A Hard-Working Church Needs Its First Love (Revelation 2:1-7)

Hi, I'm Pastor Creighton, and thank you for tuning into Newsong Churches Podcast.

We're a biblically faithful, gospel-centered Anglican church in Port Perry, Ontario, proclaiming the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.

You can learn more about us at Newsongportperry.ca.

May God bless you today through his life-giving word.

A reading from the book of Revelation, chapter 2, verses 1 to 7.

Revelation 2:1–7

To the angel of the church in Ephesus write, the word 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 you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have that you had at first.

Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen.

Repent and be the worst you did at first.

If not, I will come to you and read.

You hate the works of the Nicodemus, Nicodemans, 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 the paradise of God.

Thanks be to God.

To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

Let's pray.

Holy God, we have come to behold you once again.

Grant to the eyes of our hearts to see you, Lord Jesus, as you stand amongst your church, as you hold the very stars of creation in your hands.

And Lord, we pray that you would equip us with everything good to do your will.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, we've been, uh we've begun our journey into the book of Revelation with this question.

What does Jesus say to his church?

The book of Revelation is one way we can answer that question.

Revelation is one single letter meant to circulate amongst at least seven churches in this Roman province of Asia Minor.

So what's written in these, in this whole letter, even those things written to particular churches, are meant to circulate around.

They're meant to be truths and lessons for the whole church, not just in John's day, but for all time.

And so we've seen in chapter one a vision of Jesus in all his glory, in all his splendor, standing amongst seven golden lampstands, which represent all of God's church.

And so we know Jesus is present.

And we know he's present where two or three are gathered in his name, and he is present with us even today.

And Jesus has a message for his church.

I think this is what the seven particular letters we're about to dive into suggest to us.

Jesus wants to speak to us, his church.

When Jesus speaks to his church in these kind of seven mini letters within this one bigger letter of Revelation, Jesus has at least three things he tends to say to his church.

He has affirmation to say to his church.

Here's what you're doing so well.

Keep doing it.

And then Jesus also has warning for his church.

Here's where you're going off the rails.

Don't go off the rails.

And Jesus has promises for his church.

If you persevere, if you see things through, you will enjoy all the good things that God has in mind for you.

So starting with a description of Jesus in all his glory, based on chapter 1, which we've studied over the last two weeks, we have these seven letters, seven words to his church.

So this morning we're going to look at this first letter, first of seven letters, to these churches in Asia Minor, and we're going to look at this letter addressed to the church in Ephesus.

John, the writer of Revelation, the one receiving this heavenly revelation, is on exile, in exile on Patmos, a rocky island off the coast of what we now call Turkey.

Ephesus would be the first kind of major metropolitan city closest to John.

So it makes sense that this letter would probably be sent to Ephesus first before it gets sent out from there.

The church in Ephesus is a hard-working church.

Here's what one commentator writes about this church.

The Ephesian church is buzzing with doing.

They have all kinds of ministries and programs going.

It is not a comfortable social club where people come only to get.

All its members are actively involved, all working for the advancement of the kingdom of God.

So what John transmits to the Ephesian church, this letter, this word from Jesus, is a word for a hard-working church.

And here's what the word, here's what the message is to this church.

A hard-working church needs its first love.

A hardworking church needs its first love if it wants to inherit God's promises.

So I want us to pepper that with a few questions.

What kind of hard work does Jesus call his church to?

And what's the danger that Jesus warns his church about?

And what's the hope that Jesus promises his church?

See, friends, if phrases like buzzing with doing or ministries and programs, if that sounds familiar, I think it's because New Song is a hardworking church.

I serve with you guys, and I know that we are a hardworking church.

We're a committed church, we're a serving church.

We're a church that asks, how can we get involved?

We're a church that signs up for ministries on a weekly basis.

We're churches that want to see the ministry of God go forward in Port Perry.

We're a hard-working church, and if that's true, insofar as we're a hardworking church, then we need to lean in to hear Jesus this morning.

Because he's got a message for hardworking churches like us.

He's got affirmation, he's got warning, and he's got promises for us.

So would you lean in with me?

Let's listen to what Jesus has to say to us.

A hardworking church needs its first love to inherit God's promises.

Open with me either in your order of service to Revelation chapter 2, or you can open up one of the Bibles in the chairs in front of you to page 965, and we're going to see what Jesus has to say to us this morning.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

A hardworking church needs its first love to inherit God's promise.

So here's question number one: What kind of hard work does Jesus call us to?

So John gives a description of Jesus standing in the midst of his lampstand, standing with the stars in his right hand.

We see Jesus in all his glory, we see Jesus ready to address his church.

What does he have to say?

I know your works, Jesus says.

I know your works, your toil, and your patient endurance.

He picks up that phrase again in verse 3.

Look at that with me.

I know, Jesus says, you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary.

Okay, well, what kind of work does Jesus call us to?

Maybe two things.

Here's number one, we're beginning to see it in these verses.

He's calling us to the hard work of perseverance.

Enduring patiently, right?

And we might want to ask, well, enduring what exactly?

And in John's day, in John's context, it might look like something like this: Enduring the hardship of living out the gospel in a hostile culture.

Bear in mind, John is writing these words in exile.

He's in exile on Patmos, not by choice, but most likely because John refused to capitulate to the political and religious pressures of his day to compromise the gospel.

John is often associated with this city of Ephesus that he's writing to here.

In Ephesus, there was an enormous temple to the goddess Artemis.

And this was considered one of the seven great wonders of the ancient world.

It was a very religious city.

And it was a city full of political pressure.

It was the fourth largest city of the Roman Empire in its day, if I'm not mistaken.

And being such, it would have been a hub of Roman activity and Roman political pressure.

All the Roman government expected of Christians in its day was to take a pinch of incense, to cast it into the fire before a priest, and say, Caesar Curios, right?

Caesar is Lord.

For Christians, there is only one true Lord, and that's Jesus.

And so those Christians who refused to capitulate understood to call Caesar Lord in an ultimate sense would be to compromise the gospel itself.

Most likely John is one of those Christians who's refused to compromise the gospel in this way, and he is suffering for it.

The church is called to persevere in hardship, living out the good news of Jesus in a culture that is sometimes hostile to it.

And this church is commended.

You have not grown weary.

See, it's easy to grow weary, isn't it?

When we feel the cross pressures of a culture that can sometimes be hostile to the gospel.

What keeps Christians going when we feel weary?

Well, maybe the answer is this it's the goodness of Jesus.

It's beholding him in all his beauty.

It's beholding in all his goodness and truth.

Did you notice what Jesus has to say to this church?

You've been bearing up this patient endurance for my name's sake.

Not just for no reason at all, but for me.

The Ephesian church has kept their eyes fixed on Jesus, and that's been enough to keep them from growing weary, even in a culture that's hostile to the gospel.

I love the way that the New Living Translation puts this phrase you have patiently suffered for me without quitting.

The Ephesian church isn't full of quitters.

They're going to hold fast even when times are difficult.

They are persevering in hardship, and that is the hard work that Jesus calls us to.

That's the first thing.

Here's the second thing: purity and gospel doctrine is the hard work that Jesus calls his church to.

Jesus goes on to say this I know how you, church, cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested, pardon me, have tested those who call themselves apostles, call themselves sent ones, call themselves representatives of the church, bearing the gospel, have said all these things about themselves, and they are not.

And you have found them to be false.

Some translations would say to be liars.

So who's Jesus talking about here?

Well, perhaps it's these this strange and kind of mysterious sect, the Nicolaatians, which are mentioned in verse 6.

They're given a commendation, this church is given a commendation in verse 6, that they hate the works of the Nicolaatians, which Jesus says, I also hate.

So I don't think it's beyond the pale to think that what's being addressed here is this strange breakout anti-gospel kind of sect within the life of the church.

We know that they're up to at least a couple of things.

Later on, we're going to read about some of the moral license that they're proclaiming to the church, just living life in any way that they see fit, whether or not it conforms to the shape of the gospel.

We see here that they're calling themselves apostles, that they're preaching a false gospel and claiming false authority for it.

So Jesus describes them as evil, which maybe we read that and we think, is that too strong a word?

I mean, my goodness.

John, I think, would remind us of this.

Evil is not too strong a word to use of false teachers if the gospel is on the line.

If the gospel of Jesus, the good news of his cross, the good news of his resurrection is on the line, if we choose to replace that good news with anything of our own design, then we could be withholding the very thing that offers eternal life to the church and to the world.

Make no mistake, Jesus would say.

There are false teachers in every generation, and we will know false teaching when it does not conform to the gospel that has been once for all delivered to the saints.

The gospel that we endeavor to open up every week at Newsong, the gospel that Christians all around the world gather around as we open up the scriptures together.

See what kind of hard work does Jesus call us to?

One, persevering in hardship, and two, purity in our gospel doctrine, purity in our gospel proclamation.

And friends, for a new song, I think we have to think, if we are a hard-working church, it's hard to know sometimes where our focus needs to be.

Sometimes it feels like there are so many good things we can do, so many good things even it feels like we should do.

Where does our focus need to be?

Where are how do we keep first things first?

Well, maybe this gives us a clue.

We need to be a church that perseveres even when times get hard.

Even when we feel the push, or even when we feel the pushback, we love Jesus above all else.

And his goodness keeps us going even when we're tempted to grow weary.

And loving Jesus above all, oh, pardon me, loving Jesus above all else translates into loving our neighbor, doesn't it?

Because if Jesus loves our neighbors, if he loves Port Perry, if he's got good plans for our community, then we need to be those who share that love with others, don't we?

No matter what kind of hostility or pushback we may face, we continue to love Jesus and persevere even when it costs us.

And of course we're called to the hard work of purity and gospel doctrine.

It's the reason why Newsong exists as a church, isn't it?

It was founded by those who took a stand for the gospel, to say we have to proclaim the true and whole gospel.

This is what New Song is all about, and therefore we work to stay vigilant, to carry that forward, and to share the gospel with others.

We are a hard-working church by the grace of God, for which we can give thanks and which we need to continue to press into.

But there's a danger in being a hard-working church, and we need to pay attention to that as well.

What's the danger that Jesus warns us about?

Let's look at verses four and five.

But this, Jesus says, I have against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

What does the love you had at first mean?

Well, it could mean a couple of things.

It could mean that the love this church had for Jesus, the supreme love, the love above all loves, the love behind, and the love animating all other loves.

Perhaps it means the love that they had for one another.

This church can start to lapse into obligation.

They lose that sense of warmth and community that they have.

Probably, in some sense, it means both.

Because if we lose our love for Jesus, we will inevitably start to lose our love for one another.

And losing our love for one another will eventually wear away at our love for Jesus, won't it?

You have abandoned the love that you had at first supremely for Jesus, expressed in our love for one another.

And boy, this word abandoned just weighs heavy, doesn't it?

I mean, you might want to say, well, wait, I thought this was a hard-working church.

Wasn't Jesus just patting these guys on the back?

How could they have abandoned their first love?

Well, perhaps they haven't stopped loving.

Perhaps you might even go visit this church in Ephesus and think, well, that's a church that loves a lot.

But perhaps this is a church that has subtly, slowly begun to love other things than Jesus, even more than Jesus himself.

Perhaps even things that present themselves as very good things.

Outreach programs and evangelism, caring for the poor, right?

Proclaiming the gospel, putting out podcasts, whatever this church is doing, can all be very good things.

But if success becomes the supreme love, just as one example, then we've placed something above our love for Jesus, haven't we?

It can happen slowly, it can happen subtly.

Abandoning loves doesn't look like stopping to love, quitting love for, you know, some reason.

Just means replacing that love slowly over time.

Sometimes I wonder if this is what happens for pastors who perhaps sometimes quietly, sometimes perhaps quite publicly burn out, flame into scandal or immorality or what have you.

Pastors can begin to get a taste for success or a taste for the metrics of this world and begin to replace their love, the love that they had at first, the love when they first became Christians or first got into ministry, that zeal to serve others, that zeal to proclaim the gospel, and slowly and steadily we can begin to replace that with our love for success or our ambitions or our programs.

It doesn't just have to be pastors, that can be Christians.

We all have our ministries, maybe those ministries that we feel considerable ownership of.

And we want to see these things succeed.

Even those things we want to see succeed can become idols in our own hearts if we're not careful.

One commentator writes that the Ephesian problem happens quietly and gradually, pardon me, and by gradual, imperceptible shifts of focus.

For those who are participating in our Athanasius discussion on Wednesday, it kind of reminds me of one of the themes we talked about.

That sin is not sort of an arbitrary do or don't.

Sure, there are do's and don'ts about sin, but the heart of sin is a heart that loves something more than the God who created us, than the God of grace who died for us and rose again for us.

It's replacing our love for God for a love of a creaturely good.

We call that idolatry.

Athanasius writes this human beings, contemptuous of the better things and shrinking from their apprehension, sought not their creator, rather, they fell into desire for themselves, preferring their own things to the contemplation of divine things.

Perhaps it's not that this church has stopped loving, it's that they're loving the wrong things.

And friends, this is the danger that Jesus warns us about.

We ought not to lose our first love for Jesus.

The love above all loves, the love that animates and informs all other loves.

Friends, we are not immune.

If we think we are immune as a church from losing our first love, then we must think again.

Successful outreach, evangelism, successful programs, razor-sharp theology, all of these things are good, but they are not a substitute for loving Jesus with our whole heart and our whole minds and all our strengths, beholding his beauty, delighting ourselves in him, lovingly keeping his commandments, and coming to his table together with repenting and grateful hearts.

So perhaps we're wondering if I've lost my friend.

First love.

If I know the weariness that John is talking about, how can we go about, how can I go about regaining it?

Well, let me highlight three things we find in this text very quickly.

First off, Jesus, well, pardon me, Jesus gives us three very quick imperatives that we ought to pay attention to.

If we've lost our first love, where we were in danger of doing so, let's do three things.

Number one, verse five, remember.

Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen.

Perhaps we begin by considering, where did I start and how did I get here?

Where was I with Jesus?

And now where am I?

I need to remember how good it was to be so close in fellowship and in heart with Jesus.

And then we need to repent, which literally means we need to turn around.

We need to acknowledge our disordered loves, our affections for things that surpassed God.

And we need to ask, where has it gotten me?

And if it hasn't gotten us very far, then we need to do that 180 and turn back to our first love.

And we need to remember, we need to repent, and then we need to redo.

Do the works that you did at first, Jesus says.

So what did it look like when we first became Christians?

Or what did it look like when we were first gripped by the goodness of the gospel, and we thought, God is so good, I could not even imagine better news than the gospel as it's proclaimed in Jesus.

What did that do to our hearts?

How did we live that out?

Do the things you did at first and recover, rediscover your first love.

You know, it's funny because I think sometimes we think feelings need to precede our actions.

If I feel it in my heart, then I'll live it out of my actions.

Sometimes that's true, but often our feelings are fickle and kind of funny, aren't they?

And sometimes my heart needs to be trained.

So when I was an intern, a ministry intern, and I was being mentored, you know, I remember my mentor, uh Priest, saying to me at the time, he says, you know, it's it's funny because um often when I'm doing counseling with a couple or whatever, often a problem that arises is it just feels like we've lost the magic.

You know, we lost the spark we had at first.

And, you know, we we don't know what to do to recover that.

And he says, maybe I'm talking with a husband who's saying this, and he says, Well, what did you do for your wife when you were just starting to date?

What came naturally?

What could you not keep yourself from doing?

It's like, well, we loved spending time together.

We take long walks together.

I would show up at our work with flowers, I would, you know, all these sorts of things.

And this mentor of mine said, you know, try doing those things for six weeks.

Give it six weeks of doing those things on a regular basis, see how that goes.

And he says, it's funny how often husbands will come back to me and say, it's back.

The spark is back.

Why?

Because the heart's been trained.

Sometimes we need to take the right actions and let the feelings follow.

And friends, I want you to hear me rightly.

I don't mean to overapply that principle.

If there's been betrayal or if there is wounded history there, yes, that needs to be dealt with.

But in terms of that regular practice, yes, our hearts need to be trained to desire the right things.

If we feel burned out, if we feel like we've lost that first love, perhaps our hearts need to be trained by our actions to place Jesus above all else.

And friends, make no mistake, the stakes are high.

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

Church, this is why we practice confession and repentance every Sunday together.

Why we confess our sins, not just as another thing to do on a Sunday morning, but because we need to.

We need to train our hearts to go in the right direction, to go towards Jesus and not away from him.

And so we go to him, we're confessing our sins and ready to receive his grace and forgiveness and consolation all over again.

There is a danger that we lose our first love.

But friends, Jesus gives a church like ours, a hard-working church, a great promise that gives us cause to regain that first love.

Let's look at verse 7.

Let's ask the question: what's the hope that Jesus promises us?

He who has an ear, Jesus says, 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.

So, number one, Jesus promises that the Christian will conquer.

Did you see that?

To the one who conquers.

How do Christians conquer?

Again, is it some kind of worldly metrics of success?

Is it becoming culture warriors and taking back the culture?

Well, perhaps on the basis of this letter, we can consider a quiet and unmovable trust in Jesus and a love for him above all else is utterly essential to conquer.

A love for the one who holds even the stars in his hand is the thing that will carry us through even the most fierce times.

Whatever that looks like in our interactions with culture or what have you, it begins in the heart with that unmovable trust and love for Jesus.

When we have that, there is no pressure culture can apply to us that will cause us to depart from our first love.

Jesus promises that the Christian will conquer, and Jesus promises that the conquering Christian will live with God forever.

Did you see that?

I will grant to the one who conquers to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God.

And for those of us who remember our Sunday school, we're immediately transported back to the Garden of Eden in the first three chapters of Genesis.

Life as God designed and intended it for us.

To enjoy perfect fellowship with Him and one another and all of creation, and yet our first parents chose to disobey.

They chose to substitute their own perceived good for God's good for them, and lapsed into sin and into death.

But now, at the end of the Bible, here in Revelation, in Revelations 21 and 22, we see a vision of paradise regained, of humanity being brought back into a garden city, as it were, to dwell with God forever.

God Himself is the source of this life, and he desires to share it with us unendingly.

Let me just read a phrase from Revelation chapter 1 and catch a glimpse of what this looks like.

Revelation 1 · chapter mention

Because God does not just promise the conquering Christian any life, he promises the conquering Christian life as it was meant to be.

John says this: I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, and neither shall there be mourning, mourning, or crying or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

Behold, I am making all things new.

Friends, this is the hope for the conquering Christian, that we will live with God forever.

If we have this hope news song, if it animates us, if it's the goal towards which everything else points, then Jesus will sustain our hard work, no matter how hard it gets.

And this hope will animate our love for him and for one another, come what may.

So we're told to listen up.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

This is repeated to all the churches over and over again.

This is too important for us to miss.

And here, as we read this letter to the Church of Ephesus, we are called to reconsider our present moment, our present suffering in light of eternity to come.

This conquering, this hope, this promise of an ending life with God as it has always been intended to be, requires trust and patience for us presently.

But as we come together, as we open up his word, as we come to his table, we get that foretaste of what God intends life to be eternally.

So, friends, a hard-working church needs its first love, doesn't it?

It needs its first love.

If we endeavor to inherit God's promises, perhaps that means for us we need to repent.

We need to repent of seeking some other love that is competed with Jesus in our hearts.

And perhaps there are times as a church family we need to repent of that corporately and set our hearts once again on Jesus to rediscover his joy and rediscover the hope of his kingdom, and we recenter ourselves on that great promise that animates the Christian life.

We will live with God forever.

What a joyful thought it is.

What a wonderful thing it is to be a Christian and live with that hope.

What can we do but want to share it?

A hard-working church needs its first love.

So, dear new song, hear God's word.

To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God.

Amen.

We hope that you've been blessed by God's word today.

If you live in the area, we hope that you'll come and worship with us in person on Sunday at 10 a.m.

If you'd like to learn more about Newsong Church, we'd love to connect with you.

Please find our contact information at Newsongportperry.ca and reach out to us.

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Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.