Revelation 2:1-7 “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.
A church in Ephesus had great pastors like Paul, Apollos, Timothy, and John. That was a great and rich church. Anyone could see that there were many signs of great revival in that church.
As people converted from pagan religions, magic books were burned in public spaces; The gospel spread throughout Asia through church meetings. That was a missionary church. And Jesus has a message for this church and that message is for us as well.
Reading the first verse, we learn Jesus has control over His church! He visits his church all the time and knows us deeply. He is here now, searching us and loving us! His love never fails!
Look at what Jesus said to the church in Vs 2 and 3: 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.
The church was involved in the cause of God, helping the poor, caring for the sick. They worked hard for Jesus! They would not tolerate wicked people. They persevered!
It was a good church! Whoever looked at them and didn’t know their hearts, would imagine that they were a good and strong church of God! But they were far away from Jesus.
Jesus warned us about such people in Mathew 23:27-28 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
The church of Ephesus thought that they were good enough and praised God with their lives, but they were wrong.
Look at what Jesus said in the verse 4:
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. You abandoned your first love! Their love was cold.
There was a spiritual coldness in the church in general, and in every heart. They all had an icy heart!
Even though they did good deeds, they cared for the sick, they blessed the poor and they seemed well on the outside; on the inside they were dead, cold and frozen spiritually before God. They were suffering spiritual Hypothermia.
Now I have a question for you:
Do you know what Hypothermia is?!
Hypothermia is a medical emergency that occurs when your body loses heat faster than it can produce heat, causing a dangerously low body temperature. Normal body temperature is around 37 degrees Celsius. Hypothermia occurs as your body temperature falls below 35 C degrees Celsius.
When your body temperature drops, your heart, nervous system and other organs can’t work normally. If not untreated, hypothermia can eventually lead to complete failure of your heart and respiratory system and eventually to death.
Hypothermia is often caused by exposure to cold weather or immersion in cold water. Primary treatments for hypothermia are methods to warm the body back to a normal temperature.
Did you hear about a Young mother who died in Dublin in 2010? She died of hypothermia.
A YOUNG Dublin mother of two died of hypothermia during January’s cold snap after the city council turned off her heating. She didn’t know that she was dying. She just felt tired, sleepy and very cold but She did not feel that She was dying.
That is what hypothermia does to our lives!
Today, we’re gonna talk about Spiritual Hypothermia . If we get hypothermia, it’s gonna kill us!
Do you know what spiritual Hypothermia is?
The church of Ephesus was suffering from spiritual hypothermia.
Spiritual hypothermia often causes confusion, tiredness, and spiritual coldness.
When we try to read the Bible, we are confused by our thoughts, by people and by false information of the world. We think that religion is Jesus and Jesus is religion and we close our hearts to his message!
With this, we cease to feed on the word, producing in ourselves a tiredness for the things of God. We no longer have the disposition we had before to read the Bible, to pray or to speak of Jesus to someone.
Finally, our heart becomes cold as a stone closing totally to Jesus, his love and his word. With this, we will be in the worst state of spiritual hypothermia that can even cause an eternal death!
Our love for Jesus and for the kingdom is in such a way that we do not realise that we are far from the Father and when we realise it may be too late.
The church of Ephesus suffered of lack of spiritual fervour, life without God, they were not being guided by the Holy Spirit. Their hearts were cold.
Jesus found the problem of that church, They were working without love!
And, today we can find out if we are suffering from spiritual hypothermia, or a cold relationship with God.
2 Corinthians 13:5 “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realise that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?
Examine yourselves! Test yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Maybe, today, you are here listening this message and thinking that your life is good, God is in control, but you can find out that you are in need, you are cold and living in spiritual Hypothermia.
Are you ready to find out? Let’s go find out.
You are not the same in God’s presence
The Bible says Revelation 2:4 “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first”.
In the beginning of your faith, you grew up fast, you would listen to God’s voice and would feel The Holy Spirit. You would feel a great joy in the meetings and services, You would come to the church singing worship songs in the car, You had great expectation like Pr Marcio taught us last Sunday… but now you are tired and sleepy in God’s presence. The messages don’t touch your heart anymore. Your faith is getting smaller. You have no more dreams and visions.
Please, compare: Who were you in the beginning and who are you now? Do you have the same energy to do things for God’s glory? Do you have spiritual goals? Like this, for example: “this year I’ll grow in faith, preach the gospel to many people, I’ll tell about Jesus to my family and I’m gonna see all my family here, in the church, praising the almighty name of Jesus!” You are not the same. Are you?
Your faith is not the same
In the beginning you read the bible and believed in everything there. You believed on what’s written in 2 Timothy 3:16,17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
But now, you have doubts in your heart. You don’t believe that all scripture is from God, you think now: “it’s impossible for God to have created all the earth in 6 days, to have made man. This does not fit with your faith anymore. By the way, you still have faith, but this your faith is now in science, in people, in your own mind, and less in God. You just channelled your faith somewhere else or someone else. Your faith is no longer the same. You don’t believe in miracles anymore. What happened to your faith?! The Bible says in Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. It’s impossible to please God without faith. How can you have a relationship with God without faith? How is your faith today?
Your love is not the same
The bible says in Mathew 24:12 “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,”
In the beginning you believed in what the bible says in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8: that “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
The trademark of a true Christian should be his Christian attitudes, that is Jesus’ attitudes, his faith and his love!
The attitudes of Jesus must be fulfilled through us, so we can bless the poor, visit the sick. Faith must be seen in us, as when we pray for a sick person, we believe in the impossible, we read and trust in the bible that is the word of God. But if we do all this and have not love, we are all dead! it’s worthless
That’s what was happening to the church of Ephesians.
The bible says:
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
Evaluate your life right now and see if you have any of the symptoms of spiritual hypothermia. Are you feeling confused? Confused with so much information on the internet, friends who say everything contrary to the bible?
Are you feeling tired? Too tired to seek the presence of God, read his word and have spiritual targets? Are your eyes only on the things of this earth? The things you want are only fleeting and not eternal?
Have you ever stopped to think that everything that is here on earth is fleeting? It all has an expiration date? Your clothes, travel, food, money, family, your body? And yet there are people who set career goals, life goals here on earth and I’m not against it. You should plan your future, but tell me one thing: Does your present, today, and your future, have space for Jesus? Have you stopped having spiritual goals?
Are you too cold? Cold with your family. Your wife or husband says that you have changed. Your patience level is at 0! You get worked up easily, you’re always stressed out! You have no more empathy towards your relatives or brothers and sisters in Christ.
Let’s look at our lives today, okay? Don’t be afraid, unless you have spiritual Hypothermia. But God is good!
People who know you say you’re not the same anymore. Their attitudes have changed too much, even their traits have changed with their spiritual cooling down. What about in the church? You started out well, you used to pray, you used to listen to God and cry and break your heart before his presence. You celebrated every revelation in the word, when leaving the church you would talk about the preacher’s word, or something that God placed in your heart and touched you in such a way that you wanted to share this with everyone! ! But today, your life is lethargic, apathetic, sometimes you can enter the church and leave in the same way because the worship, the prayer and the word no longer make sense to you. You can fool yourself by saying that it is only a phase, or that you have matured, but be careful. All these are symptoms of a great coldness, a spiritual hypothermia. Watch out! But thank God today we can hear this message from the Father, and the Father has a great love for us that encourages us and helps us to return to our first love!
He is a good, good father! “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.”
But, today Jesus is giving us warnings to go back to our first love. He did it with Ephesus and now He will help us with These advices.
REMEMBER
Vs. 5 “Consider how far you have fallen!”
The philosophy of the world says that if you want to be happy, you must forget. Forget it all! Put your problems behind you, sweep them under the carpet and forget about it all!
The Bible says in lamentation 3:21 ““Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope”.
The past is an encouragement but also a warning to us.
Some memories have the power to produce in us a way of restoration. Often we do not realize what we have lost. A good way to measure our losses is to contrast what we are experiencing today with what we have previously experienced in God.
Looking back may be sinful; but it can also be sensible. To look back with an evil eye, as the woman of Lot looked back to the sins of Sodom which they were being delivered is a recipe for disaster. Looking back to the pleasures of the world, missing them, once we have our hands on the plow, is not being a good servant in the Kingdom of God. But looking back to correct our ways is to take the first step on the road of repentance.
We should not live in the past. But remembering and comparing who we are with what we were is a wonderful, amazing and restorative experience. The prodigal son began his path of restoration when he remembered the house of his Father. Do you remember this story? The prodigal son? He was only saved because he remembered the house of his father!
REPENT
A church receives an order to repent. This should not be short-lived. It is not just a sadness you feel after making a mistake. Repentance is not just using beautiful words to say you’re sorry. It is definitely not fear of consequences of our sin or what society will think of us. True repentance means changing directions. We need to change our minds. We need to change our feelings. We need to change our lives.
The prodigal son said, “I will rise up and go to my Father and the director: I have sinned against you …”
DO THE THINGS THAT YOU FIRST DID
The church had to recover what it had lost. They had to practice the works they practiced at the beginning. They had to fall back in love with Christ. They had to be a bride in love with her fiancé. They had to live, work and face dangers for Jesus’ sake.
No one repents of a sin and continues to practice it. The proof and the fruit of repentance is a transformed life.
It is time for you to return to God. You who walked away. You who are cold in faith. You who stopped praying, fasting, reading the Word. It’s time to start over as Pedro started again. It is time to return home as the prodigal has returned. It is time to rebuild the altar of the Lord that is in ruins.
Put more wood in the fire, keep the flame of faith burning in your heart, remember the good days in the presence of Jesus and desire to live them again, repent of the bad ways, the evil ways and return to the arms of the Father. He’s waiting for you! For some people Jesus was a bit harsh with the church of Ephesus, because they worked hard, blessed the city, but all without love. Jesus only wants our best! As it is written “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;”
Psalm 103: 13 NIV
As a father who loves his son gives him good things, so does Jesus. We are evil, and we still know how to give good things to our children how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! ”
So, it’s time to warm up your heart today! Today is the time to light the flame of love for Jesus in your life. Let go of that which hinders you from continuing in faith, return your trust to Jesus. He has thoughts of peace for you, a path where His Light will shine in your life. Bring back to memory all that’s hopeful, repent of your bad ways and start again to love Jesus with all your love, and show this through a life dedicated to God, your saviour!
Vs 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”.
I have a word to the conquerors! If you hear these words, and decide to change your life, and return to your first love, you are gonna receive an eternal life next to Jesus! You’re gonna live on earth with Jesus and also in the eternal life with your saviour