I invite you to turn in your Bibles tonight to the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, as we're working through this book, and now we begin, after completing chapter one, our study in the seven churches. This is the church in Ephesus. We'll read together the first seven verses tonight. Beginning at verse one of chapter two. 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 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 i know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my namesake and you have not grown weary but i have this against you that you've 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 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, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst, which is in the paradise of God. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word tonight. Well, we really do get a sense of how in the book of Revelation, Jesus deals with his church and talks to his church and how he views things in light of the church world and when he looks at individual churches. It might be somewhat surprising to you to open up these churches and see that right at the beginning, Jesus is exposing that overall his churches were not in the greatest of condition, were they? You look at the state of the church today and you can become very burdened by that and very discouraged by that and wonder if the Lord has forsaken the project at times. Where is the Lord in all of this mess? all the divisions, all the fights, all the discouragements, all the things that we see, we can wonder what really is going on and where is the Lord in all of this. It's fascinating to open up Revelation because many had become so wearied by all the problems here already in the first century. Mass discouragement had come upon many of these churches and many of them were already compromising their mission in the mandate. The fact is that even in the first century, his churches, some of them here were seeming to fall apart. Real discouragement. And here in Revelation tonight, the Lord, what essentially this book was, was a circulating letter called Revelation, which was designed to answer his church in struggle. It's designed to help the church in every age. It's designed to help the church in every time in this period between his first and second coming. And it really does kind of function as his final word to carry on, to be faithful, to continue in what he said in the Great Commission, even if it means death, even if it means periods of intense persecution, even if it means that things in your eyes are going terribly wrong and things are not seeming to go anywhere in the life of the church. The message is carry on. Remember chapter one, I'm the king of the church. i'm the king over all i'm lord over all so so these prophetic messages from christ were designed to let them know that he's with them it was an encouragement to them last time wasn't it they saw their warrior king john saw the vision and wants to communicate that that jesus is saying that he ultimately knows our struggles he sees he sees the particular struggles of the escondido united reformed church every church has their struggle we look over the fence and look at churches and think oh it must be so great there must be so great there no every church has its problem every church is going through something every church is being hit with something and jesus is is is saying in these passages to to these churches to these seven churches of asia minor to carry on and be faithful in the mission and the mandate that that he gave. Tonight, what really moves me as we begin our study of the seven churches is where he begins. If I were critiquing a church today and I were going to start somewhere, where would I start? Well, I would open up what is a true and a false church and I would go after those compromising, reckless churches that have done nothing but make the church into a business. They trampled the Word of God. They don't even preach it. They've compromised Scripture and they've made the whole thing into a circus. I would probably start there. So I would start, but that's not where Jesus starts. The church that everyone looked at and thought, wow, that is a a church that is a pillar of orthodoxy, the church that were fighters for the truth, the church that seemed to be the most faithful, the church outwardly that you would look at and say, those are the contenders. Those are the ones really, really defending the faith. That is where Jesus begins tonight. Would you ever have dreamed that you could form a church that was the strongest doctrinally, that was the most active in good works, that was faithful and enduring in these things, and yet faced the threat from Jesus Himself that they could be uprooted as a church. It's a remarkable thing, isn't it? Somewhat perplexing when you read this passage. Meet Ephesus. And all these churches will challenge us in various ways. It's what it's meant to do, with the great call to fidelity to what the calling is and the mission and the mandate is. This is good for us, that we would be a praying church, that our first love, which is the heart of this major charge by our Lord, that our first love in this place would be preserved. So we have to kind of understand what that is, don't we? And appreciate what Jesus is calling us to. Let's look at this fascinating church here in Ephesus. What each of these letters do, which is fascinating, is they take something from chapter 1 that was revealed of Jesus. They take a fact, a description, a symbolism that was described of Jesus, and it's used to address each of the churches. And each one gets one of these descriptions right up front of Jesus from chapter 1, and then it's used to address the problems in that particular church, so that what he's ever going to use about Jesus in chapter one is something they need to take seriously in his revelation of himself in that symbolic vision to help them think through what he is calling them to be as a church. For Ephesus, we're getting some real insight into the problem. Christ begins by raising to the forefront what he takes there is that he walks among the church. He is among the church, among the lampstand in Ephesus. The things that come out here are somewhat shocking. At least from their perspective or the community's perspective, it would have been unthinkable this church has a problem. And notice how Jesus really begins here. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write, the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and who walks among the seven golden lampstands. Now, if you want some help with that, you'll look back at verse 20 of the previous section there and you'll see that the mystery of the seven stars, as you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. So we notice here, we have that referenced of what they are, particularly to emphasize, Jesus is walking among His churches. He wants Ephesus to know that. Why? Well, let me begin by setting the stage a little bit of where this church sat. It's always interesting to see where the Lord puts a church and why He puts a church there. We've looked at some of that with the city of Corinth. But in this particular case, Ephesus was a city that sat right on the Mediterranean Sea. Its harbor overlooked it. And because of this, it was one of the strongest places for business and prosperity. it was a powerful place it was a an industrious a wealthy place it sat right on a major highway and a trade route that went to rome exports and trade because of the seaport made it one of the most desirable places to live this wasn't out in the boonies this was this was a this was a really happening place to live in fact the city itself housed one of the greatest theaters with a seating capacity of over 25,000 people. They had the best plays and dramas of the day. They had everything from Roman baths to gymnasiums. Sports were huge. Jogging tracks, a massive civic center. There was a state, this was a state-of-the-art city in Ephesus. Most importantly is that what sat right outside the gates was a massive temple to the Artemis or the goddess Diana. You'll remember that from the book of Acts this is where Paul got in trouble with Demetrius the silversmith who when he had been making shrines to the goddess Diana Paul had criticized that and the whole place went into an uproar if you remember Timothy was a pastor there for a time and John himself pastored there before being banished to to Patmos so this means a lot to John doesn't it you remember that paul taught there for three years uh warned them with tears that savage wolves would come in not sparing the flock and men would rise up from among themselves and the ephesian elders were called the shepherd the flock so you're getting a sense of what the ministry was like in in this roman prosperous idolatrous city here they get a letter from jesus himself stating i'm walking among your church and i'm looking at the heart of your church what did he see ever wonder if jesus were writing a letter to the escondido urc what he would say he starts by way of commendation i love it this is great stuff christ has three areas he commends this church for doing things really well you'll notice that in verse two i know your works your toil 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 wow that is that is a great commendation isn't it remarkable i'd love to have that said i'd be the happiest one of the happiest pastors on earth that that jesus came down and gave that kind of commendation to the escondido URC. Did you catch that? He commends their works. Remember, he's talking corporately in the book of Revelation. He's commending what he's looking at. This church is full of works. They've labored for his name. They haven't stopped. It's a busy church, an active church. And if you've ever seen an inactive church, that's a terrible thing to see, isn't it? People were involved. People were about the business of the church they were about giving themselves the poor were probably being cared for probably catechizing the youth members were were serving one another a lot of involvement in this church in in some sense you're getting that the reputation of this church in ephesus was was really remarkable churches knew that the church in ephesus was budding with an involvement, and we've all seen it. I remember one of the churches I attended in college, and I'll never forget that the pastor was the one who was the janitor too. Thank you for not putting that on me. But seriously, he could get no one to clean the toilets. The rule really was shown to me there. Only about 10% of the people did about, as the rule goes, 90% of the work. Not ephesus that's not ephesus industrious uh the building was used if they probably met in homes but you get the point let me just say that pleases christ um more than we know i want you to feel the commendation of this when every member does his share there's a lot of instruction on this in the new testament isn't there that everyone has a part and a place in the body of christ and you're encouraged to be a part and to use your gifts. That the church would be a place that we could say is full of good works. That's Jesus' commendation. He goes on. Verse 2, I know that you cannot bear with those who are evil. Wow. You've tested those who call themselves that are apostles and are not and found them to be false. You realize how hard that is in our environment. It was not very easy in theirs either. I was reading a historical study of Ephesus and it was fascinating what I came across. You know what happened in Ephesus? These temples there, these pagan temples to the pagan deities, they had become asylums. And what that meant is that the people were committing awful sins in society, awful wickedness and lawlessness in society, they could run into these temples and be beyond the bounds of the law. They could be freed from all the consequences of breaking the law in society. That's what these temples had become. One of the last temples of Asylum was the temple of Artemis in Ephesus. And this temple, Diana Artemis, which sat right under a large palm tree. And right before that tree was a big statue. And what began to happen was people would commit terrible crimes and they would flee to the tree, they would flee to the altar, and they never faced any more consequences. This was a known problem in Ephesus. What do you think began to happen in the mindsets of the people? well you're incrementally lowering the standards of morality uh you're removing consequence of action you have you have a nightmare happening in terms of lawlessness in in this city everything was being tolerated under the sun christ says i commend you ephesus i commend you because you don't bear you cannot bear what's evil i'm on your side with your stance on this stuff i really think we need to hear that today don't you i mean we are so pressed with being tolerant of everything we live in a culture today that everything's about discussion well not really you know that's not really true but everything's about discussion understanding and tolerance of everything. And don't you need to hear something like this from Jesus Himself? Jesus does not think that way. Jesus does not act that way. He has a very strong message of repentance and expects His church to have it. This church was unwavering in condemning behaviors that the world did not. They were an intolerant church in these things in a tolerant culture. And here lies probably one of the greatest compromises of the church today, as I've said. It's hard. How do you hold up things like 1 Corinthians 6 to our culture? Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. See how that makes you feel? Just hearing that? It makes us shiver a little bit. Can't even say those things today. And Jesus is commending this church. This church said to its members, dear son, dear daughter, you can't practice these things and be called a Christian. You can't practice fornication. You can't practice having sex out side of marriage you can't practice homosexuality and be called that that doesn't mean you're a jerk doing it nobody says that but but this is what he's committing that you don't bear those things can't bear that does the church have a robust message of repentance i think it's a fair question the pressure pressure to be silent is great and by and large we are oh the church in Ephesus no not them then comes the big one you've tested those who say they are apostles and are not and found them liars verse 6 you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans you'll notice that there in verse you hate the works of the Nicolaitans which I also hate yes Jesus hates something he hates their works this church possessed the rare gift of discernment they were discriminating orthodoxy was uh unimpaired as it was John Stott who said they weren't so stupid to think and suppose that christian charity can tolerate false apostles love embraces neither air nor evil it's amazing that christ looked out at this group called the nicolaitans and i thought about this if if we had this challenge today and the nicolaitans had on their sign the nicolaitan reformed church the challenge we would feel you imagine saying anything against that today see if we tested the practices of the nicolaitan christian reformed church or we did any of that after serious reflection on views of worship and the holiness of god and the wrong tolerance of things that god word condemns if we did that can you imagine the problems that would create i would be labeled as schismatic i would be labeled unloving and jesus says I hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans. Ephesus. They studied the Scriptures. They searched the Scriptures. They exposed the unfruitful works of darkness. They were contenders with Jesus against these groups that claimed to be right, but whose practices were against the Word of God. That is a remarkable, remarkable church so far. I've often thought that it's not that practices of people are unclear as to whether some churches are right or wrong. It's not that. It's not that the Holy Spirit hasn't helped us with what's right or what's wrong. It's more the issue of an unwillingness on people's part to care enough about Christ and love people enough to take the stand. That's really what it comes down to. As hard as that is to hear, but it's part of counting the cost. And I know what you're saying. Everyone I've seen do this is a jerk. That is a problem. And that is exactly why I think it's helpful now to consider very strongly what Christ is against in this church. you know what can happen in a church like this. Matter of fact, if we were to evaluate a church, what do we do? We hold out Article 29, hold the Belgic, and say, well, we have the three marks of a true and faithful church. Pure preaching of the gospel, right administration of the sacraments, and discipline. Right. If you were to ask me, does Ephesus demonstrate that outwardly? Yep. Yes. Jesus looks deeper into the heart of this church. Which means that just because it's all externally, all the check marks are in place, does not mean that it's functioning as it should be. And I am absolutely willing to say to the Escondido United Reformed Church, in any of these churches as we go through them, we have to be willing to evaluate us, don't we? This is not about just assaulting everyone else. No, no, no, no, no. This is about looking with the goal of what the ministry should be in this place and praying for the other churches that they would be faithful too. Right? Of course. This church is not what it seemed to be. And Christ now levels his accusation, verse 4. But I have this against you, that you've abandoned the love that you had at first. It was this serious with Jesus that he threatens to pull the plug on the project what a church like this a church this robust in theology and this convicted about truth yes the wind's kind of taken out of our sail isn't it in all their fighting for the truth and all their work something had gone wrong you ever you ever wonder what it means to leave your first love? There's a lot of commentary on that. And generally as it goes, the generally accepted position is that to leave your first love has to do with leaving the love that you have for Jesus. And I believe in general that's true, but it needs to be explained and it needs to be understood. Let me put it in terms of the pastorate. You get a new charge as a pastor and you have, especially if you're younger, you have a lot of energy and you're devoted and you're going and you seem to have endless energy for all these things and you're all about the ministry. And you really do. Why did I, why did any pastor, why does any pastor ever go into this? You go into it because you love Christ and you go into it because you have to have a love for His people. don't you? You go in and so you're ready to take on the work. And there's a certain energy and there's a certain motivation and there's a certain drive. There's fresh blood in it. You're just, you're going. What happens after prolonged periods of conflict? What happens after things don't go the way and it's very normal, it's very mundane at times, and you always expect things to go better than they do. What happens after a long run of that? Hey, I expect this place to be packed out. You know, I expect the city of Escondido to be here tonight. A little unrealistic, is it? But I kind of pray for it. What happens after a prolonged period of time? This is in life, isn't it? You can go through life thinking about this in your jobs and all your circumstances. You start out with a lot of energy and a lot of happiness and a lot of motivation, a lot of drive, a lot of purpose and you know how it goes it goes go right to your children and raising it in the family you know how this goes what happens you begin to lose your drive you um you don't grow anymore your heart's not in it you forget why you did it in the first place purpose is is forgotten no energy is not given heart is not in it so you have no goal why are you preaching now why are you doing what you're doing now just to get through just to get through you know you can apply this something's gone wrong something's gone really wrong who are you doing this for who am I doing this for and what does that say about love here's a church fighting contending orthodox going after the NRC the Nicolaitan Reformed Church why I don't know why why Do you think you can lose purpose in that? You can stop caring for your brothers and sisters maybe who are in the Nicolaitan Reformed Church? Don't you think you can lose deep concern for the souls of those who've been seduced away into false teaching? Stuff that Christ hates? And that God has burdened my heart to be discerning to help people? To help my brothers and sisters? Or am I just doing it because this is what we do and we have to validate ourselves? I'm called to it because I care ultimately, or I should, about the witness of Jesus and about the salvation of people, right? You don't think we can forget that? You don't think I can forget that? See, when I'm doing it with the right motivation, what am I doing it in? Love. That's what 1 Corinthians 13 taught you. Love is this, this, this, this. That was all about the abuse of gifts. He said, no, no, no, pursue love. We're not going to have to talk about who has the best gifts. Pursue love. We could take this a little further. When the Escondido URC started, when, why did this church begin? Well, I trust, I wasn't here. Some of you were. You wanted to provide a place where people could come and have the gospel preached to them. and get the Word of God and have a fellowship and a family, a church family where you could fellowship with one another, encourage one another, help one another, all in the gospel. Joy and fellowship that we have. Sunday is a witness to all of that, isn't it? Here you are years later. How much of conflict, how much trial, how much hardship has gone on since this church started? What happens? And don't you think it could be easy for a group to forget its purpose? What does that look like? I think you could start with pride. We could be working hard. We could have a lot of people doing stuff. We could be condemning a lot of behaviors. We could be fighting for orthodoxy. All necessary. Commended by Jesus. And forgetting the basic goal for which we're doing it all. that we're doing it maybe to validate us. But the witness of Jesus Christ and the mission and the mandate that He gave us is no longer the heart. And because of that, our purpose, there's no longer love. When we forget that mission and purpose, we never look past ourselves. And that means that ultimately we could be working hard, we could be intolerant of false teaching to the T, we could be orthodox and fighting for the truth, and yet in the lifeblood of this church, that could be going on. That's Ephesus. The first love is a witness to the name of Jesus with the goal of salvation of people. And that mission should be driving us in passion not to be complacent where we are or to be merely focused on us, but that we should be willing to do the hard first works of what united us in the first place, you see? And in order for our witness to be effective, you have to know what your place is. So, are we really being a faithful witness? It's interesting how Jesus challenges this church in verse 5 where He says, remember therefore from where you fall and repent. And do the works that you did at first. You see, there it is. Go back to what you used to do and be as a church. There were works that were inspired by love. Everyone should know tonight, including your pastor, and I preach this to me, why you are here. The Lord is calling you back to a zeal for His church, a zeal for His ministry, that you are privileged to be a part of. That our love for one another is the very thing Jesus said. Men will know that we're His disciples. You know, it's fascinating. We'll close this out here, but it's fascinating to me that Jesus says, if you don't repent, I'm going to pull your lampstand. And I stood back from that and I thought, what does He mean? What is He saying by that? What does Jesus mean by that? Many of you have seen ministries in churches torn down and ministries today that are gone. I've seen it. You know that church I talked about at the beginning where the pastor was cleaning the toilets? That church is gone today. That was the church I was converted in. The light will be taken. If a church stubbornly refuses to hear what the Lord is saying, what the Spirit is saying to the churches, he can pull the plug on the project. And it could go on. It could go on and the church could sing its songs and have a great building and do all the great stuff. But the lampstand is gone. Christ's witness is no longer there. Ephesus knew this. Did you know Ephesus, the city, had to change its location because of the silting up of the river? It was removed, the whole city, and replaced? That imagery meant a lot. Ignatius reports years later that it had repented, by the way, and regained their love. I love to hear that. I love to hear that. Christ says something to encourage them. He says, He makes a promise. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He says, to him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God. I have a place of refuge for you. Think of the original garden. I'm going to give that to you. How do you overcome? He's about ready to tell us in chapter 4 and 5. They overcame by the blood of the Lamb. by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to death. I feel the churches in Revelation are very necessary for our day for us and helpful for us. I like to be challenged, but I like to remember who the Lord of the church is. It's His church. It's His place. We're privileged to be a part of this. And He's calling you back to your first love. Aren't you thankful for that? As a church body, We're not talking about individual salvation. We're talking about as a church. May this first love tonight that He's called us to, may we have a strong witness and remember the light that He has given to us that we might be a light to those who are in the darkness. Let's thank Him tonight. Gracious Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word to us tonight that we need. And thank You for Your wonderful message and encouragement to Your church, but also the need to challenge us. We need this. All of these churches will challenge us in a special way. And Lord, may there be repentance in us if these first works are not being pursued. Help us to see where we should go back and do the first works. May there be fervent love in this place. And not only do we pray that for us, but for all churches who bear Your name. Because we know that it's bigger than us and we want the witness of Jesus to be strong. By this, all men will know that we are Your disciples by the love that we have for one another. May, Lord, we respond because of Your great love with which You've loved us and a love for You by doing these first works. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you.