When Good Becomes Bad

by Jim Stern

This is pretty exciting. Over the next seven weeks, we are going to do a verse by verse study of Revelation 2:1-3:22. In this section of text, Jesus speaks to seven churches one at a time. What can we learn from His words about our lives and about healthy churches. Let me encourage you to get your Bibles and follow along.

Today we will cover Revelation 2:1-7, Jesus’s words to the church at Ephesus.

We are going to see how a group of people who start out loving Jesus well, can drift away from His priorities. Busyness in good things that takes us away from the main thing is no longer good.

This is built on the truth that who we hang out with can have dramatic influence on our lives. If we want to eat healthy, much easier to do with other healthy eaters. If we want to run or exercise, much easier to do with others who love to run. In the same way, if we want to walk in the fire of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, if we want to run His race for our lives, we are built and designed to do so shoulder-to-shoulder with like-minded people.

“Let US run the race marked out for us,” Hebrews 12:1.

“OUR Father who is in Heaven, hallowed be Your name. Let Your Kingdom come, let your will be done” (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:1-4)is a lifestyle prayer we are to live and pray with OTHERS.

Who you run with influences how you run.

And it is easy, even in groups, for those groups to drift away from the main reason for which they gather.

To that end, Jesus evaluates seven different churches in Asia in Revelation 2:1-3:22. A church is a gathered together group of HIS people set apart for HIS life and purposes. So let’s look at His first evaluation and see what we can learn.

Revelation 2:1 says, “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this…”

We learned earlier in Revelation 1:17-20 the One is Jesus, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the lampstands are the churches. So this is Jesus’s evaluation of the church in Ephesus.

Amazing to consider Jesus evaluating a church. We can learn from this that church leaders BETTER be evaluating their effectiveness. One of the works Trexo does is evaluate the effectiveness of churches/ministries to deliver their mission into the lives of their people, one at a time. We MUST robustly and regularly evaluate organizational effectiveness. Similarly, we want the Holy Spirit and brothers and sisters to assess our personal spiritual growth and development. We need people in our lives to help us, to encourage great things, and to point out areas where we need to change.

So what is His evaluation?

Revelation 2:2-3, “² ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; ³ and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary.”

The church is doing some great things! They persevere. Remember, Ephesus, like the other six churches in Asia Jesus addresses, exists under Roman rule. And Rome has continually been aggressively hostile against Christianity. Converting to Christ and following The Way had a very real cost to it. Nevertheless, believers in Ephesus pressed on.

They were also skilled and diligent to purge false apostles and teachers. In Revelation 2:6 we learn they actively reject a group called the Nicolatians, “⁶ Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.” Scholars are divided on the specifics of the who and what of the Nicolaitans. Suffice it to say, they were actively seeking to lead a group of Christians away from the love and truth of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I think what is instructive here is that there were persons and forces ACTIVELY seeking to drift, to dilute, to pollute, the people’s intimacy with Christ. Intentional Deceivers.

The New Testament authors offer many warnings against false teachers. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 4:1-2, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, ² by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron…”

Identifying specific enemies and then undoing their lies is critical to the vitality of our faith and the power of our churches. We are looking for enemies that want us to deny the faith, to get the faith wrong, or to water down the faith.

Deny the faith would certainly be secular humanists and other “intellectuals” who try and convince us that following Jesus is what non-intelligent, robotic people do.

Get the faith wrong would be, for example, the prosperity gospel that teaches God wants you to be materially blessed and all you have to do is name it and claim it.

Water down the faith can be more deceptive. In my experience, American Dream Christianity is particularly nefarious in binding Christians in the baby pool of faith. In ADC, God is responsible for delivering the American Dream to Christians. Jesus’s admonition, “If anyone follows after Me, let him first deny himself daily, pick up his cross, and follow after me” (Luke 9:23), does not exist. ADC has many tentacles that are outside the scope of this blog but is a living and active teaching that can snuff out Kingdom fire (Matthew 13:22).

Jesus commended the Ephesian Christians for robustly rebuffing specific enemies to the faith. But if there defenses were so strong, what did they get wrong? From where did they drift?

Jesus says in Revelation 2:4, “⁴ But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”

Ouch.

That has to sting.   

The Ephesian Christians are doing good things – but activity in the good things has lured them away from the main thing! Wow. And what is the main thing? Love. Love. Love. Love. And not just love…but their first love. And what have they done? Left. They left their first love.

The first love for all Christians is Jesus…it is intimacy with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus says, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:25-26).

For the one who has been born again by the Holy Spirit, adopted into the Father’s family, and rescued into the Kingdom by Jesus, love of God above all is the only proper life.

Imagine a spouse who is dutiful to keep house or bring home enough money but has drifted away from intimacy with their husband or wife. Isn’t the main purpose of marriage intimacy? In the same way, the main purpose of the faith, AND the main purpose of the church is intimacy with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

To leave their first love is unacceptable.

Look at the severity of what Jesus says next,

“⁵ Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent…⁷ He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’”

Leaving their first love is so severe that Jesus is threatening to remove their lampstand – literally take their church away unless they repent. And notice that Jesus says the first step in the remedy is to “remember from where you have fallen.” In other words, remember the beginning of your faith journey when you were made alive because of love. Remember when you felt the flood of the Father’s love. Then, next step, repent.

Beautiful.

Jesus is speaking in the Holy Spirit to people, looking for those who can hear His prophetic warning. Paradise waits for those who overcome. Paradise, which was lost in Genesis 1-3 and found in Revelation 21-22, is for those who get to eat from the tree of life. The tree in Genesis 2:9 reappears in Revelation 2:7.

Eternal life.

Eternal intimacy.

The warning for us today is the ease with which Christian groups of people can be super active and successful in good things and yet be drifted away from the main thing – love, love, love. Trexo’s reaction to the church at Ephesus, to the church in the United States, and to Christians is OVERFLOW.

Overflow living happens as we relax back in and RECEIVE the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As we receive, we are filled. As we are filled we respond in love and praise and honor and glory. As we are filled we are ignited in how we see and understand our selves. And as we overflow, we are moved in the Holy Spirit to faithfully run God’s race with others!

This is the church at Ephesus.

And this is life in the overflow.

With whom are you running God’s race? Are you active doing good things but have drifted away from the main thing? Is Jesus speaking, “Repent,” to you today? Can you ask our Father to send you to people, or send people to you, with whom you can run?

 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches…