Failure of a Great Work

Failure of a Great Work

Revelation 2: 2-5a

2 “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; 

3 and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. 

4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 

5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, 

   Paul assigned Timothy to watch over the church that was growing in the important cosmopolitan city of Ephesus.  From church history and judging from the content of the epistle written to them by Paul, the church was growing and serving God.  He wrote some strong spiritual truths to them - they must have been doing well and were maturing as they could handle hearing more meatier teachings. 

   It was a large church, and aside from two visits from Paul it also enjoyed the ministry of Timothy and also Priscilla and Aquila visited there and Apollos preached there.  Later, the aging Disciple John the Beloved moved there and there is a church legend that Mary, the mother of Jesus lived her last years there. 

   The Ephesian church received more than one letter.  Paul wrote the Epistle of Ephesians, and also the Epistle to the Galatians, of which Ephesus was one of the seven principle churches.  Galatia was the name of an area of the highlands in what is today the nation of Turkey.  About 20 years after the Epistle to the Ephesians was written, Bishop Ignatius of Antioch also wrote a letter to the church there. 

   When John received his revelation of the glorified Lord and was told to write to seven churches, the first one mentioned was John’s own church in Ephesus.  And what the Lord said began well.  The Lord said He knew that they were faithful and busy doing the work and they were diligent about false teachers and all that a church could want to hear.  If I were reading this letter for the first time, I’d be downright proud of my church at this point.  But then the Lord gives them a reality check prefaced by the word “nevertheless.”  Nevertheless means “In spite of that; notwithstanding; all the same; but.”  The Lord says, “Nevertheless, I have this against you.”  All the good in the Ephesian church did would not cancel out the bad Jesus is about to reveal.  He said He has something against them.  “You have left your first love.”

   This is a sin of omission that all of us, I repeat – all of us, have been guilty of or are guilty of.  Despite all the good in the church, there is often something seriously wrong.  We have left our first love.  We’ve once had a love with the Lord, a special love just between us, but now it’s not there anymore.  And He didn’t say the Ephesians “lost” their first love, but that they “left” their first love.  This is a serious matter.  Something can be lost by accident.  You can lose something and not mean to lose it.  But if you leave something, it’s no longer an accident, it’s an “on purpose.”  I’ve talked to friends estranged from their spouses and have heard things like, “it’s really no one’s fault, we just don’t get along,” and “we just grew apart.” That’s tragic when it’s a husband and wife, but it’s a dangerous mistake when it’s between you and the Lord.  The one good thing about this situation is that if you lost something, you don’t know where to go to find it again, but when you leave something, you know where to go to get it back again.   

   The Ephesian church was a working church.  Sometimes a focus on the work turns it into a labor and it becomes drudgery.  Working for Jesus becomes all-consuming and we go through the motions without any of it touching our hearts.  The church at Ephesus was doctrinally OK, but orthodoxy that has no love is dead orthodoxy.

   History does not reveal much about the church at Ephesus after this final letter.  We have no way of knowing whether they corrected their problem and later were poisoned by some false doctrine; or whether they just withered on the vine and fell away.  What we do know is that sometime during the second century the church died.  

   There is a warning here that we cannot afford to take lightly.  If the church at Ephesus can fail, any church can fail.  If they left their first love, we need to examine our hearts and our relationship with Jesus.  “Nevertheless” is not a word I want to hear at the Judgment Seat of Christ. 

Stephen Cram                          August 12, 2012                 Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8