Ephesus – The Dull Church – Sermon 18 August, 2013

Ephesus – The Dull Church

Rev. 2:1-7

In Revelation 2 and 3 we find that Jesus is addressing the seven churches and rebuking most of them for some kind of problem that they are dealing with. As we read those letters we find that the story of those first century churches may be very similar to the story of some churches today, or perhaps even could be true on an individual level with some Christians. We should ask the 21^st century church of today that what type of church it is? Is it a strong church or weak church? A growing church or dying church? Is it faithful or lukewarm?

The first church that is addressed in this section is the church at Ephesus. Interestingly we have the most Biblical information about the church at Ephesus. It was founded by the Apostle Paul, where he spent three years working with them. One may be able to say that the church of Ephesus held a special place in his heart. It was the church at Ephesus where the young evangelist Timothy was when Paul wrote to him.

The city of Ephesus was a much commercialized city because of its advanced roads, its rivers, and seaports. There existed a lot of paganism during the first century. You may remember on Paul’s trip to Ephesus in the book of Acts that the goddess Diana had a lot of followers. Paul was converting these pagan worshippers and the silversmiths and metal workers were getting mad because they were losing money as they could not sell the false idols. There was so much anger about Paul’s preaching that a riot started there. The pagan people surrounded Paul to kill him shouting, “great is Diana of the Ephesians”, but Paul told them that the great temple to Diana was not god’s temple and that they were the Temple of God.

The Christians who emerged from this city were on fire for Jesus Christ. We learn in the book of Revelation that they hated false teaching, but they did not realize that hating false teaching is not equal to loving Jesus.

The Christians in Ephesus always had strong preachers like Paul, Apollos, and Timothy, but they did not realize that great preachers do not guarantee great churches.

We can read in the scripture what Jesus said to the church in Ephesus, but the question that we must deal with today is what would Jesus say to us?

Jesus Christ is not and cannot be disinterested with His church. According to the scripture He walks among the seven golden lampstands. In other words He visits the churches, examines, exhorts, leads and if necessary He warns and judges. If the members of the church are not interested with the life and the work of the church and ignore their responsibilities, Jesus does not forget His church, He shows interest and makes it the subject of His love and care.

The church of Ephesus was a big church. Big meaning it had many members and works. After all it was established by the great apostle himself, Paul and John had ministered the church for many years. Jesus was aware of the great deeds and the service of this church. We read: “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance.” The lord Jesus knows exactly what’s happening in His church. In the case of the church of Ephesus they have endured hardship and have been persecuted.

It is interesting to note that John mentions a series of seven different things as the deeds of the church of Ephesus.

1. Deeds or in other words different services. In today’s terms serving to the needs of the people having a clear vision and mission with doing work of different types.

2. Hard work. They are applauded for taking their service seriously and doing the best they can working hard.

3. Perseverance meaning setting certain goals and trying to accomplish with total commitment.

4. Not tolerating wicked men – the church at Ephesus was praised for not tolerating sin in their church.

5. Testing those who claim to be apostles but are not. They were strong in their doctrine, and that they loved the truth. They hated the practices of the Nicolatians. We do not know much about this group, but it seems that this was a group of people who turned the grace of God into a license for sin. The church at Ephesus hated the practices of this group of people. The church should be a people who love the truth and who do not tolerate false teaching.

6. Enduring hardship – There is no doubt that the church at Ephesus has endured hardship, and this letter says that they did it faithfully. It is easy for some when they undergo hardship to lose faith or to grow weary, but this was not the case in Ephesus. We have to understand that what is referred to here is probably not just hardships in life, but was persecution that they were facing directly as a result of them being Christians.

7. Not growing weary – They were to be commended because they did not give in to the persecution. They did not reject Jesus despite their lives being threatened and their well-being in jeopardy. The town of Ephesus was full of people who worshipped all sorts of false idols, and we see that the Christian faith was diametrically opposed to their way of life, and was a danger to the whole society.

Right from the start Jesus makes clear in His address to this church that He is aware that they have done good deeds in the past. He knows they have worked hard and have persevered. Those things he was giving to their credit.

In today’s standards we could easily regard the church of Ephesus to be an exemplary or a model church. But the standard of our Lord Jesus Christ is not like ours. So to this good church Jesus had a specific message. In other word this great church is small in the eyes of the Lord.

Jesus said: “I know you’re your deeds, ….. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love”.

Therefore no matter how great, impressive, active and enthusiastic a church could be, according to Christ’s standards it is weak and unacceptable if it lacks the love of God and does not reflect the love of Christ in its life and deeds.

Hence because of His love for the church, the Lord makes a call to the church and especially to the church of Ephesus as He would do today to the present church and says: “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first”.

The call is: REPENT! This is turning back; turning back to the love of the past. The love that they used to have and they don’t have anymore. It seems that they have left it knowingly. The love they had for God and to the neighbour. The text says that the church had forsaken their first love and that they were to repent.

Jesus is saying the same thing to the church today. It had done some good deeds, had times of great success, but now it needs to start doing those things again. We will not be saved because we used to be something or because we used to do something, we need to be doing it now.

Then a consequence is given, their lampstand would be removed. In other words their light would be taken from them, they would no longer be a church if they don’t repent. I wonder could that same call be given to us as the church or us as individuals. This should be considered seriously by the church. If the church does not repent and return from where it had fallen, from the first love, Christ Himself the Lord of the church will come and shake it from its place.

One may wonder what was their first love? Their first love was Jesus. They had forsaken him for the world, but why? Perhaps it was because of familiarity. Sometimes we get so used to something that it loses its value to us. They had forsaken their first love; they had fallen a great deal. I believe there are many in the church today who are good people, who do not commit awful sins on a regular basis, but perhaps repentance is still in order. Perhaps they need to be called to start doing things they once did. Perhaps you look at your life and you notice you are not doing things you ought to be doing. Maybe you are not as faithful to the church as you ought to be. Maybe you are not sharing your faith as you should. Maybe you are not praying or reading your Bible like you ought to be. If that is the case, then I would call you to do the things that you once did. There are areas we can all do more and do the things we once did.

What type of church are we? Let us return to our first love. Perhaps that means we have to cast down other things. Perhaps that means we need to remake a commitment to serving Jesus and Him alone. Let us not live in the past and speak only of what we have done previously, but let us do currently what we ought to be doing.

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the church”. The need of the church today is to have ears which can hear. If so then it will be given the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

Krikor Youmshajekian