What The Spirit SaysPart 2 of 8
To the angel of the church in Ephesus
Transcript
Skip the transcript0:01 Just as a few people are coming back in, why don't we just take a moment to pray just before we look at this letter together. Father, as we turn to your word now, we think of those words that we prayed from First Thessalonians last week, that your gospel would come to us with words and with power and with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. As we see Jesus, our prayer is that you would not leave us as we are. Prepare our hearts now. Make us ready to hear and to take to heart some of the difficult truths in here that might intersect with our lives.
0:56 with where we are right now as individuals and where we are right now as a church. Help us to listen, to not push back, but to invite and allow you to work by your spirit, through your word, in Jesus' name, amen. So we are in the first of the seven letters that we're going to be looking at over the next seven weeks. And what I want to do as we look at this first one to the Church of Ephesus, I want you to temporarily forget that you're currently a member of Glen Abbey. And I want you to go back in time and go across the continents to western Turkey to the Roman province of Ephesus, or Roman province of Asia, sorry, and its capital Ephesus and we're back in the mid-90s, not the 1990s, but the mid-90s. And I want you to imagine that we're part of this church just for a little while. We'll come back to think about ourselves as Glen Abbey a little bit later on, but join me in your imagination.
2:00 So perhaps you might have been part of this church in Ephesus since the very beginning. At the mid-90s, the church began in the early 50s. Perhaps you came to faith under Apollos' teaching in those early days. Or perhaps you came to faith in those heady, brilliant days of Paul leading those daily Bible studies and discussions in the hall of Tyrannus across those couple of years. Maybe you remember the riot in Ephesus that was sparked by Demetrius the silversmith that led to Paul's departure. Perhaps it's unlikely that you were one of the elders 40 years ago, but perhaps you're related to one of those elders that Paul brought to the beach at Miletus to charge them before he left to guard themselves and guard the flock against the savage wolves, the false teachers that would come. Or perhaps you remember Paul's letter to the church from his imprisonment in Rome in the 60s. Or maybe you became part of the church in more recent times, maybe under the leadership of Timothy after Paul had sent him.
3:07 Or according to tradition, the person after Timothy was the apostle John himself, the one writing this letter to you now. And you love being part of this church. You're proud to be part of this church in Ephesus. But Boy, it is not easy to be a follower of Jesus in this city, and it just seems to be getting harder and harder. The whole culture and economy of the city centers on the temple of Artemis, and if you manage to keep yourself separate from all of that, which you do, the sacrifices, the engagement with temple prostitution and everything else, well, it makes your day-to-day life, it makes our day-to-day life incredibly difficult. Because this is a huge harbor city on the Aegean Sea, a city of international trade. And if you are involved in trade and you are a follower of Jesus, the reality is that many will not buy from you, many will not sell from you, and to actually make a living is so, difficult.
4:16 You're socially ostracized. And since the Emperor Domitian came to power, life in this Roman provincial capital for Christians has become more and more dangerous too. And if you've been in the church for many decades already, you will have seen the changes in character and the sort of topography of the church, if you like. And in recent times, things feel very different than those early days. Perhaps it's that increase in persecution or that many of that first generation of believers of new converts have gone. Perhaps it's the hard slog of just remaining faithful week after week, year after year, decade after decade. But the reality is there's something different about the church than back in the past. There's less of that word going forth type culture and more of a hunkered down mentality.
5:14 There's a massive emphasis going back to that charge from Paul to the elders on right doctrine, on rooting out false teachers, on not tolerating compromise with the culture around us. But when you reflect, you see there's just not the same level of new converts or new members that there was in the past. And again, if you're being honest, There doesn't seem to be really any hunger for that. It seems to be more and more, let's hold on to what we have. And so, with all that in mind, you arrive in Ephesus in the 90s, one Sunday, one Lord's Day gathering. You share the Lord's Supper together, and then one of the leaders hushes everyone and says, listen up everybody, we have this correspondence. from the apostle John, from his exile in Patmos, and the excitement builds in the room. It's been sent to us along with these other six churches in the province, so let me read it to you.
6:21 And you listen and you hear those words of Revelation 1, all those truths about who Jesus is, this vision of him as the Son of Man, and then you hear these words to the angel of the church in Ephesus right. And the atmosphere gets turned up a notch. This is what the Lord Jesus himself has to say to us as his church directly. What is it that he's going to say to us? And then these words are read out. Stay with me in your imaginations. Stay where you are. Verse one, and we're just going to work through this step by step.
7:01 Did the angel of the church in Ephesus write? These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. Now, one little intriguing thing to notice you might have noticed is that this isn't addressed to the church in Ephesus, it's addressed to the angel of the church in Ephesus. What's that all about? we've heard angels or messengers mentioned just before. This at the end of chapter one, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. And there is much scholarly debate as to whether these are literal angels who are heavenly representatives of these earthly churches, or whether these messengers, the same word for angel and messenger, to whom the letters are addressed, are the human leadership of the churches themselves. I personally, as I've looked at this, can see compelling arguments for both.
7:59 and compelling weaknesses of both those arguments. So like many of the other scholars, I'm going to say I don't really know. But I think, and this is what most of them conclude, what is crucial to note here is where these stars are. Where are they? are in the opening chapter held in Jesus' right hand. They are here in this letter in chapter 2. There's actually a different word for held is used and it means tightly grasped. So as we imagine hearing this letter for the first time as this church in Ephesus, this is the specific imagery from John's vision that Jesus wants this church to hear.
8:44 It's going to be different for each of the seven churches. But for them, here it is, I am the one who holds the seven stars tightly. and walks among the lampstands. In other words, I am present. I am holding you. And I see you. Before you hear anything else, you need to hear this. I am present.
9:11 I am holding you. I can see you. So as he walks and as he holds, what has he seen? I know your deeds. your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you've tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name and have not grown weary. Imagine being this church and hearing these words.
9:42 In that context of being a church in this city and hearing this, the Lord Jesus has seen all of this. He knows all of this and these are not empty words of platitude. They're not like psychologically clearing the way for what he actually wants to say. These are from the Lord Jesus and they are genuine words of well done and commendation. He sees and he knows all the service week after week, month after month, early mornings, late nights. We just feel that nobody notices. I know your toil. all that social rejection, financial hardship, persecution for being a Christian, when it would be so easy just to give up and trade it in for a less draining, more comfortable, more prosperous life.
10:35 I know your perseverance. And then maybe more at leadership level, all those really difficult and heated conversations about the doctrine and the character of different new and emerging teachers, some traveling in from outside into the city, some emerging from the church itself. And having to go and say to the church, yes, I know you, we know you love this person, we know they're incredibly talented in communication, but the content of what they're saying and of their character is false and dangerous. These are one of the savage wolves that Paul was talking about decades before, and then all the fallout of that, the arguing, the people leaving, all these pastoral meetings that you have to have to explain your decisions. It's hard to hold the line, but yet Jesus says, I know. I know that you can't tolerate wicked people, those who claim to be apostles, but are not, and I find them false. You are holding true to good doctrine. How encouraging to know that Jesus sees and Jesus knows all our efforts, all our hardships endured for his name, all the times we have wanted to give up, but we haven't.
11:49 He knows. So what an encouragement so far. As we imagine being this church, the Lord Jesus himself has been holding us and seen and knows all the struggles we've gone through. He says, well done. There's this. Imagine the atmosphere in the room. He's seen all our work. And then what comes next?
12:17 Yet I hold this against you. have forsaken the love you had at first. And that atmosphere in the room just changes in an instant. Forgive me for where my imagination goes, but I can't help but wonder when these words were read out to this church at that first time. I wonder what the response in the room was. Maybe One or a group of the more mature believers in particular were the ones who actually stood up and accepted this rebuke with sorrow and said, do you know what, he's right. Something has changed right at the heart of who we are.
13:14 Yes, everything looks okay on the surface. We're doing many of the right things, but the reality is we're doing them for all of the wrong reasons, with the wrong motivation. That's all duty and diligence and obligation and protection. And if we're being honest, there's a lot of pride and self-worth wrapped up in there about what we have built, this thing that is ours, and who are we if we don't get to serve within the church? But let's be honest, whatever is at the heart of it. It's no longer that first love for Jesus. And again, perhaps one of those older members reminds them of the words of the Lord in Jeremiah 2. This is what the Lord says.
13:59 I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the wilderness, through a land not sown. And then further on, my people have committed two great sins. They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. And perhaps they ask, is this us? Is this what we have become? As the bride of Christ, have we abandoned? Have we let go of our love for Him, even in the midst of all this stuff, all this service, all these things that we do in His name? What bridegroom wants a bride who does everything out of Judy?
14:50 and everything out of responsibility, this cold, loveless service. No, they want their bride's devotion and service to come from a love, a deep love that makes mutual devotion and service a joy and a delight. Service flowing out of this intimacy and this love and this devotion. Maybe to the outsiders, the way a relationship works might look similar, but to the people on the inside, they know the difference. And our bridegroom, who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, who has died for us, for our forgiveness and our freedom, who has died so that he might make us his bride, that's what this is all about. He wants us to love him That's what he wants first and foremost in response to his love. But he has this against the church, we have abandoned the love we had at first. And perhaps again this person goes on,
16:01 you know if we're honest with ourselves, can we not see the impact of this abandoned love for him and how it works out amongst us? And the way that we are called to love one another, it's just not the same in our passion to share the gospel. Yes, we go through the motions, but let's be honest, it's a sort of cold, theoretical, dutiful evangelism. It doesn't have that personal passion and that personal fervency it used to have because we don't have that passion and we don't have that fervency and we don't have that love that we used to have. Everything still sort of has the appearance of working, but there is a lifelessness to it. He's right. We have forsaken, we have abandoned our first love.
17:00 I wonder whether they were truly cut to the heart. But Jesus doesn't leave them there. He invites them back. That's not the end of what he has to say. I love how John Stott puts it. He says this, the bridegroom seeks to woo his bride back to her first love. With the same tenderness that Jehovah showed to fickle, adulterous Israel, the Lord Jesus appeals to his church to return to him.
17:37 And in his love and in his grace, he instructs them on how to find their way back to being this church. that finds again their first love. He says this, consider how far you have fallen, repent and do the things you did at first. Three elements then to his call. First, consider how far you have fallen. Remember how far you have fallen. And in reality, as a church, there's unhealthy remembering and there is healthy remembering. So unhealthy remembering for a church of around 40, funnily enough, that's pretty much the same age as us.
18:16 in Glen Abbey. Unhealthy remembering is this sense of nostalgia. Oh, wouldn't everything just be so much better if it was back to the way it was in those early days when the church was small and we all knew each other's name. But healthy remembering, that's motivated by a very different thing. It's motivated by a desire for renewal and restoration. High are our lives, high is our devotion to Christ different than it was back then, deep and honest self-examination. Do I remember who I was before Jesus? Do I remember who I was without him, without the cross?
19:01 Have I forgotten the depth and the price of his forgiveness, how much he paid in love so that I could Be reconciled to God. Have I become complacent since then, prideful since then, arrogant since then, self-reliant since then? Have we as a church? Lots of very capable people. Do we actually need the Holy Spirit? Have we got distracted? Have we drifted?
19:40 Have we got disobedient? Have we become full of our own self-importance? Jesus says, remember. And then he follows that with repent. Acknowledge and accept my assessment of you, the Lord Jesus says. My rebuke of you. Do it truly. Do it with no excuses, no rationalizing, no giving all this list of reasons as to why it's this way.
20:06 Own it. Confess it. Turn away from it and turn back towards me, your first love again. Step towards me. And that needs to happen first with repentance then. And then do the things you did at first. I find that quite intriguing. To renew the love you had at first, to return to what you did at first.
20:34 I think we're so often told in these circumstances, right, what we have to do is we have to stir up some level of emotion and then the actions will follow. That's not what actually is said here. It says, remember, repent, do what you did. it first. What could that mean for this church in Ephesus? What could that mean for this church in Glen Abbey? We'll come back to that in a little while. Then Jesus goes on with these stark words.
21:05 If you do not remember, or sorry, if you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. I will remove your lamp stand from its place. We're going to come back to that little sentence about the Nicolaitans in future weeks because they're talked about in other churches. But let's just focus in on this for a moment. Those words might sound like what? A threat? They might sound like an ultimatum from Jesus. But actually, truly, they're just a logical conclusion of the way things are.
21:44 Because this church's purpose is to be a lamp stamp. That's what we've learned already, is to be a light that reflects and shines the light of Christ to the world. But where there is no love, there is no light. And when there is no light, well, there's no point, is there? There might be a lot of wattage, right, of energy and responsibility and duty being poured into the church, but if there are no lumens, if there's no visible light being emitted by this lampstand, what's the point of all that energy? And the reality is if that energy isn't love, then it's not light. And so Jesus says, if you don't repent, if you don't return to the love you had at first, The reality is your lumen level isn't going to change.
22:34 You're not going to shine. And so I'll remove your already lightless lampstand from its place. When a light stops working, what's the point of it? And then he continues. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. This picture of the Trinity, these are the words of Jesus, but they're also the words of the Spirit. And so we move from imagining being part of this church in Ephesus towards the end of the 1st century, back to the reality of being members of Glen Abbey Church in the 21st century.
23:18 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The opportunity to hear and respond in this letter is now opened up to all of the seven churches. And this number seven, which is of such significance in this letter with this sort of imagery of completeness then means that these words are opened up to every church across geography and history, everyone that has the star in the right hand of Jesus, everyone that has a lampstand that he walks amongst, including this one. So the question is then, what do we hear? And in the words of Revelation 1, what do we take to heart because the time is near? Are there parallels to prayerfully consider? Maybe, at a very basic level, as I've mentioned, we are churches similar in age.
24:26 We will be 40 in 2028. Some of the original Barnabas planters have already passed away. Others are definitely getting on. And we now have second and third generations, the children of and the grandchildren of some of those people, and lots more added in. And that changes things. in one sense moves us further away in time from that original focus, that original drive to be the church and what it was all about to be Glen Abbey, and we have to guard that very carefully. Another parallel, we might be regarded as a hard-working, productive church and one that takes doctrine and sound biblical teaching seriously, and all of that is good. But at the heart of it all, we need to ask the same question of ourselves.
25:23 Are we holding onto our first love? As we consider the all-seeing gaze of the one who has eyes like blazing fire, as we listen for the leading of the Holy Spirit, is what we do motivated by, characterized by, flavored by, and flowing out of our first love? for the Lord Jesus. Are we a bride of obligation or a bride of intimacy? Are we a bride of duty or a bride of love? Where might we have to remember to repent
26:14 where might we have to do the things we did at first, both as individual little bulbs and then as this corporate lampstand. And with that in mind, one other similarity struck me as I was reading in preparation for this talk. I was like to find little connections. Now, this one is not a spiritual one. It's more of a geographical one, or if you're being property scientific, I think I found out it's actually a hydrological one, if anybody actually knows what that means. But here's what it is.
26:49 And people who have visited Ephesus before, that's not me, but I know a few people who have will be aware of this. I was intrigued to find out that today, the ancient city of Ephesus is actually now around 5 miles away from the coast. Interesting. And I promise this is the only place in this talk where I used a certain AI large language model to answer a question for me. All right? But I did ask a certain one this. Why is the city of Ephesus now around 5 miles from the coast? I was intrigued to find out.
27:23 And here's what it said. Ephesus was originally a port city on the Aegean coast located on the mouth estuary of the river Kaistros or Kaister. Over many centuries, the river carried enormous quantities of silt and sediment down from inland Anatolia and deposited it in the estuary. And then it goes on to tell us why that mattered so much. In the Roman period, Ephesus was enormously important, precisely because it was a major harbour. Ships could sail into the city's harbour through a channel connected to the sea, but the river kept depositing sediment and eventually the harbour became increasingly shallow. The channel to the sea became narrower. Ships found it increasingly difficult to reach Ephesus.
28:10 The harbor eventually became unusable. The economic importance of the city declined. Don't let yourself get removed from the way things were in the beginning, from the source of love and life. And then I asked, of course, I knew a little bit, I thought there are parallels with Belfast, aren't there? So I asked, again, are there parallels with our city, Belfast? And here was the response. Yes, Chris. Belfast Harbour naturally silts up over time and requires regular maintenance to stay operational.
28:48 The harbour sits at the mouth of the River Lagan, where it meets Belfast Lock. Historically, the topography, this topography, sorry, was entirely unsuited for a major port. At low tide, the area naturally deteriorated into extensive mudflats and shallow lagoons. The river continuously deposits a soft, wet mixture of clay, organic matter, mud and silt into the basin, a material famously known by locals and engineers as Belfast sleech. To counteract this natural accumulation of sediment, one of the main ongoing measures required is maintenance dredging. To keep the shipping channels and berths deep enough for massive commercial vessels, ferries and cruise ships, Belfast Harbour relies on routine maintenance dredging campaigns. Are you interested in learning more about how Belfast Leech impacts local construction, or would you like details on the harbour's current 1.3 billion pound expansion and dredging projects? For that, I said no thanks, I've got better things to do.
29:54 But maybe some of you see where I'm going with this. With this hydrological parallel between Ephesus and Belfast, this picture of the city Ephesus that in a sense over time drifted further and further away from the source of its life to the point where its decline and disappearance became inevitable. And then within this city, this church, that had drifted from its first love of the Lord Jesus, from its source of life and light and love. And then moving to us, this church on the outskirts of Belfast, and this called deep self-examination of this church near the city where continuous maintenance dredging is required to keep the channels deep enough. especially these days for these huge cruise ships that bring so much economic life into the city, this need to fiercely and decisively protect the source of the city's life. So here's what I would love us to do. Every time you drive down the M2, Or every time you drive along the M5 and you see Belfast Lock leading into Belfast Harbour, every time you see one of these massive cruise ships heading into the port, I want us to remember this beautiful term, maintenance dredging.
31:40 And ask the very serious question, what Belfast's leech of sin and idolatry and distraction and pride and bitterness and envy and whatever other mud and silt needs dredged from my life to protect, to guard this proximity to the first love that I am so prone to so easily, so incrementally drift from. What dross and rubbish, what fluff and nonsense is that are in my life that fills up every part of it to the extent that any opportunity for intimacy is just pushed to the sideline. No space left for it at all. And that could be in just silly things like obsessions with hobbies, being more interested in our golf handicap than we are in whether we have this intimacy, intimate love with our first love Christ. But then it can also be good things.
33:01 Our work, our family, they all can too. Those good things can become God things and they can get in the way if they're not given the rightful place. And so we need to ask, Holy Spirit, what do I need to remember? About who I was, about Christ's love for me, about the cross, about my life apart from him, about how much I loved him at first. And then Holy Spirit, how do I need to repent? What do I need to own? What do I need to turn from? And then, Holy Spirit, what do I need to do again that I've let go of?
33:50 What do I need to fan and to flame? What practices of intimacy do I need to rekindle? What do I need to do to not neglect but to protect and foster that love and that intimacy for the Lord Jesus, that source of life and light? What maintenance dredging needs done? And that's painful, difficult work. And we need to ask that the Lord would help us as a church, help us to remember, repent, return, that as a church we never let go of our first love. And then Jesus concludes very finally this first letter with this promise. Verse 7, to the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life which is in the paradise of God.
34:56 Just as the opening of each of the seven letters points us back to something in Revelation 1, so the promise at the end of each letter will point us forward. to Revelation 21 and 22. And this points us forward to the beginning verses of Revelation 22. And as I read these to you and close, I'm going to invite the band and the choir to come back up just as I continue. Here's what Revelation 22 says. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life. as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.
35:36 And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will serve Him. They will see His face. and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever. Here's this vision-renewing image of the promised restored Eden at the end of this letter, of access to this tree of life, that in the original garden was cut off by the sin of Adam, now restored because of the forgiveness and the reconciliation given to us through the Lamb, the second Adam.
36:27 And it's an intriguing picture to give to this church in Ephesus because at the heart of that Artemis cult was a sacred tree. A tree that was meant to be a place of sanctuary and refuge, but it had been corrupted. and abused and so held up against this image of the Artemis sacred tree that had all gone wrong was this promise of being one who would get to eat from the tree of life and find sanctuary there. I promise to hold fast this church in Ephesus, I promise to hold fast this church in Glen Abbey and the challenges of difficult service, of being a follower of Jesus and the culture that we find ourselves in, and these challenges of painful self-examination and repentance. The one who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood will bring us safely into the paradise of God, a place where we will know and experience the perfect love and intimacy and light and life of the Father and of the Lamb. This is where we are heading. This is the consummation of the bridegroom and the bride.
37:58 But in the here and now we are invited to live in that relationship of love and out of that relationship of love. The burdens that are placed on us are placed on us by ourselves, not by the Lord Jesus. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. His yoke is easy. And maybe some of us need to hear that this morning. Can I invite you to stand just before we sing? I just want to take a moment or two to give you the space to respond.
38:39 A little bit of space to pray, to think, to reflect. Yet I have this against you. You have abandoned the love you had at first. Is the Holy Spirit using these words to speak into your life this morning, into the life of this church this morning? Consider how far you have fallen. Repent. Do the things you did at first. What is the Spirit calling you to do that you did at first?
39:35 You know how this energy of this source of life and love getting further and further away connects with you. know the work that you need to invite the Spirit to do. You know the work you need to cooperate with to dredge that sleech away so that you might draw near and experience that renewal and restoration, that His Spirit might fan into flame that love and intimacy with Jesus. So let's just take a moment in the silence. As we do that, let me remind you that We have a prayer team available to pray with you.
40:23 And just like last week, at the end of the service, about 5 minutes afterwards, I'll make my way over to the resource room out the side to my right here. And I'll lead a time of just praying in response to what we've heard and continue to ask the Lord to work in us as his church. Perhaps One of those might be a real opportunity for you just to initiate that first step back into intimacy with the Lord Jesus, that step closer to the source of love and life and light. Let's just take a moment. .
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About this talk
This talk explores the first of the seven letters in Revelation, focusing on the letter to the church in Ephesus. The speaker invites listeners to imagine themselves as members of the Ephesian church in the late first century, facing cultural and social challenges, including persecution and false teaching. Jesus commends the church for their perseverance and doctrinal faithfulness but rebukes them for having forsaken their first love. The call is to remember their initial devotion, repent, and return to their original love and practices. The talk draws a parallel between the silting up of the ancient Ephesian harbour and the spiritual drift of the church, urging personal and corporate self-examination and maintenance of intimacy with Christ. The message concludes with the promise of eternal life for the victorious and an invitation to respond to the Spirit's call.
Bible passages
- Revelation 2:1–7 (main passage)
- Revelation 1:12–20
- Revelation 22:1–5
