God's Message to the Seven Churches: Part 2 Continued - Ephesus: Getting Back Your First Love

Revelation two one through seven and then we'll pick up with the second half. Of the message this evening. Which is basically all verse five. So, take take note of verse five when we get there tonight. Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.

I know thy works and thy labor and thy patience and how canst and how thou canst not bear them which are evil. And thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not and has found them liars and has born and has patience and for my name's sake hast labored and has not fainted. Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore, from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place except thou repent. But this thou hast that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the spirit say it under the churches to him that overcome it, will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in midst of the paradise of God. Let's go to the Lord in prayer once more. Lord, thank you for your word this evening. Lord, I pray that you would calm our hearts, our minds, that your spirit would take your word, use it in our lives tonight, that it wouldn't return void. Please direct my thoughts, words, and Lord, I pray that you would be glorified above all things and what is done here this evening that you might draw us closer to you, conform us more to the image of your son.

In Jesus precious name, we do pray. Amen. Brief review. I know you hate it when a pastor says that. My pastor when I was growing up, he would say brief review or you knew when he was doing a series that he had to review before he did the, well, by time he got done with the review, he he thought it was time for the sermon to be over and then he would start on the sermon.

So, we will try not to do that this evening, okay? But we do have to do a little review particularly for those people who might not have been here is this is all attached together this evening. These are letters by the apostle by the apostle John to seven churches in Asia Minor. Churches that were planted likely as a result of Paul's ministry in the city of Ephesus which is kind of the mother church in that area. These other churches had kind of most likely branched out from the ministry at of the church at Ephesus.

There are others that had that had a part in ministering to these churches particularly this one at Ephesus. Paul notes Priscilla and Aquila came with him to Ephesus and settled there and ministered there. Apollos ministered and preached in the city of Ephesus. Timothy preached and ministered in the city of Ephesus. The apostle John himself had been ministering in that area for quite a while which is why he sent this letter back to them from the Isle Of Patmos where he had been exiled by Rome.

So a little quick catch up there on the situation. The seven golden candlesticks represent the seven churches and the light of their testimony. And these are being warned, challenged, and encouraged to deal with the weaknesses that the Lord who is the head of the church points out that their testimony might not be be taken away. The Lord greatly desires that others will see our good works and what? Glorify our father which is in heaven.

The Lord greatly desires the churches grow and prosper. The Lord greatly desires that people are saved through the proclamation of the gospel that comes primarily from the ministry of the local church but if the local church ceases to honor the Lord and its ministry, it can lose its opportunity and its testimony and thus, they are being warned and encouraged not to do that as John writes these this letter to them and deals with each church individually. The church of Ephesus, as we mentioned, is a Roman city. It is the capital of this area of what what is today Western Turkey. It was a large city of around a half a million people by January.

So, just a few short years, it will grow from whatever it is here to around half a million. That's a lot of people especially in that day. It was a port city on the Aegean Sea. It was a center of trade. There were a lot of people that went in and out of the city of Ephesus making it making it a a wonderful spot to preach the gospel and because as people got saved, as they were traveling through, they would take the gospel with some and with them and so the gospel spread all throughout that area and probably even over in places in Greece due to the gospel being preached in the city of Ephesus.

However, it was a center of abominable paganism. The Temple of Artemis or Diana was there in the city of Ephesus. It boasted a thousand temple prostitutes at one time. It was a city that boasted in its immorality and promiscuity. It was part of their religion, as it is to some still today in this world.

It was a center of great learning, ruins of an ancient library still stand in part of Ephesus today. And as I already mentioned, it is the area of ministry of others besides Paul himself. It was seemingly a fairly healthy and growing church in Paul's day and in John's day. He has a lot of good to say about the church at Ephesus as the light shown brightly in a very dark world. We talked today about how bad things are in our society and how bad things are in America but our land is probably not yet reached the level of wickedness and promiscuousness that the the city of Ephesus had but we are getting there.

But if we continue to stand firm on the word of God, if we continue to grow and shine brightly for our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, then, the darkness just makes the light that much more noticeable. And that's not a bad thing. You know, we look at persecution, we look at at the the trappings and the obstacles that we come to that we face in our society is a terrible thing. But in the world in which Paul preached in others, that was just the way it was and you even find that in areas of the world where Christians are persecuted that the true children of God are more noticeable and their testimony shines more brightly when they have to make a choice. In some ways, we've had it awful easy here and we tend to get a little bit complacent because of it.

The things that the Lord had to say about the church of Ephesus that were good. We listed them last week. He mentions their works, their works. They were a busy church. They were doing a lot of good things.

Many of them for the Lord and for others. That was something to be praised for. Their labor, the word labor implies toil, weariness, and even pain. These Christians were not fair weather Christians. They had they had weathered storms.

They had dealt with some persecution and weariness, they they they kept going for the Lord. He mentions their patience, their patient endurance, their stick to itiveness. I don't know if that's a word but I've heard somebody else say it. They're steadfastness in the Lord. They they weren't double minded Christians who were tossed to and fro.

They were solid in their in their faith and they were in it for the long haul. The fruit of the spirit was evident in their lives. And one of that, one of those fruits is long suffering or patience. He mentions their their separation, their ability to discern the true from the false and to flee from the false and embrace the truth. They recognize the false teachers that came their way.

They marked them as liars. They did not embrace their doctrine. The Lord praised them for this. We are not the judges for there is one judge and that is God but we are to be sort of fruit inspectors. We are to have discernment particularly on those that preach in our pulpits and those whose books and doctrine that we take in to filter that, to avoid that which is false, to stand for that which is true, and to not compromise the word of God and the gospel.

Sad today, that is not always the case. Much of Christian is suffering from a terrible lack of discernment. False teachers and false teachings have torn up the flock of God and brought in many churches that no longer preach the word of God. The devil usually doesn't enter the front door. The devil usually enters the back door.

He doesn't say, hey, I'm here. I'm your enemy. He says, oh, I'm your friend. Bible says, he can appear as an angel of light. The church at Ephesus was praised for their discernment and their separation.

They were praised for their suffering in the face of persecution. Which they would all had already begun to experience as a result of Rome. The apostle John is evidence of that. He was preaching and teaching in these churches and he had been exiled by Rome for his preaching and teaching of the gospel. So, the persecution had begun.

Apostle John is is very stark evidence However, the Lord doesn't stop there as we mentioned last week. The Lord says, startling as it may be in verse four, he says, nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee. Nevertheless, church at Ephesus, there is a problem and the Lord isn't saying, well, there's all this good stuff. There's just this one little tiny issue over here. It's it's no big deal.

You know, don't worry about. No, that's not what he's saying. He's saying, yes, I praise thee for these things but there's a huge thing sitting right here. There's an elephant in the room and you must deal with the elephant because if you don't deal with the elephant, he's going to cause trouble. For the church, for the cause of Christ, and for your hearts and lives individually.

You have to deal with the elephant in the room. Sometimes, it seems like we would rather do anything but to deal with the elephant. We want to to nitpick about little things. We don't want to deal with the big things and and the reason for that is the big thing is usually what the real problem is. Our problem and it's easy to feel like we're doing something if we're over here nitpicking.

If we're over here busy doing other things and ignoring the real issue in our lives. Jesus said, they had left their first love. Now, what does he mean by that? Well, last week, we mentioned that it clearly doesn't indicate, it doesn't indicate in the passage that they were not willing to serve or sacrifice or suffer for Christ. A matter of fact, he indicates that they were willing to serve and sacrifice and suffer for Christ.

So, it doesn't seem that he means that when he says they left their first love. There's no indication that they didn't believe in the Lord or have faith in the Lord. No indication that they had given their allegiance to another. They were working, laboring, patient in their service, facing persecution, steadfast. So, doesn't seem they had given their allegiance to another.

No, they had not lost or left behind their love altogether but their love as it was at first. Their love as it was at first. When they were saved, that passion for knowing the Lord. Knowing God better every day. Walking with him personally.

That is what seems to be missing in their lives. That is their first love of which he was speaking here. I took you last week. Let's go back there quickly to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10 and this when I when I thought of this immediately, this this passage came to mind.

Luke chapter 10 and verse 38. Luke ten thirty eight in the church of Ephesus, we have a church that's very busy, very busy with many things. Even some of those things being ministry related. But but there's something even more important that they're missing. Verse 38, now it came to pass as they went that they, that he, that is Jesus, entered into a certain village and a certain woman named Martha, received him into her house.

And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. Martha was cumbered about, much serving, and came to him and said, Lord, does thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she helped me. Now, Martha is saying to the Lord, now Lord, I'm doing all the work here and she's sitting over there doing nothing. So, would you please scold her for me?

What does Jesus say? Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful or anxious or busy about and troubled about many things but one thing is needful, necessary and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her. You know, there there's always opportunity to serve. There always another meal. There was plenty of time.

But Martha was scurrying about as though the world was going to stop turning if she didn't get this meal just so and get it on the table and get it done the right way. But Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to the Lord. You see, that opportunity wasn't going to be around, not in that fashion In a very short time. Because Christ was a few months from going to the cross. And then ascending back to his father in heaven after his resurrection.

She was redeeming the time wisely, taking the time to get to know who, to get to know Jesus better. There would be time to serve him. But now was the opportunity to get to know him, to listen to him, to worship him. And Mary chose Christ as the better thing, while Martha's service was laudable. Sometimes we need to be still and know that he is God.

We need to refocus on our relationship with the Lord and not just our busyness in service to the Lord. Sometimes, we take the Lord for granted. We trade affection and wonder for routine. It happens in all kinds of relationships. It happens in marriage.

Marriages often cool down. Sometimes marriage partners grow apart from each other because they're so busy with the kids, and they're so busy with work, and they're so busy with their hobbies, and they're so busy with many things that aren't that aren't necessarily bad and wrong but they don't take time to spend time with who? With each other. As we don't take time to spend with the Lord. Many Christians today, the only time they talk with God is when they pray before they eat if they do that or when they sit in a church service.

Oh, how they're missing out on what the Christian life is really about. It's not just about busyness. It's not just even about ministry. You can't properly ministry and pour your heart into other people unless God has poured His heart into what? Into you.

And Mary chose the best thing, to allow God to pour His heart into her that she might be a better servant of the Lord later on. Too often in fundamental churches, we substitute purity for passion, rules for relationship, and labor for love. If we are to please the Lord, we must embrace all of these and not allow the latter ones to be forgotten. Purity rules and labor are very important. But so is passion, relationship, and love.

Love for God and love for others. I have an aunt and uncle. They live in North Carolina. Usually, I'll see them at Thanksgiving but I probably won't see them this year because we're my my mom had her knee surgery and we're not having our normal Thanksgiving Thanksgiving get together this year. But they have different interpretations on some things.

They worship a little bit differently than I do. We disagree on some areas of practice mainly not in major doctrines but I wouldn't feel particularly comfortable in their church and they might not feel particularly comfortable in mine. But my aunt and uncle love the Lord more than just about anybody I know and they may not have it all absolutely right. They may not cross their Ts and dot their Is just like they should. Sometimes, they might get on my nerves if we try to talk about certain things.

But the love of God is very evident in their lives and others can see that And that is something that is to be praised, not something that is to be be knocked. And I appreciate them, though I don't always agree with them. And that is something that should be evident in the lives of every Christian. It's not just about the rules. It's not just about getting everything just so.

You don't have to be right all the time. And a matter of fact, you're not. And neither am I. It's also about love for God and love for others. Sad to say, we allow many things to rob us of time and and the love of God in our lives.

They can be job and job advancement money, a bigger house, higher income, a better lifestyle. They can be hobbies. They can be golf. They can be many things that kind of take our attention away from who? Away from God and spending time with him.

Like we should. And you know if there's something in your life that kind of distracts you from spending the time with God that you should but in the church of Ephesus, it would seem and sometimes even in churches here, even ministry and service can itself. The things that are taking our focus away from. Our first love. The reason we're doing it.

Some of the churches I ministered in when I was a youth pastor, they had a program called Awana. Any of you ever heard of Awana? It's a children's ministry. It's a good ministry. Nothing wrong with Awana.

Except that in some churches, it seemed to take over. And Awana would become more important than everything else in the church. And the whole focus of the ministry was on Awana and people would show up for Awana who would never show up for church. Now, there's a problem there. If the only reason you ever show up is when you have something to do, and not to worship and to take in and absorb the word of God and the message that God has.

There's a problem there and the problem is likely connected to the issue here that that the apostle John is addressing with the church at Ephesus. The ministry, the program was more important than the motive. Of serving the Lord and it kind of taken over. When I was youth pastor up at Hardison, there was a fellow there who was the church treasurer. He's a good friend of ours.

I love him in the Lord, but as time went along, even before we left, he was very precise and very good and very everything had to be just so with the money of the church. But he came to church less and less and less and let till he quit coming altogether for a year. He was the church treasurer and only showed up at church a few times. Now, was he serving the Lord? He was taking care of a need in the church.

But he wasn't coming to church. And sad to say that happens. That happens all too often and we forget the reason and we grow cold in our relationship with the Lord. Eventually, it will reflect itself in our ministry and in our service. This seems to be the issue here in part at least with the church at Ephesus.

So, here's the question. We want to conclude by answering this evening. And that is this found in verse five. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy candlestick out of its place except thou repent. You know, the Lord doesn't just say to the church at Ephesus, now, you've messed up.

You you've taken your eyes off the Lord. You you've got your eyes on what you're doing on the ministry and you're busy with all these things and so it's over. You've messed up, had it, done but that's not our God. Our God is the God of the second chance. Our God is the God whose mercies are new what?

Every morning. Our God is a god of grace. Our God is a god who wants to see his church thrive and grow and succeed and shine brightly. So, God doesn't come to the church at Ephesus and say, okay, you messed up. That's it.

No. God says, I want you to fix it and in order to stress to them how important it is that they fix it, he says, if you don't fix it, you will lose your testimony. You will lose your opportunity. So don't set it aside and say, it's no big deal. You need to fix it.

And here is how you're gonna do it. And he gives them three r's in fixing the problem, in getting back their first love. The first one is this, and that is remember. Remember. First word of verse five.

Remember from whence thou art fallen. Think back, John says, think back to when your love was hot and when you were passionate about your relationship and your quiet time with the Lord. When you spend a lot of time on your knees, when the things of the world were not such a distraction to you, when it was a joy to come to church and not a duty, think back, remember when things were different between you and your God and you were passionate about him. When you look forward to your time with him. When the things of earth were small in your life and God was big.

When there was joy in serving Jesus and every day was an adventure and not a joy. Remember, think back to that time. You see, we have a terrible tendency as human beings to forget what happened yesterday, to forget what happened last year. Our memories sometimes are extremely, extremely short. Somebody can do things for us, go out of their way, show us love beyond reason, and then they can do just one little thing wrong and we toss them aside.

Oh, how short our memories are When it when it comes to the good things, the only time our memories tend to be good, it seems like is when we're upset about something and we want to hold a grudge. We tend to forget. We tend to forget and not think about what the Lord has done for us. Look where we would be without him. We don't know where we would be except that we know we wouldn't be on our way to heaven.

We'd be on our way to an eternity in hell. We would be without hope. We would be captives of sin. Without any way of being delivered. Oh, how quickly we forget So, here, the apostle John, John tells them, remember, hold your place in Revelation.

Turn back if you would to Deuteronomy chapter eight. Deuteronomy chapter eight. Now, you know the story. Israel were the nation of Israel was captive, slaves in the land of Egypt. There was no way that they could rebel and escape their captors.

They had no army. They had no weapons. There was no way. For four hundred years, they were held captive by the Egyptians. But God made a way, didn't he?

The battle belongs to the Lord. He will deliver you into our hand. David said to Goliath, and deliver them God did with a mighty hand. He brought 10 plagues. He divided the sea.

He fed them with manna in the wilderness. He he gave them water from a rock. He he brought them eventually into the land. He tore down the walls of Jericho so they could walk in and defeat it. He calls the son to stand still.

So, they could completely wipe out one of their enemies. And the list goes on and on and on and on. In Deuteronomy chapter eight, God foresaw that they would have a tendency to what? To forget. So, he warns them in Deuteronomy eight ten.

He says, when thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God in not keeping his commandments and his judgments and his statues which I command thee this day. Lest when thou hast eaten and art full and hast built goodly houses and dwelt therein and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied and all that thou hast is multiplied then thine heart be lifted up and thou forget the Lord thy God which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt and from the house of bondage and we'll stop there for the sake of time. We could go on. God says, I know you.

I know you and I know that you are going to have a tendency to forget. He tells him in Deuteronomy six, he said, I want you to teach these commandments to your children. I want you to write it on your doorpost. I want you to talk about em when you're in the way, when you sit down, when you're out in the field, just drive these things into the hearts of your children because if you don't, what's going to happen? They're going to forget and guess what happened?

Sad to say in the book of Judges, there arose a generation that knew not the Lord. Guess what? They forgot. We have a tendency to do the same thing and you say, well, it's just the church at Ephesus seem to be doing okay. But you see it was just the beginning and if they didn't deal with it, it's just going to get why?

It's just going to get worse. That's what's happened in our in Christendom today. That's what happened in many churches today. That's what's happened in the lives of many Christians. It's not all that bad yet but the seed has been planted.

And if our relationship with the Lord grows cold, if he is not the reason, if love for the Lord is not the reason we serve. When missionaries go to go on the mission field, they a lot of them go through mission training and go with a a mission board to go out on the mission field and one of the things some of them ask them is this, why are you going? And some of them will say, well, I I just I love the people. I want to serve the Lord. I feel called to be a missionary.

All those things are fine. But if the main reason isn't that you're going because you love the Lord and love the gospel. Then, these other things will not suffice, suffice and eventually, most of those people burn out and they end up right back here where they started. And the same thing happens in the lives of God's people. In the lives of churches, they grow cold, they shut the doors, the people aren't growing, the people aren't coming.

Because their love for God has grown cold. They've allowed obstacles in the path What do we need to do? You need to remember. You need to stop and think back. What was it like when you first got saved?

Think back to when your your your love for Lord and your heart for the word of God was was was boundless and and you were excited and and you were enthusiastic and and you just couldn't get enough. You couldn't spend enough time in prayer. And now it seems like Pray when you eat. Maybe you pray when you go to bed or you pray when you get up. And we're all in danger of that same sliding away, growing cold in our love for the Lord and if we don't deal with that elephant in the room in our lives, then everything else eventually will also begin to unravel in our lives also.

So, remember. Secondly, remember the way it used to be and number two, is what? Repent. Turn back. Turn back.

The word repent means to have a change of heart or mind. It also means to turn back. So, the apostle Paul writes and says, remember back when your love for the Lord was great, you may not have known everything, you may not have been involved in the ministry, but you had a love for God that was insatiable. And you know what you need to do? You need to turn around and you need to go back to that place where you love the Lord and you hadn't allowed the the burdens of life and the distraction of hobbies and the and the issues with other people.

To get in the way. Of your love for God. Confess it before God Have a serious change of heart. Don't don't sweep it under the rug. Deal with God concerning your sin.

Call it what it is. Sin. Don't whitewash it. Don't toy with it. Repent.

Repent. Turn back to God. And that's what we need to do sometimes Sometimes, people come forward to what they call to rededicate their lives. What that rededication is is this or what it should be is repentance. Lord, I've grown cold.

Lord, I've allowed something in my life to get between me and you. And I may be busy doing all the right things, but my love for you has grown cold. Repent. Remember, repent, and then, the third one, repeat, okay? Repeat back to Revelation chapter two.

Remember thou for from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works and do the first works. What is that? Repeat the things that you did right after you got saved. You may know a lot more than you did then. You may have more responsibilities when you did them.

But you need to go back to that. You need to go back to spending more time with your God. You need to go go back to sitting at his feet. And just embracing him and listening to him and talking with him and growing in your love for him with allowing God to be poured into you so that you can turn around. And be a minister to others for him.

Remember, repent, repeat. There's there's a movie. There's a movie that came out a few years ago called Fireproof. Many of you have seen it and in it, there there is a husband and a wife and the husband and wife's relationship has grown cold and they've grown away from each other and their marriage is on the brink of ending. She is just about ready to divorce him And he is encouraged by his father to take this book, this journal called The Love Dare, and it starts out very slowly with very small things and encourages him to repeat the first works that he did with his wife when he met her.

To go back to doing little things. You know, pouring her some coffee and leaving it on the table. Just little expressions of love and in taking out time to spend with her and getting away the obstacles that are in that are in the way of their relationship. In his case, he had a computer and he looked at stuff on that computer he shouldn't have been looking at and it was a huge obstacle in his marriage and it was a sin. But he repented of it.

He turned from it. He took his computer outside, put on the table, and took a bath to it. It's it's a interesting, dramatic scene but the point is this, he went back and he got rid of the things that had come between him and his wife and the things that had come between him and the Lord. And if we are to get our first love back, then we need to remember what it was like before. We need to repent of the things that have gotten in the way and we need to repeat the first works.

Repeat the things. Get down on your knees with God. One of the things I liked about the college that I went to was we didn't have any TV sets. There was one in the snack shop and I think there was one at the bottom of one of the guys' dorms. I don't know about the girls' dorms and there was never anything on it that you ever wanted to watch.

And so, if you didn't spend time sitting in front of the television set, they gave you time to do other things that were more important. And I grew in the Lord over those years and I spent more time with him than I have at other times. Because I didn't waste time sitting in front of a television set. Or involved in other activities and it was a really important time in my life. Sometimes we need to remember back and we go, this has been an obstacle We need to go back to the first works.

That our love for God might grow and thereby our strength for the Lord might grow and that our ministry and our light and our fruit for the Lord might grow and produce. If you don't deal with the elephant, the other things will fall in time. We need to go back to our first love. Let's pray. Dear heavenly father, we thank you Lord for your patience with us and Lord, we ask your forgiveness.

For allowing things in our life, even things that we believe we might be doing for you. To actually come between us. To take away from our opportunity to spend with you, to really lift you up and make you first place in our life. Lord, I pray for the people that are here, for your people, that we would recognize that, that our personal relationship with you would abound. We be begin growing again that the light and testimony of this church might remain for a very long time.

That through it, others would see Jesus Christ in us. As we reflect the glory of our God more brightly as we are closer to him. That others might be saved. That this congregation would grow. Not only in number but in love and in testimony.

Lord, thank you for this message in your word. For we desperately need it today. In Jesus' name we do pray, amen.