His Perfect Love

Announcer: Next on His Perfect Love, we're introduced to a church that had left their first love. It happened to them, and it can happen to us if we're not careful. This is His Perfect Love, the Word of God. It's what real love looks like in truth and power. This is His Perfect Love.

We're glad to have you with us for His Perfect Love with Pastor Matt VanderVen. Today, Matt continues his series in Revelation. We begin a look at the first of seven letters Jesus gave to seven different first-century churches. But as you'll soon discover, it has great relevance to us today. In his letter to Ephesus, the keywords are found in chapter 2, verse 4: "You have left your first love." Whether an entire church body or an individual Christian, leaving the love relationship we have with Jesus is something to be avoided. But what do you do if it happens? Here's Pastor Matt.

Matt VanderVen: Probably like you this morning, as we gathered and we read chapter 2 here, verses 1 through 7, we certainly can't get too far without seeing it says to the angel of the church of Ephesus. We read this last week in regards to previously in chapter 1. We get to this portion and more or less wonder how do we end up here in reading the things to the angel of the church of Ephesus?

To understand that, we need to stay chronological. What I mean by that is we have to go back to chapter 1, verse 19, and remind ourselves that Jesus Christ gave us an outline. The only book of the Bible that I'm aware of that God gave an outline to His own book is the Apocalypse, the book of Revelation. In verse 19, He said, "Write these things which you have seen."

He makes it very simple, very clear. Write the things which you have seen. We spent five, six, seven weeks going through chapter 1, looking at the Greek, studying it, going back to the Old Testament scriptures. 404 verses, 278 of those verses are directly referenced from our Old Testament scriptures. Having a handle on the Old Testament is incredible for us to have a full understanding of the New Testament revelation that Jesus wants us to have.

And it's through that He says look at the things you've seen. This is past tense. But then He says something, "And the things which are." Now this is interesting because He wrote this in AD 95, so what, 2,000 something like that years ago. But unless we're not careful and not scholars of the Word or the Greek and the present perfect tense, the idea here is that the things which are, 2,000 years later, that is still talking about today.

It is just as relevant 2,000 years ago when He wrote it. It's not past tense here, it's present tense. How do we know that? Because chapters 2 and 3 are all about what? Churches. Seven of them to be specific. Last I checked, a church is not a building. A church is a place where born-again believers, the body of Christ, gather. That's you and I.

When we come to a church to dedicate the building, who shows up? Born-again believers that come together in unity that say unto God, thank You for this building that You've allowed us to meet in. But the body of Christ has always been born-again believers that gather in a building or in a house or wherever the Lord had gathered them. And it's important to understand this because we are living in the church age.

And I understand that very clearly again because you're the ecclesia. You are the church. Last I checked, we're on terra firma, Earth, we're here. There's nobody here this morning going, you know, I wonder if we're in, you know, the millennial reign as I've heard some say in religion. Maybe this is the time where Jesus Christ is on the throne and reigning in Jerusalem.

I hope there's no one here that I have to try to convince that that's not true and that we are still living in the church age. The Rapture has not happened and we are waiting for Jesus to come because He says He's coming soon. So understanding on this biblical timeline where we are, we are just as much in the present as 2,000 years ago when John was given this by Jesus Christ and was told to write this. It was the present then, and friends, 2,000 years later, I know it's hard for us to comprehend it in that capacity, but we're still in the present in the capacity we read here.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I look at verse 4, it says, "Nevertheless, I have this against you, you've left your first love." I'd encourage you to highlight that, circle that, or whatever you do in your Bible to make that something that catches your attention because I can't imagine this church or any Christian church for that matter, defined by their lack of love and the fact according to Jesus that they left their first love.

Now you'll notice with me it didn't say they lost. No one can ever lose Jesus. Amen? You can't lose Jesus. You may leave Jesus, you may walk away, you may become backslidden, you could be a prodigal. There's a whole lot of things that can happen, but you never lose, in that way leave, when I can say it more specifically, Jesus.

What did they do? They left their first love, which means that at any point, Jesus is calling them to repentance, that church, that they can do what? Run back to Him. That means that Jesus' arms are wide open. Is that not the account He gave us in the prodigal son? When He said Jesus is there and the idea of that, the prodigal father there with arms wide open, and the son, he knew where home was, didn't he?

When it finally got so bad and he was emptied of himself, he knew where to come back to. He got tired of eating the pig slop. He says he knew where home was. I think that's vitally important. Jesus doesn't relocate. He doesn't play bait and switch. He doesn't move homes or houses. We always know that we can run to Jesus wherever we are, in whatever situation. If you're here this morning and you've been backslidden or maybe you're a prodigal that's been prayed for and you walked through these doors this morning, I want you to know that Jesus still got His arms wide open and all He wants you to do is come home. Come home.

Now again, you can't lose Him, but you can ignore your first love. And that's important because that's what's so striking to me about this passage that Jesus, I mean, this is one of seven churches, a place that Jesus' apostles, pastors, they spent a great deal of time with. We're going to talk about that in more detail.

But I want you to think about it. The whole reason we meet here on Wednesdays and go through the Old Testament scriptures, Sundays on two services in the morning, is to learn about Jesus. Ephesians 4 equips saints for the work of the ministry. That's the definition of what a church is to do. It's not a social club. It's equipping saints for the work of the ministry, to be transformed by Jesus, to worship Jesus.

Worship isn't just about coming into a room and having a rock concert or a concert or lathering things up or making things emotional or drawing attention to self. That's not what worship's about. As a matter of fact, the worshippers or the ones that are the lead worshippers are supposed to disappear and we're supposed to enter the throne of heaven and our eyes are now focused on Jesus. That's what worship's always been about, not about self, not drawing attention to self.

Just like our prayer. Our prayer and supplications, that's fine, we can come to the Lord, we can ask Him, "Lord, help me here, I need this, Lord." Those things are fine. But also in our prayer life, as Jesus taught us to pray, ought to be thanksgiving. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Jesus. So that's why we gather.

The church and worship should all revolve around Jesus and not ourselves. So when you read verse 4, I know there's some of us this morning saying, "I don't get it, Pastor. How could this be? Nevertheless, I have this against you, you left your first love. Isn't that the definition of what a Christian is? Their love for Jesus Christ?"

But I think there's something that we need to be mindful here this morning and that's familiarity does not, and I will say that again, familiarity does not equal relationship or true love. And I know that's going to be hard to hear this morning because maybe somebody's sitting here going, "Well, wait a minute, I punch that Sunday ticket, I'm doing all these things in the church." Well, by the way, they were commended for all that as well.

But they left their first love. Because after all, Christianity is all about relationship. It's not about religion or works. The minute man taints it and makes it about works, you just created a religion and you moved away from a relationship. Are you with me? It's that simple by definition. These are God's definitions.

So the church of Ephesus had, you think about it, more apostle support, more pastoral support than possibly the other six churches combined in chapters 2 and 3. Just in a way of cataloging that this morning, Paul spent three years in the church of Ephesus, planted that church, was the pastor. He's part of the A-team, right? He's an apostle. Afterwards, he left the pastorate to Timothy, his son in the faith, who pastored there for a number of years.

Paul then moved on to Macedonia, leaving Timothy in Ephesus and that church was battling, this church we're reading about, the advancement of false teaching. So it didn't take long before false teachers came in and started spreading false doctrine that was not found in the Word of God, that was not part of Acts 2:42, the apostle's doctrine. As a matter of fact, in 1 Timothy 1:3, if you want to just quickly turn there with your finger if you're able to, it says, "As I urged you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain in Ephesus in order that you instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrine."

It tells us exactly what was going on in that Ephesian church right in the beginning, the very letter that Jesus is writing this to this church. Now after Timothy, the Apostle John spent time in Ephesus. Did you know that was one of the largest cities, if not the largest city closest to the island of Patmos? Patmos is where John was exiled to. It was where the writing of this letter happened. It's a dot in the middle of the ocean.

And it's believed that the Apostle John had spent his last years in this region around Ephesus and he's buried in the southern slope of the Ayasoluk, if I say that, I don't obviously speak Turkish or in Asia Minor, Turkey, I don't know how to speak the language, so forgive me, but it's Ayasoluk Hill. And the reason I bring that up because it's interesting, 300 years after the death of John, a small chapel was constructed over the grave in the 4th century.

The church of John was changed into a marvelous basilica during the reign of the Emperor Justinian and that was 527 to 565 AD. Now there's been those archaeologists that have gone and unearthed in that area, Turkey, and been able to go and do digs there and they have found the remnants of what they believe is that basilica that was rebuilt.

Now shortly thereafter that, okay, there was an invasion of the Turks. You might remember that happened roughly in the 14th century. But unfortunately, the Basilica of John became unusable and there was an earthquake in the area and destroyed much of the area. So it was covered back under rubble, but they have found and they believe they have found some of the pillars, the four pillars that would be on each corner and they've unearthed this through the digging and excavation and they believe they found this basilica. And if that is truly where tradition teaches, that would be the grave site of the Apostle John. And it's right in the area and region of Ephesus.

Interesting. Now you may be wondering what is the significance of Ephesus in the Bible and why would Jesus write a letter to this church. After all, it's one of seven that's called out. Ephesus, and I think we're going to find some interesting things here this morning, not too different from Harrisburg. Okay, and maybe you'll find some similarities here.

Ephesus was the capital city of the Roman province in Asia. Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania. Ephesus was a significant center of trade located near a harbor at the mouth of the Kaystros River in western Asia Minor. We have a river that runs up and down in between the east shore and west shore. What's that river called? Susquehanna. It has a mouth, it has a point, a basin where it empties out. At one time that river was used for trade. Boats, different things would travel, they'd come into ports and they'd offload materials. Interesting.

The city lay along a fertile valley. One of the things I noticed when I came from New York to Pennsylvania here 10 years ago, I can't help but seeing as I drive to my home in Boiling Springs, farmland. Farmland as far as the eye can see. 70 acres right back there's a farm, there's farmland next door, farmland on this side, and last I checked it's very fertile corn and soybeans and all kinds of things. Hundreds of years this land and this area's been farmed.

I love going back in history and looking up some of the different things about the land before progress, as they like to say, happened and you can find that so much of this area, all of it in parts of Mechanicsburg and different areas were at one point farmland. I was always fascinated, my family, my in-laws, their family was originally from Harlem in that area and then came to the Bronx and they still have pictures of what the Bronx, how many of you have been to the Bronx, some of you? Gone to New York, gone to the Bronx. Again, grew up in that area upstate, spent a lot of time downstate in school, worked in New York City.

Most of you think the Bronx is what you see today, hustle and bustle, major metropolitan area city. I have pictures that you could see before there was development in the Bronx where Harlem was built up but the Bronx was like what you see out here. It was all rural. As a matter of fact, they got one of the first row homes as that's what you call them, one of the row homes where it was literally built and there's a picture of where this row home that Lisa's parents grew up in, her mom I should say, excuse me, let me be specific, grew up in and on either side of it is farmland. You go there today and it's row home, row home, row home, you know what I'm saying, it's all built up.

But this city in Ephesus, it was a fertile valley at one point and just like Harrisburg and the area. And importantly at the time of the writing, remember this was written around AD 95, major roads connected Ephesus to all significant cities in Asia Minor. Well, we have a major road, we have a couple of them. What runs north to south for us here that you can take and go if you want to jump on 81 and you can head south, right? You can head north. We also have thoroughfares that can go up towards Syracuse, you can also go east-west, you can jump on 83. Isn't that interesting?

The city of Ephesus as it was called was called the Light of Asia. Some of the pictures of Harrisburg that you will see if you go to the Capitol or surrounding area, I was fortunate enough to be in one of the judge's houses that's a judge within the city of Harrisburg that way, they live right across in one part of the area and as I walked into their flat, their apartment, their house, whatever you want to call it, as I walked in, I happened to see this picture that was very large, kind of landscaped on their wall, and it was Harrisburg and its lights at night. And I thought the city of lights, the lit-up Harrisburg like that.

Now Pliny the Younger was one of the ones that identified the city of Ephesus as Asia Minor. I'm not saying Harrisburg is Ephesus and Ephesus is Harrisburg. I'm simply making a statement of how there is similarities. And it had a vital role, Ephesus, in spreading Christianity, right? It was the capital city of Asia's province and the Roman Empire. Ephesus being commercial, political, administrative, was the center of Asia Minor much like our capital, our state senate, right? Where do they meet? Right down in the Capitol buildings, right?

It was an ideal place for missionary work. And I just happen to think about that in our area. Isn't this an ideal place for missionary work? We just saw missionaries that just came up here, maybe they're not heading out to Africa or another country, Ecuador, wherever, but they're heading downtown Harrisburg which is as the crow flies is not many miles from here. Pretty close.

This city allowed both land and sea connections to other important centers of Asia, hence it was the best location to affect major populations in terms of conversion from paganism to Christianity. And that's one of the things we always talk about here, never being content, never being satisfied until every single person that occupies the west shore or east shore comes to the knowledge and salvation of Jesus Christ. When that happens, then we can take a break.

All seven churches mentioned in Revelation were within easy reach of Ephesus and were founded during the missionary of the journeys of Paul in his missionary journeys. Now this is important as well because there's seven churches and remember how I spent a lot of time on that in chapter 1, seven. I looked at the Hebrew and the significance of numerology of seven, fullness, completeness. We talked about it in the Greek and looked at some of these things and as we were studying these things, we realized that seven has meant the same thing. It can either be a number and that's fine, but it also has meaning behind it and it always, not always, many times traditionally is used to speak to a completeness or fullness.

It's describing the worldwide church, the body of Christ. It's connecting that all for us. We can run, I believe, any church around the world through the grid of chapters 2 and 3 and find itself in one of these churches, if you will. I pray that our church is the church of Philadelphia.

But during his missionary journeys, Ephesus served as Paul's headquarters. It was the first church and the center of the Christian movement, right? Because what were the, where were the Christians first called Christians at? Antioch.

Ephesus was known for its amphitheater, the largest in the world, designed to hold up to 50,000 spectators. Ephesus was also the location of the great temple Artemis, right? Or Diana. That was built in 550 BC. So certainly a pagan area. The temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was 425 feet long. Just try to let the video in your mind run. 220 feet wide. It had 127 pillars which supported the roof and the colonnade. It was 60 feet high. This is a massive building, massive architectural feat in the ancient world.

Much of Ephesus or the industry commercial was related to this temple. Craftsmen sold shrines and household images of the goddess and worshippers could take with them on long journeys. Now I know what you're saying, "Hey wait a minute, we don't have a shrine or a temple like that in downtown Harrisburg or on the west shore or east shore." No, no we don't make little idols and carry them in our pockets anymore.

No, we have a different way of worshipping idols today, much of that through materialism and different things like that that can become an idol in our lives. Our time, our resources. The Ephesians were proud of their religious heritage and its accompanying traditions. We know that because we read that in Acts chapter 19 verse 35 and Paul journeyed to Ephesus during his third missionary trip and he stayed there for again up to three years and it tells us why. Acts 19:10, there was a very clear mission to this church that Jesus is writing to, "That all Jews and Greeks, kai conjunction, who lived in the province Asia heard the word of the Lord."

God established Paul, planted this church that the Word of the Lord would go forward to Ephesus and that region. And here we are 2,000 years later reading today about a church that some 60 years later, it was only 60 years, where Jesus comes and writes a letter to them and said, "You've left your first love." Lest we think it can't happen today.

Again, Ephesus was this prime site for evangelizing the whole province due to the city's accessibility and the stature of the region. It was in Ephesus that Paul and his companions were taken into the massive amphitheater where for two hours, do you remember the mobs gathered and what did they do? "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians," Acts 19:23 through 41, declaring their pagan god in light of the Christian God, Jesus. Despite the strong objections to the gospel, many Ephesians came into the faith of Christ through the faithful ministry of Paul and his companions. Light will always cast out darkness. A church began there. A few years later, Paul wrote to them a letter that we now know and we call the Book of Ephesians. 400 years later, Ephesus was the site of a major church meeting. How many of you heard of the Council of Ephesus? Anyone here? Any of you who had a Catholic background may know that often they would gather at that point in councils.

This is the Roman Catholic. This is not katholikos which was the first universal church. Katholikos in the Greek means universal. This was not lowercase c. This at this point being the 4th century, okay, this was now the Roman Catholic where they would have these councils that would gather. And as they gathered for this council and I believe this one was about the natures of Christ, His divinity and His humanity, they would discuss major topics. Ephesus.