The Loveless Church
Revelation 2:1-7
2 “To the angel of the church of Ephesus write,
‘These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: 2 “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; 3 and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. 4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. 6 But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
7 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” ’
So the point is they have left their first love….
4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
They let go of their first love….So the word love there is the agape form…which means Affection or benevolence; and also means love feast.
Now I’m sure plenty of you have been to an agape feast, maybe you have even helped to plan one….anyway they seemed to be fairly popular when I was younger….
Now I know that Jesus here wasn’t talking about an agape feast. He was saying that they had left behind that first love…the kind of love that loved with affection and benevolence. The real relationship kind of love
But think about it….feasts…eating together…create relationships. Everything seems to be celebrated with food. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, weddings…..and whether we think about it or not meals are a celebration of life…because without food…we will eventually die.
Jesus says in revelation 3 20….I stand at the door and knock, anyone who opens the door and lets me in we will eat together.
And really do you picture sitting down to Jesus to eat and the meal being skimpy? Do you picture getting up from the table still hungry? No eating with Jesus is a feast.
And not only that He brings the food
So here in this passage we are talking about today….Revelation 2:1-7. And Jesus says…you have left your first love….using the word agape there….you still have works….but you do not have works with life in them….with the first love in them…basically they didn’t have works with relationship in them
Just to be clear agape means affection and benevolence. affection means a feeling of liking and caring for someone or something: tender attachment. Benevolence meaning acts of kindness or a generous gift.
Isn’t this how Jesus loves us? With tender attachment and acts of kindness and He certainly is generous with His gifts towards us.
Now see we can do good works without any feelings of tender attachment or being particularly generous. Sure we may give to the poor….but are we being generous about it?
Now the difference between living the “first love” or not is that the “first love” does’t ask if the person deserves it or not…”first love” is a generous love….loving like Jesus loved us…whether we deserved it or not…
…..but when we are not living out the “first love”….thats when we start getting selfish about the love that we spend on others….we start getting all “judgy”….and judging other people is not listed as one of the attributes of love.
And so we judge whether they are worthy of our love….the worst part is our love isn’t even very good love…it is very inferior to the “first love”. The honest to goodness not judging others to see how much love we should give them…. See we can feed the poor, mow the lawn of someone who can’t do it anymore, take food to the sick, but are we generous or are we just checking off the boxes
I went to a church one many years ago and it was a very old fashioned church even then. But during Sabbath school there was a time set apart to share any good things you had done for the week. Well one lady went on and on about how she had given away x number of articles of clothing at the dorcas center and various other things like that…
So are we checking the boxes to make sure we do enough good works….or are we loving with the “first love”.
Are we starving at the love fast or are we having a love feast?
And see this is how it is Jesus who changes us….we can not love like that on our own. There is no way we are going to treat those stupid people with love because they don’t deserve it.
So if we see ourselves just checking off the boxes….all we need to do is ask God to change our hearts and He is going to be so excited to do that for us! He loves generously…when we invite Him into our hearts….He brings all the food for the feast! And the feast doesn’t need to end. Right?
Because Jesus said…hey you aren’t living out your first love and that needs to change. He essentially was saying…you aren’t feasting at my agape feast….Quit sitting there at your table fasting from “first love” works! Do you hear me knocking? Let Me in…I’ve brought the food with Me! Let’s feast on “first love”
And first love never grows old does it? Isn’t it the classic Cinderella story that everyone wants….the starry eyed love that never ends?