The Seven Churches - Ephesus

Notes from our Wednesday night Bible Study...

Revelation 2:1-7

Him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.

• What do the stars represent?
• What do the lampstands represent?
• Jesus is saying, “These words are from the one who is with you and will not forsake you. I hold your destiny in my right hand.”

Praise

• I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance…
• Tested those who claim to be apostles but are not…
• Major concern is falling away due to false teaching.
• Distorting the Word
• Weakening its power and authority
• Opposed to the churches in Pergamum and Thyatira who were warned about their acceptance of false teachers.
• You have persevered hardships and have not grown weary.

Warning

• Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.
• Who or what is the first love?
• Knowing correct doctrine, obeying some commands, and worshipping in a church are not enough.
• We must have a heartfelt love for Jesus and his Word.
• Paul said that I can have all the knowledge in the world, but if I don’t have love I’m nothing.
• Consequence for continuing as they are…
• They will have their lampstand removed from its place.
• He will remove that church or congregation from his Kingdom.
• Any branch that does not bear fruit will be cut off.
• Love is one of the fruit of the Spirit.
• Fruit also is produce.
• Any church that does not produce will be cut off.
• It’s useless.
• Our ability to produce disciples in the Kingdom of God is directly linked to the love we share.
• Get back to your reason for existence.
• To enjoy the life God has given you.
• To love people into the Kingdom of God.
• We have three core values at First Assembly.
• Everything we do should be for the purpose of building relationships with God and other believers.
• Transforming lives to be like Christ.
• Every member pursuing ministry and investing themselves into others.
• That’s the heartbeat of our first love.
• When we get off track, we lose focus and end up as a social club.
• We need to stay centered on what we’re here for.
• It’s all about the love of God and how to effectively show that to everyone.
• When we forsake our first love, other things get an unnatural amount of importance.
• Music styles
• What we wear or don’t wear.
• We get concerned about what kind of people come to the church.
• Power struggles.
• And the real love of God gets forsaken over petty things.

Admonition

• Repent and do the things you did at first.
• The solution to fix this problem is repentance.
• To repent, you first need to acknowledge your error.
• The problem is that a lot of people think they’re right all the time.
• I’ve even heard people say, “I don’t care what the Bible says, I want to do this” or, “I don’t want to do that.”
• The picture I get of the church in Ephesus is that of staunch tradition and legalism.
• We hold to the Word of God with strength.
• We shall not be moved.
• The outflow of that are traditions of men and legalism.
• They know their doctrine.
• But if they had really understood it, they would have held on to it with love instead of an iron fist.
• Why do we try to protect the gospel?
• It’s not ours to protect.
• It’s ours to live out and spread around.
• It’s God’s unchanging gospel and the world is not going to damage it.
• Let’s talk about the social security issue again.
• One side says, “Let’s keep it in a locked box.”
• All the experts agree that won’t work for the long haul.
• But it seems to be the safest course of action.
• The other side says, “Let’s let it out of the box.”
• It just might work.
• But it’s risky.
• I want to draw a parallel between that and the gospel.
• Let it out.
• Try new things.
• Take risks.
• Nothing great has ever been accomplished without risk.
• Don’t be afraid to fail.
• Get out of the boat, and get the gospel out of the box.
• God’s love is the driving force of this.
• Paul said that Christ’s love compels us.
• God’s whole motivation for doing everything he did and still does is his great love.
• Let’s get back to our first love.

Encouragement

• But you have this in your favor, you hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
• Who were the Nicolaitans?
• No one really knows, but there is fairly good certainty about their practices. (1 of 2 things…)
• They taught that is was okay for Christians to sin and indulge in immorality because what is done in the flesh does not affect the spirit.
• They taught that one had to indulge in sin and immorality so that you could have a proper understanding of it and a more educated stand against it.
• Does this sound like anything you’ve heard in modern times?

To him who overcomes I will give the right to eat of the tree of life.

• When Adam and Eve sinned, they were forbidden from eating of the tree of life.
• Before they sinned, they were forbidden to eat of only one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
• They could partake of the tree of life as much as they wanted.
• It was planted right in the middle of the garden.
• Once they ate of the forbidden tree, sin sprang to life and produced death in them.
• The life they had been receiving was cancelled out.
• God took extraordinary measures to insure they would not be able to eat of the tree of life again and live forever in their fallen state.
• Now, we, by overcoming sin through the blood of Christ, are granted permission to partake of this tree.
• Here in the last book of the Bible we see the culmination of God’s eternal plan.
• Ever since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, God has had a plan to bring mankind back to the kind of relationship him in the garden.
• Here Jesus says, “You will eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God.”
• It’s not an earthly garden.
• It’s a better garden paradise in Heaven.