The True False Gospel
June 20, 2021
Preached by Noah Gwinn
Scripture Reading
Revelation 2:1-7
2:1 “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.’
Good morning, everyone. Happy Father’s Day to you dads out there. My name is Noah Gwinn, and I am the Director of Student Ministries and Communications here at Community, and it’s my privilege to be standing before you this morning.
I’ll just make two brief comments as we get started. First, if you grabbed a Bible out of the pew in front of you and you don’t have a Bible of your own, we would love for you to take the Bible that you have in your hands. We believe that the God of the universe speaks to us through the words on these pages, and it would be a joy for us to be able to give a Bible to you as our gift.
Second, today is Father’s Day, and it can be customary for some churches to preach a sermon about how dads need to step it up, or 10 Tips to Being a Better Dad. To clear the air, I won’t be preaching that sermon. In fact, I know nothing about how to be a dad. What I do want to do this morning is to turn our gaze from Father’s Day to the Lord Jesus.
Well, as many of you know, a few weeks ago we began a sermon series through the first three chapters of the book of Revelation. We had two weeks of very helpful introduction from Ben Bechtel, where he laid a wonderful foundation for how we are to look at and read the book of Revelation. To very briefly recap some of that, the book of Revelation was written by the Apostle John concerning the things that the Living Jesus showed him must soon take place, according to chapter one, verse one. As we continue to study the vision that was given to John, we must be careful to remember, as Ben said, that we are reading something more in the genre of a graphic novel than a classic piece of literature. This matters greatly because how we spend our time is important, and we want to get to the heart of what Jesus is saying to the seven churches and to us. We don’t want to be spending our time decoding the book of Revelation, doing things like trying to figure out what is the mark of the beast, who is the antichrist, should I change my license plate number if it has 666 in it, etc. We don’t want to spend our time doing those things, yet miss the deep, wonderful, terrifying, glorious majesty of Jesus and his gospel found in these chapters.
With that being said, I would love to dive into our passage this morning, the Letter to the Church in Ephesus. As we seek to understand what Jesus has to say to that church and to ours, we are going to look at 4 points: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful.
The Good
First, let’s look at the good.
If you’ve still got your Bible open, read verse 1 with me.
1 “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.
If you remember two weeks ago, back when Pastor Ben preached the second sermon in our series, there was a glorious image of the Living Jesus appearing to John in all of his majesty – a long robe, a golden sash, snow white hair, fiery eyes, bronze feet, a roaring voice, with a sword coming out of his mouth, the seven stars in his right hand, all the while walking among these seven lampstands – and as Ben said, we should not see this as a description of what Jesus looks like, but rather what he is like. These are representations of his character.
As we begin to look at these letters, we notice that each one has a similar structure, each letter beginning with Jesus introducing himself using specific language from Revelation chapter 1 to communicate a specific truth about his character to the specific church that he is addressing. Put your finger on verse 1 again – how does Christ identify himself to the church in Ephesus? As “him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.”
So, right off the bat, we’re met with some classic Revelation, comic book type images – seven stars and seven lampstands. Many Bible scholars will say that both the seven stars and the seven lampstands represent the churches in Revelation, which means that Jesus is introducing himself here to the church in Ephesus as the one who holds them secure, is in control, and who walks among them, seeing them and knowing them. The high and mighty king of Revelation chapter 1 is intimately involved in and aware of what is going on in his church.
So what is it that Jesus sees as he is walking among the lampstands? Let’s look at verses 2 and 3.
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.
In January, as we were preaching through the book of Acts, Pastor Benjamin likened the city of Ephesus to Las Vegas. Known as “The Metropolis of Asia” in the first century, Ephesus was a booming cultural hub.[1] Similar to Las Vegas, Ephesus was as godless as they come, even home to the temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and a center for ancient occult practices, which often included soliciting a prostitute in the temple and calling it worship. This had such an impact on the city that religion and magic actually became strangely intermingled within Ephesus as a type of new, quasi-religion.[2] This city was one in which idolatry was cultivated and fanned into flame.
It is into this pluralistic culture, which seems oddly contemporary, that the church in Ephesus is planted. Within the first few decades of this church’s existence, it had been pastored by Timothy, and helped led by the Apostle Paul, the Apostle John, and Aquila & Priscilla – all people who played major roles in the early church, which you can read about in the book of Acts. Needless to say, the Ephesian church had an A-team leadership squad.
On top of that, we hear Jesus say that he’s seen their patience, their endurance, their commitment to solid teaching, and how they are quick to identify false teachers – none of which should come as a surprise to us. In various places in the New Testament (Acts 20, 1 Timothy 1, 1 Timothy 4, 1 Timothy 6, and 2 Timothy 3), the leadership of the church in Ephesus is urged to be on their guard against false teaching. And they took this seriously. “Magic and religion might be intermingled in our city, but not in our church!” they might say. So, when we hear Jesus’ commendation of their commitment to holiness and sound doctrine, it sounds pretty great, right? In order to identify false teaching, you must first know true teaching. These people know their Bible. The doctrinal statement on their website is flawless. Their leadership team is stellar. They went to all the right conferences, hosted all the right Bible studies, and read all the right books. It sounds like the kind of church we might want to be a part of. So what’s the issue?
The Bad
Look with me at verse 4. This is the bad.
4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
The charge that Jesus brings against this church is not that they have abandoned the truth, or their faith, or fallen prey to the worldly culture around them, or let the pluralism of the city seep into the church. The charge is that they have abandoned loving others. Why is this so big of a deal? Doesn’t every church have a bent? Surely this church is just more academic than missional, right? What’s the issue?
Author and pastor Ray Ortlund wrote a very helpful book that many of the community groups at our church went through recently called The Gospel. In it, he makes the case that the gospel doctrine that we rally around – the unchanging truths we find in the pages of the Scriptures – doesn’t end with just truth on a page. Ortlund says that true gospel doctrine creates gospel culture. What does that mean? This means that a life that has actually been changed by the truth of the gospel will exhibit outward fruit of that – things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and so on – more than just being able to answer the right questions in Sunday school. I don’t want you to get confused here, so listen closely. On one hand, gospel doctrine without gospel culture is cold, abstract, and academic. On the other hand, gospel culture without gospel doctrine is vanity and shallow humanitarian work. Whether you have gospel culture and no gospel doctrine or gospel doctrine and no gospel culture, you have missed the mark and are simply playing religious looking games.
If you have your Bible out, turn with me to 1 Corinthians 13. If you have a pew Bible, this will be on page 902. I’m going to read verses 1-3. This is how the Apostle Paul illustrates a church operating without love:
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
The passage we just read is from the chapter of the Bible often referred to as the “Love chapter.” Perhaps you’ve heard part of it at a wedding before – “love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast…” The point is, the Apostle Paul is writing to another church in another very idolatrous, worldly city in the first century, and evidently for Paul, love is so vitally important to being a follower of Jesus and a part of his church that if you don’t have it, your life is tantamount to a noisy gong, or worse, you are nothing at all. Love is so important to the Christian church and the Christian life that without it, you don’t truly even have life.
A noisy gong likely doesn’t put as harsh and concrete of an image in your mind as it probably should, so I’ll say it this way. It seems like every elementary school music teacher goes through an evil phase where they wholeheartedly believe that it would be a good idea to teach small children how to play an instrument called the recorder. And, as we all know, there is a fine line between a recorder being an instrument of music and an instrument of torture. If you’re unfamiliar with this horrific device, imagine combining a flute and a referee whistle, creating sounds like razor blades. Now, I want you to imagine for a moment a 3rd grader’s desperate attempts to learn his recorder solo for the spring concert. Night after night, hour after hour, squeak after squeak. It’s enough to make you want to pull your hair out. It’s a true “love the sinner, hate the sin” kind of situation.
As the church of Jesus Christ, we must be careful and consistent witnesses. Ray Ortlund uses a formula to illustrate this. He says gospel doctrine - gospel culture = hypocrisy. The world around us will notice if we preach love but don’t take the practice of love seriously. If the church is more well known for abuse and bigotry than true Christlike love, we’re a noisy gong. And just to be clear, love does not mean that we don’t have standards. Sin is still sin. Our job is to preach the gospel winsomely, and to love and pursue the outsider until they are no longer an outsider.
At one point during his earthly ministry, Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment of all is, to which he replies that the greatest commandment is to love God, and that the second is like it – to love your neighbor as yourself. The point of the Christian life is love for God, which works itself out in love for others. To live without love isn’t just cold, it’s missing the point altogether.
A church without love isn’t just stuffed up, or old fashioned, or have an academic bent. A Church without love is a noisy gong – a squeaky recorder in a world that is literally dying for the sweet symphony of Spirit-led, God-glorifying, Christ-exalting love. It’s missing the point.
The Ugly
So we’ve talked about the good and the bad. Now let’s talk about the ugly. Look with me at verse 5.
5Remember 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.
Now, I don’t want us to get lost in the images here, specifically when Jesus says that if the church does not repent, he will remove its lampstand from its place. In order to fully understand this, we have to refer back to what we said at the beginning of the sermon. The lampstands are an image that John uses throughout Revelation to be a picture of the church – specifically, God’s presence among his churches. The warning here is not similar to a parent warning a teenager that if she continues to disobey, they will take her car keys. This is a warning of identity. Jesus is not saying that if the church doesn’t repent, he will remove their lampstand as a punishment. Rather, he is saying that if the church doesn’t repent – if the church doesn’t get serious about love – that will be an indication that the flame in their lamp has gone out. He’s not there, his presence has been removed.
Essentially, the warning to the Ephesian church is that it may lose its very identity as a Christian Church – even though it has immaculate doctrine. Why? Because a church without love is a church without the living Jesus. And a church without Christ cannot possibly be Christian. This is more serious than I think we realize, and also more prevalent than I think we realize. A few months ago while Ben was preaching, he made a comment about not wanting to see any more grumpy Christians, because it is an oxymoron. It shouldn’t be possible. This isn’t just about personality. A community who has been changed by the gospel will exude joy and warmth and love, not grumpiness. If the love of Christ is not in a church, Christ is not in that church.
Perhaps you’ve heard of William Tyndale, a forerunner in translating the Bible into English. He once said that the root word that we translate to the English word “gospel” “is a Greek word, signifying good, merry, glad, and joyful news, that makes a man’s heart glad and makes him sing, dance, and leap for joy.”[3] Ray Ortlund responds to this by asking the question, “if a message so good lies at the defining center of our churches, why do we see such bad things in those same churches – ranging from active strife to sheer exhaustion? Where is the saving power of the gospel? Why don’t we see more of Tyndale’s singing, dancing, and leaping for joy in our churches, if the good news is setting the tone?”[4] I think we could also ask the question, where is our love for each other and outsiders if the good news is setting the tone?
Clearly, it’s possible to miss the mark on either end of the spectrum here, whether it be a natural inclination toward doctrine or practice. For the Ephesians in particular, their bent tended toward the cold, doctrine-only graveyard of religiosity. Gospel doctrine without gospel culture is evidence of a community that is far from the gospel, and far from the heart of Christ.
I would encourage you, that as we close out this letter and look toward the other six, it could be very easy for you to see the things in each letter that you agree with and use it to mentally lob the first stone at someone else. It’s all too easy to pray the prayer of the pharisee, “thank God I’m not like ____ (you fill in the blank).” As we study these letters, look to apply the things in each letter that speak directly to your sinful condition.
So, let me ask you some diagnostic questions to get you thinking:
If you are a Christian, is your Bible knowledge outpacing your love for your neighbor?
Or on the flip side, are you passionate about and concerned with doing acts of service, but have a hard time answering the question “what is the gospel?” or struggle to defend your faith against outside attack? Both of these are vitally important.
Are you quick to see & rebuke false teaching, but slow to pray for a brother or sister in the church?
Maybe your kids have non-Christian friends on sports teams they’re a part of. Have you ever made it a goal to invite them to church with your family?
Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew that loving him looks like feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned. How much of that sounds like you?
Is it easier for you to hang out with people like you, or do you ever make it a point to include your neighbor who might be celebrating pride month and flying their rainbow flag? Or maybe your neighbor who is still flying their Trump 2020 flag.
Do you welcome people, other than your natural friends, into your home?
Have you been intentional to get to know, or at least greet, a family that lives in this neighborhood?
If you are a member of our church, or call this church your home, are you serving in the church, or do you just show up on Sunday morning to cross it off your spiritual checklist each week?
Let me just say, as we’re discussing practical ways to show the love of Christ to others – and fair warning, this is a shameless plug. Every time we take communion here at church, we always say that we’re taking a separate benevolence offering that goes toward the tangible needs of those in our church and in our community. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been flooded with a number of real benevolence needs. If the Lord compels you to give, we would be delighted for you to play a part in loving others in this particular way.
The Beautiful
We talked about the good, the bad, and the ugly, but Jesus doesn’t leave this church, or ours, with confrontation. Look with me at the beautiful promise found in verse 7.
7He 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.
Let’s do an exercise here. When I say Golden Gate Bridge, what do you think? Probably, you think San Francisco. When I say Eiffel Tower, what do you think? Likely, you think Paris. When I say Statue of Liberty, what do you think? New York.
Similarly, when John writes here of the tree of life, this would automatically trigger in the mind of his readers an image. Think all the way back to Genesis, where we learn about the Garden of Eden, a picture of God’s paradise. If you remember, in the Garden of Eden, although there are many trees, there are two specific trees that were identified: one called the tree of life, and another called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were banned from the Garden of Eden so they would not eat of the tree of life and live forever in their sinful state.
Where Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden because of their sin, anyone who has an ear to hear what the Spirit says to the church in Ephesus, anyone who repents of their cold, lifeless religion, anyone who embraces the truth of the gospel such that it radically changes the way you love others, has the promise of God that they will eat of the tree of life because Jesus faced a tree of death on their behalf. Those who come to the Lord Jesus in faith are granted the ability to eat from the tree of life so that they may live forever – not in a sinful state, but in a redeemed state, united to him. The majestic, terrifying, wonderful, conquering king from Revelation 1 has swallowed up death and the grave and has welcomed his people into the peaceful paradise that we were unable to enter on our own.
Jesus does not leave his people in confrontation or conviction. He has given us a call to repentance and a promise of everlasting life. The word of Jesus will bring good, healthy conviction, if only we will listen. Please hear me, this isn’t some sort of baptized guilt. That isn’t what I mean. What it means for the word of Jesus to bring conviction is this: over time, life with Christ produces within you a work of the Spirit of God that convinces you that God’s way is right and that your way is wrong. It convinces you of the truth. This isn’t a matter of guilting you into acting different, this is a matter of the Spirit of God working in your heart to reorient your desires in order to lead you into right living – not as a matter of behavior modification, but as a matter of heart transformation. And this is good. We do not want a God who leaves us in our sin, nor do we want a God who only changes our behavior, and not our heart. Our God seeks to plunge himself into our lives and radically change us, starting with our hearts. As we grow in the life of faith, we begin to live out more and more the love he calls us to.
We must take our Lord seriously. We must be champions of gospel doctrine and gospel culture running together – running hard. We cannot settle for a church that preaches gospel filled sermons, sings gospel filled songs, and teaches gospel filled truth but does not live out of gospel filled love for our neighbor. We must look inside of ourselves and inside of our church and ask, do we have ears to hear?
Let’s pray . . .
[1] What Christ Thinks of the Church, John Stott
[2] Revelation, Leon Morris, 59.
[3] William Tyndale, A Pathway into the Holy Scripture
[4] Ray Ortlund, The Gospel, 16
Questions for small group discussion and for parents with their families:
Do you find that it is easy to talk about loving others, but hard to actually do? Why do you think that is?
Do you ever reach out to your friends that don’t know Jesus or don’t go to church and invite them to come with you? Think of a few people that you could invite to church.
What are some practical ways that you or your family can intentionally show love to someone you know that doesn’t know Jesus?
Who are 2 people you know that you can pray for this week?
