So we're just going to pray and go into the Word of God.
Is that OK? Amen.
Father, we do thank you for this day that you've given us.
It is such a blessing, Lord, to be here with the body of Jesus
Christ, our brothers and our sisters, all of those, Lord, who
are of faith and those who are coming for the first time, who
are coming into worship with us and to sit under the Word with
us. Lord, we thank you for each and
every person whose heart you have touched this morning, Lord,
to come and to be with us this morning.
I pray, Father, that your very presence will be felt in there
this morning. Lord, I pray that You would
allow Your Holy Spirit to fill not only my heart, but everyone
else's hearts that are here. Lord, I pray that You will give
us understanding of the scriptures that we're going to
be studying today that we're going to be going over.
Give us an understanding of it, Lord.
Allow us to be able to see your truth with clarity and to be
able to rejoice in your truth, Lord.
It's your truth, Lord, that makes us free.
And we're so thankful for that. So, Lord, I need you this
morning. Please speak through me just as
you speak to me and to everyone else that's here.
Lord, manifest your very presence this morning in this
room. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen. So we're about to go into the
the, the chapters of two and three and chapters of two and
three really deal as you, if you remember a couple weeks ago, we
talked about how the Book of Revelation is broken down and
it's broken down in three parts. It's the things that John has
seen. It's the things which are, which
is what we're going to be going in tonight.
The things which are or, or this morning.
I'm sorry, I keep saying tonight, this morning, the
things which are and, and, and as we go into chapter 4 through
the rest of the book, we will be talking about the things that
will take place. Now, I know that it's very
interesting to go into the the prophecy of this book and to
talk about all those things that are futuristic, those things
that will come. All that sounds exciting.
It's interesting. But for me, chapters 2 and three
are really important because it talks about the churches.
Jesus gives a message to the churches and these are the seven
churches of Asia and he gives a message to them and each one of
those churches and each one of those messages somewhere we can
find ourselves and what it is that Jesus is saying.
So that's for me, it's exciting as we talk about the church,
which is our things that are now prior to going into chapter 2,
we were just in verse 20 yesterday, last week and in
verse 20, it talked about the mystery of the seven stars.
And, and, and as we said before, that there are different things
in the Book of Revelation that are symbolic.
And, and there's a lot of things that are literal.
And some of the things that are symbolic, there's some Gray
areas. I mean, there's a school about
that says this way. There's a school that says that
way. But then there's some things in
the Book of Revelation that may be symbolic, which Jesus
actually makes clear. He gives an explanation for
those things. And we should pay attention to
that when he does that. So here in in verse 20 of
chapter 1, he said the mystery of the seven stars which you saw
in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands.
And he gives the the understanding of that.
He said the seven stars are the seven angels of the Church of
the seven churches, the angels of the churches, the messengers
of the churches, the pastors or the elders that that that teach
the word of God in these churches.
Those are the seven angels and the seven lampstands.
Those are the seven churches. And that's what Jesus is going
to be talking about going forward are the seven
lampstands, the seven churches. And these are 7 churches that
are located in the, the area of, of Asia Minor.
Now when he says the seven lamp stands, he's talking about the
light, the lamp, the, the menorah was the lamp stand and
it, and it lit the, the Tabernacle was the only light
that was in the Tabernacle during the times when they were
in the wilderness and they were traveling the Tabernacle.
It was the light that represented Jesus and it was and
it burned consistently. Jesus is the light of the world.
Amen. So, so then later after the
Tabernacle, when they built the temple, the menorah was in the
temple representing the light of Jesus Christ continually.
Once again, Jesus is the light of the world.
But now Jesus tells us over in the over in the discernment on
the mount, he says you are now the light of the world.
So let your light shine so that men see your good works and
glorify his Father who is in heaven.
So he is the light of the world. So now he is speaking to these
seven churches. Now the, the, the responsibility
of the church is to enlighten its members of God's will, is to
shine the light on God's will and to shed light on the gospel
upon the spiritual, the spiritual, immoral and Dark
World. So here is a church as a cat, as
a, as a lampstand. We are to be the light in our
community. We are to be the ones to share
the light of Christ in our community.
And, and it also tells us that, you know, how do we respond to
darkness, the darkness of the world?
How do we respond to that? I mean, we, we hear it all the
time. You got to be the light and
darkness. We hear that all the time.
But how do we do it? How do we do it?
And, and, and I was thinking like I asked my wife this
morning, just so I can have a, a remembrance of it.
My wife, my grandkids, my kids, they took a trip to the Laurel
Caverns and then Laurel Caverns. They have caves in there and
they took them deep into the caves, and some of you probably
did that tour before. I probably couldn't do it
because I don't know. I don't know if I'll be
comfortable in spaces like that. But they go back into this cave
and then they get to a point where they tell them to cut the
lights off. And from what I understand, it
is so dark in those caves that you can't even see your hand in
front of you. That's how dark it is.
I don't have a reference for that for the caves, but I do
know what it was like when my grandmother used to take us down
to the southern part of Georgia and we will go in some of those
back roads. How many of you have been, I
don't know how many of you are going to the, the southern part
of Georgia, but in some of those back roads, you have no lights,
no lights. And if it's a night where
there's not a lot of stars or anything like that in the sky, I
mean, you, you cut your, you cut your car lights off.
It is airy dark, really dark, scary dark.
You can't see your hand in front of you.
I don't have a reference with that.
That's the only reference that I have for that kind of darkness,
that thick, eerie darkness. So the question is, how do you
respond to that kind of darkness?
Well, Jesus tells us, he says you're the light, you're the
light. So the way that we respond to
darkness, whether it's the darkness in our families, the
darkness in our communities, the darkness on, the darkness on our
jobs, we just simply cut the lights on.
We'd be a light. You can't shame darkness.
You can't, you can't, you know, condemn darkness.
You can't shout at darkness and think there's going to be a
change. No, you cut the light on.
That's how we dispel darkness. So that's why Jesus says you are
now the light of the world. So we go here to these letters,
chapters 2 and 3, and these are letters of these seven churches.
We need to remember a couple things.
First of all, these are literal churches.
These aren't, you know, fictitious churches.
These are real churches that actually existed in this 1st
century. The other thing we need to
understand is that these churches were all located on the
western end of Turkey and it was along the Aegean Sea and, and
these letters contain spiritual relevance.
And This is why I like chapters 2 and three, because these
letters contain spiritual relevance to the church today.
So as we, you know, as we listen to these letters, as we read
these letters, we should pay close attention to not only the
commendations, but also the rebukes that are in these
letters. Now, not all of these churches
get rebukes and unfortunately not all of them get
commendations. And we'll get, you know, we'll,
we'll point those things out when we get to them.
But we as a church should pay attention to those because we
can probably find our church in one of these, in one of these
examples, if not all of them. Some scholars believe that Jesus
was addressing different church ages or in in history.
However, he says that he who has an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit says to the churches, not to the church.
He says let the Spirit, you know, what does the Spirit say
to the churches? So I believe it as well as as a
lot of the other scholars, not that I'm a scholar, I'm not put
myself in that category. I'm just saying that I kind of
fall on this side of it, that these letters are a message to
the churches of all ages. There's a message to us, message
to them, message to churches that will be coming after us as
well. There's a structure that Jesus
puts together with these these these letters.
The first thing he does is that he names the recipient.
He gets a description of Jesus Christ.
There's a description of Jesus Christ and it's usually taken
from somewhere in the in chapter 1.
And then he gives a commendation or compliment of that, of that
congregations virtues and the things that they're doing well,
the things that please him. And in most of these, he also
gives a rebuke of what the church is lacking.
And then he gives a command for correction of what is lacking.
And he ends usually with a promise to those who are the
overcomers in that church. So we are going to be looking at
the first church here, which is going to be the Church of
Ephesus that he writes this letter to.
Now, the title in my Bible says the Loveless church.
That may be the title in your Bible as well.
And he so he's talking about the loveless church here now.
Now the Church of Ephesus. It just to give you a little
background about it before we get into the to the Scripture it
it it it existed between about 53 AD to about 9500 AD somewhere
in that neighborhood. The city of Ephesus was an
important seaport on the AGN coast.
The Ephesian church was founded by the apostle Paul who
ministered and established the church for about 3 years.
He spent three years in the city of Ephesus, and that's amazing,
especially when we hear about just how deep this city was.
He spent three years dealing with that darkness afterwards.
No, he appointed Timothy to be a pastor and then later the
apostle John himself, which was a pastor there at the Church of
of Ephesus. And it was from the Church of
Ephesus that John actually wrote the Gospel of John, first,
second and third John. And it was when he was exiled to
the island of Patmos that he wrote this book, the Book of
Revelation. This is the last book of the
Bible. And it was when he was exiled to
the island of Patmos. It's important to remember that
Jesus is head of the church. And he tells us he, he, he says
that almost. And what he definitely tells us
that in Colossians 1 and 18, he is head of the church.
He's the one that protects us. He's the one that watches over
us. He's the one that knows what we
do. He says when two or three are
gathered, I am there in the midst of you.
And here in verse 1, he says to the Angel of the Church of
Ephesus, right these things says He who holds the seven stars in
his right hand, who walks in the midst of the 7 golden
lampstands. So he walks in our midst.
Jesus is in our midst right now. He's in our midst.
He hears what we, what we, what we say, he sees what we do.
He's, he's here in this sanctuary.
He's over there where the the children are.
He's over there where the infants are.
Jesus is in our midst and he knows all, he knows all and he
sees all. So his, you know, he, he, he
says to us that, you know, he is walking in the midst of his
golden lampstands. And then in verse 2, he and, and
three, we're going to put these two together.
Verses 2 and three, he says, I know your works, your labor,
your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil.
And you have tested those who say that they are apostles and
are not, and have found them liars.
And you have persevered and have patience and have labor for my
name's sake and have not become weary.
So we stopped there. And now he, now Jesus is talking
to this church and he's giving them his commendation.
He's he, He's talking about the things that he admires about the
church that he sees. He says, I know your works.
I know your good works. I know your works of
righteousness. And just like he knows the works
that we do, he, you know they're, they're, he knows their
patience. He knows the fact that they
labor, they keep their hands to the plow.
They're, they're always about the things of the Lord.
This is a work in church. This is a church that's active,
very active for the things of the Lord.
They may have different ministries of evangelism and
ministries of, of food, you know, food pantries.
They may have ministries to different areas in the
community. They get out to see the people
who are sick or or they have, you know, teaching Bible studies
is I mean, there's a lot of things that this church was
involved and he knows their works.
He knows their patience, that they persevere and even in
endurance. And you know, even through the
suffering that this, this church was going through at the time
when you know, the mission and all those other emperors were
hating the Christians and they were being persecuted, The
people were persecuting them who were not Christian.
Some of the, the non believing Jews or the, the non believing
Gentiles, They were being, I mean, they were getting
persecution from all sides, but they persevered.
He says they, they persevered, they went through that, they,
they dealt with that. But Jesus says of the city, he
says, you know, he knows how dark that city is.
So it's a wonder that they were able to stay so committed to
him. This was a city that was so
dark. It was deeply rooted in
idolatry. It had a lot of false religions.
They worship the goddess of, of Diana, who was also named
Artemis. They worship her.
And, and because she was the, because she was the goddess of
fertility, their worship included lewd acts of sexual
immorality. The people would come to the
temple and they would, you know, participate in, in instant
burnings and chants and all kind of other things to this goddess.
And then as a way of worshipping her, they would participate in
sexual activity with the temple prostitutes, which I understand
they had hundreds of them that would come into this and to this
temple. So it was a beautiful tip on the
outside. In fact, there are people who
says that this temple was actually one of the seven
wonders of the world. So it's a beautiful temple on
the outside, but what was going on on the inside was nothing but
debauchery, sin, and all types of immorality.
They also had a lot of magic and sorcery and it flourished in the
city, which is one of the reasons why they were upset with
Paul, because when Paul came preaching the gospel, he put a
dent in that market and people weren't happy.
You know, when Paul came preaching the gospel, when
people started changing and receiving Jesus Christ as their
Lord and Savior and not worshipping this goddess, but
they started worshipping the true God.
They started throwing their books away and burning their
books And they, they, they, you know, they didn't buy these
statues anymore that they were making of, of Diana.
So that put a dent in their, in their industry.
So, you know, they, they not, you know, Paul got to go.
You know how that goes. Paul got to go.
He can't, he can't be messing with the money.
It's almost like there are times when I I've heard about
different preachers are pastors and different communities.
I remember us learning about pastors who would go into places
like the Hill District or places like other communities where
there's a lot of heavy drug flow.
And, and as they're preaching the gospel and they're, and
they're talking to people and they're getting people change
their lives. Christ is, is, is, is exposing
himself to people. He's showing himself to people
when and he's touching their hearts and people are changing
their lives that are changing their, their, their activities.
And they're no longer buying the crack.
They're not buying the marijuana anymore or the heroin.
The drug dealers get concerned and they begin to threaten the
pastors. So when people start to touch
money, things get crazy. One of the other things about
this particular church is that it did not put up with sin.
It did not tolerate sin. They didn't just turn their, you
know, they didn't just turn a blind eye when they saw sin
happening in the church. They confronted it.
They dealt with it. They didn't push it under the
rug. They dealt with it.
They did not bear evil. They didn't bear evil.
It wasn't like the church at Corinth who had the, you know,
who had the brother or the, or the man who was sleeping with
his mother-in-law and no one was doing anything about it.
All they were focused on was all the gifts that the church had
and all the ministry that they had and all the things that they
were doing that that was an outward show.
But Paul said no. Paul said no, I mean, this this
guy's is sleeping. He's committing sexual
immorality in the church and nobody is doing anything about
it. Paul said, I've judged him
already and he needs to go. He needs to go until he can
repent. And Paul's not, you know, he
wasn't saying I just want to get rid of this guy all together.
Paul was saying we need to put him in a situation where he can
see that what he is doing is contrary to the will and word of
God and cause him bring him to a point of repentance, which is
what church when church discipline when it has to
happen. That's why it's not to get rid
of the person. It's not to destroy the person's
reputation. It's not to condemn.
The person it's to give them an opportunity to repent and to get
back in fellowship with the Lord is to restore that person.
But this church is saying, I'm not, we're not going to deal
with evil. We're going to confront it.
And because of their knowledge of and commitment and then love
that they have for the truth, they tested those who claim to
be apostles and, and, and, and they just didn't just receive
everything that they said, but they would test it to see if it
was true, if it was really of the word of God.
They tested every spirit to see if it was of God and some of
these people, they found that they were just self-proclaimed
apostles and they were liars. They were false teachers and
these and this church didn't bear with that.
They confronted it and the Bible tells us that that's what should
happen. Over in first John four and one
he says do not believe every spirit but test the spirits
rather they are of God. And we remember the Bereans over
in the book of Acts chapter 17, the book of Acts, the Bereans,
they did the same thing. Even when Paul came to preach to
the Bereans, they didn't just take everything that Paul said
and and take a tooth and down and say, oh, it must be true.
Paul was up here speaking it. No, that's not what the Bereans
did. The Bereans searched the
Scriptures to see if those things were true.
Over in Acts chapter 1711, it says these meaning the Bereans
were more fair minded, were more noble than those who were in
Thessalonica in that they received the word with all
readiness and search the scriptures daily to find out
whether these things were so. And we should be doing that even
as we're teaching. I'm teaching right now.
These things should be should be checked to make sure that what
I'm saying is not things I'm making up.
Make sure that it's true, grounded and true, not just
ideas or things that sound logical.
Every time a teacher comes up and teaches, regardless of who
it is, that should be our attitude.
Well, yeah, I like what he's saying, but I want to make sure
that it's of the Word that is the word of God, and not just
some philosophy that he put together or some things that
he's reading of somebody else that has nothing to do with the
Word of God. We should check those things and
make sure that they're true. In First Thessalonica and 1st
Thessalonians chapter 5 and 21, he says test all things and hold
fast to what is good. So these false apostles were a
threat to all churches, and that's why it's important to
call that out if we see it because they could be a threat
to somebody else. They leave your church, but then
they go somewhere else and spill that medicine and spread that
and spread that that that heresy, heresy and false
teachers are a major threat to churches today.
So we too should be testing these things by the word of God.
And then just at the bottom of verse verse three, he mentions
the the the commendations again. He summarizes them again.
He says the church had persevered.
They have labored patiently and they had not become weary and
well doing, but they had longevity, they had endurance.
They didn't tire of doing the right thing.
So they did all this service and they did this for about 4043
years of service. But eventually there became an
issue in that church and verse 4 tells us that issue.
So we'll read verse 4 down to verse 6.
Verse 4 says, nevertheless I have this against you, that you
have left your first love. Remember therefore, where you
have fallen, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first
works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your
lampstand from its place unless you repent.
But this you have that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans,
which I also hate. So he goes back and he says
here, you've done all these great things.
I love the fact that you are zealous for the things of the
Lord. I love that.
I love that you labor intensely. I love that.
I love the fact that you persevere, that nothing seems to
get you down. You don't tire just because
things are going against you. You don't become weary and quit
and you're well doing. I love that about you.
I love the fact that you do all these good works.
However, however, you have left, not lost.
He doesn't say lost your first love.
He says you have left your first love.
Now as pastors, I would think that if we were to receive a
message from Jesus and only had one thing on there that he
didn't like that we were doing, but we probably be good.
We probably be worshiping and praising him and thanking him.
I mean just one thing, but for Jesus this was a big thing
because in this thing it gives the motivation for everything
that they do. He says you have left your first
love. They were known for their love
even when Paul was there. Paul has said of them.
He says, you know what, I never ceased to pray for you from the
time that I heard about your faith in your love over in
Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 15.
This is such a warning for the church that it's good to be
about doing the things of the Lord.
It's good to be about service. It's good to be in praise and
worship. It's good to be in AV and all
these different things that we do to teaching ministries and
the, the children, all these things that we do, but we should
always be aware of the motivation for why we're doing
it. We should always be aware of
that because if we're doing it for any other reason other than
for the love of God, eventually that is going to wane.
That excitement is going to wane.
It's going to fade and it's going to turn into, to something
that becomes territorial or becomes into something that
becomes adversarial. You begin to get tired of of
working with people because the love is gone.
So you start to have issues with people who don't do it your way.
Because now all of a sudden the motive for doing this is not
just to please the Lord. The motive for doing this is to
please you, to please me. I want to do it this way because
this is how I want it done. I think we should provide this
because this is what I want, what will help me.
I think we should go here because all these things, not
because we love Jesus, but because we love us.
And we begin to and we begin to promote the, the speakers or the
pastors and to, to put them on the pedestals as opposed to
Jesus. So he said that first love, How
do we act in our first love? How do we act our first love in
our marriages? Oh, we were giddy.
We were giddy. We couldn't get enough of each
other. We call each other and just hold
the phone. You hang up.
No, you hang up. Couldn't get enough of seeing
each other, couldn't get enough of talking to each other.
And we weren't there to talk with each other.
We talk about each other to somebody else, that first love
and marriages are tough. It's tough to maintain a
marriage when that first love is gone, because what happens is
that all that's left is duty, responsibility.
Yeah, we still do our husbandly things where the wife still does
the wifely things, but there's no love.
There's no love it it has waned. Serving the Lord also becomes
tough whenever the the first love is gone.
And and what used to be relationship has become nothing
but religion, legalism and duty. When our love for Jesus and
others grow cold, all that's left basically it feels like a a
constraint or a a burden, a slavish obedience.
Sure, we still obey, but not with the same attitude, not with
the same heart when we lose our first love.
You know Jesus never loses His first love for us.
He is everlasting. His love is everlasting.
He loves us just as much today as He did from the foundation of
the world. He loves us just as much today
as the day we first got saved. He loves us just some He.
He, His love doesn't wane, His love doesn't fade, but our love
can fade from Him. It's good to have knowledge of
doctrine and obey that doctrine. It's good to have that, but it
should be grounded in a deep love for Jesus Christ and for
His church. That's where it should be
grounded in. Jesus will always prefer the
love of Mary, the love that Mary had when she, you know, when she
was sitting his feet just to listen to his word.
He would prefer that love over the works and the busyness of
Martha. So let's get back to the
beginning, that excitement. We can do that.
Jesus is saying in this, in this message here, you can do that.
I'm not writing you off. I'm not getting rid of you.
I'm not turning my back on you. That's not what I'm doing.
I'm just letting you know that because I walk in the midst of
you and because I see what you're doing and because I know
your heart. Remember when we described his
eyes, He says his eyes were like balls of fire because he can see
through to the heart, not just the outside of things.
He can see through into our our hearts.
And he says, what I see is that there's a fading of the love,
your first love, you've you've not lost it, but you've left
your first love, but you can get back to it.
And look at what he says here in verse, in verse 5.
He says, remember therefore from where you have fallen.
It was really nice. It's really nice to think about
that where you have fallen. Remember because where you've
fallen from, that means remember the way it was when you first
met me, when you first knew something about.
Then you think back to the first time that the word of God
actually took root in your heart.
Can you think back to that time and how you loved Him and how
you and how you conducted yourself?
Then you couldn't wait to come to church.
You would come to church every time the doors open.
And when you weren't sitting in church, you were listening to
tapes of His Word and you weren't listening to tapes of
His Word. You listen to other pastors.
You were you were listening to, you know, you were listening to
Christian songs. I remember a guy came up to
visit me from my hometown. And this was after I got saved
and he's riding in the car with me and I'm playing all this
Christian music. He said, boy, you've really
gotten into this adventure. He didn't hear any world songs
that he we used to play with each other.
He said, man, you, you over the top on us, ain't you?
But that's the way it is when we first fall in love with Jesus.
It feels like we're like fanatics.
And I'm not ashamed of that. I'm not ashamed of that.
All you talked about was Jesus. All you wanted to talk about was
Jesus. Everybody you met at some point,
that conversation would get back to Jesus.
You will find a way. You would hear a door that was a
window or something that they said that would bring back a way
for you to talk about Jesus. Remember the times when when you
would come to serve and and everything was so joyful and so
exciting because you weren't serving for you weren't just
serving to be serving. You were serving because you
loved him. Somebody tell you here, take the
take those chairs and and move them over there.
Yes, absolutely. Yes, because you just wanted to
be doing work in the House of God.
It was serving him and anything you asked me to do to serve him,
I'm with it. And that's what we did at that
particular time. It was those things that meant
so much to us. Bible studies, we were there.
Church picnics, we were there. Every time the doors open, we
were there and wondering what can we do?
Now? This particular church, our
church is one of the most loving churches that I've ever been in.
If somebody has a need, somebody's there to help with
it. This church has never that I've
seen since I've been here and I've been here now since 2011,
ten, sorry, since 2010, I've been here and I've never seen
this church lack in the area of love.
Thank Jesus, thank God for that because I have learned about
church body being here in a way that I have never experienced it
before. This love that you guys have for
the sacrificial love, you'll drop what you're doing to go
help somebody. When it was snowing and we had
this really bad snow, there are people who needed assistance.
There were men who dropped what they did and went to go take
care of it. When someone has a baby or if
someone has a need for meals, people go and pitch in.
I'm just seeing so much love in this house.
But we also have to look at our own personal minister, own
personal lives. Is there anywhere in my life
where I'm lacking love? Is there anywhere in my life
where my love for Jesus has waned or faded?
Am I still serving him with the first love?
And we have to be honest about that for ourselves.
But he says, remember, therefore, from where you've
fallen and repent, turn from it. Repent.
Confess that sin. Confess that.
Yeah, this is the way that I'm feeling.
I have lost or left that first love.
Serving now has become somewhat of a chore.
And that excitement that I used to have with serving is not
there anymore. It's a press for me now to come
to church sometimes. It's a press sometimes to do the
ministry that I first volunteered to do.
We have to admit that to ourselves if that's who we are.
So he says, repent and then turn from that.
Turn from that and turn back to the Lord.
Let that light in our continent shine again.
That used to shine so bright. Better start talking again about
Jesus Christ and the things that He's done for us.
How about just giving back, getting back to Thanksgiving, to
the heart of Thanksgiving to just sometimes when we pray,
instead of praying with our laundry list of things that we
need or things that we want changed in our lives or or
things that we want to see different, even just the way
that we pray for other people. How about someone sometimes just
thanking him? Lord, thank you.
Thank you for the things you've done.
Thank You that I still have a desire to serve you.
Thank You that I have not turned back from my salvation.
Thank You that You continue to speak to me through Your word.
Thank you that I still have food on my table.
Thank you for the clothes on my back.
Thank you for the roof over my head.
Thank you for the old piece of car that I drive.
Thank you. Thank you that my children are
healthy. Thank you that I still that I
still have some loved ones in my in my life.
Thank you for the things you've done for my brothers and sisters
when they were struggling. Thank you for the healings that
you've given to our brothers and sisters that were we were
praying for. Thank you.
Sometimes we just need to go back to having a thankful heart
with the Lord that helps us to get back to that first love and
the gratitude, the gratitude that we have just from being
saved. Thank you.
I'm so grateful to you, Lord, that I am saved, that I've
escaped the wrath to come. Thank you.
What a blessing it is to not take those things for granted.
And sometimes we can, just like we can take each other for
granted. So things like thank you and
please, they kind of leave our vocabulary in the home because
we begin to take those things for granted when our loved ones
do things for us. And we can do the same thing
with the Lord. We can take those things for
granted, take it for granted that while they know I love them
so I don't have to show them no more.
I mean, I've been here how many years?
Still necessary to do those things, those first things,
those first acts, Still necessary to do those things,
just like it is for the Lord. But you know, the real blessing
is the fact, like we said earlier, He never, never stop
loving us. His love never faded from us,
which is why he's even writing this because he's letting us
know just how important relationship is with him.
Relationship. He could have just let this
thing go and say you don't all those other things.
Ah, you don't love me as much as did I ask.
OK, no, it's important for him to have relationship with us.
Why I'm a Sinner, I'm not even worth having a relationship with
him, but yet it's important to him that we have relationship
with him and he wants it. He wants it.
So we then do the first works like we talked about.
Or else I will come quickly. I will come to you quickly and
remove your lamp stand from its place.
He's basically saying, I will come and I will remove your
church. How Remove your church.
The light in that church will go out and will go dim and
eventually it will go out. The Church of Ephesus is not
there anymore. Just the rumbles of it, just
the, just the, the, the, the, you know, the, the leftover
pieces of it, the remnants of it.
That church is not there anymore.
And there's a lot of churches today.
Whose doors are closing? I bet someone in here knows of a
church that over the past 10 years that is no longer here.
Because when we leave the love of Jesus, eventually, eventually
the right of our ministry goes out.
Because when his presence go, so does he.
So does the light. It goes so he says, I will come
to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless
you repent. That's twice He used the word
repent. He is telling us that we still,
regardless of where we are in our hearts, with Him we can
repent and be restored. And that's the thing I love most
about the Lord with each other. Sometimes we can do things that
we will write each other off for the rest of our lives, not speak
to each other ever again. So sad when that happens,
particularly in families, but with Jesus that never happens.
He says if you repent, all he's saying is just acknowledge.
Agree with me that this is going on in your heart.
Agree with me on that. Acknowledge it, confess it, and
then turn from it. Change your mind about it.
Turn from it and we get restored.
So twice he uses the way he said, unless you repent, this is
what will happen. Verse 6 says, but this you have
that you hate the deeds of the Nicolatians, which I also hate.
Now notice he didn't say I hate the nicolation, the Nicolatans,
and I want to pronounce that right, just like we got to
pronounce the Book of Revelation right without an S.
Well, nicolate 10s is how it's pronounced.
It's not pronounced nicolate shuns.
And I'm just saying that to you because I made both of those
mistakes. I made both of those mistakes
and I got it clear. So I don't want you guys to make
that mistake. It's the Nicolay tenants.
And he's saying that, listen, you know, the the the deeds of
the Nicolatians looking at lake tenants is what he hates the
deeds, not the Nicolatans. He doesn't hate the people, but
he hates the deeds. Why?
Because your deeds are very similar.
Their, their doctrine is very similar to Balaam's.
It, it, it, it would it, it definitely encouraged sexual
immorality. Basically saying that whatever
you do with your body is fine, don't worry about it.
So they're OK with all these things that they did in the
temple because hey, that's just the body.
Don't worry about it. It's the spirit that you got to
be concerned about. Now, this is what makes it even
more interesting. The one who founded the Nicolay
10s was actually his name was his name was Nicholas.
And he was actually one of the seven deacons who Peter and the
apostles chose to be the first deacons of the church.
He was one of them, but he fell away.
He fell into some heresy and he never came out of and he let a
people, a set called the Nicolaitans.
In this group of people. There's about sexual immorality,
it's about immoral conduct, all those things.
It's OK. They're saying it's OK.
But the other thing about the Nicolaitans is the fact that
they also have this doctrine of what they, what they call
basically we look at it and we see it's like clergy against
laity. In other words, it brought
hierarchy into the church hierarchy.
So now the, you know, those who were in ministry or or those who
were the elders or whatever more important than the people and
they were to go betweens between the people and the Lord.
The word Nicolaitans actually means conquer the people and
then over here in verse 7, praise worship team can come
forth. In verse 7, he says he who has
an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the church, to
him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life,
which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
He who overcomes, he who has an ear, let him hear.
So it's not just for this church, it's everyone who's
listening, everyone who hears it from my voice.
Let him come, don't go. If you can hear it, then listen
to it. Understand what it is that he,
they, he's saying. Let me understand what it is
that I'm saying. Hear what the Spirit says to the
churches and to he who overcomes.
I will give him to eat of the tree of life.
That's the the tree of eternity. The tree of life was mentioned
back in Genesis at the very beginning, the tree of life was
mentioned and it was shielded from everybody every you know,
when he when he kicked Adam, when the Lord kicked Adam out of
the garden, That tree had to be protected because didn't want
him to eat from that tree of life and have eternity and the
sense and and in the position that he was in, he was sinful.
He become sinful, he become disobedient.
But to those of us who overcome, those of us who trust in Jesus
Christ, the true believers, those who believe that Jesus is
the Christ, and those who obey the word of God, if you love me,
you'll keep my commandments is what Jesus says.
We get a chance to eat at that tree.
We get that eternal life is what Jesus is offering, but he gives
us an opportunity to repent. So my question to myself, I had
to ask myself 2 questions. First of all, if the Lord was to
write a letter to Calvary Chapel, Westmoreland, what would
be what would be the commendations and what would be
the rebukes? If He was to write that letter
directly to me, what would be the commendations and what would
be the rebukes? Even more important, where am I
at in this message? Where is my heart?
Is my heart fading? Do I need to go before Him and
ask for a fresh feeling of His Holy Spirit so that I can have
that first love? Where am I at?
And only I have to be honest with myself, just like all of
you have to be honest with yourself.
But the thing that I want us to remember is that He loves each
and every one of us so much that a relationship with Him is
important. That's how much He loves us.
So let's pray, Father, we thank You for the message of love that
You give us. The theme of love, Lord, runs
through so many of the messages that you give us, Lord, to
listen to, that you give us to read.
That theme of love, Lord, because it was love that took
you to the cross. It was love that caused you to
give yourself up for us. I'm so grateful.
I thank you, Father, that your example of that love and that
first love, Lord, is what you tell us that we can get back to.
We can get back to the way that we used to be with you.
You are God of restoration. Lord, You will restore us
wherever we think that we've dropped off.
Lord, you can restore us. You desire to restore us.
Lord, I thank you that you see us as the apple of your eye.
We're so important to You that even above works, above our
labor, above are the obedience to the doctrine.
Lord, the thing that you desire most is relationship.
And I thank you that you're always there to be in
relationship with us, Lord. So on a night in which Jesus was
betrayed, he took the bread and he said, this bread is my body,
my broken body. This is the represents the body
that I that he allowed to be broken because he loved us.
And he says, eat this and as often as you eat it, eating the
remembrance of me. And then he took the cup, and he
said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which I
shed for the forgiveness of sins of many.
And once again He gave up us of his shed blood.
He shed his blood because he loved us and He didn't wait
until we got our lives together. But it was why we were yet
sinners. He demonstrated his love for us
about what He did on the cross. So drink this and as often as
you drink it, drink it in remembrance of me.
As often as you eat this bread and and drink this cup, you do
show the Lord's death until he comes.
The altar is open for anyone who wants to just come up and lay
before the Lord and to.