Trinity Baptist Church

The Right Kind of Church

A Loving Church

Revelations 2:1-7

 

We began last week to develop some characteristics of the right kind of church.  We need to make sure we are not just going through the motions.  Sometimes we get so set in our customs and traditions that they become more important than Biblical standards.

 

That’s why I am constantly trying to evaluate our ministries and activities.  We never want to lose our cutting edge.  I want our teaching organizations to be the best they can be.  I want our mission and ministry projects to be Christ-centered and God-honoring.  Sometimes we tend to forget that we are here to reach people for Christ.

 

That’s why folks get upset when you mess with their Sunday school class or the organization.  They believe they are the most important thing in the church.  People can die and go to hell all day long.  Just don’t mess with my comfort zone.

 

So it’s important that we be brought back to focus in regard to the church from time to time.  Last week we looked at the location, intention and attraction of the church.  No matter where a church is located geographically, it is to make an impact on its cultural location by being what God intended it to be.

 

In Revelation 1, the churches of Asia Minor are pictured as lamp stands.  That function hasn’t changed.  We are still to be light to a sin-darkened world.

And we need to make certain the thing that attracts people to the church is Jesus.  He must be in the midst of the church if it will be attractive and effective.

 

Now immediately following this encounter John has with the Risen Lord in Revelation 1, he is instructed to write down some messages Jesus has for these seven churches.  They are recorded in the form of letters.  And remember, these were seven literal churches in specific geographical locations and Jesus is writing to them to deal with specific issues and problems they are encountering.

 

And as we study those letters we are given some specific characteristics of what the church should look like and what it should be doing.  Today we’ll begin with the first one.  It is the church at Ephesus and their letter is found in

 

Revelation 2:1-7

 

Now what we discover from Ephesus is that the right kind of church is a loving church.

 

The city of Ephesus was the most cosmopolitan of all of the cities to which these letters are addressed.  It is located in what we know today as modern Turkey.  It was a great sea port town. It was a commercial center.  It was a very, very prosperous city.  People came from all over the world to trade their wares and to sell what they had to offer.  On a given time millions of people would be passing through the city of Ephesus.  If you and I were to take a journey to the city of Ephesus we would come up on the Aegean Sea and we would move into the Ephesian harbor.

 

We would get out of the ship and begin to make our way on Harbor Boulevard, which was the main street of the city of Ephesus.  As we walked along, we would see many imposing buildings.  All of them built in magnificent white marble.  There was a theatre there with seating for 24,000.  The amphitheater would hold over 100,000.  The city boasted a massive library.  The city was filled with huge imposing buildings.

 

Right outside the city of Ephesus, less than a mile away was the temple of Diana.  It was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.  The Temple of Diana was the largest temple in the Greek Empire.  It was a massive building.  It was about 425 feet long and 225 feet wide.  It was 60 feet high.  It had 127 pillars in it.  Each one of these pillars was a gift of a king.

 

The temple of Diana became a place where people brought money.  It was a bank.  It was also a refuge where fugitives could come and claim asylum.  It was a museum where many of the great art works in the ancient world were deposited.  It was also a place for the worship of the goddess Diana.  Just inside a purple velvet curtain, there was this hideous image of Diana.  There were temple prostitutes and players and singers, and all kinds of sexual orgies went on.

 

The city of Ephesus was a city in great need of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  No wonder the apostle Paul in I Corinthians 16:8-9, said, "But I will tarry in Ephesus until Pentecost. For a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

And in the city of Ephesus God had planted a church.  You can read about it in Acts 18 through 20.  You will discover there some of the greatest victories of grace that took place in Ephesus.  Some of the greatest leaders of the Christian faith were there.  Paul stayed there three years.  Apollos, the brilliant Bible orator, was there.  Young Timothy, the preacher boy, served a period of time there, and John, the beloved disciple himself, who is on the isle of Patmos receiving these letters, served as the pastor of the church at Ephesus.

 

Now thirty years have come and gone.  John is exiled to the Isle of Patmos and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is writing a letter to the church at Ephesus.  And from this letter the Lord sends, we discover something that is essential to the success and vitality of any church anywhere.

 

And beyond that, there is a characteristic of this church that is essential to the effective service and ministry of every individual believer.  And before this message is over I will ask the question are we an Ephesian church.  I want to ask you individually.  "Am I an Ephesian Christian?"  There is a message which God has for us which can be helpful to us as a church, and it can be helpful to you and me as individual believers.

 

 

The Lord Jesus begins to speak and first of all, He describes Himself.  He says in this opening verse that He is walking in the middle of His churches.  He is examining and searching the hearts.  He is looking at the life that is going on in that particular church.

 

 

And the first thing he does is give

 

 

There were some good things going on at the Ephesus Baptist Church.  In fact, if I counted correctly, there are about nine positive things He has to say about the church.

 

First, He commends them for their activity.

 

verses 2-3

 

If you had visited the church of Ephesus on any given weekend or week, you would have discovered a very busy church.  You would have found a great deal of activity going on in that church.  They had worship services and a visitation program.  They had retreats, seminars, fellowships, and programs.  They had children and youth activities and women’s ministries and missions.  There were all kinds of activities going on in that church.

 

And right off the bat, there is nothing wrong with the church being active and busy.  In fact, I think there is a lot right about that.  We have a great deal of activity.  And while we are not saved by works, the Bible says in Ephesians 2, verse 10, that we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works that we should walk therein.

 

We are not saved by our good works, but we are saved unto good works.  He says not only in verse 2 that "I know your works," but He says "I know your labor."  Here is a church that has great labor.

 

 

The word labor is the idea of working to the point of exhaustion.  It means costly labor.  When I read that I thought about a verse in II Samuel 24, verse 24, where David said, "Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing."  Anything that is worthwhile has a cost attached to it.

 

As I look over this congregation I think about the sacrifices so many of you have made.  Your sacrifice financially, your sacrificing your time, your sacrifice in lending of your gifts and talents and efforts.  Someone said a number of years ago and I agree that when we bleed, we bless.  When we sacrifice and when we labor for the Lord, it is then that we become a blessing.

 

He not only talks about their works and their labor, but He says also thy patience.  The word patience means endurance.  It means to stay under the load and keep going on.  When I read that, I see something very positive.  It is something about this congregation here.

 

We have so many who are so faithful and have been for so many years.  There are many who have worked in the same area of ministry for decades, especially in the preschool and children’s areas.

 

We have people here who have served in their place of service for 10 years, some 20, some 30 years.

 

I want to congratulate those of you who have endured and stayed with the work of the Lord.  Our church has been and is being built by people who work, people who labor, and by people who have born, people who endure.

Sometimes people complain about a busy church.  Sometimes people say, "There's just too much going on in the church."  They say that it takes too much of their time.  "There are too many activities and I can't take them all in."  Sometimes people want a church to cut the programs and to back off a little bit and not ask for so much of their time.

 

Let me ask you a question.  What do you want us to cut for?  Do you want us to cut so you will have twice as much time to watch TV?  Do you want us to pull back a bit so you'll have twice as much time to go to the lake or stay home?  Is that what you're after?

 

A church, if it's going to accomplish the divine mandate that God has given to it, has to be a church that is filled with many activities.  We're involved in serious business.  This is not play stuff we are doing here.  We're talking about heaven and hell.  We're talking about lives and human beings.  We're talking about young people and boys and girls.  We're talking about families that have turmoil and chaos.  So there has to be great activity going on in a church where love really is so He praises and commends them for their activity.

 

 

He says in verse 2 that you can't bear those that are evil.  You have tested those who say they are apostles, and are not, and have found them liars.  What He's saying about the church is that you are very orthodox.  You are a Bible-believing church.

 

 

 

Paul the apostle had warned them in Acts 20 that there would be false teachers that would come in the church.  He said they would be like grievous wolves entering in not sparing the flock.  Then he said there would be men of your own selves who will arise speaking perverse things and it's already happened.

 

In fact, he mentions a particular heresy in verse 6.

 

He mentions “the deeds of the Nicolaitans”.  Later, in verse 15, to the church of Pergamos, he references   “the doctrine of the Nicolaitans."

 

Obviously the doctrine of the Nicolaitans and the deeds of the Nicolaitans are connected.  What you believe affects how you behave.  Deeds and doctrine go together.

 

The Nicolaitans were those who believed in a clergy hierarchy in the church.  They were actually the predecessors to the Catholics.  The word Nicolaitans actually carries the idea of conquering the people.  They believed there was a separation established between the clergy and the laity.

 

But that’s not a scriptural approach.  We are all priests and ministers unto God.  And the Ephesian church was alert to what was happening and didn’t allow false teaching to get in it.

This was a church that was characterized by orthodoxy.  They were Bible believers.  They stayed with the stuff of Scripture.

 

Southern Baptists are known as Bible-believing people.  More and more we find ourselves at odds with the world as we deal with moral and social issues.

It sounds old-fashioned.  It is out of step and politically incorrect.  But the right kind ofo church is a church where the Bible is accepted and believed and followed.

 

 

Verse 3

 

They were persistent. They didn’t give up.  They were keeping on.

 

When I read that I couldn't help but think of many of you in our church. You just keep keeping on.  The further along you get and the older you get, the more difficult it is to be persistent.

 

I wish all of you could have known Marilyn Davis.  She contracted polio when she was 23 and divorced at 29 with a small baby.

 

She was confined to a wheelchair and could only move here head and one hand which she used to guide here electric wheelchair.  In fact, she told me one time, “Wasn’t it wonderful that God left me a hand to drive with/”

 

She was faithful to her church.  She taught Sunday School, sang in the choir and was here every time the doors were opened with a beautiful smile on here face.

 

More recently I think of Inez Ralls.  You couldn’t run Inez away.  She lived with significant pain in her hips but never missed.  She taught Sunday School for years and years and only God knows how many meals she fixed for grieving families.

It didn’t matter if it was church visitation or an RA race, she was here because it was her church and she wanted to be a part of it.

 

There are many others I could mention who gone on to glory and many of you today who are still setting that kind of example.  You have persevered and have patience.  You have labored and not fainted and you’ve done it for the name of Jesus.  You have stayed with the stuff.  You have been faithful.

 

Many of you have determined you are going to finish the course.  You’ve just made up your mind that you are going to hit the tape.  Good for you!  May your tribe increase! Don’t be discouraged or dismayed by those who want to lag behind.

 

There are plenty who are at ease in Zion.  They’re just going to coast on in to Heaven.  They ride on the coattails of people like you who pay the price and put forth the effort and go the extra mile because of your love for the Lord.    

 

I want you to know I'm going full blast for the Lord Jesus Christ until He comes for me or I go to be with Him.  Let me encourage you to be a church that endures, a church that stays with the stuff and goes all the way.

 

So far sound like a pretty good church doesn’t it?  Jesus has a lot of good things to say to them.  He commends them.  He had some very positive things to say to them.  But as you read this, you are aware of the fact that a little something is wrong because He also gives them

 

 

 

verse 4

 

He’s been looking at the outside, but now He turns His attention to the inside and He begins by saying, "nevertheless."  That's a very strong word because no matter what precedes it, if a comment begins with “nevertheless”, it generally means something negative or in contrast is about to be shared.

 

In this case, Jesus says to the church, "You have left your first love."

 

There is a degree of irony in that statement because one of their pastors was none other than John himself, who was known as the beloved apostle.  It is John who writes such beautiful words about the love of God.  It is John who gave us John 3, verse 16.   "For God so loved the world."

 

It is also ironic because of the very letter that was sent to the Ephesians by the apostle Paul.  Listen to what Paul says in

 

Ephesians 1:15

 

Keep reading in Ephesians and you will find he mentions love 14 times in this letter.  Isn't that ironic?  Here was a church characterized by love and known for its love, and yet Jesus says that you've got a problem and the problem is you have left your first love.

 

What is first love?  First love is original love or beginning love.

 

It is that love between sweethearts when they first fall in love.  Do you know what I'm talking about?

It's like that poem that says,

 

“Love is a very funny thing.  It's shaped just like a lizard. It wraps its tail around your throat and goes right through your gizzard!”

 

That's the kind of love I had for Lisa and still do!  I couldn't get enough of being around here.  And when she finally got up her verve and asked me out was one of the happiest days of my life, second only to when she asked me to marry her!

 

Those weeks when she was away at college were some of the longest weeks of my life.  We were together as much as we could possibly be.  Money was no object.  I spent money I didn't have.  You've been there and you know what I'm saying.  We had first love, original love.

 

The same thing is true in your relationship to Jesus.  There is that first love when you just fall in love with Jesus for the first time.  Some of you remember that first love.  It is that engagement love.

 

Do you remember how precious Jesus was when you first met the Lord Jesus Christ?  You just fell head over heels in love with Jesus Christ.  By the way, some of you big men sitting here, it's not sissy to talk about loving Jesus Christ.  When you think about someone who was willing to come all the way from heaven to this world and willing to die on a cruel cross to shed His precious blood that you might be forgiven of your sins, it is the manliest thing in the world to love someone like that.  First love, original love.

But Jesus now says, "You left your first love.”  If He had the Righteous Brothers there, they’d be singing, “You’ve lost that loving feeling!”  or if Hank Williams were around if might be, “Why don’t you love me like you used to do?”

 

It’s the song of a broken heart.  It doesn’t matter if it’s puppy love or married love or our love for the Savior, one of the saddest experiences anyone will ever endure is for someone to fall out of love with them.  And Jesus says to this church who once was hot-hearted, once passionate for souls, once on fire with love for the Savior, “It’s no longer like it once was.  You’ve left your original love.”

 

Do you know what else first love is?  It's emotional love.

 

Love is an act, but love is also emotional.  Love is enthusiastic.  It is very easy for that original love to lose its fire and excitement.  It happens to couples sometimes.  Sometimes in the course of the living of life you get married, you have the wedding and the honeymoon.  You go through all those initial stages, and then life begins to come at you.  You experience the pressures of life and other things begin to get involved and take your time and effort from one another.  The next thing you know life has so crowded in that you have lost the enthusiasm.  Now it has become cold and mechanical.

 

The same thing can happen to your life spiritually in your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.  If you're not very careful, your relationship with Jesus Christ can become cold and mechanical.  Jesus talked about it in Matthew 21.

 

He said sin would become rampant because the love of many would grow cold. And I want to tell you something:  If you're not very careful you'll lose the fire.

 

Some Christians, like to pretend to be spiritually mature when the truth is they've become spiritually frostbitten.  They are the frozen chosen. There are some people who have gotten beyond the exciting stage in their relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, but the truth of the matter is they have a cold heart in their relationship to Jesus Christ, and I'm talking to some of you this morning.  I wonder if Jesus is saying to you that you have left your first love.  You don't love Me with the same enthusiasm you used to love Me.

 

Let me ask you a question this morning.  Which characterizes your relationship to Jesus Christ, fire or ice?  I heard about an old man praying one Sunday in church and he said, "Oh, Lord, if there is a spark of fire among us this morning, dear Lord, water that spark."

 

Unfortunately that’s what happens far too often. The Lord has a little spark burning in our life but we are quick to throw water on it.  Is your relationship to Jesus ice or fire?  Love is exciting and emotional and overflowing.  When Mary came to anoint the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible says she poured everything she had on the Lord Jesus Christ. Love is an emotional thing.

 

How is your relationship to Jesus?  Jesus said, "You've left your first love."

 

 

It is original love and emotional love.  It is also motivational love.

 

Jesus has commended all of these positive things in the church, but the problem was the things they were doing were not motivated by their love for Jesus.  It is fine to do all of these things, but if you don't do these things out of love for the Lord Jesus Christ then they became mundane and ordinary and there is no blessing.  In fact, they become frustrating and aggravating. 

 

Some of the most miserable people in the entire world are people who are just going through the motions of church work, and they're doing it for other reasons except a genuine love for the Lord Jesus Christ.  And the sad thing is they make it miserable for everyone else around them.

 

You know anybody like that?  They brighten up a room every time they leave it? 

 

In I Thessalonians 1, verse 5, we find an interesting statement.  It talks about your labor of love, labor which comes from love.  Listen to this very carefully.  You can labor and not love, but you can't love and not labor.

 

I wonder sometimes how much of the work of our church would be eliminated if everything that was done was not done for the Lord Jesus Christ.  Why are you doing what you do?  Why are you singing in the choir?  Why are you playing in the orchestra?  Why are you serving in the capacity in which you serve in our church?  Genuine love for the Lord Jesus Christ is motivational.

 

And love for the Lord Jesus solves a multitude of problems.  It solves the attendance problem.  People go where they want to go.  Where the heart is, the feet will soon follow.  I'm not going to waste my time brow beating you to come to church.  Sunday night and Wednesday night, we have a service.  I'm going to be here preaching.   If you love Jesus Christ the way you ought to love Him, unless there are matters that are required by the Lord or legitimate health concerns, you'll be here.  It’s just that simple.

 

And loving Jesus will motivate your giving.  If you love Jesus Christ, it solves the problem of giving and tithing.  Love always gives.  "God so loved the world that He gave."  Christ loved the church and He gave.  If you love, you give.

 

It solves the complaining and bellyaching problem.  Sometimes you get people around the church and all they want to do is bellyache and gripe and complain.  It is a clear giveaway when all you do is complain and gripe that you don't love Jesus Christ the way you used to love Him.  I'm just telling you the truth.

 

This church picked up the mail one day, and there was a letter from Jesus and what was contained in the letter must have cut to the quick.  Jesus said, “You don’t love me like you once did.”

 

There were a lot of good things, positive things that could be said, but none of it replaced or made up for the lack of love.  A positive word, a negative word, then Jesus offers

 

 

 

 

 

One of the things I love about Jesus is that He loves us too much to leave us alone in our sin and rebellion.  He always gives a redemptive word.  He always gives us a prescription to solve the problem.  If you're sitting here and there's a problem in your heart, in your love life between you and Jesus, Jesus tells you exactly what to do.  I'm going to use three words drawn from these verses which will give you a prescription to solve a heart that has grown cold in your love for Jesus.

 

The first word is the word remember.

 

Verse 5

 

Let's take a journey down memory lane.  I want you to think back to when you first met Jesus as your Savior.  Do you remember how old you were?  Do you remember where you were?  Do you remember what Jesus did for you?  How you asked Him to forgive you your sins and invite Him into your heart?  Do you remember that great joy and peace that came into your life?

 

Perhaps you remember those tears that you shed for the Lord Jesus. Do you remember the relief of knowing you don’t have to fear going to hell?  Do you remember how clean you felt as your sins were washed away? Do you remember just how sweet it was to know you had someone like Jesus who loved you the way Jesus did?  Remember.  Don't ever, ever forget what Jesus has done for you.

 

 

 

The second word is repent.

 

Why do we need to repent?  It is because a cold heart is a sinful heart.  Not loving Jesus the way we ought to love Him is a sin.  Jesus says, "Repent."  That means to turn away.  Ask God to forgive you.

 

The third word I want to use is repeat.

 

He says in verse 5, "Do the first works."  Go back to doing the things you used to do when you were in love with Jesus the way you should be in love with Jesus.

 

Do the first things.  Maybe it means that you've got to get back to that daily quiet time where you read God's Word and talk to Him in prayer.  Maybe it means you need to be more faithful to His house so you can come and learn more about Him.  Maybe it means that you need to begin to tell people about Jesus again.  If you really love someone, you can't help but talk about them.

 

Longtime Baptist pastor of First Baptist Jacksonville, Florida tells the story of being on an airplane one time.  He was seated by a soldier boy.  He said, “You can tell when someone has something to tell you and they're going to tell you whether you want them to or not. I could tell he was that way.  It wasn't long before he told me he was in love.  He didn't even ask me if I wanted to see.  He just took out his billfold to show me a picture of his beloved Corinne.”

 

Now Dr Vines said, “I have seen what to me were two ugly women in my life and she was both of them!  But boy, she was pretty to him.  He was in love with her.

I wasn't able to think about anything or talk about anything or do anything for the whole flight because all he did was talk to me about that girl that he was in love with.”

 

You want to know something?  If you're in love with Jesus Christ, you'll tell somebody somewhere about Him.

 

Notice verse 7 and we’ll be through.

 

Historians tell us in the middle of the temple of Diana they had a huge tree and only the elite were allowed in where that tree was.

 

But Jesus said, "I've got a tree and it's in paradise.  If you'll come to Me and overcome in Me, you'll meet Me in paradise.  You can tell Me face to face how much you love Me, and you can serve Me perfectly for all eternity."

 

If you're lost and have never received the Lord Jesus Christ, let me tell you about your tree of life.

 

First Peter 2:24 says that Jesus Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree.  It is the same word, the cross.  You can meet this wonderful Jesus and have the love of your life in a personal relationship with Jesus.

 

Let's bow our heads and pray.