Uprooted
Revelation 2
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.
2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, 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.
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.
5 Consider how far 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.
6 But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
7 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
To anyone else, it would appear that the church is doing all the right things in all the right ways for all the right reasons. The church cares about the same things God cares about, and members hold tightly to their faith, rejecting false teachings of the other Christian groups around them.
Yet, there’s a problem. On the surface, it seems like it’s not that big of a deal because the church is reaching all the benchmarks, hitting the goals, and meeting the metrics. Anyone outside looking in would think it’s a solid church, but God says this church is flawed at its center.
The church has everything going for it except one thing, but it’s the one thing that Jesus deserves, love.
Our souls can become too busy, and while busyness isn’t an act of willful disobedience, it is willful distractedness, and that is harmful.
Whatever we are rooted in, we draw from them what we need to meet our emotional and mental desires.
If our roots extend out wide but are not deeply into the love of Jesus, we are resourcing our souls and lives from the people, places, and things around us.
We’re energized by the things that we’re doing, the places we’re going, and the people we’re around instead of from Jesus. This is where it gets tricky because it feels good, but all of our doing is not enough to sustain us. Sooner or later, something or someone will test the limits of our faith, and if our roots have not been planted deeply in the love of Jesus, we will not be able to sustain it.
The church at Ephesus had a lot going for it, but spiritual development had plateaued. The soul cannot be sustained apart from Jesus’ love, nor can one’s own willpower improve it. Will is limited only to what we believe we can accomplish or become on our own. Our own will can’t improve the soul, and our souls are only going to be as healthy as the things that feed it. That’s why the church was dying. The acts of worship replaced the one they had worshipped.
Our souls will either give purpose to what we do, or we will try to make what we do give purpose to our souls.
Jesus’ love either fills our souls and is then poured out to others because we have His favor (that’s our soul giving purpose to the thing we’re doing) or we hope that the activity we’re doing will be pleasing to Jesus to earn His love and favor or somehow make ourselves more worthy of it (it will make ourselves feel better about ourselves).
But what makes a church?
Without the love of Jesus, a church stops being a church and becomes something else. Without the love of Jesus, motivating our attitudes, actions, or worship goes toward something else.
Without being deeply rooted in Jesus’ love, our motivations are determined by all the other things feeding our souls.
To work for approval is exhausting, draining, and never enough. If your purpose of reading the Bible is to know the Bible or know about the Bible, you’ll never feel like what you’re reading, studying, and memorizing is ever enough. It’s not feeding your soul. But if the purpose of reading your Bible is to encounter the living God, then you will be filled every time you read it.
“They [the Pharisees] were passionate, zealous, and religious, but they were missing out on the real move of God. They had substituted the learned behaviors of religion for authentic experiences of transforming encounters with Jesus. How can our flame burn hot for Jesus unless we are encountering His holy presence?”
Rob Reimer
Don’t let what you’re doing for God become a substitute for being with God. How far you’ve come in your journey with Christ does not become a substitute for what God wants to continue doing in your life.
Jesus doesn’t leave us hopeless or guessing. He gave us the next steps to correct this issue: “Repent and do things you did at first.”
Being humble before God is where repentance starts. Confession without repentance is cheap. It takes God’s grace and forgiveness for granted and cheats us out of our ability to experience them.
What were the things that made you first love Jesus? What are the things that first drew you to Him? Where were you and what was happening the last time you had a real, genuine, powerful encounter with Jesus?
Get back to that. Be humble before God. Come face-to-face with your sin and confess it to Him. Reengage your attention to His presence. Listen for His voice and wait for His lead.
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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.
2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, 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.
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.
5 Consider how far 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.
6 But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
7 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
To anyone else, it would appear that the church is doing all the right things in all the right ways for all the right reasons. The church cares about the same things God cares about, and members hold tightly to their faith, rejecting false teachings of the other Christian groups around them.
Yet, there’s a problem. On the surface, it seems like it’s not that big of a deal because the church is reaching all the benchmarks, hitting the goals, and meeting the metrics. Anyone outside looking in would think it’s a solid church, but God says this church is flawed at its center.
The church has everything going for it except one thing, but it’s the one thing that Jesus deserves, love.
Our souls can become too busy, and while busyness isn’t an act of willful disobedience, it is willful distractedness, and that is harmful.
Whatever we are rooted in, we draw from them what we need to meet our emotional and mental desires.
If our roots extend out wide but are not deeply into the love of Jesus, we are resourcing our souls and lives from the people, places, and things around us.
We’re energized by the things that we’re doing, the places we’re going, and the people we’re around instead of from Jesus. This is where it gets tricky because it feels good, but all of our doing is not enough to sustain us. Sooner or later, something or someone will test the limits of our faith, and if our roots have not been planted deeply in the love of Jesus, we will not be able to sustain it.
The church at Ephesus had a lot going for it, but spiritual development had plateaued. The soul cannot be sustained apart from Jesus’ love, nor can one’s own willpower improve it. Will is limited only to what we believe we can accomplish or become on our own. Our own will can’t improve the soul, and our souls are only going to be as healthy as the things that feed it. That’s why the church was dying. The acts of worship replaced the one they had worshipped.
Our souls will either give purpose to what we do, or we will try to make what we do give purpose to our souls.
Jesus’ love either fills our souls and is then poured out to others because we have His favor (that’s our soul giving purpose to the thing we’re doing) or we hope that the activity we’re doing will be pleasing to Jesus to earn His love and favor or somehow make ourselves more worthy of it (it will make ourselves feel better about ourselves).
But what makes a church?
Without the love of Jesus, a church stops being a church and becomes something else. Without the love of Jesus, motivating our attitudes, actions, or worship goes toward something else.
Without being deeply rooted in Jesus’ love, our motivations are determined by all the other things feeding our souls.
To work for approval is exhausting, draining, and never enough. If your purpose of reading the Bible is to know the Bible or know about the Bible, you’ll never feel like what you’re reading, studying, and memorizing is ever enough. It’s not feeding your soul. But if the purpose of reading your Bible is to encounter the living God, then you will be filled every time you read it.
“They [the Pharisees] were passionate, zealous, and religious, but they were missing out on the real move of God. They had substituted the learned behaviors of religion for authentic experiences of transforming encounters with Jesus. How can our flame burn hot for Jesus unless we are encountering His holy presence?”
Rob Reimer
Don’t let what you’re doing for God become a substitute for being with God. How far you’ve come in your journey with Christ does not become a substitute for what God wants to continue doing in your life.
Jesus doesn’t leave us hopeless or guessing. He gave us the next steps to correct this issue: “Repent and do things you did at first.”
Being humble before God is where repentance starts. Confession without repentance is cheap. It takes God’s grace and forgiveness for granted and cheats us out of our ability to experience them.
What were the things that made you first love Jesus? What are the things that first drew you to Him? Where were you and what was happening the last time you had a real, genuine, powerful encounter with Jesus?
Get back to that. Be humble before God. Come face-to-face with your sin and confess it to Him. Reengage your attention to His presence. Listen for His voice and wait for His lead.
For more LHC content, subscribe to our newsletter below or follow us on Instagram.
Want to play catch-up, or are you looking for a specific topic? Check out our collection of sermons here.
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