, especially the craftsmen who begin lose money as people begin to follow Jesus instead of Artemis. One of the craftsmen, Demetrius actually leads a riot against Paul. The city clerk calms things down, but Paul decides it’s time to move on. But while Paul is there, God does mighty things through him, “so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.”

Paul’s letter is filled with teaching and encouragement. His goal is to grow a church filled with mature followers of Jesus who live as children of the light, who live well in committed relationships with each other, who imitate God, and live holy pure lives. Paul grows really close to this church and when he’s on his way to Jerusalem, Paul calls the elders from the church to be strong and faithful to the truth of Jesus because wolves and false teachers are coming. He encourages the elders to help those who are weak, reminding them of Jesus’ words, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

There’s a willingness to sacrifice in order to honour God, doing good works for others. This is a church that’s really focused on cleaning up their lives and being true to Jesus. This is why Jesus praises them in his letter. Then comes a surprising claim by Jesus, “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen!” It is also translated as, “You have forsaken your first love.” When you study church history, this may not be quite as surprising to you as it must have been for the Ephesians. Jesus talks about this in Matthew 24, “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”

When John receives this vision from Jesus, it’s during a time of persecution, something the church has gone through a number of times already. Nero and Caligula are two of the Caesars that you think of when it comes to persecution, but they weren’t alone in persecuting the followers of Jesus. In the early church, after times of persecution, the church faced a dilemma, there were Christians who had turned away from the faith in order to save their lives or families, but when it was safe to follow Jesus again, they came back. Church leaders wrestled over what to do with these fallen followers who returned, “What to do with them? The historian Justo Gonzales writes, “the issue was whether purity or forgiving love should be the characteristic of the church.” Some followed the Church Father Tertullian who believed that the “church was to be a community of saints, and the idolaters and apostates had no place in it,” while others “thought that the lapsed should be readmitted directly, with no other requirement than their own declaration of repentance.”

In these church battles, because of the persecution the church had gone through, the love of God and neighbour, the focus on loving God and neighbour which had shaped who they are, sometimes got lost. This happens in Ephesus and Jesus identifies it straight on here. Vision leaks. Churches start because people fall in love with Jesus. They hear his call to repent and believe as he reminds us that God who loves us so much that he sends his only begotten son to take the punishment of sin on himself so we’re made right with God. They hear Jesus call them to a new way of living focused on love and self-sacrifice for others, a call to give their lives for the life of the world so people from all nations can come to know the love of Jesus, the acceptance and grace of the Father, and receive the power of the Holy Spirit.

But we get distracted from Jesus’ call to love God with everything thing we have and are and to love our neighbour as ourselves. Our first love gets forgotten or placed on the back burner. During COVID, we got distracted by mask mandates, fears of losing our freedom, constitutional issues, and conspiracy issues and we sometimes forgot our purpose as a church is to love God and neighbour and to share the good news of Jesus to our neighbours as we help them out through their hard times; doing the good works God has blessed us to do, and being who he’s called us to be here in this place and time. Our first love is Jesus, and, as he reminds us, if we love him, we will keep his commands to love, and we do this through word and deed.

Elders and deacons, on a day when we’ve installed new leaders, know that one of your main tasks as leaders in Bethel is to ensure that we do not forsake our first love and that the love of Jesus is reflected in all our ministries and relationships.