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What Can We Learn From Ephesus? Part 1 (Revelation 2:1-7)
GIST: We should be diligent in both our service and commitment to the truth, but none of that matters if we abandon the life-changing, rescuing love of God.
Today, we’re moving into chapter two of Revelation. We’re now past the “introductory material”. John has been given an incredible vision of Jesus and has been told to write these things down. The next few chapters in Revelation, and at least our next eight lessons, are letters to seven actual churches from Asia Minor at the time (modern day Turkey). However, as we mentioned several weeks back, seven was a number of completion, so these letters represent the Church as a whole, at all times. Where we see encouragement, therefore, we should follow suit. Where we see warnings and rebukes, we should examine ourselves.
The first letter is to the city of Ephesus. This is a city and a local church John would have been intimately acquainted with. The church has a strong foundation. It was likely started by Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18), then influenced by Apollos, then taught by Paul for several years, then pastored by Timothy, and eventually, according to church tradition, led by the apostle John himself. It had deep roots. It was well taught, and it needed all the support it could get because Ephesus was not an easy place to be a Christian.
The city itself was an important port city that never fully realized its potential despite the Roman empire pouring substantial financings toward its development. Eventually, the port was abandoned. Nonetheless, due to its centrality, it became an, if not “the”, cultural center for Asia Minor. It was the place to be.
At the core of this fame was the Temple of Artemis which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In classical mythology, Artemis was the virgin goddess of the hunt or “wild things”. However, she was also a goddess of the moon. Since the moon was, and is still, said to have two sides--the light side and dark side--Artemis also represented two separate and opposite goddesses: Selene, the “good” goddess of light; and Hecate, the "dark" goddess of witchcraft and evil. The Ephesian, however, took worship of her to a whole new level. Her temple was a place of debauchery and sexual perversion… and it brought it a lot of money (MacArthur). It was the life-blood of the city. Interestingly, we actually saw the result of this deep set pagan worship when we were studying Acts 19-20. Those profiting from the debauchery got upset at Paul because the Gospel was hurting their bottom line.
I say all that to establish, this letter was originally written to a church that sprung up surrounded by paganism. It had a strong foundation laid by a superstar set of teachers. However, as we'll see, while having a firm foundation is vital, it will not sustain you forever.
“1 "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. 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. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for My name's sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 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. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 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.'”
I already gave you an overly long intro, so let me just lay out the gist here and then dive in. What can we learn from this letter to Ephesus (and us)? We should be diligent in both our service and commitment to the truth, but none of that matters if we abandon the life-changing, rescuing love of God. That’s the whole gist for this passage, but my notes were pushing five pages, so we’re just going to hit the positive admonition this morning.
I. Diligent In Service
Look back at verses two and three. “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. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary…” They were a church defined by→
Tireless Toil and Patient Endurance. Jesus knows about their work. He sees their efforts. They are an active body of believers despite living in the face of persecution. The word translated toil here really implies more than just work. It is often used to mean sorrow or trouble. I think we need to get that. They didn’t have it easy. They were living an uphill battle, but did not give in. They worked, and they endured patiently for His name's sake, which means they weren’t just in it for themselves. They were at least trying to stand for Jesus. They did not grow weary. They served without complaining or slacking off.
All of this is very good. We need to be more like this as a Church. I need to be more like this as a person. I know my tendencies, and I've witnessed this in others, so maybe someone out there will be convicted by this as well. Serving God is easy... when it's fresh. When you first walk through a door God has opened, there's a thrill. There's an excitement that surrounds going out and sharing the gospel for the first time, or starting up a children's ministry, or taking a new direction with (fill in the blank). But... and sadly there seems always to be a but... when the new wears off and the excitement turns to toil, we tend to fade. I tend to fade.
What causes this? Opposition. This can be both direct and indirect. Maybe someone or something actually opposes our ministry— trying to stop what God is doing. Maybe it's more intrinsic. We get tired. We get busy. We have other things we'd rather do. So... we give up. The church in Ephesus didn't. It’s only been a few months since we finished up our study in the book of Galatians together, so hopefully this verse is still ringing in some of our minds. Galatians 6:9 “9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Never get tired of doing what is good.
II. Commitment To The Truth
Firmly Standing for the Truth. In their faithful service, they were also committed to the Truth. Remember, this church was surrounded by false teaching. Not only was the outside world pagan, but from the beginning false teachers were sneaking into the Christian congregations as well. Two specific examples are given in these verses. They tested people claiming to be apostles who were not, and hated the works of Nicolaitans (6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.) No details are given about either group here, but false apostles would have been claiming special authority over the church while proclaiming something other than the gospel of Jesus. The Nicolaitans were also false teachers, and while we don’t know exactly what they were teaching, the consensus seems to be that they were teaching that Christians should participate in pagan immorality. Both were corrupting the truth of the gospel. Nonetheless, the Ephesains stood firm and demonstrated theological discernment. How? Because they knew and held fast to the Truth (the Word of God).
Again, this is a positive example for us. We need to know and love the Word of God. Which means, we need to study the Bible. Read it; dig into it; struggle with the parts we don't understand; seek God's wisdom; and talk with others who have spent time in the Word. This takes effort, but there is no other intellectual and spiritual pursuit more vital. And we need to be willing to put ourselves out there and share the truth. I was sitting in an FCA meeting on Friday, and one of the officers asked the small group if they ever felt like being a Christian is hard. I new believer spoke up and said, “Yeah, I was in a class where the other students started making fun of God, and I knew I needed to say something, but I was afraid because I didn’t know what they would think, or if I would lose friends, but I did it. I stood up and told them to stop.” She was terrified, but she stood up for the truth. You can too. We’ll hit this a lot more next week, but we should do this as an expression of the love we have in Jesus, so that means we’re not just driving around looking for a fight. We’re polite and compassionate...and fully committed to loving Jesus and pointing others to Him.
Quick Side Note: I know there will be some who have a question about the use of the word hate here in the context of Jesus’ feelings toward the Nicolatians, so I do not want to gloss over it (especially since I just mentioned sharing the truth in love). We live in a world that works from the framework that disapproving of a lifestyle equates to hating those who live it. Nonetheless, the bottom line is this: Hating sin is not unloving. I know how that sounds because I hear it through the same Western ears you do. I've grown up on the same rhetoric. But, if God is real and sin separates us and the world from His love, preventing us, by choice, from living life now and forever as He intended--loved and loving in the full presence of His holiness--then hating sin is loving what is true, and desiring others to turn from sin to life is loving them.
TAKEAWAYS
Let Jesus be your strength and motivation. Don’t give up, but don’t try to do all this in your own strength either. You can’t. You weren’t meant to.
Serve Him with your time and talents. We use our time for a lot of different things. I am just as prone to waste mine as you are. However, it has really hit me. I’m only going to have so many hours in every day. I can waste them, or I can turn them into using the talents and time God has given me to be His light in whatever way that may entail.
Stand for His Truth. Be brave.
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