The Church at Ephesus
Tom Shrader begins a seven-week series on the seven churches of Revelation, starting with Ephesus - a hardworking, doctrinally sound church that had lost its first love. He challenges believers to examine whether their orthodoxy has become cold and mechanical, emphasizing that God wants us to know Him personally, not just defend doctrine. The solution involves remembering our initial love for Christ, repenting of spiritual coldness, and returning to love-motivated service.
“They knew how to defend the doctrines of the word, but they forgot who the doctrines pointed to.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: What Christ Says to the Church (Revelations)
Recorded: 2004
Duration: 37 min
Themes: love, orthodoxy, doctrine, repentance, service, devotion, coldness, commitment, pastor, church leader, longtime believer, struggling with apathy, spiritually dry, elder, feeling distant from god, mature christian
Scripture: Revelation 2:1-7, Psalm 139, John, Acts 19
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church health, spiritual decline, first love, biblical orthodoxy, church evaluation, spiritual renewal, corporate worship
Full Transcript
Last week, I said we had seven weeks until our summer break, and that I didn't have a seven-week series, but most of the series are four, six, or eight weeks. So I started going through some things, and I thought I would do a six-week series. Then the last week in June is the 10th anniversary of my dad's passing away, and I thought I would do a kind of tribute to my dad, what I learned from my dad. I thought, well, this will be good, and it humanizes me, and I like that. Then I found a seven-week series, and I said, let's do this. I get into it, and this is my assessment: it's very hard to be self-aware, but this is my sweet spot right here.
If you have Bibles, open them to the book of Revelation. Now some of you, when you heard that, just those words got you all excited, and you're thinking something really big. Well all the stuff you're thinking is what BSF just got done doing, and that's studying the entire book. We're going to look at the second and third chapter.
The Central Question: What Would Jesus Say?
One of the questions that we have regularly at Redemption Church, and by that I'm going to say big R, meaning all of the churches and the congregational leaders, is what's the church? How are we doing? There's not a week goes by that I don't wonder, what would my dad say? I can't imagine my dad ever saying, I need to go to the bathroom, and go, wow, that's a tough decision, which one of these. I can't imagine him facing this. So what would my dad say? Well here you go, in the church business, what do you think Jesus would say to the church about the church? Because that's ultimately a big payoff for us, that's a big barometer, that's bigger than what Andy Stanley thinks, or I think, or Bill Hybels thinks, or Jamie thinks.
I remember years ago, doing some work, some study, and I came across something that John Stott had written on the book of Revelation. He makes the point, and I quote, that this is a letter written by John, and although the message is related to specific situations in seven churches, seven actual churches, it expresses concerns that apply to all churches, in all times. By praise, censure, warning, exhortation, Christ reveals what He wants His church to be like, in all places, at all times.
I don't know how different people's brains work, but I'll get a quote, or a statistic. I read a wonderful article in Sports Illustrated last week on Vince Scully. Did any of you read it? It's a great article, and here's the stat that stuck out to me: the first year that Scully announced a Dodger game, the manager of the Dodgers was born in 1884. I don't know what that means, it just seems like that's really a long connection. That's almost Civil War stuff. Well, I read this sentence, and I thought, well, this has to mean something. I had to be able to go in, and just take this as a working premise, and go, let's look at these seven churches, because if they apply to all churches, in all times.
The Big Connection: Churches Are People
Here's the big connect, and we're going to come back to this again and again: churches are the people. I get that all the time, churches aren't the building, churches are the people. If that's true, then these are seven characteristics, or traits, or categories that apply to all Christians of all places, of all time.
So each one of these churches will be represented, probably. What I would encourage you to do is to say, which one of these is most like your church? I love personality tests, I'm a Facebook voyeur, I'd never post anything on Facebook, but I read it every day, and I love taking the test. You know, which Disney princess am I most like? I love these tests, what personality trait, am I a Labrador, or a Golden Retriever? Well, here's what I'm saying to you, for the next seven weeks, if you can hit all seven, is to be judgmental. I want you to judge, in this world that says be tolerant and don't judge, I want you to be judgmental of yourself.
Which one of these churches represent you? In all likelihood, none of them will perfectly, but you'll see traits in these churches that you might see in your life. So for example, for me, and I would say, I don't know if I'd say it about the redemption churches now, but I would say for me personally, and for most really good Bible teaching churches, our tendency is going to be like this first church, which is the church at Ephesus.
The Setting and Context
Open your Bibles. You've got Revelation 1:1, it's the revelation of Jesus, which God gave Him to show His servants things that must take place. And He sent it by His angel to His servant John. So that word revelation means literally unveiling, disclosure, uncovering. Here's what's about to happen.
He talks to John, and there's some debate, though I don't think it's a very big one about who this John is. For sake of going, we don't need to sort this out, I think experts have: John is John the Apostle, John and a brother of James. They were the sons of Zebedee. It's John who writes the gospel of John, 1st John, 2nd John, 3rd John, writes the book of Revelation. He describes himself as the disciple or apostle or the one whom Jesus loved.
I gave you a map. I apologize for the quality of it. If you have, and many of you do, big Bibles with maps in the back, you can flip back there and you'll see Paul's second and first and third missionary journey. What I gave you: Patmos here is in the Mediterranean, right off the coast of Turkey. John at this point, he's the only one of the apostles that was not martyred. At this point, we believe is about 95 years old. And He has this revelation. It's Jesus telling him to write to these seven churches, seven actual churches. And there was a road that connects them. There's an order here: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon.
The Seven Churches of Asia
Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. One historian says, "the great circular road that bound together the most populous and wealthy and influential provinces in Asia." So this is to John, grace to you, from the seven spirits on the throne, Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn. So this is what Jesus has to say to John about these seven churches.
In each instance, you'll see there's typically a characteristic that's identified. So we'll see them over the seven weeks. Smyrna was a suffering church, Pergamos was compromised, Thyatira was corrupt, Sardis was dead, Philadelphia was faithful, Laodicea was lukewarm. But to Ephesus, it was the loveless church.
Jesus Speaks to the Church at Ephesus
Let's get after it. Chapter two, verse one: "To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, 'These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: 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; and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary.'"
That sounds really, really good. Verse four: "Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate."
Now, I'll give you a heads up on Nicolaitans—we don't know hardly anything about them. They'll come up again later in one of these other churches. We'll talk more about them then, but my plan is when we get there to say, "Remember we talked about them the first week," so just a heads up.
"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God."
The Pattern of the Letters
Now there's a pattern. Those of you who love Bible study—this is the stuff I love—there's a pattern. It's a general pattern that you see here perfectly and you see in most of the other letters. There's some exceptions, and when we get the exception, we'll go with the exception. But what John typically does is acknowledge the recipient, and then list a strength, and then a weakness, and then an action, and then a promise. So that's the general pattern, and it's perfect here.
Here's the recipient: "To the angel of the church at Ephesus, write these things." But angel means messenger, and what He's saying—and we need to be right-minded of this because it's not like this in our day—is we would come in and say, "Open your Bible to the book of Revelation." Well, they didn't have Bibles. The letter would go to the angel. In our terminology, maybe the teaching elder, the lead pastor—each church changes that nomenclature now. So if you're at SBC, it would be Jamie. If you're at Redemption Arcadia, it would be Frank. So this is a letter that would be sent to the lead pastor, and he now would read that. So the church is represented, the church at Ephesus.
The Great City of Ephesus
I want to give you just a little bit about Ephesus so that you can understand. It was known as the Light of Asia. It was the greatest harbor in Asia. I said, we've got these guys in a plane right now on the way to Athens. They're going to land in Athens. They go to Philadelphia, layover, ten hours to Athens, four-hour layover. Then they go to Thessalonica. But they're going to go to Ephesus. And if I say to them, "It's a great harbor," they're going to say, "I'm standing in the middle of Ephesus. I don't even see water." So silt, and over the years, deposits—it's now six miles inland. But it was this magnificent city.
Robert Morris writes this: "The traveler from Rome landing at Ephesus would proceed up a magnificent avenue, thirty-five feet wide, lined with columns, which led from the harbor to the center of town." Here's where we are at such a disadvantage—audiovisual. This would be where it'd be perfect to click this stuff. If you want to go online, there's some incredible pictures of Ephesus and what's there now.
It was a hub of commerce. It was called the Market of Asia, the Highway to Rome. It was also called the Highway of Martyrs. Christians from Asia were brought here, gathered together, then sent to Rome to be executed. William Barclay writes, "Its position made Ephesus the wealthiest and the greatest city in all of Asia. It has aptly been called the Vanity Fair of the ancient world." And that's true, obviously, more of Ephesus than these other seven, but of these seven hubs.
Paul's Strategic Approach
Paul—and I think we can learn something here, I don't want to say too much—but Paul understood that culture is going to be impacted generally from the large cities out. Generally in this country, we're following trends in San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, maybe Denver, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix. Everybody's asking, what are the trends in Bemidji? It's coming out of these major places and then influencing the culture. So from a strategy point of view, Paul says, "I'll go to Ephesus and I'll impact that and hope it spreads," because I think there's a tendency to look at the ancient Greek or ancient history and think these are kind of dumb, poor, stupid people. Well, they are in the sense that they're just like you and me, but they're in a city like ours, a bustling area.
It was a free city, which meant it was overseen, but not occupied by Rome. They had their own government. It was very religious. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world remains there today. It's the temple to the goddess Diana. It's 420 feet long, 225 feet wide, 120 columns, the columns 60 feet high inlaid with gold. It's a magnificent structure. This is a pagan goddess and the temple was filled with priestesses who were prostitutes.
who would come and sexually evangelize the city every night. So in Acts 19, remember Paul's going through this very area and he's denouncing the goddess and one of the coppersmiths or the guy that was making the statues is saying, "You're putting us out of business," and that's this city. So that's the backdrop. This temple is right smack in the middle of that.
Jesus Holds His Churches Securely
So the recipients to the angel, "these things says He who holds the seven stars, walks amidst the golden lampstand." It's Jesus. It's the picture of the churches. The word "holds" here is important. In English, we just say He holds it. In Greek, you had two words that are available. One Greek word would be, "I've got a hold of it," like this. The other Greek word would be, "I've got a hold of it like this," wrapped around, totally secure. That's the word that's chosen here.
I mean, already in this election year, I get an email every day: "No matter who's president, Jesus is king." I got it. Don't send me that email. I got it figured out. I know that. My grandpa would put a dime in his hand like that, close his fist, and say, "If you can open my fingers, you can have the dime." And so I'd pull a finger and he'd let it go open, and I'd see the corner of the dime, and I'd pull the other finger, and then he'd pull that down. He was a curmudgeonly cheap old man. I never got a dime in 15 years, but that's the word. That's the hold that God has, and there's great comfort there.
Christ Knows Everything About His Church
Now here's the strength, verse two: "I know your works, your labor, your patience. You can't bear evil." "I know." I wrote in my notes that's both terrifying and comforting. I don't want to be fully known. I was talking to somebody the other day who's dating, and we were talking about how hard that is when you're dating, because I want to give you enough information, if it's somebody I like, to fall in love with me, but I don't want to tell you everything.
I've been pretty transparent with Sandy, but I still got some things that I'm not sure you need to know this, and if you do, my fear is you'll reject me. Because now when we're here in counseling, we say, "If I knew that about you..." Well now I come to God, and I want to bring that in, and I play some game like I can hide it. You can't fool God with a fooling machine. You're not going to kid Him. You can't. He knows it all. That's Psalm 139.
There's no point playing games with Him, trying to hide something from Him, and that's terrifying, but it's comforting. And then He says, "I know all those things about you, and I still love you." I told Sandy last night, we were talking about just a ton of stuff, and I said, "I just want to be..." And the minute you say this, then all of a sudden you're a people pleaser, or whatever. I just want people to know me, and love me, and respect me. That's all I want. I just want to be respected, and loved. Yet in any minute, I could do one thing that would destroy all that respect, and all that love, in one second, one action. But God says, "I know all those one second disqualifiers, and I love you anyway." That's really a powerful statement, and that's how God is with you.
Three Things Christ Knows About Ephesus
Here's what I know. I know your labor. I'll give you three things He knows here. You're hard-working. That word that's translated "labor" means to toil to the point of exhaustion. A terminology we would use: You're all in. When I walk into your church, I don't see something lazy. I see work. I wrote these words: Energetic, sweating, serving, active, involved, evangelizing, teaching the young, helping the helpless, active, busy, engaged.
So get this now. This is important. We've got to connect this. He's walking in and He said, "Here's what I know. You're working really hard."
You persevere. It means to have patience. Triumphal fortitude. I was watching an interview the other day with Gary Poyer. I'm kind of neutral on him. I mean, he's a great player. And one of the things he does is he'll get on the freeway, find the slowest car, and drive behind it. And he's teaching himself to slow down and be patient. Now, the sad thing is, I am now that car with my blinker on. I'm driving all over Phoenix. I don't know what the heck is wrong. My blinker is on all the time. I need to take it in and have them check it.
But you're patient. You're persevering. In the old days, we had that. My dad, there were four boys, so my dad opted for this. You buy that blow-up doll that's got the weight in the bottom and you punch it. And every time you do it, it pops back up. He's saying, that's what you are. You don't quit. You run through the tape. You run, in the race, you hit the wall, you go through it.
And you're discerning. You're doctrinally sound. This is a strong picture, man. If you make a list, this is kind of what we say we want to be. Hardworking, persevering, doctrinally sound. Again, these are the things that excite me. I don't know if they do you.
The Rich Heritage of Ephesus
If you start to think at Ephesus, think of this lineage. Sandy and I were talking about it last night. One of the cool things, when you walk into the lobby at Scottsdale Bible Church, is that picture of the five guys that have pastored there. It's a heritage. And I stop. I know Jamie well. I know Daryl a little. I know Larry Anderson. I don't know the other guys. But it's a rich heritage.
Well, if you walked into the lobby at the Church of Ephesus, here'd be the picture. The first one would be Paul. That's pretty strong. And then it's Priscilla and Aquila, who may not be familiar to you, but as you study scripture,
They're the best role model we have for how a marriage ought to work. You want to do an interesting study, look up Priscilla and Aquila, see what they're doing, and that's kind of how a marriage ought to work. And then Apollos, who was so strong that the churches were splitting over, "I'm of Apollos, I'm of Paul." And then Timothy. These are some studs on this wall.
And then tradition. So that's fact. Then tradition says that Mary, the mother of Jesus, ends up here. And John, before he goes to Patmos, is there. So imagine, because I always struggle with Christmas and Easter. Imagine you're doing the Christmas message and you say, "It was a cold night and there was no room at the inn," and Mary, what was it like? I mean, that would be kind of cool. It was Easter morning and there was all this despair, but then the tomb was empty—John, what time was it? What was Peter like?
A Fundamentally Sound Church
So here's what I would just say: this is a good church, fundamentally sound. It probably represents the type of people that hang out, by and large, at a SPC, at a Redemption, that would come to something like this over an extended period of time. I know all these things about you. I'm aware of it.
But verse four: I got this against you. You've left your first love. It means to leave behind. So it's my terminology: they're pit bulls of orthodoxy, but it's become cold and mechanical.
When Truth Loses Its Heart
My personal experience, and probably testimony, would be I can become so focused on the truth that I lose the heart that goes with it. My experience has been, when I teach about grace, and some of you, I may lose you here for a minute. If I do, we'll be right back because we don't have a ton of time. When I teach about grace, saving grace, saved by grace through faith, everybody loves it. But when you talk about living by grace, people get a little nervous because their fear is you'll get spiritually soft. You'll get presumptive. You'll presume on God's grace.
It's the same thing you talk about when you talk in terms of coaching, if we go down that road, in business, in parenting. And this is how we did it. We were the junction boys. We had Bear Bryant. Bear Bryant would be in jail if he were around today. I mean, they wouldn't put up with this. He couldn't do that. It's, "Frank, we're going to run through this no matter what." Well, no, I don't think so. This is how we do it. Well, aren't they going to be soft? No, we're going to motivate them intrinsically, not extrinsically.
I don't want to pay my kids a dollar for every A they get. I want them to get an A because they want to be a better student. My kids would always go, "Everybody in our class, they get $10 for every A." And I said, "Well, you know what? You get to live here and eat here. That's what you get for getting an A." And most of you can't get A's. That's that motivation.
So we come to God. When you start preaching God's grace, you start to get soft. That's the fear. So we get harder. We draw tougher lines. We make the box narrower. And He said, this is what you've done. Just like there's erosion in the physical city of Ephesus now, you've lost that first genuine love.
Do You Love Me?
So there's a great scene in the Gospel of John where Jesus appears after the resurrection to the apostle Peter. And He asks him three times, "Do you love me?" So this is obviously speculation. If Jesus showed up at the church at Ephesus, or maybe with you or me, He'd say, "Do you love me?" And they'd say, "We work hard." "Do you love me?" "We really persevere." "Do you love me?" "We're really discerning." And He would say, "No, feed my sheep. Care about these people." Our whole operative word becomes love.
Chuck Swindoll wrote this simple sentence about the church at Ephesus: They knew how to defend the doctrines of the word, but forgot who the doctrines pointed to. Let me read it again, because that was sloppy. They knew how to defend the doctrines of the word, but they forgot who the doctrines pointed to.
We used to say at church, we study the word of God so that we might know the God of the word. That I want to know God. Why? Because God's in the process of transforming me to look like Jesus. God wants me to understand that He loves me and that I'm His kid. And that union is unbreakable. The communion's going to fluctuate, not based on Him, but based on me.
God Is Not Mad at Us, He's Sad for Us
One of the guys was teaching the other day and was trying to illustrate the point and had a sentence that I thought was a big sentence and I would have made a bigger deal out of it, but you know, that's all subjective. But I said to myself, "Steal that." So when we sin, we need to understand God is not mad at us, He's sad for us. He's not mad at us. He'll discipline me and all that, but He's going, "Buddy, I got so much more for you." Isn't that how it is with your kids sometimes? When you feel that, but personalize it that way and you see your kid make a decision and it's a bad decision and you go, "I'm not mad at you. I'm just sad for you. I'm not mad at you. You chose this, but I have so much more for you."
A Heart That Breaks
So all that warning to say to those of you—and it would likely be the ones who brought in Bibles and the ones who are hardworking and persevering and discerning, those are all really good things—here's what can happen. I can be so focused on that that I forget why I'm doing it.
I used to sit with Larry Wright. And Larry would say, "How you doing?" And I'd tell him. And he'd say, "What's going on?" And we'd start talking about people he didn't even know. We'd talk about their marriage. We'd talk about work. We'd talk about something. And he would just start to weep.
Larry, a man's man to me, and this is easy for me to say, because I'm a short, fat guy—a man's man is not just a big guy with a lot of muscles who can hit a driver 320. This comes from a guy who can hit an eight iron 90, so I'm learning. A man's man is a guy whose heart breaks for the things that
The Danger of Remembering
What do you do if you're in that spot? Verse 5: "Remember from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the first works." Remember. Interesting word. It can become debilitating, remembering.
If you start to deal with—I'm going to say guys, I know it's really true with girls—25 to 35, and you start to talk about their parents, you get a lot of hurt and pain. You get a lot of "I remember." Susan, she'd be in her 60s now. When we talked about God the Father, that was a very big problem for her. I didn't get it, but it was for her. Her dad was a bum and left her, left her and her mom, left them cold. "I don't want to think about God as a Father. That's not that picture."
But I'm telling you, there are kids walking around—and now exponentially more—that we're trying to minister to them. And their lives have been so screwed up, not by themselves, but by what's been done to them. Now, not always a victim, never a villain. I don't want it to be an excuse. So when I say "remember," they're going, "I don't want to dig up all that."
Chris Rock—and you have to be careful with Chris Rock—but he does a thing on baseball. And he's talking about retro uniforms in the good old days. He said, "The good old days was a shag and balls and slavery. Those were the good old days for us. Those aren't so good."
The Right Kind of Remembering
So remember—we need to be careful and acknowledge hurt and pain and deal with it. But remember what it was like. Remember your sin. Remember from where you've fallen. Remember where you were. I can look back, and it can be harmful or it can be helpful. Remember where you started.
I remember I had been a believer, I don't know, maybe a year. And I was in Bible study Tuesday morning, Thursday morning, I think Wednesday and Sunday. And I'm reading all the time. I'd never read a book, never read a book till my junior year of college—and you all know it was on Muhammad Ali. So I'd never read a book. I wasn't cracking the classics. And all of a sudden, I'm reading this stuff.
Susan came to me and said, "I'm happy about this, and I'm happy you're not drinking. But functionally, it's having the same effect on me and the family. You're not here. You're out learning about what kind of husband and dad you're supposed to be, but you're busy learning about it, not doing it." And so I disregarded that as an unworthy comment. No, I said, "That's really powerful." And that changed everything.
I read and I studied with a friend who got saved while he was in prison. And he identified himself as being "ignorance on fire." He said, "Jesus came out of my mouth so often that people didn't know if I was swearing or evangelizing them." And that's how it was for me.
And now I look and I go, I'll sit, and somebody will come up and they'll go, "Hey!" And I'm in my mind going, "I already know that. Good for you." How patronizing is that? See, that's how that can unfold.
Repentance and Change
Repent. Go back. Thomas Goodwin wrote this: "A turned up and down of my past life broke my heart." I start to look at this and it breaks my heart. I got an email from a guy, and he was very complimentary, very, very, very. And he signs off this way: "Just another poster child for amazing grace."
What do you do? You remember. You repent. That means to change your mind, change your direction. Turn around. Take responsibility. Fix it. Face the fact that even as a believer—hardworking, persevering, and all that goes with it—that I'm still going to sin. And I can get cold. And it can become academic.
Imagine your heart on a Sunday. What's your attitude as you're sitting there? Scrutinizing the front, evaluating the music. "Here he comes. I hope he's got something new." How's he going to have something new? You've been studying this stuff for 30 years. He may tweak something. He may come up with a new twist. What needs to be renewed is your heart and your mind.
And so you become not "ignorance on fire," but you become "truth on fire."
The Fate of Ephesus
It was said in the early second century of the church at Ephesus: "You all live according to the truth, and no heresy has a home among you. Indeed, you do not so much as listen to anyone if they speak anything except Jesus in truth." That's what that church was.
A few years later, a traveler coming to this city writes this: "I found only three Christians there, and those sunken in such ignorance and apathy as scarcely to have heard the names St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John."
So the seven churches—that's one of them. Is that you?
Well, there's the diagnosis, and what I love, there's the medicine. There's the action. Next week, we move right up the line. I think Smyrna is where we go next week.
Father, take that truth. Allow us to see our lives, to be self-aware. It's not a call to quit studying. It's a call to study and to let Your love drive our life. We pray that to You in Christ's name. Amen.