Dear Ephesus

Today, we come to one of the best-known and perhaps the most-preached part of the book of Revelation, the letters to the seven churches found in Revelation chapters 2-3.

At least, that's how I was going to start my sermon. But had I said that, I would have been wrong. I would have been leading you astray, even just slightly. Because even though Revelation chapters 2-3 do contain seven direct messages to each of the seven churches, what have we learned so far? We've learned that this whole book is a letter to the seven churches. Everything that comes after chapter 4 is all a part of the letter to the seven churches that John was told to write.

What we have here in chapters 2 and 3 is a series of direct messages that say something specifically to a specific church and would help them understand how to read the rest of the book as a letter from Jesus to them.

So as best as I can, I'm going to try to remember to call what we find in chapters 2-3 the seven messages, not the seven letters, just to try and keep that squared away. And if I slip up, I trust you'll forgive me.

Another reason we don't want to call these seven messages "letters" is that they don't follow the pattern of letters from this time in history. Like we've seen, Revelation as a whole has this pattern: "John, to the seven churches, greeting, letter body, conclusion."

These seven messages have a structure, but it's not the structure of a letter. It's more like a series of royal edicts.

The structure is important, and that's why we put a handout in your bulletins today that shows how these messages are set out. You can see how they all follow some specific patterns, but there are major differences between them which will be really important as we get to each message.

Having that outline in your hands also means that I don't need to talk about the structure a lot in the sermon here, which saves us some time. It's a good idea to tuck that into your Bible for future weeks. (Download the handout here.)

"To the Angel"

But knowing there's this structure and seeing it there, we can just dive into these verses together. We begin with the words "to the angel" in verse 1. And right away we hit another one of those "huh?" moments in the book of Revelation. Why are these messages addressed to the angel of each church, and not to the church itself?

Throughout history there's been a few different approaches. Some have thought that this "angel," or "messenger," is the pastor of each local church. But that kind of falls apart when it gets into phrases like "some of you," like we'll read in following messages.

These messages are for each church, not one person in it.

That leads some students of Revelation to think that it's another symbol. The word "angel" is used to represent the prevailing spirit in the church. Others think these are real angels. That each church has an angel assigned to it, and John is supposed to write a message to them.

I'll be honest that this last one doesn't make a ton of sense to me, because why would Jesus need John to write a message to an angel who would then somehow deliver that message to the church? It seems a little convoluted.

So I'll be honest that I don't know that there's one answer that solves all of the mysteries. What we can say for sure is that these messages were meant for the whole church, and somehow there was a messenger—either a human or supernatural—who would have received this message from John and communicated it to the church.

"Of the Church"

Next, still in verse one, comes the phrase, "of the church." These messages are addressed to churches. "Church" is a word that, in Greek, just means "assembly."

I wrote an article on our website called "What is a Church?" that challenges two common assumptions. First, that "the church" is a New Testament word, distinct from Old Testament Israel. And second, that each city had one "church" that met in several small house churches and may never actually gather all as one.

And I'm not going to rehash the whole article here, but just briefly, the word for church, "ekklesia," is one of the stock words in the Greek Old Testament for the assembly of Israel. Rather than stress discontinuity, this word actually emphasizes the continuity of the people of God across Old and New Covenants.

And second, the New Testament never actually uses the word "church" to talk about Christians in a city where we know for sure there were separate gatherings. We know that there were several different church gatherings in Rome, and that's why the book of Romans opens up with the words "to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints" (Rom 1:7). But the letters addressed to "the church in ….." give evidence of just a single gathering.

I go into the evidence for that in the article, but both of these points are important. They help prepare us to see Old Testament language applied to New Testament churches, like we'll see all throughout Revelation, and they help us understand that these churches were local assemblies like ours. These people knew each other. They saw each other on Sunday. They had a culture as a church.

"In Ephesus"

Next, we get to the location of this church: Ephesus. Ephesus was one of the five largest cities in the Roman Empire, was a centre of emperor worship, and apparently had become quite wealthy because of its good relationship with Rome.

And unlike some of the other churches we're going to meet in these messages, we actually know a fair bit about this church. We read about the history in Acts 18 & 19: Apollos spoke the word there, and Paul taught in the synagogue for three months and then daily in the hall of Tyrannus for two years. That was like the first Bible college. So many people became Christians that the idol-makers were going out of business and started a big riot.

In Acts 20, Paul met with the Ephesian elders, warning them about false teaching and challenging them to stay faithful to the truth. Paul later wrote a letter to this church—Ephesians—and then sent Timothy to Ephesus, with the mission of straightening out some false teachers and generally getting the church in line.

So this is a church that had a lot of good teaching. A lot of warning against false teaching. A lot of training in how to be discerning and know the difference between truth and error.

"The Words of Him… I Know"

And so maybe we're not surprised to hear how Jesus commends this church. But first, note how Jesus introduces Himself: “The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands” (Revelation 2:1).

In each of these messages, Jesus introduces Himself with phrases taken from the earlier vision that John was given, or the even earlier introductory verses. Last week we heard about one like a Son of Man among the lampstands holding seven stars in his right hand, and here Jesus introduces Himself this way.

And as we'll see, this description is chosen on purpose because it matters for what comes later in this message—and each message follows this pattern.

Jesus then goes on to say what he says to each of the churches. "I know." Just sit with that. Jesus knows His churches. Jesus knows what's going on with His churches. He is not an absentee Lord.

And with Ephesus, he knows their works. He knows their toil and patient endurance, and how they cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.

Wow. That sounds like Timothy's mission was accomplished, doesn't it? If you go back to 1 Timothy, you read about all kinds of false teachers teaching all kinds of nonsense, and Timothy was to "remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine" (1 Tim 1:3).

And it sounds like mission accomplished. This is a discerning church. They know the difference between truth and falsehood. They know how to evaluate wannabe apostles. They know how to sniff out a heretic.

And not only that, but they are suffering for Jesus. They are patiently enduring hardship, like John, which we read about in verse 2 and 3. They are "bearing up" for Jesus' name, and they haven't grown weary.

Wow. Can you imagine reading that on a church's website? This sounds really good. The Ephesian church knows how to work hard, knows how to spot a false teacher, and knows how to patiently endure suffering. What more could you ask for?

"But I have this against you"

Well, how about love? Verse 4: “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first” (Revelation 2:4).

They're doing so many great things. But what's missing is love. The love that they had at first. In this regard they were living out Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13: “And 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. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2–3).

Over the years, students of Revelation have discussed what this "love that they had at first" refers to. Was this their love for each other, or their love for God?

There are good arguments on both sides. On the one hand, it's not that hard to imagine a people who are super sharp theologically, examining and studying everything, unable to bear with those who are evil, being the kind of people who turn on each other too easily.

This might have been the kind of church where if you misquoted a passage of Scripture, or shared a prayer request that wasn't 100% theologically accurate, people would start to keep their distance. The kind of church where people were afraid to be themselves because it seemed like everybody was ready to pounce on you at your mistake.

And on the other hand, it's not hard to imagine a people who are duty-bound, working hard for the Lord, suffering for Him, bearing up for Him, doing the next right thing, gritting their teeth as they grind out their good works without missing a beat—and doing it all from a deep sense of duty, or a desire to impress God or others, instead of a deep love for the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that's perhaps why Jesus doesn't further define "the love that you had at first." Because both are involved. And we know from elsewhere in Scripture—especially 1 John—that love for God and love for our brothers and sisters can't be separated from one another. We won't love our brother if we don't love God, and we don't love God if we don't love our brother (1 John 4:19-21). They're totally connected.

So I think this is one of those places where we shouldn't try and be more specific than Jesus was. It's also one of those places where the ambiguity invites us to ask deep and penetrating questions.

Marty Culy, in his commentary on Revelation, wrote this:

It is likely that Jesus intentionally communicated in a somewhat vague manner so that Christians of all ages will read “first love” in a variety of ways depending on their particular circumstances. In other words, Jesus’ rebuke of the Ephesian Christians for abandoning their first love invites us to ask ourselves whether or not we have lost our first love; and that first love may be our earlier devotion to the Word and to prayer, our earlier commitment to serving God’s people, our earlier contentment and satisfaction in God’s glorious character, our earlier commitment to regular fellowship with the people of God, or something else.¹Martin M. Culy, The Book of Revelation: The Rest of the Story (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2017), 29.

We're going to think more in a few minutes about our place in this, but it's already good for us to start thinking in that direction.

"Remember… Repent… and Do"

So what does Jesus tell them to do? It might be interesting to consider how we might counsel someone who had lost their first love. What practices or steps might we encourage them to take?

What Jesus tells them to do comes in three stages. Verse 5: “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first” (Revelation 2:5).

They were to remember from where they had fallen: remember the love that they had at first, and what it was like to experience that love. Memory has always been such an important spiritual practice. Just like Israel was to remember what God had done for them, so the Ephesian church was to remember what their relationship with God and each other had once looked like.

And they were to repent. Just like when they first turned to Jesus, they were to change their minds about their sin, turn aside from it, and radically commit themselves to following Jesus.

And they were to do the works they did at first. Is that surprising to you? Jesus doesn't tell them to do something to drum up their feelings of love. This might be hard for us to understand, because in our era we have such an emotional view of love.

But love in the Bible is consistently tied to actions. It's not that love is actions. We can do actions without love. But love will prove itself by actions.

And sometimes, instead of getting our heart in the right place and hoping our actions will follow, God tells us to get our actions in the right place, knowing our heart will follow.

That's why Jesus said not to treasure up treasures on earth, but to store them up in heaven, because "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matt 6:21). Your heart will follow your investment.

It's why C. S. Lewis advised us not to waste time wondering whether we love our neighbour, but simply to "act as if you did," because behaving as if you love someone is how you come to love them.²C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1952), Book III, ch. 9, "Charity."

And here, Jesus tells the Ephesians not to get their hearts in the right place, but to get their actions in the right place. To do the kinds of things they did at the beginning. Was that fearless evangelism? Passionate worship? Selfless hospitality? Radical generosity?

What were the things that they did at the beginning when they were fresh in their love for God and others? The way back was to remember and repent and then go do those things that they did at first.

So often people drop out of things because their "heart isn't in it." And Jesus says: do what you know you should. And we can fill in the blank that your heart will follow.

We know this from marriage. There's a study of couples who were unhappy in their marriages. And if they simply chose to stick it out and stay together, a few years later a significant majority of those couples were happy in their marriage again.

So, we've all heard the phrase that the truth doesn't care about your feelings. Maybe sometimes love doesn't even care about your feelings. “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18). Remember, repent, and do the works you did at first.

"If Not…"

Now this command from Jesus isn't just some good advice. It's a command from the enthroned Son of Man. And it comes with a warning of what will happen if they don't heed His word.

“…If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent” (Revelation 2:5).

See how the beginning of the message comes back? Jesus is the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands. And if this church doesn't repent, their lampstand is going to be removed by Jesus. Just like the other six churches, their future is bound to the living person of Christ.

What does it mean for their lampstand to be removed? If the lampstands are churches, then this means that they're going to stop being a church. Jesus is going to turn off the lights.

That's startling. That's challenging. It pushes back against a shallow understanding of the gospel that says that because Jesus died on the cross for our sins, God is permanently okay with whatever it is we do. That's how some people have misapplied the gospel over the years.

And it's just not what we see in the Bible. Jesus is threatening this church with eviction from his presence.

But maybe that's actually not quite so startling. Think about this math equation for a second, will you? Church minus love equals… what? What's the answer? The answer is nothing. We know that for individual Christians: if I have not love, I am nothing, says 1 Corinthians 13. And the same is true for a church.

You can subtract a lot from a church. You can take away the coffee and the chairs and the building and the paid staff and the programs and lots of other things. But if you take love for God and others away from a church, you've taken away, as one author wrote, "the very function that defines the essence of their existence."³G. K. Beale, Revelation, p. 232).

A discerning but not a loving church is not actually being a church.

It's like if the local Tim Horton's stopped serving coffee and donuts, and started doing oil changes and dry cleaning instead. Eventually, head office is going to come and make them take down the sign. But the truth is they made the decision to stop being a Tim Horton's back when they ditched their whole reason to exist.

Jesus taking away their lampstand is like taking down the sign. He's acknowledging and enforcing what has already happened.

There is a challenge here, though, isn't there? This makes us ask, how many churches have had their lampstands removed by Jesus—and nobody noticed? Their spiritual sign got taken down, but the sign outside their building stays lit up, and they keep doing their thing as if everything is fine.

But as far as Jesus is concerned, they're not even a church any more.

And this all just shows us just how important love is. No matter how many good things they are still doing, no matter how much they are suffering, the Ephesian church is on the verge of lights out if they don't remember and repent and start doing what they used to do.

"Yet This You Have" (v. 6)

And yet, that being said, no matter how dire their situation is, Jesus still finds something worthy of encouragement. Verse 6: “Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate” (Revelation 2:6).

We don't know who the Nicolaitans were for sure—they come up again, and we'll say more then. The least we know is that they were bad. And the Ephesians hated their works.

Notice that while the Ephesians weren't very good at loving what they were supposed to love, they were really good at hating what they were supposed to hate.

But Jesus doesn't rebuke them for this! Jesus ends his rebuke with an encouragement about this. This was good, and He says so.

"He Who Has An Ear… To The One Who Conquers"

The message concludes, like each of the messages to the churches, with a call to hear and a promise to those who overcome.

“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.’” (Revelation 2:7).

This is very much the kind of thing John had heard Jesus say before, isn't it? “He who has ears, let him hear’” (Matthew 13:9). There's a call to really understand what's being said.

And then the promise that the one who conquers—who overcomes—will be given access to the garden of Eden to eat the tree of life!

Isn't that amazing? This is one of those verses in Revelation that squarely does point at the future. God is going to restore creation and bring us back to the Garden-of-Eden-except-better. And those who are victorious in the battle against sin and Satan and the world and their own impulse to be unloving—those people are going to share in a world made new. They'll get to experience what Adam and Eve couldn't.

And that's the promise of future grace that Jesus gives to motivate and sustain the obedience of the Ephesians. Overcome, because incredible things are coming.

And we can't miss how these final words are generalized. They aren't just for the Ephesian church. He who has ears—wherever or whenever they are. The one who conquers—whoever or whenever they are.

So, this morning, do we hear what Jesus has said to the churches? Do we hear what Jesus has said to this church?

Some people have suggested that seven churches were chosen, and these seven churches were chosen because they represent the different types of churches that have existed throughout time.

It's hard to say that for sure. Jesus never said that, and it's probably better for each church throughout history to learn what they can from all seven messages.

But at the same time, it's kind of hard not to do. It's hard not to ask, “Of these seven churches, which one are we?"

And after reading through these seven messages, if I had to pick one, if I had to ask "which one is Emmanuel Baptist Church," I think we're Ephesus.

I think we're very good at working hard. We're very good at getting the job done. We're good at knowing what's true and caring about what's true. And Jesus knows all of that. He knows our toil and our testing.

But Jesus also knows about our love. And there's a reason we've talked over the last couple of years about the importance of love. Because it does seem to be something we could be better at.

And let's be totally honest here. There are some people who would say that what we're doing right now is a part of the problem. They might say that putting such an emphasis on teaching and preaching the word kills love, as if love and truth were on opposite sides of a see-saw. Maybe if we cared a little less about good teaching, we'd be able to love each other better.

But that is not what Jesus thinks. He tells Ephesus that their discernment and hatred for falsehood is a good thing. He's going to rebuke other churches for being too tolerant of false teachers.

And how can we forget Paul's charge to Timothy about this very church: “As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:3–5).

Good, discerning teaching is designed to produce love. There's no competition here.

So for the record, I don't think that Emmanuel Baptist Church has abandoned its first love. Maybe that is true for some of us. Maybe, though, we're in danger of neglecting our first love, or being too busy for our first love. And if that might be true, then the answer is not to stop caring about the things that we do well. We need to keep doing what we do well, without forgetting the priority of love.

So here's a challenge for you today. Think back to your early days as a Christian when you were most consumed by love for God, His people, or your neighbours. Think back to what those days looked like for you. What did you do then that you aren't doing now?

Then, this week, do those things. Maybe just start with one. But just do it. Don't overthink it or wait for your heart to feel like it.

Maybe there’s someone you’re struggling to love, or someone that you've just been forgetting to love, or someone you've never really loved well at all. You don’t need to sit in quiet contemplation until you feel loving toward them. You just need to go do something kind for them. Drop them off a coffee. Write them a note of appreciation. Have them over for a meal. Tell them you're praying for them.

Maybe your first love is for the Lord. Maybe you used to sing aloud to worship music or joyfully tell your friends about Jesus. This week, just go do that thing. Don't follow your heart. Lead your heart.

This should not feel like a great burden here. Because when you think back to the days of your first love, weren't those your most joyful days? Weren't you happier then?

Jesus is offering us joy here today with His good commandments.

Not to mention the great love that He has shown us. Remember 1:5? He “loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father” (Revelation 1:5–6).

Do you remember what it was like to first taste and enjoy his lavish grace and love for you? We're going to sing a song here in a moment that brings us back to those beautiful moments when salvation was fresh and our love was new.

And look at what He's promised us here in the future: the life of Eden to share with Him forever.

Brothers and sisters, this is good news today. So remember the love of Christ today, and joyfully share the love of Christ, and watch your heart catch fire with joy as you do so.