RESTORE YOUR FIRST LOVE

Revelation 2:1-17

Key Verses: 2:4-5

“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place.”

In this passage, we will be rebuked severely in many ways of spirit by Jesus who has the sharp, double-edged sword in his mouth.  So, we will be very sorry and get hurt somehow. However, as the Bible says “Because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son (Hebrews 12:6),” we must accept Jesus’ discipline deep in our hearts and realize how much Jesus loves us and how he raises us up as his children.   Let us pray that we may take Jesus’ words seriously and remember Jesus’ deep love for us while enduring his harsh rebuke. I pray that we may restore love relationship with Jesus and other coworkers through today’s passage.

Part I.  To the Church in Ephesus (2:1-7) - Repent and restore your first love.

Look at verse 1. “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands:”  Ephesus was pioneered by Paul and his coworkers. (Acts 18, 19, and 20) There, Paul taught the gospel of Jesus in the lecture hall of Tyrannus for three years.  Through Ephesus the churches of Asia Minor, which is Turkey in the modern day, were pioneered. What were they? Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea: E-S-P-T-S-P-L. (ESPecailly, The SPeed Limit.)

Look at verse 1 again. “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands:” Here we see that Jesus speaks to the angel of the church in Ephesus and he holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars in his right hand represent the angels of the seven churches and the seven golden lampstands represent the seven churches. Still now, Jesus walks among his churches, including our church, NJ UBF center. Because of this, whenever I imagine the angel of God watches over our church, especially during the worship services, being behind us or in front of us or right beside us, I get trembled with fear of the Lord. At the same time, however, I feel secure because I know Jesus protects his churches from all harms in this world. Let us pray that we may worship the Lord with sincere heart through our worship service, knowing that Jesus and his angels are right with our church and each individual.

Look at verses 2 and 3. “2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.” Jesus spoke good of the church in Ephesus in terms of their spiritual discernment and sounded like he was pleased with it. Recently we learned through 2 Corinthians Bible Study that the Corinthian church was in trouble because they were deceived by the false apostles, lacking spiritual discernment. But, in comparison, the church in Ephesus was spiritually outstanding in testing and finding false apostles. Moreover, Jesus mentioned that they worked hard and persevered and endured hardships for Jesus’ name. Most of all, they never grew weary, which means they never complained about their sufferings, but gave thanks to God. Among their excellent deeds in spirit, none of them can be attained easily. Have you heard this before? “You work so hard. Don’t work too hard.” Or “You are a man of endurance.” Or “You never complain about anything but give thanks to God always.” If your answer is no, you can imagine the church in Ephesus was really worked hard in many ways for the sake of Jesus’ name in their ministry.  

Look at verse 4. “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.” Even though they did a great job in spirit in many ways, Jesus pointed out one thing lacking that they gave up their first love. When you say you lost your first love toward somebody, you mean your heart is now far away from him or her. Or you mean even though you are with him or her, your relationship has become habitual and callous and soon you will become indifferent to your first love with that person. Outwardly the believers in the Ephesus church worked so hard in God’s work and even endured sufferings, and yet inwardly they had lost their love for God and for one another. In other words, they did everything in God’s ministry for the glory of God, but they did it without love for God and for one another. They were like Jesus’ disciples in their early days who followed him giving up their social status, possessions, and even their family members, and yet competed and judged among themselves and even brought their hockey mom to become No. 1 until they met the Risen Jesus.

Look at verse 4 again. “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.”

Then, what was their first love that had been forsaken? And what is our first love that has been forsaken? You might have heard this many times from others’ testimonies. “Oh grasses and flowers on the field look more beautiful than ever before.” These are the common words that they say when they come out of the bible conference hall to the outside after they meet Jesus personally and experience their first love of Jesus. Personally I have the same experience that happened in 1995 when I attended the first UBF conference. God started shaking my heart with his word “The truth will set you free” and melted it with another word “Son, you sins are forgiven” respectively. Even though I went to Sunday school ever since I was 10 years old, I never realized that the word of God is alive and powerful enough to transform one’s life. I just memorized them without thinking deeply. Anyway, after I experienced Jesus personally in my heart through his words, I also thought and said the same. “Wow, all creation God created is so beautiful- stars in the sky, flowers in the field. How wonderful they are” That is a kind of sign that you fall in love with Jesus. The believers in Ephesus church also must have experienced the same I had. How about you? Do you remember your first love with Jesus? Maybe you cried and cried until your tears dried out. When we are full of love of Jesus, who gave us forgiveness of sins and loved us first while we were still sinners, nothing matters. We can even love our enemies by giving them food and clothes. But now what? What went wrong with the believers in the church of Ephesus and us in NJ UBF? The word of Jesus in verse 4 says they forsook their first love.

Then, let’s find out how come they forsook their first love and get some spiritual idea for ourselves.  As verses 2 and 3 say, the believers in the church of Ephesus was praised by Jesus for their hard work, spiritual discernment and perseverance. When they prepared worship service each week they really worked hard from clean-up to special music. When they served international guests, they sacrificed their time and money. When they practiced and prepared for five loaves and two fish orchestra concert each year, they put their all efforts. For spiritual discernment, they studied the Bible each weak and did the daily bread each morning. They endured well even though there were not many college student sheep or disciples such a long time. This is good, but sometimes we are overwhelmed. Maybe they became too busy doing God’s work and their own work. For they were praised for their good spiritual deeds, they might become self-righteous. When I work at the office, sometime I feel bad and sorry because I see other colleagues in my team just sit around while I am so hectic that I can’t even go to bathroom. And I say to myself, “They never help me out and work as a team.” It is very common that when we do little more than others we easily feel self-righteous. Moreover when one is eager to defend and fight for the truth, it is easy to be legalistic and to forget about love. Sometimes we disagree about small things (or big things) with our coworkers; the trust relationship is broken; love grows cold. Broken relations among coworkers can lead to a broken love relationship with God. From time to time pride smears in our heart and love disappears. Trust relationship with fellow Christians must not be broken. When it is, love can’t live there.

Look at verse 5. “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” It sounds not like joking or light, but absolutely serious. It’s more like a strong warning. It is obvious that God is not pleased with those who live without love. Living without love is like eating bagel without cream cheese or building a house without a foundation like on sand. That means there are no taste, no point, no theme, and no ground. No matter how many pages you write for an essay with all your efforts, it is nothing, a piece of crap if there is no clear point or theme in it. How terrible it is that we work hard but all is in vain due to the lack of love. God does not want us to live like that. God wants us to work hard and endure all sufferings “with love.” That’s why Paul emphasizes like this, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angles, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal….If I have a faith that can move mountains but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”(1 Co 13:1-3) If I deliver a powerful message that moves all JBF members’ hearts and make them cry out for their sins, but have not love, I am nothing and gain nothing. If our JBF members play the piano, the violin and so forth, but have not love, they are only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal, in a word, a noise. Jesus rebukes his church when love grows cold.

How can we restore our first love?

Look at verse 5 again. “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”  

First, we have to remember the height from which we have fallen. We should remember the height of delight and joy that Jesus’ love brought by melting our hardened, cold, dry, indifferent, and even merciless hearts and lifting up our souls, minds, and spirits. It was done by Jesus’ sacrificing his own life and shedding his blood on the cross to cleanse us from our own sins. When we climb back up the height from which we have fallen, we confront face to face with ourselves who were ugly, wicked, hopeless, and unforgivable sinners before we met Jesus. To restore our first love for Jesus we must remember who we were before we met Jesus and remember what he has done for us. Remember how joyful we were when we first met Jesus. We were full of thanksgiving and love for Jesus. We trusted him absolutely. And we loved and trusted each other without criticism. We can come to Jesus again with all our problems. We can still trust him. Jesus gives us a promise here. If we listen to his voice and restore our first love, Jesus promises that he will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. Jesus says in verse 7, “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” Paul never forgot that he was a sinner who had persecuted God’s people. (1Ti 1:15-16) remembered that he was the chief of sinners. When we remember God’s grace, love will be welling up in our hearts.

Second, we must repent to restore our first love. We have recently learned that we have to boast about our weaknesses through 2 Corinthian Bible study. Through our weaknesses the power of God may rest on us. For when we are weak, then we are strong. As a matter of fact, boasting our weaknesses is not easy to do but very hard. It is like bombing yourself.  However, repenting of our sins, which is to confess honestly to God, is more reluctant and painful to do than revealing our weaknesses. It’s because it is very shameful. What’s more, we are afraid of being judged by other co-workers. “Oh my Gosh, he is a terrible sinner.” When we hear that in our hearts, even though nobody says so, we are scared that we are looked down on. In nature we want to be respected and treated as a better person than we are actually. We want people to consider ourselves as a holy, faithful, and humble servant of God. So, sometimes we pretend to be just like Pharisees in the Bible. In a worst case we become a hypocrite, or we have already become a Super-Holy-Humble servant of God. If we do not repent of our sins to God, there is no love in our hearts. Only falseness, hatred, self-deceit, pride, criticism, legalism, despair and so forth remain in our hearts. Then, we will be removed from our place. However, when we boldly repent before God by faith, no matter what happens, God sets us free from everything and reinstates us as his child. King David wrote, “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.”(Ps32) When we confess honestly to God, we can restore our first love as well as the joy of salvation.  We can love God and other people only after we realize that we are loved by God through his forgiveness of our sins.  

Part II. To the Church in Smyrna and to the Church in Pergamum

First, to the Church in Smyrna. Look at verse 8-10. In writing to this church, Jesus emphasizes his resurrection. Jesus is the First and Last, the one who died and came to life. Why does Jesus focus on his resurrection when he speaks to the believers in Smyrna? It’s because they need resurrection faith under afflictions and poverty and slander.  With resurrection faith that our death is not the end, but the starting point of glorious life in heaven with glorious body, they can overcome their sufferings and hardships. Look at verse 10. “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.” Do you feel Jesus’ powerful, confident, promising, decisive voice of truth? “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer!” “Be faithful even to the point of death!” “I will give you the crown of life!” In a mission field, we have so many problems-different culture, different language, different customs, and concerns about future direction and security. For JBF members it is a great pain to be separated from their parents-their great spiritual, mental, emotional, material supporters. When we think about only our unfriendly situation, we just become a loser. However, when we think about Jesus who is the victor of all and his resurrection, we can overcome all difficulties and win the victory. Let us say again, “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer!” “Be faithful even to the point of death!” “I will give you the crown of life!”

Second, to the Church in Pergamum.

Look at verses 12-17. Pergamum church was also praised for their faithfulness. The exemplary faithfulness of Pergamum church was the first Christian martyr named Antipas whom Jesus called “my faithful witness.” He was put to death in the city, where Satan’s throne, a large altar dedicated to the Zeus was and Satan lived. Because of this, they remained true to Jesus’ name. However, Jesus who has the sharp, double-edged sword in his mouth warns the church about their life that compromise with idolatry and sexual immorality and some kind of political power struggle among themselves. In other words, they followed the pattern of this world, not the way of Jesus-purity and humility. We also should repent as Jesus speaks to the church if we worship cute girl or flower-like boy in our hearts rather than Jesus himself. We should repent if we indulge ourselves in sexual immorality. If we do so, Jesus will give us some to the hidden manna, the spiritual food that sustain our souls and a white stone as a confirmation of our salvation. Otherwise, Jesus will fight again us with the sword of his mouth.

 Through today’s passage, we learn that each church had their own problems just like we have our own even though they were praised by Jesus for their good deeds. Still Jesus loves his churches and helps them to repent of their sins and encourage them to restore their first love and turn their hearts to God from the world. Let us pray to restore our first love with God. May God help us to be filled with his salvation grace abundantly in our hearts so that we may love you with all our hearts and love one another!