Revelations 2:1-7 September 14, 2003
Ephesus: Truth and Love
“Those who have ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
There are seven messages to the churches of Asia Minor – One message fore each of the Seven churches, and each one ends with the command, “Those who have ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
This is what I want us to do as we look at the messages to the seven Churches over the next few months, I want us to keep our ears open to what the Spirit is saying to Runnymede Baptist Church, and I want us to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Church in Toronto.
If you get a sense that the Spirit is saying something to the church, please let me know: talk to me, write me a letter or an email, give me a phone call, dance it, draw it, sing it.
I don’t want this just to be an exercise in more Biblical information going into our heads, I want us to have an exercise in listening to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
Ephesus – “the light of Asia”
Ephesus was the greatest and most strategic city in Asia. You might say that "All roads lead to Rome," but they go through Ephesus to get there!
It was the economic centre for the region as well as the religious centre. This is where the great temple for Diana or Artemis was – one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It also had many other cults including emperor worship, and was a center for magic (so much so that books of spells would become referred to as “Ephesian writings.”)
The city of Ephesus was ethnically diverse and tolerant of other faiths as long as they didn’t get in the way of commerce and the Ephesian way of life. When Paul first came to Ephesus and began preaching the Gospel and casting out demons he was well received and many people believed in Jesus until a fellow named Demetrius noticed that his sales in silver images of Artemis were slumping and he incited a riot, accusing Paul and his people of blaspheming Artemis. Paul took the opportunity to move on to another city to preach.
The church of Ephesus is interesting in that we have a Biblical account of its birth in Acts 19, its life in the letters to the Ephesians and timothy and its prophesied death in Revelation 2.
Jesus – “These are the words of Him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.”
Its not surprising that Jesus describes himself in terms of light as he speaks to the “Light of Asia.” “You might be the “light of Asia,” but I hold the lights in my hand, and I walk among the lampstands keeping guard over them!”
Last week I talked about this image of the seven stars in his hand. It speaks of the control that Jesus has over the cosmos including the churches, and the walking among the lampstands speaks of the care that Jesus has over the churches. A group of Christians might feel awfully lonely as they walked the streets of this pagan city, It is good to know that the creator and sustainer of the universe is guarding over you.
The Good News
2I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. … 6But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
In a city that was rife with strange teachings and strange worship, the Ephesian church has held its ground. They knew the truth and they had stuck to it. They had endured attacks from the outside like the riot in Acts 19, as well as self proclaimed religious leaders who would see a new faith in the city as ripe pickings to fill their pockets. They also survived attacks from the inside as people claiming to be apostles would come and try to draw them away from the true faith.
Their steadfastness in the faith was well known, According to the letter written to the Ephesians not long after Revelation by Ignatius, an early Christian father, he had heard that they were a church so well taught in the Gospel that no unorthodox sect can gain a hearing among her members. They took the warnings that Paul gave to the leaders after his second visit when he said: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!” (Acts 20:28-31)
Jesus speak particularly of the Nicolaitans – a group that sought to minimize the difference between Roman society and the Christian faith - ate food sacrificed to idols, sexually promiscuous, business practices... "to be a good Roman is to be a good Christian" - world would have changed the Gospel rather than the Gospel change the world.
The Ephesian Church was not far from the Evangelical Church of the last century – they were battling the secularization of the Western world as society and government looked less and less to faith as a guiding principle, and they were battling the liberalization of Christianity and certain sections of the church were questioning the basic teachings of scripture if they were not well received by the culture.
The Ephesian church, developed a bunker mentality. They hunkered down with the truth, resisting the temptations from the outside and the inside. They have stood against wicked people and tested their leadership in order to separate authentic disciples from imposters. They have exposed those who were liars, have been patient or persevered in their struggle, and have ended up suffering much. For such determination, they are deeply commended by God.
The problem with living in a bunker is that you can get jaded, you can begin to see every other person as a possible enemy, and you can forget the larger picture. This is what happened to the Ephesian church.
The Bad News
4Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
4Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love There are two ways to take this verse – one is that they do not love God they way they did at first, and the other is that they do not love each other as they did at first.
Different translations try to communicate the different readings.
English Standard Version (ESV)
“But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.”
New Living Translation (NLT)
“But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!”
The Message (MSG)
"But you walked away from your first love--why? What’s going on with you, anyway?”
Which is it – have they forsaken their first love for Christ, or the love they had at first for each other?
The simple way to apply this verse is to answer: “both.”
John intricately connects love of God and love for eachother when he writes in 1 John 4:20, “If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
You can understand that as we fight for theological purity and moral purity, we can loose sight of the reason for that purity and the object of our affection. We can be so determined to fight against false images of God and false beliefs about him and sin, that we forget the relationship with him. We can be so determined to work for and fight for God that we leave him behind in the process.
I think that certain portions of the Evangelical church did this. If the Holy Spirit is the one who draws us into close personal relationship, we were in danger of believing in the Father, the Son and the Holy Scriptures. When correct doctrine or theology is seen as the highest form of spirituality, we can forget about or relationship with God, know a great deal about him, but not know him. We can have a personal relationship with good theology.
In the same way, an emphasis on the truth without an equal emphasis on love can lead us to terrible places in the church relationships.
Bob Lithicum writes on the Church at Ephesus: “They have maintained the purity of their church by resisting temptation and keeping themselves orthodox, but in their grim and tight-lipped determination, they have lost their love for God and their love for each other.
This is often the high price orthodoxy exacts. The church maintains its purity, but at a price to its peace and unity. It sacrifices Christian community to the preservation of its orthodoxy”
I have had Christians try to evangelize me in such a way that they spent the vast majority of our conversation trying to convince me that I really wasn’t a Christian and that I needed to get saved. They assumption going in to the conversation was that I was fatally wrong on some point or other and I was an enemy and not a brother. You go away shaking your head after an encounter like that, but can you imagine a whole church that functioned in this way – never trusting the faith of their brother or sister?
On the other side there are Christians who are the “anti-Ephesians”, in the name of loving God they start to believe things about him that just are not true, and then we need to ask “what God are they worshiping?” or, in the name of loving each other they accept all sorts of immoral behavior and wrong belief.
So… you might say to me, “which is it Mike? Truth or love – which takes the priority?”
I think that God answers “Both.” The Ephesians are commended for their pursuit and protection of truth, but without giving that up, they are called to love.
Paul writes to the Ephesians in his letter to them, “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,[1] 12to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood,[2] to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” Ephesians 4:11-16
No verb “speak” – “truthing in love” or “do the truth in love”
Truth and love are to work together to join us closer as a body – trying to have one without the other will split us apart.
1 Corinthians 13 reminds us that we can do so many things right as Christians, but if we do not love each other, we get it wrong.
1 Corinthians 131If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[1] but have not love, I gain nothing.
What Do We Do?
Remember – Remember the height from which you have fallen
Just like an old married couple should get out the wedding album out every once in a while, we need to remember our honeymoon with Christ - Why were you so excited about Jesus back then?
Remember the importance of sharing love in the church. – Having the truth and moral purity is important, but Jesus tells us that we will be known by our love.
Repent – confess your lovelessness, your prayerlessness, your lack of worship and turn back to do these things
Act – do the things you did at first.
Pray, worship, enjoy God
Eat together, great each other warmly, work out your differences, look after each other in their need.
At the church shift conference, Jim Thwaites was talking about how as a Pentecostal and a charismatic, he loved the letter to the Ephesians, but the way that he would read it is that he would really get into the passages about the five fold ministry in chapter 4 – the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors-teachers, and then he would skim over the practical teaching on daily living and relationships between family members and workplace people to get straight to the spiritual armor for the battle. Thwaites said he had it dead wrong. What he was saying was that the battle isn’t some great cosmic thing, but it was what Paul was talking about in chapters 4-6. God is most concerned about how our lives are lived, how we love each other: our wives and husbands, children and parents, employees and employers, not how many demons we bound up today!
This is why the marriage course is so important – it is training for the battle – loving your spouse is the battle, so come and learn how!
After you have done everything to stand – Eph. 6:13
The Warning – verse 5
The seriousness of this call is in this – love each other or I’ll remove your light. Wow! There is a certain amount of pride in theological and moral purity – this warning pops that bubble – you can be right as rain, but if you have no love your torch is extinguished and you must leave the tribal fire immediately!
The sad new is that Ephesus did not come around; not only is there no church left there, there is no city left.
Ephesus no longer exists as a city, but was located near where the modern town of Selcuk, Turkey is today. Selcuk is about 50 km south of Izmir, Turkey. – from travel page on Web
The Promise
To those who overcome, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
Loving each other is a prerequisite to entering paradise!
Questions:
What is the Spirit saying to us?
How is Toronto like/unlike Ephesus?
How is the church in Toronto like/unlike the Church in Ephesus?
In your own life, do you lean more towards truth or love?
What do you need to do to emphasize both truth and love?
