Why the Reformation Still Matters

This morning, I’m going to be starting a new sermon series, titled “Why the Reformation Still Matters.” I imagine that many of you have heard about the Protestant Reformation at some point, maybe in a history class, or at a church event. But for many Christians, it’s no longer clear in our minds why the Reformation happened. Many Protestants aren’t well-grounded in their Bibles. They aren’t aware of the issues. And as a result, many Christians today are unprepared to respond to people arguing in favor of Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Even in some evangelical circles, a number of churches have begun to return to the same errors that the Reformation aimed to address.

So over the next several weeks, I want to help make it more clear why our church is called “Fellowship Reformed Church” – and why it is that the Reformation still matters. I’ll be preaching through selected passages of Scripture to unpack five foundational positions that were key motivations for the Reformation, often referred to as the Five Solas. We’ll look at those five key points, starting next week. But before we do that, this morning, I want to make the case that seeking reformation in the church it, itself, a Biblical and necessary pursuit. Reformation has been needed in the church historically. And pursuing restoration and renewal is an ongoing need for God’s people today, as well. We’ll consider these things by looking together at Revelation 2, verses 1 through 7. So if you have a Bible nearby, please turn with me to Revelation Chapter 2. If you’re using one of our church Bibles, you can find the text on page 965. I’ll read our text for us in minute, but before I do, let’s ask for God to help us, as we come to his Word.

[Pray and Read Text]

Background of the Church, Leading up to the Reformation

From the days of Christ and his apostles onward, the visible Church was a single, mainline entity that contained quite a bit of diversity. The Christian church was definitively Trinitarian – they believed that there was just one self-existent, Creator God, who subsisted in three persons. And the Christian Church rigorously insisted that the Lord Jesus Christ was both truly God and truly Man, and that he had died on the cross and risen from death to bring grace to God’s people. These teachings were carefully refined in the early centuries of the Church through the fires of controversy. Yet within this one, mainline Church, a broad variety of teachings were tolerated – and let’s just say, the teachings that grew in popularity over time weren’t always the most Biblical.

Eventually, the Western and Eastern regions of the Church had disagreements about the Holy Spirit, the Roman papacy, and other issues, and they split, which gave rise to the Roman Church in the West and the Orthodox Church in the East. And even before the Protestant Reformation occurred in the Roman Church, there were a number of smaller movements within the church that had concerns with theological developments in the Roman church. There was Peter Waldo in France, John Wycliffe in England, Jan Hus in Bohemia. These movements attempted to call the Church back to its Biblical foundations.

And this was the goal that the Protestant Reformation was initially aimed at, as well. There’s a common misconception people have about early leaders in the Reformation, like Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli. I think it’s assumed that the Reformers were revolutionaries – that these men wanted to overthrow the established order of the church, in order to reestablish something new in its place. But the goal of the Reformers wasn’t to recreate the church in a new direction. The goal was to restore the Church, to her original moorings.

And so questions were raised about teachings and practices that had become normal in the Roman Catholic church: prayers to the saints and Mary, the requirement for the celibacy of priests, the doctrine of transubstantiation at the Lord’s Supper, claims of papal infallibility, the withholding of the Scriptures from the common languages of the people, moral corruption among the leaders of the church, superstitious regard for relics, teachings about purgatory and the earning of indulgences, the lack of preaching from the Bible – and of course, the Reformers were distressed over the works-based teachings of Rome on how people are judicially set right with God. These Reformation-minded clergymen weren’t calling the church to revolution. They were simply calling the Church to repent – to turn back to God and His Word.

And so it should be no surprise that Martin Luther himself, in his 95 theses, said “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” You and I are not immune from error – no Christian is – and neither is the Church.

And this is something we see, here, in the text I just read: that even in its earliest days, the church was susceptible to error. In Revelation 2, one of Jesus Christ’s 12 disciples – the apostle John – he’s writing to churches that existed while he was still living. And as he writes to the ancient church in the city of Ephesus (and to multiple other churches), it’s clear that those churches and their leaders were making mistakes in their faith. Even in the days of the apostles, the church was susceptible to error and in need of reformation.

And so as we work through our text, I want to highlight four ongoing threats that have endangered the Church throughout history, and that make continued repentance and reformation necessary for God’s people. First, we’ll consider danger from false teachers. Second, Distraction caused by affliction (and other life circumstances). Third, drifting priorities in the church. And then fourth and finally, dullness of hearing. Again, my four points will be: danger from false teachers, distraction caused by affliction (and other life circumstances), drifting priorities (in the church), and dullness of hearing.

These threats help to explain why the Protestant Reformation was needed. And they help to explain the ongoing neediness of the Church today, to be reformed according to the inerrant Scriptures.

Danger from False Teachers

So first, let’s consider the danger from false teachers. As the book of Revelation opens, here, the apostle John is visited in a vision by Jesus Christ. In Chapter 1, John is given a glimpse of the resurrected Christ in his glory. And Jesus tells John to write down the instructions to the seven churches that are mentioned out in Chapters 2 and 3. In verse one of our text, specifically, Jesus tells John to write a letter to the angel of the church in Ephesus.

Though it’s possible that the angel referred to here is a spiritual, angelic being, it’s important to note that the Greek word translated angel literally means messenger, and there are numerous instances in the Bible where the word refers to human messengers instead – such as in Luke 9:52 and James 2:25. So when we consider what John is being asked to do here – to write a letter to the “angel of the church in Ephesus” – it seems most likely that the figure mentioned here is some sort of human church leader.

And in verse 2, Jesus’s first word to the church is a word of encouragement: “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.” The Christians in Ephesus have been careful in their discernment. Before they clicked the link in that email sent from an unfamiliar web address, they carefully considered who the email was from, and whether it bore marks of authenticity. They exerted themselves to distinguish between genuine mail and junk mail. And Jesus says here that they passed the test. Those are encouraging words.

But at the same time, wrapped up in Jesus’s words, here, we see something discouraging. We see that even within the lifetime of the apostle John, the church was already being threatened internally by false teachers. There were men (and perhaps women, too) who were claiming, “I’m an apostle! I know the true knowledge of God. I’m one who truly speaks by the Holy Spirit” This isn’t even a full generation after the crucifixion of Christ. And yet the churches were already being attacked from within by imposters who claimed to be ambassadors for Christ. In the earliest days of the church, people were trying to hand down false teaching.

I think we can imagine sometimes that in the days of the apostles, the Church was a place where there were no doctrinal disagreements, where everybody got along, where people could simply be Christians without working hard to define what that meant. But we’re shown here, that wasn’t the case. The apostolic Church was frequently disturbed by false teachings. And this made it necessary for the church to keep returning to the true teaching they had received from the Lord through his apostles.

We’re not directly told what the false apostles were trying to teach in Ephesus. It’s mentioned later on, in verse 6, that the Ephesians hated the works of the Nicolaitans, just as Jesus did – but we’re not given an explanation of who the Nicolaitans were, or why they were problematic. The definitive thing we can take away, though, is that false teaching wasn’t just a hit-or-miss, uncommon phenomenon in the early church. But it was very present. It was organized – the movement had a name. False teaching was a real danger.

And various letters in the New Testament give us hints into the kinds of errors that were being introduced within the Church at that time. A number of false teachers commanded ongoing adherence to Jewish traditions. Others permitted a sensual life of pagan idolatry. Some teachers denied Jesus’s humanity. Others claimed to have access to secret knowledge that was necessary for being truly spiritual and enlightened. Others denied Jesus’s resurrection from the dead.

But in any case, fortunately, the church in Ephesus had been well-grounded in the teaching of the apostles. And so they were able to identify the counterfeit apostles when they came around knocking. But even within Revelation 2, we see that a number of other churches were less discerning. The church in Pergamum, for example, came under the negative influence of false teaching. And the church is rebuked, in verse 14, for following false teaching into sexual immorality, idolatry, and other evils. A similar rebuke is given to the Church of Thyatira in [Chapter 2] verse 20. There were churches at that time that weren’t holding tightly to the teachings they received from the apostles. And Christians now are in danger of making the same mistake.

Out in the business world, you’ll find that people want to be innovative. They want to be on the cutting edge of new developments. They want to pioneer new ideas. But in the Church, this is the last thing we want to do. This is what opens the door for distorted gospels, personality-driven cults, and false teaching. The only way for a church to make true progress, is by returning again and again to the word of truth God has given to us. The danger of false teaching makes it important for us to be reformed according to the inerrant Scriptures.

Distractions Caused by Affliction and Other Life Circumstances

But in these words to the church in Ephesus, another threat to the Church is mentioned, that explains why there’s ongoing need for the church to pursue reform. And that’s because of the distractions that the church faces from affliction and other life circumstances. This is my second point – Distractions caused by affliction (and other life circumstances).

In verse 3 of our text, Jesus gives a second word of encouragement. He says, “I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.” Again, this sentence here is uplifting for the Church – it’s a word of affirmation – but at the same time it points to an underlying reality that the church in Ephesus was faced with. Specifically, the church in Ephesus was suffering. It’s indicated, in the word selection here, that affliction is what the Ephesian church has been enduring patiently.

And even though the text says they haven’t grown weary in this – though they haven’t been worn down to the point of exhaustion, enduring in their faith has still been a marathon of endurance. Ever since turning to Christ, many have undoubtedly lost family support; perhaps they’ve also lost clients and customers for their family businesses. Some had perhaps lost their homes, or been killed. The Roman Emperor Domitian was persecuting Christians in Rome and Asia Minor at this time. The Apostle John himself had been penalized by Rome, and was banished to a remote island called Patmos, which is where he wrote Revelation, here. The Ephesian church wasn’t enjoying the favor and blessing of society. But being a Christian had required a great deal of emotional and physical energy.

And I point this out, because in every age the church is faced with distractions. It may be affliction, like the Ephesians went through – or it may be other kinds of stressors like school, tasks at the workplace, or family relationships. But in whatever case, I suspect that for many of us, these kinds of distractions can be spiritually detrimental for us. Because in the midst of challenging circumstances, it can be hard to think anything else, aside from our severe stress, our anger, or our pain. We may use our suffering as an excuse for why we’re sinning against other people – why we aren’t spending time in prayer, or reading our Bible. We might try to reassure ourselves, “I just need to get past this difficult season, or this big project – and then I’ll turn my life back over to God.” The church is faced by a real threat from these distractions. And we need to be wary, both as individuals and as a church, that these issues don’t inhibit us from turning our hearts back to the Lord, day in and day out.

But even though sufferings and such have the potential to be a distraction, they don’t have to be. You usually can’t decide what kinds of life situations you’re going to face. But what you can decide is how you’re going to react. Affliction can either distract you from God, or draw you to him, as you respond in faith. Though affliction may ravage you, it doesn’t have to. It can instead refine you and refocus you on eternal things. I’m sure many of you already know this from personal experience. Sometimes the greatest view we have of Christ’s glory isn’t from the mountaintop of prosperity, but from the valley of the shadow of death.

And what we see in our text, is that the persecution of the Ephesian church didn’t lead to confusion and derailment. But it’s shown here that the Ephesian Christians endured patiently, and bore up for the sake of Christ’s name. The daily pressures of life didn’t control their thoughts, but they instead chose to regard Christ as the King of their minds. The Ephesians didn’t give themselves over to self-pity or complaining. But instead they gave themselves into the capable hands of their heavenly Father. My hope and prayer is that we, too, will be an undistracted Church, where affliction reforms and refines us as our faith rests on Christ and his fullness.

Drifting Priorities in the Church

But there’s a third issue that faces the Church, that makes her needy for ongoing reformation. The issue of drifting priorities in the Church. We see this in verse 4. Jesus now gives a rebuke to the Ephesian church and says, “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 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.”

Even though the church in Ephesus was commendable in many ways, it had its fair share of deficiencies like the others. Specifically, the church in Ephesus has abandoned the love that it used to have.

We see evidence in the Bible that the church in Ephesus had been taught about the importance of love from the very beginning, when it was planted by the Apostle Paul decades earlier. Because in the second half of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul gives reminders and instructions about the importance of love in the Christian life. He explains in Chapter 4, that the members of the Church – the church body – were intended to build one another up in love. In Chapter 5, he gives instructions for husbands to love their wives. And at the end of Chapter 6, Paul blesses the church saying, “[May] Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.”

Yet from our text, it’s not clear in what way, the Ephesians had abandoned their prior love. Were they no longer loving each other, and building one another up? Possibly. Were husbands no longer loving their wives? Was the church no longer loving our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible? Maybe it was all of the above. But in any case, the rapid disappearance of active, ongoing love in the Ephesian church was a troubling development.

The Ephesian church had perhaps become really good against defending the faith against heretics. By faith, they were facing persecution with courage, resilience, and some degree of toughness. It was necessary for the Ephesians to give some attention to these things – and the progress they made there was commendable. But as the Church gave their attention to growing in these ways, they abandoned their love. Their priorities became unbalanced.

And we can be vulnerable to the same unbalance. One of the most common ways this happens, is when we focus our faith on reacting against the perceived problems of our world, rather than emphasizing the central truths that our Lord has emphasized in His Word. If we’re more enthusiastic about critiquing the church and the world than we are about Christ and the glory of his grace – then we’re going to be unbalanced Christians. Over time we will find that we have drifted from the love we had at first, and that we need to be re-centered and reformed according to the truths of Scripture.

It’s in verse 5, here, that Jesus directly charges the church in this direction. He urges them to repent – to change – to reform their principles and practices, so that they’re returning to the way of life they received from the apostles. Though we tend to think of repentance individualistically, the call to repent here is more collective – it’s a call for the whole church to be seek reformation together – to recover what has been lost, and to return to what has been abandoned.

Even during the lifetime of the apostles, churches drifted. Even in those early days, the church was called by Jesus Christ himself to reformation. And because of the church’s vulnerability to drift, it shouldn’t surprise us when we see that the Church drifted in church history. It shouldn’t surprise us that Reformation was needed in the church. And it shouldn’t catch us off guard, that all of us together have an ongoing need, as a Church, to be reforming and re-centering ourselves on the inerrant Scriptures.

Dullness of Hearing

But the text suggests that there’s one more threat that makes reformation necessary in the church: the dullness of our hearing. This is my fourth and final point: dullness of hearing. In verse 7, Jesus says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Now, I don’t imagine here that Jesus is suggesting that his message is irrelevant for earless people. Instead, Jesus is saying that everyone – every last person – needs to pay attention to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. And it’s not a mystery what the Spirit is saying – because Jesus is telling us here. The Word of Scripture, here – this is where the Spirit is speaking. Jesus isn’t telling everyone to shut themselves in a closet and try to listen for some sort of secret, individual spiritual whisper, directly from God. But Jesus is urging his people to listen to the voice of the Spirit, who’s speaking here in Revelation through the writings of the apostle John. And more generally, he’s urging us to listen to the writings of the Holy Prophets and Holy apostles, who spoke by the Spirit, and through whom the Spirit continues to speak.

And this means that we can’t treat the Bible like every other book. Though it’s packed full of historical events and theological ideas, it isn’t just informational. We can’t just treat it like a textbook on religion. Though it says many comforting things that address our anxieties, we need to be careful that we don’t just view the Bible as a tool for psychological self-help. Though the Bible contains moral teaching, it isn’t just given for our moral self-improvement. But Jesus refers to the Scriptures here, and he says, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. When we come to the Bible, we should understand that it’s a spiritual encounter. The words we have aren’t dead words – but the Word of God is living and active – Hebrews 4:12. We shouldn’t have superstitious ideas about the Bible – that the book itself is divine, or that God’s Spirit lives inside the binding, or something. But we need to understand, as we hear the words of Scripture, we are hearing the Spirit speaking to the churches. And because of this, we need to make sure we hear.

The problem, of course, is that people like you and I – we’re dull of hearing. You’ll see in our text, here – the Christians in Ephesus aren’t the only ones who are told to “hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” But this command from Christ is repeated over and over again, for all seven of the churches he’s writing to. All people need this reminder, to actually listen. He knows how dull-hearted and disengaged we tend to be when we open the Bible, or hear the Word preached. Even when we can hear audible speaking just fine, He knows how hard of hearing our souls are. He knows that we tend to be selective in how we listen. And he knows that there are other voices that are competing to have our ears. So, out of love for his people, Jesus earnestly reminds his people to listen closely – to keep listening – to open their ears to the true, authoritative words that have been laid down in Scripture, here, for the good of the churches. We need to be careful how we listen.

Even when parts of the Bible are very familiar to us, we shouldn’t assume that those words are no longer relevant for us, or that there’s nothing left for us to learn. When the pastor is talking about the fallenness and corruption of the human mind and heart again – when we see the Bible speaking again about the wrath of God that’s revealed against the unrighteousness of men, and Jesus’s teachings on the eternal torments of Hell – the seriousness and deathliness of sin should never become a matter of indifference to us. And when we consider how our Lord truly loved sinners like us anyway – even when we were depraved and deplorable in our sins and trespasses, we can’t shrug and pretend that this is no big deal. When we reflect on the perfections of Christ in his submission, his sinlessness, and his sacrifice – how he died for our sake, in order to give everlasting life in glory to everyone who trusts in him – this intervention from God isn’t intended to lead us into apathy.

Instead, as we hear these familiar truths for the second time, or for the thousandth time – we are still encouraged: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” It is always profitable for us to return to the headwaters and fountainhead of God’s truth. It won’t do us any good to fool ourselves into thinking that we mastered God’s truth. Instead, we need to understand that it’s God’s truth that must be mastering us.

Next week, we’ll start looking into five of the key issues that were disputed in the days of the Protestant Reformation: the Five Solas. And as we consider what Scripture says concerning these five issues, I think it’ll become clear pretty quickly – these aren’t just stale, irrelevant 500-year-old conversations. But these are issues that the Church continues to struggle with today. The people of God have an ongoing need for repentance and reformation. So let’s ask that God would help us, and our brothers and sisters around the world, to listen well and to love the Lord and His Word. Please pray with me: