Revelation 2:1-7: Ephesus Part 1

Introduction:

Your greatest strength can become your greatest weakness, this is the lesson of the letter to Ephesus. One of our great weaknesses as finite sinners is that we cannot multitask the good. We focus in on one good thing but we do so to the neglect and at the expense of all the other good. Ephesus was good at doctrine and discernment, and this strength became their weakness. They became a loveless head church, an abomination of a floating bloated head with no heart of love. I said that I felt this was the church more than any of the others that speaks to us as a Reformed church. Our greatest strength is our doctrinal robustness, our historical awareness of the various views and creeds. And in pursuing the good of knowledge we can do so at the expense of love. It is not the case of choosing the wrong emphasis but one at the expense of the other. We are to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:16). The warnings to this church which was so doctrinally correct are so severe and withering, the threat to remove their lampstand altogether, that I feel compelled to stress the importance of this letter for us who do try to love the truth. Let us beware that are love for the truth does not sour into a love of being right, and this leads to us loving being right more than we love God, each other and the world. Those lab technicians who find cures to the world’s most deadly diseases live a high risk life always in danger of becoming infected themselves. We, because we are sinners run the risk of turning truth into an enemy, we run the risk like those lab technicians of being destroyed by the very things we are using to bring cures to others. Let us remember from this message today that we who have the truth run the risk of truth in a sinner’s heart leading to pride, conceit, divisions, critical spirits and many other evils, let us who strive for knowledge also remember that knowledge puffs up.