Sermon of the Week: “Love’s Complaining”

“As a church we must love Jesus, or else we have lost our reason for existence.”

— Charles Spurgeon

If Jesus were to come to your church and give it a review, what would He say? The church at Ephesus experienced this very thing, and the apostle John records the letter Jesus wrote to them in Revelation chapter two.

In 1886, Charles Spurgeon preached a sermon titled “Love’s Complaining” based on this letter. Spurgeon highlights the sadness of the rebuke the church receives. “It is a dreadful thing that when Jesus comes to his own dear bride he should have to speak in grief, and not in joy.”

The church at Ephesus had much to be commended for. They had persevered in times of persecution, been faithful in doctrine, and were quick to remove false teachers. Jesus praises them for their good works, but He also offered a stern rebuke. The Lord had found a devastating hidden fault: they had left their first love.

This body of believers had committed “an offence against the very heart of Christ himself.” To fall from love is a grievous thing indeed. Without love, we are nothing (1 Corinthians 13:3). Without love, our service is in vain. “Lose love, lose all. Leave our first love, we have left strength, and peace, and joy, and holiness.”

Jesus graciously gave them an opportunity to repent and return. Likewise, the Savior is still watching over His church today, and He alone has the power to establish or extinguish an assembly. May He be near us and search out our ways.

Excerpt:

“My beloved, I persuade you from my very soul not to encounter these dangers, not to run these terrible risks; for as you would not wish to see either the church or your own self left without the light of God, to pine in darkness, it is needful that you abide in Christ, and go on to love him more and more.”

Read the rest of the sermon here.