The Devotion of a Church...

This week we are looking at one of the churches that was planted during the book of Acts, called the church at Ephesus. Yesterday, we looked at the birth of the church at Ephesus and discovered that the church of Ephesus was a church that was marked by a confident trust in Christ and a devoted love for Christ and one another. Today, as Luke continues, we see him provide us an amazing example of God’s transformational activity in the church, beginning in Acts 19:11:

God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out. But also some of the Jewish exorcists, who went from place to place, attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, "I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches." Seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. And the evil spirit answered and said to them, "I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?"

These Jewish practitioners of the occult and magic viewed the name of Jesus like a magic incantation and formula and attempted to use the name of Jesus in order to advance their business. However, they did not expect to have the following conversation with a demon: “I know Jesus, I am fully aware of who He is. And I have heard about Paul; haven’t met him yet, but I have heard about him. You however, I don’t know you and have never heard of you, so who do you think you are anyway?” We then see what happens next:

And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus; and fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified.

These practitioners of the occult and magic got an embarrassing beat down where they are stripped naked and forced to flee for their lives. And as those in Ephesus saw and heard of God’s transformational activity; as those in Ephesus saw the stark contrast between these early followers of Jesus and those who were involved in the occult and magic, Luke tells us that great fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified. Both Jews and Gentiles, religious and irreligious, recognized that God was at work and that the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel could not be minimized or ignored. This message was a message that required a response. And as a result, Jesus reputation was being enhanced and praised. The church at Ephesus was being used as the vehicle to reveal Jesus and the message of the gospel in a way that hearts were captured and lives radically transformed. We see this revealed for us in verse 18:

Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing.

In these verses, we see Luke reveal for us a community of faith that demonstrated its confident trust and devotion to Jesus and one another in three specific ways. First, we see that these early followers of Jesus were confessing and disclosing their practices. The practices here refer to involvement in the occult and magic. You see these early followers of Jesus devotion to Jesus and one another led to confession and transparency in community. As these early followers of Jesus gathered together in community with one another, they were able to admit and share with others areas of selfishness and rebellion in their lives.

In the Bible, you always see confession involving other followers of Jesus. Yet, so often when it comes to confession, while we may confess our selfishness and rebellion to God, we are much less willing to confess out selfishness and rebellion to others. But why is that? I believe that we are less willing to confess our selfishness and rebellion to others because when we confess our selfishness and rebellion to others, then we have to change. Confession leads to change. Confession removes secrecy and confession forces us to confront and repent from selfishness and rebellion.

Second, we see that this confession and transparency in community resulted in repentance. Simply put, repentance is changing your attitude and the trajectory of your life that is moving away from God back towards God. Luke tells us that these early followers of Jesus brought their magic books and were burning them in the sight of everyone. The loving accountability and encouragement that was empowered by the Holy Spirit resulted in repentance from selfish and rebellious activity that was moving them away from God to a life and a lifestyle that was leaning into God.

Third, we see that this confession and transparency in community that led to repentance produced transformation and life change. As these early followers of Jesus counted up all of the books that they had burned, they discovered that the price of those books was the equivalent of 138 years of wages for a rural worker in the region around Ephesus.

The church at Ephesus had a devotion to God that led to confession in community, which resulted in repentance that produced a life that was transformed and changed by the power of the Holy Spirit. And this life change and transformation by the power of the Holy Spirit not only impacted the members of the church at Ephesus. God used the church in an even more powerful way, as Luke reveal for us in the verses that follow:

Now after these things were finished, Paul purposed in the spirit to go to Jerusalem after he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, saying, "After I have been there, I must also see Rome." And having sent into Macedonia two of those who ministered to him, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while. About that time there occurred no small disturbance concerning the Way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, was bringing no little business to the craftsmen; these he gathered together with the workmen of similar trades, and said, "Men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business. "You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made with hands are no gods at all. "Not only is there danger that this trade of ours fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis be regarded as worthless and that she whom all of Asia and the world worship will even be dethroned from her magnificence."

You see, the church at Ephesus was a community of faith whose devotion to Jesus not only led to life change and transformation in community with one another. The church of Ephesus was a community of faith whose devotion to Jesus led to the transformation of the community of Ephesus. Luke tells us that the silversmith union, led by a man named Demetrius, held an emergency meeting to deal with this new community called the church.

God’s transformational intervention and activity through the church at Ephesus resulted in a change in the economic system that had provided prosperity to the city. Tourism was down; revenue was down. As God’s kingdom mission advanced through the church of Ephesus to all of Asia, people were no longer participating in the idolatrous worship of Artemis. The devotion of the church of Ephesus had such an influence and impact that is had turned an entire economic system on its head.

Now wouldn’t you want to be a part of that kind of a church? Wouldn’t you want to have that kind of impact? As we talked about earlier, there are more letters recorded for us in our Bibles today that were written to this one church than any other church.

Tomorrow, we will look at some of these letters and discover a timeless truth that the church at Ephesus provides us...