Drifting From Christ

I. Introduction
 A. We know about the epistles of Paul, and the epistles of John and of Peter. But the NT also includes seven epistles of Jesus in Rev.2-3, which Jesus dictated to the apostle John, probably late in 1st cent.
 B. Today: Christ’s letter to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:1–7 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. 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. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’ ”
II. Explanation
 A. There is much here. But we’re not going to go through each letter verse by verse. We’re going to study themes — one theme from each letter. Today we’re going to focus on the theme of drifting from Christ, which is a central theme in this letter.
  1. That means we’re focusing in on v. 4-5 “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you & remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”
  2. It had been over 40 years now since the gospel first made inroads into this region of Asia Minor.
  3. Some of the churches were beginning to stray. It’s not just Ephesus.
   a. Revelation 3:1–3 to Sardis: “I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.”
  4. These churches weren’t drifting away from Christianity. They were holding on to all the right doctrines and rejecting the wrong ones. By all appearances they were dynamic, doctrinally sound Christian churches. But they were drifting away from Christ.
 B. But before the letter gets into these things, it says some commendable things about the church in Ephesus.
  1. He commends them for their toil, for their patient endurance (twice), for their intolerance of those who are evil, for not growing weary.
  2. And interestingly, it seems they are commended for the very thing several of the other churches are rebuked for! They have not been tolerant of false teaching.
   a. “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...you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”
  3. Teaching Jesus hates: we’ll be talking about that on August 4th.
 C. But being faithful in this area did not make them faithful in other areas. It wasn’t enough for the church to maintain doctrinal purity and repudiate false teachings.
  1. These letters are the only indication we have of how the church was doing a generation after Paul’s epistles.
   a. And one thing we learn from these seven epistles of Jesus is that there were a variety of ways the churches were being attacked, or led astray.
   b. But here in Christ’s letter to Ephesus it is not persecution or tribulation or false teaching that is causing the church’s problems, but the church’s own sin.
 D. These people were solid in so many ways! They had so much to feel secure about. But instead of comforting them, Jesus works to disturb them, and to make them feel insecure.
  1. He warns them that their loss of love for Him is so serious that if they don’t repent, He is going to condemn them.
  2. This is not just disappointment, not just “You missed something.” This is threatened removal. “I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”
   a. What is a lampstand? “The seven lampstands are the seven churches.” (Rev.1:20)
   b. He will throw them away, and they will no longer be His church.
  3. And in case it seems to you that I’m over-interpreting the removal of their lampstand by taking it to mean separation from Christ, look at the reward if they do repent and renew their love for Christ: “To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life.” It only makes sense that if they don’t repent, if they don’t conquer, if they don’t regain their love for Jesus, they would not be granted to eat of the tree of life, which obviously means not having Jesus eternally.
III. This raises two important issues:
 A. Some might think this seems unfair or unreasonable. If not everything, these people are giving so much. How can Jesus be so dissatisfied? That’s like a wife being dissatisfied with her husband after 20 years because he’s not as infatuated with her as he used to be, even though he’s faithful and attentive and helpful and a good father to the kids.
  1. There is a perfect distance for many human relationships. “I can only handle seeing him monthly.”
  2. But with Jesus it's different. There’s no one who’s better off relating to Jesus from a distance.
  3. A relationship with Jesus only works at the closest level.
  4. It doesn’t work to keep Jesus at arm’s length. It doesn’t work to visit him every once in a while.
  5. There is no sampling Jesus or having a little bit of Jesus. There is no having Jesus be one part of your life. “Love God with all your heart.” “No man can serve two Masters.”
  6. Jesus can't be a distant friend or even merely a good friend. He must be your bosom friend, your best friend. He must be your soulmate, your true love.
  7. If He only gets part of your heart, then you don't really get Him, you're blind to who He really is.
  8. There are two ways to look at this. One is to feel like Jesus is impossible to satisfy, who gets angry if we don’t love Him enough. The other is to see that in love  Jesus was so concerned about these folks – and the millions like them who would come later – that He warns them about the peril of their present state.
  9. You see, there’s something so wonderful that missing it is absolutely terrible and to be avoided at all costs. And if we’re not head-over-heels in love with Jesus, if we’re not sold out to Him, then we just don’t get it, we just don’t realize who He is. There’s something else which is stealing our affection away from Him. And Jesus knows that we need Him more than anything else. He knows that knowing Him and loving Him is what gives us life.
 B. The dangerous error of decisional assurance.
  1. Today many Christians think that people are saved if they invited Jesus into their heart 30 years ago as a child, even though they now show no interest in Christ, or maybe even antagonism.
  2. The problem is that if they truly invited Jesus into their heart 30 years ago, they would still be living in Christ. True faith overcomes. True faith endures to the end.
  3. And “He who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matt.24:13)
  4. Each of the seven epistles of Jesus in Rev.2-3 end with a promise for those who overcome, who keep the faith in the face of opposition and temptation. Though the wording is different, in each case they are promised Christ and all of His benefits if they so prevail.
  5. The point is that not everyone is promised these things — only those who overcome, who are faithful to the end. This is a far cry from assuring people who came forward at the end of a church service 30 years ago that they are saved even if they don’t follow Christ now.
  6. This kind of thing can give a false sense of security — the opposite of what Jesus is doing here. Here Jesus is saying that these people once loved him and yet now if they don’t repent and start loving Him again as they did before, He will reject them.
  7. But can someone who loves Jesus at one point lose their love at some later point?
   a. Falling away from Christ is a tricky subject.
   b. On the one hand, our Reformed theology tells us that the saints persevere in faith.
   c. On the other hand, there are many verses in the NT about falling away from Christ.
   d. The simple solution is that there are many who profess faith in Christ, but some of them have true faith and some have false faith.
    (1) Those with true faith persevere. This is because true faith is something God gives, and when He gives it, He sustains it.
    (2) Those with false faith are the ones who do not persevere, as it says in 1John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”
  8. The fact is, we can’t see people’s hearts, and so we don’t know what going on inside.
   a. This means that when someone’s faith is faltering, you don’t know for sure whether it is a true faith which is going through a hard struggle — like Peter when he denied Christ — or a false faith that is beginning to show it’s falseness — like Judas when he betrayed Christ.
  9. So, what guidance do you give someone who professes faith when their faith seems to be faltering? Well, you don’t assume the worst of them and accuse them of never truly believing.
   a. But you also can’t just urge them to feel safe. After all, they might well be in great danger.
   b. All you can do is help them to see their crisis of faith and encourage them to repent of their sin, return to their Savior and resume the works of love they did at first, like Jesus does here.
  10. We want people to have assurance of salvation – if they truly have salvation. But it can be deadly for those who aren’t actually saved to feel that they are.
IV. Application
 A. Now we need to get personal and ask ourselves questions from this epistle of Jesus. Have we lost our first love? Have we –– as a church or as individuals — drifted away from the love for Christ we used to have like the church of Ephesus did?
  1. When a person or a church falls in love with Christ, and then years later that vibrant love is all but gone, something is very wrong, and it needs to be addressed as a crisis and an emergency.
  2. You remember the parable of the foolish virgins (Matt.25:1-13), who delayed getting oil in their lamps till it was too late – and they were left out in the dark. This is eternal life & death stuff.
  3. If your faith is in the gutter, if your fruit is nonexistent, if you are living Christlessly, if you are ignoring Him or disobeying Him, you SHOULD be feeling insecure. You should not be feeling safe, because you can’t know for sure if your faith is real.
  4. Instead of trying to feel secure, God tells people in these circumstances to GET secure.
  5. How do you get secure? Repent, return, resume. Repent of your sin. Return to your Savior. Resume the works you did at first.
  6. “Whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” – 2Peter 1:9–11
  7. One of the most glorious truths of the gospel is that there is a solution to sin. CS Lewis: shower, soap, towels. But you don’t get clean by not caring, or by sitting around bemoaning your dirtiness.
 B. Now, I hope your love for Christ has not only continued but grown and deepened.
  1. And if that’s true, then store this message away in case that shoe one day fits, or in case you’re trying to help someone who is experiencing this.
  2. And give thanks to God! For blessed are your eyes that they see and your ears that they hear! (Matt.13:16)
  3. And one more thing: This happens to all of us in little ways even if not in big ways. Sometimes we have a great time with the Lord in the morning, but by the end of the day that’s gone. We’re worried or frustrated or feeling sorry for ourselves. The same things apply: repent, return, resume.
 C. Marriage: falling in love versus maintaining/cultivating love
  1. The same thing applies to our love for Jesus. We didn’t start it, but we are called to work to cultivate it and nourish it.
  2. This epistle of Jesus to the church at Ephesus shows us that even by the end of the first century, some churches were falling into the trap of maintaining the structure of Christianity while neglecting the heart of Christianity, a trap that much of the Christian church has fallen into.
  3. You see, Christianity isn’t just a philosophy of life or a set of beliefs. Here are people who had all that right, but were still missing the main thing. The heart of it all is knowing Christ, having a love relationship with Christ.
  4. To the world, Christianity is merely a philosophy of life and a set of beliefs and an ethical code. That’s all they can see because they can’t see the living Jesus at the center of it all.
  5. Now don’t get me wrong. Christianity is a philosophy of life and has a set of beliefs and an ethical code. But at the center of the whole thing is the Son of God, Who lived on this earth and Who still lives and still is at work in this world, revealing Himself to people and drawing them into an eternal relationship with Him.