Revelation: Church of Ephesus I Have This Against You | April 28, 2023

Revelation 2:2-4 ESV

² “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. ³ I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. ⁴ But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 

 I don’t know about you, but when someone does the “complement sandwich” on me, I’m pretty mad. I struggle to hear the good things and only focus on the bad. It would seem like that’s what happens here where Jesus tells them in 2:1-3 how they are doing great at working hard, staying the course, and rejecting false prophets, BUT…  

Here is comes: I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

Ouch! I’m cringing for them. Maybe it’s because being called out brings shame and guilt. No one likes to be called out.

 Thirty-five years earlier, Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus:

Ephesians 1:15-16 ESV

¹⁵ For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people,

 ¹⁶ I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 

When the letter in Revelation was written, most of the Ephesian Christians were now second-generation believers, and though they had retained purity of doctrine and life and had maintained a high level of service, they were lacking in deep devotion to Christ.^[1]

It’s quite possible the Ephesians loved truth more than they loved God and one another. I might know a little something about that. It’s called legalism. I get so locked into doing something right and being right that I abandon my love for others.

1 Corinthians 13:1-4 ESV

13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

1 Corinthians 8:1b-3 NLT

But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church. ² Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much. ³ But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes.

Today let’s sit with this correction and ask ourselves, what in our lives do we value more than loving each other? Is it a political party or our American rights? The style of worship music on a Sunday morning or what the pastor wears? Do we judge the neighbor who continues to break the HOA rules? Ask the Lord to reveal an area in your life where you have abandoned the love you had at first.

^[1] Walvoord, J. F. (1985). Revelation. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, pp. 933–934). Victor Books.