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Sunday 4/26/26
Title: Faith of our Fathers Pt. 3
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Faith of our Fathers Pt. 3
Go ahead and turn to Revelation 2…
From a couple of weeks ago we have referenced the actions of the initial church found in Acts 2:42-43. The way they “did church” (which they would never have called it) was radically different from what is realized and lived out in the modern church. No one had to tell them. There was no apostolic mandate that church be conducted in a certain way. From all we can decipher from the text is that it happened naturally, intuitively, organically you might say – in other words they were led by the Spirit from within!
THAT fact, is what makes this non-pattern a pattern for consideration today, because it created success – not in numbers alone, which quite honestly was a secondary thought at best, but in terms of spiritual maturity, likeness to Christ and adherence to sound doctrine – NONE of which should be viewed and understood as mutually exclusive.
In Revelation chapters 2 & 3 Jesus addressed 7 churches in Asia which by then had existed for 30-60 years. So they, like we, had time for the strength of their initial conversion to experience the buffeting that time brings.
The first church we ran into in Jesus‘ letters was Ephesus.
Let’s begin by re-reading Revelation 2:1-7.
As you are turning there, I want to remind you that Paul’s last contact with this church was through its pastors on his way to Jerusalem near the end of his third missionary journey, around 55–57AD. That was anywhere from 35-40 years BEFORE Jesus addresses them in Revelation 2:1-7.
His words of warning to them were to pay attention to THEMSELVES and ALL THE FLOCK. That ravenous wolves were going to rise up among the leadership and flock attempting to lead them away. The answer was to establish them in sound doctrine. The actual words are found in Acts 20:28-32
As we determined last week, these shepherds and sheep did their job. They were established in sound doctrine – which requires study!
But there are more aspects and expressions of our devotion to Christ around His word than just study and we will touch on that later.
Hebrews 13:9 says, “Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace…”
And that offers a key to what we will address before closing today.
Revelation 2:1-7,
“(1)To the angel of the church in Ephesus, write the following:”
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of Him Who holds the seven stars in His right hand, Who walks among the seven golden lampstands.”
There was a day in Ephesus you would never have had to tell the believers such an encouragement or warning. It was their common experience, and in fact, was among the initial things which attracted them to the faith in that it wasn’t just a faith, it was an intimate knowing and being known. There is a life giving intimate connection with God through Christ to this faith. As I said last week. You would not have to have told the church in Ephesus
It was one the things which first attracted them to the faith. We KNOW that from the fact that Jesus’ admonishment to them here in Revelation is that they had forsaken that intimacy they had with Him ‘AT THE BEGINNING’.
Verse 2
“‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.”
Verse 3
“I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.”
Our Good Shepherd acknowledges both what we are DOING and what we have done.
Verses 4-5,
“But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.
If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”
So the Ephesians were not being rebuked for scandalous immorality, but for having “forsaken their first love” (Revelation 2:4).
Word studies
The wording in this passage seems to characterize a gradual decline, a settling into a “manageable, nice, even orderly” routine. True enough – the hard work of study and accurate representation of the Holy Word were maintained but heartfelt passion for Christ was replaced by mechanical duty FOR Him.
Jesus‘ encouragement and command was a call to “repent“.
This does not merely mean feeling sorry; it is a call to change the mind and then reverse their course, specifically to “do the works they did at first“.
By adding “if you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand,” Jesus makes it clear that this is a non-negotiable in their assembly. If they were going to continue to exist as a sheepfold, this was a requirement!
So this phrase highlights that failing to take action to return to their initial fervor and ardor towards Him will be viewed as a serious form of disobedience, essentially showing indifference to the warning of their Shepherd. Such failure would be recognized for what it was – open disobedience and it would bear the consequence of their assembly being removed. This is a big deal!
We see in a few of the letters of Paul that regardless of all of his efforts and prayers and investments into various city churches, that there were times that he was afraid that he had “labored over them in vain”.
I want you to take stock regarding this because on the earth, pastors are nothing more than under-Shepherds – they are not the Chief Shepherd.
Flocks that under-shepherds have devoted themselves to, can through negligence, determine whether or not that under-shepherd will be able to continue to do his shepherding work.
If they do not repent, Jesus Himself will remove the church and this can happen through no fault of the leadership at all. It rarely does. It is usually a combination of both, but it can happen!
Verses 6 & 7
“Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To the one who conquers (or overcomes) I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’
To show how this is in fact connected to our topic of faith…
Paul said,
“I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. And the life I now live in the flesh I live BY FAITH in the One Who loved me, and gave Himself for me. I DO NOT set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness came by the law, then Jesus died for nothing!”
1 John tells us that what empowered us to overcome the world, is our faith! – 1 Jn. 5:4
So this assembly of believers in Ephesus had their doctrine down – that problem had been successfully addressed by the pastors following the warnings given them by the Holy Spirit through Paul. And not only that, the congregation diligently heeded these sound words of teaching, correction and encouragement.
But over the course of time, they had lost the passion of their connection with Christ which they possessed in their youth.
They owned a real knowledge and zeal for sound doctrine, but it lacked the life of relationship.
These believers had SO MUCH going for them!
They had the perfect environment in which to thrive, which is one of adversity which draws you closer to what is real, familiar and safe. But even still it was SO EASY to fall off on the right or left side of the ditch.
For these believers living in a city overrun with paganism, there was no real sense of safety in their greater society, no sense of truly belonging in the world since they knew and had partaken of Jesus!
The world held little attraction to these Ephesian believers and was in fact, at least to a limited degree, hostile to them.
This kept them pretty close to home. Pretty well centered.
These believers had the right circumstances in which to thrive, yet still they wandered.
So how did they fall out of love? Well now, that’s the mystery. That’s the real question and it’s a loaded question at that.
It is a true statement that some of the greatest words of wisdom are found in what is NOT said.
Notice, Jesus did not say to them “You no longer love Me at all”.
He said, “You’ve lost your first love”.
Obviously this means they still loved Him, but they loved Him less than they had.
The coals were still smoking but the fire had gone out and Jesus said, this is serious enough for Me to remove you Church if it remains uncorrected.
If I have asked myself this once, I’ve asked it a thousand times. “I wonder how many churches today have been removed, but are still gathering crowds”?
And as I said at the end of our time together last week, the unavoidable follow up question is, “where are we?”
The question before us which is our entire focus this morning is this:
If they respected God enough to ground themselves in sound doctrine, how could they have come to love Him less as a result?
Said another way – If they respected Him, how did they, in their pursuit to respect Him more – come to love Him less?
Example:
You know I heard a story from brother Brever the other day – or rather I re-heard it.
Evidently, a long while ago a very famous TV minister fell into sin both financially and otherwise. While in prison, he had time to reflect on where it all went wrong.
You need to understand. This man did not set out in ministry to fall, it was something that happened over time. Like these Ephesians and maybe even to you and I to some degree. Remember, none of this time before God’s word this morning means ANYTHING if you do not examine yourself seriously in the light of it.
This former TV minister heard something brother Brever taught and it stirred him to ask someone he knew on the outside to contact him and see if he would come visit him in prison, which he did.
While there, during their conversation, John asked him –
“So when did you fall out of love with Jesus”?
The man replied, “I didn’t! – I stopped revering Him”!
Now I take issue with this even though I understand the sentiment.
You cannot truly love God and not respect Him – these two are NOT mutually exclusive conditions. One literally evokes the other.
When you truly love God, respect begins to rise and develop in your heart and the other way about.
What this TV minister still possessed in his irreverence and sound doctrine was a “feeling” of loving devotion towards God.
But to know a thing or feel a thing is not the same thing as living a thing out!
Back to our question…
- So how did these Ephesians come to love Jesus less?
- How could they still respect God’s word enough to study it and stand for it without honestly respecting the God it represents?
Well I think that part of the answer is that none of these conditions are ever truly absolute.
As humans we experience almost NOTHING in the absolute or once we came to Christ we’d never sin again.
I think what we have and experience are gradations of respect and love.
- You might possess some honest respect for the company you work for and even for your boss. That respect might keep you from ever running them down publicly, but will it always keep you from judging them prematurely without knowing all of the facts? Will it always prevent you from getting a little slack on the job so that they are not fully getting out of you what they are paying you for? Not necessarily.
- You might love your wife, but does that always mean you consider her first in everything? No
- You might respect your husband, but does that keep you from sometimes complaining in an unguarded moment among friends and thus, slandering his reputation? No
But in all of these examples, can it be said that you possess absolutely NO LOVE or RESPECT within these relationships? No!
And Jesus never said “You no longer love Me at all”.
He said, “You’ve lost your first love”.
I inquired into this phrase grammatically and this is what I came back with…
In Revelation 2:4, the phrase “you have abandoned/left your first love” in the Greek (tēn agapēn sou tēn prōtēn aphēkas) means the Ephesian church had neglected the deep, intimate devotion and passionate zeal they initially had for Jesus, rather than completely stopping all love for Him.
It could be said that Jesus’ words even imply a cold orthodoxy where they kept working but lost the passion of their devotion through so much focus upon diligence in doctrine.
It was a “loving of the word and respecting of the word”, while losing the intensity of the respect for the One Who spoke those words!
It also represents a shifting of emphasis and attention.
If you are surrounded by antagonistic voices against the truth as these Ephesians were – you can search out truth as a matter of survival. As a matter of making sure you had a means of answering any question and countering any argument without making you feel like you had mud on your face. It doesn’t take too long of a jaunt down that rabbit hole to lose your sense of direction and true focus.
The literal meaning of “Left” or “abandoned” aphēkashere means to “leave,” or “set aside,” rather than just losing something.
These believers in Ephesus knew their love was Christ, but He had stopped being the center of their focus.
Even though they had a real relationship, which we cannot afford for one moment to lose sight of, this abandonment was (in action), more like the soldier abandoning his post with the intention of being diligent about his job of protecting the fort.
He saw something in the shadows which he believed demanded investigation, but in doing this, he abandoned his post, making the fort vulnerable – the very thing he thought he was working against!
That was the Ephesians church!
What kind of “love” is “first love”?
The nature of this “love” Jesus is speaking of is their fledgling love. It was Love’s first blush.
All of you have been in some sort of relationship in the past – whether a friendship or romantic interest and you KNOW what that can be like at first.
The first few months or years are a whirlwind of excitement and anticipation.
You LOVE spending time with this person. Your other friends and family typically get an earful about this person whenever you are around and they might even develop jealousy over the way this person has totally captivated you and in the wake – all but eclipsed them.
But 1 year, 2 years, 5 or 10 into these relationships, they begin to cool.
- You still love them.
- You still value them.
- They are still very important to you.
- They have genuinely added to your life and you can’t imagine life without them.
- You would surely defend them and stand up for them, and take your stance by their side.
…but your passion has cooled.
You might even look back on the early stages of your relationship with them with some amount of embarrassment on how completely you were taken with this person. I might make you feel like you possessed a bit of a childish lack of perspective back then in the early days of your relationship.
This was the Ephesian church and it may be you too!
They possessed a foundational, passionate devotion and intimate relationship with Christ, which, while not totally gone, was no longer their primary motivation. The embers were still smoking, but the fire was gone.
Jesus acknowledges they were doctrinally sound and hardworking in verses 2-3, but this “work” had become mechanical or legalistic, lacking the fervency and ardor of their “first” love.
“First” (prōtēn) means both in chronology and priority.
They had been drawn away BOTH from the love they had when they were first saved AND from properly prioritizing that love as their most valuable possession!
In short, the church at Ephesus was still active and orthodox, but they had “left behind” the heartfelt, passionate devotion that originally defined their relationship with Jesus. It is that quality to their relation with Christ that made onlookers feel as if they had lost perspective.
Jesus goes on record as saying, He wants… no, He requires BOTH our passion and our top priority!
Why? Well, can it truly be considered a devoted relationship without it?
Can a person be devoted to the maintenance and provision of their spouse while not being passionate about THEM? Yes… in fact, more than one marriage has ended before a divorce court from nothing more than the neglect of one or the other.
That is what it means to “love the Lord your God with all” rather than part of your heart.
You will no doubt recall how we explored that command from the Old Testament at the end of 2024 and saw just how impossible that command is to keep in the flesh.
[See The weight of the Command & Love & Respect for God]
So how IS this accomplished?
Well we will dive into that more next week!
But I will tell you this as a type of preview, if not a cliffhanger –
If you want the results the early church got, you must do what the early church did!
The pattern is seen in the early church and then encouraged in the letters.
We read it as a preamble to last week’s teaching.
Acts 2:42-47, “(42) They were devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
(43) Reverential awe came over everyone, and many wonders and miraculous signs came about by the apostles.”
FIRST – they continued STEADFASTLY in the Apostle’s doctrine.
Well this we can see the saints in Ephesus had done.
SECONDLY – In breaking bread and fellowshipping around the word.
THIRD – They connected in their times of prayer from house to house.
This last one is likely where much of their diligence fell off because prayer is one of the most intimate things anybody can do!
Blessings!
Blessings!
