A Seemingly Perfect Church - Revelation 2:1-7

So it's now April.

We started our study in Revelation in January and we're finally in Chapter 2.

And we'll go pretty quickly through these next ones, right?

Because we're going into this fun section where it's Jesus' letters to the seven churches.

And so these are more preachy than teachy, which is convenient that I don't have my whiteboard

with me right now, but we're starting with these letters.

And remember, he's writing to real churches in a real place at a real time and they're

dealing with real problems.

Each one is dealing with a different problem and in a different way.

And he starts with this church in Ephesus.

And this church, when I think of Ephesus, I think of a seemingly perfect church because

they had a lot going for them.

And it's pretty dangerous when you have a seemingly perfect church because there's no

such thing as a perfect church, right?

Not this side of glory.

And it's really tempting for us too, right, to look at other churches and say, wow, look

at them.

They've got this, they've got that, they've got all these people, they do all these things.

They look like a perfect church.

But that's dangerous because looks can be very deceiving, right?

Yes, he was, and then got passed to Timothy.

So yeah, and I think of a church that was, that I had interactions with early on in my

faith, I think Jordan would be familiar.

There was a church called Morris Hill.

And this church was a seemingly perfect church.

I mean, just some data on it.

It was planted in 1996 with 30 people, right?

And over the next 18 years, it grew to 15 locations in 13,000 people.

I mean, this was a huge church.

It was one of the biggest churches in America.

They had thousands of baptisms, thousands of salvatians.

This church, they were theologically conservative.

They were doctrinally sound.

They were completely orthodox.

They opposed heresies.

They called out false teachers.

I mean, they were as doctrinally sound as you could be, right?

But not only that, they were full of good works.

They were active in their community.

They were constantly serving their community, their state, the nation.

They started a church planting organization that still exists to this day and has started

at this point hundreds upon hundreds of churches all across the world.

So if you were to look at a church and you saw Morris Hill, you would think this is a

seemingly perfect church, right?

They've got everything going for it.

And at the very height of their success, when they were just on top of the world, church

closed, it's done.

No longer exists today.

And you think, how is that possible?

How does a church that seems like it has everything going for it just shut down?

Why did this happen?

Because they were dutifully obedient.

They were doctrinally sound.

They were active in their world and yet they failed as a church and now they are gone.

And that's kind of like the church at Ephesus.

They had all these same things going for them.

The church at Ephesus, they were doctrinally sound.

They refused to conform to the culture and they were active in their community.

They did all sorts of stuff.

And yet Jesus says to them, you better straighten up or I'm going to put out your lamp.

Jesus looks at the church at Ephesus and he's not pleased with them.

And so that leads me to ask this question.

If we're studying this passage together and you're reading all this, the question that

at least comes to my mind is, well, when is Jesus not pleased with dutiful obedience?

Right?

That's a good question to ask.

You look at what they're doing and they're doing all the right things.

And yet Jesus is not pleased with them.

So if we're looking at this and you're trying to walk with Christ, the question you should

be asking yourself is, when is Jesus not pleased with obedience?

And that's the question I want us to consider as we start reading this letter to the seven

churches.

Notice how he starts in verse one, Revelation chapter two and verse one, to the angel of

the church in Ephesus, right.

The words of him who holds the seven stars in his hand, who walks among the seven golden

lampstands.

Now, if you remember the last time we were together in Revelation, we had John's vision

of Jesus and he said all these amazing things about Jesus, right?

Well, in each of the seven letters, Jesus is going to start by referencing one of those

attributes from the vision.

And he does so here by saying he's the one who holds the seven stars in his hands and

he walks among the seven golden lampstands.

Jesus is going to start each one of these letters by telling the church something about

himself.

I want us to notice that.

Jesus starts each letter by saying what we need to know about him.

That's of utmost importance.

Here's what you need to know about me.

And what he wanted them to know first and foremost is that he holds the seven stars

in his hands and he walks among the seven golden lampstands.

So what does that communicate to us?

What does Jesus mean by these things?

Well, first he's wanting to communicate his power, right?

He holds the seven stars in his right hand.

What did that mean?

Do you remember what the reference to the seven stars?

You look back to Revelation 1 verse 20.

Revelation 1:20

What are the seven stars?

The angels, yeah, the angels of the seven churches.

So something interesting here, angels of the seven churches.

What does that mean?

Good question.

You know, we'll have to ask Jesus when we get to glory.

But because some people will say each church has their own guardian angel and a lot of

it comes from this verse here where it says there are the seven angels of the seven churches.

And so some people say each church has their own guardian angel.

Is that possible?

Absolutely.

It is 100%.

We should not be dogmatic here.

However, in the Greek, the word that is used here on gloss is just the word that means

messenger and doesn't always mean angel.

Just means a messenger.

For instance, it's used of many human beings throughout the Bible.

In Matthew chapter 11, Jesus refers to John the Baptist as an ungoloss.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

He was not an angel, right?

He's just a human being, a voice crying out in the wilderness, eating some locus, wearing

some weird stuff, right?

So he's not an angel.

He's just a guy, but he was a messenger.

He was the one who was leading the way for the Christ.

And so the context of a word determines its meaning.

So could it mean angel?

Sure.

But most likely what this is referring to here, messengers.

Who were the messengers within a church?

The pastors.

Do you think it makes sense if Jesus is writing letters to the churches that he says, oh,

by the way, I hold the messengers of those churches in my hand?

That's some power right there, is it not?

It's actually a challenge too.

How does it challenge?

Can you think of anything?

What would it challenge?

Challenges are our idea of who actually runs the church, right?

I know of pastors who rule with an iron fist.

Actually, I kid you not.

I want this one even in my notes.

This one's for free.

This very day, I saw a video that was posted of a pastor who was exerting his power and

authority in the church.

He made a church member come forward.

He literally told the church members, a grown man, to get down on the ground on all fours

and start barking because he said so.

And the man did it.

And then the man stood up and he hugged the pastor and thanked him.

And then he walked back.

Yeah.

If I ever tell you to do something like that, just tell me to get out of here, okay?

I'm not qualified at that point.

There are plenty of pastors who want to rule the church with an iron fist.

It's their way or it's the highway.

They know best.

They are always right.

They are dogmatic and they rule and don't you dare question them.

And Jesus says here, that's my bride.

Do you remember that?

That's my bride.

I'm the head of the church.

I hold every messenger of every church in my hand.

I run the church.

So George's Creek, let me just remind you, I don't run this church.

I've never claimed to run this church.

I've always tried to tell people I have no desire to run this church.

I will gladly lead this church.

But the church is run by Jesus.

Not me, not Jordan, definitely not Joseph, by Jesus.

And Jesus is reminding us of that here.

But there's something else he's reminding us of here that he wants us to know.

And that's when he says that he walks among the seven golden lampstands.

What are the lampstands?

You remember?

They're the churches, right?

So what is Jesus reminding us?

First he reminds us of his power.

I need you to know of my power and my sovereign authority.

But here, it's a comfort.

The first phrase was a challenge.

Guess who really runs the church?

But this one is a comfort because Jesus reminds us that he is present with his people.

That he is not some far off, aloof God.

That's like the God of Islam, right?

They believe in Allah and they believe that he's God.

But the thing about him is, even within their own theology, he is distant and far and you

cannot be in some sort of close relationship with him.

Jesus says, I walk with my people.

I am present with my people.

And so you have this challenge and you have this comfort.

And this is the point is that Jesus is wanting us to understand that his power and his presence

in the church should visibly impact the church, right?

If Jesus is powerful within the church and if he is present within the church, that should

visibly impact our attitudes, our worship, and our actions, should it not?

Let me give you an example, right?

When I worked at Lowe's, they used to have this phrase and I heard it early on, I had

no idea what it meant.

But they'd say, hey, you got straightened up, we got company today.

I'm like, people come in here every day.

Is that what you're referring to?

Like the customers?

And they're like, no, we got company.

And I came to learn that if someone said, company's here, we have company coming, it

meant that the higher ups were coming, the district managers, you know, all the big wigs,

right?

Here's what's interesting, right?

Like, I mean, I don't want to talk bad about any of my coworkers, but let's just say that

they were not all as dutiful, I don't know if that's appropriate.

They didn't all take their job as seriously as others.

They didn't have the hardest work ethic, a lot of them.

And so you'd see them lounging around and stuff and not taking things seriously, bad

attitudes, joking, talking, all that kind of stuff.

What was interesting though is when company was around, all of that changed.

All of a sudden, all the slackers were just hard at work all the time.

All the people who were in the break room, normally joking and goofing off and stealing

time and all that kind of stuff, they were out on the floor.

They were greeting it, oh, can I help you carry that?

Can I take that to your car?

All this kind of stuff.

I mean, when someone who had power and authority was present, everything visibly changed.

Does that make sense?

And that's what Jesus is saying here.

He's saying if I truly am in your midst and you truly do believe that I have power and

I am with you, why don't you act like it?

Why isn't that evident in your church gatherings?

I wonder if that's evident in us, George's Creek.

Do you think that we're a church that visibly shows that we believe Jesus is powerful and

present in our midst?

Do you think that His power and presence visibly impacts our worship, our attitudes, our decisions,

the way that we talk with one another, the way that we talk about one another?

Does Jesus make a difference in the life of our church?

That's what He wants us to consider as He begins to say these things.

So He wants them to know of His power and His presence, but He also wants them to know

something very terrifying.

Jesus knows what's going on in the church.

Did you notice, look at verse two, Jesus begins and He says, I know your works.

Now that's terrifying, right?

I mean, I just think of all the bad things that I did growing up and thankfully my mom's

here to testify that I never did anything bad, right?

Okay, so when I would do something bad, the most terrifying thing mom could do is she'd

come to me and she'd say, I know you weren't at school today.

Oh no, how'd you know that?

You got spies everywhere.

I know that you left school early.

The most terrifying thing she could tell me was, I know what you did.

And Jesus says here, I know your works.

But notice what He says about their works.

I know your toil.

I know your patient endurance, how you cannot bear with those who were evil, but have tested

those who call themselves apostles and are not and found them to be false.

So He says a bunch of good things about them, right?

You would expect Jesus to say, hey, I know about your works.

There aren't any.

I know about your works.

All the bad things you're doing.

But He says no of your toil.

And that word toil there, it's not just another word for labor or anything like that.

It's actually in the Greek, it refers to the most intense, instrenuous kind of labor.

So notice that.

This was a church that didn't, they weren't content simply to write a check and say, I've

done my work, right?

A lot of churches like that today, a lot of Christians like that today, you hear about

a mission trip, I could go or I could just write a check and that'll be fine.

They don't want to get their hands dirty, right?

They don't want to do the work themselves.

They are happy to pray for the work, happy to financially contribute to the work.

They don't want to get their hands dirty.

Well, that was not the church in Ephesus.

They were always doing the hard work themselves, the most strenuous kind of work.

And so Jesus says, hey, I know about that.

Not only that, He says I know about your patient endurance.

And notice that Ephesus, you have to remember this, Ephesus was the most important city

in Asia Minor where these letters are going.

There's no wonder Jesus starts with them first.

So the most important city was a city known for commerce and trade, a city of education.

It was a city that was known to worship a lot of false deities.

In the city itself, they had an entire temple to the goddess Artemis.

They had a temple to her.

They had a statue for her.

They worshiped the emperors there.

They would treat the emperors as if they were gods.

And so if you are a Christian living in a culture like that, if you're a Christian living in

a city like that, there's going to be a lot of pressure to conform, isn't there?

If everybody in your city is worshiping at the temple of Artemis and they're calling

Caesar God and you're not, what do you think they're going to do to you?

Everything they can to get you to conform to what they're doing.

And Jesus says, this church hasn't done that.

They have not conformed.

They are patiently enduring.

It refers to steadfastness in the face of evil and to withstand pressure to conform.

And so they were doing all this.

They were standing firm for Jesus.

And yet Jesus was not pleased with this church.

Isn't that amazing?

He's already said, you've done good things.

You have not conformed.

You're steadfast.

They weren't pleased with them.

And then not only that, notice too that he says he knows that they're doctrinal purity.

He knows that they've identified these false prophets.

They've tested them.

They cannot bear with those who are evil.

Notice, they could bear persecution.

They could not bear heresy.

Oh, I like that, right?

I like a people who are just, they know that theology matters.

And I've got plenty of shirts that say that.

They know this.

They know that theology matters.

They stand firm, doctrinally.

They are on high alert for any potential wolves and sheep's clothing.

And they've tested them.

They identified the false apostles.

We could learn a thing or two about that today.

I wish we would.

A lot of people today going around calling themselves apostles.

You see it on Facebook and social media everywhere else.

And I'm going to give you a simple test today.

If you want to know, you don't have to submit it in the podcast.

Again, this one's free, right?

How can we know if someone is a true apostle today?

Or how do we know how to identify false apostles today?

Great question.

Let me answer it.

Anyone who calls themselves an apostle today is false.

There are no apostles today that ended with the apostles of Jesus.

They are the foundation of the church.

You can read that in Ephesians chapter two.

Ephesians chapter four as well.

Paul continues the same thought.

There are no apostles today that office has ended.

So don't fall for that nonsense.

That's your free one.

Now back to Revelation.

Okay?

Yeah, two free ones.

Let's see how many more I got.

The Ephesians could not tolerate sin.

They could not tolerate heresy.

I mean, even look at verse six.

Notice what Jesus says in verse six.

Yet this you have.

You hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

So Jesus was saying that they were standing firm against these heretics, the ones who

were trying to corrupt the church.

They were orthodox.

I mean, just think about this.

You have to wrap your mind around this.

You have a church where you think they're checking all the boxes, right?

Are you doctrinally sound?

Check.

I've got it.

Are you doing good works in your community?

Check.

We're doing the most strenuous kind.

Well, are you standing firm against the culture and refusing to conform?

Check.

We've done that too.

We've identified false teachers and calling them out and warning the church.

Absolute we are.

You would think Jesus says you're my favorite church.

In fact, this is the only church that Jesus addresses where he threatens to put out their

lampstand.

Isn't that crazy to y'all?

I mean, if we're just reading this together, you're reading the Bible.

I always encourage you ask good questions to the Bible.

The question that comes to your mind right now is this.

Why was Jesus not pleased with them?

You're doing everything right.

How can he not be pleased with this church?

And the point is this.

Obedience to God, in obedience to God's requirement, is only pleasing when it flows forth from

love.

And that's the thing that the Ephesian church missed.

They were focusing on all the actions, all the works.

They were focusing on doctrinal purity.

Good for them.

Heretics, get out of here.

But they had no love.

The church had everything except the main thing.

And if you have everything except the main thing, what do you have?

Church?

Nothing.

Notice what Jesus said to them there in verse four.

He said exactly this, but I have this against you.

You have abandoned the love you had at first.

I can't imagine hearing Jesus say those words.

Can you?

Let me think about your life.

You're reading scripture every day.

Good for you.

You're participating in missions work.

Good for you.

Community outreach.

Good for you.

You're going to church.

Good for you.

You doctrinally sound good for you.

Do you love Jesus?

And are you doing all of those things out of a pure love for Jesus?

That's where it gets hard, right?

Anyone can go to church.

A heretic can go to church.

The devil himself could walk in here and attend church.

It doesn't take a Christian to go to church.

It doesn't take a Christian to give out a Bible, to give money to the homeless.

Anybody can do that.

The question is, are you doing the things that you do out of a love for Jesus and what

He has done for you?

Because if not, Jesus says you're no better than the church in Ephesus.

If you have everything except the main thing, you have nothing.

Jesus said in John 1335, by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you

love one another.

If a church does not have love for God and love for others, is that a church?

What did Jesus say were the first two and most important commandments?

Most important commandment?

Love the Lord your God.

The second one's pretty similar to it.

What is it?

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Love God.

Love others.

If a church doesn't have that, can they even be called a church?

Makes you think, right?

I mean, look at the church of Ephesus.

They had all these other things that you would think these mark this as a church, but they

had abandoned their love of God and love of others.

You see, the church in Ephesus had become a church.

I hope our church never becomes like this.

They were a church where the Pharisees would feel right at home.

The Pharisees would feel comfortable in the church of Ephesus.

Now, this is a church that's rigorous.

Oh, yeah.

This is a church that studies the Scriptures in your Orthodox.

Oh, yeah.

This is a church where you don't permit heretics.

Oh, yeah.

This is a church where you're going and doing a bunch of stuff and other people can see

you do a bunch of stuff.

Oh, yeah.

Sign me up.

This is a church where you don't actually have to have a close relationship with Jesus

and not be visible to everybody, where you can disconnect all of the religious activities

from the person who saved you from your sins.

Oh, yeah.

Sign me up for that.

Isn't that scary when a church becomes a type of church where the Pharisees would feel

very comfortable being members there?

I hope our church never becomes that.

I hope a Pharisee hates our church where they would never feel comfortable here because we

are so devoted to God and have so much love for God and love for others that it makes

others uncomfortable.

That's what happened to the church in Ephesus.

You might say, well, is it really that serious?

You know, I mean, we're going on and on about this, but is it really that serious?

I think it is.

Notice what Jesus said in verse five.

He said, remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the work you did

at first.

If not, I will come to remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.

The only church, there's churches that are going to be conforming.

There are churches that are going to be tolerating sin.

There's a church that's called the dead church, and yet this is the only one that Jesus says,

I will remove your church.

That makes you think, doesn't it?

But Jesus seems to hate hypocrisy more than even all these other things.

You see, that's why I mentioned the church at Morris Hill at the beginning.

It's because the main reason they shut down is because they abandoned their first love.

The pastor no longer had love for God and love for others.

He was one of those who was rolling with an iron fist.

He was kicking people out of the church, telling people they couldn't be members or like elders

or deacons because they were overweight, they wouldn't fit the brand of the church.

He started just doing all these abusing people, cussing people out, just all sorts of heinous

things, and it stemmed from abandoning your first love.

When you abandon love for God and love for others, you're no longer in a church.

You're in a community, and you're having some sort of social gathering, but it is not a

church.

And that same thing is happening all around even our county today.

There are multiple churches.

There's like nine or 10 churches in our own county who have either shut down or are about

to shut down because they abandoned their first love.

They lost their love for God and love for others.

If that's not what fuels a church, you've lost your fire.

So then this leads to that question.

What can a church do?

If you're in this situation and you're thinking, my church might be going down that path, we

might have abandoned our first love, what hope is it?

What can we do?

And I want you to notice what Jesus says.

He says three things here.

First and foremost, he says remember.

He says remember therefore from where you have fallen.

And actually in the Greek here, it's written in a tense that means keep on remembering.

Never stop remembering from where you are falling.

He's saying think back to that great love of God you experienced in those early days

of salvation.

Are those sweet memories for you?

They are for me.

When I look back on just that first week, first couple months of salvation, I don't know

if there's a sweeter time in my life.

I mean, I was just in love with the Lord, everything about my life.

I was just reading the Bible all day long, writing scripture for people, taking it to

people.

I was just obsessed and it was beautiful and it was great.

And then life happens, right?

And a lot of that gets removed.

A lot of that becomes harder to maintain because you're just so enveloped in life.

And Jesus is saying here, I'm the same God.

I'm the same Savior.

Remember from where you have fallen.

Remember how great salvation is.

Things like David said in the Psalms restore to me the joy of my salvation.

I don't think hardly anything will rekindle our love for God and others like remembering

those first days of salvation and remembering how sweet it is.

I know they say that like familiarity breeds contempt, but with God familiarity just breeds

more love for God.

The more you know him and you walk with him and you see who he is, the more it just fuels

that fire and that love for him.

And so he says keep on remembering and never forget.

But the other thing he says here, notice again in verse 5, he says to repent.

To repent, that's what you must do.

It means to again turn away from your sins, to turn in a commitment to God.

And in order to do that we need to know what things that are that lured us away in the

first place, right?

If Jesus is calling us to repentance, it means that we have chosen something else over him.

And so what we need to do is identify the things in our lives that are taking away our

love for Jesus.

What's taking away our time with Jesus?

What's taking away our commitment to prayer and communing with Jesus?

What's taking away our time from getting in the Word and communing with Jesus in his

Word?

What is it that's actually become Jesus in our lives?

What's taking his place in our lives?

When you find that thing, that's the thing that you've abandoned your first love for,

Jesus says remove it.

Get it out of your life.

It has no place, no business being in my place.

It's like the altar of Hebrews said in Hebrews 12, 1, let us also lay aside every weight

and sin which clings so closely.

He says we need to lay aside all things that will hinder our walk with him and separate

us from him.

And then finally I want you to notice this last thing he says here in verse 5.

He says to redo.

Remember, repent and redo.

Do again the works you did at first.

What does that mean?

It means that when we allow ourselves to be consumed with love for God and love for others,

we must do the things that flow forth naturally from that love.

So if you love God, that's going to be evident in the things that you do, right?

It's going to be evident in the way that I spend my money, the way that I talk to my

spouse, the way that I prioritize my time and my commitments.

I'm going to be in the Word, I'm going to be in prayer, I'm going to be fellowshiping

with other believers.

That love for God is going to manifest itself in the same way that love for others will

manifest itself.

It's not doing these things just to do them, right?

Again, it's like I said, any non-Christian can do the things that Christians do most

of the time.

And so you have to ask yourself, how am I different from the hypocrites?

Am I here at church just because it's Sunday or it's Wednesday?

Or am I here because I love the Lord and I recognize that He has given us the church

as a good gift and we have other believers here to do life together and I want to just

gather with them and I want to praise God and worship Him.

If that's not our desire, how are we any different than a non-believer coming and sitting in

these peeps?

This is my, I mean, I get on this point a lot, but it's because it's so relevant and

just absolutely prevalent in our world today, this nominal cultural Christianity which I

can't stand.

I cannot stand people just going through the motions, going through the actions, patting

themselves in the back, convincing themselves that they are Christians and they're going

to spend forever and all eternity with God simply because they're doing religious activities.

Religion has never saved anyone.

Jesus does.

And so if you have separated your religious actions from Jesus himself, you're in a non-saving

relationship with religion.

You need to turn to Jesus.

I think so many churches in our world today are just like this church where they've got

all the right things going on.

They've got all the right things going for them.

They seem like a seemingly perfect church and yet they have abandoned their first law.

There are more faithful churches with 20 members than some churches that have 20,000 members.

And so we need to hear and heed the words of Jesus here.

You see, Jesus gives the Ephesian church this morning.

He says, if you don't remember, if you don't repent, if you don't redo, I'm going to remove

your lampstand.

You know what happened?

Is it a happy ending?

Did they do the things?

No.

They did not remember.

They did not repent.

They did not redo.

And the church in Ephesus had its lampstand removed.

There's not even a city of Ephesus today.

And the place where it was is now overrun, not with Christians, but with who?

Muslims.

The very place that started as one of the epicenters of Christianity is now totally devoted to

a false God and a false hate.

Do you think Jesus is serious about this warning?

Do you think it continues today?

Do you think any church that abandons his first love, he still says, I will remove your

lampstand.

So we need to heed this warning, George's Creek.

We need to remember our first love.

We need to repent of anything that would keep us from putting him first.

We need to redo our works with that renewed love for Christ.

And we need to rely on Jesus to give us the grace that we need to be able to live as his

people.

This is his message to a seemingly perfect church and may it never be a message to us.

All right, Michael, give us a word of wisdom as we close.

Thank you.

Thank you.